Noteworthy

Connecting alumnae. Celebrating community.

46 Passion Project 48 Q&Author 50 AABC Pages 54 Class Notes 61 Alumna Profile:

Christina LaGamma ’16 67 Sources 73 Giving Day 79 Virtual Roundup 83 Obituaries 85 In Memoriam 87 Last Word 88 Crossword

Passion Project

Prints Charming

Leigh Wishner ’97 celebrates America’s exuberant 20th-century textiles

by June D. Bell

Surveying the giddy mix of novelty prints, polkadotted blouses, eclectic jewelry, and thrift-store circle skirts in Leigh Wishner’s Washington Heights apartment, a friend told her 25 years ago, “You have the happiest closet I’ve ever seen.”

Wishner still does. Her collection of effervescent prints has ballooned since her years at Barnard, partly because she’s powerless to resist vintage textiles. “I love a good dot,” she confesses. “I love a good stripe.”

So do hundreds of her fans. The Instagram account she launched in May 2020, @patternplayUSA, quickly garnered more than 1,500 followers who swoon over her near-daily photos of vibrant fabrics and outfits coupled with chatty commentary on their origins, designers, and heyday.

Pattern Play USA, Wishner says, is her “visual love letter to 20th-century American textile design” and, she hopes, the heart of a colorful academic coffeetable book she plans to write on the subject. The Los Angeles resident had been stockpiling ideas for a volume, but her job coordinating events and exhibits at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising Museum left her little free time for research. When the pandemic forced the museum to temporarily shutter last spring, Wishner devoted her three-month furlough to the Instagram account and book idea.

She’s celebrated everything from a playful 1952 hand-screened linen print of California quails by little-known Los Angeles artists Tony Sharrar and Erick Erickson to the chic wardrobes of icons Esther Williams, Myrna Loy, and Lucille Ball, “the woman who single-handedly ignited my love of ’50s fashion as a child.”

Wishner sometimes showcases cherished favorites from her extensive personal collection, including a 1940s scarf adorned with slang phrases like “By crackie!” and “Holy mackerel!” She makes an occasional Instagram appearance as well, sporting bright fuchsia lipstick, leopard-print glasses, statement earrings, vivid vintage scarves paired with richly patterned blouses — and blazing red tresses evoking her fashion idol.

A Los Angeles native, Wishner always knew she wanted to live in New York City. She studied antiquities at Barnard but scrapped plans to become an art conservator when she realized a painful truth: “Science is the basis of conservation, and I did not enjoy chemistry.” Her passion for material culture and design led her to the Bard Graduate Center, where she earned a master’s degree in decorative arts and wrote her thesis on the history of leopard fur and prints in fashion. (She fittingly kicked off Pattern Play USA with a photograph of a model clad in a leopard print by textile designer Brooke Cadwallader, which she characterized as a “take on nature’s chic-est pattern.”) Wishner spent a decade at Cora Ginsburg LLC, an antique textiles and costume gallery in New York City, before returning to California and taking a job curating costume and textiles exhibitions for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). She joined the Fashion Institute’s museum in 2017.

Although she’s handled fragile garments that date to the Renaissance, Wishner’s passion remains post-World War II fabrics produced during an era of economic prosperity, innovation, and optimism. “American textile design really came into its own during that period,” she says.

Until the late 1930s, stylish Americans and the industry that clothed them took design cues from Europe, copying the silhouettes and color palettes originating in Paris’s haute couture ateliers. That relationship frayed during World War II, then dissolved shortly after, and a unique brand of American creativity flourished. While French designers stubbornly clung to their silks and English designers held fast to their woolens, U.S. designers embraced newly developed synthetic fabrics, printing technologies, and whimsical novelty patterns.

The era’s fabric design has a less enchanting underside, however. Whether the result of ignorance, insensitivity, or racism, midcentury designers’ art sometimes perpetuated racist depictions of ethnic groups and appropriated other cultures’ sacred or significant motifs. Wishner’s Instagram posts address appropriation, celebrate the genius of Black designers such as Loïs Mailou Jones, and honor Navajo (Diné) and northern New Mexico’s Hispanic weavers — artisans who have often been overlooked and uncredited.

Wishner isn’t yet finished compiling virtual fabric swatches that celebrate America’s love of pattern, color, and design while illuminating the country’s history of ingenuity and creativity. Squeezing the garish, breathtaking, and gaudy between the covers of a book won’t be easy, but she’s determined to try. “It will be as fun to write as it is educational,” she promises. “I want people to love it without needing to read a word.” B

2

5

7 3

1 “Chop suey — ‘assorted pieces’ — is a style of Hawaiian print design that was most common in the 1940s and ’50s. These fabrics offer samplings of island scenes and motifs, frequently paired with English and ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi words.”

LEIGH WISHNER COLLECTION 2 “The dynamic duo — the obelisk-esque Trylon and the plump Perisphere — of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York lives on in textiles!”

MANUSCRIPTS AND ARCHIVES DIVISION, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY. DESIGN DRAWING OF TRYLON AND PERISPHERE PILLBOX HAT. NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS; TEXTILES, FIDM MUSEUM AT THE FASHION INSTITUTE OF DESIGN & MERCHANDISING COLLECTION 3 “Though plush fabrics called ‘peluches’ have been used in fashions for centuries, it wasn’t until the 1920s that synthetic furs entered the marketplace.”

WISHNER COLLECTION 4 “‘There’ll Always Be an England’ is an uplifting song of perseverance in the face of fascism. The inspiring lyrics were the basis for this ‘British American Ambulance Corps’ fabric, made in America to support Brits in the post-blitz era.”

FIDM MUSEUM AT THE FASHION INSTITUTE OF DESIGN & MERCHANDISING COLLECTION 5 “Legendary graphic designer Paul Rand devised a playful ecosystem of avian and feline motifs composed of bits of letters and numbers.”

PAUL RAND ‘ANIMALPHABET’ FOR L. ANTON MAIX; CORA GINSBURG LLC COLLECTION 6 “I’ve got many masks, but this one is special — made from a ‘drag box’ plaid fabric designed by D.D. and Leslie Tillett.”

WISHNER COLLECTION 7 “October is #hispanicheritagemonth — which makes these Chimayó tapestry-woven textiles from the looms of northern New Mexican Hispanic weavers (like the Ortega family, pictured in a vintage postcard) the perfect subject.”

WISHNER COLLECTION

Q&Author

A Word with Paola Ramos

In advance of the 2020 presidential election, reporter Paola Ramos ’09 set out to show that the U.S.’s Latinx community is anything but monolithic

by Laura Raskin ’10JRN

In the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, journalist Paola Ramos ’09 set out on a cross-country quest to try to understand what binds and defines the Latin American community — and her own place in it. Ramos, who grew up between Madrid and Miami and is now a correspondent for VICE News, MSNBC, and Telemundo, traveled to all corners of the nation to hear from overlooked Latino voices, from California’s lush Central Valley to the Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where 23 people were killed in 2019. Ramos distilled her observations in her illuminating new book, Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity, which was released just two weeks before Election Day 2020. For Ramos, who is queer, the word “Latinx,” a gender-neutral term for people of Latin American heritage, got to the heart of her pursuit — “It captured the stories of all these people under one umbrella, spanning so many separate identities,” she writes. We caught up with Ramos, who had just returned to Brooklyn after many months on the road.

How did your background influence your decision to become a journalist?

My parents are both journalists and immigrants [Paola’s father is Jorge Ramos, a Mexican American news anchor and journalist; her mother is Gina Montaner ’87, a Miami TV station managing editor and syndicated columnist and the daughter of exiled Cuban author Carlos Alberto Montaner]. The narrative growing up involved discussions about the Castro regime or Mexico, and why my dad decided to leave Mexico, which was because of censorship. The core of my upbringing was watching them write, watching them on screen, reading them in newspapers. I chose a string of that, which was politics. When I was at Barnard, I was a political science major. [Through my work] I’ve been able to observe and understand where the balance of power is — sometimes that’s been through politics and sometimes that’s been through journalism. I’ve had the privilege to go back and forth between both.

What was the impetus for writing this book?

It was almost exactly four years ago, when I was working in Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. My fancy title was Deputy Director of Hispanic Media. For almost two years, I was convinced that on Election Day, in the face of someone like Donald Trump, Latin Americans would show up in overwhelming numbers. Turns out that less than 50% of eligible Latino voters showed up. As a campaign and as a country, we didn’t understand who they were. I was also trying to understand who

we were. And then when the word “Latinx” popped up — and it was increasingly among us in 2016 — it, to me, was very telling of a community that was more diverse and changing than I realized.

What was most surprising to you, as you traveled the country and reported for this book?

Going into places that I thought I knew and discovering things I didn’t know. Even in New York City, there’s a big and powerful community of Latino Muslims. Never once had I read about it or come face-to-face with it. Also, going into places like the Midwest that I thought were going to feel cold and foreign and abstract [and instead] were more beautiful than I expected. But going back [home] to Miami, which is at the center of politics — everyone is trying to figure out what happened in Florida [in the November 2020 election] — was the culmination of everything for me. I felt that a lot throughout the process.

You essentially went on a listening tour to write this book. It strikes me that when politicians talk about listening to their constituents, this is the epitome of what they should be doing.

The book is 1% of the picture, and I hope it encourages politicians, particularly Democrats, to go back to these battleground states and put away biases and dig into this community. It takes listening and wide eyes to see things we haven’t seen before. There are Black Latinos, there are women who are fighting for abortion rights — it’s an extremely complex and nuanced community.

Throughout all of these stories, there is this ache to feel like you belong in this country. I hope that [this feeling] also translates into real power, that [Latinx people] end up running for office, voting, or getting the job they want or being in leadership positions. We can talk about this in a thousand ways — so long as these are just stories, they don’t translate into power. But I do think we’re heading that way.

What role has Barnard played in your life?

Barnard gave me a lot of confidence that I didn’t have. I moved back to the U.S. from Spain when I was going into my junior year of high school. Barnard had a lot to do with my ability to write this book. I became comfortable in my skin and who I was. Being gay and being Latina and having diverse friends became normal, and I became proud on campus. They’re still my best friends to this day. Being in political science seminars, writing my thesis, and getting the basics of politics is where it started for me. B

In challenging times, a new way to connect students & alumnae.

Bridge geographic boundaries and stay connected as part of our exceptional, resilient, and supportive global network of students and alumnae.

Join a regional-, industry-, affinity-, or identity-based Alumnae Circle today. our.barnard.edu/circles

alumnaerelations@barnard.edu 212.854.2005

From the AABC President

Staying Seen and Feeling Heard

Hello, Alumnae,

I hope this message finds you and those you love safe and well. As Inauguration Day in the U.S. is on my mind, I am struck anew by the critical importance of exercising our privilege to vote whenever possible. Our votes are truly our voices. We must be counted. We must be heard. If you’re eager to keep your voting muscles limber, the Alumnae Association of Barnard College (AABC) elections are now underway. This issue of the Magazine introduces you to the slate of candidates for open positions, and I encourage you to make your voice heard by learning about these alumnae and casting your vote.

Every year when the list of candidates is announced, there are questions about how AABC elections work. As dictated by the AABC bylaws, the Nominating Committee puts out a call for nominations for open leadership roles every summer and selects candidates from those nominees, as well as from an additional volunteer vetting process based on the bylaws and their understanding of the roles.

While it is always the goal to have a robust selection of candidates for each role, occasionally you’ll see someone running unopposed. You may be surprised to learn the most common reason for uncontested positions: Additional potential candidates declined their nominations.

In an effort to ensure that our alumnae programming feels inclusive for our entire community, we hope to continue to diversify the pipeline of volunteers that feeds into the AABC elections nomination process. If you’ve never volunteered with Barnard because you imagined that you were not “the type,” please think again. There are ways you can get involved year-round to add your voice to the post-graduation phase of your Barnard experience. I can almost guarantee you’ll get value from the experience, too. There’s nothing like the fire of a cohort of Barnard alumnae to warm your intellect and spirit!

Much as (I like to think) I have evolved since I was a student (way more chill, no more perm), Barnard continues evolving, too. Learn what’s new — physically, pedagogically, and virtually — at our.barnard.edu. While you’re there, please update your contact information. No matter how many miles or years away from Barnard you may be, the College has more to offer students and alumnae than perhaps ever before, and we would love to share it with you!

Be well,

Amy Veltman ’89 President, Alumnae Association of Barnard College Alumnae Trustee

Your AABC Board Nominees

On behalf of the Nominating Committee of the AABC, I’m excited to present the candidates for the 2021 AABC elections. In my first year as chair, I am proud to continue our commitment to increasing the transparency of our nomination process and building an inclusive AABC Board that reflects the diversity and dynamism of our alumnae community.

I hope you will join me in learning more about our stellar candidates and in casting your votes at our.barnard.edu/election2021. —Margaret Robotham ’12, Chair of the AABC Nominating Committee

ALUMNAE TRUSTEE

Francine Glick ’77 Vivien Li ’75

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE

Lori Hoepner ’94 Sharon D. Johnson ’85

TREASURER

Sima Saran Ahuja ’96

Lucia Santos ’00

PROJECT CONTINUUM COMMITTEE CHAIR

Flora Davidson ’69 Danielle Donovan ’87 Jeane PollakKraines ’78

PROFESSIONAL & LEADERSHIP DEV. COMMITTEE CHAIR

Alice Chin ’07 Marisa Greason ’82 Ruth Raisman ’86

NOMINATING COMMITTEE MEMBER

Ashley Arana ’16 Rosemary Bates ’04 Jennifer (Feierman) de Lannoy ’09 Shilpa Bahri ’99 Sooji Park ’90

LEADERSHIP ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE CHAIR

Shion Ishikura ’05

REGIONAL CLUBS & NETWORKS COMMITTEE CHAIR

Michele Lynn ’82 Adele Tilebalieva ’05

AWARDS COMMITTEE CHAIR

Merri Rosenberg ’78 Linda Sweet ’63

Cordelia Heaney ’00 Kirstin Jones ’15 Erin Rossitto ’94

Alumna Profile

Advocacy in Action

How Christina LaGamma ’16 is bringing a humanist approach to medicine and championing racial justice

by Nicole Anderson and Mary Cunningham

Last year, Christina LaGamma ’16, a second-year medical student at Penn State College of Medicine, was attending one of the regular planning meetings for Central PA Medicine magazine when she decided to speak up. In front of a panel of physicians, a peer, and the magazine staff, she proposed dedicating an entire issue to the Black Lives Matter movement and how it relates to medicine. The response was mixed. “It was met with some pushback,” LaGamma recalls. But this didn’t deter the physician-in-training, who has always seen the role of a doctor as being not only a diagnostician but also a humanist and an advocate for health equity.

“It just was the right thing to do,” she says, “and as an equal professional on this committee, what would be my alternative? To say nothing? To let a problem persist [by] choosing to be reticent? This, down to my core, I was not okay with.”

LaGamma’s persistence paid off. She won the support of the editorial board, and she, along with other medical students and practicing physicians, produced Central PA Magazine’s “White Coats for Black Lives” Summer 2020 issue. The magazine’s pages are filled with thoughtful first-person essays, Q&As, and feature stories, including a conversation between LaGamma and a retired internal medicine physician on issues around healthcare, racism, and how to enact meaningful change.

Her pluck, LaGamma notes, can be traced back to Barnard and being surrounded by so many empowered women. She often draws from that strength, reminding herself: “You have the place, right, and reason to speak up,” she says. “This mantra continues to motivate me, both in my studies and beyond the clinic walls.”

From a young age, LaGamma has been interested in how advocacy intersects with medicine, stemming from her experience as a competitive gymnast. After a 14-year career in the sport, she had to manage her own chronic orthopedic injuries. “It made me reflect on what it’s like to be a patient and advocate for my own health,” she recalls.

When LaGamma arrived at Barnard, she initially planned to major in biology. But after taking Psychology and Philosophy of the Human Experience, she was certain she wanted to switch to neuroscience. She credits professor of psychology and neuroscience & behavior Russell Romeo’s course Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience for reaffirming her decision to study the brain. “I genuinely still think back to that class and recall some of the lectures and subjects that reinforce the content I’m studying in medical school now,” she says. In neuroscience, she found the perfect blend of basic science and behavioral theory.

In addition to Romeo, LaGamma also formed close bonds with professor of psychology Robert Remez (her major advisor) and Samuel R. Milbank Professor Peter Balsam, for whose class Psychology of Learning she was a teacher’s assistant after graduating. For her senior thesis, LaGamma used a mouse model of depression to study the effects of ketamine on a region of the brain called the hippocampus, which led to her first publication as a lead author. Both during her time at Barnard and after graduation, LaGamma worked in Christine Ann Denny’s translational neuroscience laboratory at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Over this five-year period, Denny, associate professor of clinical neurobiology in psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, became a close mentor and friend.

Since starting at Penn State College of Medicine, LaGamma hasn’t slowed down in the slightest. She currently holds leadership positions in groups such as the American Medical Association, the Association of Women Surgeons PSCOM chapter, and the Medical School Admissions Committee. Her ongoing research projects involve assessing a remotely administered, mindfulness-based stress reduction program and measuring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on burnout, satisfaction, and work-life integration among physicians.

Whether treating patients or championing equity in medicine, LaGamma knows there’s still a lot of work to do. “As medical students, we are the future of practicing physicians, and we must work together to get there,” she says. “My goal is to continue prioritizing being a better learner, a better ally, and a better version of myself each day — I owe a lot of this confidence to Barnard for making me realize that.” B

Obituary

Preserver of the Past

Fay Chew Matsuda ’71 dedicated her life to safeguarding the rich legacy of Chinese American immigrants

by Solby Lim ’22

History is a powerful act of remembrance. Fay Chew Matsuda ’71, who spent decades preserving the memories and stories of Chinese immigrants, made history her life’s work. In the many roles she held over the years — social worker at the Hamilton-Madison House, early member of the Chinatown History Project, and executive director of the Museum of Chinese in America — she was dedicated to honoring the rich heritage of New York City’s Chinese American immigrants. Matsuda died in July, at the age of 71, at her home in Sound Beach, N.Y.

Matsuda became a leading figure in the Chinatown and Lower East Side communities. She was active in the Chinatown History Project, where she joined local activists and volunteers in an effort to collect photos, artifacts, and personal mementos that told the stories of generations of Chinese immigrants. Her commitment to documenting this history was vital to the establishment of the Museum of Chinese in America, which she helped to transform from a grassroots operation into a fully-fledged archival institution housing 85,000 artifacts and covering 160 years of history.

“[Matsuda was] a big part of why Chinatown has so many agencies that serve seniors’ needs, and why generations of their otherwise neglected stories and belongings are remembered and kept safe for future generations,” historian John Kuo Wei Tchen, cofounder of the Chinatown History Project, told The New York Times last August.

For Matsuda, who was the daughter of Chinese immigrants, the Chinatown History Project was as personal as it was groundbreaking. She grew up in the East Village and was one of a handful of Asian Americans who attended New York City’s Hunter College High School. Her mother was a garment worker, and her father ran a laundry service and later worked in restaurants. After graduating from Barnard with a degree in sociology, she went on to earn her master’s in social work at NYU.

The job of a preservationist, as Matsuda knew all too well, meant responding to an abiding sense of urgency. “Sometimes it was literally dumpsterdiving,” Matsuda told Barnard Magazine in 2013. “We were trying to recover history that was quickly being lost.”

Yet she persevered. At the time, there was no museum that focused solely on the experiences of Chinese American immigrants, and Matsuda, along with devoted peers and stakeholders, helped to fill this void and create a space to celebrate the experiences of immigrants often ignored or forgotten by public memory. “It was about reclaiming our own history,” Matsuda said, “and telling the story we wanted to tell.”

In a move that would take her full circle, she returned to the Hamilton-Madison House, where she first began her career, to serve as the program director of City Hall Senior Center. There, she assisted and empowered the Chinatown and Lower East Side senior populations — the communities that meant so much to her. B

Obituary

From left: Patricia Warner as a young girl at the Chapin School in New York City; Warner in Spain, undercover as a flamenco dancer; Warner’s ID photo when she entered Barnard. Inset: A recent portrait.

A Woman on a Mission

Remembering Patricia Warner ’49, a WWII spy and Congressional Gold Medal recipient

by Anna Fixsen ’13JRN

Patricia Warner ’49, an alumna whose World War II spy missions were worthy of the silver screen, died September 26 at home in Lincoln, Massachusetts. She was 99 years old.

During her covert operations for the Office of Strategic Services (a forerunner of the CIA), Patricia went undercover as a flamenco dancer in Spain to recruit informants and collect intelligence. As noted in the Boston Herald, one of her sons used to call her “the last leaf on the tree” of these special female agents.

Patricia Rosalind Cutler was born May 21, 1921, to an affluent New York family. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 took its toll on the Cutlers’ finances, but they still managed to send Patricia to private schools, and she was photographed as a debutante in Vogue. Patricia soon met Robert Ludlow Fowler III, a Harvard grad and a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve, and they were married in 1942.

But the fairy tale shattered almost as soon as it began. Robert was deployed to the South Pacific and was killed just a few months later in the Guadalcanal campaign. Patricia, 21 years old and pregnant, was devastated.

Patricia channeled her grief into action. In the spring of 1943, she joined the OSS, leaving her newborn, Robert IV, in New York with family

and traveling to Washington, D.C., London, and ultimately Spain. “I asked, ‘Were you out for revenge?’” remembers Joe Dwinell, an editor for the Boston Herald who is writing a book about Patricia’s life. “She said, ‘Wrong word. I was out to finish what [Robert] started.’”

Once in Madrid, Patricia went undercover in the unlikely guise of a flamenco dancer. She performed at bullfights, letting her heels stomp, her castanets clack, and her skirt swirl. “I just let myself go,” she told Dwinell. After, she flitted around bars to pick up shreds of information from loose-lipped Axis sympathizers and others and then relayed her findings to her superiors in Morse code.

Patricia completed her time with the OSS in the spring of 1945, but for much of her life, she kept her exploits a secret. In 2019, Patricia was recognized for her wartime service with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Spycraft marked just one chapter of Patricia’s extraordinary life. After her OSS tenure, she returned to New York and enrolled at Barnard to study international relations. She turned down a Fulbright scholarship and in 1951 married Charles G.K. Warner, a professor of French history and a schoolmate of her first husband. Academia took the Warners all over the country, but activism remained close to Patricia’s heart. In 1965, she participated in one of the historic marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, during which she apparently spent a night in jail, her family says.

The family entered a trying period in the early 1970s when her daughter developed anorexia, a disorder that at the time wasn’t well documented or understood. Warner flung herself into existing literature and established the Anorexia Nervosa Aid Society in 1978 — then the only self-help group in New England for people suffering from eating disorders. Patricia, who was later recognized by President George H.W. Bush for her efforts, went on to write a memoir about her daughter’s battle with anorexia.

Even as the years wore on and her second husband passed away in 2006, “she never [really] retired,” says Chris Warner, the first of her five children with Charles. Well into her 90s, Patricia was known for twinkling eyes, sharp wit, and lively games of backgammon and Scrabble. “Of all her causes, family was most important,” remembers granddaughter Addie Warner. And family and friends surrounded her to the end. The last time Joe Dwinell saw Patricia, he says, she squeezed his hand and said, “Never give up.” B

In Memoriam

1940

Vera Robins Greene 10/2/2020

1942

Elaine Wolf Cotlove 9/26/2020

1944

Elizabeth Davis Sorensen 2/26/2014 Gloria Glaston Cole 9/17/2020 Mary Davis Williams 11/6/2019 Mary Aitchison Davenport 9/25/2020

1946

Jean Haroldson Ziegler 11/3/2020

1947

Katherine Harris Constant 8/19/2020 Mary Rudd Kierstead 9/7/2020

1948

Ann Amanda Ford Morris 10/16/2020

1950

Elaine Springberg Brase 11/2/2020

1951

Mary Scarlett DeMott 10/18/2020 Carol Burnham Travis 10/1/2020

1952

Constance Boardman Vanacore 10/14/2020 Delores Hoffman 7/24/2020 Sonia Wolliak 10/27/2020 Ruth Grossman Hadlock 10/29/2020

1953

Millicent Satterlee Mali 9/16/2020 Carol Wolfe Galligan 10/16/2020 Margaret Davis Moose 8/10/2020

1954

Jacqueline Michael Errera 10/7/2018 Osa Philipson Ericsson 2020

1955

Jean Elder Noe 5/3/2020

1956

Barbara Bing Kaplan 9/24/2020

1958

Judith Kleinman Wachtel 9/2/2020

1960

Andree Abecassis 11/4/2020

1963

Charlotte Alter Spiegelman 9/25/2020 Nancy Freiman 4/15/2020

1969

Constance Buchanan 9/16/2020 Cynthia Jaquith 5/1/2020

1970

Janna Jones Bellwin 4/29/2019

1972

Judith Bach 4/9/2020

1973

Diana Varjabedian Ohanessian 12/29/2018

1977

Gail MacColl Jarrett 6/25/2020

1979

Laura Myers Reeb 9/12/2020

1980

Hanna Hutchins 10/31/2019

1983

Rachel Furer 10/19/2020 Deborah Nason-Naples 8/25/2020

A BOOK OF HER OWN

continued from page 25

How do you hope current students will approach your book and come to appreciate Barnard on a deeper level?

Recognize that it had a past that was different and that should continue to inform its present and future. That is, it did serve as a kind of ladder to a different, better world, a better set of opportunities, a fuller life that was dramatically different by virtue of going to Barnard. I think in some sense, [it still] does serve that role of opening up possibilities, exposing students to situations and opportunities that might not have been there but for this connection. And [that is] intertwined with a faculty that by and large feels the same way about the opportunities that Barnard and New York City provide. B

TUNED IN

continued from page 39

A LASTING NETWORK

All of these meandering journeys to podcasting have roots at Barnard, creating a formidable, benevolent sisterhood. “There is kind of a cool legacy of Barnard women in audio helping out other Barnard women in audio,” Balcomb says.

That can happen in smaller ways — Douglas says that she makes a point of hiring Barnard students for research and transcribing help at Freakonomics because the College teaches impeccable research skills.

It can also happen in larger ways, such as the mentoring Balcomb got from Stamberg, Douglas receives now from Craiglow, and Alpert tracked down from award-winning broadcast journalist Maria Hinojosa ’84.

“When I was in grad school, I tried to get on a phone call with Maria Hinojosa for about six months,” says Alpert. “I’d email her like once a month and say, ‘Hey, do you have 15 minutes to chat with me?’ I finally got on the phone with her, and she was like, ‘You are persistent.’ I think that was a compliment.”

When Alpert was at WBUR, she remembers getting a call from Balcomb, who was then at NPR and based in Washington, D.C.

“She was like, ‘I’m really starting to think about my next steps,’” Alpert recalls. “She said she wanted to go back to New York. She was totally on the ground when The Daily started. ... I heard her thinking about it, and then she just made it happen. I’m sure her story is much more involved than that. But it’s a very small world.”

Balcomb overlapped at NPR with Maggie Penman ’12, now the executive producer of Post Reports, The Washington Post’s daily news and analysis podcast.

“Podcasts were really my first love; I fell in love with audio while listening to the This American Life podcast in college,” Penman says.

She started her career in public radio right after graduating from Barnard, with an internship at WNYC, then did stints at NPR’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and WGBH, one of Boston’s NPR affiliates, before returning to D.C. in 2018 to help run Post Reports.

Penman counts her Barnard connections as core members of her professional network. “I feel like my classmates are some of my biggest fans and still some of my best friends,” Penman says. “I think it’s great to know so many people — not just in podcasting and in journalism — but also in publishing and politics. I have friends who work at the U.N. or for the Biden campaign, or for publishing companies where they will pitch me books that we should cover. There’s an incredibly wonderful network of people who are so supportive.”

Penman, too, parlays the strength from her Barnard network into creating stories aimed at uniting all who hear them, regardless of where they are on their path or where they’re going.

“I think that audio is such an incredible medium,” she says. “When you hear someone’s voice, and you hear the emotion in their voice, you just connect to them in a way you won’t necessarily on the page.” B

CROSSWORD ANSWERS

Puzzle on page 88

Last Word

Equity: A Guiding Light

by Helene Gayle ’76

Last summer, when COVID-19 and a series of highprofile cases of violence against Black people became potent indicators of racial injustice, I found myself knee-deep in establishing a coalition of community stakeholders to explore how to best respond to these twin pandemics. As the president and CEO of a key civic and philanthropic entity in the region, the Chicago Community Trust, I saw this moment as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to double down on our commitment to confront the Chicago region’s racial and ethnic wealth gap and ensure that we don’t return to the status quo.

Around this time, I received a call asking me to co-chair a committee for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that focused on establishing a framework for an equitable allocation of a COVID-19 vaccine. While I initially hesitated to take on one more major commitment, I quickly realized that I could not say no.

Throughout my career, whether it be in government, philanthropy, or the nonprofit sector, my passion has always been to work towards creating a more just and equitable world. In my lifetime, we have never witnessed a public health crisis that led to as much economic and social disruption, and so highlighted our global inequities. I felt an obligation to play my part in this important effort.

For 10 weeks from July to October, our committee pulled together a consensus study to assist domestic and global policymakers in planning for an equitable allocation of a COVID-19 vaccine, with the understanding that in the beginning demand would exceed supply. We started by developing key foundational principles that helped frame our overarching goals to reduce severe morbidity and mortality as well as the negative societal impact due to the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID-19 disease). We established a four-phased allocation framework, placing those who had the highest risk of infection, disease, or negative consequences to society in the first categories and those with lower risk in the later phases.

The final report, released in October, addressed the disproportionate public health and economic impact on communities of color by designating geographic priority to communities high on the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index, which accounts for a number of factors, including poverty, lack of access to transportation, and crowded housing.

It is important to remember that developing the vaccine is only the first step. People have to be willing to take the vaccine, and it has to be available and accessible, especially for the people at high risk and communities that have been most affected by this pandemic. Although confidence in the vaccine has risen with the recent evidence of successful trials, polls still suggest that only 61% of Americans would definitely or probably take the vaccine. This drops to 42% for African Americans, who’ve been hard-hit by the pandemic but also have reason to distrust medical and public health systems because of the legacy of medical exploitation and bias.

This vaccine effort has the opportunity to demonstrate it is worthy of trust from all people if equity stays at the center. At this moment, there is an awakening to the power of racism, poverty, and bias that is amplifying the health and economic hardship imposed by this pandemic on Black and Latinx communities. We saw our work as one way to address these wrongs. Years from now, when the history books are written about how our generation responded, I am hopeful that the lesson learned from the current crisis on how to improve future responses is that equity must be our guide. B

Helene Gayle, a physician, is the president and CEO of the Chicago Community Trust. She was named one of Forbes’ “100 Most Powerful Women” and Foreign Policy magazine’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.”

Crossword

by Patrick Blindauer

ACROSS

1. ___ page (newspaper part) 5. Wasn’t out and about 8. By the unit 14. Firecracker feature 15. Employ, as “the Force” 16. Educational achievement 17. Social entrepreneur, film producer, and namesake of new wellness center 20. “___ the day!” (Horace) 21. Some sports scores (abbr.) 22. Take the money and run, literally 23. Wall bracket shape 25. Minuscule amount 28. Professor McCaughey’s History Lesson, with “A” 36. Mandela’s land (abbr.) 37. Automotive pioneer Karl 38. Suitable apparel for a shower 39. Theatrical opening 41. Daughter of a deer 43. Miami-___ County 44. Person rolling in riches 47. The Flying Wedge Award org. 50. One of a pair of canvas sneakers 51. Latest poetry collection from Mei-mei

Berssenbrugge ’69, with “A” 54. Beat poet Cassady 55. To the ___ degree 56. To the rear 58. Homer’s dad 61. Tears down 65. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in relation to Grand Central Station 69. When many duels were held 70. Channel since 1980 71. Suffix for Smurf or Rock 72. “Oh, definitely!” 73. Neighbor of Neb. 74. Thailand, once

DOWN

1. Show-___ (braggarts) 2. Like 24-karat gold 3. La Bamba star Morales 4. He won Best Actor the same year Halle won Best Actress 5. Shannon who reimagined the Brooklyn

Bridge 6. “Love ___ Easy” (Abba song) 7. Proof of purchase, of a sort 8. Home of the Braves (abbr.) 9. Capital of Pennsylvania? 10. Between visible and microwave 11. Monetary unit since 1999 12. Sourpuss 13. Scream of surprise 18. Prey for the paparazzi 19. “Like that’ll ever happen!” 24. T-shirt size, for short 26. Cousin of “Aha!” 27. What X may mean 28. ___ beer 29. Award won by Hunt and Peck 30. Milch : German :: ___ : Italian 31. Stopping point 32. Allotropic form of oxygen 33. Home to Tennōji Park 34. Less narrow 35. Can’t live without 40. “It’s a secret!” 42. Prefix with system 45. Put away the dishes? 46. Spanish family member 48. Raggedy ___ (doll) 49. 2017 World Series winner 52. Croatian, for one 53. Feudal lords of Scotland 56. Commedia dell’___ 57. Mob pursuers 59. See 65-Down 60. Sicilian tourist attraction 62. Baked ristorante dish 63. ¿Dónde ___ Wally? (translated children’s book) 64. Floral supporter 65. With 59-Down, Mary Gordon’s newest book 66. Milk source for Romano cheese 67. IV administrators 68. Place to retire?

2021

SAVE THE DATE

VIRTUAL GALA THE EVENING OF WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2021

All proceeds from this event help to underwrite student financial aid and provide scholarships to new generations of visionaries and trailblazers at Barnard College.

For more information: 646.745.8331 | gala@barnard.edu | barnard.edu/gala

Gala 2021 art designed by Joy Lee ’21