Tag: 1990

NEWSMAKERS | 1990s NEWSMAKER NICOLE CURVIN ’90 Nicole Curvin ’90 was promoted to director of undergraduate admissions at Middlebury College in Vermont. Since 2014, she has been associate director of admissions and coordinator of multicultural recruitment. Previously, Curvin worked for many years with a variety of student populations, from high school students and adults returning to school to artists and designers at the New School (Parsons and Eugene Lang College), Marlboro College, New York University, and the University of Vermont. At Wesleyan, Curvin majored in English, and she holds a master’s degree in education from Harvard University.

Hi, all! I hope everyone has been enjoying the summer. Here’s the latest.

Meg Steele and her husband are relocating to Bath, Maine, after a two-year cross-country trip in a restored Airstream. The trip included a stint as a national park ranger in Vermont and time volunteering at an Oregon lighthouse and tide pools. Meg still works in education and is “hoping to do some rowing up here, along with lots of sailing.”

Jim Desmond is teaching at the Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, Mass. He’s been there for six years teaching arts and humanities. “My inaugural session of a ukulele elective was mad popular, and I had a blast helping kids play and write songs when not teaching The Odyssey and the end of U.S. slavery. Who knew I would love teaching teenagers so much?”

Page Fortna continues to split time between NYC, where she’s a professor of international relations in the political science department at Columbia, and Portland, Ore. She and her husband, Pete Beeman, migrate between NYC for most academic years and Portland for summers and the occasional sabbatical year. She was touched by the representation of Wesfolk, including from far afield, at her father’s memorial service this spring—Sarah Travis Buck, Carolyn Clark and Dave Patterson, Amy Robins, Jeff Lewis, Ethan Flad ’89, and June Lee ’88. And a quarter century later, Page still gets together one weekend a year with Sarah Travis Buck, Carolyn Clark, Amy Robins, and Amy Scanlan.

After living in Zurich, Switzerland, for almost two years, Stacey Rouse Kruckel will be changing countries again. Stacey has accepted an offer as the chief marketing officer at a consulting firm in London, and “will relocate to that fine city with her husband, two sons and dog. Wes folks who will be passing through London are welcome to visit us.”

Tim Corkran reports (via his father John Corkran ’58), that a team of eighth- graders from the school he heads, Capital Day (PK-8) in Frankfort, Ky., earned a $20,000 prize from Verizon for developing an app, Waste Free America. The app alerts homeless shelters and soup kitchens when restaurants within a 10-mile radius have leftover food available for pickup. The idea developed during an eighth-grade trip to Chicago, where the students were struck by the plight of the homeless. The students will work with engineers from MIT in perfecting the app and make a presentation to a national audience in Orlando, Fla., in June. Tim, who has been head at Capital Day for two years told local media, “We focus on teaching kids how to think and be independent learners…It produces things like this.”

James D. Rosenblatt says, “Hard to believe our oldest graduated college over Mother’s Day from Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. Her two younger siblings survived freshman year at Sarah Lawrence and junior year at a local high school.” The law firm that James started 12 years ago now employs eight attorneys and is a full-service business-oriented law firm in San Antonio.

Cari Medd wrote about a new documentary featuring Jill Sung and her family. “Jill was one of my roommates at Wes and I always admired her toughness and devotion to family.” The documentary, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, chronicles the five-year prosecution of the Sung family’s bank, Abacus Federal Savings Bank, following the 2008 financial crisis. Abacus Bank is a small community bank founded by Jill’s father over 30 years ago to serve the Asian-American community in NYC, and remains the only bank prosecuted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The family’s ordeal culminated in 2015 with a five-month jury trial where Abacus and the Sung family finally prevailed on all counts. The documentary, which was filmed during the trial, is directed by Steve James (Hoop Dreams and Life Itself), and has just been released (abacusmovie.com). Watch it Sept. 12, on PBS’s Frontline.

That’s all for now. I hope everyone enjoys the remaining days of summer. I will be back with more news at the end of the year. Please feel free to write anytime.

Vanessa Montag Brosgol | vanessa.brosgol@yahoo.com

Class of 1990 Scholarship 

Kathryn Toner ’20, Doylestown, PA

Hi everyone and Happy New Year! Here’s the latest from our class.

Alfredo Viegas has been back to Wes a few times this year because his daughter, Alessandra ’20, started in September. Al got a surprise at the Alumni-Legacy reception when he ran into Shawn ’88 and Ellen Burgess ’88, as “Shawn had been my freshman RA in Butterfield C, and his daughter, Ramsay ’20, was also starting. It was great seeing Shawn and Ellen again and knowing that the Wes legacy continues for our kids.

Two major announcements come from Joy Challenger. First, in May, Joy graduated with a D.Min. from Duke University’s Divinity School in Durham, N.C. Second, in September, Joy married Brian Slaughter on Martha’s Vineyard at the home of classmate Denise Jefferson Casper. Joy has moved to the D.C./Northern Virginia part of the country.

Carol Lynne Booth is the director at Jewish Baby Network, a small nonprofit outreach organization that builds community connections for Jewish families with babies and toddlers in the Bay Area. “We have really expanded our programs and community partners and just added an SF chapter. We host a variety of events at many different Jewish institutions as a way to connect families to each other and to the wider Jewish community. I meet wonderful people, help them make friends and find their place while holding lots of babies, so I am having a great time!”

Carol’s other piece of big news is that she and her husband, David Booth ’91, will be celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary this June. “So crazy! Our days of running around Wes together do not feel that long ago, so I guess it is true that time flies when you are having fun. Continuing the milestone theme, my son, Josh, is living in Seattle and will be 21 in March. My daughter, Naomi, just turned 18 and most likely heads off to college in the fall, and my daughter, Maytal, is now 15 and just got her driver’s permit. It makes me realize that I must be getting older and leaves me wondering where the time has gone. I wish the whole class of ’90 a very healthy and Happy New Year!”

Amy Morgenstern spent the second half of 2016 on sabbatical in Oaxaca, Mexico, with her wife and 9-year-old daughter, “all of us making lots of art, writing, and improving our Spanish. Then, as tempting as it was to stay outside the United States forever, it was back to my work as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, where I’ve been for 13 years.”

Victor Khodadad is a recent co-founder of New Camerata Opera, which is a new opera company based in New York City. NCO produced its first main stage production, The Count of Luxembourg and Other Tales: A Viennese Pastiche, in October, which played to rave reviews and sold-out audiences. Victor was invited to give a TEDx Talk in December about innovation in the arts which featured New Camerata Opera. More information is available at newcamerataopera.org.

Ben Robertson continues to live in Keene, N.H., where he is working as a Web designer with his company Menadena. Interested classmates can learn more about Ben’s work at menadena.com.

Finally, I just heard from Lara Laurence, for whom the Women’s March in D.C. turned into a Wesleyan event. “First, on my Amtrak train heading south, the woman sitting across from me turned out to be a Wes grad from the Class of 1980—too bad I never asked for her name. Then, in D.C., my daughter, a sophomore at Bryn Mawr, Colleen McKiernan ’89, and I stayed with Ladeene Freimuth ’89. After the march, my daughter and I headed to Sarah Leavitt’s (’92) house for dinner. Also, there were Michelle Elisburg ’92, Jessica Feierman ’92, and Susannah Beals-Simon ’92.”

That’s all for now.  Thank you to those who wrote. As always, please e-mail me anytime with news.

Vanessa Montag Brosgol | vanessa.brosgol@yahoo.com

Hi, everyone. Here’s the latest news from some classmates:

In June 2016, Victor Khodadad sang the tenor soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the National Music Festival in Chestertown, Md., and Philadelphia, Pa. He is a recent co-founder of New Camerata Opera, a professional opera company in New York City that is in the process of becoming a nonprofit organization. NCO will be commissioning new operas specifically for YouTube, developing children’s operas, and using media in innovative ways to promote the art form of opera. Their inaugural main stage production is The Count of Luxembourg and Other Tales: A Viennese Pastiche, which was performed in New York City in October. Please visit newcamerataopera.org for more information.

Laurie Baum has taken on the exciting challenge of being the middle school director of the Greene Hill School in Brooklyn. Greene Hill is a small independent PreK–eighth grade school with a sliding-scale tuition and a progressive approach to education. “For the past several years, it’s been my job to plan and launch the middle school division, and this year we will have our first graduating class! I know lots of folks from Wesleyan are in education and I would be happy to show our growing school to anyone interested.”

Kate Hardin is still in Cambridge, Mass., working on energy, climate, and Arctic issues. “We welcomed friends from Spain this summer and enjoyed showing them the United States and answering their questions about Trump and Clinton(!). I took the family to my 25th Reunion last year and it was great to see old Gingerbread House compatriots! Most recently, I ran into Debbie Gahr on the Upper East Side and also caught up with Mateo Cummings in Washington.”

Elizabeth Friedman Haybron writes with news about her husband, Daniel M. Haybron, PhD, professor of philosophy at Saint Louis University, who has received a $5.1 million grant to study happiness and well-being. The award consists of a $4.6 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, along with $453,000 in funding from the University. The three-year project began July 1, 2015. This is believed to be the largest grant ever awarded to a researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences at SLU. Titled Happiness and Well-Being: Integrating Research Across the Disciplines, the project will promote dialogue and collaboration among well-being researchers across a wide range of disciplines, including the sciences, philosophy, and theology and religious studies. Advising Daniel on the project will be a board of 14 leading well-being researchers, including some of the best-known figures in the field such as Ed Diener and Martin Seligman.

Bonnie Cohen, formerly my Foss 7 next-door neighbor, and now a first-time contributor to our class notes, went back to school in medicine seven years after graduating from Wes and became a family physician, focusing on urban underserved and immigrant communities. She worked for nine years at Cambridge Health Alliance, a safety-net system of hospitals and health centers north of Boston. In 2011, she married Brad Braufman (MIT ’85) and in 2014 they adopted newborn Shay Daniel Braufman. They are all living in Somerville. Bonnie is “currently not practicing medicine, but instead practicing full-time parenting, which is even more rewarding, though the pay’s not great. In May, we paid a delightful visit to Liza “Maiz” Connolly, her husband Joe, and three wonderful boys in LA. Warm hello to all Wes buds.”

Jon Lipitz is still living in Baltimore with his wife and two sons, hanging out on a regular basis with Jennifer Teitelbaum Palmer and Brian Klaas ’91. He was named director of events at the Maryland Institute College of Art, managing annually more than 1,300 events at the college, “including Commencement, from which he has liberally stolen a few ideas from our 1990 Graduation. (However, not the ugly pink gowns.)”

Thanks for sharing your news. That’s all for now!

Vanessa montag brosgol | vanessa.brosgol@yahoo.com

Hi all. Here’s what we have:

Jeanie Tung reconnected with Marisa Cohen ’89, “first on Facebook of course, then we found out our daughters attended the same school and that both had a love for music/violin!”

Jennifer Teitelbaum Palmer has been made a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, due in part to her work for the Maryland Psychiatric Society as the chair of the legislative committee and as a member of the council and executive committee. Jennifer, the MPS president-elect, will be president in April 2017.

Alexis Neaman Roberts and her husband, Chris Roberts ’89, are living in Austin, Texas, with their three daughters, Beatrix, Willa, and India. Chris is working as the director of communications at the University of Texas School of Law and Alexis spends her time driving her kids around Austin and “working on secret plans to turn Texas blue for the next election.”

Ben Robertson is “working as an independent consultant with recent engagements in nonprofit, Internet of things, cybersecurity, and enterprise search.” People who want to learn more about him (for example, his work as an actor and a writer) can do so at menadena.com and benrobertson.net. Ben noted how great it was to see classmates at our last Reunion. He writes that Ethan Garber and his brother recently visited him at his home in Keene, N.H. “They stayed the night and Ethan slept on the floor (I only have one guest bed), and I made buckwheat pancakes for breakfast, while we watched a documentary about cartels in Mexico, a place where Ethan’s company is doing business. Ethan bought an environmental company called Idle Air. of which he is now CEO. Ethan and I were also partners in crime at the Reunion, and ended up sleeping in his car behind a Walmart, unable to find a hotel. So the college adventures continue, even as we approach 50. I never would have expected any of this and look forward to seeing what happens next.”

Stephanie Donohue Pilla lives in Harlem, NYC, with her husband and 8-year-old daughter. She is the development manager at Maysles Documentary Center where Hellura Lyle ’89 has been a guest curator and Bobbito Garcia ’88 has presented his films. In April, Stephanie saw Kati Koerner at the Face to Face Arts in Education Conference that she was co-chairing. Stephanie’s daughter attends Manhattan Country School, “which not only feels like a mini-Wesleyan (super diverse, social justice curriculum), but also has a number of Wes parents and teachers. She also keeps fit with Linda Turnbull ’90 every week at a barre class!”

Jeffrey Needelman writes with the show-stopping news that he has become a grandparent. I’m not sure if he’s the first in our class to do so, but he’s certainly the first one of which I have heard. He is grateful to be able to share with the Wesleyan community the happy news that on April 3, 2016, his daughter, Ona Sofia, “gave birth to my first grandson, Shilo Nana Kwasi Ansuh.”

Andy Siff’s daughter, who was just two months when she joined him and the rest of his family at our 25th Reunion, is now 14 months. “She and big brother Zeke (5) are big Wesleyan fans. I’m still at WNBC-TV (after 12 years!) and my wife, Dawn, is working in marketing at Google.”

Eric Berg ’93 is teaching English as a Second Language and living in Boston. “I got my B.A. from Northeastern in English Lit in 1994, and my M.A. in English Lit from the University of Virginia in 2009. I have been studying languages at the Harvard extension school for the past nine years, and am trying to get in shape to start rowing on the water again (which I did at Wesleyan and Harvard). I also taught sculling at the Weld Boathouse at Harvard for two summers from 1990–1991.”

Finally, Lisa Shactman Grissom wrote and produced the short film Tattoo You (tattooyouthefilm.com) based upon her award-winning one act play. Shot entirely in a high school bathroom, the film centers on an encounter between two women that reveals the indelible marks left by their shared past. Tattoo You explores the impact of bullying on adulthood and is resonating with film festival audiences, winning awards at The Berkshire International Film Festival and Dances With Films. Lisa would love to see some of you on the festival circuit! She can be reached at grissom.lisa@gmail.com.

That’s all for now. I hope you have all been enjoying the summer. You will be hearing from me again at year’s end.

Vanessa Montag Brosgol | vanessa.brosgol@yahoo.com

Class of 1990 Scholarship 

Dara Mysliwiec ’16, Biology, Earth and Environmental Science

Hi, all. I am writing these notes on Valentine’s Day, during what is being reported as record-breaking cold for many cities on the East Coast. Here in New York, it is freezing and windy and I can only hope that by the time you are reading this, an early spring has arrived. Here’s what we have.

It was great to hear from David Buchbinder with an update about what he has been up to since leaving Wes. David moved to New York after graduation and enrolled at Columbia for his MFA in creative writing. From there he went to Mozambique, covering the end of the war and the peace process as a cub reporter. “I gigged around as a journalist for about 10 years, mostly for the wires, with long-term assignments in Afghanistan and Venezuela—and a brief detour into social work at a transitional facility for the homeless in downtown Los Angeles. Since then it’s been about human rights in Africa, first as a researcher (Chad/Sudan conflict for Human Rights Watch; use and recruitment of child soldiers for Child Soldiers International), more recently as a teacher/trainer (fact-finding and advocacy at African Human Rights Consortium, a pan-African training institute based in Botswana; and LGBT rights in Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi for Benetech, a technology company based in the Silicon Valley).” Currently, David is working with a group of southern African LGBT rights organizations on a research project looking at barriers to HIV/AIDS care and treatment for lesbians and transgender individuals. David lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Sally, and their two boys, Ziggy (8) and Hugo (3).

We have baby news from Alex Navarro-McKay, whose daughter, Eliora, was born last April and joins big brother Avi and mom Kate, and travel news from Jennifer Palmer, who went to London in August and “saw Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet, Chiwetel Ejiofor in Everyman and Mark Gatiss in Three Days in the Country.” Also checking in was Zak Penn, who is still living happily in Los Angeles with his wife, Michele Weiss, and their three children.

My former Foss 7 hallmate, Jessica Mann Gutteridge, writes with “lots of change over the last year-and-a-bit. After leaving my life as a lawyer and the New York area, my husband and our three sons and I moved to his hometown of Vancouver, B.C. I spent a wonderful year home with the kids getting us all resettled into our new surroundings, and then my dream job suddenly appeared before me. I’ve returned to my first love, the theatre, as the education manager of Carousel Theatre for Young People on Granville Island in Vancouver. So far, I’ve survived my first two productions of school matinees and the end of a drama school term and start of another!”

News of another relocation comes from Jennifer Heppel, who accepted the job as commissioner of the Patriot League, a Division I collegiate athletics conference, last summer and subsequently moved to Bethlehem, Pa. Jen is loving the job and slowly settling into her new home and city. “Great to be back on the East Coast.”

Edward Ungvarsky runs an office in Virginia that represents persons charged with capital murder who are facing the possibility of receiving the death penalty. He “credits a Wesleyan class on ethics of life taught by Rev. Arnold Thomas for inspiration.” Ed’s wife, Olivia Smith ’91, founded Bridges Public Charter School in DC for teaching together children with and without special needs. Olivia’s school opens a new building this fall. “Our girls, Nola and Lena, wear their Wes shirts with pride—because the auteur of Hamilton went to Wes.” (As an aside, I will add that my husband David and I saw Hamilton two weeks ago and thought it was absolutely fantastic.) Ed had pizza and beer in NYC in November with Yau-Mu Huang ’93, who works at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Phil Yanos, who teaches and practices psychology at John Jay.

More baby news comes from Victor Khodadad and his wife, Kristina Dunatov, who just welcomed their first child into the world. Roko Antonio Khodadad was born on Columbus Day, Oct. 12, 2015. “He was 5 lbs., 15 oz., and is doing great!” On the performing front, Victor maintains an active career as an actor and classical singer. Upcoming engagements include the comic role of Captain Dietrich in the opera Evangeline in Portland, Maine, in April 2016, and the tenor soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the National Music Festival, on June 10th–12th in Chestertown, Md., and Philadelphia, Pa. More info is available on his website: victorkhodadad.com.

Julia Moffett has been based with her family in Nairobi, Kenya, since 2013. Julia leads innovation for a large African bank’s foundation and is also launching a venture fund to back education entrepreneurs. It’s an “amazingly exciting place to be, as it is a place brimming with ideas, creativity, and energy around solutions to problems at the base of the pyramid. And it is one of the most beautiful countries for my 10-year-old twin daughters to grow up in!”

Finally, Alfredo Viegas writes with the exciting news that he is about to become a Wesleyan parent! Al’s oldest daughter, Alessandra ’20, just got accepted to Wesleyan ED2. “Not sure what she wants to study…maybe film, or creative writing. We are all totally pumped!! Apparently this was the most competitive class ever, with over 12,000 applications! Yikes!!”

That’s all for now. Please write with news, big or small. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Vanessa Montag Brosgol | vanessa.brosgol@yahoo.com

Hi, all. Our class notes are particularly light this time around so I’m hoping a few more of you can send me e-mails for our next issue. Here’s what we have for now:

Tim Freundlich reports that he has set up camp for the last 15 years in San Francisco, living in the Mission District with spouse Julie and their two boys, Gus (6) and Milo (9). Tim runs across Wes alums left and right in his impact investing and social enterprise work (companies he co-founded: ImpactAssets, Good Capital, ImpactHUBs in a few cities, and the SOCAP Conference). He writes of his plans to journey back to Wes for the Social Impact Summit in mid-November with Mark Mullen ’89 (an ImpactHUB member in SF), so I’m hoping that he’s looking back on a great visit by the time all of you are reading this.

Ben Klau and Joan Gundersen Klau had a good reason to miss our 25th Reunion, as Joan was seven months pregnant with their first child. Avery Josephine Klau was born on July 16 and is “already bringing great joy to both parents (although they’d like it if she could find some time other than 3 a.m. to do so).” Ben is the general manager and co-owner of Mortar, an advertising agency in San Francisco, and Joan is a writer/producer, running the media department for Shaklee Corporation.

Kate Hardin writes that she is still in Boston working in energy consulting, focusing on Russia and the Arctic these days. Kate “would be happy to connect with others working on energy and climate change issues. I was thrilled to see so many friends in Middletown at our Reunion and resolved to do a better job staying in touch.”

Finally, Lara Small Laurence lets us know that she “missed Reunion because my youngest chid, Eyal, became a bar mitzvah that week. It was a great weekend, celebrated with family and friends, including some Wes grads, Jenny Simon Tabak ’93, Jen Hammer ’91 and Tzvi Mackson-Landsberg ’89. A week later, my eldest, Revital, graduated from high school. She is currently a very happy freshman at Bryn Mawr College. My middle child, Tsivi, is a junior in high school, so college touring will start up again in the spring. Earlier in 2015, Jen Hammer, Jenny Simon Tabak and I traveled from New York City to Louisville, Ky., to attend the bat mitzvah of Michelle Elisburg’s ’92 older daughter. While in Louisville, we met up with Sarah Leavitt ’92, and had a great weekend exploring the city and celebrating with Michelle. I’m still happily working as a learning specialist in Manhattan, and living on Long Island with my husband, my kids, and our dog.”

That’s all for now. I’m assuming this magazine will be arriving toward the end of December, so I wish all of you a happy and healthy new year. I look forward to hearing from you in 2016!

Vanessa montag brosgol | vanessa.brosgol@yahoo.com

Hi, all. We start with a Reunion mini-summary from committee co-chair Nick Meyer, who writes: “Our 25th Reunion was held on a glorious May weekend in Middletown and it was great to see so many faces make it to campus. There were more than 155 of us there and it really helped our Reunion co-chairs Jen Wasserstein Daniels and Tom Tullio that our friend and classmate Chuck Fedolfi works at Wes! Thanks, Chuck, for all the work that made the weekend such a success. Some highlights included: a Friday night cocktail party in Olin, Saturday afternoon picnic and hanging out on Foss Hill—awesome!, and hearing my freshman hallmate professor Larry Jackson of Emory, give a lecture in Fisk, the Saturday evening shindig in Beckham Hall of Fayerweather (formerly known as the small gym). There was a really special vibe of people reconnecting and catching up on the quarter century that has passed since we left the cocoon of our collegiate experience. And being there graduation weekend was just a reminder of how special that place and time was for so many of us. For me, another really great highlight was seeing so many of us who spent the fall of ’88 in Madrid! Many more people we were all happy to see and hang with…but don’t think I would stay in the dorms again…nice idea in theory…and nothing makes you more convinced that you are resoundingly middle-aged than to run into an old friend like Sam Paik hanging out with his daughter, who is in the class of ’17. Wow. Thanks, again, to everyone who made it and those who didn’t or couldn’t spend Memorial Day Weekend on campus but were there in spirit. Was really fun.”

Also sharing what a great time he had at Reunion is Andy Siff, who attended with baby Pauline (two months), son Zeke (4), and his wife Dawn. “We enjoyed catching up with Nikki Boyle and her husband, Tim Boyle ’89, and their son Mitch, (16), who did a great job watching Zeke during family swim at Freeman. Also had a terrific brunch at O’Rourkes, where we caught up with Brad Whitford ’81. Enjoyed the Zak Penn/Owen Renfroe/Matt Greenfield panel on cinema and TV. Also spent time swapping stories with Gerry Grosz, Eric Greene, Brian Gottesman, Bill Sherman and of course, Reunion guru Tom Tullio.” Andy is still working in news (at WNBC) as a general assignment reporter with focus on mass transit issues.

Ruben (“Bengy”) Ballesteros, Ben Robertson and Zak Penn also each wrote to describe great Reunion weekends at Wes. Bengy remains a staff attorney at Legal Aid near Baltimore, specializing in juvenile law. Ben noted that “our classmates are doing amazing things” and that he “was surprised to learn that Denise J. Casper was the presiding judge in the recent case of Whitey Bulger in Boston.” Zak’s notes were (once again) unprintable but I can say that he and his wife, Michele Weiss, were happy to be at Wes with Jana Brainard Augsberger and Annie Shapiro Tirschwell.

Bummed to have had to miss Reunion (as I was as well) was Jonah Pesner, who, as many of you know, has moved with his family to D.C. for his big, new job as the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC), the Washington, D.C., advocacy and social justice arm of North America’s largest Jewish movement. As described on the Union for Reform Judaism’s website, Jonah is an “accomplished advocate with broad experience leading social justice campaigns” who “comes to the RAC with a mandate to deepen its advocacy work while mobilizing the Reform Jewish community and its allies.” Jonah noted how moved he was by all of the Reunion pictures on Facebook (which really were wonderful to see) and hopes that “2020 is a big year we all commit to!”

In other news, received before Reunion weekend, it was great to hear from Peter Brastow, who after “successfully giving birth to his nonprofit, Nature in the City,” took a job with the City of San Francisco’s Department of Environment as the senior biodiversity coordinator, “a job for which we have yet to find an equivalent in the U.S. Peter is responsible for convening agency, nonprofit, and community partners to pursue a vision of comprehensive ecological restoration and stewardship of San Francisco’s natural heritage. Carolyn Gencarella (AKA Peter’s better half), continues to teach elementary science at Alvarado School in San Francisco. Peter and Carolyn live in San Anselmo in Marin County, where they are raising two teenage rugrats who will be joining them for the 25th! Peter’s Foss 6 next door neighbor, Arieh Rosenbaum, is a hotshot doctor in San Francisco, who doesn’t actually practice. Instead he presides over the digitalization of medical records and other information for the entire Sutter Health Medical Corporation in northern California, and just keeps climbing the ladder of success. His wife, Barbara, is a terrific architect who designed their home set among some oak trees a hop, skip, and a jump from Peter and Carolyn. Andy Eig from NYC and his wife Dawn recently visited “the Brastows” in the Bay Area. Andy continues to be an accomplished Ph.D. adolescent psychologist. Peter and Carolyn get together sometimes with Maria Poveromo and Julia Erwin-Weiner—especially when Sue Rodrigue is in town—who live a bit south of San Francisco. The San Francisco crowd, Peter, Carolyn, Arieh, and Gerald Richards (CEO of 826 National), among others, continue to cherish the memory of Betsy Burton, fellow post-WES San Franciscan, whose passing was in December 2006.”

I hope you all have been enjoying the summer. That’s all for now.

As I write this, it is 11 degrees in New York (with a wind chill making it feel like minus-6) so I am hoping for a significant improvement in the weather by the time of your reading. I also hope that all of your calendars are marked for our upcoming 25th Reunion (May 21–24). Here’s what we have:

Rebecca Rossen Pavkovic was promoted to associate professor in the Performance as Public Practice Program at the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance (Oxford University Press, 2014). She was scheduled to give the annual Dr. Cynthia Novack (In Memoriam) lecture at Wesleyan this past January but the event was postponed due to the storm that hit the U.S. Rescheduling is in the works. Rebecca lives in Austin with her husband, David Pavkovic, and their two daughters, Zoe and Lily.

Rabbi Jonah Pesner wrote with the big news that he was appointed as the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (The RAC), “which for 50 years has been the hub of Jewish social justice and legislative activity in Washington, D.C. The civil rights act of 1964 and voting rights act of 1965 were drafted in our conference room, as the RAC convenes coalitions across lines of race, class and faith to advocate for social change. My family and I are moving to DC!”

My former Foss 7 hallmate Carol Lynne Booth wrote that her son, Joshua, is now a freshman in college. He is attending UC, San Diego, and is majoring in computer science. “We spent MLK weekend with him and he did a great job showing us around campus. We are thrilled to have him in San Diego, since it is such a beautiful place to visit. We always stay close to campus at a hotel right on the beach, which is just gorgeous.” Carol’s daughter, Naomi (16), “is starting to drive and also acting in her high school musical, and daughter Maytal (13) is performing in the ballet Sleeping Beauty in the spring.” My big news is that I started a new job this past June. I am the program director of the Jewish Baby Network, a nonprofit that helps build Jewish community for families with new babies. It’s tons of fun working with the parents and getting to play with lots of babies.” Carol will be in Seattle this summer “visiting David’s family, since Josh will be working there. I would love to be able to make it to the Reunion, but it is, as always, over the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, so I’ll have to miss it. I hope everyone has a great time!”

Mark Hsieh sends greetings from Taipei, Taiwan, where his twin boys, Terry and Timothy, just started first grade last fall. They’re keeping him and wife Joanna “plenty busy but also many bedtime stories to share. I’m running and investing in a bunch of ventures from a fine chemical plant to curry restaurant. Don’t worry, we keep both quite separate from each other! Come visit!”

Nick Hardigg is living in Portland, Ore., with his wife Karen and “two kiddos, Ashe and Ellie, enjoying nonprofit advocacy and fundraising work for the city’s parks, especially the underserved. ‘Parke Diem’, everyone!”

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth writes with exciting news: Her second short story has been included in an anthology of science fiction short stories targeting middle grade readers. The 2015 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide is available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle formats. Her first published short story, “In Her Arms,” can be found in Stepmothers and the Big Bad Wolf: Fairy Tale Villains Reimagined. Jeanne lives in Maryland with her husband, son, sister-in-law, and cat.

Nadine Angress is still living in the Boston area (“24 years and counting”) with her husband and 8-year-old son. She continues to work at Fidelity, most recently as a director of operations for Private Wealth Management. She gets together frequently for dinner with fellow swim team members Jennifer Zoltners Sherer ’91 and Michael Mahon ’89. She’s looking forward to seeing old friends at Reunion, as well as watching her nephew, Raphael Linden ’15, graduate the same weekend.

Paige Harding writes that since leaving Wes, she lived in Seattle for several years, earned an M.A. in film studies at the University of Iowa and then moved to L.A. to work at the American Film Institute. After many years at AFI, she joined with a colleague to form an independent production company called One Bird Mocking, of which she is the chief operating officer. One Bird Mocking is preparing to make its first film, a screwball comedy called The Threat of Sex. They are “using a production model inspired by Mark Twain (who pre-sold his books by subscription before they were actually published), in which we plan to finance the film shoot by pre-selling tickets to the finished movie.” Tickets start at $5.00 and can be purchased through the company website at onebirdmocking.com/tickets/. In addition to crowd funding, One Bird Mocking has also created a promotional Threat of Sex mobile app, which can be downloaded for free at iTunes or Google Play. The app celebrates famous women, and they hope users will find it both fun and educational.

Finally, Becky Lloyd DesRoches writes from Lexington, Mass., where she lives with husband David, and two children, Nick (14) and Dawson (8). Becky is a professor of psychology at Regis College, sings with the Lexington Pops chorus, and plays on a 40-and-up soccer team. “Sports, music, and academia—the more things change the more they stay the same. My 14-year-old just released his first full-length CD under the artist name NonRanDom. I’m biased but it’s outstanding original music. Can’t wait to see everyone at Reunion.” That’s all for now. See you in May!

Vanessa montag brosgol
vanessa.brosgol@yahoo.com

Hi, everyone. Before I start, I would like to remind you all to please mark your calendars: Our 25th Reunion is May 21–24, 2015! I hope we have a fantastic turnout.

Julia Moffett, after 12 years in London, is currently living in Nairobi, Kenya, with her 8-year-old twin daughters and family. Julia works in education innovation for Equity Bank’s Foundation and is also creating The Future of Learning Fund to support education entrepreneurs. “It’s an amazing place to be at the moment and we are thoroughly enjoying the adventure!”

Another exciting transition comes from Jessica Gutteridge who, after 20 years working in the law, made a major career move by beginning studies in theater education. This summer Jessica left her job with the legal department at Cablevision and assisted with a pre-college program in musical theater at Adelphi University. “It’s great to be back in the world of theater and working with enthusiastic and talented high school students. As of August, we are relocating to Vancouver, British Columbia, my husband’s home town. It’s a lot of change, but all very exciting.”

A couple of others have recently moved to new places as well. Gabriella Nawi got married this past January to Todd Jonasz and relocated to New Jersey, where they live with her son Sam (14) and Todd’s two daughters, Alex (13) and Liza (10). Chrissy Feuerbach Fedolfi writes that her “family relocated to West Hartford, Conn., from Maine in August 2013 so that Chuck could take the director of the Annual Fund job at good ol’ Wesleyan! He loves being back at Wesleyan and seeing how Middletown has improved since 1990. I am sure he will be in touch with all of you to solicit support for Wesleyan. I took the year off from teaching elementary school to help our children (Giancarlo, 9, and Greta, 7) settle in to our new town, but am hoping to have a new job by the time this gets published. We are excited to see folks at the 25th Reunion and if anyone needs a place to stay we are just 25 minutes to campus!”

More exciting news from Sharene Azimi who, along with her husband, welcomed second son, Nathaniel William Wulfekuhler (Nate) on April 7, 2014. “He joins big brother Maximilian (Max) in our old house outside Philadelphia. I continue to run my own consulting business, Mission Communications, providing strategic communications services to nonprofit organizations. My former roommate Thea Trachtenberg was the first Wes alum to meet the new baby. Hope to see more of you soon.”

We have big publishing news from both Ben Robertson and Rebecca Rossen. This month Ben is publishing his first novel, The Last Generation, about a girl in Greenland around the time of the disappearance of the Norse colony there in 1500. “It is young adult historical fiction set in the age of exploration and discovery. Hunger Games meets Dances with Wolves, as they say.” Rebecca recently published Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance (Oxford University Press, 2014). Additionally, she is delighted to be returning to Wesleyan in January to give the annual Cynthia Novack lecture in dance. Rebecca, her husband, David Pavkovic, and their two daughters live in Austin, where she teaches dance and performance history at the University of Texas.

Also in Texas is Sarah Ellenzweig, who lives in Houston with her husband and three sons. Sarah is an associate professor of English at Rice University and colleagues with Ussama Makdisi, professor of Arab history. She recently reconnected with Hannah Carlson and Charlie Cannon ’89 “for a fabulous lunch on their deck in Providence, R.I.” Both are teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Charlie in architecture and Hannah in the history of art and visual culture. Sarah also had dinner with Melanie Sy, who was passing through Houston on a consulting job, and had “a fortuitous catch-up with Rachel Williams and her husband and two daughters when both were passing through Boston last summer.”

Finally, it was great to hear from Tim Hintz, who is still living in Brookline, Mass., and working as an elementary school counselor. Tim’s wife teaches and their three children are all on the same schedule. They all love traveling, which allows them to see a lot of America and many Wes people as well. In December they visited San Francisco and saw Andy Spear (“teaching high school in Berkeley”) and Julia Erwin (“now a major poobah at Stanford Law School”). In the spring they had visits from Andrew Siff and family. “Andy is a reporter for WNBC in New York and lives in Queens.” Tim also hosted Andrew Griffin, “now a radiologist in the Chicago area, and had dinner with Denise Casper, my neighbor in Brookline. Denise achieved significant press last year as the judge who presided over the Whitey Bulger trial. Not surprisingly, she was lauded for her even temperament and thoughtful words at sentencing.” In April, Tim and family stopped in on Stephen Power ’89, who is an editor living in Maplewood, N.J. Finally, this summer they did a 32-day, 7,400-mile cross-country drive, getting in some of the great sights of the northern United States. “We stopped in Albany to see New York judge David Weinstein, who noted he had run into Miriam Temin when we were passing through his fair city. At the western terminus we went camping with President-for-Life Bill Sherman and family. Bill had been teaching law but was starting a new job at the district attorney’s office in Seattle.” Tim concludes that he is already “thinking about next year’s trips, but will definitely include Reunion!” I hope all of you will do the same!

Vanessa montag brosgol
vebrosgol@optonline.net

We start with an update and some interesting coincidences from David Bucci, who is living in Norwich, Vt., with his three children (ages 9, 7, and 4), one wife, and zero dogs. David is a professor in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department at Dartmouth College and loves to hike and ski with his family. David has heard from Laura Desimone lately. She has a 6-year-old daughter and is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. David writes, “Karl Furstenburg, who was formerly the Dean of Admission at Wes (and who accepted the class of 1990 at Wesleyan!) was the Dean of Admissions here at Dartmouth until he retired a few years ago. Similarly, our current Director of Safety and Security here at Dartmouth is none other than Harry Kinne, who held the same position when we were at Wes. Interestingly, we had some serious unrest on campus last year, resulting in a Day of Unity just like we had at Wesleyan in 1990 and Harry and I were chatting about the similar tumult at Wes back in 1990. He also claims to know the exact location of the Douglas Cannon at all times.”

Jennifer Miller Lee writes from Indianapolis where she is a medieval art history professor, with a 4-year-old son. Jennifer has met a few Wes alumni in the city, but would love to find more.

Todd Thorner is living in his home state in Oakland, Calif. He celebrated his seventh marriage anniversary to Leyla Khosrovani. “Being half Swedish and being married to a Persian, they have three ‘Swersian’ kids, Jahangeer, 6, Teymour, 4, and Noor, 2.” Todd recently founded his third renewable energy company after the sale of the previous two. The first was a wind power company, the second a solar PV company, and the third is a small hydropower company.

Nick Hardigg writes that “we welcomed our second child, Eleanor, into the world last June.” He is happily settled down in Portland, Ore., where he runs a nonprofit that supports city parks.

Victor Khodadad just sang in Bum Phillips: All-American Opera in its world premiere in New York City at La Mama Experimental Theatre. The production was very well received and recorded by NFL Films. Victor will be singing Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with Hill House Opera Company in New Haven, Conn., in June 2014 and Mr. Ford in Salieri’s opera Falstaff in New York City in August. He would love to hear from old friends and can be contacted through his website victorkhodadad.com.

After 3.5 years at PayPal, Peter Karpas “recently left to become the CEO of North America for Xero (a $4B valuation public company that provides ‘beautiful accounting’ online to small businesses in over 150 countries). On the personal front, in April my wife, Beth ’92, and I will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. We still live in Silicon Valley and are somewhat guiltily enjoying all the amazing weather.”

Finally, Jacqui Gabay lives in New Jersey with her husband, Julian, and three children, Alex, 11, and 7-year-old twins, Nicole and Matthew. She often sees Gina Leclerc who lives in Philadelphia. Gina just celebrated her one-year adoption of two beautiful little girls (sisters) from Haiti.

That’s all for now. Thank you to all those who wrote. Please keep your updates coming.

Vanessa montag brosgol
vebrosgol@optonline.net