Scope Spring 2011

Scope THE SKIDMORE COLLEGE MAGAZINE

SPRING 2011

LAND TRUST ANALYZING, STEWARDING, AND REMEDIATING, SKIDMORE SCHOLARS AND ALUMNI EXPERTS ARE SHAPING CRUCIAL LAND-USE PLANS FROM SKIDMORE’S CAMPUS TO SEATTLE’S STREETSCAPES

TIMELINE: 100 COMMENCEMENTS

WRITERS INSTITUTE TURNS 25

UWW PORTRAIT GALLERY

Scope SPRING 2011 Volume 41, Number 3 VICE PRESIDENT F O R A D VA N C E M E N T

Michael Casey EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR O F C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

Dan Forbush EDITOR

Susan Rosenberg srosenbe@skidmore.edu A S S O C I AT E E D I T O R

Paul Dwyer ’83 pdwyer@skidmore.edu CLASS NOTES EDITOR

Mary Monigan mmonigan@skidmore.edu DESIGNERS

Michael Malone Maryann Teale Snell WRITERS

Kathryn Gallien Bill Jones Bob Kimmerle Maryann Teale Snell Andrea Wise EDITORIAL OFFICES

Office of Communications Skidmore College 815 North Broadway Saratoga Springs, NY 12866 phone: 518-580-5747 fax: 518-580-5748 online: www.skidmore.edu/scope SKIDMORE COLLEGE

Main number: 518-580-5000 Alumni Affairs and College Events: 518-580-5670 Communications: 518-580-5733 Admissions: 518-580-5570 or 800-867-6007 Scope is published

by Skidmore College for alumni, parents, and friends.

Printed on recycled paper (10% postconsumer)

12 down and dirty academics

Scope FE ATU R ES: L AN D USE CO N TEN TS

12 15 use, re-use, smart use‌

G ROUN DWOR K Studying land issues from the old mill stream to riparian rinsing to community activism

15

SMALL E ARTH, BIG D E MAN DS Roundtable: Alumni experts chart key battlegrounds and shared-use solutions

18

L AN D D E AL How Skidmore acquired 800-plus acres and planned its new campus, 50 years ago

22 YON D E R V ILL AG E 18 from Woodlawn to Jonsson

Scribner Village at its end, new student housing will occupy its site

D E PARTME N TS

CAMPUS SCEN E 4 ALU MN I N EWS 24 WHO, WHAT, WHEN 36 CL ASS N OTES 37 SAR ATOGA SIDEBAR 68

22 Scribner Village 2.0 ON THE COVER: Civilization plants and paves the landscape with ease, but dig deeper to consider the politics and business entangling the roots of every land-use decision. See page 12.

24 UWW salute

Your bequest commitment will help strengthen Skidmore’s future.

1993 u 1996 u2000 u2007u2010

Haupt Pond is named in appreciation of a bequest supporting campus facilities from Gladys H. Haupt ’31.

Jean Sterne ’32 leaves a bequest that results in the Sterne Virtuoso Series.

Kathryn Wiecking ’53 funds multiple projects around campus with a bequest. Wiecking Hall is later named in her honor.

Julie Greene ’58 leaves a bequest to support athletics at Skidmore.

By making a bequest commitment to Skidmore, you will be contributing to an important tradition—one that has helped the College meet challenges and reach new heights.

Join the 700+ members of the legacy Society making a commitment to support Skidmore’s future.

Legacy society

To learn more about planning a gift, contact the Office of Gift Planning at 518-580-5658, giftplanning@skidmore.edu, or www.skidmore.edu/giftplanning.

Gift planninG for Skidmore

Henry Galant, longtime faculty member, leaves a bequest to support the Henry and Eleanore Galant Endowed Scholarship Fund.

PHIL SCALIA

PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE

toward a wide horizon to our construction Perhaps more imporThis issue of Scope explores land: how plans—the abundance tant than any one project, we use it, how we value it, and how we of bedrock close to however, are the compreunderstand our relationships to it, particthe surface—was conhensive plans we have put ularly as land-use pressures rapidly intenverted into an asset. in place to help us mansify both locally and around the world.

In terms of aesthetic age our land and our facilSkidmore students engage with these appeal, a fine example ities, incorporating enviissues in a broad range of courses in disof creative thought is ronmentally sustainable ciplines from environmental studies and ACTING P RESIDENT S USAN K RESS the Zankel Center, a initiatives. These include geosciences to government and literature. building where form beautifully follows a zoned use plan for the North Woods, Indeed, we aim to equip our students, by function. helping us balance the competing demeans of the curriculum and by modelFinally, our commitment that we are mands on that vital and fragile resource, ing good decision-making across the Col“in it for the long haul” dictates all our and, most far-reaching, the 2007 Campus lege, with the skills to make sound, ethimajor land-use and facility decisions.

Plan, outlining a clear vision for the cal judgments as citizens and stewards of Naturally, the Campus Plan offers more short-, medium-, and long-term developthe land in their lives after Skidmore. specific guideposts through 2015, but its ment of all the College’s physical assets.

One impetus for these reflections is provisional proposals for 2050 also atIn developing the the 50th anniverGIVEN THAT WE INTEND THE tempt to anticipate our development Campus Plan, we sary of the decision COLLEGE TO THRIVE 100, 200, needs and opportunities in the more disadopted three overto move to what EVEN 300 YEARS FROM NOW, tant future. arching principles many of us still call THE CAMPUS WILL SURELY As for the nearer term, we have begun that I think bear re“the new campus.”

NEVER STOP EVOLVING. work to replace the aging Scribner Vilpeating: Skidmore’s landlage student housing. Over the next • the plan must first and foremost supscape has changed dramatically since the three years, we will raze the existing faport the primary learning mission of Jonsson Campus began to take shape in cility and construct new, energy-efficient the College the 1960s. And given that we intend the apartments that will both expand our • the plan must reflect our “Creative College to thrive 100, 200, even 300 years residential capacity and better meet the Thought Matters” credo from now, the campus will surely never needs of our students. We also are in the • the plan must extend into the long term stop evolving. In the past decade alone, midst of important planning for the sciThe first might seem obvious, but it is beginning with the Frances Young Tang ences and for athletics, which will prosurprising how often institutions can lose Teaching Museum and Art Gallery in vide us with a comprehensive undersight of their mission in the bustle of am2000, we have accomplished several strikstanding of, and a carefully developed bitions to complete complex projects. ing additions: plan for, our facilities needs in each Buildings are a means to an end, and that • the Northwoods Village student apartarena well into the future. end must always be the first-class educaments And just recently, I am delighted to tion of our students. This idea was cer• the renovation of the Murray-Aikins announce, we received an extremely gentainly in the mind of legendary College Dining Hall erous donation of roughly 200 acres of leader Josephine Case when she charged • the Wachenheim Field for soccer and undeveloped land in neighboring Greenthe architects of the new campus to delacrosse, plus softball and field hockey field, N.Y. We have not yet formulated sign a place that “expresses the unity of venues specific plans for how we might use this knowledge,” that provides “for both stu• the Arthur Zankel Music Center wonderful resource, although we are dent and teacher a feeling of freedom and We also have invested in other imporimagining possibilities for both recreation wide horizon,” and that allows “space for tant projects, albeit with smaller, less visiand research. Certainly, this new land contemplation and for aesthetic pleasure ble footprints. We have completed renowidens our horizon once again and, to and for play.” vations to residence halls, including close with Josephine Case’s memorable We want creativity to be manifested sprinkler systems for fire safety. We have words, offers “space for contemplation on campus in myriad ways. In terms of been retrofitting Filene Music Building to and for aesthetic pleasure and for play.” creative problem-solving, one example is accommodate the special programs office our harnessing of sustainable geothermal and the art history department. And this President Philip Glotzbach returns from energy for heating and cooling our spring we finished a renovation and sabbatical this spring. buildings. What was initially a challenge modest expansion of Saisselin Art Center.

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commencement centennial It’s graduation season, and this spring Skidmore celebrates its 100th commencement by offering archival photos, history, and other bonuses to the 600-plus graduates and their guests and families.

Honorary degrees go to Colin Greene, UWW ’01, an education leader in An-

1928

1930

1912 Skidmore School of Arts’ first commencement awards 27 certificates 1913 Ivy-planting tradition begins, seniors passing ceremonial trowel to juniors 1916 Commencement caps full week of related activities 1918 Commencement ceremony moves to College Hall 1919 Skidmore School of Arts co-signs its own baccalaureate degrees (with state regents); a women’s suffrage is being adopted, Pres. Keyes urges grads to “take their conscience and their courage to the hustings and the polls.”

1922 School’s new name and status, Skidmore College, announced 1928 Ceremony held outdoors

1912

tigua and beyond; James McPherson, author of the Pulitzer-winning Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War and other books; and Ann Bogart, cofounder and artistic director of the SITI theater company.

The faculty speaker, chosen by the graduating class, is historian Erica BastressDukehart.

1949 1930 Top achievers honored 1937 First honorary degree awarded, to Pres. Henry T. Moore 1942 Radcliffe Pres. Ada Louise Comstock addresses 147 graduates on women’s roles in war 1946 Graduating class of 170 includes eight daughters of alumnae 1948 Ceremony moves to Convention Hall 1949 Grads include two men, first of the returning GIs 1958 Anthropologist Margaret Mead addresses 193 grads 1966 Ceremony held on new campus, outside Field House 1967 Ceremony held at Saratoga

1971

As the final commencement of the University Without Walls program, the occasion is also being marked by special events and celebrations—including the portrait gallery of UWW alumni on page 24 of this Scope.

Full coverage of the 100th commencement will follow in the fall Scope. —SR

1967 Performing Arts Center 1971 Ballet dancers Edward Villela and Violet Verdy honored, offer a dialogue instead of speeches; grads include Skidmore’s first Phi Beta Kappa members 1972 Grads include first two men after coeducation began in 1971 1974 First UWW degrees conferred 1976 Astronomer Carl Sagan honored 1982 First appearance by Schenectady Pipe Band at Commencement 1987 Honorees include Saratoga folkmusic impresaria Lena Spencer, poet laureate Richard Wilbur, and retiring Skidmore president Joe Palamountain 1990 Jazz bassist Milt Hinton honored, performs “Old Man Time” 1995 First master’s degrees awarded 1999 Saratoga-born actor David Hyde Pierce honored 2009 Graduation of Skidmore’s largestever class, numbering 694 2011 100th commencement exercises

1976

EXPERT OPINION : Sorting out steroids, with tonya dodge

We think so, especially if we start when kids are younger. I’m finishing up a study, funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency, to help me plan a parent-based intervention program. So far, the results suggest that parents can be effective advisors and information sources. I surveyed 250 adolescent athletes from three upstate New York high schools, asking how much they talk with their parents about anabolic steroids, what they think are the best sources for facts and advice about them, and other questions. The results suggest that when parents, especially fathers (we don’t know why), talk with their children— say, about ways of refusing an offer of steroids from a peer, or about how using steroids may be seen as cheating—those kids are less likely to take steroids. Even when the discussion acknowledges the power and appeal of steroids as performance enhancers, that does not increase the likelihood that the kids will use steroids.

What kinds of information do kids need to hear about steroids?

Typically, kids are told about long-term risks like bone and growth problems, reproductive abnormalities, and dementia. And those are all real. But I’m collaborating with two colleagues in England and one in Australia to compare the effectiveness of scary stories alone vs. scary stories within a comprehensive, objective information program. The risk factors and culture around steroids are fairly similar across westernized countries—the laws and rules are similar, and the users are mostly male athletes in sports of speed and strength—so we’re investigating whether a similar infor-

mation and intervention strategy might work across the board.

Another angle is ethics. Many kids see steroid use as a form of cheating, and they may draw an ethical line between nutritional aids and anabolic steroids.

Should nutritional supplements be promoted as steroid alternatives?

We’re looking into that. Certainly these legal supplements—like protein powders and creatine or other amino acid formulas—seem safer, as long as they’re manufactured properly. Under a National Institutes of Health grant, we asked 4,000 freshman males from two northeastern universities to fill out an online survey about their attitudes and expectations surrounding steroids and supplements.

One correlation we found was that students who try nutritional supplements tend to believe that steroids would be even better.

Perhaps their experience of moderately enhanced strength or stamina fuels their desire for more dramatic performance improvements. In any case, it’s worrisome.

just don’t talk about this very much; they may talk about safe sex, or drugs and alcohol, but hardly at all about steroids. Given our early evidence about the effectiveness of parental intervention, I’d recommend that all parents—especially if they have kids active in sports—make sure to talk about the appeals and risks and alternatives of steroids, to help kids make healthy choices early on. There’s lots of good information at teens.drugabuse.gov (click on “facts” in the top-left corner) and at www.drugabuse .gov (click on “steroids” in the right-hand column).

Tonya Dodge, a veteran long-distance runner, teaches courses in social psychology, sports psychology, and adolescent health.

What’s one thing we can do to reduce youngsters’ abuse of steroids?

MARK MCCARTY

Can kids with athletic ambitions be steered away from taking steroids?

We found that parents

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faculty retirees

TOM DENNY

Stony Brook, earning his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1979. In the early 1980s he was on the technical staff of Bell Labs and served as staff physicist in the semiconductor division of Sperry Corp. An innovator in the classroom, he took part in an NEH program on teaching computational physics. He has published many articles in, and refereed other submissions to, major physics journals.

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Regis Brodie joined Skidmore in 1969, fresh from his MFA at Temple University.

An internationally known ceramist, he has lectured, demonstrated, workshopped, and exhibited widely in the US, Europe, and Asia—including being selected to participate in a major inter-

REGIS BRODIE CHRIS WEIGL ‘11

CHARLIE SAMUELS

MARTY CANAVAN

has applied global perspectives in her courses, especially from her research on education in South Africa, where she coordinated teacher exchanges and led several trips for Skidmore students.

KAREN BRACKETT ’81 PHIL SCALIA

BETTY BALEVIC

PHIL SCALIA

DAVID ATKATZ

ANDY CAMP

JOSH GERRITSEN ‘06

CHRIS WEIGL ‘11

David Atkatz, a scholar of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and computational physics, has taught at Skidmore since 1989. He was educated at the State University of New York at

Betty Balevic came to Skidmore in 1969. She had worked as a manager and planner for Montgomery Ward in the 1950s, then earned a master’s in business education from SUNY-Albany in 1963.

She taught a wide range of courses as the business department evolved, and she was a 20-year stalwart in the prison program of Skidmore’s University Without Walls. A specialist in retailing, she studied shopping centers in the United Arab Emirates and Canada; she also consulted and gave conference papers on merchan-

PHIL SCALIA

Skidmore said farewell to 12 faculty members in 2010–11, many of them campus legends who have devoted 20, 30, or 40 years of service to the College.

For full profiles of the new retirees, visit the “Scopedish” blog, http://scopedish .wordpress.com.

TERRY DIGGORY dising, marketing, and nonprofit business administration.

After graduation, Karen Brackett ’81 stayed at Skidmore as a teacher in its early childhood center—a school for local children and a lab for Skidmore education students. By 1986 she was directing the center and teaching education courses. She holds an MS in reading from SUNY-Albany and did postgraduate work in educational administration. She

BILL FOX national symposium on outdoor ceramic sculpture, held in Korea. He directed Skidmore’s summer arts programs for many years, and he has been a favorite with alumni attending minicollege classes during Reunion and other occasions.

He has created vessels for the alumni awardees at Reunion and for some of Saratoga’s natural springs.

Marty Canavan, a graduate of Siena College and SUNY-Albany, taught at

Siena and worked as an accountant and IRS agent before joining Skidmore in 1975. He was active in shaping the business department’s case-study–based introductory course, MB107, and speaking about it in business-education conferences and consultancies. He taught accounting and entrepreneurship and advised students in creating business plans.

AMANDA STRATFORD

Terry Diggory holds a DPhil from Oxford University. A Yalie before that, he taught at Yale before joining Skidmore’s English department in 1977. He is an expert on the interactions of word and image, particularly the synergies between the “New York School” of abstract painters in the 1950s and the writers who were their contemporaries and sometime collaborators. He has published many articles on this and other literary topics; his books include Yeats and American Poetry and William Carlos Williams and the Ethics of Painting.

After five years at the University of Iowa, Bill Fox joined Skidmore's sociology faculty CHUCK JOSEPH GARY MCCLURE in 1976. His PhD is from Indiana University. With interests from urban sociology to contemporary folklore, he has published on “fakelore,” affluence and anomia, ethnicity and income, musical tastes, and digital data analysis.

MARGARET PEARSON JOYCE RUBIN Along with sociology and statistics courses, he taught Liberal Studies courses Skidmore’s faculty in 1982. His teaching and a freshman seminar on Saratoga and research have covered the Romantic Springs past and present. His textbook and Baroque, Franz Schubert, operas Social Statistics, first published in 1992, from Wagner’s Ring cycle to Mozart’s is being updated for its fifth edition.

Don Giovanni, and jazz history. He won research grants to study Schubert manuChuck Joseph has a master’s in piano scripts, the business of opera, and other performance from the University of Illisubjects in Vienna, and he published nois and a PhD in musicology from the widely in American and European jourUniversity of Cincinnati; he also studied nals and books. Recently chair of the with the likes of Nadia Boulanger and music department, he helped plan and Soulima Stravinsky. He taught music execute its move into the new Arthur JOSH GERRITSEN ‘06

PHIL SCALIA

PHIL SCALIA

Tom Denny earned master’s and doctoral degrees in musicology from Eastman School of Music and then joined

Zankel Music Center.

theory, 20th-century music, and other courses at Skidmore since 1985. He published in many academic journals and won four research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

A well-known Igor Stravinsky scholar, he is the author of Stravinsky and the Piano, Stravinsky Inside Out, Stravinsky and Balanchine, and (forthcoming) Stravinsky’s Ballets.

A Navy grad with a Dartmouth MBA, Gary McClure was a VP at Rank-Xerox in the UK, founding president of Bonanza Ltd., and an executive at other firms during the 1970s and ’80s. After earning his PhD at the University of Central Florida, he joined Skidmore in 1993. His teaching and research focused on global financial management, and he spearheaded the development of Skidmore’s international affairs program. In 2007 he won a Fulbright grant to teach MBA courses at the University of Zagreb, Croatia.

Margaret Pearson is a scholar of Japanese women’s diaries, the early meanings of yin and yang, and other aspects of East Asian history, culture, and political thought. She has master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Washington and studied at National Taiwan University as well. She is a fellow at Cambridge University’s Clare Hall, and has spoken and published widely. A member of Skidmore’s history faculty since 1980, she also taught in the Asian studies and gender studies programs and in the University Without Walls.

Joyce Rubin came to Skidmore after serving as the director of gifted and talented programs for a Brooklyn school district from 1979 to 1994. She did graduate work at CUNY’s Hunter College, earning an MSEd and professional diploma. At Skidmore she taught education courses and directed the student-teaching component of the education major. She also helped shape UWW’s education-studies curricula for students from Antigua and spearheaded a campus-visit program for Brooklyn schoolchildren. —SR

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Writers institute celebrates silver

EMMA DODGE HANSON ‘93

“From the beginning, it was Bill’s baby,” says Prof. Bob Boyers, director of the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore. Bill is Pulitzer-winning novelist William Kennedy, who envisioned the summer institute 25 years ago as a natural fit with Skidmore. “He approached us, and together we shaped the program,” says Boyers.

Recognizing the gravitational force of star power, Boyers set out to recruit other literary heavyweights to the institute’s faculty. “Russell Banks was my very first hire,” he says. Other early notables were wife and poet Peg O’Higgins Boyers ’75, poet Robert Haas, novelist and essayist Marilynn Robinson, and novelist Rick Moody.

Between the popularity of the renowned teaching staff and the rigorous application process, gaining admission to the workshop is no mean feat. Once accepted, many students return year after year. Enrollment is for either two or four weeks, and courses can be taken for

The faculty too—from Michael Onsit next to college sophomores next to daatje (The English Patient) and Andrea first novelists next to joke-telling middleBarrett (Ship Fever) to Rick Moody (The aged poet laureates from New Jersey.”

Ice Storm) and Frank Bidart (Desire)— Participants say students and teachers tends to return year after year. Moody feel encouraged to try out new material, says the workshop has been “my only to expose their nascent work in an open consistent teaching job over the years, environment. As novelist Liz Benedict simply because I love it so much.” But puts it, “It's a smart, engaging, and very “nobody is getsupportive place “INSTRUCTORS DO THIS AS A ting rich,” Boyers to be.”

LABOR OF LOVE. THE PAYOFF IS says. “Instructors There’s also an IN THE CAMARADERIE AMONGST do this as a labor almost militant THE STAFF, THE MUTUAL SUPPORT rejection of comof love. The payTHEY RECEIVE, AND THE FRIENDoff is in the camamercial content— SHIPS THEY FORM AND CULTIVATE no “How to place raderie amongst OVER YEARS.” the staff, the muyour book” or tual support they receive, and the friend“Working with an agent” seminars. ships they form and cultivate over “We’ll have none of that,” declares Peg years.” Poet Carolyn Forché describes Boyers. “This is about making art, not the “rigorous workshops, deep mentorabout selling your work.” Nevertheless, ing, and 20 magical nights of readings” many of the workshop’s students have as “my community and inspiration.” gone on to meteoric success, including Boyers muses that the workshop atChristina Garcia for Dreaming in Cuba, a tracts special mentors who are generous National Book Award finalist; Paul Hardwith their time and with their students, ing for his debut novel, Tinkers, a Pulitzer Prize winner; and Darin Strauss for Chang and Eng, a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year.

Appreciative past students have established a fund that awards 40 full and up to 15 partial scholarships each summer, allowing the best and the brightest young writers to attend the institute regardless of their financial means. Bob Boyers observes, “Scholarships have changed the cohort. It’s now younger, sharper, and more diverse.” In response, he says, the challenge is to recruit the next generation of incandescent, generous leading writers to join the institute’s faculty, accommodating both change and continuity.

A quarter-century since its inception, under the careful parenting of Boyers WRITERS BILL KENNEDY, RUSSELL BANKS, AND JAY MCINERNEY and company, the New York State Sumundergraduate or graduate credit, or on who are “incredibly invested in the mer Writers Institute has matured into a noncredit basis. Whether in the ficproject of helping people work.” The one of the most popular writing worktion, nonfiction, or poetry tracks, intenfaculty try to dampen any competitive shops in the country. And with his legasive classroom discussion and critique are culture, fostering instead an ambiance cy already writ large on the workshop, only part of the experience, as the days in which it’s safe to share, present, disBoyers is still tireless in continuing to and nights are illuminated with gathercuss, and disagree. Says Banks, “There’s foster the success of his brilliant offings and readings, many of which are no hierarchy at the table. It’s almost a spring. —Jon Wurtmann ’78 open to the public. tribal setting. Candidates for the Nobel

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campus mourns musician oleg moston, accompanist in the dance department, died January 3 in a pedestrian accident on Interstate 87 near Saratoga. He was 77 years old.

He started to play piano at age 14 in the former Soviet Union. He graduated in 1957 from the Moscow Conservatory and toured for more than two decades with the Moscow Philharmonic Society.

In 1979 he and his family settled in New York City, where he played for 26 years as a principal pianist for such ballet companies as the Joffrey, Alvin Ailey, and American Ballet Theater, as well as

for Columbia and New York Universities, the New York Conservatory of Dance, Ballet Hispanico, and Ballet Academy East.

When the family moved upstate, Moston worked as an accompanist with the Glens Falls Ballet and Dance Center.

In 2005 he joined Skidmore. Prof. Denise Limoli, who frequently taught with him, says, “With him as an accompanist, it was as if there were two teachers in the classroom.” She says Moston helped students recognize the importance of dancing to live, not recorded, music: “He

would open the lid of the piano, and we asked the students to gather around the instrument and put their hands onto the strings while Oleg played. This helped them to feel the power of the music and to recognize that music must be performed by an artist before it is recorded onto CDs or MP3 files.”

His survivors include wife Nina, daughter Oxsana, son Maxim, and a grandson. Grandson Nicholas Naumkin had been killed just two weeks earlier in a shooting accident with a schoolmate.

—AW, SR

STEVE J. NEALEY

8 CREATIVE COLLABORATION Filene Music Scholar Hanna Tonegawa ’11 joins dancers Jacob Goodhart ’12 and Gaia Waisbrod ’11 in rehearsing for a Swan Lake gala. The performance was made possible by the inclusion of an orchestra pit and sprung stage floor in the new Zankel Music Center’s Ladd Concert Hall. As soon as the facility opened last year, Profs. Denise Limoli (classical ballet workshop) and Tony Holland (Skidmore Orchestra) began planning for a collaboration. After a semester of separate and then joint rehearsals, in April they presented two performances of the famous Act II of Stravinsky’s Swan Lake. Along with all the details of mounting “a beautiful ballet,” Limoli says, the cast of 31 learned to dance with an eye to the conductor and an ear to the subtle variations in live music, while the 67 musicians of the symphony orchestra learned to keep their tempo despite the overhead tapping of toe-shoes just behind them. —SR

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COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MARY RYAN GALLERY, NEW YORK

8 POINT OF VIEW

THE SKIDMORE COLLEGE

SARATOGA CLASSIC HORSE SHOW I: JUNE 14–19 II: JUNE 21–26 $25,000 GRAND PRIX: JUNE 25 USHJA $10,000 INTERNATIONAL HUNTER DERBY: JUNE 18 ALUMNI DIVISION: JUNE 25 Be part of a historic tradition featuring many of the country’s best horses and riders.

Come watch, or ride in our alumni division.

Josh Dorman’s Gloaming is on view in the Tang Museum’s third Alumni Invitational, open through August 14. A part of the Tang’s 10th anniversary season, the exhibition features work by painter Bradley Castellanos ’98, painter and collage artist Josh Dorman ’88, sculptor Johnny Swing ’84, and photographer Shellburne Thurber ’71. Including several pieces by each, the show offers “a focused look at the diverse and inventive practices of Skidmore’s alumni artists,” says the Tang. For hours and more information, call 518-580-8080 or see www.skidmore.edu/tang.

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For a prize list and information, contact Adele Einhorn ’80 at saratogaclassic@skidmore.edu or 518-580-5632

8GOOD

PLAY 4SPORTSWRAP

BOB EWELL PHOTOS

T’BRED GUARD BRIAN LOWRY ’12 GOES UP, OVER, AND AROUND HIS UNION OPPONENT.

Basketball. The men reached NCAA nationals for the first time in program history but lost in the first round to Amherst. On the way to winning the Liberty League championship, the team set new season records for overall wins (18) and league wins (10). It also made Division III basketball history by battling Southern Vermont in the longest game ever played; after seven overtimes, Skidmore clinched the win. Melvis Langyintuo ’12 led the team in points and rebounds, Gerard O’Shea ’12 was an AllLiberty honoree, and Jeff Altimar ’11 capped his career by reaching the 1,000-point mark.

The women (including Cyrida Felton ‘11, calling a play at right) just missed the Liberty League tournament, finishing the season at 12-12 overall and 8-6 in league play.

Michela Ottati ’14 made the league’s All-Rookie Team.

Ice hockey. Skidmore hosted an ECAC East quarterfinal playoff, after posting an 8-8-3 league record (9-14-3 overall). Colin Bessey ’12 was the league’s Goalie of the Year—he had a 7-2-2 record in league play, with a 2.24 goalsagainst average and a .914 save percentage—and Thoroughbred top scorer Nick Dupuis ’12 earned firstteam league honors.

Swimming and diving. The men’s and women’s teams put together strong campaigns and toppled 14 school records at the UNYSCSA championships. Stephen Lento ’11 had a hand in five new records—in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle, 400 individual medley, and 200 and 400 free relays. On the women’s side, Carrie Koch ’13 took part in three records—the 200 and 500 free as well as the 800 free relay.

Riding. The equestrians dominated regional competition again, winning their first seven shows of the season, to get ready for a shot at defending their national IHSA title May 5–8 in Lexington, Ky. —BJ T’BRED HOTLINE. For all the latest T’bred results and schedules, go to www.skidmoreathletics.com.

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CORPS

OF

DISCOVERY

NICK LIU-SONTAG ‘12

CHARTING NEW KNOWLEDGE ABOUT OUR OLDEST RESOURCE

BY SUSAN ROSENBERG AND PAUL DWYER ’83

“critical issues warrant land policy institute” “Why land remains a political hot potato” “renewable energy needs land, lots of land” “food security outranks mining in land use policy” With thousands of such news headlines in recent years, it’s little wonder that classrooms and labs around campus are delving into the natural and built environment of the Hudson Valley, the geopolitical challenges of resource rights and borders, lessons to be learned from ancient land and water chemistry, and more.

Summer research and environmental-studies senior projects have ranged from a business and economics report on “green” hotels in the Saratoga region, to development of a children’s education guide about the Saratoga Lake watershed, to a survey of agricultural land protection and farm viability. As land use becomes an ever more urgent concern for the exploding human population, watch for Skidmore’s curriculum to engage further with these pressing problems. Just three examples:

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Vantage points A faded old photo shows Saratoga Lake—a low building in the trees, a long lone dock, a steamboat—before it dissolves slowly, turns blue and green, and reveals the same view in a modern photo, with a tall building on a cleared lot and three short docks with a motorboat moored at each. The 1905 and 2010 photos illustrate “a shift away from communal and collective access toward private and individual access to the lake,” according to Nick Liu-Sontag ’12 and Prof.

Karen Kellogg.

The before-and-after video blends are part of a land-use archive they’re compiling for the Saratoga area. First they hunted for old aerial and landscape photos at regional museums and historical societies.

With help from Alex Chaucer of Skidmore’s Geographical Information Systems lab, they georeferenced them and scanned them into

TREE-HUGGED: JOSH NESS (TOP LEFT) AND HIS STUDENTS ENJOY THEIR FIELDWORK.

Understories

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COURTESY OF BROOKSIDE MUSEUM, SARATOGA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY NICK LIU-SONTAG ‘12

NICK LIU-SONTAG ’12

their budding archive. They did their best to rephotograph from the same vantage points (although “we often found public land now in private hands,” reports Kellogg, “and a few owners refused us access to shoot photos”), and they’ve now posted 18 photo pairings with GPS points and commentary.

One turn-of-the-century view shows a grist mill along a narrow dirt lane winding under arched trees, while its 2010 counterpart is dominated by a wide, straight, asphalt street with driveways along both sides. Another shot, of a paper-bag mill on a rocky stream, is paired with today’s thick curtain of trees lining the rapids; the mill, destroyed in the 1970s, has left behind only a stone wall barely visible under the reforestation.

For Liu-Sontag, the project “is about more than environmental views of land. It’s about understanding change.” An environmental-studies major, he interned last summer with an environmental photoA 1905 VIEW OF SARATOGA L AKE AND THE SAME VIEW IN 2010 grapher in Lake Tahoe, thanks to a National Science Foundation grant for undergrads, and in March he gave a presentation on rephotography for the National Council Logging is one of humanity’s oldest activities and, in recent for Undergraduate Research. In the Saratoga project, he was years, a controversial one. It has changed the landscape in interested to find that “the Industrial Revolution sprang up ways large and small, affecting wildlife, erosion, air moisture quickly, and some of its manifestations didn’t last long—like and carbon dioxide content, and more. Yet as long as demand the old mills we saw rapidly overgrown.” These then and now for wood and paper continues, so will logging—and with it the pictures, he says, highlight “the difference between place and need to better understand the relationship between trees, other space. Place is the meaning of a space to the people who use plants, land, and water. it.” And images, more than text, he says, “are a powerful way Skidmore environmental scientist Josh Ness, who had previto help people understand and internalize the ways that huously studied the effects of human land use on mans affect the landscape.” “this project is certain spring-blooming woodland plants, Artist Diane Burko ’66 couldn’t agree more.

She’s been basing her paintings on landscape about more than wanted to explore how those plants affect the transfer of nutrients to streams. Ness turned to photos for decades, and especially on old and environmental views the 2,500-acre Merck Forest and Farmland new aerial shots of glaciers for the past five of land. it’s about Center in Vermont, which has hosted Skidyears. Her Politics of Snow exhibition in Philamore students in numerous environmentaldelphia inspired Ian Berry, the Malloy Curator understanding studies field trips and pre-orientation camping at Skidmore’s Tang Museum, and he put her in change.” expeditions. Armed with a grant from Skidtouch with Kellogg and Liu-Sontag. This spring more’s Responsible Citizenship Task Force, Ness and a dozen the Tang displayed a selection of their photo pairings along students undertook a two-week survey in the Merck woods, with a large Burko diptych—a bold, stylized “repainting” of charting plants known to occur less often in land that has been aerial photographs over a glacier in Montana. logged and studying their effect on nearby streams. Ness exBurko started as an abstract painter at Skidmore, and her plains that nutrients in fallen leaves are washed from the forest works are “still about line and form and color,” she explains, by streams in the springtime, which affects both the future “but are recognizable as landscapes when you step back and productivity of the soil and the chemistry of the water—what’s view them at a distance.” Having read up on climate change good for the soil isn’t necessarily good for aquatic creatures. and worked with the US Geological Survey and other reSome of the students had never done science in the field besearchers to borrow, and shoot her own, photos from helicopfore. “I don’t think I could have asked for a much better first reters, Burko says, “I hope my art can contribute to the conversearch experience,” says Andrea Conine ’13. She and her cohorts sation—a very important conversation.” Against the verbiage walked through miles of forest land and stream banks to quantify of policy statements and lobbyists’ talking points, Burko offers the density of target species, collected water samples, and later clear and beautiful visuals. She asserts, “Art can play a powerused GIS to map the plant communities against the post-logging ful role. Maybe my work can help light someone’s fire about history and tree population of the areas studied. g this issue.”

WENDY SCARCE

Ness and research partner Gordon tion—”that’s how far development has MacPherson ’12 estimated the transfer of grown.” On the other hand, Scarce’s internitrogen and phosphorous to and from views of Hudson Valley policymakers and the forest floor over thousands of acres by activists for his next book are buoying his combining data from foresters’ surveys outlook. “I’m seeing such a range of people and published descriptions of leaf chemworking together for better land use.” istry. Some spring-active plants are The author of books on salmon fisheries thought to limit the transfer of nutrients and the reintroduction of wolves into Yelfrom soil to water. To test that hypothesis, lowstone, he’s again elucidating how people the group mapped the distribution of construct notions of nature, this time focusnine species of herbaceous plants, collecting on the sustainability movement and its ed stream water samples, and compiled sometimes surprising players in the Hudson the results in the lab. “We were surprised Valley—in his words, “from the high Adironthe hypothesis was supported as strongly dacks down to sea-level New York City—a as it was,” Ness reports. Subsequent analy300-mile-long challenge.” sis identified links between Merck’s logIn general, Scarce argues, “our society has ging history, rare plant communities, and wanted to be not a part of nature but apart nutrient retention in forest watersheds. from it.” Take upstate New York’s Conklinville The work also inspired the students dam. Built in 1932 to stop routine river floodwho took part. “Working at Merck solidiing, it inundated a town and other properties fied my passion for streams and sparked to create Sacandaga Lake. “One consequence my curiosity about their processes and of flood control is that area farms need more RIK SCARCE SCOUTS THE HILLS ABOVE the aspects of the watershed that influfertilizers, to supply nutrients that used to THE HUDSON VALLEY. ence them,” Conine says. wash in naturally with river silt. We’ve done At the end of the research project, MacPherson presented the this kind of thing again and again throughout history.” findings at a Merck Center symposium. A follow-up study is likeWhat’s distinctive about the Hudson Valley is its growing ly, Ness says, adding that the research could help forest man“green” ethos. A main character in Scarce’s book will be Marirose agers and landscape planners limit the transfer of nutrients from Blum Bump. A longtime resident of Red Hook, N.Y., she was so the forest floor into streams by maintaining or planting the opposed to widening State Route 9 through her small town that right native species. she ran for office, for the first time in her life, “our society has Similar projects are in the works. Cathy and won a seat on the town’s board of superviGibson in environmental studies plans to sors. While some touted increased tourism and wanted to be not a take her “Watershed Analysis” class to visit a economic growth, Scarce reports, “she cited the part OF nature stream in neighboring Washington County special assets and charms of the community but apart FROM it.” that’s suffering as a result of land use in the and asked, ‘Do we want to sell those off?’” Rewatershed. In collaboration with the Battenkill Conservancy, the minding voters that widened roads tend to attract more cars students will assess the health of the stream based on debris, that soon clog them up again, “she was a uniter who got some sediment, nutrients, insect life, and habitat, comparing their important land-use reforms into the books,” he says. measures to data the conservancy has already collected. Kyle Another protagonist is René VanSchaack, a deeply rooted Nichols in geosciences is even considering an expedition to AusNew Yorker descended from the earliest Dutch settlers. As ditralia to study the effects of soil erosion on sediment deposition rector of the soil and water district for Greene County, he had in the Great Barrier Reef. His project could include up to a dozen “both environmentalist friends and development friends.” students over a three-year period.

When a large retailer built a warehouse, VanSchaack helped negotiate a deal whereby the retailer set aside some areas for wildlife habitat. “The land didn’t fall under EPA or state protec“A looming tragedy in land use” has Rik Scarce worried. For the tion,” Scarce explains, “but the builder was persuaded that conservice-learning portion of his course “Environmental Sociology” servation would enhance its reputation as a corporate citizen.” last fall, he and his students helped the American Farmland Trust VanSchaack also prevailed on a new-home developer to set prepare four documentaries about upstate acreage that qualified aside 16 times more natural land than required by law, marvels for farmland protection but was still unpaid for, since New York Scarce. It took hours of meetings, but VanSchaack showed him State cut back its program to distribute the funds. With such disthat building on a smaller area was cheaper, and with fewer jointed land management, Scarce says, “If we don’t help pay the homes he could price them higher and market their green sitfarmers to save that land, a developer can easily purchase it for ing. Scarce says, “René is just one of the people investing the strip malls or office parks.” He’s been told that all the farmland in time, taking those chances, to stand up for a sustainable qualiNew York State today is not enough to feed the state’s populaty of life in their community.”

Riverkeepers

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Field guides:

Alumni land-use experts map the key issues

THOMAS PAYNE

What is the most pressing land-use challenge in the coming decades?

Scope polled six alumni in landrelated careers and got plenty of consensus, a wide-ranging discussion, and some surprises. g

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The most crucial, practical imperative cited by the panelists wasn’t preserving more wilderness; it was improving how we appraise, manage, and re-use the land—with the water on and below it—that’s already under our control.

alternative of constructing a water treatment facility would cost $6 billion to $8 billion; therefore, the real value of that clean watershed is at least $6 billion. Another study determined that the value of pollination by wild bees from the woods around an orchard far outweighed the value that could be derived from building on those woodlands.

Fresh water Robert Kelly ’87: Millennia-old underground aquifers, often crossing state and national borders, are being drained at increasing rates. Also, many cities that draw on a single river are seeing their “run of river” decline each year. As cities grow, they must eventually outpace supply—we’re already seeing Los Angeles and Arizona fighting over the Colorado River. Contrast some regions with plentiful water: how will the haves and havenots meet on this issue?

Ingeborg Hegemann Clark ’76: Providing clean water is the most important land-use challenge in the coming years. Even in water-rich New England consumption is resulting in highly stressed rivers during the summer, and in friction between suppliers and ecological scientists.

providing clean water is the most important land-use challenge in the coming years. even in water-rich new england consumption is resulting in highly stressed rivers during the summer, and in friction between suppliers and ecological scientists.

Tavis Eddy ’93: In the western US water-rights laws are too rigid. Many of them date from the 1800s, when agricultural needs were the priority.

Still today, if a farmer or rancher doesn’t use the full amount of his or her water rights, another user can claim that those rights have been abandoned—creating a “use it or lose it” mentality that almost guarantees the channel will be dewatered. I fear that when we reach the crisis point that Robert mentions, we will not have the legal or political adaptability to respond.

Fair market value Sam Butcher ’86: What we need is proper valuation of all the ecosystem services that various lands provide. Water is one service; others include waste treatment (e.g., through water purification), carbon sequestration (e.g., in woodlands), and crop production (e.g., by wild pollinators). A New York City study estimated that the cost of preserving and protecting land that gathers and cleanses drinking water was $1 billion to $1.5 billion, while the

Ingeborg Clark: The need to balance property rights with the ecological value of undeveloped land will become increasingly important. Last fall Massachusetts issued “BioMap2,” a report identifying lands most critical to ecosystem health and biodiversity—and some of those lands are privately owned.

Lauren Mandel ’05: Attributing true costs to resources is a necessary step. But the most secure strategy for reducing use might be a combination of fair valuation with conservation education and the provision of sustainable, viable alternatives.

Take agricultural land use: government subsidies determine which crops are grown and how, which is why we see large monocultures of corn, cotton, and soybeans. We need to pursue redistribution of subsidies to promote polycultures, organic methods, and good hydrologic functioning.

City life

Andrea Petzel ’95: Urban agriculture is a popular initiative that can help with some aspects of our massive food-system problems. I wrote some urban-ag legislation for Seattle, making it one of the first cities to allow the growing and selling of food even in single-family residential zones. It’s been estimated that food on our plate travels as much as 1,500 miles to reach us, with those transportation emissions contributing to climate change. The Puget Sound area is agriculturally rich, yet on average just 10 percent of our food is locally grown, and we’re continuing to lose farmland.

Ingeborg Clark: My town is a Right to Farm community, which means people moving in must acknowledge that occasional farm noises, odors, and traffic cannot be considered a nuisance.

LAND HANDS Sam Butcher ’86, a geology major with a master’s from Brown, is the VP of operations for Goldman Environmental Consultants near Boston Ingeborg Hegemann Clark ’76, a geology major with a master’s from Penn, is VP of ecological sciences at BSC Group, a Bostonbased environmental engineering consultancy, and also teaches wetland ecology at UMass-Lowell Tavis Eddy ’93, a geology major, completed a master’s program focused on stream morphology and now works in watershed management for Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality

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Robert Kelly ’87, who majored in English and earned an MBA from Columbia, is the VP for commercialization at turbine manufacturer Frontier Wind in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Lauren Mandel ’05, an environmental studies major with a master’s in landscape architecture from Penn, is a project manager and designer for Roofscapes, a Philadelphia-based green-roof firm Andrea Petzel ’95, an anthropology major with a master’s from the University of Denver, is senior urban planner for the City of Seattle

Lauren Mandel: With so much of our population occupying urban spaces, re-envisioning the use of developed areas should be emphasized. The services that Sam cited, from waste filtration to crop propagation, can work in close proximity to densely populated areas if we can incentivize innovative planning and design.

move independently of the cars, but many use buses that have to share the roads. And as a bicyclist, I’m very aware that I’m intruding—the roads are not really shared, and I travel at my own risk on the cars’ thoroughfares. I’d like to see cars become much less necessary as a result of better bus lanes, bike lanes, and sidewalks and workplaces that are closer to residential areas.

Sam Butcher: As our industrial economy grew, we constructed buildings and infrastructure that are ill-suited to a post-industrial economy. The legacy of pollution from past industrial activities hinders redevelopment of, say, a former factory district into a viable and vibrant residential, commercial, or education center. So we often abandon this developed but now underused land, and move out to build anew. My professional expertise is in the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated properties, an activity that many cities and states encourage in their policies and budgeting.

What to do?

Ingeborg Clark: Unlike the “urban renewal” disasters of the past (like the destruction of Boston’s pedestrian-friendly West End that created a vacant, wind-swept, fully paved city-hall plaza), current projects are usually based on redeveloping brownfields and old buildings to complement their neighborhoods, adding value to mixed land uses, access to public transportation, storm-water management, trees and park areas, and softer, cooler rooftops and parking lots.

Tavis Eddy: The hardscapes of urban areas essentially rinse the city and direct an immense number of contaminants, from garbage to traces of car tires, into the surface water. Our cities need more greenway buffers for filtration and containment.

Lauren Mandel: Tavis is right on the money!

Green, planted roofs are an excellent tool, filtering pollutants, regulating temperature, and providing urban habitat for animals and humans alike. In Berlin, where green roofs are promoted on a citywide scale, the benefits are especially significant. Portland, Ore., and Philadelphia studied ways to reduce sewer overflows and have acknowledged that it’s less expensive to integrate green roofs, rain gardens, and permeable paving into their infrastructure than to build higher-capacity sewer systems.

Ingeborg Clark: Sprawl cannot continue unabated, and populations will need to rely on sustainable cities. Those that ensure adequate light, air, vegetation, and a welcoming scale with walkable access to services will thrive.

Sam Butcher: My concern is that so many cities are car-based. Some have subways that

Andrea Petzel: Urban transportation is a huge issue—how to get people out of their cars—but so is creating an environment that people, particularly families, want to live in. If I could make one policy change, I’d abolish single-family zoning and support multifamily apartments and townhouses. About 65 percent of Seattle is now zoned single-family. We have legislated growthmanagement targets to comply with, so in the future we’ll need to accommodate greater density. As for urban ag, Seattle is mapping where people access food and considering incentives for siting food stores there. And it’s exploring ways to lease cityowned land for agricultural use.

Lauren Mandel: Policies that seem most effective for encouraging green roofs include increasing the water department’s user fees for impermeable surfaces, offering grants or tax subsidies for building green roofs, and requiring them in certain types of new construction.

the hardscapes of urban areas essentially rinse the city and direct an immense number of contaminants, from garbage to traces of car tires, into the surface water. our cities need more greenway buffers for filtration and containment.

Ingeborg Clark: Mitigating climate change must become a practice area, included in all land-use planning. It’s already very visible in the changing glaciers and coastlines, but its effects are also more subtle, such as changing when wildflowers bloom, which affects the ecosystem’s ability to compete against invasive species, to support insect populations at crucial times for pollinating plants or feeding birds, and so on. It’s ultimately a large-scale issue of the carrying capacity of our land.

Tavis Eddy: The systemic relationships between energy demands, resource extraction, and land practices are very complex. Along with extraction come countless dependent industries that also contribute to habitat loss, soil contamination, climate change, and air and water pollution. The demands are so high, the pressure for production so great, that only dramatic changes will alleviate these concerns.

Ingeborg Clark: Recently one of my students just threw up his hands and said, “What can we possibly do?” We can get depressed about these problems, but on the other hand they present great opportunities. Lauren and Andrea’s descriptions of protecting ecological value even in densely developed areas are inspiring. Re-envisioning can reveal solutions.

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Land Grant How Skidmore gained and grew a new campus

BY PROF. MARY C. LYNN

i Wonder hoW much time founder Lucy Skidmore Scribner spent in her backyard at Sunshine Cottage (now called Scribner House and used as the president’s home) on North Broadway. Did she ever gaze into the woods of the abandoned Woodlawn Estate that neighbored her property and consider its potential as a campus for the school she loved? If she could have witnessed Skidmore’s momentous decision about that estate 50 years ago, and certainly if she could see what the College eventually built there—especially the spectacular new Arthur Zankel Music Hall—I can imagine her shedding tears of joy.

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W

oodlawn had belonged to New York City merchant A. T. Stewart, and when he died in 1876 his trustee, a shady Tammany Hall lawyer named Henry Hilton, gained control of it. When Hilton died in 1899, his heirs quarreled over the disposition of the property, and the buildings stood vacant while the case moved through the courts. In 1916 the property was logged, and thereafter its 40-odd structures became an alluring, if dangerous, playground for the children of Saratoga Springs.

There is reason to believe that Lucy Scribner did consider the possibility that Skidmore might move from its original campus on Circular and Spring Streets.

Mary Elizabeth Larson, who was Mrs. Scribner’s secretary and companion from 1920 to 1931, remembered that the founder had long hoped to build Skidmore at Woodlawn, and had even suggested a possible purchase to Hilton’s heirs. When the estate was auctioned off in 1916 Skidmore’s first president, Charles Henry Keyes, might well have seen it as a more practical location than the downtown campus of picturesque Victorian dwellings that were difficult and expensive to maintain. The biography of Keyes written by his son Fenton states that he “came up with the daring plan that the College buy the Woodlawn estate at the north edge of town,” only to see the plan defeated by local trustees who feared that moving Skidmore would cause its downtown neighborhood to decline.

Fenton Keyes heard the story of his father’s Woodlawn plan from Alice Moshier ’22, later chair of the Skidmore art department. But Guernsey Borst, chair of the business department in the 1930s, was also quoted in the Skidmore News during those years suggesting that a move to Woodlawn would be in the best interest of the College. And Dean Margaret Bridgman reminisced that Woodlawn was “a beautiful place to go for a walk and also to ski in winter. Every time I went there, I thought, Oh, I wish this were the campus.” (Those thoughts probably preceded the winter of 1937–38, when both she and President Moore broke legs while skiing at Woodlawn.)

When such a move was first considered, some of

Woodlawn’s buildings could have been used for offices, classrooms, and dormitories, and the extensive grounds would have been a long-term resource for a growing institution. But soon Woodlawn fell into disrepair. Tramps and youngsters entered the structures and sometimes built fires, causing some buildings to burn down, and the carriage paths became obscured by second-growth forest.

Fifty Acres, which the College had bought in 1949 for athletic fields, offered some possibility for campus expansion—but larger forces intervened.

As the interstate highway system developed, I-87 was planned to run right through Fifty Acres, so President Henry T. Moore gave up the prospect of building a new campus there. In 1955, as the board of trustees formed a search committee to replace the retiring Moore, its members knew that the leading edge of the postwar baby boom would reach American colleges in the 1960s. Skidmore had to choose a new president who would be daring and creative enough to take advantage of this opportunity.

Woodlawn remained overgrown and desolate; Skidmore remained underendowed and crowded. But two leaders were setting out on a course that would unite Skidmore and Woodlawn and utterly transform the College. Inaugurated in 1957, Val Wilson was an energetic new president. Texas Instruments CEO and four-term Dallas mayor J. Erik Jonsson was an RPI graduate with a daughter at Skidmore. Jonsson was a generous donor to his daughter’s college and soon joined its board of trustees. In 1960 he and his wife, Margaret, invited Val and Ruth Wilson to lunch at Saratoga’s elegant Gideon Putnam Hotel. As Ruth Wilson recalled it, the president was speaking candidly about the practical challenges the College faced, when Jonsson rather suddenly inquired, “What would you think of moving to a whole new campus?” Val Wilson calmly puffed on his pipe, then replied, ”I know just the place,” and led the foursome out to his car and over to Woodlawn. The Jonssons were impressed with the beauty of old estate and the potential it held for Skidmore.

Jonsson promptly proposed a move to his fellow trustees: “I will give g

Dean Margaret Bridgman reminisced that Woodlawn was “a beautiful place to go for a walk and also to ski in winter.

Every time I went there, I thought, Oh, I wish this were the campus.”

WOODLAWN

IN ITS HEYDAY, FEATURING LAVISH BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS

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you the land, providing you study the situation for a year.” (Having chaired the board of a Dallas school that had switched campuses, he had particular authority to insist on careful study of the option before committing to it.) Jonsson helped the College enlist campus planner Samuel Zisman and architect O’Neil Ford, both from San Antonio. They worked with the board in its studies, examining the campus moves of Goucher, Colby, Trinity, Harpur, and other colleges. Jonsson helped Skidmore pay $120,000 for the land and secure a grant to develop it.

The understanding was that the College would use Woodlawn for some purpose, even it decided not to leave the original campus.

By October 1961, Susan Sambrook Berry ’62 recalls, students and faculty knew “something was going on” when the trustees were in town having lengthy meetings. All students were asked to assemble in College Hall, and “rumors spread that President Wilson was going to tell us about a decision to move to Woodlawn or not.”

An enthusiastic prankster, Wilson chatted “about all sorts of stuff” while the tension in the hall slowly grew. Ruth Wilson remembered that with a solemn face he told the audience that “the trustees have voted to”—long pause— “move to a new campus,” at which, according to Berry, “the hall exploded” in joy and excitement.

Josephine Young Case, chair of the board of trustees, promptly

drafted an eloquent “Charge to the Architects,” calling for a campus that would foster “a feeling of freedom and wide horizon” without walls or gates, offering “as much way for summer’s winds as it does shelter from winter’s,” and with buildings “so placed and so designed that the campus expresses the unity of knowledge.” The administration instituted annual Woodlawn Days, with picnics, games, and work parties to clean up the landscape. Faculty biologist Hank Howard inventoried all the vascular plants on the estate, and the art faculty provided advice about finishes for the new buildings. Ford and Zisman seemed to talk to everyone, on and off campus, including the fathers at Happy Pappy weekend. Students even suggested a technological innovation: giving each dormitory room its own telephone.

Construction began in April 1963, and (after delays due to a 1965 construction workers’ strike) students moved into the first dormitories in January 1966, when the dining hall was ready as well. But Val Wilson’s presidency had been tragically cut short by his untimely death in 1964; the College’s new president, Joseph Palamountain, would oversee the bulk of the newcampus project. Scribner Library and Filene Music Building were next to be built, then the classroom buildings Bolton and Dana, and then more residence halls. After several years, some faculty offices were still in trailers,

“What would you think of moving to a whole new campus?”

Val Wilson calmly puffed on his pipe, then replied, ”I know just the place.”

THE

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BAREST BONES OF THE NEW CAMPUS TAKING FORM IN

1965

while the art, physical education, and theater departments were stranded on the old campus. Palamountain lobbied brilliantly to gain access to state dormitory loans, but he was trying to build a new campus with a tiny endowment of just over $2.6 million. He was also working to expand admissions (despite the unappealing prospect of college life split across two campuses), and in 1971 Skidmore went coed, challenging campus planners to accommodate both the first and second sexes.

Somehow Palamountain pulled it off. By 1978 all departments and offices were on the new campus, most of the downtown campus buildings having been sold to the shortlived Verrazano College. Skidmore retained Moore Hall as its only off-campus dormitory, until it sold that too in 2009.

Palamountain’s successors each continued the development of the Jonsson Campus, accommodating growth in areas from information technology and science research to student services and responsible citizenship.

Among notable recent additions have been the Tang Museum, a strikingly distinctive building set low in a grove west of Haupt Pond; the Northwoods Village student apartments, exploiting offthe-grid geothermal heating and cooling; and the acclaimed Zankel Music Center, with geothermal and other “green” building features. At the same time, the College is

turning more attention to maintenance and renovation, as much of the “new” campus is now 30 and 40 years old.

Since taking ownership of Woodlawn, the College has also grown into its role as steward of the undeveloped portions known as the North Woods.

These 400-plus acres of forested hills and streams have been used for research and teaching as well as for bird-watching, dog-walking, and other recreation.

In response to habitat damage from heavy use by bicyclists in the early 1990s, campus committees and administrators developed stewardship plans to balance the various demands on its fragile landscape, including some development (from the small Falstaff's pavilion in the 1980s to the extensive Northwoods apartments in 2006) on its edges. Over the years Skidmore has also acquired other natural lands, including a 200-acre donation this past winter.

I like to imagine Lucy Scribner, an avid walker, taking regular constitutionals along the carriage roads of Woodlawn, some of which are now the paths crisscrossing the campus greens and woodlands. If she could see the landscape now—from the modern dining hall and imposing Zankel Center to the lovingly tended student-run organic garden opposite her house—she would certainly be proud of what her beloved college has become.

BOB MAYETTE

“The trustees have voted to” —long pause— “move to a new campus,” at which, according to Berry, “the hall exploded” in joy and excitement.

THE

BRAND-NEW

SCRIBNER LIBRARY,

CONSTRUCTED IN

1966

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Extreme makeover:

Scribner Village

QPK DESIGN

BY SUSAN ROSENBERG will be two stories each, some entered from the slope’s high side CALL IT Son oF SCRIBnER, call it loud and muddy…mostly near the campus road and some from the low side near Scribner it’s being called a “transformative project” (by Acting President Village. For the Scribner replacements, QPK aims to re-create its Susan Kress) and a promise of “short-term solutions to dorm sociable community spirit: the buildings, each with a patio, will overcrowding and large-scale improvements to on-campus apartform an oval around a central park. Each building will contain ment housing” (by Katie Vallas ’11 in the Skidmore News). It’s a eight four-bedroom apartments, and there will be two two-bedthree-phase plan to replace the aging Scribner Village apartroom handicapped-accessible units. Like the Northwoods comments, moving ahead rapidly this spring. plex, the new facilities will be geothermally heated and cooled.

Scribner Village replacement has been high on Skidmore’s toThe completion of the first phases in 2012 will help ease the do list for several years. Built in 1973 as a temporary facility on housing crunch when this year’s bumper crop of freshmen rethe new campus, the woodsy village of 15 rustic buildings has turns as sophomores and then juniors. “With the class of 2014, been a popular “neighborhood” for generations of upperclasswe need 100 more beds,” said Don Hastings, associate dean of men. Today the structures are worn out, having served well past student affairs, in a Skidmore News article. The project as a whole their life expectancy. In 2006 the Northwoods Apartments added will mean a net gain of some 180 beds on 380 beds, mostly for seniors who might previbuilt in 1973 as a campus. Hastings says the Northwoods Apartously have opted to live off campus. The ments reduced the number of off-campus Northwoods’ success helped shape the Scribtemporary facility, renters to around 420; when Scribner is rener replacement planning, which was also the village has been a placed, that number will drop further, making informed by a series of committees, open fopopular “neighborhood” the College about 90 percent residential. rums, and architects’ meetings over two years. for generations of The new housing is underwritten by a The Scribner project’s first stage is to build three more Northwoods apartment buildings campaign pledge of $12 million from the famupperclassmen. near the back of the complex. Next, two new ily of trustee Donald Sussman, father of Emily buildings will be inserted along the slope above Scribner Village. ’04. (His support for campus life also includes Emily’s Garden in Those two phases will add 228 beds, allowing for phase 3: the the recently renovated dining hall.) An anonymous $5.5 mildemolition of Scribner and construction of seven new apartment lion gift was also made, and fundraising continues. Meanbuildings on the site. The additional Northwoods and new while, to assure the project’s timely completion, Skidmore slopeside buildings, whose groundwork began this past winter, issued bonds to cover the rest of the $42.5 million cost. are slated to open in 2012. The replacement of Scribner proper Thanks to the leadership donations and Skidmore’s A1 will start in the summer of 2012, to be ready for occupancy in bond rating, and to the project’s resourceful three-year late 2013. staging, says Mike West, vice president for finance and The project’s architects from QPK Design (who planned the administration, “We will be able to offer one of the Northwoods Apartments as well) are tailorbetter residential experiences editor’s note: Remember your student days in ing the four-story slopeside buildings espeamong our peer and aspirant Scribner? Share your memories or anecdotes: cially for sophomores seeking a bit more ininstitutions.” srosenbe@skidmore.edu, 518-580-5747, dependence than the traditional residence or Scope editor c/o Skidmore College. halls provide. The five-person apartments

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MASTER SITE PLAN 466 beds

PHASE 1A (NORTHWOODS ADDITION) 114 beds

ticks on the to-do list Along with an ongoing docket of facility, infrastructure, and technology improvements around campus (e.g., renovations to virtually every residence hall over the past few years), Skidmore has been tackling the dozen-plus projects highlighted in its long-term campus plan of 2007.

PHASE 2 (SCRIBNER REPLACEMENT) 238 beds

PHASE 1B 114 beds

dining improvements—Murray-Aikins Dining Hall thoroughly remodeled and expanded in 2006 to offer new menu items and cook-toorder choices additional student housing—Northwoods Apartments opened in 2006, bringing 380+ juniors and seniors into campus living athletics fields—Wachenheim Field improved and resurfaced, softball diamond constructed, and field-hockey venue created, 2006–07 new music building—Arthur Zankel Music Center opened in 2010, with widely acclaimed academic and performance facilities art facility—Saisselin Art Building renovations in progress, followed by expansion to bring added classroom and office space by 2014 athletics facilities—boathouse improved in 2008, with fundraising now under way for a new one; studies under way for riding stable expansion/renovation and new fieldhouse for tennis student apartments—three-phase project to replace Scribner Village slated for completion in 2013 “arts quad” development—Filene Music Building extensively renovated, for use by art history and special programs by fall 2011 library and information technology—plans begun in 2011 for renovation of Scribner Library to incorporate IT offices, slated for completion in 2014–16 admissions—fundraising and studies begun for future relocation of admissions and financial aid offices to main campus science facilities—future Dana Science Center expansion and upgrades now in planning and study phase

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VALEDICTORIANS UWW grads exemplify a venerable program

GARY GOLD

BY HELEN S. EDELMAN ’74

Patricia West McKay ’85 “couldn’t imagine” how she was going to integrate passions for history and poetry into a career that would support her. Besides yearning for “meaning, rootedness, and connection,” she also needed a job. She was dabbling in art and poetry, “drifting,” she says, when a turning-point conversation on campus convinced her that a Skidmore education might light the path to her goal.

The first person in her family to attend college, McKay felt she had been “touched by a magic wand” on an academic and experiential journey that strengthened her inner resources with “courage, wisdom, and selfdiscipline” and shaped her as an independent thinker and scholar. As a final UWW project, McKay advocated for interpreting domestic servants as well as “the great men” at historic houses, an idea that evolved into an article that precipitated “a kind of revolution in the historic site world.”

Intellectually ignited, McKay went on for an MA and a PhD. Now a curator and public historian for the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site in Kinderhook, N.Y., she is a strong proponent of the liberal arts even in an era that demands vocational skills and is particularly pleased that her daughter, Chloe Barker-Benfield ’14, has chosen Skidmore as well. “What the world needs more than anything, going into a tenuous future, is wisdom,” McKay remarks. “A liberal arts education sows that seed.”

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ontraditional” was its founding goal (it was 1971, after all). And Skidmore’s University Without Walls certainly blazed new trails in individualized, interdisciplinary, and profoundly transformational education, in person and from afar.

UWW helped young actors, seasoned business executives, prison inmates, teachers in Antigua, and others (including Skidmore’s board chair Janet Lucas Whitman ’59, UWW ’82) who didn’t find conventional paths to college degrees. They enrolled in UWW at ages from 18 to 94. They lived everywhere from New York to California, from

N

Italy to Dubai. With UWW’s academic advisors and Skidmore faculty, they forged baccalaureate programs in psychology, English, biology, and every field in between.

After 40 years and 1,500 graduates, UWW closes its doors this spring. Since that decision was made in 2008, UWW has focused on helping its students finish up their degree programs—hence the nearly 30 UWWers being honored at a Commencement banquet and exhibition. And here’s one more celebration of UWW and its remarkable alumni:

DENISE APPLEWHITE

Lo Faber ’06 was already a rock star when he went seeking new options. The founder of New York City jam band God Street Wine, the guitarist, composer, and vocalist had attended two colleges; toured the US for more than a decade, playing 200 to 300 shows a year; recorded numerous albums and produced two rock operas from his converted barn in upstate New York; and worked as a pencil salesman (for the Eberhard Faber family business). By 2000, he says, “I was ready for a new challenge.” Besides, he was a new dad and didn’t want to go back on the road. Noting Skidmore’s “ethos of commitment to undergraduate teaching,” Faber enrolled as an American studies major, examining the environment of the Hudson Valley and analyzing political thought in the American Revolution. Excited by the academic experience, he says he was also “appalled by the tragedies of 9/11 and the war in Iraq, and wanted to do what I could to change it,” so he got involved in politics, working for the Democrats in the 2004 presidential campaign. Now a Princeton University PhD candidate and teaching assistant, Faber is writing about the transformation of New Orleans under American rule following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. He’s eager for a position as a professor, “wherever the job is.” Meanwhile he still makes joyful noise with fellow musicians. Throughout, the versatile Faber has found one chord always rings true: “You have to love the material, the substance of the work, whatever it is, or you won’t do your best.”

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VALEDICTORIANS

ORLANDO NEGRON

Jonah Greene ’04 packs 48 hours into each day.

An Antiguan secondary-school principal like husband Colin, she is “constantly multitasking and looking for innovative ways to achieve my goals.” Witnessing the power of Colin’s Skidmore degree to seed success, she wanted the same, and, as the mother of small children, she also needed to study at home. UWW offered that flexibility and the opportunity to help design her own study program. One of the first students in an online course in cross-cultural psychology, she says the experience taught her “to be independent, proactive, and goal-oriented.” Her message today is: “Try new things, practice common sense, enjoy life!” Echoing Colin’s assertion that “education is a fundamental right, and knowledge should be used for the good of the community,” Jonah believes no investment in children or adults is more important than education.

She says, “Skidmore was one of my better life choices.”

Colin Greene ’01, principal of the largest secondary school in Antigua and an expert in educational labor relations, was first inspired by his grandmother’s notion that “education lights a fire.” He says, “Through my life, her words have been heeded.” With that foundation and Skidmore’s liberal-arts orientation as a model, he developed the philosophy that “each individual’s uniqueness needs to be harnessed.” A graduate of Antigua State College, Greene was president of his national teachers’ union and of the wider Caribbean Union of Teachers when he sought a bachelor’s degree, unavailable in Antigua. UWW’s agile and adaptable study program, he says, prepared him well “to help guide policy and teacher education in my country.” His gratifying experience grew into UWW’s Antigua initiative, which has graduated more than 60 teachers, administrators, and government officials who shape the region’s education. The indefatigable Greene also serves on the executive board of Education International, representing teachers worldwide.

TARA CONANT PHOTOGRAPHY

Armand Balboni ’98 just couldn’t be contained. After high school in Amherst, Mass., he worked for a while and then enlisted in the military before deciding to attend college. Not only was he older than most residential students, he says, but also “I realized that my interests crossed traditional academic boundaries. I wasn’t sure how or whether these interests could be reconciled within one program.” UWW “was a fantastic fit for me,” says Balboni. He focused on anthropology, which encourages students to find coherence within variation—perfect for his wideranging curiosity that seeks both active, hands-on learning and intellectual challenge, particularly in the burgeoning field of life sciences. Still uncontained, he earned both a Brooklyn Law School JD and an NYU–Mt. Sinai MD/PhD (specializing in cranial anatomy and development, hearing loss, and related issues), to prepare for linked careers as a biology professor at Westfield State and managing director of health-care investment banking at Bloom Burton & Co. in Toronto. “Combining skill sets seems to be a theme for me,” he acknowledges. “My academic position allows me to teach and continue my lab research on clinicopathologies of the head and neck, while my health-care and biotech business role leverages my experience in law, science, and medicine. Skidmore gave me the confidence to follow my passions in a way that a more conventional educational path may not have.”

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VALEDICTORIANS

CASTON STUDIO

Dorothy Holland ’93 is a drama queen. At age 4 she had the courage to sing for an audience of 8,000 at a revival meeting (her daddy was a preacher). By 17, in California, she was performing for pay in Sacramento’s Music Circus—singing, dancing, and acting in a daunting nine musicals in 10 weeks. When she left Hollywood High, she went right to New York City, where she worked with Neil Simon, Matthew Broderick, Burt Reynolds, and Dom DeLuise. Off-stage, there were other incarnations: homemaker and mother, house remodeler (knowledge of stage sets helped), and performing arts teacher. Holland was in her forties when she decided to earn a college degree. “I suspect that ‘out of the box’ might be my default modus operandi,” she remarks. She gives UWW rave reviews: “Hearing guest speaker Mary Daly, discussing Kierkegaard with Prof. Joel Smith, and talking feminist theory with Prof. Mary Stange ignited my passion for philosophy that had been quietly bubbling.” After earning her bachelor’s in theater, Holland completed an MFA in directing and a PhD in theater history and thought. As a professor of theater as well as women’s studies at Virginia’s University of Richmond, Holland is blending the roles of artist, scholar, and teacher. On stage, she finds joy in “art that thrills, art that tickles the mind and moves the heart, art that takes my breath away.” In class, her joy comes from “sharing those ‘aha’ moments with students when they suddenly see the world and themselves differently.”

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MATHIEU ASSELIN

Joaquin Chavez ’03 is a peacemaker. The native of El Salvador was in his twenties when he “endured watching my country devastated by civil war” in a 1980–92 struggle between the government and a guerilla coalition including the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. Chavez represented the FMNL in negotiations toward a peace agreement ultimately brokered by the United Nations. In 1996 he left the FMNL to help found and serve as president of the Centro de Paz (Peace Center), a multisector effort “to preserve the historical memory of the Salvadoran peace process and to share this experience with people from all over the world.” Also a poet and novelist, Chavez discovered Skidmore in 1996, during a stay at the Yaddo artists’ colony in Saratoga. He enrolled in UWW in 2001. He says, “Skidmore enabled me to integrate in a very fluid manner my life experience and knowledge of Latin American history, politics, art, and culture with my research on social violence and crime and my work on peace processes.” He went on to earn a PhD in Latin American history at New York University, where he is now a lecturer. He works 12- to 14-hour days, teaching, writing, and, most recently, applying his expertise and influence as a peace facilitator to Nepal. “I think a lot about the future of children and young people around the world,” Chavez says. “Working toward world peace requires patient study, daily work in our personal interactions, self-reflection, and a clear sense of the shared destiny of humanity.”

HAWLEY STUDIO

VALEDICTORIANS

Frank Bonomo ’86 had more on his mind than his major when he buckled down to college study. A Brooklyn-born member of the Chippewa Nation, at the age of 9 he was devastated by his father’s murder, and now he was in prison for weapons possession himself. He had to tolerate body searches before class, but he says it was worth it to study with the visiting UWW faculty—“leftover hippies with a social conscience, who truly cared about us students.”

Bonomo studied business, until a course in social work reset his compass. He felt he had a lot to offer others fighting depression, antisocial behavior, abuse, or addiction. After two years behind bars (which he measured as “four semesters”), he returned to Brooklyn as a construction worker now “thirsting for education.” When he learned he could finish a degree through UWW, he beelined to Saratoga Springs and juggled jobs as a mental-health worker with his studies.

There he met Susan Donohue ’86. They graduated with honors, married, earned master’s degrees in social work, and today train other clinicians to practice solution-based therapy. Outside the office he’s a voracious reader, from anthropology to comic books, and a civil-rights advocate with strong ties to his Native American heritage. Bonomo attributes his nimble resourcefulness to his UWW education as well as his manifold experience. And he worries that a “toofocused” education can shrink the breadth of individual knowledge—“a well-educated person doesn’t know everything,” he allows, “but he knows where to ask for help.”

KRAMER PHOTOGRAPHERS

Christina Salerno ’06 stays on her toes as well as her cell phone— but that’s nothing new. The executive director of the Salt Creek Ballet company near Chicago, she’s been en pointe as a soloist with the Boston Ballet, Zurich Ballet, and Royal Ballet of London. Salerno knew that when she retired from the stage, it would be for another career in the arts, so she studied nonprofit administration through UWW, developing expertise “absolutely essential in my current position.” From the beginning, Salerno felt challenged and vitalized by Skidmore. The UWW admissions process was clarifying, the degree program was rigorous, and as a dancer she appreciated “holding oneself accountable to a high standard, artistic or intellectual. Skidmore upheld that criterion and pushed me to go further”—further inward to explore how her experiences and emotions could positively influence her life, and further outward into “the wide and wonderful world, where there are many cultural differences, and finding the beauty and truth in each viewpoint can be wildly invigorating.” Outside the office Salerno is investigating new ways to express her creative impulse—teaching dance, gardening, reading memoirs, listening to Leonard Cohen—but none has proved as magical as the greatest oeuvre of her life: a daughter. As a parent, she says, “I encourage outside-the-box thinking, and I have been continually amazed.”

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GIOVANNI PHOTOGRAPHY

8 CLUB CONNECTION: NAPLES, FL

T

he Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples, Fla., was the setting for a March lecture by the Tang Museum’s Dayton Director John Weber (center) on museums, learning, education, and art. Weber’s illustrated presentation covered museums’ approaches to educational programming, audiences, and technology. He also spoke about specific exhibits at the Tang during its first decade.

Eileen Winters Mann ’63 enjoyed Weber’s “wonderful description of cooperative productions that other professors have organized in conjunction with the Tang,” adding, “Skidmore

has always been known for its excellent art department and major, and Prof. Weber impressed us as a wise choice for museum director.” Helen Koenig Gardiner ’67, who helped organize Weber’s visit, especially liked his explanation of the popular Molecules that Matter exhibition. And Joan Fredericks Whetstone ’46 says her interest was piqued by discussion of the Hudson River School artists in the Lives of the Hudson show.

A reception followed the talk, and the next day Weber brought his presentation to alumni at the Vero Beach Museum of Art. —PD

Two thumbs up for Skidmore athletics.

7TH ANNUAL THOROUGHBRED CUP GOLF AND TENNIS TOURNAMENT

SATURDAY, JUNE 25 Play 18 holes at the Spa State Park or rally on Skidmore’s own courts, followed by cocktails and a buffet dinner on the Skidmore campus.

Details at skidmore.edu/fosa/outing/ or contact Beth Brucker-Kane: 518-580-5677 • bbrucker@skidmore.edu

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Yester-yearbooks on sale missing your eromdiks? or need an extra?

Class years 1990–99 and 2001–05 (sorry, no 2000) are $15 each, and 2006–10 are $20 each; shipping is free.

To order yours, call 518-580-5610.

JOIN US FOR A WEEKEND OF FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND CELEBRATION OF THE SKIDMORE COMMUNITY

OCTOBER 14–16 • • • • •

President’s Hour Minicollege presentations with Skidmore faculty Exhibitions at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery Thoroughbred athletic contests Under the Big Top with talented student performers

There’s more to come, but mark your calendars now!

Registration will be available in the summer. For more information and a schedule of events, visit skidmore.edu/ celebrationweekend, e-mail collegeevents@skidmore.edu, or call 518-580-5670.

For lodging and dining information, visit Saratoga.org or call the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce at 518-584-3255.

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BRUCE BARTHEL

WHO, WHAT, WHEN

GONE FISHIN’? Who are these boaters, and what are they up to?

Did you ever take part in similar aquatic activities? If you have an answer, tell us the story at 518-580-5747, srosenbe@skidmore.edu, or Scope c/o Skidmore College. We’ll report answers, and run a new quiz, in the upcoming Scope magazine.

FROM LAST TIME Winter sports? Scope has finally stumped the alumni body: nobody could provide information about this old-time photograph. Skidmore’s archivist Wendy Anthony and its historian Prof. Mary C. Lynn agree that the clothing styles and sports gear place it in the 1920s or ’30s, and the weather suggests it may have been part of a Winter Carnival or other campus festival. While such events in that era typically featured snow-sculpture

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contests along with winter sports from ice hockey matches to ski-joring behind horses, it’s not known why the pictured students are armed with baseball mitts as well as hockey sticks and netting. The woman under the net looks something like Prof. Harriet Brown, and unlike either dean of the era, Margaret Bridgman or Sarah Gridley Ross; her identity remains unconfirmed.

Answers, or even guesses, would be welcomed.

Time to get back to Saratoga Springs.

June 2–5, 2011 Rekindle old friendships • Rediscover Saratoga Springs Reconnect with faculty • Join the parade • Picnic on the green Go back to class • Visit the alumni art exhibition Enjoy live music and fireworks For news and details visit cms.skidmore.edu/reunion

1936 • 1931 • 1926 • 1921 • 2006 • 2001 • 1996 • 1991 • 1986 • 1981 • 1976 • 1971 • 1966 • 1961 • 1956 • 1951 • 1946

• 2001 • 1996 • 1991 • 1986 • 1981 • 1976 • 1971 • 1966 • 1961 • 1956 • 1951 • 1946 • 1941 • 1936 • 1931 • 1926 • 1921 •

2006 • 2001 • 1996 • 1991 • 1986 • 1981 • 1976 • 1971 • 1966 • 1961 • 1956 • 1951 • 1946 • 1941 •

2006 • 2001 • 1996 • 1991 • 1986 • 1981 • 1976 • 1971 • 1966 • 1961 • 1956 • 1951 • 1946 • 1941 •

WWW.LESLEYDIXON.COM

SARATOGA SIDEBAR

CONGRESS PARK’S “SPIT

AND

SPAT”

FOUNTAIN IS A SUMMER CELEBRATION OF LIFE AND JOY.

MONUMENTAL You can tell something about a city by its statuary. Frequently what is carved in stone and cast in bronze is a community’s pride in its military history, represented by generals on horseback, doughboys with rifles, and mythical symbols of victory and peace.

Near Saratoga Springs, a national park marks the site of the 1777 Battles of Saratoga. Among its most interesting statues is the “boot monument,” which honors Benedict Arnold’s heroism and leg wound but also dishonors his treachery by leaving off his name. Likewise, the nearby Saratoga Monument includes statues of Generals Gates, Morgan, and Schuyler but leaves the fourth niche, Arnold’s, empty. In Saratoga proper, in Congress Park, an impressive bronze soldier, crafted by Fiske Iron Works and dedicated in 1875, commemorates the Civil War service of New York State’s 77th Infantry Regiment.

But much of Saratoga’s statuary isn’t military; it’s a celebration of life, art, and culture. Foremost is Congress Park’s bronze Spirit of Life. Created by Daniel Chester French in 1914–15 as a memorial to civic-minded financier Spencer Trask, it depicts a heroic winged female holding aloft a basin of perpetually flowing water. Water likewise streams perpetually—at least in the summer—from the conch shells held by two marble tritons, fondly called Spit and Spat, in the park’s Italian Gardens behind Canfield Casino. Next to them are pillarlike statues of the Greek god Pan and female followers of Dionysus that were recreated a few years ago with the help of old photos and the advice of Skidmore classicist Leslie Mechem.

On South Broadway in front of the National Museum of Dance is a welded steel sculpture

by Judith Brown of the Greek goddess Athena dancing. In the Spa State Park, George H. Snow-

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den’s 1934 allegorical stone sculptures Earth and Water decorate two niches on the side of the Hall of Springs.

At the Yaddo estate, Spencer Trask’s late Victorian mansion is surrounded by gardens he designed as a gift to his wife, Katrina, and as an assertion that there was still life to be celebrated after the devastating loss of all four of their children. Yaddo is now a world-famous artists retreat, and those public gardens include a large marble fountain depicting water nymphs stretching awake, Italian marbles of the four seasons, and William Ordway Partridge’s chivalric youth Christalan.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Saratoga without horse monuments. Outside the National Racing Museum is a bronze of Seabiscuit, while Secretariat stands proudly in the courtyard inside. Downtown, City Hall is guarded by two cast-iron lions, restored there in 2008 after decades of being climbed upon by kids in the East and West Side recreation parks.

Skidmore’s campus has fewer statues of prominent thinkers and doers than many older colleges. In the heyday of the Woodlawn estate, an 1872 marble of a pensive Hiawatha

by Augustus Saint-Gaudens graced the Wayside Cottage lawn, which is now the quad south of Scribner Library. (Once rumored to have been stolen, the statue was in fact sold at the estate auction in 1916; it is on display in New York City at the Metropolitan.) The campus does have some figurative as well as abstract sculptures—for instance, the Alumni Memorial Garden features a statue of the Hindu earth goddess Bhumi Devi, by Barbara Stroock Kaufman ’40.

If the ethos of a place can be read in its monuments, Saratoga Springs is clearly a community that honors its past and fully embraces the joys of its present. —KG