Author: classnotes

1996ers family: As we leave the summer months behind, I wish all my classmates well as we look forward to all the fresh blessings of the fall season. Now on to some great updates from folks!

Emily (Merowitz) Tedeschi writes in that after working for 18 years at the largest health system in New Jersey, she joined CommonSpirit, one of the largest health systems in the country, working in their national foundation office as system director of prospect development and research. She asks any of her classmates who are fundraisers or people who work with fundraisers, “let me know; there are always jobs opening up in our 80-plus hospital foundations, mostly on the West Coast.”

Dacque Tirado had dinner and drinks with Dan Mirsky ’97 in Silver Spring, Maryland—the two caught up on all the happenings in their lives, shared pictures of their kids, and recounted great memories from their Middletown days. He also writes that he had an epic summer of international travel as he chaperoned a cultural immersion trip with his students to Buenos Aires, Argentina (magical city), in June. Then was off to Spain with other high school educators where he walked the Camino Ignaciano—selected spots along the way from Bilbao to Barcelona.

Jullia Chowdhury–Quazi and her husband are finally done with the years of tireless educational advocacy. Their son, Kairan, graduated from Santa Clara University in June, at age 14, as the youngest grad in the institution’s history, joined SpaceX in July as the youngest software engineer on the planet, has been featured in thousands of media pieces across the globe, and will soon be inducted into Guinness. Jullia took a three-year break from a career in health-care M&A and looks forward to the next chapter as the family returns to some form of normalcy.

After nearly 25 years in network news as an award-winning reporter and TV and podcast producer, Stacey Samuel has branched out and started her own firm producing podcast series for streaming services, nonprofits with a mission, and global clients.

Christianne Rennke Phillips has taken her two decades as a holistic fitness instructor and nationally titled/winner competitor and certified chef and is now working on a book combining food and culture, drawing on her Chilean heritage and family.

Danny Atwood has taken to writing short stories with his writing group (books selling on Amazon), joined the furry community and attended conventions in character, even managed to learn digital art making. But best of all is the moonlighting gig taken on as the “Real Bearded Santa,” being hired out as a Santa Claus Christmas performer to spread joy and good cheer. “What started out as a lark, buying a Santa suit from Amazon and wearing it out into my neighborhood during the pandemic to bring a little magic to neighbors who desperately needed it, has turned into something much bigger. Getting old and fat isn’t so bad after all!”

In July 2023, Tracie Broom enjoyed a vacation reunion in Italy at the MacZoni Recanati Estate with a bunch of Wes grads. Jason Walchli, his wife, Pamela Bock, and their two kids, Eli and Casey, came from Portland, Oregon. Tony Schloss ’97 and Juno Shaye ’98 came from Brooklyn with their three kiddos, Cy, Uno, and Paloma. Diego Gutierrez ’97 and Kim Diaz ’97 came from LA with their two kids, Bruno and Dahlia. (The MacZoni estate is owned by their dear friends, Mariah Maclachlan and Peldi Guilizzoni, who are known well to many Wes friends around the country.) Back home in Columbia, South Carolina, Tracie and Debi Schadel, the co-owner of her marketing and communications firm, Flock and Rally, were both honored on the Free Times’ “Power List 2023: 30 People Shaping Arts, Culture and Food in Columbia” and they have been successfully delegating most agency operations to their CEO in the last year—a real milestone for entrepreneurs! Tracie and her partner, Scott Nuelken, spent the rest of the summer getting his daughter, June, ready for freshman year at Wofford College in South Carolina. Tracie is deep into gardening and loves to see nerdy gardening posts from fellow Wes folks on social media.

Please write to your class secretaries.

Caissa writes for this issue.

Hello, all! I hope that this message finds you well. My prayers go out to everyone impacted by the wildfires, storms, earthquakes, and other recent incidents. May you and your families be safe.

On this front, my family is well, and all are accounted for, thankfully. As August comes to a close, it feels like another summer flew by rather quickly. Happily, aside from work, I have been enjoying the beautiful weather; spending lots of time with family; and painting with acrylics, as often as possible. This native Bronx girl even took in a Mets game recently and was pleasantly surprised when they won.

In other news . . .

Holly Bennet writes, “As (one of our) class agents, I want to thank you all for your show of support to Wes this year! Great things are happening AND we have a monumental reunion coming up next year—30! (Brooke Singer, you better finally get back to campus.)” She is still out in Southern California and is now building robot cars to “save us from ourselves and to improve our communities and the climate crisis.” Holly adds that she is also grappling with the fact that “our daughter, Eleanor, is going all the way to The Other Coast for college. I’d be totally wretched except she is going to WES! She has already made off with all my ‘vintage swag.’”

Kate Foster shares that she has started a new job working for the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy as their Mid-Atlantic director of Trail Development, which is based in Baltimore. She adds, “my two daughters are in college, so I’m learning how to do the empty-nest thing after two decades of having kids at home.”

Joseph Mahoney and Deborah Levin Mahoney ’96 write, “Our son is heading to Wesleyan this fall to be a 2027 grad.”

Well, that is all for now. Congratulations to all and a warm welcome to our future Wesleyan alumni!🎊

Wes friends, we have some exciting updates in this set of class notes.  Coming off our 30th Reunion, several classmates will return to campus this fall to drop off their children, who will be members of the Class of 2027. This has been an exciting reunion year, thanks to the fantastic reunion committee and amazing Wesleyan staff.

Jacob Bricca emails, “I’m writing with the happy news that the feature documentary Missing in Brooks County, which I produced and edited, was recently awarded a George Foster Peabody Award. My wife, Lisa Molomot, who produced and co-directed the film, shared in the honors. I’ve also recently released a new book, How Documentaries Work, published by Oxford University Press.”

Camille McGadney and Andrew McGadney’s ’92 daughter, Naomi, will begin classes at Wesleyan this fall as a member of the Class of 2027.

Laura Ross writes, “As of July 1, I’ve been named head of school at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. I’ve been there for the last six years, most recently serving as associate head, and am very excited to take on this new challenge. Perhaps even more importantly, my husband Gregg ’90 and I are thrilled to report that our daughter, Casey, is a member of the Wesleyan Class of 2027 and can’t wait to arrive on campus for the first time in August. It was wonderful to see so many friends at our reunion in May.”

Hello fellow ’92ers!

Normally I am simply the conduit of information but this time, I have a bunch of news of my own to kick us off. In August, Princeton University Press published my new book, Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It. I’ve been working on this project since the early months of the first Obama administration so I’m thrilled (and relieved!) to finally see it off in the world. Also in August, I dropped my son Ben off at the University of Virginia where he is starting his first year. Just before I did, I had dinner with Matt Schortmann and Soo Lim whose daughter, Liv, is about to start her last year at UVA. It was great to see them and my fellow Itza Pizza alums Sarah Guernsey and Adam Blumer ’91, who all live in the Boston area.

I’ve got a lot of company in taking the college step, judging from my Facebook feed. Christina Scully Manning dropped her son off at Pomona College, Samantha Ball Karmel dropped her son off at Cornell, and my first-year roommate James Wilton dropped off his youngest daughter, Lola, at NC State. Lola joins her older sister Carley who is a junior education major. She just missed overlapping with her older brother Jack, who graduated from NC State this year and accepted a leadership development position in Orlando, Florida, with Colony Hardware. Now an empty nester, James remains in Waxhaw, North Carolina, and earlier this year added the title of branch manager to his duties as national account manager for Genesis10 in Charlotte, North Carolina. And he was named head coach for the Weddington (North Carolina) Middle School sixth grade football team for this coming season.

Also on the college front, Chris Chesak’s older daughter is off to Ohio State. Chris continues to live in Cincinnati and is a freelance writer and executive director of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. He was also just elected president-elect of the Society of American Travel Writers.

We also have a few classmates who are sending their kids to Wesleyan, 35(!) years after we started. Laura Hill’s daughter, Allegra, is joining the class of 2027, as is Byron King’s daughter, Merriwether. Bryon also reports that he recently attended the wedding of Julien Farland. In attendance from were Saad Khan ’93 and Anand Kini.

Cati Coe and her spouse moved from Philadelphia to Ottawa, Ontario, last year to take a position at Carleton University as a Canada research chair in migration and care.

Ken Lefkowitz is keeping busy co-developing an 80MW wind farm near the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria. Jennifer Blaine is still based out of Philadelphia and launched a new solo multi-character work, Mannequin, in May 2023. She also continues to work as a comedian and produced a new show in September in FringeArts, a festival based out of Philadelphia.

Kevin Prufer is still teaching in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and has two books coming out soon. The Fears, a poetry collection, will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2023, followed by Sleepaway: A Novel, from Acre Books in 2024.  Another recent author is Susannah Fox whose book, Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care is coming out this fall with MIT Press.

Jill Slater lives in Manhattan with her husband and nine-year-old daughter and leads Resiliency for the New York City Housing Authority.

And finally, Abby (Smith) Saguy will be spending the 2023–24 academic year in NYC as a Russell Sage Foundation fellow, living with her husband, Dotan. They are hoping for visits from their daughter, Claire, who will be in her senior year at UCLA, where she is majoring in labor studies and minoring in Spanish and food studies, as well as their son, Jonah, who will be in his second year at UC Riverside, where he is majoring in computer science with business application. And tying into Abby’s news is my last piece of news: I’ll be joining Abby at Russell Sage in February 2024 for five months, marking my return to Manhattan after over 30 years away. I’ll be excited to see my old friends, so give me a ring if you are in NYC!

That’s all for now. Please send me your news and notes for the next issue!

Let’s catch up with Narda Jones, who serves as the Federal Communications Commission’s chief of staff, having joined the team from the White House where she was the director of legislative affairs for the Office of Science and Technology Policy. It’s a Wesleyan affair at the FCC, as the chairwoman is Jessica Rosenworcel ’93.

In 2022, Narda was recognized as a Leadership Honoree by Crittenton Services of Greater Washington. At the presentation, Narda spoke of the importance of representation, and being in the room when decisions are made.

Mark Kiefer debuted his first feature film, Pacific Coast, at the Woods Hole Film Festival in August. This “coming-of-middle age” comedy joins two brothers on a road trip from San Francisco to LA, in order to help their somewhat estranged father move into a retirement home.

Those of you who remember Mark as an economics major at Wes or knew of his long career in management consulting, will wonder how this twist in life happened. Mark says the film is “in part inspired by my own ‘journey,’ so what it’s really about is trying to find our creative voice later in life, while we still have time.”

Please forgive me if I have missed an email with your news—putting “Class Notes” in the subject line helps me stay on top of messages.

Hi all. There were some nice updates and Wes memories this time around.

Owen Renfroe fondly remembers: “Best film class: Film Noir, J. Basinger. Taught me nuts-and-bolts lessons about visual storytelling that I use every day at work! Best other class: Arts in America, Creeger/Reed. A glorious walk through American art. A real invitation to explore many great works of art that make up [and] express the American spirit. Who knew Phillip Sousa wrote all those marches!?!.”

Carol Cleverdon Booth recalls that some “of the best music I heard at Wes was in the Foss tunnels—friends jamming in a makeshift band, listening to Straight Ahead in that large underground space. Best classes: Intellectual History of the Enlightenment with Professor Henry Abelove and all my Russian classes. Favorite quote from Professor Irina Aleshkovsky as we first-year students were trying to master writing the Cyrillic alphabet in cursive: “Do not hurry as you write. Remember, time is money only in United States.” Professor Bob Whitman and I stayed in touch, and I am grateful he met my son before he passed.”

Susan Ellman writes that she and Stu ’88 “are well and almost ‘empty nesters.’ Our son, Ben, who was born around our 10th Reunion, works at a real estate private equity firm in New York. Our daughter, Lily, just completed a gap year in Israel and starts college this fall. Stu still works at the VC firm he founded after business school and I am doing a lot of fiction and essay writing in the quiet of this empty nest. It’s not completely quiet, though: Our newest baby is a tricolor corgi named Bamba. He’s very cute, smart, and if Stu could carry him around in a Baby Bjorn, I think he might . . . . A favorite Wesleyan memory? My Low Rise ‘10-Man’ threw an ‘anti-Valentine’s Day’ party, sophomore year. Everyone was instructed to wear black and we served a frightening concoction called Liquid Lust. Stu and I met at that party and started going out shortly after. Favorite course: Woolf, Cather, and Colette taught by Phyllis Rose.”

Victor Khodadad will be performing with New Camerata Opera this fall. More information is available at www.newcamerataopera.org. Victor’s “favorite class while I was at Wesleyan was Acting with Bill Francisco. He was unbelievably talented as a director and acting teacher, and each class was always something that I eagerly looked forward to and learned from immensely.”

That’s all for now. Please write me with any news you would like to share!

Before we get to all the awesomeness going on with all you awesome people, Michele and I want to remind everyone that our 35th REUNION is coming up this spring! Clear your schedules, reserve your rooms, and prepare to descend on Foss Hill en masse! Now to our updates.

Alex McClennen Dohan got into the sheep spirit, writing: “Well, I don’t baaa-lieve I have anything too quirky to report, but Dave Dohan and I just celebrated 30 years of marriage in June. Our lambs are grown—daughter is an attorney and son a grad student—and our current home flock consists of a dog (part shepherd!) and a cat. Vacations are more fun than work, but we are both still happy in our jobs—me knitting various programs together in the Education Department of Mass Audubon, and Dave spinning along as a physician.”

Amy Redfield is loving living in Lisbon. Holler if you’re in town.

Marisa Cohen still works at Hearst with Stephanie Dolgoff, even though the chatbots keep threatening to take all the magazine jobs. Her daughter, Bellamy, graduated from Williams last spring and is living at home while launching a journalism/songwriting career (another daughter, Molly, is a junior psych major at Bowdoin). She and her husband have been spending more weekends in the Berkshires. (If you’re near Richmond, Massachusetts, look them up!) She’s also been making up for lost theater time during the pandemic by seeing a lot of Broadway shows this year, often with Sarah Chumsky, and David Averbach when he’s in town.

Sam Glazer was featured in an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Sex, Drugs and Spreadsheets.”

Karen (McClafferty) Jarsky is living in Acton, Massachusetts, with her husband and son, who is headed off to college in the fall. She is loving teaching writing (remotely) for UCLA. Her local friends include a surprisingly large number of Wes alums ranging from Class of 1983 to Class of 2016. Clearly age doesn’t matter when you have Wesleyan in common!

David Levine convened with Stu Berman, Neil Blicher, and Alan Cohen, at Rick Kotler’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for their annual summer retreat. Joe Biden was a no-show and no classified documents were found in Rick’s garage. They nonetheless had a good time commiserating about how old we are. Likely more was discussed, but who can remember?

John Hlinko is still living in Georgetown in an old church that was converted about 100 years ago. It’s right next to a park that used to be a cemetery and given that property lines weren’t that well delineated a century ago, he’s been urged “don’t dig too deep” when planting stuff in the yard. Amazingly, the house doesn’t seem to be haunted.  His wife, Leigh, is an architect and has written two books—The Green Workplace and The Healthy Workplace (especially relevant in the COVID era). They also collaborated on Pandemic Pickup Lines, which has raised funds for pandemic-related relief efforts.  One daughter is a high school senior looking at colleges and the other still has a ways to go for that. He is still working with Left Action, an activist community aimed at promoting good causes and candidates, and opposing things like fascists overthrowing democracy. It is likely to be a very busy year, with 2024 elections coming up quickly. . . .

In the same vein, Chris Zurn just published a book entitled Splitsville USA: A Democratic Argument for Breaking up the United States (Routledge: 2023). He makes the argument that there is a real danger of the end of basic electoral democracy in the United States in the next few years and suggests that the only way to avoid that is to negotiate a peaceful political divorce of our single nation and reconstitute several new nation states in its place.

Jessica Glass writes: “Hard to believe it’s been two years since we lost our beautiful comrade, Dominique Jones ’91. That was a very sad thing about 2021. But getting together at Lewis Canfield’s (’90) home in NYC to celebrate Jonesy’s life and memory helped a little. Drove to Brooklyn and cried in Deirdre Simon’s (’90) car. Commiserated with members of her family, and many Wes friends from several different graduating classes. Dominique had an amazing way of transcending age, race, class, whatever divides. She had a spirit that was genuine and positive and truly interested in people. We all remembered her interest in fashion and artistry in knitting, her deep appreciation of books and libraries, magazines and reading, her love and support of her friends, her infectious laugh. Many folks who knew and loved Dominique have made donations to a fund at the Brooklyn Public Library called Shine on Me, a program that supports unhoused adults with life coaching and resource advice. Dave Raymond ’87 and I trundle on with our historic sheep farm in northern Connecticut, with 60 adult woolies and 30 lambs each year. Producing wool blankets, sheepskins, and our inimitable Hildred’s Farm Sheep Calendar keeps us busy when we’re not producing video and engineering audio. Sheep on Earth, Good Wool to all!”

Camille Kotton reports having a wonderful visit with Sandeep Wadhwa when he came to stay with his daughter when they were touring colleges. Same when David French was touring with his son. She is on the CDC advisory committee on immunization practice (ACIP) and has been making national decisions on vaccination for the past three years.

Dave Keller released his 10th (!) album, It’s Time to Shine, featuring a bunch of new original soul- and blues-inspired songs. He’s also going to be featured in a full-page story in the French edition of Rolling Stone! Away from the rockstar world, he is preparing to be an empty nester, as both daughters will soon be in college; the oldest at Bard, the youngest at New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. He has a three-week East Coast tour in November. Details at www.davekeller.com.

Stephan Kline reports on his daughter Batya ’23 just graduated from Wes, joining her brother Noah ’21 as an alum. Batya will remain in Middletown for the next two years for a Wesleyan master’s program in ethnomusicology. She is excited to continue her studies on guitar and percussion and they are excited that her tuition is waived for this world-class program and she receives a stipend.

If you’re in the Philly area, drop Josh Drew a line. He is living there with his spouse of 20-plus years who is a Philly local, three kids, ages 16, 16, and 17, two elderly cats, and a pandemic-adopted mutt. They relocated about three years ago after a four-year expat stay in Amsterdam, which coincided neatly with the period 2016–2020. He is practicing law with a Washington, D.C., firm, after spending most of his career with the government and in house. They are visiting campuses, including Wes, helping their high school senior with the daunting college application process. He is in regular contact with Greg Berman, Carolyn Vellenga, Kelem Butts, Mark Saudek, and Kevin Majewski; would love to hear news of others.

Peter writes for this issue.

Elaine Tassy reports that following her surgeries related to a brain tumor and a detached retina back in 2017, her road to recovery culminated in 2022 with a return to her professional passion of journalism. She is now working as a senior reporter at Colorado Public Radio where she covers race, diversity, and equity and where she has won several reporting prizes. Elaine is in the process of buying a new home in the Denver area.

Steve Almond writes that he is living outside of Boston with his wife and three kids while enjoying teaching Wesleyan students. A film of his novel, Which Brings Me to You, will be out in late fall or winter. His most recent novel, All the Secrets of the World, has been optioned for TV by 20th Century Studios and his forthcoming novel, Truth is an Arrow, Mercy is a Bow, will be released in spring 2024.

Andrew Campbell shares sad news: This past July he was in Hawaii at the side of Tim McCallum when Tim finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer. The night before Tim passed, Chris Gentili ’90 had helped organize a group Zoom call involving many of Tim’s friends and Chi Psi fraternity brothers where they had a chance to speak with Tim and share with him how much impact he had on their lives.

More sad news: Two classmates passed away last April. Kellina Craig-Henderson died on April 21. The National Science Foundation, her employer for many years, said she was “a dedicated leader. . . [who] worked tirelessly to engage underrepresented groups in science.” Her obituary can be read here. And Rob James passed away on April 29 in Phoenix, Arizona. Many may remember Rob from his four years playing basketball for Wesleyan. After graduating, Rob went to medical school, eventually working as a primary care physician and later a pediatrician. His obituary can be read here.

Hello Class of ’87. August was winding down as I wrote this, and you had news to share!

John Barney had a recent intergenerational Wes moment in Albuquerque when he ran into Quinn Mendelson ’17 at an urban agricultural garden cleanup and public meeting. Quinn is a team leader for Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, and John is the planning manager for Bernalillo County Parks and Recreation. They are working together with many other local stakeholders to re-create urban alleyways as green spaces and safe spaces for the unhoused in the International District—the densest and most ethnically diverse zip code in New Mexico.

Michael Morris reports that he had the great fortune to grab a cup of coffee and a bagel while reconnecting with his awesome classmate and former tennis partner, Jeremy Mindich, in NYC in May. They caught up on 35 years and had a great time laughing about their time together back at Wesleyan.

Rebecca Bratspies published a book titled Naming Gotham: The Villains, Rogues, and Heroes Behind New York Place Names. It is a fun, gossipy history that raises some serious questions about who gets to decide what counts as history.  As the founding director of the CUNY Law School Center for Urban Environmental Reform, Rebecca is the author of a comic book series, The Environmental Justice Chronicles. The EPA awarded the series, made in collaboration with artist Charlie LaGreca-Velasco, its 2023 Clean Air Excellence Award for Education/Outreach. She also reports that she has a rising senior looking at colleges, and her Allen continues to compose while recovering from an illness.

Steven Kaminsky and his family recently moved back to Charlottesville, Virginia, after 20 years in Los Angeles. Steven continues to work in the movie business. His wife, Leslie Repetto (UVA ’96), works in advertising PR. Their daughter, Juliet, is in third grade and absolutely loves living in the country as much as he does.

In June 2022, Ken Mathews retired from 35 years in public education. Ken ended his career as the math supervisor for New Haven Public Schools, one of Connecticut’s largest and most economically challenged school districts. Ken’s wife also retired and they’ve done a bit of traveling. They hiked the Canadian Rockies at Banff National Park and they are regularly enjoying time in Punta Cana. Still, Ken didn’t rest for long! In September, Ken began work as a practitioner in residence at University of New Haven, teaching calculus. Ken has made good use of technology, filling his syllabus with hyperlinks to support his students. Instead of Khan Academy, he’s thinking he is more Ken Academy. (And that’s Kenough?) On the family front, Ken’s got a full house with three 20-somethings. In November, his son Alex, who moved out five years ago, will be moving back home. His daughter moved back in April, and the middle son never left. Ken is looking for advice from anyone who has more successfully mastered the art of getting their kids to leave permanently.

For many years, in her role with AARP, Grier Mendel lived in Seattle but worked on Washington, D.C., time. She retired from her position as communications manager in June and is testing out a life where she wakes up at home without worrying what time it is on the East Coast. This cavalier awareness of the clock didn’t last long as her daughter started school at Loyola University Maryland in the fall.

In March, Grattan Baldwin and his wife, Cristina, welcomed their daughter, Maria Luce Baldwin, into the family. He will be spending this fall on paternity leave. When he’s not on leave, Grattan works at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore where he is an associate professor of education.

As for me, I was re-orged out of a job during COVID. I started my own business, RZG Editorial Solutions, in 2020. I mostly work in educational publishing and I have done research, writing, and editing work on K–12 social studies and literacy programs for various clients. I’m expanding my base to include work with start-up nonprofits and really enjoying the work. I’ve also been doing some rewarding volunteer teaching with an organization that helps first-generation college students make the move from college to career. During each semester, I facilitate a cohort of students during a course to help them learn about networking, interviewing, and creating resumes and cover letters.

Finally, I have sad news to report: We recently learned that Joy M. Lambe passed away on May 3, 2018. Joy kept a journal that has been published as the book Finding Joy on the Path of Divine Health and Wholeness, documenting her experience with a terminal illness. Sending love to all who knew Joy.

As we were going to press, I received news that Brad Vogt passed away unexpectedly on September 20, 2023. His obituary can be read here. Condolences to his wife, children, and extended family.

Hope everyone is well. Go Wes!