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SUMMER 2016
Periodical Postage
PAID
Philadelphia, PA
and Additional
Mailing Offices
VIETNAM REVISITED
p7
KAYAK CRUSADER
p14
MAKING MISCHIEF
p32
ISSUE
IV
500 College Ave.
Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306
www.swarthmore.edu
VOLUME
CXIII
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN
LAURENCE KESTERSON
SUMMER 2016
YES, I WILL ATTEND GARNET WEEKEND
OCT. 28–30
swarthmore.edu/garnetweekend
JUSTICE
Hungry for Change p20
in this issue
38
SOLDIER, SWATTIE, SON
One Gave All
Joe Selligman ’37 was the first
American casualty of the
Spanish Civil War.
by Adam Hochschild
MOMENT IN TIME
Tears, joy, fireworks:
Commencement sparked them
all. Experience it for yourself at
bit.ly/SwatCom16. Congrats to
the Class of 2016!
26
28
32
FEATURES
Planting Seeds
Tristan Reader ’89
reintroduces the O’odham
community to its
traditional foods.
by Laura Markowitz ’85
The Edible Journey
Alumni at the delicious
intersection of entrepreneurship and artistry.
by Jonathan Riggs
Gotcha!
A tribute to some of the
College’s memorable larks
and pranks.
by Matt Zencey ’79
2
DIALOGUE
Editor’s Column
Letters
Community Voices
Valerie Smith
Rewind
Julio Alicea ’13
Books
Global Thinking
Sa’ed Atshan ’06
9
COMMON GOOD
Swarthmore Stories
Learning Curve
Elizabeth Coleman ’69
Liberal Arts Lives
Keiko Itoh ’74
Caleb Ward ’07
72
SPOKEN WORD
Don “Donny” Thomas
WEB
EXCLUSIVES
BULLETIN.SWARTHMORE.EDU
GRATEFUL GOODBYE
Watch retiring professors Sharon
Friedler, Cynthia Halpern, Frank
Moscatelli, and Barry Schwartz
look back—and ahead.
AN EXALTATION OF LARKS
Check out the pranks that made
us laugh, even if they didn’t make
our print piece.
OUR HERO
See what makes Sharples star
Don “Donny” Thomas so special.
YUMTUBE
View John Lim ’16’s special
installment of his web series
Sharples Cookbook.
ART OF THE MATTER
43
CLASS NOTES
Alumni News and
Events
Marvel at a gallery of art by
architectural design aficionado
Kelsey Rico ’16.
BON APPÉTIT
Get cooking with a collection of
Swarthmoreans’ favorite recipes!
VIETNAM WAR
Enrich your understanding
of the conflict’s legacy with
recommended reading from
Karín Aguilar-San Juan ’84.
Profiles
Esther Ridpath
Delaplaine ’44
Scott Young ’06
ON THE COVER
Food photography by Laurence Kesterson
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
1
dialogue
EDITOR’S COLUMN
OUR TOAST TO YOU
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN
Editor
Jonathan Riggs
Managing Editor
Carrie Compton
Class Notes Editor
Elizabeth Slocum
Designer
Phillip Stern ’84
Photographer
Laurence Kesterson
Administrative/Editorial Assistant
Michelle Crumsho
LAURENCE KESTERSON
Editorial Assistants
Aaron Jackson ’16
Aziz Anderson ’17
Editor Emerita
Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
by
JONATHAN
RIGGS
Editor
NOT SO
SWIMMINGLY
I enjoyed reading Karin Colby’s “The Life
Aquatic” (spring 2016)
and was thinking about
her positive approach
to swimming, until I
had a horrifying flashback: Swarthmore’s
mandatory swimming
test. Male students just
swam a certain number of laps, but female
students had to master
many different strokes,
swim underwater, dive
from the low board, and
jump from the high diving board. I managed to
fake everything except
that last jump.
I had to petition the
2
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
Rosenberg Rejoinder
LETTERS
DESPITE BEING HIDDEN behind a flying
slice of sourdough, I spent our shoot—and
production cycle—grinning. Half because I
relish my fellow cooks in this kitchen, including
new Class Notes Editor Elizabeth Slocum; half
because I relish sharing your remarkable
stories. Breaking—and throwing—bread with
Swarthmorean world-changers and mischiefmakers is a joy. I hope it flavors every page.
dean of women to graduate. Despite her annoyance at my viewpoint
that Swarthmore should
award its degrees based
on academics, not athletics, and my astonishment at her statement
that jumping would save
me on a sinking ocean
liner like the Titanic,
she grudgingly allowed
me to graduate.
At that point, in my
senior year, I’d been
managing editor of The
Phoenix and president
of the Student Council,
and was on the Student
Judiciary Committee as
well as in Honors. It was
bizarre to fear not graduating because I was
afraid to jump from the
high board! Perhaps Ms.
SUMMER 2016
Colby can explain what
today’s exam involves.
—ANN MOSELY LESCH
’66, Philadelphia, Pa.
KC responds: “I’m so
sorry, Ann! Happily, the
test has undergone a
few changes: Now students must swim 75
yards, climb out of the
pool without assistance,
jump in the deep end
(no high dive), and tread
water for two minutes.
For those who can’t
pass or opt out, we offer
stress-free swimming
lessons throughout the
year. We want to teach
water safety without
scaring—or scarring—
anyone!”
Website: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
facebook.com/SwarthmoreBulletin
Email: bulletin@swarthmore.edu
Telephone: 610-328-8435
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.
Send letters and story ideas to
bulletin@swarthmore.edu
Send address changes to
records@swarthmore.edu
The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN
0888-2126), of which this is volume
CXIII, number IV, is published in October,
January, April, and July by Swarthmore
College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore,
PA 19081-1390. Periodicals postage
paid at Philadelphia, PA and additional
mailing offices. Permit No. 0530-620.
Postmaster: Send address changes to
Swarthmore College Bulletin, 500 College
Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390.
Printed with agri-based inks.
Please recycle after reading.
©2016 Swarthmore College.
Printed in USA.
OVERHEARD ON OUR WEBSITE
I’d like to respectfully take issue with the publication
of “Medicine Man” (spring 2016). I recently completed
medical school in Rochester, N.Y., and have witnessed
patients taken advantage of by “alternative medicine.”
(Let me be clear that I have no firsthand knowledge of
Ethan Borg ’94’s practices or patients.)
I have seen patients forgo proven, beneficial treatments in pursuit of therapies such as “energy medicine” described in the article, which have no evidence
of benefit and can be expensive. All the while, their
diseases remain unmanaged and damage accrues.
Swarthmore should not promote “leaps of faith”
when it comes to medicine and health. Although you
are not physicians, I’d encourage you to heed Hippocrates and consider “first doing no harm.” People’s
lives are on the line.
—BENJAMIN MAZER ’10, New Haven, Conn.
One of the great things about Swarthmore is its
encouragement of dialogue and respectful openness to
the ideas of all of its community members. There clearly is a large divide in Dr. Mazer’s mind between Eastern
and Western ideas of health and health care. Nonetheless, there are many Swarthmore alumni who are practitioners of Chinese medicine and far more alumni who
seek it out for their own personal supplementary care.
I work hard every day, like all Swatties I know, trying to do good in this world. I am as passionate, concerned, and considerate about my work as I imagine
he is about his. So thank you, Swarthmore College,
for giving me and my work a moment—if it does nothing but increase the dialogue between East and West,
then I have served my class well.
—ETHAN BORG ’94, Rochester, N.Y.
+ READ full responses at bulletin.swarthmore.edu
SOUTHPAW
POWER
“The Poetry of Pen and
Ink” (winter 2016) fails
to mention that the
pleasures of a fountain
pen are hard to enjoy for
the left-handed, requiring constant vigilance to
avoid smudging. However, languages other than
left-to-right (e.g. Hebrew) offer retribution
for this distinguished
minority.
—PAUL NESS ’72,
Rochester, N.Y.
+ WRITE TO US:
bulletin@swarthmore.edu
GREEN
THUMBS
UP
Always wonderful to
see what Josh Coceano
(“Adventures in the
Arboretum,” spring
2016) creates in our
gardens. We truly have
a treasure in him!
—JODY DOWNER,
Media, Pa.
David Randall ’93’s letter (“Repellent Rosenberg Read,” spring 2016)
might have been more persuasive if he had responded to specific points
raised by my brother and me in our op-ed in The New York Times
(bit.ly/Meeropol) and in my interview with the Bulletin. The fact that
my mother was never given a code name and that David Greenglass in
his grand jury testimony explicitly denied her involvement in any espionage activity (corroborating what Ruth Greenglass told the grand jury)
were not mentioned. Instead, he invoked Ronald Radosh, co-author of The
Rosenberg File. In 1997, I debated Radosh’s collaborator, Joyce Milton ’67,
at Swarthmore—the video is not great, but it can be seen on the Bulletin’s
website. Even after close to 20 years, the incompetence (if not dishonesty)
of the Radosh-Milton book is evident.
Perhaps the most egregious failing of Mr. Randall’s letter is the assertion that my parents were traitors. Even if every word testified against
them at the trial were true, they could not have been indicted for treason
because the Soviet Union was an ally during World War II. In my opinion,
the best, most recent analysis of the case is Walter Schneir’s Final Verdict:
What Really Happened in the Rosenberg Case.
Those interested in our campaign to exonerate our mother can visit rfc.
org/ethel, where the petition to President Obama with supporting documentation is available. I agree with Mr. Randall about one thing: If you are
interested in the issues in my parents’ case, you need to read more; if the
fine article in the Bulletin succeeds in stimulating readers to do so, it will
have done a great service.
—MICHAEL MEEROPOL ’64, Putnam County, N.Y.
CORRECTIONS & CONNECTIONS
Two lines of print, two misspelled names in Christopher Densmore’s
“Living Black History” (spring 2016): The names should be Ralph Bunche
and Melville Herskovits. Incidentally, Herskovits’s daughter, Jean ’56,
was my wonderful first history professor at Swarthmore in 1964. Bunche,
according to some sources online, was not simply a lecturer but a co-director in 1936 of the Swarthmore Institute of Race Relations.
—JOHN McDIARMID ’68, Falls Church, Va.
Friends of a Feather
“Sayed Dreams of Birds” (spring 2016) brought back many fond memories
of hikes in the Crum Woods. Sayed Malawi ’18 is to be congratulated for
leading the Bird Club and sharing his passion. I was disappointed, however,
that no one mentioned the legacy of Janet and Tim Williams ’64, members
of the biology department from 1976 until 2002. They touched the lives of
hundreds of students with field trips all over the Atlantic Seaboard, delicious meals hosted at their home, and in countless other ways.
—STEVE LAUBACH ’96, Madison, Wis.
Epiphany?
Have you ever had a Swarthmore “Aha!” moment inspired
by a community member, classmate, campus location,
professor, or something else entirely? The Communications
Office would love to hear it: news@swarthmore.edu.
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
3
dialogue
COMMUNITY VOICES
PETER ARKLE
NO STRANGERS HERE
W
HEN I WAS an
together 10–12 people—faculty, staff,
English professor at
students, and local alumni—whose
UCLA in the 1990s,
paths wouldn’t ordinarily cross and
I was introduced to
invite them to engage in wide-ranga university-sponing conversation. Most guests describe
sored program called
being surprised by the invitation and
Dinners for 12 Strangers. Established
curious about who their “strangers”
in 1968, this program was designed
will be.
to bring small groups of randomly
At each dinner (so far there have
selected students, faculty, and alumni
been four), we strive to bring together
together over a meal. I attended one of
students who represent different
these dinners and thorclass years, areas of acaoughly enjoyed the oppordemic interest, and geoby
tunity to meet people and
graphic regions; tenured
gain a deeper sense of
and nontenured facconnection within a large
ulty from a range of acauniversity community.
demic departments and
Fast-forward to fall
divisions; alumni from
2015, my first semester at Swarthmore.
different generations; and staff from
I was having a wonderful time meeting
various areas of campus. So an athmembers of the community on and off
letic coach, a sophomore engineering
campus. As I got to know the College,
student, a librarian, a psychology proI was surprised to hear that—even in
fessor, a member of dining services,
a setting as small as Swarthmore—we
and an artist from the Class of 1961
still can feel disconnected from one
might meet one another and six other
another. It occurred to me that if the
Swarthmoreans over a simple, healthy,
Dinners for Strangers model could
delicious meal and enjoy fascinating
work on a campus with tens of thouconversation for a couple of hours.
sands of students, it would probably
These occasions are fun, and the
work on our campus of 1,500 students,
guests are remarkably candid with one
as well.
another, displaying curiosity, comLast November I began hosting our
passion, and empathy. As we gather
version, called Dinners with Strangers,
around the table, I see the full potential
at Courtney Smith House. We bring
of our diverse community come to life.
VALERIE SMITH
President
“As we gather around the table, I
see the full potential of our diverse
community come to life.”
4
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
Guests often admit that they were a
little nervous about attending the dinners. Would they be able to sustain
conversation with people they don’t
know? So far that hasn’t been a problem. Somehow, finding oneself around
a dinner table in a homey atmosphere
leads people to relax and feel comfortable sharing their thoughts while
enjoying others’, too.
A few months ago I sent a message to
the College community inviting staff,
faculty, and students to let me know if
they would like to either attend or host
one of the dinners. We received a large
number of enthusiastic responses, and
I look forward to expanding the initiative next year. Other members of our
community will host local dinners, and
we encourage Swarthmoreans around
the country and world to consider
hosting these events, as well.
Dinners with Strangers is designed
to remind us that, even on the campus of a small residential college like
Swarthmore, we don’t often make time
to meet and share ideas with people
with whom we don’t have an obvious
connection. Several guests remarked
that they enjoyed learning more about
people they had seen for years but with
whom they never had a substantive
conversation. Now, when their paths
cross on campus, they feel a deeper
connection with each other.
At its best, the Dinners with
Strangers program shows us that, in
the words of the poet William Butler
Yeats, “There are no strangers here;
only friends you haven’t yet met.”
—VALERIE SMITH is president of
Swarthmore College.
RYAN DEVOLL
Strengthening our Swarthmorean bonds, one dinner at a time
REWIND: A LESSON FOR LIFE
Swarthmore taught me what a true teacher is—
so I became one
GROWING UP LATINO and
working class in Bethlehem,
Pa., I wondered why life always
seemed so hard and uncertain. At home,
I watched my parents go off to backbreaking jobs; at school, I couldn’t
escape bigotry and low expectations. I
will never forget my high school physics teacher making derogatory remarks
about Latino students in my presence,
as if I were invisible or in
agreement.
by
At Swarthmore I
majored in sociology
and anthropology to
’13
better understand these
experiences. In Sarah
Willie-LeBreton’s “Intro to Race and
Ethnicity in the U.S.,” I realized, much
to my chagrin, I had internalized some
of my physics teacher’s intolerance:
In an essay, for example, I referred to
“Hispanic opportunists” who participated in citywide looting during the
1992 Los Angeles race riots.
In the illuminating conversations
with Professor Willie-LeBreton that
followed, I unpacked many of the
problematic ideas and perspectives
I had absorbed over the years. I went
on to study social movements with
renowned peace activist George Lakey
and theories of oppression and resistance with the fiercely inspiring Nina
Johnson. Unlike the experience with
my physics teacher, I
felt valued and empowered in these professors’ classrooms. They
and others gave me not
only the tools but also
the love and confidence
I needed to become the person I am
today.
Outside the classroom, I involved
myself in many activist campaigns
and worked with youth of color in
Chester, Pa., as a tutor, mentor, and
Chester Community Fellow. Seeing
these young people confront similar
JULIO ALICEA
inequalities made it clear that I could
make a real difference. After all, my
thesis research revealed that youth,
especially those underserved by society, are keen social critics who reap
immeasurable benefits from having
impactful, nonparental adults involved
in their lives.
This realization—affirmed by my
own experience with mentors at
Swarthmore—solidified my desire
to become an educator and to work
toward disrupting inequality through
teaching and mentoring. That’s why I
completed my master of arts in teaching at Brown University, where I
learned to bridge progressive theory
and practice.
Today, I teach at a Title I charter
school in Rhode Island, serving mainly
students of color. In my classroom, I
challenge students to be critical thinkers while also affirming their cultural
backgrounds. I want my students to see
that their perspectives matter, even if
they aren’t always represented or valued in the dominant discourse. As a
teacher of color, I also share my experience and how it continues to influence
me as I navigate different professional
contexts.
In keeping with my core values fortified at Swarthmore, I am constantly
searching for ways to disrupt inequality in other facets of my students’ lives.
Accordingly, I was thrilled to be chosen as a 2016 fellow for the Rhode
Island chapter of the New Leaders
Council (NLC), a national organization
that “recruits, trains, and promotes the
next generation of progressive leaders.” As a fellow, I will complete a rigorous five-month training program
and capstone project. I hope to acquire
new skills from NLC that will extend
my influence on the state’s educational
landscape.
When working with youth, whether
in or out of the classroom, one adage
always holds true: They won’t care
what you know until they know that
you care. Knowing this, we should all
bring warmth and empathy into every
interaction with young people; as was
the case with my professors and me,
the result will be a mutual trust that
helps to unlock their full potential.
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
5
dialogue
AND, OH, MY HEART GOES OUT
by Nathalie Anderson
EARLY in Christine Poreba ’97’s
moving and compelling book, Rough
Knowledge (Anhinga Press), her poem
“Silent Elegy” recounts how a photographer, bereaved, purposely creates “small accidents” through his art:
“a pitcher crashing to the floor in slow
motion, / its contents pouring out over
and over.”
This image eloquently recalls the
process Freud called “fort/da”—basically “gone, then there”—through
which, he posited, children manage the
fear of a mother’s absence by throwing
their toys out of sight. Poreba’s book
works in just this way. It continually
anticipates loss, and—in recognizing
its possibility—continually defers it,
manages it, sets it gingerly to one side:
A model airplane flies “into the light
of things that were / about to end”;
a woman soon to be married dreams
“a world / which one of us / will be
first to leave”; a visitor to an exhibition of miniature rooms wonders, “Is
this what the world will look like when
we’re gone?”
This pattern of deferred or managed
trauma is particularly clear in poems
that circle a fear of flight. First, a butterfly strikes a windshield “with the
force / of a harsh current of sky.” Then
a woman dreams of flying, “a simple
breaststroke / in the air,” and flies her
model plane: “If only other things were
this easy to let go.” But a poem about
the rituals we deploy to manage risks,
“tiny as the chances of being a passenger / in flames,” ends with a crash, and
subsequent poems imagine further dangers, culminating in an actual air disaster, the passengers “not alive when I
awoke,” “and, oh, my heart goes out.”
That’s Poreba’s last line, and the
whole book stands behind it, giving it
the full heft of true concern.
NATHALIE ANDERSON is director of creative writing as well as
the Alexander Griswold Cummins
Professor of English Literature.
EDITOR Q&A
PEACEMAKER: KARÍN AGUILAR-SAN JUAN ’84
In 2006, Karín Aguilar-San Juan ’84 met Frank Joyce, a U.S.
peace activist who risked the charge of treason to travel to
Hanoi during the Vietnam War to practice person-to-person diplomacy. The two edited The People Make the Peace:
Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar Movement (Just World
Books), which sees past activism echoing into the future.
What inspired you?
We asked activists to
return to Vietnam to
coincide with the 40th
anniversary of the
Paris Peace Accords.
The ones who did—the
“Hanoi Nine”—wrote
chapters. The 10th is
by Myra MacPherson,
who went on a trip of
her own, hosted by five
ex-combat U.S. veterans
who had each moved to
Vietnam as their way of
doing reparations.
What was surprising?
Four of our authors—
Rennie Davis, Jay Craven, Doug Hostetter, and
Becca Wilson—were instrumental in the People’s Peace Treaty,
which many don’t know
about. In 1970, the National Student Congress
was frustrated by how
slowly the Paris peace
talks were proceeding,
so they wrote their own
treaty, which ended up
being signed by high-profile politicians and figures. It was an incredible
example of how, when
there’s no map, there’s
still a way.
How were you affected
as a professor?
Students in my course
read this book and
meet with peace
activists like a Hmong
spoken-word artist, a
Cambodian educator,
and a Vietnamese intellectual, who open their
hearts about how this
war, for them, is not an
intellectual enterprise—
it is their lives, full of
SOPHIA HANTZES
BOOK REVIEW
broken memories, silences, and pain.
What’s the takeaway?
Getting people beyond
the Forrest Gump fantasy to put intergenerational energy into
remembering that past.
Our book is a personal
view of the actual choic-
es made during a confusing, difficult, scary time.
Mistakes got made, and
some people have never
recovered.
+ SEE: Karín Aguilar-
San Juan ’84’s
recommended reading:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
HOT TYPE: NEW BOOKS BY SWARTHMORE GRADUATES
Teresa Nicholas ’76
Willie
University Press of
Mississippi
6
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
In this sensitively drawn,
impeccably researched bio,
fellow Mississippian Nicholas reclaims the legacy of
writer’s writer and Southern
icon Willie Morris. Rising to
national fame as the youngest-ever helmer of Harper’s
Magazine in 1967, the brilliant, demon-battling Morris
wrote 23 books (including
My Dog Skip) and hundreds
of newspaper and magazine
articles. “For me, personally,
he was a key figure,” Nicholas says. “He encouraged
me to ‘get a good liberal arts
education’ before embarking
on any writing career. It’s because of Willie that I applied
to Swarthmore.”
Carl Abbott ’66
Imagined Frontiers
University of Oklahoma
Press
Exploring the intersection of
Western history, urban planning, and science fiction,
Abbott digs into American
artists’ long fascination with
life on the edge, whether
that’s the suburban New
Jersey of Tony Soprano or
the sagebrush-and-outerspace aesthetic of Serenity.
Cutting across genres to
blend history, social science,
and art, Abbott analyzes how
“frontiers, finally, are places
of possibility for the invention of new institutions or
the reinventions of self ”—in
other words: the ways Americans think about and define
themselves, their world, and
their future.
John Potash ’87
Drugs as Weapons Against Us
Trine Day
Subtitling his book “The
CIA’s Murderous Targeting
of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix,
Lennon, Cobain, Tupac, and
Other Activists,” Potash argues that government-sanctioned drug-trafficking
oligarchs promote their
product—and ultimately
silence dissent—by hooking
musicians and leftist leaders. A longtime addictions
counselor who drew on more
than two decades of research
to write Drugs as Weapons
Against Us, Potash says his
rhetoric is provocative in
the name of activism. “I’m
hoping my sources create a
healthier debate over these
issues,” he writes.
Lauren Belfer ’75
And After the Fire
Harper
What if a lost cantata—dizzyingly beautiful, dauntingly
inflammatory—by Johann
Sebastian Bach bound two
women across time? Epic yet
intimate, And After the Fire
connects the thoughts and
actions, loves and hates, of
18th-century Enlightenment
Berlin to modern-day New
York City. What originally
seemed like two stories,
best-selling author Belfer
discovered, was actually one:
“urgently relevant to today’s
concerns, told through the
prism of a problematic
artistic masterpiece and the
individuals who must try to
grasp its history, and their
own.”
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
7
common good
dialogue
SHARING SUCCESS AND STORIES OF SWARTHMORE
BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER
Sa’ed Atshan ’06 balances scholarship and peace activism
AS A STUDENT at Swarthmore Sa’ed
Atshan ’06 felt torn between two
worlds. Atshan came to campus from
the Palestinian territories, where he
grew up a “minority within a minority
within a minority.” An Arab Quaker,
who attended the Ramallah Friends
School in the West Bank, he also came
out of the closet during his undergraduate years.
His two worlds were reflected in
his aid at Swarthmore: the Mellon
Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
for minority students interested in
becoming professors; and the Eugene
M. Lang Opportunity Scholarship,
aimed at students who will influence
the world at the grass-roots level.
“I was always torn between this
desire to be a researcher, a scholar, a
teacher, but also this calling to become
a practitioner, someone who works
within communities,” says Atshan,
who is now a visiting assistant professor in the Peace and Conflict Studies
Program.
After graduation, Atshan’s search
for resolution to that tension between
scholarship and activism led him to
Harvard. There, he earned a master’s
in public policy from the Kennedy
School and then a Ph.D. in anthropology and Middle Eastern studies. “Teaching courses on some of the
most important issues of our time and
encouraging students to engage, to
put their ideas into practice, has been
a beautiful way to connect those two
worlds,” he says.
Atshan’s most recent foray beyond
the ivory tower is the inaugural
Swarthmore College Israel/Palestine
Study Trip (see “Trip of a Lifetime,”
Page 15), but he has long worked to
build bridges from academia to the
front lines of social justice and peace
activism. As a graduate student at
8
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
Harvard, he organized a similar spring
break study trip to Israel/Palestine;
the program has endured and is in
its eighth year. He has also partnered in projects with Human Rights
Watch, the American Civil Liberties
Union, and the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, among
other leading organizations. As a
teacher at Harvard, Brown, and Tufts
he explored hot-button issues in his
courses, which included “Gender,
Sexuality, and Human Rights in the
Middle East” and “The Arab Spring
and Nonviolent Strategic Action.”
“It is essential to talk about Israel/
Palestine, considering that Israel is the
world’s largest recipient of U.S. aid,”
says Atshan. “I believe it’s my responsibility to help students discover the
full range of perspectives on issues
that relate to the conflict. My role is
to ensure that they are literate and
aware of diverse viewpoints, planting
the seeds for a lifelong intellectual and
ethical pursuit of knowledge.”
One goal of Atshan’s research is to
provide a counternarrative to the stereotype that the Middle East is devoid
of nonviolent movements or philosophies. Atshan himself embodies that
supposed contradiction, but he finds
his Palestinian and Quaker identities
deeply compatible.
LAURENCE KESTERSON
by Michael Agresta
SA’ED ATSHAN ’06
Professor
“Being born into so much violence,
and having experienced violence
myself, I am deeply committed to pacifism,” he says. “The Quaker world
allows me to be part of a community
that shares those values; that’s part of
a long history of faith-based social justice activism.”
Undergirding his teaching is a bedrock belief, rooted in his own bridging of worlds and culture, that peace is
possible.
“I dream of a binational secular
democratic state in Israel/Palestine
that provides equal rights to all citizens and inhabitants of the Holy
Land (Jewish Israelis and Palestinian
Christians and Muslims) regardless
of ethno-religious affiliation,” says
Atshan. “I believe that we can and will
realize this within our lifetime.”
ON
THE
WEB
THROUGH THE YEARS
In a frosh-to-senior
video, Stephanie
Kestelman ’16 traces
her journey.
+ WATCH
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
PRIORITIES
President Valerie Smith
shares her vision for the
College’s future.
+ PLAN
bit.ly/SmithVision
GREEN DREAMERS
Five students’ Indonesian anti-pollution
proposal won the 2016
Innovation Marketplace
Challenge.
+ IMPROVE
bit.ly/SwatRideShare
BETWEEN THE NOTES
Multidisciplinary
Swarthmoreans add
context to the opera
Dido and Aeneas.
+ WATCH
bit.ly/SwatOpera
“Being born into so much violence,
and having experienced violence
myself, I am deeply committed to
pacifism.”
DEBATE OF THE
CENTURY
Professor Mark Kuperberg and Kevin Hassett
’84 tackle economic
inequality.
+ LISTEN
bit.ly/EconDebate
LAURENCE KESTERSON
GLOBAL THINKING
BY DESIGN
The Art of
Choosing a
Major
by Carol Brévart-Demm
BRIGHT AND AIRY, Beardsley Hall provides
creative space for art students, including Kelsey
Rico ’16, the department’s second studio artist
to graduate with a special major in architectural
design.
Her small studio is filled with lamps made from
pieces of finely cut wood, a walnut-slab tabletop,
and a rubber mold she made to create plaster wall
art. Breathtaking pictures of buildings cling to the
walls.
Her art is inspiring, but the path she’s crafted to
get here may be more so.
+ FIND OUT WHY: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
9
common good
Words of Wisdom
Honorees Leo Braudy ’63, F. Stuart “Terry” Chapin III ’66, and Carol Padden.
in seeking solutions, no matter how big or small,
rather than assuming that someone else will fix
the problems.”
“To think about language expansively and creatively is to understand that it can take different forms,
spoken and signed, whistled and clicked,” Padden
concluded. “In their breathless diversity, not one
language is identical to the other, but in all of them
we discover the breathtaking possibilities of diversity. I hope we never lose sight of this important fact
about the world.”
+
EXPERIENCE
Commencement and
view video of speeches:
bit.ly/SwatCom16
+
SUBMIT your picks for
2017 honorary degrees:
news@swarthmore.edu
LAURENCE KESTERSON
At Swarthmore’s 144th Commencement May 29,
President Valerie Smith awarded honorary degrees
to film critic and cultural historian Leo Braudy ’63,
ecosystem ecologist F. Stuart “Terry” Chapin III ’66,
and world-renowned scholar and advocate for deaf
communities Carol Padden.
After Smith praised them—calling Braudy “a polymath’s polymath,” thanking Chapin for his “example” and “prophetic voice,” and describing Padden as
a “remarkable” global leader—the three gave stirring
speeches.
“You’ve learned here an impressive armory of
methods and approaches, attitudes and perspectives,”
Braudy told attendees. “But don’t forget that you
learned it in a community of others, each with a
personal take on everything.”
“I ask each of you to take this opportunity to make
it your responsibility to shape the future of our planet,” Chapin said. “Each of us must take an active role
SCHOLARLY ADVICE
PARENTAL
GUIDANCE
Four times a year, 10 or so men in Stamford, Conn.,
gather in one another’s homes for Fathers First, a
support group celebrating the (sometimes messy)
blessing that is fatherhood. Rabbi David Hordiner
’95, director of Gan Yeladim Early Childhood Center
and the father of six—ages 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, and 1—leads
the discussion and ties it back to Jewish teachings—
mindful of when to step in with advice and wisdom,
but always willing to share his own struggles.
“When it comes to my family, I admit I’m not an expert, and I think the fathers appreciate that. I’m learning, too,” he says. “Giving them a place to say, ‘This
is something that’s hard at my house,’ and to be able
to hear other dads say, ‘Me too,’ has really struck a
chord.”
As a philosophy major at Swarthmore, Hordiner was motivated by a love of learning, growth, and
truth, three things he brings to the Fathers First
forum—and to his role as a dad.
“We’re trying to learn the best methods, philosophies, and ways of thinking and how they impact our
practice as parents,” he says. “We’re all growing
together. That’s the true success of the group.”
—ELIZABETH SLOCUM
“My relationship with Professor Rubin allowed me to achieve so much in my life. I’m a better
man because of him,” says Maurice Foley ’82, a Rubin Scholar founder and mentor.
Mentors Matter
F
“We’re all growing together,” explains Rabbi David Hordiner ’95, with wife Nechama and their
six kids.
“When it comes to my family,
I admit I’m not an expert, and I
think the fathers appreciate that.
I’m learning, too.”
—Rabbi David Hordiner ’95
10
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
OR THE CLASS of
2020, you might think
that the hard part—
getting into college—is
behind them.
But for students
from disadvantaged backgrounds—
first-generation college attendees,
underrepresented minorities, low-income pupils, or children of immigrants—navigating Swarthmore and
everything after can be overwhelming.
Established in 2004, the Richard
Rubin Scholar Mentoring Program
gives disadvantaged students the tools
and support they need. It was named to
honor the professor whose friendship
and guidance changed countless lives,
like Maurice Foley ’82’s.
Coming from an underperforming
public high school and one of a small
number of African-American students on campus, Foley struggled at
Swarthmore—even receiving a suspension—until he took a course with
Rubin, a political science and public
policy professor who asked him about
his aspirations and devoted time to
him. Hearing that Foley was interested
in tax law, Rubin put him in contact
with tax attorneys and mapped Foley’s
path to success—everything from
improving his public speaking skills to
taking an LSAT prep course.
“He did all the little things that I
needed assistance with,” says Foley,
now a federal tax judge and a mentor
himself.
In the more than 30 years since,
Rubin has remained close with Foley
and a number of alumni, including
Gordon Govens ’85, Keith Reeves ’88,
and Philip Weiser ’90. Reflecting on
their experience, the group wanted to
honor Rubin and his legacy of kindness
and community building.
“We decided to design a program
that duplicated what Professor Rubin
did for us,” says Foley.
For alumni of the Rubin Scholars
program, like Jaky Joseph ’06 and
Danielle Toaltoan ’07, their mentorship experience continues to play a
major role in their lives. Both Joseph
and Toaltoan asked their mentor,
Foley, to officiate their weddings.
“The Rubin program is about providing the support that many students might get from other places in
their lives, especially if they come from
a more privileged background,” says
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Diane Anderson, a member of the program steering committee and mentor to many Rubin Scholars. “As it
expands, we hope it can provide more
resources for students who struggle
with the ‘hidden costs’ of a college
education, whether that’s help paying
for books or finding a job.”
There are currently 134 Rubin
Scholars on campus. Dean of FirstYear Students Karen Henry, who
oversees the program, is excited to
see more applicants, but she worries
about the current funding limitations.
For example, if every Rubin Scholar
applies for the $375/week summer
internship stipend, there are not
enough resources for them all.
To give the Rubin Scholars program the support it needs, Rubin and
his supporters have offered $500,000
in matching funds to expand the program’s endowment by $1 million.
“I think that most Swatties—and
most people who are connected to our
institution—are very committed to
student success,” says Henry. “So you
want them to have everything at their
disposal to thrive. Having a Rubin
Scholars mentor to support them is a
key component of that.”
—AMANDA WHITBRED
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
11
common good
Earned It
“Unfortunately, the only size we have left in the club jacket is extra large.
Alexander Hamilton took the last medium.”
LAURENCE KESTERSON
FILM NOIR LIBRARIANS
12
Inn Style
CARA EHLENFELDT ’16
The faces to be added to U.S. currency before 2020 should be
familiar to our community.
They include Lucretia Mott, a founder of Swarthmore College, the
Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, the American Anti-Slavery Society, and the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls,
N.Y. Her portrait, papers, and memorabilia are in Friends Historical
Library (FHL), and her collected sermons and speeches will be published next year.
Another is Alice Paul, Class of 1905, a legendary women’s rights
activist and pioneer in furthering social justice through nonviolent
resistance. In April, President Barack Obama designated the building
that, since 1929, has housed the National Woman’s Party—founded by Paul—as the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument.
Harriet Tubman had several Quaker associations, including longtime friend Emily Howland, whose papers are at FHL. The library
also has significant letters from Susan B. Anthony, a Quaker. At one
point, Elizabeth Cady Stanton claimed membership in the New York
Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends, and many Friends and
Quaker organizations worked with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. Finally, Sojourner Truth once said she would have become
a Quaker, except that, at the time, Quakers did not sing.
Happily, a reminder of these world-changers’ shared song of
equality will soon only be as far away as your wallet.
—CHRISTOPHER DENSMORE
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
It begins with an urgent request for
information: A stranger up against
a deadline walks into an office
with a question. But with a little
digging, ulterior motives shine
through; the answer found is not
always the answer sought. Reference librarianship is a shadowy
art—part hardboiled experience,
part blind luck.
These portraits by College
photographer Laurence Kesterson
of Swarthmore’s reference
librarians playfully disrupt wellworn stereotypes of hard-nosed
“shhh!”-ers. They ask,“What if we
see librarians as key agents in an
unfolding story of danger, intrigue,
and mystery?”
You know how to ask us for help,
don’t you, Swarthmore? You just
come into the library and tell us
what you want to know.
—PAM HARRIS
+
KISS ME DEADLY … or at least
view the gallery of images at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
IN MAY, the Inn at Swarthmore
opened for business. Whether
you’re there for the night, a meal
at the Broad Table Tavern, or
a quick visit to the Campus &
Community Store, check out
the inn’s 130-plus artworks by
Swarthmore College students
and alumni.
“These paintings, drawings,
photographs, sculptures, and
mixed-media works represent
the high caliber of work created
in the department of art,” says
Randall Exon, Sara Lawrence
Lightfoot Professor of Studio
Art. “The selected works will
provide a unique experience
and highlight Swarthmore’s
seasoned as well as emerging
artists.”
Come experience the inn’s
hospitality—and art—for yourself!
Clockwise from top: Seen by Nazanin Moghbeli ’95;
The Chair by Eberhard Froehlich ’86; Magnolia Vessel
by Alex Anderson ’13
+ LEARN MORE: bit.ly/SwatInn
COMPLIMENTS TO
THE CHEF
EXTRA CLASSY
Lifelong Learning at Swarthmore, now in
its 15th year, is expanding. Here are the
offerings for the fall:
PHILADELPHIA
“Seven Great Paintings,” taught by Michael
Cothren, Scheuer Family Professor of
Humanities, will meet Mondays, 6:30–9
p.m., Sept. 12–Nov. 7 (except Oct. 10), with
two Sunday afternoon sessions at local
museums.
SWARTHMORE
“Education in America,” taught by Mark
Kuperberg, professor of economics, will
meet Tuesdays, 7–9:30 p.m., Sept. 13–
Nov. 8 (except Oct. 11).
NEW YORK CITY
“Bach,” taught by Michael Marissen,
Daniel Underhill Professor Emeritus of
Music, will meet Mondays, 6:45–9:15 p.m.,
Oct. 3–Nov. 21.
BOSTON
“A Century of American Short Stories,”
taught by Philip Weinstein, Alexander
Griswold Cummins Professor Emeritus of
Literature, will meet Tuesdays, 6:45–9:15
p.m., Sept. 13–27 and Oct. 25–Nov. 22.
+ TO LEARN MORE OR ENROLL: bit.ly/SwatLL
THANKS TO our readers
for your generous helpings
of Swarthmorean scrumptiousness! Your recipes were
tasty, your stories savory,
and your photos the icing on
the cake. We’ve served up
some of your favorites at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu—
why not whip one up to help
us better connect with our
community, one dish at a
time? Happy eating and
happy reading!
—MICHELLE CRUMSHO
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
13
common good
+ DEBUT ISSUE of new e-zine VISIBILITY, published by the
Intercultural Center and helmed by Jasmine Rashid ’18:
bit.ly/SwatZine
KAYAKING FOR
JUSTICE
“I’M AUTHORIZED to shoot you,” the
gun-toting man told Deborah Walters
’73 when she unintentionally kayaked
into a security zone near Sandy Hook,
N.J. It required some negotiation
before he escorted the retired
neuroscience professor ashore.
The incident occurred partway
through a 2014–16 extended fundraising trip in which Walters kayaked 2,500
miles from Maine to Florida with a
boatlift to Guatemala. She ultimately
raised $425,000 for Safe Passage, a
Rotary International-sponsored organization that helps to feed, educate,
and provide health care for Guatemala
City garbage-dump-dwelling families.
Her journey was inspired by the persistence of these guajeros, or recyclers,
who come from all over the country to
scavenge.
14
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
Activist Deborah Walters ’73 is the self-described “grandmother who paddled from Maine to
Guatemala for the kids of the garbage dump.”
Growing up a few miles from the
Appalachian Trail in rural Virginia,
Walters was Quaker-schooled at
Swarthmore and Guilford before earning a Ph.D. at England’s Birmingham
University. She finished her academic
career as provost at Unity College in
Maine.
In November 2015, Walters received
recognition for her work in Guatemala
as one of six Rotary Women of Action
at a United Nations conference. She
is happy to report parallel success at
Safe Passage—as Guatemalans gradually replace Americans on the board,
literacy and sustainable job levels
have soared for the guajeros.
—ELIZABETH VOGDES
Over winter break, 19 students from Sa’ed
Atshan ’06’s Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
class spent 10 days in that region of the
Middle East, meeting with top humanitarian
figures on all sides of the conflict. The journey was free for the entire class, thanks primarily to funding from an anonymous donor.
Though the trip occurred during a break
in the academic year, the students found it
as demanding as any other Swarthmore experience.
“They were rigorous, emotionally draining days filled with phenomenal meetings,”
says Omri Gal ’19, whose parents are Israelis from Jerusalem. “I can’t even count how
many times I’ve been to Israel before this,
but this was something else entirely: an
all-access, insider’s trip.”
The group’s itinerary swept the region,
with stops in Israel and the West Bank:
Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Negev, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Hebron. On each day
the travelers spoke with about 10 of the
area’s most influential peace activists,
including Israeli and Palestinian Swarthmore alumni, during meetings that began at
8 a.m. and typically ended around 10 p.m.
“We really got to see every single
aspect of the region’s struggles from the
conflict zones, which as a tourist, you’d
never be able to do,” says Gal. “The vast
majority of students came away from the
experience with an incredible amount of
hope for the situation, because the
people we met were so full of strength
and resilience.”
“One of the inspirations for this trip was
to help students better think about how
they can be engaged globally,” says Atshan,
“and how they can contribute to the amelioration of suffering and creating a more
peaceful and nonviolent world.”
Professor Atshan’s course on the Israel-Palestine conflict is slated again for fall
2016, but funding for another trip has yet to
be secured.
—CARRIE COMPTON
1
2
3
OMRI GAL ’19
Have you ever wondered how the College creates its annual budget, makes financial aid decisions, manages its
endowment, or determines how much interest from the endowment to apply to current annual spending? To answer
these questions and more, Greg Brown, vice president for
finance and administration, led three classes on the topic
of “Budget Essentials” for students, staff, and faculty
earlier this year.
Featuring speakers like Chief Investment Officer Mark
Amstutz, Director of Financial Aid Varo Duffins, and Vice
President for Development and Alumni Relations Karl
Clauss, the class explored some of the financial realities currently facing the College. For example, over the
past two decades the average gap between the cost of a
Swarthmore education and what families pay has grown
from about $15,000 to about $40,000 per student per
year.
For a detailed account of the information presented
in the Budget Essentials class, including information on
the College’s building plans and its initiatives to reach
low-income and first-generation students, visit bulletin.
swarthmore.edu.
—RANDALL FRAME
KILLIAN MCGINNIS ’19
Fiscal Fitness
TRIP OF A
LIFETIME
4
1. Rainbow near Jericho. 2. Palestinian potter. 3. Lunch in Hebron. 4. Dome of the Rock, Temple Mount, Jerusalem.
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
15
common good
LEARNING CURVE
MEN’S LACROSSE
The team made its first
postseason placement in
the Centenniel Conference
by routing Haverford. Cam
Marsh ’18 finished second
in the conference with 54
points, becoming the fourth
All-Centennial Conference
First Team member in program history.
+ MORE: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
WOMEN’S LACROSSE
Lizzie Kölln ’16 recorded the
100th goal of her career in a
16-5 win over Bryn Mawr.
MEN’S TRACK & FIELD
The team tied for fourth at
the Centennial Conference
Championships with two
silver- and two bronze-medal performances.
Katie Jo McMenamin ’16 wins the 1,500-meter national championship—and makes history.
Speed Queen
by Mark Anskis and Roy Greim ’14
When Katie Jo McMenamin ’16 won the
1,500-meter run and placed second in the
5,000-meter run at the NCAA Division III
Outdoor Track & Field Championships May
28, she became our first NCAA national
champion in track and field and the first
Swarthmore woman to win an NCAA title
of any kind. (The title also marks Swarthmore’s first NCAA national championship
since the 1990 men’s tennis team won the
crown.)
“It still hasn’t really sunk in that I won or
that it’s all over, but I can’t imagine a better
way to end my Swarthmore running career,”
says McMenamin, a native of Lafayette, Colo., who finishes her career as a three-time
All-American.
This milestone came as part of a whirlwind day for McMenamin. In a 24-hour
span, she won a national championship, cel-
16
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
ebrated her 22nd birthday, and traveled
more than 1,000 miles back to Swarthmore
from Iowa to receive her engineering degree
at Commencement.
Her track triumph occurred at Wartburg College, where McMenamin won the
1,500-meter run with a blistering time of
4:24.33—a program, Centennial Conference, and stadium record. Just a few hours
later, she placed second in the 5,000-meter
run, finishing with a time of 16:44.02.
Following that run, the race back to campus for Commencement was on. McMenamin and Peter Carroll, head track and field
coach, drove five hours to Chicago, stayed
at a hotel, and caught a 5:40 a.m. flight
back to Philadelphia.
Ultimately, McMenamin credits the
Swarthmore community—particularly her
fellow athletes—for helping her reach her
goal.
“I’ve had a lot of teammates to look up
to over the past four years and am honored
just to have been able to represent our program at the highest level,” she says. “It’s
really a team more than an individual accomplishment, and that’s what makes it so
meaningful.”
SOFTBALL
Shortstop Marit Vike ’19
was named All-Centennial
Conference and set a program record with 26 stolen
bases.
GOLF
Rookie of the Year Vamsi
Damerla ’19 tied for second
overall at the Centennial
Conference Championship.
WOMEN’S TENNIS
The team qualified for the
Centennial Conference
tournament for the sixth
time in seven seasons.
MEN’S TENNIS
The team defeated
nationally ranked Johns
Hopkins and Mary Washington for the first time in
nearly a decade.
AND I WANT TO START AGAIN
Elizabeth Coleman ’69 finds renewal
in art and activism
by Elizabeth Redden ’05
IN ELIZABETH COLEMAN ’69’s poem “And I Want to
Start Again,” the speaker has left her job.
It took moxie to walk away, a colleague says.
How I love that word, born
of a soft drink.
But it wasn’t so much moxie talking
as a brush with cancer.
A classical guitarist, watercolorist, and lawyer, in addition to poet, Coleman worked as a legal aid attorney and consumer law specialist before entering private practice in
Atlanta, where she and her husband raised two children.
Upon returning to her hometown of New York City,
Coleman served as civil rights director for the AntiDefamation League and executive director of the New York
State Trial Lawyers Association until 2005.
“After my illness, I felt compelled to figure out what I
wanted to do with my remaining time on the planet,” says
Coleman, who was successfully treated for endometrial cancer four years earlier. “I ended up falling in love with poetry.
Having studied it locally for several years, I received an
M.F.A. from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2012.”
Coleman has written five books of poetry, including
Pythagore, Amoureux—Pythagoras in Love, a French translation of Lee Slonimsky’s sonnet collection.
All of Coleman’s books feature her watercolors on the
covers, and her office is zoned around her passions: “I have
my computer on my desk, an art table, the area where I play
guitar, and the couch where I read, write, and think.”
In addition, Coleman teaches meditation and runs a small
family foundation focused on addressing climate change.
“I’ve always looked around the corner to see what I want
to do,” she says, “but now I think what I’m doing will keep me
challenged and growing for the duration.”
“I ended up falling in love with poetry.”
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
17
common good
LIBERAL ARTS LIVES
KEIKO ITOH ’74
SHANE LIN
“Writing is something I love doing,” says Keiko Itoh ’74, “but getting a sentence right requires
thought and effort.”
LIBERAL ARTS LIVES
HER SHANGHAI
She penned the novel of a lifetime—her mother’s
by Jonathan Riggs
18
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
Swarthmore gave Keiko Itoh ’74 an
education in more ways than one.
“There I was, this sheltered Japanese
student from a convent school suddenly
surrounded by all these incredibly socially
aware, politically active, very engaged
people,” she remembers with a laugh. “It
was intimidating but wonderful.”
Initially, Itoh pursued a career at the
United Nations in New York and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London. But her inquisitiveness led
her to research and write about her family’s
unusually international background.
“When I was little, my mother, a Londonraised Japanese woman, used to talk of her
time living in China with great fondness. As
I grew up and studied history, I realized she
had lived in Japanese-occupied Shanghai
during World War II,” Itoh says. “And yet she
always made that time sound so rosy—I was
so curious, I had to learn more.”
Itoh’s exhaustive research has yielded
two books: her doctoral dissertation published in 2001, The Japanese Community
in Pre-War Britain: From Integration to
Disintegration, and her recently published
fiction debut, My Shanghai, 1942–1946.
Inspired by her mother’s story, the novel traces the journey of Eiko Kishimoto, a
London-educated Japanese newlywed in
Shanghai whose courage, compassion, and
cultural loyalties are tested by the horrors
of war.
“That question has always interested me:
What happens to people with multicultural identities and affinities when countries
you love are at war with each other?” she
says. “That was something I was trying to
figure out.”
As she begins her research for a sequel—
or another project in the same vein—Itoh
remains endlessly inspired by the brave,
creative ways women around the world
make their way, whether it’s her mother’s
journey, her daughters’, or her own.
“The globe is much smaller now,” she
says, “but the power of our stories of
coming of age remain universal.”
LAURENCE KESTERSON
Author
“My Swarthmore experience helped my relationship to academics become one of genuine play and adventure,” says Caleb Ward ’07.
ETHICAL
EPIPHANY
Disruption helped him
discover himself
by Jonathan Riggs
WITH EVERYTHING Caleb Ward
’07 studied at Swarthmore, from
improvisational jazz to political theory, he sought to better understand
why moments of disruption matter so
much.
In fact, he changed his own life,
postgraduation, when he disrupted his
nonprofit career path to book a shoestring six-month trip through Asia.
“I returned thinking about moments
of encounter in which we make moral
decisions, and how those moments
can be so uncertain and slippery,” he
says. “I realized I wanted to study ethics in moments of encounter—not just
overarching questions of responsibility and justice, but also the concrete
challenges of responding to another
person.”
Today a third-year doctoral student in philosophy at Stony Brook
University in New York, Ward
researches a variety of ethical concerns, including issues of sexual
consent. He’s also become an internationally recognized figure in the
growing field of food ethics, co-editing Global Food, Global Justice:
Essays on Eating Under Globalization
and The Routledge Handbook of Food
Ethics, to which he contributed a chapter reframing the ethics of eating as a
human organism.
“It’s fascinating—as something
humans have in common with all animals, food is this fundamental encounter around which we’ve spun a web,” he
says. “We’ve woven food into our lives
so thoroughly that it defines cultural,
religious, and even gender identities;
it’s right in the middle, too, of how we
think about health and the relationship
between body and mind.”
As he continues his work—and dissertation—Ward is weighing the possibility of additional research in
Germany and India, but he has a goal
much closer to home first.
“I’m new at teaching, so I’m working
hard to become as creative as I can,” he
says. “Besides, in terms of what I want
to do philosophically, the classroom
is the perfect place for disruption and
moments of unexpected encounter.”
CALEB WARD ’07
Ethicist
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
19
HUNGRY FOR CHANGE
LAURENCE KESTERSON
O
20
VER THE PAST
decade, the conversation about the politics of our food system
has quickly risen from
a simmer to a steady
boil. Studies of the American industrialized food complex—which relies
heavily on chemical processing and
refining of foods to enhance flavor or
shelf life by loading food with sugar,
salt, and artificial ingredients—have
revealed damning consumer health
implications linked to a range of ailments, including obesity and Type 2
diabetes.
Our national eating habits began to
change in the late 1950s and ’60s, just
as many American households transitioned from single to double incomes.
Slowly, home cooking was sliced from
Swarthmore College Bulletin / SUMMER 2016
daily routines, leading to many families’ reliance on affordable, expedient
options offered by fast-food chains.
In the five decades since, the manufacture of fast food has taken a grotesque turn. As a way to keep costs
down and cravings high, the corporations cooking for Americans
today rely far more on fat, salt, and
sugar than most home-cooked recipes. Agricultural practices have suffered, too. According to food author
and activist Michael Pollan, the fastfood giants’ demand for flawless french
fries, for example, has led potato farmers to rely on a toxic pesticide so
potent that, once harvested, the potatoes require six weeks’ rest to expel
their noxious gas.
Now, as food consumers become savvier than ever about food systems and
Food justice warriors
fight to make fresh
food available to all
by Carrie Compton
the many inequalities therein, the food
justice movement is heating up, and
Swarthmoreans involved in outreach,
education, entrepreneurship, and policy are all helping to stir the pot.
HOT-BUTTON LUNCH
In 2002, Jerusha Klemperer ’96 was a
New York-based actor when a friend
gave her a copy of Fast Food Nation,
which examines the global effects of
the United States’s fast-food giants.
After reading it, she “became obsessed
with the food system” and landed
a job with Slow Food USA, a nonprofit that connects eaters with the
sources of their food. A few years in,
she was assigned to research the Child
Nutrition Act, which was up for congressional reauthorization, and met a
cohort of activists working to improve
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
21
LAURENCE KESTERSON
processed fast foods often become
the lifelong staples of many in underserved neighborhoods. The implications of this paradigm are grim: One in
three children is on track to develop
diabetes. In communities of color, the
number jumps to one in two; by 2030,
the eventual diet-related illnesses of
today’s children will cost our nation
more than $1 trillion a year in medical
costs and lost productivity.
“At this exact moment, we’re seeing how many supply-chain things are changing because of
consumer demands, like antibiotic-free chicken, cage-free eggs, and GMO labeling,” says Jerusha
Klemperer ’96, co-founder of FoodCorps. “I never thought we’d get to this point. It’s exciting.”
school lunches. In 2010, she and five
others—including some from that child
nutrition cohort—started FoodCorps,
which trains emerging leaders to connect kids to healthy food in school.
FoodCorps is an AmeriCorps
grantee that works in 17 states and
Washington, D.C., to partner service
members with underserved schools
where 50 to 70 percent of the student
body receives free or reduced-priced
lunch. Klemperer, the communications director of the nonprofit, says
their work focuses on underprivileged
children, a key demographic that is
most threatened by systematic food
inequities.
“School lunch is the main source
of many children’s daily calories, so
if we’re going to give kids meals, they
should be the best possible calories we
can give them,” says Klemperer, noting that vulnerable populations in hospitals and prisons are also widely being
fed some of the most highly processed
foods our system has to offer.
22
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
“As our food system became more
TV-dinnered over the last generation,
schools got rid of trained staff. They
got rid of all the equipment, and budgets were slashed. Now we’re trying to
tip it back.”
FoodCorps aims to set kids up for a
healthy future by introducing them to
new and fresh foods through gardening
and cooking lessons and to make the
whole school—especially the cafeteria—a place associated with nutritious
foods. The imperative is straightforward, but the stakes have never been
higher. Children’s taste and familiarity
with food develop at a young age, and
children from low-income communities are especially prone to develop
unhealthy diets because of neighborhood redlining by supermarkets and
independently owned restaurants—
leaving fast-food chains and corner
stores as the most accessible sources
of food. By forming cravings early in
childhood through heavy marketing
and an overreliance on fat and sugar,
NO MORE KITCHENS
When education major Corey
Carmichael ’14, one of FoodCorps’s
approximately 200 service members,
arrived at her assigned Boston and
Cambridge, Mass., schools, she discovered that most Boston schools
were without kitchens. Boston schools
aren’t alone: A 2014 Pew survey
revealed that the nationwide need for
school-kitchen funds runs in excess of
$5 billion, since a program that maintains school-kitchen equipment has
gone unfunded by Congress for the last
three decades.
“It’s interesting having the comparison between Cambridge and Boston,
because the quality of food is so vastly
different,” Carmichael says of the
two school districts. Cambridge has a
median household income of $73,000
to Boston’s $54,000. “Only three elementary schools that FoodCorps
works with in the Boston public school
system have an in-house kitchen—
otherwise the food is shipped in. In
Cambridge, most schools have their
own kitchen, and they prepare everything on site.”
Carmichael, who hopes to one day
run an educational farm in her native
Maine, teaches kindergartners through
eighth-graders about the industrialized food complex while also helping
them develop grocery-shopping and
food-prep skills. Her pizza-making
lesson in a kitchenless Boston school—
which included making and rolling out
dough, preparing sauce from scratch,
and dicing vegetables from the school
garden—demonstrates the creativity
needed by FoodCorps members. “We
got access to the teachers’ lounge and
brought an electric burner to pan-fry
our pizzas,” she says. “The teachers
were OK with it when we gave them
some of the leftovers.”
Another of FoodCorps’s objectives—
to connect children with the source
of their food—is an imperative that
played out when Carmichael’s Boston
pupils watched in disbelief as she
worked a cider press: They didn’t know
that apple juice came from apples.
These victories inspire Carmichael,
who takes pride in seeing her students at grocery stores with their parents purchasing foods they tried in
her classroom. She says that of kids
surveyed after a semester, 80 percent report trying a new vegetable and
50 percent report liking a new vegetable—a beacon of hope given that
95 percent of American children do
not receive the daily recommended
amount of fruits and vegetables.
A CAPITAL NEED
Oakland, Calif., native Sarah Ting
’10 came to FoodCorps in 2014 with
an already-impressive social-justice
résumé. After Swarthmore, she dove
into policy work at the Urban Institute,
a Washington, D.C., think tank that
conducts national social and economic
research on the challenges of rapidly
urbanizing environments. From there
she pivoted to work in India at its largest women’s trading union, which led
to field research on farming, food systems, and the effects of globalization
on the developing country.
As a FoodCorps service member
in her hometown, she supported the
nascent California Thursdays program, which engages local farmers to
bring fresh food into school cafeterias.
“Switching from frozen lunches to
fresh, scratch-cooked meals sourced
from local famers was a win-win-win.
We could support the local economy,
local farmers, and kids who are getting exciting, healthy, fresh food,” she
says, adding that a child’s performance
in school often drastically improves in
proportion to the healthiness of their
diets.
Ting, a public-policy graduate student at UC Berkeley, also worked with
the district’s diverse student body
to develop suggestions for culturally
appropriate, healthy dishes for the cafeteria—like jambalaya, enchiladas, and
chicken rice bowls.
“Communities of color have long
histories of healthy diets. Over a generation or two these communities have
experienced a shift in the way that
they’ve been exposed to unhealthy food
products, which are marketed to them.
All of that was not by accident,” says
Ting. “Sodas and junk food entered
into schools and vending machines,
and their local stores no longer carry
healthy products. These systematic
eating-habit changes are not necessarily out of pure choice but out of the
larger dynamics of our inequitable
industrial food system.”
This is playing out in Oakland,
which, in part because of the Silicon
Valley tech boom, has become more
stratified than ever. North Oakland is
flush with high-quality grocery stores
and healthy restaurants—a “food
oasis,” as Ting calls it—whereas East
and West Oakland are bereft of grocery
stories and beset by fast-food chains.
Nationally, 23.5 million low-income citizens live more than a mile
away from a supermarket and do not
have access to a car. Low-income
neighborhoods typically have 50 percent fewer grocery stores per square
mile than their wealthier counterparts, according to the Department of
Agriculture.
“East and West Oakland have entrepreneurial communities of color,
including immigrants from across
the world who’ve risked everything to
come here, yet they are unable to build
or expand pre-existing food businesses
because of a lack of access to capital,”
she says. “We need an economic shift
in how we help undersupported food
businesses and entrepreneurs looking
to fulfill the need for fresh food in their
communities.”
One idea for improvement, according to Ting and others, is creating a
dialogue with members of the affected
community about how they’d want
to help heal their food system from
within.
“The consumer-choice conversation
can only go so far when communities
being served by food programs aren’t
invited to help create them. This is a
reality we see not just in food policy
FOOD
DEFICITS
calories per day in the average American’s diet are from
highly processed foods
1 in 3
children is on track
to develop diabetes
Only 5%
of American children receive the
daily recommended amount of
fruits and vegetables
Sources: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Journal of the American Medical Association,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
23
but in general,” she says. “Real, democratic policymaking functions best
when all communities are included in
the decision making and dialogue.”
Ting, in one of her many roles in
food-based nonprofits in Oakland,
is working to improve guidelines for
low-capital entrepreneurs in mobile
businesses, like food trucks and carts—
which often sell scratch-cooked
foods—since that model has been
proven to provide a foot in the door to
food-service entrepreneurs.
LAURENCE KESTERSON
THE GREEN GROCER
Before being singled out by a middle-school guidance counselor and
accepted into the prestigious Phillips
Exeter Academy for high school,
James Johnson-Piett ’03 grew up in
Philadelphia’s infamous Strawberry
Mansion neighborhood, making him
intimately familiar with the meager food options in low-income urban
areas.
One of his first jobs out of Swarthmore was as a data analyst for the The
Food Trust based in Philadelphia,
working to “define what a food desert
was before the term existed, ” he says.
“I feel like a 37-year-old grandfather
of a movement. Things have evolved
quite a bit in the last 12 years.”
The Food Trust creates public-private partnerships with the goal of
bringing supermarkets and other purveyors of fresh food into underserved
communities. To make this happen,
Johnson-Piett turned to pre-existing independent grocers and owners of
In addition to providing entrepreneurial opportunities to low-income communities, James
Johnson-Piett ’03’s Urbane Development also works with New York City credit unions to determine alternative ways of measuring creditworthiness, like taking into account on-time rent,
utilities, and parking ticket payments.
24
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
corner stores, using grants and loans
to renovate rundown spaces to create
room for fresh produce and prepared
foods alongside less healthy standard
bodega fare.
“Nationally, we were the only ones
doing raw economic development/real
estate work around food issues,” says
Johnson-Piett. “Most of the focus was
on shifting the products of the bodegas,
and the marriage of economic development and food access as a strategy
caught on, so now there are multiple
organizations funded in the multimillions of dollars from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, the
USDA, and other federal agencies.”
Eventually, Johnson-Piett went into
business for himself working on economic and mixed-use real estate development in communities in Detroit;
Newark, N.J.; and New York, where his
firm, Urbane Development, is situated.
“I care about underserved markets, because that’s where I came
from and where I feel our support is
needed the most. Our mission is to create wealth-generating opportunities
for underserved communities,” says
Johnson-Piett. “Food is a core requirement, and hunger is a pain point you
can’t necessarily alleviate unless
you create opportunities around
entrepreneurship.”
Urbane Development was recently
awarded a major redevelopment project for the Flatbush Caton Market in
the heart of Flatbush, Brooklyn. The
market—which hosts 47 vendors of
mainly Caribbean descent who sell
food, housewares, and clothing—will
be razed this year and rebuilt by 2020
with even more vending space, plus
166 affordable housing units. In the
meantime, Johnson-Piett’s company
will train the vendors, who will operate from a temporary structure, in topics like bookkeeping, marketing, and
food safety. Additionally, Urbane helps
low-income residents secure funding for entrepreneurial ventures, but
finds that food-related businesses hit a
sweet spot.
“Food is a unifying agent, and very
powerful in terms of our sustenance
and economics,” he says. “It’s timely
that people are looking at food as an
issue. Most movements are at the
“DON’T GIVE UP ON YOUR KIDS.
GIVE THEM A CHANCE TO FALL
IN LOVE WITH FOOD.”
—JERUSHA KLEMPERER ’96
core of who we are, and we’re just giving the food movement a chance to
be something we’re really focused on
intentionally.”
DEFINED SUSTAINABILITY
Food-movement activists are hard at
work everywhere, including in rural
landscapes—like Alice Evans ’10’s
native Alabama—where agriculture
abounds. Evans attributes her career
to a summer at Swarthmore “following around” Tina Johnson, co-director of the Community Grocery Co-Op
in Chester, Pa., on a Summer Social
Action Award from the Lang Center for
Social Responsibility.
“I credit Tina with a lot of my politics and for framing the beginning of
my interest in the food movement,” she
says. “We had all of these great conversations about what food access and
food justice mean.”
After working on a research farm for
a year postgraduation and then doing
other odd farming jobs, Evans became
director of the Alabama Sustainable
Agriculture Network (ASAN), which
connects farmers interested in sustainable practices and works to strengthen
local food systems. ASAN was established by frustrated organic farmers in
Alabama in the early 2000s, after they
had been turned away from land-grant
universities’ agricultural extensions.
“They were being told, ‘You can’t do
that in Alabama.’ I think at that time,
organic was too foreign,” says Evans.
“Places that were farming organically
then were culturally and agriculturally
very different from here.”
Evans has found that defining sustainable farming is a complex task, and
she works to dispel common misconceptions about organic food.
“From a systems perspective, a sustainable food network has so many
more pieces to it than how many chemicals you do or don’t use on your farm,”
she says, noting that while an organic
certification might provide some hallmark of fresh food, if someone uses
pesticides occasionally but helps to
feed their community from their garden, that’s sustainability in action, too.
“A lot of this work is about getting
diverse people with diverse experiences in the room and allowing our
analyses to change based on what
those folks are saying,” she says. “We
have to be open to changing our movement’s priorities based on what this
new, inclusive version of us has to
say. If we’re going to move forward in
a productive way, that’s what’s
important.”
Also of importance to Evans
are economic incentives to
continue farming, organic or
otherwise.
“If products are made locally
and sold locally, there’s a decentralized, bottom-up economic impact
that is harder to measure, but much
more resilient,” she says. “If farmers,
whether they identify with the movement or not, go out of business or sell
their land to subdivisions, that’s a hit to
sustainable agriculture. We lose generations of farming wisdom and topsoil
that we can’t get back.”
THE FOOD PRISM
As the food movement has increased
its momentum, it has become incredibly multidisciplinary, making room for
more and more Swarthmoreans along
the way. Food can be viewed as a prism,
Jerusha Klemperer ’96 explains, and
through it, you can see any parts of our
system that are broken.
“If you’re concerned about poverty,
inequity, nutrition, environmental degradation,” she says, “you could focus on
one piece of the food system and effect
change.”
Within our vast food system, leaden
with so many inequities, how should
a thoughtful eater proceed? One tenet
to live by, says Klemperer, is to simply cook—and cook simply—especially
since a recent study suggests that
Americans get 1,000 calories per day
from highly processed food.
“There are a lot of ancillary elements to cooking, like knowing a food’s
source or shortening the distance the
food has had to travel to get to you
by shopping at farmers markets, but
home cooking, regardless of where the
food comes from, is a good start,” says
Klemperer.
Klemperer also suggests introducing fresh food to children at home and
says FoodCorps service members have
found that introductions to new foods
can take five to 10 tries before a kid
gives the thumbs-up.
“As parents, you have an opportunity. Don’t give up on your kids,” she
says. “Try things more than once and
prepared in different ways. Give
them a chance to fall in love
with food.”
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
25
PLANTING
SEEDS
Tristan Reader ’89 helped
the O’odham community
rediscover its traditional
foods
by Laura Markowitz ’85
LAURA BECKMAN
T
RISTAN READER
’89 knows a lot about
a little bean called
the tepary, the most
drought-resistant and
heat-tolerant legume
on Earth. He discovered teparies in
1995, when he moved onto the Tohono
O’odham Nation in southern Arizona
and launched a community-based nonprofit, Tohono O’odham Community
Action (TOCA), with O’odham basket
weaver Terrol Dew Johnson.
“Every day at TOCA I used the
philosophy training I received at
Swarthmore to ask fundamental questions,” Reader says. “What does it
mean to be human? To be O’odham? To
create change? To empower people?”
The Nation, which is roughly the
size of Connecticut, crosses the U.S.
border into Mexico, and comprises
20,000 residents living in small rural
villages. Reader and Johnson came to
realize that the issues they wanted to
affect all connected to food, including
culture, economics, the environment,
youth empowerment, and especially
health. The O’odham have the highest
rate of Type 2 diabetes of any ethnic
group in the world.
“In 1960, not a single person on the
Tohono O’odham Nation had Type 2
diabetes,” says Reader. “Today, 60 percent of O’odham adults over age 35
have the disease, and it appears in children as young as 6.”
Reader says this public health crisis stems largely from the disruption of
the traditional O’odham food system.
The Nation was food self-sufficient up
until World War II. But by 1960, most
O’odham depended on the Commodity
Assistance Act allotments of free food
to Native American communities that
introduced lard, flour, and sugar into
the O’odham diet—to devastating effect.
TOCA began modestly with a community garden and eventually established farms. Reader and Johnson
developed training programs and
internships to teach young people traditional O’odham farming practices. In
the process, Reader became passionate
about food sovereignty, advocating for
a return to traditional O’odham foods
like tepary beans to help combat diabetes and obesity, promote food security,
and also reconnect community members to their culture.
“To be Tohono O’odham—a desert person—means to be connected to
these foods. Their songs, rituals, and
culture revolve around them,” Reader
says. “The O’odham believe the Milky
Way was made when Coyote scattered
white tepary beans in the sky. There are
no songs about fry bread, but there are
songs and legends about O’odham corn.”
TOCA hosts planting and harvesting festivals and works in schools
on the Nation to teach youths about
traditional foods. It runs farmers markets to make native foods more widely
available, and in 2009, it opened the
Desert Rain Café. Located in the
Nation’s capital of Sells, Ariz., and a
few doors down from the Nation’s sole
supermarket, the café offers a menu of
healthy dishes made with traditional
foods—things like tepary quesadillas,
O’odham squash enchiladas, and fruit
salads sprinkled with desert-harvested
chia seeds and drizzled with prickly
pear cactus syrup. TOCA also works
with the schools to include traditional
foods on cafeteria menus.
In 2015, Reader left TOCA to finish a Ph.D. on indigenous communities
and food sovereignty at the Center for
Agroecology, Water, and Resilience at
Coventry University in the U.K. He is
optimistic about the Tohono O’odham
Nation’s food-health future because a
growing number of the Nation’s new
leaders came up through TOCA and
are advocates for food sovereignty.
They see the connections between traditional foods and cultural, economic,
and physical well-being.
Reader’s favorite example is
CissiMarie Juan, who began volunteering after school in the TOCA
community garden at age 7. By 9, she
declared that one day she would run
TOCA. Ten years later, she was developing and leading TOCA programs as
a paid staffer. Today, she is the head of
the Nation’s Youth Services division.
“From the beginning, TOCA was
never just about physically planting
seeds,” says Reader. “We were planting
seeds of change and empowering people
to become strong, positive leaders.”
+ LEARN MORE: tocaonline.org
“TO BE TOHONO O’ODHAM—A DESERT
PERSON—MEANS TO BE CONNECTED
TO THESE FOODS.”
—TRISTAN READER ’89
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
27
Alumni at the delicious intersection of entrepreneurship and artistry
“THE WORLD BEGINS at a kitchen table. No matter what,
we must eat to live,” writes poet Joy Harjo in “Perhaps the
World Ends Here.” “It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human.”
So, too, one might say about Swarthmore and the feast it
offers, which may be why so many of its community members have found inspiration in all things appetizing.
Inextricably linked with culture, society, economics, the
environment, politics, and art, the topic of “food and drink”
28
Swarthmore College Bulletin / SUMMER 2016
has inspired professors like Hansjakob Werlen and Allison
Dorsey to lard interdisciplinary courses with related material and students to pursue a cornucopia of projects and professions before and after graduation.
“As with everything,” Werlen says, “Swarthmoreans bring
a lot of passion, intellectual probing, and active engagement
to the issues connected with food.”
Here’s a taste of the unlimited flavors in which food has
inspired alumni to cook up new and creative paths.
MONICA CARRASCO
by Jonathan Riggs
“People often hesitate to cut my cakes because they don’t want to spoil them, but I like that part,” says Polina Kehayova ’01 with daughter Anna, cats Furry Snuggly and
Tiny Smokey, and her dragon-inspired dessert. (Yes, that’s all a cake.) “It’s liberating to see them eaten so I can start planning a new one.”
the Explorer on top, but before the family picked it up, I discovered that she had become decapitated,” she recalls with
a laugh. “I managed to reattach her head, but it was a good
reminder that mishaps—with cake and life—happen, and we
have to rise to each challenge.”
REUBEN CANADA ’99
JIN+JA NINJA: drinkjinja.com
In 2009, Reuben Canada ’99 was a patent
attorney in Philadelphia looking for his true
calling. He found it in a boiling pot of ginger,
mint leaves, lemon, green tea, and cayenne pepper. It was
more than “the world’s best cocktail mixer” that he perfected
over that summer, but an elixir full of the spice and zest his
life had been missing.
He’d always loved food: At 10, he sold homemade chocolate chip cookies to classmates and dreamed of being a
Walt Disney World chef. So he jumped at the opportunity to
reconnect with the empowering, create-your-own-destiny
self he’d discovered at Swarthmore—even if reinventing himself as a culinary creative meant giving up his day job and
investing his life savings.
“Anything terrific requires a lot of luck and timing, so I
decided to make my own luck,” he says. “I didn’t want to
die one day without having done all the things I’d always
wanted.”
Dubbing his drink Jin+Ja (think “ginger” but pronounced
with panache), Canada brewed and bottled his creation—
first in his own kitchen, in potion-style bottles inspired by
Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears, then at the Rutgers
LAURENCE KESTERSON
—JOHN LIM ’16
Swarthmore College Bulletin / SUMMER 2016
At Swarthmore, Lim sought to recapture some of that
close-knit communal feeling over food by turning the
College’s dining hall into his own personal kitchen. Viewers
of his how-to video series, Sharples Cookbook, learn to elevate and innovate cafeteria fare to make everything from
Sriracha mayo panini to balsamic stir-fry.
“Everyone at Sharples does a great job, but I was getting a
little restless—like any other senior,” he says. “I also have an
interest in cooking and video production, so it seemed like
the perfect intersection of ideas.”
His edible innovation isn’t limited to YouTube, either—
along with his friend Brian Shields ’18, Lim launched his own
late-night campus food business, Quesadrop, in March.
Fridays between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m., students order quesadillas by text, which Lim and his co-workers make in their
dorm kitchen and then deliver anywhere on campus—combinations ranging from chicken/cheese to banana/Nutella to
avocado/pico de gallo, limited only by the imagination.
Whether he’s pursuing new recipes in front of the camera or feeding friends behind it, Lim’s discovered a universal
truth: There’s a healing power to food and its preparation.
“Food always makes me feel better, so I knew creating
easy-to-cook recipes was a great way to make the community
feel better, too,” he says. “One of the tough lessons I learned
from losing my father so early is that I really enjoy bringing
smiles to people’s faces. Seeing others experience happiness
helped me heal, and that’s something I’m going to try to do
for the rest of my life, with or without food.”
JOHN LIM ’16
VICTUALS VLOGGER: bit.ly/LimCookbook
Growing up, family dinner was a formative
ritual for John Lim ’16. The child of Korean
immigrants, he still remembers how it felt
when his father came home at 7 p.m., marking the moment
when the family could at last enjoy his mother’s cooking.
“It felt super late, back when I had a bedtime, and very special,” he says. “Dinner had a much bigger meaning than just
eating.”
That sentiment hit especially hard after his father died
when Lim was in middle school, emphasizing how closely
intertwined food and family really are.
“BACK
WHEN I HAD
A BEDTIME ...
DINNER HAD A MUCH
BIGGER MEANING
THAN JUST EATING.”
“We all have a lot of things we can share with other people to improve their quality of life,” says Reuben Canada ’99. “For me, Jin+Ja is a conversation-starter and relationship-builder in a bottle.”
30
Center for Culinary Innovation, a food-entrepreneurship
incubator, where he was able to hire a production and sales
staff. Thanks to his hard work, Canada’s soft drink won over
his corner grocery, Philly eateries, Whole Foods’s mid-Atlantic region, and, most recently, 1,800 Kroger stories
nationwide.
Today, Jin+Ja produces an additional flavor, dragon fruit;
a 4X concentrate; and a diabetic-friendly sugar-free version.
That last part is important to Canada: He sees his drink—at
39 calories per 4-ounce bottle and made with natural ingredients—as less a treat and more a natural complement to a
healthy, holistic, happy lifestyle.
“I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, so I started
by taking a big risk in mine,” he says. “The most validating
thing I can hear, more than any award or contract, is that,
thanks to Jin+Ja, I have brightened someone’s day.”
+ WATCH a special episode of Sharples Cookbook at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
LAURENCE KESTERSON
POLINA KEHAYOVA ’01
QUEEN OF CAKES: bit.ly/PKCakes
Three fondant ballerinas—two seated in white,
one en pointe in black—gracefully adorn the
Swan Lake cake Polina Kehayova ’01 made and
decorated for daughter Anna. As a foil to the flawlessness of
the finished product, however, Kehayova keeps a box of “ugly
duckling” ballerina prototypes.
“I want to show Anna that reaching excellence requires a
long and sometimes discouraging behind-the-scenes process,” she says. “Getting caught up in being perfect from the
beginning stands in the way of learning, accomplishing, and
becoming more confident through mistakes.”
This was the ultimate lesson Swarthmore taught the
Bulgarian-born Kehayova, and one that’s helped with her
professional work as the scientific director of Harvard’s
department of molecular and cellular biology and with her
amateur pastry practice. Both roles not only require creativity and precision, but also present intellectual puzzles.
“For my daughter’s seventh birthday, I made a cake based
on a story she and I came up with inspired by How to Train
Your Dragon,” she says. “I had to figure it all out: What kind
of texture do I need for a dragon’s skin? How can I shape a
dragon’s wings so there’s motion to them?”
Whether she’s crafting a cake inspired by green fluorescent protein for co-workers or plaiting a dozen rainbow unicorn manes for a preschool class’s cupcakes, Kehayova’s
ongoing scientific and artistic experimentation keeps her
sketching, dreaming, and yes, occasionally failing.
“I made a birthday cake with the cartoon character Dora
“I’m enjoying Sharples Cookbook and Quesadrop and am humbled
by people’s reactions,” says John Lim ’16. “They’re a modest success in
the grand scheme of things, but a big deal to me.”
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
31
A tribute to some
of the College’s
memorable larks
and pranks
32
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
BRAD GUIGAR
by Matt Zencey ’79
SWARTHMORE STUDENTS have often
turned their creative and intellectual powers to
the commission of pranks. Engineering especially has a long history of pulling off remarkably clever and creative stunts—check out a
gallery at bulletin.swarthmore.edu—but the
mischief-making gene spans the College’s
entire population. Seats in a lecture hall have
disappeared, Adirondack chairs have hung from
trees, and Clothier’s bell tower has chimed
erratically.
There’s a healthy
aspect to the benign
pranks. Swarthmore
is such an academic
pressure cooker, it’s
a rare student who
doesn’t look for occasional relief.
The roster of
memorable pranks
offered here is not
exhaustive, of course.
Many exist only in
oral legend, and some
alumni, nominated by classmates as notorious pranksters, declined to respond to queries
for this story, perhaps out of modesty or a more
mature sense of judgment ...
UP THE FLAGPOLE
Like moths to a flame, swallows to Capistrano,
and Elvis fans to Graceland, generations of student pranksters have been drawn to the forbidden territory atop Parrish Hall.
Perhaps most memorable was April Fools’
1997, which dawned with the Canadian flag flying high above Parrish, announcing a revolutionary development: Swarthmore had been
taken over by the Canadian government. With
signs around campus declaring the school
“under new management,” Swarthmore would
be known as “McGill South” and offer free tuition for Canadian students, not to mention
socialized medicine for everyone, and a better brand of beer at College events (Moosehead
over Milwaukee’s Best). In a surrender ceremony documented in the April Fools’ edition
of The Phoenix, President Al Bloom graciously
posed with the Canadian flag.
The “Most Arduous Effort Producing a
Disappointingly Ephemeral Payoff ” is the prank
reported by Bob Norman ’49. He and a 6-foot-9
classmate somehow managed to hoist a bicycle
onto Parrish’s roof and raise it up the flagpole.
However, shortly after daybreak, maintenance
workers had taken it down.
FRIED PETRINA?
Never let it be said that physics students lack
a sense of humor. Petrina Albulescu Dawson
’76 reports this one from April Fools’ in the
mid-’70s:
“Professor Paul Mangelsdorf ’49 had worried
the previous year, in the electromagnetics lab,
when I pointed too close to one of the high voltage plasma tubes: He could see a fried Petrina
in front of his eyes! So we made a full-size person by stuffing clothes, a pillow, and a hat with
newspaper and posed her as ‘electrocuted’ by the
tube.” She writes that it was one of many physics
pranks and puns committed in the lab that night.
(We understand that Schrödinger’s cat was not
harmed during the event.)
Speaking of risks in electrical experiments, for her class’s 50th anniversary yearbook, Sandra Dixon ’61 fessed up to dissing
Benjamin Franklin, who back then was honored with a bust in Dupont science library. She
swiped Franklin’s bust and replaced it with
a black cape, some frayed string, a key, and a
placard saying, “Benjamin Franklin After Kite
Experiment.”
HIGH-TECH HIGH JINKS
What is a Swarthmore term paper without a
raft of those learned-sounding academic buzzwords, like dichotomy, hegemony, deconstruction, and postmodern?
Students in 2002 found out, thanks to prankster Gabriel Rosenkoetter ’02. He hacked a
couple of libraries’ public printers and programmed them to delete a list of more than 200
“typically Swarthmorean” words.
Upon finding their intellectual handiwork
pocked with blank spaces, desperate students
fell into a frenzy that left tech-support gurus
baffled. Hours of anxious chaos ensued until
normalcy was restored.
Rare among the pranksters featured here,
Rosenkoetter publicly claimed credit in The
Phoenix—and paid a fine for the staff time spent
trying to fix the printers.
On April Fools’ Day in 2001, an unnamed
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
33
hacker sent an all-campus email in Associate
Dean Tedd Goundie’s name, reminding students about daylight saving time, but advising
them to turn their clocks back instead of forward. The Phoenix reported that Goundie called
it an “elegantly understated prank.”
PAPER, PAPER EVERYWHERE …
A surprising number of pranks involved a fairly
primitive technology, invented millennia ago in
Egypt.
Back when students were required to attend
campuswide Collection several times a year, it
often meant surrendering precious free time to
listen to a boring minor-league speaker. A favorite form of protest was for students to whip out
copies of The New York Times and rustle the
papers en masse.
Mimi Siegmeister Koren ’60 made use of
these papers when she and her pals pranked a
dormmate who was away for the weekend by
filling the victim’s entire room up to the ceiling
with crumpled wads of newsprint.
34
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
’94 left Sharples for her 8:30 a.m. class when
she saw official College letterhead notices
posted on several doors declaring that classes
had been canceled for the day. Only after spending the morning holed up in the library did she
learn that the notices were bogus and classes
had gone on as normal.
THOSE ‘WORSHIPPERS’ WERE NUTS!
A prank-as-performance-art satire was
reported by Bulletin designer Phil Stern ’84.
“Posing as expert anthropologists/art historians,” he writes, “two students from the Class
of 1984 ‘discovered’ evidence of a tribe of squirrel-worshippers who lived in the College heat
tunnels.”
The two—who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty—held a carefully advertised
“reception” in those steamy warrens, complete
with warm wine and melting brie, drawing a
crowd of about 50 sweltering Swatties to marvel at the tribe’s wall paintings.
The affair went “swimmingly,” says Stern,
until it was interrupted by College security,
who were alerted by a gullible student asking
where to find an entrance to the underground
tunnels.
NAME GAMES
Melissa Morrell MacBeth ’99 fondly remembers the prank her senior year when hundreds
of the black nameplates identifying specimens in the Scott Arboretum were simplified to
labels such as “Green Plant—Greenus Plantus,”
“Small Shrub,” and “Short Tree.”
When France failed to support President
George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003,
some U.S. lawmakers protested by symbolically
renaming the french fries served in the congressional cafeteria as “freedom fries.” That bit
of patriotic absurdity inspired Raghu Karnad
’05 to perform some relabeling work at the
department of modern languages. Using stickers, he converted all occurrences of “French” to
“Freedom.” (He notes he was mocking the war
hawks, not the French.)
Swarthmore pranked itself during the
Sesquicentennial celebration in 2014, producing an official-sounding April Fools’ news
release declaring, “Swathmore Drops ‘R’
from Name to Fix 150 Years of Pronunciation
Confusion.”
OH, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL PRANK!
One of the more legendary highbrow pranks
had a musical theme. In the 1950s, during a
campuswide Collection, noted lyricist Oscar
Hammerstein II spoke. When it was time for
the hymn, a cabal of students instead started
singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning”
from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical
Oklahoma!
“Eventually the organist gave up and joined
in,” Peter Van Pelt ’54 says. “Everyone was singing like crazy. Hammerstein said it was the best
welcome he ever had.”
AU NATUREL? OH NO!
Swarthmore students love to do things in public
without their clothes on. The rugby teams’ naked
coed fundraiser, the “Dash for Cash” through
Parrish Hall, is a legend in its own right.
In our clothing-free category, the best prank
was described in a 2009 Phoenix article by
Kendal Rinko ’09. As a tour guide led a group
of prospective students into her dorm, they
encountered a group of students, all in the buff,
having tea in the lounge.
Rinko wrote, “A shocked mother replied, ‘Oh,
my stars! Is this normal?’ To which the tour
guide replied, ‘Would you care for a cup?’”
WEATHERING ACADEMIA
Many students had trouble returning to campus
from spring break in 1993 after a blizzard blanketed the region on the Saturday before classes
resumed. Monday morning, Joanna Vondrasek
LOWBROW CULTURAL COMMENTARY
John Fischer ’81 cops to being in the group
that planted a pink flamingo in Wharton Quad
and chuckled as maintenance crews struggled
to extricate it, because the conspirators had
anchored the bird in place with concrete. John
Bowe ’83 reports that the flamingo later made
appearances all over campus, most notably on
President Theodore Friend’s windowsill.
FROM THE AWESOME-IF-TRUE ARCHIVES
Some stories of long-ago epic pranks remain
unconfirmed despite diligent digging.
A couple of early 1970s alums mentioned a
legendary episode in which students supposedly raided Sharples for a huge stash of butter and applied it to the train tracks at the
Swarthmore station. As the locomotive arrived,
so the story goes, it hit the butter and slid past
the station. (If true, it proves that some things
are not better with butter.)
No one wrote in to claim credit for the time
the clock face on Tarble was turned into a
Mickey Mouse timepiece, but several alums
remembered seeing that one circa 1980.
Joyce Klein Perry ’65 recollected seeing
treetops on Magill Walk toilet-papered (presumably, Swarthmore’s own Scott brand),
reputedly scattered there by a student piloting
an airplane.
And then there’s the distant legend of the cow
that was led up to the president’s second-floor
office in Parrish and refused to go back down the
stairs. Fran Brokaw ’76 says it happened, citing
her grandmother, Class of 1909, as the source.
True or not, generations of Swarthmoreans
have milked that story for all it’s worth.
+ MORE capers and an engineering pranks photo
gallery at bulletin.swarthmore.edu. Share your
Swarthmorean mischief: bulletin@swarthmore.edu
BRAD GUIGAR
BRAD GUIGAR
Then there’s Bill Schmidt ’76, who confesses
to leading the Great Toilet Paper Heist of 1975.
Like locusts stripping a field clean of crops, the
pranksters methodically plundered every common dorm bathroom and public restroom for
toilet paper. The heist happened on a Friday
after maintenance staff had clocked out and
locked up replacement supplies for the weekend. The campus was wiped out until Monday
morning, when supply closets reopened and
the conspirators revealed where the stash was
hidden.
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
35
Archiving can yield new opportunities,
says Winifred Armstrong ’51
by Jonathan Riggs
W
HEN SHE WAS HONORED with the Clara
Lemlich Social Activist Award last year,
Winifred Armstrong ’51 filmed an interview with Labor Arts that opens with her
laughter.
“Somebody asked me a few weeks ago if
I could sleep in a strange bed,” she begins, eyes sparkling. “I
said I would have had a totally different life if I couldn’t.”
This is a woman who traversed Africa for two years in the
late 1950s on a self-financed fact-finding trip—via airplane,
boat, train, lorry, canoe, and, for 22,000 miles, a Volkswagen
and camp bed—to study its educational and economic
challenges and opportunities, well before the U.S. State
Department had a dedicated Africa bureau.
And while that expertise led her to become a speechwriter and adviser on Africa for then-Sen. John F. Kennedy,
Armstrong’s 60-year career as a scholar/activist also
includes experience with mining, sustainability, development, and tenants’ rights.
Looking back on her career, however, interests her
36
Swarthmore College Bulletin / SUMMER 2016
1. Go through your materials with a realistic eye as to
what can be donated and used.
In my experience, libraries have welcomed paper files, correspondence, photos (with identifications, if possible),
tape recordings, and memorabilia such as passports, clothing, keys, or medals. Books and reports could be good, too, if
they’re not already publicly available.
2. Once you know what you have, think about where it
could go.
You may have to shop around. Sometimes you connect with
the first inquiry, and sometimes you’re surprised by who
does or doesn’t want your material. It’s also important not to
disregard your smaller or older files. Last year, for example, I
donated to Swarthmore’s Friends Historical Library a 2-inch
file I’d kept for 65 years on the Swarthmore Race Relations
Club’s 1950 survey of the College and local community.
Early on, I decided that I didn’t want to create a “Winifred
Armstrong Collection” at one location, because I don’t really
see most of what I have done as “mine.” Since the work covers different interests and organizations, I sought libraries
where people would look for those interests.
3. When you talk with libraries, there are a number of
questions to ask.
What’s their protocol and timeline for processing your
papers? You’ll also want to see if they will list your individual
files online or just the contents of each box.
You also need to determine how libraries prefer to receive
the material—if you’re collecting materials from a group of
people who have been part of an organization or program, it
may be better to have one person sort and label everything.
However, most libraries do not expect you to file everything
perfectly.
4. Collecting history can inspire others.
There’s great satisfaction and fun in contacting former
colleagues, and it may nudge them to action themselves. You
need not only consider past work. I helped round up material
from my and others’ involvement with the Park West Village
Tenants’ Association—still active—which helped spark the
creation of Tamiment Library’s housing collection at New
York University.
5. Face the question: Will anyone actually use your
stuff?
The honest answer is yes and no. It depends very much on
whether the library has processed the material and put the
LAURENCE KESTERSON
LOOKING
BACK
TO LOOK
FORWARD
primarily when it is joined with looking forward.
“I’ve had a great time the last few years getting the stories
and records of work I’ve done with a variety of organizations
to libraries that want to archive them,” Armstrong says. “I’d
like to encourage other Swarthmoreans to think about what
in their own history might be of interest to archive and the
value and fun in pursuing it.”
Here, Armstrong shares what she’s learned about archiving
and how it can be a creative, community-building step.
“We are the inheritors, interpreters, and creators of our history,” says Winifred Armstrong ’51.
listings online—my African files at the John F. Kennedy
Presidential Library, my AMAX African mining files at the
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, and the tenant files at
Tamiment are consulted often. Not everything is, of course,
but when you’re able to connect with someone who’s interested, it means a lot.
I happened to meet a student from St. Louis looking
through my Kennedy archives in 2010. When I introduced
myself, he looked at me as if I were a ghost coming out of the
box! We had a wonderful conversation, and I gave him much
better sources than my stuff.
6. Accept that you don’t control how people will interpret your archives.
Later, I was speaking with another student, who had come
to research and photograph my 1972-era files on the U.N.
Environment Program (UNEP) on their way to the Pace
University Law Library.
“Well,” the student told me, “I see that UNEP failed—they
are saying in 1972 that this is what they are going to accomplish, but by 2012 they are still saying the same thing. That’s
failure.”
I thought, “OK, if you’re 19, that’s a fair criteria for failure, but if you’re 82, I don’t know.” So he and I sat there on
the dollies in the storage room and had a major discussion
as to how one judges these things. We weren’t trying to settle the argument; we were looking at how you think about it.
Because of my archives, I’ve had some wonderful discussions
with people like that—their perspectives and mine are deepened and stretched, which is great fun.
7. Ultimately, be realistic about your expectations.
Not everything saved over a lifetime may find a home, but
that’s OK. It’s freeing to view this as an effort to celebrate
ongoing work, ideas, and processes.
For me, this isn’t only a personal thing. The best part
has been talking with old and new colleagues and friends,
recognizing the good work we’ve done and are doing, delighting in remembering the work and one another, and moving
it forward so this intellectual capital is not lost. I hope you’ll
consider doing the same with yours.
+ VIEW a list of libraries holding Winifred Armstrong’s papers at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu. To email her: wa400cpw@aol.com
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
37
LAURENCE KESTERSON
ONE GAVE
ALL
Joe Selligman ’37 was the first American casualty of the Spanish Civil War
by Adam Hochschild
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
39
T
HE SAME YEAR Joseph Selligman Jr. ’37 was a
senior at Swarthmore, a group of right-wing Spanish
army officers rose up against their country’s democratically elected government. Under Francisco
Franco, the Spanish Nationalists, as they called themselves,
seized control of nearly half the country.
Franco’s ideological allies, Adolf Hitler and Benito
Mussolini, flooded Spain with hundreds of warplanes and
tanks, and tens of thousands of military personnel. Amid the
tumult, the first of some 40,000 volunteers from more than
50 countries came to Spain’s aid. The war was a test, they
felt, of Europe’s capacity to resist the rise of fascism.
A continent away in Pennsylvania, Selligman agreed,
although at first his friends did not realize how deep the
19-year-old’s feelings ran. (Previously, he had traveled the
country with a Quaker-sponsored summer “Peace Caravan,”
talking with community groups about America’s need to stay
out of the world’s wars.)
But the military coup in Spain came as a shock to him.
A doodle later found among Selligman’s college notes provided a clue: He had drawn a map on which Germany, Italy,
Portugal, and part of Spain were blackened, captioned,
“Europe: Again Victim of the Black Plague.”
HAILING FROM LOUISVILLE, KY., Selligman and his
two sisters grew up in an unusual home. Their father was
a former chairman of Kentucky’s Republican Party as well
as a prominent lawyer who’d argued cases before the U.S.
Supreme Court; their mother voted Socialist.
He took to Swarthmore with great enthusiasm. Editor of
the literary magazine the Manuscript and on the business
staff of The Phoenix, Selligman won awards for everything
from playwriting to public speaking and made many friends,
including Charles Crane Jr. ’36, whose home in Montpelier,
Vt., he visited for Thanksgiving 1936.
After the holiday, when Mrs. Selligman telephoned Joe’s
dorm, she was told, to her shock, that he had disappeared. A
week later, the Selligmans received a letter from Joe explaining that he had decamped to Spain.
“I am really too excited and angry . . . to do anything else,”
he wrote. “Besides, a lot of good a diploma would do in a
Fascist era—and Spain seems to me to be the crucial test.”
(“He expects eventually to return to Swarthmore,” The
Phoenix reported at the time.)
Selligman’s worried father sent a telegram to Crane’s
father: “Just learned our son Joseph left Swarthmore College
December third for Spain—Rumored your son gone with
him—Wire any information you have.”
But the rumor was not true, a reply telegram said; Charles
Crane Jr. had not gone to Spain, and Joe had confided nothing of his plans—instead, he had been a “very agreeable”
guest, memorable for his kindness and courtesy.
HIS PARENTS WERE FRANTIC. Selligman’s father hired
a private detective, who located Joe in Paris. Too young to
volunteer, he’d used the name of a would-be soldier who’d
changed his mind at the last minute. When the detective
caught up with “Frank Neary,” he persuaded him to take a
call from Kentucky.
“I’m sorry I had to lie to you over the phone the other day,
but by the time you called, I had already enlisted, and I didn’t
want to make a scene in the embassy and run up the alreadytoo-high phone bill,” Selligman wrote his parents soon after.
“For God’s sake, quit trying to catch me.”
Eventually, 2,800 American volunteers would go to Spain
in units later known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, but
Selligman was the first to arrive, so he was assigned to a battalion of British volunteers.
Working as a driver and interpreter—he knew French,
German, and a little Spanish—he assured his family he would
be in no danger.
“Quit worrying,” he wrote, promising to send them a picture of himself “in full regalia (including moustache and
incipient beard) as soon as I can find a photographer.”
SELLIGMAN PENNED HIS last letter Feb. 7, 1937, explaining to his family why they needed to direct his mail to “Frank
Neary.”
Not only was it safer, he wrote, but “an alias rather adds to
the adventure-feeling, romance, etc.”
He cautioned them against sending stationery, food, and
supplies—“there is plenty”—and told them that although he’d
asked his roommate to save his books, he hoped he hadn’t
caused too much ado at school.
“I hope you haven’t let all this get out around Swarthmore,”
he wrote in closing. “Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me
for a while.”
Less than a week later, the hastily trained British battalion was ordered into action, advancing through rain-soaked
olive groves in the hilly country southeast of Madrid. The
volunteers had had almost no practice using their rifles, and
their decrepit machine guns tended to jam quickly.
Heavy shelling by the Nationalists’ Nazi-supplied 88 mm
artillery (the first combat test of a major German weapon
of World War II) cut the battalion’s telephone lines, so
Selligman was made a message runner.
By the end of the day, most volunteers in the British unit
were casualties; Selligman, wounded by a shot to the head by
a sniper, was evacuated by mule. When his family heard the
news, they sent panic-stricken messages to American officials in Spain and Washington.
“Urgently request effort be made to remove him farther
from fighting zone or into France if possible and his condition permits,” his father telegraphed Secretary of State
Cordell Hull. “I will bear all necessary expense.”
But it was no use: Joe Selligman was dead.
ULTIMATELY, THE EFFORTS of volunteers like Selligman
were essential in preventing the Nationalists from capturing
FROM JOSEPH
SELLIGMAN TO
FRANK NEARY
Pictured in his senioryear Halcyon, Joe
Selligman ’37 left
Swarthmore to become
“Frank Neary” (right),
the Spanish Civil War’s
first American
volunteer ... and casualty.
In that yearbook
caption, classmates
praised his “sly
humor” and “quiet
thoughtfulness,”
describing Selligman
as “a Southern
gentleman” who
“approaches subjects
from a profoundly
philosophical point of
view.”
TAMIMENT LIBRARY/NYU
“A LOT OF GOOD A DIPLOMA WOULD DO IN A FASCIST ERA—
AND SPAIN SEEMS TO ME TO BE THE CRUCIAL TEST.”
—JOE SELLIGMAN ’37
40
Swarthmore College Bulletin / SUMMER 2016
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
41
Madrid for nearly three years of brutal fighting. Some 750
more American volunteers would be among the hundreds of
thousands killed in the war. One who survived was classmate
Theodore Veltfort ’37, who, moved by Selligman’s death, drove
military ambulances under fire for a year and a half in Spain.
Unable to recover his son’s body, Selligman’s father asked
the State Department to return his belongings. But all that
could be found were two billfolds containing a Kentucky
driver’s license and an ID card from the Swarthmore gym.
Some letters discovered only recently add a poignant coda
to the story. Two months after Joe had left for Spain, young
Crane’s father wrote again to Selligman’s. His letter began
formally, “Dear Mr. Selligman,” but was handwritten on
lined paper. It reported that Charles Crane Jr. had committed suicide.
“From youth up he had been somewhat of an anxiety to us,”
Crane Sr. wrote, “because of his too-serious interest in ‘the
purpose of life’ . . . in mockery of this cockeyed world he has
quit it—a brilliant, companionable son—leaving us crushed.” A
note at the bottom added, “Excuse the paper. Written in bed.”
Selligman Sr. immediately wrote back a heartfelt letter of
sympathy, from one father to another. Of Joe, in Spain, he
said, “We shall not write him of Charles’s death. Knowing
how devoted they were to each other, we would not want
Joseph to have the shock of this news when he is alone so far
from home.”
The letter is dated Feb. 12, 1937—the very day that young
Joe Selligman suffered the fatal bullet wound.
When his father wrote to inform Crane, he ended his letter, “We shall face the years to come with such grim courage
as we can summon . . . hoping also that for the betterment of
the world such idealism as our two boys cherished may not
perish from the Earth.”
SELLIGMAN WAS NOT forgotten at Swarthmore. That
year’s Manuscript was dedicated to him; students, faculty
members, and residents of the borough raised $275 to be
used for medical aid to Spanish children in Loyalist territory,
as that area still controlled by Spain’s elected government
was known. (Those who objected to this but still wanted to
honor Selligman were encouraged to donate books to the
College library in his memory.)
His memory lived on in other ways, too.
“In one of his letters, Joe said, ‘If I don’t come back, use my
money to send Lucy to Swarthmore,’ ” said his sister Lucy
Selligman Schneider ’42. “The money he referred to was a
very modest legacy that our maternal grandfather had left to
each of us. I doubt that it would have seen me through college. But that sentence from Joe was a message to me.”
(His niece, Lucy Schneider McDiarmid ’68, not only
attended the College, too, but also won the same one-act
playwriting contest he’d won some 30 years before.)
Selligman’s absence was deeply felt, and March 17, 1937,
the College held a silent memorial meeting as a tribute.
“Joe Selligman will not be back. We feared as much when
he went, but we honored the sincerity of conviction which
led him to throw in his lot with the Loyalist forces in Spain,”
42
Swarthmore College Bulletin / SUMMER 2016
Harold E. B. Speight, Swarthmore’s dean of men, told The
Phoenix. “He felt that life would not be worth living in any
civilization that might survive the defeat of the Popular
Front and he went to play his part.
“No one of us fully knows his own motives, but all of us
who knew Joe were aware that he was acting after careful thought and not out of any passing impulse or desire for
adventure; he had counted the cost and was willing to pay it
to the full.
“Joe’s going brings home to us all the question of what we
are willing to give for the things we believe in,” Speight concluded. “While we remember him we shall feel that his sacrifice continues to put that question to us all.”
POETRY BY JOE SELLIGMAN ’37
From the Manuscript, May 1935
“Motion and Rest”
If I should lie upon the grass
Until the evening’s coolness comes,
And let the countless seconds pass
Without a word,
If I should count my fingers there,
And find them ten, and be content,
And feel the wind about my hair,
And ask no more,
Oh, would it not be better far
Than these wild dreams, these frantic plans?
Why hitch my wagon to a star,
When none are fixed?
“Unbalanced Budget”
Not ours to ask you why, when we are done,
The little time we spent before the sun
Was bought so dearly, with such wealth of grief,
Such wasted hopes, such sad, betrayed belief.
Not ours to ask why you, who had the wealth
To waste a billion stars on empty space,
Could find but one cold world, one dying sun,
For those who might find meaning in your grace.
Not ours to ask why, of the endless time
You spend on tearing galaxies apart,
You gave but one short day, one bitter day,
To those who have your image in their heart.
It is not we shall ask. We shall be dumb,
Back in the nothing that you drew us from.
class notes
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ALUMNI
EVENTS
SEND-OFFS TO
SWARTHMORE
Welcome the Class of
2020 to the Swarthmore
community at a summer
send-off. Events are
planned for locations
around the country and
internationally:
swarthmore.edu/
sendoffs
Network with fellow
Swarthmoreans and
access academic
resources like JSTOR
through AlumnIQ, our
new alumni directory.
Learn more:
bit.ly/AlumnIQ
THANK YOU!
Read some findings
from the alumni survey
on Page 70.
ROBERT O. WILLIAMS
ALUMNIQ
Alicia DeWitt ’11 and partner Joshua Sokol ’11 share a moment June 4 during Alumni Weekend. More photos, Page 71.
1934
Gertrude “Trudy” Mitchell
Bell, 103, died Feb. 19 at
her retirement community
in Blue Bell, Pa. A lifelong
student and Quaker,
Trudy attended George
School before Swarthmore
and received a master’s
of library science from
Columbia. “My mother
often downplayed her
intellectual abilities and
would remark that she
only got into Swarth-
more because there was
automatic acceptance for
George School graduates,”
writes daughter Barbara
Bell Seely ’67. “But nevertheless, she remained
intellectually curious all
her life.”
Trudy took classes at
the Cheltenham Township
(Pa.) Adult School,
ranging from furniture
refinishing to belly dancing. She and late husband
Craig hosted international
students through the
Rotary Club, took German
lessons, and traveled
abroad with the International Hospital Federation.
Trudy was an avid listener
of NPR, and she enjoyed
reading Trudy Rubin’s column in The Philadelphia
Inquirer. At Normandy
Farms Estates, where she
moved at age 91, Trudy
attended a monthly discussion group focused on
politics, economics, and
health care.
Trudy was predeceased
by son John ’63. In addition to daughter Barbara,
Trudy is survived by son
Harry, daughter Carol
Bell Mosher ’68, four
grandchildren, and four
great-grandchildren.
1936
Ophthalmologist David
Pao ’65 checked in with
patient Carolyn Keyes
Cadwallader, who says
she is “in ‘middling’ good
health” and has “excellent
care at Pennswood Village, a Quaker retirement
community in Newtown,
Pa. My husband, Sidney,
who passed last year, was
one of the founders of
Pennswood 35 years ago,
and we have resided here
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
43
class notes
1938 1941
Margaret Peter Ashelman,
of Fairfield, Iowa, died Nov.
28, just shy of her 99th
birthday. Born in Shanghai
to medical missionary parents, Margaret spent her
first nine years there. In
1926 her family left China
for New Haven, Conn.,
where in high school
Margaret was given the
honor of presenting
flowers to Amelia Earhart,
who, she said, inspired
the young girls of the day
to expand their choices
in life.
At Swarthmore, Margaret
spent summers on Navajo
reservations, where her
father was medical
director of 11 hospitals.
She married the late Sam
Ashelman ’37 before her
senior year and the couple
lived above the small food
cooperative they founded
in Swarthmore.
In 1944 the couple and
their children moved to
Greenbelt, Md., where
Sam worked in the
Greenbelt Co-op. In 1961
the Ashelmans bought
1,100 acres near Berkeley
Springs, W.Va., and slowly
built Coolfont Resort,
which became a popular
mid-Atlantic destination.
Margaret later taught
transcendental meditation,
and she subsequently
44
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
Libby Murch Livingston
lizliv33@gmail.com
It has been difficult to
inspire our aged class to
write. I understand, for
although I am enjoying my
pleasant life, it is certainly
not newsworthy. (I might
go on about my playing
the part of a 15-year-old
in love in a reading of the
play Ah, Wilderness, but
it would not do more than
get a laugh.)
Barbara Ferguson Young
made me realize that
we do have noteworthy
information through our
talented children and
grandchildren. Her granddaughter Kristin Rocha
(aka K.E. Rocha) has
had publishing success.
Concerned about getting
boys to read, Kristin wrote
Secrets of Bearhaven, a
novel that has struck a
note nationally. I’m ready
to order it.
I followed this up with a
call to Walt Steuber and
was pleased to talk with
his son David, who has
been his parents’ caregiver, filling an important
need in a way that is
pleasing to all involved.
That, too, is special.
SUMMER 2016
At our stage of life, we
need not feel that we are
not doin’ nothin’ if we are
no longer CEOs or discovering planets. Instead we
have been in the production of offspring who may
be doin’ somethin’. Please
share your children’s and
grandchildren’s activities.
Now, never fear: You won’t
hear all about my umpteen
kids and grandkids … or
greats. Well … maybe just
this once: Daughter Elinor
spends much time fixing
my efforts (i.e., mistakes)
on this darn iPad. Thank
you, dear.
Again looking at the next
generation: My daughter
and I attended a loving
memorial for my first
cousin once removed,
Molly Chase Wiellette
’62, whom I met only once
but wish I had known
better. What a beloved
and accomplished person
she was, and what a loving
family she had. Molly’s
mother, Elinor Robinson
Pennock, was Class of
1934, and her grandfather
1905. I won’t bother you
with all the other relatives
who were alumni.
1943
Betty Glenn Webber
bettywebber22@yahoo.com
Felice Klau Shea sent a
welcome email updating us on her life since
Swarthmore. Except for a
few years after graduation, she’s been a lifelong
New Yorker, where she
practiced law after Columbia Law School, followed
by 25 years in the judiciary, mainly on the New
York State Supreme Court.
She retired in 1999, but
only from the bench: She
has served on a mayoral
Advisory Committee on
the Judiciary, as a referee
in disciplinary proceedings against judges and
lawyers, on the board of a
prisoners advocacy organization, as a Montefiore
Medical Center trustee, as
a pro bono legal adviser,
and on the dean’s Advisory Council at Columbia
Law. Her Swarthmore
connection is strong:
a daughter attended, a
grandson graduated in
2013, and a granddaughter has been admitted to
the Class of 2020.
Jane Hand Bonthron’s
daughter says Jane is in
the nursing-home section
of her retirement residence. She is healthy but
needs a little help.
In the last Bulletin,
Mary Stewart Trageser
suggested that we share
recollections of our
experiences of the World
War II years. Mary writes,
“Thanks to Betsy Thorn
Coleman—who got a job
at the Office of Strategic
Services through her aunt
and recommended me for
her department—I was
in for the next two-plus
years after graduation.
In Washington, D.C., we
read intelligence coming
from the field, cataloged
it, and sent it to pertinent
researchers. In August
1944, I went to the London
office. Three days after
V-E Day in June 1945, we
flew to Wiesbaden, Germany, where we continued
the same work. I felt I
made a contribution to the
cause and saw London’s
bombing and war-torn
Germany in person.” I
know that subsequent
trips back to London have
been a joy to her.
Herb Fraser’s son, Peter
’68, wrote that he and his
father made computerized
recordings of Herb’s experiences and memories.
During WWII he flew
Navy fighters from the
carrier USS Hancock in
the Pacific and the China
Sea. During one mission
his plane sustained so
much damage that he had
to ditch into the water,
where he was picked up
by a fleet destroyer and
returned to the Hancock.
However, since destroyers
didn’t make ice cream
and carriers did, Herb’s
exchange required a
quantity of ice cream commensurate with his rank of
lieutenant junior grade.
Ginny Curry Hille and the
girls’ winning hockey team
participated in a publicity
project for the Philadelphia Recruiting Office in
1942. After crash training
four soldiers in archery for
a month, the contest was
filmed with Ginny as one
of the Swarthmore archers
and Bob Hille as one of
the soldiers. Bob offered
to drive her back to the
College; she accepted and
says, “The rest is history.”
They were engaged
by Christmas, but the
wedding waited until June
1943, her dad having said:
“I’m not putting some other man’s daughter through
college.” Postwar they
moved to Bob’s hometown
of St. Louis, where she
still happily lives.
I, too, met my husbandto-be, Bob, under WWII
circumstances. My mother
had, without consultation, “volunteered” my
sister and me for a dance
a friend was organizing
for officers from several
military facilities near my
Harrisburg, Pa., home. We
were not happy walking
(no car, no gas) down
Front Street in evening
gowns in the light of a
June evening, but at the
party I received a lot of
attention from a young
ensign. It was such a
brief courtship that the
marriage couldn’t possibly
last, but it did for 65
years. We moved to Bob’s
ALUMNI IN ACTION
Trudie Blood Seybold ’39
was honored by the Boothbay
Region Health & Wellness
Foundation in Maine for being—at
98—the oldest member of a YMCA
senior walkers group.
Swarthmore Business
Network alumni and friends
gathered in New York City for their
annual spring networking event.
Adam Haslett ’92 (far left) marked the release
of his new novel, Imagine Me Gone, at a party in
Brooklyn, N.Y., with Jonathan Franzen ’81; Alexander
Griswold Cummins Professor of English Philip
Weinstein; and former professor Mark Breitenberg.
Heather Rigney
Shumaker ’91
celebrated the launch
of her newest book, It’s
OK to Go Up the Slide,
at Horizon Books in
Traverse City, Mich.
Stephanie Lechich
’14 and Joann
Bodurtha ’74 gathered
alumni of all ages living
in Baltimore for a happy
hour.
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Political Science
Ken Sharpe spoke in Seattle about his program at
Swarthmore that pairs faculty for one-on-one coaching
in the classroom.
MARDI LINK
studied holistic health
care and the ancient
science of life planning. In
her later years in Fairfield,
she was an active member
of the Peer Group for
seniors and one of the
authors of Being Our Own
Heroes, a collection of
short stories published by
the writing group. Margaret is survived by five
children, Peter ’62, Eric,
Siri, Randall, and Lisa;
eight grandchildren; and
21 great-grandchildren.
LISA VAN DYK
for more than 25 years.
We met at Swarthmore
in 1934. Son Tom lives in
Newtown, and daughter
Elizabeth lives in nearby
Yardley. My other son,
Leonard, is in Hanover,
N.H. There are quite a few
Swarthmoreans here. The
trees are blossoming now.
We will have an enjoyable
spring and summer. I wish
you all well.”
Alumni in
Boston; North
Carolina; San
Francisco; Philadelphia;
Washington, D.C.;
Tucson, Ariz.; and Daly
City, Calif., took part in
Collection of Service
events this spring.
Lifelong Learning at Swarthmore hosted a reception in Philadelphia to gauge
interest in bringing courses to Center City in the fall. The response was so
positive that the first, “Seven Great Paintings,” begins in September.
+ SEND YOUR PHOTOS/BLURBS TO BULLETIN@SWARTHMORE.EDU
home state, and I’ve been
an enthusiastic Michigander ever since.
Edwin Moore died Feb.
5 after a long illness. He
enrolled at Swarthmore,
but later transferred to an
accelerated program at
Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy, N.Y. His
WWII years in the Maritime Service were spent
on tankers delivering fuel
to European and Pacific
bases. Postwar study at
Oxford was followed by a
variety of assignments—at
Pratt & Whitney; the
Merchant Marines during
the Korean War; studying
philosophy at NYU; and
founding E.T. Moore
builders around Underhill, Vt. His community
involvement drew from his
engineering expertise and
his commitment to church
and town; recently the Underhill Center was named
in his honor. Admiration
for his remarkable career
and sympathy go to his
wife, Betty, and sons Tom
and John.
1944
Esther Ridpath Delaplaine
edelaplaine1@verizon.net
Our sympathy to the
family of Kathryn “Kay”
Detreux Halpern, who died
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
Jan. 10. Kay’s daughter,
Anne Halpern, sent details
of her mother’s busy life.
After she left Swarthmore, Kay joined the Office of Strategic Services
(forerunner of the CIA).
There she met Samuel
Halpern, and the pair
married in 1948. They had
two children, Anne and
Michael, and the family
lived in Hollin Hills, Va.
After spending two years
in Tokyo, Kay received a
master’s in library science
from Catholic University in
1964. She was a cataloger
for the Fairfax County
(Va.) Public Library
system for 48 years,
retiring in 2012. She then
moved into an apartment
attached to her daugh-
ter’s home in southern
Maryland, kept up with
her library colleagues, and
walked three Labrador retrievers almost every day.
I was happy to encounter
Nancy Grace Roman ’46
at a Montgomery County,
Md., Women’s Democratic
Club luncheon. She left
my condo for a nearby
retirement community.
I had the pleasure of
hosting Htet Win ’16,
who was shadowing a
Swarthmore alum at the
World Bank. Htet is from
Myanmar and helped me
understand recent political events there. When
her parents came for
graduation, she promised
to bring them to D.C. and
introduce them to me. Her
presence here, just before
a snowstorm, was a gift.
Washington is showing
off its trees in bloom—
cherry, pear, tulip, magnolia; the best of spring here.
I invite visitors and can
offer a guest bedroom.
1945
Verdenal Hoag Johnson
verdij76@comcast.net
I am writing in March, and
we had a snowstorm last
night. Winter was nothing
like last year, but it still
seems long and cold. We
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
45
class notes
are relatively housebound
because neither Edward
’46 nor I is in decent
health. I have congestive
heart failure, and he has
lost much of his strength.
We live independently in
most aspects. I am strong
enough to wait on him,
although I am very, very
tired. I have always been
able to lose myself in a
book, but I can’t read now
because he wants my
undivided attention and
conversation. Frankly, I
have run out of conversation after more than 70
years.
I have told everyone who
matters how much I love
them, as has Edward;
I have divided out my
treasures, and I have no
idea what the children and
grandchildren will do with
all the stuff we collected
over the years. Just think
of all the magnificent
photographs Edward has
taken. Did you know he
took photographs of each
of the roses in the rose
garden at Swarthmore,
put them in an album, and
presented it to the College? I have no idea how
many quilts I have made
and given away, but there
are still so many beautiful
pieces of fabric in my
stash. I hope someone will
treasure all the books I
have kept and enjoyed.
But none of this matters.
Our legacy is our family,
and each is a superb human being in her/his own
fashion; there is no way I
could be prouder. I know
that each of our souls
will return to another
infant, whom I hope will
have as wonderful a life
as I have had—a life that
Swarthmore has been at
the center of since Edward
and I met in the Commons
so many years ago.
46
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
1946
Nancy Fitts Donaldson
n.f.donaldson@gmail.com
It seems that most of the
information falls in the
obituary column. It is no
surprise as we are now in
our 90s and those of us
who read the Bulletin have
outlived our four score
and 10 allotted years by
some measure. I do hope
those of you who are able
will send positive news for
our next edition—news of
your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, as well as your travels, books you’re reading,
and TV shows you enjoy.
Such information will liven
up this column and be of
interest to classmates.
Pat Frank Carey died in
March at home in Rye,
N.Y., leaving husband
John, three sons, and a
daughter. Pat founded
and for many years was
president of the Rye Arts
Center. Her bright smile
and bubbling enthusiasm
will be missed.
Mary “Molly” Keay
Adams died in January at
home in Wayland, Mass.
She was predeceased
by husband Dwight,
but leaves one son, two
daughters, and five grandchildren. She received a
master’s degree in library
science and served as
librarian at the Wayland
Middle School for 17 years.
Molly and I attended high
school and played sports
together but had no contact for years, as she did
not attend reunions.
Our 70th Reunion is fast
upon us. Nancy Smith
Hayden and Kinnie Clarke
Schmidt are making plans
for the day. I hope to see
you there, at which time I
SUMMER 2016
hope to find another class
notes secretary, as I’ve
done this job since our
65th Reunion. Please let
me know if you’d like to
take over.
1947
W. Marshall Schmidt
kinmarshal@aol.com
Somber news: Grace Kemp
Harris died Jan. 18 in Fort
Collins, Colo., surrounded
by family and friends.
Days before, she had celebrated her 90th birthday
with all her children and
grandchildren.
Grace was a lifelong volunteer. Through the Rocky
Mountain Conference
of the United Methodist
Church, she co-organized
church rebuilding trips to
Angola after almost 30
years of civil war. Grace,
who spent her early years
in Angola as the daughter
of Methodist missionaries,
remembered Africa fondly,
watching her father, a
doctor and surgeon, work
in strikingly beautiful places like the Pungo Andongo
Rocks and Kalandula Falls.
Grace received a
master’s in biology from
Wesleyan University. She
worked in developmental
biology research at Princeton and then in a lab at
Harvard Medical School.
While in the Boston area,
she met Dwight Harris,
who was finishing his
doctorate at MIT, and the
two married in 1952. For
the next 33 years, Grace
and Dwight moved across
the country for his jobs in
mining engineering and
metallurgy, retiring in 1985
in Clayton, Wash., near
Dwight’s boyhood home.
Grace also continued her
education with programs
in childhood education
and nutrition. She worked
for the Head Start program in Ventura County,
Calif., for several years.
The couple moved to
Fort Collins in 1997 to be
near son Rodney. Grace’s
volunteer activities included action on affordable
housing, voter education,
peace advocacy, and
economic development in
underserved communities,
including work at the Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation
in South Dakota. Her
outreach projects helped
establish a cooperative
preschool in Pennsylvania, an annual Crop
Walk fundraising event in
California, and a Habitat
for Humanity chapter in
Spokane, Wash.
Grace was predeceased
by Dwight, son Craig, and
two sisters. She is survived by sons Alexander
’78 and Rodney, daughter
Donna, a sister, and three
grandchildren.
In happier news, Kinnie
’46 and I had a pleasant
visit with Liz Crawford
Uhlman in early March
at her apartment in
Sanibel, Fla. We had two
lovely hours comparing
grandchildren and old
times at Swarthmore. Her
son drove her back home
to Bowling Green, Ohio, in
mid-March.
1948
Philip Gilbert
plgilbert@aol.com
I received an update of
class telephone numbers
and have been calling
around. Though many
report limited movement,
there was much pleasure
in those calls, even for
members whom I did not
know well. I suggest trying
a few such calls—it is like
a daily reunion.
Sadly, Jane Ann Jones
Smith’s husband, Donald
’47, died March 24. He was
my first roommate and
a friend all these years.
Don earned a master’s
from Polytechnic Institute
of Brooklyn in 1951 and
retired as president of the
consulting engineering
firm of Andrews & Clark in
1989. He is survived by his
wife, three children, and
six grandchildren.
Charles Bestor died Jan.
16 at home in Amherst,
Mass. The composer
and educator studied at
Yale, Juilliard, and the
University of Illinois at
Urbana–Champaign, and
received a doctorate from
the University of Colorado
Boulder. He began his
career at Juilliard, where
in 1958, he, wife Ann Elder
Bestor ’51, and three sons
accompanied the Juilliard
Orchestra on their State
Department-sponsored
European tour. Ann died in
1999. Charles is survived
by six children and five
grandchildren.
Isabel “Brownie” Brown
Galligan died Nov. 14
under hospice care in
Kalamazoo, Mich. Brownie
came from an artistic
family and painted primarily in watercolor. She
met husband Edward at
Swarthmore during World
War II, and they were
married 62 years, until
his 2011 death. Brownie
was the secretary to the
provost at Kalamazoo
College for many years.
She is survived by two
sons, two grandchildren,
and a sister.
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
MATT RIGGLE
ALUMNI PROFILE
Esther Ridpath Delaplaine ’44 took action after seeing the segregation at Glen Echo
Amusement Park’s pool in the early ’60s.
A FRIEND TO ALL
Swarthmore led her to civil rights work
by Carrie Compton
MONTHS BEFORE picketing, headlines, lawsuits, and arrests rocked
Maryland’s Glen Echo Amusement
Park in summer 1960, Esther Ridpath
Delaplaine ’44 and Mary Lou Rogers Munts ’45 watched a throng of
exuberant white schoolchildren dash
from a yellow school bus toward the
park’s pool and wondered where their
black classmates were.
The pair, reunited by chance a few
years earlier in the Bannockburn
neighborhood of Bethesda, sought
answers from the head of the county’s
recreation department.
“The black students get to swim,” he
reassured them. “They go to a pool in
Washington, D.C.”
“We said, ‘Aha! That’s separate, but
not equal,’” remembers Delaplaine,
who was recently honored with the
Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian
Award in Montgomery County, Md., for
her work to desegregate the park and
to pass a public accommodations law
in the county.
Outraged by the discrimination
and led by Munts and Delaplaine, the
left-leaning Bannockburn neighbors
presented a united front to desegregate
the park just before a wave of sit-ins by
African-American students swept the
country.
In early June 1960, Howard University students had integrated lunch
counters in nearby Alexandria, Va., and
were confident of a quick victory at the
park, too. With one day’s notice, Bannockburn organizers prepared lemonade and cookies for the student protesters. Delaplaine, her late husband,
John ’41, and their five children under
10—one still in a stroller—walked the
picket line every day that summer and
organized their neighbors’ participation. The summer was fraught with
students’ arrests, clashes with park
security, and a menacing presence by
the American Nazi Party.
“All of the credit goes to the students,” says Delaplaine, a retired social
worker. “As white people, we were just
spinning our wheels trying to get the
park integrated—their presence and
commitment gave it the thrust.”
The Bannockburn neighbors—composed largely of members of the old
Left, some of whom had been in labor
unions since the ’30s—were skilled
protesters and organizers. As a picket
captain, Delaplaine helped make
placards for demonstrators, leaflets for
passers-by, and schedules to keep the
line manned.
When summer 1960 drew to a close
without acquiescence from the park’s
owners, demonstrators vowed to
return the following summer. Over the
winter, the park owners announced a
nonsegregation policy, and Munts and
Delaplaine organized a countywide
committee to support a model accommodation that banned racial discrimination
in places serving the public. After
extensive public hearings, it was passed.
“This achievement helped me
realize how it is possible for a few
concerned individuals to organize and
bring about social change,” she says.
Delaplaine and Munts’s civil rights
teamwork dates back to when they
joined with other Swarthmoreans to
successfully petition the College to admit its first black student in fall 1945.
Munts, who died in 2013, served seven
terms in the Wisconsin Assembly and
was later appointed by the governor
to head the state’s Public Utilities
Commission.
In 2011, Delaplaine was inducted
into the Human Rights Hall of Fame in
Montgomery County for her role in the
picketing, but she always emphasizes
Munts’s leadership.
“Mary Lou was the real visionary—I
was just her lieutenant,” Delaplaine
says, adding with a laugh, “I get all the
credit because I’ve lived so long.”
Delaplaine, who became a Quaker
after graduating from Swarthmore,
nowadays never leaves home without
a Black Lives Matters pin on her lapel.
Each Sunday, she holds a sign in a
Black Lives Matter public vigil near
her meetinghouse.
“Swarthmore was my alma mater in
the truest sense,” she says. “It was my
whole education. It’s where I got my
values.”
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
47
class notes
1949
Robert Norman
robert.z.norman@dartmouth.
edu
Marjorie Merwin Daggett
mmdaggett@verizon.net
Nita and I, Bob, explored
the contrasts along the
border between California
and Baja California.
At the Pacific end, the
border features a 14-foothigh wall. On the U.S. side
near the wall are rolls of
barbed wire and beyond
that, scrubland, part of
which is a county park.
The wall has reduced the
number of migrants, but
doesn’t discourage illegal
immigration entirely.
A few feet away on the
Mexican side is a small
but lovely Tijuana city
park, with lots of flowers.
The wall is decorated in
one part with attractive
artwork and in another
with political graffiti.
Tijuana extends right up
to the wall. All three parts
of the city we visited were
very clean. In contrast, the
streets of San Francisco,
which I visited later, had
lots of trash bags and
litter.
Farther east in the
sandy desert, we found
an RV park with lots of
dune-buggy vacationers
from the U.S. and Canada,
while the other side
of the fence in Mexico
was mostly desert. We
toured the famous Tecate
brewery and had lunch
in Puerto Nuevo, famous
for its lobsters. Lobsters?
Anyone from Maine would
cringe at calling these
giant crayfish “lobsters,”
even if they tasted good.
In January Ted Wright
and wife Sue took a Road
48
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
Scholar cruise of the
upper Amazon, which is
in Peru before the river
enters Brazil. They saw
colorful birds, monkeys,
tarantulas, boa constrictors, and three native
villages. He writes, “We
were supposed to attend
a conference in India in
March but the panel I
was to be on collapsed
because of visa difficulties
for Pakistanis going into
India. We had my 90th
birthday party April 2 and
will celebrate again with
my California relatives
by way of the Canadian
Rockies in mid-July. I have
found that out-of-town
friends and relatives are
no longer able to travel
great distances.
Nancy Gibbons Walden
’53 has moved into Glen
Eddy, our retirement community. “Sad news is that
one of our daughters has
separated from her husband despite three kids.”
More sad news: John
Kennedy died Jan. 8 in
Ithaca, N.Y. He studied
philosophy at Swarthmore and received a law
degree from Yale in 1952.
After marrying Barbara
Allen in 1957, he moved to
Rockland County, N.Y., to
join his father’s law firm
before beginning his own
practice. He is survived
by his wife; children Ian
Kennedy, Caitlin Kennedy
Loehr ’87, Meghan Kennedy, and Sean Kennedy ’93;
brother Irving Kennedy
’53; sister Karen Yearsley;
and 10 grandchildren.
Our class philosopher,
Bill Hirsch, writes, “Recently at a dinner party
I replied to an oft-heard
World War II inquiry: Why
did the Allies not bomb
the Auschwitz death camp
rail station? Rather than
restate my view, I wonder
what others might have to
say, through knowledge
or any other influence, on
that disturbing subject.”
SUMMER 2016
I, Bob, suggest that our
classmates get opinions
by asking at their dinner
parties.
Bill concludes, “Not quiet
on any front.”
1950
Dot Watt Williams
william4@illinois.edu
Tom Kinney enjoys
independent living in a
health facility in northern
Ohio. He has a photo of
Josephine “Finy” Krimsky
Hansen at 16 and would
send it to her if he knew
her address. Finy, if you’d
like to have it, let me know.
Carlos Luria, after enjoying the dental delights
of Costa Rica, went to
Switzerland in June. He
and Ann rented a condo in
the Bernese Oberland for
a couple of weeks, after
determining that it was
“handicapped accessible.”
He wasn’t quite sure the
rest of the country was
(all those Alps), so they
considered spending the
two weeks on their balcony, which had a lovely
view of Mount Eiger.
James McKnight still
wants to share news
about global warming
and invites classmates to
visit summerhillbiomass.
com, an alternative fuel
system company, or www.
letscoolitglobally.info, his
blog. These report have
specifics about reversing
global warming within the
foreseeable future. You
can email Jim at james.
jtmcknight@gmail.com.
Jerome Ravetz contributed an article about the
crisis of quality to The
Rightful Place of Science:
Science on the Verge,
published by Arizona State
University and available
on Amazon.com.
For the first time in many
years, Gertrude “Gee-Gee”
Joch Robinson spent
Christmas with daughter
Wendy and her family in
Corvallis, Ore., where four
generations of Gee-Gee’s
family assembled. They
enjoyed hikes around
the university town of
Corvallis as well as visits
to Newport and its aquarium. Gee-Gee traveled to
Oregon with youngest son
Beren, a fish biologist at
the University of Guelph
in Ontario, Canada, and
her grandchildren Calder,
21, who studies ocean
science in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, and Oriana, 16,
a high school student
in a French-immersion
program.
Jane Hooper Mullins
was pleased when her
globe-trotting daughter,
Polly, phoned to say she
had to be in New York
on Janie’s birthday and
suggested Janie take
the train from Kendal to
join Polly; her husband,
Mike; and Jane’s cousin,
Jacquie, from Westchester
for lunch. But Janie was
astonished as other members of her family began
arriving from all over the
U.S.—her children from
Oregon, Minnesota, and
Rhode Island; a niece from
Colorado; plus grandchildren, two nephews, and
a great-niece. Polly had
used her frequent flyer
miles and hotel chits to
bring in all the relatives.
“We ate, talked, walked
the High Line, and went
to Ellis Island. Everyone
had a grand time,” Janie
reports.
I, Dot, visited Pat
Edwards Weston in her
gorgeous new 13th-floor
apartment overlooking
the Caloosahatchee
River in Fort Myers, Fla.,
near daughter Amy. The
spacious apartment is a
perfect setting for the art
that she and Jim collected
when they lived in Mexico.
I’m happy to report that
our May Queen of 66
years ago (remember May
Queens?) is as beautiful
as ever.
Sadly, we have lost three
classmates. We send our
sympathy to their families.
William Kunder, of Port
Charlotte, Fla., and Manahawkin, N.J., died Jan. 29
at his daughter’s home in
Mystic Island, N.J. Born
in Philadelphia, he was a
lifelong Eagles and Phillies
fan. During World War II,
Bill served in the Army
Air Corps and attended
Swarthmore and Drexel
University. After 36 years
with IBM, he and his wife
retired to Florida, where
they were active in the
Native Plant Society. Bill
is survived by his wife, a
sister, three children, eight
grandchildren, and five
great-grandchildren.
John deVeer died in December. Born in Brooklyn,
he served in the Navy and
received a master’s in
applied mathematics from
Harvard after graduating from Swarthmore in
electrical engineering.
He spent much of his
career at IBM as a senior
engineer, and was part
of a team that designed
computers for the U.S.
space program. He was
also a talented woodworker and enjoyed restoring
his pre-Revolutionary War
home. He was married to
Priscilla Peirce deVeer
for 65 years. In addition
to Pris, he is survived
by two children and two
grandchildren.
Aase Arnold Loescher
died in November. Born
in Brooklyn, she spent
much of her childhood in
Norway and the U.S. After
graduating from Swarthmore, she won a Fulbright
scholarship and studied
in Bergen, Norway. In
1953, she married Samuel
Loescher ’44, professor
of economics at Indiana
University. She was a
devoted peace activist;
in 2009, Monroe County
(Ind.) Church Women
United gave her its first
Human Rights Award for
her “unwavering belief in
the importance of peace.”
She is survived by three
children and six grandchildren.
1951
Elisabeth “Liesje”
Boessenkool Ketchel
eketchel@netscape.com
Thanks to all who shared
some news. It makes my
job easy and interesting.
Joy Sundgaard Kaiser
writes, “Tempus certainly
has fugited. Sixty-five
years! I hope everyone in
our class is as content as I
am. (I exclude the political
scene. There is much to be
deplored—as usual.)
“If any of Swarthmore’s
recent graduates wants
advice about where to
retire, I would prescribe
a university town near
a big city, such as Palo
Alto, Calif., near Stanford
and San Francisco, an
ideal combination. Plus,
we have the coast and its
glorious beaches—and
the mountain and foothill
trails nearby.
“We’ve lived here over
20 years—the longest
either Herb ’49 or I have
lived anywhere. We enjoy
access to world-class music, theater, art, and—very
important at our ages—
health care. Happily, we
don’t need anything more
than an attentive primarycare doctor.
“We live across the street
from our daughter and
enjoy the company of her
and her husband. We are
slowing down a little. We
switched evening subscriptions to the San Francisco opera and symphony
to matinees to avoid the
nighttime drive.”
Dick Frost shares that
the first review of his new
book (see the spring 2016
issue for more details),
The Railroad and the
Pueblo Indians, came out
Feb. 26. You can find it by
Googling the book’s title.
“If it strikes you as
odd that I published a
scholarly book at age
85, you are right,” Dick
says. “It is beginning to be
noticed in Santa Fe, N.M.
All three public libraries
have ordered copies.” Dick
planned a lunchtime talk
on the book at the New
Mexico History Museum,
and the Santa Fe New
Mexican published an
op-ed he wrote on the
related topic of “whether
one of New Mexico’s
pueblos, Acoma (popularly
known as the ‘Sky City’),
has the right to interfere
with Peter Nabokov’s republication of their sacred
origin tale, which has no
copyright. This may seem
quixotic to Easterners, but
in New Mexico, with its
long interest in Navajos,
Apaches, and Pueblos,
there is interest and
concern.”
Setha Goodyear Olson
says, “Eric and I have
moved to the continuing
care retirement community Commons in Lincoln,
Mass. Lincoln is a town
over from our old home
in Lexington. We have a
daughter in Lincoln, and
our handicapped son can
reach us. Our other two
kids are farther away.
Eric’s mobility limits us a
little, but there are a lot of
activities here.”
I want to call your
attention to the article
on Winifred Armstrong’s
archiving (Page 36)—an
important achievement of
one of our classmates—
and encourage others to
do likewise.
This interesting note
from Ralph Lee Smith:
“Maybe we should call this
‘The Year When Old Music
Things Got Revived.’ The
first item that woke up
from years of gathering
dust was my Greenwich
Village guitar. It’s a 1958
Martin D-18, the kind that
Doc Watson played. I was
always a top contender for
the title of ‘World’s Most
Hopeless Guitar Player,’
and in time I put the
D-18 away in favor of the
dulcimer. Several years
ago, I gave the D-18 to my
son-in-law, Loy Fankbonner, who can really play.
This year, Loy used it on
his album If. The world
will hear more of the old
Martin now that it is in the
hands of someone who
can do it justice.
CAPTION THIS
“My Greenwich Village
dulcimer, Jean Ritchie
dulcimer No. 228, made
by Jean and her family
in 1968, was included
in the Museum of the
City of New York’s highly
successful exhibit Folk
City. An instrument of the
traditional Kentucky style,
made of walnut with a
spruce top, it was the only
dulcimer in the exhibit and
served as the museum’s
tribute to Jean.
“Back in 1986, I published a book, The Story
of the Dulcimer. The book
went out of print in the
1990s, and copies commanded high prices in the
secondhand book trade.
In January, I signed a
contract with the University of Tennessee Press to
issue a second edition. I
did some updating, and
the book was published in
June.”
1952
Barbara Wolff Searle
bsearle70@msn.com
YOUR CAPTION HERE!
Be creative! Submit a caption by Aug. 5 to bulletin@swarthmore.edu.
To see last issue’s cartoon with suggested captions, go to Page 68.
Walter and Marie Lenfest
Schmitz have news about
their move to a senior-living facility—I’m struck
by how every such story
is different. Please, keep
them coming.
Walter and Marie chose
a place with only 30
units and no meal plan
(although meals are easily
obtained) that is more
intimate and less institutional. With lots of help
from family, they moved
out of their home of 56
years. “We sold the house
ourselves. Next came the
estate sale. Dealing with
the accumulation of a
lifetime has been hard.”
Marie has coped with
illnesses but can take
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
49
class notes
ALAN LLOYD ’51
HONORED ENGINEER
Alan Lloyd ’51 received the 2016 Lifetime Achievement
Award from the Hawaii Council of Engineering Societies. In his 43 years as an engineer, Lloyd identified ways
to improve his customers’ operations and profitability,
and he achieved the prestigious grade of ASHRAE Fellow from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers. He retired in 1996
as the Hawaiian Electric Co.’s executive staff engineer.
short trips, including to
Florida to see twin brother
Gerry and his wife. Gerry
was publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and is
founding chairman of the
soon-to-be-established
Museum of the American
Revolution. Thanks to
Gerry’s generosity, a new
Jaguar XF was delivered
to Marie in April. The
Schmitzes’ letter has more
details of activities—
Walter and Marie enjoy
an active and rich life,
despite health issues that,
sadly, many of us face.
It is with sadness I
report the January death
of Arthur Obermayer,
one of my most faithful
correspondents. A Boston
Globe obituary gave these
highlights: His impact on
Massachusetts politics
began when he and some
others prevailed upon the
Rev. Robert Drinan to run
for office. “Father Drinan
became the first Catholic
priest elected to Congress,
and his victory opened the
political door in Massachusetts to liberal Democrats such as John Kerry
and Barney Frank.”
The obituary also
notes: “In a White House
ceremony last June,
the Obermayers were
inducted into the Small
Business Innovation
Research Hall of Fame for
their pioneering efforts.
For the past 16 years,
meanwhile, Dr. Obermay-
50
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
er turned an inspiration
from a 1997 genealogical
trip to Germany into the
Obermayer German Jewish History Awards. The
awards are given annually
to non-Jewish Germans
who have done extraordinary work in preserving
Jewish history, culture,
synagogues, cemeteries,
and other remnants of the
Jewish past in their own
communities in Germany.”
Art received a doctorate in chemistry from
MIT in 1956. In the early
1960s, he founded the
research and development company Moleculon
in Kendall Square in
Cambridge, Mass. While
building his company, he
met Judith Hirschfield
through friends. She was
finishing a doctorate in
mathematics at Harvard
and teaching at Wellesley
College. They married in
1963. Besides his wife, he
leaves three children and
five grandchildren.
1953
Carol Lange Davis
cldavis5@optonline.net
Bob Fetter and wife Susie
met Mary Bartlett Caskey
for dinner on Siesta Key,
Fla., in the winter. All three
happened to be in Florida
SUMMER 2016
at the same time—Mary
for four weeks and the
Fetters for two. Susie and
Bob spent their first week
with Eleanor Hutcheson
Epler and her husband
around Port St. Lucie.
Tedd Osgood and wife
Dorothy are in their 15th
year at Kendal at Hanover,
a continuing-care retirement community in New
Hampshire, which has fully met their expectations.
Tedd traveled substantially in 2015. He spent
a week in April with a
grad-school housemate
and his wife on a belated
first-time exploration of
Yosemite. In May he joined
a group of British World
Bank retirees for a gathering in Dublin. While there
he toured the Guinness
brewery and Abbey Tavern
and traveled through the
Wicklow Mountains and
on to Glendalough, site of
medieval monastic ruins.
He also drove to Galway to
visit the spectacular Cliffs
of Moher and the peaceful
Aran Islands.
A month later Tedd went
to Mongolia, stopping en
route to visit friends in
Finland. “Traveling via
Helsinki we got to Central
Asia without enduring a
long flight over the Pacific.
In Mongolia we spent
three days in yurt camps
in vastly different terrain:
steppes in the east where
Genghis Khan arose;
mountains, lakes, and
pine forests in the north
near Siberia; and in the
trackless Gobi Desert to
the south where dinosaur
eggs were discovered
in 1923. Each area was
characterized by animal
herding and a nomadic
lifestyle.”
The Osgoods spent much
of July and August at their
cottage at Silver Lake,
N.H., with grandchildren
and friends, including
Jonathan Fine ’54 and
his wife, and Trudy
Mott-Smith ’56. Back
in Hanover, Tedd is line
dancing, resuming bridge
after a 50-year hiatus,
and involved with the
Nevil Shute Norway Foundation. In September he
went to the ninth Biennial
International Nevil Shute
Conference in Oxford,
England, where he dined
with Jerry Ravetz ’50.
I received a note from
Phil Allen about the passing of Lew Dabney. Phil
writes, “Lew was a soul
mate of mine.” Lew was
diagnosed with brain cancer in May 2015. As the
malignancy took its toll, he
was lovingly attended by
wife Sarah, their children,
and their families, and was
visited by friends.
“Best known for his
2005 definitive biography of Edmund Wilson,
Lew took high honors
in English literature at
Swarthmore and his Ph.D.
at Columbia, and lectured
in Sweden as a Fulbright
scholar. He bore witness
to, and exemplified,
extraordinary achievement in letters, advocating
American and English
literature with profound
insight, eloquence, and wit
at Vassar and Smith colleges and the University of
Wyoming. This is a voice
that is already painfully
missed by those of us who
knew him.”
1954
Elizabeth Dun Colten
lizcolten@aol.com
In February, Dick and I
attended the 29th annual
Camden Conference in
Maine. Amazing topic: The
New Africa. This brought
to mind our three courageous African classmates.
Only Rosalind Eronini
Nnubia of Nigeria still
appears on the College
address list. Has anyone
chronicled the others’
lives since 1954?
Tonen Andrews O’Connor
has joined the ranks of
the retired, though she
doesn’t sound “retired”
to me. More than 50 of
her articles were included
in the Milwaukee Zen
Center’s newly published
30 Years of Reflections.
She still officiates at the
Zen Center or one of the
prisons, helps provide
meals for the homeless,
and is active with the
Committee for Interfaith
Understanding. Since fall,
she has traveled extensively, within the U.S. (to
visit family, which includes
four great-grandchildren)
and to Japan.
Larry Franck notified
me of wife Bicky’s death.
Friends during kindergarten in Swarthmore,
they reconnected at a
high school reunion and
shared their lives between
ages 72 and 82. Larry
has homes in Maryland
and Florida and continues to sail, although he
confesses he is slowly
moving toward more power boating. Happily, he is
recovering from a broken
ulnar, caused by tripping
over his boat trailer.
Peter Bart has joined
Deadline as editor at large.
When seeing West Coast
family in March, Raymond
and Mary Wren Swain visited Punky ’55 and Anne
Chandler Fristrom, who
are flourishing in their new
senior community.
Nancy Weller Dorian
and husband Quarnig
happily live in Phoenix.
She has self-published her
husband’s biography, My
Name is Quarnig, available
on Amazon.
Reportable news is
scarce. Remedy? Your input. It’s easy to add a note
on the envelope flap when
you send in your Alumni
Fund donation.
1955
Sally Schneckenburger
Rumbaugh
srumbaugh@san.rr.com
Anne Schick Chappelka
writes, “The past 29 years
have seen us happily
settled in rural central
Pennsylvania, just west
of Harrisburg and down
the street from daughter
Elizabeth Place ’79, her
husband, Mike, and their
five children, though only
two are still at home.
It’s been a rich time of
family, friends, community
involvement, and the more
recent delight of retirement with Rog. Since my
first child was born three
months after graduation,
it’s been easy to reach the
current year with seven
children (three step), 18
grandchildren, and eight
great-grandchildren. Families are coast to coast, but
we keep connected thanks
to the electronic wizardry
that we have struggled
with.” The family plans to
gather at Anne’s home to
“say farewell to a place
each of us has enjoyed
these many years. With
luck it will be sold soon,
as Rog and I have tired of
too much yard and house.
We are in our Harrisburg
apartment until spring,
loving our perch along the
Susquehanna and walking
to all the midtown things
we enjoy. Like others,
we have loved some
wonderful travels—a few
destinations remain on
the wish list—but nesting
stays the special joy.”
About three years ago,
Punky and Anne Chandler
Fristrom ’54 moved to a
retirement community in
San Diego. Punky says,
“I am teaching a monthly
poetry class for the other
residents. Counting my
church school teaching
of youngsters, I have now
covered the age range
from 2 to 99.”
Hank Bode, our class
agent “before the indefatigable Bill Dominick,” had
an interesting career that
led to being president/
CEO of Videojet, a startup
subsidiary of British
General Electric. Videojet,
Hank explains, “commercialized industrial ink-jet
printers, a technology that
allowed rapid application
of use-by codes on food
products among other
things. (See the dot matrix
marks on the bottom of
beer cans or the bar codes
on first-class envelopes.)”
When he retired in 1997,
Videojet had sales of
about $450 million. Since
then, he and wife Susan
have enjoyed travel, 10
grandkids, volunteering,
book clubs, family gatherings, choral singing, and
summers on Cape Cod,
which include woodworking, sailing, “quahogging,”
and forest gardening.
Hank especially enjoys
sailing his 15-foot Marshall catboat on Waquoit
Bay. “My health has been
good—with a few replaced
parts. Connections with
Swarthmoreans, particu-
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
larly the Delta Upsilons,
have been very satisfying.” They recently visited
Nancy and Lee Hallberg
in their Florida retirement
community.
Nancy Sturtevant
Burleson writes of
retirement: “Somehow life
is still very busy and happily centered in the lively
villages of Damariscotta/
Bristol in midcoast Maine.
If you want history,
intellectual activity, music,
the sea, the forest, wildlife—we have it all.” She
lives in a renovated 1768
farmhouse that she and
her husband bought when
she retired. They chose
the area because good
friends Christopher ’54
and Jane Walker Kennedy
lived nearby, and also because Nancy’s family had
come to that area since
the late ’40s, her father’s
family having settled in
inland Maine just after the
Revolutionary War. Five
years ago, after 55 years
of marriage, Nancy lost
her “wonderful husband,”
and, in the last two years,
both Kennedys. Nevertheless, the farmhouse is still
“the homestead” to her
three children and their
families and the center
of holiday celebrations.
Daughter Kate, who lives
about an hour away, is
a business manager for
the Scarborough school
system, while her husband
works with special-needs
adults. Their daughter,
Anna, is a freshman at
Fordham. Son Bill lives
“right here” with his significant other. Their son and
daughter are in their 20s.
Nancy’s youngest, Margy,
recently divorced and lives
in Connecticut with her
two boys, one in middle
school and the other in
ninth grade. Living in the
18th-century house, Nancy
writes, “gives a sense of
rootedness and connection.” Being removed from
some of the current chaos
has given Nancy “perspective on the changes we are
seeing. At each life stage
my thinking, reactions,
and, yes, choices, have
been formed by the
Swarthmore worldview.”
Edward Gelardin offered
that if no column were to
appear, people might start
sending news. I think he’s
an optimist. However, he
gave me the perfect line to
end with: “Please tell the
editors to stop pushing
the Class of ’55’s notes
so far to the front of that
section. It’s scary.”
1956
Caro Luhrs
celuhrs@verizon.net
For some unknown
reason, I received very
little news for this summer
column, which was written
in late March. Hopefully
that’s because many
classmates planned to
come to our 60th Reunion
in June, where they could
personally share their
stories.
Norman Rush recently
reviewed Horacio Castellanos Moya’s latest novel,
The Dream of My Return,
for The New York Review
of Books. He called it “a
character study of victims
of past turbulence” (the
U.S.-sponsored counterinsurgency wars in El
Salvador).
You may recall Norman
won the National Book
Award in 1991 for his novel
Mating. Have you read
his 2013 novel, Subtle
Bodies? It’s about the
joys and tribulations of
marriage and friendship as
old college friends reunite
in upstate New York.
Former Sen. Carl Levin
received the Detroit
Police Athletic League’s
Leadership Award for
helping redevelop the
old Tiger Stadium into
a safe playing field for
kids. Carl is now senior
counsel at a prominent
Detroit law firm. Wayne
State University has created the Levin Center at
Wayne Law, where Carl is
Distinguished Legislator in
Residence.
1957
Minna Newman Nathanson
jm@nathansons.net
Although Carolyn Gaiser
feared her book Promettimi di Non Morire (Promise Me You Won’t Die) had
indeed done so, a literary
blog reprinted a 2013
Roman newspaper review
that raved, “She writes of
people and places with a
rare elegance that reminds
us of great literature.”
Our condolences to
Polly Witte Wright, whose
husband, Rob ’58, a
retired history professor,
died in December at their
retirement home in Cumberland, Maine.
1958
Vera Lundy Jones
549 East Ave.
Bay Head, NJ 08742
verajonesbayhead@
comcast.net
Roy Tawes is a retired
vascular surgeon and
professor of surgery at the
University of California,
San Francisco. Having
published more than 120
academic works, he now
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
51
class notes
writes fast-paced thrillers
under the name R. Lawson
featuring veteran CIA
Agent Biff Roberts, who
helps thwart threats to
the U.S. and its allies.
While visiting friends in
Phoenix, I met Roy and
wife Joyce for breakfast.
It was a lovely opportunity
to renew a college-years
friendship. I recommend
his intriguing, entertaining
novels.
Kay Memelsdorff Johnson has an apartment in
Amsterdam, where son
Patrick ’89 lives with his
wife and two boys. Kay
speaks Dutch but wants to
become fluent, so she took
classes in January and
February while there.
Last year Ginnie Paine
DeForest took a riverboat
trip between Amsterdam
and Ghent, Belgium. The
trip, in late April, included
a visit to Keukenhof gardens outside Amsterdam,
where she saw tulips of
every color and shape. In
September Ginnie went
to Italy with an American
Association of University
Women alumni group,
starting on the Amalfi
Coast, including a visit to
Pompeii, followed by stops
in Rome, Orvieto, Florence, Siena, and Venice.
Tex Wyndham still
teaches Road Scholar
classes and continues to
draw large groups. He also
gives a music seminar for
Road Scholar participants
who are meeting at the
same time as his group,
including those in a golf
program and another in
a choral program. Tex is
quite popular. He also
SUBMIT
your personal
reunion photos to
bulletin@swarthmore.edu
52
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
does musical programs for
various other groups.
1959
Miriam Repp Staloff
staloff@verizon.net
I received a long, interesting letter from Elena
Scott Whiteside—most of
the column is devoted to
quoting and paraphrasing
her words.
“I had been wondering
what I could do for my
children and grandchildren—something that no
one else could. I decided
to give them a good
glimpse of their Russian
roots. Last August oldest
son Nick, 53; his daughters, Bridgett, 19, and
Sydney Rose, 8; and I flew
through Paris, stopping
long enough to see the
Seine and Notre Dame and
to sample real Parisian
crepes. We then flew to
Riga, Latvia, where I have
two cousins and their
offspring, who received
us warmly. We spent one
day swimming in the Baltic
and another walking the
Old Town.
“Accompanied by my
cousin Val, we took the
overnight train to Moscow.
What fun the girls had
sleeping in the upper
bunks. Val was a great
help getting us around
Moscow, including Red
Square and St. Basil’s. The
biggest thrill was traveling
to my grandmother’s village in the heart of Russia.
“It was exactly as I remembered it: dirt streets,
wooden cottages, no
running water, and only
outside toilets. We visited
the cemetery where
my grandparents were
buried and the church my
grandmother attended,
SUMMER 2016
a 5-kilometer walk each
way. We met cousins from
two generations and had
a wonderful time being
embraced and fêted by
our family.
“One additional observation: I could not help but
notice that in Paris, Riga,
and Moscow, I could have
been in NYC. The women
are slim and dressed in
‘stressed and morestressed’ blue jeans. They
walk rapidly, look down at
their smartphones, and
live in the 21st century.
“The trip was wonderful.
The young people got out
of it what they wanted.
Next year I plan to take my
daughter and her family.
But traveling is getting
challenging, and I am
slowing down. I still enjoy
the Swarthmore events I
can attend in NYC. Thank
you for having them.
Love and God bless to all
Swarthmoreans, especially classmates.”
Please share your news.
1960
Jeanette Strasser Pfaff
jfalk2@mac.com
I had asked for comments
from people who had retired from their main occupation. Most respondents
sound even busier than
before retirement.
Charles Jackson: “I
returned to my native
Delaware 20 years ago
after 33 years in Boston
as an editor/publisher and
as judge and commissioner of horse racing in
Massachusetts. Life here
in Newark, three blocks
from the University of
Delaware, has been good
to me and for me. I’m in my
fourth year at UD’s Osher
Lifelong Learning Institute
with classes in Spanish,
Portuguese, German, and
history, and a seminar for
writers. I was Delaware
state president of AARP
for four years, and in
January I accepted the
position of clerk of the
Hockessin Friends Meeting, the Quaker meeting in
which I grew up in the ’40s
and ’50s. I have enjoyed
our annual reunions and
remain loyal and thankful
to Swarthmore for opening
the doors of my mind.
I have no intention of
closing them.”
Joan Bond Sax: “You
do mean ‘main’ not ‘mail’
occupation, don’t you? I
was catching up on my
email this morning after
several days of ignoring
it and wondered if I could
completely retire from my
(e)mail occupation. As for
retirement from my main
occupation, I have slid into
‘retirement’ gradually and
by omission, so to speak.
That is, I still translate
when, and only when, I
feel like it and I have nothing more pressing to do,
such as go on a hike, visit
doctors (far too frequently, alas, for me and my
husband), or visit friends.
I still read blogs about
energetic translators a few
decades younger than me
talking about marketing
and getting ahead. I heave
a sigh of relief that I am
not in that rat race … and
then I take a walk.”
Bill and Linda Rothwell
Lee: “Having just returned
from a cruise to the Panama Canal and Costa Rica
with alumni from Dartmouth and Smith colleges,
we are expecting soon to
hear that the unit we want
at Kendal at Hanover, a
continuing-care retirement community in New
Hampshire, is available.
We have been on a waiting
list for more than 10 years.
(By the way, we just saw
the announcement of the
May opening of the Inn at
Swarthmore. It looks like a
wonderful addition to the
town and campus.)”
Norm Sarachek: “Jett
and I visited northern Italy
for our 25th anniversary,
seeing little Lake Orta,
Verona, Venice, and Milan.
We are teaching a oneweek course in August at
the GoggleWorks Center
for the Arts in Reading
Pa., ‘The Next Step:
Composing and Creating
the Personal Photograph.’
I am also teaching a
three-day course on the
cameraless photographic
process, ‘The Chemigram.’
Jett still teaches yoga and
is an art therapist with the
Cancer Support Group.
I was delighted to have
Swarthmore purchase
three of my silver gelatin
chemigrams for the Inn
at Swarthmore. Although
I spend way too much
time on Facebook, it is an
amazing way to learn and
communicate.”
Susan Turner: “Listservs
for my church, neighborhood, chorus, and the
Country Dance and Song
Society, in addition to
Facebook, are all ways
I enjoy hearing about
people’s lives. But there’s
nothing like a warm body
to talk with. I’m having a
student move in now that
I have three bedrooms,
and I’m going to enjoy the
company. (We are really
not meant to live alone.) I
had a lovely woman from
the Galapagos Islands
stay for three months. I
had to keep the heat at
72 just for her. The house
is 100 years old, so my
almost-equally-old boiler
kept running out of water
for the radiators.”
You may have noticed
that I, Jeanette, have a
new name. Richard Pfaff
and I married April 9.
Richard is a historian of
medieval England and also
an ordained Episcopal
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
priest. More important,
I can say that this smart
little girl with no heart has
found her a wonderful
guy. We both live at Carol
Woods, a retirement community, and plan to keep
our addresses as they are.
For now, my email also
remains the same.
1961
Pat Myers Westine
pat@westinefamily.com
As I write, in late March,
the cherry blossoms
are blooming in nearby
Washington, D.C., thus
heralding the beginning of
spring. My thanks to those
of you who answered my
questions at the end of
the last column and sent
me updates on your retirement activities. Judy Davis
Riggle in Ohio enjoys having five other Swatties at
Kendal at Oberlin, where
she and husband Tom, two
dogs, and a cat moved in
August. Judy sums up the
tranquility: “I am watching
the snow and the cat
perched on my sewing
(quilting) machine in the
14-foot window, 1,000
puzzle pieces are turned
out on my design/cutting
table, and I’m surrounded by things that have
sentimental value.” She’s
still treasurer of an anti-fracking-pipeline group
and for the campaign of a
League of Women Voters
friend who is running
for city council. She has
served 20 years on the
Curriculum Committee for
the Center for Lifelong
Learning and still plays
tennis, which she did at
Swarthmore.
Ann Mercer Klein writes
from Savannah, Ga., that
she and husband Jeff still
work in the family business (Closet and Cabinet
Experts). He sells and designs; she works two days
a week in the showroom.
She has learned a complex
computer program at 77,
and two years ago they
started a conference for
independent closet companies needing to build
their businesses. The
attendance has doubled
and the group will meet
this year in Alexandria,
Va. Son Josh now heads
the business and runs the
conference.
Ann enjoys taming
the wild deer on their
island and working in her
garden/orchard/trellis
area. Last year she started
growing milkweed to help
the beleaguered monarch
butterfly and “graduated”
a dozen, hoping for more
this year. The Kleins have
hosted travel club and
B&B guests for more than
30 years and have made
friends around the world.
According to Bob and
Dorothy Smith Pam’s
holiday letter, Dorothy
teaches communication,
public speaking, and
English composition
at Holyoke Community
College in Massachusetts
and spends a lot of time
with her grandchildren,
Lily, 6, and Oliver, 8.
Daughter Caroline and her
husband run their nearby
Kitchen Garden Farm,
providing vegetables to
fine restaurants from
Boston to Brooklyn. Last
fall Bob and Dorothy saw
several plays in New York.
Like many of us, they also
exercise at the YMCA
several times a week.
I received several letters
mourning Dick Quarles.
Tom Hodgson ’62 remembered Dick’s “helpful and
comforting” friendship
when Tom was a freshman
and wished that they had
reconnected when Tom
returned to the D.C. area
IN MEMORIAM
Alumni death notices received by the College from Feb. 14
through May 14, 2016.
1947
1961
Donald Smith
March 24, 2016
Barbara Price
Feb. 18, 2016
1949
1962
Lloyd Craighill Jr.
March 28, 2016
Harris Fischer
Dec. 20, 2015
Caroline Underwood
Feb. 26, 2016
Kathleen Blau Shapiro
Jan. 24, 2016
Nicole Fischer Hahn Rafter
Feb. 29, 2016
1942
1950
1970
Mary Nute Craighill
April 13, 2016
Bonnie Betts Armbruster
March 1, 2016
Janet Hostetter Doehlert
Feb. 28, 2016
1971
1934
Gertrude Mitchell Bell
Feb. 19, 2016
1937
John Wood Jr.
April 1, 2016
1941
Eleanore Green Akina
March 29, 2016
Donald Pelz
Feb. 27, 2016
Mary Steeves Shern
April 19, 2016
1951
Betty Bowen West
Jan. 31, 2016
Ruth Alexander Finser
Feb. 7, 2016
1943
Jack Meier
Feb. 17, 2016
Ira Greenhill
Feb. 21, 2016
1952
Beatrice Brewster Linton
Feb. 26, 2016
Janet Letts
Dec. 28, 2015
1944
Eldon Woodcock
Jan. 28, 2016
William Busing
April 14, 2016
1953
Matson Ewell
March 8, 2016
Elizabeth Alden Bowers
Dec. 15, 2015
1945
1954
Janet Stanley Mustin
March 10, 2016
Barbara Hill Lindsay
Oct. 8, 2015
1946
1955
Patricia Frank Carey
March 17, 2016
Gwilym Owen Jr.
Feb. 6, 2016
Elizabeth Roberts Gonzalez
Oct. 6, 2015
1958
Martha Hill Renda
June 9, 2013
Anna Coombs Rohrer
May 1, 2016
Adrienne Sutton Cosenza
April 11, 2013
1973
William Epstein
Jan. 15, 2016
1979
Emily Hope Simson
April 8, 2016
1981
Janet Taylor
Feb. 1, 2016
1985
Webster O’Brien
Nov. 29, 2015
Molly Roth
March 9, 2016
David Porter
March 26, 2016
1960
Vivi-Ann Hall Lowe
Oct. 18, 2015
Harriet Shorr
April 9, 2016
SUMMER
SUMMER 2016
2016
// Swarthmore
Swarthmore College
College Bulletin
Bulletin
53
53
class notes
to work at the Centers
for Disease Control
and Prevention. Steve
Davidson shared rides to
and from the College from
Baltimore when he and
Dick were underclassmen.
Steve remembers, “There
was no artifice about him;
what you saw is who he
really was. He was kind,
generous, and modest.”
Dick was a fine athlete
who played soccer and
lacrosse; in fact, one
year his picture was on
the cover of a national
lacrosse booklet. Steve
attended Dick’s first
wedding, lost contact, and
then reconnected at our
50th Reunion.
By the time you read this,
our 55th Reunion will be
over, but I hope many of
you echo Steve’s feeling
that “we never are able to
make up for lost time” and
that you made the effort to
come, reconnect, and reminisce. I will report on the
festivities in the next class
notes. Please send me
your news and updates,
especially if you cannot
come to the reunion.
1962
Evelyn Edson
268 Springtree Lane
Scottsville, VA 24590
eedson@pvcc.edu
It was a nice surprise
to receive a lovely little
print, “Birches in Winter,”
from John Wright. He and
Elly Faber Wright ’64 are
taking a printmaking class
and he attends the Quaker
meeting in Evanston, Ill.
From John Nesbitt: “I am
90 percent retired from a
very satisfying career in
internal medicine. I still
read EKGs at our hospital
and volunteer as medical
54
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
director of our free clinic.
Married for 45 years to
Lucy, and we have three
sons—no grandchildren.
Hobbies are cycling and
cutting firewood.”
An annual letter from
Walt and Elizabeth
“Bonnie” Holden Carter
detailed their busy schedules. Walt is a member
of two book groups, one
conversation group, a
walking group, a French
conversation group, and
two boards (Normandy Allies and the 29th Division
Association), and took
three courses in the spring
and fall terms at Brandeis
University. “Without
the pressure of exams,
papers, and grades,
the result is increased
familiarity with the topics,
but nothing approaching
expertise. The material
mostly goes in one ear and
out the other, creating a
pleasant sensation while
passing through.” Bonnie
plays the flute with three
ensembles and serves on
the board of the League of
Women Voters.
After my last appeal for
news, Herb Taylor took
pity. His twin brother,
Walter, in Boulder, Colo.,
is involved in Buddhism
and watercolor painting.
“I remember Professor
Hedley Rhys showing a
slide of Bernini’s statue
of the Medici brothers
illustrating the active
and contemplative life,
thinking that could be us,
with me being the ‘active.’”
Herb continues to hike,
mostly in the Western
canyons, and makes
musical instruments. “Up
to No. 218 now, mostly
uncommon things players
can’t find at their music
store, like Irish bouzoukis,
octave mandolins, tenor
guitars, and now a Nordic-style låtmandola, and,
hopefully, a harp-guitar.”
(See herbtaylor.com.)
SUMMER 2016
Harris Fischer died
Dec. 20. After Swarthmore, he went to Stony
Brook University, where
he earned a Ph.D. in
solid-state physics. He
then headed a consulting
team in the nation’s first
county-level environmental department in Suffolk
County, N.Y., and spent
eight years as a senior
scientist at Brookhaven
National Laboratory in
health and environmental
risk assessment. Harris
then worked as director
of environmental services
and later as director of
marketing for Lockwood,
Kessler & Bartlett, retiring
in 2005. He often reminisced about his Swarthmore courses, pranks, and
lifelong friends, including
Sandy and Izzie Phillips
Williams ’63, with whom
he and wife Judy always
celebrated New Year’s.
Harris is survived by his
wife and their sons, John
and Charlie.
Nicole Fischer Hahn
Rafter, a professor of
criminology at Northeastern University, died Feb.
29. She began her career
as a high school teacher
and English professor, but
switched to criminal justice in her mid-30s. She
took interest in the plight
of women in the criminal
justice system and wrote a
number of books, including Gender, Prisons, and
Prison History and White
Trash: The Eugenic Family
Studies, 1877–1919. In the
early 21st century, she
published several books
on crime films, including
Badfellas: Movie Psychos,
Popular Culture, and
Law. She also published
The Criminal Brain:
Understanding Biological
Theories of Crime. She is
survived by her children,
Alex and Sarah Hahn.
Thanks to all who wrote.
Stay well.
1963
Diana Judd Stevens
djsteven1@verizon.net
In March, Carl and Holly
Humphrey Taylor celebrated their 75th birthdays
in Tucson, Ariz. (Let me
know how you celebrated
or will celebrate yours.) To
get more time to hike, locate archaeological sites,
camp, and be less responsible, Carl and Holly are
giving up a few volunteer
activities (Master Chorale,
symphony board) and
continuing with others
(Flagstaff Arts Council,
Friends of Flagstaff Area
Monuments, Willow Bend
Environmental Education
Center, and the Unitarian
Universalist Church).
It’s been awhile since I
checked the current 1963
address list provided by
the College against the
previous year’s. In comparing them, I noted the
following changes: Alison
Archibald Anderson has a
new Philadelphia address;
Susan Guettel Cole’s
address has changed
from Buffalo, N.Y., to Ann
Arbor, Mich.; Bob Harnwell
has a new address in
West Chester, Pa.; and
Bill Raich’s address has
changed from Philadelphia
to Washington, D.C.
Travelers: Jane Jonas
Srivastava had almost as
much fun meeting up with
Nancy Hall Colburn Farrell
while hiking in Patagonia in 2004 as she did
English country dancing
in Hawaii last winter with
Paula Dale, director of
the Swarthmore Campus
and Community Store,
and Paula’s husband,
Martin Warner, Swarthmore’s registrar. During
a vacation, Barbara
Seymour and Jim Patton
spent time with Anne
Welsh and her husband
at the Costa Rican home
of Anne’s twin sister. Carl
and Elizabeth Northrop
Jockusch ’64 were in
Hawaii last winter snorkeling, whale watching, and
playing tennis. Though he
is retired from teaching
math at the University
of Illinois, Carl still does
mathematical research
and is active in Spanish
and German conversation
groups. In February, Dave
’62 and Alice Handsaker
Kidder spent two weeks in
Guam visiting son Steve
and his family. Steve flies
for United Airlines and is
based there. Before their
trip, the Kidders hosted
two Swatties doing externships around Boston.
Future travelers: Abby
Pollak and Helen are
taking the grandchildren
to Paris and Ile de Re,
France, this summer. Also
this summer, Dan and Betsy Maxfield Crofts plan
to travel abroad with their
daughters to celebrate
their 50th wedding anniversary. In July, Carl and
Holly Humphrey Taylor will
attend a first-ever family reunion organized by
daughter Natalia at Edisto
Beach, S.C. Twenty-three
are expected, many of
whom have never met.
Milestones: Just in time
for this year’s elections,
Polly Glennan Watts
registered to vote for the
first time in 45 years, in
her new home state of
Florida. (As a Virgin Island
resident for those years,
Polly could not vote for
the U.S. president.) Earlier
this year, Polly returned
to St. Thomas to receive
an award (along with husband Fred, posthumously)
at The Family Resource
Center’s Peacemaker Gala
in recognition of their service. There was a record
attendance of more than
200 at the gala.
Kathie Kertesz is substitute teaching almost every
day, singing in a choir,
figuring out things like
housing and health, and
always having time for fun.
Gail MacColl spent her
birthday moving dirt in the
foundation of a Habitat for
Humanity rehab condo.
She plays with music
groups and spends time
visiting late husband Al’s
children and grandchildren in Texas and Florida.
Seth Armstrong and Dave
McLanahan are working
to establish Medicare for
All (single payer) through
Physicians for a National
Health Plan.
Earlier this year, Bruce
Leimsidor wrote from
Astrakhan, Russia, where
he, at the invitation of
the State University and
the Russian Migration
Ministry, was a visiting professor teaching
courses on European
Union asylum law and
practice. Bruce was also
acting as an adviser on
the Russian program for
hundreds of thousands of
Ukrainian refugees fleeing
the conflict in eastern
Ukraine. (Astrakhan is
one of the most polyethnic cities in Russia, and
the first port of call for
refugees and economic
migrants.) Additionally,
Bruce was examining the
deteriorating situation for
Russia’s gay population
under homophobic laws
instituted a few years ago.
From Russia, Bruce went
to Odessa, Ukraine, to
teach at the Law Academy.
Last fall, Bruce was in
the U.S. on a lecture tour
sponsored by the German
government to talk about
the migration crisis in
Germany and the rest of
Europe. He spoke at UC
Berkeley, Brandeis, the
University of Arizona, and
the University of Minnesota. As a Facebook friend of
Bruce, I find his postings
on the migration crisis and
other current issues very
interesting.
I am finishing these notes
after a three-hour lunch
at Barbara Seymour’s with
Claire Thurman, Carol Finneburgh Lorber, Martha
Baird Ralphe, and Ricky
Strong Batt. Our conversation covered many topics, including travel, the
election, painting, plans
as we age, and friends. We
agreed with the research
that shows the vital importance of friends. Thank
you, friends, for sharing
your news.
1964
Diana Bailey Harris
harris.diana@gmail.com
As Peter Freedman notes,
“It seems like I just wrote
you.” Very true, and it’s
probably a good thing.
Even though we’re Garnet
Sages now, there’s still
a lot of news—we’re a
tenacious bunch.
Peter and Lynda “are
heading to Clarksdale,
Miss., in April to the Juke
Joint Festival—a great
place to hear the blues up
close and personal.
“As usual, summer will
take us to the East Coast
to visit children, grandchildren, nephews, and
sibs, starting in Baltimore
and Amtrak-ing our way
to Boston via Philadelphia
and New York,” Peter
writes. “I’m now the oldest
in our immediate family,
as my dad’s second wife
passed away a few months
ago. My 74th birthday was
in March, although I do
have a 99-year-old cousin
in NYC. Life is good,
with occasional, but not
serious, physical impediments—a slightly strained
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
Achilles at the moment.
Itching to get back to the
pingpong table!”
John Simon “felt poorly
on and off all fall and
blamed it on this damn flu
hanging on. Finally, thank
God, I had a little pain in
my right lower quadrant
and Kaiser gave me a CAT
scan. ‘The good news is,
it’s not appendicitis,’ the
doc told me. ‘The bad
news is, it’s worse.’ Turned
out to be an aggressive
malignant retroperitoneal
liposarcoma that tripled
its volume in the endless
month between discovery
and excision. I spent a
week in the hospital writing sonnets and doing laps
of the floor while tugging
my IV pole.
“The best news is they
got it all: The margins
were clear; no metastasis
within limits of detection;
and I don’t need chemo
or radiation, just biannual
CAT scans to catch the
beast if it comes back. My
strength returns slowly.
After six weeks, I’ve
started teaching poetry to
my granddaughter’s second-grade class. I’m off
red meat and sugar; now
everything tastes sweet.
In May, the Berkeley
Poetry Festival gave me
its Lifetime Achievement
Award.”
Bernie Beitman reports,
“New grandson Max arrived Jan. 23 joining sister
Zoe, 2, in Cambridge,
Mass., and rounding out
the family of son Aaron
and his wife, Liza. My
book Connecting with
Coincidence: The New
Science for Using Synchronicity and Serendipity
in Your Life was released
March 7.”
Peter Linebaugh also
has a new book. “The Incomplete, True, Authentic,
and Wonderful History of
May Day tells the story
of the red and the green:
‘Green is a relationship to
the earth and what grows
therefrom. Red is a relationship to other people
and the blood spilt there
among. Green designates
life with only necessary labor; Red designates death
with surplus labor. Green
is natural appropriation;
Red is social expropriation. Green is husbandry
and nurturance; Red is
proletarianization and
prostitution. Green is useful activity; Red is useless
toil. Green is creation of
desire; Red is class struggle. May Day is both.’”
Carol Seabrook Boulanger also has a new
grandson. Kenai Jacques
Russell was born to
daughter Adriana Jan. 28.
Peter Setlow “spent two
phenomenal weeks last
summer with family in
Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks—only
two Swatties (me and Jen
Setlow ’95), but all of our
grandchildren and several
of their cousins and their
parents. This summer we’ll
be in Alaska on a small
boat, The Discovery, in
Prince William Sound for a
week with our son and his
family.”
Jim and Archer Dodson
Heinzen went in January
to Ilobasco, El Salvador—
the town some are now
calling “the murder capital
of the world.”
She writes, “We are now
camped out at Long Key,
recovering. A three-generation bike ride of the
Allegheny Passage/C&O
Canal trail (Pittsburgh
to D.C.) is scheduled for
the last week of March. I,
happily, will be driving the
chase car.”
And, at the end, this sad
news: Ron Tropp ’65 died
unexpectedly of natural
causes Sept. 16. Ron was
born July 8, 1943, in Alexandria, La., and moved
around during his first
few years as the son of an
Army psychiatrist. He grew
up on the Upper West Side
of Manhattan and enjoyed
many summers camping in
Maine, and later teaching
waterskiing.
Ron played football and
lacrosse at Swarthmore.
He got a law degree
from the University of
Wisconsin–Madison and
practiced law in California
for many years. He lived
his last 36 years in Woodland Hills, Calif. Ron is
survived by his wife of 50
years, Peggy Colvin Tropp;
children Josh ’01 and
Rebecca; daughter-in-law
Christina; granddaughter
Sofía Secoya; and dog
Gryphon.
1965
Kiki Skagen Munshi
kiki@skagenranch.com
Sadly, Nancy Myers
O’Connor lost her husband
in February. “Jim was
diagnosed with throat
cancer last June. Chemo
and radiation appeared
to have knocked it out,
but late in the year, PET
and CT scans showed the
cancer had moved into
his lungs. I’ve lost my best
friend after close to 50
years together.”
Betsy Winn van Patten
also lost her husband.
“Norm died March 6 ‘after
a long illness’ as the obituaries always say. He went
into a great assisted-living
facility here in Oakland,
Calif., for his last months.
I could visit him every day
and, without the pressures
of 24-hour caregiving,
spend my time loving him
and thinking about the
wonderful times we had in
the last 35 years.”
And Bruce Tischler lost
his wife. “Jean died Jan.
20. The metastatic breast
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
55
class notes
cancer that we had been
dealing with for almost
23 years finally won the
battle. Per her wish, she
was cremated—after
the New York Eye Bank
harvested her corneas.
We planned a memorial
service April 16 so my new
granddaughter, Celeste
Elizabeth Reid—born Feb.
5 to Anna Tischler ’99 and
Chris Reid in Minneapolis—could fly to the area.
“Jean and I had put our
house in New Rochelle,
N.Y., on the market late
last summer. I moved Feb.
12 into a nice apartment in
downtown New Rochelle.
I have a one-year lease
and will use the time to
grieve and figure out what
is next.”
David Darby writes, “At
the reunion last year, Ann
Stuart mused about who
would remember her and,
of those who did, ‘whom’
did they remember? That
was the reflection of the
reunion and perhaps the
year for me. Who we are is
hard enough. Who others
think us to be is a different
dimension.”
Dave and wife Mary Lee
“moved to Billings, Mont.,
but still spend time at
our condo in Seattle. A
postreunion highlight of
the year was a four-day
backpacking trip over
11,000-foot Sundance
Pass in Montana’s
Beartooth Mountains. It
was a testament to the
wonder of artificial hips
and getting into shape.”
They also traveled to
Hungary, where they once
lived. “It was a pleasure
trip, but we had the
opportunity to discuss the
sad state of affairs in Hungarian and U.S. politics.
The swing to the right,
foremost in Hungary and
Poland, is a great concern.
While the Obama administration receives generally
good marks, the view of
current U.S. politics is
56
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
discouraging.
“One senior government
official pointed out that if
Hungary came apart at the
seams, the world would
hardly notice. However,
if the U.S. were to adopt
many policies being discussed among some presidential candidates and
groups, the entire world
would feel the result.”
Bob Cohen writes, “I have
been examining how the
expansion of the internet
and cloud computing-based technologies
will affect the economy
and business. The project
also explores the contentious issue of whether new
technologies will create or
destroy jobs.”
Julie Diamond moved 17
blocks north from 92nd
Street in New York, where
she lived for almost 40
years, to 109th Street,
to be with fiancé Herb
Ginsburg. Her short story
“Debt” was listed as one
of the “other distinguished
stories” in the Best American Short Stories 2015.
Tom Kramer keeps
running. He finished the
Marine Corps Marathon
for the 39th straight year
in October and plans to
try for 40 this year. “As
I slowed down with the
passing of years, I’ve had
to coin new terms to describe my running speed,
like ‘hyperpathetic.’” And
I, Kiki, continue to run
so fast it’s hard to figure
out what’s going on, but
my historical novel about
Romania, Whisper in Bucharest, is now available
on Amazon. Whee! On to
the next.
Keep the news coming
… And if you don’t get the
Unexpurgated Class Notes
but would like to receive
more news, send me your
email address.
SUMMER 2016
1967
Donald Marritz
dmarritz@gmail.com
Our 50th Reunion is next
year. Ponder that.
I recommend “What I
Think”—the confident,
revealing musings of
Professor Alexander
Nehamas, posted online in
December by Princeton in
connection with his latest
book, On Friendship.
Pam Huessy Hazel has
surfaced from the depths
of almost five decades—
whoosh!—with her first
class note, “because I
attended for only freshman year, graduating from
Berkeley.” We won’t accept that excuse, Pam, but
welcome back. She retired
from law practice in 2006,
and “now I practice mostly
the guitar. I live a bucolic
North Carolina life with
husband Phillip and dogs,
far from the madding
crowd, which has been
intruding nonetheless
because of the appalling
politics of this election
cycle.”
A lot of us are retired,
but Phyllis Teitelbaum
and husband Tony Lunn
may have been the first, in
1998. “I didn’t start a new
career. I didn’t get a new
degree. I didn’t write a
book. I just did a bit of this
and a bit of that. These
retirement years with Tony
have been the happiest of
my life.”
Kenny Turan’s latest
book, Not to Be Missed:
54 Favorites From a
Lifetime of Film, came out
in paperback this year.
“Yes, they still publish
paperbacks,” he claims.
Carl ’66 and Marge Post
Abbott went through Iceland and England to get to
the Antipodes, where they
spoke at Friends meetings.
On the way home, Marge
got to “sleep, snorkel, and
otherwise goof off in Hawaii,” while Carl attended
a conference.
Sheridan Phillips retired
from the University of
Maryland medical school
but will teach child development for one more year.
Fiancé Tom Harriman will
practice law in California
from Maryland until he
drops. Tom notes that
he and I “are members
of the world’s smallest
vets group, Swarthmore
College Viet Vets. Oooah.”
Sheridan’s son, John
Koenig, got an MBA from
Georgetown after six years
as an Army Ranger.
While old hat to many,
grandfatherhood is new to
Jon Stewart. Isobel Holly
Stewart McInnes was born
Dec. 23 to Robyn Stewart
’01 and husband Grant
McInnes. “All healthy
though sleep-deprived.
Grandparents thrilled.”
After losing her husband,
Paul Sprenger, Jane
Lang has “spent the
year adjusting to life on
my own, with a strong
supporting cast. One
doesn’t ‘get over’ the
loss of a beloved spouse,
but the grief is gradually
absorbed and life is faced
with varying degrees of
energy and joy again.”
Jane chairs the Eugene
M. Lang Foundation and
serves on the Swarthmore
Board of Managers. She
invited us to visit her blog,
langfollow.com, as well as
herself, in D.C.
In his limited spare time,
Kim Tingley has done
yeoman work as our class
agent. The Class of ’67
Scholarship Fund has a
balance over $432,000,
and this year helped a
young woman who was
the first in her family to attend college. “Keep those
checks rolling in—we will
get to our $1 million goal.”
His wife got a fellowship
from Stanford, so Kim will
spend next year in Palo
Alto, Calif.
After 11 years as partners,
Mark Sherkow married
Bob Hostettler. Mark
retired from Northeastern
Illinois University, where
he was the office manager
in the dean’s office of
the College of Arts and
Sciences, and anticipates
“doing all the things I continually put aside, such
as ‘tidying up’ my condo.
I also would like to write
a memoir. … I consider my
time at Swarthmore one of
the key events of my life.”
Bill Jacobs retired about
six years ago and lives in
North Carolina with wife
Susan and multiple pets.
He volunteers and keeps
healthy by “digging into
the geology of the mountains (the science course
I wish I could have taken
at S’more), gardening and
processing the crops, and
lots of physical activity
(especially cycling).”
Their daughter is halfway
through her pediatrics residency in Pittsburgh. “On
a somber note, this past
year we’ve been working
through the loss of our
son, a writer in NYC, in a
cycling accident.”
Wil and Edie DuBose
Streams have lived in
Nashville, Tenn., for
almost 10 years. Their
sons and families now live
there, too. Edie retired
from a market-research
position with Change
Healthcare and anticipates “having more time
to garden, read, and
volunteer. Classmates are
encouraged to reach out.”
Larry Arnstein sent me
a rant about “President
Trump” and “Chief Justice
Palin.” Chill, Larry.
Sad news in closing.
Jan Vandersande’s wife,
Marlene, died just before
Christmas. They’d been
married for 45 years.
“Being on your own is not
easy, especially with six
cats to feed. Thank God
I believe in an afterlife
(see my book Life After
Death: Some of the Best
Evidence), so her death is
easier to accept.”
1969
Glenda Rauscher
glendarauscher@juno.com
When discussing creative
inspiration in her poem
“Petals,” the turn-of-thecentury American poet
Amy Lowell refers to the
product of our imagination
as “petal by petal the flower of our heart.” Following
are some of those petals
strewn by our classmates
into the stream of life.
Catching Up: Michael
Schudson says, “I continue
to teach at the Journalism
School at Columbia (since
2006) and, health permitting, don’t intend to retire
any time soon.
“I published my latest
book in September with
Harvard University Press:
The Rise of the Right to
Know: Politics and the
Culture of Transparency,
1945–1975. It includes
chapters on the origins of
the Freedom of Information Act, on sunshine
laws in Congress, on unit
pricing and other ‘right to
be informed’ consumer
reforms, and on the origins of the environmental
impact statement (1970)
as a publicly available
document. (Most of this
was happening with
few headlines and great
consequences while we
attended Swarthmore.)
I got married in October
in New York (with Nancy
Bekavac, Bob Snow, and
Art Block ’70 attending)
to Julia Sonnevend, who
teaches at the University
of Michigan. Our wedding
at the Yale Club (there is
no Swarthmore Club) was
followed by a reception,
just after Christmas, in
Budapest, Hungary, where
Julia grew up and most
of her family lives. I am
incredibly lucky.”
Maestro Robert Maxym’s
creativity has turned from
the auditory to the visual:
“I spent most of 2015
sculpting, completing
three works, Mama Warthog (March), Embracing
the Swan (October), and
Rhinocerae et Dolphinae
(December). Mama Warthog was started in 2002
but remained unfinished. I
returned to it in November
2014. It is an archetypal,
primally intense scene of
birth and death. The head
of the swan in Embracing
the Swan ‘appeared’ to me
four months into sculpting, so until then I had no
idea what the title would
be. With Rhinocerae et
Dolphinae, I was greatly
aided by the years-long
work of termites, who
had all but hollowed out
this massive trunk when
I cleaned it out in 2009.
I am returning to music
this year and presently
composing a double concerto for violin, cello, and
orchestra.”
Good news for Judith
Lorick fans: “I am still
slowly transitioning from
France to New York. [My
friend Artie and I] were
together my last two years
at Swarthmore, parted in
1970, and reconnected
44 years later … so I am
called back to the U.S. after 28 years in France. His
is an amazing story—too
long to tell here. I’ll just
say that this is not the first
life we have shared, and
it is beautiful to be back
with my soul mate. How
cool to start yet another
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
chapter at 68!”
Kudos: In the announcement of Mary Schmidt
Campbell’s inauguration
as president of Spelman College, Rosalind
Brewer, Spelman board
chairwoman, says, “We
are pleased and excited
she accepted the call to
serve the college, which
prepares women of the
African diaspora to excel
academically and make
a positive difference as
agents of change around
the world.”
Calling It a Day: To sum
up my feelings about the
blossoming of intellectual
and emotional fulfillment
I’ve experienced in my
teaching career, I, Glenda,
am sharing part of my
Christmas letter: “This will
be my last year at Xavier
College Prep. Yes, you
heard me. I so enjoyed
the freedom last summer
that I began to think that
20 years was a good
number to call it quits. …
A sense of passing time
and my desire to make the
most of new endeavors
weighed heavily in my
decision to go out at the
top of my game. I couldn’t
have asked for a more
rewarding teaching experience than I’ve had with
these many, many girls.
Meanwhile, as Thoreau
said when he left Walden
Pond, I have ‘other lives
to live.’”
Question: What flower of
your heart has, as Lowell
says, “fared forth, though
its fragrance still stays”?
SUBMIT
your personal
reunion photos to
bulletin@swarthmore.edu
1971
Bob Abrahams
bob_abrahams@alum.
swarthmore.edu
swarthmore71.org
It’s been a long time—45
years—since we graduated. Perhaps we will
connect at the reunion.
Anyway, here are some
updates:
Ken Giles still teaches
violin and guitar in the
D.C. area, at the DC Youth
Orchestra and in several
group lessons. He also
sings with the D.C. Labor
Chorus, “where we keep
alive the songs of the civil
rights movement, labor
movement, and other
peace and justice campaigns. It is heartening to
see young people learning
the music and historical
contexts for the songs.”
Archie Cawley reports,
“We have become parents
again,” having taken
custody of his great-nephew at Christmas. The
10-year-old is in the age
range of their grandchildren. Archie says they are
learning a great deal about
the upcoming generation
and the modern school
system. “We are adapting,
but we are teaching him
the ‘old ways’ here at
home. My wife and I are
the ones being ‘homeschooled’ by our newest
young teacher.”
Tina Tolins and husband
Grady Gafford visited California to see her father,
93; family; and friends,
including Deborah Whittle
Pulido. Their grandsons,
2 and 3, moved to Switzerland with their parents,
which, Tina says, “should
be illegal due to grandparents’ rights.” Their
other two children are on
the East Coast: a senior
software engineer for Red
Hat and a dentist. “Grady
and I celebrated our 40th
anniversary in December—pretty good for a $10
elopement. Grady works
very part time, allowing us
to travel or do nothing, as
we see fit.”
Don Mizell is busy with
a bunch of “legacy stuff”
since he is “Not Dead
Yett!”—the name of the
band he formed in 2013.
They recorded Let Go,
Let’s Go!! “which critics
raved about to my great
surprise,” along with a fun
beach-party video (bit.ly/
NotDeadYett). Don also
did a Mizell family legacy
documentary for public
television: “My Swattie
years are not omitted.
Writing my memoirs—
hopefully finished by
2017.”
Jim McKay and wife
Eileen retired and moved
to Southport, N.C., to be
near the water and their
grandchildren. “If you like
tasty craft beer, stop at
my son’s brewery—Hardywood Park in Richmond,
Va. Ask for Eric.”
Debbie Zubow Prindle
lives in D.C., still working
full time on a series of
contracts for the U.S.
Agency for International
Development—mainly focused on food security for
West Africa and providing
staff training in project
design worldwide.
Marya Ursin has been
in Jerusalem helping
daughter Ana since the
December birth of granddaughter Aarya Ursin Kaur
Tiwathia, which means
“noble bear princess.”
Marya continues to write,
run the Dragon’s Egg
(dragonseggstudio.org)
“full of dancers and actors
and events,” and teach at
the Eugene O’Neill Theater
Center and Connecticut
College. “It has been an
intense year of losses and
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
57
class notes
gifts. My husband, Dan
Potter, and I continue to
thrive.”
Jean Murdock Warrington works with Historic Fair Hill (historicfairhill.
org), a peacemaking green
space in North Philadelphia, where Lucretia Mott
and other reformers are
buried. Husband Peter ’69
retired from medicine and
now volunteers as a Fair
Hill reading buddy and is
helping to reopen a neighborhood public-school
library. “If you are in Philadelphia, come by to visit,
read aloud, or garden with
us and the neighbors.”
I, Bob, have pretty much
recovered from my January
foot surgery. I have new
screws in my foot, and by
the time you read this, I’ll
know if the Transportation
Safety Administration will
let me board an airplane to
get to the reunion.
If you haven’t joined the
new Class of 1971 email
discussion group, please
go to the “Contacts &
Information” page on
swarthmore71.org.
1973
Steve Rood-Ojalvo
stevo@ieee.org
Great news: Martha
Shirk has agreed to write
the class notes again.
This is my last column.
All submissions will be
forwarded, so contact her
directly: marthashirk@
gmail.com.
Stephen Lang is a
current-day rendering of
Mark Twain’s Injun Joe in
the indie film Band of Robbers, where he continues
“his impressive evolution
into this generation’s
Warren Oates,” according
to Variety.
58
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
I also saw that Steve is
slated (spoiler alert) to
reprise his role as Col.
Miles Quaritch in Avatar 2,
despite dying at the end of
the first movie.
With deepest condolences, I share that Matthew
Rosen of Manhattan
and Quogue, N.Y., died
peacefully Nov. 20 after
a courageous battle with
pancreatic cancer. Matthew was known in legal
and business circles for
his brilliant analytic mind
and his ability to solve
complex legal problems
and deconstruct complicated tax analyses. He
was named Best Lawyers’
2013 New York City Tax
Lawyer of the Year, and
Legal 500 U.S. Portfolio
magazine included him
in its list of the top 10 tax
attorneys in the country.
Chambers Global and
Chambers USA repeatedly
named Matthew in their
top tier of lawyers, and
he was repeatedly listed
in Euromoney’s Guide
to the World’s Leading
Tax Lawyers. Matthew
took immense joy in his
work, but he also had an
abiding passion for books,
music, film, and art. He is
survived by wife Mariana;
children Amanda, Oliver,
and Anthony; and brother
Kenny. We will miss him
dearly.
Rick Ortega says elder
son Aaron “works for the
SEC network in Charlotte,
N.C. Wife Sheila is enjoying her retirement immensely. After I lost my job
at age 59 because of the
recession, running my own
practice again, Heritage
Design Collaborative–A/E,
has proved more difficult
than at age 30, and less
lucrative, but I am happier.
On the other hand, I have
been around long enough
to get some recognition.
I have been inducted into
the College of Fellows of
SUMMER 2016
the Association for Preservation Technology International; received their
Oliver Torrey Fuller Award;
and my Omaha, Neb., high
school presented me with
its Triangle Award.”
Lana Everett Turner ’74
writes for her and Joe,
“The most exciting things
that happened last year
had nothing to do with
travel or photography,
though there was plenty of
that: Zoë Eleanor Smith,
our first grandchild, was
born to Patti and Roy April
6, 2015. We’ve visited
them (in Dalton, Ga.) several times, just to watch
Zoë grow up. Son Dave
married his sweetheart,
Ashley Toohey, Sept. 26.
It was a perfectly lovely
affair on Long Island. They
live in Long Beach, and
Dave is still with the Coast
Guard, based in New Jersey. Joe works on several
corporate boards of directors, so his travel schedule
is packed. He’s scaling
back a bit, though.”
Finally, when Eleanor
Maloney Smergel passed
in 2010, I thought it was
important to get in touch
with Judy Wilson, her
roommate and friend. The
directory listed a phone
number and a P.O. box, no
email, so naturally I tried
calling first. The number
was for the wrong Judy
Wilson. She was another
health professional in the
general vicinity and had
heard of, but never met,
our Judy. I had to put pen
to paper and use the P.O.
box, which fortunately was
for the right Judy. Please
don’t wait for someone to
contact you—send Martha
your class notes.
1975
Sam Agger
sam.agger@gmail.com
Barbara Sieck Taylor
writes: “These days
husband Mark is traveling
even more than when he
was the artistic director/
choreographer of touring
contemporary dance companies like Mark Taylor &
Friends and Dance Alloy.
As director of the Center
for BodyMindMovement,
he offers somatic-movement education to a range
of students and maintains
a private practice here.
Some of his work is in the
U.S., but a great deal is
in Mexico and, starting
this year, Brazil. Less
glamorously, I am in my
ninth year as executive
director of Grantmakers
of Western Pennsylvania,
the regional philanthropy
association. Both of us
are enjoying Pittsburgh’s
new reputation. When we
moved here in 1991, the
rap was that Pittsburgh
was a great place to be
whenever the world’s end
came around—because
Pittsburgh was 15 years
behind. No longer true.”
Larry Schall notes: “Finishing year 11 in Atlanta as
president at Oglethorpe,
and I have extended to
2020, when I hope to
hang up my spurs. We
are opening our fourth
summer campus this year,
adding Barcelona, Spain,
to Rome; Cape Town,
South Africa; and Athens,
Greece. Betty and I get
to spend time at all these
places. This summer we
are adding a side trip to
hike around Mont Blanc:
100 miles, 12 days, with
lots of elevation and wine.
Oh, and I forgot the three
new grandchildren.”
Dave Gold writes:
“Bonnie and I made the
grandparent club—two
grandsons born in October
and January. We have
only boys in this family.
Still having fun trying cases and mentoring young
lawyers. Recently represented Swarthmore at a
college fair. Complained
to Bonnie that I had Penn
State in front of me and
Tennessee behind me. The
Hamilton College rep told
me to stop complaining
because he always has
Harvard next to him. Life
is great.”
Shellie Wilensky Camp
writes: “In January I
somewhat downsized and
moved to my dream house.
I’m now on the edge of
Swarthmore borough, and
as the weather gets nicer,
I will be able to walk my
dogs right up to campus.
It’s added a commute to
work, but getting off at
the Swat exit of the Blue
Route is well worth it.
“I am in a show—playing
Jack’s Mother and Cinderella’s Stepmother—in Into
the Woods in West Chester, while my youngest
daughter plays the Baker’s
Wife. Such fun.”
Kim Horan Kelly writes:
“Jim ’74 has retired from
Mercer County Community College and now
teaches privately (guitar
mostly but also jazz/blues
improvisation for piano). I
still work at theheart.org/
Medscape. We adopted
a pit bull a year ago, and
he’s settled in quite well.”
Suzanne Benack writes:
“I’m in the life situation
that many of us are in
now—looking forward to
retiring in three years, kids
out of school and getting
established, caring for
aging parents, and waiting
for grandchildren (who
may or may not materialize). I’d be curious to hear
others’ thoughts about
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
retirement—the timing
and how you imagine
spending it. Do your adult
children question, more
than we did, whether to
continue your bloodline?
(This is something I see
in my kids, but also in the
college students I teach.)
Last year, I married Tom
Swan, my partner of 20plus years.”
Steve Harnik writes
that in February Vienna
honored him, “and on
that same occasion, the
consul general of Austria
recognized me for my 20
years of service as the
republic’s attorney in New
York.” Check out the news
at harnik.com. He also has
been in contact with Jim
Harvey ’78.
Finally, apologies to Dennis Lanning who wrote a
note a year ago with great
news: “Joy and I married
in October 1975. We
moved to her hometown
in Georgia in 1977, where
I worked in the family
grocery business until
June 1992. I felt the call to
ministry and began a career as a United Methodist
pastor, attending seminary
at Emory University
1992–95. At present, I
serve Avalon United Methodist Church in Albany,
Ga., and I write fiction as a
hobby. My first novel, The
Inside-Out Church, was
published in 2014, with a
second on its way.”
1977
Terri-Jean Pyer
tpyer@montereybay.com
I write this in early spring,
when the presidential
election is still 224 days
away, there are only five
candidates remaining in
the two major parties, and
60 percent of the states I
have lived in are considered toss-ups, including
Pennsylvania.
But in October,
Bloomberg Politics ran
an article about Robert
George being the conservative mind that half the
Republican candidates
sought advice from. Back
then, “half” was about
seven, and included his
former Princeton pupil Ted
Cruz. Robert encourages
students to find friends
with whom they disagree,
so that as they engage in
debate, “despite their differences they are bound
together as a little community integrated around
a common good. What is
that good? Getting at the
truth.” He can point to his
own example: an enriching
friendship with Cornel
West, with whom he has
taught for a decade.
Julie Pierson Lees
breaks her long Swarthmore silence: “After
getting a master’s in
medieval church history
at Columbia, I got an MBA
from Cornell and worked
in health care policy and
hospital administration.
Then, I changed gears and
have been an at-home
mom, civic activist, and piano teacher. I love teaching and have a great group
of students in second
to 12th grade. Husband
Andrew owns FinaBio, a
company specializing in
conjugate vaccines and
protein purification. He
bikes 15 miles each way to
work. We live (with three
cats and a rabbit) in Silver
Spring, Md., quite the
Swarthmore haven. Son
Adam and daughter Elizabeth live around D.C. and
graduated from Ursinus
and American U., respectively, and our daughter
got married in October.
I was pleased to have a
letter published in The
Washington Post using my
favorite Mark Twain quote
about God making idiots
for practice before making
school boards.”
Ralph Rosen gave the annual Martin Ostwald Memorial Lecture this year
at Swarthmore, “Greek
Comedy, Aesthetics, and
the Question of ‘Popular
Culture’” (bit.ly/Ralph
Rosen). Ralph earned a
Ph.D. in classical philology
from Harvard and is the
Vartan Gregorian Professor of Humanities at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Alice Fich Zinnes invites
everyone to drop by the
Causey Contemporary
gallery on Orchard Street
in New York City. Her
work is always there.
She also posts her art to
our class Facebook page
and maintains a website,
AliceZinnes.com.
1979
Laurie Stearns Trescott
sundncr88@comcast.net
Louise Francis reports
that now that her sons are
in college (Conor, UCLA;
Michael, Kenyon College,
where Louise sits on the
Parents Advisory Council
with Jordan Eth ’80),
she works, travels, and
develops new interests. As
a career coach and Alumni
Mentor Program director
at alma mater UC Hastings
College of the Law, Louise
connects occasionally
with Cathy Rivlin and Tiela
Chalmers ’80. Hastings
sent her to a conference
in Seattle in 2014 where
she reconnected with
David Richter and Julie
Pickering. Louise sees
Penne Tompkins at least
annually now that her
sons are grown. Last
summer Penne came from
Vermont to Sonoma State
for a master calligraphy
class (where she created
beautiful work), and she
and Louise took a trip to
Monterey and Big Sur with
husbands Michael and
Dennis. The four went to
Martha’s Vineyard in September to see Petra Lent
McCarron and her family.
Penne and Michael then
took them to Rockland,
Maine, where Dennis and
Louise spent a week on
the 1871 schooner Stephen
Taber; the couple helped
sail, and Louise learned
to paddleboard. Extremely
happy on the water, Louise joined a master crew
team in January that rows
shells in the Oakland Estuary and now rows about
three mornings a week.
Brady Kiesling still
lives in Athens, Greece,
married (since 2012) to
Brazilian therapist Regina
Tassitano. “In December my book on Greek
terrorism, Greek Urban
Warriors, finally emerged
after an embarrassingly
long period of research.
This coincided with the
birth of a grandchild,
Ladybird, happily growing
in San Francisco, where
daughter Lydia works at
UC Berkeley and writes
literary criticism (and a
piece on studying Uzbek
for The New York Times
Magazine). I’ve gone back
to archaeology (recent
digs at Zagora, Andros,
and Methone in Pieria)
and a little bit of teaching,
and have a massive
classics/archaeology app
called ToposText launching soon. Life is good,
despite a real and dreary
economic crisis, but leading students up Mount
Olympus is harder on the
knees than I remembered.
Visitors welcome, climbing
no higher than the top of
Mount Hymettus.”
Wendy Shotwell Ruopp
is still managing editor
at EatingWell after all
these years (14 since the
relaunch, five since it
was acquired by Meredith
Corp.). “We have a cookbook coming out in June,
our first with Houghton
Mifflin: EatingWell Vegetables. Very exciting.” Also
exciting: Daughter Maggie
is graduating from the
University of Redlands—
and she’s the student
speaker. Twin sister Emma
graduated from Brooklyn
College last spring and
is building a career as a
stage manager and loving
NYC. Son Caleb lives in
Concord, N.H., and is a
chocolatier, after being an
outdoor educator. Wendy’s
husband, Tom, “is into his
fourth decade of being
the most fun, hands-on,
adventure-inspiring childcare provider in Vermont;
he’s always known about
the value of play, which
everyone talks about
now.” They do trivia nights
weekly to keep in shape.
Martha Kane Savage
will go on sabbatical
from mid-June through
January. She will be in
Colorado from mid-June
to mid-July, then on the
East Coast in late July
and early August, followed
by a month and a half
in Bristol, England. In
October Martha heads to
Tokyo, where her son, his
wife, and their daughter
live, to study earthquakes
and volcanoes at the
University of Tokyo.
Phillip Stoddard was
re-elected for his fourth
two-year term as mayor of
South Miami, Fla. By day,
he is a biology professor
at Florida International
University.
Allen Webb has two little
girls, ages 5 and 2 1/2. He
teaches classes at Western Michigan University in
English and environmental
studies, and is writing a
book on teaching climate
change.
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
59
class notes
1981
Karen Oliver
karen.oliver.01@gmail.com
I hope that the lack of
correspondence was
because we were making
plans to attend our 35th
Reunion and that there
will be a lot to report in the
next round.
Steve Zucker writes,
“I guess I am a true
Midwesterner now that I
have lived in Cincinnati for
18 years (I was in Boston
for 18 years before that).
Despite becoming empty
nesters, we haven’t been
able to slow down much.
I work as a liver specialist
at the university, and my
wife is a radiologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Medical Center. My older
daughter is a computer
consultant in D.C. at the
Department of Homeland
Security (she cannot
reveal details), while my
younger is a junior at
Swarthmore (computer
science as well, not sure
where they got that from).
It was a blast returning to
campus, and we enjoyed
being the cheering section
(in the pouring rain) for
the Warmothers Frisbee
team at last year’s regional competition in Columbus, Ohio. Go Swat!”
Dan Slater is grateful to
have happy news from
San Diego. “I have been a
faculty family physician at
UC San Diego, practicing
primary care and working
with medical students
and residents for seven
years. After completing
a two-year fellowship in
integrative medicine at
the University of Arizona,
Tucson, I became board
certified this year. Laurel
and I and our dog are
60
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
empty nesters. Older
daughter Hannah works
at Planned Parenthood
in San Francisco after
getting a B.S. and master’s from Yale in 2014.
Younger daughter Allison
graduated from Scripps
College in 2015 and lives
in Mexico City as she completes Fulbright research
and applies to medical
schools. Laurel completed
a master’s in linguistics in
2015 at San Diego State
University and teaches
adult ESL. I ran my first
two half-marathons. We
look forward to reuniting
with old friends—please
get in touch.”
Yes, Darius Rejali, doing
class notes can feel like
herding cats. Darius has
been writing poems, and
I will share an excerpt
from “The Old Professor,”
which may remind us of
someone we know: “The
other majesties did not
count Him as one with
verbal wit / Or personality
but he was kind enough. /
The students loved him for
what he shared / And the
staff for what he dared /
To say to power when they
could not.”
David Ochroch reminds
us that we never know
where Swatties will
appear. He played bridge
with Michael Held ’66 at
San Francisco’s premier
Quicktricks club. You can
find David in Claremont,
Calif., near our sister
school, Pomona, and occasionally back in D.C.
Sharon Roseman
Buckingham visited Ben
’84 and Julie Lewis
Langhinrichs in Cleveland
last summer while taking
her daughter to see Case
Western Reserve University. Sophie will soon
hear from her remaining
schools, but as I write,
Sharon, like other parents
of high school seniors,
can only wonder which
SUMMER 2016
direction they will drive
the moving van next fall.
In closing, some sad
news: Janet Taylor
has died. After leaving
Swarthmore, Janet earned
a library science degree
from the University of
Pennsylvania. She was
last employed by the Free
Library of Philadelphia.
Janet volunteered at the
library of the College of
Physicians in Philadelphia
for more than 10 years, as
well as at the Philadelphia
Animal Welfare Society
and at Project Transition
in Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
1983
John Bowe
john@bowe.us
A major theme these days
is “empty nestdom.”
After 20 years in NYC,
Leigh Kyle set up shop
at Spurlock Landscape
Architects in San Diego in
2002, “deeply influenced
by Scott Arboretum and
particularly Scott Amphitheater.” Her husband
is a molecular biologist
in La Jolla, Calif., and
their son is a freshman at
Macalester College in St.
Paul, Minn. Last year her
mother, Kay Eagle Stein
’54, moved into assisted
living nearby.
Nancy Burton Dilliplane
and husband Steve “are
officially empty nesters with our youngest
graduating last year.” They
moved to Buckingham,
Pa., last June, where
Nancy is rector of Trinity
Buckingham Episcopal
Church. Steve commutes
to the Academy of Natural
Sciences in Philly. She
earned her doctor of
ministry from Lutheran
Theological Seminary
at Philadelphia last year
and “enjoys not writing
papers.”
Dan Werther still lives in
Manhattan, “two kids out
of the house, one working
in the city and the other
graduating from Penn
this year.” He sold his
confection and condiment
business last year and is
looking for the next gig.
“Hoping there is another
chapter (or two or three).”
Last year Matt Sommer
published Polyandry
and Wife-Selling in Qing
Dynasty China, based on
more than 1,200 18th- and
19th-century legal cases
from Chinese archives.
Steve Smith’s youngest,
Maisie, heads to Smith
(yes, really) this fall. Steve
runs a book group for Boston-area alums including
Martha Reed. “We’re
always looking for new
members—get in touch.”
Steve’s time in Parrish
parlor doing the New York
Times crossword put him
on the path to the American Crossword Puzzle
Tournament, where he has
competed for 12 years.
Larry Moelis has three
in college: UVA (prelaw),
design school, and Columbia. His son is the reigning
Cadet Men’s Foil World
Champion. His youngest is
in high school. His wife is
studying physical therapy.
Check out the iPhone 6s
commercial with Cookie
Monster for some of Larry’s
recent work licensing Jim
Croce’s “Time in a Bottle.”
Andrea Davis enjoys her
kids’ happiness with their
choices—her son graduated from Rice last year
and loves vet school at UC
Davis (say hi to Patty Pesavento) and her daughter
studies architecture at
Washington University in
St. Louis. Andrea presents
at conferences on “how
parents and professionals
can use a rich relation-
ship-based approach to
supporting development
and behavioral growth in
youths with autism and
other special needs.”
Dante DiPirro is busy
with solar photovoltaic
projects and filing legal
briefs to protect wildlife.
Keep it up, Dante.
Felicia Rosenfeld has
been in Los Angeles for
10 years. In November
husband David Linde ’82
became CEO of Participant
Media, a producer of Spotlight (Best Picture Oscar).
“It was very exciting and
gratifying since David has
had many Best Picture
nominations and this was
the first win.” Felicia is
now executive director of
Dance Resource Center
in Los Angeles. Their
older son graduated from
Brandeis and younger son
is at Sarah Lawrence.
Lisa Berglund is chair of
the English department
at Buffalo State, still
restoring her 1875 Second
Empire house, regularly
directing Gilbert and
Sullivan operettas, and
“living with my two rescued Shetland sheepdogs,
Bebop and Hepcat.”
Deb Felix spent time on
campus as part of a panel,
“Chaotic Careers.” Not
sure how they found out
I had one, but it was fun
to tell my story and the
students seemed to get a
lot out of it.” Deb advises
on applying for college
and how to get in. Send
kids her way.
Katy Roth and Dreux
Patton ’84 are proud that
daughter Megan Patton
’20 will attend Swarthmore this fall. “She is now
our favorite, as her older
brother chose Williams
over Swat.” They recently
dined with Dave Pazer,
John Walsh, and Dante
DiPirro, and get together
at least twice a year.
John Austin pushes
economic and education
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
policies through the Michigan Economic Center.
This year he will run for
re-election as president of
the Michigan State Board
of Education, making it a
referendum on reversing
neglect of communities
like Flint and Detroit.
Diane Wilder got her first
appointment as a U.S.
Figure Skating Association
judge and has enjoyed
judging competitions
and test sessions in the
mid-Atlantic. “Our youngest is a fine arts major at
the University of Delaware.
I’ve enjoyed learning more
about poetry in my spare
time and writing some,
too.”
Emily Ingalls reports,
“Last year Tracey and I
lost our minds, bought
an infill lot in Cleveland,
hired a contractor, and
built a house. For a while,
we wondered whether we
would be the first divorce
after gay marriage was
legalized.”
1985
Maria Tikoff Vargas
maria@chrisandmaria.com
Tim Kinnel
kinnel@swarthmore.warpmail.
net
First, we’d like to hit you
with a blast-from-the-past
photograph from Paula
Rockovich Gable, who’s an
interim Unitarian Universalist minister, featuring
Steve Nicolson (R.I.P.),
Paula, Joe Carney, and
Antony Sheriff. (See “Blast
From the Past” at bit.ly/
AlumPhotos.)
After 22 years, Susan
Poser moved with husband
Steve DiMagno from the
University of Nebraska to
the University of Illinois,
where she is now provost
and vice chancellor for
academic affairs. Daughter Eve DiMagno is a 2015
Swarthmore grad, and
daughter Sarah is at Yale.
Laura Moody Hoskins is
exercising her expertise in
adoption and attachment
issues in her psychotherapy practice in Brattleboro,Vt.; she and husband
of 18 years Dan have two
adopted children. Laura is
also active in the Friends’
New England Yearly Meeting and sees Lise Wagner
a few times a year.
Sue Gigler, as an employee of MilliporeSigma, has
worked with many companies developing vaccines
and helping fight the Ebola
epidemic in Africa. On the
plus side, she was named
2015 account manager of
the year. Minus? She regrets missing the reunion.
Tamar Datan is now
senior adviser at Nonprofit
Professionals Advisory
Group, an executive
recruiting firm. “I love
the life of a matchmaker,
bringing smart, driven
people into new leadership
roles at innovative institutions.” She and wife Sandy
Shihadeh split their time
between northern Virginia
and North Carolina.
Bill ’83 and Amanda
Cheetham Green’s middle
son, Paul ’16, is now a
Swarthmore alum. Younger brother David is at
Amherst College directing
its version of Sixteen Feet,
the Zumbyes, and older
brother John works at
Denny’s, helps stock the
local food pantry, and is
a four-season Special
Olympics athlete. Amanda
is in her fifth year at the
Massachusetts Office
of Special Education
Planning and Policy,
helping school districts
assist kids with disabilities
transition to adulthood.
Bill? He’s done 18 years
as a professor of chemical
engineering at MIT.
You can count on
Becky Sielman; she has
counseled Swat students
who want to be actuaries
and helped some get internships at her company,
where she is a principal.
Close encounters: Ted
Abel, a biology professor
at the University of Pennsylvania, was elected a
fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS);
Julie Brill enjoyed seeing
him at the induction ceremony in D.C. in February
where they had their
picture taken with former
congressman, Swarthmore physics professor,
and current CEO of AAAS,
Rush Holt.
The Michigan connection: Regina Lambert-Hayut and family are
now in Ann Arbor; Regina
is the cantor at Temple
Beth Emeth, where she
sees David Uhlmann ’84,
whose family is in the
congregation. Regina’s
sons, Yoav and Alon, are
talented students and
musicians—no surprise.
Living in Michigan has
allowed Regina to catch
up with James Rowley and
Melanie Smith O’Brien (in
the process of crossing
the continent to drop
her and husband Tom
O’Brien’s daughter Jenny
off at Westminster Choir
College in Princeton, N.J.).
The LA scene: Karen
Rosenthal Hilsberg often
runs into Matt Seeberger
’81 and Triana Silton ’92
because they live within
blocks of one another and
their kids go to Culver City
High School. As a clinical
psychologist for Los
Angeles County, Karen
“provided treatment to
chronically mentally ill,
substance-dependent,
homeless, incarcerated
women at the world’s
largest mental-health
treatment facility, the LA
County Jail,” including
“mindful meditation and
yoga.” She now helps
mentally ill children and
their families.
And, finally, Matthew
Roach works for Bancroft,
providing vocational
training for adults with
disabilities on a farm in
New Jersey; he plays
tennis and road bikes on
the side.
Thanks for responding
to our pleas—your classmates really do want to
share in your highs and
lows and in-betweens.
That’s why it’s Swarthmore.
1987
Tom Newman
thomas.newman@hdrinc.com
Josh King’s Off Script: An
Advance Man’s Guide to
White House Stagecraft,
Campaign Spectacle, and
Political Suicide is early
in the roll-out process,
“but the book has already
received strong reviews
from Fortune, Library
Journal, and Kirkus
Reviews. For a first-time
author it’s a very exciting,
and I’m very thankful for
the many friends I’ve made
on this journey. I hope
you enjoy reading it as
much as I enjoyed writing
it.” Congrats, Josh, and
well-timed.
Lenny Chen says, “For
several years, I’ve worked
at a technology company
in Shanghai, developing
smart set-top boxes
(devices that allow simultaneous access to TV and
internet applications), and
I’m excited to experience
firsthand the third wave of
digital evolution to hit the
cable/telecom industry.
While in Shanghai, I see
Bill Liang at least once
a year, as he comes to
visit from Hong Kong.
My daughter Laura ’19
is a first-year and really
enjoys it.”
Zahid Maker writes, “Biz
has been very tough as
the recession headwinds
buffet Africa and Asia, so
I have concentrated on
spearfishing—an amazing
Zen sport, and great
bonding with my boys
before Rayyan ’20 leaves
for Swat, where he will
join the kids of so many
other alumni friends. I just
love the interconnected
circles of life. Who could
have imagined this? Also,
I plan to be on campus
Aug. 17–21 and again Sept.
2–3, and I hope to hold
a reunion dinner for the
International Club. You’re
all invited!”
1933: Courage and
Patience
1989
Martha Easton
measton@elmira.edu
Kathy Stevens
stevkath@gmail.com
What a terrible problem. For the first time, I,
Martha, received nothing
to report. Fortunately,
many ’89ers responded
to my sad plea. And folks,
we have a column. In fact,
we have so much news,
it will need to be spread
over several columns, so
if you don’t see your news
here, hang tight. And, of
course, keep sending in
your latest.
Li-Lan Cheng headed to
Tibet in April for his second attempt at climbing
Mount Everest. “My climb
last year was canceled
due to the earthquake in
Nepal. I was on a steep
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
61
class notes
snow/ice slope when it
happened and saw a huge
chunk of ice collapse
about 50 feet from me. It
was a scary moment that
I certainly hope won’t be
repeated.”
Javier Provencio writes,
“My family and I moved
last summer to Charlottesville, Va., and the
University of Virginia. The
kids are happily in a new
school, wife is starting a
new business, and I got a
great opportunity to work
with some smart people
in the hospital and a great
research group. I benefit
from having my brother
Iggy ’87 across grounds,
and, transiently, a new
office next to Bettina
Winckler ’86.”
Kirsten “Kupa” Condry
had a minireunion with
Scott Kisker, Penny Berrier, Kristina Lasher, and
Ken Leonard at a retirement party for Sue Davis,
Swarthmore’s longtime
swim coach.
Naomi Chesler is finishing a sabbatical year in
Israel with her family and
“did a Swarthmore world
tour, visiting Ruth Wade
Kwakwa ’91 and Patrick
Awuah at Ashesi University in Ghana; Tamar
DiFranco in Accra, Ghana;
and Ipek Ilkkaracan in Istanbul. I also saw Michael
Buehler in Jerusalem and
Simone Schweber in Tel
Aviv, Israel.”
GINA SIMMS ’87
Last year, John Gastil
joined a delegation
of American scholars
invited by Argentinian
legal reformers to help
shape their country’s
new criminal jury system.
John’s role was to explain
the positive civic impact
of jury service by drawing
on research conducted
with a team that included
Perry Deess ’88 and Phil
Weiser ’90. In unrelated
(but more important)
news, John got to meet
his musical hero, Todd
Rundgren, whom John
tried (and failed) to bring
to Swarthmore for four
years. When Rundgren
learned John’s profession,
the rock icon replied, “I’ll
bet you’re a darn good
professor.”
Glenn Berntson writes,
“Not sure Chris Stodolski
and I have ever contributed to class notes (we
married in 1994—how time
flies). We live in Jersey
City, N.J.; Chris is principal at Golda Och Academy
Upper School, and I’m an
engineer at Google in NYC.
Two kids, two dogs, two
cats. Older kid finished her
first year in college.”
Roger Smith also
checked in with his first
update. Roger has a
14-year-old daughter and
lives outside Ithaca, N.Y.,
where he is a freelance
educational writer. “I also
have a weekly radio show
on Ithaca’s grass-roots
community station. Listen
on live stream, wrfi.org,
Mondays 7–9 p.m.”
David Harrison says, “My
partner, Astrid Henry, professor at Grinnell College,
suffered a stroke in March
2015, so we are recovering
and understanding life in
new ways. Any inspirational stories for dealing
with aphasia are welcome.
The situation reconnected
me in Chicago with Laura
McKee ’88 and Matt
Sanders; I subsequently
saw Matt in Dallas, where
he lives. Other Swarthmoreans here have been
incredibly supportive.”
C.J. Malanga moved to
Cambridge, Mass., for
a translational medical
expert position at the
Novartis Institutes for
BioMedical Research.
About leaving academic
research, he writes, “I
could’ve easily spent the
next phase of my career
doing cool experiments
and publishing good work
in scientific literature,
but for all of that effort,
I probably wouldn’t have
moved the human (medical) condition forward
very much. At least, not as
I (hopefully) can here.”
Kevin Hall is CEO of the
Charter School Growth
Fund, a nonprofit providing capital to expand the
nation’s best performing
charter schools. “I do this
SUPER LAWYER
Gina Simms ’87 was named to the 2016 publication of
D.C. Super Lawyers, an annual list honoring attorneys
from more than 70 practice areas with a high degree
of peer recognition and achievement. This is Simms’s
fourth consecutive year to receive the designation.
Simms is a principal in Ober Kaler’s Government Investigations and White Collar Group; she was an assistant
U.S. attorney before joining the firm. She received a law
degree from George Washington University in 1992.
62
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
because it is a combination of ‘head’ and ‘heart’
work—what happens in
our K–12 sector over the
next few decades will be
a critical driver for the
future success of the U.S.”
Kevin lives in Boulder,
Colo., with wife Susan
and sons Emerson, 9, and
Banneker, 4.
I’ll end with the most
exciting, least surprising,
news. Patrick Awuah
won a McArthur “genius”
Fellowship award in September for his leadership
at Ashesi University.
Congratulations!
It was wonderful to hear
from so many people. Until
next time …
1991
Nick Jesdanun
me@anick.org
A brush with fame: Juan
Martinez met former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright and described
her as having “a very
firm grip.” He works in
the State Department’s
Bureau of Arms Control
and assisted foreign
delegations at this spring’s
Nuclear Security Summit
in Washington, D.C.
A new book by Scott
Kugle is out this summer.
Scott, who teaches South
Asian and Islamic studies
at Emory University, contrasted two Muslim poets
in When Sun Meets Moon.
Matthew Rudolph divides
his time among the Bay
Area, Vermont, and
northern India. He teaches
politics and works with a
nonprofit that helps rural
women in Asia and Africa
escape poverty.
Jim Ellis is back in
McLean, Va., after a
three-year stint with the
U.S. Embassy in Jordan.
Son Maximo, 13, is already
eyeing Swarthmore.
Deb Holtzman is an
educational policy researcher at the American
Institutes for Research.
She’s “become increasingly pessimistic about the
ability of K–12 education
to reduce the achievement gap and American
inequality.” She’d love to
find a solution for poverty—but gets distracted by
2048 Cupcakes, a game
where you slide similarly
flavored treats around to
touch. She compares it
to her addiction to Tetris
at Swarthmore. “So much
for solving poverty. I can’t
even get a white-chocolate peppermint.”
In celebration of husband
James Baker turning 50,
Julia Dallman planned
a two-week boat trip
through the Grand Canyon
with son Dylan.
Larami MacKenzie lives
in Glenside, Pa., and works
at Abington Memorial
Hospital. Home-brewing
and beef-jerky hobbies
got sidetracked, but he
has an organic garden
project that’s “sputtering
along.” He’s “trying to
keep some kale, chard,
spinach, and collard
greens on the table.
And, maybe, if I’m lucky,
some yummy tomatoes,
eggplant, and peppers. All
are at the mercy of deer,
groundhogs, rabbits, and
cabbage looper moths.”
Gabrielle Freireich Preiser Koelbel and husband
Eric, a Penn alum, share
a fondness for Philly and
try to visit once a year.
They live in New York with
daughter Madeleine, 8,
whom Gabrielle describes
as a fan of cats, books,
and Minecraft. Gabrielle’s
sister, Rachel Preiser
Feinberg, is across the
river with her family in
Montclair, N.J.
On Long Island, N.Y.,
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
Carolann DiPirro is
“eco-renovating a 1920s
duck farm on a creek that
feeds into the bay a block
down. It’s a gorgeous,
bucolic setting—quite
different from my 25 years
in Manhattan and LA.”
She tutors local kids and
students from California,
thanks to technology.
She’s also in the early
stages of opening a nonprofit learning center.
“And I have been happily
surprised that interesting
theater and film projects
have found me out here, so
I have been able to fulfill
my creative needs, too.”
Rob Biggar said the
New York City Marathon
in November “kicked my
butt.” He also ran races
at Disney World and Disneyland, including ones I,
Nick, participated in. But
we somehow missed each
other.
By the time you read this,
I will have caught up with
many of you at our 25th
Reunion. If you missed it,
you don’t have to wait for
our 50th for news. Details
(read: gossip) in the next
column.
1993
Noah Salamon
nbsalamon@gmail.com
Andrés Versage
andres_versage@hotmail.com
In the swirl of middle-aged
life, we couldn’t put
together decent class
notes last round. As is our
way, our class comes back
strong with a global range
of notes.
Rebecca France Sorani
has lived in Israel for 13
years. In summer 2014,
she, husband Itzik, and
son Yair Haim moved from
Ramat Gaz, near Tel Aviv,
to a house they built 20
minutes south. “Building
a house—not for the faint
of heart.”
Two weeks after moving
in, “Operation Protective Edge broke out. My
husband was called for
reserve duty, and my son
and I spent the summer
sleeping in our safe room
(mandatory in all new
homes). This is an Israeli
childhood: You play in
your muddy yard (because
the gardener is also off at
war) until you hear a siren
(indicating that a missile
will strike your city in 90
seconds). You put down
your toys and walk into
your safe room. You wait a
few minutes, hear a boom,
and go back out to the
yard to resume your game,
as your parent cleans up
the mud you tracked into
the house. Since it ended,
things have been much
calmer (tfoo tfoo).”
Rebecca is training to be
a Vijnana yoga instructor and is a part-time
fundraising consultant
and grant writer. She is
“in almost-hourly contact”
with Aviva Kushner Yoselis
’96, who lives outside
Jerusalem.
Lily Engle and husband
Peter Dingman “live in
Alexandria, Va., where he
marvels at the number of
plants I can fit into our
townhouse’s small yard
and the time I can spend
on allegedly low-maintenance perennials.” Lily is
deputy general counsel for
The Conservation Fund,
where she combines law
with “innovative conservation in places as varied as
Vermont and Wyoming.”
Speaking of Wyoming,
“we are awaiting word on
whether we got permits
in the antelope lottery.
If yes, our annual fall
vacation to Wyoming will
include a few days hunting
‘speed goats,’ as they are
known.”
Scott Kane took a break
from his role as director
of psychiatry at Camp
Pendleton in San Diego to
report on a few Swatties
who keep in touch on
life, sports scores, and
what music is playing at
Seth Ovadia’s doctor’s
office (Guns N’ Roses).
Bernhard Sturm is VP
of research for Volcano
Corp. in San Diego, but for
some reason, still lives in
Davis, Calif. Mark Gwynne
is the medical director for
the University of North
Carolina Family Medicine
Center, which, as far as
Scott can tell, puts him in
charge of primary care for
90 percent of the state.
Justin Anand is a U.S.
magistrate in Atlanta. Bill
Raich, Chris Denig ’92,
Eric McCrath, and Andrew
Ment are very important
lawyers for very important
firms with many names,
which Scott cannot recall.
Scott Lock leads his
phenomenal life traveling
more than National
Geographic. He recently
visited Rwanda. Not as
exciting as Kane’s visit to
Fayetteville, N.C., but it
will have to do. Jeff Zinn
’92 is part of the same
crew but reports that all
has been “very pedestrian
… except for an awesome
but brief visit from John
Colaianni and wife Danielle.” Jeff coached his
way to his third basketball
title this season in an 18team league. Son Morgan
has “aged out of hoops
but recently made the JV
baseball team.” Best of
luck, Morgan.
Zee Khan Beams ’94 took
a pause from doctoring
and parenting to write
from Maryland about
her February visit to Los
Angeles to attend the
opening of Alexandra
Grant ’94’s photography
show in connection with
the art book she co-produced with Keanu Reeves.
Your secretaries, Noah
and Andrés, joined Zee
at Alex’s opening. While
in LA, Zee “discussed
literature and politics with
Noah; reptiles, religion,
and Godzilla with his boys;
and appellate law with his
wife. It felt like Swarthmore in ‘real life.’”
Last summer Andrés,
wife Rosa, and daughters
Isabella and Elena took
a marvelous trip to the
Pacific Northwest. The
highlight was the minireunion that included
Mike Dennis, Becky Voorheis, Laura Morrison ’94,
David Graham ’92, Ben
Schonberger, Pete Jacobs
’95, Bess O’Neill ’95, and
their families, hosted by
Mike’s brother Andrew
and his gracious family.
It was such an amazing
time that we didn’t even
take photos or post on
Facebook.
Late-breaking news tells
us that Mike Dennis has
entered the homeowner
ranks in Portland, Ore.
We congratulate Mike,
his wife, and his two kids.
Look him up if you’re in
the area, and tell us about
your adventures. Whether
momentous or mundane,
we want to hear it all.
1995
Erik Thoen
erik_thoen@alum.
swarthmore.edu
Sally Chin
sallypchin@gmail.com
News from you, from
around the world …
Sampriti Ganguli left
Corporate Executive
Board after 14 years to
become CEO of Arabella
Advisory, a boutique firm
that helps philanthropists
make the greatest impact.
After a decade and a half
of wandering, “I finally feel
like I’ve arrived in terms of
returning to my Swarthmore roots and focusing
on issues like social
justice, ending violence
in our society, environmental stewardship, and
income inequality. On the
homefront, Devin is almost
13 and Keiran is 10, and
we recently visited Costa
Rica, practicing our Spanish and hiking through the
Monteverde Cloud Forest.
I am fulfilled and enjoy
middle age more than I
thought I would.”
Darin Friess writes, “Jennifer Stoller (my wonderful wife) and I visited
San Francisco for spring
break. We did all the
tourist things—Alcatraz,
Chinatown, and the Musée
Méchanique arcade. Our
best day was spent biking
nearly 20 miles across
the Golden Gate Bridge
to Tiburon with our three
kids. For some reason,
we were the only cyclists
crazy enough to drag two
kids on tag-alongs that
distance. We especially
enjoyed the hospitality
of Brad Stohr and Maika
Watanabe, who invited us
for dinner. It was great to
catch up with old friends—
and to see our kids play
together, even though they
had never met.”
Joanna Bergmann married last year and returned
to NYC, where she is back
in the law firm grind and
delighted to be in the
company of Swatties.
Laura Snyder Brown
saw the first of her three
daughters off to college
this year—to Haverford.
The other daughters (16
and 11), husband Steve,
and Laura enjoy living in
a community with low-income families on an urban
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
63
class notes
homestead that is a Catholic Worker community in
Casa Alma, Va. She says
please visit.
Suzanna Brauer received
the Fulbright-Saastamoinen Foundation Grant in
Health and Environmental
Sciences and spent a semester in Finland with her
husband and two boys.
Hannah Freedberg and
wife moved to Cincinnati
in summer 2013. A major
gifts officer for Corporate
Accountability International, a nonprofit based
in Boston, Hannah works
from home when she’s not
crisscrossing the country
to meet with donors. She
also enjoys gardening,
romps in the woods with
canine companion Ringo,
and savouring Cincinnati’s
vibrant food scene.
Beth Bruch is thrilled
with her new-ish role
as media coordinator at
Southern Alamance High
School in North Carolina.
In her spare time, she
fights oppression and
hangs out with her cat.
Kristen Claeson “KC”
Andrasko saw Joe Hackel
when he extended a
Vienna business trip to
include a stop in Prague.
KC writes, “After a decade
in Czech Republic, I crave
Swattie visitors. Ship ’em
in. Meanwhile, life here
is lovely, especially for
kids. Isabella, 7, and Ines,
3, love small-city living
and easy access to our
old farmhouse nearby. I
miss big-city life a little,
but business takes me
on the road a lot, so I get
a frequent dose of the
metropolis. I’m still with
the same company, an
emerging-Europe-focused
bank, and I now look after
the equities business. On
good days, it’s great fun.”
Ben Cook and wife Madeline Fraser Cook, a city
planner working with HUD
on resilience and sustainability issues, live in
64
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
Belmont, Mass., with kids
Alex, 10, and Lily, 6. Ben
saw Nathan Fairman and
Colin Heydt ’94 in Lake
Tahoe last fall “for some
mountain biking, which
was outrageous given our
age and ability. The three
of us are elbow-patch
academics: Nathan a
clinical doctor in palliative
care at UC Davis; Colin a
philosophy professor (of
course) at the University
of South Florida; and I’m
a researcher at Harvard
Medical School.”
Thanks, everyone, for
entertaining and informing
us—keep the news coming.
1997
Joy Oliver
joy_oliver@hotmail.com
Greetings from beautiful
Morocco, where I moved
in December to work in the
U.S. Consulate in Casablanca. While not much
of a tourist destination,
it does make a nice home
base for seeing the rest
of the country. We have a
guest room, and Swatties
are always welcome.
Annika Lister Stroope,
husband Jeremy West,
and daughter Vianne
became a licensed foster
family in late 2014. Their
first placement was a
1-year-old boy who was
with their family for 11
months. Lisa Ginsburg
Tazartes and husband David had Neal Gabriel Dec.
23, shortly after moving to
their Brooklyn home. Neal
joins brother Jacob.
Christopher Sunami
happily announces that,
after 10 years of entering,
he finally won the New
Yorker caption contest in
December. Christopher
also notes that he has
SUMMER 2016
WILL TRACY ’98
STRATEGIC PARTNER
Will Tracy ’98 was named vice president for strategic partnerships at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI), an
interdisciplinary research institute in Santa Fe, N.M.,
focused on complex systems. Tracy will create and
maintain high-level partnerships with companies,
universities, nonprofits, and other groups. He joins SFI
from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School of
Management, where he was the undergraduate program
director and an assistant professor.
Heather Mateyak Bruemmer’s HTML tutorial to
thank (taken in 1995—before several of his current
co-workers were born) for
starting him on his career
path as a professional
programmer. In his “spare
time,” Christopher runs
the Columbus Invitational
Arts Competition in Ohio
and helps coordinate the
Columbus Independents’
Day Festival. Wife April
is an artist and they
have two children, River,
7, and Ella, 5. Theresa
Williamson’s Rio de Janeiro-based nonprofit,
Catalytic Communities,
turns 16 this year. Check
out RioOnWatch.org.
Theresa and daughter
Kay, 9, divide their time
among the U.S., Australia,
and Brazil.
Thomas Makin still
practices patent litigation
but changed firms last
fall. He now is a partner
at Shearman & Sterling in
NYC. The Lowenthal Lewis
family has experienced
much change this year.
After almost four years as
a software engineer for
Birchbox Inc., Dave took a
few months off to ponder
his next career move.
After 11 years of teaching
high school biology and
environmental science,
Lena will begin graduate
work in public policy this
fall. Both still enjoy hobbling around the Ultimate
Frisbee field.
Oxford University Press
published Eli Rubin’s
second monograph,
Amnesiopolis: Modernity, Space, and Memory
in East Germany. He
celebrated his beginnings
in history research when
he returned to Swat in
May 2015 to honor Pieter
Judson ’78. Also in attendance were Erik Huneke
and Tara Zahra ’98. When
not writing, Eli stays
busy in Ann Arbor, Mich.,
keeping up with his five
children. Edward “Ted”
Melillo is an associate
professor of history and
environmental studies at
Amherst College. His book
Strangers on Familiar
Soil: Rediscovering the
Chile-California Connection was published by Yale
University Press in the
fall. In March, the same
press published Abraham
Nussbaum’s memoir, The
Finest Traditions of My
Calling: One Physician’s
Search for the Renewal
of Medicine, which visits
medical schools, teaching
hospitals, Army outposts,
medical marijuana dispensaries, psychiatric asylums, and CrossFit boxes
to describe how medical
practice is changing. Miriam Shakow is in her fourth
year teaching anthropology at the College of New
Jersey and really loves it
(she is lucky to share her
place of employment with
spouse Rob McGreevey
’98). Her book Along the
Bolivian Highway: Social
Mobility and Political
Culture in a New Middle
Class was published in
2014. Miriam and Rob live
in Narberth, Pa., with kids
Theo, 11, and Jacob, 2 1/2.
They recently signed up
for free solar roof panels,
choosing a company that
installs and maintains
them in return for unused
power returned to the grid.
Also doing her part to aid
the environment, Meghan
Kriegel Moore spoke this
spring on a panel about
urban permaculture practices in Lowell, Mass.
Rebeka Ndosi’s first film
and media-justice campaign for PBS premiered
in September. Rebeka
leads the American Graduate initiative at Twin Cities
PBS in St. Paul, Minn. The
first phase of the project
includes a documentary,
Black Brilliance, in which
five black high school
seniors from Minnesota
share their journeys to
graduation.(See bit.ly/
blackbrilliance.)
Anne Richards serves
on the Alumni Council
(thanks, Anne) and
enjoyed the opportunity
to hear President Valerie
Smith. Anne reports that
the construction planned
at the College in the
next few years is really
mind-boggling. Martin
Carrillo has also served
Swat, helping out with
a recent documentary,
Minding Swarthmore. In
April, Martin premiered
in his first musical, an
adaptation of Lysistrata
called GDP. Last year, he
traveled to Samarkand,
Uzbekistan, to act as an
associate sound designer
at the World Music
Festival. Little-known fact:
“You could fight a revolution” for Uzbekistan’s ice
cream.
That’s it for now, dear
Class of ’97. Safe travels.
1999
Melissa Morrell MacBeth
mmacbeth@gmail.com
McKenzie Funk won the
2015 PEN Literary Prize
for Best Research Nonfiction for his book Windfall:
The Booming Business of
Global Warming. Congrats!
Anna Tischler and husband Chris Reid welcomed
Celeste Elizabeth Feb. 5.
Rachel Gutman Light had
Ramona Zahara Dec. 9.
Rachel is on maternity
leave until August when
she’ll return as a principal
at Wellspring Consulting.
Daniel Laurison, who
transitioned from Becca
Hover, reports, “After
three very nice years in
London with a postdoc
at the London School
of Economics, I’ll be at
Swarthmore this fall as
an assistant professor
of sociology, teaching
quantitative methods and
social class and politics,
in various combinations.”
He’s thrilled to teach at
Swat and bring his family
to the Philly area. Also in
Philly, Rufus Frazer ran
into Toki Rehder at Whole
Foods. Toki “is as upbeat
as ever.”
Elizabeth Nickrenz Fein
is an assistant professor
at Duquesne University
in Pittsburgh. She and
husband Pete bought a
house in Squirrel Hill,
where they often see
Jenny Briggs and husband
Carl Wellington. Liz was in
Rio last September and organized a multidisciplinary
cross-cultural workshop
on autism and culture.
She is writing a book with
the participants. Jenny
and Carl “rang in the New
Year with a wonderful
visit from Kirran Bari.”
Andy Caffrey and family
welcomed Eloise Sept. 29.
Andy got to see Kirran
while on a business trip to
the Bay Area in January.
Deborah Stein lives in LA
and teaches playwriting
at UC San Diego. Jenny
Harvey deHart is the chief
sustainability officer at
Unity College in Maine.
Eric Bishop-von Wettberg
is two-thirds of the way
through the tenure process at Florida International University, where he
teaches biology. He hopes
to take his family to India
on sabbatical “after I have
run the gauntlet.”
Darragh Jones Paradiso
works at the U.S. Consulate General in Hong
Kong, “wondering where
the other Swatties in Hong
Kong are.”
Danielle Sass Byrnett
works at the U.S. Department of Energy as a senior
policy adviser to the deputy assistant secretary. “I
am focused on how energy
efficiency can help states
meet their climate, air
quality, and clean energy
goals.” She had son Cameron Jay March 28.
Stacey Bearden splits her
life between work and caring for son Glen, 3. “Saturday is Mommy and Glen’s
special day, to give my
spouse (a stay-at-home
dad), Vaughn, a break and
give us time together out
in the world.”
Rachel Brooker started
a business, Turiya Yoga
Berlin, which organizes
yoga programs in schools,
retirement homes, and
businesses in Germany.
So far 2016 has been
good for Lurah Hess, who
lives in Muncie, Ind. “I
still own the tiny off-grid
cabin I built in the woods
of Maine, but that will
be more of a vacation
spot.” Outside of owning a
corporate services/project
management consulting
company, Lurah is heavily
involved in field hockey,
especially as a member
of the PanAm Hockey
Federation Umpiring
Committee and as the
technical director for Junior Premier Hockey. She
will be a technical officer
at the Junior World Cup
in Santiago, Chile, this
November.
Chris Seaman and
Allison Lyons ’02 moved
to Charlottesville, Va.,
three years ago. Allison
teaches medicine at UVA,
and Chris teaches law at
Washington and Lee University. “Allison and I returned to Swat in October
for an alumni swim meet
and banquet to celebrate
the retirement of longtime
coach Sue Davis. It was
great to see a bunch of
former Swatties there,
including Keith Earley and
Jill Belding Greenleaf.”
Megan MacDowell is
working to create national
parks and other protected
areas in Peru, Colombia,
and Bolivia with the Andes
Amazon Fund, while living
in Alexandria, Va.
Scott Samels is recording
“a substantive hip-hop
album.” He plans to drop a
couple of singles soon and
an album in the fall.
Tyler Wigg Stevenson reports the arrival of Heloise
Appeline in March. Tyler is
working on his doctorate
in interdisciplinary theology at the University of
Toronto, while moonlighting in faith-based nuclear
disarmament advocacy.
Ilmi Granoff moved
to San Francisco from
London—where he led research on green growth at
the Overseas Development
Institute—to be closer to
family, friends, and surf
while working on climate
and clean-energy law and
policy. Ilmi appeared on
the BBC News and BBC
World Service speaking at the Paris climate
conference, and his work
appears in the April issue
of The Economist.
Ten days after the
release of her book The
Emotional Politics of
Racism, Paula Ioanide
and Taili Mugambee had
Yekaterina Olayidé. “The
journey that has brought
these blessings into being
has been full of remarkable life lessons for which
I am truly thankful.”
2001
Claudia Zambra
claudiazambra@gmail.com
In addition to marking our
15th Reunion, which many
attended, there is much
to report this quarter. Reunion updates will appear
in the winter Bulletin.
Amber Adamson and
husband David Dwyer had
Daphne Pauline Adamson-Dwyer Feb. 8, arriving
at a healthy 7 pounds
and 20 inches. Amber’s
already made a trip to
campus and was looking
forward to the reunion.
Sari Altschuler, who
married in March, is now
an assistant professor
of English (also teaching
for the interdisciplinary
Human Health program)
at Emory University.
Antoinette Graefin zu Eltz
moved from Zurich back
to London (for work) and
would love to catch up
with alumni there. Hannah
Rakoff moved back to the
Boston area in late 2014
and was looking forward
to catching up in June.
Kate Hutchinson’s big
news is Eliot, born at home
in August. After several
years in the field with Doctors Without Borders, she
and Yves (and Eliot) now
live in Cambridge, Mass.,
and enjoy seeing local
Swatties, including Sarah
Jay, Ian Huntington, Amy
Dickson ’99, and Jeff Doyon ’00. Talia Weiner and
husband Eli had Claude
Amari Thorkelson-Rose
Oct. 23. They’re amazed
that they managed to
produce such a happy
little person. Two months
after Claude was born—
just, you know, to keep life
interesting—they packed
up their home in Chicago
and moved to suburban
Los Angeles. They don’t
know many people and
would love to connect with
local Swatties.
Eric Leive is still in the
Bay Area with his lovely
wife, Keika, and son Elias.
He continues to follow his
passion for video games
as a senior art producer
on the upcoming Mafia
3 at Hangar 13 Studios.
Lindsay Goldsmith-Markey is excited to start
the Teaching, Learning,
and Teacher Education
Ph.D. program at Penn
this fall. Matthew Davis
switched jobs within the
Environmental Protection
Agency, moving from the
Office of Children’s Health
Protection to the Office
of Congressional Affairs.
He’s a little surprised he
still enjoys D.C. so much
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
65
class notes
after more than six years.
Here is more evidence that
D.C. really is a small town:
Matthew learned that his
(championship) indoor
ultimate Frisbee team’s
captain, Dave, was Peter
Holm’s grad school roommate. (Hope Abu Dhabi is
treating you well, Peter.)
Aryani Manring and husband Scott had a second
kid and will be in D.C. until
summer 2017, when they
plan to move to Myanmar
where Aryani will be the
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman. Visitors are welcome.
Martin Krafft returned
to hometown Munich
after years in Switzerland
and Ireland. He coaches
young entrepreneurs
when he’s not spending
time with his two toddler
daughters or playing in a
squash league. Elizabeth
Meehan moved this April
to Bethlehem, N.H., in the
White Mountains. Feel
free to stop by for a visit
and a hike.
Claire Robbins is an assistant professor of higher
education at Virginia
Tech. She was named an
Emerging Scholar by the
American College Personnel Association–College
Student Educators International for her research
on social identity construction among graduate
students. In April, Charles
“C.J.” Riley expects the
final recommendation
for a revised general
education program at
Oregon Tech that he has
worked on for three years.
Jordan Brackett recently
joined the 14th Street Y (a
Jewish Community Center
in the East Village) as its
chief operating officer.
Tim Stewart-Winter’s
book Queer Clout: Chicago
and the Rise of Gay Politics was published by the
University of Pennsylvania
Press. Andrew Breitenberg
published his third book,
Parallel Bible Volume 1,
66
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
which includes his translation of Matthew 5–7 (the
Sermon on the Mount),
illustrated with more than
250 images by professional and amateur photographers. He and wife Mariah
are back in the States,
living in Virginia Beach,
Va., with bambinos Wills,
4, and Is, 2.
Lastly, Jane Ng has had
a good year so far. The
small studio she works
for shipped its first game,
Firewatch, and it’s been
incredibly well-received.
She was the lead artist
on the game and is very
proud of their work.
2003
Robin Smith Petruzielo
robinleslie@alum.
swarthmore.edu
Susan Henz and husband
Mike had their third
daughter, Georgina, in
November.
Justin Capps and wife
Emma added Ezra Falcon
George to their family of
four in May 2015. Justin
serves as a parent-governor of the local infant
school (K–2). He plays
music live on the south
coast of England and is
recording an album of
original songs.
Jeremy Schifeling and
wife Rachel Burstein
’04 had Hannah Rose in
February.
Starting this fall, Sarah
Kate Selling will be an
assistant professor of
mathematics education at
the University of Utah.
Becca Van Fleet Webb
reports that her family
and pottery business, Two
Potters, are doing well in
Vermont. She just finished
a large commission of
handmade pottery for the
SUMMER 2016
private dining room at the
Inn at Swarthmore.
After 11 years in the Bay
Area, Nori Heikkinen and
husband Jack Hébert are
transferring to new roles
with Google and relocating
to Seattle.
Mathew So is starting a
new job as a diagnostic
radiologist, while wife
Kristin starts a new job as
a geriatric psychiatrist. Together with daughter Misa
Elizabeth, 7, they will live
in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
U.S. Figure Skating
appointed William Tran
a gold-test judge and a
regional competition judge
in singles and pairs. Still
skating, William placed
second at the 2016 Pacific
Coast Adult Sectionals in
the Championship Silver
division.
Rashelle Isip released
a new e-book, 31 Easy
Ways to Get Organized
in the New Year and is
also celebrating the fifth
anniversary of her blog,
TheOrderExpert.com.
Anna Perng was invited
to join Pennsylvania’s
Community of Practice,
supporting people with
disabilities and their
families across the
lifespan. She runs a
monthly support group in
Philadelphia’s Chinatown
for Asian-American families whose children have
disabilities.
Hollis Easter moved to
Burlington, Vt., to live with
sweetie Jasmine Walker.
He works as the business
process manager for the
Vermont Secretary of
State’s Office of Professional Regulation. Hollis
is starting an a cappella
group and enjoys seeing
Swatties at music and
dance gigs around the
U.S.
Keep your updates coming. If you do not receive
my class notes requests,
update your email with
the Alumni Office and
connect with our class
on Facebook (Swat ’03),
LinkedIn (Swarthmore
College Class of 2003),
and Twitter (@swat03).
Please email updates at
any time—while magazine
notes may be brief, full
notes are available on our
Class of 2003 website,
courtesy of Kai Xu.
2005
Jessica Zagory
jazagory@alum.swarthmore.
edu
Thank you for your contributions! Let me know
if you’re not receiving my
semiannual emails.
Katie Stockhammer-Desimone and Joseph Des-
IVAN SASCHA SHEEHAN ’00
imone ’04 had Brooklyn
Adele in December. Matt
Wallaert married Stef
Sugar, had Marcus Bear
Sugar, and moved back
to NYC.
Ben and Nicola Wells
Chin had Anjali Marie
in the wee hours of the
morning on All Saint’s Day,
just three days before
Election Day for Ben’s
campaign for mayor of
Lewiston, Maine. Nicola
writes, “Thankfully, things
have calmed down a bit,
and I have been building
my practice of helping create liberatory businesses
and nonprofits through
UpWithCommunity.org.
This summer, Jyothi Natarajan and Shreya Mahajan will fly north to take on
the Hallowell Maine Rail
Trail road race with me—
other adventurous souls
are welcome to join.”
Kelly Kleinert and wife
Lizzy had Isaac in November. Wee Chua ’06 and
Jon Adelstein ’06 visited
to welcome him. Kelly
started a public psychiatry
fellowship at Columbia
University in July 2015,
after graduating from a
psychiatry residency at
NYU/Bellevue in June
2015. Jason Bronstein is
the newest sleep medicine
fellow at the Hospital of
the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia.
Derrick Wansom graduat-
HONORED PROFESSOR
Ivan Sascha Sheehan ’00, an associate professor of
public and international affairs at the University of
Baltimore (UB), received the 2016 University System of
Maryland Board of Regents Award, its highest faculty
honor. Sheehan, who specializes in the intersection of
global terrorism, counterterrorism, and international
conflict management, was recognized for excellence
in mentoring. Sheehan received a master’s and a Ph.D.
from George Mason University, and joined UB in 2009
from the University of Massachusetts Boston.
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
NANDITA GUPTA
ALUMNI PROFILE
“To listen to your vines, you need to know their physiology. Wine chemistry helps, too,”
says Scott Young ’06. “But the best education came from buying a lot of beers for a lot of
winemakers, my new neighbors.”
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
A family winery works the land
by Peter Baker ’07
“EVERY GOOD BOTTLE of wine tells a
story,” says Scott Young ’06, head winemaker at Young Inglewood vineyards
in Napa Valley, Calif. “It’s a story about
where the wine came from but also
about the people who made it.”
For Young Inglewood, the story started
in the late 1800s, when grapevines were
first planted on the property (then called
Inglewood Village). In the Prohibition
era, the vineyard survived by camouflaging the vines with fruit and nut trees.
Young entered the picture when his
family purchased the land nine years ago.
He had grown up learning about wine
from his European parents, longtime
lovers of French food and wine culture
who had always dreamed of farming their
own vineyard.
“I’d just graduated with a philosophy
degree,” Young recalls. “Obviously, none
of my classes had been about anything
remotely related to wine or the wine business. But in a strange way I felt prepared
for anything, since at Swarthmore it was,
‘Here are tools to think rigorously about
whatever you want.’ And that turned out
to be wine.”
The summer after graduation, Young
made the journey to Puligny, a small town
in the Burgundy region of eastern France,
where he worked as a grape harvester at
Domaine Leflaive, one of the world’s most
renowned producers of white wine. The
harvesters slept in a dorm together, rising
before dawn to head out into the vines.
“What I liked most was how physical
it was,” he says. “Out in the vineyard,
it wasn’t an intellectual discussion. It
wasn’t about pretentious ‘wine theory,’ or
showing off what special terms you knew.
It was farming: clipping grape clusters,
very carefully, all day long—but in the
context of this larger, romantic enterprise.”
In Puligny, Young also had his first real
exposure to the notion of terroir, which
refers to the vineyard’s specific environmental factors—the sun, the soil, the
slope—and their cumulative impact on
the way its grapes grow, taste, and age.
“Terroir is what makes wine special,”
says Young. “It’s the backbone of the story
you’re trying to tell as a winemaker, the
unique record of a time and place that
can’t be repeated.”
After Puligny, Young worked in a wine
shop and took classes to build up his wine
knowledge. The following summer, he
moved to St. Helena, in the heart of Napa
Valley. At first, he lived alone in an old
farmhouse, working the vineyard and
helping out at neighboring wineries. In
2007, he produced his first wine, a practice run made in the garage with rented,
hand-powered equipment.
“It was, in a lot of ways, like going right
back to school,” he says. “So many people
were so generous with their knowledge
and perspectives, which really reminded
me of Swarthmore.”
Together with his parents, Young
worked to design a winery and, alongside
it, a home.
“That’s the most amazing part,” he
says. “Because we’re living here, working
together, the wine captures something
not just about our soil but about our
family, about our philosophy, and about
thousands and thousands of little decisions we’ve made together.”
This fall, Young and his parents—with
help from his wife, Nandita Gupta, and
his sister, Mary—will complete their 10th
harvest at Young Inglewood, picking the
grapes that will eventually produce about
800 cases of wine.
They’ll also ship their fifth vintage,
sending one chapter of the Young Inglewood story out into the world while a new
chapter starts fermenting, another ages
in barrels, and countless more sit in the
vines and soil, waiting to be told.
+ YOUNG INGLEWOOD offers visiting alumni
a complimentary tour and tasting for two:
younginglewood.com or 707-200-4572
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
67
class notes
ed from the University of
Michigan Interventional
Pain Fellowship and began
working at Pain Specialists
of Austin, Texas.
Ace Chalmers graduated
this spring from the master
of science in physician
assistant studies/master
of public health program
at Touro University California. He completed medical
internships in eight cities
and is contemplating a future in primary care versus
surgery. Also in California,
Jared Leiderman joined
the Draper Richards
Kaplan Foundation as
head of finance and
operations. The group
finds, funds, and supports
innovative nonprofits
around the world. “We’re
always looking for more
grantees, so reach out if
you’re trying to change the
world.” His daughters also
just turned 4 and 1, so life
is “fun, hectic, and full of
Wonder Woman costumes
here in Berkeley.” Garrett
Ash completed a Ph.D.
and is a research fellow
at Yale School of Nursing,
studying physical activity
promotion for adolescents
with juvenile diabetes.
Garrett looks forward to
reconnecting with local
classmates.
I, Jessica, was fortunate
to see my fair share of
alumni in the past two
years while a research
fellow at Children’s
Hospital Los Angeles.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
’04, Justin Crosby ’04,
and I explored culinary
CAPTIONED!
options in Eagle Rock.
Then we met up with
Claire Hoverman ’03,
mother Isabel Vreeland
Hoverman ’67, and John
Fort ’03 to watch Kate
Hurster Espinoza ’03 star
in Guys and Dolls at the
Wallis Annenberg Center
for the Performing Arts in
LA. Njideka also took us
to her art installation at
the Hammer Museum. I
got to meet Ele Forbes and
Jeff Donlea’s adorable
daughter, Penny, and had
a completely random runin with Patrice Berry Addy
’06 in Santa Monica, Calif.
Jeff and Ele moved from
Oxford, England, for Jeff’s
job at UCLA. Claire, Jokotade Agunloye Greenberg
’01, and I ran multiple races, including one in New
Orleans’s French Quarter
on my wedding day. Claire,
Soenda Howell ’01, Imo
Akpan ’02, and I surprised
Joko for her birthday in
Chicago.
2007
Kristin Leitzel Hoy
kleitzel@gmail.com
“Anywhere else we would have been A’s.”
—Marcia Landesman ’91
“Quick, before the colony collapses, let’s see if these
Swatties have any great ideas.”
—Alex Gavis ’86
“I heard that this class of Swarthmore students has
gotten so diverse that the school wanted to attract
more WASPS!”
—Ward Mazzucco
“I’ll bet Charlie McCarthy couldn’t flap his wings
at 230 times a second!”
—James Pasterczyk ’81
+ See more captions: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
68
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
John Diamond married
Hannah Hirschland Nov.
7 in NYC. Dan Amato,
Ilya Faibushevich, Taylor
Hamilton, Matt Singleton,
Jon Stott, Stephen St.
Vincent, Russell Wight,
and David Zee were there.
John still lives in Brooklyn
and works in Manhattan, where he conducts
education policy research
and program evaluation.
Congratulations, John and
Hannah.
Anna Belc lives in
Philadelphia and is a
labor-and-delivery nurse
at Pennsylvania Hospital.
She and partner Krys
McIlraith Belc ’09 had
their third son in November. Welcome, littlest Belc.
Kasie Groom Regnier is
in her second year as the
water-quality supervisor
at the Virginia Aquarium.
She enjoys lots of lab
and fish time with her
ridiculous co-workers.
She also launched and
manages a community
water-quality monitoring
program for the Virginia
Beach and Norfolk area.
They monitor 47 sites,
help the state with data
trending, and have an
online map that allows
community members to
check the water quality
at collection points. Her
husband is in Connecticut
for a training program, and
they are waiting to hear
where the next chapter in
the Navy adventure will
send them—either Connecticut or back to Hawaii
(given that it’s 70 degrees
in Virginia right now and
Kasie is in a sweatshirt,
you can guess which one
she’s voting for …).
After spending the last
five years in her home
state of North Carolina
(during which time she
earned an M.F.A. in creative writing, got married,
and had a baby), Michelle
Crouch returned to Philadelphia to work at Drexel
University.
Laura Mecklenburger loves living in West
Philadelphia and making
sculpture, jewelry, and
installation art full time.
Chase DuBois married a
fellow Peace Corps volunteer (back in 2013), had a
baby (last year), and will
leave San Francisco later
this year to settle down
in sunny, scrubby Austin,
Texas. He looks forward
to having a garden,
running through sprinklers
with the wee one, and
fulfilling his destiny as a
dangerously unqualified
household handyman.
Juliet Braslow is in her
third year in Nairobi,
Kenya, working with the
International Center for
Tropical Agriculture.
Her new favorite project
is leading video workshops training groups
of farmers throughout
Africa to film themselves
telling their own stories.
Juliet and husband Carlos
Villafuerte ’08 continue to
enjoy exploring, camping,
and hiking in the beautiful
countryside. They are
happy to have visitors, so
let them know if you’re up
for a safari adventure.
Corey Baker decided
that this—his fifth year as
librarian at Milton Academy in Milton, Mass.—was
his last. After finishing his
dance company responsibilities in the Boston area
and completing a farming
immersion summer program, he ships out in July
to join his partner in Palo
Alto, Calif. He’s relatively
newly passionate about
minimalism, zero waste,
and food sovereignty, so
if you want to chat about
those or recommend any
contacts in the Bay Area
(re: library work or housing), he’s all ears. Feel free
to look him up.
Caleb Ward continues
to work on a Ph.D. in
philosophy at Stony Brook
University. He has lived
in Brooklyn for two years
with partner Michele, but
they plan to spend the
next year in Berlin. (Read
more about his research
on Page 19.)
Catherine Healy was
ordained as an Episcopal
priest in February. Present
for the ordination were
Yvonne Asher, Andrew
and Sarah Gillis-Smith,
and Nathaniel Peters,
along with many others.
Catherine loves the
black-collar life, even
when strangers on the
street ask questions like,
“Are you celibate?” (P.S.
Nope.)
Susan Zell relocated in
the fall from Chicagoland
to Silicon Valley, where
she has been learning web
and mobile development
and enjoying the blissfully
snow-free weather. After
taking part in several
hackathons, she racked
up three straight victories.
She uses the resultant
knowledge and confidence
as co-founder of moxxie.
io, which is developing a
better wearable tech solution for resident safety in
assisted-living facilities.
Sonya Reynolds is a civic
data strategy consultant
for economic, racial, and
social-justice nonprofits.
This allows her to geek
out about mapping things
like voter registration equity gaps and conducting
tactical experiments on
political organizing strategies. This year she made
great strides in becoming
a Brooklyn cliché: She
moved from Park Slope
to Fort Greene and loves
her urban garden, home
canning, and her weekly
shuffleboard league—
where she overstrategizes
plays with the likes of
Sasha Laundy ’06 and
Nick Farrar.
2011
Ming Cai
mcai223@gmail.com
Abroad and locations
unknown: Bill Beck is finishing his Fulbright year in
England. In fear of Donald
Trump, he has decided to
relocate in September to
Athens, where he’ll spend
a year at the American
School of Classical
Studies. Shameika Black
remains a supervisor at
McMaster-Carr, an industrial supply company. She
traveled to Tanzania to
facilitate a retreat for
Princeton in Africa.
Shameika also started her
term on Alumni Council
this year. Orion Sauter is
five years out from cancer
treatment and still disease-free. He is searching
for gravitational waves
with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave
Observatory, which has
announced the first-ever
detection.
Midwest: Sophia Uddin
is in her third year of the
M.D./Ph.D. program at
the University of Chicago.
She lives on the South
Side with Gabe Riccio and
spends her spare time
making music with him. A
couple of times a year, she
is lucky enough to revive
the Mandelbrot Quartet
with Amy Langdon, Leland
Kusmer, and Ben Dair.
Northeast: In Vermont,
Eva McKend interviewed
Brendan Kelly ’92 about
his book The Yin and Yang
of Climate Crisis: Healing
Personal, Cultural, and
Ecological Imbalance
with Chinese Medicine,
for WCAX, Burlington’s
television news channel. Zach Postone is
enrolled in MIT’s master’s
program in city design
and development and
lives with Eric Anderson
in Cambridge, Mass. Alex
Weintraub finished his
fourth year in Columbia’s
art history Ph.D. program
and is in Europe this
summer for dissertation
research. During the
upcoming academic year,
he will be on a Fulbright in
the Netherlands. James
Preimesberger is a firstclass first-grade teacher
at East Village Community
School in NYC. He is also
an organizer with the New
York Collective of Radical
Educators and the proud
papa to two cats. Michael
Roswell is driving around
New Jersey asking if male
BLAISE SHERIDAN ’09
ENERGY SAVER
Blaise Sheridan ’09 received a 2016 Unsung Hero
Award, presented by the Alliance to Save Energy. A
legislative assistant for Sen. Al Franken, Sheridan helps
to promote clean-energy policy including a national
energy-efficiency resource standard and incentives for
benchmarking building energy use. Sheridan received
a master’s in marine policy from the University of Delaware with a focus on offshore wind power.
and female bees prefer
different types of flowers
and is a second-year Ph.D.
student in the ecology
and evolution program at
Rutgers. Niki Machac lives
in Philly and is finishing
her third year at Cooper
Medical School of Rowan
University with Kenyetta
Givans ’12 and Rebecca
Commito ’10. She spends
any free time bumming
around Philly with Althea
Gaffney and Jason Bronstein ’05. Camilia Kamoun
graduated from the Perelman School of Medicine
at Penn and started her
residency in pediatrics
this summer. Kathryn
Stockbower graduated
from Temple University
School of Medicine and
moved west to start her
pediatrics residency at Oregon Health and Science
University in Portland.
Westward: Candice Nguyen resides in Las Vegas,
where she clerks for U.S.
District Judge Richard
F. Boulware II. In her
free time she hikes with
her newly adopted pup,
Olive. Candice will return
to New York City in the
fall to work at a law firm.
Alex Breslow works at
Advanced Micro Devices
Research on near-data
computing architectures
in Sunnyvale, Calif., and
will return to UC San Diego in the fall to defend a
Ph.D. in computer science.
In Los Angeles, Bryan
Baum founded Represent
in 2014, and the company
was acquired by CustomInk earlier this year. Noah
Marks graduated from
Harvard Law School in
May and will clerk in Los
Angeles for the next two
years for judges Cormac
Carney and Kim Wardlaw.
Noah would love to reconnect with any Swatties
nearby. Blaine O’Neill
started a digitally focused
creative agency called
Jodie (jodie.io) and is part
of a small team developing
a nonprofit crowd-funding
platform for the trans
community. Nicholas
Gabinet and Beck Ringle
still live in Oakland, Calif.
Nick manages a medical
scribe program in an ER
in Berkeley, and Beck is
a sales account manager
at one of California’s preeminent organic produce
distributors, Veritable
Vegetable. Nick will move
to Providence, R.I., at
the end of the summer to
begin medical school at
Brown University.
I’ll end with a Quaker
matchbox submission:
Aaron Zimmerman and
Logan Osgood-Jacobs
married May 28. They live
in Seattle with their dog,
Cosmo.
2013
J. Paige Grand Pré
jpgrandpre@gmail.com
As we enter our third
year out of Swarthmore,
our peers continue to
accomplish a great deal in
academia and the working
world. Jonah Wacholder
finished up his second
year at Yale Law School.
Brian Huser will transition
this summer from teaching
math in Oakland, Calif.,
to Ph.D. studies in film
and media. He is grateful
to be deciding between
two exciting programs;
either way, he’ll be on
the West Coast for a few
more years, much to his
surprise. Becca Roelofs
lives in Berkeley, Calif., in
her third year of a computer science Ph.D., but is
interning in NYC at Google
for the summer. She has
been hanging with Amandine Lee, and road-tripped
to Joshua Tree National
Park to rock-climb over
spring break with more
outdoor trips planned.
Daniel Duncan is working
on a linguistics Ph.D.
at NYU and is figuring
out how to split his time
between classes in NYC
and fieldwork in St.
Louis. Taryn Colonnese
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
69
class notes
70
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
their run this year. Tyler
Hanson moved to Chicago
and started a position
with the data-science
team at Reverb, an online
marketplace for music
gear. Sean Anthony Bryant
is the community relations
coordinator for Success
Academy High School of
the Liberal Arts in New
York, where he is responsible for communications
and parent outreach.
He bartends nights and
weekends “slaaaaanging
margaritas all day,” and
notes that he is “in formation and twirling on his
haters. Ashé.” In his free
time, Sean plays dodgeball
and serves as a kickball
referee in an LGBT sports
league. I, Paige Grand
Pré, still live in New York
City, but now with Joseph
O’Hara ’12, who relocated
from Baltimore this spring.
I graduated from NYU’s
School of Professional
Studies in December with
a certificate in screenwriting. I left my position in
international admissions
at Pace University in January to begin work as the
film and media education
program assistant at the
Jacob Burns Film Center.
So far, it’s been immensely
rewarding.
As always, please submit
notes! I wish you all a happy and healthy summer.
2015
Alexis Leanza
leanzaalexis@gmail.com
Our female classmates
have been busy. Lucia
Luna-Victoria adopted a
little dog named Sandy
and will move to California
in September to pursue
a Ph.D. in history at UC
Davis. Iris Fang relocated
SUMMER 2016
KYLE CRAWFORD ’12
MOOT COURT STAR
Kyle Crawford ’12 was named Best Oral Advocate at
the 66th annual National Moot Court Competition
in New York City. More than 150 teams from 113 law
schools competed, with the competition addressing an
insider-trading case that the Supreme Court will hear
in the fall. Crawford’s team placed second overall. He is
a second-year law student at Georgetown.
to Florida in June to begin
a master’s in biology at
the University of Central
Florida. Audrey Edelstein
returned to Queens, N.Y.,
and studies orchestral
conducting at the Aaron
Copland School of Music
at Queens College. She
rehearses Tuesday nights
at a synagogue in Brooklyn across the street from
Matthew Goldman.
Catherine Martlin lives
in Baltimore with her cat,
Galileo. She works on the
Hubble Space Telescope
at the Space Telescope
Science Institute. Catherine is planning her return
to grad school, because—
in true Swattie form—she
believes it would be
fulfilling and interesting.
Julia Anderson is a clinical
researcher in Washington, D.C., and will attend
Georgetown University
School of Medicine in
the fall.
Abigail Frank lives in
Madison, Wis., and frequently travels to Virginia
for her job at Epic. In her
free time, Abigail tries to
learn Spanish, cultivates
her basketball skills, and
contemplates life philosophies. Ariel Gewirtz is
working on a quantitative
and computational biology
Ph.D. at Princeton, studying neurovirology in rats.
Randall Burson has
finally arrived in Temuco,
Chile, for his Fulbright,
and when he’s not researching, enjoys getting
to know the region one
hike at a time. Erick White
is a lab technician at
the Georgia Institute of
Technology. Besides lab
maintenance, he conducts
his own research project
under the guidance of
his principal investigator, Annalise Paaby ’00,
using RNAi to explore the
cryptic variation within C.
elegans strains that might
be involved in embryonic
lethality. When he’s not
working, Erick is kicking
ass in 5Ks, winning a few,
as well as finishing fourth
out of more than 1,000
people in the Georgia
Publix Marathon.
Your secretary, Alexis
Leanza, wrapped up
her first year of medical
school at the University
of Rochester. For fun,
Alexis contemplates how
to better target her male
classmates to submit
updates for class notes;
this has not been a very
fruitful pastime so far, but
she has faith it will pay off
someday.
THANK YOU!
1
2
4
5
3
6
7
LAST YEAR, more than 2,000 alumni responded
to an engagement survey on how we can better
suit your needs, and dozens of others participated
in regional focus groups. We appreciate everyone
who gave their feedback and wanted to share a few
of our findings.
—LISA LEE ’81, Director of Alumni Relations
Networking, intellectual engagement, and
communication from and with the College
emerged as three primary areas in which
alumni want to see us focus, and these are key
factors in our engagement strategy. Our initial
responses include:
• Creation of an LGBT+ alumni group (pride@
swarthmore.edu)
• Development of webinars with current faculty
starting fall 2016
• More tech-based opportunities for alumni and
students to network
• Launch of the Virtual Alumni Facebook Group
(bit.ly/SwatFB), which has enrolled 2,700+
members since November 2015
View alumni photo galleries at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
8
9
10
ROBERT O. WILLIAMS AND DAN Z. JOHNSON
lives in San Francisco,
teaches third grade, and
studies for a master’s in
education. Griffin Dowdy
is traveling this summer
before beginning Columbia Business School this
fall. Also in the fall, Allison
McKinnon will move to
upstate New York for a
clinical psychology Ph.D.
program at Binghamton
University.
Lisa Sendrow works as
the pro bono legal assistant for Skadden, Arps,
Slate, Meagher & Flom
LLP’s D.C. office. She tries
to hang out once a month
with Ben Kapilow, who
takes the MARC train from
Baltimore. Eddie Montenegro is an assistant director
of admissions at Trinity
College in Hartford, Conn.
He enjoys all the Mountain
West travel, coordinating
the tour-guide program,
and preparing for a few
South American recruiting
trips this fall. He also
coaches youth lacrosse in
the West Hartford area,
and generally enjoys
the “slow” part of the
admissions cycle. Emily
Melnick lives in New York
with Will Treece ’11 and
a few non-Swatties. She
works at AIDS service
organization GMHC, doing
program design and public
development.
Following Eugene
Prymak’s promotion
at the end of last year,
his company, Powerhouse Equipment and
Engineering, relocated
him to its new office in
West Chester, Pa. He left
Center City Philadelphia
and bought a house in
Goshen Valley, just minutes from his office. His
home projects have been
successful, and he also
leased a new car. Most of
all, Eugene is happy that
he’s close enough to visit
campus and enjoyed the
opportunity to support our
men’s basketball team in
ALUMNI WEEKEND, JUNE 3–5
1. President Valerie Smith greets William Nute ’38. 2. Swarthmore’s newest Sages, the Class of 1966, gather at the Parade of Classes. 3. Maurice
Eldridge ’61 speaks at Alumni Collection. 4. Jason Morton ’91 pitches in the Class of 1991 ballgame. 5. Future alumni catch a ride on a golf cart.
6. Two alumnae snag a selfie. 7. A canine companion joins in the festivities. 8. Singers perform Fauré’s Requiem at Lang Concert Hall. 9. A couple of
alumnae share a funny moment. 10. From left: Barbara Young ’41, Nancy Smith Hayden ’46, Barbara Hallowell ’46, and Kinnie Clarke Schmidt ’46
catch up at Alumni Collection.
+ MORE ALUMNI WEEKEND PHOTOS AND VIDEOS: bit.ly/2016AlumniWeekend
SUMMER 2016
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
71
spoken word
Why is that interaction important
to you?
I’m just a people person, and I try to
make all my students feel at home. I like
talking to them, especially when they’re
stressed out or feeling down. I look
out for my international students and
freshmen in particular, since they’re
far away from home and may not have
made friends yet. I get to know most of
them, and it’s a trip when they graduate, come back, and tell me about what
they’re doing now.
COOK,
CONFIDANT,
COMMUNITY
LEADER
YOU’D BE HARD-PRESSED to find
a more beloved figure at Swarthmore
than Don “Donny” Thomas. For 18
years, he’s been the smiling face of
Sharples Dining Hall, the person
colleagues and students turn to when
they need someone to brighten their
day. Fresh off of grilling hundreds of
lunches, he chopped it up with writer
Ryan Dougherty.
72
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
SUMMER 2016
What brought you to Swarthmore?
I always loved to cook and saw myself
doing that, but there wasn’t much
money in it. So I took jobs in metallurgy. I struggled with that: Do I want to
make money, or do I want to love what
I’m doing? Finally, I decided to go learn
how to cook at the Springhaven Club
in Wallingford, Pa., where I worked for
14 years. One of the cooks there left to
work at Swarthmore, and she kept telling me to follow her. After three or four
years, I finally took her advice.
How have your responsibilities
changed?
I’ve basically done every job in the
kitchen. I started out washing dishes,
but they moved me over to the salad
department, then line service, then
meal prep, and then finally I got to cook.
Now, you’ll usually find me at the grill.
That’s where I was meant to be, since
that’s where I can serve the students.
What do you do in your spare time?
I coach a drill team of about 35 kids
from where I live in Darby, Pa. We travel
for performances, and they’ll come
to Swarthmore with the Rhythm N
Motion dance company. Or we’ll bring
a carload of kids to see a Swarthmore
basketball game. I want to put positive
examples and thoughts in their heads,
to have them see college kids and think,
“I want to do that someday.”
What makes you smile?
A lot of people wake up and don’t look
forward to coming to work, but not me.
I can’t believe I get paid to do what I’m
doing. I come to work in a good frame of
mind, and I don’t let too much get to me.
And I just love Swarthmore, man. It’s
my co-workers, the students, and the
environment here, really. It’s just a very
happy place.
+ WATCH Don work his charm—and the
grill: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
LAURENCE KESTERSON
LAURENCE KESTERSON
How have students showed their
fondness for you?
One time, one of the seniors asked me to
be a referee for a pasta-wrestling match
on Pub Night. I was like, “What?! Just
keep me out of trouble.” Another time,
they put my face on a shot glass for a
fundraiser. They had the most popular
people on campus—the president, the
head dean—and here I am, the only
blue-collar worker. That made me really
happy.
in this issue
38
SOLDIER, SWATTIE, SON
One Gave All
Joe Selligman ’37 was the first
American casualty of the
Spanish Civil War.
by Adam Hochschild
MOMENT IN TIME
Tears, joy, fireworks:
Commencement sparked them
all. Experience it for yourself at
bit.ly/SwatCom16. Congrats to
the Class of 2016!
SUMMER 2016
Periodical Postage
PAID
Philadelphia, PA
and Additional
Mailing Offices
VIETNAM REVISITED
p7
KAYAK CRUSADER
p14
MAKING MISCHIEF
p32
ISSUE
IV
500 College Ave.
Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306
www.swarthmore.edu
VOLUME
CXIII
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN
LAURENCE KESTERSON
SUMMER 2016
YES, I WILL ATTEND GARNET WEEKEND
OCT. 28–30
swarthmore.edu/garnetweekend
JUSTICE
Hungry for Change p20
Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 2016-07-01
The Swarthmore College Bulletin is the official alumni magazine of the college. It evolved from the Garnet Letter, a newsletter published by the Alumni Association beginning in 1935. After World War II, college staff assumed responsibility for the periodical, and in 1952 it was renamed the Swarthmore College Bulletin. (The renaming apparently had more to do with postal regulations than an editorial decision. Since 1902, the College had been calling all of its mailed periodicals the Swarthmore College Bulletin, with each volume spanning an academic year and typically including a course catalog issue and an annual report issue, with a varying number of other special issues.)
The first editor of the Swarthmore College Bulletin alumni issue was Kathryn “Kay” Bassett ’35. After a few years, Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 was appointed editor and held the position for 36 years, during which she reshaped the mission of the magazine from focusing narrowly on Swarthmore College to reporting broadly on the college's impact on the world at large. Gillespie currently appears on the masthead as Editor Emerita.
Today, the quarterly Swarthmore College Bulletin is an award-winning alumni magazine sent to all alumni, parents, faculty, staff, friends of the College, and members of the senior class. This searchable collection spans every issue from 1935 to the present.
Swarthmore College
2016-07-01
reformatted digital
The class notes section of The Bulletin has been extracted in this collection to protect the privacy of alumni. To view the complete version of The Bulletin, contact Friends Historical Library.