Dickinson Magazine: Winter 2014

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[ contents ] Dickinson Published by the Division of Enrollment, Marketing & Communications Publisher and Vice President Stephanie Balmer Executive Director of Marketing & Communications Connie McNamara Editor Michelle Simmons Assistant Editor Lauren Davidson Staff Photographer Carl Socolow ’77 Design Landesberg Design Contributing Writers Matt Getty MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson Tony Moore Martin de Bourmont ’14 Erin Owens ’15 Magazine Advisory Group Gail Birch Huganir ’80 Kathy Marcello ’80 Jim Gerencser ’93 Matt Fahnestock ’01 David Richeson Adrienne Su Paula Lima-Jones Web site www.dickinson.edu/magazine E-mail Address dsonmag@dickinson.edu Telephone 717-245-1289 Facebook www.facebook.com/DickinsonMagazine © Dickinson College 2013. Dickinson Magazine is published four times a year, in January, April, July and October, by Dickinson College, P.O. Box 1773, Carlisle, Cumberland County, PA 17013-1773.

Printed with soy-based inks.

Please recycle after reading.

16 Cabinets of Curiosity: Dive into Dickinson’s Archives & Special Collections’ latest exhibition — perhaps the oddest to appear since the days of P. T. Barnum and Charles Willson Peale. 26 Seeds & Success: While every college says it pursues diversity in its student ranks, Dickinson’s relationships with community-based organizations go deeper.

30 Relentless Resilience: A dying wish becomes reality with the upcoming publication of the late Stephanie Greco Larson’s medical memoir.

34 Worlds Apart: Tsewang Namgyal ’97 yokes capitalism with Buddhist principles for the greater good. 36 No Place Like Home(coming): Participants at this year’s Homecoming & Family Weekend had extra reason to celebrate.

FSC LOGO Read Web exclusives at www.dickinson.edu/magazine.

We want to hear from you! Visit www.dickinson.edu/magazine to take a brief survey about Dickinson Magazine’s redesign and overall content.

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UP FRONT

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your view

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our view

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Dickinson matters

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ask the archivist

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college & west high

IN BACK

41 beyond the limestone walls 42 fine print

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43 kudos 44 our Dickinson 54 obituaries 56 closing thoughts

16 ON THE COVER

First invented in the 1840s, the stereoscope created the appearance of a 3-D image. To see the illusion, one looks through the optical lenses at a double-printed image. Each eye therefore sees its own image, which creates the impression of depth. Pictured is a stereocard of East College circa 1880. This particular stereoscope was created by the London-based company Smith Beck & Beck circa 1870. Donor: Unknown; Photo by Carl Socolow ’77

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[ your view ]

Degree of global growth I want to applaud the college’s and President Nancy Roseman’s emphasis on foreign-language skills. This is sorely needed in our ever-shrinking, global-village world. For myself, I would say that I must have received a much better education from my French classes than I and my professor realized at the time, for I took my poor skills in French to the task of translating two articles of Paul Ricoeur’s while I was attending Union Theological Seminary. Those translations were published, at first in a journal and then in a book (and improved in the process), which contributed to my being accepted to the University of Chicago Divinity School and eventually receiving my Ph.D. The point is, without the emphasis on language, I would not have had the opportunities in education and in life that I have had.

BRAD D E FORD ’70 HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIF.

Send letters via e-mail to dsonmag@dickinson.edu or mail to: Dickinson Magazine, P.O. Box 1773, Carlisle, PA 17013-1773. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

Handwritten history I read with interest the Ask the Archivist column (fall 2013) about memorabilia “that show us what students were thinking, how they were spending their free time and how they were growing as individuals during their years at Dickinson.” I have a few letters written to my parents in 1970 and ’71, when I was a freshman and sophomore at Dickinson.

They recount descriptions of the weather, hitchhiking travels with my roommate, philosophical reflections and some student life. Re-reading these old handwritten letters brought back some good memories of Dickinson for me and may be of interest to others as well.

JONATHAN SCHAEFER ’73 WAYNESBORO, VA.

Editor’s Note: In Mr. Schaefer’s missive, he also offered to donate his collection of letters to Dickinson’s Archives & Special Collections.

College Archivist Jim Gerencser ’93 happily accepted the gift.

Crafting artists I really enjoy the new layout of the magazine.

Fresh, sophisticated … I feel erudite as I turn the pages. Most notably I enjoyed the profile on Dennis Akin, one of the most inspirational professors during my days in Carlisle. I wasn’t an artist by any means. He made me one.

I worked harder in his class my senior year than in any other. The opportunities we had as l­iberal-arts students to delve into the most unique of classes is a tenet for which a Dickinson diploma stands. And it always makes for a good story when you say one of your favorite college classes was “stainedglass-window making” (insert “under­water basket-weaving” commentary). The depiction of Akins’ art in the inset photos is absolutely spectacular. Thanks for the walk down Weiss Center memory lane.

KIRSTEN NIXA SABIA ’92 ATLANTIC BEACH, FLA.

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[ our view ]

The world’s progress MICHELLE M. SIMMONS, EDITOR

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ike many others in my profession, I collect books and magazines. There’s nothing intentional or acquisitive about it: As a first-generation college graduate, I just happen to hate throwing away anything that has even a whiff of erudition attached to it. I’m reminded daily that I really need to cull the increasingly precarious piles of Harper’s magazines (my first real subscription) in my basement.

And through multiple moves, from my parents’ house to first apartments in random cities to my current home, I schlepped with me The Delphian Society’s dilapidated, 10-volume, faux-leather-bound The World’s Progress, With Illustrative Texts From Masterpieces of Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Modern European and American Literature, Fully Illustrated (1913). The society’s purpose was to educate the uneducated masses and set readers on a personal but some­ what eclectic course of study that would parallel the great books. I discovered the tomes when I was 11 years old, in the attic of the house my parents had just bought, and I fell in love with the formal diction, the intricate illustrations — even the fusty, mottled paper.

So imagine my delight when College Archivist Jim Gerencser ’93 mentioned a new exhibition that would feature some of Archives & Special Collections’ most curious objects — items that would tell of the world’s progress, and of the nature of collecting, through the eyes of Dickinsonians.

The exhibit follows the style of Charles Willson Peale’s American Museum, founded in 1786 and among the first of its kind to mix science, technology, art and natural history with a healthy dash of P.T. Barnum-style showmanship. We hope you’ll enjoy the objects as much as we enjoyed photographing and learning about them.

And speaking of progress, one of Dickinson’s more exciting initiatives over the past decade has been its outreach to community-based organizations as part of its overall admissions strategy. In “Seeds & Success,” you’ll hear from two students who not only are taking full advantage of all that Dickinson has to offer but already are giving back by visiting their communities and sharing their Dickinson story with prospective students.

This issue also honors Stephanie Greco Larson, professor of political science and women’s & gender studies, who died in 2011 of cancer. Her husband, David Srokose, established a scholarship in her memory then and is about to debut Relentless: One Woman’s Betrayal by the Medical System, written by Larson and lovingly edited by Meghan Allen ’08, one of Larson’s students. I did not know Larson, but based on what I’ve read in her book (which will be available Feb. 1) and through conversations with those involved with the making of it, I wish I had. It appears that she too was a collector, and of the best kind — of friendships and fierce intellects.

We hope you’ll enjoy this issue in all its eclecticism — from Tsewang Namgyal ’97’s counterintuitive thinking on economic and social development to a particular faculty band’s song list. As always, we want to hear from you, so drop us a line: dsonmag@dickinson.edu or Facebook.com/ DickinsonMagazine.

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[ Dickinson matters ]

Asking the right questions NANCY A. ROSEMAN, PRESIDENT

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spend a fair amount of time on the road these days, getting to know Dickinson through the perspectives and experiences of our alumni and parents of current students.

It is also an opportunity for me to help them see and under­ stand what Dickinson is today, which can be much different from how they experienced it.

Some things, however, do remain the same, including the many phrases that encapsulate Dickinson’s philosophy and history. These are constants among our community, and we are rightly proud of them. I believe the one that captures our spirit — and certainly captivated me from the moment I read it — was the call more than 200 years ago to cultivate engaged citizens for society. It was a call to nurture the American experiment via a liberal, and useful, education.

Many of these conversations take place in offices and conference rooms in cities across America. In this way, I get windows into why these extraordinarily successful and extremely busy individuals take time out of their day to talk with me and learn more about Dickinson. They are intensely interested in the present and future direction of their college.

They care deeply about the state of higher education, and not necessarily only about Dickinson.

There are a few recurring questions I hear: What do you think about online learning? How do you get people to understand the value of a liberal-arts education? What is your highest priority? What are you going to do about the cost question?

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In my view, these seemingly disparate questions all have the same root, although the answer to each has a slightly different flavor.

First and foremost, our pedagogical approach is to provide a liberal-arts education that is an intensely social enterprise. I am deeply proud of our average class size of 17, with no class larger than 50. You should be too. Without with the intimacy that can come from focused teachers stretching and challenging their students, our students could not take those necessary intellectual and personal leaps. Can a computer tell you that you did a good job? Tell you that you failed, but do so in a way that inspires you to work harder?

Demand more of you than you ever imagined giving? Take you to lunch?

What we do at a residential liberal-arts college is about people. It is a very human endeavor — helping young people become more fully themselves, more fully engaged, and instilling in them a sense of what it is to be a citizen of the world and a Dickinsonian. This is at the very core of a residential liberal-arts experience. This is an incubator in which you discover yourself and build the base on which you stand for the rest of your adult life.

Cost? Sixty percent of our annual budget is the human cost of that social enterprise: salaries and benefits. The second largest bite out of our budget is, no surprise, financial aid — the other side of this human equation. The college commits more than $40 million a year to financial aid, of which 10 percent is funded through endowed scholarships. Think about your Dickinson experience. Was there any way to make it more efficient and not lose the thing that gave it the most power — the people who surrounded you?

My highest priority? That’s an easy one — maintaining our pedagogical model and having the resources so that it can continue to evolve and remain available to students across the socioeconomic spectrum.

These are the things I often talk about in conference rooms and private offices all over this country. But perhaps the most important question is one I pose: How can you and other committed Dickinsonians help the college remain true to its mission — the social enterprise it was meant to be?

I look forward to many more of these conversations.

[ ask the archivist ] On page 4 of the Nov. 16, 1939, issue of The Dickinsonian, a headline declares “Pranksters Place Horse Prominently,” janitors having ­discovered said horse on the stage of the chapel in Bosler Hall. The article mentions that the “culprits were not apprehended,” and it does not appear that Margaret Fuller ’43 (pictured below) was ever identified as the responsible party. With no one “MY SISTER, to blame, the owner of the horse M A R G F U L L E R ’4 3 , demanded $200 from the WAS RUMORED TO student body for unspecified H AV E L E D A HOR S E damages. A brief article on Feb. 29, 1940, suggests that UP THE STEPS payment would be made by OF BOSLER HALL. the Student Senate. Fuller IS THIS TRUE?” trans­ferred from Dickinson after JACK FULLER ’47 completing one year of study, so we can only imagine what else she might have cooked up had she stayed.

Student pranks have been a part of campus life throughout Dickinson’s history.

Stories of tarring blackboards, removing the clapper from the college bell and putting hot pepper on classroom stoves are relatively common. Amidst these somewhat routine acts of mischief, the incident of the horse in the chapel stands out.

Another of the more innovative pranks involved the mermaid atop Old West. While stealing the mermaid became something of a tradition by the mid-20th century, a group of freshmen in 1915 had a different approach. Having “borrowed” the college chaplain’s bicycle, the students ascended

the cupola and tied up the bike, giving the ­mermaid the appearance of riding it. Frank Masland, class of 1918, described his role and the ­challenges of this particular prank in a 1982 letter to College Archivist Martha Slotten.

But by far, the greatest prank ever pulled was one that left college president Jesse T. Peck detained at an insane asylum. Wanting to exact revenge for his friend’s punishment, Moncure Conway, class of 1849, a senior at the time, wrote to an asylum in Staunton, Va., alerting officials there that a deranged man claiming to be president of Dickinson College would be arriving by train; President Peck already was scheduled to attend a conference of Methodist ministers there.

Peck was apprehended at the station and taken to the asylum, and it was several hours before other ministers at the conference were able to vouch for their colleague.

Conway finally confessed to this prank 26 years later in a letter to The Dickinsonian. One can’t help but wonder how Peck, by then a bishop and a trustee of Syracuse University, reacted upon learning who was responsible.

—Jim Gerencser ’93 Send your questions for Ask the Archivist to dsonmag@dickinson.edu.

[ college & west high ]

farming

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hen you think of farming, it’s all about software, algorithms and the Web, right?

Programming languages, rapid prototyping and decision sciences? No? Well, it might be soon, as Dickinson professors and students have been teaming up to bring Farming 2.0 to the forefront at the College Farm.

Heavy rotation

Think about the farm and its 24 fields and 13 crop groups to plant. Then think about the onerous task of determining what crops to plant in each field and jockeying them each year to hit certain yield targets, control pests and disease, fertilize, account for fallow periods and nitrogen levels and plan for soil depletion and weed control.

And remember that what the farmers do this year might have ramifications up to four years out.

But guess what? It gets worse: The model created to automate the crop-rotation schedule at the farm — ROMO (Rotation Optimizing Model) — ended up having more than 9,000 variables and 13,000 constraints.

“This is a tough optimization model to deal with,” says Associate Professor of Mathematics Dick Forrester, who, with Miguel Rodriguez ’13, took on the modeling project last year.

“It’s far too complicated for a human to make these decisions, way more complicated than it seemed at first — so many fields, so many variables.”

Forrester had heard about using decision sciences to determine a crop-rotation plan, so he contacted the farm about developing such a plan. What made it tough was that neither

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Forrester nor Rodriguez, whose background is in computer science and math, knew anything about farming.

“Most of the real-world applications of mathematics that I had been exposed to had come from fields like economics, engineering, physics or chemistry,” says Rodriguez, explaining that he initially was scratching his head about math’s application to an agricultural endeavor. “But once I started learning more about crop rotation, it was easy to realize that designing a rotation is nothing more than making yes or no decisions. And I knew this could easily be turned into math.”

Once he turned it into math — specifically math within the realm of decision sciences, which uses mathematics to make complicated decisions — Rodriguez found his footing.

“Miguel spearheaded this,” says Forrester, who notes that Rodriguez is now in graduate school at Clemson University, where Forrester earned his Ph.D., and he’s even taking classes with Forrester’s Ph.D. advisor.

“It was his project, and he spent hours thinking about it, e-mailing me in the middle of the night with ideas he had.”

Before ROMO, Matt Steiman, the farm’s assistant manager, worked out the variables and constraints in a spreadsheet, using his agricultural knowledge and educated guesses toward engineering the whole thing. But one wrong move would find the farm boxed into a corner, locked into a rotation for years.

The new system provided Steiman with a tool that designs four-year rotation schedules in less than two minutes, and by the 2014-15 season, the model will be 95 to 100 percent accurate for the farm’s needs.

“I think my record shows that ROMO saved me 999,024 headaches compared to the old way of doing things,” Steiman says. “Crop rotation on diverse vegetable farms is complicated and time-consuming. When you get down to business, it is certainly a headful of information, and it’s great to have ROMO there to take on the hard work.”

Five computer languages, three students, one big project

This summer, Associate Professor of Computer Science Tim Wahls brought in Asir Saeed, Yutong “Mia” Shang and Edwin Padilla, all class of 2016, to develop Web-based software (dubbed FARMDATA) for the farm, which now allows farm staff to enter planting, harvesting and sales information from

any networked device and run queries /reports against any data inputted.

Start to finish, the group had just two and a half months to get the project up and running. “Normally something like this would take a year, so it was intense,” says Padilla, whose participation was funded through a National Science Foundation Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) grant. “The learning curve was exponential at first, because we had very little experience with any of these languages, so we just had to adapt and experiment.”

The computer languages the group absorbed were JavaScript, PHP, CSS, HTML and SQL, and they went a long way toward helping achieve the project’s goal: bringing the farm’s existing tracking software to the Web and making its capabilities more extensive, per any requests made

by Steiman.

“In the past we had significant problems with incomplete or incorrect records,” Steiman says. “FARMDATA uses smart forms to minimize errors in recordkeeping, and the live digital database builds upon itself throughout the season,” which Steiman says allows the farmers to access the current season’s records from the field to make real-time decisions.

“We listened to our client, Matt, to see what he wanted and then made changes to see if it met his requirements after he tested it,” says Shang, who, along with Saeed, came to the project through a Dickinson student-faculty research grant.

“A lot of what we do here is similar to what we’d do in the workforce,” says Saeed, who gave life to the project when he asked Wahls about doing a research project together. “It’s important to have these opportunities, particularly on campus, because it provides us with that stepping stone that we need to get out there and have some­thing on our resumés. It’s very professional.”

The software has been such a success that it’s likely other local farms will start using it, which might mean some follow-up work for Wahls’ students, who already are exploring GIS/map-based enhancements and other features.

“It’s customized for the Dickinson farm, so we’d have to make a more general version, so it fits more farmers,” says Padilla. “Or it might need to expand for even more uses on the farm. Either way, we put in a lot of hard work, so seeing the farmers’ reaction has been great.”— Tony Moore

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[ college & west high ]

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Adventure ARCTIC

PARTICIPANTS

Dickinson’s earth sciences department has been fortunate to have many opportunities to offer out-of-classroom experiences to students. Faculty research projects have taken them to Montserrat and Costa Rica. Classes have ventured to the Galápagos Islands and Iceland. The David and Cary Cassa Fund, created by Mary Rose Cassa ’76, has funded fieldwork in Scotland and Sicily.

Through his work with the Discovery in Geosciences (DIG) Field School, John Pohl ’78 is highly invested in experiential learning. “It’s about getting students to really touch and feel and experience science,” he explains. Susan Wyckoff Pohl ’80 shares his passion, and the pair proposed a trip.

“The Pohls approached me about exploring Baffin Island and asked whether there would be any educational benefit to taking students along,” recalls Marcus Key, Joseph Priestley Professor of Natural Philosophy. “So I did a little research, and wow, it was a no-brainer.”

Four earth sciences majors — Liz Plascencia ’16, Melanie Campbell ’15, Leslie Milliman ’14 and Aleks Perpalaj ’14 — were selected, and they were joined by the Pohls’ daughter Merryl, a 6th-grade science teacher.

And then the arctic adventure began.

73 DEGREES NORTH “I’ve never been anywhere that interesting,” says Melanie Campbell ’15. “Never even heard of Baffin Island, and going to the artic?

Not many people can say they’ve been to the arctic.”

11 DAYS The group converged in Ottawa, Canada.

One full day and three planes later, they reached their first stop: Pond Inlet on Baffin Island. Their first base camp: at the foot of a monumental glacier. Their second stop: two full days of sea kayaking. They hiked. They fished. They awoke to polar bear tracks mere feet from their tents and took a polar plunge inches from an iceberg. They cooked meals on gas stoves and subsisted sans deodorant so as not to attract the wildlife.

2,000 KM NORTH OF THE NEAREST TREE Open. Immense. Vast. Look in one direction and you see bright white icebergs jutting out of sparkling blue water. Turn to another, and there stand massive rocky outcrops forged of sediment, Cretaceous sandstones or multicolored metamorphic rock. Turn again and witness green tundra full of native vegetation and wildlife.

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40 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT:

AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

They witnessed visible evidence of climate change. Most apparent was the glacial retreat, which left large mounds of sediment and newly formed lakes where once there had been glaciers.

“We were able to see, this is where a glacier was 10 years ago, and now it’s backed up a few hundred meters,” says Perpalaj.

This fall in Key’s Sedimentology and Stratigraphy class, students learned to graph data in Excel that illustrates climate change.

“But now the students [who took this trip] can internalize that,” Key says. “They’ve seen it. For everyone else, it’s just numbers.”

2 GUIDES Experts from Black Feather, a wilderness adventure company, helped the group navigate the alien terrain.

“We knew we wanted to look at glaciers, glacial history, climate change,” Key explains.

“So one of the guides was a glaciologist, and the other was a local expert and adventure man. We hiked hard and paddled hard and worked hard, and the students had such great attitudes. This kind of cooperative camping isn’t easy.”

Generations at Stake

Priestley Award recipient exhorts audience to get serious about climate change

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ontemporary discussions of climate change often are presented in apocalyptic terms. James Hansen, this year’s Joseph Priestley Award recipient, however, began his Nov. 7 lecture, White House Arrest and the Climate Crisis, with words of reassurance: “It’s not a doomand-gloom story.”

Hansen, the former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, shared his modest beginnings as the son of an Iowa tenant farmer. A good student, the young Hansen attended the University of Iowa and became the first undergraduate in the university’s history to pass its Ph.D. entrance exams. Now an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, he directs a program in climate science, awareness and solutions. Hansen was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and was designated by Time magazine in 2006 as one of the 100 most influential people on Earth.

24 HOURS OF DAYLIGHT It’s also not easy to sleep when the sun never sets.

40,000-YEAR-OLD MELTED SNOW “Drinking the glacier water … it was so crisp and clear and clean,” Campbell recalls.

“We didn’t have to purify it. We just filled up our water bottles in a stream, and it was the best water I’ve ever had.”

View a slide show at dickinson.edu/magazine.

Carl Socolow ’77

1 POD OF NARWHALS The elusive unicorns of the sea stayed hidden the entire trip. As the team packed up their last camp and prepared for the trek home, they heard little puffs of air.

They turned and saw a group of 50 to 100 (depending on whom you ask) narwhals filling up the water, as if to bid the group farewell. —Lauren Davidson

Hansen, who began focusing his research on human-made climate change in the late 1970s, is best known for his testimony on climate change before congressional committees in the 1980s, which helped raise broad awareness of global warming. “Since then, I’ve been in the clink a few times,” he said, referring to his multiple arrests, including once while protesting the Keystone Pipeline at the White House gates in 2011.

Throughout the lecture, Hansen interspersed his PowerPoint slides on the effects of climate change with images of his grandchildren. Where their parents and grandparents failed, younger generations will need to succeed, he said, adding, “Our parents did not know they were causing a problem for future generations.

We can only pretend not to know.”

—Martin de Bourmont ’14

swallow Hard to

WINTER

JAN. 27-FEB. 17

Events music readings lectures

¡Bailemos!

Dee Jenkins, Weiss Gallery 204 FEB. 11

Clarke Forum Event

Water and Climate Change Catherine O’Reilly, Illinois State University FEB. 20

Clarke Forum Event

Media, Sports and the Emergence of Women Laura Suchoski, ESPN

Calendar of Arts: dickinson.edu/arts

FEB. 25

Clarke Forum Event

Mary Ellen Borges Lecture: New Testament and Early Christianity Bart Ehrman, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

The Clarke Forum: clarke.dickinson.edu (includes event podcasts)

FEB. 27

Clarke Forum Event

Morgan Lecture: Mood Disorders and Mental Illness Kay Jamison, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine MARCH 6

Jane L. and Robert H. Weiner Lecture in the Fine Arts

Judith Schaechter Weiss Center for the Arts MARCH 18

Clarke Forum Event

Water Quality and Scarcity Steven Solomon, author MARCH 20

Clarke Forum Event

The Dark Matter: Race and Racism Howard Winant, University of California-Santa Barbara

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“I want you to understand that if you want a nonviolent world, you can choose to practice veganism — a diet that’s aligned with your values.” — Sue Coe

[ college & west high ] A

woman in leather boots and a fur coat walks along a wooded pathway at night, a parade of furless animals in tow. A bright light indicates that an epiphany has arrived, and a scrawl at the bottom of the drawing spells it out: “The Ghosts of the Skinned Want Their Coats Back.”

This nightmarish scene emerges from the imagination of internationally recognized ­artist-activist Sue Coe, who visited campus in October to accept the Dickinson Arts Award.

Born in England and transplanted in New York in the early 1970s, Coe has tackled a variety of social-justice issues through the years, but she gained wide recognition as an animal-rights champion after publishing an exposé of the slaughterhouse industry in 1996.

More of Coe’s books and essays on the topic followed, along with a graphic collection of animal-rights artwork that is represented in major museum collections and exhibitions worldwide, as well as in publications like The New York Times and The New Yorker.

During her weeklong residency at Dickinson, Coe was on hand to answer questions during a public screening of a documentary about her life and during the Arts Award ceremony, which followed the opening of The Trout Gallery’s exhibition of her works, The Ghosts of Our Meat. The exhibit includes paintings, drawings and prints and continues through Feb. 8. She also visited with faculty and students in and out of the classroom and offered one-on-one critiques to senior studio-art majors as they worked toward their final exhibition in the spring.

Emily Lehman ’14, one of the students to receive individualized feedback, says that Coe opened her eyes to the many thematic avenues artists can take. “I learned that everything you learn feeds into the next thing that you learn or make,” she said.

Coe has been influenced by the works of a historically and culturally diverse range of artists, from Francisco Goya and Käthe Kollwitz to Hieronymus Bosch and José

Posada, and the persuasive intensity of her work is due in equal measure to her passion and her skill as an artist. “Being able to speak with an artist so talented and renowned was invigorating, because it shows what one is able to accomplish when they find their passion,” said Stephan Sieg ’16, who added that the ethics of food production and consump­tion became a much-debated topic among his friends.

Clara “Maddie” Fritz ’16, who attended a dinner in Coe’s honor at the President’s House and served as a mic runner during Coe’s Q&A sessions, says she slipped into The Trout Gallery prior to the opening reception so she could see Coe’s works before the crowd arrived. She says she wasn’t prepared for the emotional punch the prints delivered together, in full scale.

Each work teemed with intensity. There were pre-slaughter animal studies and ­portraits — treatments that highlighted each animal’s individuality, beauty and vulner­ ability — and factory-line slaughter scenes that invited viewers to absorb the terror and pain each animal experiences.

The works also depicted the toll that the slaughterhouse exacts on workers who butcher animals, but in general, those workers were painted as villains. Along with bloated consumers, corporate fat cats and the entire capitalistic, meat-production system portrayed in her work, the butchers are responsible, in Coe’s view, for nothing short of murder.

The artist in person is far gentler than the hard-hitting images she creates, but she’s every bit as forthright. Diminutive and softspoken with flowing salt-and-pepper hair, Coe moves quietly and smiles easily. But she looks at you directly, straight in the eye. She seeks to connect.

That’s because for Coe, it’s not enough to express her own sense of horror and outrage; she seeks to instill that horror, outrage — and empathy — in others. The art-making, for Coe, is only the first step: The rest is up to the viewer.

“I want you to understand that if you want a nonviolent world, you can choose to practice veganism — a diet that’s aligned with your values,” said Coe, who has not eaten meat since a childhood encounter with a pig that had escaped from a slaughterhouse.

“You can choose the nonviolent path.”

— MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson

View a slide show at dickinson.edu/magazine.

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[ college & west high ]

Out of Context

The faculty band plays on, but don’t ask them to cover any Journey songs.

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Carl Socolow ’77

he club is filled with fog. There must be a machine plugged in behind some gear somewhere. It’s thick and goes a long way toward obscuring the screaming fans that surge around the band as they play.

On stage, guys with titles you don’t want to read in a story about a band are ripping it up: Cotten Seiler, associate professor of American studies, clutches his guitar and howls into the mic. Ed Webb, assistant professor of political science and international studies, pounding the keys, is hiding behind what Seiler calls his “beautiful raven locks.”

And Shawn Bender, associate professor of East Asian studies, is perched at the drum kit, pounding savagely on his piccolo snare.

Piccolo snare?

But before anyone realizes that there is no fog, that the band is in Webb’s living room, that the fans are wives and colleagues, casually watching while sipping drinks, an angry neighbor is at the door, and “Purple Rain” will be the last song of the night for what is known only as the faculty band.

“It was 2009,” says Bender. “Ed had a party, and we played ‘Purple Rain.’ They brought me up for a guest spot. I was hitting the piccolo snare and the neighbor came and complained. From that moment on, we’ve played together.”

Separately, each member of the band has played music for ages. Bender has been at the drums since third grade. Webb had some training in violin, French horn and alto sax, but he doesn’t play any of them anymore. And Seiler, starting as a drummer, was in bands in college and switched to guitar in grad school, when he also started to sing.

Now they all can handle “pretty much everything” instrument-wise, and the songs they play together range from Joy Division’s “Transmission” to Rihanna’s “Umbrella” (“We really need to find someone to sing that one,” says Seiler).

But the band’s sweet spot, according to Bender, is the thin but fertile window from 1979 to 1981. “Our Venn diagram is pretty close

in terms of our ages, so we have nostalgia for the same period,” he says. “Any song that came out then, we know and love.” Or almost any song.

“There’s a trans-Atlantic cultural divide at work,” says Webb, who hails from England.

“The stuff they grew up listening to wasn’t exactly the stuff I grew up listening to.”

Bender and Seiler murmur, knowing where this is going, and Webb starts to laugh. “I don’t know any Journey songs at all. But apparently everybody in this country knows everything they ever did.”

So when someone is having a party in town and they want a band who doesn’t play Journey songs, the band might get called in, but it’s not the buzz of the crowd that keeps them coming back together.

“We just get together and play because we enjoy it,” says Bender. “We’re not really targeting performances. It’s more stress relief.

To imagine having people pay money to hear us play —” “Oh, no,” Seiler interrupts, laughing. “I’d like that. But we do revel in our amateurism.”

And that amateurism … would having an actual name for the band shatter the garage-band vibe the trio cultivates?

“To have a name is almost too formal in a way,” Bender says. “Although it might be nice to have a name, maybe.”

“When we played Senior Club we sort of called ourselves Rogue EQ and the Unknown Unknowns,” Webb says, noting that Eric Love, assistant professor of sociology and guest singer, and Marianna Doherty, LIS computing specialist and bassist, were part of that short-lived iteration. “But that was for just that one gig.”

“And we don’t want some professorial name, like the Bluebooks,” Seiler adds.

“God!” Webb exclaims.

“I was thinking of bad names for a college professor’s band,” Seiler says. They all groan, and for now “the faculty band” will just have to suffice.— Tony Moore

Watch a video of the band performing “Little Wing” at dickinson.edu/magazine.

13

[ in the game ]

Javier Mena ’14 had an outstanding career, earning CC Player of the Year in 2012 and becoming the program’s all-time leader with 23 career assists. He was a fourtime All-Conference player, earning firstteam recognition in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

The Red Devils had one of the best seasons in program history, advancing to the Centennial Conference (CC) semifinals, finishing with a 12-6 record overall and 7-3 mark in the conference. Catherine Perlmutter ’17, Erica Marshall ’17, Katy Schlechtweg ’14 and Natalie Polk ’15 were named to the All-CC team. Perlmutter also was named the CC Rookie of the Year while Schlechtweg garnered the CC’s ­inaugural Scholar Athlete of the Year award.

Head Coach Caitlin Williams was named Coach of the Year, as the Red Devils set school records for goals, assists and points in a season while breaking the program record with 10 straight wins.

Volleyball The volleyball team showed much improvement, despite finishing 6-16 on the season.

Jenn Morrissey ’16 became the seventh player in program history to record more than 1,000 assists. In just two seasons she tallied 1,082, to rank seventh all-time. Grace Morgan ’14

James Rasp

Field Hockey

finished her career eighth in assists with 981.

Laura Silverman ’16 and Emily Smith ’16 led the attack with 225 and 184 kills, respectively.

Four players were named to the CC Academic Honor Roll.

had another outstanding year defensively.

They allowed just 18 goals on the season, posting seven shutouts. Jenna Lamb ’16 opened the season with a hat trick and led the team with nine goals and two assists.

Football

Men’s Cross Country

The Red Devils had some strong individual performances, finishing 3-7 on the year.

Michael Miller ’14 and Mitch Helmandollar ’15 were named to the All-CC second team on defense, while Shawn Wilson ’16 earned honorable mention as a running back. Josh Schwartz ’16 was selected to the Co-SIDA/ Capital One Academic All-Region team, while 15 players joined the CC Academic Honor Roll.

The men’s cross country team enjoyed another successful campaign, despite battling numerous injuries throughout the season.

The Red Devils placed second at the con­ ference and regional championships to earn a seventh consecutive trip to NCAA National Championships. Dickinson captured an unprecedented 17th straight Little Three title while Ryan Steinbock ’14 ran to the 14th straight individual title and became the fourth All-American in the program’s history. The Devils earned six spots on the All-CC team, led by first-teamers Henry Mynatt ’15 and Steinbock, and had five runners earn All-Mideast Region honors.

Men’s Soccer The men’s soccer team had an outstanding year, advancing to the conference championship game and earning a third straight NCAA tournament bid. Nationally ranked for most of the season, the team earned the right to host the first two rounds of the tournament at Phyllis Joan Miller Memorial Field. The Red Devils suffered a second-round loss, finishing 15-6-1 on the season. Derek Kachadurian ’14, Jamie Martin ’14 and Javier Mena ’14 all were named first-team All-Conference. Mena tallied two assists in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, becoming Dickinson’s all-time leader with 23 in his career.

Women’s Soccer

James Rasp

The team came up just shy of a bid to the CC playoffs. The Red Devils finished 8-7-2 overall and 4-4-2 in the CC. Defender Hannah Matlack ’16 earned first-team All-CC honors, while forward Rosalin Savoie ’14 was named to the second team, scoring seven goals and handing out a pair of assists. The Red Devils

Women’s Cross Country The women’s cross country team captured their 20th consecutive Little Three championship and placed second at the NCAA Mideast Regional. Chasing No. 1-ranked Johns Hopkins University and Haverford College, the Red Devils placed third at the CC championships.

They turned in an out­standing team performance at Regionals to place second. Five Red Devils earned All-Region honors, led by Sara Patterson ’14, who placed sixth. She earned All-Conference honors as well, along with Emily Miller ’14.

— Charlie McGuire, sports information director

Need more Red Devil sports? Check out all the stats, scores, schedules and highlights at www.dickinsonathletics.com.

Information about live streaming and radio broadcasts is available on a game-by-game basis, so check the Web site regularly or follow @DsonRedDevils on Twitter for the latest updates.

d ic k in s on ma g a z i n e Winter 2014

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First off the block

I

Carl Socolow ’77

Caitlin Klockner ’16 circles the competition

t’s like one of those commercials engineered for the post-Super Bowl confetti storm: “Caitlin Klockner ’16, you’ve just won the McAndrews Award, earned first-team All-Centennial Conference (CC) honors and broke four school records during your first year as a Red Devil s­ wimmer.

What are you going to do next?”

Except she doesn’t say, “I’m going to Disney World!” She gets mentally back in the pool instead of in line at the Tower of Terror. “I want to see that I’m still improving, to see my time drop in events,” she says. “This year there isn’t as much pressure, but I’m hoping to still improve.”

If she improves too much, it’s going to get a little scary for Dickinson’s oppo­nents, especially Franklin & Marshall College, which she cites when referring to her favorite moment of last season.

“It was a really close meet and really compe­titive, and it came down to the last relay,” Klockner says.

“We were all excited to come away with that win.”

Klockner began the deep dive into swimming at age 10, when she joined a winter swimming league. Her mother was a swimmer, so when Klockner started getting competitive in high school, it wasn’t much of a surprise. “I’ve just always loved being in a pool,” she says. “Every summer we went to Ocean City, Md., and I lived in the ocean.”

Before Klockner, no first-year female athlete had been awarded the McAndrews, which recog­­nizes student athletes for both sporting and academic achievement. But in a year that saw her take All-CC honors in the 200 individual medley and as part of the 800 free relay team, she must have been the odds-on favorite.

“I’m really proud to have won it,” she says.

“It’s a big deal, so it felt really good that people thought I should get an award like that.”

“Caitlin’s a tireless worker in practice,” says Paul Richards, swim coach and director of aquatics.

“She’s goal oriented and focused — a fierce com­pe­titor when it comes time to race.” That competitive streak showed up for the CC cham­pion­­ships in early 2013, when Klockner placed third in 100 and 200 free­style events and totaled a staggering 82 points overall.

Klockner goes into her sophomore season holding school records in the 200 individual medley (which she broke twice) and the 100 freestyle and two more as part of the 400 and 800 free relay teams.

But it’s not all about swimming for Klockner, who chose Dickinson for the Division III experience.

“Looking at colleges, I didn’t want the main reason to go to a school to be swimming,” she says. “But I loved the team and the coach and the program.

I already have such good friends here, even after only a year.”—Tony Moore

[ cover ]

A PRAYER WHEEL, A THREE MILE ISLAND BOARD GAME, FIELD GLASSES SWIPED AT WATERLOO, AN ATARILAB MODULE AND ALL SORTS OF ODDITIES AND ORPHANS. BY LAUREN DAVIDSON

|

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARL SOCOLOW ’77

CABI N E “

W

TS of CU

elcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an assemblage of the most strange and wondrous things from the collections of Dickinson College.”

Thus beckons the sign introducing the Curiosities: A Collection of Hidden Treasures exhibit in the semicircular space at the far end of Archives & Special Collections. The exhibit was inspired by Charles Willson Peale’s American Museum, which was the first public space to offer an eclectic array of seemingly unrelated artifacts. Peale, as it turns out, had a Dickinson connection through his great-grandson, Charles Coleman Sellers, college librarian from 1956 to 1979. Abby Decker ’13 (medieval & early modern studies) and Caitlin Moriarty ’13 (political science and Russian) co-curated the exhibit.

Decker and Moriarty scoured the depths of the college vault and storage spaces to compile the most interesting and unexpected.

The 10 exhibit cases, each of which follow a

particular theme, such as “Games and Sport” and “Magic and Mystery,” offer a little something for everyone — from footwear to teacups, tiny tomes to ­relics of war. The students also guided the aesthetic feel of the space, utilizing a green-and-gold scheme and damask print that hearken to their 19th-century-era inspiration, and wrote all of the descriptions (reproduced on the following pages) accompanying the objects.

“One of my favorite things about this exhibit is that most of these objects would not fit into an exhibit on anything else,” says College Archivist Jim Gerencser ’93. “They are bits and pieces with individual stories, but they don’t usually fit into a theme.

This was a wonderful way to be able to bring a lot of interesting pieces together. When ‘eclectic’ is your theme, the sky’s the limit.”

The exhibit runs through June 2015.

Meanwhile, we’ve pulled some of our favorite items to share with you, curious readers.

RIOSITY

d ic k in s on ma g a z i n e Winter 2014

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Charles Willson Peale was born in 1741 and trained as a painter, eventually specializing in Revolutionary-era portraits. He painted this self-portrait, The Artist in His Museum, in 1822.

Peale proudly welcomes guests to his museum, drawing back the curtain, behind which is the museum’s greatest treasure: a mastodon skeleton. The museum was one of the first to be organized according to the Linnaean system — that is, by kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species — and this method is shown through the paintings displayed on the wall.

JOHN DICKINSON SILVER

The silver knife set belonged to the “Penman of the Revolution” and college eponym John Dickinson.

Donor: Maria Dickinson Logan, 1939

d ic k in s on ma g a z i n e Fall 2013

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NEPALESE PRAYER WHEEL

FLIGHT TRAINING LOGBOOK

Each cadet in the 32nd Training Detachment, stationed at Dickinson College, was required to complete 10 hours of basic flight instruction at New Kingston Airport before proceeding to formal basic training.

This pilot log book belonged to James E. Mobley of York, Pa., who completed his training at Dickinson in May 1944. Purchased, 2012

A Nepalese prayer wheel is traditionally used by Buddhists to induce a meditative state. The Sanskrit mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum� covers the outside of this wheel, as well as the paper inside and is to be repeated as the weighted wheel turns clockwise with a slight movement of the wrist. The mantra and subsequent meditative state help the user to increase good karma (wisdom and merit) and purify negative karma. Donors: Edgar and Elizabeth Miller, 1983

ATARILAB SCIENCE EQUIPMENT

Developed in 1983 by Dickinson College physics professor Priscilla Laws, the AtariLab is a lab station that allowed students of middle school through college age to conduct more than 100 temperature and heat energy experiments.

Although most often remembered for its contributions to the video game world, such as classic games like Pong, Atari also manufactured personal computers. Atari Learning Systems Group, a subdivision of Atari Inc., produced educational programs to be used with their computers. The AtariLab Starter Kit included a 16K software cartridge, an electronic temperature sensor, a standard bulb thermometer and a user workbook.

Donor: Priscilla Laws, 1984 19

1880 S OPTOMETRY APPARATUS

The American Optical Company was founded in 1826 by William Beecher in Southbridge, Mass. The company still exists today. This optical set was produced by the company to fit clients for glasses. Donor: Unknown

d ic k in s on ma g a z i n e Winter 2014

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21

BATTLE OF WATERLOO BINOCULARS

These binoculars were retrieved from the battlefield by a British solider after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Donor: Henry Logan

JAPANESE OKOBO SHOES

Okobo are a traditional type of wooden sandal worn in Japan.

Often worn by Maiki, geishas in training, they are tall enough to prevent the kimono from touching the ground. They only are worn with very fancy kimonos for special occasions over white toe socks called tabi. Donor: Nobuko Izawa, 1953

THREE MILE ISLAND BOARD GAME

Aside from health and safety concerns, the TMI accident made the public fully aware of the realities of living in a nuclear age. The incident permeated popular culture in a variety of ways, such as with this 1979 board game. The objective of the game is “to lose as much radiation as possible while at the same time bringing the reactor to a cold shutdown.� Donor: Lonna Malmsheimer, 2011

d ic k in s on ma g a z i n e Winter 2014

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CELESTIAL GLOBE CIRCA 1900

This celestial globe charts constellations in conjunction with astrological signs as they vary by month. Donor: Unknown

19 TH-CENTURY LADY’S FAN

A fan was a vital accessory for the 19th-century lady of society.

Etiquette books report on the secret code of fan flirtations, such as showing a certain number of spokes to designate the time of a lovers rendezvous. This fan is signed by members of the Dickinson class of 1870. Donor: Unknown

PEPPERBOX PISTOL

Christian Sharpes is remembered for patenting the most widely used breech-loading rifle during the Civil War. He also created a number of innovative designs for pistols, including this “pepperbox” pistol — named for its shape, which resembles a pepper grinder. This unique four-barrel design features a stationary barrel with an internal revolving striker, allowing four shots to be fired in succession.

Donor: Unknown

d ic k in s on ma g a z i n e Winter 2014

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NO. 3 ANSCO SPEEDEX FOLDING CAMERA

Ansco was a company based in Binghamton, N.Y., that produced cameras, photographic paper and film from the mid-1800s through the 1980s. The camera-production branch of the company was founded in 1842, predating Kodak by 46 years, and would later sue its rival for patent infringement. Ansco created one of the earliest affordable handheld cameras available to the public. The No. 3 model was produced from 1912 until 1928.

Donor: Unknown

1968 WANG CALCULATOR

This 320 Wang calculator has applications for addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, logarithms and exponents. Complicated series of calculations could be repeated through the use of a punch card as a record of the order of operations.

The 300 series calculators sold for $1,690 to $2,095 new. Donor: Unknown

DRAGON TRUMPET

This Nepalese rag dung horn is used to accompany other instruments in a drone. Its sound is often compared to that of elephants, and legend holds that it can wake the spirits. Donors: Edgar and Elizabeth Miller, 1983

TEA CUP USED FOR FORTUNE TELLING

Minetta’s Tea Cup Fortune Telling guide explains the art of tea leaf reading, or tasseomancy, with a thorough explanation of possible symbols. After a cup of unstrained, loose-leaf tea has been emptied, the user must peer into the cup and allow his or her imagination to suggest shapes, whose meanings are interpreted through the use of this guide. For example, a comet at the bottom of the cup foretells a sudden loss of property, while a tree signifies good health.

Donor: Elizabeth Anna Low, 1950

25

Seeds Carl Socolow ’77

[ profiles ]

“It was raining the day

I came to Dickinson for the first time,” Nasir Ellis ’15 recalls, “and I decided I didn’t ever want to come back.”

Community-based organizations drive access and excellence.

By Erin Owens ’15

Success

Ellis did return to Dickinson his senior year at Thurgood Marshall Academy, however, for what he assumed would be his last visit as a prospective student. This was when he fell in love. The campus was beautiful, students were out and about and Ellis knew Dickinson was where he needed to be.

The path to his decision had not been an easy one. Ellis was a graduate of StreetSquash, a community-based organization in New York City that works with promising students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Founded in 1999, the organization provides academic tutoring, squash instruction, community service, college preparation, leadership development and mentoring for public school students. What he had once called a “boring, loser sport” was now a priority for him.

Although Dickinson at the time didn’t have an NCAA squash program (it launches fall 2014), Ellis decided to give the school a shot. And as a first-year student, he took the opportunity to help Dickinson build the program, even participating in planning discussions about the Kline Athletic Center’s renovations. Last year, Ellis visited high-school squash programs in Baltimore with Stephanie Balmer, vice president for enrollment, marketing and communications and dean of admissions, and Cotton Seiler, associate professor of American studies, to share his experience.

27

According to recent studies on higher-education “Without StreetSquash, I wouldn’t have heard about access, low-income high-school students from low-income Dickinson.” families — even those with promising grades and high SAT Diamond McClintock ’14 has similar beliefs when it scores — are less likely to apply to selective colleges. Because comes to reaching out and presenting what the liberal arts they lack access to a network of other students, family memcan offer. As the multicultural recruitment intern, she works bers, college counselors and teachers familiar with liberal-arts with potential students every day. This fall, McClintock institutions, these students often are not aware that colleges also helped organize Dickinson’s Diversity Open House, an like Dickinson —with the right combination of scholarships admissions visit program for high-school students of color. and other financial aid — can be more affordable and a better “I feel really invested in these students’ lives,” she says, academic fit. “more than I thought I would be.”

It’s a tricky problem to draw these high achievers to McClintock, a New Jersey native who was accepted to the best schools, however. It’s not feasible, for example, for New Jersey SEEDS at the end of fourth grade, also learned about Dickinson through a community-based organization. admissions counselors to visit every high school in the A statewide nonprofit organization that works with lowcountry. The answer is often in college-access programs like income students, New Jersey SEEDS works to ensure that StreetSquash and other community-based organizations, their students enroll in college. A participant in the Young and students and alumni acting as representatives in their Scholars Program, McClintock attended summer and own communities. weekend academic-enrichment programs throughout fifth and “Community-based organizations and multicultural sixth grade. In seventh grade, she began attending the Pingry recruitment are opportunities to seek qualified students of School, a private preparatory school. color or students who have been historically underrepresented McClintock believes that the partnerships that Dickinson in higher education,” says Alan Paynter, assistant director has forged with so many organizations like StreetSquash and of admissions and coordinator of multicultural recruitment.

New Jersey SEEDS are crucial for the college. Students who “They are phenomenal opportunities because they work with come to Dickinson from these organizations are not only high students who could be great fits for Dickinson. Otherwise, achievers with natural leadership abilities, but their presence we wouldn’t know about them, and vice versa.” alone can transform campus culture.

One of Dickinson’s first outreach efforts was through “During the application process, we need to relay to the Posse Foundation, a national organization that identifies, diverse students that they can overcome any obstacles that recruits and works with students who have the academic and come their way,” McClintock says. leadership potential to succeed at selective schools. Dickinson In addition to serving as the multicultural recruitment enrolled its first Posse cohort from New York City in 2001 intern, McClintock, an art & art history and began working with Posse Los Angeles major, is a member of the Liberty Caps several years later. The college also has Dickinson also partners with Society, a student interviewer in the Office been seeking and forming partnerships with these organizations: of Admissions, a member of sorority Pi similarly successful organizations around Beta Phi and the president of Red Devils the country.

A Better Chance Television Network (RDTV), Dickinson’s As Ellis illustrated with his trip Armory College Prep new student-run broadcast organization. to Baltimore, one of the best outreach Ellis, an Africana studies major and strategies is for Dickinson students to be Chicago Scholars sociology minor, is the founder of RDTV, “ambassadors for our education.” This is College Bound serves on Student Senate as vice president why, Ellis says, he works for admissions as College Match for academics, is chair of the Public Affairs a multicultural volunteer and participates Milton Hershey School Committee and performs with Hypnotic, in the Take Dickinson Home program.

Alliance Program a hip-hop dance group.

He sees it as his responsibility Oliver Scholars “We have to promote the type of as a Dickinsonian to spread the word.

Philadelphia Futures education that a liberal-arts school can “Dickinson gives us the chance to Prep for Prep provide for students,” Ellis says. “I feel like discover how to think and to learn so many Princeton University Prep I’m the first person I know going down this things that will prepare us to go out into Program (PUPP) path, but that is why it’s exciting.” the world and tackle big issues,” he says.

Reach Prep He pauses. “I love being here.”

d ic k in s on ma g a z i n e Winter 2014

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[SIDEBAR or infographic on Dickinson partnerships/

This fall, McClintock also helped organize relationships] Dickinson’s Diversity Open House.

“I feel really invested in these students’ lives,” she says,

Carl Socolow ’77

“more than I thought I would be.”

29

relentlessresilience Stephanie Greco Larson’s posthumous memoir gets its due. By Michelle Simmons

[ tribute ]

“She had a special talent for speaking the right words.”

—Cindy Samet ’82, professor of chemistry

S

tephanie Greco Larson had been married just six months and was directing Dickinson’s humanities program in Norwich, England, when she received her diagnosis of inoperable cancer.

“It was December 2006,” recalls David Srokose, Larson’s husband. “She got the first bit of chemo in England, January to June, and when we came back [to the U.S.] in August 2007, she was back in chemo by September. From that point forward, pretty much until she went into hospice March 2011, she had 27 different courses — types, combinations — of chemo. She never had a remission, any pause in her treatment.”

Larson’s experiences with the medical establishment had been negative her entire life — from a childhood knee injury that never healed properly and a ruptured appendix with multiple complications to what was now a second cancer diagnosis. She struggled not only with the illness and her doctors but also with a culture that insisted on cheerful acquiescence to unhelpful — and often painful and unnecessary — procedures and treatments. In 2009, she began writing a narrative of those experiences, using her keen eye and academic training as professor of political science and women’s & gender studies to question the system in which she felt trapped. The result is Relentless: One Woman’s Story of Betrayal by the Medical System, due out Feb. 1.

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Like writers and cultural critics Susan Sontag and Barbara Ehrenreich, Larson resisted the conventional illness narrative. “Not only are my attitudes about health care at odds with most people’s,” she wrote, “but my attitude about my attitudes seems to be as well. … [People] tell me that if I stay positive, everything will improve — I’ll be happier while having cancer, and if I believe that I will get better, my body may miraculously heal. … If I refuse, falter or ultimately fail to ‘stay positive,’ am I complicit in my own demise?”

Along with sharing the story of her noncompliant body, Larson questioned what she considered dubious research on positive thinking, explored the ongoing health care debate and analyzed media portrayals of cancer patients. (On Sex and the City: “Samantha never looked tired,” wrote Larson. “She only occasionally seemed scared.

And my personal pet peeve — she kept her eyebrows.”)

Larson completed a draft of the manuscript and was working on its organization when she died in June 2011. After Srokose established a Dickinson scholarship fund in her memory, he also decided to bring the manuscript to print, with the assistance of her colleagues and former students. All net proceeds from its sale would go to the scholarship fund.

“When she started writing this, she wanted to have it published,” Srokose says.

“I don’t remember exactly whether there was this moment, a dying promise, but it was understood that after she was gone, the book was going to be one of the things I was going to do for her.”

So Srokose reached out to Meghan Allen ’08 and several of her classmates who had studied in Norwich with Larson and later become close friends. “I got to know her as a mentor while I was there,” says Allen. “Larson was so comfortable with who she was. When you’re at that age you really value those people who have found their place and become OK with themselves.”

Allen, who teaches at Aberdeen High School in Maryland, agreed to be the primary manuscript copy editor. Amy Farrell, professor of American studies and women’s & gender studies, wrote the foreword and afterword. Although the story is grim, it also is “funny, blunt, analytic, unflinching, honest and, above all, fully human,” notes Farrell. “It’s important, I think, to describe what a good friend, what a keen scholar, what a quirky, humorous, energetic and vivacious person she was.”

Vickie Kuhn, senior academic department coordinator for political science and sociology, shepherded the entire process, including recommending Laura McCauley ’13 as cover illustrator and designer. Chris Eiswerth ’08 handled some of the final ­editing, and Jill Boland Roberts ’08 designed and administers the book’s Web site.

“Her story really is a manifestation of the person she was,” says Allen.

“That person was someone who didn’t just accept things as they were. She asked questions and answered them without fear.”

What follows is an excerpt from chapter one; learn more at relentlesslarson.com.

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CHAPTER ONE:

P

I started

P

People seem rattled when I fail to hide my ugly truth by saying “fine” when they ask me how I’m doing. I might say “hanging in there,” “better than I was last month” or “not great.” None of these answers conform to the bright side they want from me. None of the responses celebrate the fact that I am “still here” and the idea that surviving at any cost is good news. I don’t know what to call my bluntly honest approach — is it brave or cowardly? Is it self-centered or useful for others? Is it a gift to my family and friends or a gift from them to me? Maybe it is all of these things. I know it is not polite. But it’s never polite to challenge conventions, to say things that people don’t want to hear and that make them uncomfortable. That’s what I am doing. In my profession we call this “resisting the dominant ideology.”

My medical experiences and my academic training have resulted in a perspective on having terminal cancer that is so different from my father’s. We use a lot of fancy terms in academia. When we can’t find the right words we make them up. We construct “arguments” and “deconstruct” images, ­commercials, entertainment and rhetoric.

We “critique” everything, including each other. It’s a whiny profession when you think about it. But these skills help us “see” ideology rather than see “through” ideology.

Ideology is belief about how the world works and how it should work. Ideology privileges certain ideas, behaviors and even types of

my life has been pretty wonderful. I came from a loving, stable family. I have always had great friends. My professional life has been fulfilling and enjoyable. I have been financially secure. I have never stopped learning. I know, and like, myself. Finding a life-partner wasn’t easy, but the search has had some highlights, and I ended up finding a wonderful mate. Now that I have terminal cancer, the foreground of my life story seems to have become the background. It feels disorienting.

I wish that my medical life experiences were a smaller part of my life story. One way that could have happened is if I hadn’t gotten sick or injured so often. I don’t spend much time thinking about that. It would lead to me blaming my body for being fragile when I can accept that that’s how bodies are. I remind myself how resilient and strong my body has been too. It has done the best that it could. So, I spend more time appreciating it than blaming it. I think that no matter what we do, things happen to our bodies. Some people are luckier than others. I marvel that my husband has never had an IV and that a friend in her 60s was only hospitalized when she gave birth to her daughter. I lament the students I have had who have died of AIDS, car accidents and in Iraq not long after I taught them.

Another way that my medical life experiences could have been a smaller part of my life is if the health care system had treated me differently. I have been repeatedly victimized by the medical profession,

Once I became chronically and terminally ill, to see an ideology about health, modern medicine and cancer. people, groups or countries. For example, ­patriarchy is an ideology that believes that men are more worthwhile than women. If you believe in patriarchy, then ­gender inequality “makes sense” and is even just. Of course there would be more men in positions of power if men have more skills and aptitude for leadership. The ideology normalizes the inequality. It makes the inequality invisible. It reassures us that the world is working the way it should when we see something that seems wrong.

Once you look “at the ideology” instead of “through it,” you notice lots of inequality. It can make you angry and frustrated when other people don’t see it.

Once I became chronically and terminally ill, I started to see an ideology about health, modern medicine and cancer. I saw how the ideology and the actions and words that went along with it oppressed me (and other patients, whether or not they recognized it). I see how the positive-thinking mantra and the “fighting a battle” analogies that permeate discussions about cancer encourage those of us who are dying from cancer to feel responsible for our “failure.”

My medical experiences are only part of my life story. They have been the saddest parts — some of them longer than others. The rest of

and it has led me to anticipate the worst from medicine. Despite my vigilance and assertiveness (perhaps, in part, because of it), I continue to get hurt by it. Many of my physical problems have been caused or exacerbated by medical treatment. Drugs seem no more likely to help me than to hurt me. My life has been risked as often as it has been saved by what doctors have done. More than my injuries or illnesses, it is this long-term abusive relationship with doctors that haunts my life story.

— Stephanie Greco Larson

Learn more at relentlesslarson.com

worlds apart: Matt Zugale

TSEWANG NAMGYAL ’97 HARNESSES SELF-INTEREST FOR THE GREATER GOOD. BY MATT GETTY

T

[ profile ]

ibetan Buddhism and investment banking might seem worlds apart, but for Tsewang Namgyal ’97, uniting these worlds isn’t just possible — it’s a source of strength.

“Having lived in a Buddhist community and now in a banking community, I can see the value that each brings to the table,” says Namgyal, whose Tibetan upbringing prized contentment and compassion while his work managing multimillion-dollar transactions as a vice president at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ has shown him the transformational power of self-interest and negotiation.

“Being able to appreciate both cultures allows me to make the best of both worlds.”

And that’s exactly what he’s aiming to do for Tibet.

As a member of the board of the Tibet Fund and an active supporter of several Tibetan development nonprofits, Namgyal is dedicated to the endangered culture’s survival. But understanding his market-based approach to advocacy begins with understanding his upbringing.

Namgyal grew up as a Tibetan refugee in northern India.

Thanks to a German sponsor who donated $40 a month for his education, he attended a school operated by SOS Children’s Villages, an international nonprofit supporting children in more than 100 countries. In 1992, Namgyal immigrated to the U.S. when he was 20 years old through a State Department program relocating Tibetan refugees. Soon after, he joined the Army Reserves, becoming the first Tibetan to serve in the U.S. military, which — combined with working summers at a foundry in Wrightsville, Pa.— enabled him to attend Dickinson.

“It was tough work,” he says. “But compared to where I’d come from, it was an incredible deal.”

At Dickinson, where he majored in East Asian studies and religion while taking pre-med courses, Namgyal became an advocate for environmental and human-rights issues.

He earned the college’s Diversity Education Award in 1995 for his work raising awareness about Tibet, helped organize a s­ uccessful environmental sustainability symposium as a Clarke Forum intern in 1996 and received the William F. Hufstader Prize in 1997 for his contributions to the college.

Yet, what Namgyal prizes most about his time at Dickinson is the liberal-arts education that broadened his perspective and helped him see how individualism could be harnessed for the betterment of the community.

“I used to think that business was the reason for many of the conflicts around the world,” he explains. “Business was driven by self-interest, so I felt that the end result had to be negative. In college, my views started to change. … I developed a great deal of respect for thinkers like James Madison and Adam Smith. They were able to creatively come up with solutions that exploit self-interest to benefit the greater good while mitigating the risks with appropriate checks and ­balances. Looking at Tibet’s weaknesses politically and economically, it was clear that there was much we could learn.”

This new respect for capitalism led Namgyal into a career in banking after graduation. Following three years’ work on Wall Street, he earned an M.B.A. from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Today he works mainly on portfolio management for Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, which finances conventional- and renewable-power projects, including some of the world’s largest wind farms and solar projects.

His experience in business development, debt ­structuring and loan distribution gave Namgyal an insider’s appreciation of the power of capital, which informs his advocacy work today.

Whereas many working to strengthen Tibet see commerce as a threat, he believes that embracing business by encouraging the private sector to play a hand in development can help tackle the area’s political and social challenges.

“Obviously, the answer is not simply pumping money into Tibet,” he explains. “However, if this is done in a smart way in which Tibetans at the grassroots level are involved in policymaking, this would help defuse much of the current ethnic tension.”

To that end, Namgyal advocates for reducing poverty in Tibet not by protecting it from commercial interests, but rather by inviting the right commercial interests in.

“We need to create policies with incentives that attract investors in Tibet and recruit seasoned business people to support Tibet-related development organizations,” he says.

“If poverty is a disease, finance is one of the best medicines.

Just as a doctor practicing good, compassionate medicine can cure diseases, I believe financiers have the unique ability to alleviate poverty.”

To learn more about Namgyal’s thoughts on Tibetan development, the power of compassion and the value of meditation, visit dickinson.edu/magazine.

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home(coming) No place like

PHOTOS BY C ARL SO COL OW ’77 A N D A . PI E RC E BOUN D S ’ 71

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F

rom the inauguration of Nancy A. Roseman as Dickinson’s 28th president to the 493 yards gained in the Red Devils’ 31-7 steamrolling of Moravian College during the Homecoming game, everyone who attended Homecoming & Family Weekend had extra reason to celebrate.

The Milton B. Asbell Center for Jewish Life also unveiled a new tile mosaic to mark its 10th anniversary. Made by artist Jonathan Mandell from hand-blown glass shards, ceramic tile and assorted semiprecious stones and minerals, the mosaic features campus scenes and portraits of two individuals who are considered to be foundational to Jewish life at Dickinson: Paul “Pappy” Hodge, Phi Epsilon Pi’s storied house manager; and Ned Rosenbaum, retired professor of religion and classics, who was the primary force in launching the Judaic studies program, one of the first in the country.

“I’m thrilled with how it turned out,” said Ted Merwin, the center’s director and associate professor of religion and Judaic studies. “It went through many different iterations as we got a lot of student input, input from alumni. We really wanted to get it right.”

And speaking of getting it right, delegates representing 63 U.S. and international colleges and universities filed down High Street toward Old West, and hundreds of attendees streamed through every entrance to the lawn of the John Dickinson campus for the inauguration ceremony Saturday morning. In her opening remarks, Jennifer Ward Reynolds ’77, chair of the Board of Trustees, noted Roseman’s desire to be a part of the Dickinson community and its rich history. “She didn’t want to be president of a college,” said Reynolds. “She wanted to be president of this college.”

The celebration continued throughout the weekend, with Fall Fest on Belvedere Field and an open Inauguration Celebration on Britton Plaza and the Social Hall in the Holland Union Building. Dickinson’s newest members of the Sports Hall of Fame also were fêted on Saturday: Kimberly Selemba ’01 (basketball), Chavaun Johnson ’03 (track and field), Alexandra Forte ’03 (cross country, track and field) and William Fisher ’01 (baseball). The 1993-94 women’s basketball team was honored for its achievements.

Sunday’s ninth annual Run for Steph, which raised $7,536 for the McAndrews Fund, was occasion for an especially poignant moment, when Amy Rankin ’03 attended for the first time. Rankin was with Stephanie Kreiner ’03 when they were hit by a drunk driver in 2004. Rankin, who has been recovering for nearly a decade from the traumatic brain injury she received as a result of the accident, recently published a memoir of her rehabilitation journey.

This year’s Homecoming & Family Weekend is early (Sept. 19-21), so mark your calendars now.

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39

[ beyond the limestone walls ]

I’m glad you asked

BY TY SAINI ’93, ALUMNI COUNCIL PRESIDENT

I

am no stranger to the question, “What does the Alumni Council do?” Officially, we advise the college president and members of the senior staff on matters pertaining to the college in general as well as specific alumni issues. This certainly is no small responsibility and a rather large purview.

Realistically, where should we begin, and what can we truly offer the college community?

At our Executive Committee retreat, which was held on campus during Homecoming & Family Weekend, the Alumni Council’s leadership had the opportunity to meet and strate­ gize for the near future. Our guiding question for the next two years is to ask ourselves, “What does an engaged Dickinson alumni body look like?”

Certainly, there are many facets to this question, and once we better understand each component and how they relate to one another, it is our intention to provide meaningful opportunities for all alumni to better support one another, current students and the college. This, in my opinion, is why we exist as a council.

To this end, since the council’s first meeting after the retreat intentionally coincided with Networking Day on Nov. 2, we charged the Career Committee (there are five committees serving the Alumni Council) with facilitating our general session. David Lee ’92, chair of the committee, along with Phil Jones, dean of career development and assistant vice president for student development, proposed an important and realistic goal for Dickinson this year: identify and recruit 2,000 alumni to volunteer as career mentors.

We discussed the need to enlist the support of alumni in this arena, the method by which we could ask alumni to help in this endeavor, the desire to make it easy for alumni to sign up (no lengthy questionnaires, asking you to sign into portals with passwords that you don’t remember, etc.), the ability for current students and interested alumni to access the database for their professional development, a timeline and costs associated with achieving this goal.

Later that afternoon, we shared our vision, discussion and findings with other alumni and seniors during Networking Day. It was remarkable how many alumni were interested to know what we hoped to achieve, the urgency we collectively recognized and their willingness to help (many even offered financial support). If we could reach out to the nearly 5,000 Dickinsonians on LinkedIn, after we have the mechanism in place to capture their commitment and make the database easily accessible to students, we could quickly turn around and help today’s students and recent graduates as they navigate life beyond Dickinson. The purpose of an Alumni Council and, more importantly, the alumni body, is well articulated when we can work with the college, identify a problem and leverage our time, treasure and talent to find meaningful solutions.

As the Alumni Council’s year progresses, we will be tasking other committees to identify similar goals relative to communications, development and alumni and student engagement. Please visit my.dickinson.edu for updates, and send any suggestions or thoughts to alumni@dickinson.edu.

I would like to personally thank everyone who attended the Volunteer Leadership Summit (VLS) last August as well as Networking Day in November. The next VLS is Aug. 2-3, and Networking Day will be Nov. 1. Please consider participating in these events and mark your calendar now.

Visit my.dickinson.edu for the 2014 list of Alumni Council and committee members.

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[ fine print ]

Rooster in the Rice: An Ecological View of Life, Study, and Citizenship along Culture’s Edges

By George Holmes Honadle ’66

Rooster in the Rice captures the excitement of living, studying and working in a foreign culture.

The book contains more than 60 examples of crosscultural collisions, including some that happened while author George Holmes Honadle ’66 was studying abroad through Dickinson’s Bologna, Italy, program.

Fair Disclosure

By Joyce Troutman Strand ’67

Set against the backdrop of investor greed, Fair Disclosure is the third mystery by Joyce Troutman Strand ’67 to feature publicist Jillian Hillcrest as the hero sleuth. As with the previous two Jillian Hillcrest mysteries, Strand drew on real criminal cases for inspiration. A publicist turned author, Strand writes about what she knows — except for the murder part. Although she headed

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up corporate communications for more than 25 years at several companies in California’s Silicon Valley, she says, “I never encountered a single murder, or even a crime.”

Brotherhood

By Anne Bryan Westrick ’78

The year is 1867, and Richmond, Va., lies in ruins.

By day, 14-year-old Shadrach apprentices with a tailor and sneaks off for reading lessons with Rachel, a freed slave, at her school for African-American children. By night, he follows his older brother to the meetings of a brotherhood, newly formed to support Confederate widows and grieving families like his.

As the true murderous mission of the brotherhood — now known as the Ku Klux Klan — emerges, Shad is trapped between his pledge to them and what he knows is right. In this unflinching view of the bitter animosity that stemmed from economic and social upheaval in the South during the period of Reconstruction, it’s clear that the Civil War has ended, but the conflict isn’t over. Anne Bryan Westrick ’78’s debut novel has been picked as a Junior Library Guild selection and is making its way into classrooms nationwide.

From Gates to Apps

By Ed Amoroso ’83

Ed Amoroso ’83, senior vice president and chief security officer at AT&T and adjunct professor of computer science at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and son Matthew, a computer-science student at Lehigh University and avid gamer, programmer and video-production editor, co-authored this book to provide young programmers with the more extensive understanding of computer systems needed to succeed today. From Gates to Apps offers a comprehensive introduction to the most basic concepts, principles and constructs of computer science.

Kudos Publications

Beverley Eddy, professor emerita of German, published

“ ‘Wir können höchstens mit dem, was wir sehen, etwas zusammenstellen’: Herta Müller’s Collages” in Herta Müller: Politics and Aesthetics, University of Nebraska Press.

Susan Rose ’77, professor of sociology and director

of the Community Studies Center, published Challenging Global Gender Violence, Macmillan Publishers. The book provides a qualitative and comparative analysis of women’s experiences of violence, healing and action across cultures. Read more about Rose’s work at dson.co/globalclothesline.

Jorge R. Sagastume, associate professor of Spanish and director of Dickinson’s program in Málaga, published “El secreto de los flamencos: Andahazi, Borges y las matematicas” in the refereed journal Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Liverpool University Press.

Associate Professor of Chemistry Amy Witter and Associate Professor of Earth Sciences Peter Sak published “Coal-tar-based sealcoated pavement: A major PAH source to urban stream sediments” in the journal Environmental Pollution.

Susan Rose ’77 published Challenging Global Gender Violence, Macmillan Publishers.

The book provides a qualitative and comparative analysis of women’s experience of violence, healing and action across cultures.

Sharon Kingston, assistant professor of psychology,

published “Economic Adversity and Depressive Symptoms in Mothers: Do Marital Status and Perceived Social Support Matter?” in American Journal of Community Psychology. Kingston studied 1,957 mothers from 80 neighborhoods in Chicago and the psychological effect of economic adversity and having interpersonal resources such as family support, among other resources. Kingston found that women who received support had fewer depressive symptoms, but the resources did not balance the effects of family income and financial strain.

Grants and Awards

The National Science Foundation-Geobiology and Low-Temperature Geochemistry awarded $86,927 to Peter Sak, associate professor of earth sciences, for his project Collaborative research / RUI: Quantifying weathering rind formation rates using U-series isotopes along steep gradients of precipitation, bedrock ages and topography in Guadeloupe.

Carl Sander Socolow ’77, college photographer, was a prize winner in Pennsylvania’s annual Art of the State juried competition in June 2013. He was awarded first place for his photograph “Winter Beach I,” part of an ongoing project of atmospheric tone poems photographed with a panoramic camera using a traditional film process.

Greg Steirer, assistant professor of English and film studies, received $4,170 from the University of California-Santa Barbara Carsey-Wolf Center Media Industries Project for his proposal Gamifying Video Distribution. His research will examine innovative models of digital-game distribution and illustrate how these models can be developed for the distribution of long-form video.

Julie Vastine ’03, director of ALLARM (Alliance for

Aquatic Resource Management), received $6,000 from the National Science Foundation for the project Exploring Engagement and Science Identity Through Participation: A Meta-analysis of Citizen Science Outcomes. ALLARM will serve as advisor to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University and help connect researchers to the water-monitoring community.

Painting by Max Lyonga Sako, Cameroonian artist and friend of the Dickinson program in Cameroon.

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A. Pierce Bounds’71

P. O . B O X 1 7 7 3 C A R L I S L E , P A 1 7 0 1 3 - 2 8 9 6 PERIODICAL

W W W. D I C K I N S O N . E D U / M A G A Z I N E

P O S TA G E P A I D AT C A R L I S L E , P A AND ADDITIONAL MAILING OFFICE

[

well-stated

]

Reliving a college-style marathon work session.

This South Philly coffee shop has nothing on #TheBiblio. Serious @DickinsonCol nostalgia.

MEGAN BLICKMAN ’10,

(@MMBlickman) on Twitter.

It shows how forward thinking this community is, given the right candidate and the right message. We have a long way to go, but this is a start.

TIM SCOTT,

on his election as Carlisle’s first African American mayor.

Kennedy’s legacy should not be that of a mythic Arthurian king. Nor should it be that of a president whom critics charged with having too much profile with far too little courage.

D A V I D O ’ C O N N E L L , assistant professor of political science, in “Vantage Points” on JFK’s legacy. Learn more at dson.co/VPJFK.

TH E WORLD IS OU R MULTIMODAL OYSTER .

Introduction to class blog for Writing in and for Digital Environments course. Learn more at http://blogs.dickinson.edu/wrpg211.

I had an amazing professor who helped me realize that history is not memorization but acute analysis. I declared my major in history that semester.

LEAH MILLER ’14.

Learn more at dson.co/millersnapshot.