Tag: 1980

Alumni magazines, similar to Facebook and Instagram, are filled with our best news. But our class, as with all classes, at all schools, are living our lives with both challenges and successes. Life isn’t so perfect—some of our classmates are batting serious illnesses, others are rebuilding their lives after failed businesses or divorces, and still others are surviving natural disasters or struggling to keep their children on track. And some haven’t made it—we have sadly lost another class member, Retired Federal Judge Patricia (Patti) Minaldi who passed away in December. Patti earned her law degree from Tulane University before serving as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans and in Calcasieu. She served as a judge in the 14th Judicial District Court from 1996 to 2003 before being appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003 as a federal judge in the Western District of Louisiana, where she served until July 2017. So I salute all of us as we overcome the challenging times and losses and also hail our exciting successes and important milestones.

Here’s a toast to the classmates who reported in on their new careers (how inspiring!):

Cindy Ryan graduated last May (age 60!) with an MA in mental health counseling – expressive arts therapy from Lesley University. Cindy is now working at a residence for clients with brain injuries. Cindy said that while many of our peers are retiring, she’s finding this new late-life part-time career to be very meaningful. She has enjoyed counseling many wonderful clients and interning at some amazing organizations including a farm and a cancer-care center. She noted that creative arts, which includes movement, drama, music, and play therapy, prove to be a beautiful means to restore vitality and enhance emotional well-being. Cindy has been finding a new relationship with the power of creativity, in addition to painting. She said that her children, Juliet and Jonah, have been launched for some time, living in California and Canada respectively; both great places to visit.

Freddi Wald has spent her career in marketing, education, and the arts—working in creative businesses and start up creative ventures at Time Warner, Amex, and Pace University as chief marketing officer. Since Wesleyan, she has been committed to the arts (always her passion)—working as a volunteer and on boards in theatre, arts in education, and arts advocacy and policy. After taking a year off to consult, most recently Freddi started her new position (as she noted, “yes, you CAN get a new paying job at age 60!”) as head of membership at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Freddi is living in NYC with her husband of 25 years, Roger Sherman (Yale ’78) and daughter Nora, a high school rising senior. Freddi caught up with Jacquie and a few others at the November Wes weekend for Sons and Daughters—a great introduction to the admissions process and to Wesleyan for our daughters. Freddi hosted an evening of Wes Women in NYC with help from the development office to gather alumni classes of women 1975-1985 for conversation, wine, and cheese. Among old and new friends were Janet Grillo, Elise Wagner ’78, Trustee Anne Goldrach ’79, Charlotte Van Doren ’84. Freddi is in touch with Wes alumni in NYC but would love to hear from anyone from class of 1980, as we head into our Reunion year!

Mark Zitter and his wife, Jessica, recently participated in a life-planning workshop for couples to figure out what they want to do when they grow up. Meantime, Mark has big news! Feb. 1 was both the 30-year anniversary of the founding of his company, Zitter Health Insights (formerly The Zitter Group), and the day he sold it. It’s the second company Mark has sold to a private equity firm and he states that there will be no more startups for him. Mark took his Wes roommate, Scott Hecker, and Scott’s wife, Gail, out to dinner in La Jolla in January to celebrate Scott’s 60th birthday. Scott is still in charge of chemistry at biotech startups, inventing the next antibiotic to save the world. Mark is in frequent touch with Julie Burstein, who is working on a podcast project with Mark’s wife.

Mark has plenty to do, he just doesn’t get paid for it. He still owns a part of his former company and will serve on the board, though he won’t have any operating responsibilities. His nonprofit, Zetema Project, a group of U.S. healthcare leaders from both parties and all major stakeholder groups, is very active and will consume plenty of his time. Mark is the facilitator for an exciting initiative aiming to reform California’s health care system, and he continues to produce health care programs at the Commonwealth Club. Mark is now unemployed for the first time since Stanford Business School, and says happily so.

Mark’s daughter, Tessa Zitter ’21, finished her junior year at Wes, way overcommitted and loving it. Tessa is planning to triple major, twirls fire, sings a capella, choreographs fights for plays and films, co-writes a TV series, does chemo-analysis on Wesleyan’s mummy, serves as a tour guide, is on the Chabad board, and more. Son Sol is starting his senior year at Brown majoring in computer science and doing tons of swing dancing. His high school senior, Sasha, and their mini-poodle, Jinx, last summer were on the first U.S. team in dog agility to win a ribbon in international competition.

Our class has been significant contributors to the arts including:

Michael Bell, playing banjo and mandolin with his “class-grass” band Graminy, released this year in June their most recent album: Live at the Brink, which can also be found on Spotify. Mike is the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Department of Community and the Environmental Sociology, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, Religious Studies, and the Agroecology Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His most recent book, City of the Good: Nature, Religion, and the Ancient Search for What Is Right, was published in 2018 by Princeton Press.

Vic Tredwell, musician and radio maven, has come back to one of his Wesleyan interests, radio—he was a regular on WESU. These days, Vic is the operations manager at the Belfast Community Radio, WBFY, in Belfast, Maine.

Lisa Olsson still lives in Dobbs Ferry and teaches cello, currently at Hudson River School of Music, and Trinity School in NYC, and performs in the Yonkers Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hudson String Quartet. In addition to her music career, she began writing poetry about five years ago and has been published several times. This year, she was a winner in the Poetry in the Pavement contest in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., where one of her poems is inscribed in the new poetry walk. She also has a poem in Lumina, the literary magazine published by Sarah Lawrence College. Lisa showed her art for the first time in April, at the Blue Door Art Center in Yonkers, in a show of art made from recycled, reused, repurposed materials. Lisa’s daughter (19) just finished freshman year at Rice University, and her son (29) has started his own business in gems and minerals in Brooklyn.

Mike O’Brien played on May 24 for the Wesleyan Class of 1979 Reunion at Eclectic with a whole bunch of Wes alumni. The gig was organized by Jack Freudenheim ’79, and featured the following alumni musicians: Charlie Berman ’76,Ann Beutler Millerick ’77, Banning Eyre ’79, Jack Freudenheim ’79, Wil Galison ’81, Chuck Gregory ’74, Tom Kovar ’76, Robert Levin ’81, Bill Levinson’79, Win Lockwood ’78, Beth Masterman ’79, Jim Melloan ’77, Matthew Penn ’80, Greg Shatan ’81, Tom Valtin ’79, and Dirck Westervelt ’82. Mike sang 70s and 80s classics—pretty much the same type of stuff he sang on campus with The Bees, back in the day. Mike stayed with Kevin Markowski ’79 in his lovely Middletown home. Mike and Dave Stern still get together every year to play Beatles songs at the annual benefit Mike organizes in Northampton, Mass., for a local music school; most recently they got together in March, when, among many other things, they played a tribute song for Mike’s brother, Greg, who died last summer. Greg was not a Wesleyan student, but he was a member of Mike’s college band and had a lot of friends on campus.

Alan Jacobs(managing director of Archer Entertainment Group) is working on a big film about the first men to reach the South Pole, which is moving at an appropriately glacial pace despite major assists from Vicki Cohen and Brooke Elkin ’91. During a brief stay in Tel Aviv, Alan met up with classmate Jeff Green of High Street fame. Jeff visits a few times a year to work at an ER in Ashdod and plays music in the evenings at a club called Jessica, where Alan heard him. While Alan was in Tel Aviv, Alan’s sons, Matan Green ’15 and Ron Jacobs ’16, were meeting in Los Angeles to plot their takeover of the music industry. The legacy continues.

Alan said, “The four of us met for dinner recently, which was more trippy than any drug I took at Wes.” Alan’s four have all left the nest, and two of them are off the payroll. Alan added, “I don’t know what all this talk is about turning 60. Don’t you remember that elementary school student on campus? That was me. Okay, I celebrated my 60th birthday in December with close friends and family at a lovely Italian restaurant in downtown Manhattan, then we all walked to a Twyla Tharp performance at the Joyce Theater. It was heaven. Joining was my 85-year-old mother, who in the fall of 1975 barged into my high school physics class with an envelope from Wesleyan (opened, of course) and a big smile on her face. She dropped me off in Middletown a year later and said wistfully: ‘You’re on your own now and I won’t be interfering any more. You can be any kind of doctor you want.’ Hey, there’s still time.”

Irene Chu is doing well—her graphic design business has been rewarding for the past 30 years or so, but is wondering if and what a next step might be. Between that and having both her kids in high school, Irene felt like she could do more traveling on her own this past year. High points were visiting Barcelona, Marrakech, seeing family in San Francisco AND reconnecting with Mark Zitter(after 10-15 years of doing nothing more than exchanging holiday cards at best). When she heard from me in June, she said that same week; she was starting a family road trip south to look at colleges. Her daughter is a rising senior. And yes, they’ll be stopping by Wesleyan! Irene also has done a few more grown-up things locally. She said that kind of by kismet, she has gone with Sarah Liepert ’87 and Ilana Newell ’94 to a few Mistral chamber music concerts, with Julie Scolnik ’78 as the artistic director! Talk about small world. She said it was SO great to catch up with Mark Zitter,compare notes, and reminisce about things like bowling with coconuts in Ft. Lauderdale over spring break. She said she can’t always remember what she did yesterday, but it’s amazing some of the things they could remember from 39 years ago.

Keith Sklar is currently showing his art in Suffering From Realness, a major group exhibition, and as he noted, curated by the extraordinary Denise Markonish at Mass MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art). After years in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, Keith has been living in Chicago since 2012. He said he had the miraculous fortune to meet his wife, Katie, in Chicago and they’re the proud parents of Nora, their 4-year-old daughter. Daily, Keith is happily shocked and wildly grateful that he is a fairly new parent at this point in life. Keith’s Mass MoCA show opened to the public on April 13 (he said the opening came and went fantastically) and will be on view through February 2020.

Keith continues to work as an artist and educator. After decades of an independent artist practice supplemented by grad and undergrad adjunct work, Keith teaches art at a private school. He added that in 2014, he was awarded a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency Fellowship. Fellows don’t apply, they’re selected, and Keith was lucky enough to live and work with several other artists, writers and musicians for five weeks in the ecological paradise of the late artist’s studio complex in Captiva, Florida. Keith finished by saying it’s always a pleasure reading about the paths people have taken since our Wesleyan experience so many years ago.

Our class is pretty active in the international arena as well:

David Claman, along with his wife, Sunita, is coming to the end of another long stay in India. He has been on sabbatical from Lehman College-CUNY this year where he is an associate professor of music. David received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to go to Delhi and has been teaching at Delhi University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Music since September. David is composing and collaborating with some excellent young Indian classical musicians and has also been studying the sarod, an amazing stringed instrument used mainly in Hindustani music that he’s wanted to learn to play for 25 years. He says it’s been great and the time has passed too quickly, but they are also looking forward to being back in New York City.

Andrew McKenna reported across the table that he would be on another expedition in August sponsored by National Geographic, continuing the search for Amelia Earhart on the South Pacific island of Nikumaroro, again with forensic dogs. Look for a potential National Geographic TV release this fall.

In June, Wendy Davis caught up with Peter Eisenhardt at a local pub the same week he was jetting off to Sydney, Australia, where, after 20 years of residence, she had lots of local knowledge to share. Wendy said as a late bloomer, she is currently waiting the result of several “mentorship” grants for disabled applicants (noting, one has to play to ones’ strengths). With a professional mentors’ sage advice, she hopes to improve and publish the manuscript of her recovery from a 2007 massive stroke and terminal cancer diagnosis. Wendy and her husband John relocated to Greenwich, London, from Sydney three years ago. They are returning to Australia in June for a couple months. They are back in the UK in September for their daughters’ graduation from University College London. Then they’ll travel across Europe until Christmas, which they will celebrate in America for the first time in decades. The last time Peter and Wendy met was in November; they had the last turkey burgers left after Thanksgiving celebrations—for a little taste of “home.”

James Lynch, working with the UN Refugee Agency, was out of town when I sent out the request for submissions, but in his automated response he includes a thought provoking quote: “Every year, refugees walk over two billion km to safety. Please join our solidarity movement to honour their resilience: stepwithrefugees.org.”

Scott Phillips, back in New York after working in London, says it’s a short bike ride to work for him, as he still works for Société Générale (23 years and going strong). Scott says that he and his wife Crystal are doing well—their fourth and youngest child is graduating University of Denver in June so they headed there with the whole family to celebrate the “last” graduation. Crystal and Scott are enjoying living on the upper West Side of NYC, which is close to two giant parks and all the entertainment and food a body can need. They don’t have any grandchildren but they see their grand children plenty and love that.

And a few classmates wrote in about their 30-plus year anniversaries—Congratulations!:

Gary Gilyard and his wife just celebrated their 35th anniversary in Paris. They have a grandson and another grandchild due in late October. Gary is planning on attending our 40th Reunion and says, hopefully many others will as well.

Will Rowe and his wife Teresa Kosciuk-Rowe ’81 are approaching their 29th year living in Annandale, Va. June marks 35 years since their wedding (they had 18 Wesleyan classmates with them that day in Meriden, Conn.). Will plans to be at our 40th Reunion.

This year Jennifer Boylan and her wife, Deirdre Finney Boylan ’82, celebrate their 31st wedding anniversary—12 as husband and wife, 19 as wife and wife. Their children are now in grad school and thriving. In 2019, after almost 30 years as a professional writer, Jennifer finally got a piece published in the New Yorker—“What ‘Peanuts’ Taught Me About Queer Identity,” (The comic strip’s lessons about unrequited love and self-acceptance.) Jennifer added that it was very cool, although she preferred her original title, “You’re Weird, Sir.”

Jenniferis in her fifth year as Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence and Professor of English at Barnard College of Columbia University. This has Jennifer in New York from January to May each year, after which she returns to her home in Belgrade Lakes, Maine, where she continues to live with Deirdre. Her writing life continues too: she writes a column for the op/ed page of the New York Timesevery other Wednesday. Last year Jennifer published a novel, her first for adults since 1999, Long Black Veil. And next year, 2020 will see a new memoir, which is a kind of memoir of masculinity, centered around the seven dogs she owned during seven phases of her life pre-transition. The title is: GOOD BOY: A Life in Seven Dogs. Jennifer is already thinking about our 2020 Reunion and hope everyone is doing okay. She is sending love to all her classmates in Wesleyan 1980.

Okay, amazing graduating class of 1980—Freddi Wald, Jacquie McKenna, and Kim Selby have committed to work on our 40th Reunion and they welcome fellow ’80 alums to join in the planning. Please let Jacquie know if you’re interested in joining our reunion committee or the Class of 1980 contact at Wesleyan, Kate Lynch ’82. Kate’s contact info: klynch@wesleyan.edu 860/685-5992.Kim suggested that all those who already are planning to come, think about the roommates, hallmates and others you may like to see in May 2020, contact those folks and start building a collection of groups who want to reunite!

Jacquie Shanberge McKenna | jmckenna@indra.com

Stuart J. Hendel ’80, passed away  on October 20, 2018 at the age of 60, after waging a courageous battle against Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).  Diagnosed in 2016, Stu, in typical form, turned his  considerable intellect and business savvy, toward raising funds to help find a cure for this horrible disease.  For example, since 2017, Stu hosted two fundraisers in New York City that raised almost $3 million for Project ALS, with the funds going toward ALS drug testing studies being conducted at Columbia University and at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. Scott Philllips ’80 and Richard Cohen ’81 attended the 2018 fundraiser this past January, and, while speaking was difficult for Stu at that point, they both reported a large smile instantly spreading across his face upon seeing them.  It took Scott back to his days with Stu in 1976 in Clark Hall freshman year when they met for the first time and coined nicknames for each other that they used for more than 40 years.

Richard in 1981 followed Stu to Cornell Law School, where Stu once again distinguished  himself academically without taking himself too seriously, winning traits of his that stayed with him throughout his life.

After Cornell, and following a short stint with a large NYC law firm, Stu embarked on a very successful career in the “prime brokerage” business in the NYC area, spending time at firms such as Morgan Stanley, UBS, Bank of America , Eton Park Capital Management and most recently, with Lightkeeper LLC.

Stu will  be missed by all of us who had the good fortune to have known him, but especially by his family, including his spouse Leslie of 28 years,  and their three children, Michael, Evan and Lauren.

Thank you to Scott Philllips ’80 and Richard Cohen ’81 for this heartfelt tribute.

Thank you, Wes ’80 for writing. There were so many first-time and return writers that I had to cut the print column to half the size of what was submitted. In the print version, I urged you to put that magazine down and I hoped you would pick up your phone, tablet, or laptop and go straight online to view the notes in their entirety. Here, online, you will learn more about the lives of our classmates and can click on a few links they sent. I hope that the level of engagement in writing for our class notes column is an indicator that there will be many who, for the first time, will join us “Reunion loyalist” and attend our 40th in May 2020—where we can look back with perfect vision to what one of our classmates who recently wrote called, “a simpler time.”

Cheryl Salden Green writes: My husband, Jim, and I are very excited that our son, Mitchell, was admitted to Wesleyan early decision this year and will entering as a freshman this fall. Mitchell fell in love with the school when we visited during Alumni Sons and Daughters Weekend during his junior year (in spite of the fact that Jim and I went there)! Jim and I met in Foss 7 the first day of freshman orientation in August 1976 (and got married 15 years later, after Jim finished his medical residency and I was out of law school). We have been on campus more during the college application process in the last two years than we have since graduation. I am a real estate attorney in Rhode Island working in-house for CVS Health. Jim and Mitchell (who recently became an eagle scout) are both active volunteers for Boy Scouts and other groups. We live in Foxborough (home of the Patriots). I would love to hear from some of our Wesleyan friends.”

Bruce Post writes: “My second novel, Eris Adrift, was published in May and is available at Amazon, as a paperback and also on Kindle.”

Nancy Stier writes: “I recently spent a wonderful evening here in NYC with classmates Art Feltman, Thom Kleiner, and David Kohane, a dinner we arranged to celebrate our big birthdays this year.”

Paul Edwards writes: “In July 2017, I moved to San Francisco with my family to take up a new position at Stanford University, where I am William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. I’ll be a lead author on the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, a four-year task that’s both an honor and a ton of work. My wife, Gabrielle Hecht, also took a Stanford position in the history department. Our 15-year-old son, Luka, is finishing his first year of high school, playing soccer, and writing poetry, fiction, and rap. Two sightings of the aggressively shaven Alan Jacobs, on his way to Norway to make a film about the 1911 race to the South Pole. (Memo to Alan: Norway is nowhere near Antarctica.)”

Jacquie and Andrew McKenna writes: “Greetings from Boulder, Colo. Our family is back in Boulder after our girls, Xan (16) and Juliana (14), lived for five months in Monteverde Costa Rica with local families and attended the Monteverde Friends School for a semester. They are both basically fluent in Spanish and much more aware of their own traditions after living in a very different culture. They also survived the eye of Hurricane (in Spanish “Tormenta”) Nate—cut off for a week from water and electricity, surrounded by mudslides in every direction but well taken care of by an amazing community.” During these five months, Jacquie and Andrew lived in Monteverde for a couple months volunteering with the local community on solar and conservation, traveled throughout Central America for a couple months and returned to the States for a month as empty nesters (very strange)! Speaking of empty nesters, we sure are aware how time is passing as our oldest daughter obtained her driver’s license this month and is talking about colleges and our younger daughter graduated from middle school and heads to high school next year. As we all say, “where does the time go?!?!” Before we know it, we’ll all be back at Wesleyan celebrating our 40th Reunion year—FORTIETH! Yikes!”

David Claman, PhD, writes: “I recently earned tenure at Lehman College in The Bronx, one of the senior colleges of The City University of New York. I teach music theory, composition, and electronic music. With tenure comes a much-needed sabbatical. I’ve fortunately been awarded a Fulbright-Nehru grant for research and teaching in India next year. So, in September my wife, Sunita, and I will once again relocate to India for many months, this time to Delhi. I will be affiliated with The University of Delhi, composing, teaching, and learning more about Hindustani music. The experience I had learning South Indian music at Wes with T. Viswanathan PhD’75, T. Ranganathan, and K.S. Subramanian PhD’86—among the finest musicians I’ve ever worked with—has stayed with me and continues to play a part in my life. But at this point I’m interested in learning more about music in North India which is significantly different.

“The rest of the time, we live in Jackson Heights, Queens, N.Y., with our dog named Boffin who was rescued off the streets of Delhi three years ago. I’m also in the final stages of putting together a CD of my music for Albany Records. Several of my compositions are posted here, as well as on YouTube and Spotify.”

Peter Scharf writes: “I continue my itinerate life as a visiting professor at various institutions. Last November I completed a three-year appointment at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, and at the end of July I take up an appointment in the Language Technology Research Center at the International Institute of Information Technology in Hyderabad. I’ll teach a course on Paninian linguistics for non-Sanskritists, the aim of which will be to get the future writers of machine translation of Indian languages to include concepts from their own currently neglected Indian linguistic traditions. In the meantime, I keep adding texts, lexical resources, and linguistic technology to the Sanskrit Library website.”

Jeff Green writes: “I started working part-time in the emergency department of a new hospital in Ashdod, Israel, and continue to work in a couple of ERs in Wisconsin sporadically, dividing my time between Israel and Milwaukee. Our oldest daughter is a doctor in Australia, our youngest is in the Israeli intelligence service, and our son (Wesleyan Class of 2015) just got a record deal in LA. Check out his tune—Bring Me Down by Double Twin.”

Walter Calhoun writes: “I presently live in Highland Park, Ill. I have not had steady employment since I was hit by a car as a pedestrian on May 22, 2002 when I was sent 30 feet in the air and suffered a severe head injury after landing on my head and face. Miraculously, I did not break any bones. I was, however, in a coma for close to 30 days and then further hospitalized for another six to seven months as I attempted to recover from my various injuries.

“After I was discharged from the hospital, I continued to try and develop civil defense business in the mid-size defense firm where I was a partner. Ultimately, I was no long able to try lawsuits to verdict like I had before and by 2008 left the practice of law for good. By that time, I was living with my daughter, Sammy, who had obtained her degree in religion from St. Anselm in Manchester, N.H., and had begun work at CDW Corp. We lived in Glencoe, Ill., together for three years until we were joined by my son, Daniel, who was then taking a break from college. Sammy has been working at CDW in Bridgeport, Conn., while living with her fiancé, Brian. They plan to marry on Oct. 12, 2018 art the Bronx Zoo in NYC. Daniel graduated from Lake Forest College in Illinois cum laude this past June and has accepted a position in finance at Ayco. I have tried to keep in contact with Steve Freccero who was nominated to serve as a California state judge after a position as an assistant U.S. attorney and becoming a partner in private practice and Labeeb Abboud who is a general counsel for a company in NYC Blessings in joy.”

Melissa Stern writes: “My mixed media installation project The Talking Cure just finished up a fabulous run in St. Louis at The Kranzberg Center for Contemporary Art. It goes back on the road again in a few months. Stay tuned for details on where and when. Right now ,I’m working like mad getting ready for my solo show at Garvey Simon Gallery in NYC, which opens in October. Hope to see some Wes Tech folks there. I also start teaching at Parsons School of Design this Fall, so it’s going to be a jam packed couple of months!”

Cindy Ryan writes: This May I received my second master’s in clinical mental health counseling – expressive arts therapy from Lesley University. Along the way I had the fortune to be supervised by Deb Madera ’95, who founded one amazing mental health treatment facility, Cultivate Care Farms, where I interned. Expressive arts therapy combines beautifully with animal and farm-assisted therapy! This past year I Interned at an exceptional integrative care facility with cancer patients and their families. As my two adult kids, Juliet and Jonah, have long since found their successes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting back to the books, finding a new passion, and reinventing myself by harnessing the power of creativity to help others.”

Ellen Haller writes: “I’m writing this while completing my sixth AIDS/LifeCycle, a seven-day, 545-mile charity bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angles. I ride because I was in medical school in 1982 when the AIDS crisos first hit, and I’ve lost countless patients to this disease since those dark days. I ride because AIDS is still here. I ride because California is beautiful. And, I ride because I love cycling! My main news is that, after 30 years on the full-time faculty at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, I’ll be retiring as of June 30, 2018! I’m looking forward to more cycling and also to continued ice hockey playing; yep, I still play! Huge thanks to Wes where my hockey addiction first began.

David Luberoff writes, “At the urging of Jenny Boylan, Eric Segal and I traveled down to Middletown on May 26to join her for the gathering of former Argus editors and writers that marked the paper’s 150th anniversary. We had a wonderful afternoon starting with lunch at O’Rourke’s and then a long stroll around the campus, highlighted by a visit to the Argus’ former home at the corner of Church and High Streets, which now houses the school’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (and looks a lot better than it did when it housed the Argus). After taking some selfies there, we strolled through the Butterfield dorms and around campus, including a recollection-filled hiatus sitting on Foss Hill, where we ruminated on the unexpected paths our lives have taken. We ended at Russell House for a reception where several decades of Argus alumni told similar tales of late nights, crises, take-out food, and a variety of important experiences and lessons that we’ve taken forward, even as most of us moved into non-journalism professions. All in all, a fun and touching day.”

KIMBERLY OFRIA SELBY | kim_selby@yahoo.com

 

Thank you, Wes ’80 for writing. There were so many first-time and return writers that I had to cut the print column to half the size of what was submitted. In the print version, I urged you to put that magazine down and I hoped you would pick up your phone, tablet, or laptop and go straight online to view the notes in their entirety. Here, online, you will learn more about the lives of our classmates and can click on a few links they sent. I hope that the level of engagement in writing for our class notes column is an indicator that there will be many who, for the first time, will join us “Reunion loyalist” and attend our 40th in May 2020—where we can look back with perfect vision to what one of our classmates who recently wrote called, “a simpler time.”

Cheryl Salden Green writes: My husband, Jim, and I are very excited that our son, Mitchell, was admitted to Wesleyan early decision this year and will entering as a freshman this fall. Mitchell fell in love with the school when we visited during Alumni Sons and Daughters Weekend during his junior year (in spite of the fact that Jim and I went there)! Jim and I met in Foss 7 the first day of freshman orientation in August 1976 (and got married 15 years later, after Jim finished his medical residency and I was out of law school). We have been on campus more during the college application process in the last two years than we have since graduation. I am a real estate attorney in Rhode Island working in-house for CVS Health. Jim and Mitchell (who recently became an eagle scout) are both active volunteers for Boy Scouts and other groups. We live in Foxborough (home of the Patriots). I would love to hear from some of our Wesleyan friends.”

Bruce Post writes: “My second novel, Eris Adrift, was published in May and is available at Amazon, as a paperback and also on Kindle.”

Nancy Stier writes: “I recently spent a wonderful evening here in NYC with classmates Art Feltman, Thom Kleiner, and David Kohane, a dinner we arranged to celebrate our big birthdays this year.”

Paul Edwards writes: “In July 2017, I moved to San Francisco with my family to take up a new position at Stanford University, where I am William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. I’ll be a lead author on the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, a four-year task that’s both an honor and a ton of work. My wife, Gabrielle Hecht, also took a Stanford position in the history department. Our 15-year-old son, Luka, is finishing his first year of high school, playing soccer, and writing poetry, fiction, and rap. Two sightings of the aggressively shaven Alan Jacobs, on his way to Norway to make a film about the 1911 race to the South Pole. (Memo to Alan: Norway is nowhere near Antarctica.)”

Jacquie and Andrew McKenna writes: “Greetings from Boulder, Colo. Our family is back in Boulder after our girls, Xan (16) and Juliana (14), lived for five months in Monteverde Costa Rica with local families and attended the Monteverde Friends School for a semester. They are both basically fluent in Spanish and much more aware of their own traditions after living in a very different culture. They also survived the eye of Hurricane (in Spanish “Tormenta”) Nate—cut off for a week from water and electricity, surrounded by mudslides in every direction but well taken care of by an amazing community.” During these five months, Jacquie and Andrew lived in Monteverde for a couple months volunteering with the local community on solar and conservation, traveled throughout Central America for a couple months and returned to the States for a month as empty nesters (very strange)! Speaking of empty nesters, we sure are aware how time is passing as our oldest daughter obtained her driver’s license this month and is talking about colleges and our younger daughter graduated from middle school and heads to high school next year. As we all say, “where does the time go?!?!” Before we know it, we’ll all be back at Wesleyan celebrating our 40th Reunion year—FORTIETH! Yikes!”

David Claman, PhD, writes: “I recently earned tenure at Lehman College in The Bronx, one of the senior colleges of The City University of New York. I teach music theory, composition, and electronic music. With tenure comes a much-needed sabbatical. I’ve fortunately been awarded a Fulbright-Nehru grant for research and teaching in India next year. So, in September my wife, Sunita, and I will once again relocate to India for many months, this time to Delhi. I will be affiliated with The University of Delhi, composing, teaching, and learning more about Hindustani music. The experience I had learning South Indian music at Wes with T. Viswanathan PhD’75, T. Ranganathan, and K.S. Subramanian PhD’86—among the finest musicians I’ve ever worked with—has stayed with me and continues to play a part in my life. But at this point I’m interested in learning more about music in North India which is significantly different.

“The rest of the time, we live in Jackson Heights, Queens, N.Y., with our dog named Boffin who was rescued off the streets of Delhi three years ago. I’m also in the final stages of putting together a CD of my music for Albany Records. Several of my compositions are posted here, as well as on YouTube and Spotify.”

Peter Scharf writes: “I continue my itinerate life as a visiting professor at various institutions. Last November I completed a three-year appointment at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, and at the end of July I take up an appointment in the Language Technology Research Center at the International Institute of Information Technology in Hyderabad. I’ll teach a course on Paninian linguistics for non-Sanskritists, the aim of which will be to get the future writers of machine translation of Indian languages to include concepts from their own currently neglected Indian linguistic traditions. In the meantime, I keep adding texts, lexical resources, and linguistic technology to the Sanskrit Library website.”

Jeff Green writes: “I started working part-time in the emergency department of a new hospital in Ashdod, Israel, and continue to work in a couple of ERs in Wisconsin sporadically, dividing my time between Israel and Milwaukee. Our oldest daughter is a doctor in Australia, our youngest is in the Israeli intelligence service, and our son (Wesleyan Class of 2015) just got a record deal in LA. Check out his tune—Bring Me Down by Double Twin.”

Walter Calhoun writes: “I presently live in Highland Park, Ill. I have not had steady employment since I was hit by a car as a pedestrian on May 22, 2002 when I was sent 30 feet in the air and suffered a severe head injury after landing on my head and face. Miraculously, I did not break any bones. I was, however, in a coma for close to 30 days and then further hospitalized for another six to seven months as I attempted to recover from my various injuries.

“After I was discharged from the hospital, I continued to try and develop civil defense business in the mid-size defense firm where I was a partner. Ultimately, I was no long able to try lawsuits to verdict like I had before and by 2008 left the practice of law for good. By that time, I was living with my daughter, Sammy, who had obtained her degree in religion from St. Anselm in Manchester, N.H., and had begun work at CDW Corp. We lived in Glencoe, Ill., together for three years until we were joined by my son, Daniel, who was then taking a break from college. Sammy has been working at CDW in Bridgeport, Conn., while living with her fiancé, Brian. They plan to marry on Oct. 12, 2018 art the Bronx Zoo in NYC. Daniel graduated from Lake Forest College in Illinois cum laude this past June and has accepted a position in finance at Ayco. I have tried to keep in contact with Steve Freccero who was nominated to serve as a California state judge after a position as an assistant U.S. attorney and becoming a partner in private practice and Labeeb Abboud who is a general counsel for a company in NYC Blessings in joy.”

Melissa Stern writes: “My mixed media installation project The Talking Cure just finished up a fabulous run in St. Louis at The Kranzberg Center for Contemporary Art. It goes back on the road again in a few months. Stay tuned for details on where and when. Right now ,I’m working like mad getting ready for my solo show at Garvey Simon Gallery in NYC, which opens in October. Hope to see some Wes Tech folks there. I also start teaching at Parsons School of Design this Fall, so it’s going to be a jam packed couple of months!”

Cindy Ryan writes: This May I received my second master’s in clinical mental health counseling – expressive arts therapy from Lesley University. Along the way I had the fortune to be supervised by Deb Madera ’95, who founded one amazing mental health treatment facility, Cultivate Care Farms, where I interned. Expressive arts therapy combines beautifully with animal and farm-assisted therapy! This past year I Interned at an exceptional integrative care facility with cancer patients and their families. As my two adult kids, Juliet and Jonah, have long since found their successes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting back to the books, finding a new passion, and reinventing myself by harnessing the power of creativity to help others.”

Ellen Haller writes: “I’m writing this while completing my sixth AIDS/LifeCycle, a seven-day, 545-mile charity bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angles. I ride because I was in medical school in 1982 when the AIDS crisos first hit, and I’ve lost countless patients to this disease since those dark days. I ride because AIDS is still here. I ride because California is beautiful. And, I ride because I love cycling! My main news is that, after 30 years on the full-time faculty at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, I’ll be retiring as of June 30, 2018! I’m looking forward to more cycling and also to continued ice hockey playing; yep, I still play! Huge thanks to Wes where my hockey addiction first began.

David Luberoff writes, “At the urging of Jenny Boylan, Eric Segal and I traveled down to Middletown on May 26to join her for the gathering of former Argus editors and writers that marked the paper’s 150th anniversary. We had a wonderful afternoon starting with lunch at O’Rourke’s and then a long stroll around the campus, highlighted by a visit to the Argus’ former home at the corner of Church and High Streets, which now houses the school’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (and looks a lot better than it did when it housed the Argus). After taking some selfies there, we strolled through the Butterfield dorms and around campus, including a recollection-filled hiatus sitting on Foss Hill, where we ruminated on the unexpected paths our lives have taken. We ended at Russell House for a reception where several decades of Argus alumni told similar tales of late nights, crises, take-out food, and a variety of important experiences and lessons that we’ve taken forward, even as most of us moved into non-journalism professions. All in all, a fun and touching day.”

KIMBERLY OFRIA SELBY | kim_selby@yahoo.com

This is the year many of us turn 60. Happy birthday to all! A few of you wrote in January to share what you are doing to mark this milestone and to note other family and personal milestones. Thank you for writing. We all look forward to learning how others will celebrate the entrance to the decade of our 60s, as well as hearing about other milestones in the 38 years since our graduation. After reading this column, please write to me. There are only two more years until our 40th Reunion. Sharing the journey of our 60s together as we transform our roles and goals in the decade ahead will be enlightening and rewarding. We all look forward to hearing from you and seeing you on campus in 2020 when we can look back with perfect vision and ahead with vibrant hopes and dreams. My email is listed below.

Ellen Haller: “After 30 years as a full-time faculty member in the UCSF department of psychiatry, I will celebrate my 60th birthday by retiring at the end of June! To celebrate, I will ride my bike from San Francisco to LA for the sixth straight year as part of the AIDS LifeCycle to raise money to provide free healthcare for people living with AIDS (tofighthiv.org). I will then look forward to more bike trips, continued ice hockey playing (yep, I still play regularly!), and quality time with family.”

Tom Loder writes: “Fun news—my eldest son, Aaron, will be going to Wes this fall like many of your kids did (Amy Zinsser, Bob Ferreira, Walter Siegel, Ed Biester…). Don’t know that there is a better endorsement of a school than to ’let’ our kids go there, even if they would have taken our spots had we had to compete against them for a seat in the freshman class. Guess that insures I’ll be on campus for our 40th.”

Don Rosenstein writes: “Writing for the first time since…well, I guess 38 years! After living in the D.C. area and working at the National Institutes of Health for 18 years, my family and I moved to Chapel Hill, N.C., about a decade ago. I’m at UNC and provide psychiatric care for patients with cancer at UNC. I’ve stayed in touch with Amy Longsworth, Sam Liss ’78, Steve Greenberg ’78, and Ken Kramer ’78. Also, a UNC colleague and I published a book on widowed fathers (Oxford University Press).”

Alex Kolodkin writes: “Well, turning 60 is a milestone that seemed best celebrated from afar, and so my wife, Maria Rodriguez ’81, youngest daughter Talia (who is almost 16), and I traveled to Sicily, where we enjoyed the charms of southern Italy and somehow getting older seemed not so bad at all. I am in the department of neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where I have been conducting research in neural development and regeneration since 1995, and Maria is a partner at Venable LLP here in Baltimore. With our elder daughter, Sasha, only one year out of college, and Talia not yet there, there is little time to ruminate on turning 60, and that seems all for the best.”

KIMBERLY OFRIA SELBY | kim_selby@yahoo.com

Jonathan Mink writes from Rochester, N.Y.: “My first class note in many years. I have just returned from giving a couple of lectures in Yangon, Myanmar, at the 16th ASEAN Pediatric Federation Congress. This was the first international pediatrics conference ever held in Myanmar and would have not been possible prior to Myanmar opening up in 2010. I had some concerns about going to Myanmar, and supporting their economy at this time, but the opportunity to advance pediatrics education in a resource-poor country outweighed those concerns. Visiting Yangon was an amazing experience. Interesting history, impressive pagodas, wonderful food, and incredibly friendly people. Professionally, I work at the University of Rochester and love it here. I am president of Child Neurology Society, the primary North American professional organization for child neurology, for the next two years. This gives me an opportunity to be an ambassador for my field, but also to have some influence on public policy regarding care for children with disabilities due to neurologic disease. Janet Cranshaw ’82 and I have been married 32 years. Our daughter, Laura, graduated from college in May, and our son, David, is in his second-ish year of college.”

Scott Hecker writes from San Diego: ”The latest exciting news for me is the FDA approval of Vabomere, a combination antibiotic product for treating those nasty superbugs in hospitals that are constantly in the news. It contains the new beta-lactamase inhibitor “vaborbactam,” a product of an eight-year project to discover and develop a member of a new class of molecules to address a particular type of bacterial resistance. Getting a drug on the market is a dream that is only enjoyed by a small fraction of researchers in pharmaceutical discovery, so this is a big one!”

Melissa Stern writes from India: “I’m visiting an NGO that works with Dalit (untouchable women) to give them access to education and job training. They run boarding schools for orphan girls, training programs in needlework skills ,and university training. Today I met a young woman, a former orphan, found by this group, The Sambhali Trust, and punchline is that on Thursday she starts law school. Pretty mind- blowing. My exhibition, The Talking Cure, opens in St. Louis at The Kranzberg Center for Contemporary Art in January. I will go out there to work with art, theater, and writing students in conjunction with the show. It’ll run for six months. Head’s up St. Louis Wes folks! I am now represented by Garvey Simon, a wonderful gallery in Chelsea, and will be opening a solo show there in 2018. A big year ahead!”

Kim Selby, class secretary, writes from Cape Cod: “Congratulations to Jon, Scott, and Melissa, for their contributions to their fields. It is amazing to hear about the opportunities that 37 years of work can bring. Right now, we are approaching the mid-point between our 35th and 40th class reunions. It is an exciting time of life to connect with classmates. A rewarding and interesting way to connect is to become a class secretary. If anyone of you is interested in engaging classmates as class secretary, let me know.  I am happy to share the joy that comes from this enriching activity.”

KIMBERLY OFRIA SELBY | kim_selby@yahoo.com

Marty Saggese writes: “I am one of those investors who have benefited from Joel Tillinghast’s investment expertise. I had the chance to sit next to Joel at one of our Reunion dinners a few years ago, and said thank you to him in person. I am looking forward to reading his book!”

Charla Reinganum writes: “Dan, my husband of 30 years, and I are starting a new chapter this July, moving from the third coast (Chicago) to the West Coast (Napa) less than a week after our daughter, Rachel Schwartz ’11, gets married with unbridled support by bridesmaids Ilyana Schwartz ’13, Janine Petito ’11, Anne Calder ’11, and Joanna Schiffman ’11. Bunny Benenson and Jane Carleton will be celebrating with us. No, we are not retiring. Dan has taken a new position as head of a local progressive private school and I will continue serving as chief environmental engineer for FedEx Express. My commute soon will wend through vineyards instead of interstates. Love to catch up if you happen to be Napa-bound.”

Aleta Staton writes: “I’m thankful to be going into my sixth year with the faculty of the theater department at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. We are building a new theater space this year and look forward to a robust season of productions. I recently attended the Reunion for Wesleyan class of ‘81 with Carlia Francis ’82 (PhD and an August Wilson scholar) and ran into my good friend Beck Lee ’82 who happened to be the keynote speaker.”

Jon Martin, professor at University of Florida, writes: “I’m in the middle of a seven-week field expedition to Greenland. If anyone is curious, you can check out our Greenland project: grainfluxes.geology.ufl.edu.

Melissa Totten, content producer for MandCo.org, reports in from the Boston region, where she would rather not be living. She misses the desert chaparral and the vast southwestern skies. She remembers a life among like-minded adults. A prisoner of East Walpole, Ms. Totten has no access to culturally diverse people, lives, folkways, or foodways. Instead of writing the book she is outlining, she has become physically and emotionally dependent upon the consumption of cable television’s political coverage. Despite her stupor, she has become an accidental climate activist and an associate member of her hometown’s historical commission. In that position, she has great power. According to the town’s by-laws, the commission may issue a six-month demolition permit delay for “historically and/or architecturally significant buildings.” After six months of considering the value of preservation, an owner is free to pick up the demo permit from the building inspector and rip it all down to the earth below.

Melissa Hewey writes: “Alan Chebuske and I celebrated our first date at Wes 40 years ago in February. We now live in Portland, Maine, where Alan practices dentistry in between taking bike trips around the world. With two grandchildren, one living in Beijing, China (son of Cara Chebuske ’06 and Will McCue ’06), and another in Los Angeles, I am pretty sure the airlines are developing a new tier of elite status just for me.”

Mark Zitter writes: “My daughter, Tessa ’21, was accepted ED1 to Wesleyan and will begin this fall! She wants to double major in theater and chemistry, sing in an a capella group, and work in Admission as a tour guide to motivate visitors to apply to Wes. Proud to join the ranks of our classmates who are Wesleyan parents. Extremis, the short documentary featuring my wife and her ICU colleagues and patients, was nominated for an Oscar, so she got to go to the Academy Awards. (Couldn’t snag an extra ticket for me—my best shot to be arm candy!) I’m chairing both my company and The Zetema Project (zetemaproject.org), a group of U.S. healthcare leaders focused on policy issues. I’ve also found a second career as an interviewer at venues ranging from Stanford to the 92nd Street Y to the Commonwealth Club. I’ve hosted U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Obamacare architect Ezekiel Emanuel, palliative care doctor BJ Miller, and others. I joined the Board of the Commonwealth Club (commonwealthclub.org), America’s oldest and largest public affairs forum, which will move into a brand new facility on San Francisco’s Embarcadero this summer. This doesn’t feel like retirement, but it’s fun.”

Amy Kroll writes: “We are heading to Chicago for our son, Sam’s, graduation from the University of Chicago. We are thrilled for Sam (and ourselves—no more college tuition!), but wistful as this chapter of raising children closes. We are still in D.C., and I am a partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, LLP, watching the daily motorcades up and down Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Congress. I hope that all our class members will give to the Annual Fund—I see the value of a Wesleyan education frequently, as young lawyers and law students who are Wesleyan graduates join our firm and consistently excel. I enjoy periodic catch-ups with John Singer and David Resnick ’81, among others.  

KIMBERLY OFRIA SELBY | kim_selby@yahoo.com