ALUMS SCALING NEW HEIGHTS
Featuring Bill Whitaker Jr. ’73, L.H.D. ’97, 60 Minutes’ Newest Correspondent
PLUS: Profiles of 24 other HWS community members living life on a grand scale
Inside: A Culture of Respect: The National Dialogue on Sexual Assault and How HWS is Responding WINTER 2015
Star trails over Bozzuto Boathouse create a semi-circular pattern caused by long exposures and the rotation of the earth. PHOTO BY KEVIN COLTON
Pulteney Street Survey | Winter 2015 Catherine Williams EDITOR, VICE PRESIDENT FOR COMMUNICATIONS
Contents
Peggy Kowalik ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER
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Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05 ASSISTANT EDITOR Tracey Antonioli, Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05, Steven Bodnar, Caitlyn D’Agati ’15, Ken DeBolt, Jonathan Everitt, Douglas Hoagland ’15, Stephanie Kenific ’17, Mary K. LeClair, John Martin, Cynthia L. McVey, Ellen Mitchell, Jessie Meyers Moore ’10, Avery Share ’15, Andrew Wickenden ’09 and Catherine Williams CONTRIBUTING WRITERS/EDITORS Melanie Acevedo, Steve Barrett, David Bowers, Linda Cicero, Katherine Collins ’09, Kevin Colton, Tim Griffith, Candice Mapa, Andrew Markham ’10, Michael Paras, Victoria Pearce, Kelly Salas, Gregory Searles ’13, Jared Trimarchi CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS/ ILLUSTRATORS
Mark D. Gearan PRESIDENT Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09 CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Andrew G. McMaster Jr. ’74, P’09 VICE CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES Robert B. O’Connor VICE PRESIDENT FOR ADVANCEMENT Kathy Killius Regan ’82, P’13 ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT, ALUMNAE RELATIONS AND NATIONAL REGIONAL NETWORK Jared Weeden ’91 ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT, ALUMNI RELATIONS AND ANNUAL GIVING William Smith Alumnae Association Officers: Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk ’98, President; Jane Erickson ’07, Vice President; Chris Bennett-West ’94, Immediate Past President; Kate Strouse Canada ’98, Historian Hobart Alumni Association Officers: Jeremy Cushman ’96, President; Frank Aloise ’87, Vice President; James B. Robinson ’96, Immediate Past President; Rafael A. Rodriguez ’07, Historian
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4 A Culture of Respect 16 Homecoming & Family Weekend 22 Snapshots 24 The Scandling Trust 28 Feature:Scale 64 Athletics 66 Classnotes 102 Alumni & Alumnae News 108 Bookshelf
VOLUME XLII, NUMBER TWO THE PULTENEY STREET SURVEY is published by the Office of Communications, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, 639 S. Main 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. Opinions expressed in The Pulteney Street Survey are those of the individuals expressing them, not of Hobart and William Smith Colleges or any other individual or group. The Colleges do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, marital status, national origin, age, disability, veteran’s status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression or any other protected status. Printed on 100% post-consumer fiber paper. Gas resulting from the decomposition of landfill waste used in place of fossil fuels to produce paper.
For questions and comments about the magazine or to submit a story idea, please e-mail Catherine Williams at cwilliams@hws.edu.
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Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05, Rebecca Frank, Mary K. LeClair, Betty Merkle, Kathy Killius Regan ’82, P’13, Jared Weeden ’91 CLASSNOTES EDITORS
COVER PHOTO by Michael Paras.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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Dear Friends,
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write at the end of a remarkable semester on campus, one marked by extraordinary collaboration and thoughtful dialogue. The national attention the Colleges received regarding an alleged sexual assault on our campus presented us with an opportunity to make an important difference. As an institution of higher education that always strives to improve, our response has mirrored our mission – to seek advancement and knowledge, and to provide leadership on a defining social issue. If you have been following the Colleges on social networking or checking progress via the HWS website, you know that the past months have included earnest effort on the part of everyone in our community. As we acknowledge that the Colleges have systems, policies and caring professionals that exceed the standards at many other institutions, we are called to do more. The article by Andrew Wickenden ’09 The Classes of 2018, their parents, friends and members of the HWS community gather in front of that begins on page 4 captures the scope of Stern Hall for the traditional President’s Welcome Ceremony during Orientation. work underway and the many perspectives of community members who have been working so assiduously on these efforts. The open forward-leaning and that will move the Colleges to a new level of dialogue that has been created is leading to solutions that are excellence. As the pages of this issue of The Pulteney Street Survey reflect, this has also been a semester of great accomplishment for our students, faculty and staff, with a dazzling array of public lectures, events, concerts and athletic contests. After a thorough review, the Middle States accreditation body gave the Colleges an outstanding report, lauding Hobart and William Smith for its academic approach and for the sense of community and common purpose it found on campus. That community was on display during Orientation when we welcomed an impressive group of first-year students to campus. Among the largest classes we have enrolled, the 653 members of the Classes of 2018 arrived at the Colleges with notable records of academic achievement and with high GPAs and SAT scores. Among them are 19 class presidents, 181 varsity sports captains and 21 club founders. Most participated in some form of community service in high school and more than 100 are related to alumni, alumnae or current students, making them eligible for the Legacy Scholars Program. The Classes of 2018 have already started to establish a legacy of academic purpose, impressing President Mark D. Gearan speaks with Stephanie Perez ’15 and Neill the faculty with their dedication to coursework and their desire to Jaico ’15 at the Intercultural Affairs open house during Homecoming and make a difference in the world around them. Family Weekend.
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Luis Figueroa ’18 as Tartuffe and Wesley Cady ’15 as Elmire rehearse during the fall production of “Tartuffe” in Bartlett Theatre.
Members of the HWS community get the unique opportunity to sign their names in one of the freshly poured concrete footings of the Performing Arts Center.
They join a cohort of returning students who are equally notable. In the past months, our students took first prize in a NASA competition, were named to important fellowships and scholarships, and, with their faculty mentors, chased tornadoes across 14 states. It was exciting to see the opening of the HWS Theatre season with a sophisticated production of Molière’s “Tartuffe” and to watch the long history of Koshare Dance continue to a sold-out audience at the Smith Opera House. Last semester, the inaugural William Smith ice hockey team started what is sure to be an exciting legacy. The William Smith soccer team returned to the NCAA Division III tournament and Hobart football had its third consecutive, undefeated regular season. Homecoming and Family Weekend welcomed 3,500 alumni, alumnae, parents and guests to campus, the largest attendance at Homecoming we’ve seen. Likewise, our regional events across the country, including a special President’s Forum in New York City featuring political strategists Mary Matalin P’17 and James Carville P’17, LL.D. ’13, have been very well received. As the National Regional Network continues to gain momentum, more and more alums are gathering at regional HWS events, symposia and athletic contests. Dozens also return to campus each semester to
offer students career advice, add texture to conversations in the classroom, and give students the kind of one-on-one mentorship that can bring clarity to life and job decisions. And, as the entire campus community watches, the new, 65,000 square-foot performing arts center – made possible through the generosity of alums, parents and friends – is very quickly taking shape on campus, adding much-needed academic space for music, theatre, dance and media & society. I thank you for your continued engagement, your attendance at events on and off campus, your support of our students and faculty, and your willingness to work together to make Hobart and William Smith an even better place. Sincerely,
Mark D. Gearan President
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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The national dialogue on sexual assault and how HWS is responding by Andrew Wickenden ’09
ZUPAN
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he summer of 2014 was, by all accounts, a heartbreaking time. In May, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights included Hobart and William Smith among 55 institutions of higher education – now 91 – under review regarding compliance with federal rules intended to diminish sexual harassment on college campuses. The Colleges’ inclusion on the list was prompted by the complaint of a student after an alleged sexual assault. In July, the New York Times published an article about the Colleges’ handling of a student’s sexual assault complaint. The Hobart and William Smith adjudication of the complaint had exonerated the alleged suspects, and Ontario County’s district attorney determined that no criminal charges were warranted. The newspaper’s account of the incident sparked an intense reaction within the Hobart and William Smith community, galvanizing action. “As I wrote to the New York Times in July, we stand behind the results of our process and disagree with the paper’s depiction of the Colleges and the characterization of our students, faculty and staff,” says Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09, chair of the Board of Trustees. “We can, however, always do better. We owe it to every member of our community to ensure that no student ever feels the pain and grief that was depicted in that article.” With emotions running high, the Hobart and William Smith community responded in the manner it has responded to adversity for nearly 200 years. Students, faculty, administrators, parents, alumni and alumnae came together for dialogue
“We have so much pride in our institution, in our students, faculty and staff, in the accomplishments of our alums. We needed to honor that pride and move forward....” —President Mark D. Gearan and earnest soul-searching to reaffirm longstanding values while also resolving to make Hobart and William Smith even stronger. “Although we know that we have worked very hard to provide a safe environment for students, and although we know that the issues we are grappling with exist at virtually all institutions across the country, we take no comfort in these facts,” says President Mark D. Gearan. “Hobart and William Smith have an opportunity to provide leadership. As the father of two daughters, nothing could be more important to me personally or professionally.” Rooted in compassion, the drive to do better has become a pivotal concept in the campus dialogue, allowing the community to support those in need while also supporting the Colleges themselves. “If we retreat into our offices, we don’t come out stronger as a community, and that’s fundamentally what we’re trying to address,” says Nan Crystal Arens, associate professor of geoscience and chair of the Hobart and William Smith Committee on Faculty. “We have so much pride in our institution, in our students, faculty and staff, in the accomplishments of our alums,” says Gearan. “We needed to honor that pride and move forward to make the Colleges an even better place for all students.”
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A Community United
The collaboration at gatherings and forums has led to new initiatives and provided support for projects “Hobart and William Smith is the that were already in the works, kind of place where faculty, alums including a major expansion of and students can sit with campus the Title IX Office; a collaborative leadership and discuss not just revision of the Colleges’ sexual campus safety but what we value, misconduct policy; bystander what we expect of each other, how MILLS ’96 training for students; training for we can give students the resources faculty and staff; new Orientation they need, and what’s at the root programming; technology initiatives; of these issues,” says Michael Mills and enhanced partnerships with ’96, who serves as a Regional Vice local rape crisis and health care President of the Southeast Region, providers, the Geneva Police a volunteer position for the HWS Department, and the Ontario County National Regional Network, and District Attorney’s Office. The who worked with various parties desired impact is to prevent sexual FELDMAN ’15 in the weeks following the Times assault while also giving students, story. Mills attended an August faculty and staff the knowledge and session on campus when members tools they need should it occur. of HWS Community for Change, “It’s heartening to see the an alum group, met with the chair outpouring of support from our of the Board, president and provost community,” says Robert Flowers, to create a plan of action steps. vice president for student affairs. “The most important thing “Our goal is and has always been the administration and faculty CIACCIA ’15 to provide the best, safest and most can do, and that they’ve been supportive environment for students. We have working hard to do, is listen to the students,” to keep these issues at the forefront of the says Sarah Feldman ’15, a member of the campus dialogue.” Coalition of Concerned Students, a group At least one initiative has moved into the formed in May by representatives of HWS realm of mobile technology. Through the student government and social justice clubs on leadership of Feldman, Hobart and William campus. Smith is one of the first of three higher education institutions to partner with Circle of 6, an app that won the White House’s “Apps Against “The most important thing Abuse Technology Challenge.” Circle of 6 allows the administration and faculty students to connect with friends to help prevent violence. Designed for college students, the can do, and that they’ve been app provides easy access to on- and off-campus working hard to do, is listen to resources and allows users to connect with six friends of their choice and alert them to their the students.” —Sarah Feldman ’15 location or request an interruption.
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5 Mass. Colleges, Universities Under Federal Investigation for Possible Title IX Violations May 1, 2014
How Cam Commandpus Sexual Assault sC New Atten tion August ame To 12 , 2014
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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A CULTURE OF RESPECT DEFINED A Culture of Respect is one in which empathy, diversity and truth are valued and practiced. A culture of respect is one that encourages us to see the world from multiple perspectives; to participate in dialogue that lifts understanding and that cultivates a practice of listening; to understand marginalization and isolation as the byproduct of prejudice and hate; to show leadership and intervene even when it is inconvenient and especially when it is difficult; and to fight oppression while we also guard against intolerance in our own thoughts and actions. The Culture of Respect Steering Committee will make recommendations designed to cultivate a deeper culture of respect within five focus areas: safety and wellness, campus facilities, history and heritage, dialogue across differences, and the curriculum.
And prior to the fall semester, fraternities at Hobart and William Smith wrote to the student body and pledged to be active partners in fostering a healthy campus climate. “We all love this place and want to see it succeed,” says Paul Ciaccia ’15, the president of Chi Phi and a member of the Intra-Fraternity Council. “We wanted to immediately show support and respect. We want to be recognized as part of the campus community and that means we have a responsibility to it.”
A Culture of Respect
The kind of improvement, accountability and inclusive dialogue at the heart of the Colleges’ response became the guiding tenets of a comprehensive, new initiative • Patrick McGuire L.H.D. ’12, Co-Chair of on campus – the Culture of Respect. Culture of Respect Announced by Gearan in his • Mara O’Laughlin ’66, L.H.D. ’13, CoChair of Culture of Respect 2014 Convocation address, the • Brandon Barile, Director of Residential Culture of Respect enlists the Education entire HWS community to reaffirm • Anne Buckley P’15, Co-Chair of the and strengthen a culture in which Parents Executive Committee empathy, diversity and truth are • Jerry Buckley P’15, Co-Chair of the Parents Executive Committee valued and practiced. “From class, MCGUIRE • Sandra Chu, Head William Smith Rowing to race, to sexuality - underneath all Coach of these dynamics that are important • Jeremy T. Cushman ’96, M.D., President to building a sense of community is of The Alumni Association the imperative for greater respect,” • Caroline Demeter ’15, William Smith Student Trustee Gearan said. • Amy Forbes, Director of Culture of In the fall, Gearan appointed a Respect Steering Committee, Associate steering committee comprised of Director of the Centennial Center for faculty, staff, students, parents, and Leadership O’LAUGHLIN ’66 members of the Board of Trustees • Laura Free, Associate Professor of History and Chair of the Women’s and Alumni and Alumnae Councils. Studies Department Their charge is to take a critical look • Louis Guard ’07, Esq., Chief of Staff and at how the Colleges’ systems and Counsel policies foster the community’s • Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk ’98, culture of respect. The committee President of The Alumnae Association will study the issue for one year and • DeWayne Lucas, Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Dean of offer best-practice recommendations Faculty to the administration in five focus • Gail Herman McGinn ’73, Trustee MCKNIGHT ’15 areas: safety and wellness, campus • Aly McKnight ’15, President of The facilities, history and heritage, dialogue across William Smith Congress differences and the curriculum. • Alejandra Molina, Director of the Office of Intercultural Affairs The Steering Committee is co-chaired • Gregory Raymond, Head Hobart Lacrosse Coach by Professor Emeritus of Economics Pat • Richard Salter ’86, P’15, Associate Professor of McGuire L.H.D. ’12 and Mara O’Laughlin Religious Studies ’66, L.H.D. ’13. As a well-respected member • Nicolas Stewart ’15, Hobart Student Trustee of the faculty, McGuire has had a number of • Henry Smith ’15, President of Hobart Student Government leadership roles on campus, most recently • Titilayo Ufomata, Provost and Dean of Faculty serving as interim provost and dean of • Cynthia Williams, Professor of Dance faculty. A highly regarded former director of admissions and assistant vice president For more on the Culture of Respect, go to for advancement, O’Laughlin has worked www.hws.edu/respect 6 Pulteney Street Survey | Winter 2015
“Our charge—as a committee that spans the spectrum of community—is to honestly confront who we are, what we hope to be, and what we do well.” —Steering Committee Co-Chair Mara O’Laughlin ’66, L.H.D. ’13 to advance the Colleges, helping to establish the Centennial Center for Leadership and fundraising for the new performing arts center. “There are longstanding social issues to confront and improve,” explains O’Laughlin. “Our charge—as a committee that spans the spectrum of community—is to honestly confront who we are, what we hope to be, and what we do well.” “HWS has the kinds of people who will step up to these tasks,” McGuire says. “Those are the inspirations that I look to as we focus on what HWS does well, what works, and how to make them work better. Are there areas within those categories that we can improve? Of course. And the first meetings have demonstrated that there’s no lack of ideas.” Those close to the process say it’s important to remember that Hobart and William Smith have long had a culture of respect built on open inquiry. The current undertaking seeks to reaffirm those values and apply them in the context of shifting social norms. “In light of everything that’s gone on in the past few months, it’s easy to focus on the negatives,” says Aly McKnight ’15, president of William Smith Congress and a member of the Culture of Respect Steering Committee and the Coalition of Concerned Students. “Focusing on what’s positive changes the entire structure of how we’re talking about social life on campus.” Gearan is committed to ensuring that the Colleges will lead the country in combating campus sexual assaults. “We are uniquely poised to move forward with confidence on this issue. We have a strong tradition as a coordinate institution, a deep history rooted in advocacy and critical thinking, and significant success working collaboratively on a number of recent initiatives. Most importantly, I know the integrity and conviction of our community. “Hobart and William Smith is a great place. We now have a chance to make it an even better place.” ●
Mosaic NY performs in Bartlett Theatre. The collaborative theatre project made up of HWS students is devoted to creating a dialogue around social justice. Mosaic NY is led by Associate Professor of Theatre Heather May.
The Campus Dialogue
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BAYER
n some ways, assault, violence and rape are ways to remind someone they are guests or less fully human or not fully citizens of a place,” says Betty Bayer, professor of women’s studies. “If we do not attend to sexual violence, rape, harassment and assault as a more comprehensive matter, then I think we risk it all, including the very values and practices we espouse in our mission.” An American is sexually assaulted every two minutes, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. Annually, almost 240,000 people (ages 12 or older) are victims of sexual assault. Hobart and William Smith are taking action to draw down those numbers. Before this fall’s Orientation, the HWS community undertook a significant amount of work to prepare for the fall semester, instituting a series of updated and new training, prevention and PIERCE education programs. The Colleges’ Office for Title IX Programs & Compliance is taking “a multi-faceted approach to reach members of the community so that they know we are here, where to go, what to do, and how to get help when it’s
needed,” says Stacey Pierce, interim Title IX coordinator and associate dean of students. The Title IX office recently expanded to include two psychologists and an experienced Title IX legal adviser. With an extensive background in student affairs and a doctorate in college policy and administration, Pierce was selected as the Students, faculty and staff fill the Fisher Center interim coordinator to listen to a lecture by this academic year Fisher Center Predoctoral Fellow Lezlie Frye. while a national search is underway for a permanent coordinator. The more robust office “has the opportunity—and in my opinion, the responsibility—to help shift and shape our culture to become more inclusive in our words and actions as community members,” Pierce says. “We must all recognize the roles we play in creating an environment where everyone is welcome.” STEVING ’15 Tyler Steving ’15, president of Hobart for Equality and Respect, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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William Smith students march across campus and through downtown Geneva during the Take Back the Night event on October 6. The march honors victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
concurs. “We have to broaden our horizons and attack things from a cultural perspective that deals with respect, diversity, oppression and what it means to be good citizens of the DEAN community.” In September, the Fisher Center for the Study of Women and Men hosted a series of events surrounding strategies for promoting a culture of respect. Jodi Dean, professor
Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies Jessica HayesConroy facilitates a workgroup during a Fisher Center event titled “Campus Mapping: Visualizing Power, Space, and Control.”
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of political science and director of the Center, says the series intends to keep “the conversation about rape and sexual violence on campus at the forefront of the concerns of this fall…providing a location for continued reflection, inquiry and discussion of the issues regarding sexual violence, and that’s a really important thing.” Dean, a member of the Sexual Violence Task Force, says the event series and other campus efforts, are “…highlighting the fact that rape happens, the conditions under which rape happens, and issues within our procedures.” “The changes in policy and discussions that are taking place at HWS now will lay the foundation for broader social change in the future,” says Mavreen Smiel ’07, one of the founders of the activist alum group HWS Community for Change. “I hope the students will take these lessons to heart and carry them wherever life’s journey takes them.” For Bayer, these conversations are part of the “long road to liberty and democracy, to working out how to live here together…. As our Colleges retool our Title IX office, run workshops, hold lectures and invite discussion, we must also ask ourselves how we live, work and play together here, how we study and learn together, how our curriculum invites us to value a fuller range of history, of politics, of science, of arts and of dialogue to make the world, to build its future.” ●
Members of Hobart for Equality and Respect (H.E.A.R.) pose for a photo in Scandling Campus Center while collecting T-shirts. The T-shirts, designed by HWS students around the theme of sexual assault, will be made into a quilt that will be on display on campus.
CREATING A SEXUAL MISCONDUCT POLICY The Committee on Faculty has organized faculty, staff and students into six working groups that are reviewing the Colleges’ policy governing sexual misconduct. The expected completion date of the review is the end of the 2014-2015 academic year. Sexual misconduct policies span a range of issues, from the definition LUCAS of consent to the process for investigating and adjudicating allegations of assault. Until then, an interim policy created in collaboration with faculty, staff and students was put in place last summer (available for review on the HWS website). Associate Professor of Political Science DeWayne Lucas chaired the committee that created the previous sexual misconduct policy. As federal policies and the campus community evolve, “we have to channel our cultural beliefs and values into these conversations,” says Lucas, also a member of the Culture of Respect Steering Committee.
Do the Colleges have a zero tolerance policy regarding sexual assault? Yes. Sexual violence and rape are abhorrent crimes. The Colleges do not allow anyone known to have committed rape to remain on campus. The Colleges prohibit all forms of sexual, sexor gender-based harassment, discrimination or misconduct—based upon gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation—including sexual harassment, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and stalking, and sex- or gender-based harassment that does not involve conduct of a sexual nature. What support systems are in place to assist students in crisis? The Colleges have a team of professional staff available to students 24-hours a day. It includes licensed psychologists and counselors, health care professionals, campus safety officers specially trained to work with college students, and professionals from the Office of Student Life. In the summer of 2014, the Colleges significantly expanded the Office of Title IX Programs & Compliance to include the Title IX coordinator, two psychologists and an experienced Title IX legal adviser. The Office oversees educational programming, compliance, investigation and adjudication of complaints. It reports directly to the president. How do students report a sexual assault? The Colleges encourage all individuals to make a report to the Title IX Office and/or Campus Safety as well as to local law enforcement. Both internal and criminal reports may be pursued simultaneously. The Colleges seek to remove all barriers to reporting sexual misconduct and therefore offer any student who reports sexual assault or harassment immunity from being charged for policy violations related to use of alcohol or other drugs. Anonymous reporting is also possible through the Colleges’ online bias incident reporting system. Under the leadership of the Office of Title IX Programs & Compliance, the Colleges have convened a group of campus and community first-responders – the Sexual Violence Response and Evaluation Team – that meets monthly throughout the academic year to provide effective and coordinated first response and streamlined procedures. Community firstresponders include staff from the local sexual assault and domestic violence response service Safe Harbors of the Finger Lakes, the Geneva Police Department, the District’s Attorney’s Office, and FF Thompson Hospital.
What training is in place for students regarding sexual assault? The Colleges have had training programs in place for a number of years that cover everything from prevention to ensuring that students understand how to report an assault. During the summer of 2014, 35 faculty and staff members volunteered to be trained to facilitate bystander intervention training for HWS students. Based on the highly regarded University of New Hampshire model, hundreds of students have participated in these workshops during the fall semester. All first-year students must attend. They join a number of upper-class students who have participated through their affiliations with athletic teams and HWS clubs. Members of the Title IX Office also met with every athletic team to discuss the Colleges’ policies and answer questions. Bystander training is the first step in a continuous training program that will give students the tools they need to navigate a myriad of social situations that require proficiency in topics related to race, class, gender and sexuality. What are the details of the case profiled in the New York Times? Out of respect for the privacy of students and because of the restrictions imposed by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Colleges cannot release any information or comment on the specific details of any student misconduct case. Media coverage as a result of the New York Times story can be found on the Colleges’ website at www.hws.edu/respect. Why do colleges and universities investigate and adjudicate sexual assault allegations? All colleges and universities must act in compliance with Title IX and guidance issued by the Federal Office for Civil Rights, which states that complaints of sexual assault must be investigated and evaluated using internal policies and processes. All colleges and universities have a legal responsibility to do so even when a student declines to report to law enforcement. From the moment an alleged incident is reported and throughout the entire process of investigation and resolution, all students are treated with dignity and seriousness through proceedings that are fair and equitable to all students.
What is Title IX? A Federal law, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX), 20 U.S.C. §1681, et seq., law states that, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” All public and private elementary and secondary schools, school districts, colleges and universities that receive federal funds must comply with Title IX. Under the law, discrimination on the basis of sex includes sexual harassment, gender-based harassment, sexual violence, sexual assault, other forms of sexual misconduct, stalking, and intimate partner violence. The United States Department of Education maintains the Office for Civil Rights, which enforces Title IX. The principal enforcement activity is the investigation and resolution of complaints filed by people alleging sex discrimination. The Colleges have had a full-time Title IX coordinator on staff since September 2013. Is the hearing panel for sexual assault made up of faculty and staff? Prior to the summer of 2014 and in accordance with best practices and the Colleges’ previous Sexual Misconduct Policy, hearing panels for all student misconduct cases consisted of members of the HWS professional community who volunteered for the position and who underwent extensive training in the dynamics of sexual violence, factors relevant to credibility, the evaluation of consent and incapacitation, and the application of the preponderance of evidence standard required by the Office of Civil Rights. The Interim Sexual Misconduct Policy put in place in the summer of 2014 mandates that hearing panels must be comprised of external individuals (not employed by the Colleges) who are experts in sexual violence. What are the next steps in the Office of Civil Rights investigation? The Colleges have cooperated fully with the Office of Civil Rights, which has collected and is currently in the process of analyzing documents. The Office has not given the Colleges a timeline for its investigation. Opening a complaint for investigation does not imply that the Office of Civil Rights has made a determination with regard to the merits of the complaint.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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by Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05
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n a small corner of the Scandling Campus Center, PJ McInnis ’15 and Virginia DeWees ‘16—two students with seemingly nothing in common— walk up to a white board and begin describing themselves. Using giant letters, DeWees writes “Queer,” while McInnis scribbles the Greek symbols of his fraternity. After five minutes of writing identifying words, the two students take a step back and to their surprise, find they’ve both written “extroverted” and identified themselves as having a learning disability. “It was the moment when I realized that this campaign just might work,” says Molly Doris-Pierce ’15, creator of the “We Are HWS” campaign, an initiative that brings together members of the HWS community by uncovering their identities and then snapping a photo with a sign that reads, “We Are HWS.” “I think this really surprised them to see that they had much more in common than they could have ever anticipated.” The idea for the “We Are HWS” campaign originated from the basic premise that everyone at HWS—students, staff, faculty, parents, trustees, alumni and alumnae— all have a stake in the Colleges’ future. “I believe sometimes, especially in difficult times, it is easier to take on different identities rather than identifying with the 3 Colleges,” she says. For Doris-Pierce, the goal of the “We Are HWS” campaign is about building community and creating a culture of change to “show that despite our differences we are one community and that all of us ARE HWS. We cannot build cultural change from the top down,” she adds. “In order to create a campus community where everyone feels valued, we must first change individual attitudes. We must make sure that the words, “We Are HWS” hold weight— whoever you are in this community, we are a community and we ARE HWS.” ●
2 Pictured above: (1) PJ McInnis ’15 and Virginia DeWees ’16 high-five each other after realizing they have more in common than expected. (2) “The Board of Trustees was on campus during the first “We Are HWS” photo shoot,” says Doris-Pierce. “A gentleman in a suit jacket sat down next to me, and realizing I hadn’t taken a photo myself, I said ‘Hi, I’m Molly. Would you like to take a photo with me?’ I had no idea who he was, but later learned he is Honorary Trustee Herbert J. Stern ’58, P’03, LL.D. ’74. We both wrote “passionate” and “sarcastic,” proving to me that even through generations, once you are HWS you always remain HWS.” (3) Ti-Ti Qin ’17 and Sarah Feldman ’15 both identify as advocates and activists but consider themselves to be procrastinators. (4) Jordan Smith ’15 and Julia Yenco ’16 learn they have similar tastes in music and movies.
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Photos by Kevin Colton
Scale Model | ca.1950s
WAVELENGTHS
Durfee, Bartlett, Hale and Gulick Halls An architetect’s scale model of Durfee, Bartlett, Hale and Gulick Halls. The Colleges broke ground on Sept. 13, 1950. The three new residence halls (Durfee, Bartlett and Hale) helped to house the growing enrollment of men. Today, Gulick is home to the psychology department and registrar’s office.
Homecoming 16 First-Year Seminars
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Middle States Repor t
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Snap Shot
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Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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TOP Daily Update Stories
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MYRICK NAMED PRESIDENTIAL FELLOW
Mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., and the recipient of the 2014 John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award, Svante Myrick is the city’s youngest mayor and first mayor of color. Myrick has been appointed by President Mark D. Gearan as the Colleges’ Presidential Fellow for Civic Engagement. This year, he is leading guest lectures and hosting special events centered on public service and civic engagement.
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HWS RECOGNIZED FOR LGBT INCLUSIVITY
For the third consecutive year, HWS has been recognized as a leader for LGBT-inclusive policies, programs and practices, receiving five out of a possible five stars from Campus Pride’s Campus Climate Index. The Colleges’ numeric score of 92 percent rose slightly over last year’s, reflecting HWS’ continued efforts in the area.
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TURBOVOTE NAMES HWS ‘TOP CAMPUS’
The Colleges have been named the “Top Campus of all Time” by TurboVote, based on the percentage of enrolled students who have signed up to vote over the past two years – 51.8 percent. In this category, HWS beat out Juniata College, Harvard University, Vassar College and the University of Chicago, among others. In 2012, HWS Votes began working with TurboVote, a project of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Democracy Works, to provide students with registration information and opportunities. Since then, close to 1,100 HWS students have either registered to vote or requested an absentee ballot.
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PHYSICS STUDENTS AT NASA ROCKET LAUNCH
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CHRIS ABANI NAMED TRIAS WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE
After taking first prize in the NASA/Montana National Student Solar Spectroscopy Competition, HWS physics students Jeff Rizza ’16, Christopher Demas ’17 and Joe Carrock ’17 were awarded a trip to NASA’s Flight Facility in Wallops, Va., to assemble a scientific payload to launch into space through the RockOn! Program. With hopes of a future NASA collaboration, the HWS team has started the design of a more advanced type of rocket payload, the RockSat-C.
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ADAMS ’16 NAMED HOLLINGS SCHOLAR
Brooke Adams ’16 was named to the prestigious Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship Program. As a Hollings Scholar, she is provided with up to $8,000 in academic assistance and a 10-week, paid full-time summer internship at a NOAA facility next summer.
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PERKIN OBSERVATORY TO BE CONSTRUCTED
Acclaimed author of GraceLand (2004) and The Secret History of Las Vegas (2014), Chris Abani kicked off the TRIAS Reading Series by presenting works of both fiction and poetry. This year’s 2014-2015 Trias Writerin-Residence, Abani is leading workshops and serves as a guide and mentor for many of the Colleges’ most dedicated and driven writers.
A new observatory will be created at the Colleges through a grant from The Perkin Fund. Anticipated for fall 2015, the observatory will be named the Richard S. Perkin Observatory in honor of the grandfather of Christopher Perkin ’95, a trustee of the Perkin Fund who was instrumental in securing the grant. With the addition of Assistant Professor of Physics Leslie Hebb to the faculty in 2013, the observatory will significantly support the Colleges’ efforts to expand offerings in astronomy.
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HWS LEGACY PROGRAM LINKS GENERATIONS
Connected across generations - some with institutional ties as far back as the mid-19th century – HWS legacies are the children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins or siblings of alumni, alumnae and current students. Thanks to the HWS Legacy Admissions Program, qualified students are awarded $5,000 scholarships, and those with top academic credentials are eligible for one of five $20,000 Legacy Scholarships.
Admissions Program
PRESIDENT’S FORUM SERIES
This semester, the President’s Forum Series has welcomed Wall Street Journal columnist, political theorist and writer William A. Galston; legal strategist, financial attorney, and wife of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, Victoria Reggie Kennedy; the “Political Junkie Road Show” presented by “Talk of the Nation” host Neal Conan and “Political Junkie” Ken Rudin; political strategists James Carville P’17, LL.D. ’13 and Mary Matalin P’17; and Susan Brison, professor and chair of the Philosophy Department at Dartmouth College, author of Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self, and an expert on sexual violence.
WAVELENGTHS
Overheard “The design process has been inclusive and collaborative, the design handsome and interdisciplinary, and even during the construction phase, is being used to educate.” Chris Button, associate director for planning and construction notes the rapid progress on the 65,000-square-foot Performing Arts Center; follow Button’s blog at www.hwsperformingarts.org
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s I walked along the edge of the lake, around the Quad and downtown, I said to myself, if this isn’t a slice of heaven, it’s very near to it. I began to doubt my sanity, beating my head against the walls in Washington, D.C. for 32 years, when I could’ve been encountering bright young minds like yours.” William A. Galston, columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the Ezra Zilkha chair at the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, in his President’s Forum Series talk “America’s Polarized Politics: Where does it come from, and what can we do about it?”
“One of the main reasons I chose Hobart and William Smith was because I knew they were committed to service.” Kelly Monahan ’18, a first-year student from Hartland, Wis.
“Some of you come from large families, but I assure you the Hobart family is the largest of all. Thirteen-thousand brothers, all of whom have led a life of consequence.” Hobart College Alumni Association President Dr. Jeremy Cushman ’96 at the Hobart Matriculation Ceremony
“Can I take a selfie with you now, and then again in four years?” First-year student Megan Mahar ’18 to President Mark D. Gearan. Following an annual tradition, each member of the Classes of 2018 received an individual welcome and handshake from President Gearan on the steps of Coxe Hall during Matriculation ceremonies – the very place where students will receive their diplomas at graduation.
“The level of instruction and the quality of a Hobart and William Smith education is really remarkable — Mary and I can at least agree on that.”
James Carville P’17, LL.D. ’13 at the President’s Forum lecture in New York City. Carville and Mary Matalin P’17 provided postelection commentary for a group of HWS alumni, alumnae, parents and friends at the Harvard Club.
“How do we enhance the culture of respect on this campus? How do we make the best of our heritage align with real, respectful, meaningful experiences today?” Chaplain Lesley Adams HON’12 at the William Smith Welcome Dinner
“The variety of events—which include dance and conscious-raising as well as lecture and discussion— are designed to incite us to move beyond being passive bystanders and toward active change.” Jodi Dean, professor of political science and director of the Fisher Center for the Study of Women and Men on this year’s theme, “Campus War Machine: Sex and Debt”
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Gallouët Named Dean of William Smith
photo by kevin colton
by Steven Bodnar
Dean of William Smith and Professor of French and Francophone Studies Catherine Gallouët
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rofessor of French and Francophone Studies Catherine Gallouët was recently named Dean of William Smith College, an appointment to which she brings 27 years of experience as a member of the HWS faculty with an impressive record of scholarship, teaching and service. Gallouët began her role as dean on July 1, 2014. “I am pleased that Professor Catherine Gallouët agreed to serve the Colleges in this important way,” says President Mark D. Gearan. “Professor Gallouët is a dedicated teacher who brings a wealth of experience, understanding and insight to the Dean’s office. She is also an accomplished scholar whose many publications speak to her deep commitment to research and exposition. I look forward to her perspective and counsel as a member of the Colleges’ senior leadership team.” An initiator of the Colleges’ French study abroad programs who has served as department chair three times, Gallouët continues to hold teaching responsibilities as
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a member of the faculty. “It is an honor to be appointed Dean of William Smith College, and I look forward to representing William Smith College and advocating for all William Smith students,” Gallouët says. “I want to work with students across all issues that they may encounter at the Colleges. I’m excited about finding ways to integrate their professional and personal aspirations with their academic experience, helping them to discover what’s right for them.” Through her involvement with HWS committees and student groups and through her role as an adviser, Gallouët has been deeply involved in the fabric of the HWS student experience since 1986. The author and editor of numerous scholarly publications, Gallouët’s recent work focuses on culture and race during the French Enlightenment as documented in 18th century French cultural productions, particularly how resistance and revolt of Africans and slaves are represented during the French Enlightenment.
Gallouët recently published “Marivaudage: théories & pratiques d’un discours” (Oxford Studies in the Enlightenment, 2014), a collection of essays exploring the style of Marivaux as it is discussed by his contemporaries and is remembered today. Her recent article on Nzingha, queen of Angola, published in a special issue on Africa in the 18th century French journal Dix-Huitième Siècle, was reviewed in Angola and in Brazil, where Nzingha is a historical heroine, and is considered a breakthrough in European studies of the African queen. In addition to her recent work, Gallouët has been honored with the prestigious 20142015 John Readie and Florence B. Kinghorn Global Fellowship, as nominated by HWS colleagues. The fellowship honors outstanding individuals who have exemplified global citizenship on a continued basis. Through the fellowship, Gallouët will continue her work on a book focusing on 18th century European representations of Africans in literature during the French Enlightenment. Gallouët serves on the organizing committee of the Marivaux conference at the Université Aix-Marseille through January 2015. She is co-editor of Les représentations du Noir dans la littérature, l’histoire et les arts européens et américains des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Engaged in her work and scholarship at the global level, Gallouët is a member of Groupe de Recherches sur les Représentations Européennes de l’Afrique et des Africains aux 17e et 18e siècles, Société pour lA TOpique Romanesque, American Society for EighteenthCentury Studies, North East Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, Société Marivaux, and Modern Languages Association. Born in Vietnam, Gallouët received her doctorate and master’s from Rutgers University, her B.A. cum laude from Hope College and her Bacalauréat, with honors, from Académie de Grenoble. ●
WAVELENGTHS
Orientation and Convocation Beyrer ’81 Opens Academic Year by Steven Bodnar
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riday, August 29 marked a milestone moment for the Hobart and William Smith Classes of 2018—an impressive group of 653 students from across the country and around the world—as they arrived on campus to begin their college careers and kick off Orientation 2014. Following annual tradition, each first-year student received an individual welcome and handshake from President Mark D. Gearan on the steps of
HWS students and members of the NAACP pose for a photo during Saturday’s Day of Service on Exchange Street. Participants filled backpacks with food and school supplies for the Feeding America BackPack Program.
Following an annual tradition, members of the Hobart and William Smith Classes of 2018 receive an individual welcome and handshake from President Mark D. Gearan on the steps of Coxe Hall - the same place where students will shake his hand when they receive their diplomas at graduation.
Coxe Hall - the same place students will receive their diplomas at graduation. At a glance, the Classes of 2018 are academically talented and well-rounded, with 19 class presidents, 181 varsity sports captains, 21 club founders and 443 who participated in community service during high school. More than 100 are legacy students, meaning that one or more family members attended HWS. On the first full day of Orientation, the Classes of 2018 and more than 100 Orientation leaders and mentors went into the greater Geneva community for the 15th annual day of service. This year, Orientation Coordinators developed the service learning component around the theme of food, hunger and justice.
The 2014-2015 academic year officially opened with the Exercises of Convocation on Stern Lawn where Gearan outlined his vision for the year ahead – to foster and enhance a culture of respect (see page 4 for details). “I challenge all of us to engage in the honest, robust and respectful dialogue that will be required to model programs and initiatives to better serve our students,” Gearan said. The Convocation keynote address was given by internationally renowned expert on AIDS Dr. Christopher C. Beyrer ‘81, professor at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Johns Hopkins Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program. “You’re all now engaged in an intellectual journey, an academic one, but also a profound personal and social one,” said Beyrer. “…the reality is that how each of you interact with each other, shapes how you will engage with the wider world ahead.” Beyrer said the Classes of 2018 are members of the most tolerant generation the country has seen in decades, noting that it’s because of their efforts and the influence of their peers that change is happening. But, he said, there is still much to be done, particularly around issues of AIDS/HIV and inequalities faced by people all around the world. Beyrer urged the campus community to focus
Hobart and William Smith Colleges welcomed internationally renowned expert on AIDS, Dr. Christopher C. Beyrer ’81, as the keynote speaker for Convocation 2014. Beyrer’s life-saving work advancing public health and human rights has changed perceptions and behaviors, and improved the health of individuals, communities and countries around the world.
on treating one another with compassion. “Because the best part of respect, of dignity, and of gender equality is that it so profoundly feeds the soul,” Beyrer said. “Nothing feels better than taking care of others. Nothing is more rewarding than giving. And finding love, in all its varied forms, is the hidden jewel at the center of our desires.” ●
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members were on campus to celebrate Homecoming and Family Weekend 2014. This is the largest attendance at Homecoming ever with 1,000 more guests on campus than last year. Three days devoted to honoring the traditions of the Colleges, the event included minicollege sessions on diverse and timely topics, Fall Nationals, a President’s Forum, Quad-a-Palooza, campus open houses, and athletic contests.
HOMECOMING & FAMILYWEEKEND
2014
This fall, more than 3,500 alums, friends and family
Genevieve Moralez ’15, Lilliana Mendoza ’15, Sima Rana ’15 and Benny Calderon ’15 show their school spirit outside their Odell’s unit. Families and alums compete for bragging rights during Quad-a-Palooza, an all-campus extravaganza with a barbecue and talent show.
President Mark D. Gearan joins members of the Colleges’ three a cappella groups on the steps of Coxe Hall for a rendition of “Lean on Me.” Brianna Moore ’18 sits with her family during Friday’s Quad-a-Palooza.
President Mark D. Gearan speaks during a dinner celebrating James F. ’56, L.H.D. ’12 and Cynthia L. Caird L.H.D. ’12, and the connection between Albany Academy and Hobart and William Smith. James Caird graduated from both institutions.
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Lauren Randaccio ’17 scored the game-winning goal, as the Herons defeated St. Lawrence.
Mary Cryan P’15, P’16 attended Homecoming to visit with her two children who are students.
WAVELENGTHS
Families and alums fill the Caird Center for Sports and Recreation as the Statesmen football team defeats U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. The weekend included wins by William Smith’s field hockey, soccer and rowing teams.
Students race down William Smith Hill cheering on the contestants in the Fall Nationals soapbox derby race, a favorite HWS tradition.
Hobart quarterback Patrick Conlan ’15 hands off the ball to Dominique Ellis ’15. Ellis recorded two rushing Graduates of the Last Decade pose for a touchdowns in the Statesmen’s 42-7 Liberty League win over U.S. Merchant photo at the Homecoming football game at Caird Center for Sports and Recreation. Marine Academy.
Ali McKnight ’15 barrels down the hill in a homemade soap box derby car during Fall Nationals.
In recognition of the generous and longstanding support of Honorary Trustee Langdon (Lang) L.H.D. ’12 and Lyn Cook P’99, P’05, Hobart and William Smith dedicated The Cook Parents Circle Donor Wall. The Cook Parents Circle was established to encourage and inspire other families to provide support to the Colleges.
Professor of Political Science Iva Deutchman and Associate Professor of Political Science DeWayne Lucas speak with “Talk of the Nation” host Neal Conan and “Political Junkie” Ken Rudin as part of the “Political Junkie Road Show” during a special presentation of the President’s Forum Series. In addition to Deutchman and Lucas, panelists included political strategist James Carville P’17, LL.D.’13, President Mark D. Gearan and Mayor of Ithaca and HWS Presidential Fellow for Civic Engagement Svante Myrick.
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The FSEM by Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05
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he First-Year experience would not be complete without its quintessential first-year seminar, or the FSEM. Firstyear seminars at the Colleges are designed to stimulate intellectual curiosity, introduce academic expectations and engage students independent of future major or minor choices. From peace movements to ancient warfare, Mozart to rock-and-roll, each seminar is designed to hone writing, speaking, critical thinking and other academic skills that students will draw upon throughout their careers at HWS. Classes in first-year seminars are small, between 13 and 15 students, to allow for discussion and debate in an intimate group. Some are Linked Course-Learning Communities, in which students live in the same residence hall, forming a community; others are Learning Community Pods, two seminars of related subject matter with students living in the same residence hall. “First-year seminars offer exciting opportunities for exploration and collaboration for students and faculty alike,” says Eric Klaus, associate dean of First-Year Seminars and associate professor of German area studies. “The interplay of scholarship and creativity that is the hallmark of the program is celebrated at the end of the semester during the First-Year Seminar Symposium, where students present projects completed over the course of the semester.” Here’s a peek at some of the first-year seminars that happened in fall 2014:
Stealing Art, Saving Art, Associate Professor of Art and Architecture Michael Tinkler What motivates people to collect art? What motivates people to steal art? What motivates rare individuals to fake art? In this seminar, students look at the seamy underside and the 18 Pulteney Street Survey | Winter 2015
high-minded public face of cultural property, and the art world, from NAZI looters to museum directors. Partial Reading List: • Whose Culture by James Cuno • Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership by Colin Renfrew You Are Here: Geneva 101, Associate Professor of English Anna Credick, Professor of Art and Architecture Nick Ruth and Professor of Political Science Kevin Dunn Welcome to Geneva, N.Y., your place of residence for the next four years; the first four years of your adult life. This course sets up Geneva as a laboratory in which to seek to understand the complex interaction of forces that produce a “place:” demographics, natural environment, built environment, and human activity. Partial Reading List: • The Making of an Upstate Community: Geneva, New York by David Brumberg • Wolves and Honey: A Hidden History of the Natural World by Susan Brind Morrow
The Avian Persuasion, Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature Caroline Manring If you’ve ever wished you could fly, join the club. If you’ve ever wondered why you wished you could fly, take this course. Humans have always been drawn to birds. In this seminar, students ask why as they try to understand human relationships with birds from the perspectives of writers, musicians, scientists, and back yard bird-watchers, among other types of thinkers. Partial Reading List: • The Goshawk by T.H. White • Crow Planet by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Rock Music & American Masculinities, Senior Associate Dean of Hobart College Rocco “Chip” Capraro Elvis, Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen. They were some of the central figures in the history of rock music in America and England from the 1950s to the 1980s. But what kind of men were they? This seminar offers an interdisciplinary look at the lives of these men of rock through the lens of men’s studies: i.e., through the history and theory of men’s identity and experience. Partial Reading List: • The Forty-Nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role by Deborah David and Robert Brannon • Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex by Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs School Wars, Assistant Professor of Education Khuram Hussain Why are people willing to march, protest and risk their lives and livelihood for schools they can believe in? There is no public institution that inspires, enrages and connects to American ideals about “public good” more than schools. But what is “good”? In this seminar students ask, what’s worth fighting for in school... and why? Students interrogate the conflicts that rage over what the purpose of schools should be and who should decide. Public protests, creative peoples’ movements and even military intervention have been waged with the aim of directing the destiny of public education. Through discussions, formal debates, group projects, lectures, films and readings students trace dynamic interests that vie to influence schools and direct education policy.
WAVELENGTHS Partial Reading List: • The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future by Linda DarlingHammond • The Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools by Diane Ravitch
Fracking?, Professor of Geoscience D. Brooks McKinney Hydraulic fracturing, fracking for short, is a controversial technique for extracting natural gas from carbon rich shales. The Colleges sit along the northern margin of one of the most important areas for potential shale gas development—the “Marcellus Shale play” as it is known in the petroleum industry. Among the arguments advanced by proponents of Marcellus shale gas development are that it can provide domestic energy security, that it is more climate friendly than oil or coal, and that its development will aid economic development. Opponents counter that it may threaten both the quantity and quality of surface and subsurface waters, that shale gas development will delay adoption of renewable energy and that the industrialization of the landscape associated with shale gas development will threaten more sustainable economic activities like tourism and agriculture. Who is right? Partial Reading List: • The Science Beneath the Surface: A Very Short Guide to the Marcellus Shale by Don Duggan-Haas and Ross M. Robert • The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World by Russell Gold
Sustainable Living: A Learning Community for First-Year Students by Steven Bodnar
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his academic year, more than 50 first-year students are exploring sustainability and consumption through a new Learning Community, “Sustainable Living.” The two-semester long program emphasizes the relationship between local actions and global effects. “Sustainable Living gives students interested in any aspect of sustainability a strong start academically and toward their careers,” explains Thomas Drennen, professor of economics and chair of the Environmental Studies Program. “The unique living and learning model we are piloting is designed to ensure that firstProfessor of Economics Tom Drennen (center) leads students year students connect early and strongly during the construction of a high tunnel at the newly acquired farm property on White Springs Road as part of their Firstwith their faculty advisers, with one Year Seminar titled “Consuming the World.” another, with the Colleges, and with this beautiful region.” Taught by Assistant Professor of Fribolin Farm, a 35-acres farm owned by the Environmental Studies Kristen Brubaker, Colleges just a mile from campus. Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies This spring, students are remaining in Robin Lewis, and Visiting Assistant Professor their sections, taking a linked course that of Environmental Studies Tarah Rowse, the extends learning throughout the year to create Learning Community is led by Drennen, an integrated, interdisciplinary experience. who is also co-chair of the HWS President’s The Learning Community reinforces the Climate Task Force. Additionally, Eco-Reps and Colleges’ dedication to a campus-wide effort of upperclass students, who have expertise in environmental sustainability. ● sustainability, serve as teaching assistants and mentors. Consuming the World, As part of a Learning Community, all Professor of Economics and 56 members are living together in the same Chair of the Environmental co-ed residence hall along with four speciallyStudies Program Thomas selected resident assistants (RA). The RAs are Drennen, Assistant Professor committed to the programming of Sustainable of Environmental Studies Living and direct activities that support green Kristen Brubaker, Assistant efforts throughout the year. The residence hall Professor of Environmental Studies is equipped with seminar rooms and a full Robin Lewis, and Visiting Assistant Professor of kitchen specially designed for the Learning Environmental Studies Tarah Rowse Community. Additionally, the participating We are all consumers. We buy things. We use faculty have offices in the residence hall, as do things up. We throw things away. Often we do the teaching assistants. all of this without considering the life cycle of Members of the Sustainable Learning Community are enrolled in one of four sections these “things.” Think about all the T-shirts you of the First Year Seminar (FSEM) “Consuming own. Do you know what materials make up the World,” which considers the life cycle of your T-shirts? Moreover, do you know what things that we, as consumers buy, use and was required to get these T-shirts to you in the throw away. The course explores the complex first place? While these questions may seem relationship between sustainability and consumption, paying specific attention to the to have simple answers, the reality is that each myriad ways in which individual consumption of the “things” we consume has a complex practices shape global outcomes. secret life of its own, one worthy of further One day each week, all students, faculty consideration. and teaching assistants take part in a combined Partial Reading List: class to share perspectives, view films, and discuss weekly experiments, such as weighing • Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food trash and recyclables week, meat-free week, Life by Barbara Kingsolver maximum recycling challenge and more. • The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Field trips throughout the region provide Economy: An Economist Examines the opportunities to learn more about Geneva and Markets, Power and Politics of World Trade the Finger Lakes, and include guided visits to the landfill, a regional recycling center, and to by Pietra Rivoli
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Storm Chasing in the Scale of F
Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF-Scale) Wind speeds / Damage Rating
65-85 mph
by Andrew Wickenden ’09
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ecause measuring tornado wind speed during the event itself is not only dangerous but often impossible, Tetsuya Theodore Fujita developed the Fujita Scale, or F-Scale, in the early 1970s to categorize the storms based on the amount of damage they caused. Since 2007, the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF-Scale) — a revised version of the original — has been the standard for estimating tornado severity in the U.S., which can see more than 1,000 tornadoes each year. “The F-Scale was revised because it became clear that the damage-based wind speed estimates weren’t totally accurate,” explains Nick Metz, assistant professor of geoscience. “The EF-Scale was the next logical improvement. Engineers and meteorologists slightly adjusted the scale and the wind speeds associated with damage.” Each level of the scale — from EF0 to EF5 — corresponds to a level of damage and the theoretical range of wind speeds associated with this damage, from 65 miles per hour at the lower end of the EF0 range, to more than 200 miles per hour at EF5. Like the F-Scale, the EF-ratings are assigned to tornadoes after the storms have dissipated, when meteorologists survey the damage on the ground and estimate the range of wind speed. “Are there trees down? Which direction did they fall? If a structure sustained damage, what was the quality of structure? What kind of damage? Were there rotating winds or straight line winds? In terms of damage surveys, meteorologists are investigators, piecing together evidence, trying to tell the story of the storm,” says Neil Laird, associate professor of geoscience.
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200+ mph 166-200 mph 136-165 mph 111-135 mph 86-110 mph
EF 5 – Incredible Damage
EF 4 – Extreme Damage
EF 3 – Severe Damage
EF 2 – Considerable Damage
EF 1 – Moderate Damage
EF 0 – Minor Damage
For nearly two weeks this summer, as “It’s hard to fathom actually being up part of the Colleges’ geoscience curriculum, close and personal with severe storms until Metz, Laird and eight students forecasted you are out there experiencing all aspects and tracked storm systems across the of the chase,” says Caitlin Crossett ’15, who Midwest and Central Plains, chasing severe is working toward her major in geoscience supercell thunderstorms that had the with a concentration in atmospheric science. potential to produce tornadoes. It was the mystery of the storms — and After a three-day intensive on-campus being able to see the weather and storms workshop to prepare students with details develop up close — that enticed Jeffery about severe storms, storm-chasing Rizza ’15. simulation scenarios, and field-testing of the As part of the Colleges’ Geoscience curriculum, HWS mobile weather eight students were led by Geoscience faculty Nick Metz and Neil Laird across the Midwest and balloon system and Central Plains for nearly two weeks chasing severe other instrumentation, supercell thunderstorms that had the potential of producing tornadoes. the group hit the road. Each morning a separate pair of students was tasked with providing a weather briefing to the rest of the group while identifying the best route to take to locate the day’s most promising severe storms. After 11 days, the group had traveled through 14 states and covered 6,300 miles. Using handheld instruments, balloons rising “There are still many unknowns in from the ground to the upper atmosphere, the area of severe weather associated instrumented kites collecting data in the with supercells such as tornadoes and lower atmosphere, radio-transmitted realextreme hail,” says Rizza, a physics and time weather information, and time-lapse environmental studies double major and photography, the students predicted how a geoscience minor. “There are so many the atmosphere’s ingredients — moisture, subtleties and details that went into temperature, and wind — would come predicting the development of a storm. It’s together to produce storms most afternoons. amazing that thousands of these severe This rich suite of measurements and data, storm events occur in the U.S. every year along with the visual observation of the and yet we aren’t completely clear on the explosive development of cumulus clouds, processes that produce them.” ● allowed the group to witness multiple incredible storms and a tornado.
photo by gregory searles ’13
Middle States Commission Lauds HWS by Steven Bodnar
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The Colleges earned the Commission’s praise in particular for obart and William Smith received an outstanding accreditation “success at offering students significant learning opportunities outreport from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education side of the classroom,” both internationally and locally. The Commisindicating that the Colleges have fulfilled all standards and charsion also noted the Colleges’ investment in Geneva, writing: “Hoacteristics of excellence. “Hobart and William Smith are clearly a first-rate bart and William Smith seem to see Geneva as a institution deeply committed to transformational resource worth protecting and supporting through student learning, important research and discovery, “Hobart and William Smith initiatives that are designed to improve the public holistic student growth, artistic and aesthetic experiare clearly a first-rate schools and enhance the economic health of the ence, and powerful local, regional and global iminstitution deeply committed City of Geneva.” pacts,” the report states. The evaluation is a required to transformational student “Through the self-study report and site assessment of the Colleges’ operations, outcomes learning, important research visit, the representatives of Middle States oband educational approach. Chaired by Franklin & Marshall College Presi- and discovery, holistic student served a highly functioning team of faculty and dent Daniel R. Porterfield, representatives of the growth, artistic and aesthetic staff whose purpose remains, as it has since the founding of the Colleges, to prepare students to Commission conducted an extensive campus visit experience, and powerful lead lives of consequence,” says President Mark and review, noting “with great admiration the cullocal, regional and global D. Gearan. “I am grateful to those who worked so tures of aspiration, respect, inclusiveness, striving, diligently on the self-study and to all members of academic freedom, shared governance and civility impacts.” – Middle States Report our community who strive each day for excellence that define this community.” as we educate students for the 21st century.” “We were impressed by the sense of com “I am appreciative of the hard work and time of the many munity and common purpose that define the Hobart and William Smith faculty, students and staff across the Colleges who participated in the experience,” says Porterfield. “In particular, we observed a deep apself-study report and site visit,” says Provost and Dean of Faculty Titi preciation for the life of the mind, dedication to educating students with Ufomata. “I am especially grateful for the leadership and diligence global competencies, a collective commitment to service and to Geneva, of the HWS self-study co-chairs — Associate Provost and Associate outstanding and remarkably committed presidential leadership, and an Professor of Chemistry Christine de Denus and Associate Professor of integrity that is shared across the Colleges.” English Anna Creadick — whose guidance structured our work and Since the last Middle States reaccreditation, the team reported, led to this positive conclusion.” Hobart and William Smith “have enhanced academic quality, expanded A voluntary, non-governmental, membership association, the the faculty, improved campus resources and facilities, strengthened its Middle States Commission is dedicated to quality assurance and competitive position, completed a successful $205 million campaign, improvement through accreditation via peer evaluation. Middle contributed creatively to Geneva, developed signature programs in coStates accreditation instills public confidence in institutional mission, curricular learning, and nurtured its tradition and engagement of alums goals, performance, and resources through its rigorous accreditation — all while weathering extremely well the national financial difficulties standards and their enforcement. ● of the past six years.”
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snapshots
HWS COLLEGES
Follow the Colleges on Instragram, Twitter and Facebook for more photos and log on to www.hws.edu every Friday to view This Week in Photos.
Director, producer and screenwriter Mark Neveldine ’95 talks with students in Professor of English Grant Holly’s “The Art of the Screenplay” class.
A bird’s eye view over the construction site of the Performing Arts Center captures the progress of the project.
Molly Ramage ’15 and Elizabeth Kniffin ’15 snap a selfie during the Islamic Fashion Show in the Vandervort Room.
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Emmy award-winning sports correspondent and analyst Pierre McGuire ’83 shows off his 1991 Stanley Cup championship ring to members of the William Smith ice hockey team.
Students pose for a group photo with Mary Herlihy Gearan (seated, center) at the President’s House during one of her weekly Friday Open Houses.
Jericsson Pichardo ’15, Aminata Dansoko ’15 and Stephanie Perez ’15 plant the first seeds in the newly constructed high tunnel at HWS Fribolin Farm as part of their “Group Senior Integrative Experience” class.
Thirty-four students from Hobart and William Smith joined more than 300,000 people on the streets of New York City for the People’s Climate March.
WAVELENGTHS
Chris Moran ’16, Grace Thompson ’16 and Lily Kane ’16 register students to vote during National Voter Registration Day in the Scandling Campus Center.
The Hobart hockey team plays a sled hockey game at the Cooler against the 3-85th Mountain Warrior Sled Team from Fort Drum, N.Y.
Students walk through the Quad after class.
Professor of Art and Architecture A.E. Ted Aub (left) assists students as they pour bronze castings of found objects created as part of Aub’s “Metal Sculpture” class in the The Katherine D. Elliott ’66 Studio Arts Center.
Winners of the Stu Lieblein ’90 Pitch Contest — Andrew King ’14, Sara Wroblewski ’13 and Ato Bentsi-Enchill ’17 — speak to students at the Centennial Center for Leadership.
Hobart Statesman Matt McGriff ’15 gives a big smile during a visit to Happiness House. Throughout the academic year, Hobart football players visit Happiness House to assist teachers and interact with students.
Following the 2014 midterm elections, political strategists James Carville P’17, LL.D. ’13 and Mary Matalin P’17 joined the Hobart and William Smith President’s Forum Series for post-election commentary and their predictions for 2016.
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Doubling the Impact by Andrew Wickenden ’09
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Inspiring others to invest in HWS
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udith Haslam Cross ’52, P’85, L.H.D.’00 recalls that when she graduated from high school in 1948, “we did not apply to multiple colleges. Our parents decided.” When her mother suggested Wellesley, Cross’s great-aunt Helen Brent intervened. “Judith,” she said, “should go to William Smith.” For her own part, Cross says, “I’ve been forever grateful.” Cross’ family connection and commitment to HWS can be traced to Charles Henry Brent (Helen’s brother and Cross’s great-uncle) who at the time of William Smith College’s founding sat on the Board of Hobart as Bishop of Western New York. After Bishop Brent’s death in 1929, Helen came to William Smith where she taught religion and served as assistant dean to Mary McCormack ScottCraig, the sixth dean of the College, taking a profound interest in the development of its students. “Helen and her sisters were strong advocates for women in the mold of Jane Addams of Hull House,” says Cross, who herself has spent the past 50 years as an influential and dedicated advocate for Hobart and William Smith as a trustee, class agent and class correspondent. In honor of her great-aunt’s exemplary strength and commitment, Cross is endowing a scholarship in Helen Brent’s name through the Scandling Trust, 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. “Bill Scandling was a commanding presence on the Board, and we all had great respect for what he had accomplished personally and for the Colleges,” says Cross, who served as trustee from 1984 to 1992, including a term as vice-chair. “I am especially grateful to him for making it possible to double the scope of my scholarship due to the matching gift.” As Scandling himself once said: “There is no question in my mind today that an
“I am especially grateful to him [Scandling] for making it possible to double the scope of my scholarship due to the matching gift.” —Judith Haslam Cross ’52, P’85, L.H.D.’00
education is one of the greatest gifts that can be bestowed upon an individual. It enriches his or her quality of life. It deepens that person’s intellectual and spiritual awareness, and widens his or her sense of what life can hold. And today, more than ever, it improves a person’s chance of finding work that will be fulfilling and that will enable him or her to be economically independent and support a family.” “When I was at William Smith I roomed with another student who was on a Trustee Scholarship,” Cross recalls. “From her I learned the importance of scholarship aid. This student went on to have a successful career in academia and published several books. I hope the scholarship I establish will benefit others like her at Hobart and William Smith far into the future.” ●
Honoring a Mother and Creating Opportunities by Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05
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s one of only two women in the class of 1932 at Syracuse University School of Law, Carolyn Bareham Dineen ‘26 was a pioneer in the field of law and an advocate for a wide range of career opportunities for women. She often addressed women’s issues in newspaper columns and spoke to students about law as a profession for women. The daughter of a family that emigrated from England to Rochester, N.Y., Dineen graduated first in her class at William Smith with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and arts. She served as president of student govThe Dineen siblings at the September dedication of ernment, played basketball and field hockey, Dineen Hall, Syracuse University College of Law. (L-R) and was a member of the Dramatic Council. Robert Dineen, Judge Carolyn Dineen King, and the After graduating, Dineen went on to earn a late Kathryn Dineen Wriston. master’s in medieval English from Columbia involved with civic affairs in the area, servUniversity. Not wanting to teach, she decided ing as a member of the Hospital Area Planto instead go into law. ning Committee, president of the Milwaukee When her father, who did not believe Catholic Home and a trustee of the Michael women should be lawyers, refused to help her J. Cudahy Foundation. Although she passed financially, Dineen worked as a newspaper away in 2001 at the age of 95, columnist in SyraDineen’s legacy lives on. cuse, N.Y. to put In memory of their mother’s herself through law pioneering and determined spirit, school. After passher children, Robert Dineen, Judge ing the bar in 1932, Carolyn Dineen King and the late she established a Kathryn Dineen Wriston recently successful career endowed a scholarship in Carolyn at a local law firm, Bareham Dineen’s name through Costello, Cooney the Scandling Trust. and Fearon, where Through The Scandling she met her husTrust, Hobart and William Smith band, Robert, when have matched the family’s gift of they were representing co-defen$100,000, leveraging William F. dants in a lawsuit. Scandling’s ’49, LL.D.’67 final gift The Dineens were to the Colleges to encourage further married in 1937. support. Their gift now funds two Carolyn dedicated financially deserving and acaherself to raising demically qualified William Smith their four children, students from either Rochester or Carolyn, Kathryn, Syracuse. Robert and Larry, During the William Smith May Day “This generous scholarship,” who died of leuke- celebration of 1925, Carolyn Bareham Vice President for Advancement Dineen ’26 was crowned Queen of May Day mia at a young age. and named head of student government for Bob O’Connor says, “honors the her senior year. The couple legacy of their mother, a proud later relocated to graduate of William Smith and Milwaukee where Robert would eventually Syracuse University College of Law, an accombecome president and CEO of Northwestern plished attorney, and mother who instilled in Mutual Life Insurance and Financial Services. her children a love of learning, an enthusiasm Carolyn remained with their children until the for hard work, and the importance of giving back to the community.” ● youngest went off to college. She then became
The Scandling Trust In celebration of William F. Scandling ’49, LL.D. ’67 and all that he believed in, Hobart and William Smith have launched a 24-month initiative, called The Scandling Trust, which leverages Scandling’s final gift to the Colleges to encourage the support of others in three important areas: • Endowed internships including the promise of a guaranteed internship or research opportunity and, if unpaid, a stipend for every Hobart and William Smith student; • Endowed scholarships with particular emphasis on support for the middle class; and • The creation of an entrepreneurial leadership initiatives fund that will give students the tools they need to translate their education into a life of consequence. In addition to Scandling’s estate gift, the Colleges will raise $20 million in endowment for internships and scholarships as well as additional funds to support entrepreneurial leadership. With a successful completion of The Scandling Trust by May 2016, the Colleges will have added more than $30 million to its endowment. Every new gift of $100,000 or more made in support of scholarship or internship endowments will receive a match from The Scandling Trust: • With a gift of $100,000 or more, a donor can create a new endowed scholarship or internship fund or add to an existing endowed scholarship or internship fund. The donor will receive a 50% match from the Scandling Trust. Given the sense of urgency, as an added incentive, if the donor pays off his or her commitment within two years, the fund will receive a 100% match. • Annual gifts of any size can be directed toward financial aid, internships or entrepreneurial initiatives through The Annual Fund. An Annual Fund Scholarship or an Annual Fund Internship can be created with a commitment of $5,000 or more, for five years. • Deferred gifts, including documented bequests, are eligible for a 50% match if the donor is aged 70 or older.
For more information on making a gift in support of The Scandling Trust initiative, please contact: Leila Rice, Associate Vice President for Advancement Rice@hws.edu | (315) 781-3545
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Subin Nepal ’15, Zappler House Last summer, Subin Nepal ’15, a double major in international relations and political science, worked as an intern at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, an international think tank in New Delhi, India. Nepal returned to HWS for his senior year where he is pursuing an Honors project on the post-conflict reconstruction of Mozambique and Nepal, his home country. Nepal has worked as an intern with The Ocean Foundation in Washington D.C., and has designed and established three libraries and a technology center in Nepal. His work on Bhutanese refugees was featured as part of the Colleges’ Human Rights and Genocide Symposium. Nepal is president of Sigma Chi fraternity and resides, along with other members of the fraternity, in Zappler House on South Main Street.
MY SPACE Flag of Nepal
I hang it to remind me of home – where I’ve come from and where I’m going.
Tibetan Mandala Painting
“Tibetan Mandala Painting” with the Venerable Tenzin Yignyen, was one of the hardest yet most satisfying courses I have ever taken. The class is so much more than Buddhist history, art and philosophy. It’s about principles for living a balanced, peaceful and compassionate life.
iPOD
My music selection depends a lot on my mood, but I love the Beatles and Nepali instrumental music.
Dean Baer Mask
Grandfather’s watch
I inherited this watch from my grandfather who received it as a gift from my uncle who purchased it while in Japan working for the Nepalese Embassy. It’s very dear to me and I only wear it on special occasions.
1994 Hobart Mug
I have a collection of 10 or so old Hobart mugs that I found at the local second hand shop. This one was given to the Hobart Class of 1994 by the Alumni Association and cost $1.
Last year, I handmade rally masks of Hobart Dean Eugen Baer HON’07, P’95, P’97 to honor his final Fall Nationals soapbox derby race. The event was cancelled due to snow, so he’s never seen them. Maybe I’ll find a use for them before I graduate!
Name Tags I’ve saved every single name tag from HWS events since my first year.
Sling Shot
My friend Eliza Orrick ’15 bought me the sling shot while she was studying abroad in Vietnam.
Post It Notes
Professor of Political Science Kevin Dunn makes reading suggestions on Postit-notes. He’s my majors and Honors adviser. He pushes me to go beyond what I think I am capable of.
Passport I found HWS through an online search. The HWS Office of Admissions staff included some of the most responsive and caring counselors I’d communicated with. Since arriving at HWS, I’ve been to Germany and Poland to participate in the Colleges’ March of Remembrance and Hope, Bahrain on a long layover while traveling to India for my internship, and Toronto, Canada with my friend Harrison Schutzer ’15.
Rug
Mastering Black and White Digital Photography by Michael Freeman I love taking photos. This semester, I am working in the Office of Communications and learning from Chief Photographer Kevin Colton.
Bookshelf
Sex and Race in International Relations, to which I contributed, is a collection of the best writing from students in a political science seminar.
Manual Camera
I’ve always been crazy about photography. While in high school, I saved my lunch money to buy this used one.
Last year, Bampton House (Hobart College’s Honors and Leadership House) won the $1,000 prize for best Spirit Week decorations. Bampton got a new rug with the money, and I was allowed to keep this old one as a memento.
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Nepal by Toni Hagen
One of the very first foreigners from the West to trek through Nepal doing geological surveys, Hagen introduced Nepal to the rest of the world. This is a second-hand copy; there’s a note on the inside cover to someone named “Gigi” dated December 1978.
Boat Shoes
They’re terrible to break in, but once you do, they’re the most comfortable shoes one can find.
Art | ca.1991
FEATURE: SCALE
Larger than Life
Bill Whitaker Jr. ’73, L.H.D.’97 60 Minutes Correspondent 53
Using art as an expression of activism, students in Professor of Art Ted Aub’s “Arts 115 Three Dimensional Design” created a larger than life figure occupying two floors of Houghton House. The work reflects the political landscape of the early ’90s and the role of dictators and presidents in war.
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FEATURE
cale Hobart and William Smith graduates are working on
big things —big
as an avalanche, a dinosaur, the Constitution. They are working on very small things, too, like snowflakes and fish scales. In their careers, HWS community members embrace the full scope of nature and the environment, music and food, politics and economics, family and service. They are scientists, writers, architects, educators, musicians, filmmakers, business executives. They are innovators, researchers, investigators, activists. As they explore the microscopic and macroscopic, manage billions of dollars and millions of years, climb mountains and write history, these alums push the status quo of their fields. Collectively, they are scaling our perspective of the past, the identity of our present and the trajectory of our future. â—?
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MINI
FOOD
The little hors d’oeuvre that could by Jonathan Everitt
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PHOTOS BY MELANIE ACEVEDO
PETER CALLAHAN ’81
Owner, Peter Callahan Catering New York, New York
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f you’ve ever had a gourmet burger the size of quarter, a stack of pancakes that could fit in a teaspoon, or a bottle of Coke just right for a Smurf, you can thank Peter Callahan ’81. The New York City-based caterer is the recognized father of the mini-food craze that has cascaded into bite-sized, shrunk-down treats from Manhattan to Madras. One of the hottest caterers in the U.S., Callahan and his team work from a Chelsea kitchen where little things are big business. They routinely feed star-studded parties around the country—and around the world. Callahan founded his catering business in 1985, and in 2011 co-authored the bestseller Bite By Bite: 100 Stylish Little Plates You Can Make for Any Party, whose forward was penned by none other than Martha Stewart—one of his biggest fans. (Callahan is a contributing editor at Martha Stewart Weddings magazine.) Born and raised in Greenwich, Conn., the master of the mini found a passion for food while at Hobart. “I had a roommate who came from the Midwest, and we had in our freezer a butchered cow,” he says. “We had a big setup down in a house on the lake; all sorts of stuff from the farm and every imaginable ingredient for cooking. We’d do unbelievable meals and have these spectacular parties. We took it to an extreme, and it was showing where my interests lie.” But after he finished his studies, he followed his father’s example, taking a job in the financial sector. “That’s where I started off,” Callahan says.
“I worked on the floor of the COMEX, the largest floor trader of precious metals in the world. An HWS connection helped me land the job.” Not a bad gig, but finance turned out not to be his true passion. After a brief stint on Wall Street, Callahan packed his bags and headed to Philadelphia to pursue a career in food. “It was a very spontaneous move,” he says. “I’d never worked a day in food professionally. I jumped into it and also näively. I was just imitating the best takeout foods in New York City.” He started with a takeout food shop on the outskirts of Philly—“out in fox-hunting country,” but the shop morphed into a catering company as his reputation grew. He was enjoying success, but still longed to stand out from the crowd. “I had this mid-30s career crisis: this is not what I want to do. I want to do something more fun. I was just one more fish in the sea of caterers in Philadelphia and it was not what I signed up for in my romantic, näive approach.” So Callahan once again set out to reinvent himself. He headed back to Manhattan with his eye on becoming the best caterer in New York. No small task. “I was able to recreate myself in a huge way,” he says. It wasn’t long after he’d relocated that he faced a chorus of naysayers. Tiny grilled cheese made with tiny bread baked in tiny loaf
pans? Impractical. “When I first started in New York, all the experts told me, ‘You don’t do it this way. It’s too much of a production.’ That’s always been the way I’ve done things.” How else can one stand out in a crowd— especially in a town teeming with caterers? Breaking the rules and imagining new ways of doing things has clearly led to success. And Callahan is never standing still for long. He reinvents food every time he’s hired. “The intent is to do something with every party that you can’t get anywhere else,” he says. “To do something with every party that has never been done before.” That takes a lot of daydreaming— something baked into his company philosophy. “When we let our minds dream, the creativity thing clicks in,” says Callahan, who now employs 14 in his kitchen staff along with hundreds of coordination and service staff for events. “I write ideas down, I sketch them, and then I torture everyone in my company to bring them to life.” Without a tiny supply store stocked with elfin kitchen supplies, much of the miniature treats he makes require custom tools, too. “I have artists who work with me on things like a cookie cutter made in the shape of a little musical note,” he says. “Because it doesn’t exist.” It does now. ●
“The intent is to do something with every party that you can’t get anywhere else. ”
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EMERGING
PATTERNS
Economies of Scale by Andrew Wickenden ’09
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In examining the scale at which these patterns occur, Desrosiers looks at many economic indicatorsincluding annual state unemployment rates and demographic, and servicerelated characteristics that can predict whether servicemembers who recently SHANNON PHILLIPS DESROSIERS ’04 left the service will collect Research Scientist, Resource Analysis/ Marine Corps Manpower Team; Center for unemployment benefits. Naval Analyses In a Marine Corps unemployment study, for Washington, D.C. example, “we created an unemployment calculator, where transition assistance staff input service-members’ military exercise, the International Mine characteristics, and the output is their Countermeasures Exercise, conducted in probability of collecting unemployment the Persian Gulf aboard an amphibious benefits,” she says. “Service-members ship. There, colleagues and I analyzed can see how their unemployment command and control responsibilities probability varies given different and the interoperability of systems characteristics, such as their choice of across ships,” she says. “Analysts also state.” get an opportunity to take field billets, Desrosiers is also scientific analyst where they are stationed with and work for Marine Corps Recruiting Command full-time for a Marine Corps or Navy (MCRC), where she reports directly to command for two years, reporting to the Commanding General of MCRC to the commanding officer. These are provide quick-turn analytical support pretty unique opportunities for civilian for their recruiting needs. She just researchers.” completed two pieces of analysis for However, it’s the impact on MCRC: one on the allocation of Marine individual service-members that drew Corps recruiters throughout the country Desrosiers to this work. and the other on female pull-ups, “The work that you do can have a assessing a potential change to physical direct effect on policy implementation, standards for female recruits. which affects people’s lives: that’s What she enjoys most about the job the reason I wanted to go into are the variety of opportunities available policy analysis,” she says. “It’s very to CNA analysts—whether investigating rewarding.”● how a military backed policy will affect the propensity of service-members to remain with the Navy, or participating in military exercises overseas. “Not only do I get to be the scientific analyst to a Marine Corps command and work with Marines, but I recently got to participate in a 10-day PHOTO BY CANDICE MAPA
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s a research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA)—a federally funded research and development think tank—Shannon Phillips Desrosiers ’04 uses her background in economics to advise military leadership and influence important policy decisions affecting service-members of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Desrosiers, who earned her B.A. in economics and mathematics at HWS before pursuing an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics at Boston College, started at CNA three years ago with little knowledge of military procedures, policies, or operations. This, she says, is part of CNA’s philosophy. As an organization independent from the military, “CNA likes to have scientists—in economics, chemistry, physics—trained to look at problems in their own field and then teach them about the military, to apply their training to military issues and provide unbiased, objective research,” Desrosiers explains. At CNA, she works on military manpower analysis, most notably on veteran unemployment for the Marine Corps and the Navy, predicting whether separating service-members are at-risk for long unemployment spells. In an ongoing study for the Navy, she and her colleagues are examining the unemployment prospects for transitioning service-members who earn civilian credentials while in the Navy versus those who do not. “When many individuals are affected by a policy change, anecdotes bubble to the top and it becomes a topic that can be analyzed in the aggregate, if the appropriate data has been collected,” says Desrosiers. “We analyze the data for emerging patterns that were heard on a smaller scale, and those results inform the policymakers’ decisions.”
ALZHEIMER’S
EPIDEMIC DR. MARK MAPSTONE ’89
Associate Professor of Neurology, University of Rochester Medical Center Rochester, New York
PHOTO BY KEVIN COLTON
Mega Problem, Nano Solution by John Martin
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ou can’t get blood from a stone, but you can draw it easily from a human being. That’s the reason why a study— led by Dr. Mark Mapstone ’89—of blood-based biomarkers that can predict Alzheimer’s disease is causing such a stir. The paper, Plasma phospholipids identify antecedent memory impairment in older adults, was published in Nature Medicine in March 2014. “We have no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, and we have no disease modifying therapies,” says Mapstone, associate professor of neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “Early detection of the disease is a priority for developing new treatments because it may lead to insights about the initial biological changes that might be more amenable to treatment before the condition gets too far.” Alzheimer’s not only progresses in individuals; it’s advancing across society. “The scale of the epidemic is unprecedented,” Mapstone says. “In 2013, more than five million Americans were living with Alzheimer’s disease, and it cost over $215 billion to care for them. Without disease modifying therapy, there are projected to be 16 million patients by 2050. The annual cost of care will be a staggering $1.2 trillion.”
Current measures to identify “biomarkers” for early disease involve expensive brain imaging, or require removing fluid from the spine through a lumbar puncture, which has risks and is uncomfortable. “A blood test could be used more broadly,” Mapstone explains, “something like how we routinely measure blood cholesterol levels.” Mapstone and colleagues went searching for clues on a micro scale, looking for the building blocks of cells themselves. These molecules are some of the smallest that can be picked up in the blood by instruments, on the order of 3 nanometers (3 billionths of a meter) in size. In the study, they followed a group of 525 older adults for up to five years to see if they could find a marker of the earliest biological changes of Alzheimer’s. The researchers gave the subjects memory tests each year to see if their memory changed and collected blood samples. Over that span, a number of subjects developed Alzheimer’s. In their blood, Mapstone and his team found a group of ten small molecules called lipids that were depleted in the people who would go on to develop the disease up to five years before they developed the symptoms.
“We think the changes in these lipids reflect the early loss of cells in this neurodegenerative disease,” he says. “When we used these ten lipids to predict who would get Alzheimer’s disease in another group of subjects, the prediction was over 90% accurate.” Mapstone credits the group for the discovery. “Modern science is a team sport,” he says. “We had neurologists, neuropsychologists, nurses, laboratory biologists, statistical and methodological experts, and a large group of motivated study subjects.” He learned that teamwork early in life. He is the oldest of four children, all HWS alums—Craig ’91, David ’93, and Lesley ’96. “Our parents Jeff and Linda were very involved in our lives, and a constant source of encouragement and inspiration,” he says. “We were taught to be respectful, be team players, and see the value in everyone’s contributions.” At HWS, Mapstone majored in psychology and minored in anthropology. He played rugby and football and was a resident adviser and member of Delta Chi; he spent a semester at Trinity College in Dublin. “My first visit to campus was on one of those beautiful spring days when everyone was out on the Quad throwing Frisbees and lacrosse balls,” he recalls. “There was music coming out of a window in Medbery Hall. I knew it was the place for me.” Mapstone earned his master’s in psychology from Boston University and a Ph.D in clinical psychology from Northwestern University Medical School. He studied memory in patients with neurological diseases at an MIT research lab, where he got hooked on clinical neuropsychology. Alzheimer’s will put that passion to the test. “Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease not only for the individual patient, but for families, friends, and society as a whole,” Mapstone says. “Our main goal is to use early detection to understand the underlying biology and discover or develop treatments for the disease.” ●
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34 Pulteney Street Survey | Winter 2015
Scaling Mountains by Caitlyn D’Agati ’15
JULIA HEEMSTRA ’96
Director of Wellness, St. John’s Medical Center Mountain Climber Jackson, Wyoming
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irector of the Wellness Department at St. John’s Medical Center in Jackson, Wyoming during the week days, Julia Heemstra ’96 transforms into a ‘Weekend Warrior,’ scaling mountains ranging from 11,000 to 14,000 feet on weekends. “It is what really makes me feel alive,” she says. “There are times when I’m not sure I can do something, but the only option is to do it and to do it safely.” Heemstra, who oversees wellness programs for 1,100 Teton County employees, climbs or skis between 100 and 200 peaks per year. She’s climbed or skied more than 1,500 peaks over her life time. “Overcoming a perceived barrier with my own abilities is what I live for – this happens countless times on just a single climb” she says. ●
PHOTOS BY DAVID BOWERS PHOTOGRAPHY
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Responsibility by Avery Share ’15
“L
LT. COL. H. RIPLEY RAWLINGS IV ’94
Strategic Planner and Marine Infantry Officer Marine Corps Headquarters, Pentagon Arlington, Virginia
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eaders across our culture in business, education and government have a very good appreciation for scales of responsibility,” says Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel H. Ripley Rawlings IV ‘94. “With any new promotion or increase in duties, supervisors measure their subordinates’ ability to handle more responsibility. If you are found lacking, expect fewer duties. If you measure up, expect your burdens to increase. That’s how the scales of responsibility work.” A Marine Corps infantry and light armored reconnaissance officer currently serving as a strategic planner for the Headquarters of the Marine Corps at the Pentagon, Rawlings says the scales of responsibility in the military are immense. “I’m certain other government and civilian duties are exceedingly challenging, I take nothing away from those duties.” However, for the military Rawlings says, “Lives are the cost of failures or poor planning. For every brilliant decision made in combat, a thousand risks are calculated and weighed against those scales. The most precious element you’re given by the government and the people of the United States are not the millions of dollars of equipment; it’s your unit, your Marines,” says Rawlings, who has led troops on nine deployments including Iraq, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, the Pacific Islands, Kuwait and Afghanistan. “In combat, subordinates demand responsibility of their leaders. They deserve it, and they make your decisions better every second of the day.” It’s those Marines to whom Rawlings attributes his success, “Any measure of success we have in the Marine Corps is due fully to our men and women and our leaders.” After his combat deployments in the Marine Corps, his accolades include some of the highest honors given to members of the military. He has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his combat actions in Iraq, the Combat Action Ribbon and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal— the third-highest honor bestowed upon members of the U.S. Military by the U.S. Department of Defense. The recognition, he says, comes because of the people he worked for and with. None of it, he reflects, is a measure of his own abilities but of those with whom he had the privilege to lead. “Responsibility is willingly given by leaders to those who are qualified and interested in accepting it,” says Rawlings. “What they do with it is a true test of their ability to accept more responsibility. The scales of responsibility are always there, and Hobart and William Smith prepares students for that by ensuring students are prepared to live lives of consequence.” ●
Decisions “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.” —United States Constitution, Article I, Section 9
by Andrew Wickenden ’09
“O
ur committee pays the bills,” says Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen ’69, L.H.D. ’01, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee and Chair of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Along with the Senate Appropriations Committee, the House Appropriations Committee is granted budget authority and is responsible for allocating money to fund federal government programs. The 2015 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, for example—a 151-page, $491 billion defense bill sponsored by Frelinghuysen—covers military expenditures for everything from shipbuilding, to military research and development, to healthcare for servicemembers, as well as national intelligence. “The size of our military is coming down, but we need to ensure we have new technologies and intelligence to defend our nation,” he says, citing also the need for international military and humanitarian relief. “We’re the world’s only superpower, so it’s no surprise that we provide assistance to countries around the world while working with our traditional allies. We’re first in line in humanitarian disasters and intervene where appropriate.” A Republican serving 730,000 constituents in 54 communities in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, Frelinghuysen says that to witness the scale of responsibility and direct impact of their work in Washington, “it’s important that all Members of Congress travel. I’ve been to the Middle East to talk with the generals
who lead, with the soldiers on the front lines, and with the sailors who keep our Navy operating. Our military is all over the globe. Part of my job is to visit military RODNEY FRELINGHUYSEN ’69, L.H.D. ’01 installations and U.S. Representative, New Jersey’s 11th account for how Congressional District; Senior Member, House our money is Appropriations Committee; Chairman Defense being spent.” Appropriations Subcommittee The Morristown, New Jersey 2015 Defense Appropriations Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) greets Airmen during an E-8C Joint Surveillance Act was written, Target Attack Radar System demonstration at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar in February 2014. (U.S. he says, not only Air Force photo/Senior Airman Jared Trimarchi) “to ensure that those in the Army, members of Congress in achieving their Navy, Marines, Air Force and Special objectives and staying within budget. Forces have everything they need to be “In Congress, we often refer to superior in whatever military situation Democrats, Republicans, and the they encounter,” but to adapt to future Appropriations Committee,” he says. defense challenges. “We scrub the budget. We challenge its “So many have been traumatized assumptions, from the lowest level of by deployments—it’s important to detail to the highest.” ensure they get the best healthcare and Reflecting on his career, assistance,” says Frelinghuysen, a Vietnam Frelinghuysen says, “Who would have veteran himself who pays regular visits to thought a Hobart grad, drafted a few service-members at Walter Reed National months out of college, would be in Military Medical Center. charge of the largest discretionary Also a member of key spending part of the federal budget?”● appropriations subcommittees on Energy and Water Development and Homeland Security, Frelinghuysen cites the support of his “extraordinarily able and knowledgeable staff” and as well as bipartisan efforts with his fellow
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LARGE SCALE
ART
The Anderson Collection at Stanford University – a collection of 121 modern and contemporary American paintings and sculpture – is housed in a new, permanent 33,000-square-foot-building (photos top and bottom). Constructed exclusively to house the Collection, the facilities include dedicated gallery spaces, offices, a conference room, a library/study area and storage spaces. The new space was opened in September 2014. Photos by Tim Griffith
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The Collection of a Lifetime by Andrew Wickenden ’09
T
he Anderson Collection, one of the world’s most substantial gatherings of modern and contemporary American art, began 50 years ago as a modest undertaking driven by the passion of Harry W. “Hunk” Anderson ’49, LL.D. ’67 and Mary Margaret “Moo” Anderson. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Hunk enrolled at Hobart. At the yacht club in Geneva, he met Moo, then a student at nearby D’Youville College. Hunk and Moo both graduated in 1949 and were married in 1950, by which time Hunk had co-founded the food service company Saga with William F. Scandling ’49, LL.D. ’67 and W. Price Laughlin ’49. When the Saga national headquarters opened in Menlo Park, Calif., in the early 1960s, Hunk and Moo settled in the San Francisco Bay area. Soon after, on a trip to Europe, they embarked on what would become a lifelong love affair with painting and sculpture. “We went to Paris in 1964, to The Louvre, and were so amazed at what we saw that on our way home, we said, ‘Let’s see if we can put together a collection, a couple dozen works,” Hunk recalls. When they returned to San Francisco, Hunk and Moo sought out works of late 19th and early 20th century masters, with the idea of collecting “the best of the best.” But they soon realized, Hunk says, that they “couldn’t collect the best of the best because most of it was already in museums. We had a good collection of a couple dozen impressionists and post-impressionists and cubists, but we knew we couldn’t do everything and couldn’t do it well. So we worked our way out of that older period.” As Hunk and Moo collected, they studied and researched and were increasingly drawn to abstract expressionism, the first internationally acclaimed art movement in the U.S. By 1969, they had turned their attention from the Early Modernists to focus exclusively on post-1940 American art. With guidance from Stanford University faculty historians like Albert Elsen and artists like Nathan Oliveira, Hunk and Moo enriched their artistic education and made inroads with key personalities in the New York art world. By 1975, the Andersons were well on their way toward “putting together a great collection of art with key abstract expressionists as a backdrop.”
Jackson Pollock’s “Lucifer” (1947) was one of the earliest paintings of the post-1940 era that Hunk and Moo sought out Mary Patricia “Putter” Anderson in “a chase that took two years.” Pence, Harry W. “Hunk” Anderson An exemplary piece of Pollock’s ’49, LL.D. ’67 and Mary Margaret drip technique, “Lucifer” “Moo” Anderson at their home in front measures more than three feet of works by Donald Sultan and Terry Winters. (2013) Photo by Linda Cicero tall and eight feet wide, a raw canvas spattered and blotted with black and gray and green, a blue so pale it’s almost white, and drizzles of orange, purple, and mustard yellow. Now, thanks to a significant In the past, other pieces from the collection donation from Hunk and Moo’s private have been loaned to museums and special collection, “Lucifer” and 120 other works that exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of once adorned their home have found a new Modern Art and the Fine Arts Museum of San home at Stanford as part of the Anderson Francisco. Hunk and Moo have also gifted Collection, which premiered in September 2014. significant portions of their collection to these Embodying Hunk and Moo’s attention to museums, including their extensive Pop Art the vision and craft of the artists – “the head collection and their gift of seven Frank Stella and the hands,” as they put it – the collection paintings to the San Francisco Museum of features 86 artists, including Pollock, Mark Modern Art and more than 650 graphic works Rothko, Richard Diebenkorn and Willem de to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Kooning, and represents some of the most establishing the Anderson Graphic Arts noteworthy movements in 20th century painting Collection at the de Young Museum. and sculpture. That philanthropy, Hunk says, has been “East meets west,” Hunk declares, noting “an overall philosophy that we’ve had about examples of East Coast schools of abstract collecting. Moo and I have always liked the idea expressionism as well as techniques and of leaving this good earth having made it a grain movements unique to California schools such of salt better because we’ve been here. Giving as the LA Light and Space movement, and the these 121 works to Stanford is a part of that use of resins and ceramic materials. idea. It goes a long way toward meeting that The collection is housed in a objective.” 33,000-square-foot-building that includes As for a favorite piece in the collection, the dedicated gallery spaces, offices, a conference Andersons feel like “they’re all our room, a library/study area and storage spaces, children,” though they “are still particularly offering students in Stanford’s course on drawn to abstract expressionists.” abstract expressionism a sublime de facto Hunk and Moo’s daughter, Mary Patricia classroom. “Putter” Anderson Pence, is more involved in “The art that’s going to Stanford will be of the contemporary art scene, researching the increasing value to future generations. There’s market, traveling to New York art fairs and nothing better than looking at original works,” introducing her parents to the work of today’s Hunk says. best artists. Putter has introduced new artists Since 1975, more than 30 Ph.D. art history into the collection like Nick Cave, Julie Mehretu candidates have been interns at the Anderson and Tauba Auerbach. Collection. But whether you’re looking at abstract “The catalog itself was developed by expressionist heavyweights like Pollock and Stanford art interns,” Hunk says. “It’s great for Rothko or young, new artists, “if you look at the them and great for us. They contribute to the past, present, and future,” Hunk says, “great art collection and I think we really help them along.” will stay with you.” ● HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES
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EXPANSIVE REPORTING
Column Inches by Jonathan Everitt
C
overing world events from Rome for 40 years brings a perspective too expansive to be measured by counting a reporter’s front-page stories, vast though they might be. But the breadth of human events—from politics to the papacy—can all be reviewed in a conversation with one man. Victor Simpson ’63 retired as the Associated Press’ Rome bureau chief in 2013 after a successful career spanning four decades. But not before he covered one last piece of history: the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. A perfect swan song for a man who has known and written about four popes. After graduation from Hobart, Simpson, who majored in political science and economics, went into the Army Reserve for six months of active duty. Afterward, he landed a series of jobs at newspapers such as the Rockland Independent and the Bergen Record. Simpson joined The Associated Press in Newark, N.J., in 1967. It wasn’t long after that Simpson told the AP he wanted to work abroad. Even though he’d only been to Italy a couple times as a tourist, Simpson recalls that he “dreamed of living there and being a foreign correspondent.” The AP sent him to language school to learn Italian, and off he went to Rome, where he was appointed news editor in 1972. While in Rome, Simpson had a rare vantage point on history, speaking candidly to Vatican insiders and four popes. As bureau chief, Simpson was responsible for directing coverage in Italy, including the Vatican. He covered the entire papacy of the late John Paul II and accompanied him on most of his numerous foreign trips. The two shared a friendly rapport. “I had dinner with John Paul, he knew who I was. He would nod to me,” says Simpson, who is, incidentally, Jewish. “But his real buddies were his old Polish friends.”
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During a flight with Pope John Paul II, Simpson got an exclusive opportunity to hear the pope issue one of the strongest endorsements of his papacy, one supporting fellow Poles striking against communist authorities in Gdansk. The statements the pope made to Simpson on that plane trip found their way to front pages around the world—and were later considered a pivotal moment in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Simpson covered some of the most important moments in the Roman Catholic Church of the past four decades—yet he was in Ireland during the 1981 attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square at Vatican City. “Here’s a great irony: I was in Belfast covering the fatal hunger strike of Bobby Sands,” Simpson says, referring to a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze. “Why’d they send me? The pope sent his crucifix to Bobby Sands. He died clutching the crucifix.” Simpson was about to retire from his long career when the unprecedented retirement of Pope Benedict XVI was announced. He postponed his own retirement by a month so he could cover the historic news—and write about the subsequent Conclave that selected Pope Francis. While Pope Francis’ path forward won’t be covered by the retired reporter, Simpson still follows the new pontiff with fascination. “He’s trying to take the regality out of the papacy,” says Simpson. “No more motorcades. One simple car and one police escort. That’s it. He’s also refused to live in the papal apartment. An act of utmost sanity. Do you want to live in this regal apartment all by yourself? Pope Francis lives in a hostel and eats dinner with everybody.” Simpson likes the road the new pope is taking, and calls him a strong-willed
Victor Simpson, left, shakes hands with Pope Benedict XVI during a flight from Beirut to Rome, Sept. 16, 2012.
VICTOR SIMPSON ’63
Retired AP Rome Bureau Chief Rome, Italy
man who’s tackling inequality around the world. “He has angled in on one of the great issues of our time,” Simpson says. “People need to give him time.” The Vatican wasn’t the only source of news Simpson covered as Rome bureau chief. Over his 40-plus years in Rome, he covered countless world events including the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Israel, and more recently, the Amanda Knox murder trial. With his head filled with firsthand memories and his portfolio filled with momentous news clips about the people who shaped the past half centry, there’s one more project Simpson is considering—a book. The working title: And the Rest is History. “I want to talk about how difficult it is to be a hero in this world, about the difficult decisions and challenges I’ve seen incredible men and women face,” he says. “And share the things I’ve experienced in my life that may have messages in them.” ●
MULTIPLYING
EFFECT
SHAVONNE WARD ’09 College Adviser KIPP Delta Public School Helena, Arkansas
Tipping the Scales by Caitlyn D’Agati ’15
A
s a college adviser at the KIPP Delta Public School in Helena, Ark., Shavonne Ward ’09 says that she values each of her students so much that if it were possible, she’d put a photo of every one of them in her wallet. “The problem of course, is that they would overflow to the ground,” she says. KIPP, which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program, works to offer all children the opportunity to prepare and get into college, no matter their family, economic or geographic situation. Growing up, Ward attended a KIPP middle school in the Bronx, N.Y. and was taught by Teach for America (TFA) corps members. After graduation from William Smith, TFA accepted her into their program and sent her to Arkansas to teach in a KIPP school. Ward was thrilled to be giving back in a way so meaningful to her personally. “My teachers worked with me individually and truly invested in me as a student and as a person,” she says of her KIPP teachers. “My educators, including professors at Hobart and William Smith, valued me as a student and not just another test score. This both triggered and enabled my passion to
impact children from a new generation,” says Ward, who graduated with a degree in psychology along with minors in child advocacy and peer education in human relations. Ward makes sure the idea of going to college is emphasized to her students every single day. “I can’t tell you what it means to hear time and time again from families, ‘We believe in you’ and ‘Thank you for what you’re doing for my child.’ I was supposed to be at KIPP for two years through Teach for America, and now I’ve been here four. I see what a difference it is making,” says Ward. During her time at HWS, Ward participated in the America Reads program, volunteered in schools in North Carolina through the HWS alternative spring break program, and was elected Student Trustee. For Ward, paying it forward means recreating the profound affect her educators had on her in the lives of her students. “If I could do that for someone else, that will make my dream of paying it forward to the educators that have done so much for me, come true,” she says. “Never misconstrue the impact educators can have on just one child and the outcome it may have on a much broader scale.” ●
“My educators, including professors at Hobart and William Smith, valued me as a student and not just another test score.”
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Mounted replica skeleton of Anzu wyliei, a new genus and species of birdlike dinosaur whose bones were unearthed in the Dakota badlands by Matt Lamanna ’97, assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, on display in the Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pa. CREDIT: CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.
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Off the Scale by John Martin
“C
hicken” might not mean “scared” much longer, after people hear about the sharply taloned “Chicken from Hell.” That’s the nickname given by Matt Lamanna ’97 and colleagues to Anzu wyliei, a new genus and species of bird-like dinosaur whose bones were unearthed in the Dakota badlands. Lamanna, an assistant curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pa., and three collaborators announced their findings—and gave the dinosaur its official name—in a paper published this past March in the journal PLOS ONE. Although Anzu, tipping the scale at more than 500 pounds, would dwarf modern poultry, on the much larger dinosaur scale it’s both large and small. “Anzu is actually one of the smallest dinosaurs that I’ve ever worked on,” Lamanna says. “Still, it’s the largest member of its particular dinosaur group, the Oviraptorosauria, ever found in North America—and the secondlargest oviraptorosaur overall, after Gigantoraptor from China.” Lamanna outdid himself on the size scale six months later when, on September 4, in the journal Scientific Reports, he and colleagues revealed Dreadnoughtus schrani, one of the largest animals that ever strode the Earth. At 85 feet long and weighing up to 65 tons, the dinosaur weighed as much as a dozen elephants and more than eight Tyrannosaurus rex. Lamanna was part of an international excavation team that unearthed the two partial skeletons of Dreadnoughtus during digs in southern Patagonia, Argentina, in Santa Cruz Province, between 2005 and 2009. The first of “Dread’s” bones to be discovered was a huge femur, or thigh bone. “A bit of that was poking out of the ground. Our team dug around it and uncovered the whole bone. Even better, when we dug below the lower end of the femur, the shin bones were still there, right where they would have been when the dinosaur was alive,” explains Lamanna. The bones of the two Dreadnoughtus skeletons have been digitally modeled in 3D, which will better enable paleontologists around the globe to study them despite geographic boundaries and the limitations of the animal’s massive size. “The femur alone weighs hundreds of pounds,” Lamanna says. “If it’s lying on a shelf and you want to examine the other side,
you can either round up eight people and try to flip it over, or you can turn on your computer and spin our digital model of this bone with a flick of a mouse.” Anzu wyliei, the wayward chicken, is an important discovery in its own right. With roughly 75 percent of the bones preserved, it is by far the most completely known oviraptorosaur ever found outside of Asia. It is also the most intact representative of an enigmatic oviraptorosaur subgroup known as the Caenagnathidae. “After nearly a century of searching, we paleontologists finally have the fossils to show what these creatures looked like from virtually head to toe,” Lamanna says. “And in almost every way, they’re even weirder than we imagined.” Approximately 11 feet long and 5 feet tall at the hip, Anzu would have resembled a gigantic, flightless bird. Its jaws were tipped with a toothless beak, and its head was adorned with a tall, rounded crest. The neck and hind legs were long and slender, like an ostrich. Although the Anzu specimens preserve only bones, close relations of the dinosaur have been found with fossilized feathers, strongly suggesting the new creature was feathered too. But the resemblance to birds ends there— the forelimbs of Anzu’s were tipped with large, sharp claws, and its tail was long and robust. Says Lamanna, “‘Chicken from Hell’ is pretty appropriate—you wouldn’t want to meet one in a dark alley. We named it Anzu after a bird-like demon in Sumerian and Akkadian myth.” The bones of Anzu were found within the 68–66-million-year-old rocks of the uppermost Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of North and South Dakota, renowned for fossils of familiar dinosaurs like T. rex and Triceratops. It’s the stuff that fuels a child’s imagination. “I’m one of those dinosaur-loving kids who, in that sense, never really grew up,” Lamanna says. “According to my parents, I told them that I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was four. Although, I distinctly remember wanting to be an NFL running back, too.” Lamanna grew up in Waterloo, N.Y., a few miles from the HWS campus in Geneva. When he was looking at colleges, HWS faculty—Professor Emeritus of Geoscience Don Woodrow, Professor of Geoscience Brooks McKinney, and Professor of Biology Jim Ryan— took him under their wing. “I remember each of them sitting down
MATT LAMANNA ’97
Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Carnegie Museum of Natural History Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
with me in their offices, letting me pick their brains, talking about the kinds of research projects I could do under their supervision if I came to HWS,” he says. Lamanna double-majored in biology and geoscience and got his master’s degree and Ph.D at the University of Pennsylvania—where he met his future wife, who is a science educator at the same museum and a course instructor at the University of Pittsburgh. Lamanna has been involved in a number of discoveries of new dinosaurs in his career. He has named or co-named nine new species to date, and several more are on the way. Scale looms large in his pursuits. “The scale of the animals I study is usually big—if not gigantic—by modern standards,” he says. “Another large-scale element is time—we paleontologists throw around terms like ‘100 million years ago’ as if we really have a grasp of what that means. “I don’t think we, as a species, really comprehend time scales that are much longer than a human lifetime. Without getting too ‘soapboxy,’ I think that if humanity could take the long view, and appreciate how a lot of the things we’re doing now will impact future generations, we might actually change.” ●
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by Avery Share ’15
F
PHOTO BY KELLY SALAS
Stepping on the Scale NIKI KLEM ’05
Program Director of the Nutrition and Dietetics Program, Trocaire College
or Niki Klem ’05, “a scale is only a tool.” The truest information, she says, “comes from leaving the scale behind Buffalo, New York and focusing on measuring up against yourself and your own goals.” Klem’s goals don’t just include her own health, but also improving the health of others and educating them on how to keep their own health scales in balance. As a registered dietician nutritionist, Klem is the program director of the Nutrition and Dietetics Program at Trocaire “Black beans, brightly colored peppers and hearty College in Buffalo, N.Y. beef form the base for this nutritious and easy “My favorite part of being an RDN and an recipe. With the signature flavors of Tex-Mex (cumin, garlic and chili), smoky chipotle in adobo educator is the chance to be an ambassador for and a subtle sweetness from apple cider, cocoa and healthy food that tastes good,” she says. “Eating sweet potato, this dish has layers of flavor,” says Klem. “With your choice of toppings, this will leave is a balance between good health, nutritious everyone at the table warmed and satisfied.” foods and the joy, excitement and comfort of favorites.” 1 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes with Ingredients: chilis 2 T olive oil Having fostered a passion for healthy 1 6 oz can of tomato paste 2lbs 90% lean ground beef eating and cooking from a young Sea salt as desired 1 cup diced onion HEALTHY 1 15.5 oz. can low sodium black or pinto 3 T diced garlic age, Klem wanted to pursue a career beans – rinsed 1 T diced jalapeno (seeds/gills removed) that combined both healthcare and ½ cup NYS apple cider 3 cups roughly chopped red and yellow nutrition. After earning her master’s 2 T unsweetened cocoa powder bell pepper 1 medium sweet potato (2”x5”) baked or 1 chopped chipotle in adobo sauce degree in nutrition and dietetics microwaved to done 1 T cumin from D’Youville College, she joined Garnish: 1 t chili powder Fresh cilantro, Greek yogurt, lime wedges, 2 T smoked paprika the faculty at Trocaire in 2010. Recently, avocado and shredded cheese. 1 t black pepper she was appointed program director and says 8 oz low-sodium vegetable or chicken Makes 4 servings. she is looking forward to developing “creative broth initiatives and encouraging innovation” as she works to shape the program with a continued Instructions: focus on food system sustainability, economical • Add 1 T of olive oil to a large sauce pan. Brown ground beef, breaking up into large food sourcing, menu development and clinical chunks. Drain and set aside. nutrition care. • Add 1 T of olive oil to the same pan and heat over medium-high. Add onions, garlic, jalapeno, bell peppers and From helping her students master healthy Nutrients Amount Per Portion chipotle. Sauté until the onions turn recipes like her award-winning “Sweet and 24 g translucent. Add chili powder, cumin, Protein Carbohydrate 46 g paprika and pepper. Stir for two Smokey Tex-Mex Chili” to teaching patients how Dietary Fiber 10 g minutes. to bring equilibrium back to their life when their Total Fat 12 g Saturated Fat 3g • Mix in broth, tomatoes, tomato paste “scales” are off-balance, Klem takes an allMonounsaturated Fat 6g and ground beef. Simmer, covered Polyunsaturated Fat 1g encompassing approach to helping others live a on low, until thickened to desired Cholesterol 44 mg consistency, stirring occasionally to healthful lifestyle based on her own ideals of “real Minerals Amount Per Portion prevent sticking, about 1 hour 15 food and healthy movement.” Calcium 116 mg minutes. Taste often and season with Potassium 1352 mg “It’s not about any diet or any specific food, sea salt as desired. Sodium 292 mg Copper 659 µg it’s about the entire approach to health and food • Mix in beans, cider and cocoa powder. Iron 6 mg Simmer 5-10 minutes. Serve 1 cup sourcing,” she says. “HWS gave me a desire to Magnesium 103 mg portion over ½ cup cooked, mashed Phosphorus 302 mg learn more about people and – in the luckiest sweet potato and top with desired Selenium 15 µg garnishes. cases of students and clients – help them Zinc 5 mg transform their lives.” ●
Klem’s Sweet and Smokey Tex-Mex Chili
APPROACH
Nutrition Information per 1 cup of chili with ½ cup cooked sweet potato (not including garnishes) — 374 Calories
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INTERNATIONAL
MARKET IAN BICKLEY P’14
President Coach International Group Westchester, New York
Global Scale by Jonathan Everitt
W
hen Ian Bickley P’14 joined Coach in 1993, the New York-based handbag company had less than $300 million in annual sales. Its international business represented about seven percent of that number. But the company was destined for bigger things. Global things. And they’d found just the right man for the job. Today, Bickley, of Westchester, N.Y., is president of Coach’s international group, overseeing all business outside of North America—roughly 40 percent of the company’s sales which top $5 billion annually. A native of Bermuda, Bickley grew up fascinated by faraway places. “Bermuda is a small place. My family always took us abroad every summer,” he says. “I got used to enjoying travel and seeing foreign countries. I wanted to get out and experience the world.” Since Bickley joined Coach, he’s held many positions within the company. Four years into his current role, he took over Coach’s Japanese business, moving to Tokyo. It was the first of many international expansions he led for the brand. He has since scaled Coach into 30 countries around the world. “We have a partnership model for new markets,” Bickley explains. “We enter new markets with a strong local
partner. It helps us learn about those markets before we go after them in a big way. We also leverage our human and financial resources when expanding.” Japan is a perfect example. “That was the first market outside of North America,” Bickley says. “We bought the business back from our distributer and went in and built the team. We went from being the number six brand to being the number two brand in five years.” Coach grew because Bickley and his team had a sense of respect for the region’s cultural differences, and learned how to communicate in ways that their Japanese colleagues respected. “Japan has a very formal culture and it can be perceived as impolite to say no to something or to refuse something,” Bickley says. “The communication is often indirect, and can therefore be misunderstood or misinterpreted.” The same is true of every market, Bickley says. “There’s something I like about all the new markets I go into because they all have their nuances and idiosyncrasies.”
Bickley, whose daughter Sophie graduated from William Smith in 2014, is passionate enough about the pursuit of international business that he wants to help a new generation of businesspeople find their way around the world. Since 2010, Bickley and Edward J. Brennan P’06, P’10, president at retailer DFS Group Limited, have been coordinating internships for HWS students at Coach and DFS. In 2012, Bickley and his wife, Kimberly Bickley P’14, established the Bickley Family Endowed Internship for a student going into the international business field. Recently, inspired by the Scandling Trust (see page 22), the Bickleys made an additional endowment gift of $100,000. With a 100 percent match from The Scandling Trust, each year a student will now receive up to a $15,000 stipend for his or her international experience. “We wanted the fund to provide everything a student would need to have a transformational experience in international business,” he says. “It’s important to give students from North America opportunities to work internationally. The world is becoming a more global place.” His best tip for young people embarking on an internship in international business: be curious. “You need to have a lot of curiosity, ask questions, don’t take anything for granted, and be a good listener. Different cultures have different ways of communicating and you have to listen very actively to what is being said and what is not being said.” ●
In 2012, Bickley and his wife, Kimberly Bickley P’14, established the Bickley Family Endowed Internship for a student going into the international business field.
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The Scales of Justice
HONORABLE LAURA DOUGLAS ’79 Justice of the Bronx County Supreme Court, Supervising Judge of the Bronx County Civil Court Bronx, New York
by Jessie Meyers Moore ’10
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s Justice of the Bronx County Supreme Court and Supervising Judge of the Bronx County Civil Court, the Honorable Laura Douglas ’79 never knows quite what she’ll confront when she walks through the doors of the courtroom. It’s unpredictable, often chaotic work, but Douglas maintains balance with some of her tried-and-true courtroom rules:
1. Try not to get emotionally involved. “It’s the litigant’s fight; they’ve been at this a longer time than you. If you get drawn in, you begin to lose objectivity.” 2. Sit back and listen. “When you listen, you’re able to discern through the clutter and eventually hear the truth.” 3. Find a balance. “Being still helps you find balance and not get caught up in the fray. That’s what judges really do: balance. Nobody’s going to walk away a total winner. The fact that someone is just willing to hear them out, no matter what the decision, helps them walk away with a good feeling.” 4. Understand cultural differences. “When witnesses don’t look you in the eye in American culture, it is viewed as a sign of dishonesty. But in many cultures, not looking authority figures directly in the eye is a sign of respect. That’s something I take into consideration: Not everyone who doesn’t look at you is a liar.” 5. Think creatively. “The laws that govern Civil Court allow judges’ discretion to fashion the appropriate remedy. You’re constrained by whatever the law says you must do, but sometimes you can be a little more judicious.” 6. Realize you can’t fix everything. “The Court can never really make you whole, especially if you’ve suffered an injury. You’re not going to be exactly who or what you were before the event happened. However, sometimes a judgment, monetary or otherwise, can help.” 7. Act like a grown-up: “Being a judge can sometimes feel like “playing kindergarten cop” or being “Mommy.” People’s go-to thing now is ‘I’m going to take you to court’ over matters that could easily be resolved, but no one takes the time to do it. Many do not explore other avenues including settlement and then the judge seems like the bad guy.” 8. Focus on the bigger picture. “As an attorney, you’re focused on whatever side you’re advocating for and looking at what’s best for your particular client. As a judge, you’re looking at what’s legally best for the parties as a whole. You’re focused on the bigger picture and seeing how you can balance the scales.” 9. Know that your work makes a difference. “Being in court and having a case adjudicated can be life-altering for some people. [Your decision] is always going to have an impact on someone’s life.” 10. Listen compassionately. “A judge must do his or her best to allow the parties to present their side of the case in order to judge fairly.” ●
“As a judge, you’re looking at what’s legally best for the parties as a whole. You’re focused on the bigger picture and seeing how you can balance the scales.”
PHOTO BY MICHAEL PARAS
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SMALL
FOOD
PHOTO BY KEVIN COLTON
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Managing Mammals, Small and Tall
Mark MacNamara ’72, P’00, P’04 Founder, Fauna Research, Inc. Owner, Highland Deer Farm Germantown, New York
Claire MacNamara ’04 leads a Zebra into TAMER equipment at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, Md.
by Douglas Hoagland ’15
PHOTO BY KEVIN COLTON
O
Opposite page: Mark MacNamara holds an ostrich egg on his Highland Deer Farm.
n green rolling hills bordered by verdant woodlands, Mark MacNamara’s ’72, P’00, P’04 Highland Deer Farm, a non-traditional 50-acre exotic hoof stock farm in Germantown, N.Y., teems with herds of deer, elk, oryx, ostrich, and bison that roam so free, one may question if the fenced enclosure still exists on the outskirts of the pass. “The animals at Highland Farm are non-domestic and are managed similarly to wild populations; they have a sense of freedom, but are provided with excellent health care and nutrition,” explains MacNamara. Protecting the wellbeing of animals has always been a passion of MacNamara, who, while at Hobart studied DDT chemical effects on thinning osprey eggshells under Professor of Biology Richard Ryan. He went on to earn a master’s in zoology from Oneonta University and was curator of mammals at the Bronx Zoo in Bronx, N.Y. for 10 years before starting Fauna Research Inc. with his wife, Martha Cook MacNamara ’72, P’00, P’04. For the past 25 years, they have been designing, fabricating, supplying, and installing the TAMER Systems— specialized equipment for managing and handling exotic animals in zoos, game parks and bio-reserves, internationally. “I first thought of creating TAMER Systems as a solution to managing my own hoof stock collection,” MacNamara explains. “Before the TAMER existed, zoo animals were usually tranquilized for routine animal management procedures, often posing risk for injury to the animals once unconscious. It wasn’t long before developing the equipment that we realized how beneficial it could be. It doesn’t matter if the animal is a 2,000-pound giraffe or a 20-pound endangered sand gazelle; we can create a TAMER to fit any breeder or zookeepers’ needs.” Today, the TAMER System is serving management and breeding programs for mammals, both small and tall, from the inner city conditions of Baltimore to the desert conditions of the Middle East. “The TAMER system’s portable corral and chutes offer a chemical free system for humanely managing and restraining animals for health maintenance, shipping and testing, while providing safer working conditions for handlers and animals alike,” MacNamara says. “TAMER restraints are made to either hydraulically or mechanically hug or hoist an animal carefully off the ground so as to provide all around access for the examiners. With numerous portals and doors in the equipment design, personnel can work simultaneously on an animal, performing different tasks in record time, with unrivaled care and safety.” Currently, there are more than 70 giraffe TAMERs in use at major zoos worldwide. The giraffe TAMER is used to carry out veterinary procedures such as blood draws, clinical exams and foot care. By training giraffes to be relaxed in the TAMER, MacNamara says, zookeepers are able to reduce stress on the animals, which benefits their welfare. At the Al Ain Zoo in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the TAMER was used to save a mother giraffe from a potentially lethal postpartum infection. More than 100 different hoof stock species have been treated in TAMER equipment, ranging from water buffalo to Indochinese Sika deer. While MacNamara specializes in hoof stock, he has accommodated a number of other animals over the years, including elephants, rhinos, hippos, cheetahs, and bears. Currently, MacNamara is involved with several desert antelope conservation projects in the Middle East including the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Jordan and Chad. “It’s a challenge to work in 120 degree heat and under desert conditions, but very rewarding to be able to introduce TAMER equipment and modern animal management practices to these remote areas,” says MacNamara. ●
“ It doesn’t matter if the animal is a 2,000-pound giraffe or a 20-pound endangered sand gazelle; we can create a TAMER to fit any breeder or zookeepers’ needs.”
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Scaling Barriers by Jonathan Everitt
D
uring her first years of medical school at Tulane University, Dr. Elizabeth Matzkin ’92 went home to visit her parents in Connecticut, where she ran into a prominent local orthopedic surgeon who was also a longtime family acquaintance. When she told him she was in medical school, he asked what kind of physician she wanted to be. “I proudly told him, ‘I want to be an orthopedic surgeon,’” Matzkin shared as she accepted the 2014 Joan Hinton Hurd ’65 Lifetime Athletic Achievement Award on campus this spring. The award recognizes William Smith graduates for outstanding lifetime athletic achievement. “And with a quiet grin, the doctor turned to my folks and said, ‘she can’t be an orthopedic surgeon. She’s too small.’” “From that moment, it was a done deal. Nothing would stop me,” said Matzkin of her determination to pursue orthopedic surgery. “I never looked back.” As a woman in a male dominated profession, Matzkin has built a career based on determination—and important milestones. In 1998, she made history as the first female orthopedic resident at the University of Hawaii. And in 2003, she broke yet another barrier when she became the first female sports fellow at Duke University. “There were many unknowns,” she says. “How would a female do in the men’s locker room? Is she strong enough to reduce a dislocated hip?” One by one, Matzkin put these and other questions to rest. Born and raised in Woodbury, Conn., Matzkin loved playing sports in high school, and was drawn to William Smith in part for its athletics. While here, she was a fouryear starter on the lacrosse team and captain of the ice hockey club. A biology major, she also consistently landed on the Dean’s List, graduating cum laude. “When I was at William Smith, I was pretty certain I wanted to go to medical school,” she says. “After graduating, I got my master’s in applied physiology at Chicago Medical School, and then went on to Tulane.” Today, Matzkin is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, chief of Women’s Sports Medicine, and surgical director of Women’s Musculoskeletal Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She also continues to serve as a physician to sports teams around the country, including the Stonehill College football
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DR. ELIZABETH MATZKIN ’92
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School; Chief of Women’s Sports Medicine and Surgical Director of Muscolskeletal Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital Waban, Massachusetts
team, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, the U.S. Paralympics Soccer Team, and U.S. Women’s National Hockey Team. “Trying to keep my patients active, out on a playing field, is what I love to do,” she says. “Being in the college setting continues to challenge me. I love to support the next generation of women who want to go into the field, which is still less than 10 percent women.” Though the profession remains overwhelming male, she’s continuing to work toward improving the balance. “I am proud to be mentoring many young women like yourselves to make this number grow,” she told the audience of William Smith students during her award acceptance. For Matzkin, it’s not just about encouraging new opportunities. It’s about dispelling old notions of what “different” means when it comes to male and female professionals. “I strive to be a great orthopedic surgeon,” she says. “Not a great female orthopedic surgeon.” ●
JOSHUA SCHLITZER ’00
Director, Compensation and Benefits National Football League Westfield, New Jersey
Game of Inches by John Martin
F
ootball is a game of inches, and players battle ferociously for each one. When it comes time to see if they’ve reached their goal, officials run onto the field with sticks and chains to measure the smallest gain—or impasse, or loss— which may determine the outcome. In the National Football League (NFL), they measure off the field, too. The NFL’s Human Resources department does it continually, and Joshua Schlitzer ’00 is right in the thick of it. “As the director of compensation and benefits, I help oversee planning and administration of the plans for the NFL’s 1,200 employees in the league office, NFL Films, NFL Media, and game officials,” says Schlitzer, who works at NFL’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters. “In order to attract, motivate and retain our talented employees, we must constantly measure how we are rewarding them,” Schlitzer says. “Compensation scales, and setting them correctly, are very important to the NFL. While certainly not the only factor, an appropriate compensation package plays a large role in driving the performance and engagement of our employees.” Schlitzer and his colleagues use benchmarking surveys and databases
to measure how NFL compensation stacks up within the sports industry and business in general. “Individual compensation packages also have to be calibrated against peers within our organization,” he says. “Every position and every employee is different, so it’s a blend of science and art. Human Resources is the engine room of any organization. The ability to impact the performance of an organization from the inside out has always appealed to me.” Growing up in the small town of Mountain Lakes, N.J., Schlitzer says the size and level of professor and student interaction were major factors in his decision to apply to HWS. “Looking back, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.” Courses he recalls as influential include independent studies with Professor of Political Science Iva Deutchman and “Modern Ireland” with former Associate Professor of History John Shovlin. “The wide variety of liberal arts subjects I studied, with these and other faculty members like Associate Professor of Psychology Michelle Rizzella, had a profound effect on shaping me both personally and, though I did not know it at the time, professionally.”
After graduating with a degree in psychology, Schlitzer worked as a landscaper to save for graduate school, and then got his master’s in industrial and organizational psychology from Montclair State University. He took several temp jobs before landing a position as an assistant to the NFL’s then director of compensation and benefits. Eleven years later, the job is his. People invariably ask him what it’s like working for the league. “What’s it like to work for the premier sports and entertainment corporation in the world? I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty sweet.” ●
COMPENSATION
SCALES
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JOHN YELLEN ’64
Program Director for Archaeology, National Science Foundation and Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History Washington, D.C.
Scaling History by Jonathan Everitt
“W
hen it comes to humanity and our ancient past, there’s a big difference between 40,000 years ago and 400,000 years ago,” says John Yellen ’64. “What led early humans to develop sophisticated tools? To express themselves creatively? To identify as tribes?” Yellen, program director for archaeology at the National Science Foundation and a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National 400,000 Museum of Natural History, has spent his career answering these and other questions about the processes which led to the emergence of behaviorally modern humans. “By 40,000 years ago or there about, people were essentially like we are today,” says Yellen, who examines behavior such as social interaction, culture, and technology through the study of ancient objects like stone tools. “They buried their dead with grave goods. They painted realistic pictures on walls.They carved animals out of ivory. They had musical instruments. They had hairstyles. It’s really important, because it means they had a social concept of who they were. If you go back a half million years, it’s very different,” he adds.
YEARS AGO
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“They’re hunting and gathering. They’re making stone tools. But their skulls are different. They have elements of human culture, but all of those other things aren’t there yet.” Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Yellen didn’t set out to be an archaeologist while attending Hobart, where he majored in English. But a couple of courses in anthropology sparked his interest. “I had two anthro courses at Hobart,” he says. “Anthropology and archeology interested me and they still do.” After Hobart, Yellen went on to earn a master’s degree in archaeology from Harvard, where he met his future wife, fellow archaeologist Alison Brooks, then a senior undergraduate at Radcliffe College and later a fellow graduate student at Harvard. While taking an anthropology seminar, he learned about a fellowship opportunity to study archeology in Africa. “That’s what really got me set on Africa and on archeology,” he explains. After receiving his master’s in anthropology, Yellen earned a Ph.D. with a specialization in archaeology from Harvard. His work has mostly focused on the Middle Stone Age—a period of prehistoric Africa stretching from about 350,000 years ago to 40,000 years
PHOTO BY STEVE BARRETT PHOTOGRAPHY
ago. During this time signs of modern human behavior gradually emerged. Through the years, Yellen has conducted extended fieldwork at sites across Africa, including the Kalahari Desert, where he studied the !Kung Bushman with Brooks. Their work has also led them to Ethiopia, Kenya, and The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yellen and Brooks’ research has been instrumental in a major shift in thinking around early humans. Their research revealed flaws in the previously accepted view that there was a single, dramatic explosion in human cognition in the relatively recent past. The pair has instead demonstrated that rather than a burst of advancement, the development of the modern human mind took place little by little, over thousands of millennia. Another great moment in this shift in thinking came in 1988 in Katanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire), when Yellen and Brooks discovered sophisticated bone harpoon points that were shown to be up to 90,000 years old—a revelation to the paleoanthropology community because they were much older than previously believed possible. “These were sophisticated instruments capable of spearing 150-pound, prehistoric catfish that could feed a band of hunter-gatherers for days,” says Yellen. Ancient stone tools and pieces of carved bone may seem like small, simple indicators of a longago tribe, but in the right hands, they can tell a big story. “The origins of complex societies go back about 12,000 years,” says Yellen, appropriately the founder and president of the Paleoanthropology Society, an organization whose central goal is to bring together physical anthropologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, geologists and a range of other researchers to shed light on hominid behavioral and biological evolution. “When you get before that, most of the stuff you find is the remains of stone tools. But you can reconstruct people’s activities from stone tools. You can study how they made them and in doing so can trace cognitive development. You can trace people across the landscapes and you can distinguish different cultures.” ●
On a Human Scale by Jessie Meyers Moore ’10
I
t was 1989 when then-CBS News Correspondent and HWS Trustee Bill Whitaker Jr. ’73, L.H.D. ’97 reported on the “political light” effusing from students during the Democracy Movement in China – “almost jubilant,” he recalls, in its glow. And then he saw it extinguished in Tiananmen Square. “To see that squashed with such brutal force was just shocking,” he says. “You look around and see the devastation, and your whole being is troubled by what you see. You just turn on the camera and the stories unfold in front of you.” The kind of stories Whitaker has covered—the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster of 2011, among many others— weigh on a journalist. To cope with the emotional gravity that Whitaker felt as he reported on the Tiananmen Square events, he pushed his own discomfort aside. He forewent sleep. Journalists, he explains, put their personal pain aside so that the rest of the world can witness current events. But the enormity eventually became too heavy to bear. Off camera, Whitaker broke down and sobbed. In spite of the devastation he often covers, Whitaker sees hope continue to burn. Reporting on Hurricane Katrina, “the devastation was so widespread, so deep, and so profound...people didn’t know how they’d get from one day to the next,” but he watched as churches opened their doors to the people who “didn’t know how they’d make it to tomorrow.” Fishermen brought their shrimp and fish to the churches; women hauled out pots and cooked meals for their neighbors. As he describes it, “people are knocked down; they’re devastated. But almost immediately, they get back up. And it’s inherently dramatic and moving, and it happens right in front of you.” And when the whole world rises to provide assistance after a disaster, it shows, Whitaker believes, “an increasingly compassionate worldview that’s shrinking the scale of the globe.” “People give when they know others need,” Whitaker reflects. “You won’t just have that local response but that world response. People go into their pockets to make life better.” And this helps lift the weight. ●
Whitaker is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who has been called “one of the greatest veterans of CBS News,” by 60 Minutes executive producer and CBS News Chair Jeff Fager. In March 2014, Whitaker was named a correspondent for 60 Minutes.
BILL WHITAKER JR. ’73, L.H.D. ’97 60 Minutes Correspondent, CBS News New York, New York PHOTO BY MICHAEL PARAS
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HENDEE-BORG HOUSE: A STUDY IN NESTED SYMMETRIES Sonoma, California, 2011-2012 The Hendee-Borg House is a symmetrical saw-tooth roof house for two artists—a sculptor and a media artist—that includes a pair of large artist studios and an attenuated gallery space, in addition to a sequence of domestic spaces. The studio spaces are planometrically-mirrored about an east-west axis in order to facilitate distinct, natural lighting conditions for each studio under a series of eight skylights. This arrangement provides diffuse, northern light in the south-facing studio, and bands of direct light in the north-facing studio. Although the studio spaces remain connected both spatially and by way of a shared gallery wall, the main living and dining area separate them.
ALLANDALE HOUSE: A CABIN OF CURIOSITIES Mountain West, 2009-2010 Along with its occupants, the A-frame Allandale House provides space for an eccentric collection of artifacts that resist straightforward classification. Wines, rare books, stuffed birds and an elk mount are among the relics on display in this small vacation house. The house links three horizontal extrusions of “leaning,” or asymmetrical A-frames. The skinny A-frame on the western side contains the library, wine cellar and garage. The wide A-frame in the center of the house is dedicated to two floors of bedrooms and bathrooms. The medium A-frame on the eastern side consists of living, kitchen and dining areas. The house aims to undermine the seeming limitations of a triangular section by augmenting and revealing the extreme proportion in the vertical direction, and utilizing the acutely angled corners meeting the floor as moments for thickened walls, telescopic apertures and built-in storage.
IMAGES COURTESY OF WOJR
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Ideas to Scale by Andrew Wickenden ’09
A
rchitectural designer William O’Brien Jr. ’00 has designed sculptural totems and a spherical anechoic (non-echoing) chamber; courtyard houses in China’s Shanghai province and rural homes in Upstate New York; a memorial for U.S. servicemembers killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and what he calls “Architectural Fictions,” which, he describes as, “a series of architectural objects that retell stories of historical methods of architectural form-making by bringing them into a contemporary context.” WOJR—O’Brien’s independent design practice in Cambridge, Mass.,— develops a wide spectrum of work, from more conceptually oriented to more professionally-oriented. Project types include residential, cultural, and institutional; some are large and some are very small. “We work with clients who are culturally aware and aspire to make a contribution to the discipline of architecture,” O’Brien says. “We love the spectrum of projects that we work on, and certainly both ends of the spectrum each influence the other.” At HWS, O’Brien studied architecture and music theory— seemingly disparate disciplines in which he “was interested in considering common ground shared by forms in music and forms in architecture”— before pursuing his graduate studies at Harvard University, where he was the recipient of the Master of Architecture Faculty Design Award. After teaching fellowships at University of California, Berkeley and The Ohio State University, and two years as assistant professor at University of
Texas Austin, O’Brien now teaches at the WILLIAM O’BRIEN JR. ’00 Massachusetts Institute Owner, WOJR, Independent Design Practice; of Technology School Associate Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology of Architecture and School of Architecture and Planning Planning, where he is an Cambridge, Massachusetts associate professor of architecture and holds the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Chair. In 2013, WOJR was named one of the top 20 emerging architecture firms in the world by the design magazine Wallpaper*. In 2014 Architectural Record selected his practice as one of the 10 most promising design offices internationally. WOJR was awarded the 2011 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers and, in 2010, won the Design Biennial Boston Award and was a finalist for the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. As the recipient of the 2012-2013 Rome Prize Fellowship in Architecture awarded by the American Academy in Rome, O’Brien spent 11 months in Italy, during which he reexamined anachronous architectural forms and methods— from symmetry to proportionality—“to reconsider their validity in form-making today.” O’Brien says that upon his return from Rome in 2013, he felt he “had the experience and the intellectual resources to build a practice. Rome was incredibly inspiring and is motivating me to focus on built work more than the design of speculative work.” Now with several projects on their way to construction, and the office growing, O’Brien feels as though “the practice is still quite new, as there are new kinds of challenges that emerge as the practice grows and as we take on larger projects.” ●
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MATT CATTERSON ’03
Steelhead Scales
Fellow with the National Science Foundation’s Sustainable Ecosystem-based Management of Living Marine Resources; Economic Development Adviser for the State of Alaska Juneau, Alaska
by Jessica Evangelista Balduzzi ’05
A
bout a month after Matt Catterson ’03 graduated from Hobart, he moved to the remote Alaska village of Yakutat. “Even by Alaska standards, Yakutat is pretty wild,” remarks Catterson. Located approximately halfway between Juneau and Cordova, on the “lost coast” of Southeast Alaska, Yakutat has no landbased connection to the rest of the state. The approximately 700 residents rely primarily on the sport and commercial fishing industries for their livelihoods, and harvest much of their food from the land and sea. In Yakutat, Catterson began volunteering with the United States Forest Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G). The experiences helped him realize a passion for managing and conserving the fisheries of Alaska, while supporting the seafood industry and local community development. “This was the life I wanted to live and knew I had to return to school to gain the academic experience necessary to support my professional goals,” says Catterson, an architectural studies major at HWS. By 2010, Catterson had obtained a B.S. in Fisheries from the University of Alaska and began pursuing graduate studies as a fellow with the Sustainable Ecosystem-based Management of Living Marine Resources, a National Science Foundation master’s program at the
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University of Alaska. He continued working with ADF&G, spending most of his time on the Situk River, home to the largest known population of steelhead trout in Alaska that also supports a world-famous sport fishery. “ADF&G has been monitoring this important steelhead population for more than 20 years and had collected a unique, long-term data-set that is used to inform sport fishing regulations,” Catterson explains. “Included in this data was a collection of scale samples from steelhead going back to the early 1990s; these samples had not yet been utilized for any particular research purpose and seemed like an ideal data-set for me to incorporate in my master’s thesis.” With access to the most comprehensive set of data on an Alaska steelhead population, Catterson has been exploring the potential utility of these scale-derived growth measurements to provide information on marine growth and long-term trends in steelhead productivity. “This type of proactive monitoring may help us understand how changes to the marine ecosystem, driven by large scale patterns of climate change, may impact populations of steelhead and salmon,” Catterson says. Steelhead are anadromous rainbow trout that, like salmon, are born and rear as juveniles in rivers, then migrate to the ocean to feed and grow, returning back to their natal rivers to spawn several years later. Unlike salmon, steelhead
are capable of surviving this spawning event to emigrate back out to the ocean and begin the cycle again. Steelhead populations in Alaska are much smaller than salmon populations and little is known about their marine ecology and the specific factors that affect their abundance. “Preliminary findings in my research suggest that there are some regionwide abundance patterns in Southeast Alaska,” says Catterson. “The coherence of these patterns across a large geographic area suggests that a marine, and possibly climate-driven, process may be impacting steelhead productivity.” Catterson’s discoveries, digital scale images and growth measurements are being incorporated in a statewide archive maintained by ADF&G and available to fisheries managers and researchers across the state. And while his steelhead research is ongoing, Catterson serves as an economic development adviser for the State of Alaska, a job which allows him to approach fisheries and seafood industry issues from a new, development-focusedperspective. “It’s a great opportunity to learn more about how fisheries, management, research and development can interact to support a sustainable fishing industry in Alaska that provides critical jobs and income to Alaska communities,” he adds. ●
A GRAND
SCALE
ABBY KENT ’12
MFA candidate in science and natural history filmmaking at Montana State University; Film Maker: Avalanche Engineers Bozeman, Montana
Snowflake to Avalanche by Douglas Hoagland ’15
B
y itself, a snowflake is a marvelously unique crystallization of water. It can be gathered with more of its kind to make snowballs, snowmen, or pushed aside for a snow angel’s frame. Snowflakes can even be collected to a great enough magnitude for people to live within them comfortably and call them a home. However, anything in excess can be deadly–especially a medium ranging in so deceptively grand a scale. From a snowflake to an avalanche, snow balances on a scale that, when tipped in the wrong direction, can spill deadly and fast on an environment, and destroy everything and everyone in its hazardous path. Abby Kent ’12, a candidate for an MFA in science and natural history filmmaking at Montana State University, recently completed Avalanche Engineers, a short documentary film that she explains, “delves deep into the mysteries of the snowpack to find out how a snowflake can become an avalanche.” Avalanche Engineers follows two scientists who create micro-avalanches in the controlled environment of a laboratory, and unpredictable backcountry
mountains surrounding Bozeman, which contain four Class A avalanche zones—the most severe—at nearby skiing areas and backcountry locations. Working primarily at the university’s Subzero Laboratory, Kent filmed as the scientists simulated winter environments in the cutting-edge indoor snow facility that is kept at 18 degrees. “The scientists are attempting to replicate avalanche conditions and better understand how they work in nature,” she explains. “Alongside the lab research, I also follow one of the scientists into the backcountry to document an Extended Column Test. This test is used widely to determine if a slope is likely to avalanche, but it isn’t always an indicator of a stable snowpack. I hope that this film shows people how vastly complicated snow is, and to never feel complacent when they choose to recreate in the mountains in winter.” Kent has hosted a successful online fundraising campaign to fund her film, which was released earlier this year. “People worship snow as if it were a religion, without knowing much about it or how dangerous it can be. My goal with this film is to get people informed and
engaged with the material they adventure on, to make them that much safer by knowing how snow and avalanches work,” says Kent, who grew up in various mountain communities from Vermont to Idaho. Avalanche Engineers was accepted into the 2014 Imagine Science Film Festival in New York City and the Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival in Arizona. The film was also recently featured in Backcountry magazine. Kent credits her research with HWS Professor of Geoscience John Halfman, her majors in studio art and U.S. history, and the Salisbury Center for Career, Professional and Experiential Education’s Media and Society trip to Los Angeles, Calif., as inspiration to combine all of her interests and skills into one goal. “Filming on top of a mountain can really change your perspective,” says Kent. “And it sure beats working at a desk all day. Surrounded by mountains and wildlife, I couldn’t have picked a better place to be filming. I’m truly grateful to be doing what I love in the beautiful state of Montana.” ●
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WOODY LOUIS ARMSTRONG SHAW III ’01 Hutchins Fellow at Harvard University’s W.E.B. DuBois Research Institute New York, New York
Inheriting the Pentatonic Scale
PHOTO BY MICHAEL PARAS
by Andrew Wickenden ’09
“B MUSICAL
y birth and indoctrination, music was the cultural environment I grew up in,” says Woody Louis Armstrong Shaw III ’01. During his tenure as a 2014-2015 Hutchins Fellow at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at the new Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Shaw, is finalizing years of musical, historical and cultural research in preparation for the first book-length biography of his father, legendary jazz trumpeter and composer Woody Shaw P’01, the
SCALES
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man NPR referred to in 2013 as “the last great trumpet innovator.” Started in 1975 and directed by Alphonse Fletcher University Professor Henry Louis Gates, the prestigious fellowship annually selects top scholars to conduct research in a variety of fields related to African and African American Studies. As the son of one jazz great and stepson of another (renowned tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon), Shaw was exposed to music of all genres and from various viewpoints at an early age. “The performance, practicing, the business side, the whole nature of that lifestyle: I was born right in the middle of it,” he says.
“I was traveling before I could speak or walk. I went to countries I can’t remember having gone to,” Shaw explains. By the time he was 12, he had lived in Paris and Mexico and traveled across Europe. “I developed a global outlook and always felt more comfortable in diverse environments. Jazz musicians, especially, have a naturally global outlook on life, a lot more tolerance and a natural curiosity of learning about the world and other people.” This international perspective helped guide Shaw as a first-year at HWS, when he enrolled in Professor Emerita of Music Patricia Myers’ seminar on Mozart’s operas. The seminar piqued his interest in the intersection of art, music and culture, and while developing his individual major in ethnomusicology, Shaw studied in Vietnam at the national conservatory in Ha Noi, studied classical Indian music in India for 18 weeks, and honed his love and knowledge of his jazz roots. Since graduating from Hobart, Shaw has been increasingly drawn to the legacies of his father and stepfather. “Between 2001 and 2004, I took a really keen interest in my father’s music,” he says. “I’d done a lot of independent research on his life and music, which was undergoing a resurgence then, but I wasn’t yet knowledgeable enough to appreciate it. The discovery of his impact culturally led me to take on preserving his legacy at first as an avocation before it became a vocation.” Shaw first learned the administrative side of the music industry from his mother, Maxine Gordon, a producer, road manager and curator of the legacies of Woody Shaw and Dexter Gordon, before Shaw assumed that responsibility himself. After he received his B.F.A. from the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York, studying drum improvisation and composition, Shaw worked in production and wrote liner notes for Mosaic Records, Sony Music Entertainment and High Note Records. He has produced musical events for Tribeca PAC, the Jazz Standard and NPR Music. He is a recipient of the William Randolph Hearst Fellowship, the Helen E. Richards Scholarship and the Teachers College Scholarship, and has received support from the Michael Eisner Educational Fund. A master’s candidate in arts administration at Columbia University, Shaw holds professional certification
in Intellectual Property Law from New York University and equivalencies for the Columbia University Business Certificate. However, the Hutchins Fellowship, he says, “is probably my greatest achievement so far, both personally and professionally, in the sense that it is a direct product of my ongoing effort to preserve my family’s legacy. To be awarded one of the highest honors in the humanities at one of the most prestigious institutions in the world—not just Harvard University, but the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute—is both rewarding and extremely humbling as well as a great honor. It’s been a lot of work and sacrifice, but it truly feels like a logical progression, part of a continuum of my family’s legacy that now spans at least two or three generations.” Both Shaws are named for Woody Shaw Sr. who was a gospel singer in a vocal group known as the Diamond Jubilee Singers. While at Harvard, Shaw will be documenting his grandfather’s musical legacy as well. Now in the late stages of research, Shaw envisions the biography as “a narrative representation” of his father’s music and life. “[His life] can’t be separated from his music or his approach. A lot of his compositions have titles that reference certain aspects of his life, and I’m looking at how, as an artist, he cites his experience and uses the context of his story, his struggles as an artist, his references to his experiences and background. He was a conceptualist more than just an instrumentalist.” Perhaps chief among the elder Woody Shaw’s contributions as a trumpeter and composer is his adaptation of the pentatonic scale—a five-note scale common among a variety of musical tradition across the globe— “as the basis for his own technical, harmonic, melodic, and improvisatory language specifically designed for the trumpet,” says Shaw. “This is something that had never been done before, and is one of the many reasons he is referred to as an ‘innovator,’ and perhaps one of the last on his instrument.” Through years of international travel, a “very personal diasporic awareness and a deep cultural sensitivity,” the elder Woody Shaw developed a style influenced by “the musical cultures of Asia, Africa, and many of the 20th-century Eastern European classical composers who largely
Woody Shaw III ’01 practices with his father, legendary jazz trumpeter and composer Woody Shaw P’01.
built their sound and style around this beautiful five-note scale,” Shaw explains. “In a way, the pentatonic scale is among the most human of all scales in that it is shared by so many musical cultures throughout the world. In this sense, it easily forms the basis of a universal musical language. I believe my father, like all artists, sought a level of human connection that required something so fundamental that it easily transcended cultural, ethnic, and linguistic barriers.” In paralleling his father’s biography and his musical and conceptual
processes, Woody III hopes to inform new interpretation, opening avenues to understand more fully the life and music of his father. “I’m always listening to his music because there’s always something new,” he explains. “He had such a well-formed conception of how he wanted to articulate his ideas. That’s why he’s one of my favorite artists.” ●
Woody Shaw III is also Founder and CEO of The Dexter Gordon Society, a NY-based nonprofit organization that preserves the legacy of his stepfather, late tenor saxophonist and Academy Award nominated actor Dexter Gordon (1923-1990). To learn more about The Dexter Gordon Society, visit www.dextergordon.com/society. In 2015, Shaw will also launch The Woody Shaw Institute of Global Arts, working in conjunction with The Dexter Gordon Society to consolidate his father’s life’s work and to continue his interdisciplinary research and creative work in the arts on behalf of his family’s legacy. Shaw will be stationed at Harvard University until June 2015. Until then, he can be reached at woodyshaw@fas.harvard.edu or at woodyshawmusic@woodyshaw.com. You can also visit www. woodyshaw.com to learn more about the music of Woody Shaw.
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SMALL &
PHOTO BY VICTORIA PEARCE
BIG
Small Hobby, Big Business
JULIE FELDMAN O’CONNELL ’98 Founder, Designer and Creator, Bella Bundles La Jolla, California
by Douglas Hoagland ’15
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t wasn’t until after her first daughter was born that Julie Feldman O’Connell ’98 truly understood what was lacking in the baby blanket, bib and towel market. Bibs were always too short and they were not reversible. Blankets would always fall off the stroller, becoming dirty and failing to shield her daughter from the sun or keep her warm. She couldn’t find a blanket that worked well with her baby carrier or that helped her nurse privately in public. Hooded towels were cute, but they always fell open, leaving little ones cold. After a bit of hard work, including honing her sewing skills, and some creativity, Feldman O’Connell came up with solutions, first for her own children, though it wasn’t long before her small scale hobby became a big scale business. “The blankets, bibs and towels I came across were not soft enough, the fabric’s print was not impressive, and most of all they were
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not functional,” says Feldman O’Connell. “As a result, I started to make blankets, bibs and towels for friends and received amazing feedback.” Her first creation, “Blanket on the Go,” snaps onto strollers and carriers, and safely snaps around mommy’s neck to provide coverage while nursing. She went on to design stylish bibs that are long, reversible and have a terry cloth bottom to cover or wipe messy spills, and towels made with a snap closure at the nape of the neck, keeping children warm and bundled. “Initially I started selling my products to friends and families that saw them on my own infants, but eventually I expanded,” she says of her company, Bella Bundles. “A friend of a friend suggested I show my products to a storeowner, who seemed to like them right away. After that I started selling my line to more and more stores.” It wasn’t long after that Feldman O’Connell’s luxury baby layette and gear went global. In May of 2012, Bella Bundles was featured on the Ellen Degeneres Show’s Mother’s Day Giveaway episode, where her products were given away to expectant mothers
and celebrity moms. And during the 2013 Royal Baby buzz, Feldman O’Connell was featured on the website, Celebrity Baby Trends, and appeared on a CNN International’s Royal Baby News segment, discussing what new members of the royal family can wear from her line to be “regal yet fun and comfortable.” Most recently, her products have made their way to Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky, the first granddaughter of President Bill Clinton and former Sectary of State Hillary Clinton. Feldman O’Connell prides herself on not only the quality, practicality, and functionality of her products and their international success, but also on the fact that Bella Bundles gear is made in the United States. For every Bella Bundles purchase, a portion of the proceeds goes to Angels Family Foster Network. Feldman O’Connell credits her HWS education, as well as internships engaging with children in the Geneva community, with her desire to give back. “Going to such a great school and interacting with so many people on campus and in the town just made me want to give back to children in other communities also,” she says. ●
by Jonathan Everitt
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hen Jeffrey L. Amestoy ’68, P’11, P’14, authored the 1999 Vermont Supreme Court’s opinion in Baker v. State, which held that samesex couples were constitutionally entitled to the rights and benefits of marriage, a New York Times profile of the then chief justice read, “as a judge in an ongoing case, Amestoy cannot discuss the decision that makes him such a pivotal figure in Vermont.” Now, he can say, “I am grateful that I was able to contribute to a decision that advanced human rights.” The 38th Chief Justice of Vermont’s Supreme Court from 1997-2004, Amestoy also served seven terms as Attorney General of Vermont and held the position of president of the National Association of Attorneys General from 1992 to 1993. Born and raised in Vermont, Amestoy arrived on campus interested in political science. “I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate in my legal career and Hobart prepared me for a life of public service,” he says adding that he came to the right place. “It was a time of social unrest and I was struck by the fact that when I arrived in 1964, freshmen had to wear beanies and if you were stopped, you had to sing the school song,” he says. “By 1968, that was considered inconceivable.” As Amestoy was graduating from Hobart and preparing to enter law school, he was drafted. After serving six months in the Army Reserve, he headed for Hasting College of Law at The University of California, San Francisco. After receiving his law degree, he returned to Vermont, where he began his career as Assistant Attorney General. “I started prosecuting white collar crime,” he says. “In 1981 I went to the Kennedy school for a year and got a master’s in public administration.” Afterward, he accepted an offer to become Vermont’s commissioner of Labor and Industry, a position he held until resigning
in 1984 to run for State Attorney General. He was elected to a two-year term—and reelected six times in the years that followed. “I was nominated in 1996 by thenGovernor Howard Dean to be Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, and was confirmed by the Senate and took office in 1997, serving until 2004,” Amestoy says. It was during his time as Chief Justice that the issue of equality for same-sex couples arose in Vermont. In 1998, the landmark case, Baker v. State, led to a 1999 state Supreme Court decision Amestoy authored. The decision held that same-sex couples were entitled to the rights and benefits of marriage. It was, at the time, almost unheard of. “There wasn’t much talk of the need for equal rights for same-sex couples before the ruling,” Amestoy says. “Gay rights organizations, including individuals active in Vermont, were working for recognition of same sex couples but in 1998, there were only two states that had courts that even attempted to recognize same-sex relationships. One was Hawaii, in which their Supreme Court recognized same-sex marriage and it was almost immediately overturned by popular vote. And in Alaska, a court ruled for samesex marriage and then a constitutional amendment overruled it. So on the legal front, there hadn’t been any successes.” After the ruling, Vermont was the first state to institute civil unions for samesex couples—a controversial policy at the time. There were calls for Amestoy’s impeachment. Baker v. State sparked a national conversation that has led to monumental change. “One of the consequences of the decision was it was an enormous contribution to the public dialogue,” says Amestoy. “It demonstrated to the rest of the country that it was possible to discuss the issue in ways that were civil and constructive. One of the contributions the language of this decision could make was to frame the discussion in human terms while providing a legal structure. It
PHOTO BY KEVIN COLTON
Balancing the Scales JEFFREY L. AMESTOY ’68, P’11, P’14
38th Chief Justice of Vermont’s Supreme Court, 1997-2004 Waterbury Center, Vermont
was important to set the context of the discussion in terms that relate to human rights.” Amestoy says one often-cited phrase from his opinion allowed Vermonters to see the issue in terms that were meaningful to them. “The extension of the Common Benefits Clause,” Amestoy wrote, “to acknowledge plaintiffs as Vermonters who seek nothing more, nor less, than legal protection and security for their avowed commitment to an intimate and lasting human relationship is simply, when all is said and done, a recognition of our common humanity.” “People began to discuss the issue in human terms,” Amestoy says. Human terms that opened doors for marriage equality from coast to coast. Today, Amestoy is working on a book—one whose central figure has ties to Hobart. “I’ve been writing a biography of a 19th-century Boston lawyer, Richard Henry Dana Jr.,” Amestoy says. “His book, Two Years Before the Mast, has never been out of print, but my interest in Dana stems from the risks he took as a lawyer when he confronted America’s most powerful establishment by representing fugitive slaves when it was considered treason to do so.” For his commitment to civil rights, Dana received an honorary degree from Hobart College in 1852.●
In April 2014, Amestoy, the father of three—two of whom are William Smith graduates, was bestowed the Hobart Medal of Excellence, the Alumni Association’s highest honor for his successful and influential career as a lawyer, an Attorney General, and as Chief Justice of the Vermont State Supreme Court.
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BARBARA HERR ’66
Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology, University of Rochester Medical Center; Dollhouse Creator Rochester, New York
Mini Models
PHOTO BY KEVIN COLTON
by Avery Share ’15
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hat started with an ad for mini-fiesta ware turned into a fully furnished eight-room, Victorian-era styled dollhouse that took Barbara Herr ’66 nearly 10 years to complete. With a love for decorating and arranging furniture, Herr started work on the dollhouse after she and her partner, the late Dwight Gardiner, professor of psychology at HWS for many decades, finished decorating the house they built in 1985. “We made a home together and had an awful lot of fun planning that full-sized house and decorating it,”
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Herr says. “After several years, we were done furnishing it and I thought, ‘What am I going to do for fun?’ I saw an ad for mini-fiesta ware and started planning a dollhouse around it!” Complete with working electricity, hand-made quilts on beds, and a motorcycle in the driveway, Herr “tried to make the dollhouse as lifelike as possible.” The house may be mini, but it’s not lacking in style. Built on a 1 inch to 1 foot scale (1:12), the dollhouse (below) stands on a base of six square feet and is furnished with hundreds of 1890s-1950s styled mini pieces that took Herr years to hunt down and collect. From the afghan on
the couch to the mixer in the kitchen to the copy of Moby Dick on the bookshelf, each piece was hand-picked by Herr to make her dollhouse a “dollhome.” Herr still enjoys working part-time at the University of Rochester Medical Center as an assistant professor of neurology where the research of her department has large-scale impacts. Since graduating from HWS, Herr has collaborated with a network of doctors from around the world to help find solutions for rare, debilitating neuromuscular diseases. Though Herr was forced to take down the dollhouse due to a recent move to a one-level home, she’s looking forward to giving the dollhouse to her six-year-old niece in Pittsburgh and helping her rebuild it – passing a small piece of history to the next generation, while she starts decorating her newest project, a 1:144 mini dollhouse (above) for her new scaled-down home. ●
The Outing Club | ca.1941
ATHLETICS
Women On Ice Geneva’s winter weather has always offered students plenty of opportunities for outdoor sports. From an Outing Club offering circa 1941 to Division III Ice Hockey, Heron Athletics made history when the William Smith ice hockey team began their inaugural season in October 2014.
Herons Take the Ice
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WILLIA M S M I T H H E RO N S
Krista Federow ’18 carries the puck into the offensive zone as the Herons play their inaugural home game in The Cooler.
Herons Take The Ice by Ken DeBolt
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or the past five decades, the William Smith Herons have been synonymous with excellence with the modern successes— dozens of conference championships, seven national championships, and countless individual studentathlete awards—growing out of roots that stretch back to the earliest days of the College. On Oct. 31, William Smith planted a new seed, as the Heron ice hockey team made its varsity debut at UMass-Boston. While the Halloween showdown ended in a loss for the visitors, it wasn’t a frightful experience for a roster made up almost entirely of first-years. (Abagail Symes is the bridge between the club team and the varsity team. She is a sophomore academically and played club ice hockey last season.) The Beacons jumped out to a 3-0 lead before Morgan Bayreuther scored the first goal in program history off an assist from Krista Federow. The following night, Lizzy Weingast and Hedi Droste scored goals in a 6-2 setback to UMass-Boston. “This team has a lot of pride in starting this program off on the right foot,” Head Coach Jaime Totten says. “They really want to build a solid foundation for years to come. I can see that in the competitive level that they bring to practice every day. One thing I am looking to 64 Pulteney Street Survey | Winter 2015
finished the afternoon with a career-high 57 see this year, is that they carry that ambition saves. with them from start to finish each night and I “These student-athletes understand the have no doubt in my mind that this team will importance of setting the foundation of our compete to the very end.” ice hockey program,” Steward says. “They have The excitement surrounding the embraced the opportunity with Heron pride and program is evident everywhere from I’m confident with their commitment and the social media to The Cooler, home leadership of Coach Totten that this team will now to the Hobart and the William leave a lasting legacy for generations to come.” ● Smith hockey teams. Engagement statistics for Heron ice hockey on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are among the highest the College has seen since William Smith captured the 2013 NCAA Soccer Championship. In the real world, attendance for the reception following the team’s first home game on Nov. 8, was huge following a sellout game against Utica at The Cooler. In addition to a pregame puck drop featuring President Mark D. Gearan, Chair of the Board of Trustees Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09 and Heron Athletics Director Deb Steward, the first 100 fans received a commemorative puck. On Nov. 22, the Herons earned the program’s historic first victory, Utica forward Kelsey Dowdall, ECAC Associate Vice President topping Neumann 3-2 in overtime. for Leagues & Affiliates Katie Boldvich, William Smith Athletics First-year Catherine Linehan notched Director Deb Steward, Geneva City Manager Matt Horn, President Mark D. Gearan, Board Chair Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09 and the game-winning goal to lift the Krista Federow ’18 gather for the puck drop before the inaugural Herons past the Knights while Megan Heron home game. Messuri got the start in goal for William Smith and stood tall. She PHOTO BY ANDREW MARKHAM ’10
PHOTO BY GREGORY SEARLES ’13
HOBA RT S TAT E SM EN
by Ken DeBolt
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(129.7), and passing average (177.4 yds/g). During their time on campus, Hobart football went 37-12, won four league titles and made the first four postseason appearances in program history. An All-American, Gallagher helped the Statesmen capture their first ECAC West championship and led the Skatesmen to their first NCAA semifinal appearance. The blue liner produced 14 goals and 50 assists for 64 career points. As a senior, Gallagher led the team and ranked 15th in the nation in defenseman scoring (5-18-23). ●
year and sophomore seasons and returned to the championship game in his junior year. McAdam missed the 1979 campaign with a knee injury, but returned to the Boz to lead Hobart to the first of 12 consecutive Division III titles. The 1980 National Player and National Attackman of the Year was fourth in career goals (134) and points (220) and fifth in assists (86) at the time of his graduation. Stein was a four-time letterman in football and a two-time letterman in lacrosse. On the gridiron, he rang up 151 tackles and earned the Vincent Welch Award. Stein played his first lacrosse game at any level when he suited up
olumes have been written on the rich history of Hobart Athletics, which traces its origins back to the middle of the 19th century. The latest chapter in that tale was added on Nov. 15, when the Hobart Hall of Fame celebrated its 20th class of inductees. Football offensive lineman Alex Bell ’05, of Charlotte, N.C., basketball forward Joe Corbett ’03, of Marcus Hook, Pa., hockey defenseman Greg Gallagher ’06, of Framingham, Mass., football fullback and baseball third baseman Jerry Hanley ’75, of West Chester, Pa., football and lacrosse standout Ernie Lisi ’58, of Rochester, N.Y., lacrosse attackman Roy McAdam ’80, of Dexter, Hobart College Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2014 (back row): Greg Gallagher N.Y., football defensive ’06, Alex Bell ’05, Joe Corbett ’03, Craig Swanson ’04; and (front row): Eric Stein ’89, Roy McAdam ’80, Ernie Lisi ’58, and Jerry Hanley ’75. back and lacrosse defensive midfielder Eric Stein ’89, of Darien, Conn., and football for the Hobart B team in 1986. By the time he quarterback Craig Swanson ’04, of Baltimore was a senior, his defensive prowess earned him raised the Hall of Fame’s roll to 118. the national player of the year award. Stein Lisi is the elder Statesman of the class. A was also recognized for his academics, earning native of Geneva, he was a two-sport studentUSILA Scholar All-American honors. athlete for the Statesmen, but it was on the One of the most dominant Hobart gridiron that he made his greatest mark. Lisi basketball players ever, Corbett was a four-year grew from a backup fullback as a first-year to starter, three-year team MVP, and a two-year an All-American guard and standout linebacker captain. As both a junior and a senior, he was as a senior. Before Lisi and his classmates a finalist for the Jostens Trophy, the Heisman closed out the 1957 season with a 19-0 Trophy of Division III basketball. Corbett whitewashing of Upsala, Head Coach Eddie recorded 1,701 points, 655 field goals, and Tryon told the Geneva Times that Lisi was, “the 1,249 rebounds, at the time all Hobart records, best defensive linebacker we’ve ever had.” A while leading the Statesmen to the 2001 career educator, he went on to become known UCAA Championship and a berth in the NCAA as the father of Irondequoit, N.Y. lacrosse, tournament, both program firsts. coaching the Eagles to a 211-19 record with 22 Bell and Swanson’s successes are championships. intertwined. The former’s impenetrable Hanley was a punishing blocker for two of protection gave the latter time to make reads, Hobart’s most successful running backs, Hall of beat defenses and break virtually every Hobart Famers Don Aleksiewicz ’73 and Rich Kowaliski passing record. Bell earned All-America ’75. An exceptional runner himself, Hanley recognition as a junior and a senior and did logged 2,387 yards and 22 touchdowns during not allow a sack in either season. Swanson his career, trailing only A-to-Z and Kowalski on was the 2002 UCAA Offensive Player of the Hobart’s all-time list in 1974. On the diamond, Year and a finalist for the Gagliardi Trophy, the Hanley led the Statesmen with a .304 batting Division III Player of the Year award. The prolific average as a senior. passer eclipsed the Hobart career records for A two-time All-American attackman, passing yards (5,678), passing touchdowns McAdam is the only person to play on the first (47), pass attempts (802), pass completions three NCAA Championship winning Hobart (454), completion percentage (56.6), efficiency teams. The Statesmen won titles in his first-
QUICK HITS
PHOTO BY GREGORY SEARLES ’13
HALL OF FAME
Hobart Hall of Fame Welcomes 20th Class
• The Hobart football team won its fourth consecutive Liberty League Championship, posted its third straight undefeated regular season, and ran its win streak to 12 games with fourth quarter comeback wins over Ithaca and Johns Hopkins in the NCAA Championship before falling to fourth-ranked Wesley in the quarterfinal round. The Statesmen’s 12-1 record matched the 2012 team’s program standard for wins in a season. The team’s 19 seniors led Hobart to an amazing fouryear record of 41 wins, the most wins by a graduating class in the 121-season history of the program, against just five losses. • William Smith Director of Athletics Deb Steward was presented with the ECAC Division III Female Administrator of the Year award at the 2014 ECAC Honors Dinner in September. The 2013-14 academic year was outstanding for William Smith Athletics. Steward’s ninth year at the College saw Heron student-athletes produce an average GPA of 3.4 and collectively earn 103 all-academic/scholar-athlete awards. In the athletic arena, the Herons most notably captured the 2013 NCAA Division III Women’s Soccer National Championship. William Smith also reached the postseason in field hockey, rowing, sailing, and squash, while earning conference championships in rowing, soccer, and sailing. • In October, Olivia Zitoli ’14 was recognized as a Top 30 honoree at the NCAA Woman of the Year dinner. The National Player of the Year for the national championship winning Heron soccer team, Zitoli is the third Heron to be honored as a part of the NCAA Woman of the Year program. • Richie Bonney ’14 added the ECAC Division III Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year award to his already impressive resume. Hobart’s all-time leading scorer won the Jostens Trophy (national player of the year), Capital One Academic All-American of the Year for Division III Men’s Basketball, and Liberty League Male ScholarAthlete of the Year honors. • Hobart basketball has a new leader in 201415. Tim Sweeney, formerly the associate head coach at Elon University, takes over for Mike Neer, who retired after a 37-year career that included three seasons at Hobart. Sweeney played for and coached with Neer at the University of Rochester.
For up-to-the minute results and scores, visit www.HWSAthletics.com
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Alumni and Alumnae News DON’T MISS IMPORTANT UPDATES!
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nsuring that Hobart and William Smith has your most recent email address will help the Colleges reduce costs while upholding our commitment to environmental sustainability. A win win! Did you know HWS uses email more than any other form of communication to alums? We don’t want you to miss out on any updates regarding regional events, Reunion news, notices about the Herons and Statesmen, volunteer opportunities, etc. Please take a moment to update or confirm your preferred email address at www.hws.edu/address.
HWS EverTrue App
Connect with HWS alumni and alumnae worldwide using the HWS EverTrue App! Visit www.hws.edu/alumniapp to learn more.
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Serving the Colleges Meet Class Correspondents Eric Hall Anderson ’59 and Carol Redwood Riker ’59 by Stephanie Kenific ’17
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s class correspondents for the Pulteney Street Survey for more than two decades, Eric Hall Anderson ’59 and Carol Redwood Riker ’59 have served the Colleges by connecting with former classmates and peers through many of life’s ups and downs. Though methods of communication have changed since Anderson and Riker took on their respective positions, time has not altered their unswerving loyalty to Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Riker continues to receive postcards in addition to an increasing number of emails that help maintain Eric Hall Anderson ’59 connections. Anderson, Hobart’s chief class correspondent, on the other hand, relies primarily on the U.S. Mail and his telephone to serve as contacts for alums; in fact, he only has access to a computer several times a year when he visits his partner, Susi, in Switzerland. “It isn’t necessarily more meaningful than the telephone, but email does allow you to learn more and write at greater length,” Anderson reflects. For the two class correspondents, their status as an alum is a great source of pride. As time and geographic distance separates the network of alumni and alumnae from the Colleges, Anderson and Riker have worked to preserve the important connections that began during their years at HWS. “The relationships have been meaningful to me as we’ve communicated about changes in our lives,” says Riker. Anderson, who visits the campus twice a year to meet with the five students who receive his scholarships, has also sat on Hobart College’s Alumni Council for 25 years. He describes the meetings with these students as “the highlight of my visits” and a means of giving back to the Colleges. Riker as well sees her position as class correspondent as a means of expressing sincere gratitude toward the Hobart and William Smith community for her college experience. “Remaining in this position is one way to thank
Carol Redwood Riker ’59
the Colleges for the education I received,” she says. “The curriculum and professors in western civilization, sociology and Italian art sparked my interest in history, philosophy, cultures and art. Those foundations developed into expanding my knowledge and travel which continue to this day.” Anderson adds, “I realized after 25 years that it was my degree from Hobart that had made all the difference in the rest of my life. That diploma was my ticket, my union card, and my passport to do all the things that I did after graduation.” After Hobart, Anderson served in the United States Navy. He then participated in President Johnson’s War on Poverty by teaching high school dropouts how to read. Now retired, Anderson continues this work by volunteering as a one-onone reading tutor in an inner-city school in Boston. Riker, who completed a bachelor’s degree in social work at Dominican College and then a master’s of social work at New York University, counseled individuals and families at a family services agency until retiring in 2006. She now works as a docent for the Audobon Nature Center and is active in her community. ●
If you are interested in serving as a class correspondent, contact Alumni House toll free at (877) 497-4438.
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Regions Alums National Regional Network News Stories
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very day, the Colleges receive news of alumni and alumnae. Some stories are about career milestones and life accomplishments while others record unexpected connections in unlikely locations. Below we share some of our favorites from the fall semester, organized by Region. For more on the National Regional Network, to submit news and to see what’s happening across the country, visit www.hws/regional.
WEST MOUNTAIN Graham Sparks ’14 went from studying public policy at HWS to living his dream manufacturing custom skis in Aspen, Colo. Sparks’ company, Grizzly Boards, donates 10 percent of sales to Project ReMind, a nonprofit that funds research for a form of dementia.
UPSTATE NEW YORK Call Security, a band comprised of five HWS students and alums, released its new five-song EP, “To Whom it May Concern,” in tandem with a music video for the album’s first single, “Small Talk.” Band members include Peter Keller ’15 on bass, Tucker Jennings ’14 on drums, Kathryn Middleton ’14 on keyboard, Michelle Poulin ’15 on guitar, and Ben Scheibel ’14 on vocals. The video was directed by Steve Gemmitti ’14.
MIDWEST Randi Davenport ’78 published her first novel, The End of Always. The novel is set in the small towns of Wisconsin during the early 1900s and is inspired by real events from Davenport’s family history.
WEST COAST During the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, Executive Producers Warren Littlefield ’74 and Bradley Falchuk ’93, L.H.D.’14 were honored for their new mini-series television shows on the FX Network. Littlefield’s “Fargo” won the Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. Falchuk received an Emmy nomination for his writing on “American Horror Story Coven,” while the show received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Mini-series, Movie or a Dramatic Special. Additionally, cast member Jessica Lange won for best lead actress and Kathy Bates won best supporting actress.
SOUTHWEST Jennifer Siegal ’87 was recently featured on a special edition of CBS News’ “Sunday Morning,” for her advancements in mobile design of homes. The episode, “By Design,” was broadcast from Santa Fe, New Mexico, during the annual design show.
NEW ENGLAND Rise Molod Roth ’82 was named vice president for philanthropy by the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford. Roth will manage the Aim Chai Endowment Campaign, a community-wide collaboration whose goal is to strengthen and sustain the future of Jewish Hartford.
TRI STATE Tripp Schoff ’08 recently teamed up with founder and CEO of Whatt, Simon Berger-Perrin, to launch the company’s first app globally. As Whatt’s community manager, Schoff is responsible for all marketing and promotional aspects of the social media app, which is designed to let users share text updates with close friends by making posts personal, impactful, and fun. Users can download the Whatt app in the Apple App Store free of charge.
SOUTHEAST Evan Gove ’12 has been appointed senior editor of Local Management, a search engine marketing company in Boca Raton, Fla. Gove was most recently staff writer for the company.
MID– ATLANTIC Haverford College Professor of Political Science Zachary Oberfield ’98 recently published his first book, Becoming Bureaucrats: Socialization at the Front Lines of Government Service. Released by University of Pennsylvania Press, the book explores the question, “Are bureaucrats born or are they made?”
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Regional Events
Connect with alums in your region! Visit www.hws.edu/regional for upcoming event information.
President Mark D. Gearan along with members of the Cook Parents Circle, including Honorary Trustee Langdon (Lang) L.H.D. ’12 and Lyn Cook P’99, P’05, pose for a photo following a reception in New York City.
Tanya Kessenich, Paul Kessenich ’92, Vice President for Advancement Bob O’Connor, John Tucker P’88 and Lisa Tucker ’88 pose for a photo at the HWS Hamptons Summer Gathering hosted by Craig O’Neill ’89, Mark Burchill ’89 and Paul Kessenich ’92.
Students from the Classes of 2018 pose for a photo at the Portland, Maine Summer Gathering hosted by Tim ’01 and Kristin Schram ’03 Riley.
Hobart and William Smith alums, students and parents gather for a photo at the North Shore, Mass., Summer Gathering hosted by Trustee Chris ’84 and Rene Whitney ’83 Welles P’12, P’15 (front left).
Alumni, alumnae, parents and students pose for a photo during the Cape Cod Summer Gathering hosted by Trustees Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish ’82 and N. Harrison “Pete” Buck ’81, P’12.
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Jay Kendrick ’08, Megan Foye ’12, and Rosemary Chandler ’13 pose for a photo during the Boston Summer Happy Hour.
ALUMNI & ALUMNAE
Nina Rubin ’81, Mary Therese Whittaker ’81, Carol Alfenito Wheeler ’81, Holly Adam ’81 and Pam Lucas Rew ’81, P’14 gather for a photo at the HWS Bay Head, N.J., Summer Gathering hosted by Jim ’87 and Susan Kellogg P’17.
Professor of Media and Society Lester Friedman (back, left) sits with John Fouracre ’64, Karen Fouracre, Beth Layton ’81 and Bill Lanigan ’74 during an alum trip to Cambridge, England.
After the dedication of a boat in his honor, former rower Michael Hoepp ’05 poses for a photo with President Mark D. Gearan, Mary Herlihy Gearan and his parents, Dr. Lawrence Hoepp P’05 and Patricia Hoepp P’05 at the Head of the Charles Regatta.
Alums and their families gather for a photo during the Twin Cities, Minn., Summer Gathering hosted by John and Beth Jacob P’15.
HWS alums and family members gather at Annie Moore statue in Cobh, County Cork, Ireland during an alumni, alumnae and parent trip led by Professor Emeritus of Economics Pat McGuire HON’10, L.H.D.’12 and his wife Sandy McGuire. Pictured are (front row): Gretchen Sword ’06; (middle row): Sandy McGuire, Martha Sword P’06, Caroline Stanis-Gage, Lisa Vaamonde ’78, Lisa Bennett Blue ’78, Marty Stuart Jewett ’68; (Back row): Pat McGuire; their Irish guide, Bill Lanigan ’74, Michael Gage ’75, Lynne Greene, Alyson Musiello, Jane Cook, and Jen Dunning P’15.
Alumni, alumnae and parents celebrate the presentation of the Community Service Award to former Trustee Dr. Robert J. DeMuth ’51 at a gathering supported by Richard Bradspies ’73 in Portland, Ore.
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Rabbinical Careers Have Strong HWS Roots by Andrew Wickenden ’09
R
abbi Paul H. Levenson ’53 “It made for a unique and Rabbi Cheryl Asarkof dynamic,” she says. “I found Jacobs ’91 are, respectively, myself having to explain and the first Hobart and the first teach Judaism – and I think that William Smith graduates to enter enlightened me to the fact that the rabbinate, and while their maybe I didn’t know as much journeys differ, their rabbinical about my religion as I thought I careers have strong roots at HWS. did.” Growing up on Long Island, When Levenson graduated in Lawrence, N.Y., Levenson was, from Hobart, he attended as he says, “actively Jewish” at Hebrew Union College (Reform) Temple Israel, as were his parents. in Cincinnati, before traveling to His mother was an officer in the study in Israel. “In Israel I studied temple’s Sisterhood. His father full time, every morning and was on the temple board; served many afternoons in a Yeshiva, Rabbi Paul H. Levenson ’53 as treasurer, chair of the religious an Orthodox day school for high school and music committees. school kids, who knew lots more Levenson, however, did not than I did,” he says. decide to become a rabbi until he After a year studying at came to Geneva. Yeshiva Kol Torah and Hebrew “One of my classmates with University in Jerusalem, Levenson a Jewish name told me that he completed his rabbinic education was going to officially become an at Hebrew Union in New York City, Episcopalian,” Levenson says. “I which had joined with the Jewish was shocked. I never met anyone Institute of Religion. who had a Jewish name who was After Jacobs earned a going to get baptized as a Christian master of arts in religion from of any kind. I spoke to him and he Yale, she went to New York, said he didn’t know anything about enrolling at the Jewish Theological being Jewish.” Rabbi Cheryl Asarkof Jacobs ’91 Seminary (Conservative) at It was that experience that the suggestion of her master’s made Levenson “want to teach adviser, renowned New Testament Jewish kids about being Jewish,” he says. “I’d scholar Brevard Childs. At the JTS, Childs told had such a good experience myself, that I her, Jacobs could study toward a Ph.D. and also wanted to share that.” be ordained as a Conservative Rabbi. For Jacobs, who grew up in Boston, “the “I scoffed at the rabbi suggestion,” Jacobs rabbinate was never a thought in my mind. says, “but I moved to New York City and began I come from a family of dentists and I really my studies at JTS.” thought that was where my journey would take The move to New York is what changed me.” things for Jacobs: “The school is on the edge When she arrived at HWS, Jacobs enrolled of Harlem in an area called Morningside in as many science courses as she could, but Heights. Although it is a safe area, right next “found that I was not to Columbia, I had never fit to be a scientist or seen people sleeping on “I want to teach Jewish kids medical professional,” the streets — or such about being Jewish. I’d had such poverty in my sheltered she says. But thanks to the interdisciplinary life in Boston, Geneva, or a good experience myself, that I nature of the HWS New Haven.” wanted to share that.” curriculum, she found It was then Jacobs — Rabbi Paul H. Levenson ’53 herself in religion courses decided she wanted to taught by Professors of become a rabbi, “to help Religious Studies Richard “Doc” Heaton and those with no voice.” Michael Dobkowski. She went on to earn a B.A. “It didn’t matter if they were Jewish or in religious studies with a minor in sociology. not what mattered is that they were human Planning to teach religious studies at the beings who needed someone on their side,” she university level, Jacobs was admitted to the says. “My seven years in New York City were Divinity School at Yale University, where she was dedicated to helping those who were homeless, the only Jewish person enrolled. helpless, sick and in need of support.”
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Levenson taught Jewish Studies for 10 years at Rockhurst College, a Catholic school in Kansas City, Mo. He later created and taught many Jewish Studies courses when he served as Hillel Director at Northeastern University. He was a congregational rabbi for 30 years, plus 20 as a hospital chaplain including his latest, retirement years. “In hospitals,” Levenson says, “Jewish patients need someone who understands their ‘Jewish culture’ far beyond a prayer to God for healing. Many American Jews, as well as those in Israel, came from Eastern Europe where Stalin and others Communists forbade any overt expression of Jewish religious life. Consequently they knew nothing or little of Jewish religious practices.” This was true, Levenson recalls, of the father of his friend whom he met at HWS back in the early 1950s. Levenson is now rabbi emeritus at Temple Chayai Shalom in Easton, Mass., in addition to his continuing work as Jewish chaplain in two of Boston’s biggest hospitals, caring for infirmed and dying persons, Jews and non-Jews alike. His involvement in the community has grown and developed over the years, from a member of research committees for hospitals and medical schools, to his activism for fair housing practices and the advancement of the state of Israel and civil rights. In the 1960s, Levenson took part in civil rights demonstrations and was present at the National Mall to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In the late 1980s, he marched on Washington with Elie Wiesel, Natan Sharansky and 250,000 others in support of the rights of Soviet Jews to emigrate from their autocratic country. Of service to others, Levenson says, “I took up challenges and went wherever my Rabbinic colleagues and I were needed.” Jacobs, as a student at the JTS, served as student chaplain for an HIV/AIDS organization, where “on any given night, we’d have 250 people from the street, right out of jail, in all stages of illness. The very first time a homeless man gave me a huge hug and said to me, ‘You are the first religious person that hasn’t judged us for what we have but for what we are inside,’ I was hooked.” But her favorite “job,” Jacobs says, “was and is as a volunteer for the Broward Sheriff’s Office where I go in and meet with the Jewish inmates in area jails.” Twelve years ago, Jacobs and her family moved to Florida, for her husband Andrew’s pulpit (he is also a rabbi). In Florida, Jacobs worked seven years for a synagogue and established the Jewish Healing Center, an organization dedicated to providing chaplaincy/ rabbinic services to those who do not belong to a congregation in the area. “For years we have struggled with the issue of ‘membership’ in our community — and I think that it’s time to redefine what it means to be a ‘member,’” Jacobs says. “Judaism is not a country club. Over the years, you learn that no
matter what you are professionally, you have to learn to follow your heart. My heart is dedicated to making sure that anyone who wants access and a connection to Judaism and community is able to have it.” For Levenson, it’s the tradition of Judaism that provides that connection to the community. He and his wife, who recently passed away, and their four children and five grandchildren, have always been very active in the overall Jewish community wherever they lived. “I’m very traditional in my outlook on life, and in every other way, because I know what was done in times past,” Levenson says. He has tried to incorporate traditional aspects of the Jewish experience into his teachings and into his passion for songwriting (see www.rablev. com). “The traditional Sabbath, lighting of the Shabbat candles, going to synagogue Friday night — in my own congregation we did even more than that,” he says. “We sang many traditional songs and Israeli songs. Why? Because they’re a fun, important, memorable, and authentic part of the ongoing, existential Jewish experience.” ●
The CooneyDoran Family One of the largest legacies at HWS
Jeremy A. Cooney ’04
by Andrew Wickenden ’09
F
rom Capitol Hill to the office of the Mayor of Rochester where he serves as chief of staff, Jeremy A. Cooney ’04 cites the “intellectual curiosity” the Colleges fostered as “the most important asset gained from my educational background.” Through his interdisciplinary experiences as a public policy major, balancing economics courses with philosophical studies, he says he “learned how to ask questions and see the whole picture
before speaking, coming to judgment or making a decision.” However, Cooney says the development of his “independent mind” can also be traced to his family which shares a significant attribute— one of the largest legacy families at Hobart and William Smith. “I am fortunate to be part of three generations of graduates — including my grandparents, mother and uncle,” says Cooney, who followed in the footsteps of 11 HWS alumni and alumnae in his family. “Members of the Cooney-Doran family previously chaired the Board of Trustees, worked in Admissions and Financial Aid, established an endowed scholarship, and were active in alumni and alumnae activities. But while we share a heritage of HWS experiences, we each maintained our independent paths and interests.” Cooney’s own path has taken him from HWS to Albany Law School, through various roles in government, and back to his hometown of Rochester, N.Y., where he joined a boutique litigation practice and then spent three years as vice president of Development with the YMCA of Greater Rochester. For his current role as chief of staff to Rochester’s mayor, Lovely A. Warren, Cooney says that “the best training I received was working in all levels of government and seeing how each system worked. As an intern on Capitol Hill, I learned how Congress operates; as a mayoral intern, it was the delicacy of community-relations; as district congressional staffer, it was constituent services; and as an intern for the Governor’s Counsel’s Office, it was legislative legality and political sensitivity. Today, each of these work experiences contributes to my ability to anticipate issues and effectively execute the Mayor’s agenda.” Looking back at the influence his family had on his outlook, Cooney recalls the particular determination of his mother. “My mother, Anne Cooney ’63, who died the year of her 50th College Reunion, was a single mother, a 35-year college faculty member, world traveler, devout Episcopalian, and voracious reader,” Cooney recalls. “She attended William Smith after she was told by her high school guidance counselor that women could not become professionals. Four years later, she graduated with a double-major in mathematics and English and traveled alone to Turkey to teach at an all-girls boarding school. She forged her own path based upon her interests. And I’d like to think I do the same.” Ten years out of HWS, what do the next ten years hold in store for Cooney? “Ten years? I focus on the next ten hours,” Cooney says. “As chief of staff, every day brings the unexpected. The only absolute is that I serve at the pleasure of the Mayor.” ●
Admissions
Program Is there a high school student in your family who would be a perfect fit at Hobart and William Smith?
Defining a Legacy Legacies are the children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins or siblings of alumni, alumnae and current students.
Benefits of the Legacy Program The Hobart and William Smith Colleges Legacy Admissions Program celebrates alumni and alumnae who make HWS part of their family tradition. The program offers financial and academic support intended to help students make the most of their HWS education. To learn more contact the Office of Admissions (315) 781-3622 | (800) 852-2256
www.hws.edu/admissions/legacy_program.aspx
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BOOKSHELF
Getting a Life with Asperger’s: Lessons Learned on the Bumpy Road to Adulthood
Jesse Saperstein ’04
by Cynthia L. McVey
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s a Hobart student, Jesse Saperstein ’04 considered it a “dream goal” to write a book — now, he’s written two. In his second book, Getting a Life with Asperger’s: Lessons Learned on the Bumpy Road to Adulthood, (published in August by Penguin Group U.S.A.), author, speaker and autism advocate Saperstein shares firsthand advice on such topics as overcoming bullying and chronic rejection, coping with compulsions, and making peace with ritualistic obsessions from excessive letterwriting to online gaming. Saperstein graduated from Hobart with a B.A. in English cum laude. He is a strong anti-bullying advocate, producing public service videos, working to infuse anti-bullying education in public schools, and even addressing the United Nations. Saperstein also recently collaborated with New York University on the “Keeping it Real Project,” a partnership between NYU Steinhardt’s ASD Nest Support Project and self-advocates who have developed strength-based modules for middle schools to nurture students’ self-esteem and foster self-advocacy skills. (www.projectkeepitreal.com) In addition to writing and motivational speaking, Saperstein is teaching a course in creative writing at Living Resources, Inc. Since August, he has been traveling the country, from Boston to California, conducting book signings for Getting a Life with Asperger’s. Following a recent NPR interview, Saperstein’s book shot to number one in three categories on Amazon.com. It is also available directly on his website, www.jessesaperstein.com with personalized messages for his readers. ●
What inspired this book? My first book, Atypical: Life With Asperger’s in 20 1/2 Chapters doesn’t address transitioning into adulthood. That time of transition has fewer services and advocates for people with autism and a lot of heartbreak when it comes to searching for jobs. With this book, I’d like to make it possible for someone to avoid learning everything the hardest way possible. You say you chose HWS for the available resources. Were you happy with your decision? Yes. College was a lonely experience because people didn’t understand me. However, I think had I gone anywhere else, it would have been worse. I would have become clinically depressed or dropped out. For the start of the 21st century, the Colleges were ahead of their time, and I’ve seen how much they have grown since I graduated. They have great services. Much of your advice pertains to appropriate communication. I do have to consciously think about everything I say. I feel like I’m playing Russian roulette. I like to say complacency is the glove in which evil slips its hand. My fear is that if I become that complacent, I’ll slip up and it will cost me. Why do you call autism both a difficult and beautiful condition? For me, autism is a gift, especially at this point in my life when I’m writing books and giving speeches. For others with the disease, it’s not the same. For parents, sometimes it prevents their children from having a life. But just speaking for myself, autism has made me a better person. I can find creative ways to solve problems, and by dwelling on certain experiences I don’t repeat the same mistakes. I think one of the greatest gifts is empathy, although people with autism aren’t perceived as having it. Why not? Because we seem to have no consideration for others, but it’s just an inability to see other’s points of view, not an inability to relate to their anguish. What advice would you give the neurotypical population in relating to people with autism? Those on the spectrum don’t wake up thinking ‘How can I be creepier than yesterday, make people more uncomfortable or destroy a career opportunity?’ Tell them what they are doing to make you uncomfortable and soften the constructive criticism so they know it’s not a personal attack. For every one negative, provide three positives. Most of all, see our potential as outstanding employees and coworkers.
Nightstand: What are you reading? MYLES HUNT ’11
Associate of Content Partnerships, Amplify Access, a company providing mobile learning systems designed by and for educators “I just finished Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones. It is the most elaborate exploration into the Muppets creator’s artistic and personal life that I have read to date. Jones shows the brilliance and struggle of art and the artist in a complex family medium. Henderson’s story brings joy and laughter to so many, young and old. If you need a good pick-me-up tale of grand craziness, read this biography.”
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SHANELLE FRANCE ’12
Graduate Student, George Washington University; Co-teacher, Chantilly High School, Chantilly, Va.; returned Peace Corps volunteer “A favorite from my studies is A Practical Reader for UDL by Rose and Meyer. The article explains the theory of Universal Design for Learning, which emphasizes teachers as guides/coaches, views learning as a process, encourages cooperative learning, and enforces reciprocal teaching for literacy. The reading has been influential in helping to mold my teaching philosophy and outlook as a special educator.”
HELEN MCCABE, PH.D.
HWS Director, Global Initiative on Disability; Associate Professor, Education Department/Affiliated Faculty, Asian Studies Department “I am currently reading Riding the Bus with My Sister, by Rachel Simon, about Simon’s relationship with her younger sister who lives independently, loves riding the city buses, and has an intellectual disability. The book is for my class, “Personal Narratives on Disability.” Our next book is Saperstein’s Atypical: Life With Asperger’s in 20 1/2 Chapters. I love both of these books because we gain so much by learning from the personal experiences of individuals with disabilities, and their families.”
You make
incredible moments
possible.
This Incredible Moment: As part of Orientation 2014, current students performed a Variety Show at the Smith Opera House to introduce firstyear students to life at HWS and to provide a little entertainment in the midst of a very busy weekend. The only first-year student brave enough to take to the stage was Kathleen Fowkes ’18 from Braintree, Mass., who received a standing ovation from her peers.
For generations, annual gifts have had a significant impact on the Colleges and our students. You can continue that tradition.
Star trails over Bozzuto Boathouse create a semi-circular pattern caused by long exposures and the rotation of the earth. PHOTO BY KEVIN COLTON
Regardless of how you choose to direct your gift – or even the size of that gift – it will make incredible moments possible and help us prepare students to lead lives of consequence.
Please give to the Annual Fund … today. 877-HWS-GIFT (877-497-4438) | www.hws.edu/onlinegiving HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES
109
HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES 300 Pulteney Street Geneva, New York 14456 This publication was printed using recycled paper which enables the environmental savings equivalent to the following: 269 trees preserved for the future 776 lbs waterborne waste not created 114,184 gallons wastewater flow saved 12,634 lbs solid waste not generated 24,895 lbs net greenhouse gases prevented 190,400,000 BTUs energy not consumed
Magazine printed on 100% post-consumer fiber paper.
Insert printed on 10% post-consumer fiber paper.
Herbert J. McCooey, Jr. ’76, P’04, P’09
Dominic Carazza ’15
1. What qualities do you need to be successful in the financial industry? You’ve got to be nimble; markets change quickly so you better be able to change, too.
1. What qualities do you need to be successful in the financial industry? Perhaps most important is the ability to adapt. 2. What’s the best financial advice you’ve ever received? Begin investing as early as possible.
2. What’s the best financial advice you’ve ever received? Buy a seat on the NYSE.
3. What advice would you give to a student who wants to work in finance? Try it. There are plenty of misconceptions about Wall Street; I just happen to love the differences.
4. Describe Wall Street in three words. Competitive, misunderstood and maligned. 5. What makes a great leader? Someone who surrounds himself with smart people and actually listens to them. 6. What is your work philosophy? Treat everyone fairly so they treat you the same way. 7. What quality do you most value in your friends? I like people who can listen and laugh.
PARALLELS PARALLELS
3. What advice would you give to a student who wants to work in finance? Get your foot in the door; you’ll find your way eventually.
4. Describe Wall Street in three words. Fluid, engaging and impressive.
Alums Scaling New Heights
A senior, Carazza has already secured employment after graduation as an analyst in the Diversified Industries Group at J.P. Morgan. An English and economics double major, he is a member of the investment club, works in the Office of Admissions, and is a recipient of the Lewis H. Elliott Memorial Scholarship.
McCooey is a retired member of the N.Y. Stock Exchange and a former managing director at Bear Wagner Specialists, LLC.
ALUMS SCALING NEW HEIGHTS
Featuring Bill Whitaker Jr. ’73, L.H.D. ’97, 60 Minutes’ Newest Correspondent
5. What makes a great leader? Perspective and the ability to put faith in those around you. 6. What is your work philosophy? It’s simple and cliché, but to do everything to the best of my ability. 7. What quality do you most value in your friends? Loyalty. 8. What does success mean to you? Being able to live a life that you’ve dreamt of.
9. What’s your proudest achievement? I have a lovely wife and terrific kids.
9. What’s your proudest achievement? Being elected president of the Delta Chi fraternity.
10. Is it more important to be lucky or skillful? That’s easy, lucky!
10. Is it more important to be lucky or skillful? Lucky.
11. What’s the last book you read? The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown.
11. What’s the last book you read? The Trial by Franz Kafka.
12. What keeps you awake at night? I’m worried that my kids won’t have the same opportunities that were available when I was their age.
12. What keeps you awake at night? Planning for the future.
Winter 2015
8. What does success mean to you? Success is the ability to look in the mirror and say I did a good job, treated people fairly and it paid off.
PLUS: Profiles of 24 other HWS community members living life on a grand scale
Inside: A Culture of Respect: The National Dialogue on Sexual Assault and How HWS is Responding WINTER 2015
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• • • • • •
The Pulteney Street Survey
Non profit org. U.S. Postage PAID Rochester, New York Permit No. 944
You make
incredible moments
possible.
This Incredible Moment: As part of Orientation 2014, current students performed a Variety Show at the Smith Opera House to introduce firstyear students to life at HWS and to provide a little entertainment in the midst of a very busy weekend. The only first-year student brave enough to take to the stage was Kathleen Fowkes ’18 from Braintree, Mass., who received a standing ovation from her peers.
For generations, annual gifts have had a significant impact on the Colleges and our students. You can continue that tradition.
Star trails over Bozzuto Boathouse create a semi-circular pattern caused by long exposures and the rotation of the earth. PHOTO BY KEVIN COLTON
Regardless of how you choose to direct your gift – or even the size of that gift – it will make incredible moments possible and help us prepare students to lead lives of consequence.
Please give to the Annual Fund … today. 877-HWS-GIFT (877-497-4438) | www.hws.edu/onlinegiving HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES
109