Author: etaylor

Anne Noel Occhialino writes: “Like many others, I have been hunkered down at home for the last year with my daughters (hybrid school), husband (working at home), and one-eyed Golden Retriever (loving every minute of having everyone home!). The highlight of my year was the Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status, as I worked on these cases for the EEOC at the court of appeals level. A silver lining of the pandemic has been monthly Zoom calls with my cross-country friends, including Joe Mahoney ’94, Sean Mazer ’94, Matt Schneider ’93, Jon Chesto ’93, Arthur Magni ’93, Deb Levin ’96, and Amy Dain ’96. Love Wes! For my 49th birthday last week, my father even sent me a Wesleyan T-shirt! Hope my classmates are staying healthy and that the next few months brings a reprieve from the pandemic.

Jonathan Kirsch is running a new mobile health initiative at the U of Minnesota med school, bringing high quality preventative and advanced medical care to marginalized communities, like farmworkers, meatpackers and other jobs where refugees, immigrants and migrants work.

Erika Phillips (formerly Amy Phillips) writes: “The program that I created, manage and facilitate for The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego where I am an Arts Engagement Programs Manager, Reflecting Shakespeare, is a transformative arts program for the incarcerated and justice-involved.  During the pandemic, with generous grants from the California Arts Council and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the program has expanded to reach the Reentry and Youth populations.  For the adult populations on lockdown, our program has transformed to correspondence and video formats.  The videos have been released on The Old Globe’s website and youtube pages and can be viewed by the public at large.  We are currently in Series 3 exploring Much Ado About Nothing through a healing and social justice lens with a panel of hosts that include artists who were formerly incarcerated.  Interested parties can watch and send in their responses.  We will feature community writing in a final episode.

I was also recently featured on Episode 17 of the podcast A Life in the Theatre, where I got to talk all about this work.” 

Eliza Comer reached out to a bunch of friends and provided us with the following updates: “I don’t know if I’ve ever written in, but I used the Class Notes deadline as an excuse to check in with some friends via WhatsApp and text to try get some deets on everyone’s current realities, as well as their TV and movie suggestions. And to continue my tradition of ultimate procrastination (which I honed at Wes and has served me well in my career), I only reached out to people today, the day before the notes were due. And now, in alphabetical order by last name…”

Neeti Bambrah, from DC: “I am still a practicing PM&R physician (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation), doing mostly electrodiagnostic testing and spine in an orthopedic practice. I have been living in downtown DC since medical residency … so have officially been through some interesting times! Especially lately… I still manage to try and get a daily run in by the monuments.”

Julie Beattie, from Colorado: “I’m in product marketing and research in the technology talent acquisition space (working for DHI Group Inc if that’s easier to say). Adam ‘93 and I live in Denver with our daughter who started high school this year at the same high school I attended (although between Covid and how the school has evolved it’s a pretty different experience!). We’ve been thankful to live in CO and enjoy extra ski days this season as a family pandemic activity.” 

Nicole Cho, from Massachusetts: “I’ve been working in philanthropy as an Information Services Manager for over a year in Boston and spent the past year working from home with my husband. Ted Lasso is a must watch for a good laugh and a bit of light heartedness!”

Karine Chung, from California: “I’m a fertility doctor in Los Angeles with two smelly teenage boys, my husband who is a critical care doctor, and our dog Auggie, who we are obsessed with. My favorite pandemic tv series is Ted Lasso because it makes me feel so happy. But also just started watching an oldie but goodie – Freaks and Geeks.”

Nimali Fernando, from Virginia: “The Dr. Yum project, a nonprofit I founded, is holding its annual fundraising event as a Virtual Celebration on Friday, April 16th, at 7pm. Go to https://www.doctoryum.org/ for more information.” 

Adji Gadson, from California: “I live in Los Angeles, a mile from my twin sister, and am working at CAA. With a 30-foot commute instead of 30-minutes, as a long time New Yorker, I have a new appreciation for California!” 

Rula Geha, from California: “I moved to California from NYC in the fall after being in NYC since 2001. Now I am closer to my family. I have one daughter who is 8 years old. I work as a physician consultant for a financial company doing biotechnology due diligence and medical and scientific philanthropy as well as running the corporate health program. Fortunately school is open here, because I was losing it as an elementary school teacher!”

Pammie Nguyen from NY: “We’re in the suburbs north of the city, and I’m still a neuroradiologist, still at Columbia. Mike is still a head and neck surgeon. Our loud rambunctious boys are now 9 and 12 and were happy to play board games with us at the beginning of the pandemic, but that didn’t last long. So we got a pandemic puppy, a Golden doodle named Baloo. And that’s about it! Oh, and Ted Lasso is my latest obsession! And Wanda Vision!”

Kristy Scanlan, from California: “We are moving within the same building, to a 2 bedroom on the other (sunnier) side. Now that I will be WFH permanently, as well as my bf, we needed a bit more space and a home office.  I do not miss the commute and actually really like working from home, but sitting all day at the dining room table sucks.  I look forward to having an actual room with a desk and proper desk chair.  But moving is no fun.  I am up to my ears in boxes. I just started season 2 of Schitt’s Creek (I know, I’m behind).  Love it!!” 

Laurie Sorabella, from Virginia: “In the last several years, I have been restoring oyster reefs in Virginia’s waterways, teaching science, running races (with Claire), and living in Virginia Beach with my husband and three children. My oldest has started looking at colleges, so we’ll be visiting Wes this summer.”

Caitlin Dunne Wilson, from New Jersey: “I am working on Verizon’s next generation network, from home. I have been enjoying the extra time I have been getting to spend with my twin 10 year olds, and the rewards I am getting from homeschooling them. In my spare time, I’ve been busy with my company caitlinwilson.com. If you need serious design help, or just a pretty pillow, let me know.”

Claire Wingfield, from DC: “My nephew will be attending Wes this fall as class of 2025–following in his mother, father, auntie and cousin’s footprints—the 5th family member to graduate since 1991! I have rewatched Schitt’s Creek seasons 1-6 at least 3 times, and Derry Girls twice through, but I’m still stuck in season 2 of Breaking Bad because it stresses me out!”

Sondra Youdelman, from NYC: “I live in Brooklyn, NY and am the Campaign Director for People’s Action, a national network of state-based power-building organizations. I’m thrilled to no longer have to orient everything against Trump (though Trumpism is still alive and well!), and finally be able to work on some proactive campaigns, including being a piece of the puzzle to land the $1.9 trillion federal relief bill that was just secured. Next up – addressing recovery in a way that creates jobs, addresses climate change, and focuses on equity and structural reform! “Seeing people” has been limited of late, but I live a long walking distance from Melissa Woods and have managed a few social distance get togethers with Nicole Davis and Eliza Comer as well.”

And finally, Eliza Comer provided her own update from NYC: “I’m lucky to have had continuous work with Zero Point Zero (mostly WFH), mainly on the CNN series “United Shades of America” with W. Kamau Bell. We managed to shoot 7 episodes across the U.S. from September to February, with serious Covid protocols in place, and nobody got sick. (S6 premieres 5/2.) I’m grateful to be in post production now and am sleeping much better! In my down time, I’ve been tooling around the neighborhood on my new blue Razor scooter, and have been bidding in Housing Works Thrift Shop auctions on various items I don’t need, like a tin chair with a ram’s head on the side, and then praying that someone will outbid me and I won’t have to spend $175 on a chair I don’t really want. I recently re-watched a few 80’s favorites: Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, and Trading Places. I’ve also joined the 21st century and enjoyed Schitt’s Creek, Tiger King, and Bridgerton, and am just getting into Watchmen.” Thanks for all the updates, Eliza!

As for me (Caissa), I’m happy to report all is well from New Jersey. I completed and received my master’s in adult education in December 2020. I am looking forward to the virtual graduation ceremony to be held this month. I pray that all is well with all of you!

Hi, all! I heard from lots of people for the first time this go-round. Yay! So without further ado . . .

     Jason Fischer received his PhD in counselor education and supervision from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas this past December.

      Cain Dimon writes, “After 16 years in private practice I have gone into academics. I have joined the Duke University School of Medicine as an assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology. I moved to Durham in December. So far all is going very well. Enjoying teaching and the warmer climate of North Carolina versus Michigan.”

     Isaac Kaufman writes, “I have been practicing law in the Twin Cities since 2003. Last year I launched Red Cedar Consulting, a solo practice with a focus on workplace investigations and professional development. This coming June my wife Kimberly Ferencik and I will be celebrating our 20-year wedding anniversary.”

     Alicia Bassuk writes, “As a mother of two 23-year-olds, I am happily empty nesting with my soulmate. I channeled my COVID concerns into co-authoring a COVID Roadmap with a bipartisan team led by the Harvard Ethics Center, and am having my most professional fun working with NBA players, coaches, and front office execs, for which I was awarded an NBA Championship Ring by the Toronto Raptors in 2019!”

     Diego von Vacano spent most of the year 2020 as an advisor to the Luis Arce presidential campaign in Bolivia. Socialist Arce eventually won in October in a landslide of 55 percent of the vote. Thanks to Dennis White (Wes class of 2019), he collaborated to work with Bernie Sanders, who provided crucial support during the interim de facto government preceding Arce’s win. Diego continues to advise Arce on a range of issues, from academics, to relations to the U.S., to the emerging lithium sector for green energy.

     Emmanuelle C. Slossberg is now the vice president of marketing for the Durst Organization, a 100-year-old family-owned real estate owner, developer and operator. The company sets new standards of environmental stewardship and is dedicated to the principles of innovation, integrity, community and sustainability. She’s also joined the board of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization (CSU.global) a collaboration between UN Habitat and the design and civic community that shares global best practices for how to design, maintain and plan the built environment.

      Jacob Bricca is celebrating the release of the feature documentary Missing in Brooks County which he produced and edited. It has played at over a dozen film festivals, winning Best Southern Documentary at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, and will have its broadcast premiere in fall 2021 on PBS’s Independent Lens. He is at work on a book called How Documentaries Work for Oxford University Press. 

     Speaking of documentaries, Aaron Matthews writes, “A documentary I recently made, The War and Peace of Tim O’Brien, is set for release on March 2. The film follows renowned author and Vietnam veteran, Tim O’Brien, struggling to write one last book. That book incidentally started when Bill Shapiro ’87, who was the editor-in-chief of Life at the time, encouraged Tim to pen an essay for the magazine about becoming a father at a late age. That was 20 years ago, and my documentary chronicles Tim writing the book that grew out of the essay for Bill. Jennifer Mittelstadt ’92 is the producer on the film.”

     And furthering the theme of documentaries: Dan Crane stopped being a print journalist to become a documentary filmmaker. In late 2019, he began working with Matt Tyrnauer ’91, producing a documentary for Showtime that should air in late 2021. He spent most of lockdown working remotely from his new home in a small town in northern England, where he wrote and directed a documentary titled Let Me Be Me about an autistic boy who undergoes an experimental treatment and grows up to become a fashion designer (produced by Wavelength Productions). His three-year-old daughter has picked up an English accent, and he is trying to master the art of making Yorkshire puddings.

      Paul J. Darcy writes, “After eight years leading marketing for the job site Indeed, I left to become CMO of the fast-growing software company Miro. Despite the job change, I am happy to be staying put in downtown Austin with Gray (18), Ellis (17), and Lia (12) and my partner Patricia. We feel lucky to be able to safely work and go to school during these crazy times.”

      Andy Nordvall writes, “I’ve been enjoying walks along the Los Angeles River, weekly take-out brunch, and surviving the pandemic. My podcast Burn After Pitching now streams on the Grand Geek Gathering Twitch channel. Last year, I signed with a literary agent and took out one picture book (Fjork the Viking) and one middle grade graphic novel (Better Than Dinosaurs!), with more works in the pipeline, and I’ve been teaching English remotely.”

Dear Classmates: As I write this, we are going into the second year of the COVID pandemic. Things have slowed down for sure, but there is a surprising amount of news from the class of 1992 to share!

     One of the most exciting things I did this last year (low bar, I know, but trust me, this event would be exciting in any year) was joining my senior year housemate Simon Fulford online to witness the swearing in of another housemate Jon Pratt to be the new U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Djibouti, on January 6, 2021. Given the other news from D.C. that day, it was heartening to see that good men like Jon remain dedicated to government service.

    Simon is still living in Portland, Oregon where, since last year, life has been quite an adventure­—local forest fires in September giving way to ice storms and power loss in February. All that, and his family just got a kitten!

     Sarah Tunik and Dan Oppenheimer ’89 are thrilled to report that their third and final child is headed to Wesleyan, class of ’25. Their oldest son graduates from Wes this fall (it’s like they’re the House of Windsor!), while their daughter continues at the University of Vermont. Sarah and Dan are hoping the empty nest will lead to travels once COVID conditions permit! They should have plenty of time for that: Sarah is retiring after 20 years of teaching and Dan has been doing remote rare disease biotech consulting.

     Jonathan Soros reports that in the midst of a pandemic he launched a new network of professional sports leagues. Athletes Unlimited had an extremely successful inaugural softball season in August 2020, and will add volleyball and lacrosse in 2021. 

     The New York Times ran a great piece on Edoardo Ballerini’s thriving career as an audiobook narrator.

     Matt and Soo Schortman’s older daughter, Sophia, is a sophomore at Boston College and their younger daughter, Liv, is a senior in high school.

     Amy (Andrews) Alznauer published three children’s books in 2020, one of which ended up on The New York Times Best 25 Children’s Books of 2020 list (see amyalz.com for more).

     In other publishing news, Shura Pollatsek has a new book, Costume in Motion: A Guide to Collaboration for Costume Design and Choreography. It explores the interaction between costume designers and choreographers. The book has strong Wesleyan connections: it features photo essays documenting dance pieces, including one essay on our classmate Jody Sperling and her company Time Lapse Dance as well as an interview with current Wesleyan Professor of Dance Iddrisu Saaka, about West African dance.

     Heather Nash is practicing psychology and publishing poetry (under her middle name Claudine). Her latest collection Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse won the 2020 Blue Light Press Book Award.

     Jonathan Bell and Sarah Zurier report from Providence, where Sarah works as a historian for the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, and Jonathan has an architecture practice and teaches in the Interior Architecture Department at RISD. Their son is 11 (and shout out to their dog, who turned four). Next year, Jonathan will be in France for six months on a research fellowship and they look forward to a change of scenery!

     Chris Chezak is in Cincinnati, with his wife and two teen daughters. He continues to run the Outdoor Writers Association of America and freelance-write on the side.

     Francesca Harewood was featured in Uptown Magazine in a story about her promotion to senior vice president of business affairs for NBC series, specials, and syndication. Congratulations, Fran!

     David Shadrack Smith is in Brooklyn with his two boys Leo (12) and Lucas (10). His TV/film production company, Part2 Pictures, came out with a well-received series on Hulu, Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, and continued production on their long-running series, This Is Life with Lisa Ling on CNN. Also on the TV production front, Darcy Dennet was in Alaska last Summer directing Yukon Vet for National Geographic Wild. The new season premieres on March 13.

     After retiring from the Navy in 2017, Tamara O’Neil moved into the world of civilian employment at the USPS HQ in DC as an ethics lawyer. But now she’s hung up her Swingline stapler for good and joined the ranks of the faux-retired. 

     Amy Palatnick has written her first book, Can I Be Honest With You?, a romantic comedy dating memoir, that includes some stories from Wesleyan. The paperback, audiobook, and e-book will all be available on May 31.

     And wrapping this thing up, we have news from a first-time notes giver—Jen Crittenden, who is a TV writer and created a new animated show that will air in May. The show, Housebroken, stars Lisa Kudrow, Nat Faxon, Tony Hale and Will Forte.

     Let Jen be an example for everyone out there. We love to hear from everyone, especially folks we haven’t heard from in a while. So keep sending your news!

Greetings from cold and snowy New York—which I hope will be neither by the time you are all reading these notes. Here’s the latest news.

     Carol Lynne Booth writes that she and her family are doing “COVID fine.” Amidst all the craziness, Carol’s youngest daughter has become a sophomore at Vanderbilt, where she has a mix of in-person and online classes. Carol’s middle daughter is about to graduate from Barnard and will be moving to Tucson to work for Intuit in the fall, while her oldest son is in Seattle, enjoying life with his partner of four years and their two cats. “My exciting news is that Jewish Baby Network, my little outreach organization, has become a program of the Bay Area Jewish Family and Children’s Services. It is a great move for us and will help expand our reach and mission. David ’91 is still the senior rabbi at Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto where they have just opened up their newly-built building. Of course, because of COVID no one can use it, but it does look beautiful. And we remain hopeful to all be able to be in it and celebrate soon! David and I continue to enjoy our empty nest and have managed to sneak away for a couple outdoor getaways even during this crazy time, though as I write this we are looking forward to having our girls home for Thanksgiving and winter break. I wish everyone the best and hope everyone is doing ok during this time. Maybe by the time the next issue comes out we will all be in an easier place!”

     When the first of Nicole Grieco Butterfield’s three children left for college in 2017, she left her job teaching English in a traditional school and reinvented her career as an educator, tutoring and teaching custom classes, and advising students and families through the college and secondary school admissions process. Amid the pandemic, she began teaching outdoors, working with pods in her Westchester County neighborhood and recently launching a Writing in Nature program for adults at the Rockefeller State Park Preserve in Pleasantville, New York. This shift has created time for her to keep working on her book about teenage intimate partner violence and to take on public speaking engagements about healthy relationships for students, parents and school personnel.

     While we are on the subject of Nicole Grieco Butterfield, I would like to mention and thank her for setting up Foss First Fridays— regular Zoom calls for those of us who lived in Foss 5, 5.5, 6 and 7. The idea stemmed from the very successful Zoom Reunion sessions last spring and meetings are now scheduled for the first Friday of every month at 5:30 Pacific/8:30 Eastern time. I thought it was great catching up with people at the first one, including, in addition to Nicole, Sarah Ellenzweig (who now can officially add a P’25 to the ’90 after her name!), Peter Brastow, Becky Lloyd DeRoches, Page Fortna, Stephen Norton, and Arieh Rosenbaum. If you are a former Foss dweller and you don’t have the Zoom information for the calls, please email Nicole at nicole@butterfielded.com. The philosophy is the more the merrier so it would be great to have lots of people join!

     Peter Mills Finfrock published Fodder Plants of the New World, a book of poetry.

     Graham Guest has moved to Glasgow, Scotland with his wife, Jen, and daughter Edie. Edie is attending senior school at Kelvinside Academy (online at the moment), and Graham is pursuing his second PhD at the University of Birmingham (UK), in philosophy. Graham’s first PhD was in English at the University of Glasgow.

     Eric Gilman is a fisheries bycatch scientist with The Safina Center and a Pew Marine Fellow, based in Honolulu. He is starting to take virtual college tours with Quinn, his 16-year-old daughter with whom he just recently enjoyed the official Wes campus tour video (about halfway down on the Wesleyan.edu landing page).

     Chris Carlisle writes that after his stint with the Peace Corps in Poland, in 1994, Ulandt Kim drove him as far as Minneapolis to visit Jeff Levine ’91. “From there I flew to San Francisco, flopped for a night on Tracey Jones’s ’91 couch in Oakland, and have been living in Berkeley ever since, just a few blocks from where Eric Gilman first lived and worked. Someday I hope to meet either an extraterrestrial biological entity or my other Wes housemate Holly Folk ’91 or both.”

     Finally, congratulations to Carole Trone, whose team was a winner in September 2020, in the Alliance for the American Dream national competition supported by Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, for the Opportunity Calculator, a digital tool to help raise the net income of 10,000 Dane County, Wisconsin families by 10 percent. More information about the Opportunity Calculator can be found at opportunitycalculator.org.

     Wishing all of you health and safety. Please write with any updates that you have. That’s all for now.

Hey classmates. We are thankful that if you’re reading this, you have made it this far through a historically meaningful, utterly challenging (and traumatizing/RE-traumatizing), and in some ways hopeful time.

We are with you. We want to hear from you; and we can’t wait to roll or slide down Foss Hill again—shout out to Mocon trays—with you someday when we can “reunion” again in person. Until then, please keep being “here” and take good care.

Peter is writing for this issue.

     Hillary shares “I hope you are all well and safe during this supremely challenging year-plus. I feel grateful to be able to work from home for MIT. Despite Zoom fatigue, I enjoy catching up with friends to share meals virtually, and recently participated in a virtual trivia night with Rick Stein to raise funds for an organization he is involved with. Leading up to the November election,  I spent much of my spare time volunteering virtually to help elect Biden-Harris and down-ballot Democrats, and this work helped keep me from doomsday scrolling and rage tweeting. I was so energized by what I was doing that I joined Movement Labs as a volunteer after the election, and now take on regular texting assignments for a diverse mix of progressive candidates and campaigns.”

     Deirdre Davis writes, “One of the main things that helped me get through 2020 were COVID happy hours with a Wes crew that allowed me to stay connected (and in some instances, re-connect) with good friends. Attendees at various points throughout the year included Justine Gubar, Sid Ray, Patrick McDarrah, David Davenport, Karen Yazmajian, Mark Niles, Phil Marwill, Joanna Berwind, Sandro Oliveri, Jono Marcus, Mike Shaffer, and Dylan McDonald!”

     Hannah Doress advises “Celebrating the end of a grueling four years. Thanks for changing our lives for the better to all the Wes folks who stepped up—I enjoyed connecting with election volunteers like Hillary Ross, Monica Jahan Bose ’87, and Liz Pelcyger, and political professionals like Mark Mullen ’89 and John Hlinko ’89.

     Earlier in the year my wife Emily Bender co-founded Voices for Liberation, a coalition of performers for racial justice. We temporarily forgot we were middle-aged and promoted and produced a 12-hour marathon raising $12,000 for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund with the help of Dar Williams ’89, Michele Barnwell ’89, Judith Sansone ’89, Jaclyn Friedman, Anoosh Jorjorian and Eric Hung with an assist from Algernon Austin ’89 (who works for NAACP Legal Defense Fund).

     I’m continuing to work at the intersection of climate resilience, community engagement and equity and inclusion for the County of San Mateo. 

     I’ve recently been on a social media diet (one of my alternative activities was to write an article about voting rights on Medium) so I encourage anyone who wants to get in touch to call (my phone number is easy to find).”

      Chris Galati reports “I’ve found joy during pandemic ennui in little pleasures: a glass of wine at 5:00 p.m., an exciting new Spotify channel, a Korean drama on Netflix, and Friday night sushi takeout. I also have found the courage to pursue one of my childhood dreams: to learn how to play ice hockey. After watching my two sons, Dylan and Geoffrey (10 and eight years old), practice at an ice rink in Yonkers for 10 weeks, I could no longer resist. I bought a new stick and skates, borrowed my son’s helmet and joined a Saturday morning stick and puck session at the LeFrak Rink in Prospect Park. It was 15 degrees and windy the first morning. My fingers and toes were cold. But as the sun glinted off a corner of the ice, I skated across the blue line and took shots on goal. Like a boy playing pond hockey for the first time, I warmed up and smiled. The other players skated circles around me, but I was glad just to be on the ice with them.”

     Linda Brinen-Stout notes: “Reporting from Mill Valley, California. Besides trying to keep the whole human and canine family well—physically and mentally—during the pandemic, I’ve taught myself to sew reusable cloth masks (thank you YouTube). I’ve made more than 5,000 masks and straight up donated more than 4,800 of them to local community members in need. I’ve partnered with Canal Alliance in San Rafael to support the Canal District community, which has been particularly hard hit by COVID-19. Looking forward to getting vaccinated!

     Christie Trott Adelberg writes in “The year 2020-21 has been a wild year for me and my loved ones, with many highs and lows (as I am sure it has been for many of you out there!). Overall, I am filled with gratitude that my family and I are all doing pretty well these days. Since last March 13, the four of us have been at home in the Bay Area zooming all day in four separate rooms. My husband Brad works for SAP, so he arises pretty early to Zoom with co-workers and customers all over Europe. Sam, my musical/artistic high school freshman, attends school all day virtually from her bedroom. It’s crazy to me that she has only set foot once on her new high school campus, but I feel fortunate that she’s been able to do a lot of hiking, biking, and studying with a few of her close friends outside. Hailey, my sporty eighth grader, has just this past week finally started attending school in person every other day. Her ice hockey hopes were dashed as her team has been unable to practice since early fall, but luckily she has picked up lacrosse and they have been able to practice outside. My dad finally retired after 33 years on the bench as a Ninth Circuit Federal Court judge. As for me, I have embarked on one of the most exciting and difficult endeavors of my life thus far: I have co-founded a new private K-8 grade school! Tessellations is an independent, progressive school tailored for gifted students, dedicated to serving the needs of the whole child. We received our nonprofit status (after filling out about 19,387 pages!) and have just secured a beautiful, six-acre campus in nearby Cupertino. Lastly, I have been fortunate to live near many wonderful friends and family during this strange year. I wish the best for all my former ’88 classmates and I am hopeful for a less chaotic, safer and kinder 2021!”

     As for Peter, “I’m busy managing the phenomenal success of my podcast The CPG Guys, which I launched last summer. As of this writing, we have published over 75 episodes and generated 30,000 downloads. The podcast is available on all major platforms and home virtual assistants.”

Hello all! The common denominator in your news this winter was how many of us have connected with classmates in virtual ways. A true benefit of the pandemic which offers so few bright spots! We’ve got a lot of boldfaced names in our column this time around!

     While at home, I’ve been zooming with Grier Mendel, Liz Rabineau, Amy and Eric Mortimer-Lotke, Allegra Burton, Wendy Banner, Barbara Becker ’86, Randi Levinson ’86, Michael Clancy ’88, Chris Roellke, and Dave Robinson for some great Butterfield memories. I’ve also spent some time paring back collected souvenirs and memories, and I’ve found some truly Wesleyan artifacts! Picture the poster built off this text: This is Howard. Howard lives at the Bayit. Howard lives with seven women. Howard’s grandmother is very happy, but How’s Howard? This ad for the “first-annual How’s Howard party at the Bayit” led me to reach out to Howard Bochner, who says he’s hanging in there, and was happy for the memory.

     After six years as a disability rights lawyer with the ACLU, Claudia Center became the Legal Director with the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund where she focuses on the rights of people with disabilities during COVID-19. She writes snail mail postcards as a pandemic activity. Recipients have included Cal Coolidge, Anthea Charles, Becca Gallager, Natasha Kirsten Kraus, Jack Levinson, and Laura Thomas.

     John Katz reports from the Katz/Dipko household. John works with the Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco, focused on sustainability standards for electronics and other products, and supporting efforts to promote business sustainability. His wife, Lisa Dipko ’86, is a social worker at the Veterans Administration nursing home in San Francisco where families have not been able to visit for nearly a year. In November, the family enjoyed a virtual trip to Wes with their high school junior son, where they enjoyed “chatting” with Doug Koplow and George Cabrera ’86. John keeps in touch with Michael Foster, who chairs the East Asian Languages and Cultures Department at UC Davis. They took a three-day backpacking trip together last summer in the Sierras. COVID has given John the opportunity to connect online with Wes folks including Pauline Frommer ’88, Sumana Rangachar (Chandrasekhar), Matt Pollack, Michele Ahern, Jessica Miller, Lael Lowenthal, Lucille Renwick, and Bruno Oliver (Weinburg).

    Darya Mead is a longtime reader, rare participant in our class notes, but she wrote in to report on her activities. She is juggling content creation, strategy and media jobs, jumping through a lot of hoops to work at home. Like most of us, she’s been finding new ways to keep up fitness and enhance mood: hula hooping, Zoom yoga, hikes, kayaking, boogie boarding, camping, Netflix, watercolor projects, and plenty of walks. Darya works mostly for HairToStay, an organization that provides subsidies to low-income cancer patients. She also writes for various outlets including Roam Family Travel and the San Mateo Daily Journal. Her current passion project is a podcast called Hippie Docs 2.0 Re-Humanizing Medicine. Her boys are 21 and 17 and both are history/social science, satire, and soccer buffs. Before COVID, Darya traveled with family in five trips together all over the world as her cousin covered UN Climate Conferences while Darya provided Mary Poppins–level care to her young cousins and wrote about their adventures. Darya’s husband’s job as an event designer has evaporated in the pandemic, so a return to life might be a huge pivot for them. She’s feeling a bit better since January 20th and continuing her bag-of-tricks approach to reality.

     Michael Bennett published his debut novel, Young Donald, with Inkshares (a Wesleyan alumni–run publisher) in October. It’s an imagined biography of Donald Trump in high school.

     Daniel Rauch published Challenging Cases in Pediatric Hospital Medicine (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2021), his second medical book.

     Chris Lotspeich sent greetings and good wishes. In 2016 Chris was diagnosed with ALS, an incurable fatal motor neuron disease. He says that fortunately his progression is very slow and he remains mostly independent. He says otherwise, his life is pretty much perfect with his wonderful wife Amy Dunn and their 12- and 16-year-old daughters in Connecticut. Chris works part-time as the director of sustainability services at NV5 Energy Efficiency Services (formerly Celtic Energy), focusing on resilience, renewable power, and efficiency. He is hoping to complete long-deferred nonfiction books and novels in the years to come. Chris stays in touch with classmates including Rob Campbell, Clarinda Mac Low, Scott Pryce, Dan Sharp, Jason Stell, and Adam Willner.

    Finally, I recently heard from Ira Skolnik who relayed some sad news from his buddy, Dan Levy ’88. Sadly, Dan lost his 22-year-old son last year. Alex Levy was an avid organic farmer and Dan is setting up an endowed fellowship to support a Wesleyan student to work on Wesleyan’s farm each summer. Please contact me for details if you would like to support this memorial fellowship.

     You are reading this many months after I write it, so my close is a little wish for good things for us now. Sending love.

For this issue of Class Notes, rather than share stories about individual members of our class, your class secretary would like to celebrate us as a community and celebrate our journey through life. This spring marks 35 years since we graduated, which puts us at about the halfway mark from 20 to 90. We’ve done so many interesting things; there are so many interesting things still to come.

      In the interim, we have certainly gotten dispersed geographically: we can be found in 44 states and several foreign countries, though there are 15 states where a couple of us can be found (AK, AL, AR, DE, ID, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, NE, OH, SC, TN, WV). At the other end of the scale, there’s New York City where more than 80 of us have congregated. When reviewing our class list and our majors, I had not realized that nearly 1-in-7 of us were English majors (about 100 out of about 750) and that 200+ others were nearly equally distributed among four other majors: Art, Biology, History, and Government. If those five majors made up half the class, maybe we weren’t that diverse after all? Though in each of the five there are quite a few subdisciplines. In any event, what we did at age 18–22 may have helped set the trajectory for our lives, but those majors don’t fully encompass who we are today and why we are loved and appreciated, and while there probably were some broken hearts along the way, hopefully we didn’t accumulate too many enemies.

      In recent years through this Class Notes column we’ve learned about spouses, children, parents, jobs, hobbies, trips, and various passions. We’ve heard of deaths, illnesses, divorce, intermittent retirement, and career shifts. At my urging, you’ve also told of local, often unrecognized, things such as coaching youth sports, serving on the school board, or volunteering at a church or food pantry. These things may not be splashy, but they make a difference, and so it was a pleasure to honor and recognize you for them.

      For myself, on New Year’s Day of 2020, I decided that I would make a conscious effort do at least one additional good deed each week­—sometimes it was mailing a check to a small, under-resourced charity, other times I added things such as hacking back at invasive plant species and picking up trash on the beach. In January 2021, I looked at my list of the 52 things from 2020 and decided to continue this weekly tradition for another year.

     To help broaden our horizons, please continue to share your stories. I’d love to hear about what you are doing and your community involvement. My email is easy to remember (ehoward86@wesleyan.edu), but note that your notes to me won’t be shared with the class. With this issue I’m stepping down from my role as class secretary, and I also asked for others to serve as co-administrators of our Facebook group. As secretary for the past decade, I’ve enjoyed corresponding with many of you, but after 10 years, it is time for someone else.

     I have the honor to be your obedient servant.

Hello again, Classmates. It has been a long winter and hopefully by the time this issue arrives the worldwide health situation will be improving.

     During this long turn inwards, Stephanie Fleischmann has been co-creating The Visitation (here.org/shows/the-visitation/), a sound walk produced by Here, set to launch March 26, which can be experienced anywhere. She has also been writing libretti and texts commissioned by Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Brandeis University, and developing new works supported by West Edge Opera’s Aperture and Opera America. Poppea, with composer Michael Hersch, premieres in Basel and Vienna this fall.

     Mark Randles did not get to go on his annual summer trip to see baseball games at a few different stadiums (and to take in the local history), a tradition he shares with Michael Bailit, Jim Glickman, Bill Barry, Hans Schweiger, and Melany Kahn ’86. Dallas and Houston were supposed to be on their 2020 itinerary, and they are hoping to resume this coming summer.

     Annmarie Zimmerman is taking the time and space afforded by the pandemic to move on from the end of her 35-year marriage. Her kids are supportive and helping complete long-standing house projects. She is reconnecting with old friends, playing the piano, reading more and doing less laundry. She is a physician so her work life has not changed much, just more safety precautions, and she is hopeful about the vaccines on the horizon. As she says, “A fallow time is sometimes what we need to create anew.”

     Karen Rosenberg gets together with a large group of Wes Friends for regular Zoom cocktails, mostly from West College or off-campus on 69 Oak Street. One recent gathering included Maria Mead, Charlotte Sonnenblick Van Doren, Dima Litvinov, Dana Sachs, Heidi Wasch (and her husband Bob), Monica Elias, Sara Jamison, Jim Wasserman, Eric Caplan, Tony Richter, Eileen Kelly, Andy Tauber, Mike Kaplan, Jennifer Colton, John Miya, and Arthur Haubenstock.

     Rob Leland came back from China at the end of 2000, with his wife, and has been living in the Bay Area since. His eldest son began studies at UC Berkeley but has been stuck in his dorm for the pandemic. His daughter will launch next year, and California may or may not be in his future plans.

     Paul Baker continues his work in sculpture, available at his website c-clampstudios.com. During the pandemic, he has been rereading the Hardy Boys series, and is marveling at the vocabulary in these otherwise young adult books. Inspired by the books (and by Professor John Risley’s Visual Connections art class) he has been imagining what camera the different characters would use. He has created a 1959 style Leica camera for Laura Hardy (the mom) and a family movie camera (1961) for Fenton, the dad; and has works in progress for the boys and their friends.

     Gail Farris is excited about becoming a grandparent (daughter Kim, class of ’14 is expecting in April).

     Paul Gross writes from Seattle about his high schoolers in remote (now hybrid) school, and the long wait for the vaccines. They expect to be on the East Coast shore for the summer, following expected orthopedic surgery for their son. He has reconnected with senior housemate Rich Macy and Brian Whittier during the pandemic, as well as his freshman year head resident Joe Barrett ’82. When he connected with RA Janet Cranshaw (Mink) ’82, he found that her husband Jonathan Mink ’81 was also an advisor to the NIH and they have collaborated on research together.

     Lee McIntyre has a new book, How to Talk to a Science Denier, to be published by MIT Press in August 2021, and yes, will include a chapter on COVID denial.

     Finally, I received a late note from Sally Bromage (Suhr), who was one of my fellow denizens in Gingerbread House. Everyone in her house is healthy and employed, and she is one of the people who actually did get to long-term projects and cleaning out. She and husband Scott are empty-nesters in Atlanta, and have children in Denver and both Portlands (Oregon and Maine). She will be giving Delta Airlines a lot of business when we are all able to fly again.

     Time marches on. Talk to you all soon.

Greetings everyone! Here we are about to pass the one-year mark for COVID. Who would have believed such a year could happen? Judging from your emails I see many have adapted to a COVID lifestyle and are making the best of it. Flexibility, creativity, and a sense of grace and gratitude permeate your news. Thanks to all who have contributed. Here we go . . .

     Kate Rabinowitz lives in East Hampton, Long Island, teaches at local schools and runs a memorial arts and wellness foundation for her daughter, Anna. The foundation recently joined forces with Kathy Eldon, the founder of Creativevisions.org, a nonprofit organization that supports creative activists who use arts and media to ignite positive change. During the lockdown Kate teaches online and has time to read again, practice yoga, make art, and take a few writing courses at Stanford University extension. Kate lives with Rameshwar Das ’69, who just finished the memoir Being Ram Dass (Sounds True Publisher). Das met the late Rameshwar Dass at Wesleyan while Dass was teaching in the graduate psychology department.

     Frank Wood has lived in New York City since 1984 with his wife, Kay Gayner, who teaches dance for the National Dance Institute, and three cats. He sits on the advisory board of the Workshop Theater (artistic director Thomas Cote), which supports new works by writers of color. Though performance is mostly shut down in New York, Frank has been cast in episodes of a few of the TV shows following strict COVID protocols. He and friend Maddie Corman teach acting class on Zoom under the auspices of the Atlantic Theater Company.       The memory of his dad, Robert C. Wood, Government chair for 10 years at Wesleyan, reminds him to fight the good fight every day.

     Tim Brockett’s Wesleyan degree in earth science enabled him to mine more precious metals from the Rocky Mountains than he will ever need. And, now that he is retired, he is re-reading wonderful books written by incredible authors Hawthorne, Dickens, Defoe, Kipling, Scott, Hemingway and many more. All are included with the 1950s-era “Great Books of the Western World” and deal with the Human Condition in countless imaginative ways. He writes “Now that I have 40 years of adult living and experience, I can understand the authors so much better.” He has enough to read to keep busy for the next 40 years.

      Jan Elliott and her early and world music group Ensemble Passacaglia released its second CD, A Tune for All Seasons in December. She bides her time during the pandemic teaching and rehearsing online. Ken Schneyer’s second short-fiction collection, Anthems Outside Time and Other Strange Voices, was released and received some very nice reviews. He is adapting to teaching remotely and writes he has very little time for much else.

      Karen Adair Miller writes she is safe and healthy during these tough times and is fortunate to keep up with friends and family with Zoom. The fire pit, too, has provided opportunity for small get-togethers! She has taken advantage of the outdoor winter sports and keeps busy with downhill, cross-country skiing, skating, and snow shoeing.

     Wayne Logan has recently published a number of books about the law, including the forthcoming Sentencing Law, Policy & Practice (Foundation Press), The Ex Post Facto Clause: Its History and Role in a Punitive Society (Oxford University Press), and Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Laws (Cambridge University Press).