Tag: 1988

Peter writes for this issue.

Rich Silverman advises, “Three years back in NYC and two years at Corcoran. Love being in the city and try to take advantage of all that it has to offer—member hours at the MOMA, book talks at Hunter and the Apollo, hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Chinatown, and walks in Central Park. Tonight, I’m going to see Phil Rosenthal at the Beacon.”

Rob Wrubel writes in, “My daughter, Annie, will attend Wes starting this fall, and she’s excited to be heading to Middletown. We live in Colorado Springs, far from Middletown, and I look forward to visiting the campus this fall.”

Reid Cramer shares, “I’ve co-produced a record of music with Smithsonian Folkways featuring the singing of Sonya Cohen Cramer, who started Wesleyan in the Class of 1987 but marched with the Class of 1988. The record is called You’ve Been a Friend to Me and is a collection of beautifully sung folk songs, traditional ballads, and original music that reflect the full arc of Sonya’s musical life. Sonya was an amazing woman, who passed away in 2015, and it was exhilarating to be her partner. She had a beautiful voice and remarkable spirit. Growing up in a musical family, she was exposed to many kinds of folk and traditional music, but her time at Wesleyan, and especially her study of Carnatic singing with T. Viswanathan, sparked a lifelong engagement with singing as a craft and a practice. Along with a stellar group of people, she helped form the Wesleyan Women’s Singer/Songwriter Collective, which produced a captivating cassette of music, songs, and poems called SPIN.”

Stephen Morison updates, “I’m very excited to be joining The American School of Marrakesh community next year. I will be the new head of school. This is a homecoming of sorts. Emily and I began our international teaching careers in Tangier in 1997. Since then, we have taught all over the world but have returned frequently to Morocco to visit family and friends.”

Steven Zubkoff writes, “Jana Craston ’87 and I went to Canada to watch the eclipse at the lake cottage and we spent the rest of our time in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Norwich, Vermont. Hoping to go visit Stu and Susan (’90) Ellman in a few weeks.”

Bob Garcia reports, “Happy to share my first kids’ book, Aim High, Little Giant, Aim High!, was picked up for distribution by Haymarket. The first title I ever authored, Where’d You Get Those? New York City’s Sneaker Culture: 1960–1987 (Testify, 2003), is celebrating its 20th anniversary of publication with a special edition; and my next project is a memoir tentatively titled Bobbito’s Book of B-ball Bong Bong, which Akashic, founded by Johnny Temple, will release in 2025! I’ve also opened an online bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/koolboblove. Very pleased to make strides in literature considering how horribly I did in that subject while on campus, ba haaa!”

Hillary writes for this issue.

Hello classmates,

Steve Pike, who teaches public diplomacy and public relations at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, was awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor. He retired from the U.S. Department of State in 2016, after a quarter century as a diplomat, in order to take up research and teaching at Syracuse. In 2023 he published the paper What Diplomats Do: U.S. Citizen Perspectives on the Work of Public Diplomacy in Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, as well as a chapter on the management of public diplomacy in A Research Agenda for Public Diplomacy, (Eytan Gilboa, ed.).

Andy Goldman lives in Spokane, Washington, and says, “I teach at Gonzaga University, where I’m a professor in the history department (and surrounded by basketball fanatics). I’m currently on sabbatical and have just returned from several weeks in western Sicily, where I’ve been working as part of an international archaeological survey project studying an ancient marine battle site off the Egadi Islands. I do love my job sometimes: handling 2,250-year-old objects from off the seabed (90 meters down!) makes for a pretty phenomenal field trip (as does Sicilian cooking). I’m very pleased to announce that I have a book in press right now, the third edition of Ancient Cities (Routledge), written with my close friend Charles Gates and available in February 2024. Life in the Pacific Northwest continues to be lovely; we bought a new house two years ago and—with lots of room and several large pets—welcome anyone passing through. Last spring I had a wonderful visit with old Argus-mates James Shiffer ’89 and Kirsten Delegard ’90, who both gave lectures at Gonzaga.”

Alisa Newman shares that she enjoys visiting Wes where her daughter is a first year living in Clark (with a groundhog outside the window!). “The new buildings look great without taking away from the character of the campus I remember. Main Street has so many more options now! I think there used to be exactly ONE restaurant we would ever go to.”

More info from Middletown comes from Jen Alexander, who lives “a few blocks from campus with my husband Mark Masselli (Hon. ’09); our four kids have grown and (mostly) left the nest. The Kidcity Children’s Museum just celebrated our 25th anniversary, and in addition to the magical experience of making exhibits with our classmate, Scott Kessel, I have gotten to work with Wes students in every generation, since we are a work-study site. I’m grateful for Doug Mackenzie ’89 who, between his music and body work, is kind of a one-man analog Facebook, as he travels the country and brings me news of the Wes alums he visits.”

Another empty nester is C. C. (Crichlow) Clark, who has a college grad and a college junior, and reports from Arlington, Virginia: “I went back to Wes for the first time in 15 years for a Black alumni weekend. It was phenomenal to spend time with so many Black alumni and students. Many from the Class of ’88 were there, including Ingrid Gordon, Majora Carter, Maurice Willoughby, Marc McKayle, Al Young, and Fred Montas. I’m still basking in the glow of the weekend and looking forward to the next one.”

Christie Trott had a busy year in Northern California: “My daughter has been applying to colleges, and my son is hot on her heels, prepping for college applications. My sister, Shelley ’91, went to the recent Homecoming and had a blast seeing some other Wes alum. I transitioned to being an admin at the school I helped start during COVID, and I’m completely out of the classroom for the first time in many years. Sadly, I also broke my foot and had to have surgery, so I’ve been hobbling around on a scooter, crutches, my butt, and even crawling like a baby when necessary. All in all, life is good, and I try hard to be in gratitude despite the absurdity of the world we live in.”

Finally, we have sad news from Ellen (Shandling) Burgess: “It is with a heavy heart that I share that Katy Shander-Reynolds passed away October 20, 2023, after a long battle with lung cancer. She is survived by her loving husband and four children.” Katy’s obituary is located at https://katyshander.com/obituary/.

Best wishes,

Hillary

Peter writes for this issue.

Elaine Tassy reports that following her surgeries related to a brain tumor and a detached retina back in 2017, her road to recovery culminated in 2022 with a return to her professional passion of journalism. She is now working as a senior reporter at Colorado Public Radio where she covers race, diversity, and equity and where she has won several reporting prizes. Elaine is in the process of buying a new home in the Denver area.

Steve Almond writes that he is living outside of Boston with his wife and three kids while enjoying teaching Wesleyan students. A film of his novel, Which Brings Me to You, will be out in late fall or winter. His most recent novel, All the Secrets of the World, has been optioned for TV by 20th Century Studios and his forthcoming novel, Truth is an Arrow, Mercy is a Bow, will be released in spring 2024.

Andrew Campbell shares sad news: This past July he was in Hawaii at the side of Tim McCallum when Tim finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer. The night before Tim passed, Chris Gentili ’90 had helped organize a group Zoom call involving many of Tim’s friends and Chi Psi fraternity brothers where they had a chance to speak with Tim and share with him how much impact he had on their lives.

More sad news: Two classmates passed away last April. Kellina Craig-Henderson died on April 21. The National Science Foundation, her employer for many years, said she was “a dedicated leader. . . [who] worked tirelessly to engage underrepresented groups in science.” Her obituary can be read here. And Rob James passed away on April 29 in Phoenix, Arizona. Many may remember Rob from his four years playing basketball for Wesleyan. After graduating, Rob went to medical school, eventually working as a primary care physician and later a pediatrician. His obituary can be read here.

Hillary writes for this issue.

Alisa Newman reports that her daughter fell in love with Wes after being convinced to take a tour, and she’ll be joining the first-year class this fall.

Steve Almond writes, “I’m living outside Boston, teaching creative writing at Wes, and excited that the paperback of my novel, All the Secrets of the World, will come out in spring 2023. Twentieth Century Fox has optioned the book for TV, and they’ve made another novel of mine, Which Brings Me to You, into a movie starring Lucy Hale.”

Rich Silverman has retired from the entertainment industry and is working as a real estate agent for Corcoran in NYC, which he’s finding fun and rewarding. “I’ve closed purchase, sale, and rental deals all over Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens and I seem to be a strong contender for rookie of the year.” In his free time, Rich loves discovering new restaurants and also enjoys attending book discussions. “Most recently, I listened to Wes alum, Andrew Meier ’85, discuss his new book, Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty; Andrew was kind enough to sign my copy at the event. I had a wonderful time this past September at the annual Wesleyan football event hosted by Dave Thomas ’77, and it was gratifying to see the team perform so well. I’d love to connect with any Wes alums in NYC. I’ll always make time for a coffee meetup or a drink. My phone is (310) 413–6654 and my email is Rich.Silverman@Corcoran.com.”

Julie Lenner launched her own consultancy last year after 25-plus years in senior leadership roles in the nonprofit sector, including cofounding All Stars Project of Chicago. She’s happy to discover that helping multiple organizations simultaneously is just as gratifying as working to further one organization’s mission.

Paul Lewis reports, “After four years of work, my new book was just published, Manual of Biogenic House Sections (ORO Editions, 2022), which argues for how plant and earth-based materials can be a catalyst for a reinvention of how we build, by sequester carbon, engage regenerative life cycles, and create healthier spaces for living. It’s a follow-up to the book I wrote with my two partners in 2016, Manual of Section, which has now been translated into seven languages and is frequently found dog-eared on students and architects’ desks. We produced an exhibit about the new book and the problem of carbon released in the making of building materials, which has traveled from Princeton to the AIA NY Center for Architecture and is now at UVA, with many other venues planned for the coming year. I continue to teach at Princeton School of Architecture, and my firm LTL Architects recently completed a new residence hall at Carnegie Mellon University.”

Finally, after working at the Museum of the Moving Image for 34 years—the last 12 of which he served as executive director—Carl Goodman is now president and chief executive of the Florida Holocaust Museum.

Stay well and keep sending us your news!