Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 2018-04-01

SPRING 2018
Periodical Postage
PAID
Philadelphia, PA
and Additional
Mailing Offices

GREEN GODDESS

p12

BLUE GARNET

p17

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

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN
LAURENCE KESTERSON

SPRING 2018

color your way home
June 1–3
alumniweekend.swarthmore.edu

(Email a photo of your masterpiece to bulletin@swarthmore.edu!)

color

HARVEST GOLD

p78

in this issue

9

WILL POWER

MOMENT IN TIME
The men’s basketball team—
including Zack Yonda ’18—
advanced to the NCAA Division III
Elite Eight for the first time in
program history.

To Print,
Perchance to Dream

Crispin Clarke ’98 celebrates
Shakespeare.
by Jonathan Riggs

“With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt;”
—Romeo & Juliet, Romeo, 2.2 (66–68)

18

2

45

FEATURES

DIALOGUE

CLASS NOTES

Getting Lost in Color

Editor’s Column
Letters
Community Voices

Alumni News
and Events

... and finding your way
home.

by Kate Campbell
and Elizabeth Slocum
intro by Phillip Stern ’84

38
The Wisdom
of Wombats

A hairy-nosed zoological
curiosity sparked Andy
Podolsky ’88’s passion for
conservation.
by Michael Agresta

42

Profiles

Stephanie Hirsch ’92 with
Ben Ewen-Campen ’06 and
Patricia Deats Jehlen ’65

Patricia Brooks Eldridge ’60
Joe Khan ’97
Ryane Disken-Cahill ’12

Rewind

Their Light Lives On

Michael Noreika ’04

Books

78

Global Thinking

SPOKEN WORD

Jenny Pérez ’05

9

COMMON GOOD

Becky Robert

Swarthmore Stories
Learning Curve

WEB EXTRAS

Philip Stoddard ’79

BULLETIN.SWARTHMORE.EDU

Liberal Arts Lives

Dante Anthony Fuoco ’12
Way-Ting Chen ’94
and Jennifer Li Shen ’94

PRISMATISM

Splash into a colorful video.
CHAMBER OF SECRETS

A Lasting Legacy
Two generations, two
journeys, one Swarthmore.
by Jonathan Riggs

Explore some campus historyand mystery-filled objects.

11

HUE OUGHTA KNOW

Browse our color package extras.

ON THE COVER
Purple (and pink, yellow, red, etc.) rain
photographed by Laurence Kesterson

CHRISTIANE MOORE

COLORS OF GHANA

Tamara De Moor ’10 reflects on
the country’s vibrant palette.
GOING TO (WOM)BAT FOR

Read Andy Podolsky ’88’s
wombat conservation lecture.

SPRING 2018

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dialogue
LETTERS

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Kind Words

Editor
Jonathan Riggs

I have always appreciated the Bulletin over the years, but
winter 2018 was particularly attractive and meaningful from
start to finish.
The major photo piece, “What Stays the Same,” was
extremely well done: bold and inclusive, interesting and
moving. So many of the stories were fascinating, from the
legend of “Tiny” Maxwell, Class of 1907 (which I had heard
as gospel “truth”), to “Universal Attraction” (the NASA photo
really drew me in). I especially enjoyed Bob Freedman ’58’s
“We Are All One” and wrote him personally about his very
provocative, perceptive, open-minded piece.
Great work! I look forward to the next Bulletin with renewed
expectation.
—RON SUTTON ’57, San Diego, Calif.

Managing Editor
Kate Campbell
Class Notes Editor
Elizabeth Slocum
Designer
Phillip Stern ’84
Photographer
Laurence Kesterson

LAURE

NCE KE

STERS
O

N

Administrative/Editorial Assistant
Michelle Crumsho
Editorial Assistant
Eishna Ranganathan ’20
Editor Emerita
Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49

HAPPY BIRTH-DAY

bulletin.swarthmore.edu
facebook.com/SwarthmoreBulletin
instagram.com/SwarthmoreBulletin
Email: bulletin@swarthmore.edu
Telephone: 610-328-8533

JONATHAN
RIGGS
Editor

COLOR’S SPEAKING for itself in this rainbowbright issue with our biggest feature ever, where
editors Kate Campbell and Elizabeth Slocum,
designer Phillip Stern ’84, and photographer
Laurence Kesterson shake up a kaleidoscope of
Swarthmore stories. (I made the Jell-O.)
“I enjoyed looking beyond the beauty of color
to explore its meaning—which is different for
everyone,” Elizabeth says.
“That the bucktooth parrotfish truly appears to
have buckteeth was thrilling,” adds Kate.
Whether you’re more interested in beauty or
buckteeth, here’s to loving and living your true
colors—every single one.

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
CXV, number III, 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 Alumni Records, 500 College Ave.,
Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390.

‘UNIVERSAL’ APPEAL

Printed with agri-based inks.
Please recycle after reading.

Congratulations on the winter 2018 Bulletin, the most interesting
issue I have read in years. “Universal Attraction,” about
Swarthmore’s young astronomers, captivated me especially.
—ROBERT GURFIELD ’60, Los Angeles, Calif.

©2018 Swarthmore College.
Printed in USA.

SUPER STARS

pr inted w

e c o-fri

e

nd

+ WRITE TO US: bulletin@swarthmore.edu
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SPRING 2018

ly

H-UV

ks

th

i

in

During our search for colorful Swarthmore stories,
we came across this rainbow of 51 hats crocheted
by Sara Hiebert Burch ’79, Edward Hicks Magill
Professor of Mathematics and Natural Science.
Inspired by her fellow professors Sibelan
Forrester (Russian) and Patricia White (film
and media studies), who sometimes knit during
faculty meetings, Burch joined in the multitasking
multicrafting. Over the course of a year’s worth of
meetings, she crocheted a hat for charity at the rate
of about one per week.
“I’d done this kind of thing before—when I lived in
Australia, there was a call out for knitting sweaters
for penguins whose feathers had been damaged in
an oil spill,” she says. “This time, I found Knit-ASquare, which provides essential warm items for
South African orphans, many of whose parents have
died of AIDS. They accept squares for blankets and
had a recent call out for hats and toys.”
She encourages anyone interested in putting
their creativity and compassion to hands-on use to
consider knit-a-square.com or a similar outlet.

OVERHEARD ON OUR WEBSITE

WINSTEAD BARNES

by

Cameron French ’14’s “Through Birth, a Companion” (winter
2018) was a wonderful testament to bringing new life into the
world. I hope the Swarthmore doulas’ work continues well.
—LINDA GOULD via bulletin.swarthmore.edu

I AM WOVEN, HEAR ME ROAR

This February, I had the pleasure of speaking about the
history of the universe to an enthusiastic audience at
the retirement community where my fellow “Universal
Attraction” interview subject Nancy Grace Roman ’46,
H’76 now resides. It was an honor—she is as sharp as ever.
—JOHN MATHER ’68, H’94, Hyattsville, Md.

Louise Hawes ’65, I was excited to read about you and your career
(“Song of a Stargazer,” spring 2017). Now I will order your latest
book. Remember how in our freshman year we used to trudge
up the hill to breakfast in Parrish, chanting for some odd reason,
“stupid old sun shining through the slats”? I’ve often thought
about you over the years and wondered how your life unfolded.
—SARAH VAN KEUREN ’66 via bulletin.swarthmore.edu
Sarah, dear Sarah! How wonderful to hear from you! I’m sorry I’m
just seeing this now, so you might not read how much fun it is to
be in touch with an old classmate. Please write me via my website,
louisehawes.com. And yes, “Stupid Old Sun”! How was that
born??! Must be a story there!
—LOUISE HAWES ’65 via bulletin.swarthmore.edu

SPRING 2018

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dialogue

COMMUNITY VOICES

ALAIN JEHLEN ’66

DELIVERING HOPE

T

HE MORNING
corner, sit on a curb, and cry.
after Election Day
The current era echoed the mood
2016, I met a group
when Pat grew into activism.
of Swarthmoreans
“In the 1960s, just like now, people
to make sense of the
were angry,” she says. “They wanted to
new political reality.
change things and got engaged. I came
Over wine and pasta, my classmates
to believe the most important way I
promised to help with my campaign for
could help is to talk to my neighbors.”
local office in Somerville, Mass.
“This past year has been a wake-up
Last November, Ben Ewen-Campen
call to get involved,” says Ben.
’06 and I won seats on Somerville’s
Local frustration now centers on
11-member Board of Aldermen.
the city and region’s housing crisis—
We followed
eight out of 10
by
Patricia Deats
residents cannot
Jehlen ’65, who
afford to stay if
has represented
they lose their
with
Somerville since
current housing
Ben Ewen-Campen ’06 and
1976, including as
in Somerville. Ben
Patricia Deats Jehlen ’65
its state senator
and I promise to
since 2005.
use the best tools
Voter anxiety helped fuel our upset
to address the problem.
wins in our community of 82,000 that
From donors to door-knocking
neighbors Boston and Cambridge. As
volunteers, Swarthmore alums helped,
we knocked on thousands of doors, Ben
as did our Swarthmore education.
and I heard almost universal dismay.
When I read the vote counts, the win
People shared their worries—about
felt bittersweet. I ran for office to
addiction, deportation, or eviction;
make sure government works well
about rats and traffic; and about the
for everyone and to advocate for
biggest of national and international
people who have less of a voice. But in
threats. Often after talking to a voter
winning, I shifted the composition of
on their stoop, I had to go around the
the board. Pat, Ben, and I have degrees

STEPHANIE HIRSCH ’92

“Let’s get involved in government
at every level, for the long haul.”
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SPRING 2018

from Swarthmore and Harvard,
making our profiles similar to a wave
of residents who have contributed to
gentrification. I will judge my success
on how well I serve all residents,
address issues we’ve heard, and build
bridges across groups.
Pat reflected on a similar challenge
in the ’60s.
“Working-class Americans were
angry about the war, because it was
their kids who were getting killed,” she
says. “But to look at the rallies, it was
the college students who seemed to be
the face of the movement. There was a
lot to be gained in finding the common
ground by talking across class lines.”
The campaigns created a sense of
hope, but can we deliver on it?
“We can’t solve these issues
overnight,” says Ben, “but the first
step is to increase engagement. I’m
incredibly hopeful.”
Despite the challenge, in the face
of terrible news every day, most of
us are picking something to work on.
I choose to believe that what we do
at the local level matters, and that,
together, we will bear witness to a
stronger community that’s listening—
and talking—across party lines.
—STEPHANIE HIRSCH ’92, BEN
EWEN-CAMPEN ’06, and PATRICIA
DEATS JEHLEN ’65 all hold elected
office in Massachusetts.

ASHWIN RAO ’99

Change begins in local government—so we ran and won

REWIND: I AM A SWAT ENGINEER
Why the world needs us, atypical as we may be

I HAVE ANSWERED some
Think about an engineer designing a
challenging questions in job
bridge. She literally has a Point A and
interviews: “Your résumé says you
Point B. The creativity and beauty of
have a B.S. in engineering with no
the discipline lie within that interstice.
specialty. You didn’t specialize in a
But what if we don’t know Point B?
discipline?” and “A liberal arts school
What if Point B doesn’t even exist
with an engineering program?” not
yet? Engineers crave answers, yet
to mention the most awkward, “Tell
not all questions have answers—and,
me about Swarthmore.
indeed, some of the most
by
Was that some kind of
important questions
community college?”
do not have a single,
Yes, I have an
universal truth. Rather,
’04
engineering degree, but
they lend a certain
I am not your typical
internal reflection and
engineer. Where do I begin?
subjectivity that engineering by itself
In the years since I graduated from
does not always afford.
Swarthmore, I have worked with
This is why Swarthmore’s
engineers of all disciplines—civil,
engineering program set me up
mechanical, electrical, software,
precisely for my career. I work for
industrial, chemical, and even
Puget Sound Energy outside Seattle
liberal arts—and all have this in
to determine and promote the value
common: They are exceptionally
of energy efficiency and renewable
good at answering questions with an
resources.
unambiguous Point A and a definite
Engineers have historically
Point B.
dominated this field. “This light bulb

MICHAEL NOREIKA

draws less power than that other one,
so it’ll save you energy and money off
your utility bill.” Makes an awful lot of
sense in a perfectly rational world.
The engineer in me thinks, “Logic
good. Logic safe. Irrational scary.
Irrational threatening.”
The Swarthmore-matriculated
engineer in me thinks, “How do we
know this is the right thing to do?”
(philosophy) “At the fundamental level,
we’re not just replacing old equipment
with more efficient equipment; we
are in fact attempting to change our
customers’ behaviors!” (psychology)
“What are the implications to the
customer, the utility, the entire
Northwest?” (public policy) “And how
can we be sure the energy savings are
real?” (economics) “We need to look
at an inferential analysis!” (statistics)
“And how can we visualize these data
in meaningful ways?” (art/art history)
“How can we get this into a sound,
cohesive argument?” (linguistics/
literature) “What do you mean you
need this done by the end of the
day?” (whining) There are so many
questions we need to ask!
Are Swarthmore engineering
students predisposed to these liberal
arts perspectives? Probably. However,
I dismissed most humanities and
social sciences on my way to college.
For me, an engineering education
was an inevitability; literature was
something my dad read. After a
Swarthmore degree in engineering
with a minor in art history and a
graduate degree in civil engineering
from the University of Washington, I
realize that I owe Swarthmore a great
deal of gratitude for the liberal arts
education that galvanized my career.
We need more engineers who chase
their truth like a rugger chasing a
pterodactyl across Parrish Beach—
engineers unsatisfied with Point
A’s and Point B’s, engineers with a
nonpareil ability to contextualize
outside of conventional system
boundaries, engineers willing to
explore and master nontechnical
subjects, engineers unafraid to ask
questions that don’t always have
answers. The world needs more
Swarthmore engineers.
SPRING 2018

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dialogue
AUTHOR Q&A

BEHIND THE BOOK

OTHERWORDLY, OURSELVES

FOOTPRINTS: JONATHAN GILLIGAN ’82

by Joanne Lipson Freed ’05

by Michelle Crumsho

“When businesses and other
private organizations look
beyond their own actions and
begin to influence others to
reduce emissions, this is what
I call ‘private governance,’”
says Jonathan Gilligan ’82,
an associate professor at
Vanderbilt University. In
Beyond Politics: The Private
Governance Response to
Climate Change (Cambridge
University Press), Gilligan
and co-author Michael P.
Vandenbergh examine how the
private sector can play a key
role in reducing greenhouse
gas emissions in the absence of
traditional public governance.

Available now, Haunting Encounters: The Ethics of Reading across
Boundaries of Difference (Cornell University Press) is Joanne Lipson
Freed ’05’s first book.

What sparked the idea for this book?
Governments around the world aren’t
taking sufficient action to avert
dangerous climate change—in the U.S.,
accepting the truth of basic climate
science has become a polarizing political
issue. Businesses should realize that they
can use their influence to make it easier
and more attractive for others to protect
the environment.
What surprised you?
Individual and household energy use is
the single biggest source of greenhouse
gas emissions in the U.S.: bigger than
the industrial sector and bigger than the
commercial sector (offices, stores, etc.).
What can individuals do?
My research shows that if everyone in
the U.S. took a few simple steps to use
less energy, then even with no major
changes to people’s lives, we could cut

SUSAN URMY

IN MANY WAYS, the questions I explore in Haunting Encounters—
about ethics, otherness, and the power of fiction—emerged from my
Swarthmore studies as an English major/interpretation theory minor.
I’ve always believed that literature can matter in the world, serving
to correct stereotypes and redress injustices. But too often, claims
about its transformative power can seem dangerously oversimplified.
After all, the characters we meet in the pages of a book are just that:
imaginative constructs, brought to life through the fiction writer’s art.
That’s what I mean by “haunting”: the feeling of closeness that fiction
can provide, which—although powerful—we know to be an illusion.
Writers of world literature are keenly aware of the way their works
cross national, cultural, and linguistic boundaries that are also
boundaries of power.
In Haunting Encounters, I trace the way literature from a variety
of countries and cultures engages the imaginations of readers—
especially white, Western readers. Equally important, I explore the
way it enforces the limits of these kinds of fictional encounters.
Cross-cultural reading is most valuable when it is not taken as a
substitute for justice and inclusion in the nonfictional world.

greenhouse gas emissions by more than
500 million tons per year, which is more
than the entire annual emissions from
France. Look at yourself as part of a
connected community—your knowledge
can help you to inform others about
simple ways to reduce emissions, and
your actions will set an example for your
friends and neighbors.

HOT TYPE: NEW BOOKS BY SWARTHMOREANS

Alan Gordon ’81

Where Werewolves Fear
to Tread
Thurston Howl Publications

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SPRING 2018

A wave of day-walking
lycanthropes don’t stand
a chance against an elite
guard-dog trainer and
his team of powerful
pups—including a mystic
Weimaraner and a tickedoff dachshund—in this
funny, fast-paced suspense
novel. Celebrated for his
law career, stage musicals,
and eight-volume medieval
Fools’ Guild Mysteries,
Gordon is as endlessly,
effortlessly clever and
creative as always. “A new
alpha has joined the pack of
paranormal writers,” raves
author Leigh Perry.

Matthew Warshawsky ’92

The Perils of Living the
Good and True Law
Juan de la Cuesta

Based on original archival
records and published
transcriptions of mid1600s Spanish Inquisition
testimonies during the
“Great Conspiracy” trials
in Lima and Mexico City,
Warshawsky’s text examines
the complex lives and
clandestine practices of
individuals who risked their
lives—and sometimes lost
them—to secretly maintain
their Jewish identities
despite converting to
Catholicism. “Inquisition
procedure created a space of
genuine expression for the
most determined of these
individuals,” he finds.

Kathy Goss ’63

Darwoon Dyreez
Lonesome Burro Press

“Although I received my
degrees in English,” writes
Goss about her fictional
memoir, “I have gleefully
broken all the rules of
spelling, grammar, and
punctuation in this book,
utilizing an invented dialect
I call Darwoonish.” A
modern-day Mark Twain/
poet/spoken-word artist/
musician, she guides readers
through life in a quirky
California desert mining
town, population 35, where
Saturday fun involves gluing
a broken plaster lawn burro
back together. Remarkably
warm, wise, and one-of-akind.

Neil Gershenfeld ’81, H’06;
Alan Gershenfeld ’84; and Joel
Cutcher-Gershenfeld

Exploring the promise
and the perils of the third
digital revolution, where
after computing and
communication comes
fabrication, the authors lay
out a plan for humankind
to prepare—personally and
as a society—to harness our
growing ability to turn data
into objects without simply
reacting to it or perpetuating
inequality. “To paraphrase
Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty
Schweickart,” they write,
“we are not passengers on
the third digital revolution
roadmap. We are the crew.”

Designing Reality
Basic Books

SPRING 2018

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common good

dialogue

SHARING SUCCESS AND STORIES OF SWARTHMORE

GLOBAL THINKING

COLOR GUARDIAN

She’s an influencer in the cosmetics industry
by Kate Campbell

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SPRING 2018

and creativity,” she says. And those
extolled relationship-building skills
are vital, too: “With small budgets and
a limited amount of people, it’s critical
to have strong collaborations.”
These traits have translated well
to her new role overseeing MAC’s
international online business, where
she is committed to the culture of
inclusion.
As a queer woman of color, Pérez
feels honored to work for a company
that vigorously reinforces diversity.
Named one of the “Best Places to
Work for LGBT Equality” in 2017
by the Human Rights Campaign
Foundation, Estée Lauder Cos. scored
100 percent on the 2017 Corporate
Equality Index.
Estée Lauder is also helping to
close the gender gap in technology by
partnering with the nonprofit Girls
Who Code. After all, investing in the
tech and science skills of the next
generation isn’t just the right thing to
do—it contributes to a stronger brand.
“With advancements such as AI,
smart diagnostic tools, live streaming,
and social media,” Pérez says, “the sky
is the limit in terms of improving the
shopping experience in ways we never
thought possible.”
One nifty tool MAC launched in

ON
THE
WEB
DOUG KIM

ANCIENT EGYPTIANS were the first
to create cosmetics, applying crushed
minerals to accentuate beauty, guard
against the elements, and—while they
were at it—pay tribute to gods and
goddesses as insurance for protection
in the afterlife.
Today, makeup is a multibilliondollar business shifting directions in
fashion with one fiery contoured cheek
or glittered brow.
A key player in this industry of
self-expression is Jenny Pérez ’05,
executive director of MAC Cosmetics
international e-commerce.
As a leader in the global corporation,
Pérez works a relentless schedule. But
she keeps her creative side radiant
by writing slam poetry and, most
importantly, by building “agility and
efficiency” with the startup mentality
she honed as a Swarthmore economics
major and Philip Evans Scholar.
Real-time platforms that offer
product testing and learning are
trending in e-commerce and digital
marketing at MAC.
But that can mean getting “so bogged
down by analyzing data that we forget
to go with our gut instinct,” says Pérez.
She’s found that some of the most
important business decisions involve
letting her team take risks.
“It’s human nature to pat ourselves
on the back for successes and only
talk about the huge wins,” she says.
“We neglect to talk about the things
that don’t work and why. We forget
that with every failure comes a lesson
learned.”
Before joining MAC, Pérez oversaw
the Latin America online business
within its parent company, Estée
Lauder Cos.
“It’s an emerging region, so the skills
necessary included resourcefulness

JENNY PÉREZ ’05
Beauty Titan

select stores in 2017 was a “Virtual
Try-On Mirror” simulating makeup
shades to dab, pat, or blend on the
customer’s face using live video and
without ever touching a product.
Technologies like this make strides
in intensifying the digital consumer
experience, but when it comes to
cosmetics, there remains something
special about the human touch.
“Maybe five years from now, I’ll be
able to just say out loud that I need to
replenish my favorite foundation and it
appears at my doorstep in 60 seconds,”
Pérez says. “But I think cosmetics
are such fun, intimate, experiential
products that the in-store experience
is still key.”

CONGRATULATIONS!
Nine faculty members
received promotions at
the February Board of
Managers meeting.

+ CELEBRATE

bit.ly/SwatProfs
TRUTH AND EVIDENCE
Water-treatment expert
Marc Edwards shares
lessons from the Flint
water crisis.

+ LEARN

bit.ly/EdwardsTruth
BATTLE SCARS
Philosopher Krista
Thomason
discusses the personal
responsibility of child
soldiers.

+ HEAR

bit.ly/KThomason
ZERO WASTE
Explore how campus
is ramping up to reach
ambitious green goals.

+ WATCH

bit.ly/SwatZeroWaste

“I’m inspired by all of the initiatives
we are creating at Estée Lauder Cos.
to build an incredible workplace for
existing and future generations.”

MED IMAGINATION
Hear Sari Altschuler ’01
discuss literature and
health in the early U.S.

+ LISTEN

bit.ly/Altschuler

WHERE THERE’S A WILL ...

To Print,
Perchance
to Dream
by Jonathan Riggs

“TO ME,” says Crispin Clarke ’98, “Shakespeare
represents the undying fire of the human spirit.”
Clarke was aglow when his English
grandparents gifted him a broken-spined
Victorian-era Shakespeare collection.
Inspired by the volume’s sumptuous
chromolithography, he founded a new company,
Shakesprints (shakesprints.com), to reproduce
the lavish art on an “infinite variety” of goods.
“This labor of love,” he says, “honors
humanity’s collective and ongoing desire to
celebrate and learn from Shakespeare.”

+

MORE (AS YOU LIKE IT): bulletin.swarthmore.edu

SPRING 2018

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common good

Needle and Thread

BUGGIN’ OUT

ANT

by Sylvia Bogsch Rucker ’65

AS AN 11-YEAR-OLD Hungarian immigrant,
I noticed right away that my American
classmates wore a different outfit every day.
Desperate to fit in—and to augment my spartan
European wardrobe—I took up sewing, which
I really enjoyed. Later, as a penniless grad
student, I made clothes for my children, myself,
and even my husband, Rudy Rucker ’67.
I have always been madly in love with color
and geometry. In fact, I used to paint abstracts
in strict blocks, masking off each color area
with tape, inspired by Frank Stella and other
later 20th-century hard-edge painters.
Quilting, which I took up in retirement a
few years ago, was a natural continuation: I
assemble blocks of beautiful colors. I don’t
like to plan too far ahead. I choose a few colors
and geometric shapes and let serendipity take
over, but it can be hard to branch out from my
favorite combinations, blue and yellow or red
and black. Once in a while, I make a scrap quilt
to use up all my leftover fabric and go wild with
colors, but generally I try to restrict myself to a
very limited palette, as did the inspiring Gee’s
Bend quilters.

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H

by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen ’09
illustrations by Christiane Moore

F

My goal is to make enough quilts to use up all
my fabric, but it’s hopeless; like all quilters, I
always buy much more than I need because all
those yummy colors call out to me!

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HIP TO BE SQUARE: sylviarucker.com

Ballpark Figure

“Baseball depends on so much luck,” says
Shingo Murata ’07, “but successful teams
integrate flexible managers with a cuttingedge front office.”

NO MOUNTAIN

UGH
O
N
E
IGH

AS A STUDENT, Shingo Murata
’07 crunched numbers for wiffle ball
games in Willets. Today, he manages
operations for the Tohoku Rakuten
Golden Eagles, a professional baseball
team in Japan. Compiling data from
video and radar—as well as hypotheses
from coaches and players—Murata and
his colleagues statistically analyze the
Golden Eagles, short- and long-term.
“When the coaches have questions,
I can support it from the data,” says
Murata. “When we’re talking to the
players, we can give them confidence.”
Murata sees his own career as
something of a curveball. In a spark
of what he describes as Swarthmore’s
“if it’s not there, try to make it
yourself ” mentality, Murata helped

create—and obsessively run stats for—
the aforementioned Indoor Wiffle Ball
League, played against a cardboard
strike zone in his dorm.
After Swarthmore, he revived this
entrepreneurial spirit with Stats
Ninja, an app that allows you to gather
statistics about sports games you
watch ... and finally prove whether your
team really plays better when you’re
sitting in the stands.
Although Murata’s a numbers guy
who likes to make informed decisions,
he also appreciates the role that
chance played in his journey.
“I didn’t foresee coming to Japan
and entering the field this way,” he
says, “but I’m happy I did.”
—CARA EHLENFELDT ’16

ORMER Swarthmore
professor Neal Weber
(1908–2001) had
a theory as to how
Europe’s common
brown pavement
ant (Tetramorium caespitum L.) first
arrived on campus. Beginning in 1889,
Swarthmore set out “class ivies,”
brought over from meaningful sites
such as Swarthmoor Hall in England
and the Royal Gardens in Paris.
“It would have been a simple matter
for a fecundated female of this ant to
have survived the journey in soil about
the ivy roots,” Weber explained in 1965
about the ants that eventually took
over Parrish Hall.
Two years later, shortly after
the pesticide DDT was banned, the
yellowish pharaoh ant (Monomorium
pharaonis) moved in, too.
“They have lived in Parrish much
longer than I have,” Peter Fulton ’84
admitted in a 1979 Phoenix article,
“and, like the Pyramids, will continue
to thrive long after I am gone.”

He was right. In a 1986 Halcyon
ranking of the top six most detested
creatures on campus, ants were No. 1.
Throughout the 1980s, they plagued
campus by spurring false fire alarms:
Guileless ants tripped the College’s
old photoelectric smoke detectors;
clever ones took up safe residence in
the sensors. Eventually, Swarthmore’s
pest-control service constrained
the population with the help of soda
straws, baited with sugar mixed with a
growth regulator to inhibit the insect’s
development cycle.
Despite being a nuisance,
Swarthmore ants have influenced us
all. Campus’s very first air conditioner
was installed on behalf of exotic
ants studied in Dr. Weber’s lab. As
mentioned, ants were part of the reason
the College upgraded its fire safety
system. They also sparked at least
two April Fool’s Day pranks: In 1971,
the Phoenix jokingly reported that
13 million escaped lab ants devoured
campus; in 2001, students placed ant
art on a sculpture outside Trotter with
a “For Sale” sign, suggesting househunters should follow up with the
queen ant. Moreover, a number of
alumni have built ant-related careers—
notably the late Carl Rettenmeyer ’53
(bit.ly/AntCR), a pre-eminent expert on
army ants.
They tie into Swarthmore’s heritage,
too—Quakers, particularly in the
18th and 19th centuries, were drawn
to the natural sciences as a mode of
observing God’s creation and a source
of practical knowledge. A Philadelphia

Quaker, Mary Townsend (1814–1851),
published a landmark work in popular
entomology, 1844’s Life in the Insect
World: or, Conversations Upon Insects,
Between an Aunt and her Nieces.
“I have always felt a particular
interest in ants,” the titular “Aunt
M.” writes. She praises their quiet
strength, diligent industriousness,
and commitment to supporting
their communities despite—or
perhaps because of—their individual
vulnerability. Perhaps that is why Evan
Gregory ’01 compared Swarthmore to
an ant colony in his graduation speech,
with its “hundreds of worker ants
dashing about, constantly worrying
about time management, and dozens
of thesis adviser ants reprimanding
the workers for not finishing their
abstracts or bibliographies on time.”

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

11

common good

COLOR WHERE
THE SPIRIT LEADS

Tracking Trajectories

“It’s renewing and refreshing to sing,” says Jim Thomas,
an artist featured in Jane Dreeben ’79’s Vineyard Portraits.

CREATIVE VISIONING

ICA
SS
JE

SL
AY
SW

D
AN

MORE: janedreeben.com

GREEN GODDESS
Amy Vachal ’11’s
debut album,
Strawberry
Moon, has risen:
bit.ly/A-V-Music

AS AN ALLURING ALIEN, the late Susan Oliver ’53 appeared
in the end credits of Star Trek reruns on a near-daily basis from
the late 1960s on. A documentary on her remarkable life, The
Green Girl, shows that Oliver was so much more than one iconic
role: an award-winning actress, a record-setting aviator, and a
groundbreaking television director.

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MORE: thegreengirlmovie.com

NEW APPOINTMENTS
Professor of Sociology Sarah Willie-LeBreton will be
Swarthmore’s new provost effective July 1, and Salem
Shuchman ’84 will be the new chair of the Board of
Managers after they meet in May.
“Swarthmore’s excellence is the result of many
partnerships among faculty, staff, administrators,
and students,” says Willie-LeBreton. “I look forward
to fostering those relationships while advancing our
academic mission.”
“I am humbled and honored,” Shuchman says. “I’m
looking forward to my continued work with fellow
alumni, students, faculty, and staff to ensure that
Swarthmore’s priorities remain focused on academics
and access.”

LAURENCE KESTERSON

+

Nine students—including Gabriella Small ’19 and
Susie Min ’18—performed excerpts from the 1890 ballet
Sleeping Beauty on campus.

LAURENCE KESTERSON

Down a dirt road and tucked into the woods, the
Martha’s Vineyard home of Jane Dreeben ’79 holds
hundreds of books and the inquisitive mind of a dreamer.
“I feel a sense of awe—emotional, intellectual, and
spiritual—when I hear music or see a photograph,” the
teacher and psychologist says. “Creativity moves us to
transcendence.”
And so her book, The Urge to Create: Vineyard
Portraits, is a gorgeous tribute to the creative lives
of 50 artists on the island, including Jim Thomas,
pictured above, who is director of the Martha’s Vineyard
Spirituals Choir and the founder and president of the
U.S. Slave Songs Project.
Dreeben hopes readers absorb the diversity of
artists—from weavers to poets—in this tiny community
where nature often nutures creativity. This journey, it
turns out, was her own artistic calling.
“My Swarthmore experience imbued me with the
confidence to follow my curiosity,” she says.
—KATE CAMPBELL

CONTEMPLATIVE COLORING inspired Sharon
Seyfarth Garner ’89 to write Praying with Mandalas: A
Colorful, Contemplative Practice and Mandalas, Candles,
and Prayer: A Simply Centered Advent (Upper Room Books).
“Intentionally creating time for prayerful coloring, stillness,
and silence is a tremendous investment,” says Garner, founder
of Belly of the Whale Spiritual Direction & Retreat Ministries.
“This gives us the clarity to be more centered and effective.”
Garner chose the circular mandala as her books’
devotional pattern since it represents the all-encompassing
nature of God and is a reminder of the sacredness at the center
of each of us.
“We also collect and distribute prayer cards through our
prison ministry,” she says. “We’re always looking for new and
meaningful ways to share the power of colorful prayers.”
—MICHELLE CRUMSHO

SASHA FORNARI

REECE ROBINSON

“Strategy is a complex game that rewards the sharpest
thinking,” says Peter Cohan ’79, author of Disciplined Growth
Strategies: Insights from the Growth Trajectories of Successful
and Unsuccessful Companies (Apress), although he laughs
about how little of it he brought to Swarthmore.
“I was very confused,” he says. “As a freshman, I wanted to
be a poet, but—to make a point—my father told me to look it up
in the Yellow Pages.”
After a brief stint as an aspiring architect, Cohan—who
taught himself to program a computer at age 14—decided
his future was in tech strategy. Today, he’s a recognized
international expert on the subject, the founder of his own
management consulting and venture capital firm, and an
executive-in-residence at Babson College.
“My two Swarthmore degrees, in art history and electrical
engineering, gave me a unique ability to look at problems from
many perspectives,” he says. “I hope to provide a roadmap for
leaders who are more creative and who can use their capital to
create sustainable growth trajectories—especially since some
companies will now have about $600 billion in tax cuts coming
to them.”
—JONATHAN RIGGS

CABINET OF TREASURES
Explore the campus historical wonders hidden in
plain sight in the lobby of the Service Building.
—ALISA GIARDINELLI

+

DISCOVER THE REST: bulletin.swarthmore.edu

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

13

common good

Helping Hands
by Roy Greim ’14

NO ONE would’ve blamed women’s basketball coach Renee DeVarney or
swimming coach Karin Colby if they’d canceled Swarthmore’s winter training
trips to Puerto Rico the way 16 other colleges did—after all, post-Hurricane
Maria, parts of the U.S. territory remained without power or clean water.
DeVarney and Colby, however, saw an opportunity for their studentathletes to learn ... and to help.
“The needs of the people made me and the team want to go even more,” says
DeVarney.
From the beachside town of Rincón, basketball players, coaches, and
training staff drove a bus to the mountains to deliver water to families
without access to transportation.
“I was able to speak to families in Spanish,” recalls Hayley Raymond ’18. “I
will never forget them.”
“Our original plan was to train and experience warm weather,” says
DeVarney. “Luckily, it turned into so much more.”

In November, ESPN signed sportscaster
and journalist Mark Kriegel ’84 to cover
boxing.
A high-profile writing assignment might
seem old hat—after all, Kriegel was a
Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1990 for his essay
“The People’s Court,” about playground
basketball in New York City, and is an
acclaimed novelist and biographer—but
there are times he still can’t believe his
career path.
“My father was a writer,” laughs Kriegel,
“so I promised myself to not become one
under any circumstances.”
That resolve lasted about two weeks
after Swarthmore.
“Here I was, a recent Phi Beta Kappa
graduate, trying to teach myself how to
type,” he says. “At night, I would take a
bus from the Port Authority to Paterson,
N.J., and write obituaries for the Hudson
Dispatch.”
After receiving encouragement from
Professor Richard Rubin, Kriegel was
torn between law school or a journalism
graduate program. During the entrance
exam for the former, he had an epiphany.
“I realized I couldn’t do it, so I walked
out,” he says. “Columbia journalism school
was the best thing that could’ve happened
to me.”
Initially, Kriegel saw sportswriting as a
stop along the way, but he soon realized
the opportunity and education it provided
(especially pugilism stories like this: bit.ly/
MKriegel).
“Boxing makes me a better writer than I
actually am,” he said. “Writing is all about
conflict, and boxing accentuates that.
All other sports are metaphors for what
boxing actually is: combat.” —RG

TRACK & FIELD
At the conference championship, the women’s team placed
fourth, improving significantly from last season’s seventhplace finish. The men’s team finished third.
SWIMMING
The women’s swimming team was the runner-up at the
conference championship, its best result since 2008.
For the men’s team, Alec Menzer ’21 was named the
Centennial Conference’s Outstanding Rookie Performer as the
Garnet earned silver at the championship meet.
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SPRING 2018

In addition to his on-air boxing analyst
duties for ESPN, Mark Kriegel ’84 will do
longform storytelling as well as video and
print essays on a wide array of subjects.

MINDFUL MAYOR

POLITICAL SCIENCE

He’s making South Miami—and the world—greener
by Amanda Whitbred

BECOMING MAYOR of South Miami, Fla., eight years
ago was “an accidental thing” for Philip Stoddard ’79.
“I went to a friend’s house to hear who the next
candidate would be,” he laughs. “I discovered it was me.”
As he considered running, Stoddard thought about the
sustainable policies he’d like to see cities enact. Now in
his fifth and final term, Stoddard has seen many of his
proposed initiatives face challenges and pushback, but
he relies on his scientific background to keep making the
case for change in his change-averse town.
“One of my happy discoveries is that voters value
leaders who make evidence-based decisions,” says
Stoddard, “provided the leaders clearly and simply
articulate that evidence.”
A professor of biology at Florida International
University with a lifelong dedication to conservation—
and the solar-powered house and car to prove it—
Stoddard has made pioneering environmental progress
for South Miami. This includes mandating solar panels
on new construction, reworking park contracts to
require landscapers to use no-risk pesticide alternatives,
and being awarded $4.1 million by the CDC to fight
mosquitoes without toxic sprays.
“I didn’t start out knowing much about how to run
a town,” reflects Stoddard. “But I discovered that you
can call up the experts and say, ‘Hey, I need a tutorial
on something,’ and somebody will spend part of their
Saturday bringing you up to speed.”
This inclination for collaborating and asking
questions is something Stoddard says he learned from
Swarthmore, and he still has big goals: affordable
housing, revitalization of South Miami’s downtown, and
an ongoing commitment to solar power. Achieving them

GRAY READ

BOXER, BRIEF

will mean returning to his College roots.
“Swarthmore showed me there’s a whole world of people
out there who know more than you about something,” he
says, “and they’re happy to share it.”

“I thought I could do good locally, but I didn’t
realize how hungry the country would be for
evidence-based decision-makers.”

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

15

common good

LIBERAL ARTS LIVES

DANTE ANTHONY
FUOCO ’12

AKEEM BIGGS

“The last time I performed this one emotional scene in Transplant, I actually started crying,”
says Dante Anthony Fuoco ’12. “It was a raw, real ‘we’re all connected’ moment. I treasure those.”

LIBERAL ARTS LIVES

BEST SUPPORTIVE ACTOR
He cares about his performances—and the
people who inspire them
by Jonathan Riggs

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SPRING 2018

AN ONLY CHILD, Dante Anthony
Fuoco ’12 loved when his parents let
him watch Saturday Night Live.
“Playing characters and making
people laugh stuck with me,” he says.
“I invented eight different brothers,
each with their own idiosyncrasies. I
could play each at the drop of a hat.”
After graduating from Swarthmore
and moving to New Orleans, Fuoco
flexed his performance muscles in
local improv classes, creating a solo
sketch parodying Teach for America,
the very program that brought him to
the city. The piece was the product of
his critical reflection on his place in a
post-Katrina New Orleans.
“The more I learned, the more
ashamed I was of my privilege as a
gentrifier, a white man, a transplant,”
Fuoco says. “I wondered: How can I
put down roots in a city that’s maybe
better off without me?”
Such was the inspiration for
Transplant, his darkly comic solo
show. From a conflicted yuppie craving
artisinal kombucha to a bombastic ally
for people of color, Fuoco plays a dozen
characters in 75 minutes, tapping into
the best and worst aspects of himself
while experiencing New Orleans—and
life—in all its joy and pain.
It resonates with his day job—
Fuoco teaches elementary-age kids
with severe emotional and behavioral
disabilities at the New Orleans
Therapeutic Day Program. The
strength and flexibility required from
students and teachers alike has put
into relief why creating meaningful,
honest moments onstage and off
matters so much to him.
“The goal of teaching and the goal of
performing are the same: connection.
You have to make yourself vulnerable,”
he says. “It takes courage, but in an
increasingly fractured and broken
world, it’s absolutely necessary.”

STEPHANIE YANTZ

Compassionate Chameleon

“Swarthmore is a place where, not only do you develop your way of viewing the world, but you create incredibly strong relationships that last a
lifetime,” says Way-Ting Chen ’94 (right), who met best friend and business partner Jennifer Li Shen ’94 their freshman year.

HEARTS
OF GARNET
Their bottom line:
Benefiting others
by Elizabeth Slocum

LIKE SWARTHMORE, Way-Ting
Chen ’94 and Jennifer Li Shen ’94 are
enhancing their social impact—by
helping organizations maximize theirs.
“We do strategic business planning
in the social sector,” Chen says of Blue
Garnet, the LA-based consulting firm
she and Shen co-founded in 2002. “So
instead of focusing on the bottom line,
our focus is on lasting social change:
What impact are you going to make?

How do you deliver it? And then how
do you do it sustainably?”
“We love geeking out on social
impact and thrive on being a team
of pragmatic idealists,” says Shen.
“People say we help put structure
around ambiguity, and that’s true—we
aren’t afraid of complexity.”
Even with high-profile clients such
as the Girl Scouts of Greater Los
Angeles, the James Irvine Foundation,
and Time Warner, their partnership
always feels personal for these trueblue College friends.
After graduating from Swarthmore,
Chen and Shen were roommates in
New York before moving to opposite
coasts, going to business school, and
landing at competing managementconsulting firms. Yet both felt called to
make a difference in their community,
together. Blue Garnet was born, named
with a nod to their beloved alma mater
and its spirit of social responsibility.
“Garnet represents honesty, loyalty,

and true friendship,” Chen says.
“When we started the firm, a rare
garnet was found in Madagascar that
in certain lights looked blue or green.
We loved that idea of transformation
and change—it worked beautifully.”
The duo is proud that Blue Garnet
resembles a “mini-Swarthmore”
through its ethos, team of learners, and
small-by-design environment, which
reminds them of where they came
from and where they still want to go.
“We started with this youthful
optimism around changing the world,”
Chen says. “Doing so takes patience
and a long view—it requires changing
pieces of it at a time. We’ve found our
piece that we’re trying to change.”

WAY-TING CHEN ’94 and
JENNIFER LI SHEN ’94
Entrepreneurs

SPRING 2018

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55

60

nature of our school’s color. It has many official incarnations,
depending on whether it is ink on paper, pixels on your
screen, dye in clothing, or paint on signs. It has changed
over time. I say this lack of color consistency—a rejection of
exclusion and authority—is a good thing, rooted deeply in the
ideas of the women and men who founded this College.

45
40

35
30

GETTING LOST IN COLOR
... and finding your way home
by Phillip Stern ’84

Q

UITE A FEW years back, my wife, Tamar
Chansky Stern ’84, and I repainted our
dining room ... or should I say we tried. For
two weeks, we agonized over the color. It
would be orange, we agreed, but which?
Upon seeing the startling hue I had rolled
onto the wall, Tamar, typically not prone to losing her grip,
was incensed: “Is this a joke? Are you trying to make me
crazy?” Behold the power of color.
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SPRING 2018

Rifling through the paint chips, we found a sweeter
orange, but I knew this shade would never wake me up in the
morning.
After hours of debate, we came upon a solution: Use both
oranges, layering a semi-opaque glaze of the second over the
first. Voilà! Sumptuously appetizing, suggestive of orange
peel and the Italian villa we could only imagine going to in
those years of repaying student loan debt.
Sometimes, two wrong oranges make a right.

SO HOW DO WE MAKE CHOICES about color? To
me, color implies motion, the tendency not to stay put:
restlessness and adventure. Put a color chart in front of me
and I feel like I’ve been invited to play a game in which there
are no correct answers, only questions: What do we want this
room, this design, this painting, this magazine to feel like
when people experience it? What do we want them to take
away? You have a concept—a feeling, maybe some words if
you’re lucky—but what does that really look like? You get lost
in this game, and you find your way out.
This game of color drags many things into it. At
Swarthmore, we have the Chromatic Cabinet, an
interdisciplinary, informal gathering founded by art
professor Logan Grider and physics professor Tristan Smith,
which meets three times a year to share perspectives on
working with color.
Lured by its mysterious and mischievous name, evocative
of Narnia and Dr. Caligari, I attended a meeting and was
delighted to find myself in the middle of a discussion about
synesthesia in poetry. French professor Jean-Vincent
Blanchard led a discussion about Rimbaud’s “Voyelles”
(translated by Christian Bök) in which all the vowels and
their sounds have a color—mostly unappealing:
A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: the vowels.
I will tell thee, one day, of thy newborn portents:
A, the black velvet cuirass of flies whose essence
commingles, abuzz, around the cruellest of smells ...
I was thrilled to be back in class with a group of
Swarthmoreans talking about color and poetry, in French
and English. What an opportunity to catch a whiff of
unsavory poetic hues, feel the shiver of refractory sounds,
and as Grider says, “ask the dumb questions.”
MAYBE IT DOESN’T SURPRISE YOU that color is
happening at good ol’ “staunch and gray” Swarthmore,
especially if you know the splendid arboreal beauty of
campus. Think of glowing vaults of yellow leaves over Crum
Creek; white-, tan-, and black-mottled sycamore bark; pinkfleshed magnolia petals on the ground in April, as thick as
snow; the dense green that envelops the campus in June.
What’s really remarkable to me is that here the notion of
“colorful” can include the thoughtful, stable, humble, wellbehaved hues of gray and brown in stone just as much as all
the raucous reds, purples, and yellows in the Arboretum’s
collection.
And what of garnet? As the College’s print designer, I am
familiar with much colorful disagreement over the true

IF YOU ASK ME what are my favorite colors, I am tempted
to say none. I am a color explorer traveling under no flag
… well, I do have a tendency. My eye keeps going back to
blues: the midnight dusk of skies, the indigo swirled with
turquoise of tropical seas, a strange flickering gleam you can
sometimes see looking closely at snow, the steely blue-gray
of the North Atlantic. Periwinkle. Cobalt. Azurite. Prussian.
In her compelling collection of essays A Field Guide to
Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit writes of “the blue of distance”
and the fascination it held for lost figures, like the mystical,
protoconceptual artist Yves Klein, who famously leapt “into
the Void” from a second-story window and who patented a
certain incarnation of ultramarine blue.
Heavily influenced by The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and
2001 as a kid, I would fall into that blue trance, thinking of
going far away and possibly never returning. As if to practice
for such a major voyage, I would get lost on solitary walks in
the thickets and coves beyond the backyard, but of course
come home, packed with material for maps and dreams.
I also took drawing classes with an elderly painter, a group
of kids sketching cows and boats in charcoal on Saturday
mornings. One rainy day he asked me to do a pastel of a decoy
duck he had in his studio, but in an imagined environment.
Looking at my finished work, he remarked only on the water,
which he described as “a strange, almost electric blue.”
That made-up blue was the beginning of my adventure in
color.
NOW IT’S BLUENESS ... and redness, yellowness—all the
qualities of all the colors—that keeps me up at night.
The artists who fascinate me most are those who
fearlessly use color to warp, enrich, and tunnel into the
primordial monolith of space, like the Exotic Birds of Frank
Stella, whose restless palette teases out new surfaces that we
can virtually walk through. The point of going on such walks
and getting lost is always to find a new way back that shows
you home in a different light.
There is the sense that many things are possible when it
comes to color, and given enough time and understanding,
they will all happen. The Stern household epic of many
oranges continued, peacefully, with other walls, sporting
peach or sunshine or adobe.
EXPLORING COLOR is a relatively safe way to get lost,
a friendly terra incognita, the beginning and end of the
spectrum clearly fixed, the whole thing constrained by the
orderly wave nature of light. The rest is fair game for the
discovery of new color pathways, by all of us.
On the following pages, get lost among the many ways
Swarthmoreans live with color thrumming in their lives and
work ... and find your way back—changed forever.

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

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Re

Or Ye

Pi

Pu

Bl

Br

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30

by Kate Campbell and Elizabeth Slocum

25

24

32

photography by Laurence Kesterson

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34

Gr

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“The aim of our studies is to prove
that color is the most relative
means of artistic expression, that
we never really perceive what color
is physically.”
—Josef Albers, artist and author of Interaction of Color

Re

D IS PASSIONATE. And love—which
often commandeers the color red—was
one reason Ross Ogden ’66 joined the
American Red Cross as a high school junior.
He wanted a way to meet more girls.
“It worked,” he laughs.
But he has stayed there 57 years for other heart-related
reasons.
“Helping neighbors in need knows no boundaries,” says
Ogden, who lends a hand however he can, in one case
consoling a young sailor whose wife had just died. For
his contributions, he received the Red Cross’s Harriman
Award for Distinguished Volunteer Service in 2010, as
well as Swarthmore’s inaugural Arabella Carter Award for
community service.
The inverse of the Swiss flag, the Red Cross symbol is one
of the most recognized globally. Ogden has witnessed the
iconic emblem bringing expressions of relief and gratitude.
“I’ve seen this in action,” he says, “from those whose lives
were destroyed by hurricanes to U.S. servicemen and women
in Kosovo to a cancer patient receiving life-prolonging Red
Cross blood and families reunited after 9/11.”
The simple act of helping people when they need it most—
showing love—remains Ogden’s most powerful inspiration.
“In the end,” he says, “it’s neighbors, friends, and
compassionate individuals who do the most to provide
relief.” —KC
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D

URING THE French Revolution, the presence—or
absence—of red and blue on the cockades that adorned
hats and jackets led to some gravely important actions.
“And beheadings!” says Megan Brown, an assistant
professor of history at Swarthmore.
Most famously, news that troops loyal to the royal family
had stomped on tricolor cockades while sporting white
monarchist ones led working-class Parisians to march by
the thousands to Versailles in 1789. (White was associated
with the House of Bourbon, while red and blue meant a Paris
connection.)
“In the tricolor cockade—and flag—we see the merging of
those colors,” says Brown. “This should remind us that, at
least in the early days of the Revolution, it was not evident
that the king would be entirely excluded from future
governance, let alone executed.
“We mark the passage of time not just by major breaks, but
also by continuity,” she adds. “Tracking colors, especially as
they’re used in symbols or rituals, is one way of seeing how
groups of people attempted to harness traditions.” —KC

GARNET STRONG
“Wearing the garnet ‘S’ represents a
strong culture,” says Cameron Wiley ’19,
the varsity men’s basketball team’s junior
point guard from Atlanta.
Being Garnet, for the athletes and
scholars at Swarthmore, could reflect
the gemstone’s symbolism of strength.
The original Swarthmore colors were
changed in 1888, when, as the Phoenix
later related, “at a mass meeting of
the students, pearl and maroon were
abolished, and after considerable
discussion, garnet was unanimously
chosen as the succeeding color.”
The Garnet’s Wiley, an honors
philosophy major and history minor,
was voted the tournament’s Most
Outstanding Player in 2017 on a team
that won the program’s first Centennial
Conference Championship, but his
transition to college athletics wasn’t easy:
A concussion his freshman year kept him
sidelined for several months.
“It was a frustrating period,” he says,
“because I wanted to lead our team and
see my goals come to fruition.”
He attributes his eventual success
to a willingness to ask for—and listen
to—advice ... and to be patient. After all,
garnets are formed over time and under
pressure.
“On our team, we have to hold each
other accountable,” says Wiley. “That’s
where the period of growth comes.” ­—KC

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23

Ye

“Orange is not just a color
to me but a movement to
educate the public about
the use of Agent Orange,
and the legacy of the toxic
substance for all who were
unknowingly exposed to it.”

LLOW powder the
shade of a hard-boiled
egg yolk fills a small
vial in Swarthmore’s
most colorful
interdisciplinary lab,
where art and science intersect. Made
by combining potassium chromate and
zinc chloride in solution—and then
turning it basic—the pigment exudes
a bright, cheerful hue when used in a
painting.
At least, at first.
“Zinc yellow starts out a lemon
color, then turns a greenish-brown
over time,” says Therese Ton ’19,
who researched and concocted the
pigment as part of fall’s Art, Chemistry,
and Conservation class, co-taught
by chemistry’s Ginger Heck and art
history’s Patricia Reilly. One infamous
example of zinc yellow in decline:
the pointillist masterpiece A Sunday
Afternoon on the Island of La Grande

—Charles Bailey ’67, director emeritus of the
Aspen Institute’s Agent Orange in Vietnam
Program and co-author of From Enemies to
Partners: Vietnam, the U.S. and Agent Orange

Or

ANGE is a cheery antidote to the typically
bland world of residential real estate,” says
Eli Spevak ’93, owner of Orange Splot LLC
in Portland, Ore. “It’s an artistic statement
of freedom.”
Spevak’s firm has been building affordable
homes with a focus on sustainability for 15 years. He loves
warm colors, gravitating toward them to boost his spirits, so
he plucked the name for his company from The Big Orange
Splot by Daniel Pinkwater (note the colorful last name), “an
awesome kid’s book that shows how a subversive splash of
color on an unsuspecting house can inspire and transform a
street.”
“Orange has always been about going against conformity,”
he says. “I’d much rather have a city block with a mixture of
aesthetics. Living in the Pacific Northwest is great, but the
weather is often gray and dreary. Orange just makes me smile
a little more.” —KC

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Jatte by Georges Seurat, whose sunny
seaside hill has muddied over the past
130 years.
Certain other properties made zinc
yellow a once-popular pigment, Ton
notes: “It’s known to be anti-corrosive,
so it was used as a primer on anything
that covered metal—on the wheels of
airplanes, in machinery, on cars. You
know yellow Ford Mustangs? That’s
the pigment. And if you mix it with
black, you get Army green—the coating
they used on military vehicles.”
But zinc yellow, she adds, has a
major black mark: “It’s an antibacterial
and nothing can grow on it, because it’s
really toxic. They didn’t realize it at the
time, but it’s a huge carcinogen—and a
large number of factory workers came
out with lung cancer.
“So, basically,” Ton says, “as a
pigment, as an industry, zinc yellow is
just not good.” —ES

+

SEE VIDEO: bulletin.swarthmore.edu

PSSST … COLOR IS AN ILLUSION
Perception is a tool that helps us decode what we see, and color
is just one means of interpreting that information, according to
Frank Durgin, the Elizabeth and Sumner Hayward Professor of
Psychology and director of the Swarthmore Visual Perception
Lab, where students use a virtual-reality system to study space
perception.
“Color, as Isaac Newton noted, isn’t really in the light,” says
Durgin. “Our experience is that we seem to simply see color, but
it’s really much more like a construction of our minds.”
By “our” Durgin means trichromats: humans (and a handful of
other primates) who have three types of receptor cones in the
retina that are responsible for the perception of three colors.
“They are sensitive to overlapping distributions of long,
medium, and short wavelengths of light all within a very narrow
band of the electromagnetic spectrum,” he says.
The colors we see can be understood as ratios of activity of

these three cone receptor types. So, when short wavelengths are
prevalent, we see blue.
“Although it horrifies a color scientist to label them this way,
you could say that the short, medium, and long correspond to
blue, green, and red, respectively,” Durgin says. “However, the
light itself isn’t colored—we just see it that way.”
Then why can we organize colors into a wheel?
“From these three types of sensors, our minds can construct
only a three-dimensional representation,” he says. “If our species
had evolved to have more or fewer sensor types, our experience
would be very different.”
How other animals see color is difficult to know, Durgin says:
Most nonhumans have two cones versus three (some have 14!),
“and we can’t talk to the animals about what surfaces look like
to them. We can’t even be confident that each of us humans
experience ‘red’ as the same color.” —
­ KC
­­
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25

COLOR AND
CATARACTS

Pi

NKWASHING has
Lori van Dam ’86
seeing red.
“I was getting my
car serviced,” says
the CEO of Susan G.
Komen New England, “and they were
selling pink keychains and pink air
fresheners—and none of the proceeds
were going anywhere except into the
pockets of people who made them.”
It’s an unfortunate side effect of a
cause being so closely connected to a
color—an idea pioneered by Komen
founder Nancy Brinker to unify the
organization and pay tribute to her late
sister, Susan Komen, whose favorite
color was pink.
“For a long time, people talked about
pink and its association with breast
cancer as being about awareness—
taking breast cancer out of the
shadows and saying it’s something we
can actually talk about,” says van Dam.
But awareness isn’t enough, she
adds: Even with pink’s saturation—
especially during Breast Cancer
Awareness Month (which Komen
hopes to rebrand as “Breast Cancer
Action Month”)—44,000 people die of
breast cancer annually in the U.S., with
one in eight women diagnosed in her
lifetime.
Which is why Komen launched
“More than Pink,” with a goal of
halving the nation’s breast cancer
mortality rate by 2026. On the local
level, affiliates are working to increase
access to care and reduce disparities in
outcomes for women of color.
For many patients and survivors,
pink symbolizes hope, community, and
support—but it’s important for pink to
mean more than green.
“You can buy all manner of pink
items that don’t advance the cause,”
van Dam says. “The only time pink
upsets me is when it’s on socks that
don’t go anywhere.” —ES

“T

“Since its cousin red is the
color of war, I like to think
that pink could become the
hue of nonviolent battle, and
that learning to embrace it
may be a very small first step
toward ending the war on
women for good.”
—Sarah Archer ’00, “A Western Cultural
History of Pink, from Madame de
Pompadour to Pussy Hats”
+

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HE IMPORTANCE of color varied a lot between
different punk scenes,” says George Hurchalla ’88,
the author of Going Underground: American Punk 1979–1989,
who came of musical age in the torn-and-tattered hardcore
era of the 1980s. “The initial New York scene was more about
black, like the Ramones and their leather jackets. But the
early ’70s glam-era influence in London was what gave us
the notion of vibrant color in punk.”
Notably pink, he says, which was featured prominently on
the covers of three all-time classic British punk albums.
“The Sex Pistols’ epic Never Mind the Bollocks had the
band’s name outlined in pink on a yellow cover,” Hurchalla
notes. “The legendary Pink Flag was the first album of the
band Wire. And on the cover of the Damned’s classic third
album, Machine Gun Etiquette, guitarist Captain Sensible is
wearing a ludicrous pink feathered top over yellow feathered
pants.
“Pink was the complete antithesis of a ‘rock ’n’ roll’ color,
which punk was trying to shake up,” he adds. “It was vibrant,
it was gender-bending, and for all these reasons, it upset
people—mainly men—a lot.” —ES

Before I had cataract surgery, I sought out
several friends who’d had the procedure
done. One or two mentioned that before
surgery, their vision had become foggy, as
though they were looking through a yellow
filter. Afterward, colors just popped.
I thought I was seeing colors just
fine—was I in for a surprise! I had the
procedure done in both eyes, about a
week apart, and was amazed at how color
perception in the “new” eye was so much
more intense than the remaining “bad”
eye. It was easy to compare during that
intervening week, and I kept covering
one eye and then the other to see the
difference, not really believing it. Colors
definitely were more brilliant—especially
in the dark-pink, magenta, and yellow
ranges.
There were some amusing side effects:
Soon after the surgeries, I discovered
that some outfits I had assembled for
their matching colors no longer really
matched. And sometimes at stores,
when I see pants and tops labeled with
the same color, the items look a little off,
particularly when the fabric is different.
I have read that people can perceive
the same color differently. So, is my new
vision the real deal? What is “real”?
—JULIE BUNCE ELFVING ’65

FULL ESSAY: bit.ly/PinkHistory

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27

“I

Gr

EEN FORESTS,
emeralds, and limes,
OK. But green fire?
Kathryn Riley
’10, a visiting
assistant professor
at Swarthmore, urges her students
to study chemistry through an
intellectual kaleidoscope. Unlocking
the causes of multicolored fire is one
such experiment.
“Different metal ions added to the
fire absorb energy as heat and then
emit energy as light with unique
colors—for example, copper produces a
beautiful green flame,” says Riley. “The
hottest part is the light-blue interior
of a flame, with a temperature around
1,500 degrees Celsius.”
Having embraced the liberal arts
here as a student, when Riley returned
as a faculty member, she wanted to
enable her students to view science
through multiple lenses and created an
Instagram where she posts fire—and
other elements—in all their scorching
hues.
“Too often students see chemistry
as equations and molecules on a page,”
she says, “but science is art—and it’s
colorful!” —KC

“G

reen is the color of energy being captured and
transformed,” explains Associate Professor of Biology
Nick Kaplinsky, a plant molecular geneticist who focuses on
plant responses to high temperatures (bit.ly/NKaplinsky).
One peculiar celebrity in his toasty greenhouse is the
Amorphophallus titanum—common name corpse flower—
whose bloom can reach up to 8 feet tall, but takes up to 10 years
to get there.
Its leaves look green because cells in the leaves hold
chloroplasts, dynamic little “molecular factories” whose job
is to trap the sun’s light energy and turn it into sugar. The
chlorophyll in the leaves absorbs deep-blue and red light,
Kaplinsky says, making the plant appear green.
In a showy last act when it finally blooms, the corpse flower
emits the sharp scent of rotting flesh—a trait designed over
millennia to attract the flies that pollinate its flowers. —KC

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ALWAYS did like animals that
could change color,” says Francis
Ge ’17, who collected and studied the
nocturnal gray tree frog in Assistant
Professor of Biology Alex Baugh’s
animal communication seminar. The
frog’s name is somewhat misleading,
Ge says.
“Each frog has a unique mottled
pattern on their dorsal side that ranges
from nearly completely black, to a
light creamy color, passing through
really gorgeous shades of green and
brown,” she says. “The Latin name
Hyla versicolor means they change
color, and in our experiment, we asked
whether they changed color based on
ambient temperature, background
color, or both.”
They discovered that the
arboreal dwellers are darkest on
darker backgrounds and at colder

temperatures, which means they sense,
process, and appropriately respond to
their environments.
So the clever frogs—native to
the eastern United States—use
color-change to better match their
background. But why? Ge learned
that “cryptic coloration” could be an
adaptation to escape being spotted by
visually hunting predators like birds.
It could also be a mode to stay warm,
capturing more solar energy at lower
temperatures.
“Color is something I take in, take
note of, gather data about, and remain
attentive to just by looking,” says
Ge. “At least to the human eye, tree
frogs on trees or lichen are extremely
well-camouflaged, which is especially
important when it’s cold and the frogs
can’t escape predators very quickly—
or at all.” ­—KC

“Redwood forests are quite dark and appear to
have a muted color palette—different shades of
green, and brighter colors in the form of flowers,
mushrooms, and birds.”
—Alison Campbell ’87, of California’s Muir Woods National Monument

MAKE ROOM FOR COLOR
A dazzling collection of pigments will line one wall, and hundreds
of barcoded pigment cards will be available for checkout in the
latest addition to McCabe Library.
Named for a matchbox couple, the new color-themed Frank ’68
and Vera ’70 Brown Study Room will also offer mobile physics
demonstrations, including how to simulate a sunset, say assistant
professors Logan Grider (art) and Tristan Smith (physics).
As co-founders of Swarthmore’s Chromatic Cabinet—a faculty/
staff discussion group exploring color from every possible
interdisciplinary angle—Grider and Smith turned a serendipitous
conversation with the Browns last spring into a shared vision for
this space, a newly designed seminar study room on McCabe’s
second floor.

The room has a sentimental history: When Frank and Vera first
started dating 50 years ago, they spent many studious hours
there, until one day, Frank suddenly interrupted the silence to ask
Vera to marry him.
“After I said ‘yes,’ we went right back to studying,” laughs Vera.
A lifetime later, the Browns wanted to ensure the room
where their journey started—the Chromatic Cabinet’s current
headquarters—will always inspire Swarthmore students to make
memories as beautifully colored as their own.
“Swarthmore is a very special place,” they say. “It will always be
in our hearts as the beginning of us.” —KC

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A SONG FOR YOUR EYES
“Color is central to all our projects in telling stories,
representing experiences, and transforming places,” says
Caitlin Butler ’06, chief strategy officer for Mural Arts
Philadelphia.
As the nation’s largest public art program, Mural Arts is
built on the idea that art ignites change. For 30 years, the
program has connected artists and communities working to
create art that transforms public spaces and individual lives.
“We sometimes describe our murals as Philadelphia’s
autobiography,” says Butler. “Artists and residents co-create
projects that highlight people, places, traditions, and ideas
that are important to our communities.”
Established as part of the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti
Network, Mural Arts is led by artist Jane Golden H’98. A
mural painter herself, Golden connects with graffiti writers to
redirect their energies into constructive public art projects.
“For an artist, color is a tool,” says Butler. “It
communicates emotions and energy, and it can help
shape the message. If an artist uses colors one wouldn’t
expect, it could be a challenge to viewers to question their
assumptions, or look at things differently.”
With up to 100 public projects each year, Mural Arts also
offers programs and learning opportunities for thousands of
Philadelphia youths and adults.
“Many of our murals feature lush landscapes full of
vibrant foliage and vivid botanicals—images desired by
people lacking easy access to nature,” says Butler.
The Mural Arts outdoor gallery is now part of the civic
landscape and a local source of pride, earning Philadelphia
international recognition as the “City of Murals.”
“Color is an important part of what our artists are sharing,
be it a memory, a symbol of their identity, or a place that
they love,” says staff artist James Burns. “Like a musician
working with notes, a painter uses a range of colors to create
a song for your eyes.” ­—KC

Pu

RPLE, historically a
color of royalty and
nobility, took on a
different meaning in
the military, thanks to
an act by Gen. George
Washington during the Revolutionary
War.
“There’s a wonderful line in his
order creating the original Badge of
Military Merit: ‘The road to glory in
a patriot army and a free country is
thus open to all,’” says Sean Barney
’98, recipient of the modern-day
version of the honor, the Purple Heart.
“Washington chose this color of
aristocracy for an award that was the
first of its kind—expressly for enlisted
men and noncommissioned officers.
“By saying this was something that
anyone could earn in this Army, it sent
a broader message about what they
were fighting for in the Revolution.”
And that egalitarian message lives
on through today’s Purple Heart.
“This is the only medal that—
whatever your rank, whatever race,
whatever gender, documented or
undocumented—if you bleed in service
of your country, you receive it,” Barney
says. “Nobody can decide that they’re
not going to favor you with it.”
To Barney—a Marine Corps veteran
of the Iraq War who was seriously
wounded by a sniper in 2006 (bit.
ly/BarneyEssay)—the Purple Heart
symbolizes a willingness to sacrifice
for fellow citizens, a virtue still
meaningful in his current role as a
Delaware public defender.
“There are many lawyers in
our office who could do better for
themselves financially in another
area of practice,” he says, “but
they’re committed to ensuring for all
people that the rights we have in the
Constitution—the rights the Founders
fought for—are respected in the
courts.” —ES

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“Complex and contemplative,
Ultra Violet suggests the mysteries
of the cosmos, the intrigue of what
lies ahead, and the discoveries
beyond where we are now.”
—Pantone Color Institute, on its 2018 Color
of the Year

“W

HY YES, THERE IS a purple
tree on campus!” reads a
Swarthmore College Facebook post
from 2015, soon after the dead weeping
hemlock near Sharples was painted to
honor its beauty and fragility.
But it won’t be there much longer:
The tree will be removed this spring
for safety reasons (as seen above, it’s
beginning to fall apart) and to make
way for a living replacement.
“I was keen to paint the dead
hemlock,” says Josh Coceano of the

Scott Arboretum. “It had a great form,
was in a prominent place on campus,
and was a plant species that was dying
in the wild.
“We are so quick to discard things
as they age, die, deteriorate,” he adds.
“This is especially true in gardens: Get
rid of anything that looks less than
perfect.”
The weeping hemlock became the
third tree on campus to receive a
colorful afterlife, following a Chinese
maackia painted blue in 2006 and a

bur oak painted red in 2010.
“This time, orange and purple were
the two colors up for debate,” says
Coceano, with Royal Purple becoming
the winning hue. As a compromise—
and for contrast—a couple hundred
orange tulips were planted
underneath.
“Purple has long been a symbol
of cooperation and bipartisanship,”
Coceano says. “Honestly, it’s my
favorite color in the garden. It engages
and blends at the same time.” —ES

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“I

Bl

UE IS MUSICAL. As an instructor at
Swarthmore, Andrew Hauze ’04 has
twice performed George Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue on piano along with the
wind ensemble.
“I suspect the title had special resonance
for Gershwin, a brilliant amateur painter, whose work
so abounds in ‘blue notes’—in which certain notes of the
Western scales are lowered for expressive effect—and the
influence of African-American musical styles,” Hauze says.
“It’s great fun to unpack its many musical influences and
to encourage the students to dig in, trying to bring out the
vernacular nuances of this many-layered work.”
While people have talked about “having the blues” or “the blue
devils” for centuries, the blues as a musical form emerged in the
U.S. after the Civil War.
“The expressive power of the blues now pervades so much of
our culture, from the great torchbearers of the original style—such
as Muddy Waters and B.B. King—to the rock and pop performers
deeply influenced by the blues recordings they encountered early
in their lives—such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Eric
Clapton,” says Hauze. “Musicians around the world now speak of
blue notes, though this way of referencing the subtle inflections of
blues musicians often oversimplifies a very nuanced practice.” —KC

SOUND! COLOR! YAY!
Listening to music through the color lens—and breaking away
from cultural symbolism—opened the mind of Jon Kriney ’20,
who created the campus radio show Sound! Color! Yay!
“I found a much more complex emotional relationship to color,”
says Kriney, who discovered his favorite was blue ... and not just
because of Joni Mitchell.
Although his crusade to curate colorful playlists (bit.ly/Kriney)
hasn’t quite connected with a large audience yet—the midnightto-2 a.m. shift for the WSRN 91.5 FM show may have something
to do with it, he laughs—it hasn’t dampened his quest, either.
“Doing this show has made me think about color in terms of not
just how it looks,” says Kriney, “but how it sounds and smells, and
the emotions that are associated with it.”­­­—KC

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’VE NEVER SEEN so many
different shades of blue as I have
looking out over the Grand Bahama
Bank,” says Kathleen Moran Hanes ’94.
Scuba diving daily, she explored hidden
pockets of the watery field site while
researching the impact of green turtles
and other creatures foraging in seagrass
beds.
And so, her first children’s book,
Seagrass Dreams, surfaced.
A vibrant and beautiful introduction to
counting, the picture book explores life
within these important nursery grounds
for conch, lobster, shrimp, and crabs.
Hanes’s favorite is the perfectly named
bucktooth parrotfish, which wields its
oversized teeth (really its mouth) to shred
seagrass blades and scrape off pink or
white algae.
“Bucktooth parrotfish contain many of
the colors of the rainbow and absolutely
shimmer when the sunlight strikes them,”
says Hanes. “Each of the organisms seems
to have its own colorful personality,
whether it is a yellow stingray playfully
burrowing into the sand to hide or a
silvery barracuda menacingly surveying
the scene.”
Gentle gray dugongs (a relative of
manatees) have a great appeal, too.
“They snuffle along the ocean floor and
remind me of cows grazing in a pasture,”
Hanes says.
All of this dizzying color is set against
the backdrop of hardworking seagrass
blades that slow down water currents and
provide shelter.
“This creates a calm, protected place
for juvenile organisms to hide and feed as
they grow,” she says. “I’m interested in all
of the organisms that make those colorful
meadows their home.”—KC

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33

THERE’S MAGIC IN MIXING

Br

OWN ISN’T the
only color Wendell
Willard ’70 sees
when he looks at
wood.
“I don’t like
to stain wood or artificially color
it,” says Willard, who for 37 years
has co-owned Harvard Custom
Woodworking in Massachusetts,
crafting cabinets, built-ins, and
freestanding furniture from native
hardwoods. “I prefer to finish with
clear coating or oil—then you see all
the true shades.”
For example, maple, to Willard’s
eye, is more blond than brown. White
oak is a warm tan. And cherry starts
off a pinkish red, but darkens and
intensifies with age.
“Black walnut may be the closest
to what others think of as brown,”
he notes, “but I see a whole range of
colors, from light amber to cocoa to
chocolate to purple.”
The beauty, Willard says, is in
seeing something seemingly ordinary
as anything but: “You have all these
glorious colors coming through.” —ES

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“The deep, rich color of
chocolate reminds me
of being happy on a cool
evening by a warm fire.”

— Liz Stern, who has baked at least 70,000
cookies at Sharples since March 2016

W

Start with a little red, yellow, and blue, and what can you make?
Orange, green, and purple, of course—but also turquoise and
crimson and lime and marigold …
“When my publisher asked me to write about color, my only
guidance was that it also include tertiary colors,” says Arielle
North Olson ’53, whose What Can You Do With Red, Yellow and
Blue? is her sixth children’s book. “I could go in any direction I
wanted, so I decided just to make it fun.”
Initially inspired by the hues of an old oil-paint box, Olson loved
the opportunity to explore color in creative ways.
“I am fascinated with the brain condition synesthesia, which
adds color to sights, sounds, and smells,” she says. “I would love
to see India’s Festival of Colors [Holi], when powdered paints and
colored waters are thrown on happy celebrants. And wouldn’t it
be fun to eat enough brine shrimp and algae and carrots to see if
we could become as colorful as flamingos?”
Her newest publication, Where Shall We Go, Big Black Crow?,
expands on her vibrant outlook. Co-written with her daughter and
illustrated by her granddaughter, the board book uses color and
lift-the-flap fun to guide readers on a search for the bird’s dinner.
“Colors play such a vital role in attracting children to books,”
Olson says. “Our words might never be read if the illustrations
don’t lure readers inside.” —ES

ith the scope of ecocriticism
continually expanding, Susan
Signe Morrison ’81 proposes a
broadening of the “green studies” color
palette.
“What about ‘brown studies’?”
says Morrison, an English professor
at Texas State University. “There are
aspects of life beyond trees.”
Including some subjects routinely
reserved for the restroom.
“We now basically have one attitude
toward excrement: It’s bad,” says
Morrison, who wrote Excrement in the
Late Middle Ages after recognizing a
recurring theme in literature of that
era. “But in the Middle Ages, there
was a huge spectrum of attitudes—
from very bad, where shit would be a
metaphor for sin; to good, where it’s a
code for resurrection.”
Morrison wants to combat the
stereotype that medieval people

reveled in waste: Legal cases from that
period pointed to sewage concerns, she
says. Dung heaps, valued as fertilizer,
turned up in wills. Sure, iconic writers
like Dante and Chaucer sometimes
focused on feces (enough for Morrison
to coin the term “fecopoetics”) but,
if anything, people then had a much
more well-rounded take on what we
leave behind.
“Traditionally, people wanted
to repurpose things—including
excrement,” says Morrison, who
followed up her fecal-focused book
with research on waste in general.
“We, of course, have become this
society where we just throw things
away. We set ourselves up as, ‘We’re
cool. We’re not like those medievals,’
when in fact, we’re just as dirty, if not
worse—especially toward the planet.”
—ES

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35

Bl

ACK-AND-WHITE in photography
frees your mind from having to process
all the colors,” says Ron Tarver, a
visiting assistant professor of studio art
at Swarthmore who cut his teeth as a
newspaper photojournalist and earned a
2012 Pulitzer as part of a Philadelphia Inquirer team. “You
actually see the image—the composition, the message.
A truly beautiful black-and-white photograph, in my
perspective, is a lot more difficult to make than a color one.”
Which is why Tarver introduces students to photography
through a foundational course in black-and-white film.
For each assignment, students are given just two rolls of
24 exposures, forcing them to slow down and consider
each frame—a challenging task for a digital generation. By
learning the importance of light and shadows, they become
stronger photographers, period.
“When you shoot in black and white, you see in black and
white,” Tarver says. “With my fine-art photography, people
would sometimes ask, ‘What did that look like in color?’ And
you know, I didn’t even see it in color—my brain had stripped
it all away.” —ES

Wh

ITE MORE OR LESS symbolizes a blank
slate in karate, and black represents
knowledge,” says Max Chomet ’12, a
high school biology teacher and longtime
student of Seido karate who leads adult
beginner classes in New York on weekends.
“It’s important to acknowledge, though, that when you earn
your black belt, this does not denote that you’ve learned
everything.”
On the contrary, it marks the start of more advanced
training. And to achieve it, students must first return to their
roots.
“When in promotion for your black belt, you put your
white belt back on,” he says. “This symbolizes ‘beginner’s
mind.’ For about a month, you are functionally a white belt
again and take all beginner’s classes, in addition to the
testing you undergo.
“Going back to white is important—it’s an exercise
in humility and reminds the karateka to work on the
fundamentals.”
As Chomet enters his 18th year of karate practice, he
remains inspired by the Zen phrase “ren ma.”
“The characters in Japanese literally mean ‘keep
polishing,’” he says. “The concept is that there is no such
thing as perfect—it’s not about getting to a destination.
Practice is an active process.” —ES

ODE TO JOY
Energy, diversity, optimism, change—how could one
symbol embody so many themes?
That was the challenge in designing a logo for
President Valerie Smith’s inauguration in 2015. Along
with a committee of faculty and staff, College designer
Phil Stern ’84 set out to create an emblem that captured
the campus’s excitement over her arrival.
“The whole community was electrified,” Stern says.
“For the design and colors of the emblem, it felt like
an opportunity to rethink our staid image—to take our
seriousness and transform it into something beautiful
and expansive.”
“President Smith asked us to imagine a symbol that
would inspire joy and forward motion,” says Nancy
Nicely, secretary of the College and vice president for
communications, who led the inaugural committee.
“Phil’s design did just that, and so much more.”
His sketch on the back of an airline beverage napkin
became the basis of the logo, which has since been
adopted for the Changing Lives, Changing the World
campaign (lifechanging.swarthmore.edu).
“The emblem suggests positive momentum,” says
studio art professor and committee member Syd
Carpenter, “with the circular format indicating an
inclusive strength shared by all.”
And the colors, she notes, are of a celebratory
nature: Yellow, green, black, and bright red make up
the major tones, along with Swarthmore’s garnet, which
the committee decided should be just one note in a
symphony of colors. A warm gray—symbolic of the
campus’s stone buildings—forms the foundation upon
which they all dance.
“To me, the central disc is like the College—all these
people from different backgrounds living with one
another,” Stern says. “And in the outer ring, they’re all
going out their separate ways into the world.
“I’m really happy to see the emblem thriving,” he
adds. “It’s special, and it feels vital. It’s Swarthmore.”
—ES

“When I play the piano, I do not ‘see’ black-and-white keys but
36

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SPRING 2018

instead hear colors swirling around me.”

—Annette DiMedio ’75, pianist and University of the Arts music professor
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37

THE
WISDOM
OF
WOMBATS
A hairy-nosed
zoological curiosity sparked
Andy Podolsky ’88’s passion
for conservation
by Michael Agresta

Andy Podolsky ’88 with bare-nosed wombat Boo at Ballarat Wildlife Park in Victoria, Australia.

A PANDA SNEEZES and breaks the internet; photogenic
cetaceans inspire generations to “Save the Whales.”
And then there’s the northern hairy-nosed wombat.
Despite the desperation of their situation—just over
200 exist on Earth, almost all in a single colony in a farflung Australian research preserve—public outcry has been
relatively restrained.
Should we care that these obscure marsupials—
overshadowed as they are by their cuddlier cousin, the
koala—are teetering on the edge of extinction? If a species
falls in the (ever-shrinking) forest, does it make a sound?

Andy Podolsky ’88 is one of what he estimates are under a
thousand people who have actually seen a northern hairynosed wombat in the flesh. He’s made it his mission to
increase visibility of the species, so that their lonely plight
does not go unnoticed.
Podolsky is an unlikely wombat savior. First of all, he’s
not Australian—he grew up in Boston and has spent his
career in the U.S., collecting a doctorate in colonial history
and working as a technology consultant and academic
administrator. And second, he’d never laid eyes on any of the
three species until the late 1990s, when he saw a wombat at
the San Diego Zoo. Even so, it was love at first sight.
“They are nocturnal, often surly, and have a hairy nose ...
not unlike myself,” he laughs. “I don’t have anything against
more iconic, charismatic animals—say, pandas—but they
almost get over-resourced while wombats are actually far
more endangered. Maybe if people knew, they would care,
and if they cared, something would happen.”

Spreading the word about the northern hairy-nosed
wombat is not Podolsky’s first underdog fight to protect an
undervalued population: He pulled off a miraculous act of
advocacy on behalf of public-interest lawyers nearly 20
years ago. At the time, Podolsky was working to improve
a student-loan forgiveness program Stanford Law School
had implemented for graduates in public-interest careers.
Podolsky noticed that a number of alumni were about to
complete the program, but that those same underpaid
lawyers would be taxed heavily on the imputed “income.”
“Stanford’s outside counsel told us that solving the
problem was impossible,” Podolsky says.
But he, fellow Stanford faculty and administration, and
staff in government relations persevered. By working with a
member of Congress and eventually a representative of the
U.S. Treasury Department, they crafted a tweak that was
included in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 and modified
SPRING 2018

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39

GET WISE TO WOMBATS
Wombats are unusual
marsupials in that they carry
their joeys in pouches that
face backward. This protects
their young from dirt when
the mother is digging a
burrow.
Wombats live in underground
colonies and emerge at night
to forage an herbivorous diet.
A group of wombats is known
as a wisdom.

Due to their long digestive
process, which can take up to
18 days, and the lack of
muscle contraction in their
rectum, wombats famously
leave cube-shaped scat.

EHP.QLD.GOV.AU

SABERWYN



A wombat’s main defense is
its tough rump. When
threatened, a wombat dives
face-first into a nearby
burrow, using its rump as
blockage. Accordingly, they
can crush predators against
the roof of their burrow.
Created to protest
commercialization,
“Fatso the Fat-Arsed
Wombat” was an unofficial
mascot of the Sydney 2000
Summer Olympics.

Through conservation
efforts, the northern
hairy-nosed wombat’s total
population has risen from 38
individuals in 1982 to 230
today. To help further,
Podolsky suggests supporting
the Wombat Foundation
(wombatfoundation.com.au).

+

WANT HIS LIST OF WHERE TO SEE WOMBATS AROUND
THE WORLD? Email bulletin@swarthmore.edu.

40

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

slightly the next year. The law is still on the books today,
excluding from taxation student loans forgiven for citizens
in public-service work.
“When President Clinton signed the bill into law, we had a
party,” Podolsky says. “I told the aspiring lawyers who were
there: If you learn nothing else in law school, please learn to
never, ever tell your client something is impossible.”
Podolsky followed his appetite for the impossible into the
tech industry, where he worked for years in the complex field
of knowledge engineering and semantic analysis.
“These days, I’m almost retired, in the sense that now
I spend most of my time visiting wombats, which is not a
career,” he laughs. “There’s not any way, as far as I can tell, to
make money chasing wombats.”


Podolsky’s referring to his completist urge to visit every
wombat-hosting institution in the world. After the first
meeting at the San Diego Zoo, Podolsky and his wife,
Christina Devlin ’86, traveled to Australia and Sydney’s
Taronga Zoo. There, in the wombat heartland, he learned
more about this roly-poly marsupial’s family, including its
three species branches: northern hairy-nosed (Lasiorhinus
krefftii), southern hairy-nosed (Lasiorhinus latifrons), and
bare-nosed or common (Vombatus ursinus). The southern
hairy-nosed variety, though more numerous than its
northern relations, is a threatened species; the bare-nosed
wombat is protected in some areas, pervasive in others.
Podolsky’s fascination with the creatures only grew­—he
made a list of the 10 U.S. zoos that host wombats and, over
the course of a year, visited them all. Inspired, he planned
trips to Europe, Asia, and all over Australia, observing the
approach of each institution he visited. He knows of 97 zoos
and wildlife parks worldwide that care for southern and
bare-nosed wombats. Podolsky has visited them all.
The more he saw of this culture of conservation and public
education, the more Podolsky became intrigued by the sad
and sobering future facing the northern hairy-nosed, which
has never successfully adapted to life in captivity.
“For such a critically endangered animal to be so almost
totally unknown itself is intellectually interesting,” he says.
“I’ve been to zoos in Australia where the signage says, ‘Did
you know? There are two kinds of wombat: a bare-nosed
and a southern hairy-nosed.’ I’m standing there thinking,
Actually, you still have a couple hundred northerns left.
“You’ll meet Australians who don’t even realize there’s this
third incredibly endangered wombat species.”


Podolsky knew that to encounter this most endangered
wombat would require a visit to their protected colony at
Epping Forest National Park, in remote central Queensland.
Epping Forest is technically closed to the public, open only
to scientists and long-term wombat-protection volunteers.
But for the cheerfully self-described “crazy wombat guy,”
the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage

When he received a wombat in 1869, artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti described his new pet as “a Joy, a Triumph, a Delight, a
Madness.” Perhaps this bare-nosed mother and joey, photographed in Tasmania by Andy Podolsky ’88, would agree.

Protection made an exception.
“From an Australian’s perspective, I was about as exotic
as a wombat to an American,” Podolsky says. “It was very
odd to find this 50-year-old Yank, without any children in
tow, appearing at small, sometimes rural zoos. I was able to
leverage my hobby and receive permission to visit Epping
Forest. There’s a lesson in there of, well, you have to ask.”
One early evening in Epping Forest, Podolsky experienced
the thrill of his wombat-chasing life, as he became not only
one of the lucky thousand to spot a northern hairy-nosed,
but also one of an even more select few to document the
sighting on camera. It was dusk—the time wombats emerge
from their burrows to begin the night’s forage. Podolsky was
waiting by the entrance to a burrow that the site’s managing
scientist believed to be home to a breeding female.
“It was a case of being in the right place at the right time
and, unbelievably, also having a camera on hand,” Podolsky
says. “Being lucky enough to see her, and realizing that there
were actually two pairs of eyes peering out. Her joey was
next to her, also looking out of the burrow, which was really
remarkable.”

What does a wombat-chaser do after he’s seen them
all? Podolsky has focused his wombat-related energy on
advocacy. He urges alumni to get involved with habitat
preservation—if not for wombats, then for other endangered
species around the world.
“Swarthmore graduates, to make a generalization, tend
to like to engage directly,” Podolsky says. “To the extent
that someone can participate as a volunteer or can raise
their hand and say, ‘We need to preserve the environment,’
either on land or engaging directly with the government, as

I did with the tax law—that’s something people can do. Plus,
donations to fight habitat loss are always needed.”
Podolsky has twice given speeches about the outsider’s
experience of wombat conservation and public outreach
efforts, through Montgomery College’s Spectrum Lecture
Series in Maryland and at the National Wombat Conference
in Australia, where he was able to connect with wombat
researchers and enthusiasts from around the country.
He came away from the conference most impressed by
the ordinary Australians who receive certifications to aid
southern hairy-nosed and bare-nosed wombats injured by
wild dogs, cars, and other civilizational nuisances.

Podolsky began his love affair with wombats very much
out of a feeling that these endearingly odd creatures—with
whom we humans may share more in common than we
think—were going the way of the dodo with too few noticing
or caring. But his deeper dalliance with wombat culture has
brought him into contact with a community of others like
himself: a wisdom of quirky, compassionate wombat-lovers.
That has been an affirmational lesson.
“This started for me as a personal hobby,” Podolsky
says. “But it grew into more. I’m going to places I didn’t
expect to go and meeting interesting people. Their careers
are so inspiring. A lot of them are pretty much living on a
shoestring. One that I met put herself through a veterinary
nursing program on her own dime so the animals wouldn’t
have to endure hours in the car to care facilities. I’ve met a
lot of dedicated people who just care so much.”

+

READ Andy Podolsky ’88’s full wombat conservation lecture:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

41

I

T WAS THE TREES.
Yes, Quaker values
and academic rigor
helped persuade
Karan Madan ’91 to
choose Swarthmore
when he opted to attend college in the
United States. But what made up his
mind was the natural beauty of campus
that he’d seen in the brochures—those
gorgeous trees.
“I thought, What better place to
study?” he says.
Those trees are still here; they’ve
grown and flourished in the quartercentury since Karan’s graduation.
Something else has, too: Today,

A LASTING
LEGACY

Two generations, two journeys, one Swarthmore
by Jonathan Riggs
photography by Laurence Kesterson

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SPRING 2018

he’s driving his son Arjun ’21 back
to Swarthmore to begin his second
semester.
“I’m excited,” Karan laughs. “I’d love
for him to partake in the experiences
that were important to me when I was
a student, but I also want to step back
and let him have his own.”
Karan grew up in India, went to
high school in Wales, and came to
Swarthmore as an international
student. In fact, this helped define his
identity on campus: Not only was he
president of the International Club,
but most of his best friends were also
new to the U.S.
Although he played squash and
started an intramural soccer club
called The Flying Turbans in honor
of the headwear he then donned,
Karan preferred to spend his time
with friends, hanging out in the
amphitheater or planning campus
cultural activities. He was particularly
close to Larry Westphal, the J. Archer
and Helen C. Turner Professor of
Economics, joining him as a research
assistant in the Netherlands after
graduation.
“He always joked, ‘When you get
rich on Wall Street, buy a gold chair
for me,’” says Karan. “I was proud to do
something even better, when I helped
fund the ongoing Larry and Myrt
Westphal Scholarship at Swarthmore.”
Driven by a desire to save the world,
Karan worked at the U.N. and World
Bank, but ultimately realized he could
have a larger social impact helping
companies grow. Today, he’s managing
director and head of emerging markets
and foreign exchange for the Americas
at the investment bank Nomura.
Born in Britain, Arjun grew up in
New York City, a gifted student who
excelled at Latin and has played the
tabla since kindergarten. For as much
as he admires his father, following so
closely in his footsteps was something
he weighed carefully.
“The biggest factor in me choosing
Swarthmore—bigger than a family
connection—was knowing that this is a
liberal arts school with an engineering
program,” he says. “I knew I could
come here and pursue a wide variety
of things. Plus, since I played four
years of high school golf and loved it,

“I’ve thought a lot about my dad’s path, from
Swarthmore to today,” says Arjun Madan ’21 with
his father, Karan Madan ’91. “I don’t know what
mine will be yet, but I appreciate how supportive
he is as I figure it out.”

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43

knowing I could play for Swarthmore’s
team was huge.”
Passionate about music, Arjun
also co-hosts a Wednesday-night
radio show on WSRN with friend
Steve Hergenroeder ’21, Deep Sound
Presents: Tasty Tracks, where the
pair play and discuss their favorite
house, trance, and dance music.
He’s a sportswriter for the Phoenix
and looks forward to deepening his
existing Swarthmore friendships while
developing new ones.
It means a lot to the father to see
his son so confident and thoughtful,
especially since being back on campus
can blur the lines dividing present,
past, and future.
“We went to get pizza at Renato’s in
the Ville,” Karan says, “and it was the
same guy working there from 25 years
ago! We all laughed about how much
has changed.”
“It’s nice to know one thing that
won’t,” says Arjun. “Both of us going
to Swarthmore is a bond I’m proud my
dad and I will always share.”

LADDER LEADER
“When visiting campus with Arjun last
spring, Karan began a conversation with
us about opening a recruiting relationship
between Swarthmore and Nomura,” says
Nancy Burkett, Swarthmore’s director
of career services. “He believes our
liberal arts education provides a strong
foundation for a career in finance.
“As a student, Karan was a Career Peer
Advisor, and he continues to apply that
educational and mentoring lens. Through
his efforts, three Swarthmore juniors
were hired as summer interns at Nomura
and one senior was hired as a full-time
sales and trading analyst. He also has
supported externs for many years, from
when he was at Barclays, Deutsche Bank,
and Merrill Lynch, to today.
“Karan Madan is making a real
difference in the lives of our students, and
we’re very grateful for his support.”
PEIWEN ZHANG ’18
“Although Swarthmore was not a target
school in the past, Karan came here to
hold all-day campus interviews to meet as
many Swatties as he could.
“I was very nervous because it is
extremely rare to have such a senior

“Swarthmore is underrepresented on Wall Street,” says Karan Madan ’91, who helped
(from left) Tommy Ferguson ’19, Simon Vernier ’19, Peiwen Zhang ’18, and Nick DiMaio ’19
land opportunities there. “If I can use my experience to help our students gain equal footing,
secure their careers, and achieve their dreams, there’s no better gratification.”

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Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

person interview students, but Karan was
very kind and genuinely interested in what
I’ve done here. He was also extremely
helpful by sharing his own experience in
the financial services industry, and how
he got there from Swarthmore.
“When I received an offer, I accepted
immediately—Karan’s an unbelievable
personal and professional mentor.”
TOMMY FERGUSON ’19
“It’s a rarity for a managing director to
do this kind of thing, but there he was.
So when Karan was talking, I was taking
notes: I knew I did not want to miss out on
any advice he had to offer.
“I know he will continue to provide a
wealth of information and I will seek out
his mentorship during—and after—my
internship. I would not be where I am
without his commitment to helping
Swatties break into the competitive world
of banking and finance.”
SIMON VERNIER ’19
“Karan helped me get a more realistic
sense of what my own finance experience
would—and could—be like. His generosity
and thoughtfulness in guiding us through
the interview process was invaluable.
“We both believe that Swarthmore
students have the advantage of being
different from the usual candidates for
these internships—we take a diverse
range of classes and build a large set
of skills so we can approach issues in
creative ways.”
NICK DIMAIO ’19
“Liberal arts institutions like Swarthmore
encourage students to study what
they love and apply it. As a result of my
education here, I have developed an
interest in international markets and
macroeconomics, and my relationship
with Karan has been instrumental in me
pursuing it.
“Nomura is a global firm known for
‘connecting markets east and west.’ I
have sought to do exactly this with my
Swarthmore education and am looking to
continue this journey in my professional
life, as well.
“After I graduate, I hope to follow in
Karan’s footsteps in another way, too, and
act as a mentor to fellow Swatties.”

class notes
A TREASURY OF ALUMNI-RELATED ITEMS

ALUMNI
EVENTS

ALUMNI COLLEGE ABROAD
Join fellow Swarthmoreans
on an educational journey.
bit.ly/SwatAbroad
“Art & Ales of Flanders”:
Aug. 17–25
“Waterways of Russia:
St. Petersburg, Moscow”:
Aug. 26–Sept. 6
“Eclectic Peru: The Art
& Culture of an Ancient
Civilization”:
Oct. 15–22
GARNET HOMECOMING
AND FAMILY WEEKEND
Oct. 26–28
Save the date for this annual
celebration of what makes
Swarthmore special.
swarthmore.edu/
garnetweekend

LAURENCE KESTERSON

ALUMNI WEEKEND
June 1–3
Start planning your trip to
campus now to join classmates
and friends for the Parade of
Classes, Alumni Collection, and
so much more!
alumniweekend.swarthmore.
edu

A late-winter nor’easter hit campus March 7, creating perfect sledding conditions outside McCabe Library.

Editor’s note: Is your Garnet Sage
class missing a column this issue?
Fear not! With recent changes to
the Bulletin, including our new
“Their Light Lives On” section,
several class secretaries requested
a switch to twice-a-year columns.
However, they’d love to hear
from you at any time! Visit bit.ly/
SwatSecretaries to find your class
scribe, or email your news directly
to classnotes@swarthmore.edu.
Ultimately, the Class Notes
section belongs to you. Have a
suggestion for how we can keep
improving? Please get in touch! We
love hearing from all our alumni
and take pride in helping you share
your stories post-Swarthmore.
—Elizabeth Slocum,
Class Notes Editor

1941

Libby Murch Livingston
lizliv33@gmail.com
207-885-0762
A few “notes” ago, I suggested
that we write of our offspring’s
activities, and I am pleased
to have had a good talk with
Barbara Ferguson Young, whose
granddaughter Kris writes juvenile
books. Publishing under the name
K.E. Rocha, she has been very
successful, and the last book
in her Fairhaven series was just

released. Very popular already!
I am looking for it for one of my
great-grandchildren.
Barbara still “runs” her retirement
community. (Just joking, but she is
really amazing in all she does.) We
are both lucky to be in excellent
communities where we can stay
involved yet taken care of.
I have had little contact with
Swarthmore lately. I enjoy my
monthly luncheon date with
Becky Judd, daughter of the
late Margaret Chase Judd ’39.
I also had a chat with Dagmar
Strandberg Hamilton ’53, who had
been a good neighbor here but
returned to Texas, as husband Bob
’52 needed special care. (Sadly,
Bob died Jan. 13.)
So, ’41ers: Do send me news about

SPRING 2018

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45

class notes
you or yours. Please email me—or
how about a call? I would love it!

1942

Mary Weintraub Delbanco
delbanco660@gmail.com
Bernard and Lucy Rickman
Baruch maintain a holiday home
to which they periodically retreat
to escape “institutional life.” A
welcome sight they enjoyed during
such an escape was 25-plus deer
in the field nearby.
Lucy Selligman Schneider’s
granddaughter Emily works for the
Friends Committee on National
Legislation and leads workshops
on counteracting President
Trump’s legislative initiatives. Lucy
enjoys holiday celebrations at her
daughter’s Manhattan home.
Your secretary, Mary, enjoys the
many educational opportunities
offered at Roland Park Place in
Baltimore, including discussions
led by lawyers, musicians, and art
historians. An added pleasure is
having daughter Janet’s family
within walking distance.
We three hope there may be
other classmates who would join in
contributing to Class Notes!
William Longaker died in
December after a life well-lived in
Ithaca, N.Y., where he practiced
psychiatry. He loved nature,
read voraciously, and made his
own bread and wine. He is survived
by five children, six grandchildren,
and three great-grandchildren; his
friend and former wife, Patricia;
and brother Richard Longaker ’49.

1949

Marjorie Merwin Daggett
mmdaggett@verizon.net
From snowy Lebanon, N.H., Bob
Norman writes: “Nita and I live in a
retirement community that is just

46

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SPRING 2018

the right size—about 85 residents.
We know each other, though to
varying degrees. We do have to
put up with some cold weather,
particularly this year with several
nights colder than 20 below zero.
We have many concerts and
events, some at nearby Dartmouth
College, as well as a good local
theater. I see Tedd Osgood ’53
occasionally at musical events.
“My health is pretty good
for an old geezer, except for
macular degeneration (dry kind),
which makes reading difficult.
Considering what I can’t see, it is
surprising what I can—especially
things that aren’t there.
“Heinz Valtin’s daughter, Alison,
wrote that ‘Heinz has had a pretty
uneventful year, and perhaps that’s
not a bad thing.’ He shares events
with many friends and I know
would welcome classmate visits in
his sunny, comfortable quarters at
Goodwin House in Alexandria, Va.
“It is hard to believe that our 70th
Reunion is a year away. I hope to
go and to see many of you there—if
my eyes will cooperate!”
Condolences to Elizabeth Wilbur
Hodges on the passing of husband
Thomas, who died in August on
their beloved Little Deer Isle,
Maine. He and Liz married in 1948
and settled on the Main Line. In
1954, he started an eponymous
industrial advertising agency—just
as the computer era was taking
off. Tom was passionate about
protecting the bay in Maine from
industrial salmon farming; he
was a skilled sailor and navigator,
and was quick to rescue boaters
in distress. Well into his 90s, he
volunteered at the Bryn Mawr
Hospital Surgicenter. Besides Liz,
he is survived by a daughter.
Our sympathy also to the family
of William Derr, who died in
December. After high school, he
joined the Navy as an aviation
cadet and was in flight training
until the end of World War II, after
which he attended Swarthmore. He
started a successful sales career
in Philly, continued in Chicago,
and ended as a VP at Humphrey
Leather Goods Co. He was an

avid boater and was proud to be a
“looper,” having circumnavigated
the eastern U.S. by way of the Erie
Canal and the Mississippi River.
He also served as a Florida Inland
Navigation District commissioner,
where he secured funding for
marine projects.

1950
Jan Dunn MacKenzie
mjanmack@comcast.net

Dirk Spruyt died in November
2016. Friend Sheldon Weeks ’54
writes: “I overlapped with Dirk
at Swarthmore in 1949–50, his
senior year, my freshman. We
played tennis together early
mornings, and on Saturdays went
to the Embreeville State Hospital
for recreational therapy with
patients. This was a formative
experience for me, as after
graduation I worked for five
years for the American Friends
Service Committee and developed
weekend institutional service units
at Manhattan State Hospital. At
Swarthmore, I also took over the
student transportation committee
and acquired the old ambulance
from World War II that we used
for transport, buying a new GMC
bus for the student body. Dirk was
helpful in stimulating me in many
constructive ways.”
Gordon Mochel, husband of
Patricia Lackey Mochel, died June
18. Please send any remembrances
you may have of him.
Yoshiro Sanbonmatsu died Oct.
22. In all the years I knew Yosh, he
never expressed bitterness about
the treatment he and his family
endured during the internment of
Japanese-Americans during WWII.
He was angered frequently by
actions of this country and others,
but he never put his outrage
through the filter of his own
experience.
Ten bound volumes of MAD

1945, 1946, and 1948 are in need of class secretaries.
Interested? Email classnotes@swarthmore.edu.

magazine collected by the late
David Peele now enliven McCabe
Library and honor the former
college librarian’s memory (bit.ly/
PeeleMAD).
Betty Nathan planned to travel
with her daughter in February to
Costa Rica. Her grandson teaches
in Monteverde, which was founded
by Quakers in the 1950s.
Jane Hooper Mullins writes: “In
October, I went with my daughter
to Accra, Ghana, to visit Ashesi
University, which was founded by
Patrick Awuah ’89, whom I knew
well when he was a student. It is
an amazing, successful university
with a curriculum structured with
Swarthmore as its model—and
with interesting alums doing
splendid things for their country
and Africa. I also met Tamar di
Franco ’89, whom I remembered as
a student and my daughter thinks
she baby-sat. Small world indeed.
“Life at Kendal at Longwood is
good and full of Swarthmoreans—
alums, retired faculty, and former
residents of the town.” Among
them: Peg Allen, with whom Jane
recently dined.

1951

Elisabeth “Liesje”
Boessenkool Ketchel
eketchel@netscape.com
Walter Blass “spent all of
September in Europe—seven
countries, 30 people, and even
one neo-Nazi lecturing me on the
train! Then in November I was
the Woodrow Wilson Fellow at
the University of North Georgia
lecturing, interacting, and speaking
to 400 sixth-graders about the
Holocaust. Since I never attempted
politics, their cheers were the
closest I have come to instant
fame. But in December, sad news
of Bob Osborn’s passing.”
In April, Ken Kurtz sold his
Lexington, Ky., home of 43 years
and moved across town to a senior
residence, the Lafayette, “giving up
some great neighborhood friends,
but making new ones here at

once. In time, I also found a new
girlfriend, a dancing teacher and
choreographer, Mary Jo Holland,
who lost her longtime spouse
about the time I did, some 10-plus
years ago. (She is 4 foot 8 and can
fit under my arm.) She’s a bundle
of energy, and just gave up heading
the Energizers, a group of ‘senior
women’ who perform at area
hospitals, nursing homes, schools,
and VA places, all pro bono.
“Also at the Lafayette, I started
teaching film classes again,
weekly on the in-house closedcircuit channel. I’m also to teach
eight weekly classes through the
University of Kentucky’s outreach
program. This spring will combine
U.S. and foreign ‘classical films,’
and I’m working on a two-semester
course for fall on the history of
documentary films.
“All of this was set back in late
December when I fell and fractured
the ‘distal end of my right fibula.’
I’m in one of those ‘air boots’ right
now, but am making progress and
hope to get back to driving—and
maybe a new square-dance class
the Lafayette plans later this year.
Don’t know if I have done that
since college, but the instructor
says it will start with the basics.”
Hello from Portland, Ore., writes
Anne Mount Hay. “I find that this
is the time of our lives when
we sadly lose many friends and
family members. Joe Floren, my
second husband of almost 20
years, died on New Year’s Eve
of natural causes. He was 88.
We were born in the same small
hospital in Oregon City, just eight
days apart. Even though we’d lived
in Portland much of our lives, we
hadn’t knowingly met each other
until we were almost 70. But those
later years together provided a
lovely coda to our lives. Here’s to
all survivors!”
And the latest from Dan Singer:
“Maxine [Frank Singer ’52] and I
live independently in the house we
have lived in since 1960. Our kids
are grown and gone—two to the
West Coast, one to the U.K., and
one to Israel. All seem busy and
happy. Our four grandchildren are
also West Coasters—three in San
Francisco and one in Portland. We
are gearing up to host Passover
celebrations with almost all the

progeny (plus Maxine’s sister Lily
Ann Frank Youman ’57 and family).
There will be plenty of helping
hands, and we hope all goes well.
Beyond that, all seems reasonably
comfortable—hoping mostly to
survive to see the end of the Trump
nuttiness in the off-year elections,
a consummation devoutly to be
wished. Warmest regards!”
Good to hear from Jean Matter
Mandler: “I am having a wonderful
trip on the ship Seabourn
Encore, which is going all around
New Zealand. I am currently in
Wellington, a magnificent city with
amazing sights.”
I want to thank all who responded
to my request for news. I can’t
believe how active and engaged we
are! Kudos to the Class of ’51.
Not much new with me. I love my
senior-living community, where I
have made many friends and am
on several committees. I am still
active in the guardian ad litem
program: Three of my cases closed
joyfully in December with children
going back to their parents after

some remedial work. Such a happy
time, and, of course, the delivery of
Christmas gifts to all the children!
Editor’s note: To fill in some
blanks requested by Dan Singer:
“In June 1951, we were 217, of
whom as of Jan. 12, 2018, 105
are still alive in varying states
of wellness—not such a bad
reckoning, all things considered.”

1952
Barbara Wolff Searle
bsearle70@msn.com

Greetings from California, where
I am luxuriating in the warm
weather while so much of the
country suffers. (I’m writing this
in January.) I am adjusting well to
retirement-community life and find
myself increasingly appreciating
the many amenities and services

CAPTION THIS

YOUR CAPTION HERE!

Be creative! Submit a caption by June 15 to cartoon@swarthmore.edu.
To see last issue’s cartoon with suggested captions, go to Page 55.

the complex provides. It turns out
to be a nice way to grow old!
After complaining about having
to report so much bad news,
I received a couple of upbeat
communications. “I have been
meaning to write you ever since
you advised us you were moving
to California,” says Franz Leichter.
“I am pleased you are continuing
as class secretary. You have been
so loyal and dedicated for so many
years that I could not imagine
anyone taking over this function.
[Thank you, Franz!] I hope your
‘new life’ turns out well.
“Robert Ammerman came
from Cincinnati to New York to
celebrate his 90th birthday. We
were also joined at a reunion by
Helene Smith Ferranti ’54 and
Bob’s grandson Patrick ’14. I went
to Turkey in June to visit a dear
friend who has a house on the
Mediterranean. It is a trip I have
made numerous times, but Turkey
is a sad country to visit now.
“My traveling is winding down,
though I hope I have in me
another trip to Vienna in February,
where a play about my mother
is to be performed. I attended a
Swarthmore event in NYC hosted
by President Valerie Smith. I find
her very impressive. The event
showcased Swarthmore’s new
fundraising drive, which is partly to
support more community outreach
by students. Professors talked
about their students’ activities in
Africa, among other places, as part
of their studies. What a difference
from when we attended. Was there
even a class on Africa in our days?
I find the College very exciting
and with such an enrichment of
opportunities and resources.”
I got a lovely note from John
Smucker in a shorthand that I will
try to unpack without too much
distortion! “Louisa, my wife, is 92; I
am only 89. We’ve been married for
60 years next June. Our son has
written three books: The last one is
Riding with George about George
Washington, his great-great-greatuncle. Anne ’81 does acupuncture
in Charlottesville, Va. She watched
with horror the activity of superright-wingers last summer. As a
former dynamite salesman and
Episcopal clergyperson, I preach
‘power to the people.’ Life is good

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

47

class notes
and exciting sometimes.”
Ronald Maddox died in August
at home in Herndon, Va. After
graduation from Swarthmore
and George Washington Law, he
conducted a practice in Virginia
and was a longtime member of
the Fairfax Bar Association. Ron
loved sports, particularly football
and the Washington Redskins.
He was also an avid reader and
writer of science fiction. Ron was a
loving husband and father of eight
children. He is survived by many
family members.
I look forward to hearing from
you. I’m impressed with how active
many of you are!

1953
Carol Lange Davis
cldavis5@optonline.net

As we approach our 65th Reunion,
chairman Bob Fetter urges that
if you plan to attend a future
reunion, come this June. For
those who cannot stay the whole
weekend, Bob suggests attending
the Saturday lunch. On Saturday
evening, a film will be shown in
which Stanley Mills delivers a
stunning tribute to the College.
At least 11 people are serving on
the reunion committee, including
Francis Ashton, the parade
marshal, and Roger Youman, who
will be at 30th Street Station
helping travelers change trains.
Breaking news from Brice Harris!
“We moved three years ago to a
retirement community in Pasadena,
Calif.—not much of a move since it
is only five miles from Eagle Rock,
most of our activities have been in
Pasadena, and our apartment is
on the first floor. Retirement from
Occidental College (no, I did not
know Obama—I was teaching at
the American University in Cairo!)
has been more difficult since I
miss the students, but organizing
discussion groups for Anglo
seniors and tutoring for Latino
third-graders helps out. If anyone
has time, take a chance with these
interviews: bit.ly/VillaGardens and

48

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

bit.ly/BriceNBC.
“We seek to travel while healthy—
to Venice in May and Central
Asia in September—to keep up
with six grandsons (alas, no
granddaughters!) and wonder how
we ever had time for a regular job.”
Arielle North Olson (pg. 35) still
edits and writes for a publisher
in India, Little Latitude, and just
received the first copies of her
newest book, Where Shall We
Go, Big Black Crow? written with
daughter Christy Kennedy and
illustrated by granddaughter Caity
Kennedy, “the chief creative officer
of the fantastically successful
Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, N.M.”
Arielle says information about
Meow Wolf is online (meowwolf.
com), as is a video of artist
Prashant Miranda discussing
Arielle’s book What Can You Do
with Red, Yellow, and Blue?, which
he illustrated (bit.ly/RYBBook).
Arielle also reports that son
Randy, a National Geographic
photographer, was named
International Photographer of the
Year at the Siena International
Photo Awards festival in Italy.
Who can top this? Woody Thomas
’51 writes: “Merrillan Murray and I
married in July 1952. Merrillan took
her senior classes at the University
of Rochester but graduated from
Swarthmore with the Class of ’53.
As of July 2017, we have been
married for 65 years!”
As mentioned in the last Class
Notes, Barbara Turlington died
Sept. 3 in Chevy Chase, Md. I found
an interesting update on Barbara’s
early years after Swarthmore in our
25th Reunion yearbook and can
duplicate it for anyone interested.
In September, Margy Morey
Zabriskie had written that Mary
Jane Winde Gentry was active, but
dealing with chemotherapy. Sadly,
Mary Jane died Oct. 4 at Wake
Robin in Shelburne, Vt.
Mary Jane had been involved in
many community organizations.
She assisted in the transformation
of Shelburne Farms into a nonprofit
educational organization on whose
board she served from its inception
until 2016. In partnership with her
late husband Stokes ’51, she was
also instrumental in the founding
and development of Vermont’s first
continuing-life-care community,

Wake Robin.
I think everyone in our class knew
and admired Mary Jane. She was
one of eight family members to
graduate from Swarthmore, and
she also had aunts, uncles, and
children-in-law who were alumni.
We will miss her.

1954
Elizabeth Dun Colten
lizcolten@aol.com

Ferocious East Coast winter
weather as I write in January!
Hopefully, when you read this in
April, spring will have sprung.
Peter Bart started his third year of
weekly podcasts for Deadline and
Variety, and notes that, amazingly,
in this era of streaming and social
media, “radio” (i.e. podcasts) is
making a big comeback. After 51
years, Judy and Paul Kantrowitz
moved, though they’re still in
Brookline, Mass. (1501 Beacon
St., Apt. 503). Paul retired from
active practice but (part-time)
teaches first-year Harvard med
students while Judy continues her
psychoanalytic career. They enjoy
their 9-year-old granddaughter.
Caroline Barrera Matzen sent
greetings from Minnesota, and Ann
Reeves Reed’s card included an
excellent family photo.
After 15 years of heading Point
Loma Library’s book-sale room,
Anne Chandler Fristrom resigned
and took over the Sweet Somethin’s
musical program at Mount Miguel
Covenant Village in Spring Valley,
Calif., a job made more difficult as
there is no money available to pay
the performers. Husband Punky ’55
continues his monthly Poetry Hour,
and they both look forward to visits
from sons Carl ’80 and David ’83.
Mary Wren Swain retired after
two terms as a library trustee,
and husband Raymond completed
20 years as a Maine Maritime
Museum docent. Margaret and Tom
Greene headed a 17-day, 11-person
trip to Italy last June (Rome,
Siena, Florence, and Ravenna).
The group included children

Meg, Tom, and Marion ’92, their
spouses, and three of their four
grandchildren. With ages ranging
from 11 to 84, Tom recommends
multigenerational travel!
Peter and Patricia Bryson Van
Pelt took a small boat cruise last
April in Burgundy, where all eight
passengers were family members,
and in September joined a classical
music tour on the Danube from
Berlin to Budapest. In early fall,
they attended daughter Susan’s
first solo dance performance in
many years. Until recently, the
administrative duties of Susan’s
nine years as Ohio State’s dance
department chair had precluded
performance.
Jack and Ruth Maurer Kelly
enjoy life on Jekyll Island, Ga., and
Beaver Island, Mich. They took
trips last spring to the Oregon Bach
Festival and Oregon Shakespeare
Festival, and visited friends and old
haunts on the state’s coast. Their
coastal home was not damaged by
Hurricane Irma, although Ruth’s
studio suffered 26 inches of
floodwater. Naomi Lichtman Rose
visited California in January 2017,
had an indulgence of play-going in
the spring with Cornelia Fuller, and
went to Uganda in June to see the
gorillas. Beth Wood Bowers says,
“I’m still mobile enough to travel.”
As witness, she visited Florida
last winter and California in June;
mentioned two family sojourns at
the beach—Delaware and North
Carolina—during the summer; and
sent a pre-Christmas photo taken
from a Lake Tahoe mountaintop.
Dee Brock Partridge has lived
at Wake Robin continuingcare retirement community in
Shelburne, Vt., for 10 years and
mourns the loss of founder and
close friend Mary Jane Winde
Gentry ’53. Dee and husband David
deserve a “Traveler of the Year”
prize—three trips during 2017: in
June, a river cruise with Tauck
from Amsterdam to Budapest; in
October, a National Geographic/
Lindblad expedition from Puerto
Montt, Chile, through the Chilean
fjords and glaciers, visiting Torres
del Paine park and rounding Cape
Horn; and in December, sailing
through the Panama Canal from
Atlantic to Pacific, heading up to
Costa Rica.

Sheldon Weeks’s annual letter
was entitled “A Year of Making
Music.” Home base is Brattleboro,
Vt., where he and wife Gudrun
play in various venues, participate
in the local Quaker worship, and
especially enjoy the proximity
of grandson Niko, 3, who lives
upstairs. In January 2017, they
headed to Loja, south-central
Ecuador, city of several symphonies
with numerous museums and
concert opportunities. With the
help of a young translator, Sheldon
bought a traveling violin!
Harriet Donow Cornell’s son
Keith ’84 was elected Surrogate
Court judge in Rockland County,
N.Y., and more than 300 people,
including Harriet, attended his
January installation ceremony.
Keith’s son Skyler ’21 continues
the family’s Swarthmorean
tradition as a freshman this year.
The New York Times publishes
daily noteworthy facts. One recent
comment was that today, 18.5
percent of the Dutch population
is 65 or older (up from just 7.7
percent in 1950). True in the U.S.?
I don’t know, but it is nice to think
we are a “significant” number …

1956
Caro Luhrs
celuhrs@verizon.net

It wouldn’t be Christmas without a
card displaying Mary Lou “Zuzie”
Jones Toal’s beautiful artwork.
This year it’s a sweet little English
robin showing off his bright-red
chest. Mary Lou writes that her
newest volunteer job is cataloging
the archives of her 300-year-old
church. How fascinating it must be
to dip back into the 1700s!
Sally Guthrie and husband Ed
Geers spent their adult lives
helping those in need, not just in
the U.S., but also in Haiti, Ukraine,
and Cambodia. After Sally’s death,
Ed returned to Iowa (his home
state) where he has established
the Ed Geers and Sally Guthrie
Endowment for Environmental
Education.

ALUMNI COUNCIL NEWS
The Alumni Council met in March. Get to know our newest
group of members, who will join the Council in the fall:
bit.ly/SwatCouncil
alumni@swarthmore.edu
swarthmore.edu/alumni/alumni-council
Despite some health issues in
2017, including a knee replacement,
Eric Osterweil and wife Evelyn are
active and well in Brussels. They
had a lovely time last summer
in England with their “English
family”—daughter Marie-Hélène,
son-in-law, and grandchildren.
Their “U.S. family” (with more
grandchildren) is based in New
York. Harder to visit, but New
York daughter Michele Osterweil
Chaikin ’89 has been able to spend
time with them in Brussels.
At 80-plus, Eric just ended his
legal career! But he is already
training to become a short-story
writer, taking a creative writing
course sponsored by Wesleyan
University. Evelyn continues with
her beautiful photography. They
saw wild ponies in England—I
suggest a wild-pony short story
illustrated with Evelyn’s pictures!
It is with sadness that I report the
November death of Marilyn “Lynn”
Modarelli Lee. Our thoughts are
with her three children—including
son Al ’84—and their families.
Lynn loved Swarthmore and made
significant use of her education.
A little over 20 years ago, she
wrote: “Considering all my labels
of woman, mother, grandmother,
divorcee, lawyer, library negotiator,
union negotiator, Democrat,
community leader, and friend, I can
say that I enjoy my life.”
Sandy ’55 and Ruth Cooper Lamb
were incredible environmental
entrepreneurs long before most
of us even thought about the
environment. For 15 years they lived
“off-the-grid” like pioneers in an
isolated area of the Adirondacks.
They managed to feed themselves
and deal with multiple problems
without using most of the tools we
take for granted.

We are at the age now where
one begins to think seriously
about preparing for death. The
Lambs have worked out a “green
burial” plan. After getting town
approval, finding a funeral director
to transport their bodies, and
securing cardboard caskets, they
dug their own graves with the help
of kids and relatives on their old
Adirondack property, “Journey’s
End.” Sandy and Ruth aren’t
planning to die soon, but with this
plan in place, they feel they have
more time to continue leading
happy, productive lives.
Sally Pattullo McGarry was
forced by Hurricane Irma to
evacuate Hilton Head Island, S.C.,
in September. Fortunately, she was
able to get to Ohio to spend time
with her children and their families
in Cincinnati and Columbus.
Her “big trip of the year” was a
17-day November river cruise from
Amsterdam to Budapest.
We fondly remember Marjorie
“Marji” Jones Fooks, who died in
November after a short illness.
Marjorie was one of our very
few “overseas” classmates—this
was a big deal in those days!
Coming from the British West
Indies (Jamaica), she was British,
charming, and had a keen wit.
After Swarthmore, Marjorie
moved to England. She married
Ray Fooks, headmaster of Thomas
Peacocke, an old and well-known
British secondary school. For
many years, they lived in Rye, a
beautiful small town by the sea,
but about 10 years ago they moved
to Oxford, where a daughter and
two grandchildren lived. Marjorie
described Oxford as “a very special
city” but with “tremendous traffic
and dozens of bikers swirling
around with no thought of safety.”

A wonderful event for the couple
occurred a few years ago, when
they were received at Buckingham
Palace in London. Ray was made
a Member of the British Empire for
his considerable lifetime service
to Rye. Queen Elizabeth II was
scheduled to make the award but,
unfortunately, was double-booked,
so Prince Charles took over. In any
case, an exciting, memorable day!
Please note my schedule has
changed from four columns per
year to two, and your notes will
now appear in the spring and fall
issues each year. This is because
there is so little news as we get
older. It’s just a logical change—I
haven’t forgotten you!

1958

Vera Lundy Jones
549 East Ave.
Bay Head, NJ 08742
verajonesbayhead@comcast.net
Roy Tawes has written Recall,
a story of the Vietnam War and
the cultural revolution/antiwar
aftermath in San Francisco. Most
of the story is true, but Roy chose
to present it as fiction since no
one would believe it. Roy based his
story on declassified information
from the ’60s and has gotten
positive feedback from his Penn
Med classmates.
Roy also talked with Blaine
Braniff. Both hope to get to our
60th Reunion, but “travel is getting
to be a hassle,” he writes.
Janet Smith Warfield sent
me a photo of herself with Bob
Freedman and his wife, Marisa
Harris, at the Ritz-Carlton New
York in Battery Park. They had a
lovely brunch together when Janet
was in town for an International
Association of Top Professionals
networking event. Janet speaks
all over the world, demonstrating
what we do with words and
teaching how to use them more
effectively. Last summer, Janet
did a series of radio interviews and
was part of an online telesummit
series, “Be the Voice of Positive

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

49

class notes
Change.” She plans to present a
workshop in San Diego and will
speak at an International Women’s
Day event in Uganda. In the
summer, she will speak in Panama
City, Panama. “I’m also working on
a couple of books,” she writes.
Janet Lewis Honecker reports
that son Kent James ’84 lives with
wife Marianne in Washington, Pa.,
not far from Janet. Their youngest,
Lauren ’21, is a Swarthmore
freshman, and they invited Janet
to attend Parents Weekend with
them last fall. “I hadn’t been back
on campus for quite a while, and
I had a wonderful weekend. The
weather was perfect, the grounds
were lovely, and the organization
was impressive. Lauren was busy
most of the time playing Ultimate
Frisbee, but she did take me to the
fourth floor of Parrish. It was so
dark that I couldn’t see the rose
garden, but I remember climbing
up all those stairs with friends from
that hall. When we lived there, we
didn’t have to leave the building
to get breakfast—no more!” Janet
and her family went to lectures
and watched the alumni vs.
Swarthmore women’s soccer game.
Janet hopes to make it to our
reunion in June. I certainly hope
lots of you come!

1960
Jeanette Strasser Pfaff
jfalk2@mac.com

Don’t forget that we will have a
Class of ’60 mini-reunion at the
College June 1–3. It will probably be
very “mini” since few of you have
indicated that you can come. But
however many of us gather, we will
have a good time. Register through
the College in the regular way; this
is not an “official” reunion.
Gordon Dass Adams “moved from
Seattle to Berkeley, Calif., last
spring with my partner, to be near
her lovely granddaughter. I travel
to Seattle frequently to visit my
daughter, grandson, and son. I’m in
good health; still doing those fivemile hikes in the Berkeley hills!”

50

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

BULLETIN BOARD
Notes and announcements from our staff.

CROWN JEWEL
The May Queen was a campus fixture for decades. Send us your
May Day memories, and help us figure out when the maypole
tradition wrapped up.
WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
Haunted dorms, spirits in the stacks—tell us your best spooky
stories from your time at Swarthmore.
WRITE HERE, WRITE NOW
Have a great idea for a feature, profile, or story? Get in touch!
bulletin@swarthmore.edu

John Palka writes: “These days I
am writing a blog, Nature’s Depths.
Last October’s post, ‘Come Walk
with Me’ (bit.ly/JPalka), recounts
some of the experiences I had at or
through Swarthmore that turned
me into a biologist with hybrid
interests, both neuroscience and
the life of plants.”
We continue the topic we started
in the winter issue, recalling
midcentury things that are now out
of date.
Mimi Siegmeister Koren: “In the
1950s, my family would gather
around the phone whenever we
made a long-distance call—even
from Brooklyn to our cousins
in New Jersey! Such a call was
something special.
“Those days, people did not
answer, ‘I’m good,’ when asked how
they were feeling. They also didn’t
drop the ‘of’ as in ‘a couple of times’
or ‘dispose of this carefully.’
“In midcentury, there were certain
topics that were not discussed,
or were only whispered: divorce,
adoption, cancer, unemployment,
homosexuality, and the sex lives of
politicians. I’m glad we’re not afraid
to talk about the first five now, and
sorry that so much time is devoted
to the sixth topic.”
Norm Sarachek: “Before drones
there were pats of butter on the
cafeteria ceiling in Parrish. IBM 80
column punch cards made great
bookmarks. No computer room
with Wi-Fi was available. My haunt

was a tiny, isolated desk between
stacks of books in the basement of
the library. The boiler would roar to
life to keep me awake.”
Kay Senegas Gottesman: “Longdistance phone calls varied: You
could make a call to anyone who
answered, to someone specific
at the number, or place a collect
call that could be accepted or
rejected. There were different
charges for each type of call. Many
of us remember that you could let
your family know you were OK by
making a collect call that they then
rejected.”
Will Fairley: “We used to sweat
starting the car on cold mornings.
I once used an ‘engine blanket’ to
help keep it warm overnight. Now
we take cold-weather starts for
granted.”
Marcia Montin Grant wrote via
her “chancy internet service” in the
French village of Branceilles:
“We wrote letters—I even wrote
to my grandmother every week!
Telephone calls were a real luxury.
“We had typewriters, typewriter
ribbons, wonderful little portables
(mine was an Olympia), carbon
paper, whiteout, paper files. We had
written paper airline tickets, which
I was always scared of losing.
“We did not have microwaves
to heat things up, just doubleboilers on the stove. No wheels
on suitcases. No handheld little
hairdryers. No tiny hearing aids
that you can’t see. No Skype to

view people when you phone them.
No showing them the Christmas
tree or what you had for dessert.”
Elise Landau: “Well, one thing is
ironing. We went to college before
wash-and-wear. Certainly before
Lycra and spandex. We had cotton.
It had to be ironed. That meant
the laundry, and it meant wives.
Those shirts and blouses, those
trousers had to be pressed! I don’t
know whether women’s liberation,
such as it was, would have been
possible without the technological
changes to fabric production that
came along in the ’70s and beyond.
I still have an ironing board, but
sometimes it sits for months
without use. Another thing for my
son and grandchildren to deal with
one day!”
One more from Sue Willis Ruff:
“When was the first time you heard
someone say ‘Totally’ as if it were a
sentence?”
Just to show how unevenly
we discard habits of the past, I,
Jeanette, iron everything: dish
towels, sheets, T-shirts, whatever.
I rely on my landline phone and
don’t have a TV. I write letters,
probably illegibly, with my fountain
pen, and I white-out my mistakes.
Some old habits linger; others
are transformed by progress. We
all have our own way of handling
change.
I have the sad duty to report the
deaths of two classmates: Martha
Merrill Pickrell on Sept. 20; Robert
Mayberry on Dec. 8. I welcome
personal memories you may wish
to share.

1961

Pat Myers Westine
pat@westinefamily.com
The College sent me a financial
summary of the Class of 1961
Reunion Fund for the Arts and
Social Change, and copies of
the thank-you letters from last
summer’s recipients. The fund
provides stipends for summer
internships (“meaningful
engagement”) with nonprofit

organizations, grass-roots
advocacy groups, or public-service
agencies. David Wible ’18 worked
with the Chester Children’s Chorus
in several roles, from music-theory
tutor to reading and classroom
assistant, and found the experience
an effective way to contribute to a
nonprofit while learning more about
himself. Dorcas Tang ’19 interned
with the Philadelphia Museum of
Art’s Education Research Center,
where she was impressed with the
museum’s impact on educators and
saw how the departments have
evolved to take part in “providing
physical and digital resources to
integrate arts in learning across all
disciplines.” Leslie Moreaux ’20
worked with Urban Word NYC, a
group she had been part of since
childhood, and helped organize the
Summer Institute, a two-week-long
writing and performance series of
workshops with renowned poets.
The students were appreciative of
the 1961 Reunion Fund’s assistance
and thanked us for “the opportunity
to help an organization achieve
their summer goals” and to learn
new realities about themselves.
Alan Kaplan writes: “After six
decades, I have returned—in a
matter of speaking—to my Phoenix
editing days, by way of writing
a monthly Policy Digest for the
Family Caregiver Alliance (FCA), an
advocacy and service organization
in San Francisco. After working
on Medicare regulatory and
legislative issues for many years,
and then more than a decade in
what became a daily backup role
as my mother journeyed from
independent living to assisted living
to a nursing home, I was invited
to co-author an FCA paper on the
transition of seniors from hospital
to post-acute care. One thing led to
another, and I’m now keeping close
tabs on caregiving developments—
an ever-more-recognized hotbutton issue—for FCA.”
With a theme “menacingly
recurrent throughout history and in
headlines today” is Linda Gordon’s
latest book, The Second Coming of
the KKK. Look for it in bookstores!
Class president Maurice Eldridge
received the Albert Nelson Marquis
Lifetime Achievement Award from
Marquis Who’s Who. Maurice was
Swarthmore’s vice president of

college and community relations
and executive assistant to the
College president until his 2015
retirement. Before that, he
was principal/director at Duke
Ellington School of the Arts in
D.C., an education specialist in
the Massachusetts Department
of Education, and assistant
headmaster at Windsor Mountain
School. He is a co-founder of the
Chester Charter School for the
Arts and is co-vice president and
secretary of its board. Marquis
honored him for his “achievements,
his leadership qualities,
credentials, and successes he has
achieved in his field.”
Pat Clark Kenschaft was also
honored by Marquis as a Lifetime
Achiever. Pat, who had “Christmas
in July” with her entire family in
Montclair, N.J., is secretary of the
Cornucopia Network of N.J., is
co-clerk of Peace and Service at
her church, and raises most of the
family vegetables.
Holiday letters: From North
Carolina, Louise Todd Taylor
included a delightful array of
pictures of her family, sons, and
grandchildren’s activities—and
spoke of how grateful she is for
family and friends. From Honolulu,
Jean Geil, too, spoke of old friends
and family visiting her and said she
sings at her retirement community,
plays in a recorder ensemble,
and—now that her in-house
library responsibilities have been
reduced—has more time to read to
her brother, a Parkinson’s patient.
From Pennsylvania, Marilyn
Emerson Lanctot volunteers on
the New Hope–Solebury library
circulation desk, takes her dog to
a nursing home to visit patients,
and enjoys “being serenaded by
her husband and son on banjos,
Dobros, and guitars.” Emily and
Bob Rowley moved to a new
address in Brookfield, Conn.,
and sent a great picture of their
gaily decorated front door. Sheila
Maginniss Bell traveled last year
with her granddaughter on a Road
Scholar trip to San Francisco and
went alone on a walking/hiking trip
to southwest Ireland. She works
with Scott Arboretum, is secretary
of the Swarthmore Senior Citizens
Association, participates in Art
Goes to School, and sings in her

church choir and a community
chorus, for which she is treasurer.
Dorothy Smith Pam, in
Amherst, Mass., teaches English,
communications, and public
speaking at Holyoke Community
College; “grandchild-sits” a thirdand fourth-grader while their
parents run Kitchen Garden Farm,
selling organic vegetables to fine
East Coast restaurants and stores;
and with her husband stays active
in their community.
After deadline, Steve Vessey
sent me notice of wife Kristin
Bergstrom Vessey’s death due to
complications from a fall in early
January. (See her memorial on pg.
75.) I welcome reminiscences to
share with classmates.

1962
Evelyn Edson
268 Springtree Lane
Scottsville VA 24590
eedson@pvcc.edu

With the Bulletin allowing Garnet
Sages to publish just twice a
year, my next column will be in six
months—please help me fill it with
details of our lives and times. We
look forward to hearing from you.
Sad news is the passing of
Christine “Tina” Jensen Storch on
Oct. 10 at Kendal in Oberlin, Ohio.
I remember Tina regaling us
with stories of her stint as an
AFS student in Germany. I had
not realized that she returned to
Germany after graduation to work
with the American Friends Service
Committee. While in Germany, she
met and married Howard Storch, a
U.S. Army sergeant.
A birthright Friend, Tina attended
George School and remained
active in Quaker circles her entire
life. She was a welfare caseworker,
then a municipal tax collector, of
which she wrote: “One does not
wake up in the third grade, or as
a freshman at Swarthmore, with
a burning desire to become a tax
collector!” I’m sure many of us
have similar reflections on unlikely
turns in our lives.

In retirement, Tina volunteered at
a food co-op, a community garden,
and an ecological learning center.
Tina and Howard also made yearly
trips to Australia to visit their
daughter and her family. Thanks
to Howard and daughter Margaret
Storch for sharing their memories
of Tina.
Jillian and Robin Ridington are
selling Retreat Island, where they
have lived for 25 years, and have
bought a refurbished 1909 house
in Victoria, British Columbia.
Robin is preparing to be an expert
witness in a treaty-rights case
brought by Blueberry River First
Nation. “As usual,” he writes, “we
are spending the winter in Maui.”
Caroline Hodges Persell enjoys
life at Kendal in Sleepy Hollow,
N.Y., where she is on the board
and plays in the orchestra. In her
travels last year, she saw Arlie
Russell Hochschild and Suzanne
Wright Fletcher in D.C. There
they enjoyed reminiscing, seeing
the cherry blossoms, and visiting
the National Museum of African
American History and Culture.
Speaking of D.C., Judy Schwartz
Floam sent a photo of the line
outside Kramerbooks—people
waiting to buy Michael Wolff’s
tell-all book on the first year
of the Trump administration.
Kramerbooks, you might
remember, was founded by
Nancy Kramer Bickel’s father and
continues to be a mecca for those
who like to read hard copy.
After numerous false alarms, I
now have an actual copy of the
book I edited and translated,
Description of the Aegean and
Other Islands, by Cristoforo
Buondelmonti (Italica Press).
Buondelmonti spent almost a
decade roaming the eastern
Mediterranean in the early
15th century, and he entertains
the reader with tales of Greek
mythology, marauding pirates,
and weird folk customs. He sent
it to his patron, Cardinal Giordano
Orsini, saying that he hoped it
would amuse him in his idle hours.
The book includes a beautiful
facsimile reproduction of a
manuscript from 1475, now at the
University of Minnesota. There is
a hand-drawn map of each island.
Tell your library to buy it!

SPRING 2018

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51

class notes

1963
Diana Judd Stevens
djsteven1@verizon.net

Our class will miss Lani Despres,
who is survived by daughter
Heather Despres-Burack ’90 and
son Jed; Carol Finneburgh Lorber,
survived by husband Bennett
’64 and sons Sam ’89 and Josh;
and David Bartlett, survived by
wife Carol and sons Benjamin
and Jonah. Lani was a gifted
painter and astrologer. Carol, an
active member of our class and
her community, was a devoted
caregiver for her family. Dave was
described by classmates as brilliant
and one who stayed true to his
commitment to become a pastor or
theologian. A classmate wrote, “He
will never know the impact he had
on me.”
David Gelber, creator and
executive producer of Years
of Living Dangerously, reports
that while the networks ignore
climate change, Years has been
producing three to five videos a
week intended to galvanize climate
action. The National Geographic
Channel has given the green light
to a third season of the series.
Back in her hometown, Seattle,
Gail MacColl is living in Horizon
House, a senior community
suggested to her by Anne Howells.
Jack and Nancy Hall Colburn
Farrell’s living plan includes eight
months in Boulder, Colo., near the
homes of two of Nancy’s daughters
and their families, and four months
in Fort Myers, Fla., near Jack’s
daughter and her husband. In
January, Jack and Nancy took
the Swarthmore Cuba trip. Polly
Glennan Watts has lived in Florida
for two years and is pleased
with the cultural opportunities
and medical facilities. Seeing St.
Thomas and St. John devastated
by hurricanes was tough. From
aerial videos, Polly believes her
former house survived.
Travelers: Paul ’65 and I
toured Chile, Atacama Desert to
Patagonia, learning the history

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SPRING 2018

and culture, and experiencing the
varied climate and flora and fauna.
Sara Edmundson Wu recommends
Western Australia—enormous,
rural, and laid-back. She was
there for a grand-niece’s wedding,
where she broke her hip dancing,
so also recommends the health
care. Clyde Prestowitz suggests
visiting the Oregon coast, which he
did with his new knee in between
visiting his sons in Reno/Tahoe,
writing a book, and speaking in
Houston and Mexico City. David
and Austine Read Wood Comarow
enjoyed a bike trip in Italy. Polly
Glennan Watts visited her “musical
family” in the Carolinas, D.C.,
and Delaware and enjoyed family
reunions in Princeton, N.J.,
and central Pennsylvania. She
also went to Orlando to see her
beloved San Antonio Spurs play.
Susan Potter Evangelista was in
London when daughter Amina’s
organization, Roots of Health,
received the With and For Girls
Award from the Stars Foundation,
which invests in organizations
and ideas that transform the lives
of disadvantaged children, young
people, and their communities
globally.
Edwenna Rosser Werner
retired from the University of
Southern California five years
ago and worked briefly as a
research assistant on brotherin-law Bob Putnam’s book Our
Kids. Edwenna has two passions
besides volunteering: her two
granddaughters and Swing Left, a
political action group working to
flip the House Democratic in 2018.
Her granddaughters live in D.C.,
where Edwenna’s daughter covers
Congress for The Washington
Post. When visiting D.C., Edwenna
sees Bob and Caroline Eubank
Lyke, Dan Sober, and Gail MacColl
(before she moved to Seattle).
Edwenna’s son programs computer
games, and her husband is a Jet
Propulsion Laboratory astronomer.
In November, Linda and Bill
Steelman welcomed grandchild
No. 6, daughter of Mary Elizabeth
and Pete ’95. Bill is handling the
symptoms of Parkinson’s disease
quite well as he continues work at
the First Congregational Church
Nantucket, where Linda serves
as “de facto” choir adviser. The

Steelmans look forward to ’63’s
55th Reunion.
Earlier Class Notes “promised”
more on Jane Jonas Srivastava’s
trip to the “stans” (Kyrgyzstan,
etc.) and the story of the 96
needles she took as gifts.
Before her trip, Jane noticed the
pincushion she’d had since seventh
grade was leaking sawdust, so
she cut it open and discovered 96
needles. Feeling sad that traveling
mostly by bus she’d have little
chance to interact with locals, Jane
made packages of 6–8 needles to
offer to women she met. She gave
needles to a woman sewing with
gold thread, a seamstress, and a
weaver, and the remainder to her
guide to give to a women’s craft
co-op. Jane also connected with a
local couple on a plane who noticed
her knitting a hat. Through sign
language and help from the guide,
Jane and her new friends talked
about their families and lives.
Jane gave the friends a hat for
their grandchild. As she exited the
airport, Jane’s new friends gave her
a bag of food they had purchased.
Jane plans to attend our 55th.
I look forward to learning more
about her travels then and to
talking with you.

1964
Diana Bailey Harris
harris.diana@gmail.com
swarthmore64.com

We’re back on our old schedule:
Class Notes in the spring and fall
issues. News this time ranges
from devastating tragedy to
blissful happiness, with modulated
gradations in between.
Bennett and Carol Finneburgh
Lorber ’63’s son Sam ’89 wrote a
poignant memorial to his mother on
Nov. 24. Here’s a moving extract:
“It is with a heavy heart, a profound
sense of loss, and deep sadness
that I write to tell you my mother
passed away early this afternoon at
Abington Hospital. My father, who
had been married to her for over
53 years, my brother Joshua, and

I were with her. She went quietly,
and without pain. We are all griefstricken, but know that, given the
circumstances, this is what she
would have wanted.
“[She] suffered a bleed in her
brain early last month. It wasn’t a
major one, and she had been well
on her way to a complete recovery
when, two weeks ago, she, my
dad, and my brother were in a bad
car accident. (Another driver flew
through a stop sign at high speed,
struck their car and knocked it on
its side. The fire department had to
tear the roof off the car to get them
out.) My dad and brother suffered
minor injuries; my mom had a
fractured pelvis. … Then, this past
Tuesday morning, she had another
bleed, far worse than the first,
[which] had nothing to do with the
accident. She … never regained
consciousness.”
John Simon wrote, on Dec. 28:
“Completely out of the blue, last fall
I fell in love with the magnificent
Susan Fulop Kepner—then we got
the horrible news that my cancer
has come back.
“Somehow Susie and I managed
to survive 75-plus years each
through famous literary thirdworlds and turbulent Berkeley
decades without ever crossing
paths, until one golden Saturday
last October. We were instantly and
deeply entranced with each other.
… Two old people in love—how
cute! The cancer part is not cute.”
Hoping for a promised 25 months,
John began chemo Jan. 2. We
learned Jan. 16 that he died the
evening before. Our hearts go out
to Susie and John’s family. He will
be missed.
Another sad ending to an
optimistic beginning: Paul Booth
let me know Jan. 13 that he was in
treatment for chronic lymphocytic
leukemia, which had originally been
diagnosed in 2014. He was upbeat
about the outcome, but Jack Riggs
wrote Jan. 18 to say that Paul
had died the night before. Our
condolences to Paul’s family.
John Pollock co-edited Making
Human Rights News with Mort
Winston ’70, who gave a talk at
our 50th Reunion. Unfortunately,
Mort, an internationally recognized
human-rights expert, died in
January 2017, before the book

LAURENCE KESTERSON

ALUMNI PROFILE

“I bought this matching hat and did my best to approximate Maurice’s expression under
its brim,” laughs Patricia Brooks Eldridge ’60, paying tribute to her husband’s Bulletin
portrait shot by Laurence Kesterson that changed her life. “When I met Larry myself, he stuck
out his hand to shake and I said, ‘Hell with that,’ and gave him a big hug.”

‘EAGLE’ WHEN SHE FLIES
She’s soaring to new heights
by Elizabeth Redden ’05
A LIFELONG WRITER, journalist,
and civil rights activist, Patricia Brooks
Eldridge ’60 spent the summer of 1964
traveling through the South with the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee. More than 50 years later,
on an island off Washington state
beyond the noise and speed of the
mainland, she found herself despairing
about the state of race relations.
“I was a mess because everything
was being undone and the situation
was getting worse,” she says.
Then the winter 2015 Bulletin
arrived. On the cover was Maurice
Eldridge ’61, a longtime vice president
of the College and her undergrad
contemporary. Though she’d barely
known him then, 55 years later she was
eager to reconnect.
When she wrote to him, she learned

that his wife had died a few years
before and that he was still mourning.
“I thought that said a lot about his
ability to love deeply,” she says.
Following an intense correspondence
and his visit to her island, she moved
to Swarthmore, where the couple were
married in June 2016—a date chosen so
all their grandchildren could be part of
the ceremony.
“If you trust your instincts and are
brave enough,” Brooks Eldridge says,
“amazing things can happen.”
The same is true on the page: She’s
spent decades researching and writing
a young adult series, Eagle and Child,
visiting historical sites and scouring
archival documents. The first novel in
the series—published in November—
opens in 1823, with 12-year-old
Devon surviving the London influenza

epidemic that
killed her entire
family. A kind
doctor takes
her in but soon
becomes ill
himself, leaving
Devon with
little protection
from a sexual
predator named
Newgate. Ultimately, her only escape
is to cross the Atlantic to become an
indentured servant.
Upon her arrival in Charleston, S.C.,
Devon observes the brutal treatment
of slaves.
“That sight of slavery will not be her
last,” Brooks Eldridge says. “Devon
serves the bulk of her indenture on
an upcountry farm as the only white
servant among a community of
blacks—they’ve earned their freedom
but are trapped on the farm because to
leave it is to risk re-enslavement by the
notorious ‘slave catchers.’”
The remainder of the series finds
Devon agitating for the abolition of
slavery and the rights of women and
workers, in alliance with Harriet
Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and
Frances Wright.
“Slaves and indentured servants were
often held in much the same conditions
until the rich planters became too
afraid of the black slaves they’d
outnumbered themselves with,” Brooks
Eldridge says. “To keep them apart,
they raised the status of poor whites to
form a buffer class, concocting the myth
of African inferiority and dangerous
nature. Hasn’t it worked just great to
this day?”
Brooks Eldridge begins the Eagle
and Child series with this quote
from the Black Renaissance writer
and photographer John van der Zee:
“We are, in fact, as Americans, the
descendants of bound people, tied
now by that binding in ways we have
forgotten, which it would serve us well
to remember.”
“That, in a nutshell, is why I wrote
the series,” she says. “I’ve spent my life
trying to get people to understand how
much we have in common and how
much we need to work together.”

SPRING 2018

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53

class notes
appeared. “While attending
an international human-rights
conference in November,” John
writes, “I learned our government,
together with the government of
Mexico, pursues a policy called
‘Frontera Sur,’ paying the Mexican
government to keep aspiring
immigrants heading north from
authoritarian, brutal political
conditions in Central America
in encampments along Mexico’s
southern border, so they will not
reach the northern border of
Mexico/southern border of U.S.
I thought everyone should know
about this policy.”
Bob Kapp wrote Dec. 3 from
Chongqing, China, “up the
Yangtze River for a few weeks
of desultory teaching about
U.S.–China relations past and
present. Currently translating
a Chinese book into English for
publication; the money’s lousy, but
the translation process is pretty
satisfying.
“Happy in Port Townsend, Wash.,
going through the thrilling first year
of a new golden retriever pup.”
But “nothing from our daughter …
[which] shadows our later years.”
Contra and English country
dancing have taken April and Jerry
Blum “to New York, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, D.C., Virginia, West
Virginia, and Georgia, and we’ll
dance in New Jersey in February
and then host our all-English dance
weekend in May (anenglishtrifle.
org). We had new lighting installed
in our home’s ballroom (pictures:
bit.ly/BallroomBlum) and had the
floor refinished, so it’s an even
nicer dance and house-concert
venue than it was before. Still
trying to put the finishing touches
on the distribution of my dad’s trust
after my stepmom’s passing early
last year; these things take time.”
Miki McCaslin Holden reports:
“We’re now happily moved to
our new home in Santa Fe, N.M.,
just up the road from our only
grandchild. David and I were sure
we’d stay on our Los Alamos ranch
until we were carried out, but as
we and the ranch infrastructure
began to show unmistakable signs
of advancing age, we found we
were neither willing, nor able, to
keep up. We have nodding-andwaving acquaintances with several

54

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

neighbors. David’s found a filmprofessionals group, and I found a
knitting group. And in September, I
celebrated 41 years sober.”

1965
Kiki Skagen Munshi
kiki@skagenranch.com
smore65.com

Last fall’s fires in California
affected Elizabeth “Elly” Rosenberg
Rumelt, who wrote from Santa
Barbara: “I just heard that the
evacuation orders have been lifted
and I can return home tomorrow
with no harm done. What an
ordeal!” Elly, whose husband died
last year, will leave California
this spring for the Quaker-based
Kendal community in Northampton,
Mass., near her daughter’s home in
Amherst. Dave Wright also had his
adventures and wrote a long piece
those on my email list received.
(If you aren’t on that list and want
more news, please let me know.)
The Skirball fire in Brentwood was
close enough that he and wife Zofia
packed for evacuation. Fortunately,
they escaped damage. Dave is “out
of update hibernation,” lives inland
from Santa Monica in LA, and still
works with his three investmentmanagement firms, managing to
be named one of Barron’s Top 100
Independent Wealth Advisors for
the past five years.
David Pao and family are
downsizing, which he’s finding
difficult, and have put their home
up for sale. David (bit.ly/DavidPao)
is enjoying semiretirement working
at the Veterans’ Outpatient Clinic
and Pennswood Village retirement
center, and teaching at Wills Eye
Hospital. He also is “at the end of a
five-year quest to make a plasma
probe for ophthalmology. It may be
the best ophthalmic instrument in
this century (biased opinion) or a
miniature laser lightsaber for the
Star Wars collection.”
Steve and Linda Smith Nathanson
now live in a condo in Brookline,
Mass., within walking and trolley
distance to Boston. “Daughter

Sarah, husband Aaron, Natalie,
10, and Chloe, 9, live just over
a mile away,” Linda writes.
“Steve retired three years ago
after 42 years in Northeastern’s
philosophy department. With an
MAT in Russian, I taught in high
school, later worked at Brandeis
as an international-student
and study-abroad adviser, then
became admissions director with
the Swedish (study-abroad)
program, and then an independent
admissions counselor. When we
moved here, it seemed the right
time to retire.” She’s taking up
piano, still writing poetry, and
feeling “very lucky to have the
freedom to continue to learn.”
Virginia Blake-Harris feels
swamped—“emails, books piled
next to my bed, and landscaping
projects that kept me busy seven
days a week outdoors till the day
of our first snow here in Acton,
Mass.” Kitty Calhoon welcomed
her third grandchild at the end of
October. Walt Pinkus won Best of
Show in photography at the Leisure
World Fall Art Show, for a picture of
Thomas Hart Benton’s studio, and
Earl Tarble and his wife continued
their travels. They flew to Lisbon
for a cruise to the Canaries and
Casablanca in September; toured
the Orkney Islands, presumably in
October; and then went to Reno
for a conference at the Nevada
Museum of Art. In December, they
went to Seattle for a baby shower.
Kate Donnelly Hickey, on the
other hand, writes that she and
husband Bob ’64 had a quiet
year—“many visits with family
and friends but no big trips, no
health crises (this is a good thing),
and no major family events. We
did spend March, as usual, at
Chassahowitzka, Fla., in our trusty
camper amidst many manatees,
and had a fun weekend in Franklin,
N.C., viewing the total eclipse.”
Daniel Kegan, while traveling from
Chicago to the East Coast, stopped
in the Philly area for a pleasant
update with Anita and David Pao
and saw Bob Barr ’56 (our dean of
men) at Foulkeways, a continuingcare retirement community. “Dean
Barr looked good and cheerful. Our
guide mentioned that Bob and wife
Nony were bird-watching in Latin
America a bit ago and he fell—

serious injuries—but he is now
much, if not totally, recuperated.”
Dick and Gay Sise Grossman’s
year started out badly. On Nov.
22, 2016, Dick was hit by a car
while crossing a street—in the
crosswalk—and his injuries colored
their lives for several months.
Three surgeries later, he is pretty
well-mended. Gay still volunteers
for Durango Nature Studies and
volunteers with Big Brothers/Big
Sisters. Dick has written the blog
Population Matters for 21 years
and plans to continue until the
overpopulation problem is solved.
The Grossmans still sing with
the Durango Choral Society and
serve on its board. “In addition to
traditional (and nontraditional)
Christmas carols, this year
we sang a beautiful piece that
combines medieval with modern
characteristics, ‘Estampie Natalis.’
In June, we will sing for our second
time at Carnegie Hall!”
And now the bad news: Howard
“Hap” Peelle died of cancer Dec.
15, at home in hospice care. It is
another sad loss for us in a year
when we’ve had too many. We’ll
miss him.

Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island,
New Brunswick, and parts of Maine
and Massachusetts—all wonderful.
His favorite discoveries were the
tidal-power-generating plant in
Annapolis Royal and the Joggins
Fossil Cliffs, a UNESCO World
Heritage site, both in Nova Scotia.
Amid all the alarming news from
the federal government, Wendy
Prindle Berlind had a happy
experience locally. As a member
of her library board of trustees,
Wendy spoke in favor of combining
two part-time positions into one
for a digital literacy librarian.
The city finance committee gave
unanimous approval: “Sometimes
government works on a local level.”
Wendy finds solace and

satisfaction in creating at the
sewing machine: She makes
Halloween costumes, quilting
projects, and clothes for a
granddaughter’s American Girl doll.
Johnny Wehmiller, perhaps also
in search of solace, was reading
Joe Biden’s new book, in which he
reminds us to have hope, love, and
purpose, and to keep busy. Johnny
hopes we’ll all benefit from this
message.
Along a similar line of works that
help us cope, Jody Pullen Williams
recommends the Edward Snowden
documentary Citizenfour. Good
reads include Dark Money and
The New Jim Crow. To combat the
bad stuff, Jody and husband David
hang out with young people and

CAPTIONED!

1966
Jill Robinson Grubb
jillgrubb44@gmail.com

On this penultimate day of 2017,
I’m trying to warm up after our
weekly Signs on the Square
in Mount Vernon, Ohio, this
morning. Anywhere from 12 to
102 progressives fly homemade
signs for the issue of the week/
month/year. Health care, the
environment, women’s rights,
LGBTQ rights, wages, voting rights,
taxes, services, and facts are all
represented.
Frank Cochran finds difficult my
question about crossing dividing
lines to improve understanding. He
sees fear and fear-inspired hatred
under key points of division and
tries to bring Quaker decisionmaking to bear, to little avail. Travel,
on the other hand, has taken him to

“Thee go, girl!”
— Mary Brown Sippel ’46
“We’ll surely arrive early for meeting for worship!”
— Judith Leeds Inskeep ’60
“As much as I appreciate the sustainability efforts,
I liked the old ML shuttle better.”
— Alexander Laser ’20
“Thank goodness we’re rid of rule No. 24!*”

* Magill’s rule No. 24: “Students of the two sexes, except brothers and sisters, shall not walk
on the grounds of the College, nor in the neighborhood, nor to or from the railroad station
or the skating grounds. They shall not coast upon the same sled.”

— Ben Marks ’16

+ MORE CAPTIONS: bulletin.swarthmore.edu

sing in groups; another antidote is
her court mediation, which often
finds people who can solve their
own problems. Another distraction
was the Williamses’ Swarthmoresponsored trip to China and Tibet
in October. Tibet is “hauntingly
beautiful” but endangered by
the Chinese inroads and the
requirement to use Mandarin in
schools.
Our concerns for the world could
be related to what we will leave
our children and grandchildren.
Robert Levering was still basking
in the glow of becoming a firsttime grandfather last August. Judy
Petsonk was happy to announce
that daughter Hope’s son Judah
Alan Levin arrived in October.
Meanwhile, remember that
Joe Becker had to leave our
50th Reunion early to help with
his preemie granddaughter?
Well, he danced with her at a
wedding in October. He and wife
Lisa also visited their adopted
granddaughter in NYC and their
grandson in New Orleans. Joe
claims there’s a direct monetary
conduit from his pension plan to
American Airlines. Well worth it.
A correction: Jim ’65 and
Jean Lyon Preer were in D.C.
for 33 years before moving to
Indianapolis, where few people
had heard of Swarthmore. Now
in Brookline, Mass., they keep
meeting people with Swarthmore
connections and feel right at home.
Fred Rhoades was very involved
with the “ski team” at Swarthmore,
but snow wasn’t a constant. He
remembers running down through
Crum Woods trees with ski poles,
mimicking a slalom race around
the trunks. He and his intrepid
teammates did pretty well in
competitions with those who had
snow. Later, Fred, wife Gloria, and
daughter Emily loved life in the
Pacific Northwest, skiing on the
slopes of Mount Baker, hiking,
mushrooming, gardening, and
cooking.
After a stint in the Peace Corps in
Togo, where Fred volunteered as a
fish culture extension agent, and
another period doing alternative
service, he climbed old-growth
Douglas firs in the Cascades,
studying cryptogams (lichens,
fungi, and mosses). That led to

advanced degrees in biology and
a position at Western Washington
University. Since retiring in 2009,
Fred has continued to present field
programs and work on closeup,
stereographic photography of his
cryptogamic friends.
Tom Riddell and wife Meg have
15 grandchildren. He recommends
Chicago by Brian Doyle, suggested
by son Michael, an English
teacher. Tom also had a brief
visit from Robert Levering, who
was promoting the documentary
The Boys Who Said No!, about
resistance to the Vietnam War.
Husband Tommy gave me Obama:
An Intimate Portrait, with pictures
to lift my heart on every page.
From now on, our class columns
will come out only in the spring
and fall. We can always go
back to four a year if you are
sufficiently forthcoming with news,
memories, and insights. Please
write. Deadlines are mid-March,
mid-June, mid-September, and
January. I love hearing from you.

1967
Donald Marritz
dmarritz@gmail.com
swarthmore67.com

Barry Feldman ’68 reports:
“Coming to a computer near you:
barryfeldman.net. After 25 years
as communications director for the
American Farm School in Greece
and a semirural life on the school’s
campus and farm, wife Randy
Warner is now a freelance editor
and art agent. I have converted
an industrial space in the historic
commercial center of Thessaloniki
near the harbor into a studio and
living space.”
Bob Champlin died in December.
Bob was married to Kit Ashburn
Champlin for 50 years. Together
they comprised two-thirds of the
music majors in our class. Bob went
on to get a master’s at the New
England Conservatory of Music
before taking the natural next
step—building a house in Exeter,
R.I., with his father and brother and

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

55

class notes
becoming the co-owner of Critter
Hut (critterhutri.com). Bob also
played cello professionally and was
a member of a trio, Trillium, and the
Amari Quartet.
Dan Wise was the victim of
an unprovoked hate crime last
summer, during which the assailant
called him a “dirty hymie” and
punched his chest with enough
force to “knock me on my keister
and send my hearing aids and
glasses flying.” Dan says a report
issued by the Anti-Defamation
League’s New York chapter shows
a rise in anti-Semitic incidents
in NYC from Q1 of 2016 to Q1 of
2017. (Have others experienced or
reported similar situations? Dan’s
writing an article, so email him:
dnljwise@gmail.com.)
Bennett Lorber ’64, a sort-of
honorary class member, let us
know that wife Carol Finneburgh
Lorber ’63 died the day after
Thanksgiving. Bennett has often
shown up at our reunions, including
the last one. He was an integral
member of the “We Work It In” jug
band during our freshman year.
Roger Shatzkin points out that “as
a senior, he immediately conveyed
a factor of cool to our nascent
undertaking and has remained a
steadfast and unassuming friend
(despite his many medical and
scientific accomplishments, service
on the College Board of Managers,
and successful side careers as a
painter and guitarist).”
Lita and Arne Yanof “took a road
trip to Portland, Ore., to meet family
and friends for the eclipse. Robert
Weber and wife Johnyne took us to
a beautiful cabin near Terrebonne
and Smith Rock State Park. In the
twilight, a deceived owl flew out
of a pine tree. I was in wonder to
see Venus come out at the zenith.
The magnificent emotions of that
moment are more memorable than
our anxiety over crowds and clouds
and scarcity of roads and water on
the piney Oregon high desert.” Arne
is one of those really annoying
polymaths who don’t flinch when
they see numbers and can put
together letters and words with
equal facility.
Jan Vandersande is “doing OK.
My wife of 45 years died nearly
two years ago, but I now have a
steady lady friend. That is a lot

56

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

better than being on your own.”
Kelvin Seifert has been especially
glad of late that, by chance, he
landed a job in Canada in 1974:
“one of the better decisions I have
ever made.” Sure, just rub it in.
Mark Roberts “recently had
another child, Elias Wang Roberts
(July 25, 2017), this is in addition
to Adam Wang Roberts (June 25,
2015). These are my third and
fourth children. From a previous
marriage, I have Amy Roberts, 21,
at Tufts and Jesse Roberts, 19, at
Syracuse. I am in my 27th year of
owning and running Off Wall Street
(offwallstreet.com), an investmentresearch boutique for hedge funds
and other institutional investors,
and still live in Cambridge, Mass.”
Charles Bailey and Le Ke Son,
co-authors of From Enemies
to Partners, visited campus in
November to lecture on the origins
and lasting effects of Agent Orange
on the people and environment of
Vietnam.
For Jennie Boyd Bull, “visiting
the campus and reconnecting with
classmates at our 50th Reunion
was a joy.” Certified to teach
qigong and tai chi, she offers
classes at two health centers in the
mountains and assists with classes
in nearby Asheville, N.C., where a
favorite saying is, “Namaste, y’all.”
Her poetry chapbook, Where I Live:
Coming Home to the Southern
Mountains, was to be published by
Finishing Line Press in March.
Edward Fei volunteered in FEMA’s
response to last year’s hurricanes.
After a week of training in Alabama,
he deployed to Puerto Rico as an
individual applicant specialist,
working 12-hour days, seven days a
week, but somehow also managing
to take salsa lessons.

1968
Kate Bode Darlington
katedarlington@gmail.com

Looking forward to seeing you at
our 50th Reunion, May 31–June
3! Chris Miller writes: “Kate,
your (and my wife, Robin [Feuer

Miller ’69]’s) hectoring appears
to be paying off. I am making
reservations for the reunion,
propelled also by a call from Peter
Fraser.”
Susan Gibson Sharpe also looks
forward to it. Since retiring from
“a few eons teaching community
college English,” she describes
herself as a painter of landscapes
and a bit of a naturalist. She
mourns “the many losses that
climate change has already brought
here in the Virginia countryside.”
Joe Boyd is making cross-country
travel plans to attend. After
graduation, he was an engineer
with Philly’s KYW Radio for 16
years. Then he changed careers to
insurance and investments, and
moved to Southern California in
1986. He retired three years ago
to travel, play tennis, and help the
grandkids.
Wally Adamson retired in August
after 39 years teaching modern
European history at Emory
University in Atlanta. He and wife
Lauren Bernstein Adamson ’70 plan
to move to Madison, Conn., to be
near their son. They want to get to
know any nearby Swarthmoreans.
Next longest catchup comes from
Stephanie Brown, newly retired
after 30-plus years working for
and managing the office of the
“marvelous” J. Tony Serra, civil
rights lawyer, activist, and tax
resister. Ten years ago, Stephanie
married Matthew Hallinan
and moved to Berkeley, Calif.,
where she had the pleasure of
reconnecting with Caroline Acker.
Bob Bartkus traveled to Stanford
to help with a course, work on a
book, and bike from campus to 1
Infinite Loop, Apple HQ. He visited
with Paul Brest ’62, a professor
when Bob was at Stanford Law.
Lee and Caroline Robinson
Sanders ’70 sold their cruising
sailboat, with its memories of
exploring the British Columbia
coast and Alaska. Now that Lee is
retired from the detective work of
anatomic and clinical pathology,
there’s been time for a two-month
road trip to national parks and
monuments of the West, grandkids,
and nature photography. (If Lee
took candid photos at reunion, do
you think he could Photoshop us
back to our 20s?)

John Mather (pg. 3) will
address us at reunion about
the James Webb Space
Telescope he’s working on (bit.ly/
UniversalAttraction), whose launch
is planned for mid-2019. He fits in
time to speak to “high school and
college students and Girls Who
Code about the glories of science.
For fun, wife Jane and I went to see
the eclipse in Idaho, and to putter
around Sicily in a Fiat Panda for a
couple of weeks. Friends are great!”
Diana Royce Smith says her new
nickname is “Titania”—due to all
the non-TSA-alerting metal she
acquired during a lumbar spine
fusion and right hip replacement.
She has gotten through these with
husband Larry’s help and looks
forward to skiing again next winter.
Bronwyn Hurd Echols is trying
to combat TAD (Trump Affective
Disorder) with husband Louie by
supporting frontline resistance
organizations. She’s combatting
TAD with brother Tim with a
limerick factory of rhyming rants.
She might be talked into a limerick
workshop at reunion.
Florence Daly Battis Mini visited
Iceland, “a beautiful country
characterized by civility and a
sense of responsibility.” With her
daughter, she saw the magnificent
West Fjords and a geothermal
power plant that uses the steam
and 300-plus-degree water coming
up from underground to provide
Reykjavik with heat and hot water,
and to pipe water under streets to
keep them clear of ice and snow.
Also this year, Florence’s mother,
Isabel “Skipper” Benkert Daly ’37,
died at 101. “I’m surprised at how
much my mother was woven into
my life, how often I think, ‘I must
tell Mother about this’ or ‘What will
Mother think about this?’ But it’s
impossible to be too sad. She lived
such a long, full life.”
Chris and Chitra Yang King write
from Ojai, Calif.: “We have avoided
both fires and mudslides … so
far. Thanks to amazing grace and
8,500 firefighters from around
the country, our little pocket has
dodged the nastiest. Literally down
the road there is devastation. We
were so grateful during the worst
of it for shelter from Peter ’71 and
Pat Tolins Coffin in Berkeley.” Pat
is busy with grandkids, volunteer

SPOTLIGHT ON …

NANCY NOBLE HOLLAND ’72
Nancy Noble Holland ’72, music director of the Unitarian
Universalist Church of Studio City, Calif., fulfilled a longheld dream in the fall: conducting Brahms’s Requiem with 80
performers.
“What I love most about what I do is that it’s collaborative,” she
says. “I feel like I’m a true conduit, connecting the music from the
composer, developing it together with the musicians, and offering
it to the audience. At Swarthmore, the personal love and attention
from professors and students made me feel a part of something
much larger than me. I feel that way when I conduct.”

+
work, and Pilates, while Peter fits
bikes to differently abled people.
Chris writes: “Thanks for good
wishes. Hope to see many at the
reunion.”
Most classmates in these notes
are coming to reunion and hope to
see you.

1970
Margaret Nordstrom
hon.margi@comcast.net

Bruce Bush retired after 18 years of
teaching and about 30 as a custom
woodworker and cabinet maker,
and moved to historic Frederick,
Md., with wife Rhoda. After Rhoda
retired in 2014, Bruce worked
three more years teaching ELS
at a Frederick County elementary
school. “To my surprise, I really
enjoy retirement. I am active with
language conversation groups—
Spanish, French, Italian. I interpret
Spanish for a local free clinic
and the schools, play bagpipe in
a band, and make beer and wine
(from my own grapes). I meet new,
interesting people all the time and
love living in Frederick. We have
two children, both married. Patrick
wholesales fine wines in the D.C.
market, and Sarah teaches high
school history in Ann Arbor, Mich.”
He looks forward to our 50th

CONTINUED: bulletin.swarthmore.edu

Reunion, which is fast approaching.
John Byers expects to retire from
the University of Idaho at the end
of this academic year, at which
point he will have more time for
the project he suggests in Built
for Speed’s last chapter, namely
establishing a Great Plains National
Park. He knows that the political
climate “is not sanguine” (massive
understatement there, John),
but also knows it’s important to
get started. Anyone who wishes
to help, has ideas about how to
proceed, or has thoughts on where
the park should be located can
contact him: jabyers48@gmail.com.
John Loven writes: “Hello to the
old geezers of ’70. I’m still busy
teaching communication seminars
for Pryor Learning Solutions and
have a business providing online
psychometric instruments for
organizations. Wife Sandy and I
live in Collegeville, Pa., with our
son Matthew. Folk music is my
hobby, and I’ll be playing with the
Swarthmore Folk gang at Alumni
Weekend this June.”
Finally, I received an obituary for
Doris Ring, who died Nov. 20 in
Thomasville, N.C. Doris received a
B.A. in French, but there is a larger
story that I learned when I also got
a lovely note from her daughter,
Julie Robertson. Julie writes that
her mother “died as a result of
complications after a stroke at age
90. She was born in 1927, and I
believe she was one of the first of
Swarthmore’s ‘mature’ students—
going back to college at about age

40—and had to have a special
meeting with the dean just to be
admitted. She used a Swarthmore
calendar as her primary calendar
ever since she attended. I will be
using her calendar for 2018.”

1972

Nan Waksman Schanbacher
nanschanbacher@ comcast.net

I acknowledge the traditional
stewards of this land, the Lenni
Lenape. They are still here, and we
recognize their sovereignty and
acknowledge that we are guests in
this space.
Jonathan Betz-Zall retired from
Shoreline and Highline colleges
last year and took up employment
as an online librarian. He returned
to Highline to teach library and
environmental science courses.
David and Marti Booser Black ’75
spent all their time and resources
the past two years successfully
protecting their densely populated
residential neighborhood from a
proposed corporate crematory.
They’re ready to apply their
newfound skills to help other
besieged neighborhoods.
Kenneth Bowman retired from
banking and is taking up marathon
running. “Life is good. Decent
health, decent finances, happily

developing relationship that’s given
me great pleasure, plus my first
grandchild (by association), and a
goodly circle of friends.”
Kevin Chu retired from the
National Marine Fisheries Service
in October. He will be facilitating
meetings between fishermen and
a wind-energy company, “with an
eye to finding ways that the two
essential services can coexist.”
Ken DeFontes is vice chair of
North American Electric Reliability
Corp.’s board of trustees. He also
chairs Swarthmore’s Council on
Presidential Initiatives.
Charles Goldburg looks forward
to retirement after practicing
law for 40 years, the last 21 as
the principal law clerk to a New
York State Supreme Court judge.
Charles has served for 14 years as
a deacon for the Roman Catholic
Diocese of Rockville Centre.
Charles Grassie has made several
trips to Thailand the last three
years to visit his son, who seems
to enjoy living there. Next trip: to
Montego Bay, Jamaica, to visit a
new grandson.
Warren “James” Hazen now works
for a home health-care agency,
caring for elderly and disabled
people in their own homes.
John Lubar still works on
sustainable fishing at Fisheries and
Oceans Canada. En route to Peru,
John and wife Elizabeth visited
Carol and Ron Miller, who live on
the edge of a huge wetland and
wildlife refuge in Virginia Beach.
Susan Okie retired from medical
journalism. In 2014, she completed
a poetry MFA at Warren Wilson
College. Her chapbook, Let You Fly,
came out in February.
Lee Walker Oxenham is halfway
through her second term in
New Hampshire’s House of
Representatives. “Amazingly,
the next district to the north is
represented by Susan Almy ’68,
and the next one north of that is
represented by Patricia Higgins—a
Pomona exchange student who
spent spring 1970 at Swarthmore.”
Lee is on the Science, Technology,
and Energy Committee and works
with Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic
legislators to develop a regional
carbon-pricing plan.
Bertha Fuchsman Small is a family
doctor, doing small training trips

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

57

class notes
and local promotion for Doctors
Without Borders, and enjoying
a second grandchild, a boy who
“obligingly arrived during a visit
from Linda Bovard.”
Thomas Snyder has “been
working for the past decade on
making just one good musical
comedy, and it’s the hardest thing
I’ve tried yet, the most challenging
parts being the music and the
comedy.”
Laurie Tompkins travels
frequently now that she’s retired.
This fall, a large glass sculpture
Laurie made, on display at an
exhibit in Hilo, Hawaii, won the
people’s choice award.
Sam Wilson became medical
director at his Greenville, S.C.,
hospital and remains active in
surgery. He and wife Dot enjoyed a
week in Chautauqua, N.Y., and Sam
wonders if other Swarthmoreans
enjoy this unique place.
Laurie Zoloth is new dean of
UChicago Divinity School. Laurie
dropped out of Swarthmore to
become a licensed practical nurse
to care for poor women; boycotted
grapes with the United Farm
Workers; rallied for civil rights;
marched against the Vietnam
War; and cut sugar cane in Cuba
in 1969 to oppose the U.S. trade
embargo. She returned to academia
in the ’70s, earning bachelor’s
degrees in women’s studies and
nursing, master’s degrees in
Jewish studies and English, and a
doctorate in social ethics. Laurie’s
academic and social passions
converged just as the field of
bioethics was developing, and she
became a nationally respected
bioethicist and a professor. After
joining Kaiser Permanente’s ethics
committee in California, Laurie
led the Jewish studies program
at San Francisco State University.
She moved on to Northwestern
University, where she had dual
appointments in the religious
studies department and medical
school. Laurie led the faculty
senate and was president of the
American Society for Bioethics
and Humanities and the American
Academy of Religion.
I, Nan Waksman Schanbacher,
have been named chair of the
Board of the Museum Institute for
Teaching Science.

58

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

1974

Randall Grometstein
rgrometstein@verizon.net
Thanks to all who responded—
wonderful to hear from you!
First, sad news. We learned of
the death of Emily Atkinson Green,
who lived in Millbury, Mass., and is
survived by husband Peter and son
Eric. Thanks to David Hoyt for this
information.
Several classmates sing the
praises of retirement, while others
continue their busy careers. Can
you tell which category Demetrios
Karis is in? He writes: “Enjoying
life in Cambridge, Mass. (moved a
year ago), teaching occasionally
at Bentley (user experience
research), plus time with family
(two kids in college), exercise,
resistance activities, and some
work on climate change.”
Joe ’73 and Lana Everett Turner
“continue to be so blessed in every
way: We’re healthy and fit, enjoying
life in Steamboat Springs, Colo.,
and traveling frequently to other
beautiful places, here and abroad.
Our ‘kids’ are well and succeeding
nicely at ‘adulting.’”
Lois Polatnick, newly retired from
medical practice, looks forward to
traveling and spending time with
family, including daughter Rachael
in New Orleans and son David near
Boston. She and her husband have
homes in Chicago and Petoskey,
Mich., and welcome Swarthmorean
visits.
Marc Halley “just retired from the
MITRE Corp. after 35 years of high
technology consulting. My wife and
I spend our time between Virginia’s
horse country and the Cayman
Islands’ beaches. In between,
hoping to win the Virginia Super
Senior (65-plus) amateur golf
championship this year.”
John Whyte has “been involved
in transition planning to replace
myself in the research institute
directorship position I’ve held for
more than 25 years. I intend to step
down in the next year but won’t
be able to tear myself away from

research altogether. Tom and I
look forward to having more time,
particularly for travel. Our son,
Max, finished college last May and
is making music and looking for
ways to earn a living. Our daughter,
Jesse, moved to Philadelphia to
attend Penn Law School in the
public interest track, and we’re glad
to be able to see more of her.”
Pat Heidtmann Disharoon
writes: “We are now the proud
grandparents of three girls and
three boys, ages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.”
Pat practices primary care internal
medicine in Baltimore and teaches/
mentors medical students at her
office. She also directs the Girl
Scouts of Central Maryland Chorus
and leads two troops.
Adele Diamond: “Our first and (so
far) only grandbaby, Hazel, turned
1 on Nov. 18. We gave her parents
the present of one year of parental
leave, all expenses paid, and they
came to live with us for Hazel’s
first year. They have now moved to
Washington state,” an hour away
from Vancouver, British Columbia.
Interesting idea for those who have
yet to experience grandparenthood!
Congratulations to Ronda Muir on
the publication of her book, Beyond
Smart: Lawyering with Emotional
Intelligence, by the American Bar
Association. “Praised as ‘instantly
the standard in the field,’ it is
the first comprehensive guide to
understanding, using, and raising
emotional intelligence. I hope there
are Swatties who can make use
of the information. I am working
with a couple of law schools on a
teaching guide and hope to develop
online programming.”
It’s great to hear from Nan
Cinnater, who after 28 years
in Provincetown, Mass., as a
bookseller, cabdriver, barista,
high school English teacher, and
bookseller (again) is now lead
librarian at the Provincetown
Public Library. She organized
the Provincetown Book Festival,
now in its third year (Sept.
15–16—save the dates!), which has
featured such authors as Michael
Cunningham, Sebastian Junger,
Julia Glass, and Richard Russo.
Vaneese Thomas is “in the thick of
singing for a living. Last summer, I
performed in Italy and Spain with
my sister, Carla Thomas. Fabulous

time! My latest albums have been
in the blues genre, and I perform
with my band in the N.Y. area. I plan
to perform in Japan at the Billboard
Clubs in Tokyo and Osaka in July.
If you live there, please come
see me. My husband and I are in
Westchester County, N.Y. Feel free
to drop in.”
The last word goes to Joan Allen
Malkin: “I am quite active as a
volunteer in civic pursuits, mostly
around the ‘theme’ of conservation.
Manage to keep contact with Nell
Hahn ’73 and Cathy Lutz, which
is a great tie back to Swarthmore.
Think that retirement and
grandchildren are way underrated.
Am thinking, as I suspect so many
Swarthmoreans and Americans
generally are, about the dire state
of our country, the perils we face,
the suffering and injustice we
ignore, and the possibility that
we may be witnessing the fall of
our empire—and I use that word
deliberately.”

1976
Fran Brokaw
fran.brokaw@gmail.com

Thanks to all who sent updates
on your busy lives. Lots of news
this time!
Kilbourn “Sandy” Gordon
published Med School 101 for
Patients, which aims to improve
doctor-patient communication and
empower patients to play active
roles in their own health care.
Norma and Stewart Schwab finally
became empty nesters after 38
years(!), when their youngest of
eight went to college in the fall. It’s
an adjustment, but made more fun
by trips to Key West and to visit
their daughter in Palau. Stewart
teaches torts, employment law,
and law and economics at Cornell
Law School.
Cyndi and Niley Dorit spent
a couple of amazing weeks in
Japan, including in the beautiful
forests and mountains of Nagano.
They hope to visit again soon.
Niley resumed squash after 41

years away from his racquet and
probably can’t remember why
he ever stopped. Niley is also
involved with the newborn legal
cannabis industry in California at
the venture-capital, cultivation,
and legal-consulting level. “Pretty
exciting to see an entire industry
being born right in front of our
eyes!”
After years of living in TriBeCa in
Manhattan, Pamela Casper, her
husband, and 15-year-old twins
Viola and Sebastian moved to
Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
They love the old-New York feel
and friendly neighbors. Pamela is a
full-time artist, painting and doing
3-D work, and exhibited in three
shows around NYC.
Larry Frohman is professor of
ophthalmology and neurosciences
at Rutgers. He’s spent much time
(for the past 25 years) on behalf
of the North American NeuroOphthalmology Society, serving as
voluntary executive vice president.
Larry’s wife teaches third grade.
Their two sons received their
doctorates on the same day a
couple of years back—one in food
science chemistry at Cornell,
the other in physical chemistry
at Wesleyan—making for a mad
overnight dash to participate in
both academic robing ceremonies.
Monica Heller received an
honorary doctorate from the
University of Bern, Switzerland.

Rhonda Resnick Cohen is the
new board chair of Glenmede
Trust Co., a privately held and
independently owned investment
and wealth-management firm
headquartered in Philly. She also
serves on Swarthmore’s Board
of Managers. Hugh Bryan and
wife Barbara Allison-Bryan were
jointly awarded the Clancy Holland
Award, for political advocacy, by
the Medical Society of Virginia.
He was the society’s president
in 2012, when he advocated for
protection of Medicaid funding
and establishment of physicianled team-based care. Hugh looks
forward to retirement from clinical
practice this year.
Kelly Tillery, always a history
buff, became intrigued with
Benjamin Lay (bit.ly/BenjaminLay),
an early Quaker abolitionist who
used disruptive performance art to
attract attention to his cause. Kelly
located the cave where Lay lived,
in Abington, Pa., and explored it
with son Alexander. He has applied
to the Pennsylvania Museum and
Historical Commission to erect a
historical marker near its location.
Henry Clark sent news for the
first time ever! He and his family
live in Twickenham, England. Last
year started with a house fire that
disrupted their lives considerably.
He and wife Jill celebrated their
silver anniversary by attending
an Elton John concert. They have

GARNET SNAPSHOT

Next-door neighbors Liz Loeb McCane ’76 and Julie Berger
Hochstrasser ’76 hosted their College roommates in the Tetons
in August for a solar-eclipse mini-reunion. From left: Cynthia
Rasmussen ’76, Julie, Polly McKinstry ’76, and Liz.

three children, ages 18 to 24, and
the younger two are on the autism
spectrum.
Holly Shugaar Zimmerman
welcomed granddaughter Talia
Rachel Zimmerman, who has a
brother, Judah, 4. Marian Evans
Melnick lives near Boston and
revels in helping care for two
granddaughters several days
a week. She sings in the choir
at the First Church in Belmont
Unitarian Universalist, which
boasts at least a half-dozen
other Swarthmoreans among its
members. Teresa Nicholas and
Gerry Helferich still divide their
time between Jackson, Miss., and
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Teresa is working on her third
book, a memoir about her mother,
and Gerry published another
book of history, An Unlikely Trust:
Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan,
and the Improbable Partnership
That Remade American Business.
Last year was challenging for
many of us. Here’s hoping 2018
brings good health and happiness!

to be in touch, millanw@gwu.edu.”
Congratulations to Steven Swartz,
who last June married Kristi Sunde,
his partner of nearly 10 years and
an occupational therapist at the
VA hospital in Manhattan; the two
live in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Steve’s
best man was son Jacques, a
senior strategist at SYPartners.
Robert Tench traveled to
Sweden last year to present
a technical paper at the 2017
European Conference on Optical
Communications. Bob works at
Cybel LLC, a startup in Bethlehem,
Pa., where he focuses on “research
and development of thulium-andholmium-doped fiber amplifiers
and lasers in the 2000 nm spectral
region. The technology is leading
edge and extremely interesting.”
Bob is proud of sons David, a
computer science Ph.D. student at
UMass–Amherst, and Connor, who
works at a software company in
San Leandro, Calif. “It is a great joy
for me to see my sons enjoying life
so much.”
Mark your calendars for our
(gulp) 40th Reunion, June 1–3!

1978 1980
Donna Caliendo Devlin
dmcdevlin@aol.com

Laurence Jarvik is featured in a
lengthy interview in The Trump
Effect by filmmaker Agustin
Blazquez (bit.ly/TrumpEffectFilm).
Wayne Millan writes: “For several
years, I have lived in my native
town of Falls Church, Va. No, you
don’t really go home again. My
parents’ house (no longer ours)
is three times the size it used to
be, and midgrade Army officers
no longer reside anywhere near
there. I, on the other hand, have
come back to classics and since
2009 have been a lecturer in same
at George Washington. I also do
historical research in Baltimore,
where I write a regular column
on the history of medicine for the
University of Maryland Medicine
Bulletin. I often see Cole Kendall
as well as Gerald Yeager ’77.
Old friends (or new) are welcome

Martin Fleisher
marty@meflaw.com

Congrats to Mike Kuehlwein! Each
year, Pomona College—where
Mike is the George E. and Nancy
O. Moss Professor of Economics—
names the Wig Distinguished
Professor Award. Mike received
his sixth Wig in 2017.
Condolences to Jake Howland
on the death of his mother, Bette.
She had quite an obituary in The
New York Times and seemed to
have had a very interesting life. I
was also deeply saddened to read
in the fall issue about the death
of Howard Stern ’79, who entered
Swarthmore with our class. He was
a close friend to many of us and a
particularly brilliant student. I’m
sorry I lost touch with him shortly
after graduation.
Congratulations to Andrea
Libresco and Mary Battenfeld, who

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

59

class notes
co-authored the well-reviewed
Notable Books, Notable Lessons:
Putting Social Studies Back in the
K–8 Curriculum.
Tom Long and Melanie Wentz
made a quick trip to the East Coast
from the Bay Area, and my wife
and I had a nice reunion dinner
with them and Eric and Jodie
Landes Corngold.

on the faculty of the University
of Virginia. We were in town last
Aug. 12, and we remain deeply
saddened by the tragic events that
took place here and the national
tone that made them possible.
Charlottesville, however, remains a
wonderful place to live and work.
As always, check out our class
Facebook page, which allows for
the direct sharing of news in (sortof) real time.

1982 1984
David Chapman
dchapman29@gmail.com

Jennifer Madison McNiff continues
on the Yale Medical School faculty
and reports that “the Democratic
Town Committee of Bolton, Conn.,
recognized Gwen Erwin Marrion
as the Democrat of the Year after
nearly 30 years of public service.
Gwen served for many years
on the Board of Selectmen, the
Bolton Land Trust, the Bolton
Inland Wetlands Commission, and
the Open Space Acquisition and
Preservation Committee.”
Tom Butcavage, an experienced
designer of higher-education
learning environments, joined
global architecture and design
firm Perkins+Will. Some of Tom’s
prior projects include Georgetown
University School of Medicine’s
Dr. Proctor Harvey Teaching
Amphitheater, the Media and
Journalism School at UNC–Chapel
Hill, and the American University
Washington College of Law.
Bruce Weinstein of TheEthicsGuy.
com took on White House press
secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders regarding what has
turned into a daily “issue” for our
government’s executive branch:
truth (bit.ly/WeinsteinSHS).
Jamie Stiehm, a historian with a
unique viewpoint on the historical
nature of Republican Sen. Jeff
Flake’s resistance, weighed
in on value of conscience and
conscientious objection in the
era of the 45th president (bit.ly/
StiehmFlake).
I, David, and wife Kathleen are
in Charlottesville, Va., where I’m

60

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

Karen Linnea Searle
linnea.searle@gmail.com

Peter and Dee Durie Bobbe
enjoyed son Chris’s graduation
from Haverford last year—where
they caught up with Diane Wilder
’83. Chris enjoyed several classes
at Swarthmore, especially with
Professor Craig Williamson. Peter
was selected as his school district’s
teacher of the year, and Dee retired
after 25 years as a rural family
doctor. They look forward to seeing
Harry Schulz at his next gig!
George Hartzell is “happily
ensconced in Oakland, Calif., doing
freelance computer science in
biotech and pharma. Had a great
summer, including a wonderful
week off the grid at a whitewaterkayak school on the Cal Salmon
River (proof that you’re never
too old to be told you’re doing
it wrong). Looking forward to a
snowy winter. (Once an optimist,
always an optimist ... )”
Adrianne Pierce’s family, with two
high schoolers, is deep into the
college process. “We enjoy living
with two budding thespians—one
also a singer, and one also a field
hockey athlete. Laura has changed
positions within the Girls Inc.
network, working to strengthen
affiliates across the U.S. and
Canada.” Adrianne is in her last
year overseeing global programs
at Hackley School and looks
forward to devoting her time and
attention to classroom teaching.
In July, Adrianne attended
Swarthmore’s classicists reunion.

She reports that our class was
well-represented, with Keith and
Margaret Smith Henderson, Jay
Kardan, and herself attending.
Neil Ottenstein’s wife, Laura
Neiswanger Ottenstein, changed
branches at Goddard Space
Flight Center and now works with
the New Opportunities Office.
Daughter Rachel is in LA doing
production management on music
videos, commercials, and short
subjects, and now has three credits
on IMDb. Son Alan graduated from
Colby College, double-majoring in
math and physics. He is pursuing
graduate studies in math at the
University of Iowa this fall.
“I am still the flight dynamics
operations lead on the contractor
side for the Magnetospheric
Multiscale (MMS) mission at
GSFC,” Neil writes. “MMS recently
went through the apogee-raise
campaign, changing the apogee
from 12 to 25 Earth radii though
a series of 32 Delta-V maneuvers
over the course of two months.
Before the campaign, the
formation of four spacecraft flew
at a size of about 7 kilometers,
which broke their previous
Guinness World Record for the
closest flying separation of a
multispacecraft formation.”
Joelle Moreno enjoys life as a
professor after a decade at Florida
International University College
of Law in Miami. “Although times
are hard for law school graduates,
our public school is thriving and
our students are passing the bar
and finding good jobs. I have been
reconnecting with Swarthmore
through my son Nathan MorenoMendelson ’20, who is carving his
own path as a proud earthworm
and engineering major. I regularly
speak with my close friend (and
two-time Wharton neighbor) Ann
Starrs, who fights the good fight as
head of the Guttmacher Institute.”
Mark Reynolds lives in Boston
with wife Clare and sons Niall and
Declan. “I’m CEO of CRICO/Risk
Management Foundation, which
provides professional liability
insurance and is the patientsafety organization for Harvardaffiliated doctors and hospitals.
One twist is a reconnection with
Max Mulhern. We have been crew
together on a boat in the Marion,

Mass.-to-Bermuda sailing race.
The race is distinguished by
having a class of boats that sail
only with celestial navigation (no
GPS or electronics). Max is an
experienced celestial navigator
and has trained the crew. As it
happens, we took first place in the
fleet.” Congrats, Mark and Max!
Gwyneth Jones Cote has lived in
Greensboro, N.C., for almost five
years and is COO of Bell Partners,
a real estate investment and
management company. “Much
to our delight, son Jack ’20 is at
Swarthmore! Daughter Cynthia
is a high school senior. She is
interested in big, city schools, so
our college tours have taken us in a
different direction. Four years ago
we became a host family for Qianxu
Ding, a Chinese student who came
to Greensboro Day School for high
school. She immediately fit into our
family and became such a ‘Cote’
that we became her permanent
American family! She completed
high school and just finished her
first year at Wake Forest. We still
do annual vacations in Grand
Cayman with Donna Marchesani
Cronin and her family.”
Stephen Henighan is professor of
Spanish and Hispanic studies at
the University of Guelph, outside
Toronto, and was named College
of Arts Research Leadership Chair,
2017–2020. Stephen recently
published two new novels, and has
a short-story collection and an
Angolan novel that he translated
from Portuguese coming out in
2018. He is married to a theater
director from Mexico City and is
the father of two infants.
Thanks for all the news! Please
keep sending it my way.

1986
Karen Leidy Gerstel
kgerstel@msn.com

Jessica Russo Perez-Mesa
jessicaperezmesa@yahoo.com
Ramona O’Halloran Swenson
participated in 2017’s Women’s

GARNET SNAPSHOT

From left: Dave Engerman ’88, Bo Arbogast ’88, Marty Juhn
’88, and Mark Bartlett ’88, gathering to celebrate Bo’s 50th
birthday, recreated a photo taken at his wedding 20 years earlier.

March in D.C. A mini-reunion
followed at Don McMinn’s place
with Lynelle Morgenthaler, Murray
Scheel, Judy Fredericksen, Angela
Tung, David Schutte, David Homer,
and Noelle Damico ’87 engaging in
passionate discussions reminiscent
of late-night dorm-lounge days.
Anne Titterton is now associate
general counsel at the Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia, feeling
privileged to serve an institution
that regularly inspires. She happily
lives in Wayne, Pa., with talented
teen daughter Ava.
Ninotchka Bennahum is a dance
history, theory, and performance
studies professor at UC–Santa
Barbara, where she researches,
teaches, choreographs, and
curates. She lives between
California and NYC, as she teaches
a digital UCSB dance-history class
from New York dance studios. She
spent nearly 20 years teaching for
American Ballet Theater and has a
beautiful daughter, Mairana, 9, a
true California hippie.
Greg Hannsgen, in Rhinebeck,
N.Y., taught an International
Financial Crises course at SUNY–
New Paltz. He is collaborating on

macroeconomics research and
is involved in the hearing-voices
movement. Check out his blogs,
healthyveganhudsonvalley.com
and greghannsgen.org.
Marian Staats and partner Tom
Bowen excitedly won an NEH
Humanities Connections grant to
develop a field-study course that
will take students on a camping
trip from Chicago to Yellowstone
this summer, with stops in the
Badlands, Pine Ridge, Black Hills,
Bighorn, Theodore Roosevelt
National Park, Standing Rock,
and the Aldo Leopold Foundation.
Marian is an English professor and
co-coordinator of environmental
studies at Oakton Community
College in Des Plaines, Ill.
Congratulations to Julie Phillips
for receiving a Whiting Creative
Nonfiction Grant for writers
“in the process of completing
a book of deeply researched
and imaginatively composed
nonfiction.” The Baby on the Fire
Escape will be published by W.W.
Norton. She lives in Amsterdam
with her husband and two children.
Congrats, also, to David Cateforis
on his promotion to art history

chair at the University of Kansas.
Catherine Paplin is nearing her
first anniversary at a “large but
unusually friendly and personable
architecture/engineering firm,
CANY.”
Lisa Meehan took early retirement
after 25 years at Merck & Co. and
is embarking on the next chapter
with a part-time role running a
private benchmarking group in
corporate travel. Last year saw
the wedding of her stepdaughter
in Brooklyn and a climb up Mount
Kilimanjaro with her husband and
son. Retirement indeed!
Alexander Gavis, Judy
Fredericksen, Elizabeth Killackey,
Alexa Malis Faraday, David
Schutte, and David Sobel met in
New York, continuing their annual
mini-reunions.
After five years in Lucerne,
Switzerland, Judd Liebman, wife
Kathy Seidl ’88, and their teenage
twins moved near Boston a few
years ago. Judd runs Kaplan
International English North
America operations in Cambridge,
while Kathy is Bluebird Bio’s
director of research.
Luigi Mercone was in a poetic
mood, reporting after a twodecade Bulletin absence that
he “faked it until he made it …
to managing director at ‘The Big
Bad Scary Bank.’” Apparently,
“tech-startup hipster was out,” as
he doesn’t have “the hair, teeth, or
beard.” He celebrates 14 years with
Claire Szeto and has a fabulous,
wise, and total bird-nerd (budding
ornithologist) daughter Lucia, 10.
“I’ve buried both my parents and
one dog. Of all the coruscating
souls I met at our dear alma mater,
I have kept in touch most with
Dave and Laurel Hall Stitzhal ’87,
who have served as my moral
exemplars of mindful, purposeful
presence and commitment.”
Eric and Susanne Myers Adler
’97 had the pleasure of tagging
along with daughter Lauren for a
Swarthmore info session and tour.
Shepard Davidson says the
“Brothers of Don Ho staged a
golf trip to Scottsdale, Ariz.,” in
November. Attending were Jeff
Krieger, Geoff Hazard, Pete Orth,
John Schaefer, Rich Dunne ’87.
Much revelry ensued, with calls to
Mitch Stern and other alumni.

Greg Kaebnick is a scholar and
editor at The Hastings Center,
a bioethics research institute
in Garrison, N.Y. Younger child
Hannah heads to college next year,
and Greg and wife Gwen Whitman
Kaebnick ’85 are mentally
preparing for the empty nest.
Rebecca Rosenberg Jacobson
remarried, “after a long single
spell,” to Jake Jacobson. She
left her position as biomedical
informatics professor at Pitt’s
medical school to become VP of
analytics at UPMC Enterprises—
the innovation lab of Pittsburg’s
big health system. Son Colin
Crowley ’18 graduates from
Swarthmore this summer.
I, Karen, extend my sympathies
to classmates who lost loved ones
this year. As we move firmly into
our 50s, the good news is all too
often colored with sadness.

1988

Mallory Easter Polk
malloryepolk@gmail.com
Bo Arbogast emailed some time
ago: “My daughter had two
letters in front of her, one for
Swarthmore, one for Carleton.
In the end, Swarthmore was
not the choice, but it was fun to
consider. Later that summer, I
had a 50th birthday celebration
with Dave Engerman, Marty Juhn,
and Mark Bartlett near Oberlin
College, where I now work. Mark
and I had visited Oberlin during a
1987 spring break trip. Little did I
know I’d be here 30 years hence,
serving as an assistant dean in
academic advising. At Swarthmore,
I changed my major every year
(premed, politics, psychology,
then soc/anth), so I can give some
comfort to advisees who feel lost. If
your kids are considering Oberlin,
have them come see me!”
As a parent who has toured many
a college campus, it’s reassuring to
know that classmates like Bo are
out there advising.
Life is full for Preston ’87 and
me. Parenting takes up most

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

61

class notes
of our energies. Our two eldest
boys (twins) study at Pomona
and Pitzer. Son Marcus spent a
wonderful summer interning at
the Barnes Foundation, under the
fine leadership of dear classmate
Thom Collins. It did my heart
good to know that Thom was
nearby as I sent my son out into
the workaday world. Son Mason
spent last fall in China, and would
have been—had we been able to
arrange it—warmly welcomed by
Nick Morse, who lives and works
in Guangzhou. As you read this, we
will be preparing to watch our elder
daughter, Charlotte, graduate from
Phillips Exeter. She will continue
her studies this fall at Yale, which
I hope to visit frequently and
meet up with Nina Livingston
and her family in Connecticut.
Our youngest, Vanessa, is in
eighth grade and plays elite
basketball and volleyball. We had
the good fortune to cross paths
with Michael Hall ’87 and his
family in Kansas City while at a
tournament there. No doubt you,
too, have Swarthmore connections
at play in your life. Even though
30 years have gone by since we
marched across the stage in Scott
Amphitheater, the ties remain.

1990
Jim Sailer
jim.sailer@gmail.com

Samantha Blackburn has lived
in Sacramento, Calif., for three
years, while teaching nursing
at Sacramento State. She also
coordinates the school nurse
credential/master’s program.
Samantha says her Swarthmore
sociology degree came in handy
as she worked on her dissertation
(nursing science and health-care
leadership Ph.D. from UC–Davis)
and as she conducts qualitative
research on the work of school
health administrators (people who
manage K–12 health programs,
such as school nursing, mental
health, and wellness programs).
Danielle Moss is continuing an

62

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

interesting, impactful career in
social justice. Her most recent
role, since fall, is chief of staff
at the New York Civil Liberties
Union: “Their strategy of litigation,
community organizing, and
legislative advocacy across New
York state in support of issues that
affect us all excites me.” Congrats,
Danielle!
Courtland and Emily Newland
Reichman ’93 have three kids,
Whitner, 16, Ava, 14, and Frankie,
12, as well as a student from
Zimbabwe staying with them for
two years, Watida, 18. Courtland
is a trial lawyer at McKool Smith
(where Pete Mastroianni also
practices) and managing principal
of the firm’s California offices.
Courtland’s latest venture is a
podcast, Behind the Trial, featuring
interviews with the country’s most
celebrated trial lawyers.
David Eldridge is a Swarthmore
employee! After years of
fundraising for Quaker independent
schools, Dave joined the
advancement team and meets with
alumni, parents, and others about
their Swarthmore philanthropy.
“It’s amazing working behind
the curtain and discovering that
Swarthmore has grown in many
good ways since our graduation.
In particular, President Valerie
Smith and her senior staff are truly
spectacular (including, of course,
Jim Bock!). Naturally, the job has
gotten me in the mode of renewing
old friendships, which has really
been fun. On the home front, my
wife and I have three awesome
daughters: one in college, two in
high school (senior and first-year).
We’ve been living up Route 1 in
Wynnewood since our eldest came
along 20 years ago.”
Cheri Walker is CFO and EVP
of corporate development of
Kailos Genetics, “an early stage
company with cool next-generation
sequencing technology for genetic
testing and diagnostics, including
patient-directed business where
people can go online and order
testing.” She lives near Boston
with her sons, 4 and 6. “I love
adventure traveling—mostly
involving animals—and have swum
with wild dolphins in Hawaii, gone
mountain gorilla and chimpanzee
trekking in Uganda, been on

safari in South Africa, and gone
wild-tiger trekking in India. I am
planning a swim with whale sharks
for my 50th and still want to visit
Borneo to see orangutans and the
wildlife there. Otherwise, the boys
and I love nature-based activities
(zoo, farm, horseback riding,
beach, hiking) or sports (baseball,
basketball, soccer).”
Finally, a personal update from
me, Jim Sailer! 2017 was my first
year as executive director of the
Center for Biomedical Research
at the Population Council, where I
was previously a VP of corporate
affairs. We filed a new-drug
application to the FDA for a novel
contraceptive device, a massive
effort involving 69 preclinical
studies, 17 clinical studies, and
200,000 pages in our application.
If approved, our product will be an
important family-planning option
for women. I had lots of Swat
encounters last year, including
dinner with Suma McGourty, a visit

to Atlanta historical sites with Neil
Swenson, dinner with John Hanlon,
periodic lunches with Caroline
Curry, a trip to the JFK Library with
Greg Smirin and our respective
sons, attending a fundraiser for
Phil Weiser’s Colorado attorney
general campaign, and a great
group video chat with Sara
Waterman Saltee, Angela Shaw,
and Tanya Boudreau.

1992

Libby Starling
libbystarling@comcast.net
Only four more years until our next
reunion …
Apologies to Alyssa Nathan ’21,
whom I missed in my last column’s
inventory of 1992 legacies. Parents

SPOTLIGHT ON …

READ ’93 AND RACHEL GUY SCHUCHARDT ’94

Read ’93 and Rachel Guy Schuchardt ’94 had daughter
Marguerite Katherine on Sept. 23, bringing the family total to
seven boys and three girls—and two grandchildren (all pictured
above at a Christmas gathering). In March 2017, son Mercer and
wife Emma had daughter Juniper, and in August eldest child
Constance and husband Ruben had daughter Beatrice.
“Because we married at Swarthmore and had our first child
when Rachel was a senior, we became grandparents at 48 and
46, respectively,” Read says. “It’s ridiculously fun to have a
new daughter who is younger than both our granddaughters,
because it makes you feel old and young at the same time.”

+

CONTINUED: bulletin.swarthmore.edu

Len and Lynne Maybee Nathan ’91
report that Alyssa “is a fourthgeneration Swattie and already
loves it at Swat!”
Some political updates: The
voters of Somerville, Mass., wisely
elected Stephanie Hirsch (pg. 4)
as alderman-at-large this fall. In
Hawaii, Josh Green hopes voters
will elect him lieutenant governor.
Congratulations to Heather Hill,
named one of only 20 University of
Michigan Bicentennial Alumni out
of UM’s 800,000-plus alums. (I’m
glad I don’t write their Class Notes!)
Heather is the Jerome T. Murphy
Professor in Education at Harvard.
C. Kemal Nance is a new faculty
member at the University of Illinois
at Urbana–Champaign. He leads
the Organization of Umfundalai
Teachers, a consortium of
artists and scholars who develop
pedagogy experiences for budding
African dance teachers. Last fall,
he performed his work “Chalk
Lines,” an artistic response to the
Baltimore riots, at the American
Dance Guild Festival at NYC’s Ailey
Citigroup Theater.
Marshall Curry released A
Night at the Garden, an archival
compilation of footage of a 1939
Nazi rally at Madison Square
Garden. “I’ve seen the footage a
thousand times, and it still gives
me the chills,” Marshall says.
Meanwhile, Paul Young gave the
McCabe Lecture during Garnet
Weekend, on “An Urgent Case for
Laughter” (bit.ly/McCabePY).
Paul is an Emmy-winning producer
whose credits include Key & Peele,
black-ish, and Central Intelligence.
Michael Belfatti is the new CEO at
Greenlight Capital Re, a specialist
property and casualty reinsurance
company headquartered in the
Cayman Islands. With a financial
engineering master’s from
Princeton, Mike has spent more
than 20 years in the reinsurance
and insurance industry.
Finally, a note from Sara
Shay: “Thanks to everyone who
organized our reunion! I attended
the Saturday festivities with my
husband, John McCauley ’91, and
our two boys, 13 and 15, and—as
always—I left wishing there had
been even more time to catch
up with classmates. Also, at the
Philadelphia Airport in July en

route to a family trip to Alaska
(that also included my sister-in-law
Rose McCauley ’93), I spotted exSwarthmore President David Fraser
(bit.ly/DFraser). He and his wife
were heading to Haines, Alaska,
to donate 11 antique spruce-root
baskets to the local art museum.
They had purchased the baskets at
an auction 30-odd years ago. Fun
fact: When Fraser left at the end of
our junior year, after nine years as
president, he was just 46.”
And now that most of us have
slipped beyond 46, I anxiously
await your news for the next
episode of Class Notes!

1994

Joanna Vondrasek
joanna.vondrasek@gmail.com
Greetings, class: This will be my
last column as secretary, after 10
years of writing updates. I have
greatly enjoyed hearing from you,
and serving as secretary has kept
me connected to Swarthmore in
ways I didn’t anticipate. Guian
McKee ’92 and I have been in
Charlottesville, Va., for 15 years,
Guian at the University of Virginia’s
Miller Center of Public Affairs, and
I, for the past 10 years, at Piedmont
Virginia Community College,
where I am a biology professor.
Sons Reece, 14, and Nathaniel, 11,
keep us busy. Reece seems to be
following in Guian’s footsteps and
ran a successful first season of
high school cross country this fall.
Nathaniel is still keen on soccer.
In years past, when I met new
people, I often had to explain where
Charlottesville was, but no longer.
The past year has obviously been
difficult in our community, and
it has coincided with my term as
faculty senate co-president. This
has given me some perspective on
the role educational institutions
play in shaping community
response to tragedy, and I continue
to be inspired by and thankful for
my colleagues and students, who
have shown great compassion and
strength this past semester.

I am pleased to report that Kevin
Babitz has graciously agreed to
take over as class secretary. I look
forward to seeing you all at our
25th Reunion next year and to
reading about your milestones, big
and small.
Kevin lives in the Maryland
suburbs of D.C. with wife Shulamit
Shapiro Babitz ’97 and kids
Rebecca, 15, Madeline, 13, Elisheva,
10, and Netanel, 5. Kevin is a tax
attorney in Washington, and Shuly
is a writer at the National Institutes
of Health. They and their children
enjoy the history and scenery of the
D.C. area while still rooting for the
New York sports teams. They also
make yearly trips to Israel to see
their favorite actors and musicians,
and spend an inordinate amount of
time discussing Swarthmore. Kevin
hopes to stay connected to and reconnect with Swatties near and far,
and looks forward to hearing your
latest news.

1996
Gerardo Aquino
aquinonyc@yahoo.com

Melissa Clark
melissa.a.clark@gmail.com
Rachel Lynn ’97 married Todd
Derscheid at the Houston
Arboretum on Sept. 9. Rachel is
a psychiatrist at MD Anderson
Cancer Center, providing
specialized care to cancer patients.
“Little did I know that in Houston,
I would actually find my home—
my husband and three loving
girls (Alex, Cori, and Daria) who
welcomed me and my two cats,
Zekie and Zoe, into their home and
lives.” Adam Koplan ’95 officiated,
and various Swatties attended,
including Amanda Rocque ’97, Lisa
Ginsburg Tazartes ’97, Kate Walker
’97, Snuller Price ’93, and Rachel’s
dad, Stephan Lynn ’69.
Also in September, Chris Marin
was joined by Sam Voolich
and Curtis Trimble on a trip to
Wisconsin, where they cheered on
the Milwaukee Brewers in an extra-

innings game against the Chicago
Cubs before moving north to Green
Bay and watching the Packers’
Aaron Rodgers beat the Cincinnati
Bengals in overtime. Chris extends
his gratitude to Laurie Baker ’97
for providing deep insights into
Milwaukee. In December, Chris
crossed the pond to visit Andrew
Groat ’97 in London.
Pursuing art full time, Nazanin
Moghbeli is spending a year in
Paris with her husband and three
kids. “It is an amazing city for art,
and I have found a great communal
studio in which to make paintings,
drawings, and to improve my
French.” Check out her work:
nmoghbeli.com.
Jagath Wanninayake advanced
to the national finals of the Ernst
& Young U.S. Entrepreneur of the
Year competition.
Tales of Two Americas, edited
by John Freeman, was among
the BBC’s 10 books to read in
September.
I, Gerardo, was affected by
the catastrophic flooding from
Hurricane Harvey in Houston.
Although I was safely out of
town, I was saddened to lose
such sentimental items as our
Swarthmore yearbook and pictures
from our College days. Condo
repairs are coming along and lots
of good things are happening—so
the storm has not washed away an
optimistic spirit. Wishing everyone
continued success in your
personal and professional lives!

2000
Emily Shu
emily.n.shu@gmail.com
Michaela DeSoucey
mdesoucey@gmail.com
Last summer, I, Emily, met up with
Alison Young and Neil DiMaio to
visit David Peterson and Ursula
Lang and their kids in Scotland for
seaside adventures. Soon after,
the Peterson-Langs returned to the
U.S. and are now in Providence, R.I.
Sarah Archer married Ma’ayan

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

63

class notes
“Manny” Citron in October in Valley
Forge, Pa., with a brass band,
Israeli folk dancing, s’mores, and
plenty of Swatties (Emily, David
and Ursula, Neil, Alison, Jerry
Melichar, Gabriel Cumming, Corey
Datz-Greenberg, Will Mackintosh,
Supriya Kota, and Meredith Hegg).
A good time was had by all!
Jessica Scott was featured in
the Redford Center’s documentary
Happening: A Clean Energy
Revolution. Jessica was part of a
coalition that passed 11 cleanenergy bills out of the Nevada
Legislature, with nine signed into
law. Check out the documentary
on HBO. Arun Mohan, co-founder
and CEO of Radix Health and an
internal medicine hospitalist at
Emory, is now a medical adviser at
caredash.com (whose CEO is Ted
Chan ’02), which features patientgenerated reviews and ratings
about physicians and hospitals.
Award-winning comedian Jenny
Yang performed on campus in
October. Liam O’Neill was inducted
into the 2018 Marquette University
High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
Daniel Littlewood works at Vox
Media and frequently runs into
Louise Brooks in their Brooklyn
neighborhood. Jerry Melichar, wife
Nadia, and kids Luke, 3, and Rose,
1, left Brooklyn for Glen Ridge, N.J.
Jerry started a new role as North
American operations director for
marketing agency Spark44.
Miriam Freedman received
tenure at Penn State and is now
an academic mama of a son, 3,
and an associate professor of
chemistry. Eva Allan taught Art
of Renaissance Venice at UC–
Berkeley, where she is a postdoc
in art history. “Informal highlights
included playing lute when
teaching about Giorgione, weaving
fake pearls in my hair when
teaching Veronese, and learning
an enormous amount. Baby Kai,
1, Orion, 10, and Sylvia, 7, take up
most of the rest of my energies.”
Keep an eye out for Not Quite
a Cancer Vaccine, Samantha
Gottlieb’s medical anthropology
book, published by Rutgers
University Press. Kim Foote,
National Endowment for the Arts
Literature Fellow and New York
Foundation for the Arts Fellow in
Fiction, is working on a book. Enjoy

64

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

a small sample of her writing via
the Missouri Review (tinyurl.com/
footemorev) and Flapperhouse
(tinyurl.com/footeflapper).
Desiree Peterkin Bell co-authored
Women Who Inspire. She was
invited by India’s government
to speak about smart cities and
women’s issues, and she teaches
urban communication at Penn.
Her public affairs firm, DPBell
& Associates, has partners and
offices around the country and
in Tel Aviv, Israel. Desiree is an
enthusiastic gymnastics mom to a
daughter, 9, and is celebrating 12
years of marriage to Brian Bell ’99.
Dan Kraut submitted his tenure
packet at Villanova in the fall.
Rochelle Arms lives in Brooklyn
with husband Daniel, downstairs
from Prachi Patankar and her
delightful 2-year-old. Rochelle is
in her last year of a Ph.D. program
in conflict analysis and resolution,
and accepted a tenure-track
position at CUNY John Jay College
of Criminal Justice.
Julia Sable is enjoying maternity
leave from the Foundation for a
Mindful Society to care for Corrin
Jules, born in September. She and
husband Rickey Pannell are totally
smitten. Chris Fanjul and wife
Corey Solinger welcomed baby
Vanessa in January 2017. Chris is
“still toiling away in my ceramics
studio (chrisfanjul.com) on the
North Fork of Long Island, and
discovered that John Pagliaro ’93
(handwerklab.com) is doing the
same on nearby Shelter Island!”
Jen Slaw Napolitano lives in
NYC, speaking at and juggling for
businesses and schools, but her
favorite new gig is being mom to
Gianluca. She and husband Luigi
welcomed their 9-pound-11-ounce
healthy boy in March 2017. He
has already outgrown his first
Swarthmore T-shirt. Heather Stern
writes: “Our family grew this year
from four to five with the birth
of daughter Elena, much to the
delight of brothers Sam and Xavier.
My husband, Nick, and I continue
to work as chemical engineers for
what is now DowDuPont.”
Rachel Adams loves being
a palliative-care physician at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
“Our department feels like ‘little
Swarthmore’—my colleagues

include Chris Woodrell ’01 and
Elizabeth Lindenberger ’93. This
year was particularly exciting for
my family—my partner, Josh, and I
welcomed twins Jack and Hannah.”
Last summer, Lorrin Nelson’s
family had a combo visit from Sean
Brennan and his family and Geoff
Anisman and his elder son. It was
the first time the three freshman
roommates had been together
since our 10th Reunion.

2002

Tanya Wansom
swarthmore2002@gmail.com
Many daughters were born to
classmates last year! Ursula
Beauregard Rothwell, daughter
of Lizzie Rothwell and John
Beauregard ’05, was born Aug. 6.
Sabine Lee Milla, daughter of Leaya
Lee and husband Chris Milla ’03,
was born Oct. 3 in NYC. And Nicky
Benton, his wife, and sons Jonah,
5, and Micah, 3, welcomed Elise
Charlotte Benton, born Dec. 12.
After 11 years, Sarah Yardney
completed a Bible studies Ph.D. in
June at the University of Chicago.
She lives in Chicago’s far-western
suburbs with husband Jamie and
children Nora, 6, and Morgan, 3.
Sonia Mariano lives in Raglan, New
Zealand, and will move to Bunbury,
Western Australia, later this year,
working in urgent care and as an
emergency medicine doctor. She
also spent four months in Pheriche,
Nepal, working as a mountain
doctor on the Everest Base Camp
trekking route. Olga Rostapshova
lives in Chicago and is raising two
toddlers while directing Harvard’s
Weiss Fund, advising the new
nonprofit Precision Agriculture
for Development, and directing
evaluations at the international
development consultancy Social
Impact.
Jae Won Chung received a Ph.D.
from Columbia in the fall and
started as an assistant professor in
Korean literature and culture at the
University of Colorado at Boulder,
where he lives with wife Lynn. Ariel

Kobylak started a new position as
a clinical research coordinator in
hematologic oncology at Thomas
Jefferson University. Shira KostGrant Brewer lives in Seattle with
husband Matt and children Rafael,
9, and Aziza, 5. She teaches
high school math and became a
National Board Certified Teacher
in 2017. In October, she ran into
Dan Finkel and Annie Fetter ’88
at the Northwest Mathematics
Conference in Portland, Ore. Hilary
Rice and daughter Lydia reunited
with former roommate Katie
Saltanovitz, husband Tan Mau Wu,
and their son, Henry, in Seattle.
Amy Marinello Finkbiner was
elected to the Malvern (Pa.)
Borough Council in November
after serving on the planning
commission since 2010. Husband
John Finkbiner ’98 and son Alex,
2, joined her for the swearingin ceremony in January. Cindy
Schairer started as a postdoctoral
scholar at the UC–San Diego
School of Medicine, studying ethics
and social implications of emerging
technology. She and husband
Chris DiLeo ’99 attended a local
Swarthmore event and are always
excited to meet area Swatties.
I, Tanya Wansom, still live in
Bangkok with my husband and
two sons. I work in the U.S.
Military HIV Research Program,
conducting vaccine and cure
research. I always enjoy hearing
from everyone. Please update your
email address with me!

2004

Rebecca Rogers
rebecca.ep.rogers@gmail.com
Danny Loss
danny.loss@gmail.com
Painter and former class secretary
Njideka Akunyili Crosby moved on
to a slightly more noteworthy title
last year when she was named a
2017 MacArthur Fellow. Congrats,
Njideka!
Mark Pouy married Madelaine
Denno in October. They live in

MATT ROTH OF THE PIVOT GROUP

ALUMNI PROFILE

“I went to the Philadelphia DA’s office to prosecute cases of sexual assault, child abuse,
and domestic violence,” says Joe Khan ’97. “I’ve been extremely lucky to be able to do the job I
dreamed of doing as a kid.”

NOT YOUR AVERAGE JOE
He’s making a difference
as an attorney and beyond
by Carol Brévart-Demm
EVEN IN HIGH SCHOOL, Philly
native Joe Khan ’97 knew he wanted to
be a prosecutor.
“It’s a job where you’re an advocate,”
he says. “You stand up for victims of
crime but also protect the rights of the
accused, and make sure the guilty are
held to account and the innocent don’t
suffer.”
On his road to the courtroom,
Khan—the son of a Muslim from
Pakistan and a Catholic from Philly—
chose Swarthmore for its sense of
mission and social justice—not to
mention myriad opportunities. The
English literature and political science
major served as editor of The Phoenix,
a lifeguard, and a member of the rugby,
football, and debate teams.

“Swarthmore had the sort of
personality that was a good fit for me,”
he says. “It was a wonderful place.”
After graduation—where he was the
senior class speaker—he enrolled at
the University of Chicago Law School,
where he was taught by Barack Obama.
“He was the ideal role model,”
Khan says. “Long before he became
a national figure, he was a guiding
influence in my life in terms of
understanding who I wanted to be as
an attorney, as a public servant, and
as a dad. He had a profound sense of
humility and was always careful not to
take himself too seriously.”
One of the students who later
worked with Obama on his
presidential campaign, Khan

remembered his mentor’s example
when he himself became a professor
and a political candidate.
“A lot of my instincts came from
those times of watching Obama be
himself—authentic but deliberate
in carrying out the mission—and
persuading people to come along with
him,” he says. “Sometimes, when I’m
teaching, I hear echoes of how Obama
conducted his class.”
Between six years in the Philadelphia
District Attorney’s Office and 10 more
as an assistant U.S. attorney, Khan
prosecuted more than 1,000 cases in
his hometown. He specialized in cases
of political corruption and sexual
assault, including that of Jeffrey
Marsalis, the notorious “Match.com
rapist,” who was ultimately sentenced
to life.
“Prosecuting sex crimes was a
particularly tough job, but an honor
and a privilege,” Khan says. “You’re not
only trying to take a dangerous person
off the street, but also serving an
important role for the victims, many of
them children with no father figures,
nor role models. I’d stay involved in
the child’s life for as long as the family
wished.”
Last year, Khan ran for Philadelphia
district attorney, endorsed by former
DA, Philly mayor, and Pennsylvania
Gov. Ed Rendell; the National
Organization for Women; and Khizr
Khan (no relation), father of Army
Capt. Humayun Khan, the young
Muslim American officer killed in the
Iraq War in 2004.
Despite having no political
background, he came in second in a
seven-person race to unseat the nowimprisoned DA Seth Williams.
“It was nonetheless an amazing
experience, coming out of nowhere to
emerge with some wonderful support,”
Khan says. “This campaign has really
changed my life, and I’m very proud of
the reception we got.”

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

65

class notes

SPOTLIGHT ON …

JUMATATU POE ’04 AND TAYARISHA POE ’12
Siblings Jumatatu Poe ’04 and Tayarisha Poe ’12 were honored
last year with awards from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Jumatatu, a choreographer and Swarthmore assistant professor of
music and dance, received a grant in support of his new work, Let
’im Move You: This Is a Formation, while Tayarisha, a filmmaker,
was named one of 12 Pew fellows.
“My work, especially this current series, centers on performance
forms emerging from black queer ingenuity,” says Jumatatu.
“It’s a privilege to be a part of a group of people with such
brilliant notions about how the world works,” says Tayarisha, “and
who put into practice those notions that they preach.”

+

Alexandria, Va. Cathy Meals
married Patrick Griffith on Dec.
29—the date when both their sets
of parents got married.
Heather Sternshein reports that
Winifred Dorothy Rubino was born
on Dec. 15, weighing in at a healthy
8 pounds 6 ounces. Heather
and husband Tony are already
envisioning Freddie Dot’s hockey
stardom. Autumn Quinn-Elmore
and husband John Gale welcomed
daughter Anna Katherine on July
14. She’s a happy baby and has
already spent time with David
Mister, Fraser Tan, Elizabeth
McDonald ’05, and Joy Mills ’05.
Autumn is a program manager on
Google’s Android team.
Kellan Baker joined the Health
Policy Research Scholars to work
on research and leadership that
advances health equity. Claire
Ruud is now director of convergent
programming at the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Chicago.
Morgan Simon wants Swattie
academics to know that copies of
her book Real Impact are available
for free (with study guides) at
morgansimon.com/get-the-book.
Peter Wirzbicki joined Princeton’s
faculty from the University of
Chicago, where he had been a
collegiate assistant professor since
2013. He focuses on American
history, looking at interactions
among black intellectuals, the
Transcendentalist movement, and
abolitionist radicals in antebellum
New England.

66

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

CONTINUED: bit.ly/PewPoes

In September, Kathy Liu had a
whirlwind 10-day trip to Tokyo,
Kyoto, and Beijing, visiting
UNESCO World Heritage sites. As
director of major gifts at NYC’s
Metropolitan Opera, she took a
patron group to London to see the
Met commission of Marnie at the
English National Opera.
We, Rebecca and Danny, were at
Swarthmore for Garnet Weekend in
the fall—Rebecca was participating
in women’s soccer’s 35th
anniversary celebration. We got
to see the new Matchbox, which
is beautiful, but we were thinking
wistfully of the old squash courts!

2006
Wee Chua
wchua1@gmail.com

Happy 2018! I’m writing from JFK
Airport, so starting in the Big
Apple …
Ana Chiu is living the dream in
NYC. When not slaying it at her
job in corporate responsibility, she
performs in a Chinese-American
dance company.
Benjamin Turner married Carla
Moy Turner, with Carey Kopeikin
’05, Taufik Parsioan, James Dalton,
Mark Piper, Nile and Anita Kumar
Chang, Wee Chua, and Robert

Dorkin in attendance.
Jayanti Owens was named a 2017
National Academy of Education/
Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow.
Albert Chang writes from the
Northeast, where he is a lawyer for
the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau. Albert and I reconnected
after 10 years at a wedding in
Austin, Texas, where he recounted
the tales of being a proud parent of
two wonderful daughters.
Ben Ewen-Campen married Alex
Feinstein. Adding to a big 2017,
Ben was elected to the Somerville
(Mass.) Board of Aldermen, along
with Stephanie Hirsch ’92 (pg.
4). They join state Sen. Pat Deats
Jehlen ’65 to form a dynamic
core of Swarthmore public
figures in Massachusetts. Ben
sends his thanks to John Tuthill,
Arpy Saunders, Tev Kelman, Ben
Bradlow ’08, James Crall ’07,
Blake Roberts ’07, Nabil Khan ’07,
Charlotte Chase ’11 and the army
of volunteers who fought the good
fight to get him elected.
Hannah de Keijzer and partner
Michael will move to Boston for the
2018–19 academic year and would
love to connect with Swatties
there.
After two years in Cleveland,
Tanya Gonzales ’07 moved to San
Francisco, rotating from sales to
marketing within her company. She
looks forward to reconnecting with
Bay Area Swatties!
Lauren Stadler was part of a
New York Times investigation into

the extent of polluted floodwaters
in the aftermath of Hurricane
Harvey. She teaches engineering
as an assistant professor at Rice
University.
On Jan. 1, Megan Richie and Tom
Winner ’05 had son Galen Robert,
who has shown tremendous
interest in the music group
Wardruna and in generating dirty
diapers.
Matt Krauss is entering his eighth
year in D.C., with wife Sarah and
son Adam. He made partner at
Weisbrod Matteis & Copley on Jan.
1 and is working with Kristin Davis
and Charles Fischette ’01 to keep
the law firm’s Swarthmorean ratio
high.
Darcy Nelson Smoot and husband
Cliff had daughter Aubrey Leigh on
Aug. 22 in Redwood City, Calif.
Mischa Stephens is leading
a Playstation team to develop
the future of social-gaming
experiences. Drop him a line if
you have thoughts about video
games. He’s also producing San
Francisco’s first festival of new
musicals—if you know someone
who wrote a musical and wants it
seen or workshopped, email him
at SFShowOff@gmail.com. Mischa
appeared in Ragtime this winter in
Berkeley.
Proud papa Keefe Keeley gives
thanks for lovely Skyla Jane, born
to wife Cedarose in December.
Keefe also gave birth to a book,
The Driftless Reader.
William ’05 and Anisha Chandra
Schwarz live in Seattle with son
Narayan Chandra Schwarz ’34.
Anisha looks forward to the last
six months of child neurology
residency, ending in July, after
which she plans to stay in Seattle
for a neuromuscular neurology
fellowship while discovering what
her friends have been up to for the
past five years beyond Class Notes.
Eliza Cava and Rachel Shorey
adopted daughter Lena Dee Cava
in August. Lena was born in Florida
and by the end of her second week
on Earth had spent four days in
a rental car evacuating from her
first hurricane. Rachel works in
The New York Times’s Washington
bureau, and Eliza works at the
Audubon Naturalist Society,
an independent environmental
organization in the D.C. area.

2008
Mark Dlugash
mark.dlugash@gmail.com

From Kunming to Buenos Aires:
Susannah Bien-Gund and partner
Cedric moved in September to
Kunming, southwestern China,
where they’ll live until June (and
sadly miss reunion!). Through the
English Language Fellows program,
Susannah does teacher-training
workshops throughout the country
and teaches at Yunnan Normal
University, while feeling angry and
devastated about the advancing
authoritarianism back home.
In August, Jamie Midyette
received a Spanish master’s from
Middlebury College. The amazing,
four-summer-long program
allowed her to spend three
summers studying in Buenos Aires,
Argentina. Jamie still teaches
Spanish to grades 6–8 at a public
middle school in Richmond, Va.
Artists and educators: Kate
Speer was awarded a two-year
artist residency at RedLine
Contemporary Art Center in
Denver, carving space for dance
among visual artists.
Jennifer Thompson published her
first novel in December.
Maria Mello is in Nashville, Tenn.,
working on a dissertation in special
education at Vanderbilt University
and hanging out with her favorite
humans, Fernando and Stephanie
Charpentier Munoz and their cute
baby, Mateo.
Andrea Pien is assistant director
of college counseling at the Bay
School in San Francisco. She is
also a chapter leader for Resource
Generation, a nonprofit that
organizes young people with class/
wealth privilege for social-justice
work. She’s excited to talk about
these things, so feel free to reach
out!
Rita Kamani-Renedo won the 2017
Excelencia in Teaching Scholarship
for outstanding leadership, service,
and innovative teaching practices
in the K–12 classroom. She teaches
at Brooklyn International High

School, where her approach
centers around her belief that
“education should help students
engage critically with the world
and become active change agents
in building a more socially just
society.”
Working life: Jenelle Harris
graduated from UC–Berkeley’s
Haas School of Business with
an MBA last May and joined the
Bridgespan Group’s San Francisco
office as a consultant.
Brandon Wolff was selected
to serve on the American Bar
Association’s Young Lawyers
Division Council as New Jersey’s
district representative.
Jonathan Harris started at
Georgetown’s McDonough School
of Business, pursuing an MBA to
shift into investment banking.
Maria Cristina Schrum-Herrera
graduated from UC–Berkeley
School of Law in 2016 and last
year joined Outten & Golden, a
pre-eminent employee-rights law
firm. She is an associate in the
Class Action Practice Area in San
Francisco.
Alex Ginsberg graduated from
Columbia Business School in 2014
and spent 3.5 years looking for the
right business to acquire as part of
his search fund, One Line Partners.
He finally made that dream come
true and is running a last-mile
delivery company in several cities,
including Baltimore, where he
recently moved. If you live nearby,
please reach out!
Celebrations: Lisa Benson and
Christian Brown had their first
child, Jack Aubrey Bronson, on
Sept. 30. Lisa enjoys working at
the intersection of clinical practice
and data analysis in the Los
Angeles County Department of
Mental Health’s Office of Clinical
Informatics.
Danielle Tocchet Casey and
husband Mike had first child Emily
Danielle Casey on Sept. 1. Danielle
is very excited to introduce her to
everyone at the reunion.
Camila Harrigan-Labarca had
baby Luciana Andrea in May and
loves the mommy adventure. She
works in Creative Associates
International’s finance department,
writing budgets for USAID
proposals worldwide.
Ethan Deyle and Tess Clearman

’09 live in Pawtucket, R.I., with
baby girl Althea. Tess is finishing
a family medicine residency, and
Ethan is a remote-doc, working
from his basement.
Dan and Marissa Schaffer Sartori
’09 had first child Miriam Eva on
Aug. 20. Dan will stay on as a chief
resident at NYU/Bellevue. They
enjoy life as a family of three in
New York.
Michael Gorbach married Sarah
Garrigan (now Sarah Gorbach) in
September under the cloudy skies
of Carmel, Calif. They are living
in Boston while Sarah finishes
an English literature Ph.D. at
Tufts, and Michael does software
engineering remotely for Apple.
They’ll probably move in a year or
two, but are not sure where.
Finally, it took only 13 years after
being asked out by his Student
Academic Mentor, but Randall
McAuley married Celia Paris
’05 on Nov. 11 at Heinz Chapel in
Pittsburgh, with their reception at
the Ace Hotel. Erin Dwyer-Frazier
’05 attended (and generously lent
the bride and groom a card box
that she, Celia, Katie Berry ’05,
Elisabeth Oppenheimer ’05, and
Sarah Cohodes ’05 decorated for
her own wedding). Randall also
defended a Ph.D. dissertation
last summer. (Feel free to ask him
any burning questions regarding
the role of MALT1 in cancer
metastasis.) He’s now in the
throes of third-year medical school
clerkships. He works full time in the
hospital while finishing up papers,
studying for exams, trying to figure
out what to do when he grows up
and gets a job, and hosting dinner
parties with Celia (when she’s not
in Baltimore helping her Loyola
University Maryland students
make sense of American politics).
Roy Sriwattanakomen ’05 was a
recent guest, and other Swatties
in Pittsburgh are encouraged to
come by!

FOLLOW US!

Facebook and Instagram:
@SwarthmoreBulletin
#SwatBulletin

2010
Brendan Work
theworkzone@gmail.com

Congratulations! Your Swarthmore
alum is a healthy, bright-eyed
8-year-old now. Certainly, it
seems like just yesterday she
was teething on her diploma or
ripping up his student loan bill, but
they’re not babies anymore. In this
chapter you’ll see what’s new in
this exciting phase of development:
You might have noticed your alum
is performing more sketch comedy.
This is completely normal. Marina
Tempelsman and Nicco Moretti are
good examples of this, the writers
of a successful web pilot for BRIC
TV, Smüchr, about a failing onlinedating startup that takes a sudden
turn when one of its employees
goes rogue. Other alumni at this
stage like to co-produce Sundance
Audience Award-winning dramas,
like Matt Thurm, whose Crown
Heights was released nationwide in
August. Adapted from an episode
of This American Life, Crown
Heights tells the true story of
Colin Warner, who was wrongfully
convicted of murder, and his best
friend Carl King, who devoted his
life to proving Colin’s innocence.
Don’t be alarmed if your alum
begins to practice medicine at this
age. There are many precedents
for this behavior, notably Erin
Floyd, a third-year student at
Geisel School of Medicine at
Dartmouth; G Patrick, who will be
graduating from the University
of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
and “pursuing his dream of
being a legal trauma surgeon”;
Liz Lopez, a UC–Davis Medical
School graduate and anesthesia
resident at Mass General Hospital
in Boston; Ashley Miniet, who’s
in her second year of the Emory
Pediatrics Residency Program in
Atlanta; and Marsha-Gail Davis, a
Yale New Haven Hospital resident,
who loves medicine, caring for
patients, and being a doctor:
“Weeks of night call, pages every
10 seconds, running around the

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

67

class notes
hospital, patients coming with
20 complaints expecting you to
fix all of them in 30 minutes … ”
Elsewhere in health care, Mattie
Gregor MacDonald finished a
master’s in clinical research
organization and management and
is a clinical research associate
monitoring drug trials in Portland,
Ore., while Melissa Cruz is a
behavioral consultant to primarycare providers at Maria de los
Santos Health Center in North
Philadelphia, where anyone can
go regardless of legal status or
financial situation. Melissa has
worked with “a massive influx
of folks coming in from Puerto
Rico,” calls it “satisfying and
energizing,” and would like to
thank Swarthmore Psychology
Professor Jane Gillham. She also
notes that on her honeymoon to
New Zealand, she and her husband
ran into Rachel Lee.
Alumni at this juncture have been
known to create software, as well.
There’s Emma Ferguson, software
engineer for Eventbrite, who last
April bought a house in Oakland,
Calif., with partner Dan, and during
the summer was maid of honor at
the Boston wedding of Sara Daley.
Or you can look at Myles Dakan,
recently married to the lucky Ben
Sachs-Hamilton and employed
with Google, or even Jānis Lībeks,
who left Facebook for New York
and work with a deep machine
learning infrastructure startup
called Spell. (In Jānis’s free time,
he bakes bread, seeks out small
theater companies, and pursues
the meaning of life.)
One important lesson to
remember with 8-year-old alums is
that they might start working on the
California state prison budget at
any time. That’s what Caitlin O’Neil
is doing (along with capoeira) in
Sacramento, where Taylor Rhodes
also lives. Another completely
normal behavior is strategic
planning and project management
for an international digital
marketing company, like Anne
Tucci. Her favorite psych seminar
topics from Swarthmore Professor
Barry Schwartz have come in
handy at her job, and she loves
living in Boston with her fiancé and
volunteering with the Boston Ballet.
If your 8-year-old enjoys teaching

68

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

high school and writing plays,
that’s fine, too—just look at Sam
Goodman at NYC’s Robert Louis
Stevenson School. Or perhaps
he’s a Drexel Ph.D. studying the
mediated/communicative aspects
of analog games and play, like Greg
Loring-Albright, who lives with his
wife, tiny dog, and Cecelia Osowski
’15, Wes Willison ’12, and Hana
Lehmann ’13 in Philadelphia. These
are all exciting and developmentally
positive steps for alumni—cheer
them on and encourage them!
Eight years out of the nest is
about when you may see alumni
bearing children of their own. Try
not to panic—studies have shown
this is the best time to produce a
future alum. Exemplary alumni of
this nature include Alice Evans,
who with her partner gave birth on
Dec. 27 to Moss Rio Evans-Moyer
in Birmingham, Ala., and Class
Notes guy Brendan Work, whose
first son, Everett Clemens Work,
was born at exactly midnight Nov.
30. The other Arabic teacher in the
class, Sofia Saiyed, was expecting
her second child in February to join
Kareem, 1, and wrote in from LA
where she witnessed the wedding
of Shaila Chhibba.
As these charming and unique
Swarthmore alumni enter their
ninth year, don’t neglect their
hygiene habits and always promote
independent toileting. And of
course, if you have questions or
concerns, our 24-hour parentsupport line is available at
theworkzone@gmail.com.

2012

Maia Gerlinger
maiagerlinger@gmail.com

North: Emily Coleman is in her
fourth year of Yale School of
Medicine, where she is doing
dermatology research. She runs
and does yoga and rock-climbing,
much to the displeasure of her
knees and back, which she
attributes—soberingly for us all—
to her “old age.” Gabriela Morales
is an attorney at Goodwin Procter

in Boston, and now has a window
facing the bay (“small wins”). She
specializes in biotech companies
and has a kitten. Elizabeth
Cozart received an M.D. from the
University of Rochester, began a
four-year neurology residency at
the University of Vermont Medical
Center, and won the American
Academy of Neurology Medical
Student Prize for Excellence in
Neurology. Tania Doles is cold
(-20-degree morning!), but
otherwise loves Portland, Maine,
where she cross-country skis,
works with a nonprofit, and is
editorial director for a marketing
and publishing firm. Harold Blum
has been in school forever and is
almost done! When he’s finished
at the University of Michigan, he
will be a math doctor. In his spare
time, he tells stories with bizarre
punchlines and wears puffy, green
jackets. “You can write anything
you want,” he told me.
Mid-Atlantic-ish: James Bannon
told me via Gchat that he is still not
related to Steve Bannon. William
Campbell writes only to say he is
“graduated and employed,” with no
further details, suspiciously. Jessie
Cannizzaro still performs in Puffs,
which transferred off-Broadway to
New World Stages. After breaking
the theater’s box-office record,
Puffs’s run was extended to
November. A live performance was
filmed in February to be released
worldwide this summer. I, Maia
Gerlinger, live mostly in Jersey
City and work as an online tutor
for Revolution Prep, the “online”
aspect of which allows the “mostly.”
Walker Stole works for Bombas, a
sock company that donates a pair
for each pair they sell. They just
donated their 6 millionth pair of
socks! He left New York for a brief
Montana reunion with Zak Kelm,
during which they swam in the
“boiling river.” (I looked it up—it’s
real. Montana is wild.) Margret
Lenfest is in her third year of Penn
vet school. Taylor Wuerker and her
girlfriend bought a house in Philly
and adopted a puppy. Tayarisha
Poe got the Pew Fellowship in
2017! Sara Blanco is Running
Start’s communications director
and will graduate from George
Washington in May with a master
of public policy. Charlotte Gaw

lives in D.C. She recently made an
excellent homemade cheese, with
Genevieve McGahey as a witness.
Nick Rhinehart is a robotics
Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon
University, in his “Nth year, with
N>0,” har har har. His research
spans truly terrifying topics in
artificial intelligence, including
machine learning, computer vision,
and human-computer interaction.
He received the 2017 Marr Prize
Honorable Mention, among the
top honors for a computer vision
researcher. “Despite the promises
made by my roommates, I still have
zero cats and zero dogs. However,
I am now an uncle, courtesy of my
brother, Zach Rhinehart ’09.” The
baby’s name is Tiny Rhiney. No, it’s
not. Just kidding.
South and Southwest: Jennifer Yi
is entering the dissertation stage
of a clinical psychology Ph.D. at
UNC–Chapel Hill. Allison Stuewe
is getting a cultural anthropology
Ph.D. from the University of
Arizona. Her research is about
weddings as sites of alliancemaking/breaking in the Iraqi Yezidi
refugee community of northern
Germany. Genevieve Woodhead is
at the University of New Mexico for
a graduate degree in anthropology,
specifically archaeology. She
studies the pre-Hispanic American
Southwest. Kyle Crawford is
spending a year clerking on the
U.S. District Court for the Middle
District of Louisiana in Baton
Rouge. Dante Fuoco (pg. 16) is
in New Orleans but will be in
NYC this summer for a five-week
intensive at the Stella Adler Studio
of Acting, which is aimed at “a
new generation of theater artists
who yearn to upend tradition and
generate new work and new ways
of working.” His short story was a
finalist for the Saints and Sinners
Fiction Contest.
California: Benjamin Hattem wrote
two cover stories for Politico. He
is starting law school at Stanford.
Shiran Victoria Shen graduated
from Stanford after five years and
is starting as an assistant professor
of environmental politics at UVA.
She will miss the sunshine and
wine but is excited to start a new
chapter. Andrew Stromme is in the
Bay Area, “at least for now,” where
he works at Lyft, “kind of” knows

HANNA KOZLOWSKA ’12

ALUMNI PROFILE

Ryane Disken-Cahill ’12 sketched many of the costumes for Mostly 4 Millennials by hand.
“I felt they needed to be grander and weirder than what I was going to just find in a store,” she
says, “so it helped me and the process of my brain make costumes and not just outfits.”

A LION, A STITCH,
AND A WARDROBE

When it comes to design, she’s magical
by Cara Ehlenfeldt ’16
TO CREATE A FLAT EARTH
costume, Ryane Disken-Cahill
’12 knew she needed materials as
unconventional as the idea itself.
“It essentially was a fourth-grader’s
bad model Earth,” she laughs. “I went
to the 99-cent store and thought,
What’s going to inspire me right now?”
The final costume, complete with a
volcano and a miniature lion devouring
a deer, appears in an episode of Mostly
4 Millennials, an upcoming comedy
show on Adult Swim.
As the show’s costume designer,
Disken-Cahill relished the creative
license and trust she received from the
show’s creator, Derrick Beckles. From

pitching a mesh-and-bedazzled pope
outfit to creating handyman uniforms
plastered with corporate logo parodies,
“I got to just go for it,” she says. “When
I first interviewed, he was like, ‘I just
want it to be weird,’ and I said, ‘Great,
that’s 100 percent my aesthetic.’”
Disken-Cahill has established
her reputation in the comedy scene,
where her costumes help weave
together a show’s textures, patterns,
colors, and other design elements. Her
extraordinary wardrobes allow the
concept of a bizarre, larger-than-life
world to fully materialize.
After graduating from Swarthmore,
Disken-Cahill launched a career in

her native New York City, eventually
becoming the costume designer for the
truTV series Jon Glaser Loves Gear.
In addition, she’s created costumes
for the second season of Adult Swim’s
Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter and several
short films and music videos. In this
creative world—where the cast, set,
and production design can change
overnight, if not faster—Disken-Cahill
thrives.
“I love last-minute, putting-stufftogether, on-your-toes creative
thinking,” she says. “At Swarthmore, I
was convinced I couldn’t come up with
brilliant ideas until absolutely the last
minute.”
College is also where she honed
her ability to swiftly solve design
puzzles. She fondly recalls Logan
Grider’s “24-hour draw/paint/
whatevermediumyouchoose-athon”—12 hours of collective sculpting
followed by 12 hours of fervent
drawing.
“Suddenly, everything in Old Tarble
was a potential material one might
use to capture the crazy fish we had
all worked together to build,” she
says. “I learned a lot about creative
resourcefulness in that class—and that
sometimes the more interesting choice
can be discovered when you allow
yourself to veer from tradition.”
Yet Disken-Cahill’s favorite part is
not the rush of crafting new costumes,
but the chance to see actor and outfit
become one.
“You can tell when a performer
feels good in their costume,” she
says, pointing to a video of Jon
Glaser sporting a neon cowboy getup,
complete with fringe along the sleeves.
“There was a lot of love that went
into that. Watching him walk around
and knowing how good he felt in my
costume makes everything worth it.”

SPRING 2018

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69

class notes
Mandarin, and has a man bun.
Arsean Maqami is development
director for San Franciscobased real-estate firm oWow.
He is developing five ground-up
multifamily projects and one hotel
in Oakland. Hannah Deming is
finishing med school at UCSF and
applying in pediatrics. Molly Siegel
is an OB-GYN resident at Oregon
Health & Science University in
Portland, where she delivers
babies—about which I have no
joke, only a fearful kind of awe.
Abroad: Pierre Dyer heads
to London Business School in
the fall; until then, he will be
in Rio, East Asia, and Europe.
Brice Jordan works for the U.S.
Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
where he plays soccer and tries
to learn Amharic and Somali, all
in 70-degree weather. Zachary
Wiener (“W-ie-ner,” he writes) lives
in Jerusalem, the “‘eternal capital’
of sick beatz and funky sin,” which
is also what I think when I think of
Jerusalem. Mary Jean Chan is a
visiting lecturer in creative writing
at Royal Holloway, University of
London. In Amsterdam, Peter
Akkies started a business in which
he helps yoga studio owners
automate their email marketing.

2014
Brone Lobichusky
blobichusky@gmail.com

The chill of the bomb cyclone has
me sipping hot chocolate (which
may or may not include Bailey’s),
covered in cozy blankets, and
looking forward to spring while
reconnecting with our class.
Harrison Tasoff, who still wears
cowboy hats, finished a master’s
in NYU’s Science, Health, and
Environmental Reporting Program
along with Cici Zhang. Harrison
plans to freelance in Manhattan
while exploring job opportunities
and contributing to Space.com.
Of particular importance, he has
added fedoras to his hat collection.
Riana Shah, however, wears
many metaphorical hats as serial

70

Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

entrepreneur, startup strategist
and adviser, innovator-in-residence
at the Innovation Hub, and chief
investment officer at GT Capital
Labs. She interviewed Morgan
Simon ’04 about impact investing.
Stephanie Lechich is in
her second year of a clinical
psychology Ph.D. at Long Island
University–Brooklyn. This year
will be a balancing act while she
finishes a master’s thesis on
attachment and self-compassion,
works as a therapist at LIU
Psychological Services Center,
attends classes, and applies for
third-year externships. She enjoys
the excitement of downtown
Brooklyn, especially the 40
international food vendors at
DeKalb Market.
Living in Harlem, Christopher Gray
joined Tetragon Financial Group
Limited as a legal/compliance
analyst.
Robin Carpenter and Hannah
Grunwald married in Salt Lake City
on Oct. 1—the sixth anniversary of
their meeting behind the bar at a
Swarthmore Queer Union-hosted
Paces party. The magic of Paces!
Hannah is at UC–San Diego,
inching ever closer to a biology
Ph.D., and also started doing
aerial silks. Robin won several
bike competitions this past year,
including the Joe Martin Stage
Race and Cascade Classic, and was
hired by the pro-continental team
Rally Cycling. Congratulations to
this brilliant and amazingly talented
couple!
Melissa Tier continues as Swat’s
sustainability program manager
and is pursuing a related master’s
degree part time through Oxford
University. When at Oxford for
short trips, she catches up with
Caroline Batten and other Swatties.
Sara Fitzpatrick is finishing her
first year at Harvard Law School.
In addition to staying warm
this winter, Brone Lobichusky
is completing a year of clinical
rotations at Temple University
Hospital while studying for the
second level of boards and
preparing to apply to residency
programs nationwide. She finds
time to regularly visit her parents
and their golden retriever puppy,
and will embark on a medical
mission trip to Ecuador, where

she will treat unique respiratory
diseases and operate at an
ophthalmology clinic.

2016
Z.L. Zhou
zzlzhou@gmail.com

Stephanie Kestelman
stephaniekestelman@gmail.com
Julian Randall won the prestigious
Cave Canem Poetry Prize, which
included the publication of his first
poetry book, Refuse.
Joshua Wolfsun lives in Boston
and is communications director
for state Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz.
He also hosts a regular game
night and does freelance video
production and writing.
Margaret Luo is in New Haven,
Conn., pursuing a statistics
master’s at Yale. She completed
her first Olympic triathlon last
summer.
Jacob Oet is in the second year of
a poetry MFA at Syracuse and also
teaching chess. A new chapbook,
No Mark Spiral, comes out soon
from CutBank Press, and Jacob
will read from it at the Association
of Writers and Writing Programs.
Jacob is also collaborating
with artists and designers on a
video game based on a poetry
manuscript.
In the fall, then-New Jersey first
lady Mary Pat Christie announced
SHE Wins Inc. founder A’Dorian
Murray-Thomas as her 50th New
Jersey Hero.
Stephanie Kestelman continued
her pattern of leaving a city before
completing a year there. Life has
taken her to Princeton, N.J., where
she still researches tax economics,
inequality, and state and local
policy. It’s a good thing writing for
the Bulletin doesn’t require her to
be in a specific location!
Olivia Ortiz is a transportation
outreach coordinator at Clean Air
Council and lives in Philadelphia,
though she moved from West Willy
to South Silly.
Shane Loeffler is Swarthmore’s

assistant men’s basketball coach.
He took the job in July, and the
team was off to a good start this
winter. Go Garnet!
PJ Trainor lives in Baltimore
and works at the Johns Hopkins
Applied Physics Lab, which had
him embark for two weeks on the
USS Gerald R. Ford (the Navy’s
newest aircraft carrier). PJ still
plays Frisbee, contributes to opensource software, and is getting a
master’s in applied math through
work.
Kelly Smemo is in her second
year of AmeriCorps with College
Possible, a nonprofit that helps
low-income students get into and
succeed through college. (Shoutout to Natalie Gainer ’15 for serving
with her during her first year.)
Kelly spent last summer teaching
cryptozoology for Magischola
Prep on Swarthmore’s campus
with a whole gaggle of Swatties,
including Ben “Books” Schwartz
’13, Nathan Graf, Leonie Cohen,
Jake Mundo ’18, Emma Puranen
’18, and Jeffrey Moore ’15. She
also hosts a weekly animationthemed podcast with her eternal
partner in crime, Richard Monari.
Klarissa Khor visited her from
Singapore and wanted to keep it
on the down-low but Kelly doesn’t
believe in secrets. This spring, she
looks forward to hearing back from
all the grad-school programs she
applied to. Fingers crossed!
Hanyu Chwe is a research
assistant at Pew Research Center,
focusing on global attitudes and
writing about how Americans and
Mexicans see each other.
Christen Boas Hayes spent
the year organizing a national
prisoners’-rights march while
working at Sullivan & Cromwell in
D.C. Her Swat friends pitched in
time and precious postgrad funds
to help make the march happen,
especially Hanyu Chwe, Clara
Obstfeld, and Paul Green.
David Lazere lives in Washington,
where he’s the education
coordinator for DC Greens.
Paige Willey is the special
assistant to the chief of staff at the
White House Council of Economic
Advisers. She formerly did
education policy research at the
American Enterprise Institute. She
still lives in D.C., aka The Swamp.

their light lives on
our friends will never be forgotten
expanded tributes at bulletin.swarthmore.edu

William Longaker ’42

Catherine Birdsall Knight ’40

“Polly,” a pioneering occupational
therapist, loving mother, and avid
folk dancer, died Nov. 10, 2017.
A veteran Girl Scout leader, Polly
was a constant correspondent, fan
of Native American culture, and
dauntless navigator for extensive
family road trips.

An esteemed psychiatrist and
Renaissance man with an excellent
sense of humor, William died Dec. 1,
2017.
William joked at every birthday
that he was turning 22-and-a-half, but
his secret for living to 97, according
to his obituary, was: “Accentuate the
positive/ Stay close to your family/
Live with a cat/ Have a little gin/
Value peace and quiet/ Visit the ocean
and the mountains/ Listen to music
everywhere/ Drive a tractor and a fast
car/ Pay attention to politics/ Tell
jokes/ Have lots of cookbooks and use
them/ Make your own bread and wine/
Grow your own grapes, tomatoes, and
dahlias/ Live in the country in a college
town/ Admire flowers & fishes, birds &
animals/ Look at the moon/ Never stop
learning/ Read voraciously/ Enjoy your
work/ Listen well/ Be glad your mother
lived to be 100!/ Live life on your own
terms and have no regrets.”

Robert Hecht ’43

A loving family man, executive vice
president, and civic pillar, Robert died
Nov. 2, 2017.
Awarded four ribbons and three
battle stars for his service as a
lieutenant commander in the U.S.
Navy, Robert was a dynamo who loved
giving back to the community as well
as ballroom dancing, swimming, and
playing tennis.

Elizabeth Paine Sawyer ’44

Elizabeth, admired by many for her
youthful spirit, unwavering faith, sharp
mind, and active lifestyle, died Oct. 21,
2017.
An avid reader, Betty also loved to
garden, bake, and create beautiful quilts
and braided rugs. As her classmates
described her in the 1944 Halcyon,
“quiet, glowing Betty” had a “friendly
nature and affectionate interest that
made her a valuable member of any
group.”

SPRING 2018

/ Swarthmore College Bulletin

71

in memoriam
Elise Knaur Brigham ’45

Elise, a beloved mother and cherished
volunteer who was as deeply
adventurous as she was mischievous,
died Nov. 28, 2017.
A woman of action who cut down
trees, hunted, skied, and enjoyed
traveling, Elise adored wolves and
advocated for their conservation,
“adopting” two of them.

Jeanne Fischer Winch ’47

Jeanne, who grew up in Swarthmore and
was one-half of a matchbox marriage with
the late Ray Winch ’45, died Jan. 13, 2018.
In the 1947 Halcyon, classmates
described her as “the gal for whom the
phone always rang on the fourth east,” who
had an “intuitive feeling for people and
all things beautiful” and who, with Ray,
built “a romance with a happy ending.” A
mother of four, Jeanne enjoyed traveling,
sailing, playing piano, tennis, reading, and
staying active in community service.

Sally MacLellan Councill ’46

Sally, a beloved wife, mother, and
grandmother who fondly remembered
her time as president of Swarthmore’s
student government, died Nov. 19, 2017.
An elder in the Presbyterian Church
USA since 1973, she dedicated herself
to volunteering in the community,
including longtime service in the
Junior League of both Richmond, Va.,
and Washington, D.C.

Beverly Brooks Floe ’46

Beverly, an adventurous spirit who
traveled the world—and battled
saltwater crocodiles—as a freelance

Ernest Reock Jr. ’45

Ernest, a Rutgers professor
nationally acclaimed for his
knowledge of state government—
as well as for his efforts to
educate and empower citizens
accordingly—died Nov. 12, 2017.
Despite his round-the-clock
reputation as a tireless worker
and champion of equality, Ernest
was just as devoted to his family
and enjoyed joining them on
adventures, especially by boat.

72

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SPRING 2018

journalist in the 1940s before later
becoming an editor of the MIT Press,
died Jan. 1, 2018.
Deeply independent and
intellectually curious, Beverly
was a fierce advocate for the arts,
archaeological research, and excellence
in education, particularly for women.

social consciousness and sustainability,
fly-fishing enthusiast, avid hiker,
experienced folk dancer, and proud U.S.
Navy veteran of World War II.”

Marjorie Moerschner ’47

The beloved mother of six, grandmother
of 17, and great-grandmother of 11,
Phyllis died Oct. 30, 2017.
While at Swarthmore, Phyllis was an
accomplished varsity athlete who swam
and played basketball, field hockey, and
tennis.

Marjorie, a teacher turned real-estate
title examiner who loved summering on
Cape Cod, died Oct. 9, 2017.
A tireless volunteer for many
organizations, Marjorie served
her community in countless ways,
including as a church deacon, a driver
for older adults attending medical
appointments, and an activist for
education and restorative programs for
prisoners.

Janet Hotson Baker ’47

George Lutz NV

Phyllis Kinkead Kelley ’46

An ace copy editor who built a stable
of high-profile authors turned fans
dependent on her expertise, Janet died
Nov. 3, 2017.
Working closely with the major
publishing houses, Janet polished
and perfected the prose of Ken Kesey,
Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Joyce
Carol Oates, Lisa Scottoline, and E.B.
White, among others.

John Cairns Jr. ’47

A man of science, vision, and
compassion whose legacy is
immortalized at johncairns.net, John
died Nov. 5, 2017.
As his family writes, “John will be
remembered as a husband, father, and
grandfather, distinguished professor
and academic mentor, ecological
pioneer, prolific author, champion of

George, who ultimately graduated
from The Citadel with a degree in civil
engineering, died Dec. 17, 2010.
A U.S. Navy veteran of World War
II and the Korean War and a retired
Bethlehem Steel worker, George was
also an active Mason and Shriner.

Lucy Hoisington Carver ’48

An artist and cartographer, Lucy died
Nov. 23, 2017.
Described as “refreshing Lucibelle
… candid and honest … a loyal friend …
romantic … artistic” by her classmates
in the 1948 Halcyon, Lucy was also
praised for having “a glow that comes
from inside.”

Samuel Hays ’48

Samuel, a sensitive historian and
prolific author who cared deeply about

the environment, died Nov. 22, 2017.
A conscientious objector who
served in Civilian Public Service from
1943 to 1946, Sam was also a lifelong
gardener and a huge baseball buff. He
first listened to Cubs games on an old
Zenith radio in his grandfather’s room,
attended the last Pirates game at Forbes
Field, and celebrated his 80th birthday
with the Rockies at Coors Field.

Arthur Richards Jr. ’48

Arthur, a distinguished veterinarian
who loved his work so much he titled
his autobiography Tale Waggings, died
Dec. 18, 2017.
A pioneer in innovative surgical
techniques who was named
Pennsylvania Veterinarian of the
Year in 1977, Art was described by his
loved ones as “a shining example of
how to live a life full of health, family,
hard work, social awareness, and
righting wrongs.” Art was also an active
Rotarian, a longtime member of the
Shriners, and involved in local politics.

Mary Westergaard Barnes ’48

Mary, an acclaimed researcher of
radioactive waste disposal who also
won awards for her civil service on a
zoning commission, died Oct. 21, 2017.
A classical music devotee who spoke
multiple languages, Mary also loved to
travel, visiting six continents and skiing
on four.

William Derr ’49

William, who served in World War II as
a Navy aviation cadet and launched his

own men’s leather goods business, died
Dec. 17, 2017.
Proud of circumnavigating the
Eastern U.S. by way of the Erie Canal
and Mississippi River, William loved
spending time on a boat with his family
so much that they occasionally lived on
their craft, Tobi III.

Donald Gordon ’49

A beloved brother, husband, father, and
grandfather, Donald died Jan. 24, 2018.
In his Halcyon listing, classmates
wrote that he “takes his realism with
a sprinkling of stardust” and is “on
laughing terms with the world”; in his
obituary, his loved ones summed him up
as their adored “true gentleman.”

William Will ’49

William, who served as a medic
in World War II before attending
Swarthmore, died Aug. 11, 2017.
Devoted to teaching and social
justice, Bill was also a prolific writer,
amateur poet, and passionate activist
for health-care policy concerns,
founding Citizens for Informed
Decisions in Healthcare in 1991.

Franklin Stow Jr. ’50

“Bud,” who ultimately graduated from
Gettysburg College after his Army
service in World War II interrupted
his Swarthmore education, died Nov. 6,
2017.
A career-management employee
of the U.S. Pipe and Foundry Co. who
resided in Birmingham, Ala., Bud was
the son of Franklin Stow Sr., Class of

Priscilla Buck Alfandre ’49

An educator who influenced countless
children, Priscilla died Jan. 9, 2018.
Generations of students remember Prill
as a third- and fourth-grade teacher at
Sidwell Friends School, where she created
its first open classroom —The Blue Room—
and tirelessly encouraged sophisticated
discussion, incisive writing, and creative
thought. For more than 30 years, she
instilled her philosophy in all who loved
her: “Everything is something; everything
is connected to everything else.”

Dirk Spruyt ’50

Dirk, a doctor and cellist who lived
by the “think globally, act locally”
ethos, died Nov. 16, 2016.
The kind of child who went on
secret night bike rides with his
siblings and jumped off the roof
with an umbrella, Dirk never lost
his sense of wonder, growing up to
volunteer his services around the
world, including in Ethiopia, where
he provided primary health care
from a mobile tented clinic.
1919, who played end and punted for the
Swarthmore football team that upset
Penn, 6–0, at Franklin Field in October
1916.

Robert Osborn ’51

Robert, an acclaimed scholar of Russia
and the former Soviet Republics who
was a long-serving professor and chair
of the political science department at
Temple University, died Dec. 11, 2017.
An avid violinist who played in
several community orchestras as well
as a well-traveled birder, Bob was also
devoted to community service and his
family.

Robert Hamilton ’52

Robert, a respected law professor,
lawyer, and legal-education writer with
an impish sense of humor, died Jan. 13,
2018.
An introvert who loved teaching,
Bob spent more than 40 years at the
University of Texas at Austin School
of Law, astounding his students and
colleagues with his unparalleled work

SPRING 2018

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73

in memoriam

Maryhelen Hintz Snyder ’53

Maryhelen, a lover of artistic expression
and deep, meaningful connection, died
Jan. 23, 2018.
A poet, artist, therapist, and lifelong
Quaker, Mel was a creative, compassionate
force who co-founded the Corrales
Community School in Albuquerque, N.M.
A mother of four, Mel authored four books
and numerous professional articles, and
was named Poet of the Year by Passager in
2016. Her writing and art can be further
explored at onbecominghuman.org.

ethic. In fact, the school created a
memorial scholarship in his honor:
utlsf.org/hamilton. Bob was active in
local politics and summered with wife
Dagmar Strandberg Hamilton ’53 on
Cushing Island in Portland, Maine.

Ronald Maddox ’52

A loving husband and father who ran
a law practice in northern Virginia,
Ronald died Aug. 28, 2017.
Ron loved all sports—particularly
football and the Washington Redskins—
and was an avid reader and writer of
science fiction.

Suzanne Braman McClenahan ’52
Suzanne, a gifted teacher of languages
and literature, died Feb. 10, 2018.
In her Halcyon, classmates summed
“Suzi” up as a “bright-eyed, brighthearted, self-possessed” light who
“radiates vivacity” with “boundless
energy and imagination.” Her friend
Ken Kurtz ’51 added that she was “a
staple of the LTC, and had lead in Lady
Precious Stream, which introduced
the phrase ‘don’t stand on ceremony’ to
campus.”

Geoffrey Hazard Jr. ’53, H’88

A giant in the field of legal ethics,
Geoffrey died Jan. 11, 2018.
During his distinguished career,
he served as Sterling Professor of
Law at Yale (where his students
included future leaders like Supreme
Court Justice Samuel Alito and Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton); directed the
American Law Institute; and taught

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Swarthmore College Bulletin /

SPRING 2018

at the University of Pennsylvania Law
School. He was described as “a gifted
scholar, teacher, institutional leader,
and citizen.”

Henry Cowell ’54

Henry, who went on to earn both an
M.D. and a Ph.D. after Swarthmore, died
Sept. 2, 2017.
In his Halcyon listing, Henry’s
classmates warmly described him as
“everybody’s friend.”

original personal finance columnist.
Although a dispute over royalties and
credit ended their working relationship,
Lydia wrote a brilliant new chapter
in her life when she created and ran a
working farm that pioneered farm-totable humane ethos and became a top
provider to some of New York’s best
restaurants.

Horace Reeves Jr. ’55

Horace, a licensed architect,
professional engineer, and Marine
veteran better known as “Harrie” to
his family and “Hal” to his friends, died
Nov. 25, 2017.
An ardent sailor active in the
International Yachting Fellowship
of Rotarians, and co-founder of the
Willingboro (N.J.) International
Festival, Horace also loved
photography, classical music, and opera.

Marjorie Jones Fooks ’56

Marjorie, a medical secretary and
beloved wife, mother, and grandmother,
died Nov. 8, 2017.

Susan Marx March ’54

Beloved for her devotion to family,
her passion for social service, her
generosity, and her sharp intelligence,
Susan died Feb. 11, 2018.
The former executive director of
Hackensack, N.J.’s YWCA, Sue enjoyed
traveling, visiting friends, reading good
books, and spending time with her
children and grandchildren, embodying
the description her friends provided of
her in the Halcyon, of having “unfailing
good taste in all things.”

Lydia Ratcliff ’55

Lydia, who chose to leave behind a
lucrative career as a ghostwriter to
become a trailblazer in sustainable
farming, died Feb. 13, 2018.
Fluent in several languages, Lydia
was educated at the Putney School,
Swarthmore, the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the
Sorbonne. After graduation, she rose
through the publishing ranks to become
the assistant—and ghostwriter—to
Sylvia Porter, known as America’s

Paul Booth ’64

Paul, an iconic union organizer and progressive activist who spearheaded the 1965
student march on the White House to protest the Vietnam War, died Jan. 17, 2018.
Paul earned a place in the national consciousness as he rose to the top levels of
Students for a Democratic Society, but his “Build, Not Burn” ethos distanced more
militant colleagues, so he left to become a community organizer in Chicago.
He spent the majority of his career working for the American Federation of State,
County, and Municipal Employees, the nation’s largest public employee union, as
the chief assistant to President Gerald W. McEntee and then executive assistant to
successor Lee Saunders.
In an email, Saunders wrote, “Paul was an organizer’s organizer, a man of great
generosity and integrity, a friend and mentor to so many people in AFSCME, the labor
movement and the progressive community.” More: bit.ly/BoothSwarthmore

A political science major from
Jamaica, Marjie was described in the
1956 Halcyon by classmates as having a
“reserved British exterior” that hid her
true nature as “a classical clown and
wit.”

Peter Gragg ’57

A gifted poet, playwright, author of
short stories, photographer, videoist,
artist, and craftsman, Peter died Oct.
22, 2017.
Over the course of his career, Peter
served in the U.S. National Guard,
taught mathematics, worked for the
Boston Public Library, and was active
at the Arlington Center for the Arts in
Massachusetts. As his loved ones wrote,
“Peter was a friend, a talented writer
and artist (as both Peter Gordon and
Green Griffin), and a unique character.
He will forever be remembered as
‘Peterish’ in our hearts.”

Momberger. Even Fitzgerald would’ve
been awestruck by his analysis.”

Robert Mayberry ’60

A vigorous professor of philosophy and
communications at Grand Valley State
University in Michigan, Robert died
Dec. 8, 2017.
Robert also frequently traveled the
Rhône Valley in southern France and
was an expert on the wines produced
in the region, penning acclaimed
books and articles on the subject. For
his writing and research on wine, he
received a knighthood from the French
Ministry of Agriculture in 1998.

Philip Momberger ’61

David Thomas ’62

A mass spectrometrist who lived in Palo
Alto, Calif., David died Nov. 13, 2017.
Active in folk dancing at Swarthmore,
Dave went on to earn a Ph.D. in organic
chemistry from MIT.

Carol Finneburgh Lorber ’63

Philip, a beloved professor of English so
well-read and eloquent he was called “a
walking thesaurus,” died Feb. 5, 2018.
Described by a friend as “a brilliant
gentle giant of a man with a huge heart
and keen wit,” Phil had a lasting impact
on students, including one who wrote in
tribute that “no one taught Gatsby like

A homemaker and former math teacher,
Carol died Nov. 24, 2017.
The beloved wife of Bennett ’64, H’96
and loving mother of Samuel ’89 and
Joshua Edward Lorber, Carol was also
an active volunteer and board member
of the Cheltenham Township (Pa.)
Adult School.

Carl Harner ’63

Carl, a distinguished pillar of
Boyertown, Pa., who worked tirelessly

Michael Predmore ’59
Marilyn Modarelli Lee ’56

Marilyn, the esteemed longtime
law librarian for Franklin County,
Mass., died Nov. 19, 2017.
Active in Democratic Party
politics and community service,
Lynn was a member of the
Massachusetts Bar Association
and the shop foreman and
lead negotiator for the union
representing law librarians across
the state.

Michael, an internationally respected
scholar of Spanish lyric poetry and
beloved Stanford professor emeritus of
Iberian and Latin American cultures,
died Dec. 23, 2017.
A recipient of many honors including
Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships,
Michael was also an influential humanrights, peace, and social activist who
helped free political prisoners in Chile,
Argentina, Honduras, El Salvador,
Guatemala, and the United States. He
was best known for his expertise on the
work of Nobel laureate Juan Ramón
Jiménez and poet Antonio Machado.

Kristin Bergstrom Vessey ’61

Kristin, an influential professor,
researcher, and program director in
environmental biology, died Jan. 11, 2018.
In addition to her lifelong love of
science, Kris was a passionate volunteer
who was especially active in the League
of Women Voters as well as an excellent
gardener, birder, and adventurer. She was
also an active Swarthmore advocate and
ally, serving as an admissions interviewer
for more than 20 years and on the Alumni
Council from 2010 to 2013.

SPRING 2018

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75

looking back

in memoriam
Robert had an especially large College
contingent in his family that included
Swarthmore-attending siblings, inlaws, and nieces.

for the city’s well-being, died Dec. 28,
2017.
A highly influential business and
community leader, Carl launched
several initiatives that became local
traditions—including Historic Haunted
Walks to raise money for the Boyertown
Area Historical Society—and was
exceptionally proud to be a husband,
father, and grandfather.

Emily Atkinson Green ’74

An internationally respected professor
and pioneer of math and computer
science education, “Hap” died Dec. 15,
2017.
Outside the classroom, Hap excelled
at racquet sports, winning New
England senior tennis tournaments
(alone and with his wife) and becoming
the Massachusetts state racquetball
champion in his age division 10 times,
ranking nationally as high as No. 3.
He also loved to play backgammon,
bridge, and Go, and once wrote a book
explaining how to solve a Rubik’s Cube.

Robert Champlin ’67

Robert, a professional cello player who,
with his matchbox wife, Kit Ashburn
Champlin ’67, made up two-thirds of
the music majors in their Swarthmore
graduating class, died Dec. 9, 2017.
Well-known with his family as the
owners of the pet store Critter Hut—a
40-plus-year success story that began
with one fish tank—Bob loved animals
almost as much as he loved music.

Faris Worthington ’68

An Army veteran who went on to earn
two master’s degrees from Penn, Faris
died Feb. 1, 2018.
Working at DuPont in a corporatelevel industrial process analysis group
until his retirement, Faris then worked
at Blaze Systems, where he remained in
some capacity for the rest of his life.

Doris Ring ’70

An accomplished seamstress who loved
reading and sudoku, Doris died Nov. 14,
2017.
Her journey to Swarthmore proved
unusual: After graduating from the
Dorothea Dix School of Nursing and
serving as the head psychiatric nurse

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John Simon ’64

John, an educator and poet
renowned for his artistry and
activism, died Jan. 16, 2018.
The author of nine full-length
volumes of poetry, John won many
plaudits for his work, including
prestigious fellowships with
the California Arts Council and
the National Endowment for
the Arts as well as the Lifetime
Achievement Award from the
Berkeley Poetry Festival.
Named 2013’s River of Words
Teacher of the Year by U.S. Poet
Laureate Robert Hass, John helped
lead the People’s Community
School in Berkeley, Calif., Poets in
the Schools, and Poetry Inside Out.
As noted by J.D. Moyer in a
Berkeleyside tribute: “Mexican
poet Alberto Blanco wrote, ‘The
poems of John Oliver Simon,
like all true poems, trace a map, a
psychography, which allows us to
enter, not only into another life but
into the voyage of that life, and not
only into another culture, but into
other cultures: into another point
of view.’”
at Duke Hospital, she got married,
moved to Delaware, and successfully
petitioned the College for admittance
as a nontraditional student, ultimately
earning her bachelor’s in French.

Robert Hay ’72

Robert, an art dealer who dearly loved
the Crum, died Nov. 22, 2017.
The son of a matchbox couple,

+

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS ago this June,
the late Sally Ride ’72 became the
first American woman in space.
In this red-penciled 1969
Bulletin/Phoenix photo, however,
she was a physics major at
Swarthmore and a champion tennis
player, so skilled that Billie Jean
King urged her to go pro.
(Accompanied by this portrait,
a Phoenix article celebrated her
second year ranked tennis’s No. 1
woman in the East, aided by the
exercise required by “living on the

Julie Louis ’81

fourth floor of Parrish.”)
Although Ride opted for Stanford
over Swarthmore after three
semesters and chose a life of science
over sport, she never forgot the
College.
On that historic space mission,
Ride flew this Swarthmore College
pennant aboard the shuttle, which
her partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy,
later donated to the Smithsonian’s
National Air and Space Museum.
—CELIA CAUST-ELLENBOGEN ’09

Julie, who battled cancer for five years,
died March 20, 2016.
She was the sister of Susan Louis
Eipper ’80 and the sister-in-law of Eric
Eipper ’80.

Warren Houghteling ’91

Warren, who preferred passion and
honesty to small talk, died Jan. 8, 2017.
According to his family, “Warren
was known for his love of theater, and
in another life, he would have been a
career actor. Instead he was a teacher,
handyman, software developer, and
computer programmer. His greatest job,
challenge, and achievement was being a
father. He gave it everything he had, and
was proud to be a father first.
“Warren took joy in being a part of
countless plays and productions at the
Los Alamos Little Theater. He greatly
enjoyed the professional productions he
did at the Santa Fe Playhouse, including
his favorite, The Pillowman. His
exuberance was contagious. He loved
playing basketball, he loved to bike, he
ran cross country in school, and loved
running, but his knees had other plans
for him, and he traded it in for hiking.
“Warren’s life was a struggle, marred
by tragedy, but his losses did not leave
him bitter. He held on to his positive
view of the world with extraordinary
openness and vulnerability. He was a
wonderful person, who will be missed.
His depth did not always show, but
when he shared it with you, you knew it
was something extraordinary.”

to report a death notice, email records@swarthmore.edu

WALTER HOLT; PENNANT: SMITHSONIAN’S NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM

Howard Peelle ’65

A birthright Quaker known for her
compassion and capability, Emily died
Dec. 25, 2017.
In the course of her career, she
played important roles at the Museum
of Fine Arts in Boston, Data General,
and the Worcester Envelope Co.
before joining her husband—her best
friend—in running BellHawk Systems
Corp., which provides software for
manufacturing companies.

SPRING 2018

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77

spoken word

virginiana. Because I work in a very
visual medium and make decisions
about what pictures to take, it’s given
me a whole new perspective on how
decisions are made as far as planting.
I want the Arboretum website to look
full and vibrant with color.

LAURENCE KESTERSON

Where do you get your best ideas?
I’m inspired by the beauty that my coworkers create in the Arboretum. They
build stunning gardens throughout
campus that impress in every season.
I love to promote and discuss their art
and humbly attempt to imitate their
master creations in my home garden.
What are your must-have tools?
A glass of water (because I have to talk
to so many people), a camera, and a
computer.

by Kate Campbell

BECKY ROBERT once planted 400
allium, crocus, and lily bulbs in a single
day. In fact, the Scott Arboretum’s PR
and volunteer programs coordinator
loves gardening—and protecting her
flowers—so much that she put “deerresistant fence” at the top of her
Christmas list.
Robert is thrilled to be the
spokesperson for what she calls
the crown jewel of Pennsylvania’s
botanical gardens.
“Our emphasis,” she says, “is
intimate and approachable gardening
on a residential scale to inspire.”

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SPRING 2018

Where will we find you relaxing?
I like working in the garden, hiking,
and creek-splashing with my kids. I
try to expose my Girl Scout troop to
the wonders of nature whenever the
weather is warm.

How does color come into play?
It’s the foundation of what I do.
Outside my window right now is a
native magnolia tree with yellow/
green coloration. Below that, in vibrant
yellow with touches of red, is the
native Fothergilla x intermedia. The
resilient green foliage is Mahonia.
The frosted evergreen is Juniperus

Who influenced your worldview?
My father and grandmother taught me
to celebrate the diversity, unique skills,
and perspectives of all people. These
simple, valuable life lessons were most
often taught while on our truck route
selling fruits and vegetables grown
on our farm as well as by the way they
interacted with the people we met.

What’s the best part of your job?
Getting to know people—our
volunteers include lawyers, doctors,
and artists—and then cultivating those
relationships. Plant people are very
friendly!

LAURENCE KESTERSON

GARDEN GLORY

Are your duties at the Arboretum as
varied as its plant life?
I’m the public face, so my job is
to brag. I also manage the digital
presence, overseeing all social media.
The other arm of my role is training
and managing volunteers. From
March through November, we can get
anywhere from 120 to 300 volunteers,
and we couldn’t do this without
them. At Swarthmore, we encourage
interaction by building community and
a sense of belonging.

in this issue

9

WILL POWER

MOMENT IN TIME
The men’s basketball team—
including Zack Yonda ’18—
advanced to the NCAA Division III
Elite Eight for the first time in
program history.

To Print,
Perchance to Dream

Crispin Clarke ’98 celebrates
Shakespeare.
by Jonathan Riggs

“With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt;”
—Romeo & Juliet, Romeo, 2.2 (66–68)

SPRING 2018
Periodical Postage
PAID
Philadelphia, PA
and Additional
Mailing Offices

GREEN GODDESS

p12

BLUE GARNET

p17

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

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN
LAURENCE KESTERSON

SPRING 2018

color your way home
June 1–3
alumniweekend.swarthmore.edu

(Email a photo of your masterpiece to bulletin@swarthmore.edu!)

color

HARVEST GOLD

p78