Class of 2012 | 2014 | Issue 1
Daisey Perez
deperez@wesleyan.edu
Author: Anne Marcotty
Class of 2013 | 2014 | Issue 1
It’s been a few months since graduation, and the Class of 2013 is already busy taking the world by storm. We’ve been off working, teaching, studying, traveling, and embracing everything that life has to offer. Although there is the bittersweet realization (often accompanied by poignant nostalgia) that we are no longer in college, we’re also excited to dive right into the next chapter of our lives.
Many 2013ers can be found residing in New York. Catherine Taibi is an associate media editor at The Huffington Post. Her job includes managing the media page, writing and editing stories, creating viral content, managing the Facebook and Twitter accounts for HuffPost Media, creating photo posts and slideshows, and tracking site traffic. Kevin Curtin is living on the Upper East Side and working for JP Morgan’s investment bank. Isabella Cucchi is living in West Harlem and working in the South Bronx as a site coordinator for Reading Partners, NYC. She also works with children on their reading skills at the Metropolitan Lighthouse Charter School. Isabella loves hanging out with other Wesleyan folks in her free time. Sarah Cassel is a corps member at Avodah, a Jewish social justice group. She also works at The Bronx Defenders and spends her free time volunteering at the Homebound Leadership Institute in Harlem, where she works with young men of color on professional development and leadership through identity-based education. Senior speaker Anna Swartz is rooming with Paul Silverman in Brooklyn. She is writing and looking for full-time work, while he works as a kindergarten teacher. Joining Anna and Paul in Brooklyn is Julian Applebaum, who is a software engineer at Squarespace, where he researches, designs, and codes new tools and workflows for e-commerce merchants. In his spare time, he plays bass in the Sirs & Madams, a five-piece folk/singer-songwriter group.
In other parts of the country, 2013ers are also settling into their new jobs and embarking on new adventures. Chris Pao writes in from Boston, where he is working as a remote services consultant at ServiceNow, a growing IT enterprise cloud management software company. He helps clients with their software platform post-implementation with fixing anything that’s broken, not functioning properly, or even adding new functionality per the client’s request. He hopes to become a technical consultant after graduating from the two-year program. When he is not working, Chris enjoys playing in an adult hockey league, an indoor soccer league, and also exploring what the city has to offer. Robert Vance is living in his hometown of Birmingham, Ala., working for Impact Alabama, a community service nonprofit, and writing for Onyx Path Publishing. He’s planning to attend law school next year, focusing on public interest and civil rights law. Ashleigh Corvi writes in from Wesleyan, where she is working as an assistant dean of admission. She lives nearby with her girlfriend (and fellow ’13er) Tori Redding, who also works at Wesleyan as an assistant field hockey coach. They both love staying in touch with friends and professors while being a part of the community in a different capacity. Lisa Sy writes in from the Bay Area, where she is a full-time designer at a Web and mobile application consultancy in San Francisco called Thoughtbot. She works with clients that include start-ups and technology companies to build profitable products and services for their customers. Her day-to-day tasks include interfacing with clients, creating mock-ups and wireframes, leading product design sprints, collaborating with other Web developers, and coding/designing the websites. She is excited by the amount of learning she gains everyday, and is always open-minded to collaborating with other Wesleyan people on interesting projects. Also in California is film aficionado, Michael Steves, who is in post-production on his first feature film, Clinger, a low-budget horror-comedy he directed and co-wrote starring Vincent Martella (Phineas and Ferb, The Walking Dead, Everybody Hates Chris). The cast and crew included about 20 Wes students, including ’13ers Stefan Skripak, Leah Rosen, Paulie Lowther, Becca Kitsis, Sam Barth, Scott Kan, Chris McNabb, Sam Korda, and Ben Smith. Now living in L.A., Michael is co-producing another horror feature with director/producer Jon Hess (American History X) and second-unit directing a horror feature starring Terrance Howard. He also opened a production house specializing in music videos and commercials with two of his high school friends.
On the other side of the world, James Gardner is working as a project assistant for an Afro-German organization that focuses on integration, education, and social work for the Afro-German and African immigrant communities in Berlin. He has been given the opportunity to give presentations on Afro-German history and has also created a “WesGermany” Facebook group for Wesleyan alums and current students in Germany. They had a small event in October and are looking for more friendly faces to join. Shoot him an e-mail (jgarder@wes) if you are in the area! Nearby, Adam Rashkoff is serving as an English language teaching assistant at two different high schools in western Austria on a fellowship funded by the Austrian government and administered by the U.S. Fulbright Commission. He is enjoying teaching and working with high school students, as well as adjusting to the Alpine lifestyle. Any Wes peers who find themselves traveling in Europe and have a desire to go skiing and snowshoeing, eat tasty food and drink superb beer and mulled wine, and explore Roman ruins and medieval cities are welcome to come visit and stay on his pullout couch.
As for me, I’ve settled back at home in the Bay Area and am working for Apple as an engineering program manager. Thanks to everyone for the contributions and wishing all the best to my classmates!
Laura Yim
Lyim@wesleyan.edu
DOUGLAS PASCOE, MALS ’07
December 1, 2010
GEORGE M. RING
GEORGE M. RING, a pioneer in the cable television industry, the founder of Wireless Cable International, Inc., and a former Wesleyan trustee and parent, died June 7, 2013. He was 70. He received his BS and MBA from Seton Hall University, on whose Board of Regents he served for 20 years. During the Vietnam War, he served in the U.S. Army and was highly decorated for his service. He was later inducted into the Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame at Fort Benning, Ga. After leaving the Army, he joined Chase Manhattan Bank and in the 1970s he entered the cable television industry on the manufacturing side as financial comptroller of Coral, Inc. In 1976 he started his own company, Cross Country Cable. By 1990 he had embraced wireless cable technology and founded Wireless Cable International, Inc. He was very involved in his community and sat on many boards including as a Trustee of Wesleyan. Survivors include his wife, Dorothy Ring; his son, Justin A. Ring ’98; his daughter, Francesca E. O’Grady ’02; his brother and sister; and many nieces and nephews.
THOMAS F. MALONE
THOMAS F. MALONE, a renowned scientist who warned about the dangers of global warming, and who received an honorary degree in 2007, died July 6, 2013. He was 96. An honors graduate of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, he earned his PhD at MIT in 1946. Editor of the Compendium of Meteorology published in 1951, a prominent member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Meteorology, and Staff Planning Director for the University Committee on Meteorology, he was an influential voice in the expansion of research and education in this field during the second half of the 20th century. He served simultaneously as president of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union and was later president of Sigma Xi. An adviser to the Kennedy administration, he was a catalyst in an international collaborative program by national weather services and scientific organizations to improve weather forecasting and explore climate change. Elected Foreign Secretary of the National Academy of Sciences, he initiated the Academy’s Committee on International Security and Arms Control in 1981, opened discussions with a counterpart group in the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and was instrumental in creating international scientific study of the environmental consequences of a nuclear war. As Founding Secretary General of the international Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment and as Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Connecticut, he warned of the dangers of global warming in an address at the California Institute of Technology in 1970 and repeated this warning on national television in 1984. A participant in the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, he advocated international cooperation in pursuit of a vision for a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Malone came to Connecticut in 1955 from a tenured academic appointment at MIT to establish the Travelers Weather Service, which pioneered in weather probabilities. He went on to become senior vice president and director of research at the Travelers, moving to the University of Connecticut in 1970. He moderated the annual Business Outlook of the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce during the 1960s and received the Chamber’s Charter Oak Leadership Medal in 1962. He was named Connecticut Conservationist of the year in 1968 for his leadership of the 100-member Connecticut Clean Water Task Force. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Wesleyan University in 2007 with the citation: “Your tireless efforts as a steward of Mother Earth are manifestations of your personal commitment, as a man of science and as a man of deep faith, to making life on the planet sustainable for all people and for all time. As an initiator of international and interdisciplinary research programs, you have been recognized as a world leader in building the human capacity to endow future generations with a better world—and a better place to live.” Survivors include his wife, Rosalie Doran Malone, six children, 17 grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
DOREEN B. FREEMAN
DOREEN B. FREEMAN, who together with her husband, the late Houghton “Buck” Freeman ’43, generously supported Wesleyan and especially the Freeman Asian Scholars Program, died July 12, 2013, at age 90. The Freeman family, including Buck, Doreen and their son Graeme Freeman ’77, established the Freeman Foundation in 1993 after the death of Buck’s father, Mansfield Freeman, Wesleyan class of 1916, who had contributed greatly to Wesleyan’s East Asian Studies Program.
Buck Freeman was chairman of the Freeman Foundation, and Doreen was a co-trustee. They demonstrated a hands-on style of giving that ensured a personal connection with all those receiving foundation support. She was especially attentive to the Freeman Asian Scholars Program – the foundation’s landmark contribution to Wesleyan. Established in 1995 to promote cross-cultural understanding between the United States and Asia, the program provides scholarships for exceptional students from 11 East Asian countries to earn bachelor’s degrees at Wesleyan. The program has supported more than 340 students.
Doreen was instrumental in interviewing Freeman Asian Scholar candidates each year until 2010, and was an especially staunch supporter of candidates who came from challenging backgrounds with limited opportunities to study abroad. She also was particularly interested in hearing from the program’s students and alumni about the details of their lives.
“For decades the Freeman family has helped Wesleyan fulfill its mission of providing the best in liberal arts education,” said Wesleyan President Michael Roth. “We are deeply grateful for all that the foundation has done and continues to do, and we mourn the passing of Doreen, who with her husband Buck, were wonderful friends. Our hearts go out to her daughter Linda, son Graeme and their families.”
Doreen was born in England in 1923. During World War II, she proudly served in one of Britain’s women’s service corps. At American International Group (AIG) – which was co-founded by Mansfield Freeman, and where her husband later rose to the top levels of company leadership – she took the initiative to “show the ropes” to younger AIG spouses. She was an avid reader and loved novels and memoirs about Asia.
Buck and Doreen’s generosity has made an enormous impact on Wesleyan. A gift at the end of the Campaign for Liberal Learning in the 1980s jump-started construction of Bacon Field House and the new pool in the Freeman Athletic Center. They also supported the Center for East Asian Studies, the Wesleyan Fund and other special projects. Their giving made them Wesleyan’s largest donors ever.
Wesleyan awarded Doreen an honorary degree in 2003, citing her as “a philanthropist whose strong compassion springs from commitment, grit, and a backbone of steel.”
Among those who survive are her daughter; her son, Graeme H. Freeman ’77; five grandchildren; two step-grandsons; her brother; and several nephews and step-nephews.
FRANKLIN D. REEVE
FRANKLIN D. REEVE, a poet, translator, and former professor of Russian Language and Literature, died June 28, 2013. He was 84. A graduate of Princeton University, he received master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia University. He taught at Columbia before joining the faculty at Wesleyan, where he taught full-time until he decided to devote more time to his writing and became a part-time faculty member. He published more than 30 books, including 10 volumes of poetry and translations of Russian authors. One book chronicled a trip to the Soviet Union in 1962 with Robert Frost on a good-will mission requested by President John F. Kennedy. At an early point in his career, while in graduate school, he began acting professionally, but gave it up because he feared that immersing himself in dramatic characters might erode his own poetic voice. He also founded the journal The Poetry Review. He translated Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1970 Nobel lecture and delivered the keynote address at the International Conference of Translators of Russian Literature in Moscow in 2007. His first three marriages ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife, Laura C. Stevenson; a son from his first marriage; a daughter and two sons from his second marriage; two stepdaughters; his sister and brother; and 18 grandchildren.
REGINALD BARTHOLOMEW
REGINALD BARTHOLOMEW, a senior diplomat and ambassador who taught at Wesleyan from 1964 to 1968 before joining the government, died Aug. 26, 2012, at age 76. Always interested in working overseas, he passed the Foreign Service exam as a sophomore at Dartmouth College. After graduating in 1958 with degrees in history and political science, he attended graduate school at the University of Chicago, where he received his master’s in political science, worked toward his doctorate, and taught, in addition to spending a year in France studying French politics. He then took a job teaching European government and politics at Wesleyan, where he met Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times reporter who worked with him later in the Defense and State departments, and who was teaching at Wesleyan as well. In 1968 Mr. Gelb persuaded him to join the staff at the Pentagon, from which he moved to and from various departments in different roles. During his long tenure, he served four presidents, negotiated for nuclear disarmament with the Soviet Union and for the preservation of American military bases in Europe, served as ambassador to Spain and Italy, and survived a bomb attack while ambassador to Lebanon in 1984. He received an honorary degree from Wesleyan in 1985. Among those who survive are his wife, Rose-Anne Dognin Bartholomew, three sons, a daughter, seven grandchildren, and his brother.
LAUREL F. APPEL
LAUREL F. APPEL, adjunct associate professor of biology, died Mar. 4, 2013, at age 50. A graduate of Oberlin College, she received a PhD in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1993, when she moved to Connecticut. At Wesleyan, she also directed the Ronald E. McNair Program, which supports and nurtures first-generation college students and students in underrepresented groups for entry into graduate programs. She is survived by her husband, Wesleyan Professor of Biology Michael Weir, two children, her mother, two brothers, and three nieces and nephews. Her father died on April 19, 2013, six weeks after his daughter.
PAULA LEE SCHILLER
PAULA LEE SCHILLER, 61, an executive at the Southern New England Telephone Company who received an MALS from Wesleyan in 2001, died Oct. 26, 2010. She was a graduate of Vassar College and also received a master’s degree from Rensselaer. She was a volunteer and activist for many family and environmental causes. Her parents, her sister, and two nephews survive.