Sarah Lawrence magazine: Fall 2014 by Sarah Lawrence College

Sarah Lawrence fall 2014 magazine

inside: Thinking robots, 14 + Ilja Wachs past and present, 18 + Fareed Zakaria at SLC, 24 + Pulitzer-winning poems, 48

PREVIEW

Commencement Cameo ‘ It’s easy. I went to a

college where I was not afraid to ask questions.’

Commencement 2014 was full of surprises. First, President Lawrence announced that alumna Barbara Walters has agreed to donate her tapes, transcripts, photographs, and papers to Sarah Lawrence, establishing the Barbara Walters Archive. Then the pioneering journalist herself appeared on stage and, after thunderous applause, congratulated the graduates. Commencement-goers, of course, were thrilled—as is the College, which will become a site for scholarly research in broadcast journalism with the arrival of Walters’ papers.

“ From her beginning in broadcast news, this pioneer had the courage to perform without a safety net in front of millions.”

“W

hen I attended Sarah

list of questions and you’re worried

Lawrence, there was

about the toughest one, make it the

a wonderful professor

last, in case he walks out, okay?) So my

who became world-

last question was, ‘As a member of the

renowned; his name was Joseph

KGB, have you ever killed anyone?’

Campbell. He told us to ‘follow our

Don’t ask this of everyone. He said,

bliss.’ I have to tell you that when I left

‘No, that was not my department.’

Sarah Lawrence, I had no idea what my bliss was. So if you are like me and

“Later, several people said, ‘Where did

you have no idea what your bliss is, get

you get the nerve to ask a question like

a job! I promise you that bliss will come.

that?’ And I said, ‘It’s easy. I went to a college where I was not afraid to ask

“Some years ago, I had the opportunity

questions.’ So I thank Sarah Lawrence

to interview Vladimir Putin. After I

for that. I have been asking questions

asked him a number of foreign policy

ever since my graduation, and this is

questions, which he expected, I asked

one more chance, today, to say ‘thank

my last question. (If you have to do a

you’ to this college I love.” —Barbara Walters

Watch the video of Walters’ speech at slc.edu/commencement

Fareed Zakaria gave the keynote address—see page 24. >>

Illustrations by Julia Rothman

:: eco-friendly reading

Sarah Lawrence magazine is printed on sustainably certified Enviro100 Print, using soy-based ink. This paper is manufactured with 100% postconsumer fiber using biogas energy. It is also Ecologo and Process Chlorine Free Certified. This issue of the magazine saved the equivalent of 138 trees, 133,800 gallons of water, 16,900 lbs. of solid waste, 44,000 lbs. of CO2, and 214 million BTUs of energy compared to printing on virgin paper.* Source: Environmental Paper Network (EPN) * FSC® is not responsible for any calculations on saving resources by choosing this paper.

07 12 14 40

UP FRONT

ON CAMPUS

ALUMNi

out back

04 :: from the president

08 :: tidbits

40 :: events

48 :: critical writing

05 :: letters

Glass eels, puppets, DJs, dancers, and more

Reunion 2014 and the meaning of life

From 3 Sections by Vijay Seshadri (writing)

update on Sungrai Sohn (music)

10 :: spoken word

42 :: transitions

06 :: tribute

Jack Ford, Batman, the Internet, philosophy

Richard Contreras ’06 on a Mexican beach

Susan Guma, dean of graduate studies, retires

11 :: in person

44 :: publications

Dyslexia activist Dwight Richardson Kelly ’14

46 :: then & now

12 :: under discussion Feminism in The Silence of the Lambs

The Westlands White Room

52 :: gallery “Fireworks Hudson River” by Ursula Schneider (visual arts)

:: on the covers Cut paper illustration by Jayme McGowan

47 :: why I give Sally Williams ’76

14 :: f aculty spotlight Thinking robots, major awards

:: on the Web Read the magazine online at: * FSC® is not responsible for any calculations on saving resources by choosing this paper.

fall 2014 magazine

slc.edu/magazine

in this issue fall 2014 magazine

We each find our own way to make the world a better place.

The point of going to college—and especially of going to Sarah Lawrence—is to begin crafting a meaningful life. That means making a career, usually, but also distilling your values, understanding your strengths and weaknesses, and confronting change and loss. Easy, right? In this issue, we’ll get some practical advice about how to create a life rich in meaning—no matter how you define success.

18 :: the teacher

28 :: critical abilities

Ilja Wachs (literature), beloved teacher of great books, tells his own story—of fleeing the Nazis, struggling to come to terms with injustice, and finding his true home at Sarah Lawrence.

A new way to prove that an SLC education prepares students for great careers.

24 :: w hat’s the use of

a liberal education? Hopefully you already know the answer to this question, but if not, international affairs expert Fareed Zakaria argues the case.

32 :: How to Make It as a ... What does it take to be a neuroscientist, landscape architect, or triathlete? Seven members of the SLC community talk about why they love their jobs, and the lessons they’ve learned on their way to success.

slc.edu/magazine

UP FRONT

Anything But Timid When I host small groups of first-year students at dinners at the President’s House, I conduct my own informal, unscientific poll to find out what brought them to the College. Often it’s a favorite teacher, a guidance counselor, or an alumna/us who says, “You’re perfect for Sarah Lawrence.”

Karen Lawrence hosts a dinner for students at the President’s House.

photo by dana maxson

fall 2014 magazine

Or, in the barrage of brochures smart highschool students receive (and often ignore), a piece from Sarah Lawrence captures their attention. Increasingly, we are discovered online in the search for a college that is demanding but not soul-crushing, where the student studies subjects out of interest rather than requirement, guided by teachers who are truly compelling. Inevitably, out of 15 students in the conversation, at least two will have seen the movie Ten Things I Hate about You and identified with the iconoclastic Kat, a modern avatar of Kate, Shakespeare’s independent, bold, and witty character in The Taming of the Shrew. I thought about these conversations over the summer when I read a pair of articles in The New Republic about the system of admission to top American colleges and the outcome of elite education: William Deresiewicz’s “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League: The Nation’s Top Colleges Are Turning Our Kids into Zombies” and a rebuttal by J.D. Chapman, academic director of an independent high school in Virginia. As his incendiary title makes clear, Deresiewicz, who taught at Yale for 10 years, blasts the Ivies for “manufacturing” young people who are smart but timid, “with little intellectual curiosity . . . great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they are doing it.” Although he has come across “many wonderful young people,” he says that “most of them seemed content to

color within the lines that their education had marked out for them.” Chapman takes on Deresiewicz for reductively treating these schools and their elite education as monolithic in practice or philosophy. Chapman is right, I believe, to challenge Deresiewicz’s sweeping generalizations and his almost unrelieved cynicism about elite education. Nonetheless, something rings true in Deresiewicz’s description of the performance pressures and risk avoidance that students experience on the conveyor belt from kindergarten to commencement at prestigious institutions. (It’s no accident that Deresiewicz calls it the “manufacturing” of graduates.) From the beginning, Sarah Lawrence chose not to support this machinery, by refusing to focus on test scores or class ranking, by eschewing academic silos, and by de-emphasizing grades in the learning process. In fact, one of the few points of agreement in these dueling essays is that certain liberal arts colleges are places that welcome—and develop—students who are passionate about ideas. Chapman writes, “I agree with Deresiewicz that liberal arts colleges like Sarah Lawrence and Reed are uniquely positioned to nurture and challenge students, and I champion them when I can.” With our educational model, Sarah Lawrence is indeed uniquely positioned to nurture and challenge students. Accordingly, we are playing a leadership role in reframing the often contentious conversation about the value of a college education and the definition of a successful outcome. Amid a national dialogue that sometimes equates value with a student’s salary soon after graduation (which is one of the criteria for President Obama’s proposed rating system), the faculty at Sarah Lawrence are pioneering a new assessment tool—organic to our culture—to measure abilities we believe a Sarah

Lawrence education develops in our students and which they will need to thrive after college. In every course, for every student, the teacher assesses the student’s learning according to the development of six critical abilities: to think analytically; express ideas effectively in writing; exchange ideas orally; bring innovation to one’s work; envisage and work independently on a project; and accept and act on criticism. (See page 28 for an indepth look at this new assessment tool.) The desired “outcome” is that, with these capacities, students can construct a satisfying and meaningful life for themselves in whatever type of career they pursue. Like any new model, our assessment tool is subject to revision and improvement. But it has already garnered considerable national, and even international, attention. Associate Dean Kanwal Singh and I were recently invited to Washington, DC, to discuss assessment at a conference called “Restoring Confidence in Higher Education,” and last spring, I spoke about our educational philosophy to a large group of educators, parents, students, and public officials in Qingdao, China, who assembled to hear about the value of a liberal education and of Sarah Lawrence’s model in particular. It’s a model uniquely well suited to our mission of educating students who are anything but timid in forging their own paths personally and professionally. ::

From the beginning, Sarah Lawrence chose not to support this machinery, by refusing to focus on test scores or class ranking.

karen lawrence, president

UP FRONT

letters

False Flashback

Update: Transplant Success

I was reading the spring 2014 magazine and want to let you know of an error on page 52—“Flashback: 1959.” The play Raisin in the Sun is attributed to August Wilson. That play was written by Lorraine Hansberry. Ironic, perhaps, is that in the very next column on the same page, under the heading “Electric Youth,” is a statement … to the effect that the [student senate] was not interested in having its students participate in a TV quiz show program “which demonstrated only knowledge of useless facts.” Alas, facts were important then, and they still are now; a good education has to include them—you never know what will come in useful. Enid Schildkrout ’63 You credit A Raisin in the Sun to playwright August Wilson. This play is by Lorraine Hansberry. Women have a hard enough time getting their plays done even today; let’s not take away their authorship legacy, too, especially a school that used to be women-only. Alexandra Devin Vicich ’98 Thanks to everyone who called us out on the error. You are, of course, correct, and we apologize for the mistake.

Missing Musician When we compiled our list of recent albums by SLC musicians (“Listen Up,” spring 2014), we knew we’d probably miss some. Here’s one we left out.

Big Empty Field Kiyoshi Najita ’88, multi-instrumentalist

The Power Law postrock / ulterior records, 2012

Editor suzanne walters gray mfa ’04 sgray@sarahlawrence.edu

Assistant Editor katharine reece mfa ’12 Class Notes Editor madeline goldfischer ’89 Student Assistant hannah ryan ’16

Music faculty member Sungrai Sohn had his second liver transplant on May 9, 2014, at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. The story of his first transplant, in which he received part of his brother-in-law’s liver, was featured in our issue on The Will to Live (“Everything Else Fell Away,” fall 2012). As we were wrapping up that story, we learned that, despite all he’d been through, Sohn’s new liver was failing, and he would need another transplant. While he was on the waiting list, Sohn worked full time at Sarah Lawrence College as director of chamber music, conductor of the orchestra, and head of the string program; he continued to perform, as well. Sohn says, “All these events were made possible with the help of so many friends, students, family members, and dedicated medical professionals. Most of all, my wife Patricia stood next to me on every occasion—at school, in concerts, hospitalizations, and medical visits—for the many years of waiting for a second transplant.” We’re deeply pleased that Sohn was able to receive this life-saving surgery, and wish the best to him and his wife.

Design hannah fichandler, taylor design Director of Alumni Relations cheryl cipro

Sarah Lawrence magazine is published twice each year by the Office of Communications and Marketing. Its mission is to connect alumni and other members of the SLC community to the College and to one another. Reach us at: Sarah Lawrence College, 1 Mead Way, Bronxville, NY 10708-5999; (914) 395-2220 or magazine@sarahlawrence.edu (Office of Communications and Marketing); (914) 395-2530 or alum@sarah lawrence.edu (Alumni Relations); or www.sarahlawrence.edu.

Magazine Online Read the magazine online at: slc.edu/magazine

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UP FRONT

tribute

Thank You, Susan

susan guma, dean of graduate studies 1984-2014, retires by Erin Petersen

For those who know her best, Susan Guma is part magician, pulling funding out of thin air to bring important new programs and classes to life. She is part MacGyver, finding ingenious ways to solve complex problems. And she is part mind reader, understanding and articulating the needs of faculty, staff, and students, often before they express those needs themselves. But for Thomas Lux, who spent 17 years as director of the graduate program in poetry, the story that may best epitomize who Guma is and what she brought to the College isn’t about dollars or programs or advocacy. It is the story of a beer run. As Lux tells it, the Sarah Lawrence Summer Seminar for Writers, a program for adult students, was in full swing. After a day of classes, students were ready to wind down with a drink. When it became clear that the demand for drinks was going to outstrip supply, Guma

didn’t hesitate a moment before hopping into her car and heading to the local liquor store to pick up more beer. “Susan, you’re the dean of graduate studies,” Lux remembers telling her. “You don’t have to do that!” But of course she did. For Guma, work has never been defined by a simple job

Her mind-boggling ability to remember the names, personalities, and even phone extensions of nearly every person on campus is less a parlor trick than a testament to her desire to connect with others. description. Instead, she would do whatever it took to make sure that Sarah Lawrence was the best school it could be, and to make sure its students had the best possible experience. Sometimes, that meant a beer run. Guma arrived at Sarah Lawrence in 1984 as associate director of the Center for Continuing Education, and ultimately became dean of graduate studies. Her career has been defined by her ability to bring together programs and people. She built partnerships with New York public schools to create a diverse and powerful high school writing program. She developed an exchange program between the graduate pro-

gram in genetic counseling and the Jordanian University of Science and Technology. Under her guidance, enrollment in the graduate programs has grown more than 60 percent. She has been the principal architect of initiatives that have transformed Sarah Lawrence in profoundly beneficial ways, by connecting graduate and summer programs to the larger mission of the College. And she has been the fiercest advocate for faculty who want to add innovative courses or start projects that will benefit their students. She has tempered her ambitions for the graduate programs with humanity, modesty, and kindness. Even as her responsibilities multiplied, she never stopped making time for students, serving as a source of good humor, sound judgment, and wise counsel. She was a fixture at the College’s frequent readings, performances, and other events. And her mind-boggling ability to remember the names, personalities, and even phone extensions of nearly every person on campus is less a parlor trick than a testament to her desire to connect with others. For those who have benefited from her work, her retirement is a profound loss; she seems so integral to the College, so deeply attuned to what makes the school tick and what will make it even better, that it is as though Sarah Lawrence is etched into her DNA. And thanks to her tireless efforts, Guma’s DNA is now etched into Sarah Lawrence. “Susan is an extraordinarily competent person with a great, generous spirit,” says Lux. “If you had an idea, she was the one who could make it happen.” ::

guma in 2000. photo by mark stephen kornbluth, courtesy of the slc archives

spring 2014 magazine

ON CAMPUS

composed Composer Philip Glass never expected to make a living as an artist. Even after his opera Einstein on the Beach opened at the Met in 1976, he returned to driving a taxi and being a plumber in Manhattan. In his 1987 book Music by Philip Glass, he recalls a moment soon after the Met performance when a chic woman climbed into the backseat of his taxi, noted his name on the paneling, and leaned forward to say: “Young man, do you realize you have the same name as a very famous composer?” Glass visited Sarah Lawrence in April for a public conversation with longtime collaborator Martin Goldray (music), who played in the Philip Glass Ensemble from 1983 to 1998. Glass admitted that the stress of being an unknown artist is difficult. But the best thing is to have few expectations, he said, because then any successes will be great gifts. Now 77 years old, Glass has composed more than 20 operas, 10 symphonies, and hundreds of other pieces of music. Despite the remarkable size of his oeuvre, he didn’t start making money from his art until his early 40s, and he won his first major award (the NEA Opera Honors Award) only a few years ago, in 2010. “Making a living is not optional,” Glass said. But anxiety about it is. His advice for young composers? Acquire a solid set of technical tools so that when your great piece eventually arrives—the timing of which, he says, is not up to us—you’ll have the ability to express it. :: —Katharine Reece MFA ’12

photo by dana maxson

slc.edu/magazine

ON CAMPUS

tidbits

SEE THE WORLD WITH SLC

Master of Puppets

What’s better than studying at SLC? Studying at SLC from the vantage point of a foreign country. This year, undergraduates have several new study abroad options that make us wish we were in college again. (We’re contemplating a Rodney Dangerfield/Back to School type scenario, but with more luggage.) Students can spend spring semester in Tanzania, Malawi, and Zimbabwe as part of SLC’s new program on human development in Sub-Saharan Africa, spearheaded by Kim Ferguson (psychology), who grew up in Malawi. The program focuses on the effects of inequality, and participants will study psychology and history and do fieldwork at community organizations. In the new semester-long program in Lima, Peru, Spanishspeaking students can explore 5,000 years of Peruvian history and development. Students live

In the Japanese Kuruma Ningyo tradition, puppeteers sit on wheeled carts, manipulating 4-foot-tall puppets that appear to walk directly on the stage. Koryu Nishikawa V (left)—declared an “Intangible Cultural Treasure” by the Japanese government for his work in this ancient form—collaborated with Tom Lee (theatre) to create The Shank’s Mare, an original production performed at SLC in April. Before Nishikawa arrived, the student performers taped their rehearsals and sent YouTube videos for him to critique from Japan.

the new dean

Judith Babbitts, our new dean of graduate and professional studies, started work in July. She comes to Sarah Lawrence from Johns Hopkins University, where she was vice dean

fall 2014 magazine

for advanced academic programs in the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Before that, she served as academic dean of the International Honors Program/ World Learning. She has extensive experience with curricular development in graduate education and special programs, enrollment management, marketing and strategic planning, and international education. She has also developed and taught courses in women’s history, Asian history, and American history. All that, and she’s an alumna, too: she earned a master’s degree from the graduate program in women’s history in 1976, and also holds a PhD from Yale University and a BA from Rutgers University. Welcome, Judith!

o A touching

moment with Koryu Nishikawa V

photo by Ayumi Sakamato

with host families and study at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú, one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in Latin America. Over the summer, Cameron Afzal (religion) took a class of students to Turkey and Greece for “The Geography of Faith: Paul and the Emergence of Christianity in the Aegean.” The class explored the social world of ancient Greece, walking in the footsteps of Saint Paul and studying his epistles in the cities where he preached. Between these new programs and SLC’s ongoing presence in Cuba, England, Italy, France, Germany, and Argentina, students have plenty of good reasons to apply for that passport.

BETTER THAN CHRISTMAS When you need a gift to mark a special occasion, sometimes a marshmallow launcher is the only thing that will do. Or a fly swatter, perhaps. Maybe a portrait of a mysterious woman? All of these items have been exchanged with much pomp at the annual passdown dinner for resident advisers. New resident advisers find out their room assignments at the May event. Then the departing RAs present their successors with a special (okay, “special”) gift to welcome them to their new quarters. The marshmallow launcher, for example, was exchanged between denizens of the second floor of Dudley Lawrence, who might need a way to quiet late-night roisterers on the lawn. Carolyn O’Laughlin, director of residence life, instituted the passdown dinner in 2009 as a way to ease the anxieties of new resident advisers. “The idea is to pass down something that gets a laugh, but also makes a meaningful connection,” she says.

weird eel Every spring, tiny, translucent eels swim up the Hudson River, looking for a home. This year some of them made a rest stop at the Sarah Lawrence Center for the Urban River at Beczak (CURB), the College’s new field station and environmental education center in Yonkers, where SLC students can conduct research in environmental science. Students helped catch, count, and release the eels as part of a wider citizen science effort to monitor the eel population. Why does it matter how many baby eels are swimming up the Hudson? Glass eels are the juvenile form of the American Eel, a species that SLC’s new ecologist Michelle Hersh (biology) calls “biologically bizarre.” Its complicated life cycle— which involves migrating from the Sargasso Sea to East Coast rivers and back again, as well as changing colors multiple times as it grows—has historically made it difficult to track. CURB’s data, along with that gathered by other volunteers all along the river, will be used by the New

DANCING in the dark York Department of Environmental Conservation to keep track of the eel population over time. That’s an important first step toward further conservation efforts. How do you count an eel that’s clear and only 1.5 inches long? The eels were detained in a fyke net—a bag-shaped fish trap with a strainer of sorts to keep the bigger fish out—staked in the marsh. Three times a week, CURB Education and Outreach C oordinator Jason Muller and student researchers would wade into the marsh at low tide and dump the eels into a tub. Then they scooped up the wriggly fish with a small net, counted them one by one, and tossed them back into the water. From March through May, the team counted almost 700 eels. One of Hersh’s students, who volunteered at CURB, has already done a conference project on eel biology, and many more opportunities for projects will emerge from this hands-on research, Hersh says.

Dancing for an extended period of time can change one’s reality, says Emily Devine (dance). Twenty years ago, she made a circle of cherry blossoms on Andrews Lawn and invited students to dance “until the birds sing,” as a way of closing the school year and saying farewell to the graduating seniors. “It was beautiful,” she remembers. “There was a full moon, and we watched the moon and the constellations cross the sky.” Dance All Night has happened every year since, starting at 10 p.m. on the night after seniors’ conference work is due. Participants mark the opening and closing of the ritual together—walking around the inner border, observing a moment of stillness—but otherwise,

there are no rules. The dance is all improvised, and participants come and go. Sometimes there’s music, sometimes not. “The only time I had to answer to security was one year when we had lots of people drumming really loudly at about three o’clock in the morning,” Devine says. Devine, who retired this spring after 26 years at the College, stepped into the circle of blossoms for the final time on May 10. She was joined by 40 alumni from the dance program who had traveled from all over the country—one even came from Mexico—to wish her well. Students old and new, dancing together, celebrating a beloved teacher under the night sky: a moving tribute, in more ways than one.

Hey, Mr. (and Ms.) DJ

RE-ENVISIONING PAKISTAN Think of Pakistan, and you probably think of religious fundamentalism and violence, because what the media regularly spotlights. That violence is real, says Jamee Moudud (economics), but so is poverty, marginalization of the general population, and other human rights issues—and the fact that progressive Pakistani groups are working to create a more democratic and inclusive society. On April 4 and 5, Sarah Lawrence tackled the complexities of Pakistan’s history and current

challenges, hosting an international conference called “Re-envisioning Pakistan: The Political Economy of Social Transformation.” The conference was organized by Moudud and Shahnaz Rouse (sociology)—both born in Pakistan—who wanted to move beyond sensationalist headlines and simplistic viewpoints on the country. Participants included scholars, policy analysts, journalists, and activists from Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the US. “Hopefully the conference opened people up to another method of looking at the world,” Moudud says. The event was sponsored in part by the Donald C. Samuel Fund for Economics and Politics.

WSLC, the student-run radio station, has gone digital. In the fall of 2013, the station moved from the basement of Robinson, its home since 1945, to the second floor of Bates. The new space better accommodates their new digital equipment, and puts them in the thick of other student clubs and groups. Tune in online to listen to the full schedule of DJs, who are enthusiastically dedicated to “providing listeners with tons of new music, hot on-campus news, and the best college experience EVER!” Listen at: tinyurl.com/radioSLC

illustrations by vaughn fender

slc.edu/magazine

ON CAMPUS

spoken word

“I write Batman

like I’m writing my fiction. It’s about stuff that’s personal to me. It’s about fear of your own mortality and ... fear of your own demons.”

Craft talk, February 6, 2014. In 2011, Snyder relaunched DC Comics’ Batman with a new first issue, and continues to write the series. Sponsored by the graduate writing program.

Screening and discussion of Forty Years Later: Now Can We Talk? March 13, 2014. Part of the Child Development Institute Film Series. The documentary is about the first African Americans to integrate a white high school in Batesville, Mississippi, in 1967. Sponsored by The Diana Chambers Leslie Fund for Student Leadership and many others.

“Surveillance Research and Action: Approaches to Information Freedom,” panel discussion, April 15, 2014. Dunavan presented a brief talk titled “Participation, proprietary media, and dataveillance in the smart city.” This event was part of the Perspectives on Place and Power film and lecture series.

“Wittgenstein Bar and Grill: An Evening to Celebrate Nancy Baker,” May 6, 2014. Baker retired this spring after 40 years at SLC. She hosted a regular get-together at her house for students and alumni to discuss philosophy. Sponsored by the dean of the College.

“Surveillance Research and Action: Approaches to Information Freedom,” panel discussion, April 15, 2014. Ordonez presented a brief talk titled “Is information free? What is the cost of communication?” This event was part of the Perspectives on Place and Power film and lecture series.

Scott Snyder (writing), comic book author1

“The experience of being the first African American class in a white high school never left [these students]. … They had a lot of stories to tell and had never really shared those stories before. … The act of storytelling … is a form of teaching and learning that is very humanizing, a tool we all can use to help each other.” Fern Kahn, former dean of the Bank Street College of Education2

“[Your] data—your pictures— are your personal property and you actually have rights to them, the way Disney has rights to Mickey Mouse.” Gregory Dunavan, sociology professor at St. Peter’s University3

“How do we balance the powers “As a multicultural person ... of our intellect, our temptation The internet really allowed me this to categorize, and reduce, anonymous space, so I [could] interact with and quantify everything in its people based not on the logically proper box, with the labels that society was beautiful reality of our messy, giving me, but the labels that I wanted to give myself.” undefinable life?” Jesse Brenneman ’11, Wittgenstein aficionado4

“Why is it that we can watch Judge Judy, but we can’t watch the arguments on the most important issues of our time in the Supreme Court? ... The vast majority of Supreme Court cases are crashingly boring, exceedingly technical. But there are some we really need to know about.” Jack Ford, legal commentator on TV news6 10

fall 2014 magazine

Sandra Ordonez, former communications director for Wikipedia5

“It is better for teachers of young children to focus on feelings of confidence and competence, rather than self-esteem. The term ‘esteem’ is related to the word ‘estimate.’ And you can only estimate something if you have criteria: too fat, too short, etc. We cannot do that to children.” Dr. Lilian Katz, professor emerita of early childhood education at the University of Illinois7

6 “Trials on Trial,” May 6, 2014.

Ford delivered a lecture about the media’s often problematic coverage of high-profile trials like the Trayvon Martin and Casey Anthony cases. Sponsored by The Phoenix, the Journalism Pre-Professional Group, and the Pre-Law Pre-Professional Association. 7

“Building a Good Foundation,” Longfellow Lecture, April 9, 2014. Sponsored by The Cynthia Longfellow Fund for Child Development Lectures.

ON CAMPUS

in person

Natural Abilities On every e-mail from Dwight Richardson Kelly ’14, the signature reads: “Disclaimer: This e-mail was written by a dyslexic. Any spelling errors, malapropisms, and grammatical mistakes are the result of a language-based learning disability and should not be attributed to any other cause.” It then invites people to ask him questions about dyslexia and offers a link to further resources. There was a time when Kelly never would have imagined making such a public declaration about his disability. Growing up, Kelly felt ashamed of his dyslexia, and fiercely hid it from other students, even though schoolwork took him three times as long as others. Weeknights were spent in the library; writing papers consumed the weekends. Before each paper was due, Kelly’s mother would read it out loud, so he could determine if the words he had written were what he had intended. But Sarah Lawrence—where all students were expected to tailor their education to their own needs— transformed him. In one of his first courses, a psychology class with Elizabeth Johnston, he did two conference projects on dyslexia; the first was called “Strange Territory: Investigating Dyslexia in the Brain and the World.” The science was a revelation, and so was the methodology: Johnston allowed him to do an oral presentation instead of writing a paper. Kelly also took a sculpture class that first semester, and went on to study theatre and film. When analyzing visual information, dyslexics often see the big picture faster and more clearly than non-dyslexics, and his talent in the arts was gratifying. He became a dance third his senior year. While dancing is not quite the same as the visual arts (coordination problems are often comorbid with dyslexia), the experience of letting go in a space beyond language represented another triumph. Kelly put his newfound self-confidence to work by becoming an advocate for others (though he’s quick to point out that he is never speaking for all dyslexics).

The experience of letting go in a space beyond language represented another triumph. Along with Alex Vesey ’14, Kelly helped found Sarah Lawrence’s Disability Alliance. In the spring of 2012 they worked with the administration to install benches near shuttle stops on campus so that students with mobility issues would have a comfortable spot to wait. “Dwight’s remarkable,” says Polly Waldman, associate dean of studies and disability services, who began working with Kelly his first year. “He was able to demonstrate his knowledge and vast creativity in a variety of ways here. I don’t think he sees dyslexia as a deficit anymore.” —Katharine Reece MFA ’12 photo by Chris taggart

slc.edu/magazine

ON CAMPUS

under discussion

Round-table conversations on world-changing ideas

FEMINISM IN the silence of the lambs H

orror films incite all sorts of provocative questions: Why do viewers enjoy being terrified and disgusted? Do these films make evil attractive and viewers more violent? Or do they make us more aware of the reality of evil in our world—and therefore more ethical? Students in “The Horror Film,” taught by Malcolm Turvey (film history), explored these questions and more, discussing Psycho (1960), Alien (1979), and The Shining (1980), among others, as works of art and social commentary as well as popular entertainment. As Turvey says, “Horror films are capable of complexity, profundity, aesthetic innovation, emotional intensity, sociopolitical critique, philosophical reflection—all the things we usually value about art works.” Monsters are central to the genre, and in Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, the film’s heroine, Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster), confronts more than a few of them: Buffalo Bill, Hannibal Lecter, and also, perhaps, the patriarchy. As Clarice pursues serial killer Buffalo Bill, “She is beset by sexism on all sides, and to miss this is to miss the fundamental point of the film,” Turvey says. The Silence of the Lambs is indisputably inflected with a feminist consciousness. Critics diverge, though, on whether the film goes far enough. Feminist philosopher Cynthia Freeland worries that Clarice’s allegiance with Hannibal undermines her power: as Turvey explains, “The feminist heroine of the film is being paralleled with a serial killer!” But critic Greg Garrett’s view is more laudatory, pointing out Clarice’s remarkable courage—and her ability to successfully navigate a world of male power and violence. On April 16, Turvey’s students considered the critics’ arguments and decided for themselves: Is The Silence of the Lambs a feminist film? 12

fall 2014 magazine

Under Discussion: Cynthia Freeland, The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror (Westview, 2002); Murray Smith, “Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, or Apparently Perverse Allegiances,” in Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion (Johns Hopkins, 1999); Greg Garrett, “Objecting to Objectification: Reviewing the Feminine in The Silence of the Lambs,” Journal of Popular Culture vol. 27, #24.

jessica butler ’14: I think the most interesting point Cynthia Freeland made is that Clarice’s alliance with Hannibal is something she needs to further entry into a patriarchal world. … It’s as if she has to assume a supposedly male role in order to further her success in the academy. She has to become one of the men, and I think that’s what Freeland sees as a problem— especially alongside the idea that Hannibal is helping her. … malcolm turvey: So there are two issues there. One is the relationship Clarice has with Hannibal and the fact that he gives her certain clues throughout the film, which arguably enable her to track down Buffalo Bill. Second of all, there’s this idea that she has to take on male characteristics in becoming a successful FBI agent. … Are these fair points? … jack bell ’17: I don’t necessarily agree with the male characteristics part. In Clarice’s case, she is a very skilled FBI agent. … eliza truschel ’17: I [also] don’t see it as problematic as Freeland [does] because first of all, she’s not the only person who seeks help from

photos by chris taggart

Hannibal—it’s the entire FBI. I don’t think we need to hold her to some ridiculous standard where she needs to be smarter than all the men in the film. Everybody needs help from Hannibal Lecter. … juna drougas ’16: I think it’s important that she’s the one who is sent [to talk to Hannibal]. She’s only able to get his help because she’s respectful, and Freeland really talks about that— that Clarice accepts from the beginning that he is a mentor and teacher and that she’s willing to learn from him. … malcolm turvey: Greg Garrett thinks that the reason Lecter and Clarice get on so well is precisely that Clarice treats Lecter like a human being, rather than as a curious anomaly. … So the idea of objectification is not just about male attitudes toward women but also about Clarice and her capacity to see Lecter as a human being—of course a very unusual one, but still a human being. … jessica butler: Lecter doesn’t allow the system to objectify him as a prisoner. … He initially rejects Clarice when she gives him the test to pick his brain. It’s not until she starts showing more complex interest and ideas that she respects him more. In a way, Lecter is rejecting any classification or objectification as a prisoner just as Clarice is trying to reject being gendered. I think both Freeland and Garrett are trying too hard to see it as masculine and feminine. I don’t see why we can’t see Clarice as transcending both genders and just being an individual doing her job. …

malcolm turvey: The parallel between Lecter and Clarice, as Freeland puts it, is that they’re both “bucking the system.” They both refuse to be turned into objects, and they both combine masculine and feminine traits, or what are conventionally coded as masculine and feminine traits. Why would this be a problem? Why is it a bad thing necessarily, that Clarice is like Lecter? elsa levytsky ’14: Because they’re both being objectified, but the one deserves to be objectified, and the other is just born female and that’s why she’s objectified. So the fact that we’re rooting for Lecter—we don’t realize we’re rooting for someone who has killed and eaten many people, because he’s so similar to Clarice in some ways. … malcolm turvey: Wouldn’t you say she’s both like Hannibal and also unlike him in the sense that she feels human emotions, right? She’s devastated by her father’s death, and it’s something she thinks about a lot. She’s clearly concerned deeply about Catherine Martin. When she initially sees the body that’s brought out of the river, she’s obviously horrified, yet she’s able to overcome that horror. nicole vigil ’15: They both have such strong morals. Hers is that she cares about human life and wants to save people and save the lambs. [Hannibal] just aggressively doesn’t care—but they both have these set rules they follow. That makes them really similar. … madeline hale ’17: Clarice says that Hannibal won’t go after her because he would consider

it rude. So he does have moral standards in that sense. malcolm turvey: Manners. class: [Laughs.] brock robinson ’16: … What’s different about this film and why I think the gender becomes problematic is because, as someone brought up earlier, Clarice doesn’t have a choice. She’s never allowed to forget that she’s a female in a man’s

“The parallel between Lecter and Clarice is that they’re both bucking the system. They both refuse to be turned into objects.” world, and she has to overcome a structure that’s set up for her, whereas Hannibal is trying to overcome his own hubris and his desire to be beyond classification. Clarice is just trying to not allow her gender to classify her in the workplace. ::

Condensed and edited by Katharine Reece MFA ’12

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ON CAMPUS

faculty spotlight

big questions

Can Robots Learn Common Sense?

photo by dana maxson

“If you can write programs that simulate a bunch of simple elements connected together, you can teach a computer program to learn from experience.” –jim marshall (computer science)

fall 2014 magazine

you place your phone on a table, does it fall through to the floor? Of course not. But a robot doesn’t know that. Computers can now beat humans at chess, solve the most complex math equations, and anticipate the kind of music you might like, but they have very little common sense. “We take for granted how complicated a task the brain has,” says Jim Marshall (computer science), SLC’s robotics expert. Training a computer to mimic the human brain—to not only respond to stimuli, but also recognize patterns and learn from experience—requires wrestling with the as-yet-unanswered question: What is intelligence? Rewind to the late ’70s, before the term “personal computer” became commonplace. Marshall was a teenager in northern Virginia, saving up money from a paper route to buy his first computer, a RadioShack TRS80. The idea of an intelligent computer had captivated him since Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2001: A Space Odyssey alarmed the world with its portrayal of HAL, the self-aware, homicidal computer. What would prevent computers from surpassing human intelligence and ultimately leaving us in the dust? The intelligence of computers has indeed increased exponentially in the last few decades, but Marshall isn’t worried about a robot takeover. While their computational power may be staggering, they still can’t do most tasks humans execute with ease, such as walking around without bumping into things, responding to human emotion, or understanding the implications of gravity. So where does common sense come from? There’s no pat answer, but it has to do with the ability to learn. In “Bio-Inspired Artificial Intelligence,” Marshall teaches students to program terrier-sized Sony dog robots, a humanoid named Marvin, and a machine with wheels that resembles Spirit, the robot that explored Mars in 2003. Programming these robots to take in sensory information and respond to it is only the first step. Then comes Marshall’s true passion: developmental robotics, in which you teach the robots to learn by creating programs modeled on the configuration of the brain. “If you can write programs that simulate a bunch of simple elements connected together,” Marshall says, “you can teach a computer program to learn from experience.” One might argue that the limitations of computers are actually the limitations of humans; we’re constrained by the mysteries of human experience. For Marshall, that’s where the beauty of this evolving field shines brightest. He wonders if perhaps intelligence is actually simpler than we think. “We’re all made out of, what, 92 elements?” he asks. “Essentially, everything you see about the world involves patterns of very simple components, but the world is a complex, amazing place nevertheless. Maybe intelligence is similar to that. Maybe there are fundamental principles that are inherently simple that we don’t understand yet.” —Katharine Reece MFA ’12

Vijay Seshadri was awarded the Pulitzer

Two writing faculty members won Guggenheim Fellowships this year. Here’s a peek at the opening lines of their recent work.

Victoria Redel “It was there, late into the party, after the birthday cake had been served, after she’d drunk a good deal of red wine and taken too many hits from the joints that floated by her, that the husband told Sabina that he and his wife had been thinking about her, that they’d both been thinking about her since that first night they’d met her a few weeks back.” From “You Look Like You Do” in Make Me Do Things Fiction / Four Way, 2013

Rachel Cohen “In the summer of 1895, Bernard Berenson, who turned 30 that June, was laboring over a follow-up volume to his successful first book, The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. He wanted the projected book on the Florentine painters to convey to his readers not dry details of biography or composition but what he thought of as the ‘artistic personalities’ of the painters.”

Prize for his book of poetry, 3 Sections (Graywolf, 2013). The New Yorker declared, “Seshadri is a son of Frost by way of Ashbery: both the high-frequency channels of consciousness and the jazz of spoken language are audible in these poems.” See page 48 for an excerpt.

photo by bill miles

fabulous prizes

From Bernard Berenson: A Life in the Picture Trade Nonfiction / Yale, 2013

new books and music

Animals in Motion

Florence Gordon

Wunderkammer

David Ryan

Brian Morton

Cynthia Cruz

(writing) fiction / roundabout, 2014

Thirteen surreal and beautiful stories, including one about a giant elk trapped inside the yard of a family of teenage boys whose tyrannical father gradually shrinks to the size of a doll.

(writing) fiction / houghton mifflin harcourt, 2014

The title character is a feminist icon to young women, invisible and underappreciated by most everyone else. At 75, just as Florence starts to write her long-deferred memoir, her son returns, embroiling her in family drama and clouding the clarity of her days.

(writing) poetry / four way, 2013

These poems, through sensuous impressions, mimic what it’s like to wake from a dream only to realize you are still inside the dream, combining the glamorous and the grotesque.

Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland Glenn Dynner

(religion) nonfiction / oxford university, 2013

Until the 19th century, Jews ran the vast majority of taverns and distilleries in Poland-Lithuania. Their taverns became the center of local economic, social, and even religious life, demonstrating a high degree of Jewish-Christian coexistence that contrasts with the more prevalent image of anti-Semitism and violence.

National Synchrotron Light Source II: Long Island’s Stateof-the-Art X-Ray Microscope

Le Cirque

Scott Calvin

(music), guitar music / furious artisans, 2014

(physics) nonfiction / brookhaven photon science users’ association, 2014

A limited-run, hand-crafted pop-up book promoting a major new science facility on Long Island. The book was co-authored with Bruce Ravel of the National Institute of Standards and Linnea Russell ’14, and assembled by a team of Sarah Lawrence students.

anderson/fader duo

William Anderson

Le Cirque gets its title from four songs with texts taken from Chagall poems, composed by Sidney Corbett. The recording features “Resisting Stillness” by Chet Biscardi (music) and a variety of modern works for two electric guitars.

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True glory consist. deserves to be wri. what deserves to b. living as to make and better for our THE MEANINGFUL LIFE

Succeeding at What You Love

.s in doing what .tten, in writing .e read, and in so the world happier living in it. of the reason most of us went to college was not just to get an education or < Part prepare for a good career, but to find a way to craft a life rich in meaning.

But what does that mean, exactly? In preparing this issue, we talked to a lot of people about what makes a meaningful life—and received just as many answers.

Maybe it’s accomplishing something of consequence. Building lasting relationships. Connecting with people different from oneself. Achieving prosperity. Multiplying beauty and justice. Enjoying life’s pleasures. Helping other people.

Whatever we think makes a meaningful life, the fact is that we spend the majority of our days working, so we might as well make our work count. And if you’re looking to succeed at doing what you love—whatever that may be—a Sarah Lawrence education is a good place to start. On the other hand, consider the words of Jim Carrey:

“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.” Well, what is the answer, then? Better yet, what’s the question?

We’ll leave that for you to figure out. But for some hints, advice, musings, and examples to help you along your own path, just turn the page.

-Pliny the Elder

The

Teacher How Ilja Wachs found himself at Sarah Lawrence.

by katharine reece mfa â&#x20AC;&#x2122;12 + photos by laura barisonzi

Late September, 1965. Car windows agape, tires tracing Interstate 87 on the way from Manhattan to Sarah Lawrence College, literature teacher Ilja Wachs held a cigarette between his fingers and didn’t care a whit for the ash whipping through the open air in his car. One of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos blasted from stressed speakers, and the cigarette transformed into a baton as Wachs dipped his head in time with the meter, the sun warm on his face. White clouds packed the sky over the Hudson River. The skin of the river puckered into rows of tiny, metallic moguls at the behest of a light wind. Wachs thought about the truth of what Melville wrote in Moby Dick, that “meditation and water are wedded for ever.” He was 34, and skeptical that life could generate a moment more perfect than this. Just as a painter who is halfway through a piece can faintly discern how the shapes and brushstrokes might coalesce into a masterpiece, Wachs was on the cusp of seeing how the story of his life would take shape.

Wachs is now 83 years old. Cancer ruined part of his lungs in 2006, and he no longer smokes. He still has a shock of long white hair, which he swoops up over the balding crown of his head when he smiles or is thinking deeply before speaking. Folding his 6'3'' frame into his rusting Toyota Camry is no longer an easy task. When he stops for coffee in the morning, at a deli on Palmer Avenue, the two Irish women who own the place try to convince him to stay in the car, offering to serve him through the window. It is 2014, and Wachs often wonders how to confront the final part of his journey—a journey he does not want to end. In the 49 years since he first began driving to Sarah Lawrence, he’s grown tired of his creaking body, but he is not tired of the world, and he is not tired of teaching great books to his students. Through those books, he teaches them how to behold as much beauty as they can stand, how to love well, and how to give themselves to the human community. And like those books, his own story reminds us that we have been given the opportunity to exist—and that life is beautiful.

the train and the tunnel In the early 1900s, Isaak Wachs, Ilja’s father, moved to Vienna, then considered the most progressive city in continental Europe because

it recognized the rights of Jews. Isaak became a successful lawyer—a street, the Izaakwachs Strasse, was named in his honor after he defended trolley workers who were on trial for going on strike. He was respected as the chief lawyer for a range of unions and left-wing organizations that were being persecuted by the neo-Fascist regime. But when Hitler annexed Austria in March of 1938, the rights of Jews melted along with winter into spring. Ilja remembers crouching below the kitchen table and listening as his mother, Sarah, convinced his father they must leave. What followed is now a composite of shaded memories, the chronology blurred by terror: Ilja’s parents left him behind with his nanny and months passed. When Sarah tried to retrieve him, she was prohibited from reentering Vienna. Isaak was imprisoned in a French concentration camp, but through his political connections he contacted a woman known for smuggling children into Switzerland. The woman picked Ilja up and took him to the train. “This is going to be very dangerous,” she said. He was told not to talk to anyone, and to address her as Mutti, the German diminutive for mother. To ensure he would not be questioned, she slipped a Mickey Finn in his milk. He woke up in Switzerland. Somehow his father was re-

leased from the concentration camp. Somehow their small family found themselves in Paris. Somehow they ended up on one of the last ships allowed to leave from France. The hours faded as their ship broke across the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean, and a brilliant, clumsy Austrian boy who learned to crawl on plush oriental rugs found himself beneath the pavement of Brooklyn, standing on a subway platform next to shell-shocked parents. Out of the orifice of a square-shaped, long cave came a rickety train shattering along dirty tracks, the noise so loud the boy covered his ears, shut his eyes. He spoke no English. His family would never speak of what just happened.

the bookcase Wachs doesn’t remember the end of the war, but its aftermath was a phantom limb, an aching presence that haunted his family. While Brooklyn Dodgers games aired on radios and children spilled into the street after school to play, Isaak slipped into a depression that would darken his skies for the remainder of his life. The trauma of his forced emigration left him unable to continue practicing law, and he eventually took a job as a cashier at a local Jewish cafeteria, where he occupied his mind < 19

“Anyone who has given themselves up to the vitality and depth of a Tolstoy world is unlikely to be fully satisfied with a gray world of moneymaking or status seeking.”

by collecting rare coins, replacing them in the cash register with his own, ordinary ones. Ilja learned English by absorption; he was walking down Rogers Avenue one day when he realized he could suddenly read all the shop signs—“Luigi’s Pizza” and “Cigarettes, 10 Cents.” But he still felt displaced and alien, a feeling compounded by the fact that he never had his own room in the various apartments his family filtered through in Brooklyn. He slept on couches and fire escapes. He had no friends. “I felt what some of Kafka’s heroes—I didn’t know that at the time—feel,” Wachs said recently, “that I was just a stranger in this world. And that my parents were strangers, too. Here they were: depressed, torn from their roots, failures from their own perspective.” His mother, a nurse, had developed a radical obsession with health, which created a stringent atmosphere in their home. But Wachs loved his father fiercely, and gave over countless days of his adolescence trying to coax him out from under the clouds. Sports folded Wachs into American culture and provided him with an escape from home. At 12, he began playing ball with other neighborhood kids—stick ball, slap ball, punch ball— whatever game they could create with broomsticks and rubber balls. His family eventually moved across from Ebbets Field, and Wachs could see part of the diamond from their fire escape. After one of the games, Wachs was waiting outside the stadium for autographs from the players when a guard began taunting him. “You Jewish sonofabitch,” he yelled. “Get the hell out of here!” Mickey Owen, the Dodgers’ catcher, grabbed the guard and said, “Don't you ever talk to anyone like that again!” Owen invited Wachs

to sit in the dugout while the team practiced. Wachs still says that sports saved his life. He also began reading. Prying open his father’s locked bookcase with a knife in the middle of the night, he stole a copy of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, which Isaak had forbidden him from reading, saying that it would upset him too much—that Dostoevsky’s fantastical nature might make it harder for Wachs “to come to terms with life.” His mother prohibited him from keeping a light on after 10 p.m., so Wachs used a flashlight, sometimes even an entire lamp, under the covers of his makeshift bed. He finished the book in three nights. “I started going into an orgy of reading,” he says, “obviously, in some respects, to just escape the depression of my household and my isolation from boys my own age.” He soon devoured the rest of the Russian writers that populated Isaak’s bookcase, and his father’s warning ultimately proved appropriate: “Too many of my initial experiences took place in the world of fiction rather than reality,” he said. “My first sexual experience in John Dos Passos Trilogy USA; the first murder I committed was in Crime and Punishment; my first love in Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, and my first experience as a revolutionary in Malraux’s Man’s Fate.” His mother believed that spending hours reading was bad for the brain, so Wachs eventually took his habit to the Brooklyn Public Library. As he sprouted into a tall, lanky teenager, Wachs began suffering from anxiety attacks in school, and at one point panicked to the point of paralysis. Soon after that, he dropped out and began frequenting local movie theaters, sometimes hiding out in one theater for an entire day and entertaining fantasies

about being John Wayne. He also escaped to Union Square to join a variety of Communistsponsored organizations. A 13-year-old Wachs even made believe to himself that he thoroughly understood Marx’s Das Kapital. At the time, party leaders encouraged young sympathizers to take on factory work in order to organize the proletariat, so Wachs started laboring in New York’s garment factories, carting around heavy boxes of buttons on a bicycle. The righteousness of political organizing appealed to him. “My experience in childhood left me with a sense of distrust of the world, with feelings of isolation and estrangement, and with a craving to recover what I imagined to be the lost paradise of my childhood,” he said. “I dreamt about a revolutionary apocalypse that would bring the heaven of equality and justice on earth”—an earth in which injustice seemed woven into the structures that kept it in motion, and in which, he well knew, people could be so hideous to one another. His father finally intervened, finding a psychoanalyst who worked with Wachs and got him well enough to go back to school. But as a freshman at a public high school in Brooklyn, still mostly without friends, Wachs regularly interrupted his teachers to dispute their interpretation of history from a Marxist perspective, stressing class warfare as the agent of all historical events, and he was quickly expelled. The budding firebrand had one thing going for him, though: he was off-the-charts brilliant. He landed a scholarship at the prestigious and progressive Adelphi Academy, where he finally settled into a formal education. He played center for the basketball team, became editor of the literary journal, and found a place in the

social strata. His teachers celebrated the scope and strength of his mind, and the experience of being both acknowledged and affirmed was transformative for Wachs—an experience that continued as he took a sizeable scholarship to Columbia University to study literature. Though he rose to the top of his class at Columbia, Wachs continued to move through the world as an anxious man, fearful of most of his peers and always most comfortable when discussing ideas with his teachers. He studied with literary critic Quentin Anderson and the great classicist Moses Hadas, both of whom spent late evenings with him discussing literature over drinks and long dinners at their apartments in Manhattan. Wachs was moved by the intensity of their commitment to literature as the highest form of human expression. “The lengths they went to communicate their love and understanding made me want to follow in their footsteps,” Wachs says. He still regularly attended peace demonstrations in Washington, DC, but Columbia and the great works he was reading broadened his political view of the world. He couldn’t unsee the beauty and mystery of the human condition that he experienced when he read Aristotle, Shakespeare, Homer, and Cervantes, and he no longer believed life could be reduced to simple economics, or that history was simply a catalogue of exploitation. The worlds he found inside books no longer swallowed him as they had when he was a child; rather, they imbued him with bright hope that he could find meaning in suffering. “When we experience the patterns of meaning in great literature,” he says now, “we’re inspired to make our own lives less passive and accidental, and more coherent and purposeful.” For Wachs, studying literature at Columbia taught him that he could make meaning out of the seemingly disparate pieces of his life, and that those pieces could be reassembled into a whole. When Wachs arrived at his senior year in college, he returned to his father in Brooklyn and told him he was considering law school. “What I want to do is be a lawyer like you,” he told Isaak. “I want to save the world, on my own terms.” Isaak demurred, and told him to take a few law classes. Ilja did, and reported that he

Ilja Wachs leads a seminar on the lawn.

found it boring, but he didn’t mind. This time, Isaak spoke strongly: “Don’t do it,” he said. “I wasn’t only using the law to effectuate social change, but I loved the law—I loved writing briefs, I loved researching cases, I loved preparing witnesses for cross-examination. I loved the whole process.” Then, he said something that Wachs will never forget: “Don’t just look for a thing to do in the world which involves your effectiveness as a citizen, but do something whose process gives you pleasure.” Wachs moved easily through Columbia’s PhD program in literature, but when it came time to write his dissertation, he felt yet again like a frightened adolescent, and he panicked. He loved studying literature, but writing strangled him with anxiety. Devastated by his stillborn dissertation, he withdrew from Columbia.

the birthday cake Wachs spent the next few years working a number of odd jobs—welfare investigator, short-order cook, reporter for a union newspaper, proofreader for an editorial agency. His income paid for sessions with a psychoanalyst four times a week, and for trips to Washington, DC, to participate in demonstrations for

photo by gary gladstone, courtesy of slc archives

ca. 1970s

the Civil Rights movement. Between apartment leases, he occasionally lived out of his car, parking on side streets in Manhattan and falling asleep while proofreading encyclopedias. Something fundamental within him was still dwarfed. Wachs says that these years, which represented one of the lowest points of his life, helped him in ways he’s extremely grateful for—and he tells his students this now, when they’re confronting potentially tough years after graduation. Working outside the academic world, alongside people who primarily found meaning in relationships, taught him something < 21

“I realized at that point that something had broken through—that my capacity to love, which had been buried in so many different ways, was returning.”

Wachs had been interested in the College since important about the human community and the the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, when potential for a fuller life. For example, Wachs President Harold Taylor said that he would and his parents had never celebrated birthnever fire anyone who was a member of the days, but at the restaurant where he worked, Communist Party. Wachs’ first day on campus, the staff baked birthday cakes for one another though, he grew suspicious. Coming from nonand would stay late to drink and laugh into the picturesque Queens, he was overwhelmed by night. Enough of these types of experiences the sensual beauty of the campus. His office had accumulated, and one day, Wachs drove to a window by a tree, and as squirrels romped Brighton Beach and lay on the sand. The beauty up and down the branches, guilt overwhelmed of the water and the sun, framed by floating him. At the time, Sarah Lawrence students were mountains of white clouds, unlocked something all female and mostly white and wealthy. His in him, and he began to cry. “I realized at that students at Queens College were mostly underpoint that something had broken through— privileged or minority students, and he cared that my capacity to love, which had been buried deeply about them and his ability as a teacher in so many different ways, was returning.” to help alter their circumstances. He felt that Soon after his experience on the beach, he should be teaching the students who needed a friend told him about a position teaching at him, or any committed teacher, the most. Queens College. Even though Wachs didn’t have His first course at Sarah Lawrence in 1965 an advanced degree, one of his former teachers, was a First-Year Studies overview of literature. literary critic and author Lionel Trilling, wrote He was teaching a collection of essays about him a letter of recommendation and he got the alienated labor, when one of his students calmly position. After his classes let out in the evening, he would hang around with his students and talk declared that it didn’t matter where she worked, she wouldn’t feel alienated. “Oh, come on,” to them. “I loved it,” he says. “I found that just Wachs protested. “Suppose you were an elevator by being me and by teaching, I could, you know, operator and you spent a whole day, all your life, establish relationships with students, which riding up and down in the elevator. What kind were relationships of loyalty and honesty and of experience would that be?” “I wouldn’t mind of openness. And I found, much to my surprise, that that was natural to me.” He devoted himself at all,” she replied. “I’d write a novel in my head while I was doing it, and then go home and write to the landmark SEEK program—the Search it down.” Her answer may have been slightly for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge—at Queens College, helping disadvantaged students naïve, but Wachs knew then that he would to attend college. He eventually became the cur- learn something important from these women, that he was in a place where people possessed ricular head, and became dear, lifelong friends “optimism and faith in the ultimate benevolence with one of the faculty. of existence”—qualities of life in which he was In the mid 1960s, Sarah Lawrence College only beginning to believe. And he also knew had a job opening on the literature faculty.

that he had something important to teach them about the reality of the way most people live. His years of psychotherapy had given him an acute ability to listen and an uncanny intuition into students’ lives, which were useful in conferences with students. “Sooner or later, students will begin to talk about where they come from, what their past has been like, what frightens them, what attracts them, what some of their ideals are,” Wachs says. “That enables you to help link what they’re studying to themselves. With that kind of knowledge, you can help them realize the meaning of a given text to their lives.” Wachs was impressed by his students’ social consciousness, which was often reinforced by their experiences in his class. “Anyone who has given themselves up to the vitality and depth of a Tolstoy world, for example,” he says, “is unlikely to be fully satisfied with a gray world of moneymaking or status seeking.” When Wachs began teaching, the protests against the Vietnam War were at their height. Students marched with him into Bronxville holding daffodils and singing peace songs, and he organized a group of students whose parents were Wall Street executives, leading anti-war seminars at their homes. He remembers both students and faculty sharing “a politics that was about the humanistic project of correcting injustices, opposing what we considered to be an unjust war, fighting against discrimination of all kinds.” In the fall of 1968, he worked with Kenneth Wentworth (music) to establish the Cooperative College Center, which drew from SEEK funding and helped disadvantaged

students from Mount Vernon to enter college— a project of which he remains immensely proud. Wachs remembers being buoyed by his sense that Sarah Lawrence was a real community, inspired by a sense of common values, the absence of ranks, and minimal administrative hierarchy. In those days, he says, the commitment to a common set of values also strengthened the collaboration between faculty and students. Wachs recalls a student who came to conference one day and asked, “Ilja, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” He told her it depended on the question. She proceeded to say, “Do we give you back enough?” After gulping a few times, he was able to reply, “Yes. Yes, you do.” He was awarded tenure in 1969. In 1980, he was elected to serve as dean of the College until 1985, and then he returned to teaching and served as the faculty representative on the Board of Trustees. Around 1,500 students have sat across from him in his office, many with tears filling their eyes, many who now send him e-mails or cards, or find him on Facebook, thanking him for changing their lives. A handful of his former students have become colleagues and still teach at Sarah Lawrence: literature teacher Fredric Smoler, writing

faculty members Melvin Bukiet, Brian Morton, and April Mosolino. One year shy of 50 years at the College, he is still teaching. He estimates he’s read War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, and Middlemarch each at least 30 times, and their power has yet to diminish. The books he teaches are ripe with instruction for how to live well, and through teaching them, Wachs continues to express his desire for a world in which human beings—rather than being splintered and set off against one another—are part of a living whole.

would help me to overcome the sense of isolation that I felt,” he says, “and a wish to enter into meaningful contact with others, to not waste any moments of value in experience, since anything that mattered could be abruptly, meaninglessly, and brutally ended.” His best friend, from Queens College, died in 2012. Around that time, Wachs began working, on occasion, with another psychoanalyst, who is helping him accept the reality of his own eventual death. But even in the sadness he experiences along with such thoughts, he radiates a deep sense of contentment. Maybe it is those blue eyes that are somehow both sharp and warm. Maybe it’s the way he folds his hands when he listens, or the width coming home of his constant smile. Life is still a mystery, and Wachs’ family, in many ways, carries the torch he still gets tired. But the fears that used to of his own social consciousness, and he says he haunt him have vanished. He has always told feels an intense sense of pride in their values his students that there are marvelous conseand accomplishments. His son was a campaign quences from encountering a fully meaningful organizer for the Democratic Party and now is world in the pages of a book. “Literature, at a vice president of an organization that works to eliminate childhood hunger in the United States. bare minimum,” he says, “instructs us about the His daughter worked in the orange groves of sacredness of human life.” Florida helping undocumented immigrants access health care, and she now helps adults Katharine Reece numbers herself among the hundreds of students without a high school diploma earn their GEDs. who can say that Ilja changed her life. She spent the summer of 2012 taking his oral history at his apartment in Manhattan, and many “My childhood left me with a hunger for of the quotes in this article come from those interviews. Carrying his human contact, a search for a community that story is one of the great honors of her life.

A da p t e d f r o m t h e 2 0 1 4 c o m m e n c e m e n t a d d r e s s

What’s the Use of a

LIBERAL

EDUCATION? Fa r e e d Z a k a r i a o n g e t t i n g a g o o d j o b —a n d m a k i n g a g o o d l i f e

ou are graduating from Sarah Lawrence, the quintessential liberal arts college, at an interesting moment in history—when the liberal arts are, honestly, not very cool. You all know what you’re supposed to be doing these days—study computer science, code at night, start a company, and take it public. Or, if you want to branch out, you could major in mechanical engineering. What you’re not supposed to do is get a liberal arts education. This is not really a joke anymore. The governors of Texas, Florida, and North Carolina have announced that they do not intend to spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts. Florida Governor Rick Scott asks, “Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don’t think so.” Even President Obama recently urged students to keep in mind that a technical training could be more valuable than a degree in art history. Majors like 24

w h ate v e r j o b y ou ta k e , i g ua r antee t h at t h e s p eci f ic s tu f f y ou h a v e l ea r ned at co l l e g e— w h ate v e r it i s — w i l l p r o v e m o s t ly i r r e l e v ant.

English, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline. I can well understand the concerns about liberal arts because I grew up in India in the 1960s and 1970s. A technical training was seen as the key to a good career. People who studied the liberal arts were either weird or dumb. (Or they were women because, sadly, in those days, the humanities was seen as an appropriate training for an aspiring housewife but not for a budding professional.) If you were bright, you studied science, so I did. I even learned computer programming—in India in the 1970s! When I came to the United States for college, I brought with me that mindset. In my first year at Yale, I took a bunch of science and math courses. But I also took one course in the history of the Cold War. That course woke me up and made me recognize what I really loved. I dove into history and

English and politics and economics and have stayed immersed in them ever since. In thinking about my own path, I hope to give you some sense of the value of a liberal education. But first, a point of clarification. A liberal education has nothing to do with “liberal” in the left-right sense. Nor does it ignore the sciences. From the time of the Greeks, physics and biology and mathematics have been as integral to it as history and literature. For my own part, I have kept alive my interest in math and science to this day. A liberal education—as best defined by Cardinal Newman in 1854—is a “broad exposure to the outlines of knowledge” for its own sake, rather than to acquire skills to practice a trade or do a job. There were critics even then, the 19th century, who asked, Newman tells us, “To what then does it lead? Where does it end? How does it profit?" Or as the president of Yale, the late Bart Giamatti, asked in one of his beautiful lectures, “What is the earthly use of a liberal education?”

I could point out that a degree in art history or anthropology often requires the serious study of several languages and cultures, an ability to work in foreign countries, an eye for aesthetics, and a commitment to hard work—all of which might be useful in any number of professions in today’s globalized age. And I might point out to Governor Scott that it could be in the vital interests of his state in particular to have on hand some anthropologists to tell Floridians a few things about the other 99.5 percent of humanity. It teaches you how to write But for me, the most important earthly use of a liberal education is that it teaches you how to write. In my first year in college I took an English composition course. My teacher, an elderly Englishman with a sharp wit and an even sharper red pencil, was tough. I realized that coming from India, I was pretty good at taking tests, at regurgitating stuff I had memorized, but not so good at expressing my own ideas. Over the course of that semester, I found myself beginning to make the connection between thought and word.< photo by james kegley

photos by chris taggart and dana maxson

I know I’m supposed to say that a liberal education teaches you to think, but thinking and writing are inextricably intertwined. The columnist Walter Lippmann, when asked his thoughts on a particular topic, is said to have replied, “I don’t know what I think on that one. I haven’t written about it yet.” There is, in modern philosophy, a great debate as to which comes first—thought or language. I have nothing to say about it. All I know is that when I begin to write, I realize that my “thoughts” are usually a jumble of half-baked, incoherent impulses strung together with gaping logical holes between them. It is the act of writing that forces me to think through them and sort them out. Whether you are a novelist, a businessman, a marketing consultant, or a historian, writing forces you to make choices and brings clarity and order to your ideas. If you think this has no earthly use, ask Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. Bezos insists that his senior executives write memos—often as long as six printed pages—and begins senior management meetings with a period of quiet time—sometimes as long as 30 minutes—while everyone reads the memos and makes notes on them. Whatever you will do in life, the ability to write clearly, cleanly, and—I would add— quickly will prove to be an invaluable skill. And it is, in many ways, the central teaching of a liberal education. It teaches you how to speak your mind The second great advantage of a liberal education is that it teaches you how to speak—and speak your mind. One of the other contrasts that struck me between school in India and college in America was that an important part of my grade was talking. My professors were going to judge me on the process of thinking through the subject matter and presenting my analysis and conclusions—out loud. The seminar, which is in many ways at the heart of a liberal education—and at the heart of this college—teaches you to read, analyze, dissect, and above all to express yourself. And this emphasis on being articulate is reinforced in the many extracurricular activities that surround every liberal arts college—theatre, debate, political unions, student government, protest groups. You have to get peoples’ attention and convince them of your cause. Speaking clearly and concisely is a big advantage in life. You have surely noticed that whenever someone from Britain talks in a class, he gets five extra points just for the accent. In fact, British education—and British life—has long emphasized and taught public speaking through a grand tradition of poetry recitation and elocution, debate and declamation. It makes a difference—but the accent does help, too.

It teaches you how to learn The final strength of a liberal education is that it teaches you how to learn. I now realize that the most valuable thing I picked up in college and graduate school was not a specific set of facts or a piece of knowledge, but rather how to acquire knowledge. I learned how to read an essay closely, find new sources, search for data so as to prove or disprove a hypothesis, and figure out whether an author was trustworthy. I learned how to read a book fast and still get its essence. And most of all, I learned that learning was a pleasure, a great adventure of exploration. Whatever job you take, I guarantee that the specific stuff you have learned at college—whatever it is—will prove mostly irrelevant or quickly irrelevant. Even if you learned to code but did it a few years ago, before the world of apps, you would have to learn anew. And given the pace of change that is transforming industries and professions these days, you will need that skill of learning and retooling all the time. These are a liberal education’s strengths, and they will help you as you move through your working life. Of course, if you want professional success, you will have to put in the hours, be disciplined, work well with others, and get lucky. But that would be true for anyone, even engineers. I kid, of course. Remember, I grew up in India. Some of my best friends are engineers. And honestly, I have enormous admiration for engineers and technologists and doctors and accountants. But what we must all recognize is that education is not a zero sum game. Technical skills don’t have to be praised at the expense of humanities. Computer science is not better than art history. Society needs both—often in combination. If you don’t believe me, believe Steve Jobs who said: “It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with liberal arts—married to the humanities—that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.”

That marriage—between technology and the liberal arts—is now visible everywhere. Twenty years ago, tech companies might have been industrial product manufacturers. Today they have to be at the cutting edge of design, marketing, and social networking. Many other companies also focus much of their attention on these fields, since manufacturing is increasingly commoditized and the value-add is in the brand, how it is imagined, presented, sold, and sustained. And then there is America’s most influential industry, which exports its products around the world—entertainment, which is driven at its core by stories, pictures, and drawings. It makes you a better person You will notice that so far I have spoken about ways that a liberal education can get you a job or be valuable in your career. That’s important, but it is not its only virtue. You need not just a good job, but also a good life. Reading a great novel, exploring a country’s history, looking at great art and architecture, making the connection between math and music—all these are ways to enrich and ennoble your life. In the decades to come, when you become a partner and then a parent, make friends, read a book, listen to music, watch a movie, see a play, lead a conversation, those experiences will be shaped and deepened by your years here. A liberal education makes you a good citizen. The word liberal comes from the Latin liber, which means “free.” At its essence, a liberal education is an education to free the mind from dogma, from controls, from constraints. It is an exercise in freedom. That is why America’s founding fathers believed so passionately in its importance. Benjamin Franklin—the most practical of all the founders, and a great entrepreneur and inventor in his own right—proposed a program of study for the University of Pennsylvania that is essentially a liberal arts education. Thomas Jefferson’s epitaph does not mention that he was president of the United States. It proudly notes that he founded the University of Virginia, another quintessential liberal arts college.

E v e r s ince w e r o s e out o f t h e m ud , w e h a v e b een on a q ue s t to un r a v e l t h e m y s te r ie s o f t h e uni v e r s e and to s ea r c h f o r t r ut h and b eaut y.

But there is a calling even higher than citizenship; ultimately, a liberal education is about being human. More than 2,000 years ago, the great Roman philosopher, lawyer, and politician Cicero explained why it was important that we study for its own sake—not to acquire a skill or trade, but as an end unto itself. We do it, he said, because that is what makes us human: It is in our nature that “we are all drawn to the pursuit of knowledge.” It is what separates us from animals. Ever since we rose out of the mud, we have been on a quest to unravel the mysteries of the universe and to search for truth and beauty. So, as you go out into the world, don’t let anyone make you feel stupid or indulgent in having pursued your passion and studied the liberal arts. You are heirs to one of the greatest traditions in human history, one that has uncovered the clockwork of the stars, created works of unimaginable beauty, and organized societies of amazing productivity. In continuing this tradition you are strengthening the greatest experiment in social organization, democracy. And above all, you are feeding the most basic urge of the human spirit—to know.

Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s flagship international affairs program, Fareed Zakaria GPS. He is editor-at-large of TIME magazine, aW ashington Post columnist, and the author of New York Times bestsellers The Future of Freedom and The PostAmerican World. His wife, Paula, earned an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence in 2010. photo by dana maxson

Written by Christopher Hann & Illustrated by Vaughn Fender

Critical

Liberal arts colleges have long argued that they do an excellent job of equipping students for smart, flexible

Abilities

careers. But for just as long, detractors have been

Does SLC prepare students for life after graduation?

their students, across the board, are ready to work?

At Sarah Lawrence, those questions hung in the air in the waning months of 2012, when Associate Dean Kanwal Singh (physics) and a small group of faculty started devising a way to demonstrate that the College’s singular approach to education is as effective as it claims to be. By the following spring, Singh’s four-member committee had a response: teachers would evaluate every Sarah Lawrence student on six abilities that reflect the student’s fitness for life beyond graduation. The new system, called Critical Abilities, asks faculty to measure each student’s capacity to think analytically, express ideas through writing, exchange ideas orally, work independently, bring innovation to their work, and accept and act on criticism. Those half-dozen skills are fundamental to a Sarah Lawrence education—and, not coincidentally, to building a worthwhile career. With the formal adoption of Critical Abilities

unconvinced. Sure, there’s anecdotal evidence about individuals’ success—the Rahm Emanuels and Barbara Walters of the world—but where’s the proof that liberal arts colleges are really worth the high price tag, or that

in the spring of 2013, Sarah Lawrence pioneered a method for measuring the liberal arts—and leapt into the national scrum over higher education.

Sarah Lawrence has always assessed its students, of course, most notably through its hallmark system of narrative evaluations, in which faculty provide students with a highly personalized evaluation of their course work and classroom contributions over the course of a semester. (For example, as Jammee Moudud (economics) wrote in one evaluation: “[This student] is a highly organized and theory-oriented scholar who should go on to graduate school to study political economy. … Her class papers were brilliant and showed a deep understanding of the controversies between the Marxian, Post-Keynesian, and neoclassical traditions. It is also significant how, in the second and

third papers, she teased out some of the bigger political/policy implications that arise from the economic theory …”) In 2012 the College was pushed to incorporate another assessment system by its accrediting organization, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which encouraged SLC (and many others) to devise a way to gauge how effectively it was meeting its educational mission. “We had to create a system that allowed us to assess students on an individual basis, to track a student’s progress over time,” Singh says. “You can’t learn anything about what you’re doing as an institution from one student here, one student there, or anecdotal evidence. It’s very important to look at the student body as a whole to say, ‘Are we, as an institution, in our teaching and learning processes, are we actually accomplishing what we say we want to accomplish?’” <

Accept and act on critique

Bring innovation to the work

Work independently

work might be exemplified by “imagining alternatives to existing approaches and solutions” or “becoming comfortable with experimentation, exploration, risk-taking, and invention.” A student’s ability to work independently might be shown by “finding resources and carrying out research” or “ensuring proper time management.” For each of the six aptitudes measured under Critical Abilities, faculty choose from a developmental scale, from “not yet

class, Singh says, it does not measure a student’s progress from class to class nor the student body as a whole. “It doesn't give the faculty a good sense of, ‘Do we have students who are just plateauing?’” Singh says. “Maybe they’re coming here as first-years and there’s a lot of growth in that first year. Do they continue to progress? It’s that looking at progress over time that we didn’t really have.”

The system provides faculty with a third layer of student assessment, complementing the narrative evaluation and the traditional letter grade.

Within the world of academic policy, Critical Abilities has gained notice from some influential corners. In October 2013, David Bergeron, a former US Department of Education official and now a leading figure at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think tank, reviewed Critical Abilities and discussed it with the Sarah Lawrence Board of Trustees. Bergeron told the board he considers the standards that define Critical Abilities to be precisely the sort of interdisciplinary qualities that employers in any industry look

history), and Sara Wilford (psychology), director of the Art of Teaching Program, who was later replaced by Peggy Gould (dance)—prepared guidelines that help define the parameters of each of the six Critical Abilities. For example, a student’s ability to bring innovation to his or her

Exchange ideas through speaking

Express ideas through writing

Think analytically

Singh says the faculty committee sought to create a solution that was not “off the shelf” but instead was organic to the educational philosophy at Sarah Lawrence. “For us, it’s really, what do we think is essential to being a Sarah Lawrence graduate?” Singh says. “What do we think are really the crucial things that you need to take away with you as a student?” The committee—Singh, Michael Siff (computer science), Malcolm Turvey (film

developed” to “well developed” and “excellent.” The system provides faculty with a third layer of student assessment, complementing the narrative evaluation and the traditional letter grade. While the detailed evaluation offers a richly nuanced appraisal of a student’s progress in an individual

for in job candidates. “If you assess every student against those six things and communicate back to the student how they’re doing, then the student is getting prepared for that next stage of their life, getting prepared for their entry into the work force, which will value their capabilities in these areas,” Bergeron says. The national media is paying attention as well. Stories about Critical Abilities appeared in Inside Higher Ed and on National Public Radio. The New York Times published a letter about the assessment tool by President Karen Lawrence. Lawrence also extolled the long-term benefits of the program in a Forbes.com essay. “Only an education that gives graduates the critical abilities they will need in order to thrive, not just today but in the years and decades to come, will have any value at all,” she wrote. “Students, and their parents, deserve to know that the college of their choice holds itself accountable for developing these critical abilities.”

To date, Critical Abilities has been in use for three semesters. That’s not enough time to gauge its long-range efficacy, but it’s already given faculty a hint of its value. Peggy Gould says she sees the potential for Critical Abilities to quantify certain aspects of students’ work in her dance classes, where the ability to think critically, accept criticism, and work independently on a project are just as vital as in a biology class. For example, Gould’s students routinely analyze their work through oral and written expression. “I will often ask students to formulate a decisive question as a way for me to evaluate where they are in their thinking about the subject matter,” she says. In every

discipline, including the performing arts, she says, “If you have a problem, to frame a question about it is often the first step to finding an answer.” Critical Abilities, she says, gives professors an opportunity to see each student from a formalized perspective. “It adds a kind of conceptual scaffold that wasn’t there before,” she says. “It reminds me to start from zero with every student, to think

President Lawrence and Kanwal Singh traveled to Washington to explain the system to a private gathering of higher education leaders, including about a dozen college presidents, organized by the Center for American Progress. “It’s important for Sarah Lawrence to play a leadership role here,” Lawrence says. “I think we have an extraordinary education—we want that known— and I think we have something to offer in

Those half-dozen skills are fundamental to a Sarah Lawrence education—and, not coincidentally, to building a worthwhile career. about each student as an individual in relation to the material in the course.” Some faculty were initially skeptical about adding another layer of student assessment. Joseph Forte (art history) says, “I frankly felt that the College’s pedagogy might be compromised by an emphasis on quantitative vs. qualitative evaluation, as a measure of faculty and student ‘success.’” He was converted, he says, by the “thoroughness and thoughtfulness” of the faculty committee’s work. “More importantly,” he says, “I found the categories to be meaningful, an armature that one might use to build our narrative evaluations consistent with our core values.” This fall, during registration week, students reviewed their Critical Abilities assessments with their dons for the first time, a critical step in the evolution of a system that College officials describe as a work in progress. Meanwhile, Sarah Lawrence continues to gain attention for Critical Abilities. In June, at the invitation of David Bergeron,

this development of a nuanced, useful assessment tool that doesn’t compromise work in the classroom but grows out of it.” Bergeron, for one, is keeping a close eye on Critical Abilities, mindful of its potential to help other colleges validate their educational methods. “I think the Sarah Lawrence model demonstrates there’s ample mobility outside that vocational model—that students in liberal arts programs are really being prepared for life, which does include a job for most of them,” Bergeron says. “These are the kinds of things you put in a cover letter when applying for a job or graduate school. “These things aren’t new. What’s new is that Sarah Lawrence has come up with a way to systematically capture them.”

Christopher Hann is a freelance writer living in New Jersey and an adjunct professor of journalism at Rutgers University. He hopes that his ability to express ideas through writing is well developed.

Triathlete

Myles Lewis Alexander ’10 Awards International Triathlon Union San Diego Sprint Champion, 2013 (course record); Boiler Sprint Champion, 2012, 2013, 2014; two-time All-American, Team USA world record holder

Lives In Chicago

Back Story Alexander began swimming and then running as a way to build back his strength after nearly dying of anorexia.

One 5K led to another, then it was on to biking. His coach suggested a triathlon. He won his age group in his first race in 2010. After two years of being a weekend warrior, he decided to pursue the sport professionally and has been at it ever since.

tances. Olympic distance is 1,500 meter swim, 40K bike ride, 10K run. Sprint triathlons are half. “The long course is the Ironman stuff where they race for eight hours,” Alexander says. “That I don’t do. I’ll do that when I start slowing down.”

Must-Haves An obsessive and persistent work ethic and unwavering belief that you will win. “Not that you can win,” Alexander stresses. “That you will win.”

Key Moment At Alexander’s first race this season, the South Beach Triathlon, not only did his handlebars break, but he also lost all the nutrition packs affixed to them. “It was hot and humid in Miami,” he says. “I needed the calories and the salt. I had the perfect excuse to drop out.” Instead, he rode as hard as he could—and won.

Nice Work if You Can Get It The day-to-day grind is grueling. “My job is to wake up every morning and make myself physically suffer for six hours a day,” he says. “You have to be willing to puke during swim practice or run so hard you get a bloody nose, or ride until you feel like your legs are going to fall off.” Most people set an alarm to get up in the morning. Alexander sets an alarm to make sure he gets to bed for at least 10 hours. Course Work Swim. Bike. Run. In that order. Alexander is a short-course triathlete, meaning he races sprint or Olympic dis-

Why It’s Important Alexander hopes his story can help others. “There are a lot of struggling people out there with eating disorders,” says Alexander. “If we can all be a little more open and help each other out, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. There’s nothing wrong with saying I’m sick and I need help— and getting that help.”

landscape architect

Anne Vaterlaus MFA ’85

Position Owner of Terrane Landscape Architecture, LLC Lives In Watertown, Massachusetts

Back Story Vaterlaus, who comes from a long line of gardeners, got involved in community greening projects when she lived in Brooklyn, landscaping empty lots into friendly, flower-filled spaces or community gardens. “It had a ripple effect,” she says, “turning into a contest to have the greenest block in Brooklyn.” Skill Set Vaterlaus draws from three waves of training, in painting, creative writing, and urban and regional landscape architecture. “They’re not as separate as you might think, because the fine arts and the visual sense of sculpture, form, and color really plays into landscape architecture,” she says. She puts her writing degree to work as well, creating narratives for her visual concepts. Obstacles “In 2008, when my whole class at Harvard graduated, the Great Recession happened,” she says. “Nobody in my class was able to find work.” Nice Work if You Can Get It Vaterlaus grapples with issues that range from creating urban green spaces to providing elegant solutions to water issues to developing inviting open areas for playgrounds, parks, and schools. She’s designed an urban farm in industrial Somerville, Massachusetts, and worked with a team to design the campus and recreational spaces for a new university in Turkey. But the

project closest to her heart might be her landscape for a replica of a Norwegian stave church in Connecticut. She used local stone for all of the walls and paving. And when she asked the client if they might like a cemetery next to the church, they wanted to go the extra mile and have it approved as a “green” burial site, where bodies are interred in biodegradable caskets or shrouds. “It’s been just the most wonderful project,” she says. Why It Matters For one Battery Park skyscraper, Vaterlaus worked with a firm in New York City to create an intensive green roof, planting 160 species of

ornamental plants, vegetable gardens, berry patches, and a fruit orchard. “That takes a little convincing, for people to want a lush environment on a roof that may be more costly than rolling out sedum mats,” she says. “But you also create an area of ecologi-

cal diversity good for migrating birds and migrating pollinators, which really do need to have places to stop and recharge as they move through cities. Green roofs don’t just benefit humans, they benefit urban wildlife.” <

“ T hey’re not as separate as you might think, because the fine arts and the visual sense of sculpture, form, and color really plays into landscape architecture.” 33

nonprofit CEO

Position CEO, Planned Parenthood of Montana; CEO, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana Lives In Billings, Montana Back Story After studying studio art, history, and literature at Sarah Lawrence, and earning a master’s in Latin American studies from the University of Texas, Stahl found herself drawn to work at mission-driven organizations. Early stints included fundraising for a domestic violence and sexual assault center and working in alumni relations at Sarah Lawrence. Sphere of Influence Stahl not only oversees five Planned Parenthood health centers throughout Montana, she also heads up the advocacy arm that works to get champions of reproductive rights and women’s health care elected. “The ability to feel like you can bring significant power and influence to the table when it comes to getting people elected can be really satisfying,” she says. “People think Montana is a red state, but it’s really a purple state. We really have some extremes— a pretty conservative legislature but incredibly supportive US senators.”

You Gotta Love In a health-care climate that is in the midst of extraordinary change and upheaval—think health care reform, expanded Medicaid, electronic medical records—Stahl says her biggest challenge is working through the uncertainty. “There’s a lot of possibilities, a lot of opportunities and challenges. But no one knows yet where the world of health care is going to go,” she says. “You have to be able to accept not having answers.”

Epiphany Years ago, Stahl took away a pearl of wisdom from an otherwise deadly dull management and leadership class. “As a leader and as a manager, you should only be doing the things that only you can do,” she says. “For me, as someone who likes to have control, that’s a good lesson. It frees you up to prioritize.” Why It’s Important “Access to our services is really access to the world of possibilities for our patients. The things we do have such a long-term impact on the

lives that people can live because they have control over their reproductive health care and health care in general,” she says. “It’s imperative that we maintain that. And not just maintain the status quo but move it forward and make social change, and challenge how we deal with women’s health care and reproductive health care, and how we think about sexuality and sexual health in general. That’s why I come to work every day.”

documentary filmmaker

Bernardo Ruiz ’95

Position Founder of Quiet Pictures Lives In New York City

Back Story Ruiz was always interested in narrative nonfiction and journalism, on the one hand, and cinema on the other. “Documentary-making ended up being the perfect combination of those things,” he says. Portfolio Roberto Clemente (American Experience, PBS, 2008); the bilingual documentary series The Graduates/Los Graduados (Independent Lens, PBS, 2013); and Reportero (POV, PBS, 2013) Style As intimated by the name of his company, Ruiz appreciates an understated style. “That kind of patient filmmaking that rewards a viewer for sticking with it,” he says. “The equivalent would be slow cooking rather than knocking something out quickly. The great documentaries steep you in a world that you didn’t know anything about.”

thing to film,” says Ruiz. “But I also knew I could get great closeups of his eyes or his hands on the steering wheel, those kinds of classic things. But that only came from spending a lot of time.” Reportero was nominated for an Emmy this year.

Evolution In the last six years, Ruiz has moved away from the more classic documentary model that uses experts to describe the story and explain issues. He likes to find complex people who have direct experience with the issue and follow them on their journey. “Through those people you do get to see the bigger-picture issues,” he says. “It’s much more thrilling, much more visceral.

You get to connect with people in a different way.” His latest film on the US-Mexico drug war will be released in 2015. Obstacles “You rarely have any control over what’s going to happen,” Ruiz says. Last fall he flew to Mexico to film a big military

parade. Instead, a hurricane shut down the whole city. You Gotta Love “The joke in our office is, if you want to be a documentarian, the two skills you should learn are how to take out the trash and QuickBooks.” <

“ T he equivalent would be slow cooking rather than knocking something out quickly. The great documentaries steep you in a world that you didn’t know anything about.”

Substance “So much of documentary-making is developing a rapport with the participants,” Ruiz says. “By the time you are ready to film you have a clear idea of what they do, who they are, what kind of things to focus on.” For Reportero, Ruiz spent lots of time with a political corruption and organized crime reporter— including a weekly, hour-long drive to Tijuana and back on a treacherous mountain path—sans camera. “When I was ready to film, I knew that was a very cinematic sequence, a very beautiful

public school principal

Cassandra Hyacinthe MSEd’90 Position Principal, Peekskill High School Lives In Mount Vernon, New York Back Story In the early 1990s, Hyacinthe was the program coordinator for the Child Development Institute at Sarah Lawrence. An

educator for more than 20 years, she taught elementary school, and served nine years as an assistant principal at the ele mentary and high school levels. “I’ve had a full spectrum of observing, interacting with, and building a deep understanding of student development from

early childhood through adolescence,” she says. Key Moment Six years ago, Hyacinthe transitioned from an elementary school assistant principal to a similar high school position. Since she had never taught at that level, the move did not follow a traditional career path. However, Hyacinthe quickly demonstrated that she understood the high school culture and engendered the respect and trust of her teachers. “I was accessible, visible, and reliable,” she says. “So they knew when I encouraged them to think differently, it was from a solid knowledge base and strong commitment to learning.” Community Center Hyacinthe recently moved from the school

district where she had been assistant principal to a nearby community to take the reins at the high school. Of her previous school, she says, “Many of our students have very tough lives. They have to be very independent. They work everywhere— every grocery store, every mall. They’re industrious, resilient, and creative. What I love about them is their spirit. I’m looking forward to building a caring community and relationships in my new school.” Cultural Awareness As a newly assigned principal, Hyacinthe strives to maintain a safe and orderly environment so that teachers feel supported and motivated. “My greatest challenge will be fostering a positive culture where teachers are valued, and at the same time leading for change.” Head Cheerleader Hyacinthe is mother to three young adults— two sons and a daughter—each of whom has a different style of learning, she is quick to point out. “What I wanted for my own children is how I want to honor the students I’m entrusted with,” she says. “Despite the fact that high school students may exceed my height by several inches, I always keep in mind that they are young men and women still needing guidance and support. I believe deeply that given the right environment, the right expectations and resources, and genuine relationship-building, they will reach their goals and achieve great things.”

biotech entrepreneur Position Chief scientific officer, Aratana Therapeutics Lives In Durham, New Hampshire Back Story Rhodes started out living and working on a communal farm in California, where she sheared the sheep and milked the goats and followed the vet around when he made a call. “I didn’t plan any of my career,” she says. “Most of it just happened. I just took advantage of whatever opportunities showed up in front of me.” In short order, those opportunities included becoming a large-animal veterinarian, getting a PhD, working as a researcher in the pharmaceutical industry, and founding, growing, and selling her own start-up. Business Plan 101 Rhodes and a business partner founded AlcheraBio in 2001 to help biotech firms take some of the same drugs being developed for humans and rework them for animals. (Dogs, cats, and horses get diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, too.) What she learned after knocking on many doors: “You probably should go out and ask your potential customers first.” It turned out that back then, the biotech world looked at drug development for animals as a stigma. “If you tried to take your drug into veterinary medicine, it was a signal to the investment community and to your shareholders that it probably wasn’t going to work in people so the best you could do was take it into dogs,” she says.

Which Is Okay Because AlcheraBio quickly found its own lucrative niche consulting and running clinical trials for animal-health companies. Which Is Okay Because, Part II Four years ago, two venture capital firms approached Rhodes. Licensing human pharmaceuticals for animals was an idea whose time had come. They were ready to put up serious capital ($25 million worth of serious) if Rhodes would sign on as CEO. When Aratana Therapeutics went public last year, Rhodes moved to chief scientific officer, focusing on the part of the business she enjoyed most. “People

love their animals, and that’s why our business is so successful. In the next five years there’s going to be a whole flood of really innovative drugs for our pets that never would have been available,” Rhodes says. “To me that’s just such a fabulous way to cap off my career.”

Must-Haves Self-confidence. “That’s totally what you need as an entrepreneur. You have to be delusional,” she says. “You have to think that your business is definitely going to thrive when the vast majority of businesses don’t. And then 99 percent of it is blood, sweat, and tears.” <

“ In the next five years there’s going to be a whole flood of really innovative drugs for our pets that never would have been available.” 37

cognitive neuroscientist

Nathan Spreng ’00 Position Assistant professor in the department of human development; director of the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition at Cornell University Lives In Ithaca, New York Back Story Spreng was in a Sarah Lawrence seminar on memory when he became riveted by the case study of an amnesiac who

had also lost his ability to think about the future. “I thought that was really strange,” says Spreng. “Why is it that if you lose the past, you also would lose the future? What was the nature of that relationship? Basically that question propelled me to graduate school. Because there was no answer for it.” You Gotta Love Computer programming. Statistics. “And now

that I’m a professor, there’s lots of meetings and more grantwriting,” Spreng laughs. “The part that I really enjoy is data analysis and looking at brain images, trying to understand what the pattern is.” Epiphany As a Harvard post-doc, he attended an invitation-only conference about the aging brain. There, it became clear to him how little is known about the transition from healthy to pathological aging. “What are the changes taking place in the brain before people actually begin to show signs of dementia? I felt a moral responsibility to contribute to

that endeavor,” he says. Besides his ongoing work on memory, his research program is looking for markers in both brain and behavior that signal where things go awry. He believes it will become possible to identify— and stop—the onset of dementia. “It’s a horrible, insidious disease. And we don’t know all the mech anisms,” he says. “The thing is, it’s not a natural consequence of getting older.” Obstacles Funding. “The Obama Brain Initiative is a good publicity campaign,” he says, “but it represents a less than one percent increase in funding after 10 years of decline.” Who Knew? Spreng went to Sarah Lawrence to write poetry and study philosophy. When a dalliance with psychology caused him to make a sharp turn into the hard sciences, he felt he was betraying his close friends in the arts community. “I didn’t realize there is actually a lot of creativity in this work in terms of designing a study, interpreting the results, trying to connect these kinds of patterns,” he says. “Conceptually I don’t think there’s as big a divide as it seems. It took me a while to understand that.”

“ T he part that I really enjoy is data analysis and looking at brain images, trying to understand what the pattern is.” 38

ALUMNI

lady-bird cornelia fort ’39 in 1942

Read Cornelia Fort’s 1941 essay about flying at slc.edu/magazine/fort

Photo courtesy of the National Museum of the United States Air Force

“I shudder when I think how easily I might have missed that road that led to the airplanes, to the misty summer sunrises … and to all the little remembered bits of happiness that fit into the flying pattern,” wrote Cornelia Fort ’39 in the October 1941 issue of this magazine, in an article called “LadyBird.” After studying literature at Sarah Lawrence, Fort became a pilot, and was the second person accepted into the newly established Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Service (WAFS), an organization of female civilian pilots hired to fly planes from factories to military air bases. She would also be the first female pilot in American history to die on active duty, at the age of 24. Fort, who sported pearls daily and had the nickname “Cornie,” defied the expectations of her wealthy Southern family and of her generation by becoming a pilot—a career her father had forbidden her brothers from pursuing, given its inherent risk. When her father died in 1940, Fort took her first flying lesson and soon became the first female flight instructor in Tennessee, where she was raised. In the fall of 1941, she was hired to teach US defense workers, soldiers, and sailors to fly in Hawaii. She was in the air with a student on December 7, 1941, when an unfamiliar plane zoomed by. Fort noticed a red sun insignia on the plane, then spied the smoke rising over Pearl Harbor—she had just witnessed the Japanese attack that would launch the US into World War II. The contrails of Fort’s plane—and those of the other women in WAFS—marked a new path for women in aviation. As “Lady-Bird” makes clear, the sky was where Fort felt most alive. At the time of her tragic death in a midair collision in 1943, she had logged more than 1,100 hours in the air. ::

—Katharine Reece MFA ’12

slc.edu/magazine

ALUMNI

events

AS YOU WISH Over 560 alumni, guests, faculty, and staff returned to campus for Reunion 2014, coming from as far away as France, Hong Kong, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The Alumni Art Exhibit saw its 10th anniversary, and more than 150 people attended the opening reception, while on Friday, a new reunion tradition was born: screening The Princess Bride! As alumni reconnected with old friends under the shining sun, we asked them to weigh in on the theme of this issue: What makes a meaningful life?

“ The first thing that popped into my mind was relationships— relationships with family, relationships with friends—because without that, any other kind of activity doesn’t have the same value.” “ I think a meaningful life is trying to understand about as many other people as you can, so that you broaden your own perspective. Understanding other people’s perspectives is what’s going to make a better world.” Aislinn Garner ’15

“ It’s not necessarily being happy, but it’s doing what you believe in and care about, and making things happen that you think ought to happen.” Michael D.D. White ’74

fall 2014 magazine

Lenore Karo ’02 MA ’03

“ I think living a meaningful life means living on purpose. It’s unfair of us to say that helping others or following a passion makes a meaningful life, because the majority of the world can’t do that. If you have a family to feed and you have to work in a factory or at Walmart, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a meaningful life. You’re doing it for your family, and your purpose there is to put food on the table for your kid. We have the privilege, we have the opportunity to go out there and help others, to make an impact, but that doesn’t take away from everyone else who can’t.” Matt Sabo ’09 “ A life of kindness, love, and connection. That’s really everything. If you have those things, what more do you need?” Nancie Schnur ’74

“ I thought at first it was being of service, and I still do. I’m a librarian, so I’d better believe that or I’d be really miserable. But now I also think that it’s to be comfortable with what you’re doing and with yourself. I’m still working on that one.” Mariko Kato ’90

photos by Manal Abu-Shaheen ’03, Dana Maxson, Quyen Nguyen, and Chris Taggart

slc.edu/magazine

ALUMNI

transitions

Trouble in Paradise

orking construction in New York, the Frisbee king of Westlands Lawn dreamed of Mexican sun. In 2007, Richard Contreras ’06 scraped together enough cash for a real-estate course and a plane ticket to Cancún, and soon moved southward to sleepy Tulum, snagging a job as a real-estate agent at Coldwell Banker. But paradise wasn’t quite perfect—not yet. Broke from locked commission rates, Contreras decided to set up his own tiny agency in a seaside wooden palapa. Two hours south of Cancún, Tulum is a haven for eco-chic travelers who prefer Mayan ruins to manicured resorts. Its turquoise waters and rustic amenities make it the perfect antidote to the spring break frenzy of its northern coastal neighbors. The beachside inns and eateries exist off Mexico’s main electric grid, so evening meals are cooked in wood-burning ovens and enjoyed under torchlight. Barhopping in Tulum is done by flashlight under an inky night sky full of stars. Contreras saw profound realestate potential for buyers looking to trade their smartphones for a good siesta. But one month after opening day, he woke before dawn to a panicked voice on the phone. His office was on fire. He ran to the beach. Only a charred husk of the palapa remained. Ashen CPUs stood barren next to walls streaked with gray and black. His paper records of real-estate

transactions—which were invaluable in a place with no multiple listing service—were scorched. Without those records, explains Contreras, local “fraudsters and hucksters” could easily take advantage of novice buyers by inflating land and property prices. “You really have to know the prices that people are actually

One month after opening day, he woke before dawn to a panicked voice on the phone. paying, because people inflate prices tremendously to see what they can get away with.” The cause of the fire remains unknown. Contreras decided to rebuild almost immediately, though he certainly demurs when he calls his rebound “a little rough.” His business partners quit, leaving him to work in isolation for an entire year. Things started to change in 2009, when he joined forces with his long-estranged father. A high school dropout from Veracruz, his father was a self-made businessman who had been an early gambler on Riviera Maya property. Together, they rebuilt the realestate business. But new difficulties, including wild property litigation, were compounded by local bureaucratic intransigence. In April 2010, for

example, Contreras managed a sevenhour showdown over a misfiled deed. “The guy from the sheriff’s office had a letter from a judge saying that I had to hand over the property to them, and they had 12 big, beefy guys to back them up.” Contreras responded by bringing in a construction crew to occupy the land in dispute. “We had ourselves a proper Mexican standoff!” The case was eventually settled in Contreras’ favor. Eventually Richard, his father, and his sister Mimi built Aki’in, a destination-wedding beach club, and Pico Beach, a cluster of thatchedroof cabanas. Contreras sold his stake in the real-estate business in 2012, shifting his focus to translating between wedding vendors and clients, ensuring that nervous foreign brides understand everything about their event. And now that Contreras has settled into the rhythm of doing business in the area, he’s returned to an enduring passion: food. In 2011 he helped build, manage, and promote Alux, a restaurant inside a limestone cavern. Within its surreal vault, one can sip the Mayan delicacy huitlacoche–corn truffle soup–under imposing stalactites. Bolstered by that success, Contreras is now opening his own restaurant. Construction has just been completed on Richarito’s Grill, which will specialize in classic Tex-Mex fare with a focus on meat prepared over an open flame. The menu may have been inspired by his experience at Sarah Lawrence, where he founded

fall 2014 magazine photos courtesy of richard contreras

the infamous student club PETA, “People Eating Tasty Animals,” which paired a roast of suckling pig with a screening of Babe. Contreras loves the tangible nature of the buildings and restaurants he’s helped build. Though he works daily at “breakneck speed,” he acknowledges the intense beauty of his setting, where beachcombers perform eastward salutations each day at sunrise. He seems to be flourishing in the Caribbean heat. “I can go swimming in a cenote in the middle of the day to cool off,” he says, referring to the gorgeous underground pools that dots the Yucatan Peninsula. When asked how he now endures threehour Frisbee games in 90 percent humidity, Contreras replies with characteristic nonchalance. “You get used to it.” —Samantha García ’06

Mark your calendar and join us for the celebration next summer!

Reunion 2015 June 4 – 7

When Was the Last Time You Came to Visit Dear Ol’ Sadie Lou? Maybe it’s been years, or maybe just a few short weeks. No matter how long it’s been, there’s nothing like returning to Sarah Lawrence!

Reconnect with your SLC friends and classmates Rekindle the passion of seminar discussions with stellar faculty Renew the excitement and joy of your college experience For more information on Reunion 2015 and other alumni programs, please contact the Sarah Lawrence College Office of Alumni Relations: http://alum.slc.edu • alum@sarahlawrence.edu • (914) 395-2530

ALUMNI

publications

Michele Tolela Myers

Andy Butler ’00 (DJ, songwriter)

Fugue for the Right Hand

Hercules & Love Affair The Feast of the Broken Heart dance / big beat/atlantic, 2014

novel / harvard square, 2014

Old-school Chicago House music imbued with dance-floor melancholy.

Myers—honorary alumna and former president of Sarah Lawrence—weaves together the stories of a homeless person, an economics professor, and a young pianist, with the 2012 presidential campaign and Hurricane Sandy as backdrop to an exploration of economic inequality.

Victoria Kahn ’73

The Future of Illusion:

Political Theology and Early Modern Texts nonfiction / university of chicago, 2014

In recent years, the rise of fundamentalism has led to a powerful resurgence of interest in the problem of political theology. Kahn proposes a return to secularism in politics, promoting literature and art as a force for secular liberal culture.

Joanna Fitzpatrick MFA ’01

The Drummer’s Widow novel / la drôme, 2014

A woman faces life alone after losing her husband of 35 years. He was a famous drummer who traveled all over the world; she was his manager; they were inseparable. How can she live without him?

Jessica Hendry Nelson MFA ’10

If Only You People Could Follow Directions: A Memoir

memoir / counterpoint, 2013

In linked autobiographical essays, Nelson explores her family’s deep bond amidst addiction, mental illness, and death.

Celia Bland ’85 (co-author)

Madonna Comix:

A Collaboration in Image and Word fine art & poetry / jim leisy, 2014

In this large-format, limited-edition art book, printmaker Dianne Kornberg and poet Celia Bland explore the iconography of woman as physical, maternal, and spiritual being.

Joan G. Hauser ’58

A Life of Her Own novel / beach plum, 2014

In the early 20th century, a girl’s quest for independence takes her from a Russian shtetl to the Lower East Side in search of safety, freedom, and success.

Jenny Kerr ’77 (singer/songwriter)

Head of Fire

country / mondotunes, 2013

The fourth release from folk songwriter Jenny Kerr includes “Blossom in the Dust,” recently named Song of the Month by Broadcast Music, Inc.

Contact Sarah Lawrence magazine when your work is published: magazine@sarahlawrence.edu 44

fall 2014 magazine

Elissa Sussman ’05

Arielle Strauss ’13

novel / greenwillow, 2014

novel / escape artist, 2013

This debut fantasy novel follows the path of Princess Aislynn in a world rich with magic, curses, fairy godmothers, royalty, and the challenges of duty.

Ophelia Weller never believed in ghosts until the night she became one. Now she is forced to conceal her undead identity from the world, while struggling to remain visible to the humans around her.

The Wraith: Book One

Stray

Shelley Brock ’86 (co-author)

Invitation to Architecture: Discovering Delight in the World Built Around Us nonfiction / taunton, 2014

Look up. Look around. Invitation to Architecture presents a case for the importance of architecture in our day-to-day lives.

also recently published Nancy Alvarez ’70

The Girls and Me novel / createspace, 2013

Cynthia Barnes ’65

Pansy in Paris:

A Mystery at the Museum children’s / october, 2014

Christine Benvenuto ’82

Sextet: A Literary Love Triangle Claudia Zuluaga MFA ’02

Fort Starlight novel / engine, 2014

Broke and stranded in a half-finished tract house in a swamp, Ida Overdorff clings to her dream of returning to New York, while weathering storms both meteorological and emotional.

short stories / shebooks, 2014

Alex Bernstein ’85

Miserable Holiday Stories short stories / prom on mars, 2013

Catherine Coleman Brawer ’64 (co-author)

The Art Deco Murals of Hildreth Meière

nonfiction / andrea monfried, 2014

Dawn Corrigan ’89

Kaui Hart Hemmings MFA ’02

Mitigating Circumstances

novel / simon & schuster, 2014

Gwen Edelman ’72

novel / five star, 2014

The Possibilities

After Sarah St. John’s son dies in an avalanche, a strange girl arrives on her doorstep. Hemmings, the author of The Descendants, considers the difficult questions of what we risk to keep our loved ones close.

Train to Warsaw novel / grove, 2014

Nina Freedlander Gibans ’54 (co-author)

Cleveland Goes Modern:

Design for the Home, 1930 – 1970 nonfiction / kent state, 2014

Sarah Thomas Gulden ’93

Balancing the Wheels:

A Practical Guide to Chakras in Yoga and Life nonfiction / createspace, 2014

Chloe Honum ’03

The Tulip-Flame Michelle Wildgen MFA ’02

Bread & Butter

poetry / cleveland state, 2014

Maxwell Neely-Cohen ’08

novel / random house, 2014

Echo of the Boom

Kitchen Confidential meets Three Junes in this novel about three brothers who run competing restaurants—and the culinary snobbery, staff stealing, and secret affairs that unfold in the back of the house.

novel / rare bird, 2014

Sarah Yaw MFA ’02

You Are Free to Go novel / engine books, 2014

slc.edu/magazine

ALUMNI

then & now

the white room In SLC’s early years, the Westlands White Room was a formal space, hosting a wedding, funeral, countless concerts, student art exhibits, and a formal for World War II soldiers in 1943. But in 1976 it became the admissions office, and cubicles and folding chairs replaced the Greco-Roman busts, tiger pelt, and baby grand piano.

photo courtesy of College Archives

ca. 1930

2014

Photo by Quyen Nguyen

This year, with the generous support of Nancie Cooper MFA ’04, a design firm renovated the space, making it welcoming and sophisticated once again. The marble fireplace, which had been covered up, was restored, and the walls painted a warm yellow. Paintings by pop artist Robert Indiana adorn the walls, along with student work from the printmaking class taught by Kris Philipps ’85 (visual arts). The room now functions as a light-filled, multipurpose space for prospective students.

fall 2014 magazine

ALUMNI

why i give

Williams in 1976, post-graduation.

sally williams ’76 Director of Advancement at Germantown Friends School and chair of The Fund for Sarah Lawrence

“ Sarah Lawrence attracts a tremendous faculty that nurtures students and teases out what they’re passionate about, and finds ways to take those passions to the next level.” then Graduated alongside her mother, who began her degree in 1949 and finished with Sally in 1976. now Her nephew is Alexander West ’17, making Sally part of three generations of SLCers. then Fulfilled her physical education requirement by playing Ping-Pong. now Remains an avid Ping-Pong player today. then Always appreciated the beauty of campus, particularly Westlands Lawn and the wisteria arbor. now Lives in a restored barn on eight acres that once belonged to her great-grandfather. then Studied with Grace Paley (writing); wanted to be a fiction writer but couldn’t afford rent as a writer. now She still hasn’t closed the door on writing short stories, and remembers Paley’s words: “Writing is something you love to do and that you do when you can.”

ill

ph g fig

then Took a job as a paralegal, then became a teacher at Germantown Friends School, and moved her way up to director of advancement. now Uses the genuine voice and confidence she cultivated as a writer at Sarah Lawrence to tell the story of her school. then Has donated consistently since she graduated; began contributing on the leadership level in 2003. now Gave $10,000 in 2014.

slc.edu/magazine

OUT BACK

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection 3 Sections by Vijay Seshadri (writing)

Rereading Remember that family who lived in a boat run aground and capsized by the creamy dunes where the plovers nest? Sea, sun, storm, and firmament kept their minds occupied. David Copperfield came and went, and their sympathy for him was such that they pitied him almost as much as he pitied himself. But their story is not like the easy one where you return to me and lift my scarred eyes to the sun and stroke my withered hand and marry me, distorted as I am. He was destined to dismantle their lives, David Copperfield, with his treacherous friend and insipid wives, his well-thought-out position on the Corn Laws and the constitution. They were stillness and he was all motion. They lived in a boat upside down on the strand, but he was of the kind who couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand that land was not just land or ocean ocean.

fall 2014 magazine

tio

ra st

id av D y sb

d oa Br

Ill

Memoir Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life. The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations. If I wrote that story now— radioactive to the end of time— people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn’t peel the gloves fast enough from your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame. Your poor hands. Your poor eyes to see me weeping in my room or boring the tall blonde to death. Once I accused the innocent. Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty. I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow. And one October afternoon, under a locust tree whose blackened pods were falling and making illuminating patterns on the pathway, I was seized by joy, and someone saw me there, and that was the worst of all, lacerating and unforgettable.

slc.edu/magazine

OUT BACK

critical writing

Script Meeting So, there’s this guy—what is he, forty, fifty? He has a condition, a history. Exurban, depressed, but alert, his senses are sharp. He hears the little hiccups embedded in the pattern of sound. Sleep-walking in the woods, premonitions of cataclysms, flashbacks to black ops— all of which you do a nice job of establishing under the opening credits— dimple, we might say, the emptiness of his days. And, then, next, cue the family memories: Only a little bit less tedious than the accident on I-5, his guilt-soaked diary entries in a fine copperplate hand the eighteen-wheeler, rain, fog, a doe; are the drooling flashes of nobility interspersing his psychotic episodes. the lake, the stalled outboard motor, the rogue wave; You have his eyeballs the explosion in the warehouse, twitching out of their sockets right here, which is very good, and how many times have we seen that before, how many times something needs to be blown up right about here. have we left the multiplex disappointed, But we have to know what actually happened sooner convinced our needs will never be satisfied by rather than later. Remember, the world’s mimetic gestures? our reputation as a studio is built not on suspense Don’t leave us feeling like that. Stick with your guy. but on horror. He’s his own zombie. We like the genetically engineered second wife and son. He haunts his own nights. The zombie in the basement, not so much. Not in this life will he tear himself from the bank of the burning river, hotfooting it on the radiating marl as his arrow of longing seeks the other shore. Not in this life, or the next. Show us what that means to him and what he means to it. As our master said so long ago in the London drawing room brilliant with candelabras, “Here let us linger as the coal-fired Victorian ambience curses outside. Never forget that both in art and that which art comprehends the whom you create is the key, it is to the whom you create that the what, after all so trivial, so adventitious, upon examination, will, or, as likely, will not, happen. The rest we can manage digitally.”

fall 2014 magazine

Elegy I’ve been asked to instruct you about the town you’ve gone to, where I’ve never been. The cathedral is worth looking at, but the streets are narrow, uneven, and a little grim. The river is sluggish in the summer and muddy in the spring. The cottage industries are obsolete. The population numbers one. The population numbers one fugitive who slips into the shadows and haunts the belfries. His half-eaten meals are cold on the empty café tables. His page of unsolved equations is blowing down the cobblestones. His death was so unjust that he can’t forgive himself. He waits for his life to catch up to him. He is you and you and you. You will look to him for your expiation, face him in the revolving door, sit with him in the plaza and soothe his fears and sympathize with his story and accustom him to the overwhelming sun until his death becomes your death. You will restore his confiscated minutes to him one by one.

Vijay Seshadri was born in Bangalore, India, and came to America as a small child. He is the author of three other collections of poems: Wild Kingdom, The Long Meadow, and The Disappearances. He has taught writing at Sarah Lawrence since 1998.

Reprinted from 3 Sections with the permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis.

slc.edu/magazine

fall 2014 magazine

Ursula Schneider

Fireworks Hudson River

Pigment and urethane on laminated nylon

45" x 94"

2010

artist

title

medium

size

created

Ursula Schneider (visual arts) doesn’t want you to think she’s a pyromaniac. “I'm a pyrotechnician,” she explains. “I’m really good at making fires.” Fire and light often appear in her work; she once created a massive sculpture out of driftwood on the Arctic coastline and then set it ablaze.

fire in the sky

Schneider first fell in love with fire as a child in Switzerland, where Swiss National Day is celebrated with fireworks (the holiday is akin to America’s Fourth of July). Ever since, she’s been fascinated by that ephemeral moment when, against the background of dark space, fireworks explode into a circle or fountain. Geometry proved her friend as she set to work on “Fireworks Hudson River,” sketching with protractors and rulers to create a variety of perfect, colorful circles.

“Fireworks Hudson River” is part of a series exploring the shifting seasonal light in upstate New York. The painting was part of “Always There, Imagine,” a solo exhibit at the Barbara Walters Gallery at SLC during April, in honor of her retirement from Sarah Lawrence this spring after 28 years of teaching.

Another painting from the Hudson River series that was featured in the show was “Aster & Asteroids” (2011). In it, five asteroids replace the fireworks, suspended in a darkened sky. Schneider created this piece as a complement to the fireworks piece, reflecting her awareness of other things hurling around in space that are worrisome and should also command our attention. –K.R.

OUT BACK

gallery

THE FUND FOR SARAH LAWRENCE

SOMMER MAHONEY ’16 literature, history, and political economy

2015

WHY I GIVE ...

“Sarah Lawrence fosters the notion that you can do anything— that there’s no need to be held back by society’s norms.” — Alice Ackerman, MD ’75

THE SARAH LAWRE NCE EXPE RIE NCE

Embracing Passion Realizing Purpose

Give the gift of empowerment. Like our intrepid alumni, SLC students are fiercely proud of their individuality and independence. Yet they share at least two important things in common: academic freedom to pursue a life path of their own choosing and visionary faculty to help them navigate that path—wherever it may lead. Give the gift of a Sarah Lawrence education. Donate to FSL today. GILBERTO PEREZ

Visit www.slc.edu/give

film history | faculty

or call Jody Abzug,

The Noble Foundation Chair in Art and Cultural History

Senior Director, FSL (914) 395-2533

1 Mead Way Bronxville, NY 10708-5999 www.sarahlawrence.edu

NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

S. HACKENSACK PERMIT # 897

“ A life of kindness, love, and connection. That’s really everything. If you have those things, what more do you need?” – page 41