Tag: 1985

Welcome to 2025, our 40th Reunion year! I hope that you’re planning to come to Middletown in May. Here’s a bunch of good news to whet your reunion appetite:

Marcelo Halpern got married on October 26 to Tamara Chaplin, a professor of modern European history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Representing the Wesleyan cohort were Jill Hamada and Jonathan Axelrad ’84.  Marcelo’s “kids,” Samantha (28–a cardiothoracic surgery resident at Massachusetts General) and Noah (26–a data scientist for a tech start-up in San Francisco) were there as well. He lives in Chicago, continuing his career as a partner at Perkins Coie LLP, focusing on technology transactions. Marcelo will miss the reunion this year, but before you feel too sorry for him, know that he’ll “be on an extended trip in Europe [taking] a three-month sabbatical from work.” Marcelo would love to hear from anyone in or passing through the Chicago area.

Beth Purnell Gartman will wrap up her 36th year as a school psychologist this summer and will “likely” work in educational consulting next. She recently moved to a new home in Atlanta near Emory, with a pool, great walking trails, and a nature preserve nearby, and a wonderful guest suite—she welcomes Wes visitors! Beth also sings in a community chorus and formed an a cappella group with colleagues who also sang in a cappella groups in college. She adds, “I keep in close touch with Jenny Henkind and Amy Hamburg Shir. We began a tradition of taking a yearly getaway together, which has been a great way to stay connected. Whether we are perusing art at a festival in Louisville, hiking in the woods, or downing oysters on the half shell, we have created memories and a closeness that we all cherish.” Beth also spent time with her children in Italy: “A true highlight … was a day trip from Siena through Tuscany, which included a three-hour meal at Officina della Bistecca in Panzano in Chianti. We not only savored every course but enjoyed the company of diners from all around the world who desired to experience a meal prepared by Dario Cecchini.”

Ken Haim wrote just after landing in Hong Kong to say that he was “devastated by the loss of Bill Queen ’86” and that recognizing how precious our time is “we are traveling more extensively. I am amazed at how much has changed and how much is the same.”

Rob Menard went to the wedding of Ethan Beardsley ’86 in Paris in September, and “to Hanoi for the seventh time to perform craniofacial surgery there as a clinical professor of plastic surgery at Stanford.”

Terry McClenahan’s first grandchild, Arthur, was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, in June 2024! “If he was any cuter it’d be illegal,” he reports. Terry adds, “Daughter, Katie, is a 2L at Georgetown Law, and our son, Rory ’24, graduated in May from Wesleyan (no less). Last summer he was a field organizer for Josh Riley’s successful New York [Congressional District] 19 campaign for the U.S. House. My wife, Kara Kelly, continues to do astounding work in her eighth year as chief of pediatric oncology at two Buffalo hospitals and the medical school. I still work on warehouse and commercial projects with Acquest Design.” It will be no surprise that Terry is rowing “with Buffalo River RC, winning medals at Midwest Sprints and Head of the Welland Regattas.” He also got to race at the Head of the Charles Regatta for “the 14th or 15th time.” Terry also recently heard from another crew buddy, Bill Wasch ’84.

Crystal Turner-Moffatt, an expert in environmental and occupational health and safety in the construction industry, is completing her PhD this spring.

Margaret Bracken Thompson saw Lynn Meade ’86 in Palm Springs during Modernism Week (February 2024) at the convention center there. Margaret report’s that Lynn’s “art is amazing!”

Paul Kusserow’s book, The Coming Healthcare Revolution: 10 Forces That Will Cure America’s Healthcare Crisis, has recently been published. Paul notes that it is “selling well.”

Hilary Jacobs Hendel also has a new book coming out in 2025, Parents Have Feelings, Too. Hilary’s oldest daughter recently got married, and her youngest child became a medical doctor!

I heard from so many classmates in this last call for class notes, so I got that goin’ for me, which is nice!

Marc Stein has been elected the vice president of the Organization of American Historians, on track to serve as president-elect in 2025–26 and president in 2026–27. He recently was interviewed by John Yang ’80 on PBS News Weekend. He writes about his time at Wesleyan in his 2022 book, Queer Public History: Essays on Scholarly Activism (University of California Press), and is currently working on a book about the U.S. Bicentennial, which he hopes to publish before the U.S. Semiquincentennial (which he says he keeps mispronouncing because of the Wesleyan sesquicentennial).

Hillary Jacobs Hendel writes that she continues to be in touch with Wes friends Lucy Lehrer, Tracey and Robert Pruzan, Andy Behrman ’84, John Nathan, and Marc Sholes ’84, and more: “I continue to practice psychotherapy. My book on how to tend to our emotions for improved mental health, It’s Not Always Depression, continues to sell well in the U.S. and abroad. I have new book coming out in 2025 on emotions and parenting. I offer classes and curricula on emotions and house many free resources for those interested in emotional health on my website at hilaryjacobshendel.com. I spend half my time in Connecticut and the other half in NYC. Thought to include a pic of me, Amanda Wolf ’87, my sister, and our children (minus one who lives in Minnesota).”

Although Gary Crump did go to law school, that’s not what brought him to the Supreme Court. Instead, Gary, who teaches social studies in Buffalo, “attended an amazing program at the U.S. Supreme Court with other educators from around the nation. The Supreme Court Summer Institute (SCSI) is a program sponsored by Street Law, Inc. and the Supreme Court Historical Society for teachers to examine and analyze how the court processes cases.”

K.T. Korngold is a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. K.T. expects to defend her dissertation on the presence of agency in infants in the spring of 2025.

You know you lived at 230 Washington Street your freshman year if you get an email that opens, “I was just thinking about ‘Boot House’ the other day.” This one was from Ken Goldschneider:

 “September 15, 2024, marks the 25th anniversary of my founding the Pediatric Pain programs at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital (currently the #1 ranked Children’s Hospital in the country). Over the past 25 years, we have grown to be one of the biggest and most comprehensive pain and palliative care programs in the world for children and young adults. We have provided care to many thousands of pediatric patients, trained numerous practitioners, and published two books and hundreds of scientific articles. We are very excited about and proud of all of it. I have always said that what I have been most proud of in my professional life are the teams that I have assembled, which have been extraordinary and extremely high functioning as well as comprising the most wonderful human beings. I have always considered them an extended family. It has been one of the great privileges in life, because to have teams that work that well together and can remain friends and friendly colleagues for over two decades is not common. The sad part in some ways is that I will be stepping down from my role as director of the Pain Management Center. On the other hand, I have a large number of hobbies to pursue and never seem to have enough time to pursue them to the level I want to do. That’s a privileged thing to say, so I am not complaining. But with the kids grown and launched into their respective lives and careers, the hobbies will become a crucial part of my survival, because if I don’t get out of the house regularly my wife (Jennifer Metters Goldschneider ’84) will probably run me over with a Zamboni.”

Rich Stoller also picked up the retirement theme, writing that he is entering his “final year of gainful employment, as interim associate dean of Penn State’s honors college, after which I will retire to gardening and Facebook rants (not about gardening). I last visited Wesleyan three years ago, and when my daughter (then looking at colleges) pronounced the campus unlovely, I said that it was a protest against injustice in the world. She believed it and to some extent I did too, but it was probably just the construction.”

Finally, I had the good fortune to spend a long weekend in Nags Head, North Carolina, with Hillary Hess and Jolynn Jones (speaking of Boot House!). We had a wonderful time walking on the beach, drinking champagne, and just generally catching up on life, love, and the world.  It was probably more sedate in some ways than our weekends at Wesleyan were, but we probably laughed just as much.

Start thinking about our Reunion in the spring—it’s always so much fun!

Take care, ’85ers,

Caroline

Please write to your class secretary.

Happy New Year, ’85ers!

I’m writing this from my desk in the English department at the University of Maryland. I’m procrastinating on finishing my grading! Anyone who knew me at Wes recalls that I have some next-level procrastination skills. . . .

Speaking of people who knew me at Wes, Hillary Hess and I just had a night out with our husbands (Peter Gimlin and Michael MacDonald, respectively) to see Velocity Girl at the Black Cat in D.C. A super fun evening!

John P. H. Vigman wrote that he’s still in Japan, having worked for Veolia for “well over a decade, going from head of legal to [the] VP of Business Development Major Projects for Japan and India,” adding that he’ll be in Tokyo for another couple of years, so “if anyone is in the area, look [him] up.”

I also heard from Bradley Solomon who has retired from the California Attorney General’s Office and is now a different kind of counselor: “I’ve . . . started a new career as a private college counselor, helping students and families apply to college.” We can check out his new venture, Solomon College Advising, online.

Ben Wenograd ’85.5 was selected deputy mayor of West Hartford, Connecticut, in the November 2023 election. He previously served on the town council for eight years. His service has focused on affordable housing.

If you don’t want to email when I send out my quarterly appeals for class notes, you can send me your news anytime via FaceBook or Instagram. Wishing yours peace and health.

Hello, Class of ’85!

I hope you had wonderful summers. I’m guessing you were busy because I only heard from THREE of you.

One was Dave Pontrelli who joked that rather than “exhorting” you to write in, perhaps I should extort you! He might be onto something. . . .

I also heard from Rich Stoller. Rich is on the faculty at Penn State, in the Latin American Studies Program. He wrote: “I hope to retire next year from academic administration (not as glamorous as it sounds, and it doesn’t even sound glamorous), to devote myself to gardening, travel, and indecorous social media posts. We toured the Wesleyan campus with my then-high school student two summers ago and she asked why there weren’t any flowers on campus. I told her the students wouldn’t permit it as long as there was any suffering in the world, and at least for a moment she believed me, so Wes’s reputation remains intact although I *would* like to know why there are no flowers on campus.”

Lee McIntyre ’84 reported the sad news of Jonathan Haber’s passing in 2022. Remembrances can be read here:

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/bostonglobe/name/jonathan-haber-obituary?id=34816401

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-05-15-remembering-jonathan-haber-who-taught-so-many-to-think-critically

I hope to hear from more of you next time!

Hello, ’85ers! I had the good fortune to visit campus at the end of January to take part in a very fun mentoring workshop with current women athletes. The more Wes changes, the more it stays the same. I’ve reached that stage of my life where I visit places and say, “That used to be . . . .”  I found myself repeatedly noting, “That used to be a package store!,” which I thought was pretty funny.

I heard from Tim Clark that he, Larry Attia, and Steve Pace ’84 have continued their now 38-year-old tradition of watching a Mets road series together each year. “This year we will be traveling to Camden Yards for a Mets-Orioles set. We also upped the boys of summer ante a bit during the pandemic, with a weekly call on all things Mets and life (quite amazing how some codgers can talk about baseball passionately for an hour even in the off-season during the dead of winter). Two other happy items to report: my daughter Kyra ’23 will be graduating from Wes this coming spring; and I ran my first marathon in the fall (Marine Corp with a sub-4 finish).”

Stephen Schwartz writes that he returned last year to the U.S. after living and working overseas in Asia since 2004. He moved to Indonesia in 2004 as the IMF’s senior representative in Indonesia. In 2008 he left the IMF and moved to Hong Kong where he worked in a variety of banking and economics research positions, most recently with Fitch Ratings. Stephen now lives with his partner Jennifer in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where he has been enjoying hiking in the summer and cross-country skiing in the winter. He enjoys the relative peace and quiet after many years of living in the hustle and bustle of Asian cities.

Ellen Campbell is also planning a move to New England: “After a little more than 20 years in Tucson, my husband and I are putting our house on the market and ‘downsizing’ to Vermont. For the past few summers, we’ve been fixing up an old house adjacent to where I grew up . . . it will be our home base moving forward. It’s bittersweet leaving the Desert Southwest, such a lovely place! But new adventures lie ahead. I’ll have lots of barn space for a ceramic/painting studio in Vermont, and will continue teaching yoga classes in person and on Zoom. Winters? We may escape the Northeast (I’m a wimp!) . . . to be continued! Wishing everyone the best as we are so fortunate to be embarking on a new and exciting decade. How did that happen?!!” You can see some of Ellen’s work at www.ellencampbellart.com.

And, finally, it wouldn’t be the class notes without a cryptic yet lyrical note from Christopher Kylin: “Still conspiring to overawe reality with subtle genius and struggling against the bindings of inertia and ennui. In two years, I’ll be celebrated or dead.”

Let us all hope for the former rather than the latter. Take care, my friends, and keep in touch.

Please write to your class secretary.

Please write to your class secretary.