CLASS OF 1980 | 2015 | ISSUE 2
A 35th year Reunion highlight for me was sitting in Memorial Chapel during the distinguished alumni awards ceremony listening to David Potts ’60 give his closing remarks from his presentation about his book, Wesleyan University, 1910–1970. He said, “I hope my book will nurture our sense of family, and help us achieve one of our key liberal arts goals—a deeper self-knowledge. That goal is well-served when we collectively gain a new measure of institutional self-understanding. And for us as individuals, the quest for self-knowledge is enhanced when each of us knowingly remembers where we came from.” There were about 50 of us at Reunion who had the opportunity to share the experience of remembering from where we came and to collectively gain a new measure of institutional self-understanding. (See the Web class notes for a list of those who were among those the Reunion attendees—too long to add here!)
With Reunion memories Liz Sikes writes: “Catching up with Cesar Noble was the best surprise—especially when he e-mailed me a few weeks later to say his daughter was impressed that he knew someone like me, by which I think he means a college professor scientist studying climate change, but the best part was I was a woman. Made my day! Especially because he is a judge and here I was talking to him and Brad Moss (both judges!) thinking to myself—wow, I feel like everyone here is so much more successful than I! The funny thing is I can’t remember who said that out loud—but someone did… and I think that was the take home moment for me—what an amazing class we have –so many have come so far…I like being in this club!”
Melissa Stern writes: “I had a great time at Reunion. It was a great honor to have been asked to design a tee shirt for our 35th Reunion and I got a kick out of seeing many current students wearing it! It was a great weekend. I particularly enjoyed the ‘writer’ panel with Julie Burstein, Jennifer Finney Boylan and Rachel Basch—a rich and meaningful conversation among artists.”
Not in attendance….Susan Kravit writes: “I have lived in Washington State, first Seattle then Olympia, since 1982. My hobby of breeding flat coated retrievers kept me from attending Reunion, as I had a litter of eight puppies.”
Wendy Buskop writes: “My daughter, Jacqueline ’19, will attend Wesleyan in September.”
Janet Grillo writes: “I am delighted to be back in NYC, teaching full time as an arts professor at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts undergraduate film and television program. The second feature film I directed, Jack of the Red Hearts, starring Famke Janssen (Taken, X-Men) and AnnaSophia Robb (Carrie Diaries, The Way Way Back), won the jury prize at the inaugural Bentonville Film Festival, co-founded by actress/activist Geena Davis, to promote women and diversity. It will be in national theatrical release next winter. Like my first feature, Fly Away, this film also dramatized the impact of raising a child with autism.”
Wendy Davis Beard writes: “While still based in Sydney with our 12-year-old daughter, we traveled to New York last June to enroll Eliza in a three-week summer program at Columbia University. Whilst in America during the summer for the first time in many years, we took the opportunity to visit family in Cape Cod and Pam Mitchell in Maine, which was a real treat, as her husband Mark, a volunteer fireman, was able to carry me up and down the steep stairs to their beautiful sea front home. While able to climb a few steps with my quad stick, a whole flight is still a very big challenge. This past December while visiting my husband’s family in London, including two older daughters and two little granddaughters, we had a lovely lunch with Peter Eisenhardt who has been based in London with his family for over 30 years! I continue to write my memoir of recovery from cancer (now complete) and from my disabling stroke, a recovery which is ongoing—and am also writing fiction. Meanwhile, Peter has written an award-winning screen play.”
Michael Shulman writes: “I live in Ann Arbor, unexpected boom-town of the rust belt, with my wife and our two daughters. My wife is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, as I am. We’ve been in Ann Arbor since our meeting in grad school, except for an eight-year sojourn in Boca Raton, where we lived quite differently, grew mangoes and grapefruit, but ended up longing to return to a place where the intellect stood a better chance of growing.
Since leaving Wes, I’ve stayed in touch with Becky Hayden, Todd Martin ’81, Randy Baron, Christian Herold ’81 and Amanda Hardy. I would love to hear from Karen Murgolo, Claudia Lewis ’78, Leda Hartman ’81, Bradley Hess, or my COL mates from ’80 or ’81. Paul Schwaber ’57 and I, both psychoanalysts, have been in frequent touch in the past decade, despite having lost touch for the two before. A most wonderful recent reunion was sitting down with Henry Abelove in NYC, where we were presenting at the same conference. Maybe the most pleasant of all was hearing Henry’s account of his post-Wesleyan stints at ivy-covered schools whose students, however brilliant, preferred silence to vocal engagement.”