Tag: 1997

Hi Everyone,

We are heartbroken to report that we have lost another member of our class. Mike Mittelman wrote, “In sad news, Brandon Cook, who was class of ’97, lost his fight with leukemia on Easter Sunday of this year. There were many members of our class who had a chance to visit him and say goodbye in San Francisco this winter. Two of us, Adam Rodnitzky and I, spoke at his celebration of life. He was a huge personality and we all miss him terribly.”

Andrew Frishman reached out to share a few of his recent Wes-related connections. “Leigh Needleman ’96 and I are still loving living in Cambridge near Central Square—our kids (age 10 and 13) are attending the Cambridge Public Schools, where they are classmates with the daughter of Laura Warren ’98, who lives a few blocks from us. It’s been great to have our families hang out together. Leigh and I attended a Wesleyan event at an alum’s home who is a professor at MIT—they hosted an introduction to the proposed new design for the newest addition to the Wesleyan CFA . . . . Sounds like they are planning on converting (and expanding) an existing building into a new dance (and theater?) complex not far from Low Rise? . . . . It was interesting to see the ways in which they were seeking to create something new while also preserve some of the building’s original architecture . . . . Speaking of architecture, I recently had a phone call with Alex Jermyn in Berkeley, California, and his architecture firm/studio has been taking off and building all sorts of super-cool houses (particularly up in the mountains) that have been celebrated and featured in a number of prestigious architecture publications—check it out here: https://www.aj-a.co/. I had a phone call with the inimitable Sasha Cooke, (Wes alum and squash coach) who is currently in Tucson, Arizona, and anticipates relocating to Vermont sometime in the coming year(s).”

Andrew wrote, “My work as co-executive director of ‘Big Picture Learning’ continues to be invigorating and inspiring. If there’s anyone out there interested in collaborating to create new forms of public education that focus more on interest-driven real-world learning situated in the community beyond the walls of the classroom/school, I’d be glad to [re]connect.”

Sadia Shepard wrote, “I just finished my third year as an assistant professor of Film Studies at Wesleyan, and I am loving the chance to engage with the Wesleyan community in a new way. If you are back on campus, please drop me a line! You can always find me at sshepard@wesleyan.edu.” Congratulations, Professor Shepard and good luck with your fourth year!

And for our latest update . . .  Ashvin Shah “still doesn’t have his shit together.” We get it, Ashvin—don’t most of us, if not ALL of us, feel the same way, despite all of the adulting? We wish everyone the best, always. Thank you for sharing.

Sending positive energy to you all as we continue to navigate 2023 together.

Sasha and Jess

Here are the latest updates. . . .

Alek Lev is directing the opera Orpheus & Erica (an adaptation of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice), with a mixed cast of hearing opera singers and deaf actors with Victory Hall Opera in Charlottesville, Virginia. Alek notes that considering that he was a theater major at school with a focus on directing and began his acquisition of American Sign Language in ASL 1, it seems as though he is actually working in a job that leverages precisely what he studied at Wesleyan. As he says, “it’s a liberal arts miracle.” The performance will be available to stream after the end of the run on VictoryHallOpera.org. We saw the video trailer, and it looks phenomenal! We are looking forward to watching the performance online.

Madeleine Perez writes from LA, where she has been with her husband and son for 12 years now. She is a Realtor at Compass and was named as one of their top 25 agents in 2021 and 2022. Congratulations, Madeleine! She would love to hear from other Wes people out here so please reach out! And she says it really did snow in LA in February.

Sasha’s family got a puppy, who is very cute but wakes up sooooo early. But again, so cute, so all is forgiven.

We wish everyone here and all your people (and puppies and friends and nonhumans) the absolute best. And please email us your updates.

Best,

Jessica and Sasha

Here’s our latest round of updates!

Santi White (Santigold) released her new album, Spirituals, on September 9, 2022 (which is on repeat in our stream—truly, highly recommended!). To follow this release, she launched a new line of herbal teas, aptly called Spirituals. The first collection consists of three teas: Brand New Tea, I Heart Tea, and No Stress Zone Tea, available on Santigold.com.

Santigold also started her new seasonal podcast. Noble Champions is a modern-day salon, created and hosted by her and distributed by Talkhouse. In each weekly episode, she sits down with some of today’s leading artists, authors, activists, and progressive thinkers who stand up, stick up, and speak up for important causes.

Lauren Porosoff and her spouse and co-author Jonathan have a new book, published in December 2022:  EMPOWER Moves for Social-Emotional Learning: Tools and Strategies to Evoke Student Values. “It’s an identity-affirming, process-oriented approach to social-emotional learning that (as the name implies) empowers students to bring their own values to their actions and relationships. . . . I’m really excited for this book to be out in the world.” Congratulations, Lauren and Jonathan, and thank you for your contributions to the field of education!

Jess got to hang out with Amy Goorin Fogelman and Matt Fogelman in mid-October in Boston when she and her husband Greg (Middlebury ’95.5) and two of their kids (ages 10 and 16) traveled to New England for fall break. She says, “It was so much fun to catch up with Amy and Matt over dim sum in Chinatown, and I wish we could have all spent more time together! We spent a week in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York, visiting friends and family and touring colleges. Our 11th grader really liked the vibe at Wesleyan . . . we were there on a Friday and he got to go hang out on campus all afternoon with a sophomore he knew from home after the official admissions tour and info session. Our fall break trip ended with a day in Manhattan, which included a lovely lunch with Sasha and our kids in the West Village.”

We are, as always, humbled and impressed and awed and inspired by our classmates. We wish you all a wonderful New Year, full of good health, good ideas, good people, and a chance to do good when you can. And we cannot wait for spring around the corner!

Please send your updates to us!

Hi, Classmates!

We hope that 2022 has been a good one for you. We’re still enjoying memories of Reunion in the spring and marveling at how magical it felt to step back in time and recognize the impact of our time together at Wesleyan as students and throughout the years as members of the alumni community.

We enjoyed working with our fellow Reunion Committee members on helping to bring everyone back to campus: David Levin, Kimberly King, Josh Thornton, Maggie McLean Suniewick, Josh Suniewick, and Marisa Uchin. Shout-out to our fabulous 1997 WESeminar speakers—thank you for sharing your time, expertise, and your wisdom with us, Min Santandrea (founder, SantM), Lucria Ortiz (president and CEO of the Yonkers Family YMCA in New York), and Francisco Tezén (president and CEO of A Better Chance). We so appreciate you!

Also, we’d also like to congratulate Wesleyan’s 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients for professional achievements (four of the six were from the class of 1997): Carter Bays, Maggie McLean Suniewick, Craig Thomas, and Angela Mae Yee.

And one final post-Reunion note: Our class successfully reached a participation rate of 25 % in honor of our 25th Reunion, so we are now able to give a Class of 1997 scholarship gift to someone in the incoming class of 2026. The Solids (including Carter Bays, Josh Suniewick, Craig Thomas, and Pat Butler ’98) matched our gift up to $10,000!

Lots of good news to share . . .

Congratulations to Kimberly King on her new position as an alumni-elected trustee for Wesleyan! She is one of three alumni-elected trustees who serve on the 33-member board of Wesleyan and contribute to setting the direction of the University. We are grateful to have her representing the alumni body. (Thanks to all who voted, which is an excellent way to participate in the governance of the University as an alumnus.) In addition, Kimberly was promoted to NBC Universal’s vice president of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. We are so happy for her! (For context, please read more here (https://www.blackenterprise.com/kimberly-king-crowned-nbcus-vp-diversity-equity-inclusion-for-ads-partnerships/ and here: https://www.nexttv.com/news/nbcu-names-kimberly-king-vp-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-global-advertising-and-partnerships.) Kimberly shared with us: “Family is healthy and my 11-year-old starts middle school in the fall. It’s been a wonderful past few weeks to say the least. I am truly humbled to acknowledge that I am living in my purpose and on purpose. Feeling really thankful and supported.”

We are thrilled for Maggie McLean Suniewick, who transitioned to Twitter in July to take on the newly established role of vice president of Partnerships. Please read more about it here: https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/maggie-mclean-suniewick-twitter-nbcuniversal-1235307019/ Congratulations, Maggie!

Alek Matthew Lev wrote to share with us that he is producing and co-hosting a new podcast called Arts Educators Save the World, which brings successful artists together in conversation with their teachers and mentors. “And in episodes 1 and 2, released on August 29th, the Wesleyan runs—wait for it, wait for it, wait for it—even deeper. It starts with the Hunter College Elementary and High School connection to Wesleyan, which is substantial in the class of ’97: Joel Viertel, Noah Garrison, Amanda Shurgin, Kimani Rogers, David Levin, Amy Bodnick, Amy Gong, Mike Mittelman, Sara Berenbom Friedman ’96, Miwa Geiger. (And FYI for Hunterites, Erica Rosenfeld is the host and Justin Asher is the audio producer.) One of our first guests is Robert Lopez (Frozen, Encanto) who attended that *other* Connecticut university and, bringing it all together, we also have Hunter Elementary (’92), Hunter High (’98) and Wesleyan (’02) alum, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Robert and Lin talk with Ms. Barbara Ames, music teacher to most of the above. Check it out at www.ArtEducatorsSaveTheWorld.com or on your favorite podcast app.”

In August, we had a Zoom happy hour with Sarah Kollman Regnier, who moved from Sacramento, California, up north to Arcata, California, with her husband Justin and their two children, Peter and Joy. Sarah works remotely as an attorney. Full disclosure: The three of us usually group text daily and are still doing the Wordle and occasionally the Quordle (four Wordles, nine guesses) together. Sarah gave us a virtual tour of her beautiful home and the woods outdoors.

Elijah Hawkes wrote, “I enjoyed a spring visit to NYC and New Jersey to visit my old roommate in East Harlem, Omar Rahim ’96, and good friend Ruben Fleischer, who moved back east with his family from LA. I’m also looking forward to seeing Brion and Melanie Winston at their family farm in New York this 4th of July.” Elijah’s second book just came out . . . Woke is Not Enough: School Reform for Leaders with Justice in Mind. You can find some information about the book and his work at ElijahHawkes.com. “I’m particularly excited to see what folks think of the chapters on student activism and counter-extremism, which I think are unlike much of what one might find in literature for school leaders today.” Elijah’s first book came out two years ago: School for the Age of Upheaval: Classrooms that Get Personal, Get Political, and Get to Work.

Wishing everyone a peaceful and joyful fall 2022 and looking forward to seeing you again.

Take care!

Hello all!

By now, our reunion celebration has taken place and we hope many of you made it back to campus.

We received a couple of updates before reunion:

Arik Preis wrote in from NYC. He has three daughters—Scarlett and Edie (both age 14) and Nessa (age 12)—and is a partner at Akin Gump, practicing bankruptcy/financial restructuring.

Erica (Schiller) Burnell is living in Seattle, Washington, with her husband, son, and daughter, and recently switched careers to occupational therapy. Erica said, “I’d love to hear from anyone who I’ve lost touch with!” You can reach her at schill.erica@gmail.com.

Remember to log into the digital Class Book at https://wesleyan.brightcrowd.com/1997/sign-in/  to see what our classmates have been up to and to create your own page.

Thinking of you and sending all of you our absolute best wishes!