CLASS OF 1984 | 2020 | ISSUE 1

Hello, classmates! I apologize for my lapse last time around. We do have some news this month. It’s lovely to hear from you all. It warms me in my (imminent) dotage.

Maureen Sweeney directs the Immigration Clinic at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law in Baltimore, where she lives with her husband. Her three adult children joined them on a 16-day trip rafting at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. She would like to give a shout-out for Malu Rydfors to drop a line sometime.

Karen Rothblatt Zilberstein’s book, Parents Under Pressure: Struggling to Raise Children in an Unequal America, has won two 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards since it was published last year (in the categories of Parenting/Family and Current Events/Social Change). In more personal news, after 26 years of working while parenting three children, she is now an empty nester. Despite the creaky joints (and because of the extra time) she has run two half-marathons since the summer; though that is about as much as she is prepared to do.

Steven Barg has left Goldman Sachs after nearly 10 years and is joining Elliott Management as global head of corporate engagement (one of the leading alternative asset managers). After nearly 35 years as an investment banker, he is looking forward to his move to the buy-side. He is now an empty nester and is wondering why he is still putting up with the Northeast winter.

Scott Pearson will be stepping down as executive director of the District of Columbia Public Charter Board at the end of May 2020, after 8.5 years. He has been focused on how public charter schools can play a constructive role in improving public education. With both children in college, he is setting a new course.

Nina Mullen is proud to have been selected as landscape designer of the year by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. Her design, Panoramic Haven, in the Oakland Hills of California, converted a vast lawn to a stunningly vibrant, water-wise space with sweeping views for relaxing and entertaining. Her design for her client developed the surrounding natural landscape of verdant green winter and tawny summer. You can see more of her work at mullendesign.net.

Murrey Nelson has been in San Francisco for 20 years, despite her long-abandoned vow to leave and return to NYC after only two. She has concentrated on fundraising for the arts for 14 years and is in her third year as development director of two-time Grammy-winning choral ensemble, Chanticleer. She is active in the theatre community, serving on the board of a Middle Eastern theatre company, Golden Thread. Recently, she was in NYC and caught up with Lea Barth (who is getting ready to send her last child off to college next year). She has also been in contact with Paul Oh and Philip Anker ’86.

I am sorry to not be in closer touch with our Philadelphia classmates. Simone Zelitch’s fifth novel Judenstaat is now available from PM Press (an alternative history of Germany had it been established as a Jewish state). And Julia Lopez has a book of poetry scheduled to be released in the spring and is working at Mural Arts Philadelphia as program manager in the department of art education. (Julia’s blog is juliascarnaval.blogspot.com).

Also, you should see what Vashti Dubois ’83 has accomplished at The Colored Girls Museum in Germantown (thecoloredgirlsmuseum.com). I have been to her space several times and it is extraordinary.

Michael Steven Schultz | mschultz84@wesleyan.edu