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Greetings from Brooklyn!  I had the honor to meet up with Jenny Boylan ’80 at the launch of her latest book, Cleavage: Men, Women and the Space Between Us, at the main branch of the New York Public Library. It was a packed house.

Wayne Pepper “watched my niece, Rosa, graduate last May, and in the same visit had the great pleasure of taking my youngest son Scout on the grand tour, as he had never been on campus before: both theaters, ADP, including the infamous Grotto, and Olin.  Made sure to thank President Michael Roth ’78 for his leadership and activism.”

This was a general theme: most of you thanked President Roth for his leadership, activism, and advocacy, and I approve of these messages.

Jim Steiker is “winding down my long career as an employee ownership attorney and advisor and beginning a new chapter serving on boards of directors of employee-owned companies and teaching a course on ESOPs. My partner, Michael Golden, retired earlier this year. I’m still regularly in touch with Lisa Rudy, Clara Silverstein ’82, Cliff Meyer ’82 (started as ’81), and Cori Adler ’83 and can report that the Wes bonds are strong! I remain very proud to be associated with Wes, especially because of the advocacy of Michael Roth.”

Charles Newell is stepping down from his tenure at Court Theatre as senior artistic consultant. 

The Court Theater wrote in his honor:

“We would like to celebrate Charlie’s artistic legacy and thank him for his 30 years of leadership as the former Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director. He has directed more than 60 productions at Court — including An Iliad; Berlin; The Gospel at Colonus; The Adventures of Augie March; Satchmo at the Waldorf; Angels in America; James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’; Caroline, or Change; and The Triumph of Love, among many others—and his contributions have indelibly shaped our organization and the artistic ecosystem of Chicago. . . .” 

Livia McCarthy and Matt McCreight shared that David Resnick, Chris Lynch, and Paul DiSanto showed up at the memorial service celebrating the life of Colin Campbell Hon. ’89,in June. The photo here has four of the five of them. Livia writes that “it was wonderful to remember hidden memories about our formative years and the ways that a president, our president, could impact our lives.” Matt adds that he and Kathryn (Greene-McCreight ’83) “are doing well and still live in New Haven” and that he and his wife “also met up recently with Keith and Nancy Krakaur, and David Resnickand Cathy Klema—so wonderful to stay in touch with great friends.” Matt also says that he is “looking forward to seeing more great friends at our reunion next May. Put May 22–24, 2026, in your calendars now and plan on being there!”   

Referring to the memorial of President Campbell, Matt continues: “Speaking of great leadership, we should all be thankful for the stand Michael Roth is taking in defense of our democracy and the way in which he is doing so. Let him and Wesleyan know how much you value that stand—they need our support given all the pressures and funding cuts coming at higher education.”

Laurie Jacobs “celebrated the marriage of my daughter, Elizabeth Wojnar ’12, with Steven Sutro in March, with ’81 alums Susan Stone and Corinne Sternberg, and Laura Justice ’83, along with a bunch from 2012. I am still working as an associate dean and chair of medicine at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine in New Jersey and live in NYC where I see many alums!”

Jim Sullivan ’82, P ’19, Miriam Stern Sturgis, Gary Sturgis ’77, and Delcy Ziac Fox, got together in Dennis, Massachusetts, for a mini-reunion of InTown 21 residents. Jim and the Sturgises caught up with each other after not seeing each other for 40 years. Jim lives in Bourne, Massachusetts, and is inpatient medical director at High Point Treatment Center in Brockton, Massachusetts. Jim has one son, Owen ’19; Owen lives in Brooklyn, New York. Jim is chairperson of Bourne’s finance committee, a volunteer position. Miriam and her husband, Gary, live in Essex Junction, Vermont, and have three children and seven grandchildren. Miriam is retired and helps with her grandchildren. She volunteers for Ohavi Zedek in Burlington, Vermont. Gary is retired and enjoys bird and wildlife photography. He has coached a women’s rugby team for 20 years. Delcy now lives in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, year-round and is retired. She volunteers for the Center for Coastal Studies, New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance, and Provincetown Pride. 

Chris Graves and his wife, JoAnn Ward, “are celebrating our 40th anniversary year and will celebrate our younger daughter’s marriage in August. Our older daughter just got her master’s degree in data visualization.

 “JoAnn and I spent a month in France and Spain, starting with a truly once-in-a-lifetime event. We were invited by longtime pal and Wesleyan classmate Sam Selesnick to sit in the presidential box at the French Open tennis (Roland Garros). We got to witness close up the epic and historic (longest ever) men’s final. Sam is a world-renown surgeon and received tickets as gratitude for his lectures in Paris. We then headed to Provence, next westward to the ancient Cathar region near Andorra, then traveled all over northern Spain. In the fall, we will go hiking in Portugal and witness the tennis professional ATP tournament in Turin.

 “JoAnn retired from the Washington DC Public Library, and I retired from my longtime Ogilvy PR job (global CEO, chair, and founder of behavioral science unit). I founded a new company called The Resonance Code LLC (www.TheResonanceCode.com) built on some award-winning research that more effectively decodes the human sensemaking genome. I do quite a bit of pro bono work ranging from combatting vaccine hesitancy to trying to lessen homelessness with Community Solutions (largest nonprofit in this space) and working to build empathy for the Muhammad Ali Center.”

Lisa Shuchman shared that “my family and I spent a few days at Wes in May to see my son and his friends graduate as members of the Class of ’25. It was inspiring to see so much creativity, curiosity, and camaraderie. It made me feel there is hope for this country and the world. As the international editor responsible for overseeing coverage of the global legal industry for Law.com/ALM Media, I have been witnessing the rule of law at risk almost every day, and I am more convinced than ever that we need all these smart, well-educated, compassionate, creative, and driven Wesleyan grads. I’m confident they will be the ones who figure out how to fix things.” 

David Lynch has a new book: The World’s Worst Bet: How the Globalization Gamble Went Wrong (and What Would Make It Right), which at press time was scheduled to be published on September 9 by PublicAffairs, so it’s likely out by the time you read this. “The World’s Worst Bet, my second book,explains the nation’s journey from the 1990s’ enthusiasm for global integration to the rise of economic nationalism today.”

Ned Lerner tells us that “after working on games (Madden ’93, Sims, MLB The Show, God of War, Last of Us, . . .) and game platforms (PS4) for 40 years, including two start-ups with Paul Neurath, I retired last year. Now I’m trying to become a technology pundit. My Substack is https://nedlern.substack.com/ if you’re interested in what happens after phones or TV. And I’m an increasingly creaky runner. I came in second (in my age group) at the SF Marathon. :)”

David P. Miller adds that “for a variety of reasons, but partially because I thought it might take many months for the Trump appeals to be finally dismissed and Harris to be officially declared president, we signed up for a long cruise (January–June) last September. Obviously, the election did not go as I predicted. Nonetheless, Cathryne and I were out of the country till mid-June. I got talk to John Lyden, Kathryn (Moody) Benjamin ’82, and others from many time zones through Zoom. A dozen or so of us are having a virtual WesSF Club reunion on September 17 (47 years). How do we remember when the SF club had its first meeting? The premier of the original Battlestar Galactica, which was interrupted by the press conference of the Camp David Accords. 

Penultimately, I will reiterate what many of you have shared with me in your messages: We thank President Roth for his courage and integrity as he stands in defense of our democracy, and the way in which he’s doing so.

I end on a sad note: Leukemia took two of our classmates over the past few months.

Dan Haar wrote to let us know that Brian Ford passed away on June 25 after a brief bout with a very aggressive form of leukemia. “Brian was a philosophy major originally from Long Island. He did graduate studies in political science at Columbia and taught in the New York City schools for many years. He leaves a daughter who is a college frosh.”

And Livia McCarthy wrote on the very due date of these notes to let us know that Michael Toohey died on July 18, after an 18-month struggle with acute myeloid leukemia. Michael was a man of many careers. He moved from banking management consulting to nonprofit work, when he became COO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the famous civil rights litigation and advocacy organization. 

Michael later became the CFO of George School, a boarding school in Newton, Pennsylvania, which he saw, as his obituary notes, “as the culmination of his career—a place where he could dedicate himself fully to the mission of education, while leveraging his financial and strategic planning skills to bring a much-needed perspective to the organization.”

This is the part of our notes that might be most important and the most difficult. I have used this before, but perhaps it is appropriate to repeat: I am hopeful for less-bidity. 

DAVID I. BLOCK | david.i.block@gmail.com

JOANNE GODIN AUDRETSCH | berlinjo@aol.com