CLASS OF 1965 | 2016 | ISSUE 2
Dear Classmates: Here’s the news that’s fit to print:
Congratulations to John Hall, who has been elected by the alumni body as a university trustee! Mark Edmiston, Stew McConaughy, Bill Blakemore and now John are the members from our class to serve in this prestigious role. Anyone who knows John will agree that he’s a fine choice and will do an outstanding job.
John Vrooman and his lovely wife, Deborah, were great hosts to me and a friend during a recent trip through South Carolina. They live in picturesque Conway, close to Coastal Carolina University, where he and Deborah have made enormous contributions for nearly 50 years. Although both are retired from formal teaching, coaching, and counseling duties, they stay very involved there. Coastal has grown from a small two-year community college in the mid-’50s—operating out of public school classrooms at night—to a highly respected university with nearly 10,000 students on a beautiful 630-acre campus. John and Deborah have been on that journey much of the way. Also, the handsome new baseball field is named Vrooman Field and John has been inducted into the university’s athletics hall of fame. This is in recognition of his achievements as head baseball coach, where he recorded 345 victories, six consecutive Big South championships, and the university’s first NCAA regional appearance in 1991 at Florida State University. John also served as director of athletics and is professor of history, emeritus. Since John retired, the baseball program has continued to achieve impressive results and, as this is being written, CCU has just shocked the baseball world by upsetting North Carolina State, LSU, Florida, TCU. and Arizona to win the NCAA Division I championship in Omaha. Congratulations, John!.
While a number of us are in retirement, Grant Parr is closing in on seven years as physician-in-chief of the Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute at New Jersey’s Atlantic Health. Grant preciously served as chair of cardiovascular services at Morristown Memorial Hospital, now a part of the Atlantic system. The Institute performs more heart surgeries than any other hospital in New Jersey.
New class co-conveners Hugh Wilson and Mark Edmiston hosted several profitable meetings over Reunion & Commencement weekend in May. Classmates present included Hugh, Mark, John Hall, Dave Dinwoodey, Kirt Mead, Tom Elliman, Win Chamberlin, and yours truly.
Hugh reports: “Our meeting began with a presentation by Kennedy Odede ’12 on the Shining Hope for Communities school for girls (SHOFCO) that he founded in a slum suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, where Kennedy grew up. This was a WESeminar sponsored by our class and was open to the entire community. Kennedy described the success of the school, which is about to graduate its first eighth-grade class, several of whom will then spend a year at Loomis Chaffee or Miss Porter’s School in the U.S. From our discussions, it sounded as though SHOFCO (shofco.org) would welcome a visit by a group of us to the school in the future. They would also welcome introductions to other private boarding schools in North America that might be interested in providing scholarships for these girls.
“We then walked across campus to a room in the new Boger Hall (the old squash courts). John Hall reported that the class has raised approximately $4.1 million and should be able to reach our goal of $5 million. We were also told by Barbara-Jan Wilson that 102 Wesleyan families have donated greater than $1 million each and that 12 of these families are parents, not alumni. This leads all other schools in NESCAC and is a testament to the quality of education that current Wesleyan students feel they are receiving. Furthermore, Wesleyan admissions were the most competitive they have ever been, with just 17 percent of applicants being admitted.
“Our next agenda item was discussion of Wesleyan’s exchange program with the University of Havana. Two members from Wesleyan’s exchange office informed us that between one and three students have spent a semester at the University of Havana during each of the past three years. The program (CASA) is run by Brown University with several other Ivy League members. It was suggested that our class could endow a summer internship for a Wesleyan student for $100,000, a possibility that we felt was worthy of further consideration. We also raised the possibility of bringing Cuban students to Wesleyan, but this seems to be legally more complex at present.
“We also discussed helping to create a database of Wesleyan alumni who would agree to be contacted by undergraduates for counsel on careers in a wide range of fields. Please provide any feedback on the subjects of a trip to East Africa and SHOFCO, support for Wesleyan internships in Cuba, and the database project to Hugh (hrwilson@yorku.ca) or Mark (mme663@mac.com).”
Many thanks, Hugh (and Mark!)
PHILIP L. ROCKWELL | prockwell@wesleyan.edu