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Hi all,
As with many (most?) of you, I turned 50 this year—wild to think back on a half century gone by. Mine was celebrated via a trivia party in a community rec center, where the bulletin board outside showed the previous birthdays of the day as well—a five-year-old and a seven-year-old! I felt in very good company. . .
It was great to hear from many of you who haven’t written updates in ages! Keep ’em coming!!
Stephen Engel and Rob Finn met up in the Netherlands to take a seminar at the University of Leiden focused on EU and international law around sexual orientation and gender identity. Stephen is on sabbatical from Bates College for 2026–27, where in July he was named the Charles A. Dana Professor of Politics.
Aaron Tell joined StubHub this year as a user research lead. He recently caught up with Mary Lisio in Los Angeles for a sound bath at LACMA, where they chilled among the Buddhas in the Realms of the Dharma exhibit while the sounds of Tibetan singing bowls filled the room. The experience felt very Wes. Aaron also made it to New York City recently, where he caught up with Rich Moreau over tapas and sangria, channeling his semester abroad in Madrid.
Molly Small, Becky Bermont, David Schleifer, and Marty Gross (who is alive contrary to reports at the 25th Reunion) are celebrating their collective 50th birthdays by going to Paris—a trip they have been trying to make happen for 20 years. Molly is currently working on community building through music events in battleground states.
Yolanda Denson-Byers is proud to announce that her most recent book, See Me, Believe Me: An Updated Guide to Deepen Allyship with Congregational Leaders of Color, is now in its second edition! It was #1 in church administration (Kindle) and #2 in church administration (print), second only to Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. She is honored to share it with you all.
After testing out living in the South, Devin Robel is officially relocating from Oregon to North Carolina to continue competing her horse at the upper levels of eventing. She would love to connect with other Wes alumni, so if you stop in Southern Pines, come by Penn Station and she’ll pour you a pint.
Lynn Chen has written her first children’s book, Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese!,which is about a dumpling with mom/body issues. It’s for ages 4–8 and will be published by Slant’d Press this fall.
Cameron Anderson, the Barbara Sherman ’54 and Malcolm L. Sherman Associate Professor of Theater Arts at Brandeis University,has won the highly prestigious Billie Tsien (design category) Rome Prize—a highly competitive national competition that supports innovative work in various disciplines across the arts and humanities—for her set and production design work.
Peter Isbister continues to live in Decatur, Georgia, with his wife and their three kids (16 and twin 12-year-olds). He is now of counselat the immigration law firm of Diaz and Gaeta Law, where he is beyond busy defending immigrants in removal proceedings. He is past president of the board of directors of his synagogue. Dave Lubell also still lives in Decatur with his family and the two are good buddies. Peter also remains in touch with Amanda Jackson Miller (m. Andy Miller), who live in Peter’s hometown of Santa Cruz, California.
Finally, in this year of so many milestone birthdays, Marcus Chung has taken the opportunity to celebrate with as many Wes friends as possible. In the spring he crashed Kate Haviland’s European vacation and spent a week with her family in Paris. It was just like the old days, living together in Low Rise, except in substantially nicer accommodations and with numerous 50th- birthday celebrations in the City of Lights! Marcus also celebrated E Gunnison and Abby Posner’s birthdays early in Berkeley with Jill Kunkel, Leah Rosenblum ’99,and Alison Hirsch ’00. E cooked a truly amazing meal, and everyone reminisced about the Wes swim team. In true Wesleyan fashion, wide-ranging conversation topics spanned the current geopolitical climate, sustainable land management, jellyfish, and cats.
ABBY ELBOW | aelbow@gmail.com