Aimee Eng ’03 was recently crowned Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Queen, a Japanese-American community ambassadorial position. In her official capacity, she travels to various cities–in and out of the state–to promote the cultural ties between Japanese American communites. She will meet with community members, as well as city mayors and governors, to talk about the cherry blossom festival traditions. In addition, she will take an extended trip to Japan and meet with several of the Consul Generals and other dignitaries. Eng is an active volunteer in her community.
Debra-Ellen Glickstein ’01 is one of only five City Year alumni to receive a Hewlett-Packard (HP) Leadership award for her profound impact on her community. As the director of community and economic development for New York City Council Member Eric Gioia, she has mobilized community service teams to improve the streets and schools of Long Island City. In addition she launched a community development organization, the East River Development Alliance (ERDA), to enable local federal public housing residents to take a proactive role in the economic and social decisions that affect their neighborhoods.
Sara Donnelly ’00 was awarded the 2008 Martin Dibner Memorial Fellowship in fiction, given annually to promising Maine writers seeking to develop their writing skills. Donnelly is the managing editor at Mainebiz, and was a high honors recipient for her senior thesis: a collection of short fiction titled Grace and Other Stories. She planned to attend the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop in Portland, Oregon.
Amy Crawford ’05 competed this summer at the Shure/Montreux Jazz Voice Competition in Switzerland, placing third among vocalists under age 35 from around the world. A jazz pianist when she arrived at Wesleyan—where she majored in government—she recalls that she tried singing at the encouragement of Prof. Jay Hoggard. After graduation, she moved to New York to pursue a career in music. She is a member of the band DeLeon, with whom she has been touring, and she is also leading her own project, Amy Crawford & The Electric, which was preparing to release its first EP in December 2008. You can download a free mp3 from the new Amy Crawford & The Electric’s EP at www.wesleyan.edu/magazine. (See also amycrawfordmusic.com and Myspace.com/amycrawfordmusic for more info.)
Sonya Behnke ’03 recently collaborated with a classmate at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute to write an opinion piece that was published by the Chronicle of Philanthropy in March 2008. An English major at Wesleyan, the piece discusses the alleged “leadership deficit” that is supposed to hit the nonprofit sector particularly hard as Baby Boomers retire.
Benjamin Brown ’05 and David Delcourt ’05 are the chief executive officer and chief operating officer of MakeMeSustainable, a venture dedicated to providing individuals and businesses with the knowledge and tools necessary to track energy consumption and environmental impact, as well as identifying and accomplishing sustainable goals. Previously, Brown was an analyst for energy consulting groups. At Wesleyan, he had received the John Plukas and Horace White Awards for excellence in economics, as well as a Davenport Grant for thesis study on climate change and adaptation in the developing world. Delcourt, who majored in economics and Latin American Studies and completed the Certificate of International Relations, was a member of the Omicron Delta Epsilon International Honor Society in Economics. He was previously affiliated with the Bank of America Securities Global Investment Banking Team and NERA Economic Consulting.
Vivian Chau Best ’03 was named one of the “Forty Under 40” young Hawaii business leaders by Pacific Business News for her work on her “Give It Fresh Today” program, which enables customers at farmers markets to donate fresh produce to homeless shelters. People normally give canned food to a shelter, but a donation table at a farmers market in Chicago challenged Best to think about “what it would feel like to eat something that was fresh, in season, and locally grown.” Best started the produce donation program with handmade signs, a basket for food, and a jar for monetary donations. In a local TED talk, Best said that they were receiving more than a thousand pounds of donated produce each month. Best graduated from Wesleyan with a bachelor’s degree in art history.
Jeongdo (Alfred) Hong ’04 was selected as one of this year’s Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based nonprofit that brings together business and political leaders, intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing international issues, including health and the environment. This year the forum selected 197 Young Global Leaders from 72 countries for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society, and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. Hong, of South Korea, is head of strategy for the JoongAng Ilbo, one of the country’s three big newspapers. Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the WEF says that the group represents “the voice for the future and the hopes of the next generation” offering “new energy to solve intractable challenges.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, Tony-winning playwright and composer of In The Heights and collaborator on the script for Broadway’s West Side Story, was honored at the fundraising gala for El Museo del Barrio, one of New York’s leading Latino cultural institutions. Also honored that night were Luis Ubiñas, the president of the Ford Foundation, and Emilio and Gloria Estefan, for their contributions both to music and to the community. Laura Siegle ’06, development officer for El Museo, shared a moment with her fellow Wesleyan alumnus, in front of the camera.
A story by Paul Yoon ’02, “And We Will Be Here,” was only one of 20 included in the 2009 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. Yoon’s winning story is also included in his collection, Once the Shore, his first book, published this year by Sarabande Books. These eight stories are linked by their setting, a South Korean island, and form a portrait of the island, spanning 50 years, from just before the Korean War through the present. When asked in a publisher’s interview about this aspect of setting the stories on an imaginary—but realistic—island, while he, himself, has lived his life in the United States, Yoon explains, “Writing, at least for me, is the act of exploring some aspect of the unknown; there is always that underlying sense of entering ‘foreign territory’ whenever I start a story.”
