the college magazine fall 2011

CollegeTheF a l l 2 0 1 1

S t . J o h n ’ s C o l l e g e • A n n a p o l i s • S a n t a F e

ChopinMusic’s Mysteries

The College

is published three times a year by St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD,

and Santa Fe, NM

Known office of publication:Communications Office

St. John’s CollegeBox 2800

Annapolis, MD 21404-2800

Periodicals postage paid at Annapolis, MD

postmaster: Send addresschanges to The College

Magazine, CommunicationsOffice, St. John’s College, Box 2800, Annapolis, MD

21404-2800.

Patricia Dempsey, [email protected]

Jennifer BehrensArt Director

The College welcomes letters onissues of interest to readers.

Letters can be sent via e-mail tothe editor or mailed to the

address above.

Annapolis410-626-2539

Santa Fe505-984-6104

Contributors

Samantha Buker (A05)Michael Comenetz

Paul HamiltonLaurent Merceron (A08)Anna Perleberg (SF02)

Deborah SpiegelmanJames Williams

Babak Zarin (A11)Elliott Zuckerman

Magazine design by Claude Skelton Design

O n C h o p i n

Franz Liszt, Chopin’s friend and fellow composer, noted of Chopin: “Musicwas his language, the divine tongue . . . . [T]he anguished cries of Poland lendto his art a mysterious, indefinable poetry which, for all those who have trulyexperienced it, cannot be compared to anything else.” When paying tributeto Chopin for this issue of The College, Elliott Zuckerman references thehuman voice—and instruments that sing: “[E]ven in his non-vocal works the

player has to ‘sing.’ ” And “it is since Chopin that great pianists have been noted for theirsinging touch.”

Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849) was a child prodigy in Warsaw; he wrote his firstpolonaise at age seven and by age eleven he performed in the presence of Alexander I, Tsarof Russia. Chopin moved to Paris in 1831, spending his short life as a brilliant innovator inmany forms, from prelude to nocturne. His nuanced, deeply felt compositions are writtenprimarily for the piano. “For Chopin to be engraved upon your soul,” writes Zuckerman,“it is perhaps necessary to feel him in your fingers, to respond to music not only as motionand sound, but texture and touch.”

St. John’s sophomores in Annapolis are introduced to Chopin through examples, inparticular a mazurka (Polish dance) for piano, in The Sense of Music, a book by ViktorZuckerkandl, a tutor at St. John’s from 1948 to 1964. This mazurka is “an example forZuckerkandl of the lively interplay between rhythm and meter in music,” says EricStoltzfus, who teaches the sophomore music tutorial in Annapolis. In this issue, Stoltzfustells us how it feels to play Chopin on the cello—with Elliott Zuckerman on piano. In Santa Fe, musician-in-residence Peter Pesic prefers to perform Chopin’s works inintimate settings. “I don’t think Chopin ever imagined his mazurkas being played in a bighall,” he says. Pesic describes how in Santa Fe he introduces several preludes by Chopin insophomore music: “We study the first, his homage to Bach’s first prelude, in detail, andthe fourth, a miniature masterpiece of chromaticism that helps us approach the musicallanguage of Wagner and the twentieth century.”

For some alumni, encounters with music at St. John’s have been life changing. SamanthaBuker (A05) lyrically describes how she “came away from my time at St. John’s convincedthat music is the purest form of beauty present in the world.” Music connects us all; thedeep listening that moved Buker is similar, perhaps, to the “deep reading” that “bringspeace,” as novelist Salvatore Scibona (SF97), a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award,says in his interview. As much as music at St. John’s transformed Buker’s life, learning toread the St. John’s way transformed Scibona’s life. “When a book and a reader are one, theright fit,” says Scibona, “it’s a deeply mind-melded focus.” Similarly, Buker describes aperfect concert in which “music, performer, and listener are as much a unity as can be.”

Part of the magic of music is that it moves us. As Eric Stoltzfus says, “music is part ofwhat makes us human, including me.”

Deep listening, deep reading—these are among the wonders that The College explores.But something more makes listening to music or reading great works at St. John’spowerful: sharing the experience with others. What Buker calls “the phenomenon of aperfect concert,” Pesic calls “music as conversation.” Scibona simply notes that to haveread and discussed the Program books with others is “such a gift.”

The fact that individual experience is transformed by collective energy and exchange isnot lost on other alumni featured in this issue. Glenda Eoyang (SF76), an entrepreneurwho studied the “butterfly effect”—the wind from the flapping of its wings can be felt onthe other side of the earth—explores how ripples between and among us become the powerof “many.” Entrepreneurs like Eoyang and strategic coach Dan Sullivan (A71) tap into theforce and mystery of connections among us.

Finally, thank you to Barbara Goyette (A73) for her inspired ideas, and farewell andthank you to the previous editor of The College, Rosemary Harty (AGI09). I am honored tocarry the torch and celebrate all things St. John’s.—P.D.

{ C o n t e n t s }

CollegeTheF a l l 2 0 1 1

V o l u m e 3 6 , I s s u e 1

T h e M a g a z i n e f o r A l u m n i o f S t . J o h n ’ s C o l l e g e A n n a p o l i s • S a n t a F e

p a g e 12

Connected by Chopin

Alumna Samantha Buker (A05) andtutors ruminate on musical conversations and phenomena, including the perfect concert.

p a g e 20

Commencement

Leo Pickens (A78) reflects on the art ofcontemplation; Victoria Mora celebratesimagination.

p a g e 24

Reading to Write

Acclaimed novelist Salvatore Scibona(SF97) felt unqualified to write until helearned to read—the St. John’s way.

p a g e 26

The Power of Many

Glenda Eoyang (SF76) and Dan Sullivan(A71) harness the dynamics of humaninteractions to transform lives.

d e p a r t m e n t s

2 from the bell towers

• Santa Fe welcomes a new dean• A graduating senior on “learning to live”• Chris Nelson’s 20th year as president• Au revoir, John Christensen (HA99)• Cheers for the orchestra!• Dr. Norman Levan’s (SFGI74) generous

bequest• Alumni reflect on Reality• Summer Academy debut• Readers share music stories

30 bibliofile

• Peter Eichstaedt (SF92) explores theravages of Eastern Africa

• White Asparagus serves up eclectic delights• Valéry’s Graveyard: Le Cimetière marin

Translated, Described, and Peopled

32 alumni

P R O F I L E S

32 Laura Strache (A02) hedges her bets onWall Street

35 Bruce Sanborn’s (SFGI09) mid-lifejourney to St. John’s

42 Algebra is a “Faustian bargain” for Steve Morse (A68)

44 alumni voices

A Joyce ride to Piraeus with Gregory Rhoades (SFGI89)

45 obituaries

48 croquet

50 association news

52 st. john’s forever

p a g e 1 2

p a g e 3 2

p a g e 3 8

o n t h e c o v e r

ChopinIllustration by David Johnson

2

{ T h e C o l l e g e • St. John’s College • Fall 2011 }

{ F r o m t h e B e l l T o w e r s }

Incoming Dean J. Walter Sterling earned hisbachelor’s degree in 1993 from St. John’s inAnnapolis, and a master’s degree in philosophyin 1997 from Emory University. He heldacademic positions at Loyola College,Gwynedd-Mercy College, and Temple University, and worked with Project H.O.M.E.in Philadelphia, before joining the faculty inSanta Fe in 2003. He succeeds Victoria Mora,who has been Santa Fe dean since 2006. Sterling’s tenure began on July 1.

You discovered a community through ProjectH.O.M.E. Can you describe this experience?After teaching philosophy here and there, I spent several years working for ProjectH.O.M.E., a nonprofit that principally works totransition folks out of homelessness but is alsoinvolved in broader urban revitalization efforts.I developed and taught in a whole range ofadult education classes—basic literacy, GED,college and vocational prep—working primarilywith people in mental health and substance-abuse recovery programs. It was a wonderfulexperience. I could go on and on about all thegood things that I found there. I maintain astrong connection with that community and tryto support the organization as much as I can from this distance. Iturned to that work out of some ambivalence regarding life in“academia.” But after a few years, I realized that I wanted toreturn to my vocation as a student and teacher of philosophy.

What brought you to Santa Fe?I have strong ties to Annapolis. Quite strong. In addition to mybeing an alum, my father is also an alum and a member of thefaculty there. Born and bred in that briar patch! I wanted to cometo Santa Fe because it represented the education that I love and towhich I am indebted, but with a new setting, fresh faces, and theadventure of this beautiful city andlandscape. It has been the right blendof same and other, the familiar andthe surprising.

Do you have particular goals for yourdeanship?Not yet. We all recognize that we are in a challenging moment for St. John’s, for liberal education, forhigher education, at the very least achallenging economic environment.Much of the strategic work of theDean’s Office in the coming few years will involve navigating this environment.

Day to day, I hope to be an advocate and a support for the realwork of our learning community. As far as I’m concerned, St. John’s stands for the greatest aspiration of education: thepossibility that the human soul can be illuminated and ennobledby inquiry into the whole of things. That we are acutely aware thatwe fall short in many ways is further evidence of how persistentlyhigh we aim. It’s an honor to serve that end, be it in the classroomor the Dean’s Office.

What about when you’re not in the classroom or the Dean’s Office?My wife, Meghan, and I are driven to delightful distraction these

days by our two little boys, Will [2 years of age], and Luke [3 months].As seriously as I have tried to takeeducation throughout my life, being afather does seem to raise the stakes. Itry to maintain a bit of proverbialbalance by running and cycling; I loveto run our mountain trails here. Thisyear, on my sabbatical and in my effortto “grow old learning many things,” I have been attending classes at theUniversity of New Mexico School ofLaw. I’ve worked with great folksdown there and have enjoyed “just”being a student again. x

—Deborah Spiegelman

St. John’s Welcomes a New Dean in Santa Fe

Santa Fe’s new dean, J. Walter Sterling (A93)

“St. John’s stands for thegreatest aspiration of

education: the possibility that the human soul can be illuminated and ennobledby inquiry into the whole

of things.”J. Walter Sterling

te

ri

r

an

da

ll

3



Kaura Mackey (A11) has deeproots at St. John’s College: she isthe ninth person in her family tobe a student at St. John’s; hercousin is a sophomore. TheCaritas Society asked Mackey tospeak at the annual Aprilluncheon, a gathering in theAnnapolis boathouse of thevolunteer members who hostfundraisers and other events toassist students who have unex-pected financial emergencies.

Mackey spoke of her belief inthe “value” of a St. John’seducation: “What I do treasuremost is something that unfortu-nately is lost on a lot of people.St. John’s gives a liberal educa-tion that is ‘education’ in thetruest sense of the word. Onecriticism of St. John’s is thatwhat we learn here does nothave a practical application, butthis is false, and I will tell youwhy....I have my family as proof.My aunt went on from St. John’s

to become a doctor. My uncle isa diver, and he repairs boatswhile they are still in the water.Another aunt left St. John’s andbecame an artist. Another unclebecame a chemical engineer. My dad is a mechanical engineer. My cousin is acomputer programmer. Anothercousin works for a nonprofitthink tank in D.C.”

The most valuable thing thatMackey will take with her fromSt. John’s is “not that all careersare open to me.” Rather, shesaid, it “is put very concisely bymy father. If asked why he wentto St. John’s, he answers, ‘I wentto St. John’s to learn how tolive.’ He does not mean that St. John’s teaches people whatthe right way to live is, butrather it gives students the toolsto be able to examine our livesand decide for ourselves how weshould live.”

Mackey, who volunteered at alocal Annapolis elementaryschool while attending St. John’s, headed to Phoenix,Arizona, in July to begin herteacher training at Great HeartsAcademy. “St. John’s is theperfect foundation to become a

teacher, because in learning toteach ourselves, we discoverhow to teach others.” x

To read Mackey’s speech visit theCaritas Society’s website:www.stjohnscollege.edu/friends.

President Chris Nelson (SF70), Kaura Mackey (A11), and her

mother, Surinder Mackey.

Learning how to live

When Talley Kovacs (A04)invited Jaime Dunn, Annapolisdirector of Career Services, tobring students to the MarylandCourt of Appeals to hear oralarguments and meet with thejudge for whom she wasclerking, Dunn gladly accepted.On Tuesday, May 10, ninestudents from St. John’s—fourfreshmen, two juniors, twoseniors, and a sophomore—satin on a session at the MarylandCourt of Appeals. Arrivingbefore the session began, thestudents were briefed on thecases they would be witnessingand visited with Judge ClaytonGreene Jr. before entering thecourtroom. They witnessed twocases that were on the docket:Ford Motor Credit CompanyLLC v. Maureen P. Robersonand Montgomery County,

Maryland v. Kenneth Deibler.“The Court of Appeals of

Maryland is like the kind ofdiscussion you get in a seminaras the panel of judges dives intothe details of the cases, askingquestions to prompt the lawyers

to clarify their opinions, anddiscussing among themselves tofind an answer to the societalquestion that needs judgment,”says Chang Liu (A14). Chang,named a Davis World Scholarthis past winter, aspires to workin international law and foundthe trip to be a good first steptoward that goal. “Seeing thereal courtroom inspired me tocompare the legal systems in

the UnitedStates. andChina. I amgoing home toChina thissummer toexplore thedifference.”

Alumnimentoring isnot new at St. John’s, butthis springDunn hasinfused it withnew energy andopportunities.

“Kovacs signed up to be analumni mentor earlier thissemester and visited thecampus in April to talk abouther experiences post-SJC inapplying and going to lawschool,” says Dunn.

Word of the Court of Appealstrip spread quickly. SeveralJohnnies, hearing about it fromtheir friends, have alreadybegun asking for similar oppor-tunities in other fields, whichDunn welcomes. “It’s so impor-tant to me to be able to exposestudents to the possibilities thatawait them after graduation,especially if they involveconnecting with alumni. I hopeto do more of these site visitswith alumni mentors, and Iencourage alumni to contact myoffice if they’d like to be amentor and/or have studentsvisit them at their organiza-tions.” For more informationcontact Jaime Dunn: 410-626-2500 or [email protected].

—Babak Zarin (A11)

Jaime Dunn, director of Career Services,

connects students with alumni.

Alumni Mentoring

on the Docket



4

When Chris Nelson arrived inAnnapolis as the new presidentof St. John’s 20 years ago, thecollege’s academic programwas its greatest strength. Thathasn’t changed. What haschanged are the support structures for the Program: the college endowment wentfrom $27 million to $135million; new dorms were builtand a new library renovated;the student body increasedfrom 417 to 485 students; twocapital campaigns wereconducted, one for $35 million,the second for $134 million;improvements to health andcounseling services, careerservices, and athletics wereidentified and funded; staffprofessionalism increased; thecollege’s investments were real-located; and the ManagementCommittee was established tobetter coordinate administra-tive matters between thecampuses.

For someone with noacademic leadership back-ground, this is a remarkableachievement. While Nelson isan alumnus (Santa Fe, class of1970) and has served on theBoard of Visitors and Gover-nors, he brought fresh eyes tothe job of running a small,

unusual liberal arts college.Indeed, over time, Nelson hasbecome one of the most activeand influential liberal artscollege leaders. His back-ground as a labor lawyer helpedprepare him to read politicalsituations accurately and toreact positively. And his true

love of St. John’s and his clear-eyed understanding of theimportance of liberal educationhas made him a sought-afterspokesperson. Such themes as“We don’t live in order to get ajob. But we work in order tomake it possible for us to live agood life” eloquently address

today’s issues and make greatmedia quotes. The Wash-ington Post featured a profileof Nelson this spring, citinghim as one of the mostinfluential college presidentsin the country.

In celebration of Nelson’s20 years, the Board of Visitors

and Governors honored him ata dinner on June 18, attendedby 160 of the college presi-dent’s closest friends: alumni,Annapolis residents, parents,fellow college presidents, andMaryland education leaders.Following is one in a series oftributes offered. Eva Brann,who served as dean with ChrisNelson during the early 1990s,describes his contributions. x

Celebrating Two Decades of Leadership

Chris Nelson champions the liberal arts

From left, Jay Schwarz,

Santa Fe Dean J. Walter

Sterling (A93), Camilla

Schwarz (A84), and Bud

Billups, former Annapolis

treasurer.

Mike Uremovich (SFGI05), Dr. Stephen Forman (A70), President Chris Nelson (SF70),

Ron Fielding (A70).

This is an occasion, the 20th anniversary of Chris asour president, that I am trulysorry to miss. But I’m off toTbilisi, the capital of theRepublic of Georgia, to leadsome demonstration classes ata small independent liberalarts college—the only such, Ibelieve, in Georgia, which hadin the middle ages a gloriousPlatonic Academy—a schoolwith a program largelymodeled on our college of St. John’s. A number of tutorsand alumni are seriouslyengaged there, and Chrishimself has helped this coura-geous undertaking, just as hehas assiduously spread ourgospel in America.

My most detailed experi-ence, however, of our presi-dent’s devotion to the collegecomes from the days in thenineties when I was an admin-istratively clueless dean and hea deft new president. Alongwith Bud Billups and JeffBishop, Chris and I met regularly to deal with collegeissues. We all helped eachother, but it was Chris whopresided, and I want to tell youin what manner.

At other institutions ofhigher education—I’ve visitedscores of them and I think ofmost of them as “institutions,”while our college is a “school”to me, a student-friendly placeof learning—the relation ofdeans to presidents is profes-sionally if not personally

strained, for they are meant tohave somewhat conflictingagendas. I soon formed formyself a far more friendlynotion of my relation to thispresident. By our Polity, whichhas protected our stableintegrity so well, the Dean, theInstruction Committee, and,of course, the Faculty as awhole are responsible formaintaining the Program’sessence—that is to say, its heartand soul—while the presidentlooks after the school’s existence, its survival, andwell-being. Knowing well thatyou can’t live well unless you’realive, I never had any problemin thinking of myself as servingunder Chris. Someone has tohave the last word and that hadbetter be the one who protectsour very place in the world.

But the real reason that wasan easy submission was thatChris was never a “normal”president, even in a goodsense. He was a Johnniethrough and through. He was,to be sure, the son and fatherof Johnnies in lineage, butwhat counts more, he was insoul an alumnus, a nursling ofthe college.

He had one of the gifts of aleader for us: an acute andfocused ingenuity in unscram-bling difficulties. How oftendid he pull my chestnuts out ofthe fire when I got terminallyconfused by numbers, forwhich he has a genius! Howcleverly he would find a way to

hold onto one of our wickedkids, when in my disgusteddeanishness, my hastyprescription would be abrusque “Out!” His capacityfor listening, his memory thatkeeps him on top of details, his patience in massagingproblems—are, in one of ourstudents’ favorite terms,“awesome.”

But my real point is not thatChris has been, throughoutthis score of years, within andwithout, an effective president,canny in keeping us alive anduntiring in bringing us beforethe public. It is that in him,care for the existence of theconcrete community andregard for its ideal programhave been blended. He is wellversed in both the conditionsof our survival and the preservation of our substance.Consequently, he really understands our greatest challenge—that the exigenciesof St. John’s as an institutionmight squash the soul of ourcollege as a school, as acommunity of learning. Heknows intimately, from within,how to value and defend thisschool and its Program, whichhe loves.

And this Program, nownearly three quarters of acentury old, is lovable, and ourcommon attachment for it hasa very precise cause: Under it,and the pedagogy that goeswith it, we infuse thinking withpassion and inform passionwith reason. That is whatmakes this tiny place a giant inthe educational landscape—butalso, on occasion, a giant-slayer, for, small as we are, wehave fought and won quite afew battles—Chris in the lead.

Of course, I have my reservations about some of his proclivities. He has an

enthusiasm for Virgil’s Aeneas,a taste pretty much confined tomen, I think. He actuallyadmires this stuffy hero, whoprobably goes to bed in hisbreastplate, so driven that hespurns Dido, the passionateAfrican queen who dies forhim. For myself, I loveHomer’s Odysseus for longingto return home to Penelope,his queenly Ithacan wife wholives for him. This unstuffyhero does take his time gettingthere and is ardently welcomedand reluctantly released by anumber of lushly magicalwomen on the way. But onceOdysseus gets home, he stayshome, and, like Chris, governshis austere little kingdom, thebest place on earth. That’s aserious difference between us,to be sure—but what an occa-sion for great conversations!And so, even in this lapse,Chris proves a true Johnnie, anengaged lover of our books.

For all these reasons I have—I can say confidently, we allhave—this hopeful wish: 20 more years! x


{ F r o m t h e B e l l T o w e r s } 5

Chris Nelson’s 20th Year as Our President

by Eva Brann, dean emerita

He had one of the gifts of a leader for us: an acute and focused ingenuity inunscrambling difficulties.

His capacity forlistening, hismemory thatkeeps him on top of details, his patience in

massaging problems—

are, in one of our students’

favorite terms,“awesome.”


{ F r o m t h e B e l l T o w e r s }6

When John Christensen(HA99) arrived at St. John’sCollege 33 years ago as directorof admissions, he embraced thecollege community and theProgram. “I had to learn asmuch as I could to explain theProgram to others and makesure of the right fit for aprospective student,” herecalls. “Friends urged me toconsider whether I wanted toembark on a career thatdepended upon the ability of18-year-olds to make rationaldecisions about their futures.”But Christensen knew that inSt. John’s he had found theright fit.

“John Christensen has beenan impressive builder ofcommunity,” ChristopherNelson told the tutors, staff,family, and friends that gath-ered in June to commemorateJohn’s retirement. “When Johnarrived at the college in 1978,he undertook with simpledirectness an education aboutthe college….He engaged withus by taking the full four yearsof seminar, first as a participantand then as a third tutor at thetable. He developed an under-standing of the books so that hecould talk about them withprospective students and alsowith his fellow members of thefaculty. He is in every sense oneof us.”

In a sweep of three decades,Christensen has seen innumer-able changes, among them aheightened interest from international students. He attributes the uptick to thereach of the web, scholarshipssuch as the Ahmet ErtegunFund, and his travels overseas,especially to the United WorldColleges (high schools) incountries such as Bosnia,Wales, Norway, and Italy. “We also saw an increase in

interest from students in theformer Eastern block, wherethere is a real appreciation ofour Program, as these studentsseldom had the opportunity tostudy Western philosophy,literature, and history,” he says.

Christensen says he especially found rewarding his international admissionswork with the United WorldColleges, whose mission is tobring students from around theworld to each of their smallcampuses to promote mutualunderstanding and worldpeace. “The diversity on thesecampuses is amazing, and youend up at lunch in the dininghall with Israelis and Pales-tinians, for example, sittingside-by-side talking calmly andthoughtfully about things theyhave in common and abouttheir cultural differences. OnceI talked to a Bosnian, whoseroommate was Croatian, and hewas telling me what goodfriends they had become andhow they hoped to attendcollege together. ‘Justthink,’ he said, ‘A fewyears ago our parentswere trying to kill each other.’”

Despite the dramatictechnological shifts inhow liberal artscolleges approachprospective students,there is one aspect ofcollege admissionswork that Christensenbelieves will notchange: the importanceof helping a prospectivestudent find the rightfit in a college. “That’sespecially importantnow because everyonewho works in theadmissions process—high-school counselors

and college admissions officersalike—knows that the atmos-phere is tense and that college-bound students today face evengreater pressure and anxietyabout choosing a college. I willdepart St. John’s Collegefeeling good about our effortsto keep our application processas simple and straightforwardas possible—no early decision,early action, regular decision,or wait lists—so that prospec-tive students can focus on whatour academic program has tooffer them. Our model ofeducation and smaller size haveallowed us to operate this way,and I realize how fortunate Ihave been.”

Many at the college feelfortunate to have worked withChristensen. As Nelson said,“John has been the indispen-sable man, utterly reliable,dedicated to the college that heloves, meticulous in his work,careful, thoughtful and faithfulin communicating the nature ofthe Program to generations ofpotential students.” AnnapolisDean Pamela Kraus says, “Johnhas shown immense dedicationand capacity for work; he has,

an incredibly rich, detailedunderstanding of the admissions office and of St. John’s College—both itshistory and its purposes—and agenerous, cooperative spirit.”

John retired on July 30, 2011.“After 33 years in admissions,”he says, “I still find great satisfaction in hearing about‘an ideal match.’” x

—P.D.

John Christensen Retires “Friends urged meto consider

whether I wantedto embark on a

career thatdepended upon

the ability of 18-year-olds tomake rational

decisions...”John Christensen

John Christensen (HA99) reflects on his three decades

in Admissions at St. John’s.

je

n b

eh

re

ns

7 { F r o m t h e B e l l T o w e r s }

A conversation courtyard, withits closely planted groupings ofAllegheny Serviceberry trees andstone benches, is the perfectshady spot for Johnnies to kickoff their shoes, read, and talk on

a warm day. The new conver -sation courtyard is in front of Humphreys Hall, near theentrance to the Annapoliscampus bookstore. In addition,the adjacent quad has been

revitalized with spruced-upbenches and walkways. Two talland slender “Valley Forge”American Elm trees replace thebushy, low-growing dogwoodshrubs by the rear steps—broad-ening the sloping view of backcampus and College Creek.

Tutor Jeffrey Black, head ofthe Campus PlanningCommittee, says that folks oncampus are delighted with thechanges: “All of the reactions Ihave heard so far have beenuniformly positive. Communitymembers like the look of thequad and the Humphreys court-yard, and have started to use theseat walls now that the weatherhas gotten warmer.”

The refurbishment of the quadand the new courtyard werefunded by a gift from ErwinGreenberg, a member of thecollege’s Board of Visitors andGovernors, and his wifeStephanie Cooper. They wantedto enhance the campus bybringing more life to theHumphreys yard and by sprucingup the well-worn quad.

Nelson Byrd Woltz LandscapeArchitecture of Charlottesville,Virginia, designed the projects,which are part of the college’scomprehensive master plan, with

input from the Campus PlanningCommittee. In addition, the Historic PreservationCommission of Annapolisapproved the college’s proposalafter the city’s arborist andarchaeologist lent their oversightto the project during a publicmeeting.

“Special challenges ariseevery time you dig inAnnapolis,” says Black. “Forexample, how to match theCollege’s many preexisting brickpatterns, or how to keep squir-rels (and community members)out of freshly-plantedflowerbeds.” The trees, shrubs,flowers, and grasses chosen arenative species, in keeping withthe college’s commitment toenvironmentally conscious landscaping.

“Our chief consideration wasto make the Humphreys court-yard a welcoming space—withoutdetracting from the centrality ofthe quad,” says Black.

These new features alreadyseem well-established; on arecent sunny day, numerousstudents were reading in theconversation courtyard, tuckedamong the trees. x

—Laurent Merceron (A08)

Shaded conversation

courtyard beckons

Do you have a musical instrument in yourhome that is gathering dust? The musiclibrary in Annapolis is looking to add tothe few instruments currently on hand. Ofparticular need are violin, cello, stringbass, bassoon, English horn, brass instru-ments (trumpet, trombone, French horn),and timpani.

“We would love to have a standingcollection of musical instruments that wecan make available to students in need,”says Eric Stoltzfus, Annapolis musiclibrarian. “In the past we have helpedstudents locate violins, French horns, astring bass, and even timpani to use withthe orchestra.”

If you own an instrument in good repair,please consider loaning it or donating it

permanently to the college. The musiclibrary is also accepting donations topurchase or rent sheet music forperforming ensembles, to purchase a set oftimpani, and for instrument maintenance.

Tutor David Stephenson has directedthe St. John’s College Orchestra inAnnapolis for 20 years. In recent years theorchestra has performed symphonies byBeethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and Schubert,concertos by Vivaldi and Mozart, BachBrandenburg Concertos and OrchestralSuites, and even excerpts from DonGiovanni and The Magic Flute. x

For more information, please contact Eric Stoltzfus in the Music Library: 410-295-6904 or [email protected].

Cheers for Orchestra!


Revisiting

Reality

As an alumnus thinking back onmy own St. John’s experience,the event that always strikes meas the most amusing and improb-able is “Reality Weekend,” inwhich our tiny Republic ofLetters casts aside its books andbalances and transforms itselfinto a miniature Bacchanalianfestival. But for all the revelry andcalculated chaos, a strong groupof organizers (four reality chiefsand a planning committee) and alot of time and energy (onemonth of organizing and a schoolyear of fundraising) ensured that

Reality 2011, held on theAnnapolis campus, was a partyworth attending.

In keeping with this year’stheme of childhood, the weekendincluded a petting zoo, a scav-enger hunt, and a messy game ofpaint-Twister. As usual, theweekend kicked off with theannual marathon relay race,followed by the junior-class skit(in which lampooning students,faculty, and Program authors arethe order of the day), and a danceparty in the Great Hall.

By the following morning,students had been transported toa magical land where colorfulstreams of crepe paper hung fromthe trees, and a nine a.m. wake-up call consisted of orange juiceand thumping rock ’n’ roll. Chalkdrawings covered the bricksurfaces of buildings, grills werebeing lit, and student bands weresetting up for outdoor perform-ances. (Oh, and I heard that a fewweeks earlier, students recordedChris Nelson reading bedtimestories—his voice was auctionedto raise money for the weekend’sfestivities.)

The petting zoo (comprised ofa pony, a donkey, a lamb, and twogoats) was an especially big hitamong students, though animalsafety was an important concernfor the organizers. In addition toa Reality archon and an animal

handler maintaining constantsupervision, co-archon MichelleWeinmann (A12) says, “Wewanted to make sure that theanimals felt comfortable, so wechose only larger animals for thisevent.”

In keeping with this year’stheme, Michael Janakis (A12) putsmiles on the faces of his fellowstudents by dressing up as aclown—something with which heis quite familiar. “My dad’s aclown. He went to Ringling Bros.Clown College, so I was exposedto clowning growing up.”Donning his father’s red clownnose and makeup, Janakis says,“They get a bad reputation, butclowns are supposed to makepeople happy!”

The weekend concluded with abonfire, and, of course, a game ofSpartan Madball, a Johnnieinvention as bizarre and beautifulas it is difficult to describe. x


A Mad, Mad

Game of

Ball

For this year’s main attractionof Reality Weekend, studentsringed the hills of back campusto watch their more courageous

(or foolhardy)colleagues partici-pating in one of thecollege’s mostbeloved events:Spartan Madball.The oldest event ofReality Weekend,an end-of-year celebration thatbegan in 1955,Spartan Madballappears in recordsdating as early as1962 as “an unref-ereed volleyballgame on a football

field,” and has evolved overnearly 50 years of its existence.

The general form of SpartanMadball has remained the same.In a reference to Euclid’sElements, students are dividedinto two teams: the “Means,”consisting of sophomores andjuniors, and the “Extremes,”made up of the freshmen andseniors. Placed on oppositesides of the campus soccer field,the two teams struggle to takehold of a large medicine balland carry it through to theopposing team’s goal.

What has changed are therules. While tradition holds that“there are only three rules,” theactual list of rules of SpartanMadball is far longer andreflects the history of the game.Some of the rules include nomotorized vehicles (added afteran attempt to win by using aJeep, which was toppled over)and no livestock (added after astudent tried to herd somesheep onto the field as anobstacle). Most famously, thegame lasts three hours, or untilthree goals, three majorinjuries, or one death occur. (To date, there have been nodeaths.)

Many popular legends andstories arise over this event,which in 1999 was described bythen-Reality coordinator TimCarney (A00) as a “completelyprimal” chance to “gain gloryand valor.” One of the mostrecent is if a freshman teamwins, they are likely to go on towin all four years.

Among the changes made tothe game’s rules in response tolast year’s match—one of themost violent in recent memory—was the addition of “violencereferees,” who halted game playwhenever it appeared action onthe field was escalating too far.

This year the Extremes, madeup of the three-time winnerclass of 2011 and the class of2014, were defeated 3-0 by theother classes. So much for thelegend. x


...Our tinyRepublic of

Letters casts asideits books andbalances and

transforms itselfinto a miniatureBacchanalian

festival.

In 1980 Johnnies

march on Main

Street to

celebrate Reality.

9



This spring Dr. Norman Levan(SFGI74), a generous and dedi-cated friend of St. John’sCollege, made a bequest to thecollege’s Santa Fe campus ofone third of his estate, valued inexcess of $12 million.

The bequest is Dr. Levan’sthird gift to St. John’s College.In 2006, he donated $5 million,which funded the constructionof the Betty and Norman Levan Hall, the home of theGraduate Institute. DedicatedSeptember, 25, 2010, LevanHall houses administrative andfaculty offices, seminar rooms, a graduate lounge, and an exhibition space. In 2010, Dr. Levan also provided an

endowment of $2 million for theNorman Levan Faculty Chair,held by the current dean.

“We are exceedingly gratefulfor Dr. Levan’s continuinggenerosity,” says Michael P.Peters, president of the Santa Fecampus. “He is a constantfriend and supporter of themission of St. John’s Collegeand liberal education morebroadly.”

Dr. Norman Levan isprofessor emeritus and formerchief of dermatology at theUniversity of Southern California School of Medicine(class of 1939). He served in theUnited States Army MedicalCorps during World War II,

including the battle of Okinawa,and then embarked on a longand distinguished career inmedicine. Among his importantachievements is the establish-ment—at the request of state andfederal health officials—of theHansen’s Disease Clinic at theLos Angeles County/USCMedical Center in 1962, one ofonly three such clinics in California.

A long-time resident ofBakersfield, California, Dr. Levan supports the NormanLevan Faculty Seminar Series atBakersfield College, where healso made a bequest as well as agenerous gift for the creation ofthe Norman Levan Center for

the Humanities. A strong advocate of examining societalissues, Dr. Levan envisioned theCenter as a way to involve theBakersfield community inexploring the importance of thehumanities in people’s lives.

“In all his endeavors, Dr. Levan demonstrates hiscommitment to knowledge, to an informed and educated citizenry, and to our collectiveresponsibility to make a betterfuture,” says Peters. “He is aninspiration to all of us.” x


Levan Makes $12 Million Bequest

This summer the first St. John’s College SummerAcademy attracted 32 mostly-high-school students fromaround the country to theSanta Fe campus from June 26to July 2. On the Annapoliscampus, 35 high schoolstudents enrolled for a similarweek-long immersion in thecollege from July 10 to 16.Participants lived on campusand explored seminars, mathand language tutorials, andscience labs, interspersed withfield trips, presentations, andperformances. On bothcampuses, St. John’s under-graduates and tutors joinedparticipants in and out of theclassroom.

“Summer Academy servesas a means of bringing the typeof education found at St. John’s to another group ofstudents, and gives studentsinterested in learning moreabout the college a week-longsubmersion into Johnnie life,”says Amy Sandefur, assistant

director of admissionson the Annapoliscampus.

In Santa Fe, not allstudents were fromhigh school. AlexandraForman is currentlyenrolled at SantaMonica College inCalifornia. A familyfriend recommendedthat she try theAcademy. “I love tolearn,” she says, “andto question what I’mtold, not just acceptfacts as facts, but toknow why.” Formansays she “loves thegreat bookscurriculum, the factthat I’m not studyingtextbooks thatsomeone else haswritten and then told me whatthey’re about; but I get to readthe works and decide formyself what they’re about.”

Others seek “somethingmore” than high school canoffer. Connor Groat of Battle

Ground, Washington, enrolledin the Santa Fe Academybecause he hasn’t been challenged at his high school.“It’s just so much under-achievement, and everybodylowers the standards so thatpeople can trip over them;

now that the standardsare above my head, it’s anice change to try andreach for something.”

Grace Obregon, arising senior at RobertE. Lee High School inSan Antonio, Texas,enjoyed the discussionsof Plato and the conse-quence of choice duringher week on the SantaFe campus. “The questions are the basisof who we are,” shesays, adding thatSummer Academy isabout “just beingcomfortable with ques-tioning.” She was alsoencouraged by thebreadth of the lessons inthe Academy’scurriculum: “It allows

you to be interested in manydifferent things, so you’re notjust on this one path with alimited number of professionsyou can go into.”

—James Williams

High school students discover St. John’s


St. John’s Hosts

Community Seminars

on “Pilgrimage to

Nonviolence”

St. John’s College, Annapoliswelcomed the wider communityfor a weekend of events in honorof the life and legacy of the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr. Theweekend opened on Saturday,January 9 with community semi-nars, co-led by St. John’s Collegetutors and faculty fromSojourner-Douglass College.More than 150 members of thecommunity gathered in smallseminars to discuss “Pilgrimageto Nonviolence,” an essay by Dr. King. The next day approxi-mately 500 members of thecommunity attended the fourthannual “Lift Every Voice”concert. The fifth annualconcert will be held on January8; the seminars will be held onJanuary 7, 2012.

Staff Announcements

The college welcomes SARAH

MORSE, who joined theAnnapolis campus as the newdirector of admissions on July11. She replaces John Chris-tensen, who retired on July 30.Morse has served as Easternregional director and nationaldirector of special projects forAFS Intercultural Programs.More recently she was dean ofstudents and director of admis-sions and financial aid at St.Timothy’s School in Stevenson,Maryland, and subsequentlydirector of admissions for theLower and Middle School anddirector of financial aid atJemicy School in Owings Mills,Maryland.

MARILYN HIGUERA completedher service as director of theGraduate Institute in Annapolis.She is succeeded by tutor JEFF

BLACK, who begins his four-yearterm of office this summer.Higuera returns to full-timeteaching on the faculty.

SHARON HENSLEY retired onSeptember 2 from the AnnapolisGraduate Institute after 30 yearswith the college.

Four new tutors have joinedthe faculty—two each inAnnapolis and Santa Fe. InAnnapolis, SARAH BENSON previ-ously taught part-time in theGraduate Institute. Afterreceiving her PhD from CornellUniversity in the History of Art,she was a visiting fellow in theSoutheast Asia Program atCornell University. NewAnnapolis tutor HANNAH HINTZE

received her PhD from theUniversity of Chicago,Committee on Social Thought,in 2009. Santa Fe welcomesNATALIE J. ELLIOT, who receivedher PhD in political science withspecializations in politicaltheory and comparative politics,from the University of NorthTexas in 2009. In her previous

position, she was visiting assis-tant professor of politicalscience at Southern MethodistUniversity in Dallas, Texas.ERIKA TROSETH MARTINEZ, whowas initially hired for a specialone-year appointment last fall,also joins the college as a tutoron the Santa Fe campus.

On both campuses, the directors of communicationshave left the college. ANNA

SOCHOCKY, director of communications in Santa Fe,left in August 2011 to pursueher writing and equine interests.ROSEMARY HARTY, Annapolisdirector, departed in February2011 to teach developmentalEnglish. PATRICIA DEMPSEY,formerly associate director ofcommunications in Annapolis,became director of communica-tions in Annapolis on July 1. She brings more than a decadeof experience in journalism,editorial management, andhigher education media rela-tions to her new role, and hascontributed to publications such

as the Washington Post. She hasan MA in Writing from JohnsHopkins University and is theparent of a Johnnie, ALEXANDER

KRIZ (SF09). In Annapolis, Director of

Major Gifts RUTH ANDERSON

COGGESHALL retired on June 30,after more than 6 years with thecollege, contributing to asuccessful capital campaign.

St. John’s in the News

In recent months St. John’s hasbeen in the national public eye.The New Yorker (June 13, 2011)summer fiction issue includesSalvatore Scibona’s (SF97)essay, “Where I Learned toRead,” an account of his yearson the Santa Fe campus. TheWashington Post (May 14, 2011)features a profile of presidentChris Nelson, a nationalspokesperson for the liberalarts, and St. John’s, where “apassion for liberal arts with-stands an adversarial economy.”A related Washington Post blogincludes Nelson among thecountry’s most influential presidents; some of the othersare from Harvard and Cornelluniversities, and EarlhamCollege.

The Chronicle of HigherEducation (May 29, 2011)captures the pulse of campus lifein a story on a “sartorialmarvel”—the annual croquetmatch in Annapolis; in a relatedblog on how “bookworms findtheir inner athletes” at St. John’s, Annapolis AthleticDirector Leo Pickens describesthe college’s intramural sportsprogram. The Huffington Post(May 20, 2011) includedPickens’ address at Annapoliscommencement in a roundup offine speeches. And John Christensen, now retired,describes a “sea change” inadmissions for The Chronicle ofHigher Education (June 29,2011). To read these and other stories on St. John’s,visit: www.stjohnscollege.edu/news. x

News and Announcements

This spring, The King William Players—student thespians in

Annapolis—performed two 20-minute segments of Aeschylus’

Eumenides and Molière’s Tartuffe in their original Attic Greek

and French. Pictured above are students performing Eumenides,

as Clytemnestra and the Furies react to Apollo’s command to get

out of his temple.

Aeschylus’ Furious Thespians

11



Readers

Share Music

Stories

A Place of Honor

Music at St. John’s? There’s somuch to love! I still sing songs Ilearned in Freshmen Chorus.“By the Waters of Babylon”makes for good singing to a fussybaby, I’ve found. I love that thewhole school can sing all fourparts of “Sicut Cervus” at amoment’s notice at Collegium. Iam thankful that Mr. Stephensonintroduced us to the St. MatthewPassion in sophomore music. Itry to listen to it every yearduring Holy Week. Learningrhythms by dancing down thehalls in music tutorial; the sweetsounds of “Primum Mobile”echoing through the PendulumPit; Mrs. Seeger leading usthrough “Green Grow theRushes, O” at Christmas time. Ispent many an hour in the prac-tice rooms in the basement ofMellon Hall composing songs; tomy great surprise and honor, Ieven won the Best OriginalComposition prize in my sopho-more year. St. John’s gives musicits place of honor among theliberal arts, and I’m the richer forhaving experienced it.

Jenny Lowe Cook (A06)

Still Rocking

I will never forget when MarshallMcMillan (A90) and JeffSchwartz played “Ripple” by theGrateful Dead at the CollegiumMusicum evening in the GreatHall in Annapolis. Those yearsalso saw the birth of the eclecticand world-famous Philly band,EDO, with Eliot Duhan (A90),Yanni Papadopoulos (SF91), andmanaged by the talented JoeBoucher (A89)—all of whom arestill rocking 25 years later.

Beth Heinberg (A89)

Finding Her Voice

My life was transformed throughthe musical experience at SJC. Ihad always been “musical,” but itwas really at St. John’s that Idiscovered my voice, and my lovefor the history in music. Istarting singing in Anne Berven’sChamber Choir at Santa Fe earlyon in the second semester of myjunior year.

I was 20 years old and all of asudden I had an immediate sensethat I wanted to be a singer. Ibegan to study music seriously atthat point. After graduation Iwent to Italy and studied voicefor two years in Florence. Lastspring I completed a Master ofFine Arts degree in MusicPerformance and Literature fromMills College in Oakland, Cali-fornia. This spring I sang the altosoloist in a performance of the St. John Passion in New London,New Hampshire. I’ve returned tothe Bay Area where this summerI am working with the San Fran-cisco Boys Chorus. Isn’t itamazing what unexpected pathswe find through the Program?

Alexis Segel (SF05)

Musical moments

There are so many musicalmoments. There’s a memory ofViktor Zuckerkandl conductingFreshman Chorus in—no, notMcDowell—but in the QuestionPeriod room in Key Auditorium.I can’t imagine why, nor can Iremember why, but what I doremember vividly was emergingfrom the relative darkness of theroom to find that it was snowing.The magically light, mica-likesnow, the beginning of a longstorm, drifting down...and myhead filled with “Lo, How a RoseE’er Blooming....”

And another time: Mr. Castillejo, little remembered,I dare say, who taught us to listenprofoundly to Lisa della Casa’sSusanna in Le Nozze di Figaro.

“Oh,” he said, “Listen toSusanna, and how she soarsabove the rest!” His delight wasso palpable that I imagine noneof us have forgotten that

moment. Not to mention hearingthe Countess’s words of pardonand forgiveness, which he wasquick to point out.

Another moment: ElliottZuckerman, whose FreshmanChorus I tried always to attend,even though I was no longer afreshman, rehearsing theglorious Haydn Creation and abit of Fauré’s Requiem andMozart’s Ave verum corpus,which we had also sung underMr. Zuckerkandl, and which wasboth the same and not.

Incommensurate magnitudes,as Douglas Allanbrook once said.

Another kind of music: JohnKieffer reading Sophocles. Whata revelation!

In my girlhood, I learned around: “All things shall perishfrom under the sky. Music aloneshall live, never to die!” Perhapsit’s truer than I knew.

Constance (Connie) Bell

Lindgreen (A66)

Swim before singing

A great music experience for mewas the class chorus, part of ourmusic curriculum, under theleadership of Viktor Zuck-erkandl, in which he patientlydrilled us through Bach’s “BreakForth, O Beauteous MorningLight” from the ChristmasOratorio. The four voices weresomewhat tricky, but with repeti-tion we actually became prettygood at it. Zuckerkandl’s staminafor this arduous job stemmed, Iwould guess, from his habit ofswimming every morning inCollege Creek in December.

Temple Porter (A62)

Rock ’n’ Religion

During the Febbie summer of1980, we made a habit of invitinga different tutor each week to ourWednesday night parties. Oneweek, we invited (The ReverendJ.) Winfree Smith, and to ourdelight, he showed up. Iwelcomed him, thanked him forcoming, and then ran back to theturntable to put on Flatt andScruggs’ “Let the Church RollOn.” He was without a doubt themost stylish partygoer out on the

patio in front of Chase-Stone, inhis black dress shorts, kneesocks, black shirt, and whiteEpiscopal collar, bobbing to therhythm of Earl Scruggs’ banjobreaks.

Mark Middlebrook (A83)

Formal Training Can Wait

When I entered St. John’s in1951, it was already fairly clear tome that I would “go into” music,but that formal training couldwait. Wait? The exposure tomusic I received at St. John’scould not have been more valu-able or preparatory. Viktor Zuck-erkandl had studied and workedwith the leading musical figuresin Vienna. I learned so muchfrom him, and he pointed metoward Mannes College in NewYork, where I studied with FelixSalzer, the great proponent ofSchenkerian theory—then revolu-tionary, now standard. In quite adifferent way, Douglas Allan-brook became an inspiringmentor, and in later years Iconducted five of his wonderfulorchestra scores. Ralph Kirk-patrick playing Bach on the clavichord in a McDowell Hallclassroom; the Juilliard Quartetrehearsing and performing—St. John’s was the perfect place to“major” in music. And I like tothink that I learned a few otherthings as well….

Harold Bauer (class of 1955)

Thank you for your letters!Look for more letters fromreaders of The College in thenext issue.

Tom May leads freshman

chorus in Annapolis.

12{ M u s i c }

Reflections on the power of music to changeour lives and shape our psyches

Legend has it that in the early days of theNew Program (1937 plus a few years),the books on music were shelved in thelibrary’s stacks along with the bookson mathematics. Music has beenincluded in the Quadrivium of the

liberal arts for more than 1,500 years, grouped withArithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy, and with theTrivium of Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic. The math-ematics of music consists most basically in the magicalratios that characterize the scale. In the sense of musicas a liberal art, it was sometimes called “harmonics”or “measurement.” In the 1937 St. John’s catalogue,music was described as “the Pythagorean name formathematical physics.”

The study of music at St. John’s has taken a varietyof forms. Viktor Zuckerkandl, a tutor who joined thecollege in the 1940s, at the dusk of the Barr andBuchanan era, devised the first music tutorials forsophomore year and later wrote a book called TheSense of Music, which is often used in those tutorialsin Annapolis. Freshman chorus differs according tocampus, and often according to the tutor who leadsit. That Johnnies can sing “Sicut Cervus” from themiddle of freshman year on is a given; there’s afamous story that when the Palestrina Choirperformed in Annapolis in the early 1990s, the entire

audience stood and joined in perfect harmony. Other music-related observations: 1. Many St. John’s

students and faculty are preternaturally talented musi-cally—a higher proportion than might be expected at aschool with no music major offered. 2. Tutors who takethe “teach across the curriculum” mantra seriouslysometimes have great difficulty bringing themselves totry the music tutorial. The college sought and wasgranted funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundationso that more faculty could become better prepared toteach the tutorial. 3. Many Johnnies know Shake-speare’s Sonnet 73 (“That time of year thou mayst inme behold…”) through the study of rhythm in themusic tutorial, not through the language tutorial. 4.It’s difficult to have a seminar on an opera, but we keeptrying. Sometimes it works really well. 5. Music is amystery. No matter how well we might know all thecomponents, no matter how unsure we might be aboutour own singing abilities, no matter how sensitive andastute we are about various musical forms—we stillcan’t explain why it makes us cry or laugh, feel contentor revved up, why we want to dance or are lulled tosleep by it.

Everyone at St. John’s studies music; there’s noescape from its power. As with other subjects likephysics or Greek, sometimes those who least expect itbecome enamored and find their life’s work. Here arereflections on the power of music to change our livesand shape our psyches.

M U S I C ’ SM Y S T E R Y

13


{ M u s i c }

Playing Chopin together at St. John’s: “I finally got to study, along with Eric, the dark and elusive Sonata for

Piano and Cello.” —Elliott Zuckerman, Tutor Emeritus, on piano. “For me to play Chopin with Elliott—this is a

treasure.” —Eric Stoltzfus, Tutor, on cello.

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The Centrality of Chopin

by Elliott Zuckerman

When I was seven,my musical life—and much of therest of my life—wasturned over to a

beautiful and imperious Russianwoman, who had been a star graduateof the Moscow Conservatory and latera student of the great pianist FerruccioBusoni. One reward for what some-times seemed my martyrdom was thatthe works of Chopin became central inmy world.

My lessons started with Bach, and inthe course of years I studied many ofthe sonatas of Beethoven, a properamount of Mozart, Brahms, andDebussy, and a great deal of Liszt andSchumann. I learned pieces byMedtner, who had been one of myteacher’s professors, and Scriabin,whom she knew, and Tchaikovsky,whose only trio she (with her husband and his brother onthe strings) had played for the Queen of Romania. And Ilearned music that no one else had played for decades, bycomposers such as Joachim Raff and Xaver Scharwenka.

But the daily sustenance was the Chopin Études, andwhen I had to play over the radio, it was the Fantasy in FMinor, and when big works were needed for recitals, theBallades and the Scherzos, and when I played at parties, theMazurkas and the Waltzes, and of course the Nocturnes,even though I was probably too pudgy to look properlyconsumptive. I even had to play the very few works ofChopin that no one else was playing, a prime showpiecebeing the Allegro de Concert, the abandoned sketch for athird Concerto.

In college, my first published essay was a review of AndréGide’s Notes on Chopin. In it I naively announced thatplaying Chopin had been Gide’s most private pleasure.

Just before I came to St. John’s, I gave the last course ofmy life (for at this college we don’t have courses). It wascalled “Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt”; in it I played what Iknew of the complete works, and when I got to a passage I

couldn’t play decently, I would get the urge to resumelecturing, and then return to the music somewhere beyondthe difficulties. It was a technique I continued in Annapolis,when, in the early years of the Caritas Society, I gave yearlytalks at the piano, this time on Chopin alone.

It was here, too, that I finally got to study, along with ourcolleague Eric Stoltzfus, the one great work that Chopinwrote for more than one solo instrument, the very beautifulbut dark and elusive Sonata for Piano and Cello. It is signifi-cant that when Chopin chose to write for a second instru-ment, it was the cello. For he seemed to write only forinstruments that sing. We should remember that he wrotequite a few songs. But even in his non-vocal works, theplayer has to “sing.” Some of the passages that are mostChopinesque are marked sfogato—let loose, a vocal term;and the famous rubato, a sort of rhythmic borrowing of onebeat from another that is now indelibly associated withChopin, is also most naturally carried out by singers. ToSing is an injunction that is heard most often from goodteachers, and it is since Chopin that great pianists havebeen noted for their singing touch. In much of his music,his inspiration was Italian opera, and (apart from Bach and

Elliott Zuckerman explores “infinite gradations of the palette” on the piano.

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{ M u s i c }

Mozart) the composer he seems to have most imitated wasBellini. In some of my talks I have composed my own“Chopin Nocturne” simply by taking an aria from Normaor I Puritani, and, with a few adjustments, playing it as apiece for piano.

All this on a percussion instrument where the strings arestruck by hammers! And the vocal breathing, I should add,is required not simply when the right hand is engaged in anobvious soprano solo, but even, somehow, when the textureof the music is that of quick scales or complex arpeggios,even when the piano is tinkling and when it is thundering(for Chopin can thunder!). Those textures are manifold, forthere is scarcely a figuration that Chopin did not adapt orinvent. From time to time, my more prosaic friends wouldsend me scientific articles in which it is proved that thesound of the piano is merely the result of how hard youstrike the key and how long you hold it, with some helpfrom the pedal. Meanwhile my teacher (supported by thegreat tradition) was showing me, sometimes by the pres-sure of her fingers on my back, an almost infinite gradationof colors in the palette of this piano that is merely amachine.

Most musical people can remember thefirst time they heard, or noticed, a bit ofmusic that was to become, say, a leitmotiv intheir lives. It may be a tune—such as, for me,Handel’s “V’adoro, pupille”—or a remark-able harmonic turn—as in the Andante ofSchubert’s last sonata. In Chopin suchdefining moments are likely to be a bout ofpassage-work, often of his own invention,that may otherwise be melodically orharmonically unremarkable. I canremember the first time I heard someoneplay the cascades that accompany thechorale in the Third Scherzo and, at anotherrecital, the sweeping ascending scales thatunderpin the return of the second theme inthe Fourth Ballade. I later realized that bothare in the key of D-flat major, and suit thepositions of the hand that feel most natural in that key.There is very little in Chopin that is not intimatelyconnected with positions of the hand—which may accountfor why the dance music that has been orchestrated forballets like Les Sylphides seems to have lost its sparkle. ForChopin to be engraved upon your soul it is perhaps neces-sary to feel him in your fingers, to respond to the music as

not only motion and sound, but texture and touch. Chopin learned from Bach and like other so-called

Romantic composers, studied his counterpoint. ButMozart spanned Chopin’s career, which began with thevariations on “La ci darem la mano.” And at Chopin’sdeath, along with an orchestration of his own FuneralMarch, they played and sang sections of the MozartRequiem. x

Tracing the Phenomenon of the

Perfect Concert

by Samantha Buker (A05)

Friday, April 5, 2002. Alban Gerhardt’s eveningof cello stormed my soul in my freshman yearand sealed my fate as a future music writer. Thatnight proved to me that the seduction of musicfar surpasses the charms of painting because

music invades the whole body—the virtue of vibration.Zoltan Kodaly’s Sonata for Cello Solo worked me over. Apluck made my left shoulder flinch. Certain phrasings senta flock of sparks coursing the length of my spine. His three

principal motions had all the dynamics of anExpressionist painting, so I sketched him.The drawing, which he autographed as Iblushed, remains for me a Veronica’s veil, afaded impress of a moment rich for itspassing.

Music librarian Mr. Stoltzfus is mostresponsible for my awakening to music—as heis for others—by finding superb concert artistswhose lecture-spot performances rouse newpassions. The splendor of the moment, thesense of occasion in the concert hall—thesethings I strive to bring alive to readers of mymusic criticism. And I first experienced themat St. John’s.

For me, the greatest moments musicauxhappened outside the Program, but withoutthe sweet salve of Freshman Chorus with

Mr. May, I’d never have stayed beyond the first year. Thereis joy in a place where one can take Palestrina for granted.So I stayed, and reaped rich rewards. Music tutorial’sgrunt-work backed pleasure and trained the ear.

Mr. Smith welcomed our every class with a snippet fromthe Goldberg Variations, but his curious experiment withmodern music made me the advocate for new composers I

There is very little in Chopin

that is not intimately

connected withpositions of the hand.

16 { M u s i c }

am today. One day, he ditched Die Zauberflöte and cued upArnold Schoenberg’s dissonance over the speakers. Hemocked Schoenberg and moaned. In short, he asked us todefend Schoenberg as music—based on all we’d absorbed sofar. Only Erica Naone and I leapt to this composer’sdefense. Next year, in the coffee shop, I overheard Mr.Smith confess that he was an atheist who adored 12-tonemusic.

For who among us will not declaim the glory of Bach’sMatthäus Passion? I wrote my final paper in a flush—aflirtation with Orthodox Christianity that to this dayremains unconsummated. As I typed, the tones of the all-night Pascha Vigil were still chanting in my head. Incenseclung to my hair. I had 10 more pages to go, but I needed abreak. My roommate Dillon (Wright-Fitzgerald) Naylor(A05) and I strolled the harbor’s edge at dawn. A majesticridge of purple clouds hung over the water’s distant shore,ever changing as they rolled away. In that vision, I heardthe earthy viola de gamba, a weeping Peter. We made ourway back to Paca through a court of blossom-laden cher-ries. We buried our noses deep in the branches. The scentconjured ethereal oboes and the chorus of flutes. We tookturns shaking petals upon each other in the breeze.Refreshed, I finished my essay, the first writing I’d ever

done on the dynamics and mechanics of the phenomenathat take up so much of my present life.

In the summer of 2004, I found myself a “post-tutorial”summer camp: the three days of Baltimore’s New ChamberFestival. Classmate Jacob Thomas (A05) came along. Wenever shared a music class beyond chorus, but our conver-sation over Indian food after the first concert rolled alongthe back of our common language for hours. On Sunday,June 27, the Leipzig String Quartet played Shostakovich’sString Quartet No. 8. The unshakable magnitude of theirperformance bid me to write my first music review,although it would be four more years until I found editorGreg Szeto and his blog, “Aural States.” I’ll never forgetthe long holy silence after the final note crept away. Forthat second, all clocks held their breath. Ivo Bauer put thescroll of his viola to his lips, resting its body on his knee, todrink in the communion of quietude that hushed hislisteners. He closed his eyes and smiled gently. Applauseerupted only as they shut their scores.

I came away from that Leipzig concert—and my time atSt. John’s—convinced that music is the purest form ofbeauty present in the world. I’ll risk a fistfight with ageometer for this: Ptolemy’s sentiment, in his preface tothe Almagest, that the study of divine planetary motions

creates like conditions of soul in those whostudy them, describes the phenomenon of theperfect concert. That perfection comes intobeing when music, performer, and listener areas much a unity as can be.

Of course, such a condition is oftensensuous, even dangerous. St. John’s is prob-ably the only school where you could bewalking to the symphony and be stopped by aclassmate, who asks what you’ll hear and warnsyou to watch out for your soul if the composer isanything but Bach.

My advice to Johnnies embarking onWagner’s Tristan und Isolde is not to study thelibretto laboriously. Don’t see how many timesyou can listen to the whole thing. Instead,listen to the two preludes and the final aria in aconstant loop, until you are steeped in the sea

Samantha Buker (A05) is a 2010 National

Endowment for the Arts Journalism Institute

Fellow concentrating in opera and classical music.

sa

ma

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of Wagner’s colors. The experience roiled over my head inwaves, in the last hour before seminar. My being could notseparate itself from the music. The resulting flush of anger,passion, and dread infused me. I tore posters off my wallsand drapes off my windows before collapsing. Then Iwalked to seminar. Mr. Comenetz opened with the ques-tion, “What is Liebestod?” No takers. Many thumbed thepages of the score helplessly. I began to answer….

The circle of fifths was hardly the only circle of my musicexperience. In the last days of senior year, cellist JamesPearson and I dined out in town with friends and alumni.Coming back to campus, I said, “I want to dance!” We weremerry with the spell of Dionysus, and James offered to play.“I always wanted to have someone dance to my playingBach cello suites,” he said. And so, taking the stage in theGreat Hall, James in the same spot where Alban Gerhardthad played, James took up his bow and I turned his motionsinto my motions. I danced the skin clean off my pinky toesand didn’t even notice.

Life comes full circle all the time. I’m reviewing the

Leipzig String Quartet for Balti-more’s City Paper this week. Thereverberating acoustics of the hallcried out for their Bach, which sentme craving the Passion like an oldfriend. How familiar and beautiful itbecomes. x

Samantha Buker (A05) was chiefclassical critic for the blog “AuralStates” before moving on to be a free-lance critic for Baltimore’s City Paper.If someone has an unwanted cello,she’d consider it a dare to learn to playthe instrument.

The Sound of Music

Eric Stoltzfus grew up in afamily that sang andplayed music together.As a young teenager inIowa who was one of four

children, he recalls his familyembarking on a “summer singing

road trip” with another family of four children. They drovefrom Iowa to Virginia and performed from a newMennonite Hymnal that his father had helped edit—Bachchorales, folk hymns, and instrumental classical works.“Those songs, when you sing them over and over at age 13,really stay with you,” says Stoltzfus. To St. John’s he bringshis love of choral singing—today his own family singstogether around the dinner table—and disciplined study ofthe cello. For the past 15 years as Annapolis musiclibrarian, Stoltzfus has taught sophomore music tutorial;he sings and plays throughout the community and organ-izes the acclaimed St. John’s College Concert Series. Hereflects on the music he discovered and the rituals he treas-ures, such as playing Chopin with Elliott Zuckerman.

What inspired you to play the cello?“I was horrified when as a fifth grader my mothersuggested the violin—I knew then I wanted to play the cello.It was the right choice. The spirit of the cello is in tune withmy own spirit. There’s a certain melancholy, a darker color

17


{ M u s i c }

The spirit of the cello suits Eric

Stoltzfus.

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to the tone. The art of drawing a deep sound with the bowfrom the cello is very satisfying, especially as compared tostriking piano keys or blowing a tuba. I studied in Marburg,Germany, for a year. From my dorm room, I would haul mycello down 450 steps—and back up—and take a train toprivate lessons in Frankfurt. It was a real devotion.”

When did you begin playing with Elliott Zuckerman?“I have had the pleasure of 20 years of playing cello andsinging with Elliott. We have performed and recorded 15songs that he has composed over decades. He translated LaFontaine Fables into a clever ‘Zuckerman’ English transla-tion. Then he wrote the music forthem, for tenor and piano. I’m thetenor singer. (We recently recordedFive Fables of La Fontaine—availablein the Bookstore). Elliott and I havegiven more than a dozen perform-ances together of music for piano andcello or tenor. For instance at GiselaBerns’ retirement party, we played aRondo by Beethoven.”

Is it true, as Elliott notes, “Chopinseemed to write only for instrumentsthat sing”?“Chopin didn’t write any choral music. He wrote music for the piano: what could be a voice is really the pianosinging. Together Elliott and I play Chopin’s Sonata forCello and Piano. Chopin didn’t write for the cello until theend of his life. He wrote this cello sonata with very lyrical,singing melodies. It is immensely satisfying to play. In theslow movement, the cello and the piano take turns. Thecello plays a high melody, then a low bass line while thepiano sings the melody. It goes back and forth in equalparts, with total cooperation. This is especially wonderful to play with Elliott. He knows what he wants to do and isalways making music. Where some may spin it out techni-cally, not Elliott. He delves into how phrases work, not justthe technical. It is a joy to play with him. Besides, he is adelightful conversationalist.”

Any awakenings as a music librarian? “It is wonderful on so many levels. The material is sogenerous. For me, a law library saps one’s soul, with allthose old cases lining the shelves. But the music library isfull of life. Particularly here at St. John’s, the music library

feeds the soul. Our students become really interested inmusic they didn’t know they liked. I feed on their enthu-siasm.Their eyes are bright with discovery. They listen toBach’s St. Matthew Passion in sophomore music and cometo the music library wanting to know more. They learn tosing in freshman chorus, or they become curious about howdifferent performers might characterize Don Giovanni. Atother music libraries where I’ve worked, students wouldwalk in with clouds over their heads—research papers due,requirements. There is such a difference here—it’s all aboutdiscovery.”

Have you made any musical discoveries at St. John’s? “There are many things here I havediscovered and learned to treasure. Iam thankful to St. John’s for intro-ducing me to the music of Palestrina,which I didn’t know when I came here,and the operas of Mozart, which I havegrown to love. I was an instrumen-talist and thought opera was some-thing Mozart did to make money. Howwrong I was! But mostly I discovered16th-century polyphony. About 12years ago, the students wanted to form

a small group of eight to sing more of it. I joined in withthem, and we became Primum Mobile. Of course there isBach’s St. Matthew Passion. I was already in awe of it, butworking with sophomores, studying it over the years, I havecome to understand that Bach has a deep respect for humanbeings, including their shortcomings. Here I have devel-oped an appreciation of music as part of what makes ushuman, including me.”

Is there a higher form of musical expression? There is always that tension between instrumental musicand the purely vocal for me. Which is the higher form ofexpression? Difficult to say. All my life, I have been involvedin both strands, playing cello with orchestras and chamberensembles, traveling to the Shenandoah Bach Festival everysummer, singing at home with my family, with the FrankfurtChoir, the Washington Bach Consort. I sing here withPrimum Mobile, direct the Madrigal Choir (an informallunchtime group of staff, faculty, and students), perform atCollegium, and of course sing with sophomores in theMusic Tutorial. Over the years I have joined the student

“The cello plays a highmelody, then a low bass

line while the piano singsthe melody. . . .This is

especially wonderful toplay with Elliott.”

Eric Stoltzfus

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{ M u s i c }

orchestra or accompanied the St. John’s Chorus on cello.But my work here at St. John’s is largely vocal. So for me toplay Chopin with Elliott—this is a treasure.” x

—Patricia Dempsey

Music as Conversation

Listening through the audience is how PeterPesic describes playing Chopin and other clas-sical works during his lunchtime concertseries, held in the Peterson Student Center.Since 1984, Pesic, tutor and musician-in-resi-

dence, has performed on the piano for students, tutors,staff, and the wider Santa Fe community. Pesic brieflyintroduces the work and the historical or biographicalcontext in which it originated. “I want find a way to helppeople into the music,” he says. Then he plays.

“I don’t think Chopin ever imagined his mazurkas beingplayed in a big hall,” he adds. “An intimate setting seemsright. Somehow the audience senses that its presence is apart of the whole experience.”

For Pesic, music is conversation, especially when heplays for an audience. “Performance is a chance to experi-

ence the music more intensely.You experience this more whenyou’re playing for other peoplethan when you’re playing foryourself,” he says. “The audi-ence’s attention and differentway of listening gives me adifferent awareness, in thesame way that talking about abook with students changes myview in almost every case.”

Pesic pursues his pianoplaying with something of acollector’s mania. “I wonder,for example, what would it belike to play all of Schubert’ssonatas,” he says. Thisapproach he compares to theProgram in that it gives one aview of the whole. “It’s as if

you’re getting to know a person—for instance, meetingChopin or Beethoven at different points in their lives.”

Growing up in California, Pesic’s first instrument was theviolin, but while studying physics at Harvard University, hebecame fascinated with the piano and tried to teachhimself. By the time he was a graduate student at StanfordUniversity, he was playing the piano seriously.

His pianistic explorations over the years have beennumerous, from the complete keyboard works of Bachperformed over four years (“that was a crazy project”) to atraversal of Chopin’s piano works, from preludes tomazurkas. On the St. John’s faculty since 1980, Pesic hasreceived a number of honors, including the Peano Prize in2005 for his book Abel’s Proof, as well as being named aFellow of the American Association for the Advancement ofScience and of the John Simon Guggenheim MemorialFoundation (2006 and 2007, respectively).

“Being here has been a liberation,” Pesic says, creditingthe college with enabling him to think about things freely—“to wonder and ask questions with a kind of honesty that Iwasn’t capable of before.” x


Peter Pesic helps the audience

“into the music” when he

performs.

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{ C o m m e n c e m e n t }

During the 2011commencement ceremonies inAnnapolis and Santa Fe,the speakers urgedgraduates to embrace

the art of contemplation and the gift ofimagination.

Grey skies and light sprinkles mayhave moved the 219th Annapoliscommencement ceremony indoors, but as President Chris Nelson (SF70)remarked to those graduating—88seniors and 36 graduate students—whogathered with family, friends, and facultymembers in the Francis Scott Key auditorium, “Fortune may have soakedour grounds, but we will not let itdampen our spirits.” The mood duringthe May 15 ceremony was celebratoryand reflective as Leo Pickens (A78),Annapolis athletic director, delivered amuch lauded commencement address.

“Who are you under that cap andgown?” asked Pickens, who was chosenby the 2011 class to deliver this year’saddress. Pickens, who has served asathletic director for 23 years, developeda close rapport with members of thisyear’s class, many of whom have beenleaders in intramural sports and crew.The question revisited a similar oneposed during Convocation 2007 by President Nelson. In hisspeech, Pickens also described at length the “arts of freedom”cultivated at St. John’s—another revisiting of President Nelson’searlier speech.

Though his speech was primarily an opportunity for the gradu-ating class to reflect on its achievements over the past four years, it also sounded a caveat on life ahead: “In our efficiency-obsessed,continuously accelerating world, the pressure upon you toproduce may knock you off center.” He called upon the newlygraduated students to regain balance by taking a “Socratic pause,”so named for the description in Plato’s Symposium of Socrates’habit of standing in place for hours.

Asked if he partakes in this practice, Pickens says, “Yes, I come

out of the contemplative tradition of the [Quaker] Friends, andpart of that tradition is that I often sit in silent worship. It’s some-thing that has become a very important practice in my own life.

“Moving out into the world of trying to make a living, you oftenget wrapped up in the press of business and can lose the connec-tion with what is important to you. Practicing how to pausecertainly makes my life much more rich in the moment.”

It snowed two days before commencement in Santa Fe, and yetMay 21 hinted at the promise of summer, with bright sunshine.More than 700 parents, guests, faculty, and staff assembled on theupper placita outside Weigle Hall to honor more than 90 under-graduate and nearly 30 graduate students as they received theirdegrees.

A S O C R A T I C PAU S ECommencement 2011 speakers embrace

contemplation and intellectual curiosity.

“Who are you under that cap and gown?” asked Annapolis commencement speaker

Leo Pickens (A78).

21{ C o m m e n c e m e n t }


Outgoing Dean Victoria Mora’s commencement address wasmet with enthusiasm as she asked, “What does one do with a St. John’s education?” The answer she initially offered is thatgraduates have the potential to do anything they want: “All youhave to supply is a little imagination—and the willingness to bethe author of your own story.”

Acknowledging that “imagination doesn’t enjoy unqualifiedesteem, especially among philosophers,” Mora suggested that “at moments like you are facing now, transitions into the stillunknown and the yet undone, you might even want to get friendlywith your imagination.” While this means taking risks, she notedthat it was precisely this kind of intellectual courage that drewstudents to St. John’s. The first step is “to recognize that when itcomes to living your life, you have to be the author.”

Mora then delivered the good news by way of a question: “Whathave you learned if not...to transcend time and place, to transcendthe divide between self and other, to bring together the knownand the unknown in your own narrative?” Returning to the question that launched her observations, she asked: “What willyou do with this education? Anything you want.”

Mora, who joined the faculty in 1992, began her tenure as deanin 2006 and as of July 1 has rejoined the faculty. x

—Laurent Merceron (A08) and Deborah Spiegelman

To read the 2011 Commencement addresses, visit: www.stjohnscollege.edu/events.

Senior Gift

“For this year’s senior class gift we wanted to buck the tradition,” says 2011 senior gift committee member Joshua Paul(A11), whose class has decided to present the college with threesenior gifts instead of one. After an initial callout to the seniorclass for gift proposals, the committee was showered with somany good ideas that the process of narrowing them downproved to be a challenge. The committee ultimately decided onthree gifts, which would allow them to “cover both academicand social elements of the college,” says committee memberBabak Zarin (A11).

For the latter, the class has proposed to improve the Wi-Fiaccess in the Coffee Shop in McDowell Hall. “The Coffee Shopis a major social center, and improving Internet access therewould be a huge service for students socializing and doingresearch,” says Zarin.

The 2011 class will also be contributing financially to theGreenfield Library’s effort to increase the number of Programtitles available for students. Over the years, an increasingshortage of these books has affected those students who areunwilling or unable to purchase them.

Perhaps the most exciting of the three gifts will be therepairing of the Foucault Pendulum, which has been out of operation for most of its existence. Annapolis tutor James Beall,a longtime champion of restoring the pendulum, will be over-seeing the repair arrangements. Awakened from decades ofdormancy, the sight of the pendulum in action will be a welcomegift indeed.

For more information contact Jennifer Petricig at: 410-626-5557 or [email protected].


Babak Zarin (A11), a member of the Senior Gift Committee.

Mirielle Clifford (SF11)

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{ C o m m e n c e m e n t }

Junia Cho (A11) (below, right) is spending two months thissummer in South Korea as part of the Critical LanguageScholarship Program of the United States Department ofState’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Heraward is a prestigious one, and the intensive languageprogram is part of a government effort to expand thenumber of Americans studying and mastering critical-needforeign languages. For Cho, it is a chance to explore more

fully her Korean back-ground: “I was bornhere but my parents areKorean, so I’m curiousabout their culture.”She is consideringattending graduateschool in Koreanstudies, with the possi-bility of working in thepolitical arena. x

Clockwise (l to r): James Russell (A11), the fourth son of tutor

George Russell to attend St. John’s, and Anna Sitzmann (A11).

Annapolis and Santa Fe graduates celebrate with their families;

Commencement at the upper placita outside Weigle Hall,

Santa Fe; Andrew Peak (A11) captures the moment during the

reception inside Iglehart Hall, Annapolis.

23{ C o m m e n c e m e n t }

Reading Across Generations

By the end of the ceremony in Annapolis the sky cleared, matching thebright spirits of the crowd, which gathered outside of Mellon Hall forcongratulatory hugs and photos. Among those celebrating were Daniel(A11) and Jerome Dausman (AGI11), a graduating father-and-son duofrom Brookville, Maryland. “I never thought I would go back tocollege,” says Jerome, who enrolled in the Graduate Institute one yearafter his son began his undergraduate studies, “but Daniel kind ofpulled me into the Program.” Hooked on following along with Daniel’sfreshman reading list at home, Jerome figured that a St. John’seducation would complement his new occupation as a volunteer scienceteacher at Alexandria Academy in Alexandria, Virginia. Do they everdiscuss their readings together? “Not really,” says Jerome, “ but we didattend ‘Open-Mic Night’ poetry slams at Galway Bay together.” x

Counterclockwise (R): Santa Fe

graduates celebrate; Mike

Peters, Santa Fe president;

Commencement speakers Victoria

Mora, Santa Fe dean; and Leo

Pickens (A78), director of

Athletics, Annapolis; Annapolis

President Chris Nelson (SF70).

Daniel (A11) and Jerome Dausman (AGI11)

{ A p p r e n t i c e R e a d e r }24

Salvatore Scibona (SF97) has been typing for a longtime. In fifth grade, his grandmother taught him onan electric Royal during his weekend visits, a fewmiles from his childhood home in the suburbs ofCleveland. “I decided then that I wanted to writenovels and got a typewriter of my own. I went halves

with my mom—it cost $60—and I put down $30 of my savings.”Decades later Scibona’s debut novel, The End, was a finalist for

the 2008 National Book Award; its language was celebrated forits elegant richness and Scibona was compared to Virginia Woolf,Saul Bellow, and Graham Greene.

But Scibona still prefers low-tech simplicity. Although he ownsa computer, he writes his first drafts longhand with pen andpaper, then rewrites on a manual typewriter. “I’m not wedded tothis, but right now this is how I work. I’m trying to stay close tothe words themselves,” he says. “We think of words on thecomputer as a file, a digital assemblage of information. The wordswritten by hand with a pen—there are no codes, no hard returns,just words, language. I believe in words.”

Scibona carefully chooses the technology that works for him. “I don’t do Facebook. I don’t have a TV,” he says. “I’m not aLuddite, but I just don’t want to risk distraction. I find it verydifficult to concentrate.” Sophisticated technologies, he says,“are drawing my attention away from doing certain things—likewriting.”

Scibona lives simply on the Outer Cape in Provincetown,Massachusetts, an old whaling port that became a mecca forartists in the early 1900s, nurturing many iconic Americanwriters and painters. He spends most days writing, typing, andlooking out his small apartment’s window at Provincetown’sseafaring harbor. For eight months each year, Scibona works half-time at the Provincetown Fine Arts Center, administering fellow-ships for a residency program for emerging artists. During thesummers, he usually teaches at Harvard, but this summer, as aGuggenheim Fellow, he has been working on another novel—“about what, I’m not supposed to say.”

His is the writing life described by one of his favorite authors:“To quote Annie Dillard,” says Scibona, “ ‘I’m a gregariousrecluse.’ ” He watches occasional TV shows on his computer—“The language is awesome,” he says, referring to “Friday NightLights,” “In Treatment,” and “Deadwood.” Yet in “Where ILearned to Read,” his New Yorker essay of June 13, 2011, Scibonadescribes a childhood in which he could not escape the babblingclamor of the TV—until he attended St. John’s College in

Santa Fe. “As a kid growing up I wasn’t watching TV, but it wasalways on. It was an opiate.”

“TV is like a martini,” he says. “You do not have to think aboutmeddlesome things. It induces a ‘TV state of mind,’ a bogussense of peace. The experience of deep reading brings the oppo-site kind of peace. At St. John’s, I discovered a ‘reading state ofmind.’ ”

Scibona reads widely—“a lot of books at one time, “ he says.“Right now I’m reading a novel by Sarah Braunstein, The SweetRelief of Missing Children.” Stacked on his coffee table are thebooks he’s been reading, captured in a photo in the New Yorker’sblog, “The Book Bench” (www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/06/what-im-reading-this-summer-salvatore-scibona-1.html), linked to the 2011 summer fiction issue that

AN APPRENTICE READERWhen it comes to reading and writing, novelist

Salvatore Scibona (SF97) is a beginner at heart.

by Patricia Dempsey

Acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Salvatore Scibona (SF97)

{ A p p r e n t i c e R e a d e r } 25

features Scibona’s essay about St. John’s. One blog reader postedan admiring comment regarding Scibona’s “perfect” readinglist. “It’s so elegant—fiction, nonfiction, poems, new things, oldthings, friend-recommended things, lover-recommended things,rabbit holes of taste.”

Says Scibona, “A favorite author of mine, Donald WoodsWinnicott, makes the analogy that reading is like breastfeeding—there is an intimacy there, a real experience of being fed. If thebook is not for you—it’s obscure, poorly written, you’re nothungry for it—your mind wanders. But when a book and a readerare one, the right fit—it’s a deeply mind-melded focus.”

Scibona discovered “deep reading” at St. John’s with tutorssuch as Phil LeCuyer, whom he describes in “Where I Learned toRead.” Says Scibona, “He is a deep, deep, deep reader, devotedto reading closely, and is an extraordinary humane person—agenius.” Scibona says that by the time he graduated from St. John’s, he was “a garden well fertilized but not planted.”

“I am an apprentice reader. I learned that I am going to be anapprentice reader for the rest of my life. I did not want to be amaster reader when I attended graduate school.” He received hisMFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. Instead Scibona savors“the somewhat childlike experience of being naked before abook—being unqualified. The book will push you as far as you cango. It is toxic to be ‘above it.’ I want to stay a beginner atreading—and writing.”

Scibona began writing his first novel the year he learned totype. He worked on it for about 4 years and then gave up. “It was too jejune,” he says. “I kept rewriting the first couple ofchapters. By tenth and eleventh grade, I started another noveland brought it with me to St. John’s.” Again he got 20 pages intoit and kept rewriting the first few chapters. During the summerbetween junior and senior year, Scibona started another novel.Twelve years later it became his acclaimed novel, The End.

“The first seven years of writing, you cannot see in the book,”he says. “I was inspired during junior seminar with Mr. Katzen,when he presented this paradox: ‘If you have a boat and youreplace every piece of the boat over 100 years, in the end is it thesame boat?’ That is how it was with my first novel.”

Scibona’s conversation lilts with vivid metaphors, many drawnfrom another of his passions—gardening. When Scibona wasn’ttyping on his grandmother’s electric Royal during his weekendvisits, he was outside with his grandfather, who taught him togarden. Scibona later took to worm farming, a form ofcomposting. Reading, he observes, feeds his writing in much thesame way that composting does a garden.

“It’s more a metaphor for the way you grow a garden bycompost,” he says. “Vegetable peelings go into the compost andare similar to what comes out of the garden; the peelings feed thenew plants. When I am reading, I decompose—I read for pleasureand for joy—and the [thoughts] come out when I’m writing. Whatyou write is not defined by what you read, but it is dependent onwhat you read. If I’m reading an intensely theological work, forexample, it flavors my writing, carries into the stories.”

At St. John’s, Scibona realized he needed to learn to read inorder to learn to write. “I really wanted to write fiction. I reallywanted to read. It was clear to me that I was somehow unqual-ified to write because I had read so little.” St. John’s gave “anexceptional education for a creative writer, even though theProgram is not heavy in contemporary literature,” he says. “Allthe creative writers I know wish they had read these books whenthey were younger, with other people. I have always been reallygrateful for that. It shaped my head. I had no experience beingable to talk about books casually with other students with a vastcommon frame of reference. Being part of that conversation allthe time—that’s a gift.”

In his recent New Yorker essay, Scibona describes the delightof finding “his tribe” at the college, a place where he belonged.“Before going to St. John’s, I was under the impression that I wasan introvert. I wasn’t hanging out with the right people. Readersof the Johnnie stripe read with their whole heart and mind. Itwas a culture shock to leave and be in this other world wherereading wasn’t what everyone was doing.”

On the Outer Cape, Scibona says there are many with a similarsensibility, especially artists and writers. “Once again, I’m withmy tribe.” A “gregarious recluse,” he guards his writing solitude, even eliminating a few low-tech distractions. Thissummer he even decided not to garden. “Gardening is incomplete competition with writing,” he says. “It consumes thepart of my mind that is obsessive, that keeps tabs on the tinychanges in the plants. I get emotionally attached to the plants—like characters [in fiction].” Instead this summer, “I spend theday alone typing and looking out the window,” he says. “Around3 or 4 p.m., I go outside, sit on a bench, and read among otherpeople. It’s like St. John’s. I spend a lot of time reading.” x

One Writer’s Roots

Scibona’s debut novel, The End, is a gripping and intricatesaga that unfolds across generations of Italian immigrantsin Cleveland through 1953. It is in no way autobiographical,he says, even though his great-grandparents immigratedfrom Italy and Poland and he grew up in a cocoon of family.The End is dedicated to his grandparents. “I didn’t realizeuntil I came to St. John’s just how much other families movearound,” he says. “I was close to all my grandparents.”

The End was a finalist for the 2008 National BookAward. Scibona has also received a Fulbright Fellowship(2000), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2010), and the Whiting Writers' Award (2009). In 2010, the New Yorkerfeatured Scibona as one of its “20 under 40” notablefiction writers and published his short story, “The Kid.”“Where I Learned to Read” is linked at: http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/news/SJCnews.shtml x

“When I am reading, I decompose—I read for pleasureand for joy—and the [thoughts]

come out when I’m writing.”Salvatore Scibona

26{ E n t r e p e n e u r s }

What happens in a St. John’s classis mysterious—and powerful. Achallenging text.Ideas. Questions.

The individuals who’ve read and studied thetext. More ideas. The thoughts in the mindsof those individuals and the Logos thatexpresses those thoughts. The receptiveminds of others at the table that process thetext, the nuances of language, the words ofthe other participants. Insights. Thedialectic or interplay between the thoughts,words, and understanding of those at thetable. Fusion. Occasionally, somethingwhole emerges, either for an individual orfor the group. Awareness, recognition, lightbulbs. Ideas flash.

Here are the stories of two alumni whohave harnessed that power and mystery,

each in a different way—one observed chaostheory and the other studied humannature—to create businesses that improvehow organizations and individuals function.

Harnessing Butterflies

by Anna Perleberg (SF02)

Even though Glenda Eoyang (SF76) has helmedthree companies, she says “It’s very strange tobe thought of as an entrepreneur—it’s not apath that I planned or even imagined. Butlooking back, I can see it’s in my nature.” Infact, her current work at the Human Systems

Dynamics Institute (HSDI)—named for a field of research shefounded—seeks to understand the conditions that form justsuch obvious-in-retrospect paths, and apply their lessons toan uncertain future.

At first, Eoyang thought her own post-graduation futurelay in education, and she spent five years teaching physics,chemistry, and math at the high school level. But she foundherself interested in the then-burgeoning computerindustry—so new, she says, “There were no regular jobs. So Istarted my own business.” Called Eidos, the firm helpeddevelop computer-based training.

At some point during the late 1980s, she started readingabout complexity science and chaos theory and was surprisedto discover that many of the same concepts with which so-called “hard” scientists were working seemed equally

How To Succeed

In Business And Life:

The St. John’s Way

Two entrepreneurs illuminatechange and progress.

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{ E n t r e p e n e u r s }

relevant to human interaction. Her next entrepreneurialventure, called Chaos Limited, strove to integrate thesedifficult theories with leadership in management.

“Over time, complexity work drew me more and more intoit,” recalls Eoyang, “and in 1996 I decided to get mydoctorate.” For the next five years, at Union Institute andUniversity, Eoyang carved out her own, fiercely multidiscipli-nary degree, studying computer science, political science,mechanical engineering, and management theory—a blendthat her doctoral committee would help her to dub “humansystems dynamics.” This at-first opaque term describes a fieldbased on non-linear dynamics, “which is to traditionaldynamics what non-Euclidean geometry is to Euclideangeometry: a formal discipline of describing the world andrelationships that has different fundamental assumptions,”Eoyang explains.

One metaphor for this system of thinking about the worldis the oft-cited “butterfly effect,” first formulated by EdwardLorenz, in which a butterfly’s flapping of its wings on one sideof the world generates a tiny breeze that eventually causes ahurricane oceans away. In this way, says Eoyang, “a smallcause can be amplified by the relationships in the system tocreate a huge effect,” rather than a Newtonian scheme inwhich you can’t get a large effect without a large cause, sinceany reaction must have a equal and opposite action.

Eoyang also likes to use seminar as an example of non-linear dynamics: “We have agents relating to each otherwho create system-wide patterns over time. You know howsometimes, when the conversation is beginning to stall,someone will say something that seems off the wall—but thegroup shifts its pattern of discourse in response to that onelittle comment.” The seminar experience strongly influencedboth her dissertation and her work at HSDI. “Those fouryears watching groups of people making meaning togetherhas become a model of self-organizing systems for me, like alaboratory. Conditions are set so that a group of individualscan interact and create meaning that belongs to all of them.”

Her senior essay at St. John’s dealt with Galileo’s argumentabout infinity, trying to answer the questions, “How do youknow and how do you take action if you are not able to predict

or control the future? How do you equip yourself to dothat with grace and accountability?” In her subsequentchaos theory research, she realized that “sometimes thatprocess [of creating meaning and taking action] is veryquick and coherent and clean, sometimes messy andwandering. Sometimes it just dissipates”—again, familiarexperiences to anyone who has sat through a seminar.She became fascinated with what it is that allows for aspeedy, lucid, successful process, and boiled it down tothree main factors: “There has to be a container, something that pulls the agents together. There must bedifferences that make a difference—if everyone just nodsand agrees, nothing will move forward. Finally, theremust be exchange, whether of money, energy, or ideas.”

It’s these three principles that form the cornerstone ofHSDI’s work in training, consulting, research, and support.Founded in 2003, the Institute now has 152 trained associatesworldwide, all applying HSD to the varied work they do, infields like education reform, conflict resolution, health careservice delivery, leadership, and process improvement.

This characterization of the dynamics of human interactionis especially useful in what Eoyang calls “evaluating systemicinterventions.” She offers the example of a foundationstarting an agricultural research program in Africa, andwanting to gauge its success several years along. “Tradition-ally, the way these judgments were made was by settinggoals—‘in two years we will do X, Y, and Z.’” If in two years X,Y, and Z were not done, the project would be considered afailure. But human systems dynamics acknowledges that withso many small and even hidden influences at play, the definition of “success” fluctuates over time. HSDI attemptsto keep track of the influences; making people aware of thepatterns they create gives them ways to achieve desiredoutcomes.

Paradoxically, the current economy has been good for thecompany: “Because we’re combining models and methods forthriving in uncertainty, our business has really blossomed inthese current crises.” Eoyang also cites HSDI’s very low overhead and flexible workforce, with few regular employeesand most work done by associates under contract, as creatinga resilient business model that can weather financial storms.

There’s no doubt that business is booming: Eoyang’scurrent clients include the United States Children’s Bureau,the Office of Child Abuse & Neglect (OCAN), the state ofMinnesota’s Department of Human Services, the McKnightFoundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention, and theAuthentic Leadership in Action Institute. Last year, Eoyangtaught in London, Ottawa, Tel Aviv, New Orleans, andVancouver. It’s the kind of exhausting schedule that only paysoff for those who genuinely love their work and have madetheir own niche in the world: in short, entrepreneurs. x

Find further patterns at www.hsdinstitute.org.

Glenda Eoyang (SF76) uses seminar as an example of

non-linear dynamics.

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The Multiplier Effect

by Paul Hamilton

Dan Sullivan (A71) helps business ownersbecome millionaires. “I’m a naturalcoach,” Sullivan explains. “That’s beentrue all through my life. Ever since I was achild, I had the ability to sit down withpeople and help them think clearly about

what it is they want to do.”There is one question he has been asking individuals for

more than 36 years, a question that has transformed theirbusinesses and their personal lives: “If you were lookingback three years from now, what has to have happened inyour life, both personally and professionally, for you to behappy with your progress?”

That question lies at the heart of Strategic Coach, acompany Sullivan started with his wife,Babs, in 1987. The company operates inseven cities in the United States, Canada,and the United Kingdom; generates morethan $20 million in revenue annually; andhas 100 employees.

“My basic belief is that people have anenormous amount of crucial experienceand aspiration that they can’t see or useuntil someone asks them the right questions,” says Sullivan.

After graduating from St. John’s,Sullivan moved to Toronto and found a jobas a copywriter for BBDO, a large international ad agency.Their clients included Kraft and Chrysler and other largecorporations. Through his creative work, Sullivan got toknow the owners of small businesses, and he learned thatmany had trouble articulating their long-term goals. At hisclients’ request, he began leading weekend retreats on strategic planning.

“This opportunity developed because of my continualhabit of asking questions that went way beyond the scope ofadvertising,” says Sullivan. “St. John’s strengthened myability to ask penetrating questions—but I’ve been doingthat since I was five or six years old. I chose St. John’sbecause it was based on strengthening a capability that I wasalready good at.”

Sullivan saw that he could do more than help businessowners sell their products or services; he could also helpthem improve their business practices. At the same time, healso discovered his passion and skill for strategic planning.After just three years at BBDO, Sullivan quit his job andstarted his own firm, Dan Sullivan Communications. Thusbegan eight tough years, with the stagnant economy of themid-1970s proving to be a formidable obstacle. He had beenmarried for about a year when he went out on his own, andbefore long, both the marriage and business faltered. “On asingle day in 1978, I was both divorced and bankrupt,” he

says. “Low point of my life: a single day, two failing grades.”As for the business, Sullivan stuck it out, in part because

he recognized that he didn’t belong in a corporate culture.“In spite of the bankruptcy, I was more determined thanever to be a successful entrepreneur,” he says. “Besides,there was no alternative. My personality and approach towork make me totally unfit to be working for someone else.”

In the early 1980s, Sullivan’s fortunes dramaticallyimproved. He met Babs Smith, who at the time owned aholistic health practice in Toronto. She came on board tohelp him develop and market a coaching strategy based onhis techniques, which could be applied on a large scale.

“We called it The Strategy Circle,” says Sullivan. “I canteach anybody how to do it in half an hour, and it works forthe rest of their lives. It’s a very simple process: You pick adate in the future and ask the question: What results do youwant to see on that day? You let them talk about it, andnumbers have to be involved. Once they’re really happy

with that, I say, ‘Tell me every reason thatcan’t happen.’ The obstacles tell you whatyou have to do. You identify actions, deci-sions, and communications, and you staywith that plan until all the results arethere.”

Sullivan launched The Strategy Circle in1982. Within seven years, the businessmultiplied ten times and filled up all of histime. He saw that he needed to bring morepeople into his organization, and in 1989,he and Babs (now his wife) launchedStrategic Coach, with the idea of having

successful entrepreneurs—schooled in Sullivan’s strategies—coach other business owners.

“I’ve carried the great ideas, great questions, greatdiscussions of St. John’s to Strategic Coach,” says Sullivan.“I’ve also created a single, integrated program that continually evolves and strengthens—not unlike theacademic program at the college. At St. John’s, the processis facilitated by dedicated tutors. In our approach, there are 16 coaches, all entrepreneurs who have been in theprogram, who run their own businesses, and who can coachfrom experience.”

Sullivan explores the success of many of his clients-turned-coaches in his book, Industry Transformers: HowUnique Process Entrepreneurs Create New Markets. Onesuch client is John Ferrell, an intellectual property lawyer inSilicon Valley who saw other law firms going out of businessduring the dot-com bust in 2002. Ferrell rebuilt his practiceby pursuing a new niche: Instead of only helping inventorswrite patents, he guides them in “Strategic IP,” helpingentrepreneurs guard their intellectual property byprotecting the unique customer experience their productprovides.

Another client, David Allen, started out washing carswhen he was 15 years old and later developed it into a valet-parking business for Class-A buildings and


“One of the first questions I ask is...‘What would you do if you had 15 extra years?’ ”

Dan Sullivan

29


restaurants. He then added a detailing service. When one ofhis car detailing clients asked if he would be willing to cleanhis airplane, Allen learned everything he could about theprocess. Within a few years, he had a thriving internationalenterprise, with Warren Buffett’s NetJets and Delta amonghis clients.

While Sullivan is proud that his work creates jobs andgrows businesses, he also strives to help business ownersimprove their own lives. Brothers Noah and Dan Katz run athird-generation family business: a chain of 11 small grocerystores in New York City. They signed up for the StrategicCoach program about ten years ago. “Since joiningStrategic Coach,” Sullivan says, ”they now have 14 stores,and their profit margins have increased significantly.”

Sullivan helped the brothers adopt cutting-edge technology, but he also emphasized customer loyalty.“Technology frees us up from repetitive things so we canhumanize all the other experiences,” explains Sullivan.More importantly, Sullivan adds, the two entrepreneurs

don’t put in 65-hour workweeks anymore. “One of the firstquestions I ask is ‘At what age are you going to die?’ ” Whatwould you do, Sullivan asks next, if you had 15 extra years?“The clients tell me ‘I’d educate people, I’d travel, I’dwrite’—all these things that are in the back of their minds asthey’re becoming successful. Their businesses are what theydo, not who they are.”

One of the Katz brothers now spends more time with hisfamily; the other recently married, takes more time off, andclimbs mountains. “He’s also giving back to his community,and that makes him happy,” says Sullivan. “It’s a pleasurefor me to see it, and that’s what makes it all worthwhile.”

Though the recent recession was declared officially over,some jobs have disappeared forever and businesses mustadapt to changing times, Sullivan says. To meet this challenge, he recently launched Stage 2 of Strategic Coach,which he calls “You x 10.” Sullivan’s new structure takesadvantage of Moore’s Law, a prediction made by GordonMoore (co-inventor of the microchip) that the power and

speed of microchips will double every 18 months,while the cost of computing will be halved duringthe same period. Today’s economic upheavals aredue mainly to technological breakthroughs createdby entrepreneurs; entrenched bureaucratic struc-tures become obsolete when they cannot adapt tothe change. Countless new inventions using themicrochip—the iPad being just one example—aregiving rise to thousands of new kinds of entrepreneurial businesses.

Sullivan’s firm offers entrepreneurs in the “You x 10” program a framework that enablesthem and their companies to achieve a “multipliereffect” of ten-times greater performance andresults by taking advantage of microtechnology.There are already highly successful businessowners who can now multiply their success inextraordinary ways. Sullivan strives to show entreprenuers how they can make a good living—while pursuing a life worth living.

As for his personal life, Sullivan travels the worldwith Babs, finding great cities, hotels, and restau-rants, and he’s passionate about jazz, history, andpolitics. Sullivan says, “Entreprenuership is thedriving force of society. I believe the United States,especially, was established by the Founders to be anentrepreneurial nation. But we can take anysuccessful entrepreneur and, if they’re willing,help them to continually multiply the performanceand results of every part of their business. It’s amarvelous way to spend my life.” x

Paul Hamilton is director of marketing for StrategicCoach.


Dan Sullivan (A71) asks great questions to

transform businesses.

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{ B i b l i o fi l e }

Pirate State: Inside Somalia’s

Terrorism at Sea

by Peter EichstaedtLawrence Hill Books, 2010

First Kill Your Family: Child

Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord’s

Resistance Army

by Peter EichstaedtLawrence Hill Books, 2009

Peter Eichstaedt (SF92) has spent recentyears as a journalist covering the bleakconditions in much of Eastern Africa. Thepace of his output—two books published inthe last two years—suggests just howquickly events have unfolded in thisunstable region.

In Pirate State: Inside Somalia’sTerrorism at Sea, Eichstaedt asks whatdrives a person to hijack ships and holdtheir crews hostage. Beginning with thecapture of the United States-flagged shipMaersk Alabama in April 2009, Eich-staedt takes readers on a tour of Somalia,as well as neighboring Kenya and Sudan,through a series of reports and interviewswith the friends, families, and victims ofpirates—and in a few notable cases, thepirates themselves. He reveals a world of

poverty and the high-stakes risksof survival.

The personal stories he recountshave an added dimension; multipleviewpoints reveal the complicatedefforts and motives of all partiesinvolved. Interviews with the families of hostages, for instance,depict brutal captivity conditions,widespread government failures,and the desperation in theeveryday lives of the pirates.

Reaching beyond a merereporting of events, Eichstaedtleaves readers with his own recommendations for ending thecurrent pattern of Somali piracy;these include everything fromworking with Somali clan leadersto rebuilding the nation’s once-thriving fishing industry.

Equally as riveting is First KillYour Family: Child Soldiers ofUganda and the Lord’s ResistanceArmy, which chronicles the last 20 years of conflict betweenUgandan government and rebelforces, leading up to the stalledpeace talks of 2008.

The title refers to the LRA’s practice offorcing children to execute their parentsbefore being conscripted into their ranks.Escaped ex-child soldiers and female child“brides” recount their ordeals. (Some arereluctant to do so because of the subse-quent ostracizing they endure from their families andcommunities when they return home.)Eichstaedt presents these searing storiesof kidnapping, physical and emotionalabuse, murder, trauma, and the religiousconfusion of the LRA against the largerbackdrop of a society desperate to findpeace again.

Yet Eichstaedt is careful to give contextto the actions of the LRA by tracing theprecursor religious and political move-ments in Uganda in the 20 years prior tothe LRA’s formation. Whenever possible,he provides the explanations LRA leadersthemselves give for their actions.

Both titles offer readers compelling andunforgiving accounts of current hostilitiesin Eastern Africa. Those looking for moreof Eichstaedt’s astute and sometimes raw,hair-raising journalism can watch for hisupcoming book, Consuming the Congo:War and Conflict Minerals in the World’sDeadliest Place (Lawrence Hill Books, July 2011). x

—Babak Zarin (A11) and Laurent Merceron (A08)

Interviews...depictbrutal captivity

conditions...and thedesperation in the

everyday lives of thepirates.

A Journalist’s Searing Accounts of Piracy and

Child Conscription

Peter Eichstaedt (SF92)

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{ B i b l i o fi l e }

White Asparagus

D. R. Belz (AGI03)Apprentice House, 2010

“Now that there’s a well-established European Union, you can bet that sooneror later the specter of the United Statesconverting to the metric system will rise again.

But I don’t care what they say. I don’tcare how many public service commercialsthey produce. They might be able to taxmy income, regulate my driving, stan-dardize my deductions, approximate mydemographic make-up, optimize myconsumer-producer potential, as well astake all of the hormones out of my beefjerky, but no government in the world isgoing to make me ‘think metric.’ ”

With these words, satirist D. R. Belzbegins White Asparagus, a humorous andoften insightful collection of his essays,poetry, and short stories across the years.He covers a wide array of topics and quirkyincidents, ranging from the world offamily and the workplace to smallmoments of everyday life, such as shopping at the mall or encountering and early-morning car accident in the Baltimore-Washington region.

White Asparagus is divided intothree sections: essays, poetry, andstories. While there is one shortstory that prominently referencesProgram works (“There AngelsDance”), to read the anthologyfor that story alone would be tomiss the wealth of writing thebook contains. “Essays” offersmultiple works that reflect andsatirize familiar cultural traits,such as a drive for commercialism(“ValuesRUs.com,” “The Great-Ideas-That-Never-Got-Off-the-Ground Catalogue”), a sense ofvanity (“Your Astrological Forecast,” “The Caveman Diet”),or stereotypes (“The Joy ofCooking Internationally,” “HandJive,” “The Million MonkeyRoom”). “Poetry” showcasesBelz’s serious side as he pondersthe stages of life, from childhood(“September’s Child”) to death(“Suicides in Heaven,” “Plato’sTree”). “Stories” merges the bestof the two prior sections,portraying realistic characters inextraordinary situations of love

(“Tidings,” “The Perfect Pancake”) anddeath (“The Fabulist,” “The Green Bacon Boy”).

Belz, who has been writing professionally for more than 30 years andhas contributed to publications such asThe Baltimore Sun, The Southern LiteraryMessenger, and The Oregon Review, listsSwift, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain,James Thurber, H. L. Mencken, and KurtVonnegut as being among his heroes.White Asparagus is eclectic, a delight toread, and offers a little bit of somethingfor everyone.


Valéry’s Graveyard: Le Cimetière

marin Translated, Described, and

Peopled

Hugh P. McGrath and Michael ComenetzPeter Lang Publishing, 2011

Hugh McGrath (1914–1995), for manyyears a tutor at St. John’s, had a profoundunderstanding of language in general, andof the English and French languages, withtheir literatures, in particular. Aninspiring presence in the classroom and achampion of liberal education, he was alsoknown for his public readings of poetry

and his performances on the stage. In 1978 he delivered a lecture titled“Translation and Description: PaulValéry’s ‘Le Cimetière marin,’” calling it“a labor of love and a work of propa-ganda.” Its subject was one of the mostcelebrated works of poetry of the lasthundred years, widely recognized asdistinguished for beauty of form andwealth of meaning. This he translated as“The Graveyard by the Sea,” producingan English version at once faithful andpoetic, and went on to provide an elegant“description” which set out the mainstructural and dynamic features of thepoem and traced its narrative.

Valéry’s Graveyard is in two parts. The first presents the French text of “Le Cimetière marin” with McGrath’stranslation on facing pages, followed bythe descriptive account given in hislecture. The second part, by the secondauthor (also a St. John’s tutor), consists of nine chapters on selected themes awakened by McGrath’s work, with refer-ence to other writings of Valéry, Greekand other poetry, and some of the poet’sscientific concerns. The whole affords anintroduction to the complex intellectualworld of Valéry as well as to his splendidpoem.

—Michael Comenetz

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{ A l u m n i }

Finance, Risk, Diligence, and Kant

Laura Strache (A02), once a high-flying rocker, lands on Wall Street.


Since Laura Strache (A02) cameto St. John’s eight years afterfinishing high school, her pathbefore college is diverse. She spent five years in an “automotive industrial” band

called the Motor Morons, who make musicwith car parts and power tools. She learnedto fly small planes—despite not yet having adriver’s license at the time. It was her lastjob before matriculating, however, thatfocused her future energies; she worked in aunique form of insurance called surety, inwhich, rather than paying premiums andreceiving a payout when needed, a clientreceives a sum from an insurance companycontingent on completing a task—the mostwell-known form of surety being bail bonds.

Strache’s work in surety claims sealed thedeal. She was determined to build a career infinance. Her determination and guts—usefulas a punk rocker, pilot, and Johnnie—led toher current position as managing director of operations at a midtown Manhattan hedge fund.

First, a detour and a stroke of luck. Graduating in 2002 as the dot-com bubbleburst, Strache struggled to break intofinance; at the suggestion of her sisterVivian (A88), a lawyer, she became a paralegal. The hours were grueling and thework less than dynamic, but Strache’sJohnnie-bred curiosity and knack forplowing through dense philosophical textspaid off.

During the closing stages of a largemerger, she found herself at a giganticconference table covered with manila files.Strache’s only task was to check off docu-ments as they arrived, labeling folders andmaking sure all the necessary informationwas complete. “It was tedious. So one night,waiting for documents to come in at threea.m., I started reading them.” Though shedidn’t have all the nuances of the legalese,Strache did notice that certain changes tothe language occurred in some texts but notin others. She attempted to bring it to theattention of her supervisor, who dismissedher concerns. Further down the table, amore senior lawyer overheard, asking “How

did you know what you were reading?” Strache’s response? “Look, I’ve read

Kant!” In other words, she knew that fullyunderstanding a reading wasn’t required toglean knowledge from it. And she’dimpressed the right person: “Over time, I would work on every project this lawyerhad. I was told by partners when I left thefirm that I was doing the work of a fifth-yearlawyer.”

She left with this mentor when he wasappointed general counsel of the hedge fund

where she now works. Starting as a seniorparalegal, she was responsible for keepingcorporate books in order, and created asystem of records to document compliance.

As Strache started doing “a little bit ofeverything,” she enrolled in an executiveMBA program, offered jointly by ColumbiaBusiness School and London BusinessSchool. For four days every month over twoyears, she studied intensively in a verydifferent learning environment than St. John’s, but one she was pleased to

Laura Strache (A02) has determination and guts in spades.

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discover wasn’t boring. “At times I hit upagainst a different pedagogical approach—I would find an inconsistency, or somethingI didn’t understand, and question it. Someprofessors didn’t like that at all!” Otherstudents, too, believed that the only reasonto ask a question was to show off or to get a better grade for class participation. Persevering with her inquisitive natureintact, she graduated in spring of 2008, andassumed the position she now holds asmanaging director of operations.

It’s a job with many responsibilities, innumber and in kind. Essentially, Strache“supervises the processes by which we settleour trades, confirm our assets, make suresecurities are paid for.” This entails thelogistics of managing what as well as examining how business is conducted. “Is itmost efficient? Are there appropriate checksand controls in place to prevent fraud andcatch people’s mistakes?”

Special projects such as preparing annualfinancial statements and helping with thefirm’s taxes also fall within Strache’s bailiwick. Much of her work involves translating between departments; lawyers,traders, and marketing professionals allspeak different jargons, and she must usethe “very St. John’s skill” of being able tolisten to the ways diverse people talk and see

the commonalities. An aptitude for non-verbal communication learned from herbandmates has also served her well.

Yet another aspect of Strache’s workinvolves relationships with brokers andbanks doing due diligence on the hedgefund, and trying to feel out risk. “I need tounderstand how my business does things,what a bank might be nervous about, andexplain why or why not they should be. Ifthey should be nervous, then of course I goback and look at what we can do differently.”It’s this role that has changed most in lightof the recent financial crisis. “Investors usedto take a cursory look at operations. Butnow, a lot of them have a knee-jerk reactionto certain practices. I need to understandwhat their concerns are and address thingsthey may think are problematic that webelieve are not.”

Her MBA couldn’t have come at a bettertime: “Had I been in school in fall 2008, I would have had to drop out.” She estimatesthat between Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcyin September of that year and January 2009,she had not a single day off, includingChristmas. The firm lost large numbers ofemployees, and unfortunately, as director ofoperations, handling layoffs was also in herpurview. Her business school skills in thebest ways of communicating bad news came

into play. And her encyclopedic awareness ofhow the business worked, its rights andresponsibilities, came to the fore: “My rolewas not as interesting to people when themarkets were good—it seemed to them like Iwas keeping things from going as fast as theywanted.” But her risk-averse nature when itcomes to financials and insistence onpreparing for the worst-case scenario wasessential when the market faltered.

Risk-averse? A punk rocker and a pilot?Of course, says Strache: “Sure, flying isrisky, but what I enjoyed about it so muchwas the habits learned to manage the risk.”In fact, the dominant theme in her life andwork seems to be learning to handle uncertainty with aplomb. She loves “plan-ning, preparing checklists, imaginingpossible scenarios and leaving myself an out wherever possible.”

The potential for and rapidity of change inthe finance world is one reason Strache likesher work. “Even though hedge funds havebeen around for decades, it’s still a maturingindustry. There’s lots to learn all the time.”She finds the constant problem-solving ofoperations—shifting between “the five-mile-high picture and the details”—exciting andfulfilling. And it’s in demand. “There’s morecareer security in breadth.” x

1946PETER WEISS was one of theorganizers of a conference oflegal experts held in Vancouver,Canada, February 9-11, 2011,which produced a declarationaffirming the incompatibility ofnuclear weapons with interna-tional humanitarian law. Seewww.lcnp.org/wcourt/Feb2011VancouverConference/vancou-verdeclaration.pdf or contacthim at [email protected].

1955After a short stint as copyboy atthe Washington Post, and on-stage Navy experience atFranklin and Marshall College,JOHN M. GORDON joined theNavy as an Air IntelligenceOfficer. Following another shortcareer as a freelance motionpicture writer-producer, he went

to work as a civilian for the Navy,writing and directing trainingfilms and videos and retiring in1997 to continue full-time as alandscape designer and water-garden installer. After moreeducation in landscape architec-ture at the University of Maryland, he followed thedesigner track with clients in theMaryland-D.C.-Virginia zone,and is now writing a murdermystery set in Annapolis and,yes, the victim is a student atSJC. Write-What-You-Know!www.tudor-roses.vpweb.com.

RICHARD LEVERING writes, “Ineed to pay my gratitude to theclassmates of 1955, to the upperclassmen of 1952, 1953, 1954, theclass of 1956, and all the remark-able tutors and ancillary staffthat kept the dorms, grounds,Liberty Tree, and rooms oflearning in functioning order.My need to pay tribute to thosedeserving souls is summed up inthis attempt at verse:

Unspoken PraiseA thousand doors will open andclose,my years have taught me this,each one can change or end yourlife,bring agony or bliss.So I step from the path to smell arose,am hushed by the song of birds,and will yield those praises that Ifeel,freeing the captive words.

For a common crime, not namedby lawsnor punished for its commission,not carved in stone by God’s ownhand,not a deed, but an omission,is that of a compliment unsaid,that small but valued token,for those to whom our debtunpaidis the gratitude unspoken.

So I will seek that special timewhen, free from obligation,my motive cannot be construed

as a desire for recognition.To speak requiring no reply,lest tomorrow I must goand bear the burden of praisesfeltfor those who will not know.

1958MARY BITTNER GOLDSTEIN hasco-edited a collection of essayson contemporary Chinese Art,titled Subversive Strategies inContemporary Chinese Art,which was published by BrillAcademy Press in March 2011.

1959ROBERTO (ROBBY) SALINAS

PRICE, is currently working onhis Elements of Homeric Geography, A Treatise on theGeographical Grammar andSyntax of the Iliad and Odyssey,which he hopes to finish by

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year’s end. “The thesis restssquarely on the premise of myearlier work that, if Homer’sTroy corresponds with Croatia’sDalmatian Coast, then theentire body of geographicalinformation found in the Iliadand Odyssey must likewise bereviewed. The work calls for arevisionist understanding of theso-called ‘Heroic Age,’ prior tothe acquisition by a nascentGreek cultural identity ofHomeric toponyms andethnonyms (the ‘elements’ orbuilding-blocks of geographicalinformation).”

1961DR. R. DOUGLAS BENDALL isthe founder and president of TheNewark School of Theology,Newark, New Jersey. NST offersseminary level theologicaleducation to inner-city minis-ters, lay persons, and othersunlikely to matriculate at a seminary designed to preparestudents for the professionaldegree (M.Div) in theology. “We teach theology as a liberalart,” Bendall says. “Our philos-ophy and teaching methods aregrounded in the educationalmodel found at St. John’sCollege in Annapolis and SantaFe.” Married with five children,daughter Lisa Bendall is theSinclair and Rachel Hoodlecturer in Aegean Prehistory,Institute of Archeology, andTutorial Fellow for Arch & Anthat Keble College, Oxford,England, while son DavidBendall is a mathematician whoworks as a software engineer inSouthern California.

DR. STEPHEN B. BERNSTEIN

writes: “After graduating fromFranklin & Marshall College Iattended and graduated fromNew York Medical College. I did a Psychiatric Residency atMcLean Hospital in Belmont,Massachusetts, and am currentlya Clinical Professor of Psychiatryat Tufts Medical School, aLecturer in Psychiatry atHarvard Medical School, and aTraining and Supervising

Psychoanalyst at the BostonPsychoanalytic Society and Insti-tute. I am in private practice inChestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Ihave been married for 48 yearsto Judith Bernstein, and haveone married son and two grand-children. My son is an AssociateProfessor of Philosophy at theCollege of Holy Cross inWorcester, Massachusetts.

1964ERIC LUTKER (A) has retired andis enjoying life in Florida—walking, shooting in the 70s,reading, and in his spare timerunning a local learning insti-tute and writing a health careblog, healthdiscussions.net.

1966JUDY ANDERSON (A) did twomemorable things on January 1this year: retired and became avegan. Planning to move toSouth Carolina, which wassupposed to happen in February,but turned out to be a slowerprocess than anticipated,Anderson celebrated the 5-yearanniversary of her cancersurgery, and was officiallydeclared a survivor anddischarged from oncology; sheplans to keep everyone postedon both developments.

JULIE BUSSER DU PREY (A) isnow a grandmother of a six-month-old and her daughter isexpecting her first child, too.

1968RICK WICKS (SF) and hisdaughter Linnéa (who justcompleted her first semester ofmedical school) spent two weeksin Eastern Europe, where hedrove through Poland (toAuschwitz and Krakow),Lithuania, Latvia, and Estoniathe first week, and then tooknight trains to St. Petersburg,Moscow, Kiev (Ukraine), and

Minsk (Belarus) the secondweek. Then he and his sonHendrik (almost 17) spent thesummer in Alaska.

1970LES MARGULIS (A) is back inSydney for a year now after 18months running an ad agency inMumbai, India. After publishingmagazines and websites foradults 50-plus (although barely39), Margulis now works for anad agency called Naked(www.nakedcommunications.com.au), and is not ready yet forretirement or the glue factory.

1971JOHN STARK BELLAMY II (A),steadfast chronicler of scan-dalous tales, has a new bookavailable as a Kindle downloadat Amazon.com. “A WomanScorned,” he says, “is thegreatest story I have discoveredduring my two decades of totalimmersion in northeast Ohiowoe.” Bellamy is also expectinga print edition to be availablethis spring.

1972JIM CARLYLE (A) retired April 1after 34 years as an Episcopalpriest at St. Paul’s EpiscopalChurch, Columbus, Ohio, and iscontemplating his next career.ELIZABETH (A73) continues topractice law, concentrating oncriminal post-conviction work.Earlier this year, she was amember of a legal team thatpersuaded the governor ofMissouri to commute a client’sdeath sentence to life imprison-ment two days before the client’sscheduled execution. With Jim’sretirement, they have returnedto Kansas City, Missouri, andwould be pleased to introducetheir St. John’s friends to theneighborhood.

CRAIG FREEDMAN (A) says,“After six academic books, myfirst novel, The Last Time I SawRichard, has been published. It is available via Amazon.”

1975HOWARD MEISTER (A), isdelighted to announce that oneof his pieces, a chair calledNothing Continues To Happen(1980), has been purchased byThe Victoria and AlbertMuseum in London for theirpermanent collection. The piecewill be included in a group exhibition, “Postmodernism:Style and Subversion 1970-1990,” opening at the museumin September 2011 and sched-uled to travel to museums acrossEurope. Another chair (from theedition of three), in the collec-tion of the MetropolitanMuseum of Art in New York Citysince 1992, has been on exhibitthere for the past year as part ofa group show, “Highlights fromthe Modern Design Collection:1900 to the Present.”

K.C. VICTOR (A) and ED

BRONFIN (SF78) spent May Dayweekend together in Denver andBoulder. Ed lives in Denver, andnow uses some of the justicedispensing skills he learned atthe college on the job. Since2008 he has been a ColoradoState Judge, and is currentlyserving in criminal court. K.C.(in Los Angeles since 1998)continues her work as a businessadvisor and executive recruiterfor lawyers. K.C. and Ed met inAnnapolis when Ed was afreshman there, and have main-tained a friendship ever since.

1976In 2009, after working inmarketing consulting for years,ELIZABETH COCHRAN (SF) gother masters in social work andhas been working with familycaregivers, most of whom carefor someone with a diagnosis ofdementia. She is also doing

35


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Pressing on Bruce Sanborn(SFGI09) in 1970when he leftMinnesota wasthe desire to

prove his uncle wrong. “UncleMalcolm’s opinions were[that] our family went tochurch because societyexpected us to, and humansinvented God,” says Sanborn,who headed off to DartmouthCollege to study religion.

At Dartmouth, he enjoyedthe smorgasbord of the liberalarts: Russian literature, art,biology, astronomy, Latin. “I liked college lectures. Thegood professors showed methings I missed reading on myown. Then, in my senior year,I fell in love with “The FaerieQueene”—Edmund Spenser’spoem,” Sanborn says. “Inorder to get more time withthe poem, I enlisted my AuntPolly, who lived in town andknew my professor, to sign a note urginghim to extend the deadline for my termpaper, which he did. On my own—without alecture as intermediary—I approached thebeauty of this poem.”

After graduation, Sanborn imaginedhimself “a Queene’s knight ‘pricking on theplaine,/Y cladd in mightie armes and silvershielde’ and heading into the world to makemy way and do good.” He landed a job backin St. Paul’s teaching high-school Englishand Latin. Two years later it was on to theUniversity of Virginia Law School. WhenSanborn decided to return to Minnesota,joining the insurance company that hadbeen in his family since the 1950s, he andhis wife Thea and their three children madea life there. Sanborn served on communityand business boards, helped with somepolitical campaigns, and chaired a California think-tank. All the while, he keptstudying. “I admired Abraham Lincoln andread a lot about him,” Sanborn says. “I tookshort classes at Stanford Business School

and at Trinity Episcopal School forMinistry.”

Eventually, Sanborn determined thatwhatever his future held, it no longerinvolved running an insurance company.With the endorsement of Thea and hissiblings, he sold the family company. “Notlong after the sale, I read the opening linesin Dante’s Inferno—‘In the middle of thejourney of our life I came to myself within adark wood where the straight way was lost.’That fit,” he says.

The straight way turned out to involvemore studying—a path Sanborn had followedthroughout his life. Starting with theSummer Classics program in Santa Fe,

he read Locke and Rousseau,then War and Peace and DonQuixote. In 2006, he applied toSt. John’s Graduate Institute,was accepted, and found aplace in Santa Fe for himselfand Thea to live, their childrenhaving grown up.

Sanborn’s mid-life advice:“For anyone on a quest to findthe good life or anyone going abit wobbly sensing the wood isdarkening, go to St. John’s forfive days, five semesters, orhowever long you can, andmeditate on God, the humanmind, and the summum bonum[the highest good]. Theseborrowed words from BishopBerkeley could just as well havecome from Kant; I discoveredthem while meditating on the

human mind, God, and the summum bonumin an eight-week preceptorial on Kant’sCritique of Practical Reason and Meta-physics of Morals.” The Program, he adds,“has an attractive fullness, immediacy, andelevation to it.”

Now on the College’s Board of Visitorsand Governors, Sanborn has expanded hiscircle to include tutors, students, and otherfriends on both the Santa Fe and theAnnapolis campuses.

“While I was at St. John’s, my thinkinggot better the more I was part of the conver-sation,” he notes. “My mind’s eye wasexcited to see things—things I had beenreally sure of—in different lights andshadows and better. The opinions I helddear often proved murky, but got clearer inconversation, moving me closer to what istrue and what is the good life. All of whichhelps me in my mission to answer UncleMalcolm.” x

A Mid-life Master’s

After teaching high school, attending law school, and running the family insurance business, Bruce Sanborn (SFGI09) found his way to St. John’s.

By Deborah Spiegelman

Bruce Sanborn (SFGI09) is a

member of the St. John’s

Board of Visitors and

Governors.

“For anyone on a questto find the good life, . . .

go to St. John’s.”Bruce Sanborn

36 { A l u m n i }

some in-home therapy withseniors, from a narrativeperspective. “This represents asignificant shift from my read-ings at St. John’s,” Cochransays, “but without them, I doubtI’d appreciate this approach asmuch.” Finally, she is theproject coordinator for the ElderJustice Network of the GreaterNorth Shore (of Boston), whosemission is to educate profes-sionals and the public aboutelder abuse and the servicesavailable to reduce and elimi-nate it. “We’ve put on threeproductions of an original playincorporating real stories ofabuse, poetry, and songs inthree different senior centers.More than 400 people have seenit, many more than would everattend a presentation on elderabuse.” Beyond this, Cochranhas a 16-year-old son who will bea senior in high school next year,with all the accompanying joysand stresses. “He has a goodsense of where he’s headed, lots

of friends and is fun to bearound!” Cochran hopes to getback to Santa Fe some day soon,maybe with classmate and long-time friend, JUDY KISTLER-ROBINSON (SF77).

LORIS NEBBIA (A) has publishedher first novel, Solomon’s Puzzle(Blessing House Press, 2010),which reflects her love forAnnapolis. The MarylandWriter’s Association honoredNebbia with its top prize forshort fiction for the novel. Otherpublications credits include anentry on “The Great Awak-ening” in the Dictionary ofWomen’s Education publishedby Greenwood Press. Her essays appear online at:eighthandsaround.blogspot.comand christianityisjewish.org.Learn more about Nebbia’snovel at solomonspuzzle.com.

1977ED J. KAITZ (A) organized theApril 2011 art exhibition, “LocalArt Influenced by Great Books,”at 49 West Coffeehouse &Winebar in Annapolis. The showfeatured Maryland, Virginia, andWashington, D.C. artistsoffering representations ofworks by authors such as Ovid,Nietzsche, and Mark Twain.

1978TOM WISE (SF) writes, “I amstill at UCSB doing thecomputer thing (and I thoughtthe Internet was just a fad), butas of June 30, 2011, my wifeKathleen will have retired fromthe Child Development Programwith the Santa Barbara SchoolDistrict. Our home is on themarket (www.716cathedral-pointe.com) and we are lookingfor our retirement home inSanta Fe. I have been in SantaBarbara for 30 years and I alwayssaid if I weren’t living here, Iwould go back to Santa Fe in aheartbeat. So with Kathleen’sdaughter studying for hermasters in psychology at Buck-nell and her son Ken enteringpharmacy school at ThomasJefferson in Philly, our time hascome! Cheers to all and a shoutout to STEVE (SF) and SurinderMackey and JIM (SF77) andAndrea Ham.”

1980CHRIS BANTA (A) had her shortpiece, “Wallflowers Don’tAlways Triumph at the HighSchool Reunion,” published inWe Came to Say: A Collection ofMemoir, edited by Theo PaulineNestor. “I’ve been writingfiction and memoir for severalyears,” says Banta, “and havewon a couple of writingcontests, but this is my firstpublication.” Those interestedin getting a copy of the book canfind ordering information at

http://writingismydrink.com/we-came-to-say or by e-mailing Banta [email protected].

1982LESLIE SMITH ROSEN HYDER (A)married JAMES HYDER (A84)before a small gathering offamily and closest friends onSunday, April 17, 2011. It was a“surprise” wedding for almosteveryone—guests were invitedfor an engagement party and ahalf an hour later, a huppah wasbrought out!

1983BARBARA M. MEDINA (SFGI) iscurrently assistant commis-sioner in the Colorado Depart-ment of Education, where sheoversees an Office of Language,Culture, and Equity that over-sees Title III education for thelinguistically diverse, as well asmigrant education. She alsooversees the offices of Choice orCharter Schools and onlinelearning.

DESIREE ZAMORANO’s (SF) firstmystery novel has beenpublished as an e-book by LuckyBat Books. Find Human Cargoon Amazon, Smashwords, or herwebsite.

1984MARK NIEDERMIER (A) isleaving Anchorage’s PacificNorthern Academy after fiveyears experiencing the joys andchallenges of subarctic living inAlaska. In the fall he begins asHead of School for the LoganSchool for Creative Learning inDenver, Colorado, a progressivekindergarten-through-eighth-grade school for gifted students.He can be reached [email protected].

North to Alaska

PAUL KNEISL (A77) left for Alaska on his motorcycleJune 18th. If you would like to be added to the list of people receiving pictures, send an e-mail [email protected]. He and Maureen have beenmarried 31 years and have two children, Megan andJeffrey. Megan is about to start work for the ACLU

as a lawyer. Jeffrey is a mental health counselor. Kneisl has 32 years at L-3 Communications making electronic gadgets for military and space applications. He knows that “you are all on anisland somewhere just like I last saw you. While I have grown old,it is a comfort to know you, my friends, have not aged a day.” x

37


{ A l u m n i }

1985MAGGIE HOHLE (A) reports:“We moved to Northern Cali-fornia in 2007. My mom passedaway suddenly from lung cancerin 2008, just as the financialmarkets were beginning to meltdown. Now it’s 2011, and I feellike our family is finally stabi-lizing, at least internally! Ouroldest daughter, Hannah, is aproud freshman at UC Berkeley,and Tom and Molly are both inhigh school, while Billy is just afirst grader. As for Brad, he’sstill at Dolby Laboratories (20 years!) and I’m still free-lancing as a writer and trans-lator (Japanese to English). In fact, a new website is whatprompted this update: takumi-translate.com. Check it out!Turns out that my partner inJapan and I have been trans-lating for a decade, includingthe recent book, MUJI. Thoughtwe’d finally publicize the fact alittle wider than our circle ofusual clients, which includeKenya Hara at the NipponDesign Center, and Lars MuellerPublishers, as well as the Inter-national Design Center Nagoya(IdcN) and Idea Magazine nowand then. And our latest projectthat will be out soon is a book onthe Japan-based lifestyle brandMina Perhonen. If anyone knowsof someone who would like toavail themselves of our services,send them along, please. Ourhope is to assist non-Japanesespeakers/readers with research,communication, or translatingentire websites if necessary, inthe creative fields, since that’swhere our experience lies.Design, art, architecture, thatkind of thing! Anyone planningon visiting the Bay Area, comeon by! We’ve got a great littletown here, a couple hours fromthe snow, 40 minutes from thePacific, and in the heart of winecountry. Can’t beat it!”

MICHAEL STRONG (SF) attendedthe University of Chicago,studying why the Chicago economists, who consideredthemselves scientists, were

advocates of free markets—whichseemed self-evidently harmful.They gradually developedrespect for free-marketeconomics. He began a disserta-tion under Nobel laureate econ-omist Gary Becker on “Ideasand Culture as Human Capital”while training Chicago publicschool teachers in how to leadSocratic seminars. Beforefinishing it, he was hired as afull-time Socratic teachertrainer in Homer, Alaska. Thatled to a 5-year year career ineducation, starting as a publicschool reformer and leading tothe creation of innovativeprivate schools and programs inAlaska, Texas, Florida, Cali-fornia, and a charter school inNew Mexico that was ranked the36th best public high school inthe United States on the Wash-ington Post Challenge Index.Meanwhile he acted as aconsultant for hundreds ofschools, writing The Habit ofThought: From Socratic

Seminars to Socratic Practice.While at his last school, he metJohn Mackey, the CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods Market.Together they created FreedomLights Our World (FLOW), anonprofit dedicated to “Liber-ating the entrepreneurial spiritfor good,” leading to programspromoting peace throughcommerce, accelerating womenentrepreneurs, and consciouscapitalism. Most recently he hasbegun an exploration of legaltechniques that will allow for theentrepreneurial creation of legalsystems and the creation of FreeCities. He blogs on these topicsat “Let a Thousand NationsBloom” and is working oncreating Free Cities at varioussites around the world. Michaelhas two grown children and ismarried to Magatte Wade, theSenegalese serial entrepreneurwho founded Adina WorldBeverages and the TiossanoTribe.

1986GWENDOLYN CHEATHAM (A) haspublished two exciting bookswhich can be found at Amazon,Barnes and Noble, and Bordersbookstores. Their titles are:Give Your Teacher this Note:Parents Say the Funniest Thingsand Big Mama: The World is aPlayground—Enjoy it!

ELISABETH LONG (A) is stillenjoying running the DigitalLibrary Development Center atthe University of ChicagoLibrary. In her ‘spare’ time, sheis the editor of a new journal forthe College Book Art Associa-tion and is trying to sell hersecond-floor condo in order tobuy a house with a basement tohold her very heavy, old-fash-ioned printing press. Longwrites, “I was visiting my familyin Baltimore at the end of Apriland arranged to meet TIA

PAUSIC (A86) at croquet andcan’t believe what an event ithas become. Ran into lots of oldfriends from ’84 and ’85 and hada wonderful time.”

STEPHANIE RICO (A) writes onbehalf of herself and herhusband, TODD PETERSON

(A87): “After many years of plot-ting and planning and wishing,we are moving to Spain on anall-expense-paid vacation cour-tesy of the American taxpayer!(At least being in the Navy hashad some perks, to make up forthe free trips to Afghanistan andIraq.) We’ll be in Spain for atleast two years, maybe three.Our daughters, Tia (9) andSasha (7), will go to Spanishpublic school in between education-travel trips. ¡Estaninvitados avisitarnos!”

1988EDWARD KOMARA (A) receivedthe State University of New York(SUNY) Chancellor’s Award forExcellence in Scholarship andCreative Activities last May, astatewide recognition for his

On the Campaign Trail

JACK DOBBYN (A02) is running for state Delegate in the42nd District of Virginia, a race that the Washington Posthas called one of the “most competitive House races in thestate.” He is married to fellow alum Kathryn (Bush)Dobbyn (A03), with whom he has two daughters, Victoriaand Marie. The Vice President of Operations at his family’s

real estate business, Dobbyn became highly involved withthe Fairfax County Democratic Committee in the late 2000s andserved as treasurer of the Lee District Democrats. Currently heserves as the chairman of the Fairfax County Young Democrats. Inhis spare time, he is an active member of the Mount VernonKiwanis Club and enjoys coaching youth sports teams for Wood-lawn Little League and Gunston Soccer Club.

Dobbyn’s top priority is improving transportation in south-eastern Fairfax County. He wants to partner with Delegate ScottSurovell (D-44th) and Senator Linda “Toddy” Puller (D-36th) toimprove traffic on Route One, and also wants to alleviate theinflux of traffic expected from the completion of the Base Realign-ment and Closure process at Fort Belvoir. Education is anotherpriority for him, as he wants to see more of an investment in tradeschools and smaller class sizes.

“When I get down to Richmond, I want to get all the decision-makers around the table and find out what’s possible and what’snot,” said Dobbyn. “If I were going to say I wasn’t going to workwith people to solve problems, I’d have a tough time in Richmondand not be able to solve our problems.” x

38 { A l u m n i }

As it turns out, ChanaGoodman (SF94) and I havemet before—not at St. John’s,but at WORD, the bookstorein Greenpoint, Brooklyn,where I used to work. (I tried

to sell her Bridget Jones’s Diary as an antidote to Proust.)

For each of us, finding out the other was aJohnnie explained a lot about our mutualbookishness. We each also studied dancewhile at St. John’s, in classes taught by fellowstudents. Alas, my contact improv has grownrusty–apologies to Alana Chernila (SF02).But Goodman has remained active with fewlacunae, through cross-country moves andthe birth of her son, in her dance of choice:the wildly expressive, proudly rhythmicflamenco.

In recent months, Goodman has beendancing flamenco more than ever. She gaveup her day job, determined to have morecontrol over her time and creative passions.She is putting the finishing touches on an artstudio—when not dancing, she paints. Shepractices flamenco six days a week,performing about once a week in localrestaurants, bars, and other venues in NewYork City. Goodman traveled to Seville,Spain, in July for three months; there sheplans to study flamenco with her mentor,Yasaray Rodrigues, and other masters,including Andres Peña, Pastora Galván, andAdela Campallo.

Flamenco has roots inGypsy culture; it movedwith its people acrossIndia, Turkey, andRomania, and came to itsfull flowering in fifteenth-century Spain, mixingJewish and Moorishinfluences with those of theAndalusian gypsies, theGitanos. For them, saysGoodman, “dancing andsinging is like a religion.Kids do it from the timethey walk—they’re expectedto. And it’s not just movingyour feet; it’s reaching intothe other world constantlythrough dance.” At partiesand community celebra-tions, it’s traditional tosimply form a circle and

start clapping. Whatever one’s technicalproficiency, stepping into the circle toexpress the dance in one’s own way is anatural part of the culture. For audiences,though, jangly guitar music and extrava-gantly ruffled dresses are also par for thecourse.

After her initial exposure in a beginner’sclass at college, Goodman continued todabble in flamenco, first while working inSeattle as a digital illustrator for a gamingfirm. She studied with the acclaimedCarmona family and Ana Montes. While sheand her husband, Roderick Gilman (SF93),lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he wentto law school, she found herself driving longdistances twice a week to attend the onlynearby flamenco classes. Then the couplemoved to New York City, “and I have just notstopped dancing.”

While not an ethnic Gypsy herself,Goodman finds connections to the dance inher own family history: Her Romaniangrandfather hailed from Soroca, a city inmodern-day Moldova with a large Gypsyenclave, and he was also a child dancer, whocame to the United States to sing and dancein vaudeville. He continued to dance as longas he could walk, she says. “I’m intrigued bythe connection–he had a very Gitano style inhis dance.” As she speaks, Goodman strikesa dynamic attitude with her arms: elbows,wrists, and fingers angled, yet regal andalluring. She’s also found that the exaggerated gestures she picked up from herItalian stepfather have served her well inflamenco.

While it has taken years to acquire theskill to perform regularly, she considers thetraining as time well spent. “Because it’staken me so long,” she says, and “I’ve beenan observer instead of a producer, I have asense of the deeper significance of it. It’s notthat it’s just cute, or pretty, or beautiful.”

Like so many Johnnies (myself included),Goodman found inspiration for her unusualcareer path in her untraditional education.In addition to her fledgling steps inflamenco, she took a life drawing class onesemester that got her started in illustrationand graphic design. “One thing that’samazing about St. John’s is that it teachespeople to make choices in their lives, and to

carry through – that what-ever it is you want to do,there’s a way to achieve it,and it’s up to you. It askspeople to question the ideaof happiness and fulfillment,and to seek it out.”

After that, our conversa-tion devolved into a discussion of books, and we ambled over to WORDto pick up the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation ofAnna Karenina. Happyfamilies and Johnnies—we’re all more alike than we realize. x

Finding Flamenco

Chana Goodman (SF94) unveils her inner Gypsy.

Chana Goodman’s (SF94)

hands are elegantly

expressive when she dances

flamenco.

ta

ni

a t

re

ll

es


…[Goodman] found thatthe exaggerated gesturesshe picked up from herItalian stepfather have

served her well inflamenco.

39


achievements to date. He is theauthor of four books on bluesand jazz (including the editing ofthe two-volume Encyclopedia ofthe Blues (Routledge Press,2005), and of numerous articlesand reviews for music journals.Since 2001 he has been theCrane Librarian of Music atSUNY Potsdam; previously, heserved as music librarian/bluesarchivist at the University ofMississippi. “Potsdam is a smallvillage near the Canadianborder,” he writes. “The Victo-rian-era buildings and the coldwinters lend themselves to somevery intense creative activitiesfor the music students andfaculty.” His next project iscontributing entries for theprestigious New GroveDictionary of American Music,including one for tutor

DOUGLAS ALLANBROOK (HA85),with whom he worked for 14years.

KIM PAFFENROTH (A) just hadhis fourth zombie novelpublished, Dying to Live: LastRites (Permuted Press, 2011).His second novel was justreleased in a German edition,Die Traurigkeit der Zombies(Festa Verlag, 2011). When notwriting about the undead, hecontinues to teach religiousstudies at Iona College. He andhis wife, MARLIS (A86), are alsocelebrating their son Charles’winning the West Point BridgeDesign Contest.

CLAUDIA (PROBST) STACK (A)has finished her documentaryfilm, Under the Kudzu, whichtraces the history of two historicAfrican American schools in

Pender County, North Carolina.The film premiered at UNCWilmington in April 2011. Stackreceived the David BrinkleyPreservationist of the YearAward from Historic Wilm-ington Foundation for the filmand for her work to help restorethe Canetuck Rosenwald School(featured in the film) this pastMay. “To learn more aboutRosenwald schools, please seemy website www.under-thekudzu.org; my e-mail is onthe website and I would love tohear from Johnnies!”

DAVID BLANKENBAKER (SF)quips that “on May 31st,between 2:05 and 2:15 p.m.,David Blankenbaker ate anapple and thought about hisundergraduate experience.”

1989SARITA CARGAS (A) has justchanged jobs and will beteaching human rights at theUniversity of New Mexico inAlbuquerque. She is excited tobe near a St. John’s campus, andlooks forward to catching upwith her dear alma mater.

ANNE LEONARD (A) graduatedlaw school, passed the Californiabar, and is now busy getting paidto win arguments (or at least tomake them). Still happily settledin Cotati, about 50 miles northof San Francisco, she can bereached at [email protected].

1990GRAHAM HARMAN (A) has beenpromoted to full professor ofphilosophy at the AmericanUniversity in Cairo. He wasrecently named editor of theSpeculative Realism book seriesat Edinburgh University Press,which will launch July 2011 withhis own book, Quentin Meillas-soux: Philosophy in the Making.

KEVIN (SF96) and KHIN KHIN

(SF88) BROCK are overjoyed towelcome bright-eyed RebeccaWren Brock into their family.

Rebecca was born April 8 tobirth parents who chose theBrocks to raise their daughter inpart because of their adoptedson, Christopher. While waitingfor a second child, Khin Khinran a marathon. They continueto work, garden and read inSanta Clara, California.

1991LAKE JAMES PERRIGUEY (SF),who founded the queer studentgroups at St. John’s College andwas among the first to press theCollege to adopt a non-discrimi-nation policy to include gay andlesbian students, recently repre-sented a student teacher whowas banned from the BeavertonSchool District when heanswered a fourth gradestudent’s question about hismarital status by saying thatOregon would not allow him tomarry a man. The SchoolDistrict ultimately settled for$105,000 and achieved district-wide change. (More detailsregarding the case can be foundat http://abcnews.go.com/US/student-teacher-fired-gay-job-back/story?id=11957152.)

1993MARY “KAYT” CONRAD (AGI)and KAREN WACHSMUTH (A79)hold sporadic alumni meetingsin Iowa City restaurants wherethey share their passion for beetsand books. Both work at theUniversity of Iowa, and wouldlove to know of any other John-nies in the Cedar Rapids/IowaCity corridor.

1994PAUL BARKER (AGI) received hisdoctorate in Educational Leadership in May from theUniversity of Pennsylvania. His dissertation focused on theclassroom experience of highschool seniors perceived by theirteachers as being quiet. After

{ A l u m n i }

Passage Around the World

WYNNE HEDLESKY (A09) and boyfriend Kristian have begun a bold plan. Starting thefirst leg of their journey, from San Diego tothe island of Nuku Hiva in French Polynesiaon June 4, 2011, they are attempting to sailaround the world. “Crossing from the West

Coast of North America to islands in the South Pacific is by nomeans unprecedented,” writes Wynne. “What makes our tripunique is that we do not own our own boat, and we aren’t taking alot of fancy equipment. We are traveling as crew on vessels owned byothers, earning passage in exchange for our hard work and sailingexperience. We plan, when possible (and legal), to camp and live offof local resources, such as fish and fruit. We hope that by livingsimply and courageously, pushing ourselves outside of comfortableborders and modes of transportation, we can gain valuable perspective on our land-based life.

Nuku Hiva is located in the Marquesas, one of the most remoteisland groups in the world. We will make the 3,000-mile journeyacross the Pacific Ocean on a 50-foot sailboat owned by a Frenchfamily that we discovered on the Internet, and met in person in SanDiego. Using resources on the Internet, connections in the sailingworld, and on-the-ground networking, we intend to find othervessels to carry us further west, to other islands in the South Pacific,to Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and beyond. If ourstrategy is successful, we will find ourselves back in the UnitedStates, having circumnavigated the globe under sail.

Here’s an update: We left on the first leg of our journey on June 4.Melville readers may be familiar with Nuku Hiva from the novelTypee. We are traveling on a sailboat with a French family. AfterNuku Hiva, we plan to go to Tahiti, Fiji, Australia, and whereverelse the wind whisks us. Follow our progress on our blog:www.crossingtheline2011.blogspot.com.” x

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serving ten years as principal ofthe John Carroll School in BelAir, Maryland, Paul starts the2011-2012 school year as president of Our Lady of GoodCounsel High School in Olney,Maryland.

1995BENJAMIN FRIEDMAN (SF)married Rocio Alvarez on May 29, 2011, in Los Angeles.

1996CHRIS ANDERSON (A) wasrecently named a CardozoScholar and will begin attendingCardozo Law School thisAugust.

1997BENJAMIN BLOOM (A) is happyto announce the birth of hissecond daughter, Olivia QuinnBloom. She was born on May 15,2011. Mother, sister, and babyare all doing fine. Daddy is stillcatching up on his sleep!

JENN COONCE (A) recentlycompleted a Masters in Psycho-analysis at the New York Grad-uate School of Psychoanalysis,and now sees patients as a partof certificate candidacy at theCenter for Modern Psychoana-lytic Studies. Coonce is alsocontinuing freelance work as auser experience designer andresearcher.

CHRIS ENGLISH (SFGI) andDIANE SHIRES (SFGI98) arepleased to introduce their latestaddition to the family: KayleighNoel English, born June 12,2009. Baby Noel joins her 7-year-old-brother, Max, ingeneral mischief and mayhem.Chris continues working as anart director in Los Angeles, andDiane is teaching high schoolEnglish at her alma mater inSouth Pasadena, California.Chris and Diane’s latest creationis an entry in the 3-Day Novel

Writing Contest, a novel ondragons in the San GabrielValley of Southern California.

SHANI N. WARNER (SFGI)married Dave Horlick lastNovember, and is expecting alittle girl this August. Warnerwas also elected Ward 2 Repre-sentative to the City Council ofHyattsville, Maryland.

1999RACHEL (VEDAA) PENDLETON

(SF) and WALKER PENDLETON,(A) welcomed son James Pascalon May 8, 2011. Enjoying thefun of watching how much he’schanged in such a short time,they are reading to him andpreparing him for the GreatBooks when he’s ready.

2000BUCK COOPER (A) is nowworking as Program Coordi-nator at the MississippiAcademy for Science Teachingat Jackson State University,supporting secondary scienceteachers from around the stateand preparing undergraduatesto teach science. He is settled inJackson and awaiting the arrivalof a second child in August.

DEBERNIERE TORREY (AGI) andher husband Nathan Devircompleted their degrees inComparative Literature lastyear. This summer they movefrom Middlebury, Vermont, toSalt Lake City to teach in theDepartment of Languages andLiterature at the University ofUtah.

2001TALLEY (A) and LOUIS (A)KOVACS are participating inCharcutepalooza, a year-longblog collaboration with approxi-mately 200 other food bloggersaround the world. They areworking their way through basicand master meat preparations

based on Michael Ruhlman’sCharcuterie cookbook. They can be followed athttp://meatandday.blogspot.com.

PAIGE MAGUIRE (A) is living inAustin, Texas, with her son,Daschel Auden, and severalanimals. She works at Dell in theGlobal Marketing department asan online strategist and projectmanager. Previously she held asimilar role in a much differentenvironment—the Austin NPRaffiliate public radio station.

2004MELISSA and MARTIN

ANDERSON (both A) have relocated to Eugene, Oregon, so that Melissa can start hergraduate architecture programat the University of Oregon.They’re missing their friends inNew York and those scatteredalong the East Coast, but arealready enjoying the trees andmountains and looking forwardto at least three years in thePacific Northwest. They can befound at 854 Pool St., Apt. 54,Eugene, OR 97401.

MARTIN and KIMBERLY

GAUDINSKI (both A) write:“2011 has been an eventful yearfor the Gaudinski family. Withmuch happiness, on Valentine’sDay we welcomed our sonBenjamin David Gaudinski. Hehas been growing by leaps andbounds. Although we hesitate totempt our fate by writing suchwords, he seems to have the

happiest and most contenteddisposition with a great love ofsmiling at his parents. He waspresent at Georgetown Univer-sity on ‘Match Day’ when hisdaddy learned he got his topchoice of post-graduate medicalprograms: he will be training ininternal medicine at George-town University Hospital.Finally, May 22 came andMartin Gaudinski BA becameMartin Gaudinski MD. In thisspirit of change and tumult wemoved from one end of SilverSpring, Maryland, to the otherand are now apartment dwellersonce again, after threedelightful years filled withconversation and laughter whileliving with the SULLIVAN (A02)family. We feel very blessed.”

CHRISTOPHER HENDERSON (A)married GENEVA HINKLE (A06)on May 29, 2011, in upstate NewYork. Their guests dined oncupcakes and barbecue. Mr. andMrs. Henderson look forward tomany happy years of fightingevil together. Mr. Henderson isnot yet Batman, but he’s gettingthere. Mrs. Henderson isworking on her Alfred voice.

2005SAMANTHA BUKER (A) just tooka seat on the board of directorsof the Post-Classical Ensemble.This Washington, D.C.-basedorchestra will put on threecollaborative festivals this year:Jeremy Denk playing CharlesIves, Igor Stravinsky/Manuel deFalla’s El Amor Brujo, and Schu-

Nuptials in New Mexico

JOHN TRAVIS PITTMAN

and ALLISON

HAUSPURG (both A08),were married just a fewmiles from where theymet at St. John’s Santa Fe in the historic

chapel at Our Lady ofGuadalupe off the Santa Feplaza. Eleanor Mathis (SF07)was in attendance. x

41


{ A l u m n i }

bert (Uncorked). “I invite anycurious D.C.-Baltimore areaJohnnies to go to a concert withme personally. Each perform-ance recasts everything youthought you knew about acomposer and his work.” She isproud to support P-CE’s partnerships with Georgetown,Strathmore, the NationalGallery of Art, and choreographer Igal Perry thattake classical music way beyondthe concert hall. She’s alwayseager to hear from folks [email protected],whether you want to talkfinance, fine art, or fugues.

TOM JACOBS (A) and BRIANNE

JACOBs (née BELL; A06) aremarried and living in the EastVillage in New York City.Brianne is pursuing a PhD inTheology at Fordham Univer-sity, while Tom is earning hisdoctorate in Education Policy atthe New School University. Theysend their best wishes to alltheir classmates and friends.

ALEXIS SEGEL (SF) went to Italyafter graduation and studiedvoice for two years in Florence,completing a Master of Fine Arts degree in MusicPerformance and Literaturefrom Mills College in Oakland,California, last spring. Thisspring, she sang the alto soloistin a performance of the St. JohnPassion in New London, New Hampshire, and hasreturned to the Bay Area, where this summer she will beworking with the San FranciscoBoys Chorus.

SEAN VALLES (A) marriedMARGOT BEHREND (A06) in2007, and received his PhD fromthe History and Philosophy ofScience department at IndianaUniversity, Bloomington in Mayof 2010. Sean began a positionat Michigan State Universitythat following August, and iscurrently a tenure-track assis-tant professor with a dualappointment. He has a 75-percent appointment in theLyman Briggs College of MSU, aresidential college within theuniversity with the mission of

bridging the gap between thesciences and the humanities,and a 25-percent appointment inthe Philosophy Department.Specializing in the philosophy ofmedicine, especially evidentiaryproblems in medical genetics.His dissertation, “Explainingthe Evolution of CommonGenetic Disease,” is a philo-sophical analysis of the (failed)scientific attempts to explainwhy certain genetic diseaseshave evolved to be morecommon than others. He beganadapting it into a book manu-script this past summer.

2006EMILY NISCH (A) married JeffTerrell on May 7; Jeff recentlyreceived his PhD in computerscience from the University ofNorth Carolina, where he and afew Johnnies are starting a business based on his research.“More broadly, we’re settlinginto our new home in Durham,North Carolina, and loving life.”

NIC STRAHL (A) has had thedistinct pleasure of marryingRajneesh Sudhakar, whom shemet in 2009 through mutualJohnnie friends. Their June 24wedding ceremony and reception took place in NewYork City, surrounded by family,friends, and Johnnies. Johnnieswere in the wedding party,curated the music, and assistedin appropriating and misquotingexcerpts from Mark Twain(among other great bookauthors) to compose the secularwedding vows. The ceremonywas emceed by a member of theUnited States Navy.

TESS GILMAN (SF) and JESSE

POSNER (SF05) are gettingmarried in September 2011 andare currently loving their newhome and jobs in the Bay Area.

ALI BASTIAN (AGI) is beginningthe third year of medical schoolat the University of NorthDakota.

JACQUELINE KENNEDY (AGI)graduated from law school inMay and is now fully immersedin preparation for the Florida

Bar, which she takes in July.Kennedy says, “Life iswonderful: I got to see Melodyand EVERETT REED (AGI07) inMay, and we’re all lookingforward to CAMILLE STALLINGS’(AGI07) wedding in August inOregon. I also just discoveredanother Johnnie, BENJAMIN

BARRIENTES (AGI88) at lawschool and am glad to have acompatriot so nearby. If anyoneis in the Southwest Florida area,please look me up [email protected] would be great to catch upwith old friends.”

2007CLARE DAVITT (SFGI) moved toBoston after five years in SantaFe, and has begun the Masters of Science in Library and Information Science program atSimmons College. She was alsoawarded a position as the Fellowfor Dean’s Initiatives, which willsend her to Korea for a fewweeks this summer as a liaisonfor the students and faculty. Shealready misses the skies andmountains of Santa Fe, but isvery excited and grateful to be inBoston doing such interestingwork.

LAUREN ROBBINS (AGI) isgetting married in Charlotte onSeptember 3, 2011, and startingclasses at General TheologicalSeminary four days later in NewYork City. She and her fiancé Jay(and their dog!) are very excitedabout the move.

2008MARGARET HENNESSEY (A) isthe recipient of the 2011 Mathe-matics Teaching Fellowship bythe Knowles Science TeachingFoundation. This prestigious,five-year fellowship will prepareher for a career in teachingmathematics, and comes with atwo-year teaching commitmentto the Durham Public Schools inNorth Carolina.

Annapolis Freedom Cup

EUGENE SAMARIN (A10) has started a tradition ofhaving a trophy for the last soccer game of thespring season. He wants to call it the FreedomCup in honor of his mother, who brought himto this country from Russia. After becoming aUnited States citizen last spring, Samarin is

now living in Annapolis, working for a local law firm, and isplanning on going to law school in the next few years. x

je

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eh

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ns

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The Platonic solids just got acolorful, 3-D revamp. Attendees of the mid-Atlanticchapter meetings of the Mathematical Association ofAmerica this past year caught

a glimpse of the latest build-it-yourselfgeometric models by Dominion Polytopes.The five Platonic solids, along with 13 other3-D models for sale at a display table,delighted and intrigued students and professors with their vivid colors and intricate designs. The company’s founder,Steve Morse (A68), is hoping that his 3-Dkits will make Euclidian geometry moreintuitive and visually appealing to children,educators, and the public at large.

Dominion Polytopes is the result ofMorse’s decades-long fascination withbuilding geometric models, coupled with adesire to promote a more visual approach tothe field of mathematics. Morse, who for the

past two years has taught as an adjunctprofessor at George Mason University inVirginia, eagerly describes abstrusegeometric concepts in a passionate, almostgiddy manner. He chose the name“Dominion Polytopes” both as a referenceto his home state of Virginia—its nickname isOld Dominion—and as a doffing of his hat torenowned 20th-century geometer, H. M. S.Coxeter, author of Regular Polytopes and anoutspoken proponent of the classicalapproach to geometry. “I’m part of a smallcommunity in mathematics-land that valuesvisualization and intuition over algebraiccomputation,” he says.

Morse, who has a doctorate in mathematics, is in many ways a surprisingcandidate for such a venture: “I dislikedmathematics when I began at St. John’s. The mathematics classes I took in highschool involved banal formulations andcomputations, not reasoning,” he recalls.

It wasn’t until arriving as a freshman inAnnapolis that his impression of mathe-matics was turned on its head. “StudyingEuclid was an ideal experience for me,playing to my geometric sensibilities. Itwasn’t computational; it was reasoningwithout computation.”

It wasn’t long before Morse was engagedin his own mathematical explorationsoutside of class. In what he calls “a verysatisfying obsession,” he spent hours eachnight working on Apollonius’ famous three-circle problem, using only a ruler andcompass for the constructions. By senioryear, he was proficiently demonstratingproofs in non-Euclidian geometry, anddecided that a career in mathematics—asunlikely as that once seemed—was indeedpossible. “I found I had a talent for it. Ifound confidence in doing it, and decided itwas something I could do.”

After graduating from St. John’s in 1968,Morse rapidly immersed himself in his newlychosen field; the following year he took aposition teaching high-school geometry atSidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C.,and in the evenings pursued a master’sdegree in numerical science from JohnHopkins University. In 1978, he earned hisdoctorate in mathematics from the Univer-sity of Maryland, College Park, and a yearlater established himself as a consultant tothe defense and intelligence communitycentered in the Washington, D.C. region.

One occupation, however, remained fixedin his mind—building geometric models.“I’ve been building models ever since Ifinished St. John’s,” he says. “I even had myhigh school students design and buildmodels for class.” (One notable instanceinvolved Morse and six students building a14-foot-high walk-in geodesic dome on theexterior grounds of the campus.) The initialmodels that he began building in the 1970s,constructed from archival-quality matteboard that he cut and glued by hand, weremostly simple convex figures. But by 1980,Morse’s command of 3-D modeling hadgrown to the point where his models hadbecome, “pretty doggone complex.” Each

A Johnnie’s Geometry Business Takes Shape

Mathematician Steve Morse’s (A68) intuitive models delight educators.

by Laurent Merceron (A08)

Steve Morse (A68) encountered Euclid as a

math-resistant freshman.

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JOHN NEWTON (A) is nearingcompletion of his JD degree atU.C. Hastings College of theLaw, after transferring fromIndiana University, Bloom-ington’s Maurer School of Law.He is studying for a tax concen-tration in addition to the regularlaw degree, and plans to take theCalifornia Bar in the summer of2012. “I am living happily withmy partner, Madeline, and ourson, Alec, who just turned onein April.” Elected to be theeditor-in-chief of the HastingsConstitutional Law Quarterly’s39th Volume for 2011-2012, heis soliciting article submissionsfrom JD-holding St. John’salumni, which can be sent tohim at [email protected].

CARTER YOUNG (SFGI) writes,“I am looking to connect withother alumni in Toronto,Ontario, and hoping to work ina school with other Johnnies. I can work as a primary teacherat the secondary level or aninstructor at the college level. I would also love to meet somemore Johnnies in ColoradoSprings while I am still here.”

2009CLAIRE GRIFFIN and KRIS

KLOTZ (both A) will celebratetheir second anniversary inAugust. Nearly two dozen Johnnies made the trek out tocentral Minnesota to see themtie the knot. Kris completed hisMaster’s at Claremont School ofTheology this spring and nowthey’re off to Happy Valley,where Claire will be entering aPhD program in philosophy atPenn State.

NATHAN KROSS (A) recentlypublished a book of humorouspoetry called The SupervillainSonnets, which can be found atwww.amazon.com/The-Supervillain-Sonnets-ebook/dp/B0053NZD4C/.

DALTON LOBO DIAS (A) hascompleted his research year atDR. STEVEN HOLLAND’s (A79)Laboratory of Clinical InfectiousDiseases at NIH and will beattending The University ofMaryland School of Medicinethis coming fall.

MARIA LUNSFORD (A) marriedfiancé JAMES FULMER (A) onJune 11, 2011, in Annapolis,Maryland.

PAUL WASSERMAN (AGI)recently published a volume ofpoetry, Say Again All, sourcedin his experiences as a soldier inIraq. It was primarily writtenwhile at the University ofLondon (U.K.), where he wentto study comparative literatureafter completing the program atSt. John’s College.

2010DONALD GEORGETTE (A)recently got a job at Sheppardand Enoch Pratt Hospital inBaltimore, as a mental healthworker on its Addictions andMental Illness ward, and willbegin working on a Masters inSocial Work at the University ofMaryland-Baltimore in the fallof this year. He invites any SJC students needing/wantingany advice on how to get into the field of Mental Health/Addictions Treatment/ Counseling/Psychiatry/Psychology to contact him.

MATTHEW STRIPLING andMALLORY HEPBURN (both SF)were married at St. Stephen’sOrthodox Church in Crawfordsville, Indiana, onJanuary 9, 2011. Johnnies inattendance included SKIP

MCGEE, ABIGAIL DANCEY,JACOB DINK, JESSE KING (SF),CHASE MCPEAK (A09), DREW

SIZEMORE, EILEEN CHANTI, andCAROLYN STRIPLING (SF07).The Striplings now reside inChicago.

2011JUNIA CHO (A) has beenawarded the 2011 CriticalLanguage Scholarship by theUnited States Department ofState’s Bureau of Educationaland Cultural Affairs. She willspend two months this summerin South Korea as part of thisintensive language program. x

new model required between 80 to 100hours to construct.

In 2009, Morse bought a compact lasercutter and began experimenting withcutting thin sheets of polypropylene, thesame material used for food-storagecontainers, into precisely described rings.He fashioned a way to interlock the rings bycutting slots at given lines of intersection.The rings could then lock into place—muchlike a cardboard partition in a case of wine—to form a 3-D model.

It was a clever display of mathematicalengineering, and meant that his modelscould now be easily reproduced and assem-bled. “Each model now takes about 30 to 45 minutes to make, depending on thenumber of rings.”

With his new laser cutter, Morse designsentire kits in about 100 hours—the amount

of time once required to build one complexmodel by hand. He begins by making calculations in Excel, then drafts each ringtemplate using CorelDRAW graphic designsoftware. “The greatest learning curveinitially came from trying to figure out howto say what I wanted to say in Corel.” Oncethe model is complete, he types up a set ofuser-friendly assembly instructions, and thekit is ready for production.

After formulating his business concept,Morse hired a local web designer to boost hisonline presence with a website and onlinestore (DomPoly.com), and started taking hiskits to mathematics conventions. The publicresponse has been overwhelmingly positive,with customers applauding the fact that the3-D models can both educate and decorate.Says Morse, “One customer even happilytold me the model makes a great dog toy.”

Recently Morse has been using his lasercutter to experiment with building models

out of two very different materials—acrylicand wood—and is excited by the results:“Acrylic sheets are more widely availablethan polypropylene, and they leave a nicer,polished edge when cut with the laser. Andusing wood has allowed me to completelyredesign my approach; I’m hoping to buildwooden models that are about twice the sizeof my current ones.” He returned to theMathematics Association convention thissummer to unveil these latest models.

Morse hopes that his kits will make aparticular impression on professionalsworking in the mathematics community.“Algebra is in many ways a Faustian bargain.I want these models to remind my colleaguesof a happier, more fun way, one that recoversthe use of their intuitive faculties.”

As the freshman-at-heart says, “I delightin these things, and I want to share mydelight!” x

What’s Up?

The College wants to hear fromyou. Call us, write us, e-mail us.Let your classmates know whatyou’re doing.

The CollegeSt. John’s College, P.O. Box 2800 Annapolis, MD 21404 [email protected]

(continued from page 42)

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{ A l u m n i V o i c e s }

Like Odysseus, it has taken me20 years to achieve a home-coming. In my case, it wasgetting back to St. John’s inSanta Fe, where I had graduated from the

Graduate Institute in 1989.My alumni participation in the

Seattle/Puget Sound Chapter lagged aftermy wife and I moved more than 30 milesnorth of the city in 2000. In June 2009,resolving to change my habits, I made myfirst visit back to the Santa Fe campus in 20years, to participate in the Piraeus contin-uing education program on Stendhal’s TheRed and the Black. A round-trip motorcycletour of 4,500 miles sweetened the deal,taking me through national parks at Arches,Canyonlands, and Mesa Verde on the way.My return route wound through Great SandDunes National Park to the top of PikesPeak, and then Badlands National Park,Wounded Knee, and Little BighornBattlefield.

Buoyed by my Stendhal experience and awonderful February 2010 discussion ofPlato’s Phaedrus joined by President andEleanor Peters in our Seattle/Puget SoundChapter, I made my first trip to theAnnapolis campus in June 2010 for thePiraeus offering of Dostoevsky’s TheBrothers Karamazov. This time the discus-sion was sweetened by walking around the

Naval Academy and historic downtown, andseeing the sights on the Annapolis campus,of which I had only seen pictures. As a long-time sculler, I especially enjoyed my tour ofthe St. John’s College boathouse.

I returned to Seattle with a rekindleddesire to participate in the monthly bookdiscussions of the Seattle/Puget SoundChapter—which has proven to be worth mymore than 70-mile roundtrip ride into thecity each time. The act of shared inquiry in aliberal arts light is sublime.

In June 2011, I jumped at the chance toparticipate in both the Piraeus offering ofJoyce’s Ulysses and the Alumni LeadershipForum (ALF) in Santa Fe. I took a “Joyceride” on my motorcycle from my home northof Seattle down to eastern Oregon and theeastern edge of California, with first-timevisits to Yosemite and Death Valley. FromLas Vegas, I rode through three nationalparks in Utah: Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon,and Zion. On from the North Rim of theGrand Canyon to Canyon de Chelly NationalMonument in Arizona, I arrived in Santa Feafter riding for more than 3,600 miles.

Like reading and discussing great books,motorcycle riding involves skill and takingrisks—not unlike the experience of therowers and sailors on the Annapolis campus.One reaps rewards for exercising those skills:As a solo rider, I find that I’m moreapproachable by other travelers. Without thecocoon of a car around me, I experience thelandscape in a more Joycean way. And it’sjust plain more fun.

I’m in my late 50s, but only started ridingmy motorcycle 10 years ago. It took about 5years of local and regional trips before I wasup to riding long distances. Now I usuallytake one long ride of 3,000 to 6,000 milesacross the West and Canada each summer.As I get older, time has become moreprecious to me. Therefore, I do the Piraeustrips in part to honor friends, classmates,and others who have passed away. x

You can reach Greg when he’s not trekking onhis motorcycle at [email protected].

A Joyce Ride

Gregory Rhoades (SFGI89) motorcycles through great American landscapes to reach Piraeus.

Gregory Rhoades (SFGI89) atop Colorado’s Pikes Peak in June 2009—the day after

leaving Piraeus in Santa Fe.

A round-trip motorcycletour of 4,500 miles sweetened the deal,taking me throughnational parks at

Arches, Canyonlands,and Mesa Verde

on the way.

by Gregory Rhoades (SFGI89)

45{ O b i t u a r i e s }

LAURENCE BERNS (HA00),ANNAPOLIS TUTOR

The college communitymourns the sudden death ofLaurence Berns (1928-2011)who died of a heart attack onMarch 3. The communityexpresses its gratitude for hisnearly 40 years of devotedservice as a member of thefaculty. There will be a memo-rial for him on Saturday,September 24 at Homecomingin Annapolis.

Born in Newark, New Jersey,Berns graduated from theUniversity of Chicago with aPhD in International Relations.The great loves of his life werephilosophy, political philos-ophy, and politics. He taught atSt. John’s in Annapolis from1960 to 1999 and stayed anactive member of the collegecommunity during his retirement.

Berns never stopped being afull-time student, in all areas of human knowledge. Hisenthusiasm and curiosity aboutlearning, his openness to theworld and its joys and prob-lems, was unbounded. Hissunny, warmhearted nature wasa blessing for all those aroundhim. Above and beyond hisbeing a serious scholar, Bernswas a great storyteller, to hisown as much as his listeners’delight. Not the least of hischarms was a beautiful musicalvoice—he just loved to sing!

Immediately after graduatingfrom high school in 1946, heenlisted in the military, andwas a photographer at KimpoArmy Air Base in Korea. Hewas a member of CongregationKneseth Israel in Annapolis. A graveside service was held at

Kneseth Israel Cemetery inAnnapolis on March 7.

Predeceased by two of hisbrothers, he is survived by hiswife of 45 years, Gisela, ofAnnapolis, and his daughterAnna, son-in-law Joel, andgrandson Rory of Palo Alto,California.

JOHN BUELL MOORE JR.,(HA01)John Buell Moore Jr. (1916-2011) was a dedicated friend ofSt. John’s College, and widelyappreciated for the foundingand development of theMitchell Gallery.

Always curious, he was inter-ested in the life of the mind anddeeply engaged with the arts.Moore agreed with others thatan intimate environment tocontemplate and study works ofart could enhance the college.

“He understood that a collegegallery could be a bridge to thesurrounding Annapoliscommunity with exhibitionsand opportunities for artseducation and collaborationwith artists and other arts disciplines,” says HydeeSchaller, director of theMitchell Gallery. “When thecollege decided to establish agallery, John served on an advi-sory board along with directorsof major art museums to helpwith planning and designing,meeting frequently with collegeofficers and staff.” Moore was aleader in the local, state, andregional arts community aswell. For Moore it was always amatter of seeing the myriadpossibilities in things, largeand small. Moore will be keenlymissed by his friends andcolleagues because of the

civility of his heart, the lifelessons he imparted, the diver-sity and intelligence of histhoughts, and the twinkle in his eyes.

The Board of Advisors of theMitchell Gallery of St. John’sCollege, the patrons of and visitors to the MitchellGallery—past, present andfuture—are grateful for thegentle and wise leadership ofJohn Buell Moore Jr. thatresulted in the founding of theMitchell Gallery and securingits permanence.

JAMES W. CONRAD (CLASS OF1949)A character, pleasant andjovial, and active with his classespecially during Home-coming, James W. Conraddonated the American flag usedat the All Alumni meetings atHomecoming. The son of abanker, Francis and his wifeFrances (Watson), he grew upin thrall to his grandfather,Frank Conrad, the Westing-house inventor who pioneeredearly radio. They would tinkertogether late into the night inFrank’s lab, the teenager andthe veteran engineer, and thejoy of that time never left theboy. Neither, sadly, did theneed to measure up to a bril-liant forefather. His first lovewas anything that flew oranything that sailed on the sea.His tragedy was being born toolate and with the polio thatkept him out of the greatcrucibles of his time: WorldWar II and the Korean conflict.

He loved children, and anyanimal his sons might bringhome was welcome: cats, dogs,gerbils, snakes, even once ababy raccoon that would perchon his shoulder. He likedfireworks, golf, bagpipes, andthe occasional cigar. If youliked to listen, he was a remark-able conversationalist. Hismemory was extraordinary—

Laurence Berns leads a

commencement procession.

There will be amemorial for

Mr. Berns on Saturday,September 24, at 1 p.m.

at Homecoming inAnnapolis.

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{ O b i t u a r i e s }

tossed back into a city hehadn’t visited in 25 years, hecould navigate you out oftrouble in a jiffy.

He was a member of the Pittsburgh Aero club for morethan 50 years. Late in hiscareer, he helped raise moneyto have two submarines named

after his home—the fast attackUSS Pittsburgh and the boomerboat USS Pennsylvania. One ofhis sons took a ride on theformer, and never forgot theexperience of standing up inthe sail with his father, as themassive thing roared through

the Connecticut Sound like amuscle car built by the gods.

His brother Harry died in1991. He is survived by hisyounger brother David of LosAltos Hills, California and hissister Susan of Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania; three sons:James Jr. of Alexandria,

Virginia, Philip of San Diegoand David in Pittsburgh; four grandchildren: Elizabeth,Caroline, Bennett, and Olivia;and his beautiful and tolerantwife of 56 years, Margaret(Clement). He was 83.

Remembering Charles G. Bell, Tutor

It was clear from remarks given during the memorial servicefor Charles G. Bell (1916-2010) that he made time to listen tothose who needed him. It was also clear that he could almostalways be found in the upper branches of a tall tree.Colleagues, friends, and family gathered on the Santa Fecampus to honor Bell on May 22, 2011.

The service was a tribute from both the college and hisfamily. Arriving guests listened to St. John’s tutor DavidBolotin perform works for the piano by Bach and Beethovenand watched a slideshow: family pictures, images from histravels, photos of Bell in his cap and gown at various graduation ceremonies, even Bell in the high branches of anenormous tree. As the images progressed, guests heard arecording of Bell’s “matchless voice” reading his own poetry.Following the memorial, guests sampled one of his favoritedrinks, Pickwick punch, a concoction of boxed burgundywine, grape juice, and a splash of rum.

St. John’s President Michael Peters and then-Dean VictoriaMora gave tribute to Bell’s dedication to the college. Bell’sdaughter Sandra Colt recalled how her father opened the familyhome over the years to people in need of support. “Real acts ofgenerosity involve risk,” she said. “By stretching the limits ofour comfort, our lives in turn are enriched.”

Dustin Gish, who as a student at the University of Oklahoma,met Bell when he came to teach a course at the college, said Bellwas, “of course, high up in a tree behind his motel,” and“surveying the mundane realm with a keen, penetrating eye.”

Another of Bell’s daughters, Carola Middlemore Bell, sharedher father’s love of books and poetry. At home in his study, shewould point out to him a poem like “Kubla Khan” by Coleridge.He would adjust his spectacles, then “smile again with recognition” before sharing the words once again with hisdaughter. She closed with a poem her father loved, “LinesAbove Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth:

“…And I have feltA presence that disturbs me with the joyOf elevated thoughts; a sense sublimeOf something far more deeply interfused,Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,And the round ocean and the living air,And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:A motion and a spirit, that impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thought,And rolls through all things.”

Bell is survived by his five daughters: Nona Estrin and DeliaRobinson of Montpelier, Vermont; Carola Bell of Santa Fe;Charlotte Samuels of Fairfax, California; and Sandra Colt (SF75)of Belgrade, Maine; and by many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. After his memorial celebration in May, Bell’sashes were scattered privately in the mountain stream aboveSanta Fe where in 2004 he scattered Danny’s ashes.

Curtis Wilson, tutor emeritus in Annapolis, pays tribute toBell and a life that he writes, “had a singular unity of purpose.”It was, he said, “a fond attempt to bring all realms of knowledgeinto creative cognizance.”

To read Wilson’s tribute to Bell visit: www.stjohnscollege.edu/news. x

—James Williams

GNOMIC

The night each plowsA furrow of deathIn the field of starsWho calls?I am nothingBut one with the oneThat makes the nothingAll.—Charles G. Bell

Charles Bell in his study.

47


{ O b i t u a r i e s }

SYDNEY WAYNE PORTER JR.,(CLASS OF 1954), APRIL 23,2011 He was involved in radiationsafety with both the Navynuclear submarines and alsowith nuclear power plants.When Three Mile Islandoccurred, Porter was one of firstradiation safety experts at thescene. He and his team worked18-hour days for months,assessing the damage from acore meltdown in one of thereactors and supervising theresponse. Porter also workedwith the Mutter Museum inPhiladelphia to preserve andrestore a piezoelectric sensordonated by radiation pioneerMarie Curie, whose husbandinvented it in 1880. This devicemeasures pressure accelerationand other forces.

STEVEN T. BRENNER (SFGI83),JANUARY 16, 2011A native of Colorado, Brennergraduated from Colorado StateCollege, now the University ofNorthern Colorado, in 1968with a degree in English andthen served as an officer in theNavy from 1969 until 1973. Hereceived his Graduate Institutedegree in 1983. Steve cherishedthe experience of his studies atSt. John’s, beginning with hisgraduate work, and continuingthrough active participation inmany community seminarsover the years. He especiallyvalued a two-year study ofMarcel Proust in 2004 to 2006,with tutor Jim Cohn. Steve’scareer as a court reporterallowed him to pursue hisdeeper interests: a wide-ranging passion for music,including his 30-year study ofthe guitar, and a carefully culti-vated ability to read the world’sgreat literature closely andwith insight. In recent years, hehad been delving deeply into astudy of his favorite book,Hermann Broch’s The Death ofVirgil. Steve is missed by hisfamily and his many friends inthe Santa Fe St. John’s commu-nity. He was 65.

ZACHARY TODD JEMISON(SF97), JUNE 25, 2011Zachary Todd Jemison ofGeorgetown, Texas, died after acourageous battle with cancer.Husband, son, brother, uncle,friend—he was a true giver.Jemison was born October 7,1975, in Seattle, Washington.His childhood took him to livein Bloomington, Indiana; PaloAlto, California;Fontainebleau, France; andfinally Austin, Texas. He thenheaded to St. John’s College,Santa Fe. Austin eventuallydrew him back, and he becamesomething of a Zack-of-all-trades, working in sales at Delland as a liquor store lackey,standardized-test grader,organic farmhand and more.His fave four sang “moneycan’t buy me love,” but Cashended up getting him that. (Ifyou don’t know the story,search for “Jemison” onkut.org.) After meeting inWaterloo Records the day afterThanksgiving and a swiftcourtship (just old-fashionedenough for both of them) andengagement, Zack and Annewere married in 2004. Theycounted among their travels ahoneymoon in Belize; holidaysin Paris; heading west to SantaFe and Telluride; a recent jauntto New York City; and too darnmany to Houston.

Zack’s desire to give led himto return to school and pursuea career as a paramedic,somehow a perfect use for thatencyclopedic mind of his.Stationed at WilliamsonCounty EMS in Taylor (Medic42), though his time there wastoo short, he found a calling asa public servant. Life in Austinand later Georgetown consistedof him cooking many a holidaymeal, following an intensiveregimen of quality TV showsand movies, caring for a cat andthen her kittens, andremaining a music aficionado(country, western, rock and/orroll—live and otherwise) of thehighest order.

Zack is survived by his lovingwife, Anne Jemison, of George-town; parents, Dave and KelleyJemison of Austin; sister, EmilyFrancis and many other lovingfriends and extended family. Aservice celebrating Zack’s lifewas held on July 6, 2011, inAustin. In lieu of flowers,memorial contributions can bemade to Williamson CountyEMS (c/o Joe Granberry), 303 Martin Luther King Street,Georgetown, TX 78626.Personal words of comfort maybe sent to the family online atwww.gabrielsfuneral.com. Hewas 35.

ALSO DECEASED:

TUTOR MOLLY GUSTIN, JUNE 10, 2011

GERALD ATTERBURY, CLASS OF1946, MARCH 24, 2011

CHARLES C. BALDWIN, CLASSOF 1946, MAY 27, 2011

WILLIAM BANKS, A64, APRIL 25, 2011

EARL BAUDER, CLASS OF 1944,DECEMBER 2, 2010

ALLAN R. BECKANSTIN, AGI93,MARCH 6, 2011

SALLY R. BELL, SF74,NOVEMBER 17, 2010

W. JAMES BIENEMANN, A66,APRIL 21, 2011

FRANCIS E. BURROUGHS, CLASSOF 1942, NOVEMBER 29, 2010

WILLIAM A. CARTER, CLASS OF1940, SEPTEMBER 11, 2010

CH’AO-LI CHI, CLASS OF 1947,OCTOBER 16, 2010

ELOISE COLLINGWOOD, A79,APRIL 17, 2011

GIRARD COSTELLO, CLASS OF1960, SEPTEMBER 5, 2010

WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD, CLASSOF 1953, OCTOBER 3, 2010

JOHN M. CUDDIHY, CLASS OF1946, APRIL 18, 2011

GEORGE DEPUE, CLASS OF1961, MAY 16, 2011

JAMES F. DUGAN, A93, MARCH22, 2011

NICOLAS H. EKSTROM, CLASSOF 1961, MAY 16, 2011

WILLIAM ENGELHARD, CLASSOF 1952, OCTOBER 2, 2005

ARMANDO GUADIANA, SF81,MAY 13, 2011

JAENET N. GUGGENHEIM, SF88,APRIL 5, 2011

EDWARD JACOBS, CLASS OF1954, NOVEMBER 4, 2010

JOHN J. LAMBROS, CLASS OF1938, FEBRUARY 21, 2011

SAMUEL LARCOMBE, SF68,NOVEMBER 5, 2010

JEAN LAWSON, SFGI79, MARCH 2, 2011

KATHLEEN A. LEAR, SF72,JUNE 3, 2011

RICHARD O. MILLS, AGI82,DECEMBER 21, 2010

SLATON TILLEY ORR, SF09,JUNE 4, 2011

ADAM A. PINSKER, CLASS OF1952, OCTOBER 29, 2010

CLAYTON T. ROWLEY, SFGI87,DECEMBER 27, 2010

GEORGE E. SAUER, CLASS OF1956, SEPTEMBER 29, 2010

WILLIAM J. SCHWEIDEL, CLASSOF 1963, NOVEMBER 12, 2010

FREDERICK P. SEELIG, CLASSOF 1956

BARBARA W. SILLS, CLASS OF1960, OCTOBER 19, 2010

THEODORE B. STINCHECUM,CLASS OF 1961, MARCH 24,2011

JOSEPH SWEENEY, AGI86,SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

JAMES SYKES, CLASS OF 1951,DECEMBER 29, 2008

CHRISTOPHER A. THOMAS,A10, SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

LESTER A. WALL, CLASS OF1937, JANUARY 18, 2011

MARILYN S. WILLIAMSON,AGI81, APRIL 15, 2011

J. RODNEY WHETSTONE, CLASSOF 1944, MARCH 4, 2011

Onlookers gatheredaround the stepsof the Barr-Buchanan Centerfor the most antic-ipated moment of

the 29th St. John’s-United StatesNaval Academy Croquet Match—the unveiling of the Johnnie’sthemed uniforms. The crowderupted in cheers and surprisedlaughter when the teamtriumphantly strode down the frontsteps wearing near-replicas of theNavy team’s traditional all-whiteuniforms.

Throughout the day, spectatorshad to observe closely the details ofplayers’ uniforms, as competitorsfrom each team orbited aroundeach other on the courts whiletaking their shots. Scruffy, white sneakershelped distinguish the Johnnies from theirmilitary rivals, but it was an even smallerdetail that revealed their guise: the Navyteam had playing-card emblems on theircardigans, but the Johnnies’ cardigansfeatured veggies circled by a Mark Twainquote: “Cauliflower is nothing but cabbagewith a college education.”

St. John’s Imperial Wicket Blake Myers(A11) says his team’s white cardigans withmatching gold-letter “N’s” were “the realthing: they were ordered from the samecompany that the Navy team orders theirs.That company actually just went out ofbusiness. While every Johnnie got asweater, a couple of the Midshipmendidn’t.”

The Navy team was clearly impressedand flattered by their competitors’creativity and attention to detail.“I thought it was great! It was the best

theme they’ve ever done!” declared Navy’sImperial Wicket Dan Abney.

A tremendous turnoutThe 2011 match for the Annapolis CupCroquet Match boasted everything thatfans of this annual 29-year tradition havecome to expect—vintage fashions, cham-pagne picnics, lawn-game heroics—thoughthis year’s event will undoubtedly beremembered for something else: drawing acrowd. “I’m not an official crowd esti-mator,” says Annapolis tutor Thomas May,“but this is the largest crowd I’ve ever seenat this event.” More than 3,000 attended.

Beneath clear, sunny skies, spectatorsnear the croquet courts watched thecompetition unfold, while others sippedchampagne or started swing dancing.Mostly, people came to show off the latestin garden-party fashions, as bow ties andparasols, starch-white Navy uniforms, andcloche hats blended into a stylish, colorfulspringtime panorama.

The Johnnies entered the competitionknowing that this year’s Navy team, led bytheir Imperial Wicket, Midshipman First

Class Dan Abney, would be atough one to beat. “They’vedefinitely been getting better andmore serious, “says St. John’sImperial Wicket Blake Myers.After a close first couple ofmatches, the Johnnie team pulledahead to win, three games to two.The crowd stayed on for a fewmore hours.

Match openerCelebrating his 70th reunion,alumnus Henry Robert (class of1941) hit the first ball, a ceremo-nial match opener. Robert, whowas invited by the AnnapolisAlumni Office to be an honoraryguest at this year’s event,proclaimed to the crowd before

his shot, “I’m now a St. John’s manthrough-and-through!” Robert is thegrandson of General Henry M. Robert,author of the preeminent guide to parliamentary procedure, Robert’s Rules of Order. x


{ C r o q u e t }48

A H I G H F O R M O F

F L A T T E R Yby Laurent Merceron (A08)

Imperial Wicket Blake Meyers (A11) shows off his shaved

head and nostalgic croquet mallet.

Henry Robert (class of 1941) and

President Chris Nelson (SF70).

49


{ C r o q u e t }

Sing, Heavenly Muse

During the opening ceremony for croquet, two members of the original St. John’scroquet team, Adrian Trevisan (A84) and Claiborne Booker (A84) announced acontest for the composition of a new St. John’s College school anthem. TheTrevisan-Booker Prize aims to find new lyrics for the college’s official—and little-heard—song, the “St. John’s College March” (known colloquially as “St. John’sForever”). Fittingly the duo announced the competition on the centenary of thedate when the older song was composed—1911.

Dismayed by the lack of a unifying song for the college and by the current song’sreputation as an archaic curiosity, the two alums had a brainstorm: a contest tofind a song that speaks more directly to the St. John’s community. “The current‘St. John’s College March’ song has fallen into disuse, and we thought this wouldbe something fun to do,” says Trevisan.

According to the contest’s written announcement, a cash prize of $1,696 will beawarded “to whomever updates [the March’s] lyrics to make our school song morerelevant to the Program.” In addition, the two men are hoping to find someoneinterested in composing a new musical arrangement for the prize-winning lyrics.

The winner of the contest will be announced on January 31, 2012, with the newlyrics being performed for the first time at the 2012 Croquet Match. Says Booker,“We want to find something that Johnnies would be happy to sing.” x

For more information on the contest, visit:www.stjohnscollege.edu/resources/an/1112_sjcforever_lyric_contest.pdf.

Counterclockwise (from top): “Beat

Navy!” buttons; Adrian Trevisan (A84)

and Claiborne Booker (A84); St. John’s

team on the left (Navy on the right);

John Dusenbury (A11) takes a shot;

Members of the class of ’84; waltzing

on the lawn.

The Alumni Leadership Forum2011 convened with about 60 participants in Santa Feon June 10-12. This secondgathering of alumni leadersfocused on starting up

several new programs, designed to bringmore alumni into action as volunteers and involved members of the collegecommunity.

ALF, as the forum is known, serves toinform alumni about college priorities andissues. This year, campus presidents MikePeters and Chris Nelson provided asummary of the college’s financial picture,which they outlined as depending on twomain factors: a strong admissions program,and a need-based financial aid program.The difficult economy is putting pressureon families, who then require greater finan-cial assistance to meet tuition and othercollege costs, explained Nelson.

Mike Peters noted the importance ofalumni support for many initiatives at thecollege: making gifts to The Fund for St.John’s, which provides 6% of the college’ssubstantial financial aid budget; workingwith the Career Services offices to providementoring for current students and youngalumni; and serving as advocates for theadmissions efforts.

Identifying and recruiting Class Agentswas a major initiative of the weekend. ClassAgents will work with college staff toencourage giving to the college and atten-dance at Homecoming, as well as providingnews and updates between alumni and thecollege through the college website, andFacebook, and The College magazine.

Alumni from 17 states and all eras—undergraduate and graduate—participatedin the weekend’s events, which also

included a focus on chapter activities in themany cities with St. John’s Alumni Associa-tion chapters.

Look for more on the Class Agentprogram and other volunteer opportunities

on the alumni website:www.stjohnscollge.edu/alumni and Face-book page, “St. John’s College Alumni.”ALF 2012 will be held on June 8-10, inAnnapolis. x

50


{ A l u m n i A s s o c i a t i o n }

A LU M N I L E A D E R S H I PF O RU M 2 011

Initiatives to involve Johnnies in recruiting, mentoring, fundraising

Among the Alumni Association’s accomplishments is the restructuring of its leadership into a small governing board. The result is a structure in which alumnivolunteerism can make an impact, while the board concentrates on strategy andpolicy governance. Welcome to a new slate of leaders: Matt Calise (A00), JohnClasby (A95), Bill Gregoricus (SFGI01), Erin Hanlon (SF03), Katie Heines (SF82),and Adrian Trevisan (A84) joined the board; Lee Katherine Goldstein (SFGI90) andPhelosha Collaros (SF00) became Alumni Association president and president-elect,respectively. They join Patricia Sollars, (A80), past president; Dick Cowles,(SFGI95), treasurer; and Liz Travis, (SF83), secretary.

Presidents Mike Peters and Chris Nelson (SF70) (l. to r.) called on alumni

throughout the weekend, inspiring them to step forward in support of St. John’s.

{ A l u m n i A s s o c i a t i o n } 51


Homecoming 2011

Annapolis

Friday, September 23, 20114-8 p.m. Registration, Coffee Shop5 p.m. Alumni/Student Networking Reception8:15 p.m. Concert, Bill Charlap Jazz TrioAfter Concert Reception with current seniorsSaturday, September 24, 20118:30-11:30 a.m. Registration, the Coffee Shop9:30-10:15 a.m. State of the College, Honorary Alumni

Celebration10:30 a.m. Seminars/Story HoursNoon. Lunch on the Lawn1-3:30 p.m. Class Photos, Children’s Carnival2-3 p.m. Planetarium Demonstration led by Jim Beall3 p.m. Freshman Chorus Revisited, Mitchell Gallery Tour4 p.m. Soccer Classic, Book Signing.

A conversation and presentation, “So Reason Can Rule: The Necessity for Racial Integration at St. John’s College”

6 p.m. Cocktail Party7:30 p.m. Banquet9:30 p.m. Reception, Rock Party, Waltz/Swing PartySunday, September 25, 201111 a.m.-1:30 p.m. President’s Brunch

Santa Fe

Friday, September 16, 20114-8 p.m. Registration, Thorpe Room4:30-6 p.m. Alumni/Student Networking Reception6-8 p.m. Welcome Home Reception8 p.m. Lecture, Janet Dougherty, Plato’s Statesman9 p.m. Post-Lecture Question PeriodSaturday, September 17, 20118:30 a.m.-noon. Registration, Thorpe Room10 a.m.-noon. Seminars/Story Hours12:15-1:30 p.m. State of the College Luncheon,

Alumni Awards, Honorary and Merit1:30-2:30 p.m. Book Signing, Class Photos2:30-4:30 p.m. Bocce Ball Tournament and Kids’ Lawn Games

on the Soccer Field5-7 p.m. Art Show Opening and Reception6:30-8 p.m. Waltz /Swing Party8 p.m. Down thru the Decades Dance PartySunday, September 18, 201110:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. President’s Brunch

For the full schedule of events and to register please visit:www.stjohnscollege.edu/alumni

Clockwise : Liz Travis ( SF84) and Sanjay Poovadan (SF83); (l. to r.)

Tamaki Ishii (SF12), Jim Williams, senior writer, communications,

Barbara Lucero-Sand, career services; (l. to r.) Lee Katherine Goldstein

(SFGI90), AAB President, Patty Sollars (A80), past president, and

Phelosha Collaros (SF00), president elect.


{ S t . J o h n ’ s F o r e v e r }

What’s he saying? In thisphoto, circa 1954, threeyears after the collegeadmitted women for the firsttime in its 254-year history,Barbara (Dvorak) Winiarski

(class of 1955) and Bernard E. Jacob (class of 1954)

strike a dramatic pose and share a somewhat fantastical reptilian drawing. We invite you, dearreaders, to tell us about Dvorak and Jacobs’ conver-sation. Please send to The College ([email protected] or Communications Office, St. John’sCollege, PO Box 2800, Annapolis, MD 21404-2800). x

52

An Illustrated Conversation

ha

ns

m

ar

x

{ E i d o s }


Deborah Moll (A69) begantaking photographs as ayouth in Oxford, Maryland, a small town onthe Eastern Shore.Although both of her

parents had attended art school, she wasencouraged to go to college. She has alwaysbeen grateful for discovering St. John’s.She arrived in Annapolis shortly after thefounding of the Santa Fe campus and heardintriguing tales about New Mexico. Aftergraduating, Moll moved to Austin, Texas,where she received her MA in English and aJD degree from the University of Texas. Sherelocated to Santa Fe. When not working asan attorney for various New Mexico stateagencies and as general counsel for the NewMexico General Services Department, Mollphotographed New Mexico places. Nowretired, Moll continues this exploration.

“In many ways New Mexico is like aforeign country,” she says. “It is notdifficult to find interesting and strikingsubjects, and with the advent of digital[cameras], photography has become moreapproachable and versatile.” Moll primarilyworks in color. Her subjects include landscapes, historic and other structures,botanicals and wildlife. She has exhibitedher work in Santa Fe, Los Alamos, SilverCity, and at the Northern New MexicoRegional Art Center. She can be contactedat [email protected] [email protected].

Clockwise (top, l. to r.):Santa Cruz Church, Ojo Caliente. One ofNew Mexico’s oldest churches, Santa CruzCatholic Church was built sometimebetween 1793 and 1811 when it waslicensed. Ojo Caliente is situated beneath amesa where ruins of the Tewa people’spueblo (1300s to 1500s) have been found.Today Ojo Caliente is known for its hotsprings and mineral baths.

Santuario de Nuestra Señora deGuadalupe, Santa Fe. Franciscan mission-aries built the Santuario of Our Lady ofGuadalupe between 1776 and 1796 as a

shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe. It isthought to be the oldest such shrine in thecountry and is still in use.

“Sprite” Parjarito Plateau. The “littlebird” plateau was formed from volcaniceruptions in and around the Valles Calderaof the Jemez Mountains. The plateaustretches from the Valles Caldera to theWhite Rock Canyon of the Rio GrandeRiver. This photograph was taken on New Mexico Route 4 between BandelierNational Monument and the town of White Rock.

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon NationalHistorical Park. Pueblo Bonito is one of the

great houses built in Chaco Canyon by theChacoan people between the mid-to-late800s. The park was designated a WorldHeritage Site in 1987. x

Lens on the Land of Enchantment

Deborah Moll (A69)

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