Tag: 1988

Hillary writes for this issue.

Lisa Renery reports that she recently left Ancestry.com for a design research role at UBER’s San Francisco headquarters. She is one of two other Wes alums on her team (Jenny Lo ’10 and Hilary Hoeber ’96). Lisa’s been having fun commemorating/commiserating with classmates Rick Stein, Paulette Taylor and Brad Kramer about their (our!?) milestone birthdays.

Laura Wiessen writes in for the first time(!), sharing that after years of being a news and documentary producer in New York and Chicago (with a stint in Jerusalem), she married in 2008 and is living in Gloucester, Mass., with her husband and two girls. Laura says this move is quite a change from her urban lifestyle, and wants you to let her know if you’re in Gloucester.

Majora Carter’s company, StartupBox, and Birch Coffee will open a new café in the South Bronx. StartupBox also acquired a historic rail station and plans to transform it into a restaurant incubator. Majora says “both of these projects are part of my theory about self-gentrification, i.e., the creation of great economic development projects, by and for the people currently living in low-status communities, before they get traditionally gentrified, builds resistance to brain drain because the smart, hardworking people born and raised in those communities (the ones like me, who were taught to measure success by how far they get away from their hometowns) will want to re-invest in their own communities instead of fleeing as soon as they can.”

Andrea Gural has been busy “managing life and general chaos with four boys.” She recently switched jobs and is now working as director of Budget and Analysis at NYU Global Programs, which is NYU’s study-away program. She had been looking for a move to nonprofits and education, and says this is a good fit with her global work experience.

Rob Wilder’s first novel, Nickel, will be published by Leaf Storm Press in September. Author Augusten Burroughs states that “no one has ever written about the pains of being a teenager—physically and psychologically, inside and out—quite like Robert Wilder in his startling debut novel. He has created indelible characters in Monroe and Coy—funny and sad and strong and broken—and Nickel is about as real as it gets.”

Christina Pugh received a 2015–16 Guggenheim fellowship in poetry, and has two poetry books in the works: Perception and Stardust. She will share more info with us when the books are available.

PETER v.s. BOND | 007@pvsb.org

Hillary Ross | hrossdance@yahoo.com

Peter writes for this issue:

Andy Stewart won his third election as Orangetown, N.Y., town supervisor and is “excited to work on local government stuff for another two years. Rachel Grob and I are headed toward the 30th anniversary this September of our meeting in the reading room of the Science in Society Program, and just moved to a new house in Nyack, N.Y., a village on the Hudson River where we have lived since 1996. She is researching, publishing and organizing on issues of health care reform, working for the Center for Patient Partnerships at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. We recently brought our daughter, Talia, to the Wes campus for the Sons and Daughters program for learning about the college application process, and Rachel and I got a kick out of showing her our old haunts.”

Benjamin Junge is teaching anthropology at SUNY-New Paltz: “Had a great mini-reunion with Schuyler Frautschi and William Weiss last summer—The gents came to Beacon to see me make a fool of myself in an XTC cover band! On other fronts: I’ve just started a three-year, NSF-funded study of class mobility in Brazil; very exciting!”

Joey Xanders reports, “I am the proud mama of a baby kitten called Halo. She brings me great joy! I inherited this kitten from Clarence Thomas (CT) at the same time I signed on to manage him. CT is a young hip hop/R&B artist/musician from East Oakland. I’m also managing a music collective CT created called UMC (United Music Crew) filled with young urban rappers, singers, and gospel artists. On the other end of the spectrum of life, I have consulted to create a new fellowship for healthcare. It’s called the Carol B. Emmott Fellowship for Women Leaders in Healthcare. (I produced a 90-minute documentary on Carol which lead to the creation on this fellowship.) Lastly, I’m working on my book proposal on my experience as the founding director and co-creator of The Moth. If you attended The Moth anytime from 1997-2001, shoot me a story! All said, I’m most blessed with my 12-year-old son, Magnus, who is a stellar soul and ardent basketball player. Please drop a line if you’re in California.”

Bobbito Garcia shares: “Recently directed my second film, Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives (stretchandbobbito.com), and have been touring the world to promote the release. Also have the fourth season of my basketball tournament Full Court 21™ World Final (fullcourt21nyc.com) coming this summer, with qualifiers in Beijing, London, LA, Philadelphia, Chicago, Ghana, Mali, New Zealand, Toronto, and Vancouver. I’m most busy though raising my 2-year-old son.”

Cher Gray advises: “I am living a modest life in South Florida (been here over 20 years.) I am a freelance consultant in advertising. Always looking to extend my clientele list. Bummed that I haven’t had the time/opportunity to visit Wes in some time, but would like to change that in 2016.”

Andy Goldman writes in from the Pacific NW: “In September 2015, I was selected to become the Arnold Distinguished Professor at Gonzaga University, where I’ve been working now for 14 years. I’m very honored to have been selected, and for the next three years I’m appointed to act as something of a ‘champion’ of the humanities, working to promote them at our school and in our wider community. If anyone has any ideas on how I might best do this, I’m all ears (goldman@gonzaga.edu). This summer I also began as the field director for a new excavation project in Sinop, in northern Turkey on the Black Sea coast. We’re exploring ancient Sinope, a Greek colony and later the capital of the Pontic kingdom, with support from the NEH and National Geographic.”

David Silverberg chimes in from the Midwest: “I’m now director of the Telego Center for Educational Improvement at Ashland University in Ohio. We do university outreach to K–12 school districts to address contemporary needs for professional development, grants, curriculum audits, special events, etc. I am also a faculty member with ASCD International and, in that position, provide training and research for school districts around the country. I live in the Cleveland area with my wife and two children, now 7 and 9.”

Bruno Oliver recently hit the 20-year mark in Los Angeles. “I would have considered the very idea [of living in LA] ‘insane.’ It’s ‘home’ now, but I still yearn for Chicago—the Lake, Lincoln Park, apartments with long hallways, and neighborhood bars with half-lit Old Style signs that beckon safety in a snowstorm. Still acting, hopefully I’ll be on your TVs more this year than last. Also teaching, coaching, and consulting for actors. Last year I became board president of Sacred Fools Theater Company, one of the busiest and most important forces in L.A. small theater.”

C.C. (Crichlow) Clark: “I live in Arlington, Va. I have been doing college visits with my son. The last time I was on campus I ran into Eric Greene ‘90. He is working at UCLA. I also had dinner with Ingrid Gordon this summer when she was in northern Virginia for work.”

Steve Morison is in Rome with his wife and daughter, “working and living at St. Stephen’s School. All is well. In the last month, I’ve visited with Paul Gosselin and Amy Madigan Simmons ’91, both in Paris.”

PETER V.S. BOND | 007@pvsb.org

Hillary Ross | hrossdance@yahoo.com

Hillary writes for this issue.

Greetings classmates. You will see that our notes this time around are pretty slim; we hope you’ll update us on your news so that we’ll have more to share next time.

Ilya Vinkovetsky writes, “This year I am a visiting scholar at the University of Helsinki. My work here is about how Russia and Britain, two countries far away from any tea plantations, became cultures heavily associated with tea. Being in Finland is a great adventure for me and the whole family.”

And Pauline Frommer reports, “It’s been a crazily busy couple of years, as my father and I, through a long process, regained ownership of the Frommer guidebooks and Frommers.com. And suddenly I went from a person who had done editorial work for most of her career to being a publisher, and dealing with everything from the cost of paper to the fact that if a book is returned to the publisher the publisher has to issue a refund (making each book a calculated gamble—who knew?). Part of me wished I’d taken more math—okay, any math—at Wes, but a bigger part was grateful for all of the philosophy classes I took so I could remain sanguine when our books sat on the California docks for an extra two months due to a slowdown there by the dockworkers. (And being a Wes grad, of course I was on the dockworkers’ side). Long story short, we’re a small family business once again, which is exciting and exhausting in equal measure. (Oh, and I get to write the Frommer’s EasyGuide to New York City, which means I have an excuse to spend lots and lots of time in museums and at historic sites, and pretend I’m not a middle-aged mom when I go out bar- and club-hopping to get the necessary reviews.)

“I was lucky enough to go to the Wesleyan Mad Men event at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, N.Y., which was superb, thanks to the awe-inspiring curatorial gifts of Carl Goodman, who’s the president of the museum, and his staff. I caught up there with Cobina Gillitt ’87 and Claire Conceison ’87. I was also so happy to get to spend some time with the always delightful Kara Flannery, who is becoming a real maven of marketing, and also a force in the local politics of the Connecticut town she lives in. I look forward to seeing more Wes folks this fall when I head to the Sons and Daughters event at the school with my 16-year-old daughter, Veronica.”

PETER v.s. BOND | 007@pvsb.org

Hillary Ross | hrossdance@yahoo.com

Peter writes for this edition.

Sarah Rickless Baker reports that she has been studying and teaching at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., for the past 10 years. “I am now on the slow track to a PhD in writing and rhetoric. In addition to lots of teaching, last year I became director of the Northern Virginia Writing Project (nvwp.org), which runs and hosts programs for K–12 teachers and young writers. I live in Arlington, Va., have a 13-year-old daughter (we celebrated a bat mitzvah this May), and make good use as a teen-sitter of the older daughter of our one-block-down Wes neighbors Eric Lotke ’87 and Amy Mortimer ’87.

Kara Stern shares: “After a lifetime in NYC, my family and I are moving up to Woodstock, N.Y., where I will be head of school at Woodstock Day School (thanks to a tip from Adam Rohdie ’89). Would love to connect with Wes folks in the area!”

Justine Gubar’s new book, Fanaticus: Mischief and Madness in the Modern Sports Fan, hit bookstores June 16th. I pre-ordered it!

Rich Pham contributes: “I managed to catch up with Rob James in Las Vegas back in April. We had some great meals and spent most of the evening talking about Wes. As you may know, I have been living abroad for the past 20 years (Tokyo, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Singapore) and loving it. I now live in Ho Chi Minh and anyone stopping by should give me a shout. I managed to get on the cover of Esquire Vietnam. They did a cover story on me as a businessman with a unique hobby of racing. I have been racing formula and touring cars for the past nine years in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.”

Kellina Craig-Henderson updates: “I continue to enjoy my post heading the National Science Foundation’s regional office in Tokyo, located in the U.S. Embassy.”

Daniel Rosenberg writes from the Northwest: “Mai-Lin and I are finally back home in Eugene, Ore., after two years of academic adventures in Berlin, Germany, and in the SF Bay Area. Along the way, our 2-year-old, Milo, became 4 and fluent in German, and acquired a younger sister, Beatrice, now a year-and-a-half old. We’ve stayed in touch with old Wesleyan friends, including beloved mentors, Richard Ohmann, Henry Abelove, and Laurie Nussdorfer.”

Jacqueline Freedman Bershad lets us know that “Since graduation I lived in S.F., went to architecture school in N.C., and spent 20 years in Philly. There I grew up, married a nice guy named Joe, designed museums and zoos, and had a kid. Last year we moved to Baltimore. I was lucky to land a job at the National Aquarium as VP for capital planning and facilities.”

My fellow R.I. resident Gail Agronick advises: “My husband, daughters, and I are still in Smithfield, celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary, and Zoe is graduating from high school this week. Addie will be a sophomore in high school next year. She is curious about Wes, so I have hope yet.”

After 20-plus years in various marketing roles, Chris Pearson embarked on a career change, trading a desk job for building tiny homes. He and his wife, Susan, are somewhat dumbfounded that they are so old their eldest daughter, Paige, is now embarking for college. They also have an eighth-grader daughter and live happily in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Steve Morison lets us know that “after four lovely years in Jordan at King’s Academy, my wife and I have found a new home at St. Stephen’s School in Rome. We spend our summers in our cottage on Mount Desert Island in Maine. Next year, our daughter, Talia, will be a junior at St. Stephen’s. If you’re in the Eternal City for vacation, friend me on Facebook, and I’m happy to meet you for a drink.”

Majora Carter has launched a new 501(c)(3) incubator called Hometown Security Labs (www.hometownsecuritylabs.org).

John “Sparky” Ferrara happily reports, “All is moving forward here and life is good. The highlight of my year last year was watching Wesleyan baseball as an alumnus father of a Cardinal rookie, my son AJ ’18 (he is now also a XY brother). My daughter, Claudia, just finished her sophomore year in high school. My maniacal son Jack is just a banger—into football, lacrosse and wrestling. We just did a trip to the Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands, which, if you have never been, we would highly recommend as a bucket list box to check.”

David Silverberg is now the director of the Telego Center for Educational Improvement at Ashland University in Ohio, which provides university outreach to school districts across the country. He is president of the university’s chapter of Phi Delta Kappa International, the editor of the Ohio Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) Journal, and a faculty member of ASCD International’s professional development team.

Vivian Johnson is doing well. She resides in Oakwood, Ohio, with her 11-year-old adopted niece, Regina. For the summer, Vivian will be doing research at her alma mater, Harvard University, where she earned her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

The YMCA of Greater New York announced Sharon Greenberger as its new president and chief executive.

Hillary writes for this issue.

Greetings Wesleyan Class of 1988. By the time you read this, Boston may finally be starting to melt from the endless snow, and I might actually be able to see some pavement again.

My partner-in-class-notes-crime, Peter Bond, writes: “Zahra and I are settling into our new Rhode Island life. I’ve been able to connect with many area alums. On my birthday, Jim Maynard hosted a round of golf down in Westerly, R.I., with Oli Bennett, Stu Ellman, and me. I ran into Greg Waldron at an undergrad recruiting event in Providence.”

Len Besthoff and his wife and teenage daughters call South Windsor, Conn., home after stops including the Jersey Shore; Roanoke, Va.; and Raleigh, N.C. He sees Dave Hill fairly often, and they run the famous Manchester (CT) Road Race every Thanksgiving, along with the annual River to Sea Relay across New Jersey every summer. Len is now the chief investigative reporter for NBC Connecticut, where he interned during his senior year at Wes. He loves doing this type of reporting full-time, and mentoring young journalists. Len also teaches newswriting classes nearby.

I heard from Julie Schwarzwald: “After 20 years (with a few years of pure mommyhood in the middle) of teaching elementary school—public and private in New York, California, and New Jersey—I have had a career shift. As of July 1, I am the education and youth director at the East Brunswick Jewish Center. My responsibilities include being principal of the Hebrew School and overseeing the youth groups, along with whatever other Shabbat, family, and holiday programs come my way. I am enjoying the new challenges; my colleagues and congregants; and the feeling of being appreciated, respected, and treated as a professional—something that had become lacking in my teaching position. I think the best parts are the hours of leisure time gained by not having any papers to grade! In the meantime, Howard Bochner ’87 has been working for the United Steelworkers Union, based in Pittsburgh.”

And writing in for the first time… Peter Gager reports that he is a neuropsychologist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.

As for me, I’m keeping busy with the PhD program I run at MIT, and am still teaching a tango class at BU every week. I took up crochet as a hobby last year, and ended up opening an Etsy shop because the projects were taking over my apartment. It was fun completing items over the winter for Linda Brinen Stout and Bronwyn Poole.

Peter and I love hearing from you, so please keep writing in.

PETER v.s. BOND | 007@pvsb.org

Hillary Ross | hrossdance@yahoo.com

Peter writes for this issue.

Kellina (Kelli) Craig-Henderson reports: “I am currently representing the U.S. National Science Foundation in Asia, specifically Japan. I will be here for the next year or two, and I would welcome hearing from any classmates or Wesleyan alum traveling through or residing in Japan.”

Steve Almond shares: “We are now a family of five, having welcomed Rosalie Almond to the world last June. Older sis Josie (8) and brother Judah (5) are thrilled. Wife Erin ’99 is tired but heroic. We’re living in a shoe outside Boston and welcome all visitors brave enough to enter. This fall, just in time for the NFL opener, my new book, Against Football, will come out. It’s a short, sharp manifesto about the medical, economic, and moral dangers of America’s favorite sport. And it pretty much guarantees that I’ll be slaughtered by the world’s hard-core jocks, perhaps live on ESPN.”

Matthew Palmer advises: “My first novel, The American Mission, was published by Putnam/Random House at the end of June. The reviews have been pretty good, but publishing is a brutal business. I think I’ll keep my day job. Speaking of which, we will soon be moving back to DC from Belgrade after (another) three years in the Balkans. I’ll be taking over the Multilateral Affairs office in the State Department’s East Asia bureau. That includes responsibility for the South China Sea, which is pretty hot right now. Look forward to seeing all of our Wes friends in DC and New York.”

Daniel Rosenberg and Mai-Lin Cheng welcomed their second child, Beatrice, on Feb. 8, 2014. Daniel is on leave from the University of Oregon for a residential fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin in the fall.

Ben Junge continues to teach anthropology at SUNY–New Paltz, doing research on citizenship and urban life in Brazil and HIV/AIDS here in the U.S. He stays in touch with Schuyler Frautschi, who’s busy being a daddy to a sweet newborn boy and with Laura Thomas, who is basically the mayor of San Francisco as far as he can tell.

Jenifer McKim started a new job as assistant managing editor and senior reporter at the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news center based out of WGBH TV/radio and Boston University. She is teaching, writing, and editing and loving the new venture into nonprofit journalism.

Carol Gray shares: “I just finished a Fulbright Scholarship at Concordia University’s Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability in Montreal, Canada. I loved living in Montreal with my husband, Jeff ,and my son, Cameron, age 9, who was in a French school for the year and came away from the experience speaking French. My Fulbright project is based on an oral history I did of an Egyptian human rights organization when I was living in Cairo in 2010-2011, having moved to Cairo with my family as Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar. While in Montreal, I ran an internship program for 50+ students. My family and I have now moved back to our home in Amherst, Mass., and I’m writing a book about the Egyptian human rights organization. The tentative title is Human Rights from the Courts to the Square: A History of Egypt’s Hisham Mubarak Law Center.”

Majora Carter has launched a new social enterprise called: StartUp Box #SouthBronx (sbsq.org). The purpose is to locate jobs and economic activity related to NYC’s tech boom within under-performing communities—starting with entry-level jobs in software testing in the Games Industry, jobs that are often off-shored. Majora is urban on-shoring, generating revenue, and expanding the talent pool for one of America’s fastest growing economic sectors. “The project is incubated under a nonprofit called Hometown Security Labs, and we welcome your contributions at sbsq.org.”

Dave Silverberg writes in from Ohio: “I’m now director of the Telego Center for Educational Improvement, which is based out of Ashland University, Ohio, and provides outreach to K–12 schools across the country and abroad. I currently have a book out, called 10 Models of Teacher Evaluation and have begun work on a follow-up book called 10 International Models of Teacher Evaluation (it’s due out 2015). Stephanie and I live in Cleveland and we have two kids, Cal (7) and Tessa (5).”

Amy Tai advises: “I have recently become an abolitionist in the stop-porn-culture movement which has everything to do with modern day slavery and a multibillion dollar porn industry that is using the Internet as the selling block for millions of women and children, and some men and boys as well. I am currently educating myself on the issues. When I am not doing this work, I am ‘raising’ my 8-year-old son (although sometimes I think I am learning far more than he!), homeschooling him and teaching Suzuki violin at the Suzuki School of Newton, and teaching and leading in the Re-evaluation Counseling Community, an international peer counseling community that is committed to reclaiming our intelligence through the healing of past hurts.”

Meanwhile, my wife, Zahra, and I (PVSB) have relocated from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Providence, R.I., where I am now developing loyalty and personalization strategies at CVS/Caremark with the Extra Care program. While walking the campus at Providence College, where my wife is working, we ran into Greg Waldron, who is the SVP of institutional advancement. Jim Maynard reached out to me during our first week in Rhode Island to suggest a mini ’88ers reunion. We are looking forward to reconnecting with our New England family and friends.

PETER v.s. BOND | 007@pvsb.org 

Hillary Ross | hrossdance@yahoo.com

Hillary writes for this issue: Not many responses to my call for class notes, so I imagine you are all very busy enjoying spring.

Donna Propp writes: “Last summer I received an Earthwatch educator grant to travel to Easter Island to study its history and ecology and to assist with a local reforestation program. I spent most of my time hiking and gardening, two activities I love but rarely get to do, and used what I learned to develop lessons on environmental sustainability for math, history, and science classes.”

Michael Doran reports: “This summer, I return to the faculty of the University of Virginia School of Law, where I will teach tax, property, legal theory, and Native American law. I seem to average about two Wesleyan graduates each year, and it’s always fun to have them in class. I will continue to live in Bethesda, Md., where my wife is a program director at the National Institutes of Health. Our three children are growing up fast—too fast.”

As for me, it feels like ages ago at this point, but I had the pleasure of reconnecting with Bronwyn Poole and Julie Lenner in Chicago when I was there for a meeting in November. Hope you are all well and happy!

PETER v.s. BOND | 007@pvsb.org

Hillary Ross | hrossdance@yahoo.com

Peter writes for this issue.

Kelli Craig-Henderson reports: “I am just packing up for a move to Japan to head the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Tokyo Office. I’d enjoy hearing from any classmates who happen to be in my new neighborhood.”

After some 25 years of working for print newspapers, Jenifer McKim is moving into the exciting new nonprofit world of investigative journalism. “I left the Boston Globe, where I’ve worked for the last five years, and joined the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, a small newsroom based out of Boston University and WGBH radio/TV. I’m writing, editing, teaching, and helping build this new initiative, which can be found at www.necir.org.”

Bobbito Garcia advises: “On the career side, the doc I co-directed Doin’ It in the Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC, which peaked at #2 on iTunes Top Sports Movies and #4 on their Top Docs list. Broadcast premiere on PBS will be in early 2014. Also, the 10th anniversary edition of my book Where’d You Get Those? New York City’s Sneaker Culture: 1960–1987 (Testify Publishing) hits shops December 2nd.”

Hannah Doress shares that “I’m glad to be working on meaningful projects—I spearheaded a collaborative bilingual organizing project on Sea Level Rise called Shore Up Marin which received funding from San Francisco Foundation. I will produce my fourth Earth Day Marin Festival and Day of Action on April 6th. I recently co-launched Gluten Free Traditions, an affordable online cookbook series authored by my wife, Emily Bender. I had a major Wesleyan flashback when I visited Poland with my mother, who was speaking at the U Lodz Gender Studies Conference. It was just like Wes but international! My 10-year-old son, Abraham, is learning holistic horsemanship from Alane Freund ’87. We see Ilana Trumbull-Stearns ’90 for acupuncture. We had a recent mini-reunion with Ilana, Sara Elsa-Beech (now an architect), Jen Balfour ’90 (practicing acupuncture), and Stephanie Haffner ’91 (a public interest lawyer). Last Wes reunion before that was in SF with Ilana, Stephanie, Amy Randall ’89, Judith Sansone ’89, Seth Cousins ’91, and Jason Dewees. I saw Michael Frank ’86 at a fundraiser with his cute husband—Michael is city manager of Novato. We love visitors so let us know if you’ll be in the area.”

Chris Pearson is living out in Santa Cruz, Calif. “Susan and I just celebrated our 19th anniversary. We have 16- and 11-year-old daughters, and are starting to look at colleges for the oldest. I’m still working at West Marine, where I’m the marketing director for the B2B division.”

Mark Niles left his position at the Seattle University School of Law, returning to Washington, D.C., in order to work at American University. He is “looking forward to seeing many of my Wes alumni friends in the D.C. area, including Dana Martin ’86 and David Hill ’86 among others. Recently went on a college trip with my 17-year-old daughter that included Wesleyan. She really liked it, but her mom went to Williams, so we will see…”

Daniel Rosenberg advises, “It’s been a busy year. We spent the summer in Berlin at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and are now on sabbatical at the Stanford Humanities Center, which is terrific.”

PETER v.s. BOND and Hillary Ross
007@pvsb.org; hrossdance@yahoo.com