Tag: 1978

Greetings, classmates! Thanks to your overwhelming response to the request for updates, we have a full column plus more news and photos online.

Bob Kalb is a professor of neurology and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where he is primarily involved in research. His NIH-supported lab is working on two main projects;­—one with relevance to childhood intellectual disabilities and autism, and the other focuses on childhood and adult motor neurons diseases (Spinal Muscular Atrophy and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS). Rob and his wife have two sons in their 20s pursuing careers in business and film.

Mary White Giffin sends a shout out to the “other” Mary Frances, Joel, Kate, Anne, and Monica. She splits her time living in both D.C. and Rhode Island, working for the federal government on health policy.

Tim Hollister’s new book for parents of teen drivers, Not So Fast, has had a successful national launch, nsfteendriving.com. Proceeds are going to the Reid Hollister Memorial Fund, which helps low-income families in Greater Hartford with infant and toddler education costs, and several national traffic safety programs.

Marian Read Place reports, “I’ve just published Slowing Down in a Speedstressed World: Practical Skills & Kindly Advice (2014, Amazon), integrating my background as a psychotherapist with the wisdom of numerous interviewees. Offering small steps toward changing a stressful, over-hasty pace of life, my book reveals the connection between slowness and calm, identifies faulty thinking that accelerates our pace, and provides skills for working with the anxiety that inevitably arises when we downshift in our hurry-up world. Readers, whether employees, retirees, parents, or job seekers, will find chapters specific to their challenges. Here’s hoping the book is helpful to busy Wes folk. Questions and networking ideas welcome. marian@slowlutions.com.”

Joe Haddad is excited that his son, Caleb ’17, is enjoying his freshman year at Wesleyan. Joe’s work is good and he spent a week in Lesotho last year, where he’s helping Columbia start the country’s first medical school.

Bill Friedler’s boutique law firm, Friedler Law Group, has joined the firm of Conn, Kavanaugh, Rosenthal, Peisch & Ford LLP in Boston. He will keep himself busy managing the trusts and estate planning and probate administration matters of this new firm.

Lisa Landsman sends her best to all Wesleyan folks and writes that she lives just outside D.C., with husband, son, and standard poodle. After spending the fall planning her daughter’s wedding (which went beautifully), she may consider becoming a wedding planner! Wes folks at the wedding included Diane Burstein and Lisa Halberstadt. Before becoming a wedding planner, she’s finishing up an MPH at Johns Hopkins so she will look for a job doing law/public health first.

Rich Kozlowski, who lives in Gales Ferry, Conn., made a fairly dramatic career shift from a systems analyst in the Navy R&D field to an armed guard at Millstone Nuclear power plant in Waterford, Conn. He loves the job, but not the long hours. He lives in a multi-generational home where the “grandchildren are a hoot, but very active, and his energy level has a hard time keeping up.”

Nancy Chen has moved to Fort Collins, Colo., from Long Island, N.Y., for the mountain lifestyle. Her older daughter, Ariane, is in college at Chapman University in Orange, Calif; her younger daughter, Isabelle, is a junior in high school. Nancy is working on her first book, an autobiographical memoir, and seminars for her professional and personal development business.

Bruce Phillips still enjoys working as a family doc and also practices a lot of yoga, plays tennis, and takes singing lessons. He’s still happily married to Judy and his two daughters are graduating from college. He thought Cheryl Cutler might be amused to know that he performs in a musical once a year and this year he choreographed most of the numbers.

David K. Greenwald is the marketing and production adviser for the upcoming movie project Sammy-Gate, a dark, political satire, that asks the question “Might Sammy Davis, Jr. have been the catalyst that caused Watergate?” Director Noel Lawrence ’93 and his co-screenwriter have unearthed the clues to keep conspiracy theorists up at night. You can get a sneak preview of Sammy-Gate at facebook.com/sammyfilm.

Tom Bledsoe, his wife, Lexi Turner ’83, and family live in Newton, Mass. He and Lexi met after Wes, at the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership where they were both working and which Tom ran from 1990–97. For the past 15 years, he has built and run the Housing Partnership Network (housingpartnership.net), a cooperative of the nation’s top social entrepreneurs in the housing and community development field. They help nonprofit leaders and organizations collaborate through peer learning and shared business platforms. Their teams in Boston and Washington, D.C., include Wesleyan grads Danielle Samalin ’00, who runs their homeownership initiatives, and a partner at Wells Fargo, Megan Teare ’91.

Their daughter, Maddie, has just been accepted into next year’s freshman class. The proud parents look forward to spending more time in Middletown and traveling the NESCAC circuit to watch Maddie and the Cardinals basketball team play throughout New England. Tom is trying to keep up better with classmates and recently had lunch with David Karnovsky and Sue Kaplan in NYC, where David is moving into private law practice after many years in city government and Sue is working on community health issues at NYU.

Our family reached several milestones in the last year: Our 25-year-old daughter married her high school sweetheart last June (fully honing my wedding planner skills), our youngest went off to college in the fall, and Nick and I celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary in May. I’m continuing to enjoy life/wellness coaching as well as the freedom to travel more now that we’re empty nesters. But, we love that our kids are still home often, in fact, several have announced they’ll be around “for the summer”…so much for the empty nest!

Renny Smith, Julie Scolnik, Elizabeth Weiss Ozorak, and Jeff Nesson all sent photos along with their news which can be found at magazine.wesleyan.edu. Click on “Class Notes” and go to 1978. Wishing you all a wonderful summer. Please keep sending us your news, especially if we haven’t heard from you in a while.

SUSIE MUIRHEAD BATES | kmkramer78@hotmail.com

Ken Kramer | sbatesdux@hotmail.com

Casey Blake, a professor of history at Columbia specializing in modern U.S. intellectual and cultural history, is senior historian for The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Innovation exhibit at the New York Historical Society. The 1913 Armory Show has been considered by some to be the most important exhibition ever held in the United States, “an important marker of New York’s ascendancy as the cultural capital of the United States and, indeed, the global capital of modernity.”

Paul Chill was named associate dean for clinical and experiential education at the University of Connecticut School of Law, from which he graduated in 1985, and where he has been on the faculty since 1988. In his new appointment he will oversee the school’s innovative program designed to provide students with supervised real-life legal experience as part of their standard education. Paul has previously held positions including associate dean for academic affairs at the school, and serving as an original member of the Connecticut Commission on Child Protection.

Moira McNamara James, Wesleyan Trustee Emerita, has been named chair of the board of the Landmark School in Pride’s Crossing, Mass., an institution which specializes in educating students with language-based learning disabilities. Moira’s son, Scott ’10, graduated from Wesleyan; daughter Madeline ’16 is still on campus.

Julie Scolnik “apologizes for being out of touch for so long.” She and husband Michael Brower, a wind energy consultant, have recently moved to Brookline, Mass., after 18 years of raising their kids in Andover, Mass. Their son Sasha, a cellist, is a freshman in the dual degree program of Harvard and the New England Conservatory, while their daughter Sophie, recently having graduated from Harvard College, is a pianist in the master’s program at the conservatory (at age four, wanted “to be a musician like Mommy but smart like Daddy”). Julie is a flutist with an active performance schedule both here and in France, spending the summers in Provence. She runs a chamber music series in the greater Boston area (MistralMusic.org) and would love to hear from alums at julscol@me.com.

David Wilson continues his professional career as a jazz composer, saxophonist, and music teacher, residing with his wife, Lisa, in Lancaster, Pa., but frequently on the road to New York City, Washington, D.C., “and beyond” for his performances. His most recent CD, Spiral, received numerous accolades in reviews in JazzTimes and Downbeat magazines as well as on the Jazz Weekly website. He recalls “fond memories of his Wesleyan experience and credits it, and in particular his teacher, Bill Barron, for laying the groundwork for where he is today,” as well as of his friendships with such Wes folks as Stuart Abramson ’79 and Kenny Wessel ’79. Dave welcomes hearing from any and all, at djazwilson@aol.com.

SUSIE MUIRHEAD BATES and KEN KRAMER
KMKramer78@HotMAIL.com
sbatesdux@hotmail.com