Tag: 1990

As I write this, it is 11 degrees in New York (with a wind chill making it feel like minus-6) so I am hoping for a significant improvement in the weather by the time of your reading. I also hope that all of your calendars are marked for our upcoming 25th Reunion (May 21–24). Here’s what we have:

Rebecca Rossen Pavkovic was promoted to associate professor in the Performance as Public Practice Program at the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance (Oxford University Press, 2014). She was scheduled to give the annual Dr. Cynthia Novack (In Memoriam) lecture at Wesleyan this past January but the event was postponed due to the storm that hit the U.S. Rescheduling is in the works. Rebecca lives in Austin with her husband, David Pavkovic, and their two daughters, Zoe and Lily.

Rabbi Jonah Pesner wrote with the big news that he was appointed as the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (The RAC), “which for 50 years has been the hub of Jewish social justice and legislative activity in Washington, D.C. The civil rights act of 1964 and voting rights act of 1965 were drafted in our conference room, as the RAC convenes coalitions across lines of race, class and faith to advocate for social change. My family and I are moving to DC!”

My former Foss 7 hallmate Carol Lynne Booth wrote that her son, Joshua, is now a freshman in college. He is attending UC, San Diego, and is majoring in computer science. “We spent MLK weekend with him and he did a great job showing us around campus. We are thrilled to have him in San Diego, since it is such a beautiful place to visit. We always stay close to campus at a hotel right on the beach, which is just gorgeous.” Carol’s daughter, Naomi (16), “is starting to drive and also acting in her high school musical, and daughter Maytal (13) is performing in the ballet Sleeping Beauty in the spring.” My big news is that I started a new job this past June. I am the program director of the Jewish Baby Network, a nonprofit that helps build Jewish community for families with new babies. It’s tons of fun working with the parents and getting to play with lots of babies.” Carol will be in Seattle this summer “visiting David’s family, since Josh will be working there. I would love to be able to make it to the Reunion, but it is, as always, over the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, so I’ll have to miss it. I hope everyone has a great time!”

Mark Hsieh sends greetings from Taipei, Taiwan, where his twin boys, Terry and Timothy, just started first grade last fall. They’re keeping him and wife Joanna “plenty busy but also many bedtime stories to share. I’m running and investing in a bunch of ventures from a fine chemical plant to curry restaurant. Don’t worry, we keep both quite separate from each other! Come visit!”

Nick Hardigg is living in Portland, Ore., with his wife Karen and “two kiddos, Ashe and Ellie, enjoying nonprofit advocacy and fundraising work for the city’s parks, especially the underserved. ‘Parke Diem’, everyone!”

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth writes with exciting news: Her second short story has been included in an anthology of science fiction short stories targeting middle grade readers. The 2015 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide is available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle formats. Her first published short story, “In Her Arms,” can be found in Stepmothers and the Big Bad Wolf: Fairy Tale Villains Reimagined. Jeanne lives in Maryland with her husband, son, sister-in-law, and cat.

Nadine Angress is still living in the Boston area (“24 years and counting”) with her husband and 8-year-old son. She continues to work at Fidelity, most recently as a director of operations for Private Wealth Management. She gets together frequently for dinner with fellow swim team members Jennifer Zoltners Sherer ’91 and Michael Mahon ’89. She’s looking forward to seeing old friends at Reunion, as well as watching her nephew, Raphael Linden ’15, graduate the same weekend.

Paige Harding writes that since leaving Wes, she lived in Seattle for several years, earned an M.A. in film studies at the University of Iowa and then moved to L.A. to work at the American Film Institute. After many years at AFI, she joined with a colleague to form an independent production company called One Bird Mocking, of which she is the chief operating officer. One Bird Mocking is preparing to make its first film, a screwball comedy called The Threat of Sex. They are “using a production model inspired by Mark Twain (who pre-sold his books by subscription before they were actually published), in which we plan to finance the film shoot by pre-selling tickets to the finished movie.” Tickets start at $5.00 and can be purchased through the company website at onebirdmocking.com/tickets/. In addition to crowd funding, One Bird Mocking has also created a promotional Threat of Sex mobile app, which can be downloaded for free at iTunes or Google Play. The app celebrates famous women, and they hope users will find it both fun and educational.

Finally, Becky Lloyd DesRoches writes from Lexington, Mass., where she lives with husband David, and two children, Nick (14) and Dawson (8). Becky is a professor of psychology at Regis College, sings with the Lexington Pops chorus, and plays on a 40-and-up soccer team. “Sports, music, and academia—the more things change the more they stay the same. My 14-year-old just released his first full-length CD under the artist name NonRanDom. I’m biased but it’s outstanding original music. Can’t wait to see everyone at Reunion.” That’s all for now. See you in May!

Vanessa montag brosgol
vanessa.brosgol@yahoo.com

Hi, everyone. Before I start, I would like to remind you all to please mark your calendars: Our 25th Reunion is May 21–24, 2015! I hope we have a fantastic turnout.

Julia Moffett, after 12 years in London, is currently living in Nairobi, Kenya, with her 8-year-old twin daughters and family. Julia works in education innovation for Equity Bank’s Foundation and is also creating The Future of Learning Fund to support education entrepreneurs. “It’s an amazing place to be at the moment and we are thoroughly enjoying the adventure!”

Another exciting transition comes from Jessica Gutteridge who, after 20 years working in the law, made a major career move by beginning studies in theater education. This summer Jessica left her job with the legal department at Cablevision and assisted with a pre-college program in musical theater at Adelphi University. “It’s great to be back in the world of theater and working with enthusiastic and talented high school students. As of August, we are relocating to Vancouver, British Columbia, my husband’s home town. It’s a lot of change, but all very exciting.”

A couple of others have recently moved to new places as well. Gabriella Nawi got married this past January to Todd Jonasz and relocated to New Jersey, where they live with her son Sam (14) and Todd’s two daughters, Alex (13) and Liza (10). Chrissy Feuerbach Fedolfi writes that her “family relocated to West Hartford, Conn., from Maine in August 2013 so that Chuck could take the director of the Annual Fund job at good ol’ Wesleyan! He loves being back at Wesleyan and seeing how Middletown has improved since 1990. I am sure he will be in touch with all of you to solicit support for Wesleyan. I took the year off from teaching elementary school to help our children (Giancarlo, 9, and Greta, 7) settle in to our new town, but am hoping to have a new job by the time this gets published. We are excited to see folks at the 25th Reunion and if anyone needs a place to stay we are just 25 minutes to campus!”

More exciting news from Sharene Azimi who, along with her husband, welcomed second son, Nathaniel William Wulfekuhler (Nate) on April 7, 2014. “He joins big brother Maximilian (Max) in our old house outside Philadelphia. I continue to run my own consulting business, Mission Communications, providing strategic communications services to nonprofit organizations. My former roommate Thea Trachtenberg was the first Wes alum to meet the new baby. Hope to see more of you soon.”

We have big publishing news from both Ben Robertson and Rebecca Rossen. This month Ben is publishing his first novel, The Last Generation, about a girl in Greenland around the time of the disappearance of the Norse colony there in 1500. “It is young adult historical fiction set in the age of exploration and discovery. Hunger Games meets Dances with Wolves, as they say.” Rebecca recently published Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance (Oxford University Press, 2014). Additionally, she is delighted to be returning to Wesleyan in January to give the annual Cynthia Novack lecture in dance. Rebecca, her husband, David Pavkovic, and their two daughters live in Austin, where she teaches dance and performance history at the University of Texas.

Also in Texas is Sarah Ellenzweig, who lives in Houston with her husband and three sons. Sarah is an associate professor of English at Rice University and colleagues with Ussama Makdisi, professor of Arab history. She recently reconnected with Hannah Carlson and Charlie Cannon ’89 “for a fabulous lunch on their deck in Providence, R.I.” Both are teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Charlie in architecture and Hannah in the history of art and visual culture. Sarah also had dinner with Melanie Sy, who was passing through Houston on a consulting job, and had “a fortuitous catch-up with Rachel Williams and her husband and two daughters when both were passing through Boston last summer.”

Finally, it was great to hear from Tim Hintz, who is still living in Brookline, Mass., and working as an elementary school counselor. Tim’s wife teaches and their three children are all on the same schedule. They all love traveling, which allows them to see a lot of America and many Wes people as well. In December they visited San Francisco and saw Andy Spear (“teaching high school in Berkeley”) and Julia Erwin (“now a major poobah at Stanford Law School”). In the spring they had visits from Andrew Siff and family. “Andy is a reporter for WNBC in New York and lives in Queens.” Tim also hosted Andrew Griffin, “now a radiologist in the Chicago area, and had dinner with Denise Casper, my neighbor in Brookline. Denise achieved significant press last year as the judge who presided over the Whitey Bulger trial. Not surprisingly, she was lauded for her even temperament and thoughtful words at sentencing.” In April, Tim and family stopped in on Stephen Power ’89, who is an editor living in Maplewood, N.J. Finally, this summer they did a 32-day, 7,400-mile cross-country drive, getting in some of the great sights of the northern United States. “We stopped in Albany to see New York judge David Weinstein, who noted he had run into Miriam Temin when we were passing through his fair city. At the western terminus we went camping with President-for-Life Bill Sherman and family. Bill had been teaching law but was starting a new job at the district attorney’s office in Seattle.” Tim concludes that he is already “thinking about next year’s trips, but will definitely include Reunion!” I hope all of you will do the same!

Vanessa montag brosgol
vebrosgol@optonline.net

We start with an update and some interesting coincidences from David Bucci, who is living in Norwich, Vt., with his three children (ages 9, 7, and 4), one wife, and zero dogs. David is a professor in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department at Dartmouth College and loves to hike and ski with his family. David has heard from Laura Desimone lately. She has a 6-year-old daughter and is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. David writes, “Karl Furstenburg, who was formerly the Dean of Admission at Wes (and who accepted the class of 1990 at Wesleyan!) was the Dean of Admissions here at Dartmouth until he retired a few years ago. Similarly, our current Director of Safety and Security here at Dartmouth is none other than Harry Kinne, who held the same position when we were at Wes. Interestingly, we had some serious unrest on campus last year, resulting in a Day of Unity just like we had at Wesleyan in 1990 and Harry and I were chatting about the similar tumult at Wes back in 1990. He also claims to know the exact location of the Douglas Cannon at all times.”

Jennifer Miller Lee writes from Indianapolis where she is a medieval art history professor, with a 4-year-old son. Jennifer has met a few Wes alumni in the city, but would love to find more.

Todd Thorner is living in his home state in Oakland, Calif. He celebrated his seventh marriage anniversary to Leyla Khosrovani. “Being half Swedish and being married to a Persian, they have three ‘Swersian’ kids, Jahangeer, 6, Teymour, 4, and Noor, 2.” Todd recently founded his third renewable energy company after the sale of the previous two. The first was a wind power company, the second a solar PV company, and the third is a small hydropower company.

Nick Hardigg writes that “we welcomed our second child, Eleanor, into the world last June.” He is happily settled down in Portland, Ore., where he runs a nonprofit that supports city parks.

Victor Khodadad just sang in Bum Phillips: All-American Opera in its world premiere in New York City at La Mama Experimental Theatre. The production was very well received and recorded by NFL Films. Victor will be singing Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with Hill House Opera Company in New Haven, Conn., in June 2014 and Mr. Ford in Salieri’s opera Falstaff in New York City in August. He would love to hear from old friends and can be contacted through his website victorkhodadad.com.

After 3.5 years at PayPal, Peter Karpas “recently left to become the CEO of North America for Xero (a $4B valuation public company that provides ‘beautiful accounting’ online to small businesses in over 150 countries). On the personal front, in April my wife, Beth ’92, and I will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. We still live in Silicon Valley and are somewhat guiltily enjoying all the amazing weather.”

Finally, Jacqui Gabay lives in New Jersey with her husband, Julian, and three children, Alex, 11, and 7-year-old twins, Nicole and Matthew. She often sees Gina Leclerc who lives in Philadelphia. Gina just celebrated her one-year adoption of two beautiful little girls (sisters) from Haiti.

That’s all for now. Thank you to all those who wrote. Please keep your updates coming.

Vanessa montag brosgol
vebrosgol@optonline.net