PSS Summer 2016

Einstein Was Right: HWS and the Hunt for

WAVES

ALSO INSIDE: Campus Conversations Bozzuto ’68 Elected Board Chair Gearan Center Opening a Success PLUS: Summer Events Schedule

SUMMER 2016

G R AV I TAT I O N A L

photo: kristine vann ’18

VOLUME XLIII, NUMBER TWO THE PULTENEY STREET SURVEY is published by the Office of Communications, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 300 Pulteney Street, Geneva, New York 14456-3397, (315) 781-3700.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Pulteney Street Survey, c/o Alumni House Records, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 300 Pulteney St., Geneva, New York 14456-3397.

Hobart and William Smith Colleges are committed to providing a non-discriminatory and harassment-free educational, living, and working environment for all members of the HWS community, including students, faculty, staff, volunteers, and visitors. HWS prohibits discrimination and harassment in their programs and activities on the basis of age, color, disability, domestic violence, victim status, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other status protected under the law.

Discrimination on the basis of sex includes sexual harassment, sexual violence, sexual assault, other forms of sexual misconduct including stalking and intimate partner violence, and gender-based harassment that does not involve conduct of a sexual nature.

For questions and comments about the magazine or to submit a story idea, please e-mail Catherine Williams at cwilliams@hws.edu.

PULTENEY STREET SURVEY Summer 2016 EDITOR, VICE PRESIDENT FOR COMMUNICATIONS Catherine Williams ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER Peggy Kowalik ASSISTANT EDITOR Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS/EDITORS Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05, Steven Bodnar, Paul Ciaccia ’15, Paige Cook, Mary K. LeClair, Andrew Wickenden ’09 and Catherine Williams COVER PHOTO by Gregory Searles ’13

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Kevin Colton, Ken DeBolt, Danny Hastings ’16, Jim Jerigan, Brian Kramer, Andrew Markham ’10, Gregory Searles ’13, Kristine Vann ’18, Jared Weeden ’91 PRESIDENT Mark D. Gearan CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Thomas S. Bozzuto ’68 VICE CHAIRS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Andrew G. McMaster Jr. ’74, P’09 Caroline Carr McGuire ’78

William Smith Alumnae Association Officers: Jane Erickson ’07, President; Julie Bazan ’93, Vice President; Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk ’98, Immediate Past President; Kate Strouse Canada ’98, Historian Hobart Alumni Association Officers: Frank Aloise ’87, President; Rick Solomon ’75, P’10, Vice President; Jeremy Cushman ’96, Immediate Past President; Derrick Moore ’05, Historian

VICE PRESIDENT FOR ADVANCEMENT Robert B. O’Connor ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT, ALUMNAE RELATIONS AND NATIONAL REGIONAL NETWORK Kathy Killius Regan ’82, P’13 ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT, ALUMNI RELATIONS Jared Weeden ’91

100% post-consumer fiber paper.

Gas resulting from the decomposition of landfill waste used in place of fossil fuels to produce paper.

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Historic Discovery of Gravitational Waves

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FEATURE: Conversations

Lakeviews

4 On Seneca: Campus News 12 Gearan Center for the

Performing Arts Opens

22 Thomas S. Bozzuto ’68

Elected Board Chair 60 Classnotes 92

HWS Community

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Summer Events

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The Last Word

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www.hws.edu

OUT OF THIS WORLD

Dear Members of the Hobart and William Smith Community,

T

his issue of the HWS magazine includes interviews with numerous alums whose careers engage the theme of conversations – a magazine editor, a family attorney, a screenwriter, a priest and a linguist, to name a few. It also includes a conversation with faculty and interviews with 15 students who were asked by our editor to reflect on the kinds of conversations occurring on campus. The entire issue with its theme of conversations provides a fascinating overview of our talented alumni, alumnae, faculty, staff and students who make up our community.

One of the sustaining conversations of my adult life has been with my college roommate, Hugh Hewitt. The photo that accompanies this letter was taken last year at my college Reunion. Following my graduation, I went to work on Democratic political campaigns, served on President Bill Clinton’s White House staff, led the Peace Corps, and in 1999 arrived in Geneva, N.Y., for the job of a lifetime. Following his graduation, Hugh went to work for former President Richard Nixon and then served in the Reagan administration. He hosts one of the most popular conservative talk shows in the nation and has written a slew of books extolling the virtues of conservatism. He’s a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and the Sunday morning talk shows. During this election cycle, he served as a panelist for several Republican presidential debates.

LAKEVIEWS

In Hugh’s book titled If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat, he writes the following: “As I have explained many, many times over the years in print and over the air, my closest friend since 1977 has been Mark Gearan. Mark is currently the president of a fine old college in upstate New York, Hobart and William Smith Colleges…. Mark and I are political opponents and very close, indeed, inseparable friends. He’s just wrong about nearly everything, and I hold out very little hope of his ever changing.”

In nearly four decades of friendship, Hugh and I have celebrated the milestones of one another’s lives, participating in weddings, holidays and graduations. Our families have happily vacationed together and we speak or text frequently.

What makes our friendship work, I believe, is our capacity to listen to one another and to engage in conversation. Despite our differences of opinion or ideology, our conversations have never been spiteful or unkind. Instead, we have found things on which we agree – a shared love of family and country, and an optimism for the future.

Hugh Hewitt and President Mark D. Gearan

With 2,300 students and more than 20,000 alumni and alumnae around the world, it would be impossible for everyone in the HWS community to agree on everything. But as Danny Schonning ’16 says on page 59, “There’s a humanity at HWS, and an expectation that we will go into the world and do good things.” That humanity and that expectation unite us, giving us a foundation upon which we can have the kinds of conversations that will continue to make Hobart and William Smith an exceptional place.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the Board of Trustees who voted to name the new performing arts center for Mary and me. As you can imagine, this is a singularly unique experience for Mary, for our daughters Madeleine and Kathleen, and certainly for me. We are beyond honored by the thoughtfulness of the Board and have pledged ourselves to continue to promote the performing arts on campus and in Geneva. This is a space that matches the excellence of our students and talent of our faculty and staff. We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from the HWS community in reaction to this honor and we thank the Board most sincerely.

With every best wish, I am Sincerely,

Mark D. Gearan President

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ca. 1896 CLASS DAY EXERCISES

Known today as Charter Day, the original “Class Day” exercises were inaugurated by

the Hobart Class of 1861 and were a farewell to members of the graduating class. Early Class Day celebrations included an address by the class president, reading of the class poem, class history, class prophecy and special rites of passage, including the presentation of the Hobart paddle.

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ON SENECA CAMPUS NEWS

Colleges That Pay You Back Citing excellence in academics, faculty engagement, financial aid opportunities, career preparation, study abroad, service programming and alum support, HWS have been named among the nation’s top colleges and universities in the following publications:

2016-17 Trias Writer-in-Residence: Jeff VanderMeer

• Princeton Review’s 2016 edition of Colleges That Pay You Back: The 200 Schools That Give You the Best Bang for Your Tuition Buck

Described by the New Yorker as “the weird Thoreau” who shows readers “scenes that you won’t find elsewhere,” best-selling author Jeff VanderMeer joins the Trias Residency for Writers for the 2016-17 academic year.

• Princeton Review’s 2015 edition of Colleges That Create Futures: 50 Schools That Launch Careers by Going Beyond the Classroom • Kiplinger’s Personal Finance list of 100 Best College Values for 2016

DAY ON THE HILL CELEBRATES 10 YEARS

• Ranked No. 16 in Money magazine’s 2015 list of the nation’s best liberal arts colleges, one of only three liberal arts institutions to earn a “Value-Added Grade” in the A’s

Hosted by Stuart D. Hillenbrand ‘04, who works in the vice presidential protective division of the U.S. Secret Service, HWS students gather on the steps of the mock Air Force One jet at the James J. Rowley Secret Service Training Center Academy.

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For the past decade, the annual Day on the Hill event has highlighted the array of successful careers HWS alums pursue in and around Washington, D.C. Led by Associate Professor of Political Science DeWayne Lucas and Professor of Political Science Iva Deutchman in conjunction with the Salisbury Center for Career, Professional and Experiential Education, January 2016 marked the program’s 10th year. Alongside returning speakers and recent graduates, students saw a broad cross-section of D.C. professional life–in governmental and nongovernmental sectors, on Capitol Hill and off, at the liberal and conservative ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between.

A (small) Sampling of 2016 Student Outcomes • Justin Partyka ’16 joins four other HWS students heading to J.P. Morgan this summer for internships and careers. This fall, Partyka will finish his final undergraduate year in HWS’ joint engineering program with Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering.

Last spring, seven members of the Classes of 2015 earned Fulbright Awards, placing HWS 13th in the nation for colleges and universities with the most recipients of 2015-16 U.S. Fulbright Student Awards. Matching last year’s all-time record, this semester seven more graduates earned a 2016-2017 Fulbright including, Charles S. DeBenedetto ’16 (Taiwan), Virginia DeWees ’16 (Malaysia), Ryan Kertanis ’16 (Mongolia), Emma McDowell ’15 (Thailand), Afrika Owes ’16 (South Africa), Sophia Skaff ’15 (Brazil), and Olivia Woodruff ’16 (Senegal). Known for its highly competitive field of applicants, the Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program.

Overheard at The Pitch: Advice from the Judges “Our hearts beat so full for Hobart and William Smith, and it’s been such a great time to be here with all of you.”

–Sabrina Horn ’83, managing partner and technology practice leader at Finn Partners

“I can tell you - and I really mean this from the bottom of my heart - the quality of the presentations I’ve heard here tonight blows away the quality of the presentations I’ve heard at the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester.” –Dan Chessin ’84, co-president

• Micaela LoConte ’16 begins her doctorate of veterinary medicine at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, ranked one of the top veterinary schools in the world.

• Geneva Calder ’16 enters the Munk School of Global Affairs program at the University of Toronto.

For more outcomes, visit www.hws.edu

“Constantly question, always ask and never lose that curiosity, no matter how old you are.”

–Amy Ziff ’92, founder and CEO of Nontoxic Certified

“Keep going and believe in yourself.”

–Chris Desino ’94, cofounder and co-owner of Wellington Equestrian Realty and Ocala Horse Properties

and CEO of Hahn Automotive Warehouse

The Stu Lieblein ‘90 Pitch Contest helps students cultivate entrepreneurial ingenuity as they compete for the top prize – a $10,000 grant to fund their idea.

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For more on The Pitch, go to page 52.

CAMPUS NEWS

HWS Top Fulbright Producer

• Following a highly competitive admissions process, five grads are traveling around the world through the Peace Corps: Elizabeth Lunderman ’16 (Tanzania), Eliss Manon ’14 (Peru), Tess O’Leary ’14 (Dominican Republic), Thomas Ramage ’16 (China) and Cynthia Uwicyeza ’16 (Ethiopia).

Business Around the World Created in 2007 by Honorary Trustee Charles H. Salisbury Jr. ’63, P’94, L.H.D.’08, the Salisbury Stipend is one of the most ambitious internship programs in the Colleges’ history. Awarded between $10,000 and $15,000 each to fund travel, lodging and expenses during their internships, five students this summer are working around the world: • Christian Damico ’17 – Colliers International in New York and Hong Kong • Karoline Loretan ’17 – IPG Mediabrands in New York, London and Philippines • Griffin Marsh ’17 – Markit in New York, London and Singapore • Katie Meyer ’17 – IPG Mediabrands in New York, Australia and Argentina • Bennett Moore ’16 – Markit in New York, London and Singapore

Richard S. Perkin Observatory The Colleges have completed construction of the Richard S. Perkin Observatory, a teaching and outreach facility to observe and photograph objects trillions of miles from Earth. Located adjacent to the Katherine D. Elliott Studio Arts Center, the observatory was funded through two institutional grants from The Perkin Fund and is named in honor of Richard S. Perkin, co-founder of the Perkin-Elmer Corporation.

Perkin was the grandfather of Christopher Perkin ’95, a trustee of the Perkin Fund.

Pictured above: Assistant Professor of Physics Leslie Hebb positions the 17-inch corrected dall-kirkham astrograph telescope in the observatory space topped with a retractable rotating dome.

Multicultural Career and Networking Conference Sankofa partnered with the Salisbury Center for Career, Professional and Experiential Education; the Office of Intercultural Affairs; Office of Advancement; and African and Latino Alumni Association (ALAA) to host the Colleges’ Multicultural Career and Networking Conference in March. The Conference brought several dozen alums back to campus for panel discussions and workshops with alumni and alumnae of color, and featured a keynote address from Dr. Kay Payne ’73, professor of communications sciences and disorders at Howard University. For more on Payne, go to page 28.

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“Yemen’s horrific conditions today directly follow from the systematic conceptual and political failures of those who designed and administered the plan for a managed transition from the regime of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.”

–On the fifth anniversary of the Yemeni uprising, Associate Professor of Political Science Stacey Philbrick Yadav reflected on that country’s protracted civil war in an article appearing in the Washington Post (Feb. 18, 2015)

Commencement 2016 “You all have the ability to create a future that is beyond our imaginations,” said 2016 Commencement Speaker Dr. Cheryl L. Dorsey L.H.D. ’16, a Harvard trained physician and president of Echoing Green who is a leader in the social impact movement.

During the ceremony, Doctorate of Humane Letters were conferred on Dorsey; Judith Hershey Melly L.H.D. ’16, civic leader; Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09, L.H.D. ’16, financial planner and former chair of the HWS Board of Trustees; Joan Hinde Stewart L.H.D. ’16, president of Hamilton College; and John F. Collins P’72, P’74, P’84, P’90, GP’09, GP’12, GP’18, L.H.D. ’16, World War II veteran and retired New York City police officer.

Student speakers were Connor May ’16 and Kelly Craig ’16.

Commencement Speaker Dr. Cheryl L. Dorsey L.H.D. ’16

Singing for Survivors Three Miles Lost, the William Smith a cappella group, placed in the top three in the national “Sing for Survivors” contest to combat sexual assault. Arranged by Nick Bombicino and filmed and edited by Bree von Bradsky ’16, the group’s music video to accompany their original rendition of Lady Gaga’s Oscar-nominated song “Til it Happens to You” received significant attention from the music industry, advocates and political leaders, and has been viewed more than 265,000 times on YouTube.

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CAMPUS NEWS

“When I look out at all of you, I see and I feel the power of the collective-agents of change in our society.”

For the fourth consecutive year, the Colleges have been named a Tree Campus USA® by the Arbor Day Foundation. The honor recognizes Hobart and William Smith’s commitment to the environment and effectiveness in campus forest management. photo: Kevin colton

“It is not the big things that will save the planet. It is really the small things, the kind that you are doing here at Hobart and William Smith Colleges….”

The Late Nobel Prize Recipient Dr. Wangari Maathai Sc.D. ’94, P’94, P’96 in a speech to the HWS community while accepting the Elizabeth Blackwell Award, April 24, 2008

Tree Campus USA®

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Recent Faculty Publications

Kevin Dunn, Professor of Political Science

Lara Blanchard, Professor of Art and Architecture; holds the Luce Associate Professorship of East Asian Art

Les Friedman, Professor

Asian Art illuminates the diversity of Asian artistic traditions, highlighting art and architecture from India, Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan. Co-authored with Dorinda Neave (Capilano University) and Marika Sardar (San Diego Museum of Art). Received the Franklin R. Buchanan Prize for Asia Curriculum Materials. (Pearson)

Undertaking Discourse Analysis for Social Research: co-authored with Iver Neumann, the Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

(University of Michigan)

African Politics: Critical and Primary Sources: a fourvolume reference collection focused on the most essential contributions in the field of African politics from more than half a century of journal articles, book chapters and historical documents.

(Bloomsbury)

CAMPUS NEWS

Global Punk: examines the global phenomenon of DIY punk, arguing that it provides a powerful tool for political resistance and personal selfempowerment.

(Bloomsbury)

Jodi Dean, Professor of Political Science; holds the Donald R. Harter ’39 Professorship of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Monstrous Progeny: A History of the Frankenstein Narratives: co-authored with Allison Kavey (City College of New York), traces Frankenstein from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel through its many adaptations to explore its continued appeal and influence on current debates surrounding bioethics, artificial intelligence and the limits of scientific progress. (Rutgers University Press)

of Media and Society

The Light Fantastic Hobart and William Smith are taking another meaningful step toward climate neutrality with the creation of two local solar farms which will deliver 50 percent of the Colleges’ power through renewable energy while also providing hands-on curricular opportunities for students. Once complete, the two areas will have more than 17,000 solar panels, the largest solar installation at any institution of higher education in New York State and one of the top 10 largest higher ed projects in the nation, according to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

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Crowds and Party: argues for a vision of leftist politics with a renewed focus on the political party as a vehicle for lasting change and on the promises and shortcomings of social media. (Verso Books)

Tenure Granted The Hobart and William Smith Board of Trustees, upon recommendation of President Mark D. Gearan, approved the promotion of five faculty members.

KHURAM HUSSAIN Associate Professor of Education B.A. in history and political science cum laude, Oswego State University of New York M.A. in American history and M.A.T. in social studies, Binghamton University Ph.D. in history of education and black press history, Syracuse University Course Topics: Equity and Achievement; Urban Politics and Education; Civil Rights Education Civic Engagement: Co-founder and facilitator, Tools for Social Change: Community Organizing Coalition; board member, Black Press Research Collective; board member, Khaldunia Research Institute

Warbler Energy A newly published study in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, co-authored by Professor of Biology Mark Deutschlander (above), shows that birds develop ample energy reserves in preparation for and during migration but often store more fat than they need for the journey alone. The study has been picked up by news outlets nationally and internationally, including Audubon.

The result of a multi-year analysis of data collected at the Braddock Bay Bird Observatory in Hilton, N.Y., the article reveals that both male and female warblers put on extra weight during spring migration to stay in good reproductive shape.

To determine how the excess fuel reserves were being used, Deutschlander and study co-author Jennalee Holzschuh examined banding data for 12 species of warblers during fall and spring migration.

“I think this paper really illustrates the types of questions and analyses that can be addressed with archived banding data,” Deutschlander explains.

“There are lots of data being collected at bird observatories, and much of it is waiting for interested researchers and students to use that data to address questions about bird migration.”

Deutschlander serves on the Board of Directors for the Braddock Bay Bird Observatory. He also serves as first vice president for the Wilson Ornithological Society (WOS), the second oldest and second largest scientific ornithological society in North America. Recently, Deutschlander and Maddie Sutton ’17 were awarded the WOS Jed Burtt Undergraduate Mentoring Grant, funding that advances a study they are conducting on blackpoll warblers.

Over the past 20 years, Deutschlander’s research has focused on the sensory and physiological aspects of migration and navigation and his publications appear in an array of prestigious international and national journals. He earned his Ph.D. in zoology from Indiana University.

KIRIN MAKKER Associate Professor of Art and Architecture B.A. in English magna cum laude, University of Austin Texas M.A. in English and Ph.D. in Regional Planning, University of Massachusetts Amherst Master of Architecture, University of Maryland College Park Course Topics: Design Studios, Sketching, Portfolio Design and History and Theory of Architecture Civic Engagement: Sponsor of public art projects “Peopled Geneva” and “Sketch Crawls;” chair of Geneva’s Public Art Committee HEATHER MAY Associate Professor of Theatre B.A. with honors in theatre from Grinnell College M.A. in drama from Washington University Ph.D. in theatre and drama from Indiana University Course Topics: Script Analysis, Acting, Directing, Stage Management, Theatre for Social Change, Theatre Capstone Direction & Leadership: Artistic Director and Founder of Mosaic NY; Full Member in the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society; a stage management member of Actors’ Equity Association; and participant in a number of competitive director training programs.

FELIPE REZENDE Associate Professor of Economics B.A. in economics, Federal University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil M.A. in economics and Ph.D. in economics and mathematics, University of Missouri–Kansas City Course Topics: Macroeconomics, Money and Financial Markets, Econometrics, Statistics, Seminar on the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis, Brazilian Economy Project Director: Research fellow with Multidisciplinary Institute for Development and Strategies, researching “Financial Governance, Banking, and Financial Instability in Brazil: Analysis and Policy Recommendations” JAMES SUTTON Associate Professor of Sociology A.A. in liberal studies from Long Beach City College B.A. in sociology, California State University, Long Beach M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology (concentration in Crime & Community) from Ohio State University Course Topics: Criminology, Social Deviance, Juvenile Delinquency, Research Methods, Sociology of Sport Research Report: “The Maxine Singer Youth Guidance Center: An Exploratory Evaluation” for the Yuba County Probation Department, Yuba County, Calif.

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Primary Politics In “The 2016 Primary Season,” a spring Reader’s College course led by President Mark D. Gearan, Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Provost DeWayne Lucas and Presidential Fellow and Mayor of Ithaca Svante Myrick, students analyzed political advertisements, spoke with political consultants, and had in-depth discussions, which sometimes led to debates, about the primary elections in 1960, 2008 and today. “A format like a Reader’s College is more likely to create the kind of relationships that bridge political divides and last for a lifetime,” says Myrick.

PHOTO: KEVIN COLTON

As part of Orientation 2016, the student-run organization HWS Votes intends to register every incoming member of the first year class. The Colleges have been named by TurboVote (a nonprofit that provides registration resources) as the “Top Campus of all Time,” based on the percentage of enrolled students registered to vote.

Summer of Global Perspectives

In May 2017, a group of HWS students will make a journey that until recently was impossible. They will be the first participants in the Colleges’ new program in Havana, Cuba.

Directed by Associate Professor of Spanish and Hispanic Studies Juan Liébana, “Inside the New Cuba” will immerse students in Cuban life, literature and history, offering a rare view into a once-inaccessible culture during a moment of extraordinary transition.

Each summer, HWS students travel with faculty members around the nation and globe for short-term, off-campus experiences.

Wales In Carmarthen, Wales, students participated in the Colleges’ summer outdoor education program, a combination of academic theory and hands-on activities, including hiking, camping, caving, canoeing, kayaking, swimming and mountain biking.

Experiential learning is at the core of the program’s curriculum, which consists of a three-week course held in partnership with University of Wales Trinity Saint David and directed by Assistant Dean of Hobart David Mapstone ’93.

Guatemala A group of 20 students recently returned from a threeweek abroad program in Guatemala. Under the guidance of Assistant Professor of Psychology Brien Ashdown and Associate Professor of Biology Meghan Brown, students explored the intersection between the culture and ecology of the country through a combination of field research, service and cultural experiences.

Siberia Based in the city of Barnaul, “Siberian Culture in the Golden Altai” is a fiveweek seminar in Siberia with Associate Professor of Russian Studies Kristen Welsh. The program is designed to foster interdisciplinary learning and teaching in Russian area studies by immersing students in the language, culture and contemporary issues of Siberia.

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Hawaii Each year, the Geoscience Department organizes GEO 299, “Geoscience Field Studies,” which has taken students on excursions to the Bahamas, the Pacific Northwest and most recently to Hawaii.

Exploring areas of study ranging from meteorology to hydrology, students have the opportunity to work on projects that fine tune their geoscience research skills as they explore unique environments.

CAMPUS NEWS

Cuba

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1. On Saturday, Jan. 23, The Colleges celebrated the grand opening of the Gearan Center for the Performing Arts, an extraordinary 65,000-square-foot facility that brings together music, dance, theatre and media and society in a unified academic space for the first time in HWS history. Celebrating the ribbon cutting are (l-r): Kathy Hay Stine P’17; Trustee Craig R. Stine ’81, P’17; Trustee Christopher S. Welles ’84, P’12, P’15; Nozomi Hilayama Williams L.H.D.’14; Mary Herlihy Gearan; President Mark D. Gearan; Chair Emeritus of the Board of Trustees L. Thomas Melly ’52, L.H.D.’02; Judith H. Melly L.H.D.’16; Christopher McDonald ’77, L.H.D.’13; Former Chair of the Board of Trustees Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09, L.H.D. ’16; Edward A. Froelich ’55; and Joanne I. Froelich.

2. Purple, green and white paper lanterns transform Bartlett Theatre for the opening weekend celebration dinner.

3. Located at the heart of campus, the three-story building stands at the center of campus activity, aligned by a walkway that connects to the front steps of the Scandling Campus Center. The design and construction of the project will achieve LEED Silver or higher certification, upholding the Colleges’ commitment to sustainability.

4. At the ceremony, Board Chair Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09 spoke about the unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees to name the building in honor of President Mark D. Gearan and Mary Herlihy Gearan: “Two years ago, in fact many months before we even broke ground, the Board of Trustees met to discuss this building and its name. We had a very specific idea in

mind, a way to honor a family that has been unwavering in its dedication to the arts and to the Colleges. We wished to recognize extraordinary leadership, a commitment to advancing the Colleges, and a staunch belief in the transformative power of the arts, community engagement and study abroad. Most importantly, we wanted to acknowledge and pay tribute to the powerful role models they have been to our students.”

5. The Colleges Chorale directed by Professor of Music Bob Cowles performs in Froelich Hall, a 1,800-square-foot recital venue equipped with a newly acquired Steinway piano.

6. Members of Mosaic NY perform in McDonald Theatre, a 2,450-square-foot space that hosts 140 seats for black box theatre and includes four catwalks, a sound and light booth, and a mezzanine

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CAMPUS NEWS

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that can be converted to a stage.

7. Students perform during Opening Weekend in Deming Theatre, made possible through a gift from Honorary Trustee David Deming ’75.

8. Edward A. ’55 and Joanne I. Froelich accept a rose from Michaela Carney ’18 before the Colleges Chorale’s first performance in Froelich Hall.

9. A reel of student work plays in the Fish screening room, a venue equipped with a theatre-quality projection, sound and screen system, made possible through a gift from Trustee Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish ’82.

10. Assistant Professor of Music Mark Olivieri directs the jazz ensemble in Hilayama Williams Hall, a 1,850-squarefoot space acoustically tuned for an orchestra, made possible by Nozomi Hilayama Williams L.H.D. ’14.

OUT OF THIS WORLD

How an HWS Professor’s Research Aided the Historic Discovery of Gravitational Waves

by Steven Bodnar The gravitational waves detected by scientists for the first time on Sept. 14, 2016 were produced when two black holes collided in the distant universe. This rendering shows the space-time distortion less than a second before those black holes merged to form a single, more massive black hole.

Image credit: Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) Project; www.black-holes.org

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Einstein was right.

the new observation show the second set of black holes were far less massive than the first detected pair. The discovery puts scientists on a promising path forward to mapping out black holes in the universe.

The HWS Connection

Through his work, Penn has significantly contributed to the mirror substrate and coating design for the LIGO detectors, which Caltech’s David H. Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory, describes as the most precise measuring device in the world. Penn discovered how to significantly reduce the thermal noise in the material fused silica, which led to the selection of fused silica for the Advanced LIGO mirror substrates and suspensions. With Advanced LIGO, the newly completed upgrade to the Initial LIGO detectors, scientists will be able to increase the amount of the universe that can be probed by a thousandfold.

“Our first observation of gravitational waves has been incredibly exciting, and it justifies all our hard work on Advanced LIGO,” Penn said. “We would never have seen this event with Initial LIGO.”

Conceived, built and operated by Caltech and MIT, the LIGO publishing his general theory Observatories are funded by the NSF, along with significant support of relativity, which predicts the existence of gravitational waves, an from the Max Planck Society, Science and Technology Facilities Council international team of scientists, including Associate Professor of Physics and Australian Research Council.

Steven Penn, confirmed Einstein’s postulation in a breakthrough

Each LIGO observatory consists of a two-and-a-half-mile (4-km) discovery. long L-shaped interferometer in which laser light is split into two

On Sept. 14, 2015, gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of beams that travel back and forth down the arms (four-foot diameter space-time – were observed by scientists at the Laser Interferometer tubes kept under a very low vacuum). The beams are used to monitor Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), two synchronized monitoring the distance between mirrors precisely positioned at the end of each facilities comprised of two 4-km long interferometers that are arguably arm. The distance between the mirrors, according to the most precise instruments ever built. The detection, Einstein’s theory, will change by an infinitesimal amount which is the result of decades of painstaking research, when a gravitational wave passes by the detector. has opened a new window to the cosmos.

CNN declared

“LIGO observes gravitational waves by reflecting

“I have waited a long time for this day,” said light off the interferometer mirrors to precisely monitor Penn, an MIT-trained physicist who has devoted nearly “The Holy Grail their location,” Penn said. “The dynamics of that two decades of research with the LIGO Scientific of modern reflection are incredibly important if you want to know Collaboration (LSC), the organization that directs LIGO physics;” The the mirror position to within one-ten-thousandth the research. The historic news became public on Feb. 11, diameter of a proton (10-19 meter). That fundamental 2016, when the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Washington interaction – of the light with the mirror coating – is the scientists from Caltech, MIT and others from the LSC, Post reported focus of our research at HWS. It is one of the places convened at the National Press Club to make the first where the rubber meets the road in this experiment announcement about the detection. a “cosmic because coating noise is a primary limit to Advanced

The headlines that ensued were epic. CNN breakthrough,” LIGO’s design sensitivity.” declared “The Holy Grail of modern physics;” The and Scientific

In 1998, astrophysicist Yuri Levin showed that Washington Post reported a “cosmic breakthrough,” thermal noise from the mirror coatings would limit the and Scientific American called it “a new era of American called sensitivity of Advanced LIGO. His work launched LIGO’s astrophysics.” A discovery so important it marks a new it “a new era of trailblazing research in coating thermal noise. Penn was frontier of astronomy and physics – a new beginning, part of the team that originally determined the source of said Penn, a co-author on the Physical Review Letters astrophysics.” the coating noise and that later developed the coating article demonstrating the discovery. that would be used for Advanced LIGO.

Following the detection and after careful analysis,

“The Advanced LIGO detectors are a tour de force physicists concluded that the gravitational waves were of science and technology, made possible by a truly produced some 1.3 billion years ago when two black exceptional international team of technicians, engineers holes about 29 and 36 times more massive than the and scientists,” said David Shoemaker of MIT, the project leader for sun collided at one-half the speed of light to form a single black hole.

Advanced LIGO. In less than a second, about three times the sun’s mass was converted

The LIGO detectors operate at room temperature, or 300 into gravitational waves, with a peak-power output about 50 times that degrees K above absolute zero. Thus the mirrors, and everything else, of the entire visible universe. are hot — the mirror molecules are moving vigorously and causing

“This detection is the beginning of a new era: The field of the mirror to vibrate like a cylinder of jelly with a tiny amplitude. gravitational wave astronomy is now a reality,” said Gabriela González, Nevertheless, the amplitude of the mirror’s thermal excitations is 10 LSC spokesperson and professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana million times larger than Advanced LIGO’s length sensitivity. That State University. is equivalent to measuring sea-level to the accuracy of a hair width

Since that first historic discovery, LIGO scientists recently made a during a tsunami — a seemingly impossible challenge. second landmark detection of gravitational waves, also produced by a

In order to overcome this problem, Penn and his colleagues pair of colliding black holes some 1.4 billion years ago. Findings from

One hundred years after

16 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

CAMPUS NEWS

“With a future detector we may gain a glimpse back to the very moment of our universe’s creation.” —Associate Professor of Physics Steven Penn

In his Eaton Hall laboratory, Associate Professor of Physics Steven Penn welds a coating sample for a future LIGO detector.

photo: kevin colton

develop mirrors that are made from materials that are almost perfectly elastic. A perfectly elastic material will oscillate and never dissipate any of its energy. More importantly a perfectly elastic mirror will move from thermal excitations, but all its motion will be confined to a very narrow resonant frequency.

“Like a crystal wine glass, the ideal mirror rings at a single pure note,” said Penn. “If the mirrors move only at their resonant frequency, then everywhere else, they are quiet, and that’s where we look for gravitational waves.”

The direct observation of gravitational waves validates the research that has already begun on the third generation detectors.

“Coating thermal noise has been an intractable problem, but one that we must solve for the next generation of detectors in which we anticipate frequent detections,” Penn said.

The Colleges became one of the first small liberal arts institution to participate in LIGO when Penn joined the HWS faculty in 2002.

Since then, he has conducted much of his part of the monumental project from his Eaton Hall laboratory where HWS student researchers have been welcomed over the years.

Currently, Penn chairs the LSC’s Coating Working Group, a subcommittee of the Optics Working Group, which is developing coatings for future detectors. In addition to HWS, the Coating Group is composed of research groups from the University of Glasgow, Stanford University, American University, University of Florida, University of the West of Scotland, Caltech, University of Sannio, Whitman College, Cal State Fullerton, National Tsing Hua University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

For their incredible work, LSC scientists have received $3 million from the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics to further pursue the exploration of gravitational waves. In addition, the prestigious Kavli Prize in Astrophysics was awarded to Rainer Weiss, professor of physics, emeritus, from MIT; Kip Thorne, Caltech’s Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, emeritus; and Ronald Drever, professor of physics, emeritus, also from Caltech, who originally proposed LIGO as a means of detecting gravitational waves in 1980s.

“Our observation of gravitational waves accomplishes an ambitious goal set out over five decades ago to directly detect this elusive phenomenon and better understand the universe, and,

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fittingly, fulfills Einstein’s legacy on the 100th anniversary of his general theory of relativity,” Reitze said at the time of the February 2016 announcement.

NEW DISCOVERY, NEW PERSPECTIVE

The Pathway to Discovery In seeking out gravitational waves, scientists during the early 1990s took their research to a united front forming the LSC.

“In 1992, when LIGO’s initial funding was approved, it represented the biggest investment the NSF had ever made,” said France Córdova, NSF director. “It was a big risk. But the National Science Foundation is the agency that A GLIMPSE takes these kinds of risks. We support fundamental OF OUR science and engineering at a point in the road to UNIVERSE’S discovery where that path is anything but clear. We fund CREATION trailblazers. It’s why the U.S. continues to be a global leader in advancing knowledge.”

More than 90 universities and research institutes in the LSC develop detector technology and analyze data; approximately 250 students are strong contributing members of the collaboration. The LSC detector network includes the LIGO interferometers and the GEO600 detector. The GEO team includes scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and Leibniz Universität Hannover, along with partners at the University of Glasgow and Cardiff University, among others.

Virgo research is carried out by the Virgo Collaboration, consisting of more than 250 physicists and engineers belonging to 19 different European research groups.

Independent and widely separated observatories are necessary to determine the direction of the event causing the gravitational waves, and also to verify that the signals are coming from space and are not from some other local phenomenon.

Toward this end, the LIGO Laboratory is working closely with scientists in India to establish a third Advanced LIGO detector on the Indian subcontinent. And the LSC works closely with the Kagra collaboration that is building the first underground and cryogenic gravitational wave interferometer in the Kamioka mine in Japan.

Looking toward the future, the LIGO and Virgo collaborations hope to make more and more frequent observations of black hole and neutron star binary inspirals as Advanced LIGO improves to full sensitivity and Advanced Virgo come on line next year. Penn and his colleagues are already performing research on the design for the next two generations of detectors. “Ultimately we hope to see these inspiral events throughout the entire observable universe,” he said. “Understanding the black hole and neutron star populations will teach us a great deal about stellar evolution.”

The detection of gravitational waves has been described as one of the ‘Holy Grails’ of modern physics and astronomy.

“Within that search for the ‘Holy Grail,’ there is another Holy Grail. At the beginning of the universe – at the earliest moments of the Big Bang – there was a lot of mass-energy creation and a copious production of gravitational waves,” said Penn during the Colleges’ public presentation coinciding with the international announcement. “We should – if we build detectors sensitive enough – be able to see that background of gravitational waves, and thus, have a picture of the early universe at a moment when it was less that 10-10 seconds old. With electromagnetic telescopes – detectors that observe various forms of light – we can only see back to a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang. With a future detector we may gain a glimpse back to the very moment of our universe’s creation.”

DETECTING CONNECTIONS

Though they didn’t know it at first, Associate Professor of Physics Steven Penn and Len Mott ’66 had been linked on the path to detecting gravitational waves well before realizing their HWS connection.

With more than four decades of experience in manufacturing optical thinfilm components, Mott is co-founder and managing partner of MLD Technologies, a company that designs and produces highperformance optical coatings and components used for commercial, scientific, medical and aerospace purposes. Mott’s company is behind some of the mirror coatings that Penn uses in his LIGO experiments.

The two finally met when Mott was on campus for his 40th Reunion. “I introduced myself as the ‘M’ in MLD Technologies,” recalled Mott, who majored in physics.

The two met up again at Mott’s 50th Reunion in June.

“MLD is one of only a few manufacturers in the world who can produce the kind of coatings we need,” says Penn.

“Len and MLD Technologies have been a wonderful partner in our research. They should share in the glow of our discovery because their work was an important contribution to Advanced LIGO and to our future detectors. Len deserves great credit for building a company that values and fosters the growth of scientific knowledge.”

18 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Almost a decade ago, Jacob Podkaminer ’08 recognized that Associate Professor of Physics Steven Penn’s cutting-edge work with the Laser Interferometer Gravitationalwave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration was deeply important.

But after six years immersed at a major research institution, Podkaminer says he’s able to view Penn’s research and the recent announcement of the breakthrough detection of gravitational waves in a whole new light.

“I have a much greater appreciation for what Steve’s been able to accomplish at a small liberal arts school like Hobart and William Smith. He never showed any doubt in the work he was doing,” says Podkaminer, who recently earned a Ph.D. in materials science from University of Wisconsin-Madison where he’s been studying nanomaterials for electronics.

A double major in physics and environmental studies with a minor in mathematics at HWS, Podkaminer was hired by Penn as an on-campus laboratory assistant for the LIGO project following his graduation.

“I was able to get a sense of the weight of the whole experiment,” Podkaminer recalls. “You understand that you have collaborators all around the world at major institutions. You get an understanding of how major the project is and how cool it is to be able to contribute in your own small way.”

In the lab, Podkaminer worked on Penn’s research to reduce the thermal noise in the material fused silica on the LIGO mirror substrates and suspensions, a critical contribution to the gravitational wave detection process used in the observatories.

“I have this great sense of pride and excitement for being part of that work,” Podkaminer says. “I was stoked for Steve when they announced the detection because it’s something he’s been involved in and passionate about for so long.”

CAMPUS NEWS

A CORNER IN THE LAB OF ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS STEVEN PENN IN THE BASEMENT OF EATON HALL.

LIGO TAKES SHAPE

As one of the very first student researchers to work with Associate Professor of Physics Steven Penn at HWS, David Niedzwiecki ’05 had firsthand experience in contributing to the early stages of the Colleges’ connection to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration.

“I was a sophomore when Steve joined the faculty and I ended up working in his lab for the next three summers,” recalls Niedzwiecki, a postdoctoral researcher at University of Pennsylvania where he specializes in nanotechnology and nanofluidics. “At first we were putting together the equipment – there was a lot of wrench-turning and

soldering electronics in order to get to where we could start characterizing the thermal noise in fused silica samples.”

Niedzwiecki was part of the early HWS tests on reducing the thermal noise on fused silica, the very material that was selected for the Advanced LIGO mirror substrates and suspensions.

“I was really excited about it at the time and I didn’t really have an idea how important it would be,” says Niedzwiecki, who was able to visit the LIGO observatory in Hanford, Wash., during his senior year. “I was working on the system to build Advanced LIGO and it ended up working exactly as predicated 10 years before. It did what it was supposed to do.”

Niedzwiecki says that thanks to the connections between faculty and students available at HWS, he was

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able to get real laboratory experience that translated well into his graduate and postdoctoral work, all while having access to cutting-edge research.

“Having that one-on-one working relationship with Steve was almost unique among my peers outside of HWS,” he says. “Very rarely did undergraduates get to work with faculty for that period of time.”

Leading up to and following the announcement of the breakthrough discovery, Niedzwiecki says his experience working with Penn on the LIGO project has had a significant impact on his work today.

“I’m proud of being one of the people who worked on LIGO,” he says. “I was part of it in a small way, but very happy to do that.”

Connecting for the

by Paige Cooke

The Hobart and William Smith spring sports season was an unqualified success. Herons and Statesmen earned 66 conference all-academic awards, 31 all-conference honors, and four conference titles, and competed in six national championship events. Behind the numbers, awards and titles, there were key conversations that spurred on a successful spring at the Colleges.

Hobart Lacrosse It was a players-only meeting in the Hobart lacrosse locker room on the Monday after a regular season loss to Bryant that changed the tone of the Statesmen’s season. “The seniors called a meeting after the Bryant loss and we all spoke about what this means to us. We decided we were going to do it all, or not do anything at all,” Captain Cooper Stefaniak ’16 told Inside Lacrosse after winning the NEC Championship. The Statesmen went on to win their next game 15-10 over Sacred Heart. After regular season league losses to Saint Joseph’s and Bryant by a combined score of 28-7, Hobart rebounded to knock off both teams in the NEC Tournament. The Statesmen captured their first league title with a 7-6 win over the then No. 20 Bulldogs in the semifinals and an 11-7 victory over the host Hawks in the championship game. Hobart earned the program’s 26th NCAA tournament appearance and finished the year as an NCAA statistical champion, leading the nation in man-down defense (.776).

2016 Heron Hall of Honor - Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016 In conjunction with the 35th anniversary of the Heron nickname, the Heron Society will celebrate eight legendary Herons this fall.

During the induction ceremony, the Heron Society will also honor its ninth William Smith Team of Distinction, the 2000 Field Hockey national champions, and present the Hosking Award to Dr. Krista Ammirati Archer ‘96 and the Heron Award to Carolyn Madeira Brauer ‘78.

William Smith Lacrosse A “Heron Communication” plan laid the foundation for the William Smith lacrosse team’s success in 2016.

First-year Head Coach Anne Phillips quickly realized the Herons were not all using the same language when they talked in practices, and that was when “Heron Communication” began. It allowed the team to have a unified communication system, from letting teammates know the direction of the draw to talking through each of their roles in the new defense. “One of the greatest pieces of success was seeing them understand each other and everyone having the ability to communicate with consistent language,” says Phillips. The Herons captured their first Liberty League title since 2004 and earned the program’s 18th appearance in the NCAA tournament. William Smith topped Roger Williams 13-7 in its first round game and was edged 4-2 by then No. 4 Gettysburg in the second round. The Herons held the Bullets to their lowest single game goal total since 2007.

The ninth class to be inducted into the Hall of Honor will include: • Jessica Dascano-Becker ’01 – field hockey • Sophie Dennis Riskie ’07 – field hockey • Anne Jachney Erskine ’88 – lacrosse • Christine Jurczak Little ’00 – sailing • Kerry McCullough Brown ’87 – lacrosse • BreLynn Nasypany ’11 – soccer • Wendi Schoff Waters ’98 – basketball • Allyson Shirtz Howe ’94 – soccer and basketball

20 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Hobart Rowing Hobart rowing has used continued conversations to build a system of mentoring in their program, helping student-athletes achieve success both as a team and as individuals. The Statesmen have captured the Liberty League title for 11 years in a row and recently made their 12th appearance at the IRA national championship regatta. Hobart’s varsity eight was named the Liberty League Crew of the Year for the 13th straight year. Achieving this sustained success starts when a student-athlete is first interested in Hobart.

With the guidance of Head Coach Paul Bugenhagen and Assistant Coach Skip Kielt and their experience with national teams as a coach and an athlete, respectively, student-athletes see it as a goal to compete on the international stage. This year, August Wherry ’16 and Austin Letorney ’17 are vying to do just that.

Letorney is one of 36 rowers accepted to the U.S. Men’s Under 23 National Team Selection Camp, while Wherry is one of 12 athletes invited to the Lightweight Men’s Under 23 National Team Selection Camp. Wherry represented the United States with teammate Rob McNamara ’15 in 2014, winning the petite final and finishing seventh at the U23 Rowing World Championships.

“That is something we have conversations about, the rare privilege it is to represent your country as the best in your sport. It is something that very few people have the opportunity to do. It is very humbling and also something to take great pride in,” says Bugenhagen.

William Smith Rowing A coxswain is the lone voice for a rowing team on the water. Susan Tuvell ’16, a coxswain for William Smith, garnered CRCA All-American first team honors this spring. She had the job of being the Herons’ communicator. The oarswomen all rely on the coxswain to yell out commands during the race, to tell them where they are in relation to their competitors and what they need to improve on during a race. As a team, the Herons realized in order for the eight rowers to participate in conversation with the coxswain they needed to “speak with their oars.” William Smith worked hard to keep up this conversation throughout the season, clinching the program’s sixth consecutive Liberty League championship and securing the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Championships, where they finished in sixth place. It was the Herons’ 13th NCAA Championships appearance.

HWS Sailing Hobart and William Smith sailors took a different tack, minimizing unnecessary communication to focus on achieving success. The sailing program has been working over the past few years to get studentathletes to realize the importance of face-to-face communication as well as being present in the moment. The team, therefore, instituted a rule to eliminate cell phone distractions. Sailing regattas are a tournament-style all day event and when student-athletes arrive at a regatta site, cell phones are put away until the conclusion of the day’s competition. Doing so allows students to focus and proves to their teammates their investment in the competition and the success of the team. Today’s scoring systems are now online, so with HWS athletes off their phones, they must rely on the coaching staff to relay the team’s progress and goals.

The sailing program has also set priorities for methods of communication. Athletes should try to communicate first face-to-face, second through a phone call, third through email and use a text as a last resort. “Everyone involved in the HWS sailing program invests so much time and energy into it. We believe it is important to give that time and respect in terms of communication, making every effort to communicate in person first,” says Head Coach Scott Iklé ’84. The increased focus, minimized distractions and value placed on communication, helped HWS earn a spot in two national championship events in San Diego this spring, finishing 12th in both the ICSA Women’s National Championship and the ICSA Dinghy National Championship. It was the Colleges’ 16th appearance in both national championship regattas.

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BOZZUTO ’68 ELECTED BOARD CHAIR

by Andrew Wickenden ’09

“E

very enterprise needs to define what it provides that uniquely differentiates it from everybody else, and then concentrate on doing that,” says Tom Bozzuto ’68, the incoming chair of the Hobart and William Smith Board of Trustees. “At HWS, part of what we are known for is the kind of oneon-one mentorships that develop between faculty and students, which, when combined with our strong career services office and guaranteed internship program, our focus on global education and our emphasis on service learning, really define who the Colleges are.”

At its spring meeting, the Board of Trustees voted to elevate Bozzuto from his most recent position as vice chair.

Effective July 1, he stepped into the role of chair as a 16-year board member, having served on the Executive, Finance and Buildings & Grounds committees and as chair of the Enrollment Management committee.

“The Colleges have benefitted greatly from Tom’s experience and foresight,” says President Mark D. Gearan.

“He enters this position at a moment of great strength for Hobart and William Smith and for the Board of Trustees. I look forward to his leadership as we begin work on a new strategic plan for the Colleges.”

During his more than 40-year career in real estate, Bozzuto was responsible for the creation of more than 50,000 homes and co-founded The Bozzuto Group, one of the most prominent real estate services companies in the country. As CEO, Bozzuto directed the development, construction and management of income-producing and for-sale housing in metropolitan areas along the East Coast. He has a long history of volunteering with nonprofits in the Baltimore area, including serving as chair of the board of the Maryland Science Center, which doubled in size and substantially increased its endowment during Bozzuto’s tenure.

As incoming HWS Board chair, Bozzuto succeeds Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09, L.H.D. ’16, the first William Smith alumna to chair the board. He explains that thanks to the work of his predecessors,

especially our students, I’m very excited about the opportunities ahead for Hobart and William Smith.”

Along with Bozzuto’s elevation to chair and McGuire’s to vice chair, the Board welcomes new members John Hogan ’88 and Scott Mason ’81, P’13, and the immediate past presidents of the Alumni and Alumnae Associations, Jeremy Cushman ’96 and Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk ’98.

By the end of his term, Bozzuto says he will define success as “being able to step down and know that the Colleges are somewhat better off for my having been there; to know that my successor will continue to lead the board with strength; and to be sure the Colleges will be even better positioned for a great future.”

At Hobart, Bozzuto majored in English and was a Druid. He was president of his sophomore and junior classes and, in his senior year, Thomas S. Bozzuto ’68 president of the student body. Bozzuto also played football, was a Theta Delta the Colleges are positioned strongly “to Chi brother, a member of Hobart confront the challenges facing American Student Association and Little Theatre, higher education, especially private higher and worked at Saga. He served as a combat education.” correspondent for the 25th Infantry

“During Maureen’s term as chair, Division of the U.S. Army in Vietnam from we looked deeply and thoroughly at our 1969 to 1970, and later earned a master’s strategic planning – the degree in metropolitan Campus Master Plan, the studies from the By the end of his term, Curriculum Review, the Maxwell School at Bozzuto says he will Middle States Report and Syracuse University. define success as “being Bozzuto was the Culture of Respect report – the building able to step down and a lead donor in blocks from which the know that the Colleges the renovation Colleges’ strategic plan of the Colleges’ are somewhat better will go forth,” Bozzuto boathouse, named in off for my having been explains. “If those steps honor of his father, there ...” hadn’t taken place, we’d Charles Bozzuto. be looking at a much To commemorate longer planning process. their 40th wedding It’s my expectation that anniversary, his wife, Barbara, established the strategic plan will be completed this the Thomas S. Bozzuto ’68 Endowed year.”

Scholarship Fund.

Bozzuto says that between the

Bozzuto also took a lead role in experience of vice chairs Carolyn Carr supporting Campaign for the Colleges McGuire ’78 and Andy McMaster ’74, P’09, including the creation of Gearan Center for “the quality and dedication of the board, the Performing Arts where two spaces are the extraordinary leadership we have in named – the Thomas S. ’68 and Barbara Mark Gearan, the caliber of our faculty, M. Bozzuto Balcony and Lobby and the the members of the administration, and Barbara M. Bozzuto Music Studio.

22 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

This campus plan, created by architect Hobart Upjohn, presents a top-down view of the Hobart College campus and his ideas for its future growth.

At the time this plan was drawn, the Colleges had recently embarked on a College Building and Endowment Fund campaign.

Plans for the Future

CAMPUS NEWS

ca. 1930

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. . c n ver . sa ti ns

24 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Conversation is an adventure.

It ​is an act of discovery and dynamic curiosity that takes us from what is to what is possible.

Between governments themselves, it is the foundation of diplomacy.

Between individuals, it’s the foundation of investigation, analysis, philosophizing, debate, friendship, communion, creativity and progress.

Face to face, mediated by technology, in words or actions, the conversations and voices of Hobart and William Smith echo around the globe, broadening the scope of how we engage with ideas and with each other.

25 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

F E AT U R E

Between governments and citizens, it’s the foundation of democracy.

Oprah Winfrey and Lucy Kaylin ’81

Photo: Harpo, Inc./ Brian Kramer

Enriching the Conversation

by Andrew Wickenden ’09

“Live

your best life.”

As a young writer at GQ, Lucy Kaylin ’81, now editor-in-chief of O, The Oprah Magazine, learned that “it’s not enough to describe things well and report things evenly. If you’re going to write for or edit an interesting magazine, a magazine that means something, you have to have a point of view.”

At O, that point of view derives from the magazine’s tagline, mantra and ongoing encouragement to the reader: “Live your best life.”

“That’s the core idea, and something Oprah really believes in and exhorts everyone to pursue, whatever that means to you,” says Kaylin, who has worked at the magazine since 2009, first as deputy editor before rising to her current role in 2013. “We’re a magazine that wants women to take more from life and not be complacent, to look deeper inside themselves and their experience and find ways to make it richer.”

While each issue tackles a specific theme from various angles in various forms, with content in print and online, the magazine tends to “gravitate toward personal narratives,” Kaylin says, “because we want to have a conversation with 26 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Kaylin got her start in the magazine industry as a fact-checker at Vogue. She then spent nearly two decades working at the men’s magazine GQ, contributing more than 100 articles and dozens of cover profiles, including the controversial, widely quoted interview with Tom Cruise in 2006.

Kaylin rose to features editor at GQ before becoming executive editor at Marie Claire, where she wrote cover stories, interviewed President Barack Obama and was instrumental in the development and execution of Marie Claire’s reality show on the Style network, Running in Heels, in which she appeared. Since Kaylin became editor-in-chief of O, the title has won two National Magazine Awards, the industry’s Oscars.

In each issue of O, the magazine’s staffers answer a question in the front matter.

Here, Kaylin responds to questions from past issues.

March 2016:

Q What’s the most significant relationship in your life right now?

A Aside from my husband and two kids, my deputy editor — a.k.a. my office wife.

February 2016:

Q What’s your go-to stress reliever?

A An oaky California Chardonnay.

January 2016:

During her time at William Smith, Kaylin was a member of Hai Timiai, the senior honor society, and received the White Essay Prize. She graduated cum laude with highest honors in English and went on to receive a master’s degree in English Literature from Columbia.

Q What unhealthy thing would you like to eliminate from your life this year?

A Over-reliance on oaky California Chardonnays.

December 2015:

Q What dream gift would you love to receive this year?

A Two more hours of sleep a night.

November 2015:

Q When are you your most authentic self?

Walking to work in the morning,

A meditating on things that bring me joy.

October 2015:

Q What activity is comfort food for your brain?

A Watching Modern Family reruns.

September 2015:

Q What’s one thing you’d never change about yourself?

our readers. We don’t want to preach — we want to talk with them. And we want them coming away with a sense of support, that we’re friends on their journey.”

In the February 2016 issue, which focuses on mental health, the media mogul, philanthropist and magazine’s namesake, Oprah Winfrey, opens up about her “face-to-face” experience with mental illness, recounting that “several people close to me were hospitalized with severe suicidal depression and manic and schizophrenic thoughts.”

“Mental health is an issue affecting a vast number of American women, but it’s something that still has a lot of stigma around it and women aren’t sure about how to get the help they need,” Kaylin says. “With this issue we wanted to change that.”

By engaging with readers on an intimate level, she explains, “our interaction is alive, and readers’ connection to the magazine is not casual. I’ve been lucky to work at great magazines, but one thing I felt was unique at O was this vital and real conversation going on between us and the reader. There’s this really fleshand-blood sense of who the reader is and that we’re writing and speaking directly to her — that sense that she’s right there when I’m thinking about what to put in the magazine.”

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A My inexhaustible interest in other people’s life stories.

August 2015:

Q What would you most like to accomplish before summer ends?

A Get the bathrooms renovated, get my

daughter packed and off to college on the West Coast, get my son excited about taking the SATs.

July 2015:

Q What surprising thing do you find soothing?

A Editing.

June 2015:

Q Who always takes good care of you?

A My mom friends. Don’t know where I’d be without them.

F E AT U R E

Kaylin is the author of two books, For the Love of God, about the decline of Catholic nuns in America, and The Perfect Stranger, about the complicated relationship between mothers and nannies. She also contributed an essay to the anthology The Secret Currency of Love, about the role money plays in relationships.

The Communication Conversation

by Andrew Wickenden ’09

photo: andrew markham ’10

“You have to know culture to understand how expressions are being used.”

“Reading is communication, writing is communication, everything done in the classroom is some form of communication — there is no education without communication,” says Kay Payne ’73, a professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Howard University’s School of Communications.

For decades, Payne’s research on linguistic diversity has staked out important territory in the national conversation on improving educational equity. She is internationally renowned for her unique specializations in sociolinguistics and cultural anthropology, as well as her expertise on cultural diversity, test-taking skills, and communication disorders, including diagnosis, treatment and bilingual issues.

Communications specialists “are essential to education,” she explains, because “there isn’t a good handle on why there is the achievement gap and a reading gap, and why a disproportionate number of people from multicultural backgrounds are put into special education. We need to do more research to discover solutions and make sure we don’t misdiagnose. And that’s all about communication.”

Alongside educators and speech therapists, academics like Payne design their research to

practically benefit both adults and children, addressing acquired language disabilities, such as stroke or head injury, as well as congenital developmental and learning disabilities.

To help restore communication faculties to people with communication disorders, that rehabilitation work typically starts from the bottom up.

“We are biologically wired as human beings to learn a language — that’s one of the things that sets us apart as a species,” says Payne. “With rehabilitation, you have to know the process of language development, how children go about acquiring language from the environment, how language is structured, what areas will be impaired by a particular condition — all in order to restore what may have been missing or delayed in the normal process of acquiring language. That’s what we call therapy.”

As a researcher and educator, Payne focuses on sociolinguistics, exploring language in the context of social phenomena like region, class, occupation, gender and ethnicity. That’s the other side of therapy, she explains: “You have to know culture to understand how expressions are being used.”

Currently, one of Payne’s students at Howard is developing a project focused

on Guyanese Creole, a mix of African and European languages spoken in Guyana, the only predominately English speaking country in South America.

“Guyana is a developing country with a large need for speech and rehabilitation language therapists,” Payne says. “The tools they have come from the U.S. and are based on our linguistic system here, which may be useful in certain parts but isn’t widely applicable.”

This is because Guyanese Creole — “a language with a slave heritage,” Payne notes — retains many of the original linguistic aspects that existed 300 years ago.

The focus of the project, therefore, “is to describe and capture the relevant aspects of the language that differ from standard American English in the U.S. and make appropriate instruments for therapists working with children and adults,” says Payne, whose career has been built around research at this crux of language, communication and culture.

“As I culminate my years in the field,” she says, “I’m happy to have a student interested in something I was interested in at the beginning of my career. It’s nice to see that part of the conversation continue into the future.”

Kay Payne ’73 has authored three best-selling books and helped create the first software program to improve the scores of minority students on the PRAXIS examinations, which evaluate individuals for entry into teacher education programs. She has been awarded the Fulbright Fellowship twice to do research in Egypt and India, and other prestigious fellowships to Brazil, China, Namibia, Russia and Ukraine. She has been named a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and more recently received the prestigious Scholar-Mentor Award from the National Black Association for Speech, Language, and Hearing. In 2016, during the Colleges’ Multicultural Career and Networking Conference, Payne was awarded the William Smith Alumnae Association’s highest honor, the Alumna Achievement Award. In her keynote address during the conference, Payne encouraged the audience to “value diversity — not only because it is the right thing to do, but because without diversity we limit the horizon of human achievement.”

28 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Writing Conversations

We send documents back and forth throughout the day, talk again in the afternoon. We both have tasks depending on the state of the project, but there’s not one part of the script that we both haven’t had a say in.

It’s an organic process of continual reworking from the very first concept to the final version of the script.”

Together, Lavin and Damiani have been penning and selling television and film scripts for the past decade. In October 2015, CBS Studios picked up their pilot “Jet Set,” which centers on

F

or screenwriter JP Lavin ’95, the workday begins with a conversation with his writing partner Chad Damiani. “I’ll call Chad in the morning and we’ll brainstorm,” Lavin says, “and then Chad will shout down all the stuff we brainstorm. One of us will write down what works.

JET SET "Pilot" (c)2016 CBS TV - Revised Network Draft “Each n e about twork is pitch 1,500 T e V ideas d season ,m e end up aybe more. ach T b scripts. uying 50 to hey 8 F make s rom those, th 0 ix e from t to eight pilo y only hose p t s and, ilo or six o f those ts, maybe fou r into sh ows.”

STERLING I appreciate your interest, Nancy.

I’d be happy to talk about it. (a beat) I was an orphan and bounced from foster home to foster home. Got in all kinds of trouble. Then I was adopted. My dad taught me to own up to my mistakes. But most importantly, he taught me family is all that matters.

MARK ENDICOTT You should keep this one, Blair. He might rub off on you.

a young, rich socialite and a blue-collar FBI agent who pose as the new “it” couple to investigate and apprehend suspects who hide behind wealth and influence.

Lavin and Damiani will serve as the pilot’s co-executive producers along with director Jon Turteltaub, who directed and produced, among other films, National Treasure.

Below is an excerpt from “Jet Set” written by JP Lavin and Chad Damiani.

39. t that first scrip Love, the stry, started ze a ik m “Ka indu that into the broke us lling Chad a story ift when sh e t a with me d during ork City. h ap p e n e Y actually g tables in New in n walked I was wait l Japanese woma she was u im if h t u ld a A be der, to by t h e e barten up to th as a sexual slave . That lp t e p being ke d asked for his h for the n t a n , e a d z ci ku in Ya g d from the incitin became the script evolve d n a movie there.”

They rush to the car. Blair is furious.

“First and foremost, you have to understand who BLAIR your audience is. ‘Jet Set’ Wow. That was a real Oscar worthy performance in there -is something people are going to watch when they STERLING come home from work, to Why are you so rude to your folks?

Is there anything you don’t take have fun. The product and for granted? universe you’re creating has to take that into account.

BLAIR It’s basic rhetoric, which You don’t know the real Nancy and Mark Endicott. And you sure as hell was my major.” don’t know me --

“Dialogue represents the way a character speaks, their needs, desires, attitudes, class, worldview-all those things that create a human being.”

STERLING I know you’ve had every opportunity in the world and wasted them all -BLAIR And you’re a hypocrite. You lashed out at me for embellishing how we met, then you tell that nonsense adoption story? What happened to telling the truth?

“As a rea d nothing er of scripts, is worse t han screen dir e are borin ctions that g detailed. or too overly T and fast here’s no hard rule othe r to be en tertainin than g.”

STERLING That was the truth.

Blair feels terrible. SUDDENLY -- AHHH! A woman screams!

EXT. YACHT CLUB - DOCKS - MOMENTS LATER Sterling and Blair rush to the docks. They make their way through the crowd.

BLAIR Oh, my God. They look down into the water. Floating face-first is the dead body of Amy Weland.

END ACT TWO

29 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

“It’s interesting looking back on my writing to see how my perception has changed, how wildly my life has changed over 10 years, how different I am as a writer in that time. Life changes, so hopefully your ability to understand human behavior evolves so you can communicate that understanding.”

F E AT U R E

EXT. YACHT CLUB - PARKING LOT - LATER

Q

Conversations Across the Aisle

T

he 10th anniversary of the annual Day on the Hill program offered not only a strong lineup of panels, speakers and site visits for HWS students, but also new events, including a luncheon with Congressman Rodney P. Frelinghuysen ‘69, L.H.D.’01 (R-N.J.) and Congressman Alan S. Lowenthal ‘62 (D-Calif.). We asked the Congressmen about the conversations happening in Congress and with their constituents.

Do you think the two parties are talking enough?

Lowenthal: No, however, relationships in Congress take a long time to develop into trusting relationships. The members simply do not spend enough time together to allow those relationships to develop. As an example of how Congress can work, my relationship with Congressman Frelinghuysen has been a very positive experience in that we listen to each other, we respect each other, and we like each other. He has been a great ally in supporting STEM education.

Frelinghuysen: The parties can never talk too much. Every member of Congress was elected and sent to Congress to get things done for his or her constituents. While the Republicans are in the majority, we have seen clearly that bipartisan cooperation is an absolute imperative for bipartisan action.

What can be done to enhance the conversation across the aisle?

Lowenthal: I believe that a large part of the political process is listening to what others have to say. You have to be willing to sit down and let the other person have their say. I may not agree, but the only way to find common ground is to actually hear both sides.

Frelinghuysen: I would suggest that the rest of the House learn from the example of the Appropriations Committee. Our members understand that differences of opinion and vigorous discussions are to be expected. We regularly debate the most difficult issues and, yet, find a way to move our must-pass funding bills forward.

What topics are dominating your conversations with constituents?

Lowenthal: The main thing that comes up right now is the Presidential Election. Beyond that, my constituents talk to me about the kinds of things that impact everyone in their everyday lives. It doesn’t matter if they are blue collar, white collar, executives or laborers. They are worried about economic security, job security and national security. Will the future be better for my children?

These are not complicated to understand. They are issues we all confront every single day.

Frelinghuysen: Despite an economy that reportedly was “recovering,” my constituents are still very concerned about their careers, their jobs, their children’s future and their own investments for the future. They do not feel comfortable or optimistic with the path this nation is on. And of course, they worry about their family’s security in an increasingly dangerous world.

Congressman Alan S. Lowenthal ‘62 (D-Calif.) and Congressman Rodney P. Frelinghuysen ‘69, L.H.D.’01 (R-N.J.) in the Cannon House Office Building following a luncheon with HWS students.

Photo: Kevin Colton

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F E AT U R E 31 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

LIFE CHANGING CONVERSATIONS

MILISSA REHBERGER

“A co-worker once told me that she wanted to “be a fountain, not a drain.” I loved the expression and it really stuck in my head.

I think a person who’s a “fountain” cares enough to listen. They don’t always make it about themselves. Their laughter is genuine.

Their words are kind and thoughtful. Your friends who are “fountains” know where the proverbial bodies are buried but would never tell a soul. The “drain” is the kind of person who asks you a question then doesn’t listen to your answer. There’s always drama.

They’re always late to meet you then give you some sketchy reason why. If there’s something in the back of your mind that says don’t trust them then you probably shouldn’t. In that conversation I decided I wanted to be a “fountain” and let the “drains” in my life disappear.”

—Milissa Rehberger ’93 is a daytime anchor for MSNBC, a 24-hour news television channel. She has held the position since 2004.

OWEN THOMPSON

“Growing up I had a very close and relaxed relationship with my mother, the late Russelle Thompson. In 2002, I was sitting by my mother’s bedside where she lay dying from pancreatic cancer. Having lived through the terrorist attacks on September 11th and having provided pastoral care to rescue workers at Ground Zero at Trinity Wall Street and St. Paul’s Chapel the year before as a seminarian-intern, I was already spiritually and emotionally exhausted, wrestling with my faith amidst my arresting doubt. That evening, I told her through tears that I wanted to drop out of seminary and give up on becoming a priest. My mother squeezed my hand with the little strength she had left, pulled me close, and told me that her greatest hope and dream for me was to find my place in this world and not only love what I do, but make a positive difference in the world while doing it. Through labored breath, she told me that she didn’t make all the sacrifices she did just for me to walk away from that which she believed I was called and chosen to do.

This conversation epitomized everything about my mother and our relationship.

With all that she had, she emptied herself so that I could be made full, and her words still echo in my heart and continue to guide, nourish and sustain me 14 years into my ministry as an Episcopal Priest.”

—The Reverend Owen C. Thompson ’93 is an episcopal priest at Grace Episcopal Church in Nyack, N.Y.

32 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

PHYLLIS KOZARSKY

“During summer vacations in high school, I worked in Manhattan at an office near the United Nations, and I would walk over there sometimes to eat lunch. Wandering the UN during that time convinced me that both a meaningful career and “joie de vivre” could be achieved by infusing an international flavor into whatever profession was pursued.

I had a gift for foreign languages, a desire to help others, and loved to travel. So, armed with some French, German and Russian, I headed to the HWS campus on a mission.

But, sometime during my second year, I met a teaching assistant headed for her Ph.D. in neurobiology who urged me to try the sciences – in fact, the real reason I had never taken any science courses was not because I shied away from the work, I simply had never even considered any scientific field, and certainly never considered medicine.

But those few conversations, the support and mentoring, encouraged me to diversify.

Now 32 years as faculty in medicine at Emory University, I remember and am thankful. I didn’t have to give up the “joie” at all, but found working not only in infectious diseases, but in global health, tropical and travel medicine, has enabled me to combine various strengths and passions.”

—Dr. Phyllis Kozarsky ’74 is a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine and an expert consultant to the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine with the Centers for Disease Control.

Six alums tell us about the conversation that changed their life.

“While I didn’t realize it at the time, my life changed based upon two short conversations on a sunny August afternoon at Hobart. I came to the Colleges to play lacrosse; we won the National Championship both my first and sophomore years, and I was eager to increase my role in my junior season. I’d applied to study abroad in London but didn’t make the cut. However, a week before the group was scheduled to leave for Europe, I received a call informing me that someone had dropped out of the program, and I was asked to go. In the space of a few hours I called my dad and Coach Urick. I assumed that neither would be supportive; it was a large extra expense and I would miss fall training. However, neither of them hesitated, and both said the same thing: “Go!” Even though it was of no benefit to them personally, they both focused first on my growth. It was a great leadership lesson for me. The experience was wonderful. It started me on a path to study international affairs and launched a career living and working overseas.”

—John Sipher ’83, P’19, director of client services at CrossLead, Inc., recently retired after a 28-year career in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service.

LUDWIG GAINES

It was the summer of 1983 and I was a very green 18 year old attending the Colleges’ Pre-Freshman Academic Orientation Program (PSAO). On the program’s first day, PSAO peer counselor Andre Horn ’84 pulled me aside from the group of students for a walk and a talk. “What’s up?, Did I do something wrong my first days on campus? Was I short on financial aid? Why was he singling me out?” Andre asked a couple of “how’s it going” questions, and then he stopped walking and looked me squarely in the eyes, and said, “Ludwig, we believe in you. You are a leader. We expect greatness from you. Nothing less. Use this time to learn, lead and make a difference.” I remember trying to process what he shared.

First thing I thought was that’s pretty heavy—a lot to put on a pre-freshman. But soon I reconciled those expectations. As I’ve faced my failures and successes in life, I’ve often thought of that simple conversation.

Those kind words from a stranger at the time who would become a committed mentor. Words that reinforced earlier life lessons from my own family. The message for me from Andre was and is simple yet profound: place no ceilings on your ambitions. Never underestimate your worth.

Aim big. Put in the work. Try. Fail. Adjust and try again. Succeed. Lift as you climb. Much is expected. It is a message I’ve sought to pay forward my entire life since leaving my “home” on Lake Seneca.

—The Hon. Ludwig P. Gaines ’88 is a principal, senior vice president and general counsel of The Euille Group LLC.

33 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

LISA MILLER GOLDMAN

“A conversation that made a big difference to me was one that I had with my father around the time I went to college at HWS. I was struggling to make a decision regarding how to fast-track my education so I could graduate in 3 years. I was considering too many options and was frozen with indecision. I sought my father’s advice for success. He said, “Narrow your options down to two and choose either one! Get into action and course-correct once you are moving forward and engaged with real issues, rather than be paralyzed in analysis.”

I applied my father’s wisdom in choosing a major with accelerated courses in Asian Studies and received my degree in three years. Upon graduation I was faced with a similar dilemma: law school or an MBA. I applied my father’s logic and chose to get an MBA from the University of Oregon.

For the last 30 years, I have worked as an international management consultant and find myself extending my dad’s advice to client after client. My counsel with CEOs is that no one is smart enough to always make the right decision. It is more effective to be decisive and then make your choice right, even allowing for a change of course. “Action always trumps indecision.” My father’s words continue to be a source of guidance and inspiration for me. Hearing his advice is the greatest honor to my dad.”

—Lisa Miller Goldman ’74 is a partner at Management Associates in California and the author of The Moonshot Effect: Disrupting Business-as-Usual.

F E AT U R E

JOHN SIPHER

PHOTO: JARED WEEDEN ’91

BIPARTISAN CONVERSATION Despite opposing political ideologies, Liz Seidel ’13 (left), a political fundraiser and Eden Tesfaye ’14 (right), director of special projects at the Democratic National Committee, have been friends since they met on campus as Orientation Leaders. The pair recently met up in Washington, D.C., to cheer on Hobart Lacrosse during their 10-9 victory over Georgetown.

“Eden and I are able to be friends, even though we have different belief systems, by focusing on what we have in common, instead of what makes us different,” says Seidel.

“Liz provides me with a viewpoint from the other side,” explains Tesfaye. “While we fundamentally want the same things for our country, we have a very different path on how to get from point A to B.” Seidel adds, “But what we can both agree on is that the 2016 presidential election is unlike anything we’ve ever seen!”

—Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05

34 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

T

Cross-Aisle Commitment

F E AT U R E

he cross-aisle marriage of Mary Matalin P’17 and James Carville L.H.D. ’13, P’17 has resulted in more than two decades of political commentary on every major television network and news organization, informing Americans across the political spectrum. When their daughter, Matalin Carville ’17, enrolled at the Colleges in 2013, the duo embraced HWS with enthusiasm. They have generously participated in two President’s Forums. Carville has also spoken at Homecoming Weekend and delivered the 2013 Commencement Address. photo: kevin colton

F

ollowing Hurricane Katrina, Matalin and Carville relocated their family from the Washington, D.C. beltway to Carville’s home state of Louisiana where they have been vocal supporters of the renaissance of New Orleans. Together, they have taken part in a range of environmental, educational, economic and cultural projects in support of the Gulf Coast.

What is the first conversation you had with your spouse?

Matalin is one of the most celebrated and popular conservative voices in America. As an author, television and radio host, and widely sought after political contributor, pundit and public speaker, she is noted for her straightforward manner and insightful political repartee.

She served under President Ronald Reagan, made her mark as George H.W. Bush’s campaign director, was assistant to President George W. Bush, and assistant and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, making her the first White House official to hold that double title. A graduate of Western Illinois University, she attended Hofstra University School of Law.

M.M.: We don’t have conversations.

We are two streams of conscious bombarding each other.

J.C.: I’d agree with that.

• What is the most heated debate you’ve ever had with your spouse?

Carville is a political commentator and media personality who is a prominent figure in the Democratic Party. Carville was the lead strategist for the successful election in 1992 of Bill Clinton as the 42nd president of the United States. A frequent political commentator, Carville is the former co-host of CNN’s Crossfire. He has provided consultation to campaigns in more than 20 countries and teaches political science at Tulane University. A former U.S. Marine, Carville received his undergraduate and law degrees from Louisiana State University.

M.M.: Dogs and cats; real-estate; Iraq.

J.C.: We really don’t argue.

Part of marriage is learning how to compromise and go with the flow.

• What do you agree on?

Together, Matalin and Carville have co-authored two national, best-selling books including Love & War: Twenty Years, Three Presidents, Two Daughters and One Louisiana Home, published in 2014. —Catherine Williams

M.M.: That Hobart and William Smith is a fantastic place.

J.C.: Hobart and William Smith.

35 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

Can We Talk?

Known for her bold yet practical approach to executive coaching and leadership development, for more than two decades Susan Scott ’67 has been challenging people to say the things that sometimes seem impossible to say. The founder of Fierce, Inc., Scott is the author of several books, including Fierce Conversations and Fierce Leadership.

Here, Scott tells us what it means to be “fierce” every day.

The Conversationalists Alums Whose Careers Are Tied to the Art of Conversation

Susan Scott ’67

“It means that we come out from behind ourselves, into all of our conversations, and make them real, disclosing what we’re really thinking and feeling. Many are afraid to do this but I have found that there is something within us that responds deeply to those who level with us; who do not pamper us or offer compromises but instead, describe reality from their perspective, so simply and compellingly that the truth seems inevitable, and we cannot help but recognize it. ...

Importantly, our conversations enrich relationships, connecting with the people central to our success and happiness – at a deep level.”

Bruce Avery ’71 is a collaborative practitioner, mediator, attorney and counselor at law. Now a partner at Avery and Upton Law which specializes in family law, Avery spent 20 years in the United States Army, serving 15 of those years as a Judge Advocate General. We asked Avery to tell us how his experience in the Army influences his approach to his conversations with clients.

Bruce Avery ’71

“The Army is where I first became involved with interest-based negotiations – that it is possible for both sides of a disagreement to come to a mutually acceptable agreement that meets the needs of both. Armed conflict is a win-lose proposition. Armed conflict without a concurrent or subsequent resolution of the underlying issues will not be a stable one and often leads to more armed conflict. The same is true in family law. Putting the problem off until the next round of litigation just ensures that there will be another round. Resolving the issues means there won’t be another round.”

36 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Dan Fee ’92 Dan Fee ’92 is president of The Echo Group, a strategic communications firm that has led dozens of successful political campaigns, development projects and issue-advocacy efforts. A seasoned communications and political strategist, Fee shares the conversation every candidate running for office should have with voters.

“A candidate should largely have the same conversation with every voter— who they are, why they are running, and what they will do if elected. Because voters have different priorities, it’s impossible to try to respond to every issue in a single presentation, so a candidate needs to be clear about their priorities rather than simply responding to an audience. Voters will support a candidate they don’t always agree with if they trust how they make decisions.”

Dr. Gregory Vincent ’83 is the vice president for diversity and community engagement at The University of Texas at Austin. He recently played a major role in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas, in which the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the use of affirmative action in higher education. Here, he shares his thoughts on how to create an environment that encourages the free exchange of ideas and dialogue, one that engages diverse people, ideas and perspectives to create a vibrant learning and working environment.

Madeleine Marr ’89 A celebrity journalist for the Miami Herald, Madeleine Marr ’89 covers features, interviews, events, red carpets, premieres, award ceremonies, style, news and gossip in the South Florida area and beyond. From interviews with William H. Macy to Jennifer Garner, Marr reveals her favorite celebrity conversation.

“I interviewed Jennifer Garner twice – once in 2012 for The Odd Life of Timothy Green when she had her baby son Samuel with her on the press junket. I told her that I had taken my daughter Scarlett, then 4, to see it with me the night before – the first non-cartoon she had sat through, and we bonded over that. Garner was back in Miami for Miracles from Heaven in March, as a single mother of three. She seemed definitely sadder and more introspective, talking about the themes of the movie as well as strong women. She told me, “Forgiveness is always the strongest choice.” That stuck with me.”

Genoa Boswell ’09 is a senior associate producer for CBS’ The Talk, a daytime television program in which hosts Julie Chen, Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Underwood and Aisha Tyler discuss current events, pop culture, family life and interview celebrity guests. While Boswell develops questions for the celebrities that will solicit the best and most entertaining responses, she says the best conversations are unscripted.

“Over the course of our six seasons, the hosts have had some amazing moments, but the best conversations are always the ones that we don’t plan; ones where the ladies just do what they do best. We give them the setup and topic, and they run with it. That’s part of what makes our show fun, you feel like you’re just grabbing lunch with the girls.”

Dr. Gregory Vincent ’83

37 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

F E AT U R E

“I am a big believer in being intentional – things don’t happen by accident.

We have to create opportunities to share ideas and to engage with our students, faculty and staff to ensure that they feel welcome and supported. Once that atmosphere is in place, I believe the vibrant working environment takes care of itself.”

Genoa Boswell ’09

Double Talk We separated two sets of HWS twins and asked them the same questions. Their remarkably analogous answers are below.

As the principles of Ocala

Horse Properties, twin brothers Chris Desino ’94 and Rob Desino ’94 have earned their place as the leading real estate company selling horse farms throughout Ocala and Marion County, Fla. They also own Wellington Equestrian Realty, and between the two companies represent the largest portfolio of premier horse properties in the world.

Was attending college together a priority?

Chris: We never said that we had to go to the same college, but from my perspective I didn’t know any different.

Rob: If we are completely honest with each other, yes it was. It never occurred to us that we would go separate ways.

How did your relationship evolve on campus?

Rob Desino ’94 and Chris: It was the first time that Chris Desino ’94 we found a sport that not only we loved but that we knew we could be very competitive with Photo: Jim Jerigan together. Rowing brought us closer and pushed us to the limits, especially when we rowed the pair together. Prior to that, if one of us lagged behind, the other could make up the difference. In rowing, you cannot do that.

Rob: We did not want to be roommates our first year; we were afraid we would not venture out and make our own friends. Well, once we started rowing the first fall, we were together all the time anyway. Finally, by the third year, we gave up and realized that we might as well live together. We are best friends and finally had the confidence to say that.

What is it like being business partners?

Chris: Our business partnership is based on pure trust. I don’t think we have ever had a fight in business. Any time we have started a business, we never set up roles…we naturally just land into the roles where we perceive our strengths to be.

Rob: In business, our relationship from my point of view is perfect. We never argue. Chris is more the visionary for the future and the “big picture guy.” I am more the details and go-to-one for anything needed on a daily basis with our employees and clients. We have total trust in each other.

Do you have a secret language?

Chris: I would love to say yes, but honestly we don’t. All it takes is one look and we know what we are thinking and what has to be done. That has come in very handy.

Rob: No secret language. Of course spending our entire lives together, he can say one word and I know exactly what mood he is in and how to approach him.

Twin sisters Shannon Times ‘08, MAT ‘09 and Shayna Times ‘08,

MAT ‘09 are both math teachers; Shannon with Victor Central Schools in Victor, N.Y., and Shayna with Gwinnett County Public Schools in the greater Atlanta, Ga., area.

Was attending college together a priority?

Shayna: I’m not sure I’d say it was a “priority,” but we only applied to the same colleges, so I think it was definitely an unspoken intent.

Shannon: Not a “priority” per say, but I definitely thought going to college with my best friend would be fun!

How did your relationship evolve on campus?

Shayna: Being on campus together, there were some good moments and not so good moments, but it was definitely an experience that made our relationship as sisters and best friends even stronger. We still remained “Shayna and Shannon,” but we each began to figure out our individual likes and dislikes, interests and goals.

Shannon: There were certainly ups and downs, but I can honestly say that we grew even closer and stronger as sisters and friends.

Even though we Shayna Times ‘08, MAT ‘09 and tended to look Shannon Times ‘08, MAT ‘09 and do more and more alike as we continued through college, even with our similarities, we felt empowered and comfortable to explore our own independences and identities.

What is it like being in the same career field?

Shayna: It’s like having a built-in resource if I have a question or need help brainstorming. I knew education was going to be my focus. Our older sister, Takisha Times ’97, is also a math teacher, so she has definitely been a huge inspiration in choosing to pursue math education.

Shannon: I guess you can say it runs in the family. All of us being in education is such a gift because we can borrow ideas from each other and ask advice of one another.

Do you have a secret language?

Shayna: We can definitely read each other’s emotions and body language without uttering a word. Not sure what it’s all about, but more times than not, we can discern when the other has an achy stomach.

Shannon: It’s more like we have these looks or feelings that just “say it all” with each other. We also have this interesting connection with stomach aches. I know something isn’t quite right when my stomach is uneasy, so I’ll call Shayna and nine times out of ten, she’ll tell me she’s not feeling well or something happened.

38 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

1994

“I came out of HWS with a political science degree and thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I wound up working in a law firm as an assistant straight out of college and realized I wasn’t all that interested in it, and needed to look a bit further into what my interests were and how to make a career out of it.”

1999-2001

Craighill enrolled in graduate school at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he began work on The Star LedgerEagleton Poll — a collaboration between Rutgers and the Newark Star Ledger — which “gave me the practical experience in measuring and reporting on public opinion,” he recalls. “It was my first attempt at understanding how different constituencies might react differently, and how data turns into a news story.”

by Andrew Wickenden ’09

67% 2006-2010

When Craighill joined the polling division at ABC News in 2006, he began to focus more keenly on the election cycle. In particular, he and his colleagues examined exit polls to understand how the electorate was changing between election seasons.

2010-2015

Global Conversation

“We went from eight years of a Republican administration to the country’s first African American president,” he explains. “We were tracking not only how the country was reacting to war in Iraq and the financial meltdown, but interesting currents in public opinion — these broad social and economic issues. We were watching the country change before our very eyes.”

As a pollster with The Washington Post, Craighill continued to track, among other issues, the ongoing changes in public opinion and demographics that the 2008 election highlighted.

“The most important thing to realize about how opinion changed is that it was driven so much by how demographics changed,” he explains. “The racial and ethnic mix of the country has changed, migration patterns have changed, cities are revitalizing, and patterns of voting are affected by those changes.”

2016

In his current role at the State Department, Craighill is “building on the same principle of figuring out what people think, what their values are and what they understand about public policy.”

Responsible for polling in about 20 countries in Europe and Eurasia, Craighill is situated now within the intelligence community. While the process “isn’t so different from my work in media polling,” he is now delivering the results and analysis to a more select audience.

“We write analyses of the data and brief up the line to policy makers within the State Department,” he explains.

“Within this community of foreign policy analysts, we’re still trying to understand people around the world as fully as possible.”

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Peyton Craighill ’94 analyzes and interprets how citizens feel about their social and political landscapes and the policies that shape them. In the time since he was a student at Hobart and William Smith, where he majored in political science, Craighill has worked for the Pew Research Center, ABC News, The Washington Post and, since November 2015, the U.S. Department of State as the Division Chief for Europe in the Office of Opinion Research.

“Polls are snapshots of today, a measure of the here and now, not necessarily a projection of the future. They are indicative of where things could be going but not necessarily determinative. Things change, campaigns matter.”

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2001

“It was a different world when I started studying public opinion,” says Craighill, who began his polling career at the renowned Pew Research Center in 2001, just months before 9/11. “When I got my foot in the door at Pew, it was quite a different place than where it is today. There were maybe eight of us in the office, working collaboratively to produce monthly polls related to broad topics — social, political, economic, international. We had our hands in everything, trying to capture national public sentiment on whatever those issues were, as well as international affairs and political values more generally.”

Trustee Chair Emeritus L. Thomas Melly ’52, L.H.D.’02 in the lobby that bears his name in Gearan Center for the Performing Arts.

40 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Louder Than Words A Conversation with L. Thomas Melly ‘52, L.H.D. ‘02, Trustee Chair Emeritus

by Catherine Williams

photo: kevin colton

Q: You’ve had a long and successful career in finance and chaired the HWS Board. What have these experiences taught you about leadership?

A: Leading by example is key. That and communication.

I had some tough issues when I was chair of the Board – everything from investments in South Africa to The Solomon Amendment. In every instance, I talked things over one-on-one with every member of the Board so there were no surprises.

Good leaders also surround themselves with great people. I will take credit for Honorary Trustee Lang Cook P’99, P’05, L.H.D.’12, who was my next-door neighbor.

And when we needed a CPA on the Board, I went after Andrew G. McMaster, Jr. ‘74, P’09, who is now vice chair. People like Lang and Andy – and many others

– have served the Board tremendously. We’ve also benefited from others like Art de Cordova ’56, L.H.D. ’05, who I was able to convince to make his gift to the Colleges public, which inspired others to step up.

I have a reputation for being very tenacious. When you’re right, it’s a great leadership trait.

Q: Why are the Colleges a good investment?

A: I was a first-generation college student. My father knew nothing about education and in fact never graduated from high school. He was a wonderful person who had a tough life. He lived through the Depression and lost his wife at a young age. I felt sorry for him. I never rebelled because I wanted so much for him to be happy with me.

I had applied helter skelter to a number of schools but my father had a friend whose son was at Hobart – Bruce Bensley ’51, P’98, L.H.D. ’01. Dr. Bensley pushed Hobart and my father agreed. So I came to Hobart and it changed my life. Everyone has a story like that, a moment they can point to that was transformative. We give in honor of that. But we also give because Hobart and William Smith Colleges are well on their way to becoming very elite colleges. We have a tremendous faculty, a beautiful campus, talented students. I have such a sense of optimism and clarity about the future of the Colleges.

They deserve our support.

Q: Why did you take a leadership role in the performing arts center?

A: I’m tone deaf. I’m not an opera buff but I do enjoy plays and dance. The Colleges’ ability to move into the future with certainty is dependent on having an exceptional performing arts center. Those are the projects I invest in – the ones that will push the Colleges forward.

Q: What issues dominate Board conversations?

A: Money is a challenge and that’s stayed consistent. The endowment in the early 1980s was only $8 million. Today it’s about $200 million. There are so many times in our history when the Colleges should have failed but didn’t.

We were saved by ingenuity, innovative programs like V-12 after World War II, and by the support of alums and parents. Today, we’re in a position of strength. The search for scholarship support, capital project funds and annual support, though, continues.

When the drinking age went from 19 to 21 in the mid-eighties – that changed the campus culture. I was chair at the time and there were many issues we had to deal with as a result. Now, the conversations are about Title IX and harassment. We’ve had to add extra administrators, security and counselors. Everyone wants to do the right thing and we will, but it requires conversation among the Board on the best path forward and how we can provide the kind of education our students deserve.

Q: How do you envision the Colleges in 20 years?

A: I hope we can do as much as we have during the last 20 years. We’re getting better students who are more diverse and who are coming from a greater geographic range.

Successful fundraising can help with keeping up with facilities for STEM, for example. I’m eager to see what’s accomplished.

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F

or nearly 65 years, Tom Melly’s name has been synonymous with the Colleges. His reputation as a fierce advocate for Hobart and William Smith is matched only by what his colleagues describe as a charming personality that has persuaded countless alums and parents to support HWS or serve on the Board.

“When Tom Melly asks you to lunch, prepare yourself,” jokes Trustee Christopher S. Welles ‘84, P’12, P’15, who chairs the Advancement Committee of the HWS Board.

“You will leave having committed some part of your time or philanthropy to Hobart and William Smith.”

As the senior statesman of the Board, Melly has proven to be a calming force through challenging times.

When decision-making reaches a tipping point, the Board conversation inevitably turns to one question: “What does Melly think?” He reserves his voice for moments that matter, speaking up to coax the Board into alignment and to remind everyone of the stakes – that we are educating the next generation of HWS alums, people who will go on to lead corporations, non-profit organizations, classrooms and our nation. He doesn’t dominate Board conversation; rather his perspective and love for HWS permeate every conversation.

The two spaces on campus that bear his name – The L. Thomas Melly Academic Center and the L. Thomas Melly ‘52 Lobby in Gearan Center for the Performing Arts – are places of community, where people gather for conversation, to share ideas and laughter, and to reflect on what they’ve learned. Both spaces represent who Melly is fundamentally – a person who encourages dialogue, understands the value of collaboration and believes passionately that the future of the Colleges is dependent on the continued engagement of alums and parents.

Melly’s service to HWS includes the creation of multiple scholarships, investment in the Annual Fund and support for athletics projects, as well as leadership of the Colleges’ last two capital campaigns. He served as chair of the Board for 11 years. He is credited, in partnership with William F. Scandling ’49, L.H.D. ’67, with creating the Colleges’ important planned giving initiative. Melly graduated from Hobart with a degree in economics, was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity, and played on the football and lacrosse teams. He retired as a partner from Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Snapchat As a 25-year media veteran, Suzanne Strasser Grant ’91 has held leadership roles with various television, print, and digital publishers and broadcasters.

She joined Snapchat in February 2015 as director of global agency business development. In her current role, Strasser Grant manages executive relationships with advertising agencies globally. She and her team are also responsible for developing and negotiating upfront partnerships with these agencies. Prior to joining Snapchat, Strasser Grant spent more than nine years at Google in various sales leadership roles launching and selling Google’s new advertising platforms.

Last ride was to a client meeting in NYC.

Amazing app to deal with business cards!

Last app downloaded.

Favorite shopping app.

A photo of Strasser Grant’s daughter playing on the beach.

illustration: Peggy Kowalik

1.

2.

Describe yourself in 140 characters: Luckiest, happiest and most blessed person to have a life filled with love, laughter and joy in my personal and professional worlds Number of snaps sent per day: Too many to count

3.

Favorite Snapchat story teller: It’s a tossup between John Mayer and Chelsea Handler; both hysterically funny

4.

Snapchat user we should discover: DJ Khaled

5.

Greatest number of likes received on an Instagram photo: 452

10. Passcode or fingerprint?

Password; I am old school

6.

Favorite emoji: Prayer hands

7.

Number of selfies on your camera roll: Very few. My camera roll is full of my 3 ½ year old daughter, Harper

11. People in your most active group text: My nanny (sister wife) and husband, Luke

8.

Do you accept every LinkedIn connection request?: No, I receive hundreds

9.

Title of most recent iPhone note: “End of school year party catering order”

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12. Number of unread emails on your phone: 247 13. Cities listed in weather app: Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Palm Beach and London 14. Person you FaceTime most often: My sister, Jackie

conversations 43 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

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campus

FACULTY FOCUS

L

A Conversation with the Committee on Faculty ike most liberal arts colleges and universities, Hobart and William Smith operate a

shared governance system in which the faculty body actively participates in decisionmaking, weighing in on issues from the adoption and assessment of new academic

programs to information technology resources, library services, employment matters

and the tenure process. To undertake this work, the faculty at Hobart and William Smith use a

committee structure that, although revised over the decades to meet the changing needs of the Colleges, can be traced back to at least the 1930s.

Of the 11 standing committees that make up the backbone of faculty governance at HWS,

the Committee on the Faculty (CoFac) has what is arguably the broadest mandate: oversight of the policies and practices associated with academic freedom, research, faculty workload, faculty working conditions and faculty compensation. The committee also provides input

on the budget, faculty recruitment, retention and tenure and promotion. It’s a far-reaching

agenda that takes as one of its key priorities the review of the standards and criteria of each academic program.

That work invariably leads to what Professor of Geoscience Nan Crystal Arens describes

as a “synoptic purview.” Arens, who has chaired CoFac for the past two years, sees the

committee’s charge as broadly covering anything having to do with the “life and experience of faculty…. So when we talk about the academic program, that conversation links to one about admissions and retention, to finance and the budget. CoFac makes the connections.”

Comprised of five faculty members spanning all levels of the faculty – assistant, associate

and full professor status – CoFac membership must also represent all of the Colleges’ academic areas – the humanities, social sciences, fine and performing arts, and natural sciences.

What better source, then, to get a snapshot of the kinds of conversations happening

within the faculty body.

— Catherine Williams (Note: interview occurred on March 30, 2016.)

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What is the Committee on Faculty?

Professor of Geoscience Nan Crystal Arens: We are advisory to the Provost and Dean of Faculty who comes to us to get a faculty perspective. Because of our makeup, we bring a diversity of perspectives from the faculty at large. We also have, in a very constructive way, become a sounding board for the president.

With Carolee White (vice president for finance) coming on board we’ve been, I think, a useful resource for her in talking through some of the issues that are particularly relevant for faculty.

Provost and Dean of Faculty Titilayo Ufomata: From my perspective, CoFac represents faculty interests and the work life of faculty. It negotiates on behalf of the faculty with me, the administration in general, and trustees.

Over the years, CoFac has served as a valued and valuable resource in my decision making process. They provide frank and candid feedback and also help me think through issues from a faculty standpoint.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Justin Rose: CoFac drives conversation as well. For example, CoFac has been on the forefront of discussions about diversity this year and we’ve met with other faculty and staff as well as the chaplain, provost and president. Nan and I sat on the initial Strategic Diversity Planning Committee and we brought that work to the faculty floor and put it in our reports. And we do that with any number of issues.

Arens: We did that with the Sexual Misconduct Policy. The revisions to that policy really emerged out of CoFac two years ago. There’s a level of frankness that happens within CoFac because we’re working on very different issues so we’re able to see connections that may motivate us to drive larger conversations.

TEACHING AND DIVERSITY Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies Thomas Drennen: CoFac tries to get at the following questions: How do different departments evaluate effective teaching? What does that mean? What happens when a student

Arens: Issues around diversity emerged last year with our review of the Standards and Criteria (SAC) documents. These are materials that each academic department uses during their self-assessment process. CoFac oversees that self-assessment and provides feedback to academic departments. The conversation around the table was that some academic departments and programs are doing a really good job of articulating their goals around diversity and compensating for the structural issues inherent in individual faculty reviews that may disadvantage some people. Others are not. That forced us to confront the situation and think about how we dismantle it.

Associate Professor of Philosophy Greg FrostArnold: How do we attract and retain faculty who are not only white? We’ve been doing well in some ways and not so well in others, especially when it comes to retention. That gets into how we evaluate candidates for tenure and promotion. Are we doing things in the tenure review process that inadvertently create a gap and an unfriendly or unwelcoming climate?

Drennen: Research shows that students give women lower teaching effectiveness grades.

People of color tend to get worse evaluations.

People who have accents that are not the accent of the student’s native language, get a lower evaluation. So when we, during the tenure review process, mandate that in order to get tenure, faculty must get a certain score on evaluations by students, what’s the unintended consequence? The bar’s higher for some people and that gives some an unfair advantage.

Arens: When you have faculty candidates coming forward for tenure review and the primary mechanism to evaluate their teaching is the student course evaluations, you may disadvantage some individuals over others.

Frost-Arnold: We’re trying to get each department, in their SAC document, to really consider those issues.

Drennen: And so what we want to do is make it explicit so that department overview committees have to think consciously and speak explicitly about how they understand the implicit bias that may have gone into those course evaluations.

Arens: We crafted by-law language and put it before the faculty, we discussed it and voted on it and now it’s part of our by-laws.

Ufomata: Departmental and Program SAC documents are supposed to be in alignment with the broad institutional policies on tenure and promotion. They are not supposed to supersede them; where there’s a dissonance, the broad institutional goals are supposed to prevail. CoFac is trying to ensure that SAC documents are a little more equitable in terms of how one group compares to the other. If a department doesn’t have an approved SAC document, they cannot hire, they cannot ask for a new line.

CREATING DIALOGUE What are the major issues facing the Colleges? How do you talk about them?

Rose: Nan and I sit on the Committee on Admissions and Retention, and President Gearan has made it clear that retention is an issue. The demographics in the United States are challenging. There are increasingly fewer college-aged students in the Northeast and that’s where many of our students come from. What role can faculty play, and what contributions can we make? Getting good students will lead to better retention.

Arens: That’s our revenue stream and we understand that. From my perspective, getting faculty to participate in larger strategic dialogues is vital. If we decouple who’s coming in and how we’re working on retaining them, from what goes on in a classroom, office, lab or studio, we’re not going to be able to move forward. We must all pull on the same oar.

Rose: So we’ve become a sounding board for Admissions on this issue.

Arens: From a budget perspective, we’ve had a real sea change in terms of the depth and coherence of the dialogue we’ve been able to have. Getting faculty to understand the budget is going to be an incremental process, but it’s important for us to understand where we need to contribute.

Rose: And you can’t talk about the budget without talking about admissions and retention.

Arens: You can’t talk about salaries without talking about budget, which then gets you talking about admissions and retention. You can’t talk about academic budgets without talking about mission and diversity; it’s all interrelated. We’ve been trying to get people to think from that interrelated perspective.

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Nan Crystal Arens

Professor of Geoscience Chair of CoFac (July 2014 – June 2016) • Joined HWS in 2001 • B.S and M.S., Pennsylvania State University • M.A. and Ph.D., Harvard University • Awarded the HWS Civically Engaged Faculty award for exemplary scholarship, community partnerships and commitment to service learning • Recipient of the Faculty Scholarship Award • Research examines the evolution of terrestrial environments and the interplay between physical environmental change (e.g., climate and atmosphere) and changes in community composition and structure

Titilayo Ufomata

Provost and Dean of Faculty Ex offico member of CoFac Joined HWS in 2012 • B.A. and M.A., University of Ibadan, Nigeria • M.A. and Ph.D., University College London • Recipient of the Fulbright International Education Administrator Award in France, the visiting fellowship of the British Academy, Commonwealth Academic Staff scholarship, and the American International Visitor Fellowship.

• Scholarship focuses on the intersection of language, immigration, identity and gender with a special emphasis on Africa

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does an evaluation of a faculty member and gives that faculty all ‘ones’ or all ‘fives’? How do different departments treat that? How do we effectively perform classroom observations of our colleagues to make sure that our teachers are doing the best job possible?

CITIZENSHIP AND THE STEP SYSTEM How does CoFac help build a better HWS?

Justin Rose

Assistant Professor of Political Science Joined HWS in 2013 • B. A., Rutgers University- New Brunswick • M.A., Baylor University • Ph.D., University of Virginia • Discussion leader for HWS Impact, an HWS social justice organization • Research focuses on the political thought of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He’s currently working on his book project, The Drum Major Instinct: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s Theory of Political Service

Rose: Our goal as faculty members is to try to create better citizens. We’re members of a community and part of a democratic community is having discourse, is agreeing to disagree sometimes, but to keep raising the normative questions and to keep trying to strive toward being better individuals. And so we do have these governing mechanisms but our preferred choice is to have discourse and to call ourselves to our better selves.

Arens: We’re telling our students that they need to be good citizens and affect positive change, to have informed discourse and treat people with respect. Those are the kinds of values that we want our students to espouse and I feel like if we don’t model that behavior, if we’re not engaged in that kind of discourse, if we’re not invested in that kind of community change, then we have no credibility.

Ufomata: Keep in mind that the underlying philosophical ethos of this place is egalitarianism and that’s why we have the step system.

Explain the step system.

Tom Drennen

Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies Chair of Entrepreneurial Studies Chair-Elect of CoFac (July 2016 – June 2018) • Joined HWS in 1997 • B.S., MIT • M.A., University of Minnesota • Ph.D., Cornell University • Serves as co-chair of the President’s Climate Task Force overseeing sustainability initiatives on campus; created the Sustainable Living and Learning Community program • Senior economist at Sandia National Labs • Recipient of the HWS Faculty Teaching Award.

• Research interweaves economics with environmental studies with an emphasis on interactive computer models that explain the relationship between energy use and climate change

Ufomata: Faculty members who come to HWS with the same number of years of experience post terminal degrees receive the same salary.

The faculty salary scale defines all steps relative to the base salary of an assistant professor.

In essence, the system rewards longevity of experience.

Drennen: We’re very different from most schools in that way. At HWS, somebody coming in with a Ph.D. in English makes the same as somebody coming in with a Ph.D. in economics or physics.

Does the concept of the step-system ever emerge as a point of conversation within the faculty?

Drennen: It’s a sacred cow to the faculty. The trustees ask me every year: ‘Why do you want the step system? Why wouldn’t you want a merit-based pay system?’

Arens: In the step system, everyone gets paid the same for the same number of years of service.

Drennen: And the real benefit of the system is that it removes any jealousies between fields and just simplifies the process of annual raises; everyone is treated the same.

46 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

So there’s a love of the egalitarianism of the step system – that it’s a part of the Colleges’ ethos. But are there also tensions?

Frost-Arnold: Yes, I think so.

Arens: The academy is intrinsically hierarchical in every possible way: first-year students versus seniors; assistant, associate and full professors; associate vice president or vice president.

But the people who are drawn to the liberal arts environment are also intrinsically highminded, devoted to notions of equality and egalitarianism as we understand them.

Drennen: This ties back into the SAC documents – how do you govern if you’re just asking questions and making suggestions?

CoFac is an incubator for the by-law ordinances.

And the faculty by-laws govern the SAC documents. So the way we make actual change— the way we actually govern—is we propose by-laws to the faculty as a whole, and they either vote them up or vote them down.

Arens: And the way we stimulate conversation is through a by-law because that generates a faculty-wide conversation.

CREATING AN EVEN STRONGER HWS As a group, do you talk about what could make the Colleges a stronger academic community?

Arens: We will be a stronger HWS if we have a more diverse student body. And we will be a stronger HWS if we have more diverse staff and faculty at all levels.

Drennen: We will be a stronger HWS if we can recruit the best possible candidates for faculty positions. That’s really important.

Arens: And hang on to them. We will be a stronger HWS if we learn how to have respect, to have hard conversations that are respectful.

We must address the really difficult issues and have serious, hard conversations where we’re honest with one another.

Rose: To our credit—and maybe I’m being naïve in this—but I feel like as a community, we’ve been pretty good about having the difficult conversations. So the conversations around diversity could’ve gone sour fast. Conversations around the budget thus far have been really good.

Arens: We had a lot of hard conversations about sexual assault and I think we did a good, honest job with it. And Tom has led the conversation on the budget in ways that have been very constructive. The diversity conversation has been broad and wide-ranging.

Hard stuff was said and it was heard. I agree with Justin: it could have gone badly but it didn’t. We’ve taken a quantum leap.

core, the student experience, and what we value as an institution….

It’s difficult to navigate those things.

What I enjoy about this process and about CoFac is that as a junior faculty member, I’ve learned more about the institution in the weeks that I’ve been on CoFac than the five years that I’ve been here.

Drennen: Everybody – all the faculty, all the administration and all the staff – care about the future of this place. And so that’s why I think we can have, in the long run, a positive conversation.

Olivieri: And having Nan and Tom on this committee, sometimes I just sit back and absorb everything like a sponge. It’s really taught me how to have meaningful conversations and how to talk about these sometimes very difficult subjects.

Drennen: That’s where we’re also so different from a modern company or a corporation.

When faculty come here, we come here to stay our whole lives. We’re not looking to come for two years and leave. We’ve decided to spend our career at HWS, and so you want it to be a good place.

Arens: To build the kind of community we want, we have to be intentional about how we think through the implications of one approach to a conversation over another.

A few years ago, Susan Pliner (the director of the Centennial Center for Leadership and the Center for Teaching and Learning), hosted a community read of the book Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott ’67. The thing that I learned and reflected on is to be intentional about the conversations you’re having; I really need to think about who I’m talking to, what they are going to hear, what they are not going to hear. I need to be intentional in the way I interject myself into conversations. What works for one group of people might not for another. I try to think about how I can tailor what I want them to hear or what I need them to hear to what their ears are willing to take.

Assistant Professor of Music Mark Olivieri: The admissions and retention issue, finding a way to bring in the kind of students that will affect the institution in a positive way, issues such as the budget, finding meaningful ways to negotiate without compromising what’s at our

Arens: Tom and I have very different approaches to things but we care about the students and the Colleges. That motivates us to sit down and talk through our issues. And Tom has influenced my opinion on things, from his different perspective.

Associate Professor of Philosophy Joined HWS in 2009 • B.A., University of Chicago • M.A. and Ph. D., University of Pittsburgh • Specializes in the philosophy of science, history of analytic philosophy, and logic • Associate editor for Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy • Former faculty chair for HWS student organization Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault

Frost-Arnold: Like in a class, the kinds of conversations we have mean that we are always pushing different sliders. When I teach a class on composition, I’m talking about nuts and bolts stuff and about the creative process, but I’m also talking about history and analysis. CoFac operates the same way. So we have this social justice issue and issues of diversity but we’re also talking about the budget. It’s complex.

Rose: This group, because of our care for the institution, because of our respect for one another and for the faculty as a whole, this has been a very productive and enjoyable experience.

Drennen: I don’t think we ever walk out mad at each other.

Arens: Nope.

Rose: And given the contentious issues that we deal with, that could be a weekly occurrence.

Arens: We are all committed to the quality of the dialogue. And because we are committed to the quality of the dialogue, we’re willing to be honest with one another—and I think we have been. You can disagree and just have it be a disagreement. And that’s okay.

Rose: And our egos are not tied up on this. We want to create an even better place.

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Arens: That’s true. That was my experience around the sexual violence conversation and in the wake of The New York Times article. We were able to come together and support one another because we all deeply care about the institution, about our role in it, and about its future.

Rose: Oh yeah, without a doubt.

Greg Frost-Arnold

Mark Olivieri

Assistant Professor of Music Joined HWS in 2010 • Ph.D., The University of Buffalo • M.M., Ithaca College Music Conservatory • B.M., Heidelberg College • Artistic Director of Vision of Sound New Music and Dance Festival and Co-Artistic Director of Be Here Now Ensemble • Research involves the study of fusion of rock and jazz in contemporary concert music, musical quotations in contemporary music, musical cognition and perception, and the bridging of musical forms and analysis with music of antiquity

A THOUSAND WORDS 2016 SPRING STUDENT ART SHOW | photo: DANNY HASTINGS ’16

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Student Editor’s Note: I am frequently asked by alums and parents to reflect on the campus conversation – what are students talking about? What’s important to them?

So I sat down with 15 students, some of whom I knew in advance and others I had never met.

Consistent with the theme of this magazine, I specifically asked them about campus conversations.

Without exception, students were thoughtful in their responses.

These are young people thinking seriously about their identities and their careers, and how they define a life of consequence.

They were open about their disappointments – the desire for more inclusion campus-wide, for example. Others talked about their personal struggles and how those have influenced their view of our community.

What came through clearly: their gratitude for their education, their knowledge that in voicing their opinions that change can happen, and their excitement for the future.

Kimberly Gutierrez ’17 Los Angeles, Calif.

Double major in sociology and women’s studies, minor in public policy; intern in Creative and Story Department at Warner Bros. Pictures; president of William Smith Congress; president of Women’s Collective; member of the first Posse cohort at HWS; member of the Race and Racism Coalition; vice president of PeaceAction@HWS; member of social justice theatre troupe Mosaic; led effort to establish HWS Career Closet; ran a youth leadership college at a local Geneva school; will travel to South Africa as part of the Beyond Borders global leadership program

Although the students profiled here do not represent every viewpoint of the student body, they do provide a snapshot of the campus conversation. ­

—Catherine Williams Editor, Vice President for Communications PHOTOS BY KEVIN COLTON, CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Long Beach, Calif.

Double major in LGBT studies and women’s studies; Druid; secretary of Hobart Student Government; member of the first Posse cohort at HWS; studied abroad in Vietnam; member of Koshare Dance Collective, Queer People of Color House, Sexual Violence Task Force, Interim Sexual Misconduct Policy Working Group and Budget Allocation Committee; research assistant at HWS Center for Teaching and Learning; assistant program coordinator for Pride Center of Vermont

ABOUT POSSE: In 2012, HWS established a partnership with Posse, one of the most successful college access and youth leadership development programs in the country. Ten students go to college together to act as a support system for one another, bolstering collegiate success and graduation rates. The Colleges have three Posse cohorts on campus, all from Los Angeles.

51 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

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Vincent Creer ’17

VC: We are best friends.

KG: We met officially during the third round of the Posse application process. We sat next to each other and talked about dorms.

VG: We hit it off.

KG: It was a nerve-racking day of interviews and I remember going home and telling my mother that I met a friend.

VG: Then we both were selected for HWS. KG: During Orientation, Amy Forbes had an event in the Centennial Center for Leadership. This became our place.

VC: Every weekday, you can find us here.

We debrief on our day and dive into our work. We call it ‘Real Talk.’

KG: This entire campus – it’s strange to me.

I’m from a city with a Hispanic population.

The first night I was here – there were no cars, no air planes, no horns. Nothing was the same. The language wasn’t the same.

VC: Kim is what made me feel connected.

If I didn’t have Kim, I don’t know what I would have done. I thought I wanted to be an architect or engineer. My first semester, I pretended I was into it but honestly, I didn’t like it at all.

KG: We’ve been working through that.

VC: And Kim is going to law school.

KG: I’m thinking about it. I was blessed with first-year classes that met my interests. In class, we had conversations about gender and social norms. This was the first time I found a space where my experiences as a woman of color were validated.

VC: My classes changed my trajectory. Before, school had never been a place to learn about identity. But taking a class on, for example, the history of marginalized groups, was extraordinary.

KG: I was raised to believe that the only person you have is yourself. I see some value in that perspective but there are drawbacks. I now find hope in the collective. I find hope through people coming together, talking about change and mobilizing.

VC: When I came to the Colleges, I knew I was gay. My family was cool with that but I worried about whether or not HWS would be able to support me. I find classes that look at sexuality, gender identity and race to be very healing.

KG: I agree.

VC: We are building community but the conversations at HWS are not intersectional. When I go to the Pride Alliance meetings, I’m the only person of color. When I go to Sankofa meetings, I’m the only queer person. It can be frustrating. Sometimes, you need someone who will just hug you and listen.

KG: That’s who you are for me.

VC: And that’s who you are for me.

Amanda Walker ’16

Jeff Rizza ’16

Graduate student in landscape architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design; double major in architectural studies and art history; took a gap year between high school (Hotchkiss School) and HWS to live and work in Naples, Italy; studied abroad for two semesters in Copenhagen, Denmark and Rome, Italy; had three summer internships in architecture and engineering; member of the Art History Society, the Arts Collective Fashion Show and the Architectural Studies Society; worked in Admissions

Graduate student in HWS master’s in teaching program; double major in physics and environmental studies, minor in geoscience; Druid; Phi Beta Kappa; 2016 winner of the Stu Lieblein ’90 Pitch Contest for his proposed business, “Future Farms;” former co-chair of Campus Greens; Outdoor Recreation and Adventure Program guide; president of Badminton Club; recipient of the Durfee Award and the Albert Holland Prize; member of the HWS RockSat-C team that designed, built and launched a rocket payload; member of HWS team that took first prize in the NASA/Montana National Student Solar Spectroscopy Competition; teaching fellow for physics; quantitative reasoning fellow for Center for Teaching and Learning; resident assistant in the Sustainable Living and Learning First-Year Community; participated in storm chasing trip with members of the Geoscience Department: “A lot of sciences are old sciences but meteorology is one of the few new sciences where there are so many unanswered questions.”

Kingston, Jamaica

New Paltz, N.Y.

The collection of experiences I’ve had at HWS – on campus and abroad – has given me confidence in myself as a designer.

With the guidance and support of my advisers and the Center for Global Education staff, I was able to study abroad for two consecutive semesters. That was life-changing. Jamaica is, fundamentally, a classist place. There are walls and gates everywhere. To gain access to outdoor recreation areas, you have to be admitted – you have to be able to afford it. In Europe, the landscape is open and this creates social sustainability. The High Line in New York City is like that as well. Of all the cities I visited, Barcelona was among the most interesting. The way the city is laid out, the walkable tree-lined streets, the scale of the buildings, the combination of Roman structures alongside modern buildings – all makes the streetscape a destination for all people.

The campus conversation has been about space and the need for us to reevaluate how our spaces are set up. This is a campus where spaces are socially constructed – the Hill for women, the Quad for men, the IC House for diversity, Main Street for fraternities. The biggest change we’re going to see in the upcoming year will emerge when an old building on campus – one that is traditionally male – is used in a new way.

When Medbery Residence Hall goes co-ed this fall, the social construction of campus will begin to evolve. The Quad – the very heart of campus – will become everyone’s back yard.

I’ve always been interested in environmental issues. I’m from a rural and outdoorsy community where there is a lot of agriculture going on. I was surrounded by farming growing up, but I wanted to come at it from a different angle. A “Future Farm” is an energy efficient greenhouse that combines vertical growing techniques with aquaponics to grow produce year-round. A combination of aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (growing plants without soil), it works like a miniature ecosystem. Compared to conventional methods, it uses 90 percent less water and can grow more, higher-quality, affordable produce in a much smaller area. After graduation, I’ll be using the $10,000 Pitch grant to create the first Future Farm near my hometown.

While on campus I sometimes feel as though there isn’t enough conversation happening about the things that I see as important topics – issues of sustainability and the use of Fribolin Farm, for example.

We’ve made a huge commitment to go carbon neutral by 2025.

Focusing on how we can best make use of things like the Fribolin Farm would help us meet that goal. More broadly, I think we could latch on to sustainability as a defining characteristic of our campus community.

52 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Zachary Grattan ’17

Virginia DeWees ’16

Double major in international relations and religious studies; Phi Beta Kappa; Student Trustee; member of the Hobart basketball team; twotime member of the Liberty League All-Academic Team; recipient of the Arnold Scholar-Athlete Award and the Bowman Internship Award for leadership and civic engagement; treasurer of Hobart for Equality and Respect; went abroad to Japan as part of the Technos program; studied abroad in Leipzig, Germany, funded by the Julius G. Blocker ’53 Endowed Fund I was recruited to play basketball but it was the Blackwell Room that sold me. The color in here has character. I’ve since learned that this room cultivates creativity. It’s where I do all my work. I’ve had 12-page papers that, in this space, have easily turned into 20 page papers.

I grew up in a Christian household but I didn’t feel comfortable with the concept of predestination. I wanted to open my mind to possibilities. I’ve had amazing courses here, incredible professors and remarkable abroad experiences. I’d like to pursue a Ph.D., continue to learn and eventually teach. Being in the classroom is where I am most myself, where I am most comfortable.

The New York Times article and the very serious way in which we as a community handled that situation and other issues facing higher education like race and class, have changed our community.

Some of that change is for the better and some is not. The campus conversation, I think, is about these changes and their sometimes unintended consequences. There are very few things that students have control over – generally just our social lives. At HWS and at colleges across the country, opportunities for students to have control are dwindling. When parties and social life go behind closed doors, you stigmatize them.

Recipient of a 2016-17 Fulbright to Malaysia; double major in writing and rhetoric and educational leadership; former Breakthrough Collaborative teaching fellow; writing colleague on campus and at Five Points Prison; studied abroad in New Zealand; vice president of the HWS Pride Alliance; student ambassador for the campus PLEN chapter; founder of the Leadership League of Women; co-chair of Campus Greens; honors in education; attended a Quaker school K-12 and, as part of the Quaker tradition, estimates she has spent more than 100 hours in silent reflection; she credits her dog, Georgia, with keeping her focused and calm I was drawn to HWS because of the emphasis on global citizenship and civic engagement. That spoke to me. I am passionate about education, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, youth empowerment and cultural competence, specifically within education. My first year was hard. I was just coming out as a queer woman and I felt strongly that I needed to “humble down” and find out who I am. Being abroad in New Zealand and teaching in a diverse classroom there confirmed that education is my calling. I returned to HWS and fell in love with campus and with everyone on it. I was on a high – high on life because New Zealand just grounded me. I learned who I am and what I want to study. And studying what I love has been the most interesting, gratifying and humbling experience I’ve ever had.

It’s a privilege.

For me, the campus conversation is one of social justice and how we can make this campus more supportive of diverse identities – for people who identify as queer, people of color, people with a disability, people who have a gender variant identity. A day doesn’t go by when I am not engaged in this conversation in some way with other students and faculty. We need more space for everyone. A social justice center, a space focused on providing resources for all people, a safe space – that would be super rad.

53 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

F E AT U R E

Wilmington, Del.

Weare, N.H.

Almamy Conde ’18 Bronx, N.Y.

Major in economics; linebacker for Hobart football; one of four finalists in the 2016 Stu Lieblein ‘90 Pitch Contest for his idea for “SmartHunter,” a free website that analyzes apartment listings in urban areas, giving consumers the ability to view apartments using virtual reality technology; became a licensed real estate agent at age 18 I’m not giving up on SmartHunter. Even though I didn’t win The Pitch, I made it all the way to the finals and that process – working with alum mentors and with the Centennial Center for Leadership, presenting in front of hundreds of students and judges – has just made me more passionate about the idea. SmartHunter will be the first of many businesses I create.

I’m from an environment where you don’t see a lot of successful, independent businessmen and women. Every kid wants to play football, basketball or be an entertainer. I want to show kids from my neighborhood that the world has more to offer.

When I found HWS, I thought to myself, these are the kids I want to be like – smart, focused, successful. At another school, I might just be a football player, but at Hobart, I’m getting an incredible education.

The campus conversation is about equality. There are times when it feels like there aren’t enough African American people on campus. And there aren’t enough black students in economics. It’s hard but it keeps me going. I’m representing and it motivates me. I hope that other students of color see me and think that if I can do economics, they can too. I have a fire burning inside of me; I’d bet on me every time.

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Connor May ’16

Afrika Owes ’16

New York, N.Y.

Analyst at Nielsen Catalina Solutions; major in media & society, double minor in economics and theatre; president of Kappa Alpha Society; treasurer of the Inter-Fraternity Council; delivered the 2016 Hobart Commencement Address; member of the Stewardson Society Executive Committee; interned at 2adpro in India

Recipient of a 2016-17 Fulbright to South Africa; major in sociology, double minor in Africana studies and public policy; member of Hai Timiai; president of Sankofa, the Black Student Union; student worker in IT Services; writing colleague; resident assistant; studied abroad in South Africa; co-chair of the Stewardson Society

As a teenager, I had a problem with drugs and alcohol. I came to Hobart with three months clean but relapsed. I blamed the Colleges and Geneva; I was convinced that HWS was the root of my problem and that I had to find the solution elsewhere. Trustee Tom Poole ’61, P’91, L.H.D. ’06, who I think of as an honorary grandfather, took me to dinner. He was having none of it. For every criticism I had, he had a rebuttal. By the end of dinner, I was committed to staying. I wanted to get better, to be happy. I struggled academically that first year due to my situation. I’ve been sober since October 7, 2012. Sticking it out and using HWS as a resource was one of the best decisions I ever made.

When I arrived, I actively sought a community on campus and found it in the culture clubs. Intercultural Affairs became my home. My first-year seminar was “Hip-Hop Culture” with Assistant Professor of Music Mark Olivieri. What an amazing class; I was writing papers on Kanye West and the politics of rap. I followed that with courses on race, gender and sociology.

As a sober kid, you wouldn’t think fraternity life would be something I’d be attracted to, but KA has been the best thing for me. I’m good at making budgets and at managing people and projects.

And because of what I’ve gone through, I’ve got experience having uncomfortable conversations. There have been uncomfortable conversations happening on campus and we’ve tackled them head on. One of them is about fraternities. People base their opinions of fraternities on what they experience on a Friday or Saturday night.

Come see what we’re about every other day of the week. Fraternities have the potential to do good things, to partner with other student groups to create a better community. Fraternities pride themselves on philanthropy but I also recognize that there’s a disconnect between the amount of time we talk about service and the actual service we are doing. We’ve been working to change that. Nationally, fraternities are in a collective hole. At HWS, we have the tools to rectify the situation if we want to do so. We have to light a fire, get to work and fix the things that need to be fixed.

I don’t think I knew the strength of my voice until I helped organize the student protest in November 2015. We had a walkout to show support for students at the University of Missouri, to create dialogue, and to support marginalized people on campus. People started listening to me, focusing on my voice. I understood that I needed to be more concise and precise, to say what I mean with clarity. A great leader inspires others and that’s what I want to do – to keep on the cycle of change.

So many people came to that protest – students, faculty, administrators. It could have gotten messy but we had support from the community. Our president is welcoming and open and people are willing to listen. There’s a new sense of accountability. This is beyond a race issue and instead involves fraternities, policies and student life as a whole. The campus conversation over the past four years has been about finding a sense of balance, of feeling like we belong.

HWS has set the example for other schools on how to move forward on difficult issues. We are responding and doing good work here.

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F E AT U R E

New York, N.Y.

Caroline Conboy ’17 Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Major in psychology and minors in education and child advocacy; president of Outdoor Recreation Adventure Program; co-president of the College Experience Outreach Club; lived in Geneva 2020 Theme House; member of Big Brothers Big Sisters; member of the William Smith Swimming and Diving team: during the 2016 season, produced 15 record-breaking swims; at the NCAA Championships, earned All-American honors with an eighth place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke; 2016 CSCAA Scholar All-American; member of the 2016 UNYSCSA and Liberty League all-academic teams I’ve been on a swim team since I was in the fourth grade.

I’m passionate about the sport and, since I arrived at HWS, I’ve learned that I’m passionate about inclusion and advocacy for people with disabilities. I like working with kids who need attention, who need someone to give them a platform so they can speak up for themselves. The Colleges have allowed me to be involved in both. I spent part of the past two springs working at the Geneva YMCA with the local Special Olympics Team. There’s a joy in the athletes and in the stands that you don’t see elsewhere.

Students arrive at HWS as members of the Geneva community. Our lives are enriched by being involved in Geneva and we have a responsibility to give back. I’ve been lucky to be in the education program, so I’ve worked in a number of local schools. On campus, I’m the co-president of the College Experience Outreach Club. The Ontario County ARC College Experience program brings students with developmental disabilities to campus as members of the HWS community. Students attend classes, clubs and athletic events. And when they earn their College Experience certificate, they walk across the stage at Commencement.

It’s one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had at HWS. From my perspective, the campus conversation has been about diversity and inclusion, and more broadly about ensuring that all students are involved in the community in some way.

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Nicole O’Connell ’16

Shaakir McIntosh-Samuel ’16

Major in international relations and minor in biology; Student Trustee; student representative to Fraternity Review project and Judicial Review Board; participated in Clinton Global Initiative University; orientation leader; member of William Smith Congress, Women’s Collective, Koshare Dance Collective and Sexual Violence Task Force; marketing intern at Corning Inc.; studied abroad in Australia; member of Hai Timiai and Laural Society; worked in Admissions and Career Services; recipient of the Congressional Recognition for Youth Leadership and Service Award; Chair of Relay for Life; volunteer for numerous local organizations including Community Lunch Program, Geneva Assisted Living Center and the Boys & Girls Club, among others I went to a Catholic elementary school and wearing a flower in my hair was a way to differentiate myself. When I got to college, I thought – you know, I’ll be meeting 2,000 new people and there’s no way they will remember my name. But they will remember the girl with the flower in her hair. I think that helped me in the trustee election. Students knew me.

I have taken advantage of every possible opportunity here. I’ve been in dozens of clubs and community outreach programs. I spend my day in classes and meetings. As a campus leader, there’s pressure to always be on. I am careful because anything I say in a meeting could cause an inadvertent ripple. This year, I got into running half marathons and it’s been a lifesaver. Running by the lake relaxes me.

On campus, we are in a transition period. The conversations among students are as wide-ranging as what you see on the news – politics, social justice, sexual violence, terrorism. We have spent time talking about the coordinate system and the equity of our traditions and diplomas. Maybe it’s because it’s the end of the semester, but I think that students are tired of talking, of having conversations, and instead want action. The question is – what action do we want?

Major in biology and minor in health professions; Prime Minister of the Caribbean Student Association; member of the HWS Emergency Medical Services team; former resident assistant; member of H3O Society; member of the Orange Key Society and Chimera; recipient of the Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Leadership; studied abroad in Scotland; twin siblings Shaahida Samuel ’19 and Shaamar Samuel ’19 are both rising sophomores I’ve always been independent and I’m a naturally happy person; my hashtag for life should be #goodvibes. Even though I went to Hotchkiss, when I came to Hobart, I didn’t know what to expect.

The Vineyard Vines, the red pants, the boat shoes…this whole world. But the real culture shock was having my own room. I was sharing with my siblings and then at boarding school with my classmates. I always thought about it as a huge sleepover with my best friends.

In high school, I discovered that I have a knack for science. I like working together in collaboration with other people, and the body is like that – it’s a collaboration of cells working together. My plan now is to complete a post-Baccalaureate pre-med program before I apply to medical school. I want to hone my skills.

At Hobart, I’ve been lucky to take amazing classes on race and diversity. My first-year seminar, “Seeing Whiteness” with Associate Professor of English Anna Creadick, was instrumental in helping me to understand identity, social justice and perspective. That class changed the way I had conversations. Fundamentally, the campus conversation and the campus culture have changed since I was a first year student. It’s happening on college campuses across the country. Social media like Snapchat and Yik Yak can drive conversations. Now we’ve got to work hard – in collaboration – to find our way through and be the community we aspire to.

57 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

F E AT U R E

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Corning, N.Y.

Sean Burke ’18 Wayzata, Minn.

Major in media & society; 2016 photographer for Vineyard Vines (first assignment: the Kentucky Derby); former assistant creative director at Kiel James Patrick (KJP); member of the HWS Sailing Team and the HWS String Ensemble; social media savant with 50K followers on Instagram (@seangaleburke) The summer after my first-year, I had an internship with Kiel James Patrick that turned into a full time job. I took a year off from Hobart to do it, and that changed my perspective and academic goals.

All of KJP’s advertising and promotions are social media based. I learned how to develop a social media strategy and worked with brands like L.L. Bean, Brooks Brothers and Ralph Lauren. In the field, I learned from successful entrepreneurs, designers and photographers but I also realized the importance of a formal education and having an economics or finance background. I returned to Hobart with a better idea of what I want to learn.

My worldview has been changed by classes at HWS, classes in feminist philosophy, LGBTQ studies and ones on creative movement and thought. I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and really learn. These are the classes where I don’t have an A, but they are the ones that have challenged me and, I hope, made me a better person.

The Colleges are at a pivotal point in our history.

We have fairly conservative, traditional roots. We need to pivot to more broadly encompass race and gender. It would be easy for a school this small to brush these issues aside; that’s not happening. The challenges facing higher education have sparked conversation on campus and brought us closer together. This is a community where students respect one another. When you compare us to other, larger colleges and universities, we are doing more and we are better.

58 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Alison Ware ’16

Danny Schonning ’16 Double major in English and comparative literature, minor in international relations; studied abroad in Jordan; former Syria Crisis Response intern at United Nations Relief and Works Agency; former intern at Middle East Research and Information Project; president of the Debate Team, which took him to India, China, Malaysia and Greece; Editor-in-Chief of The Herald; co-president of HWS for Informed Democracy; Honors in English

First-year analyst at J.P. Morgan in the Investment Grade Finance group; double major in economics and international relations, summa cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa; co-captain of the HWS Alpine Ski Team; economics teaching fellow; writing colleague; studied abroad in Argentina; on twin brother, Patrick ’16: “My finest characteristics are because of him. He’s my best friend.”

I became interested in economics when I was in ninth grade and the stock market crashed. I wanted to understand the bigger picture of how the economy works and what my dad was reading in the Wall Street Journal every day. My first-year seminar at HWS, “Why Aren’t All Countries Rich,” challenged my beliefs. What stands in the way of countries achieving growth and prosperity?

Do we have a moral responsibility to assist countries out of poverty? That course and my curiosity to understand the workings of the world beyond the classroom walls were the reasons I pursued an economics major. Economics is a broad major that opens the door to many career options. The more I investigated the possibilities, the more I understood that banking was the right place for me.

The Debate Team is the best experience I’ve had at HWS. It has taught me to think through arguments, to think on my feet and to speak coherently. The thought experiments required of debate attract engaged students and the travel has meant that I’ve become friends with students around the world.

I recently wrote a piece in The Herald on the new alcohol policy which, as it stands, seems officious. It requires that student parties have outside caterers to serve alcohol. It’s very expensive so parties are now going underground without supervision. The broader conversation on campus is the search for social space for students – spaces that are female-driven or LGBTQ driven. Spaces where students can gather for conversations.

Meeting Eric Stein ‘89, head of North American Investment Banking for J.P. Morgan, during a Career Services trip to New York City, solidified my desire to try banking. He has been an incredible mentor. My internship with J.P. Morgan was like a summer-long job interview and I was thrilled to get an offer of work after graduation.

The things that drew me to Hobart – the faculty who are immensely qualified, the small size and quality of the classes, the talented students, the administration which is tremendously responsive to students, a president who listens – those things are here. No campus culture is perfect but the social culture at HWS has been significant in making my experience here a good one.

There’s a humanity at HWS and an expectation that we will go into the world and do good things.

There is a conversation happening on campus, one about politics, class and gender. Economics is one of the largest majors at HWS but it’s predominantly male and conservative. The classroom conversations sometimes reflect that stereotype but women are becoming increasingly more vocal and interested in economics, changing the dialogue of the classroom and the field itself. I’ve learned it is essential to look at economics through different political, gender and global perspectives and hope to keep those perspectives as I capitalize on my economics education in the ‘real world.’ ​​

59 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

F E AT U R E

Harvard, Mass.

Ridgefield, Conn.

HWS

COMMUNITY fanfare • honors • awards • celebrations

SEE PHOTOS, VIDEOS, SOCIAL MEDIA COVERAGE AND STORIES AT WWW.HWS.EDU/REUNION.

photo: KRISTINE VANN ’18

T

his year’s Reunion stands as one of the most impressive Members of the Classes of 1966. in the history of Hobart and William Smith. We welcomed back more than 1,200 people, including alums representing 50 class years and returning from as far away as Russia, Guatemala, England and Italy.

2016

Classes of ‘66 • Broke a five-year giving total for a 50th Reunion raising more than $10.5 million since their 45th.

• 39% returned for the weekend, the largest percentage of classmates returning of all classes.

• In honor of their extraordinary accomplishments and contributions, the Classes of ’66 were collectively awarded The President’s Medal, the first time in HWS history that an entire class has received the award.

92 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Honors • In addition to presenting nine citations and two Young Alumnus Awards, The Hobart Alumni Association conferred two Distinguished Service Awards to Eric Lax ’66, L.H.D. ’93 and John E. Norvell ’66, P’99, P’02.

• The William Smith Alumnae Association presented six citations and three Young Alumna Awards as well as the Elizabeth Herendeen Odell Award to Katherine D. Elliott ’66, L.H.D. ’08.

The Distinguished Faculty Award was given to three alums turned HWS faculty members who were honored for their outstanding contributions as teachers, mentors and scholars:

Roger Farrand ‘49, P’78 Professor Emeritus of English

Lois F. Nellis ‘46 Professor Emerita of Biology

Ann B. Oaks ‘74, P’84, P’85, P’89 Professor Emerita of Mathematics

Other Highlights • Golf outing with Actor Christopher McDonald ’77, L.H.D. ’13, a.k.a “Shooter McGavin.”

• Tours of Gearan Center for the Performing Arts.

• Class-specific celebrations at Geneva restaurants and bars (Ma says hello).

• The “Oaks Tent,” food trucks, a clam bake, BBQs, ice cream social and so much more.

In Memory

• Dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial honoring four alumni and one member of the faculty who lost their lives in the war.

• Lakeside memorial services in remembrance of members of the Classes of 1981 and 1991 who have passed away.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! Your generous support of the Annual Fund helps the Colleges as we prepare students to lead lives of consequence, and you demonstrated that you believe their futures are worth the investment. Thanks to you, the Annual Fund achieved a record breaking year.

$

6,304

The largest number of alumni and alumnae donors in the last 15 years – 30% participation.

3,752,094

76

The number of HWS classes that gave to the Annual Fund this year– as far back as 1934.

ELLIOTT CHALLENGE

Trustee Katherine D. Elliott ‘66 L.H.D. ‘08 generously offered $500,000 to the Colleges if HWS reached 6,000 donors by May 31.

Whether you are passionate about the arts, revved up about athletics, or inspired by civic leadership, you stepped up to the challenge, securing an additional $500,000 for our students.

2,141

The total amount invested in the Annual Fund this fiscal year – the most in HWS history.

THE ROSENBERG CHALLENGE

For every recurring gift that was made in the spring of 2016 by Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD), Honorary Trustee Henry A. Rosenberg, Jr. ’52, L.H.D. ’02 matched the gift with a $500 contribution to the Annual Fund up to $50,000.

With an original goal of 100 GOLD donors, young alums exceeded the challenge and generously supported the Annual Fund.

Total number of alumni and alumnae donors between May 1 and May 31 – The most donors in any one month in the Colleges’ history.

1,713

The number of individual gifts made during our Athletics Day of Donors, the most gifts received in one day in the Colleges’ history.

20%

The percentage of recurring gifts from GOLD donors giving for the first time.

SUPPORT HWS A Gift by Phone

1-877-HWS-GIFT A gift instantly and securely online.

www.hws.edu/ onlinegiving

93 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

A Gift by Mail

Send check to: Office of Advancement 300 Pulteney Street Geneva, NY 14456

HWS COMMUNITY

Class Acts • Classes of 1981 broke several records for a 35th Reunion including boasting the largest five-year giving, annual giving and number of classmates attending.

• Classes of 1991 set an all-time record for attendance at a 25th Reunion, and the largest Annual Giving total for Alums on Parade. those celebrating a 25th.

• Classes of 2011 had the largest number of class members returning with about 150 in attendance.

HWS

EVENTS

From box seats behind home plate to iced drinks by the ocean, join HWS for some summer fun.

August

THURSDAY

August 4

Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

SUNDAY

July 24 THURSDAY

July 21

6 - 8 p.m.

Hosted by Jane Blum Ebby ’84 and David Ebby P’18; former Trustee Ellen Unterberg Celli ’85 and Andrew Celli ’87 Special guest: President Mark D. Gearan

Wayzata, Minnesota

3 - 5 p.m.

Hosted by Mark and Laurie Headrick P’19

Cohasset, Massachusetts 6 - 8 p.m.

Hosted by William ’90 and Melissa Tierney P’20 Cohasset Lightkeepers House, Bancroft Hall 15 Lighthouse Lane Special guest: President Mark D. Gearan

SATURDAY,

August 6

Boothbay, Maine Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

SUNDAY

SATURDAY

July 23 Westhampton, New York

6 – 8 p.m.

Hosted by Trustee Thomas ’61, L.H.D. ‘06 and MaryJane Poole P’91 Westhampton Beach, New York Special guests: President Mark D. Gearan, Board Chair Thomas S. Bozzuto ’68

July 24

Baltimore, Maryland 12 noon Day at the Orioles – game time 1:35 p.m.

Hosted by Former Trustee Edward ’86 and Robin Savits ’87 Cooper P’16 Special guest: Board Chair Thomas S. Bozzuto ’68

Box seats behind the plate!

6 - 8 p.m.

Hosted by J. Nicholas Hurd ’64 and Joan Hinton Hurd ’65 Honoring William Cullina ’86 with the Hobart Medal of Excellence Cullina, the Executive Director of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, is internationally known for his expertise as a horticulturist. A leader in the field, he’s published numerous books on the subject, is regularly featured in magazines and journals including Horticulture and Fine Gardening, and has shared his expertise on television and radio shows, including “The Martha Stewart Show” and “Living on Earth.”

Tour the Gardens, a living representation of Cullina’s skill as a plant curator, artist, scientist and educator.

For more information and to RSVP, go to www.hws.edu/alumni/events or call 315-781-3700.

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2016

HWS

EVENTS

September 16–18

Medal of Excellence to Bishop Curry ‘75, November 17 The Hobart Medal of Excellence will be presented to The Most Reverend Michael B. Curry ‘75, the 27th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States. The award will be conferred on campus on November 17. Curry, former Bishop of North Carolina and a former member of the HWS Board of Trustees, was installed as Presiding Bishop on November 1, 2015 by the Episcopal House of Bishops, making him the first AfricanAmerican in the Church’s top leadership office.

•

Save the Date

Don’t miss this year’s exciting events including the annual Quad-a-Palooza, Cabaret and Fall Nationals. Watch as the Heron soccer team and the Statesmen football team take on Ithaca College.

Visit hws.edu/homecoming for a full schedule of events and to register online.

Get in the HWS Spirit We know HWS alums get together for impromptu gatherings and mini reunions throughout the year and around the world. Let HWS come to you through our Party Kit—napkins, balloons, banners—delivered right to your door so you can share the HWS love. Visit hws.edu/host-event to order your kit. It’s free!

Events

Regional events are added all the time.

To learn the latest, go to www.hws.edu/ alumni or look for updates in the weekly e-newsletter. Don’t get the e-newsletter?

Send your name, address and e-mail address to publicity@hws.edu to subscribe.

95 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

HWS COMMUNITY

fanatics

“I came away from the evening feeling very proud of the Colleges. Clearly the little College I graduated from in 1960 has grown and matured through the years.” –Ernest Greppin Jr. ’60

BOSTON. Political Strategists James Carville L.H.D. ’13, P’17 and Mary Matalin P’17 joined the President’s Forum for election 2016 commentary, hosted by Trustee Chris ’84 and Rene Whitney Welles P’12, P’15.

Christopher S. Welles ’84, P’12, P’15

Lisa Lawrence P’07, P’09, P’17

Amanda Ellis ’80 and Stephen H. Washburne ’76, P’16

Ernest Greppin Jr. ’60

Mr. and Mrs. E. John White III ’66, P’94

Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish ’82 Eric Hall Anderson ’59 Brian A. Burbank ’11

John Fish Sarah Feldman ’15

Augusta A. Williams ’13

NEW YORK CITY. Hobart

lacrosse players and fans kicked off the 2016 season at the New York Athletic Club with Head Coach Greg Raymond.

Joseph C. Stein III ’86

Meredith Q. Murphy P’17

“The event was a wonderful engagement of the larger HWS community. I enjoyed hearing Carville and Matalin share their political expertise and their thoughts on this election cycle.”– Brian A. Burbank ’11

“It was great to join a number of HWS alums to rally around the Hobart lacrosse team. I know they appreciated the support and we were all impressed with the young men Coach Raymond and his staff have assembled.” – Eric J. Stein ’89

Greer Candler P’12

LOS ANGELES. HWS students traveled to L.A. to network with alums, parents and friends of HWS in the entertainment and media industries.

“I attribute a lot of my success to lessons learned at HWS. It was a thrill to share some of those experiences with our current students and to offer my perspective on the industry.”

– Brad Falchuk ‘93, L.H.D. ‘14

Brad Falchuk ‘93, L.H.D. ‘14

Christopher McDonald ‘77, L.H.D.’13

Eric J. Stein ’89 Mark Darden ’16

Nick Holly

William Keck ’90

Warren Littlefield ‘74

Alan Melina

William M. Sherman ’85

Ann Johnson ’83

Coach Greg Raymond Kelsey Rowley ’18

96 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

HOBART DEFEATS WAGNER The Statesmen opened the Northeast Conference season in Staten Island and defeated Wagner College 10-9 in the third overtime period.

1) Garret ’07, Preston ’02, Gary, Lindsay ’04 and Ruth ‘77, P’02, P’04, P’07 Teague show pride for the orange and purple.

2) Vafa Vahid ’88, his daughter, Parisa Vahid, Mehrnaz Vahid-Ahdieh ‘85 and Mark “Skip” Darden ‘87, P’18 cheer on Darden’s son, Mark ’18.

1)

3) Sean Regan ’13 poses with student mentees from the Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership program, a nonprofit that provides academic intervention, leadership training, and lacrosse to at-risk youth. Regan is a volunteer with the organization.

2)

4) This super Statesmen is John Jarmoszuk, the son of Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk ‘98.

5) Young alums brave the cold for a ‘Bart victory.

4)

5)

HWS COMMUNITY

3)

SIGMA CHI REINSTALLATION Members of the Alpha Alpha Chapter of Sigma Chi sing the “Sweetheart” song to guests, including Mary Herlihy Gearan, following their reinstallation ceremony.

WILLIAM SMITH ALUMNAE BASKETBALL William Smith alumnae returned for a weekend to reminisce, shoot hoops and relive their Heron years.

NORTHEAST CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP

1)

2)

3)

The Statesmen upset top-seeded Saint Joseph’s University 11-7 in Philadelphia to earn the Northeast Conference automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship tournament. The Northeast Conference champion Statesmen ended the year with a 10-7 mark. Alums, parents and friends gathered for a pregame party. 1) Hobart First Year Dean David Mapstone ‘93, William Miller P’91, ’94, ’01 and Brett Miller ’94 2) Trustee Emeritus Rod Ross ‘52, LL.D. ‘79 and Patricia Johnson Ross ‘53 3) Peter Murphy P’17, Kevin Murphy ’17 and Meredith Murphy P’17.

97 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

SPOTLIGHT Alums in the News

Flint’s Water Crisis Ridgway White ’02, president of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, headquartered in Flint, Mich., recently announced a collaboration between the Mott Foundation and nine other charities to commit a total of nearly $125 million to help the city of Flint recover and rise from its water crisis.

“Flint’s water crisis is far from over,” White says. “While some funds and services have been provided, we’re still waiting for the state and federal governments to step up, replace damaged infrastructure and make longterm commitments to the health and education of children. Today our foundations are stepping in to help. We envision a vibrant Flint with a robust economy, dynamic culture, and healthy, thriving residents, and we’re committed to achieving these goals.”

Off the Wall Chuan “Jenny” Wu ’12 will have two pieces of her work featured in the upcoming exhibition Off the Wall at the Maryland Federation of Art this summer. Wu will also serve on the Washington, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Arts and Humanities Fellowship Program panel for Visual Arts 2017.

Penny Dreadful

PENNY DREADFUL

Actor Christian Camargo ’92 starred in the Showtime original series Penny Dreadful as Alexander Sweet aka Dracula. The horror-thriller-drama series reimagines the most iconic and terrifying monsters of film and literature. Camargo is also known for his roles as Brian Moser in the Showtime drama Dexter, Michael Corrigan in the Netflix drama House of Cards, and Eleazar in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Parts 1 and 2.

Sweet Celebrations Kristin C. Ohms-McNamara ’77, P’18 creates irresistible bite-size custom desserts for all of life’s sweet celebrations through her successful catering business, Just Desserts. Customers can choose from hand-decorated cookies, tartlets, French macaroons, mini mousse shots, crowd pleaser brownies, fruit and cookie bars, mini crème brûlées and much more.

98 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

Rubber Ducky, You’re the One Craig Wolfe ’74, founder and president of CelebriDucks, has just released a groundbreaking product, The Good Ducks. Among the safest rubber ducks for teething babies, Good Ducks are PVC-, phthalate- and BPA-free, and are manufactured and designed in the U.S. using the highest-grade medical materials. Quack, quack!

Equal Footing A short film featuring Julia Heemstra ’96 and fellow alpinist Kim Havell debuted at the Telluride Mountainfilm Annual Festival and Worldwide Tour in Telluride, Colo., this May. In “Equal Footing,” Heemstra and Havell discuss the realities of being female climbers in what is traditionally a male-dominated pursuit.

“Everyday (for 20+ yrs) I have an opportunity to impact, enrich, or enhance the lives of men that I respect and admire,” Chrysa Chin ’84 recently posted on social media. The National Basketball Players Association’s first executive vice president of strategy and development, Chin was recently named a SportsBusiness Daily/Journal Game Changer at their conference highlighting women in sports.

Trading Muggles for Mystery Best known as the author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling has made Eric Bloom ’66 and his legendary rock band Blue Öyster Cult pivotal in understanding the intentions of the novel’s characters in her latest book, Career of Evil, written under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

The novel features a plot, as WBUR reports, that centers on “a crusty, one-legged private investigator in London named Cormoran Strike...[and an] unnamed (until the end) killer, who might just be Blue Öyster Cult’s biggest fan. Their lyrics are in his head as he contemplates doing his dirty deeds. One of the chapters about his perversions is headlined ‘Subhuman,’ after a Blue Öyster Cult song. He’s playing their music constantly on his iPod.” Bloom himself is referenced in a flashback, as Strike recalls his mother’s tattoo-ed rendering of her favorite song, “Mistress of the Salmon Salt.”

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HWS COMMUNITY

For the Love of the Game

SPOTLIGHT Alums in the News

Eric Cohler ‘81 Receives Medal of Excellence During the 2016 Charter Day celebrations, the Hobart College Alumni Association presented its highest honor, the Medal of Excellence, to Eric Cohler ’81, president of Eric Cohler Design and an adjunct professor of art and architecture at HWS.

Cohler is one of the country’s leading interior designers and has been named to the top 10 designer list in the U.S.

by Elle Decor. Architectural Digest recently featured Cohler’s design of his brother’s Gramercy Park triplex in New York City. The International Foodservice Distributors Association awarded Cohler its Circle of Excellence Award and Traditional Home and Decoration & Design Building named him Designer of the Year. He was included in House Beautiful’s “Top 100” designers issue, and has had his design and fabric selected by President Barack and Mrs. Michelle Obama for the White House dining room. He was named as an Ambassador of Arts and Spirituality to the United Nations and served as the keynote speaker of the G 20 in Seoul, South Korea.

Wingerath-Schlanger

Twelve years after sharing a suite in Emerson Hall, Sara Wingerath-Schlanger ’02 and Elyssa Koidin Schmier ’04 collaborated to put out a blog post on MomsRising.org about Special Ops Survivors, a small nonprofit organization exclusively dedicated to serving the surviving spouses of active duty Special Operations personnel who have died in combat or training since 1980.

Wingerath-Schlanger serves as the executive director of Special Ops Survivors, a position she began in 2015.

Schmier is the national budget campaign director for MomsRising, an on-theground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to achieve economic security for all moms, women and families in the United States.

Schmier

Embracing and Empowering Spouses of Our Fallen Heroes

A Quarter Century of Justice Queens District Attorney Richard Brown ’53 recently celebrated his 25th year as the borough’s prosecutor.

Brown took office on June 1, 1991, when then-Gov. Mario Cuomo appointed him the interim Queens DA. In 2013, Brown was awarded the Frank S. Hogan Award, the New York State District Attorney Association’s highest honor, for his decades of public service.

100 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

JULIA HOYLE ’11 Assistant Winemaker, Sheldrake Point Winery

W

hether she’s blending reds at Sheldrake Point Winery or skating as a member of the Finger Lakes Lunachicks Roller Derby team, Julia Hoyle ’11 knows all about balance.

As one of only 14 full-time employees at the 45-acre winery overlooking Cayuga Lake, Hoyle’s day-to-day responsibilities can range anywhere from tying and pruning vines to testing the sulfur and pH levels of different wines in Sheldrake Point’s bottling chemistry lab.

“It’s all about trying to figure out the concept of balancing a wine,” Hoyle says through a big smile. “I’ve always appreciated winemaking. At times it can be obscure, but I’m searching for the best balance in a wine. It’s mother nature.”

Much like a fermenting wine, Hoyle’s path to assistant winemaker at Sheldrake Point wasn’t without its own degree of cloudiness. After

immersing herself in the robust cultures of France and Senegal for eight months during her junior year at HWS, Hoyle returned to Senegal after graduation to pursue a position teaching at the International School of Dakar.

“When I took the job in Senegal I was still very interested in the wine industry,” Hoyle says. “I had been working three days a week in Fox Run Vineyard’s tasting room throughout my senior year, but even then I still wasn’t sure what capacity I’d be involved with it.”

Now more than ever she knows her place is right here in Upstate New York. And what began as a day filled with seemingly countless tasks ends with a moment of reflection.

“If I like what I’m doing, I want to support it the best way I can. I love what I do, and I feel very lucky to be here and to work with these people.”

—Paul Ciaccia ’15

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HWS COMMUNITY

photos: kevin colton

A Day in the Life

9:07a.m.

The tying process trains vines to grow vertically.

Vines are tied based on how quickly the buds come out of dormancy.

8:20a.m.

Caffeinate to dominate! The day begins at Opus for a hot cup of artisan coffee.

10:15a.m.

To protect against oxidation, Sheldrake Point uses the aeration-oxidation method to help determine the amount of sulfur in the wine.

12:15p.m.

Time for a tasting! Wine Club manager Whitney Elrod ’12 and head winemaker David Breeden taste the Muscat Ottonel in the Sheldrake barrel room.

40,500 (vines)

With 45-planted acres, Sheldrake Point’s widest rows boast 120 vines.

700

(grapes)

Average number of grapes in each bottle of wine

120 (laps)

During an average Finger Lakes Lunachicks Roller derby practice

3:15p.m.

Another way to naturally protect wine from oxidizing is by “topping” barrels. The reduced headspace in the barrel leaves less room for oxygen.

7:15p.m.

Practice makes perfect. As part of the Finger Lakes Lunachicks Roller Derby team, Hoyle works on passing her “levels,” the steps needed to participate in a bout.

102 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

97

(barrels)

Used by Sheldrake per year to store wine

27

(miles)

From HWS to Sheldrake Point Winery

A LIBERAL ARTS LEGACY

To enable Hobart and William Smith to foster that passion in more students, Schroeder and his wife Helen L. Elliott Schroeder ’65 will establish a substantial, wide-reaching endowed scholarship through the Scandling Trust, which will double the impact of the Schroeders’ gift.

This investment, Schroeder says, is simultaneously a family legacy, a thanks to the Colleges (“Helen was the first person I met on campus,” Schroeder recalls) and a chance to solidify more permanently his and Helen’s belief in the value of liberal arts education.

“My wife and I loved Hobart and William Smith. It was an education in the full

trustees and alums, they have helped take HWS to a place of higher national prominence. It was a no brainer to establish this scholarship in their name.”

“Mary and I are humbled that Frank and Helen have chosen to support the Colleges in this way,” says President Gearan. “Their generosity, their commitment to our students and their confidence in the future of the Colleges are a source of lasting pride and inspiration. With the other gracious Scandling Trust donors, Frank and Helen are helping to write an exciting new chapter in the Colleges’ history.”

Frank C. Schroeder III ’65

sense of the word, not only in the classroom,” Schroeder says. “We were encouraged to explore new and exciting ideas on the journey to self-discovery while working with men and women from lots of different backgrounds.

Taking advantage of the Scandling Trust was too good an opportunity to pass up; although that program is fully subscribed, I urge my fellow graduates to recognize and support the Colleges’ ambitions to recruit and inspire outstanding students.”

The scholarship will be named in honor of President Mark D. Gearan and Mary Herlihy Gearan.

“Presidents come and go but Mark and Mary have achieved something significant and long lasting, and it’s incumbent upon alums to support those achievements,” says Schroeder. “I’ve gotten to know the Gearans and have been struck by their contributions, effort and foresight. Supported by faculty,

103 / PULTENEY STREET SURVEY | Summer 2016

The Scandling Trust was a 24-month initiative created in celebration of William F. Scandling ’49, LL.D.’67, his legacy of philanthropy and his belief in the transformative power of a Hobart and William Smith education. The Trust enabled Hobart and William Smith to leverage Scandling’s final gift to the Colleges to encourage further support of scholarship, internship and leadership funds.

When the Scandling Trust was completed this spring, the Colleges had raised more than $20 million in support of endowed internships and scholarships.

In Schroeder’s words, “a dollar goes a long way at HWS these days. The Scandling Trust makes a good gift into something really substantial and allows Helen and me to support what’s near and dear to our hearts. I’m really pleased for the school and for our family that there’s a chance for us to give back in a meaningful way and to say thanks for the lasting contributions of Mark and Mary Gearan.” ­ —Andrew Wickenden ’09

HWS COMMUNITY

“I admire and support the mission of the Colleges to prepare students to lead lives of consequence,” says Frank C. Schroeder III ’65. “It’s more than a tagline.

In a classroom, a spark ignites in the imagination and then you’ve got the fire, the passion.

That’s huge.”

THE LAST WORD

The Bard in Conversation

by Associate Professor of English Rob Carson

W

hen people write about Shakespeare in newspapers and on websites, they tend to use extraneous capital letters. They use terms like “Poet” and “Genius” to describe him, and they frequently refer to him as “The Bard.” What these capital letters imply, I think, is the idea that Shakespeare was not just someone who was quite good at his job, but someone who was almost superhuman, larger than life, one-of-a-kind. Personally, I tend to balk whenever I see hyperbolic terms of this sort applied to Shakespeare, as do most other Shakespeare scholars these days. It’s not that we’re not Shakespeare fans—we did choose this profession for a reason! It’s just that we tend to be uncomfortable with the idea that Shakespeare ought to be placed in a class by himself, on a different level from other mere mortals.

This vision of Shakespeare as a “Genius” dates back to the early nineteenth century, when the Romantic poets (who admittedly enjoyed their capital letters) started envisioning him as the archetypal Poet, someone who drew Inspiration from Nature as he crafted Works of Art, most likely in solitude off in some rural cottage or private grotto. But of course the historical Shakespeare was nothing like this. He spent the bulk of his career as an actor working amidst the bustle of London in the burgeoning Elizabethan entertainment industry, and he wrote most of his plays as part of an acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later renamed “the King’s Men”). Everything we know about this acting company suggests that it was a highly collaborative venture: the eight partners in the company were typically referred to as “sharers” and “fellows,” and all eight of them not only acted in performances but also contributed to running the company in a variety of other ways. Shakespeare’s contributions to the company that he co-owned included writing some of the scripts that they performed and also revising scripts that they acquired from other playwrights and other companies. Increasingly, Shakespeare scholars are willing to acknowledge that many of the plays we attribute to “Shakespeare” 104 / HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES

were actually collaborations, written in conjunction with John Fletcher, Thomas Middleton, George Wilkins, Thomas Nashe, and others.

But of course all plays are in an important sense collaborative.

After Shakespeare completed a script, his company would bring it to life in space and in sound before a responsive crowd. Theatre only happens in this way, through the living interaction of actors and audience. It is surely notable that Shakespeare seems to have made no particular effort to publish his scripts or preserve them in any “final” form. We might reasonably suggest that this is because he imagined his real creations to be the plays in production, the collaborative work that he and his fellows engaged in, not the lifeless scripts that lay behind them. (It’s for the same reason that architects tend to be proud of their buildings rather than their blueprints.)

Of course, Shakespeare’s plays themselves are also primarily composed of conversations. For a long time, critics who studied Shakespeare tended to focus in particular on his monologues, especially the soliloquies. They took individual speeches by individual characters out of their dramatic context and read them as if they were self-contained poems hidden inside the plays.

Anyone who has been to a play, though, knows that this gets things completely backwards, since dialogue is primarily what drives dramatic action. I am thus pleased to report that recent work on Shakespeare’s language has increasingly focused on his skill at writing conversations between characters, not just speeches for individuals.

The Shakespeare classes that I took as an undergraduate were mostly unidirectional affairs: a professor would stand at the front of the room and lecture at students—not entirely unlike the big floating head in The Wizard of Oz. The students would dutifully take notes and maybe ask the occasional question, but for the most part, we were passive spectators. I am so pleased that the culture of teaching at HWS doesn’t look anything like this, and that we instead emphasize class discussions and active learning for our students.

Students in my Shakespeare classes engage with the plays that we study as a community, entering into dialogue with one another and with me as we collaborate collectively to make sense of these plays. In other words, we hold Conversations in our classes about the Conversations we find in plays which were in turn created by Conversations that were held some 400 years ago in London. And so if we’re going to capitalize any word connected to Shakespeare, my vote is for Conversation.

Associate Professor of English Rob Carson has published essays about Shakespeare and early modern skepticism, Shakespeare and early modern resistance theory, and Shakespeare and the linguistic turn in philosophy.

He is currently completing revisions on his book, Every Third Thought: Shakespeare and the Early Modern Play of Ideas, and is working on two other book projects, Shakespeare and the New Elizabethans (which considers how Shakespeare was used to re-shape British identity in the years following World War II) and The Shakespeare Commons (which examines early modern forms of collectivity, communicative action and distributed cognition). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and his M.A. and B.A. from Queen’s University. Carson joined HWS in 2008.

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Alums to Follow: MadeleineMarr ’89 Twitter: @MadeleineMarr Native New Yorker. Celebrity reporter for @MiamiHerald @Miamicom Mom of 2 little girls. Work it!

Instagram: madinmia Keeping it really real in MIA!! #Miami #celebrities #people #gossip Miami Herald #madeleine entertainment and celebrity reporter mmarr@MiamiHerald.com

J.P. Lavin ’95

Twitter: @JPLavincubs Writer for movies and TV, director of shorts and music vids, son, tio, dog lover, Jets, Cubs, Sabres, Clippers fan

Dr. Gregory Vincent ‘83

Twitter: @DrGJVincent Vice President, Division of Diversity and Community Engagement @UT_DDCE

Eric Cohler ’81

Twitter: @EricCohler Eric Cohler is one of the nation’s leading interior designers. Dubbed “The Mixmaster” by industry editors Instagram: ericcohlerdesign

Chrysa Chin ’84

Twitter: @ChrysaChin NBPA EVP, STRATEGY & DEVELOPMENT With My Players...HAPPY #PlayersFirst Instagram: ChrysaChin

Lucy Kaylin ’81

Twitter: @LucyKaylin Editor in Chief at O, The Oprah Magazine. Live your best life!

Instagram: lucykaylin Be sure to follow Kevin Colton, the Colleges’ Chief Photographer, too!

Instagram: kevincoltonphoto

Non profit org.

U.S. Postage PAID Burlington, VT Permit No. 19

300 Pulteney Street Geneva, New York 14456 The pages of this publication were printed using 100% recycled paper which enables the environmental savings equivalent to the following: • 230 trees preserved for the future • 222,212 gal. US of water saved • 22,734 lbs. of waste not generated • Saved 74,573 lbs. CO2 from being emitted • 191 MMBTU energy not consumed * * These calculations were derived from the Rolland Eco-calculator.

SYDNEY GOMEZ ’17

PARALLELS

• Elected by her peers to serve as a voting member of the Board of Trustees

MAUREEN COLLINS ZUPAN ’72, P’09, L.H.D. ’16

• Psychology Major; Artistic Director of Sankofa; working in publicity for the Office of Student Activities

• First William Smith Alumna to serve as Chair of the Board of Trustees (2012-2016) • Served as Tri-Chair of Campaign for the Colleges • Owned a financial planning firm, retired in 2016

1. What is the most pressing issue facing the Colleges?

Cost and access 2. How do you envision HWS in 20 years? Proudly liberal arts; academically challenging; diverse and welcoming community.

3. What quality defines a successful Trustee? Dedication 4. What makes the Colleges’ mission meaningful? Being able to help students begin to lead “lives of consequence” and then watching them do so as alumni and alumnae.

5. Who inspires you? Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) 6. Why is serving the Colleges important? I was the beneficiary of significant financial aid as a student; it’s my way of “paying it back.”

7. What was the last book you read? Between the World and Me

by Ta-Nehisi Coates was recommended by Solomé Rose, the Colleges’ Interim Chief Diversity Officer. I was so affected that I started reading it a second time as soon as I finished.

8. Last gift you gave? I sent ice cream to someone on campus recovering from surgery.

9. Last gift you received? When I retired, my business partner gave me a scrapbook of letters and cards from our clients, explaining how my work as their financial planner had affected their lives.

10. Proudest achievement? Serving as Board Chair of my alma mater.

1. What is the most pressing issue facing the Colleges?

They’re all intertwined – campus culture, inclusion, and race, gender and sexual orientation relations.

2. How do you envision HWS in 20 years? A community with greater ambition, hope, pride and inclusion.

3. What quality defines a successful Trustee? Caring 4. What makes the Colleges’ mission meaningful? Being able to take advantage of the many opportunities on campus to “lead a life a consequence.”

5. Who inspires you? My mother 6. Why is serving the Colleges important? HWS has given me so many opportunities to succeed and grow, so serving is the least I can do.

7. What was the last book you read? The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg Jay. 8. Last gift you gave? For Mother’s Day I sent all the women in my life cupcakes to show my love and appreciation.

9. Last gift you received? It wasn’t anything physical but the gift of listening. When I needed to vent my friends were there to listen.

10. Proudest achievement? Being able to represent my peers as their Student Trustee.