CLASS OF 1994 | 2017 | ISSUE 2
Hello from Chicago! In May, I (Samera) met John Lewis for lunch in Boston. It was great to catch up with him after many years. John’s year is already filling up with lots of Wesleyan connections, including dinner with Aaron Yeater. John writes, “Josh Protas, Gabe Meil, and Jonathan Bender are joining me at our family shack on a lake in New Hampshire (outhouse and all). The last time we were there was after Josh’s wedding in the late 1990s. Abby was game for including a reunion with her honeymoon. My wife, Suzanne, and I have three kids, ages 13, 11, and 5, and I’m currently footloose and fancy free after 17 years working for Jonathan Bush ’03 at athenahealth. I’m taking a break, planning to re-enter the workforce in the fall!”
In March, I met Sarah Burke in San Francisco, where we had a lovely dinner with our adorable girls (my twins, Sarah and Norah, and Sarah’s Lanikai) who finally were able to meet. That same trip, I met up with Ben Fineman, whom I hadn’t seen in years, for dinner.
In other SF news, Olivia Morgan and her husband, David Plouffe, moved there recently. David is at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and she is running a gender equity initiative at Common Sense Media. She writes, “Later this month we will release a report on how gender portrayals in movies and on TV impact kids’ development, along with comprehensive guidelines on how to evaluate media for gender equity.”
From Southern California, Stephanie Anagnoson is the conservation supervisor at Castaic Lake Water Agency and “survived the drought.”
Further west, Raya Salter left her lawyer gig at Natural Resources Defense Council and moved to Hawaii a year ago with her daughter to work on climate and energy justice issues as a lawyer and consultant. She also is working on media issues.
On the East Coast, Aaron Passell has been teaching urban studies at Barnard and Columbia for three years, commuting from Philadelphia. He sees Jesse Hendrich and Seth Lewis Levin in the city for drinks or food adventures. He also runs into Amy Fiske ’95 often in Philadelphia, who runs the after-school program where his younger son spends happy afternoons.
David Drogin was promoted to professor as he continues his second term as chairperson of the History of Art Department at the State University of New York, FIT. He recently published “Art and Patronage in Bologna’s Long Quattrocento” in A Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Bologna and “Dialogue of the Doges: Monumental Ducal Tombs in Renaissance Venice,” in The Tombs of the Doges of Venice. Next March, he will present a paper on Jacopo della Quercia in a session he organized, “The Problem of Style in 15th-Century Italian Art,” at the conference of the Renaissance Society of America.
Stephen Frail wrote from Needham, Mass., where he lives with his wife of 20 years and two boys, one completing ninth grade and one completing sixth grade. After spending over 20 years in educational publishing, he joined MathWorks, the leading developer of mathematical computing software for engineers and scientists.
He writes, “I’ve had the pleasure of reconnecting with several fellow alumni in recent months. Sid Espinosa was visiting Boston, and so Dan Lennon, Raman Prasad, and I met Sid for dinner to celebrate our frosh year at Foss 7.” Raman, Dan, and David Mulei have planned a road trip this fall to meet up with Aaron “Hash” Hoshide, who teaches economics at the University of Maine.
Dr. Tyrone Williams and I caught up over a Saturday brunch recently. We followed that with an evening out with Tyrone and his wife, and Jennifer Quest-Stern and Kevin Fairley, who are married to each other, have two kids of their own, and are both in the healthcare industry.
Several of us from the class of 1994 have also started a tradition of returning to Homecoming each fall. David Niles, Deirdre Kelly, Sarah Morgan, Jeff Reilly, Joe Pirret, and I all plan to attend Homecoming again this November.
Jonathan Kirsch is a Fulbright Scholar in Cali, Colombia, for a year with his wife (also a Fulbright Scholar) and three kids. He will be teaching at a medical school, his wife will study organic coffee, and his kids will attend a bilingual school.
David Campbell is vice president of integration management at Dell Technologies in Austin, Texas.
Matthew Fraser is a writer and one of two people running Salem House Press after teaching and studying languages since 1995, and working at the grammar, middle, and high school level. He writes, “My latest book, Critical Infrastructure for Children; the Astonishing Potential of New England Schools, features what I consider to be strong points of the Wesleyan Sustainability Action Plan. I also did a comparison of the Wesleyan plan with similar progressive efforts at other universities throughout New England. I enjoyed presenting my previous book, Ideas for America; Let the Sun In at Wesleyan’s Earth Month in 2015, and I am looking forward to presenting my newest book to some idealistic hearts and minds at Wes soon.”
Please continue to send in updates, and if anyone finds themselves in Chicago, please get in touch!
Samera Syeda Ludwig | ssludwig@nixonpeabody.com
Caissa Powell | cdp2000@hotmail.com