CLASS OF 1984 | 2025 | FALL ISSUE

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Hello, Classmates!  

Now that we are only publishing notes twice a year, there will be a long lag between sending me your updates and their appearing in print.

My apologies to Rick Okuno, who sent in an update last December, and I missed including him in the notes that were about to be published. Rick is in Tokyo with his wife and two daughters. He left a late-career government position with the Financial Services Agency last year and joined a mental health organization. He reflects that Japanese society struggles with a lot of stigma related to mental health, so he is finding being an advocate to be a fascinating challenge. Rick is happy to host an authentic Japanese meal for anyone who wants to look him up when visiting Tokyo!

Eric Caplan was back on campus after 40 years to teach, as a volunteer, a winter 2025 course on the history of psychiatry. His class of 45 students—athletes, artists, and others, covering 15 different disciplines—made his return a meaningful experience. Eric felt like Rip Van Winkle, waking to find the (Wesleyan) world has gone on while he was asleep. He was living in a house just off campus and reliving his Wes years by attending student events (cheering the men’s basketball team in the Final Four, going to student theater, and sitting in on lectures).    

Finally, my Gingerbread housemate, Melissa (Duggan) Pace, is publishing her debut novel with Henry Holt Books and Macmillan: The Once and Future Me. It’s a psychological thriller about a woman who wakes in a 1954 mental hospital with no memory; just a menacing little voice in her head she tells no one about, convinced she couldn’t possibly be the delusional schizophrenic doctors say she is—or something else entirely. Melissa wonders if she is the oldest debut novelist ever (or just feels like she is).

My Wes news is also LA based. I visited my son in Taiwan this year and used LA as my to/from launching pad. I lingered in LA for a couple of days and had a great lunch at the fabled Nate ’n Al’s deli with Al Septien ’85 and Bennett Schneider ’86. Al is off to Mexico City to co-executive produce a series for MGM and Amazon, El Gato, based on the Richard Dominguez comic book.

That’s it for this issue. Talk to you all in six months.

MICHAEL STEVEN SCHULTZ | classnotes84@zmulls.com