CLASS OF 1990 | 2021–2022 | WINTER ISSUE
Hello, all. It was nice to hear from a bunch of new people this time around. Here’s the latest:
Alexis Roberts writes that she, Chris Roberts ’89, and 16-year-old India are moving to Los Angeles for Chris’s new job at the UCLA School of Law (daughter Beatrix ’22 is a senior at Wes and daughter Willa is a sophomore at McGill). They are looking forward to spending lots of time with Liza Maizlish, Ted Skillman ’91, Dan Partland ’92, Ben Brand ’92, and other Wes friends!
In March, John Rasmussen and Krittika Onsanit ’91 met for dinner with another Wes couple, Carolyn Clark and David Patterson, who were in Richmond on one stop of their daughter’s college tour. “We picked a large redbrick restaurant with columns for dinner, so that we could pretend we were on the Olin steps.”
Jonah Pesner’s “happiest update is that my daughter Noa Pesner ’24 had a great first year, culminating with a trip to NCAA finals as part of Wes Women’s Crew who placed fourth overall!”
Meg Steele has launched a walking tour business in her town of Bath, Maine, which was just named one of the “best small towns in America” by Smithsonian Magazine! (Website and social media are Embark Maine Tours.) Meg invites all Wes friends that find themselves nearby to come for a tour!
David Steingart is living in Tallahassee, Florida. “I am a practicing psychotherapist and I have a nine-year-old son. It’s hot.”
Victor Khodadad will be singing the role of Turiddu in New Camerata Opera’s live, fall production of Il Borgo Siciliano. This production will be a unique, 90-minute version of the popular operatic double bill of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. The score was prepared by stage director John de los Santos, conductor Sam McCoy, and dramaturg Cori Ellison, and was presented on September 23rd, 25th, 30th and October 2nd at The Muse in Bushwick, Brooklyn. More information is available at www.newcamerataopera.org.
Jennie Bauduy recently got to catch up with “my still dear friend Rona Cohen, who lives with her family in Montclair, New Jersey, and educates and advises state officials on clean energy and climate policy. I generally keep close tabs on my buddies Meg Fry ’91 and Mike Novak, both doing well with their teenage son in Queens, New York, and planning their next adventure biking trip. I am also very happy to still be in touch with Professor Alex Dupuy (we discovered we were cousins at Wesleyan), who is doing very well with his wife in Middletown. My own son is headed to Brown in the fall. He has some longtime friends headed to Wesleyan, so I’m expecting some back and forth between the two campuses. I’ve been working as a journal editor for many years in Washington, D.C., and have recently returned to focusing on my own writing. This year, I published a memoir essay in the Maine Review.”
Carolyn Vellenga Berman, who is associate professor of Literature, chair of Literature and co-chair of Literary Studies at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School, wrote to say that she and her husband Greg (’89) “were delighted to attend the in-person graduation of our daughter Hannah ’21 from Wesleyan this spring. Our daughter Milly ’24 will be a sophomore this fall; she’s looking forward to a post-vaccination campus life.” Carolyn’s second book, Dickens and Democracy in the Age of Paper, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2022. “I enjoyed stopping by the Center for the Humanities on campus, remembering how I first got a taste for the life of a scholar.”
Finally, on July 2nd, just as I was wrapping up these notes, I received the wonderful news from James Rosenblatt that “this morning we welcomed our first grandson! Theodore Rudy Preblich was born to our daughter and her husband. Everyone is happy and healthy but a little tired.”
On that happy note, I wish all of you happiness and health and, as always, look forward to hearing from you.