Always Looking Forward: Liddy Berry ’75, P’05

LIDDY BERRY ’75, P’05

ALWAYS LOOKING FORWARD

I still have the note from Dick Moll. Bowdoin has a copy, too. I remember the fuss my father (Richard Berry ’45), uncle (Harrison Berry Jr. ’45), and brother (Richard Berry Jr. ’68) made. For me it was just a next step in my intent to study at Bowdoin. I was comfortable in that first class of women. I learned from my experience entering Bowdoin that something can happen even if it hasn’t been done before.

After Bowdoin, I enrolled in the master’s program in special education at the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed by Congress in 1975, so my timing was perfect to enter the field of working with children with disabilities. Currently, I’m an adjunct faculty member in the education department at Worcester State University supporting the next generation of early childhood educators. There is an opportunity to make a difference every day as a teacher. When working with children with disabilities you have to be an optimist—have to believe tomorrow can be better than today.

When I was a child, my father would sing us songs at bedtime. By age ten, I knew all the words to all the Bowdoin songs. We wore Bowdoin sweatshirts and baseball caps, ate on Bowdoin plates, and sat in Bowdoin captain’s chairs. My grandfather (Harrison Berry) graduated in 1911, and I do not think he could have imagined a world where his great-granddaughters—my daughter, Carly Knight ’05, and niece, Yongyai Berry ’96—would be Bowdoin graduates. He would have been so proud.

I married Roy Knight ’75 in the Bowdoin chapel. Our fathers wore Bowdoin ties. Bowdoin runs deeply through all parts of my life.

For more of our interview with Liddy, visit bowdoin.edu/magazine.

Forward

FROM BOWDOIN AND BEYOND

In a note dated October 12, 1970, admissions director Dick Moll wrote to Elissa “Liddy” Berry ’75 to recognize and congratulate her as the first woman to submit a formal application to Bowdoin when the College officially opened to coeducation.

Forward

Alumni Life

Tom Leung ’96

A Nerd’s Approach

Tom Leung ’96 gets wonky on his weekly YouTube show.

TOM LEUNG ’96 hosts Nerds for Humanity, a weekly YouTube show featuring discussions with politicians and experts—including some members of the Bowdoin community. Leung launched the show in 2020 initially to support Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign. “At the time, I was working at YouTube, and part of my job was to understand the experiences that creators have.” When Yang dropped out of the race, Leung decided to keep going with his show to continue exploring ideas fueling policy debates. The long-form conversations are meant to be an antidote to the daily diet of clickbait headlines and opinionated voices we regularly experience in our online lives. “I think one of the interesting things about media today is that the ones who know the most about something rarely get the most airtime,” Leung said.

Nerds for Humanity focuses on policy and politics and professes a love of charts and graphs. “I try to unpack policy debates with more detail and evidence,” said Leung, who describes himself as a “solutions-focused Independent with a love for the scientific method and coming up with data-driven fixes to complex problems.” Part of the charm of the program comes from the opener, when each guest greets listeners with a personal interpretation of “Hello, nerds!”

Over the past year, Leung has invited five Bowdoin professors to join him on the show, including Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government Andrew Rudalevige, Assistant Professor of Government Maron Sorenson, Professor of Government Michael Franz, Professor of Economics Erik Nelson, and Professor of Government Jeff Selinger. Yordana Gerdzhikova ’23 and Phil Sanchez ’96 have also made appearances.

For more about Leung and to link to his show, visit bowdo.in/leung. Campaign

CELEBRATING WOMEN

On June 30, 2022, the College ends a year of recognizing and celebrating the extraordinary contributions of women to Bowdoin, their communities, and the larger world. Over the course of the year, gifts from women and gifts that honor women have had an important impact on fundraising. A fund created by Katy Longley ’76, Callie Curtis ’72 and Randy Curtis ’72, and Mary Herman that honors Joan Benoit Samuelson ’79, P’12, and another established by Alison DiSalvo Ryan ’99 and Brendan Ryan ’99 honoring Professor Penny Martin, will both provide financial aid for Bowdoin students. Noni Strauss, twin sister of Ted Strauss ’65, committed nearly her entire estate to the Janice Filipowicz Strauss, William Theodore Strauss III, and Nona Dickey Strauss Memorial Scholarship Fund. And seventy-seven alumni have contributed and pledged over $280,000 toward the Leaders in All Walks of Life Fund, a commemorative annual fund that supports current financial aid.

The fund began with a challenge from a group of alumnae leaders that matched any gift to the Alumni Fund or Polar Bear Athletic Fund with $100 for financial aid. At the end of the challenge period, $143,600 had been raised from the match. The Leaders in All Walks of Life Fund was established as a giving option for 2021–2022.

To watch recordings from September’s virtual kickoff to the year-long celebration of fifty years of women at Bowdoin, go to bowdo.in/50-years.