Tag: 1978

Greetings ’78ers,

Here’s what several of your classmates have been up to lately:

Lucy Mize has had a busy year traveling to Thailand, Indonesia, Belize, Mongolia, Canada, Philippines, and Morocco. She reports that next year will be pretty much the same with Cambodia and Fiji thrown in. Her travel is all for work, which she says depending on the election outcome, could come to a screeching halt. Between trips, her granddaughter turned one and she will defend her DrPH on November 4, 2024.

Lindsay Mathews went hiking in Switzerland, Italy, and France last summer and is looking forward to hiking in Madeira, Portugal, in March 2025.

In June, classmates Eleanor Maine, Barbara Malt, and Joyce Manchester converged at the home of Judy Packer Jesudason and James Jesudason in Boulder, Colorado, for three days of high-altitude fun and reminiscing.

Jim Washington checked in from Hanover, New Hampshire, where he just graduated from Dartmouth’s Master of Arts in Liberal Studies—Creative Writing degree program (poetry). His prior MA was earned at the University of New Hampshire—English/writing. He was surprised not only to be elected class marshal by his fellow students but also to receive a Thesis Excellence award.

Bill Adler has loved living in Japan for the last 10 years. He still enjoys writing short stories, playing with his cat, and traveling in the country.

Last year, Beth Robinson left her career in global health care and began helping to care for her one-year-old grandson. She enjoys spending a lot of time with him and helping support her daughter and son-in-law as they juggle full-time work schedules. Beth has also gone back to writing creative nonfiction—where she started and what she loves. In the prior 40 years, Beth has co-authored public health books, directed strategic communication, information dissemination, knowledge management, and learning programs, edited many hundreds of reports and articles, trained working journalists in Africa to report on HIV, and taught scientific paper writing to scientists in Latin America and Africa. It has been her privilege to collaborate with ministries of health, civil society organizations, and others in Africa to develop national health communications strategies and to manage communication on groundbreaking HIV research trials.  

A shout-out to five pioneering women athletes from our class: Joan Chevalier, Dianne Edgar, Kathy Keeler, Cynthia (Pygin) Markert, and Fran Rivkin will be inducted into the Wesleyan Athletics Hall of Fame Class of ’24 at a reception and dinner on campus on November 1, 2024. Joan, Dianne, Kathy, and Cynthia were on the 1978 women’s crew varsity 8 boat that captured first place at the Dad Vail Regatta. Fran excelled in five sports: track and field, field hockey, ice hockey, basketball, and lacrosse.

We always look forward to hearing from you. Please email us any news and we’ll be sure to share it with your fellow classmates in the next Class Notes.

Cheers,

Susie and Ken

Greetings fellow classmates,

While these notes were compiled on a dreary, rainy day in early April, hopefully as you read them now, they find you enjoying a warm, wonderful summer! Here’s what some of your classmates are up to:

Robert Poss has released his fifth solo CD, entitled Drones, Songs, and Fairy Dust. It is available on all streaming and download services.

Cynthia Aaron checked in and hopes everyone is doing well. After 17 years with the Michigan Poison and Drug Information Center, the last 11 as medical director, she retired from active emergency medicine practice and moved back to New England. She keeps busy with toxicology consulting work for the Michigan Public Health Institute, online consulting with RubiconMD and webPOISONCONTROL. Cynthia left the “interesting but flat” Midwest and now lives in seacoast New Hampshire, where she built her, hopefully, last house. This is where she and her four-legged child, Sophia, plan on growing old together. She wonders if anyone has heard from Alex (Nancy) Rosentzweet?

Kevin Rose is very happy to share that his son, Danny ’19, just recently got engaged to Julia Kim ’20. They both live and work in NYC.

JD Solomon, who has published two historical novels, reports that he has become a storyteller in retirement, giving presentations about historical true crime at assisted living centers and senior centers in New Jersey. “Not surprisingly,” JD says, “audience favorites are stories about New Jersey’s two most notorious murders: the Lindbergh kidnapping and the 1971 John List family killing, which happened in my town of Westfield.”

Last issue we reported that Dana Rashti spent a month in Sicily as part of an Italian language and cultural immersion program. Dana let Ken know that we mistakenly identified “him” as a “her” in our note. We are so sorry, Dana! We hope you are enjoying your retirement.

Gail Boxer has been appointed board chair of Cyted, a cancer diagnostics company based in Cambridge, UK.

Geoff Ginsburg, chief medical and scientific officer of the NIH All of US Research Program, has received the PMWC Luminary Award for his pioneering work in personalized and genomic medicine.

Alison Gilchrist reports, “Loving and grateful for: life on the Maine coast, biking, sailing, fun volunteer work in the vast photo archives of a maritime museum, two grandboys, healthy family not far away (brother Geoff ’92 here), good health, and great friends. So happy I went to Wes, by the way!”

John McDermott welcomed his first grandchild, Liam McDermott Lockwood, into their family on November 7 (“everyone is healthy . . . all the best”).

Lucy Mize has welcomed her first grandchild as well— Anna (“she is divine”)—born on August 8 to her son Thaddeus ’17 and his wife, Alex. Lucy is close to finishing her dissertation, “End of Life Doulas in Vermont,” for her DrPh in life coaching. She also continues full-time work, traveling to India, Indonesia, and Thailand. Her daughter, Belle Brown ’22, has done extensive recent Asian travels as well, and is starting work in climate conservation. Lucy sends “all her best.”

Dana Rashti was able to recently spend a month in Sicily as part of an Italian language and cultural immersion program. It was based in Ortigia, a small island that was the historical center of Syracuse. He found Sicily rich in contrasts and history— economically, socially, topographically, culturally, and gastronomically—and was able to visit his grandparents’ hometowns of Agrigento and Canicatini Bagni (“stood on the ground that gave them life and where they spent their youth . . .  that was special for me”). Dana has been pursuing nonprofit work since retiring last year.

Greetings Classmates,

If you’re reading these notes, then you successfully found our “online only” Wesleyan Class Notes for Fall 2023. Hope you are well and enjoying a beautiful autumn wherever you are. Here’s what several of your classmates are up to:

Susan Southard, author of Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War (Viking, 2015) writes that she will be traveling to Taiwan and Japan for a five-city book tour in mid-October through early November. In addition to the United States, Nagasaki has been published in England and in translation in Denmark, Spain, Taiwan, China, and Japan. This trip, her lectures will be in Japanese. While she’s in Nagasaki, Susan will give the keynote address at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall. She suggests that if you ever have a chance to visit Nagasaki, the Peace Memorial Hall is an exquisite architectural structure—inside and out, every inch designed to honor the memory of those who died in the Nagasaki nuclear attack and in the decades since.

Kate Probst and her husband moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, in August after living in the Washington, D.C., suburbs for over 35 years. She describes it as “an experiment with no decisions beyond living there through June 2024.” They rented a furnished apartment that allows cats and dogs, and rented out their house in McLean, Virginia. They are enjoying their new life with all their errands on foot (which has greatly increased their daily step count) and only using  a car sparingly. They also enjoy being a 10-minute walk from their daughter and her fiancée, walking and eating—the two major NYC pastimes—as well as going to the theater, museums, and walking in Prospect and Central Parks. They are much closer to friends in the Northeast, so have many visits planned. And while they miss their friends in D.C., so far don’t miss living there.

Ralph Rotman was recently recognized on Forbes’ 2023 Top Financial Security Professionals “Best-In-State” list alongside his daughter and business partner Cassie Rotman. In 2018 they started Power 10 Advisory Partners, a premier wealth management and financial planning firm in Boston. With a unique blend of intergenerational insights, the Rotmans have successfully merged traditional financial wisdom with contemporary strategies. Ralph included this photo of he and his daughter.

Bruce Phillips is happy to report that he retired in August 2022 from 36 years working as a family physician and delivering babies in Plainville, Massachusetts. He had a wonderful career and is very appreciative of his patients and colleagues who trusted him for so many years. He enjoys retirement doing all the same things he did while he was working: yoga, gardening, tennis, biking, developing his spiritual practice, and enjoying time with his family. Now he just has more time and space to do all these things. This fall he will teach new medical students one afternoon a week the basics of being a doctor, including skills such as listening, expressing empathy, and learning how to do a physical exam. Bruce enjoyed visiting Wesleyan for our 45th Reunion. He found “being on campus created a nice warp in time.” Bruce added this recent photo of he and his wife, Judy Kaye.

Please keep in touch! We love receiving and sharing your news, photos, and updates.

Warmly,

SUSIE MUIRHEAD BATES | sbatesdux@hotmail.com

KEN KRAMER | kmkramer78@hotmail.com

Nancy Chen has moved from Bozeman, Montana, to Calgary, Canada, with her husband Jack. Her daughters live on the West Coast: one soon finishes her PhD program in water conservation at UC Irvine, and the other writes fiction based on Greek mythology and history. Nancy writes that entering her elder years, she has pivoted her leadership coaching toward her passionate niche of emerging elderly women.

Geoff Ginsburg reports that he has finished his tenure at Duke Medical School and has moved to the National Institutes of Health where he is chief medical and scientific officer of the All of Us Research Program.

Barry Gross has retired from his 30-year career in the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley and has moved with his wife Pam “to a great mid-century in Stony Creek, Connecticut, with a koi pond in the middle. Middletown is just up the road, so what comes around goes around I guess!”

Lucy Mize reports that she and her kids have all been separately traveling—she to Spain to deliver a paper at an urban health conference; son Thaddeus ’17 to Amsterdam; and daughter Belle ’22 to the Annapurna Loop Trail. Lucy is finishing a coaching certificate at Georgetown, significantly along in her doctoral degree program in public health, and still working full time, “and doesn’t feel like the work has slowed at all.” Lucy included Wes pictures of her kids, herself, and her father David Mize ’51:

Dave Wilson continues his jazz saxophone career, releasing his sixth recording as a leader last year—Stretching Supreme—a tribute to John Coltrane, which reached a high of #31 in the Jazz Weekly countdown. He remains in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with his wife Lisa.

Cynthia Aaron left the medical directorship at the Michigan Poison and Drug Information Center in Detroit after 17 years and is currently semiretired. She moved to Dover, New Hampshire, because she missed New England and is enjoying living closer to family.

Julie Scolnik writes that it is enormously gratifying to finally see her memoir, Paris Blue, in print after 40 years of wanting to share this story. She loves the emails from her readers who tell her that they couldn’t put it down and that it brought back stories of their own. She recently won the Pencraft Award’s first place in memoir. Wesleyan figures prominently in the story, in her post-school, year-abroad experience. In October 2022, she returned to Reid Hall in Paris (where she first arrived to take classes in 1976) to play a concert and give a talk on her book. Julie also just released a CD with her daughter, pianist Sophie Scolnik-Brower, of the complete flute sonatas of J.S. Bach.

J.D. Solomon reports that he just published a historical novel set in 1928 in his hometown of Bay Shore, New York. Home News involves ruthless bootleggers, a trouble-prone war veteran, a cub reporter at a struggling small-town newspaper, and a popular police lieutenant assigned to a case that no one wants solved.

Doug Quint spent 35-plus years as faculty at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor and transitioned to emeritus professor of neuroradiology and MRI last summer. He plans to continue tennis, bicycling, and old guys softball.

Be sure to mark May 25–28, 2023, on your calendars; it’s our 45th Reunion! More information is sure to follow, and please keep sending your news our way.

Jennifer Atkinson reports a very pleasant ’22 in which she and Eric welcomed a second grandchild, celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary, and accordingly went on an Alaskan cruise where “icebergs and mountains and whales were the perfect antidote to COVID cabin fever.” Naturally they caught COVID from the cruise, but with Eric on sabbatical and Jennifer recently retired from George Mason University, were able to easily recuperate with rest and reading. Jennifer also reports that her sixth book of poems, A Gray Realm the Ocean, will soon be available. It combines a conversational style along with visual arts and won the Poets Out Loud Prize from the Fordham Poetic Justice Society/Fordham University Press. She plans to do upcoming readings, from Washington, D.C., on north.

Marilyn Fagelson, who I get the benefit seeing along with her husband Tony, here in New Haven, writes: “In May, Ruth Pachman and I traveled to Positano to join Elise Bean for the last week of her five-week stay in Italy. We have visited one another many times over the years, but the views and the food were so much better in Positano. Elise continues to support Congressional investigative work in Washington, D.C.; Ruth is a strategic communications consultant in New York; and I am practicing law in New Haven. Thank you Wesleyan for giving us these and other lifelong friendships!”

Lucy Mize is thrilled to report that her son Thaddeus Brown ’17 married Alex Aaron in July on their farm in Vermont. Sister Belle ’22 took care of the photography; all in all,  “a great Cardinal representation despite being a small event.” Lucy recently finished her first year of a doctoral program, “so while the number creeps up, still active at work, school, and play.”

Dave Wilson continues his successful jazz saxophone career, releasing his sixth recording as a leader this past January. The work, Stretching Supreme (Dave Wilson Quartet), is a tribute to John Coltrane, and reached #31 in the Jazz Weekly Radio Charts and #4  in the Downloads in the Play MPE Rankings. Dave continues to reside in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with his wife Lisa.