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ROBERT A.M. STERN 60

Columbia
College
Today

THE LIONS’ KING

_ CONVOCATION

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CORE TO
COMMENCEMENT

COLUMBIA COLLEGE

pucimal igie!

cigars ae

ee _ From now through 2019, the centennial of the

i: _ Core Curriculum, Core to Commencement charts an
ie ambitious plan to strengthen our undergraduate

| __ experience, an approach steeped in inquiry, continual
| examination, vibrant dialogue between students

| and faculty, and a grounding in the

: | real world of New York City.

Help make our future strong:

college.columbia.edu/campaign/vision

How I Spent My
Summer Vacation

Students explore career paths through

real-world work experiences.

By Nathalie Alonso ‘O08

Moving the Sticks

Peter Pilling ushers in a new
era for Columbia Athletics.

By Alex Sachare ’71

Cover: Illustration by Traci Daberko

V4
+

The Janus-Faced Art

Architect Robert A.M. Stern ’60 designs
everything from skyscrapers to country homes
with both the past and the future in mind.

By Famie Katz 72, BUS’80

Contents

SS Ll)

departments dlumninews

41 Message from CCAA President
Douglas R. Wolf ’88
Summer Sendoffs connect alumni with first-years
preparing to head to Morningside Heights.

42 Lions
Carr D’Angelo ’84, Dr. Medora Pashmakova ’04:

45 Alumni in the News

46 Bookshelf
Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature by Alva Noe ’86

48 Class Notes
Alumni Sons and Daughters

92 Obituaries

3 Within the Family by Editor Alex Sachare ’71 Robert Rosencrans ’49
Convocation is a day of transition for
first-years and parents alike. 96 Alumni Corner
Inspired by Class Notes, an alumna finds peace of mind
4 Letters to the Editor in charity. By Shira Boss ’93, JRN’97, SIPA’98
| 6 Message from Dean James J. Valentini CCT Web Extras

Students make the most of summer through BMEET =, PASI Sees BAe ee ae RE peeee sas ea ces Wr Je a

ships and other Columbia-sponsored programs. - CCT profiles of Alexander Hamilton Medal honorees

7 INGICIeERe * More from postcard artist F. Earl Christy
Professors Breslow, Foner and Jackson to each be - CCT’s feature on Robert Rosencrans 49
| honored with a 2016 Alexander Hamilton Medal. * Thank you to our FY16 CCT donors

Plus: photos from Convocation.
| college.columbia.edu/cct
14 Roar, Lion, Roar

Football seeks to take the next step up the Ivy

League ladder; Hall of Fame adds the Class of 2016; Ei Like Columbia College Alumni:
Columbians compete at the Rio Olympics. facebook.com/alumnicc
S6l@alimipia honey eee Pee se eae cee
instagram.com/alumniofcolumbiacolle
Toward a More Perfect University : ae
| A sociologist and former University Provost dl Follow @Columbia_CCAA

looks at the challenges inherent in university
humanities courses.

Join the Columbia College alumni network:
By Jonathan R. Cole ’64, GSAS’69 college.columbia.edu/alumni/linkedin

KELLY CHAN BC’'17

othing signals the end of summer and the dawn-

ing of a new academic year quite like the sight of

enthusiastic students in brightly colored T-shirts

pushing large bins filled with life’s essentials to
residence halls around Morningside Heights, accompanied by
wide-eyed first-year students and anxious parents.

On August 29,1 pulled my Prius to the curb at Amsterdam
near West 115th Street to drop off my daughter, Deborah
BC’14, for work. Before I could put the car in park, a group
of NSOP students (that’s New Student Orientation Program
for those unfamiliar with Columbia acronyms, pronounced
EN-sop) started heading toward us with bright smiles and
clapping hands, bins in tow, welcoming us to campus. My
daughter, who had been an NSOP leader during her Barnard
days, waved at them with a big smile of her own.

Move-in Day/Convocation, usually the Monday before Labor
Day, is one of my favorite days of the year, a milestone for
students and parents alike. Having been there and done that,
as both a student and a parent, I know it is a day of significant
transition for all.

For the first-years, it marks the beginning of an exciting
chapter in their lives, a time of growth and uncertainty and
mistakes and learning. It’s the start of a unique time of explo-
ration and adventure. They will settle in to their new homes
in the morning and experience the pageantry of Convocation
in the afternoon, with an often tear-filled goodbye shared
with parents and other loved ones along the way.

Parents fall into two groups. For parents who are saying
goodbye to their only or youngest child, it is the first true taste
of empty-nesting. For those who will be going home with the
first-year’s siblings, it’s a portent of the separation that’s to come.

barely remember my move-in experience in fall 1967. I

recall my parents dropping me off near the gates of Car-
man Hall and helping me bring my belongings to my room
on the fourth floor, overlooking West 114th Street. There
was no Convocation program, as best I can recall, so we said
goodbye and I was on my own. Of course, that’s all relative,
as my parents’ apartment in Brooklyn was just a subway ride
away (which made it easy to drop off laundry).

In 2010, my move-in experience as a parent was nothing
short of amazing. I had some idea of what to expect, as I had
observed the process for CCT many times, but like so many
things, you don't fully appreciate it until you go through it
yourself. Talk about a well-oiled machine: It was barely an hour
from the time an NSOP volunteer unloaded our car until my
daughter was unpacked and settling into her room in Brooks
Hall. The spirit and energy of the students who helped us was

Class of 2020 Prepares To Roar

infectious and helped make
“losing” (if only temporarily)
our only child less painful.
Move-in Day leads into
Convocation, with its parade
of flags representing all of
the first-years’ home states
and countries; the Alumni
Procession, in which for-
mer students march with
their class year banners by
decade and which shows the
incoming students that the

JILL SHOMER

relationship they are begin-
ning with the College lasts
for a lifetime; and the welcoming address from Dean James J.
Valentini, whose thought-provoking remarks never fail to
amuse and inspire.

It’s a full day, but it’s just the start of eight days of NSOP
programs and activities throughout New York City designed
to embrace and energize first-years. ‘This year’s sched-
ule included academic events such as their first Literature
Humanities class, covering The Iliad, a New York Mets game
and the hit Broadway show Something Rotten; tours of New
York neighborhoods to introduce newcomers to the city; and
even a trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond.

The program was planned by a student committee that
worked all summer under the guidance of members of the
Division of Undergraduate Student Life. Its theme, “NSOP
Out Loud,” was chosen by the NSOP committee “to reflect
the community you are joining,” according to the 56-page
schedule, which explained: “During your time at Barnard
College and Columbia University, you have the opportu-
nities to live out loud: be the actor on stage, athlete on the
field, student in the classroom, or voice in society. Your voices
are ringing from all corners of the globe, echoing your indi-
vidual experiences, backgrounds, and personalities. Columbia
and Barnard are a symphony of voices, each one unique and
special, resounding with its own tune. What sounds will you
create? What symphonies will you join? Put your sound out
there. Discover yourself. BE LOUD!”

That sounds good to me. Roar, Class of 2020, Roar!

Abn SacBars

Alex Sachare ’71
Editor in Chief

General Donovan

‘The Summer 2016 “Did You Know?” item
on William J. Donovan (Class of 1905,
LAW 1908), “Columbia’s CIA Connec-
tion,” had errors and significant omissions.
Donovan received the Distinguished Ser-
vice Cross in WWI but was also awarded
the highest American military decoration,
the Medal of Honor, as well as the Distin-
guished Service Medal. He thus enjoyed

[# Contact Us

CCT welcomes letters from readers about
articles in the magazine but cannot print or
personally respond to all letters received.
Letters express the views of the writers

and not CCT, the College or the University.
Please keep letters to 250 words or fewer.
All letters are subject to editing for space,
clarity and CCT style. Please direct letters for
publication “to the editor” via mail or online:
college.columbia.edu/cct/contactus.

4 CCT Fall 2016

I thoroughly enjoyed reading “The Scholarly Artist” [Summer 2016]. My
interactions with Greg Wyatt’71 during the late 1990s left me impressed and
inspired. In the well-written article by Shira Boss’93, JRN’97, SIPA’98, I wish it
had been mentioned that Scholars Lion

was a project conceptualized and initi-
ated as the graduation gift of the Class
of 1996. Our class marshals met with
Mr. Wyatt a number of times between
1995 and completion of the project to
speak about our vision for a gift to the
campus. I feel comfortable speaking for
my class when I say that we are eter-
nally grateful for the recent addition of a

plaque with our class year to the base of

this monumental addition to an already

picturesque campus. At the same time, we acknowledge the fact that this proj-

ect would not have been possible without the generosity of Mr. Wyatt, other
members of the Class of 1971 and those listed on the initial plaque.

the singular honor of being awarded the
three highest U.S. medals for wartime ser-
vice. However, Donovan did not receive
the Purple Heart, a medal instituted in
1932. Stripes on a uniform’s right sleeve
indicated WWI combat wounds.

After Donovan returned from France
in 1919, Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Franklin Delano Roosevelt recruited his
Law School friend as an agent of the
Office of Naval Intelligence, and over the
years the Republican Donovan made sev-
eral overseas trips in a private capacity to
gather intelligence for Roosevelt, the aspir-
ing Democratic politician. After Roosevelt
became President, he sent Donovan to report
on the Ethiopian War from the Italian side
and to observe Spanish Civil War operations.
In winter 1940-41, under British auspices,
Donovan undertook a 10-week information-
gathering and secret diplomacy mission for
the President in Europe, the Middle East
and North Africa. By the time he became
coordinator of information in mid-1941,
Donovan had been collecting intelligence for

Roosevelt for more than 20 years.

Dr. Uchenna Acholonu Jr. 96
New Flyde Park, N.Y.

After his command of the Office of Stra-
tegic Services in WWII, Donovan began
writing a book about Revolutionary War
intelligence as organized by the true “Father
of American Intelligence,” George Washing-
ton. He depicted espionage as an honorable
American tradition, implicitly rebutting post-
war Republican isolationists and advocating
what became the CIA. In 1948, Donovan
encouraged Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to
accept the presidency of Columbia. But five
years later, after his election as U.S. Presi-
dent, Eisenhower dashed Donovan's hopes
to become CIA director. Donovan's unpub-
lished manuscript is housed in Columbia’s
Rare Book & Manuscript Library. A Univer-
sity monument to Donovan stands appropri-
ately on the bridge between the main campus
and the [Arthur W. Diamond] Law Library.

Brian R. Sullivan 67, GSAS’84
Rockville, Md.

Editor’ note: Although the Purple Heart was
instituted in 1932, it was retroactively awarded
to those wounded in WWI who had previously

received Meritorious Service Citation certifi-

Letters to the Editor

ANNE-RYAN HEATWOLE JRN'09

eee

cates or those authorized to wear wound chev-
rons. The monument mentioned in this letter
is Tightrope Walker, on Revson Plaza near
the Law School, created by Dutch artist Kees
Verkade and installed in 1979. According to
the Columbia University Libraries, “In choosing
to depict two tightrope walkers, one balancing
upon the shoulders of the other, Verkade wanted
to display the courage and controlled daring of

Gen. Donovan.”

Good Memories

My Summer 2016 issue arrived this past
weekend and I was saddened to learn that
Jim McMillian ’70 had passed away. Thank
you for your mentions of Jim, both in the
editor’s column and “Obituaries.”

When I was growing up in the Colum-
bia neighborhood (my father worked in
the Barnard administration), I was lucky
to go to the old gym in those years when
Jim was leading the Lions (along with
some other impressive players, including
Heyward Dotson ’70, LAW’76). My dad
brought tickets home and I remember
walking to the games with him through
the old tunnel and being overwhelmed by
the noise and energy in the tight quarters
of that gym. It was a wonderful window for
Columbia basketball and I enthusiastically
followed Jim’s career into the NBA, proud
to have seen him play so brilliantly for the
Lions. I was so sorry to learn that Jim died.

On another note, thank you for the notice
of WKCR marking 75 years [Spring 2016].
It’s a truly remarkable place. I am happy to
identify the people in the 1983 photo below.

(I guess it reminds me how much WKCR °

meant to me in my Columbia years that I
recall each of those pictured, including the
guest musician that day; those musician ses-
sions were great.) Left to right: Terumasa
Hino, jazz trumpeter; Courtney Munroe

GS’88, host of “Sounds of the Caribbean’;
Ashley Kahn ’83, and a subject of a profile
in that same issue; Andy Caploe’83; Brooke
Wentz BC’82, BUS’88, host of “Transfig-
ured Night”; me; and Phil Hubbard GS’86,
jazz host.

Many thanks to you and the CCT team.
You do a wonderful job keeping us up to date
on Columbia's remarkable progress as well as
helping us keep up with one another.

Jonathan Abbott 84
Newton, Mass.

Representing CC
You have created in [the Summer 2016]
issue of CCT'a most memorable represen-
tation of Columbia College, and I compli-
ment you on this outstanding achievement.
Sol Fisher ‘36
Pleasant Hill, Calif.

A Good Chemist
I enjoyed the profile of chemistry professor
Laura Kaufman ’97 [“The Essentials,” Sum-
mer 2016] and was surprised that she was able
to take a variety of non-science courses when
she was enrolled at the College. Because my
schedule as a chemistry major in the 1950s
was filled with required science and math
courses in addition to the Core, I was only
able to take a second year of Lit Hum and one
semester of Eric Bentley’s course in modern
drama. Kaufman was on the fence between
applying to graduate school in chemistry or in
English. Perhaps, before she made her choice,
she read the words of Bazarov, the nihilist, in
Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons: “A good chemist
is twenty times as useful as any poet.”
Martin Feldman ’58
Silver Spring, Md.

A Question To Explore
I was amazed to read, in [the Class of 1952
Class Notes in the Summer 2016 issue, | Max
Frankel 52, GSAS’53’s pointed criticism of
administration excess. Could this be the start
of a probe into how and why in recent years
universities have grown richer and students
poorer? It is crushing for a 22-year-old to
be saddled with debt. It stifles freedom to
explore and create. Have students been sold a
bill of goods? Are there legal remedies? These
are questions for a great reporter to explore.
Barry J. Spinello 62
Templeton, Calif.

Columbia
College
Today &

VOLUME 44 NUMBER 1
FALL 2016

EDITOR IN CHIEF
Alex Sachare ’71

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Lisa Palladino

MANAGING EDITOR
Jill C. Shomer

CLASS NOTES EDITOR
Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

FORUM EDITOR
Rose Kernochan BC’82

CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Shira Boss 93, JRN’97, SIPA’98

EDITORIAL INTERN
Aiyana K. White 718

ART DIRECTOR
Eson Chan

Published quarterly by the
Columbia College Office of

Alumni Affairs and Development

for alumni, students, faculty, parents
and friends of Columbia College.
ASSOCIATE DEAN,

COLUMBIA COLLEGE

ALUMNI RELATIONS
AND COMMUNICATIONS

Bernice Tsai 96

ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO:
Columbia College Today

Columbia Alumni Center

622 W. 113th St., MC 4530, 4th FI.
New York, NY 10025

212-851-7852

EDITORIAL

cct@columbia.edu
ADVERTISING
cctadvertising@columbia.edu
WEB
college.columbia.edu/cct

ISSN 0572-7820

Opinions expressed are those of

the authors and do not reflect

official positions of Columbia College
or Columbia University.

MIX

Paper from
responsible sources

Es FSC® C022085

www.fsc.org

Message from the Dean

Taking Advantage of
Summer Opportunities

he summer is an important time for Columbia College

students, giving them the opportunity to apply skills

gained through their Core courses and in their majors

and to acquire real-world experiences that foster career
exploration and prepare them for the future. Summer internships,
global opportunities and research experiences are an extension of
our liberal arts education, challenging our students to adapt to new
environments, giving them exposure to different ways of thinking
and helping them develop skills and learning agilities that will ben-
efit them throughout their lives.

Each summer, hundreds of College students intern, study abroad
or do research through Columbia-sponsored programs, and hun-
dreds of others acquire jobs on their own or through LionSHARE,
our online jobs and internships database. This past summer, our
students worked at art museums, community based-organizations,
public health organizations, film production companies, theater
companies, law firms, financial service agencies and startups. They
also traveled to Amman, Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai,
Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore for internships; studied language,
literature, archaeology, environmental sustainability and business on
Columbia global programs; and did research in libraries and labs on
campus and around the world.

In fact, one of the distinguishing qualities of a Columbia College
education is access to so many of these experiences. We offer one of
the highest number of internships compared to our peers; last year,
8,624 internships were posted on LionSHARE. We're also offer-
ing more summer global opportunities than ever before, including
unique programs related to students’ coursework like Art and Music
Humanities in Paris, an archaeology program at Hadrian's Villa

outside Rome, and a language and

TS NA business program in Shanghai.

BUT WAIT,
THERE’S MORE

To read about experiences
some College students had this
past summer and to learn about
available internship funding pro-
grams, go to “How | Spent My
Summer Vacation,” page 16.

Three years ago, we kicked off the
Presidential Global Fellowship,
which funds rising sophomores to
study on a Columbia global pro-
gram during the summer.

We have also increased summer
support for students. Funds from
the Alumni and Parent Intern-
ship Fund and the Work Exemp-
tion Program can now be used for
low-paying internships (below minimum wage) as well as unpaid
internships. This past summer we gave out the greatest amount of
APIF funding ever, to 108 students, and supported 91 Columbia
College students through WEP. And we have several new funds
— including several gifts from alumni and friends — for students
interning at start-ups, working at nonprofits engaged in the pre-

6 CCT Fall 2016

STEVEN CHANG

vention of genocide and mass atrocities, and
studying in Japan, Poland or Israel.

We know that there are still obstacles that
prevent our students from taking full advan-

Dean James J.
Valentini with students
in the Columbia
Experience Overseas
Internship program

at a reception for the
Core to Commence-
ment Campaign in
Seoul in June.

tage of summer opportunities. Housing costs
can be expensive in New York or in any city
that isn’t the student’s hometown, and housing
and travel costs can be significant for studying
abroad. ‘This is why one of our goals through
Core to Commencement (college.columbia.edu/campaign), our
campaign to enhance our undergraduate experience, is to guarantee
every student at least one fully-funded summer opportunity. I have
also enlisted the Board of Visitors to determine how the College
can enhance the summer experience, better prepare our students to
take advantage of these opportunities and help students take advan-
tage of the opportunities open to them.

We know that even more students are looking for summer
internship opportunities that are relevant to their studies and to
their post-graduation plans, and that many students consider study
abroad experiences necessary to be competitive in the job market.
We want to provide them with opportunities to develop teamwork
and collaboration, to learn research methods, to build communi-
cation skills and technological literacy, and to develop expertise
in a particular field so they can build upon that to develop their
careers and prepare for their lives after Commencement.

Sel at

James J. Valentini
Dean

FONER PHOTO: DANIELLA ZALCMAN '09

Professors Breslow, Foner, Jackson
To Receive Alexander Hamilton Medal

By Alex Sachare ’71

hree distinguished faculty members who have dedi-
cated their careers to research, scholarship and educat-
ing Columbia College students — University Professor
Ronald Breslow, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of His-
tory Eric Foner’63, GSAS’69 and the Jacques Barzun Professor in
History and the Social Sciences Kenneth T. Jackson — will each be
presented an Alexander Hamilton Medal on Thursday, November
17, at the Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner in Low Rotunda.

The medal, named in honor of one of our nation’s founding
fathers, Alexander Hamilton (Class of 1778), is the highest honor
awarded to a member of the College community for distinguished
service to the College and accomplishment in any field of endeavor.
It is presented by the Columbia College Alumni Association, Dean
James J. Valentini and President Lee C. Bollinger. Proceeds from
the black-tie dinner directly benefit College students by support-
ing the priorities of the College, including the Core Curriculum
and financial aid.

Breslow heads a research group at Columbia that is pursuing
studies in several different areas, including trying to prepare arti-
ficial enzymes that can imitate the function of natural enzymes.
He has received more than 75 national and international awards
for his research, teaching and professional roles including the U.S.
National Medal of Science, a Great Teacher Award, the Mark Van
Doren Award for Teaching and the Pupin Medal. Breslow discov-
ered the chemical mechanism used by Vitamin B1 in biology, the
fundamental system for special stability in molecules with magic
numbers of pi electrons, and the phenomenon of special instability
in molecules with other special numbers of electrons, for which he
coined the word “antiaromaticity.” He also created molecules with
anti-cancer properties now in human use.

Breslow also played a key role in the evolution of the College,
heading a committee in the early 1980s that studied the feasibility
of coeducation. He earned an A.B. in 1952, A.M. in 1954 and Ph.D.
in 1956, all from Harvard, and has taught at Columbia since 1956.

Foner, who specializes in the Civil War and Reconstruction, slav-
ery and 19th-century America, is one of only two people to serve as
president of the Organization of American Historians, American
Historical Association and Society of American Historians. He
has been the curator of several museum exhibitions, including the
prize-winning “A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln,”
at the Chicago Historical Society. His book The Fiery Trial: Abra-
ham Lincoln and American Slavery won the Pulitzer, Bancroft and

Lincoln prizes for 2011. His latest book is Gateway to Freedom: The |

Hidden History of the Underground Railroad.
After graduating from the College, Foner was a Kellett Fellow
who received a second B.A. from Oxford’s Oriel College in 1965

before returning to Columbia for a Ph.D. He has received a John
Jay Award for distinguished professional achievement, a Great
Teacher Award, a Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching,
the Lionel Trilling Book Award and the Mark Van Doren Award
for Teaching. Foner began teaching at Columbia in 1969 and fol-
lowing a stint at CCNY returned in 1982.

Jackson is a noted urban historian, a preeminent authority on

New York City and the author of several books including Crabgrass

Left to right: Ronald Breslow; Eric Foner ’63, GSAS’69; Kenneth T. Jackson.

Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States and The Encyclope-
dia of New York City. He is the director of the Herbert H. Lehman
Center for American History at Columbia, where he has taught
courses in urban, social and military history. He is perhaps best-
known for his class “The History of the City of New York,” which
includes numerous field trips and a nighttime bicycle ride from
Morningside Heights through Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Jackson graduated from Memphis in 1961 and earned an M.A. in
1963 and a Ph.D. in 1966, both from Chicago. After serving in the
Air Force, he joined the Columbia
faculty in 1968 and has taught here
ever since while also lecturing at hun-
dreds of colleges, universities, civic
groups and historical societies around
the world. He has received the Mark
Van Doren Award for Teaching and
a Great Teacher Award and was president of the Urban History
Association, the Society of American Historians, the Organization
of American Historians and the New-York Historical Society.

CCT Web Extras

To read profiles of each honoree
from CCT’s archives, go to
college.columbia.edu/cct.

For more information on the Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner, con-
tact Suzy Alpert, associate director, College events and programs: sa3173@
columbia.edu or 212-851-7846, or go to college.columbia.edu/alumni/
celebrate/events/alexander-hamilton-award-dinner.

Fall2016 CCT 7

4JOMEWORK

sweat) StudentSpotlight LCOR

By Nathalie Alonso ’08

s one of six siblings —
five sisters and one
brother — raised by a
single mother, Chelsea
Miller ’18 learned to value
female kinship and empowerment from
an early age. Now, as founder and CEO of
WEBelieve (Women Everywhere Believe;
webelieve.nyc), she works to provide that
kind of support for pre-teen and early teen
girls of color from underserved communi-
ties in New York City.

Miller runs WEBelieve with five other
young women, including Oten Iban’18,
Akua Obeng-Akrofi’18 and Shalon Con-
ley BC’18. In January, the group launched
its first initiative, Dare to Dream, an
eight-week program at Democracy Prep
Harlem Middle School designed to help
participants forge bonds with one another
and build confidence — about 15 girls
met two or three times a week to engage
in activities that ranged from discussions
about historical figures of color and social
justice issues to making their own natural
hair care products. “Knowing that they
can rely on one another even when we’re
not there, creating a safe space for them
— that was really important,” says Miller,
a Kluge Scholar.

WEBelieve is now focused on expand-
ing its reach by launching chapters in

8 CCT Fall 2016

other U.S. cities, with an eye on hosting a
conference in New York City next spring.
Thus far, most of the organization's funding
has come from a grant that Miller secured
from the ANNpower Vital Voices Initia-
tive, a partnership between ANN INC.
(the parent company of clothing retailers
Ann Taylor and LOFT) and the Vital
Voices Global Partnership, an NGO that
fosters female leadership.

A first-generation American, Miller
draws much of her inspiration from her
Jamaican-born mother, Hazel Ferguson, a
social worker turned clinical psychologist
who runs a foster care group home for
girls in her two-family house in Brooklyn.
“T’ve seen her love of service — selfless
service,” says Miller. “She’s always been
my role model.”

As an ANNpower Fellow during her
senior year of high school, Miller attended
a two-day forum in Myanmar hosted by
the Women’s Forum for the Economy
and Society, an experience that kindled
her interest in international politics. And
as a 2015 Presidential Global Fellow — a
program for first-years that covers the fees
and expenses associated with a Columbia
global program — Miller participated in
the Istanbul/Tunis Summer Program in
Democracy and Constitutional Engineer-
ing, through which she learned about the

VICTORIA CAMPA

Jast facts

HOMETOWN: Brooklyn, NY.
MAJOR: Political science

CLUBS: Columbia NAACP (VP), Columbia
Political Science Students Association,
Multicultural Recruitment Committee

KUDOS: New York Public Advocate Award
for Outstanding Academic Achievement,
Jackie Robinson Scholar

challenges of democratic transitions. This
past summer, she completed The Charles B.
Rangel International Affairs Summer
Enrichment Program, a six-week program
organized by Howard University that
introduces undergraduates to current
issues and trends in international affairs.
Miller aspires to be a U.S. diplomat and
has thought about running for public
office, all while turning WEBelieve into a
global organization. “I want to be a cham-
pion for women’s rights internationally,”
she says. “Change making — that’s what I
see myself doing.”

Nathalie Alonso ’08, from Queens, is a
freelance journalist and an editorial producer
Sor LasMayores.com, Major League Baseball’s
official Spanish language website.

DidYouKnow?

Alice in Wonderland Has a Columbia Degree!

In addition to falling down rabbit holes and
talking to cats and caterpillars, Alice had
other adventures, such as receiving an honor-
ary degree from Columbia.

In May 1932, Alice Pleasance Hargreaves,
the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s
famous tale, came to Columbia for a celebra-
tion marking the centenary of the author’s
birth. At 10, Hargreaves asked family friend
Charles Dodgson (“Lewis Carroll” was his
pen name) to tell her a story and write it
down. The tale he created about Alice’s fan-
tastical experiences became Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland. Although Dodgson died in
1898, the celebration of the anniversary of
his birth brought more than 2,000 fans of
his work to Columbia to watch Hargreaves
receive her degree. The original manuscript
was loaned to the school and was on exhibit
during her visit.

During the ceremony, President Nicholas
Murray Butler (Class of 1882) presented
Hargreaves (then 80) with the degree of
doctor of letters. Butler thanked her for
“awakening with her girlhood’s charm the
ingenious fancy of a mathematician famil-
iar with imaginary quantities, stirring him
to reveal his complete understanding of the

heart of a child as well as of the mind of
a man” and said she was key to “building a
lasting bridge from the childhood of yester-
day to the children of countless tomorrows.”

“I feel very greatly,” Hargreaves said in
response to being presented the degree,

“the signal honor which you have conferred
upon me. I shall remember it and prize it
all my life. I love to think that, however
unworthy I am, perhaps Mr. Dodgson —
Lewis Carroll — knows, and rejoices with
me in this honor.”

LLL

Alumni Awarded Fulbright Grants

Eight alumni have been awarded 201 6-17 Fulbright U.S. Student grants. The Ful-
bright U.S. Student Program is the largest U.S. exchange program, offering grants
for students and young professionals to undertake individually-designed interna-
tional research and study projects or primary and secondary school teaching in
English-language classrooms. During their grant periods, Fulbrighters meet, work,
live with and learn from the people of their host country.

The program currently awards approximately 1,900 grants annually in all fields
of study and operates in more than 140 countries.

The following alumni were accepted into the 2016-17 program: Alina Dunlap
16, political science, Russia, English Teaching Assistantship; Laura Fisher ’14, po-
litical science, France, Joint Master in International Public Management (Sciences
Po) and M.Sc. in International Political Economy (London School of Economics);
Daniel Garton’16, linguistics, and neuroscience and behavior, Finland, Novel Mouse
Models Allow Unique Analysis of Endogenous GDNF Function in Adult Stiratum;
David Hamburger 16, political science, India, English Teaching Assistantship; Jared
Namba’16, East Asian studies, South Korea, English Teaching Assistantship; Karleta
Peterson ’16, sociology, South Korea, English Teaching Assistantship; Dakota Ross-
Cabrera 16, American studies, Spain, English Teaching Assistantship; and Lindsey
Walter 16, sustainable development, Germany, Heidelberg: A Case Study on Clean
Energy and Related Policies.

Plaa Named
Dean of Advising

Andrew Plaa GSAS’94, who has worked
in the James H. and Christine Turk Berick
Center for Student Advising since 2005
and has been its interim dean for the past
year, has been named dean of advising for
Columbia College and The Fu Foundation
School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Plaa came to Columbia in 1984 to pur-
sue a Ph.D. in early modern European his-
tory and taught Contemporary Civilization
as a graduate student. After completing
a Ph.D., he taught for 10 years at several
schools including Barnard, CCNY and
NYU. He will report to Lisa Hollibaugh,
dean of academic planning and administra-
tion at the College, and to Barclay Mor-
rison, vice dean of undergraduate programs
at Engineering.

Fall 2016 CCT 9

COURTESY COLUMBIA RARE BOOK & MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY

_ COLUMBIA COLLEGE

During Fiscal Year 2016, more than 10,650 donors gave
$19.19 million to the Columbia College Fund.

#12 Fax

With 1,596 donors giving
more than $3.7 million to

the College in 24 hours, the
College once again won first
place on Columbia Giving
Day, October 22, 2015.
Gifts from College alumni
accounted for 41 percent
of the $12.7 million raised
by the University that day.

COLUMBIA

JEWELRY

1754 Crown Cufflinks,
Studs, Lapel Pins, |
Pendants.
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Fine, Handmade.

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Columbia College Today

is grateful to and thanks
the many alumni, parents,
friends and organizations/
foundations who generously
gave $63,809 during our
Fiscal Year 2016
voluntary donor drive.

To view the list of donors,
go to Web Extras at
college.columbia.edu/cct.

REUNION ALUMNI
WEEKEND 2016 REPRESENTATIVE
In early June, classes COMMITTEE

ending in 1 and 6 celebrated More than 1,630 alumni
their reunions — 1,294 alumni ‘helped shape

and 660 guests returned to Colunibia clascas
campus and 227 additional by interviewing more than

attendees participated in 10.000 appli
; cants.
All-Class Reunion. -

THANK YOU FOR
SUPPORTING

YOUR ALUMNI
MAGAZINE!

10 CCT Fall 2016

the Essentials

HE GREW UP MOSTLY OVERSEAS.
“My father was a diplomat and my family
lived in Japan for seven years, and then
Australia for a year. I came back to the
United States when I was 14 and had to
learn how to be an American teenager.”

HIS EARLY INTERESTS were philosophy,
history and politics, though he always
excelled in math. Then in his first year
out of college, he saw a total eclipse of
the sun. “It was like Paul on the road to
Damascus; I never thought there could
be anything as beautiful in the world as
that day — March 7, 1970 — and when
I got home I wrote a story about my
experiences. The next day I bought my
first telescope.”

HE EDUCATED HIMSELF IN THE
BASICS while a high school math and
physics teacher in New York City. “I'd
take the telescope to Riverside Park on
clear nights with the students and kind of
learned with them how to use it, although
I did try to keep one step ahead of them,
so I could teach them something.”

WHILE A TEACHER, HE FOUNDED
AND RAN an astronomy camp for two
summers in Rhode Island before relocat-

ing it to the Mojave Desert, where he
turned it into a full-time enterprise. “It
was the only camp like it at the time.

We got a large fraction of the astronomy
fanatic teens of the early’70s, and a lot of
them have become well-known astrono-

Joe Patterson

Professor of Astronomy Joe Patterson earned a B.A. in the history
of science from Harvard in 1969 and was a 22-year-old high school
teacher when he discovered a passion for astronomy and launched a
summer astronomy camp. He returned to school for formal training,
earning a Ph.D. from Texas in 1979. He did postdoctoral work at
Michigan and Harvard and was a research scientist at the Smithson-
ian Astrophysical Observatory before coming to Columbia in 1983;
he also was Princeton’s 250th Anniversary Distinguished Teaching
Professor in 2002-03. Patterson, who was honored with Columbia’s
Presidential Teaching Award in 1997, took time out one evening this
past summer to talk about his background and career.

mers — the most well-known being Neil
deGrasse Tyson GSAS’92 — and profes-

sors. We even have reunions.”

HIS AREA OF SPECIALTY !IS STELLAR
EXPLOSIONS. “You have these very close
binary stars that go around one another
every few hours. The smaller star has
intense gravity; it’s either a white dwarf, a
neutron star or a black hole. Gravity rips
matter off the companion star, which then
falls down onto the more massive star,
and as a result — either on a short time
scale or on a long time scale — there are
explosions on the more massive star. Some
are so big that it blows the stars apart,
that’s a so-called supernova. There are
other smaller explosions called novae and
dwarf novae.”

WHAT EXCITES HIM about his field:
“You are trying to answer questions that
can be answered. In philosophy, you never
do that; you're asking the same questions
Plato asked, and are you getting better
answers than Plato? I don’t think so. So
it’s hard to figure out whether you've
made much progress. In science, you do
find something substantial and lasting. I
was thrilled by that realization, which first
hit me while writing my undergraduate
thesis on Kepler’s theology.”

HE GETS OBSERVATION TIME on one
of NASA's space telescopes once a year
and also uses telescopes in Chile and Ari-
zona. But he also relies on data from the

JORG MEYER

Center for Backyard Astrophysics,

an organization of amateur astronomers
he started in 1992. “They’re able to do
things that professional astronomers
are not able to do by virtue of their
greater numbers. It’s like having my
own network of telescopes scattered
around the Earth.”

HE THINKS THE MOST VALUABLE
THING a professor can do is to “identify
or ignite a student’s passion. Whatever is
second is far behind.”

HIS FAVORITE CLASS TO TEACH
UNDERGRADUATES is an observational
astronomy course, which for many years
included a Spring Break trip to Arizona.
“We'd either camp out and tour observa-
tories, or in some cases secure observing
time with professional observatories.”

HE IS WRITING A BOOK about the
history of astronomy that grew out of a
course he teaches, “Theories of the Uni-
verse: From Babylon to the Big Bang.”

IN HIS SPARE TIME, he enjoys doing
mathematical analysis of sports, especially
baseball. “I’m a member of the Society for
American Baseball Research. I go to the
conventions occasionally and sometimes
give papers. I played baseball in high
school and college. Age has eroded the
skills, but at least the mathematics has
stayed the same!”

— Alexis Boncy SOA'11

Fall 2016 CCT 11

Welcome, Class of 2020

on the morning of August 29, greeted by a
well-choreographed display of move-in magic as New Student Orientation Program
leaders whisked boxes and bins all across campus. That afternoon, the Class of 2020
began its Columbia journey under white tents on South Lawn at Convocation.
Following a procession of students carrying flags (representing the home states and
countries of all College and Engineering students), alumni marched with banners

representing their class decades in the Alumni
Procession to demonstrate to new arrivals their
lifelong connection to the College and Engi-
neering. In his welcome speech, Dean James

J. Valentini said: “I am congratulating you on
your good fortune in being presented with an
opportunity — an opportunity to profit from
and contribute to the special experience that a
Columbia education offers. That special experi-
ence is fundamentally an endeavor to find
knowledge, to develop understanding and to
gain insight.”

12 CCT Fall 2016

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Th tej

COP ONIVERS =

Photos by Eileen Barroso

Fall 2016 CCT 13

ROAR, LION, ROAR

Football Looks To Take the Next Step 5 secs

olumbia football ended its los-
ing streak last season, was com-
petitive in nearly every game and
improved dramatically in virtu-
ally all statistical categories. Now the Lions,
in their second season under head coach Al
Bagnoli, seek to continue their progress and
take the next step up the Ivy League ladder.

Bagnoli, who won nine Ivy titles in 23
seasons at Penn and is the winningest coach
in the NCAA Football Championship Sub-
division, is not about to predict any cham-
pionships but is cautiously optimistic. “We
certainly feel comfortable we're doing the
right things,” he says. “It’s just taking those
incremental steps and continuing to believe
in what we're doing, work hard, be smart in
our approach and now try to figure a way to
win some of these close games.”

Anyone who has been around football as
long as Bagnoli knows learning how to make
the leap from being competitive to being a
winner is a tough lesson. “We were within one
possession [of winning] in five Ivy League
games [last season], so we've just got to figure
out how to close people out,” Bagnoli says.

Media members who cover the Ivy League
are taking a wait-and-see attitude; the Lions
were picked to finish seventh in the eight-
team league in the annual preseason media
poll, ahead of Cornell. Harvard edged Penn
for the top spot.

Columbia begins Ivy competition by host-
ing Princeton on October 1, following non-
league games against St. Francis (Pa.) and
Georgetown. Other big games on the sched-
ule include Bagnoli’s first return as a visiting

SCOREBOARD

Seasons that
Al Bagnoli has
been a head
football coach

1:06

Katie Meili 13’s

Rio Olympics

14 CCT Fall 2016

bronze medal-winning
time in the 100m
breaststroke at the

coach to Penn on October 15 and the Home-
coming game against Dartmouth on October
22. (For the latest information on the Home-
coming festivities, go to college.columbia.edu/
alumni/homecoming2016.)

Columbia has two other Ivy League home
games: a night game against Yale on Octo-
ber 28 and the annual Empire State Bowl
against Cornell on November 12.

Key returning Columbia players who were
cited by Bagnoli in the annual Ivy League
coaches’ preseason media conference call
include quarterbacks Skyler Mornhinweg
"17 and Anders Hill 18; offensive linemen
Charlie Flores 19, Kendall Pace 17 and
Bewley Wales ’18; defensive linemen Domi-
nic Perkovic ’18, Lord Hyeamang ’18 and
Connor Heeb 718; linebackers Gianmarco
Rea’17, Keith Brady’17 and Christian Con-
way 17; and defensive backs Jared Katz ’17,
Cameron Roane’18 and Brock Kenyon ’17.

Bagnoli is counting on better team depth,
as 75 returning letter-winners will be bolstered
by a recruiting class that was ranked No. 3 in
the FCS by 247Sports.com. “It’s going to be a
collection of 110 guys trying to get this thing
turned around, as opposed to just the senior
or junior class. We're going to need some help
from the younger kids,” he says.

Bagnoli also says the team made a con-
certed effort during the offseason to get stron-
ger along the offensive and defensive lines.
“We were way under strength and we didn't
have enough stoutness to hold up against the
elite players in this league,” Bagnoli notes.
“We were just not as explosive as we needed
to be up front, so that was our No. 1 priority.”

Consecutive seasons
that men’s soccer
has won the coaches
association’s Team
Academic Award

First-year football

MIKE MCLAUGHLIN / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

players who earned
All-State honors in

high school

Skyler Mornhinweg ‘17

The Lions are looking to build on a season
in which they improved significantly, more so
than the jump from 0-10 to 2-8 in win-loss
record might indicate. They went from 556
yards rushing and 103 points scored in 2014
to 1,402 yards rushing and 143 points scored
in 2015. Defensively, they went from allowing
2,534 yards rushing and 389 points in 2014 to
1,302 yards rushing and 198 points last year.

“I think there’s been a change in the culture
here,” Bagnoli says. “I think we have a little
more confidence, a little more exuberance, a
little more swagger than when we took over
the program.”

&. To purchase tickets to any game, including
Homecoming, go to gocolumbialions.com/
w tickets or call 888-LIONS-11.

Ivy titles won

by Columbia in
2015-16: 4 team
and 7 individual

Hall of Fame Inducts Class of 2016

Columbia will add 20 individuals and three
teams representing nine sports programs to
its Athletics Hall of Fame at an induction
ceremony honoring the hall’s Class of 2016
in Low Rotunda on October 20. The induct-
ees were chosen by a selection committee
of Columbia Athletics affiliates, including
alumni and athletics administrators. Among
the honorees are pioneering sports and news
television executive Roone Arledge °52;
football's all-time leading single-game and
single-season rusher, Johnathan Reese ’02;
wrestling’s first All-American, Bob Hartman
52; Olympic fencer and 1957 NCAA epee
champion James Margolis ’58; and soccer
star and longtime program supporter Rocco
Commisso SEAS’71.

Three teams will be honored: 1954 men’s
fencing, 1979 men’s soccer and 2006 wom-
en’s soccer. Three people were chosen in their
first time on the Hall of Fame ballot: wom-
en’s basketball standouts Megan Grifhth’07,
now Columbia’s women’s head basketball
coach, and Judie Lomax BC’10, and Olym-
pian and NCAA sabre fencing champion
Jeff Spear 10. And three longtime former
staff members will be inducted: sports infor-
mation director Kevin DeMarrais ’64, base-

A
i
Ga. i

Megan Griffith ’07

ball coach and associate AD Paul Fernandes
and wrestling coach Ron Russo.

Also to be inducted are Allison Buehler
03, softball; Steve Charles 79, men’s soc-
cer; Liz Cheung-Gaffney ’98, women’s
soccer; Ylonka Dubout-Wills BC’84,
women’s track and field; Howard Han-
sen ’52, football; Paul Kaliades 73, foot-
ball; Sara Ovadia 09, women’s golf, Matt
Palmer ’07, wrestling; and Sophie Reiser
10, women’s soccer.

Columbians Compete in Rio Olympics

Congratulations to Katie Meili ’13 upon winning a bronze medal in the 100m breast-
stroke swimming event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Meili also helped
the United States win its qualification heat by swimming the breaststroke leg in the
4x100m medley relay but was not selected by team coaches to compete in the medal round

DON SIMONE '78 / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

as the Americans won the gold. [Editor's
note: Read about Meili’s road to Rio:
college.columbia.edu/cct/issue/spring16. |

Three other Columbians were members
of Olympic teams in Rio. Fencer Nzingha
Prescod 15, participating in her second
Olympics, won her first bout in the women’s
individual foil over Nataly Michel Silva of
Mexico 15-9 before losing to Astrid Guyart
of France 14-11 in the round of 16. Akua
Obeng-Akrofi 18 was an alternate but did
not run for Ghana’s women’s 4x100m relay
team that finished eighth in its heat and
did not advance to the finals. And Isadora
Cerullo 13 competed on the Brazilian
women's rugby team and although the team
finished ninth, Cerullo came away a winner
when her partner, Marjorie Enya, proposed
to her after the gold-medal match.

GENE BOYARS / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

SPORTS SHORTS

CHAMPIONS: Lightweight crew won its
first national title on June 5 when it upset
previously undefeated Yale at the Intercol-
legiate Rowing Association Champion-
ships on Mercer Lake in West Windsor,
N.J. It was the first title for any Columbia
varsity eight crew since 1929. Columbia’s
varsity eight then traveled to England for
the prestigious Henley Royal Regatta,
where the Lions defeated the University
of London “B” and Bath University before
bowing to Oxford Brookes University

“A” in the quarterfinals of the Temple
Challenge Cup. The crew was honored

by USRowing as the IRA Lightweight
Crew of the Year and head coach Nich
Lee Parker was named IRA Lightweight
Coach of the Year.

HOOPLA: The Ivy League has added
four-team postseason men’s and women’s
basketball tournaments for the 2016-17
season, with the winners earning the
league’s automatic bids to the NCAA
Championships. The tournaments will

be played March 11-12 at the Palestra in
Philadelphia. The teams that finish with
the best records from the 14-game, regular-
season conference schedule will continue to
be recognized as Ivy League champions.

MOVING ON: Former Lions stars
Maodo Lo’16 and Alex Rosenberg ’16
have signed professional contracts to
continue their basketball careers overseas.
Lo, who was born in Berlin, signed to play
for Brose Bamberg Baskets of the Ger-
man Basketball Bundesliga, and Rosen-
berg signed to play for Maccabi Kiryat
Gat of the Israeli Basketball Premier
League. Meanwhile, Grant Mullins ’16,
who missed most of two seasons due to
injury but could not continue to compete
at Columbia due to Ivy League rules, has
transferred to UC Berkeley to complete
his college career. The trio helped the
Lions to 25 victories in 2015-16 and the
CollegeInsider.com postseason tourna-
ment championship.

< ROAR!
For the latest news on Columbia
athletics, visit gocolumbialions.com.

Fall 2016 CCT 15

STUDENTS "EXPLORE CARGEk
PATHS THROUGH REAL-WORLD
WORKEXPERIENCES

HOW | SPENT MY

SUMMER VACATION

BY NATALIE ALONS@: Os ummer was a productive and enlightening season for many

S Columbia College students, including David Dai’17, who investi-

gated potentially life-changing treatments for Parkinson's disease

at the Columbia University Medical Center, and Camille Sanches 18, a

human rights major who delved into an issue of national prominence at

the Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP), a nonprofit that exposes
abusive and discriminatory practices in the NYPD.

For much of his time at the College, Dai, a neuroscience major, has
contributed to studies at the CUMC Department of Pathology and Cell
Biology aimed at finding drugs capable of slowing the progression of Par-
kinson’s. The summer break from classes gave him time to run experiments

that involved a technique known as a Western blot, which requires con-
stant monitoring. Dai says his recent research experience “sharpened my
resolve to go into these specific fields.” He plans to go to medical school
and specialize in neurology and neurosurgery.
Several times a week, while Dai observed changes in neurons through a
microscope in a pristine laboratory, Sanches traveled to criminal arraign-
ment courts around New York City. She sat in on proceedings
and spoke with attorneys and defendants as part of PROP’s
Court Monitoring Project, which tracks NYPD practices on
the ground and assesses the repercussions of being charged with
low-level, non-violent offenses. At PROP, Sanches also con-
ducted research for a history of the NYPD. “I learned a lot more
about how to address an issue and study it,” says Sanches. “Talking
with high schoolers in the Bronx who have been arrested or mis-

David Dal 7

treated was definitely eye-opening and got me more connected.”
Like Dai and Sanches, more and more College students are using
their summer break to explore academic interests, work with faculty,
gain exposure to international communities and develop skills that
will help them prepare for life after Class Day. Such opportunities go
beyond traditional pre-professional training and extend the College

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TRACI DABERKO

experience in ways that are attractive to employers and graduate schools in an increas-
ingly competitive, globalized society.

Many of these adventures begin at the Office of Global Programs and Fellowships
(OGP) or the Center for Career Education (CCE), which maintains an online database
of jobs and internships called LionSHARE that is available exclusively to Columbia stu-
dents and alumni. Each year, more than 400 College students find summer internships,
global opportunities and fellowships through Columbia-sponsored programs. Examples
include the Alumni-Sponsored Student Internship Program (CCASSIP) and Colum-
bia Experience Overseas (CEO), which offers summer internships in Amman, Beijing,
Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore, as well as more than a
dozen Columbia study abroad programs around the world.

This summer, CCASSIP enabled Nathaniel Jameson ’18, who is majoring in film stud-
ies with a concentration in anthropology, to intern at The Tank, a Manhattan-based
nonprofit that offers free performance and rehearsal space for emerging artists and where
sponsor Rosalind Grush ’08 is co-artistic director, He helped manage the organization’s
email, reviewed artist submissions, researched grants, collected tickets and even sold
snacks during shows. “I most valued seeing art at work,” says Jameson, an aspiring actor
and playwright, adding that the experience helped him consider the best ways to market
and monetize his creative work.

Kavita Sharma, dean of CCE, notes such pursuits “give our students the opportunity
to use and further develop skills they’re gaining in the classroom, including written and
verbal communication; planning, organizing and prioritizing work; flexibility and adapt-
ability; working on a team; decision making and problem solving; obtaining and process-
ing information; and, in our international programs, cross-cultural skills.”

[.D ean James J. Valentini sees the summer break as “an important time for Columbia

College students, giving them the opportunity to apply skills gained through their

Core courses and in their majors and to acquire real-world experiences that foster career

exploration and prepare them for the future.” [Editor's note: Please see “Message from the

Dean,” page 6, for more on Valentini’s thoughts on summer experiences. ] One of Valentini’s

goals for the College’s $400 million Core to Commencement campaign

— the first fundraising and engagement campaign dedicated exclusively

to the College — is to provide a funded summer experience for every
student in order to extend a student’s education beyond the classroom.

‘The College already offers the Columbia College Alumni and Parent

Internship Fund (APIF) and the Work Exemption Program (WEP),

managed by CCE, which help students on financial aid cover the costs

associated with unpaid or low-paying internships. Dai and Sanches received

support from APIF and WEP in 2016, as did Jessica Swanson 717 and
Desmond Hanan ’19, who both spent the summer in Washington D.C.,
as interns at the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) and the National Endow-
ment for the Arts (NEA), respectively.

Swanson, also a human rights major, was eager to be in the capital, “near

all the political excitement” and to see how policy relates to the work that
nonprofits do. She was placed in CDF’s communications department,
where she designed promotional graphics for the Insure All Children
campaign, which helps school districts identify uninsured students and
enroll them in health insurance. Swanson acquired design software skills
and developed a better understanding of how nonprofits reach their audiences. “From the
oO communications end, it’s all about reframing, reediting and repackaging things so that
they make sense to the greater public,” she says.

At the NEA, an independent agency of the federal government that supports and funds
artistic projects, Hanan, who is pursuing a double major in drama and theater arts and
biology, took on projects such as briefing chairman Jane Chu prior to the Tony Awards
and reviewing grant applications. “Seeing what people look for in applications from the
reviewer's side of it is going to be very beneficial to me in any arts-related field,” he says.

Other students receive summer funding through the Columbia Undergraduate Schol-
ars Program, which includes the John W. Kluge, John Jay and Global scholars. This sum-

Jessica Swanson "17

Desmond Hanan ‘19

18 CCT Fall 2016

mer, Diana Munyana 719, a Kluge Scholar considering majors in environmental science,
sustainable development and economics, was awarded a Columbia Undergraduate Scholars
Program Practicum & Research Assistantship, which provides partial financial support for
scholars participating in summer internships or research assistantships.

Munyana used the funding to cover expenses while she traveled to rural areas of her native
Rwanda as an intern with the European Cooperative for Rural Development. The nonprofit
works with farmers to develop sustainable strategies for growing crops, in order to improve
the economy of their rural communities. Munyana helped train maize farmers on how to bet-
ter run their cooperatives — business arrangements in which farmers pool certain resources.
She collected data about production costs and spoke with farmers to learn more about the
impact of cooperatives on their lives and livelihoods. “It was a great opportunity to see that
type of work on the ground and get an overview of how projects are run by NGOs,” says
Munyana, who also learned “how important it is to connect with the people you're helping.”

“ee

piana Munyane ite

College students also are eligible for Presidential Global Fellowships, a program for
rising sophomores launched in 2014 with a grant from President Lee C. Bollinger that
covers the cost of a program, as well as airfare and living expenses, for study at or near one
of the eight Columbia Global Centers. Of the 18 Presidential Global Fellows in 2016,
10 were College students, including Dafne Murillo ’19, who plans to major in economics
and concentrate in Latin American studies.

Murillo, who hails from Peru, chose the Columbia Summer Program in Venice because
she wanted to dive into a subject outside her major. During her six weeks in Venice, she
took art history courses and visited historic churches and other sites to see some of the
works she was studying in person. For Murillo, who hopes to eventually promote eco-
nomic development in Peru, living in Venice was a catalyst for considering how to build
a profitable, sustainable tourism industry that helps local communities — ideas that will
help her approach issues in her homeland.

“The Presidential Global Fellowship put me in a position in which I had to continually
think about cultural connections,” she says. “I could see links between tourism in Venice and
tourism in Peru. That was interesting because I could see how tourism in Venice affects every-
thing [in the city], like how restaurants are run and how transportation works.”

M urillo also spent two weeks of August in Tokyo as a seminar leader with HLAB,
a summer program in Japan that exposes local high schoolers to the liberal arts
college model of discussion-based learning. HLAB covered Murillo’s housing and liv-
ing costs while she taught a curriculum of her own design, using The Iliad as a lens and
springboard for conversations about contemporary issues in Japan and around the world.

Dafne Mutillo "19

Students are eligible
for Presidential
Global Fellowships,
a program for rising
sophomores that
covers the cost of

a program, airfare
and living expenses
at or near one of
the eight Columbia
Global Centers.

Fall 2016 CCT 19

“Having professional
work experiences
while in school is more
and more critical
in a competitive
global economy.”

— CCE Dean Kavita Sharma

SUMMER FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

hen it comes to securing funding for summer experi-

Such experiences, whether in the United States or abroad, not only give students new
perspectives but also have become vital to their career prospects. “Having professional
work experiences while in school is more and more critical in a competitive global econ-
omy and is viewed positively by employers when selecting candidates to interview,” says
Sharma. “We are seeing that this is true across industries and that all experiences are
valued, from a corporate internship to working as a camp counselor or in fundraising in
a not-for-profit organization.”

Jennie Preis, associate dean of experiential education at CCE, notes that, in addition to
developing skills, gaining experience and exploring industries, students also use summer
pursuits to determine “what type of organization they want to work for, what type of work
environment they prefer, whether they like working on a team or working independently.”

For some students, that means pursuing what CCE calls “self-created internships,”
which require greater initiative but typically allow students to design a more tailored
experience. That’s how Marc Berghouse 18 and Abigail White 19 — both WEP grant
recipients — found summer work at the U.S. Geological Survey and the Cleveland
Metroparks Zoo, respectively.

Berghouse, who is majoring in earth and environmental sciences with a concentra-
tion in economics, wanted to learn about the work culture at USGS, but it does not

Edwin Robbins Academic Research and Public Service

ences, College students have access to an ever-growing
lineup of programs and fellowships. The Center for Career Edu-
cation administers five funding programs for undergraduates
pursuing unpaid or low-paying internships and research posi-
tions, four of which are open to College students. In addition to
the Alumni and Parent Internship Fund and the Work Exemp-
tion Program, they are the Startup Internship Fund, a collabora-
tion with Columbia Entrepreneurship for students interning
at innovative startups, and the Scheidt Internship Fund for the
Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, a gift from the
Charles E. Scheidt Family Foundation to the College that
supports summer internships at nonprofit and NGOs.

Other summer funding comes from undergraduate schol-
ars programs, such as the I.I. Rabi Scholars and the Science
Research Fellows. Each year, the College also awards myriad
summer fellowships.

Nobuhisa and Marcia Ishizuka Global Fellowship in East
Asian Studies, a summer study abroad grant launched in
2016 for students studying Japanese language and culture,
or other East Asian languages and cultures, whose research
and interests include Japan.

Harvey Krueger Global Experience Fellowship, a summer
grant for College students to study abroad or conduct
independent research in Israel or Poland.

Richmond B. Williams Traveling Fellowship, for rising
juniors who are majoring in English and are undertaking a
summer research project that requires foreign travel.

20 CCT Fall 2016

Fellowship, a stipend for political science majors conducting
research or pursuing unpaid internships at government
offices or agencies.

Sanford S. Parker Prize, awarded to economics majors
pursuing unpaid internships that focus on research.

Solomon and Seymour Fisher American Civil Liberties
Fellowship, which allows students to work in the legal
department of the American Civil Liberties Union in NYC.

Richard and Brooke Kamin Rapaport Summer Music
Performance Fellowship, which gives music students the
chance to study at a summer festival of their choosing.

Melion Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, which provides
research training, faculty mentorship and financial support for
undergraduates who plan to pursue careers in academia.

Class of 1939 Summer Research Fellowships, awarded
to students who are pursuing independent research or
participating in an ongoing laboratory project during the
summer at a location of their choosing.

Herbert Deresiewicz Summer Research Fellowship, which
supports College and Engineering students whose interest in
science has been kindled by his/her experience at Columbia.

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which allows
biology students to conduct hands-on laboratory research.

Marc Bergnouse Ae

offer undergraduate internships. At his request, Berghouse was allowed to work at the
Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, Calif. There he used geo-
graphic information systems (GIS) — data analysis tools that can take years to master
— and other specialized software in order to show how the western coast of Alaska has
eroded since the middle of the 20st century. “Communication, planning and technical
skills — those are the things I got the most out of,” says Berghouse, who is fascinated by
environmental data analysis and calls GIS “an amazing tool that I’m probably going to
use for the rest of my life.”

At Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, White, who has been interested in elephants since she
was a child, was able to observe the park’s five elephants — both in person during the day
and through footage taken of them during the night — and document their behavior.
“Elephants are such sentient creatures; they really do have individual personalities,” says
White. “It was really neat getting to know them.”

White, who describes herself as “humanities focused” and is considering a double
major in American studies and creative writing, also took on editorial projects in the con-
servation department. These ranged from writing content for the department’s website to
creating a proposal for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums that member institutions
can use to educate the public about illegal wildlife trade. She says of that work, “It feels
directly helpful to this important cause.”

It is precisely that combination of discovery and real-world impact that Valentini
believes makes summer experiences so valuable. “Summer internships, global opportu-
nities and research experiences are an extension of our liberal arts education,” he says,
“challenging our students to adapt to new environments, to gain exposure to different
ways of thinking and helping them develop skills and learning agilities that will benefit
them throughout their lives.”

Nathalie Alonso 08, from Queens, is a freelance journalist and an editorial producer for
LasMayores.com, Major League Baseball’ official Spanish language website. She writes “Student
Spotlight” for CCT.

Abigail White 19

“Summer internships,
global opportunities
and research
experiences are an
extension of our liberal
arts education.”

— Dean James J. Valentini

Fall2016 CCT 21

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Robert A.M. Stern ‘60
designs everything
from skyscrapers
to country homes
with both the past
and future in mind

t both Columbia and Yale, where Rob-
ert A.M. Stern ’60 has spent his long
and distinguished academic career, the
Roman goddess Minerva is a reign-
ing presence — if not as a deity, then certainly as
statuary. On the Morningside campus, where Stern
taught for 28 years, Daniel Chester French's iconic
Alma Mater surveys her neoclassical domain from
the heights of Low Plaza; though her identity
is open to interpretation, the little owl discreetly
tucked into her bronze cloak is a surefire emblem
of the goddess of wisdom and knowledge. At the
Yale School of Architecture, where Stern earned
an M.Arch. in 1965 and was dean from 1998 until
this past July, a statue of Minerva towers over the
main studio of the school’s Paul Rudolph—designed
building, a landmark of Brutalist architecture.
‘The sensitively executed renovation, restoration
and expansion of Rudolph Hall, which had been
degraded by a 1969 fire and later modifications, was
a signature accomplishment of Stern’s deanship.
“Minerva presides over us all and keeps us honest
and true,” a twinkly-eyed Stern proclaims in a 2009
documentary film about the $126 million project.
Stern recalls spending long hours in that stu-
dio with fellow architecture students in the early
1960s, drafting projects and assignments.

By Jamie Katz '72, BUS'80

“In those days, the phone would ring, and we
would let it ring and ring and ring — nobody ever
wanted to answer it,” he says. “But eventually some-
body would get so sick of the sound of it that they
would pick up. And whoever it was might call out,
‘Bob Stern — your mother’s on the phone.’ That
was the worst humiliation known to man.”

One time, however, it wasn't his mother. “Some-
f one announced, ‘Bob Stern — Philip Johnson is
on the phone.’ Everybody put their pencils down.
‘What does Philip Johnson want with Bob Stern?”

At the time, Johnson was a preeminent fig-
ure in American architecture. An early champion
of the modernist International Style, he was also
an influential curator, critic and historian. Then
lecturing at Yale (and designing the university's

BELOW:

Broadway Residence Hall

West 113th Street and Broadway
New York City

OPPOSITE PAGE:
15 Central Park West
New York City

PETER AARON / OTTO

24 CCT Fall 2016

new biology tower), Johnson recognized Stern's
potential and took him under his wing. Johnson
became one of Stern’s two prime mentors in New
Haven, along with renowned architectural historian
Vincent Scully.

When Johnson called the studio that day in
1965, it was to persuade his protégé to accept a
position as program director at The Architectural
League of New York.

“Don't you think I ought to get a job with an
architect?” Stern asked him.

“Oh, what do you want to do that for?” Johnson
said. “J never did that.”

Stern took the post, which came with a fellow-
ship, and spent the next year organizing biweekly
exhibits of cutting-edge architects like Robert
Venturi and Romaldo Giurgola, culminating in a
groundbreaking exhibition of young talent, includ-
ing Stern himself. “Of course you should put your
own work in the show,” Johnson had insisted.
“What's the point of doing it if not that?”

“So that’s how I got up my courage for my first
act of immodesty,” Stern later told George Dodds
of the Journal of Architectural Education — that is,
he added, “my first recorded act of immodesty.”

Lee back over the fullness of his career,
there is little for Stern to be modest about.
He has made an indelible mark as a practitioner,
teacher, scholar and writer — a rare breadth of
accomplishment, marked by personal flair. “A
house by Stern is never that stern,” a fellow archi-
tect once said. “It is something like his personality
— impish, mercurial and above all, witty.”

Led by the debonair Stern — known for his
chalk-striped bespoke suits, buttery-yellow pocket
squares and suede Gucci loafers — Robert A.M.
Stern Architects (widely known as RAMSA) has
assembled a distinctive and varied portfolio on four
continents: soaring urban structures and exqui-
site country homes; major museums and libraries;
courthouses; hotels; chapels; performing arts cen-
ters; planned communities; and dozens of academic
buildings — at Wake Forest, Stanford, UVA, Johns
Hopkins, Notre Dame, Colorado, Georgetown and
many other campuses, including every Ivy school
save Cornell. One of his earliest commissions was
the 1977 renovation of Columbia’s Women’s Fac-
ulty Club (now Jerome Greene Annex); in 2000,
Columbia opened the RAMSA-~designed Broad-
way Hall on West 113th Street, adding welcome
dormitory space.

In recent years, RAMSA has completed a host
of notable works, including the Comcast Center,
Philadelphia’s tallest building, and Stern’s landmark
residential tower at 15 Central Park West in Man-
hattan. Inspired by the grand pre-war apartment
buildings flanking the park, it was a spectacular

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26 CCT Fall 2016

success for its developers, especially after celebs
such as Sting and Denzel Washington bought in.
A typical three-bedroom, 2,846-sq. ft. apartment
recently sold for $28 million. The price of a pent-
house could put a dent in the GDP of Macedonia.

A lucid and meticulous writer on architecture,
Stern has authored or co-authored nearly two
dozen books, including his monumental five-
volume study of New York City architecture since
1880; the middle volume, New York 1930: Archi-
tecture and Urbanism Between the Two World Wars
(written with Thomas Mellins ’79 and Gregory
Gilmartin 81) was nominated in 1987 for the
National Book Award in nonfiction. Another
tome, Pride of Place: Building the American Dream,
was the companion volume to the eight-part PBS
television series he hosted in 1986.

By all accounts a demanding teacher and hands-
on participant in all of RAMSA% projects, Stern has
guided a legion of architects into the profession; a
number came out of the undergraduate architecture
program he established at the College in the early
1970s, including RAMSA partners Paul Whalen
°78, Randy Correll 80, GSAPP’83 and Preston
Gumberich ’84, GSAPP’87. Along with so many
others who studied with Stern when he taught at
the graduate level, they encountered his deep appre-
ciation of architectural traditions.

Respect for the old is not enough, however. “Tra-
ditional architecture is convincing when it comes
out of a passionate feeling for the craft and art of
architecture — for what it means and where it is
appropriate,” Stern has observed. “We cannot deny
the sincerity of Santa Barbara’s Spanish colonial
architecture; but when it appears on the highway
strip as a Taco Bell, that is a very different story. In
short, quality is every bit as important as context.”

“Stern's whole view of architecture is one of conti-
nuity,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic
Paul Goldberger. “He doesn't believe that architec-
ture needs to keep reinventing itself. For him the
priority is preserving the knowledge acquired over
centuries and passing the baton to succeeding gen-
erations through his teaching and writing. He is a
great mentor to younger practitioners.”

obert Arthur Morton Stern grew up modestly in
Brooklyn's Kensington/Windsor Terrace neigh-
borhood, the older son of Sidney Stern, who worked
various jobs — selling insurance, running a hardware
store, driving a cab — and his wife, Sonya, who sold
china at B. Altman & Co.’s department store; both
are now deceased. Stern’s brother, Elliot ’70, became
a scholar in Sanskrit and Indian philosophy, and has
worked for the IRS.
Stern tinkered with an Erector Set as a boy, and
his father took him to marvel at the American
Flyer model railroad displays at the Gilbert Hall of

COURTESY ROBERT A.M. STERN ARCHITECTS

Science on Fifth Avenue. Stern enjoyed playing the
piano and biked around Prospect Park to the Brook-
lyn Public Library to borrow sheet music for popular
songs from the ’30s, a passion that has endured.

At Manual Training H.S. in Park Slope, the
teachers were very good, he says (“not a bad apple in
the bunch”). Stern especially took to Latin, drama,
geometry and trigonometry, and showed a preco-
cious interest in Zhe New York Times Real Estate
section, especially views and plans of the homes and
developments then mushrooming in the suburbs. “I
would redraw the plans,” he says, “because I always
knew I could do better.” Stern’s skills were soon
refined enough to earn third prize in a Pratt Institute
competition in which students were given five hours
to design a house within certain guidelines. “I had
had no training or anything,” he says. “I was thrilled
beyond all measure.”

ccording to the cliché, a Columbia College

freshman in 1956 was probably a Harvard
reject. In Stern's case, the cliché was true. “And I was
pissed,” he says. What’s more, he had to commute
from Brooklyn until a room opened up in Living-
ston (now Wallach) Hall, and there was no under-
graduate architecture program. Nonetheless, he
warmed to the College, especially the Core courses
(“which I still admire and defend,” he says) and
freshman English. “I loved my instructor, Jeffrey
Hart ’52, GSAS’61, who became one of the great

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conservative curmudgeons,” Stern says. “He taught
me how to write in a reasonably good way.”

Stern majored in history — Professor James
Shenton’49, GSAS’54, was a favorite — and took
English courses with Mark Van Doren GSAS’21,
Lionel Trilling ’25, GSAS’38 and other leading
lights. “I got to like Columbia a lot better because
of the quality of the education,” he says, “and I
made some good friends.” Among them were
Korean War vet Stephen Baldwin ’59; attorney
Sam Wiseman 760, LAW’63, whose Montauk
home was one of the architect’s earliest commis-
sions; and Doug Morris ’60, the legendary music
mogul, who tore Stern away from his Sinatra

PETER AARON / OTTO

records to listen to “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yel-
low Polka Dot Bikini.”

Three other Columbia figures helped Stern
advance toward his life’s work, he says: architectural
historian Richard Branner (“who brought a fresh,
interpretive approach to the field”); Everard Upjohn,
great-grandson of the architect of Trinity Church,
who taught “Elements of Architecture,” teaching
students “to take apart buildings and think about
how they go together, like a great grammarian might
do with sentence structure in the old days”; and
Adolf Placzek LS’42, longtime librarian at Colum-
bia’s Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library.

Stern applied to five grad schools — Columbia,
Michigan, Penn, Harvard and Yale — and was
accepted by all. He chose Yale, he says, because it
felt like something important was brewing there
with its young architecture dean, Rudolph, and
his plans for a striking new building.

After his graduate studies and the year at The
Architectural League of New York, Stern worked for
the firm of Richard Meier, then worked in the NYC
Housing Preservation & Development administra-
tion under Mayor John V. Lindsay. In 1966 he mar-
ried Lynn Solinger, a Smith graduate whose father

was president of the Whitney Museum and whose
mother belonged to the Gimbel family, of depart-
ment store fame — valuable connections for a
young unknown. (Divorced in 1977, they have one
son, Nicholas $.G. Stern ’90, who runs a boutique
construction firm in New York, and three grand-
children.) In 1969, Stern opened his own practice
with fellow Yalie John S. Hagmann, which lasted
until 1977, when RAMSA was formed.

Stern joined the faculty of the Graduate School of
Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP)
in 1970. Named full professor in 1982, he played an
important role in the school’s revitalization as a top-
tier institution during the widely admired deanship
of James Stewart Polshek. Stern directed Columbia's
Historic Preservation Program and was the found-
ing director of The Temple Hoyne Buell Center for
the Study of American Architecture.

Keenly aware that the College’s lack of studio
architecture courses placed career-minded under-
graduates at a disadvantage, Stern worked with
then-Associate Dean of the College Michael
Rosenthal GSAS’67 to develop a major. “It became
an incredibly intense, effective program,” Rosenthal
says. “Once you registered for his studio, that was the
bulk of your life. Students loved it, though.”

LER:
Comcast Center
Philadelphia

passionate feeling for the craft and art of architecture — for
what it means and where it is appropriate.”

Fall 2016 CCT 27

BELOW:

Offices for GlaxoSmithKline
5 Crescent Drive
Philadelphia

28 CCT Fall 2016

“He was amazingly engaged and proactive,”
says architect, author and filmmaker James Sand-
ers ’76, GSAPP’82, who studied under Stern
at both the College and GSAPP. “He was also
famously tough, and could be quite harsh on work
that he didn’t feel was meeting the standard of
the school or his class.” Stern insisted that stu-
dents master traditional skills like drawing and
lettering. “You learned how to twirl your pencil
as you ran it along your T-square,” Sanders says.
“The line couldn’t get thinner or thicker; it had to
remain uniform. He wanted his students to come
out of Columbia, and his design studio in particu-
lar, with incredible presentation skills.”

Though computer renderings have become ubiq-
uitous, Stern continues to champion the impor-
tance of hand drawing, something he says he came
down on very hard as dean at Yale. “I believe that

what you draw, and what you see, and what your
brain tells you back and forth, are really where the
creative act comes,” he says. “A little potent sketch
is much more powerful than any other means of
communicating an architectural idea.”

Jn the 1990s, Stern formed an association with
ithe Walt Disney Co., designing projects and
holding a seat on the corporate board of direc-
tors. He co-developed the master plan for Cel-
ebration, Fla., the New Urbanist community near
Orlando, and also designed the Yacht Club Resort
in Orlando, Fla., and the Feature Animation Stu-
dios in Burbank, Calif., whose cone-shaped tower
conjures Mickey Mouse’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice
cap in Fantasia.

Playful allusions were intrinsic to the Postmod-
ern style Stern embraced in the 1970s and ’80s

along with Johnson and others — the “Chippen-
dale” roof line of Johnson’s AT&T Building (now
the Sony Tower) on Madison Avenue is a famous
example — in reaction to the impersonal, uni-
formly flat-roofed office buildings Stern describes
as “a completely unending string of banalities.” But
Stern and his RAMSA colleagues now speak of
Postmodernism in the past tense. He calls himself
a modern traditionalist. “I don’t believe in archi-
tecture as an ideological undertaking,” he says. “I
believe it’s an artistic undertaking.”

‘The expectation that one must adhere to a cer-
tain style or ideology of architecture especially
bothers Stern as an educator.

“T’'ve banged away, chipped away at the mono-
lithic approach that plagues academia for sure and
the profession considerably, believing that a certain
strain of modernism, a response to modernity, was

HALKIN MASON PHOTOGRAPHY

PETER AARON / OTTO

as universal and correct for all situations as the pre- ABOVE:
sumed universality and correctness of the Gothic beer AL
was for the medieval world,” he says. “I think that la
has been a very important contribution of mine, to
open people’s eyes to the complexities and richness
of architectural expression, to the fact that archi-
tecture has many languages, from high languages
of classicism, specific regional languages at a high
level, French Renaissance or whatever, to other
more vernacular languages. And architects should
not only recognize those languages, which they

“A little potent sketch is much more powerful than any other
means of communicating an architectural idea.”
grudgingly do as a group, but learn to speak them
and become conversant in them. Architecture is
not an autobiographical art. Many architects seem
to think that every building they do has to look like
their building, which can be a trap.”

Stern has been making this argument for a long
time, and he has his detractors. His commercial suc-
cess, Disney connection and unashamed embrace of
traditional styles have made him culturally suspect
in certain quarters. Some of the criticism arises from
sincere aesthetic and philosophic differences, some
from snobbery and some simply ignores the reality
that Stern is not so easily pigeonholed — his work is
too eclectic, as demonstrated by such ultra-modern
designs as The Hobby Center for the Performing
Arts in Houston, the Tour Carpe Diem skyscraper
near Paris or GlaxoSmithKline’s stunning, double

Fall 2016 CCT 29

LEED Platinum headquarters in Philadelphia. Nor
does he appear to care much about pleasing the pur-
ists, in architecture, or for that matter, in politics.
When RAMSA was under consideration to
design the George W. Bush Presidential Library
and Museum at Southern Methodist University
in Dallas, Stern received a note from a Colum-
bia colleague who despised Bush’s politics, saying,
“Don't do it.” Stern replied: “He’s the President of
the United States and this is a public institution.
And it gives everyone an opportunity to examine

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acd ee ve yy politics from the other side, Stern later learned.
in 2 7. | “Well, is he a Republican?” the committeeman
demanded to know of Stern.

“Republican enough,” said a well-known busi-
nessman who was present.

RAMSA got the nod.

“I am a conservative person,” Stern allows, “but

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the truth of the matter is, I’m a registered Democrat.
But when I vote, I vote as I think. I would describe
myself, historically speaking, as a Rockefeller Repub-
lican.” He adds ruefully, “I’m the last one living.”

tern’s appointment at Yale in 1998 was greeted

with some skepticism, and he acknowledges
he was not the school’s first choice. Reed Kroloff,
editor of Architecture magazine at the time, derided
him as the “suede-loafered sultan of suburban
retrotecture, Disney party boy and notorious aca-
demic curmudgeon.” Nine years later, Kroloff took
it back, saying, “Bob Stern may be the best school
of architecture dean in the United States.”

“The fear was that as dean, he would turn the
school into a bastion of traditionalism like Notre
Dame,” says architecture critic Goldberger. “In
fact, he did the opposite. He welcomed outstand-
ing architects with radically different approaches
from his own, like Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry.
He not only maintained Yale’s tradition of plural-
ism, he brought it to a higher level.” In addition,
Goldberger says, “He made certain the school was
imparting the highest standards, not only in design,
but also in urban planning, historic preservation
and building technology.”

“His accomplishment at Yale has been abso-
lutely stellar,” agrees Swiss architect Bernard
Tschumi, GSAPP dean from 1988 to 2003. “I
think he has put Yale back where it deserves to
be, as one of the three best schools in the country.
This he did with an enormous amount of flair and
intelligence, and it has been good for everybody
who is interested in education.”

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COURTESY ROBERT A.M. STERN ARCHITECTS

Tschumi especially appreciates Stern’s zest for the
collision of ideas — and his sense of humor, a view
echoed by Stern’s successor in the Yale dean’s office,
Deborah Berke. “Bob’s a funny guy, and he can make
fun of himself,” says Berke. “He loves discussion, he
loves the exchange of ideas. He believes — and I
think he’s absolutely right in this — that a university
is an environment where people can have different
points of view and still be friends and colleagues.”

tern has won numerous honors, including ‘The
Richard H. Driehaus Prize in 2011 and the
National Building Museum's Vincent Scully Prize
in 2008, and was presented a John Jay Award for
distinguished professional achievement by the Col-
lege in 1991. He has chaired the international jury
at the Venice Biennale in 2012 and his works are
in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Cen-
tre Pompidou and the Art Institute of Chicago,
among others. Yet he shows no sign of coasting.
After a sabbatical Stern will resume teaching
at Yale. He’s publishing a book later this year on
RAMSAs recent campus architecture and working
on a sixth volume of the New York book series with
co-authors David Fishman and Jacob Tilove..
Three of Stern’s skyscrapers are under con-
struction in Manhattan, piercing the skyline that
inspired him as a boy in Brooklyn: an 82-story
hotel and apartment complex at 30 Park Place; an
apartment tower at 520 Park Ave.; and another

GEORGE W. BUSH PI

RESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND

residential spire, 220 Central Park South, which
will be among the city’s tallest structures. All three
are clad in limestone, like the Empire State and
Chrysler buildings, and feature the kinds of set-
backs and rooftops associated with classic Man-
hattan tall buildings.

Stern says he’s especially excited about the design
of 30 Park Place, which shares a block with the
landmark Woolworth Building — once the world’s
tallest, now dwarfed by Stern’s — and stares down
at the site of the original King’s College and Colum-
bia campus.

“Architecture is not an autobiographical art. Many
architects seem to think that every building they do
has to look like their building, which can be a trap.”

Always the teacher, always cognizant of his-
tory, Stern explains, “It’s my homage to One Wall
Street, the Irving Trust Building, which is one of
the great buildings of the late ’20s, and one of the
great buildings of New York skyscraper history.”
He nods and smiles. “It’s a beautiful silhouette.”

Former CCT Editor Jamie Katz ’72, BUS’80 is a
freelance author and editor who lives in Upper Man-
hattan. His last piece for CCT was a profile of Los
Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti 92, SIPA’93.

i aataspemnenial
aim

5
=a

PETER AARON / OTTO

ABOVE:

George W. Bush Presidential
Library and Museum

Southern Methodist University
Dallas

OPPOSITE PAGE:

30 Park Place
New York City

Fall 2016 CCT. 31

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PETER PILLING
LEADS NEW

ERA IN
COLUMBIA

ATHLETICS

SILLV1 NVHLVNOF

ew people have had as auspi-
cious a start to their jobs as
Peter Pilling did after becom-
ing Columbia’s Director of
Intercollegiate Athletics and
Physical Education in February 2015. Almost
before the ink was dry on the headlines announc-
ing his hiring, he had persuaded none less than
the winningest coach in Ivy League football
history, Al Bagnoli, to take on the challenge of
waking up Columbia's slumbering program.

| Pilling was reminded, during an interview
| last spring in the Dodge Fitness Center, about
an episode of Seinfeld that has to do with fast
starts and timing. George Costanza goes into a
meeting in a somber boardroom, tries to lighten
BY ALEX SACHARE ‘71 the atmosphere by telling a joke and watches in
amazement as everyone in the room cracks up.
Knowing he has nothing of substance to con-
tribute to the meeting, George realizes there’s no
place for him to go after the joke but downward.
So he leaps to his feet, raises his arms in the air
triumphantly and shouts, “That’s it! ’m outta
here!” and departs the room.
“So you're suggesting that maybe I should
have quit after my first month?” Pilling says,
laughing, when reminded of the episode. “Maybe

that would not have been a bad idea.”

on't believe it for a minute. For Pilling,
leading Columbia Athletics is the culmina-

tion of a career in sports marketing and manage-

ment that included senior positions at schools

like Brigham Young and Villanova as well as

a vice presidency at IMG College, the nation’s

largest collegiate sports marketing company.

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“It has always been my goal to serve as an athletic director at a great
university,” he says.

He could not wait to roll up his sleeves and get going — and in
fact, he didn't.

Even when he was still just a candidate for the AD job, Pilling
did his due diligence regarding his potential employer and realized
that the No. 1 priority at Columbia was reviving a football program
that was languishing with a 21-game losing streak. To do that, he
knew he needed to identify the right man to replace Pete Mangu-
rian, the coach who had recently resigned, and convince that man to
take on the challenge of turning around the Light Blue. It figured
to be his first hire, and one that would go a long way toward shaping
his tenure — assuming he got the job, that is.

In kicking around names with a former colleague from Villanova,
Pilling’s ears perked up when he learned that the winningest coach
in Football Championship Subdivision history just might be avail-
able. Bagnoli had recently resigned after 33 years and 234 victories as a
head coach, including 22 years at Penn that produced nine Ivy League
championships. The talk around Philadelphia was that Bagnoli was
restless working a desk job in Penn's athletics department and might be
itching to get back to the sidelines if the right opportunity arose.

“I thought that was very interesting,” says Pilling. “He and I
started a dialogue, and when I was appointed athletics director, I
got on a train to Philadelphia and we met to continue the conver-
sation.” Pilling was appointed on February 3, 2015; Bagnoli came
aboard three weeks later.

The impact was instantaneous, more so than Columbia’s 2-8 win-
loss record in 2015 might indicate. A Columbia football team that
looked hopelessly overmatched the year before was competitive in
9 of 10 games in 2015, breaking a
24-game losing streak with a 26-3
win over Wagner and an 18-game
Ivy losing streak with a 17-7 vic-
tory at Yale. Most tellingly, the
Lions improved dramatically in just
about every measurable category, as
noted by Jake Novak GS’92 in Roar
Lions 2016, his blog about Colum-
bia football (culions.blogspot.com).
For example, the Lions rushed for
1,402 yards after gaining just 556
on the ground the previous season,
and they allowed only 198 points
after giving up 389 the year before.

Rich Forzani’66, an active alum-
nus who advocated for reform in
the athletics department and the
football program in particular, was impressed by Pilling’s bold move.
“Even before he was awarded the position, he began a dialogue with
one of the most successful Ivy coaches in history, who was not then
coaching,” Forzani says. “This resulted in what many of us believe to
be the most brilliant coaching hire in CU football history, Al Bagnoli.
That is his great tactical accomplishment, and by itself dwarfs all that
has happened in the past 50 years in football. Moreover, it highlights
an imaginative and aggressive way of dealing with the long-range chal-
lenge — that of delivering winning teams.”

As Bagnoli heads into his second season, Pilling couldn't be
happier with his signature hire. “Coach Bagnoli provides amaz-

“AS AN
ATHLETIC
DIRECTOR,

YOU NEED TO
BE PART OF
THE CAMPUS
COMMUNITY.
THAT'S
IMPORTANT
TO ME.”

34 CCT Fall 2016

ing leadership for our football program,” he says. “Everyone is so
appreciative of his understanding of what it takes to be successful
as a football coach in the Ivy League. He is incredibly motivated;
he’s very competitive and very organized. He really understands the
whole process. And he makes the game fun for the players.”
Bagnoli wasn’t Pilling’s only high-profile hire in his first year on
the job. When Kyle Smith left to return to the West Coast after
leading men’s basketball to a 25-win season and the CollegeInsider.
com tournament title, the first postseason crown in school his-
tory, Pilling quickly tabbed Jim Engles, a former Columbia assis-
tant coach who had compiled an impressive record as head coach
at NJIT, as his successor. And he reached into the ranks of young
alumni to select Megan Griffith ’07, a three-year captain who
played pro ball in Europe and was part of five Ivy title-winning
teams as an assistant coach at Princeton, to become head women’s

basketball coach.

illing recognizes that while football and basketball may be the

marquee sports that garner headlines, the performance of those
teams — and indeed all of Columbia’s varsity teams — will be only
one measure of his success. Although Columbia has hundreds of
student-athletes who compete in 29 intercollegiate sports before
tens of thousands of spectators, a large part of the University’s stu-
dents, faculty and administrators, perhaps even a majority, pay scant
attention to intercollegiate athletics competition.

Pilling would like to change that, and one of his goals is to bet-
ter integrate Athletics into the Columbia culture. “I believe that as
an athletic director you need to be part of the campus community.
That’s important to me,” Pilling says. He adds that in interviewing
for the AD job, “One of the things that really struck me is that
there is excellence around the campus, and the Athletics Depart-
ment should contribute to that continued excellence.”

Toward that end, Pilling says that despite the importance of the
improved facilities at the Baker Athletics Complex in Inwood, it is vital
for Athletics to have a significant presence on Morningside Heights,
where undergraduates reside and take virtually all their classes. Refer-
ring to the Dodge Physical Fitness Center that includes Levien Gym,
Pilling says, “It’s great [that it’s] within walking distance for the entire
student body. That makes it extremely convenient to go to a game.”

Athletics facilities in general improved significantly under Pilling’s
predecessor, M. Dianne Murphy, particularly at the Baker Athlet-
ics Complex. Murphy oversaw the renovation of many of the playing
fields as well as the baseball and soccer stadiums and led the fundrais-
ing and construction of The Campbell Sports Center, which provides
those who compete and practice at Baker with conference rooms, a
strength-and-conditioning center, a student-athlete lounge and study
center, and coaches’ offices. “We have some amazing facilities,” Pilling
enthuses. “Coach Bagnoli says the Campbell Center is as good as any
facility in the Ivy League.”

In July, Columbia began construction of an indoor structure at the
Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium to provide winter practice space
for varsity field teams. When completed, the “Bubble at Baker” will
be a 650,000-cubic-ft. air-supported dome enclosing a new FieldTurf
playing surface and will be inflated from December to mid-March
to provide practice space for the football, men’s and women’s soccer,
baseball, softball, field hockey and lacrosse teams.

Now, Pilling is turning his attention to Morningside Heights and
the Dodge Physical Fitness Center, which underwent its last major

Pilling with head foothall
coach Al Bagnoli, his
first hire and one of
several new coaches he
has brought on hoard in
his first year.

renovation in 1996 and serves not only as an intercollegiate athlet-
ics and club/intramural sports facility but also as the recreational
gym for members of the Columbia community who want a place to
work out. He conducted a survey of students, faculty, administrators
and other gym members last spring to gauge usage of Dodge and
get a broad cross-section of opinion regarding the facility and what
needed to be improved. “We've replaced a lot of fitness equipment,”
he says, “but I really wanted to see what needs to take place. This is
an important facility for the entire community.”

e illing’s progress in his brief tenure has not gone unnoticed.
“Peter has brought a new level of enthusiasm and optimism to
the program,” says Mike Brown’80, who played football and base-
ball at Columbia. “His interaction with alumni has been stellar and
I can see his staff is rejuvenated. The hiring of Al Bagnoli was a real
coup and I am impressed with Jim Engles. Facilities, especially the
new bubble, are a major achievement.”

Forzani adds, “Peter gets it. He recognized the need to convert
the Athletics Department into a proactive and alumni-friendly
organization. Peter is extremely responsive and open to commen-
tary and questions. By doing this, he has positioned himself and his
people as allies and ombudsmen for alumni. The positive things he
has done for football in particular and the department in general
will help all sports.”

Ken Howitt’76, a longtime season ticket-holder for basketball who
added football season tickets this season, says that while he has not had
direct contact with Pilling, he has noticed changes. “There seems to be
a conscious effort to involve the Columbia community as one entity,
where students, student-athletes, alumni and staff are not separate, but

JONATHAN LATTIF

rather one unit with a common goal. I have always enjoyed attending
events and games, and in many ways, that experience is improving
both on the field and also before and after events.”

Some of that may be attributable to Pilling’s experience in mar-
keting, which is paying dividends in many ways, according to one
of his peers.

Bob Scalise, the longtime AD at Harvard, says, “I have found Peter
to be a terrific colleague and an excellent addition to our Ivy League
Athletic Directors group. He is helping us in many areas, but par-
ticularly with Ivy messaging, digital network strategy, sponsorships
and broadcast rights. Ivy schools pursue a unique model in college
athletics; our success is measured in many ways, not just by wins and
losses. Peter embraces the higher level goal of pursuing competitive
excellence while also remaining true to the educational mission of
Columbia College, the Ivy League and college athletics in general.”

But wins and losses remains the most common yardstick by
which success in sports is measured at every level, including the Ivy
League, and Pilling knows that. “We can be successful academi-
cally and athletically at the highest levels,” he says. “We relish the
opportunity to compete for Ivy League championships. I want to
continue to grow and enhance support for all our programs.

“It’s important that our student-athletes and coaches have the
resources to be successful,” adds Pilling, who when asked how he
defines success, replies, “Obviously, winning Ivy League champion-

ships, but also developing the skills in our student-athletes so they
can be winners in life.”

Alex Sachare ’71 has been editor in chief of CCT since 1998. He has
written, edited or contributed to more than 30 books about sports.

Fall 2016 CCT 35

Toward a More.
Perfect University

Jonathan R. Cole’64, GSAS’69

contends the objectives of the
sciences, humanities and the
behavioral and social sciences
are not as different as they are
often made out to be

Above: More Americans can
identify Michael Jackson as
the writer of “Beat It” than
can recognize Chief Justice
John Jay (Class of 1764).

GILBERT STUART,
PORTRAIT OF JOHN JAY, 1794

36 CCT Fall 2016

Jonathan R. Cole ’64, GSAS’69 is the John Mitchell Mason Professor of the

University, provost emeritus of the University and dean emeritus of facul-
ties. In his last appearance in “Columbia Forum” (July/August 2010), he
described the social benefits of the inventions generated by Americas great
research universities — from the products themselves to the boost provided to
the U.S. economy. In his latest book, Toward a More Perfect University, he
casts a critical yet still hopeful eye on this vital educational institution.

The landscape of higher education has dramatically changed since Cole
entered Columbia in 1960. As he points out in an interview on the Arts and
Sciences website, the University’s annual operating budget — which was
around $100 million in 1960 — has soared to more than $4 billion annu-
ally; the percentage allocated to the health sciences complex has risen from
12 percent to 50 percent. Facing the future, in Coles view, should mean
making changes in admissions, in administration and in the degree of col-
laboration among universities so as to better address society’ changing needs.

The excerpt that follows looks at the challenges faced by humanities courses
at universities in a science-dominated age, and defends the wisdom they offer.

— Rose Kernochan BC’82

SBTOWARD A MORE

SIT

PravRire: a

UNIVER

“Lean think of no one butter than Jonathan Cole
to téad thelériticol discussion of What the American University
‘ought to Took Hike as the ateamin G
ochievernents ond scienti bi
PROFESSOR BRIAN GREENE

JONATHAN R. COLE

historian of medieval France and one of

America’s premier students of the theory

and practice of historiography, Gabrielle

Spiegel is also an accomplished teacher of
many years at a number of universities, but principally
at Johns Hopkins. A recipient of many honors for her
work, Spiegel is a member of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most
prestigious scholarly organizations and, perhaps even
more striking, was elected by her peers as President of
the American Historical Association in 2007.

Gabrielle Spiegel is, quite simply, one of the nation’s
distinguished humanists. When she moved to UCLA as
Dean of the Humanities, though, she was confronted by
a student reporter who asked her to respond to the fol-
lowing statement: “In the modern world, studying the
humanities is a waste of time.” As Spiegel has noted, the
reporter might have asked for her reaction to the follow-
ing: “No one ever died of English,” or “Why study all
those dead languages and civilizations?” A group of Chi-
nese leaders of higher learning that I visited several years
ago in Nanjing asked me about the essential components
of a truly great university: “Why do we need to include
the humanities and most of the social sciences? Can’t we
create great universities without the humanities?”

Within the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
there has been continual discussion of the causes for the
decline in the percentage of undergraduates who major
in the humanities; beyond those walls, a congressionally
requested report released in 2013 by the academy has
triggered a good deal of public debate over the state of
the humanities. The Heart of the Matter: The Humanities

and Social Sciences for a Vibrant, Competitive, and Secure
Nation, a report produced by a distinguished group of
humanists, artists, and business executives who were
members of the academy, argued for the advancement
of three large goals: (1) To “educate Americans in the
knowledge, skills, and understanding they will need to
thrive in a twenty-first-century democracy [and that
can be found only in the study of the humanities]”; (2)
to “foster a society that is innovative, competitive, and
strong”; and (3) to “equip the nation for leadership in an
interconnected world.”

The academy report does not try to offer yet another
defense for the intrinsic worth of the humanities (although
it certainly acknowledges that value) but argues instead for
the utilitarian benefit of having students well trained in
humanistic disciplines. That alone would be sufficient to
elicit a heated response from some humanists who despair
when they hear arguments for the humanities on prag-
matic grounds.

In my view, the objectives of the sciences, humanities,
and the behavioral and social sciences are not as different
as they are often made out to be. The most serious defi-
ciency in the academy report is that it treated the human-
ities as set apart from the other components of a liberal
arts education rather than as an integral part of them.
All of these liberal arts disciplines are committed to a
search for facts and truth. They try to improve students’
critical reasoning skills; they seek to discover, to innovate,
and to enhance the quality of knowledge that citizens
have to make informed decisions about their own lives
and about their nation. The liberal arts are also commit-
ted to change: The sciences to changing our fundamental

Fall 2016 CCT 37

38 CCT Fall 2016

Columbia|Forum

knowledge and to promoting downstream a set of discov-
eries that will improve the public’s health and cure disease
as well as answer the difficult questions about our origins
and our evolution. So, too, with the humanistic and social
sciences. Through their critical posture — to be sure, in
a murky area between hard facts and
values — they try to criticize existing
patterns of behavior after understand-
ing them and to promote changes in
the institutions in which our citizens
are embedded. In a fundamental way,
the well-known antagonism between
the sciences and the humanities, which
has existed at least since C. P. Snow’s
The Two Cultures and the Scientific Rev-
olution, is a false dichotomy that ought
to be abandoned. The commonality of
interests has over time become clearer
than perhaps it was in Snow’s day; but
although the disciplines that make up
these large liberal arts enterprises have
distinctly different methodologies and
orientations, they have very common
goals. Despite those similitudes, there
is, as Berkeley historian David A. Hol-
linger says in a 2013 essay in the Chronicle of Higher Edu-
cation, a “wedge driving Academe’s two families apart”
despite, he argues, “the deep kinship between humanistic
studies and natural science.”

CHESTER HIGGINS JR. / THE NEW YORK TIMES

f the humanities and social and behavioral sciences,

as well as the sciences and engineering, are the foun-
dations for building reasonably independent-thinking
individuals, then it’s clear that the nation is failing in
producing citizens with an acceptable level of knowl-
edge for making informed decisions. Consider a few
findings from a recent survey of basic knowledge that
American citizens have about their own history. It is
not as if Americans don’t think it is important to know
something about their own history: 90 percent of those
who took the survey entitled The American Revolution.
Who Cares? did consider it important. Yet on the twenty-
seven-question test, 83 percent received a failing grade.

For example, only about 10 percent of those surveyed
identified John Jay [(Class of 1764)] as the first Chief
Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; “many more Ameri-
cans knew that Michael Jackson authored Bear It and
Billie Jean than knew that James Madison was the Father
of the Constitution, or that Alexander Hamilton [(Class
of 1778) |was the first treasury secretary; one-third did
not know that the right to a jury trial is covered in the
Bill of Rights, while 40 percent mistakenly thought that
the right to vote is.” As discouraging as these finding
may be, it may be equally disconcerting that when asked
to grade themselves on their knowledge of the Ameri-
can Revolution [before taking the test], “89 percent gave
themselves a passing grade, while only 3 percent gave
themselves an F, and 8 percent gave themselves a D.”

The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Judicial Sur-
vey of 2007 also produced some startling results. For
example, although about three-quarters of the popula-
tion surveyed knew there were three branches of gov-
ernment, only 36 percent correctly named them. Fewer
than 20 percent of Americans could correctly name John
Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; two-
thirds of Americans could not name a single member of
the Court (whereas 66 percent knew at least one of the
judges on the television show American Ido/); fully one-
third of the sampled population believed that Supreme
Court decisions could be appealed; and less than half
realized that a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision carries
as much weight as a 9-to-O decision. Finally, to cite only
one more finding, fully 60 percent of Americans believed
that the president should follow a Supreme Court ruling
he disagrees with, and a third thought that the president
should instead do what he thinks is in the best inter-
est cf the country. Clearly, we have a severe problem of
ignorance — and that ignorance is not being diminished
by our educational system, although level of education is
positively correlated with greater knowledge of Ameri-
can history, various aspects of our government’s struc-
ture, and the occupants of key positions.

Perhaps a bit more exposure to classics, history, English
and comparative literature, philosophy, the arts, languages,
musicology, religion, and the social sciences, whether they
result in majoring in the subject or not, would serve these
students well in their jobs and in later life.

Of course, the angst about the condition of the human-
ities can be found both inside and outside the nation’s
major universities. The so-called “crisis of the humanities”
has been with us for generations. And for every perceived
crisis, remedies are tried. In 2012, Harvard announced
that it would mount a program to bolster the under-
graduate humanities with changes in its curriculum and
improved advising of its students — yet another attempt
by Harvard to grapple with the problem that it perceives
is faced by students interested in the liberal arts but who
are fearful that they will not find jobs if they follow their
interests. At the more advanced level of study, Stanford
is experimenting with a five-year-maximum Ph.D. pro-
gram, and some universities are considering doing away
with the required doctoral dissertation in favor of comple-
tion of several publishable papers.

Some critics with a practical orientation argue that
graduate Ph.D. education in the humanities is a sham:
a way of obtaining surplus labor to staff large college
courses through the hiring of adjunct professors without
providing any hope for full-time employment. Others
argue that the time it takes to obtain a Ph.D. is far too
long, given that half of the doctorates in these fields will
find employment outside institutions of higher learning.
Any effort to create links between the humanities and
the social and behavioral sciences or the natural sciences
is viewed as a prostitution of the real purposes of the
humanities by means of trying to find practical appli-
cations for the expertise developed by Ph.D.’s in the

humanities. Still others bemoan the movement of the
fields away from a strict analysis of literature, poetry, art,
music, and languages to identity- based politics — with
the introduction of race and gender studies into these
disciplines. They attribute the demise of the humanities
to the culture wars of the 1990s. All this departs from
the good old days — the golden past that never existed.

The actual causes of the fall from grace of the humani-
ties — from those supposed golden years of the 1960s
— are not well-understood and perhaps somewhat exag-
gerated. There are grains of truth in a good deal of what
able humanists moan about. We have created an inor-
dinate number of underpaid and poorly served “adjunct
professors”; we have not monitored the job market well
or convinced students that there are fabulous jobs out-
side of the academy for which they are uniquely qualified.
We have been through a period of “group think” and the
conflict between “insiders” and “outsiders,” about which
the Yale intellectual David Bromwich has written insight-
fully. It does take too long for humanists to earn degrees,
not because the job market that looms ahead of them is
so bleak after ten years of study, but because it takes far
too much time to complete their dissertations — most
of which never see the light of day. For those privileged
few whose thesis is published by a prestigious university
press, no more than a few hundred people will read it.
The central ideas in the thesis are generally contained in
one or two chapters that could have been converted into
scholarly papers and published in more broadly circulated
journals. In fact, it is questionable whether young human-
ist scholars are publishing their manuscripts in order to
make an impact on their fields or to impress the tenure
promotion committees with the fact that Harvard, Stan-
ford, Yale, or some other top university press has decided
to publish their book.

Perhaps the most insidious and destructive damage
done to the humanities and to the sciences as they try
to make the case for universities to the outside world
is the continual internal follies of those ideological and
sometimes romantic humanists who represent the anti-
science movement and of those scientists who try to
assimilate the humanities into the scientific enterprise,
as Steven Pinker did in a 2013 essay entitled “Science Is
Not Your Enemy.” Finally, there is the endless whining
and back and forth between the two cultures that the
sciences have taken over the center of the university and
are to blame for the current state of the humanities.

We know that there has been a significant erosion
of students who major in the humanities, but the per-
centage of the total was never very high: only 7 percent
today, compared with 14 percent a half-century ago. And
although there have been a plethora of possible explana-
tions for this decline — from the withdrawal of human-
ists from a more expansive view of teaching students
critical reading of literature and poetry into the mode
of encapsulated conversations among themselves, to the
claim that focus on the humanities has no payoff after
~ college — it remains unclear what the true causes of the

decline are. And there are some data being reported that
there are actually more humanities majors today than
a de cade ago. The humanities indicators project of the
Academy claims that there are 115,000 more students
who earned a baccalaureate degree in the humanities in
2011, a 20 percent increase in absolute terms over the
number a de cade ago.

If there has been, in fact, a long-term decline in inter-
est in the humanities, there may be reasons for this other
than the absence of charm or good teaching within the
disciplines. Consider only one: Nate Silver, the statistical
analyst of voting behavior and predictor of elections, had
enough spare time after the 2012 elections to reflect on
the sources of decline. His explanation, based as usual
on a wealth of data, was quite at variance with the ones
typically reported in the newspapers. He argues that
there has been essentially no decline in the proportion of
male undergraduates who major in the humanities, but
a drop by roughly 50 percent in the number of female
undergraduates who major in subjects like English and
classical and romance languages over the past 50 years,
because women now have opportunities for jobs in busi-
nesses and industries as well as in the professions that
were simply closed to them a half-century ago. Accord-
ing to Silver, it is the American opportunity structure,

The actual causes of the fall from grace of
the humanities are not well-understood
and perhaps somewhat exaggerated.

not the bad behavior of humanists, that accounts for
these declining proportions.

Whatever the real causes of the decline over the
longer term, the unit of study may be the wrong one.
The proportion of those undergrads that major in the
humanities does not adequately reflect the impact that
taking humanities courses can have on college students.
I daresay some of the students who loved Professor Spie-
gel’s course on the Middle Ages at Hopkins are probably
public health majors. Some who aim to go to medical
or law school may take her course as an elective — and
it may change their lives and perhaps even how they
treat patients or clients. So, in part, the debate over the
humanities has taken a wrong turn. We should not be
as concerned about the number of undergraduates who
major in these fields as we should be about whether or
not during the course of their college experience they
come to grips with the fundamental questions that
inspired teachers in these fields raise in their classes.

The preceding is adapted from Toward a More Perfect
University by Jonathan R. Cole. Reprinted with permis-
sion from PublicA ffairs.

Fall 2016 CCT 39

cf ARte. Bo }
‘Ray! ‘Ray! "Ray! C-0-L-U-M-BLA ! carers
. av Puarimacanowe Co. ES,

40 CCT Fall 2016

alumna news

41 CCAA
Message

42 Lions

Carr D’Angelo ’84,
Dr. Medora Pashmakova ’04

45 Alumni in
the News

46 Bookshelf

Strange Tools:
Art and Human Nature
by Alva Noé ’86

48 Class Notes

Alumni Sons and Daughters

92 Obituaries

Robert M. Rosencrans ’49

GIVE ME A “C”!

F. Earl Christy (1882-1961) was
a prolific American artist whose
turn-of-the-century work often
focused on Ivy League college
life, mainly football games and
the well-dressed women who
attended them. His first “Col-
lege Girl” postcard series was
published in 1905; this image is
from a 1907 collection created
while Christy, a Philadelphia
native, was a student at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Arts.
Christy also created art for cal-
endars, collectible plates, mugs
and even linens. This postcard,
and many more, was sent to the
Alumni Office as part of a gen-
erous donation of archival items
by Will Csaplar 56, BUS’58.

CCT Web Extras

To see more of F. Earl
Christy's illustrations, go to
college.columbia.edu/cct.

Sending Off the
Class of 2020

By Douglas R. Wolf ’88

here are certain experiences I have had as a Columbia

College alumnus that have left a mark on me. I have

attended and also hosted many events through the years,

from pre-reunion socials for classmates to faculty lec-
tures, and when traveling for work, I’ve met alumni leaders in other
countries. But my wife, Sherri Wolf ’90, and I were particularly
excited about an event we hosted in our home this past July — the
Boston-area Summer Sendoff.

Through the years, I have interviewed many students applying to
Columbia — a wonderful way to stay in touch with the school and
my local community while supporting the Office of Undergraduate
Admissions. The sheer volume of applications to the College and
Engineering is staggering, more than 36,000 in the last admissions
cycle. We fall well behind all our Ivy peers when it comes to the per-
centage of applicants that receive an interview (less than 35 percent).
I encourage more of you to help us this winter when the admissions
cycle starts up again. Providing insight about an applicant’s character
and fit is incredibly useful to Admissions, though it can feel discour-
aging when so few are admitted. Nevertheless, when students are
admitted, those who had an alumni interview choose Columbia over
other schools at a much higher rate, another positive outcome of this
program. Summer Sendoffs are an opportunity to connect alumni
to students who eventually do choose Columbia and are preparing
to head to Morningside Heights. More than 20 Sendofts took place
this past summer across the country, bringing together the members
of the Class of 2020, their parents and local alumni. These events
offer a chance for all of us to provide the gift of insight and experi-

ence that will inspire student excitement and perhaps allay parents’

fears of sending their children to New York City.

Our Summer Sendoff was scheduled for 7:00 p.m. and our first
student, Nicky, arrived by 7:05 p.m. Within 10 minutes we had a
house full of guests, a line to fill out nametags and a large crowd
mingling in the kitchen. We were in full swing by 7:30 p.m., with
students mingling with alumni, parents meeting other parents and
much excitement in the air. We welcomed students and their families
from Massachusetts to Maine, some having driven hours to be part
of the Summer Sendoff. In the end, we hosted 20 incoming students,
40 parents (including some who came even without their incoming
students!), more than 10 alumni and Susan Jordan from Columbia

_ Family Programs, who happened to be in Boston and spoke about

Columbia College services for families available throughout the

year. And, in a stroke of luck, Sherri wore a Columbia T-shirt to the
dentist’s office that morning, which led to the dentist’s son, Daniel
Nissenbaum SEAS’19, joining us at the last minute. Columbia con-
nections were made quickly as conversations filled the air, and it took
more than 10 minutes to gather the future Lions and others into
the living room to start the brief program. Sherri kicked it off with
welcoming remarks, including some of her experiences at Colum-

bia, her involvement with Columbia College Women and upcoming
Columbia events both in NYC and Boston. I spoke briefly and then
we went around the room introducing various alumni, who spoke
glowingly of their varied experiences on campus.

We had such a wide range of alumni from different years, majors
and experiences that it captured so well the diversity of which
Columbia is justifiably proud. My fellow club softball player Jeff
Frieden 79, GSAS’84 led off with a home run: He spoke about
how the Core Curriculum and the overall College experience have
been building blocks for him. Now a Harvard professor of govern-
ment, he comes from a long line of Columbians, including a nephew,
Michael Chang-Frieden’16. We also heard from Leonard Robinson
SEAS’13, who told anecdotes about campus life and about staying
involved through the Columbia Club in Boston. Ashley Shaw 713
spoke highly of her Columbia days, including how several of her best
Columbia friends were from her own Summer Sendoff. Erik Nook
12 and Sergio Villar’13 gave incoming students and parents a sense
of the opportunities afforded to them by attending Columbia.

‘The students were as diverse as the alumni. Their interests ranged
from the classics to science and art, and they participated in many
extracurricular activities. One thing they shared was their excite-
ment to begin their Columbia days. Guests mingled for 90 minutes
after the formal program, long past the event’s scheduled end time.

‘Those students have now arrived on College Walk and gone
through Orientation and Convocation. I am hopeful that the con-
nections made in Boston will carry through and support them in
this period of transition and change. And in a month or two, it
will be time to meet and interview another set of applicants to the
College. I hope you'll join me by volunteering to meet one or two
as well, even if it just provides a chance for you to tell your College
story to a bright-eyed and attentive young person who may also
one day call himself or herself a Columbian.

ROAR!

Fall 2016 CCT 41

COURTESY DOUGLAS R. WOLF ‘88

Carr DAngelo °84:
Comic Book Hero

By Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

t might seem like you can't go to the movies or turn on the TV with-

out seeing a comic book character these days, but Carr D’Angelo

84 has long been ahead of the pop culture curve. A lifelong comic

book fan and owner of popular Los Angeles comic stores Earth-2
Comics, the lessons he learned at the College have stayed with him in
his role as comic gatekeeper, he says.

“Comics are a modern mythology,” says D’Angelo on why com-
ics resonate with so many people. “You've got gods with different
powers, you've got fallen angels, villains become heroes and heroes
become villains.”

In 2003, D’Angelo opened the first Earth-2 Comics, in Sherman
Oaks, and since then it has set the bar for comic stores, winning the
2007 Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award (the Eisners are
the comic industry’s version of the Academy Awards) and expand-
ing in 2009 with another Earth-2 in L.A.’s Northridge neighbor-
hood. In January 2016, L.A. Weekly named the Northridge Earth-2 in
a roundup of the “10 Best L.A. Comic Book Shops to Support Your
Habit.” The stores regularly host author and artist autograph signings
— for example, a May 7 Free Comic Book day event included Suicide
Squad: The New 52 writer Adam Glass and cover artist Ryan Benjamin
— as well as theme parties, group discussions and even kids’ art classes.

Says D’Angelo, “People are coming to us because they want some-
thing that’s going to engage the imagination. ... You have to keep up
your rep. If people just want to buy a book they can go to Amazon but
if they want an experience they have to come to us.”

D’Angelo’ love of creating an experience started young. At Colum-
bia, he was a member of the Barnard Film Society, which hosted regular
movie screenings each semester. One year, as a club officer, he decided a
fun way to start each movie for the year would be to show Batman shorts
from the 1940s. To jazz up the 15-minute serials, he did the introduc-
tions dressed as Robin: Boy Wonder to fire up the crowd. He notes that
even while an undergraduate, he recognized the nostalgic pull of comics.
D’Angelo says that when other guys in the dorm saw his comic book
collection, it often turned into a group reading as the classic characters
drew people in — even those who weren't regular comic readers.

“What I loved about Columbia was that we were always sitting
around talking about ideas,” he says. “Those are the things that lead

42 CCT Fall 2016

to human connections — trying to understand the world, trying to
understand how people think, trying to understand philosophy. And a
good story always contains that.”

After graduation, D’Angelo stayed in New York and wrote for fan
magazines such as Sfarlog, Fangoria and Comics Scene. In 1988, he
joined Universal's story department and by 1994 was a VP of produc-
tion for films such as Happy Gilmore and The Little Rascals. He later
began producing films (for example, 2001’s The Animal and 2002’s The
Hot Chick, both starring Saturday Night Live alum Rob Schneider)
before opening Earth-2 Comics in 2003 after his wife, Susan Aval-
lone LS’85, suggested that he focus on his passion for comics with
a store. Since then, D’Angelo has been immersed in the comic retail
industry, serving on the Board of Directors of ComicsPRO, the trade
association for comic book retailers, from 2006 to 2016 as well as being
a judge for the 2015 Eisner Awards, which he says was a great honor.

Joe Field, owner of Flying Colors Comics in Concord, Calif., a
former president and a current member of ComicsPRO, has worked
with D’Angelo in the comic retail industry for years. Field says of
D’Angelo’s passion for comics and entertainment: “From the moment
Carr got into the comic retail business, he’s been highly involved,”
going above and beyond to promote the industry. Field adds, “Carr
has been one of the strong voices for comic retail,” noting that Earth-2
is a destination for many people in the L.A. community thanks to
D’Angelo’s work to make it an inclusive, innovative stop.

Earth-2 Comics is named after the DC Comics alternate version
of Earth. D’Angelo says that one of the first superhero comics he read
in the’70s was a Justice League of America (the original Earth-Prime
good guys) crossover with the Justice Society of America (the alter-
nate universe Earth-2 good guys); that early reading fostered his love
of superheroes. “A lot of the things I've done have been about telling
stories as a business, whether it’s been writing and editing for maga-
zines or working in the movie business as a development executive and
producer and now selling comics,” he says.

“One of the things I learned at Columbia was the ability to identify
what the makings of a good story are,” he says, adding that comics are a
great medium for telling stories that capture the human experience —
an experience he is happy to help readers find in the pages of comics.

COURTESY CARR D'ANGELO ‘84

COURTESY DC COMICS

$19.95 (U.S.A.)
$28.95 (CAN)

ALAN MOORE
DAVE GIBBONS

COURTESY HARPERTEEN

NOELLE STEVENSON

dumninews

jfantastic five

CCT asked Carr D'Angelo ’84 for
his top five comic recommendations.
Here are his picks.

COURTESY DC COMICS

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COURTESY TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS

1. WATCHMEN, by writer Alan
Moore and artist Dave Gibbons:
“IL can read this book a million
times and find something new
every time.”

2. PLANETARY, by writer Warren
Ellis and artist John Cassaday:

It features “archaeologists of the
impossible — the ultimate in
meta-textual adventure comics.”

3. BOX OFFICE POISON, written
and illustrated by Alex Robinson:
It “examines love, friendship and
betrayal — the unsung graphic
novel of the 21st century.”

4. NIMONA, written and
illustrated by Noelle Stevenson:
“A Young Adult fantasy about

a misfit monster girl — funny
and emotional.”

5. STARMAN, by writer James
Robinson and artist Tony Harris:
“A sprawling, generational
superhero epic.”

Fall 2016 CCT 43

The Dog Days of Winter Call
Dr. Medora Pashmakova ‘O04 North

By Kim Martineau JRN’97, SPS’14

he Iditarod famously tests the endurance of mushers
and their canine teams but “The Last Great Race” also
demands a certain doggedness from its volunteers.

In March, as the first sled glided into the Finger Lake
camp in Southern Alaska, Dr. Medora Pashmakova’04 fell to her
knees. For the next 24 hours, she and five other vets examined more
than 1,000 dogs to make sure each was fit to press on.

“When I finally peeled off my layers that night, my knees were
the size of grapefruits,” says Pashmakova, a professor at Texas
A&M?’s College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.
“It was awesome!”

From Anchorage to Nome, the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail threads
through steep mountain passes and over frozen lakes. It draws rug-
ged competitors who have spent the last year training their dogs
to haul a heavy sled at top speeds. It also attracts another sort of
adventurer, one willing to throw schedules and comforts to the
wind to toil through blizzards and bone-chilling temperatures.

This was the second consecutive year in which Pashmakova vol-
unteered for the Iditarod, examining dogs before the race and at two
checkpoints along the course. She got the idea from a colleague at
Texas A&M who had done key research on sled dogs that develop
ulcers. A former half-marathoner, Pashmakova liked that the Iditarod
involved camping, culture, animals and long-distance competition.

Her first year exceeded expectations and marked the start of an
annual tradition. She enjoys the downtime chatting with locals and
the other vets, and then springing to action to care for the four-
legged athletes. “You're ready for anything, anytime, but have no
idea when it will happen,” she says.

She is unfazed by the cold and bathing with disinfectant wipes
and sleeping dormitory-like, six to a tent. Even the lack of cell-
phone service is a bonus, she says, freeing her to live in the moment
for the seven days she spent on the trail this year (the race was over
when the last-place finisher made it to the end; it took 13 days).

It couldn't be more different from Pashmakova’s usual routine,
where appointments at the small-animal clinic she runs at Texas
A&M start at 7:30 a.m. and continue through 7:30 p.m. ‘There,
she divides her time between seeing patients, supervising residents,
doing research and dropping everything when a crisis calls — such
as an animal hit by a car or bitten by a snake (one of the hazards of
southern Texas).

Pashmakova learned to be adaptable growing up in Commu-
nist Bulgaria, canning vegetables she and her family grew on a
plot of land they owned outside of Sofia. The family immigrated
to the United States when Pashmakova was 10, eventually settling
in Troy, Mich., where her physicist father found a job developing
semiconductors at an energy plant and her pianist mother taught
and performed.

Drawn from an early age to stray cats and fascinated by the power of
the human-animal bond, Pashmakova early on switched majors at the
College from biochemistry to ecology, evolution and environmental

44 CCT Fall 2016

fe! 4) 2 a ‘ ‘ 75.
COURTESY DR. MEDORA PASHMAKOVA '04

biology (E3B) to prepare for vet school. During a summer intern-
ship at the New York Aquarium, on Coney Island, she studied the
repetitive behavior of the walruses there, a sign of boredom previously
documented in captive whales, dolphins and primates.

After graduation, Pashmakova worked at animal clinics in New
York City before returning home to study at Michigan State for
a D.V.M. She graduated in 2009, and after completing a three-
year residency in emergency care, decided to explore a new part
of the country. She took a job at Texas A&M, inspired by the TV
show Friday Night Lights, which followed the lives of fictional high
school football players in rural Texas.

Her colleagues describe her as someone who is as good with
people as she is with animals. “Caring for patients that need you,
and can't talk, is less challenging than dealing with their human
owners,” said Dr. James Barr, a vet at Texas A&M. “Medora is able
to win their trust, which is necessary to do some of the complicated
things that we sometimes have to do.”

Those things run the gamut, and can include treating animals
for abuse and neglect. Volunteer work is one way that Pashmakova
relieves stress. Another is making soap she sells under the label
Scruffy Dog Soaps, tinkering with color and fragrance using the
biochemistry she learned at Columbia. Her constant companions
— two dogs and two cats (three of which were rescued from the
shelter and are collectively missing an eye and a leg) — are also a
source of comfort.

At this year’s race, Pashmakova treated dogs for pneumonia,
among other illnesses, and next year hopes to add on-trail moni-
toring to her duties, to learn more about the dogs that develop an
irregular heartbeat, putting them at risk for heart failure. Now, as
fall approaches, she says she finds her thoughts returning to Alaska
more often, anticipating the thrill of another great race.

Kim Martineau JRN’97, SPS’14 leads communications at Columbia's
Data Science Institute.

Crains New York Business profiled Julie
Menin ’89, commissioner of the Mayor’s
Office of Media and Entertainment, in

a June 13 article, “City’s Media Czar
Encourages More Filming in Outer
Boroughs.” The Q&A covers the growth
of and diversity in the city’s film and TV
industry. Menin became commissioner on
February 22 after two years as Manhat-
tan’s consumer affairs commissioner.

George Whipple Ill 77, LAW’80 was
featured on the July 8 episode of the 9/11
Memorial and Museum's podcast series

“Our City. Our Story.” From the show’s

the morning of 9/11, when he watched the

attacks from his office in Midtown, to his
first visit to the Memorial and Museum ...
As a born and bred New Yorker, he speaks
to the resilience and resolve of his city and
the American people.”

Joya Powell ’01, founder of the Move-
ment of the People Dance Company,
received the 2016 New York Dance and
Performance Award for Outstanding
Emerging Choreographer. The press release
states: “For her passionate choreographic
engagement with issues of justice and race

in our communities and our country, for

connecting with the audience in ways that
make it clear that these concerns belong
to all of us — and action is required, the

2016 NY Dance and Performance Award

_ for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer

goes to Joya Powell.”

CANDACE TABBS

press release: “Whipple takes listeners from“

Keyboardist, composer and arranger
Dick Hyman ’48 is one of five 2017
National Endowment for the Arts Jazz
Masters Fellows. The fellowship recog-
nizes lifetime achievements and excep-
tional contributions to the advancement
of jazz; recipients receive a $25,000 award
and will be honored at a tribute concert
at the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.,
on Monday, April 3, 2017.

Jon Cuneo ’74 received the 2016 Ameri-
can Antitrust Institute’s Alfred Kahn
Award for Antitrust Achievement during
the June 16 AAT Annual Conference. The
award honors those who have made out-
standing contributions to the field; Cuneo
has a long history in antitrust legislation

and helped found AAT in 1998.

Gabriel Lefkowitz ’08 was named
concertmaster (lead violin) of the Louis-
ville Orchestra for the 2016-17 season.
Lefkowitz performed as a guest concert-
master in Louisville in January; previously

he played with the Knoxville Orchestra.

Fashion designer Jane Mayle ’95 was
featured in The New York Times July 14
article, “Three’s a Trend: The Return of
NoLIta’s Cool Kids” to mark her return to
fashion design after closing her label/store
in 2008. The fall 2016 collection for her
relaunched label, Maison Mayle, became
available in July at Barney’s.

The John Mitchell Mason Professor

Emeritus, Provost Emeritus and Special

BOB HAGGART JR.

Service Professor Wm. Theodore de
Bary ’41, GSAS’53 was the sole recipient
of the 2016 Tang Prize in Sinology for
his “pioneering contributions in Confu-
cian studies.” Founded in 2012 by Samuel
Yin, the award includes a prize of $1.24
million as well as a separate grant of
$311,000. The award ceremony took place
in Taipei on September 25.

Greg Burke ’82, JRN’83 is the first
American appointed to the role of direc-
tor of the Holy See Press Office. Burke
joined the Vatican's press team four years
ago as senior communications adviser; he
moved into his new role on August 1.

Meera Menon ’06's film Equity was
released on July 29 to solid reviews,
receiving an 83 percent fresh rating on
Rotten Tomatoes. The film (which stars
Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn), about a
female-driven Wall Street firm who gets
caught up in a scandal, is produced by
Broad Street Pictures, which aims to
produce movies about women.

MIKE McLAUGHLIN / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

** Harrison Shih 16 competed in the

US. Amateur at Oakland Hills Country
Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., August
15-21. Shih was the 2015 Ivy League
Golfer of the Year and earned his spot in
the U.S. Amateur after performing well
at the Worthington Manor Golf Club
qualifiers in Urbana, Md., July 25-26. He
made it to the round of 64 in the U.S.
Amateur competition.

— Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

Fall 2016 CCT 45

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bookshelf

The Art of Knowing Ourselves:
Humans and Their Strange Tools

By Jill C. Shomer

hat is art? Why does it matter to us? And what does

the fact that it matters to us tell us about what it

means to be human? ‘These are the provocative key

questions asked by Alva Noé ’86 in Strange Tools.
Art and Human Nature (Hill and Wang, $20).

Noé, a professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley, where he is also
a member of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and
the Center for New Media, examines the connections between
works of art and the nature of philosophy. A work of art, Noé
suggests, is a “strange tool” humans make in order to better under-
stand ourselves. When we
make art or engage with
. art we are also studying
a nO be dae ay the way human beings are
i . on _—* organized. And while the
BR” A job of art is philosophical,
the practice of philosophy
is also artistic: “Art and
philosophy are both trans-
formative,” he says. “They
are ways of finding our-
selves when we are lost.”

Noé analyzes the roles
art and philosophy play
in our lives with insights
about choreography, paint-
ing, film and music (both
pop and classical) and
variations in philosophi-
cal thought. Theories of
Plato, Kant and Heidegger
brush up against works by
Cézanne, Roman Polanski
and Bruce Springsteen.
Of course, both practices are highly subjective: “You can’t prove a
philosophical position any more than you can prove that a painting
is or is not a worthwhile work of art,” he writes.

Noé’s themes are academic but are also very personal. He grew
up in Greenwich Village in the heady 1970s, in a house and com-
munity of artists, “surrounded by art and by people for whom the
value of art was paramount.” The question of art and why it matters,
Noé says, was his first problem when he began to study philosophy.

JILL SHOMER

46 CCT Fall 2016

He didn't want to leave New York
City for college and so Columbia
was a logical choice. The College
had recently started admitting women and Noé remembers it as an
exciting time. “Columbia then felt like it was really on the upswing.
The arrival of women definitely raised the game,” he says.

He knew he wanted to study philosophy — “I always had a
philosophical disposition” — and during his freshman year, he had
his mind blown by an introduction to cultural anthropology course
taught by Robert Murphy 49, GSAS’54. The enduring idea that
there are so many varieties of social organizations around the world
but that in our humanity we are all the same was captivating for
Noé, who pleaded with Murphy to be allowed to take his graduate-
level seminar even though he was only a freshman. (Murphy turned
him down four times before acquiescing.) That was in addition to
his Core classes, which he confidently embraced. “My intellectual
life wouldn't be what it is if not for the Core,” he says. “There’s so
much that I read that I might never have come to read. Back then,
I thought I knew everything but I learned so, so much. It was a
transformative experience.” Noé recalls he and his classmates felt
free to try out ideas, and he felt that the faculty were respectful and
supportive. “Columbia took care of me,” he says.

In his senior year, Noé was awarded a Euretta J. Kellett Fellow-
ship, which allowed him to study for two years at Oxford. It was
a positive experience, he says, and one that inspired him to earn a
Ph.D. at Harvard in 1995 and become a professor. Teachers such as
Murphy, Robert May at Barnard and Charles Parsons, who men-
tored Noé both at Columbia and Harvard, were his role models
in academia. “I learned a lot about teaching from my Columbia
professors — you carry on the way you were trained.”

Noé wrote three books on cognitive science and the empiri-
cal study of human experience before he was ready to explore the
themes in Strange Tools. “I'm grappling now with the relationship
between what I’m doing now and where I came from,” he says,
“making the case that there’s an important internal connection
between what art and philosophy aspire to.” For him, the questions
are huge, and critical to his life story.

And while the parallels between art and philosophy may be
challenging to consider, Noé says he works hard to make his work
accessible to everyone. “This book is not written in the style of
conventional academic philosophy. It’s the arguments and the con-
versations it generates that sustain it as a thing of value.”

Feeeeuedenvececetecssenvessssestsvouvsortssnnransoessnsestnrersssseeusnedesseesecesntnnsssecessoasaseessveceessaeeeus

Sky Gazer by Alan Holder ’53. In

this collection of more than 120
poems, Holder requests that the
reader embrace his or her identity as “a
creature of feeling.” Allusions to past
works are combined with rumina-
tions on present questions and blunt,
often comical observations. (Anaphora
Literary Press, $20).

Max Baer & the Star of David:

A Novel by Jay Neugeboren ‘59.
Neugeboren combines real and
fictional lives: Actual heavyweight
champion Max Baer interacts with
characters Horace and Joleen Little-
john in a story of love, violence and
identity — inside and outside of the
ring (Mandel Vilar Press, $19.95).

Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its
Role in the Court’s History and the
Nation’s Constitutional Dialogue
by Melvin I. Urofsky 61. How does a
dissenting opinion transform from a
minority disagreement into a strongly
supported precedent? Focusing on
major conflicting opinions through-
out history, Urofsky illuminates the
influence of dissent as a practice and
its broader implications in crafting a
nation built upon the imperative of
change (Pantheon, $35).

Zone: Selected Poems by Guil-
laume Apollinaire translated by Ron
Padgett ’64. This bilingual text places
Apollinaire’s original French adjacent
to Padgett’s English realization of the
‘words so that on the page, they seem
to converse with one another. Padgett

explores a range of poems “from
visionary extravaganzas to lighthearted
little nothings,” paying a deep respect
to the poet’s extensive body of work
(NYRB Poets, $16).

The Politicians and the Egalitarians
by Sean Wilentz.’72. In the midst of

a contentious election year, Wilentz,
one of the country’s most eminent
historians, offers a sharp portrait of
our nation’s history and interprets
how the alliance between egalitarian
social movements and partisan politics
has achieved the most notable liberal
victories in the United States (W.W.
Norton & Co., $28.95).

The Graduate School Mess:
What Caused It and How We Can
Fix It by Leonard Cassuto 81. How
has graduate education in America
devolved into a system that leaves its
students disillusioned and unem-
ployed? In this critical work, Cassuto
offers transformative solutions to
return graduate institutions to their
position as effective facilitators of
worthwhile study (Harvard University
Press, $29.95).

The Secret Life of Stories: From
Don Quixote to Harry Potter, How
Understanding Intellectual Disabil-
ity Transforms the Way We Read by
Michael Bérubé’82. Through analysis
of a range of successful works and per-
sonal stories, the author explores how
ideas about intellectual disability can
inform understanding and interpreta-
tion of narrative structures. Inspired by

2E-WINNing
MOCRacy

his children — one son is “gifted,” the
other has Down syndrome — Bérubé
displays our human attraction to
storytelling in a new light (New York
University Press, $24.95).

The Devil’s Financial Dictionary
by Jason Zweig 82. Spurred by the
aftermath of the 2008 stock market
crash, financial journalist Zwieg was
inspired to lay out the tools and lingo
to navigate the frequently corrupt
world of Wall Street. To simplify an
industry in which “much of what
glitters is fool's gold,” Zweig distills its
complexities into concise definitions
most anyone can understand (Public

Affairs, $19.99).

Education and the Commercial
Mindset by Samuel E. Abrams 86.
Veteran teacher and administrator
Abrams analyzes the movement to
privatize K-12 education in America
and, based on deep reporting, makes
recommendations on how public
schools should adopt lessons from the
business world (Harvard University
Press, $39.95).

The Nutshell Technique: Crack the
Secret of Successful Screenwrit-
ing by Jill Chamberlain 89. Has
Chamberlain discovered cinema’s
genetic code? ‘The veteran script
consultant analyzed a range of block-
busters from Casablanca to Little Miss
Sunshine to make a surprising point: 99
percent of screenwriters present a situ-
ation rather than a story. Chamberlain
then presents an eight-step strategy

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for structuring a successful screenplay
(University of Texas Press, $21.95).

Cooking Solo: The Fun of Cooking
for Yourself by Klancy Miller 96.
Pastry chef Miller inspires readers

to find their groove cooking for one,
without the hassle of scaling down
larger recipes or being stuck with
leftovers. Miller’s playful tone and
sophisticated palate suggest that
preparing meals for yourself should

be an occasion, not a chore (Houghton

Mifflin Harcourt $19.99).

Wellth: How | Learned to Build a
Life, Not a Résumé by Jason Wachob
98. Combining personal anecdotes
with expert contributions, Wachob
details how to reevaluate your life to
achieve “wellth,” or true fulfillment
and richness in existing. A creative
take on the notion of self-help, this
book emphasizes oft-overlooked
simplicities (Harmony Books, $26).

The New Milks: 100-Plus Dairy-
Free Recipes for Making and
Cooking with Soy, Nut, Seed,
Grain, and Coconut Milks by Dina
Cheney 99. Approximately 30-50 mil-
lion Americans are lactose-intolerant,
and alternative milks have become a
mainstay in our culture (half-caf soy
latte, anyone?). Cheney, the “dairy-
free cooking expert” for About.com,
explains how to make and cook with
plant-based milks. Recipes can be
customized to meet a range of dietary
needs (Atria Books, $22).

— Aiyana K. White ’18

Fall 2016 CCT 47

— BIG! lil ot iS TT” 5 Wiener

Written on the back
of this undated
postcard: “South

Hall, built at a cost

of $4,000,000 and
opened in 1934, is the
gift of Edward S.
Harkness. Dr. Butler,
President of Columbia
University, describes
the building as a
‘laboratory library,
designed not merely
for the storage and
distribution of books,
but for constant
working with books.”

48 CCT Fall 2016

SOUTH HALL, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY

1941

Robert Zucker

26910 Grand Central Pkwy,
Apt. 24G

Floral Park, NY 11005
robert.zucker@aol.com

From Carl D’Angio: “In the Summer
2016 issue, Class of 43 news (page
57), GJ. D’Angio’43 reports the
death of his sister-in-law, adding that
she had turned away from Vassar (her
alma mater) over its co-ed change.

“The lady was my brilliant,
elegant wife, graduate of Vassar
College Class of 41. Contrary to the
above, her devotion to her beloved
school was absolute and she sup-
ported it without fail all her 75 post-
grad years. A fine classical scholar,
she left her texts to the exquisite
library where she happily volun-
teered. The pin money bought her
fare home and maybe a little present
for me. Times were tough.

“A great lady — her last formal

act was to sign, in a fine hand, a

check to the Vassar fund.”

1942

Melvin Hershkowitz

22 Northern Ave.
Northampton, MA 01060-2310
DrMelvin23@gmail.com

On May 17 I had a congratulatory
telephone chat with Dr. Arthur
Wiswall “Wizzer” Wellington, who
was celebrating his 96th birthday
with friends and family at his home
in the Woodbrook Residence in
Elmira, N.Y. Art has had numerous
medical problems in recent years but
has remained cognitively intact, with
loving support from his family and
friends. I met Art in 1938 and we
became lifelong friends, sharing our
devotion to Columbia and our inter-
est in horse racing, which led to our

establishing the Certified Degenerate

2 66 ss <

SA-H!16

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '56, BUS’58

Horeseplayers Club, along with Don
Mankiewicz, Charles F. Hoelzer
Jr. and Donald Dickinson (all now
deceased). Art was a Marine artil-
lery officer in the Pacific in WWII,
returned to Columbia to earn a
doctor of optometry degree, became
a prominent optometrist in Elmira,
N.Y., and was part owner of the
Elmira minor league baseball club
and a scout for the Boston Braves.

Best wishes to “Wizzer” Welling-
ton for more birthday celebrations
in the years ahead.

With great sadness and regret,
I received a telephone call on June
4 from Dagny Robbins, wife of Dr.
William Robbins, to report Bill’s
death at 94 in the early morning
hours on that day at their residence
in Mount Dora, Fla. Bill had many
physical disabilities as he grew older,
but his mind remained clear, and
we had frequent exchanges of sports
news, political news and Columbia
affairs via old fashioned snail mail
letters and occasional telephone calls.

Bill came to Columbia from Hick-
man H.S. in Missouri. He earned an
M.D. from Cornell Medical School
in 1945, where he was a classmate of
Dr. Gerald Klingon. He interned at
the Washington University-Barnes
Hospital in St. Louis, Mo., and did
his residency training at Cornell-
affliated New York Hospital.

After service as a medical officer
at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Mem-
phis and on the U.S.S. Franklin D.
Roosevelt in Norfolk, Va., Bill became
a distinguished physician in New
York City, doing basic research at
Rockefeller University and on the
Cornell Medical School faculty as
an associate clinical professor of
medicine. He had a thriving private
practice in internal medicine, with
a special expertise in rheumatology.
Bill’s older brother, Dr. Frederick
Chapman Robbins, won the Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine in
1954 for his work on the culture of
the poliomyelitis virus, and his father,
Professor William Jacob Robbins,
taught in the botany department at
Columbia and was director of the
New York Botanical Garden.

Bill was laid to rest on June 14 at
a graveside ceremony for family and
friends at the Montoursville, Pa.,
cemetery. He is survived by Dagny,
his wife of 64 years; sons, John
and Wesley; daughters, Susan and
Elizabeth; grandson, Cornelius; and
granddaughter, Maja.

Farewell to a loyal classmate,

a distinguished physician and a
good friend. Our condolences to
Bill’s family.

I keep in touch with Robert J.
Kaufman who, at 95, is doing well in
Scarsdale, N.Y. Bob plays golf at his
nearby club, though he cannot shoot
his age for 18 holes. He reports his
younger granddaughter, Ruby Lee
(8), is a star goalie on her prep school
lacrosse team, while Ruby Lee’s older
sister, Maddy Kate (a junior in high
school in New York City), is a pro-
spective candidate to be a Columbia
cheerleader. At Columbia, Bob was

a member of Phi Beta Kappa and
coxswain of our excellent crews in
1939-41, which produced physicians,
lawyers and corporate executives, all
loyal Columbians.

After Navy service in WWII, Bob
went to Yale Law, then had a dis-
tinguished career as an attorney and
VP at ABC, where he worked with
Roone Arledge’52 to create programs
for the Olympic Games and Monday
Night Football. I also enjoy my phone
chats with Bob’s devoted wife, Sue,
an intelligent and satirical observer of
the political and social scene in our
great and diverse nation.

I encourage classmates to send me
news and comments (drmelvin23@
gmail.com or 413-586-1517). Best
wishes to all.

1943

G.J. D’Angio

201 S. 18th St., #1818
Philadelphia, PA 19103
dangio@earthlink.net

A decade or so ago, some of us
became interested in establishing

a war memorial that recognized

the many Columbia students and
alumni killed in America’s wars.
‘There was some opposition by those
who believed such a memorial would
glorify war. The drive, however, was
successful; I learned recently there is
a plaque in the vestibule of Butler. It
reads, “We remember with enduring
gratitude those who attended the
colleges and schools of Columbia
University and lost their lives in the
military service of our nation. As we
celebrate their lives, let us honor them
by guarding the peace.”

‘The legend thus serves both
camps of the controversy. The names
of all the fallen for all the wars
are on a website (warmemorial.
columbia.edu). The WWII names
reflect how very mixed in religions
and ethnicity Columbia students
were in those days. Thirteen of our
classmates are listed among those
whose classes are known. In truth,
there have long been small bas
reliefs, incised tablets and so forth
scattered across campus.

In March, I found a basal cell
carcinoma (beca) on my forehead.
It is the third or fourth, and is a
reminder of my years as a radiol-
ogy trainee at Boston City Hospital
(BCH) in the’50s. We did not wear

masks as we fluoroscoped patients
with the screens inches away from
our noses. The screens — albeit of
leaded glass — were not impervi-
ous to x-radiation. The becas and
TBC I contracted from a patient
during fluoroscopy are reminders of
those early years of radiology. This
last bcca comes 60-plus years after
the BCH stint. It is really a delayed
secondary complication of one of
the cancer therapy modalities. And
I am the one who started the sys-
tematic study of the iatrogenic “late
effects” of chemo and/or radiation
treatments! My hobby horse keeps
coming back to bite me.

My wife Audrey’s and my trip
to Panama in May was fabulous
thanks to a friend who arranged
every detail. Panama City was a
surprise; there are 20 times the
number of skyscrapers — including
a Trump Tower — than there are in
Philly. There is no way to describe
adequately the truly awe-inspiring
choreography and engineering
involved with the canal operation.
‘The preparations start weeks before
the vessel arrives, and from then it is
coordination, expertise and nautical,
mechanical and hydraulic engineer-
ing coordinated to a knife’s edge.

We also visited a rainforest and
an inhabited Indian village. Lots
more, but that gives the idea. My
wife and I agree it was the best trip

we have ever taken in our collective
185 years.

June 8 saw me in the hospital for
IV antibiotics for a few days. I had
developed a fulminating left orbital
cellulitis that made my eye the size
of half'a tennis ball. It responded
nicely to the medication, and bin-
ocular vision returned in about 72
hours. A not-needed episode.

A Columbia nugget: A little-
remembered fact is that Enrico Fermi
(of Manhattan Project fame and the
1938 Nobel Prize winner in Physics)
taught at Columbia for several very
productive years (1939-42). Many
of the groundbreaking experiments
and observations re: nuclear fission
were conducted in Pupin Hall dur-
ing those years. Fermi worked in
collaboration with Professors John
Dunning and Harold Urey, the latter
himself'a Nobelist for his discovery
of deuterium. Another Columbia
grad who became a scientist of note
was Baruj Benacerref GS’42, who
won his prize in the Physiology &
Medicine category.

Some stories about any one of
them, classmates?

Faithful Bernie Weisberger
reports: “The extension of the [Class
Notes] deadline to accommodate
late reports (thanks to graduation)
allows me to squeeze in an event
from June 19, Father’s Day, which
will appear in its proper place at the

Fall 2016 CCT 49

end [of this note]. Meanwhile, I
already anticipated some genuinely
important personal springtime news,
by mentioning in my last letter that
I would be attending the graduation
of my granddaughter Abigail from
Yale Law, which I did with pride and
pleasure. Both feelings are increased
by the fact that Abigail is heading
for practice in a seriously needed
field. That is, providing representa-
tion to asylum seekers who lack the
resources needed to struggle with our
current harsh immigration system.

“Speaking of commencements, I
was explaining to a young friend the
other day that ours was notable for the
absence of many members already in
service, and for the fact that those of
us soldiers and sailors who were able
to get to New York wore our uniforms
(required) rather than caps and gowns
as we got our diplomas.

“Do any of you who were
present remember much about
what it looked like? I have a faint
impression of it being brisk and
businesslike, and lightly attended,
but I may be totally off-base. I invite
recollections from any members of
the Classes of 44 and’45 as well.

“Otherwise it’s been a somewhat
quiet 90 days since I last wrote.
April was something of a traveling
month. On the weekend of the 10th
I was in Washington, D.C., with
my wife, Rita, for the wedding of a
young in-law. This gave me a chance

to revisit some of the conventional
tourist sites and likewise to visit
the Library of Congress for a small
piece of research. Lots of under-
standable security surrounds the
process of admission but I finally

Contact CCT

Update your contact
information; submit a Class
Note, Class Note photo,
obituary, Letter to the Editor
or classified advertisement;
or send us an email.

Click “Contact Us” at
college.columbia.edu/cct.

50 CCT Fall 2016

secured a card of admission to the
library's collections, good for two
years. The accompanying photo
is one that mothers could use to
frighten unruly children.

“On the succeeding weekend
I traveled to Denver to visit my
daughter and family there, and since
then have been a homebody. But I
can't resist mentioning a high point.
Evanston’s YWCA sponsors an
annual Father’s Day event known as
the Ricky Byrdsong Race Against
Hate. It’s a fundraiser for programs
to promote non-discrimination and
racial justice, named for a murdered
African-American Evanstonian.
There are several events — a 10K
(6.2-mile) and a 5K (3.1-mile) road
race, and a 5K walk. Ex-marathoner
that I am, alas I’m now simply down
to doing the walk, for which there

are no prizes and no time records

kept. Very low-key, very unpressured.

“Entrants include young children,
dog owners with their pets, moms
pushing strollers and ancients like
me. I’ve been doing the walk for
more than five years, accompanied
by my older daughter, son-in-law
and an adult grandchild, who oblig-
ingly slow their pace to mine. I get a
little closer to being last in the pack
each year, but yesterday I made the
three miles in 76 minutes (ahead of
a few other tail-enders). I’m shame-
less in my exultation that there are a
few springs left in the old legs yet.

“Happy fall to you all, fellow 43ers.”

1944

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

We were pleased to hear from four
members of CC’44 for this installment.

Bruce Mazlish, professor of his-
tory emeritus at MIT, writes: “Liter-
ally, on my last legs. But contented
ones, surrounded by children and
grandchildren. Also, still writing.
Last book was Reflections on the
Modern and the Global (2013). Keep
remembering my last year as an
undergrad at Columbia, when there
were 11 false Army call-ups. How
many of us?

“My wife and I have been mar-
ried more than 33 years — wonder-
ful ones, for she is an extraordinary

person; her son from a previous
marriage [is David Kaiser ’91].

“My best wishes to all my
classmates.”

Joseph Cowley Sr., who lives
in Westport, Conn., writes, “Sorry
to hear about the demise of Bill
Friedman. Guess that doesn’t leave
too many of us. At 85 I lost the
energy to author and publish any
more books to add to the 16 books I
already have but I keep busy adapt-
ing the classics for ESL students
reading at level 4 of the ladder word
series. I have been spending time on
Henry James these past few years
because he is so needlessly verbose
and therefore a delight to cut.”

New York City-based Dr. Daniel
Choy PS’49 writes, “I retired five
years ago and donated $2 million to
Columbia College and P&S from
inventions. My most recent one was
a cure for tinnitus, which I passed
on to P&S’ ENT department and
was accepted in 2004. My most
recent presentation was at Newton
University. On my return I received
an invitation to Warsaw 2017 and
am arranging a T'V-radio trans-
world, which will free me from an
exhausting trip at 91.

“Thanks, Columbia College!”

Writing from Alexandria, Va., is
Albert Seligmann: “Apart from its
inconsistent climate, Washington,
D.C., remains a great place for retire-
ment, with a plethora of public affairs
and cultural events, many of them
sponsored by organizations that keep
my wife, Bobbie, and I in touch with
former Foreign Service colleagues
and provide the chance to meet a new
generation or two of successors with
common interests. Bobbie, sister of
Dr. Marty Beller PS’46, and J are still
in the house in which we have lived
since we built it 64 years ago, except

for the 20-odd years we were overseas.

Our community, Hollin Hills, is
listed in the National Registry of
Historic Places. We have cut back on
travel but revel in the accomplish-
ments of our four daughters and
seven grandchildren, peppered by
weddings (those of a grandson in
Asheville, N.C., and a grandniece

in Brooklyn scheduled for this past
summer). Our last overseas jaunt,
almost two years ago, was devoted
to 10 days each in Paris and Rome,
largely avoiding the tourist hordes
while visiting museums and other
attractions we never had time for on
earlier trips. Predictably, we left with

a fresh list just as long as that with
which we came. For anyone inter-
ested in career detail, try Frontline
Diplomacy, the Library of Congress’
online collection of oral histories.”
CCT, and your classmates, would
love to hear from more of you. Please
share news about yourself, your family,
your career and/or your travels — even
a favorite Columbia College memory
— using either the email or postal
address at the top of the column.

1945

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Devoted alumnus Dr. Henry Shine-
field PS’48 writes, “I’m still here at 92.
Retirement continues with 1) enjoy-
ment of the accomplishments of nine
grandchildren; 2) travel with exciting
Jacqueline, my wife who continues an
active family therapy practice, medi-
cal school teaching and my care; 3)
trying to stay au courant with exciting
developments in treating diseases with
molecular tools now available; and 4)
watching with delight and great sat-
isfaction the progress in vaccinology,
particularly related to the pneumococ-
cal vaccine since it was licensed by
the FDA almost 17 years ago based
on the large phase 3 clinical study
done by Dr. Steve Black and me as
co-directors of The Kaiser Permanente
Vaccine Study Center in Oakland.

“The vaccine is currently used
routinely for children throughout the
world and has recently been recom-
mended for adults as well. I attended
and was honored at the biannual
10th International Symposium on
Pneumococci & Pneumococcal Dis-
eases in Glasgow at the end of June
with my wife and grandson Liam
Lis (15). He was impressed with the
topic and meeting some of my for-
mer associates to the point of telling
me that he would make contacts, do
literature research and write a paper
on the subject.

“We left Glasgow and went on to
Edinburgh for a few days; we drove
to the north of Scotland to have
lunch at St Andrews College. On the
way we stopped at a skeet shooting-
designated site. My skilled wife par-
ticipated, my grandson took a lesson
and I watched. While skeet shooting

and hunting is permitted in Scotland,
our driver told us if one carries or has
in the house a single handgun bullet
the penalty is one year in jail; for a
gun the penalty is five years in jail.
We have a lot to learn!”

Bill MacClarence SEAS’48
checks in: “A number of the Class
of 45, although graduating in later
years, decided to stay and I am one
of those who graduated in’48. We
had a number of good reunions until
the University’s policy on ROTC
caused a definite lack of interest
among many of us.

“In my case, I have had an addi-
tional move-on because of an inability
to receive even a reply to a request
to have Hank O’Shaughnessy
SEAS’S0 considered for the Colum-
bia University Athletics Hall of Fame.
This included three letters sent to
director of athletics; I would have to
dig to identify the others, and frankly
it doesn't matter.

“Hank left school in the uniform
of the infantry in 1943. He had
wrestled, was wounded three times
and received, among others, a Silver
Star. He was the tackle and co-
captain of the team that beat Army
and continued wrestling, along with
engineering, and more.

“T had no idea as to the qualifica-
tions for that honor but wanted to
give it a try. Now, many years later,
it doesn’t matter, but it sure shut
me down even further as far as my
continued interest in Columbia.”

CCT, and your classmates, would
enjoy hearing from more of you.
Please share news about yourself,
your family, your career and/or your
travels — even a favorite Columbia
College memory — using either the
email or postal address at the top of
the column.

1946

Bernard Sunshine

165 W. 66th St., Apt. 12G
New York, NY 10023
bsuns1@gmail.com

Leonard Moss and his wife, Muriel,
enjoy retirement in Princeton, N.J.,
where, as president of the social club
Community Without Walls, he is
focused on what he calls “aging well
— ours and everyone else’s.”

Len writes: “The issue of how to

help the aging population was an

unmet concern in 1992 when CWW

was initiated. Since then, community
living and medical resources have
been developed to the point where
Princeton was designated in 2015 by
the World Health Organization as an
‘Age-Friendly Community.’ Age has
not taken a major toll on the cogni-
tion of the 83 members of CWW,
but a significant number had been
widowed either before or after join-
ing. Our primary mission is to help
members form new relationships so
they are never alone. The member-
ship’s greatest concern is how to
distinguish when memory problems
are the senior-moments of normal
aging and when they are the earliest
signs of a cognitive problem, usually
Alzheimer’s disease.”

Len spoke on this subject in
Princeton to a group of seniors
where “everybody is at least a col-
lege professor.” When he retired in
2006 from his practice and teaching
psychiatry, he and Muriel moved
from NYC to live full-time in their
weekend Princeton home.

Arthur Marcus wrote from
Israel, where he has lived for four
years. His home is in Efrat, approxi-
mately 10 miles south of Jerusalem,
where his four children also live. Art
adds: “I am very happy here. Should
have made the move years ago.”

Arnold Zentner says he is “hap-
pier these days than when | was
leading a more frenetic life before
retirement.” His wife of 52 years
died in 2012, but he writes how
lucky he was to have found a lady
friend “who has put a new bounce in
my stride.” Arnold still enjoys play-
ing tennis and golf.

I received a beautiful memorial
program honoring the memory of
John S. McConnell at the Com-
munity Methodist Church in Coeur
d’Alene, Idaho.

Classmates, please share your
news by writing to either of the
addresses at the top of this column.

1947

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

It was a pleasure to hear from Dr.
Vincent Madonia for this issue as
well as from stalwarts Ed McAvoy
and Dr. Nicholas Giosa.

alumninews

Dr. Vincent Madonia writes, “I
am in good health and maintain an
active medical practice. I have office
hours daily (solo cardiac practice)
and make rounds at Winthrop Uni-
versity Hospital in Mineola, N.Y.,
every day. My practice includes a
bloodwork lab; we also perform
echocardiograms, echo stress tests,
Holter monitoring, carotid Dopplers
and vascular sonography.

“During the summer I enjoy
weekends in Southampton where
my wife and daughter manage an

120th streets, mainly to keep warm
and dry! It was quite a convenience.
“Little did we know on reaching
Pupin Hall’s lower level and facing
a door marked ‘Manhattan Project’
what history we were sharing.
“Wonderful memories!”
From Dr. Nicholas Giosa: “To
my classmates, with appreciation
of the fact that though late in this
journey of life, we can still practice
the pleasure of meditation.”
CCT, and your classmates, would
be pleased to hear from more of you.

Dr. Vincent Madonia ‘47 shares:

‘Tam in good health and maintain an active

medical practice with office hours daily.”

elegant antique shop, Ann Madonia
Antiques, on Jobs Lane.

“T have always rejoiced that I
received such a wonderful education
at Columbia College!”

Ed McAvoy says: “I'll be 90 this
fall — can’t believe it.”

Ed shares a memory: “It is 1944.
As the magnificent fall foliage is
fading at Van Cortlandt Park in
the Bronx and Cemetery Hill, the
last 2% miles of the torturous col-
lege cross country route becomes a
memory until next season.

“Major construction is about to
take place at West 116th Street. The
annual massive installation of the
wooden board track on the green in
front of Low Library, 11 laps to the
mile, would again become a reality.
We runners had our ‘locker room’ in
the basement of the adjacent School
of Journalism building.

“Coach Carl Merner and the
trainer, Gus, were getting ready for
the new season. Track shoes were
being modified for the new surface.
Long metal spikes were switched
to the much shorter wooden-board
length and warm clothes were worn
to block the fierce winter winds
from the Hudson River. Track prac-
tice was an ordeal! I still probably
carry several wood splinters on my
body from spills on that track. At
least I earned my prized ‘Varsity C’
that year.

“After practice we ‘in the know’
had learned how to travel to
classrooms via the vast underground
utility tunnels from West 114th to

Please share news about yourself,
your family, your career and/or your
travels — even a favorite Columbia
College memory — using either the
email or postal address at the top of
the column.

1948

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Thomas Weyr comments on a
Class Note from the Summer
2016 issue: “I was intrigued by Jim
Nugent's story about being caught
in the dark in the old swimming
pool when University Hall didn’t
have a top. | was a member of the
swimming team when Jim was our
captain so | remember that pool
well. It resembled a Roman bath and
even when the lights dimmed it was
easy to imagine senators in Roman
togas sitting on the pool’s edge.
“Our team was not in the same
league as Yale’s under Bob Kiphuth
but we did OK until the war ended
and the V-12 Navy program was
shelved, meaning we lost some
outstanding swimmers. But none of
that bothered our coach, Ed Ken-
nedy, one of the school’s true icons
and a man of infinite generosity.
We had one swimmer, whose name
of course I have long forgotten,
who had one leg and walked on an

Fall 2016 CCT 51

artificial one, which he took off for
practice. He could balance on one
leg and dive in, but while he had
good form his speed was limited.
Nevertheless Kennedy kept him
on the team and put him into races
when we had either won or lost.

“When I graduated and was look-
ing for a summer job he gave me a
Red Cross instructor's badge without
my having to take any tests so I could
get a job as a lifeguard. “You swam for
me for four years, you can do it,’ he
said grufHy as he signed the card. I
also loved the ‘classical’ tour we took of
New York State to places like Ithaca,
Rome and Syracuse.

“As for my adult life it was spent
mostly as a writer. My latest book,

a memoir written in German — |
was a Viennese refugee who made

it out in time — was published last
year, and I’m reworking an English
draft. Memoirs, my agent told me,
are a hard sell these days, but if you
graduated from Columbia in 1948
you are, as my youngest daughter,
who directs TV shows in Hollywood,
told me, ‘three generations away from
comprehending the digital age.’ She’s
right. My grandson is into video
games, which, he predicts, will soon
replace social media.

“Maybe so, but I still hear the great
voices of my Columbia years — Har-
rison Ross Steeves (Class of 1903,
GSAS 1913), who in unaircondi-
tioned Hamilton Hall sometimes
dofted his tweed jacket, but never,
ever loosened his tie; Mark Van
Doren GSAS’21, who chastised me
for claiming in a paper that Hector
was too a tragic hero, noting that
another class member had tried to
prove the same thing but we had used
different tragic flaws to make our
point; Andrew Chiappe ’33, GSAS’39,
who guided us through Shakespeare’s
liturgy; and Joseph Wood Krutch
GSAS’24, who as drama critic for The
Nation rubbed elbows with the critical
elites from Brooks Atkinson of the
Times on down.

“Such memories are indelible.”

Dr. Alvin Eden writes, “Still
fortunate to be able to practice pedi-
atrics, teach, write and play tennis.
My seventh child care book, Odesity
Prevention in Children: Before It’s
Too Late: A Program for Toddlers &F
Preschoolers, is scheduled for publica-
tion this fall. I would love to hear
from classmates who remember me
(also those who do not). My email is
babydoceden@gmail.com.”

52 CCT Fall 2016

Dick Hyman received a 2017 Jazz
Master Award from National Endow-
ment for the Arts, one of five awardees.
The ceremony will be held on Monday,
April 3, at the Kennedy Center.

CCT, and your classmates, would
love to hear from more of you. Please
share news about yourself, your family,
your career and/or your travels — even
a favorite Columbia College memory
— using either the email or postal
address at the top of the column.

1949

John Weaver

2639 E. 11th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11235
wudchpr@gmail.com

Class of 1949, please do take the time
to write to either of the addresses at
the top of this column; your class-
mates would love to hear from you.
Share memories of Columbia or of
the Morningside Heights neighbor-
hood in the ’40s — perhaps a favorite
professor, a memorable class, or a
cherished local restaurant or bar? Be
well going into the fall and winter
and stay connected through Columbia
College Today.

1950

Phil Bergovoy

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
coachpmb@gmail.com

From Ray Scalettar: “After nine
years in the Army (1954-62), where
I was privileged to care for our
soldiers, civilians and political lead-
ers (such as the Vice President of
the United States at the beginning
of the Nixon-Kennedy campaign), I
entered private practice in Washing-
ton, D.C. Since 1962, I have been
fortunate to be at the forefront of
many significant events: The creation
of a physician-owned professional
liability company, the development
of the MedStar National Rehabilita-
tion Hospital in D.C., leadership in
medical organizations (I was chair,
Board of Trustees of the American
Medical Association) and numerous
awards from my medical school,
including a doctor of science degree
bestowed upon me in 1994.

“However, I am now retiring
from the practice of medicine at the
end of this year. All of these plaudits
pale to the honor I have received
from my patients, who have allowed
me to care for them throughout
the years. I will miss the practice of
medicine but it is time to step back,
reflect, write and enjoy.

“Best to you and my classmates.”

Please be well going into the fall
season and take a moment to share
your news or perhaps your favorite
Columbia memories with class-
mates. You can send them to me at
coachpmb@gmail.com or through

CCT’s Class Notes webform, college.

columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

1951

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

[Editor’s note: CCT thanks George
Koplinka for his long service as a
class correspondent. For 25 years

he has kept this section running
with updates from classmates,
strengthening and renewing College
friendships through these pages.

He has stepped down and CCT will
solicit Class of 1951 notes going
forward. We are grateful to George
for his dedication to Columbia, his
classmates and this magazine. ]

Willard Block reports from
Reunion Weekend 2016: “Sixteen
stalwart Columbians from the Class
of’51 made it to our 65th reunion.
And what a time we had!

“Apart from the learning experi-
ence — attending great lectures as
part of All-Class Reunion (formerly
known as Dean’s Day) — we (and
the ladies who were able to join us)
enjoyed renewing friendships, shar-
ing photos and hearing about the
accomplishments of our children and
grandchildren (to say nothing of the
pleasures of our own life experiences).

“There were two first-rate dinners
on Friday and Saturday and it was
hard to believe that it had been almost
70 years since we all first set foot on
the Columbia campus. Despite a
few canes and some aches and pains,
we were a hearty bunch. Our class
president, Elliot Wales, arranged for
a vibrant and interesting speaker for

Class Notes |
Ors OO nek eee Raa eater aac acs 8 dca RP gt Meas Ste on eee eel ad cer OnE Be nee AU eee oh wee ne ee | |

the Saturday dinner, Curator of Art
Properties Roberto Ferrari, who is
responsible for the Columbia Uni-
versity art collection — a ‘Museum
without Walls, it was a revelation to
us all. As we concluded our weekend
following Saturday’s dinner, our own
Rev. Dick Houghton gave us a clos-
ing benediction and prayer of special
meaning and significance to this
gathering of 80-plus year-olds. All of
you who could not make reunion were
included in his remarks and were a
part of us that Saturday night.

“On the business side of things I
am happy to report that through the
years our class has contributed more
than $10,000,000 to Columbia from
almost 400 donors and, in our 65th
reunion year, we gave more than
$600,000. Not too shabby.

“We have, I am sad to say, lost
many members but we have friend-
ships, much in the way of accom-
plishment, and good memories to
carry us forward with smiles on
our faces. Those in attendance were
David Berman, Willard Block,
Tullio Borri SEAS’51, Al Gomez,
Bill Grote, Dick Houghton, Fred
Kant SEAS’51, Fred Kinsey, Jay
Lefer, Ralph Lowenstein, Warren
Nadel, Bob Osnos, Roy Simmons,
Joe Sirola, Elliot Wales and Ralph
White SEAS’51. While the 65th
reunion is the last one that the Col-
lege helps us to organize, there was a
great deal of sentiment to try to get
together again in the not-too-distant
future. It does not have to be in New
York; several of you from out of town
suggested Florida. We shall see ... .”

[Editor’s note: To view a photo
of reunion attendees, you can go

wie

Stay in
Touch

Let us know if you have a

new postal or email address,

a new phone number or
even a new name:
college.columbia.edu/
alumni/connect.

to college.columbia.edu/cct/issue/
fall16/article/class-notes and type
“1951” (without the quote marks) in
the search bar. ]

Ralph Lowenstein writes that
he “was honored in April ceremonies
at the Jewish Chapel at West Point,
N.Y., along with nine other surviving
American volunteers from Israel’s War
of Independence. Ralph (then 18) had
just completed his freshman year in
spring 1948 and is believed to be the
only student from the College to vol-
unteer in that war. He was a halftrack
driver in the 79th Armored Battalion,
seeing combat only 10 days after being
smuggled into that new nation from a
newly-arrived displaced persons ship
in the port of Haifa. He returned to
Columbia in January 1949, made up
his missed hours during the summers
of 1949 and 1950, and graduated with
the Class of 51. He was an associate
editor of Spectator in his senior year.
He then served in the Army for two
years during the Korean War.

“Ralph retired from the
University of Florida’s College of
Journalism and Communications in
1995. He was one of the longest-
serving deans (18 years) in the
history of that university. He was
featured in the documentary 4 Wing
and a Prayer, shown by most PBS
stations in the United States during
2015 and 2016. The documentary
describes the American role in
creating the Israeli air force in 1948.
Ralph, a native of Danville, Va.,
has been the official archivist of
American Veterans of Israel for 40
years and created the Museum of
American and Canadian Volunteers
in Israel’s War of Independence at
the UF Hillel, with an exact copy
at the American Jewish University
in Los Angeles. He was given the
Emma Lazarus Statue of Liberty
Award by the American Jewish
Historical Society in New York City
in 2011 for ‘outstanding leadership
and commitment to strengthening
the American Jewish community.”

From George Zimbel: “I have
had a busy year. First, a solo exhibi-
tion at Musée des Beaux-Arts de
Montreal, called George Zimbel: Un
Photographe Humaniste. Second, a
new book of my photographs was
published, titled MOMENTO. Third,
the release of Zimbelism (a documen-
tary about my work) was shown at
the Festival International du Film
sur L-Art (Montreal 2016); the Hot
Docs Film Festival (Toronto 2016),

where it was voted in the top 20 by
audience reviews); and will be shown
at the Shanghai Film International
Festival 2016 and at the American
Embassy in Beijing in 2016.”

From John Handley: “Columbia
College was a gift I selected from
the Navy’s 1947 scholarship offer.
On a mid-September day, Columbia
became the wonder I hoped for
when I accepted the NROTC schol-
arship. Farewell to Webster Groves,
Mo., how do you do to Manhattan
and learning years. I graduated as an
officer in the Navy.

“More departures! Goodbye
home, welcome to the Korean
War. Goodbye New York and the
girlfriend back home. Now maturity
begins. My first command was a
small ferry in the Yokosuka harbor.
Next came orders — orders I
requested about a year earlier —to
Pensacola, Fla., for flight school. I
was awarded my ‘wings’ in 1956. I
married the waiting lady some 30

years ago. Happy family!”

1952

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Happy fall, Class of 1952. Thank
you for your contributions — CCT
hopes to hear from many more of
you soon!

From Howard Hansen: “Not a
bad photo of three gray-haired ex-
jocks and our wives! Bob Reiss and
his wife, Grace; me and my wife,
Dianne; and Eric Javits and his
wife, Margaretha, were guests for a
most memorable lunch at the Javits’
oceanfront club before they left for
their summer residence in Sweden.

“Eric wrote a book, Twists
and Turns: Episodes in the Life of
Ambassador Eric M. Javits, that is a
must-read — I repeat, a must-read!
Eric spent eight years as a perma-

alumninews

Bob Reiss ’52, Grace Reiss, Howard Hansen ’52, Margaretha Javits, Eric Javits
’*52 and Dianne Hansen enjoyed lunch in Florida.

nent ambassador to the Conference
on Disarmament in Geneva and
organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons in The Hague.
Among his other traits, he is a
fabulous negotiator.

“His third career is now investing
in the fields of health and energy. To
keep up with a former president, he
decided to skydive at 12,000 ft. at 80.

“As it relates to Bob, he is as
sharp as ever. I couldn't be more
proud of his efforts, his friendship
through the years and the impressive
presentation he made to the 2016
Columbia University Athletics
Hall of Fame selection commit-
tee on my behalf. Bob took on this
project under his own volition. The
results are that I will be inducted
into the Hall of Fame on Thursday,
October 20, in a ceremony in Low
Library. Interestingly, only two
Heritage Era athletes (ol’ timers
from Columbia's inception through
the Class of 1954) inductees were
selected — Bob Hartman and
me. I feel honored to be included
with Bob. As you might know, Bob
was an All-American wrestler at
Columbia and finished his career
with 23 straight victories. On April
29, Bob was elected to the National
Wrestling Hall of Fame. Sadly, he
passed away on March 3, 2015, so
his three children will be present
on his behalf. Roone Arledge is
being inducted under the “Special
Category” classification.

“I would also like to show my
appreciation to Jim Mooney’56 for
his ongoing efforts on my behalf as
it relates to football and the Colum-
bia University Athletics Hall of
Fame. As you might know, Jim has

a unique and personal connection
with coach Lou Little: Jim’s father
was Georgetown’s first All-Ameri-
can and Little was his college coach.

“In the Summer 2016 Class
Notes, I commented on Col. Mel
Sautter but due to CC7’s photo
policy I couldn't include a photo
of him piloting his Red Devils F8
fighter jet over Vietnam. You can
now see that photo on CCT’s web-
site, Summer 2016 issue: college.
columbia.edu/cct/issue/summer16/
article/class-notes. Type ‘1952’ into
the Class Notes search box (but
don't use the quote marks).”

From Chanchow (Richard) Ma
BUS’53: “Having turned 90 in June,
I look back and consider myself
very fortunate that I was able to
attend Columbia College. Coming
from Thailand and graduating from
an English missionary high school
in Hong Kong, neither I nor the
school’s administration knew much
about colleges in the United States.
Nearly all my high school classmates
who continued on to college in the
United States opted for small insti-
tutions in the south and west.

“My luck continued when I met
and married Linan Ma BC’52, now
my wife of more than 60 years.
Together we have a family of five
children and eight grandchildren.
Among us are four Columbia Uni-
versity graduates.

“After graduating from the Business
School, I joined Merck & Co. and
worked there for more than 35 years,
managing the Asia region. I retired
some 30 years ago and live in Bangkok.

“Retirement has been sweet.
Linan and I have had so many
happy experiences traveling all over

Fall 2016 CCT 53

the world together, with friends and
with our extended family, and have
built many cherished memories.
“So, what I have gained from
Columbia — aside from a great
family — are classmates and friends
from around the world and cher-
ished memories. I am very thankful
for the education Columbia gave me
and for my friends and family.”
Don't forget, our 65th reunion
is just around the corner, Thursday,
June 1-Sunday, June 4. Take the time
to share your news in anticipation of
this momentous occasion by emailing
updates to cct@columbia.edu.

1953

Lew Robins

3200 Park Ave., Apt. 9C2
Bridgeport, CT 06604
lewrobins@aol.com

Jim Steiner telephoned with the
sad news that one of our most
popular classmates, Henry F.
Villaume SEAS’54, passed away on
July 17, 2016, in Intervale, N.H. For
our 50th reunion, Henry wrote the
following about himself: “I entered
Columbia as a know-it-all high
school senior and left realizing that
I knew nothing very much at all.
Columbia started me on the road to
learning about the world around me
and I am proud to say that I have
been a student ever since.”

While reading his obituary, I
learned that Henry had a twin,
Elizabeth Ann, and while chief
proctor of John Jay Hall had liter-
ally talked a resident off the ledge.
Because he kept breaking oars, the
Columbia crew team elected him
team manager just to get him out of
the shell. In his senior year, Henry
was awarded the Columbia Lion
for Outstanding Student. He was a
member of the Alpha Delta Phi fra-
ternity and ultimately its president.

After graduating from Engineer-
ing, Henry married his lifelong love,
Susette Bryant Adams, before entering
the Navy as a lieutenant J.G. and serv-
ing in the North Atlantic on the U'S.S.
Adroit and the U.S.S. Hummingbird.

He enjoyed a long career as a
mechanical engineer with a special
interest in thermal management.
Henry’s crowning professional
achievement is said to be the heat
sinks he designed for NASA, which

were installed at the International

54 CCT Fall 2016

Space Station Ground Support
facility in Houston.

Henry will be remembered for his
delightful sense of humor and his inci-
sive intelligence. He'll be sorely missed!

George Lowry sent the following
email, with more sad news. “I just
got the news that Alan Skolnikoff
(known as Alan Skol when we were
in school) died in San Francisco,
where he had lived for the last 30
or more years. In a sense he was my
closest friend. We were roommates
at Columbia and it was through him
that I met my wife. We stayed in
touch through the years. After medi-
cal school (partially in Switzerland),
he was an army doctor stationed in
Paris for a couple of years and then
became a psychiatrist in San Fran-
cisco. I was just starting to plan a trip
to see him when I got the news. He
had been sick (Parkinson's disease)
but continued to see a few patients.

“I met Alan, a tall French horn
player fresh out of the High School
of Music & Art in New York City,
in September 1949. We got along
immediately, both being tall and
awkward. We also looked alike and
were occasionally mistaken for each
other. I was a would-be athlete and
tried out for the crew. Alan thought
it was a good idea and did the same.
He made the first boat, I didn’t.

“Tt was a long time ago but we
stayed in touch as friends, roommates
and correspondents. Just after gradu-
ation, Alan was invited to a party and
brought me and there I met my first
(and only) wife, now of 50 years.
[After medical school it was into the
army, ] where he was stationed as a
medic in Turkey and then France. His
army career was so exotic that I was
sure he was CIA (but he wasn't).

“He returned, became a psy-
chiatrist, changed his name back
to Skolnikoff (the original family
name) and settled in San Francisco.
He had two children, Ivan and
Ilya, both of whom remain in the
Bay area. My work took me there
often enough to follow his career
as a psychiatrist with a busy private
practice. He was also an avid traveler
and hiker. As my trips became fewer,
our visits decreased and we became
dependent on the telephone. About
five years ago he started to date a
lady in New York so we again saw
him frequently. Our last conversa-
tions were mostly about health situ-
ations, our respective children and
sometimes gossip about classmates.”

1954

Bernd Brecher

35 Parkview Ave., Apt. 4G
Bronxville, NY 10708
brecherservices@aol.com

Another quarterly hello, men of the
Class of Destiny, filled with informa-
tion about us — some fascinating,
some funny, some mundane, some
sad but all very human. Warning: If
you look at the end item first, the
rest of these Class Notes may seem
so secondary; your choice. Also,
there is no natural selection here in
anticipation of who of you get in
touch with me — there are those

I have seen or communicated with
through the years, and even recently,
and others unseen at College or class
events or heard from in 62 years. But
you are all important to me and to
one another; never forget that. These
Class Notes connect us.

Jim Burger writes that life is pretty
good. He says, “My wife, Connie, and
I spend four months on Marco Island,
Fla., each winter. We bought a small
condo there in 2001 and enjoy our
time there, where I go fishing in the
Ten Thousand Islands for any fish that
will bite. I also am a director of the
San Marco Condo Association. Read-
ing mystery novels and playing poker
with my retired Procter & Gamble
friends is a favorite pastime.”

Jim says he would love to hear
from 1950-54 members of the Nu
Nu Chapter of Sigma Chi fraternity.

Jim also reports that Bob Reyn-
olds died this past April. “Bob was
an active member of Sigma Chi while
at Columbia. He received a master’s
in accounting in 1955 and worked
at Becton Dickenson and Co. for his
entire career, retiring as VP of finance.”
Jim continues, “He was a good friend
of mine. I enjoyed visiting him and his
wife, Phoebe, in Oxford, Md., during
several years after he retired.”

Fred Ripin has moved from
Darien, Conn., to Jensen Beach,
Fla., with his partner, Myrna. He
says, “We will likely never want
to travel north but would appreci-
ate hearing from any classmates
within driving distance: West Palm,
Sarasota, Boca. Concerning the elec-
tion, as with a variety of aspects in
perspective, I’ve lived too long!”

Larry Gartner, professor emeri-
tus at Chicago, made an effort to
respond to my “survey” questions in

the Summer 2016 issue. Larry reports
“Granddaughter No. 1 is a costume
designer for movies and TV in Hol-

lywood. Granddaughter No. 2 is a
second-year undergrad at Duke (tried
but failed to convince her to go to
Columbia), where she is a chemistry
major planning to take on an M.D./
Ph.D. and probably going into aca-
demic surgery (both parents are sur-
geons). Grandson No. 1 is a part-time
bookseller at Barnes & Noble, a writer
planning to go to graduate school in
creative writing next year. Grandson
No. 2 graduated this past spring from
Rhode Island School of Design as an
art print major and was immediately
hired at Gemini (a print studio and
gallery) as an art printer. He also does
his own etching.”

Concerning the presidential
campaign, Larry tells us, “Since
Bernie Sanders graduated from my
high school (James Madison H.S.
in Brooklyn) about seven years after
me, I had some feeling for him, but
my choice was Hillary Clinton and
it is my deepest wish that she be
elected President.”

About Columbia, Larry says he is
not up to date, “But it is my hope that
CC’s A and B and Humanities are still
as great as they were in the last century
when we were there. That was my great
education — along with my four years
on Spectator. We are well and enjoy
life on the ranch in San Diego. Good
vegetable season but poor fruit season.”

Thanks, Larry, for your shared
thoughts and grandkid updates. I,
too, felt as you did about Spec and
the Core — as did our fellow edi-
tors. Concerning the ranch, do you
dress as a cowboy? Send pix.

John Timoney responded to my
survey and shares with us, “Ana (my
wife) and I have four children and
10 grandchildren. All four children
attended Columbia: daughter Maria
Teresa BC’98, NURS’99; son Francis
Timoney GS’84 (he helped form
the Columbia Water Polo Club);
son Mark Timoney’88, BUS’93; and
son Michael Timoney’88, GS’99
(studied medicine at Mount Sinai).
Our grandson is Johnny Timoney
SEAS’15; we now have two alumni
named John Timoney. Grandaughter
Ines graduated from Sarah Lawrence
and will study medicine at Einstein.
Grandaughter Ana Gracia is a stu-
dent at Bowdoin College in Maine.”

Whew! John, that’s a lot of tuition!
What was Columbia in 1950-54?
Something like $500 a semester?

Columbia Mniversity

PLAN OF GROUNDS
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be ae *
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“THe GREEN

over)

About the election, John says
“My choice was Hillary. Trump is a
disgrace. I am sorry about what hap-
pened to the Republicans; we need
two strong parties in our nation.”
Concerning Columbia today, John
— after also asking his grandsons
— believes the humanities and our
location in NYC “with its access to
business, the professions, and the
arts” continue to be highlights.

Finally, John has recently gone
through a siege that I asked him to
share with all of us, in the event we
encounter a similar situation and
not to fear the medical tough love
that he underwent. In short, “The
malady that hit me is called hydro-
cephalus, which consists of excess
water on the brain. Maybe I spent
too much time in the swimming
pool at Columbia. We had the best
collegiate team in New York but
the worst in the Ivy League. For me
the remedy for hydrocephalus was
surgery to connect a drain from my
brain to remove that excess fluid.”

_PS.: It worked.

“T haven't been heard from before

in this column, so here is my story

THE QUADRANGLE i %

“AV ENUE

——

in a nutshell,” Howard Esterces
BUS’56 says. “I received an M.B.A.
from the Business School. I then
was a financial analyst for six years,
first at Curtiss-Wright Corp. and
then at American Standard, while
going to Fordham Law four nights
a week for four years with the intent
of using my law training to advance
in business. However, I decided to
practice law instead, and have been
practicing trust and estate law for
more than 50 years. I am still work-
ing, with a 70-lawyer firm in Mine-
ola, N.Y. (Long Island), but have
been taking Fridays off. I also earned
an LL.M in taxation from NYU
Law along the way, also at night.”

Fridays off?!

Howard adds, “I am blessed to
have recently celebrated my 60th
anniversary with my wife, Joan, and
have two children and two grand-
children. My eldest grandchild is in
medical school at UC San Diego.
Unfortunately, none of my family
went on to Columbia. I live in Great
Neck, N.Y., and would enjoy hear-
ing from anyone who wishes to say
hello (hesterces®@mlg.com).”

alumninews

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Congratulations, Howard, on a
full and still very productive life!

Leo Bookman remembers,
“When we were undergraduates,
two of our classmates formed the
comedy team of Turtletaub and
Orenstein. They were very funny and
I believe they wore capes. They went
on to have great success in television
as writers and producers. Saul, I look
forward to seeing your new musical
next season on Broadway.”

While I don’t remember the
capes, I do recall some of the capers.
Anyone else? Let’s share. Mean-
while, Leo, what’s new with you?

Saul Turteltaub LAW’57 brings
us up to date: “Of our five grandchil-
dren, the oldest, Max (18) —Adam
and Rhea’s son —started at Indiana
this fall. This despite the fact that
Rhea is vice chancelor of UCLA.
Arabella, the youngest (17 months)
— Jon and Amy’s daughter — will be
going to the Law School, having got-
ten a higher grade on her LSAT than
her grandfather did 62 years ago.

“Regarding the survey question
about what is so great and not so great
at Columbia today, as with all colleges

it is too expensive for kids and their
parents. For starters, four years of
college are unnecessary. Three years is
enough, as proven by the pro-op pro-
grams, and in that respect two years of
law school is enough as well. As to my
feeling about the presidential election,
see the attached.”

‘The attachment is available from
Saul (turteltaub@aol.com). Spoiler:
Hill UP/Trump DOWN.

David Bardack tells us that
one of five grandchildren is “off
to college” and — concerning the
election — that “by late spring of
this year the nominees for President
were quite obvious; and, unless there
are some unexpected manipulations,
Clinton should win.”

Gents, that’s it for our over-
the-summer social network. I look
forward to hearing from you starting
now for our Winter column. I am
always “open.”

In October, my wife, Helen,
and I will attend another annual
Columbia Alumni Leaders Weekend
on campus, at which time we expect
to hear about, share and challenge
insights, goals and activities affecting
hundreds of thousands of Columbia
alumni worldwide. That includes you,
so let me know what’s on your minds
concerning now and the future of the
University and its offspring (all of us).
Plus, minus, yes, no, good, bad, new,
old, big, small — I want to hear it
all from you so I can bring the Class
of Destiny’s ideas to the table. Call,
write, snail mail, email, text, whatever.

Now, as promised at the begin-
ning of these Class Notes, here is
something special to share. On July
12, The New York Times published a
feature headlined “Too Old for Sex?
Not at This Nursing Home.” But
wait! The Class of 54 is everywhere!
‘The story concludes: A “Ms. Davison,
who is divorced, said the last thing
she ever expected was to find the love
of her life at a nursing home. She
met Leonard Moche in the elevator.
He was smart and made her laugh.
She moved to his floor to be closer to
him. Ms. Davison said they had been
planning to get married when he
suddenly became ill; he died this year.
She is still grieving. I think of him as
my second husband,’ she said. ‘It was
great and unexpected, and wonderful
while it lasted.”

Lenny was a mainstay of our class
on committees and with reunion
attendance for more than half a
century. We regularly socialized with

Fall 2016 CCT 55

Class Notes

him for many years when we lived
closer. He was always gregarious and
a gentleman — obviously to the end.
Gents, for now be well, do good,
keep in touch and live it up. Excelsior!

1955

Gerald Sherwin

181 E. 73rd St., Apt. 6A
New York, NY 10021
gs481@juno.com

‘There has been a lot of activity
around Columbia recently. The Uni-
versity lost two of its well-known
athletes/alumni in Bill Campbell
62, TC’64 and Jim McMillian’70.
‘The community has mourned the
loss of Campbell, a football player
and coach, business executive and
mentor to many Silicon Valley icons,
and former chair of the University’s
Board of Trustees. From President
Lee C. Bollinger and so many others
who knew “Coach,” an outpour-
ing of remembrances have paid
tribute to his extraordinary legacy
at Columbia. [Editor’s note: See
Obituaries, Summer 2016.]
McMillian was truly one of
the greatest athletes in Columbia
history. His achievements on the

STEM Day was Columbia's
exciting science fair held in mid-June,
with close to 400 people attending. A
lot of young folks came to show that
science is an interesting topic.

Other news to report: Actor,
singer and producer Brandon Victor
Dixon’07, who studied drama and
theatre arts at the College, appeared
in the highly anticipated revival of
Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the
Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That
Followed. Better and better. [Editor’s
note: Dixon left Shuffle Along when
it closed in July and in mid-August
joined the cast of Hamilton in the
co-lead role of Aaron Burr. |

Athletics had incredible action ear-
lier this year: Fencing won the NCAA
Division I National Championship,
while men’s basketball won the pro-
gram’s first postseason tournament.

If you are wondering about class-
mates, come back to campus during
Reunion Weekend and especially
All-Class Reunion, formerly known
as Dean’s Day, where some of the
guys took in the sun and lectures.
We espied Bob Brown, Elliot
Gross, Ron Spitz, Don Laufer,
Jesse Roth and Bill Epstein. Sha
Na Na performed admirably at
Reunion Weekend 2016. They did
not take over a building.

Allen Hyman 55 called attention to Kiplinger's February

issue, which listed America’s 300 best college values —

no Ivy League schools fell into this category.

basketball court earned him induc-
tion into the inaugural class of the
Columbia University Athletics Hall
of Fame, alongside Lou Gehrig ’23
and Sid Luckman’39.

Columbia outdid itself with star
attractions appearing at various Class
Days: Eric Holder’73, LAW’76,
Dean Baquet and Edie Falco all said
a few words to their constituencies.
Commencement was a success and
the Empire State Building glowed
blue and white in honor of the Class
of 2016 — what a sendoff!

Before his landmark musical
Hamilton received a Pulitzer Prize
and 16 Tony nominations (with 11
wins), Lin-Manuel Miranda came
to campus on April 7 to receive the
Edward Kennedy Prize for Drama
inspired by American History.

56 CCT Fall 2016

Allen Hyman told us about Kip-
linger’s February issue, which listed
America’s 300 best college values.
No Ivy League schools fell into this
category. Is there jealousy lurking?

We heard from Dan Wakefield,
who has been in touch with various
writers through the years. He talks
about Sam Astrachan and Wayne
State University. We're not sure
whether Dan knew that Sam’s son
went to the College (Isaac-Daniel
Astrachan 90). If anyone wants to
get in touch with our prolific writer,
check out danwakefield.com.

The monthly dinners go on,
at outstanding restaurants such
as Peter Luger Steak House and
Gennaro. Regular guests have
included Larry Balfus, Roland
Plottel, Mort Rennert, Dick Kuhn,

Herb Cohen, Ron Spitz, Richard
Ascher, Al Martz, Alfred Gollomp,
Elliot Gross, Anthony Viscusi,
Berish Strauch, Aaron Ham-
burger, Bob Sparrow and Bob
Schiff. We'll get them eventually —
Peter Pressman, Ralph Wagner,
Bernie Chasan, Mike Vaughn,
Gareth Janney, Roger Stern and
Norm Goldstein.

Gentlemen of the stalwart
College Class of 1955.

Start being prepared for our 65th.

Keep hydrating as best you
know how.
Love to all! Everywhere!

1956

Robert Siroty

707 Thistle Hill Ln.
Somerset, NJ 08873
rrs76@columbia.edu

[Editor’s note: CCT thanks
Stephen Easton for his six years
of dedicated service as a class
correspondent. The following is
his last column; going forward the
correspondent will be Bob Siroty.
Welcome, Bob!]

For those who did not attend
our 60th reunion, here are some
highlights.

Forty-four class members were
scheduled to attend, with 39 guests,
for a total of 83 attendees. We had
two no-shows (who will remain
nameless) but anyone who did not
attend missed a great gathering.

I hope those who missed out will

attend our other class-related events.

The farthest-distance attendees
were Grover Wald and his wife,
Stephanie, from San Francisco, and
Donald Horowitz from Seattle.
Mike Spett made it in from Boca
Raton to represent our Florida con-
tingent. Phil Liebson and his wife,
Carol, made it in from Chicago,

as did my new best friends Jerry
Kaufman and his wife, Judith. I
found out that Jerry, whom I really
did not know at school, was a mem-
ber of our winning sabre fencing
team. I was glad to see Nick Coch,
who made it from Florida to attend
reunion and take care of some NYC
business. Among other things, Nick
and I traded golf stories and how to
improve our aging handicaps. Bob
Siroty brought his bound volume
of all the Spectaor dailies from our

senior year. Anyone who wanted

to check out what was going on at
College only had to go to the date
and read all about it. John Garnjost
spent a number of hours checking
his Columbia rowing news from
senior year. Ralph Longsworth
brought pictures from senior year
pole-vaulting, when he set Colum-
bia records and won his track varsity
C. Many great memories relived.

‘The high point of the weekend,
for me, was the Friday lunch at Fac-
ulty House, where four classmates
presented topics in their areas of
experience or interest. Each speaker
was given 20 minutes to present,
with 10 minutes for discussion. All
were fascinating. Our panel discus-
sion was set up as a baseball lineup,
with Newton Frohlich leading off
with “Shakespeare’s Mask,” a discus-
sion of the premise of his recently
released book, which explores the
possibility that a significant number
of Shakespeare’s plays were written
by an English nobleman.

Second at bat was Bob Lauter-
born with “China — Ever-Changing,
Never Changing,” discussing his
experiences dealing with the Chinese
business community on the subject
of marketing, which he taught during
his tenured professorship at UNC.
He shared insights on the Chinese
mentality — how Americanized they
would like to be, but may not have “a
clue” on how to start, hence Professor
Lauterborn’s contributions.

Third up was Philip Liebson
with “Transformation, the NYC
World’s Fair of 1939-40.” This was
extremely interesting, as his impres-
sions and description of the fair

NEWS

Send in
Your News

Share what’s happening in
your life with classmates.
Click “Contact Us” at
college.columbia.edu/cct, or
email or mail to the address
at the top of your column.

was that of a 5- or 6-year-old and
how the event really made a lasting
impression on not only the parents
but also the children.

Our last, I call clean-up hitter,
was Buzz Paaswell with “Trans-
portation, Today and Tomorrow,”
discussing the elements that should
be of concern to all of us about
the demands for adequate and
reasonable transportation alterna-
tives for our growing populations
(particularly in large cities and, more
specifically, New York City). One
conclusion: The Second Avenue
subway may not be finished in our
lifetime, if ever.

Friday evening, we all enjoyed
our class-specific wine tasting event,
hosted by Ron Kapon in Low
Library's Faculty Room, a great
venue. In addition to having a great
selection of wines and a quiz that
allowed us to take home a bottle of
wine, we also had what we would call
heavy hors d’oeuvres — a good mix,
which replaced what would otherwise
have been a sit-down dinner. Ron has
hosted the wine tasting for our last
three reunions and we really owe him
a debt of gratitude for his continuing
interest and sharing his knowledge
and contacts in the wine industry to
make this a special event.

‘The Saturday program, which
includes All-Class Reunion,
formerly known as Dean's Day, is
always illuminating and instruc-
tional. I attended [the keynote
lecture with] Robert Siegel’68’s
observations of the various events,
news items and personalities he has
encountered as senior host of NPR.
Whether you agree with Robert’s
views or not, his experiences in news
and media gave listeners-an inside
look at how media has become both
the “good boy” and “bad boy” of
our world and political scene. I also
attended Professor David Helfand’s
“Frontiers of Science” lecture, “What
We know About the Universe (And
What We Don'’t),” which included
a slideshow covering our position
in the universe (small) and how
immense the entire universe (as we
may only partially understand it) is
(large). The main point I gathered
from his discussion is how much
work we are doing to discover how
far our universe really extends.

Saturday afternoon, we had our
Class of 56 lunch at our favorite
place, the Casa Italiana Library,

an intimate setting for us to enjoy

one another's company with wives,
significant others and friends; really,
a place where old ties were renewed
and new ones were made. It was nice
to see how after 64 years (remem-
ber, we came in as freshmen), the
energy that our class members have
and the affection that they have for
Columbia and getting together are
being maintained.

My last reunion event was the
Saturday dinner at Alfred Lerner
Hall, with Professor Matthew Jones
as our guest speaker. He is the James
R. Barker Professor of Contem-
porary Civilization and a member
of the Committee on the Core
and Contemporary Civilization,
which reviews and makes recom-
mendations on changes in the Core
Curriculum’s subjects and teaching
methods. The heavy rain that fell
between Saturday afternoon's All-
Class Reunion events and dinner
did not dampen our spirits but did
prevent two classmates from arriving
in time to be in our class photo.

Whatever reunion hats were left
were given out at dinner and were
quickly taken. The good news,
however, is we have found a stash,
so anyone who would like a hat can
contact Eric Shea, director,

College alumni relations (eric.shea@
columbia.edu).

It made me sad that there were
certain members of our class who
could not attend due to health
reasons. I hope that when they read
these notes they have a sense of hav-
ing participated.

We will continue our class
lunches during the summer, as
well as our March get-together in
Florida. Look to your email for
notices of the March event.

On a sad note for me, this will be
my last Class Notes column, as I am
stepping down as class president after
5% years and will be replaced by Bob
Siroty. I have found that these years
have been enriching, have improved
my writing skills and have made me
not only closer to my classmates but
also helped me realize what a great
class we really have. Looking back, you
may remember we were considered
the underachievers (we lost both the
soph and frosh rushes); I think we
can now say we are all achievers, albeit
somewhat late bloomers. So make sure
you keep in touch and send all the
news you want to share to Bob at the
addresses at the top of the column.

Good luck, Bob.

alumninews

As I conclude, I look forward to
an exciting summer and an extended
number of wonderful years of Colum-
bia/class associations for all of us.

1957

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Herman Levy

7322 Rockford Dr.

Falls Church, VA 22043
hdlleditor@aol.com

John Breeskin wrote his own
obituary: “Dr. John ‘Sparky’ Breeskin
died peacefully on May 4 at the age
of 81. John was a notorious contrar-
ian who never met a point of view
with which he could not disagree.
He died of congestive heart failure,
which, in accordance with his Rus-
sian heritage, meant that his heart
broke from all the suffering that he
willingly carried.

“John was born in Brooklyn,
N.Y., during the depths of the
Depression. He joined the military
while in college and spent 20 years
and 17 days in a blue suit, rising
to the rank of lieutenant colonel
and director of the psychology
department of the Air Force’s
largest teaching hospital. When he
retired from the Air Force, he went
into private practice and became
a professor at the University of
Maryland, where he taught for more
than 40 years. John was a practicing
psychologist for more than 60 years.
He felt that he needed to keep on
practicing in order to become per-
fect, a goal that he knew he would
never reach but for which he would
never stop trying.

“His wish has always been that
when his friends talk about him, they
will remember his tears, his happi-
ness and above all his laughter. He
is survived by three sets of children
that he helped raise, becoming a
great-grandfather in the process. He
is also survived by a cohort of dear
friends and a legion of students and
clients. He especially wanted to be
remembered by his surrogate sisters,

all of whom helped him become the
person that he was. Friends [were]
invited to a memorial gathering on
June 12 at 1:00 p.m. in the Riggs
Alumni Center at the University

of Maryland, College Park. Please
contact celebratingsparky@gmail.com
with questions.”

Bob Flescher’s son Andrew
wrote: “I am writing sadly to report
the passing away of my father,
Robert Flescher, in Newington,
Conn., on May 3, 2016. Follow-
ing Columbia my father graduated
from Harvard Medical School in
61, served in the U.S. Public Health
Service as a lieutenant commander,
and then practiced as a gastro-
enterologist, becoming founder of
Connecticut Gastroenterology and
Medical Associates at Hartford
Hospital, where he subsequently
served as chief of gastroenterology.”

George Leibowitz: “... I see that
New York and California classmates
have luncheons from time to time.
As more classmates head to Florida,
I would like to see if there is any
interest in a monthly (or other
period) luncheon to discuss the
issues of the world and remember
our Columbia days ... 1 would be
happy to coordinate. Probably [this
would be] limited to southeast
Florida (Broward, Miami-Dade and
Palm Beach counties). Would any
interested classmates contact me at
gleibowitz@comcast.com?”

Bob Lipsyte covered Muham-
mad Ali since he was Cassius
Clay — 52 years — and he told
me that The Greatest’s death was
emotionally and professionally
exhausting. “We spent a lot of time
together. I loved his humanity and
his principled stands, and I had
problems with his hypocrisies and
cruelties. Writing the advance obit
for The New York Times was about
being fair and going right down the
middle. Writing the commemora-
tive book and cover story for Time
Magazine gave me a chance to
be more personal. And doing the
shows — Charlie Rose, CBS Sunday
Morning, NPR, The Sporting Life
with Jeremy Schaap — gave me the
chance to let it hang out. As of
right now, the first day of summer,

I have six more radio shows stacked
up like planes at LaGuardia. It’s a
combination of Ali and the new O,].
Simpson miniseries (Zhe People v.
O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story),
which is great — OJ. was marketed

Fall 2016 CCT 57

in the late 60s as the anti-Ali, the
non-scary black superstar. Right?”

More information about Bob
and his career can be found on
robertlipsyte.com.

Ira Lubell died on June 12 in
San Francisco. A complete obituary
was in the San Francisco Chronicle
on June 19. In lieu of flowers, Ira
requested that donations be made
in his name to The Diversity Center
of Santa Cruz, PO Box 8280, Santa
Cruz, CA 95061.

1958

Barry Dickman

25 Main St.

Court Plaza North, Ste 104
Hackensack, NJ 07601
bdickmanesq@gmail.com

We regret to report the death of

Dr. Robert Tauber on March 17,
2016. Bob is survived by his wife,
Dorothy; daughters, Sharon and
Robin; and four grandchildren. A
resident of Mount Kisco, N.Y., he
had retired from his dental practice.
He was an assistant clinical professor
of dentistry at the College of Dental
Medicine and had been president of
the Ninth District of the New York
State Dental Association and chair of
the association's Council on Ethics.

Bernie Nussbaum’s daughter,
Emily, won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize
for criticism. Emily has been the
television critic for The New Yorker
for the last five years; before that, she
covered T'V for New York magazine.
In its citation, the Pulitzer commit-
tee said her reviews and essays were
“written with an affection that never
blunts the shrewdness of her analysis
or the easy authority of her writing.”

Congratulations to Emily on this
tremendous achievement, to Bernie
and to her entire family.

Steve Konigsberg, who had
reported Bernie Kosowsky’s death,
has joined the ranks of CC’58’s
retirees. He had been a surgeon with
Highland Park Surgical Associates
in Highland Park, N.J. He and his
wife, Rhoda, now split their time
between New York and Florida.
Their sons, David and Paul, live in
New Jersey and Massachusetts, and
each son has a set of twins (three
boys and one girl, ages 10 and 13).

Steve Jurovics writes: “While
I have written very few Class Notes
over the years, this is one to which |

58 CCT Fall 2016

have been looking forward. My book
about climate change and religion,
Hospitable Planet: Faith, Action, and
Climate Change, became available

in March. I am following up by
seeking speaking opportunities at
bookstores and congregations to
reinforce its message. The book seeks
to motivate Christians and Jews to
become active in mitigating climate
change by demonstrating that it

is a religious issue as well as an
environmental one. The first part of
the book reviews the quite explicit
environmental teachings in Gen-
esis-Deuteronomy, and connects
them to contemporary issues includ-
ing air pollution (e.g., greenhouse
gases), preserving biological diversity
and sustainability. The balance of the
book discusses 10 transformative
measures to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and how to push for their
implementation with an environ-
mental rights movement, akin to the
Civil Rights movement.

“My wife, Raachel, and I live in
Raleigh, N.C., where she is the rabbi
of Yavneh: A Jewish Renewal Com-
munity. We have two children and
two grandchildren. I can be reached
at saji8@besouth.net.”

Steve is an environmental
engineer with the Cadmus Group in
Chapel Hill, N.C.

‘The omnipresent John Giorno
popped up in the Style section of
The New York Times; he was an
honoree at a benefit for the New
Museum (down the block from
John’s home on the Bowery).

Speaking of popping up, Carol
and Barry Dickman, along with
Anita and Howard Orlin, and Art
Radin and his wife, Miriam Katowitz
BUS’74, attended a spring perfor-
mance in the Village of Princess Ida,
presented by the New York Gilbert &
Sullivan Players. Art went for an inter-
mission stroll and returned with the
ubiquitous Steve Jonas (working on
his next book — still flunking retire-
ment) and his wife, Chezna Newman.
To round out the College Savoyard
contingent, the conductor was (as
always) the company’s longtime artis-
tic director, Albert Bergeret’70.

Speaking of Art Radin, the
monthly class lunches he hosts at the
Columbia University Club of New
York have been switched to the sec-
ond Tuesday of each month, which
enables a few additional classmates
to attend. Recent participants were
Peter Gruenberger, Ted Story,

Tom Ettinger, Shelly Raab, Martin
Hurwitz, Harvey Feuerstein, Ernie
Brod, Eli Weinberg, George Joch-
nowitz, Paul Gomperz, Dave Mar-
cus, David Rosen, Joe Dorinson,
Paul Herman, Bernie Nussbaum,
Peter Cohn, Bob Waldbaum and,
of course, Art Radin. If you wish

to attend — and all 1958-ers are
welcome — please email Art at least
by the day before at arthur.radin@
janoverllc.com. The lunch is held in
The Grill at the Columbia University
Club of New York, 15 W. 43rd St.
($31 per person).

1959

Norman Gelfand

cloiGGii

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
nmgc59@gmail.com

Jack Kahn sent me information
regarding the establishment of the
David Rosand Professorship of
Italian Renaissance Art History in
memory of David Rosand. ‘The cer-
emony will take place on Monday,
October 17, at 6 p.m. at the Italian
Academy, 1161 Amsterdam Ave.
(at West 117th Street). For more
information, contact Jennifer Tapia,
executive assistant in the Office of
Alumni and Development: 212-
851-4026 or jt2641@columbia.edu.

Steve Trachtenberg sent the
following: “David Rosand, RIP. A
life well lived. Properly honored by
the named professorship. He would
like that, I think. But boy, he sure
died far too young. I close my eyes
and see him, Erwin Glikes and
Henry Ebel as they were in 1959,
joking around in the Jester office. I
miss them. And I regret not seeing
more of you all, who know me for
the boy I was and am. We must all
redouble our efforts to attend the
next reunion of CC’59 even as our
ranks grow thinner (in my case at
220, not so thin). I hope you are all
well, circumstances considered.”

I am sure that representation by
members of the Class of 59 would
be appreciated.

Gene Appel and his wife, Linda
BC’60, “have taken this stage in our
lives, after living in one home for
35 years, to downsize and move to
a condo that is about 55 percent as

large. Our address is 5858 SW Riv-

Class Notes

eridge Lane #8 Portland, OR 97239
and our phone is 503-224-1397.

“The move has changed our
lifestyle: more walking alongside the
river front (same river, the Willamette,
but about 10 miles downstream)
and more time to play bridge. We've
joined the Jewish Community Center
to get in swimming three to four
times a week and regular exercise
classes. Linda is closer to her activities,
which include writing, sewing, knit-
ting, book club and so on. I’m a little
farther from my football H.S. but
I'm still helping Horizon Christian
Schools with how to use the forearm,
and I’m its only Jewish coach!

“All in all, the new lifestyle
has worked out much better than
I expected. Maybe my life just
might be extended. I look forward
to seeing Columbia's football and
wrestling grow!”

Arthur G. Lloyd sends, “Greet-
ings from Stowe, Vt.! Despite a
warm winter, there was enough good
snow to enable me to ski regularly
with the ‘dawn patrol,’ a small group
of ancient, early-morning skiers
who don’t accept aging as a problem.
In fact, going downhill is what
we do. Outside numerous visits to
various types of ‘ologists,’ this has
been a banner year for celebrating
our grandchildren: two gradua-
tions, a score of hockey games and
tennis matches and the occasional
opportunity to ski with them. Long
retired from corporate law practice, I
remain active in my local commu-
nity, try to see an opera or two when
we visit NYC, play a hacker’s golf
game and am still working my way
through Proust en frangais. Regards
to all the ’59-ers!

Eric Jakobsson writes, “My
family is doing well. My wife
Naomi’s and my granddaughters in
college seem to be happy and doing
OK in their respective fields —
political science and music/film. My
great-niece (brother’s granddaugh-
ter) recently finished her first year
at Illinois, and is a delightful coffee
companion from time to time. As a
measure of how times have changed
since we went to college, she told us
that the best hour of her week is a
life drawing class, and she regaled
Naomi and me with humorous
anecdotes arising from she and her
classmates being in the company of
a naked stranger. I love Columbia
but can't help feeling that in some
ways I was born too early.

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '56, BUS’58

“T am having a bit of a resurgence
in my scientific work. In a paper pub-
lished in PLOS Computational Biology

on June 30, my co-authors and I

report on finding common genetic
elements in processing conspecific
communication between humans
and honey bees. It appears that an
ancestor from 670 million years ago
developed these elements that have
persisted in social animals but not in
asocial ones. We have a manuscript
under review in Journal of Biomedical
Semantics on an efficient algorithm
for finding mentions of particular
amino residues in published papers.
And we have papers in prepara-
tion on a number of other topics.
Unfortunately, my grants are winding
down, so I hope the work we are
putting out now can replenish those
resources. Otherwise the papers in
the pipeline may be my last hurrah.
“I have become intensely
interested in lithium and will try to
publish (and also participate in some
activism) related to this. My research
notes on lithium begin as follows:
“T am writing this document as
a scientist, a parent and an aging
person (77 at this writing). This
started out as the story of our
daughter Sarah, who suffers from
bipolar disorder, and my attempts
to understand why she was given
inappropriate, useless therapy for
years before being helped by finally
being prescribed lithium. The story
has spread through my literature
search to include both neurodegen-

erative disease and cancer and, (in
our family), to our son Garret, who
died in 2013 at 46 of the neurode-
generative disease frontotemporal
dementia and to me, as I possess
both an aging brain and a diagnosis
of prostate cancer.’

“If anybody wants the full notes,
send me a note: jake@illinois.edu.
Best regards to all.”

Dave Clark has been having a
rough time of late. He writes, “I'll
have to keep this brief, because it’s
hard to type on my iPad. April 1,
heart attack. Early April 2, surgery,
quadruple bypass and replaced
mitral valve. The doctor also wanted
to replace my aortic valve, but
decided I wouldn't survive that too.
Released from hospital April 15.
One week later had to go back to
get more than three liters of fluid
drained from my chest so I could
breathe. Released four days later.
Since then, many doctors’ visits,
physical therapy, blood tests, etc. ...
But I am making progress toward
recovery, walking more each day,
going up and down stairs, doing
some household chores. I know that
full recovery will be slow, but expect
to eventually get back to all my
normal activities.”

Dave, you know we are all pulling
for you and looking forward to see-
ing you at our next reunion.

For most of us, the attack on
Pearl Harbor is an item in our
history books or a dim memory. To
Steven Kallis Jr., it was much more

alumninews

than that. He sends us this remi-
niscence. “As a preface, my father,
Stephen A. Kallis ’26, was a captain
in the Army, in Coastal Artillery.
We lived in a small house, with the
address of 25 Officers Row, in Fort
Kamehameha. Fort Kamehameha
was an Army facility that abutted
Hickam Field (later Hickam AFB).
My sister had recently celebrated her
6th birthday; I was 4.

“At dawn, the attack commenced.
The house shook with the vibrations
of the detonating bombs. My father
rolled out of bed. My sister, terrified
of thunder (and thinking that was
what she was hearing) ran into my
parents’ bedroom, just in time to
hear my father say, ‘Ethel, I think it’s
the Japanese.’ (Much later, I learned
that the whole region was tense,
having what was called ‘war jitters,’
punctuated by some prewar ‘alerts.’)

“He immediately pulled on his
uniform and my mother instructed
my sister and me to go to some
interior doorways and stand there
until she told us otherwise. So while
my mother saw my father dash off
to his troops, I couldn't see my sister
from where I was standing. I was
facing a wall with a window. Since
the shade was drawn, I couldn't
see out, but I could see a sunbeam,
not quite horizontal, shining past
a gap near the top of the shade.

In the sunbeam, there were dust
motes shimmering. At the time, I
just observed them. Now, I presume
that the dust was jarred loose by the

house being shaken by the detona-
tion of the bombs.

“As a 4-year-old, I hadn't the
slightest idea what was going on, but
just stood in the doorway, hearing
explosions and feeling the house
shake. Eventually, the attack ended.
My sister and I stayed where we
were told until our mother told us
to come to her. There apparently was
some sort of mass telephone call and
my mother was instructed that a bus
would come by, pick us up, and take
us to a safe place.

“When we left the quarters, I
looked around. Our immediate
neighborhood hadn't been hit hard,
though I did notice a strange groove
in the concrete walkway to the front
door. It looked like an extremely
elongated S. The sky, mostly clear,
had what looked like little thin
blackish clouds, that on hindsight
were the remainders of antiaircraft-
shell explosions shot against the
attackers. The bus — rather like a
school bus but gray, not yellow —
came by and picked us up. Other
women and children were in it.

“We were let out at what we later
called ‘the Bomb Shelter, which we
probably picked up from our parents.
It was actually a mortar station,
Battery Hasbrouk, which was my
father’s duty station. The station
was highly reinforced and would
have made a good shelter, were one
needed. The women and children
were just brought there; they sorted
themselves out. A few ladies brought
edibles with them to give to the
children. One lady handed me a cold
square of a waffle. I can only guess
now that she'd been fixing breakfast
at the time of the attack and decided
not to waste the food. Anyway, I took
the waffle and ate it, but was a little
young to thank her properly. Reflect-
ing on the matter, I wish I had.

“The little boys got together to
play. We found a mortar azimuth
table and used it as an improvised
ride until a GI chased us off it. In
time, we were able to go home. My
father was nowhere to be seen — for
several days — but we'd shifted to
a war footing. The radio was left
playing all day, in case of bulletins (a
habit that’s been carried on by both
my sister and I to the present day).

“At nights, there were blackout
conditions. After dark, my mother
took my sister and me outside and
started walking toward what I
much later learned was the bomb

Fall 2016 CCT 59

shelter. In order to walk us safely, my
mother had a ‘blackout flashlight.’
This was an ordinary flashlight, with
the front covered by several layers

of blue cellophane that apparently
was more difficult to spot from

the air. This flashlight projected a
bluish disk of relatively dim light on
the sidewalk. As we walked along,

a slowly moving bus drove in our
direction and our mother boosted
my sister and me onto it before hop-
ping aboard herself. The bus took us
back to the bomb shelter, where we
would spend the night. This routine
continued until we were evacuated
back to the mainland.”

Barry Koh writes, “I read some-
thing recently along the lines of ‘old
age is a privilege not available to
everyone.’ My wife, Susan BC’61,
and I are in good health and taking
advantage of the privilege of old age

1960

Robert A. Machleder

69-37 Fleet St.

Forest Hills, NY 11375
rmachleder@aol.com

Lee Rosner, extending his best
wishes to all, writes that after
more than 50 years as a molecular
biologist at the National Institutes
of Health, he retired at the end

of April. “It has been my one and
only job since graduate school and
a most wonderful experience. I had
the opportunity to do research on
antibiotic-resistance in bacteria in
a congenial, nurturing setting with
world-class colleagues. A favorite
colleague was John Foulds. I can
immodestly boast that I have made
some modest contributions to the

Barry Koh 59 enjoys his Chesapeake Bay community,

populated with “PIPs (Previously Important People)” who

bring knowledge and experience to many of their activities.

to the fullest. We have a waterfront
home on the Eastern Shore of the
Chesapeake Bay in Easton, Md. It’s
a wonderful community with loads
of interesting people, most of whom
are here to enjoy the relaxed pace of
life with boating, sailing, fishing, art,
music, history and pleasant weather.
We are populated with many PIPs
(Previously Important People) who
bring knowledge and experience to
so many of our activities that life

is rarely dull. We are also blessed
with children and grandchildren (all
in good health and self-sufficient)
living in Manhattan, which gives us
many reasons to visit the Big Apple
— but after a few days, we are usu-
ally eager to return to our beautiful
corner of the world.”

Fred Lorber writes, “I’ve been
studying the Testaments and would
be interested in conversing with
others who have an interest. Some
topics: the prophetic tradition that
culminated in Jesus, the idea of the
Jewish remnant, what happened to
the heirs of Ishmael and Esau and
their significance today in Israel/
Palestine, why did God need a cho-
sen people and the Pauline Letters’
attempt to destroy this tradition.”

60 CCT Fall 2016

field. This summer, my wife, Kay
Chernush, a premier photogra-
pher, and I planned to move from
our idyllic home in Arlington,

Va., to Washington, D.C. While

she continues her important work
fighting human trafficking, I plan to
volunteer for community organiza-
tions, gain some fluency in Spanish,
advocate for first-aid education in
our public schools, dote on our two
grandchildren and reread my CC
books. Any Washingtonians want
to join me? As ever, my Columbia
experience will positively shape how
I meet the new challenges.”

Our spring Class Notes column
inspired Doug Anderson ’63 to
submit this fond recollection. “I
just read your words about Richard
Friedlander and they brought me
back to my second day in Coast
Guard boot camp in Cape May, NJ.
My fraternity brother Burtt Ehrlich
61 had told me that the way to get
through boot camp most gracefully
was to join the marching band.”

Doug relates that his musical tal-
ent did not include any facility with
an instrument found in a marching
band and, after purchasing and
mastering a glockenspiel, he arrived

at boot camp. He volunteered to
join the marching band but was
informed that the band did not
have a glockenspiel. He says, “Enter
Richard Friedlander. We recognized
each other — sort of. Eventually, we
realized that he was Class of 60 and
I was Class of 63 and we bonded.”

Richard, a member of the march-
ing band using skills honed playing
tuba in the Columbia University
Marching Band, arranged for Doug
to be assigned the bass drum. And
as for boot camp, “We spent most of
our time practicing Aaron Copland
and Persichetti music. Richard
was a few weeks ahead of me and
through the years our paths hardly
ever crossed, but as I write this I’m
standing in that room with him,
with him being helpful and making
it easier for me, an act of kindness
from 53 years ago. Good guy.”

From time to time we all were
inclined to share some memories of
our days in the service. There were a
few stories Richard liked to tell about
his experiences in the Coast Guard.
‘There was one he most enjoyed retell-
ing: Knowing how to type earned
him a position as company-clerk.
When time permitted, and apparently
there was plenty of down time, he
would write letters to friends and to
members of his family. One day Rich-
ard was summoned to report to the
Commanding Officer. The tone of the
order, “Friedlander! Get your tail into
the CO’s office, and do it quick-time,”
left no doubt in his mind that he was
not about to receive a commendation
for being the recruit of the month.

He entered the office and
observed the CO seated behind
his desk, focused on what appeared
to be a letter. Without looking up,
the CO bellowed, “Friedlander!

Did you send a letter to your aunt?”
Richard, mind racing, tried to recall
the details and any possibly critical
remarks about officers he might have
included in his letters to his aunt;
struggled to discern how any one of
those letters might have fallen into
the hands of the CO; and pondered
what consequence is about to befall
him. “Yes, sir, I did,” he replied.

“Well here,” the CO said with
a frosty glare, thrusting forward a
sharply creased and neatly folded
piece of stationary. “Read this!” Rich-
ard unfolded the letter. It was written
in the fine, delicate hand of his aunt.

“Dear Sir, I write not to com-
plain, but to express my concern that

Class Notes

my nephew, Richard Friedlander,
has been sending personal letters to
me and to members of my family
typed on government stationary. I
do hope that this is not a serious
federal offense and I write to ask
that Richard be afforded the greatest
leniency.” The letter proceeded, at
some length, to assert that Richard,
in all cases (save, of course, the
instant circumstance), had shown
himself to be a person of exemplary
character. Richard left us hang-

ing and did not disclose whether
the CO burst into laughter, or
unceremoniously tossed him out of
the office. Those of us who were for-
tunate to know Richard know that
he was indeed a person of exemplary
character, that he could tell a good
story, and that some members of his
family were quite unusual.

Ours is not a sedentary class. We
cover outer space and terra firma.
As for outer space, Tom Hamil-
ton’s eighth book is now available.
Astronomical Numbers is a compila-
tion of the commonly referenced
and used numbers in astronomy,
including the diameters of the sun,
all the planets and major moons;
distances of orbits; magnitude scales;
frequency of eclipses; the five kinds
of lunar month and more. Tom’s
book is an important contribution to
the field. “There is a real need,” Tom
notes, “for a convenient and quick
reference for all this astronomical
data, which is scattered and time-
consuming to find.”

And as for terra firma, it was not
quite a “walkabout,” as the term
refers to an age-old nomadic cultural
tradition in the lives of indigenous
Australian youths in transition to
coming-of-age, seeking enlighten-
ment, spiritual awakening and an
intense connection to the land,
but Bill Tanenbaum and his wife,
Ronna, may be said to have engaged
in a westerner’s version as they
spent May traveling on their own
through Australia and New Zealand.
Bill relates as highlights: “watch-
ing several hundred Fairy penguins
waddle out of the ocean on Phillip
Island, some passing within a foot
or two from where we watched;
going to the Great Barrier Reef off
the coast of Cairns in the Coral
Sea during a rainstorm with winds
gusting as high as 40 mph; walking
across the Sydney Harbour Bridge,”
and, in New Zealand, “the Waitomo
Glowworm Caves; the Wai-O-Tapu

geysers fields south of Rotorua;
Lake Taupo; and Waiheke Island off
the coast of Auckland.”

And now, a very sad departure.
Our class has lost another bright
star: Dan Shapiro LAW’63 died
on April 15, 2016. After law school,
Dan studied on a Fulbright fellow- .
ship at the London School of Eco-
nomics. In 1969, he was one of the
founding members of the law firm
Schulte Roth & Zabel, which spe-
cialized in representing investment
management firms in the financial
services industry, and particularly
hedge and private equity funds. His
firm grew from a handful of lawyers
to its present size of almost 400. In
2002, Dan opened and headed the
firm’s London office. In 2015 he was
awarded The Hedge Fund Journal
Award for Outstanding Achieve-
ment in the Hedge Fund Industry.

Dan was a lifelong leader in the
Jewish community, serving as presi-
dent of New York’s Federation of
Jewish Philanthropies and a founder
of the Jewish Community Relations
Council. He also was secretary of
the New York City Partnership
and on the Board of Governors
and Executive Committee of the
Weizmann Institute of Science in
Israel. He spearheaded the 1986
merger of UJA and Federation of
Jewish Philanthropies to become
UJA Federation of New York.

But several classmates and
fraternity brothers submitted their
recollections and tell it best. “Dan,”
writes Peter Schweitzer, “was
a person you could get close to. I
considered him a very warm and
gracious individual.”

Larry Mendelson, chairman
and CEO of HEICO Corp. and a
former member of the University’s
Board of Trustees, recalls Dan in
his role as an outstanding counselor.
“LW |hile I was a Columbia trustee,
Dan attended a Trustees’ meeting
wherein he gave excellent legal
advice to the group. He was very
well respected in his field.” Larry
adds, “That in this small world,
Dan's nephew, Rob Spingarn’89,
BUS’94, was in the same class as
my son, Victor Mendelson’89.

Rob is a successful senior aerospace
analyst with Credit Suisse and both
Victor and I interact with him often
(HEICO is in the aerospace busi-
ness). Rob is outstanding.”

Bob Abrams adds his sentiments:
“Members of our class were shocked

and saddened to learn that Dan Sha-
piro passed away. Dan was ‘a class act’
throughout his life. While on campus,
he was a great friend to many and was
an active and respected leader. He was
president of his fraternity (ZBT) and
was a member of Senior Society of
Sachems, Van Am Society, Glee Club,
Seixas Society and the freshman
basketball team. Dan was an extremely
able and respected lawyer, holding
important positions in the New York
State Bar Association. ... He wrote
and lectured extensively about tax and
business issues relating to invest-
ment funds. Dan gave generously of
his time and resources to communal
and philanthropic causes. He rose to
the highest positions in those efforts:
president of UJA Federation, member
of the Board of Governors and Execu-
tive Committee of the Weitzman
Institute of Science in Israel, secretary
and executive committee member of
the New York City Partnership. Dan
did all this with grace and dignity. His
decency was displayed wherever he
went and whatever he did. We in the
class remember him sharing time with
us at our 50th reunion. We have lost
one of the best in the Class of 60. He
will be remembered by all of us who
had the privilege of knowing him.”

‘The class extends its deepest
condolences to Dan’s wife, Ellen,
and their family.

1961

Michael Hausig

19418 Encino Summit
San Antonio, TX 78259
mhausig@yahoo.com

Our 55th reunion was held June
2-5. Approximately 85 classmates
and guests attended at least one
of the scheduled events. Once
again, the Reunion Committee put
together an excellent agenda of
events and speakers. The committee
was composed of Tony Adler, Jim
Ammeen, Bill Binderman, Phil
Cottone, Philippe de la Chapelle,
Tom Gochberg, Mickey Green-
blatt, Marty Kaplan, Stuart New-
man, Bob Salman and Phil Smith.
‘Thursday evening, Letty and
Tom Gochberg hosted cocktails
and dinner at their home. Bob
Salman spoke about the upcoming
presidential election. Friday dinner
at the Columbia University Club
of New York was followed by a talk

alumninews

by Morris Dickstein. Saturday’s
lunch in Low Library’s Faculty
Room included a talk by Bob
Pollack; a business panel featuring
Jim Ammeen, Frank Lorenzo,
Tom Gochberg and Jim Melcher;
and a medical update by Dr. Oscar
Garfein PS’65 and his daughter,
Dr. Jennifer Ashton (née Garfein)
91, PS’00 (who appears regularly
on ABC’s Good Morning America).
‘The Saturday dinner was held at the
Maison Frangaise. The after-dinner
speaker was Jack Samet.

Stuart Newman reported that in
April his law firm won a 6-2 decision
in the U.S. Supreme Court affirming
an award of $2 billion against Iran’s
Central Bank. Stu’s firm represents
the families of 1,300 U.S. Marines
killed or wounded when Hezbollah
terrorists, sponsored by Iran, bombed
their Beirut Marine Corps barracks
in 1983. Several years ago, Stu’s firm
attached and froze the money in a
bank account in New York owned
by Bank Markazi, Iran’s central
bank. Bank Markazi appealed to
the U.S. Supreme Court after the
Second Circuit, in 2013, affirmed the
award of the money to the Marines,
arguing that a 2012 federal law that
assisted the plaintiffs was a violation
of the Constitution’s separation of
powers provision. Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg LAW’S59 (former Law
School professor) wrote the opinion
upholding the constitutionality of the
statute. Judge Jose Cabranes was
on the Second Circuit panel whose
decision in the case was affirmed. In
a separate action brought by Stu’s
firm to collect on the Marines’ $2.7
billion judgment against Iran, the
USS. District Court also awarded
title to the plaintiffs of an Iranian-
owned building, 650 Fifth Ave.,
the same building in which CC’61
holds its monthly luncheon in Tom
Gochberg’s office. The decision in
that case is now on appeal.

Stu apologizes to classmates for
missing reunion. With reservations
made for all events and pumped up
to introduce Morris Dickstein for his
talk at the Friday dinner, family busi-
ness called him to Pasadena, Calif, for
the birth of his newest granddaughter,
Hana Rae Newman (37).

Gene Milone presented several
talks on his current eclipsing binary
modeling at the triennial meeting of
the International Astronomical Union
in Honolulu last August. With a new
computer code that includes the dis-

tance as a system parameter, he found
that the base model solution produced
a precision for the distance to the
binary, which is in a star cluster in the
Milky Way, of one parsec, an unheard
of degree of precision.

More complicated models, with
star spots and the light from a third
object in the systems, degrades that
precision somewhat, but the result
is still more precise than any other
method has yielded. He also found
that it is far better to visit the islands
in winter than in summer!

Tom Lippman and his wife,
Sidney, were back in Vietnam for
several days in the spring. They
checked out their former apartment
in Saigon (still standing) and his
old office a few blocks away (long
gone, replaced by HSBC). They have
returned several times during the
past 15 years and are amazed every
time by the urban modernization,
the friendly welcome to Ameri-
cans and the booming consumer
economy. The Japanese are building
a subway right through downtown
Saigon (nobody outside the govern-
ment calls it Ho Chi Minh City).
They went down to the Mekong
Delta and up to Danang, which is
unrecognizable. A fascinating, beau-
tiful country, but he says Hoi An, a
UNESCO site, is overrated.

Arnie Abrams lost his class ring
while in Vietnam last fall. The Dean's
Office and Alumni Association were
sympathetic, of course, but had no
clue about what to do. Tony Adler
sent an SOS email to class members
for help. Several members responded,
and Jerry Grossman contacted
a friend, Bob Waldbaum’58, who
recently lost his own class ring and
miraculously remembered the name
of the company. Mickey Greenblatt
also provided crucial help by sending
by email photos of the ring.

It shows how the group helped a
member in need. Arnie wrote, there
are worse things than losing a class
ring, but he had his for 55 years and
it meant a lot to him.

Stu Sloame and his wife moved
recently to West Hollywood, Calif.,
not to join the hipsters there, but
to live near their daughter, Joanna
Sloame’09. After graduation, Joanna
worked for The New York Daily News
and became its online multimedia
editor. Following her dream to be a
TV comedy writer, Joanna left for
Los Angeles, where she first worked
for Jimmy Kimmel Live and then for

Fall 2016 CCT 61

Class Notes

NBC. Currently she is a writer-
producer for Popsugar.com, an
e-magazine for millennial women.

Recently, one of the videos
Joanna wrote and produced is the
true story of a 9-year-old girl who
makes tote bags, fills them with
toiletries and gives them to home-
less women in Long Beach, Calif.
It has been viewed on Facebook
more than 23 million times (bit.
ly/1UjwsWK)! One of the comedy
videos Joanna wrote and produced
is called “S Times You Realize
You've Turned Into Your Jew-
ish Mother.” It can be viewed at
facebook.com/PopSugarCelebrity/
videos/10154140502959824.

There are two class deaths to
report. Myron P. “Mike” Curzan
LAW’65 passed away on March 18.
He was predeceased by his wife of
more than 50 years, Mary, and is sur-
vived by daughters Elisabeth, Anne
and Katherine; and five grandchil-
dren. A memorial service was held
April 3 at the Kenwood Golf and
Country Club in Bethesda, Md.

Born in New York City, after grad-
uation Mike was a Woodrow Wilson
Fellow in the graduate program of
Yale, where he earned an M.A. in
history. Upon graduation from the
Law School, he clerked for the chief
judge of the California Supreme
Court, then was a legislative aid for
Sen. Robert Kennedy. He joined the
law firm of Arnold & Porter in 1967
and became a partner in 1972. While
here, Mike founded MPC & Assoc.
in 1984 to pursue his passion for real
estate development consulting and
finance for exempt organizations and
corporations, and he was the first
president of APCO Assoc.

In 1991, he became vice chair-
man of the Board of Directors of
Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance
Co. Mike also was at various times
president, vice-chair and CEO of
the National Captioning Institute; a
trustee of GW; and a board member
of the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Most recently, Mike founded and
was CEO of Unidev.

A scholarship in Mike’s name
was established at GW. Donations
should be sent to GW with “Myron
P. Curzan Scholarship Fund” on
the memo line: Attn.: Mari Chin,
George Washington University,
2033 K St. N.W., Ste 300, Washing-
ton, DC 20052.

Harold Riley Colvin BUS’68,
passed away on May 11, 2016, in

62 CCT Fall 2016

Port Charlotte, Fla. After the Busi-
ness School, he joined U. S. Special
Forces in their language school
and spent a year or so learning
Mandarin. After completing his
service, Riley joined W.O. Hickok
Manufacturing Company (a family
firm) as VP of finance. Eventually,
Riley moved on to P.R. Hoffman
Machine Products, where he worked
for many years. His career came full
circle when he rejoined and eventu-
ally retired from W.O. Hickok.
Riley and his wife, Helen, started
to spend time on Martha's Vineyard,
Mass., until it became their primary
home. Helen became ill with pan-
creatic cancer and died in Septem-
ber 2014. Riley’s health began to
fail and he started to spend winters
in Florida until his passing. Riley is
survived by a daughter, Ann Colvin.

1962

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

John Freidin

654 E. Munger St.
Middlebury, VT 05753
jf@bicyclevt.com

Steve Kokkins SEAS’63 earned an
A.B. with us in June 1962 and then
earned a B.S. from the Engineering
School a year later. He writes this
about his eclectic life:

“It’s great to get back in touch
after the 58 years since we first
crossed the ‘Quad’ in September
1958! I was awed to enter the adult
world and looked forward to learn-
ing from the faculty and absorbing
some wisdom. Of course, there was
the freedom of being on my own
after 17 years of parental supervision
— maybe that came first!

“T was very lucky to have had
good parents. Even though we were
in modest straits — born and early
raised in West Harlem on 122nd
Street near Morningside Park — I
had a fine education at P.S. 165 in
northern Manhattan and later at PS.
41 in Bayside, Queens. I remember
my teachers, who did great jobs of

straightforward teaching and motiva-
tion of our diverse gang of kids, long
before all the angst and minefields
that seem to beset education today.
And on the streets and stoops of the
1940s and’50s we also learned a lot
about life. Dad [John M. Kokkins’28,
GSAPP’30] was a Greek immigrant
(through Ellis Island) who worked
nights as a waiter to put himself
through Columbia. He pulled himself
up and made a good life for us later,
and my mom was educated at Teach-
ers College.

“As a lad I was interested in the
science of things, which made me
a slightly geek-like kid when I got
to Harrison H.S. in Westchester. I
was admitted to Columbia, which in
that day offered a unique five-year
program, in which you satisfied the
requirements of both the A.B. and
B.S. (humanities and Russian, and
engineering in my case). It was hard
work but greatly beneficial later in
life. I hear this program is long gone.
[Editor’s note: This program is still
offered and is called either the 3-2
or 4-1 Combined Plan Program. ]
The eight semesters of CC and
Humanities provided the best start
to adult life anyone could wish for.
Living in a dormitory embedded
me in the Columbia and NYC
experience. I joined Delta Upsilon
fraternity, which was a diverse and
enjoyable group (now gone from
Columbia). And, who can forget
eating in the Campus Grill (which
had a non-PC common name),
hanging out at The West End and
late-night forays to Ta~-Kome by
climbing over the locked iron gates
near John Jay.

“When the chance to continue
studying civil/structural engineering at
MIT came along, I jumped to Boston
and immediately liked the atmo-
sphere. I’ve stayed in eastern Mas-
sachusetts, interrupted only by a brief
stint in Southeast Asia during the
late ’60s. For the past 15 years we've
lived in the beautiful seaside town of
Marion, Mass. (south of Boston), after
25 years on the North Shore.

“T pursued a career in the
structures business and then in the
aerospace industry at GE Aircraft
Engines, where I was involved in
developing military jet engines. But
eventually I grew restless with the
bureaucratic nature of big business.
So in the ’80s, a partner and I began
developing and building condo-
miniums in Westchester County. Did

pretty well, but when everyone began
to become a developer, I stopped

— in the nick of time. In the’90s I
returned to engineering/government
work, until retiring at 70 in 2011.
Actually, a British firm bought our
company and it retired me and most
other senior management!

“Boston was a vibrant social and
cultural place and, after some time, I
met my wonderful wife, Suzie. We've
been married 39 years. Our daughter,
Caroline, lives in Barnstable Village
on Cape Cod and visits us in Marion.
I got Suzie interested in windsurfing
and skiing, which we did together
for decades. She surpassed me on the
water a few years later, and I barely
held my own on the snow. Suzie and
I still crew in Marion sailboat racing,
although my captain has begun
eyeing me mostly as movable ballast!
I seem to be gravitating toward
golf and duplicate bridge when the
ibuprofen runs low.

“In 1972 I became a pilot and
still fly regularly — we're now on
our third airplane. I have traveled
in the pointy end to many places,
including two transatlantic crossings.
I came to especially love Iceland
and Greenland, and recently took
the family to the former. In 2000
I started volunteering as a civilian
pilot for the Coast Guard. After
9-11, the Guard got so busy that it
asked us geezers to assume much of
the less-demanding stuff. I still do
that and am now the flight safety
officer in the First CG District (N)
for the civilian auxiliary pilots and
crews. An unfortunate side effect has
been that I often get restless when
flying as a passenger in the back of
an airliner and unrealistically think I
should be up front!

“Well, that’s more than enough,
and heartfelt thanks to CCT for
letting so many of us share a bit
of our lives on its pages. For years
I’ve enjoyed reading your stories.
Columbia College was a great time
in my life and I look forward to
many more reminiscences from you!”

Armando Favazza has lived in
Columbia, Mo., for 35 years. “As
usual,” he says, “[we had] another
mild winter. In fact, I suspect that
we have had only five problematic
winters since I moved here. The bad
weather seems to reach the Missouri
River about 30 miles from here and
then swerve up into Iowa or down
into Arkansas. It’s heartbreaking to
read about all the tornadoes, storms,

ice and snow in the Midwest while
we remain safe.

“For the eight past years in
February my wife and I have gone to
a wonderful all-inclusive high-end
resort in the Dominican Republic
— Glenlivet is the house Scotch!

It also has clay tennis courts (we
hit with the pro on most days), a
fine golf course and a lovely beach.
Between tennis, golf, and workouts
at the gym, both my wife and I
manage to remain in good shape.

“At home I work just one day a
week at a community mental health
center and keep in touch with the
University of Missouri, where I
am a retired emeritus professor of
psychiatry. We are avid readers and
my project for the rest of the year is
to reread all four volumes from our
Contemporary Civilization courses.
My book Bodies Under Siege is in its
third edition and my lengthy chap-
ter ‘Spirituality in Psychiatry’ is in
press in the Comprehensive Textbook
of Psychiatry. 1 recently heard that I
received the Lifetime Achievement
Award from the Society for the
Study of Psychiatry and Culture.
I’m glad that they didn’t wait much
longer, as I’m getting up in age!

“My daughter, a civil rights attor-
ney in Kansas City, Mo., presented
me with my first grandchild six
months ago. With a lot of luck I
hope to be alive when he graduates
from college. We are also excited
about getting a new dog, a male
Wheaton terrier. My wife has
ordered me to outlive him.

“Our next trip will be an art
cruise from Paris to Normandy. We
upgraded our airline tickets after a
good friend told us that if we didn't
fly business class, our children will!
We don't get to New York very often
but every other year we rent a condo
on the beach in Ocean City, N_J.
Life is good.”

By the time you read this, Andy
Jampoler and Suzy, his wife of 50
years, will have been back in the
United States for nearly seven months
since five weeks at sea on a cruise ship
lecture tour. Andy says, “The highlight
was three days in Shanghai, an
eye-opening experience that revealed
modern China to be very different
from our expectations.” They then
headed home so Andy could work on
his eighth book. The seventh, Embassy
to the Eastern Courts, was published in
November. It’s the story of America’s
first pivot toward Asia, in the 1830s.

Thanks for reading this column.
Please take just three minutes
now to write three sentences to
your classmates. They can be about
anything: the luckiest thing that ever
happened to you; something you did
this summer; a book you recently
read and greatly enjoyed; a place
you traveled to and loved or hated;
a tidbit about a son, daughter or
grandchild; the election; education;
art; exercise; etc. ... Let’s get 50 of
these; they'll make a great column.

1963

Paul Neshamkin

1015 Washington St., Apt. 50
Hoboken, NJ 07030
pauln@helpauthors.com

I hope you had a great summer

and are looking forward to a much
improved Columbia football team
this fall. The early word is that we
have a great entering class. Put
Saturday, October 22, on your calen-
dar: It’s Homecoming (the game is
against Dartmouth and this year we
will win). Plan to come to the tent
at Baker Athletics Complex for the
pre-game festivities. It’s a great time
to meet your classmates. Look for
the Class of 1963 table.

‘The spring was busy. Lee Lowen-
fish, Don Margolis and Doron
Gopstein joined me in the Alumni
Parade of Classes on Class Day in
May. It is always fun to take part in
this event, which starts with a fine
breakfast in John Jay. After carry-
ing the Class of 1963 banner past
the cheering graduates and their
families, we stayed to hear this year’s
speech, from Dean Baquet, executive
editor of The New York Times. Please
plan to join us next year.

Dean's Day has been renamed
All-Class Reunion. As I mentioned
last year, Columbia is trying to get
more alumni back for reunion from
every year, not just at five-year inter-
vals. Ed Coller and his wife, Mimi;
Doron Gopstein; Gerry Dwyer;
Larry Neuman; Victor Revenko;
and Ruth and Paul Neshamkin
took part this year and met up for a
barbecue lunch on South Lawn. If
you are in New York City next year,
we hope you will join us. It would
be good training for our big 55th,
which is only two years away. Please
contact me if you would like to join
the Reunion Committee.

alumninews

Our second-Thursday class lunch
tradition continues to bring many
classmates together each month.
Doug Anderson, Steve Barcan,
Henry Black, Peter Broido, Mike
Erdos, Ed Coller, Bob Heller, Lee
Lowenfish, Don Margolis, Paul
Neshamkin and Harvey Schneier
attended the last two. It’s always great
conversation. Through the years, more
than 75 classmates have made it back
to have lunch with us at the Columbia
University Club of New York.

During the first week of August,
Lee Lowenfish taught a class,
“Baseball and American Culture,” at
the fabled Chautauqua Institution
in southwestern New York. In April,
his expertise on Branch Rickey was
used when he appeared as a talking
head in Ken Burns’ documentary
Jackie Robinson, which aired on
PBS. Lee notes that although
Columbia baseball came up short
in its attempt for a four-peat as Ivy
League champions, second baseman
Will Savage 17 was drafted by the
Detroit Tigers and is forgoing his
senior season to start his pro career.
Right-hander George Thanopoulos
"16 was drafted by the Colorado
Rockies. Former Lion stars Gus
Craig SEAS’15, Dario Pizzano’14
and Jordan Serena’15 are continuing
their pro careers.

Frank Sypher writes, “In July,
an exhibition opened in the Rare
Book & Manuscript Library (on
the sixth floor of Butler Library) of
selected items from the collection
that I donated to Columbia in
2015 of 233 manuscripts, books,
prints and more relating to British
poet and novelist Letitia Elizabeth
Landon (1802-38). [Editor’s note:
‘The exhibit ran from July 5—Sep-
tember 16.] In conjunction with
the exhibition, I published L. E. L.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The English
Improvisatrice: Catalogue of a Collec-
tion of Manuscripts and Books Held
by the Rare Book and Manuscript
Library of Columbia University.

“I became interested in Landon
in the 1980s while living in Lomé,
Togo, West Africa, teaching English
and American literature at the Uni-
versité du Benin (now the Université
de Lomé). I learned that Landon
had lived at Cape Coast, Ghana, and
died there in 1838 at 36. I wondered
what had led the celebrated British
author to West Africa.

“On my return to the United
States I began to study Landon and

her works in depth and to publish
studies of her, including a biography,
a comprehensive bibliography and
scholarly editions of works by her.”

In May, Henry Black and his
wife, Benita, toured Sicily. He
writes: “Let’s just say we went for
the history and stayed for the food.
What wonderful examples of art
from so many different civilizations,
all of which conquered Sicily at
one time or another, because of its
spectacular and strategic location.
We were blessed with absolutely
marvelous weather and made many
culinary discoveries. Pistachio semi-
freddo, anyone?”

Michael Erdos writes, “After 49
years of full-time medical practice,
the last 36 in emergency medicine
and EMS administration, I retired
from my senior staff physician posi-
tion at the Lahey Health System in
Burlington, Mass., on April 1. While
I continue to manage my American
Heart Association Training Center in
Woburn, Mass., having large blocks
of time free has allowed me to read
more and even attend the Class of 63
lunch in NYC on July 14, where it
was most enjoyable to catch up with
the other attendees!

“My children both live in New
York; my daughter (Elleree Erdos
GSAS’16) graduated with an
M.F.A. and is managing a private
art collection after working at a
private gallery for more than three
years. My son is employed at Savills-
Studley, a commercial real estate
leasing company, and is married to
a girl he met while attending law
school in Massachusetts.

“My wife is still working and
we are planning several excursions,
including Paris for Thanksgiving and
Italy next year.”

Charles Bremer writes, “In
November 2010, my wife, Jen-
nifer, and I retired from our jobs in
Washington, D.C., sold our condo
in Arlington, Va., and decided to
move back north. But where to?
Even though Jennifer is a Bronx girl,
New York was out because I will not
live in a state without a functioning
legislature. And then there are the
confiscatory taxes, so that pretty
much left it up to north Jersey (I’m a
Jersey boy, born and raised).

“But where in Jersey? We settled
on Secaucus and are very glad we
did. It is a great town — quiet, clean
non-polluting, law-abiding and,

most importantly, with great govern-

Fall 2016 CCT 63

ment. At election time, the mayor

and council run unopposed, so that
tells you something. And it’s 14
minutes from Manhattan via train.
Our front yard is about 200 ft. from
the east bank of the mighty Hack-
ensack River. We live in a fairly new
three-story townhouse in a gated
community. There’s just the three

of us: me, Jennifer and Mittens, aka
The Meadowlands Monster, aka The
Secaucus Slasher. Life is good.”

Peter Gollon and his wife, Abby
Joan Pariser BC’67, spent two weeks
in Italy last October wandering
through Venice and then Florence,
with a quick side trip to Siena. Aside
from the art museums and mag-
nificent palaces and churches, Peter
made a special point of climbing to
the top of Il Duomo in Florence
and every campanile in four cities
that he came across.

‘They visited the surviving syna-
gogues in Florence, Siena and in
Venice’s Ghetto, the island that pre-
viously contained a metal foundry
(ghéto) and on which Jews were
required to live for almost 400 years
until the time of Napoleon. Jews
were again concentrated there under
Mussolini, with many deported for
extermination in Germany.

Peter then went off for a day in
Pisa, before spending a week hiking
with a Road Scholar group in the
Cinque Terre region next to the sea
on the west coast of Italy. The group
stayed in nearby Porto Venere and
traveled to and from each day’s hike
by ferry, private bus or the railroad
that runs down the coast.

What a joy it was, Peter said, after
a couple of hours of walking among
vineyards or olive orchards, to stop
in a restaurant in a tiny colorful vil-
lage for a typical Italian lunch, wine
and espresso before walking another
couple of scenic miles to end the
day’s hike. And then, of course,
another Italian dinner to provide
the energy needed for the following
day’s excursion.

‘This spring Peter stepped down,
after 30 years of service, from the
Board of Directors of the New
York Civil Liberties Union, the
state branch of the national ACLU.
He was awarded status as direc-
tor emeritus in recognition of his
contributions there in furtherance of
civil liberties. He will remain active
in the organization.

Since retiring in 2007, Peter has
put his science and business back-

64 CCT Fall 2016

grounds to use as the volunteer energy
chair of the Long Island Sierra Club.
His focus there has been promoting
the rapid conversion of our economy
— and especially Long Island’s
electrical system — from one based
on burning fossil fuels to one based
on renewably generated energy that
does not emit the carbon dioxide that
causes the global climate change that
threatens our environment [and the]
health, safety and the lives of millions
of people throughout the world.

Most recently Peter was named
a trustee of the Long Island Power
Authority, the group whose transi-
tion to renewable energy he had
been pressing for the last few years.
He intends to continue to push
for a more rapid transition to solar
energy and especially to energy from
offshore wind farms. However, Peter
now has the added responsibility of
making sure that the system remains
reliable and that electricity prices
remain reasonable for Long Island’s
customers during that transition.

Remember: Our regular class
lunches at the Columbia University
Club of New York are always a great
place to reconnect. If you're in NYC,
try to make one of the next lunches
— September 8, October 13 and
November 10 — it’s always the sec-
ond Thursday. Check cc63ers.com for
details (if you're lucky, and I get some
time during my summer vacation, I

will have updated it).

1964

Norman Olch

233 Broadway

New York, NY 10279
norman@nolch.com

[ am writing in early July, so by
the time you receive this, summer
will be over. With the arrival of fall
I hope to hear from more of you
and to see many more of you at the
monthly class lunches at the Colum-
bia University Club of New York.
What are late spring and the
summer without travel? Marty
Isserlis spent three weeks in China
with his wife, Judy, followed a short
time later by 17 days in Greece.
In 1900, Marty’s grandfather and
grandmother left Ionnina, Greece,
for America, and Marty planned to
visit his ancestral town. Marty spends
the winter in Naples, Fla., and is a
member of the Columbia University

Club of Southwest Florida, which
has more than 100 members. Steve
Singer spent 10 days on a culinary
excursion through southern France.

On the academic side, Richard
Kayne earned an honorary degree in
linguistics from Ca Foscari/University
of Venice and Marty Weinstein is
co-editor of Kalman Silvert: Engaging
Latin America, Building Democracy.
Silvert was instrumental in the growth
of Latin American studies in the
United States. Allen Tobias’ son
David graduated from Northeastern
University School of Law.

Peter Thall attended the 2016
Songwriters Hall of Fame 47th
Annual Awards Dinner in Manhat-
tan on June 9. Peter is the author
of the third edition of the recently
released What They'll Never Tell You
About the Music Business.

On May 19, Clay Maitland
received the Lifetime Achieve-
ment Award from Lloyd’s List
North American Awards for his
decades of work in the maritime
shipping industry. According to the
biographical sketch that accom-
panied the award, Clay was “born
in London of a British father and
American mother, he spent his early
years avoiding German bombs just
outside of London. Having lost his
father (an RAF pilot) during the
war, he and his mother departed
England as soon as the sea lanes
were safe, traveling in the Queen
Elizabeth, where he had his first
taste of ice cream.”

Clay earned a degree from New
York Law, was maritime counsel for
Union Carbide and later helped to
manage the Liberian International
Ship & Corporate Registry and to
develop the Marshall Islands Regis-
try, which is now the second largest
in the world. Clay sits on the execu-
tive committee of the Coast Guard
Foundation and is on the board of
the SUNY Maritime College.

Jonathan Stein writes: “I am a
lawyer at Community Legal Services
of Philadelphia, where I have been
working since 1968, although now
on a part-time basis. This past year I
gave the annual Lurie Lecture in dis-
ability policy at Brandeis, continuing
the follow-up to my United States
Supreme Court national class action
win in 1990 for disabled children
seeking Supplemental Security
Income benefits, Su//ivan v. Zebley. I
also have been a founding writer and
editor for the online dance journal,

thINKingDANCE.net, based in
Philly (check it out and subscribe).

I have continued dancing in post-
modern dance performances, begun a
bit late in life in 1989 at 45. My wife,
Judith Stein BC’65, has published
the highly praised Eye of the Sixties:
Richard Bellamy and The Transforma-
tion of Modern Art. Enjoy a good read
about a maverick NYC art dealer and
a cultural history of the 60s.”

After the death of Muhammad
Ali, Jonathan dug up his bound vol-
ume of Spectator 1963-64 to find his
February 25, 1964, column in which
he predicted: “Cassius Marcellus
Clay will probably collect $600,000
tonight for getting floored by Sonny
Liston, the 220-lb. heavyweight
champion who has said, ‘I imagine
he'll be talking as he’s going down.”

It is a measure of Jon’s character
to own up to his ill-fated prediction
and, fortunately for his clients, he is
a better lawyer that he is a judge of
pugilistic talent.

Maxwell E. Schwartz ’16 is the
recipient of the Alan J. Willen ['64]
Memorial Prize for his senior thesis,
The Progressive Democrats of the “New
Era”: Private Citizens in American-
Russian Relations, 1917-1921.Ina
thank you note, Maxwell explained
that his thesis “argues that several
American humanitarians acted as
quasi-diplomats in an era often
remembered for American isolation-
ism and frosty relations between
the United States and the Leninist
regime. My research drew mainly
on collections of personal papers
housed at Columbia’s Rare Book &
Manuscript Library.”

Congratulations, Maxwell.

Alan Willen, who was Spectator’s
news editor, loved history and the
class is proud to sponsor the prize.
You can access the thesis by searching
“Maxwell E. Schwartz” at history.
columbia.edu.

1965

Leonard B. Pack
924 West End Ave.
New York, NY 10025
packlb@aol.com

I am writing this in June. It is amaz-
ing that a year has gone by since our
50th reunion. I hope that all readers
have received emailed copies of

our Class Book, featuring reunion
reminiscences and reflections. If you

didn't get a copy, please let me know.
Also, if you didn’t contribute to it
and want to, let me know and I will
send you the questionnaire. You do
not need to have attended reunion
in order to contribute to the book.

Andy Fisher (andrewfisheriv@
gmail.com) drew a connection
between our Core Curriculum
education and the United Kingdom's
referendum on leaving the European
Union: “Now that I don't work at
CNBC, most of my investments are
gone and I can laugh at world upheav-
als ... Throughout the ‘Brexit’ chazerei,
I kept thinking about the choral
refrain from Aristophanes’s The Frogs:
“Brekekekex koax koax.” I wonder
if that would have resonated with
anyone who had never been exposed
to the impeccable classical education
we received from dear alma mater.”

Jim Murdaugh (jmurdaugh@
smithmur.com) sent this note: “My
partner of 20 years, Gary Smith, and
I celebrated our second wedding
anniversary in June in Nantucket,
where we were married in 2014.
We're both busy and happy. I practice
law full-time (although some of my
partners might disagree) in the fields
of municipal bonds/real estate devel-
opment. Gary is associate dean of the
Shepherd School of Music at Rice,
where he has been for 34 years. He’s
totally engaged in his regular job plus
the planning, design and construction
of an opera house for the school. Allan
Greenberg is the architect. With luck,
groundbreaking will be celebrated in
2017 — stay tuned. [Since we met]
we've been lucky to [always] have two
Golden Retrievers; the current boys
are Leo (10; the boss of the pack), and
Guy (4). Come see us in Houston!”

Your correspondent can't help
himself: One of my two cats is
named Leo. While he is a sweet-
heart, he is by no means the boss.

I’m sure most of us take occa-
sional photographs when we go on
vacation or take trips. Joe Nalven
(joe.nalven3@gmail.com) outdoes
us all. Joe reports: “We took a trip
to Japan and, as I have been doing
for the past several years, I’ve taken
the best [photos] and made a fine
art book to find the essence of that
place. Better than hundreds of
pictures in a shoebox or thousands
on a hard drive.”

Joe has done similar projects for
other destinations, including Turkey
(“Glad we got to go there about
three years ago,” he writes). To see

what Joe calls his “travelogues of
mind and spirit — which is one
way to set off these books from the
ordinary ‘I was here and there’ photo
books,” go to blurb.com and search
“Joe Nalven.” Joe co-edited a text

on digital art, Going Digital: The
Practice and Vision of Digital Artists.
He also commented on our Class
Book saying, “The reunion book is
one to dig into from time to time —
remembrance of many things that
are a part of us.”

Stuart Newman (newman@
nymce.edu) writes: “I enjoyed reading
your entry in the Class Book, and am
grateful to you and your colleagues
for producing it. I’ve been pursuing
my long-term research in evolution-
ary developmental biology, editing
the philosophy of biology journal
Biological Theory and enjoying the
new places work brings me to (Santi-
ago, Mexico City and Helsinki most
recently). I also meet for fascinating
(for me) discussions as often as I can
manage with Jim Siegel.”

I asked Stuart what he and Jim talk
about during their fascinating discus-
sions. Stuart answered, “Our families;
Jung, Freud and evolution; politics;
religion (pro and con); television.”

Typical guy talk, of the Colum-
bia variety!

Bruce Peck (slingbarb@aol.com)
sent this update: “I have reported
that I teach business subjects at
a private career school in Albany,
Mildred Elley college. I chair the
business management depart-
ment of the Albany campus. While
headquartered in Albany, Elley also
has campuses in NYC’s Financial
District and Pittsfield, Mass. Other
than that, I seem to spend more time
dealing with various concerns, which
I attribute to the passage of time.”

1966

Rich Forzani

413 Banta Ave.
Garfield, NJ 07026
rforzani1@optonline.net

Where can I start? Our 50th reunion
this June was everything the Reunion
Committee hoped for and much
more. One-hundred classmates
attended, plus spouses/friends/part-
ners — numbers far higher than any
of our past convocations.

More importantly, the connec-
tions and reconnections among

aduumninews

us were amazing. While many old
friends enjoyed seeing one another,
there were countless enjoyable
conversations among disparate class-
mates who never really knew one
another back then. I’ve come away
with a genuine affection and respect
for a number of CC’66ers I never
before knew and I think that was
a widespread experience. I found
myself wishing I had known these
guys back then.

I won't try to list everyone’s
name here; not enough room.
But special thanks again to Bob
Gurland for the use of his terrific
TriBeCa residence/roof deck for our
opening (and jammed) Thursday
night cocktail event. Tom Chorba
organized a post-party Chinatown
dinner for former teammates and

Following lunch, distinguished
researchers Daniel Gardner and
Barry Coller presented a fascinating
tour of aging and longevity, and the
current and future prospects of same.
As you might imagine, that session
was SRO (standing room only).
Finally, we met in Low Rotunda
for our class dinner on Saturday.
‘The setting was magnificent, as you
know; thankfully, so was the food.
We were entertained post-meal by
a number of classmates and other
Columbians (Michael Garrett and
David Tilman among them) repris-
ing Varsity Show material from the
60s, ably organized by Mr. Garrett.
As a result of your initial generos-
ity, and a second wave of significant
giving inspired by Richard Zucker’s
outreach a week later to memorial-

SSS EG

Foseph Lovett 66 says, “Working in documentaries has

given me the opportunity to continue my education

interviewing some of the best and brightest from many fields.”

wives/friends, which Barry Nazar-
ian believes he may have attended.
On Friday, Randy Bourscheidt,
holder of many offices in NYC
cultural administration through the
years, presented us with an informa-
tive and enjoyable overview of the
history and status of the cultural
scene as we sailed the Hudson for
four hours, sipping wine and having
lunch. This was a wonderful oppor-
tunity to spend even more time
chatting with one another, and to
recover from the previous evening.
Others attended the numerous
lectures on campus.

‘That night, reconvening on South
Field for the tented cocktail party
and dinner, we again had classmate
time. I can’t overemphasize how
enjoyable and important these
opportunities were. I now know so
many more members of CC’66, as
do others. Some of us went on to
the Sha Na Na concert, which was
every bit of dated, throwback fun
as we had hoped. Rich Postupak
actually made it onstage. Saturday’s
class luncheon was highlighted
with poetry readings by Edward
Kabak, Joseph Albeck and Jim
Rosenberg, and Michael Garrett
was recognized for his outstand-

ing efforts on behalf of the class.

ize classmates, I’m happy to tell
everyone that we reached our goal of
$400,000 in unrestricted Columbia
College Fund donations. Congratu-
lations to all. Further, our overall
reunion gifting to CU exceeded $1.6
million. This is the greatest amount
ever contributed by CC’66.

To all who planned, participated,
attended and gave, a job truly
well done.

Joseph Lovett writes: “I’ve
been fortunate to have worked in
documentary film since leaving
Columbia’s Graduate Film Depart-
ment at the end of a billy club in
1968. Working in documentaries
has given me the opportunity to
continue my education interviewing
some of the best and the brightest
from many different fields. It’s been
a great privilege.

“T opened Lovett Stories & Strate-
gies 27 years ago, after having worked
at ABC’s 20/20 as a producer/director
for 10 years and for CBS News four
years before that. We've produced
more than 35 hours of primetime
television specials and five indepen-
dent feature films including Going
Blind (now on public television), Gay
Sex in the 70s (Sundance Channel),
State of Denial (PBS) and Three Sisters:
Searching for a Cure (HBO).

Fall 2016 CCT 65

“Although I was a generalist at
20/20 whose work included social

issue reporting and celebrity stories
such as the Mike Tyson/Robin Giv-
ens interview, Michael Jackson on
his first solo album and an hour with
the Duvaliers after they fled Haiti,
my concentration has been on public
health — pretty ironic as anyone
who saw me struggle with freshman
chem can attest. I produced the first
AIDS investigations on television
for 20/20; Cancer: Evolution to Revo-
lution, a 2¥2 hour special on cancer
for HBO; and Blood Detectives for
PBS and Discovery, which I worked
on with Barry Coller.

“Tm producing Children of the
Inquisition, a two-hour film, a website
and an educational outreach project
on what happened to the people
who were pressured to convert or flee
during the Spanish and Portuguese
Inquisitions. The stories are told
through their descendants, many
of whom are just discovering their
Jewish roots. I’ve been researching
this fascinating subject throughout
the past 20 years. (Yikes! And we've
been filming for five years!) It has
caused me to reconsider many of our
long-held assumptions about history
and identity.

“T’ve spent 40 very happy years
with Jim Cottrell, chair of the anes-
thesiology department at SUNY
Downstate’s Medical School. We
married the first day gay marriage
was legalized in Massachusetts, May
19, 2004, in Hyannis, Mass.”

David Tilman: “Our second son,
Rabbi Howard Tilman, was married
to Naomi Karp on December 13
at the Jacksonville Jewish Center.
Howard is the second rabbi of this
congregation and this is his second
year at this position. We had a
fabulous wedding for our family,
friends, new family members and
Howard’s congregational family in
Jacksonville, Fla.

“During the past year, I conducted
several important concerts. On Janu-
ary 31,1 led a choir of 75 singers and
an instrumental ensemble in a Leon-
ard Bernstein concert. We presented
excerpts from West Side Story and
Candide, and a complete performance
of the Chichester Psalms.

“In March, I presented the Shab-
bat Evening Service of Salamone
Rossi Hebreo (the earliest known
composer of Jewish choral music,
from Mantua, Italy, 1570-1630) at
Reform Congregation Keneseth

66 CCT Fall 2016

Israel of Elkins Park, Pa., where I
am the choir director.

“On May 15,1 was presented the
Doctor of Hebrew Letters degree,
honoris causa, at the commence-
ment exercises of Gratz College
in Philadelphia.

“I enjoyed our fantastic 50th
reunion, so ably co-chaired by fellow
Glee Club alumnus Michael Gar-
rett, and [thanks to] a wonderful
Reunion Committee.”

Edward Fink: “As I mentioned in
a previous submission, I moved from
Maryland to Temple this past sum-
mer. I am happy to report that I have
been named the Laura H. Carnell
Professor in the School of Media
and Communication at Temple. This
named professorship ‘honors [my]
contributions as a researcher, educator,
and leader in the field of strategic
communication.’ In family news, my
daughters and grandkids, living in
Maryland, have adapted to visiting us
in our new location, Media, Pa., dis-
covering that they're only about two
hours away from the new home. I'd be
happy to meet alumni in the area.”

1967

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Albert Zonana

425 Arundel Rd.
Goleta, CA 93117
az164@columbia.edu

Anthony Abeson writes, “So sad to
see ‘the cleverest class’ become ‘the
most taciturn.’ Therefore, at the risk
of being guilty of self-promotion, I
will mention that my book, Acting
2.0: Doing Work that Gets Work in a
High-Tech World, has recently been
published. Better than nothing, right?”
Anthony has had a successful
career as an actor, director and act-
ing coach. He works in New York.
My wife, Diane, and I had the
pleasure of having lunch with Fran
and Mark Schlesinger in Brook-
line, Mass., where we were visiting
three of our grandchildren. We also
had a visit from Cliff Kern in Santa

Barbara, Calif. — Cliff was on one
of his periodic wine-tasting/wine-
buying expeditions in the Santa
Ynez Valley. Great to see old friends.
Do write to az164@columbia.
edu or through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/
cct/submit_class_note. “The most
taciturn” doesn’t sit well ....

1968

Arthur Spector

One Lincoln Plaza, Apt. 25K
New York, NY 10023
arthurbspector@gmail.com

Warm weather hit the City of New
York, finally, as I write this in June. I
recently returned from the country,
where I enjoyed the fresh air, cool
evenings and the peace of it all
(watching the Brexit vote was fasci-
nating, while the market decline was
less fun). I enjoyed swimming. I was
thinking of Robert Brandt's family
business at Lake George a long time
ago when I was not too far from
there. He told me he spent many
summers there for years. I hear from
Bob periodically. He sounds quick-
witted, as usual, and periodically
cites his philosophy classes as being
valuable and a pleasure. He was off
to China, I think, a few months ago.

Reid Feldman was back and
forth in Paris and I hoped to see
him this summer.

I am happy to report some very
good news: Paul de Bary recently
married the lovely Stefana. I went
to the wedding, which was at a
Romanian church not far from my
old home on the West Side. It was
charming and wonderful. Paul’s
father, Wm. Theodore “Ted” de Bary
41, GSAS’53 (96) attended and
signed the marriage certificate as a
witness. I, of course, told Ted that I
was looking forward to seeing him at
this fall’s football season, with some
wins for the Lions. Paul, Stefana, my
wife Halle and I had watched one
of the debates earlier in the year;
Stefana was the winner in hindsight
with her prescient thoughts.

‘The evening event after the
ceremony was grand — we had a
good time dancing, and I danced
with the bride. Paul and his lovely
young bride were in a state of special
joy. There was good wine and good
music, and the couple was radi-
ant. The music was lively and the

attendees were all in grand spirits, as
of course you would expect. Stefana
looked gorgeous in her classic

white dress and Paul looked great,
too — and so happy, both of them. I
reached Paul a week or so later; they
were in Rome having a grand time.

Jon Kotch wrote with two items:
First, he retired on June 30.

Sounds great. Congratulations
Jon, and on to the next chapter.

Second, he reported that Ira Gold-
berg’s daughter Shoshana Goldberg
08, a student in his department of
public health at UNC Chapel Hill,
successfully defended her disserta-
tion. Ira described Shoshana’s presen-
tation as a “tour de force.”

Ira, it seems like yesterday when I
met Shoshana — maybe she was 11?
And then off to Columbia, too.

John Roy is retiring, again, but
this time maybe it is the case. He
has enjoyed teaching in Florida and
I suspect will reappear on that front.
He and his wife, Katherine, are
planning (or may be on!) a road trip
to Grand Canyon, Zion, Yosemite
and Death Valley with a stop in
Cajun Country at Lafayette for a
few days. I hope to hear more from
John about his trip.

I recently had dinner with Jenik
Radon ’67 (a close friend of John’s
from high school). Jenik teaches at
SIPA and was planning to soon be
off to Mexico and then to Albania.
We ate at a great Indian restaurant
and had a long discussion about
foreign policy. I think Jenik will
have visited nearly every country
in the world at the rate he is going.
I was particularly fascinated by his
thoughts on Ukraine, Georgia, Rus-
sia, and the Iran deal.

‘The next week I visited Bob
Costa ’67 and his wife, Joan, at their
home in Rhinebeck, N.Y. Their
home has had some enhancements
and looks amazing. And we had
good Thai food near their home.

I got an update on their daughter
Carolyn Costa’12’s career at ESPN.
Carolyn is a star in my mind. She
broadcast for WKCR and was a
student athlete and importantly, has
had some great experiences recently
at the College World Series [base-
ball] in Omaha, Neb.

Buzz Zucker continues to inspire
me with his enthusiasm for and
fascination with Broadway and Off-
Broadway shows. He probably holds
an attendance record. I asked him
what was going on, and he replied:

“Lots of good shows (saw a great
production of West Side Story at the
2016 Regional Theater Tony Award-
winning Paper Mill Playhouse, and
She Loves Me at Studio 54 is terrific).
I am looking forward to a new show
by MCC Theater at The Lucille
Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village

called 4 Funny Thing Happened on the .

Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit
At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer
Center of New York City by actress/
writer Halley Feiffer (cartoonist Jules
Feiffer’s daughter), who is terrific at
both. On July 1 I went to East 3rd
Street (between Avenues A and B) to
see the Clubbed Thumb’s production
of the musical Tumacho starring a
bunch of Broadway actors, includ-
ing husband and wife John Ellison
Conlee (The Full Monty) and Celia
Keenan-Bolger (The 25th Annual
Putnam County Spelling Bee).”

I think Buzz should write a book
on his years on Broadway and Off-
Broadway. Buzz did go to All-Class
Reunion (formerly known as Dean’s
Day), which he says was great. He
attended Bob Siegel’s keynote
speech and saw Jon Bauman,
and he spent time with the new
basketball coach, Jim Engles. Buzz
gave him a history lesson. Buzz also
reported that his older granddaugh-
ter is in Mongolia, near the end of
a six-month trip. She has visited 80
countries and all seven continents. I
think she sounds like her grandfa-
ther in terms of energy and vibrancy.

I do hope that everyone had a
good summer and will make it to
Homecoming on Saturday, October
22 — the football team will be
much improved, for sure. And most
importantly, I hope you all are in
good health. I am looking forward
to seeing you at our 50th reunion,
which is coming up soon enough.
We probably should begin plan-
ning in about a year. Send news to
arthurbspector@gmail.com.

1969

Michael Oberman

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
1177 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
moberman@kramerlevin.com

‘This column comprises additional
replies to my February 22 blast email.
‘The good news is that I got enough
responses to fill a few columns; the

bad news is that the inventory of
news items is now at its usual low
point. Please keep in mind that the
submission date for class correspon-
dents is typically several months
ahead of publication, so there is a lag
between submitted news and reading
that news. If you have not shared
news or views in a number of years,
let me hear from you.

David Bradley retired from his
position as professor of linguis-
tics and head of the department
of languages and linguistics at
La Trobe University in Australia
and will write books on various
linguistic topics during the next few
years. He has also been working
on a UNICEF-funded project for
transition to peace and national
unity through dialogue in Myanmar
(Burma), which will introduce the
teaching of minority languages in
government schools there.

Gary Rosenberg writes: “I work
full time as a child psychiatrist in
New Jersey. I will soon become the
director of a pilot primary care child
psychiatry collaborative program
serving four counties. I have been
working on this project for the last
six years with a state senator and a
diverse group of mental health pro-
viders and organizations in the state.
We convinced the state to provide
funding for the program last year. The
goal is to have a statewide program
sooner than later. I was chosen as
the ‘Child Advocate of the Year’ this
year by the New Jersey American
Academy of Pediatrics for my work
on the collaborative program.

“T am now in my 53rd year of
running and competing. Of late I
have evolved to allow biking into my
training. I feel just as fast as when
I was younger, but the watch does
not lie. I now cover 10K on an easy
60-minute run rather than 10 miles!
The joy of aging. My wife and I
are in our 45th year of a wonderful
marriage. We have two children. My
daughter graduated from Columbia
(Sari Beth Rosenberg ’97) and is a
teacher in NYC. My son gradu-
ated from Johns Hopkins and is a
programmer. He has two sons and
lives in Princeton.

“My wife and I met at the Col-
lege when I was canned from my
first scholarship job during freshman
year; I was caught bowling after I
had cleaned the student activity cen-
ter in the morning. Unbeknownst
to me, I was breaking the balls as

the machine was not switched on.

A fellow cross country and track
team member led me to a job in the
Career Counseling center, where my
wife’s sister was the librarian. She
visited her sister one day and the
rest is history.

“In addition, I was able to add
a morning run to my training
regimen! I would love to hear from
former teammates.”

From Alan Mintz: “Since return-
ing to Morningside Heights in
2001, I have been teaching at the
Jewish Theological Seminary as the
Chana Kekst Professor of Hebrew
Literature where, among other things,
I teach students who are enrolled in
joint programs with Columbia and
Barnard. I had a wonderful experience
recently teaching a course on Holo-

University in St. Louis; she has been
working on the stem cell transplant
service at Weill Cornell and is
poised to go to medical school.”
David Arnold writes: “In think-
ing about your request for news, I
ruminated over my transition from
being the head of a private school for
young men from inner-city environ-
ments for the last 10 years. In writing
my announcement to the community
of George Jackson Academy that I
would be stepping down from my
role, I referenced my having attended
the Class Day exercises at Columbia
to watch a member of GJA’s first
graduating class receive a most dis-
tinguished class prize. There was and
remains in the two transitions — that
of my student’s and that of mine — a
wonderful symmetry due in large

Child psychiatrist Gary Rosenberg 69 was chosen
as “Child Advocate of the Year” by the New Fersey

American Academy of Pediatrics.

caust literature at Columbia. In recent
years, my research has been devoted
to the work of S.Y. Agnon, who
received the Nobel Prize in literature
in 1966, the only Hebrew writer
with that distinction so far. Toward
the end of his long life (1888-1970),
Agnon wrote an epic sequence of
stories about Buczacz, the Galician
(now Ukrainian) town in which he
lived until he emigrated to Palestine
at 20. I’ve edited a translation of
these stories, which will appear this
summer under the title 4 City in Its
Fullness, and my own critical study of
the stories will follow next year. I was
privileged to receive a Guggenheim
Fellowship for this work in 2012, and
last spring I directed a research group
on Galicia at the Israel Institute for
Advanced Studies at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.

“My wife, Susanna Morgen-
thau, is a psychologist who works
in a number of Jewish schools and
supervises testing and evaluation
for a clinic in Brooklyn. My older
daughter, Amira, graduated from
Brandeis and lives in Berlin, where
she is completing an M.A. in
holocaust studies at the Univer-
sity of Haifa on memorials to the
Roma genocide. My other daughter,
Avital, graduated from Washington

part to our having been Columbia
College graduates.”

From Hart Perry: “I am working
slowly on a documentary on the
original soul man, Willie Mitchell,
with the musician/producer Steve
Jordan. My wife, Dana Heinz Perry,
has gotten some press recently about
her Academy Award acceptance
speech in 2015. The academy
received bad press for timing out
her speech so it is changing the
rules. My eldest son is a psychiatrist.
My youngest is at Bard, planning a
music career with his friends. I relate
to this because I had a similar inspi-
ration at Columbia with Woody
Lewis, Rob Stoner 70, Billy Cross
’68, Bob Merlis and Gregg Geller.
‘They have all gone on to great
careers. | worked with Tom Hurwitz
on a film about a coal miners’ strike
(Harlan County U.S.A.) after college.
Tom has gone on to a great career as
a cameraman. I had a hand in four
documentaries that won Academy
Awards. Time has shown that there
was some mojo in our class and that
we had some impact on our culture.”

Neal Handel reports: “Three
years ago I moved out of hectic
Los Angeles and now live in the
placid (actually, boring) town of
Montecito, Calif; I am engaged in

Fall 2016 CCT 67

Class Notes

full-time practice of plastic surgery
in Santa Barbara. Last year, a medi-
cal textbook that I co-edited, titled
Problems in Breast Surgery: A Repair
Manual, was released. The book has
met with great success and sold more
than 1,000 copies in its first year in
publication. It will soon be translated
into several foreign languages,
including Russian and Portuguese.
I have three children, ages 9, 10 and
11, by my first marriage. Two of them
already told me they ‘want to go to
Columbia’ — but considering how
young they are, I am not sure if they
are referring to alma mater or the
country of ‘Colombia.’ My big news
is that my wife, Kristen, and I became
parents of a boy, Liam, in March. I
believe at this advanced age I can
safely lay claim to being the oldest
‘new father’ in our class. In any event,
I am throwing down the gauntlet and
challenging classmates who may wish
to best me at the game of septuage-
narian fatherhood.”

Jeff Schwartz writes: “I came
to Columbia with Mark Rudd and
Paul Auster — the three us from
Columbia H.S in New Jersey. My
first year in Carman (with its two-
room, two-to-a-room cinderblock-
efficient suites) I had a small TV
and, with Larry Berger from the
other room, we'd regularly watch

the bluegrass show on WKCR.

In addition to playing tracks from
records, I got live performances from
well-known groups that would pass
through NYC on their tours. My
personal experience in music while at
Columbia — expanding from banjo
to pedal steel — paid off when I was
a graduate student at the Natural
History Museum, London. Through
serendipity, I ended up playing with
a rock group formed by John Weider
(of Eric Burdon & the Animals)
and, through that, recording tracks
at Apple Studios with Tim Hardin
and Petula Clark’s composer (names
that linger in our generation but
that are now otherwise unknown).
By my junior year, I had combined

a pre-med major with anthropol-
ogy and had my first experience
doing research in the collections

on the publicly inaccessible fifth
floor of the American Museum of
Natural History, where Margaret
Mead GSAS’29 had her office. I was
allowed to take two graduate courses
with Margaret. I stayed on for
graduate school in physical anthro-
pology — bones, fossils — and have
been doing that and various other
academic pursuits since being at
Pittsburgh, a job offer I took because
my then-partner and now-wife,
Lynn Emanuel, didn’t want to leave

Fonathan M. Weisgall ’70 recently received the
Charles Fahy Distinguished Adjunct Professor Award for

his work at Georgetown University Law Center.

reruns (imagine reruns) of The
Twilight Zone. Coming to Columbia
was the turning point in my life. I
became a New Yorker and, if one
ever does, felt during those years
that I ‘found’ myself.

“T found food as well — different
cuisines, tastes and spices (not the
bland food from home). I remem-
ber going with Rob Fleder to an
Indian restaurant near campus called
Bombay India. I’ve been a spice fiend
since. Sophomore year, Rob and I
shared a suite and began playing
old-timey and bluegrass together
— Rob on guitar, me on banjo —
and eventually we had a band with
a fiddler and mandolinist, often
playing at Columbia events. Dur-
ing our college years, I also hosted

68 CCT Fall 2016

NYC (neither did I) and this was
closer than California and Texas.
“T’ve published 12 books and
hundreds of articles on theo-
retical and developmental biology,
evolutionary theory, paleontology
and bioarchaeology and have done
a number of documentaries on my
work, including a History Channel
special on my reconstructing life-
size images of George Washington
at the ages of 19 (surveyor), 45
(general) and 57 (first president) —
now on permanent exhibit at Mount
Vernon. I even did a slot with John
Oliver for The Daily Show on my
theories of human-ape related-
ness, and survived. I guess the most
challenging books were my history
of evolutionary thought, Sudden Ori-

gins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence
of Species, and a co-authored series
on the entire human fossil record,
not surprising titled The Human Fos-
sil Record, which was and will remain
the first and only such compendium.

“Lynn, a professor of creative
writing/English at Pitt, recently pub-
lished her fifth book of poems, The
Nerve of It: Poems New and Selected,
which recognizes her prominence in
the field. Although we now also have
a small flat in NYC, I haven't been
back to Columbia. The last time I was
there, the amount of building that
had taken place was a shock to my
memory of a more livable campus in
an urban setting. Our 50th reunion,
however, will not be about buildings
but about old friends.”

1970

Leo G. Kailas

Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt
885 Third Ave., 20th FI.
New York, NY 10022
Ikailas@reitlerlaw.com

I guess this must be a slow news cycle
because I received only two reports
on classmates’ recent activities and
other news. Maybe the lead-up to the
surprising Brexit vote kept classmates
pinned to the news channels.

Jonathan M. Weisgall reports,
“T’ve been teaching a seminar on
energy policy issues at Georgetown
University Law Center since 1992.

I recently received the Charles Fahy
Distinguished Adjunct Professor
Award for 2015 as outstanding
adjunct professor of the year.”

Peter Joseph, now happily
“rewired” after 35 years in the emer-
gency room, continues treating “the
mother of all emergencies: climate
change.” Peter sent me the complete
report: “I work full-time with the
Citizens’ Climate Lobby, pushing
for a federal revenue neutral carbon
fee and dividend with border carbon
duties. This is the fire escape for
Republicans who don't like President
Barack Obama’83’s Clean Power
Plan, and it’ll be more effective.

‘The organization is doubling every
year and now has chapters in every
congressional district. I attended the
entire U.N. Climate Summit in Paris,
undeterred by the terrorist attack two
weeks before, and was thrilled with
the determination, ambition and
consensus of 195 countries to attempt

to phase out fossil fuels as rapidly as
possible. But there’s no clear enforce-
ment or path toward this goal without
a global carbon price, which the U.N.
cant impose. So we need the world
economy to do the heavy lifting. That
can start with a U.S. carbon price,
coupled with border tariffs to incen-
tivize other nations to do the same or
pay American taxpayers at the border.

“T co-authored a second winning
proposal in the MIT Climate CoLab
contest for a U.S. Carbon Price, “The
Little Engine That Could: Revenue
Neutral Carbon Fee and Dividend.’
You can contact me at peter.joseph@
citizensclimatelobby.org.

“My wife, Marcy, and I have
delightful 4-year-old twin grand-
daughters nearby in San Francisco,
and our youngest son, Gabe, works
for the National Park Service
doing computer modeling of the
soundscape in national parks. He
was again planning to work in
Alaska as a wilderness guide for the
summer. I try not to think about his
ice climbing on glaciers, considering
how warm it’s been up there. Ah,
the insouciance of youth!”

Share your news with classmates
by writing to the addresses at the
top of this column or by submitting
a note through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

1971

Jim Shaw

139 North 22nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
jes200@columbia.edu

Reunion Weekend 2016 was June
2-5. Plan to attend our 50th, in
2021! As always, it was great to see
old friends and make new ones; we
enjoyed dinners and other meals,
hanging out, a Sha Na Na concert,
other cultural events, the campus
and Mini-Core Classes, and experi-
encing these things together.

From Alex Sachare: “A high-
light of the weekend for me was the
amazing Sha Na Na reunion con-
cert. They sounded great and their
energy was amazing. It was great to
see so many of them together again.
Kudos to everyone who reached out
and got them all to come back to
Morningside Heights!”

I wrote the following to Alan
Cooper: “Was great you see you

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onstage in the Sha Na Na reunion as
part of the Columbia reunion! And
a great show! I’d love to include [in
CCT’s Class Notes] an item about
you, and/or the inside scoop on the
Sha Na Na reunion.”

Alan responded: “Thanks for your
nice note. Glad you were there and
enjoyed yourself. We all had a great
time, too. For me, it started in April
with a telephone message from John
‘Jocko’ Marcellino’72, one of the
three CC alums (along with Don
York and Scott Simon’70) who are
still performing [in Sha Na Na].
(Amazing, isn’t it?)

“In the message, Jocko said that
the current version of Sha Na Na
had been booked for reunion and
asked would the original members
like to join them on stage for a few
numbers. I returned his call right
away and said ‘sure,’ having missed
the 2010 gathering of the originals
(organized by Rob Leonard ’70,
GSAS’82 at Hofstra) because of a
scheduling conflict (read more by
searching ‘Sha Na Na Reunion’ on
theledger.com). Since then, unfor-
tunately one of our number, Denny

Greene 72, had died (read the obit-

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uary by searching ‘Dennis Greene
Sha Na Na’on nytimes.com), which
only increased my desire to see the
rest of the guys again.

“Almost immediately after that
initial phone call, there was a deluge
of emails back and forth, building
excitement and anticipation, persuad-
ing the more recalcitrant guys to
join the party (dialogue: ‘But I can’t
sing anymore!’ ‘Could we ever?’). It
got more real when Jocko and Joe
Witkin ’70 started preparing set lists
and sending around mp3s to ‘remind’
us of our parts. Elliot Cahn’70 sent
everyone a note suggesting that we
get together a day early so “We might
get a chance to rehearse for a few
minutes,’ and I replied, ‘Rehearse?”

“Tn fact, it was a great idea, because
we met the Thursday before reunion
for a delicious dinner in one of the
Italian restaurants in the theater dis-
trict, just a couple of blocks from the
site of The Scene, the long-gone club
run by Steve Paul where Sha Na Na
got its professional start in summer
1969. It was an evening filled with
nostalgia and laughter, an absolute
joy. Happily, we were joined by our
first manager, Ed Goodgold’65, and

alumninews “

also by George Leonard ’67, Rob’s
brother, who conceived the group
and engineered the transition from
the Kingsmen to Sha Na Na almost
single-handedly. Jocko, Donnie and
Scott picked up the tab, which made
it even nicer. :-)

“On Friday, we rehearsed early
in the afternoon and went out for
lunch. Since I still work a few blocks
uptown from alma mater I was the
de facto consultant on Morning-
side eateries (“What happened to
Duke’s Restaurant?’). In the evening,
we reconvened in Roone Arledge
Auditorium’s ‘green room’ to ‘grease
up’ for the performance, swapping
more hugs and stories, catching up
on news of children and grand-
children and getting to know the
current members of the band, who
are all terrific. Jon ‘Bowzer’ Bauman
68 arrived just in the nick of time
to perform his signature Blue Moon.
Jon replaced me when I left the
group and we shared a long and
hearty laugh when I referred to him
with a straight face as my ‘disciple.’

“And then the performance! Can
any band ever have had a more lov-
ing and appreciate audience? I doubt
it. My wife, daughter, daughter-
in-law (my son was away on a
business trip) and my administrative
assistant all had a great time. My
solo number was Az the Hop, same as
at Woodstock (preserved in the film
of the festival), and it seemed as if
40-plus years suddenly melted away.
I messed up a little, but so what: I
messed up plenty back in the day.”

Despite Alan’s modesty, the
performances by all gave no hint
of needing any rehearsal, amaz-
ing especially considering how
many years have passed and how
many miles separate the original
bandmates. Aside from Denny, all
the original Sha Na Na members
performed. In addition to Donny,
Jocko, Rob, Alan, Elliot and Joe,
the originals were Scott Powell ’70;
Dave Garrett SEAS’70; Rich Joffe
72, LAW’93; Bruce Clarke 74; and
Brooklyn College’s Henry Gross.

Alan continued: “As I wrote to
the guys afterward, despite what
Thomas Wolfe says, I guess you can
‘go back to a young man’s dreams of
glory and of fame,’ even if for only
one night in 47 years. And wasn’t
it glorious when we were joined on
stage by other Kingsmen past and
present for a rousing rendition of
Roar, Lion, Roar'?! Of course, we

needed the young’uns because they
would remember all the words.”

‘The first concert (1969) by what
became Sha Na Na, when they were
still known as the a cappella group
the Kingsmen, was in Wollman
Auditorium in Ferris Booth Hall.
(That was even before the “Grease
Under the Stars” concert on Low
Plaza). Columbia tore down Ferris
Booth Hall in 1996 and replaced it
(both physically and as the student
center) with Alfred Lerner Hall.

Another mind-bending experience
at Reunion Weekend 2016, consider-
ing public personas, was when All-
Class Reunion (formerly known as
Dean's Day) keynote speaker Robert
Siegel 68, senior host of NPR’s A//
Things Considered, took an audience
question from Bowzer and disclosed
that Siegel and Bowzer were room-
mates at the College.

John Borek: “Please join me
in thanking Reunion Committee
Chairs Peter Hiebert and Jeff
Knowles (and the rest of the ’71
Reunion Committee) for the effort,
energy and imagination they put
into these events. And committee
member Phil Milstein has been
instrumental in pulling so many of
our reunions together.

“The older I (we) get, the more
such celebrations are appreciated.
While at this reunion, the conceptual
artist in me realized that we needed
to acknowledge the significance
of our 1968 spring semester. The
50th anniversary approaches of the
student demonstrations, actions, riots
— whatever we choose to call them
—— that changed many of our lives.
We were propelled off our normal
academic track; we were embroiled in
bitter political, class and racial contro-
versies, unresolved to this day. Each of
us followed our own trajectory in the
years immediately following but all of
us were tossed off course.

“To honor this important time
in Columbia’s and our country’s
history, I would like to hear from as
many of our classmates as possible
over the next two years. On May 22,
2018, I will be releasing comments
that I receive. Fifty years later, in
times that seem as imbalanced as
our youth, I look forward to our
reflections on how our lives were
changed. Please spread the word
among classmates. I can be reached
at johnwborek@yahoo.com.”

The Summer 2016 CCT cover
story is on sculptor Greg Wyatt.

Fall 2016 CCT 69

Class Notes

Remember back 49 Septembers
ago, and the feelings we had, including
of adventure, as we entered Columbia
College. We are still connected.

1972

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Paul S. Appelbaum

39 Claremont Ave., #24
New York, NY 10027
pappel1@aol.com

“Magical” is not a word that I think
I've ever used in a Class Notes
column but it’s the only word to
describe the Sha Na Na concert dur-
ing Reunion Weekend 2016. Hun-
dreds of alumni in Roone Arledge
Auditorium (think: Wollman, version
2.0) saw today’s Sha Na Na, led by
Jocko Marcellino. Three of the cur-
rent seven members have been with
band since the early days, including
Donny York’71 and Scott Simon
°70. But what was really special was
that Sha Na Na had a reunion of its
own — on stage. Ten members of
the band from its Woodstock days,
including Rick Joffe, joined the
band under the lights, each taking
a turn as a vocal or instrumental
lead. Voices and musical skills were
remarkably intact after all these years,
but even more special was the effect
of seeing and hearing 17 current and
former Sha Na Na members together,
belting out hits from the glory days.
It may never happen again and I am
grateful to have been there. | am now
a believer: Rock’n roll is here to stay.
A few weeks later I saw Jerry
Groopman on a very different stage.
Jerry was part of a conversation on
the human side of modern medicine
with the Israeli Talmudic scholar
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz at the Aleph
Society dinner in New York. Many
of you see Jerry’s work regularly in
The New Yorker. During the day, he
holds the chair Dina and Raphael
Recanati Chair of Medicine at Har-
vard Medical School and chief of
experimental medicine at Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center.

70 CCT Fall 2016

Wayne Cypen was recently hon-
ored by Easter Seals South Florida,
at the Miami-Dade County “Donor
Next Door” luncheon. He became
involved with the organization after
the birth of a daughter with severe
brain injury and has been a board
chair and member for many years. In
addition, Wayne has been co-chair
and is a founder of Miami Jewish
Health Systems, trustee of Ransom
Everglades School, president of
Miami Beach Kiwanis Club, director
of Two Hundred Club of Greater
Miami, and a founder of Miami
Children’s Hospital and Mt. Sinai
Medical Center.

He has given his time selflessly
to Columbia as well: “I recently
finished my 36th consecutive year
as chair of the Miami-area Alumni
Representative Committee (ARC).
When I started in 1980, there were
12 applicants from Miami-Dade
(then called ‘Dade’), Broward and
Monroe counties, and I interviewed
them all. Now we have about 450
applicants from Miami-Dade alone,
and I lead a committee of about
45 alumni. (Some time ago, the
Broward County applicants were
combined with the Palm Beach
County ARC and they also have
about 450 applicants.) Suffice it to
say that Columbia has become quite
popular in South Florida.”

Writing from France, Beresford
Hayward sent a long meditation on
his Columbia years, his father’s recent
passing and his current work and life
in contemporary France. He says,
“For the last 14 years, my wife and
I have been running a multicultural
project at the Maison des Métallos in
the 11th arrondissement here in Paris.
We've mounted programs devoted to
Turkish, Arabic, Jewish, American,
African, Medieval, Renaissance and
Contemporary music.”

Berry’s son, Timothy, married
Lisa Polito last summer in a New
Jersey wedding, with Jamie Katz
(who helped educate Berry in
jazz during their college years) in
attendance. Reflecting on what he
took away from the College, Berry
noted the challenge France faces
today in bringing diverse communi-
ties together: “... the patience this
requires and the faith you have to
keep while struggling with it all; you
learn from experience. I feel that
that patience began to develop for
me during my Columbia years in a
period equally fraught with violence

and a sense that no one was quite
sure where to go next. One thing
was certain: You had to learn to be
thoughtful. You had to worry about
those who were suffering. You had to
listen to them and try to understand
where the pain was and its source.
Everyone had to find the words and
the music that went with it so that
it could be faced without causing
further injury. You had to look at the
historical and cultural heritage of
your own culture and other cultures
that could offer tools for express-
ing ideas and emotions and help to
design practical solutions through
deepened mutual sharing and
exchange. This was impressed upon
me by my intellectual and artistic
experiences during my formative
college years. It has never left me.”

Keep in mind that Thursday,
June 1-Sunday, June 4, is our 45th
reunion. It’s not too early to begin
planning to be on Morningside
Heights for what I am sure will be a
terrific weekend.

1973

Barry Etra

1256 Edmund Park Dr. NE
Atlanta, GA 30306
betra1@bellsouth.net

“Will they still need us? Will they still
feed us?”

We (like The Beatles) all ask,
now that we’re 64 (or 65) ... . It
depends on who “they” are. Chris-
topher Kimball will. After a start
publishing recipes in 1980 with
Cooks Magazine, he sold it, bought
it back for a song and renamed it
Cook's Illustrated. He popularized
the intellectual cookbook and cre-
ated America’s Test Kitchen, which
includes radio and TV programs.
Although Chris split with ATK last
year, he recently started Milk Street

Kitchen in Boston's financial district.

At press time, Finbarr O’Neill
was working on the sale of J.D.
Power to a private equity group,
XIO. Fin is president and CEO of
J.D. Power and will be staying on (as
he is a mere 64).

Bill Pollack has a grandkid on
his knee (Huxley Pollack), just
before hitting the magic 6-5. He is
the managing director of Staghorn
Infrastructure, which builds and
operates tens of thousands of cell-
phone towers worldwide.

Ahh — a scapegoat for our
bad reception!

Bob Pruznick and Don Jensen
(with their wives) were recent dinner
guests of Steve Flanagan in his
Washington, D.C., home. Steve is
now with the Rand Corp.; Bob, Don
and Steve are all members of the
45th Reunion Committee, so they
got an early head start! Hope they
were home by a quarter-to-three.

Enough; I got carried away. May
your hair stay put as you age! Write
to me at betral@bellsouth.net!

1974

Fred Bremer

532 W. 111th St.

New York, NY 10025
f.bremer@ml.com

As we were journeying to Morning-
side Heights in 1970, something new
was creating a sensation at bookstores
(explain to your grandchildren this

is how people got books prior to
Amazon and digital downloads). The
book was Future Shock by futurist
Alvin Toffler. Little did we realize
how its subject would describe some
major trends that would be influenc-
ing our lives for at least the next four
decades as our society moved from
“Gndustrial” (i.e., manufacturing) to
“post-industrial” (services).

‘The future shock Toffler wrote
about came from a world of rapid
change (“too much change in too
short a period of time”) that left
people suffering from “shattering
stress and disorientation.” Remem-
ber the early days of your career
when someone asked you to send
them some material and you had a
few days of breathing room because
it was mailed. Then came more
pressure because it could be faxed
the same day. Now the clock starts
running right away because it can
be scanned and emailed. Toffler also
popularized the phrase “information
overload.” He is not given the credit
he deserves for penning “change is
the only constant.”

The impact of this accelerating
rate of change was a central theme
of Toffler. Doctors have seen the
effect of electronic records on their
practices. The financial industry has
been altered by high-speed trading
and the rapid proliferation of news.
Cellphones and the Internet have
forced many to be “on call” around

Left to right: Bob Pruznick ’73 and Don Jensen ’73 were recent dinner
guests of Steve Flanagan ’73 in his Washington, D.C., home.

the clock. And we are still at the
early days of seeing how robotics,
e-commerce and many other tech-
nological changes will alter the jobs
of many of us and our kids.

As work opportunities change,
‘Toffler said we would be forced to
become increasingly nomadic. He said
this would make personal relation-
ships more transient and the bonds
between people more fragile. Perhaps
this points to one of the important
benefits of being a member of the
Class of 74. The bonds we formed
nearly a half-century ago cannot be
shattered by technological change. It
might even make them stronger if we
use them to stay connected!

There has been a lot of well-
deserved media attention following
the death of Bill Campbell ’62,
TC’64 this past April. [Editor’s
note: See Summer 2016 Obituar-
ies.] For those out of the loop, Bill
was both a titan of Silicon Valley
(as CEO of Intuit and legend-
ary “coach” to many of the most
influential executives) and a loyal
supporter of Columbia in many
ways (including being chair of the
Board of Trustees). Some 2,000
mourners gathered for his funeral
at a high school football field where
Bill had been a longtime coach to
middle schoolers. The Class of 74
was well represented: Ted Gregory
sang a gospel and former Columbia
Alumni Association chair/Univer-
sity Trustee George Van Amson
attended, among the classmates pay-
ing tribute to the Columbia legend.

Chris Hansen (in London) and
Bryan Berry (in Joliet, Ill.) alerted
us that Fr. Michael Barrett was
named pastor of St. Agnes parish in
Manhattan, which serves the area
around Grand Central Terminal.
Although the parish only has 350
parishioners on its register, it offers
six Masses a day to serve the busi-
ness and commuter populations that
pass through the area. For many
years it has also offered a traditional
Latin Mass on Sunday morning.

Fr. Michael has had an interesting
career path to his current position.
After leaving the College, he joined
(now) Msgr. Fred Dolan (vicar for
Canada, Prelature of Opus Dei, who
lives in Montreal) and (now) Fr. C.
John McCloskey’75 as sales executives
at U.S. Steel. The trio then became
financial advisers at Merrill Lynch
on Wall Street. They all ended up in
Rome and were ordained as priests for
Opus Dei in the mid-1980s. During
most of the 1990s, Fr. Michael was the
director of the Holy Cross Chapel and
Catholic Resource Center in down-
town Houston and later moved to Los
Angeles to become the theological
advisor to Archbishop José Gomez.

Continuing the religious theme,
we hear from Tom Ferguson in San
Francisco that he remains the CFO/
COO at the Episcopal Diocese of
California. He tells us that his two
“30-something” children live in New
York City and this leads to frequent
trips to the Big Apple: “After
mastering the L and G trains, we are
now reacquainting ourselves with

alumninews

the 7 train to visit our granddaugh-
ter in Jackson Heights.” Ivy (2) is
the daughter of son Greg Ferguson
03. Daughter Elizabeth Ferguson
07 works for Carnegie Hall in the
Weill Music Institute.

Quite a Columbia College family!

Forty years ago, Jonathan
Cuneo began his career in antitrust
and consumer protection at the
FTC and later served as the anti-
trust counsel to the House Judiciary
Committee chair, Peter Rodino.

For his lifetime achievements in

the field, Jon was recently given the
Alfred E. Kahn Award for Antitrust
Achievement by the American
Antitrust Institute in Washington,
D.C. Jon is the founding member of
the Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca law
firm in Washington, D.C.

An update from Don Koblitz in
Beijing: He is the general counsel of
Volkswagen in China and his wife,
Becky, is an antitrust lawyer. They live
in a “courtyard house” only 500 yards
north of the Forbidden City. His
son, who is completing a doctorate
in fluid dynamics at Cambridge,
married a girl from Beijing last June
in a ceremony in the Forbidden
City. He adds, “Our two girls share
an apartment in lower Manhattan,
one working in user experience at
MetLife and the other ‘finishing up’
in economics at NYU.”

When Democratic classmates
in New York voted in the primary
election earlier this year, I bet many
were surprised to see one of the
choices for delegate to the Demo-
cratic National Convention was
Arthur Schwartz — he won! As
noted in an earlier column, Arthur
is also a candidate for the New
York State Assembly, representing
Greenwich Village, SoHo, TriBeCa
and Northern Battery Park City.

Portrait photographer and
documentary filmmaker Timothy
Greenfield-Sanders continues his
series of video portraits with The
Trans List (the premiere was at the
Castro Theatre in San Francisco in
June). Like The Black List, The Latino
List, The Boomer List and others, this
production features intimate conver-
sations with 11 prominent transgen-
der figures (including Caitlyn Jenner
and Laverne Cox). It is scheduled to
air on HBO later this year.

‘There you have it. Classmates
adapting to the changes brought on
by the “future shock” but still achiev-

ing in fields as diverse as religion,

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law, politics and the arts. Whatever
you are up to, please take a moment
to pass along news of you and your
family to me at f.bremer@ml.com —
your buddies of nearly a half-century

want to know what you are up to!

1975

Randy Nichols

734 S. Linwood Ave.

Baltimore, MD 21224
rcn2day@gmail.com

‘The following is an abbreviated
version of a communication recently
received from Geoffrey Cummings:
“We all shared the rapture of
being young and alive in the early
1970s on the island of Manhattan,
at the greatest college in the greatest
university in the greatest city in the
world. Challenge and change were
the watchwords of the day. I had a
rich, transformative Columbia experi-
ence and was tremendously proud of
alma mater, but other than a circle of
friends that rapidly dwindled, I had
no continuing ties. I now fully realize
what a missed opportunity this was.
“As a lapsed Columbia com-
munity member, I returned to
the welcome embrace of my 40th
reunion. It was a rapturous weekend.
Afterward, the full appreciation of
the deep value of belonging to an
engaged, worldwide community of
College and University classmates
washed over me. Contemporaries, I
invite you to get in touch with me.
In addition to catching up on the
joys of a life well lived, I am looking
to explore creating traditions, which
would galvanize our Columbia com-
munity. There are great deeds to be
done, sweet songs to be sung. I am
heartened to see entrepreneurship
flourishing at Columbia, and that
a vibrant culture of creation, social
enterprise and startups has emerged
as a path for classmates. I have had
the good fortune to be working with
my son, Gordon, on a venture that
involves an eco-adventure resort and
expat community in Costa Rica,
set up as a B Corp., with an allied
community development founda-
tion (puravidavillage.com). The lion
is the king of creatures, known for
its majesty, wisdom and leadership.
‘That’s what we do. Let’s talk.”
“Welcome to the Kremlin's
phantasmagoric world, where a
heady mixture of Orthodoxy, social-

Fall 2016 CCT 71

ism, imperialism, racism, sexism,
homophobia, and Mother Russia
worship defines and distorts reality.”
So opens one description of Alexan-
der Motyl’s new book Vovochka: The
True Confessions of Vladimir Putin's
Best Friend and Confidant. Described
as a savagely satirical novel, Vovochka
is a terrifyingly plausible account
of a Russian president’s evolution
from a minor KGB agent in East
Germany to the self-styled savior
and warmongering leader of a para-
noid state. You can read more about
Vovochka by searching “Vovochka’” on
spectator.org or on e-ir.info. Nomi-
nated for the Pushcart Prize in 2008
and 2013, Alexander has authored
seven other novels: Whiskey Priest,
Who Killed Andrei Warhol, Flippancy,
The Jew Who Was Ukrainian, My
Orchidia, Sweet Snow and Fall River,
as well as a forthcoming collection
of poetry, Vanishing Points.

A professor of political science
at Rutgers University-Newark,
Alexander is also the author of six
academic books, numerous articles
and a blog (Ukraine’s Orange Blues)
at the online journal World Affairs.
He studied painting with Leon
Goldin at Columbia. His artwork
has been shown in solo and group
shows in New York, Philadelphia
and Toronto and is part of the per-
manent collection of the Ukrainian
Museum in New York and the
Ukrainian Cultural and Educational
Centre in Winnipeg. His paintings
and drawings are on display on the
Internet gallery Artsicle. The cover
of Vovochka is one of his paintings.

Penn's Club of Long Island
recently presented Robert C.

CCT welcomes photos

that feature at least two
College alumni.

Click “Contact Us” at
college.columbia.edu/cct.

72 CCT Fall 2016

Schneider with the Jack White
Award for long-term, meritorious
service to the club and the univer-
sity. This year marks Bob’s 20th year
on the club’s board, for which he has
been treasurer and VP. He has been
a club member since July 1, 1979

— soon after his 1979 graduation
from Penn Law. Bob has focused on
alumni-for-alumni activities, includ-
ing alumni book tours and alumni
speakers, in addition to interview-
ing college applicants and doing
fundraising for Penn.

1976

Ken Howitt

1114 Hudson St., Apt. 8
Hoboken, N.J. 07030
kenhowitt76@gmail.com

The fall is here and with it another
Homecoming, this year on Saturday,
October 22. hope to see many of
you at Baker Athletics Complex.
We will get a sign so you can spot
the Class of 1976 as we begin the
five year run-up to our 45th reunion.
With coach Al Bagnoli in his
second year as the Lions’ head coach,
the year looks very promising. So
promising, in fact, that yours truly
dug deep into his pocket to buy

two season tickets for every home
game. Shoot me an email if you will
be in NYC on a non-Homecoming
weekend and you can join me in the
stands.

Our 40th reunion went terrifi-
cally. Starting on Thursday evening in
Times Square, we had a great cocktail
hour prior to heading to the theater.
Tim Tracey, Dave Merzel and |
(along with our guests) took in The
King and I at Lincoln Center. As we
had to leave the pre-theater cocktails
a little early, we concluded the eve-
ning with a post-theater toast or two
across the street from the theater.

On Friday, a group of us took the
neighborhood tour that started at
West 125th Street, went through
the Manhattanville construction and
ended at V&T for a terrific meal.
Dean James J. Valentini stopped by
to greet the class and thanked us
for our turnout and contributions to
the Columbia College Fund. Some
classmates concluded the evening
with the Sha Na Na concert in
Roone Arledge Auditorium (there
is no longer a Wollman Auditorium
— not even a Ferris Booth Hall!) in

Alfred Lerner Hall. Again, a suc-
cessful night!

On Saturday, a number of us
enjoyed the All-Class Reunion
(formerly known as Dean's Day)
keynote speech by Robert Siegel
68, senior host of NPR’s Morning
Edition, then participated in All-
Class Reunion activities. The day
concluded with a wine tasting and
our class dinner on the second floor
of Butler Library.

At the dinner, we didn’t have
specific class speakers, just many
speakers from our class in an exercise
called “Two Minutes and Two
Minutes Only.” Dennis Goodrich
manned the cow bell to ring out
any over-talkers, but in reality he
couldn't figure out how to use it and
everyone just told terrific stories.
Longtime Reunion Committee
chair Steve Davis started us off by
recounting some of the events that he
researched through online Spectator
articles. His humor brought back a
lot of good memories. In addition to
Steve, Doug Halsey, Bryan Alix,
Steve Mackey, Joe Graif, Jeffrey
Malkan, Anthony Messina, Vince
Briccetti, Nels Mitchell, Doug
Neuman, Perry Kahn, Tom Motley
and Dan Baker spoke. Tom and
Dan were forced into speaking duty
by interesting circumstances. Judge
Motley submitted a card with Terry
Corrigan’s name on it as a joke and
then took the microphone to speak
about his lifelong friendship with
Terry. When Terry moved from New
York to North Carolina, the judge
decided to revive his golf game with
frequent visits — it was great to hear
the jurist talk so warmly about a
longtime friend.

Dan’s name was submitted with
the words “Bug Story” on it but Dan
did not submit it. Now, Dan claimed
that Grace Briccetti was responsible,
but even though there were two
judges (Vince and Tom) present,
there was no indictment of Grace.
Instead we heard a terrific story
about how Dan found a bug in the
first week of freshmen (it was still
freshmen back then, not first-years)
orientation, which caused him to
run out of his room and bang on
the closest door, which happened to
be the future Southern New York
district court judge, the honorable
Vinnie. Now, we certainly have
ample proof of Vinnie’s terrific legal
abilities since college; as a result of
this story, we also know that Vinnie

is a ruthless John Jay exterminator!

‘The evening concluded with John
Connell and me leading the class in
Sans Souci. As a result of John’s excel-
lent singing, our dates for the evening
(John's daughter Erin Connell’13
and my daughter Katherine Howitt
13) invited us to attend their fifth-
year reunion in 2018!

So the weekend was a huge suc-
cess. More than 70 classmates from
all over the country returned for the
weekend and we smashed through
our fundraising goals. Thank you all
for a great year!

‘The best way to summarize all of
this is to give you Rich Rohr’s recap:
“This is the first time that I have
attended a full reunion. I have been
going to Dean's Day (or All-Class
Reunion, as it is now called) for
many years to attend Mini-Core
Classes, but this is the first time
that I have spent an overnight on
campus since graduation. Carman
Hall is exactly as you remember it,
plus with 44 years of wear and tear
(except that it now has Wi-Fi and
cable TV ). [Editor’s note: It also has
air conditioning!] One nice change
is that Columbia now offers fitness
facilities to students and staff, with a
full set of exercise machines similar
to health clubs. I did some laps
each night in the same pool where I
learned to swim.

“Our class had three fine events,
first in Midtown, then at V&T and,
finally, in Butler Library. I chatted
with Dean James J. Valentini about
professors I had known in the
chemistry department and also with
Robert Siegel 68, who got his start
in radio news at WKCR. The irony
of the weekend was that family
business made it necessary for me to
skip the Mini-Core Classes this year
but that just changed the focus for
me to connecting with people.

“Tf you have not been to reunion
because you are not sure if you will
see anyone you know, don’t worry
about it. Go ahead and connect with
classmates for the first time; they’re
much more interesting people now
than they were 40 years ago.”

So there’s the complete report.
Now, as always, I need reports from
each and every classmate so this
column remains current and brings
us altogether. Too many life events
start happening to distract us from
the foundation that we all experi-
enced so many years ago at Spaghetti
City, Ta-Kome, Mama Joy’s, Campus

Dining Room, the Lions Den, Moon
Palace and so many other places. The
neighborhood is so different but the
memories are vivid and everyone feels
at home within five minutes. Most
importantly, the stories that you tell
to your family and guests are told
with smiles and laughter.

Please send some memories, and
tell me about your current events:
kenhowitt76@gmail.com. The
column is so much more fun when
I get your contributions. Most of
all, thanks for a great reunion and a
great life together! Hope to see you
all at Homecoming!

1977

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

David Gorman

111 Regal Dr.
DeKalb, IL 60115
dgorman@niu.edu

“Life is good,” reports Kevin Pehr,
and why shouldn't it be? He has
retired from the Army Reserve as a
full colonel and brigade commander,
after a career that included four
deployments to Iraq and Afghani-
stan. Kevin lives in Montreal “with
my lovely wife Nom (aka Christine)
and two children, who are lucky
enough to look like her.” Kevin
practices dermatology but is pretty
sure he'll get it right one of these
days and not have to keep practic-
ing — though on the other hand,
when he thinks about retiring, he
thinks that he’s not likely to do so
anytime soon. He has to put the kids
through medical school after all, and
the oldest is only 2. (“Having kids
was on the ‘to do list, but it was a
really long list.”) In addition to his
private practice, Kevin is an associate
professor at McGill (“where we tend
to refer to Columbia as ‘the McGill
of the south”).

For the last five years, Peter
Basch has been a technical writer
and editor at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory at CalTech: “So that
fancy physics degree has finally

been put to some small use!” he says.
He celebrated his 16th anniversary
with his wife, Ellen Sandler, author
of The TV Writer's Workbook and
formerly on staff at Everybody Loves
Raymond, Coach and many more TV
shows. Peter says, “I have two won-

~ derful stepchildren, Max and Molly,

who are just beginning their exciting
30s. My acting career may seem
dead, but it is actually in a vegetative
state. Thanks to improv classes at
UC Berkeley, recent background
work on a Stouffer’s commercial and
storytelling at The Moth, we think
its eyelids may be fluttering (but we
can't be sure).”

I was interested to learn that Mark
Reid has been a member of the Eng-
lish department at the University of
Florida in Gainesville since 1988. He
teaches courses in African-American
and Afro-European literature and
has taught film courses that cover the
African diaspora as well as African
cinema. He is a prolific author, hav-
ing published Redefining Black Film
(1993), PostNegritude Visual and Liter-
ary Culture (1997) and Black Lenses,
Black Voices: African American Film
Now (2005), in addition to editing
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1997)
and coediting Le Cinéma Noir Améri-
cain (1988). “During my undergradu-
ate years at Columbia,” Mark says,

“T immensely benefitted from the
Core and such remarkable faculty
members as Nathan I. Huggins;
Catharine R. Stimpson GSAS’67;
Andrew Sarris’51,GSAS’98; and
Barry Ulanov’39, GSAS’55.”

I recognize all those names and
I’m sure classmates could add a lot
more. If you have memorable classes
or professors, or want to share news
about hobbies, travel, family, work
(or retirement!) or anything else,
drop a line to the addresses at the
top of this column or through CCT’s
Class Notes webform, college.
columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

1978

Matthew Nemerson

35 Huntington St.

New Haven, CT 06511
matthewnemerson@gmail.com

‘The survey question for this column
was “Hillary or Donald?” — asked a
week or two before either conven-
tion, so no bounce. You might not be
surprised to hear the results were 43

alumninews

percent Hillary, 13 percent Trump,
one holdout for Bernie and one wit
who stated, “I'd give up a vital organ
before I'd vote for Trump. But as an
American I decline to say who will
be getting my vote!”

I also asked who your favorite
professor was; while many said they
could not remember that far back,
here are some of the candidates
mentioned: “My senior seminar in
music with Jack Beeson continues
to inform my music directing and
theatre writing work to this day,”
reported a classmate. Other profes-
sors mentioned were Jim Shenton
’49 (Civil War course); Karl-Ludwig
Selig; Arthur Danto GSAS’53
(intro to philosophy); Edward Tayler
(Shakespeare and Milton); Seymour
Melman; Inge Halpert GSAS’57
(German); Mary Payer; Michael
Rosenthal GSAS’67/Edward Said
colloquium; Ann Douglas (Ameri-
can culture in the 1930s); Charlie
Dawson (orgo); Fred Friendly; Jack
Malcolm Miller (chemistry); Loren
Graham SIPA’60, GSAS’64; Sidney
Morgenbesser (logical foundations
of probability); and Donald Johnson.

Ambassador Chris Dell has not
weighed in on possible Russian spy-
ing on my Class of 1978 email server
yet, but did send this update: “Still in
Mozambique, where business is slow.
Combination of global commodity
struggles and terrible local choices.
So, in our 60th year, I’m practicing
for retirement, trying to find new
things to focus on, in the (vain) hope
I can avoid the inevitable. Working
out with a trainer, learning to play an
instrument, doing basic research for a
book project.

“Spending some time and effort
setting up eventual retirement homes
in Sofia and Lisbon. Trying to help
the kids get launched in the world
(and off the family payroll, of course).
In other words, exactly what youd
expect someone to be doing at this
stage of life. Prosaic but satisfying in
its own way. And nice to feel that one
is still master of one’s destiny, for just
a bit longer ....”

One of our many world-renowned
journalists and writers is Don Gut-
tenplan, who has one of those great
opportunities as a wordsmith: “I
have spent the past year covering the
presidential election for The Nation.
As I normally live in London, this
has involved considerable travel, of
which the best part has been frequent
trips in and out of NYC, which allow

me to see my daughter, Zoe Gutten-
plan ’18. She even took me to one of
Eric Foner’63, GSAS’69’s lectures,
which provided quite a contrast to
the rhetoric on the campaign trail. By
the time you get this I will have been
to Cleveland and Philadelphia, and I
hope will have acquired a better sense
of what has happened to our country
and what is likely to happen next.”

From Edward Ferguson:
“Knock, knock, knockin’ on 60’s
door ... otherwise all good.”

Tom Mariam, another of our
leading journalists who moon-
lights as a PR person, notes, “I
was recently honored by the Legal
Marketing Association's New York
chapter as its ‘Member of the Year.”

Wow!

Henry Aronson is a big part of
our musical contingent: “In June I
went to Budapest with Rocktopia
(the classical/classic rock mashup
ensemble), performing a concert
with the Budapest Philharmonic
Orchestra in the beautiful Hungarian
State Opera House. The concert was
taped for PBS and will air during the
November/December pledge drives,
in advance of our tour in spring 2017.
I also had a workshop of my musi-
cal, Loveless Texas (written with my
wife, Cailin Heffern), produced by
Boomerang Theatre Company, which
will be mounting a full production in
New York in March 2017.”

Another musical classmate is
Steven Bargonetti, energetic
as always: “Hi, good people! I’ve
recently been signed on to be music
director/arranger for August Wilson’s
Ma Rainey’ Black Bottom at Los
Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum. It will
be directed by Phylicia Rashad and
features an all-star cast. After finish-
ing this summer with this wonderful
production, I’m headed to London
to revisit my role as music director/
arranger/onstage performer for Pulit-
zer Prize-winner Suzan-Lori Parks’
Father Comes Home From the Wars at
the Royal Court Theatre. I’m looking
forward to all the musical fun!”

Chuck Callan is advocating for
more support for his favorite team
sport: “Matt Reuter’07 (son of Tom
Reuter) has created a website for
Columbia men’s lacrosse, which
sadly is still the only Ivy without a
varsity team. The Columbia lacrosse
club has a long and storied history.
‘There were quite a few CC’78
members on the team including Jay
Beyda, Vinny Palumbo and me.”

Fall 2016 CCT 73

From Bruce Fraser: “I recently
completed 10 years at Sidley Austin
in Los Angeles as a real estate part-
ner. It has been a rewarding practice.
It is always fun to see the buildings
and projects in which I participated
in their development. The players in
real estate are always interesting to
say the least.

“My daughter, Grace, finished
her freshman year at Georgetown
and has been happy there. My son,
Holden, is a junior at Loyola H.S.
Maybe we can get him to Morning-
side Heights in a few years.”

Jeffrey Moerdler of Mintz
Levin in New York writes: “We
had our first two grandchildren
in the last few months. Our son
Jonathan Moerdler and his wife,
Kayla Moerdler OT’16, had a boy,
Zachary Avery, in February and our
son Scott and his wife, Shira Konski,
had a girl, Celia Rose, in June.

Aaron Saul Greenberg also
has kid news: “I’m so proud of my
daughter, Jill Greenberg Karten, a
third-year medical student at SUNY
Downstate. She was a successful
bone marrow donor and helped save
a 5-year-old boy. She met the recipi-
ent at a recent Gift of Life Dinner.

Brian D’Agostino admits, “I am
pleased to be semi-retired, doing
statistical consulting and research
part time, writing a book and enjoy-
ing NYC.”

Kevin Vitting writes, “I was
saddened by the news of the pass-
ing of attorney and horn player
John Ohman, whom I recall was a
serious musician. When he was in
my orchestration class, he chose to
tackle the Bruckner Symphony No. 4.
I send my condolences to his wife
and daughters.”

Keeping an eye on the Midwest
from Wisconsin is Rob Blank, who
always has news: “Daughter Deborah
is a senior in high school and is look-
ing at colleges, Columbia included.
My wife, Sue Coppersmith, is on the
road in Japan, Aspen, and Washing-
ton, D.C. I am holding down the fort
at home and at work, getting new
faculty members on board.”

Sounds like my wife, Marian
Chertow BC’77, recently back from
Japan, Greece and D.C. herself.

Another generational update
from Danilo Feliciano: “My young-
est daughter entered Columbia
College this fall. She follows her
brother, who graduated from the
College in 2011!”

74 CCT Fall 2016

My daughters graduated in the
spring: Elana with a master’s from
Simmons in Boston in archiving and
library science, and Joy with a bach-
elor’s in international service from
American, with a concentration in
Chinese (she’s fluent in Mandarin).
Joy will start at TerraCycle in the fall,
working on signing up companies to
create specialized recycling programs
and perhaps hoping to open a Chi-
nese office in a year. Elana is looking
at museum opportunities in Boston
and New Haven.

My wife teaches at the Yale School
of Forestry & Environmental Studies
and travels the world as a leading
expert in the growing science of
industrial ecology and industrial sym-
biosis (the study of the placement of
industrial systems to minimize waste
and pollution by creating connections
for the use of outputs of one factory to
become the input of another).

I continue to really love my work
for the City of New Haven, dealing
with all of the issues that hit the
front pages of your local papers —
or the B section of the WS/ for New
Yorkers. It’s fun, challenging, gut-
wrenching — and often the balance
between triumph or disappointment
depends on tiny and inexplicable
things such as politics, personalities
or bad luck. Let me know if you
are passing by or have a specialty
in reducing pension burdens or
refinancing public debt.

Cheers!

1949

Robert Klapper

8737 Beverly Blvd., Ste 303
Los Angeles, CA 90048
robertklappermd@aol.com

David Friedman PS’83 has exciting
news: “My son (and newly minted
alumnus) Daniel Friedman 16
received the Robert Lincoln Carey
Memorial Prize from the Colum-
bia College Alumni Association

at graduation, in part due to his
contributions to the University as the
139th publisher of Spectator. Shortly
after graduation, he was admitted to
P&S and was scheduled to begin his
medical education in August. Dad
and Mom are very proud!”

News from Kevin Daly for the
first time! After 30 years as a theater
director and producer (for the Chil-
dren’s Theater Association), Kevin

David Friedman ’79, PS’83 and his son Daniel Friedman 16 on May 17 at
Daniel’s Class Day, where he was presented the Robert Lincoln Carey
Memorial Prize from the Columbia College Alumni Association. The prize
is awarded to a senior who “has created lasting and positive change

by demonstrating leadership qualities in the co-curricular programs of
Columbia College.”

says, “I am retiring and becoming
a school teacher in Baltimore city.
I will teach elementary school in a
high-need area, where 99 percent of
the students qualify for free meals
at school. I am looking forward to
working with children in third, fourth
and fifth grades. I am also looking
forward to having summers free!”
Robert L. Dougherty has raised
more than $160,000 during the last
eight years for a pro-life scholarship.
He says, “We pay Catholic high
school tuition for members of Saint
Thomas the Apostle parish in West
Hempstead, N.Y. Last year, more than
$20,000 was awarded to 16 scholar-
ship winners. The more the student
does to protect the life of the unborn
child, the greater the scholarship.”
Howard Goldschmidt PS’83 is
in his 28th year practicing cardiol-
ogy at Valley Hospital in Ridge-
wood, N.J., including two years as
chief of cardiology. He reports: “The
partnership I co-founded with a
friend from residency now has eight
doctors and is owned by the hospi-
tal. I have turned over my cardiac
catheterization and pacemaker prac-
tice to junior associates, allowing me
to focus on the new sub-specialty of
interventional echocardiography for
minimally invasive valve surgery.
“My daughter, Alyssa, and her
husband, Eli (both Cornell grads),
live in Modi’in-Maccabim Re’ut,
Israel, with our three grandsons. My
wife, Debbie, and I were fortunate

to spend February with them. At the
height of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, I did
a mini-sabbatical as a cardiologist at
Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical
Center. Combining my passions for
Zionism and medicine fulfilled a
dream. I chronicled my medical and
cultural experiences in a well-received
weekly blog (search ‘Howie Gold-
schmidt Times of Israel’). My best
friend from P&S, who was an under-
grad at CUNY, commented that my
writing skills are a testament to the
value of a Columbia education.”

Robert C. Klapper: This issue’s
Columbia memory comes from our
yearbook. On page 14, you will see
two photos that remind us we spent
four years on Morningside Heights in
the late ’70s (the only other item we
have is our diploma, but that’s in Latin
and I still can’t read the damn thing).

You remember the ’70s — that’s
when Studio 54 and disco-mania
filled the airwaves. One photo shows
two guys walking in front of Butler
on their way to a toga party. The
other is of a magazine cover with
the man who made the toga party
a college institution — everyone’s
favorite meshuggenah, John Belushi.
‘The year was 1978, smack in the
middle of our junior year.

I recently had the pleasure of
meeting and interviewing versatile
actor Tim Matheson for my show on
ESPN, The Weekend Warrior. Mathe-
son co-starred with Belushi in the
epic comedy Animal House. Mathe-

son’s work in Hollywood reminded
me of Mickey Mantle, who could hit,
run, throw and catch better than any
other baseball player, making him the
most versatile of them all. He was the
voice of the cartoon character Jonny
Quest, whom we grew up watch-
ing. He starred in the drama The

West Wing as the VP and performed
on Broadway. But his versatility in
Hollywood is most recognized for
his work as a comedic actor, playing
Otter in Animal House.

When I replayed for Matheson
the magical moment in the movie
when he suggests the solution to
the frat’s problem is a toga party, my
mind immediately went to page 14
of our yearbook and my memory
of pulling the sheets off my bed,
heading across the street to Barnard,
hoping the sheets might have two
purposes in my future.

Aaahbhh ... to be 20 again! What
was your most memorable party?
Let me know at robertklappermd@

aol.com. Roar, Lion, Roar!

1980

Michael C. Brown
London Terrace Towers
410 W. 24th St., Apt. 18F
New York, NY 10011
mcbcu80@yahoo.com

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 40
years since our high school gradua-
tion and we first set foot on campus.
I remember moving into Carman
Hall on a hot summer day and
getting ready for freshman football
camp. Never did I think that an
amazing journey of great experiences
and lifelong friends would await me.

I shared an afternoon of golf with
Columbia football coach Al Bagnoli
and his staff, hosted by Shawn
FitzGerald at Friar’s Head. We were
impressed at the professionalism of
the coaches and their dedication to
excellence. It was great to catch up
with John Audino, who was on the
staff back in the day, and reminisce
about coach Bill Campbell’62,
TC’64. [Editor’s note: See Obituar-
ies, Summer 2016.] We are making
great strides in our goal of an Ivy
Championship so let’s make sure we
give our players our support.

Hope to see you at Homecoming
on Saturday, October 22, when we
take on Dartmouth. Drop me a line
at mcbcu80@yahoo.com.

19s

Michael G. Kinsella
543 Nelliefield Trl.
Charleston, SC 29492

_mgk1203@gmail.com

Hope you enjoyed a fun summer.
Cheers to all who made it to Reunion
Weekend 2016, and please update
me on the latest news.

Ed Klees was recently published
in the ABA Business Law Today
with “The ‘Fandation of Risk: Does
a Banking Client Get Its Money
Back after Cyber Theft?” Only Ed
could make banking law sound so
interesting, opening the article with
the following anecdote: “On March
12, 2016, The Washington Post reported
that a nearly $1 billion cyber theft
was blocked at the last minute by a
bank employee who noticed a typo
in the wire instructions at a foreign
bank. According to the Post, but for
the crook’s misspelling the name of
the purported recipient, a charitable
foundation, as a ‘fandation, the Fed-
eral Reserve Bank of New York would
have sent approximately $870 million
of assets to a phony account after
already transmitting $80 million.”

George Ochoa shared memories
of his departed daughter, Martha
Corey-Ochoa ’16, and her works of
poetry, fiction and essays, which can
be found at marthacorey-ochoa.com.

Please keep me updated on your
events, achievements and travels.
I also look forward to hearing
from you about your experience at
reunion: mgk1203@gmail.com.

1982

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Andrew Weisman

81S. Garfield St.
Denver, CO 80209
weisman@comcast.net

Greetings gentlemen! As I put digits
to keyboard it is mid-July. Our

quadrennial, national anti-civics

alumninews

lesson/dumpster fire is in full bloom
for all the world to gawk at; if any-
one has any suggestions on how tc
proceed with the upcoming election
I would be most appreciative! I have
a bad case of “electile-dysfunction,”
as none of the candidates arouse me
enough to vote for them.

Writing in this quarter is accom-
plished business news personality
Fred Katayama JRN’83. For those in
the financial industry, Fred needs no
introduction. For those in more savory
professions, Fred is a news anchor for
Reuters Television and is on the Board
of Directors for both the Japan Soci-
ety and the US-Japan Council. He
has won numerous journalism awards
(too many to mention) but one of my
favorites was the National Journal-
ism Award he won from the Asian
American Journalists Association for a
report he did in 2013 on the science of
the knuckleball.

Fred writes: “My mug and bio
were up on the wall of the JICA
Museum in Japan. The nonprofit
Japan International Cooperation
Agency held a special exhibition
at its museum in Yokohama called
‘Roots in Fukuoka.’ The three-
month-long exhibit that ended in
early June showcased successful
famous people whose ancestral
roots hail from Fukuoka prefecture
in southern Japan. My profile was
next to that of the late Sen. Daniel
Inouye (D-Hawaii). The exhibi-
tion included former Hawaii Gov.
George Ariyoshi and my late uncle,
organ transplant pioneer and UCLA
professor emeritus of surgery, Dr.
Paul Terasaki. Fukuoka, by the way,
is famous among other things for
its tonkotsu ramen, which is the
current rage among foodies in New
York and other big United States
Citlesiaer

“Tm flattered, but I don’t deserve
to be in their company. As my
9-year-old once put it, ‘Daddy, so
many famous people went to Colum-
bia like President Barack Obama’83
and Alexander Hamilton (Class of
1778). How come you're not famous?”

“That aside, I frequently see my
former Columbia professors Carol
Gluck GSAS’77 and Gerry Curtis
SIPA’67, GSAS’69 at Japan Society
board meetings, and my wife and I
get together with my former profes-
sor Donald Keene ’42, GSAS’50 and
his son once a year.”

Also checking in this quarter
is critically acclaimed author and

publisher of the literary magazine
SHINY (founded in 1986) Michael
Friedman. Michael and I recently
discovered that we reside eight
minutes away from each other in
Denver. Subsequently we will be
spending some time doing further
research on human-alcohol interac-
tions and tolerances at my place.

This gig is turning out to be a lot
of fun; last month I had breakfast
with Alex Moon as he was passing
through Denver.

Michael wrote: “The editor of The
Paris Review, Lorin Stein, named my
last book of fiction, Martian Dawn
and Other Novels, a staff pick on The
Paris Review blog and gave it a glow-
ing review. The book is an omnibus
collection of three short novels that
was brought out by Little A, the
literary fiction imprint of Amazon
Publishing, last year. There’s an intro-
duction by Molly Young.”

I grabbed the text of Stein’s
comments from The Paris Review:
“T’ve never read any fan fiction, and
I never made it all the way through
Pretty Woman, so devotees of either
may take this recommendation with
a grain of salt, but I loved Michael
Friedman’s novel Martian Dawn, all
about a couple of movie stars (viz
Richard and Julia) whose off-screen
romance is strained by a visit to the
Red Planet. No doubt half the jokes
went over my head. It didn’t matter.
Friedman’s urbane silliness and élan
hark back to the glittering twilight
of high camp — without seeming to
hark back. Hats off to Little A for
reissuing Martian Dawn and Other
Novels. I didn’t know anyone could
still make it look so easy to have so
much fun on the page.”

What can I say? Nice!

Finally, checking in this period is
gifted entrepreneur Stan Kaplan:
“Sold my financial advisory business
in 2005, switched industries and
have been working in the technology
services and consulting field since.

I left a company after eight years to
start my own (rextechpartners.com)
and am looking forward to another
strong 10-year run. Upon exit of
this business down the road, my
hopes and plans are to start a global
nonprofit to combat world hunger
and travel the globe for both the
nonprofit and pleasure. But first, lots
of technology projects, contracts and
managed services to be scoped and
sold. Very excited about going out on
my own again.”

Fall 2016 CCT 75

If history is any guide, this should

be another wonderful success for Stan.

Keep those notes coming!

1983

Roy Pomerantz
Babyking/Petking
182-20 Liberty Ave.
Jamaica, NY 11412
bkroy@msn.com

Greetings, classmates. Kevin
Chapman, George Wilson and

Ed Joyce proudly held the 1983
banner for this year’s Alumni Parade
of Classes at Class Day in May.

Kevin was scheduled to publish
his second novel this summer. 4
Legacy of One is the story of [fictional
alum] Sen. Jonathan Prescott II
93, whose destiny and political
future reaches a critical crossroads
after Jonathan attends his Columbia
College 20th reunion. A substantial
portion of the story takes place at
Columbia during Jonathan’s college
years, where his experiences and
friends influence the politician he
will become. Columbia alumni will
recognize the setting and many of
the experiences and I hope will relate
to the personal journey that is Jona-
than’s life. The book will be available
in trade paperback and Kindle ebook
formats from Amazon. Search for
“Kevin G. Chapman’ or visit Kevin's
author page at amazon.com/-/e/
BOOJIGJZNM.

Kevin says he would love it if
classmates would write reviews on
Amazon. Don't worry, no real secrets
are revealed and all the names have
been changed to protect the inno-
cent among us. Here is an excerpt
that may evoke some memories:

“January, 1991

“It was a Friday in late January,
and as usual it was bitterly cold in
New York. Frank pushed open the
door to the suite of dorm rooms and
dropped his heavy winter coat onto
the floor, along with his backpack.
He flopped over the back of a
threadbare lounge chair, landing on
his back on the cushion with his
legs draped over the arm. He let out
a loud sigh and stretched his arms
over his head.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Cinder-
ella.’ Jonathan stepped away from the
game of chess he had been playing
with Arnold Epstein and walked
toward Frank's chair. ‘I’m sorry to say

76 CCT Fall 2016

that the maid has failed to arrive for
work today, and so we were hoping
that you would take care of the clean-
ing and the dishes so that we can all
make it to the ball tonight.’ Jonathan
made a sweeping motion with his
hand around the common room as he
finished with a wide grin.

“Frank surveyed the scene. The
suite in Hartley Hall was one of
the nicer living accommodations at
Columbia. It had a circular common
‘living’ room, with a sofa, several
chairs, a coffee table, and a televi-
sion on a metal stand. There was
an empty pizza box on the stained
wooden coffee table. A half-eaten
crust was on the floor underneath.
Next to the television, a paper bag
overflowed with garbage. There were
several empty beer bottles lying on
the bottom shelf under the set, one
of which was still oozing its last
suds. Adjoining the living room
was a kitchen with a marble-topped
counter, a stove, sink, refrigerator,
and microwave oven. The counter
was littered with remnants of the
day’s meals and the sink was full
of dirty glasses and dishes. There
were eight sophomores and juniors
sharing the suite. Each had a private
room that opened off of the main
living room, except for Jay and Ellis,
who shared the lone double room in
the suite, but that was their choice.
The common bathroom was near
the main suite door. Although Frank
had cajoled the other seven residents
to establish a schedule for cleaning
duties at the start of the semester, it
seemed to Frank that everyone made
a reasonable effort to keep the place
tidy and clean up after themselves
— except when it was Frank’s week.
This was Frank’s week.

“This is bullshit.’ Frank was
annoyed, but he could tell from the
smile on Jonathan’s face that he’d
get no help with the cleanup. “We're
only back from break for two weeks.
How can you slobs get the place so
dirty in two freaking weeks?’

“You set up the rules, bro,’ Jona-
than shot back. ‘All the rest of us can
do is follow your direction. You can
lead us to the promised land.’

“T thought I was Cinderella,
not Moses.’

“We're flexible with our meta-
phors.’ Jonathan walked back to
the chess game, where Arnold had
been waiting.”

Chris Angeline: “I thought you
might be interested in some athletics

accomplishments of children of
three ’83 grads. Here is a brief sum-
mary: Kieth Cockrell was the most
talented skill position football player
in our class and probably the best
athlete. He was an excellent wide
receiver. Kieth and his wife, Serena,
live in the Charlotte, N.C.., area.
Their youngest, Anna, is a fresh-
man at the University of Southern
California. Anna was a record-
setting hurdler in high school and
competed in the Olympic Trials in
Oregon in July. Ciera is an outside
hitter (women’s volleyball) at David-
son College in North Carolina. She
is a sophomore. The oldest, Ross
(6-0, 191 lbs.), was a two-time
football captain at Duke. He was
drafted in the fourth round of the
NFL draft by the Buffalo Bills in
2014 and was a starting cornerback
for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2015.
Having one kid play a Division 1
sport is pretty good; what the Cock-
rell kids have done is amazing.

“Dr. Mike Pagnani was captain
of our freshman football team and a
very tough linebacker. We had some
good players but not enough. We
also lost some of our best players
(transfers) when Bill Campbell
62, TC’64 resigned as head coach.
Mike and his wife, Kelly, live in the
Nashville area. Their son, Connor,
graduated from Denver in 2015.
Connor played lacrosse for one of
the best men’s lacrosse programs
in the country; he played midfield.
‘The 6-4, 190-lb. former All-League
high school linebacker (in football)
helped the Denver Pioneers win the
men’s National Lacrosse Champion-
ship in 2015. Connor’s sister, Sarah,
won All-Region honors in lacrosse
at her high school, Harpeth Hall
(Nashville). Sarah is a junior at
Santa Clara University.

“Chris Angeline and his wife,
Kathleen, live in the Philadelphia
area. Son Ryley graduated from
Downingtown East HLS. in 2014.
He was selected All-Southeastern
Pennsylvania in football and All-
League in basketball. He rushed for
3,000 yards and scored 31 TDs in
high school. Ryley is a sophomore
football player at Delaware. Ryley
(6-3, 230 lbs., H-Back) started four
games as a redshirt freshman in
2015, averaged 18 yards per recep-
tion and was named to the CAA
All-Academic team. Son Cary is a
recent graduate of Downingtown

East H.S. He was selected Prep

All-American (in football) in 2015
and All-State in 2014 and 2015.

He finished his high school career
with more than 2,300 receiving
yards and 30 TDs. Cary also was
selected league MVP in basket-

ball and three-time All-Area, and
scored more than 1,300 points in
three years (he did not play his
senior year). Cary is a 6-7, 230-lb.
freshman tight end at the University
of Southern California. Daughter
Jessica is a freshman at Downing-
town East H.S. She plays volleyball
and lacrosse, and some think she has
a chance to be a better all-around
athlete than her brothers.”

From Gardner Semet BUS’91:
“T live in Pompton Lakes, N_J., in
the house where I grew up. I make
loans to real estate investors, as I
have done for 30 years. My office is
above Saks Fifth Avenue. My wife,
Daphne, and son, Victor, work at
Mount Sinai Hospital. My daughter,
Gabriella, works in retail leasing
in Manhattan. While Gabriella
was at Colorado, I often visited Dr.
Douglas Novins and his family.
‘This year, I also visited Jon Ross in
Los Angeles. In July I returned to
Columbia for Youth About Business’
Summer Business Camp, which
teaches high school kids about
finance. I am on the organization’s
New York advisory board.”

Michael Broder: “In 2015 I
launched an independent poetry press,
Indolent Books, initially as a home
for poets over 50 who did not have a
first book but I broke my own rules
from the outset. In spring 2016 we
published our first five books and have
received a great response. My own first
book of poems, This Life Now (2014),
was a finalist for the 2015 Lambda
Literary Award for Gay Poetry. Also
in 2015 I started the HIV Here &
Now project, posting a poem a day by
a different poet in a countdown to 35
years of AIDS on June 5, 2016. That
project received attention from PBS
NewsHour, thebody.com and POZ
magazine, among others. Now that
the countdown has concluded, the
project continues with a print poetry
anthology in the works and online
blog posts from contributing editors.
My dream is to grow HIV Here &
Now into an organization that uses
literature and the arts to reach out to
youth in NYC with HIV or at high
risk for HIV infection to empower
them and connect them to testing,
treatment and prevention services.

Several members of the Class of 84 met up at the annual Alumni Parade of
Classes on Class Day, May 17, to carry the 1984 banner. Left to right: Alicia
Bergstein SEAS’84, Alfred Torres, Gerard Babendreier, David Lewinter,
David Kung, Kevin Lis and Dennis Klainberg.

“In more ancient history, I

completed my doctorate in classics

at The Graduate Center (CUNY)

in 2010. I was a postdoctoral fellow
at the University of South Carolina
2011-12. I left the academic job
market in 2013 to pursue full-time
freelance medical writing as well as
my creative projects. While much of
my medical writing is work for hire,
I have published dozens of articles
under my own byline on MedPage
Today, a growing online destination
for healthcare professionals. I own a
townhouse in Bedford-Stuyvesant
(arguably the hottest neighborhood
in gentrifying Brooklyn), where I live
with my husband of 12-years, award-
winning poet Jason Schneiderman,
and a backyard colony of stray and
feral cats. Jason has a doctorate in
English from The Graduate Center
(CUNY) and is an associate profes-
sor of English at the Borough of
Manhattan Community College. He
has recently published his third book
of poems (Primary Source) and edited
Queer: A Reader for Writers, the first
volume of its kind.”

Jim Weinstein ’84 writes: “Not
only did the Columbia varsity
lightweight crew 8 win the national
championship but also the varsity 4
(their ninth-12th best oarsmen) won
silver in the Kar/-Ludwig Selig. This
is the third KLS they have rowed
— the first two christened by the
professor, the third posthumously
donated. But for Georgetown row-

ing their top four men in the varsity
4 race, we would have had a gold
medal in the KLS.”

In July my family traveled
to London and Paris. While in
Paris, we had dinner with my
son’s classmate and his father, Jean
Manas. Jean shared the story of how
Barack Obama beat Jean out “fair
and square” to become president
of the Harvard Law Review. Jean
is in touch with Barack and fellow
Harvard Law Review member Julius
Genachowski’85.

I attended the 2016 Seixas Award
Dinner at the Robert K. Kraft Fam-
ily Center for Jewish Student Life
honoring Ron Perelman. Ron spoke
movingly about his love for Robert
K. Kraft’63, Ron’s mentor, confidant,
business adviser and dear friend.
Neal Smolar and his wife, Betsy
Smolar BC’85, also attended. Neal
has been an attorney with UBS for
17 years. Son Aidan attends Cooper
Union; daughter Abigail graduated
from Maryland and is pursuing an
Au.D. in audiology; and daughter
Yael will graduate from Binghamton
this spring. Neal is in touch with
Eddy Friedfeld, Lenny Rosen,
Adam Bayroff, Danny Schultz,
Paul Ehrlich, Larry Herman, David
Kriegel, Eli Gordis, Steven Aren-
son, Michael Katz, Ed Joyce and
Roy Pomerantz.

Michelle Obama posted a photo
of herself beaming while wearing
a Princeton shirt next to a smiling

adlumninews

Barack Obama wearing Columbia
gear. Michelle noted on the White
House website, “I am proudly wear-
ing my alma mater’s apparel to mark
College Signing Day.”

My pet company, Petking,
recently signed licensing deals with
Animal Planet and The Humane
Society of the United States. My
baby company, Baby King, signed a
deal with Nickelodeon for the Paw
Patrol license.

I attended the 2016 Nacom Initia-
tion Dinner. Michael C. Brown’80,
Jack Hersch SEAS’80, David Maloof
80, Mike Schmidtberger’82, former
Director of Admissions Larry Momo
°73 and fellow class correspondent
Ken Howitt’76 also attended.

Our college is becoming more
international. At a recent Columbia
College Alumni Association Board
of Directors meeting we learned
international students make up 15
percent of the incoming class.

Please write or call. The column
is only as good as the updates you
send me!

1984

Dennis Klainberg

Berklay Cargo Worldwide
14 Bond St., Ste 233
Great Neck, NY 11021
dennis@berklay.com

The Alumni Parade of Classes at
Class Day is a great opportunity

for College alumni to network, pay
tribute to reunion classes, memorial-
ize Columbians who have recently
passed and hold their class banner
high as we share the joy of gradu-
ation with the senior class. If you
have not done it, please consider
joining us next year and in years to
come! This year the Class of 1984
had an excellent showing, for a non-
reunion class.

Following a sumptuous breakfast at
John Jay Dining Hall, Ken Howitt’76
recognized this year’s reunion classes
and led us in a toast to the recently
deceased Columbia University Trustee
Emeritus, Columbia football great
and Silicon Valley leader “Coach” Bill
Campbell’62,TC’64 and Columbia
basketball standout and Los Angeles
Lakers champion Jim McMillian’70.
[Editor’s note: See Obituaries, Sum-
mer 2016.]

‘Then, from the far corners of
this packed room, Al Torres, David

Lewinter, Kevin Liss, David Kung
and Gerard Babendreier joined
this writer up front to grab the ban-
ner. David Kung’s son, Nathan Kung
16; David Lewinter’s son, Benjamin
Lewinter 16; Kevin's son, Daniel
Liss ’16; and Gerard’s children,
Stephen Babendrier’16 and Theresa
Babendrier 16, are all now alumni.

Also at graduation, but not march-
ing: Yitzchak Francus, father of
Penina Francus’16; Peregrine Beck-
man, father of Eleanor Beckman ’16;
Brett Bernstein, father of Nicole
Bernstein 16; and Peter Lunenfeld,
father of Kyra Lunenfeld’16.

Our class was also honored to
have invited guest Alicia Perez
Bergstein SEAS’84, mother of
graduate Devin Bergstein 16, join us
in the procession. Alicia’s husband
and Devin’s father, Daniel Bergstein
SEAS’84, died at the World Trade
Center on 9-11. He was the secretary
of the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey, where he had
worked for 17 years and was the chief
liaison between the agency’s staff and
its board of commissioners. Devin’s
graduation from the alma mater
of both his parents is more than a
double legacy: It is a family triumph,
albeit bittersweet, and presents a
great inspiration for all Columbians
to share in this 15th year of remem-
brance. Roar, Lion, Roar.

1985

Jon White

16 South Ct.

Port Washington, NY 11050
jw@whitecoffee.com

Eric Chenoweth’s organization, the
Institute for Democracy in Eastern
Europe, recently released a major
study: “25 Years After 1989-91:
Reflections on Unfinished Revolu-
tions.” It features contributions from
many of the major participants in
the democratic revolutions of that
era, who analyze the events and
the disturbing state of the region
of Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union 25 years after the col-
lapse of communism (idee-us.org).
Curtis Mo does corporate and
securities work with DLA Piper in
Silicon Valley, “though I seem to
spend an equal amount of time in
San Francisco. In my spare time, I’ve
been coaching Babe Ruth League
baseball with JV-level players.”

Fall 2016 CCT 77

Michael Hadley: “The big news
on my end is the production of the
new comedy web series ‘Knights of
New Jersey,’ a behind-the-scenes
look at the daily grind, humilia-
tions and petty politics endured by a
group of Renaissance Fair/Game of
Thrones fans and cosplay performers
pursuing a world of make-believe,
where virtues like courage, honor
and leadership are real.

“The first four episodes are on
YouTube at youtube.com/c/knights
ofnewjersey, with more on the way.
We've been accepted into a dozen
festivals across the country so far and
are looking to secure a production
deal. It’s been a huge amount of work
but a huge amount of fun, and a great
change of pace from the sponsored
films and marketing videos we create
for our corporate and nonprofit clients.

“T have also enjoyed recent
events hosted by the Columbia
University Club of New Jersey,

a great local group.”

Pat Gaughan has been pro-
moted to assistant dean of global
programs at the University of Akron
School of Law. Pat graduated from
UVA School of Law (J.D.’89),
Trinity College Dublin (M.B.A.’97)
and Cleveland State (D.B.A.’15).
He has a primary appointment in
the University of Akron School of
Law with a secondary appointment
in its College of Business Adminis-
tration. His promotion to assistant
dean focuses on partnerships with
universities throughout Asia. In
fact, he is in the process of finalizing
agreements with schools in Hanoi
and Danang. Those with contacts to
other schools are welcome to contact
him at pgaughan@uakron.edu.

Dennis Hirsch reports that the
Ohio State Moritz College of Law
recently appointed him profes-
sor of law and faculty director of
its newly-launched program on
data and governance. The program
studies the most effective ways to
govern big data analytics in order
to achieve its social and economic
benefits and reduce the risks it poses
to privacy, cybersecurity and equal-
ity. Dennis further reports that The
University of Amsterdam’s Institute
for Information Law has appointed
him co-organizer of its summer
course on privacy law and policy
(ivir.nl/courses/plp). Finally (and
most importantly), Dennis’ daughter,
Clara Hirsch ’20, lives in Wallach.

Go Lions!

78 CCT Fall 2016

Denis Searby is at Stockholm
University, where he is professor of
Greek and head of classics, strug-
gling to “defend the (from the point
of view of Eurocrats) useless subject
of classics. This summer I worked
feverishly on my book on the anec-
dotes of ancient Greek celebrities
before the fall term teaching load
hit me. Last year I finally finished
my four-volume translation of the
works of Saint Birgitta (Bridget)
of Sweden from Latin into English
for Oxford University Press. I keep
active Columbia-wise by interview-
ing prospective Swedish students
with the Alumni Representative
Committee. Several have been
admitted! I am also house daddy at a
college residence called Larkstaden
where the 18- and 19-year-old stu-
dents keep me young and busy.”

Tom King spent three years with
the Class of 85, then needed to take
two years off for health reasons and
graduated with the Class of 87. He
writes: “Recently the alumni associa-
tion was kind enough to map me to
the Class of 1985, where I have the
most friends.

“In 2013 I moved to Raleigh,
N.C., after a number of years in
quantitative finance and financial
modeling in New York and Phila-
delphia. The move was aimed to slow
my life down, although I continue to
work. My wife, Shannyn, and I have
two children, Jacob (25) and Zoe
(13). Although it’s a little hot down
here in the summer, the winters are
short and the countryside is pretty.

“T keep in touch with a number
of my old friends through LinkedIn:
Arthur Morin, Sean Tierney,

Matt Samelson, Denis Searby,
David Peng ’83, John Pearce, Ben
Chance and John Brune SEAS’86.

“I wish everybody the best!”

Last issue I gave an incorrect email
address in an update for Jon Reich
— sorry about that, Jon. You can reach
him at jdreich@hotmail.com.

Rose Hoban has been the editor
of North Carolina Health News for 4%
years (northcarolinahealthnews.org),
joining the ranks of the online-only.
Rose says, “It’s been an adventure,
especially as I’m also the legislative
reporter. I’ve had a front row seat to
the goings-on at the North Carolina
General Assembly for the past five
sessions, which has been... um ...
interesting. Bathroom bills! Gerry-
mandering! Infighting! Misdemean-
ors and felonies! What they say about

CSAPLAR '56, BUS’58

COURTESY

lawmaking and sausages is really true
but it’s also hard to look away. I no
longer wonder why political report-
ers are so cynical. I had a flask of
bourbon in my bag on the last day of
session this year, treated myself to a
nip once that last gavel fell, then got
back to work. Cheers!”

Philip Ivory is a freelance writer in
Tucson (writeyouselfsane.com). His
fiction has been published in Literally
Stories, Devolution Z, Bewildering
Stories and Dali’s Lovechild and soon
will appear in Mystic Iuminations.
He is a winner of the 2015 Writers’
Studio Tucson “Write-to-Read”
contest for his story Most of Us Are
From Someplace Else.

“The softcover version of my
2015 W.W. Norton & Co. volume
Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs,
E.B. White, James Thurber, and the
Golden Age of The New Yorker
should be available shortly,” writes
Thomas Vinciguerra. “I’m happy
about its reception and, having done
some gigs to promote the original,

I expect to make a paperback push
this fall — including, perhaps, a
dog-and-pony show at the Colum-
bia University Club of New York.

“Far more important, I remain
gratified beyond measure by the
ongoing flourishing of the Philo-
lexian Society. I still can’t believe

that this oldest and most distin-
guished of undergraduate extracur-

ricular activities had been dead for

more than two decades when I and
five compatriots were lucky enough
to revive it on October 16, 1985.

“A literal generation on, my pride
is inestimable. With arcane ritual,
humor and underlying Columbia
love, Philo hews to its original
constitutional pledge, made upon
our founding in 1802: “To improve
its members in oratory, composition,
and forensic discussion.’

“Time and again, I’ve seen young
Philos gain self-confidence and liter-
ary skill by declaiming in public and
holding forth on the printed page.
‘Their imagination, energy, diversity,
myriad activities and solidarity are
inspiring. We have plenty of chal-
lenges to overcome — mainly our
lack of physical space, despite the
Trustees having promised to build us
(and our vanquished rival, Peitholo-
gian) our own building in 1821. The
much-vaunted Lerner Hall is appall-
ingly inadequate. But we thrive and
remain confident that the Univer-
sity’s ever-growing acknowledgment
of our primacy will continue.

“In the early 90s, the students
dubbed me their ‘Avatar.’ They still
call me that, and no honor will ever
mean more to me.”

Andrew Hayes recently visited
Greece for the first time since
traveling there during his junior
year as a Columbia Visiting Scholar
at Oxford. He was introduced to
Greek coffee as an undergrad by his
roommate, Basil Michaels ’83, and
sought it out as soon as he landed at
the Athens Airport. “A barista was
happy to ignore the frappuccinos on
the posted menu and serve me the
real thing,” he said.

Andrew’s and his wife Monica
Hayes SIPA’91’s son, Sean, is training
for the USRowing Junior National
team. One of Sean's coaches is
Jesse Foglia, assistant coach of the
Columbia men’s lightweight rowing
team that recently won the national
lightweight rowing championship —
Columbia's first lightweight rowing
championship and first rowing title
of any kind since 1929.

Finally, I was pleased to attend
this summer’s All-Class Reunion
(formerly known as Dean's Day)
where, as part of the reunion festivi-
ties, David Zapolsky and I joined
several Kingsmen, including Phil
Birnbaum ’86, Tony Burnett 90
and Hank Jaffe ’86, for an alumni
reception and short concert featur-
ing some Kingsmen favorites. Some
of us also joined Sha Na Na the
night before for a rousing rendition
of Roar, Lion, Roar. If anyone else
attended reunion, please let us know
about your adventures!

1986

Everett Weinberger
50 W. 70th St., Apt. 3B
New York, NY 10023
everett6@gmail.com

It was great seeing everyone who
came to our 30th reunion in June!
Reunion Weekend 2016 kicked

off with a reception at Sardi’s on
‘Thursday night, followed by the
Broadway musical On Your Feet!,
which was generously sponsored

by Scott Yagoda. On Friday night
there was an on-campus beer tasting
with appetizers at Joe Coffee at the
unimaginatively named Northwest
Corner Building. On Saturday we
had our class dinner at Casa Italiana
with speaker Jim McMenamin,
who was head of admissions when
we were accepted to Columbia and
is now senior associate dean for
Columbia College development and

senior director of principal gifts. In
keeping with our iconoclast spirit,
many (including the entire Califor-
nia contingent) passed on all official
events in favor of the Saturday
barbecue on Low Plaza.

Thanks to the Reunion Com-

"mittee, including Rick Wolf, who

was chair and Grand Poobah; Scott
Yagoda, who led fundraising efforts;
Brian Driscoll, who came up with
the idea of having McMenamin as
our dinner speaker; Phil Birnbaum,
who worked tirelessly to put together
the beer tasting; and David Lebow-
itz. All, along with Bill Teichner,
helped come up with the amusing
trivia questions at the dinner.

Bill waited for the 30th to attend
his first reunion and here are his
impressions: “The reunion food
was much better than the food
we were served as students at the
John Jay Dining Hall! During his
presentation at our class dinner,

Jim McMenamin asked us if we
thought we'd be rejected if we were
applying to Columbia College

now. I believe everyone raised their
hands. I decided to stay at Carman
Hall during the reunion — the last
time I moved in was freshman year.
Carman now has air conditioning!
This was welcome with 80-90 degree
temperatures. Carman also now has
Wi-Fi, recycling bins and a computer
room. I stayed on the eighth floor,
the same floor where students once
brought in the infamous rug body.
Sha Na Na, the group that formed
at Columbia from the Kingsmen
and played at Woodstock, put on a
great performance for a large crowd
in Alfred Lerner Hall (Ferris Booth
Hall’s replacement). They invited
Kingsmen from our class and other
reunion years on stage to sing Roar,
Lion, Roar with them.”

Bill is a portfolio manager in
Boston for Frontier Capital Manage-
ment, where he’s been since 1992,
shortly after earning an M.B.A. from
Harvard. Prior to that he was an
analyst at Lehman and then spent
two years as associate junior staff
economist at the Council of Eco-
nomic Advisers at The White House.
His wife, Amy, is a medical doctor.

Congrats to Victor Bolden, who
recently became a federal judge!
Here’s his update: “After years of
working as a lawyer in the nonprofit
world in New York (the ACLU
and the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund), and in the

private and public sector in Con-
necticut (as an attorney at the law
firm of Wiggin and Dana and as the
Corporation Counsel of the City of
New Haven, respectively), I now am
a district judge for the United States
District Court of Connecticut.

“Our 30th reunion was a wonder-
ful event and J appreciate the hard
work of Scott Yagoda, Eric Wolf
and the countless others who made
it a success. I enjoyed spending time
with my roommate of two years, Ray
Mitchell, and the host of classmates
whom I had not seen in decades.”

Erstwhile rower and Reaganite
Jack Crane recently observed his
third year in teeming Manila with
Aboitiz Power Corp., a $7 billion
blue chip Philippine conglomerate,
where he leads international busi-
ness development, developing power
projects throughout Southeast Asia.
Jack previously worked in corporate
development and consulting for
major power and utilities firms,
living in Hartford, Conn.; San Fran-
cisco; Washington; and Toronto, and
traveling all over the world. Jack says
he feels truly blessed to have lived
so rich and varied a life. His wife,
Meg, is also an avid traveler, and
they drag their daughter Mirielle (9)
around the globe with them. Jack
keeps in touch with Frans Kramer
and David Skoog as well as family
members Hugh Crane’88 and
Susan Loring Crane’89.

From Ed Maguire: “I live in
Millburn, N.J., with my wife, Lily,
and children, Teddy (16) and Livia
(14). Pm in my seventh year at
CLSA as a technology analyst,
which provides endless opportu-
nities to pursue my intellectual
curiosity. Thanks to the urging of
my neighbor Ron Papka’87, I’ve
reengaged in writing, playing and
producing music actively, which
helps with a sense of balance in life.
It was terrific to catch up with class-
mates at reunion; it just reinforces
the enormous gratitude for my expe-
rience at Columbia.”

From Mark Berman: “As of June
1, 1 am chair of the Commercial
and Federal Litigation Section of
the New York State Bar Associa-
tion. I author a column in the New
York Law Journal on eDiscovery and
lecture on social media. I practice as
a commercial litigator at Ganfer &
Shore in Manhattan. My boys, Jesse
and Aidan, are in-first and second

grade and go to Lower Lab public

school in Manhattan. They again
attended Hollingsworth Science
Camp at Teachers College this sum-
mer, which I brought them to every
day; sometimes we walked on Col-
lege Walk and played on the Sundial
when they got to camp early.”

1987

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sarah A. Kass

PO Box 300808
Brooklyn, NY 11230
ssk43@columbia.edu

Keep your eyes glued to these pages
in the next few months — Reunion
Weekend 2017 (our 30th!) is on its
way. Start making your travel plans
and your party plans. More details
will be posted as they become avail-
able. If you would like to participate
in the planning, please be in touch
and I will direct your requests to the
appropriate people. But do make
sure you participate in the reunion
itself! It’s not every day that the
first fully coeducational class at
Columbia College gets to celebrate
the 30th anniversary of its gradua-
tion! Remember, we have to honor
the fact that we were the trailblazers,
even if current Columbia College
women do not remember there was
a time when they would not have
been eligible for admission.

On to the news: Judy Kim lives
in London and has founded a private
tourism company, Chelsea Tours
(ctours.co.uk or hello@ctours.co.uk)
that “will take you on a ‘magical tour of
the English countryside of yore ....’””

Judy says, “A pleasant way to
spend the day ... a charming and
knowledgeable driver will pick
you up at your London hotel and
take you on a bespoke tour of the
Cotswolds and bring you back to
your doorstep at the end of the day,
hassle-free.” She adds that the tour
guides have graduate degrees and she
is recruiting only from U.K. schools
such as Oxford. Judy has a special
deal for Columbia grads only — use

Fall 2016 CCT 79

Alumni Sons and Daughters

Sixty-two members of the College Class of 2020 and three members of the Engineering Class of 2020

are sons or daughters of College alumni. This list is alphabetical by the parent(s) last name.

STUDENT

Alyssa Adamo
Bohemia, N.Y.

William Alleyne
La Jolla, Calif.

Ruthy Amkraut
Beachwood, Ohio

Anthony Argenziano
Closter, N.J.

Alexander Ashton
Fort Lee, NJ.

Jillian Barry
Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

Juliana Bartels
Palisades, N.Y.

Sarah Barth
Teaneck, NJ.

Ruth Gottesman
Port Washington, N.Y.

Alfredo Brillembourg
New York City

Krishna Canning
Wellesley, Mass.

Samuel Cheng
Piedmont, Calif:

Madeleine Coleman
Lexington, Mass.

Daniel Desouza
Darien, Conn.

Ruth Diamond
Narberth, Pa.

Tara Dugel
Paradise Valley, Ariz.

Christian Eggers
Yonkers, N.Y.

Ellis Feldman
New York City

Karina Ma. Tere Feliciano
Metro Manila, Philippines

Nicole Fischbein
New Rochelle, N.Y.

Isabella Nilsson
Cleveland

Leo Goldman
Highland Park, N.J.

Jules Greenfield *
New Rochelle, N.Y.

80 CCT Fall 2016

PARENT
Anthony Adamo’82

Neville Alleyne ’79
Brian Amkraut’90
Michael Argenziano 88
and Maria Rodino’88
Jennifer Ashton ’91
John Barry’75
Matthew Bartels ’85

Jay Barth’85

Karen Bernstein ’87

Alfredo Brillembourg Sr.’84

Robert Canning ’81

Andrew Cheng ’89

Steven Coleman’83

Patrick DeSouza’80

Robert Diamond ’82

Pravin Dugel’84

Arnold Eggers 67

David Feldman’85

Danilo Feliciano ’78

Lewis Fischbein 72

Ingrid Geerken’90

Alan Goldman’80

Gerald Greenfield’81

STUDENT

Hallie Gruder
Bronx, N.Y.

Christopher Gustafsson

Randolph, N.J.

Lauren Hagani
Woodbridge, Conn.

Clara Hirsch
Columbus, Ohio

Benjamin Jones
Wayland, Mass.

Nicole Kaiser
Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J.

Jacob Kaplan
Washington, D.C.

Lucas Katz
Anchorage

Michael Kirschner *
Scarsdale, N.Y.

Saraswathi Kowdley
Seattle

Michael Chu
Singapore
Sabrina Lautin

East Hampton, N.Y.

Talia Coyne
New York City

Wesley Lewis
Washington, D.C.

Elizabeth Marino
Harrison, N.Y.

Nathaniel Marrinson
Chicago

Brennan McManus
New York City

Nicole Mendelson
Miami

Samuel Merkin
Englewood, N.J.

Maya Nayyar
New York City

Charles Orlinsky

Baltimore

Amanda Perez
Coral Gables, Fla.

Olivia Pollack
Larchmont, N.Y.

PARENT
Bruce Gruder’82

John Gustafsson ’83

James Hagani’85

Dennis Hirsch ’85

Clayton Jones 81

Michelle E. Kaiser’87

Robert Kaplan ’89

Howard Katz’81

Kenneth Kirschner ’91

and Elyse Kirschner ’90

Kris Kowdley’81

Mary Kuo ’92

Jeffrey Lautin’85

Roger Lehecka’67

Mark Lewis ’86

Richard Marino 82

Thomas Marrinson’86

Jerry McManus ’89

Victor Mendelson ’89

Solomon Merkin ’78

Ashok Nayyar’85

Diane Orlinsky’88

Raymond Perez ’86

Mark Pollack ’80

STUDENT PARENT
Camille Ramos Frederick Ramos ’86
Eden Prairie, Minn.

Nathaniel Saffran Alan Saffran’81
Winter Park, Fla.

Naay Idriss Kirsten Scheid 92

Beirut, Lebanon

Ezra Schwarzbaum Paul Schwarzbaum 84

West Bloompeld, Mich.

Rumi Sherriff Kirk Sherriff ’90
Fresno, Calif.
Zain Sherriff Kirk Sherriff ’90

Fresno, Calif.

Alexander Sissoko
Culver City, Calif:

Pamela Soulis
Cheyenne, Wyo.

Carolyn Sissoko 92

John Soulis’83

Hana Sun John Sun’87
Moraga, Calif.

Libby Sun Lazarus Sun’$1
Irvine, Calif:

Julia Tell Martin Tell 85
Pelham, N.Y. and Michele Anzilotti’87
Ariana Tsanas John Tsanas 81
Summit, NJ.

Morgana Van Peebles Mario Van Peebles ’78

Playa del Rey, Calif:

Alexander Watkins-Goodman _ Beverly Watkins ’93
West Cornwall, Conn.

Ivan Wolansky
Independence, Ohio

Leo Wolansky’80

Lauren Yagoda
North Caldwell, N.J.

Scott Yagoda’86

Karina Yeh * Hung-Wei Yeh ’86
Livingston, N.J.

Arnold Zahn Chester Zahn’78
San Marino, Calif:

John Zaris Steven Zaris 78

Park Ridge, Ill.

Five incoming College transfer students are
sons or daughters of College alumni.

STUDENT PARENT

John Cervone’18™ Joseph Cervone’75
Graham Glusman’19 John Glusman’78
Emily Kerman ’19 Mark Kerman’83
Alexander Rabinowitz’19 Laurence Rabinowitz’71

Ottomar Shih ’19 Scott Shih’84

* member of the Engineering Class of 2020
** Combined Plan Program (College and Engineering)

the code “CCLions” for 10 percent
off a tour booked via the website.
Cathy Webster says, “While
raising and wrangling my kids,
Meredith (16) and Thayer (11),
remains the hardest job ever, on
July 1 I became dean of the College
of Liberal Arts at the University
of Central Oklahoma. I have been
working there for 10 years as a
French professor and, more recently,
as department chair. Hoping to
serve faculty and students right in
the tradition of Dean Robert Pol-
lack’61; Dean Roger Lehecka’67,
GSAS’74; Dean Sandra Johnson;

family and [at this writing] in a few
weeks’ time, I will be going back to
research full-time in Marseille. I
am changing orientations at work,
too, switching from immunology to
developmental biology and swap-

_ ping mice for fruit flies. Again, a bit

of change here will do some good
— the academic science world is a
pretty tough place these days.

“Of course, Marseille is light years
away from 116th and Broadway
and apart from various Columbia
Facebook contacts — and the thrill
of regularly finding pieces in The New
York Times about my Fairholm roomie

Annemarie Coffman Lellouch '87 notes, “The opportunity

to dip one’s toes into another profession at the advanced

age of 50 was a really refreshing experience.”

Dean Leora Neter SW’79; Dean
Blake Thurman; and the late Dean
Karen Blank T'C’81, for whom I also
worked at Barnard and whose steady
presence shaped me dramatically.”

Annemarie Coffman Lellouch
writes: “I am still in Marseille with
my husband, Laurent (silver wed-
ding anniversary on the horizon this
fall?!), and our sons, ages 16 and 13.

“T recently ended a yearlong sab-
batical in which I left my research
position in immunology with the
French national research agency
(CNRS) in Marseille and went to
London to work for a leading medical
communications firm. On a profes-
sional level, it was a fascinating experi-
ence, from which I learned a lot about
the global pharmaceutical industry,
clinical trial regulation and, well, com-
munication. I also learned more than I
ever wanted to know about overactive
bladder syndrome (the therapeutic
target of my principal client) and
urinary incontinence with aging (it
aint going to be fun, folks ... ).

‘Just the opportunity to dip one’s
toes into another profession at the
advanced age of 50 was in itself a
really refreshing experience. On
a personal level, it was difficult as
I spent the better part of the last
year commuting weekly between
Marseille and London, before finally
tele-commuting from Marseille
this spring. I had lovely housemates
and friends in the United Kingdom
but it was all too much for the

and science rock star Leslie Vosshall
(tenured professor at Rockefeller
University and world specialist in
mosquito olfaction, among other
things) — I have had few CC con-
tacts. However, Esther Chung and
her husband, Dennis Lee GSAS’90,
came through the south of France
with their two daughters in summer
2014 and we had a short but fantastic
visit. We visited the new museums
and recently renovated dock areas

in Marseille, played tennis on our
local club’s clay courts (we discov-
ered tennis is a passion our families
share) and, of course, had a dinner
out for the famous Marseille specialty
bouillabaisse (and, for the brave, a
lesser-known delicacy called aliboufi, a
local variant of the prairie oyster). This
spring, I helped Dennis get tickets

to the French Open. I am hoping to
make it to the U.S. Open in the years
to come as he returns the favor.

“This winter while in London,
the travel stars were aligned to allow
a lovely evening with Carla Cerami,
who was coming through London
on her way home to Chapel Hill,
N.C., after a work trip to The Gam-
bia as part of her medical research
into malaria. I hadn't seen her since
she came to Marseille to visit in
2002.1 hope we see each other more
frequently from here on out.

“This year in Europe — the suc-
cessive terrorist attacks on Charlie
Hebdo, Paris and Brussels; the immi-
gration crisis; the Brexit referendum;

alumninews ‘

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extreme labor unrest in France — has
been difficult. Not that looking back
home to the recent tragic events in
Orlando and the utterly incompre-
hensible United States election cycle
looks much better. At the moment
we, like others, are escaping to the
world of football as France hosted
the Euro Cup 2016 and six matches
were held here in Marseille. As I am
in between jobs now, I admit to hav-
ing watched most of the elimination
round matches as well as attending
the infamous England vs. Russia
match (where the game’s hooligan
violence put Marseille on the front
page of most newspapers). With each
match the city is filled with support-
ers and tourists from all over (Hun-
gary, Albania, Iceland and Poland,
to name a few) and fortunately, the
atmosphere is mostly joyous and ‘bon
enfant’ as the event is intended to be.
As we were scheduled to vacation in
Iceland later this summer, Iceland has
become our new favorite underdog
team, after France and England.”

And last but in no way least, I
heard from Karin Wolman, who
was selected to the 2016 New York
Metro Super Lawyers list “for excel-
lence in her business immigration
law practice. Only 5% of attorneys
in the New York metro area earn
this distinction,” according to the
list. Karin has been practicing immi-
gration law for 20 years, solo for the
last 10 (kwvisalaw.com).

Don't forget: The countdown to
reunion is on!

1988

Eric Fusfield

1945 South George Mason Dr.
Arlington, VA 22204
ericfusfield@bigfoot.com

Diane Ridley spent the summer
“working a temporary anesthesia
position in Arizona for the Indian
Health Service.” Based in Newark,
N.J., Diane has been practicing
medicine for more than 20 years.
Michael Girouard is a senior
portfolio strategist for First Principles
Capital Management in Manhattan.
According to his company’s website:
“Before joining FPCM, Mr. Girouard
was the Chief Financial Officer and
Chief Investment Officer for Jefferson
National Financial, a privately-held
life insurance company. He managed
the investment portfolio of the general

accounts; oversaw asset/liability man-
agement and other risk management
functions; and established and ran the
internal investment advisor for the
fund platform.”

He also worked in London for
Goldman Sachs as executive director
in European equity capital markets.

Daniel A. Goldberger LAW’93
works at the Cooley law firm. He is
special counsel in the real estate prac-
tice group and a member of Cooley’s
business department. His firm’s
website says: “Mr. Goldberger joined
Cooley in 2006. Resident in the New
York office, Mr. Goldberger handles
a wide range of complex commercial
real estate matters both domestically
and in the Caribbean and Central
America, including acquisitions and
dispositions, joint ventures, financ-
ings, leasing and construction, and
development projects.”

We have another Columbia leg-
acy family among our ranks. Con-
gratulations to Nairi Checkosky
Balian, mother of Aram Balian’16.
‘The pride of watching a child gradu-
ate is something that, like many of
our classmates, I can now relate to:
My son Emanuel graduated from
preschool this summer. It was touch
and go for a while but fortunately
the all-nighter he pulled helped him
ace his calculus final.

Keep the updates coming to
ericfusfield@bigfoot.com! I look

forward to hearing from you.

1989

Emily Miles Terry

45 Clarence St.
Brookline, MA 02446
emilymilesterry@me.com

I connected recently with Kelly
O’Connor, who says she misses
“New York and will be forever grate-
ful” for her time at Columbia. Kelly
returned to the Boston area after
graduation and works for Harvard
Medical School and Partners in
Health, a global health organization
that cares for patients in their homes
and communities. PIH is widely
known from Tracy Kidder’s book
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The
Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who
Would Cure the World. Kelly works
closely with Farmer, one of PIH’s
founders. Of her work Kelly says, “I
love the field of health equity and
the global impact of PIH.”

Fall 2016 CCT 81

In addition to her professional
career at PIH, Kelly is a contribut-
ing photographer to SoxProspects.
Her beautiful photographs of teams
such as the Pawtucket Red Sox and
Lowell Spinners can be found on
sittingstill. smugmug.com.

“T always imagine Russian his-
tory,” says Jennifer Eremeeva,

“on a huge, 3-D IMAX screen,
surround sound booming with a
jumbo bucket of popcorn in your lap
and a huge blue drink at your side.”
An expatriate, writer and Impe-

rial Russia enthusiast, Jennifer has
published two books inspired by her
more than 20 years in Russia. Jen-
nifer’s first book, a work of fiction,
was 2014's Lenin Lives Next Door:
Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem

in Moscow,which weaves together
humorous vignettes of expatriate
life. Her second book, Have Person-
ality Disorder, Will Rule Russia: An
Iconoclastic History by a Recovering
Russophile, is a rollicking guide to 13
centuries of Russian history, tracing
Russia's effective rulers back to the
Tatar-Mongols and revealing why
“Ivan may not have been so Ter-
rible; why Catherine was so totally
awesome; and asserting that neither
Peter the Great nor Stalin would
ever tweet anything.” Jennifer is at
work on a cookbook and “a massive
historical fiction trilogy” set in Rus-
sia 1881-1924.

Jennifer writes: “I’ve enjoyed
diving back into my notes and text-
books from the wonderful courses
I took at Columbia with Professor
Marc Raeff and Professor Jonathan
Sanders SIPA’76, GSAS’85.” Jen-
nifer’s life changed a great deal
following the annexation of Crimea.
“Many of my friends have moved
away and it certainly has become
more challenging to be a foreigner
in Russia. But social and political
change is always fascinating and I
feel fortunate to have a ringside seat.
My husband, Dmitry, and I travel
extensively both for work and play
and we enjoyed trips last year to
Israel, Czech Republic, Hungary,
Iceland, Georgia (Republic of),
Germany, Italy and the Caribbean.
I celebrated my 50th birthday in fine
style in London in April.”

Dr. Jonathan Fischer recently
celebrated his 25th wedding anniver-
sary with a trip to Croatia. He has a
new position helping Duke University
Health System develop population
health approaches to palliative care.

82 CCT Fall 2016

Jonathan attended medical school at
UNC, where he also did his residency.
He has three children.

Carol Remy has been named
counsel at Hughes Hubbard & Reed
in the firm’s real estate and environ-
mental departments. She focuses
on all areas of commercial real
estate and environmental transac-
tions and counseling.

Sadly, Cynthia “Cindi” Elaine
Barber-Mingo (née Barber)
died earlier this year. She lived in
Westford, Mass., with her husband,
Eric R. Barber-Mingo ’90, and
children, Ernest, Mya and Aaron.
Cindi majored in computer science.
According to Eric, “In the Class of
1989, 300 students started out as
computer science majors, only 27
of those 300 graduated as computer
science majors, only three of those
27 were women and Cindi was the
only black woman.”

Cindi immersed herself in her
chosen career as a software engineer
and spent 30 years as a software
engineer, working for such technol-
ogy industry giants as NYNEX,
Digital Equipment Corp. and IBM.
Her accomplishments during that
career are too great to number
in this context, but notably she
achieved the title of master inventor
while at IBM and her name appears
on 13 U.S. patents in the IBM pat-
ent portfolio.

Cindi was also an avid crocheter
and knitter. According to Eric, their
home abounds with the material
that supported her crafts and many
of her friends and relations are
warmed daily by the multitude of
hats, scarves and afghans that emit-
ted magically from her fingers. She
will be greatly missed.

1990

Rachel Cowan Jacobs
313 Lexington Dr.

Silver Spring, MD 20901
youngrache@hotmail.com

‘There have been several professional
changes for classmates in the past
year. In early 2016, Paul Green-
berg started at A+E Networks as
EVP and general manager of the
FYI cable network (previously called
the Biography Channel), and he is
also overseeing all short-form video
and social media for the company
(A&E, History, Lifetime and FY).

After retiring from the Oregon
House of Representatives in 2013,
Dave Hunt is in his fourth year
as president/CEO of the Pacific
Northwest Defense Coalition. He
is also on the board of Clacka-
mas Community College. And, if
that isn’t enough going on, he is
president of the Rotary Club of
Oregon City. His son is a Princeton
senior and his daughter is a high
school senior thick in the college
application process. I look forward
to reporting next May if she will be
Columbia-bound.

Lastly, from Michael Kinstlick:
“With Coppersea on its trajectory
now, I recently took on a new role as
the head of standards setting at the
Sustainability Accounting Standard
Board. SASB develops standards and
metrics for companies to report on
sustainability issues directly in their
SEC-filed financial statements.”

Hope to hear from the rest of
you soon. You can write to the
addresses at the top of this column
or through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note!

1991

Margie Kim

1923 White Oak Clearing
Southlake, TX 76092
margiekimkim@hotmail.com

Thank you to everyone who
attended our 25th reunion, June
2-5! I hope you had as much fun
as I did reconnecting with friends
and marveling at how much has
changed yet stayed the same. Several
alums stayed in Carman for the
weekend to relive those fun times.
I love that we all turn back into our
19-year-old selves when we're with
one another!

Annmarie Giarratano Della
Pietra and Bob Cooper did a
phenomenal job heading up the
Reunion Committee. There were
138 CC’91 alums in attendance
(222 total, with guests) and more
than $700,000 was raised for our
Class Gift. The festivities began on
Thursday night, with a reception
held at Lucinda and Javier Loya’s
beautiful home in Gramercy Park.
After the Friday night rooftop
event at Haven, Ted Ashenafi
and Jim Burtson hosted an after
party at Alex Guarnaschelli BC’91’s

restaurant, Butter. Our Saturday

evening reception was held on the
South Lawn, where we enjoyed Lee
Benaka’s band Hollertown and an
enlightening talk from Mike Leiter.

‘Thank you to the Reunion Com-
mittee — Beth Shubin Stein, Bob
Cooper, Chris Beach, George
Takoudes, Christopher Mehta,
Dana Fenlon, Daryl Colden, Elise
Scheck, Margie Kim, Elana Drell
Szyfer, Elizabeth Kubany, Floyd
Ewing, Jeff Michaelson, Jodi Wil-
liams Bienenfeld, Jon Swergold,
Melanie Seidner, Scott Meserve,
Juny Francois, Lara Stolman,
Laurel Abbruzzese, Lee Benaka,
Stephen Fealy, Ted Schweitzer
and Virginia Cornish — for help-
ing to plan the reunion, as well as for
providing the souvenir glasses. And
a special thank you to Ken Shubin
Stein and Beth Shubin Stein for
the reunion fleece vests.

Hope you had a great summer!
If you have fun reunion memories
or other news to share, send it to
me at margiekimkim@hotmail.
com or through CCT’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

Until next time ... cheers!

1992

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017
Alumni Affairs Contact

Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Olivier Knox

9602 Montauk Ave.
Bethesda, MD 20817
olivier.knox@gmail.com

Hello, fellow CC’92ers! It was great
to hear from Robert Guay for this
installment. I had heard of him
before I got to Columbia because I’d
met one of his high school friends
in spring 1988. And now I have

an update from him! Bob married
Anna Gebbie and they have three
boys — Otto (13), Gus (10) and
Takumi (8). Bob is a philosophy
professor at Binghamton, where he
has been for almost a decade after a
stint at Barnard. “I mostly write on

19th-century German philosophy

but I have a book on Dostoyevsky
coming out next year,” he says.

Robert, please have your pub-
lisher send a copy to CCT so it can
be added to Bookshelf!

As always, please reach out to
olivier.knox@gmail.com with your
life updates, or use the CCT Class
Notes webform, college.columbia.
edu/cct/submit_class_note. I guar-
antee people want to hear from you,
and about you! And this column
doesn't work if you don't write in!

Otherwise, I shall be forced to
just make things up. And no one
wants “Jason Schwartz dropped
out of the Pepperdine graduate
program in puppetry but now uses
storefront mannequins to turn the
complete works of Bertolt Brecht
into fun for the whole family!”
Or ... do you?

1993

Betsy Gomperz

41 Day St.

Newton, MA 02466
betsy.gomperz@gmail.com

I hope everyone had a great summer.

Paul Sangillo was recently
promoted to deputy general counsel
at Benjamin Moore & Co. David
A. Shimkin, a partner at Cozen
O’Connor in Los Angeles, which
focuses on commercial litigation, was
named a fellow with The Leadership
Council on Legal Diversity on behalf
of his firm. LCLD comprises corpo-
rate chief legal officers and law firm
managing partners who are dedicated
to creating a diverse profession.

As a 2016-17 fellow, David will
participate in targeted leadership
training events with the other
fellows throughout the program
year. David has been committed to
diversity in the legal profession and
serves on his firm’s Diversity and
Inclusion Committee, co-leads the
Hispanic/Latino Attorney Resource
(Affinity) Group and is involved
with the California Minority
Counsel Program, Minority Cor-
porate Counsel Association and the
Hispanic National Bar Association,
for which he is a deputy president of
the Southern California Region.

I had a busy summer catching up
with generations of Columbians!

In June, I headed to California
for a weekend of catching up with
old family friends who span many

class years at the College. I spent
an evening with members of the
Class of 58, including my father,
Paul Gomperz’58, as well as Irv
Michlin 58, Ira Carlin 58 and Rick
Brous’58 (the event was a surprise
party for Irv). The following day I
visited with the Brous family, where
I caught up with Sharon Brous’95
and her husband, David Light’95,
and Michael Brous 97, all of whom
live in Los Angeles.

More recently, I spent time back
east with Ali Towle and Jenny
Hoffman. I also recently caught up
with Neil Turitz when my husband
and I were in New York to see Ham-
ilton: An American Musical (and were
lucky enough to see original cast
members on their last day!).

Please continue to send in
updates to either betsy.gomperz@
gmail.com or via CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_ note!

1994

Leyla Kokmen

cloiGGh

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
lak6@columbia.edu

Reports from far and wide this time
— points for the farthest outreach
go to Karl Cluck, who sent a note
from around the globe to say he
works in advertising and has lived in
Asia for a decade.

From California, several updates:
Debbie Chong sent in her first,
noting she has been happily settled
in Oakland, Calif., for eight years
with her partner, Todd, and 4-year-
old twins. “I am the ob/gyn chief
at Highland Hospital, which is our
county hospital,” Debbie writes.
“Life is good.”

Ali Gang moved from San Diego
to San Francisco a little more than
three years ago for a job at Google as
a senior content strategist. “I primar-
ily work on educational initiatives to
help small businesses learn the basics
of online marketing and reach new
customers,” Ali writes. “Recently I
wrote, produced and hosted a video
tutorial series (support.google.com/
adwords/answer/4362159?hl=en),
which was an exciting project that
we're now replicating in other
markets around the world. Other

than that, I’m working on my writ-
ing projects, going on excursions
with my dog, Luna (and my human
companion), and looking forward to
a trip to Italy in the fall. ['d love to
hear from any Googler and/or Bay
Area classmates!”

Another Bay Area transplant is
Anne Kornblut, who is at Facebook
as director of strategic communica-
tions, living in Palo Alto, Calif.,
with her husband and two kids — a
son (5) and daughter (3%). “We are
really enjoying the Bay Area and
seeing lots of Columbia alums,”
Anne writes. “I recently ran into
both Brad Stone and Janet Balis
at the Recode conference — a real
WKCR reunion.”

Anne also alerted me to the fact
that Eliza McGraw (née Lowen)
recently published a book, Here
Comes Exterminator!, about the
1918 Kentucky Derby winner,
described as a story of how a long-
shot winner became one of the
all-time most beloved racehorses.
Eliza says, “Much of what I learned
about trying to make history lively
and finding the relevant details I
learned in Professor Eric Foner
63, GSAS’69’s and Professor Alan
Brinkley’s classes.”

A Bay Area migration is in the
plans for Rob Gaudet, who has
lived in Berkeley for the past year
while his wife, Karin, completes an
LL.M. at the Berkeley Law School.
Rob attended a couple of Columbia
alumni events in the Bay Area but
soon will move back to El Paso,
“where Beto O’Rourke 95 repre-
sents the community in the United
States House of Representatives.”

From Louisiana, Mary Killackey
shares lovely stories of New Orleans
life with son Will (612), daughter
Charlotte (4%) and husband John.
Mary’s big news is that she recently
became the chair of surgery at
Tulane University School of Medi-
cine, making her one of only 16
other active female chairs of surgery
— about 10 percent of all surgical
chairs in the country. She writes, “So
while there is the weight of respon-
sibility to be an outstanding model,
I’m thrilled to have this opportunity
to shape the future of academic
leadership — in particular to bring
a more collaborative leadership style
to surgery — and encourage more
women to take on leadership roles.”

Heading northward, Dee Dee Wu
writes that she lives in New Jersey

alumninews

with her two sons, Jacob and Justin,
and her husband, Brian. “I am happy
to announce that I have recently left
a private practice in suburban New
Jersey to join the faculty at Hospital
for Special Surgery in New York
City, where I received my rheuma-
tology training,” Dee Dee writes. “I
am thrilled to return to an academic
setting, where I am surrounded by
excellence and I enjoy participating
in the education of medical students,
residents and fellows.”

Brooklynite Danny Franklin was
recently named managing partner of
Benenson Strategy Group. “We're
doing Hillary’s polling,” he writes,
“but I’m not involved, choosing
instead to be around for (baby)
Anna's second year of life.”

Ty Buckelew, who recently
moved back near Columbia, has been
working at Edward Jones as its only
financial adviser in Manhattan for
the last two years. During the Fourth
of July holiday he saw J.J. Waterer,
who lives in Red Bank, N_J., is mar-
ried with two boys and comes back
to campus a few times a year for
basketball games. Ty also writes that
Jamal Adams lives in California
and coaches high school basketball
at his alma mater with a team that is
consistently ranked as one of the best
in the country. Jamal is married and
has two kids in college.

And finally, a lovely update
from Long Island, where Marina
Groothuis (née Gurin) lives with
her husband, Erik Groothuis, and
their daughters, Maddie and Maya,
who are in ninth and seventh grades.
Marina writes that in October 2015
she took a position in marketing at

Columbia
College

Alumni ny

on Facebook

facebook.com/alumnicc

Like the page to get
alumni news, learn
about alumni events

and College happenings,
view photos and more.

Fall 2016 CCT 83

a software company, Return Path,
in its “Return to Work” program. “It
was a five-month stint designed to
help people who had taken time off
to be caregivers for their families re-
enter the workforce,” Marina writes.
“In February 2016, I was hired full-
time as a marketing analyst. So with
a 12-year resume gap, I somehow
defied the odds and got back into
the corporate world. I teach in-
home yoga sessions as many as four
mornings a week before I head into
New York City to my job.”

Erik joined the board at the fam-
ily’s synagogue a couple of years ago
and as of July 1 is its president. “This
has proven to be a full-time job in
addition to his full-time job,” Marina
reports, “but the best thing that has
come out of it is that (dog) Lily gets
more walks, since he likes to make
his temple business calls then.”

Such great news, everyone!
Thanks for sharing your updates.
Makes my job much more fun and
this column much more interesting.
And, most of all, makes me proud to
have such an accomplished crew of
classmates. Until next time.

1995

Janet Lorin

730 Columbus Ave., Apt. 14C
New York, NY 10025
jrf10@columbia.edu

Let’s raise a glass to Dan Petroski,
who has successfully transitioned
from a career in sales and market-
ing for Time, Inc. to a career as a
winemaker in Napa Valley.

Dan's day job for almost a decade
has been working at Larkmead,
where he is the winemaker, creating
Bordeaux-style blends. The family-
owned vineyard, more than a century
old, sits on about 150 acres between
St. Helena and Calistoga, Calif. I
caught up with Dan in late May. My
husband and I were on our first trip
without children and we were able to
see the bottling process at Larkmead.

Dan is also working on his own
wines under the label Massican,
named after the coastal mountain
range on the Italian Peninsula in the
Campania region. His wine blends
include tocai friulano, ribolla gialla
and chardonnay. If you are dining in
the Napa Valley town of Yountville,
you can check out the fruits of Dan’s
labor at Thomas Keller’s restaurants:

84 CCT Fall 2016

Columbia University and Grounds, New York.

Both Larkmead and Massican are
on the wine lists at French Laundry
and Ad Hoc.

Nicely done, Dan.

Class of 95, I hope you had a
relaxing summer and are looking
forward to an exciting fall. Share
your news by sending updates to
me at jrf10@columbia.edu — your
classmates want to hear from you!

1996

Ana S. Salper

24 Monroe PI., Apt. MA
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Ana.Salper@nyumc.org

Happy fall, classmates! It was great
seeing so many of you at Reunion
Weekend 2016 in June. For me, taking
my kids, Isabelle (10) and Maximil-
lian (7), to campus was really special.

I showed them Butler Library (they
loved playing hide and seek in the
stacks), Hamilton Hall (where they
pretended to teach a class), Low
Library (we sat on the Steps for a bit
and looked for the owl in A/ma Mater)
and we walked all over campus. By
the end, I had two Columbia converts
(my secret plan all along ... ). Apart
from that, it was so wonderful to

see old friends, classmates, Carman
Hall-mates and others of you whom I
knew but have not been in touch with.
I drank the Columbia Kool-Aid all
over again and for a few days felt that

idealism and inspiration I had 20 years
ago when we all graduated, when we
were a lot less cynical and filled with
the prospects of what life would bring
and the feeling that the world was our
oyster. It was a great feeling.

A big thank you to our Reunion
Committee: Whitney Chiate (née
Berkholtz), Uchenna Acholonu,
Elizabeth Yuan, Pete Freeman,
Dan Morenoff, Avi Green, Daria
Ibn-Tamas, Dave Lin and Stan
Leung. You did a fantastic job at
outreach and event planning and it
was great to see so many of you there.

Pete Freeman practices commer-
cial real estate law in Washington,
D.C., and has recently (not counting
reunion) visited with Spectator
friends Henry Tam Jr. and Mo
Toueg as well as Dan Morenoff
and a variety of New Yorkers he
sees on his regular trips north; Pete
is frequently accompanied by his
wife, Jill Fine BC’96, daughter Lily
(12) and son Max (9). Pete writes:
“Thanks to everyone who helped
plan our 20th reunion, including
all of the members of the Reunion
Committee, our Class Agents and
the Alumni Office staff. It was great
working with several old friends and
getting to know classmates I wish I
had met when we were in school. If
you would like to be more involved
[with the College], please reach out
to Bernice Tsai, associate dean,
Columbia College alumni relations
and communications. Please also join

our Facebook group (facebook.com/
groups/137843146232040) for news

(our 25th is just around the corner),

1”

and let me know if you're in D.C.
Bernice and I chatted at the
Columbia College Women cocktail
event during reunion. She is
doing wonderful things on behalf
of Columbia; it is great having a
representative from our class in the
Alumni Office.
In the “I wish I had known you
in college” category, I met Mila
Tuttle (née Atmosudirdjo) SIPA’05 at
reunion. What a joy to meet interest-
ing people from your class 20 years
later. Mila got a master’s in interna-

tional security policy from SIPA. She

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '56, BUS'58

actively supports organizations mak-
ing positive change and is on several
nonprofit boards. She is working on

a book about conscious choices and
elegant living, with hopes of helping
others reach their potential. Check out
Mila’s cool blog: milaatmos.com/blog.

My former Carman Hall 5
floormate Moha Desai attended
reunion with her sons, Vikram (3)
and Devraj (8), and husband, Vinit
Patel. She has held steadfast to her
dedication to improving the health-
care system for more than 20 years
and is working independently with
a range of clients from hospitals to
innovative firms. Moha advises on
health care issues across the board
from strategy through implementa-
tion. She asks that you please look
her up if you are ever in the Boston
area: msd7@columbia.edu.

Moha writes of reunion: “Carman
5 was in the house! It was so fun
seeing everyone. Suitemate Amanda
Cox is an allergist-immunologist in
Manhattan. Noha El-Ghobashy
SEAS’96, SEAS’00 was at the
dinner. She is the associate executive
director of the American Society
of Mechanical Engineers and has
lived in the NYC area since gradu-
ation. After having lost touch with
Alison Hills from my Washington,
D.C., days, it was great to reconnect
with her at reunion. Alison works
at Exxon Mobil Corp. in govern-
ment relations but also has moved
on from D.C. and now lives in Los
Angeles. It was awesome bumping
into Michael Choi, David Lee,
Patricia Merino, Hilda Ramirez,
Evan Malter, Uchenna Acholuno,
Noah Cornman, Marcel Agueros
and Whitney Chiate!”

Moha is in touch with floormate
Kristen Amon Hayes SEAS’96,
who pursued her dream of becoming
a high school math and physics
teacher and lives with her husband
in Connecticut, a few towns over
from where she teaches. Sam
Daniel SEAS’96 lives in Stock-
ton, Calif., with his wife, Jyotika
Prasad, and their two children. Sam
has established himself as a leader
in technology at Acceleration for
several years now. Alexander Leuca
SEAS’96 works at Barclays, lives in
London and has a daughter.

Helen Gurfel SEAS’96 works
at Greenprint, an alliance of lead-
ing real estate owners, investors
and strategic partners committed
to improving the environmental

performance of the global real estate
industry. Helen is responsible for the
overall management and growth of
the center. It was great seeing her
and her family at the reunion all-
class barbecue.

Liz Alina lives in Mystic, Conn.,
and owns a juice company, Mystic.
For those who love juice cleanses,
check out Liz’s line at facebook.com/
mykarmacleanse.

I caught up with Jeremiah
Crowell as well. He is a director,
producer and writer, and has directed
art films, commercials and music
videos. He also has spent more than
a decade making TV documentaries.
Jeremiah lives in Brooklyn with his
wife and two sons.

Also in attendance at reunion
were Evan Malter, Geremy
Kawaller, Brandon Kessler,
Jennifer Fishbein, Lucy Joseph
SEAS’96, Jun Lee, Patricia
Merino, Marcel Agueros,
Giovanna Ban, Melissa Gajarsa,
Mike Robbins, Scott Walker,
Omar Sayed and Rhonda Moore.

lan Lendler is publishing his
fourth children’s book, Saturday,
which celebrates the joys of every-
one’s favorite day of the week. He
collaborated on the book with inter-
national best-selling illustrator Serge
Bloch. Ian lives near San Francisco.

All in all, it was a very successful
reunion. I hope to see even more of
you at our — eek! — 25th reunion.
‘This time, I will leave you simply
with “Roar, Lion, Roar!”

1997

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sarah Katz

1935 Parrish St.
Philadelphia, PA 19130 .
srk12@columbia.edu

CC’97, where's the love? I know you
are all up to great things and we all
want to hear about them! Please email
me at srk12@columbia.edu with your
news and news of classmates! Just a
couple updates this time.

alumninews

Kerri Baucher Stone and her
husband, Josh, live in Miami (Coco-

nut Grove); in January, Kerri gave

birth to their daughter, Marlee Dina.

‘They also have a son, Dylan Jacob.
Josh is a corporate law firm partner
at Bilzin Sumberg and Kerri was
recently promoted to full professor
of law at the FIU College of Law.

John Dean Alfone recently wrote
a preview of Free Press Summer Fest,
which he attended in Houston at the
beginning of June. His company, Cor-
sair Media Productions, also recently
produced a short video during South
By Southwest as part of the Bud

Light Factory: ow.ly/LZE4300B7qM.

Jon Dakss recently left NBC-
Universal after having worked there
for 11 years and is now chief digital
officer for EPIX, based in Times
Square. He lives in Livingston, N_]J.,
with his wife, Marcy, and kids, Syd-
ney, Miles and Ryan. He has been
playing bass with a local rock band
PUNCH the Monkey and recently
sat in on drums with local band The
Stiff Joints to perform at Living-
ston’s 4th of July celebration. Jon
has been in touch with David Tuffy
and John Fletcher and recently got
back in touch with Josh Sherman.

1993

Sandie Angulo Chen
10209 Day Ave.

Silver Spring, MD 20910
sandie.chen@gmail.com

Happy autumn, everyone — and
happy 40th birthday to most of us.
Let’s start off the notes with an
update from entrepreneur Amol
Sarva, who writes: “In the last few
years I stopped working in mobile
phones (Virgin Mobile, Peek
smartphones) and stopped building
buildings (East of East is finished
and we live there now) and moved
onto some diverse new projects:
Knotel, a network of company-sized
workspaces with shared services and
flexible terms; Knotable, an app for
teamwork; and Halo Neuroscience,
a brain-boosting wearable device
used initially for sport; and helping
startups get going. —

“I also started teaching at the
College about how to build ventures
in the social and commercial realms
(tiny.cc/venturing).”

Congratulations on your new
endeavors, Amo!!

Natalie Axton launched a digital
publication (Critical Read) that
publishes feature-length stories about
important works of art. Critical Read’s
first three stories are at criticalread.org.
The stories cover works of ballet, visual
art and literature.

Whether you had a big birthday
bash, cool summer events or anything
else newsworthy, let your classmates
know by sending an update to sandie.
chen@gmail.com or use CC7’s Class
Notes webform, college.columbia.
edu/cct/submit_class_note.

1999

Adrienne Carter and
Jenna Johnson

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
adieliz@gmail.com
jennajohnson@gmail.com

Dear classmates:

‘This quarter your intrepid note-
takers are leading the news.

Adrienne Carter, international
business editor at The New York
Times, has moved from New York
to the London office. Londoners,
you lucky few! Take good care of our
Ms. Carter, please.

Jenna Johnson hasn't left New
York, but she has shifted professional
locations; she is now happily publish-
ing books at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Meanwhile, in updates from our
excellent classmates ...

Peter Lech sends word from
Providence, R.I., where he lives with
his wife, Claudia, and daughter, Olivia
(3). Peter is following an old CC
muse — Lit Hum sparked an interest
in the classics and he is now assistant
professor of classics at UMass Boston.
He focuses on early Latin literature
and co-directs the Conventiculum
Bostoniense, a program in spoken
Latin that attracts graduate students,
professors, high school students and
Latin enthusiasts from around the
country. We're happy to report that
his book Linguistic Interaction in
Roman Comedy came out in June and
he’s already at work on a book about
Greek New Comedy.

Jen Maxfield Ostfeld is back on
campus, as she recently joined the
Columbia College Board of Visitors.
She’s been keeping busy; while being
a reporter for NBC4, Jen completed

Fall 2016 CCT 85

her second year as an adjunct profes-
sor at the Journalism School. In what
has become a family tradition, Jen
found her future spouse within the
116th Street grounds in 1996; two of
her three brothers, all Lions (Mark
Maxfield SEAS’05, Scott Maxfield
11 and William Maxfield ’14), fol-
lowed suit. Jen lives with her husband,
Scott Ostfeld’98, in New Jersey with
their three young children.

We're finishing this up just after
the Fourth of July and are wishing
you barbecues, cool lemonade and
sunshine for a happy summer. When
you find yourself reminiscing, take a
moment to send news to the addresses
at the top of this column or through
CCTss Class notes webform, college.
columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note!

2000

Prisca Bae

344 W. 17th St., Apt. 3B
New York, NY 10011
pb134@columbia.edu

No news, CC’00? Let me know
what sort of exciting adventures
you had during the summer and
are looking forward to this fall and
winter — CCT is the place to share
with your fellow Lions! Email me
at pb134@columbia.edu or submit
a note through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note. Can't wait to
hear from you!

2001

Jonathan Gordin

3030 N. Beachwood Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90068
jrg53@columbia.edu

Even though I had the best of
intentions to get to reunion this
year, my wife, Jamie, and I couldn't
make it. Thankfully, I got some great
“boots on the ground” reporting
from amazing guest correspondents.
Becca Bradley (née Siegel)
and her husband, John, welcomed
daughter Aniela Evelyn on July 10,
2015. Aniela joins brother Paul (4).
Becca and John live in Nashville,
where Becca works in healthcare IT.
Jessica O’Sullivan (née
Tubridy) and her husband, Chris,
welcomed a son, Christopher James,
on December 29. Jenny Tubridy

86 CCT Fall 2016

is an ADA in Queens, where she
is assigned to the Career Criminal
Major Crimes Bureau.

Becca, Jessie and Jenny were
thrilled to hang with Ali Kidd, Jen
Hoekstra, Michelle Grzan Bass,
Jaime Pannone and Anne-Marie
Ebner at Reunion Weekend 2016
and, of course, at The Heights fol-
lowing reunion.

Rabia Saeed spent quality time
with Reema Kapadia, Wadad
Cortas, Eri Kaneko, Billy King-
sland, Scott Hefler and Usman
Tahir. Reema raved about the after
party on South Lawn. And, like
Becca, she alluded to the informal
after party at The Heights.

Side note: This correspondent
misses The Heights so much — that
surely would have been a highlight
for me!

From Joya Powell: “I am thrilled
to announce that I have won this
year’s 2016 Outstanding Emerging
Choreographer Bessie Award. I am so
excited to share this news with you and
the Columbia community. I worked on
a few theater productions this summer
and my company, Movement of the
People Dance Company, will be per-
forming in a few venues in the city this
fall. I will be sure to keep you posted
on my upcoming endeavors.”

Courtney Reum shared exciting
news that he and brother Carter
Reum ’03 are starting a company
called M13 and will be sharing more
about that soon.

On March 21 Luxco entered an
agreement to purchase Los Angeles-
based VEEV Spirits from founders
Courtney and Carter. From the
press release: “Appealing to today’s
discerning millennial consumer,
VEEV’s portfolio includes award-
winning brands VEEV Spirit, a
70-proof vodka alternative, and
VitaFrute Cocktails by VEEV, the
first line of certified organic ready-
to-drink cocktails.”

Congratulations to Courtney
and Carter!

Seth Morris recently left the
Alameda County Public Defend-
ers Office and joined the Cooper
Law Offices in Berkeley, Calif., as a
partner starting July 18.

Best of luck to Seth!

Best wishes for a wonderful fall
and please stay in touch by sending
notes to the addresses at the top of
this column or through CC7’s Class
Notes webform, college.columbia.
edu/cct/submit_class_note!

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sonia Dandona Hirdaramani
2 Rolling Dr.

Old Westbury, NY 11568
soniah57@gmail.com

Hope you all had wonderful sum-
mers. So many interesting updates
this time; please send me more at
soniah5 7@gmail.com.

Emily Voigt’s first book, The
Dragon Behind the Glass: A True Story
of Power, Obsession, and the World’s
Most Coveted Fish, was published
in May. A Publishers Weekly Best
Book of the Summer, it explores “the
strange vortex where science, con-
servation, and commercialism meet.”
Emily lives in Greenwich Village
with her husband and newborn son.

Preston Picus and his wife,
Abbey Levine, welcomed their first
daughter into the world in October,
Pennelope Patricia Picus.

Preston is running for Congress
in California, to represent its 12th
District. He writes, “I’m running as an
independent progressive, anti-corrup-
tion candidate, and people are starting
to really respond to my message.
Check us out at picus2016.com.”

Ginger Gentile lived for the past
12 years in Buenos Aires, where
she founded a television and film
production company, San Telmo
Productions, and directed two feature
documentaries. Goals for Girls: A
Story of Women with Balls is about
the fight of slum girls to play soccer
in Argentina, where it is considered
a male sport; Erasing Dad is about
the discrimination fathers face in
child custody cases. Ginger is back
in the United States and is looking
to connect with Lions who work in
entertainment and who are inter-
ested in supporting her follow-up
film, Erasing Family, which will
be filmed in the U.S. and will focus
on the harm done to children when
they are prevented from seeing
their mother or father after divorce
(ginger@santelmoproductions.com).

2003

Michael Novielli

Jurong East Street, Block 208
# 08-181

Singapore, 600208
mjn29@columbia.edu

‘The presidential elections have likely
been consuming much of your time
and attention. While much is at stake
for the nation — and the world —
with this presidential race, there are
also a number of important elected
positions up for grabs in the United
States. One Columbian running for
elected office is Cyrus Habib, who is
running for lieutenant governor of the
state of Washington.

In non-political news, here are
some of the things that classmates
have been up to:

Adam Libove writes, “On June
9 at 10:02 p.m., my wife, Barbara,
gave birth to our son, Aaron Ravi
Libove, who was 7 lbs., 3 oz. and
21% inches. Both baby and mom are
doing great!”

Eric Siskind, who lives in
Baltimore, recently finished his
fellowship in transplant surgery at
Maryland. Eric and his family will
be moving south to Silver Spring,
Md., as Eric will be an attending
transplant surgeon at Inova Fairfax
hospital in Falls Church, Va.

Blair W. Morris writes, “I com-
pleted my Ph.D. in clinical psychol-
ogy at Fordham in 2015 and am a
pediatric psychologist at Montefiore
Medical Center. I am married to
Michael and have two children,
Whitney (3) and Graham (1).”

Andrea Paul writes, “I am senior
corporate counsel at Momenta
Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge,
Mass. My husband, Jacques Paul
SEAS’03, and I love being parents
to our almost 2-year-old.”

Peter Neofotis told a new story
on the RISK! Podcast Show. People
interested in hearing the tale can go
to risk-show.com/podcast/hurt-joy.
He starts at the 18:40 minute mark
and runs for about 40 minutes.

Francis Lora updates, “Profes-
sionally: I am a certified financial
social worker, licensed clinical
social worker and National Health
Services Corps member providing
psychotherapy at Inwood Commu-
nity Services at the Alicia M. Ferrer
Mental Health Clinic in Inwood,

Manhattan, as well as also writing

and offering private coaching and
consulting services.

“Personally: My second son was
born on May 26 at 7:13 a.m. So just
a few months ago Gabriel Tomas
Lora Guerrero joined brother
Alejandro Miguel Lora Guer-
rero, making my wife, Jennifer A.
Guerrero-Lora BC’03, and I happy
parents. Alejandro starts kindergar-
ten in September.”

Mindy Levine writes, “I am at
Rhode Island and am happy to report
that as of June I am now an associate
professor of chemistry with tenure.”

Christina Pfenning Craig
writes, “On February 20, my
husband, Marshall, and I welcomed
our first child, a boy, Marshall
Deon Craig Jr. 1 am thrilled that he
begins his life as a legacy appli-
cant to Columbia. We are already
working on his application essay
(just kidding). I am the director
of public relations/social media at
the Museum of Wisconsin Art. It’s
wonderful to use my art history
concentration on a daily basis. I’m
also helping several high school
students with the college search and
application process and am a free-
lance writer for a few Milwaukee-
area publications. I guess I will sleep
someday! Hope to make it back to
campus with the whole family soon.”

Albert Shin and his wife, Ji, had
their second son, Alexander Yoonsup

Shin, on July 13.

2004:

Jaydip Mahida

76 Courter Ave.
Maplewood, NJ 07040
jmahida@gmail.com

Julia de Roulet (née Hertz) and
Daniel de Roulet had a daughter
last year, Helen Julia Whitney de
Roulet. They live in Old Westbury,
N.Y. (Long Island). Helen was also
welcomed by her older brothers,
Henry and John.

David J. Johns TC’06 received
the Early Career Award from
Teachers College. He is executive
director of the White House Initia-
tive on Educational Excellence for
African Americans. David is a for-
mer senior education policy adviser
to the Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions.

Accepting his award on April
2 at Academic Festival, Teach-

ers College's Homecoming event,
David said that as an education
policymaker in Washington, D.C.,
he is an “unapologetic advocate for
students who came from a place like
I did, which was Inglewood, Calif. I
came [to Teachers College] with an
unflinching belief that we have to ...
argue for kids who don't yet feel they
can argue for themselves.”

David said his ability to advocate
for children based on evidence and
data — a skill he honed at TC — has
strengthened his effectiveness in driv-
ing White House education policy.
“If you take a chance on our babies
like you've taken a chance on me,” he
said, “we can solve all our problems.”

Please continue to send updates,
as we want to hear from as many
folks as possible. Career and family
updates are always fun, but please
reach out to share about trips you
might take, events you have attended
or are looking forward to, or even
interesting books or shows you have
come across. (Who is watching
the reboot of Voltron? It can’t be
just me.) You can send updates via
either the email at the top of the
column or the CCT Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

2005

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Interested in staying in touch with
classmates and sharing all the cool
things they do around the world?
Become CC’05’s class correspon-
dent! If you'd like to take on the role
of providing Class Notes columns
on a quarterly basis, send an email to
cct@columbia.edu with “2005
Correspondent” in the subject line.

Caryn Gehrke (née Waterson)
PT’09 and Martin Gehrke SEAS’06
welcomed their fourth child, Quen-
tin Case Gehrke, on April 6. He
joins brothers Martin and Levi and
sister Charlotte.

Congrats, Caryn!

CC’05ers, send your news to cct@
columbia.edu to keep classmates
up-to-date with what’s happening
in your lives. Jobs, travel, hobbies,
relationships, family — everything is
sharable with CCT!

alumninews

2006

Michelle Oh Sing

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
mo2057@columbia.edu

I hope you had a wonderful sum-
mer! Here are some exciting updates
from classmates:

Kathleen Carr Adams writes:
“My family and I will be living in
Yangon, Myanmar, as of September 1
for an assignment with my husband's
employer, the Department of State.”

Julia DiBenigno earned a doctor-
ate from MIT Sloan School of Man-
agement in June and is an assistant
professor at Yale School of Manage-
ment in Organizational Behavior.

In September, Paul Fileri gradu-
ated with a Ph.D. in cinema studies
from NYU. His doctoral dissertation,
which he successfully defended in
May, examines the history of docu-
mentary cinema and the politics of
decolonization in the French colonial
empire after WWII. He and his
partner, Kinara Flagg, live in Wash-
ington, D.C., where Kinara is a trial
attorney in the Civil Rights Division
of the Department of Justice.

Radha Ram enjoyed celebrating
multiple life milestones at Reunion
Weekend 2016 and looks forward to
moving to Austin this fall to prac-
tice ophthalmology with a fellow
Columbia alumnus.

Kristen Loveland writes: “I
celebrated my wedding to Stephen
Wertheim GSAS'15 this June with
many CC alumni in attendance,
including Natalie Kimmelman,
Cara Spitalewitz, Kate Roh, Eunice
Chao, Seth Anziska, Dave Plotz,
Annie Berke ’07, Alex Jung’07, Tim
Shenk’07, Renu Regunathan-Shenk
07 and Brendan Pierson ’07, along
with some of my favorite Barnard
alumni, Jenna Beatrice BC’07 and
Ana Keilson BC’05. It’s been an
eventful year. I graduated from the
NYU School of Law in May and
recently moved to Cambridge, Eng-
land (where my husband is a junior
research fellow at King’s College),
and I will complete my doctorate in
history from Harvard.”

Jonathan Ward is completing
a D.Phil. at Oxford in China-India
relations, and will be between the
United States and United Kingdom

afterward. He writes, “I have also
become a fellow in Oxford’s defense
studies program, where I am able to
make use of my background with
Russia, China and India, as well as
my foreign languages (Russian and
Chinese) that I began at Columbia
many years ago! I also had my first
public speaking engagement in
London in July at the Army and Navy
Club, where I spoke on “The Emerg-
ing Geopolitics of the Indian Ocean
Region’: armyandnavyclub.cmail19.
com/t/ViewEmail/1/79134AF1D240
B5142540EF23F30FEDED.”

Dont forget to send your
updates to mo2057@columbia.
edu or through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

2007

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

David D. Chait

36 Woodrow Wilson Dr.
Edison, NJ 08820
david.donner.chait@gmail.com

‘Thanks as always for the notes, and
check out all of the exciting things
members of our class are up to:
Josh Smith writes, “After gradu-
ation, I was an assistant musical
director for two summer stock
theaters (thanks for the experience,
CMTS!) before settling down into
the academic lifestyle. In 2014, I
earned a Ph.D. in English from
Penn State, specializing in early
modern drama and examining stage
properties in the light of object-
oriented theory. Since then, I’ve
continued to teach courses at Penn
State, worked with the American
Shakespeare Center, chartered a
chapter of Sigma Tau Delta for the
undergraduate and accepted a posi-
tion on the Lenfest College Scholars
Program Board of Directors. This
fall, however, I will move to Pitts-
burgh to teach English at The Ellis
School, an independent girls’ high
school, so drop me a line if you’re in

the City of Bridges.”

Fall 2016 CCT 87

Marissa Weldon (née Doyle)
shares exciting news: “Thomas Weldon
08 and I welcomed our son, Stephen
Doyle Weldon, on April 9. Happy to
have a baby Lion in our lives.”

Carolyn Braff writes, “My
husband, Andrew, and I are thrilled
to announce the birth of our son,
Graham Robert Herman. He was
born April 14 and has brought us
so much joy. We are working with
him to learn the fight song already. I
work at Gatorade and love it. When
I come back from maternity leave, I
will work in our innovation group.”

Michelle Rappaport and her
husband had their first child in July.
‘The same month, she was scheduled
to complete her internal medicine
residency at Washington and start

practicing primary care at a UW clinic.

Jeopardy fans: Buzzy Cohen
won nine times in May and earned
$164,000. During his time on the
show, he was all over the Internet for
“trolling” Alex Trebek. If interested you
will definitely find some clips online.

And lastly, Eric Bondarsky
humorously shares, “As the forecast
for Memorial Day called for thun-
derstorms in New York, no plans
were made that fine morning. Alas,
the meteorological soothsayers were
mistaken as the clouds diverted and
a wonderful day was upon Rego
Park, N.Y. Eric Bondarsky called
friends Matthew Kondub and Jef-
frey Feder SEAS’07, SEAS'08 and
grilled spiced sausages in his humble
backyard along with the poultry
delicacies of Nina Cohen BC’09. It
felt like East Campus Suite 806 all
over again. Or, in haiku form:

“Memorial Day

“Three nerds grilling in the yard

1”

“Good times. Nay! Great times

2008

Neda Navab

353 King St., Apt. 633
San Francisco, CA 94158
nn2126@columbia.edu

Rachel Belt is moving from Haiti to
Geneva with her family to start a job
at GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. She
will work in its country support team
with a focus on Pakistan. In other
news, her daughter turned 2 in June!
Ell Marrone moved back to
Boston two years ago and would like
to connect with other CCers living
there or passing through! She also

88 CCT Fall 2016

Class Notes

invites classmates to reach out: “Call
on me for dog walking, boarding
and training. And check out my
wearable art projects facebook.com/
artifactseveryday.”

Betsy Purves (née Remes) lives in
Washington, D.C., with her husband
and their black Lab. She has been
working in fundraising at The Phillips
Collection since January and would
love to connect with alums who are
active in the arts or in fundraising!

Katie Cronin got married on
July 9 to David Fox. In attendance
were George Makris and Parisa
Roshan BC’08. Katie also started
a new job in June. She writes, “’m
the business manager at ACDI/
VOCA, an international develop-
ment nonprofit based in D.C. that
specializes in agribusiness, food
security, enterprise development and
financial services.”

Congrats, Katie!

Carmen Jo Rejda-Ponce is an
attorney in Houston. She recently
joined Germer and represents busi-
nesses and public entities in employ-
ment and civil rights litigation.

I hope everyone had a great
summer; send your news to me
at nn2126@columbia.edu to stay
in touch with classmates! Have a
wonderful fall!

2009

Alidad Damooei

cloieGh

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
damooei@gmail.com

On October 3, 2015, Maria Abas-
cal married Daniel Lacker at the
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden near
Richmond, Va. Maria and Dan live in
Providence, R.I., where they are com-
pleting postdocs in Brown's sociology
department and math department,
respectively. [heir academic careers
will bring them to New York City in
fall 2017, and they both plan to start
tenure-track positions at Colum-

bia. Maria will be in the sociology
department and Dan will be in the
industrial engineering and operations
research department.

Ula Kudelski and Jim McCrindle
were recently married in New York’s
Hudson Valley at Southwood Estate.
‘The couple met at work at Deutsche
Bank. The wedding was attended

Maria Abascal ’09 married Daniel Lacker on October 3, 2015, at the Lewis
Ginter Botanical Garden near Richmond, Va. Left to right: Delia Baldassarri
GSAS’07, Sam Ashworth GS’10, Shannon Ding ’08, Nathan Morgante ’09,
Mary Catherine Bullock ’09, Amari Hammonds ’09, the bride, the groom,
Dana Fisher, Amir Meiri, Marissa Brodney ’09 (crouching in black and white
dress), Alistar Erickson-Ludwig, Andrew Betz, Rosalind Parry 10, Daniel
Chinoy ’09 and Norma Fuentes-Mayorga GSAS’05.

by many Columbia grads, including
bridesmaids Katrina Cragg, Crystal
Vidal and Andrea Derricks Steele
07 and groomsman Cody Steele.
‘The wedding was a traditional Polish
vodka wedding, so a Columbia group
photo was difficult to organize! Matt
Bashaw’10, Erin Conway ’11, Gene
Kaskiw, Matt Moretto 11 and
Ralph DeBernardo also attended
the night of dancing, fireworks and

a bonfire.

Anna Vlasits, husband Justin
Vlasits’11 and their son, Arthur, are
taking a break from their Ph.D.s
at Berkeley and spent this summer
in Boston at the home of Caroline
Welling. Anna tried out science
journalism through the AAAS Mass
Media Science and Engineering
Fellows Program. She was stationed
at STAT (statnews.com) and was
geeking out about being down the
hall from the “Spotlight” team. In
addition, she was excited to spend
more time with Boston mainstays
Ariel Zucker and Akash Gupta
and was looking forward to visits
with Lauren Biggs and Kristen
Schrapp. She says it’s good to be
back on the East Coast.

In May, Dr. Katie Logan gradu-
ated from Texas with a Ph.D. in
comparative literature. She returned
to the East Coast and her home
state this summer to begin work
as an assistant professor of focused
inquiry at Virginia Commonwealth
and was looking forward to the con-
siderably shorter train ride between
Richmond and New York!

Jeremy Reich graduated from
Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Busi-

ness in June. He moved to Boston

this summer, where he joined Bain
& Co. as a consultant. Jeremy looks
forward to getting to know Boston
and hopes to connect with alumni
in the area.

Jennifer Kincaid recently tran-
sitioned into her role as director of
strategic development and communi-
cations at Casa Esperanza, where she
says she has the fortune of tapping
into the intersection of pathol-
ogy, society and justice serving the
Latino community in Massachusetts.
Casa Esperanza seeks to empower
individuals to recover from addic-
tion and mental illness, overcome
homelessness and achieve health and
wellness through comprehensive,
integrated care. This summer she was
looking forward to reuniting with
Sarah Lieff, Candace Mitchell and
Julia Gonzales ’10 on the beaches of
Martha's Vineyard.

Daniella Zalcman spent the start
of summer in Istanbul, where her
first book went to press. Signs of Your
Identity, available this fall, is a photo-
graphic exploration of the legacy of
Canada’s Indian Residential Schools
— a system of forced assimilation
boarding schools for First Nations
children that ran until 1996.

Alex Horn and lan Glaser
were planning to launch a specialty
credit fund this summer. After
forming BridgeInvest, a short-term
private lender focused on real estate
mortgages in the Southeast United
States, the former EC suitemates
have grown the company during the
past five years. They are now launch-
ing their first private equity fund to
capitalize on the stringent regulatory
environment of traditional lenders

and the “wall of maturities” in the
commercial mortgage-backed secu-
rities (CMBS) market. Alex and Ian
say they look forward to continuing
to disrupt the mortgage market and
are ever-grateful for the ongoing
support of classmates.

Joanna Sloame left NBC and is
writing and producing entertainment
videos for PopSugar, a women’s life-
style platform. She recently shot a viral
video about a little girl hand-sewing
purses filled with necessities and
handing them out to homeless women,
which currently has more than 23 mil-
lion views. She’s also creating scripted
comedy videos through her production
company, Foot in Mouth Productions,
including her latest, Ne¢ffix Is a Better
Boyfriend. She'd love to hear from
alumni in the Los Angeles area.

2010

Julia Feldberg

One Western Ave., Apt. 717
Boston, MA 02163
juliafeldberg@gmail.com

Hi 2010. We have two exciting birth
announcements to kick off our Class
Notes this issue. I think that is a
clear sign we are getting older!

Nina Gilkerson (née Beary) and
her husband, Graham Gilkerson,
joyfully welcomed son George
Edwin on June 4. Nina says he is as
sweet as can be and is already look-
ing forward to his days as a Lion.
Nina, Graham and George send
their best to the Class of 2010 from
their home in Austin. .

Jonathan Mann and his wife,
Rachel, are excited to announce the
birth of their first child, Jack Baker
Mann, in April.

After graduating from Duke Law
last May, Raul Mendoza started at
the Pittsburgh office of Buchanan
Ingersoll & Rooney, where he was
recently placed into the firm’s energy,
environmental and natural resources
practice group after completing an
eight-month rotation program.

On a recent trip to Los Angeles,
Raul caught up with James Chen
SEAS'12 and Yong Park GS’10, and
they enjoyed tasty burgers by the beach.

Bradley Skaf graduated from the
Stanford Graduate School of Busi-
ness and is moving back to NYC to
join Gridiron Capital.

Kevin McKenna was scheduled
to start a one-year instructorship in
August at Lewis & Clark College in
Portland, Ore., while finishing his
Ph.D. in history at Washington.

Jake Grumbach shares, “I’m just
sad because the Warriors lost Game 7
after being up 3-1 in the finals. Cleve-
land deserves a win — especially since
that city is forced to be the location of
the nomination of Donald J. Trump as
Republican presidential nominee —
but damn, this was a tough loss. I don’t
care what anybody says about their
‘career’ or ‘relationships.’ The NBA
Finals are more important.”

And finally, Chris Yim writes,
“The ancient Greeks did not write
obituaries, instead they asked only one
question of a man: ‘Did he have pas-
sion? After I am cryogenically frozen
— I just signed up for this service
— I hope people ask this question of
my life and that the answer is pretty
obvious. I wanted an estate in the rural
parts of Scotland, but had to settle for
a part of Great Britain near Liverpool.
I purchased this recently with the
funds from UClass. I’m calling it
Winterfell after my favorite family
in Game of Thrones. I plan to raise my

Ula Kudelski ’09 and Jim McCrindle were married on September 26, 2015, at
Southwood Estate in the Hudson Valley. Included in this photo are bridesmaids
Katrina Cragg ’09, Crystal Vidal 09 and Andrea Derricks Steele ’07 as well as
groomsman Cody Steele ’09.

Alice Sturm 10 married Ahmed Khan ’09 on December 19 in Washington, D.C.
Left to right: Akua Nketia ’11, Adil Anmed ’09, Saffiyah Madraswala BC’09,

Ali Shafei 10, Athar Abdul-Quader ’08, Tahir Qadir SPS’09, Sherif Farrag 09,
Severin Mahirwe "11, Rebecca Kelly ’09, Misty Fuller 09 (née Pollard), Jeremy
Constancio 10, Diana Wong 10, Grace Zhou “10, Casey Hayes-Deats 10,
Christine Kwon 10 and Emma Steinberg BC’09.

children there. I look forward to the
day that my family can all huddle up
by the fire in a wolfskin blanket and
tell stories as we watch the embers
burn. I'll tell my son/daughter stories
of my time at Columbia and how in
summer 2008, I became a man. There
is much to this story that I hope to
share with you one day. I bid you
farewell until the next episode.”
CC’10, share your news with your
classmates! You can write to the
addresses at the top of this column
or through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

2011

Nuriel Moghavem and
Sean Udell

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
nurielm@gmail.com
sean.udell@gmail.com

Hey, Class of 2011! We loved see-
ing so many of you at our five-year
reunion in June. We hope that you
had a great time connecting with
friends. Our notes for this quarter
are light, presumably because we all
got to share in person about what
we've been up to since graduation!
First, we have some moves to report.
Miriam Schachter graduated
from Michigan Law in May and is
moving back to New York this fall
to start a job as a public defender in
the family defense practice at The
Bronx Defenders. Miriam is thrilled

to be heading back to her home
turf after five years in the Midwest.
While she'll certainly miss the
friends she has made there, she says
she doesn’t expect to miss the never-
ending Michigan winters.

Megan McCusker spent August
2014-August 2015 as a teaching
fellowship at Winchester College
in Winchester, England. She got
engaged last fall and opened a cof-
fee shop in Philly with her fiancé.
It’s called Function Coffee Labs, a
third-wave specialty coffee shop that
relies on science to make the best
cup of coffee. #sciencemadecoffee

Ace Patterson graduated
from UC Berkeley’s Haas School
of Business with an M.B.A. and
was scheduled to work at Deloitte
Consulting’s San Francisco office
starting in August. He also got mar-
ried (one week after graduation!) to
Roza Essaw.

CC’11 has three more class mem-
bers who are tying the knot. Betsy
Morais and Thomas Rhiel met in
the Spectator offices while Ben Cotton
sat nearby drinking a Blue Moon.
‘Their relationship began in the most
romantic context imaginable: pushing
copy about campus happenings and
the University’s expansion into West
Harlem. They have stayed a pair since!

Betsy moved to Washington,
D.C., and back, working at The
Atlantic, The New Yorker and now
Harpers. Thomas worked at Google
and Atavist, and started recently
at The New York Times, where he is
in the newsroom — a few floors
away from Ben. Betsy co-teaches
a magazine writing class at the

Journalism School and passes the

Fall 2016 CCT 89

Class Notes

Spectator office once a week on her
way to Tom's.

Melissa Ann Im returned from
an extraordinary trip from Italy (her
first time in Europe, but not her last,
she says) and is excited to share the
news of her engagement to David
Giuffrida (08 Bentley). (The pho-
tographer should have given it away
during their picnic in the vineyards
of Montalcino, Toscana.) Melissa and
David met in New York City and
now reside in Singapore, so if any
Columbian is stopping by that side
of the world, Melissa says to please
reach out on Facebook. She hosted
the Columbia Experience Overseas
students this summer and has taken
an active role as the co-chair of out-
reach for the board of the Columbia
University Club of Singapore.

Classmates, keep those notes
coming to the addresses at the top of
this column or through CC7’s Class
Notes webform, college.columbia.
edu/cct/submit_class_note.

2012

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sarah Chai

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
sarahbchai@gmail.com

Hi friends. Despite all the exciting
things I know you are up to, I’m sad
to report that this column contains
the fewest number of updates since
we graduated. Please let us know
what you're up to! Moving on to the
exciting things:

Congratulations to lan Scheffler,
whose first book is due on October
18! Cracking the Cube: Going Slow to
Go Fast and Other Unexpected Turns
in the World of Competitive Rubik's
Cube Solving follows Ian as he tries
to go sub-20, or break 20 seconds
— which is to Rubik’s Cube-solving
what four minutes is to the mile.

So far, the response to advanced
copies sent to the media and select

90 CCT Fall 2016

readers has been overwhelmingly
positive. Quarterback Ryan Fitzpat-
rick enjoyed the book so much he
said he plans to put it in his locker
next season so reporters have to look
at it when they interview him!

If classmates are in New York,
Los Angeles or San Francisco this
fall, they’re more than welcome to
attend one of the events that will be
held to publicize the book’s release,
Ian says. For updates, follow Ian on
twitter, Instagram and/or Facebook,
or visit ianscheffler.com.

Ian gives a shoutout to his fellow
graduates from Writers House — he
fondly remembers those Thursday
night workshops!

Nora Cabrera (née Koutruba)
BC’12 invites classmates to contact
her if they have real estate needs:
She says, “Finding a home in
NYC can be tricky. Finding a solid
salesperson can be trickier. If you
are planning to rent or purchase
an apartment, contact Nora for
your real estate needs at ncabrera@
halstead.com or 212-381-2492.”

Nora helped me find my NYC
apartment a few months ago and |
love it!

Celine Pascheles graduated
from medical school in May and
is an M.D. doing her residency
training in emergency medicine at
Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center. Celine says that
the transition from medical student
to physician has been amazing, and
that this is definitely an exciting
time in her career.

Congratulations, Dr. Pascheles!

Hope to hear from the rest of
you soon: sarahbchai@gmail.com
or college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note!

2013

Tala Akhavan

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
talaakhavan@gmail.com

Happy fall, Class of 2013! As the
weather cools down, please take the
time to send in a note to update
classmates on your life. From travels
to jobs to new hobbies, all news

is welcome in CCT. Shoot me an
email at talaakhavan@gmail.com to

share what’s happening!

Patrick Woolsey is excited to be
in his second year at Yale Law, where
he is pursuing a joint J.D./master of
environmental management degree
with Yale’s School of Forestry & Envi-
ronmental Studies. He plans a career in
public-interest environmental advocacy.
Prior to law school, Patrick worked
for two years in Washington, D.C., for
the Environmental Law Institute as a
research associate. He recently returned
from an exchange program in Santiago,
where he got a crash course in the
basics of the Chilean legal system.

Jacqueline Karsh got married
last fall and moved to Los Angeles,
where she is a local news reporter
for public access channel LA36.

Denise Machin is director of the
Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance
Company. Along with being director,
Denise will step into the roles of assis-
tant director of the Pomona College
Smith Campus Center and ballroom
dance instructor for the Pomona Col-
lege physical education department.
In June, Denise advanced to candi-
dacy at UC Riverside in the critical
dance studies Ph.D. program. Her
research explores gender performance
in the amateur American ballroom
dance and dancesport communities.

2014

Rebecca Fattell

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
rsf2121@columbia.edu

Thank you to all the CC’14ers who
submitted notes for this issue! It’s
great to hear about all the exciting
things classmates are doing.

Duncan Dickerson and
Alexandra Delaney got engaged
this summer! Duncan graduated
from Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate
School of Business with an M.B.A.
this past spring and was identified
as a 2016 M.B.A. To Watch by Poets
and Quants. He then started a job
at Lazard Freres as an investment
banking associate.

Right after graduation, Byron
M. Jones moved to Fort Collins,
Colo., to complete a master’s in
management at Colorado State and
to compete on its cross country and
outdoor track and field teams. He
helped lead the team to an NCAA
DI Cross Country Nationals qualifi-

cation and to a 19th-place finish (out
of 30). This was its best finish in a
decade! Additionally he scored in the
Mountain West Outdoor Track &
Field Championship 5000m to help
the men’s team win its first Mountain
West title in school history. For
nearly a year Byron has been living
and working in NYC, where he is an
analyst in a project management role.
He has a large amount of responsibil-
ity related to planning, execution and
change management for a data center
relocation project for a Fortune 50
company. He says he hopes the rest
of the class is also doing well.

George T. Phillips is a third-year
at Georgetown Law and had a sum-
mer associateship with Cadwalader,
Wickersham & Taft.

‘This spring Liz Malone began
as a publicist for Martha Stewart
Living and Martha Stewart Weddings
at Meredith Corp. She writes, “I’ve
had the pleasure of working with
talented editors and publishers on
the daily. Listening to their creative,
innovative and passionate insights
has been really inspiring — I’ve
learned so much. We worked with
The Today Show, Good Morning
America, The Wall Street Journal and
many other outlets. Martha is the
most impressive person I’ve met and
working with her team makes com-
ing to work every day so enjoyable.”

Charlee Dyroff’15 is the director
of growth at Triller, which enables
anyone to create professional quality
music videos with just a couple of
taps on their phone. She’s always
down to have coffee with other
alums in the music, tech and start-
up communities!

Alexandra Svokos spent half of
July sweating her face off cover-
ing the political conventions in
Cleveland and Philadelphia for Evite
Daily. It still was not as hot as her
non-air conditioned dorm room on
move-in day.

Jennifer Lee moved to Southern
California in fall 2015 to join the
CFO team at SpaceX. She says she’s
been having a blast learning about
rockets and being a part of Elon
Musk’s vision to colonize Mars. She
says please reach out if you are in the
area (e12580@columbia.edu)!

Julian Richardson moved to
London this year and in late June
played tennis with members of the
local Columbia Alumni Association.

Andrew Lopez-Balboa is pick-
ing up everything and moving to

Hong Kong for work. He says he’ll
probably live there for a few years
doing investment banking for Gold-
man Sachs.

‘This spring, Tareq Abuissa led
a digital music course at The Dalton
School with a curriculum based on
what he learned in recorded sound at
Columbia’s Computer Music Center.
He recently finished recording a
10-track studio album at Mama
Coco's Funky Kitchen in Brooklyn.
Tareq is composing music and lyrics
for South of Market: The Musical, a
satire of Silicon Valley in the spirit of
The Varsity Show, set to premiere in
San Francisco’s Z Space in October.

Yuyun Yang is heading to Stan-
ford to pursue a graduate degree in
computational finance and says she
is really excited about it!

Also this spring, Kate Eberstadt
was selected as a 2016 artist-in-
residence for The Watermill Center,
followed by a visiting guest artist
residency at The American Academy
in Berlin. While in residence Kate
founded The Hutto Project, a music
and performance education program
for children of displaced populations
living in an emergency refugee camp.
Together, they created original choral
work, which debuted in a public
concert at ZK/U Berlin in June.

This work was carried out by
Donju Min’13 and Izzi Eberstadt
BC’16, with volunteers from all over
the world, including Saringi Agata
SEAS’16, Cole Hickman 16 and
Jess Lempit BC’15.

Additionally, this summer Kate
co-curated and administered the
Scaler Lecture Series at The Water-
mill Summer Center. This year’s
speakers included Cornel West, Carl
Schoonover and Kinan Azmeh. This
fall, Kate plans to establish a part-
nership between her students and
the Berlin Philharmonic and then
go into residence with her sister,
Izzi, to record music.

Zach Vargas-Sullivan works
for Big Beach, a company that
will release Jeff Nichols’ latest film,
Loving (out November 4 in New
York City and Los Angeles and
November 11 nationwide). The film
follows an interracial couple who
broke down marriage equality bar-
riers in 1967. Check out the trailer
on YouTube by searching “Loving
Movie.” Zach hopes you can see it!

Solomon Hoffman has
continued to grow his music
ensemble, now called The Song-

writer’s Orchestra, which started at
Columbia as LyricLion. Olivia Har-
ris, Taylor Simone and Caroline
Sonett are also involved.

Austin Lowe began graduate
school in the Asian studies program
at Georgetown’s School of Foreign
Service this fall. He received the
Harriet & C.C. Tung Family
Endowed Scholarship, awarded each
year to a competitive student who
has demonstrated academic excel-
lence and a commitment to study
United States-China relations.

‘This spring, Damaris Giha
interned with the Tribeca Film
Festival, which she says was a blast,
and she moved back to New York
to pursue her acting dreams. She
recently visited Hannah Ellison in
Milwaukee, where Hannah is doing
Teach For America.

Monica Molina spent the
summer traveling in Spain, Cuba
and Mexico before starting a J.D.
and M.S. in environment and
resources at Stanford this fall. She
stopped in New York to see CC
friends and to welcome Dana
Benami back to New York after
her year in Singapore!

Classmates, keep in touch! You
can send updates to me at rsf2121@
columbia.edu or through CC7’s
Class Notes webform, college.
columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

2015

Kareem Carryl

cloieGh

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
kareem.carryl@columbia.edu

Is it me or does it feel like 2016

is flying by? I can’t believe we are
already in the fall. As fast as this
year is going, it is truly exciting to
see the great things going on in your
lives! For this edition of Class Notes,
we have a few announcements:

Marc-Aurele Ferracci says, “I’m
a consultant for PwC in Luxem-
bourg, specializing in public sector
and missions for the European
Commission. I’m going to Oxford
in September to pursue an M.S. in
social science of the Internet.”

Cleo Constantine Abram
writes, “While working as a political
consultant at Precision Strategies,

I began writing a newsletter, The

alumninews

Short Version, which presents a

real debate on important issues. For
every week’s biggest controversy, [he
Short Version breaks down what’s
happening, how it affects you and
the best arguments on each side. I'd
love feedback and topic suggestions!
Find it at shortversionbycleo.com.”

Columbia for Reunion Weekend
2016. I hope you had a wonderful
time catching up with classmates
and reconnecting to Columbia Col-
lege and to one another.

As always, please submit updates
or photos to me at the address at the
top of the column, by emailing me

Noeleen Advani 15 has been working in the monitoring,

evaluation and research team of Grassroot Soccer, an

international sport for development organization.

David Kang has a new job as a
management consultant for Kaiser
Associates. He says: “Thanks to
Columbia University for continu-
ally opening doors for me down
the road!”

Luke Foster writes, “After a year
in New Haven, Conn., helping to
launch the Elm Institute, I will be
heading to Chicago's Committee on
Social Thought to begin a Ph.D.”

Nicolle Lee, who works at Banc
of California, writes, “I grew up in
California. It is a unique experience
working alongside bank executives
and California’s entrepreneurs to
help grow this bank and thereby
help finance the dreams of Cali-
fornia’s businesses, entrepreneurs
and communities. The value and
commitment to being California’s
bank and continuing to grow is what
makes working at Banc of California
so rewarding!”

Last, but not least, Noeleen
Advani shared, “Since graduation
I’ve been working in the monitor-
ing, evaluation and research team of
Grassroot Soccer, an international
sport for development organization
based in Cape Town, South Africa.
We use the power of soccer to
educate, inspire and mobilize youth
in high-risk areas to live healthier
lives and be agents of change in
their communities. Since 2002, 1.3
million children have graduated
from our programs in nearly 50
countries. I’m excited to be using
the knowledge gained from my
sustainable development degree
to eradicate HIV/AIDS, improve
access to reproductive and sexual
health services, and address harmful
gender norms for adolescents.”

I would be remiss if I did not
thank you for coming back to

at kdc2122@columbia.edu or via the
CCT Class Notes webform, college.

columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

2016

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Lily Liu-Krason

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
lliukrason@gmail

CCT wishes the Class of 2016 a
happy fall. Lily Liu-Krason will be
taking over as class correspondent
from here on out so email her at
lliukrason@gmail.com with all of
your exciting news!

CCT received a note from
Caitlin de Lisser-Ellen: “I recently
won a grant to produce an Off-
Broadway show through The Araca
Project; it begins in October and
is a drag presentation of the Salem
Witch Trials (thesalembitchtrials.
com). I'd love to get other alumni
involved and [hope] they can come
to the show!”

Also, the Class of 2016 one-year
Reunion Weekend will be here
before you know it, so mark your
calendars now for Thursday, June 1—
Sunday, June 4, when you can recon-
nect with classmates on campus and

throughout NYC!

Fall 2016 CCT 91

| obituaries ee ee |

1939

Seymour B. Jacobson, retired
physician, Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.,

on February 19, 2016. A geriatric
psychiatrist who practiced in New
York City, Jacobson was a member
of The New York Academy of Medi-
cine and served at many institutions,
including The Jewish Home and
Hospital for the Aged, New York
Medical College and the New York
County Medical Society. He earned
a degree from P&S in 1962. He

was predeceased by his wife, Louise
Van Baalen Jacobson BC’40, and

is survived by a daughter, grandson
and great-grandson.

1942

Henry C. Beck, retired oceanogra-
pher, Walpole, N.H., on March 8,
2016. Beck entered the College with
the Class of 1942 and graduated
from Engineering with a B.S. in 1943
and an M.S. in 1948. Commissioned
in the Navy, he served in the Atlantic
and Pacific fleets on destroyer escorts,
earning four battle stars, and retired

from the USNR as a commander.

After the war he was an engineer on

Columbia's Nevis Labs’ cyclotron.
Beck rejoined Columbia when

Hudson Laboratories was founded,

receiving a faculty appointment
as director of engineering. With

Obituary Submission
Guidelines

Columbia College Today welcomes
obituaries for College alumni.
Deaths are noted in the next
available issue in the “Other

Deaths Reported” box. Complete
obituaries will be published in an
upcoming issue, pending receipt of
information. Due to the volume of
obituaries that CCT receives, it may
take several issues for the complete
obituary to appear. Word limit is 200;
text may be edited for length, clarity
and style at the editors’ discretion.
Click “Contact Us” at college.
columbia.edu/cct, or mail materials
to Obituaries Editor, Columbia
College Today, Columbia Alumni
Center, 622 W. 113th St., MC 4530,
Ath Fl., New York, NY 10025.

92 CCT Fall 2016

many publications and patents on
oceanographic and acoustic systems
and instruments, and the design of
handling gear and research ships, he
pioneered the field of deep ocean
anchoring and dynamic positioning
of ships. He received a Navy com-
mendation for efforts in locating the
sunken submarine U.S.S. Thresher.
Upon the dissolution of Hud-

son Labs, Beck joined the Naval
Oceanographic Office as director
of engineering and became director
of the office with its 12-ship fleet
and aircraft wing supporting the
operational Navy. Retiring to New
Hampshire, he enjoyed fishing,
gardening, Manhattans and world
travel with his wife of 64 years,
Gloria, who survives him. He is also
survived by one daughter, one son
and three granddaughters.

Henry W. Decker, professor emeri-
tus of French, Riverside, Calif., on
March 6, 2015. Decker was born on
September 3, 1923, in Orange, N_J.
He grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y.,
and served in the 104th Infantry
Division from 1942 to 1945 in
Europe. After the war he married
Jane Munro Hancock and earned

a Ph.D. in Romance languages at
Michigan. Decker joined the faculty
of the French Department at UC
Riverside in 1955, serving as chair
for many years. His love of learning
and passionate devotion to teaching
continued after his retirement in
1991 as he mentored undergradu-
ates and wrote a memoir of his war
experience. He was predeceased by
his wife and his brother, Richard

C. Jr. He is survived by his sister,
Ruth Decker Steen; a niece; three
nephews; and eight grand-nieces
and grand-nephews.

1943

Thomas A. Norton, retired archi-
tect, Pawtucket, R.I., on April 13,
2016. Born on August 4, 1922, Nor-
ton earned a B.Arch. in 1949 from
GSAPP. He was a member of Delta
Psi fraternity. Norton joined the
Army Air Corps in 1941, where he
served as a B-17 bomber pilot, flying
35 combat missions, achieving the
rank of 1st. Lt. and receiving the Air

Medal. Norton was an award-win-
ning architect and built his career at
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and
Sherwood, Mills & Smith before
co-founding Norton & Hume
Architects. He later was director of
architecture for Rockefeller Center
and ran a private practice from

1978 to 2004. Norton was an avid
sailor and member of the New York
Yacht Club. He designed and built
a number of sailboats including the
“Tartan 26” and the popular “X-21.”
Norton was a poet and writer and
was active in community theater. He
is survived by his wife, Ann Wood
Norton; six children; 11 grandchil-
dren; and eight great-grandchildren.

1944

S. William “Bill” Friedman,

retired attorney, Somers, N.Y., on
September 12, 2015. Friedman was
born on December 15, 1922, in
Yonkers, N.Y. He served in WWII,
holding the rank of sergeant. He
was a practicing attorney for more
than 60 years. At Columbia, he ran
track. Friedman earned a law degree
at Fordham and a master’s in tax law
at NYU. He was law secretary to

the Hon. Frank McCullough, later
becoming a partner in the firm Baer
Marks & Upham and then Griffin,
Kane, Letson, Friedman & Coogan.
In later years he was a sole practitio-
ner. He was president and a member
of the Board of Directors of BOMA
Westchester and was involved in

the national BOMA organization
Friedman enjoyed travel, writing, the
law, gardening, tennis and spending
time with his family, and was an avid
sports fan. He was a CCT class cor-
respondent from 2013 to 2015. He
is survived by his wife of 60 years,
Linda Aries Friedman; brother,
Norman; children, Steven and his
wife, Helen, David and his wife, Liz,
and Jill Bizenov and her husband,
Michael; and seven grandchildren.

1947

Ernest H. Morgenstern, retired
executive, Boynton Beach, Fla., on
February 18, 2016. Born in Newark,
N,J., Morgenstern graduated from

Weequahic H.S. at 16 before begin-
ning his bachelor’s at the College.
Enlisting in the Army at 18, he
served in both the European and
Pacific theatres. Once WWII ended
he completed his degree, earned

an M.S. in 1948 from the Business
School and accepted a position with
New York Telephone Co. in account-
ing. Morgenstern enjoyed a long
career with New York Telephone and
AT&T, retiring in 1986. An active
member of his Livingston temple,

he was a past treasurer and honorary
president of its B’nai B’rith Men’s
Club and was a perennial member of
its bowling team. He enjoyed family
time on the Jersey shore at his Long
Beach Island home and was an avid
Red Sox fan stemming to his youth
on the beaches of Boston’s North
Shore. Morgenstern is survived by his
wife, Sylvia; daughter, Michelle, and
her husband, Jim Swaim; son, Gary,
and his wife, Dale; four grandchil-
dren; and sister, Marjorie Glassman.
Memorial contributions may be
made to the Deborah Hospital Foun-
dation (deborahfoundation.org).

1948

Stanley N. Rader, retired fastener
company executive, Boca Raton,
Fla., on October 19, 2015. Born in
Brooklyn, N.Y., he graduated from
Madison H.S. WWII interrupted
his College studies. Upon his return
from the Navy, he graduated from
Columbia. Rader spent 43 years in
the fastener industry, 30 of those in
New York with Industrial Fasten-
ers. In 1978, he was a founder of
United Screw of America in Miami,
where he was president until his
1991 retirement. He is survived by
his wife of 62 years, Blanche (née
Miller); children, Ellen and Stuart;
and three grandchildren. Memorial
contributions may be made to the
National Parkinson Foundation.

George H. Vachris, retired VP of
sales, Southbury, Conn., on Novem-
ber 19, 2015. Vachris was born on
July 25, 1923, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He
graduated from Brooklyn Prepara-
tory School in 1941, matriculated
at the College and then joined

the Navy, serving during WWII.

COURTESY ROSENCRANS FAMILY

He then returned to Columbia to
complete his studies. Vachris was

a VP of sales for Franklin Fibre-
Lamitex Corp. for 40 years. He was
predeceased in 2010 by his wife,
Barbara (Hope) Vachris, whom he
married in 1950. They raised their
family in East Williston, N.Y., and
then moved to Southbury upon his
retirement. They enjoyed travel-

ing the world, spending time with
their family and summers at their
cabin in upstate New York. Vachris
is survived by his children, George,
Carol Harty and her husband,
Edward, Mary, and Gregory and his
wife, Karen; eight grandchildren; 18
great-grandchildren; two great-
great-grandchildren; and brothers
John and James. Memorial contri-
butions may be made to St. Jude
Children’s Research Hospital or the

American Diabetes Association.

David S. Dana, retired corporate

VP, Dalton, N.H., on December 22,
2015. Dana was born on June 5, 1931,
in Dallas. He attended Staunton
Military Academy, then studied
engineering at MIT and business at
the College. He served in the Army
during the Korean War. He spent 18
years at the Dana Corp., a manufac-
turer of automotive parts headquar-
tered in Toledo, Ohio. In 1970, he
retired to the White Mountains of
New Hampshire. Dana created The
Ridge, a small community of homes
in Dalton, N.H.; his core convic-

tion was to live in and enjoy nature
while preserving it. He maintained

a second home in NYC, where he
supported the arts. He also established
the Dana Child Development and

adlumninews

Learning Disorders Program at the
Mayo Clinic and contributed to the
Johns Hopkins Hospital and the
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical
Center. Dana is survived by his wife,
Elaine; sister, Ann Dana Kusch; chil-
dren, Charles and his wife, Virginia,
Deborah and her husband, Patrick
Horvath, Stephanie and her husband,
Duane Stranahan, and Amy and her
husband, Joe Profaci; daughter-in-law,
Nancy; 11 grandchildren; and three
great-grandchildren. His eldest son,
Randall, predeceased him. Memorial
contributions may be made to the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., or
The Morrison in Whitefield, N.H.

Barry Schweid, retired AP
diplomatic correspondent, Washing-
ton, D.C., on December 10, 2015.
Schweid was born in New York City
on July 30, 1932. He earned a degree

Cable TV Pioneer Robert M. Rosencrans 49, BUS’52

Robert M. Rosencrans ’49, BUS’52,
a cable TV pioneer and dedicated
alumnus, died on August 3, 2016, in
Greenwich, Conn. He was 89.

Born in New York City on March
26, 1927, Rosencrans grew up in
Woodmere, N.Y., with his parents,
Eva and Alvin, and older brother, Her-
bert. In February 1945, Herbert died
in WWIL. Rosencrans chose to stay

close to home and enrolled at the Col-
lege, where he pitched for the baseball
team. He also became a top amateur
golfer in the New York metropolitan
area and was an eight-time club cham-
pion at Birchwood Country Club.
Upon graduating with a degree in

economics, Rosencrans served in the

Air Force. He worked briefly in retail,
but then a friend referred him to Box
Office Television, which was hoping
to help movie theaters compete with
television by offering closed-circuit
programming. The referral began
Rosencrans’ professional career, and he
helped create what is now the modern
cable television industry. He started
with a collection of small cable systems
in the Pacific Northwest in 1961 and
went on to form UA-Columbia Cable,
which evolved into UA-Columbia

’ Cablevision. He was dismissed when

the company was divided in 1984, but
then started Columbia International,
another operator, which he sold in
1995 for an estimated $600 million.

In the late 1970s, after Brian Lamb,
C-SPAN's founder and executive
chair, pitched the channel's concept
to cable operators, Rosencrans wrote
a $25,000 check on the spot and
persuaded other industry executives to
pony up $450,000 in seed money. A
private, nonprofit, industry-financed
service, C-SPAN began as the Cable-
Satellite Public Affairs Network in
1979, at a time when fewer than one
in five homes was wired for cable.
Rosencrans, a political liberal, invested
in C-SPAN with his Columbia Cable
partner, Kenneth S. Gunter, a conser-
vative, and was its first chair.

In conjunction with Madison
Square Garden, Rosencrans drove the
creation of a sports channel featuring
Knicks and Rangers games. When
general programming was added,
it evolved into the USA Network,
although the MSG Network still
exists separately as part of Madison
Square Garden. Investing nearly
$100,000, Rosencrans’ Columbia
Cable Systems was credited with
being the first cable operator to
install a satellite receiving station in
1975, to deliver the Muhammad Ali-
Joe Frazier championship fight from
Manila to its Florida subscribers.

Rosencrans enjoyed sharing his
entrepreneurial spirit with others,
investing in and advising other early
ventures such as Blogging Heads TV
as well as PublicA ffairs, a publisher of
literary fiction and topical nonfiction
founded in 1997 by Peter Osnos. Ros-
encrans was a board member of the Dr.
I Foundation and in 1999 was inducted
into the Cable Television Hall of Fame
by the Cable Television Museum.

In Greenwich, Rosencrans
became involved in local civic
organizations and was chair of the
United Way’s annual fundraising
efforts. He also was dedicated to
Columbia, serving on the Columbia
College Alumni Association’s Board

in 1954 from the Journalism School.
After service in the Army as a public
relations specialist, he joined the AP’s
New York City bureau and trans-
ferred to Washington, D.C., in 1959.
As a reporter, he was known for
taking complex situations, especially
in the Middle East, and explaining
them in simple, direct sentences,
weaving in context and color. Among
his career highlights, he covered

the negotiations at Camp David

that President Carter brokered to
reach a historic peace treaty in 1977
between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and
Israels Menachem Begin. Schweid
chronicled the Cold War and then
its end with the implosion of the
Soviet Union, filing news alerts from
officials traveling with Secretary of
State James Baker. He received many
honors from educational institutions
and was inducted into the Washing-

of Directors from 1991 to 1992 and
the Board of Visitors from 1993 to

1999, serving as chair from 1996 to
1999. He was a Class Agent for the
Columbia College Fund from 2005
to 2009. Rosencrans was presented

a John Jay Award for distinguished

professional achievement in 2000.

He is survived by his wife of 59
years, Marjorie “Margie” Meyers; sons,
Richard, Ron and Robert; daughter,
Robbie; daughters-in-law Marjorie,
Beth and Barrie; son-in-law Kurt
Heidinger; and 11 grandchildren; as
well as sisters-in-law and brothers-in-
law Rene and Ed Bermas and Joan and
Al Sherman, and their families.

A memorial was held on campus on
September 18. Memorial contributions
may be made to the Rosencrans Core
Curriculum Fund, an endowment that
supports the Center for the Core Cur-
riculum. Contact Heather Siemienas,
coordinator, fund development: 212-
851-7855 or hs2843@columbia.edu.

— Lisa Palladino

CCT Web Extras

To read CCT’s feature story about
Rosencrans, “An Original Cable
Guy,” go to college.columbia.edu/
cct_archive/janO5.

Fall 2016 CCT 93

ton Society of Professional Journal-
ists’ Hall of Fame in 2002. Schweid
is survived by Nina Graybill, his
partner of more than 40 years; sister,
Marlene; nephew, Walter Charnizon;
and niece, Jennifer Charnizon.

1954

Leonard H. Moche, attorney, Bronx,
N.Y., on March 4, 2016. Moche

graduated from Bronx Science and at
the College was captain of the debat-

ing team. He earned a degree from
Harvard Law and became a litigator,
working for firms until 1982, when
he opened a private practice. His
first marriage was to Hanneli Hall,
mother of James’81 and Mark. After
her death, he married Dinah Levine.
They divorced, and he married
Mary Anne Gavagan, from whom
he was later divorced. Moche loved
the Brooklyn Dodgers, opera, dogs,
European travel and book discus-
sions. His final years were spent in
the Hebrew Home at Riverdale,

where he organized the daily minyan.

1955

Albert Momjian, attorney,
Huntingdon Valley, Pa., on July

11, 2016. A native of Atlantic City,
Momjian attended the College and
Law School on full scholarships; he
graduated from the Law School in
1957. Momjian founded the Colum-
bia University Club of Philadelphia
in 1978, the first Columbia alumni
club established outside of New
York City. For decades, he hosted
events for Law School alumni, and
he interviewed hundreds of students
applying to the College. In 1983
Momjian received the University’s
Alumni Medal for distinguished ser-
vice. The Legal Intelligencer, the oldest
law journal in the United States,

hailed him as a “family law giant”
and an “attorney to the stars,” and the
Philadelphia Inquirer described him
as a “dedicated civic volunteer and a
leader of the Armenian community
in America.” He is survived by his
wife of 55 years, Esther; children,

twins Carol Momjian Hanamirian

94 CCT Fall 2016

Albert Momjian ’55

and Mark’83, LAW’86, and Thomas
89, LAW’92; and five grandsons,
including David’15 and Gregory’17.

Michael H. Pressman, retired pro-
fessor, Coconut Creek, Fla., on March
12, 2016. Pressman earned a B.S. in
1958 from the Engineering School
and an M.C.E. in transportation
engineering in 1960 from Polytechnic
Institute of Brooklyn. A professor at
C.W. Post College of Long Island
University from 1957 to 2000, he
developed the computer science
department; the Michael H. Pressman
Award is given annually to a computer
science student who demonstrates
outstanding academic achievement. A
pioneer in the field, he authored three
books. Pressman’s passions included
classical music as well as trains and
transportation. At one time, he played
eight musical instruments, playing
oboe in the Columbia orchestra. In
his retirement community, Pressman
developed and taught a weekly class
“The Enjoyment of Music.” Because
of his lifelong fascination with trains
and transportation, he traveled around
the United States three times by train
and numerous times up and down the
East coast from Miami to Montreal.
He is survived by his daughters and
their husbands, Laurie and Ray, and
Dana and Jeff; two granddaughters;
and brother, Ed’62.

Ward J. Armstrong, retired sporting
goods retailer, Ogden, Utah, on Febru-
ary 22, 2016. Armstrong was born on
September 24, 1935, in Ogden. He
married Geniel Snarr on September
20, 1955. He started his career at the
family-owned business, Armstrong
Sporting Goods Store, where he
honed his skills in sales. He was

awarded a scholarship from Columbia.
Armstrong’s passion for sports
translated to his career in sporting
goods retail, to which he devoted 35
years before retiring in 1997. He was
an avid hunter and upon retirement
was a docent at the John M. Brown-
ing Firearms Museum. Armstrong
was recognized with many honors,
including the 2015 Distinguished
Service Award from the Utah Sports
Hall of Fame, where he had been
president. He was predeceased by his
sister, Claire Johnson; brother, Jeremy;
daughter, Amy; and great-grandson,
Carter Bartlett; and is survived by his
wife; children, Colleen and her hus-
band, Scott Roberts, Andrew and his
wife, Imelda, Molly and her husband,
John Chugg, and Niel; 10 grand-
daughters; 25 great-grandchildren;
brother, Claude; and brother-in-law,
Ken Johnson. Memorial contributions
may be made to the IAFF Local 1654
(Amy Armstrong Fund) c/o Edward
Jones, 2685 North 1000 West, Ste 102,
Pleasant View, UT 84414, or the Utah
Sports Hall of Fame Foundation.

Kenneth A. Bodenstein, retired
financial analyst, Marina del Rey,
Calif., on March 20, 2016. Born in
1937, Bodenstein graduated from
Bronx Science. He earned a B.S. in
1958 from the Engineering School
and an M.B.A. in 1960 from the
Business School. At the College,

he was a coxswain and coached the
crew team during graduate school.
Bodenstein worked at Air Products,
Armour, Goodbody, CNA, and Duff
and Phelps, where he spent 35 years
as a financial analyst. He played
tennis for fun and in tournaments
nationally, as well as the Maccabiah
games in Israel. He provided inspira-

tion and practical tips to the women’s
tennis teams at UCLA and Colum-
bia, where he also supported the

Kenneth A. Bodenstein ’57

crew team. His trademark outcry of
“the big one’s in the bank!” inspired
an article in the UCLA magazine.
Bodenstein is survived by his wife

of 23 years, Diane Lerner; children,
Todd and Leslie, with his wife of

30 years, Susan Sims Bodenstein,
who predeceased him; stepson, Guy
DeFeo; stepdaughter, Jan DeFeo;
three grandchildren; sister, Elaine
Polack, and her husband, Rudy; and
five nieces. Memorial contributions
may be made to Idyllwild Arts Foun-
dation, PO Box 38, 52500 Temecula
Rd., Idyllwild, CA 92549 (idyllwild
arts.org/giving or 951-659-2171, ext.
2330); include the memo “Kenneth
Bodenstein Memorial.”

Robert Flescher, retired gastroenter-
ologist, Newington, Conn., on May

3, 2016. Flescher was born on April

3, 1937, in Brooklyn, N.Y. A graduate
of Stuyvesant H.S., he went on to
earn a degree in 1961 from Harvard
Medical School. He served in the U.S.
Public Health Service as a lieutenant
commander and then practiced as a
gastroenterologist, becoming a found-
ing partner of Connecticut Gastro-
enterology Associates at Hartford
Hospital, where he subsequently was
chief of gastroenterology. He also was
president of the GI section of the
Hartford County Medical Association
and became a mentor for GI fellows
at Hartford Hospital. Upon retire-
ment, Flescher became a volunteer
physician at the Malta House of Care.
He also was a consummate gardener.
Flescher is survived by his wife, Joyce,
with whom he had recently celebrated
his 48th anniversary; son, Andrew;
daughter and son in law, Ellen and
Ethan Foxman; three grandchildren,

and sister, Sharon.

1958

Robert Tauber, retired dentist,
Mount Kisco, N.Y., on March 17,
2016. Tauber earned a degree in
1962 from the Dental School and
was an assistant clinical professor
of dentistry there. He served several
terms as president of the Ninth Dis-
trict and chairman of the New York
State Dental Association Ethics
Council. He is survived by his wife,
Dorothy; daughters, Sharon and her
husband, Jeff, and Robin and her
husband, Ted; and four grandchil-
dren. Memorial contributions may

be made to the Dental School.

Daniel S. Shapiro, tax and invest-
ment attorney, London, U.K., on
April 15, 2016. Shapiro grew up

in Cleveland. He earned a degree

in 1963 from the Law School and
received a Fulbright fellowship at
the London School of Economics.
In 1969, Shapiro co-founded the
law firm Schulte Roth & Zabel.
During the last decade, he was also
a partner in the investment firm
Park Vale Capital. In 2002, he and
his wife, Ellen, moved to London
to open an office of Schulte Roth &
Zabel and lived there while main-
taining their residence in New York.

Shapiro was president of the UJA-

Daniel S. Shapiro ’60

Federation of New York, a founder
of the Jewish Community Relations
Council, secretary of the Partner-
ship for New York City and on the
Executive Board and Honors Com-
mittee of the Weizmann Institute
of Science in Israel. He loved music,
singing, playing tennis and spending
time with family and friends. He

is survived by his wife; sister, Rena
Olshansky; in-laws, Jane and Jim
Spingarn; sons, Jonathan, Andrew
and his wife, Nina, and Peter and his
wife, Rebecca; and seven grandchil-
dren. Memorial contributions may
be made to The Daniel S. Shapiro
Cardiovascular Research Fund at the
Weizmann Institute (weizmann-usa.
org/daniel-shapiro-research-fund)

or the UJA Federation of New York.

1965

Stephen L. Goldstein, author,
Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on July 3,
2016. Goldstein earned a master’s
in 1966 and a Ph.D. in 1970, both

duumninews

from GSAS. He authored several
books, two of particular importance:
The Dictionary of American Political
Bullshit (2014), in the tradition of
Voltaire, Ambrose Bierce, and H.L.
Mencken, at once partisan and
idealist, whose definitions speak
liberal, indeed progressive social
and human sentiments, and Ad/as
Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!
(2012), a novel indicting Randian
greed through redemptive satire and
the power of moral vision meant to
restore to American society its lost
moral compass. From 1999 to 2014,
Goldstein was an op-ed columnist
for South Florida’s Sun Sentinel.

He was the host and producer of
numerous radio and T’'V programs,
including Business Exchange on
WLRN TV (a PBS affiliate) and We
the People on Comcast, and spoke
nationwide as a recognized trends
analyst and forecaster on issues
shaping America’s future.

1969

Charles L. Skoro, retired professor
and minister, Boise, on March 31,
2016. Skoro was born on July 28,
1947, in Stibnite, Idaho. He met his
wife, Rosita “Rosie” Anchustegui,
when they were 11. He earned a
master’s and a Ph.D. in econom-
ics and during this time married
Rosie and lived in New York City.
‘They moved back to Boise in 1982.
Skoro was a professor of econom-
ics at Boise State from 1982 to
2000. He chaired the economics
department until stepping down

to become the full-time campus
minister for St. Paul’s Catholic

Student Center on the BSU campus.

He served until his retirement in
July 2014. Skoro was ordained a
deacon in the Catholic Church in
October 2001. He served at Our
Lady of the Rosary for the rest of
his life. Skoro is survived by his wife;
daughters, Elisabeth, and Emily
and her husband, Brandon; three
granddaughters; mother, Delpha;
brothers, Barney and his wife,
Linda, and Tom and his wife, Joan;
and sister, Becky and her husband,
Dennis. Memorial contributions
may be made to Capstone Missions
(capstonemissions.org); the Basque
Museum and Cultural Center, 611
W. Grove St., Boise, ID 83702; or
Rachel’s Vineyard, 6211 Branstetter
St., Boise, ID 83714.

Matthew E. Goldstein, business
development executive, Andover,
Mass., on April 7, 2016. Goldstein’s
love of travel took him all over the
world as he focused on his work

in many countries, most recently

in London. A graduate of Phillips
Academy, Andover, Goldstein was a
Fulbright Scholar. He is survived by
his parents, Janice and Gary; sisters,
Laura and her fiancé, Scott Dorfman,
and Abbey and her husband Jared
Moss; nephew, Jacob Moss; aunt,
Emily Goldsmith; uncle, David
Goldsmith; aunt, Judy; and cousins,
Daniel Rote and Jennifer Rote.
Memorial contributions may be
made to The Pediatric Pain Clinic
c/o Department of Pediatrics, Boston
Medical Center, One Boston Medi-
cal Center Pl., Boston, MA 02118.

2008

Elena K. Parker, writer, producer and
creative technologist, Pomona, N,J., on
December 26, 2015. Parker was born
on October 24, 1985. She was raised
in Hammonton, N_J., and while at the
College received Dean's List status five
semesters and earned a degree in film
studies. From 2008 to 2009 she was a
producer and co-writer of the award-
winning HBO film Make Me Young:
Youth Knows No Pain and worked on
other film projects. She then became
managing editor for Biblion: The
Boundless Library, the New York
Public Library’s first mobile applica-
tion. In 2011 Parker enrolled in NYU's
Tisch School of the Arts — Interac-
tive Telecommunications Program
and earned a master’s in 2013. She
became a writer, producer and creative
technologist. From May 2013 until her
death she worked at Campfire, a New
York based marketing agency. She had
recently been appointed an adjunct
professor at Tisch. Parker is survived
by her mother, Susan H. Curcio; father
Donald; siblings, Jessica Parker Martin,
Bob Martin, Matthew, Gregory, and
Mary Gaeckle Parker; and grand-
mother Lucy Curcio. Contributions
may be sent to the Elena K. Parker
memorial gift to the Tisch School
of the Arts c/o Susan H. Curcio,
2820 Smugglers Ln., Hammonton,
NJ 08037 or via PayPal to parcur@
comcast.net.

— Lisa Palladino

Fall2016 CCT 95

alumnicorner

Giving to Donkeys,
Gaining Peace

By Shira Boss 93, JRN’97, SIPA’98

ve been reading CCTs Class Notes end-to-end for two decades.

Proofreading them is part of my job as the magazine’s contrib-

uting writer but, to my surprise, messages written in the Class

Notes for the Class of ’43 — 50 years before mine — have
changed my life.

During the last few years, class correspondent Dr. G.J. D’Angio
’43 has lauded a U.K.-based nonprofit called The Donkey Sanctuary.
Each time I read about it, I was intrigued. I envisioned a giant pasture
where retired donkeys grazed in tranquility. Finally, one day I looked
it up. While my visions of donkeys grazing in pastures turned out to
be true (with seven farms and more than 6,600 donkeys sheltered),
there’s much more to it than that.

D’Angio was right when, in one of his columns, he called the orga-
nization incredible. It was founded in 1969 by Elisabeth Svendsen
(now deceased) after she saw seven distressed donkeys crammed into
a stall at a market; she later wrote that she was “rooted to the ground in
horror.” She dedicated the rest of her life to donkey welfare.

The Donkey Sanctuary not only takes in abandoned, abused or
neglected donkeys in the United Kingdom and eight other European
countries but also runs training, rescue and veterinary operations in
impoverished communities farther abroad where donkeys work the
hardest. The organization helps one million donkeys a year in 35 coun-
tries. It also runs “donkey-assisted therapy” programs for children with
special needs and arranges visits to hospices and nursing homes.

Now that I know about the donkeys’ travails, I fret about them.
Following in D’Angio’s footsteps, I now support The Donkey
Sanctuary to the extent I’m able.

With the 25th anniversary of my class's graduation approaching, my
new connection to The Donkey Sanctuary seems fortuitous. To me,
the 25th reunion marks the last big milestone in becoming an adult.
I'd always hoped to have my life “together” by the 25th, even though
I wasn't sure what the measure of that would be (although I knew it
would extend beyond professional achievement or financial success).

Despite personal finance being my professional expertise, I had
ignored financial gurus’ advice to systematically give away a portion
of my income. It doesn’t seem logical: If we seek financial security
and want to amass wealth, why would we give money away?

I'd always made small donations to various causes — that’s
what most of us do, according to my research on philanthropy
and giving behavior. But I had never dedicated myself to support-
ing any one organization. That changed after I learned about The
Donkey Sanctuary.

96 CCT Fall 2016

Almost immediately after making my first donation, I received
a payment for a book advance — one never knows when those will
arrive — and promptly donated 10 percent of it to The Donkey
Sanctuary. I found it strangely thrilling — not a loss at all but a
huge gain in personal peace. Since then, I’ve continued the practice
of giving away a percentage of all income, even though my family’s
budget is tight and it often feels like we can’t afford it. It’s chal-
lenging, but I finally feel like ’m doing my bit to help others versus
focusing only on my family’s needs.

Because I wasn't raised in a tradition of tithing, it’s taken this
long for me to see the light: Ironically, by giving money away rather
than accumulating it, I feel true financial peace and security. By
letting some money go — a good amount of money, that makes a
difference to us — we realize there is more than enough. When I
start to question if I can really afford to donate — such as when
we worry about going over our grocery budget or wonder if we can
afford activities for the kids — that’s when I check in with the don-
keys through The Donkey Sanctuary’s website and send a donation.
I always feel better!

Not only that but I’m finding wanting to give more money to
help the donkeys is inspiring me to get creative in order to raise
more money — through belt-tightening, selling things and earning
more — a motivation that had largely escaped me until now.

Some fellow alumni have helped others by founding nonprofits,
dedicating their lives to teaching or inventing creative solutions to
the world’s problems. By supporting a cause through donations, I’ve
realized I too can participate in solving a problem in the wider world.

The donkeys being helped are far away (I’m not sure I'd ever even
seen a donkey until my family went to a petting zoo in Riverside
Park this past summer). But their plight keeps me up at night, and
doing my part soothes my soul.

By connecting to this cause through Class Notes, I can now go
to my 25th reunion feeling I’ve matured in a way that feels signifi-
cant for me. And that — developing your whole person, inside and
out and without end — is definitely in the Columbia tradition.

Shira Boss 93, JRN’97, SIPA’98 was a freelance journalist for The
Christian Science Monitor, Forbes.com and The New York Times,
among other publications, and “Marketplace” on public radio. She is the
author of Green with Envy: Why Keeping Up with the Joneses Is
Keeping Us in Debt and runs the website Zero Cost Kids. She lives on
the Upper West Side with her husband, two sons and two whippets.

c f ,
OURTESY TRIONA O'MAHONY / THE DONKEY SANCTUARY

TOGETHER, oe

LET'S CHANGE LIVES THAT
CHANGE THE WORLD

Pana
va

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Rr TO ne

Se IL.

Five years ago, Columbia College made history, leading the way on the very first Columbia

Giving Day. Since then, thousands of alumni, parents and friends have taken part in this

challenge, using 24 hours to break records and show their support for the Core, scholarships,
student life and more.

On October 26, join us in celebrating the 5th anniversary of Giving

Day and discover new ways that you can give through Columbia.
GIVINGDAY.COLUMBIA.EDU

COLUMBIA
COLLEGE
FUND

| eae Nonprofit Org.
| Sones U.S. Postage
| Today w& a

Permit No. 724

Columbia University
Burl. VT 05401

622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

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ond

eee Sw
“ere

SAVE THE DATE
REUNION WEEKEND 2017

THURSDAY, JUNE 1 —- SUNDAY, JUNE 4

If your class year ends in 2 or 7 or you're in the Class of 2016,
save the date for Reunion Weekend 2017, a chance to see
classmates and friends on campus and throughout New York City.

COLUMBIA
COLLEGE
ALUMNI

college.columbia.edu/alumni/reunion2017 ASSOCIATION

Columbia
-College
Today &

/ Winter 2016—17

_ PROFESSOR ROBERT Y.
SHAPIRO CONSIDERS THE
PRESIDENT’S TIME IN OFFICE

SELECTIONS FROM PORTRAIT
PHOTOGRAPHER TIMOTHY
GREENFIELD-SANDERS ’°74

LIONS SMACK DOWN
DARTMOUTH 9-7

30 YEARS OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE WOMEN

On May 13, 1987, Columbia College graduated its first
coeducational class, and the College was forever changed.
Join us, 30 years later, for a one-day symposium as we reflect
on how women have transformed the College experience,
ways College women are shaping the world and why
coeducation and gender equality remain topics |

of great importance to us all.

Save the Date

SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2017

Learn more: college.columbia.edu/alumni/ccw30years

COLUMBIA...
COLLEGE egistration opens in February.

WOMEN 3 To join the Host Committee, email ccowomen@columbia.edu.

Contents

The Experts

Alumni in the know offer fun, practical how-tos.

By Alexis Boncy SOA’11; Shira Boss (98, fRN’97, SIPA'98;
Anne-Ryan Heatwole RN’09; Kim Martineau $RN’97, SPS'14;
Fill C. Shomer; Yelena Shuster ‘09; and Lauren Steussy

The Uncertain Legacy of
Barack Obama ‘83

An examination of our first alumni President’s time in office.

By Robert Y. Shapiro

Columbia Forum:
The Trans List

Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders ”74
presents his “living portraits” of the transgendered at

a new show in Los Angeles.

Cover: Photograph by Den-Belitsky / Thinkstock

Columbia
College
Today &

VOLUME 44 NUMBER 2
WINTER 2016-17

EDITOR IN CHIEF
Alex Sachare ’71

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Lisa Palladino

DEPUTY EDITOR
Jill C. Shomer

CLASS NOTES EDITOR
Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

FORUM EDITOR
Rose Kernochan BC’82

CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Shira Boss ’93, JRN’97, SIPA’98

EDITORIAL INTERN
Aiyana K. White 18

ART DIRECTOR
Eson Chan

Published quarterly by the
Columbia College Office of

Alumni Affairs and Development

for alumni, students, faculty, parents
and friends of Columbia College.

ASSOCIATE DEAN,
COLUMBIA COLLEGE
ALUMNI RELATIONS
AND COMMUNICATIONS

Bernice Tsai 796

ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO:
Columbia College Today

Columbia Alumni Center

622 W. 113th St., MC 4530, 4th FI.
New York, NY 10025

212-851-7852

EDITORIAL

cct@columbia.edu
ADVERTISING
cctadvertising@columbia.edu
WEB
college.columbia.edu/cct

ISSN 0572-7820

Opinions expressed are those of

the authors and do not reflect

Official positions of Columbia College
or Columbia University.

MIX

Paper from

responsible sources

oC FSC® C022085

departments

Within the Family by Editor Alex Sachare ’71
CCT’s editor in chief says goodbye after
more than 18 years at the helm.

Message from Dean James J. Valentini
Engaging students through the Core Curriculum
is a critical part of the College's effort to preserve
fundamental human values.

Around the Quads

The John Jay Awards Dinner honors
distinguished alumni and raises funds to
support outstanding students.

Roar, Lion, Roar

Men’s soccer wins its 10th Ivy League
championship; fencing seeks to score three
consecutive NCAA titles; meet the new
coaches leading men’s and women’s basketball.

Contents

alumninews
35 Alumni in the News

36 Lions
Jason Wachob ’98, Ashley Walker Green ’05,
Peter Thall 64

40 Bookshelf
Cooking Solo: The Fun of Cooking for Yourself
by Klancy Miller 96

42 Class Notes

85 Obituaries
Jack Greenberg 45, LAW 48

88 Alumni Corner
The singer known as Slow Dakota shares
a Lit Hum-style annotation of his single
“The Lilac Bush.” By PJ Sauerteig 15

CCT Web Extras

¢ More from our alumni Experts
¢ Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner gallery

¢ Homecoming gallery

college.columbia.edu/cct

Like Columbia College Alumni:
facebook.com/alumnicc
View Columbia College alumni photos:
instagram.com/alumniofcolumbiacollege
ee Follow: @Columbia_CCAA

Join the Columbia College alumni network:
college.columbia.edu/alumni/linkedin

KELLY CHAN BC'17

hen I was hired in April 1998 as the editor in chief

of Columbia College Today, 1 was tasked with pub-

lishing this magazine on a more regular basis as the

cornerstone of a new College communications effort.
College leadership, both professional and volunteer, recognized that to
increase alumni participation in the life of the school, there was a need
to communicate with alumni on a regular basis — and in ways beyond
asking for money. A magazine that reflected the best of the College's
liberal arts tradition and whose content strengthened the bond among
alumni themselves and between alumni and the College was to be the
flagship of that effort, and that continues to this day.

In my first “Within the Family” column, I wrote, “Our goal is to
present CCT’s traditionally high quality editorial content in a more
attractive and inviting package.” The key to that package was a switch
to four-color printing from the black-and-white style that had given
the magazine the look of a literary journal — a fine, scholarly journal, to
be sure, but a journal, not a magazine. CC7’s design has steadily evolved
since then and continues to evolve; a total redesign in 2015 gave us a
fresher, more contemporary look that appeals to alumni of all ages.

I’ve always been proud of the magazine’s content. Our Class Notes
section, authored by a stellar group of volunteer class correspondents,
is among the most robust in the nation. Our “Around the Quads”
section keeps readers abreast of what’s going on at Columbia College
today, our “Lions” profiles spotlight some of the amazing members of
the CC family and we introduce readers to at least one noteworthy
student and one distinguished faculty member in each issue. Depart-
ments like “Columbia Forum,” “Bookshelf” and “Roar, Lion, Roar”
add breadth to every issue. We've also mixed in an occasional themed
issue. In the past few years we've covered “Coeducation,” “The Varsity
Show,” “Global Columbia,” “Location, Location, Location,” “Food,
Glorious Food” and in this issue, we offer our first “Experts” guide.

We've always tried to stay ahead of the curve by profiling alumni
on the rise. Never were we more prescient than with our cover story in
January 2005, when we featured a young alumnus who had just been
elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois and we asked, “Is This The New
Face of the Democratic Party?” He sure was — less than four years
later, Barack Obama’83 was elected the 44th President of the United
States, the only College alum to have occupied the Oval Office.

his is my final issue as editor in chief of CCT. After nearly 19
J. years at Columbia and 87 issues of this magazine, I am retiring
effective December 31. It has been an honor to serve as the steward of
our alumni magazine, and I plan to remain involved as a contributing
writer. (Despite my best efforts, Jamie Katz’72, BUS’80's record of 25
years with the magazine and 24 years as editor remains intact.)
As anyone in publishing can tell you, a magazine is a collaborative
effort, and I’ve been blessed to work with a host of talented team
members through the years, including writer-editors Shira Boss ’93,

The Long Goodbye

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Be umbians know USAT al
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Location, Locat

JRN’97, SIPA98; Timothy P. Cross GSAS’98; Donna Satow GS’65;
Laura Butchy SOA‘04; Lisa Palladino; Rose Kernochan BC’82;
Ethan Rouen JRN’04, BUS’17; Alexis Boncy SOA11 (née Tonti;
more on her later); Elena Hecht BC’09; Anne-Ryan Heatwole
JRN’09; and Jill Shomer; designers Linda Gates, J.C. Suares (now
deceased) and Eson Chan; and University Photographer Eileen Bar-
roso. We've also been aided by many talented work-study students,
some of whom stayed with us for several years: Jonathan Lemire ’01,
Peter Kang’05, Carmen Jo Ponce’08, Grace Laidlaw’11, Karl Daum
"15 and Aiyana White ’18.

Thank you to Austin Quigley, dean of the College from 1995 to
2009, who recognized the value of a high-quality magazine to com-
municate with alumni and committed the financial resources needed
to publish an upgraded CCT on a regular schedule. Also, a shout
out to two members of his senior staff, now retired, for their support
and guidance as I transitioned from sports writing/administration to
the unique world of academia: Kathryn Yatrakis GSAS’81, dean of
academic affairs, and Sue Mescher, dean of administration. Special
thanks to Derek Wittner 65, LAW’68, who hired me and was an
ideal boss. His formula: Hire good people; set clear goals, expecta-
tions and accountability; provide the resources and support needed
for success; and then let people do the job they were hired to do.

Finally, I am extremely pleased that Alexis Boncy is returning to
CCT as my successor. Alexis joined CCT as managing editor shortly
after graduating from SOA and proved to be one of my best hires. She
is a tireless worker with an eye for both the big picture and the smallest
detail. We are fortunate to be able to welcome Alexis back into the fold
as CCTs first female editor in chief beginning in February. I am thrilled
that the magazine will be in such good hands, and I look forward to
seeing it in my mailbox.

Adin Sacbart

Alex Sachare ’71
Editor in Chief

|
|

MATTHEW SEPTIMUS

The Need to Preserve
Human Values

n this issue, Robert Y. Shapiro, the Wallace S. Sayre Profes-

sor of Government, writes about a presidential election when

“virtually every major issue divided the parties” and “politi-

cal emotions were running high.” Shapiro, whose research
focuses on partisan polarization, ideological politics, public opin-
ion and policymaking, is describing 2008, the year Barack Obama
’83 was elected. But any of us would be excused for assuming that
it is 2016 to which his assessment refers. Indeed, as Shapiro says,
the 2016 election “was the most conflict-ridden and personal presi-
dential campaign of modern times.”

At Columbia College, we provide students with tools to analyze
and interpret the present using knowledge of the past. Our Core
Curriculum, the common experience of a College education, gives
students an understanding of how society has grappled with the fun-
damental issues of human existence — our relationships, our obliga-
tions, our responsibilities, our rights — and how society has developed
and refined systems that honor rights and recognize responsibilities.
‘The goal is not only to transfer knowledge, but also to raise fundamen-
tal questions about human existence, to ask what we know and how
we know it and to consider all opinions, all ideas and all possibilities.

This is why, especially with all of the discord and polarization in
the country and the world today, the Core is so important. It is vital
that we engage students with perspectives and ideas that are differ-
ent from their own, perspectives and ideas they may not be comfort-
able with, perspectives and ideas about which they may have been
unaware. It is in this way that students learn about themselves, learn
about others and develop as human beings and as citizens of the
world. President Lee C. Bollinger reaffirmed this in November at
the College’s annual Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner when he
mandated that we should “teach the Core Curriculum with more
fervor and passion than it has ever been taught before.”

For nearly 100 years, the Core has given College students more than
an education — it has given them a foundation in ethics, morals and
citizenship. That has not, and will not, change. Indeed, one of our goals
with Core to Commencement, the campaign we launched last year to
build the greatest undergraduate experience, is to endow this founda-
tional program, to enhance it, to enrich it, to ensure the continuing
vitality of this one experience shared by all students and alumni.

Today I am proud that we are not only teaching the Core with
fervor and passion, but also that we are encouraging others to do so. For
the past few summers, Roosevelt Montas’95, GSAS’04, director of the
Center for the Core Curriculum, has been meeting with faculty mem-
bers from institutions around the world as part of the “Tradition and
Innovation” seminar, an intense reading and discussion of texts from
the Core at Columbia and at Chicago — organized in partnership
with the Association for Core Texts and Courses and funded by the
Teagle Foundation — which gives faculty leaders a core-text seminar

4 CCT Winter 2016-17

Message from the Dean

experience and helps them develop
core curricula to implement at their
own institutions.

This past year, Montds and our
Center for the Core Curricu-
lum also helped Adolfo Ibafiez
Univesity in Santiago launch its
own Core Curriculum, which
began this year with a Spanish-
language version of Contempo-
rary Civilization (www.uai.cl/

EL MERCURIO

la-universidad/core-curriculum-
uai/que-es-el-core-curriculum-
uai). We also recently partnered with Hostos
Community College in the South Bronx to
launch a Core initiative, which included a revi-
sion of its first-year English requirement along
the lines of our Core. As part of this initiative,
Columbia faculty have conducted workshops
for faculty at Hostos on teaching Core texts
and Hostos faculty have attended some of our Core faculty meetings
(commons. hostos.cuny.edu/columbiacommoncoreathostos).

In a letter to the University community in late fall, Provost John
Coatsworth reiterated “how important it is to protect all who study
and teach in our community and to defend the institution and the
values it embodies.” This includes not only our commitment to
helping students acquire knowledge and develop understanding and

Roosevelt Montas ’95,
GSAS’04, director

of the Center for the
Core. Curriculum, with
students at Adolfo
Ibafhez University

in Santiago.

insight, but also our unwavering commitment to tolerance, inclu-
sion and diversity. Civil discourse remains of the utmost impor-
tance within our intellectual community, and freedom of speech and
expression are paramount, even when we do not agree.

Our role is to continue to provide a place for conversations
about individual rights, benefits and responsibilities; about how we
express that we value one another; and about the society we create
based on our fundamental values. Our role is to teach students to
keep an open mind, to be respectful of differences, to approach all
they do with a thoughtfulness about whom they affect and how, and
to encourage them to learn, grow and contribute to building a com-
munity, a nation and a world where the fundamental human values
we espouse are ever more evident.

mi a

James J. Valentini
Dean

Around

the

liads

John Jay Awards Dinner Honors Alumni,
Supports Exceptional Students

he John Jay Awards Dinner is held annually to honor

Columbia College alumni for distinguished profes-

sional achievement and raises money for the John Jay

National Scholars Program. On Wednesday, March 1,

the 39th annual dinner will honor David B. Barry ’87, president,

Ironstate Development Co.; Joseph A. Cabrera ’82, vice-chair —

Eastern Region, Colliers International; Toomas Hendrik Ilves’76,

former president, Republic of Estonia; Jenji Kohan ’91, executive

producer and screenwriter; and William A. Von Mueffling ’90,
BUS’95, president and CEO, Cantillon Capital Management.

The award, which has been given to 205 honorees since 1978, is

named for Founding Father John Jay (Class of 1764), a student of

United States. The dinner, which will be held at Cipriani 42nd
Street, provides resources for the John Jay National Scholars
Program, ensuring financial support and academic programming for
the John Jay Scholars, select first-year College students who distin-
guish themselves through the originality and independence of their
thinking, their rich and varied record of accomplishments and their
potential to contribute to society in a meaningful way.

‘This special academic enhancement program is designed to pro-
mote intellectual growth, leadership development and global aware-
ness. It is centered on panels, discussions and presentations by leading
professors, professionals and individuals from a variety of fields who
serve as exemplars of commitment, creativity and courage.

classics and the law and a leading proponent of the principles of
the American constitution. Among many other prominent roles,
Jay was the first chief justice of New York State and later of the

Financial Aid Policy Adjusted for
Undocumented Students

Undocumented students applying to Columbia College and Engineering will
be eligible for the same need-blind admissions and financial aid policies as U.S.
citizens and permanent residents, beginning with the Fall 2017 semester.

Columbia provides full-need financial aid to all first-year and transfer stu-
dents pursuing their first degree and has provided need-blind admissions for
US. citizens, permanent residents and eligible non-citizens for many years.
With this change, Columbia becomes one of the few schools that will offer
need-blind admissions and full-need financial aid to undocumented applicants.

“We hope this landmark change will make it clear that the voices, expe-
riences and contributions of undocumented students are welcomed and
valued here at Columbia,” says Jessica Marinaccio, dean of undergraduate
admissions and financial aid. “Undocumented students are already making
an impact in our community in countless ways, and we are pleased to be lift-
ing the barrier of need-aware admission for future undocumented students.”

Prior to this change, undocumented students had been considered inter-
national applicants, meaning they received full-need financial aid, but how
much financial aid a student required was taken into consideration when
rendering an admissions decision.

Approximately half of Columbia's undergraduates receive need-based
financial aid, including approximately 30 percent of international students.
Columbia financial aid is offered in the form of grants and student work,
rather than loans. More than $140 million in grants and scholarships are
awarded annually to undergraduates at the College and at Engineering.

To read more about the honorees and the dinner, go to college.columbia.
edu/alumni/events/201 7-john-jay-awards-dinner.

Columbia Alumni
Leaders Weekend

DAVID DINI SIPA’14

Alumni volunteers gathered on campus October 7-8 for the

12th annual Columbia Alumni Leaders Weekend. Sponsored by
the Columbia Alumni Association, it featured interactive sessions
for volunteers from across all schools, an Alumni Leaders Lun-
cheon and the annual Alumni Medalists Gala. Sheena Wright ’90,
LAW’94, president and CEO of United Way of New York City
(pictured), gave the keynote speech, and three College alumni —
Dr. Paul J. Maddon ’81, GSAS’88, PS’88; Rita Pietropinto-Kitt ’93,
SOA‘96; and Mozelle W. Thompson ’76, SIPA’79, LAW’81 — were
among the 10 medalists honored at the gala.

View the full list: calw.alumni.columbia.edu/meet_the_2016_
alumni_medalists. More weekend photos: flickr.com/photos/
columbiaalumni/sets/72157675020959386.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 5

Around

the

uads

MORE CCT ONLINE!

Check out CCT online (college.
columbia.edu/cct) for original
content: fitness tips from SoulCycle
instructor Andrew Stinger ’06; a
profile of screenwriter Jason
Fuchs ’09; video of cartoonist
Dr. Ben Schwartz ’03, PS’08,
juggler Roy Pomerantz ’83 and
mixologist Rina Haverly ’07; a
recipe from Christopher Kimball ’73;
a crossword from Finn Vigeland "14;
and photos from Homecoming
and the Alexander Hamilton
Award Dinner.

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6 CCT Winter 2016-17

On October 26, Columbia College participated in Columbia Giving Day, a 24-hour
University-wide online fundraising event. The College earned the top spot on the

leaderboard for the fifth consecutive year. Gifts to the College support financial aid,
student services, stipends for internships and the Core Curriculum.

$14,560,943

Total raised University-wide

$3,468,299

Total raised by the College

Percent of total University-wide funds
given by College-affiliated donors

14,269

Total number of gifts to the University

3.308

$58,244

Total matching funds from
University trustees

Elbaum Elected to Board of Trustees

Abigail Black Elbaum 92, BUS’94 has
been elected to the University Board of
Trustees. Her six-year term began on
September 6.

Elbaum is a co-founder and principal
of Ogden CAP Properties, a real estate
management, development and investment
firm with assets in New York and Wash-
ington, D.C. She began her career at JP-
Morgan Chase in its Private Bank.
Elbaum’s board affiliations include the New
York City Police Foundation, the Neigh-
borhood Coalition for Shelter, the Mount
Vernon Triangle CID and the Lincoln
Square BID, where she is on the Executive
Committee. She is a governor of the Real
Estate Board of New York. Elbaum is also
active in a variety of capacities at NewYork-
Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia Univer-
sity Medical Center, including the Sloane
Hospital for Women Advisory Committee
and the Heart Center Steering Committee.

A former chair of the Alumni Trustee
Nominating Committee, Elbaum is cur-
rently on the Steering Committee of
the College’s Core to Commencement
Campaign. She is a past member of the

College’s Board of Visitors and in 2002
received the Columbia College Young
Alumni Achievement Award. In 2015
she was presented a John Jay Award for
distinguished professional achievement.

“We are very fortunate at Columbia
to have a group of highly accomplished
individuals who generously give their
time, energy and considerable wisdom to
the governance of the University by serv-
ing on its board as trustees,” said Trustees

Chair Jonathan Schiller’69, LAW’73.

TESS STEINKOLK OF BROWN DOG PRODUCTIONS

the Essentials

Caterina Pizzigoni

When Associate Professor of History Caterina Pizzigoni was studying political

science as an undergraduate at the University of Milan in Italy, she took a class in
Latin American history that changed her life. Her passion for the subject led her
to Nicaragua as a student volunteer, then to the University of London to get an
M.A. and eventually to London’s King’s College to get a Ph.D. in Latin Ameri-
can studies. Pizzigoni focused on the archives of Mexico's indigenous people and
researched her dissertation in Mexico City while also learning the Aztec lan-
guage Nahuatl. Pizzigoni came to Columbia — and New York City — for the
first time as an assistant professor in 2006; she received a Columbia Mentoring
Initiative Award in 2008 and a Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award
in 2012. Pizzigoni spoke enthusiastically to CCT about her background, her stu-
dents and her multilingual household one November afternoon in Fayerweather.

SHE GREW UP in a small town in the
Lombardy region, north of Milan. Her
mother had grown up there, and Pizzigoni
enjoyed being part of a tight community.

SHE STUDIED accounting at a local
vocational school and planned to work at
a bank, but decided instead to continue
her education in Milan. She and her
younger brother were the first members of
their family to go to college.

HER FIRST VISIT to Latin America came
when she was a summer community-
development volunteer in Nicaragua. She
worked alongside people who were very
poor, yet were warm and welcoming. “I
got into their lives; they were so generous
to let me in,” she says. That first encounter
shaped her thoughts about she wanted to
do with her life. She was completely taken

by the landscape, culture, colors and crafts.

“I was won over by everything I saw and
wanted to get to know it better,” she says.

AFTER COMPLETING her under-
graduate thesis about Nicaragua in the
18th century, she realized her passion
for history. “I thought it was fascinating
to get in touch with people who lived
before us, these voices from the past that
lay somewhere there, and it’s up to you
to rescue them and tell their stories,” she
says. Pizzigoni cared especially about
Nicaragua's native people: “I was trying
to get to the voices of people we dont

normally hear from, whose stories are
not told because they don’t count in the
political equation.”

SHE WAS STUDYING the cultures of
Nicaragua for an M.A. but found her
research impeded because that population
had mainly oral traditions and didn't leave
written documents. After being accepted
to the Ph.D. program at King’s College,
she shifted her focus to the colonial
archives of Mexico. She went to Mexico
City to do research and liked the city

so much she stayed for two years, from
1999 to 2001.

SHE LEARNED Nahuatl during two
months of intensive training at Yale.

Her grandmother had left her a small
inheritance, which allowed her to attend
the program taught by James Lockhart,
the prominent scholar of colonial Latin
America and professor emeritus at UCLA.
She showed Lockhart copies of the
archival documents she was studying and
he was stunned: “Nobody had worked

on these testaments before,” she says.
Lockhart became a second adviser for her
dissertation, which she completed traveling
between Mexico City and London.

SHE WAS TEACHING in London
when she interviewed at Columbia to be
a professor of Latin American colonial
history. She had never worked in the
United States and so she was happily

JILL SHOMER

shocked when she got the job. “I never
thought I would end up in a place like
this,” she says. “That’s why I feel so
committed to teaching.”

SHE BELIEVES strongly in mentorship.
“Mentors can change your life. I would
never be here if it weren't for the teachers
who helped me,” she says. “I see so much
potential in my students; they have so
many ideas, who knows who they might
turn out to be?”

HER FAVORITE CLASS to teach is
“Latin American Civilization I,” a large
lecture where she meets students from
all paths of College life and is able to
transmit some of her subject’s universal
lessons. “History is a discipline in which
we can learn empathy, points of view of
other people and cultures,” she says. “The
‘here and now’ becomes so relative, and
that perspective lifts a weight off.”

SHE MET HER HUSBAND, Gergely
Baics, an assistant professor of history and
urban studies at Barnard, at a Columbia
history department dinner. They have an
infant daughter, Emma, who hears Italian,
Hungarian, English and Spanish in their
home. Pizzigoni is glad her daughter will
have an easier time learning languages
than she has had as an adult: “My in-laws
don't speak English, and Hungarian has
been more difficult to learn than Nahuatl!”
— Jill C. Shomer

Winter 2016-17 CCT 7

EILEEN BARROSO

Around
Quads

Mendelson Family Gifts
Student Business Center

The Mendelson family, whose association with Columbia spans four generations, is making a
$10 million gift to establish the Mendelson Center for Undergraduate Business Initiatives. The
joint program between Columbia College and the Business School was announced in November.
‘The center will foster an ongoing business education program for select Columbia undergraduates.

The Mendelson Center (gsb.columbia.edu/mendelson) makes permanent Columbia's spe-
cial concentration in business management, through which undergraduates enroll in specially
designed courses with Business School faculty. These courses connect business skills with
elements of Columbia’s liberal arts education — for example, how finance is connected to prin-
ciples of economics and how marketing concepts depend on psychology.

“The Mendelson Center for Undergraduate Business Initiatives gives our students an unparal-
leled opportunity to combine the values and skills honed in our Core Curriculum and through our
more than 100 liberal arts majors and concentrations, with the experience of studying with world-
class faculty at Columbia Business School,” said Dean James J. Valentini. “Our students are very
enthusiastic about creating, organizing, and managing enterprises, so we are grateful for this gift.”

“This extraordinary gift will have a lasting impact on business education at Columbia, bridg-
ing theory and practice and encouraging the exchange of ideas both within the University
community and beyond,” said Glenn Hubbard, Business School dean, the Russell L. Carson
Professor of Finance and professor of economics. “The Mendelson family’s generosity will
enhance the special concentration in business management's existing activities and enable it to
reach more students and even greater heights.”

For the Mendelsons, Columbia is a family tradition dating back to Samuel Mendelson (Class
of 1906). This gift was made by Mendelson family members Arlene H. and Laurans A. “Larry”
Mendelson ’60, BUS’61 and their daughters-in-law and sons, Kimberly and Eric Mendelson
87, BUS’89, parents of Hayley’17, David’19 and Daniel; and Lisa and Victor Mendelson 89,
parents of Lindsey ’18, Nicole’20 and Alexander.

“My time at Columbia College and Columbia Business School was transformative,” said Larry
Mendelson. “I hope the Mendelson Center will provide Columbia undergraduates with oppor-
tunities like the ones I had. There is nothing better than participating in intellectual exploration
while gaining practical ability in business, navigating easily between the realms of ideas and action.”

Mendelson, chairman of the board of HEICO Corp., was a University trustee from 1995 to
2001, as well as chairman of the Trustees’ Audit Committee. He was a member of the College’s
Board of Visitors from 1984 to 1989. His sons, co-presidents of HEICO, are current BOV
members; Victor is chair.

The family’s philanthropy at Columbia includes the establishment of the Samuel and
Blanche Mendelson Memorial Scholarship Fund and the endowment the Mendelson
Professorship in Economics and the Mendelson Family Professorship in American Studies.

CCT Winter 2016-17

DidYouKnow? |

Carman Hall Went
Unnamed for
Nearly Six Years

While Carman Hall is now a
well-known first-year residence

hall, housing roughly 40 percent of
Columbia’s first-year class, its early
years were spent in name limbo as
“New Hall.” Columbia secured a
loan from the then-named Federal
Housing Agency to build the resi-
dence hall and it remained unnamed.
Spectator articles from the time claim
that Columbia held off naming in
hopes that a generous donor would
cover the loan in exchange for
naming rights. When the building
opened in September 1959, Spectator
sponsored an informal naming
contest that month. The “Serious”
category winner suggested Hawkes
Hall, after Herbert E. Hawkes, dean
from 1918 to 1943; the “Humorous”
winner suggested Aaron Burr Hall

as a counterpoint to Hamilton Hall.
However, neither name was endorsed
by the University administration and
the building continued to be known
as New Hall.

In early 1965, Spectator published
an editorial suggesting that the
building be named in honor of
Harry J. Carman, dean of the
College from 1943 to 1950, who had
died in December 1964. The name
was approved by the Trustees and
on April 29, 1965, the building

was christened Carman Hall.

Questions? COLUMBIA
Contact Claire Gumus, Alumni Relations: ) \ COLLEGE

ALUMNI
claire.gumus@columbia.edu or 212-853-1358 ALU MN! ASSOCIATION

COMIN IA ets

Fide

ROAR, LION, ROAR

Lions Win at Homecoming

MIKE McLAUGHLIN / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

Lions’ ferocious defense halts Dartmouth.

either rain nor cold nor wind
could stop Columbia from
ending its 15-game Home-
coming losing streak as Oren
Milstein ’20 kicked three field goals and
the Lions’ defense shut down Dartmouth
in a 9-7 victory on October 22. Columbia’s
last Homecoming win came in 2000.
Milstein kicked field goals of 31, 20 and
33 yards through the inclement weather at
Robert K. Kraft Field, to the delight of the
vast majority of the crowd of 8,946 as well
as coach Al Bagnoli, who said, “I couldn't
be happier for our kids, our alumni base
and the entire Columbia football commu-
nity. It was an awesome win; nobody left
early considering the suspense of it.”
Indeed, spectators saw a 47-yard field goal
try by Dartmouth’s David Smith fall just short
with 27 seconds left in the game. Columbia's
defense, led by linebacker Gianmarco Rea’17,

came up with big plays all day, stopping the
Big Green on 16-of-17 third-down conver-
sion attempts. Rea led the Lions with 11 tack-
les against Dartmouth and had 108 for the
season, tops in the Ivy League.

The Lions finished the season with a 3-7
record, with five of their losses coming by
eight points or fewer, and a 2-5 mark in Ivy
play. They defeated Wagner 15-13 in a game
in which Milstein accounted for all of Colum-
bia’s points with a school-record five field
goals, and they closed out the season with a
31-13 win at Brown. Rea and Milstein both
were voted to the All-Ivy first team by the

conference coaches.

rH CCT Web Extras
a To view a Homecoming photo album,
go to college.columbia.edu/cct.

Men’s Soccer Wins 10th lvy Title

Led by high scorer Arthur Bosua’18 and goaltender Dylan Cas-
tanheira 19, Columbia men’s soccer compiled a 5-1-1 confer-
ence record to earn its 10th Ivy League Championship and its
first since 1993. The Lions, who finished 13-3-1 overall, tied
Dartmouth for the league crown. It was the first championship
for head coach Kevin Anderson, who said the Lions “truly had a
team-first mentality.”

The title was up for grabs after first-place Harvard imposed
sanctions on its team in midseason, making it ineligible for the
championship. Columbia bounced back handily from a 1-0 home
loss to Dartmouth on October 22 and won its last five games of
the season, capping the streak with a 4-0 victory over Cornell on
November 13 that gave the Lions their share of the Ivy crown.

Bosua scored eight goals and had four assists and was named the
Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year, the first Columbian to win
that award since Rikki Dadason’96 in 1993. Bosua had three goals
and an assist in the title-clinching win over Cornell.

Castanheira posted seven shutouts en route to a 9-1 record in
the Columbia net. He finished first in the NCAA with a goals-
against average of .290 and a save percentage of .903. The latter was
the best in Columbia history, breaking the school mark of .894 set
by Gary Escher SEAS’84, SEAS’86 in 1983.

10 CCT Winter 2016-17

MIKE McLAUGHLIN / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

Bosua was named to the All-Ivy First Team along with Alex
Bangerl ’18 and Andrew Tinari 17, while Castanheira and Vana
Markarian ’20 made the Second Team. Markarian, who helped the
Lions’ defense to a league-low .71 goals against average, was named
the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, and Anderson was selected as
Coach of the Year.

| ROAR!

Fencing Seeks To
Three-Peat

Can Columbia fencing make it three in a row? Says coach
Michael Aufrichtig, “As the defending NCAA champions,
we look forward to the journey that lies ahead of us.”

Columbia was the dominant team in college fencing last
season, winning its second consecutive NCAA Champi-
onship and the 15th national title in school history. The
Lions also won both the men’s and women’s Ivy League
Championships (the two squads compete together for one
NCAA crown).

Columbia will seek to become the first team to win three
consecutive NCAA titles since Penn State won six in a row
from 1995 to 2000. Columbia won three straight NCAA
men’s titles from 1987 to 1989, before the championships
became a coeducational competition the following year.

The 2017 NCAA Championships will be held in India-
napolis March 23-26. But before that the Lions will have
their sights set on adding to their collection of 37 men’s and
10 women's conference titles when they compete in the Ivy
League Championships in Philadelphia February 11-12.

The Lions lost several stars to graduation, notably two-
time NCAA champion épéeist Jake Hoyle 16 and Jackie
Dubrovich ’16, who was runner-up in foil at last year’s
NCAAs. But Columbia has numerous experienced fenc-
ers, including defending USA national champion Marga-
ret Lu’17 and five 2016 All-Americans: Mason Speta’17

(first team), Sara Taffel BC’17 (second team), Lena John-
son BC’18, Porter Hesselgrave 18 and Calvin Liang ’19
(honorable mention).

Columbia won all but one match during the fall semester,
with the women’s team losing to Princeton 16-11 at the Penn
Elite Tournament on November 5. The Lions were an over-
all 10-1 at that event, went 6-0 at the Columbia Invitational

on November 18 and
posted 14-13 (men)
and 25-2 (women)
victories over NYU
on November 22 in
an old-school dual
meet. The Lions will
gear up for the round-robin Ivy League Championships by
facing some of the strongest teams in the nation in the Penn
State Invitational on January 15, the St. John’s Super Cup on
January 21 and the NYU Invitational on January 22.

For the latest news on Columbia
athletics, visit gocolumbialions.com.

SCOREBOARD
Field goals by , Digs by volleyball’s

Oren Milstein ’20,
a school record, in
football’s 15-13
win over Wagner

Cassie Wes ‘17, the lvy

JOS

Save percentage by
men’s soccer goalie

League Defensive Player Dylan Castanheira °19,
ofthe Yearforthesec- :
:- ond consecutive year

a school record and the
bestin the NCAA

Engles, Griffith Lead
Lions Basketball

‘Two familiar faces have taken the helm of Columbia’s men’s and women’s
basketball programs this season. Jim Engles, who was an assistant coach
at Columbia from 2003 to 2008 before achieving success in eight years as
the head coach at the New Jersey
Institute of Technology (NJIT),
takes over a men’s team that won
a school-record 25 games and the
CIT Championship last season
but lost key players to graduation.
Meanwhile, Megan Griffith ’07,
who captained the Lions for three
seasons before playing pro ball
in Europe and being an assistant
coach and recruiting coordina-
tor at Princeton, is the new head
coach of the women’s team.

‘The men’s team, which finished
third in the Ivy League last season
with a 10-4 record, will begin con-
ference play at Cornell on January
14. The Lions went 4—5 at the start of their non-conference schedule, with
veterans Luke Petrasek 17 and Nate Hickman 18 and newcomer Mike
Smith ’20 leading the scoring.

Engles, who played basketball at Dickinson, was an assistant coach for
13 seasons at Wagner and Rider before coming to Columbia in 2003 and
helping head coach Joe Jones build the Lions into a consistent competitor
in both league and non-conference play. He left in 2008 to become the
head coach at NJIT and steadily built the Highlanders, who had only
competed at the Division I level for two seasons prior to his arrival, into
a team that won 15 games in 2012-13. He was the Metropolitan and
Mid-Major Coach of the Year in 2014-15 after leading NJIT to the first
of two 20-win seasons.

Griffith helped Princeton win five Ivy League championships and
hopes to build a comparable winning culture at Columbia, where she was
an All-Ivy League player in 2005-06 and 2006-07. When she was intro-
duced as coach of the Lions last spring, she described herself as “a builder
and a worker” and said “progress within our process” will be her mantra.
As for being back on Morningside Heights, she said, “It just feels right. I
know this is where I need to be and where I want to be.”

Griffith’s team got off to the best start in school history by winning
eight of its first 10 games behind Camille Zimmerman ’18 and Tori
Oliver ’17, the two leading scorers and rebounders from a year ago. Like
the men, the women will begin Ivy competition at Cornell on January 14.

MIKE McLAUGHLIN / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

Jim Engles and Megan Griffith ’07

108 4

Tackles by linebacker
Gianmarco Rea ’17

Teams that will qualify
for the lvy League’s new
in the 2016 football postseason tournaments
season, tops in the for men’s and women’s
lvy League basketball

Winter 2016-17 CCT 11

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cmp EXPERTISE EXTENDS

Brew a Perfect Cup of Coffee
Jon White 85, EVP, White Coffee Corp.

What should a coffee newbie look for in different roasts?

How do the roasts affect the coffee’s taste?

Coffee becomes “dark” by increasing the roasting time and temperature.

As the roast gets progressively darker, the coffee bean oils are brought to the
bean’s surface and the taste profile becomes stronger. More subtle flavors
often found in lighter roasts are diminished in darker roasts; some people
find dark roasts to be bitter. There are a variety of potential roast shades,

but at the end of the day, it is very much a matter of taste.

How do the beans’ country of origin influence the flavor?

Each coftee-growing region in the world has unique characteristics — differ-
ent soil conditions, elevations, rainfall and cultivation methods. All of these
create unique flavor profiles. For example, coffee from Sumatra, in Indonesia,
has a full-bodied mouthfeel; coffees from Ethiopia, such as from the Sidamo or
Yirgacheffe regions, are well known for winey, thinner-bodied flavors; coffees
from Colombia offer a nice balance of body and acidity — they give you a sort
of tingly feeling on the tip of your tongue. Coffee has been grown for centuries,
but now more countries have become larger “players.” For example, Vietnam
was a non-factor 20 years ago; today it’s the second largest global exporter!

How do you make coffee at home? Walk us step by step

through your process.

Ideally you should grind the beans right before you brew them — this results
in maximum freshness. The only challenge is that a small home grinder may
not yield consistent grind results, so you can get inconsistent brew. I pre-grind
for only a few days’ worth of use and store it in an airtight container. Many
people store it in the refrigerator — that’s fine — but beware of creating
moisture on the coffee — that and oxygen will quickly deteriorate the flavor.
Use good filtered water if you can. As for brewing methods, I use a basic,
high-quality drip coffeemaker; most of them do a fine job. I don’t recommend
percolators — they force water over the coffee repeatedly, bringing out less
desirable flavor elements. Single cup systems are convenient but can vary in
result. I often use a French press, which allows for the grinds to sit in the water
and extract the flavor profile. Get an insulated one to maintain temperature.

a
ight

What should coffee lovers try ina café that they
not make at home? is
Coffee by the cup is an affordable luxury. Try something exotie’that you would
not normally have. A special, high-quality single origin, like certain African

or Central American coffees, is often a good place to staff en I visit a new

café I usually try its signature blend — it should represen ssence and
highest quality of the brand and would be unique to that ke.

— Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

Step Up Your
Crossword Game

Finn Vigeland ‘14, crossword
contributor to The New York Times

LOOK UP WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW. Daily cross-
words typically get increasingly harder as the week goes
on. You wont make it to Tuesday if you don't check
your answers from Monday. The first time I competed
in a crossword tournament, “SST” (supersonic trans-
port) was an answer in the first puzzle. I didn't know
what it was, so I asked my neighbor before the second
puzzle started. Sure enough, SST was an answer in the
next puzzle, but I was ready for it that time.

CROSSWORDS RARELY INCLUDE OBSCURE
TRIVIA. Usually, a hard-seeming clue on a challeng-
ing late-week puzzle is just an obscure way of cluing

a more well-known answer. Once you learn that Mel
Ott is crossword’s favorite baseball player because of
the great combination of letters in his last name, you'll
recognize that you don't have to be a sports fanatic to
get the clue “First National Leaguer with 500 home
runs.” Three letters, baseball player? Ninety percent
chance it’s OTT. Three letters, hockey player? Probably
Bobby ORR. Three letters, musician? Your best friends
are Brian ENO and Yoko ONO.

BE READY FOR THE REBUS. Intermediate solvers
looking to conquer mid-week puzzles are often sty-
mied when they get to a rebus puzzle: a puzzle where
you have to put multiple letters into one square. Be on
the lookout for wordplay suggesting a rebus rationale.
An easy, elegant rebus puzzle might have the title
“Jack in the Box” and fit the word HIJACK into three
squares (H, I and JACK) and FLAPJACK into five.

JOIN THE CROSSWORD COMMUNITY! Follow
some of the robust blog commentary from prominent
figures in “crossworld,” as we call it. Zhe New York Times
has an official column, “Wordplay,” and you can read
commentary on puzzles at “Rex Parker Does the NYT
Crossword Puzzle,” “Diary of a Crossword Fiend” and
“XWord Info.” You can retain more knowledge and
pick up tips from the pros who run these sites, and if
you chime in in the comments, you might make a few
friends. If you want to take it to the next level, register
for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (the
next one is March 24—26 in Stamford, Conn.). Only a
few people are there to win — most go because of the
fun people you meet and the chance to nerd out over
puzzles, whether you're a speed-solver or a novice.

— fill C. Shomer
Work on a Core crossword created exclusively

for CCT by Vigeland

_ Witter 2016-17 CCT 13

Make Your Art Feel at Home

Mel Dogan 75, LAW’78, owner of C24 Gallery, New York City

Bought a piece of art you love? You're going

to see it every day, so make the most of it.

Mel Dogan’75, LAW’78 offers these tips:

* Some works don't need frames, like large
oil paintings and murals. If you are framing,
don't get something flimsy; consider thicker
wood or material that has more architecture

to it to lend grandeur to even a simple print.

° If framing, consider your walls. Heavier
frames should have a stable metal or wood
bracket to hang on. If you've spent a good
amount of money on a piece, you may
want to have it hung by a professional.

If it’s not properly hung it could fall and

become damaged. I like to cover art with

14 CCT Winter 2016-17

Plexiglas instead of regular glass because if
there is breakage you don't want any shards

to cut into the work. Museum-quality
Plexiglas will also eliminate any reflection.

* A lot of people make the mistake of buying
art that is too big, and it can overpower the
room. Larger pieces require higher ceilings,
at least 12 ft. tall for a 4-x-6 ft. piece.

° If you have a really colorful piece, con-
sider painting the wall behind it gray. The
bit of black adds contrast that will bring
out the intensity better than white.

* Hang your art so the center of the work
is at eye level.

Take a Better
Portrait

George S. Zimbel 51,
documentary photographer

6¢ \ {| ove in close. Watch the eyes. Keep

it simple. Now that everything is
automatic, shoot a lot of photographs. In
Zimbelism, the 2015 documentary about
my work, I call that ‘digital diarrhea,’
but that need not be a bad thing — if
you are careful going over the shoot and
eliminating all but the best shots. Then,
do it again and do it again until you are
down to three shots that satisfy you. Then
make prints of those three, look again
and pick the one that truly says what you
want to say about the person. For pleasure
shooters, it helps if you like your subject.”

Mark Van Doren GSAS’21, Pulitzer Prize-winning
poet and legendary faculty member, in 1952.
Portrait by George S. Zimbel ’51.

* Keep oil paintings away from direct
sunlight and heat. Sunlight will dull the
colors over time, and both sun and heat
can cause cracking.

¢ Lighting is important. Too much creates
too much reflection; it detracts from the
viewing and you could also lose quality.
‘There are special bulbs that don’t emanate
the kind of heat that can cause damage.
Fluorescent bulbs are too strong; halogen
and LED alternatives are best. If you
want maximum attention on a piece, try
pinpoint or track lighting with halogen
bulbs; it will direct the eye directly to the
work and help it stand out.

— Lauren Steussy

Appreciate the Night Sky

Marcel Aglieros ’96, associate professor of astronomy

A stronomer Marcel Aguieros ’96 was
overwhelmed when he saw the
Milky Way directly overhead — with his
eyes, not a telescope — at Las Campanas
Observatory in Chile. Alas, most people
will never make it to the Southern Hemi-
sphere to take in that view. But AgUeros
has suggestions for checking out stars
and planets closer to home.

GO TO THE DARK SIDE. Light pollution
is the enemy of stargazing, Agueros
says. “Get as far away as possible

from any source of light,” he says,
particularly if you are in a city. Go to a
backyard or into the middle of a park or
anywhere there isn’t bright light in your
eyes. If you’re serious about finding
dark, Agleros recommends visiting any
of several parks and communities in the
United States that have been declared
International Dark Sky Places; go to
darksky.org.

DRIER IS BETTER. Clouds obstruct stars,
so the drier the climate, the better the
view. In many regions, winter stargazing
is more interesting because the skies are
clearer; desert climates will have great
views year-round.

MAP OR APP. You can find a monthly
map of the constellations in an issue of
Sky & Telescope magazine or check out
the weekly “Sky at a Glance” feature

on skyandtelescope.com. Sky-charting
apps such as StarWalk 2, SkyView and
Sky Guide use your GPS coordinates

to give you a view of constellations and
planets in real time or direct you toward
something specific you'd like to see. All
you need to do is hold up your phone or
tablet toward the night sky.

START HERE. Where should a novice
astronomer look first? “I’d look at the
moon,” Agieros says. But not the full

moon: “That’s blinding, and it’s difficult to
see the craters and maria [dark regions].”
The noticeable redness of Mars is another
cool thing to look out for. While they’re
not essential for stargazing, Agueros says
a good pair of binoculars will enhance
your view: He also notes that a telescope
is not necessary unless you're trying to
see details, like the moons of Jupiter.

HEADS UP. The most exciting upcom-
ing celestial event is the full solar
eclipse in August 2017, viewable from
a swath of 14 states from Oregon to
South Carolina. “A total solar eclipse is
a unique experience — if you can see
one, you should,” Aglieros says. Usually
they are visible only from remote loca-
tions, most recently the North Pole and
off the coast of West Africa, but “this
one is coming to our doorstep.”

— Shira Boss 93, JRN’97, SIPA’98

Winter 2016-17 CCT 15

What makes flamenco a pre-eminent art
form? And how did you get interested in it?
Flamenco is the emblematic performance art
of southern Spain; it has a singular power
and intensity in the way of the American
blues tradition. The art arose from the unique
blend of cultures in the region: Moorish,
Jewish, Gypsy and Iberian. My father played
flamenco guitar in the 1940s. Growing up, the
sound annoyed me, but when I got to Columbia
I suddenly missed it — I’ve been struggling with
the guitar ever since. Flamenco music features a
descending chord sequence called the Andalu-
sian Cadence. It’s a 12-beat rhythm with five
accents: on 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12.

In addition to playing guitar,
you write alot about, flamenco
singing. Tell us about that.
The dance has universal appeal as a
staged spectacle and the flamenco
guitar is admired everywhere,
but the singing is something of
an acquired taste. That’s a shame,
because that’s where the art’s deep-
est mysteries and most profound
answers can be found. I attribute
the most intense flamenco forms to
Spain's gitanos, or gypsies, but nowadays
it’s considered bad form to single out that

iOlé! Get Familiar with Flamenco

Brook Zern ’63, flamenco guitar player and historian

ethnic group. I actually prefer the funkier forms —
the deep siguiriyas, soleares and martinete and the
uptempo dulerias.

Spain’s King Juan Carlos knighted you for
raising America’s awareness of Spanish culture
through flamenco. How did that happen?
Damned if I know! But I’ve spoken and written
about flamenco for 50 years and helped preserve
rare tape recordings and films. In 2008, I learned
by email I'd been knighted. I thought it was a hoax
until Spain’s ambassador in Washington, Dey
gave me the medal.

How can we learn more?

If youre able to get to Spain, Jerez is the last bastion
of cante jondo, or deep song, flamenco’ darkest style.
Seville and Granada are also hotbeds. Otherwise, go
to YouTube and search for “flamenco”; also try “Agu-
jetas,” “El Chocolate,” “Fernanda” and “La Pirifiaca.”
For superb modern guitar, try Paco de Lucia. For tra-
ditional dance, try Farruquito and Manuela Carrasco,
and then see rule-smashers Israel Galvan and Rocio
Molina. You can also check out deflamenco.com or
my website, flamencoexperience.com/blog.

— Kim Martineau JRN’97, SPS’14

TRAIN FOR A RACE

Dave Obelkevich ’65 // Holds the record for most consecutive completed NYC Marathons

You’ve run the last 41 NYC marathons, with a best time of
2:40 in 1982. How did the obsession start?

I hopped in duting the 1973 NYC Marathon and ran a six-mile
loop around Central Park. I caught marathon fever and ran the
following year with a number.

What’s the most common mistake first-time racers make?
Going out too fast. If you burn 90 percent of your energy in the
first half, you won't have anything left for the finish.

Any other mistakes?
Thinking you have to run the whole race. I like the Galloway Run
Walk Run method: Run for 15 minutes, walk for 30 seconds, run

16 CCT Winter 2016-17

one mile, walk one minute, and so on. There’s no shame in that.
Not only is it easier to finish the race but also you recover so
much faster.

Can you suggest a motivational book?

A Race Like No Other: 26.2 Miles Through the Streets of New York,
by Liz Robbins. It has 26.2 chapters. I tell my friends to start at
Chapter 18 — “Kings of Quirk” — I’m featured there with Tucker
Anderson. At that point we had each run 32 consecutive years.

What about running shoes?
Bring a pair of used running shoes to a specialty running store
so they can see where the soles have worn. Be prepared to spend

Win at
Pictionary

Dr. Ben Schwartz 03, PS’08,
New Yorker cartoonist

Be comfortable with

- your drawing skills,
no matter the level. In some
ways, I think drawing ability
might hurt you as a Pictionary
player, because then you start
to worry about, “Oh, I have to
draw a pig and I have to make
it look like a pig.” But really
you just have to draw a circle
with a snout on it.

Know the right things
- to draw. You don't have
to get caught up in making a
complete picture — you just
need the elements that will
instantly be recognized.

at least $100. It’s cheaper to get good shoes than pay for a doctor
if you get injured. Replace them every 300-400 miles and buy a
second pair so you can alternate them.

Do you suggest using a training plan?
There’s no magic plan. Generally, you shouldn't increase your
mileage more than 10 percent each week.

During a race, do you eat? Listen to music?

If youre 150 lbs. you're burning 100 calories each mile; water
wont give you fuel. Try Gatorade, PowerBars and gels, but test
them out first. Don't try something new if you’re running a
marathon. As for music, New York Road Runners discourages

Sei“

Plan your approach.

- Take a few seconds to
think about what you want to
draw and then go from there.
It’s probably a fair tradeoff to
try to draw clearly rather than
frantically. The problem some
people run into is they scribble

quickly just to get something
out there, and then the other
players spend their time saying,
“What is that? Is that a face?”

Know your teammates.
- Sometimes it just comes
down to how well you can read
people’s minds.
— Alexis Boncy SOA a5
Schwartz creates a cartoon

(at), for CCT on the spot —
check out the video

headphones. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the music and ignore
your body. You can push too hard and get hurt. If you really need

it, keep the volume down.

Any more tips for finishing?

Tell your friends to come out for the last few miles. One part of
your brain will say “Stop!” The other part will say, “But Dave, you'll

miss all your friends!”

How do you recover?

For the first few days after the race, walk down the stairs backward.

It’s 50 percent less painful.

ae KIL

Winter 2016-17 CCT 17

Transform Five Blah Foods
Into Winning Dishes!e-«.2.0.°¢

gee - Christopher Kimball ‘73, founder of Milk street Kitchen,
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Fruit salad: Make a quick caramel sauce (use orange juice —
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pour over peeled, sliced, seedless oranges. Chill. Serve with rae
Greek yogurt and toasted pistachios. 8 OP rarae and 5 aia aan ‘sgl

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Crush Your Next
Trivia Night

Buzzy Cohen O07, nine-time Je

rlaIT1D
a and would stay Easy Ways You

up all night reading the encyclopedia. “Then I just never stopped trying to learn Can Comb at
everything about everything,” he says. “Plus I have a photographic memory.” For

those who are not so genetically gifted but still enjoy Trivia Night at a local pub, Climate Change

When Buzzy Cohen ’07 was young he suffered fr

try Cohen's tips to get a higher score:

Michael Gerrard ’72, the Andrew
Sabin Professor of Professional Practice
at the Law School and director of the
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

¢ Build a well-rounded team. Most pub trivia tends
knowledge, so cover as many areas as possible. Knov

people who know what they know and make

yn general
now, find other
ementary.

e Learn the host's style. Regular hosts tend to have favorite subjects or a certain
style of asking questions. It’s helpful to be able to think

them, so pay attention.

° Change all your lightbulbs to LED.
They cut lighting energy use by more
e Use context to triangulate your way to the best answer. Let’s say the question than 80 percent.

is about an American motor company that went under in such-and-such year in
the late ’60s. You may not know the exact year, but if you run through defunct car
companies like Studebaker or Packard you can make a good guess.

° Eat less beef. Beef production
has a high ratio of greenhouse gas
production to pound of food.

e Go with your gut. Usually the first thing that comes to your mind is right * Walk, bicycle or use mass transit. If you
— don’t waste time overthinking it. Same goes for your teammates. If they’re must drive, use an electric or hybrid car.
confident in an answer — even if it’s not their area of expertise — go with it.
When it comes to things outside people’s knowledge base, they tend to hold onto
that little piece of information they do have.

¢ Use refillable water bottles.
Never buy brands of bottled water
that have been shipped across an ocean,

has Fiji or Evian.
e There’s always bribery ... Ply the quiz master with drinks! Pper ene ae

—— Ae — 8B:

How a Diplomat Learns a
Foreign Language
Ray Burghardt ’67, U.S. ambassador

hroughout his 46-year career in diplomacy, Ray Burghardt’67 has = What worked well for Burghardt using the Foreign Service
learned several languages: He speaks Vietnamese, Mandarin Chi- _Institute’s method was focusing on everyday dialogues. “Start with

nese and Spanish, and has some knowledge of French and Korean. ‘Good morning! It’s raining! and progress to being at a store or

But he’s not a born linguist. Burghardt struggled with learning Span- post office,” he says. In his State Department classes, pictures were

ish in high school and at Columbia, until he spent a summer in Spain. flashed and the students had to describe what was happening.

Immersed in the language, he picked it up quickly. Once he entered He also found it helpful to listen to colloquial speech in foreign-

the Foreign Service, learning languages came more easily. “Language language T'V shows and movies.

teaching is a real strength of the State Department,” he says. Its . ; : ,
- method: first learn to speak, then learn to read. While Burghardt ee os a a ee ae aie nore es ae aae

speaks several languages fluently, he writes well only in Spanish. “We See Reger 0 ae eaceee one CBee

don’t worry about how to write — diplomats don’t need that,” he says. — S.B.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 19

JUGGLING 101

Roy Pomerantz ‘83, 40-plus-year
member of the International
Jugglers Association

For beginners, Pomerantz says there’s nothing better to
Start with than a new sleeve of tennis balls.

« The cascade is the building block for all juggling moves.
Place one ball in your stronger hand and throw it in an arc,
slightly over your head, into your weaker hand. Keep the
ball on an even plane. Don’t reach to catch the ball; just let
gravity drop it into your hand.

« When you have perfected this move, switch hands
so that you are tossing from your weaker hand to your
stronger hand.

« Once you have mastered throwing and catching in
both directions, place two balls in your dominant hand
and one ball in your weaker hand.

« Toss one of the dominant hand balls in an arc to the
weaker hand. As soon as the ball starts to descend,
throw the ball from the weaker hand along the same
path, underneath the oncoming ball. The weaker hand
will need to catch the oncoming ball.

« Repeat the same process with the dominant hand,
then continue throwing the balls from hand to hand
along the same path. Congratulations! You are now
performing the cascade.

Pomerantz recommends committed, short (1O—20 minutes)
“trial and error” practice sessions at least five days a week.

— A.R.H.
© Got the cascade down? Watch Pomerantz

demonstrate more advanced moves

20 CCT Winter 2016-17

BREAK INTO SCREENWRITING

Jasons nucnis “O97 GO-wrirer O&
Ice Age: Continental Drift

WRITE THE SCRIPT jee Bh

If you have a brilliant idea but you don’t have ~ <a
credits or samples of your work, you need to 4

write a “spec” (speculative screenplay). You

should have something concrete to send out.

LEARN THE LANDSCAPE

It’s virtually impossible to sell a pitch or a screenplay without
representation. Studios and producers want to get something
through a credible representative. Subscribe to IMDB Pro,
look up your favorite writers and check who they’re repped by.
The major agencies are CAA, WME, ICM and UTA; the next
tier, size-wise, includes Gersch and Innovative. Seeing who
represents writers you like and respect will give you a sense of
who you should target as you begin to seek representation.

GET AN AGENT OR LITERARY MANAGER
If you don't have connections or contacts, there are a few ways to
get some. One is to enter a script festival. Most film festivals have
script festivals, which are essentially contests where producers
and agencies judge your script. If it’s well received, your script
begins to get noticed and you get meetings with potential agents.

Final Draft, the app I use to write screenplays, also holds a
competition. Another way to get on people’s radars is through
the website The Black List, a subscription site where you submit
your screenplay and essentially pay for feedback and critique.
Readers will rate your screenplay; highly rated screenplays then
get distributed to production companies, lit agencies and so on.

STUDY YOUR GENRE

If you are trying to sell your work, you need to be smart about
the kind of spec that you're writing and try to understand where
it’s going to fit into the marketplace, or if it even has a place in
the marketplace. Does it have potential to be a blockbuster like
Avatar, with merchandising tie-in? Is it an independent film for
art audiences? ‘This will help you finesse your sales pitch.

NAVE Eh Emer

If you are lucky enough to get time with someone with the ability
to buy your script, your pitch should be 15 minutes and you should
have a clear sense of what your story is and a few main plot points
so people understand what it will feel like to watch your film.

DON’T ADVERTISE YOUR IDEA

Ideas are not copyrightable. You can copyright a screenplay,
but when you have just an idea, it’s never a good plan to share
it with too many people, because that is very hard to protect.
Other than your mom, your S.O., your team, the one smart
confidante who gives you good input, and whoever you think

wants to buy it, you should be cautious.
— Yelena Shuster 09

Read our profile to learn how Fuchs got started

Pack Your Bag fo

Kasey Koopmans ‘11 hiked the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail

from Mexico to Canada in five months

RULE NO. 1: BE PREPARED

Know the type of terrain you’re most likely to encounter and
follow the weather closely over the days leading up to your
trip — it’s important to make sure that you have the supplies
necessary to cope if and when conditions turn south. “Ten
Essentials” is a packing concept that’s been around for a

long time, and for good reason. It covers your survival basics:

1. navigation (maps, compass and/or a navigation app);
2. sun protection (sunglasses and sunscreen);

3. insulation (extra clothing);

4. illumination (headlamp/flashlight);

5. first-aid supplies;

6. fire (waterproof matches/lighter); |

7. repair kit and tools;

8. nutrition (extra food);

9. hydration (extra water and/or a purification system); and
10. shelter.

RULE NO. 2: GO LIGHT

lam a strong proponent of ultra-light packing. To best
maximize space, first and foremost, pack less. Yes, that
means you will smell, but such is life in the backcountry. It’s
OK to wear the same outfit two days in a row — | wore the
same outfit every day for five months on the Pacific Coast
Trail. Bring less than you think you need, way less. As the

outdoors adage goes: “The fun goes up when the pack
weight comes down!”

KASEY KOOPMANS ‘11

RULE NO. 3: FIND YOUR BALANCE

Without a pack, your center of gravity is roughly right below
your sternum. Wearing a loaded pack shifts the center of
gravity backward, forcing you to lean forward to find balance.
The heavier your pack is, the more you ‘Il have to lean. But
there are some simple ways to pack your essentials smarter
to mitigate this effect:

1. place heavy and dense items closest to your back;

2. pack lightweight and high-volume items in the bottom of
your pack — like your sleeping bag and extra clothes — then
stack heavier items on top;

3. try not to attach too many items to the outside of your pack.
Hanging items can mess with your balance and are more likely
to get lost (they also make you look like a rookie); and

4. keep water and snacks accessible.

RULE NO. 4: DON’T LET INCLEMENT

WEATHER RUIN YOUR DAY
Line the inside of your pack with a trash bag; it’s a cheap and
lightweight way to waterproof your things. Keep rain gear

and an insulating layer close to the top of your pack so they
are accessible.

OTHER HELPFUL TIPS

1. The panacea for all blister woes is Leukotape; it’s perfect
for keeping raw skin covered and clean.

2. Stash high-use items — sunscreen, your navigation tei
snacks, camera, bug spray, etc. — in your hip belt pockets.
3. Keep duct tape around your water bottle for emergency use;
I've used it to fix sleeping pads, tents, shoes — even humans.

— A.R.H.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 21

22 CCT Winter 2016-17

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Create Cocktail Perfection

Rina Haverly ‘07, bartender and owner of
The Bad Old Days bar in Ridgewood (Queens), NY.

1. Get yourself a set of jiggers.

When you start experimenting with cocktail recipes,
you'll notice most provide proportions in ounces.

A jigger will have measurements down to a 1/4-o0z.
notched in the metal, so even the less-experienced
bartender will find them easy to use. Any cocktail that
uses only spirits gets stirred; anything that has citrus
juice should be shaken.

2. Buy yourself a nice metal shaker set.

A shaker you like to look at is a shaker you'll feel good
about putting on display, and it’s one you'll be much
more likely to use. The novelty shakers you see at
places like Urban Outfitters that have drink recipes/
measurements printed on the side of the mixing glass
are convenient but not sophisticated, and the recipes
aren't always correct or practical. Cocktails aren't just
these days you can find more

a novelty anymore
and more interesting liqueurs and high-quality spirits
at your local liquor store, and we all deserve a proper
Sidecar without having to stare at some lowbrow
Long Island Iced Tea recipe while we shake it.

3. Treat yourself to glassware that you love.
If you're a whiskey drinker, get some heavy-
bottomed rocks glasses with a nice bevel. You'll feel
fancy. They look great and the heft of the glass is
pleasing in your hand —you may decide to splurge
on that smoking jacket you’ve always wanted, too. If
you prefer bubbly, get a set of flutes or coupe glasses
that suit your decor. It elevates your hosting prowess
when you serve your guests with quality glassware.
If cabinet space allows, it’s always nice to have some
Cabernet wine glasses as well.

4.Grab yourself some bitters.

It’s amazing how a couple of dashes of orange bitters
or Angostura bitters can change the quality of a drink.

Site"
‘

You use so little at a time that it’s a small investment
that goes a long way, and it opens the door to a new
dimension of flavor. Angostura in a gin and soda is
wonderful; orange bitters in a vodka martini shed
some light on the situation. There are a multitude of
tinctures and flavored bitters available at liquor stores
and specialty kitchen and grocery stores, so you can
really have fun with it. Black walnut bitters in a glass —
of whiskey with a scant amount of sugar provides cozy
liquid warmth in the winter.

5. Buy yourself a few quality spirits you've
never tried.

Your home bar should have (at least!) one bourbon,
one gin and one fun, different liqueur. We all have
our go-to order when we're at the bar, but the next
time you go to the liquor store, explore! There is

a burgeoning market of small and independently
owned distilleries creating really interesting and
delicious products and it’s worth a few extra dollars
to try something new. I often google brands I haven't
heard of to learn the history of the distillery and its
methods; I love to find new producers who are
making an effort to buy local grains in order to
make something innovative and interesting.

Bonus: Now putit all together!
Like most people, my cocktail preferences vary season
to season. but one drink I enjoy year-round is the
Boulevardier. The Rye whiskey version of a Negroni,
it’s dark and spicy but also mildly bitter and sweet.
My favorite version is made with 1 oz. of Willett Rye
Whiskey, .75 oz. of Campari and .75 oz.of Dolin Rouge
sweet vermouth. Stir it with ice and then pour over one
big cube (king cube ice molds are available at nearly
every kitchen/cooking store); twist an orange peel over ~
the top to release the citrus oils into the cocktail.

# — A.R.H.

Haverly prepares a
Boulevardier at the
Bad Old Days bar —
we have the video

Throw a Great Dinner Party

(That Includes a Great Playlist)

Featuring Stephanie Nass 13, founder/chef
at Victory Club, and Ben Ratliff 90, music writer

Let’s Get This Party Started
Every successful dinner party starts with
careful planning. Nass, who describes herself
as a “pattern-happy cake artist,” sets the
table ahead of time and makes place cards
to avoid awkwardness about who sits where.
She advises a cooking “drill” — try out the
recipes before the party to avoid unwelcome
surprises. Also consider choosing courses
that can be made ahead of time, like soup
as an appetizer. Avoid anything that needs
extra work before serving: “If I’m sweating
over the stove, I can't be attentive to the
company,” Nass says. Opt for oven-made
dishes that are easy to take out quickly.

‘The same care should go for your party’s
music options: Consider the right genre
for your guests, not just what’s popular.
“Assume that if you're having a dinner party
you are an adult, and you want to hear music
for adults,” says Ratliff. “I love music for
teenagers, but that’s for another time.”

Playlist Prospect: Ratliff likes to start with
bossa nova: “When people are coming in
and sitting down and having a drink, they’ve

traveled, maybe they've been on the subway,
they’re stressed or hot or cold or whatever
so you want them to calm down and feel
welcome,” he says. And not just any bossa
nova will do. “It has to be Brazilian. It can’t
be a bossa nova made in America.” He
suggests Joao Gilberto’s Chega de Saudade,
Nara Leao’s Nara or Maysa’s O Barquinho.

Main Course

Once guests are seated to eat, Nass advises
serving a combination of plated and family
style: “I so believe in food looking great.
You eat with your eyes first.” But you also
want your guests to eat as much as they’re
hungry for. “Serve a protein, but put sides
like vegetables and potatoes in the middle
of the table for people to pass around,” she
says. Nass also usually opens several bottles
of wine and leaves them on the table for
guests to serve themselves.

The host should have a conversation
topic or two in mind in case the table talk
goes flat. “At Victory Club events, guests
arrive, there’s an art talk or lecture or some-

thing cultural, and then they sit down for
food inspired by the arts. People talk about
the food, how it relates to the art and that,
in and of itself, is food for thought,” Nass
says. Another way to spur conversation is
to replace a flower centerpiece with a little
sculpture — “because the guests will talk
about it. It’s different and outside of the
day-to-day life.” Nass hand-paints or prints
her menus, and will sometimes include
quotations to trigger conversations.

While guests are eating, your music
playlist should pick up speed — “music that
makes peoples’ thoughts fizzier,” Ratliff says.

Playlist Prospect: “Small Bebop jazz groups
from the 40s and’50s — not big or large
ensemble bands,” he adds, suggesting art-
ists like Sonny Clark, Bud Powell, Charlie
Parker or Thelonious Monk. Ratliff also
suggests baroque music: Choose from Bach,
or Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. “If it’s
played on period instruments, all the better.”

The Grand Finale
A great dinner tells a story, so consider
dessert an opportunity for a dramatic ending.
Buy or make something ahead of time that
will look and taste special. Nass is known for
her edible sheets that adorn cakes (Chefanie
Sheets; chefanienass.com/shop); not surpris-
ingly, these are her go-to choices.
Music-wise, Ratliff says, “when the meal
is done and youre sitting around in the
kind of nether-zone, just eating dessert
or having coffee or more drinks,” go for
something surprising.

Playlist Prospect: An Internet radio station
like NTS. live will keep guests on their toes
without a lot of mic breaks. “By that time
guests will be feeling pretty loose and you'll
want to let the DJ take over.” And when
you're just about ready for guests to leave,
segue them toward the door with Brian Eno’s
first ambient record, Ratliff says with a laugh.
“Tt’s very beautiful but some people hate it.”
—LS.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 23

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PETE SOUZA

TOT

THE UNCERTAIN
LEGACY OF
BARACK OBAMA 83

BY ROBERT Y. SHAPIRO

TUTTE eee eee

n January 20, 2009, Barack Obama ’83 (his
() graduation coincided with my first year teach-
ing at Columbia) became the 44th President of
the United States and the nation’s first black President.
He will leave office in January 2017 having served two
full terms. While Obama’s election was an historic
event, filled with high hopes, his accomplishments and
legacy are controversial and will be debated for years.
When Democratic Party candidate Obama defeated
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008, George W. Bush's
presidency was ending at a low point, directly related to
both the military quagmire that occurred after the United
States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003 and to the financial cri-
sis at that time. The nation was entering into a Great
Recession. Dealing with this posed a great challenge, but
expectations were high — indeed too high. Working in
Obama's favor was his strong electoral showing: 53 per-
cent to 46 percent in the popular vote and a 365-173
rout in the Electoral College. The Democrats won a
large majority in the House of Representatives and for a
brief period in 2009 had a 60—40 filibuster-proof Senate
majority. Working against Obama was an enormous (and
still growing) partisan divide among Democratic Party
and Republican Party leaders and voters. Widely writ-
ten about by political scientists (myself included), this
ideologically-driven partisan divide emerged in the 1970s
and took off by the 1990s; Bush — who aspired to be a
“uniter” not a “divider” — had hoped to end it but failed.
It’s important to consider the history here. The two
major parties had been ideologically mixed after being
realigned in the 1930s. Southern Democrats who were
conservative on racial and labor issues countered the
northern liberal wing of the party; moderate Republicans
who were liberal on civil rights and other issues countered
their party’s economic conservatism. The balance slowly
unraveled with the ascendancy of northern Democrats
in tandem with the Civil Rights movement, which led
the Democrats, spurred by President Lyndon Johnson, to
become the more liberal party on racial issues with the
passage of landmark civil rights and voting rights legisla-
tion in 1964 and 1965. Over time, southern conservative
Democrats left the party and the Republicans began to

pick them up as part of Republican President Richard
Nixon's “southern strategy” in 1968. As new issues arose,
intra-party competition led the parties to divide ideologi-
cally, with Democrats as liberals and Republicans as con-
servatives on economic and regulatory issues as well as
on individual rights and liberties, with moderates slowly
disappearing from both parties, especially the GOP.

By 2008, virtually every major issue divided the par-
ties. Political emotions were running high, and there was
a widening rift in national security and foreign policy as
the Democrats and Republicans came to differ on the use
of diplomacy versus the unilateral use of military force.
Adding to the conflict was the fact that with the 1980
Senate and 1994 House elections, the parties became
evenly matched for control of all branches of government.
This increased the stakes in national elections, and it
explains why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.) said in October 2010, “The single most impor-
tant thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to
be a one-term president.”

McConnell’s statement summarizes the opposition
that Obama faced in crafting policies to address the
nation's problems. Furthermore, partisan conflict affected
how both political leaders and the public would perceive
Obama’s accomplishments. The number and scope of the
Obama administration’s actions and the changes that
have occurred on Obama’s watch have been enormous by
any reasonable metric applied to American Presidents. If
these accomplishments were largely viewed as positive, as
his Democratic Party supporters saw them, Obama would
be considered one of the greatest American Presidents. If
mainly negative, as Republicans viewed them, he would
be one of the worst. A fair answer, however, is that the
jury is still out how his overall actions will play out in the
long term. This is disappointing to those who hoped that
his presidency would be seen as an unequivocally bright
period in American history.

ee of Obama’s least controversial domestic ini-
tiatives were punched through soon after he took
office: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, expanding the

Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover more

children in need; the elimination of restrictions on embryonic stem cell
research; and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, encompassing crimes
related to gender, sexual orientation and disability. Obama also later
filled two Supreme Court openings with women: Elena Kagan and
Sonia Sotomayor, the latter the first Latina Supreme Court justice.

Much more controversial was Obama’s health care reform. The
Affordable Care Act was historic — on the order of the estab-
lishment of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The ACA
expanded substantially the number of people insured by requir-
ing everyone to have health insurance and helping to provide it. It
imposed regulations to make medical coverage — with no limits
due to preexisting conditions — available to all through the expan-
sion of Medicaid (optional for states) and state or federal insurance
exchanges, and provided subsidies to help individuals pay for insur-
ance. Democrats hailed it as a landmark breakthrough. Republicans
saw it as Big Government intrusion at its worst and as a policy that
worsened the health care system. The ACA’s implementation has
had problems, including some costs and providing sufficient insur-
ance options to individuals not covered through their employers or
Medicaid. The future of the ACA will depend on Obama’s succes-
sor, and there is some doubt at this writing that Donald Trump, the
newly elected President, and the Republican Congress will immedi-
ately pass and sign legislation that will do away with “Obamacare.”

Disagreement has remained over the $787 billion Economic
Stimulus Act, created to get the country out of the Great Recession.
Unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts were later extended.
‘The national economy recovered — more jobs and economic growth,
with low interest rates and low inflation — especially compared to
other countries that adopted more austere measures. Democrats
praised these actions but lamented that had added government
spending not been thwarted by Republicans, economic growth and
wages would have recovered further. Republicans criticized Obama
for not cutting taxes and government regulations that could have
enabled the market to produce a stronger and lasting recovery to
benefit the middle class. The same debate ensued early in Obama’s
second term, when the Democrats successfully opposed restoring
tax cuts for the very wealthy.

Also highly controversial, and with open questions about the long-
term impact, was Wall Street reform legislation (Dodd-Frank and
the Consumer Protection Act) to reregulate the financial industry,
and the administration’s actions to provide funds to recapitalize banks
(which the government later recovered). Partisan critics disagree on
whether this regulation or intervention was too little or too much —
or even necessary.

And there was more disagreement: Exceeding the initiative taken
by George W. Bush, the Obama administration injected more than
$60 billion into the auto industry to save it from bankruptcy and suc-
ceeded in turning it around. Democrats praised this for sparing jobs
and boosting manufacturing, while Republicans were less supportive
of the level of government involvement.

Republicans criticized Obama's increases in government regulation,
for example around issues of food quality and especially around actions
that expanded wilderness and watershed protections. His administra-
tion aimed to double fuel economy standards for cars and trucks by
2025 and created restrictions on toxic pollution that led to the closing
of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants and increased
pressure to close coal mines. Republican leaders especially complained
about the use of executive orders to impose new regulations.

26 CCT Winter 2016-17

PETE SOUZA

Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and senior staff react in the Roosevelt Room of
the White House as the House passes the health care reform bill, March 21, 2010.

he politics of international relations that Obama specialized in

while a Columbia political science major changed dramatically
after the end of the Cold War. His foreign and national security
policies have led to heated debates that perhaps began when he was
awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, not long after he took office,
for his ongoing emphasis on diplomacy. He also created controversy
by reaching out to the Muslim world, and with his concerns about
nuclear proliferation and climate change.

Obama ended U.S. combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, which
resulted in debate over the number of U.S. troops that should be left
to provide assistance. A high point was when he successfully ordered
the Navy Seals mission that found and killed Osama bin Laden in
retaliation for the 9-11 terrorist attacks. But warfare in that region con-
tinued, and critics claim Obama's policies created a power void that
gave rise to ISIS terrorist groups and prolonged the civil war in Syria
that has resulted in millions of refugees fleeing that country. Obama
stood fast, emphasizing the need for a political solution in the region
based on the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was
severely criticized for not providing sufficient arms to the Syrian rebels
whom the U.S. supported and not using U.S. air power to protect civil-
ians in places where the Assad regime and its Russian allies attacked
civilian targets and prevented humanitarian aid. The administration
succeeded in helping topple — leading to the killing of — Libyan dic-
tator Muammar Gaddafi, but this produced conflict and instability in
Libya, where U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was later killed
and where ISIS made inroads. At this writing, two months before
Obama leaves office, his administration has continued assisting in the
onslaught on ISIS in Iraq and Syria, providing support for the attacks
on ISIS’ major strongholds in Mosul and Raqqa.

Equally — if not more — controversial was the agreement the
administration reached on Iran's nuclear program. There was vehe-
ment, and especially partisan, disagreement over the ending of tight
and effective sanctions against Iran and the freeing of Iranian funds
held by the U.S. The agreement, which was angrily opposed by Israel
and other allies threatened by Iran, appears to have stopped Iran's
nuclear program in the short term, but long-term effects are uncertain.

Less controversial was the Obama administration’s effort toward
the 2016 Paris Agreement on global climate change, which has

been hailed as a breakthrough in international cooperation. The
administration had also earlier achieved a new START treaty on
nuclear arms with Russia.

Finally, the Obama administration's diplomatic recognition of Cuba's
government is historic. Obama was criticized in Republican Party cir-
cles and by some Democrats for this action, but a majority of the public
quickly supported it as did the international community, especially Latin
American countries for whom this was long overdue and for whom the
United States’ treatment of Cuba had hampered diplomatic relations.

here were other major developments during Obama's time in
office. Most noteworthy were the major advancements in gay
rights: first the ending of the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy in the mili-
tary, then the further legalization of gay marriage in the states, which
led quickly to the Supreme Court ruling that legalized it nationally.
US. oil and natural gas production took off during the Obama years,
making the country increasingly energy self-sufficient. The U.S. became
a greater international energy producer, which contributed to the eco-
nomic recovery and especially benefitted certain states. Consumers also
benefitted greatly from a sharp drop in the price of gasoline. On the other
hand, this development on the energy front led to further partisan debates
about environmental protection regulation — including conflict over the
use of hydraulic fracking, which had greatly expanded production.
Memorably, and painfully, ironic is that the expected progress dur-
ing an Obama presidency toward a “post-racial” America did not occur.
Rather, there was a return of racial conflict reminiscent of the 1960s,
including violent protests after a number of shootings of blacks by
police officers and subsequent killings of police. This amplified debates
over racial profiling and “stop and frisk” policies. There were also new
racial and ethnic-related tensions over immigration, the threat of radi-
cal Islamic terrorism and the U.S. taking in refugees from the Mideast.
Racial resentment that had earlier divided the two parties resurfaced.
Obama was criticized on both sides, by his opponents for the disrup-
tions and for not adequately backing law enforcement, and by his sup-
porters for not defending racial justice more directly and loudly. This
partisan conflict may have had racial underpinnings as well, as suggested
by continued Republican accusations that he was not born in the U.S. or
that he was a Muslim, and in a stunning instance of political incivility
early on when he was heckled (“You lie!”) by a Republican congressman
during a major, nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress.

here does this leave us? What can we definitively say about

Obama’ eight years in office? As to his place in history, it is too
early to tell; for example, how health care reform and international agree-
ments and conflicts play out remains to be seen. Where does he stand
compared with other Presidents as they left office? We have some initial
evidence from the President’s popularity ratings provided by Gallup and
other opinion polls. By these measures Obama fares very well, an aver-
age of more than 50 percent approving his performance as President in
the month before the 2016 election. This puts him at the same level as
Ronald Reagan during the same month, and higher than all Presidents
since Harry Truman except for Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton,
whose approval was five points or more greater than Obama's.

Given the controversy over his accomplishments, we can under-
stand why Obama’s approval rating is not higher — and why it might
have been much lower. He has expressed regret that he did not do
more to lessen the partisan conflict and that his administration had
not thought through the consequences of U.S. action in Libya. But

why is his rating as high as it is? Is it that the economy has clearly
improved since he took office? ‘That certainly has not held him down,
but there are several other relevant factors. One is that due to the
partisan divide, he gets very high ratings from fellow Democrats.
More important, U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were greatly
reduced, to near zero, whereas ongoing casualties in these conflicts
had adversely affected evaluations of George W. Bush as he neared the
end of his presidency (his rating was 20 points lower than Obama's).

Another reason Obama rates highly is that his administration has
been strikingly free of scandals. His inspirational personal qualities still
bolster his support, especially when compared with the 2016 major
party presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Trump, who had
record-high unfavorable ratings for candidates in what was the most
conflict-ridden and personal presidential campaign of modern times.
These qualities are further bolstered by First Lady Michelle Obama
and their daughters. The Obamas have strengthened their connection
to the American people through their concern for veterans and military
families, and Michelle Obama's initiatives on education and childhood
obesity. In addition to the Obama administration’s double-digit increase

TEU

THE LEGACY OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE S$
FIRST ALUMNUS/A TO BECOME
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
WIT LARGELY DERENDFONFEORGES
BEYOND Gis CONTROL

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in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs budget, new GI Bill provisions
for substantial tuition assistance across the next decade and multiple tax
credits encouraging businesses to hire veterans, Michelle Obama and
Vice President Joe Biden's wife, Jill Biden Ph.D., launched the national
Joint Forces “initiative to mobilize all sectors of society to give our service
members and families the opportunities and support they have earned.”

‘There is a strong Columbia connection here. The atmosphere and dia-
logue for this began (as I was reminded by civil-military expert Army Lt.
Col. Jason Dempsey GSAS'08 (Ret.), a former White House Fellow who
worked with Michelle Obama on military family issues) when Obama
and McCain participated in an armed services forum at Columbia dur-
ing the 2008 election campaign. Columbia itself, only fittingly, has since
become a national leader in its outreach and programs for veterans.

In the end, the legacy of Columbia College's first alumnus/a to become
President of the United States will largely depend on forces beyond his
control: his being followed by someone with radically different ideas, as
certainly appears to be the case with Trump, and the Republican Party’s
control of both the Senate and House of Representatives. Trump and
the Republicans are expected to seek to void much of what Obama has
attempted to achieve. Time is likely to tell us soon about what can be
undone easily by executive orders and by legislation that is at the ready,
particularly in the case of the ACA. The consequences of Obama's other
major accomplishments that Trump has threatened, notably the land-
mark global climate and Iran nuclear agreements, will be known later.

Robert Y. Shapiro is the Wallace 8. Sayre Professor of Government in
the Department of Political Science and specializes in American politics.
He received a Columbia Distinguished Faculty Award in 2012.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 27

The Trans List

Photographer/filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders ’74 exhibits his “Identity” portraits,

including his most recent series on transgender Americans

his past September, “Identity:

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, The

List Portraits,” an exhibition of 151

photographic portraits, opened
at the Annenberg Space for Photography in
Los Angeles. The large-format images, shot
on an antique Deardorff view camera against
a simple gray background, portrayed accom-
plished members of society’s more marginal-
ized communities: women, Latinos, blacks,
gays and trans subjects. Shot during a period
of more than 10 years, the sets known as the
List Portraits are now being shown en masse
for the first time. Yet the artist — as the
Los Angeles Times was quick to point out —
was a “straight white male” who would fit on
none of his own lists: celebrated portraitist
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders 74.

For the Annenberg exhibition, Green-
field-Sanders also produced a book of all
AO transgender subjects that includes his
large-format master portraits, behind-the-
scenes images and personal interviews. The
Trans List is excerpted in the four pages
that follow. As he did for his previous “List”
projects, Greenfield-Sanders chose subjects
he felt could inspire and appeal to main-
stream audiences while also challenging
their assumptions. The Trans List includes
energetic activists, tattooed soldiers, and
dedicated lawyers and students, as well as
celebrities Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner.

Long known as one of America’s most
accomplished photographers, Greenfield-
Sanders added “filmmaker” to his resume
with his 1998 Grammy award-winning

AT EDR AT IS TIE IIT IE IT CEO RET EE)
Opposite page:
CAITLYN JENNER

TV PERSONALITY | OLYMPIAN
PRONOUN SHE

“For the first time in my life ... | don’t have any more
secrets stored up in my soul.”

documentary, Low Reed: Rock and Roll Heart.
Now, 12 films later, his HBO and PBS’
American Masters documentaries include
Thinking XXX, and multiple versions of The
Black List and The Latino List, as well as The
Out List, The Women’ List, The Boomer List
and About Face: Supermodels Then and Now.
For the HBO documentary, which Green-
field-Sanders produced and directed, 11 of
the 40 trans subjects were filmed and inter-
viewed by trans activist Janet Mock. “T
consider the ‘List’ style films to be talking por-
traits, my portraiture come to life. Same back-
drop, single light source and direct to camera
stare. It’s always about the subject, never about
fancy lighting or about me,” he says.
Greenfield-Sanders first became recog-
nized for his portraits of artists and the art
world. Full sets of his 1999 exhibition of 700
artists, dealers, critics, collectors and cura-
tors are now in the collections of MOMA
and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
But his interest in marginalized groups dates
to his childhood in segregated Miami, and
included his Columbia years. For many CC
students in the downbeat ’70s, the flamboy-
ant underground scene — drag queens and
disco, punks and artists — was a source of fas-
cination. Greenfield-Sanders had a smoother
intro to the scene than most: A local friend,
actress Tally Brown, took him straight to
downtown's white-hot epicenter. “I called
Tally to say hello and to let her know I was
now at Columbia. I also mentioned I had a
ear.” ... She said, “Babe ... pick me up at 11
p-m. and we'll go to some parties! That first
night I met Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Candy
Darling, Holly Woodlawn and Viva [Hoff-
man| at the Chelsea Hotel. I quickly shifted
my morning classes to the afternoon,” he says.
“Warhol is my great influence,” Green-
field-Sanders said years later, in a KCRW

radio interview. He talked about admiring

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders ’74 | Self-Portrait

Warhol’s early screen tests films and about
the then-novel idea of “letting people be
themselves.” Now, he’ll watch his subjects,
always searching for ways to get them to
become relaxed as he works with them in
his studio. “I always try to find something
in common with the sitter. Sometimes it’s
art, or music, or even politics.” Greenfield-
Sanders says he studiously stays away from
strange poses or gimmickry. “It’s all very
neutral and Warholian. Simple camera, sim-
ple light ... there’s not much to it.” Except
when there is. Against the gray backdrops,
in diffused lighting, his subjects — trans or
cis, famous or unknown — glow with that
“celebrity shine” Warhol gave everyone.

— Rose Kernochan BC’82

‘IDENTITY: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders,
The List Portraits” is at the Annenberg Space for
Photography, Los Angeles, until February 26,
2017. The Trans List premiered as an HBO
documentary film on December 5, 2016.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 29

Columbia !Forum

SHANE ORTEGA MISS MAJOR GRIFFIN-GRACY

U.S. ARMY SERGEANT ACTIVIST

PRONOUN HE PRONOUN SHE

“That dude’s awesome at his job. “| don’t need your acceptance. | just
That dude’s a chick.” need your respect.”

30 CCT Winter 2016-17

JANET MOCK
WRITER | TV HOST
PRONOUN SHE

“We are at an evolutionary moment, one that
pushes us to confront how we define ourselves
and know one another. We've outgrown categories
and definitions that once held us. Man, woman, girl,
boy, masculine, feminine no longer reflect us all.
We've made way for something new.”

LEON ELIAS WU
FOUNDER
SHARPE SUITING
PRONOUN HE

“| hope to influence positive change
and diversity through content.”

Winter 2016-17 CCT 31

‘Forum

CCT Winter 2016-17

LS TG AT NOI ODE OO I On DES
Opposite page:
CHASE STRANGIO

ATTORNEY, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
PRONOUN HE | THEY

“It's a struggle
to navigate the
hostile systems that
relentlessly harm
the people | care
about, particularly the
many trans women
of color whom | work
to support and take
guidance from.”

KYLAR BROADUS

LAWYER
PRONOUN HE DEJA SMITH
7 MAKEUP ARTIST | DANCER
“I knew that my body and my mind PRONOUN SHE
didn’t conform.”

“I’m alive and successful, in spite of a
world that doesn’t want me here.”

‘The preceding is excerpted from The Trans List,
by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Reprinted with permission
from Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. All rights reserved.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 33

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34 CCT Winter 2016-17

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '57, BUS’58

35 Alumni
in the News

36 Lions

Jason Wachob ’98,
Ashley Walker Green ’05,
Peter Thall 764

40 Bookshelf

Cooking Solo: The Fun
of Cooking for Yourself
by Klancy Miller 96

85 Obituaries

Jack Greenberg ’45, LAW’48

STUDYING
IN LOW

Low Memorial Library,
designed by Charles McKim
of the famed architectural
firm McKim, Mead & White,
was completed in 1895.
Then-President Seth Low
(Class of 1870) self-funded
the building and named it
after his father, Abiel Abbot
Low. Until Butler Library
opened in 1934, Low was
the University’s main library;
after Butler opened, Low
became an administrative
building. Named a New York
City landmark in 1967, Low
was added to the National
Register of Historic Places
in 1987. This 1904 photo
shows desks in the Rotunda’s
reading room during the
building’s use as a library.

Cyrus Habib ’03 was elected lieutenant
governor of Washington state. The Demo-
crat is now the nation’s highest-ranking
Iranian-American elected official, after
defeating Republican Marty McClen-
don in the November general election.
President Barack Obama ’83 endorsed
Habib, saying, “Cyrus’ intelligence, track
record and proven commitment to Wash-
ington State set him apart.”

Columbians were winners in September at
the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards: The
popular Netflix documentary series Making
a Murderer, created by Moira Demos ’96,
SOA 08 and Laura Ricciardi SOA07, won
four Emmys, in the categories of Outstand-
ing Documentary or Nonfiction Series, Out-
standing Writing for a Nonfiction Program,
Outstanding Directing for a Nonfiction
Program and Outstanding Picture Editing
for a Nonfiction Program. Kate McKinnon
’06 took home the Emmy for Outstanding
Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for
her work on Saturday Night Live.

Lions are making big waves in the film
industry: Jim Jarmusch ’75's Gimme
Danger, a documentary retrospective on the
punk band The Stooges, was released on
October 28. An AP article, “Iggy Pop:
Jarmusch was first, only choice for Stooges
doc,” quotes Stooges frontman Iggy Pop
saying “[ Jarmusch] knew all about the
group and he had been coming to our shows
anyway for no reason except to come to the
show. ... I thought, well, this would be a great
opportunity, it would elevate the group to
have someone of this stature see whatever

Tareq, Abuissa '1 4

they see and share that with people. And I
knew he had the ability.” On October 22,
Dante Alencastre ’83 premiered his docu-
mentary, Raising Zoey, about a transgender
teen described as “one of Los Angeles’
bravest, and youngest, trans rights activists.”
Shanna Belott ’91 and Lara Stolman ’91
premiered the documentary Swim Team
this fall. It follows a competitive New Jersey
swim team of teens on the autism spectrum.
Barry, a Netflix original film that debuted
on December 16, follows President Barack
Obama ’83 as he arrives in New York City
in 1981 for his junior year at Columbia.
The film was a highly anticipated look at
the President’s college days from director
Vikram Gandhi ’00, with the screenplay
by Adam Mansbach ’98, SOA00. And
Bill Condon ’76’s live-action remake of the
classic musical Beauty and the Beast (set for
a March 2017 release) has been receiving
significant coverage in anticipation of the
film, including from Entertainment Weekly
and Good Morning America.

Henry Billingsley ’75 has been named to
the list of The Best Lawyers in America for
2017; he specializes in admiralty and mari-
time law with Tucker Ellis in Cleveland.

Tareq Abuissa 14 and Pat Blute 12,
both Varsity Show alumni, premiered a tech
parody musical, South of Market: The Musical,
in October in San Francisco. The show sold
out its preview run in 48 hours; Venture-
Beat says it “perfectly mocks tech industry
egos,” while tech writer Melissa Eisenberg
described the show in the San Francisco
Examiner as “music, lights and a complete
and utter satire of my life as a techie.”

alumninews

Joanne: Kwong. ‘OF

Princess Francois 11 was selected as a
National 30 Under 30 Caribbean-American
Emerging Leaders and Changemakers Hon-
oree and was invited to the White House on
October 3 to attend the first South by South
Lawn Festival, “a festival of ideas, art, and
action where changemakers, activists, and
artists came together ... to share how they’re
changing their communities.”

Joanne Kwong ’97 recently became
president of New York's iconic Asian imports
store Pearl River Mart, which closed in 2016,
after 45 years in business, due to an astro-
nomical rent increase. Kwong reopened the
store on November 17 with a pop-up at 395
Broadway in TriBeCa and plans to officially
relaunch in May 2017 following renova-
tions. Kwong told CC7? “I want to continue
the store’s original mission of serving as a
‘friendship store, one that encouraged cross-
cultural joy in NYC for almost five decades.
In this day and age, Asian culture no longer
needs to be ‘introduced’ to New Yorkers, but
Pearl River still has the ability to serve as
a platform for Asian and Asian-American
innovation, design and tradition in the form
of capsule collections and collaborations with
a variety of established and emerging Asian-
American designers and artists, compelling
content that explains cultural history and
traditions, and a regular program of curated
events, performances and exhibitions.”

— Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

“
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ELIZABETYy LEITZEL,

Winter 2016-17 CCT 35

By Yelena Shuster ’09

n 2009, Jason Wachob 98 could barely walk. Two extruded

vertebral discs pressed on his sciatic nerve, causing excruciat-

ing lower back pain. Multiple doctors told the former varsity
basketball player he needed surgery. Six months later, he was
healed — by yoga.

Back then, “wellness” was not the buzzword and multi-billion-
dollar industry it is now, but Wachob knew his experience could
change lives. That same year he launched mindbodygreen.com to
explain the links between mental health, physical strength and
toxin-free living.

“The reason ‘mbg’ is one word is because it’s all connected,”
Wachob says. “If you’re reading all the self-help books but you're
eating [poorly], you're not going to be happy. And if you’re medi-

36 CCT Winter 2016-17

ANDERS KRUSBERG

tating and doing yoga all day, but you're throwing toxins into your
body and home, you're not going to be happy.”

‘The content — new-age-Oprah meets The Huffington Post —
features self-help inspiration and expert-based advice separated
into five pillars: Eat, Move, Live, Breathe and Love.

Building a media company with no media background was far
from easy. Ihe former Wall Street trader told his wife — and found-
ing partner — Colleen, who was supporting them at the time, that
profitability should take only six months. It took three years.

“We didn't know then how hard it is to grow traffic or ramp up
advertising,” says Colleen, now chief branding officer. “These were
definitely hard conversations. We couldn't have gotten through it
without my corporate job and its benefits. We were just extremely

passionate about wellness and realized that no one was making
these ideas accessible to a more mainstream audience. Remember,
this was before the world of green juice and yoga took over the
zeitgeist. It seemed like a big opportunity.”

Their hunch paid off. The website currently has 12 million monthly
unique visitors, revenue in the eight figures and almost $5 million in
raised capital (thanks to new lead investor Lew Frankfort BUS’69).

“Jason lives the values of his brand,” says Frankfort. “He is
authentic, transparent, curious and determined. He demonstrates a
willingness and desire to be better, and he displays a humility and
vulnerability that motivates others to work with him.”

The website even inspired a book. Wellth: How I Learned to Build
a Life, Not a Résumé is based on Wachob’s viral blog post “39 Life
Lessons I’ve Learned in 39 Years.” “Wellth” stands for a new kind of
currency representing happiness, health and purpose — not money.

Part self-help, part memoir, the book features easily digestible
pieces of advice, from inspirational quotes to expert advice by mbg
contributors like integrative medicine specialist Dr. Frank Lipman
and couples therapist Sue Johnson Ph.D. Wachob addresses every-
thing from poor nutrition (modify your diet based on different
stages of your life) to work burnout (stress becomes physical and
can ravage your body). The Long Island native does not hesitate to
show vulnerability: He describes first loves, family deaths and even
financial failures.

Though he is successful now, Wachob needed 10 years to find his
calling. Hoping to pay off student loans, he spent the first five years
out of college in equity trading. One year he earned $800,000, but
the high-roller lifestyle didn’t bring him happiness, especially in the
soul-searching months after 9-11, so he decided to work for him-
self. He was an investor at a Washington, D.C.-based healthcare
company that folded; a founder of a low-carb, low-sugar cheesecake
business that couldn't grow; and the CEO of a cookie company that
was undercapitalized in the recession.

Despite three failed start-ups, Wachob never gave up. “I don't
think everyone’s made to be an entrepreneur,” he says. “Can you

alumninews

work all the time? Would you do this for nothing? It’s amazing.
I love it. But it’s all-consuming. For me, there’s no separation
between work and life.”

The former athlete attributes coaching from former Lions coach
Armond Hill (currently assistant coach of the LA Clippers) for
teaching him perseverance on the court and in the start-up world.

“T learned that it’s easy to win but hard to lose. It’s easy to point
fingers when you lose, but it’s a lot harder to stay together and get
through it. When you start losing, you can get demoralized and
become complacent. And he wouldn't allow us to do that.”

Wachob was so inspired by Columbia that he gave $25,000 to the
basketball program as soon as he made money on Wall Street. Hill

‘Wellth” stands for a new kind of
currency representing happiness,
health and purpose — not money.

honored the donation by creating the Jason Wachob Award, which
goes to the player who never gave up on his teammates or himself.

To this day, helping others drives Wachob forward through his
70-hour work weeks. He keeps every handwritten letter he receives
from readers about mbg changing their lives.

“I was envious of people who were clearly passionate about what
they were doing,” he says. “I went on this 10-year search for that
and finally found it with mindbodygreen.”

Yelena Shuster ’09 Aas written for The New York Times, InStyle,
The Moscow Times and more. She runs TheAdmissionsGuru.com,
where she edits admissions essays for high school, college and master’s
program applications.

Ashley Walker Green ’05 Has the Moves on the Ice

By Nathalie Alonso ‘08

igure skating coach Ashley Walker Green’05 can pinpoint

the exact moment she became captivated by her sport: The

year was 1988 and she was watching gold medalist Katerina

Witt perform at the Winter Olympics to music from the
opera Carmen. “I saw her red Carmen dress and I thought, ‘I want
to do that,” she says.

Green, just 4 at the time, took her first steps on the ice soon after
and has been gliding and twirling — and teaching others to do the
same — ever since. The Wilton, Conn., native is the founder and
head coach of Central Park Ice, the largest synchronized skating
youth program in New York City, which has four teams compris-
ing some 60 skaters, ages 8-18, who compete throughout the Big
Apple and the northeastern. United States. Green directs a staff
of five assistant coaches and choreographs all programs, which in

synchronized skating consist of a group of skaters moving as one
unit, in various formations.

“T never thought it was going to grow into a big organization,”
Green says of Central Park Ice, which started in 2007 and reached
new heights of success in 2016, when its Open Juvenile and Pre-
Juvenile earned gold and pewter (fourth-place) medals, respectively,
at the U.S. Figure Skating Eastern Sectional Championships.

“It was the most amazing thing because a lot of these skaters have
been together for years,” says Green, adding that instead of focusing
on external accolades, she emphasizes internal goals, such as “staying
focused on the day-to-day, on what we can do better and how we can
make something look better and feel better for each skater.”

Green joined her first synchronized skating team in fourth
grade. As an incoming first-year at the College, she worked with

Winter 2016-17 CCT 37

the Columbia University Figure Skating Club to organize the now-
defunct Columbia University/NYC Intercollegiate Synchronized
Skating Team, which she helped lead to the U.S. Synchronized Skat-
ing Championships in each of its three years of existence, from 2002
to 2004. The team practiced at Riverbank Skating Rink in Harlem.

Green, who lives in West New York, N.J., with her husband
and two young sons, majored in dance and twice performed in the
Varsity Show. She also took dance lessons off-campus and danced
with small companies in New York City. The summer after her
first year, she interned with Ice Theater of New York, a figure skat-
ing production company. She was a sophomore when she landed
her first coaching job, at Riverbank. During her junior and senior
years, Green taught on weekends at Wollman Rink, where she was
a coach until 2014.

It was at Wollman that Green founded Central Park Ice, which
began as a class of five students. The organization is now is based out
of Chelsea Piers, an indoor rink, where Green has been coaching
since 2012 — the same year she became a U.S. Figure Skating gold
medalist, a designation awarded to skaters who have passed one of
the senior tests offered by the sport’s national governing body.

Amateur skater and recent Wesleyan graduate Hannah Ryan
was 8 when she began taking lessons with Green. Ryan eventually
became captain of her Central Park Ice team and competed with
the organization until she started college. She is now a member of
an adult skating team and credits Green, whom she describes as
“very patient,” with her decision to stay involved with the sport.
“When I took lessons with her, ‘one more time’ never actually
meant ‘one more time,” says Ryan. “She gets you to believe it so
you ll do it a million more times.”

For Green, the most fulfilling aspect of Central Park Ice is giving
skaters, some of whom are not willing or able to keep up with the
rigors of individual skating, an opportunity to practice the sport
in a competitive setting, experience the camaraderie of a team and
pick up some life skills along the way.

“{In life,] you’ve got to be able to work with people and adjust
your flow for other people and that’s something that we certainly
do on the ice,” says Green. “To me, coaching is more than just

JILL SHOMER

teaching skating skills. It’s about creating an environment where
[the skaters] can succeed and grow and find out things about them-
selves that maybe they didn’t realize they were capable of.”

Nathalie Alonso 08, from Queens, is a freelance journalist and an
editorial producer for LasMayores.com, Major League Baseball’s official
Spanish language website. She also writes “Student Spotlight” for CCT.

Peter Thall '64’s Advice Is Music

to the Industry's Ears

By Lauren Steussy

t was on attorney Peter Thall ’64’s living room floor that Daryl

Hall and John Oates hashed out the song “Had I Known You

Better Then.” Oates strummed away as Thall made the budding

rock stars dinner — steak and peas, Thall recalled. His attentive-
ness to musicians like Hall and Oates also is evident in the recently
released, third edition of his book, What They'll Never Tell You About
The Music Business. In the book, and across his 40-year career repre-
senting creators from The Cars to Barry Manilow to ABBA, ‘Thall
provides the kind of nourishing wisdom that allows artists to focus
on the creativity their work requires.

38 CCT Winter 2016-17

“From the beginning, I began to care about my clients not only
as a lawyer, but also as someone who could train them to under-
stand the complexities forced upon them by the music business,” he
says. “It is a privilege for me to help them accomplish this.”

Thall’s near-paternal concern for the artists he represents is seeded
in personal experience. Before even graduating from high school, the
Connecticut native had written a hit — and been sued for copyright
infringement. It was a musical of the Gettysburg Address, performed
by members of the local Coast Guard. But Thall was sued by a man
who claimed he held the rights to Lincoln’s words and that Thall’s

song was an infringement. To anyone else, the suit might have been
an ugly foray into the adult world. But Thall was fascinated. His civ-
ics class attended the trial. While he was a College student, the case
had already made its way into the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
He won the case, and with it, a direction for his life.

“T wanted to be a lawyer, and I found an area of law that combined
my interest in music and law — and copyright, by that point,” he
says. “So that’s how I became interested in representing creators.”

At Columbia, ‘Thall studied American government. In 1967, he
graduated from The George Washington University Law School,
one of the few law schools at that time with a copyright specialty.
Upon graduating, he worked with the general counsel at the
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, then
with small firms throughout his 20s, helping represent musicians
like Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel ’65 and Miles Davis. In 1977, he
formed his own firm, Levine & Thall, in New York City. Thall spe-
cialized in music law while his partner took on theater law; others
at the firm handled publishing, film and television. “We repre-
sented all aspects of entertainment law,” Thall says. “There was a

lot of synergy.”

VINCENT LAFORET

One day, while Thall’s partner dealt with a client’s Broadway
plays, Thall handled the same client’s negotiations with Disney
and Dreamworks for his soundtracks to Pocahontas and The Prince
of Egypt. The client happened to be in the office when an opportu-
nity arose to showcase material to a London director and producer.
The client presented his musical on Thall’s in-office Steinway. “I
will never forget the sounds from the piano ringing throughout
the law firm even as a new and exciting matter requiring legal
services was actually being created down the hall,” he says.

Thall maintained relationships with his musician clients. He
continues to sing and compose songs, sometimes with clients.
He co-wrote a James Bond theme with a successful lyricist,
but jokes, “Alas, they preferred Sheryl Crow’s offering to mine.
So disappointing.”

‘Thall takes a proactive approach to the music business, always
trying to teach musicians to fend for themselves and to know the

laws that could help or hurt them. While the presumption is that
his readers are professionals who can afford managers, accountants
and attorneys, he hopes the book serves as some less expensive
expert advice.

And the industry agrees. David Renzer, who once oversaw the
largest music publishing company in the world, Universal Music
Group, and now chairs Spirit Music Group, says Thall’s experience
gives him a unique perspective on the business. “He has seen our
industry evolve through being on the front lines of the digital revo-
lution and its impact on both artists and companies.”

Thall’s book closes with a speech he gave at the University of
Hamburg in 2011, around the time when the music industry was
grappling with a new wave of piracy. He compared the situation
to the myth of Medea, which he studied at the College. Medea is
driven by passion to kill her children. Likewise, those who down-
loaded music illegally were driven by a passion for the music that
defined their culture, Thall said. Understanding industry phenom-
ena with the help of things like classic Greek mythology are one of
the ways Thall has been able to adapt his knowledge to the current
climate in the music world.

“Nothing brings out passion more than music. And the industry
executives, many of whom are not musicians ... had no understand-
ing of the emotions and the character of their audience,” he says.
“Functioning in my industry, I pretty much had to select a side, if
you will. And the side that I chose was that of the creator.”

Lauren Steussy is a reporter based in Brooklyn. Her last CCT profile
was on music critic Ben Ratliff’90 (Summer 2016). Steussy’s work has
also appeared in Marie Claire, the Staten Island Advance and the
Columbia Journalism Review, and on Cosmopolitan.com.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 39

bookshelf

Table for One, Please

By Jill C. Shomer

eing a singleton is definitely on trend. The number of peo-
ple living alone in the United States is on the rise, and hey,
they get hungry! And even if youre coupled, sometimes you
want to spend a little quality time with yourself. In her new
cookbook, Cooking Solo: The Fun of Cooking for Yourself (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, $19.99), Klancy Miller 96 offers simple dining
solutions while also saluting the pleasures of cooking just for you.

Cooking Solo’s recipes cover the three main meals, dessert and enter-
taining, with everything from smoothies to sweet and savory variations
on one of Miller’s favorite brunch foods, waffles. Her prose is upbeat
and genuinely funny, and the recipes are easy to follow — most can be
put together in 30 minutes or less, perfect for those nights when you
want something a little nicer than takeout.

Miller, who grew up in Atlanta, first came to Columbia as a high
school student enrolled in a summer Journalism School workshop. To
her, New York City was a
place of “monstrous adven-
tures,” so different from
her hometown. She knew
she wanted to come back,
and when she applied to
colleges, Columbia was her
first choice. She majored
in history, and also studied
French, Arabic and film
studies. In Miller's mind,
pursuing several topics she
was interested in felt like the
point of a liberal arts edu-
cation. “You have to have a
little self-awareness to go to
a school like Columbia,” she
says. “Being in New York
City, as a student, at Colum-
bia — you've kind of hit the
jackpot. Why not learn what
really resonates with you?”

Miller says she “lapped it
all up,” including her Core
classes: “The Core increases your vocabulary in terms of understand-
ing what the essence of something is. The experience gave me this
vocabulary that I don’t think I would have gotten anywhere else.”

Her first food-related job was at the College, as a first-year doing
work-study at the cafeteria in Wien. Miller was a stir-fry cook,

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JILL SHOMER

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40 CCT Winter 2016-17

K =:
\ CAWNCY MILBER. \

sautéing meat and veg-
gies in a wok to be served
at lunch. “At the time it
didn't feel like a cool job, but in retrospect, it was,” she says. “The
uniform wasn't cool, but the actual preparation of food was.”

After graduation, Miller dabbled in nonprofit jobs while figuring
out what she wanted to do, ending up in Philadelphia at an NGO,
the American Friends Service Committee. She took a variety of
classes in the evenings and on weekends, and cooking classes were
the most enjoyable. She started considering culinary school and got
a part-time job in a restaurant to get more exposure. The chef sug-
gested that school wasn’t necessary to be a chef, but if Miller was
interested in pastry, school was a good idea. She had spent a semester
at Reid Hall (“we read a lot of poetry out loud; recipe writing has a
similar economy of words”), and returning to Paris in 2000 to study
at Le Cordon Bleu set her on a culinary career course.

Miller stayed in Paris for four years, learning about pastry, apprentic-
ing in a bakery, working in a three-star Michelin restaurant and cook-
ing for herself regularly. Kitchen work proved exhausting, so she got a
job doing recipe development at Le Cordon Bleu and started writing
about food on a freelance basis. She interviewed chef and restaurateur
Marcus Samuelsson for a profile and he became a great mentor. They
worked together on several projects, and he introduced her to a num-
ber of valuable writing contacts and helped her get an agent.

After years of writing with Samuelsson, Miller wanted to write a book
in her own voice. She intended to write a food memoir — her idea for a
cooking-for-one guide, inspired by her life in New York City where she
knew many single people, was originally a Plan B. But sociologist Eric
Klinenberg’s 2012 book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surpris-
ing Appeal of Living Alone, about the sharp increase of single-person
households in America — came out around the same time she was
pitching ideas, and provided a timely hook that her publisher leaped on.

Creating the cookbook took Miller four years, from completing the
manuscript to production with a creative team that included a photogra-
pher, food and prop stylists, and media and promotion. “This experience
showed me how one tiny portion of the world works, how your piece
fits into the whole piece, and then into the larger world — it’s been
especially fascinating as a history student — how the pieces fit together.”

Cooking Solo is meant not only to be a cookbook, but also a frame
of mind: “T’ve started to see the positive side of being single,” Miller
says. “I have time for passion projects, taking different directions and
seeing things through that are important to me.” She firmly believes
the freedom to pursue creativity and spend quality time with yourself
is an indulgence that should be celebrated — preferably with waffles.

CONVERSATION WITH |

JOHNNY

A NOVEL

wee Eger re
ANTHONY VALERIO

Avid Reader: A Life by Robert
Gottlieb 52. Esteemed writer and
editor Gottlieb chronicles his

life through a series of literary
inspirations — from the books that
enthralled him as a child to editing
at The New Yorker, the author’s
passion for words prevails. For

the art of writing he maintains a
reverence in good times and in bad,
reflecting, “I couldn't know that, as
would be the case my entire life,

it was work that would save me”

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28).

Conversation with Johnny:

A Novel by Anthony Valerio ’62.
Valerio redefines Italian-American
mob stereotypes in this novel about
Nicholas and Johnny — a lover
and a fighter — who engage in
therapeutic, quasi-philosophical
dialogue. Originally published

in 1997, the new Kindle edition
provides a chance to discover
Valerio’s comic twist on an old
premise (Tempi Irregolari, $6.99;
Kindle edition).

The Case Against Free Will:
What a Quiet Revolution in
Psychology has Revealed about
How Behaviour is Determined
by David A. Lieberman 65. Could
the actions of human beings be
predictable? In this analytical book,
Lieberman sets forth an argument
outlining the probability for
determinism, without associating
inevitability with doom (Palgrave -
Macmillan, $79).

Novel

When Movies Were Theater:
Architecture, Exhibition, and the
Evolution of American Film by Wil-
liam Paul’66. The histories of theater,
architecture and motion pictures con-
verge as the author explores the ways
in which one’s experience of a movie
is influenced by the setting in which it
is viewed. What is the significance of
the relationship when one now has the
ability to experience film anywhere, on
a smartphone or other digital device
(Columbia University Press, $40)?

4321: A Novel by Paul Auster’69.
Auster’s first novel in seven years
tackles ideas of identity, following
Archibald Isaac Ferguson from birth,
as this singular life takes four synchro-
nous but different paths. Same person,
same body, four different loves and

lives (Henry Holt & Co., $32).

State of Nature, Stages of Society:
Enlightenment Conjectural History
and Modern Social Discourse by
Frank Palmeri’74. When it comes

to the social sciences, certainty may
not be the most useful tool. Palmeri
studies various Enlightenment
philosophers who “changed the intel-
lectual paradigm’ with their use of
conjectural history, providing the basis
for modern-day study and under-
standing of the early world (Columbia
University Press, $70).

Black Deutschland by Darry/
Pinckney 88. The author’s sophomore
novel follows Jed, a young man mar-

ginalized in America for his sexuality

Se of Nature, Stages
of Society Enlightenment
Conjectural History and Modern
Social Discourse FRANK PALMERI

alin hs Moore

and his race who is seeking escape.
Newly sober in Berlin, a city roused by
political turmoil, Jed encounters both
salvation and the lure of self-destruc-
tion. Which of these forces will take
control: despair or hope (Farrar, Straus

and Giroux, $26)?

Questioning Return by Beth Kissileff
90. In this novel, graduate student
Wendy Goldberg spends a year in
Jerusalem aiming to uncover the
motivations of American Jews who
return physically and spiritually to
religious tradition. Very quickly,
however, she finds her objectivism has
become twisted and wonders whether
immersion causes more problems than

it solves (Mandel Vilar Press, $19.95).

Victor in the Rubble by Alex Finley
94. What do a U.S. foreign intel-
ligence agency and an international
terrorist organization have in com-
mon? Heavy-handed bureaucracy. This
satirical novel follows a global terrorist
on the run and the American officer
responsible for catching him. Finley
draws upon her experience in the CIA
to put a comedic spin on a serious

theme (Smiling Hippo Press, $14.99).

For the Love of Money: A Memoir
by Sam Polk ’01. Polk details his
journey from greed to generosity as

he left the wealth-obsessed culture of
Wall Street for the nonprofit world.
He learned how to extract his feelings
of self-worth from his staggering need
for constant achievement (Simon &

Schuster, $24).

alumninews

~ AISHFoRATON
AGES

The Last Days of Night: A Novel
by Graham Moore ‘03. Based on true
events, screenwriter Moore’s second
book follows Paul Cravath, a young
lawyer hired to defend a man being
sued by Thomas Edison over the
rights to and powers of electricity. In a
world where hidden motives are ever-
present, who will emerge victorious,
and to what lengths will they go in
order to do so (Random House, $28)?

Cracking the Cube: Going Slow
to Go Fast and Other Unexpected
Turns in the World of Competi-
tive Rubik’s Cube Solving by Jan
Scheffler 12. From a conversation with
Erno Rubik to tricks and tips from
other cubers, Scheffler learns not

only about skill but also about life,
using the cube as a metaphor for the
modern world: “It’s hard to solve. It
doesn't submit easy answers. And once
you solve it, you have to start all over

again’ (Touchstone, $26).

A Survival Guide to the Misinfor-
mation Age: Scientific Habits of
Mind by David J. Helfand, professor of
astronomy. An “antidote to the mis-
information glut,” this book works to
navigate a world in which information
is infinite but accuracy is scarce. Hail-
ing rational analysis as the skill that
all need but many lack, Helfand urges
the reader to push past the search
for so-called “truth” to get to what
will take the human species furthest:
understanding (Columbia University
Press, $29.95).

— Aiyana K. White’18

Winter 2016-17 CCT 41

i
‘
i

classnotes

cee

o ililes U

An early 20th-century
view looking north
from West 116th
Street. Note the
various modes

of transportation:
subway, trolley,

car and horse-

drawn cart.

CCT Winter 2016-17

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1941

Robert Zucker

26910 Grand Central Pkwy,
Apt. 24G

Floral Park, NY 11005
robert.zucker@aol.com

Members of the Class of ’41, have a
healthy and happy 2017! Please take
a few moments in the New Year to
reach out to share memories of your
Columbia days and to let us know
how you are. You can write to either
of the addresses at the top of the
column, or to the CCT editors at
cct@columbia.edu. We would all be
happy to hear from you.

1942

Melvin Hershkowitz

22 Northern Ave.
Northampton, MA 01060-2310
DrMelvin23@gmail.com

On July 28 I received a card from
Paul Hauck announcing his entry

to a retirement home in Naples,
Fla. His new address is 1000 Lely
Palms Dr., Apt. E-126, Naples, FL
34113. Paul is also maintaining his
former residence at 796 102nd Ave.
North, Naples, FL 34108. In 2015,
with 70 other WWII veterans, Paul
participated in an Honor Flight to
Washington, D.C., visiting the new
National WWII Memorial and
other significant landmarks as part
of a 22-hour day. Paul said it was

a great experience but hard on his
95-year-old body.

At Columbia, Paul majored in
economics, was a member of Phi
Beta Kappa and earned an M.A.
from the then-named Graduate
Faculties, now GSAS. He studied at
the Industrial College of the Armed
Forces and in 1964 completed
M.B.A. studies at The George
Washington University.

Paul was (and is) one of the most
brilliant members of our highly
accomplished Class of 1942. He
had a long career as a consultant
to the Navy and Department of
Defense, where he was a program
manager for special projects. Upon

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his official retirement, Paul became
an administrator at a Montessori
school in Frederick, Md., before
moving to Florida. Along with his
exceptional intellectual accomplish-
ments, Paul remains a loyal Lion fan
of our football and other teams and
is an attentive reader of Class Notes
in CCT. We pay tribute to Paul and
send good wishes for the years ahead.

By the time this issue of CCT
reaches you, the Ivy League football
season will be over. We lost our
opening game versus St. Francis
(Pa.), 13-9. Harvard scored 41
points in defeating URI, and Yale
gave up 55 points (a shocker) in a
loss to Colgate. Harvard looks like
the best team in the Ivy League

Class Notes are submitted by
alumni and edited by volunteer
class correspondents and the
staff of CCT prior to publication.
Opinions expressed are those
of individual alumni and do not
reflect the opinions of CCT,

its class correspondents, the
College or the University.

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '57, BUS'58

under veteran head coach Tim
Murphy. A few years ago I heard
that every year Harvard receives
unsolicited applications from 200
high school football captains, giving
coach Murphy a head start on his
recruiting efforts.

I have also been thinking of our
famous fight song, Roar, Lion, Roar,
which our class heard during the
1938-41 games at the old Baker Field.
In those years, Columbia defeated
VMI, Army, Navy, Virginia, Georgia
and Wisconsin, and lost to Michigan
and Tulane. One of Columbia’s most
famous alumni, Tom Merton’38 (now
deceased), who became a Trappist
monk and wrote a world-famous
book, The Seven Storey Mountain, com-
posed a phonetic version of Roar Lion,
Roar, as follows:

Raw lie unraw,

In wack the heckis uv the hot sin vaw lee,
Much under fig tree have her more,
Wiley sins uv nick her back her really run
Coal un behaw,

Coal un be haw haw,

Chow tinker name faw have her,

Raw lie unraw

Faw elmer mudder on the hot sin shaw.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy
of this version, so corrections from
readers will be welcome. This writer
met Merton, introduced by my
friends Edward Rice’40 and Robert
Lax 38, both now deceased. Ed
was a talented cartoonist and Jester
editor, later a writer and founding
editor of Jubilee Magazine, devoted
to Catholic life and culture. Bob was
a poet who retired to the isolation of
the Greek islands.

I was pleased to note that the
September 2016 Princeton Review
ranked the Columbia Daily Spectator
as the best college newspaper in the
nation, ahead of UVA’s The Cavalier
Daily and Brown's Brown Daily
Herald. This writer’s sophomore-year
roommate and lifelong friend, the
late Dr. Herbert Mark, was a man-
aging editor of Spec. He introduced
me to several other Spec editors,
including Mark Kahn and Edward
“Bud” Caulfield.

‘This correspondent wrote several
columns for Spec, mostly about
Columbia sports, while also writing
for Jester and Review. Through the
years, Spec has thrived and earned
national attention, while Jester and
Review have been less prominent,
despite producing several famous

alumni including artist Ad Reinhardt
35, cartoonist Chuck Saxon 40, his-
torian and magazine editor Edward
Rice’40, poet Robert Lax’38, author
and political activist Ralph de Tole-
dano ’38 and another lifelong friend,
the late Gerald Green.

Congratulations to Spec and long
may it reign.

With great sadness and regret,

I saw the September 25 New York
Times obituary notice for our dis-
tinguished classmate and my friend
Judge Leonard Garth, who died

at 95 on September 21, 2016. Len
served for 44 years as a senior judge
on the Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit. In a ceremony on June
24, 2011, Len was honored when his
name was inscribed on the atrium
entrance to the building. In atten-
dance were Supreme Court Justice
Samuel A. Alito and Third Circuit
Judge Maryanne Trump Barry. Both
commented on Len’s exceptional
40-year career on the Federal Court,
while more than 170 guests attended
the proceeding to honor Len.

On January 6, 2014, Len called
me to report that the federal govern-
ment, in recognition of his many
years of service as a senior judge, had
extended the funding of his private
chambers at his residence in North
Branford, Conn. At 93, Len was
uncertain but optimistic about his
future work. My last contact with
Len was on March 5, 2015, when
he called me with great anguish
and mourning to report the sudden
death of his beloved wife, Sarah, at
Yale-New Haven Hospital. Len and
Sarah had been married for 72 years.

After Army service in WWII,
during which Len was a first lieuten-
ant and fought in North Africa, he
graduated from Harvard Law and
entered private practice in New Jersey.
He became a leading trial and trans-
actional lawyer before his appoint-
ment to the District Court, where he
presided over many landmark cases,
including the Three Mile Island disas-
ter. Len mentored more than 100 law
clerks during his long career, adding to
his extraordinary legacy as a judge.

As an undergraduate, Len was
Debate Council president, a mem-
ber of the Arthur W. Riley Society
and won Gold Crown and Silver
Crown Awards. He was a loyal Lion,
coming to Homecoming games
with Sarah and maintaining lifelong
friendships with this writer and Dr.
Herbert Mark.

alumninews

COLUMBIA SCHOOL DESIGNATIONS

BC Barnard College
BUS

Columbia Business School

CP Pharmaceutical Sciences

College of Dental Medicine

GS School of General Studies

GSAPP

Graduate School of Architecture,

Planning and Preservation

GSAS
JRN
JTS
LAW

LS Library Service
NRS School of Nursing

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Graduate School of Journalism
Jewish Theological Seminary
Columbia Law School

PH Mailman School of Public Health
PS College of Physicians and Surgeons
The Fu Foundation School of Engineering

and Applied Science

School of International and Public Affairs

School of the Arts

School of Professional Studies
School of Social Work

Teachers College

Union Theological Seminary

We say good-bye to Len and
send condolences to his family,
including his daughter, Tobie Garth
Meisel; son-in-law, Michael Meisel;
three grandchildren; and seven
great-grandchildren.

Finally, best wishes to Dr. Gerald
Klingon, who celebrated his 96th
birthday on September 22 while recu-
perating from surgery for a fractured
hip. Gerry remains alert, articulate
and a source of Columbiana history,
with many reminiscences of his years
as the first baseman on our baseball
team and his friendships with team-
mates and coaches. Gerry is a candi-
date, along with Robert J. Kaufman,
to become the first known centenar-
ian in our great Class of 1942.

Contact me with your news at the
addresses at the top of the column or
at 413-586-1517.

1943

G.J. D’Angio

201 S. 18th St., #1818
Philadelphia, PA 19103
dangio@earthlink.net

My whole family — nine adults and
two babies — arrived on July 4 for our
annual get-together week. The accom-
modations could hardly be more
convenient: There was a one-bedroom,
furnished guest apartment available in

our building and that accommodated
five adults and two babies. Our guest
room took another two adults; cozy, all
under the same roof.

As this note was being written,
we were packing to leave for the
United Kingdom for two weeks to
attend a wedding in the Cambridge
area and the christening of my wife
Audrey’s “grand-goddaughter’s” baby
in the Highlands.

The M.H. Wittenborg memorial
lecture, which I endowed, was deliv-
ered in October at the Boston Chil-
dren's’ Hospital. The lecturer was one
of our distinguished Penn trainees, Dr.
Surbhi Grover. She has devoted her
professional life to helping develop-
ing countries confront their radiation
oncology problems. Grover’s experi-
ences in India and Botswana formed
the bases of her oration.

‘The death of my sister-in-law, a
Vassar alumna, was reported in this
column in the Spring 2016 issue
along with a comment that her alle-
giance to Vassar had flagged when
it became coeducational. Her family
wishes it known that her loyalty to
her school was fully restored. She
remained a staunch Vassar supporter
for decades, until her death.

A Columbia nugget: Columbia
College on East 47th Street was the
setting of a series of demonstrations
and lectures presented by electrical
engineering genius and inventor

Winter 2016-17 CCT 43

Nikola Tesla. The first lecture in
1888 was titled “A New System

of Alternating Current Motors.”

It was the first salvo of the battle
between Tesla and T.A. Edison, who
adamantly supported direct current
for the transmission of power.

From Bernie Weisberger:
“Hello, fellow sages of the Class of
’43. Remember that back in olden
times, even before ours, the general
opinion of society was that increas-
ing wisdom came with age. Without
further investigation or discussion,
I’m sticking with that.

“T start this letter with a remi-
niscence of my Army training at
Arlington Hall in 1942. There was
a mimeographed post ‘newspaper’
produced at intervals by and for
the enlisted men under the name
of The Barracks Bag. | was part of
the editorial staff and our editor
(Sgt. Fishel) was, in civilian life, a
newspaperman. Often when there
wasnt much news to report and we
had space to fill, I would elaborate at
length on some wholly insignificant
trifle, hoping that style would cover
the lack of substance. The first time
I did this, Sgt. Fishel complimented
me on being a good ‘pull it out of
your neck’ writer. That was his term
for exactly what I was doing and
it could be useful when faced with
a deadline and a sheet of paper as
blank as your mind.

“So, after a tranquil summer that
included my 94th birthday, I am
pulling this one out of my neck.

I traveled nowhere but did have
the pleasure, along with my wife,
Rita, of receiving a number of visits
from friends and kinfolk near and

Contact CCT

Update your contact

information; submit a

Class Note, Class Note
photo, obituary or

Letter to the Editor;

or send us an email.

Click “Contact Us” at
college.columbia.edu/cct.

44 CCT Winter 2016-17

far — one from her daughter and
son-in-law, who now live perma-
nently in Israel but make frequent
visits to the United States, where
they have grandchildren. Rita was
planning to reciprocate in December
with a visit to Israel for a couple

of weeks. Another visit was from

my granddaughter, who is doing
graduate work in Harvard’s history
department; always a happy occasion
for us. One more was from a former
academic colleague at the University
of Rochester. In the 1990s we used
to take walking trips in alternate
years in the U.K. or in Italy — as
many as 16 miles a day with back-
packs, though we gave ourselves the
luxury of B&Bs every night rather
than camping out. It was a great
way to cement a friendship and the
friendship has endured, which can’t
be said any longer about the hikes.

“Examining what else is in my
neck I find that I’m still in the
writing game, working on another
article for an economics journal with
a young economist friend. Also, in
July I was a panelist on an after-show
discussion of a one-man, one-act
play, A Jewish Joke, about the plight
of a Hollywood writer trapped in
the coils of the House Un-American
Activities Committee during the
McCarthy era. My function was to
verify for the audience the accuracy
(very good) of the history and fill in
the background. But my qualification
for the assignment by the director,

a friend, wasn't merely my academic
degree but the fact that I had lived
through that period (as have all of us
members of CC’43) and could offer
personal testimony — very useful

for an audience almost all of whose
members, from what I could observe,
were not youthful but not much older
than in their 70s.

“Any other highlights of my sum-
mer? Well, one, sort of. I attended
my only Cubs game of this season
of glorious sunshine for them, along
with my Chicago-based grand-
daughter. As it happened, we had to
stand in line in a sudden drench-
ing rainstorm just before the gates
opened and, once inside, dried off
during an hour’s postponement until
the field was fit for play again. And
alas, that was a night the Cubs lost
— fortunately a rare occurrence.

“By now you'll suspect me of
having a neck as long as a giraffe’s,
so I'll quit. But I would really love
to hear more from some of you —

especially with your thoughts and
memories about the big changes

in our lives brought about by the
political, intellectual and techno-
logical revolutions of our time. It’s
the historian in me asking but you
might find it an interesting exercise
to rummage through your memories
and see where personal experiences
fit into a bigger picture. I’ve never
believed that we are part of a ‘great-
est’ generation but we surely are one
of the most eventful. So come on,
Dan D. is waiting for you.”

1944:

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Dr. John Keith Spitznagel PS’46
shares, “In my 93rd year I am living
happily at The Cedars of Chapel Hill
in North Carolina. I sketch, water-
color and play the flute with a trio. I
think of CC every morning as I drink
my coffee and read The New York
Times. My wife, Anne Sirch BC’44,
NRS’47, died in 2012 and I miss her.
My best wishes to all Columbians.”

Paul Sandhaus writes, “Recently
returned from Santa Fe home to
my NYC apartment and glad to
report my wife, Helen, and I are still
above ground. Celebrated our 70th
anniversary on October 22 with
son Richard and daughter Ellen
and their spouses, Kathy Spahn and
David Rimmer.”

Dr. Alfred Hamady sent CCT a
hard-copy note: “A while back I sent
a letter to Bill Friedman, not know-
ing that he had passed away. He had
asked to hear from graduates from
the Class of 44, as there had been a
dearth of word from any of us. So,
for what it’s worth, here I go again.

“After Columbia I served in the
Navy’s psychiatric division during the
war, then medical school at SUNY
Downstate, followed by pediatric
residency at Children’s Hospital of
Michigan in Detroit. By a series of
coincidences I wound up practicing in
Battle Creek, where I have remained,
along with my lovely wife, Pauline,
for 63 years. During that time we had
a wonderful son and I was accorded
the opportunity to serve in various
capacities — president of the Western
Michigan Pediatric Society, medical

director of the Physician Assistant
Program at Western Michigan Uni-
versity and president of the Calhoun
County Community Council, which
ushered in the local chapters of the
Urban League and the Community
Action Agency during the civil
rights turmoil of the 60s. Currently

I am director of continuing medical
education in the Bronson Healthcare
System, even at 92. Two years ago I
was elected to the Bronson Physicians’
Hall of Fame.

“T remain a devoted reader of
subjects having to do with history,
which I taught for a number of years
at our local community college and
at a neighbor elementary school,
which was great fun. It has been a
great turn except for that elusive
hole-in-one-at the golf course —
not even close.

“One more thing — congratula-
tions to Dr. Henry Shinefield’45,
PS’48 on a brilliant career in medi-
cine.” [Editor’s note: See Fall 2016,
Class of 1945 Class Notes.

CCT and your classmates would
love to hear from more of you.
Please share news about yourself,
your family, your career and/or your
travels — even a favorite Columbia
College memory — using either the
email or postal address at the top of
the column.

1945

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Charles Gilman shared a memory:
“The Class of 1945 is remembered
as the four-month peacetime class.
Because we received our degrees
over so many different years, we
never kept the cohesiveness with
which we started. Our fall as fresh-
men was the greatest experience for
most of us. Seventy-five years, and it
seems like yesterday ... .

“As I recall, the Pearl Harbor
attack was on a Sunday. Many of us
had been out-of-towners most week-
ends that fall. What a weekend to
pick to study! We had no idea what
was to come, and that was a worry.
Most of us wondered about our
personal survival. The worst part was
the Navy called its college training
program V-12. That was really scary.

“We had a tight-knit group of
guys. We sang our song (‘Hardly a
man is now alive who remembers
the Class of 45!) after too many
beers at The West End. We got quite
political about the class officers elec-
tion. Then a candidate was actually
kidnapped! A telephone number was
discovered. Somebody recalled the
number was in Rockland County (as
I remember). We obtained a tele-
phone book, ripped it into segments
and got a match in Purdy Station.
Two autos were acquired and we
set off to free our classmate. We
succeeded and shocked a few people.
Teamwork! Case closed. That was
my first and best political episode!
Regards to all.”

CCT and your classmates would
enjoy hearing from more of you.
Please share news about yourself,
your family, your career and/or your
travels — even a favorite Columbia
College memory — using either the
email or postal address at the top of
the column.

1946

Bernard Sunshine

165 W. 66th St., Apt. 12G
New York, NY 10023
bsuns1@gmail.com

You will find them on the tennis
courts at Baker Athletics Complex
... Herbert Hendin and Irwin
Nydick. Forehands and backhands
look good. A conversation with
Irwin about the succession of
Columbia University presidents our
class experienced brought to mind
Nicholas Murray Butler (Class of
1882) in his last year as Columbia
president. Butler had lost his eye-
sight and, when he walked with an
aide, she gently nudged him when
he passed students and he tipped his
derby. I heard his last Commence-
ment address and, without a script,
he didn't drop a comma.

Butler was followed by Frank
Fackenthal (acting president),
Dwight Eisenhower and Grayson
Kirk. In our 10th anniversary year I
met Kirk in his office when anniver-
sary year class presidents presented
monetary gifts to the university.
CC’46 was the youngest class and
ours was the (very) smallest con-
tribution. Kirk was as gracious and
appreciative receiving our modest
gift as he was for substantially larger

amounts from other classes and
University schools. He had been a
State Department diplomat for a
short stint and showed his skill.

Leonard Moss sent insightful
reflections on aging. His correspon-
dence included the following: “...
Iam concerned about the impact
of aging on cognition. A very kind
expert has speculated that ‘senior
moments’ occur in older folks
because they have a long lifetime
of information in their brains that
crowds out everything new.”

‘This one sentence does not do
justice to his letter but I report it
thinking classmates may want to
share their thoughts on a subject
relevant to us.

Several years ago Len addressed
the American Psychiatric Associa-
tion and when at lunch sat with six
psychiatrists from Pakistan. Len
told them he had presented his first
paper on suicide at the 1955 APA
meeting. He said to them, “That was
probably before you were born,” and
they all nodded, “Yes.” (We can all
relate to similar experiences.)

At latest count, our classmates
number 66.

The column closes by asking
everyone to send a bit of news or
interesting experience that will be
reported here. Also, you may want
to reconnect with a classmate and
usually we can help with that. Send
your updates to me at either of the
addresses at the top of this column.

1947

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Dr. Nicholas Giosa’s 230-page book
of collected poems, This Sliding Light
of Day, published by Antrim House
in 2015, was a 2016 category finalist
for the Eric Hoffer Award as part
of the Eric Hoffer Book Award for
the Small, Academic & Independent
Press. He says, “It has been generously
reviewed in the current issue of Con-
necticut River Review, the Connecticut
Poetry Society’s annual publication.”
Alan Steinberg sends news
of a wonderful cross-generational
Columbia connection. He received
the following note: “My name is

Danny Lee. I was Class of 95 and

alumninews

a recipient of your scholarship. I am
sorry that it has taken me so long
but I would like to extend a heartfelt
thank you to you for your generos-
ity in helping students like me who
didn't have the financial resources
when we needed it the most. I was

a poor immigrant who didn't speak
a word of English when I arrived

in New York and it was my parents’
sacrifice and the generosities of
donors like you who gave me the
opportunity for a better life. I have
done OK for myself so far but I have
not forgotten those who helped me
along the way. I have just set up an

endowed scholarship for the College

been living in Rye Brook, N.Y., for
61 years, and my wife, Iris, and I
recently celebrated our 64th anni-
versary. [wo of our three children
are involved on Broadway — as
musical director of several shows
and company manager of Wicked for
15 years. Our third progeny is legal
counsel at the U.S Department of
the Treasury in Washington, D.C.
‘Three grandchildren are pursuing
their post-graduate college careers in
North Carolina and Maryland. It’s
always a pleasure to receive news of
our school and its graduates.”

Dr. Alvin Eden: “I am happy
to report that my seventh book on

Dr. Fohn Keith Spitznagel 44, PS46 says,
“In my 98rd year ... I sketch, watercolor and play
the flute with a trio.”

aiming to help international stu-
dents who have a need for financial
aid. I believe the best form of flat-
tery is imitation and I want to give
back, just like you did. Thank you for
making a difference in my life and I
hope to carry on and pay it forward.
If possible, I would like to drop by
and thank you in person next time I
am in Florida.”

Alan adds, “My family and I did
indeed meet with Danny for the
better part of an afternoon when he
was in Florida. He is a delightful
and sincere (and successful) young
man. What a good feeling it was to
receive this note.”

CCT and your classmates would
be pleased to hear from more of you.
Please share news about yourself,
your family, your career and/or your
travels — even a favorite Columbia
College memory — using either the
email or postal address at the top of
the column.

1948

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

David Sampliner BUS’50 writes: “I
am retired and still actively dream-
ing of a winning football year. I’ve

childcare, Obesity Prevention for
Children: Before It’s Too Late: A Pro-
gram for Toddlers && Preschoolers, was
published in September. The other
big news in my life is that I have
given up tennis singles and now only
play doubles.”

John C. Cooper sent CCT'a
hard-copy note: “I was interested
in the Fall 2016 issue’s comments
from Thomas Weyr, who said, ‘As
for my adult life, it was spent mostly
as a writer.’ So was mine, although I
earned most of my living as a lawyer.
‘Thomas also said, ‘I was a Viennese
refugee who made it out in time.’
Of my WWII memories (I flew a
bomber tour out of England) the one
that haunts me the most occurred
after the war in Europe was over
(but not for all the refugees). What
follows is an excerpt from my auto-
biographical story collection Kinder,
Gentler Wars that describes that
experience. The introduction explains
how I happened to go to Columbia
after reading a Lionel Trilling’25,
GSAS’38 story in a convoy ship
during the war and the debt I have
always felt to the College for putting
up with me. That follows after the
introduction. While an undergradu-
ate I lived downtown and commuted,
so I met very few classmates, though
I did share a white rat in applied
psych with Allen Ginsberg. I have
a novel, Rest Quietly, Colonel Briscoe,
available in Kindle format and hope

Winter 2016-17 CCT 45

————————————— eee

to have my story collection printed
there next year.

“Here is the excerpt from the
introduction: “ ... when I was
discharged in late 1945 I applied to
Columbia as a transfer student and
was accepted. I’ve felt grateful to
Columbia for doing so ever since,
because my career there must have
tried its patience. Not only did the
College let me withdraw without
prejudice when my novel The Gesture
was accepted by Harper two weeks
before my final exams (which I
would have flunked, not having set
foot on campus in a month) but
allowed me to reenter a year later
and eventually graduate. When
Time magazine gave my book a full-
page review with photo, I asked the
dean how I could keep a low profile
on campus, to which he responded,
smiling, that I was probably just one
of a dozen classmates (Jack Kerouac
’44 having been one) with the same
ambitions and that I was just lucky
to have gotten printed first.

“And this is from the story
collection:

“Paul

“We were up in the north of France.
Germany had just surrendered, and
we were hell-bent to get to Paris, but
everything that had wheels had been
commandeered, and we had no priority.
However, the captain who lived with the
stationmasters daughter said that a train
would come through the next day at ten,
slow enough to jump. Sure enough we
saw it in the distance, like boxcars out of
World War I or an American Legion act.
We had our parachutes and rations for
the black market and when we climbed
in, we didnt even notice them at first.
They lay on straw matting and looked
like medical illustrations of some sort.
Most of them were from Buchenwald,
but some of them had been released from
Auschwitz. At each stop French peasants
would toss them flowers and some tried
to hand up bread and wine. They gave it
to us, of course, because they couldnt even
smoke our cigarettes. We left them at the
Gare du Nord, waiting to be greeted by
someone. France wouldn't accept them all
and they were scared to go back to Red-
controlled land.

“But that was in the bad old war.

« .
‘Never, never, never again.
Cp)

CCT and your classmates would
be happy to hear from more of you.
Please share news about yourself,

46 CCT Winter 2016-17

your family, your career and/or your
travels — even a favorite Columbia
College memory — using either the
email or postal address at the top of
the column.

1949

John Weaver

2639 E. 11th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11235
wudchpr@gmail.com

Friends, your correspondent is hard-
pressed to fill more space in the
Class Notes section of CCT. I am
certain you all have been engaged
in lives of active participation in
this challenging year, both personal
and public. But without your notes
we cannot share. We are genuinely
interested. So, please, as the sun sets
early in these winter months, take
the time to send a few words to
enliven and enlighten our length-
ening days as spring approaches.
You can reach me at either of the
addresses at the top of this column.

1950

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

CCT wishes the Class of 1950 a
healthy and happy 2017! Please
send news to either of the addresses
above for inclusion in our Spring
2017 issue.

From Arthur L. Thomas:
“In June 1947, I was asked as a
lightweight frosh oarsman to go to
the Columbia boathouse at Krum
Elbow, across the Hudson from
Poughkeepsie. My function was
that of a substitute oarsman. As it
turned out, there was illness among
the oarsmen and I rowed bow in the
JV boat in the three-mile race at the
June 21 regatta. The stroke of that
boat was William H. Hayes ’47, also
a lightweight; it so happened we
both were sons of Columbia faculty
members. The following day, The
New York Times reported the race
results but someone else (who was
not at Krum Elbow) was reported
as having rowed bow. The only
other source of information I have
been able to find is that from the

Columbia sports archives, in which
the crew manager correctly wrote
down my name among the oarsmen
in the Columbia shell in the JV
race. | would hope that the sports
archives at Columbia will someday
be digitized, if they have not yet
been digitized, so all can read them.
Spectator has been digitized and I,
for one, greatly appreciate this.

“Why do I recall this? I had
practiced from September to May,
day after day (in the tank in the
winter) and rowed diligently in
the crew races in May 1947. I had
diligently traveled from the campus
to the boathouse in Spuyten Duyvil
to practice there after class and
before returning to 116th Street for
evening study. Among the races I
rowed for Columbia was the frosh
lightweight race at Princeton in early
May 1947, in which the members of
the Columbia crew were not reported
anywhere, and a varsity lightweight
race in November 1948 in which
the Dartmouth crew was cited in
the Dartmouth student newspaper
but the Columbia crew seems not to
have been mentioned anywhere. Ty
Buckelew’94 found the June 1947
crew manager's report in the archives.
‘Thank you greatly, Ty.”

David Berger reports: “These
days, I sometimes wear my letter
sweater. My wife, who hates football
but loves me, wears it from time to
time. The white wool cardigan with
the blue C puts me in touch with
my youth, full of wonder, desire and
learning. And it puts me in mind
of Phil Bucklew SIPA’48, who
understood me and taught me to
understand myself.

“Phil was professor of naval
science, a Ph.D. candidate I believe,
and an assistant football coach at
Columbia in the late 1940s. He was
military and I was not. But in 1952,
I was an infantry lieutenant in an
Army regiment on temporary duty
at Little Creek, Va., for amphibious-
warfare training. There were my
ex-teammates, Howie Hansen ’52
and Vern Wynott’52, on the Navy
base football team — and there was
Phil. He was at Little Creek as a (if
not ¢he) founder of the Navy SEALs
and he was also the football coach.

“In WWII, as I later learned, Phil
had been a beach-master for Allied
assaults in Europe and a scout for
landing zones in Japanese-occupied
China. The SEALs training center in
Coronado, Calif., is named after Phil

(The United States Phil Bucklew
Naval Special Warfare Center), but
to me in 1952 he was just this good
guy. ‘Want to play for us Saturday?’
he asked me. ‘Yes,’I said, ‘but I’m
already in trouble with our colonel
for playing touch football with
enlisted men,’ so that didn’t happen.
Instead I had lunch with Phil and his
wife in their quarters and sat on the
bench with Phil at the game.

“That Saturday in Virginia,

Phil told me what he had seen at
Columbia: That I had ‘wanted to
play more than any other boy’ he
had ever known, I had committed so
strongly to making the football team
and playing in the games. This was
news. It had never occurred to me
before that I was particularly ‘stick-
to-ative, that I was someone who
could do what he decided to do. The
mentoring I needed and never got
at Columbia I got that Saturday at
Little Creek, although my wife says
you can't call one day mentoring.

“But I look back now and see
that this insight, this gift-of Phil’s
— whether you call it mentoring or
not — lighted my way for the rest of
my life. Thanks, Phil.”

From Glenn Lubash: “After
working for 19 years at three medi-
cal schools, being senior partner
in a private nephrology practice in
Albuquerque for 17 years, working
in several other nephrology offices
and in primary care, and end-
ing up for nine years with a local
Veterans Affairs clinic and hospital,
I retired on December 31, 2016. I
retired twice before, once for three
years after my first wife, Jean, died
in 1997, and another time for 18

wie
(oss) &

Stay in
Touch

Let us know if you have a
new postal or email address,
a new phone number or
even a new name:
college.columbia.edu/
alumni/connect.

months after my second wife, Geri,
and I moved to North Carolina. The
upcoming retirement will be my
third and final one.

“Geri and I have lived in Davidson,
N.C., a small college town about 20
miles north of Charlotte, for the past
15 years. We enjoy our location very
much, with its wonderful view of Lake
Davidson, a smaller version of neigh-
boring Lake Norman. Geri is a retired
RN and is certified as a practitioner/
instructor in Brain Gym and Energy
Medicine, which keeps her occupied.
She now challenges me to find some-
thing to keep me busy after retire-
ment. I'll try to write something about
medical experiences, but with the
reservation that I may turn out to have
little literary talent. Despite enjoying
relatively good health, we both find
travel to be too hectic and exhausting,
and mostly choose to stay at home. If
any classmates pass by Davidson, I'd
be very happy to get together.”

1951

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

A thoughtful note from Richard
Wiener: “I attended the College as
a veteran and hence was a bit older
than most of my classmates. As an
immigrant and child survivor of the
Holocaust, I could not have afforded
Columbia but for the GI Bill of
Rights, and had to live with my
parents in Borough Park and work 16
hours a week (during the school year)
after school as a soda jerk at Whelan’s
Drug Store in order to pay expenses.
During summers I hitchhiked around
the West and worked on a Northern
Pacific track gang, as a smelterman
at the Anaconda Copper Mining
Co. in Montana, with Mexican fruit
pickers on an orchard farm north of
San Francisco, as a short-order cook in
Chicago and so on. I am 89, with two
kids and two grandkids, and have lived
a rich, eventful life, much of which
is recounted in my autobiography,
Survivor’ Odyssey ... from oppression
to reconciliation. My first poetry col-
lection, Sense of Time, was published
in 2010, and a second, Sense of Age, is
nearing completion.

“While at Columbia, one of my

short stories and a chapter from my

first novel were published in The
Columbia Review. | had parts in two
plays (Coriolanus and Murder in The
Cathedral) and was social chair-

man of my fraternity, Beta Sigma
Rho. Four of us were members of
Professor Fred Dupee’s Writer’s Lab.
We used to meet at his home on
Morningside Drive to read from our
novels in progress (mine was a final-
ist in the Dodd Mead Intercollegiate
Literary Fellowship competition, but
remained unpublished), and I well
recall his advice that I lock myself

in a room with a bottle of whiskey,
presumably to loosen up my style.

“During my freshman year, I real-
ized that engineering was not my
strong suit, so I switched to a largely
social science curriculum. My career
goal — to become a novelist — soon
proved to be unrealistic. Many years
later, I attended NYU Law and
ultimately became an international
patent lawyer, a profession that
enabled me to travel widely.

“After the fall of the Berlin Wall,

I began returning to my German
hometown, Wittenberg, where I was
made an honorary citizen for my work
on forgiveness and reconciliation,
subjects on which I speak widely to
school, church and college groups. I
am also head elder of the Mid-Atlan-
tic Region of The ManKind Project,
an international organization that runs
transformational trainings for men

on four continents. I am blessed to be
able to share my childhood experience
as the only Jewish student in a school
of Hitler Youths, as an illustration of
my favorite aphorism: ‘Sweet are the
uses of adversity.’ Even at this age, I
consider each day a gift. And I will be
eternally grateful for the education I
received at Columbia.”

David Zinman JRN’52 writes,
“Today (October 6) is my 86th birth-
day and I write from Chautauqua, a
summer cultural center in Upstate
New York where I live with my
partner, Kay Kramer. Most mornings,
I swim, then play duplicate bridge or
work on plays written after I retired.
This past summer, comedian Mark
Russell starred in my one-acter, The
Reporter. It’s a comedy about a guy
who tries to make a citizen's arrest
when he spots the D.A. speeding. It’s
based a true story that happened when
I worked for Newsday. It ran under
the head ‘Investigation of a Public
Citizen Above Suspicion. The paper
included it among 50 articles picked
as the best stories in its first 50 years.”

ahumninews

»eurewsteak#

On October 20, Howard Hansen ’52 was inducted into the Columbia University
Athletics Hall of Fame. Left to right: Jim Mooney ’56, Hansen and Ed Botwinick
56 outside the black-tie affair, which was held in Low Rotunda.

CCT and your classmates would
enjoy hearing from more of you. Please
share news about yourself, your family,
your career and/or your travels — even
a favorite Columbia College memory
— using either the email or postal
address at the top of the column.

1952

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

From John R. Benfield: “My wife
and I met at the University of Chi-
cago during the 13 years I spent there
after Columbia. After losing her to
an aggressive thyroid cancer in 2003,
Mary Ann Shaw and I have been for-
tunate enough to enjoy life together.

“T have three successful children
and seven grandchildren, all in Cali-
fornia. They graciously hosted my
85th birthday party in June in Ojai.
After the festivities, Mary Ann and
I visited the Big Island of Hawaii,
our favorite family vacation spot for
more than 45 years.

“T still enjoy teaching as professor
of surgery emeritus in the David

Geffen School of Medicine at
UCLA, but after 43 years in the
operating room, | retired in 1998
from actively caring for patients. Last
year I taught a class in Loyola Mary-
mount University’s (LMU) Jewish
Studies program. The students and I
discussed Jerzy Kosinski’s book Steps,
and Columbia’s Associate Professor
of Writing in the School of the Arts
Gary Shteyngart’s The Russian Debu-
tante’s Handbook. Kosinski, Shteyn-
gart and I had in common that we
were refugees from totalitarianism,
fortunate enough to have succeeded
in the United States.

“The students told their LMU
professor that they found value in
our discussion. That led to my being
invited to contribute a chapter to
a textbook for Jewish Studies, The
Literature of Exile and Displacement,
my chapter is ‘Adaptation, Refuge
and the Quest to Belong.’ There-
after, I wrote my memoirs, Vienna
Roots: Refuge and Adaptation, to tell
the story of my origins in Austria
and my family’s escape after Hitler’s
Anschluss in 1938. I expressed my
gratitude to the United States for
our safety and for the opportuni-
ties I have had (including attending
Columbia) in our country. Part
of the story is about my return to
Vienna in 2011 to swim with one
of my sons as part of Team USA in
the 13th European Maccabi Games
(the Jewish version of the Olympics,
open to all age groups).

“Finally, I am delighted that our
oldest grandson, entirely on his own
after an extensive evaluation of colleges
in the U.S. and Europe, has decided to
make Columbia his first choice.”

Winter 2016-17 CCT 47

From Philippe Stoclet BUS’54:

“T am still around if that is what you
are trying to find out! Healthy, mobile,
happy and active managing my affairs.
I have fond memories of my years
both at the College and the Business
School. Some 30 years ago I was pres-
ident of Columbia’s Belgian alumni
group for one or two terms. However,
though I am always interested to
receive CCT, I do not participate in
Columbia events at home or abroad
anymore. All the best!”

John Laszlo reports: “Time
marches on! I was delighted that my
wife, Pat, and I were able to take our
14 children and grandchildren on
a Danube cruise this past summer.
One highlight for me was a day in
Vienna, where I was able to find the
childhood apartment building where
I lived with my parents until age 7.
From the second-floor window I
witnessed the day the Nazis annexed
Austria and tanks, armored cars and
motorcycles passed noisily beneath.
It was not a happy memory for me
but important for the family to see
where it all began for our little fam-
ily, which was fortunate enough to
escape to the U.S.

“After I moved to the U.S., I began
another life, which passed through
Columbia, Harvard Medical School
and then to a career at Duke and the
American Cancer Society in oncology,
cancer research and administration.
One ironic twist from the trip to
Vienna was that we found that the
nearby university hospital (where my
doctor parents had worked) had a sign
on the front of the building that said,
in English, ‘Comprehensive Cancer
Center of Vienna.’ While at Duke we

Send in
Your News

Share what’s happening in
your life with classmates.
Click “Contact Us” at
college.columbia.edu/cct, or
email or mail to the address
at the top of your column.

48 CCT Winter 2016-17

established the first Comprehensive
Cancer Center in the U.S. (prob-

ably in the world) and here is one in
Vienna. Of no consequence to anyone
else, but it was a real surprise to me.

“T still play tennis but on a much
slower pace than when we were at
Columbia. I saw a picture [in the
Fall 2016 CCT] of Eric Javits, who
was also on our team, and he looks as
though he can still run. My best to all
old school friends of the Class of 52!”

From Howard Hansen: “In late
October, my wife, Dianne, my son,
Eric, and I boarded Ed Botwinick
56, SEAS’58’s private jet in Stuart,
Fla., at 9 a.m. The Botwinicks spend
their summers at Grandfather
Mountain in western North Caro-
lina and Ed’s friendly two pilots flew
us to an airport in Tennessee, where
we picked up the boss (Ed) and con-
tinued our flight north.

“The weather was perfect and we
flew mostly at 41,000 ft. at 450-475
mph. It didn't take long to reach our
destination: Teterboro Airport, N_J.
I’ve come to learn that Ed and Jim
Mooney’56 are precise planners, so
it was no surprise that while getting
off the plane, who should be taking
our pictures but none other than
Jim, standing about 30 yards away!
Ed went on his way to Manhattan
and the Hansens were chauffeured
to Jim and his wife Doris’ mag-
nificent residence in Pennsylvania,
where we were spoiled for four days.

“On October 20, the evening’s
black-tie dinner function at Low
Library for my induction into the
Columbia University Athletics Hall
of Fame was a once-in-a-lifetime
athletic experience for me. A full
house (350), plus a waiting list. Com-
ing off the stage during the induction
ceremony, with my magnificent
award in hand, my eyes were tearing
up with gratefulness and excitement.
Athletics did a most impressive job in
preparation and execution.

“For historical purposes, a total
of 22 football players have been
inducted into the Hall of Fame
since its inception in 2006. In the
last go-around, in 2014, Al Barabas
36 (a wonderful person of Rose
Bowl and KF-79 fame) was the sole
football player chosen. This year,
Paul Kaliades’73 and Johnathan
Reese 02 — impressive gentlemen
— joined me. Interestingly, our class
set a record with three inducted,
as Bob Hartman (All-American
wrestler) and Roone Arledge (of

ABC Sports, who was inducted in a
special category), qualified. Sadly,
both are deceased. Bob, who passed
away in late April, also was inducted
posthumously into the National
Wrestling Hall of Fame.

“For our ‘free day,’ Jim planned
to take a trip to West Point for an
impressive tour. Upon arriving on
October 21, we couldn't find a park-
ing spot, as it was Homecoming and
Hall of Fame weekend at Army as
well. I had mixed emotions, as my
previous visit to West Point was also
its Homecoming, when we played
them in 1951. I was carried off the
field during the first quarter with an
Achilles heel problem after going
for the goal line from six yards out!

Tony Misho, my backup, had a big

day rushing for more than 100 yards.

As a team we totaled 324 yards
rushing and were 10 times within
the 10-yard line; we lost 14-9 with
the ball on Army’s two-inch line
as time ran out. Frank Toner had
scored to win but was flagged for
offsides. I sat out the next game
against Cornell recuperating.

“Sadly, we only played eight
games in 1951, as two of our team-
mates came down with polio during
preseason practice and our opening
game was canceled because of quar-
antine. Upon his retirement in 1956,
coach Lou Little was interviewed
on national television one evening
by a cigarette-smoking Edward R.
Murrow. Murrow asked Little what
his greatest disappointment was,
and Little replied, “1951 at Army!’ I
swallowed hard!

“October 22 was Columbia's
Homecoming and we went to the
game, which was against Dartmouth.
‘The pregame was a marvelous brunch
at The Campbell Sports Center,
followed by a 9-7 victory during very
difficult weather. All of us old-timers
are impressed with coach Al Bagnoli
and what the future holds, and are
also impressed with Director of
Athletics Peter Pilling.

“On October 23, our chauffeur,
Jim, was probably relieved to wind up
the Hansen visit with another drive
to Teterboro, where Ed and his two
pilots were ready at 11 a.m. to take off.

“My supporters, I thank you,
including among them Bill Wallace,
Bob Wallace ’53, Stephen Reich’53,
Mel Sautter, Tom Federowicz,
Thomas Powers ’51, Gene Rossides
’49, Stanley Maratos’53 and Daniel
Seemann, and I wouldn't be writ-

ing this note without the help of
basketball team Hall of Famer
Bob Reiss!”

1953

Lew Robins

3200 Park Ave., Apt. 9C2
Bridgeport, CT 06604
lewrobins@aol.com

Greetings, Class of 1953. As we enter
the New Year, please take a moment

to share a note about your life with
your fellow alumni. Retirement, family
news, travel, favorite Columbia memo-
ries — everything is welcome in CCT!
You can write to either of the addresses
at the top of the column, or to the

CCT editors at cct@columbia.edu.

1954

Bernd Brecher

35 Parkview Ave., Apt. 4G
Bronxville, NY 10708
brecherservices@aol.com

O, Ye Princes of Columbia, you Men
of the Class of Destiny, is there no
end of the feats or to the accomplish-
ments that you report for me to share
in these notes? Matter of fact, I get a
special kick when at Columbia alumni
functions there is often a member
not in our class who says he reads our
notes and looks forward to doing so
in every new issue of CCT: So-o-0-o,
you guys, keep the info coming. And,
note that while we have perennials,
annuals and repeats aplenty, there is
often news from or about a classmate
we haventt seen or heard from since
the middle of the last century. To
these prodigal sons, a very special
welcome and please stay a while.

You may be interested in a
recently-issued directory, Best Global
Universities Rankings, which covers
1,000 institutions in more than 60
countries. Alma mater is ranked
among the top 10 along with two
in Cambridge, Mass., one other Ivy,
four schools in California and two
in the United Kingdom. For details,
including the 12 indicators used,
google U.S. News & World Report;
while the rankings and analyses are
focused on assisting potential stu-
dents, we old-timers may get some
new perspectives as well.

My wife, Helen, and I, on family

visits, her high school reunions,

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '57, BUS'58

conferences and other events, when
visiting Washington, D.C., have
regularly spent delightful evenings
dining with David Bardin LAW’56
and his wife, Livia. David had

long held government positions in
New Jersey and later moved to and
became active in political issues

in our nation’s capital. Among his
longstanding causes is statehood for
the District of Columbia, a chal-
lenge not for the faint of heart. In
May, The Washington Post published
a letter to the editor from him,
where he wrote (in response to an
article on D.C. statehood): “My
friends in Wyoming, population
approaching 590,000, vote for two
senators who participate in advising
and consenting (or not) to appoint-
ment of Supreme Court justices
and in the other functions of the
Senate. We in the District, popula-
tion ‘672,000 (and climbing),’ vote
for no senators. Most of our fellow
Americans would agree that denial
of representation is not fair or just or
righteous as a policy for America —
if they knew about it.”

‘The day after our October dinner,
the Post published a second letter
from David. (Keep the faith!)

Edward Raab reports on an
adventurous and fulfilling life. He
practiced pediatric ophthalmol-
ogy for more than 40 years, but
also completed law school and was
admitted to the bar in New York
and Connecticut in 1995. He is

now a member of the Board of
Governors and Advisory Council of
the American College of Surgeons
and previously was on the Advisory
Council of the American Academy
of Ophthalmology. “I have com-
pleted 11 missions as a volunteer
faculty member in ophthalmology
and surgery: six in India, three in
China, one in Uganda and one in
Uzbekistan. My wife, Rosanne,
joined me on several trips, which
gave us a wonderful chance to share
in unusual experiences.”

Ed says he has “presented the
honor lecture in my specialty for the
American Association for Pediatric
Ophthalmology and Strabismus in
Vancouver, and gave similar honor
lectures at the American Academy
of Ophthalmology, in 2005 and
2011. Rosanne and I continue
spending summers at our vacation
home on Deer Isle, Maine (the
state’s biggest lobstering town). We,
our three children and four grand-
children are all doing well.”

Fraternity brother Frank Wald’s
“memories of Columbia Col-
lege were recently rekindled by a
communication stating that the
Columbia University Athletics
Hall of Fame Class of 2016 would
have a black-tie dinner and induc-
tion ceremony in Low Library on
October 20. The event highlighted
20 individuals, as well as teams
from nine sports programs. Each
sports field that was recognized was

celebrated with still shots and video
clips. Every recipient was awarded
a plaque, as well as a commemora-
tive medal that he/she proudly wore
throughout the event. I was lucky to
be part of the Heritage Era (1867 to
1953-54) fencing team. I remember
those days, as our 1954 team was
undefeated at all levels; some of
our teammates went on to the U.S.
Olympic fencing team.”

Frank's deserved pride in his
and our fencing team has always
been part of his psyche. He adds: “I
received an M.D. from NYU in 1958
and completed a radiology residency
at Long Island Jewish Medical
Center. I served as a U.S. Navy
Reserve physician (1960-62) at NH
Bremerton (Wash.). After practic-
ing in Westchester County, N.Y.,
I relocated to New Jersey, where I
practiced for 40-plus years at JFK
Medical Center. Post-retirement,
I enjoyed /ocum tenens stints at a
trauma hospital in Yuma, Ariz.”

Frank has been married for 33
years; he and his wife, Margaret Eliza-
beth, have raised six children, “who are
each successful in their own endeavors
and they have given us five wonderful
grandchildren, They are located on the
four corners of the map, so we keep
the airlines busy! Retirement life here
in Warren, N J., is great! Maggie and
I travel extensively throughout the

United States and more recently have
taken to seeing Europe from a river-
boat’s perspective. I have an elaborate

woodworking shop where I tinker and
take on some challenging projects.”

Frank says, “Maggie has written
a wonderful cookbook and delights
me with great meals. We are very
busy in our daily activities, the high-
light of which includes sunrise walks
in the park with Miss Charlotte, our
yellow Lab. Life is good.”

Fred Schlereth SEAS’56 writes:
“Heidi and I are both well. I received
a patent for a sensor that I have been
working on for several years. Check
it out by googling ‘sensor for sens-
ing substances in an environment.’
Explosives detection is an important
application, but there are many
others. Now comes the task of ‘mon-
etizing’ it. I feel fortunate to have the
support of Syracuse University; lab
space, office, technicians and materi-
als. It’s a great way to spend retire-
ment. Three of us 80-plus running
guys got together to win the National
Masters 5k Team Championship.
But, we don’t mention the number of
teams that were competing.”

No, this is not a set-up — as I
was finishing this quarterly column,
the following arrived in my inbox
from Lawrence Merrion’57: “I
received my Fall 2016 issue of CCT’
today and your column caught my
eye with the item by Jim Burger. I
am a Sigma Chi fraternity brother
of Jim’s and I wish to correspond
with him, as he requested. We
shared time together at the College,
and we had a mutual fraternity
brother in Bob Reynolds. Thank
you for writing the column, as it is
always interesting.”

I blush; the check is in the mail;
so are Jim's vitals.

Thanks, Lawrence. As my class-
mates know, I love mash notes.

Here comes a special message
from Paul Wilson PS’61, with
an attachment (see below) that
can entertain for an evening and
enlighten all of us in’54. Paul writes:
“Tm mailing you a copy of a little
memoir I recently wrote for my
grandchildren and a few friends. I’m
sending it along for two reasons:

1) It’s got some perhaps-reportable
pieces about my experiences at
Columbia and afterward, and 2) It’s
an example (cited by The New York
Times, I hasten to add!) of a kind
of quick, not-worth-publishing,
mostly-for-family memoirs that
many people find easy and fascinat-
ing to write (... especially if they

can honor the fact that the memoir

Winter 2016-17 CCT 49

is just their memories [which don’t
demand the kind of fact-checking
and historical explanations that
biographies do]). I personally found
it to be a surprisingly clarifying
exercise, particularly for examining
and understanding the big-picture
patterns of my life. Better than my
three-year analysis.”

Paul advises, “For anyone inter-
ested in writing one, I strongly
recommend doing it with at least one
other person with whom to compare
notes, give feedback, correct typos,
exchange enthusiastic encourage-
ments and help stick to some kind of
schedule. I was lucky enough to have
four writing buddies, who were part
of an adult-education memoir class.

“Thanks for your always-interest-
ing reports.”

To request an email copy of
Paul’s 31-page memoir, email him
at paultylerwilson@aol.com; you
will not regret it. His project hits
me close to home, as I am at the
start of my own ‘five-year venture’

Larry Kobrin LAW’S7, in
looking at the big picture, makes
“a suggestion that emerged from
a meeting I had with a Columbia
development person relating to the
Urban New York Fund that our
class established when we gradu-
ated ... this fund appears to have
grown quite nicely. Online reports
show that it is up and running and
provides a variety of tickets for
Columbia College students. My
suggestion is that (members of our
class) be given an annual report of
what the fund was used for during
each year. Specifics would not be
necessary but something like xx
number of Broadway show tickets,
yy number of concert tickets, etc.,
would be good. Quite possibly, this
might stimulate interest and prompt
some contributions.”

Larry mentioned that Arnie
Kisch provided funds to endow
ongoing purchases of Metropolitan
Opera tickets for students. “Others
might do similar things,” he says.

A concert composed by Elliott Schwartz ’57
was held on September 21 in NYC to celebrate his
80th birth year.

to research, write and edit my own
memoirs. I will share more about
that in future issues and meanwhile
hope to call on him for some advice
and encouragement.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein LAW’56
continues to represent our class in
the pages of The New York Times, this
time with a September 9 story and
photo spread dealing with the com-
pensation settlement of the 96 cases
involving the families of the 9-11
terror attack. “Each of the 96 victims’
cases filed in Federal District Court
in Manhattan was settled confiden-
tially under the direction of Judge
Alvin K. Hellerstein, who oversaw all
the cases,” the Times reported. The
headline read, “Judge in 9/11 Suits
Feels No Regret That None Ever
Went to Trial.” The subhead summed
it up: “Balancing a ‘Loss of Informa-
tion’ to the Public Against a Goal of
Compensating Victims’ Families.”
You can google the full story.

All of us are justifiably proud of
Judge Al and his ongoing service to
our nation and the law.

50 CCT Winter 2016-17

On another matter, he suggested we
note that when people are cleaning
out their attics or garages (as many
do at our age), if they find vintage
material from our College years
that they consider sending it to the
Columbia University Archives. “I
found a whole batch of letters from
the deans and from various profes-
sors and sent them to the archivist,
who was quite glad to receive them.”

Thanks, Larry, for your thoughts.

And a last note, to thank Alex
Sachare ’71 for his 18-plus years of
dedicated and determined service as
editor in chief of CCT.

Good show, Alex, and best wishes
in your next endeavors.

That’s it for this winter, folks. As
I wrote these notes, my thoughts
were as much on the two-weeks-
away national election as on just 54.
I hoped that you went to church, to
synagogue, to the top of your moun-
tain, to your own Core CC and
Humanities archives, or wherever
and however you contemplate and
communicate in the hopes of some

personal insights about the world we
live in and that we are leaving for all
our children and grandchildren.

As always, be well, do good, write
often. Excelsior!

1955

Gerald Sherwin

181 E. 73rd St., Apt. 6A
New York, NY 10021
gs481@juno.com

‘There is always something happen-
ing at Columbia, whether it’s on
Morningside Heights, at the Medical
Center or at the Manhattanville
campus — excitement abounds with
the opening of the new buildings on
West 125th Street.

Three professors were honored
on November 17 at the Alexander
Hamilton Award Dinner: Ronald
Breslow, Eric Foner 63, GSAS’69
and Kenneth T: Jackson were treated
to much applause before a crowd in
Low Rotunda. In addition, Assistant
Professor of Astronomy Marcel
Agiieros 96 received the 2016
Presidential Early Career Award for
scientists and engineers.

Columbia Alumni Leaders
Weekend, October 7-8, was a
success. Alumni from all over the
world gathered to hear speeches and
updates, including a conversation
between President Lee C. Bollinger
and Trustees Chair Jonathan Schil-
ler’69, LAW’73.

At a moving ceremony on Sep-
tember 16, more than 600 friends,
alumni, students, trustees and others
honored the late Bill Campbell ’62,
TC’64 in the Roone Arledge Audi-
torium in Alfred Lerner Hall.

In late summer, College and
Engineering admissions hosted the
second annual Alumni Representa-
tive Committee Appreciation Event
to thank ARC members for their
work during the past year.

Your classmates continue to do
exciting things. Bill Kronick in
Los Angeles is working on a new
and improved movie to be released
shortly. Ben Kaplan (coach Rollie
Rourke’s favorite ball player) has
been traveling with Jerry Catuzzi
throughout the world (East and
West). Others in our class who
played for Rollie were Tony Pal-
ladino, Jack Freeman, Tom
Brennan, Jud Maze and Hawaii’s
own Walter Deptula. Ted Baker

(in Maine) has been trying to track

down the Ford Scholars in our class;
Bernie Kirtman (in California) and
Bill Epstein (in Manhattan) have
been helpful in this regard. To reach
Ted, email him at lizied@earthlink.
net or call him at 207-967-5258.
Ford Scholars we know about are
Gerry Pomper, Herb Cohen, Tom
Cheyer, Dan Zwanziger, Jerry
Plasse, Don Pugatch, Bernie
Chasan, Ed Goldberg and Mike
Vaughn. Back to the West Coast,
Jack Stuppin had an artist recep-
tion in Petaluma, Calif., called Past
Tense/Present Tense.

We heard from Roland Plottel,
who was interested in being brought
up to date on what was happen-
ing on the Morningside Campus,
especially with Manhattanville.

We are fortunate to have a devoted
photographer in our class: A whole
series of pictures from our 60th
reunion was taken by Lew Sternfels
(who says lawyers aren't creative?).

Don Laufer and Alfred Gollomp
put together the September dinner
for classmates at Calle Ocho in
Manhattan (in Anthony Viscusi’s
neighborhood).

A bit of sad news to report — the
passing of Al Momjian LAW’57.
Word reached us through Mark
Momjian ’83, LAW’86, Al’s son.
Condolences to Mark and the whole
family. [Editor’s note: See Obituar-
ies, Fall 2016. |

Dan Wakefield, our prolific
writer, gave a brief but interesting
synopsis of what he has been doing
over the past few years and with
whom he has been in touch.

My wondrous fellow classmates.

Be all you can be.

And wake the echoes of the
Hudson Valley.

The 65th is right around the
proverbial corner.

Love to all! Everywhere!

1956

Robert Siroty

707 Thistle Hill Ln.
Somerset, NJ 08873
sirotyS6cc@gmail.com

Writing my first Class Notes col-
umn brings back memories of writ-
ing my first article for Spec, in 1952.
Thank you and au revoir to Stephen
Easton and his wife, Elke — who
are retiring to Southport, N.C. —

for Steve’s labors as president of the
Class of 56.1 hope to continue in
his footsteps.

Jack Raskin, in Bellevue, Wash.,
landed there after serving as a physi-
cian in Vietnam. He practiced child
psychiatry and now plays tennis. Jack
sends his regards to Robert Cabat.

Robert “Buz” Paaswell is one
of eight people selected for a Port
Authority of New York and New
Jersey panel to evaluate proposals
for replacing the bus terminal in
midtown Manhattan. Buz was the
only member of the eight-person
jury from an eastern university.

I’m sad to report the passing of
Fred Hovasapian’57, reported by
Merrill Ring ’55. Fred was an out-
standing football and baseball player
at Columbia.

Start working on our 65th reunion.
Snowbirds: We are planning a lun-
cheon in February in Boynton Beach,
Fla. I hope you will keep us all up to
date by sending your Class Notes to
me: sirotyS6cc@gmail.com.

1957

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Herman Levy

7322 Rockford Dr.

Falls Church, VA 22043
hdlleditor@aol.com

A concert composed by Elliott
Schwartz was held on September
21 at the Symphony Space/Leonard
Nimoy Thalia Theatre on West 95th
Street and Broadway, in New York
City, to celebrate Elliott’s 80th birth
year. It was sponsored by the Ameri-
can Composers Alliance.

Alumni may remember the place as
the Thalia Theatre movie house. It has
since been transformed into a recital
hall. Elliott’s 80th was celebrated in
England as well; his recently com-
pleted String Quartet No. 3 premiered
at the University of Cambridge on
November 3, with a London premiere
to follow early in 2017.

Classmates, please write to either
of the addresses at the top of this

column — let us know what you are
looking forward to in 2017 or what
happened during 2016.

1958

Barry Dickman

25 Main St.

Court Plaza North, Ste 104
Hackensack, NJ 07601
bdickmanesq@gmail.com

William Reichel, another classmate
we haven't heard from in a long while,
sent the following: “My career has
been in internal medicine, family
medicine, geriatrics and bioethics.

I served 13 years on the Board of
Directors of the American Geriatrics
Society, one year as president and two
as chair of the board. I was recently
named one of five ‘Pioneers in Geri-
atric Medicine’ in Caring for the Ages,
the official newspaper of AMDA
(The Society for Post-Acute and
Long-Term Care Medicine). In the
first year that family medicine became
a specialty, I was hired to start one of
the first family medicine residencies
in the country. After 18 years, I spent
[the next] several years starting family
medicine residencies in Boston and
also consulting internationally in
family medicine and geriatrics for the
first three family medicine residencies
in Spain and also for Russia, Jordan,
Japan and China. Since 1998, I have
been an affiliated scholar at the Cen-
ter for Clinical Bioethics, George-
town University Medical Center, in
Washington, D.C.

“In August, the seventh edition
of Reichel’s Care of the Elderly was
released. It is a fully updated edition
of the pioneering text for health
professionals interested in the
unique problems of an increas-
ing elderly population. The text,
designed as a practical and useful
guide for all health professionals,
emphasizes clinical management of
elderly patient problems that range
from simple to complex. Compas-
sion and caring for the patient have
been highlighted through all seven
editions. Updated and reorganized
chapters reflect a clinical approach to
aging, describing a clinical approach
to the management of older adults,
reviewing common geriatric syn-
dromes and an organ-based review
of care, addressing principles of care,
including psychosocial aspects of
our aging society, organization of

care and ethical decision-making

in the care of the elderly. Particular
emphasis is placed on cost-effective,
patient-centered care.”

In other medical-related news,
Jerry Keusch expanded on his
previous appearances in this column,
which related to his service as head
of the Fogarty International Center
at NIH during the George W. Bush
administration; his comments had
described his disgust with the politici-
zation of its science programs. He
wrote, “My 2004 comments were
the sad and true description of the
ideological constraints being imposed
on scientific curiosity, which must be
intellectually unconstrained in order
to seek fuller and better understand-
ing of any issue. If not, what you get is
Lysenko-style genetics. Lysenkoism is
still alive and well. To the point, look
at an article by Peter Ferrara in the
April 28, 2013, issue of Forbes (search
for ‘Lysenkoism on the Forbes site).
As a reminder for our non-scientist
classmates, Trofim Lysenko was a
Stalin-era Soviet agrobiologist who,
for political reasons, rejected Mendel’s
theory of genetics and Darwinism
in favor of the pseudoscientific idea
that traits acquired by an individual
organism during its lifetime could be
passed on as is to the next generation.
He also did not believe that genes or
DNA existed.”

Jerry is a professor of medicine
and international health and associ-
ate director, National Emerging
Infectious Diseases Laboratories,
at the Boston University School
of Medicine.

George Jochnowitz writes:
“Herman Wouk’34 finished a book
at 100. He is now 101. I found the
book, read it and reviewed it. Read
the review by going to algemeiner.
com and searching ‘Herman Wouk
Looks Back.”

Howard Winell reports that his
family’s musical tradition continues.
Howard was a member — along
with Bob Hanning and Steve
Paul, as well as Buzz Covey (now
deceased) — of the Blue Notes,
the quartet that furnished the
soundtrack for our College years.
Howard’s youngest son, Jonathan,
is an internationally known opera
singer who has performed tenor
roles throughout the United States,
Europe and Asia. In 2016, he sang
primarily in Germany. He was the
second-prize winner of the 2015
Leyla Gencer Voice Competition in

Istanbul and has placed in numerous
international competitions. He made
his Lincoln Center debut in 2012
in Wagner’s Rienzi with the Opera
Orchestra of New York.

And now, sports fans, an update
from Peter Gruenberger on
his grandson, Ethan Abrams’19,
who became a starting pitcher for
the Lions as a freshman. As Peter
describes it, in 2009, Ethan made a
strange bet with his friend Mickey
Moniak (an outfielder), who is one
year younger: If Mickey was ever
picked among the first 10 players
chosen in the MLB draft, then Ethan
would get Mickey’s name tattooed on
his butt and vice versa. They went on
to play on the same high school team
(La Costa Canyon HS. in Carlsbad,
Calif.). Fast forward to June 2016:
Ethan, having chosen to attend
Columbia, wont be eligible for the
MLB draft until 2018. But Mickey,
as a high school senior, became
eligible prior to his June 2016 gradu-
ation. Whaddya know? The Phillies
used the first pick to choose Mickey
(as a junior he hit .462). During his
nationally televised interview, Mickey
described the bet and Ethan, in his
follow-up interview, confirmed that
his tattoo would be applied during
the fall term at Columbia. We’re
guessing it will show up on YouTube.

The class lunch is held on the sec-
ond Tuesday of every month at the
Columbia University Club of New
York’s Grill Room, 15 W. 43rd St.
($31 per person). Email Art Radin
if you plan to attend, up to the day
before: arthur.radin@janoverllc.com.

1959

Norman Gelfand

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
nmgc59@gmail.com

I am sorry to report the deaths of
Mike Bromberg on August 12,
2016, and Bob Eisenstein on
August 16, 2016.

I apologize to those who have
written me and did not get a
response. My daughter and her
family moved back to Chicago and
while her husband is in Florida
training to become an airline pilot
and she is trying to find work, my
wife and I have been looking after

Winter 2016-17 CCT 51

their 2-year-old daughter. It was
easier when I was younger.

Kenneth Scheffel writes: “The
past year proved a difficult one for
me. Last July, I suffered a heart
attack. Open heart surgery followed,
with six bypasses and insertion of
a pacemaker. Recovery has taken a
long time. While [ll never be what
I once was, I am determined to
be as good as I can be. So I follow
a regular exercise regimen and as
heart-healthy a diet as my limited
culinary skills will permit.

“Seven months after my heart
attack, I had recovered sufficiently to
make a Road Scholar (Elderhostel)
trip to Cuba. We were part of a
people-to-people cultural exchange
program, on which both the United
States and Cuban governments had
agreed. Comprised largely of retired
educators approved for visas by the
Cuban government, we avoided
touristy activities — the only beach
we saw was the Bay of Pigs. Our
program included lectures by Cuban
scholars, tours of art facilities and
historic sites, and performances by
various cultural groups, adult and
youth. Our American group leader
was a former aide to Henry Kiss-
inger and our Cuban guide came
from a peasant family that benefited
from the Cuban revolution.

“We spent four days in Havana
and four in the southern part of
the island in Santa Clara, Cien-
fuegos and Trinidad. It proved an
interesting experience, which I would
recommend. In many respects, it
represented a trip back in time. The
country has seen little major con-

struction since the revolution in 1959.

Buildings are poorly maintained

and the Cubans drive the same cars
as we drove in the’50s. Despite the
run-down appearance, Cuba has a
quaint, old-fashioned charm. Outside
Havana, it becomes even more
archaic. Cars largely disappear and
are replaced with many horse-drawn
vehicles, while some farmers still till
their fields with oxen.

“Like the rest of the Caribbean,
such as the U.S. Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico, Cuba is terribly poor.

It doesn’t have much to offer in
terms of natural resources other than
sugar and tobacco, neither of which
is doing well in today’s world, and
the U.S. embargo doesn’t help. The
country is desperate for hard cur-
rency. You're forced to exchange your

USS. dollars for Cuban Convertible

52 CCT Winter 2016-17

Pesos at a 13 percent discount and
any you have left suffer a further 3
percent reduction upon reconversion.

Basic food supplies are rationed using

the same coupon books with stamps
as we knew in WWII, although they
can now be supplemented with pur-
chases from private vendors. Electric
power is limited, so Havana isn’t a
very bright city after dark.

“Basic amenities are often lack-
ing, especially outside Havana.
Public restrooms are particularly
primitive. If you want toilet paper
or soap, you'd better bring your
Own. or prepare to pay an attendant,
who often ‘flushes’ the toilet with
a bucket of water. The restrooms at
the Havana airport were particularly
gross. It reminded me of the sum-
mers I used to spend on my aunt
and uncle’s farm when I was a kid.

I hope President Barack Obama

’83 was able to use the facilities on
Air Force One before disembark-
ing in Havana. The Cubans banned
photographs in only three places:
the Havana airport, the fine arts
museum and the Che Guevara
Mausoleum. On seeing the Havana
airport, we were tempted to reboard
our plane and return to the States.

“But we were glad we stayed. The
Cuban people are great. They look
and act happy and they certainly
know how to have a good time. On
Saturday nights, they block off the
town plazas to vehicular traffic for
music, dancing and socializing. The
music is foot-tapping (even chamber
music is played with a distinctively
Cuban beat). Though heavily salted
and sugared, Cuban food is delicious
(particularly if you avoid the govern-
ment restaurants for the increasingly
popular private paladares). In eight
days, I gained five Ibs. — all of which
I lost in a single day upon returning
to the States and taking a diuretic.
No one drinks the tap water (even
the Cubans boil it) and bottled water
can be difficult to obtain, particularly
in Havana, where the demand is
greatest. But the rum is intoxicating
(and cheap). The Cuban people look
quite different from the exile com-
munity in the States. They present a
greater variety of hues (more like the
Cuban baseball players who defect
than the old Spanish elite who now
reside in Miami, Houston and San
Juan). By the way, I saw far more
soccer played in Cuba than baseball, I
suspect because it’s cheaper — all you

need is a ball.

Joel P. Rosenfeld ’59 (left) and Frank Wilson ’59 recently visited the
Chicago Botanical Garden with Wilson’s sister, Julie Massey.

“In Cuba, unlike most of Latin
America and much of the United
States, I felt absolutely safe wherever
I went. Police presence is at a
minimum, mainly confined to public
markets and town plazas — I suspect
to discourage petty theft and cur-
rency trading. And you never see any
military personnel. When a member
of our group asked our Cuban guide
about drugs, he responded that
whoever is caught with them goes
immediately to jail, which I gather is
not a pleasant place to go.

“Everyone in Cuba has a job but
that doesn’t mean everyone works.
Service can be very slow. I was unsure
whether it reflected the system, or the
Latin temperament, or a combination.
When I asked our Cuban guide about
the requirements for membership in
the Communist Party, he emphasized
‘being a good worker.’ I left Cuba
convinced of the superiority of our
system until Delta Air Lines left me
stranded overnight at LaGuardia
after canceling four straight flights on
which I'd been booked.

“Despite the current regime’s
liabilities (and they are many), it
has brought major improvements to
Cuba. Illiteracy has been virtually
eliminated — our Cuban guide
said his mother, a servant girl, only
learned to read after the revolution.
Public education is free to all but,
other than seminaries to train clergy,
only state schools are permitted.
And health care ranks on a par with
the U.S. in many respects and in
some respects better: If you believe

the World Health Organization,

Cuba has a lower infant mortality
rate than my home state of Ohio.
“Cubans, according to our his-
tory lecturer, have strong feelings
of nationalism. They dislike the
Spanish, including the old elite who
dominated Cuban society until the
revolution and they’re not very fond
of the U.S., particularly our Platt
Amendment declaration of the
right to intervene in Cuba’s internal
affairs and our occupation of Cuban
territory (Guantanamo). Reflect-
ing more recent developments, our
Cuban guide expressed pride that
his father had joined the ‘volunteers’
to repel the ‘foreign-backed’ invasion
at the Bay of Pigs.

“Nationalism, as our lecturer on
Cuban religion emphasized, also helps
explain why so few Cubans practice
their faith. Although nominally Cath-
olic (many revolutionary leaders were
Jesuit-educated), the church was on
the ‘wrong side’ in the movement for
independence and the revolution for
social change. Catholicism is identi-
fied with foreigners, especially the old
Spanish elite. Even today, 55 percent
of the Catholic clergy are foreign
born. Only some 3 percent of Cuban
Catholics attend Mass regularly and,
on a given Sunday, more Protestants
(largely evangelicals and Pentecostals)
may be attending services in Cuba
than Catholics. While we saw lots
of churches, we found only two that
were open: the cathedral in Old
Havana (where Columbus’ remains
rested until they were returned to
Spain) and a post-WWII edifice near

our Havana hotel in the once-affluent

Miramar district (where many foreign
embassies are located). Yet you see
lots of religious statues and monu-
ments and many Cubans wear crosses
and religious medals, including our
lecturer on Cuban religion. The
Santeria, who combine Christian-
ity with African Yoruba religion,
were particularly evident throughout
Havana in their distinctive all white
attire. While only 1,000 Jews are left
in all of Cuba, the main synagogue in
Havana remains functional.

“Cuba wants improved rela-
tions with the U.S. (and so do we).
Our University of Havana lecturer,
who is involved in the negotiations,
emphasized that Cuba realizes it
must change if it wants to improve
economically. Cuba has few friends
left. The Soviet Union is gone and
Russia has other interests closer
to home, while Venezuela (you see
lots of pictures of Hugo Chavez
throughout the island), on which
Cuba depends for oil, is in sad shape.
‘The old Cuban leadership is retiring
and dying and the newer generation
— even Fidel’s brother Ratil — are
embracing change. The Cuban public
doesn't even know Fidel’s location
(although I missed him this trip, I
did see him when he came to New
York to address the United Nations
during our senior year).”

To be continued in the next
Class Notes ...

From Jim Thomas we hear:
“T retired on January 1, 2015. ’m
playing lots of golf, taking care of
prize-winning flower gardens, spend-
ing January on Sanibel Island and
going overseas to exciting places. We
have visited 54 countries so far and
plan to add the Azores to our list in
September. So far (knock on wood)
my health is good — I can’t walk
18 holes but I can do 13 — and my
three kids are doing well, as are my
grand- and great-grand kids. All of
the adults are working and advancing
in their professions, so that is good.”

Bill Frye writes, “I last reported
about a year ago and things continue,
on the whole, to be going fairly
well. I continue with my law firm
on a reduced basis, looking ahead
to complete retirement one of these
days. My wife, Sandy, and I are doing
a bit more traveling and I expect in
November to be one of the Florida
Democrat lawyers on Election Day,
as | have been on many elections.

“T have some residual limitations
arising out of the February 2015 ski-

ing accident I reported on in a previ-
ous Class Notes column. I continue
to work through the limitations on a
regular basis and am showing some
improvement. However, it is a slow
process — although I expect age has
a great deal to do with it.

“I expect to be an Alumni Rep-
resentative Committee interviewer
once again and, as I have said on a
number of occasions, it is something
I enjoy doing and come away with
a feeling of optimism about the
future. The students I see on behalf
of Columbia are — to a person —
outstanding, and I must confess that
the selection process is somewhat
hard to understand, as so many of
the applicants I see would make
wonderful Columbia students.

“Our children and grandchildren
are doing well and are very busy. Jill,
our oldest, has completed her second
documentary film (the first about
menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay
was an award winner), and Tory’91
(our youngest), has joined the faculty
of the CUNY School of Medicine at
City College. As many people have
remarked, your children are always
surprising you. Our oldest grandson
is a junior in college, his brother
is gearing up for his senior year in
high school and the two youngest
grandsons are doing well in the city.
They may be Columbia-bound, but
you never know.

“Sandy and I went to All-Class
Reunion (formerly known as Dean’s
Day) in 2016 and really enjoyed
it. We saw some old friends and
may have learned something in the
process. All in all, all is well and as
always, we are in the phone book
and would enjoy hearing from you
should you get down this way.”

Two quick notes: I was listen-
ing to The Moth on NPR one day
and was delighted to hear Roald
Hoffman recount his experiences
in WWII. Stephen Trachtenberg
has been active in publishing articles

and fishing.

1960

Robert A. Machleder

69-37 Fleet St.

Forest Hills, NY 11375
rmachleder@aol.com

Frank Tuerkheimer has had a dis-
tinguished career in the law. Now in
private practice, Frank is an emeritus

alumninews

professor of law at the University of
Wisconsin Law School; had been an
assistant United States attorney for
the Southern District of New York,
where he was chief of the Securities
and Financial Fraud Unit; was an
associate special prosecutor with the
Watergate Special Prosecution Force;
and served as the United States
attorney for the Western District of
Wisconsin from 1977 to 1981.

Frank is co-author of Forgotten
Trials of the Holocaust (2014). He tells
us what inspired the book and to
bring us up-to-date on another matter
of signal importance in his profes-
sional activities: “About 20 years ago,
upset at the intensity of the Holocaust
denial movement, I put together a
course, “Trials of the Holocaust,’ which
I taught to both undergraduates and
law students. The idea was to present
the facts of these trials (the main
Nuremberg trial; the later Nuremberg
trial against the Einsatzgruppen
defendants — the S. S. men who
followed the German army eastward

satzgruppen trial. I’ve also conducted
a lengthy interview of the surviving
prosecutor from the Eichmann trial,
Gabi Bach (cargocollective.com/
eichmannprosecutorinterview).”

I am impelled to interject two
observations. First, Frank’s comment
on the reception of the book is
entirely too modest and hardly does
it justice. The following appraisal
by Robert Morgenthau, the long-
serving former district attorney for
New York County, exemplifies the
many laudatory reviews heralding
the book’s outstanding contributions
on the subject: “Brings to the reader
important trials that have fallen
beneath the general public’s radar.
The authors, as both academics and
practicing lawyers, bring a fresh and
incisive approach to these trials,
dissecting the strategies of the trial
lawyers as well as the decision-mak-
ing by the presiding judges. They
manage, in each of these trials, to
focus on the defendants, the victims,
and the players in the courtroom

Frank Tuerkheimer 60 has had a distinguished

law career. Now in private practice, he is also a

professor emeritus at Wisconsin Law.

in Russia and killed 1,250,000 Jews,
mainly by shooting; the Eichmann
trial; and a Treblinka trial in the
format of a denaturalization proceed-
ing against a Treblinka guard) to the
students to arm them with sufficient
detail so that they could deal with
Holocaust denial in the future. For
several years | also taught the course
to German students in Giessen, most
recently this past May.

“T’ve also given talks all over the
place on one or more of these trials.
Six or seven years ago, someone
suggested a book on the topic of
lesser-known Holocaust trials. My
co-author and I then each picked
five trials beneath the general
public’s radar and wrote about them.
The main Nuremberg trial and the
Eichmann trial were not included.
Forgotten Trials of the Holocaust has
done pretty well — it was reviewed
favorably in the New York Review of
Books. For the last two years I have
given continuing legal education lec-
tures at law firms in Madison, Wis.,
and New York, focusing on the Ein-

scene. They present a vivid picture
of the Holocaust in operation, an
essential undertaking as the survivor
generation decreases in number. This
book is worth reading for anyone
interested in trials and for anyone
interested in the Holocaust, and it

is compelling reading for anyone
interested in both.”

Second, I strongly encourage all to
watch a most moving and penetrat-
ing interview with Frank at youtube.
com/watch?v=w6io0u20Q0c.

Frank continues: “Since 1997,

I have represented an indigent
defendant on death row in Alabama.
I’ve done this with the help of two
lawyers in Madison and, for several
years, worked with law students
from the University of Wisconsin
Law School in what was essentially
an in-house clinical program. Each
of the students, at some point,
visited the client on death row

in Alabama. The case is presently
before the Alabama Court of Crimi-
nal Appeals and, like most of these
cases, deals with the ineffectiveness

Winter 2016-17 CCT 53

Class Notes

of trial counsel. It’s actually not easy
to travel 1,200 miles and have to tell
the local judiciary that the local law-
yers were constitutionally defective.
The case was initially handled by

the Equal Justice Initiative, a group
headed by Bryan Stevenson. One of
the pluses of all this has been getting
to know Bryan.

“So that’s pretty much it profes-
sionally. I won't get started on the
great joys of grandparenthood. We
are fortunate that all of our grand-
sons live in Evanston, III., which is
2% hours from Madison. It’s a little
more remote when we are in New
York City, where we go every year
from mid-December to early June.”

Those of us who are year-round
New Yorkers and are familiar with
“snowbirds” — who leave New York
for the south after Thanksgiving and
return on or around Mother’s Day
— would regard the Tuerkheimers
as “reverse snowbirds.”

Irwin Sollinger and his wife, Liz,
are approaching their golden anniver-
sary and live an active life, typically
taking to ski in winter. However, that
was not to be this past winter, as Liz
was placed on temporary injured
reserve while recovering from a knee
replacement. That, Irwin advises,
required that he devise an alternative
itinerary that could keep him moving.
And devise one he did: “New York
City has a plethora of museums and
historical societies,” he says. “Why
not visit as many of them, enjoying
the exhibits, as one could frequent? It
seemed like an idea, perhaps a good
one. The standard Met, MoMA,
Frick, Morgan, Guggenheim, Cooper
Hewitt and Brooklyn Museum were
all easy to navigate. The Museum of
Arts and Design, the New Museum
and the American Folk Art Museum
were all available and accessible. The
challenge was discovering the vast
treasures of the city in venues less
well-known.

“Each week I mapped out a plan
for my quest. Some were obscure
and unknown to me before the
gambit; others were exciting finds.
‘There were many highlights. Col-
leges and universities, from Pratt
to Cooper Union, Columbia, NYU
and FIT, were on the list. They were
a resource | did not entertain before
I began. When asked by friends
what I discovered on this adventure,
I would have to mention the Civil
War battlefield photographs at the

Staten Island Museum, the Ramones

54 CCT Winter 2016-17

exhibit at the Queens Museum, the
wondrous Bronx Museum and the
serenity of the Japan Society. Each
venue reflected the care and intel-
ligence that collectors and curators
and board members have given to us.
I won't tell you how many I visited
but if you guessed close to 48 I would
agree. Liz is recovered and we are
active again.”

Thank you, Irwin, for presenting
an itinerary that all New Yorkers
can enjoy.

Those who attended our 50th
reunion will recall the exquisite
exhibition of the works of promi-
nent artist classmates. Among the
works on display were the land-
scapes of Robert Berlind, which
have been described by art critics as
“possessing deceptive simplicity” and
“regal elegance.” I’m sad to report
Bob died in December 2015 after a
long affliction with cancer.

Bob earned a B.F.A. and M.F.A.
from the Yale University School of
Art. He painted prolifically and his
works are collected by museums
throughout the country. He wrote
about artists (contributing nearly
100 reviews to art magazines) and
taught art. At the time of his death
he was professor emeritus at the
School of Art and Design, Purchase
College, SUNY.

Bob was intrigued by the shapes
and space of night and water, and
landscapes filled his canvases.

He was quoted describing his
subject matter: “I singled out water,
nighttime and trees. I would love
to be out at night, in the country
especially, and I always felt I must
have been a nocturnal animal at
some point. Everything is so much
clearer. You didn’t see too much.
You walk out at noon and you just
see everything. It’s not a painting
idea. At night a few shapes define
themselves and they’re perfect. And
there’s the space between you and
whatever that is. How to articulate
that is the question.”

As for water, Bob said: “For years,
I looked at water surfaces, meditating
on them, without thinking they were
paintable or drawable. But I would
look at the water and it kept chang-
ing and moving and I could lose
myself in that. You forget what you're
looking at and you forget who you
are and you're just there. It’s a pure
meditational state. It’s wonderful.”

Bob was the recipient of the
American Academy and Institute of

Arts and Letters Award in Painting
and the B. Altman Award in Paint-
ing at the National Academy, as well
as grants from the National Endow-
ment for the Arts and the Pollock-
Krasner Foundation. In 2013, he
received an Arts Writers Grant from
the Andy Warhol Foundation in
association with Creative Capital.

The class sends its deepest con-
dolences to his wife, Mary Lucier;
sons, Alexey and Gabriel; colleagues;
friends; the many students he men-
tored; and to all who were drawn
into and found themselves at peace
in his beautiful paintings.

1961

Michael Hausig

19418 Encino Summit
San Antonio, TX 78259
mhausig@yahoo.com

Aaron Michelson and his wife,
Rona, recently celebrated their 50th
anniversary. They lead kosher tours
to China; Vietnam and Cambodia;
Ecuador, the Galapagos and Peru;
and Tibet, and have recently added
India and Japan tours. In addition,
they travel for pleasure. They recently
visited Lapland, in Finland, where
they drove a dog sled, a snowmobile
and a reindeer sledge as well as hiked
in snowshoes. They also watched ice
hockey and ski jumping. Unfortu-
nately, someone had turned off the
Northern Lights. A month later they

visited Georgia, where they saw some

of the countryside and stopped in the
capital city Tbilisi for the national
day festivities.

Jack Kirik and his wife, Sue,
dropped by to visit Don Savini and
his wife at their farm just outside
State College, Pa. They say they had
a great time catching up. Don is
playing lots of golf these days. He has
a five handicap — he says it’s because
this ball doesn’t curve or sink!

In September, Ted Stanley was
the 2016 History of Anesthesia
speaker for the department of anes-
thesiology at NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital/Columbia University
Medical Center. His talk was titled
“The Story of Fentanyl.” Ted also
had dinner at the Carlyle Hotel with
members of the department and the
widow of E.M. Papper’35. Papper
was the founder of and former
chairman of CUMC’s department of
anesthesiology as well as the former
dean and VP of the University of
Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Charles Wuorinen was com-
missioned by James Levine, music
director of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra, to create several major
musical works. In 2005, Wuorinen’s
Fourth Piano Concerto (written for
the BSO, Levine and longtime
Wuorinen collaborator Peter Serkin)
was one of the first of the BSO
commissions Levine conducted with
the orchestra. This was followed two
years later by the Eighth Symphony
(Theologoumena), a BSO 125th
anniversary commission, which pre-
miered under Levine’s direction in
2007. Spectacular recordings docu-
ment the premiere performances
of both of these works and are now
available on Bridge Records; go to
bridgerecords.com/search and enter
“Charles Wuorinen.”

Left to right: Jack Kirik °61, Dave Schwartz ’61 and Mickey Greenblatt ’61
donned their freshman beanies at the Wine Tasting on Low Plaza during

Reunion Weekend 2016.

SCOTT RUDD

Arnold Klipstein and his brother
Robert Klipstein ’57, LAW’60 spent
September 11 in New York City to
celebrate Robert’s 80th birthday.
Robert practices law full-time.
Arnold “retired” in 2012 after a
41-year private practice in gastroen-
terology but has continued to work
as locum tenens physician about two
weeks a month. He has spent time
in various areas of the United States,
including Spokane, Wash.; Newport
News, Va.; and Springfield, Ill.; and
is next headed to Manchester, N.H.
‘These jobs are part time until full
time staff is hired. Between jobs,
Arnold spends time with friends and
family and travels both locally and
abroad. Keeping up with gastroen-
terology challenges his mind and his
fiancée Bonnie keeps him young.

Arnold was concerned about
being in New York City on 9-11 but
went anyway. After leaving Grand
Central, he and Robert went to the
theater district and were surprised
at how few policemen they saw. The
trip was uneventful.

For those who possess a rudi-
mentary knowledge of French, Joel
Kasow was featured in a two-page
interview in L’As de Tréfle, the publi-
cation of the French Bridge Federa-
tion. Without being an ace at the
game, Joel is in the top 10 percent of
French bridge players (in addition to
leading a sedentary retirement). The
interviewer also asked about Joel’s
interests outside of his favorite card
game: music and dance. He lives in
Valence, an hour south of Lyons but
only two hours on the high speed
train to Paris, which gave him a
good base from which to “operate”
when he went to the opera all over
France. The interview explains why
he no longer operates and while
what is available on television and
DVD only comforts his decision.
For the brave souls who want to read
the original article, go to https://
cdn.ftbridge.fr/cms/magazine/0001/
02/7a508e10cf1a29e39c03ccl1cf8e36
70c2aa7c288.pdf.

My wife JB’s and my summer
travels to get away from the San
Antonio heat included a month
in Frisco, Colo., in August, hiking
and generally enjoying the cooler
weather, which included some snow
at 12,000 ft. We caught up with
John Drake and his wife, Linda,
who summer in nearby Silverthorne,
Colo. We also see them during the

ski season. On the drive home, we

stopped in Colorado Springs, Colo.,
for a nice lunch with Bob Rennick
and his wife, Lisa.

1962

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

John Freidin

654 E. Munger St.
Middlebury, VT 05753
jf@bicyclevt.com

Jeff Milstein became the grand-
father of another girl. Lena Anita
Milstein was born to Dan and
Farrell Milstein in Vienna, Austria,
on July 25. Dan worked for the
Department of Energy at the United
States Embassy in Vienna this past
summer and returned to work at the
USS. Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, in
September. Lena Anita is Dan and
Farrell’s first child and Jeff’s ninth
granddaughter! He has no grandsons
— must be some sort of record!
Otherwise there is no reported
news. Please write even a couple
sentences to me at jf@bicyclevt.com —
your classmates want to hear from you!

1963

Paul Neshamkin

1015 Washington St., Apt. 50
Hoboken, NJ 07030
pauln@helpauthors.com

I sent an email in September asking
for news and the response was spec-
tacular. Thanks! I fit as much as I
could in this issue but some of your
news will have to wait for the Spring
2017 issue. Apologies.

David Rubinson writes, “I had
a long and fruitful life in the music
business — produced lots of great
records and film music and was
incredibly blessed to have met and
collaborated with amazing creative
icons. In parallel, I spent many
days and nights doing political
resistance work, thus was in jail
now and again. Bush 2004 finally
tipped me over the edge and I

alumninews

worked hard for a few years (with
Cindy Sheehan, among others) and,
with what I could easily see was

the coming debacle of FauxBama

in 2008, I quit the United States

in 2009. I have lived in France ever
since — now in a delightful quiet
village perché about 30 kilometers
north of Cannes, where I practice
permaculture and produce tomatoes,
broccoli, aubergines, quinoa and so
on ... in a fairly successful process
toward achieving self-sufficiency and
autonomy (unlike musicians or film
producers, broccoli rarely call me at
home at 2 a.m.).”

David, sounds like a good move.
But think of all the fun you missed
in this last election (written in trepi-
dation long before the date).

Harley Frankel sent in news
about his nonprofit, College Match,
which has had an extraordinary year
helping bright, low-income kids get
into great colleges. He reports that
114 of the 2015 and 2016 College
Match seniors (75 percent) were
admitted into a Top 25 college or
university, as ranked by U.S. News &
World Report. He says, “We believe
that these results are better that
those achieved by many private high
schools and comparable to some of
the best. In addition, 97 percent
of our 2016 seniors were admitted
into at least one Top 50 college or
university and 100 percent of our
seniors were admitted into a four-
year institution of higher learning.
Moreover, 11 of our seniors are
undocumented and all 11 have been
admitted to at least one top-ranked
school; nine of them have been
admitted into a Top 25 college or
university. All 11 of these students
received a $25,000 TheDream.US
scholarship and will have sufficient
financial assistance to attend one of
the best colleges in the country.”

Harley, this is a remarkable record.

Peter Broido writes, “Last year
my wife and I moved from Chicago
to Baltimore. I had some misgivings
(as we had lived in Chicago for 46
years and, as older retired people, we
might find it harder to make new
friends) but having four grandchil-
dren (two in Baltimore and two in
Arlington, Va.) compelled us to move.
It has been wonderful to be closer
to our grandchildren and slowly we
are making new friends. We have
also seen several old friends as well,
including Lowell Curtis and Gary
Rachelefsky — both are doing very

well. Baltimore is also a much easier
trip to NYC and I have now attended
several class lunches as well.”

Lee Lowenfish continues to
follow his baseball passion far and
wide. He interviewed veteran Cuban
baseball personages in Havana at the
start of 2016. He followed Colum-
bia’s fine baseball program again
during the 2016 season; they came
up a little short in the their quest for
a remarkable Ivy League four-peat
as league champion but finished
with a winning league record. Lee
had a most pleasurable experi-
ence during the summer teaching
“Baseball and American Culture” at
the adult education paradise known
as the Chautauqua Institution in
western New York State. Lee’s essay,
“Orange and Black Forever: How
A New Yorker Fell in Love with
Earl Weaver's Baltimore Orioles,”
was published in the anthology
Baltimore Sports.

Farhad Idjadi writes, “I retired
from private practice of general
surgery in 2006 and practiced
locum tenens surgery throughout
the United States for four years.

I am fully retired since 2011. I
enjoy spending time with our two
grandchildren, following my long
passion in photography, traveling
and reading. For the last three years,
I have been doing volunteer work in
a clinic and find it quite rewarding.”

Don Margolis writes, “[At
the time of writing] I am looking
forward to the Columbia University
Athletics Hall of Fame induction
ceremony on October 20 when my
brother, James Margolis’58, will
be inducted. He is most deserving,
having entered Columbia without
ever having fenced and having won
the NCAA épée championship as a
junior. After graduating, Jim was a
member of the U.S. world champion-
ship team, two Pan American Games
and the 1960 Olympic team.”

Joe McPhee writes, “Many of
my memories of the College and
its campus have faded a bit. Living
in North Carolina further created a
sense of distance to those memories.
But then my wife of many years,

a nurse educator, decided that she
wanted to pursue a doctorate at
Teachers College. So, in fall 2015,
we found ourselves living two blocks
from the College campus.

“Suddenly enveloped by nostalgia,
I took many walks through the

campus and its environs, trying to find

Winter 2016-17 CCT 55

some concrete relics of all my fading
memories. I was pleasantly surprised.
The main campus has hardly changed
and when I wandered into Have-
meyer, I found the lecture hall was
locked in a time vortex and (except for
the replacement of the desks that had
been battered and carved-upon even
in 1959) looked exactly the same. I
was a zoology major and had worked
in the zoology library in Schermer-
horn, so I was hoping to revisit that
place as well. But regrettably that
library has disappeared, to be replaced
by an unrecognizable (and I must

say, less memorable) space. The West
End has disappeared and Mama Joy’s
(the best sandwiches) can no longer
be found. My fraternity house passed
away years ago but I was shocked

to see Sigma Chi, that paragon of
fraternities in our day, had departed its
impressive Georgian Colonial house
and moved down the street to much
less impressive digs. I was, however,
cheered to find that V&T is still going
strong (although not in its original
location). I am planning to go there
for a steak pizzaiola, that paragon of
Italian cuisine that got me through
finals week. But the best of all my
flashback experiences was taking my
wife to Alma Mater and letting her
find the owl. It is still a beautiful cam-
pus and I think we all can feel justly
proud of having, if even for a short
time, gotten to experience it.”

Alexis Levitin writes, “I teach
at SUNY Plattsburgh and translate
poetry from Ecuador, Brazil and
Portugal. In 2015, I had five books
come out: Destruction in the After-
noon by Santiago Vizcaino (from
Ecuador), Exemplary Tales by Sophia
de Mello Breyner Andresen (from
Portugal), 28 Portuguese Poets: A
Bilingual Anthology (with Richard
Zenith), Fado and the Portuguese Soul
by Fernando Pessoa, published in
Portugal, and Tiger Fur by Salgado
Maranhao (from Brazil).

“This past spring I did a bilingual
poetry reading tour with Salgado
Maranhao, reading on the West
Coast at various venues (including
Mills College, the University of
Oregon, Evergreen State College
and the University of Washington),
in the Midwest (Northwestern,
the University of Chicago and the
University of Missouri) and in the
East (Cornell, Princeton and Brown,
among others). My next book, which
was scheduled to be released in

December 2016, will be Cattle of the

56 CCT Winter 2016-17

Lord: Poems by Portugal’s Rosa Alice
Branco. She and I will do a tour next
spring, mostly in the Northeast.

“T also had the good fortune
to become a grandfather. Hannah
Simone was born on January 9, 2016,
in Berkeley. I visited her in April and
planned to see her again in October.

I will retire soon and the question is:
Should I give up the East Coast and
move to California? Meanwhile, I
continue to travel as much as possible;
in the last nine months I’ve been

to Quito, Banhos, Guayaquil, the
Galapagos, around the U.S. and then
on to Portugal to visit Lisbon, Porto
and Sagres. I write just after returning
from a three-day trip to Tadoussac,
Canada — it’s almost three hours
beyond Quebec City, where the
Saguenay River flows into the St.
Lawrence and one can watch whales
(including the all-white beluga) cruise
their rich feeding grounds.”

Steve Langfelder writes, “In
June my wife, Ruth, and I attended
a combination 75th birthday party
and celebratory retirement party
for my former roommate, Don
Putnoi. Don spent 50 years as an
ophthalmologist and eye surgeon in
the Boston area, and the party was
well-attended by friends, family and
professional associates. In addition
to rooming together for four years
in Livingston Hall, Don and I were
best men at each other’s weddings
in 1964. I introduced him to a fam-
ily friend, Fran, who has been his
spouse for 52 years. Fran returned
the favor, introducing me to her
college friend, Ruth, with whom I
celebrated 52 years on October 3.

“Ruth and I have two married
daughters and six grandchildren. One
daughter and her husband live in
Israel and we try to visit them at least
annually, otherwise paying the import
tax to get them here. We recently
moved to Wanaque Reserve, a 55-plus
community that can best be described
as ‘camp for big kids,’ with classes,
clubs, trips and a social life that can be
as much or as little as one wants.

“T retired 15 years ago from
a career in taxes, first in public
accounting and then as a tax director
in corporate America. It was fun and
satisfying and I’m glad to look back
at it. These days I’m up to my ears in
genealogy, having located more than
500 relatives. I keep in mind this
saying of a prominent genealogist:
‘Your family tree is not complete
until, with one click of the mouse,

you're back at the Garden of Eden.’
Maybe not in this life, but I’m
working on it. Until then, I can also
contemplate that under that theory,
you, I and all of our classmates are
in fact related — we just need a little
more documentation!”

Sy Moskowitz has retired from
classroom teaching and is now
senior research professor at Val-
paraiso University Law School. He
and his wife, Linda, live in Chicago.
Sy taught in Cambridge, England,
last summer and is an avid hiker and
climber. He would love to connect
with classmates in the Chicago area.

Bob Shlaer writes, “Since I took
up the bagpipes I have been involved
in events and celebrations (memori-
als, funerals weddings, parades and
so on) with which I previously had
only marginal contact. The accepting
culture of pipers and piping has
brought unexpected rewards into
my life and experiences that I never
imagined existed.

“In July we spent two weeks
in New Zealand visiting our son,
daughter-in-law and grandson.

A most beautiful place with a

very agreeable culture. After our
November elections the most certain
way to be allowed in as a permanent
resident is to be an experienced
shepherd with a trained sheepdog
— not part of the Core Curriculum,
I am afraid.”

Bob sent many pictures of the vari-
ous events he has taken part in, which
you can view at cc63ers.com. He
writes, “Because I am now so involved
in piping, the stories of my recent life
are best illustrated photographically.”

We are saddened by the loss of
another classmate. D. Keith Mano
died in September and his obit in
The New York Times brought back
many memories. He led a full
and interesting life. Henry Black
remembered, “The first time I saw
Keith was in a Columbia student
production of Richard III. 1 have
yet to see anyone do it better. His
voice was electrifying and his body
language perfect for the role. Many
years later, we became friends at the
old Baker Field, where he hosted
a tailgate at every home game.
When Columbia played Yale in
New Haven, Conn., we would go
to Pepe’s Pizzeria together. Anyone
who went to Columbia football
games during Keith’s 200-plus
consecutive game attendance streak
will always recall being forcefully

encouraged to be ‘up for the kickoff.’
I certainly will. We remained friends
with Keith and his wife, Laurie, over
the ensuing years, even after the
onset of his illness. I will miss him
and never forget him.”

Requiescat in pace, Keith.

Remember, our regular class
lunches at the Columbia University
Club of New York are always a great
place to reconnect. If you're back in
NYC, try to make one of the next
lunches — January 12 and February
9 — it’s always the second Thursday.
Check cc63ers.com for details (if
you're lucky, I will have updated it).

1964

Norman Olch

233 Broadway

New York, NY 10279
norman@nolch.com

I am happy to report our classmates
are busy. Gene Meyer writes from
Washington, D.C.: “This past
spring, I was proud to receive some
awards for my journalistic efforts.
I won a first-place award from The
American Society of Journalists and
Authors in the profile category for a
piece I wrote for Bethesda Magazine
about a rogue gun dealer. Then, the
National Association of Real Estate
Editors gave me the gold award for
‘Best Collection of Work by an Indi-
vidual Covering Commercial Real
Estate’ for three New York Times
stories and also a bronze ‘President’s
Award, Best Freelance Collection
for the same stories.

“Otherwise, I have continued
to serve on the board of the online
nonprofit Washington Independent
Review of Books and I play a major
role in organizing and recruiting
panels for our annual spring confer-
ence. At the last one, I was privileged
to introduce the keynote speaker, my
friend and former colleague at The
Washington Post, Bob Woodward.

“In addition to editing the quar-
terly Bnai Brith Magazine, going
on seven years, I am researching and
writing a book on the five African-
Americans who were with John
Brown at Harpers Ferry in 1859. Tip
of my Columbia cap to Professor Jim
Shenton ’49, GSAS’54, who furthered
my love of history and the Civil War
era; he also suggested I become a jour-
nalist because I was ‘more interested in
history as it affects the present.’

“T am also grateful for my family:
My wonderful wife, Sandy Pearl-
man, and my three sons. Eric is a
computer jock and jazz musician in
Durham, N.C., David is a Brook-
lynite and a reporter for Streetsblog.
org and Aaron is a senior at Clark
and recently spent a semester abroad
studying Arabic in Amman.”

Norman Kagan, in New York
City, is also a busy writer. He is the
author of six books on film, the most
recent of which, Romance Film: Pas-
sion Strategies in Film and Life, is a
critical history of significant romance
films through the decades from
Hollywood and abroad. Norman has
taught cinema and essay writing at
CUNY and elsewhere, and for seven
years he produced programs for the
United States Information Agency,
which were shown on 600 television
stations in 110 nations.

Bernard Catalinotto and his
wife, Roberta, in New York from
California, joined us for the Sep-
tember class lunch at the Columbia
University Club of New York.

Bernard reports that Richard
Waldinger received the Herbrand
Award for Distinguished Contri-
butions to Automated Reasoning
from the Conference on Automated
Deduction. The Herbrand is one
of the most coveted awards in the
field of artificial intelligence. Since
1969 Richard has worked at the SRI
International’s Artificial Intelligence
Center in Menlo Park, Calif. He is
a consulting professor of computer
science at Stanford and co-author of
several textbooks on the relationship
between logic and computer science.

Beril Lapson spent a week in
Normandy visiting the beaches of the
1944 invasion. He found it “moving”
and “dramatic,” and says, “I couldn't
imagine being one of those guys.”

After 42 years, Matt Heller
has retired from his rheumatol-
ogy practice in Peabody, Mass. “I
was fortunate to have met many
wonderful people during my years
in practice as well as serve on the
FDA Arthritis Advisory Com-
mittee, co-authoring a textbook
on clinical research, and bringing
to the forefront the incidence of
musculoskeletal problems among
musicians. I hope to travel with my
wife, Sharon, learn to play the banjo
and perhaps write a medical novel. I
really enjoyed getting together with
my buddies at the 50th reunion — ©
Chet Salomon, Steve Solomon,

Allan Levine, Don Feiner, Steve
Hochschuler and Steve Fallis.”
We all wish you well, Matt.
Send in a note. Your classmates
want to hear from you.

1965

Leonard B. Pack
924 West End Ave.
New York, NY 10025
packlb@aol.com

Leslie Brisman (leslie.brisman@
yale.edu) is the Karl Young Profes-
sor of English at Yale. He sent two
great notes: “In the past year, I’ve
published two essays that may be
the most important of my academic
career and it’s a wonderful tribute
to our Columbia College experi-
ence that I can trace both these
meditations back to conversations
over dinner in John Jay 54 years ago.
Both my conversants were members
of the Class of 65 (who went on to
far more distinguished careers than
my own) and both were conversa-
tions outside the fields that became
their special expertise.

“My conversation with Norman
Christ, now the Ephraim Gildor
Professor of Computational Theoreti-
cal Physics at Columbia, was about
the ‘Suffering Servant’ passage of
Isaiah, which Norman challenged me
to interpret without reference to what
Christians have made of it. If he chal-
lenges his physics graduate students as
he challenged me then, I hope it does
not take them the 50 years it has taken
me to come up with an answer!

“The other conversation was with
Richard Taruskin, now Emeritus
Professor of Music Scholarship at
UC Berkeley, and opened my eyes
to ‘historicism and false historicisms
in music interpretation — which,
through the years, I have applied and
reapplied to the study of English
literature. That was not yet the Richard
Taruskin who has written the extraor-
dinary six-volume Oxford History of
Western Music, but it was already a
Richard Taruskin who knew the folly
of bowing in unthinking homage to
original instrument recordings of com-
positions that sound ever-so-much
better on modern instruments. It’s
not just that Richard taught me that
it’s OK to prefer my piano to my clavi-
chord; it’s that he taught me it’s OK
not to be an Antonin Scalia-like ‘origi-
nal constructionist’ when interpreting

alumninews

literature — especially literature, like
Shakespeare, written by someone who
would have relished the changes that
make a contemporary production
closer to the spirit of the original than
one retaining all the lines.

“T value my Columbia classes
more and more each year that I
teach, but I look back still more
fondly on those conversations with
wonderful classmates who helped
me break through the barriers of
my youthful parochialism.”

I responded to Leslie, asking for
more information about his two
essays and recalling the classmate
who introduced us. He replied:
“Though I am always grateful for
your column, I haven't previously
thought to contribute to it because
I don't like tooting my own horn.
For that reason, my preference is not
to name my own articles. I simply
wanted to call attention to one of
the things that made those under-
graduate years at Columbia so rich
— those dinner conversations with

that there was no protest at the
deportation of desperate refugees
from Honduras, no protest at our
failure to lead the world in opening
our borders to Syrian refugees — or
even just keeping our commitments
to the translators who worked for
the Army and had been promised
asylum in the United States. This
difference surely has probably more
to do with the difference between
our times and those times rather
than the difference between Yale and
Columbia. But even though support
on campus for Bernie Sanders might
call to mind support for Eugene
McCarthy in the 60s, I just don’t
see the passion about important
things that I saw then. A number

of years ago, I joined a group of
students who managed to persuade
Yale to buy only fair-trade coffee.
But if the college students of today
were willing to put their purchasing
power behind fair trade in all things
— clothing, for example — there
would still be a clothing industry in

Gene Meyer 64 won a first-place award from

the American Society of fournalists for a piece in

Bethesda Magazine about a rogue gun dealer.

friends whose intellectual interests
extended far beyond what we were
doing in the classroom.

“Ts it really possible that Gary
Engelberg introduced us? My
memory is that we were both on the
sixth floor of Livingston Hall and, if it
was Gary (who lived in Carman [New
Hall]) who introduced us, then that
adds to my shame at being such a bad
neighbor that it took an outsider ...

“T have had the great good
fortune of teaching at Yale for 47
years and I often have lunch with
my students. Sometimes we talk
about literature, sometimes about
their lives. But on the whole, the
students of today seem to me
much less political and much more
parochial than the fellow students
I so much admired in my under-
graduate days. I was, for example,
really disheartened the day last fall
that most of my ‘Bible as Literature’
students absented themselves to
participate in a protest about Hal-
loween costumes and racial profiling
on campus. What bothered me was

the United States and there would
be decent hours and wages in Sri
Lanka and Bangladesh.

“T couldn't attend the 50th
reunion because my wife is declining
with Alzheimer’s and I felt I couldn't
leave her and couldn't take her. But
at the one big-number reunion |
did attend, I was so pleased to take
the elevator in what was in our time
Livingston Hall, now Wallach Hall,
and find myself in the midst of a
coed suite on the sixth floor. I sure
have no nostalgia for the single sex,
no sex years of yore!”

Mike Fischetti (drpesto@hotmail.
com) wrote: “As I read the alumni
news I am most interested in what
classmates have done with their lives,
their interests and how they value
their education. I thought about the
most important educational experi-
ences I had at Columbia after high
school in the Bronx — some of the
most influential and lasting learning
occurred outside the classroom.
Foremost was awareness of civil
rights issues and Vietnam. The

Winter 2016-17 CCT 57

societal ramifications and the need to
stand for your beliefs have informed
my life. Today I am writing about
my most-valued lifelong educational
experience — learning from how a
friend lived his life. He was recently
ill and I decided to publicly laud him:
After graduation, Steve Strobach
SEAS’66 worked at Ciba-Geigy as
an engineer, then shifted to human
resources, then joined the Peace
Corps and met his wife, Natividad
‘Naty, in Colombia. They are happily
married and are retired there. His life
was one of service worldwide, espe-
cially in Latin America, working to
empower the poor and disadvantaged
in towns, cities and the countryside.
He and his wife are true partners.
They brought conviction, empathy,
determination and joy to their work.
‘They taught me that not to take a
stand is to take a stand for the status
quo; that borders and race and socio-
economic status are not determinants
of the value of a human being; that
money is secondary; that community
is essential for lifelong happiness;
and that you are most fortunate if
you and your partner have similar
interests and values. Over many
years and visits this relationship has
enriched my life. It has been my life
blessing to know, admire and love
Steve and Naty.”

David Rassin (drassin@utmb.
edu) also sent a note: “Many thanks
for The Reunion Book, it was a master-
ful job given the difficulty of getting
responses for this type of material.

I can sympathize, as I spent more
than 10 years as associate dean and
director of the continuing medical
education offices for the University
of Texas Medical Branch and the
University of Texas McGovern
Medical School at Houston and
getting materials to appropriately
present and accredit our hundreds

of conferences was a never-ending
challenge. I now work in semi-
retirement as professor of pediatrics,
primarily mentoring pediatric faculty
for academic progress and pediatric
residents in a successful program to
prepare scholarly projects (I received
a teaching award for the development
and support of this program on its
25th anniversary).

“My wife, Glennda, and I mar-
ried at the end of my senior year
at Columbia, so we will soon be
celebrating our 52nd anniversary.
Now we are on a mission to travel
the world (we have visited all seven

58 CCT Winter 2016-17

continents) and to expose our five
grandchildren to the wonders of
travel (this has included individual
visits with four of them to London/
Paris, the Galapagos, Tanzania and
Iceland/Greenland). I also do a

lot of bird photography, for which

I have been fortunate enough to
win a couple of awards. My years

at Columbia were wonderful and,
though I don’t get to New York very
often, it is still very dear to me.”

I heard from Walter Reich
(wreich@gwu.edu). Walter is the
Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor
of International Affairs, and the Eth-
ics and Human Behavior Professor of
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at
The George Washington Univer-
sity Elliott School of International
Affairs. He writes: “Did you know
that I’m related, by marriage, to
Steve Steinig? Steve is the father
of Debbie Steinig, who is married to
Jason Eisner, who is the brother of
Amy Eisner, who is the wife of my
(and wife Tova’s) son Daniel Reich. I
saw Steve and wife Renee two week-
ends ago at the bat mitzvah of Josie,
the daughter of Danny and Amy.
Steve and I are very proud of Josie!”

I also heard from Leon Rosen-
stein (rosenst1@mail.sdsu.edu):
“Glad to hear all is well with you and
I must again thank you for all the
effort you (and Michael Schlanger)
put into the creation of The Reunion
Book, which I believe was as great a
success as anything of its kind can be.

“T must admit that, as to my own
contribution, it was entirely fortu-
itous. When you first made the call
for submissions I really thought, ‘No
way would I do such a thing.’ But
a few days later, while sitting at my
desk waiting for an important email,
just to pass the time I thought, Just
for the hell of it, if I were really to
compose such a thing, what would it
be like?’ And before long and without
much serious effort or contempla-
tion I realized I had already written
most of it. (The awaited email did
not arrive until the next day.) And
— perhaps it’s a bad habit of most
writers — having written it I just
couldn't delete it. And so you got my
unanticipated response. I do wonder
if any other contributors had the
same experience.

“To be brief with the particulars
of my life since my last contribu-
tion: I’ve done several foreign tours
mostly by car (a few new places but
mainly revisits — these times, fortu-

nately, not guiding a tour group but
with my wife or friends) to Scotland,
France, Spain and St. Petersburg,
Russia. Our antiques business has
suddenly been doing extraordinarily
well these past few months; I can’t
take any credit because I have no
idea why — I wish I did! We're
about to do some house remodel-
ing. I’ve gotten nowhere on the
publication of the collection of my
philosophy articles for my book, Art
and Existence, the manuscript is all
done and set for print and has been
for more than a year but I’ve been
too distracted or lazy to deal with
copyright issues and such and deal
with the details of printing.

“By the way, you got this response
in pretty much the same way as my
Reunion Book contribution. I began it
during a blissful San Diego afternoon
while sitting on a bench in the main
quad of the university where I have
not taught (or even visited) for
several years — there at the request
of a junior former colleague and
good friend to give the first of several
lectures to his graduate class on the
art theories of Aristotle, Kant and
Hegel — and, having arrived earlier
than necessary to find a parking spot,
first encountered your email request
for Class Notes. So now, here again,
a fortuitous empty time en attente
became the occasion for this unan-
ticipated response, a response which
(with my best wishes and thanks for
your efforts) you may print all, any or
no part of for the Notes.”

I've printed it all!

From Noah Robbins (nrobbins@
montefiore.org): “I spent a wonder-
ful evening with Bob Kronley in
Philadelphia on May 18 (I was in
town for a National Board of Medical
Examiners meeting) in which we
discussed friends and experiences
from Erasmus Hall H.S. (Brooklyn)
and Columbia. We were particularly
distressed to learn that Richard Stein-
gesser 66 had passed away. I recalled
that a contingent from Erasmus (me,
Bob, Richard, Barry Herman and
Larry Strenger, if memory serves
me) wandered through the Barnard
dormitories during Freshman Week
in 1961. Richard removed a sign that
read “Men Not Allowed” and stuck it
under his T-shirt. Unfortunately, the
glue side faced the skin, and he had to
go the St. Luke’s Emergency Depart-
ment to get it removed.

“I thought that The Reunion Book
1?

was fantastic

As I have written in previous
columns, Michael Schlanger
(mschlanger@zuckerman.com)
worked tirelessly and generously
putting together our Reunion Book.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “There are
no second acts in American lives.”
As if to prove that statement wrong,
Michael recently sent an announce-
ment to many of his friends and col-
leagues, which I want to share with
you here: “In 1965, I had to choose
between pursuing a career as a lawyer
or pursuing a career as a psychothera-
pist. | am happy that I chose the law.
Whatever could be accomplished
between then and now, I hope I have
accomplished. After more than 50
years, | am pleased that I have the
opportunity to embark on an ‘encore
career, this time as a psychotherapist.
In September 2017, I am return-
ing to school, full-time, to obtain a
master’s of social work and thereafter
to maintain a private practice, with a
focus on helping lawyers. To ease the
transition, I am retiring from Zuck-
erman Spaeder and from trial work.

I will maintain a consulting practice,
under the name “Schlanger Litiga-
tion Consulting, LLC.” My email
address will be michael@schlanger-
consulting.com. My website will be
schlanger-consulting.com.

“Whatever I have accomplished
in the law was made possible by the
kindness, the generosity and the tire-
less assistance of my law firm mentors,
partners, associates and staff members,
and by my clients, who entrusted to
me matters of great importance to
their enterprises. To all of you count-
less individuals across many genera-
tions, I say ‘thank you.”

1966

Rich Forzani

413 Banta Ave.
Garfield, NJ 07026
rforzani1@optonline.net

Aftershocks generated by the 50th
reunion continue to rattle the
memories of our class and we are
seeing some debate among ourselves.
Good! It makes for a more interesting
column. Take a look at Victor
Kayfetz’s plea regarding being
included on a long email string: “The
50th reunion was fun. This is not. Can
someone remove my email address
from this conversation? Please? (Vaca-
tioning in Chania, Crete.)”

Victor, we don’t feel sorry for
anyone who vacations in Crete,
except maybe Theseus. ;-)

And here is a solution, from Neil
Smith 65, SEAS’66: “Following the
wonderful reunion, there has been a
plethora of good conversation as we
have ‘replied all, with good reasons
— raising money and also sharing
memories of our departed members.
But some don't have the time or place
for this on their late-in-life email
programs or iPhones, so I suggest a
solution: In order to fulfill the need
to communicate with others in the
class who want to be communicated
with, I have created a LinkedIn
group, Columbia College Class of
1966. I urge everyone to sign up
for LinkedIn if they haven't yet (it
costs nothing to join: linkedin.com/
groups/7062149.

More from Neil: “Two years
ago, | was appointed an admin-
istrative law judge for the United
States Patent and Trademark Office

branch, then coming to Silicon

stage slowly, hands tucked into the
pockets of his black pants. The rest
of the band followed behind. He
was handed the mic. The keyboard
let out the first few and fast notes of
‘At the Hop.’ Cooper turned, smiled,
began bouncing his feet and snap-
ping his fingers and then raised the
microphone to his lips.”

“They say you can't go back again,
but we did,” Cooper said a few
weeks later when Neill asked him
about the performance, “It was just a
magical night.”

In October, Neill reminisced a
bit further: “[I’m] on the way to
the city of my birth, Chicago, and
am reflecting on 1962 when I took
my first plane ride from ORD to
LGA to visit Columbia — wow!
Springtime, fair winds blowing
my tie, a very special city campus
and meeting a lot of guys like me,
whose parents could not afford a
Columbia price tag but cherished
the notion that a kid of theirs may
be the first college kid in the clan,

David Matthew 66 is working on a new set of

clinical trials to combat Alzheimer’s and has created

the blog defeatalz.org.

Valley. Unfortunately, I resigned my
appointment there when it moved
to Menlo Park, which was too much
of a daily commute for me from my
home far east of San Francisco. If
you are interested in the full story,
go to siliconbeat.com and search
‘Judge Neil Smith.’ I’m doing some
arbitration and mediation and high-
level intellectual property consulting,
and joined Schwegman, Lundberg
and Woessner’s San Jose office.
SLW is one of the strongest IP/pat-
ent firms in the country. If I retired,
I would think like a retired person,
which is depressing.”

Neill Brownstein writes, first
regarding the Sha Na Na concert at
reunion: “Shortly after 8 p.m., the
original members were introduced.
First, there was bassist Bruce Clarke
74, then guitarist Henry Gross.
Finally, Alan Cooper’71’s name was
called. He was wearing sunglasses
and the same outfit he wore to
Woodstock — a cabbie hat and gold
vest, only this time he had a shirt
on underneath. He strolled onto the

and at a damn fine school to boot.
Which meant a little bit of scholar-
ship, a little bit of part-time work
during school and lots of money to
be made in the summer — which
brings me to Wrigley Field, where
I sold popcorn, peanuts, Cokes and
Frosty Malts (and watched the
Chicago Cubs year, after year, after
year, after year). Hustling as fast as
I could helped — I recall we earned
20 percent commission, maybe 25
percent — and that covered the cash
I needed each semester.

“So, at this point the sports fans
are thinking that I am returning
to Wrigley Field, the scene of that
golden medina! But, no. One of
my best childhood friends, Irwin, is
just too darn frail to deal with the
crowds. So, I travel to Chi-Town to
take a first row seat behind his living
room TV, just above the dugout with
Irwin and his wife telling stories,
eating dogs and burgers and sipping
beer and pausing to imagine our
lives taking any other turns than the
lucky ones we rode.”

alumninews

Robert Meyerson described his
own plaints: “As to what I’ve been
doing since last June’s ‘graduation,’
namely still sittin’ in yaya barking,
maybe growling, at anything that
passes by my Windows window.
‘Thanks for the precis, Neil and Neill.
My recollection is a little different
from yours: Sha Na Na may have
been (not ‘may have been but for
sure ‘were’) great at Woodstock, but
they were awful at reunion, except
maybe for the one skinny guy. I
usually avoid has-beens like the
plague; artists need to move on, not
dwell on their greatest hits — as do
we all. The only thing has-beens may
have going (this time I will let ‘may
have going’ stand) for themselves, if
that, is their lyric lip memory. As a
member of the audience I enjoyed
pretending, but only for a moment
before it became embarrassing. It
only served to prove Fitzgerald
right: ‘there are no second acts in
American lives’ (except maybe in
electoral politics).”

Bob is also not fond of requests
here for funding. I can understand,
except for helpforzaniout.org, a
great cause and in desperate need of
your support.

Sadly, from Jeff Colen ’02: “My
uncle, Michael Colen, passed away
in 2015. He is survived by his two
adult children and wife. Our whole
family misses him very much.”

Neal Hurwitz: “Looking forward
to [Columbia] football ... still
bummed by John Wellington ’57’s
death — great Columbia man! —
and the loss of others on faculty,
Alan F. Westin, Allan Silver, Sidney
Morgenbesser, Carl Hovde ’50,
Terry Hopkins, Robert Belknap
SIPA’57, GSAS’59 et al.

“T live next door to the Kraft
Family Center for Jewish Student
Life (Hillel) and recently saw Joe
Brown at Bernheim & Schwartz,
which used to be The West End.
Kenny Ascher lives down the
block, which is the next best thing
to being close to one of our greats,
quarterback Thomas Harrold! Our
reunion dinner at Low Rotunda was
strong and fun!

“I now have my first grandchild,
as well as 315 cholesterol (it was 415
for years). I do not like what I read
about the statins and there is edema
in my left ankle. I still coach/play
softball (since the ’70s) at Heckscher
Fields in Central Park. The worst/

craziest thing is that I still smoke

cigs (my Barnard girlfriend got me
hooked in 1965)! A divorce in 2013
has left me bare ... and with a step-
son about to enter college it’s back
to work after a year off (following
18 years with the Stuyvesant H.S.
endowment fund). Hope you are all
still fine! On reflection, I wonder
about William Abrashkin, Michael
Drosnin, Billy Karp, Howard
Machtinger and Sasha Zill.

“I heard that Mike Colen died —
sad — and I found Jimmy Smolev,
who was in 1001B New Hall with
me, Phil Cohen and Arne Jensen
67! Putting Arne in with Jimmy,
Phil and me was quite a leap! I am
active on Facebook as Neal H. Hur-
witz and Neal Hugh Hurwitz. I’m
happy some of you are on there too.

“My daughter Sam graduated
from Chicago’s Columbia College
and is working with The Second
City improv comedy group. She
should be on Broadway, of course!
My other daughter, Sofia, is at the
University of Vermont.

“I was feeling 20 until I turned 71
in January, then a bunch of friends
and colleagues died suddenly. Can-
cers — aggressive and terrible. So
yes, we are all fortunate to be here.”

David Matthew wrote: “Guys,
I’m excited to be working on a
new set of clinical trials to combat
Alzheimer’s. This is a terrible
condition that has likely affected
all of us, at least in terms of family
and friends. I’ve created a blog
(defeatalz.org) to exchange informa-
tion about the current state of affairs
in research and treatment. Please
visit and add your posts. We are pre-
paring a crowdfunding effort to raise
money for clinical trial scholarships;
you can help us get ready right now
on the blog if you wish. All contri-
butions are fully U.S. tax-deductible
through the Quietmind Foundation
and you'll get a receipt.”

Sad news from Gene Leff:

“T retired from New York state
government in June after 33 years
and moved to Philadelphia, where
my partner of 16 years teaches
French literature. I’m taking the first
steps in dealing with Lou Gehrig’s
disease, which I learned I had in
May. I am nearly entirely depen-
dent on Android and iPad apps to
communicate, since my voice and
throat were the first areas affected.
I’ve enjoyed the leisure time to read,
even returning to Sophocles from
Literature Humanities.”

Winter 2016-17 CCT 59

Jay Goldsamt wrote: “I failed
to make it to the reunion due to an
appointment but I have been reading
your emails — the recent work in
Alzheimer’s is most promising. I
am a survivor of a rare cancer called
GIST. I discovered I was ill seven
years ago and my local oncologist
indicated I should get my affairs in
order. To make a long story short,
with excellent care at Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
and a new designer drug, Gleevec,
which attacks the tumor directly, I
remain with no evidence of disease.
The American Cancer Society and
other cancer charities are able to
raise money for well-known, more
common cancers while the rare ones
have difficulty obtaining research
money. [wo charities that made a
difference in funding research for my
rare cancer are liferaftgroup.com and
GIST Cancer Research Fund; if you
can find a few dollars for one or both,
it will definitely be appreciated.”

Speaking of research, Daniel
Gardner and Barry Coller — our
noted medical experts who put on a
much-admired reunion seminar on
aging — are in discussions regarding
a possible joint project concerning
Alzheimer’s/dementia and prostate
issues. Since these are commonly
linked with later years, they wish to
determine if there is a correlation
between hand-eye coordination for
urination and the possible deteriora-

tion of mental faculties.

Kenneth Fox: “My big news is
that we are almost finished rebuild-
ing the kitchen of our historic house,
built around 1840, after the kitchen
foundation partially collapsed.”

CCT welcomes photos
that feature at least two
College alumni.

Click “Contact Us” at
college.columbia.edu/cct.

60 CCT Winter 2016-17

Tom Chorba reports that his
Fire Island, N.Y., summer home has
finally been raised 13 ft. above the
flood stage and now has a com-
manding view of the ocean, at a mere
cost of $10,000 per foot. He also
mentions a wonderful summer 2016
weekend he spent with Bill Corco-
ran and their respective wives, along
with Rich Postupak, who stopped
by on his way to an extended visit
with Rich Stanhewicz.

Steven Handel: “I accepted a
visiting professorship at Harvard’s
Graduate School of Design to take
over its required ecology class for the
grad students in landscape architec-
ture. We are trying to get ecological
structure and function into the design
of public spaces, as a complement to
other landscape criteria. I will also
build links between the Harvard
Organismic Biology group and the
Design School to involve more skills
into the work of the designers. I
agreed to do this for two years, then
we'll see if I want to continue the sch-
lep. It’s been stimulating; hope I can
handle the infamous Boston winters.”

Mark Amsterdam: “This summer
my daughter, LJ ’07,GSAS’12, helped
organize the wall that activists built
in Cleveland around the Republican
National Convention to wall out
Trump and hate. She also worked
with Iraq Veterans Against the
War and helped support the Native
Americans at Standing Rock, much
of this work with the Ruckus Society.
My son, Matt’10, LAW’13, works for
Marcus & Millichap in New York,
focusing on commercial finance. He’s
on the Columbia College Young
Alumni and the Columbia Law
School Association boards and is a
member of the Harlan Fiske Stone
Society. I spent the summer enjoying
myself in Kent, Conn., and am very
proud of what my kids are doing.”

We learn that Michael Garrett
has been dealt an unexpected blow.
Our beloved Lion mascot, who
worked so hard at our games, was
recently informed by the administra-
tion that even though he performed
the role admirably, he for some
unknown reason was never officially
approved by Grayson Kirk. As a
result, he had to return all the Lion
minutia he collected over the past 52
years. As his wife said, “Granted, the
place is now pretty threadbare, but at
least I can see the walls.”

Rich Forzani: “Finally, in the
spirit of full disclosure, I recently

learned that I have cancer, thus
joining a number of us with life-
threatening illnesses. By the time
this is published I should know
whether the chemo treatments are
effective. If so, | hope to have a
decent number of years left. If not,

I intend to party rather intensely.
My bucket list is complete (except
for an Ivy football title), having
been determined and proactive in

its fulfillment from an early age.
Plus, once you pass 70, you are in
the bonus round. I'll maintain the
column as long as it meets with your
approval and enjoyment. As the bard
said, ‘Golden lads and girls all must,

”

as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

1967

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Albert Zonana

425 Arundel Rd.
Goleta, CA 93117
az164@columbia.edu

The mailbox was full this issue!
David Rubin wrote, “I am retiring
from the Newhouse School of
Public Communications at Syracuse
in December and moving to Sum-
merville, S.C., outside Charleston.

I intend to play the piano (again),
raise puppies (Shelties), volunteer
for the South Carolina chapter of
the ACLU and write.”

David was dean of the school
from 1990 to 2008 and has
remained a full-time faculty mem-
ber, teaching about 200 students a
year. In 2013, he was voted “Teacher
of the Year” by the graduating class.
As dean, he established an office of
external relations that developed a
successful career center, an alumni
relations operation that now involves
more than 5,000 graduates and a
development program that signifi-
cantly increased annual fund giving.

Bruce Pindyck LAW’70,
BUS’71, wrote, “I have been blessed
in so many ways. In the best move
of my life, I have been married for
almost 50 years to Vassar grad Candy

Pindyck LAW’73, GSAPP’75. I

spent almost nine years at Columbia.

I have run a mid-sized manufac-
turing company for more than 30
years, with plants in several states. I
work more than full time. We have
three children, including Eben ’03,
JRN’15; two grandchildren; and
three dogs. I have stayed active with
all three Columbia schools that I

was privileged to attend. I have lived
in Wisconsin most of my profes-
sional life. We live in a small village
and spend as much time ‘up north’

as we can. My sons are excellent fly
fishermen and bird hunters, a much
different upbringing from mine. I feel
indebted to Columbia for the educa-
tion that I received and feel obligated
to give back to the institution.”

Allen Spiegel wrote, “In an effort
to help relieve the drought of Class
Notes, here is a brief update: After
a 33-year career at the National Insti-
tutes of Health (the last six as the
director of the National Institute of
Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney
Diseases), I returned to NYC in
2006 to become dean of the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine. A year
ago, the College of Medicine became
a component of the Montefiore
Health System, which serves the
Bronx, the poorest urban county in
the United States, and has expanded
to include Westchester and the
Hudson Valley. For now, I continue
as Einstein dean and Montefiore
chief academic officer, but I may
retire. If so, I will have the time to
write a memoir for which I already
have a title that might resonate, given
current events: Immigrant Mental-
ity: From Displaced Person to Dean. I
look forward at our upcoming 50th
reunion to seeing classmates whose
friendship was an integral part of my
Columbia experience. Sadly, some,
such as David Koffler, have died, but
are not forgotten.”

Don Shapiro wrote, “Can't believe
it’s been 50 years ... and I’m sure
that’s true for all of us! After practic-
ing medicine and raising a family
in the Philadelphia area, my wife,
Karlyn, and I have been dividing our
time between Juno Beach, F'a., and
Aspen, Colo. (summers and winters).
Our son is Adam Shapiro ’03.

Stan Adelman shared, “Next
month, as we start our 50th class
reunion year, I will have the honor of
conducting the Columbia Marching
Band at halftime of the homecoming
game. Fayetteville, Ark., is now home,

where I became an ‘instant grandpa’
six years ago when I married my wife,
Pat. Life has been and remains quite
an adventure. Through the years, one
side of my brain has been given over
to law and criminal justice: a job as a
New York State parole officer, a career
in Massachusetts state government
highlighted by a brief stint as acting
secretary of public safety, then a career
in law teaching at six law schools
around the country. The journey has
taken me to Arkansas, Tulsa, Char-
lotte, Albuquerque and other tour
stops, and it’s been quite a ride! The
other side of the brain has kept me
active in music, playing in big bands,
blues horn sections, concert bands,
symphonies and show orchestras.
Not sure whether to say I’m presently
retired, semi-retired or just unem-
ployed, but I remain available for gigs
and visiting professorships. Have
trombone and syllabi and will travel!”
Jonathan Howland wrote, “I
am a professor and director of a
research center at the Department
of Emergency Medicine, Boston
University School of Medicine. I
live in Marion, Mass., with my wife,
Elizabeth, a fiber artist. Our twins,
Jonathan and Rachael, live in the
area and recently turned 40. Our
grandchildren, Coco and Tavie, visit
often and are fabulous. All’s well.”
Ken Settel wrote, “I am a
psychiatrist physician in a number of
clinical and organizational directions.
I consult to organizations and their
leaders around managing their orga-
nizations, assisting in transitions in
leadership and working with boards
on organizational management. I
also work with physicians and their
organizations facilitating supportive
environments for physicians, trying
to prevent burnout and developing
organizations that enhance the roles
of physicians in providing for their
patients. I have been married for 30
years and have had the pleasure of
watching my three sons move out
into their own professional roles in
the business world of finance and
start-up companies. Most recently,
I visited Columbia as the father
of my youngest son, William ’15,
moving into the same floor of the
same dorm. I was thrilled to see him
fully participate in the richness of the
College experience. During our free
time, my wife and I enjoy biking, hik-
ing, exploring food and the arts, often
including our dogs and children, with
their various partners and friends.

Marty Goldstein writes, “I teach
media studies at Santa Monica Col-
lege, and am contemplating but not
ready for retirement. I am delighted
that my three grown children have
all settled in California and are
doing well. My eldest son is a dean
at a Los Angeles community college
and father of a lively little girl. My
middle child, a daughter, is a bilin-
gual kindergarten teacher in Hum-
boldt County, Calif., photographer,
and mother of two of my grandkids.
And my younger son is in his second
year of residency in family practice
at Ventura County Medical Center.
I’m not complaining.”

Herbert Broderick GSAS’78
summed up 50 years, “I received a
Ph.D. in art history from Columbia.
I am a professor of art history at
Lehman College/CUNY, where I
have taught, among other things,
Art Humanities for 38 years. My
wife, Mosette, is a professor at NYU,
where she teaches architectural
history. We have a daughter, Camilla
(27). We live in Manhattan and have
a house in Oyster Bay, Long Island.
I have a book that was scheduled
to come out in the fall, Moses the
Egyptian in the Illustrated Old Eng-
lish Hexateuch. Not too long ago I
was elected a fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries of London.”

Richard Glaser shared, “Into the
wind-down. After two residencies
(internal medicine, anesthesia), a
fellowship (epidemiology) and eight
years on the staff at UCSF, I met my
soulmate, married, went into private
practice, had two amazing daugh-
ters (one a Duke ophthalmology
resident, one a second-year student
at UCSF med) and retired two
years ago. Ann, my wife, retired last
year as director of the joint medical
program for UC Berkeley-UCSF.
We are a 100 percent UCSF family
so we get to play a lot together. Now
I’m trying to slip gracefully into the
next stage: Studying Italian, making
wine and furniture, and taking it
slow. Much thanks to Old Light
Blue for greasing the way.”

Arthur Guffanti GSAS’75 sent
an update, “After graduation and
a stint in the Army, I returned to
Columbia in 1971 and earned a
Ph.D. From there I went to Mount
Sinai Medical Center, where I
ultimately was an associate research
professor in bacterial bioenergetics.
The research was rewarding and I
traveled extensively to present my

alumninews

findings. After 30 years at Mount
Sinai I officially retired but am
active on the medical school admis-
sions committee. I have served on
the committee for more than three
decades and Mount Sinai has twice
honored me with awards for my
work on the committee.

“I have a lovely country house in
Dutchess County, N.Y., where I go
just about every weekend. It is only
a little more than an hour drive from
my home in Scarsdale, N.Y., where
I have lived for almost 65 years. The
country house has become a won-
derful gathering place for family and
friends. As an avid gardener I spend
as much time as possible growing
all sorts of vegetables and fruits,
which my visitors help me eat. My
other two passions are my Labrador,
Hilde, and opera. I often think back
to my days at Columbia College
with great fondness. In Humani-
ties I was particularly lucky to have
poet Kenneth Koch, now deceased,
as my professor. One of the best
things about attending Columbia is
the lifelong friendship I developed
with my roommate in my junior and
senior years, James Purvis 68. All
my best wishes to the members of
The Cleverest Class in the World!”

Charles Siegel shared, “As
a hobby, I have started a small
publishing business, Omo Press,
publishing my writing and new
editions of classics. 1 wrote and
published a book, The Humanists
versus the Reactionary Avant Garde:
Clashing Visions for Today's Architec-
ture, which architect Andrés Duany
said is the best book he has read on
the subject. I am finally living up
to the education in the classics that
I got during my freshman year at
Columbia by editing and publishing
a three-volume collection of works
by Hellenistic philosophers. These
works were buried in the dialogues
of Cicero, used as the discourses
of noble Romans and interspersed
with irrelevant material. Their
real authors were known only to a
handful of classical scholars who
studied Cicero’s sources. Now, they
are available to the general public for
the first time, and some definitely
deserve to be better-known.

“Among other books, I also pub-
lished a reconstruction of Aeschylus’
Prometheus trilogy. It includes
Thoreau’s translation of Prometheus
Bound, originally published in The
Dial Magazine and now available for

the first time in reasonably priced
book form, with the surviving frag-
ments of the other two plays in the
trilogy and my theory of how they
all hold together. I was intrigued
and puzzled by Prometheus Bound
when I first read it in my freshman
Humanities class and, 50 years later,
I have finally figured it out to my
own satisfaction.”

Tom Hauser, author of many
books and biographer of Muhammad
Ali, wrote, “My first day of college,

I met Mark Schlesinger. Several
months ago, I got a telephone call
from Khalilah Ali, Muhammad Ali’s
second wife. I know Khalilah from
the years that I spent with Ali, first

as his biographer and then as his
friend. Khalilah told me, ‘I’m here
with someone who says that you and
his father were friends 50 years ago.’
Tt was Mark's son, Peter. And so life’s
journey goes on. After college and law
school, I spent seven years as a practic-
ing lawyer, then I turned to writing: I
feel like I haven't worked for the past
40 years; just played hard.”

I hope many of us can also say
that we played hard for these past
50 years.

1968

Arthur Spector

One Lincoln Plaza, Apt. 25K
New York, NY 10023
arthurbspector@gmail.com

No news?! CC’68, make it a 2017
resolution to take five minutes and
send in a note — let your classmates
know what you are doing! Jobs,
family, retirement, thoughts on our
Homecoming win, travels or your
favorite CC memories are all game
for this column. You can send your
notes to either of the addresses at
the top of this column or use CC7’s
Class Notes webform, college.
columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

1969

Michael Oberman

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
1177 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
moberman@kramerlevin.com

Neal Flomenbaum shared with
me the story of his “med graduate
school doubleheader:” On May 25

Winter 2016-17 CCT 61

he was honored at two NYC medical
school graduations. First, at the Weill
Cornell Medical College com-
mencement, Neal helped present the
Neal Flomenbaum, M.D.., Prize for
Excellence in Emergency Medicine,
an award endowed by donors to that
medical school. Later, he received the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
2016 Lifetime Achievement Award,
for his “extraordinary career in emer-
gency medicine and ... many con-
tributions to the health and welfare
of underserved communities and all
populations in New York City.” Neal
was from 1996 to 2016 emergency
physician-in-chief and, since 1996, as
emergency medical services medical
director, at NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital. He also was professor of
clinical medicine at Weill Cornell
and is editor in chief of Emergency
Medicine. Neal added that his older
son, Adam 10 is living on the Upper
West Side (where else?), pursuing a
career in marketing and social media.

From David Rosen: “I am sad to
report the death of Charles ‘Chuck’
Skoro on March 31, 2016. Chuck
was a professor of economics at Boise
State from 1982 until 2000. He then
served as campus minister for St.
Paul’s Catholic Student Center on
the Boise State campus until 2014. In
2001 he was ordained as a deacon in
the Catholic Church. At Columbia,
where he was one of the famed ‘Boise
Boys’ recruited by Gideon Oppen-
heimer’47, Chuck was a devoted
member of the Spectator staff, serving
as 1968-69 managing editor. Upon
learning of his death, his colleagues
on the Spec Managing Board decided
to convene to celebrate Chuck’s
exemplary life, to reminisce about the
thousands of hours we spent together
putting out Spec five days a week, and
to renew acquaintances.

“Editor in Chief Rob Friedman,
Executive Editor Oren Root, Sports
Editor Andy Crane, Business Man-
ager Nick Garaufis and I (features
editor and former sports editor) spent
a very enjoyable evening in early Sep-
tember at a restaurant on New York’s
Upper East Side. Supplements Editor
Jerry Avorn was a last-minute
cancellation due to illness. Rob, Oren
and Nick still live in the city. Andy
came from Boston and I drove from
Connecticut. Some of us had not seen
one another since graduation. We
made it through the evening without
dissent (unlike in 1968-69, when the
line ‘David Rosen dissents from this

62 CCT Winter 2016-17

editorial’ was a fixture). Here are brief
notes on what we've all been up to
during the past 47 years:

“Robert is a senior editor at
Bloomberg News and a former
editor at Fortune, Life, New York
Newsday and the Village Voice. Oren
has headed the Center on Immigra-
tion and Justice at the Vera Institute
of Justice since 2007. One of the
principal activities of the center
is to oversee national networks of
legal services providers that provide
legal information and representa-
tion to detained adults and children
facing deportation. Andy was a
sports writer at Newsday and the
New York Post, a public defender and
then defender general in Vermont,
executive director of the Massachu-
setts State Ethics Commission and
founding program director of Tena-
city, a Boston based nonprofit serv-
ing at-risk urban youth. Nick is a
senior district judge on the U.S. Dis-
trict Court, Eastern District of New
York (Brooklyn). He is also assigned
cases as a visiting judge in Mont-
gomery, Ala., and New Orleans.
Jerry is a professor of medicine at
Harvard Medical School and chief
of the Division of Pharmacoepide-
miology and Pharmacoeconomics
in the Department of Medicine at
Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I
am happily 95 percent retired. My
last honest day’s work was as EVP
and CFO of Bluerock Media. After
45 years of living and working in
Manhattan, my wife, Susan, and |
sold our Manhattan apartment a
couple of years ago. We now split
our time between Newtown, Conn.,
and Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Fla.”

Nick shared this extra news: “In
April, I became a proud grandfather,
to Aristaeus Francis Garaufis (Ari),
son of Jamie Garaufis and Hollynn
Francis. You may recall that in Greek
mythology, Aristaeus was a son of
Apollo and grandson of Zeus!”

Pal Maleter has been working
with The Memory Project, a visual
archive of Hungarian-Americans
who immigrated to the United States
after WWII and the Revolution of
1956. For the 60th anniversary of
the revolution, in-depth interviews
with subjects in cities throughout the
United States are being made public
in both Hungarian and English. The
project began in early 2015 with the
generous funding of the Hungary
Initiatives Foundation, and is ongo-

ing. Pal’s father, Gen. Pal Maleter,

The 1968-69 Spectator editorial board met in honor of the late Chuck
Skoro ’69. Left to right: Robert Friedman ’69, Nicholas Garaufis ’69, Oren
Root 69, Andrew Crane ’69 and David Rosen ’69.

was minister of defense in the revo-
lutionary government of Imre Nagy.
He and Nagy were executed for their
role on June 16, 1958, and given a
proper burial on June 16, 1989, as
part of the fall of communism. Here
is a link to an interview with Pal:
vimeo.com/174388881.

Henry Jackson writes: “I
particularly remember how beautiful
the campus was in spring, due in
no small measure to the iris beds. I
also remember reading somewhere,
Spectator perhaps, that it was decided
to discontinue caring for those iris
beds to save money, so it’s probably a
memory Columbians after us won't
have. What a shame!”

David Ucko reports: “Always
interested in chemistry, I knew it
was to be my major from day one.
As a sophomore, I was offered a
fateful choice of two work-study
jobs: working in the stockroom
or in the lab of recently hired
Assistant Professor Steve Lippard.
‘The choice was clear and led to
several publications and a Woodrow
Wilson National Fellowship. I then
received my Ph.D. at MIT under
Lippard’s former adviser, thinking
I would follow a similar chemistry
research-oriented path. It was not to
be. I found my grad student research
less engaging and decided to focus
on teaching, first on the faculty of
CUNY and then at Antioch. After
back-to-back bankruptcies (NYC
and the college), I left academia
and chemistry, taking a position at
Chicago's Museum of Science and
Industry. That led to a career in
museums, including a presidential

appointment and creation of a new
science center in Kansas City, Mo.,
followed by a stint as a government
official at the National Science
Foundation and my current role

as a consultant (under the name
Museums+more). I recently con-
cluded co-chairing the Committee
on Communicating Chemistry in
Informal Settings for the National
Academy of Sciences. The report
and guide can be downloaded at
nap.edu. That role unexpectedly
bookended my chemistry experience
as an undergraduate.”

From Michael Rosenblatt: “On
June 30, I finished my second ‘tour
of duty’ at Merck. Serving as its
chief medical officer for nearly seven
years was a wonderful experience.
It was a real view into the practice
of medicine and health policy
around the globe. In September I
started in a newly created position
as chief medical officer for Flagship
Ventures in Cambridge, Mass. I
believe this is the first time that a
life sciences venture firm has created
such a position. I will be a resource
for the young biotech companies
that the firm has started or invested
in. There are currently more than 40
companies in the portfolio and more
than 45 clinical trials under way. I
will also focus on the biotech start-
ups as they form, especially when
the team has a first-time CEO or
R&D team. While many of the
concepts that form the basis of the
start-ups arise in academia, the firm
also has its own venture laboratory
that generates ideas and compa-
nies. I am excited by this career

opportunity. Even though I have
spent my career in both academia
and industry, this will be my first
time working in the biotech sector.
I am looking forward to being close
to the innovation that forms the
basis of the new companies and the
entrepreneurship of the leader-
ship. Particularly important will be
bringing the voice of the patient
into R&D strategy and enhancing
the interface with academia and
pharmaceutical companies in order
to form effective partnerships. I
will also resume being involved in
some programs at Harvard Medical
School and boards of nonprofit and
professional societies.

“Between the former job and
starting the new one, I took the
summer off — for the first time
since middle school! My wife, Patty,
and I took our daughter, son, their
spouses and all five grandchildren
(the entire Rosenblatt biomass!) to
Iceland. It’s a magical place that I
recommend for a family vacation.
We then ‘unplugged’ by the sea on
Cape Ann in Massachusetts and
then ended the summer with a trip
to the Dolomites and Lake District
in Italy. Batteries recharged, it’s on
to the next phase.”

Mark Brodin writes: “I am in my
33rd year on the faculty at Boston
College Law School, still enjoy-
ing teaching the next generation
of litigators (if there are any, given
the disappearance of jury trials!). I
publish in the areas of evidence, civil
and criminal procedure, employment
discrimination and occasionally
(once) a biography. We have three
grandsons, 4 months to 4% years,
and rely on them when we have
technology issues with our iPhone.”

Jonathan Adelman GSAS’76
reports: “I recently became the
president of the Scholars for Peace in
the Middle East, an anti-BDS group
(combating the boycott, divestment
and sanctions movement in Europe)
that works with faculty in the United
States and abroad. I also write op-
eds, now 98 in the last four years, for
the Huffington Post (blog), Jerusalem
Post (regular monthly columnist),
History News Network, Fox News
and Forbes, among others. 1 am a
professor at the Josef Korbel School
of International Studies, University
of Denver, who spent 11 happy years
at Columbia getting four degrees.”

From Fredric Fastow: “Our
oldest daughter, Ramona, lives in

South Korea, where her husband,
Chad (a career Army officer), is
assigned. Ramona, who graduated
from West Point in 2005, is retired
from the Army and is a mother of
two cute little boys. Our middle
daughter, Héléne, is engaged to be
married in July to Seth Alexander.
Héléne has been working in the
fashion industry and is now easing
into a fashion teaching assignment
at BOCES Long Island. Sara, our
youngest, recently ended a long run
in the classic dance show Jubilee!

at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in Las
Vegas. Sara continues to pick up
dance and convention gigs and has
also been working the Las Vegas
territory for the educational software
and computing company Amplify.

“My wife, Judith, divides her time
between caring for her mom (who
moved into the house next door),
substitute teaching in several Nassau
County school districts and teaching
at Temple Sinai, Roslyn. I work at
the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey. We've moved to
One World Trade Center; we were
de facto evicted from the original
WTC on September 11, 2001. I still
run, bicycle and play guitar.”

‘That’s it for now. But I ask that
just as you finish this column, you sit
down and email me some news. We
are a class community, and it takes
input from many to make this an
interesting read.

1970

Leo G. Kailas

Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt
885 Third Ave., 20th FI.
New York, NY 10022
Ikailas@reitlerlaw.com

I received some fascinating updates,
mostly about books, from a terrific
group of classmates. My friend Dov
Zakheim reported he published

a book on “something completely
different,” a political biography of a
biblical figure: Nehemiah: Statesman
and Sage. Dov offers contemporary
political and military perspectives
on Nehemiah’s career, initially as a
senior official in the Persian govern-
ment and then as governor of the
province of Judea.

David Lehman writes: “The
paperback edition of my book
‘Sinatra’s Century: One Hundred
Notes on the Man and His World was

alumninews

released this past fall. My next book
of poetry, Poems in the Manner Of,
is coming in March. As the title
implies, each poem in the book is

in the style of a different author

or period — from Catullus and Li
Po on through Wordsworth, Keats,
Rimbaud, Rilke, Neruda, Auden, et
al., right up to the present. There’s a
poem in the manner of my Colum-
bia professor Kenneth Koch, as well
as a poem in the manner of a jazz
standard. On another note, I have
been accompanying Alan Ziegler, a
Columbia professor and director of
pedagogy in the Faculty of the Arts,
to Columbia basketball games.”

Michael Aeschliman is
professor of Anglophone culture
at the University of Lugano. He
presented one of the major papers
at a September 2015 conference
at Cambridge University on E.R.
Leavis and it recently was published
as “Three Great Critics: FR. Leavis,
TS. Eliot, and C.S. Lewis” in the
2016 issue of The Literary Criterion.
His essay/review on Eliot, “Beyond
the Language of the Living,” was
published in National Review on
June 13, and his essay, “Trumpery
and Social Darwinism,” appeared on
National Review Online on August
9. He gave an address, “Com-
munication of Sacred Heritage,”
in a doctoral summer school on
cultural tourism and UNESCO
World Heritage Sites in Armeno
(Novara), Italy, on September 8,
and in October gave an address to
faculty and senior students at the
International School of Geneva,
the oldest and largest international
school in Europe. Michael is on The
American School in Switzerland
Foundation Board and the search
committee for a new headmaster for
TASIS; he has been associated with
the school since 1971.

My freshman week roommate,
Professor Samuel Estreicher,
reported that he gave two keynote
addresses at the Ono Academic
College in Israel in July — one at
a conference on equality, “Achiev-
ing Antidiscrimination Objectives
through ‘Safe Harbor’ Rules,” and
one at a conference on integration
of Israeli Arab citizens, “The Great
Domestic Challenge for Israel: Nor-
malization of the Situation of Israeli
Arab Citizens.” Sam’s book Beyond
Elite Law: Access to Civil Justice in
America was published in March.

Another old friend, Dan Feld-

man, says: “Earlier in 2016, my
sixth book, Administrative Law: The
Sources and Limits of Government
Agency Power, was published. After
publishing three books in six years,
I think I need at least a decade off
from book authorship. In June, I had
the pleasure of returning to Beijing
to present a paper on our Inspec-
tor General Systems at the eighth
Sino—United States International
Conference for Public Administra-
tion, followed by a couple of days in
Xi’an to see the terra-cotta warriors,
visit the ancient and thriving Chi-
nese Muslim community there and
sample the superb and unusual food.

“Having taken several courses
as a non-matriculated student at
the CUNY Graduate Center, I am
now officially pursuing a master’s in
philosophy there. Thus, I am both a
professor (of public management)
and a student.”

I hope that you are all as proud
of these distinguished classmates
as I am!

1971

Jim Shaw

139 North 22nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
jes200@columbia.edu

Our 45th reunion was June 2-5.
Plan to attend our 50th-year
reunion in 2021!

CCT editor in chief Alex
Sachare is retiring; it seems fitting
to devote this column to him. We
worked together on the staff of the
Columbia Daily Spectator, where he
became sports editor. And, as class
correspondent, I have worked with
him during his entire tenure at
CCT. I have admired his talent and
humanity always.

Alex writes: “After 18 years and
nine months as editor of Columbia
College Today, | am retiring effective
January 1. It’s time. The last several
years have been challenging, with
my wife Lori’s cancer diagnosis in
2010, five-year battle and passing
in 2015; five major surgeries and
replacements to assorted body parts;
and a heart attack that left me with
a stent and a pile of pills.

“Work has been a blessing, keep-
ing me busy and involved, but it’s
time to slow down and smell what
remains of the roses. I have been
fortunate to have enjoyed four careers

Winter 2016-17 CCT 63

Class Notes

— 10 years as a sports writer at AP,
15 years heading the NBA’ editorial/
publications department and 18-plus
years editing CCT, which has allowed
me the wonderful opportunity to
connect and reconnect with so many
classmates and other Columbians,
plus a freelance career that has seen
me write, edit or contribute to more
than 20 books plus assorted maga-
zines and websites.

“More than any of that, I’m fortu-
nate to have had a true soulmate for
nearly 30 years in Lori, and a daugh-
ter, Deborah BC’14, who has grown
into a remarkable young woman.

“It’s been a great run, and I hope
to continue to contribute to CCT
and other publications on a freelance
basis, so you likely haven't read the
last of me just yet.”

Remember back 50 (fifty!)
Septembers ago, and the feelings we
had, including of adventure, as we
entered Columbia College. We are
still connected.

1972

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Paul S. Appelbaum

39 Claremont Ave., #24
New York, NY 10027
pappel1@aol.com

Every now and then, walking
through the halls at NewYork-
Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia
University Medical Center, I run
into Emilio Carrillo, its president for
community health. Emilio recently
gave in to my importuning and sent
this note: “My love for community
and population health continues. You
may recall the community organiz-
ing work my friend Mariano Rey
and I did in the early 1970s with the
Morningside squatters, across from
the cathedral. My days at Columbia
laid the roadmap for the rest of my
life ... My community-based efforts
have migrated north from Manhat-
tan Valley to Washington Heights-
Inwood, where we established the

NewYork-Presbyterian Regional

64 CCT Winter 2016-17

Health Collaborative. This work
has shown that a poor, Latino
immigrant population can achieve
measurably better health outcomes.
The outcomes were published in the
journal Health Affairs and in 2014 we
received the Association of American
Medical Colleges’ award for out-
standing community service. Last
year I was also proud to be awarded
the American Medical Association’s
Excellence in Medicine Award.”
Emilio precepts medical residents
every Friday afternoon and treats
a small panel of patients at Weill
Cornell, where he is an associate
professor in clinical medicine. Of the
home front, he says, “My family has
grown and fills me each day with joy
and love. My special and darling wife,
Yvette Ortiz, with whom I live in Park
Slope, Brooklyn, is also an internist
and has practiced medicine for close
to 20 years in the front lines in the
South Bronx and is now medical
director at the Charles B. Rangel
Community Health Center in West
Harlem. She is on the faculty of P&S.
“My children are unique, sweet,
talented and doing amazing things.
Yuisa Montafiez BC’94, LAW’98,
who was born when I was a senior
at the College, is a partner at Loeb,
Block & Partners in corporate,
international business and is the
star mom of two amazing children,
Violet and Sebastian. Clarisa is an
accomplished dancer and studies
at Fiorello H. LaGuardia H.S. of
Music Art and Performing Arts.
‘The youngest, Elisa, loves math
and science and plays a mean libero
in her volleyball club. Alejandro
‘Alex’ graduated from Yale and is an
electrical engineer at SpaceX in Los
Angeles. When he was a freshman
he took a class on Latino struggles
in the United States and saw a
picture in the textbook that made
him wonder. He asked me if the guy
in the beard and black beret with
the raised fist and the sign saying
‘the struggle in Viet Nam is the

struggle in our communities’ was me.

I blushed and almost shed a tear.”
Not long ago, I was pleased to see
a LinkedIn invitation from Doug
VanderHoof in my inbox. (Hint:
LinkedIn is great way to stay in touch
with your class correspondent.) For
32 years, Doug has been an indepen-
dent media producer and consultant.
Most recently, he was a full-time pro-
ducer/editor on the CBS news/his-
tory series Through the Decades, hosted

by Bill Kurtis. Doug has produced
videos for litigation, studio visit videos
for artists, video portraits of executives
and even an Emmy-nominated music
video. As he characterizes his career:
“T’ve created thousands of hours of
video to document, to teach, to per-
suade, to entertain — remembering
it’s rude to be boring.”

Larry Boorstein SEAS’78,
BUS’88 retired in April as an
AECOM certified project manager.
“AECOM is the world’s No. 1
ranked engineering firm by revenues
in Engineering News-Record, with
90,000 employees. I earned an MLS.
in civil engineering in 1974, a civil
engineering degree in 1978 and an
M.B.A. in finance in 1988. I was
project manager on projects with
consulting revenues of $6 million and
construction costs of $6.4 billion and
deputy project manager on projects
with revenues of $1.5 million and
construction costs of $7.0 billion. My
40-year career encompassed projects
in 29 countries in the Americas,
Europe, Asia, the Middle East and
Africa. My biography appears in
Whos Who in America, Whos Who in
Finance and Business, Who’ Who in
Science and Engineering and Whos
Who in the World.”

Best wishes for retirement to Larry.

Classmates, share your news by
writing to the addresses at the top
of this column or by submitting a
note through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

1973

Barry Etra

1256 Edmund Park Dr. NE
Atlanta, GA 30306
betra1@bellsouth.net

Bob Sacavage writes in for the
first time “in decades.” After the
College he returned to Pennsylvania
for law school and built a career in
county court as a prosecutor, then
as a judge, until his retirement in
2014. Bob has three daughters and
recently became a grandfather. He
says he “hopes his grandson will be
in the Class of 38 and a member of
the wrestling team.”

Bob writes that Columbia ties
are “with me always;” for the past
35 years he’s hosted a gathering of
Columbians at a mountain retreat in
the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.

That’s all he wrote, fellas. Stroke
em if you've got ‘em, please! Need
more fodder, grandfodders. You
can send in notes to either of the
addresses at the top of the column,
or use CCT’s Class Notes webform,
college.columbia.edu/cct/submit_
class_note.

1974

Fred Bremer

532 W. 111th St.

New York, NY 10025
f.bremer@ml.com

With my daughter, Katie, being a
high school senior, I probably pay

a lot more attention to the college
rankings than most of you. You may
be pleasantly surprised — and proud
— to learn how Columbia has been
assessed against its peers in recently
published reports. Each analysis uses
a different methodology for this
subjective effort. The most widely
publicized is the U.S. News & World
Report listing, which emphasizes
data such as the class rank of appli-
cants, SAT scores and the percent of
applicants accepted. It rates Colum-
bia as No. 5 among “Best Colleges
in National Universities” (tied with
Stanford). Not too bad, but wait
until you see what others say!

Last fall the Wall Street Journal
teamed up with the Times Higher
Education magazine to create their
own rankings of United States
colleges, which included a survey of
100,000 current students to evaluate
how engaged students are with their
studies, their interaction with teach-
ers and their overall satisfaction with
their college experience (among
other criteria). Their conclusion:
Columbia is ranked No. 3 in the
United States — ahead of all of the
other Ivy schools — and No. 15
among all universities in the world!
Oxford and Cambridge, watch out!
We're coming for you!

While reading a recent issue
of Columbia magazine, I saw that
Andrew Burstein was quoted as
saying, “Hamilton’s stock hasn't
really risen” following the public-
ity from the blockbuster Broadway
musical. I was surprised at first, until
I learned that the Louisiana State
University professor is an author-
ity on Thomas Jefferson. Looking
deeper into Andrew’s past reveals
another amazing career transforma-

tion. For 15 years after graduation
from the College, he took part in
Chinese trade, first working for a
Wall Street import firm and later as
an independent consultant helping
US. firms establish relationships
with Chinese factories. After 1990,
Andrew traded Chinese commerce
for academia, earning a Ph.D. in
history from UVA (perhaps where
he became interested in Jefferson —
or was his interest in Jefferson what
led him to UVA?). He spent four
years at Northern Iowa and eight
more at Tulsa. Since 2008 he has
been lecturing and penning many
books while at Louisiana State.

Not sure what it is all about
yet, but serial-entrepreneur Will
Willis (Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.)
has claimed several times to be
retiring, however, he recently sent
a missive where he appears to have
started a new venture. The signature
block contained “President, Plastic
Surgery Innovations,” and the email
was seeking a vote for his “skIN3
anti-aging with Derma riPlex
technology” in the 2016 Global
Beauty Awards. I bet a number of
classmates (and their wives) will be
anxious to hear more details!

Popping up on Facebook was a
note from Jon Mangana (Balti-
more). He says his son, Adam, was
named the chief diversity officer at
Jackson Prep School in Mississippi.
He reports: “Proud of my oldest. He’s
got his work cut out for him, though.
‘The irony is that Jackson Prep was the
first school formed in Mississippi by
the segregationists to countermand
the desegregation of schools.” Jon is an
adjunct professor at the Community
College of Baltimore County and
also works with a group in Baltimore
assisting adults in getting their GEDs
and attending college.

I got word of a trio of grandsons
— all born in September — join-
ing our Class of 74 family. Dr. Burt
Rochelson’s son, David (a lawyer in
Manhattan), gave him Jack Hudson
Rochelson. Burt is the director of
ob/gyn at North Shore University
Hospital and chief of maternal-fetal
medicine at Northwell Health, both
in Manhasset, Long Island.

Jon Cuneo (founding partner
of the Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca
law firm in Washington, D.C.)
tells us that his daughter, Lucy (an
accomplished international wedding
photographer in Charleston, Sic);
gave birth to Rory Sarsfield.

And Scott Kunst (in Ann Arbor,
Mich.) relates that his son, David,
had a son, Benjamin John Kunst.
David lives in San Francisco and is
a manager at the Lyft ride sharing
start-up. Scott is the founder of Old
House Gardens, a retailer of heir-
loom bulbs, and plans to retire this
spring after a 24-year career in the
historic gardening field. What does
he plan to do? “T’'ll finally have time
to return to my own gardens instead
of running a business!”

It is with great sadness that
I report that another one of our
classmates has passed: Ralph
Coti BUS’77, LAW’77 yielded to
complications of a brain tumor.
Ralph was one of the few remain-
ing generalist attorneys working
in Manhattan (he was involved in
everything from real estate to corpo-
rate transactions to trust and estate
work). If you followed his frequent
Facebook postings, you knew he was
a staunch conservative who also had
a love of history, art and literature.
He was a loyal member of the Class
of 74, helping with fundraising
and planning of reunions. Ralph is
survived by his wife, Mary Alice,
and son, Peter.

There you have it: New careers,
new businesses, new grandchildren
and, unfortunately, some sadness. I
guess we need to expect it all as we
enter our 43rd year after graduating
from the College. Be sure to send
in an email about what’s happening
in your life and that of your family.
Your old buddies of almost half a

century want to know!

1975

Randy Nichols

734 S. Linwood Ave.

Baltimore, MD 21224
rcn2day@gmail.com

C24 Gallery was established in New
York in 2011 by Lions Mel Dogan
LAW’78 and Emre Kurttepeli
SEAS’90. C24 is committed to
showing groundbreaking contem-
porary art and provides a platform
for artists who have achieved critical
acclaim in diverse locales. It is rap-
idly growing and last year the gallery
moved to a space in a stunning

new residential building on West

24th Street, just west of its original

location and perfectly positioned to
capitalize on the energy at the heart

adlhumninews

of the Chelsea gallery district. Mel
labels the gallery as his “night job,”
which balances his hectic day job (at
Dogan & Associates, his NYC law
firm) quite nicely.

Mel, we could so have used you
last year when planning and produc-
ing Sam Steinberg 2015 for our
40th reunion.

Mel has two daughters, Melodi
BC’05 (a graduate of New York Law
School and an attorney in NYC)
and Erin (a graduate of Boston
University with a master’s from
Fordham in education, and a teacher
at a private school in Manhattan).
He has enjoyed sailing around Shel-
ter Island for many years.

[Editor's note: See the feature “The
Experts” for tips from Dogan on how
to display artwork in your home. |]

Jim Dolan doesn’t stay in one
place. If he and his wife, Yasmin, are
not on a trip to some exotic locale —

he pointed out to someone that the
much-hated invader Napoleon wasn’t
exactly a Spaniard but to no avail. He
added “Strange grudges, no particular
reasons, just learn to share the damn
Iberian Peninsula, won't you? What

a world, nest pas?” But he also added
that it’s “a beautiful country, funny
language aside.”

We won't even get into the
discussion that he was having with
Fernando Castro about whether,
where, when and why David would
walk on his knees.

The Hon. Albert J. Mrozik has
been appointed a member of the
Newark LGBTQ Community Cen-
ter’s Board of Directors. In May, he
was elected a trustee for the Munici-
pal Court Practice Committee for
the New Jersey State Bar Associa-
tion and in August he attended the
International Association of LGBT
Judges annual meeting. Albert’s

Andrew Burstein "74, a Louisiana State

University professor since 2008, is an authority

on Thomas Fefferson.

even just a walk across the Benjamin
Franklin Bridge in his hometown of
Philadelphia on their way for brats
and beer at Oktoberfest — they’re
dining at a fabulous place or having
an exquisite meal at home. In August,
Jim was in Annapolis, Md., where he
sailed on the schooner America 2.0,
a replica of the original America’s
Cup victor from 1851, which was at
the National Sailing Hall of Fame
and will head to Bermuda for the
America’s Cup in’17. In September,
Jim headed to Nashville (Twang
Town) to represent his digital start up,
Enradius, to his radio kin at the NAB
Radio Show. He says had a great
time reconnecting with radio pals and
helping to drag them kicking and
screaming into the digital age.
Instead of heading south of the
border, this year David Gawarecki
and his wife, Martha Hayes, spent
part of the summer in Oporto, Por-
tugal. David shared that since no one
would speak to him in Spanish, he
was forced to communicate in English
or French. He also reported that they
had just gotten smashed at a sidewalk
café, so who knows what language

he was really speaking? David said

been a member of the association
for 23 years. Also in August, he and
his partner, Michael, attended the
“Meet Me in New Hope” car club
rally of the Lambda Car Club Del-
Val region, but haven't had any other
vacations because “all the money
goes to the house.”

I know what that’s like — I
recently had a concrete floor poured
in my basement and now have to
have new molding installed, the
room painted and all that jazz.

Robert Reilly used a speak-
ing engagement as the impetus
for a family trip to Australia. In
September, he delivered the keynote
address to a joint conference of the
Chartered Accountants of Australia
and New Zealand, held this year in
Melbourne. His wife, Janet BC’75,
daughter Ashley BC’06 and son
Brandon (two of their three adult
children) traveled along. As a part-
ing gift, the institute gave Robert a
Crocodile Dundee-style rabbit fur
hat, apparently quite a style item in
Aussie-land.

Maybe he shouldn't wear it
often at home, at the risk of being
attacked by a PETA person.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 65

Following the conference, the
family flew to Sydney, where Robert
and Janet enjoyed several plays and
operas at the Sydney Opera House.
Ashley visited museums throughout
the trip; the Hellenic Museum of
Melbourne was one of her favorites.
Brandon pursued more athletic
activities, especially enjoying scuba
diving off Manly Beach near Sydney.
After receiving many compliments
following the conference, Janet
mentioned that Robert’s head was
going to swell so much that his new
hat would no longer fit, but his ego
returned to normal size when he was
humbled on the way home. On both
legs of their return flight (Sydney to
Los Angeles to Chicago), the pilot
asked for doctors on board to assist in
a medical emergency. Internist Janet
attended to both distressed passen-
gers. Robert said that seeing his wife
possibly save lives during those two
flights, he was reminded of the rela-
tive importance of having an M.D.
versus a C.P.A. after one’s name.
While he flies frequently he said, “I
have never been on a plane where the
pilot asked for any C.P.A.s on board
to identify themselves and assist in an
accounting emergency.”

You go, Janet!

Robert has been the managing
director of valuation and forensic
consulting firm Willamette Manage-
ment Associates for more than 25
years. Janet and Robert say they
enjoyed seeing so many classmates at
last year’s 40th reunion.

Bob Schneider and his wife,
Regina Mullahy BC’75, spent three
weeks in Texas this summer, visiting
their daughter, Meg, and doting on
their granddaughters while visiting
their son, John Schneider’07, and
his wife, Stephanie Pahler BC’06.
Bob and Regina are empty-nesters
now, with Meg spending her final

year of graduate school as an M.B.A.

candidate at Rice. In September,
they traveled to Green Bay, Wis.,
for a wedding, with the reception

at Lambeau Field. Bob found the
long stretches of open highway in
Wisconsin's rolling hills preferable
to the freeways and high-speed traf-
fic in Houston.

Jason Turner is working on a
national campaign to slow the adop-
tion of state-legalized marijuana. He
says that THC (tetrahydrocannabi-
nol) levels today are on average 10
to 15 times higher than 30 years ago
and that heavy users of marijuana

66 CCT Winter 2016-17

exhibit an eight-point IQ decline by
38, as compared to controls.

Hmm, does that explain why the
stoners of our generation are not
all senile already — pot just wasn’t
as potent back then? My attempt
to add humor aside, Jason believes
that legalized marijuana is extremely
detrimental to students, workers and
society in general.

On the home front, Jason’s twin
boys returned home for the summer
after their freshman college year and
he and his wife, Jennifer, learned they
must book a week in advance in order
to have a family dinner. Always close
to the political scene, Jason recently
said, “What a crazy convention and
election! Even Paul Ryan must look
out in his primary for an ambush
from an unknown political stalker.
I’m going back into my hole!”

I’m ready to join him. Whatever
the outcome, by the time you read this
the election will be over — hooray!

Good travels and new ventures
— how exciting! Let me hear from
more of you, classmates, and I'll
share whatever you send.

1976

Ken Howitt

1114 Hudson St., Apt. 8
Hoboken, N.J. 07030
kenhowitt76@gmail.com

On October 8, a group of CC’76ers
attended the Columbia Alumni
Association Alumni Leaders
Gala, where Mozelle Thompson
SIPA’79, LAW’81 was honored as
one of 10 alumni to receive the 2016
Alumni Medal. Mozelle also has a
graduate degree from Princeton (a
small New Jersey university).
Mozelle has served on our
Reunion Committees for many
years and is a tireless volunteer for
Columbia in many areas. He always
has time and a willingness to share
his caring, knowledge and experience.
He is a member of the Columbia
College Board of Visitors and also
serves on the Dean's Technology
Advisory Committee at SIPA.
Mozelle received a John Jay
Award for distinguished professional
achievement in 2014. His business
career crosses the United States,
from New York and Washington,
D.C., to Silicon Valley — with
consulting clients for his business
situated many places in between.

Joining me at the gala were
Dan Gottlieb, Mark Abbott, Ken
Tamashiro and Rob Erlanger.

I have attended Alumni Leaders
Weekend for a number of years;
this year was the 12th edition. The
weekend began with a Friday eve-
ning reception at Casa Italiana. The
Saturday schedule included morning
and afternoon discussion sessions
for the attendees, who were alumni
leaders from across the University
and the world. I attended a panel
discussion, led by Mozelle, about
leadership in volunteer organiza-
tions and then, in the afternoon,

I attended an interesting student
leader panel about current student
organizational challenges.

In addition to the Saturday
night gala, another highlight for me
was the Saturday luncheon, which
featured a conversation between
President Lee C. Bollinger and
University Trustees Chair Jonathan
Schiller’69, LAW’73. Their discus-
sion touched on the University
expansion and, most interestingly,
the future of university education.

Please send updates to kenhowitt76
@gmail.com or through CC7’s
Class Notes webform, college.
columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_
note. Talk about career, family,
children, grandchildren or memo-
ries. All stories are welcome! Also,
if you are making a trip to NYC,
please get in touch. Hoboken is
only an eight-minute boat ride
from Manhattan; it would be
great to see all of you!

1977

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834
Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

David Gorman

111 Regal Dr.
DeKalb, IL 60115
dgorman@niu.edu

Well, it’s coming. Our 40th class
reunion is scheduled for Thursday,
June 1-Sunday, June 4. It goes with-
out saying that it would be great if as
many members of our class as possi-

ble could make it. I attended the 30th,
not really knowing what to expect,

and was pleasantly surprised. You cer-
tainly won't regret making the effort.
More information, I expect, will come
in the Spring issue’s column but for
the moment you might consider
saving the date. As youre probably
starting to notice — as people do who
are our age (ahem) — time is picking
up speed. Really picking up speed. So
June 1 is practically tomorrow.

As it seems with all things
Columbia, a committee has been
formed. I know that because I’m on
it. As of September, the Reunion
Committee also includes Efrain
Agosto, Craig Brod, Mark Gold-
berger, Bill Gray, Jon Lukomnik,
Brent Rosenthal and Dan Sang.
New recruits are most welcome.

The reunion has been on the mind
of Gairy Hall: “I recently met up with
old friends and fraternity brothers at
the Barnard-Columbia Jam, hosted
by the Black Alumni Council, on
Barnard’s campus. I’m currently at the
Atlanta Veterans Affairs regional office;
I’ve been in Atlanta for ages now with
my wife and daughter, an Auburn grad.
My son, Gairy Hall Jr.’11, BUS'16, is
the CCYA president. I can’t believe
that next year is the 40th reunion —
are we getting young or what?”

Note: CCYA stands for Colum-
bia College Young Alumni. I don’t
suppose Gairy Jr. could join our
Reunion Committee?

T also heard from Simon Luk, who
is partner and chair of Asian Practice
at Winston & Strawn, an inter-
national law firm. He has recently
published a book, Private Mergers
and Acquisitions in Hong Kong, as well
as an enlarged edition of a previous
book, Private Equity in Hong Kong
and China, both with LexisNexis.

Get excited for Reunion Week-
end 2017 and send me an update in
the meantime! You can use either
of the addresses at the top of this
column or submit a note through
CCT's Class Notes webform, college.

columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

1978

Matthew Nemerson

35 Huntington St.

New Haven, CT 06511
matthewnemerson@gmail.com

By the time you read this our new
President will be well into the pro-

cess of picking his new Cabinet and
I am hopeful that a few sensible but
right-leaning folks from the class or
from Columbia will be connected to
the administration as conservative
New Yorkers. We certainly learned
in CC and Hum that Hobbes had to
be considered along with Locke.

I will say that, given the role
the Russians seemed to have
played behind the scenes, I am a
little disappointed that none of our
38-year inventory of class columns
and communications have been
featured in any WikiLeaks. Such a
breach would at least have been a
sign of respect for all of you and the
powerful connections and ideas you
have wielded for the last third of a
century as disconnected elites.

Still, in memory of Hillary and
what almost was, please remember
that in our emails the capital letter
“C” after a name or phrase still only
refers to “who owns New York...”
and not CLASSI ... oh never mind.

What a new world ... New York
now has to share even baseball glory
with Chicago and when we pass alma
mater driving down the West Side
Highway we now have a stretch of road
adopted by the President ... go figure.

Trying to bring art and perspec-
tive to the insanity around us, Paul
Phillips, the music guy at Brown
in Providence, R.I., noted that in
October “the Rhode Island College
Symphony Orchestra premiered
Brass Knuckles, my latest composi-
tion. Written in August and sub-
titled ‘Pugilistic Prelude in Rondo
Form for Large Orchestra,’ it’s a
topical work inspired by the bare-
fisted brawling of the 2016 election.

“Earlier this year, Naxos Records
released two recordings I conducted
and produced with the Brown
University Orchestra: Manhattan
Intermezzo, with pianist Jeffrey
Biegel; and Anthony Burgess:
Orchestral Music. Both recordings
have received excellent reviews, with
Manhattan Intermezzo topping the
classical charts in March as the best-
selling Naxos CD worldwide.”

Congratulations, Paul, on your
success. I’m not sure if that means a
gold record but it sounds impressive.

Paul says that his apartment at
504 W. 110th St. was his favorite;
he lived there for eight years after
school as well.

Another talented classmate is
Henry Aronson, who writes: “Love-
less Texas, the musical I wrote with

my wife, Cailin Heffernan, was
given a successful reading in May
by Boomerang Theatre Company,
which will be mounting a full
production in NYC for fall 2017.
Something to consider as side trip
perhaps for Reunion Weekend 2018
— celebrating our 40th!”

Staying in the arts and heading
out to the “left coast,” Peter Samis is
changing his role out west: “I’ve scaled
back to part-time at the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, after passing
the torch of interpretive media to the
capable hands of the next generation
and participating in the opening of
SFMOMAs expansion.

“After five years of research and
writing with my fellow author, Mimi
Michaelson, our book, Creating the
Visitor-Centered Museum, was sched-
uled to be released the day after
Thanksgiving! It’s been a long time
coming. I see this as the capstone to
my museum career.

“Next I'll be heading to Beijing
with a league of extraordinary
American art museum educators to
meet with our Chinese counter-
parts and will give a keynote at
that gathering. Beyond all that, I’m
looking forward to devoting some of
my newfound free time — when I
find it! — to extending the research
I began when I was an undergrad
at Columbia, at Berkeley and in
Paris junior year. It centers on
world views; how they develop and
shape our lives. There might just be
another book there!”

By the way, Peter’s Columbia
housing inspiration for these great
museums was 629 Furnald!

Joseph Schachner, who works
at Teledyne LeCroy, the maker of
complex scientific equipment, noted
in his message to your humble scribe
the shocking reality that many of
us have recently experienced as he
turned 60: “I became a grandpa!”

The question of the column this
time was “What was your favorite
place where you lived while at
Columbia?” and Joe said in his case
it was Beit Ephraim (also called “the
Bayit,” which means “the house”).

Steve Zaris, of McCarthy Dufty
in Park Ridge, IIl., has family news:
“Tm excited to report that my son,
John Zaris’20, resides on 8 John Jay.
Son Nick is a sophomore at Denison
and daughter Penelope is a high
school sophomore. This year marks
35 years practicing law in Chicago.
Our common trade has recently

adlumninews

served to put me back in touch with
Dave Margules, which has been a
great pleasure. My favorite place to
live was 13 Carman, of course.”

To Steve and all you Carman
fans out there — that is true
old-school Columbia!

A bit farther ahead on the multi-
generation plan is Jeffrey Moerdler,
of Mintz Levin, who reports: “This
has been a big year for the Moerdler
family! Our son, Eric GSAPP’14,
married Yaffa Jarashow. His twin,
Jonathan, and Jonathan's wife, Kayla
Frielich Moerdler BC’13, had our
first grandchild, Zachary. Finally, our
son, Scott, and Scott’s wife, Shira
Konski, had our second grandchild,
Celia Rose.”

And while I still see cute little
18-year olds with beanies when my
mental Facebook kicks into gear about
all of you, comments like “Nothing
new to report except that my grand-
son is 8 months old and is the cutest
baby ever!” from Marvin Siegfried
put it all back into harsh perspective!

Peter Triandafillou works at the
Huber Resources Corp. in Orono,
Maine, and notes that he is still a
professional forester — probably one
of very few who were in our (or any
other) class at Columbia. The irony
is he really is a city boy and was a
commuter when he was at school.

At the other end of the envi-
ronmental world (just kidding) is
Thomas Reuter at General Electric
in the authentic original GE town
of Schenectady, N.Y. Tom notes that
his favorite room at school was on
4 Furnald, which he says had a “just
barely river view.”

A snippet of river adds $1 million
to any coop on Riverside Drive, so
cherish those memories, Tom.

Tom believes his room is now the
women’s bathroom. | can't believe all
bathrooms on campus aren't unisex
and all-gender now ...

Another lawyer, Paul Feldman,
of Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth in
Arlington, Va., writes to say that the
only place to live on campus in the
day was Hartley!

And finally, at least someone is
staying up late making sure we are all
safe and that would be Jeff Canfield
of the Department of Defense, who
says he is “moving to a new position
as deputy director of the Middle
East and Africa regional center.”
(Which sounds right out of Home-
land Season 6.) Jeft’s favorite digs
near campus was “541 W. 113th St.,

the best off-campus CU apartment
living experience.”

Please send me a present of more
notes for the New Year!

Robert Klapper

8737 Beverly Blvd., Ste 303
Los Angeles, CA 90048
robertklappermd@aol.com

James Gershfield reports on his
recent work with the Alumni Repre-
sentative Committee (ARC), which
he joined last year: “I interviewed a
couple of College applicants. It was a
great experience. I am looking forward
to participating again this year and
interviewing more students than I did
last year. ARC can use all the help it
can get (most applicants are not inter-
viewed due to a dearth of interview-
ers). I encourage fellow alumni to join
the committee and get involved.

“Tm a senior software engineer at
Thomson Reuters in midtown Man-
hattan working on Big Data projects.
It’s been 37 years since I graduated
from the College as a computing
science major, and I have worked in
the computer software field since
then. It is amazing how the field has
developed, in terms of software tools
and technologies, computing theory
and algorithms. I am especially inter-
ested in connecting with others who
majored in computing science at the
College in the 1970s and 1980s and
finding out how their careers have
developed through the years. Please
contact Robert for my email address
if you would like to get in touch.”

After a seven-year stint as a head
of unit in the European Com-
mission’s Directorate-General for
‘Translation, based in Brussels, in
2010 Xavier Huguet became a
senior translator and reviser. In
January 2015, Huguet married
Franco-Irinidadian choreographer
Nadine Ganase.

Ethan Heisler updates us with
the news that he “retired from
Citigroup on May 27 after 22 years
and launched a consultancy under
the banner “The Bank Treasury
Newsletter.’ I am currently seeking
board seats on banks.”

Robert C. Klapper: Without
stating the obvious, your belly is
slightly bigger, your hair is no longer
dark and there is a solar panel on top

of your head. Mother Nature is all

Winter 2016-17 CCT 67

around us, but it is Father Time who
is inside us. We are aging. We are
closer to the end than the beginning.
These are the times where you get
to reflect on the top 10 moments of
your life — perhaps one of them was
crossing Broadway in the middle of
the night, experiencing the best of
Barnard; the birth of your children;
or marriage. From a food perspective,
at this point many of us have traveled
to the places we just read about while
taking art history and making that
class come to life. The top 10 meals
of all time is a thought that I enjoy
contemplating, which brings me to
my Columbia memory for this issue.

Here is a list that perhaps some
of you share: 1. Biting into a slice of
eggplant pizza at V&T, where the
chewiness of the dough is like the
greatest bialy you've ever eaten.
2. Taking a bite of a croissant from
The Hungarian Pastry Shop, where
I have added to the bite additional
butter and apricot jam for the
sweetest and most flavorful culinary
experience, washed down with the
greatest pre-Starbucks cappuccino
I've ever had. 3. Sitting on Low Steps
in the springtime, unwrapping the
white paper that contains my Mama
Joy’s roast beef hero. I didn’t know
roast beef could taste so buttery.

Four years in the life of a
60-year-old is about 5 percent of the
time we've been on this planet, but
for some reason many of those top
10 food moments still come from
Morningside Heights.

Hope this triggers some of your
memories. Roar, lion, roar!

1980

Michael C. Brown
London Terrace Towers
410 W. 24th St., Apt. 18F
New York, NY 10011
mcbcu80@yahoo.com

Winter is a wonderful time to be in
NYC. The holidays seem to bring out
the best in people, and we are blessed
with a great family and friends.

I had the honor of attending a
memorial service for William V.
Campbell 62, TC’64 on campus on
September 16. With heartfelt words
by classmates, friends and trustees,
“Coach” had a tremendous sendoff.
‘The Class of 80 was also represented
by Mario Biaggi, Shawn FitzGerald,
Brian O’Hagan and A.J. Sabatelle,

68 CCT Winter 2016-17

all of whom had the good fortune

to have played for Coach and were
touched by his influence through the
years. He will be sorely missed by me
and all of the Columbia family.

‘The financial services industry
held its annual charity dinner, and
I ran into Charles LaRocca. He is
the chief investment officer at LCJ
Associates, a financial planning and
wealth management firm. Charlie
lives in the Dyker Heights section
of Brooklyn with his wife, Theresa,
and their two children.

On October 20, the Colum-
bia University Athletics Hall of
Fame inducted a new class, which
included former baseball coach Paul
Fernandes. Eric Blattman, Shawn
FitzGerald and I were honored to
be among some of the all-time great
athletes, as well as coach Paul, who is
doing well and spends time in South
Florida near his grandchildren.

It was great to see many of you at
Homecoming on October 22, where
the day was highlighted with a come-
from-behind victory. Football is
challenging but there are some bright
spots in the recent recruiting class.

Congratulations to Joe Ciulla
on the marriage of his daughter,
Brittany, to Matthew Mitchell. The
newlyweds will live in San Diego.

Many of us celebrated our 40th-
year high school reunions this year.
It never ceases to amaze me how
you can go so long without seeing
childhood friends and you pick up
right where you left off.

Best wishes on a happy and
healthy holiday season, and please
write: mcbcu80@yahoo.com.

1981

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

CCT thanks Mike Kinsella for

his two years of service as a class
correspondent. If you are interested
in taking over the CC’81 Class
Notes reins, please reach out to cct@
columbia.edu. Being a class corre-
spondent is a great way to stay con-
nected with the College and with
classmates. In the interim, while
we search for a new correspondent,
please send your updates to cct@
columbia.edu.

Oscar Shamamian GSAPP’85
is closing in on 30 years as a
founding partner of Ferguson &
Shamamian Architects, which is
widely recognized for traditional
and classical residential design. He
writes, “Walking past Low Library
every day, I couldn't help but be
inspired by classical forms, propor-
tion and detail.”

Oscar is currently at work on
architectural projects in Los Angeles,
Aspen and Martha’s Vineyard, as well
as in the Bahamas and Canada. A
monograph of his firm’s work, New
Traditional Architecture: Ferguson
& Shamamian Architects: City and
Country Residences was published in
2011 and he is hard at work on Vol. II.
Oscar resides in New York City with
his wife and two daughters.

Richard W. Hayes writes that he
received his fifth fellowship to the
MacDowell Colony and his second
fellowship to Yaddo, where he is
writing a book, Housing New York:
The Recent Past. His research was
funded by a grant from the New York
State Council on the Arts (www.
clarehall.cam.ac.uk/news/23-08-
2016/richard-hayes-awarded-nysca-
grant). He was also named a life
member of Clare Hall, Cambridge.

From Enrique Josephs: “My son,
Enrique Jr., has been blessed with the
position of narrator for Showtime’s
weekly Inside the NFL. EJ has been a
producer for NFL Films and was the
first to narrate the New York Giants’
highlights since Giants Hall of
Famer Frank Gifford started doing it
40 years ago. EJ has narrated the Jets,
Cowboys and Lions highlights and
the popular Top 100 Players of 2016
countdown (seen by 25 million view-
ers weekly). He wrote, directed and
produced the Colts’ highlight piece,
Next Man Up. His first major project
was the voiceover of NFL Presents:
Super Bowl 50. He accomplished all
of these projects since his start with
the company in December 2015.”

From Joshua Friedman: “My
firm, Friedman & Houlding, is work-
ing on an interesting case. We repre-
sent a class of women truck drivers
who have been sexually harassed or
assaulted working at a long haul firm.
I thought my classmates might be
interested in reading about the prob-
lems women face in non-traditional
employment. There is a good article
on the problem, published in a new,
online magazine, Mary Review:
maryreview.com/trucking.”

Seth Haberman reports: “I sold
my latest company to Comcast and
now have a job for the first time in
30 years.”

Thanks to all who wrote in. Have
a great start to 2017!

1982

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Andrew Weisman

81S. Garfield St.
Denver, CO 80209
weisman@comcast.net

Greetings, gentlemen. As I write
this, autumn closes in and I have
completed my preparations for the
election. I have duly registered to
vote — as I’m sure you all have

— and I will not allow Francis
Underwood to miss out on a second
term. As for the real election, I leave
that to the rest of you.

Checking in this quarter, for the
first time, is the esteemed doctor Bob
Diamond. I must admit that I am
impressed with Bob’s accomplish-
ments, but more so with his daughter
Ruth ’20. As many of you may have
heard, The Wall Street Journal and The
New York Times recently released their

college rankings. Accordingly, the
University came in third nationally
and at the top of the heap in the Ivies!
It’s now statistically impossible to
gain admission to the College, so I’m
guessing Ruth is an exceptional young
lady! Bob wrote that he is “happy to
report Ruth is ‘carrying the torch.”
Bob’s friends, family and col-
leagues have noticed he has acquired
a shade of green from envy over
Ruth’s dorm room — a campus-side
single in Furnald. For those of you
not aware, the refurbished Furnald
(at least they left the lobby intact!)
is now a first-year dorm. Even with
a great housing lottery number,
the best Bob could get as a senior
was a street-side single in Furnald.
Times do change, although as Bob
notes, “The campus still mostly looks
identical. If I blinked, I could be
back in 1978.”

Bob is a physician-scientist/phar-
maceutical executive, lives in subur-
ban Philadelphia (Penn Valley, Pa.)
with his wife, Martha Ortiz (Harvard
83), and their other potential Lion,
Ethan (14). Bob can be contacted at
bobdiamondmd@gmail.com.”

Thanks for checking in, Bob!

On a personal note, yours truly
helped to host the annual Great
Teacher Awards ceremony at
Low Rotunda, held on June 4 this
year and given by the Society of
Columbia Graduates. The event
coincides with All-Class Reunion
(formerly known as Dean's Day).
For those of you who are unfamiliar
with the society, it is Columbia’s
oldest alumni-run organization. It’s
been around since 1909 and has
as its primary mission to celebrate
great undergraduate teaching at the
College and Engineering. This year
marked the 68th annual presenta-
tion of the award. The 2016 winners
were Professor Adam Cannon from
SEAS and Professor Julie Crawford
from the College, both exceptionally
talented teachers! Yours truly is cur-
rently president of the society.

I have two photos from the event.
One, here in the magazine, features
fellow society Board of Directors
member David Filosa and I helping
to lead the celebration’s attendees in
the singing of Sans Souci. Another,
which you can see at college.
columbia.edu/cct in the Class Notes
section for this issue, features Can-
non and Crawford with fellow board
member Glenn Silbert SEAS’75,
PS’79 and me.

On a happy related note, Michael
McCarthy’83 and Alex Moon were

DAVID DINI SIPA’14

both admitted to the society for
their outstanding commitment to
the College.

Let’s keep those notes coming in!
Send them to the addresses at the
top of this column or through CC7’s
Class Notes webform, college.

columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

1983

Roy Pomerantz
Babyking/Petking
182-20 Liberty Ave.
Jamaica, NY 11412
bkroy@msn.com

On August 29, Dean James J. Valen-
tini welcomed the Class of 2020 at
Convocation. He gave the following
inspirational speech: “I am sure a lot
of people have congratulated you on
your admission to Columbia. I will
also, but not just for the achieve-
ment. Rather, I am congratulating
you on your good fortune in being
presented with an opportunity —
an Opportunity to profit from and
contribute to the special experi-
ence that a Columbia education
offers. That special experience is
fundamentally an endeavor to find
knowledge, to develop understand-
ing, and to gain insight. To engage
in finding something, the first

step is to accept that you do NOT
already have it. We admitted you
NOT because we thought you had
mastered your knowledge, under-
standing and insight, but because
we thought you were the applicants
best able to develop that knowledge,
understanding and insight here.

On June 4, during Reunion Weekend 2016, the Society of Columbia
Graduates awarded the 68th annual Great Teacher Awards to Engineering
Professor Adam Cannon and College Professor Julie Crawford. David
Filosa ’82 (left) and Andrew Weisman ’82 led attendees in the singing of

“Sans Souci” at the ceremony.

alumninews

And, equally important, we thought
you were the applicants best able to
help others develop their knowledge,
understanding and insight at the
same time. Essential to your success
in this endeavor will be learning
perspectives and ideas that are
different from your own — perspec-
tives and ideas that may challenge
you, perspectives and ideas that my
cause you to question equally your
own beliefs and those of others.
‘There is a method that can guide
you on how to do this. It is called
‘Beginner’s Mind.’

“To have ‘Beginner’s Mind’
means engaging with the world-the
world of ideas and the world of
people-without preconceptions, with
an openness to consider all opinions,
all ideas, all possibilities. Shunrya
Suzuki writes, ‘In the Beginner’s
Mind there are many possibilities; in
the expert’s mind there are few.’ The
‘expert’ Suzuki refers to is someone
who is convinced that he or she
already knows and understands,
someone who believes he or she
already has all the necessary insight
— someone who thinks nothing
more need be considered. Being
that kind of expert negates all the
opportunity of being at Columbia.
Beginner’s Mind is important in
your academic work, which is why I
have presented it in the first lecture
of every chemistry course I have
taught for many years, and now
at Convocation for several years.
Beginner’s Mind is the prerequisite
for scientific discovery. It is the
prerequisite for all intellectual dis-
covery. It is at the heart of the Core
Curriculum, the central component
of a Columbia College educa-
tion, which many of you will begin
tomorrow with your first Literature
Humanities class. Beginner's Mind
is the essence of what it means to be
a thinking person. And our world
needs thinking people — especially
today, when there are so many
unwavering opinions and so little
understanding.”

Jon Ross: “When a natural
disaster strikes somewhere in the
world, like the recent earthquakes
in Italy and in Myanmar, people
often ask, ‘What can I do to help?
Here at Micro-Aid, we have the
answer: Rebuild people’s homes
and get them back to their normal
lives! I am happy to report that the
Micro-Aid house for our beneficiary
family in Nepal is complete. The

Balram family lost their home in the
Gorkha earthquake in April 2015.
While the Nepalese government has
not rebuilt a single home, and has
made it almost impossible for the
other big NGOs to help, Micro-Aid
has provided a permanent, comfort-
able and safe home for this family
for generations to come.”

Gideon Besson: “I live in North
Carolina and have been in private
medical practice since 1997, special-
izing in pulmonary disease, internal
medicine and sleep disorders. Two
kids and a dog. I keep in close touch
with a few classmates.”

Elliot Quint: “Roy, thank you for
the good work you do as CCT’s CC’83
point man. No doubt it is difficult to
get anything out of some of the more
reclusive classmates, like me.

“My wife, Janice, and I retired to
Laguna Beach, Calif., three years
ago. Though we miss Boston, we
have enjoyed meeting people and
creating a community for ourselves.
We have even attended a few CAA
of SoCal events; there is an active
group here. During the past few
years I have spent time trying to
raise funds, and more importantly
awareness, for suicide prevention.
My daughter, Rebecca, my only
child, took her own life in 2010.
Since then I have supported The
Samaritans and the American Foun-
dation for Suicide Prevention, most
recently walking with thousands of
others through the night in the Out
of the Darkness Walk.

“T remain close to Sam Park
SEAS’83 and have had sporadic
but really great meet-ups with a few
other classmates in Chicago and
elsewhere the past couple of years.”

Wayne Allyn Root: “The reality
TV show I created, Las Vegas Law,
was recently renewed by Investi-
gation Discovery for 2017.1 am
creator and executive producer. I
have a new reality TV show on the

way, with the pilot filmed recently,
about rookie police officers on the
streets of Las Vegas. I am co-creator
and executive producer. My other
TV show, Ghost Adventures, is still
the No. 1 highest-rated show on
Travel Channel for the 12th straight
season. I am producer.

“My radio show, WAR Now with
Wayne Allyn Root, replaced Mark
Levin in the afternoon drive time
slot in Las Vegas (3-6 p.m. daily).
It’s quite an honor to be the guy two
million Las Vegans listen to on their

Winter 2016-17 CCT 69

DAVID POMERANTZ

Class Notes

way home from work. I was recently
given the premier political column
in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the
largest newspaper in the state of
Nevada. My column appears twice
per week. The newspaper calls me
“The Conservative Voice of Nevada.

Ed Joyce: “So how is it, you
ask, that my wife, Linda Joyce

”

BC’83, and I (and our amazing
eight teammates) will take 10 days
off from our crazy work schedules,
fly nearly 6,000 miles to Israel
and cycle in the five-day, 300-mile
Wheels of Love bike ride for ALYN
Hospital? After you watch this
amazing two-minute video, you
will understand, how can we not?:
youtube.com/watch?v=fr1U92-
bOS5s&feature=youtu.be.

“Our journey began on Novem-
ber 6. The wonderful Jewish, Arab
and Christian children of ALYN
Hospital thank all of you who will
graciously support Linda, me and
our team (Grumpy Roadsters) in
this incredible, heartfelt endeavor
(wolusa.org/goto/grumpyroadsters).
Wishing a Shana Tova (‘Happy
New Year’) to each of you and
your families!”

Kevin Berkowitz: “I live in Thessa-
loniki, Greece, with my family, though
[as I write this] I am in the United
States for a few months. Greeks like
to enjoy the basic human pleasures

of life despite what goes on around

them. Don’t you remember that from
your Contemporary Civilization and
Literature Humanities courses? What,
you didn’t read those books? Well,
never mind. After almost 14 years in
Southeast Europe and Greece, I have
a unique and detailed view of the
crises within the European Union.
Like any large-animal veterinarian
will tell you, the best way to determine
a horse’s health is not by looking at

its teeth, but by examining it from the
rear end. Problems that are not appar-
ent at the horse’s mouth in Brussels

or Luxembourg are much more clear
at the rear end, in Greece. That is why
most Greeks are not surprised by or
disapproving of the so-called Brexit
vote. Who would not jump from a
sinking ship, or one that is structur-
ally failing? For details and analyses
on these questions, my fellow alumni
can contact me via email. The present
situation involving the E.U., Greece
and others is related to Contemporary
Civilization and Lit Hum courses.
Remember your reading of Homer’s
Odyssey and other books: What were
the praiseworthy traits of Odysseus
and other heroes? Is there an Ameri-
can character who embodies those
same traits? Yes — Bugs Bunny. Now
would you admit Bugs Bunny and his
nation into your political and currency
union? If you did, how wise would
you be? How long do you think your
union would last?”

Columbia’s Homecoming win against Dartmouth on October 22 was a
treat for longtime Lions football fans. In the stands were, back row: Steve
Coleman ’83 and Brian Krisberg ’81; middle row: Steve Barcan ’63 and Lee
Lowenfish ’63; standing, at left: Roy Pomerantz ’83, and front row: Stanley

Mandel ’61 and Barry Mandel ’88.

70 CCT Winter 2016-17

Kevin Chapman has published
his second novel. A Legacy of One is
the story of fictional Sen. Jonathan
Prescott III’93, whose destiny and
political future reaches a critical
crossroads after Jonathan attends the
celebration of his 20th Columbia
College class reunion. A substantial
portion of the story takes place at
Columbia during Jonathan's college
years, where his experiences and
friends influence the politician he
will become. Columbia alumni will
recognize the setting and many of
the experiences, and I hope will
relate to the personal journey that
is Jonathan’s life. The book is avail-
able in trade paperback and Kindle
ebook formats from Amazon.
Search for Kevin G. Chapman or
visit Kevin’s author page at amazon.
com/Kevin-G.-Chapman/e/
BOOJ1GJZNM. Kevin says he would
love it if classmates would write
reviews on Amazon. Don't worry, no
real secrets are revealed and all the
names have been changed to protect
the innocent among us.

George Wilson attended
Columbia Alumni Leaders Weekend
in early October. He spent time with
David Filosa’82, Donna MacPhee
°89, Leslie Zahm ’99 and Steven
Kane ’80, LAW’83. I also attended
and sat with Ed Joyce and Ken
Howitt’76 at the luncheon. I also
spoke briefly with Andrew Barth
BUS’85. Andrew is a University
trustee, chair of Capital Guardian
Trust Co. and a director of Capital
Group International. He com-
peted for four years on Columbia’s
wrestling team, was part of three
Ivy-League Championship teams
and was named an All-Ivy wrestler.
In 2011, he received a John Jay
Award for distinguished professional
achievement from the College.

George, Gary McCready, Kevin
Chapman and I participated in a
Columbia College Alumni Asso-
ciation Board of Directors Serve
Committee call. The Serve Commit-
tee exists to determine appropriate
thanks for all College volunteers
based on volunteer roles. This year,
we are focused on thanking Alumni
Representative Committee volunteers.
Only 30 percent of applicants to
Columbia are interviewed by alumni
through ARC, which puts us far
behind our peer institutions. Anyone
who is interested in doing interviews
this year should contact me. The yield
is higher for admitted students who

are interviewed. Please volunteer for
this important committee.

Mark Kerman SEAS’83, BUS’87
is assistant VP at Columbia Facilities
in charge of residential and com-
mercial operations. He oversees eight
million sq. ft. of residential space. As a
student, Mark was president of ZBT
Interfraternity Council. He and his
wife live near Columbia. Their daugh-
ter, Emily’19, was a graduate of the
first class of the Columbia Secondary
School for Math, Science & Engi-
neering. Mark's other daughter, Jenna,
is a senior at this high school.

Mark is in touch with Frank Kar-
picki, Joe Mataloni, Glen Meyers
84 and Kurt Lundgren (Columbia
baseball legend). Kurt is tied for third
in Columbia career wins (18) and is
first in strikeouts (270). After gradu-
ating from Columbia, Kurt pitched
in the Mets’ minor league system.
He also pitched for various semi-pro
leagues. He spent five years in the
Mets organization, the last three for
Class AA Jackson in Mississippi.
His best year was 1985, when he
went 8-4 with a 3.21 ERA to earn
“Pitcher of the Year” honors for the
Jackson Mets. From the Nanuet H.S.
Hall of Fame link: “My time in the
minors was awesome. Most of the
stars on the Mets roster through
the ’80s came up with me or I with
them,’ Kurt says, citing players like
Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden,
Lenny Dykstra, Dave Magadan,
Kevin Elster, Randy Myers and Rick
Aguilera, the latter two being his
roommates at various times.”

Unfortunately, after rotator cuff
surgery in 1986, Kurt’s fastball
plummeted from the low 90-mph
range to the low 80s. Kurt is an
attorney and partner in Thwaites &
Lundgren, a commercial litigation
firm in Elmsford, N.Y. He lives in
Nanuet with his wife, Teresa, and
sons, Christopher and Alec.

Looking forward to seeing you
at some Columbia events in the

New Year!

1984

Dennis Klainberg

Berklay Cargo Worldwide
14 Bond St., Ste 233
Great Neck, NY 11021
dennis@berklay.com

Super sleuth Philip Segal has written
a new book, The Art of Fact Investiga-

tion: Creative Thinking in the Age of
Information Overload. He says, “’'m

a lawyer with a small firm that does
fact-finding, mostly for other lawyers.
I wrote the book because of the mis-
conception that with a person's Social
Security number and a few databases,
it’s easy to find out lots of information
about an individual. If that were true,
our clients would get those databases
and they wouldn't need us. Investiga-
tion is as much an art as it is a science.
Instead of logical deduction, a good
fact finder needs to use intuition and
creativity, as nobody has the time or
the budget to look everywhere. The
book is aimed at lawyers, journalists

(I was one for 19 years before going
to law school) or anyone else who is
faced with a fact-finding problem and
asks, ‘Where do I start?”

Mazel Tov, Bruce Skyer! “I’m
happy to say that I’ve joined the
United Synagogue of Conserva-
tive Judaism as its chief financial
and operations officer. USCJ is the
umbrella organization for approxi-
mately 600 conservative congrega-
tions in North America. Interestingly,
my journey through the nonprofit
sector began at my own synagogue,
so it is personally meaningful to have
an impact on an organization so vital
to American Jewry.”

Lapsed Great Necker David
Lewinter is having a banner year.
“Life is great. My wife, Linda BC’85,
LAW’88 (née Friedman) and I have
three wonderful kids. My eldest,
Rebecca, is married and works in
PR for Havas. Ben’16 works for
Accenture as a management consul-
tant in the digital media group. My
youngest, Jessica, began at Maryland.
I retired from law (SVP, general
counsel of Dun & Bradstreet) in
2008. A few years later I started my
wealth management firm, Lewinter
Wealth Advisors. The firm has been
growing quite rapidly and I love the
work. The firm was originally set up
as a pro bono exercise to help young
couples get off on the right track
financially in life but has morphed
into a for-profit venture.”

From Steven Waldman —
journalist and entrepreneur, who
in 1999 founded Beliefnet.com
(which became the Internet’s largest
multi-faith spirituality website) —
now comes LifePosts. As stated on
the website: “LifePosts’ mission is
to ensure that every person's life
story can be beautifully told, vividly

celebrated, and preserved.”

From Class President Larry
Kane, by day a top-notch attorney,
by night a wrestling coach to
disadvantaged youth in Northern
California and at all times a dutiful
and super-proud father: “Iwo of my
daughters, Charlotte (12) and Cait-
lin (10), and a few of their friends
have organized the First Annual
Noe Valley Girls Film Festival. See
this nice article about the festival in
a June issue of Time For Kids maga-
zine: timeforkids.com/news/calling-
female-filmmakers/432216

Congratulations to Alfredo
Brillembourg Sr., Pravin Dugel
and Paul Schwarzbaum, whose
children, Alfredo, Tara and Ezra,
respectively, joined the Class of 2020.

Todd Sussman had a great
summer. He writes, “I had the good
fortune to work on not one but two
official Barbra Streisand projects. I
am listed as the Liner Notes Editor
for her new hit album, Encore: Movie
Partners Sing Broadway, and I have
the same credit listed in the gorgeous
souvenir program for her latest con-
cert tour, The Music... The Memrries... The
Magic! Both projects were true labors
of love and called upon my knowledge
of her career and music, as well as my
creative writing experience. Interest-
ingly, my first published pieces about
Barbra appeared in Spectator 1981-84.
‘This was the summer of a lifetime.”

Many thanks to all for your
condolences on the passing of my
father and special thanks to my dear
friends and CCT Class Notes col-
leagues, Roy Pomerantz’83 and Jon
White ’85, as well as neighbor Adam
Bayroff’83 and his wonderful wife,
Margo, for visiting my mother’s
home during the Shiva period.

1985

Jon White

16 South Ct.

Port Washington, NY 11050
jw@whitecoffee.com

Judah Cohen has exciting news: “the
acceptance of our twin sons, Jordan
and Jonathon, to the College. Prob-
ably most excited is our eldest daugh-
ter, Gabriella BC’18, who is looking
forward to having her baby brothers
join her on campus. They are spending
a gap year in Israel but will return next
year to join the Class of 2021.

“IT am sure many readers saw this

already, but the Winter 2015-16

aduumninews

issue of CCT highlighted my
long-range weather forecast success
(college.columbia.edu/cct/issue/
winter15; go to the ‘Lions’ section).

Tom Vinciguerra’s most recent
op-ed piece in The New York Times,
“Who Stole My ‘Star Trek’?” was
published in September in honor of
the recent 50th anniversary of Star
Trek’s debut.

At my high school reunion, I ran
into Rob Ripin, who is a partner
at the New York law firm Hogan
Lovells. Rob has advised on cutting-

”»

edge capital markets and other
finance transactions and focuses on
cross-border capital raising.

John Phelan ably represented
our class at Alumni Leaders Week-
end, October 7-8, reporting that it
“just gets better and better. Good
speakers, all focused on helping
to build skills in fundraising and
networking, and developing one’s
personal brand. We heard from
students who are club presidents. So
impressive! As a past Alumni Repre-
sentative Committee regional chair,
I participated in the admissions
review and enjoyed meeting other
ARC chairs. Columbia regional
clubs are alive and thriving, and
France won the award for best club.
It has more than 2,000 members.

I had the pleasure of sitting next
to one of its board members, who
is from Long Island and works
in Paris. So all good. Good cross
pollination from all the schools,
including Barnard.”

Congratulations to Matt Bartels,
Jay Barth, David Feldman,
James Hagani, Dennis Hirsch,
Jeffrey Lautin, Ashok Nayyar and
Martin Tell. They are proud parents,
as their children entered the College
with the Class of 2020. Our class is
tied (with the Class of 81) for hav-
ing the most legacy students in the
Class of 2020!

Of course, as our kids go off
to college, that leaves us with
more time to rediscover long-lost
pastimes. Please share what you are
doing now, or what you hope to
be doing. On the Columbia front,
please consider joining ARC. I have
found it to be a rewarding experi-
ence. We want as many potential
applicants as possible to meet mem-
bers of the Columbia community.

After 25 years of regular vocal
inactivity, I have finally reawakened
my cords by singing on a regular
basis. I rejoined the New York Cho-

ral Society; this season’s concerts
include performances in Carnegie
Hall, Lincoln Center, St. Patrick’s
Cathedral and St. Bart’s Church. I
even participated in a small backup
group for a recording with Peter
Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary
fame). And best of all, at a recent
rehearsal | caught up with Glee
Club legend Eric Hanson’82.
Looking forward to hearing
from you! Shoot me an email at
jw@whitecoftee.com!

1986

Everett Weinberger
50 W. 70th St., Apt. 3B
New York, NY 10023
everett6@gmail.com

Hope you're well and that you had
an enjoyable winter holiday season.
I'd love to hear from you with any
news or thoughts you'd like to share
with classmates. Drop me a line

in 2017! You can write to either

of the addresses at the top of the
column, or use CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

1987

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sarah A. Kass

PO Box 300808
Brooklyn, NY 11230
ssk43@columbia.edu

Plans are under way for our 30th

(yes, 30th — no way to escape that
number) reunion, Thursday, June
1-Sunday, June 4. Ron Burton and
Bruce Furukawa are co-chairing the
Reunion Committee. Members (and
the list is growing daily, so apologies
to anyone who joined after this went
to press) are Laura Adams, Steve
Amitay, Sandy Asirvatham, Kyra
Tirana Barry, Joey Bernstein, Jon
Bram, Doug Cifu, Sean Couch,
Michelle Estilo Kaiser, Greg Fon-
dran, Nancy Friedman, Gerri Gold,

Winter 2016-17 CCT 71

Class Notes

Greg Gonzalez, Ed Ho SEAS’87,
Ed Hoffman, Lee Ilan, Dora Kim
Baer, Ilene Weinstein Lederman,
Joe Liu, Christina Musrey, Richard
D. Simonds, George Stone, John
Sun, Jonathan Wald and yours truly.

Ilene already wrote to talk about
the wonderful planning luncheon
she had in San Francisco with
committee members Kyra and
Bruce, as well as Randy Bessolo.
Join our Facebook group, Columbia
College Class of 1987, or check
college.columbia.edu/alumni/events/
reunion-weekend-2017 for updates.

As a preview of things to come,
Lee Ilan sent the following: “I
attended All-Class Reunion last
June. In addition to (of course)
participating in our upcoming 30th,
I highly recommend going to a
reunion in a year that’s not your
own. I had some nice conversations
with friends from CC’86 (like fellow
Glee Clubbers Dan Chenok’86
and Rich Goodstein ’86), but I also
went to an astrophysics lecture by
the still-brilliant-and-going-strong
Professor David Helfand and met
current members of the Marching
Band. Not trying to catch up with
classmates allows you to tour the
campus and take in all the other
reunion activities, which was terrific.
And my 5-year-old loved the Camp
Columbia activities — she proudly
shows off the pirate-themed picture
frame she decorated.

“Moving on to our reunion, I am
excited to catch up with classmates.
Even though I’m not a large donor,

T agreed to co-chair the fundraising
committee to emphasize that every-
one’s involvement is welcome and
encouraged. Your participation is not
contingent on how much or whether
you give financially. Many of us also
contribute by interviewing prospec-
tive students, mentoring current
students, organizing and attending
alumni activities (e.g., Columbia Col-
lege Women, athletics alumni events,
regional gatherings, etc.), and keeping
us all connected (thank you, Sarah
Kass!). All of these efforts enhance
the vibrancy of our class, the reputa-
tion of Columbia and the experi-
ence for current students. We all are
grateful for the contributions of our
John Jay Associates-level and major
gift donors. Their support provides
significant resources for financial aid,
the Core Curriculum, student activi-
ties and stipends for internships. But
the strength of our donor pool is that

72 CCT Winter 2016-17

- % aids = ts
Seal

Photographic Department The New

Library of Columbia University by Moonlight showing the Movement ot the Moon during Exposure

all our donations — of amounts large
and small — add up to show broad
support for these activities. I've been
contributing fairly small amounts for
30 years and feel very much a part of
the class. My intention is that all of
us will feel welcome and appreciated
in that role.

“I went to the Columbia College
Fund volunteer kickoff meeting in
September. In addition to getting
tips on overcoming the fear of
talking to classmates (who knew we
were such an intimidating bunch?),
we got updates on the development
of the Manhattanville campus and
some fascinating history on the
development of the Core Cur-
riculum. I learned that the Business
School will move out of Uris, freeing
up space for Arts and Sciences.

And my appreciation for the Core
increased — the small classes,
discussion format, the teachers’
preparation, and attending concerts
and art exhibits with classmates.

“So please open your hearts and
your ears when your classmate calls.
Give them a few moments to talk
about how you can be part of our class
gift. Our many donations add up to
be transformative to current students’
experience. Thanks for listening.”

Remember, too, that we want
YOU at reunion and as important as
the class gift may be, YOUR PRES-
ENCE is what really matters! Your
classmates want to see you. And as
is the case around every reunion, I’m

York Edison Company

reminded of how many beautiful
Class of 87 connections I’ve made
after graduation, at reunions and
other alumni events. Some of my
dearest friends from our class I
didn’t even know as a student (that’s
what happens when you live in the
Spectator offices for four years!). So
give yourself the gift of not only
reconnecting with old friends but
making new ones!

Back to the news. Eli Kavon
is beginning his second full year
as rabbi of Congregation Anshei
Shalom in West Palm Beach, Fla. He
writes blog posts for The Jerusalem
Post website (jpost.com) at “Past
Imperfect: Confronting Jewish His-
tory.” Eli is also writing a biography
of his father — a WWII veteran,
nightclub singer and cantor — as
well as collecting essays of his own
from the past decade to be published.

Dora Kim Baer writes that after
31 years of living and working in
NYC, she moved to South Florida in
February 2015 to join AVM, a hedge
fund based in Boca Raton. She says,
“Tt has been a great experience so far
and it was a good change for me. Reg-
ulatory reform has greatly changed
the banking/financing industry, so
it was nice to make the transition to
the private buy side. I live in West
Palm Beach across the Intracoastal
Waterway from Trump's Mar-a-Lago,
of all things. The weather has been
easy to adjust to, especially when I
know it’s freezing up north. I have

survived my second Florida summer
(this was the hottest summer ever —
even the native Floridians said so) and
it was not so bad. I have not endured a
hurricane, but ...

“Florida, at least where I am, is
surprisingly age-diverse. It is not just
a bunch of retirees anymore, although
the snowbirds start coming down
in late October and stay until May.
‘The only thing that isn’t so great is
commuting on I-95 here, where you
have 20-year-olds doing 80 mph and
80-year-olds doing 20 mph.

“Sadly, my husband, Theodore
Baer Jr. GS’54, passed away this past
February. We had a great 23 years;

I just wish he had had more time to
enjoy living in Florida full time.

“T travel back and forth to NYC
about once a month for personal
and work reasons, so I still get my
New York fix. The flights between
Palm Beach International to the
New York area are frequent and
convenient. If anyone is visiting in
the Palm Beach area let me know. I'd
be glad to show you around.”

Dora, I believe I can safely speak
for all of us when I say we send our
deepest condolences on your loss.

Garth Stein reports that his
oldest son, Caleb (20), is at Berklee
College of Music, while his second
son, Eamon (17), is being recruited
for Division III soccer. Garth’s
youngest son, Dashiell (9), is,
according to his dad, “just happy to
be in the fourth grade.” Garth’s third

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '57, BUS’58

children’s book, Enzo’ Very Scary
Halloween, was recently published
and his fourth is scheduled for
publication next spring. He said he
is hard at work on a new novel, but
writes, “And no, The Art of Racing in
the Rain is not a movie yet.”

Soon, we hope!

Garth also recounted the following
tale: “I was wearing my Columbia
‘T-shirt in the gym and a young
woman said, ‘Did you go to Colum-
bia? So did I! I asked what year. She
said 2012. I felt old. But then I said, ‘T
was in the first coed graduating class!’
Because if I’m going to be old, at least
I can stand for something!”

Suze Kim-Villano sent in what
she called her “one-year update:” She
says, “I left teaching and am working
as the administrative director of the
Sacred Music Academy of Notre
Dame (sma.nd.edu and facebook.
com/notredamechildrenschoir)
and director of the Lyric Choir for
children with special needs. This
mixed-ability choir focuses on sing-
ing and musical instruction through
sacred music in a safe and respectful
environment. We are a mixed-ability
group, joined by other members of
the Notre Dame Children’s Choir. I
love working with this organization
— just in its fourth year — includ-
ing children from diverse social,

Richard Simonds says, “I enjoy
practicing law at Alston & Bird in
New York, where I am a partner in the
finance group. I recently spoke about
FinTech at a conference in Tel Aviv,
which was my first visit to Israel.

“My wife, Julia, and I live in
Scarsdale, N.Y., although I’m not
sure where we will go when we
become empty-nesters. My eldest
son, Richard, is a sophomore in
college, thinking about majoring
in physics or philosophy, and my
other sons, Charles and Henry, are a
junior and freshman, respectively, at
Scarsdale HS.

“T’ve been reading a lot of clas-
sics lately, including rereading Lit
Hum books such as Cervantes’ Don
Quixote and Rabelais’ Gargantua
and Pantagruel, as part of a project.
I’ve discovered the social media site
Goodreads to be a good place to
share my book thoughts.”

A few other tidbits come from
Farah Chandu, who said that while
her own children did not want to go
to Columbia, her nephew/godson has
started a doctoral program in chemis-
try at Columbia. Farah wrote that he
“4s busy torturing undergrads as a T.A.”

Ah, happy days!

Cathy Webster had a reunion
lunch with Ed Hoffman this past
summer in Los Angeles. She said

Fennifer Hirsh Overton ‘88 is Catholic Relief

Services’ regional director for West Africa and recently

relocated to Baltimore from Nairobi.

economic and ethnic groups in
Northern Indiana in seven choirs
from birth to 17.

“T recently sang in another Sacred
Music graduate recital and I sing at
the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the
Basilica Schola. I perform a cappella
Renaissance choral music with Col-
legium Musicum and I cantor Masses
at my church. My four kids are not
too far away and we try to get together
on breaks during the summer.

“My sister invited me to Vietnam
to visit a ChildFund site and, while
in Vietnam, we cruised Ha Long
Bay. My family later joined me in
Korea, and then I celebrated my
father’s 80th birthday with all of my
family in Seoul. My 50th year has

been the best so far!”

they swapped theme park stories
and reminisced over Peruvian food.

Good times!

Last but certainly not least, my
dear Carman 5 friend, the incom-
parable Divya Singh, recently met
me in New York City for lunch on
her way home to Seattle following a
one-month stint in Malawi. Divya
has given up her medical practice on
the West Coast to travel the world
and teach orthopedic medicine and
surgery in developing countries.
Myanmar, China and Tibet are all on
the itinerary. To hear about Divya’s
adventures, check out divasingh.
blogspot.com.

As is always the case with Divya
(with whom I traveled through
Europe during junior year while

alumninews

Divya was doing a year abroad at
Edinburgh), our outings are filled
with excitement and star power.
Patti Smith showed up for lunch at
the little hole-in-the-wall restaurant
where Divya and I were, a place I’ve
been going to since my freshman
roommate, Lisa Hertzberg Long,
introduced me to it some 30-plus
years ago, after it was featured in a
little-known 1980s movie.

Congratulations to Ilene Wein-
stein Lederman on the bar mitzvah
of her son, Max, in July in San Fran-
cisco. Once again she and I (and our
dads, Ed Weinstein’57 and Alvin
Kass ’57) had parallel milestones as
my nephew, Judah, celebrated his
bar mitzvah in August. Judah’s dad
is my brother, Danny Kass’95. Can
we get Judah and Max to make it
three generations?

No pressure, guys. No pressure.

1988

Eric Fusfield

1945 South George Mason Dr.
Arlington, VA 22204
ericfusfield@bigfoot.com

Shep Long notes that his former
Carman Hall roommate, John
Vaske, has reached a career
milestone. Goldman Sachs recently
announced John’s retirement after
28 years with the firm; John was
a co-chairman of the investment
bank’s mergers and acquisition team.
“Over the course of his career, John
has enhanced our client franchise by
building meaningful and longstand-
ing relationships with numerous
clients, has led a number of signifi-
cant transactions, and has played a
central role in growing our natural
resources business across regions,”
senior Goldman officials wrote in
a memo shared with The New York
Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Jennifer Hirsh Overton writes,
“After five years in Nairobi, Kenya, I
have taken up a position at Catholic
Relief Services as the regional director
for West Africa. I relocated to Balti-
more last year, where I am lucky to see
Nancy Kauder and Marty Schreiber
87 regularly, as we live in the same
neighborhood. We keep in touch with
Sharon Moshavi. My first daughter
recently started her second year at
Haverford College; I hope daughter
No. 2, a rising junior in high school,

will end up at 116th Street.”

After 21 years at Emory, in
Atlanta, as assistant and then associ-
ate professor of history and African-
American studies, this fall Leslie
Harris moved to Northwestern as
professor of history. She and her
partner, Pam Xami Hall, “are enjoy-
ing Chicago and Evanston!” Leslie
says she “will continue writing and
teaching African-American history,
particularly slavery and urban his-
tory.” Leslie’s time at Columbia “was
critical to [my] development as a
historian, particularly classes with the
late James Shenton’49 and mentor-
ing from Eric Foner’63, GSAS’69.”

Leslie says she was honored to
be in conversation with Profes-
sor Foner in February 2015 about
his book Gateway to Freedom: The
Hidden History of the Underground
Railroad, which discusses the
travails of formerly enslaved African
Americans in New York City, at the
Schomburg Center for Research
in Black Culture. A video of the
evening program is available at
livestream.com/schomburgcenter/
events/3691823. Elizabeth DuPont
Spencer and Susie Marples were
in the audience.

I wish everyone a happy and
healthy 2017 (our next reunion will
be just one year away then) and look
forward to receiving more updates
in the upcoming year. Send them
to the addresses at the top of the
column or use the CCT Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note).

1989

Emily Miles Terry

45 Clarence St.
Brookline, MA 02446
emilymilesterry@me.com

I was happy to hear from Liz
Pleshette, who wrote in about
her summer: “I was lucky enough
to spend a whole week in Atlanta
with the amazing Wanda Marie
Holland Greene. She was leading
professional development for school
administrators and I was one of the
lucky recipients of her talent and
wisdom. Also, Dan Javitch popped
in [in Chicago] for a visit this
summer before heading off to his
whirlwind sabbatical adventures.”

I found Dan, with a little help
from Facebook, in Laos. Of his trav-
els, Dan writes, “I am on sabbatical

Winter 2016-17 CCT 73

for this school year. I am nearing 20
years of teaching high school English
and ESL in San Francisco. For the
past five years, I’ve taught at a small,
public school, the Academy. I have
been eligible for a sabbatical year for
more than 10 and finally stopped
putting it off (maybe because of the
impending 50-year-old doom). I have
been traveling around Southeast Asia
and connected with Steve Briones
88, who lives in Bangkok and is
doing well. I also reconnected with
Liz Pleshette in Chicago during the
summer; she remains the same won-
derfully irreverent person I remember
from Carman 12.

“T planned to be back in the Bay
Area in November and then on
the East Coast for a few months at
the start of 2017 before heading to
Sri Lanka, where I’ve spent several
summers working in educational
policy consulting and curriculum
development, for the spring.”

Joanna Usher Silver recently
started in real estate sales at Corcoran
in New York. Of her new direction
Joanna says, “After several years
working in sales for luxury media
brands at Condé Nast, I made the
transition to residential sales in the
city from the white-hot High Line
Park/Chelsea area to the Upper
Upper East Side (Harlem!) to
everywhere in between and around.
Remember when we first got to
Columbia and we were warned never
to go to Morningside Park? Well,
now they sell multi-million dollar
condos next door! My husband,
David Silver, and I celebrated 23

years and our three girls are super —
mile-a-minute craziness and laughs.
We recently added a mini Australian
Labradoodle to the family fun.”

Last summer I ran into Anne
Pfitzer at an Upper West Side gather-
ing. She was going to Kenya the next
day; Anne is family planning team
leader for USAID's flagship Maternal
and Child Survival Program, support-
ing women’s health programs. She
often travels for Jhpiego, an interna-
tional nonprofit affiliated with The
Johns Hopkins University that works
with health experts, governments and
community leaders to provide high-

quality health care.

1990

Rachel Cowan Jacobs
313 Lexington Dr.

Silver Spring, MD 20901
youngrache@hotmail.com

German Gomez reports that after
five years at the U.S. Department
of Justice he returned to private
practice and now works at Hogan
Lovells in Washington, D.C., in the
general counsel’s office. German and
his wife, Libby, and their children,
Ava (11), Lola (9) and Felix (7),
live in Arlington, Va. German says
everyone is doing great in school.
He enjoys spending Saturdays pac-
ing the sidelines while coaching his
kids’ soccer teams.

German also reports that his twin,
Diego Gomez, and his wife, Jeanne
Haney, welcomed daughter Lila

In July, several members of the Class of 1990 gathered at Rachel Cowan

Jacobs’ home in Silver Spring, Md. Back row, left to right: Dan Sackrowitz,
Pete Neisuler, Judy Shampanier and Sharon Rogers; and front row, left to
right: Colin Campbell, Joel Tranter, Jacobs and Steve Winick.

74 CCT Winter 2016-17

Catherine in 2015. Lila is a preco-
cious toddler who keeps the first-

time parents busy. Diego works in
‘The Bank of Nova Scotia’s New York
office as VP, chief compliance officer
and regulatory counsel. Diego, Jeanne
and Lila live in New York City.

In August, Mariana and Pete
Neisuler packed up their sons, Alex
(12) and Martin (10), and house and
moved to Amman, Jordan to begin
their next post with the Department
of State. Before they left, friends
came from far and wide to Wash-
ington, D.C., to give them a merry
July weekend send-off. I traveled the
shortest distance from my suburban
Maryland home to the Smithsonian
National Portrait Gallery, where we
officially kicked off our good-bye
party for Pete. Those in attendance
— honestly, I’m surprised we didn't
get kicked out for having too good
of a time —included Judy Sham-
panier and Dan Sackrowitz, who
traveled from Westchester County,
N.Y., and were pleased to discover
their Amtrak car was next to the bar
car; Colin Campbell from Piscat-
away, N.J.; and Joel Tranter from
Berkeley, Calif., after a layover of a
few days in Denver to visit Brian
Timoney. Why the Portrait Gallery,
you ask? Colin was itching to see an
exhibit on some all-time great pro-
fessional athletes, which we eventu-
ally found — but what turned out to
be an even greater draw for some of
us was the number of Pokémon that
Dan was able to capture.

During the weekend, we were
joined by Sharon Rogers and
Steve Winick, so it really turned
into a nice 26th mini-reunion. News
from this crew: Dan is the president
of yourhearing.com, a Danish
company that sells hearing aids.
Wait, what did you say? He was as
surprised as anyone that a career in
the mattress industry could lead to a
job in audiology. Steve continues to
be an expert in folklore and Renais-
sance music. Did anyone catch him
talking about the Easter Bunny on
CBS This Morning in April? Joel is
busy being an attorney, and a dad
to 4-year-old Ellison, and Colin is
still showing up to teach economics
at Rutgers. As for me, my younger
daughter started kindergarten in the
fall, and I, too, finally get to experi-
ence a life where both children are
in the same place during the school
day and follow the same academic
calendar. Time flying has its perks!

1991

Margie Kim

1923 White Oak Clearing
Southlake, TX 76092
margiekimkim@hotmail.com

Jacqueline Harounian, a partner
in the AV-rated (the highest rating a
law firm can receive in peer reviews)
matrimonial firm Wisselman,
Harounian & Associates in Great
Neck, N.Y., published her first

book, Divorce Reality Check: Smart
Split Solutions for Civility, Clarity
and Common Sense. It is available

in major book stores and online. In
addition, this past fall Jacqueline
presented at national conferences for
the Association of Divorce Financial
Planners and at the Long Island Tax
Professionals Symposium.

Warren St. John is editor-in-
chief of Patch, a community-specific
news, information and engagement
network. He is the author of the
national bestsellers Rammer Jammer
Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into
the Heart of Fan Mania and Outcasts
United: An American Town, a Refugee
Team, and One Woman's Quest to
Make a Difference. A former reporter
for The New York Times, Warren has
also written extensively for The New
Yorker, New York Observer and Wired.

Betsy Kalin has been busy travel-
ing the country with her award-
winning documentary (10 awards!),
East LA Interchange, which chron-
icles the story of Boyle Heights,
Calif., one of America’s great places
of activism, social change and diver-
sity. Betsy was happy to catch up
with Bob Kolker and Vera Scanlon
"90 at a March screening in NYC; at
the time of writing she was looking
forward to seeing more Columbia
friends on October 30, when her
film was scheduled to be screened as
the Best of Festival Award Winner
at the Arlington International Film
Festival in Arlington, Mass. She has
also been doing a campus screening
tour from UCLA to Northwestern
to Dartmouth and hopes to bring
the film to Columbia soon.

In December 2015, Betsy was
profiled by CAA Arts Access.

Go to alumniarts.columbia.edu
and search “Betsy Kalin.” For more
information about the film, visit
eastlainterchangefilm.com.

Hope you are staying warm this
winter! I would love to hear from

more of you at my email address at
the top of this column. Until next
time, cheers!

1992

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Olivier Knox

9602 Montauk Ave.
Bethesda, MD 20817
olivier.knox@gmail.com

Keep the Class Notes coming, folks!
Don't make me have to start making
things up here!

I first heard from Brad Randle-
man. Sorry, I mean doctor and pro-
fessor Brad Randleman! “Id like to
report a job change!” he announced.

Brad and his wife and family
have made a big cross-country move.
After 18 years in Atlanta, includ-
ing 17 at Emory and holding the
Hughes Professorship in Ophthal-
mology there, Brad is going to be
professor of ophthalmology at the
Keck School of Medicine of USC
and director of the Cornea, External
Disease and Refractive Surgery Ser-
vice at the USC Roski Eye Institute
in Los Angeles. “Fight on!” he says.

I also received a long, lovely note
from Will Jackson, a first-time
Class Notes submitter. He and his
wife, Arwen, live in Pearland, Texas,
with their children. Son Mitchell
is a senior in high school and is
gearing up to leave his parents and
younger sisters (Madison, Taylor and
Riley) behind for college.

Will writes: “I came to a realiza-
tion last year that my 20-plus-year
journey in the corporate world was
no longer fulfilling my dreams. So,
as countless Lions have done before
me, I grabbed the nearest parachute
and jumped out of the plane ... at
least I hope that was a parachute!”

The parachute? A technology
start-up called MyFamilyPlan.
Rather than butcher his prose, I'll let
Will describe what he’s doing: “Our
Family Effectiveness Solutions will
allow the entire family (mom, dad
and kids) to collaborate in a private,

online environment around life’s
most important topics.” The goal is
to “make life a little more effective
for mom and dad, while preparing
the next generation of digital citi-
zens to be even more effective than
we are,” he says.

You can find them on “all the
standard social media,” Will says.
“And, please do not hesitate to
reach out to me directly to catch up.
Columbia, and many of my fellow
Lions, comprise many of my fondest
memories and enduring friendships.
I look forward to hearing from you!”

Obviously, Will is wrong here.

If you write to anyone to share an
update from your life, you're writing
to me (olivier.knox@gmail.com).

1993

Betsy Gomperz

41 Day St.

Newton, MA 02466
betsy.gomperz@gmail.com

Hello, CC’93! The column took a
hiatus for this issue but will be back
in 2017. Let’s start the New Year
off right by taking a few minutes

to send in a note. What are your
plans for the New Year? Keep your
classmates up to date by writing to
either of the addresses at the top of
the column or by using CC7’s Class
Notes webform, college.columbia.
edu/cct/submit_class_note.

1994

Leyla Kokmen

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
lak6@columbia.edu

Plenty of news this time around,
so let’s dive right in. Anna Ivey
launched a software product, inli.ne,
a digital tool to help students with
their online college applications. “I’m
based out of Los Angeles, and we
have some nice alumni events here,”
she writes. “Always happy to see
other Columbia people in SoCal.”
Orly Mishan sent a note that
she’s lived in Newton, Mass., for
13 years with her kids, Abe (7) and
Tamara (12), and her husband, Tim
Crawford GSAS’01, an international

relations professor at Boston Col-

alumninews

lege. “The kids are old enough that
we're starting to do more interest-
ing travel,” Orly writes. “Enjoyed a
mother/daughter trip to London in
June. We arrived the morning of the
Brexit returns, which made for some
interesting discussions. I reconnected
with old friends, attended a Clinton
fundraiser hosted by Leslie Vinjam-
uri GSAS’01 (who is at the School
of Oriental and African Studies at
the University of London) and saw
the city like a tourist for the first time
since I was my daughter's age.

“My daughter gave me a historical
tour of the National Portrait Gallery.
Her favorite thing was the day at
Hampton Court, which is run as a
living history museum — very inter-
active and fun for kids. Unfortunately
she’s not yet old enough to shop with
— particularly sad given the great
exchange rates post-Brexit!”

Also in London during the sum-
mer was Kim Yao, who reports that
she’s had a number of fun travels
with family to various destinations
including London, Iceland, Venice,
Maine, Oregon, Rhode Island and
Maryland. Kim lives and works in
lower Manhattan as a principal for
her firm, Architecture Research
Office. She taught a historic
preservation studio at GSAPP this
past fall and planned to join the
board of AIANY (the New York
chapter of the American Institute of
Architects) in 2017 as VP of public
outreach. Her kids, Maximo (7) and
Sarabeth (10), attend PS-IS 276 and
her husband, Paul Lewis, is an archi-
tect with the firm LT'L Architects
and is on the faculty at Princeton.

Negar Nabavinejad LAW’97
sent a few highlights: “Married with
three kids, practicing law at Goldman
Sachs and involved with Columbia
College via the Alumni Representa-
tive Committee.” She adds that she
most often sees Russ Sacks, Shawn
Landres and Shahzad Bhatti.

Karthik Ramanathan was named
to the advisory board of the Journal of
Portfolio Management. He works for
Fidelity Investments and notes that
he and his wife, Innessa Manning
BC’94, live in Lexington, Mass., and
look forward to attending the annual
Columbia/Harvard football game
each year with their boys.

Change is afoot for a few of our
classmates. Ocean MacAdams
writes that in August, after 26 years
in New York, he and his wife decided
to “head back to where it all began.”

“We packed our bags and moved
to San Francisco. It’s a bit of a
homecoming for us, since we grew
up together in the Bay Area,” Ocean
writes. “I recently joined GoPro,
where I oversee the media division
(the folks who make all the crazy
videos you see everywhere), and our
three kids are quickly becoming
Golden State Warriors fans. I’d love
to hear from any 94 folks here.”

Sounds like there will be at least
one more classmate out there soon:
Mark Robilotti says he is joining
private equity firm TPG as manag-
ing director and deputy general
counsel of TPG Growth, its venture
capital and middle market buyout
fund. “After commencing work in
New York, the family will relocate to
San Francisco in 2017,” he writes.

And Tom Lecky reports that
after 17 years at Christie’s, he
stepped down as head of the books
and manuscripts department and
took over as proprietor of Riverrun
Books & Manuscripts in Hastings-
on-Hudson, N.Y. “I will continue
to specialize in rare, antiquarian and
unusual books, and will continue to
appear on Antiques Roadshow, which
I have done since 1999,” he writes.
The business concentrates not only
on buying and selling material but
also on consultancy and appraising.
Tom and his wife, Amanda Lecky
BC’94, have two sons, John (15)
and Wyatt (12).

Thanks for all the updates! Keep

‘em coming.

1995

Janet Lorin

730 Columbus Ave., Apt. 14C
New York, NY 10025
jrf10@columbia.edu

‘Thanks to Ryan Poscablo, Hilton
Romanski, Jessica Zimmerman
and Emily Hu for answering my call
for updates. I urge others to take a
few minutes and drop me an email
at jrfl0@columbia.edu.

Jessica Zimmerman became
senior rabbi of Congregation Sherith
Israel in San Francisco last July and
spent her first two months of the
job on maternity leave following
the birth of her son, Zachary. Says
Jessica: “The best part of my hospital
stay after delivery was the visit of
the physician covering the obstetri-
cal service — Dr. Emily Hu PS’00!”

Winter 2016-17 CCT 75

Class Notes

Zachary and sister Arielle (2)
have been keeping Jessica and her
husband busy.

Jessica’s news gave me a great rea-
son to get in touch with Emily, an
old friend from Carman. She lives
in San Francisco with her husband,
John Tang LAW’96, and their boys,
Derek (6) and Morgan (4).

“Amazingly, I am still at the
same job I’ve had since finishing my
residency at Stanford,” Emily writes.
She moved to the Bay Area after
graduating from P&S and is in her
12th year of private ob/gyn group
practice. She delivers babies at Cali-
fornia Pacific Medical Center in San
Francisco and also has a full-time
office practice of ob/gyn. “Life is
pretty busy but I feel lucky to have a
healthy family and a job that I enjoy
so much,” Emily writes.

Also in the Bay Area is Hilton
Romanski. Upon Cisco's CEO
transition in spring 2015, Hilton
was appointed Cisco’s chief strategy
officer by the company’s CEO
and Hilton’s boss, Chuck Robbins.
“We've managed to increase the price
of the company’s stock more than
30 percent since last year and I am
having fun with my responsibilities
for Cisco’s corporate strategy, M&A,
equity investments, alliance partner-
ships and innovation centers,” Hilton
writes. “It’s been a wild, sometimes
tough, ride, but a really great one.”

Hilton has been active in trying
to bring more women and people of
color into tech. He recently received
All Star Code’s Visionary Award in
East Hampton, N.Y. All Star Code
is dedicated to the mission of help-
ing young men of color learn how to

Columbia

on Facebook

facebook.com/alumnicc

Like the page to get
alumni news, learn
about alumni events

and College happenings,
view photos and more.

76 CCT Winter 2016-17

program and code. “I’m still passion-
ate about surfing and motorcycles,
but spend less time on boards and
bikes than I would like,” he writes.
“Overall, life is good.”

Hilton's wife, Emily Meyer,
continues to dominate the world of
children’s clothes with Tea Collec-
tion. I can attest — they are popular
on the Upper West Side, and my
daughter and I are big fans! Emily
founded the company 14 years
ago; it’s an independent, profitable,
female-run company “that continues
to kick ass,” Hilton says.

Hilton and Emily’s son, Clement
(8), and daughter, Georgia (6), are
having fun growing up in Palo Alto,
Calif., where he’s a climber and she’s
a dancer and artist.

Ryan Poscablo was for six years
a federal prosecutor in Manhattan,
conducting investigations into bank,
wire, mortgage and tax fraud, as well
as identity theft, cybersecurity and
money laundering. He also led inves-
tigations that led to convictions for
racketeering, terrorism and violent
crime. He is now in private practice
and opened the New York office of
litigation firm Riley Safer Holmes
& Cancila. His practice centers on
civil litigation, white-collar criminal
defense and regulatory compliance.

Ryan met his wife, Christine
Schessler Poscablo, in law school.
‘They live in Brooklyn with their
two sons and daughter. Ryan earned
a master’s in public policy from
Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School

of Government.

1996

Ana S. Salper

24 Monroe PI., Apt. MA
Brooklyn, NY 11201
ana.salper@nyumc.org

Greetings, classmates! Alas, after
all of the reunion news, I only have
a meager report this time around.
‘Thanks to all of you who wrote in!

Chris Holst is an intellectual prop-
erty attorney with his own practice in
the suburbs of Philadelphia. He also
serves clients throughout the United
States and abroad; his field of exper-
tise is in copyright and trademark law.
Catherine Miller is assistant dean
for administration at Florida State
University College of Law.

It was great seeing both Cath-
erine and Chris at reunion last year.

Jen Abreu (née Banks) writes
that she lived in Lisbon, Portugal,
for five years, where her husband is
from and where her son, Fergus (3),
was born. Jen and her family then
moved to Washington, D.C., where
Jen was a fundraiser for the Brook-
ings Institution. The family recently
relocated to Boston, where Jen
launched a nonprofit and fundraising
consultancy, Banks Grants. Jen writes
that she had a great time at reunion
seeing Julia Lyon (with whom she
roomed in Carman for the weekend
— apparently, sleeping in those twin
beds was a stark reminder that we
are no longer 18), Caitlin McEl-
roy, Dulcie Lin, Nadia Kihiczak,
Jun Lee, Juan Tinoco and Pavel
Vaynshtok SEAS’96, among oth-
ers. Reunion inspired her and Kate
Cronk SEAS’96, Mike Lee and
Pam Garas to have a Boston-based
mini-reunion with their families. Jen
describes watching their children play
together as “surreal and delightful.”

If there are any other Boston
96ers out there, feel free to look Jen
up to join other mini-reunions she
may organize.

Klancy Miller writes that she,
too, had a wonderful time at reunion.
[Editor's note: Read more about
Miller in “Bookshelf.”] She saw Ali-
son Hills, who recently moved from
London to Texas for work. She also
enjoyed seeing Stacie Hoffmeister
(née Sumter), Rose Kob and Frank
Wang SEAS’96, among others.
Klancy attended the Class of 1996
panel, which discussed the creation
of Columbia’s Center for the Study
of Ethnicity and Race; while there
she saw her good friend and former
roommate Robin Shulman, whose
husband, Marcel Agtieros, was one
of the panelists.

Klancy recently saw Lauren Klein
in Paris. They studied together at
Reid Hall during junior year (when
I was there too!). Lauren has been
living in Paris for 18 years but is
relocating to Barcelona. In addition,
Klancy sat next to Vivien Labaton
BC96 at the Democratic National
Convention in Philadelphia. Vivien
was there with her colleagues from
Make It Work, an organization she
co-founded and co-directs that works
to advance economic security for
women and families.

‘That’s it for now. Please keep
sending in notes to ana.salper@
nyumc.org! Having attended five
of Bruce’s shows on the E Street

Band’s River Tour this year, I feel
compelled to leave you with this:
“The great challenge of adulthood
is holding on to your idealism after
you lose your innocence.”
— Bruce Springsteen

1997

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sarah Katz

1935 Parrish St.
Philadelphia, PA 19130
srk12@columbia.edu

CC’97, where is the love? Not much
news reported by all of you this
round, so I hope you are saving it all
to share with us at our 20th reunion!
Hope you will join us Thursday, June
1—-Sunday, June 4. To learn more,

go to college.columbia.edu/alumni/
events/reunion-weekend-2017.

And in the meantime, please send
me your updates so that I can share
them in the Spring 2017 issue of
CCT: srk12@columbia.edu.

I do have one exciting update:
Erich Anderer was appointed chief
of neurosurgery at NYU Lutheran
Medical Center in June. He has been
a clinical assistant professor at NYU
Langone Medical Center in Man-
hattan since July 2010. Erich simul-
taneously is an attending physician in
the division of neurological surgery
and in the department of orthopedic
surgery at Maimonides Medical
Center in Brooklyn, most recently as
its director of neurotrauma.

1998

Sandie Angulo Chen
10209 Day Ave.

Silver Spring, MD 20910
sandie.chen@gmail.com

I hope you all had a wonderful 2016.
Congratulations are in order for
Dan Kellner, who was awarded the
Order of Ikkos by the United States
Olympic Committee this past sum-
mer because one of his foil students

earned a bronze medal at the 2016
Olympic Games. Established just
before the 2008 Beijing Olympic
Games, the Order of Ikkos gives
each U.S. Olympic or Paralympic
medalist the opportunity to recognize
one individual for his or her role in
helping the medalist achieve his/

her Olympic dreams. Each awardee
received a medal uniquely designed
to represent the Olympic and
Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Dan received his award from Race
Imboden, the bronze medalist for
the men’s team foil (the first team to
bring home the bronze medal since
the 1932 games).

Great work, Dan, on your amaz-
ing coaching success!

Daniel Jean-Baptiste
announced that in September he
launched Grid-NY, a guide for
those looking for fun new dining,
shopping and entertainment experi-
ences in New York City. “We don’t
list everything, just what we think
you ll really enjoy,” he says. His site
also highlights “featured New York-
ers” and covers not only Manhattan
but also the other boroughs.

Congratulations, Daniel!

Annie Rawlings Chechitelli
SEAS’98 shared on Facebook that
she moved from the Washington
D.C., area to Seattle to start a job
in Amazon's education group. Her
family of five is nicely settled and
happy in Mercer Island, which is
surrounded by Lake Washington.
“We all have Seahawks gear and
KEEN shoes,” she says.

Hope your 2017 is starting off
great! Please send in a note to either
of the addresses at the top of the
page or through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

Michael Saarinen ’00 and Karen
Rosenberg were married on June 25
at the Larchmont (N.Y.) Yacht Club.
At the reception, left to right: Eric
Czepyha ’00, the groom and Tara
Gangadhar ’00.

ANUJ BEHAL

Ue,

Adrienne Carter and
Jenna Johnson

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
adieliz@gmail.com
jennajohnson@gmail.com

With the holiday season just behind
us, we have a couple of glad tidings
from our intrepid classmates.

Sahil Godiwala took the subur-
ban leap, moving to Montclair, N,J.,
in 2013, after years in Brooklyn and
San Francisco. “There is no greater
joy in this world than commut-
ing to/from Manhattan. None,” he
writes. Luckily he found a silver
lining: “At least we have space to
store the back issues of The New
Yorker we havent gotten to yet.”

Naturally, there is also more space
for Sahil’s expanding brood. His son,
Thomas, was born in April 2015,
joining his daughter, Margot, who
was born in December 2010. Sahil’s
wife, Sarah, is a psychotherapist with
her own practice in the city. Sahil left
the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York at the end of 2013 after about
five years in the legal function, where
he was an officer and counsel in the
enforcement/litigation/investigations
group; he also did some crisis-related
policy work. He joined the Bank of
New York Mellon in January 2014
as the global head of the supervisory
and regulatory practice group within
the legal department. “We're all doing
well,” Sahil writes. “It’s been fun
catching up with people at weddings,
reunions, on Facebook and so on.”

Jason Scherer SEAS’10 brings
us news from the wilds of Gramercy,
where he has an extremely long com-
mute across town to Google. A single
dad to a daughter, Jason is a software
engineer on Google Play Music, a
streaming service similar to Spotify.
Marketing plug from Jason: “Every-
one should try it out!” In his spare
time, Jason makes electronic music.
He also decided one Columbia
degree simply wasn't enough so he
earned an M.S. from SEAS, where
he worked with professors Eitan
Grinspun, Al Aho and Dan Ellis. In
in another fun Columbia connection,
Dan now works at Google, too.

Make it a 2017 goal to send ina

Class Note! You can write to

alumninews

Several members of the Class of 2000 gathered in the Black Hills of

South Dakota for a July 4, 2015, post-wedding barbecue. Front row, left to
right: Doug Marvin '00, groom Dan Keane ’00, bride Jennifer Tomscha and
Evan Hutchison ’00; and back row, left to right: Jonathan Ryan ’00, James
Renovitch 00, Brendan Colthurst ’0O, Bill Russell "00 and Alex MacFarlane ’00.

us at adieliz@gmail.com or
jennajohnson@gmail.com,

or use the CCT Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/
cct/submit_class_note.

2000

Prisca Bae

344 W. 17th St., Apt. 3B
New York, NY 10011
pb134@columbia.edu

Dan Keane and Jennifer Tomscha
were married in the Black Hills
of South Dakota on July 3, 2015.
Dan reports: “Jenny and I live in
Shanghai, where Jenny’s the associ-
ate director of the writing program
at NYU Shanghai. I teach writing
there, too. Our son, Wilder, was
born there in April. Life is good.”

Michael Saarinen and Karen
Rosenberg were married on June 25
at the Larchmont (N.Y.) Yacht Club.

Since 2012, Ben Strauss has been
living in Pittsfield, Mass., with his
wife, Jessie Fried, and sons, Morrie
Fried (8) and Ruben Fried (6). After
being senior counsel for the Americas
region at Saudi Basic Industries Corp.,
a global leader in the petrochemicals
industry, Ben accepted a position as
VP, associate general counsel, of Berk-
shire Bank in May. Ben is proud to
be a part of “America’s Most Exciting
Bank” because of its focus on helping
people and serving local communities.
Ben and his family love the Berkshires
and invite everyone to visit.

Congrats to Kimberlyn Silverman
(née Trotter), who was named the

2015 DUI Prosecutor of the Year by
the Oregon DUI Multi-Disciplinary
Training Task Force on April 28.
Please share news about yourself,
your family, your career and/or your
travels — even a favorite Columbia
College memory — using either the
email or postal address at the top of
the column, or by using CC7’s Class
Notes webform, college.columbia.
edu/cct/submit_class_note.

2001

Jonathan Gordin

3030 N. Beachwood Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90068
jrg53@columbia.edu

Sam Polk wrote that his memoir,
For The Love of Money, was released
on July 19; on July 30, he and a co-
founder launched a social enterprise,
Everytable, that makes healthful
food affordable for everyone. Sam’s
other big news is that his son, Jude
Vere Polk, was born in August.

Congratulations to Sam!

Jasper Cooper and his wife,
Josiejing, welcomed their son, Zed
Tang Cooper, on August 3, weighing
in at 6 lbs., 5 oz. Zed joins a sister.

Congratulations to Jasper
and Josiejing!

Michelle Grzan Bass and
her husband, Joel Bass, welcomed
Emilia Ivana Bass on August 4.
Emilia (“Mila”) joins sister Zara.

Congratulations to Michelle
and Joel!

Stephen Luk wrote that Brian
Gum married Hannah Kim on

Winter 2016-17 CCT 77

July 30 in Claremont, Calif. Ste-
phen Luk, Kevin Yao SEAS’01,
Evan Sidarto SEAS’01, Cho-Nan
Tsai SEAS’01, Lani Park, Ashran
Jen and Cindy Chen SEAS’01
were in attendance.

Congratulations to Brian
and Hannah!

Ronen Landa and his wife, Yael,
welcomed their second child, son
Idan Erez Landa, on September 6.
Idan joins sister Adi.

Congratulations to Yael
and Ronen!

Make it a New Year’s resolu-
tion to send in a Class Note. I’m at
jrg53@columbia.edu or you can use

CCTs Class Notes webform, college.

columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2017
to all!

2002

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sonia Dandona Hirdaramani
2 Rolling Dr.

Old Westbury, NY 11568
soniah57@gmail.com

Hi, all! Please send updates to
soniah57@gmail.com. I would love
to hear from more of you!

Richard Mammana was elected
as a member of the Connecticut
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
third-oldest learned society in the
United States. The Connecticut Acad-
emy sponsors eight lectures during the
academic year, publishes monographs
and several academic series, and
supports research through grants.

Liana Coya has a new job at
Better Mortgage. She is its chief
valuation officer and received her
Senior Residential Appraiser desig-
nation from the Appraisal Institute.

Pooja Agarwal finished her
LL.M. from Penn Law in May
while continuing her work as associ-
ate general counsel for Penn.

Anna Martinez writes, “I’m a
busy mom of a 2-year-old, and I
have landed the job of my dreams. I
am the supervising attorney of the

78 CCT Winter 2016-17

Spanish-speaking client division

of Franklin D. Azar & Associates,

a large personal injury practice in
Denver. I lead a team of five bilingual
attorneys who serve Spanish-speak-
ing clients. We are the only law firm
with a specialty division of bilingual
lawyers — not just bilingual staff.”

2003

Michael Novielli

Jurong East Street 21, Block 208
#08-181

Singapore 600208
mjn29@columbia.edu

I was back on campus in early Octo-
ber for Alumni Leaders Weekend,
my first one in the seven years since
I left New York. It was exciting to
connect with fellow Columbians
from around the world and to see
firsthand how far both the College
and the University have advanced in
key areas such as alumni engage-
ment and renovation to our campus.
I hope that I’ll be able to see many
of you at our 15th reunion in two
years, if not sooner!

While in town I caught up
with Daniel Dykema and Nikki
“Ashleigh” Thompson BC’03, who
just recently gave birth to a daughter,
Naomi Emilia Dykema. Nikki
updated me on Shelly Mittal’s wed-
ding which she, Daniel and a number
of other Columbians attended,
including Michelle Hodara,
Jessica Berenyi, Dana Zullo,
William Hu, Gaurav Shah,
Raheleh Hatami, Jessica Meksavan
BC05, Rebecca Capua BC’03, Arch-
ana Pinnapureddy BC’03, Kanchana
Pinnapureddy BC’03, Joyce Chang
Anderson ’02, Melissa Nguyen
BC’04 and Ilene Weintraub ’02.

I also caught up with Eaton
Lin, who is an assistant professor at
Weill Cornell Medical College and
assistant attending radiologist at the
NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell
Medical Center. Steven Chao is also
at NewYork Presbyterian/Queens as
a colorectal surgeon and an assistant
professor of surgery at Weill Cornell
Medical Center. Lorraine Liang
recently graduated from residency at
Rochester and started a job at Good
Samaritan Hospital as a urologist
with the Suffolk Urology Associates.

Charlotte Will (née Evans) writes,
“My husband, Tyler, and I welcomed

our son, Arthur Livingston Cutting

Shelly Mittal 03 married Prashant Ranyal on May 29. In attendance were
(left to right) Chris Anderson, Joyce Chang Anderson ’02, Michelle Hodara
03, Curtis Saueressig, Melissa Nguyen BC’04, Ilene Weintraub ’02, the
groom, the bride, Jessica Berenyi 03, Dana Zullo 03, William Hu ’03,
Jessica Meksavan BC’05, Gaurav Shah ’03 and Raheleh Hatami ’03.

Will, to the world on April 16. I
recently returned to Google after a
5%-month maternity leave. After
being a die-hard New Yorker, I
haven't quite yet accepted that my
son will be a California kid, but we’re
still enjoying life in San Francisco,
where we get to see Christina
Mather and Henry Pruitt.”
Lindsay Shrier Bourkoff writes,
“After being a financial adviser

since graduating, last year 1 pursued

the next stage in my professional
development and became a certified
financial planner. I practice at my
firm, Shrier Wealth Management.

I enjoy my career and have found
advising clients on all stages of their
financial life to be fun, challeng-
ing and stimulating. Addition-

ally, I’m treasurer of Beth Jacob
Congregation and provide pro bono
financial advice to recently divorced
individuals through The Jewish
Divorce Assistance Center of Los
Angeles. On the home front, Natan
Bourkoff and I live in Los Angeles
and are raising three ‘tween’ kids!
Our oldest son is only eight years
away from college — ahhh!”

Adam Kushner and his wife,
Maria Simon, welcomed their son,
Felix Parks Kushner, to the world —
nine months to the day after their
wedding. Adam writes: “Felix is
named partly for various luminar-
ies (Mendelssohn, Frankfurter) but
mostly for the luck and joy we feel
in having him. Parks is for Rosa
Parks. Big brother Jack (5) loves the
baby and always wants to hold him.”

2004

Jaydip Mahida

76 Courter Ave.
Maplewood, NJ 07040
jmahida@gmail.com

Hello CC’04! Mark Wood recently
graduated from an oral/maxillofacial
surgery program at Harbor-UCLA
Medical Center. He is an oral surgeon
in private practice in Los Angeles.
Please send in updates, as we want
to hear from as many folks as pos-
sible. Career and family updates are
always fun but please also reach out
to share about trips you might take,
events you have attended or are look-
ing forward to or even interesting

books or shows you have come across.

You can send updates either via
the email at the top of the column
or the CCT Class Notes webform,
college.columbia.edu/cct/submit_
class_note.

2005

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

David Lehman: “This year I started a
501c3 foundation dedicated to teach-
ing children from slum areas hard and
soft skills through photography. We

are currently in Kenya and Haiti, with

HOUSE OF TALENT STUDIO

almost 400 students. We use photo-
graphy as a vehicle to teach highly
translatable, yet basic, skills — typing,
English and computer usage all are
required with digital photography.
Check us out at photostart.org.

During the summer, Emily
Schwarz moved to San Francisco
and works at Stanford. She is looking
forward to connecting more with
Columbians on the West Coast!

From Jacob Shell: “I started my
fifth year as an assistant professor
of geography and urban studies at
Temple in Philadelphia. In 2015 I
published a book, Transportation and
Revolt: Pigeons, Mules, Canals and the
Vanishing Geographies of Subversive
Mobility. 1 am working on a second
book project, about the use of
trained elephants for transportation
in the Indian-Burmese borderlands.”

Martina Sherman (née Brendel)
is pleased to announce that she was
recently named a partner at DeBof-
sky, Sherman & Casciari (formerly
DeBofsky & Associates), a Chicago
law firm specializing in plaintiff-side
employee benefits litigation.

Jeremiah Boswell: “As of
November I accepted a role with the
NBA to develop a curriculum and
content for youth basketball.”

From Marisa Marconi: “I am
excited to share that after 10 years
as a project manager, I ventured out
on my own this past summer and
started my own business plan writ-
ing and consulting firm. I special-
ize in writing business plans that
accompany immigration petitions
for immigrant and non-immigrant

investors and workers. I live in Port-
land, Ore., with my wife and our son
(2), who already knows the Colum-
bia fight song word for word.”

From Kate Lane Shaw: “In
March 2016 my husband, Blake
Shaw SEAS’05, SEAS’11, and I
welcomed our son, William. We're
thrilled to report that he is a happy
and healthy baby and loves spending
time with his friends Winfield (son
of Jessica Fjeld), Miles (son of
Nate Bliss and Amira Ibrahim Bliss
BC05), Mirele (daughter of Mike
Ciccarone), Aviv (son of Honora
Burnett BC’05) and Eloise (daugh-
ter of Anya Cherneff and Bennett
Cohen). Will looks forward to join-
ing them all in the Class of 2038.”

From Jenny Madden (née Kore-
cky): “My husband, Greg Madden,
and I are happy to announce that
we gave birth to a son last year and
recently celebrated his first birthday
with a number of fellow alums. We live
in Jersey City, NJ.; 1 own an interior
design firm, Jenny Madden Design,
and Greg works for JPMorgan Chase.”

From Alexandra “Xan” Nowa-
kowski: “Hello from my new house
in Orlando! As I write this, we are
feeling the first impacts of Hurri-
cane Matthew and are expected to
receive a direct hit later tonight. I still
wouldn't be anywhere else if I could!
In July I was promoted to assistant
professor with the departments of
geriatrics and behavioral sciences and
social medicine at FSU College of
Medicine, where I have been faculty
since January 2014. I then trans-
ferred in September to our Orlando

Several members of the Class of 05 met with friends and their future Lions.
Left to right: Mike Ciccarone ’05 with daughter Mirele and wife, Sophie; Jeff
Engler ’05; Jessica Fjeld ’05 with son Winfield and husband, Ben; Kate Lane
Shaw ’05 with son William and husband, Blake Shaw SEAS’05; and Amira
Ibrahim Bliss BC’05 with husband, Nate Bliss 05, and son Miles.

alumninews

Medical School Regional Campus
—a move I'd been eagerly looking
forward to for quite some time — to
forge community partnerships in
life course health research and to
help build out our clinical research
network. I’ve dreamed of living in
Orlando since I was a teenager, so
this move has been a huge upgrade,
even with the hurricane taking aim at
my neighborhood!

“This summer brought excit-
ing changes in other ways as well.

I guess the first of those is that I
married my amazing colleague and
life partner of five years, J Sumerau,
on June 25! We had a tiny and
entirely self-planned wedding at
my parents’ home in Tallahassee
and enjoyed every minute of our
special day. Because of my move

to Orlando, my spouse and I now
spend most of our time here instead
of driving 4% hours back and forth
between Tallahassee and Tampa.
We also still have our little apart-
ment in Tampa, as J remains on the
faculty at University of Tampa and
loves it there. Our next big, exciting
change will be submitting the full
manuscript package for our edited
volume on trauma-informed health
research, which will likely come out
in late 2017. Overall it has been a
great year for us and we're looking
forward to many more together in
life and in scholarship!”

From Jennie Magiera (née
Cho): “I recently wrote a book,
Courageous Edventures: Navigat-
ing Obstacles to Discover Classroom
Innovation. It’s based on my TEDx
talk, ‘Power to the Pupil.’ It explores
how educators can find the courage
to take risks in school and create
opportunities for their students.”

From Kunal Gupta: “I began a
startup to make a smart community
organizing assistant for social move-
ments at https://better.space. I also
enjoyed returning to the Columbia
campus to hear [journalist and activ-
ist] Shaun King speak in October.”

From Natasha Shapiro: “I’m
an attending neonatologist at
NewYork-Presbyterian/Queens
and have moved to Forest Hills,
Queens, with my husband, and girls
Ellie (almost 4) and Evie (almost
2). Would love to get together with
anyone else in the area! My email is
ns2020@gmail.com.”

Jonathan Treitel recently joined
CenterSquare Investment Manage-
ment, an investment firm that has

specialized in real-asset investment
management since 1987. He is the
energy sector leader on the listed-
infrastructure team. Jonathan recently
revisited Morningside Heights while
in town for a conference and was
very happy that Max Soha is still in
operation. His wife, Stephanie Feld-
man BC’05, recently celebrated her
first year as a professor at Arcadia in
its M.F.A. program. She is working
on her second novel after the recent
publication of The Angel of Losses in
paperback. Jonathan and Stephanie
live in the Philadelphia suburbs with
their two daughters.

Andrew Rios reports: “On Sep-
tember 16 I married Puja Patel (whom
I met in grad school at UC Berkeley)
in Sonoma, Calif., surrounded by our
closest friends and family.”

From Jeffrey Schwartz: “I
earned a master’s in addiction
counseling in 2015 and became a
licensed associate substance abuse
counselor in Arizona not long ago. |
provide group and individual coun-
seling for drug and alcohol addiction
and am undergoing training to treat
problem and compulsive gambling.
My website is SchwartzSubstance
Abuse Therapy.com and I can also be
found on psychologytoday.com. I’m
planning to start a Ph.D. program in
the next year or two and I am look-
ing forward to returning to CU for a
visit — the first since 2005!”

Katie Herman and Mike Noble
welcomed their son, August “Gus”
Herbert Herman Noble, on January 4,
2016. Keri Wachter and her husband,
Brendan Norwood PS’09, welcomed
their first child, Estelle, in July.

Stuart Weinstock SOA’09 and
Aliza Weinstock BC’05 are proud to
welcome their first legacy applicant,
David Benjamin, born on Septem-
ber 8. Stuart is an adjunct professor
of film studies at Columbia and is
the film programmer for Colum-
bia’s Institute for Israel and Jewish
Studies. Aliza teaches second grade
at the Solomon Schechter School of
Manhattan. David is hard at work
on tummy time.

From Mallory Jensen LAW’12:
“My husband, Brian Crist, and I
welcomed our daughter, Amalthea,
into this world on August 24. We
live in San Francisco, where Brian is
a lawyer for Uber and I am a lawyer
with O’Melveny & Myers. We can’t
wait to bring Amalthea to New York
and to Columbia for her first stroll
down College Walk!”

Winter 2016-17 CCT 79

SHAUN ROBY, OF SUNSET PHOTOS

Thanks to all who wrote in!
CCT wishes the Class of 2005 a
happy and healthy start to 2017. If
you would like to take on the class
correspondent role — a great way to
stay connected to the College and
your classmates — please reach out
to cct@columbia.edu.

2006

Michelle Oh Sing

c/oi\€GT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
mo2057@columbia.edu

I hope you had a joyous holiday sea-
son and a great start to 2017! Thanks,
as always, for your submissions and
for checking out this column.
Lindsay Granger married Michael
Weaver Jr. on July 2 in Park City,
Utah, and was surrounded by Colum-
bia College love. Jeanine Edwards,
Francesca Black (née Eugene),
Danielle Satterwhite, Alicia Harper,
Rebecca Phipps and Namrata
Khimani were bridesmaids, with
John-Michael Grzan, Carly Baratt
and Josh Rodriguez ’05 in atten-
dance. In addition, the whole affair
was captured beautifully by Molly
Condit. Shout out to the Columbia
Admissions staff, circa fall 2001, for
admitting these amazing people, who
have become lifelong friends!
Jonathan Ward writes, “At
Oxford, I recently submitted my

Class Notes

Ph.D. thesis on China-India rela-
tions and followed that by spending
a month in Washington, D.C., as

a visiting fellow at the Center for

a New American Security working
on China-India related projects and
also doing some public speaking.”

After nine years with Alvin
Ailey American Dance ‘Theater,
Emily Hawkins recently accepted
a position with Macy’s as director
of media relations. She plans to
continue blogging Broadway reviews
at To See Or Not To See (tsontsnyc.
com) and to keep close ties with the
arts community.

Beth Katz writes, “It was an excit-
ing year! After finishing my Ph.D. in
policy analysis at the Pardee RAND
Graduate School, I began working
in institutional research, with a focus
on student equity, at a community
college in Los Angeles. My son,
Hayden, was born just in time to
attend Reunion Weekend 2016 with
my husband, Andrew Hemingway,
and me. Hayden went to his first
Columbia lecture at 19 days and slept
through the whole thing! I so enjoyed
seeing many old (but not that old)
faces at reunion and I would love to
reunite with classmates in the L.A.
area. I know you're out there!”

Jaime A. Madell and Negisa
Balluku SEAS’06 are thrilled to
announce the birth of their daugh-
ter, Luna Balluku Madell. Jaime is a
derivatives attorney at Paul, Weiss,
Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and
Negisa is a bankruptcy and restruc-

turing attorney at Kaye Scholer.

Lindsay Granger ’O6 married Michael Weaver Jr. on July 2 in Park City,
Utah, surrounded by Columbia College friends. Left to right: Joshua
Rodriguez 05, Jeanine Edwards ’06, Francesca Black ’06 (née Eugene),
Danielle Satterwhite ’06, Alicia Harper ’06, Lindsay Granger ’06, Rebecca
Phipps ’06, Molly Condit 06, Namrata Khimani ’06, John-Michael Grzan ’06

and Carly Baratt ’06.

80 CCT Winter 2016-17

ae
a, See | Poe ee |

Sean Wilkes ’06 (center) recently was married in Sarasota, Fla., accompanied
by groomsman Bob Wray ’06 (left) and best man Brian Wagner ’06.

Michael DiBiasio released his
first feature film, The Videoblogs,
about mental health in the age of
tech. The film is available on iTunes,
Verizon Fios, Amazon Video and
other platforms.

Sean Wilkes writes, “I recently
was married to the lovely Moira
Fischman in Sarasota, Fla., and very
much enjoyed and appreciated the
company of my groomsman Bob
Wray and best man Brian Wagner.
Moira and I have since moved to
Honolulu, where I am completing
my residency in psychiatry at Tripler
Army Medical Center.”

Until next time! Send updates to
mo2057@columbia.edu or through

CCT's Class Notes webform, college.

columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

2007

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

David D. Chait

21 Sherbrooke Dr.

Princeton Junction, NJ 08550
david.donner.chait@gmail.com

Thank you everyone (as always) for
the updates; it’s so exciting to hear
what our classmates are up to. Liz
Miller (née Epstein) writes, “Jona-
than Miller and I have some exciting
news to share! We welcomed our sec-
ond son, Zachary Levi, on September
11. He joins Nathaniel (14 months).
We are overjoyed with happiness.”
Simeon Siegel welcomed his
third son, Micah, in July.
Congratulations, all! Business
is also booming for many of
our classmates ...

Kasia Nikhamina shares, “Red-
beard Bikes is celebrating four years
in business! We recently expanded
our service department and set up a
dedicated fit studio across the street.
Our fleet of bikes includes Parlee,
Mosaic, Seven, Brompton, Giant/
Liv, Specialized, Gunnar and All-
City. My husband, Ilya, and I invite
you to DUMBO to say hi, check
out the shop and try out some bikes
if you're inclined! If your bike gives
you pain, get in touch to book a fit-
ting (kasia@redbeardbikes.com).”

Edward Hambleton writes, “The
Texas Chili Queens food truck is
going strong after a successful first
year! It’s the world’s only drag queen
food truck and is owned and oper-
ated by yours truly.”

Earlier this year, Earnest Sweat
was appointed the first investor-in-
residence at Backstage Capital. He
says, “I’m responsible for leading the
investment team’s due diligence pro-
cess and providing portfolio compa-
nies with sales and growth strategy. If
you know any interesting, early-stage
startup teams please have them con-
tact me on Twitter at @earnestsweat!”
Earnest also continues to share his
insights as a venture capitalist to first-
time founders through his blog, The
Importance of Reading Earnest.

I hope you all had a great 2016.
Share your news for the new year by
emailing me at david.donner.chait@
gmail.com.

2008

Neda Navab

353 King St., Apt. 633
San Francisco, CA 94158
nn2126@columbia.edu

Neda Navab married her best
friend, Andrew E]Bardissi, in an inti-
mate ceremony in Vallery, France, on
July 22. The couple met in 2011 while
attending Harvard Business School.
‘Three Columbia alumnae were in the

CAT PENNENGA

bridal party, including Neda’s sister
and maid of honor, Negin Navab
12, as well as Neda’s undergraduate
roommates, Amanda Rosencrans
and Lauren Abbott. Also in atten-
dance were Danielle Slutzky, Vania
Herdoon, Daniel Rumennik’07 and
Wayne Ting ’06.

In other wedding news, Max
Zeiberg SEAS’08 married Meng
Zhou at Bridal Veil Lakes in
Portland, Ore. In attendance were
Danny Zuffante, Ben Hansen,
Hans Sahni, Jessica Lee-Hansen,
Paula Navratil, Artia Moghbel
SEAS’08, Jessica Shynn BC’08 and
Leon Levy.

Keeping the happy wedding
announcements going is Andre
Burey, a psychiatry resident at
NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell,
who married Laura Galinko (Tufts
11), an anesthesiology resident at
NYP Weill Cornell, in a traditional
Jewish ceremony on September 4 in
Garrison, N.Y. Many College alums
were in attendance: Daniel Cama-
cho, Laura Cole, Christopher
Haas, JoAnn Kintz, Lucas Martin,
Jivaji More, Mona Soliman’11,
Eve Torres, Kimberly Traube and
Sarah Wansley (newly married to
Tommy Crawford, an’09 Yale grad).

Elizabeth Smith writes, “This
has been an exciting year for me.

In January, I received my black belt
in Brazilian jiu-jitsu from Renzo
Gracie after more than a decade of
practice. It was incredibly humbling
and overwhelming! On the career
front, I left American Express to

: 4 hi .
; ANAM? a
DS ZINE.

pursue my passion in wine. After an
amazing 10 weeks at the Interna-
tional Culinary Center, I passed

my Court of Master Sommeliers
certified exam in September. I'll be
a wine consultant at Astor Wines &
Spirits starting in October — come
by and see me any time!”

Rachel Belt left Haiti after five
years and has moved to Switzerland
to take a job with Gavi, The Vaccine
Alliance, an international organiza-
tion that brings together public and
private sectors with the shared goal
of creating equal access to new and
underused vaccines for children liv-
ing in the world’s poorest countries.

Congrats, Rachel!

Cara Radzins (née Seabury)
and her husband welcomed a son,
Nathan David Radzins, on July 28.

Share your news with classmates
by writing to the addresses at the
top of this column or by submitting
a note through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

2009

Alidad Damooei

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
damooei@gmail.com

Kaitlyn Busler’10 and Ralph
DeBernardo were married in Ocean
City, N.J., on June 4, surrounded

Neda Navab ’08 married Andrew E\Bardissi in Vallery, France, on July 22.
Left to right: bridesmaids Lauren Abbott 08, Amanda Rosencrans ’08 and

Negin Navab 12, and the bride.

alumninews

SS couUMBta
Y * = mS

Bs}

UxivEnsTt

@IVER TY

bal

Kaitlyn Busler 10 and Ralph DeBernardo ’09 were married in Ocean City,
N.J., on June 4, with many alumni in attendance, including wedding party
members best man, Gene Kaskiw ’09; groomsmen Clark Koury ’09, Gary
Mesko ’09 and Tyler Duffy ’09; and bridesmaids Jackie Klatsky 09, Megan
Donovan ‘10 and Jane Gartland 10. Many other alumni friends are pictured.

by family and friends. Kaitlyn and
Ralph met in the Athletics training
room in 2006, when Kaitlyn was a
freshman on the field hockey team
and Ralph was a sophomore on the
football team. The couple officially
started dating in August 2008 and
got engaged in May 2014. Columbia
alumni at the wedding were best
man Gene Kaskiw; groomsmen
Clark Koury, Gary Mesko and
Tyler Duffy; and bridesmaids Jackie
Klatsky, Megan Donovan’10 and
Jane Gartland ’10, as well as many
alumni guests. The couple resides in
the San Francisco Bay Area.

This past summer, Jenny Lam
independently curated an interactive
exhibition, LEXICON, and offi-
cially launched her artist representa-
tion business, both of which have
been successes so far. She was also
recently selected as the first-prize
winner in the National Park Ser-
vice’s Centennial Project, has begun
taking illustration commissions, has
been writing for Time Out Chicago
and recently returned to New York
for a weekend to celebrate Julia
Alekseyeva ’10’s wedding.

Know someone who needs
admissions essay help? Yelena
Shuster beat out 40,000 students
to win the Campbell’s Tomato
Soup $100,000 American Dreams
Contest in 2005. Now, she’s giv-
ing eighth-graders (and up) the
competitive edge at TheAdmissions
Guru.com. And for every paid essay
she edits, she donates one to an
underprivileged student.

Happy 2017! Send in a note for
the New Year to damooei@gmail.

com or use CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

2010

Julia Feldberg

One Western Ave., Apt. 717
Boston, MA 02163
juliafeldberg@gmail.com

Hello, 2010. Raph Graybill recently
moved to Seattle, where he is an
attorney with Susman Godfrey.
After graduating from Yale Law in
2015, Raph spent the past year in
Montana clerking for the United
States Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit. Seattle is also home
to Raph’s sophomore-year room-
mate, Jon Hollander. Substantial
amounts of skiing in the Northwest
are planned.

Valerie Sapozhnikova gradu-
ated from Harvard Law in May.
She spent the summer traveling
and visiting exciting new places —
Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and
Azerbaijan — and spent time with
family in Moscow. In October, she
put aside the luxury of traveling
and being a student and started as
an associate at Cravath, Swaine &
Moore. As awesome as traveling is,
Valerie says she is happy to be back
home in New York and looks for-
ward to catching up with classmates.

Kevin McKenna started teaching
in the history department at Lewis
and Clark College in Portland, Ore.,
while he finishes his dissertation at

the University of Washington.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 81

PRESTON TRAUSCHT

Kaitlyn Busler and Ralph DeBer-
nardo 09 were married in Ocean
City, N.J., on June 4, surrounded by
family and friends. Kaitlyn and Ralph
met in the Columbia Athletics train-
ing room in 2006, when Kaitlyn was
a freshman on the field hockey team
and Ralph was a sophomore on the
football team. The couple started dat-
ing in August 2008 and got engaged
in May 2014. Columbia alumni in
the wedding party were best man
Gene Kaskiw’09; groomsmen Clark
Koury’09, Gary Mesko’09 and Tyler
Duffy 09; and bridesmaids Jackie
Klatsky 09, Megan Donovan and
Jane Gartland. There were many
alumni guests at the wedding as
well. The couple resides in the San
Francisco Bay Area.

From Jessica Guo: “Hello there!
This year (2016) marked the first time
since graduation that all of my senior
year suitemates reunited: Angela
Hebberd (formerly Zhen Lu), Lien
Hoang, Katherine Vance (née
Poulsen), Claire Zukowski, Lisa
Kawamoto and me. All six of us,
plus Aaron Hsieh ’09 (our sophomore
year RA), met up in Flagstaff, Ariz.,
for my wedding, which took place in
a meadow just outside Sunset Crater
Volcano National Monument. I was
delighted that all could join from far-
flung places, especially Lien Hoang,
who is based in Vietnam. Those of
us who could stick around visited the
Grand Canyon the next day, hiked
down part of the Hermit Trail and
drove back via the Navajo Nation. I
will be in Flagstaff for two more years
finishing my Ph.D. in plant ecology. I
welcome more visitors to this beauti-

ful part of the country.”

: : n
¥: i
i. ‘
ty p
_— . 4 ae
5 Ss sehen
: of ht

om Ya
a ay

And, of course, from Chris Yim:
“On a rare sunny day in San Francisco,
I was standing at my bus stop, heading
to work, when a drone flew overhead.
I gave it the finger and it proceeded to
take photo after photo of me dressed
in my Versace suit. I hated it in that
moment. I was looking at the disease
of technology staring right back at me.

“When I got onto the bus, a lady
sat down next to me and started
telling me about her childhood in
Iowa. She offered me a plum, which
I politely refused because I am on a
low-carb diet. We exchanged many
pleasantries before she invited me to
a yoga retreat that upcoming week-
end. After texting with my wife,
Grace, we decided that we would
attend Sacha’s retreat in Calistoga.

“Never ever have I experienced a
weekend so therapeutic and cathartic.
I spoke in tongues for the first time
and opened up many pathways for
chakra to start flowing. I had lucid
dreams where Varun Gulati SEAS’10
and I strapped ourselves into a drone
that took us to a distant moon. As we
colonized this new place, we insti-
tuted that every child meditate and
eat cacao in their early development.

“T awoke from that dream and the
rest that was the retreat with a new
perspective on humanity, life and
my path for achieving life serenity.
I didn’t think that I would find it so
early, but I have rolled away the stone
that covers my intention for life and
search for Truth. This may scare some
and leave others uncomfortable, but
I am no longer the man that I once
was, the one that left Columbia in
2010. I have been freed.

“T bid you adieu, beloved one.”

Jessica Guo 10 married lan Keirsey on June 24 in Flagstaff, Ariz. Left to
right: Angela Hebberd 10 (née Zhen Angela Lu), Lien Hoang ‘10, Katherine
Vance '10 (née Poulsen), the groom, the bride, Aaron Hsieh ’09, Claire

Zukowski 10 and Lisa Kawamoto 10.

82 CCT Winter 2016-17

2011

Nuriel Moghavem and
Sean Udell

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
nurielm@gmail.com
sean.udell@gmail.com

We know 2011 was a weird year for
most of us, but we think it’s easy to
say 2016 has been the weirdest since
then. We hope the world is intact by
the time this is set to publish, since
we're writing in October and it genu-
inely feels day-to-day right now. That
being said, some pretty awesome
stuff happened to our class in 2016
and we're happy to share the news
with you now. As always, it’s great to
get your updates all year! Feel free to
drop us a line at nurielm@gmail.com
and sean.udell@gmail.com.

Like most years before it in human
history, 2016 was a year in which
weddings and engagements took
place. Julie DeVries married Dieter
Brommer on August 7 in an art gal-
lery in Washington, D.C., where they
both have extended family. Dieter and
Julie met at a middle school dance
in the seventh grade. They lost touch
in college but ran into each other on
the street when they were both living
in Boston post-college, and started
dating. He proposed on a walk in
the woods in Exeter, N.H., on the
trails they ran together on the cross
country team in high school. They live
in Berkeley, Calif., where Dieter is a
mechanical engineer specializing in
concrete and Julie is in her third year
at UC Berkeley Law.

Matt Pruznick JRN’14 got
engaged to his girlfriend of four
years, Missy Sohigian, while on
vacation in Italy this summer. They
will be having a surprise wedding
— in which neither knows the desti-
nation until arrival at the airport —
sometime in 2018. Matt lives in the
East Village and is an editor for two
trade news magazines covering the
AV industry. He and Missy met on
New Year’s Eve 2012 on a party boat
on the Hudson River.

Dhruv Vasishtha, who has a
serious update for once, proposed
to his better half and the love of
his life, Molly Spector BC’11, in
July. They’re now both fending off

requests from friends in their respec-

tive business schools angling to get
invites to their first Indian wedding.

Samantha Glover married Diego
de Lima Ferreira on August 6 in
Connecticut. The couple met in Rio
de Janeiro’s Copacabana neighbor-
hood while Samantha was studying
in Brazil during her third year of law
school. They knew right away that it
was forever and they spent the next
couple of years in an inter-continen-
tal relationship. In attendance at their
wedding were some of Samantha's
friends from John Jay 5. Shortly after
getting married, the couple moved to
Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Samantha
does capital markets work at Shear-
man & Sterling. If you find yourself
in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, let
her know!

Many of our classmates are
also in new jobs doing exciting
work. Princess Francois started
an assistant principal position at
MESA Charter H.S. in her home
borough of Brooklyn this summer
after teaching for five years. She was
selected as a National 30-Under-30
Caribbean-American Emerging
Leaders and Changemakers Hon-
oree. In addition, she was invited
to the White House to attend the
South by South Lawn Festival.

Jan van Zoelen recently moved
to Donetsk, Ukraine, to work as a
Russian-speaking delegate for the
International Committee of the Red
Cross. He visits conflict-related pris-
oners, helps restore family links, tries
to find the whereabouts of missing
people and tries to convince (always
confidentially) the armed forces to
follow international humanitarian
law, i.e., the Geneva Conventions.

Read
CCT
@yalitats

To opt out of the print
edition, click “Manage
Your Subscription” at
college.columbia.edu/cct
and follow the domestic
instructions. You'll receive
an email when each new
issue is posted.

CCT

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '57, BUS'58

In other words: All those long
hours spent in the Slavic languages
department are finally being put to
good use. It was a long road there
for Jan. After graduation, he was for
a year a paralegal at Cleary Gottlieb
in Paris, then studied Russian for
six months at the Odessa National
Polytechnic University, then finished
a two-year master’s in economic and
social history at Oxford (alongside
EC townhouse 805 roommate Diana
Greenwald) and then taught in
Moscow for six months before mov-
ing to Ukraine. He encourages you
to find out more about the important
work done by the ICRC in Ukraine
and in other conflict areas.

Eric G. Rosenberg, after
completing a one-year post-law
school fellowship in cybercrime
and identity theft at the Manhat-
tan District Attorney’s Office in
October 2015, has been working
at boutique cyber and intellec-
tual property law firm DeVore &
DeMarco. In March, Eric helped
draft an amicus curiae (“friend of the
court”) brief on behalf of the Federal
Law Enforcement Officers Associa-
tion, the Association of Prosecuting
Attorneys and the National Sheriffs’
Association that was filed in the
United States District Court for the
Central District of California as part
of the litigation between Apple and
the United States concerning the
iPhone’s encryption. As an associate,
Eric has been counseling clients on

Lgguumeias

e-commerce, information security
and privacy, trade secret theft, data
breaches, internal investigations and
referrals to law enforcement.

Michael Egley is back in his
hometown, training, teaching and
refereeing jiu-jitsu out of Renzo
Gracie Pittsburgh. He’s an active
competitor in the International
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation circuit,
medaling at World and Pan Ameri-
can Championships in gi and no-gi
jiu-jitsu. He heard about jiu-jitsu
from a podcast, gave it a try and fell
in love with it. You can follow him
on Instagram at @born2grapple.

2012

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sarah Chai

clo'CGTi

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
sarahbchai@gmail.com

The Class of 2012 continues to
accomplish some very cool things!

alumninews

Producer Pat Blute and musical
director Tareq Abuissa’14 came
together to produce a “Varsity Show
for Silicon Valley” in the form of South
of Market: The Musical (somamusical.
com), which played in San Francisco
October 20-23. The musical also
starred Varun Gulati SEAS’10!

Jessica Greenberg, a medical
student at Yale, and Oren Brecher
11, an anesthesiology resident at
Yale New Haven Hospital, got
engaged in January 2016.

Congratulations!

Derek Turner says hello from
northern California: “As my gradua-
tion from Stanford Graduate School
of Business approaches, I’m plan-
ning to move back to my beloved
home state of Arizona to search for
and acquire an established, profitable
business from a retiring owner. It’s a
way to gain leadership in (and own-
ership of) a growing organization
without the startup headaches of
finding product-market fit. It’s been
a blast living in Palo Alto, including
reconnecting with Chuck Roberts
and Ryan Gallagher SEAS’12, but
it’s time to put my over-education
to work. If you're around Stanford
before June, reach out! Otherwise,
you'll find me in the Grand Canyon
State, wandering the desert in search
of an acquisition target.”

Nettra Pan sent an update from
Switzerland: “I spent the summer
completing field work for one of
the papers in my dissertation, then

manically ‘coding’ my data (matching
qualitative data to a numeric code,
which designates its meaning). In
between staring at text and Excel files,
I slipped in a few dips in the beautiful
Lac Léman (that’s Lake Geneva,

for non-locals) and enjoyed a few
EuroCup games. Highlights of the
summer include Kimberly Rubin’s
visit (we were randomly assigned to
each other as roommates freshman
year!), a California road trip and

the chance to present my research

on early venture evolution at the
Academy of Management’s annual
meeting. Lesson learned — the next
time nerves hit (I was speaking along-
side cool scholars), I must channel
Amy Cuddy’s Wonder Woman vibes!
Hope to see more Columbians on
this side of the world soon!”

Congratulations to Kimberly
Rubin for being accepted into and
deciding to attend Chicago Law.
Nettra wishes her the best of luck in
her first year!

Speaking of starting classes,
Hannah D’Apice started pursu-
ing an M.A. at Stanford this past
fall and lives in Menlo Park, Calif.
She says she would love to get in
touch with alums in the Bay Area.
Thomas Shay Hill also began pur-
suing a degree this past fall, a Ph.D.
in urban planning at the Harvard
Graduate School of Design.

We wish you the best of luck,
Hannah and Tommy!

‘Thanks to all those who sent in
updates. I encourage everyone else to
drop me a line, as we'd love to hear
from you — sarahbchai@gmail.com!

2013

Tala Akhavan

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
talaakhavan@gmail.com

Class of '13, let’s start 2017 by send-
ing in some notes; your classmates
want to hear from you! For now,
here is a note from Jacki Karsh
(née Bryk) JRN’14: “Armed with her
master’s, Jacki, a native New Yorker,
moved to Los Angeles, where she
spent several months in a prestigious
fellowship at NBC Nightly News’
West Coast outpost. Jacki pursued
her on-camera news career and

landed a job as a reporter for the L.A.

Winter 2016-17 CCT 83

County Channel, LA36. In this role,
Jacki has interviewed countless lead-
ing figures that shape the future of
L.A. County — the most populous
county in the United States.

“Jacki covers a wide range of top-
ics for the show LA Now, including
political developments, social issues
impacting communities, advances
in healthcare, education reform and
transformative infrastructure. Jacki
also is a web correspondent for the
entertainment digital entity “Young
Hollywood, is the host of Westside
TV on westsidetoday.com and was
a moderator of and anchor for
MontyTV at the annual Montgomery
Summit in Santa Monica.

“The Columbia Alumni Associa-
tion of Southern California invited
Jacki to join its board and she now
chairs the Membership Committee.
Jacki was an ambassador for the CAA
of Southern California at this year’s
Alumni Leaders Weekend in early
October. In September 2015, Jacki
married Jeff Karsh. Together they
enjoy hiking all around the United
States and long-distance biking.”

2014

Rebecca Fattell

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
rsf2121@columbia.edu

George T. Phillips is a third-year
at the Georgetown University Law
Center and will clerk for the United

States District Court for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania in 2017.

Back on the campaign trail, Alex-
andra Svokos got Rudy Giuliani’s
spit on her face while covering the
presidential debates for Elite Daily.
She is looking forward to the release
of the next issue of CCT, when the
election will be over. Please send
help to asvokos@gmail.com.

Tareq Abuissa and Pat
Blute 12 wrote a musical in San
Francisco that sold out the entire
preview run in 48 hours. It’s a tech
parody called South of Market: The
Musical. SoOMAMusical covers
topics including founder FOMO,
women in tech, the downsides of
the on-demand economy, venture
capitalists and even tech media.

The show premiered October 20

at Z Space in San Francisco. Tareq
and Pat are Varsity Show alumni
and the project was inspired by that
experience. The show promises to
“change the world,” they say, with a
fresh take on the tech industry. The
team is a mix of professional San
Francisco-based performers from
shows such as Beach Blanket Babylon
and tech employees from Dropbox,
Emergence Capital, Silicon Valley
Bank and more.

Chris Zombik has been work-
ing for an education startup in
Shanghai since June 2015. He
says he is having an amazing time
learning Mandarin while exploring a
hyper-dynamic city that is uniquely

Chinese and cosmopolitan.

Kate Eberstadt recently returned
to the United States after founding
and directing The Hutto Project, a

Robert “Bob” Lou 15 and Angela Song 15 marked the start of their clinical health
studies at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine at their White Coat Ceremony.

84 CCT Winter 2016-17

choral music program for displaced
children within an emergency refu-
gee camp in Berlin. The Columbia
community was instrumental in
this project’s development, from
spreading the word to support and
advisement to volunteering in the
classroom. This fall, Kate planned
to write and record music with her
sister, Izzi Eberstadt BC’16. They
will also join French filmmaker
Brune Charvin in residence at The
Watermill Center this winter to
co-produce and soundtrack a short

documentary on their work in Berlin.

Stay tuned!

Stephanie Osahenrunmwen
Odiase is in graduate school at the
University of Oxford, completing
a one-year M.S. in evidence-based
social intervention and policy evalu-
ation. In addition to her schoolwork,
she is planning a few trips around
Europe and the Mediterranean.
After graduation she plans to return
to New York City.

Classmates, please send updates
to rsf2121@columbia.edu or use
CCT’s Class Notes webform, college.

columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

We want to hear from you!

2015

Kareem Carryl

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
kdc2122@columbia.edu

I hope you had a great time at
Homecoming on October 22! For
me, it’s always a great time when
members of our class are able to get
together, even if it’s only for a day. If
you have photos, stories or memo-
rable moments from the event, feel
free to send them to me.

Here are two updates from our
class: Angela Song writes, “Robert
“Bob” Lou and | are excited to
have started our first year of medical
school together at Penn’s Perelman
School of Medicine!”

Congrats, Angela and Bob!

Doreen Mohammed ’17 wrote in
to give a great update on Fatimatou
Diallo. She writes “Check out how
one of our young alumnae is making
such strides in her career and profes-
sional goals by becoming MyCareer-
Hacker’s CFO less than two years
after graduating from the College.”

A LinkedIn article of Fatima-
tou’s new role explains, “MCH is
dedicated to helping unemployed,
underemployed, and/or profes-
sionally dissatisfied individuals and
communities hack their careers and
gain employment suitable to their
needs, goals and desires.”

Congrats, Fatimatou!

Please continue submitting
updates to kde2122@columbia.
edu or via the CCT Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

2016

REUNION WEEKEND
JUNE 1-4, 2017

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Lily Liu-Krason

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
lliukrason@gmail.com

Hi everyone! I’m Lily Liu-Krason,
your new class correspondent. I
studied math and creative writing

at CC and recently finished a three-
month backpacking trip doing social
science research. I’m currently based
in San Francisco and would love to
hear from you and grow our Class
Notes, so email me what’s new with
you: lliukrason@gmail.com.

Jessica Geddes works at a
community health nonprofit in
Greensboro, Ala., where she recently
went to an Auburn football game ...
but we know she misses the Colum-
bia football games more! Speaking
of which, Homecoming was Octo-
ber 22 — hope you made it!

Jackson Fisher works at David
Black Literary Agency in New York
and says, “If any fellow Lions are
sitting on great book proposals, they
can send them my way!”

Aram Balian is an outreach
chair for our Reunion Commit-
tee so contact him if you want to
get involved. It’s never too early to
save the date for our first Columbia
reunion, which will be Thursday,
June 1—Sunday, June 4!

obituaries

1942

Wesley W. Lang Sr, retired business
executive, Stamford, Conn., on April
11, 2016. Lang was born on March 17,
1921, in New York. He served in the
Army Air Forces in WWII and earned
an M.B.A. from NYU. Thereafter, he
was employed by A.D. Juilliard, Pfizer,
Schrafft’s and B. Altman & Co., where
he was CFO and a member of the

Board of Directors. Lang is survived
by his wife of 69 years, Marion;
daughter, Nancy; sons, Wesley Jr. and
his wife, Mary Margaret, and Kenneth
and his wife, Deborah; and six grand-
children. Memorial contributions

may be made to St. Jude Children’s
Research Hospital.

Thomas W. Stewart, retired
anesthesiologist, Lynchburg, Va.,
on March 27, 2016. Stewart was

born on June 14, 1921, in Pelham,
N.Y. He earned a degree from P&S
in 1945 and began his career with
the Medical Corps of the U.S. Navy
1942-50, with his Foreign Service
taking place at Guam N.H. in the

Marianas Islands. He later was an

anesthesiologist at Lynchburg Memo-
rial Hospital, Centra Lynchburg
General Hospital, Centra Virginia
Baptist Hospital and Bedford
Memorial Hospital, from which he

Jack Greenberg 45, LAW4:8, Former Dean of the College,
Law School Professor and Civil Rights Attorney

Jack Greenberg ’45, LAW’48,
an emeritus dean of the College,
emeritus Law School professor,
influential civil rights attorney and
former leader of the NAACP Legal
Defense and Educational Fund
(LDF), died on October 12, 2016, in
New York City. He was 91.

Greenberg was born on Decem-
ber 22, 1924, to Jewish parents from
Poland and Romania. He grew up
in Brooklyn and the Bronx and, as
he recounted in his 1994 memoir,
Crusaders in the Courts: How a Dedi-
cated Band of Lawyers Fought for the
Civil Rights Revolution, early in his
life developed an acute awareness of
disadvantage and inequality.

Greenberg entered the College
intending to become an accoun-
tant, like his father, but said that his
absorption in his Core and Humani-
ties classes steered him toward human
rights work. He entered the Navy in
1941 and recalled being disturbed
by the brazen racial prejudice he
witnessed. His time in the military
included in 1945 serving as a deck
officer aboard a tank landing ship in
the Pacific Ocean theater and fighting
in the battles of Iwo Jima, Okinawa
and Iheya Jima.

After the war, Greenberg
enrolled in the Law School and
was particularly affected by Walter
Gellhorn LAW’31’s “Legal Survey”
course, which offered students the
opportunity to gain work experience
with civil rights organizations. Dur-
ing his four semesters in the course,

Greenberg worked for the American
Civil Liberties Union, the American
Jewish Congress and the LDF, writ-
ing briefs and other legal papers.
After graduating from the Law
School as a Harlan Fiske Stone
Scholar, Greenberg was recommended
by Gellhorn to Thurgood Marshall for
a position at the LDF; 11 days before
his 28th birthday, Greenberg was argu-
ing one of the key cases under Brown v.
Board of Edwation before the Supreme
Court. Marshall, who had joined the
federal bench in 1961, appointed
Greenberg that same year to succeed
him as director-counsel of the LDF,
causing friction in both the African-
American and Jewish communities.
Greenberg litigated the 1961 case that
resulted in James Meredith's integra-
tion of the University of Mississippi,
and 1972's Furman v. Georgia, in which
the high court put in place a de facto
moratorium on capital punishment in
the United States. All told, Green-
berg argued 40 cases in front of the
Supreme Court, as well as hundreds
of similar cases in the lower courts,
fighting for many rights previously
denied to black Americans, including
voting rights, equal pay for equal work
and fair housing. He co-founded the
Mexican American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, drafted a New York
City law that denied tax exemptions to
private clubs that discriminated on the
basis of race or gender and founded the
Earl Warren Legal Training Program.
In 1984, Columbia presented
Greenberg the honorary Doctor of

Laws degree for his efforts toward
“furthering social equality.” Later in
life, he worked on global issues,
particularly on the discriminated
Roma population in Europe.

Greenberg left the LDF in 1984
and joined the Law School, where
he had been an adjunct starting in
1970, as a professor and vice dean.
He became the Alphonse Fletcher,
Jr. Professor of Law and taught
courses in constitutional law, civil
rights and human rights law, as well
as a class on civil procedure and a
seminar called “Kafka and the Law.”
He created the school’s Human
Rights Internship Program, which
has placed more than 1,500 students
at organizations around the world.

Greenberg was dean of the
College 1989-93. He maintained his
passion and devotion to civil rights
on campus, spearheading a mission
to increase diversity within the
College faculty and student popula-
tion. He stepped down as dean in
1993 in a University shake-up but
remained a professor at the Law
School until retiring last year.

His books include Race Relations
and American Law (1959), Judicial
Process and Social Change: Consti-
tutional Litigation (1985), Crusad-
ers in the Courts: How a Dedicated
Band of Lawyers Fought for the Civil

' Rights Revolution (1994) and even a

cookbook, co-authored with former
Harvard Law dean James Vorenberg,
Dean Cuisine or the Liberated Man’s
Guide to Fine Cooking (1990). He

retired. Stewart connected with other

medical professionals through the

Virginia Society of Anesthesiolo-

gists, Medical Society of Virginia and

American Board of Anesthesiology

and was also a member of Court

Street United Methodist Church, the

American Legion and the Bedford

Country Club. He is survived by his

wife, Selene Carson Stewart, whom

he married in 1954; daughter, Martha 5
Stewart Doolittle; sons, William and 4

DAN POLLARD

also published articles in the Co/um-
bia Law Review, Harvard Law
Review, Yale Law Journal, NYU Law
Review and Michigan Law Review.
In 2001, Greenberg was awarded
the Presidential Citizens Medal by
President Clinton, who deemed him
“a crusader for freedom and equality.”
Greenberg remained hopeful, writing
in his memoir, “... while we should
seek justice for its own sake, those
for whom that is not reason enough
should understand that without
justice there will be no peace.”
Greenberg’s marriage to Sema
Ann Tanzer ended in divorce in
1970. Greenberg is survived by
his wife of 46 years, Deborah M.
Greenberg LAW’57 (née Cole); chil-
dren from his first marriage, David,
Sarah GSAS’86 and Ezra; his wife’s
children, Suzanne Greenberg and
William Cole’84, whom he adopted;
brother, Daniel; and five grandchil-
dren. He was predeceased in 2011 by
a son, Josiah LAW’81.
— Lisa Palladino and
Aiyana K. White’18

Winter 2016-17 CCT 85

his wife, Carol Welstead Stewart, and
Robert and his wife, Cleo Sander
Stewart; six grandchildren; and three
nephews. He was preceded in death
by his brother, Samuel, and son,
Thomas W. Jr. Memorial contributions
may be made to Red Bird Mission.

1948

Joseph J. Fusco, retired physician,
Hillsdale, N.Y., on June 16, 2016.
Fusco was born on August 3, 1928,

in Harlem and grew up in the Bronx.
He earned an M.D. at NYU Bellevue
College of Medicine, interned at
Cincinnati General Hospital and was
a resident at Philadelphia General
Hospital. During the Korean War,

he was a captain in the Air Force
Medical Corps and was stationed in
France, where he met his wife, Isabell.
Fusco finished his residency with Dr.
Paul Beeson, an infectious disease
specialist at Yale. Following training
at Hartford and Grace-New Haven
hospitals, Fusco joined the Rip Van
Winkle Clinic in Hudson, N.Y.,

as an internist and was appointed

to Columbia Memorial Hospital's
Department of Medicine in 1958.
After the clinic’s dissolution in 1964,
he continued in private practice in
Hillsdale and joined Prime Colum-
bia Greene Medical Associates in
Hudson. He completed his career
on staff at the Pine Haven Nursing
Home and Rehabilitation Center in
Philmont, N.Y. Fusco is survived by
his wife of 60 years; children, Joseph
and his wife, Karen Parker, Joan
and her husband, Gerard Walshe,
John and Frances; a grandson; a
niece; and four nephews. Memorial
contributions may be made to The
Community Hospice of Columbia
- Greene, 47 Liberty St., Catskill,
NY 12414 or The Roeliff Jansen
Community Library, 9091 Route 22,
Hillsdale, NY 12529.

Monteagle “Monty” Stearns,
retired ambassador, professor,
Cambridge, Mass., on May 14, 2016.
Stearns grew up in Carmel, Calif.,
and New England. In 1943, while at
Stanford, he enlisted in the Marine
Corps, completed Officer Candidate
School and was assigned to the U.S.S.
West Virginia. Following WWII, he
graduated from the College with a
degree in English. A Foreign Service

officer for more than 40 years, Stearns’

assignments included Turkey, the

86 CCT Winter 2016-17

Congo, the United Kingdom, Laos,
U.S. Ambassador to the Ivory Coast
and three tours in Greece, the last also
as U.S. ambassador. In Washington,
D.C., he served as deputy assistant
secretary of state for East Asian

and Pacific Affairs and as VP of the
National Defense University. After
retiring, Stearns held the Warburg
Chair for International Relations at
Simmons College, also publishing
two books and numerous articles on
US. foreign policy. In 2014, he was
made Grand Commander of the
Order of the Phoenix by the presi-
dent of the Hellenic Republic.
Stearns is survived by his wife of

57 years, Antonia Stearns (née
Riddleberger); sister, Mary Lou
Stearns Roppoli; children, Joanne,
Pamela Pollack and her husband,
Fred, Christopher, Jonathan and his
wife, Barbara, David and his wife,
Virginie, and Emily Stearns Fertik
and her husband, Elliot; and eight
grandchildren. Memorial contribu-
tions may be made to the Association
for Diplomatic Studies and Training
or to Doctors Without Borders.

1949

Neil Warner, music arranger and
conductor, New York City, on
August 30, 2016. Born Warner Neil
Shilkret, Warner graduated from the
College magna cum laude at 19 and
was a Korean War veteran. He had a
prolific musical career in TV, adver-
tising (he won several Clio Awards)
and on Broadway as an arranger

and the original conductor of Man
of La Mancha. He is survived by

his wife, Naomi; children, Julie and
James; daughter-in-law, Kim; sister,
Marilyn; and one grandson.

1952

C. Donald “Don” Mohr, retired
attorney, Washington, D.C., on
July 14, 2016. Born in Hackensack,
N,J., on August 7, 1930, Mohr lived
most of his adult life in Manhat-
tan. He earned a degree from the
Law School in 1955 and worked at
Schieffelin & Co., Moét Hennessy
and LVMH, from which he retired
in 1994. He is survived by his wife
of 52 years, Mariavittoria Serafini
Mohr; children, Christopher, and
Chantal Mohr O’Rourke GS’97;
and three grandchildren.

1955

Abraham Ashkenasi, retired
professor of political science, Berlin,
Germany, on March 27, 2016. Born
on May 14, 1934, in Brooklyn,

N.Y., Ashkenasi earned a master’s

in international relations from Johns
Hopkins in 1956. He conducted his
doctoral residency at Columbia. After
four years in the Air Force stationed
in West Germany, joining the reserve
as a captain, Ashkenasi taught at the
University of Maryland overseas while
conducting his doctoral research at
the Otto Suhr Institute of the Free
University Berlin, earning a Ph.D. in
public law and government in 1964
from GSAS. After a year teaching at
Hofstra, he accepted a teaching posi-
tion at the Free University, becoming a
tenured professor in 1971. Ashkenasi
focused on minority and refugee issues
worldwide, with a special focus on

Israel and the Occupied Territories.

% Sf
i py Z
j |
a i en i

Abraham Ashkenasi 55

His career included guest professor-
ships at UCLA and UC Berkeley, a
visiting fellowship at Haifa University,
Israel, and a research fellowship at
Hebrew University, Jerusalem. His
many major publications include
writing Modern German Nationalism
(1976) and Palestinian Identities and
Preferences (1992), as well as editing
The Worldwide Refugee Crisis (1988)
and The Future of Jerusalem (1999).

1957

H. Douglas Eldridge, reporter and
author, East Orange, N.J.,on April 11,
2016. Eldridge was Spectator editor-
in-chief and later a reporter for

the Newark News and the Hudson
Reporter and the deputy editor for
the Montclair Times. He authored

Obituary Submission
Guidelines

Columbia College Today welcomes
obituaries for College alumni.
Deaths are noted in the next
available issue in the “Other

to Obituaries Editor, Columbia
College Today, Columbia Alumni
Center, 622 W. 113th St., MC 4530,
Ath Fl., New York, NY 10025.

The Rise and Fall of the Newark News:
A Personal Retrospection and edited
and wrote the preface for William M.
Ashby’s Tales Without Hate. In March
1968, Eldridge marched with and
interviewed Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. during King’s visit to Newark. He
also interviewed President Nixon on
television. An advocate for civil rights
and civil liberties, Eldridge won
numerous awards from the NAACP,
the American Jewish Committee

and Jewish Council for Public
Affairs, among others. He was instru-
mental in the establishment of the
Newark Public Information Office

in 1970 and served as a special aide
and adviser to Newark Mayors
Kenneth A. Gibson and Sharpe
James. Eldridge was president and
executive director of the Newark
Preservation and Landmarks Com-
mittee; in 2014, it presented him
with a Lifetime Achievement Award
for 40 years of service. Eldridge’s
wife, Marjorie, predeceased him on
September 30, 2015; they had been
married since June 15, 1957. Eldridge
is survived by their sons, Martin and
Frederick; three grandchildren; and
one great-grandchild.

1961

Bernard Miller, electrical engineer
and real estate entrepreneur,
Brooklyn, N.Y., on July 20, 2016.
Miller was born on June 20, 1939, in
New York City and grew up on the
Lower East Side and in Rockaway,
N.Y. He earned All-City honors

as a basketball player at Hebrew
Institute of Long Island. Following

his graduation Phi Beta Kappa from
the College, Miller earned a B.S.,
an M.S. and a Ph.D. in electrical
engineering, all from Engineering.
He worked in cutting-edge aviation
and aerospace projects for Hughes
Aircraft in Culver City, Calif., in
the 1960s. In the early 1970s Miller
co-founded Unigon Industries,
where he developed Doppler ultra-
sound technology. Miller entered
the real estate industry in NYC in
the 1980s. At the time of his death
he was a significant real estate owner
in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Miller
was a noted philanthropist; an avid
runner, having completed four NYC
marathons; and a Talmudic scholar.
He is survived by his wife of 48
years, Margareta (née Hirsch); chil-
dren, Eric LAW’95, George 93 and
Lea Miller Kronenberg 99; and 15
grandchildren. Memorial contribu-
tions may be made to BINA Stroke
and Brain Injury Assistance, 2511
Avenue I, Brooklyn, NY 11210.

John J. Tsucalas, financial analyst,
investment banker and writer, Phila-
delphia, on September 21, 2016.
Tsucalas earned a B.A. in economics
and was elected by classmates as a
permanent class officer and a mem-
ber of Sigma Chi and the Varsity C
Club. As president of the Colum-
bia Club of Philadelphia, he was
presented an Alumni Medal in 1986.
Tsucalas earned an M.B.A. in finance
from Wharton. He was deputy

auditor general of Pennsylvania and
received commendations from the
State Senate and House. Tsucalas was
a C.F.A. and principal of John James
Tsucalas & Co.; VP of leveraged
buyouts and private placements for
Butcher & Singer in Philadelphia;
and investment officer for John
Hancock in Boston. His writings
appeared in city, national and inter-
national publications, and he was a
guest speaker on economic, financial
and political analyses regarding
developments in the United States
and the Middle East and was a
volunteer adviser to the DOD on
economic development. Tsucalas was
a first lieutenant in the USAF and
received the Air Force Commenda-
tion Medal for “Meritorious Service”
and the National Defense Service
Medal awarded during the Vietnam
War; he developed a screenplay about
the day-to-day living, loves and losses
of injured female veterans. Memo-
rial contributions may be made to
Columbia University with memo
“Crew Shell in memory of John
Tsucalas.” Tsucalas is survived by his
wife of 23 years, Joanne, among others.

1963

Alan P. Jacobs, film professor and
producer, entertainment executive,
Chapel Hill, N.C., on February 22,
2016. Born and raised in Manhattan,
Jacobs was a lifelong New Yorker

in his heart. He started making
documentary films in the late 60s
supporting the Civil Rights, Anti-
War and Feminist Movements and
was directly involved in the emerging
wave of independent film and video
as a founding member of Newsreel,
co-owner of Odeon Films and execu-
tive director of the Association of
Independent Video and Filmmakers.
Jacobs was a founding trustee of the
Sundance Institute and board mem-
ber of the American Film Institute,
the Independent Feature Project and
the Southern Documentary Fund. In
Los Angeles, he produced narrative
television films for The Film Foundry,
his own production company and
others including Mirage Enterprises,
CBS and Hallmark Hall of Fame.
He held executive positions at Trans-
Lux Corp. and Hallmark Entertain-
ment. Jacobs taught for five years at
California State University - Long
Beach. He earned an M.F.A. in film
in 2004 from SOA. Jacobs is survived
by his wife of 31 years, Lynn Good-
pasture; daughter, Keelia; brother,
Jim; and cousin, Howard Muscott.

1964

Malcolm B. Sargent, financial
executive, Assonet, Mass., on June
26, 2015. Born in St. Louis, Sargent
lived most of his life in Westfield,
N,J., New York City and Assonet,
Mass. He earned an M.B.A. in

1966 from the Business School and
embarked on a career in finance,
joining Chase Manhattan Bank in
its Special Development Program.
He ultimately pursued private
business interests. Sargent was an
avid automobile and sports fan and
steadfast friend to many, including
his Phi Gamma Delta fraternity
brothers. He is survived by his wife
of 50 years, Susan Deane Sargent,
brother, Bruce, and his wife, Janet;
and one nephew.

1978

John C. Ohman, attorney,
New York City, on March 7, 2016.
Ohman earned an M.A. from
GSAS in 1981 and a degree from
the Law School in 1992. He was
an acknowledged classical music
expert, one of his passions; another
was the New York Yankees. Ohman
was a successful attorney in New
York as a partner at Brown Raysman
Millstein Felder & Steiner, remain-
ing as partner after its merger with
‘Thelen Reid, and subsequently as
a partner at Vandenberg and Feliu.
He had recently joined McGlinchey
Stafford, where he concentrated his
practice on complex commercial,
business and technology litigation.
He is survived by his mother; two
sisters; wife; and two daughters and
their mother.

— Lisa Palladino

Winter 2016-17 CCT 87

alumnicorner

“The Lilac Bush, annotated

PJ Sauerteig 15 analyzes the literary references in a song from his latest album,

The Ascension of Slow Dakota

erforming under the name Slow Dakota, PJ Sauerteig 715
blurs the lines among music, literature and art; his third
album, The Ascension of Slow Dakota, is an exploration
of musical styles and literary allusions that defies easy
categorization. Reviewer Andrew Keipe of PopMatters wrote, “The

Ascension reads like a mini encyclopedia of the Western canon,”

while Odserver’s Justin Joffe wrote, “The Ascension of Slow Dakota
packs itself so full of theological, literary and poetic references so
as to almost laugh in the face of the three-minute hit singles and
tight, 30-minute garage records.”

The 19-track album, released July 22, references T'S. Eliot, William
Blake, Walt Whitman, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and many
other literary legends. Six of the tracks feature narrative voice-overs
performed by Columbia faculty: Philip Kitcher, the John Dewey
Professor of Philosophy; Margaret Vandenburg GSAS’96, a senior
lecturer in English at Barnard; and Joseph Fasano SOA‘08, an adjunct
assistant professor of writing in the Faculty of the Arts.

Sauerteig, a double major in creative writing and psychology at
the College, now attends NYU Law. Below, he shares an annotated
lyric from “The Lilac Bush,” breaking it down Lit Hum-style.

“The Lilac Bush”

4 Gea me

Sure de by neSiop

(LE PAL ek Di srives
rf ptole ae
SL2 LYE - ee ee
bhast. te tes Sipe
Lle Be “oagy The Sy dah
ot bod ches hee
dove an/ ra sn fod

abs 7

With lilacs from His bust lilacs from His bush:

os Fe picks them a 2

Wri l pore, eHachiday God comes home
ay a bcr _ tee a

fn ay riod

Last ot
Aent,/ on fhe fue & ne
GY¥C and Sent.

petvecy

88 CCT Winter 2016-17

To giving up my@

" ‘
ge mouth of knotted rope!

But instead of stoppin
My heart began t fly.

i ) tol:
fol, Lilacs Ost ian
d

wharth

a
cheer te iia se

ar ae hrcfien pe

SAVE THE DATE
REUNION WEEKEND 2017

THURSDAY, JUNE 1 - SUNDAY, JUNE 4

If your class year ends in 2 or 7 or you're
in the Class of 2016, save the date for
Reunion Weekend 2017, a chance to see
classmates and friends on campus and

throughout New York City. |

COLUMBIA
college.columbia.edu/alumni/reunion201/ ALUMNI
ASSOCIATION

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oilege U.S. Postage
Today @ PAID

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622 W. 113th St., MC 4530 Burl. VT 05401

New York, NY 10025

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CORE TO |
COMMENCEMENT

COLUMBIA COLLEGE

Our challenge — and that of Core to Commencement — is to teach 4,500 students
each year to embrace a world of innovation, disruption and change, and to imbue
them with the agility and inventiveness to succeed. Preparing them to build what

Plato called “the Good Life” — a life full of meaning and social consciousness — also
sits at the heart of Columbia College’s mission.

This campaign is an opportunity for all of us who believe in the College’s commitment
to ensure we nurture and prepare all our students to succeed in society, whether
here, in the greatest city in the world, or anywhere they choose.

| Support Extraordinary Students:

college.columbia.edu/campaign

“tS

Irreverent

and energetic,

composer

Nico Muhly.’03_

is turning the
classical world

on its ear.;

Columbia ~~
College 7

Spring 2017

“I give back
because the
critical thinking
cultivated by
the Core is more | ;
important today | “ses
than ever before.) —

#3
Pa
{#%
ia;
F

Neda Navab CC'08 ©
z. a. \,

Every gift to the College makes an immediate difference 'Neda’s Lifelong Connections

S23 ru
x %

on campus. From mentoring initiatives and the Core Class Agent
Curriculum, to global internships and scholarships, Columbia College Women
your gift to the College Fund supports the greatest Columbia College Alumni Association

Board of Directors
undergraduate experience there is.

To make your gift, visit college.givenow.columbia.edu.

“Ah, \ COLUMBIA ener
pope cag Qe COMMENCEMENT
FUND
54 COLUMBIA COLLEGE

Contents

The Music Man

Irreverent and energetic, composer Nico Muhly ’03

is turning the classical world on its ear.

By Famie Katz ’72, BUS’80

Hear Us Roar

History professor Martha Howell GSAS’79 discusses
gender inequality, feminism and how the Women’s Marches
have energized the movement; Columbia College Women
will hold a symposium to celebrate the 30th anniversary
of the graduation of the first fully coeducational class.

By Shira Boss (93, {RN’97, SIPA‘98

Columbia Forum:
Avid Reader: A Life

Editor Robert Gottlieb ’52 recounts his collaboration

with Joseph Heller GSAS’50 on the satirical novel Catch-22.

(Spoiler alert: It was originally titled Catch-18!)

Cover: Illustration by Alyssa Carvara

Columbia
: College
Today w

VOLUME 44 NUMBER 3
SPRING 2017

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Alexis Boncy SOA’11

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Lisa Palladino

DEPUTY EDITOR
Jill C. Shomer

CLASS NOTES EDITOR
Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

FORUM EDITOR
Rose Kernochan BC’82

CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Shira Boss ’93, JRN’97, SIPA’98

EDITORIAL INTERN
Aiyana K. White °18

ART DIRECTOR
Eson Chan

Published quarterly by the
Columbia College Office of

Alumni Affairs and Development

for alumni, students, faculty, parents
and friends of Columbia College.
ASSOCIATE DEAN,

COLUMBIA COLLEGE

ALUMNI RELATIONS
AND COMMUNICATIONS

Bernice Tsai ’96

ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO:
Columbia College Today

Columbia Alumni Center

622 W. 113th St., MC 4530, 4th FI.
New York, NY 10025

212-851-7852

EDITORIAL

cct@columbia.edu
ADVERTISING
cctadvertising@columbia.edu
WEB
college.columbia.edu/cct

ISSN 0572-7820

Opinions expressed are those of

the authors and do not reflect

official positions of Columbia College
or Columbia University.

Paper from

responsible sources

Ese FSC® C022085

departments

3 Within the Family
CCT’s new editor-in-chief is a
familiar face. By Alexis Boncy SOA11

4 Letters to the Editor

6 Message from Dean James J. Valentini
Making student health and wellness a priority.

7 Around the Quads
Neil Gorsuch ’88 nominated to the
U.S. Supreme Court.

14 Roar, Lion, Roar
Talking with Nich Lee Parker, head coach of
men’s lightweight crew; men’s fencing defeats
Princeton for the Ivy League Championship.

Like Columbia College Alumni:
facebook.com/alumnicc

View Columbia College alumni photos:
instagram.com/alumniofcolumbiacollege

#
in

Follow: @Columbia_CCAA

Join the Columbia College alumni network:
college.columbia.edu/alumni/linkedin

i ‘ RY
L yoo mes SA
Cae asp ‘ancl

BF OR a of ARTA

Contents

alumninews

34 Lions
Shanna Belott ’91 and Lara Stolman ’91,
Cyrus Habib ’03

37 Alumni in the News

38 Bookshelf
The Inquisitor’s Tale, Or, The Three
Magical Children and Their Holy Dog
by Adam Gidwitz ’04

40 Class Notes
86 Obituaries

88 Alumni Corner
An activist and athlete runs from
New York City to Washington, D.C., to
raise money for Planned Parenthood.
By Alison Mariella Désir 07, GSAS’11, TC’'16

Within the Family

Telling Stories with Conviction

started this editorship in February, on a day that once

would have been called unseasonably warm. The rest of

that week passed in a blur of orientations and meetings,

so that it wasn't until the next week that I ventured
from the Alumni Office on West 113th Street to campus —
there, halfway down the march of College Walk, I paused and
looked around. From that vantage point, many of the College
and University’s icons assert themselves: Hamilton Hall and
Low and Butler Libraries; the pedestal on which once rose
the Sundial; the seat where A/ma Mater still watches over all.
Geographically speaking, this is where the red pin drops: You
are here, at Columbia.

And so I am, and I’m thrilled and grateful for the oppor-
tunity. It’s my second go with Columbia College Today. | was
managing editor for more than four years ending last Janu-
ary, and being back feels like a homecoming of sorts. It also
feels in some ways like I never left. 1 may not have been on
campus, but there wasn’t a week that passed without my hear-
ing about College alumni making their mark on the world.
A comedy sketch gone viral, a presidential legacy debated,
a Supreme Court nomination made. When you work with
alumni the way we do at CCT’ — meeting them, reporting
on their accomplishments, following the personal and profes-
sional turns in their lives — their names, your names, become
braided into our consciousness. More than that: We feel
pride in the ways you contribute to today’s news and culture.
We are curious about your challenges. We want to hear about
the journeys that shaped you along the way. And we want to
share those stories.

I cut my teeth as a journalist at a community newspaper on
Martha’s Vineyard, and from that experience came the convic-
tion — if I may crib from something I wrote long ago — “that
everyone has a story to tell and a passion of one kind or an-
other. Sometimes the story spills out so fast the pen cannot
keep up. Other times the conversation is more difficult, the
essential thing flashes like a quarter on a sun-splashed sidewalk
— and if you do not watch and listen carefully you will miss it.”

Those words remain at the core of my sensibility as an
editor and writer. Learning about other people energizes me.
So does finding the right words to convey their stories. It’s
what motivated me to attend the School of the Arts, where
I studied nonfiction writing, and what drew me afterward
to a human interest publication. It makes for a diverse beat,
one that in fact contains many others — science, technology,
business, politics, food, the performing arts. And the College
is an ideal place to practice it.

In that same excerpt I wrote, too, of the importance of
carefulness in listening, and I promise to carry that same

JORG MEYER

care and attentiveness into my stewardship of CCT’ I also
carry with me the lessons taken from Alex Sachare’71, whose
warmth and thoughtfulness steered this magazine for more
than 18 years. (You can read more in praise of Alex in this
issue’s “Letters to the Editor.”) One of the first things he ad-
vised me to do, as we sat across the table from each other in a
conference room in November 2011, was to read Class Notes:
“They're the best way to get to know our alumni.”

And how. Class Notes contain an incredible breadth of
voices; they span more than 70 years and together reflect the
collective intellect, eloquence and heart of College alumni. I
learned about your families, pastimes, professions, causes and
concerns; what animates and, occasionally, what angers you.
To edit the entirety of Class Notes is also to begin to wrap
one’s mind around what it means to have a readership that is
52,000 strong.

In the end, that number is what 1 come back to time and
again. The 52,000 whose connections to one another we aim
to illuminate and deepen. The 52,000 whose perspectives
we want to share and whom we want to put in conversation
with one another. The 52,000 who form the community that
this magazine uniquely represents. The 52,000 for and about
whom we tell stories.

Being your editor is a privilege and a responsibility. I look
forward to it.

Alexis Boncy SOA11
Editor-in-Chief

Columbia
College |
Today “

‘
is
y

Letters to the Editor

Thank You, Alex

Traditions matter. They define and bond us. Columbia College is no exception
to this principle. We have, among others, the Core Curriculum, Convocation
for first-years, the Senior Dinner and Class Day for seniors, sitting on the
Low Steps on sunny days, and long days and nights studying in Hamilton and
Butler, respectively.

Another tradition we have is an excellent alumni magazine, Columbia Col-
lege Today, which is published quarterly. About 19 years ago, after a suc-
cessful career as a sports journalist and author, Alex Sachare 71 became its
editor. This development was the College’s great fortune.

From the start, Alex understood the importance of emphasizing consis-
tency and respect for the College’s rich history while incorporating novel
and entertaining features that appeal to our varied constituencies and gen-
erations. Each issue featured Alex’s and/or the dean’s message, Around the
Quads news items, reports on our athletic teams’ achievements, a message
from the Columbia College Alumni Association, updates on new books
penned by alumni and professors, Class Notes and Obituaries. Alex and his
staff, plus a team of freelance writers, wrote in-depth articles about alumni,
students exploring the world, rising faculty stars — as well as legendary pro-
fessors — and campus issues.

Thank you, Alex, for your many years of great work and service to the College
community. I hope this is not a full “retirement” and that occasionally you'll still
put on your writer's hat and contribute your wisdom and warmth to CCT’

Brian Krisberg 81, LAW 84
New York City

In 22 years as a class correspondent, I’ve
worked with two Columbia College Today
editors, both of whom were terrific: Jamie
Katz ’72, BUS’80 and Alex Sachare ’71.
I almost missed the news of Alex’s retire-
ment in the last issue, with his modest
farewell. [Editor’s note: See “Within the
Family,” Winter 2016-17. ]

[# Contact Us

CCT welcomes letters from readers about
articles in the magazine but cannot print or
personally respond to all letters received.
Letters express the views of the writers

4 CCT Spring 2017

Alex joined the magazine after a distin-
guished career in the world of sports jour-
nalism, including positions with the NBA
and AP, another shared alma mater, and of
course Spectator, where he was sports edi-
tor. (After I met Alex, my challenge was
remembering how to pronounce his last
name.) [Editor’s note: It’s “saa-share.” |

Alex, thank you for your support of the
class correspondents during your 18-plus—
years tenure. I’ve always especially appre-
ciated your help in publishing photos to
commemorate events, such as the annual
gathering of the new Roger Lehecka
Summer Fellows. All best wishes for your
retirement!

Janet Lorin 95, JRN’96
New York City

The ‘Trustees of the Columbia University
Club Foundation have long been cognizant
of the dedication and outstanding service that

Alex Sachare ’71 had devoted, since 1998, to
Columbia College Today as its editor, and we
wish him well on his recent retirement.

We learned late last year that University
Archivist Jocelyn Wilk had desired to digi-
tize all past issues of the magazine in order
to preserve them for reference and ease the
ability of anyone wishing to research them.
Therefore, the foundation was pleased to have
made a significant donation to help Vice Pro-
vost and University Librarian Ann D. Thorn-
ton, Wilk and CCT to undertake this project,
and we have done so in honor of Alex.
Arthur M. Delmhorst 60, BUS64, president

Bernd Brecher 54, JRN’55, vice president

The Trustees of the Columbia University
Club Foundation

Thank you, Alex Sachare’71, for your many
years of service to the Columbia College
community as editor of Columbia College
Today. | have eagerly awaited every one of

the 87 issues that you have edited. It’s amaz-
ing how well a magazine can continue to
keep our College experience alive.

As the correspondent for the Class of 1963
for the past 14 years, I thank you for expand-
ing the Class Notes section and allowing class
correspondents to help our classmates stay in
better touch with one another. You have kept
me honest through the years by ensuring my
notes are accurate without exerting a heavy
editorial thumb. You and your staff have gra-
ciously accepted my natural procrastination
and gently encouraged my submissions past
deadline without making me feel too guilty.

You and I have shared a love of Columbia’s
past and present, and happily, on your watch,
the online version of CCT has become a true
archive and an extraordinary source of infor-
mation about Columbia and its history.

Thank you for your friendship, for all you
have done for CCT and for your promise to
continue as a contributing writer.

Paul Neshamkin 63
Hoboken, N.J.

Ignorance or Bias?
In the Winter 2016-17 issue, professor of
political science Robert Y. Shapiro writes,
“Another reason [Barack] Obama [’83] rates
highly is that his administration has been
strikingly free of scandals.” I don't remem-
ber having even one professor in the early
1960s who was so ignorant or biased that
(s)he would make such a claim. My fellow
students would have detected sarcasm and
laughed. Mr. Shapiro, just as an example,
what do you think about Obama using the
IRS to conduct political warfare? Watergate
was a Sunday school transgression compared

to Obama’s lawlessness.
Jim OBrien 66
Maitland, Fla.

Missing Voices

As a proud Columbia College alumna, I was
dismayed to open my last Columbia College
Today and see the egregious underrepresen-
tation of women in the cover article (“The
Experts,” Winter 2016-17). Out of the 18
“experts” interviewed for the article, only
three were women. Moreover, these three
women did not appear until the final three
interviews of the piece. (For context: The
College has admitted women since 1983 and
female students now make up 51 percent of
the student body.)

I have always valued my College educa-
tion, in large part due to the strong, smart
women who were my classmates, room-
mates, professors and colleagues. I am
greatly disappointed and ashamed that the
writers and editors at CCT did not cast a
wider net to include more of these women
in the piece; we certainly merit a place at
the table of CC experts.

Natalie Kimmelman 06
Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bring Back Orgo Night

In “Rituals, Traditions, History” (“Message
from the Dean,” Winter 2014-15), Dean
James J. Valentini praised College tradi-
tions as “part of our identity and part of the
legacy of every College student — former,
current and future ... .”

Which brings us to Orgo Night.

An undergraduate admissions brochure,
“Columbia Blue,” has included a student’s
joyous depiction of that twice-yearly event:
“The main study room in Butler Library
starts getting packed around 11:30 p.m. ...
At midnight sharp ... the marching band
storms into the room playing songs and read-
ing jokes while the rest of us are standing on
the tables and chairs dancing and laughing.”

Admissions hasn't been alone in endors-
ing the more-than-40-year-old tradition.
In a Class Notes column for the Class of
1955, Columbia College Alumni Asso-
ciation former president and current class
correspondent Gerald Sherwin ’55 cited
“the always-sparkling Orgo Night.” On its
250th-anniversary website, the University
posted Orgo Night memories from two
College alumni. The James H. and Christine
Turk Berick Center for Student Advising as
well as Columbia Family Engagement rec-
ommend attendance as a study break.

So we were saddened and distressed
this past December when administrators
declared Butler off-limits to the Marching
Band because of “library rules.” The brief
midnight pause, they said, is too disruptive.
Library rules? Really?

Orgo Night has always been like a
“Cleverest Band in the World” halftime
performance on steroids: more Friars Club
roast than tea at Grandma's. But as hyper-
sensitivity has swept American campuses,
the administration has had to field a smat-
tering of complaints from students who
say Orgo Night jokes make them uncom-
fortable. So what to make of the sudden

CHAR SMULLYAN GS'98

demand for silence in a space where stu-
dents have gathered twice-yearly since
1975 to laugh, cheer, clap and sing “Roar,
Lion, Roar” along with the band?

We find the timing suspect, the “library
rules” excuse disingenuous and the execu-
tion unbecoming.

On December 15, not content to let
the tradition die, the band braved subzero
wind chill and performed outside Butler
before a crowd of hundreds. If any stu-
dents remained in Room 209, we doubt
their grades were improved by the extra
half-hour of quiet time.

We applaud band members’ persistence
and their fellow students’ appreciation of a
valued tradition. (All four Columbia under-
graduate student councils and the Specta-

tor editorial board spoke up on the band’s
behalf.) We urge administrators to rethink
this latest casualty in what students call
the “War on Fun.” Students who see their
sense of community weakened become
alumni who just don’t care, and that’s in no
one’s interest. Let’s go back to suspending
the rules for a half-hour twice yearly — a
reasonable accommodation. Let the band
promote school spirit inside Butler as well
as outside, in the name of tradition, for the
sake of community building, and — dare we
say it? — for the love of alma mater.
Steven Greenfield 83, Samantha Rowan
BC°96, Morgan Robinson 08, Katharine
Trendacosta’10 and Peter Andrews ’14,
directors, Columbia University Band Alumni
Association; Ed Coller 63, Dan Carlinsky
65, JRN 66, J. Donald Smith 65, Peter
Janovsky 68, Christopher Sten ’77, BUS’79,
Dennis Klainberg 84, Cathy Webster 87, Liz
Pleshette 89, Betsey Benagh 94, SEAS’94,
Ben Mills 06, Mark Tabry SEAS'07, Stepha-
nie Tarras BC’10 and Kevin Gould ’12,
Advisory Board members, CUBAA
New York City

Spring 2017 CCT 5

Fy
H
|

Message from the Dean

Our Community's Highest Priority

n early February we had a snow day on campus. Classes were

canceled and nearly a foot of snow fell in New York City.

I surprised students by joining a snowball fight on Low Plaza,

while Dean’s Office staff served hot chocolate in Hamilton
Hall. It was an unexpected opportunity for us to come together as
a community.

I’ve been thinking about that snowball fight lately because we
have been very focused on campus wellness this semester. The
Oxford English Dictionary defines wellness as “the state or condition
of being in good physical, mental, and spiritual health, especially as
an actively pursued goal.” That’s what our students seemed to feel
during the snowball fight, and something they tell me they want
more of in their day-to-day lives.

‘The essential goal of higher education is to prepare students for
life after graduation. At Columbia College, we do this on a vari-
ety of levels, from offering a dynamic curriculum and extracurricu-
lar activities, to providing faculty the resources they need to best
educate students, to facilitating student success through enhanced
career advising and student wellness programs.

While we have had a strong support system in place for many
years — including professional Residential Life staff and student
RAs in all of our residence halls; academic, study abroad, fellow-
ship, financial aid and student organization advisers; and access to
University resources such as Columbia Health and Counseling and
Psychological Services — we have been working to enhance and
expand support for student health and well-being.

In Fall 2016, we created a director of wellness position to sup-
port the undergraduate community’s priorities. In recent years,
we have improved our Medical Leave of Absence Policy and have
expanded support for first-generation and low-income students and
other communities.

Recently, we augmented staff training for recognizing and respond-
ing to student mental health emergencies, retrained student-facing
College staff and are now training all College staff (including me).
We also plan in the coming months to train Core instructors, direc-
tors of undergraduate studies and student leaders.

As we work on these initiatives, I have been grateful for our stu-
dents, alumni and parents, who have offered their time and thoughts
as part of this conversation. Students have written op-eds and arti-
cles, told me about formal and informal initiatives that they have
started on campus to support fellow students and volunteered to
represent the College at the 2nd Annual Ivy League Mental Health
Conference, which was hosted at Brown in February.

We also recently organized a community roundtable with stu-
dent leaders and College staff to brainstorm ways to reduce the
pressure that students feel. Ideas included adding mental health
programming to the New Student Orientation Program and adding
more small-scale opportunities for “fun,” such as movies, concerts or
games on campus.

6 CCT Spring 2017

MICHAEL EDMONSON '20

After the roundtable, I asked students why the snowball fight was
such a special experience. One student said: “We know that every
Columbia student is incredibly intelligent and takes very intense
academic courses. So it’s easy for us to forget that every Columbia
student is also still a kid who enjoys snowball fights, loves to watch
movies with friends on Low Steps, is excited by the idea of receiving
free Columbia stickers and wants to take pictures with Roar-ee to
put on their Instagram.”

While we are focused on educating students for their lives after
graduation, we also need to remember that they are kids, young
people who are still developing the tools they need to succeed,
personally and professionally. And though we cannot solve all of
the problems that students face on- and off-campus, there are steps
we can take as a community to instill a greater sense of health and
well-being.

We are now making student well-being our highest priority, and
we will continue to look at ways to address stress and to enhance
student resources. We are committed to providing Columbia
College students with health and wellness tools that will serve them
not only while they are here, but also for many years to come.

a it

James J. Valentini
Dean

eil M. Gorsuch 88, a conser-

vative federal appellate judge

who has distinguished him-

self across a 25-year career
in the American judicial system, has been
nominated as the 113th justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court.

The nomination was announced on
January 31, ending weeks of speculation
surrounding whom President Donald J.
Trump would name. At this writing, the
Senate hearing on the nomination was
scheduled to begin on March 20, with a
ruling not expected until at least April.

“Standing here in a house of history, and
acutely aware of my own imperfections,
I pledge that if I am confirmed I will do
all my powers permit to be a faithful ser-
vant of the Constitution and laws of this
great country,” Gorsuch said after Trump's
announcement, which was televised live

from the White House. He is currently a
judge with the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 10th Circuit, in Denver.

The seat Gorsuch would fill has been
vacant since Justice Antonin Scalia died in
February 2016. President Barack Obama
83, had nominated D.C. Circuit Chief

from the perspective of those who wrote
it. He is also committed to textualism, the
practice of considering only the words of
the law being reviewed and not legislators’
intent or the consequences that might come
with a law’s implementation. Within the
legal community he is widely praised for

‘Tf Tam confirmed Iwill do all my powers permit

to be a faithful servant of the Constitution and laws

of this great country.’— Neil M. Gorsuch 88

Judge Merrick Garland for the role, but
Republicans refused to hold hearings to
consider confirmation.

Gorsuch subscribes to originalism, a phi-
losophy of interpreting the Constitution

Gorsuch and his wife, Mary Louise, as he received the presidential nomination.

his writing, a skill that — along with a pen-
chant for strong opinions — he cultivated
at Columbia. He penned an occasional col-
umn for Spectator, “Fed up,” and co-founded
the Federalist Paper, which at the time was
part newspaper and part opinion journal; a
1989 Spectator article noted that “the Feder-
alist established the validity of a conserva-
tive view at Columbia.”

Gorsuch was born in Colorado and moved
to Washington, D.C., as a teenager when
his mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, became
the first woman to lead the Environmental
Protection Agency. He was a political sci-
ence major at the College, graduated from
Harvard Law in 1991 and subsequently
attended Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, earn-
ing a Ph.D. in legal philosophy in 2004. From
1993 to 1994 he was a law clerk to Justice
Byron R. White, then a retired member of
the Supreme Court, and Justice Anthony M.
Kennedy. He practiced law for a decade at
the Washington, D.C., firm Kellogg, Huber,
Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel before serving
in the Justice Department from 2005 to 2006.

President George W. Bush nominated
Gorsuch to the Court of Appeals in 2006,
and he took office that same year.

If confirmed, Gorsuch would be the second
Columbian to serve on the country’s highest
court. John Jay (Class of 1764) was the first
chief justice, serving from 1789 to 1795.

— Alexis Boncy SOA’11

Spring 2017 CCT 7

| ACR TRAIAN SIRE OARS AP ISSA IRE OEE eh ONS lh RAS
Garcetti Re-Elected as L.A. Mayor

Eric Garcetti 92, SIPA ’93 was elected to a second
term as mayor of Los Angeles on March 7. While
the ballots were still being counted as CCT went to
press, the victory was said to be one of the biggest
landslides in the city’s history, with Garcetti, a Dem-
ocrat, holding more than 80 percent of the vote over
10 lesser-known rivals. “I want to thank the citizens
who voted for me; you made this moment possible,”
he told supporters at a victory party, speaking in both
English and Spanish. Garcetti has been L.A.’s mayor
since 2013 and is often mentioned as a future can-
didate for higher office. He is a fourth-generation
Angeleno and a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve.

ALWWALIN THE KNOW OFFER
sage FOUL RRACTICAL HOH-T0

Columbia College Today has
always been your magazine —
the place to read about the
incredible achievements and
remarkable stories of College
alumni, faculty and students.
Please consider visiting

by June 30, 2017, to make a tax-
deductible contribution to CCT.

MICHAEL DIVITO

On February 7, more than 400 guests gathered
in Alfred Lerner Hall’s Roone Arledge Audi-
torium for the Dean’s Scholarship Reception,

COLUMBI A an annual event where donors and students

meet and discuss shared College experiences.
JEW E L RY At right, speakers Li Lu’96, BUS’96, LAW96,

donor of the Li Lu ’96 Scholarship, and Tay-
lor M. Fogg ’17, a recipient of the Philip and

1754 Crown Cufflinks,
Cheryl Milstein Scholarship. Above, chatting

Studs, Lapel Pins,

Pendants. at the reception (left to right), Stephen Case
Lions, CC Designs. 64, LAW’68; Sohbet Dovranov ’20, the recipi-
Fine, Handmade. ent of the Charles Hayden Memorial Schol-
arship Fund; and Zachariah Calluori ’17, the
CUJewelry.com recipient of the Edwin H. Case Memorial Scholarship Fund. Dean James J. Valentini

(017) 416-6055 also spoke, thanking donors for their generosity.

ColumbiaUniversityJewelry@gmail.com Learn more about the speakers and view the list of donors and recipients. college. columbia.

edu/namedscholarsh ips.

8 CCT Spring 2017

StudentSpotlight

By Nathalie Alonso ’08

eigning Ivy League Player

of the Year Jackie Chulya

17 looks back with amuse-

_ment at the disappoint-
ment she felt when her

father announced that, as a gift for her
7th birthday, he would introduce her to
golf. “I wanted an actual present, like a
doll,” she recalls.

Chulya’s father, who had taken up golf
recreationally as a graduate student in
Cleveland, hoped to one day see his daugh-
ter on television playing the sport profes-
sionally. Through the years, as she honed
her stroke under the searing Bangkok sun,
Chulya made that dream her own. She
now appears well-positioned to achieve
it, following a standout junior season for
the women’s golf team in 2015-16. After
posting a scoring average of 74.95 — the
second-best in Lions history in a single
season — Chulya became just the second
female Columbian to be voted Ivy League
Player of the Year; she became so by a
unanimous vote. In the process, she set
single-season program records for most
birdies made (62) and Par-4 scoring (4.16).

During the Fall 2016 season, Chulya,
who shares the title of team captain with

Camilla Vik 17, helped the Lions take

first place in two of their four tourna-
ments. She says she takes most pride,
however, in having “stayed committed
through the ups and downs” of her career,
including a frustrating performance at the
U.S. Girls’ Junior championships in 2012
that led her to consider quitting the sport.
“T’m just glad I never gave up and tried to
find ways to improve,” she says.

It’s the mental challenge that golf poses,
Chulya adds, that drives her. “No matter
how much you practice or how hard you
work, it comes down to being able to make
clutch putts and overcome your fears when
youre under pressure,” she says.

Born in Cleveland, Chulya was just a
few months old when her parents relocated
the family — which includes her older
sister, Jessica, who played golf at UC Davis
— back to their native Thailand. Accom-
panied by one of her parents, from the
time she was 12 Chulya spent summers
competing in golf tournaments in the
United States. She began her Columbia
career at Engineering, but transferred to
the College following her sophomore year
after discovering that she preferred Core
classes over engineering classes.

By the time she started college, the rigors
of golf had diminished Chulya’s aspirations

COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

fast facts

HOMETOWN: Bangkok, Thailand
MAJOR: Economics and math joint major
CLUBS: Women’s Golf Team, Thai Club

KUDOS: Dinah Shore Trophy, lvy League
Player of the Year 2015-16, Women’s Golf
Coaches Association All-American Scholar,
William Terminello Award (co-winner)

to pursue the sport professionally. However,
she says that her time at Columbia has
rekindled that dream and in August she
will attend the newly established qualify-
ing school for the Symetra Tour, the official
developmental tour for the Ladies Profes-
sional Golf Association Tour. Her goal is to
qualify for the prestigious LPGA Tour. “[At
Columbia] I started enjoying golf a lot more
and I got better as well. That combination
of being able to play well and enjoy it at

the same time sparked my interest again in
playing pro golf,” she says.

Nathalie Alonso ’08, from Queens, is a
freelance journalist and an editorial producer
for LasMayores.com, Mayor League Baseballs
official Spanish language website.

Spring 2017 CCT 9

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FRANCIS CATANIA

Columbia Has Miles of Books

You may have spent hours in the Butler stacks, but did you know that Columbia’s on-campus
and afhliate library system comprise 21 separate libraries? All those libraries hold a total of
11.9 million volumes — not to mention 179,457 videos, DVDs, CDs and sound recordings.
That adds up to 246 miles of materials!

Learn more at library. columbia. edu/about/facts.

Five Alumni Honored

Five College alumni were honored on March 1 at the
39th annual John Jay Awards Dinner. The event, which
drew upward of 400 attendees to Cipriani 42nd Street,
raised more than $1.3 million for the John Jay National
Scholars Program. This year’s honorees for distin-
guished professional achievement were (left to right)
Toomas Hendrik Ilves 76, former president, Republic
of Estonia; Joseph A. Cabrera ’82, vice-chair — Eastern
Region, Colliers International; Jenji Kohan ’91, execu-
tive producer and screenwriter; David B. Barry ’87,
president, Ironstate Development Co.; and William
A. Von Mueffling 90, BUS’95, president and CEO of
Cantillon Capital Management.

BRUCE GILBERT

10 CCT Spring 2017

onal pms ON
LL a A

the Essentials

Dustin Rubenstein

Every spring Associate Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental

Biology (E3B) Dustin Rubenstein leaves behind the Columbia Lions for

actual lions as the director of the Program in Tropical Biology and Sustain-

ability, leading a small number of students on a semester abroad in Kenya.
Rubenstein created the Kenya program in 2012, in conjunction with the

Office of Global Programs (OGP) and Princeton. Rubenstein also teaches

in “Frontiers of Science,” is the founding director of the Center for Integra-

tive Animal Behavior and is on the faculty in the Program of Neurobiology
and Behavior at CUMC. He spoke with CCT about science as a current

event, living with wildlife and how Africa is for him a family affair.

RUBENSTEIN GREW UP in New Jersey;
his father teaches at Princeton and is also
a scientist in the field of animal behavior.
As a child, Rubenstein traveled the world
on school breaks and summer vacations
as his father did field work in exotic
locales, including in Africa. “It was a good

lifestyle,” he says.

HE EARNED A B.A. from Dartmouth in
1999. As an undergrad he was interested in
using scientific tools from different disci-
plines to answer biological questions — in
his case, applying techniques from stable
isotope geochemistry to study migratory
birds. After earning a Ph.D. from Cornell
in 2006, Rubinstein joined Columbia as an
E3B assistant professor in 2009.

IN “FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE,” Ruben-
stein teaches first-years how to approach a
problem, analyze it, draw conclusions and
communicate that information. “Those are
skills that will be important in whatever
they do, and I want them to have an
understanding of how science plays a role
in their everyday lives,” he says. “Frontiers
of Science does a good job of teaching
students to critique what they see and to
recognize what fact is.”

WITH SCIENCE AND FACT under fire
in our country, Rubenstein is concerned.
“We're suddenly in a period where facts
are disputable, and it makes me think
about my teaching. We can’t live in a

society where this is acceptable; we as
faculty have to teach students appreciation

for the scientific process. We will need to
think about these issues given what might
happen over the next four years.”

THE KENYA PROGRAM grew out of a
course Rubenstein helped create as a gradu-
ate student. He initiated the semester-long
program in 2012 at Columbia because he
wanted to give students the immersive expe-
rience of field work, but in New York City
they were limited to parks and the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History. “Two or
three weeks [on breaks] isn’t enough time to
get a feel for the culture, so when we created
the program we saw the value in doing a full
semester abroad,” he says. Students apply
for the program through OGP; three to five
College and GS students make the trip each
spring, though Rubenstein hopes more will
decide to go in the future.

WHAT HE LIKES MOST about teaching is
interacting with the students, and the field
courses definitely provide that opportunity,
he says. “I live with the students 24 hours a
day for a month in very intense surround-
ings. These are the students I keep in touch
with the most. I see them on social media
and on campus when they come back for
reunions and events.”

HIS WHOLE FAMILY spends time in
Kenya. His father teaches a class in the
program and his mother runs an after-
school conservation club program in the
community. His children, ages 5 and 7,
join him on summer research trips and
play with the local children.

JILL SHOMER

RUBENSTEIN PRIMARILY studies birds,
in particular the superb starling, which
lives in large and complex social groups
that interact much like humans. In the
field he studies how the environment
shapes the starling’s behavior, physiology
and genetics.

INTERACTION WITH WILDLIFE is a big
draw for the Kenya program. “What makes
Africa a great place to do field courses is
the density and the diversity of the big
game; the students get really excited about
that,” Rubenstein says. “We're there to
explore the landscape and conduct scien-
tific projects rather than to find animals,
but if we get a radio that there are lions or
wild dogs nearby we might drop what we're
doing to look for them.”

ANIMAL SIGHTINGS aren't always
optional. “There are elephants and buffalos
all around so you have to be aware,” he
says. “We stay at a field station that has an
electric fence around it, and when we're out
we always have Kenyan scouts with us for
safety. We're living with the wildlife, and
the students get to understand that.”

EVEN AFTER SO MANY VISITS to Africa,
Rubenstein still gets a charge out of seeing
the local fauna. “It’s always fun. I’ve seen
everything but there are some animals I'd like
to see more. A honey badger is very rare; I
always tell the students that if they can find a
honey badger they'll get an A,” he says with a
laugh. “No one will ever see one.”

— Jill C. Shomer

Spring 2017 CCT 11

COLUMBIA

iis REUNION

CLASS GATHERINGS

Catch up with classmates at class
dinners and receptions.

CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Enjoy a Broadway show or an evening
at the ballet.

CLASSES AND LECTURES

Attend Mini-Core Classes on
Shakespeare, global warming and more.

STARLIGHT RECEPTION

Dance under the stars to live music
on Low Steps.

Class years ending in 2 or 7, or the Class of 2016:
REGISTER: college.columbia.edu/alumni/reunion2017

All other classes:
REGISTER: college.columbia.edu/alumni/allclass2017

Questions? Email ccreunion@columbia.edu. ,

Ce ee

Behind Lightweight Crew’s

4150

ett
MIKE McLAUGHLIN / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

2016 National Championship

ich Lee Parker, head coach of Columbia’s national
champion lightweight crew, says he has three rules
for his rowers: “You're responsible for your own devel-
opment, for your own performance and for making
yourself better. If you can do those three things, we'll be OK.”

‘The Lions were more than OK in 2016. After finishing a disap-
pointing second to Yale at the Eastern Sprints last May, Columbia
exacted revenge by beating the Bulldogs by more than half a boat
length at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Cham-
pionships on June 5 on Lake Mercer in West Windsor, N_J. It was
the first IRA lightweight title for the Lions and the first national
championship for any Columbia varsity eight since 1929.

Columbia began defense of its crown with several Cup Regattas
in March and April leading to the Eastern Sprints on May 14 in
Worcester, Mass., and the IRA Nationals on Lake Natoma, near
Folsom, Calif., June 2-4.

“Now that we've climbed the mountain, we’ve got to find another
one,” says Lee Parker. “It’s like Usain Bolt in the 200m race at the
Olympics in Beijing, when he got off to such a fast start. When
youre up like that at the halfway mark, who is he racing now?
Himself. That’s our next step, to try to be even better. We don't
want to lose a sense of who we are because we won one big race.”

Lee Parker is constantly trying to optimize the Lions’ workout
regimen and has enlisted the help of P&S on physiological test-
ing of the crew. This approach has impressed longtime followers
of Columbia rowing, including Jim Weinstein ’84, BUS’88, who
says, “He’s always trying to figure out every new training technique,
always talking about physiology and biomechanics. He’s also very
good at communicating with his rowers on what they need to do.”

14 CCT Spring 2017

Lee Parker joined the club rowing program while a student at
Ohio State and quickly got hooked on the sport. “I went to a coach-
ing conference as a senior and really enjoyed it. I got a fellowship to
study kinesiology and help coach, and that’s how I got started.”

After time as an assistant at Ohio State and later Purdue, in
2007 Lee Parker became the program coordinator and head coach
of the New Haven Rowing Club while assisting with the Yale
heavyweight crew. He joined Columbia in 2010 as a heavyweight
assistant coach while also assisting with the USRowing Boys Junior
National Development team, which he guided to two national
championship titles and two silver medal performances at the 2009
USRowing Club Nationals. After two seasons with the Columbia
heavyweights he became an assistant on Scott Alwin’s lightweight
staff, and when Alwin became head coach of the heavyweights in
2013, Lee Parker succeeded him as head coach of the lightweights.

Lightweight rowing — no rower can weigh more than 160 lbs.,
and the average for the entire boat excluding coxswain can be no
more than 155 Ibs. — tends to rely more on body composition and
technique rather than raw strength, as compared with heavyweight
rowing, which is open to rowers of all sizes. “The weight is more of
an equalizer on the lightweight side,” says Lee Parker. “But rowing
is still rowing, and that’s one of the beauties of the sport.”

Columbia finished third in the IRAs in Lee Parker’s final season
as an assistant coach, so he inherited a program that was on firm
footing, but still, he says, “It felt like there was something missing.”
So when he became head coach, he placed a greater emphasis on
training and conditioning and changed the rowing style to eliminate
the torque on the rowers’ backs. “Doing really hard things became
really fun,” he says.

qe: ROAR!

The Lions again finished third in the 2014 IRAs, but their four-
man boat finished first — the first individual 2,000m title for
Columbia since the heavyweights in 1929. “That was significant,”
says Lee Parker. “All the guys said, “We can do this.” After Columbia
finished second to Cornell at the 2015 IRAs, Lee Parker pushed the
team hard in fall training for the 2016 season. “We learned our limits
and adjusted accordingly,” he says. “Guys were throwing themselves
at workouts like I had never seen, doing things they had never been
able to do, and then they were doing them again and again.”

Despite losing team captain Jakub Buczek’16, who suffered a broken
leg in a skiing accident, the Lions won six of seven races in the 2016 Cup
season, bowing only to Yale in the Dodge Cup. At the Eastern Sprints,
the Lions once again could not keep up with Yale and finished second.
After those two losses, a tactical change was in order. “We had a very
scripted race plan,” says Lee Parker, “but at the IRAs I told them, “We're
done with the race plan. You're just going to get off the start line and you
are just going to go.” Rowing for Columbia at the IRAs, from bow, were
John Maloney ’18, Oliver Ingram ’16, Jeffrey Monahan ’18, Colin Ross
16, William Solberg ’16, Jenson Carlgren 19, David Mottola 17 and
Benjamin Landis ’18, with Yih-Jen Ku SEAS'16 as coxswain.

The Lions won their preliminary heat on Saturday, but Yale was
a second faster in winning the other preliminary heat. Although an
impending storm caused officials to move the start time of Sunday’s
final from noon to 7:30 a.m., the Lions were more than ready. “They
came off the line really strong and they never slowed down,” says Lee
Parker. “By the midpoint we had taken a length lead and everybody
was moving beautifully, clipping along at a pretty high stroke rate,
and they controlled the race to the end.”

‘The victory delighted the contingent of family, friends and alumni
who attended the race, including former varsity rowers like Weinstein
and Eric Dannemann’67, BUS’72, a member of the 1964 undefeated
freshman lightweight crew.
“When you've waited three-
quarters of a century for some-
thing like this, you make sure
you show up, even if it’s early in
the morning,” says Weinstein.
“Literally, tears of joy were
flowing” among the Columbia supporters, says Dannemann. “These
guys deserve great recognition. What they did was amazing. They
awakened the echoes of the Hudson Valley.”

For the latest news on Columbia
athletics, visit gocolumbialions.com.

— Alex Sachare’71

To view a video of the championship race, go to gocolumbialions.com, click
on Teams, click on Lightweight Rowing, click on News and scroll down
to find it. For a close-up look at the rowers, go to yikjen.com/c150. html.

SCOREBOARD
Ivy League | Points/rebounds by :

Camille Zimmerman 18
ina 91-88 4 overtime
win at Dartmouth on
January 27

championships
won or shared
by men’s fencing,
the latest in 2017

National ranking

of men’s squash on
January 20, highest in
program history

MIKE TURESKI / SPORTSPIX

Men's Fencing Posts
lvy Four-Peat

Columbia won a share of its fourth consecutive league title
by defeating Princeton 15-12 in the final round of the men’s
competition at the Ivy League Fencing Championships on
February 12 in Philadelphia. It was the 38th league title in
program history. The Lions shared the championship with
Penn and Princeton for the second straight year after all three
schools posted 4—1 records in the two-day, round robin event.

After routing Brown 21-6, the Lions dropped a 14-13
decision to Penn to complete the opening day with a 1-1
record. They trailed Harvard 11-3 on Day 2 before rallying
to win 11 of the final 13 bouts and claim a 14—13 victory,
then beat Yale by the same score to set up their match against
Princeton, in which captain Porter Hesslegrave ’18 won his
final épée bout for the clinching point.

Columbia’s women came as close as possible to a third con-
secutive Ivy League title but lost to Princeton 14-13 in the
final round to finish second with a 5-1 record. Margaret Lu
17 won the individual women’s foil championship, compiling
a 13-2 bout record.

Lu was among the six Columbia fencers who earned All-Ivy
recognition. Joining her on the First Team were Nolen Scruggs
19 (men’s foil), Sara Taffel BC’17 (women’s foil), Katie Angen
18 (women’s épée) and Lena Johnson BC’18 (women’s sabre).
Gabe Canaux’19 (men’s épée) earned Second Team honors.

The Lions sought to defend their national championship
when they competed in the NCAA Regional Championships
in New Haven, Conn., on March 12 and the NCAA Cham-
pionships in Indianapolis, March 23-26.

21-0 6

Three-year

lvy League dual
meet record by
Jayden Pantel "18 in
three-meter diving

Columbia fencers
named to 2017
All-lvy League First
and Second Teams

Spring 2017 CCT 15

Irreverent

and energetic,
composer

Nico Muhly ’03
is turning the
classical world
on its ear

By Jamie Katz ’72, BUS’80

Illustrations by Derek Heldenbergh

eerinemsisi eT

18 CCT Spring 2017

here’s a delicious scene in the third season of Ama-
zons Mozart in the Jungle in which Nico Muhly’03,
Juilliard’04, playing himself, introduces an aria he
has composed expressly for La Fiamma, a Maria
Callas-style prima donna portrayed by Italian actress
Monica Bellucci. He demonstrates her singing part
on a grand piano in her Venetian parlor, explaining
that the piece will also feature pre-recorded sounds
and fragments of text that she will sing into a micro-
phone and then repeat using a foot pedal. Before the
proud La Fiamma will agree to this departure from
her standard repertoire, however, she needs some
convincing. “What is the story about?” she asks.

“The character is a young American woman
named Amy Fisher,” Muhly tells her. “She’s having
an affair with an older man, and she goes over to his
house and shoots his wife in the head. His name is
Joey Buttafuoco.”

He pronounces it the American way, the way
newscasters did when the “Long Island Lolita
made sensational headlines in the early ’90s:
Buttah-fewco. La Fiamma corrects him. “Boota-
fwocko,” she says.

If this were an old-school sitcom, the laugh track
would kick in right about here. But while Mozart in
the Jungle is fun, it takes music seriously enough not
to waste a cameo by the world-renowned Muhly,
who in his 20s became the youngest composer ever
commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. So we're
treated to a glimpse of the real Nico: artistically
adventurous, charming and sensitive to the hopes
and agonies of Fisher or anyone else whose private
passions lead to public tragedy.

“Fisher’s world is really intense,” Muhly reflects
in his West 37th Street music studio in Manhattan.
“Like Romeo and Juliet, she’s in this highly charged
erotic and emotional situation — only it isn’t in a
glamorous place. It isn’t Verona; it’s Massapequa.
But I don't like this idea of high versus low [culture],
because it’s really just people.”

Muhly often turns to such real-life dramas in his
works. His first opera, Two Boys, which had its Met
premiere in 2013, was inspired by the fatal stab-
bing of a Manchester, England, youth by a lover he
had met in an Internet chat room. His song cycle,
Sentences, contemplates the life of Alan Turing, the
pioneering British computer scientist who cracked
top-secret German codes during WWII and was
subsequently prosecuted as a homosexual. A sec-
ond opera, Dark Sisters, springs from the story of a
fundamentalist, polyzamous Mormon community
in Texas whose children were removed by state offi-
cials concerned about child abuse.

Even before his Met commission, Muhly had
impressed the classical music world with his sensi-
bility and originality. As early as 2004, New Yorker
critic Alex Ross had flagged the “spiky-haired,
healthily irreverent” Muhly, still studying at Juilliard,

”»

as “poised for a major career.” Ross presciently wrote:
“If Muhly simply dumped his diverse musical loves
into a score, he would have an eclectic mess. Instead,
he lets himself be guided by them, sometimes almost
subliminally.” In a short piece performed at the con-
servatory, “he asks players to be ‘spastic,’ to ‘smudge’
certain notes, to ‘ignore the conductor’; he is trying
for a raucous, un-‘classical’ sound. But the work itself
is austere and solemn in intent ... The music spins
away into a kind of gritty ecstasy ... a cool balance
between ancient and modern modes, between the
life of the mind and the noise of the street.”

Since then, Muhly has emerged as one of the
most highly acclaimed composers of our time, put-
ting his stamp on an astonishing variety of projects:
chamber and symphonic works, choral and sacred
music, a cantata based on Strunk and White’s The
Elements of Style — all fair game for the prolific
Muhly. “Nico is the hardest working person I’ve
ever met, a furious producer,” violist Nadia Sirota
says in her award-winning Meet the Composer radio/
podcast series. Even back in their Juilliard days, she

RAYON RICHARDS

says, “It was well known that if your recital program
was coming up short, this kid Nico would totally
write you a piece to hit your desired run time.”

he ability to work within strict formal constraints

and mesh with other artists (Sirota calls him “a
virtuosic collaborator”) has opened many paths for
Muhly. He has scored movies — among them The
Reader, Joshua and Kenneth Lonergan'’s Margaret —
and plays, including Broadway revivals of The Glass
Menagerie and The Cherry Orchard. He has joined
with choreographer Benjamin Millepied on works for
major ballet companies in New York and Paris. The
perpetually in-motion composer has also worked with
singer-songwriters Bjork, Sufjan Stevens and Rufus
Wainwright, Brooklyn rock band Grizzly Bear and
chamber cabaret group Antony and the Johnsons. A
YouTube search turns up hundreds of Muhly items.
(For a quick sample of his gestalt, check out “Nico
Muhly and Ira Glass/Live from the NYPL.”)

Muhly’s idiosyncratic website highlights three
dozen CDs, including his latest, 2016’s Confessions.
The album is a collaboration with Teitur, a singer-
songwriter and producer from the Faroe Islands,
the isolated North Atlantic archipelago whose
50,000 inhabitants speak a language closely related
to Old Norse. (“I’m obsessed with it,” Muhly says.)
One track on the album, “Drones in Large Cycles,”
is studded with little pops and skips that bring to
mind an old, damaged vinyl LP, or the tiny bubbles
that diffuse randomly in hand-blown glass.

These imperfections are not trivial, Muhly says.

“Teitur is so good at taking what is an incredibly
clean audio landscape and letting it fuzz at the edges,
so there’s a real sense of grit on the sound,” he says.
“Tf you're working with electronic sounds, it’s impor-
tant to me that they have some sort of actual acoustic
property, in the same way that the early Disney car-
toons or Disney movies are sort of these beautiful
watercolors. You can see the hand of the artist even
in an electronically reproduced medium.”

Muhly’s compositional hand is “strange, unset-
tling and often golden,” in the words of critic James
Jorden. Met general manager Peter Gelb observes,
“He’s what we're always looking for today in new
composers of classical music — compositional
voices who are original, but are also accessible.”

“Nico’s music is a bit like him as a person,” says
English mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, who played
a leading role in Two Boys. “He can produce the
most incredibly moving, lyrical writing that can be
otherworldly, or can be just a scream for human-
ity. And he can also create the most amazing tex-
tures in the chorus. It can be like an Elgar oratorio,
huge choruses where they join together, or other
ones where they’re all practically singing their own
lines, working against each other where they actu-
ally created the sound of a computer, the sound of

THE
MUSICVIAN

the Internet, where he’s using voices in that way.
He’s like a painter — he has layers of paint that he
can apply, or he can strip away. He uses the voice
incredibly well that way.”

Layering, repetition, obsession, anxiety, subtle
textures and juxtapositions all loom large in Muh-
ly’s compositional vocabulary. “Quiet Music,” a solo
for piano played by Muhly on Speaks Volumes, his
2006 debut CD, has “the haunting, fragmentary
quality of an anthem heard from stone church steps
through heavy ecclesiastical doors,” Rebecca Mead
wrote in a 2008 New Yorker profile. “The Only
Tune,” a song on his widely admired 2008 album,
Mothertongue, deconstructs a macabre 17th-century
English folk song, employing a sonic palette that
includes, it is said, Icelandic wind samples and raw
whale meat sloshing in a bowl. (Asked to confirm
that instrumentation, Muhly emailed: “Only Tune’
is like, meat, hair, bones, oil, slippers ...” )

In conversation, Muhly can unspool a thread of
associations that are at once freely conceived and dis-
ciplined, like a great jazz improvisation that takes you
far from its point of departure,
yet maintains a sense of unity.

Describing the experience of st | AV (=) never Mm et someone

hearing his own works per-
formed, he says: “I’m always
nervous, or I’m off to the side
or I’m backstage. And that’s
so much more interesting to
me, to be in a weird environ-
ment and to have the sound
come as if from a distance, or
from over here, or some weird
memory of it. Watching an opera from backstage is
amazing. I would pay great money just to listen to the
stage management call of a Mozart opera. It’s so fas-
cinating, because it has its own rhythm that is com-
pletely in counterpoint to the rhythm of the music.
But when you have to call things to make the lights go,
and to make the scrim go down, it’s this whole other
text, as it were, that the score produces.”

Friends, colleagues and patrons speak of Muhly
with a blend of awe and affection.

“He’s such a prodigious talent that music seems to
flow out of him,” says Gelb, recently back from London,
where he took part in workshops for Marnie, Muhly’s
second Met commission (a co-production with the
English National Opera). The libretto is adapted from
Winston Graham’s 1961 novel, which was also the
basis for the Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name;
it will open at the Met during the 2019-20 season. “I've
known many composers in my life,” Gelb says. “Usually
they're very slow in getting music to people who com-
mission them. Nico is kind of the opposite. He’s really
racing ahead with enthusiasm as he composes.”

“You cant pin Nico down, as an intellect or a
person,” says Coote. “His brain is going 15 times

with such an energy.

It reminds me a bit of wnat
| imagine Mozart would
have been like.”

Spring 2017 CCT 19

_—i“‘( md N00 ggg

THE
MUSICVIAN

“Essentially the thing |

was the most interested in,
and still am, is language,
just as a concept.”

20 CCT Spring 2017

faster than anyone else’s. ve never met someone
with such an energy. It reminds me a bit of what I
imagine Mozart would have been like. And I’m not
being ridiculous. This man’s brain is like an amazing
computer. He’s like a bag of nervous and emotional
and receptive energy.”

In late January, Coote premiered Strange Produc-
tions, a song cycle Muhly wrote for her, at London's
Wigmore Hall. The text is based on the poetry of
John Clare and a 19th-century asylum doctor’s
observations of a mental patient. “Nico just seems to
express life, just living each day,” Coote says. “He’s a
strange, phenomenal mixture of levity — an amazing
sense of humor and sense of the absurd — and at the
other end, he also has the most profoundly consid-
ered, darkest view it is possible to experience in life.
He's just the most extraordinary person.”

Elena Park, executive producer of the Met broad-
casts and a well-known New York arts consultant,
has known Muhly since his student days. “There’s
something incredibly endearing and_ refreshing
about Nico,” she says. “Being around him is really a
total joy, although a little daunting in terms of the
breadth of his knowledge, dizzying speed and near-
perfect recall of the most minute details. He has
this genuine open-heartedness and curiosity about
the world, combined with a singular way of look-
ing at things that comes through in his music. He'll
add an original keyboard touch to Adele’s latest pop
album, then turn around and write an esoteric cho-
ral piece that harkens back to 16th-century sacred
music by Thomas Tallis.”

Me” is clearly a kind of polymath, a vora-
cious consumer of culture and experience who
boomerangs it all back at the world with his own
spin. One of his favorite authors is Salman Rush-
die, whose densely lyrical Midnights Children Muhly
reads at least once a year. “I’m sort of addicted to his
sentence structure,” he says. “You just feel like you're
in this kind of virtuosic language space, in a way that
pleases me viscerally much
more than [James] Joyce,
where I feel like I’m always
unpacking these tiny little
boxes. But with Rushdie, it’s
like, pow! It feels joyful and
ecstatic.” Rushdie has high
praise, in turn, for Muhly,
with whom he has social-
ized. “I find talent striking,”
the author says via email, “and in Nico’s case the tal-
ent declares itself so strongly and at once that one
would have to be deaf not to hear it.”

That talent blossomed early. The only child of
Bunny Harvey, a well-known painter and longtime
Wellesley faculty member, and Frank Muhly, a doc-

umentary filmmaker, Nico was born in Randolph,

Vt., and raised in Providence, R.I. His cultural and
linguistic horizons were much enlarged, he says,
by extensive travel as a child, including long stays
in Rome and Cairo. He plunged into music when
he was about 10, taking up the piano and joining
the boys’ choir at an Anglican church in downtown
Providence, an experience that left a deep imprint.

“They had a really divine choirmaster who was
really steeped in the English tradition,” he says on
Sirota’s podcast, “and [he] figured out how to have
a choir of men and boys do two services a week. It
was a really spectacular thing.”

A turning point, he says, was performing the
Stravinsky Mass for the first time — “a wild thing
to have happen to you when you're 12.” At that age,
just hearing the first four notes was, he says in the
podcast, “like a really erotic experience.”

Muhly developed quickly enough that when he
came to New York as a student, his fellow conserva-
tory students and teachers — among them Pulitzer
Prize winners Christopher Rouse and John Cori-
gliano ’59 — stood up and took note.

“By the time I met Nico at Juilliard,” Sirota says,
“he was already kind of a mythical figure, a Columbia-
Juilliard double degree student studying English and
composition and Arabic, who worked for Philip Glass
afternoons and weekends, wore a colorful assortment
of gardening clogs and had an affinity for dim sum.”

Corigliano recognized Muhly’s exceptional quali-
ties early on. “Nico knew what he wanted to do, and
he did it,” he says. “He would write tons of music in
a week. We'd go through 30 or 40 pages and cut half
of them out, or change them, and he would be happy
to do it. He was a very easy student, and very likable.”

Like Muhly, many of Corigliano’s students have
opted for the demanding five-year Columbia-Juil-
liard program. “Columbia gives them something
that Juilliard can’t give them,” Corigliano says, “and
if they’re able to handle the added load — and Nico
certainly was — they love the challenges of learning
in a way that’s quite different from a conservatory.”

Initially, Muhly had considered applying only to
Juilliard. “T was so used to keeping a kind of academic
rigor as the fundamental muscle of my thought, and
the music was the thing that resulted from that, not a
thing that itself was being studied,” he says. “The pri-
mary thing for me was thinking about words. Essen-
tially the thing I was the most interested in, and still
am, is language, just as a concept.”

Muhly has lived in an apartment in Chinatown
for many years, but says he is exceptionally grateful
for his time on and around the Morningside campus,
first in Wallach Hall, then 47 Claremont Ave., then
boarding in a faculty apartment on Riverside Drive.

“The fact that I had this whole other school to deal
with downtown was a little bit complicated, but for
me it was so important to live at Columbia and to
feel connected to that,” he says. “My classmates at

Juilliard ’'m very close with, but my classmates at
Columbia feel like family.”

He lauds the Core Curriculum. “I feel like there’s
a limited time in one’s life when one is forced to
do things outside of what one thinks one wants to
do,” Muhly says. “And I think when you're 18, the
last thing you need to do is be self-directed. So, I
approached the Core in a kind of bring-it-to-me
way, which helped, because I would never be disap-
pointed or underwhelmed.”

Muhly had the good fortune of landing in a Lit
Hum section taught by former dean of the College
(and Amherst College president emeritus) Peter R.
Pouncey GSAS’69, “an unbelievable person,” Muhly
says. An English and comp lit major, Muhly also
has high praise for professors Julie Crawford, an
expert in 16th- and 17th-century English literature
and culture; Jenny Davidson, with whom he did an
independent study on Dickens; and the late Edward
Said, whose understanding of musical counterpoint
made a deep impression.

The thirst for knowledge, critical rigor and
human values that Columbia nourished continue to
animate Muhly, whether he’s thinking about Glass’
Einstein on the Beach or, for that matter, Britney
Spears’ “Oops! ... 1 Did It Again.”

Mubly recently jetted off to Las Vegas with Sirota
and a friend to catch Spears’ live show, partly out of
nostalgia for pop songs they enjoyed in college, partly

for the same sort of reasons that drew him to Fisher
as a contemporary train wreck worth thinking about.

“There’s an element of camp to Britney, obvi-
ously, but actually kind of not,” Muhly says. “I think
she’s an interesting character because we’re invited
to share in her struggle — although it’s unclear
what exactly her struggle was, which I think is
really interesting. She’s a young woman from the
rural South who was put through this kind of Dis-
ney wringer, and then suddenly we are all looking
at a photograph of her actual vagina as she’s getting
out of a car. That level of tabloid violence against
her body is extraordinary.”

Muhly gets revved up talking about Spears, who
is his age. What he doesn’t do is dismiss her or
make light of her travails. Where others make cruel
sport, Muhly finds the humanity. “Seeing her per-
form was quite beautiful and strange and tragic and
fascinating in a way,” he says.

Muhly has a way of winning people over. In the
Mozart in the Jungle episode, after some more back-
ing and filling, La Fiamma closes her eyes and finally
delivers her verdict on the Fisher aria. “J adore,” she says.

Former CCT Editor Jamie Katz ’72, BUS’80 has
held senior editorial positions at People and Vibe and
contributes to Smithsonian Magazine and other pub-
lications. His most recent CCT piece was a profile of
architect Robert A.M. Stern ’60 in the Fall 2016 issue.

Spring 2017 CCT 21

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TO CELEBRATE the 30th

anniversary of the graduation of
the first fully coeducational class,
Columbia College Today spoke
with Martha Howell GSAS'79, the
Miriam Champion Professor of
History and former director of the
University's Institute for Research
on Women, Gender and Sexuality.
After completing her graduate
work, which focused on social,
economic, legal and women’s
history in northern Europe, Howell
taught at Rutgers before returning
in 1989 to Morningside Heights. In
light of her professional expertise
and experience with the women's
movement and the College before
and after coeducation, we asked
Howell to share her perspective on
how far both have come and what
remains to be done.

- Shira Boss '93,
JRN’'97, SIPA’'98

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Millions turned
out on January 21 for Women’s Marches
around the world.

BRIAN ALLEN / VOICE OF AMERICA
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

24 CCT Spring 2017

MICHAEL DAMES

CCT: We published an interview with you in the November/December 2010 issue
in which you said that when you grew up in the 1960s, the only careers imagin-
able for a woman, other than being a mother, were being a teacher, a nurse or a
secretary. How did it look in 1987? And what about now, 30 years later?
Martha Howell: If you're talking about entry into the learned professions, the liberal pro-
fessions, I think that 1987 was a time when it became possible for women to aspire to
those positions. Today, there’s no question, but it’s taken a long time for women to rise to
the top. It’s only in the past few years that major universities have had female presidents.

And yet, take a look at senior management in big corporations. There are not that many
women, even though in 1987 it was possible for women to go to the top business schools
and get the training that would have put them in a position for having these kinds of leader-
ship roles. [Author’s note: According to Catalyst, a nonprofit that researches women in the
workplace, today women make up 5.8 percent of CEOs of S&P 500 companies and 25.1
percent of executives and senior management. |

So, yes — women in 1987 had access that women in 1967 absolutely did not have. And
there have been changes from 1987 to 2017, but not as dramatic as those that occurred
from the ’60s to the 80s. Things are a little better because there has been a slight improve-
ment in the number of women at the very top.

Can you contrast the environment on campus to the outside world? The College
student body is currently 51 percent female, so you'd think it'd be equal oppor-
tunity out in the world, but is it?

No, it’s not.

So in other words, the academy is ahead of the rest of society.
Nesnves:

Do you think female students understand that?

‘The graduate students I teach all want to become professors and enter an academic commu-
nity like this one. There’s still sexism in some ways — leadership positions are dominated
by men, white men, specifically, and there are still disciplines that have an unacknowl-
edged and unintended, largely, bias against hiring women — but there’s still terrific access,
particularly in humanities and social sciences such as history and anthropology. So I think
my female graduate students are looking at a world that will welcome them.

I think women in business school are more aware of what the barriers will be when
they get out in the work world — much lower barriers than there used to be, but there
are still barriers.

‘The students who are most innocent of all this tend to be my female undergraduates.
‘They've lived in a world that tries to be gender-neutral. They’re sitting in class with men,
and most of the time they feel empowered and equal.

But what they don’t understand is when they get into the working world and real life
hits, the gender system is firmly in place. And if they marry and have children, that’s when
it really, really hits, because it’s almost impossible to have a high-powered professional
life and be a mother. There are some circumstances in which you can do it; one of them is
when you hire people to help care for the children. It’s a balancing act and crazy, but it’s
one way to manage what is a complicated arrangement.

‘The assumption is that the person who does most of the parenting is the female. Men
are not expected to make the arrangements and adjustments that women are expected to.
So, one of the things that could happen is the way work is organized could change. The
other thing is the gender system could be altered so that men take more responsibility
for parenting. There has been progress in that realm in my lifetime; however, it is still not
equal — far from it.

What could the College be doing to help?

I think Columbia should work harder to put women in leadership positions. I think ways
that show how gender hierarchy plays out in life should be talked about more. The discus-
sion of gender needs to be distributed throughout the curriculum rather than segregated in
classes revolving around gender specifically.

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Could the Core Curriculum take better account of gender?

There have been many efforts to revise the Core to take better account of gender, but yes,
more could be done. Reading lists could be reorganized. I think everyone should read
Locke, Marx and Aristotle, but they should be taught and read with a much clearer focus
on the ways they depend on gender hierarchy and on heterosexist hierarchy. Those issues
are easy to pull out of those texts, and when I teach the texts I try to do that. There’s too
much of an assumption that these are classical truths that endure through time. They're
not interrogated from the point of view of the hierarchies that we experience in our world.

Speaking of our world, where do you think we stand in terms of women taking
leadership roles in government? Are we ready for a female President?

‘That’s a tough call. The United States is the most powerful country in the world, and I
think that role carries more weight than a comparable office in other parts of the world.
It’s a harder call for the country to accept that a woman can shoulder that burden. Hillary
Clinton had her own problems as a candidate but I still think there was an element of,
“Is this the right job for a woman?” There’s sexism embedded in our culture and I don’t
know when the time will come when the United States is ready to accept a woman as
head of state. I] think it will, eventually, but what’s going to have to happen is we’re going
to have to have a bigger stable of women in the Senate, in governorships, in places like
that. Women generals: There are some, but there’s still more work to be done for it to be
seen as normal.

“There's s

Fm AI
tt UWI

culture and | don't
know when the
time will come
when the United
States is ready to
accept a woman as

head of state.”

Spring 2017 CCT 25

n Saturday, April 22, Columbia
O College Women (CCW) will host

its first symposium to coincide
with the 30th anniversary of the gradua-
tion of the first fully coeducational class.
“Celebrating 30 years of Columbia Col-
lege Women’ is an all-day event at which
alumni and current students will have space
to network, build community and reflect
on the successes College women have had
and the challenges they, and all women,
still face. More than 20 speakers will
discuss topics such as the media’s portrayal
of women; how to create a successful,
inclusive feminist movement; and how
best to develop today’s young women into
tomorrow’s leaders.

‘The morning keynote, “Girls Who
Thrive,” will feature two University trustees:
reporter and author Claire Shipman’86,
SIPA‘94 and independent school head
Wanda M. Holland Greene ’89,TC’91.

Holland Greene helms The Hamlin
School, an all-girls school in San Francisco
where students are taught to overcome
inequities and challenge societal biases
toward women. She spoke to Columbia
College Today about her time at the College
in the early coeducational years and shared
her thoughts on the goals of coeducation:

“As a proud alumna of an extraordinary
all-girls school in New York City, I was
purposeful in choosing to attend the College
because I knew that strong, smart and confi-
dent women would be key to the long-term

26 CCT Spring 2017

R, LIONESS,

CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF COEDUCATION

success of coeducation,” she says. “Women
like me didn't just arrive — we showed up!
We entered the Gates on College Walk with
deep intellectual curiosity and the boldness to
speak and lead, and we never looked back.

“The ongoing work at the University as
a whole and at the College in particular is
to ensure that women thrive at Columbia,
not simply attend classes, eat in the dining
halls and live in the dorms. Coeducation
was not an endpoint,” she says. “It was
the beginning of an essential conversa-
tion about equity and inclusion, and I look
forward to a robust dialogue with Claire
about the challenges and opportunities that
women face and embrace in the decades
since coeducation. We cannot assume that
because women are present their issues are
embraced and understood.”

Lilly Burns ’09, VP and head of devel-
opment at Jax Media and the executive
producer of the hit TV comedy Search Party,
will co-lead a discussion on “Authenticity as
Art” with designer Selby Drummond ’09.
The discussion will suggest that women
who display their true selves with confi-
dence, brains and humor often exercise the
most powerful form of feminism.

For Burns, “The best part of being at
Columbia was the level of intelligence of
the whole student body. I just wanted to
hear everybody talk,” she says. As a more
recent alumna, Burns says she accepted
coeducation as the norm. “I never thought
about it because I had never experienced

anything else,” she says. “I took for granted
that it had always been that way.”

Lea Goldman 98, editor in chief, Lifetime
Television, was at the College when coedu-
cation was still a newer change. She offers
another perspective: “Having grown up in an
ultra-conservative Jewish community, Colum-
bia was my Xanadu on the Hudson — I could
not for the life of me figure out why anyone
would want to attend a same-sex college.
Meanwhile, I spent most of my four years in
a self-imposed, back-row exile, utterly cowed
by the intellectual firepower around me. It was
often the guys who sat front row and parried
with the professors,” Goldman says.

“Fast forward 20 years — past all those
sweaty, humbling years in the workforce
trying to earn a seat at the table — and I
do sometimes wonder if, in an all-women’s
school, I might have found it all a little
bit more encouraging,” she says. “Maybe
I'd have found my voice earlier, and in the
process, spared myself some of the painful
scrapes and bruises I earned along the way.
Who knows? But I have zero regrets.”

Goldman will speak at the symposium as
part of the four-person panel “Women in
the News,” which will discuss how media
plays a powerful role in shaping and/or
reinforcing perceptions of women, their
roles and their stories.

— Jill C. Shomer

For more information about the symposium, go
to college. columbia. edu/alumni/events/ccw30.

What did Clinton's run for the presidency teach us about feminism?
“Feminism” is a fraught word in American culture.

In what way?
There were contradictions inherent in second-wave feminism, in the ’70s and into the ’80s.
The big one is that it was a white, middle-class women’s movement. It didn’t consciously
exclude — but it didn’t effectively consider — poor women, black women, immigrant
women and so on. So much of the political action was organized around access to jobs, to
political rights, to reorganization of the marital household and to challenging conventional
notions of female gender roles, and a lot of those issues were not the issues of working class,
poor or black women. So feminism as it was conceived in the’70s and much of the ’80s was
never able to speak for all women.

I have two nieces who are getting their Ph.D.s. A few years ago one of them told me she’s
not a feminist. And I said, “What?!” Boy, did I let her have it! “You are in a Ph.D. program

because of the women who came before you who were feminists.” She was so sorry, poor thing.

The feminist movement is definitely complex, but do you think it is evolving?
In the beginning, I was completely unaware of how incomplete the women’s movement
was — and in some cases inappropriate — for lots of women in the United States, let alone
the rest of the world. I don’t think we’ve found the narrative that can satisfy all women in
all situations.

But I do think that there’s a greater realization that there are many, many ways in which
gender subordination — you can call it discrimination, you can call it patriarchy — unifies
women. And what we need, I think, are better ways to organize around these different
aspects and to find common ground in being women and yet a way to acknowledge that
all women are not alike.

We share our femininity, but that doesn’t mean that we share aspirations, life chances,
social circumstances, sexual preference, so it’s very complicated. But no, the women’s
movement is not dead, but it’s both more general and more specific.

I am talking to a lot of people about the present political moment
in the United States, and a lot of women are organizing around issues
that are not gender issues. They are nevertheless organizing as women,
as politicized women. And yes, a lot of what they’re organizing around
is particular to women, such as reproductive rights, but also gener-
ally progressive politics, about economic equality, about racism, about
xenophobia and so forth. It’s locating the issues that affect women in a
larger terrain of political and social injustice.

What are your thoughts on January's Women’s Marches?

They were terrific! I marched in New York. I thought they were both a
protest by women about the threats to women's rights that are posed by
the Trump administration and also, more generally, marchers were out-
raged by what Trump stands for on many levels and that’s really what
energized them, as much as any specific, identifiable threat.

Do you think they were effective?

Yes. They identified fellow travelers, which is important, so that people
recognize that it wasn’t just them and their small group of friends who
were worried and scared and outraged. There’s going to have to be follow-
up, and that includes things like calling your representative, going to town meetings, writing
letters, getting in the newspaper with op-eds and things like that. Marching on the street is
important, but it’s only the beginning.

Shira Boss ’93, JRN’97, SIPA98, CCTs contributing writer, was a freelance journalist for
The Christian Science Monitor, Forbes.com and The New York Times, among other publica-
tions, and “Marketplace” on public radio. She is the author of Green with Envy: Why Keeping
Up with the Joneses Is Keeping Us in Debt and runs the website Zero Cost Kids. She lives on
the Upper West Side with her husband, two sons and two whippets.

“| do think
that there's a
greater realization
that there are
many, many ways
in which gender
subordination
— you can call it
discrimination,
you can Call it
patriarchy —
unifies women.”

WE ts
ARE

\laTeres- *

MARY MADIGAN / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Spring 2017 CCT 27

MIKE LOVETT

Making a Masterpiece

| Editor Robert Gottlieb ’52

| describes his collaboration
with Joseph Heller GSAS’50
on what became one of
the 20th century's great
literary works

28 CCT Spring 2017

“For a long time when people asked me whether I was ever going to write a
memoir or autobiography, I answered that all editors’ memotrs basically come
down to the same thing: ‘So I said to him, “Leo! Dont just do war! Do peace too!”

This astute, down-to-earth remark, which opens Robert Gottlieb ‘52s mem-
oir, Avid Reader: A Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28), helps a literary
outsider understand why so many of the 20th centurys prominent authors chose
to work with him. During his storied, decades-long career as a top book editor
(from 1955 to the present), Gottlieb collaborated with Toni Morrison, John
le Carré and Robert Caro, among many others. He also pulled off the publish-
ing professionals equivalent of a Triple Crown win, by serving as editor in
chief at two top publishing houses — Simon & Schuster and Alfred A. Knopf
— and then leaving to helm The New Yorker (from 1987 to 1992).

Avid Reader follows Gottlieb through his early days as a College student
(and editor of the influential Columbia Review) fo his current role as Knopf
editor, book author and contributor to The New York Review of Books and
other publications. The resulting narrative 1s, as Esquire puts it, “a master
class in how modern literature gets made.”

Here, Gottlieb describes the making of one contemporary classic, Joseph
Heller GSAS’50°s novel CATCH -22.

— Rose Kernochan BC’82

Robert Gottlieb
AVID

inves IU) le lis
ALIFE ba

he literary agent Candida Donadio and I were

only about a year apart in age, and almost

instantly we became close, despite the radi-

cal difference in our backgrounds and tem-
peraments. Candida was Sicilian, as she liked to boast
— particularly about her taste for Sicilian cold revenge.
She was short, plump, matronly, and always swathed in
black — a figure from post-war Italian neo-realist film.
Her deep voice was often filled with doom and anguish
— “The children! The children!” she liked to cry, literally
thumping her ample bosom. She herself had no children,
but as Michael Korda was to write, “All writers were like
children, but her writers were her children. She felt about
them as if she were their mother.”

Our alliance, as it was thought of in our little world,
would in the mid-sixties be officially cemented by
Esquire, which named the two of us the “red-hot center”
of the publishing world — momentarily gratifying but
far from the way we saw ourselves. What connected us
wasn't ambition or the hope of public notice but the fact
that we were obsessive readers whose tastes were highly
similar, and our bedrock belief that writers came first.

Candida lived in a tiny apartment a few blocks from
our floor-through in a dilapidated brownstone on Sec-
ond Avenue in the Fifties — we had a blue-painted
floor and there were old-fashioned fire escapes front and
back. If she was sick, either my wife, Muriel, or I would
carry over homemade chicken soup, while if we had an
emergency babysitting crisis, she would pad over in her
sneakers and take care of little Roger. We shared our
problems, or as my great friend Irene Mayer Selznick
liked to say, we “took in each other’s washing.”

On August 29, 1957, Candida sent me a note that read,
“Here is the ’script of CATCH 18 by Joseph Heller about
which we talked yesterday. I’ve been watching Heller ever
since the publication of Chapter 1 in New World Writing
about a year ago. He’s published a good bit in The Atlantic
Monthly, Esquire, etc. Tl tell you more about him when I
see you at lunch next week. As ever, Candida.”

About seventy-five pages of manuscript came with
it, and I was knocked out by the voice, the humor, the
anger. We offered Joe five hundred dollars as an option
payment, but Joe and Candida decided to wait until there
was enough of a manuscript to warrant an actual contract.

When I met Joe for the first time, for lunch at a hearty
restaurant near our offices, he came as a big surprise. I
expected a funny guy full of spark and ginger, but what I
got was more or less a man ina gray flannel suit — he was
working as an ad executive at McCall’, and he looked it.
And sounded it. I found him wary (which shouldn't have
been a surprise, given the paranoid slant of much of his
book), noncommittal, clearly giving me the once-over.
He told me later he found me nervous and ridiculously
young. I was only eight years younger than he was, but he
was a mature ex-vet, a former college teacher, and a suc-
cessful business executive. I was twenty-six, still looking
much younger than I was, and with no track record as an
editor or publisher — this was well before The American
Way of Death, The Best of Everything, The Chosen, et al. So
it wasn't love at first sight. But it proved to be something
a lot more substantial: a professional and personal rela-
tionship that never faltered, despite gaps in our publish-
ing together, and despite (or because of?) the fact that
through the more than forty years we worked with each

Spring 2017 CCT 29

Columbia!Forum

other on and off, we rarely saw each other socially. As with Decca
Mitford and Chaim Potok, there was never a disagreeable word
between us, and there was always complete trust. I certainly always
knew that I could turn to him in need, and I know he felt the same
way about me. Indeed, there would be dark moments ahead in our
personal lives — usually involving our children — which proved it.

The most significant trust was editorial. Once his book was com-
pleted, three or so years after we first met, I tore into it — relaxed
about doing so because I had no notion that I was dealing with
what would turn out to be sacred text. Or that Joe would turn out
to be as talented an editor as he was a writer, and absolutely with-
out writer ego. On Catch, as with all the other books we worked
on together, he was sharp, tireless, and ruthless (with himself),
whether we were dealing with a word, a sentence, a passage of
dialogue, or a scene. We labored like two surgeons poised over a
patient under anesthesia.

“This isn’t working here.”

“What if we move it there?”

“No, better to cut.”

“Yes, but then we have to change ¢his.”

“Like this?”

“No, like that.”

“Perfect!”

Either of us could have been either voice in this exchange. I
wasn't experienced enough back then to realize how rare his total
lack of defensiveness was, particularly since there was never a
doubt in his mind of how extraordinary his book was, and that
we were making literary history. Even when at the last minute,
shortly before we went to press, I told him I had always disliked an
entire phantasmagorical chapter — for me, it was a bravura piece
of writing that broke the book’s tone — and wanted to drop it, he

‘T felt then, and still do, that readers

shouldnt be made aware of editorial
interventions; they have a right to
Jeel that what they're reading comes

direct from the author to them.”

agreed without a moment’s hesitation. (Years later, he published
it in Esquire.) Where my certainty came from I don’t know, but
although I mistrusted myself in many areas of life, I never mis-
trusted my judgment as a reader.

Joe was so eager to give me credit that I had to call him one morn-
ing, after reading an interview with him in the Times, to tell him to
cut it out. I felt then, and still do, that readers shouldn’t be made
aware of editorial interventions; they have a right to feel that what
they’re reading comes direct from the author to them. But enough
time has gone by that I don’t think any harm will be done if I indulge
myself by repeating what Joe’s daughter, Erica, wrote in her uncom-
promising memoir, Yossarian Slept Here: “My father and Bob had
real camaraderie and shared an almost mystical respect. No ego was

30 CCT Spring 2017

involved, regardless of where Bob's pencil flew or what he suggested
deleting, moving, rewriting. To Dad, every word or stroke of this
editor’s pencil was sacrosanct.” Even if this is friendly overstatement,
and it is, it reflects the reality of our dealings with each other.

Not that there weren't stumbling blocks along Casch’s path to pub-
lication. First of all, when the finished manuscript came in there were
colleagues who disliked it intensely — they found it coarse, and they
saw the repetitions in the text as carelessness rather than as a central
aspect of what Joe was trying to do. Then we had a copy editor who
was literal-minded and tone-deaf. Her many serious transgressions
included the strong exception she took to Joe’s frequent, and very
deliberate, use of a string of three adjectives to qualify a noun. With-
out asking me, she struck out every third adjective throughout. Yes,
everything she did was undone, but those were pre-computer days:
It all had to be undone by hand, and it wasted weeks.

But the biggest catch on the way to Catch’s publication was the
title. Through the seven or so years that Joe worked on his book,
including the four during which he and Candida and I grew more
and more attached to it, its name was Catch-18. Then, in the spring
1961 issue of Publishers Weekly that announced each publisher’s fall
books, we saw that the new novel by Leon Uris, whose Exodus had
recently been a phenomenal success, was titled Mi/a 18. They had
stolen our number! Today, it sounds far from traumatic, but in that
moment it was beyond trauma, it was tragedy. Obviously, “18” had
to go. But what could replace it?

There was a moment when “11” was seriously considered, but
it was turned down because of the current movie Ocean’ 11. Then
Joe came up with “14,” but I thought it was flavorless and rejected
it. And time was growing short. One night lying in bed, gnawing
at the problem, I had a revelation. Early the next morning I called
Joe and burst out, “Joe, I’ve got it! Twenty-two! It’s even funnier
than eighteen!” Obviously the notion that one number was funnier
than another number was a classic example of self-delusion, but we
wanted to be deluded.

To talk of a “campaign” for Catch-22 is to put a label on some-
thing that didn’t exist. There was no marketing plan, no budget:
Nina Bourne — who was the brilliant advertising manager at
S&S and my closest collaborator and friend there — and I just did
what occurred to us from day to day, spending our energies (and
S & S’s money) with happy abandon. We began with little teaser
ads in the daily Times featuring the crooked little dangling airman
that the most accomplished designer of his time, Paul Bacon, had
come up with as the logo for the jacket. We had sent out scores
of advance copies of the book, accompanied by what Nina called
her “demented governess letters” — as in, “the demented governess
who believes the baby is her own.” Almost at once, excited praise
started pouring in. Particularly gratifying to Joe was a telegram
from Art Buchwald in Paris:

PLEASE CONGRATULATE JOSEPH HELLER ON
MASTERPIECE

CATCH 22 STOP I THINK IT IS ONE OF THE
GREATEST

WAR BOOKS STOP SO DO IRWIN SHAW AND
JAMES JONES.

‘The range of early admirers was astonishingly broad, from Nelson
Algren (“The best American novel that has come out of anywhere in

years”) to Harper Lee (“Carch-22 is the only war novel I’ve ever read
that makes any sense”) to Norman Podhoretz [’50](!). There were at
least a score of letters from notable writers, but, perversely, the one
we most enjoyed was from Evelyn Waugh:

Dear Miss Bourne:

Thank you for sending me Catch-22.1 am sorry that the book
fascinates you so much. It has many passages quite unsuit-
able to a lady’s reading. It suffers not only from indelicacy but
from prolixity. It should be cut by about a half. In particular
the activities of ‘Milo’ should be eliminated or greatly reduced.

You are mistaken in calling it a novel. It is a collection of
sketches — often repetitive — totally without structure.

Much of the dialogue is funny.

You may quote me as saying: “This exposure of the corrup-
tion, cowardice and incivility of American officers will outrage
all friends of your country (such as myself) and greatly com-
fort your enemies.”

Yours truly,
Evelyn Waugh

We didn't take him up on his offer, though we probably should have.

Reviews were mixed, veering from ecstatic to vicious, but the
success of the book built and built. It was slow, though — never
strong enough at any one moment to place it on the bestseller list,
yet sending us back to press again and again for modest printings.
Meanwhile, Nina and I unleashed a series of ads that just occurred
to us as things happened, all of them rehearsing the ever-swelling
praise from critics, booksellers, academics, and just plain book-
buyers: We had enclosed postage-paid cards in thousands of copies
and got hundreds of responses, positive (“Hilarious”; “Zany”) and
negative (“A complete waste of time”; “If everyone in Air Force was
crazy — How did we win war?”). Many of those who loved it were
demented governesses in the Nina mold, like the college instructor
who wrote,

At first I wouldn't go into the next room without it. Then I
wouldn't go outside without it. I read it everywhere — on the
buses, subways, grocery lines. If I did leave it out of my sight
for a moment, | panicked ... until last night I finally finished
it and burst out crying. I don't think I'll ever recover .. . But
before I die of Catch-22, I will do everything to keep it alive. I
will change ads on subways to “Promise her anything but give
her Catch-22.” Pll write Catch-22 on every surface I can find.
Pll pirate and organize a Catch-22 Freedom Bus ... I’m a hap-
pier person today for Catch-22. Happier, sadder, crazier, saner,
better, wiser, braver. Just for knowing it exists. Thank you.

Comparable if less rhapsodic communications poured in from a
put-and-call broker, a New Jersey die-casting manufacturer, a New
York grandmother, a fifteen-year-old boy from Eugene, Oregon,
a housewife (“I am now getting phone calls in the middle of the
night from people I’ve given the book to who want to read him
aloud to me!”) It was this kind of unbridled enthusiasm that sealed
Joe’s success — the impulse of his readers to keep the ball roll-
ing. (A well-known example was the concocting of thousands of

RICHARD OVERSTREET

“Yossarian Lives” stickers by the NBC anchorman John Chancellor,
which blossomed on campuses and public buildings everywhere.
Another fan came up with, and widely distributed, “Better Yossar-
ian than Rotarian” stickers.) Catch, indeed, swept college students
up with its challenges to authority and the establishment; again

and again commentators compared its influence on young people
to that of The Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies.

Robert Gottlieb 52

Because Catch became such a phenomenon, because the work
Nina and I did to sell it was so highly visible and remarked upon in
the publishing world, and because Joe never stopped talking about
what he saw as my crucial role in editing it, 1 became highly visible
myself — it’s still the book I’m most closely associated with among
the kind of people who think about such things. But in the years
that followed its publication, I more or less put it out of my mind.
I certainly never reread it — I was afraid I wouldn't love it as much
as I once had. Even so, when in 2011 its fiftieth anniversary was
being widely celebrated, I agreed to take part in the celebrations.

But there was a catch: Catch-22.

‘There was no way I could talk about it without reading it again.
It was a big relief to find that I still did love it, that Nina and
Candida and I — and Joe — and the world — hadn't been mis-
guided in our passion for it. I was bowled over once again by the
brilliance of the construction, the exhilaration of the writing, the
humor (of course), but also by the bleakness of Joe’s vision of life.
To me, Catch-22 was always more tragic than comic — a judgment
confirmed by his magnificent second novel, Something Happened,
which came along eight years later. There was certainly nothing
funny about iz!

Excerpted from AVID READER: A LIFE, by Robert Gottlieb,
published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Copyright © 2016
by Robert Gottlieb. All rights reserved.

Spring 2017 CCT 31

Meee acer eT

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34 Lions

Shanna Belott ’91 and Lara Stolman 91,
Cyrus Habib ’03

38 Bookshelf

The Inquisitor’s Tale, Or, The Three
Magical Children and Their Holy Dog
by Adam Gidwitz ’04

WHO WAS
VAN AM?

Springtime means lounging with friends
in Van Am Quad, but how well do you
know Van Am the man?

John Howard Van Amringe (Class
of 1860) was a Columbia mathematics
professor for 50 years (1860-1910)
and the first dean of Columbia College
(1896-1910). He was reportedly very
popular with students and was known for
protecting the undergraduate College
from being folded into the University as
Columbia grew over the years.

Upon his retirement in 1910, a bust
was commissioned from sculptor
William Ordway Partridge (Class of
1883). The sculpture that now sits in the
Van Amringe Memorial — the quad’s
official name — is actually the third
bust produced from the mold. The
memorial’s rotunda and benches were
dedicated at Commencement in 1918
and the top of the rotunda is ringed with
the words “Honored and Beloved by
Generations of Columbia Students, His
Life and Influence Will Be Example and
Inspiration to Those Who Come After.”

Lip NCA ATR RT MME SOLENT REET FI RE

DAVID DINI SIPA'14

Spring 2017 CCT 33

Shanna Belott ’91 (left)
and Lara Stolman ’91

at the 2016 Napa Valley
Film Festival, one of
the first festivals to

screen Swim Team. ;

Arts!

COURTESY WOODLAND PARK PRODUCTIONS

Alumnae Duo’s Film Spotlights Autistic Athletes

By Melanie A. Farmer

n the documentary Swim Team, athletes with autism find their

way, both in and out of the pool.

Produced and directed by Lara Stolman’91 with co-producer

Shanna Belott 91, Swim Team, which premiered last Octo-
ber on the film festival circuit, follows the Jersey Hammerheads,
a competitive swim team whose 17 members, ages 8-22, all have
Autism Spectrum Disorder. The film focuses on three teammates
and their families: Mikey McQuay Jr., now 20; Robert “Robbie”
Justino, now 20; and Kelvin Truong, now 25.

In their first season, 2014, the Hammerheads won an impressive
85 gold medals. Swim Team gives viewers an in-depth look at these
athletes as they become strong, competitive swimmers, interact with
the coaches and with one another, and experience exciting wins. The
film combines the key ingredients of classic sports drama — the thrill
of victory and the agony of defeat! — with a portrayal of the real-life
daily challenges young people with autism and their families face.

“Tm not like other teenagers. I’m autistic,” says McQuay in the film's
opener. “When I’m swimming, I feel normal.” McQuay, now a student
at Middlesex County College, competed in the 2014 Special Olym-
pics USA National Games, nabbing two gold medals, one bronze and
one silver. He and Justino continue to swim competitively on elite
swim teams in New Jersey. Truong, who also has Tourette Syndrome,

34 CCT Spring 2017

still swims with the Hammerheads and is reve ee
enrolled in a job-training program spon-
sored by New Jersey State.

Stolman met McQuay’s parents, Mike
and Maria, at the Perth Amboy, NJ.,
YMCA in fall 2013 while researching
swimming lessons for her own children,
now ages 7, 10 and 11. Doctors had
informed the McQuays early on that
their son would never walk or talk, but
that did not stop them from challenging
him to have a more fulfilling life. Their
tenacity stuck with Stolman.

“These people were being told ‘no’in so many ways from the time
their children had been diagnosed as toddlers,” she says. “They were
told ‘no,’ their kids couldn't be in the regular class, ‘no’ they couldn't
keep up in Little League, ‘no,’ their kids would not go to college.
And yet in creating this team, they were saying ‘yes,’ and I found it
incredibly inspiring.”

Universal themes of hope and triumph drew Belott to the project.
“As a mom, | could relate to the determination of these families to
build a future for their kids,” says Belott, whose sons are now 3 and 5.

While Swim Team marks their first feature-length project
together, Stolman and Belott’s partnership — and friendship —
dates back to their time in Morningside.

As first-years, they were both in the fall musical, Anything Goes, and
both took School of the Arts courses in film and the art of cinema. “I was
thrilled to have the opportunity to take those courses and have access to
the film school as an undergraduate. That was partly how I was able to
find my passion in film,” says Stolman, who majored in political science.
Belott, who majored in English and American history, grew up in Los
Angeles and had a strong interest in musical theater and journalism.

But it was their time at Columbia University Television (CTV)
that cemented their bond. Belott and Stolman were the creators,
writers and producers of Cinema Catch-Up, a comedic send-up of
Siskel & Ebert’s movie review show. It aired regularly during the
1990-91 academic year on CTV and public access television.

Those Columbia connections were just as strong for Swim Team.
Several undergraduates worked on the film as interns, organizing a
focus group and helping during the rough-cut stage. Mark Suozzo
’75, who composed the score, describes Stolman as a “great leader”
and her work on the film as “thoughtful” and “articulate.” “It was
a pleasure working with them,” says Suozzo, who has composed
scores for films such as Barcelona, American Splendor and The Nanny
Diaries and is music associate professor and co-director of the pro-
gram in Scoring for Film and Multimedia at NYU Steinhardt.

After graduation, Belott and Stolman headed west. “We wanted
to stay in New York City but we knew the business was in L.A.,”
says Belott. After living in L.A. for a year, Stolman, who was born
in Canada but was primarily raised in New Jersey, moved back east
a few months before Belott did.

From there, the pair cultivated careers in film and TV, work-
ing separately for NBC, HBO and 20th Century Fox and then
together at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Stolman carved a niche
in news and documentary, and Belott built a career in producing,
writing and social entrepreneurship.

Stolman and Belott worked on Swim Team from 2013 to 2016.
‘The film has already won a number of awards, including Best docu-

alumninews

mentary over 60 minutes (2017 Picture this ... film festival), Spa
City Best Sports Documentary (2016 Hot Springs Documentary
Film Festival) and Best New Jersey Film & Audience Choice
Feature (2016 Monmouth Film Festival). Swim Team was also
rated one of the top 10 films of the year in the 2016 IndieWire
Critics Poll, for Best Undistributed Film. Funding came from
private donations and grants, including the Loreen Arbus Disa-
bility Awareness Grant from New York Women in Film & Tele-
vision and a grant from The Karma Foundation, in New Jersey. In
post-production, Stolman and Belott were commissioned by The
New York Times to produce a short film, which focused on Justino’s
story, for its website. That gave Swim Team a bit of media buzz well
ahead of its debut.

Central to the film project is a national screening and social
impact campaign to kick off in April, for Autism Awareness Month.
With Easterseals as a partner, Belott and Stolman are making the
film available for screenings at Easterseals affiliates and with other
organizations nationwide. They continue to promote autism aware-
ness and spread word about the film via social media and traditional
media, inviting the wider community to host its own screenings
(anyone can host a screening: swimteamthefilm.com).

The two are also preparing for a theatrical release later this year
and an eventual television broadcast. More festival screenings are
already lined up, including this March at SXSWedu Conference &
Festival in Austin and ReelAbilities: New York, the largest festival
for films by and about people with disabilities.

“The next chapter is really focused on getting [the film] out there
and using it as a mobilizing force to activate more awareness and
opportunity for inclusion and community,” says Belott.

“We want to change people’s perceptions,” says Stolman. Adds
Belott, “That’s what 2017 is all about.”

Melanie A. Farmer is a freelance writer and editor who has writ-
ten for CNET News, DiversityInc and CBS’ MarketWatch. She is
the former editor of Columbia Engineering, the school’s semi-annual
alumni publication.

Mr. Habib Goes to Washington

By Jonathan Lemire ’01

he Republican electoral victories last November have led
to a lot of hand-wringing about the next generation of
Democratic Party stars. One potential contender is 3,000
miles away from Washington, D.C.

Cyrus Habib ’03 is an avowed liberal and the new lieuten-
ant governor of Washington State. He’s the child of immigrants
and the highest-ranking Iranian-American in public office. Also,
he’s blind.

“Donald Trump has put forward a white nationalist vision of
what America’s greatness is and I am someone who stands in oppo-
sition to that,” says Habib, who took office in January.

Habib believes Trump’s rhetoric makes it especially vital for the
Democratic Party to showcase its own diversity, even when it falls

under attack. During Habib’s campaign last year, he faced “birther-
ism’ charges similar to the ones Trump levied at Barack Obama’83
when Habib’s opponent, Marty McClendon (R), cast doubt as to
whether Habib was a U.S. citizen.

“Is he legal?” a woman shouted at a McClendon rally in Olym-
pia, Wash., in September. Another man, whose voice was also cap-
tured on video, yelled “What about his birth certificate?”

McClendon responded, “Right. I don’t know,” refusing to set
the record straight about Habib, who was born in Maryland and
moved to Washington State as a child.

Habib was “shocked” by the ugly moment but believes his elec-
tion points to a brighter future. “If a man with the last name ‘Habib’
can win a primary and win a general election and become one of

Spring 2017 CCT 35

the youngest statewide office-holders in the nation, that shows
growth as a nation,” he says.

Habib’s journey to a career in politics began across the country
from the statehouse in Olympia. Growing up outside Baltimore, he
recalls being drawn to books and movies about New York City and
found the academic energy of Columbia’s campus in Morningside
Heights irresistible.

Habib lost his eyesight at 8 due to a rare form of cancer. He
says he has refused to let it limit his opportunities; he jokes that
Columbia’s “compact campus was well suited” for his condition.
He learned how to ride the subway.

Habib fell in love with Literature Humanities, became an Eng-
lish major and, with excellent grades and a growing interest in poli-
tics, landed a summer job on Capitol Hill in 2001. That experience
led to a fall internship in the Manhattan office of then-New York
Sen. Hillary Clinton.

His first day working there was September 14, 2001.

“It was an intense time to be working in that office. Normally,
an intern would be answering run-of-the-mill Social Security and
immigration queries. But paperwork at that time meant helping
displaced individuals and businesses from Lower Manhattan,” he
recalls. “It really showed me the value in public service, whether
that is helping an individual, a family, a city or a country in crisis.

“My experience at Columbia was really bisected by 9-11,” he says.
“T started to think about being Iranian-American for the first time.”

Habib dove into the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Afri-
can Studies department, taking classes in Islamic civilization, and
found that he was able to connect the theoretical work of his classes
to his real-world experiences in a powerful new way.

A Truman Scholarship and a Rhodes Scholarship followed, then
a degree from Yale Law in 2009 and a prime law firm job back in

Washington State. But it was the experiences — both inside and
outside of the classroom — in the aftermath of the terrorist attack
that drove Habib to a career in public service.

“T wanted to help people,” he says simply.

Habib ran for a seat in the Washington State House of Repre-
sentatives in 2012 and won, then won again two years later when
he ran for the State Senate. He represented the Seattle suburbs,
which are home a thriving tech sector, including giants like Micro-
soft and Amazon.

“T counted Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos among my constituents,’
says Habib. “It would have been easy to stay, as things in the dis-
trict are going well. But those economic benefits were not being
experienced statewide.”

Though he had served in government for only four years, Habib
announced in 2016 that he would run for lieutenant governor,

36 CCT Spring 2017

FOI FACT NE Bet oe

LT. GOVERNOR CYRUS HABIB
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE

ORI

COURTESY WASHINGTON STATE LEGISLATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY

taking on 20-year incumbent Brad Owen (D). In Washington,
the lieutenant governor runs independently from the governor,
runs the state when the governor is out of town and can request a
portfolio of state issues to supervise.

Owen abandoned his reelection bid. Habib ran against a crowded,
10-person primary field and won. He was endorsed by Obama, who
recorded a robocall on behalf of his campaign, and his general elec-
tion victory was supported by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D).

“Gov. Inslee looks forward to a productive working relationship
with the new lieutenant governor,” says Tara Lee, deputy director of
communications for the governor. “He enjoyed working with him
when Mr. Habib was in the Senate.”

Against McClendon, Habib ran a solitary campaign ad: “When
I lost my eyesight as a child, I learned to listen,” Habib intones in
the powerful ad that stresses his constituent outreach efforts and
ends with the tagline, “Because anything is possible, when you
really listen.”

As he presides over the state senate in his new post, Habib relies
on a newly installed braille terminal that allows him to instantly rec-
ognize and call upon senators looking to be recognized on the floor.

Habib believes that much of the next year will be spent reacting to
changes coming from Washington, D.C. He hopes to find areas of
agreement — such as joint state-federal response to summer wild-
fires — but also vows to stand up to President Trump when needed.

“His America is not the America I believe in,” Habib says.

Jonathan Lemire ’01 covers The White House for the Associated Press.

i Clana ie in pi ee ieee ee ee PP Ai MIE PE eng mo gs

enone
rr © =e © @ © ee @& ec eC ee = © = =

wr -i4

ID i Bek GN SD

Alvin Kas 'SF, GSAS'SB

Tech Insider published a roundup of “100 of the most
exciting startups in New York City” in December, and
College alumni were well represented. Featured were
Codecademy, founded by Ryan Bubinski 11 and
Zach Sims; Compass, founded by Robert Reffkin ’00,
BUS’03; Fundera, co-founded by Jared Hecht ’09;
and Upworthy, co-founded by Peter Koechley ’03.

In early January, Xiyin Tang ’09 and Kendall Tucker
14 both made the 2017 Forbes “30 Under 30” list in the
law and policy category. Tang is an intellectual property
associate at Mayer Brown, where she works on copy-
right litigation with a focus on digital music and licens-
ing, while Tucker is the CEO and founder of Polis, a

mobile canvassing and in-person analytics startup.

On December 16, Rabbi Alvin Kass ’57, GSAS’58
was awarded a third gold star — a first for an NYPD

chaplain — at a ceremony marking his 50 years of

NYPD service.

The New York Times reported on February 6 that
Janice Min ’90, JRN’91 planned to step down after
seven years as The Hollywood Reporter’s top editor

at the end of February. Min has joined Eldridge
Industries in a new role in which she will devise a
“media-investment strategy.”

On December 15, President Donald Trump nomi-
nated David Friedman ’78, LAW’79 as the United
States Ambassador to Israel. Friedman is a founding
partner of the law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres &
Friedman and advised Trump on Israeli and Jewish
issues during the presidential campaign. At press-
time, his nomination had not been confirmed.

Dede. Gardner '90

EILEEN BARROSO

Robert K. Kraft ’63, owner of the New England
Patriots, made the news during Super Bowl LI when
his team made a spectacular comeback against the
Atlanta Falcons. Coming from a 25-point deficit in
the second quarter, the Patriots tied the game in the
fourth quarter, forcing the first overtime in Super
Bowl history. A final touchdown gave the Patriots a
34-28 victory and their fifth title.

In January, President Barack Obama ’83 appointed
Herbert Block ’87 to the role of member, Com-
mission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage
Abroad, “an independent Federal agency established
to help preserve cultural sites in Eastern and Central
Europe associated with the heritage of U.S. citizens.
‘These include synagogues, cemeteries and other
historic Jewish places, as well as sites of other faiths,
and Holocaust memorials in the region.”

Erik Feig 92, co-president of Lionsgate, and Dede
Gardner ’90, a producer with and co-president of
Plan B Entertainment, both had films rack up mul-
tiple 2017 Academy Awards. Lionsgate’s La La Land
won six awards while Moonlight took home three,
including Best Picture. With her 2017 win, Gardner
became the first female producer to win two Best
Picture awards (she won in 2013 for 12 Years a Slave).
Films produced by Lionsgate earned 26 nominations,
including a record-tying 14 for La La Land, while
Plan B’s Moonlight received eight.

— Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

Spring 2017 CCT

By Jill C. Shomer

dam Gidwitz 04 won a prestigious Newbery Honor in

January for his book The Inquisitor’ Tale, Or, The Three

Magical Children and Their Holy Dog (Dutton’s Children’s

Books/Penguin Young Readers Group, $17.99), a quirky
and funny middle-grade children’s novel that reads like The Canter-
bury Tales meets Game of Thrones, but for kids. According to Gidwitz,
who specializes in what he calls “scary fairy tales,” this story of three
“magical” children — Jeanne, William and Jacob — and Jeanne’s
reincarnated “holy” greyhound, Gwenforte, “presents questions of
belief and prejudice to young readers with historical context.”

Born in San Francisco and raised in Baltimore, Gidwitz came to
Columbia as an “I-think-I-know-everything” kid, and was inter-
ested in the Core Curriculum because he valued a challenge. But a
course in East Asian texts freshman year introduced him to Taoism
and Buddhism and changed his outlook.

“I felt euphoric in my embrace of it; it was more fundamental
than anything I had found,” he says. On a quest to learn “the truth
about life,” Gidwitz considered further study in philosophy or religion
before ultimately landing on English lit. “The truth is in literature,”
he says. “If you describe some-
thing that communicates the
truth without actually saying it
explicitly, that’s your best shot
at getting at it.”

As a break from his studies,
Gidwitz would read children’s
books for fun (“Now, ironi-
cally, I read adult fiction for
fun,” he says). His hobby led
him to take a children’s lit class
that proved to be influential.
After graduation, while teach-
ing second-graders at Saint
Ann's School in Brooklyn,
Gidwitz discovered he was
good at storytelling and began
writing out ideas. Though he
wrote as an undergraduate and
while earning a master’s at the
Bank Street College of Education, he insists, “I learned a lot more
from telling stories to kids than I ever did in a writing class.”

Gidwitz’s first three books were fairy tales; he says he intentionally
made those characters two-dimensional so that young readers could
put themselves into the story and experience the things the characters

LAUREN MANCIA '05

38 CCT Spring 2017

AEX Adam Gidwitz \oe
WSK NEW YORK TIMES Gidw itz A Ne
Apher re menue wren fey
DE sil =a

°
Y
i

The ae
ngquisitor’s
Tale

Or, The Three
Magical Children
and Their
Holy Dog

were experiencing. For this book, he

wanted to create richer characters

with fuller, more human lives.

He turned to history for inspiration. Gidwitz’s wife, Lauren
Mancia ’05 (they met at the College in a Chaucer class), is a pro-
fessor of medieval history at Brooklyn College; the couple travels
to Europe regularly for her research and lived in France for a year.
While there, Gidwitz dreamed up stories inspired by their sur-
roundings and ‘The Middle Ages that Mancia was studying. Some
of his characters were actual people, like King Louis IX, some were
based on real people, like Joan of Arc, and some were entirely made
up (a fascinating Author’s Note at the end describes each in detail).

‘The narrative of the book was shaped by a real event Gidwitz
learned about in 2012 while visiting the Museum of Jewish Art
and History in Paris. A small plaque explained that in 1242, all the
Talmuds of the Jews of France — about 20,000 handmade holy
books — had been burned in front of them by the king and his
mother, Blanche of Castile. The discovery “was like being kneed
in the stomach,” Gidwitz says. “It took me a few days to feel OK
again, like I had experienced a great loss.” The burning of the Tal-
muds in Paris forms the climax of the novel, after the magical chil-
dren and their holy dog are pursued as heretics through France.
Gidwitz’s experience of loss comes through as the characters are
devastated by the destruction and a fatality at the pyre site.

The 13th century was a brutal time, and The Inquisitor’ Tale is
an atypical children’s book in that it features intense death scenes
and adult wisdom amidst farting dragons and other kid stuff. But
Gidwitz believes “children are capable of a lot more than we give
them credit for, like asking hard questions and imagining things
that are beyond the scope of their world.”

The book's illustrations, by Egyptian-born artist Hatem Aly, are
drawn in a style reminiscent of Islamic art and alternate between
enhancing the narrative and turning it on its ear — some of the
images contradict what is written or have nothing at all to do with
it. Gidwitz felt it was important to provide a Muslim perspective
on a story that features Judaism and Christianity prominently. “I
wanted a different voice, a different perspective and a different life
experience around the edge of the pages,” he says.

It will be clear to readers of any age that the story’s themes of reli-
gious persecution and racial prejudice are all too relevant, and tolerance
is a critical takeaway. “When I go to schools to read the book I talk
about scapegoating,” Gidwitz says. “If young people read this, maybe
they will see what's going on in our world today through a different
lens. I hope I wrote a book that will maybe make people better people.”

With All Due Respect by Lewis
Segal ’56. Segal’s first novel tackles
issues of embedded bigotry within
the context of a prestigious law firm.
Thrown into a work environment
with a Nazi sympathizer, attorney
Michael Cullen must face the
responsibility of the law profes-
sion while addressing the personal
conflict he feels, forcing him to
define justice for himself (Tupelo
Press, $17.95).

Exploring the World of J.S. Bach:
A Traveler’s Guide by Rodert L.
Marshall’60 and Traute M. Marshall.
A biography, travel guide and
encyclopedia, this book tracks the life
of composer Johann Sebastian Bach
through all the places where he may
have lived, visited or worked. Com-
bining careful research with historical
illustrations, photographs and maps,
the authors aim to inspire adventure
in even the most settled of readers

(University of Illinois Press, $29.95).

L.E.L., Letiticia Elizabeth Landon,
The English Improvisatrice: Cata-
logue of a Collection Held by The
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
of Columbia University by Francis
J. Sypher Jr. 63. Sypher has been
studying the works of Landon —
who signed her poems as “L.E.L.”
— since the 1980s and has donated
more than 200 manuscripts, books,
prints and other materials to the
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
(New York: Columbia University
Libraries, 2016).

Alfred Wegener: Science,
Exploration, and the Theory

of Continental Drift by Mozt T’
Greene 67. More than 20 years of
research and travel culminate in a
thorough portrait of Wegener, the
scientist best known for his theory
of continental drift. Greene argues
Wegener deserved more credit for his
accomplishments (Johns Hopkins
University Press, $44.95).

Photographs of My Father:

A Lost Narrative from the Civil
Rights Era by Paul Spike ’70.
Reeling with confusion and anger
after the murder of his father,
clergyman and civil rights leader
Robert W. Spike, the author dives
headfirst into reflection: upon the
Civil Rights Movement, his father’s
position in the fabric of history and
his own experiences at Columbia
coming to terms with the world.
Originally written when Spike was
23, this revised edition offers read-
ers a new opportunity to engage
with his story and that time (Cinco
Puntos Press, $17.95).

No More Dancing the Jig: A Novel
by Michael Haley ’77. This novel
follows Margaret, a 30-something
English teacher who, after a pro-
phetic dream, is struck by the desire
to change her life and unabashedly
pursue happiness. As she fights

to reclaim her creativity and her
purpose, our heroine finds wisdom
and friendship in those who bolster
her (‘Universe, $14.95).

Se ee ee
tethen 1 cme 80 the end.”

PHOTOGRAPHS
OF MY FATHER

A LOST NARRATIVE FROM
THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA

PAUL SPIKE

ROM i
ON EVERY YEA AR © FaMous WRITERS

ork LIFE

A Legacy of One by Kevin G.
Chapman ’83. Inspired by
Chapman's experiences on
Morningside Heights, this novel
follows fictional alumnus Jonathan
Prescott III’93, a U.S senator on
track to run for President. When
the keeper of his biggest secret
threatens to reveal information
that would jeopardize his political
career and family name, Prescott
must grapple with what it means
to leave a legacy (CreateSpace
Publishing, $16.28).

The Art of Fact Investigation:
Creative Thinking in the Age of
Information Overload by Philip
Segal’84. Through the lens of the
Cubist tradition in art, investigative
attorney Segal suggests we need to
recognize different perspectives in
order to best distill an extraordi-
nary amount of information into
something productive. Attorneys,
investigators and other researchers
must review data with an inquisi-
tive and thorough eye; for, as Segal
says, “it is not the abundance of
information that is alluring ...

but the absence of it” (Ignaz

Press LLC, $22.95).

100 Years: Wisdom from Famous
Writers on Every Year of Your
Life selections by Joshua Prager ’94
with visualizations by Milton Glaser.
This collection of quotations sews
common threads from the past

and the future with words about
every year from birth to 100. Prager

YOUR LIFE, YOUR MONEY,
YOUR TERMS

FOUNDER & CEO, DAILYWORTH | WORTHEM

urges readers to “... get happily lost”
amidst these pages, as in life (W.W.
Norton & Co., $17.95).

Notched Sunsets by Tim Wood
96. In this experimental poetry
collection, Wood allows the reader a
glimpse at his process. He presents a
sonnet created one line at a time fol-
lowed by the abstraction of the son-
net into inspirations and influences
and concludes with a recapitulation
of the lines reedited and in reverse

chronological order (Atelos, $12.95).

Worth It: Your Life, Your

Money, Your Terms by Amanda
Steinberg 99. The founder and
CEO of DailyWorth.com aims to
recalibrate the toxic relationship
many women have with money
and self-worth. Steinberg redefines
money as a source of personal
power and freedom rather than one
of anxiety, offering women a way

to break through to the financial
independence they desire, but often
don't achieve (North Star Way, $26).

Beyond Crimea: The New
Russian Empire by Agnia Grigas
‘02. Political risk expert Grigas
presents a critical analysis of
Vladimir Putin's foreign policy that
demonstrates the dangers of Russia's
expansionist tactics. The question
of how post-Soviet borders will be
reconstructed is currently relevant
and remains unanswered (Yale
University Press, $40).

— Aiyana K. White ’18

Spring 2017 CCT 39

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Arehiteetural Model of Buildings

An early rendering
of Columbia’s
Morningside Heights
Campus.

40 CCT Spring 2017

Morningside Heia!

1940

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Milton Kamen lives in New York
City. He writes: “I look forward to
attending my 77th class reunion this
spring thanks to my cardiologist,
urologist, nephrologist, dermatologist
and others too numerous to mention.
It Takes A Clinic.”

Milton can be reached at
miltkamen@gmail.com.

CCT, and your classmates, would
love to hear from you. Please share
an update about yourself, your fam-
ily, your career and/or your travels

even a favorite Columbia College
memory — by sending it to either
the postal address or email address
at the top of the column.

1941

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

CCT was pleased to hear from Ray
Robinson. Ray (97) lives on the
Upper East Side with his wife, Phyllis.
He called CCT before the winter holi-
days to alert us to a December 11 New
York Times obituary, “Ken Hechler,
West Virginia Populist and Coal
Miners’ Champion, Dies at 102.” Ray
shared a story from his undergraduate
days that involved Hechler, along with
James Aloysius Farley.

The following is Ray’s contribu-
tion to the 2010 book Lasting Yankee
Stadium Memories: Unforgettable
Tales from the House That Ruth Built.
Ray, a celebrated sports writer, con-
tributed this on pages 34-36:

“T have many memories of
Yankee Stadium, but one that comes
to mind is a brief encounter on a
subway ride up to the Bronx many
years ago. First, let me give you some
history. Like my father before me,

I attended Columbia University.

In 1940, the year before America’s
involvement in World War II, Dr.
Kenneth Hechler, a young, energetic
instructor of politics, introduced
some quirky innovations in his class,
presumably to keep students awake.
He invited a number of prominent
figures of that era, literally a who’s
who in public affairs, to appear in
person in the classroom at Morn-
ingside heights. When these famous
folks arrived they were pelted with
questions by curious students.

“Should a guest speaker be too busy
to attend, Dr. Hechler broadcasted
the lecture over speakerphone to his

2
S)

‘57, BUS'S§

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR

A ch AE i

Government 21-22 class, enabling
students to eavesdrop on Supreme
Court justices, maverick Emporia
Gazette editor William Allen White,
Republican presidential candidate
Wendell L. Willkie, and Communist
party chieftain Earl Browder.

“When the students arrived to
class, they never knew who might
wind up on the other end of a long-
distance call.

“One heavy hitter who appeared
in person, not once but twice, was
Farley. At the time, Farley — known
to intimates as ‘Big Jim’ — was head
of the Democratic National Com-
mittee, postmaster general of the
United States and President Frank-
lin D. Roosevelt’s former campaign
manager. He helped guide FDR to
two victories in his race for New
York governor and two triumphs in
his run for the presidency.

“Farley was also a man of the
diamond, that is to say a man of
baseball, especially the Yankees.

“Farley never met a baseball
game that he didn’t like. Born in
Grassy Point, New York, thirty miles
outside of New York City, in 1888,
he grew up wanting to be a Yankees
first baseman. He played semipro
ball in Haverstraw, New York, before
getting into local politics.

“When the Yankees moved into
their grand new ballpark in 1923,
Farley immediately bought a season
ticket. In April of that year, he was one
of 74,000 fans who jammed into the
new baseball palace to see Babe Ruth
bang the Stadium’s first home run and
lead the Yankees to victory over the
Red Sox. Farley remained on the pre-
cious season ticket list for the rest of
his life, attending games whenever he
was in New York. According to no less
an authority than the late historian
Arthur Schlesinger, Farley rarely
missed an opener.

“He was also in attendance on
July 4, 1939, along with Mayor Fio-
rello LaGuardia, to hear Lou Gehrig
deliver his touching valedictory.

“I was a nineteen-year-old spec-
tator that day at the Stadium, sitting
in the faraway right-field bleachers,
unlike Big Jim, who watched the
proceedings from a box seat.

“That same year, after Yankees
owner Jacob Ruppert died, Farley,
who had dreamed often that he

might buy the club, put together a
consortium of backers who shared
his desire to own the Yankees. Not a
rich man himself, Farley enlisted the

help of FDR’s former law partner
Basil O’Connor, who was also a
prominent money-raiser in the fight
against infantile paralysis, a disease
that FDR contracted in the 1920s.

“When the negotiations fell
through, Farley was distraught.
Around the same time, his effort to
become the Democratic nominee for
president in 1940 also collapsed, as
did his relationship with FDR.

“But one constant in his life
remained: the Yankees. And he never
stopped showing up at the Stadium.

“In his appearance at Dr. Hechler’s
class that spring morning in 1940,
Farley delivered a chatty, ‘off the
record’ talk. When he finished his
remarks, Farley suggested that each
student be introduced to him.

“My recollection is that I spent
about three seconds in front of Big
Jim. Dr. Hechler announced my
name to him, Farley shook my hand,
then he greeted the next student.
And so it went. Maybe thirty stu-
dents passed through the ritual.

“T never saw Farley again, outside
of seeing his picture in the newspa-
pers, often when he was attending
Yankee ballgames.

“That was until some thirty years
later, when I shared a subway car with
him en route to Yankee Stadium.

“Then in his early eighties, the
ruddy-faced Farley sat across from
me, a straw boater atop his bald head.
A dark suit covered his broad-shoul-
dered, 6-foot-2 frame. As our eyes
met, he nodded at me and smiled.

“How are you today, Mr.
Robinson?”

“Tn a state of utter amazement
at Farley’s exercise in mnemonics,

I returned his smile. Farley had
known and met thousands of the
most celebrated people in the world.
Yet his mind, a multilayered index
of names, faces, and places out of
his colorful past, also had room in

it to recall those eager Columbia
students, including myself.

“Perhaps the most amusing tale
ever told about Farley’s total recall
was written by popular Hearst col-
umnist Bugs Baer. Kiddingly, Baer
challenged the notion that Farley
was the ultimate master at matching
names with faces.

“He's just a fraud, wrote Baer.
‘The way he gets the name is to keep
shaking hands with the stranger,
and slapping him on the back with
his other hand. All the while he’d be
telling the guy how glad he is to see

alumninews

COLUMBIA SCHOOL DESIGNATIONS

BC Barnard College
BUS Columbia Business School
CP Pharmaceutical Sciences
DM College of Dental Medicine
GS School of General Studies
GSAPP

Graduate School of Architecture,

Planning and Preservation

GSAS

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

JRN Graduate School of Journalism
JTS Jewish Theological Seminary

LAW
LS Library Service
NRS School of Nursing

Columbia Law School

PH Mailman School of Public Health
PS College of Physicians and Surgeons
The Fu Foundation School of Engineering

and Applied Science

School of International and Public Affairs

School of the Arts

School of Professional Studies
School of Social Work

Teachers College

Union Theological Seminary

him. Eventually the bum’s calling
card would pop out of his vest, and
Jim’s got the guy’s name!”

“For a few moments on the sub-
way, Farley and I exchanged com-
ments about the state of the Yankees
instead of the state of the Union.
Then we each went on our way.”

CCT wishes all of you a pleasant
spring. If you wish to share news or
a favorite memory of your time at
Columbia in this space, we would
be happy to receive it! Please send
notes to either the mailing address
at the top of this column or email us
at cct@columbia.edu. Be well!

1942

Melvin Hershkowitz

22 Northern Ave.
Northampton, MA 01060-2310
DrMelvin23@gmail.com

I am sorry to start these notes with
the sad news of the death of lifelong
friend Robert J. Kaufman, of
Scarsdale, N.Y., at 95 on Octo-

ber 30. Bob was a naval officer
(1942-46) on a destroyer escort,
after which he graduated from Yale
Law in 1948 as a member of Corbey
Court. He had a long, distinguished
career as VP and general attorney
for the ABC Network, during which
he worked with Roone Arledge’52

to establish the televising of the
Olympic Games and Monday Night
Football. At Columbia, Bob was

a member of Phi Beta Kappa and
the Senior Society of Sachems. He
was the coxswain of Varsity Crew
and maintained friendships with his
oarsmen throughout his life.

Bob was a devoted golfer; a
loyal fan of the New York Giants; a
devoted husband to his wonderful
wife, Sue; a loving and admiring
father to his sons, Peter and Jimmy;
and a happy grandpa to his grand-
daughters, Maddy Kate and Ruby
Lee, who all survive him.

This correspondent met Bob at
Horace Mann School in 1935, the
start of an 80-year friendship. We
both attended our 70th Reunion
Luncheon in Hamilton Hall in 2012,
the last time we were together, after
which we kept in touch with phone
calls and notes via regular mail.

A sad farewell to the end of an
extraordinary friendship, and condo-
lences to all members of Bob's family.

On December 9, I received
the annual holiday family report
from Marie Mcllvennan, wife of
Stewart Mcllvennan LAW’48, in
Lakewood, Colo. Several months
ago, Stew entered an assisted living
and memory care facility near his
home. He was functioning poorly in
a wheelchair, with falls and cardiac
problems, as he anticipated his

Spring 2017 CCT 41

96th birthday on January 24. Marie
visited Stew every afternoon, had
dinner with him and arranged visits
with their sons, John, Len and Phil.
At Columbia, Stew was affection-
ately known as “Snuffy” among his
friends and was a member of the
varsity basketball team. He was a
star halfback on our football team
and always took great pride in being
a Columbia Lion.

In WWII, Stew served in the
Navy; in 1945, he was on an escort
ship for the battleship U.S.S.
Missouri in Tokyo Bay when Gen.
Douglas MacArthur accepted the
Japanese surrender to end the war.
Stew returned to Columbia, earn-
ing his law degree, and had a stint
with the FBI before starting a long
career as an executive in the trucking
industry, which included intense
negotiations with the notorious
Jimmy Hoffa. In retirement, Stew
was a loving father, grandfather and
great-grandfather. We send warm
greetings to our distinguished class-
mate and his family.

Dr. Gerald Klingon (96) calls me
every evening from his apartment on
York Avenue in Manhattan to dis-
cuss Columbia athletics and world
affairs. He remains perfectly lucid,
with an encyclopedic memory of
Columbia football, baseball and bas-
ketball games. He recently sent me a
list of 23 potential incoming football
recruits for 2018, including four
from Florida, where our baseball
team has been successful in recent
years.Gerry was a distinguished
neurologist on the staff at Cornell
University Medical College and
Memorial Sloan Kettering, and a
prominent medical-legal consultant
when summoned to testify in court
in contentious malpractice cases.
His son, Robert (Amherst College
and Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley’s
law school)), and daughter, Karen
(Rhode Island School of Design),
are also loyal to the Lions.

I am in contact with John Robbins,
who lives in Mount Dora, Fla., and
is the son of the late Dr. William
Robbins, who died last June (see my
tribute to Bill in the Fall 2016 issue).
John follows in his father’s footsteps
as a loyal fan of Columbia Athletics.
He has attended some of our baseball
team’s pre-Ivy season games in Florida
and recently reminded me that he saw
on YouTube a replay of Columbia's
January 1934 Rose Bowl victory over
Stanford, featuring Al Barabas’36

42 CCT Spring 2017

scoring on our famous KF-79 play
with a run around left end.

Kind regards and best wishes to
all surviving classmates and their

families for a good and happy 2017.

1943

G.J. D’Angio

201 S. 18th St., #1818
Philadelphia, PA 19103
dangio@earthlink.net

My wife Audrey’s and my trip to the
United Kingdom in late September
went well. We attended a wedding
near Cambridge and a christening
in the Highlands. There was time for
side visits, notably to a cattle auc-
tion where some of our host’s herd
were sold, and a visit to Cromarty.
‘The latter is a charming, largely
unspoiled Georgian village on the
Cromarty Firth.

October was Dante-esque. I
walked about as a zombie, with con-
comitant flu and a throat infection
that affected both sides — one after
the other, right before left. I earned
my Ph.D. in sleep, abed hour after
hour, dead to the world. An ER visit
at 2 a.m., in-patient antibiotics and
steroids reversed the last episode and
I was out of hospital in 36 hours.
Excellent care at Penn Medicine.
Sad part: Our trip to Boston for
the Wittenborg lecture had to be
cancelled. I had very much looked
forward to that lecture, which was
to be given by my young Penn col-
league, Dr. Surbhi Grover. We did
later go to Massachusetts to visit my
wife’s best friend in Weston, Mass.

‘The election left us aghast. “Keep
calm and carry on,” the phrase that
kept Britain going during WWII,
was the best we could do.

Our Thanksgiving Day was spent
with my son and his family. It was a
chance to catch up with my great-
grandchildren, Maggie and Charlie,
and their parents before they all left
for Kennebunk, Maine, in December.
We used the train and had a roomette
on the way south — very comfortable
way to travel; highly recommended.

I developed double vision in my
left eye early in December. This was
followed a few days later by double
vision on the right. These are the
fourth and fifth head and neck
episodes during 2016. They have
become so familiar that Audrey and
I look on hospital admissions as

two-day holiday breaks in the rou-
tine. | am admitted to a huge single
room in the hospital — the last

had great views of center city Philly
under snow. Audrey moves in with
me — she should not be home alone
— and spends a comfortable night
on a couch or reclining sofa while
my IVs run in overnight. I am home
the next afternoon. The food is good
and there is lots of TLC, directed at
me for a change and not her! I was
found to be severely anemic and ran
in a unit of blood. No wonder I was
played out after walking half a mile!

There is a hunt on for the basic
cause of these repeated bouts.
Nothing found so far. They are now
believed to be non-bacterial but
inflammatory episodes. We'll see.

A Columbia nugget: Daniel De
Leon (Class of 1878) was a multi-lin-
gual prominent Marxist on the world
stage at the end of the 1890s and in
the early 1900s. Of Dutch-Jewish

Most of my bit was excised for space,
but I have sounded off on the subject
elsewhere so do not feel cheated;
however, I can't resist briefly telling
those of you who don’t know that

it’s an all-Columbia story. William
A. Dunning (Class of 1881, GSAS
1884) became a Columbia faculty
member in 1893 and remained one
until his death in 1922. He wrote
extensively on the subject of Recon-
struction and supervised dissertations
that became books that reflected his
views. It was all done scrupulously
from research in primary sources, and
all concluding that the Republican
governments set up in the defeated
Southern states were corrupt and
inefficient. They worked hardships on
the South that ended only when they
were restored to white control. And
all showed an innate racial and class
bias that Dunning and his acolytes
honestly did not recognize in them-
selves. Since the 1960s, those views

Bernie Weisberger 43 collaborated on an article in

the Chronicle of Higher Education on the trap of the

doctrine of complete objectivity.

descent, he was born in Curacao in
1852. De Leon exerted a strong influ-
ence on the turbulent, multi-national
Socialist world of that time.

Bernie Weisberger reports: “Hi
classmates, in whatever numbers are
reading this. I can’t remember an
autumn as tumultuous as this year’s
has been for the nation at large, or
one so relatively free of important
personal news. In my case, the ‘no
news is good news’ bromide works.

I continue to plug away at writing
because the itch to do so is hardwired
into me. The only result of my work
in the last few months that’s been
published so far is a collaboration
with an economist friend in the
Chronicle of Higher Education. It deals
with the traps that can be laid for
social scientists by the doctrine of
complete ‘objectivity.’ That doctrine
discourages scholars from addressing
controversial issues for fear of letting
an ‘unprofessional’ private opinion
sneak in through the back door.

My part was to show the problem

at work in the discipline of history
when it dealt with the subject of
Reconstruction after the Civil War.

have been extensively challenged
and revised for the better. The star
performer is Professor Eric Foner
63, GSAS’69, who recently retired
after 28 years as Columbia’s DeWitt
Clinton Professor of History. Excuse
the digression, but I am very proud
of good old alma mater and the fine
education she gave me.

“To return to the present, just as
was the case last year, I was heavily
absorbed in following the rise of the
Chicago Cubs from years of futility
to a near-miss in 2015 and finally,
this year, to the World Champion-
ship. It may sound trivial and, in
the grand scheme of things, it is.

But truly, from the late weeks of
August through the final first week
of November, I watched every game
I could on TV and virtually ate, slept
and breathed baseball. And glad of it.

“Then came the election. I have
said in Class Notes that it’s probably
not a good idea to provoke political
arguments in this forum. I simply
have to report that Trump’s win has
cast a pall over my spirits that keeps
me from finishing in my usual chip-
per tone. I'll stop there.

“The only traveling I’ve done since
my last Class Note is to New York for
the Thanksgiving weekend, accompa-
nied by my wife, Rita. She has what
might be called a bi-national, trans-
oceanic family — some are in New
York and some are in Israel, to which
she went on to visit while I returned
to Chicago. The table was occupied
by a large crowd of in-laws, who I
am glad to say are also friends, and a
good time was had by all — except, of
course, the turkey. Good wishes to all
of you for the New Year, and let’s hear
more from you.”

1944

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

No news this time! CCT} and your
classmates, would love to hear

from you. Please share an update
about yourself, your family, your
career and/or your travels — even a
favorite Columbia College memory
— by sending it to either the email
address or postal address at the top
of the column.

1945

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Dr. Louis G. Harris writes: “Finished
Columbia College in 1944 due to
WWII. Roomed with close high
school buddy Dr. Henry Shinefield
45, PS’48 but got kicked out of Liv-
ingston Hall when the Navy took over.
Went on to Duke med school and a
medical internship and residency in
internal medicine in California and
practiced in Encino for about 35 years,
followed by seven years in San Diego
doing Social Security evaluation. Still
stay in touch with Henry.

“T served on many hospital com-
mittees and was a chief of staff. Kept
very busy in my spare time as a long-
distance runner, having run track for
four years in high school. Did eight
marathons and hundreds of shorter
races, finishing in the top three in my
age group most of the time.

“T lost my beautiful wife of 67
years, Edith ‘Edi’ Belle Harris (U of
Wisconsin ’48), about 15 months ago
[as of January]. She taught modern
dance and health ed at Los Angeles
City College and was a docent at the
Los Angeles County Museum of
Art. When first retired, I spent four
years motor-homing, hiking and fly-
fishing in the western United States,
from Alaska to Mexico. Nothing
beats that. After a five-year stay in
Prescott, Ariz. (magnificent area), I
moved into a retirement community
in Carlsbad, Calif.

“Still have all my own joints,
walk one hour every morning and
30 minutes in the gym three times
a week. Now 93 and a half and
fortunately still able to drive and
keep very busy with the programs
available here. Can't top the climate.”

CCT, and your classmates, would
enjoy hearing from you too! Please
share news about yourself, your fam-
ily, your career and/or your travels
— even a favorite Columbia College
memory — using either the email
address or postal address at the top
of the column.

1946

Bernard Sunshine

165 W. 66th St., Apt. 12G
New York, NY 10023
bsuns1@gmail.com

Ira Millstein has authored a new
book, The Activist Director: Les-

sons from the Boardroom and the
Future of the Corporation, published
by Columbia University Press. Ira
founded and developed modern-day
corporate governance practice. The
book chronicles 50 years of his life
inside the boardroom during major
corporate events, such as the Drexel
Burnham Lambert collapse and
General Motors’ mid-1990s recovery.

Mel Holson says life is slowly
getting back to normal after knee
replacement surgery. By the time
this column is published he may
have already donned his skis and
returned to the slopes.

Herbert Gold got a mention in
The New York Times obituary for
noted biographer Aileen Ward:
“When (Vladimir) Nabokov was
trying to find someone to replace
him when he left Cornell shortly
after the publication of Lo/ita, it
was she (Ward) who came up with

alumninews

a successful recommendation, the
novelist Herbert Gold.”

Cornell agreed with her recom-
mendation and Herb taught there.

Arnold Zentner is “still chugging
along” in the warm climes of Sarasota,
Fla. He says he cut back on tennis
and golf because of spinal stenosis
and now finds biking and playing the
electric organ to be important and
fun. He writes that, four years after
his wife’s death, he is lucky to have
the companionship of a lady to share
the pleasures of theater, music and
travel. Arnold sends warm regards to
classmates and looks forward to being
contacted at aszentner@yahoo.com.

Every edition of Columbia College
Today carries the’46 Class Notes
column with news that I receive from
you. News about travel, family, cur-
rent work, special projects, personal
happenings, book reading suggestions
and personal thoughts are read with
interest by your classmates. Please
send me your updates and informa-
tion, which will run in this publica-
tion. Write to me at the address at
the top of the column or send me an
email at bsuns1@gmail.com.

1947

_ REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Come back to campus for your
70th reunion! Find out more: college.
columbia.edu/alumni/reunion2017.

1948

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Robert Randel SEAS’49, who lives
in Oberlin, Ohio, writes:

“1. Life has been good. I am 93
with only age-related physical and
intelligence handicaps. No question
that I am slower in both areas. I
know this because I can measure
my capability against the modern
college student. I am a regular
unregistered visitor at Oberlin Col-
lege, which has given me privileges
to listen in on a variety of liberal arts
courses, the number of which is now
approaching the requirement for a
liberal arts degree. But, while I have
updated and improved my intel-
ligence, I have never passed an exam
and I know I am not the intellectual
equivalent of today’s college student
in the classroom.

“2. Physically, I walk, one mile in
40 minutes (probably twice a week
when the weather is good) and play
doubles tennis twice a week with a
younger group, all of whom recognize
that my partner must cover at least
80 percent of our court territory.

“3. Socially, I am alone. My
dear wife, Helen (TC’45 or 46, if
memory serves), died last year. We
had been married 69 years. However,
once-married people of both sexes
are numerous in retirement com-
munities and it is not too difficult to
satisfy a friendly relationship.

“4, My four-year Columbia
experience was split, with three years
occurring after three years in the
military. Thank you, GI Bill. By then
I was married and had one child
before graduation. In other times
this might have been unusual, but
not so post-WWII. A large portion
of my time while at Columbia was
spent with family and part-time jobs.
I never lived at the College. Courses
were just something to pass with a
satisfactory grade (I was Phi Beta
Kappa). The goal: Graduate and get a
job. That was my Columbia life. As a
result, I have been a very disinterested
alumnus. Not Columbia’s fault, but
probably a product of the times for
some people.

“5. After Columbia, 36 years were
spent with a large American manu-
facturing corporation, at several
locations in the east and Midwest.
In that period, I was able to ascend
the corporate ladder with a variety
of interesting and rewarding jobs. It
is difficult to pin down, but I believe
my Columbia experience played a
role in my career.”

Paul Robert Homer also reached
out: “I am retired from The State
University of New York after 43 years

Spring 2017 CCT 43

of service. | am a church organist and
choir director in Buffalo, N.Y. My
wife, Kathryn, is still with me after
52 years, and our three children have
given us four grandchildren. Natu-
rally, all are intelligent and beautiful!”

CCT, and your classmates, would
love to hear from you, too! Please
share news about yourself, your fam-
ily, your career and/or your travels
— even a favorite Columbia College
memory — using either the email
address or postal address at the top
of the column.

1949

John Weaver

2639 E. 11th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11235
wudchpr@gmail.com

Right off the bat I want to thank
classmates from whom we have never
heard for throwing a “lifeline” and
rescuing this column from another
desperate outcry! Joe Russell, who
has been the most generous provider
of content, has not been obligated

to come to our rescue this time. We
have heard from Julian Rolan-

delli BUS’50; I quote his entire letter
because he tells a story so admirable.
He appears to credit the College for
all his success and, in that sense I
think we all might take a moment
and recognize that as a common con-
nection among us.

Julian reports: “Many are the
exciting occurrences in my life
linked to Columbia. I especially
remember the people who made
them possible — like meeting Gen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, then-
president of the University!

“For me, Columbia athletics were
huge. It was Coach Carl Merner’s
inspiration that led to my record
in the 1,000-yard-run that held for
17 years. While winning two-mile
relay championships at Heptagonals,
Ivy League and New York Metros,

I made lifelong friendships with
Dave Ilchert (godfather to one

of my five children), Bill Berger
SEAS’49, Charles Cole ’48 and
John Zegger’50.

“At the Business School, Warren
Buffet BUS’51 was a class behind me.
If only I paid as much attention as he
did! Yet, what I did learn helped me
big-time. Assigned to Columbia while
I was at the Business School was FBI
agent and Olympian Fred Wilt, then

44 CCT Spring 2017

America’s fastest miler. No longer Var-
sity eligible, I was working out — just
for enjoyment — at the mid-campus
outdoor running track when Fred
stopped me. He could quickly get me
back in competitive shape running

for the New York Athletic Club, he
said, using little known Swedish tech-
niques. I don’t know why Fred both-
ered with me. Whatever, it was good
enough — with the help of former
world record holder and Olympian
Bill Hulse — to take third place in the
two-mile relay at the AAU Nationals
(USA Championships).

“T tried to give back by officiating
at Columbia track meets and Madison
Square Garden, and I was chairman
of the Varsity C Banquet and on track
advisory committees. I interviewed
applicants for Columbia and hosted
Columbia track, football and wrestling
coaches in Ohio. I volunteered to
coach track at my Ohio church and to
run a huge track meet for more than
450 boys and 20 parishes on Memo-
rial Day 10 years in a row.

“Indeed, again and again,
Columbia people played a role that
I can never repay. Bill Sanford 30,
captain of Columbia's only National
Heavyweight Crew Regatta cham-
pion, was my Scoutmaster and an
inspiration in my youth. Carl Sayers
’46, who headed up stadium food
concessions during our football
games (which helped me earn a few
bucks), mentored me to the rank of
Eagle Scout and then on through

Columbia. I met John Garibaldi of
Manhattan University, in second
place right behind me, at the New
York Metropolitan Championship
Mile Run. Later, newly married, we
found ourselves next-door neighbors
in Yonkers, N.Y., and became
lifetime friends. Incredibly, my
sometime roommate Bill Vessie’48,
PS’54, Columbia’s IC4A Champion
(high jump), and head nurse Elsie
Rolandelli (my wonderful wife of
63 years, who passed away in April)
worked together at the largest
hospital in Ohio.

“While serving as president of
the Columbia Alumni Associa-
tion of Cleveland, I worked with
high-powered Columbians like Jim
Berick’55, Frank Joseph LAW’53
and Al Lerner’55. Al was to own
the Cleveland Browns and finance
the fabulous Alfred Lerner Hall
on campus. I also rubbed shoulders
with distinguished folks like Presi-
dent Bill McGill and Dean David
Truman during our annual Colum-
bia in Cleveland programs. I’ve
gone back to Columbia to represent
Cleveland at alumni meetings and
for reunions, reuniting with Gene
Rossides, George Sayer, Bill
Lubic, Bob Rosencrans, Marv Lip-
man, Bob Lincoln, Gene Shekita,
Pete Smedley, Jim Shenton,
Chuck Tulevech and many others.
And it’s classmates like you, John,
willing to write CCT Class of 49

notes for so many years, that moti-

vated writing this note. In the end,
I am but a part of all those I’ve met.
Thanks, Columbia, for helping to
put so many good people there.”

Nick Zules sent two separate
emails, one with a sampling of his
paintings and another with a brief
resume of his time since College.
Nick worked at a number of jobs
to supplant his earnings as an artist
but never abandoned his calling. The
several works he sent me are striking
and impactful. Regardless of the
limitations of viewing paintings on
the small screen in digital format, his
work is clearly filled with a forceful
and emotionally moving effect.

I did not know Nick during our
undergraduate years. My loss. His
brief personal history follows: “The
years I spent at the College occurred
during a period of momentous
worldwide change. I am grateful
that the knowledge I received there
helped me understand, helped me
make sense of the events that ensued.

“T graduated and worked in an art
office for several years, married and
joined my father as partner in his
fur business, but always indulged in
my passions, painting and writing. I
did better with the artwork, had art
shows all over Long Island; in New
York City; and in Taos, N.M.; and
Miami; and did line illustrations for
The New York Times, Newsday and
many magazines, meanwhile mainly
providing for my family and three
children with the fur work. When

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '57, BUS'58

the fur business folded, I was a sales-
man in an art store. Both were vaca-
tions in comparison to the hectic
life creating and selling mink coats.
I recently self-published two novels
and a book of short stories — and
illustrated the covers for all three.”

Al Scherzer PH’50,TC’54,
PS’63, obviously, has a gift for
understatement. His note reports
ever-so-briefly on an extraordinary
career, reaching around the globe and
returning home, sharing his energy
and knowledge in the service of the
most important members of all our
families: our children. Al says, “After
five years of international public
health work in Southeast Asia and
the South Pacific with the United
States Public Health Service and
WHO and 50 years as a develop-
mental pediatrician, I finally retired
in March 2016 and am now clinical
professor emeritus of pediatrics at
Weill Cornell Medical College. I
have captured my journey so far away
from West 120th Street and the Col-
lege in a memoir: Taking on Global
Health Issues: Odyssey of a Develop-
mental Pediatrician. It is available
from Amazon or on lulu.com. I invite
classmates to peek in and see where
my travels have taken me.”

Paul Meyer sent his note, as he
and his wife, Alice, had a genuinely
exciting December: “Alice and I
spent a month cruising from Miami
through the Caribbean and then
2,000 miles up the Amazon River
to Manaus. There, I had my dream
experience: To sing in the 1884-96
opera house built in the middle of a
rainforest. While only a Gilbert and
Sullivan ditty (‘I am the very model
of a modern Major-General’), I
made my debut. Of course there was
much more to the experience, but
the main thing was that we did it.
Used walking sticks to climb about
300 ft. to the top of Devil’s Island
— although Dreyfus was impris-
oned on an adjacent island we could
only view at a distance.”

It is impossible to ignore the
political turmoil that is abroad in
the nation and Paul adds the fol-
lowing as we all contemplate the
importance of maintaining order
and civility in the ongoing debate
as we struggle to stay firm in our
unanimous support of the Constitu-
tion as the structure upon which our
national house is built.

He says, “I take great pride in
having been a founder of the Ameri-

can Civil Liberties Union affiliates
of both Connecticut and Oregon
and having served on the National
Board and National Executive
Committee for more than 25 years.
Boy, do we need the ACLU now!”

Thank you all for sharing. I know
there are many more of you out
there. Let us hear from you. We live
in unsure times and whatever reas-
surance we can glean from hearing
from our classmates is ever more
appreciated. We are all survivors and
we have the opportunity to show,
by example, that our identities, so
firmly grounded in our common
College experience, are joined in
hope and conviction that the future
is ours to make. In this I include
every alumnus/a from Page 1 of
Class Notes to the Class of 2016.

In a final note, I report, sadly, the
loss of a dearly beloved classmate.
In November, Dick Kandel took
his leave of this earthly community.
Dick was a friend from my earliest
days on campus, separated by the
glass that defined the engineer’s
domain and the performer’s in the
WKCR studio. A serious and enthu-
siastic member of our alumni family
and a generous friend, Dick’s loss is
personal and profound.

1950

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Class of 1950, CCT wishes you a
warm and pleasant spring. If you
would like to share your news or

a favorite memory of your time at
Columbia in this space, we would
be happy to receive it! Please send
notes to either the mailing address
at the top of this column or email us
at cct@columbia.edu. Be well!

1951

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

CCT was pleased to chat with Joe
Sirola on the phone in Decem-

ber. His voice may be known to

alumninews

you from his many years doing
voiceover work (for example, Boar’s
Head commercials: “Compromise
elsewhere!”). Joe remains active in
the arts, having performed at NYC’s
Metropolitan Room on November
20 in his one-man show, “With A
Little Bit of Luck: Stories, Songs &
Shakespeare.” Here are details from
the show’s Facebook page:

“Joe Sirola, who has starred in
more than 600 television shows
— including his own series The
Montefuscos; in films with the likes
of Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida,
Clint Eastwood, and James Cagney;
and on Broadway in The Unsinkable
Molly Brown, Pal Joey, and Golden
Rainbow, among others — will be
bringing stories of his life through
words and song to the stage at
Metropolitan Room.

“In addition to his acting career,
The Wall Street Journal named him
‘King of the Voiceovers,’ having
recorded 10,000+ commercials, and
he has been called ‘the green thumb
of the Upper East Side’ for his
amazing rooftop garden.

“Sunday’s performance will also
have snippets from his one man
show, Shakespeare’s Ages of Man, in
which Joe portrayed 18 of the bard’s
famous characters.

“In the last few years, Joe
returned to Broadway ... this time
as a Tony Award-winning producer
with shows such as. 4 Gentleman’
Guide to Love and Murder, The Trip
to Bountiful, The Motherf™ker with
the Hat, Love Letters (revival), Ghetto
Klown, Rodgers + Hammerstein's
Cinderella, Stick Fly and Time Stands
Sill. He is currently involved in
Cagney the Musical.

“...and it all started “With A
Little Bit of Luck.”

Read about Joe in CC7’s 2011
profile: Go to college.columbia.edu/
cct and search for “Joe Sirola.” For a
look at Joe’s recent work on Cagney,
go to nytimes.com and search for
“Remembering James Cagney, a
Tough Guy With a Green Thumb.”

Elliott B. Sherwood got in
touch: “I am living happily in a
wonderful retirement community,
Willow Valley, in Lancaster, Pa.,
with my wife of 69 years, Helen. We
have two loving daughters nearby
and our families get together often.

“T retired early, at 60, from a
rewarding career in banking, with
First Pennsylvania Bank, N.A., of
Philadelphia. We then traveled exten-

sively in the USA and Europe before
settling down in central Pennsylvania.

“T never expected to live until 90
but here we are, in relatively good
health and enjoying a full life.”

Joseph V. “Joe” Ambrose Jr.
shares: “Three years ago my wife and
I moved from our home of 45 years in
Irvington, N.Y., to a retirement com-
munity in Lancaster, Pa., where we
are enjoying a relatively carefree life,
despite a few minor medical issues.
We still go to Florida each winter and
have a fairly active life there.”

David Kettler GSAS’60, professor
emeritus in political studies, Trent
University (Ontario), and research
professor in social studies, Bard Col-
lege (Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.),
sent a comprehensive update: “I am
not strictly a member of the Class
of 1951. I entered with the Class of
1952 but accumulated enough credits
to enter graduate school in fall 1951.
As a result, I did not know many
members of the earlier class, espe-
cially since friendships were often
formed in the required early courses.
‘Then, too, I commuted from Jersey
City for the first two years and had
a near full-time job there, teaching
veterans to take high school equiva-
lence exams, until I completed my
course work for the Ph.D. in 1954...
Columbia opened possibilities I had
never imagined. And I remain loyal
(as long as I am not required to root
for athletic teams).

“There will not be (m)any more
opportunities to report to fellow-
survivors what I have been up to in
the 65 years since our graduation.

“For me, Columbia College
was first of all about the classes: I
loved CC and Humanities and the
history and economics and govern-
ment classes. Even the mandatory
composition class was a revelation.
My background was a little unusual.
I'd gone to a terrible high school in

Jersey City until I walked out on
the first day of my senior year, took
the $500 I'd saved for college from
my summer jobs and entered a local
private high school, whose principal
claim was that it prepared students
for state equivalency tests in half
the normal time. It happened also
to have some good teachers. The
principal talked me into applying
to Columbia and for all 1 know
doctored my very ordinary transcript
to get me admitted.

“I worked two jobs during the half
year I'd spared myself and accumu-

Spring 2017 CCT 45

lated the first year’s tuition. For the
first two years, | commuted daily,

organizing my schedule so that I could
return in time for my 5:00-10:30

p-m. job as ‘registrar’ for the evening
division of the school I had attended,
mostly doing the paperwork for the
veterans who came under the GI

Bill. After a year, I started teaching

the last two hours of the day. It was a
great job, as it paid well and gave me
weekends free for studying.

“Of course, it meant, first, that I
had as good as no social connections
with classmates, and, second, that I
had to commute five days a week to
Jersey City, in the other direction, even
after I rented a bed on 118th Street.

“So Columbia for me meant
classes, except for my first semester
when I somehow found time to
impose my abysmal trombone
playing on the Marching Band. The
band was always brilliant at rehears-
als because many Julliard musicians
liked to take part. But not at the
games, when Mr. [Hunter] Wiley
had to improvise. But that was true
of Lou Little too, if 1 remember
right, since it was the year after
[Gene] Rossides [’49, LAW’52] and
[Bill] Swiacki [BUS’48, ’49].

“But back to class. At the time,
you will recall, we did not have to
declare a major but to take enough
advanced courses to accumulate
the required ‘maturity credits.’ So I
ended up with an equal number of
courses in economics, history, phi-
losophy and government, but com-
mitted to the last of these, thanks to
the political theory courses taught
by John B. Stewart GSAS’53.

“T have to qualify that character-
ization of ‘my’ Columbia in another
way. In my second or third year,

I became active in the minuscule
Leftist fraction of the Young
Progressives of America — the

only College member of the group,
and the only one who was not a
Communist Party member. The four
other members, GS students, used
to caucus before they met with me,
to lay down the party line. They
thought of me as a fellow traveler,
but I thought that I was driving the
bus. We denounced an honorary
degree for a Chilean dictator, I
recall, and chanted ‘No degrees for
dictators; jobs for Negro educators.’
‘There was a photo of me in one of
those demonstrations in Specta-

tor. I was looking scornfully at the
surrounding skeptics. We did in fact

46 CCT Spring 2017

run a good series on ‘Negro History,’
although we considered it a triumph
if we could double our members in
the size of the audience. That was
my Columbia too. No regrets and no
apologies needed.

“So what was the upshot? After
entering graduate school in public
law and government, I completed an
M.A. in 1953 and finished my course
requirements and doctoral orals in
the following year. By then, I was
married to a sociologist who worked
at ‘the Bureau’ [Editor’s note: Paul F.
Lazarfeld’s Bureau of Applied Social
Research at Columbia], and we had a
child, Ruth Finkelstein, now an assis-
tant professor at the Mailman School
of Public Health after a distinguished
career at the New York Academy of
Medicine. After a year on a Rocke-
feller Foundation fellowship, I became
an instructor at Ohio State, where I
taught for 15 years, from instructor to
professor. The dissertation took some
five years to complete and cost one
marriage, as well. I married again in
1961, to Janet Leight, a psychology
graduate student, and we have twin
daughters, Katherine and Hannah.
Katherine, a lawyer, is a married to a
woman, and they have three children
between them. Katherine directs the
management of grievances at Intel
Foundation. Hannah, an economist,
has a responsible position at the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation, and
will be a senior lecturer at MIT next
year. She was selective and waited
until last year to marry; she and her
husband, Steve Hindman, ski, hike
and bike a lot.

“In 1970, I was tripped up on
the way from Ohio State to Purdue,
and spent a year instead at a small
‘experimental’ college in New
Hampshire. From there, I went off
to a professorship at Trent Univer-
sity, an undergraduate university in
Peterborough, Ontario, established
to counter the ‘Americanization of
Ontario universities. I ‘retired’ early
and became a professor emeritus, in
good part in order to follow my wife,
who'd gotten a job she much liked
at Bard College during a sabbati-
cal year we spent there (coinciding
with our daughters’ senior year of
college). After a year as visiting
professor at the CUNY’s Gradu-
ate Center, I settled in at Bard,
teaching a partial load and being
designated as a research profes-
sor. My name is on the title page
of some 15 books, counting edited

as well as written volumes, none

of them known except to small
specialist audiences but all of them
in determined pursuit of questions
first posed for me at Columbia. The
work in (halting) progress is a study
of a Columbia teacher, political and
legal theorist Franz Neumann. I am
200,000 words into the text. The
length of this missive will help you
understand why the manuscript is
not really of publishable length.

“We certainly did not think that
we would leave our (grand)children
with the world of Trump, but we
trust that they will resist. I was born
a Jew in Leipzig, Germany, in 1930
and benefitted from the juxtaposi-
tion of luck and circumstances that
enabled my family to come to New
York in spring 1940 on the last Ital-
ian Line ship to make the crossing.
‘That is the pre-history that enters
into every detail of the story I’ve
told. Even the semester in the band,
since my arrival in the fourth grade
of Roosevelt School in Bayonne,
N,J., in spring 1940, devastated not
only by the forced emigration and
its prelude but also by the death of
my father at 35 one month after our
arrival, was eased by a wise teacher
with my initiation in the drum and
bugle corps that had four march-
ers in its repertoire to march the
students to their classes.”

CCT, and your classmates, would
love to hear from you too. Please share
news about yourself, your family, your
career and/or your travels — even a
favorite Columbia College memory
— using either the email or postal
address at the top of the column.

1952

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Thanks to all who wrote in! As a
reminder, Reunion 2017, at which

you'll celebrate your 65th, is Thurs-
day, June 1-Sunday, June 4. Learn
more here: college.columbia.edu/
alumni/reunion2017.

We look forward to seeing you
back on campus!

From John Benfield: “I am
delighted that our oldest grand-
son, entirely on his own after an
extensive evaluation of colleges in
the United States and Europe, made
Columbia College his first choice
and will enter with the Class of
2021 this fall.”

Pete Vayda GSAS’56 writes: “I
spend most of my time at home on
Morningside Heights but still take
trips in connection with an ongoing
research project on fires and green-
house gas emissions in Indonesian
peatlands. For example a three-week
trip to Indonesia in February and a
shorter trip to Australia in April.”

From Daniel Seemann: “Barely
graduated from Columbia, but got
through. Eventually got a Ph.D. and
attained the rank of colonel in the
USMCR. Taught at the University
of Toledo for almost 50 years.”

From Howard Hansen: “Our
1951 WINNING football team
lost another valuable teammate in
Mitch Price ’53 on January 8, 2016.
When you get returned mail at our
advanced ages, it invariably indicates
‘something is up.’I found this out
once again with the valuable help
of the CCT Class Notes editor, who
passed along Mitch’s obituary to me.

“As some of you know, a special
group of Columbia athletes from
several sports (and their ‘gals’) have
met periodically at various off-
campus locations through the south
for three-day rendezvous since 1986,
including a seven-day cruise. Eleven
gatherings have been logged in, to
be exact, and our veteran planning
committee members included Mel
Sautter, Tom Federowicz (now
deceased) Dan Seemann and me.

“T always tried to get Mitch
and his wife, Norma, to join our
rendezvous. However, he had physical
problems and long-distance travel was
out of the question from Utah. My
last phone conversation with him was
at our 2012 dinner gathering at Shyla
and Stephen Reich’53’s beautiful
lakeside residence in Winter Springs,
Fla. He spoke to several of our guys
present and couldn't say enough
great things about his four years at
Columbia. From professors to coaches
to teammates, he wasn’t shy about

From this vintage photograph’s original caption: Coach Lou Little will offer
one of the “best backfields of the lvy League this season” with his veteran
quartet. Left to right: Little, Mitchell Price 53, Vernon Wynott ’52, Howard

Hansen ’52 and Frank Toner ’52.

expressing his true, heartfelt, out-
standing experiences. This included
QB coaching from Paul Governali
"43, former Maxwell Award winner
and Heisman Trophy runner-up.

“T have Mitch in some of my
‘Lion’s Den action game photos
hanging on my den wall, but per-
haps the best is featured here, with
Lou Little, Mitch, Vern Wynott
(deceased), me and Frank Toner.
Also included is Coach Little’s
newspaper comment (excuse me,
Mr. Little’s comments, as we only
knew him in our playing days).

“Mitch was an outstanding
athletic passer and, like many of
today’s QBs, could run effectively as
well! When I look back, Vern was
Honorable Mention All-American
scatback, Frank had excellent speed
as captain of Columbia’s track team
and, I’m sure, as fullback I was the
slowest in our T and split-T forma-
tion backfield! Since Mitch was one
year behind us we were fortunate to
play as a unit for two years. An addi-
tional tribute to Mitch is that he
won the Football Cup two years in a
row for best scholastic average of all
44 teammates in 1950 and 1951.

“We were a pretty strong and
balanced backfield, if I don't say so
myself, and lost to Penn, Army and
Navy. We played only eight games my
senior year as our opening game was
canceled because, sadly, two of our
teammates, Don Page and Bernie
Jansson, came down with polio dur-
ing pre-season camp in Connecticut.

“Correction: In CC7’s Winter
2016-17 issue Class Notes it was

stated in my article that as time wore
down at Army ‘Frank Toner scored to
win but was flagged for offsides.’ Frank

1”

was not oftsides, but our end was

1953

Lew Robins

3200 Park Ave., Apt. 9C2
Bridgeport, CT 06604
lewrobins@aol.com

Several months ago I received an
email from Roland Plottel’55 with
sad news about the distinguished
and memorable Professor Richard
Brooks GSAS’59. “My friend, Pro-
fessor Richard Brooks (Junior Phi
Beta Kappa) passed away suddenly, a
glass of wine on a table nearby.”

“Richard, an eminent scholar,
earned a Ph.D. in French from
Columbia. He was the author of a
book on Voltaire and Leibniz, and
the general editor of the 4 Critical
Bibliography of French Literature. He
taught at Columbia College, NYU,
the College of Staten Island and the
CUNY Graduate Center, where he
was a full professor for many years.
He was married to Professor Eva
Stadler BC’52, GSAS’67, also now
deceased and who also earned a
Ph.D. in French from Columbia.”

Richard will be sorely missed by
everyone who knew him!

I received a delightful email from
John Lustig: “Hello! What could
bring the long-absent back to life? In
my case, writing is prompted by the
addition of two grandchildren, born

alumninews ‘

five days apart. Our daughter, Jill, was
inducted into the grandmother soror-
ity when her son and daughter [each]
became parents! Now one has to be
fairly old (or ancient, as one grand-
daughter describes me) to reach that
level, so I thought an update might
be of interest to someone.

“My wife, Anne, and I shall soon
reach 62 years of married life; there
are now five children, 10 grandchil-
dren and four great-grandchildren
in our extended family. Anne and I
have lived in Leisure World (now
Laguna Woods Village) in southern
California for more than 25 years!
‘The ailments of old age — bad back,
replacement parts — limit our travel
much beyond a 500-mile radius.
Our children live inside that radius
so all is OK. We keep busy with
the multitude of activities available
in our retirement community. We
are starting to miss more and more
the friends who are no longer with
us; we also miss our travels back to
Austria (land of my birth) and miss
the ability to taste all those rich pas-
tries. All in all, we keep busy, enjoy
our growing family and stay fairly
healthy! Not a bad life at all! With
fond memories of life at Columbia.”

If my memory is correct, I
remember my first day on campus
when I noticed John wearing “dirty
white bucks” and a freshman beanie
while strolling across Van Am Quad.

I’m sorry I missed writing the
Class Notes for the Winter 2016-17
issue. Unfortunately, my wife, Sara-
lee, fell and broke three ribs and her
nose. She’s now much better! How-
ever, while she was recuperating, I
spent most of my time shopping,
cooking and transporting us from
place to place.

Joel Danziger sent an informa-
tive note about his and wife Joan’s
wonderful life during the last 59
years: “I am still practicing law,
albeit part time with a law firm
I founded 57 years ago in White
Plains, N.Y. The firm has grown
from a single practitioner (me) in a
one-room office to a firm employing
more than 50 about to move into a
new space of 15,000 ft.

“Joan and I live on a horse farm
(no horses at present) on a dirt road
in Bedford, N.Y. We get to NYC
less frequently, but we did attend
Professor Gareth Williams’ course
last semester on Greek tragedies
at the Heyman Center. Williams
taught Latin to our daughter, Sarah

Danziger Valentino ’00. The instruc-
tion must have struck, as Sarah is
now chair of the Classics Depart-
ment at Rye Country Day School.

“Our son Bob is a managing part-
ner in our law firm and our son Marc
is a urologist in New York City at
New York and Lenox Hill Hospitals.
We have five grandchildren, ages
4-22, and we see them all frequently.

“Joan and I have traveled
extensively, with trips to Myanmar,
Pakistan (pre World Trade Center),
the Silk Road in China by car and
more. Our most recent trip was to
Florence with our family to visit our
granddaughter, who spent a semester
there, along with a week in Rome.”

“I spend my four-day weekends
reading, working in our greenhouse
and worrying about the future of
our country. I saw Pete Pellett a
couple of months ago. Pete’s wife,
Doris, passed away and he moved to
New Haven, Conn., to live with his
daughter. Joan and I subscribe to the
Yale Rep Theater, so we hope to see
Pete at our next visit.

“I am a great admirer of
[Barack] Obama [’83] but remain
perplexed at the little he refers to
his years at Columbia.

“T have been blessed with a
wonderful marriage, family and a
rewarding career.”

1954

Bernd Brecher

35 Parkview Ave., Apt. 4G
Bronxville, NY 10708
brecherservices@aol.com

Gentlemen, as I start to share these
observations and items of infor-
mation with you in early Febru-

ary — while listening to CNN,
MSNBC, NPR, even FOX News,
doing my best to stay on top of what
is real in this new year and what is
Saturday Night Live or The Daily
Show reality — I realized once again
that our Class of Destiny is at the
“front of the book” in CC7’s Class
Notes. Not just because we assume
that we deserve to be, but because
there are only 13 classes with active
class correspondents older than we.
Sixty-two Columbia College classes
have graduated since we and our
brethren stood up on South Field to
receive our diplomas from President
Grayson Kirk. (No, Toto, we’re not
in our Cold War “here we come,

Spring 2017 CCT 47

| Class Notes

world” mode anymore.) And our
diplomas, in Latin, which we picked
up later, were signed by Kirk and
Dean Lawrence Chamberlain (a
humble leader and a true friend of
Columbia, students and alumni).

Matter of fact, given all that,
when I’m asked to give my birthday
for an I-don't-think-you-really-
need-to-know-that probably-
marketing questionnaire, I take the
approach that 85 is the new 65 and
put down the year 1952. I have yet
to be challenged, albeit politeness
might be a factor.

Our classmates, bless them,
continue to read newspapers and
to write to the editors. Fraternity
brother Manfred Weidhorn
GSAS’63 had a letter in The
New York Times on February 8
in response to a column titled
“Trumpian Characters Are the Stuff
of Fiction,” which cited books such
as 1984 and It Can't Happen Here.
Manny wrote: “To round out Francis
X. Cline’s fine reading list, consider
this: We are living in an Ayn Rand
novel. President Trump’s career,
consisting of putting up big build-
ings, flaunting brashness, cutting
moral corners, using an outsize ego
to squash mere mortals, is typical of
the unregulated and amoral capital-
ism that Rand celebrated, and Mr.
Trump is the ultimate Rand hero
brought to life.”

Richard Werksman writes that
he continues to volunteer for Colum-
bia and that “by next time I will have
interviewed a couple of applicants for
the Class of 2021. Yes, Bernd, 2021!
And, I will report on the experience.
Meanwhile, best wishes to all.”

Contact CCT |
Update your contact
information; submit a

Class Note, Class Note

photo, obituary or _

Letter to the Editor;

or send us an email.

Click “Contact Us" at
college.columbia.edu/cct.

48 CCT Spring 2017

Thanks, Richard, for helping to
keep the pipeline supplied with top
candidates. (A Washington pool?
No lobbyists, please!)

Our champion fencers continue
to be an active group. Herb Zydney
SEAS’S55 reports, “Last fall I was
at Lincoln Center and picked up a
copy of the Juilliard Journal. There
was a column asking for who might
know who was pictured in a photo
of a fencing class. I wrote back and
the Journal commented: ‘He identi-
fied the teacher as Irv DeKoff, who
taught fencing in Juilliard’s opera
department from 1947 to 1951 and
1956 to 1962. Zydney fenced for
DeKoff at Columbia, where he was
head fencing coach.’

“T sent the clip on to current
Columbia fencing Coach Michael
Aufrichtig, who replied, “This is really
cool! Thank you so much for sharing. I
had the opportunity to meet Irv about
two years ago down in Florida and
spoke to him for a few hours about his
time as a coach. I only aspire to be as
great of a coach as he was.”

Herb further reports: “As a com-
bined program graduate, I traveled
to campus for my 60th Engineering
reunion in May 2015.1 was one of
a few SEAS’55 grads, but the days
were well spent. One calculation:
When I graduated, someone coming
for their 60th reunion was Class of
1895. Hmm. For the winter, I’m in
West Palm Beach, Fla., where there’s
an active South Florida alumni
group. In 2016 I attended a private
home party with others from all
schools/years and a great brunch
at the International Polo Club
with other Columbians. I was the
earliest College year at both.”

Thanks, Herb, keep the
news coming.

Mendacity, beware the Class of
54! Several classmates have reported
over the last several years about their
personal and professional lives as
writers, teachers, lawyers, activists or
observers that are, to some extent,
devoted to truth, facts, ethics and jus-
tice. To that end, Harold Stevelman
PS’58 tells us: “I continue to function
in the pro-bono position as chair-
man of the department of ethics at
Hudson Valley Hospital Center. Our
hospital has now been integrated
into the health care system of New
York-Presbyterian Hospital-HVHC.
I am still a member of the cardiology
department a HVHC. At this point
in my life, every day is a gift. Wife

Barbara and I celebrate 61 years of
marriage in May.”

Harold, give us your take on the
place of ethics in 21st-century Amer-
ica from your perspective as a doctor
in suburban New York. (Bless the
CORE!) And happy, happy, happy
anniversary to you and Barbara.

The latest from Hollywood:
Proud dad Saul Turteltaub
LAW/’57 wants us to know that his
son Jon recently finished direct-
ing his latest movie, Meg, in New
Zealand, and that his son Adam was
recently quoted in The Wall Street
Journal on business compliance and
practices. Saul says that his “movie
For Roseanna was optioned for a
Broadway musical, to be titled My
Marcello. (Don't hold your breath.)
I'm looking forward to reading
about my amazing classmates who
are doing and have done wonderful
things. Proud to be a member of the
Class of 54.”

We're all proud of you, Saul.
Memory: The day you bumped into
comedian/teacher Sam Levenson and
his brother downtown and brought
them to campus for a dirty joke con-
test for our class. (Remember? Sam
was great. His brother won!)

A note from one of 54's
Energizer bunnies: Arnold Tolkin
wants us to know that “life is good
while many of our class will turn
or have reached 85 this year. My
wife, Barbie, and I recently returned
from a cruise around South America
and back to Miami. Don’ get out
as much, been there and done that.
Now it is all about relaxing, exercis-
ing, reading and just living the good
life. Flew up to NYC to see one of
our new great granddaughters, as
our family keeps expanding.”

Arnie says he’s “still working
at selling travel and I am off to
Havana to set up bridge tourna-
ments between member of the
American Contract Bridge League
and members of the Cuban Bridge
Association. Keep very busy and am
still active in genealogy.”

(Don’t get out as much, huh!?)

I received a lovely note with a
just-right touch from a son of 54
that I herewith share with all: “My
name is James Moche’81 and I am
Leonard Moche’s son. I am not sure
if we met, but I wanted to thank you
for the fond mention of my father
via The New York Times article in the
Fall 2016 issue of CCT. Of course, it
was a big thrill to see the article and

certainly apt, given my father’s female
connections at the Hebrew Home.
And of course, it’s only too bad he
didn’t see this article while alive to
savor fame through CCT. I hope this
finds you in good health and, as you
suggested therein, ‘living it up.’ Warm
regards, James”

Which brings another thought
on “keeping up.” Every issue of CCT’
has an all-class obituary section that
requires separate lookups for class-
mate inclusions. I hope in future
issues to list in our Class Notes
any 54 names that may have more
detailed coverage in that section.

A note about some of my ven-
tures on behalf of alma mater and
otherwise: I have always considered
Humanities, Contemporary Civiliza-
tion, colloquia, great teaching, and
the “bundle” of all related curriculum
experiences that are part of Colum-
bia’s Core program to be forever part
of my DNA. Columbia may be the
last higher education stronghold to
hold high this torch of civilization
... of humanity. Many of you feel as
passionate about this as I do. So do
my fellow Trustees of the Columbia
University Club Foundation, of
which I am the Vice President. This
academic year, the CUCF made our
third annual substantial contribution
for this great cause. The Foundation
supports numerous scholarships every
year, special programs such as the
Society of Senior Scholars, and lec-
tures at the Columbia Club by ambas-
sadors of various nations to the United
Nations and by senior officials of our
State Department. And ... drum
roll ... we have just underwritten the
digitizing of all past issues of Columbia
College Today in order to preserve
them for future reference purposes.
We did so in honor of Alex Sachare
'71’s 18-plus years of dedicated service
as editor in chief of CCT:

Off campus, in a moment of
weakness mixed with hubris, I
publicly announced the start of
my “five-year project” to research,
write and edit my memoirs. This is
in many ways to fulfill my promise
to my seven grandchildren. I did so
in a presentation last November at
Knesset Israel, a synagogue in Pitts-
field, Mass. Joel Belson and Jack
Blechner and their wives (Barnard
alumnae both) traveled to bear wit-
ness and add support.

‘The title of my presentation was
Damn the Holocaust — Full Steam
Ahead, outlining events in my life in

Europe leading into WWII, then
in New York and at Columbia, the
United States Army, and my years to
come as an advisor and consultant to
institutions here and worldwide. (Of
course, all of you will be mentioned
in the memoirs.)

Until next time, be well, bless
the CORE, do good, help save the
world, write often, and many thanks,
Bernd. Excelsior!

1955

Gerald Sherwin

181 E. 73rd St., Apt. 16B
New York, NY 10021
gs481@juno.com

Lots of activity over the past few
months, such as the Dean’s Scholar-
ship Reception in February (we have
a Class of 55 scholarship) and the
John Jay Awards Dinner in March.

Stanley Lubman is keeping in
touch. Herb Cohen is still practic-
ing medicine in Westchester. Ed
Francell is holding down the fort
in Atlanta and will be at our 65th
reunion. Jack Freeman told us
about his summer and family life.

The Ford Scholar program turned
out to be an interesting item — a lot
of guys heard from Richie Ascher,
who had some pithy sayings about
the new College survey.

Dick Kuhn is still following the
Columbia basketball team from New
Jersey and Staten Island. The team
has played to consistent sell-outs and
had great receptions in Philadelphia,
Providence and Boston.

There are a few words to be said
about using alumni as a marketing tool.

As various sports move into their
season of tournaments, alumni have
been getting more engrossed in
how they can contribute more to
their school’s successes. I feel they
can do so by increased attendance
(attending playoff games), team
spirit (getting all the elements of
the campus involved in the com-
munity), bringing other alumni to
local games and pep rallies with key
faculty members and students, and/
or bringing equipment for the team.
All sports-related activities would
be done within NCAA guidelines,
especially in the matter of jobs.

Another idea is participating in
job fairs (bringing other alumni to
campus to speak on how to be suc-
cessful) and helping young alumni

transition into solid citizens with
strong school ties. Support can
be expanded to include help with
resume-writing as well as jobs in
training programs, or even entry-
level positions.

Alumni can also be used to
develop scholarships, which we saw
at the Dean’s Scholarship Reception.

There are many ways to use the
strength of alumni, whether young or
old — it’s a matter of utilization and
the right plans. Garnering alumni
support can be arduous, especially
setting up programs from different
parts of the country, so it’s helpful to
share the challenges nationwide.

Love to all! Everywhere!

1956

Robert Siroty

707 Thistle Hill Ln.
Somerset, NJ 08873
rrs76@columbia.edu

Several members of the Class of 1956
met on campus in October for lunch
at Faculty House and in December
on West 43rd Street at the Columbia
University Club of New York. We
welcomed some “new” attendees: Ed
Gordon and Gordon Silverman’55,
SEAS’56. Also present were yours
truly, Gerry Fine, Ralph Kaslick,
Buz Paaswell, Alan Broadwin,
Pete Klein, Jack Katz, Stephen
Easton, Mark Novick, Maurice
Klein and Al Franco SEAS’56.

Ed practices psychiatry in North
Salem, N.Y. Just a thought: While
we have luncheons in the New York
area, why don't some of you scattered
classmates arrange them in your neck
of the woods, then let me report
attendance? You can get a limited
address list from the Alumni Office,
including CC and SEAS classmates.
I promise to send out only very
occasional blast emails to the entire
class — it still numbers more than
500 of us.

[ heard from Kenneth “Mike”
Nelson from Columbia, S.C., who
reported little damage from last
summer's flooding.

Jay Martin writes from Clare-
mont, Calif., that he is still teaching
at a college and practicing psycho-
analysis. He promised to attend our
75th (65th?) reunion.

Stephen Easton was scheduled
to be in Mexico in February and in

Florida in early March.

alumninews

Keep sending updates on your
activities for Class Notes. Hope
2017 is healthy and happy.

1957

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Herman Levy

7322 Rockford Dr.

Falls Church, VA 22043
hdlleditor@aol.com

John Ahouse: “I was classical
music director at WKCR 1956-57.
My predecessor was Henry Roth’55,
but I am not certain who followed
or if there was even a group com-
parable to ours to carry forward the
classical programming. In addition
to me, ‘we’ were Sam Rosenberg
(by far our best microphone voice),
Erich Gruen, Bill Jordan and
David Kaufman, with Bill Zalkin
during our senior year. Each hosted
a two-hour evening program of
recorded music once a week. At
one point, we were organized to the
extent of typing up and circulating
a program to the ‘King’s Crown
Concert.’ The campus radio station
was my main student activity as

an undergraduate. Naturally the
programming reflected individual
tastes and preferences: David played
opera, Sam mostly the music of the
late Romantic period.

“The evening concert used Cop-
land’s Fanfare for the Common Man
as its intro and Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Russian Easter Festival Overture to
go out. These were my choices, as I
recall. In view of how popular the
Copland piece has since become, I
think it was a good innovation for
the time. The two themes replaced
the ubiquitous Pictures at an Exhibi-
tion by Mussorgsky that had been
used before.

“Engineering of the classical
shows was often a headache. The
student engineers were invariably
trained to work pop music and prided
themselves on hair-trigger segues
and close riding of the gain (volume)
control — with disastrous results

for our product. We had to threaten
and cajole to achieve a calmer pace
between voice and selections, between
musical movements and between
record sides; and we found ourselves
monitoring the engineers who were
monitoring the signal, to prevent
them from leveling off the loud

and soft passages in the music. One
solution was for the classical music
presenter to engineer his own show
from the booth, dee-jay style.

“Carl Stern ’58 was general man-
ager at that time and of course went
on to a career at NBC News. He
had a (twin?) brother George Stern
’58 [who was] business manager.
[WKCR President] Jeff Kuklin did
a late-night pop music show and
sold advertising for the station. He
and his Barnard girlfriend, Karen,
were almost continually on hand at
the studio, even during classical
segments. Didn't they ever study?

“We broke the pattern of King’s
Crown Concert a few times. I recall
doing a ‘Berlioz Week,’ program-
ming only that composer’s music.
This came at a time when there had
been a rush of interest in his music
on the part of the record compa-
nies. There was a Berlioz Society in
existence then, and we interviewed
its president. We also invited Jacques
Barzun ’27, GSAS’32, who through
his writings was closely involved
with the Berlioz revival, but he
declined. WCKR was too close to
home, I guess.

“There were also a number of
contemporary music specials. I
recall a touching occasion when we
aired music of Solomon Pimsleur.
His son was a student at Columbia
and brought his father, who was
extremely frail, to the station in
order to hear the broadcast within
the studio. The WCKR signal wasn't
audible much beyond the cam-
pus, but this became a command
performance of some privately made
recordings that were none too clear
to begin with.

“I know that John Corigliano
59 was involved in some of our
contemporary programming as well.
It’s possible that he was the one
who took over classical music [at the
station] after 1957. John became a
distinguished composer, but at the
time we were in awe of him as the
son of the New York Philharmonic’s
first violinist.

“The station’s classical library was
kept in a cramped little vault under

Spring 2017 CCT 49

the basement steps, across from the
broadcast booth and studio where
our programs originated. The whole
operation at the time was beneath
the annex connecting Hamilton and
Hartley Halls. We worried about
protecting the collection and came
down hard on anyone who forgot to
padlock the flimsy wood-slat door to
the ‘classical music closet.’

“Acquisition of new classical
records (LPs) was a surprisingly lively
activity. We had a small budget from
the station and we received some
promo records from the companies,
most often on the Columbia label,
as I recall. Our musical mainstay was
the Record Hunter, still at its Lex-
ington Avenue address and without
doubt the most advantageous classi-
cal outlet we could have dealt with.
In return for airing its promotional
spots, we had our pick of a certain
number of long-playing albums
from its extensive stock each month.
I think we must have managed this
fairly democratically, covering all of
our enthusiasms for composers and
musical artists and building a stron-
ger collection in the process.

“For a while we also borrowed
records from the University’s music
library, which was then located on
the top floor of Journalism. [The
staff] didn’t really trust the station
to use its records and the situation
occasionally became a little tense.
Still, I imagine we took better care
of its discs than its own faculty and
patrons did.

“I've never again been in a posi-
tion to plan classical listening for
other people’s enjoyment since those
undergraduate years, but music has

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at the top of your column.

50 CCT Spring 2017

remained a consuming interest of
mine. I always identify with those
stations that offer an all-classical for-
mat, like KUSC here in Los Angeles,
imagining the effort it takes to make
the selections fit within a given time
segment and recalling what a chal-
lenge it was at WKCR to have the
evening concert come out even.”

John Ahouse was a teacher and
translator in Germany in the 1960s,
then special collections (rare books
and archives) librarian at University of
Texas at El Paso, then at CSU, Long
Beach, and 1991-2005 at the Univer-
sity of Southern California. Today he
is a consultant at the Wende Museum
of the Cold War in L.A.

Denis Frind LAW’60 died on
October 6 in Portland, Ore. He had
retired as of counsel at the NYC law
firm of Goetz Fitzpatrick in 2006;
he and his wife, Donna, moved to
Oregon to be near their daughter
and her family.

Harry Siegmund: “My wife,
Peggy Anne, and I are well. We
recently returned from a far-too-
quick three-day loop of the Island
of Hawaii. It’s nicknamed the Big
Island. They got that right.

“There was some personal stuff
I wanted to accomplish on my 81st
birthday. It could have been done on
a one-day, dawn-to-dusk excur-
sion, but I’m too old for that jet-set
frenzy. Peggy Anne could squeeze
three days off in Oahu into her
commitments, so off we went.

“Weather could not have been
better, [but] all we could do was the
crater rim stuff. I’ve run an arduous
marathon from the lookout. It
descends 2,000 vertical ft. (about
five miles), hangs a left across
pumice (maybe four miles), then
slogs its way up 2,000 vertical ft.
and [perambulates] thereafter for a
dog leg of the remaining 17.2 miles.
‘That includes the final mile running
through sulfurous steam vents.

“That race is no longer scheduled.
It was incompatible with cultural
practices. Regardless, I had zero
interest in trying to do better the
next time. The race did not have
many participants. If you lost sight
of a runner ahead, there was big risk
of going off course. You basically ran
between/around fairly smooth lava,
jagged lava and pumice that was not
packed. Course markers were little
pennants, which stood about one ft.
when inserted the day before. For
the most part they blew/toppled

over during the night. Experienced
runners ran with gloves to protect
their hands from lava cuts from falls,
which were inevitable.

“Got my money’s worth; it was a
long day at the running office.

“Tm in and out of Brooklyn and
NYC on occasion. I have an MTA
Reduced-Fare MetroCard, big
spender that I am. I pretty much
hang/help out in various music
performance recording venues. In
March 2016, there was a significant
performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for
the End of Time from the Temple of
Dendur in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. I basically was a [gofer] run-
ning digital cables, schlepping sound
gear and moving the hauling SUV.

“Tt was not unlike submarine
duty. It’s fairly boring if you are not
on watch with real-time responsi-
bilities. At least on submarines you
could go to your bunk and nap if
your work was done.

“T ran a half marathon when I
was [in the NYC] area — the Sleepy
Hollow Half Marathon above Tar-
rytown, N.Y. I hoped that colder
weather and shorter distances would
improve my running performance.
It was about 35 degrees at the start
and it was dry. So far, so good. The
hilly course I knew, so that was not a
negative. The bottom line is that the
enemy is me; it’s not the weather,
distance, or terrain.

“I'm intentionally skipping this
year’s Honolulu Marathon. Thirty
consecutive years of starts is more
than sufficient; there also have been
30 marathons elsewhere in the United
States and in Europe. I’m now using a
road bike to log mileage and see more
places on Windward Oahu.

“Oh yes, there are bike racks on
the front of all Oahu buses. For $1
and my Medicare card I can ride the
bus as far as I want and make two
transfers. The general plan would be
to bike between bus routes.

“At a minimum the bike ride
creates a cooling breeze.”

Ed Weinstein: “When Alvin
Kass and I recently lunched together,
I learned that he was to be honored
by the New York City Police Depart-
ment for 50 years of service as a
chaplain to the NYPD. That was
confirmed in an invitation to the
event, which was held in the audi-
torium at One Police Plaza, NYPD
headquarters, on December 16. Bob
Lipsyte and I attended the event. A
luncheon followed the ceremony.

“Alvin, who had been senior rabbi
at the East Midwood Jewish Center
in Brooklyn, N.Y., for many years,
retired from that position several years
ago and now lives in Manhattan.

His service to the NYPD has been
extraordinary. He is now chief chap-
lain, supervising seven other chaplains
of various religious denominations.

“Alvin is known throughout the
NYPD and is universally revered. I
have been told by one senior member
of the NYPD that he has heard
Alvin speak on many occasions
and never heard him repeat a story,
message or reference. After hearing
one particularly inspiring message
at a NYPD event several years ago,

T asked Alvin’s daughter if she could
get me a copy of it for submission
to CCT. Unfortunately, she said,
she could not comply; all of Alvin's
remarks are delivered extemporane-
ously and he never has a written
version or even notes.

“... My relationship with Alvin
has grown and strengthened since
the mid-’90s, when I joined the
Board of Trustees of the New York
City Police Foundation. We then
found we had another common
interest and have seen each other at
NYPD events.”

Yours truly attended “What
Now? An Election Post-Mortem
with Olivier Knox ’92,” in Washing-
ton, D.C., on November 16. Knox
is chief Washington correspondent,
Yahoo! News.

1958

Barry Dickman

25 Main St.

Court Plaza North, Ste 104
Hackensack, NJ 07601
bdickmanesq@gmail.com

Congratulations to Jim Margolis.
His brother, Don Margolis ’63,
reported: “On October 20, Jim

was officially, and most deservedly,
inducted into the Columbia Uni-
versity Athletics Hall of Fame. Jim
came to Columbia with no fencing
experience but became a starter as

a sophomore, and won the NCAA
National Epée championship as a
junior. Due to injury, he could not
defend his title as a senior. After
graduation, he qualified for the 1958
World Championships, the 1959 and
1963 Pan American Games and the
1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.”

Steve Jurovics advised us of
two corrections to the Class Notes
that appeared in the Fall issue of
CCT: first, his current email address
is saj18@bellsouth.net; and second,
he has retired from corporate envi-
ronmental work and is now writing,
as well as serving as a member of
Interfaith Power & Light’s North
Carolina affiliate.

CC’58 was well-represented at
the Harvard Law Class of 1961’s
55th reunion in October. Attending
were Carol and Barry Dickman;
Bernie Nussbaum and his wife,
Nancy Kuhn; Judy and Shelly Raab;
Linda and Sid Rosdeitcher; and
Joan and Mark Weiss. ‘The guest
speaker at lunch was Laurence Tribe,
professor of constitutional law. The
reunion also featured a “conversa-
tion’ with our law school classmate,
United States Supreme Court Justice
Anthony Kennedy, along with former
Justice David H. Souter.

her husband heads a religious school.
Our younger daughter and her family
live in Charlottesville, Va. Both she
and her husband are on the faculty
at UVA, where she teaches foreign
teaching assistants how to cope with
American undergraduates and he is
chairman of the economics depart-
ment. We have five grandchildren.
We'd welcome classmates’ visits —
plenty of room, plenty of sun, dry
heat. Rates upon request!”

Another landmark reunion, the
once—Specrator-related (but now
expanded) annual New York metro
area Homecoming party, was held at
the Brooklyn Heights apartment of
Arthur Radin and his wife, Miriam
Katowitz BUS’74. Attending were
Carol and Barry Dickman; Eileen
and Joe Dorinson; Audrey and
Harvey Feuerstein; Andrea and
Ira Jolles’59; Anita and Howard
Orlin; Judy and Shelly Raab; and
Linda and Sid Rosdeitcher. Ruthie

Lew Fineman 59 and his wife purchased a

condo in Hollywood, Fla., and split their time

between there and Alaska.

Although he didn’t attend the
55th reunion, Loren Wittner sub-
mitted a biographical sketch to the
reunion directory: “Dianna, my wife,
followed me into retirement here in
Phoenix. We’ve lived in the desert
since 1994; too many winters in our
otherwise beloved Chicago, where I
was a partner at Winston & Strawn.
After our move I worked extensively
with large law firms around the
country, advising partners on busi-
ness development, client relations,
marketing/communications, etc.
Dianna was the star receptionist for
Perkins Coie’s Phoenix office for
20 years. We've traveled extensively
during the last decade, indulging
a general curiosity and our shared
interest in military history: ... all
the Normandy D-Day beaches,
several Civil War battle sites [and]
virtually all of Canada’s provinces
have been highlights.

“We recently attended our oldest
grandchild’s college graduation; a
sure sign of advancing years. Our
older daughter (Harvard College
84) and her family live in Chicago,
where she works for a nonprofit and

and Ernie Brod were in London
for a family celebration, but Ernie
loyally phoned to make sure things
were proceeding smoothly despite
his absence.

Incidentally, we do get reports
on the periodic Southern California
get-togethers, but if there are any
other classmate gatherings, annual or
otherwise, please send in information.

Your reporter hopes too much
space isn’t being given to a non-
classmate, but we couldn't resist.

In a New York Times Book Review
interview, when asked “which writ-
ers ... working today do you admire
most?”, comedian-actress-author
Amy Schumer was quoted as saying
“Emily Nussbaum, who is a televi-
sion critic and writer for the Times,
is my favorite person to follow on
Twitter, and her articles inspire me
and make me think. I want her to be
proud of me more than my parents,
I think.” Emily is, of course, Bernie
Nussbaum’s daughter.

The class lunch is held on the
second Tuesday of every month in
the Grill of the Columbia University
Club of New York, 15 W. 43rd St.

($31 per person). Email Art Radin
if you plan to attend, up to the day
before: arthur.radin@janoverllc.com.

1959

Norman Gelfand

c/oiCGi

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
nmgc59@gmail.com

I am sorry to inform you of the
deaths of Richard Dobrin, who
died on January 12, 2016, and Ira

Jay Plotinsky, who died on June 11.

Jerome Charyn’s latest novel,
Jerzy, about the rise and fall of
novelist Jerzy Kosinski, is scheduled
to be published in March.

Lew Fineman reports: “My wife,
Ann, and I have sold our home and
purchased a condo in Hollywood,
Fla.: 2810 N. 46th Ave., Apt. F
255, Hollywood, FL 33021. We are
snowbirds. We continue to travel to
Alaska in April, volunteer at Kenai
Fjords National Park in Seward,
Alaska, each summer and then
stay in Anchorage until the end of
October. We feel we have the best of
all possible worlds.”

Bennet Silverman made a
holiday visit to Aruba.

Mike Tannenbaum has “some
good news. My first grandchild, Tiye
Tannenbaum Castelli, daughter of
my daughter Nina Tannenbaum’99
and her husband, Robin ‘Cino’
Castelli, was born two months ago.”

Steve Basson and his wife,
Mary, continue to “commute” from
Milwaukee about every six weeks or
so to see their boys, one in Brooklyn
and two in Washington, D.C. —
astonished each visit by what the big
cities cost these days. Mary’s book,
Saving Kandinsky, has been bought
by a German publisher and is sched-
uled to be out for Christmas 2017.
Regards to all, and some of you may
remember my brother, Geoff Basson
60, an almost-retired doctor living
in Manhattan.

Ben Miller writes: “My wife, Pat,
and I are in our 78th year and just
moving along. The last few years
have provided enough ailments that
moving along means, ‘What doctor
do we see today?”

“We are both retired. Pat finished
25 years of teaching, and then
opened her own tutoring business

alumninews \.

that lasted 13 more years. I spent the
’70s in what is now the Department
of Energy, then chose the rocky road
of entrepreneurship, focusing on
high-risk, high-reward ventures in
renewable and cutting-edge technol-
ogy. I raised a lot of money and lost
more than I raised, not a Trumpian
performance (lol), but I am proud of
what I have done. I look back with
no regrets. Maybe one: I should have
been a real doctor!

“We live in a golf course com-
munity in Bethesda, Md., though
neither Pat nor I have ever picked
up more than a miniature golf put-
ter. Our children live near us. Our
daughter, Beth, and her husband,
Greg, have two daughters, Kayla
(17), going off to college in Septem-
ber (who knows where), and Annie
(15), the equestrian who jumps
over large obstacles at a gallop on
a 1,400-lb. beast. Where did those
genes come from? Not from us!

“Our son, Jeff, teaches at the Uni-
versity of Maryland’s Smith School
of Business in College Park. He is a
natural and loves his work. He and
his wife, Shawn, also have two chil-
dren. Ben is 16 and smarter than all
of us combined. His sister, Megan, is
all about theater. If you listen to her,
her next stop is Broadway.

“We have been traveling, slowly
crossing things off the ‘bucket list’
while we can. It gets harder each
year. We are in touch with Irwin
‘Buddy’ Jacobs, Cathy Men-
drzycki (who lost her husband, Ed
Mendrzycki, two years ago), Harvey
Brookins 60, Linda and Gene
Appel, Dave Clark and Phil
Matthews, who lives in Fort Myers,
Fla. We enjoy hearing about class-
mates and what they are doing.”

Gil Wright and his wife, Diane,
sold their house in Florida and now
live full-time in Maryland. They
sound like they are thriving in their
new digs.

Stephen Trachtenberg has
been his usual active self. He writes:
“Doing what I can, but I confess it is
more of a struggle as the years go on.
A travel tip: If your trip involves fly-
ing, carry a cane. The staff will look
after you with great tenderness.”

From Bernie Pucker: “We are
just 18 months into our gallery
space at 240 Newbury St. in Boston
and love it. All of the work is on one
floor: Some 5,000 square ft. that
we have devoted to the art that we
have collected over nearly 50 years

Spring 2017 CCT 51

as we embark upon our 50th year
celebration in September. We will

be bringing together folks who have
worked as part of the gallery staff, as
well as artists, over this half-century.
Seems a bit weird to even think back
over those years!

“In addition, we are planning
a celebration that will include a
thank-you to gallery patrons and a
chamber music concert. We have
now added chamber music to the
gallery’s offerings and will host a
cycle of the early Beethoven String
Quartets during the next 18 months.
On top of that, we continue to host
at least three not-for-profits on a
monthly basis in the gallery, having
recently hosted the St. Boniface
Haiti Foundation as one of the
charities that are doing amazing
work in the world. Boston is a center
for not-for-profits and the oppor-
tunity to learn about their efforts is
remarkably nourishing.

“We hosted a dialogue between
artist Samuel Bak and Professor
Lawrence Langer, moderated by
Marc Skvirsky of ‘Facing History and
Ourselves’ dealing with the Bak works,
Just Is, or the theme of Lady Justice or
the lack there of on January 29.

Ralph Risley contributes: “The
following is a brief update and
attempt at an expression of life’s
philosophy. Since graduation I have
been married for 55 years, had three
boys, five grandchildren, four careers,
owned and lived in 13 houses in five
states and owned 150 classic/vintage
automobiles. To me, life is all about
growth, change, renewal and explo-
ration. The most important thing I
gained from Columbia was the abil-
ity to think. A first-year professor
said in his introduction to the class
that if all we got from the Columbia
experience was the ability to think
the College had succeeded.

“At this stage of life the impact of
physical conditioning tilts in favor
of mental conditioning. I hope all of
us remaining ancients will reach the
same conclusion.”

Stephen A. Kallis shares with us
his memories of the attack on Pearl
Harbor. “While shopping recently,

I spotted a new item among the
magazines in a rack near the cash
register: a special Time-Life publica-
tion commemorating the 75th anni-
versary of the Pearl Harbor attack.

“To the vast majority of U.S.
citizens, the event is distant history.
Some years ago, the Pearl Harbor

52 CCT Spring 2017

HARTLEY X LIVINGSTON HALL COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Survivors Association, composed of
servicemen who survived the attack,
formally disbanded.

“Time passes, and what once was
enough to galvanize the nation into
united action has become little more
than an entry in history textbooks.

“Almost immediately after news
of the attack was broadcast, the
slogan, ‘Remember Pearl Harbor,’
was born. Pin-on buttons were cre-
ated and were worn. A ‘Remember
Pearl Harbor’ song was composed
and a record was released, with the
tune being performed by Sammy
Kaye, a popular U.S. bandleader of
the time.

“Those who know me and/or my
sister are aware that we survived the
attack as youngsters; we both recall
the event vividly, though neither of
us witnessed any carnage.

“I was 4, and I had no idea of what
was happening. We were inside the
house my father, at that time a cap-
tain in the Army Coast Artillery, had
been assigned, Quarters 25, Officers
Row of Fort Kamehameha. (Fort
Kamehameha eventually became a
Historic District of Hickam AFB
and the house stands today, but soon
will be razed; the whole district is to
be ‘developed’ for some new civilian
use. Even the homes that survived
the attack are passing.)

“Neither I nor my sister wit-
nessed the attack. We were kept
inside and the window shades
were down, blocking the view from

outside. The explosions were loud
and the house shook while my sister
and I stood in interior doorways,
instructed to do so by our mother, as
makeshift shelters.

“Neither of us saw my mother,
standing in the doorway at the
front of our quarters, as my father
sprinted to his duty station. Both he
and she were shot at by the pilot of
a Mitsubishi A6M aircraft, known
to the U.S. service people as the
Zero. Fortunately, neither was hit,
but both faced enemy fire. Both are
now buried in Arlington National
Cemetery, which is only fitting.

In time, the attack passed, and we
were evacuated via bus to a makeshift
bomb shelter, where the women and
children were moved for safety ...”

From John Clubbe we hear,
“Ever since I had sciatica attacks in
2014 and 2015 we haven't been able
to do much traveling. But we would
gladly come to a 60th reunion if that
should be a possibility. I continue
work on my Beethoven book and
may even have something to send
the press (Norton) soon. It’s been a
long and hard struggle of well over a
decade and I am tired of it, though
never of Beethoven.”

For those of you who express
thanks or appreciation for the work
that goes into preparing these Class
Notes, I thank you for the kind
words. I appreciate them. I also ask
your indulgence for the errors that I
make in putting them together.

Ny. CITy.

1960

Robert A. Machleder
69-37 Fleet St.
Forest Hills, NY 11375
rmachleder@aol.com

Kudos to Larry Mendelson
BUS’61 for his exemplary service,
commitment and generosity to
Columbia. On November 21,
Columbia held an event in recogni-
tion of a $10 million gift from
Larry and his family in support
of The Mendelson Center for
Undergraduate Business Initia-
tives, a joint program between the
College and the Business School
offering exceptional undergraduates
access to a special concentration in
business management as a comple-
ment to the liberal arts foundation
of the undergraduate curriculum.
The Mendelson Center offers
opportunities for undergraduates to
gain business and leadership skills.
Attendees at the event included
President Lee C. Bollinger, Dean
James J. Valentini and Business
School Dean Glenn R. Hubbard.
In addition to some family and
other friends, Bob Abrams, Peter
Fischbein and Harris Markhoff
(and their wives) were invited.
Larry and family live in Miami,
where he has been since 1969. He
remains active as chairman and CEO

of HEICO, working with his sons,

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR '57, BUS’58

Eric Mendelson’87, BUS’89 and
Victor Mendelson’89, co-presidents.
HEICO is one of the world’s leading

companies in the design, production,

servicing and distribution of products
and services to the aviation, defense,
aerospace, medical, telecommunica-
tions and electronics industries. Larry
gets to New York not only on busi-
ness, but also to visit his four grand-
children. He must possess the unique
distinction of having a grandchild in
every class at the College: “Freshman,
sophomore, junior and senior — we
have all grades covered,” he says. You
can choose your sports metaphor —
in racing, the superfecta, in baseball, a
grand slam — Larry’s got it.

Larry’s sentiments are summed
up in a sentence: “The Mendelson
family is very pleased to have been
able to give back to Columbia for all
of the wonderful opportunities that
Columbia has afforded us.”

A tip of the hat and a standing
ovation would be most appropriate
for Larry and the Mendelson family.

A bench for Richard Friedlander:
Richard’s widow, Iris, “adopted a
double bench for Richard in Riverside
Park South, just below West 69th
Street.” She describes the vista: “The
view from the bench on the edge of
the Hudson River is lovely, serene,
facing two beautiful weeping willows
and mica-flecked granite boulders.
Canada geese nestle there. A line of
water-worn pier pillars stretch out
like skipping stones. Richard lived by
the river and park he loved for more
than half a century. Visit if you can.
Sit, rest and think of him ...”

The Riverside Park Conservancy
has placed a plaque on the bench
that reads: “In loving memory of
my beloved husband Richard David
Friedlander 1938-2014.” 2014? Is it
possible that much time has passed,

as Richard has been and will remain
so ever-present in our thoughts?

Tom Hamilton does not forget;
will not forget. On October 5, he
wrote: “On October 4, 1957, 59
years ago yesterday, the old U.S.S.R.
successfully launched the first artifi-
cial satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit. As
it made its first pass over the United
States, a crew from WKCR took
an Ampex tape recorder (30 lbs.)
to the campus ham radio station,
W2AEE, where they taped Sputnik's
beep. They then took the tape back
to the WKCR studios and broadcast
it repeatedly that night. The next
morning (59 years ago today) at 9:05

a.m., two FBI agents came into the
station and stole the tape. After 59
years of not returning, paying for or
replacing the tape, I feel more than
justified in calling this theft. During
my 34 years of teaching astronomy I
told this history to my classes. Once
a student objected to my saying his
uncle, an FBI agent, worked for a
pack of thieves. In front of a lecture
class of 90 college students, I offered
him an A+ in astronomy with no
need for further tests, papers or even
class attendance if he could get his
uncle to arrange for the tape’s return
to WKCR. Three days later I got a
drop notice with his name.”

Ah, but whatever became of the
tape? Is it still beeping in a desk
drawer somewhere in Washington?
An action in replevin certainly would
lie to recover the purloined tape, and
had I known years earlier I would
have prepared a writ of replevin.
Alas, my recollection of the statute
of limitations on actions in replevin
is rather jaded, but I’m quite certain
that in the 59th year following the
event the claim is time-barred. I trust
and am counting on the fact that
Tom will drop a reminder this com-
ing October; I will include it in our
Class Notes and we will commemo-
rate the onset of the space age and
commiserate on the 60th anniversary
of the perfidious incident that befell
our beloved WKCR.

We have come to know and
appreciate Paul Nagano as a
magnificent artist. But Paul has
redefined himself. Let him explain:
“I began a public group Facebook
site: Paul Nagano Art and Exhibi-
tions, where I wrote this year of
changing my profession from ‘artist’
to ‘picture-maker.’To clarify: It has
to do mostly with the way I perceive
that the word ‘art’ is used so freely
today to describe almost anything
that has to do with a certain creative
impulse and the resulting product,
object or idea resulting from that
impulse. I don't argue with those
who describe their works as ‘Art.’ Or
with those who describe what I do
as art. But for me, it seems no longer
a very useful word, encompassing
too many different things. I like the
specificity of words. I thought about
what it is I really do, and somehow
‘making art’ seemed too vague, too
general. What best describes my
activity is: Making pictures. Be it a
sketch, a photo or a watercolor, it is
a picture. I see or imagine something

I want to ‘capture’ — a thing, a
landscape, a mental image — and I
record it (usually on paper), using a
variety of media. But the result is a
picture. Hence, Picture Maker.”

Following a productive 2016, Paul
exhibited his pictures in January at
Gallery on the Pali in the First Uni-
tarian Church of Honolulu. Included
are his wonderful sketches and draw-
ings that celebrate the Lunar New
Year, the Year of the Cock.

1961

Michael Hausig

19418 Encino Summit
San Antonio, TX 78259
mhausig@yahoo.com

Alex Liebowitz reports that 2016
was especially notable thanks to
events involving fellow CC’6lers.
In March, as regular readers of
Class Notes will recall he does,

he spent his annual ski week with
Mike Hausig and Mike’s wife, JB,
on the slopes of Copper Mountain,
Colo. In May, Alex and his wife,
Denise, traveled to Massachusetts to
celebrate their son, David Liebowitz
99, receiving his doctorate of educa-
tion. They were joined by Alex’s
brother, Jon Liebowitz, and Jon’s
wife, Ruth. In June and September,
Alex helped Dick Hall’64 sail his
gorgeous boat from Oxford, Md., to
Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and back.
And then, in November, he and
Denise joined Dick and his wife,
Heleny Cook, for a two-day cruise
on the Chesapeake Bay. Finally, Alex
and Denise visited Jeff Riker and
his wife, Barbara, in Los Angeles,
where Alex reports that Jeff and
Barbara treated them royally and
showed them all of Los Angeles and
Santa Barbara's key sights.

A ringing endorsement for Clyde
May’s straight bourbon whiskey was
included in the December issue of
Forbes. Jim Ammeen BUS’62 has
been running the company for a
group of classmate investors.

Gene Milone is completing a
paper on the modeling of an eclips-
ing binary in a galactic cluster, the
distance to which his colleagues and
he have determined to within about
10 light years, an unprecedented
precision (and accuracy) for this
cluster, 1,530 light years distant. No
other method to get the distances of
distant clusters can touch this.

Albert Kirsch’s company, KCC
Productions, recently produced the
four-day South Beach Jazz Festival,
highlighted with performances by
Raul Midén and Diane Schuur.
KCC also showcased Brian Lynch,
David Gilmore, Ignacio Berroa and
Will Calhoun during the annual
conference of the Association of
Performing Arts Presenters in early
January in New York City.

David Konstan GSAS’67
recently finished his semester as a
fellow of the Swedish Collegium
for Advanced Study in Uppsala,
Sweden. He will spend the spring
months as a fellow of the Institut
d’Etudes Avancées de Paris.

Bob Salman LAW’64 gave his
assessment of Hillary Clinton’s
loss at our January class lunch and
[was scheduled to do so again on]
March 13 at Brookdale Community
College. He will also teach another
session of his “Great Trials” class at
Brookdale this spring, covering the
following trials: the Rosenbergs,
Patty Hearst and Pamela Smart —
the latter drawing on Bob Juceam
LAW’64’s luncheon presentation.

Bob is active in Ambassador Philip
Murphy’s 2017 campaign for governor
of New Jersey. As Bob and his wife,

Reva, approach their 54th anniversary,
they say they enjoy spending time
with their four grandchildren.

In Design Within Reach’s
December blog (blog.dwr.com) and
January catalog there was a favorable
article about Smith and Thompson
Architects. Gwendolyn Horton
wrote, “Few architects are able to
evolve old into new while maintain-
ing equal respect for both. Phillip
Smith [GSAPP’69] and Douglas
Thompson are the exciting exception.
The talented duo have had their work
featured in several DWR catalogs,
beginning in 2010 when we used
their Manhattan office for a photo
shoot. That was soon followed by a
shoot at their East Hampton home
and studio, a stunning property that
showcases how they can nurture a
structure with interesting historical
lineage — in this case, a 1920s tractor
barn — into one that’s more relevant
to our time. For our January catalog,
we returned to that very same house,
as well as to a cantilevered residence
they recently completed.”

Barry McCallion’s exhibition
“Paradise Lost” was held October
29-November 21 in Amagansett,
N.Y. It was inspired by John Milton's

Spring 2017 CCT 53

poem. The exhibition included an
original book, which alternated the
poet’s text with 48 India ink and
acrylic paintings. Milton's brilliant
imagery sets worlds in motion and
positions angels and demons in the
cosmic struggle between good and
evil. Also on display was a limited
edition of 20 Paradise Lost prints in
five sets (numbered 1-5), made with
archival inks on archival paper.

Ona sad note, John Tsucalas
passed away on September 21; his
wife of 23 years, Joanne, was by his
side. John was deputy auditor gen-
eral of Pennsylvania, receiving com-
mendations from the State Senate
and House for “Outstanding Public
Service to Pennsylvania.” He was a
C.F.A. and principal of John James
Tsucalas & Co., was VP of leveraged
buyouts and private placements for
Butcher & Singer in Philadelphia
and was investment officer for John
Hancock Financial in Boston.

John served as 1st lieutenant in
the United States Air Force, receiv-
ing the Air Force Commendation
Medal for “Meritorious Service”
and the National Defense Service
Award during the Vietnam War. The
interment, with full military honors,
was at the Washington Crossing
National Cemetery in Newtown, Pa.

1962

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

John Freidin

654 E. Munger St.
Middlebury, VT 05753
jf@bicyclevt.com

‘Thanks to all of you who sent notes.
Frank Strauss retired from the
practice of nephrology two years ago.
He and his wife, Merle, spend time in
their homes in Los Angeles and Santa
Fe. Frank hikes, bicycles and sings
opera in the Verdi Chorus of Santa
Monica, of which he is president. He

and Merle also play in a string quartet.

Frank writes, “The election of Donald
‘Trump is a negative event for the
United States on a scale comparable

54 CCT Spring 2017

to 9-11, and I am not optimistic that
we will escape significant negative
worldwide consequences. We have
survived worse circumstances and
events and I am hopeful that we can
do similarly in the years ahead.”

From Connecticut, Anthony
Valerio offers to talk politics with
any classmate at avalerio@wesleyan.
edu. He recently published a digital
version of his new work, Dante in
Love, a modern retelling of Dante’s
story of unrequited love. Anthony
writes: “Maybe I could not have
attempted this risky work at an
earlier age, when the form of love
unrequited was not as powerful and
pure as it was when I looked again
at Dante’s The New Life, here in the
country, at an advanced age.” He
has also published a digital novel
of “love of a more carnal nature,”
Conversation with Johnny.

Hal Watson recently visited the
Truman Library in Independence,
Mo., and recalled that Truman had
spent time with our class in 1959. “As
I sought the dates and subject matter
[of that visit],” Hal says, “I found an
archive that chronicles our entire four
years on campus: spectatorarchive.
library.columbia.edu. I especially
liked the first issue from the Septem-
ber of our freshman semester.”

Stuart Pellman recently
celebrated his 25th year in the
San Francisco Bay Area. It was, he
says, “a truly wonderful decision
for health, mind and the ability
to balance life and work. The best
part is that I met my wife, Elyse,
shortly after I arrived. She and I
had both lived in Manhattan before
moving to San Francisco and were
introduced by a mutual friend. Three
years ago, after living almost exclu-
sively in cities, Elyse and I moved
to Mill Valley, Calif., a small town
14 miles north of the Golden Gate
Bridge. I regularly ride a road bike
and hike literally out of my door.

I also take interesting classes at a
local college. We have easy access to
the city for culture and restaurants
as well as to Napa and Sonoma for
lunches in wine country. Not bad for
a kid from Brooklyn!

“T am close with Gerry Sorin. We
talk regularly and recently and saw
the Cubs play at Wrigley Field.”

Stuart coaches attorneys through-
out the country on how to develop
their practices. He enjoys the work
and says, “It keeps me involved with
bright, talented, younger people.

“As for the recent Presidential
election, it was a stunning and
disappointing result. So I have taken
a sabbatical from watching news on
TV and read only a few articles. Not
sure how long my sabbatical will
last, but it’s working as of January 1!”

Joe Nozzolio writes to “request
all Class of 62ers to contribute to
Columbia for the all-weather bubble
to be constructed at Baker Athletics
Complex in memory of Bill Camp-
bell TC’64. Jerry Speyer BUS’64
has committed to match donations
up to an aggregate of $500,000. It’s a
good cause and will aptly honor Billy
for all he did for Columbia.” [Editor’s
note: Go to columbiacampaign
forathletics.com/#current-initiatives/
bubble-at-baker-athletics-complex
for more information. ]

Peter Javsicas and his wife,
Anne, founded and are active board
members of an aging-in-community
group, Northwest Village Network,
in Philadelphia. At the end of 2014,
Peter retired as head of a transporta-
tion advocacy group, Pennsylvanians
for Transportation Solutions. He
still writes its e-newsletter.

Peter pursued a career in films,
first as an editor and then as a
producer and director of films, videos
and multimedia works, mostly for
nonprofits. Starting around 1971,
he writes, “Anne and I lived the
alternative lifestyle on a farm in
central Pennsylvania. After seven
years and two kids, we moved to the
nearby town of Bloomsburg, Pa., and
in 1989 to the Philadelphia area. By
then I had gone into development
and fundraising and Anne was prin-
cipal of a Quaker elementary school.

“Around 1998 I got the trans-
portation reform bug and began
working to promote alternatives to
driving — public transportation, car
sharing, public transit and the like.

“T didn’t graduate from Columbia,
but always rave about the Core Cur-
riculum and my junior year at the
London School of Economics. I’m
glad Columbia is no longer all boys.
I assume the women brought some
more adult behavior with them. Or
maybe not! I would be glad to hear
from classmates to share more about
our lives — and futures.”

As co-chair of the Syrian Refugee
Relief Committee at his New Paltz,
N.Y., synagogue, Gerry Sorin
helped raise a sizable donation to
HIAS, the 125-year-old immigrant

and refugee aid organization.

In late 2016, the history depart-
ment at SUNY New Paltz celebrated
Gerry’s 50 years as an American and
Jewish historian, writer, intellectual
and university professor. The invita-
tion to the celebration stated: “From
1965 through 2016, Gerald Sorin’s
work as a contributing member of
the history department, university
community and broader New Paltz
community has been remarkable.
Embodying teaching, research and
service, Dr. Sorin continues to make
a mark on history graduates and the
community of ideas.”

More than 125 people gathered
to hear remarks from New Paltz
President Donald Christian; Debo-
rah Dash Moore, the Frederick G.L.
Huetwell Professor of History at
the University of Michigan in Ann
Arbor; and Rabbi William Strongin,
among many others.

Gerry tutors for the Ulster
County Literacy Association and
is working on a new project — he
refuses to call it a book, yet —
about Saul Bellow. Gerry would be
delighted to hear from classmates
who have thoughts or anecdotes
about the 1976 Nobel laureate:
gerald.sorin70@gmail.com.

Writing from Irvine, Calif.,

Carl Schubert reports: “From the
perspective of a senior citizen, who
visited more than 50 countries

and lived for months in several, I
thought I had seen not all, of course,
but most of it until the election. My
three children voted, one in Austria
(with its own recent electoral mess).
‘The political discourse twixt their
generation and ours is strained;

and I don’t blame them. A year ago
I sent my kids an apology for the
mess we're leaving them. I remem-
ber Castro visiting Columbia and
the effusive welcome he got. Later,
while in Miami getting a Ph.D. in
oceanography, I heard the other side
of the Castro story.

“Twas NROTC and could
not fathom why it was kicked off
campus. Nobody wants to live in
a situation where a military is an
absolute necessity, but realistically
we need one, and I for one would
rather have its leaders educated at
places like Columbia. Retired now,
still travel and garden a lot, and am
rarely without a crossword puzzle.”

Dan Fife is reading Sapiens: A
Brief History of Humankind by Yuval
Noah Harari and says he “can’t over-
state how much fun it is, and how

nice it is, to take the long view after
the recent election. If my grandsons
were a little older, maybe we could
read it together.”

Steve Bravy offers some thoughts
on the 2016 election: “Democracies
are said to get the governments they
deserve. We now have an ignorant,
vicious, narcissistic monomaniac and
liar as our president, who has never
helped anyone but himself. Looks
like our educational system needs a
thorough overhaul, particularly in
fostering critical thinking. On the
other hand, some help for the work-
dislocated and rebalancing of the
financial rewards is essential.”

Writing from New York City,
Russ Warren confesses to working
out regularly and enjoying the prac-
tice of orthopedics at the Hospital
for Special Surgery. He claims to
have turned his gig with the New
York Giants over to an associate, but
he’s still frequently seen standing

many ventures, most of them political.
Last April, the voters of New York's
20th Congressional District elected
him a Bernie Sanders delegate to the
Democratic National Convention.
“Naturally,” he says, “I regretted that
Bernie was edged out. Even so, it was
an exhilarating campaign and I was
heartened by the level of popular
support Bernie garnered.”

Since then Larry has been co-
chair of the national board of Peace
Action, the nation’s largest member-
ship peace organization. At the end
of 2016, after six years as executive
secretary of the Albany County
Central Federation of Labor, Larry
stepped down but continues on the
labor council's executive committee.
“Union picket lines,” he says, “are
good for the body as well as the soul.”

Larry writes on political affairs,
foreign policy and nuclear weapons
in op-ed pieces online and in news-
papers. One of his most enjoyable

Frank Stoppenbach 62 grows moderately

rare fruit trees; at a county fair he sponsored a

“Guess the Fruit” competition.

on the sidelines beside Coach Ben
McAdoo. Russ’ wife, Laurie, recently
had a knee replacement at HSS,
which does about 5,000 a year! She
is progressing but says the rehab
is tough. Just ask Burt Lehman
or Paul Cooper! Russ and Laurie
celebrated Thanksgiving with eight
grandchildren, one of whom plays
high school football in Greenwich,
Conn., and scored 25 touchdowns
this fall! The acorn doesn’t fall far ...
Russ is pleased to see the progress in
Columbia football and finally won a
dollar bet with Giants’ long snapper
Steve DeOssie, who played at Brown.
Paul Gitman offers some advice
about recent history: “Forget current
events and stop to smell the roses.

Life is short enough and very fragile.

So make the most of your time. I am
retired and have spent as much time
as possible traveling and enjoying
the world. Photography has been
a wonderful pursuit and I make
every effort to enjoy time with my
grandchildren. Life is good.”
Although he retired as a professor
of history at SUNY Albany, Larry
Wittner GSAS’67 remains active in

projects was writing a satirical novel
about university corporatization and
rebellion, titled What's Going on at
UAardvark? Its second edition is
available in paperback.

Frank Stoppenbach also devoted
himself to the Sanders campaign.
For much of the last half of 2015 and
the first half of 2016, Frank visited
county fairs, local events and colleges
to recruit volunteers to help Sanders
get on the New York primary ballot.
“It was pretty easy,” Frank recalls.
“There was great enthusiasm and, in
the view of many New Yorkers (as
well as me), Bernie’s candidacy was
the best chance in our lifetimes for
real change. We also had fun. I grow
some moderately rare fruit trees, and
we sponsored a ‘Guess the Fruit’
contest at one fair. Two-hundred
people tried and one got them all:
Persimmon, pawpaw, hardy kiwi and
Chinese dogwood

Dan Stone works with the
Jewish Heritage Centre of Western
Canada. Recently he gave a talk
about Canadian politician and labor
leader A.A. Heaps at a ceremony
organized jointly by the center and

1”

Parks Canada to honor Heaps as a
person of national historical signifi-
cance. “Other than that,” Dan writes,
“T pursue my Morris dance hobby
despite increasingly creaky knees,
and I’m glad that circumstances
steered me to Canada in 1969 so I
don’t have to take the recent U.S.
election quite so much to heart.”
From his farm in Leesburg, Va.,
Andy Jampoler SIPA’81 writes:
“T’ve not yet regained the power of
speech after the election. My view of
the outcome is necessarily shaped by
the fact that I’m a war refugee (from
Poland, 1946) and the possibility that
the United States will close its doors
to this generation's desperately needy
from abroad (and its heart to the
needy at home) makes me despair.
“Suzy, my wife of 51 years, and
I are well enough, the foregoing
aside. The next year will see us (her)
continuing to raise guide dog pup-
pies for the Guide Dog Foundation
for the Blind, and me writing and
speaking about maritime history
in museums and at sea. Soon we'll
need to think about moving from
our Loudoun County, Va., farm to
someplace more urban and smaller.
I suspect that many classmates are in
that same process.”
Bernie Patten PS’66 and his
wife, Ethel BC’63, had planned
to vacation in Iran this year but
changed their minds when P&S
asked him to be its alumni speaker
at Alumni Day. His talk recounted
the events and personalities that led
the medical team, of which he was
a member, to discover the L-DOPA
treatment for Parkinson's disease.
The discovery got two Nobel Prizes
and was hailed by the New England
Journal of Medicine as the greatest
neurological discovery in a century.
Bernie recalled that at the begin-
ning of the team’s work, “It was
rough sledding, because the National
Institutes of Health turned down our
grant applications four times in a row.
The last rejection claimed we were
unscientific and going to hurt patients.
That meant no money from N.LLH. In
the medical research game you can't
wiggle without money. So we had to
scrounge for it. Finally, major support
came from the Department of State
and then-Vice President Richard
Nixon. He reasoned that if a treat-
ment could be found for Parkinson's
disease it would help Chairman Mao
of China, who suffered from it, and
that help would improve Sino-

American relations. Mao became one
of the first patients to benefit from our
discovery; American relations with
China improved and, significantly,
Nixon made his historic visit to China
in 1972. In Mao’s Little Red Book he
famously stated that all political power
comes from the muzzle of a gun. We
proved his statement wrong. Political
power can also come from a medicine
bottle. My books, Quia Imperfectum
and The Great Cotzias, cover the
events, personalities, ideas, petty jeal-
ousies, back-biting and the red thread
of life that led to a major treatment

for what was previously thought to be
a hopeless degenerative disease of the
nervous system.”

1963

Paul Neshamkin

1015 Washington St., Apt. 50
Hoboken, NJ 07030
pauln@helpauthors.com

Homecoming brought together
Steve Barcan, Jerry Dwyer,

Lee Lowenfish, Bob Kraft, Phil
Satow, and Paul Neshamkin and
his wife, Ruth. It was a challenging
day weather-wise, but more of you
should have come — we won!

Our monthly class lunch is now
in its 15th year. Amazingly, we
average about 10 classmates at each
lunch. In the last three months,
we have seen local regulars Steve
Barcan, Henry Black, Ed Coller,
Jerry Dwyer, Doron Gopstein,
Bob Heller, Lee Lowenfish, Don
Margolis, Paul Neshamkin, Larry
Neuman, Tom O’Connor, Barry
Reiss and Harvey Schneier. In
addition, we have had visits from
Joe Applebaum, from Boca Raton,
Fla., Peter Broido from Baltimore
and Alan Wilensky from Seattle.
Paul Gorrin has threatened to take
the Acela from Delaware but has
repeatedly cancelled.

Come on, Paul!

Family members are also welcome,
especially if they went to Colum-
bia. Doug Anderson brought his
96-year-old uncle, Milton Kamen ’40
as his guest. His humor and sharp-
ness showed us that there is still hope
for us youngsters.

Our 55th reunion is only 14
months away. Please mark your
calendar and hold the (expected
although not finalized) dates,
Thursday, May 31—-Sunday, June 3.

Spring 2017 CCT 55

We have started to organize in true
Class of 63 fashion — early and
with enthusiasm. Joe Applebaum,
Henry Black, Peter Broido, Ed
Coller, Jerry Dwyer, Mike Erdos,
Doron Gopstein, Bruce Kaplan,
Don Margolis, Paul Neshamkin,
Larry Neuman, Barry Reiss and
Harvey Schneier have already
joined the Reunion Committee.
Please contact me if you want to
help organize and gather classmates.
Let’s make it a great party.

David Alpern writes, “I am plug-
ging away at a weekly podcast for the
World Policy Institute, interviewing
from home (via the Internet) experts
on a variety of foreign affairs who
write for the quarterly World Policy
Journal and website. One recent
guest, I was delighted to discover,
was a College grad and intern on
my former Newsweek On Air radio
show. She’s Daniella Zaleman’09,
now a prize-winning documentary
photographer whose new book, Signs
of Your Identity, tells the brutal tale of
Canada’s infamous Indian Residen-
tial Schools. She updated me on a
platoon of other Columbia interns
from the same era who, like her, she
said are ‘all still trucking along in
journalism’ at The Washington Post,
The New York Times, New York Daily
News, Los Angeles Times, The Houston
Chronicle, TIME and Harper’.

“About the same time, I con-
gratulated another former intern,
Brad Stone 93, on becoming senior
executive editor at Bloomberg, to
which he replied, “Thank you for
bringing generations of young
Columbia students into Newsweek
On Air, giving us our first taste of
the media profession and being a
great mentor!’

“To end the premature (I hope)
eulogy, one of my first interns, Sote-
rios Johnson ’90, JRN’97, in saying
farewell after more than 20 years as
morning anchor for WNYC public
radio added: “Thank you for helping
me launch my career. Your generos-
ity in creating the Newsweek On Air
internship and being a mentor has
had a profound impact on me and so
many others.’

“Makes an old guy proud. But also
making me proud these days is my
late mother (who was two months shy
of 99 in 2014). We found her dusty
78s from her time as a ‘girl singer’
on the road and on New York radio
(circa 1939-41) while cleaning out
her apartment. We had them digitized

56 CCT Spring 2017

and posted online, where she is fast
approaching 500 plays at soundcloud.
com/david-a-69158822. In the cloud
in both senses: Go Mom!”

David, I love your mom and I
love your radio debut on track num-
ber eight, “I May Be Wrong But ...”

Bernie Kabak writes, “After
completing law school at a Cam-
bridge, Mass., university disparaged
during our freshman orientation at
Columbia as being along a ‘smaller
river,’ I returned to New York City,
where I have been an active member
of the Lincoln Square Synagogue.
It’s on the Upper West Side, about
two miles south of alma mater and
not all that far from the World
Trade Center. On September 11,

15 years to the day since the WTC
was destroyed, the synagogue held a
commemoration, which I was asked
to chair, to mark that terrible day.

“Two extraordinary speakers

addressed the congregation. Steven M.

Davis, of the firm Davis Brody Bond
(name partner J. Max Bond, Jr. was
the architecture division chairman of
GSAAP), spoke first. Davis carried us
through his design for the National
September 11 Memorial & Museum
at the World Trade Center, a site,
wrote Adam Gopnik in The New
Yorker, that ‘contains more contradic-
tions, unresolved and perhaps unre-
solvable, than any other eight acres in
Manhattan.’ Next, Bill Keegan gave
a riveting account of serving as night
operations commander of the 9-11
WTC Rescue/Recovery Teams.

“America withstood the 9-11
assault on our democracy from the
air. Now I wonder how well we'll
withstand the corrosion of our
democracy from within. I write this
note just a few days before the first
presidential debate in an election
campaign rampant with belliger-
ence and hatred. Professor Fritz
Stern’46, GSAS’53 urged us to
push back against such impulses.
In The Varieties of History: From
Voltaire to the Present, he wrote: “The
generous faith in rationality and
the possibilities of human progress
which underlay much of earlier
historical thought seems discredited
today, and yet the deepening of our
historical experiences need not lead
to its abandonment, but perhaps to
a stronger sense of the precarious-
ness of human freedom and to a still
greater dedication to it.’

“Professor Stern died last May. I

mention him wistfully, recalling his

course in European history as one of
the glories of my Columbia educa-
tion.” [Editor’s note: See Obituaries,
Summer 2016. ]

Richard Goldwater (né
Goldwasser) writes, “I was Bernie
Sanders married to Hillary Clinton.
I am happily divorced; my two sons
are professors.

“My partner (a physicist) and I (a
retired psychiatrist) have been work-
ing on a new theory of economics
since the Crash of 2008. You can
view a summary at profitandentropy.
com. The thesis is that contemporary
economics is inadequate because
its basis in science is Newtonian
mechanics, which describes an
economy as a perpetual motion
machine. We propose a new model
taken from thermodynamics, in
which an economy is an engine,
and in which cash-fuel flows from
hotter Buyer to cooler Seller. Profit
mathematically is increasing entropy,
which explains the Crash of 2008 as
thermo-financial equilibrium. We
propose a Non Value Added Tax on
profits that skim value out of the
economy and deposit it in McMan-
sions. We are near completion and
are looking for critical readers to
share in the accomplishment.

“The Columbia course most
relevant to my life and work was
Professor Andrew Chiappe ’33,
GSAS’39’s Shakespeare, since it
taught me how to perceive the world
as two realms, such as Belmont
(meaning) and Venice (money) in
The Merchant of Venice.

“My partially completed work,
Marriage Is for Men and Divorce
Is for Women, is at rolesandrules.
com. I miss the days when JFK was
immortal and democratic progress
post-FDR was assured.”

Nick Zill writes, “Please take
a look at a short article I wrote
on what recently released Census
data tells us about the strengths of
immigrant families. It was posted
by the Institute for Family Studies:
family-studies.org/most-immigrant-
families-are-traditional-families. I
think you will find it of interest.”

David Orme-Johnson has
written about his early experience
with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and
‘Transcendental Meditation in Enjoy
TM News. You can find his article
at enjoytmnews.org/a-scientists-
quest-for-enlightenment. This is the
beginning of a book he is writing
on Maharishi and how the scientific

research on enlightenment evolved.
If you are interested in learning more
about David’s life work, friend him
on Facebook.

Remember our regular class
lunches at the Columbia University
Club of New York are always a great
place to reconnect. If you're in NYC,
try to make one of the next lunches
— it’s always the second Thursday.
Check out cc63ers.com for details.

1964

Norman Olch

233 Broadway

New York, NY 10279
norman@nolch.com

Greetings. As I write at the end of
January, the new presidency is only
10 days old and, while the issues are
different in 2017, already I have a
feeling that the tumultuous 1960s
are back: Large crowds marching in
the streets, a flurry of controversial
executive orders, protests at the
airports, the emergence of “alterna-
tive facts” and the press told to “keep
its mouth shut.” I hesitate to predict
what will unfold between now and
the publication of these Class Notes.

Jonathan Goldberg GSAS’68
writes: “I retired on August 31 after
10 years as Emory’s arts and sci-
ences distinguished professor (and
spent 20 years before that as the Sir
William Osler Professor of English
Literature at Johns Hopkins for a
total of almost 50 years of teaching).
This Distracted Globe, a collection of
essays mainly by former dissertation
students of mine, was published last
spring. My latest book, Melodrama:
An Aesthetics of Impossibility, was
published last fall. I continue to have
writing projects in my retirement,
which I celebrated with Michael
Moon, my partner of more than
30 years, with a trip to Italy last
September. After these many years,
thoughts about Columbia classmates
occur often to me, so I thought I
would get back in touch this way.”

We are happy, Jonathan, that
you did get back in touch, and your
classmates wish you much joy in the
years ahead.

A recently released and well-
reviewed Jim Jarmusch’75 film,
Paterson, tells the story of a New Jer-
sey bus driver who is also a poet. The
poems heard in the film were actually
written by Ron Padgett. Jarmusch

selected some of the poems from
Ron's collected works; Ron wrote two
more poems specifically for the film.
In 2012, Ron was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize in poetry.

Speaking of the movies, in Janu-
ary, lra Jaffe and his wife, Joan, paid
a visit to New York City from Moun-
tainair, N.M. While here, they went
to my son Alexander’s Metrograph
movie theater in lower Manhattan,
which has two screens, a restaurant
and a bookshop specializing in books
about film. Ira founded the film
studies program at the University
of New Mexico and has written
several books on film. He writes of
the Metrograph: “The whole place is
very special. Watching Eric Rohmer’s
Claire’ Knee, 1 particularly relished
the sweep of the screen and the com-
fort of the rough-hewn but elegant
wood-backed seats.”

‘Thank you, Ira. I have passed
along your thoughts to Alexander.

Finally, on a personal note: After
teaching constitutional law for
many years at the John Jay College
of Criminal Justice I have hung up
my professor’s cap. I will continue
to practice appellate law and try my
hand at other things as well. I plan
to continue the informal class lunch
the second ‘Thursday of each month
at the Columbia University Club of
New York. Join us.

1965

Leonard B. Pack
924 West End Ave.
New York, NY 10025
packlb@aol.com

Joel Berger (joelberger1955@
yahoo.com) was quoted in The

New York Times on September 9.
‘The article dealt with NYC’s Law
Department, which is fighting mul-
tiple court battles maintaining the
secrecy of the city’s records of police
officers’ misconduct and that of
Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s communica-
tions with advisers. Joel commented
on the Law Department’s battles to
maintain this secrecy: “The city has
been doing it all along, but they’ve
been doing it even more strenuously
in this administration than in the
precious one.” Joel wrote to me that
he, himself, is an alumnus of the
NYC Law Department: “Before
entering private practice I was one
of the highest ranking lawyers in the

NYC Law Department, 1988-96
(the ‘Executive Staff,’ the corpora-
tion counsel’s inner cabinet). I was
recruited by corporation counsel
Peter Zimroth 63, who felt that
someone with my background
(NAACP Legal Defense and Edu-
cational Fund, arguing death penalty
cases and other civil rights matters
1977-88) should be on his staff.
Peter is now the court-appointed
monitor in the stop-and-frisk cases.
So it is particularly painful to see
my old office behaving so badly on
issues of transparency, especially in
police misconduct cases.”

I heard from Ben Cohen
(becoh@aol.com): “Last year, at the
annual meeting of the Texas Society
of Plastic Surgeons, I was honored
as the first recipient of a new lec-
tureship, “Texas Legends of Plastic
Surgery.’ (Texans are programmed
to embrace hyperbole!) In addition
to speaking about advances in
plastic surgical methods, I discussed
seminal aspects of my background,
speaking of family and mentors
and playing clips from some of the
Macon music of that era — Little
Richard, James Brown, Otis Red-
ding. Another main theme was the
role of chance events and meetings
that have unexpected consequences
in determining the course of a
person’s life and career. My years at
Columbia were certainly filled with
many such pivot points.

“Speaking of pivot points, I
recently transitioned in my career
as a clinical and academic plastic
surgeon in Houston to a more con-
trolled practice, still with resident
trainee teaching responsibilities but,
after 30 years, am no longer a resi-
dency program director. This change
is a ‘glide path’ to a full retirement.
Family wise, Helen and J are still
happily married after 46 years and,
thanks to our daughter Sarah, we
now have three lovely grandchildren
to enjoy spending time with. Sorry
to have missed the 50th reunion,
but I was busy recouping from hip
replacements that have gone well.
See you at the 55th!”

I wrote in a recent column about
Niles Eldredge GSAS’69’s book
Eternal Ephemera: Adaptation and the
Origin of Species from the 19th Cen-
tury through Equilibria and Beyond,

a tome of 416 pages. Niles recently
sent me a link to a recently released
academic video based on his book.

Not exactly CliffsNotes, but you

alumninews

Jay Woodworth ’65 (left) and Larry Guido ’65 met at Fornos Restaurant in
Newark, N.J., to begin planning for the Class of ’65’s 55th reunion.

might want to give it a try: vimeo.
com/196393849.

Dan Hofstadter’s review of
a new biography of art historian
Kenneth Clark appeared in The Wall
Street Journal in November. Dan
mentioned Clark’s television series,
Civilization, which many of us
remember as a welcome postlude to
Art Humanities at Columbia.

Bob Kolodny (rckolodny@aol.
com) wrote to request a copy of our
Reunion Class Book. I responded, of
course, by asking him for some news.
Bob's response: “I’ve led a somewhat
bifurcated existence for the past 35
years, pursuing two quite different
career tracks. In my medical career,

I did a lot of research (and writing:
15 books, 100-plus journal articles)
in the area of human sexuality and I
continue to lecture widely around the
world, teach and consult on research
design matters with many univer-
sity groups. Starting in 1981, I also
founded a group of hedge funds that
I continue to run. When I moved

to New Hampshire 10 years ago, I
became a state registered investment
adviser, although I do not do finan-
cial planning with individuals, nor do
I see patients any longer.

“TI saw a lot of David Denby
JRN’66 and his family in the 80s
and 90s. In fact, he read me a first
draft of his opening chapter for
what would become his brilliant
book, GREAT BOOKS: My Adven-
tures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf,
and Other Indestructible Writers of
the Western World, about returning
to Columbia at 48 and retaking the
first year of Humanities and Con-

temporary Civilization — he was
surprised at how blown away I was
by his perceptive and skillful writing.
I also stayed in touch with my close
friend (and freshman cross-country
teammate) Rikki Haber, who also
became a physician and won awards
for his excellence as a teacher at
UCSF Medical Center. Ditto for
my fellow Hartley Hall resident Bill
Brenner, who became an excep-
tional cardiac surgeon and continued
his lifelong interest in photography.

On a few occasions, a CC class-
mate has come up to say hello when
I’ve lectured at some large medical
meeting or at a continuing medical
education course — not only in
NYC and Boston, but also in Mon-
treal, at the National Institutes of
Health in Bethesda, Md., in London
and in Amsterdam.”

Jim Siegel BUS’68 (jimsiegel
77@yahoo.com) wrote to tell me
about a lecture I wish I had known
about in advance: “I went to a lec-
ture by noted musicologist Richard
Taruskin GSAS’76, principally
because it was last year’s annual
installment of a lecture series at
CUNY Graduate Center funded by
a beloved friend of mind, a preemi-
nent cancer researcher who died five
years ago, and his sister. Taruskin’s
name sounded familiar, but I didn’t
know anything about him. In his
lecture he mentioned he had taught
at Columbia for many years before
decamping to Berkeley. Consult-
ing Wikipedia when I got home, I
learned he is a classmate!

“Richard’s lecture, which he
gave on December 7, is part of

Spring 2017 CCT 57

the Lloyd Old and Constance
Old Lecture Series. His topic was
‘Music in 21st Century Society:
The Many Dangers of Music.’ The
CUNY website refers to Richard
as ‘America’s Public Musicologist.’
While I could not find a video of
the lecture online, I did stumble
on a tremendous list of YouTube
videos featuring Richard’s lectures:
youtube.com/results?search_
query=richard+taruskin.”

Neil Silver (nsilver@designno
motion.com) sent a nice update
from his submission in our Reunion
Class Book: “Since late 2015, I’ve
fallen into a rut, defined principally

by four of my post-retirement pur-

suits: lots of exercise, foreign travel,
language study (Chinese, Japanese
and Spanish) and consulting (for
the State Department). Until 2015,
I also had ‘the big project’ on this
list. That consisted of editing and
translating a book on the Korean
War by a leading (fairly indepen-
dent) Chinese Cold War scholar and
teaching a course (Modern Japan:
Euro-American Perspectives) at two

Chinese universities. The big project
ended in 2015 when new Chinese
visa regulations required universi-

ties to get government approval
before hiring foreign teachers and

set a 60-year old ceiling on foreign
teachers. I taught at two very differ-
ent places, one a graduate program
(many of the students had formed
their own ideas while teaching high
school history) and the other to
college juniors (many of whom had
serious cases of cognitive dissonance
caused by the difference between
Euro-American approaches to Japan

CCT welcomes photos
that feature at least two
College alumni.

Click “Contact Us” at
college.columbia.edu/cct.

58 CCT Spring 2017

and what they had studied in their
high school ‘patriotic education
courses). The payofts for me were
some interesting papers by students
in both universities.

“Most recently, I spent five weeks
(October-November 2016) puttering
around historical sites in Kyushu,

a part of Japan I had never visited
during my six years in Japan as a
student and then as a U.S. diplomat.
My fondest memories of that trip are
the huge, blood-red mandarin orange
of a moon hanging (what seemed to
be) two ft. above a bay on the East
China Sea, and a very un-Japanese
huge mug of coffee accompanied
with steamed milk, cinnamon toast,
a small dessert, 1940s-era Ameri-
can jazz and a garden view from a
residence kitchen/coffee shop located
on a unique street. [The street was]
created by village samurai who had
traveled to Kyoto and Edo (Tokyo)
with their daimyo lord in the mid-
18th century and then built min-
iature gardens outside their homes
patterned on the larger gardens they
had seen on their travels.”

Barry Solomon (barry@raval.
co.il) contributed this: “Thanks for
your work as class correspondent,
Leonard. I guess you are having a
slow news day if you have to ask
me what I am doing. I haven't
had much contact with classmates
because after six years on Morning-
side Heights (1961-67) I left the
States and, aside from three years in
London and a sabbatical in Poland,
I have been living in the Middle
East ever since. Ironically, after all
this time, my son-in-law is now at
Columbia for a post-doctorate and
so my wife and I go to New York
about three times a year to see our
grandchildren. For the first time
since 1964, I voted in an American
election. Until now it seemed wrong
to try to influence what goes on in
a country in which you no longer
live. You can imagine why it was
important for me this time around
(even though it didn’t help).

“T am still working and have no
immediate plans for retirement. My

work involves solutions for prevent-
ing pollution from vehicles running
on fossil fuel. If everyone moves
over to electric or solar powered
cars I will be out of a job but I won't
be sad if the world will be better
for the next generations. I recently
returned from a business trip to
Europe and was excited to see our

products being used in fuel systems
for Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, Audi
and Bentley. I, myself, as a poor
member of a kibbutz, can’t think of
ever owning one of those babies. I
drive the Ford that is leased for me
by the company.

“You asked about life in Beer-
Sheva — the Chinese curse ‘May
you live in interesting times’ is all-
too-relevant for Israel. It is always
interesting here and sometimes I
wish we could have boring times like
in Finland or New Zealand.

“T got the Reunion Class Book
and enjoyed seeing what others
are up to. | managed to get to the
50th reunion and had a great time
talking to former roommates Dave
Halperin and Lou Goodman. It is
a shame that others didn’t attend. In
addition I had good friends in the
classes one year ahead of us and one
year behind us and would have liked
to see those people, as well.

“Keep up the good work with
CCT. Unfortunately I stopped get-
ting the hard print version and can't
figure out how to get the e-version
(I only get Columbia magazine,
which I enjoy reading).” [Editor’s
note: Find CCT online at college.
columbia.edu/cct. |

Finally, I heard from Larry
Guido (ljgmd44@gmail.com) and
Jay Woodworth (woody17620@
aol.com), announcing that they had
recently “met at Fornos Restaurant in
Newark, N,J., to begin planning for
our 55th! The accompanying photo
shows the two escaped alums from
the ‘PC Prison of Columbia College’
(according to the New York Post!)”

I asked them what they had
been doing in Newark; Jay sent this
response: “Sounds like a question
asked by a New Yorker. Fornos
is a great Newark landmark. It’s
one of the Spanish restaurants in
Newark’s Ironbound District (so
named because the location was sur-
rounded by railroad lines). It’s about
a two-minute walk from Newark’s
Pennsylvania Station. I introduced
the Guidos and Judy to Fornos a
year ago. Larry said we had to return
because the paella was so incredibly
good. He dined on the paella again
that night, Judy had an octopus dish
and I feasted on a huge, thick veal
chop. The place was jammed with
dinner guests and we had a 45-min-
ute wait. It was worth every minute.
‘The prices for far more food than we
could consume were about 50 percent

of peer restaurants in Manhattan,
some dozen miles to the east.”

Larry got the last word, adding:
“There, Leonard. Now you know the
full story from a serious economist:
Quality, Quantity, Price Ratio. Not

just from a flaky neurosurgeon.”

1966

Rich Forzani

413 Banta Ave.
Garfield, NJ 07026
rforzanii1@optonline.net

Hello, again. Another excellent
response from the class. Maybe it is
because more and more of you have
less and less to do. Or perhaps it’s
because of my long-standing prom-
ise to fill in meager columns with
tales of myself and/or amusing (?)
fictional anecdotes of randomly
selected classmates.

Before proceeding, I want to
express my sincere appreciation to
those many of you who reached out
to me with your good wishes after
reading of my health issues in the last
edition. These included most recently
Neal Hurwitz, Michael Garrett,
Tom Harrold, Jonathan Kleefield
and Alexander Auerbach, among
a great many others. Thank you.

Not wishing to conduct an ongoing
personal diary of the subject, this will
be the last time I mention it, but I do
want to pass along a general hope for
respite and comfort and hope to all of
our ’66 members who are faced with
critical health situations. Our hearts
and thoughts support you.

On a happier note, my son
Rich recently accepted his second
clerkship, this time for the superior
court in Newark, N.J. He recently
completed a one-year stint as clerk
for a federal judge in Norfolk, Va.,
and wished to return to the New
York area. Thanks to his mentor and
my good friend Harvey Kurzweil
for all his advice and support.

Geoff Dutton from Belmont,
Mass.: “Tech writing was getting
boring, so now that I’ve left the
software factory I’ve been edit-
ing articles and writing fiction;
almost full-time, but finding it hard
to market my writings without
getting sucked into Facebook and
tweeted to oblivion. Don't travel
much, except for a conference now
and then and to Turkey to see the
in-laws every couple years. When

my girl graduates from high school
I will be more fancy-free, assuming
we all survive the regime change.
And while we await the apocalypse,
anyone have a lead to a publisher/
agent who would salivate over an
international literary thriller about
the life and times of a cell of (partly
cyber) terrorist wannabes? Give a
shout to geoft@maxentropyprod
uctions.net about that or anything
for that matter. (I’m the guy whose
picture wasn't in the yearbook.)”
Your columnist responds: Geoff,
having spent the bulk of my career in
the software/hardware field, I don't
envision a difficult transition for you
from tech writing to fiction. Joking
aside, best wishes on your venture.
Bruce Trinkley: “My profound
appreciation and thanks to everyone
who participated and assisted in the
performance for the 50th reunion
last June of the Varsity Shows of
1966-67, The Bawd’s Opera and

faculty composers like Jack Beeson
and Otto Luening; the wonderful
performers, directors and staff of
Columbia Players and Oats Harvey;
and the singers in the Columbia
Glee Club 1962-70.

Jonathan Kleefield, a long-lost
classmate, writes from Massachusetts
that he is a “nearly retired” radiologist
and, for some reason, enjoys reading
this column when it appears.

Welcome back, Jonathan. We
hope to hear from you again soon.

Jerry Hartman BUS’68: “I
attended the 50th reunion, where
there was great pleasure in seeing
folks I had not seen for many years.
I have kept up with Josh Hauser
SEAS’66, SEAS’68, who is my
fraternity brother and was my
roommate. Josh was at reunion. As
a result of reunion, I connected with
my freshman roommate, Frank
Mirer, who is a professor in New
York City and my sophomore room-

a SE SOOT)

Randall Bourscheidt 66 is creating an analytical
fo) A

record of everything the City of New York has done

since the 19th century to support culture.

Feathertop.1 was thrilled to dust off
and remount scenes and songs with
so many members of the original
casts, including Anthony Abeson
67, director of Feathertop, and
Penelope Parkhurst BC’68, one of
the greatest stage managers ever. I
have been fortunate to work with
some gifted and talented collabora-
tors, including Michael Feingold
and the beloved, now-deceased
John Litvack. Many of my more
recent works, written with my
collaborator Jason Charnesky, can
be found on YouTube. Just google
“Trinkley Opera.’ There, among
others, you can see a Buzz & Bud,
which was the centerpiece of a Janu-
ary session at the National Opera
Association Convention in Santa
Barbara with student performers
from the music theater program at
Penn State. Also my magnum opus,
York: The Voice of Freedom, about
the only African-American on the
Lewis and Clark expedition, was
filmed for PBS with principals from
the old New York City Opera ....
“Reunion brought to mind the
great experience of working with

mate, Joe Chartor, who is a doctor
outside of Boston.

“That said, I retired as a partner
at Drinker Biddle in its Washington
office on January 31, after being
there for 15 years practicing employ-
ment and labor law. I have been a
lawyer for 44 years. I will remain
at the firm running the foundation
(mcdowellfoundation.org) that I
established for my late wife, Barbara
McDowell, who was a well-known
appellate litigator. She was a partner
at Jones Day and then assistant
solicitor general in the United States
Department of Justice, where she
argued Supreme Court cases for
seven years. She had been a law clerk
to Justice Byron White after Yale
Law. At the time of her death from
brain cancer in January 2009, she
was head of the Appellate Advocacy
Program at Legal Aid in Washing-
ton. Barbara’s foundation makes
grants to social justice organizations
that support social justice litigation.
Last year, the foundation made five
grants, totaling $125,000.

“The other component of the
foundation is to engage in high-

dumninews ‘

impact pro bono cases in conjunc-
tion with attorneys in my law firm.
During the last six years, we have
participated in food stamp, jury selec-
tion, death penalty and immigration
cases, among others. I have also

set up an endowment at Barbara's
church, Westmoreland Congrega-
tional, where I took over her place
on the church’s social justice action
committee. In addition, I established
an endowment at Legal Aid to sup-
port the appellate advocacy program,
which has been named the Barbara
McDowell Appellate Advocacy
Program in her honor. I serve on the
board of Legal Aid.

“As a footnote, my path after col-
lege was varied. I graduated from the
Business School and was an account
executive at a large Madison Avenue
advertising agency. Later, as a lawyer
I represented several large advertis-
ing agencies. Upon completion of
law school at George Washington
and clerking for the chief judge of
the United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit in New
Orleans, I have been a partner at
several large Washington law firms,
interrupted by a four-year stint
in the United States Department
of Justice Civil Rights Division,
where I tried cases in Mississippi
and Alabama, 1976-80. During my
time at the Justice Department, I
received the Department’s Special
Commendation Award for defend-
ing the constitutionality of the
Commerce Department’s minority
set aside program. One of the cases
I defended went to the Supreme
Court, where the court upheld the
affirmative action component of the
program (Fullilove v. Kreps).

“My other foray outside of law
firm practice was time spent as
a tenured law professor at Wake
Forest School of Law; I had been
an adjunct law professor at The
George Washington University Law
School for many years. I live in Falls
Church, Va., on a private lake 11
miles from Washington.

“T suspect that I will be working
pretty much fulltime at the law firm
doing the aforesaid pro bono work,
as well as playing lots of tennis and
biking. I am working on a novel and
a collection of short stories. I hope I
will have more time to write now. I
will live part-time in New York in a
new apartment on East 57th Street,
which I recently purchased with my
significant other, a gastroenterologist

in New York. She attended Barnard
and her two children attended
Columbia; she attended the last
reunion with me. Lastly, I am a die-
hard Nationals fan, having had sea-
son tickets from the team’s founding.
I plan to attend spring training
again this year with my brother, who
foolishly is a Yankees fan.”

Pete Wernick GSAS’73 launched
a music teaching system for bluegrass
jamming. The Wernick Method
teaches the ear skills and protocols
used worldwide in informal bluegrass
jams. More than 5,000 students have
graduated from classes and music
camps in 42 states and 11 countries.

Pete and his wife, Joan, recently
performed a vocal duet with banjo
and guitar on Good Morning Den-
mark, live from Tivoli Gardens in
Copenhagen. Pete will be on tour
coast to coast this year with the Hot
Rize band, a bluegrass mainstay since
1978. Peter claims that at this stage
of his life, he finds playing bluegrass
more enjoyable than smoking it.

Your erstwhile former class
correspondent Stuart Berkman
BUS’68 continues to be semi-active
in Columbia affairs, as he usually
interviews three to five candidates
for admission in the Rio de Janeiro
area. Writing on a torrid January
Rio afternoon, he had just returned
from a frigid two-week holiday visit
to New York.

Randall Bourscheidt: “?’m
creating an analytical record of
everything the City of New York
has done since the 19th century to
support culture, called the Archive
of New York City Cultural Policy.
‘The archive is taking shape at the
New York Public Library — one of
the great institutions made possible
by financial support from the city
government. This is a summing
up of a career spent mostly in the
world of nonprofit culture, which
is uniquely at the heart of what
makes this city great, and focused
on urging the city to maintain and
expand its support of culture. Few
people entering the Metropolitan
Museum of Art realize that there’s
only one reason it’s in Central Park:
‘The museum signed an agreement
with New York City to create and
run the greatest museum in America
in return for the city building its
facility in the park and contribut-
ing substantially to its operation.
‘The same is true for Carnegie Hall,
the New York Botanical Garden,

Spring 2017 CCT 59

the Brooklyn Museum, the Public
Theater, the American Museum of
Natural History and the Bronx Zoo,
among others. New York City has
the largest budget for culture in the
United States — larger than the
federal government and all 50 states.

“My timing turned out to be
good, as the city is currently prepar-
ing its first formal cultural plan to
extend its already generous support
for the arts to every neighborhood.
The project will build on New
York’s cultural diversity — based on
America’s golden secret of welcom-
ing immigrants and providing
opportunities for the advancement
of every community. This is also
an opportunity to borrow former
Columbia professor Allan Nevins’
brilliant invention — recorded oral
history — and use it to chronicle
New York’s great record in cultural
development (thanks to an insight
provided in my sophomore year by
the great history professor James
Shenton ’49, GSAS’54).”

Mark Levine JRN’79: “T heard
an interview with Mark Naison
GSAS’76 on WNYC and thought
you might want to write an update
about him for Class Notes. The
show’s description is: ‘Robert
Gumbs, graphic designer, photogra-
pher, artist and raised in the South
Bronx, and Mark Naison, professor
of history and African American
studies at Fordham University, co-
authors of Before the Fires: An Oral
History of African American Life in
the Bronx from the 1930s to the 1960s,
tell the stories of a neighborhood
and 16 African-American men
and women who lived in the South
Bronx before the ‘Bronx is Burning’
era that threatened to decimate it,
and what contributed to its revival.’

“From the book jacket: ‘People
associate the South Bronx with
gangs, violence, drugs, crime,
burned-out buildings, and poverty.
This is the message that has been
driven into their heads over the years
by the media. As Howard Cosell
famously said during the 1977
World’s Series at Yankee Stadium,
“There it is, ladies and gentlemen,
the Bronx is burning.’ In this new
book, Naison and Gumbs provide a
completely different picture of the
South Bronx through interviews
with residents who lived here from
the 1930s to the 1960s.”

As someone who was born in

the Bronx and lived in NYC at that

60 CCT Spring 2017

time, as did many of you, your col-
umnist appreciates Mark L.’s update,
and will check out Mark N.’s book. I
heard Cosell’s comment at the time,
while the Goodyear blimp panned
over the glowing South Bronx
landscape that evening.

1967

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Albert Zonana

425 Arundel Rd.
Goleta, CA 93117
az164@columbia.edu

Our 50th reunion is approaching
and the mailbox overflowed ...

Jack Harris: “I enjoy a quiet
retirement in Troy, N.Y., after a
career in academia that included
research in Antarctica. The only part
of my life now that might interest
classmates is my continuing involve-
ment in research into the biophysics
of the golf swing. I would be happy
to share our findings with classmates
wishing to become the cleverest
player on their own course.”

Harold Wechsler GSAS’74
earned an M.A. and a Ph.D., both in
history, from Columbia. His thesis
research included several months
spent in the Columbia archives,
unearthing the history of admission to
the College. His book, The Qualified
Student: A History of Selective College
Admission in America, includes this
history with its impactful and seamy
sides. He often writes about the
history of Columbia and is finishing
work on a history of minority access
to U.S. higher education. Harold has
taught at Albany, Rochester, Buffalo,
Chicago and Northwestern. Since
2005, he has co-directed NYU's
program in Education and Jewish
Studies, the first program of its kind in
a secular university. He also co-directs
the Columbia University seminar on
the History of Columbia University.
Winner of the Greatest Mets Fan
contest in 1969, he won again in
1981 when he married Lynn Dorothy
Gordon BC’68. Lynn passed away in

2012 after a long struggle with cancer.
He has two children, a 2-year old
granddaughter and a spaniel, Homer
— all avid Mets fans.

John Marino retired two years
ago after 42 years as an internal
medicine physician, and now travels
frequently around the world and is
active with bike riding, skiing, gym
workouts and grandkids, and does
not miss working.

Jon Buller: “After graduating
magna cum marginally, I tried various
sorts of work but found nothing that
really suited me until I began illus-
trating children’s books, first getting
published in 1984. I have done most
of my books in collaboration with my
wife, Susan Schade, who does most
of the writing, while I do most of the
drawing. Together we have published
59 books, the most recent being Anne
of Green Bagels, published in August.
Some of our books have sold well.
Lately business has been a little slow,
which is appropriate, because I am
also getting a little slow. We live in
Lyme, Conn.

Larry Kirkman is a professor
of film and media arts and dean
emeritus of the School of Commu-
nication at American University. His
work in public-purpose media has
encompassed documentaries, social
advertising campaigns, strategic com-
munications for nonprofits, digital
journalism and communication
policy. He is an executive producer in
the Investigative Reporting Work-
shop and senior research fellow in the
Center for Media & Social Impact.

Larry Miller: “I live in Manhat-
tan on the Upper West Side. I have
two boys, 24 and 22, who are just
moving into their own apartments.
I am president of Corinthian Media
and president of the Corinthian
Foundation. My work allows me
time to work out, take dance lessons
and travel. I recently returned from
Botswana. I hope to retire [but that]
seems to move itself farther into the
future each year.”

Jerry Lozner: “After completing
my surgical residency at the Univer-
sity of Cincinnati in 1978, I served
in the Navy for two years and then
joined the Summit Medical Group,
where I have been a partner for 37
years and am the senior breast sur-
geon. On July 4, Barbara, the love of
my life, and I will celebrate our 47th
anniversary. We have three children,
Amy Lozner, Josh Lozner’96 (varsity
basketball) and Stacy Lozner’01,

LAW’04, and seven wonderful grand-
children. I am the youngest member
of our class. I practice full-time, but
enjoy spending time in Naples and
the Berkshires. I have taken great
pride through the years in helping
to train Columbia surgical residents.
I look back at the years we spent at
Columbia with great fondness and
am grateful that my children were
able to share that experience.”

Mike Jackson: “I retired on
June 1 as a commodity broker after
43 years and couldn't be happier.
My nephew, Alex Jackson ’20, is
the eighth member of our family to
attend the College. Roar, Lions ...”

Marty Nussbaum LAW’70:
“Practicing corporate law as an
associate then a partner, currently
at Dechert, still working. Married,
divorced (no children), married (35
years), two children (daughter and
son), both of whom got married this
past year (not to each other ... there
are laws about that). Live in NYC,
having returned to the city from the
suburbs when the nest emptied. Still
on this side of the grass with every
intention of staying a while longer.”

George Danziger: “Passed 70
last October. Married three times:
four years, seven years, 33 years
and counting. I finally got it right.
Attended GSAS for anthropology.
No career actually, rather a careen:
computer consultant, carpenter,
ran a factory, taught grade school,
restored furniture, did statistics
work, ran (and sometimes was) sev-
eral IT departments. In 2011, I beat
better than one in 1,000 lifetime
odds to get AL amyloidosis. A fatal
disease does focus the mind. I’m
still working though, mostly to fund
my flying habit. I have a 70-year-
old Aeronca 7DC 85 hp two-seat
tailwheel airplane and fly it 125-plus
hours a year, whenever weather, my
health and its maintenance demands
allow. I live in Northampton, Mass.
All classmates are invited to contact
me if they are under 220 lbs. dressed
and want to see what civilian flying
was like when we were born.”

Phil Greco: “I have been retired
from my 35-year career as a psychia-
trist for three years. My wife and I
live in Philadelphia, near our son,
Eric, and his three children, and we
are enjoying retirement. Our daugh-
ter, Bonnie, is expecting her second
child in April.

Bob Brancale: “I practiced
anesthesia and critical care medicine

for 40 years, initially at Boston's
Beth Israel Hospital and then at
South Shore Hospital, where I was
president of the medical staff. My
wife is an artist, one son is finishing
an internal medicine residency at
UMass and another son is work-
ing at start-ups in San Francisco.
Now happily retired, I am a master
gardener on Cape Cod.”

Roy Vogel: After medical school
at Albert Einstein College of
Medicine, an ophthalmology resi-
dency and two years in the Army, I
practiced ophthalmology 1977-2005
in New Jersey. Retired 11 years and
living with my wife, Christine, in
Charlotte, N.C. Two children, Sean
and John, each married with chil-
dren. My passion is to travel, which
I have done for 47 years.”

Bob Rudy: “I retired from the
County Attorney’s Office in Min-
neapolis in 2008 after 34 years. I was
a supervisor for the last 20 years.
Supervising lawyers is like herd-
ing cats. If it didn’t interfere with
boating and cruises, I tried some
cases and have been a mediator and
arbitrator. My daughter was married
last summer. Life is good out here in
the middle of the country.”

Travis Brown: “I work daily as
a consulting geologist, primarily in
oil and gas. I have kept busy and
productive through the price swings
and don't perceive retirement as an
immediate option. I enjoy good health
and look forward to our 50th reunion,
hoping to reconnect with classmates.”

Adam Kotlewski: “I am happily
retired from my cardiology practice.
My wife, Renee, and I took our entire
family to Poland to visit places I lived
in during my childhood, my parents’
birthplace and the extermination
camps where most of my parents’
families were killed. It was an
emotional experience for all of us.
I’m learning to play the cello, reading,
enjoying life in Southern California
and watching our beautiful 4-year-
old granddaughter grow up.”

Amnon lgra: “Retired and living
in Sacramento, Calif., after a career
in state government. Enjoying lots of
leisure pursuits, travel. In touch with
Billy Hurwitz, Peter Miller and Ron
Lane. I can easily be reached.”

Bernard Rosner: “I am profes-
sor of medicine, a biostatistician at
Harvard Medical School, specializing
in breast cancer modeling, norms
for childhood blood pressure and
ophthalmological applications. My

textbook, Fundamentals of Biostatistics,
has been used by more than 100,000
people during the past 30 years.”

Bruce Donnell: “I am a stage
director in opera. I worked at the
Metropolitan Opera for 34 years. I
have a freelance career and am based
in Santa Fe.”

Tom Blinn earned a doctorate in
statistics from Teachers College and
got involved with computing, even-
tually working for Digital Equip-
ment Corp. (then Compag and then
Hewlett-Packard) until he retired
in 2005. He lives in Amherst, N.H.,
with his wife of 30 years, Susan, and
their three cats.

Gerald Weinstein: “I recently
retired after a long career as a
cardiac surgeon and live in NYC
with my wife of more than 45 years.
I am so grateful for the education I
received at Columbia — it made so
much of my life possible.”

Eric Schwartz GSAS’73: “I
completed a Ph.D. in physics, then
changed fields into neuroscience. I
have been professor of electrical and
computer engineering and professor
of neurobiology and anatomy at Bos-
ton University since 1992. I have been
married to Helen Eckstein BC’67,
GSAS’'76 for close to 50 wonderful
years. Our daughter, Anna, is working
toward a Ph.D. at City University. We
live in Brookline, Mass.”

George Farkas: “Upon gradua-
tion I married my college girlfriend,
Laura Feldman BC’67, to whom
I was married for eight years. I
earned a Ph.D. in sociology from
Cornell and was hired by Yale in
1972. I married a colleague, Linda
Perry. We were married for 32 years,
until she passed away from cancer
in 2008. After Yale, I taught at the
University of Texas at Dallas and
at Penn State. For the last 30 years
I have done quantitative studies of
educational inequality and how it
can be reduced. Since 2008, I have
been professor of education at UC
Irvine. In 2010, I married Judy
Kaufman. My son, David, is 30. In
1990, I created a tutoring program,
which helped spawn President
Clinton’s America Reads initiative.
I have published four books and
numerous research articles. But per-
haps my greatest accomplishment,
and certainly greatest adventure, is
having been married to women from
Barnard, Radcliffe and Brown.”

Steve Salant: “I began my career
as an economist at the Federal

alumninews

Reserve Board in 1973, joined the
Rand Corp. in 1980 (where I co-
edited The Rand Journal of Econom-
ics), migrated to the University of
Michigan in 1986 as a full professor
and retired in June 2015. Since then,
I have divided my time between
Washington, D.C., (where I am a
research professor at the University of
Maryland), Michigan and California.

“Aside from building microeco-
nomic models to explain observed
behavior, I have puzzled over what
transpired in the ‘spy case’ of Alger
Hiss, a project that I began in high
school. I have documented that
Hiss’ legal team was penetrated
by an undercover special agent of
the Army’s Counter Intelligence
Corps a month before Hiss’ accuser
reversed his sworn testimony (and
decade-long insistence) that Hiss
had committed no espionage.

“In 1980, I married Katherine
Blair, a Harvard-trained architect
recently back from several years in
Nepal on a Fulbright and later a
columnist for The Washington Post.
Katherine was the sister-in-law of
Dick Goldensohn, one of my closest
friends at Columbia. We have three
daughters, Daisy (31), Claire (27) and
Shelley (27). I had no idea how much
I would enjoy being a dad.”

Out of space, unfortunately.
Please look for more news from
Steve Rice, Arthur Rhine and
Mark Steinhoff in the Summer
issue. Steve is scheduled to receive
a lifetime achievement award from
the American College of Sports
Medicine in June.

I hope to see you at our 50th
reunion, Thursday, June 1-Sunday,
June 4! Go to college.columbia.edu/
alumni/reunion2017.

1968

Arthur Spector

One Lincoln Plaza, Apt. 25K
New York, NY 10023
arthurbspector@gmail.com

I received some wonderful notes for
this issue. Jim Pharris, part of the
large Idaho contingent in our class,
wrote in. He describes this column
as “chatty.” 1 thought the column
would be described as cerebral,
entertaining and prescient in many
ways. | am somewhat embarrassed
that I visited Olympia, Wash., for
public finance efforts and didn’t real-

ize I could have walked down the
hall and seen Jim.

Jim, we expect to see you at
the reunion!

Jim writes: “I was disappointed to
find none of your usual chatty Class
Notes in the Winter 2016-17 issue,
so I decided to stir myself and report
on a half-century’s events in my life.

“Columbia is still a vivid memory
decades later — the long train rides
(when trains ran and before airlines
offered student fares) from Idaho
to New York and back, the variety
and depth of classroom experi-
ences, good friendships, exploring
New York and, of course, Spring
1968, with two months of chaos
punctuated by the assassinations of
Dr. King and Sen. Kennedy. There
isn't much of a Columbia diaspora
here in Olympia — I know only two
or three other graduates living here
— but it’s nice on occasion to find
someone to exchange memories of
CC and Humanities, or dorm life or
student hangouts near the campus.

“From Columbia I moved to
law school at Harvard and then, in
1973, I accepted a job offer from the
Washington State Attorney General,
where I worked happily for 39 years.
I served four Attorneys General
— principled and high-minded
public servants of both genders
and both parties — and ended up
in the Solicitor General’s office as
part of a team that handles many
appeals, particularly those involving
state or federal constitutional issues.
I traveled to the United States
Supreme Court once (the attorney
general himself did the argument,
but I was only a few feet away),
successfully defending Washington's
‘top two’ primary. I also appeared in
other appellate courts many times
and wrote some 50 formal attorney
general opinions.

“T retired in 2012 and haven't
practiced law since, though I
wouldn't rule out dabbling in it
again if the opportunity arose. I
rekindled my passion for music and
am a church organist, as well as
reading and listening to classi-
cal music of almost every era (but
especially German baroque). I am
an amateur genealogist and, lately,

a kind of professional grandfather.
I have been married to Rebecca
Anderson Pharris since 1975 (she
is a preschool teacher and has
undoubtedly done more good for
humanity than I did in my entire

Spring 2017 CCT 61

Class Notes

legal career). We raised two sons
and a daughter. I couldn't persuade
any of them to apply to Columbia,
but they all had fine educations and
all have advanced degrees. My two
older children both live within a
mile of our home and each have two
children, all of whom frequent our
house and occupy center stage in
our lives. My youngest is working on
his dissertation at the University of
Minnesota and hopes to become a
sociology professor. We travel some
(Europe two or three times, Hawaii
recently) but enjoy staying at home
and exchanging horrified reactions
to the advent of President Trump
(Olympia is one of the ‘bluest’ cities
in one of the ‘bluest’ states).

“Greetings to the rest of the Class
of 1968 and best wishes. I may yet
make it to a reunion!”

Jim — I think a Bach organ recital
would be a good idea for reunion.

I heard from David Heim, who is
clearly engaged with an art form and
still editing and writing as I would
expect (and with two books on their
way). David writes: “Yes, it’s been a
while. But I finally have something
worth sharing with classmates. I
live with my wife, Kate, and son,
Theodore, in the peaceful little town
of Oxford, Conn. In late 2016, I was
elected to the board of directors of
the American Association of Wood-
turners, the preeminent organization
of its kind in the world. In addition
to oversight of its publications
— chiefly American Woodturner,

a bimonthly magazine — I'll be
leading the organization's work in
expanding to Central and South
America. (Thank heaven for Google
Translate, as I don’t speak Spanish.)
I also have two books due to be
published by Spring House Press,

a small shop run by two alumni

of Fine Woodworking magazine.

‘The first is a book of woodturning

patterns — everything from salad
bowls and Christmas ornaments to
baseball bats and chopsticks. The
second, due out in early 2018, is
Success With SketchUp for Woodwork-
ers, a primer on using a very cool 3D
design program.”

Spectator has produced an array
of talent. I did a little reading about
woodturning; it’s a fascinating topic.
I look forward to reading the books.

From Chris Friedrichs: “It is
high time to send you an update. I
am sad to report that I am now a

widower. My wife, Rhoda Friedrichs

62 CCT Spring 2017

BC’67, GSAS’74, died of cancer in
summer 2014. In some ways, Rhoda
was even more of a Columbian than
I was. She did her B.A. at Barnard
and then crossed the street to do
her master’s and Ph.D. in medieval
history. She was a fine historian of
late medieval England and a beloved
instructor at Douglas College in
New Westminster, B.C., where she
taught for 25 years. Her death was

a terribly sad loss for me after 44
years of marriage, as it was for our
children, grandchildren and Rhoda’s
huge circle of friends.

“But I am adjusting, as one
must, to this new phase of my
life. I am still at the University of
British Columbia, but I now teach
part-time and I expect to fully retire
in 2018. My three kids and three
grandkids all live in New York (all of
them in Brooklyn, in fact), but I get
there two or three times a year and
they often visit me in Vancouver, so
our family remains very close.

“T have been traveling a lot. In
February 2016 I was in India for two
weeks — my fourth trip there — to
visit friends and to lecture in Delhi
and Pondicherry. During the sum-
mer I was in Europe again. My trip
this time included a great visit with
Charles Jarowski and his wife,
Joan, at their home in Provence.
Charlie retired after a long career
as an oncologist in New York and
he and Joan are now enjoying life
in southern France. Together with
them I visited our almost-classmate
Michael Agelasto ’69, who spends
part of every year in Sanary-sur-
Mer on the Mediterranean coast. If
more of my Columbia friends would
kindly move to Provence, I would
have even more people to visit on
future trips to France!

“My trips to New York rarely
seem to coincide with Columbia
events but I very much hope to get
to Columbia for our 50th reunion. It
would be great to see classmates.”

Paul de Bary; his wife, Stefa;
Bob Costa’67; and his wife, Joan;
and Hilal and I had a meal at Le
Monde (the food there is very good)
before the Columbia-Cornell game.
‘The Lions were upset, but the team
is full of talent, so we shall see how
the season progresses. We did beat
Cornell in Ithaca! Paul and Stefa
recently spent time in Hollywood,
Fla., and I went to Miami Beach to
my new home recently. I was look-
ing forward to the palm trees and

the ocean, though I do hope to get
to the country on occasion and back
New York City once in a while, too.

I recently spoke to John Roy and
Greg Winn of the mighty Naples,
Fla., triumvirate of them along with
Neil Anderson. Neil apparently has
a prodigy off to the SEC (I hope I
have that right); John is still teach-
ing, it seems; and Greg (in addition
to completing a book shortly) is on
the golf course, preparing to achieve
greatness for his age group.

By the way, congratulations are
in order — Frank Dann was mar-
ried recently.

Congratulations, Frank! One
should always end on good news.

I hope to hear more from you all.
I have been a bit lax in relentlessly
pursuing updates; I will try harder.

I hope all is well with you and you
are in good health. Hard to believe
it’s 2017 and not that far away from
2018 ... 1968 was a long time ago
(that was quite a year). Let me know
if you are going to be in Miami this
year. I have discovered there is a
Columbia alumni crowd there. Ira
McCown has been living there for
quite a while.

I recommend attending Home-
coming 2017. The football program
is on the upswing and beating
Dartmouth at Homecoming 2016
was a leading indicator.

1969

Michael Oberman

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
1177 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
moberman@kramerlevin.com

Every two years, I’ve been lucky
to have a dependable recurring
news item. On November 8, Jerry
Nadler was reelected to Congress,
representing New York’s 10th
Congressional District. Jerry entered
Congress in 1992 and has now been
elected to his 13th full term.
Reading newspapers delivered
an item on Paul Auster — actually,
several items, as Paul’s latest book,
4 3 2 1, was covered by The New
York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
The New Yorker and Esquire, among
other publications, including CCT.
[Editor’s Note: See Bookshelf,
Winter 2016-17. |
Quite a few classmates responded
to my January email calling for news

or recollections of our College years,
most appear here, but some are
being held for the next issue.

From Henry Jackson: “I
particularly recall Professor Howard
Davis’ art history courses. Years after
graduation, I had the opportunity
to go to Bruges, Belgium, and see
many of the Jan van Eyck paintings
to which he had introduced me. It
was a most gratifying experience.”

From Lee Pearcy: “A George-
town senior recently interviewed me
about Columbia in 1968 for a class
project for a course on the 1960s, and
I found it a real challenge to convey
to her how different the texture of
life was in our college years. (It looks
as though her generation may see
something like the same political
churn and turmoil that we did.)
Otherwise, not much news: I’ve just
come off a term as interim president
of the Classical Association of the
Atlantic States, I edit the journal
Classical World and ’'m working on a
book on the Aeneid. All this happens
from my post-retirement academic
home at Bryn Mawr College. I’m
also studying painting and drawing
at the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts and watching my grand-
children grow.”

From Michael Jacoby Brown:
“My freshman year I had “Mr.
Roosevelt’ for CC, who turned out
to be FDR III (Franklin Delano
Roosevelt II] SIPA’64, GSAS’68)!
He was wonderful enough to invite
us to his apartment on Riverside
Drive, where I was amazed to see
photos of him sitting on Eleanor
Roosevelt’s knee.

“That year I was fortunate to be
in Kenneth Koch’s (of blessed mem-
ory) creative writing class. What a
great teacher! When I was arrested
for over-staying my welcome in my
American History lounge in 1968,
I recall how the NYPD beat up the
young black teens first and most
violently, before laying into to us
privileged white students. I wonder
how much has changed?

“Now, I co-lead with Ron Bell, a
black colleague, community organiz-
ing workshops (called ‘Building
Powerful Community Organizations:
Power, Relationships and Race’) at
Stonehill College in Easton, Mass.

I will also lead a workshop series,
‘Facing Race,’ using the Visions Inc.
curriculum at my temple. My 70th
birthday dance and music party (to
be held on June 3, 7-11 p.m. at First

57, BUS'58

COURTESY WILL CSAPLAR

Church in Jamaica Plain, Mass.),
will be a fundraiser for the Union of
Minority Neighborhoods. If anyone
is retired and interested in an ‘encore’
career, you might want to contact my
daughter, Corita Brown, who works
for encore.org.”

I was also in FDR III’s section
during Spring 1966 and always
was amused to look at him and his
grandfather's image on a dime at the
same time.

From David Sokal: “Contem-
porary Civilization made me realize
that most of our ideas have deep
roots, and what I learned in CC still
influences my thinking. A couple of
books that I’ve read over the last few
years would make a great addition,
and I like the following quote from
Howard Aiken: ‘Don’t worry about
people stealing your ideas. If your
ideas are any good, you'll have to ram
them down people’s throats.’ The two
books I mentioned are The Righteous
Mind: Why Good People Are Divided
by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan
Haidt, and Decisive: How to Make
Better Choices in Life and Work, by
Chip Heath and Dan Heath.”

From his family’s holiday message,
T learned that David and his Male
Contraception Initiative colleagues
had their first in-person board
meeting in Dallas in October and
that David was interviewed by NPR.
MCI recently received serious fund-
ing from an anonymous donor. “Next
year looks to be exciting,” he writes.

Columbia University, NV. Y. City

8 eek
wf le

From Bruce Gillers: “There are
two recent events for our family.
‘The primary joy was that we had
a sixth grandchild, Zeva Florence,
born in December to our youngest
son, Joseph. In mid-December I was
awarded the Distinguished Service
Award at the semi-annual meeting
of the Board of Trustees and medi-
cal staff of the Massachusetts Eye
and Ear Infirmary, which provides
ophthalmic and ENT care for the
Massachusetts General Hospital.”

John Gaguine, a retired lawyer
from Juneau, Alaska, “went from
having no grandchildren at 64 to
having four at 68. His son and his
son’s wife live in Portland, Ore., and
they have a son (4) and a daughter
(1.5). His daughter and her husband
live in Juneau, Alaska, and have a
daughter (3) and a son (nearly 1).”

From Steve Ditlea: “I have some
news: This lifelong New Yorker (grew
up literally across the street from
Furnald, then always lived close by the
Hudson River, from Manhattan to
Tarrytown) is now a resident of Phila-
delphia. My wife of 24 years, Nancy
Stedman, and I were fortunate to find
a charming 1862 house in the historic
Chestnut Hill neighborhood. We
decided to relocate to a less expensive
part of the world (cost of living is
about a third less than in the Empire
State) as we wind down our careers in
journalism into semi-retirement. We
both cover health topics these days;
our most recent stories for separate

alumninews

publications have been about staving
off the threat of Alzheimer’s disease.

We chose Philly because Nancy still
has family here and I learned to savor
the area when I went with her to see
her father, Murray Stedman GSAS’47
(now deceased). He taught CC at
Columbia soon after WWII and I
always thought I gained his approval
because I was ‘a Columbia man.’

“T highly recommend Philadel-
phia to anyone thinking of moving
into retirement. Aside from first-rate
housing and medical facilities for
an aging population, “The City of
Brotherly Love — and Sisterly
Affection (as it is known these days)
boasts affordable world-class restau-
rants and bars, welcoming cultural
venues and a thriving music scene.
What surprised me most was the
friendliness and sense of community
here. Total strangers say hello to you
on the street. Maybe someday I'll
get to say hello to a classmate here.”

From Bill Bonvillian: “I stepped
down at the end of January as direc-
tor of MIT’s Washington Office after
11 years. But I’m not really retiring. I
will be teaching a course at MIT on
innovation policy, finishing my book
on advanced manufacturing (due out
this fall) and will be affiliated with an
MIT policy center.”

From Jesse Goldner: “Last
June I became the John D. Valentine
Professor of Law, Emeritus, retiring
from active teaching after 43 years
at Saint Louis University’s School of

Law (with secondary appointments
in the departments of psychiatry
and pediatrics at the university’s
School of Medicine and School of
Public Health, and the university’s
Center for Health Care Ethics). The
second edition of my book Exhics and
Regulation of Research with Human
Sudyects (co-authored with three
lawyer-bioethicists) was published in
July 2015. I was fortunate in having
had a career that allowed me both
to teach in a wide range of legal
areas and to live abroad for extended
periods of time as a visiting professor
(in Warsaw, Coventry, Madrid and
Berlin). My wife, Judy Cromwell,
and I recently returned from a trip
to Cuba through the ‘Road Scholar’
program, which I highly recommend.
We spend a fair amount of time in
Chicago, where both of our children
and our three grandchildren reside. If
any Chicago-based classmates would
like to get together, let me know.”
From Donald Schenk: “Three
years ago my wife, Deborah, and I
moved from Brooklyn to Bainbridge
Island, Wash., to be close to our
children and grandchildren, who live
in Seattle. We would never have left
New York if it had not been for the
grandkids, but with the benefit of
hindsight it was a great move. When
we are not hiking, biking, kayaking,
babysitting or taking care of the oys-
ters that I grow in front of our house
in the Puget Sound, I focus on
using aviation to inspire teenagers.
This project started in South Africa
(wondersofaviation-southafrica.org),
but has expanded to include teenag-
ers in Kitsap County, Wash. The
kids are wonderful and it keeps me
involved in aviation. Philanthropy is
a big part of our life on Bainbridge.
“Our lives are clearly focused on
the West Coast, but we still spend
most of the summer at our family
farm in Pennsylvania and several
weeks avoiding Seattle’s winter by
traveling in the southern hemisphere.
Deborah edits the NYU Tax Law
Review and has board work that
brings us back to Washington, D.C.,
and New York several times a year.”
From Jonathan Adelman
GSAS’76: “I have been elected
president of Scholars for Peace in
the Middle East. This organization
consists of American and European
faculty who want to fight BDS
(Boycott, Divestment and Sanc-
tions) of Israel. I also am an affili-
ated professor at the University of

Spring 2017 CCT 63

Haifa. I continue to be on the road,
giving talks on Israel. In December,
I gave talks for The American Israel
Public Affairs Committee in San
Antonio and in Fort Lauderdale.
Since the second intifada began
more than 15 years ago, I have gone
on more than 400 speaking tours

in the United States and abroad. I
recently was in Washington, D.C.,
speaking on a panel of AEP! frater-
nity as an honorary ‘bro.’

“My son, David, who speaks
fluent Mandarin, works for a major
Chinese venture capital firm in
Shanghai. David will, in the coming
months, lead groups of Chinese
investors on trips to Texas and Israel
in search of companies they can buy.
I also am working on my 13th book,
a co-edited volume on Russian-
German relations.”

From Peter Behr: “We just had
our third grandchild, great news for
us — another little girl. 1 am semi-
retired, working two days a week.
But I am busy with a reserve forces
unit, men’s groups and a bit of work
for hospice and a gerontology group.
Our house on the beach has recently
provided us a view of humpback
whales. Turning 70 this year, dang!

I am featured in a new movie about
hippies those many years ago:
prfilmfestival.ca/films.”

From Neal Handel: “You
are correct that ‘there are many
classmates who have retired from a
job ...’ and ‘there are undoubtedly
grandchildren who have been born
to classmates.’ [ don’t fall into either
of those categories. I am working as
hard as ever as a plastic surgeon (and
after 38 years in practice, I am finally
beginning to ‘get the hang of it’). As
far as grandchildren go — not yet.
But I am pleased to report that I’m
the proud father of a 9-month-old
son, Liam Takeo Handel. He is my
fourth child (the others are 10, 11
and 12). My wife and I recently took
Liam to Hawaii, where all his rela-
tives on his mom's side live.”

From David Bradley: “I have
recently retired from being professor
of linguistics at La Trobe University
in Australia, and become president
of the UNESCO Comité Interna-
tional Permanent des Linguistes,
which, among other things, orga-
nizes the International Congress of
Linguists, with the next congress
scheduled for July 2018 in Cape
Town. CIPL and I are also closely

involved in work on documenting

64 CCT Spring 2017

and preserving the world’s many
endangered languages.”

From Patrick Mullane: “The
two professors who had an enduring
impact on my personal life were Joel
Newman LS’42, GSAS’62, who
taught an amazing course in Ameri-
can music, and Melvin Schwartz’53,

GSAS’58, who taught an equally

amazing introductory physics course.

My daughter, who is a college fresh-
man, is probably tired of hearing me
talk about these incredible teachers,
but they remain my fondest memo-
ries of classes at Columbia.”

1970

Leo G. Kailas

Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt
885 Third Ave., 20th FI.
New York, NY 10022
Ikailas@reitlerlaw.com

Carl Hyndman GSAS’74, who had
not communicated for quite a while,
sent two reports, including news

of a recent book. He writes: “My
wife, Leigh, and I retired to a horse
ranch in Ojai, Calif. The pace is slow
but we keep up via the Internet.

You haven't really experienced life
until you can say that you mucked
10 horses before 7 a.m. My career
included 35 years in domestic and
international finance, including
overseas assignments with Citibank
and domestic assignments with
Wells Fargo and the Federal Reserve
Bank. I consult part time and will
continue until I can no longer make
the drive to Los Angeles. We would
love to hear from classmates. Please
reach out at atchyndman@aol.com.

“T have published my first novel.
Bookstore on the Seine is available
on Amazon and Kindle. The book
includes a nostalgic look at the
1968 Columbia student revolt and a
night in the Tombs jail; Woodstock
and the origins of Sha Na Na (ie.,
the Kingsmen) and many refer-
ences to Greenwich Village and
the Columbia campus. All in all, it
should bring back fond memories
to all who survived the ’60s. For
those who are really interested, visit
bookstoreontheseine.com, where you
can find a soundtrack that goes with
the mystery novel.”

David Lehman GSAS’78 wrote a
thought-provoking essay on Robert
Frost’s most famous poem, The Road
Not Taken; the essay appeared in The

Sha Na Na rocked out at Reunion Weekend 2016; George Leonard ’67
shared this screenshot and suggests you relive the moment by searching
“Sha Na Na at Columbia” on YouTube. Kneeling: Leonard; second row, left
to right: Rob Leonard ’70, Al Cooper ’71, Joe Witkin ’70, Donny York °71;
third row, left to right: Elliot Cahn ’70, Jocko Marcellino ’72, Rich Joffe °72;
and fourth row, left to right: Henry Gross, David Garrett SEAS’70, Bruce
Clarke ’74 and Scott Powell ’70.

Wall Street Journal on October 14.
David notes, “Generations of com-
mencement speakers have quoted
[the poem] because of its perceived
message. Avoid the common route.
Go your own way. Be a maverick, a
nonconformist in the great American
tradition of Emerson and Thoreau.”

And yet David believes that the
poem is also about the inevitabil-
ity of regret: “You cannot ‘be one
traveler’ and take both paths. At any
crossroads you must choose, and
though you may keep alive the hope
you ll return someday, you know
deep down you will never get a
second chance. ‘I doubted if I should
ever come back.”

David then focuses on the proud
boast in the last stanza, which begins
with, “I shall be telling this with a
sigh” and ends with a declaration of
independence, “I took the one less
traveled by/And that has made all
the difference.” David concludes,
“(the] declaration may be a case of a
proud man praising his own past.”

I thoroughly enjoyed the essay.

Peter Schubert GSAS’88 and |
wistfully recalled recently departed
Columbia College music professor
Howard Shanet’39, GSAS’41 as
I congratulated Peter on receiv-
ing McGill University’s Lifetime
Achievement Award for Leadership
in Learning. The award given to
Peter recognizes “sustained excel-
lence in leadership and innovation,
as well as the active integration of

teaching and learning with inquiry,
scholarship and research.” Among
Peter’s pioneering innovations was
“the use of videos as a tool for teach-
ing” and, in one instance, he made a
video on how to improvise canons in
the Renaissance style.

‘The tribute to Peter ends with this
accolade: “Peter Schubert is always
engaged with people, continuously
finding new ways to understand, per-
form, compose, talk, write and think
about what he loves: Music.”

1971

Jim Shaw

139 North 22nd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
jes200@columbia.edu

Disappointed not to see your
classmates here? They are disap-
pointed not to see you! If you don't
write in, I write the column for you.
Here goes:

A 15-year-old today was born
about the same time 9-11 happened.
A 15-year-old when the Cubs last
won the World Series (1908) before
ending their 108-year drought was 68,
our age or thereabouts, when Roger
Maris broke Babe Ruth’s home-run
record in 1961. You remember Maris?
How does that 15-year-old today
perceive us? How do we perceive that
person’s perception of what is real life
and what is history?

On the other hand, when I go
grocery shopping, I hear the rock
and pop music of my junior high
and high school days — and in the
original versions, not elevator music.
(The customer cohort is millennials.)

So is time expanded or compressed?

Know the names of the tall police
officer and the short squat cab driver
in It's A Wonderful Life who save
George Bailey (played by Jimmy
Stewart)? Respectively, Bert and
Ernie. So generations may be more
connected than you think.

I’m sure that you can write a
better item than my off-the-cuff
note. Now prove it. Even better, you
probably have news about yourself,
your family or your classmates. Or
share your best Columbia story.
Send them my way at jes200@
columbia.edu.

‘That brings me to my trademark
sign-off: Remember back 50 (50/)
Septembers ago and the feelings we
had, including of adventure, as we
entered Columbia College. We are

still connected.

1972

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu

212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Paul S. Appelbaum

39 Claremont Ave., #24
New York, NY 10027
pappel1@aol.com

As a group, we 72ers are clearly
entering a transitional period. Many
classmates are moving into retirement,
planning to do those things they never
had time for, while others are thinking
about the final stage of our careers and
what's still left to accomplish. Along
those lines, Bill Hudgins retired in
March 2016 after a 23-year career

as an editor and writer at Hammock
Publishing in Nashville. While at
Hammock, he wrote for and edited
magazines and other media for a
variety of clients, including a trucker-
oriented magazine for TravelCenters
of America, the former investment
firm of J.C. Bradford & Co., First
Data Corp., the Daughters of the

American Revolution (DAR) and the
Marine Corps League.

Bill notes he is neither a trucker
nor a Marine, but is a fast study. See
this piece he did for CCT: college.
columbia.edu/cct_archive/nov01/
novO1_feature_aboardarc. html.

Bill contributes articles and
book reviews to the DAR magazine
American Spirit, but is enjoying the
freedom to study Spanish (which
led to a three-week sojourn in Cuba
in mid-2016) and to work on the
20-acre hobby farm where he and
his wife, Wilda Dodson, have lived
since 2002. For nine years, they have
partnered with a local equine rescue
group that uses the farm to rehabili-
tate equines rescued from abusive
and neglectful owners.

Richard Macksoud was interested
in the Fall 2016 Class Notes column,
in which I described the magical Sha
Na Na concert at Reunion 2016.
“Wish I had been there to see Sha Na
Na. I remember well their first per-
formance in old Ferris Booth. People
dancing on the tables and having the
time of our lives. Oh well, I get to
keep that memory.”

Richard has a question for Beres-
ford Hayward, whose multicultural
music programs in Paris were also
described in that column: “I noted
that in the discussion of Berry Hay-
ward you mentioned he presented a
program on American music. Perhaps
you can ask him what is ‘American
music?’ Is it the blues or bluegrass?
Or jazz? Or country? Or gospel?

Or all of them? I do not know. His
opinion would be interesting as he
has lived overseas for so long.

“All the best from, of all places,
Mississippi.”

‘This will be the last column
published before our 45th reunion,
‘Thursday, June 1—-Sunday, June
4. You can get more information
at college.columbia.edu/alumni/
reunion2017.

I hope to see many, many of
you there.

1973

Barry Etra

1256 Edmund Park Dr. NE
Atlanta, GA 30306
betra1@bellsouth.net

Y'all will be reading these in 2017
— may this year have started well
for you! Don Jensen has been

alumninews

named editor of Base Ball: A Journal
of the Early Game, succeeding MLB
official historian John Thorn. This
journal will be published yearly;
Don is looking to add new authors,
so write in!

Michael Shapiro has some new
CD releases, one the score to Frank-
enstein and one a sonata for violin
and piano. He recently collaborated
with Paul Shaffer (of Letterman
fame) in performance.

Allen Schill says he lives an
uneventful life, spending most of
his time on his “I hope idiosyn-
cratic still-life photography.” His
website (to see if he lives up to his
self-description) is allenschill.com,
strangely enough. He has, of late,
been associated with a Swiss gallery,

stone reached in the stock market.
Most of us saw the “Dow 20,000”
headlines trumpeted in every
newspaper in January. Some may
have noted that the press reports
often mentioned that the Dow Jones
Industrial Average first broke 1,000
in November 1972. That made me
wonder how tuition increases com-
pared with stock market gains.

Ivy tuition in 1972 was around
$2,600 per year. This year’s Columbia
College tuition is a mere $52,478,
or almost exactly 20 times the 1972
tuition. Thus, the 20-fold increase
in Columbia's tuition was identical
to the 20-fold increase in the stock
market. (That still doesn’t make those
tuition checks any less painful!)

For many years, Kevin Ward (a

Bob Adler 74 enjoys the retired life in Belfast, Maine,

where he is taking a course on the development of

the state of Israel at the University of Maine.

Photographica Fine Art. Scuttlebutt
is that he will have an exhibition
there this year.

Lastly, a query: Steven Starr
took a course in 1971 at Barnard
called “England Under the Tudors
and Stuarts.” He lost the syllabus in
a flood — if anyone knows where
another copy might be, he would be
most appreciative.

Send notes to betral@bellsouth.
net to be included in the Summer or
the Fall issue. Hasta.

1974:

Fred Bremer

532 W. 111th St.

New York, NY 10025
f.bremer@ml.com

It is frequently commented that the
cost of college tuition has gone up
far faster than almost anything else.
However, as we all learned from the
“alternative facts” stated during the
presidential election, even that which
is stated repeatedly is not always true.
What brought this to mind was
not only the Brandeis tuition bill for
my son, David, and the forthcoming
American University tuition for my
daughter, Katie (recently admitted
early decision!), but also the mile-

financial adviser at Merrill Lynch

in Paramus, N.J.) has lived in Glen
Rock, N,J., raising four sons in a large
suburban home. Now that their sons
have moved out, Kevin and his wife,
Maureen, have downsized and moved
to Montvale, N.J. Their youngest

son, Brian, attends Fordham for
undergrad, although he is currently
studying abroad in London at the
Gabelli School of Business. Kevin
tells us that his oldest son, Matthew
11, lives in San Francisco and is
engaged to a Barnard alumna he met
while on campus. About nine months
ago Matt left a position at YouTube
to join a tech startup, Mux. Seems
strange to we geezers that someone
would leave an established tech giant
for a high-risk venture, but then I
recalled Rob Knapp (partner at the
law firm McKenzie & Knapp in
Manhattan) saying a few years back
that his son, Henry, had left a job at
Facebook to join a startup. Inciden-
tally, Rob told me that company was
bought out by Microsoft and Henry
is back pounding the pavement for a
new venture. These kids!

A while back (ca. 2012) Mark
Lebwohl, chairman of the Depart-
ment of Dermatology at Mount
Sinai Hospital) told us that his son,
Andy’04, LAW’07 had just opened

a bar in New Haven, Conn., called

Spring 2017 CCT 65

Read
CCT Online

Karaoke Heroes. Now we learn
Andy has sold the bar and for the
past year has been the chief strategy
officer and general counsel for a
restructuring company. Not a lot

of details yet, but it sure smells like
another startup.

The retired life in Belfast, Maine,
seems to agree with Bob Adler.
Having left a lot of work and other
responsibilities behind in Montclair,
N.J., Bob says he is able to enjoy
the many cultural events in this
small artistic community. He is also
attending a class on the develop-
ment of the state of Israel at a
“senior college” on the local campus
of the University of Maine. Last
January, Bob took a two-week trip to
Israel to join his son Jake. Together
they will research the Jewish Brigade
of the British Army and the then
secret underground Haganah (a
Jewish paramilitary organization,
which became the core of the Israeli
Defense Forces). Bob’s father served
in both. Jake is only a year from
receiving his ordination as a rabbi.
Bob’s daughter started a master’s
program in occupational therapy
at Temple University last summer.
Looks like 2018 could be a big year
for graduations in the Adler family!

We have learned that Jon Cuneo’s
law firm, Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca,
has consolidated two of its main
offices (downtown Washington, D.C.,
and Baltimore) into a new principal
office in another part of D.C. (near
American University). The 20-person
firm maintains satellite offices in
Boulder, St. Louis and Brooklyn.

Word came from Mike Slater, in
the Midwest, who was a colleague in

CCT

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66 CCT Spring 2017

the Columbia Bartending Agency,
the student-run business that pro-
vided bartenders for private parties
all over Manhattan. After regaling
with a few choice (unrepeatable)
memories, Mike wrote, “Someday I'd
love to see a collection of anecdotes
from my fellow bartenders. I think
after 40 years we are released from
our oath of secrecy!”

Something tells me that Steve
Dworkin, at Citigroup in Los Ange-
les, might have a lot to contribute!
Mike is a social and behavioral
professor at the School of Commu-
nication at The Ohio State University
in Columbus. He tells us he has a
daughter in Los Angeles and a son in
Shanghai, who works for SAP China.

Chris Hansen (retired in
London) wrote in to recommend
classmates join him in helping the
Alumni Representative Committee
to interview applicants to the College
(and Engineering). Go to undergrad.
admissions.columbia.edu/are for
more information. “You'll be helping
to choose the next generation of
Columbia College and Engineering
students.” Chris says he does some
interviews via Skype when geography
is challenging, so you can contribute
no matter where you live.

A quick note to make sure you
saw the feature in the Winter 2016—
17 issue of CCT featuring photos by
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. As
noted in previous columns, Timothy
is a highly acclaimed portrait photog-
rapher and videographer who has
produced a series of photographic
exhibitions and PBS specials that
highlight various segments of society
(blacks, Latinos, women, and the gay
and the transgender populations).
Last September, a composite exhibit
of 151 of his portraits opened at the
Annenberg Space for Photography in
Los Angeles.

What caught my eye was part
of the preamble that revealed how
Timothy had a very different fresh-
man year than most of us. When
he came to New York he contacted
a family friend — an actress who
happened to travel in the flamboy-
ant NYC underground scene of the
early 1970s. On their first excursion
she took him to a party at the Chel-
sea Hotel, and he met Andy Warhol,
Lou Reed and others. Timothy is
quoted, “I quickly shifted my morn-
ing classes to the afternoon.”

There you have it. Our kids
ditching dream tech jobs for start-

ups. Classmates downsizing their
homes and exploring new interests
as they contemplate the next phase
of life. Take a moment to send in
what you are up to and what dreams
you still harbor!

1975

Randy Nichols

734 S. Linwood Ave.

Baltimore, MD 21224
rcn2day@gmail.com

It’s not often that I receive an
email that can fill an entire set of
Class Notes, but here is one, from
Charlie Lindsay.

‘Thanks, Charlie!

“Having received a recent issue of
CCT, along with its celebration of the
newly installed Class of 2020, I was
thrown into depression at the mere
mention of a date (2020) that should
still be part of science fiction, in my
mind. Where has the time gone?

“Ira Malin and I share the
equally amazing experience that the
last of our children will graduate
from Columbia College this year,
although my wife, Fern Lindsay
BUS’82, and I will contribute for
one more year for our other daugh-
ter’s Law School bills. Empty Nest
Syndrome all around.

“Tm in touch with old friends.

I spoke with David Stein while
visiting friends in Washington, D.C.
David still has the best business card
in the world (Office of the Secretary
of Defense, Senior Policy Advisor:
Nuclear and Missile Defense) — if
that doesn’t start a conversation,
nothing will.

“T suffered through the
Columbia-Princeton football game
with Joe Seldner’74 and his far-too-
lovely-for-him girlfriend, topped off
by a late lunch at V&T.

“T regularly see and speak to now
long-suffering brother-in-law, Ste-
ven Solmonson’76. Steve is married
to my wife’s sister, the former Leslie
Morgan BC’77. Leslie and Fern’s
father, David Morgan, was a gradu-
ate of Engineering, then called the
School of Mines, in the 1940s.

“Once all the tuition bills are
finished, I will move away from the
advising and financing of new tech-
nology and media companies and
will spend more time on my hobby
that has turned into a full-time job,
producing movies. My latest, Sexual

Healing: The Marvin Gaye Story, will
be released this year. I’m also doing
a series of seven 45-minute IMAX
3D documentaries to be shown in
destination theaters located at some
of the most iconic tourist locations in
the world (the Taj Mahal, the Great
Wall, Angkor Wat, etc.) starting this
year. Should be very exciting.
“Anyone who finds themselves in
the Palm Beach, Fla., area is welcome
to drop me a line and come by for a
cocktail, in the welcoming tradition
of the 1754 H.C. Earwicker Heeltap

Reunion. Roar, Lion, Roar!”

1976

Ken Howitt

1114 Hudson St., Apt. 8
Hoboken, N.J. 07030
kenhowitt76@gmail.com

No column this issue, but one will
be coming in the Summer issue! I
hope you are all well. Please send

news to kenhowitt76@gmail.com.

1977

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

David Gorman

111 Regal Dr.
DeKalb, IL 60115
dgorman@niu.edu

See you at Reunion 2017, Thursday,
June 1—-Sunday, June 4! We are on
track for a very satisfying 40th. For
general information and registration
info, go to college.columbia.edu/
alumni/reunion2017.

As of this writing (in February),
I see that 16 of us pledged to attend,
most recently John Santamaria, who
speaks for the rest when he writes, “I
do hope to be at the reunion — look-
ing forward to seeing everyone.”

Along with the on-campus
activities that are open to all alumni,
the Class of 1977 is planning a get-
together with the Barnard Class of
1977 as well a panel of classmates to
speak at our Saturday dinner.

We also have a class mystery
afoot! A non-alumnus reached out
to the Columbia Alumni Center
because he found a’77 class ring in
the Appleton, Wis., region. If you
lost your ring in Wisconsin, please
contact CCT at cct@columbia.edu.

1978

Matthew Nemerson

35 Huntington St.

New Haven, CT 06511
matthewnemerson@gmail.com

Strange things afoot in the nation,
no longer led by a Columbia man,
but a fine time to contemplate
democracy, liberalism and the role
of man and government. Good
news on the basketball court as the
Lions seem to have returned to
form, reminiscent of the 1970s and
Coach Tom Penders’ teams of Mike
Wilhite and the like.

For this column, I asked you
to remember the January 1977
presidential inauguration when we
were all on campus — that of Jimmy
Carter, who had beaten Gerald Ford
in a strange election that hinged on
support for an evangelical Southerner
(who was a Democrat), the Ford
“Poland” gaffe and his Nixon pardon.
Seems like a long time ago in a dif-
ferent land, perhaps. I also wanted to
know your favorite vacation spot and,
of course, any thoughts about the first
100 days of the New Yorker in the
White House.

My good friend and fellow Con-
necticut man John Flores LAW’81
notes that there “is nothing much
new with me. | am approaching my
fifth anniversary as general counsel
for Boston Mutual Life Insurance Co.
Since my wife, Lucille, and I turned
60 around the holidays, we decided
to take the girls (plus husband and
fiancé) on a trip to Disney World/
Universal Studios on my nickel. In
this way they would not have to go
through the stress of throwing a sur-
prise party for us. We had a great time.

“T guess I was working as usual in
Ferris Booth Hall during the inaugu-
ration but I don't really remember ...’

Another Connecticut alum is
Alex Demac, who writes, “I have
been developing a tour of the Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art based on
its architectural collection history.”

Alec’s favorite place to vacation

is New York City, no surprise, and

he is very worried about the new
administration.

Also thinking about museums is
Peter Samis, the associate curator
of interpretation at the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art. “We held
a book launch event this winter, (it’s
about creating the visitor-centered
museum) at the Oakland Museum
of California, co-sponsored by the
John F. Kennedy University Museum
Studies Program. Looks like there will
be another event at the closing plenary
of the annual Museums and the Web
conference in Cleveland. You can get
more information at amazon.com/
Creating-V isitor-centered-Museum-
Peter-Samis/dp/1629581917.

Ronald Koury, managing editor
of The Hudson Review, writes: “I
have edited an anthology, Literary
Awakenings: Personal Essays from
the Hudson Review, which was pub-
lished in January. It is a collection
of memoirs that function as literary
criticism, from a period of more
than 30 years of the magazine.”

We have not heard from our
sports maven Tom Mariam ina
while, so it was great to learn that
“My wife, Alyce, and I proudly
celebrated the bat mitzvah of our
daughter, Madison, in November.

It was especially nice to share this
milestone with a number of friends
who go back with me to my Colum-
bia days. I do remember watching
the Carter event in John Jay and
then heading out on the road with
the basketball team to Ithaca to
broadcast its game.”

Tom's favorite place to vacation is
Israel — where he will soon be able
to visit ambassador David Friedman
LAW’79— and his favorite spot in
town? Levien Gym, of course!

Speaking of David, Gary Pick-
holz SIPA’81 wrote, “I remember
David fondly; he had a fantastic
sense of humor and a brilliant mind.
My lab at Oxford is starting to take
off and is occupying most of my
time now (weirdsciencelab.com).

“T drafted a few position papers for
the Trump campaign and transition
team, which was certainly a unique
experience, but I will not be joining
the new administration. I was in
Washington, D.C., for the Carter
inauguration, standing next to three of
my Columbia professors, all of whom
would soon be sworn in for the White
House or State department stafts.”

Gary’s favorite vacation location,
not surprisingly is the “Zionist

alumninews

Riviera,” which he claims is “simply
the nicest beaches anywhere in the
Mediterranean, with twice the days
of perfect weather as Céte d’Azur.”

Song man Henry Aronson’s
whole family is busy, as he notes:
“Dates have been announced for
the Rocktopia Live spring tour,
for which I'll be playing piano and
conducting. Not all the dates are
up on rocktopialive.com, but keep
checking. Also, Loveless Texas, the
musical my wife, Cailin Heffernan,
and I have been developing for
about 10 years, will have its premiere
production in NYC this fall, prob-
ably in September. Negotiations are
under way with venues.”

Brian Guillorn LAW’82 remem-
bers spending the inauguration
watching the swearing-in while he
was applying for law school. Brian
has made a change in his world,
reporting, “Four years ago, my wife,
Polly Gregor BC’79, GSAS’86, and
I semi-retired to our weekend place
in the mid-Hudson Valley.

“We live in High Falls, N.Y.,
next door to New Paltz and across
the river from Poughkeepsie. To
my bemusement, we now run a
small, high-end poultry farm, selling
pastured heritage ducks, geese and
chickens. It has been quite an experi-
ence. The Hudson Valley is filled with
an incredible variety of farms grow-
ing and raising superb vegetables,
fruit and livestock. A significant
number of the farms are operated as
second-career farms by transplanted
metro NYC people. Poultry farming
is very much a ‘hands-on’ business,

a far cry from my first career as a
commercial litigator and Polly’s life
in scientific research.”

Another man of law, Ed Fergu-
son of Brooklyn, does not mince
words about the new administration,
joking, “An oft-maligned minority
— shallow, lying braggarts — will
finally have their day in the sun. ’m
looking forward to 2016 receding
in the rearview mirror. Some things
thankfully happen only once — like
turning 60 and watching a complete
jackass become President. It was
definitely not the time to quit drink-
ing, though I did manage to stop
sniffing glue.”

Ed will probably spend time in
Kauai, Hawaii, if the glue doesn't get
him first.

Ironically, given the new class
connection to official United States
policy on Israel, Michael Glanzer

is not happy about our old school’s
handling of various issues that you
might have read about concerning
academics and the Jewish state. “A
year and a half ago, I wrote Dean
James J. Valentini a five-page letter
discussing the experiences my daugh-
ter had in the Department of Middle
Eastern, South Asian, and African
Studies. She had to switch majors to
the economics department.

“Tragically, the University has
now been identified in a report
released by Brandeis University as
one of the most hostile schools for
Jewish students in the United States.
No other Ivy League institution
was on that list, although other less
prestigious schools were. ...

“From tragic to comic, Samantha
Bee’s comedy show recently featured
a photo of Low Library when
discussing academic anti-Semitism.
Although under a most generous
interpretation this development has
escaped the attention of the admin-
istration, I think it more likely that
institutional inertia and defensive-
ness account for the singular lack of
any action. When will this change?”

Chuck Callan was celebrating
his 20th birthday on 6 John Jay dur-
ing the Carter festivities. Chuck is
“looking forward” to an “an increase
of 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit during the
‘Trump term” and is looking forward
even more to our 40th reunion next
year. “I plan to host a party for the
pre-reunion activity (40th) and
have started to discuss this with the
Alumni Office. The one I had for
the 35th was a blast.”

On a somewhat metaphysical tour,
Chuck writes his favorite place to visit
would be to “read the classics again
and be transported on a shield to
Elysian Fields. It’s all about the text!”

Kevin Vitting retreats to “Sani-
bel, Fla., a lovely, affordable island
off Fort Myers without traffic lights
or neon signs — ‘Nantucket on the
Gulf coast” — when he takes time
off from the Suburban Nephrology
Group in Ridgewood, N.J. Kevin's
advice for the President: “I hope he
will streamline the economy in ways
that help the nation at large without
hurting too many people in the
process. I hope he tones down his
rhetoric and turns off his Twitter —
and he needs to learn to listen!”

Joseph Schachner, of Teledyne
LeCroy in New York, is all about
Southern California these days:
“Tm a grandpa! You see, my older

Spring 2017 CCT 67

daughter, now an associate profes-
sor in psychology at UCSD, had

her very own infant development
subject! We'll be going to San Diego
frequently; this is my new favorite
place to visit. But actually I think
slightly north of the city, La Jolla or
some of the other coastal towns, are
really worth recommending.

“I don’t remember the Carter time
well, but I was in the ‘combined plan’
so this was my first year in the Engi-
neering school and I was probably up
in Columbia’s amateur radio station,
W2AEE. As for the President, I
predict that Trump will probably be
impeached before the end of four
years, and then the question is, how
will Mike Pence change the country?”

Lots to think about what Amer-
ica is all about in 2017, and who
better than those of us with classic
“Great Books” training — this is
exactly what we were programmed
to take on. Where was I in January
1977? Sitting at The Gold Rail with
Peter Low, discussing various plans
for the coming semester at WKCR.
I remember he was not happy that I
kept leaving our table to move closer
to the small TV over the Rail’s bar
so I could hear Carter’s speech.
Different times for sure, and while I
was excited about the first Democrat
since I had become a political being,
the technology at the bar was a far
cry from the fancy Ampex decks and
high quality sound we were used to
at our little college radio station.

Hope I saw you at Levien this
winter and perhaps at an early round
game for the NCAA tournament
this March. Who knows? As we saw
in November, anything is possible.

NS,

Robert Klapper

8737 Beverly Blvd., Ste 303
Los Angeles, CA 90048
robertklappermd@aol.com

It has been a busy year for Tom
Kligerman with the release of his
second book, The New Shingled House,
co-authored with his two partners at
Ike Kligerman Barkley. According to
Tom, “It features 14 of our shingle-
style houses. We traveled the country
giving talks and joining panels
discussing the work in the book as
well as architecture in general.

“T took a six-week sabbatical
starting in mid-January — the first

68 CCT Spring 2017

time I took a real break since before
I was a freshman at Columbia. [At
this writing, I planned to] be at

the American Academy in Rome,
working on the outline for a book
as well as traveling in the footsteps
of regency architect Sir John Soane,
retracing part of the Grand Tour
route he started in 1778. I will draw
and watercolor in my spare time.

“My girls are doing well. Rebecca
lives in New York and works in
marketing. Katherine studies
architecture and interior design
at the University of Texas, Austin.
Magdalen is a junior in high school
and has her eye on a few colleges,
maybe in Europe.

“We bought an apartment in
Manhattan, so I’m spending more
time in town between trips to far-
flung projects that I am designing
across the United States. It’s nice to
wake up in the city.

“Wishing classmates a fantastic
2017!”

Tom, I need a review of your next
book, The Old Shingled House That I
Lived In!

Jack J. Lipari is based at Helmer,
Conley & Kasselman in Somers
Point, N.J. “The law firm has various
branches, but I work primarily out
of the Somers Point location, which
is close to my house in Egg Harbor
Township. I retired at the end of 2012
from the Atlantic County Prosecutor's
Office. I concentrate on the practice
of criminal law, with an emphasis on
legal writing, but the firm practices
in a number of areas. I enjoy working
among my colleagues, a number of
whom have had similar previous
professionally rewarding experiences
in government employment.”

Jack, I wonder if you live near my
old township, Lox & Egg Harbor!

Gilead Lancaster’s book,
EMBRACE: A Revolutionary New
Healthcare System for the Twenty-
First Century, was published last
summer. He says, “It details a
healthcare system reform plan that
a group of healthcare profession-
als and I have been working on
for almost 10 years. Details can be
found on theembraceplan.org.

“In the meantime, I keep my
day job as director of non-invasive
cardiology at Bridgeport Hospital
in Connecticut, along with several
other Columbia alumni who became
cardiologists, Charles Landau
SEAS’80, Craig McPherson ’72 and
Kieve Berkwits’75.”

sae

John Oberdick ’79 shared this photo from the 2016 Alumni Parade of Classes.

Class Notes

Gil, I’m an orthopedic surgeon
and the only brace I know surrounds
the knee!

John Oberdick GSAS’88 writes,
“This is my first Class Notes update,
so it’s long overdue! Last May, I
attended Class Day for the gradu-
ation of my daughter, Meena 16,
which I guess is what inspired me to
take pen to paper. I am an associate
professor of neuroscience at Ohio
State. My research specialty is the
molecular genetics of cerebellum
development and function, but most
recently | am working on a preven-
tive pharmacotherapy for neonatal
abstinence syndrome. I moved to
Columbus for this position in 1992
with my wife, Dina Roldan BC’87.
We have three children, Meena,
Gus and Nicholas. Meena (23)
graduated cum laude with a B.A.
in political science and history. She
lives in Brooklyn and is a paralegal
at a small immigration law firm
in Chelsea. She plans to go to law
school. Gus (22) studies engineering
at Ohio University and majors in
computer science. Nicholas (14) is
in the eighth grade, and plays travel
soccer and the trumpet. Dina and I
are so proud of them all. We spent
the Christmas holiday as a family in
Amsterdam; kind of a celebration of
Meena’s graduation and my upcom-
ing 60th birthday. Wonderful time!

“On Class Day and at the Legacy
Luncheon for legacy parents, I recon-
nected with Bob Deresiewicz,
whose daughter, Ellie’16, graduated
with Meena. It was great meeting
up with Bob again, a co-resident
of 9 Jay my sophomore year and a

brilliant pre-med I had to compete
with (only moderately successfully)
in Professor Charles Dawson's orgo
class! So very odd and exciting that
after all these years our paths would
cross again. After 9 Jay I moved to
the new ZBT Delta Chapter house
on West 115th Street, in my junior
year. Calling the 115th Street house
home for the first time were a mostly
iconoclastic and aspirationally diverse
band of brothers who were surpris-
ingly cohesive. A quick shout out in
hopes of a reunion someday soon:
Kevin ‘Father’ Barrett ’80, my room-
mate at ZBT (and another former

9 Jay denizen) and who attended

my wedding in San Diego in 1991;
Joseph Jeph’/‘Muddy’ Loeb (also
of 9 Jay), founding father of the new
Delta house in 1977; and others who
come to mind in no particular order:
Cal and Mal, Daz, Flash and the
Z-men, to name a few. Some free
association geezer flashbacks of ZBT,
Columbia and NYC in the late ’70s:
Nymphs and Satyrs, Come as Your
Dead, Needle Dik, Sick Dick and the
Volkswagens, Trader Vic’s, Buffalo
Roadhouse, Kings Pub, The West
End, Mama Joy’s, Sam. Go Lions!”

John, here’s a geezer flashback:
The eggplant pizza at V&T!

Happy New Year greetings from
Michael P. Kelly, who has been
chairman of McCarter & English
since July 2009. Mike writes, “At the
ripe age of 60, I still enjoy an active
trial practice. I celebrated 33 years of
marriage to Deanna and am blessed
with two great children, Joanna ’14
(24) and Patrick (21). No grandchil-
dren, at least none that I know of.

“T am still mourning the loss of
my Columbia football coach, Bill
Campbell ’62,TC’64. I 1 stopped by
his pub, The Old Pro, while I was in
Palo Alto, Calif., for business.

“Please give my best to all of my
old friends.”

Mike, I have fond memories of
meeting your father during fresh-
man orientation in his cowboy hat
and giant belt buckle. He was so
proud of you and your twin brother.

Geoff Newman: “In 2016, I con-
tinued my work in aerospace for UTC
Aerospace Systems and branched out
to support our micro electromechani-
cal systems business as well. I traveled
heavily, with five trips to Japan, four to
Korea, two to Israel, two to England
and one to Singapore. I live in West
Hartford, Conn.”

Robert C. Klapper: “This
column’s Columbia memory will
really move the grey matter around
in your brain because it involves the
telephone — not the iPhone, cell
phone, flip phone or whatever it is we
call the walkie-talkie that’s in your
pocket right now. I’m going back to
our sophomore year, when I lived in
Hartley Hall — God knows what the
name of that place is now, probably
Sports Authority of America Hall or
whoever the latest billionaire donor
was — so I am going way back to
rotary phones and Hartley Hall.
[Editor’s note: It’s still Hartley Hall. ]

“T was so excited to get this room,
which was my second to start the
school year because my first roommate
was expelled for being an ax murderer
or something similar. To this day, I do
not know what happened to him. I
didn’t know the science of the ax was a
major at the College.

“T was so excited to begin cohabi-
tating with a quiet, courteous and
less-threatening scholar. The moment
I settled into this paradise of a room
on Morningside Heights, the phone
rang. You all remember those days. I
picked up the phone, excited to speak
to someone clearly wishing me well in
my new humble abode when the caller
said, ‘Hello, is this the reservation
for the squash courts?’ Emotionally
crushed, I replied, ‘No, I’m sorry, this
is my dorm room, you must have the
wrong number, and hung up. Two
minutes later, the phone rang again,
interrupting my unpacking. Again I
was excited to speak to the potential
Barnard caller on the other end and
was crushed to hear the same request:
‘Hi, I'd like to make a reservation for

the squash courts.’ Well you can only
imagine what happened next — the
phone continued to ring with folks
trying to make reservations for squash.
After the first 10 calls, I was really
starting to lose my patience and my
new quiet paradise of a room was
becoming a nightmare. Apparently
the phone number for this room was
one digit off from the squash court
reservation line.

“So I ask you, fellow ’79er, almost
40 years later, what would you have
done to solve this problem? Clearly
asking the gym to change its phone
number was not going to happen
and neither was the bureaucratic
phone system at the College going
to change my phone number, but the
solution I came up with (and where
this memory came from) is due to
a solution to a similar problem I
incurred in 2016.

“OK, time’s up. I'll give you the
brilliant solution I came up with. I
mean, I had to study. I needed the
phone to stop ringing with squash
enthusiasts because organic chem-
istry was in my future and no one
cared why I was unable to sleep or
study. So here it is ...

“T started taking reservations.
Everyone who called, I acknowledged
that I was the squash reservation
line and gave them the same date
and time to show up at the court.
This must have led to all kinds of
confusion, but it was the only way to
train the gerbils of squash that the
pellet has been moved in the cage.
When they all showed up at once
and realized the futility of making
a reservation by phone, I was finally
able to get some peace and quiet.

“We all learned a lot more during
those years at the College than what
was in the classroom. Now you
know why I learned to hate squash.
Roar, lion, roar!

1980

Michael C. Brown
London Terrace Towers
410 W. 24th St., Apt. 18F
New York, NY 10011
mcbcu80@yahoo.com

Spring is in the air and NYC is
starting to bloom. Yankees, Mets,
Columbia baseball and golf are on
my mind.

I attended our annual dinner
at Carmine’s with Jack Hersch

alumninews

SEAS’80, Dave Maloof and Harlan
Simon’81. The food was plentiful
and the conversation enlighten-

ing. Dave has written a new book,
Christianity Matters: How Over Two
Millennia the Meek and the Merciful
Revolutionized Civilization — and
Why It Needs to Happen Again. In
these trying geopolitical times, I sug-
gest reading Dave’s book to see how
you can make a difference.

This year’s John Jay Awards
Dinner honored my former football
teammate Joe Cabrera’82. Shawn
FitzGerald and I attended; it was
nice to see many of our footballers
in good form.

A blast from the past: Shahin
Shayan was honored with the 79
soccer team at the Columbia Univer-
sity Athletics Hall of Fame inaugura-
tion dinner in October. Shahin was
one of the first people I met on 13
Carman and was one heck of a soccer
player. He has spent his career as an
international finance dealmaker on
both sides of the world. Shahin and
his family live in Los Angeles but he
still has his CU roots.

Drop me a line at mcbcu80@
yahoo.com!

1981

Kevin Fay

8300 Private Ln.
Annandale, VA 22003
kfayO516@gmail.com

CCT welcomes your new (return-
ing) class correspondent, Kevin Fay.
‘Thanks, Kevin!

Kevin writes: “To the Class of
1981 — I have decided to take on
the role of class correspondent for
what I believe is the third time in
35 years. This is the least I can do
for the College that provided me
(and our class) the opportunity to be
surrounded by outstanding faculty
members in the most stimulating
city in the United States. Of course,
at the time we were at Columbia
the city was filthy, crime-ridden and
broke, however, you could get a beer
and a shot at Cannon’s for less than
a single cup of Starbucks coffee. Oh,
how the neighborhood has changed!
Please send updates to kfay0516@
gmail.com or to the mailing address
at the top of the column.

“T did not see in the Winter
2016-17 issue of CCT any mention
of the 150th anniversary celebra-

tion of Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) at
Columbia. The event was black-tie
and was held in Low Library on
October 22. There must have been
150 alumni brothers in attendance
(my roommate, George Watson
SEAS’80, came all the way from
New Mexico!). From the Class of
1981, in addition to me, were Ed
Klees and Brian Krisberg. While
we no longer own the fraternity
house, the Fiji spirit is still evident
on campus. Regardless of how the
University views fraternities on cam-
pus, to have an organization survive
150 years (established the year after
the Civil War ended) is amazing.”

Daniel Gordis lives in Jerusalem
and works at Shalem College, which
uses a core curriculum influenced by
Columbia's. He recently published
his 11th book, Israel: A Concise
History of a Nation Reborn. It was
awarded the 2016 National Jewish
Book Award for “Book of the Year.”

From Ed Savage: “I have not
had contact with any classmates or
people whom I knew from Colum-
bia for many years. I also have not
attended alumni events, mainly for
lack of time and other life interests.

“One thing I have done, for the
past 20 years, however, is regional
interviews for the Alumni Represen-
tative Committee. | have found this
to be very interesting and rewarding,
though also frustrating because very
few of the candidates I have inter-
viewed were admitted. One thing
that is important about participating
in these interviews is the questions
the students ask me. Whether it is
‘Why did you chose Columbia? or
‘Why did you like attending Colum-
bia?’ or “Would you attend Columbia
again?’, they all provoke a common
thought — what did this four-year
period of my life mean to me and
do for me? Here is the short answer:
Confidence, independence, compe-
tence, accomplishment and breadth.
Confidence in myself and ability to
pursue new interests, independence
to pursue my interests, competence
in my pursuits, accomplishment in
my field of interest and an expanded
breadth of academic interests fostered
by the Core Curriculum.

“T have three children. None were
interested in attending Columbia.
My daughter went to Bryn Mawr
and teaches middle school math,
my older son went to Washington
University and is an engineer in the
utilities department there and the

Spring 2017 CCT 69

| Class Notes

third, also a son, is a musical theatre
major at Penn State, aiming for a
Broadway career. Very different from
their father’s choice of career!

“After Columbia, I went to the
Yale School of Medicine, trained
in general surgery at Penn and car-
diothoracic surgery at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical
School. I have been a practicing
cardiothoracic surgeon since finishing
my training in 1994. I have worked
and lived in a number of cities, but
settled where I am now in 2009 and
hope to complete my career here.
I’m a fitness enthusiast and earned a
black belt in Shotokan karate.

“T do say that I envy those of
you living in New York, but only a
little! Having lived in Florida for
seven years now, I do miss the fall.
However, if I never see another
snowflake, it will be too soon!”

Seth Haberman: “With the
help of Tom Glocer, I sold my latest
company to Comcast and have a
job for the first time in 30 years. So
now, I’m leaving Comcast and on
to my next ventures in educational
technology with an Israeli startup.”

From Jay Craddock: “After a
full career in my hometown caring
for my friends and neighbors as a
firefighter/paramedic, I retired. Now
I care for my disabled parents and
6-year-old son. However, I have
a servant’s heart and the need to
help more. Early life as the son of a
statesman, lessons learned in scout-
ing and, of course, the Columbia
experience have instilled a desire to
fix what’s broken. In 2018 intend
to run for U.S. Senate in my home
state of Nevada.

Columbia
College
Alumni

on Facebook

facebook.com/alumnicc

Like the page to get
alumni news, learn
about alumni events

and College happenings,
view photos and more.

70 CCT Spring 2017

“We all sail aboard the same
ship. Yet everyone is afraid the
other will run us aground. The
Elephants fear the Donkeys. The
John Birchers fear the Rhinos. The
Reformers fear the Socialists.

“Our ship, the U.S. Constitu-
tion, is a superb vessel, designed
by the Founding Fathers and
constructed of their genius. Their
genius included foresight, and that
forethought included Article V.

We must abandon the contentious
issues, whether port or starboard,
and tend to the needs of the ship.
We must use Article V to clean the
barnacles from her hull before the
weight of our own neglect sinks our
ship and drowns our liberty.

“Here is my platform:

“1. Legislative: A) Take career
politicians out of the equation. Create
term limits for Congress. Establish
term limits like the President for both
Senators and Representatives. As I
have said before, power is a carcino-
gen to the mind, and power held too
long a malignancy. B) Take control of
the Senate from the corporations and
return control of the Senate to the
state legislatures. Rescind the 17th
Amendment to the Constitution and
allow each state to determine how its
own state’s Senators shall be selected
and/or recalled. C) Rewrite the
long-standing rules of the Senate and
the House to promote coalitions of
the like-minded to imagine and then
build a great society.

“2. Judicial: A) Create term limits
for Supreme Court Justices. B) Rec-
ognize each state’s Supreme Courts
as final judicial authority in that
state unless a matter is between two
or more states. C) End the practice
of federal judicial review.

“3. Presidential: A) Give the
President the line item veto, then
give the Congress the power to
override the use of a line item veto
with a simple majority. B) Limit the
life of Executive Orders to the term
of the executive. C) Limit the scope
of Administrative Regulations as
not to create unfunded mandates or
permanent bureaucratic expansions.

“4. Political: A) Create real
campaign reform with contributions
removed from the equation. Not
just corporate money, ALL private
money. When someone runs for
office, give him/her a tax-supported
campaign fund and that’s all. No
personal money, no other monetary
contributions and no paid campaign

employees. Give every candidate the
same set budget (what a great test of
fiscal responsibly), say a campaign
debit card with $5 per registered
voter in the district they are running
in. B) Free but equal U.S. postage for
small districts. Free but equal news-
paper advertising for larger districts.
Free but equal TV time for national
races. C) And for humanities sake,
censor negative, dishonest and
unproven material before release.

“5S. Financial: A) Bring the
Federal Reserve Bank out of the
shadows. Nationalize the Federal
Reserve and broaden its Governship.
B) Establish a flat income tax on all
individuals. C) Collect taxes at the
state level in each state as deter-
mined by each state’s needs. D) Then
require each state to pay upkeep of
the federal government according to
each state’s income. E) Require the
federal government to maintain a
balanced budget. F) Constitutionally
prohibit unfunded federal mandates.

“Contact me at jaygregorycraddock
@gmail.com. I would appreciate
your support.”

1982

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Andrew Weisman

81S. Garfield St.
Denver, CO 80209
weisman@comcast.net

Greetings, gentlemen! I trust all is
well. Upon receipt of this edition of
CCT, you'll have but a few weeks
to make arrangements to attend
our (gulp!) 35th reunion. It will
take place during Reunion 2017,
Thursday, June 1-Sunday, June 4.
For those planning to attend, let
everyone know you'll be there: col-
lege.columbia.edu/alumni/events/
reunion/2017/pledged-attend. For
general informtion, go to college.
columbia.edu/alumni/reunion2017.”
You should be aware that rooms
are actually available on campus at a
low cost. During last year’s All-Class
Reunion I stayed in Carman Hall.

Surprisingly, it had fully functional
air conditioning. It was truly a
“DeLorean-flux capacitor moment”
for me!

This year’s Reunion Committee
is staffed by generous and stalwart
classmates Joe Cabrera, Frank
Lopez-Balboa, Victor Lopez-
Balboa, Alex Moon, David Filosa,
Edward Lopez, John Dawson,
Arthur Staub, James Altuner,
Andrew Danzig, Max Dietshe,
Shahan Islam, Dan Horwitz and
Jim Shehan.

Thanks, gents!

For those who plan to attend,
please also consider the cocktail
reception hosted by the Society of
Columbia Graduates. The society,
along with the deans of the College
and Engineering, will honor this year’s
Great Teachers Award recipients, one
professor from the College and one
professor from Engineering. At the
time of writing, it’s scheduled for 3
p.m. on Saturday, June 3, and is only
$20 to attend. It’s a wonderful event,
especially for those whose lives were
so positively affected by great teaching.

I look forward to seeing you
all there!

1983

Roy Pomerantz
Babyking/Petking
182-20 Liberty Ave.
Jamaica, NY 11412
bkroy@msn.com

My son David (12) and I were
happy to attend Columbia's first
Homecoming win since 2000. Kevin
Chapman and his wife, Sharon
Chapman BC’83, Steve Coleman
and Ed Joyce also attended. It

was a windy, rainy day, but David
insisted we go. He has attended
every Homecoming since birth.

I, David and my other son, Ricky
(9), attended several pre-season
basketball games and Columbia's
home opening loss against Cornell.
Jim Weinstein ’84 also has season
tickets this year. Jim is in touch with
former Columbia basketball guard
Grant Mullins’16. Grant started for
the California Berkley Golden Bears
this season (he missed playing one year
at Columbia due to an injury). We also
saw at the games Michael Schmidt-
berger ’82, Donna MacPhee’89, Ken
Howitt’76 and Senior Associate
Director of Admissions Diane McKoy.

CARMAN
SUCK

SUCKS] |}

CARMAN CARMAN

%
é

Chris Wood ’83 (left) and David Hershey-Webb ’83 (right) recently visited Mark
Robin ’83. The three met at freshman orientation in 1979 and lived in Carman.

David and I performed a juggling
club passing routine, which I shared
with several classmates. From Eddy
Friedfeld: “Impressive! When are you
going to start teaching him Cervantes
and Boccaccio?” Adam Bayroff com-
mented, “The kid was very good but
the old guy was a little shaky!”

Thank you, Adam.

I am in touch with Seth Farber.
Seth’s daughter, Anna, attends
Hunter College. Seth is an Alumni
Representative Committee (ARC)
member and active in our class. I
also have spoken recently with Eric
Epstein. Eric’s daughter, Esme, is a
senior at Eleanor Roosevelt H.S. Eric
is also an ARC member and a Class
Agent. Eric’s wife, Michele Shapiro
BC’85, JRN’92, is VP of her Barnard
class. Eric’s father, William Epstein
55, SEAS’56 has been a class officer
for many years and is also a loyal
alumnus. Eric is one of the most
active members of our class and we
are lucky to have his entire family as
such strong supporters of alma mater.

I sat next to Mark Kerman at
the Alexander Hamilton Award
Dinner. Mark is Columbia's assistant
VP of residential and commercial
operations. I also spent time at the
dinner with Steve Coleman and
his and his wife Laura’s daughter
Sarah 15. Steve and Laura’s other
daughter, Madeleine ’21, will start at
Columbia in the fall.

Peter Rappa: “I recently complet-
ed a book, 4 Hero in Time, available
at peterrappa.com. Just getting the
word out; however, I am interested
in having a screenwriter look at the

novel with the aim of it being a
movie. Any Columbia alum(s) you
know who I might reach out to?”
Steven Greenfield: “As was the
case in 2014, I am coming out with
this survey so late in the following
year (each year, I try to get this out
earlier than one full year late and
recently I am failing utterly) that I am
not going to take the time to make
general comments on the year in
popular music, except to say that 2015
strikes me as a relatively weak year.
‘There were few albums I felt strongly
about, but a number I liked reservedly.
I nearly managed to get through all
the pop records I accumulated this
year (all with the exception of Bomba
Estéreo’s Amanecer and Small Black’s
Best Blues), but once again, due to
time constraints, I was not able to
review any of the jazz, classical, Latin
or African recordings I had, for which
I am sorry. Annoyingly, it is becoming
ever more common for albums to be
released either in MP3 format only
or in MP3 and vinyl only. While I do
own a nice turntable, I am reluctant to
accumulate LPs in my tiny apartment.
For this reason, certain records that
might have made the 2015 survey,
including Thundercat’s The Beyond/
Where Giants Roam; The Harrow,
Silhouettes, and the fka Twigs E.P.
M3LL155X (pronounced “Melissa’)
will not appear here. My thanks once
more go to Steve Holtje and to my
brother, Douglas Greenfield, for their
suggestions about what was worth
paying attention to in 2014, and to
my partner, Melissa, for her moral
support throughout the time it took

alumninews

to get this survey finished. My list of
the Top Twelve (of the pops) for the
year follows:

1. Panda Bear, Panda Bear Meets the

Grim Reaper
2.John Zorn, Simulacrum
3. The Maccabees, Marks to Prove It
4. Foals, What Went Down
5. Battles, La Di Da Di
6. Gwenno, Y Dydd Olaf
7. Joe Satriani, Shockwave Supernova
8. Pond, Man It Feels Like Space Again
9. Public Service Broadcasting,

The Race for Space
10. Beach House, Depression Cherry
11. Dungen, Allas Sak
12. Floating Points, Elaenia”

Jeff Walker: “It has been oh-
so-many years since we have been
in touch. I have had the privilege
and the luxury of keeping abreast
of the world of Columbia through
your hard work and tireless and
optimistic communications. You
grind out the Class Notes and I have
taken them for granted (much the
way I preach to my kids that we take
advantage of NPR or other public
trusts and therefore must religiously
contribute). It was not until recently,
when I was on campus at an info
session with my 18-year old, Harris
(he is a second semester freshman
at Oberlin College and considering
transferring), that I came to fully
appreciate your effort. For that I am
sorry and say thank you.

“In many ways it is shocking how
connected I am to the school on a
visceral/personal level (many of my
closest friends continue to be those I
grew up with at Columbia — Marc
Stieglitz, Aidan O’Connor, Neal
Smolar and Adam Nadler, to name
a few) while being disconnected
from the institution. It was only as I
was sitting with Harris in Low and
somewhat mindlessly absorbing the
description of the Core that it all
came into focus. He leaned in and
said, ‘So this is what you have been
talking about all these years ... this
is what you meant about having the
perspective to see where you are
going based upon where we come
from’. I looked at him, laughed and
told him I was not sure anyone had
been listening. Harris has had a
social and political awakening over
the last 18 months that has been
empowering to him and inspir-
ing to me. In any event, it made
it clear what a central element in
my own transformation Columbia

played when I entered as a kid from

Queens. I run a small real estate
business in New York, live in Cobble
Hill, Brooklyn, am married, have
three children (8—21) and consider
myself very much at home in NYC,
where I grew up.”

Kevin Chapman: “I disagree
with the University administration’s
ill-conceived decision to termi-
nate the traditional Orgo Night
performance by the Marching Band
in Butler Library. Not only was the
decision wrong-headed, but it was
implemented without any notice
or discussion — a fait accompli by
University administrators to end

one of the few remaining Columbia
student traditions, and one that
seems to be an attempt to censor
the content of the band’s perfor-
mance in direct contravention of the
principles of free speech for which
Columbia purports to stand. The
reasons stated by the University for
this decision don’t hold up to even
slight scrutiny and, when the band
leadership attempted to meet with
administrators to discuss options for
compromise, the University rejected
all suggestions. I realize that many
alumni will feel that this is a small
issue affecting only the Marching
Band. I disagree. This is the worst
kind of heavy-handed administra-
tive diktat, which stifles student
expression and sends the clear mes-
sage that administrators will take
whatever action they want without
seeking input from students and
without concern for the intangible
things that make Columbia a unique
and wonderful place. I intend to
work with other concerned alumni
to convince the University to reverse
this decision. If you wish to join me
and other alumni in communicat-
ing with the administration on this
subject, please let me know.”
Wayne Allyn Root: “Big week,
my CC friend! A new America!
As youre reading this column,
Pll be in Washington, D.C., as a
guest of President Donald Trump
at the inauguration. I’m proud and
honored to have made the friends
and family list. It’s been quite a
journey. I was the first (and perhaps
only) national political commenta-
tor to endorse Trump, in June 2015.
I stuck with him, defended him in
more than 1,500 media appearances
for the next 18 months and publicly
predicted his victory in the media
when no one else thought it pos-

sible. My book, Angry White Male:

Spring 2017 CCT 71

Class Notes

How the Donald Trump Phenomenon
is Changing America—and What

We Can All Do to Save the Middle
Class, accurately predicted the entire
Trump path to victory. Being here
in Washington, D.C., as our new
President’s personal guest will be
the experience of a lifetime. My
parents, David and Stella Root,
who fought so hard to convince me
to attend Columbia, were lifetime
Jewish Republicans. They are both in
heaven but I know they are looking
down proudly.”

Teddy Weinberger sent me a
copy of the 1983 Class Day booklet,
showing very clearly the name Barack
Hussein Obama. January 20 was
President Obama's last day in office,
having served as the 44th President,
2009-17. 1 am honored to be his
Columbia classmate and wish him well.

‘The online mentoring community
is now open for all alumni to join
(college.columbia.edu/alumni/
join-student-alumni-mentoring-
community). Any members of the
class who want to submit their
profile should please contact me.

Ed Joyce: “I was asked to join the
Board of Directors of the Ameri-
can Friends of ALYN Hospital in
Jerusalem. In March, I was elected
treasurer and a member of the execu-
tive committee of the Fordham Law
School Alumni Board of Directors.
And in May my wife, Linda Gerstel
BC’83, and I will be honored at the
Abraham Joshua Heschel School’s
Annual Benefit.”

Eddy Friedfeld’s interview with
Norman Lear appeared in Cinema
Retro magazine. Eddy writes, “The
first two people in my life who taught
me to think deeply about social and
political issues and argue cogently
and passionately for what I believed
in were my late father, David, and
Norman Lear. Lear, the 94-year-old
entertainment icon is the subject of a
terrific American Masters docu-
mentary, Norman Lear: Just Another
Version of You, which premiered
nationwide on October 25 on PBS.

“In the 1970s, Lear singlehand-
edly changed television with A// in
the Family, which became a platform
for social discussion and reform. Nor-
man Lear revolutionized the sitcom,
taking the American family from
the antiseptic and idealized to the
contentious and dysfunctional. The
show became a megahit; it was the
top-rated show on American televi-
sion and the winner of four consecu-

72 CCT Spring 2017

tive Emmy Awards as Outstanding
Comedy Series. Archie Bunker and
his family were followed by Maude,
The Jeffersons, Good Times, Sanford
and Son and One Day at a Time, as
well as Fernwood 2 Night, a talk show
parody dedicated to battling bigotry
and social issues through art, and
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, a
parody of soap operas. In the 1970s,
most of America was laughing and
thinking because of Norman Lear.
With appearances ranging from Carl
Reiner, Rob Reiner, Mel Brooks and
Amy Poehler, and directed by Heidi
Ewing and Rachel Grady and execu-
tive produced by American Masters’
Michael Kantor, the film offers a
unique insight into a ‘Gadol Hador,’
a giant of his generation and those
to follow. When asked about what
advice he would give to students who
are embarking on artistic careers,
especially comedy, Lear said: ‘Go
with your gut. Deliver on your inten-
tion and go with it — it’s golden.”

Chris Wood and David
Hershey-Webb visited Mark
Robin, who was sadly recently diag-
nosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Mark’s blog is markymooseinbigsky.
blogspot.com. David sent a photo
of them wearing t-shirts stating
“CARMAN SUCKS.”

Joseph Cabrera ’82 was one of
this year’s John Jay Award honorees.
Joe is vice-chair, Eastern Region of
Colliers International.

Wishing everyone a happy and
healthy 2017.

1984

Dennis Klainberg
Berklay Cargo Worldwide

-14 Bond St., Ste 233

Great Neck, NY 11021
dennis@berklay.com

The Last to Go: David L. Cavicke of
Chicago and Lyme, Conn., married
Mary Houston Wright of Middleburg,
Va., at Trinity Episcopal Church in
Upperville, Va., on July 30. A reception
was held at the Metropolitan Club of
Washington, D.C., where one of the
tables was named in honor of Profes-
sor Jacques Barzun’27, GSAS’32.
Columbians in attendance: grooms-
men Andrew A. Byer, James Don-
ald Weinstein BUS’88 and David
Nelson BUS’90; Edwin J. Wang,
Steven M.H. Wallman LAW’78 and
Edward A. Weinstein ’57.

Anthony E. Kaye recently left
Penn State to become VP for scholarly
programs at the National Humanities
Center in North Carolina.

Robert Retana writes: “I am the
deputy general counsel for the State
Bar of California. I live in San Fran-
cisco with my husband, Juan Carlos.”

Says Frederick Fisher, “My wife,
Mary BC’83, LAW’88, and I enjoy
Orlando, where we have lived for
three years. I building the vascular
surgery department at the Orlando
VA and teach medical students at
University of Central Florida Col-
lege of Medicine. Mary and I are
planning a trip to Italy to celebrate
our upcoming 30th anniversary. We
are looking forward to celebrating
daughter Rebecca ’17’s graduation
from the College to complete the
family’s Columbia history (along
with daughter Talia ’13).

Peregrine Beckman reports from
the left coast: “I've managed to move
into editing for the magical Internet
content, working on shows for Netflix
(Chasing Cameron) and YouTube
Red. I lead a Proust reading group
on Sundays. They say Los Angeles is
anti-intellectual, but there are some
interesting folks in the group.

“My daughter, Eleanor Beck-
man 16, graduated last May (love
putting that °16 after her name!)
and promptly moved back to Los
Angeles, declaring that she’d missed
the weather and that living in East
Campus made her appreciate life
with a car. She works for a new TV

production company in Burbank,
Calif., and lives at home. Gregory
Lynch, my roommate from my days
at 2850 Broadway above Koronet

Pizza (which I’m appalled to see still
exists!) and still a close friend, has
actually married and settled down

at 54. He and his wife, Melissa, had
a son, Sebastian Wilder Lynch, in
January 2016. Anti-establishment to
this day, he'd probably be annoyed

to see this in CCT but screw it —
thousands loved him back in the day
and will be glad to hear this news.”

Happy news from Harry Chefitz:
“My daughter, Leora, married Ezra
Spero from Cleveland last summer.
At the wedding I enjoyed a Colum-
bia reunion with my freshman
roommate, Leon Paley SEAS’84,
and my sophomore roommate,
Bruce Abramson’83.

“Interestingly, both Leon and
Bruce were at my wedding 30 years
ago, albeit without their spouses, who
attended this wedding. During these
30 years, I have remained in close
contact with Leon, even reenacting
our freshman year by dorming with
him in Carman at our reunion a few
years ago. I stayed in contact with
Bruce until he moved to the West
Coast, then reconnected with him
after seeing him quoted in a Wall
Street Journal article. Fortunately for
me, he lives on the East Coast again.
I am now an avid photographer and
was concerned about finding a good
wedding photographer. I remem-
bered that I have been following
Ryan Brenizer’s career online after
I saw his photos of Columbia on
Flickr and contacted him to see if he
was available. He was!”

Adam Dicker: “My fourth book
recently came out (demosmedical.
com/quality-and-safety-in-radiation-
oncology.html). Also, my son,

Left to right: Leon Paley SEAS’84, Bruce Abramson ’83 and Harry Chefitz ’84
reunited last summer at Chefitz’s daughter’s wedding.

Shimshon Dicker ’21, will start at
Columbia in the fall (he deferred for
two years).”

Chris Nollet: “I continue to be
the hardest working actor north
of Minneapolis, while still holding
down the job of being the system
administrator at Amsoil. This June,
Pll head to Slovenia with members
of a polka band.

“And just so you remember — we
are NOT an all-male, as most of us
only learned on Class Day!”

Patricia Huie will be CFO at
The Public Theater, which produces
Shakespeare in the Park and, in the
recent past, also produced Hamilton
and Fun Home. She has been the
CFO at the New York Hall of Sci-
ence, a children’s interactive science
museum in Flushing, Queens, on
the site of the 1964 World’s Fair.
Prior to joining NYSCI, Patricia
was executive. director of finance
at Columbia Technology Ven-
tures, Columbia's highly successful
technology transfer group, which
is responsible for patenting and
licensing Columbia's science-based
inventions. She also managed the
group’s financial resources, which
the executive vice provost used to
fund various strategic initiatives at
the University.

Earlier in her career, Patricia was
a management consultant with one
of the then-“Big 8” accounting firms,
Arthur Young & Co. She earned an
M.B.A. in finance from NYU and
a B.A. in art history. She says, “I’m
eternally grateful to Dean James
Parker at SEAS for advising me to
major in whatever subject matter
spoke to me. My experience at the
College has fostered a lifelong love
of the arts and I’m happy I can use
my financial expertise in furtherance
of the arts at The Public.”

And finally, where in the world
is Neel Lane? “In August, I joined
Norton Rose Fulbright as a partner
in the San Antonio office,” Neel
writes. “I could not resist the
opportunity to join an international
firm that is so well-connected to
my clients in the insurance and
reinsurance world — particularly in
London, where the firm’s headquar-
ters are located. The move has been
even better than I expected.

“Tam also chairman of Episcopal
Relief & Development, the interna-
tional relief and development agency
of the Episcopal Church. The orga-

nization supports programs in nearly

40 countries that help improve the
lives of three million people each
year, mostly in partnership with
Anglican dioceses and agencies. We
have a supremely professional staff
headed by Robert W. Radtke ’87.
“In January, I joined the Presiding
Bishop’s Reconciliation Pilgrim-
age to Ghana. We traveled to the
north to meet farmers and artisans
who benefit from our programs,
as well as to see the slave camp at
Pikworo. We also visited the slave
castles overlooking the Atlantic in
Elmina and Cape Coast. The slave
castles are haunting reminders of
the cruelty endured by Africans who
were kidnapped in their homeland
and taken far away to suffer a life of
servitude and privation. It was an
overpowering experience, [and is]
really difficult to convey in words.
“My daughter is a junior in high
school and, for the second year, the
starting goalkeeper on the girls’
varsity soccer team. Her brothers
have both graduated from college;
Andrew lives in Boston, while Shelby
lives in Northern California. It seems
my children don’t want to make it
easy for me to combine visits ... I do
not see my classmates often enough,
but when Shelby was playing college
basketball in Southern California,
Pete Lunenfeld and El Gray met
me in Claremont for several games
and we had a blast. We also got
to spend a festive and memorable
Thanksgiving with Pete and his wife,
Susan, and their charming daughters,
Kyra’16 and Maud. Pete has been
researching a book at the Huntington
Library — he is always into the cool-
est stuff — and El has been building
and managing his investment firm,
Seven Post.”

1985

Jon White

16 South Ct.

Port Washington, NY 11050
jw@whitecoffee.com

Not too much news to report, so
please send updates at your earliest
convenience so we can be ready for
the Summer issue. I hope you saw
the Winter 2016-17 issue, where my
coffee-making skills were featured

in the feature “The Experts.” I know
that many of you have lots of special
talents (new or longstanding) that
we want to share as well!

alumninews

For this issue, we have some won-
derful highlights and, unfortunately,
some horrible updates as well. Starting
with the positive, my wife, Allison,
and I were fortunate to attend a holi-
day presentation of The Nutcracker at
Lincoln Center, where John Phelan’s
daughter, Unity, elegantly danced one
of the major roles, Hot Chocolate.
The following week, Unity danced
the lead role of the Sugarplum Fairy
and was featured both in The New
York Times (the review said her role
of Dewdrop had “fantasy, poetry, and
liquidity”) and was on the cover of
Dance Magazine as one of 25 dancers
to watch in 2017.

Kudos to John for organizing
— Columbia alums got a backstage
tour, similar to what we did at our
reunion in 2015 (but this time we got
to see all of the Nutcracker props).
John also had a great December, as
he added the “P” for parent, to his
Columbia credentials with his son,
Joseph’21!

Congratulations!

I am fortunate to be on Denis
Searby GSAS’86’s holiday card list
and received his annual Christmas
poem! And, as any College student
would be, he was inspired by ancient
Greek. He writes, “As you can see, I
have been teaching too much Greek
this semester. My goal was to write
a comical nonsense poem to lighten
up everyone’s mood ... and included
a poem in which all the nonsense
words actually mean something,
because they come from ancient
Greek (lots of them can be found
in an English dictionary — well, in
a very, very large dictionary). I want
to give you Greek-less people some
idea of what a page of ancient Greek
looks like to my students after a year
or two of studying it; it’s still Greek
to them, but there is some kind of
rhyme and reason (in this case lots
of rhyme and little reason).”

Dennis is at Stockholm Univer-
sity, where he continues as director
of Larkstaden’s college residence
(larkstaden.org).

Thomas Vinciguerra JRN’86,
GSAS’90's Cast of Characters: Wolcott
Gibbs, E. B. White, James Thurber, and
the Golden Age of the New Yorker, con-
tinues to get great reviews. Luxury
Reading’s Kate Schafer said that she
“remained interested and engaged
throughout, and that’s the mark of
a solid biography. Often humorous,
occasionally emotional, and always
educational, Cast of Characters is a

must-read for anyone wondering how
such a ubiquitous publication could
emerge from relatively humble and
innocent intentions.”

On a recent trip to San Francisco, I
had the pleasure of having dinner with
Jon Orlin and his wife, Mary. Jon lives
in the San Jose area, after spending an
extended stint in Atlanta with CNN.
His wife writes for the Bay Area News
Group and is also a certified sommelier
(leading to an enjoyable conversation
about the similarities between wine
and coffee tasting).

And now for the truly terrible:
Bruce Shapiro wrote in with some
very sad news. “Glenn Alper passed
away earlier this year. Glenn and I
met in fall 1983 at Reid Hall and
we quickly became, and remained,
good friends. He was magnetic,
interesting, kind, funny and genuine.
He deeply enjoyed his study of
French and French culture, both in
Paris and on campus. A fund has
been established in Glenn’s memory
with the French department to help
undergraduates in need to purchase
books for their French studies. If
you are interested in contributing,
please send a check, made out to
Columbia University, to Chair of the
French Department, 515 Philosophy
Hall, 1150 Amsterdam Ave., MC
4902, New York, NY 10027, indicat-
ing that it is in Glenn’s memory.”

I met Glenn on my freshman
floor on Jay 11 and second all of
Bruce’s comments.

1986

Everett Weinberger
50 W. 70th St., Apt. 3B
New York, NY 10023
everett6@gmail.com

It was fun to be able to say that

the President of the United States
overlapped with us for one year at
Columbia College. Drop me a line
if you have any connection to Presi-
dent Trump or his administration.

‘Thanks to everyone who
responded to my request for news,
especially first timers!

Alejandro Guerrero: “I am an
educator and have been for 20-plus
years. I am a Spanish teacher in
Murrieta, Calif., teaching 9th—-12th
grade students all levels of Spanish,
including Advanced Placement
and International Baccalaureate
classes. I love what I do and when

Spring 2017 CCT 73

students ask me why I did not
become an architect, as was my
original plan, I tell them I am an
architect of another kind. Whereas
I was taught to design buildings,

I am now helping to design the
young minds of today for a better
tomorrow. My beautiful wife and I
have been blessed with good health
and two children. Our son is in his
sophomore year at The California
State Maritime Academy in Vallejo,
Calif., where he is studying marine
transportation on his way to becom-
ing a deck officer. Our daughter is

a senior in high school who would
like to study speech pathology or
nursing. I am looking forward to
President Donald J. Trump making
America great again!”

Mark Satlof: “I have lived in New
York City since graduation, the entire
time with my Barnard sweetheart,
now wife of 18 years, Dana Points
BC’88. We haven't moved too far
from our college days —we’ve lived
in Harlem for the last 17 years,
nostalgic all the time as we drive up

Holland. He recorded an album,
Spinoza’s Dream, which was funded
by a Kickstarter campaign. He had
a release party in Berkeley, Calif,
performed several shows in a tour
of the Midwest and taught at the
International Guitar Camp in Los
Gatos, Calif., for the third year.
From Joel Berg, executive direc-
tor of Hunger Free America: “My
biggest news is that, in February,
Seven Stories Press published my
second book, America, We Need to
Talk: A Self-Help Book for the Nation,
which is both a humorous parody of
self-help books and a serious public
policy book proposing concrete ways
to fix our politics and economy.”
Eric Hamel: “I’m on my second
iteration of graduate school, the first
in comparative literature (Ph.D.,
CUNY), now in classics (M.A.,
University of Oregon), remembering
fondly Greek and Latin classes in
Hamilton with my professors Laura
Slatkin, Steele Commanger, Bob
Lamberton, Richard Janko, Peter
Pouncey, Darice Birge, Matthew San-

Demetrios “Fim” Econopouly ‘86 is a certified

Professional Association of Diving Instructors

rescue-level scuba diver.

and down Amsterdam Avenue to

our home, a hop and a skip from the
quad. We have two boys, born and
bred New Yorkers. I’ve been in the
music industry for 30 years (wow!). I
was active in the campus music scene,
playing in a couple of bands and
working on the concert committee.
That was my start in the music indus-
try. I recently found the records of the
bands we booked in’84—85, which
brought back many fond memories.
Dana works in media as a magazine/
content editor. I love reading about
our class but, to be honest, I barely
remember most of my college years
(what DID I do in class?) and I don't
really find very many familiar names
in this column. I’m in touch with a
handful of college friends and social
media has put me back in contact
with a few as well.”

From guitarist and singer Dave
Nachmanoff’s website (davenach.
com), I see that he had a busy 2016.
He toured with Al Stewart in the
United Kingdom, Germany and

74 CCT Spring 2017

tirocco, Helene Foley and the great
Helen Bacon, quite a department in
that brief interval. Does the classics
department keep up the tradition of
performing a Greek tragedy?”
Demetrios “Jim” Econopouly:
“T live in Oradell, N.J., with my
wife and three kids. I am chief of
foot and ankle service at Hacken-
sack UMC Palisades and residency
director of the Podiatric Surgical
Residency program. I am a certified
PADI rescue-level scuba diver and
I have been to the most thrilling
places in the world. It is a differ-
ent kind of trip when you can go
under the water or live aboard in
places like the Maldives, Galapagos,
Micronesia or even the Caribbean.
Biking, however, is my passion.”
Andrew Goldsmith: “My family
participated in the Women’s March
on Washington, where I had the
pleasure of walking for a while
with members of the wonderful
Columbia/Barnard Hillel. I have not
had that much fun doing politi-

cal activism since 1985 during the
divestment campaign.

“T started my own marketing
strategy firm a few years ago and
incredibly, we are doing really well.
I stay in touch with Saul Fisher,
Matthew Epstein, David Ham-
mond, JD Scrimgeour and Eric
Wakin ’84 — all wonderful sources
of support and inspiration.”

Joel Bloom SIPA’87: “T recently
accepted an offer to be senior direc-
tor of accreditation and assessment
at Long Island University (moving
from my current position as direc-
tor of academic assessment and
survey research at the University
at Albany: SUNY, where I’ll leave
behind Mitch Earleywine). [At this
writing I was scheduled to start] at
the end of February. The family will
still be based in the Albany area,
so I'll commute quite a bit. I hope
classmates in the area will look me
up! My kids are in grades 12, 10 and
8, and my oldest has wrapped up his
college applications, which include
a regular deadline application to
Columbia. Time flies!”

Jack Merrick: “About 10 years
ago I told you about a crazy idea I

had of throwing colonoscopy parties:

Scopefest. With the American Can-
cer Society declaring colon cancer a
national health emergency, I turned
Scopefest into a 501(c)(3) to raise
awareness and funds to combat
colon cancer through early detec-
tion. The organization will unveil
Scopefest USA in March during
National Colon Cancer Awareness
Month with coordinated events
around the country.

“Former Columbia Alumni Asso-
ciation president (and now chair)
Kyra Tirana Barry’87 will head up
an all-girls team in New York City to
‘compete’ with teams in Los Angeles,
San Francisco, Phoenix, Salt Lake

City, Houston, Las Vegas and Miami.

Bruce Skyer’84, former CEO of
the National Kidney Foundation,
joined our board and management
team. Philip Nevinny, senior counsel
for House of Blues/Live Nation,
joined as director of legal affairs. We
recently inked a partnership with
the country’s largest colon cancer
charity, Colon Cancer Alliance in
Washington, D.C., which hopes

this becomes a breakout sensation in
the vein of ‘the ice bucket challenge
meets Movember.’ I invite every-
one, especially those classes rapidly
approaching the age of 50, to get

involved and to help us make this a
real thing. After all, ‘friends do not let
friends scope alone,’ especially when
we can turn the dreaded colonoscopy
into a national team party event

that saves lives! We are looking

for regional captains so check out
scopefest.org or contact me at jom@
scopefest.org. With the participa-
tion of the Columbia alum network,
we can make March synonymous
with life-saving colonoscopy parties.
Together, we can measurably kick
colon cancer’s ass.”

1987

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sarah A. Kass

PO Box 300808
Brooklyn, NY 11230
ssk43@columbia.edu

At the risk of stating the obvious,
remember that our 30th reunion is

just weeks away. It’s not too late to
join the party! Register now! You
know you want to...and you know
your roommates, suitemates and
floormates want you to!

Sharon Block wrote in as she
was preparing to end her seven

and a half years of service for the
Obama administration. She said,

“It has been a remarkable privilege
to serve President Barack Obama
°83 at the Department of Labor,
National Labor Relations Board
and the White House. I’m ending
the administration as the head of
the DOL policy office and as senior
counselor to Secretary of Labor Tom
Perez. I’m excited, however, for my .
next adventure.”

In February, Sharon began this
next adventure as the executive
director of the Labor and Worklife
Program at Harvard Law.

In more news from the outgoing
administration, President Obama
reappointed Herbert Block as
a Member of the United States
Commission for the Preservation
of America’s Heritage Abroad,
an independent federal agency

established to help preserve cultural
sites in Eastern and Central Europe
associated with the heritage of U.S.
citizens. These include synagogues,
cemeteries and other historic Jew-
ish places (as well as sites of other
faiths) and Holocaust memorials

in the region. Herb is the principal
at Montrose Strategies, a position
he has held since 2015, and he was
first appointed to the Commission
for the Preservation of America’s
Heritage Abroad in 2011.

Paul Verna, Daniele Baliani
and José Calvo had a mini CC’87
and Reid Hall reunion at José’s
home in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France,
last November. They were there
ostensibly to run the French Riviera
Marathon, which goes from Nice
to Cannes. However, Paul had to
withdraw because of injury and José
because of work commitments, so
only Daniele ran the full length.
Stavros Zomopoulos joined the
party by Skype after the event.

Once again, I feel privileged to
link the Class of ’87 with the Class
of 57. My brother, Danny Kass’95,
and J had the honor of a front row
seat to watch as our father, Rabbi
Alvin Kass ’57, was honored by the
New York City Police Department
for 50 years of service and was
promoted to a three-star chief in the
department. Joining us at this amaz-
ing celebration were Ed Weinstein
57, father of my dear friend Ilene
Weinstein Lederman, and Bob
Lipsyte 57, my former colleague
from our days in the sports depart-
ment of The New York Times.

See you all at Reunion 2017,
Thursday, June 1-Sunday, June 4!
Go to college.columbia.edu/alumni/
reunion2017.

1988

Eric Fusfield

1945 South George Mason Dr.
Arlington, VA 22204
ericfusfield@bigfoot.com

It’s a familiar question posed by Ivy
Leaguers, whose ranks often boast
high achievers in an array of fields:
Who is the most famous member of
our class? The Class of 1988 appears
to have a new answer to that query.
Neil Gorsuch, who graduated with
our class after matriculating just
three years earlier, assumed his place

in the pantheon of high-profile

Columbia alums when President
Donald Trump nominated Neil for
the Supreme Court on January 31.1
vaguely recall Neil from my time on
Spectator and from his involvement
with The Federalist. Others who
knew him better weighed in on the
Class of 1988 Facebook page fol-
lowing the White House announce-
ment. He had a clear ideology, even
as a student, but seems to have

been well-liked, even by those who
disagreed with him. Kudos to him;
he is a source of pride for our class
and for the school.

I met Sharon Levin for the first
time at a tribute dinner for Moment
magazine in Washington, D.C., in
December. Sharon is a women’ rights
lawyer in D.C., currently consulting
for NARAL Pro-Choice America.
She is also a cousin-in-law of my
friend Chris Tahbaz’86, LAW’90,
who hosted us at his table, so the Col-
lege was well-represented at the event.

David Stoll wrote, “I am a trusts
and estates partner at Milbank,
Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. I live in
Carnegie Hill, where I am active in
landmarks preservation efforts. ] am
teaching again this semester at Yale
Law (from which I also graduated).
My weekend jogging route takes
me through campus and Riverside
Park, which I think look better than
ever — certainly better than they
did 1984-88!”

Another classmate with a Yale
connection is Dr. Stephanie
Sudikoff, director of simulation for
Yale New Haven Health, where she
holds primary responsibility for the
SYN: APSE Center for Learning,
Transformation and Innovation.
According to the Yale New Haven
Health website, the center “provides
simulation expertise to collabora-
tively innovate cutting-edge solu-
tions to the challenges that exist in
complex health care environments.”

Stephanie leads her team “in the
design support, and sustainment of
education, workflow analysis, device
testing, facility design, and other ini-
tiatives ... As a pediatric critical care
physician, she provides the team with
insight into the clinical environment
and the context in which learners
must apply and translate their skills.
She has published and presented
widely, and is a recognized leader in
both the national and international
health care simulation communities.”

Bill Seeley sent the following: “I
live in Bath, Maine. I am a philoso-

alumninews

In September, Margaret Traub ’88 caught up with Jacob Goldberg '88 when
Goldberg went to SoCal to move his daughter into UCLA.

phy professor at the University of
New Hampshire and Bates College.
I am working on a National Endow-
ment for the Humanities grant
developing software to help folks in
the humanities learn to use digital
image analysis techniques to study
painting. We currently have a couple
of programs that help analyze how
elements of artistic style contribute
to our ability to recognize paintings
as belonging to different schools
and eras. 1 am also working ona
book about the role of memory and
attention in our understanding and
experience of art, called Attentional
Engines. I ski a bit and have been
playing hockey several nights a week.
And I have been working summers as
a wilderness canoe guide in Ontario.
“T am in touch with Brendan
Mernin, Sam Shinn’89, Muffy Srini-
vasan, Henry Jackman and Chris
Bakkila’91. All are thriving (although
Chris has given up football)!”
Margaret Traub, a frequent
contributor to this column who is in
contact with many classmates, wrote
from Los Angeles: “Had a lovely visit
in September with Jacob Gold-
berg, who was in SoCal to move his
daughter, Hannah, into UCLA.”
Margaret, head of global initia-
tives at International Medical
Corps., appeared last fall on PBS
NewsHour, where Sara Just is
executive producer; Margaret spoke
about her organization's hurricane
relief work in Haiti.
Keep the updates coming! I
look forward to hearing from you
at ericfusfield@bigfoot.com. And

start planning to attend next year’s

reunion on Morningside Heights.
Wait — how many years has it been?

1989

Emily Miles Terry

45 Clarence St.
Brookline, MA 02446
emilymilesterry@me.com

Once called the “Patron Saint
of Boyle Heights” by LA Weekly,
Maria Cabildo was appointed by
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
92, SIPA'93 to the city’s Planning
Commission in 2013 and served
until 2015. Maria now works for Los
Angeles County, helping to oversee
the homeless initiative it adopted
last year. Fearing that the affordable
housing programs, consumer protec-
tions and community reinvestment
requirements are at risk, Maria has
decided to take the fight to Washing-
ton, D.C., and recently announced
that she is a Democrat running for
the 34th Congressional District seat.
Of her run, Maria says, “As a
longtime advocate and builder of
affordable housing, I know that
without a stable home, families
cannot create security, support
their children’s education or build
a future. Unfortunately, housing in
Los Angeles is in crisis. Too many
Angelenos can't afford to keep their
homes. Seniors and many others
are doubling up. Homeownership
is growing further out of reach for
working families. And we have the
largest unsheltered homeless popu-
lation in the country.”

Spring 2017 CCT 75

I caught up with Anne-Marie
Wright (née Lampropoulos), who
is VP, corporate communications of
Merit Medical Systems in Salt Lake
City, and was elected as the Repub-
lican National Committeewoman
from Utah earlier this year. Anne
Marie will serve a four-year term on
the Republican National Commit-
tee. Of this position she writes, “It
should be interesting during this
unusual and challenging time. The
RNC is responsible for making the
rules, creating the platform, raising
money and putting on the conven-
tion for the Republican Party. We
will also be electing an RNC chair
with the vacancy left by Reince
Priebus, and I will also be a liaison
between the national party and the
state party in Utah.”

Anne-Marie has a busy family
as well — her daughter, Annie ’17,
is a senior at Columbia College,
majoring in mathematics. Her son
Michael is a junior at the University
of Utah, majoring in business and
her son Sean is a fourth-grader who

I heard from Cristina Bene-
detto and Rob Laplaca, who went
to the Homecoming game last fall
and saw lots of old friends, including
Bonnie Host, Mike Behringer,
Donna MacPhee (née Herlinsky)
and John MacPhee, Wally Yassir
88 and Matt Sodl’88, to name a
few. Christine and Rob also wanted
to share some happy news: “Our
daughter, Caroline ’21, will be a
first-year in the fall. We are very
excited for her, and for us, and can't
wait for her to experience all that

Columbia and NYC has to offer.”

1990

Rachel Cowan Jacobs
313 Lexington Dr.

Silver Spring, MD 20901
youngrache@hotmail.com

Happy 2017 to all of us in the

Class of 1990. Who will follow in
our footsteps? As of early decision
admission, at least three descendants

eee see Se a aaa

Gemma Tarlach 90 is senior editor at Discover

Magazine, where she writes the blog “Dead Things,”

providing coverage of paleontology and archaeology.

won United States Kids Golf Player
of the Year in Utah.

Like Anne-Marie and Maria, Neil
Gorsuch’88 (who entered with our
class), also resides in the Western
half of our country. Neil is a federal
judge on the United States Court of
Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He
writes to us about his life in Colo-
rado: “[I and my family] live outside
Boulder on a small farm, with the
girls’ horses and a bunch of fruit trees.
Together with some great colleagues,
I work in Denver hearing appeals
from across the Tenth Circuit (largely
the Rocky Mountain states) and
teach on the side at the University
of Colorado's law school. My wife,
Louise, and our girls and I love to ski
the bumps in winter and hike, fly fish
and row and scull in summers.”

Neil has been a federal judge for
10 years; prior to that he was deputy
associate attorney general at the
Department of Justice. On January
31, he was nominated as a Supreme
Court justice by President Trump.

76 CCT Spring 2017

of classmates will enter as members
of the Class of 2021. Congratula-
tions to Ally, daughter of Sherri
Pancer Wolf (of Newton, Mass.),
and twins Matthew and Samantha,
children of Lauren Bauer Zinman
(of Harrison, N.Y.). Sherri is a
partner at Newport Board Group
and Lauren is corporate counsel for
Tradition Energy and TFS Energy
in Stamford, Conn.

Many years ago, Laura Shaw
Frank left the law for academia.
She has some news. “I recently had
my first article, “Yeshivish Women
Clergy: The Secular State and
Changing Roles for Women in
Haredi Orthodoxy,’ published in the
book You Arose, A Mother in Israel: A
festschrift in Honor of Blu Greenberg.
The book launched in January at the
Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance’s
International Conference on Femi-
nism and Orthodoxy. It is particularly
meaningful to me to have been asked
to contribute a piece to this book
because Blu Greenberg has been a

heroine to me ever since my days at
Columbia. In fact, I wrote a paper
about her in a Women and Religion
class I took at Barnard (with Sharon
Rogers)! Through the years, Blu has
become a close friend and mentor
to me, and it is such an honor to be
published in her festschrift.”

Gemma Tarlach reports: “I know
2016 was a trying year for many of
us (am I the only one who spent
much of January 2016 sitting in a
dark room watching Alan Rickman
movies and listening to Bowie?)
but there were some highlights
for me. I was promoted to senior
editor at Discover Magazine and
was immediately corrupted by the
absolute power. Absolutely. I started
a blog for our website that covers
paleontology and archaeology, in my
own personal idiom, which no one
else on staff dare question; the blog
is called Dead Things; check it out at
blogs.discovermagazine.com/deadth-
ings. My favorite emails/tweets about
it come from the researchers whose
work I cover: ‘I never expected a
science journalist would quote Sir
Mix-a-Lot when describing a sauro-
pod braincase’ and “We love that you
called the mass extinction events we
study ‘Death Glitter.’

“T also had a great time on vaca-
tion traveling through the Republic
of Georgia on my own in May,
even though the sight of a woman
behind the wheel was so odd in the
rather conservative countryside that
I often had crowds gather wherever
I parked. ‘It’s a girl! It’s a girl!’ one
old man proclaimed (in Russian) as
I exited my rental car outside the
achingly beautiful lakeside castle of
Ananuri. I felt like I should give him
a cigar or something. And yes, while
in Georgia I was happy I was able
to dust off the ol’ Russian from my
days in Moscow. It allowed me to
have several, ah, spirited conversa-
tions with the local men about a
woman being perfectly capable of
driving, thanks very much.

“Speaking Russian turned out
to be no help, however, when I
encountered a man on horseback
while I was hiking in the otherwise
deserted Truso Valley. He spoke only
the local dialect of Georgian, but
through enthusiastic hand gestures
made himself understood. Proposi-
tioned by a man on horseback: That’s
bucket list territory right there.

“Georgia is absolutely gor-
geous, by the way, and delicious,

too: Two thumbs up for the qvevri
wine, made in a traditional style

that dates back thousands of years
(check out blogs.discovermagazine.
com/deadthings/2016/06/17/was-
georgia-the-cradle-of-wine-who-
cares-lets-drink). Special shout-out
to my favorite Columbia professor,
Paul Olsen, for being the guy who
showed me you could have a lot of
fun doing serious science. His ‘Intro
to Paleontology’ class is the spirit ani-
mal of Dead Things, and I’m carrying
that attitude into ‘It’s Only Science,’ a
podcast we've recently launched.”

Finally, a word from David
Mandell: “I’m at Penn, where I direct
the Center for Mental Health Policy
and Services Research. I also started a
new role in the Penn Health System,
in which I lead quality improvement
efforts in specialty and integrated
mental healthcare. I've become an
ice hockey and tennis dad as my kids
explore their sports interests. Alas, no
one is interested in fencing.”

Keep the news coming to
youngrache@hotmail.com, people.
Without you, this column would
be blank.

1991

Margie Kim

1923 White Oak Clearing
Southlake, TX 76092
margiekimkim@hotmail.com

By the time this is published, Super
Bowl LI will be long gone and the
Patriots’ miraculous comeback will
be a faded memory (condolences to
Falcons fans). But I have to mention
what a fabulous weekend I had in
Houston for the Super Bowl, cour-
tesy of Lucinda and Javier Loya,
Annie Della Pietra (née Giarratano)
and Chris Della Pietra’89. It was a
weekend full of festivities and fun.
If you were at Javier and Lucinda’s
party during our reunion last sum-
mer, you know that the Loyas are
the consummate hosts and think of
every last detail ... even ones you
don't think you'll need! The icing on
the cake was that we got to hang out
with other Columbia Lions — Matt
Assif’89, Marcellus Wiley ’97 and
Alex Guarnaschelli BC’91.

In other CC’91 news, David A.
Kaufman PS’97 will take on the
position of director, medical inten-
sive care, and associate professor of

medicine at NYU Langone Medical

Center in April. He is glad to be
back in the NYC orbit!

‘This is a short column, so please
send updates to margiekimkim@
hotmail.com. Until next time, cheers!

1992

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Olivier Knox

9602 Montauk Ave.
Bethesda, MD 20817
olivier.knox@gmail.com

Maybe it’s our looming 25th reunion?
I got some lovely, lengthy updates
from Dara Kubovy-Weiss (née Dara-
Lynn Weiss), Brian Farran and Jeff
Lovell. Keep ‘em coming, everyone!
And I look forward to seeing all of
you on campus as we celebrate our
vanished youth and acknowledge the
march of time at Reunion 2017.

Dara writes that her daughter
became a Bat Mitzvah on Novem-
ber 19: “Betty Kubovy-Weiss read
from the torah at Town & Village
Synagogue in Manhattan and
spoke of her feminist response to
the Bible and the work left to do
to ensure equality for women in
today’s society,” Dara writes. Prior
to the service, there was a lunch at
The Library at The Public Theater,
including guests like Peter and
Hilary Hatch, Nina Chaudry, Rita
Pietropinto-Kitt’93, Doug Meehan
93, Peter Sluszka’93, Robin Frank
BC’92 and Lily Binns-Berkey ’03.

Mazel tov!

Brian Farran and his wife,
Mindi, live in South Orange, NJ.,
where they moved from his home-
town of Brooklyn in 2005. They've
been married since 2005 and have a
son, Sam (13), and a daughter, Abby
(9). Brian works as a clinical psy-
chologist at the VA Medical Center
in East Orange and has a part-time
private practice in town.

He writes that he’s “keeping busy
with family life, homeownership,
socializing with friends, going to
local and NYC events of interest,
and travelling whenever vacation

time rolls around.” The next big step
will be getting a family dog — an
Australian Labradoodle — after
resisting “for many years.”

Brian stays in touch with quite a
few CC’92ers — Jim Cheydleur,
Lauren Hertel, Jake Martin, Chris
O’Brien and Heather O'Farrell
‘Townsend 93 and Sophia Seidner
BC’92 — who are all doing well
in their different lives and he says
it’s great to connect when they get
the chance. “I’m sorry that fellow
CC’92er and great friend Meredith
Norton is no longer with us on the
journey, may she and others we lost
rest in peace,” he adds.

When the family spends the day
in Manhattan, they like to grab a
meal at ... wait for it ... V&T. “My
kids love the food, we all appreciate
the unpretentious vibe and parking
the car uptown is easy,” Brian writes.
“And we then usually visit campus
and the four of us sit on Low Steps;
it’s always a surreal experience for
me to do that with them. I remem-
ber spending a lot of time on those
steps, at all hours of the day and
night, and feeling so adult at only 17
years old. It’s been a long time for
us all since then. Wishing everyone
from CC’92 good health, prosperity
and peace. Keep on keeping on, and
I will hopefully see some of you at
Reunion 2017 this summer.”

Jeff Lovell wrote in from Mel-
bourne, Australia, gamely attempting to
summarize the last 25 years. He spent
some time in NYC after graduation,
working in commodities training, then
shifted to software in the early 2000s
“via a love of MMO gaming.”

“Said love of gaming introduced
me to lots of good people around
the world, including a wonderful
woman who lived in Australia. After
accepting my proposal, I expressed
joy and promised she would love
living in California with me,” Jeff
writes. “She said, “What are you
talking about ... California?!’ So
now I live in Melbourne.”

Jeff has been working in software
development for 10 years as a proj-
ect manager and middle manager, as
well as a few years “making invest-
ment accounting software for banks
and such, and lately with a growing
company in the field of supply chain
and logistics planning.”

Right now he’s “working on
projects to improve planning and
safety for a petrol distribution
company, as well as a global hunger

Left to right: Former Vice President Joe Biden, George Kolombatovich '93
and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti 92 chatted at a January fundraiser for

Garcetti’s 2017 reelection campaign.

charity helping them improve food
distribution. Our lead business con-
sultant just did a TedXBreda talk on
how mathematics is helping world
hunger, related to how we approach
solving the puzzle, without naming
my company or the client.”

Jeff’s wife wants to move to
Perth, “where it’s warmer and she
has family,” while Jeff is eyeballing
beach houses.

He adds, “About a year ago I did a
quick United States tour to catch up
with family in Vegas and Iowa and
spent a few days in Jersey/NYC with
Joel Rubenstein 91, where I was also
able to meet up with a few members
of the old swim team, including coach
Jim Bolster and Cliff Blaze (who I
believe recently won a national title in
Master’s swimming, going very nearly
as fast in the 100 fly as he did 23
years ago, a simply astounding feat).
Dropped by the KDR house as well,
and paid respect to Alma Mater.”

As everyone who attends Reunion
2017 on June 1-4 surely will!

1993

Betsy Gomperz

41 Day St.

Newton, MA 02466
Betsy.Gomperz@gmail.com

Greetings, classmates! I heard from
George Kolombatovich, who
lives in Los Angeles and is deputy
counsel to Mayor Eric Garcetti’92,
SIPA’93. In January, Garcetti held a
fundraiser for his 2017 re-election
campaign honoring Vice President

Joe Biden; Wah Chen’92 also

attended. George sent great pictures
that included one of George, the
mayor and the Vice President, and
one of Eric, Wah and her children.

Thanks George — everyone looks
the same (if not better!) than they
did 20-plus years ago!

I had a busy summer and fall after
I took on the role of chief of practice
development at Ropes & Gray. I’ve
been at the firm almost eight years
(since I decided to stop practicing
law) and now head up my depart-
ment, which focuses on business
development and strategic planning
globally. I oversee a team of roughly
80 people, so it was a big adjustment
during the last several months and at
times I was drinking from a fire hose.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to
spend time with classmates as I’ve
traveled. I spent time with Patti Lee
while in San Francisco, Jenny Hoff-
man while in Washington, D.C.,
and Robyn Tuerk and Neil Turitz
while in New York. Ali Towle left
San Francisco last summer and relo-
cated to Boston, so I get to see her
a lot more! She works for the New
England Patriots as senior director,
brand and fan experience. As of the
day I am submitting this column,
she is heading to Houston for Super
Bowl LI, where the Patriots will play
the Atlanta Falcons!

Congratulations on the new role,
and go Pats!

Please fill me in on your
own news, as well as news from
classmates: betsy.gomperz@gmail.
com. I am planning to attend the
Saturday, April 22, Alumni Office
symposium, “Celebrating 30 Years of
Columbia College Women.” I hope

Spring 2017 CCT 77

ART + LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY

to see many of you there and to get
updates from you! [Editor’s note:
See the feature “Hear Us Roar” for
more on the symposium. |

1994

Leyla Kokmen

cloiEGik

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
lak6@columbia.edu

First up, a lovely update from far
away: Seema Balwani is the
NOAA Regional Coordinator for the
Pacific Islands and lives in Honolulu:
“T recently bought a home and love
life in Hawaii, where I get to play
in the ocean and work on marine
conservation issues,” she writes.
Happy news from Karen
Sendler: On June 4, she and John
Kirkwood SEAS’92 were married
in John’s parents’ garden in Had-
donfield, N.J. Chessa Contiguglia
Mercier was maid of honor, Drew
Stevens SEAS’93 did a reading
and Xavier Smith’99 serenaded
the couple during the reception.
Other Columbia guests included Joe
DeSimone ’92, Susie Baldwin ’90
and Jennifer Good BC’93.
Congratulations to Miriam
Gohara, who was recently appointed
to the Yale Law faculty as a clinical
associate professor of law. She has
taught at Yale since 2014, both as a
clinical lecturer in law and as a presi-
dential visiting professor. She leads
the Challenging Mass Incarceration
Clinic and co-teaches the Educa-

tional Opportunity and Juvenile
Justice Clinic and the Advocacy for
Children and Youth Clinic.

Shawn Landres shared the good
news that he has been elected chair
of the Los Angeles County Qual-
ity and Productivity Commission.
Shawn has been a member of the
commission since 2013 and previ-
ously led its “Digital by Default”
report on digital government.

Steve Cohen sent a nice update
from the Philadelphia area, where
he lives with his wife, Kathleen, and
kids, Alexa (12), Will (10) and Ty (8),
and is a sports medicine orthopedic
surgeon. “After nine years of assisting
with the Philadelphia Phillies, in
2015 I was named head team physi-
cian. So 2016 was my second full sea-
son,” he writes, adding that he also is
team orthopedist for the Philadelphia
Flyers. “I follow Columbia Athletics
and my daughter hopes to play soccer
there,” he writes.

From Palo Alto, Calif, Anne
Kornblut writes that she is at Face-
book, overseeing policy communica-
tions and working on the company’s
journalism and news-related efforts.
She and her husband, John, have two
children, Audrey (4) and Arlo (5).
“During the winter break, I caught
up with Eliza Lowen McGraw and
Rebecca Weinberg Femia, as
well as with Paula O’Rourke BC’94,
when we were all in D.C. for Eliza's
daughter’s bat mitzvah,” she writes.
“Tt’s amazing to think that pretty
soon, the children of our classmates
will be applying to college!”

And finally, a remembrance of

our own college days from Kay
Bailey, sparked by recent events:

Karen Sendler 94 and John Kirkwood SEAS’92 were married on June

4 in Haddonfield, N.J. Left to right: Bill Gildea JRN’61, Deborah Mason
GSAS’76, Steve Gelman JRN’57, father of the bride David Sendler JRN’61,
Susie Baldwin ’90, Xavier Smith ’99, the bride, the groom, maid of honor
Francesca Contiguglia Mercier ’94, Jennifer Good BC’93, Drew Stevens

SEAS’93 and Joe DeSimone ’92.

78 CCT Spring 2017

“During the January 21 Women’s
March on Washington, I remem-
bered my first Washington protest,
on January 15, 1991,” Kay writes.

“I had driven to D.C. with Josh
Shannon and Janet Balis, who
were covering the march for
WKCR, and we would be spending
the night at Janet’s parents’ house in
Bethesda, Md. When we got to the
National Mall, we agreed to have
Josh and Janet go do some reporting
while I marched. We would meet up
again after the protest at the Smith-
sonian Metro station. As it turned
out, there was no such thing as ‘after
the protest.’ It continued into the
night and I used my freshman PE
class running skills to sprint back
and forth from the post-march rally
at the White House to the tunnels
of the Smithsonian Metro. After
five hours, when the crowds had
dwindled and marchers beaten a
retreat, | heard my name booming
over the loudspeaker, spoken as if by
God. I was rescued.

“Twenty-six years later cell
phones have replaced the need to
plan or be in shape. Josh’s kids have
played with my kids in my suburban
backyard, though not enough. My
Columbia experiences continue to
frame the rest of my experiences
through life. What I wouldn't give
to be a freshman at Columbia again,
and what I wouldn't give to have
George H.W. Bush back.”

Thanks for the updates and

memories everyone. Until next time.

LOS:

Janet Lorin

730 Columbus Ave., Apt. 14C
New York, NY 10025
jrf10@columbia.edu

We all know Columbia College’s his-
tory of political figures, dating from
Alexander Hamilton (Class of 1778)
to Barack Obama’83. One of our
classmates also joined the ranks of
elected officials on the national stage.

In November, voters in El Paso
returned Robert “Beto” O’Rourke
to office for his third term in
the House of Representatives. A
Democrat, he has sat on commit-
tees including Armed Services and
Veterans’ Affairs.

Beto splits his time between
Washington, D.C., and El Paso,

where he lives with his wife, Amy,

and their kids, Ulysses (10), Molly
(8) and Henry (6). He and Amy,
who is from Chicago, met on a blind
date and have been married for more
than 11 years.

Beto ended up at Columbia for
the reason many of us did: New
York City. He learned about the
school from a high school friend
already on Morningside Heights.

During college, Beto rowed crew
and played the guitar in some bands
(including Swipe) that opened for
larger groups, including Jonathan
Fire*Eater. They played in Ferris
Booth Hall and The West End.
During summers, he also toured
with another band from E1 Paso,
Foss: “We played in bars and base-
ments and clubs,” Beto says.

His memories of those years
at Columbia also include several
work-study jobs, like checking IDs
at FBH and various residence halls,
including those dreaded Sunday
morning shifts. He also delivered
the Sunday New York Times to
Barnard residence halls.

After school, Beto lived in Wil-
liamsburg for three years before
moving back to his hometown of El
Paso, where he started a technology
company, now owned by his wife.

Before winning a House seat, he
served on the El Paso City Council

for six years.

1996

Ana S. Salper

24 Monroe PI., Apt. MA
Brooklyn, NY 11201
ana.salper@nyumc.org

Greetings, classmates! Barbara
Antonucci has joined Constangy,
Brooks, Smith & Prophete as a part-
ner in the firm’s recently opened San
Francisco office. Barbara focuses her
practice on labor and employment
litigation prevention and defense.
Parag Gandhi is an attending
oculofacial surgeon and assistant
professor at Duke Eye Center. Since
2015, he has been working with
the Virtue Foundation in NYC on
an annual surgical and teaching
mission to Mongolia each May. On
the mission trip, the doctors screen
and operate on patients with eye and
orbital diseases that can affect their
health or vision; while many of their
patients are adults with traumatic
injuries and cancerous growths, many

Parag Gandhi ’96 and Tanya Khan
06 traveled to Mongolia with the
Virtue Foundation on a surgical and
teaching mission in May 2016. This
photo was taken in Khovd, a western
province bordering Kazakhstan.

are also young children losing vision
from drooping eyelids and other dis-
orders. Parag writes that it has been
an extremely rewarding experience
overall. On the May 2016 mission he
was accompanied by Duke oculoplas-
tics fellow Tanya Khan ’06. A photo
of them proudly displaying Columbia
regalia was taken on a short break
during one of their busy mission
days in Khovd, a western province
bordering Kazakhstan. Parag hopes
to return there on future missions.
Malik Rashid writes that he has
had a great four and a half years living
and working in Manila, all with the
Asian Development Bank. He was
recently elected chair of the Columbia
Alumni Association Philippines
Board of Trustees, so that keeps him
busy. His wife, Sheena, has been active
with social work locally since they
moved to Manila in 2012 and their
daughter, Ariana, is in kindergarten
at the Chinese International School.
Malik writes that there is nothing he
enjoys more than learning Mandarin
with his daughter. The family made
the decision to return to the United
States in 2017 and they have identi-
fied a short list of metro areas they
could move to this year. Malik hopes
to reconnect with many of you as he
explores his next professional oppor-
tunities back home. You can still reach
him at mmr20@columbia.edu.
Sandhya Nankani SIPA’97 is
the founder of Literary Safari, an
award-winning company that creates
children’s content celebrating play,
literacy and diversity. Sandhya spends
a lot of her days trying to figure out

how to parse research about children’s
technology and media use. She then
incorporates that research into the
creation of children’s print and digital
content that is designed to be diverse
and inclusive, and to help families play
and learn together. Last year, Sandhya
created and launched two children’s
apps (HangArt and Grandma’s Great
Gourd), both of which made it to
Common Sense Media's Essential and
Best of Apps lists, something about
which Shandyha is thrilled, she says.

Sandhya is also a founding
member of an initiative focused on
helping children’s media producers
create diverse and inclusive digital
media. Diversity in Apps is soon to
be rebranded as KIDMAP: Kids
Inclusive and Diverse Media Action
Project. The group is currently collabo-
rating with the Joan Ganz Cooney
Center at Sesame Workshop to create
a best practices kit (the DIG Toolkit)
for children’s media producers on how
to create better children’s content.

That’s it for now — please keep
sending in notes! And, because it is
with great restraint that I write these
notes with absolutely no commentary
on our current political state of affairs,
I leave you with this call to action:

“Our Constitution is a remarkable,
beautiful gift. But it’s really just a piece
of parchment. It has no power on its
own. We, the people, give it power.
We, the people, give it meaning. With
our participation, and with the choices
that we make, and the alliances that
we forge. Whether or not we stand
up for our freedoms. Whether or not
we respect and enforce the rule of law.
‘That’s up to us.”

— Barack Obama 83

1997

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sarah Katz

1935 Parrish St.
Philadelphia, PA 19130
srk12@columbia.edu

John Dean Alfone was credentialed
press for the Day for Night Music

Festival in Houston, December
17-18, and penned this: whereyat.
com/day-for-night-festival-takes-
on-houston-tx. He also interviewed
up-and-coming band Night Drive,
which has toured with cutting-edge
acts Yacht, Psychedelic Furs and
Chyrches: whereyat.com/ones-to-
watch-night-watch.

Rachel Mann is excited to
announce that her debut YA novel,
On Blackberry Hill, won the 2016
National Jewish Book Award for
Young Adult Literature.

Kerensa Harrell and her
husband, Manu Sehgal (Mayo
Medical School’95) celebrated the
arrival of their first child, Amara
Vey, to whom Kerensa gave birth
on October 27 in Florida. Amara is
a Sanskrit name meaning “immor-
tal and indestructible.” Kerensa
has had a career in dance, having
performed on stage at Radio City
Music Hall, Lincoln Center’s
Metropolitan Opera House, The
Theater at Madison Square Garden,
The Brooklyn Academy of Music,
The Sullivan Street Playhouse et al.
She was the waltz choreographer
of The Viennese Opera Ball in
New York 2006-09 at the Waldorf
Astoria ballroom and has had her
own NYC-based choreography
practice since 2000. She plans to
be a stay-at-home mom in Florida,
where her husband is an interven-
tional radiologist in private practice.
They met in 2015 and married the
same year at her grandparents’ estate
in Florida, and are now excited to be
starting their family. Kerensa quips:
“We're both late bloomers ... but,
better late than never!”

Rabbi Sharon Brous 95,
GSAS’01, founder and rabbi of
IKAR Synagogue in Los Angeles,
spoke at the Women’s March in
Washington, D.C., on January 21.
Her full remarks can be found here:
jewishjournal.com/nation/213661/
hush-uniform-67439.

As for me, Sarah Katz, along
with husband, David, and proud big
brother, Micah, joyfully announce
the birth of our daughter, Eliana Nia
Katz Love. Eliana was born October
24, surprising us two months early.
After a two-month stay in the
NICU, she came home on Decem-
ber 23. Since then she has been busy
delighting her brother with snuggles
and keeping her parents up at night,
as it should be. Looking forward to

seeing everyone and getting more

updates at our 20th reunion! It will
be here before we know it, Thursday,
June 1-Sunday, June 4: college.
columbia.edu/alumni/reunion2017!

1999

Sandie Angulo Chen
10209 Day Ave.

Silver Spring, MD 20910
sandie.chen@gmail.com

Hello, classmates! It occurs to me
that while a small percentage of

us are dealing with our firstborns
being in high school, another small
percentage of us are dealing with
becoming parents. In a blink of

an eye, some of us might have
another generation of Columbia-
bound students.

Congratulations to new parents
Jeff Cohen-Laurie and his husband,
Tim Cohen-Laurie, who became
fathers to daughter Dylan Aubrey
Cohen-Laurie. Dylan was born
at 6:15 p.m. on December 1; she
weighed 6 lbs., 14 oz. As Jeff and Tim
shared on Facebook: “She is perfect.”

Jeff, Tim and Dylan live in Los
Angeles, where Jeff is an attorney at
the L.A. County Alternate Public
Defender’s Office.

Lea Goldman continues to
be one of our class’ fiercest media
bosses. She’s now the editor in chief
of Lifetime & FYI networks after a
stint as editorial director at Refin-
ery29 and eight years in various
editorial roles at Marie Claire.

Congratulations, Lea!

Send your news to sandie.chen@
gmail.com — your classmates want
to hear from you!

1999

Adrienne Carter and
Jenna Johnson

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
adieliz@gmail.com
jennajohnson@gmail.com

Greg Nihon let us know about

yet another new lion cub in the
pride — he and his wife, Stephanie,
welcomed Scarlett Evangeline in
June. Scarlett joins her delighted
sister, Adriana (4). The family lives
in Nassau, Bahamas, though Greg is

Spring 2017 CCT 79

keeping up with his classmates and
recently met up with Matt Becker-
leg for an NHL hockey game.

We also heard from Riann
Smith, who offers a dispatch from
the glamorous world of writing
and celebrities. Riann “co-authored
a women’ style bible with Emmy
award-winning fashion guru Carson
Kressley.” Does This Book Make My
Butt Look Big? A Cheeky Guide to
Feeling Sexier in Your Own Skin &F
Unleashing Your Personal Style was
published in October. Riann says
she “had a ball writing the sassy style
tome and is on the hunt for [my]
next celebrity book collaboration.”

That’s all we've gathered for the
continuing adventures of the Class
of 99, but we hope to have many
more reports next time. Send us
your news to either adieliz@gmail.
com or jennajohnson@gmail.com!

2000

Prisca Bae

344 W. 17th St., Apt. 3B
New York, NY 10011
pb134@columbia.edu

Class of 2000, what’s the news?

I hope everyone is having a great
2017 so far — great enough to
share in CCT! Email me at pb134@
columbia.edu to tell me how hob-
bies, work, family, travel and life in
general are going. Your classmates
want to hear from you!

2001

Jonathan Gordin

3030 N. Beachwood Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90068
jrg53@columbia.edu

Lauren Abraham Mahoney gave
birth to a son on November 20.
Alexander David is doing great and
Mom, Dad and big sister are enjoy-
ing the addition to the family.

Andrea Cherkerzian Den-
nigan, her husband, Peter, and
her son, Levon, welcomed Khoren
Joseph on June 15. Levon and
Khoren already enjoy getting into
lots of trouble!

John Balouziyeh recently pub-
lished Hope and a Future: The Story of
Syrian Refugees, a book documenting
his travels to Syrian refugee camps

in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. The

80 CCT Spring 2017

book discusses how anyone can have
a positive impact on Syrian refugees
through corporate partnerships with
aid organizations, civil society initia-
tives and volunteer opportunities.
All book proceeds will be donated to
charities assisting Syrian refugees.

A thought: Facebook has helped
me stay in much better touch with
all of you. I am able to find out who
had a baby and who got married in
almost real time. It also helps me
stay connected when classmates
are traveling recreationally or for
business. Although Facebook wasn’t
my source, I was recently on a short
trip to Seattle in December and I
carefully planned my time to ensure
a long coffee break with Marla Zink
(née Goodman). As usual, Marla
and I had a great time catching up.

I think some of you have planned
similar junkets with our classmates.
Please share and let me know how
your classmates are doing, so I can
share more broadly.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2017!
Send me a note with your updates to
jrg53@columbia.edu.

We want to hear from you!

2002

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sonia Dandona Hirdaramani
2 Rolling Dr.

Old Westbury, NY 11568
soniah57@gmail.com

Hi friends! Our 15-year reunion

is around the corner, Thursday,
June 1-Sunday, June 4; go to
college.columbia.edu/alumni/
reunion2017. Pooja Agarwal is

on the Reunion Committee so we
will hear from her. She had a son,
Rohan, on January 3. Pooja also has
a daughter, Meera (2.5).

GAP hired NYC-based director
Mike Mellia to film a series of video
loops, advertising classic underwear
in a surreal yet effortless manner.
Under Mike’s signature whimsical
aesthetics, the everyday never looked
so good.

Su Ahn works at Farfetch in a
global role, so she is constantly on
the move!

Allison Lloyds O’Neill and Matt
O’Neill welcomed their son, Alexan-

der Grant O’Neill, on February 2.

2003

Michael Novielli

Jurong East Street 21, Block 208
#08-181

Singapore 600208
mjn29@columbia.edu

Wishing you all a very happy (lunar)
Year of the Rooster — many of us
are roosters, so special wishes of
health and happiness to you all.

Brandon Victor Dixon ’07,
who entered with our class and
plays Aaron Burr in the Broadway
production of Hamilton, made inter-
national headlines for his speech to
Vice President Mike Pence when
Pence was in the audience for the
November 18 show.

Congratulations to Cyrus Habib,
who was recently elected Lieuten-
ant Governor of Washington State,
making him the first and only
Iranian-American elected to state
office in the United States and the
highest-ranking Iranian-American
in public office. [Editor’s note: See
“Lions,” this issue. |

Simone Sebastian was recently
named to lead the America Desk at
The Washington Post.

Emily Broad Leib topped the
Fortune and Food & Wine list of
“Most Innovative Women in Food
and Drink” for her role as director of
the Harvard Food Law and Policy
Clinic. The announcement reads:
“According to the United Nations,
the world produces more than
enough food for everyone on the
planet. Yet billions of pounds end up
in landfills every year. Leib is taking
on the hunger epidemic by focusing
on legislation to address labeling and
to make donating easier. ‘For most
foods the date on the label is about
freshness, not safety,’ she says. “Ihere
are no guidelines at the federal level
and inconsistent ones on the state
level that are not based on actual
science. We want to make labeling
laws clearer, so when people pick up
a yogurt, they know when it’s OK to
eat it and when to throw it out.’ This
common-sense approach has the
potential to transform our system,

with the ultimate goal of getting
more food to those in need.”

Sam Polk’01 writes, “I opened
Everytable in Los Angeles, a social
enterprise making healthful food
affordable for all. We sell healthful
grab-and-go food, and price the
meals according to the neighbor-
hoods we are in. We are creating a
system where everyone gets great
value and we can open stores in
every community, no matter the
demographic profile.”

Rachel Sundet invites class-
mates to stop by her two restaurants
in Kendall Square in Cambridge,
Mass.: State Park, which is also a
bar, and Mamaleh’s Delicatessen and
Restaurant, a Jewish deli.

Sheila Dvorak Galione lives
in the Hudson Valley and, in 2016,
began working in development
at SUNY Ulster as development
associate and scholarship coordina-
tor, where she manages social media
strategy and messaging. Her band,
Sheila Dee and The Dazzlers, has
been performing throughout the
Hudson Valley since 2014. The band
will be in the studio (Roots Cellar)
recording its first full length album
this year. On January 21, Sheila
Dee attended the Women’s March
on Washington, where they filmed
the official music video for the first
single, “Happening,” due early this
year. Listen at sheiladeeshow.com.

Jenny Bach earned a master’s
in mental health counseling and is
a full-time psychotherapist at New
York Psychotherapy and Counsel-
ing Center in the South Bronx.
Jenny also is a board member/
officer for The Shine Foundation
(shine-foundation.org; chapters in
New York City and Baltimore), a
nonprofit that works assiduously to
help provide assistance to survivors
of domestic violence.

Jeffrey Hsieh, an anesthesiologist
at CarePoint Health, and his wife,

Jacqui Wu, welcomed son Hunter.

2004

Jaydip Mahida

76 Courter Ave.
Maplewood, NJ 07040
jmahida@gmail.com

Hi CC’04. No updates this issue, so
please send in news, as we want to
hear from as many folks as possible.
Career and family updates are always

fun, but please reach out to share
about trips you may be taking, events
you have attended or are looking
forward to, or even interesting books
or shows you have come across.

You can send updates either via
the email at the top of the column
or through CC7’s Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

2005

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Happy spring, Class of 2005! Send
updates to CCT at cct@columbia.
edu for a future issue!

Steph Katsigiannis Benecchi:
“T, along with my husband, Kevin
Benecchi SEAS’05, and our daughter,
Liliana (born July 2015), relocated
from Manhattan to Haddonfield,
NJ., last summer. I joined Montgom-
ery McCracken Walker & Rhoads
as an associate in its Philadelphia
office, where my practice focuses on
representing individuals involved in
government investigations, as well as
commercial litigation and white collar
criminal defense.

“Kevin works for LoyaltyEdge, for-
merly a division of American Express
and currently with Meridian Enter-
prises, where he is a senior manager
in charge of the analytics and data

Megan Ivey ’06 married Daniel
Turner on April 2, 2016, in Redondo
Beach, Calif. Left to right: bridesmaid
Jackie Adelfio SEAS’06, bridesmaid
Amy Cass ’07, the bride, bridesmaid
Lauren DeLauro Senno ’06 and
bridesmaid Lauren Baranco ’06.

FIGLEWICZ PHOTOGRAPHY

science team, focusing on customer
loyalty and consumer rewards. We
would love to connect with classmates
in the area, or those passing through.”

Darren Bolton was married to
Jessica Marie Dunbar (Loyola) on
November 19 in Doylestown, Pa. In
attendance were best man Conall
Arora ’06 and groomsmen Faisal
Saidi’07 and Roel Garcia’07. Says
Darren, “We recently returned from
an amazing honeymoon in South
Africa. Jessica and I now live happily
in Old City, Philadelphia.

“I am an assistant golf profes-
sional at the Springdale Golf Club
in Princeton, N.J., and am working
on earning my Class A membership
with the PGA of America. I am also
training to compete in my second
Olympic-distance triathlon this July
and will run in the Philadelphia

Marathon in November.”

2006

Michelle Oh Sing

cloiEGh

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
mo2057@columbia.edu

Dear friends,

Here are some exciting updates
from our classmates!

Teddy Dief writes: “I released the
videogame ‘Hyper Light Drifter’ for
PC, PlayStation 4 and XBox. The
game received two Game Award
nominations in 2016! I recently
moved to Montreal to be creative
director at game studio Square
Enix Montreal.”

Jose Montero BUS’13 has
been working on a line of foods,
Wickedly Prime, for Amazon and
launched in 2016. Bon appétit!

Justin Ifill recently traveled to
Cuba and was pleased to spend the
holidays in a warm climate! In Febru-
ary, he started yoga teacher training;
he is looking forward to this next
chapter and starting a new business.

Jonathan Ward successfully
defended his Ph.D. thesis at Oxford
on China-India relations and has
begun an active public speaking life
on China-India, Indian Ocean and
Asia Pacific regions. Here’s a link
to a recent talk at the Economic
Research Council in London:
ercouncil.org/events. He plans to
return to the United States this year.

alumninews

Friends celebrated at the wedding reception of Radha Ram ’06 and Raj
Sahoo. Left to right: Gopi Nayak ’06, Vinita Venkatesh SEAS’0O5, the bride,
the groom, Gauri Saxena BC’06, Kingsley Christopher Cruickshank ’05,

Srinidhi Raghavan ’06 and Amit Gupta.

C. Mason Wells is working with
Cohen Media Group to relaunch
New York City’s first multiscreen
movie theater, Quad Cinema, which
was established in 1972. He will be
the cinema’s director of repertory pro-
gramming when it reopens in April.

Megan Ivey and Daniel Turner
were married on April 2, 2016, at
the Redondo Beach (Calif:) Historic
Library. Bridesmaids included
Jackie Adelfio SEAS’06, Amy Cass
07, Lauren DeLauro Senno and
Lauren Baranco.

After getting engaged on Colum-
bia’s South Lawn at her 10-year
reunion, Radha Ram married Raj
Sahoo in Dallas on December 9.
There was even a performance
by Radha’s former dance team!

‘The performers were alumni from
Columbia Taal, including her sister
Gita Ram’04 and friends Vinita
Venkatesh SEAS’05, Kingsley
Christopher Cruickshank ’05, Gauri
Saxena BC’06, Srinidhi Raghavan
and Gopi Nayak. Other alumni in
attendance were Neeta Makhija,
Michelle Oh Sing, Matthew
Dinusson SEAS’06, Sonali Lala
and, of course, Radha’s mother, Asha
Ram School of Pharmacy’76.

Alexia Connellan (née Innis)
launched a signature collection of
couture jewels inspired by extraor-
dinary gems she has gathered over
the years. The newest jewels can be
found on alexiaconnellan.com. The
collection was photographed by
Chad Johnson GSAS’09. Alexia’s
pieces have been worn on the
red carpet and have won several
prestigious jewelry design awards.
She lives in San Francisco with her

husband, Irish playwright Brendan

Connellan, and their young son.

2007

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

David D. Chait

21 Sherbrooke Dr.

Princeton Junction, NJ 08550
david.donner.chait@gmail.com

It’s 2017 and I can't believe our
10-year reunion is just around the
corner. I hope to see you all there!
Until then, here are some exciting
updates from classmates:

Allie Cérdova (née Mirkin)
and Clay Cérdova welcomed their
daughter, Chloe, on May 20. They
“can’t wait to pressure her to apply to
Columbia and are looking forward
to showing pictures to anyone they
can corner at reunion this year.”

Jake Olson and Luciana Olson
(née Colapinto) welcomed Lucas
William Olson into the world on
September 25. Jake says, “Everyone
is doing great!”

Philippa Warodell (née Ainsley)
and Johan Warodell GS’09, GSAS’12
welcomed their first child, Johan
Hugo, in August. Philippa writes,
“He’s a strapping lad and we look
forward to his being Class of 2038!”

Spring 2017 CCT 81

SRINIVAS PRASAD

David Berlin 07 married Alexandra Bronson in Brooklyn in October. Left

to right: Emily Msall ’07, Christina Giaccone BC’07, Greg Wing ’07, Nick
Klagge ’07, the groom, Joseph Anzalone ’07, the bride, Andrew Russeth '07,
Elizabeth Klein ’07, Subash lyer ’07, Gillian DiPietro BC’07, Joel Ryzowy ’07,
Helam Gebremariam ’07, Risheen Brown ’07, Amanda Levy and Tyler Brown.

David Berlin and Alexandra
Bronson were married in Brooklyn,
N.Y., in October.

After 31 years in New York City,
Kate Hurwitz is “moving to Los
Angeles to pursue her nightmare of
constantly being in a car.”

Becca Hartog shares, “I’m in
residency at the University of Pitts-
burgh Medical Center in combined
internal medicine and pediatrics. P'll
finish in May 2018 and I’m getting
married in June 2017.”

Caitlin Raux (née Gunther)
writes, “I cannot believe our 10-year

is almost here! I’ve been a food
writer and editor for the Institute
of Culinary Education since last
spring and doing freelance writing,
photography and social media
consulting. Also, I got married this
past fall and am now Caitlin Raux
(sounds like ‘row’ with a French
‘rrrr’). Hope to catch up with every-
one at reunion.”

In November, Earnest Sweat was
a featured panelist for Kellogg School
of Management’s Growth Forum.
Earnest participated in the “Pockets
of Potential” session, which focused

Athar Abdul-Quader ’08 married Sharmin Ahmed BC’10 on July 17. From back:
Adil Ahmed ’09, Giselle Leon 10, Amy Chen 10, Robyn Burgess “10, Saira Sid-
diqui BC’09, Whitney Green SEAS10, Ali Shafei 10, Farah Ahmed, Tahir Qadir
SPS'09, Alice Sturm 10, Kashif Siddiqui SEAS’04, Sakib Khan SEAS’07, Taaha

Shaikh SEAS’05; middle row: Henna Mahmood 11, Saffiyah Madraswala BC’09

’

Katie Palillo BC’10, Annie Taylor BC’10, Muzna Ansari BC’10, Tarnima Ahamed
BC’08, Diana Hsueh GSAS’09, Jennifer Pyne BC’10, Prema Choudhury BC’10,
Meena Azizi BC’10, Deysy Orddéfiez 10, Kabita Parajuli 10, Azhar Abdul-Quader
’02, Mohamed Haroun SEAS’08, Mona Soliman ’09, Ahmed Khan ’09, Ayesha
Khan ’03, Fatima Fasihuddin BC’99; front row: Amreen Vora BC’09, Ameera
Nauman BC'10, Zeest Haider BC, the bride, the groom, Sherif Farrag ’09,
Yusuf Ahmad 12; and seated: Sairah Anwar BC'11, Jafreen Uddin BC’07,
Naureen Akhter BC’09 and Dilruba Parveen BC'11.

82 CCT Spring 2017

on the importance of investing in
women and minority-led businesses.

See you at Reunion 2017,
Thursday, June 1-Sunday, June 4!
Go to college.columbia.edu/alumni/
reunion2017.

2008

Neda Navab

353 King St., Apt. 633
San Francisco, CA 94158
nn2126@columbia.edu

Here are the latest updates for
CC’08! Scott Hughes married
Shelley Jacobson (Penn’08) in July
in the Poconos. Several friends

from Columbia were in attendance,
including Cody Steele ’09, Andrea
Steele ’07, Jon Kamran, Marissa
Weldon, Thomas Weldon,

Liz Hormann, Craig Hormann
SEAS’08, Mark Dato ’10 and Gavin
Harris. Though the Columbia
attendees were outnumbered by
their counterparts from Penn, the
group sang a spirited rendition of
“Roar, Lion, Roar!” on the dance
floor that startled the crowd and
definitely won the enthusiasm battle.

Scott and Shelley live in Wash-
ington, D.C., where he works in
private equity for the Carlyle Group
and she works in charter school
finance. For Manhattanites tired of
small apartments and high rents,
they say come check out D.C:!

Lauren Arnold PS’17, PH’17
married Brandon Bell on May 29
in Memphis.

Earlier this year, Avanti Maluste
co-founded a cat day care in
Mumbai, “The Kitty Litter.” The
concept was so successful for dogs
that she decided to expand the idea

of pet daycare “to our feline friends.”

Avanti says, “The initial response
ys, P

has been tremendous, including cats
of two Bollywood stars. We offer
daycare, grooming and transport.
‘The Kitty Litter has also been
fortunate enough to benefit from
the guidance of international board
members Zander Bauman and
Paula Cheng, who provide insight
from across the pond. We are excited
to see what next year brings.”

Last summer, Ronald Towns
and good friend Zach Bell
launched Camp Common Ground
(campcommonground.org). Their
goal is to disrupt racial and eco-
nomic segregation in the Bay Area.

s+
ly
Ze

PD
oS

PSS
ay Se
= 7, 7

ALEX YOUNG

In January, Elizabeth Monson ’08,
Rohini Sengupta SEAS’08, Victoria
Gerstman ’08, Christine Espinoza
08 and Eve Torres 08 met up at the
W South Beach in Miami to celebrate
Gerstman’s 30th birthday.

“How do we do this? We help kids
from different racial and economic
backgrounds build strong relation-
ships with one another, so that they
can build and lead integrated com-
munities as adults,” says Ronald.
“This past summer, we brought
27 kids of all different racial and
economic backgrounds together
for a two-week, overnight summer
camp experience. While at camp,
our Commoners (the name we give
our campers): a) learn about their
identity and how their identity
influences their perspective, b)
learn empathy skills to help them
listen and understand others and c)
practice leadership skills that will
allow them to build relationships
with people across cultural lines and
bring those people together.”
Athar Abdul-Quader married
Sharmin Ahmed BC’10 on July 17.
‘They celebrated with many of their
Columbia and Barnard friends and
family, with Columbia/Barnard classes
represented from 1999 to 2012.

2009

Alidad Damooei

c/o CCT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
damooei@gmail.com

Aditi Nim and Hans Sahni’08 were
married in December in Laguna
Beach, Calif., surrounded by their
closest friends and family. They met
on Columbia’s Bhangra dance team in
2006, started dating in 2011 and got
engaged in 2014. Their wedding was

attended by more than 40 Columbia
alumni from various classes, including
Ravi Singh, Amar Doshi and Salina
Bakshi. Highlights included a mas-
sive reunion dance at their sangeet and
exchanging vows in both the Hindu
and Sikh traditions. The couple lives
in Los Angeles.

Stephanie Chou recently
released her third album, Asympzote,
which features fresh arrangements
of Chinese classics, including
“Kangding Love Song” and “In
the Moon (You'll See My Heart).”
Another song on the record, “Eating
Grapes,” is based on a tongue twister.
And another is about Li Bai’s poem,
“Quiet Night Thought.” Plus, there
are songs influenced by her love of
mathematics and literature. Stepha-
nie celebrated the release with a per-
formance at Joe’s Pub in New York
City on January 14. Check out audio,
video and more: stephaniechoumusic.
com/asymptotelinernotes.

Stephanie received the 2016
Jerome Fund for New Music, a grant
from the American Composers
Forum with funds provided by the
Jerome Foundation to write, record
and premiere a new piece of music
with the China Institute.

Michael Grinspan is a comedy
touring agent at ICM in Los Ange-
les, working with stand-ups like
Jay Leno, Jay Pharoah, Bob Saget,
Cecily Strong and Marlon Wayans.
Michael also represents up-and-
coming comics, focusing on diverse,
underrepresented voices. If you need

a comedian for an event, reach out
to him on Facebook.

Want to see your updates here?
Send me an email at damooei@
gmail.com!

2010

Julia Feldberg

One Western Ave., Apt. 717
Boston, MA 02163
juliafeldberg@gmail.com

Hi 2010. This is a quieter issue for our
class, but exciting nonetheless. Thanks
for sharing your updates. I look for-
ward to reading more next issue.

Michael Bossetta recently
launched a podcast series, “Social
Media and Politics” in connection
with his Ph.D. research at the Univer-
sity of Copenhagen. In the podcast,
Michael interviews leading academics,
politicians and industry experts to
explore how social media is changing
politics in the digital age. You can
download the podcast on iTunes or
Google Play, or send a tweet for more
info: @SMandPPodcast.

Morgan Parker’s second book
of poetry, There Are More Beautiful
Things Than Beyoncé, was sched-
uled to be published in February.
Recently, her work has been featured
in The New York Times, The Paris
Review, The Nation, The Best Ameri-
can Poetry and elsewhere. She also
received a 2017 Literature Fellow-
ship from the National Endowment

Scott Hughes ’08 married Shelley Jacobson in the Poconos in July. Several
friends from Columbia were in attendance, including (left to right) Cody
Steele ’09, Andrea Steele ’07, Jon Kamran ’08, Marissa Weldon '08, Liz
Hormann ’08, Thomas Weldon ’08, the bride, the groom, Craig Hormann
SEAS’08, Mark Dato 10 and Gavin Harris ’08.

JAMIE CLAYTON PHOTOGRAPHY

Lauren Arnold Bell ’08, PS’17, PH’17 married Brandon Bell on May 29 in
Memphis. In attendance were (fourth row, left to right) Laura DiCola PS’16;
Paul Blackcloud PS’16; Adam Koneman; (third row) Erick Farrington; Kieron
Cindric ’08; Ben Weinryb Grohsgal ’08; Michael Dreyfuss ’08; Beth Leopold
PS’16; Andrea Gillis 12, PS’16; Tate Andres PS’16; lan Wolfe; (second row)
Michaela Bamdad ’08; Jeremy Lyon; Melissa Arnold Lyon TC’21; Sally
Cohen-Cutler ’08; Zoe Sansted 12, PS’17, BUS17; and (front row) Randall
Lee PS’16; Joanna Tu PS’17; the groom; the bride; Nina Ragaz PS’16; Joshua
Rosner ’08 and Marlene DeOliveira SEAS’08.

of the Arts. She'd love to see you on
her book tour!

And now, the latest from Chris
Yim: “Oh, boy! The meaning of life
... what is it and how do we figure it
out? In my past posts, I have made
a number of Christian allusions and
talked about my faith. However, in
the past few months, I’ve actually
felt more distant from that walk
of life. Not for any one reason, but
just feeling this uncertainty around
whether or not this is all random —
our lives and our existence. I struggle
with the idea of time, how our lives
are constrained by the time we have.
‘This transience urges me to seek
meaning, but I wonder if we can
find meaning in a world that clings
to chaos and dismisses my ideals for
justice. Maybe we don't need to find
meaning in our lives and, if we can
find a way to enjoy the process, it’s
just as powerful to be present and
pursue the day to day.

“T was in the woods with Varun
Gulati SEAS10 a few months ago.
We were snacking on vegetables and
roaming the wilderness when we
started talking about how much we'd
miss each other when he moved to
New York. He has since moved to
New York to be with his girlfriend.
We discussed how lucky we were to
have met and how the stars aligned
throughout our lives for us to spend

so much of our 20s together — six

of the last 10 years! Overwhelmed
by the profundity and gratitude,
we shed tears. I wondered if there
was any design to it, if there was
any intention, as the answer to that
question would help clarify things
for me.

“I wrote a status on Facebook
about the power and liberation
in being vulnerable. I had a few
relationships in the past few years,
dating back to college, that took
advantage of my vulnerability and
earnestness. Over time, I became
hardened and it has become harder
for me to show my compassion and
let go of my cynicism. Also, living
in New York just makes you a jerk.
Through trying to make strides in
bridging relationships, extending
hands to others that I’ve disagreed
with and sitting down to have tough
conversations, I have witnessed how
moving it is to be vulnerable. It
sounds ultra-cheesy, but when you
take off your armor, offer peace and
say, ‘Hey, I’m here to work it out,’
youd be amazed by how disarm-
ing that can be. If you're reading
this and thinking about a strained
relationship with a parent, sibling,
friend, work colleague or whomever,
then you have something you want
to and can improve.

“PIL close this loopy submis-
sion with a few notes. Pll be in San
Francisco for another year, moving

Spring 2017 CCT 83

into a new home with my wife and
two more roommates. We went
from having one roommate (Varun)
to two roommates. I guess this is
the modern marriage. I am pursuing
hobbies now that I have never done
before — yoga, improv and ceram-
ics, and am writing again. I have a
beautiful community here in San
Francisco, consisting of a number
of Columbians, including Nidhi
Hebbar 12, Erin Tao ’11, Tiff Jung,
Geoffrey Charles SEAS’12, Jake
Grumbach, Dario Abramskiehn
and Alex Millet ’12. Outside of
them even, we have this group out
here that is really open, honest,
compassionate and invested in one
another's lives. It took me a while

to find this, but I feel really grateful
for what we have. I still can’t forget
how privileged I am and that people
of less fortunate backgrounds don't
have the opportunities that I have
had and may not have them. This
year is also about trying to find ways
to serve so that others may have the

ee re

several Columbians at the wedding
of fellow Carman 9-er Lauren
Pully SEAS’11 and Dylan Graham
(Cornell’11). Yaniris Gomez; Zila
Acosta-Grimes LAW’15; Brian
Grimes; Ali Krimmer; Sean
Udell; Dhruv Vasishtha; Molly
Spector BC’11; Elizabeth Pitula
BC’11; Sarah Sullivan BC’11; Lia
Bersin SEAS’11; Daniel Izquierdo
SEAS’11, SEAS’16; and Elizabeth
Rodan SEAS'11 all dashed to
“Dazzling Dallas” to celebrate the
New Year and the Pully-Graham
wedding. It was so nice to reunite
with Columbia friends, especially
Dhruv, whose Lululemon-Orange
Theory-Flywheel persona really hit
its stride in Dallas.

Michael Bruno, it turns out,
moved to a far superior part of the
country while we were drinking in
Dallas. You can now find him in the
Bay Area, where he is working at
Facebook on the data science team.
Facebook is cool and all, he says,
but really he’s just thrilled to have

Nicole Catd ’11 spent a week in Cuba, traveling to

the Bay of Pigs, Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Trinidad,

Vinales and Havana.

opportunities that I have been for-
tunate enough to have. You can keep
me accountable to that here.

“Lastly, Tiger Woods will win
one golf tournament. You heard it
here first. Love you all, muah!”

2011

Nuriel Moghavem and
Sean Udell

CloieGh

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
nurielm@gmail.com
sean.udell@gmail.com

Happy spring, Twenty-Eleven! We
hope that 2017 is treating you well
so far. Since we're writing these
updates in January, we can only
speculate on how the first 100 days
of life without a Columbia College
alumnus in the White House will
pan out for all of us. Sean, at least,
memorably rang in 2017 with

84 CCT Spring 2017

escaped the cold of Chicago, where
he had lived the past five years.

Annie Tan also left Chicago to
come back to New York City, where
she now teaches fifth-grade special
education in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
Prior to her move, Annie had been
working for Chicago Public Schools
and served as a delegate to both the
American Federation of Teachers
Convention and the Democratic
National Convention last July. (Hit
her up, NYC folk!)

Nicole Cata, an avid CCT
reader, recently spent a week in
Cuba, traveling to the Bay of Pigs,
Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Trinidad,
Vifiales and Havana, where her
father and his parents were born.
She memorably saw the house her
great-grandfather built in Havana,
which she had never thought
she would get to see. Nicole
also cheered on the Columbia
University Marching Band from
afar (middle Brooklyn) as it hosted
Orgo Night in front of Butler
Library in December. Because the

UNIVERSITY

Julia Garrison ‘11 married Philippe Putzeys SEAS‘10 on July 23. Columbia
alumni in attendance were (left to right): Jordan Kobb 10, Hannah Mercuris

, aes

a SI tf : oer

‘10, Dan Nassar 10, Erin Conway "11, Gene Kaskiw ’09, Robert Frawley
SEAS"10, Kate Omstead 10, Adam Bulkley 10, Eric Tang SEAS‘0, the bride,
the groom, Nick Barron 10, Lauren LaMura SEAS10, Eric McKenna SEAS'11,
Colleen McNutt 11, Ross Ramone 10 and Lauren Byrne 11.

band was abruptly prohibited from
playing in the library last semester,
Nicole contributed to an alumni
fund that supplied hand warm-

ers and coffee to the performers
playing instruments and making
merry in 18-degree weather. Nicole
is rooting for the return of Orgo
Night to Butler 209 in May! (Hear
that, PresBo?)

Ben Gaston, a beard role model
to at least one of your correspondents,
founded digital marketing agency
Open Oceans, which uses lean startup
strategies to provide high-return
digital marketing solutions to grow-
ing businesses. The business is based
out of San Francisco and is rapidly
building a diverse client set across the
United States. Ben is happy to speak
with entrepreneurs or business lead-
ers looking to improve their digital
marketing strategies.

Following up on our many mar-
riage announcements from the last
three issues, another Twenty-Eleven-
er left singlesville last summer: Julia
Garrison married Philippe Putzeys
SEAS’10 on July 23. The couple
met during our sophomore year at
Columbia. Many Columbia alumni
attended the nuptials, including
Jordan Kobb’10, Hannah Mercuris
10, Dan Nassar ’10, Erin Conway,
Gene Kaskiw’09, Robert Frawley
SEAS’10, Kate Omstead’10, Adam
Bulkley’10, Eric Tang SEAS’10,
Nick Barron’10, Lauren LaMura
SEAS’10, Eric McKenna SEAS’11,
Colleen McNutt, Ross Ramone ’10
and Lauren Byrne.

Finally, these med school cor-
respondents are thrilled for Tanisha
Dee Daniel, who was accepted to
Robert Wood Johnson Medical
School, where she will join the Class
of 2021 this summer. This means that
Tanisha gets to stay in New Jersey,
where she has been living while com-
muting to New York City’s Memorial
Sloan Kettering Hospital.

2012

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Sarah Chai

c/oieGh

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
sarahbchai@gmail.com

‘The beginning of 2017 brought excit-
ing changes for some classmates!

Pat Blute is mapping out 2017
plans for the beta launch of South of
Market: The Musical, which hit three
tour venues in January. Listen to a
sneak preview of some of the music
by going to SoundCloud and search-
ing “South of Market: The Musical.”

Caden Greenberg Brecher was
born on December 24. He came
as an early surprise. Mom Jessica
Greenberg and dad Oren Brecher
11 are overjoyed.

After graduating with a master’s
from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts’
Department of Art and Public Policy
in May and working for the American
Associates of the National Theatre,
Elizabeth Kipp-Giusti started the year
by transitioning to The Public Theater
as a development associate, managing
a portfolio of institutional partnership
grants. In her spare time, she co-chairs
the Columbia Alumni Association
Arts Access Committee, curating arts
events throughout the city and engag-
ing CU alumni in conversations about |
creativity and cultural stewardship. |

Mrinal Mohanka left New York,
where he was a consultant after

Oren Brecher 11 and Jessica Greenberg 12 welcomed son Caden Greenberg
Brecher on December 24.

graduating, in 2014 to experience
fellowship, start-up and venture
capital life in India. He returns to
Morningside this spring to start an
M.B.A. and looks forward to seeing
many of you before or at reunion!

Gillian Rhodes says hello from
South Korea: “It’s been a year and
a half of living in Seoul. This fall,
after a year of dancing with Second
Nature Dance Company, a Korean
contemporary dance company, I was
moved from guest dancer to mem-
ber. The year was filled with training
and performances, but in between,

I organized the first virtual summit
(thousandvirtualsummit.com) for
the international Thousand Network
around the theme ‘New Archetypes
of Peace’.”

Chuck Roberts is a 2L at Stan-
ford. He plans to spend this summer
working for Sullivan & Cromwell
and the Department of Justice in
Washington, D.C.

Hope to hear from the rest of you
soon and to see you all at our five-
year reunion, Thursday, June 1—
Sunday, June 4! Go to college.
columbia.edu/alumni/reunion2017.

2013

Tala Akhavan

cloieGi

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
talaakhavan@gmail.com

Jide Adebayo SIPA‘14 recently
moved to Miami Beach (by way of
Venture for America), where he is

a senior strategist out of the office
of the CEO at Rokk3r Labs. Jide

is responsible for co-building tech
companies, as well as leading the
overall vision and development of
Rokk3r Labs itself: Rokk3r Labs has

sent Jide on a one-year entrepreneur-

ial pilgrimage around the world in
partnership with Remote Year. Each
month, he will travel to a different
country across Asia, Africa, Europe
and South America, where he will
speak with entrepreneurs to under-
stand what investors are looking for
and to connect the so-called “global
collective genius” in the VC space.

Born and raised in Memphis in
a Nigerian family of four boys, Jide
graduated with a B.A. in philosophy
and economics and earned a master’s
in public administration from SIPA
through an accelerated five-year
program. Before his role at Rokk3r
Labs, Jide started a company with
Ramzi Abdoch SEAS'17 and was
accepted to the inaugural Columbia
Startup Lab.

To contact Jide or follow his
story, go to jideadebayo.com.

Ryan Mandelbaum moved back
to New York City after two years as
a healthcare software implementer in
Madison, Wis. He finished a graduate
program in science journalism at
NYU and now writes full-time for the
tech website Gizmodo. His work has
appeared in Scientific American, Popu-
lar Science, The Washington Post and
The Atlantic. In his own words, Ryan
is “essentially still sending class emails,
but now sends them daily to several
thousand more people ... and only on
science. He has also dyed his hair and
eaten organs from various non-human
animals, among other things. So all-
in-all, things are going pretty well.”

Glad to know the CC’13 spirit is
alive and well. After many years in
New York City working in consulting
and then for Uber NYC, I’ve moved
back to Los Angeles and am a regional
operations manager for Uber’s United
States and Canada businesses. When
I'm not working (or traveling for
work), I plan to hike with my puppy
regularly and I hope will learn how
to surf! Shoot me an email with your
news: talaakhavan@gmail.com!

alumninews

2014:

Rebecca Fattell

clo CGh

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
rsf2121@columbia.edu

Happy spring, 2014! Classmates
were busy during the winter months,
but this means we should have a full
column for the Summer issue!

Amanda Marie Buch, who is
pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience at
Weill Cornell, was recently featured
in an episode of the podcast Szory
Collider! The shows take place
around the United States and the
United Kingdom and involve a live
performance, which is recorded for
an online podcast. Amanda’s episode
was recorded in March 2016 while
she was a Bridge to Ph.D. Scholar at
Columbia; she performed at Union
Hall in Brooklyn as part of Brain
Awareness Week: storycollider.org/
stories/2016/12/2/amanda-buch-
my-fathers-brain.

One of Amanda’s public talks
at the Columbia University
Medical Center was covered by
the Dana Foundation: danablog.
org/2015/07/20/focused-ultrasound-

how-sound-can-heal-your-brain.

2015

Kareem Carryl

cloleGii

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
kdc2122@columbia.edu

The Class of 2015 is truly up to some
amazing things! Adrian Alea has
been in Los Angeles for the past year
working as a management associ-
ate for Benny Medina and Jennifer
Lopez. He says, “I look forward to
returning to NYC this summer, where
Pll be assistant directing Shakespeare
in The Park with The Public Theater.”
Doreen Mohammed 17 writes,
“T have a role at MyCareerHacker as
a career consultant. I am looking to
diversify my resume with other experi-
ences. Can any classmates help me out?
Reach me at drm2144@columbia.edu.”
Alyssa Menz recently completed
a master’s in nature, society and
environmental governance at Oxford.

Highlights from her experience
include exploring the discourse

of food insecurity and urban food
deserts in the United States for her
master’s dissertation and leading the
Oxford University Varsity Ultimate
Frisbee Team to a third place finish
at the U.K. National Championships.

Alyssa recently accepted a posi-
tion on the Energy and Resources
Group team at Development Alter-
natives, an international develop-
ment firm in Washington, D.C., and
is looking forward to starting this
next adventure, she says!

And that’s it, folks! Want to get
your story out there? Please submit
updates to me at the address at
the top of the column, emailing
me at kde2122@columbia.edu or
submitting via the CCT Class Notes
webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/
submit_class_note.

2016

REUNION 2017
JUNE 1-4

Alumni Affairs Contact
Fatima Yudeh
fy2165@columbia.edu
212-851-7834

Development Contact
Heather Siemienas
hs2843@columbia.edu
212-851-7855

Lily Liu-Krason

c/o1€GT

Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
lliukrason@gmail.com

Hey, 2016. I recently moved back to
NYC and work in midtown. If you
want to reach out at lliukrason@
gmail.com to catch up, I would love
that! Otherwise, please send me
your notes and updates as always!

Eyvana Bengochea LAW’19
recently gave birth to a baby boy! Her
partner is Zyad Al Rasheed-Wright
GSAS’15. Not being able to get
enough of the Pantone 292, Eyvana
finished 1L at the Law School and
will pursue a human rights internship
in the United Kingdom this summer
through the Law School’s Social
Justice Initiatives program.

Don't forget that this summer is
our first-year reunion! Come back
to campus ‘Thursday, June 1-Sunday,
June 4, to catch up with friends and
make Columbia memories.

Spring 2017 CCT 85

| obituaries he a on <r |

1942

Leonard I. Garth, federal judge,
North Branford, Conn., on Sep-
tember 22, 2016. Garth was one of
the longest serving and most highly
respected federal judges in the
country, having served for 48 years.
He was a Rockefeller Founda-

tion Scholar and fought as a first
lieutenant in Africa during WWII.
After graduating from Harvard Law,
Garth practiced at Cole, Berman

& Garth (now Cole Schotz), a

prominent New Jersey-based firm,

Hon. Leonard |. Garth ’42

where he developed his reputation
as a leading trial and transactional
lawyer, before being appointed to
the federal bench. Garth first served
on the United States District Court,
District of New Jersey, for four years
beginning in 1970 and the last 44
years on the Court of Appeals for
the Third Circuit. He handled many
high-profile cases, including some
involving the Three Mile Island
disaster, congressional redistricting,
organized crime, political corrup-
tion and immigration. Recently,

the atrium of the U.S. Courthouse
in Newark, N.J., was named in

his honor. Garth is survived by

his daughter, Tobie Garth Meisel;
son-in-law, Michael S. Meisel;

three grandchildren; and seven
great-grandchildren. His wife of 72
years, Sarah Kaufman Garth, passed
away in 2016. Memorial contribu-
tions may be made to Temple Beth
Tikvah, 196 Durham Rd., Madison
CT 06433; the American Heart
Association; or the American
Diabetes Association.

86 CCT Spring 2017

Robert J. Kaufman, retired corporate
attorney, Scarsdale, N.Y., on October
30, 2016. Kaufman was a graduate

of the Horace Mann School. At the
College, he was Phi Beta Kappa, a
member of Sachems and coxswain of
the Varsity Crew. Kaufman served in
the Navy 1942-46 and was a com-
munications officer aboard a destroyer
escort. Kaufman graduated from Yale
Law in 1948; he was a member of
Corby Court. Having started as an
associate with Gale, Bernays, Falk &
Eisner, Kaufman became assistant
general counsel of the DuMont
Broadcasting Corp. and later spent
many years as VP and general attorney
for ABC. Kaufman frequently said
that no one enjoyed working for

a living more than he did. He was
profiled in Whos Who in America and
was an enthusiastic golfer and a great
fan of the Giants football team and
Camp Kennebec. Kaufman is survived
by his wife of 65 years, Susan Sanger
Kaufman; sons, Peter S. and James H.;
daughters-in-law, Theresa and Teresa;
and two granddaughters. Kaufman
was predeceased by his brothers
Edwin and William. Memorial con-
tributions may be made to Columbia
University and designated for men’s
rowing: giving.columbia.edu.

1949

Robert B. Goldberg, retired busi-
ness executive, Manhasset, N.Y.,

on April 2, 2016. Goldberg was

born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y.,
where he graduated from Boys H.S.
After graduation from Columbia, he
served in the Merchant Marine and
the Air Force, attaining the rank of
second lieutenant. Goldberg worked
in the textile and personal computer
businesses and was president and a
member of the Board of Trustees of
Temple Hillel in North Woodmere,
Long Island, as well as a member of
the Local Development Corp. of the
Town of Hempstead. His love of his
alma mater was everlasting, and as an
avid fan of Lion sports he even got to
enjoy basketball’s CollegeInsider.com
Postseason Tournament Champion-
ship in March 2016. Goldberg was
predeceased by his wife, Lora, and

is survived by his sons, Jerry and his
wife, Marla, and Andy and his wife,

Irene; seven grandchildren; and four
great-grandchildren.

1951

Robert B. Kaemmerlen, architect,
Hingham, Mass., on November 30,
2015. Born in Albany, N.Y., Kaem-
merlen grew up in Hudson, N.Y. He
was a member of Columbia's light-
weight crew and earned an M.Arch.
in 1954 from GSAPP. Kaemmerlen
developed his architectural partner-
ship, Salisbury & Moore, in Avon,
Conn. Notable projects included the
Hartford Hospital School of Nurs-
ing, Hartford YWCA, Kent School
facilities and several ski lodges at
Pico Mountain and Mount Snow,
Vt. Having designed and built sets
for The Simsbury Light Opera Co.’s
many productions, Kaemmerlen’s
highlight was the giant tree and
mushrooms from which emerged
the fairies of Iolanthe. He built two
houses, one in Simsbury and one on
Prudence Island, R.I., that used solar
heat and hot water; he was ahead of
his time. Kaemmerlen enjoyed skiing,
sailing, rowing, painting and always
taking a summer camping trip to the
mountains with his family. He was
married to Joann Rice for 62 years,
and they have three sons, Steven,
Thomas and James, and a daughter,
Betsy. In addition to them, Kaemmer-
len is survived by five grandchildren;
one great-grandchild; older brother
Paul; and older sister Helen. He was
predeceased by older brother Jack’50.

Beverly James “Jim” Lowe, retired
rear admiral, U.S. Navy, Daytona
Beach, Fla., on February 13, 2017.
Born on June 4, 1929, in Keyser W.V.,
Lowe earned a B.A. in physics and
mathematics. Upon graduation, he
entered the submarine service. After
two years of submarine operations, he
was selected for a three-year program
at MIT; from which he received
advanced degrees in naval engineer-
ing and an M.S. with a specialty in
nuclear engineering. Lowe served 33
years in the Navy. Upon completion
of his naval service he was a program
manager, VP and CEO of various
engineering companies includ-

ing Westinghouse, United Nuclear
Corp. and Tacoma Boatbuilding

Rear Adm. Beverly James Lowe ’51

Company. Lowe retired in 1987 and
lived in Albuquerque, N.M., where
he volunteered for many community
organizations. He was an influential
leader in the return of ROTC to
Columbia University. Lowe is sur-
vived by his sons, Stephen and Paul,
daughters, Kimberly Chalkley and
Pam Krieger; and five grandchildren.
He was predeceased by his brother,
Brenton, and wife, Suzette. Memorial
contributions may be made to the
Columbia Alliance for ROTC, Box
422, Waldwick, NJ 07463.

1952

Stanley I. Rubenfeld, tax attorney,
Aventura, Fla., on September 3, 2016.
Rubenfeld was born on December

7, 1930. At the Law School, from
which he graduated in 1956, he was
editor-in-chief of the Law Review.
Rubenfeld served as a lieutenant in
the Navy during the Korean War and
then joined Shearman & Sterling in
New York City. He was a senior part-
ner at the firm and spent his entire
career there, becoming head of the
tax department and one of the coun-
try’s leading tax attorneys. Rubenfeld
was an avid tennis player and shared
his wife Madeleine Conway's devo-
tion to the building of the new Pérez
Art Museum Miami, and her love of
travel. Rubenfeld is survived by his
children, Leslie Dealy, Lise Oelbaum
and Kenneth; his wife and her
children, Andrew Conway, Victoria
Newman and Allie Marks, and their
families; his five grandchildren,

one great-grandchild; sons-in law,
Andrew Oelbaum and Kevin Dealy;
and nephews, Andy Rubien and

Davie Rubien. He was predeceased
by his sister, Sheila Pakula. Memorial
contributions may be made to the
Alzheimer’s Association, Southeast
Florida Chapter, 3333 Forest Hill
Blvd., West Palm Beach, FL 33406;
or the Alzheimer’s Association, Long
Island Chapter, 425 Broadhollow
Rd., Ste 307, Melville, NY 11747.

1953

Mitchell Price, retired fire department
personnel director, Hudson, Fla., on
January 8, 2016. Price was born in
Midvale, Utah, on January 10, 1931.
He graduated from Jordan HS., for
which he was student body president.

He was awarded a four-year scholar-
ship to the College. After graduation,
he joined the Navy and became a pilot.
After retiring from the Navy, Price
worked for the Miami Herald and

later was in charge of the personnel
department for the Dade County Fire
Department, from which he retired.
Price was very active in sports, working
under Dunn “Snide” Taylor at Jordan
HS. and Lou Little at Columbia. He
lettered in football, basketball and
baseball at both schools and was an
All-American quarterback at Colum-
bia. He married Virginia Brooks,

who is the mother of his sons, Blake
and Van, and daughter, Kathy. They
later divorced. Price married Norma
Costello and shared many happy years

with her until her death several years
ago. Price is survived by his children;
brother, Don; sisters, Ann Theos and
Amelia; and many nieces and neph-
ews. He was preceded in death by his
brothers George, Proko and Bob; and
sisters Sophie, Mary, Mamie, Dorothy,
Ruby, Rose and Ellen.

1957

Ira Lubell, physician and medi-

cal administrator, San Francisco, on
June 12, 2016. Lubell was born on
June 20, 1936, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He
graduated from Stuyvesant and SUNY
Downstate, and earned an M.P.H.

in 1964 from the School of Public
Health. Lubell served as a lieutenant
commander in the Navy, an officer in
the U.S. Public Health Service and as
the physician at the American embassy
in Moscow. He returned stateside

and became chief medical officer of
Lincoln Hospital in NYC. Lubell was
the first community health officer for
Bergen County, NJ. He worked in
more than 150 countries, specializing
in population control through his work
with the Association for Voluntary
Sterilization. Following his tenure with
AVS Lubell became medical director
of Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center

in NYC. In 1988, Santa Cruz County
hired Lubell as its chief medical officer.
In 1996, he became medical director
of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center,
where he worked for seven years. After
his 2003 retirement, Lubell was medi-
cal director for the San Francisco Fire
Department for four years and also

on local boards and committees. He

is survived by his husband of 36 years,
Louis Judd Bonsignore. Memorial
contributions may be made to The
Diversity Center of Santa Cruz, PO
Box 8280, Santa Cruz, CA 95061.

1968

Michael F. McGuire, plastic surgeon,
Los Angeles, on November 14, 2016.
A native of St. Louis, McGuire earned
a degree from P&S in 1972. While

at the College, he was president of

Columbia Students Agencies, was

on the Board of Managers and was

a member of the Senior Society of
Sachems. He practiced in Southern
California for more than 30 years and
was a clinical professor of plastic sur-
gery at both UCLA and USC. Widely

recognized as a leader of organized

plastic surgery, McGuire was president
of both the California Society of
Plastic Surgeons and the American
Society of Plastic Surgeons. He was

a director of the American Board

of Plastic Surgery at the time of his
death. Although partially handicapped
by a stroke several years ago, McGuire
was an avid gardener and world
traveler, as well as a tireless advocate
for his profession and for patient safety.
He is survived by his brother Patrick.
Memorial contributions may be made
to The Plastic Surgery Foundation,
Attn.: The Dr. Michael McGuire
Leadership Fund, 444 E. Algonquin
Rd., Arlington Heights, IL 60005.

William B. Parmer, retired physician,
San Francisco, on October 2, 2015.
A Phi Beta Kappa alumnus of the
College, Parmer earned a degree
from P&S in 1972 and completed his
internship and residency at Montefiore
Medical Center in New York. Parmer
was affiliated with California Pacific
Medical Center (CPMC) in San
Francisco and practiced medicine for
more than 35 years. He was an avid
reader and had deep knowledge in
many areas, including classical music,
literature, politics and sports. Parmer
was also an accomplished tennis
player, gardener and landscape painter.
Survivors include his wife, Joan;
daughters, Julia and Ilana; mother,
Miriam; and sister, Laura Skodol.
Memorial contributions may be sent
to the Dr. William Parmer Memorial
Fund in Support of Medical Resident
Education, CPMC Foundation, 2015
Steiner St., San Francisco, CA 94115;
cpmc.org/giving; 415-600-2415.

— Lisa Palladino

Spring 2017 CCT 87

alumnicorner

Going the Distance for Women’s Health

Running for social change with Alison Mariella Désir’07, GSAS‘11, TENG

To raise money for Planned Parenthood, activist and long-distance
runner Alison Mariella Désir 07, GSAS’11, TC’'16 and a team of
four runners (joined at different points by more than 1,000 supporters)
ran the 250-plus miles from NYC to Washington, D.C., in three days,
culminating at the Women’s March on Washington on January 21. After
coordinating the relay in less than three weeks, Désir raised $103,544.
Here, she writes about what inspired her to run.

hen I reflect on my time at Columbia College, I

cannot say that I knew then that I would become a

community leader and activist. In fact, I was not as

engaged as an undergraduate as I wish I had been,
and felt far more lost and confused than I like to admit. But while
going to school in the city was a distraction from my schoolwork,
it was also the perfect environment to come of age. Columbia's
campus is visited by world leaders, is often the site of protests and
is a space where casual conversation leads to radical movements.

I believe these conditions led to my core belief: I have a voice
and I am powerful.

When I founded Harlem Run, a running group focused on
community and service, in November 2013, I wanted to share the
transformation I experienced through running. I'd begun endurance
running the previous year while going through a period of depres-
sion. While I had been ac-
tive growing up, I had never
been a long-distance run-
ner — the 400m and 400m
hurdles were my events in
track and field. But when
I saw on Facebook that a
friend’s brother was training
for a marathon while raising
money for a nonprofit, I de-
cided to sign up and do the
same. Training for my first
marathon brought me back
to life and helped me to cope
with the stressful circum-

RACHEL LINK

stances that caused my depression: unemployment, a breakup and my
father’s worsening Lewy Body Dementia. I knew that I could either
continue to do nothing or I could take action — no matter how im-
possible running 26.2 miles seemed — to make my situation better.
By the time I founded Harlem Run the following year, I was in a
much better place mentally and was determined to share the experience
with my community. Despite its slow start, the group has become a so-
cial change movement that attracts hundreds of runners of all abilities
on a weekly basis. To date, we have raised thousands of dollars for local
nonprofit Harlem United, and we integrate our runs with an apprecia-
tion for and deeper understanding of our community and its needs.

88 CCT Spring 2017

In January 2017, I launched Run 4 All Women, a running initia-
tive created to support women and to provide a hedge against politi-
cal efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Much like the founding of
Harlem Run, this initiative was borne out of a desire to take action.
I launched the (4 Women) Run 4 All Women GoFundMe cam-
paign on January 2 and, eight days later, I reached the original goal
of raising $44,000 (chosen in honor of our outgoing 44th President,
Barack Obama’83) for Planned Parenthood. But the donations kept
rolling in, and in 30 days we had raised more than $103,000.

I never anticipated that the initiative would snowball into a
movement. In fact, when my mother donated $200 on the first day,
a sum that was a sacrifice for her, I assumed that might be the single
largest donation I would receive. However, I quickly saw that many
men and women were inspired — hundreds of people reached out,
looking for ways to be involved. On January 18, the evening we
took off, I was joined in Harlem by 250 men and women for the
start of the journey; hundreds more joined us along the way in four
mile stretches. It was this support that made running the grueling
mileage possible: I ran 75 miles over the course of three days.

The amazing aftermath of the run is that Run 4 All Women is now
going national, continuing our fundraising efforts and activism. We are
hosting a summit in April to train and empower Run 4 All Women
ambassadors with the tools and network to host their own long-distance
relay events and, in August, several runs will take place simultaneously
around the country, all to benefit Planned Parenthood. You can find
out more on Facebook (facebook.com/run4allwomen), on Twitter and
Instagram @run4allwomen, or on run4allwomen.com.

People think you need tons of money to make a difference. People
think you need to be Oprah or Bill Gates to make a difference. People
think you need to have 50,000 followers on Instagram to get a message
across. I don't have any of that. But I'll tell you what I do have:

1. A voice.

2. A pair of sneakers.

3. Two feet to put in them.

4. Enough passion to organize people for a cause.
5. The willingness to sweat for what I want.

It’s like legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said:
“Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

Any person at any point has an opportunity to act. What’s important
is that you set a goal and that you're willing to sweat for what you want.
Pick a mission and organize others; it doesn’t even have to take that
long. The best reward is that you might inspire others to do the same.

There will always be a reason not to take action. Some “thing”
you don't have. But, there is always something that you do have.
Some resource or some reason that makes you best-suited for the
task at hand. In my case, it was my voice, my sneakers, my two feet
and my passion — and that was more than enough.

CELEBRATING 30 YEARS
OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE WOMEN

The first women of Columbia College crossed the stage at Class Day
in 1987, after transforming campus, dominating student leadership
positions and sweeping the graduation awards.

Join us on April 22, 2017, for an all-day symposium to reflect on
our successes and the challenges still faced by women today, and to
build a powerful community of alumnae at Columbia.

Topics include the media’s portrayal of women, creating a successful
) feminist movement, developing girls today to be leaders tomorrow
and much more, with more than 20 alumnae speakers.

COLUMBIA

OER Register today: college.columbia.edu/alumni/ccw30

Questions? Email ccowomen@columbia.edu

| Columbia
| College
| Today w&

Columbia University
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

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PAID
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On the eve of her famed
restaurant's closing, chef
contemplates

the transition ahead

Compass CEO Robert Reffkin 00 | Graduation 2017 | The Revival of Pearl River Mart

“Every day, | learned something that forced me to
reevaluate — my opinions, my actions, my intentions.
The potential for personal growth is far greater,
it would seem to me, the less comfortable you are.”

— Elise Gout CC'19, 2016 Presidential Global Fellow, Jordan Program

6:4 woh ERR

a |

Our education is rooted in the real world — in internships,
global experiences, laboratory work and explorations
right here in our own great city. Help us provide students
with opportunities to transform academic pursuits
into life experiences.

Support Extraordinary Students
college.columbia.edu/campaign

CORE TO
COMMENCEMENT

O54 COLUMBIA COLLEGE

Contents

5 Seb FPR AL sod
ShossNG> WWGTIOM vue
23900, IO)

a yg

After Annisa

On the eve of her famed restaurant’s
closing, chef Anita Lo ’88
contemplates the transition ahead.

—_
&

By Klancy Miller ‘96

“The Journey Was the
Exciting Part”

Compass CEO Robert Reffkin 00, BUS’03

on creating his own path to success.

By Facqueline Raposo

ee
Ae sas
re Yg 45,

Graduation 2017

The Class of 2017’s big day in words and
photos; plus Real Life 101 from humor

Lome
o als he

writer Susanna Wolff 710.

Cover: Photograph by Forg Meyer

departments

Contents

alumninews “

3 Within the Family
Telling new CCT stories online.
By Alexis Boncy SOA'11

4 Letters to the Editor

6 Message from Dean James J. Valentini
The Class of 2017 is a “Perfect 10.”

7 Around the Quads
New Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition at MOMA
organized by Barry Bergdoll ’77, GSAS’86.

12 Roar, Lion, Roar
Men's Tennis wins fourth Ivy League title;
Archery wins national championship;
96th annual Varsity C awards presented.

30 Columbia Forum: Signs of Your Identity
Photographer Daniella Zaleman ’09 sheds
light on a dark time in Canadian history
with her award-winning project.

Now on CCT Online

PRINT EXTRAS

« Graduation 2017 photos and speeches
« Academic Awards and Prizes winners
« Reunion 2017 photos

« Dean’s Pin recipients

« Poems from Ron Padgett '64

Like Columbia College Alumni
facebook.com/alumnicc

View Columbia College alumni photos
instagram.com/alumniofcolumbiacollege

Follow @Columbia_CCAA

Join the Columbia College alumni network
college.columbia.edu/alumni/linkedin

38 Lions
Joanne Kwong ’97, Ron Padgett 64

41 Alumni in the News

42 Bookshelf
High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist
and the Making of an American Classic
by Glenn Frankel ’71

44 Reunion 2017
Alumni reunite on campus.

46 Class Notes
85 Obituaries
88 Alumni Corner

Inspired by his 50th reunion, a writer looks back
on “The Sixties.” By Thomas Hauser ’67

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? | JUNE 12

“We had a reputation — fans, followers
and customers — so there’s a mix of

people who understand the legacy of
5001 FLAVORS.”

THE LATEST

LION’S DEN | JUNE 1

— Sharene Wood ’94

“.. The question of who
has the information, or
who has access to the
information, is as important
as the information itself”
— Ben Ratliff 90

TAKE FIVE | JUNE 23

“King Lear remains, for me,
the greatest achievement

of the human mind. | would
not trade it for all of Mozart,
Michelangelo or Chekhov.”

— Terrence McNally ’60

college.columbia.edu/cct

JORG MEYER

lick, click, tap. Click, click, tap.

This is the soundtrack to our days — the click of
the mouse, the tap of fingers, the rat-a-tat rhythm that
accompanies our online wanderings. Everyone has their

go-to destinations for news or a social fix, but why not make room
for one more? Come, click over in our direction: CCT online is
doing something new.

‘There, for the first time, we're publishing original, web-only content
between issues. It’s easy to find — just look on our home page under
“The Latest.”

We cheered when our inaugural post went live in May, and the
glow still hasn’t worn off. Original digital marks the start of a new
era for CCT. Yes, we've put our issues online for many years, and will
continue to do so. But we are now a publication that truly bridges
print and web, with a richness of offerings in both spaces that befits
the way most of us read today. Want to curl up with a longer fea-
ture? Pour a cup of coffee and page through the print magazine.
Want a quick alumni hit while you're on the go? Click on the web-
site; we post our most frequent feature, “Take Five,” every Friday.
Other stories go up biweekly, monthly and quarterly.

When we were mapping out plans for “The Latest,” we talked a lot
about what its aim would be and how to differentiate the new online
content from the print while remaining true to the spirit of CCT’s
mission. Time and again, we returned to the idea of creating a place
for your alumni voices. We wanted to find more ways to put you in
conversation with one another, to invite reflections on your time at
the College, to share your professional expertise and to express your
opinions. Ultimately, we wanted to capture the diversity of viewpoints
and experiences that characterize the Columbia College community.

In the end, our desire to hear more from you — along with a
commitment to diversifying the types of stories we produce —
served as our guiding principles. “Take Five” and “Lion’s Den” are
two expressions of this. The first features reminiscences from alumni
about their College experiences, prompted by five questions, a fasci-
nating exercise in revisiting our younger selves, the things we most
remember and what we'd choose to do over (or not). The second is
a monthly column by a guest writer sharing their perspectives on
culture and current events (former New York Times music critic Ben
Ratliff’90 penned the excellent debut).

Alumni expertise and experience also figure prominently in the
sections we call “Think Tank” and “Like Minds.” In “Think Tank,”
we pose a topical question to a small group of alumni experts.
(When President Trump pulled out of the Paris Accords, we knew
that climate change would be the first topic.) In “Like Minds,” we
ask two alumni to interview each other about a subject that’s impor-
tant to them both. The tone here is more personal — like a coffee-
house chat that we all get to listen in on.

Within the ——

A Columbia College Today

scnambala University in the Cty of New York

CCT

The Latest -

Columbia
| College
Today &

TAKE FIVE

Take Five with Sarah Steele 741

Spring 2017

The monthly section “Where Are They Now?” is what it sounds
like — a catch-up with the subject of an earlier CCT profile. (Fun
fact from the most recent installment: that glitzy Cher-inspired outfit
Vanessa Hudgens wore to host May’s Billboard Music Awards was
by 5001 FLAVORS; Sharene Wood’94 is the company’s CEO.) And
because our alumni so frequently make headlines, we'll be posting
regular updates in a biweekly version of “Alumni in the News.”

Developing this roster of recurring web features, and working on
the stories, has been an invigorating — and just plain fun — addi-
tion to our days. Special thanks go to deputy editor Jill C. Shomer
and associate editor Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09 for being the cre-
ative forces behind most of the content. We hope you'll visit often
(college.columbia.edu/cct). Go ahead and bookmark our page. Or if
you haven't already followed Columbia College Alumni on Facebook
(facebook.com/alumnicc) or Twitter (@Columbia_CCAA), I encour-
age you to do so; we'll be sharing there whenever a new “Latest” post
goes live. And please let us know what you think. Jill can be reached
at js4987@columbia.edu and you're always welcome to write me at
alt2129@columbia.edu.

Thanks, and happy clicking!

Alexis Boncy SO wee

Editor-in-Chief

Summer 2017 CCT 3

| Columbia
| College
| Today &

VOLUME 44 NUMBER 4
SUMMER 2017

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Alexis Boncy SOA’11

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Lisa Palladino

DEPUTY EDITOR
Jill C. Shomer

ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

FORUM EDITOR
Rose Kernochan BC’82

CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Shira Boss ’93, JRN’97, SIPA’98

ART DIRECTOR
Eson Chan

Published quarterly by the
Columbia College Office of

Alumni Affairs and Development

for alumni, students, faculty, parents
and friends of Columbia College.
ASSOCIATE DEAN,

COLUMBIA COLLEGE

ALUMNI RELATIONS
AND COMMUNICATIONS

Bernice Tsai 96

ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO:
Columbia College Today

Columbia Alumni Center

622 W. 113th St., MC 4530, 4th FI.
New York, NY 10025

212-851-7852

EDITORIAL

cct@columbia.edu
ADVERTISING
cctadvertising@columbia.edu
WEB
college.columbia.edu/cct

ISSN 0572-7820

Opinions expressed are those of

the authors and do not reflect

official positions of Columbia College
or Columbia University.

BLY MIX

Paper from
responsible sources

eS FSC* C022085

Letters to the Editor

Supporting Gorsuch

I write to dispel some of the persnickety comments attributed, unfortunately, to
fellow Columbians about Neil Gorsuch’88.

Neil has been lambasted for the newspaper he founded, violating postering rules,
supporting unpopular causes, his quotation in the yearbook and his fraternity, among
many other things. The students who actually knew Neil can attest to his character.
In fact, more than 150 of his classmates, both Democrats and Republicans, submit-
ted a comprehensive and thoughtful letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in
support of his nomination.

I was friends with Neil. He created “The Fed” [ Federalist Paper] to encourage respect-
ful and open dialogue among students from a voice not often heard at Columbia. I was
the dummy who violated the sign posting rules in his run for school senate, and I can
verify that he knew nothing about it. I lived at the Fiji house for three years, and I can
attest that the wild allegations in the press were unfounded and outrageous.

During the Senate hearings, many of Neil’s colleagues praised his good nature,
respect for others and sharp intellect. These were the same qualities we saw at Colum-
bia and why so many of his friends came out in strong support of his nomination. We
know that politics will not play a part in his decisions, but instead he will be guided by
his strong character, humility and integrity, which should make all Columbians proud.

Rob LaPlaca 89
Weston, Conn.

Columbians on the Court As for the broader group of Columbians on
dacethaseuscvevesVuluenhussrcepeccauvassvares'sarsantcvesssnesusilisanatsassettnsastJeasceseperisecarpeassaas the Supreme Court, it also includes Ruth
Regarding “Gorsuch Nominated to U.S. Bader Ginsburg LAW’59, first in her class
Supreme Court” (“Around the Quads,” and the school's first female tenured professor.

Spring 2017): The article concludes with,
“If confirmed, Gorsuch would be the second
Columbian to serve on the country’s highest
court [after John Jay (Class of 1764)].”

There were actually three others from the
College — Jay, Samuel Blatchford (Class of
1837) and Benjamin Cardozo (Class of 1889).

Kenneth A. Iczkowski 86
Brookfield, Wis.

Editors note: CCT thanks Iczkowski, and
also Peter Law 08 and ‘Thomas Vinciguerra
85, JRN’86, GSAS’90, for pointing out the
oversight. We regret the error.

On page 33 of the Spring 2017 issue
(“Alumni News”), you report that the sculp-
ture in the Van Am Quad [at right] “is actu-
ally the third bust produced from the mold.”
Hello? Where are the first and second
busts? Inquiring Lions want to know!
Congratulations on a great issue, as
always, of a most welcome publication.
Alex Auerbach ’66
Sherman Oaks, Calif:

Editors note: We found reports of the two
other busts’ origins, but not their present
locations. Commissioned in 1912 and 1913,
respectively, the first was installed in Ham-
ilton Hall and the second was given to the
Columbia University Club.

The Right Woman?

Professor Martha Howell GSAS’79’s com-
ments on gender equality (“Hear Us Roar,”
Spring 2017) were of considerable interest,
but I found her reply to the question of
whether we are ready for a female Presi-
dent somewhat convoluted. Howell noted
that, in the election, “there was an element
of, ‘Is this the right job for a woman?”

I would suggest rather that there was
an element of “Is this the right woman for
such a jobe”

Philip Lille 62, SIPA’64
Paradise Valley, Ariz.

Extraordinary Service

I write to recognize Michael Rothfeld ’69,
BUS’71, SIPA’71,JRN’71 for his 12 years of
extraordinary service to the Columbia Uni-
versity Board of Trustees, a service that has

benefitted the University and the College.

[e Contact Us

CCT welcomes letters from readers about
articles in the magazine but cannot print or
personally respond to all letters received.
Letters express the views of the writers

DAVID DINI SIPA’14
sonia ait

Michael was responsible for the board’s
review and approval of the University’s annual
budget, capital budget, capital structure and
financings. He led the Student Life and
Learning Committee for nine years and the
Finance Committee throughout his tenure.
As chair of finance, Michael reviewed quar-
terly, for a number of years, the University’s
financing of the new science, performing arts
and Business School buildings in Manhat-
tanville — specifically the Jerome L. Greene
Science Center, which houses the Zuckerman
Mind Brain Behavior Institute, opened in
October 2016, and the Lenfest Center for the
Arts, opened in April 2017.

In addition, Michael worked tirelessly
last fall reviewing closely the financing for
the Business School’s new building; the
groundbreaking took place in December
2016 and the building is scheduled to be
completed in 2022.

Columbia has greatly benefitted from
Michael’s work as a trustee and he has
honored the Class of 1969 throughout his
distinguished tenure.

Thank you, Michael!

Jonathan D. Schiller 69, LAW°73
New York City

Editor’s note: The writer chairs the Columbia

University Board of Trustees.

A terribly late response to “The Experts”
feature [Winter 2016-17]: Thanks all
around for some pretty good tips. But I
would add one biggie to those offered by
Michael Gerrard ’72 to combat climate
change: Don’t fly if you can avoid it.
In Moby-Dick (Chapter 45), after relat-
ing a few stories about the many sailors
killed hunting whales, Melville implores
us: “For God's sake, be economical with your
lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but
at least one drop of mans blood was spilled
for it.”
Melville was unhappy with the killing of
the whales, too, but he recognized that the
true cost was not just the money paid for
the whale oil.
By the way, best wishes to Alex Sachare
’71 on his retirement, and thanks for all his
good work through the years.
Allen Schill ?73

Torino, Italy

Just wanted to say, the issue of CCT’ with
all the alums providing tips and tricks
[Winter 2016-17] was great reading. Keep
up the good work!
Ryan McChristian 07

Washington, D.C.

Summer 2017 CCT 5

EILEEN BARROSO

At Class Day on May 16, I spoke about the synergies that are created by
bringing together individuals within our community. What follows is an
abridged version of my speech. To our most recent graduates, who are now
receiving Columbia College Today, congratulations again and welcome to
the community of more than 50,000 Columbia College alumni. I hope you all
continue to benefit from the synergies that you developed along College Walk.

t the Senior Dinner two weeks ago, I told you, the Class

of 2017, that you were a “10,” as in the highest rank on a

scale of one to 10, and said that you were one of only four

classes in the 263-year history of Columbia College to
be a “10.” I presented this as a puzzle for you to solve because I always
have a puzzle at the Senior Dinner. And the answer, which many of you
figured out right away, was that only four Columbia College class years
have digits that add up to 10: 1801, 1900, 2008 and 2017.

To be ranked a “10” means to be complete, to lack nothing. The
academic regalia you are each wearing signifies that, as a graduate,
you have become complete and lack nothing according to the require-
ments of Columbia College. I ranked you as a class as a “10” to focus
your attention on you as a group, who together are complete, lacking
for nothing, when all 1,172 of you are considered together, joined
together, added up, just as the digits in 2017 add up to “10.”

There is an enormous pressure for each of us, individually, to
aspire to be complete, to lack for nothing, right now, and always.
And it is something we are not likely to achieve, despite our best
efforts. Each of us will make mistakes, be confused, misjudge situ-
ations, fall short, perform inadequately. Completeness, lacking for
nothing individually, will elude most of us.

Should we stop trying? No. Rather, we should adjust our sights from
the individual outcome to the individual effort. And we should also
adjust our sights from an exclusive emphasis on ourselves individually to
what we can do together, because what each of us can achieve together
can exceed even what the most nearly complete of us can achieve alone.

To say you, the Class of 2017, is a “10” by adding you up the way
the digits 2-0-1-7 add to 10, is a flawed metaphor. It implies that
the whole of you is simply the sum of you individually. But, that isn’t
true, because of synergy.

Synergy is created when individual parts interact such that their value
goes beyond that contributed by each individual part. Our Colum-
bia campus is majestic because of the relationship among its buildings
that transcends their individual architecture. It is even more apparent in
human endeavors. Our Columbia a cappella group Notes and Keys is
more than the voices of its individual singers. And, the true value of the
Columbia College Core Curriculum is the relationship of the works you
read, a value that far exceeds the value of reading any of them individually.

‘This kind of synergy was our goal when we brought you all to cam-
pus four years ago. We admitted you to Columbia College because we
believed you were the applicants best able to profit from and contrib-
ute to the experience of Columbia College, best able to create a syn-

6 CCT Summer 2017

\ ' a ~ ,
mS Message from the Dean

4 A Perfect “10”

ergy that would enhance your individual success and satisfaction. It is
what has brought you to this place today. You each have contributed
to the undergraduate experience of one another to create a collective
value that goes well beyond a sum of your individual contributions.

[Class Day speaker] Sheena Wright [’90, LAW’94] has told us
how she contributed to and profited from her experience here. In
an interview with Columbia College Today, she said of her under-
graduate years: “It was a great way to learn about organization and
leadership — how do you organize a collective around an issue and
achieve results?” She not only majored in history and sociology, but
also was active in many groups and activities on campus, and these
communities, these experiences, helped her land where she is today.

In fact, when she received a John Jay Award for distinguished
professional achievement from the College last spring, Sheena
spoke of the “scaffold of love and support and nurturance that came
from every strata of this place.” She said others saw in her what she
didn’t and instilled in her the confidence that helped her grow.

Today, Sheena’s work continues to depend on synergy. The United
Way [of New York City], the organization that she leads, uses what
they call a “Collective Impact Approach” to bring families out of
poverty. They bring together different entities to achieve a result, a
whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

I urge you to seek out endeavors that offer that synergy, that give
you the opportunity to achieve more working with others than you
could yourself — even if you think you individually can get a rating of
“10.” Because the act of working with others might lead to something
better for everyone working together, even you. You might be an “11”
or a “12,” because that synergy scale goes above and beyond “10.”

That synergy is what multiplies the value of Columbia College —
the 4,500 students, 1,000 faculty members, 300 staff members and
50,000 alumni — whose interactions make something of far greater
value than the sum of our individual contri-
butions. It is the reason I can say Columbia
College is the greatest college in the greatest
university in the greatest city in the world.

So, I will close by saying, thank you for
coming to Columbia College. Thank you for
all that you have taught me. Thank you for
what you have taught one another. Thank you for what you have
given to Columbia. Congratulations to all of you, to your families,
to your professors, to your coaches, to your advisers, to your mentors.
Class of 2017, you are not only a “10,” you are the best class ever.

Cp fa

James J. Valentini
Dean

To view Valentini’s Class
Day speech in full, go to

CCT Print Extras

college.columbia.edu/cct.

MUSEUM IMAGES COURTESY THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ARCHIVES (THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART | AVERY ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS LIBRARY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK)

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Frank Lloyd Wright design for the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo. 1913-23.

New Frank Lloyd Wright Exhibit Opens at MOMA

By Jill C. Shomer

fresh perspective on the work
of one of America’s most
renowned architects has come
to the Museum of Modern Art
in an exhibition organized by Barry Berg-
doll ’77, GSAS’86, curator of MOMA’s
Department of Architecture and Design

Barry Bergdoll ’77, GSAS’86

ROBIN HOLLAND / COURTESY THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK

and the Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art
History and Archaeology.

“Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking
the Archive” was developed in celebration
of the anniversary of the architect’s birth —
June 8, 1867 — and the acquisition of the
Wright archives by MOMA and Columbia's
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library.
“Unpacking” refers both to the Herculean
task of moving thousands of photographs,
drawings, letters, models and more from the
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s stor-
age facilities in Wisconsin and Arizona, as
well as the figurative opening up of Wright's
work for examination and debate. The exhi-
bition will run through October 1.

The archives were acquired jointly by the
museum and Columbia in 2012 from the
foundation. Bergdoll told CCT that hav-
ing the archive housed on campus in Avery
makes it uniquely available to scholars for
teaching and for dissertations, and even for
viewing by Columbia humanities students.
Contents from the archive are also part of
the regular programming of architectural
display at MOMA and shown to the pub-

lic in that way.

One of the conditions of the partnership
among the three organizations was com-
mitting to develop two Wright exhibitions
in a five-year period. Bergdoll says he thinks
the foundation imagined the museum
would simply display masterpieces from the
archives, but he had other ideas.

“Frank Lloyd Wright is probably the
best known American architect in history
and there have been any number of com-
prehensive exhibitions,” he says. “A block-
buster show would never announce that
this collaboration brings something new
to the archive, so we wanted to make the
exhibitions into research platforms.”

The first exhibition, “Frank Lloyd Wright
and the City: Density vs. Dispersal,” dis-
played at MOMA in 2014, examined the
contradictions in Wright’s thinking about
the growth of American cities in the 1920s
and 1930s, when he was simultaneously
creating radical designs for skyscrapers and
making models for a suburban utopia he
called Broadacre City.

For “Unpacking the Archive,” Berg-
doll wanted to try an approach that takes
advantage of MOMA’s and Columbia's

Summer 2017 CCT 7

ability to address “hard questions and con-
tradictions.” “The new exhibition is not a
comprehensive monograph or form of hero
worship,” says Bergdoll. “It’s an experiment
in research.”

The exhibition — comprising approxi-
mately 450 works made from the 1890s
through the 1950s — is divided into 12
sections, with each segment investigating
a key object (or cluster of objects) from
the archives, unpacked by scholars and one
conservator, most of them fresh voices to

Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater (Kaufmann House), Mill Run, Pa. 1934—37.

Wright rather than seasoned specialists.
Visitors watch films of the scholars in the
actual archive in Avery Library; they can
see what an archive looks like and learn
how architecture historians do their work.
The scholars are not giving lectures; rather,
each discusses how they solved a particu-
lar research puzzle. The audio for the films
(each around five minutes) is not played in
headphones, so visitors will hear voices all
around them, including Wright’s. While
the segments are chronological, the pac-

ing is not directed or overdetermined —
“it’s about connections and serendipities,”
Bergdoll says.

In September, Columbia's Lenfest Center
for the Arts, on the Manhattanville campus,
will present the exhibition “Living in Amer-
ica: Frank Lloyd Wright, Harlem and Mod-
ern Housing,” which examines Wright's
housing design in relationship to the rise of
modern housing design in Harlem. It will
overlap the MOMA exhibit through Octo-

ber and run until December 17.

Celebratory Senior Dinner

8 CCT Summer 2017

RICH ORMANOWSKI

More than 860 members of the Class
of 2017 celebrated their transition
from seniors to alumni at the annual
Columbia College Senior Dinner on
May 1. The festivities, which coin-
cided with the last day of classes, were
held under a tent on South Lawn.
Dean James J. Valentini and senior
class president Jordana Narin 717
delivered remarks, and Senior Dinner
co-chairs Vivian Chen ’17 and Kunal
Kamath ’17 led a toast. At presstime,
417 donors had contributed to the
Columbia College Senior Fund.

The Columbia Club’s
New Home

After two decades in residence at the Prince-
ton Club of New York, as of this past March
the Columbia University Club of New York
has a new home only one block away, at the
Penn Club of New York, 30 W. 44th St. The
move was made to offer lower membership
rates to Columbia University Club members
and to take advantage of the Penn Club's
extensive amenities, such as guest rooms, mul-
tiple dining options, a fitness center and pri-
vate event and banquet facilities. Learn more
at columbiaclub.org.

DidYouKnow?

University Announces
Fundraising Campaign

Connecting the role that Columbia's laboratories,
libraries and classrooms play in addressing the world’s
most urgent issues, the University has launched an
ambitious capital campaign — The Columbia Com-
mitment — which aims to raise $5 billion in five years.

“The Columbia Commitment is more than a com-
mitment to the University,” President Lee C. Bollinger
said in a May 11 letter to the Columbia community
announcing the campaign. “It is a renewal of our bonds
with the world and our shared future.”

In addition to underscoring Columbia’s dedication
to its faculty and students, the campaign emphasizes
the University’s resolve to engaging the most serious
and challenging issues of our time. It includes com-
mitments to arts and ideas; climate response; data and
society; the future of neuroscience; global solutions;
just societies; and precision medicine.

The campaign follows the lead of Core to Com-
mencement, the Columbia College campaign that so
far has raised $280 million for College students and
faculty. The money raised through Core to Commence-
ment will count toward The Columbia Commitment.

“The University’s effort amplifies our own historic
campaign, mobilizing volunteers and presenting oppor-
tunities for us to attract new donors to support Colum-
bia College — through gifts to the Core Curriculum,
to summer research internships and global experiences,
and to departmental research and collaborations, as well
as to key student issues like wellness and financial aid,”
said Dean James J. Valentini.

St. Paul’s Acoustics Made
American Music History

Did you know that the sounds of St. Paul’s Chapel are permanently
preserved? Each year, 25 songs are added to the Library of Congress
National Recording Registry in Washington, D.C.; the songs are cho-
sen to showcase the range and diversity of American recorded sounds
and to increase awareness about preservation. Among the most recent
batch added to the registry in March 2017 was Judy Collins’ a capella
arrangement of Amazing Grace, recorded in 1970 in St. Paul’s. The
chapel is a landmark in and of itself; it was officially designated by the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1966.

Alumni and Students Presented Awards

Nine College alumni received 2017-18 Fulbright U.S. Student
grants, which fund international teaching positions and research for
students and young professionals. Miranda Arakelian ’17 will teach
in Germany; Daniel Bergerson 717 will teach in Mexico; Brooke
Robbins 717 will teach in Taiwan; Eliana Kanefield 17 will teach in
Argentina; Vivian Chen 17 will study public health in China; Molly
Engel ’17 will study economic development in China, Rebecca Pawel
99, TC’00, GSAS'16 will conduct research in Spain; Catalina Pic-
cato 17 will do an business internship in economics in Mexico; and
Martin Ridge ’17 received a UK Partnership Award, which enables
him to study toward a degree at Queen Mary University of London.

Two College students were awarded 2017 U.S. Department of State
Critical Language Scholarships. Kaatje Greenberg ’18 will study
Russian in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, and Benjamin Regas ’19 will
study Chinese in Suzhou, China.

Viviana Prado-Nutniez 20 won the 2017 Burt Award for Carib-
bean Literature for her book, The Art of White Roses.

Anneliese Mesa-Jonassen’17 received a Mortimer Hays-Brandeis
Traveling Fellowship, which provides $19,000 to support students
in the visual and fine arts for travel and living expenses outside
the United States. Mesa-Jonassen plans to use the fellowship to
travel to Colombia, where she will first work with anthropologists
to study the ontology of the indigenous Muisca society and will
then apprentice with ceramicists in Raquira and La Chamba.

George Liu 717 and Alan Gou SEAS’17 won first place in the
Columbia Venture Competition’s Undergraduate Challenge for
their startup, Palette, “a platform used by teams to plan, record
and learn from growth and marketing experiments.” They received
$25,000 in funding as part of the prize.

Summer 2017 CCT 9

EILEEN BARROSO

John McWhorter

Linguist John McWhorter’s career combines academics and media,
a feat he says requires “two different brains.” He is an associate pro-
fessor in the Department of English and Comparative Language,
teaching classes such as “History of the English Language,” while
also writing regularly for outlets including The New York Times, giving
TED Talks about texting, and authoring 19 books on language and
race (his most recent was the subject of a lengthy review in the May
15 issue of The New Yorker). McWhorter is also a regular contributor
to a biweekly podcast on language and linguistics, “Lexicon Valley,”
for Slate. He recently spoke to CCT about his love of lists, teaching
the Core and the accelerated state of American media.

MCWHORTER WAS RAISED in Philadel-
phia; both of his parents earned advanced
degrees while he was growing up. “I grew up
in a house full of books,” he says. “I was one
of those kids, a little professor. I loved mak-
ing lists — I can still do useless things like
rattle off the names of all of the Presidents’
wives.” From a young age he knew he wanted
to teach and write and he was clear about
his direction: “I loved writing little ‘books’
explaining things like what the parts of the
body were — I didn't know the terminology,

but what I wanted to write was non-fiction.”

HE JOINED the College faculty in fall 2008
as an adjunct professor teaching Contempo-
rary Civilization. He had been an associate
professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley

from 1995 until 2003, then left academia to
become a senior fellow at the Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research in New York
City, writing essays and commentary for the
conservative-leaning think tank.

TEACHING CC was “something I never
thought I would be doing,” McWhorter
says. He was reading a lot of material for
the first time himself, and because the stu-
dent body was so politicized in 2008 as a
result of the Obama phenomenon, it made
teaching the course especially interesting.
“We learned a lot together,” he says.

IN SPRING 2010 he took a semester off
and wondered if he would return to the
College; Professor of Slavic Languages Alan
Timberlake asked him to stay and teach

10 CCT Summer 2017

the Essentials

“Introduction to Linguistics.” “I’m glad that
happened,” McWhorter says, “and now I’m
definitely here for the long haul.” His stu-
dents were glad, too — in September 2011
Columbia's student blog, BWOG, named
McWhorter’s linguistics intro a “Class To
Take Before You Die (Graduate).”

MCWHORTER CONTINUED to teach
the Core, but he switched to Music
Hum. As a musician who plays piano, he
thought there would be less of a learning
curve; still, he found it challenging: “Clas-
sical music has no significant place in
modern American culture today. Nobody
is going to come out and play a cello solo
on Jimmy Fallon, so students don’t know
what the joy of classical can be,” he says.
“But I think once they’re exposed to it
they get something they can benefit from.”
MCWHORTER STILL WRITES regularly
for the popular press, which he calls “plea-
surable but also ephemeral.” He says, “You
write something, it gets lot of attention and
then it’s gone. That’s the way the media is.
Books are around forever but we’re moving
away from a book age.” Podcasting has
become a more satisfying outlet for him.
“I'm finding that talking into people’s ears is
the new medium that reaches smart people,”
he says. “It’s faster and more immediate.”

HE LIVES WITH HIS FAMILY in Jackson
Heights, where he says “English speakers
are the minority — it’s mostly Span-
ish or Chinese, or an Indian language

GUSTAVO FERNANDEZ

or Russian.” As a linguist, he enjoys the
scatterings: “I love to guess what people
are speaking. Queens is one of the most
linguistically diverse places on earth.”

HIS LATEST BOOK, Talking Back, Talking
Black: Truths About Americas Lingua Franca,
a defense and celebration of Black English,
generated some controversial reviews. “This
is a book that says “Yes, racism has some-
thing to do with why people don't like Black
English,’ but telling people ‘If you don’t like
Black English you're a racist’ doesn’t change
anybody’s mind. It hasn't for the past 50
years,” McWhorter says. “The book takes
linguistic arguments to say “Here’s why
black speech isn’t incoherent’ and I tried to
write it in an accessible way. But for many
people the fact that I don’t stress the racism
is noxious.” McWhorter was pleased and
surprised to get such an extensive — and
positive — review in The New Yorker (writer
Vinson Cunningham says “[The author's]
intelligent breeziness is the source of the
book's considerable charm.”).

MCWHORTER HAS A SABBATICAL
coming up, but he doesn’t have another
book in the works. Instead, he plans to
concentrate on teaching himself Manda-
rin. “If you're a language guy in 2017, it’s
not good enough anymore to talk about
Spanish, German and Russian. I need to be
able to handle Mandarin,” he says. He also
wants to listen to more music and watch a
lot of movies. Naturally, he has a list.

— Jill C. Shomer

Faculty Honored

In April, President Lee C. Bollinger named Gordana Vunjak-
Novakovic as a University Professor, the highest rank Columbia
bestows on faculty. Vunjak-Novakovic, a 12-year veteran of the
University community, is the Mikati Foundation Professor of Bio-
medical Engineering, professor of medical sciences and director
of Columbia’s Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering.
“She has been a pioneer in the engineering of functional human
tissue for use in regenerative medicine,” Bollinger said of Vunjak-
Novakovic, adding: “The discoveries emerging from her laboratory
have led to new approaches for treating injuries and complex dis-
eases and also have supported the development and evaluation of
therapeutic drugs.”

Eight faculty members won Distinguished Columbia Faculty
Awards, known as the Lenfest Awards. Established in 2005 with
a $12 million gift from then-Irustee Gerry Lenfest LAW’58,
Lenfest Awards honor exceptional instruction and scholarship;
winners each receive a $25,000 stipend for three years. The 2017
recipients are Elisheva Carlebach GSAS’86, the Salo Wittmayer
Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture and Society; James
Curley, assistant professor of psychology; Valentina Izmirlieva,
professor of Slavic languages and chair of the Department of
Slavic Languages; Matthew McKelway GSAS’99, the Takeo and
Itsuko Atsumi Professor of Japanese Art History and chair of Art
Humanities; Samuel Roberts, associate professor of history and
director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies;
Rachel Rosen, assistant professor of theoretical physics; Dustin
Rubenstein, associate professor of ecology, evolution and environ-
mental biology; and Oliver Simons, associate professor of Ger-
manic languages.

The Academic Awards Committee of Columbia College honored
the student-nominated recipients of the 2017 Lionel Trilling Book
Award and Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching at a ceremony
on May 3 in Low Library. Elizabeth A. Povinelli, the Franz Boas
Professor of Anthropology, was honored with the 42nd annual
Lionel Trilling Book Award for her recent book, Geontologies: A

Around
the
Quads

Elizabeth A. Povinelli (seated, at left) and Caterina Luigia Pizzigoni (seated, at right),
with Dean James J. Valentini and members of the Academic Awards Committee.

Requiem to Late Liberalism, and Caterina Luigia Pizzigoni, asso-
ciate professor of history, was honored with the 56th annual Mark
Van Doren Award for Teaching in recognition of her “Humanity,
Devotion to Truth and Inspiring Leadership.”

The Van Doren Award also was celebrated earlier this year with
a gathering of past recipients, students and administrators at the
West Midtown studio of Mark Van Doren GSAS 1921’s grand-
son, Adam Van Doren ’84, GSAPP’89, a painter and filmmaker
who teaches at Yale. Among the 13 professors in attendance were
Edward “Ted” Tayler, the Lionel Trilling Professor Emeritus in the
Humanities; Carol Gluck GSAS’77, the George Sansom Professor
of History; and Holger Klein, professor of art history and archaeol-
ogy. “They all share a common bond — from the first to the last —
that they most emulate Mark Van Doren’s intellectual integrity and
leadership,” Van Doren said. “And they all share that special some-
thing that students have responded to for over 50 years. 1 thought,
wouldn't it be nice to have them all meet and to celebrate that?”

Columbia College Women’s
Symposium a Success

DAVID DINI SIPA’14

Columbia College Women celebrated the 30th anniversary
of the graduation of the College’s first fully coeducational
class with a daylong symposium on April 22. The event, held
at Faculty House and attended by 300 alumnae and stu-
dents, kicked off with greetings from President Lee C. Bol-
linger and Dean James J. Valentini and featured engaging
panel discussions on topics such as the media’s portrayal of
women, creating a successful feminist movement and help-
ing young girls today become the leaders of tomorrow.

Summer 2017 CCT 11

MICHAEL EDMONSON '20

ROAR, LION, ROAR

Mens Tennis Wins 14th Ivy League Title

en's tennis won its fourth

consecutive Ivy League title

after sweeping Brown and

Yale at the Dick Savitt Ten-

nis Center April 22-23. The Lions finished
with a 6-1 Ivy League record, sharing the
championship with Cornell and Harvard.
It was Columbia’s 14th Ivy title and its
12th during the 35-year tenure of head
coach Bid Goswami. “It’s a good feeling
for me, but I can’t imagine how they must

be feeling,” Goswami said of his players.

MIKE MCLAUGHLIN / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

“They worked hard from the beginning.
They earned this with their hard work.”

“T never expected to win four titles,” said
Shawn Hadavi 717 about his career with
Columbia tennis. Hadavi compiled a 14-5
record in singles play as a senior and teamed
with Jackie Tang ’20 for a 13-6 mark in
doubles. “Every year we developed a win-
ning culture, where we expected to win no
matter which guys we lost [to graduation].”

Columbia defeated 11 of 14 non-confer-
ence opponents, and its only loss in Ivy com-
petition was to Harvard 4-2 on April 15.

But the next day, Harvard bowed to Cor-
nell 4—2, and since the Big Red had lost to
Columbia 4-1 on April 1, all three teams
went into the final weekend of the season
with one league loss. Harvard closed out
its season by beating Princeton and Penn
while both Columbia and Cornell defeated
Brown and Yale on the final weekend, so all
three tied for the league crown.

Columbia, ranked 23rd nationally, received
an automatic qualifying bid to the NCAA
Championships in Charlottesville, Va., where
the Lions defeated Purdue 4~2 in their open-

ing match on May 12 before bowing to host
Virginia 4-0 the following day. Columbia fin-
ished the spring season with an 18-5 record.

The Lions were especially strong in
doubles play, compiling a 50-17 record. In
addition to the Hadavi-Tang pairing, Chris-
topher Grant 17 and Michal Rolski ’18
posted a 13-1 record and Richard Pham 17
and Victor Pham ’19 compiled a 14~7 mark.

In singles play, four Lions surpassed dou-
ble figures in victories: Timothy Wang 19
(18-4), Hadavi, Victor Pham (13-7) and
Tang (12-4).

nS SSS SSS SSS SSS sss

Archery Wins National Crowns

Columbia’s archery team won national championships in the
recurve and compound divisions at the 2017 U.S. National Out-
door Collegiate Championships in Chula Vista, Calif., on May
20. It was the second time in three years that Columbia won
both divisions at the Nationals.

Christine Kim ’20, Bianca Gotuaco SEAS’19 and Aileen Yu
19 led Columbia past Texas A&M in the finals of the recurve
division to record the archery program’s sixth national champi-
onship in the division. Gotuaco won the individual gold medal
by defeating Kim in the final match, and Yu completed an
individual sweep for Columbia by beating Cassandra Pelton of
Georgia Southern University in the third-place match.

In the compound division, Sophia Strachan ’20, Judy Zhou ’17
and Katherine Alfaro BC’18 led Columbia over Michigan State in
the finals. It was the Lions’ second national title in the compound.

Gotuaco, Kim, Strachan and Yu earned All-America honors
and Kim and Strachan qualified to compete in Taipei this sum-
mer for the World University Games team.

12 CCT Summer 2017

Fencing Finishes Third at NCAAs

After winning the NCAA Championship the last two seasons,
Columbia fencing fell short in 2017-18, finishing third behind
Notre Dame and Ohio State at the NCAA Fencing Champion-
ships in Indianapolis March 23-26.

Coach Michael Aufrichtig took the result in stride, saying,
“Third place is a good way to remind us that [winning the cham-
pionship] isn’t easy and you do have to work very hard. I am sure
we will come back next season with that thought.”

Margaret Lu’17 was the top individual finisher in women's foil
with a 21-2 overall record but lost to Ohio State’s Alanna Goldie,
15-13, in the semifinals and came away with a bronze medal. In
her first NCAA Championships,
Iman Blow’20 went 19-4 in wom-
en’s foil, good for sixth place.

On the men’s side, foil also was
Columbia's strongest weapon as
Nolen Scruggs’19 compiled a 17-6

record and won a silver medal.

q: ROAR!

SESS LT AGUS BEE EEE

For the latest news on
Columbia athletics, visit
gocolumbialions.com.

Leone, Flax Kaplan Honored

Peter Leone ’83 and Rachel Flax Kaplan ’03 each received
an Athletics Alumni Award at the 96th edition of the Var-
sity C Celebration, held in Roone Arledge Auditorium on
May 3. The awards are presented to alumni who have been
long-term, outstanding contributors to Columbia Athletics.

Leone was a football player at Columbia and has been
an ardent supporter of the program for more than a quar-
ter-century. As president of the Columbia Football Players
Club, he helps the program build alumni support, focusing on
fundraising and mentoring. A financial services representa-
tive for Northwestern Mutual, he also has been president of
the Columbia University Club of Pittsburgh and chair of the
Western Pennsylvania Alumni
Representative Committee.

Flax Kaplan was a diver at
Columbia and has supported
the program since graduation,
serving as chair of the Div-
ing Advisory Committee and
helping to establish The Gor-
don Spencer Fund for Diving.
She is the head teacher at the
Barnard Center for Toddler
Development and continues
to visit Uris Pool, where she
coaches club diving.

PHOTO COURTESY COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

MIKE MCLAUGHLIN / COLUMBIA ATHLETICS

Lions Win Seven Ivy Track Titles

Columbia men and women took home seven individual
titles at the 2017 Ivy League Heptagonal Outdoor Track &
Field Championships, hosted by Yale May 6-7.

Robert Napolitano 17 became an eight-time Ivy League
champion by capturing the 1,500m run and anchoring
Columbia’s winning 4x800m relay team, which also included
Sam Ritz 19, Willie Hall ’20 and Alek Sauer ’19. In addi-
tion, Ryan Thomas ’18 won the 5,000m.

On the women’s side, Akua Obeng-Akrofi 18, who rep-
resented Ghana at the 2016 Rio Olympics, won the 400m,
Sarah Hardie 18 captured the 800m, Henna Rustami ’17
took the 5,000m and Natalie Tanner ’17 won the 10,000m.

In the team competitions, Columbia's women finished
fourth and the men came in seventh.

PHOTO COURTESY METROPOLITAN BASKETBALL WRITERS ASSOCIATION

SCOREBOARD

KHALIFA: Osama Khalifa ’18 won the College we
Squash Association individual championship,
hosted by Dartmouth on March 5, defeating
Rochester’s Mario Yanez in three sets (11-1, ts
11-6, 11-5) to become Columbia's first squash SiN
national champion. =

The championship capped an impressive sea- —f =
son for Khalifa, who won 15 of his 16 matches
and avenged his only loss by beating Harvard’s Saadeldin Abou-
daish in the team nationals. He was a First Team All-American for
the third consecutive year.

Khalifa is the second member of his family to win the CSA indi-
vidual national title. His older brother Amr Khalifa, who competed
for St. Lawrence University, won the crown in 2013.

Columbia’s men’s squash team finished fourth in the nation after
having climbed as high as second in the rankings earlier in the sea-
son, while the women’s team finished the season ranked eighth.

ZIMMERMAN: Camille Zimmerman 18, who led
the Ivy League in scoring and rebounding and was a
unanimous choice for the All-Ivy League First Team,
has been named Women’s Player of the Year by the
Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association. She is
the first Columbia woman to receive the honor and
joins three Columbia men: three-time recipient Jim
McMillian’70, John Azary’51 and Chet Forte’57.

“It’s an honor to be selected for this award,” Zimmerman said at
the awards presentation on April 26. “There are a lot of really good
schools and really good players here, so to be selected amongst them
is really awesome.”

Her coach, Megan Griffith ’07, says: “I’ve never second-guessed
Camille’s commitment to wanting to be great. We talk a lot about
chasing greatness, and I really believe that this young woman does
that every day.”

Zimmerman ranked 10th in the nation in scoring with 22.5
ppg and was among the top 50 in the country in eight statistical
categories. She set a Columbia single-season scoring record with
608 points, surpassing the mark of 598 set by Ellen Bossert ’86 in
1985-86. Her career total of 1,408 points is just 39 shy of the school
record of 1,447, held by Ula Lysniak BC’87, TC’94.

The highlight of Zimmerman’s season came on January 27 in
Hanover, N.H., when the 6-foot-1 guard/forward posted career
highs of 37 points, 19 rebounds and 4 steals in a 91-88 quadruple-
overtime victory over Dartmouth, which matched the longest game
in Ivy League women’s basketball history.

olitan Basketige
irs Associatig

Consecutive

Ivy League
championships
won by Columbia’s
men’s tennis team

Batting average
for third baseman

the lvy League Player
of the Year

(395 6

Randell Kanemaru ‘18,

National champion-
ships won by
Columbia’s archery
team in the

recurve division

15-1

Match record for
national champion
and three-time
squash All-American
Osama Khalifa 18

Home runs by
softball’s Madison
Gott 18 and Sommer
Grzybek ’20, tops in
the Ivy League

Summer 2017 CCT 13

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nisa

On the eve of her hen I learned that chef Anita
Lo’88 would be closing her

famed restaurant's acclaimed West Village restau-

closin g, chef rant, Annisa, it came as a surprise

— Lo has been a fixture atop the notoriously fickle

Anita Lo’88 New York City dining scene for more than 17 years.

In 2014 The New York Times lavished three stars
upon Annisa, with critic Pete Wells declaring,
transition ahead “[T he city is a more exciting place for it.”

Where would she go from here?

I'd heard Lo speak a few years ago at Cherry

Bombe Jubilee, a conference celebrating women

By Klancy Miller ‘96 and food, but much of what I knew about Lo I'd
learned from seeing her on TV. She competed on
Top Chef Masters in 2010 (her braised daikon with
steak tartar, egg yolk and chili sauce looked amaz-
ing!). Five years earlier, she was the first woman
to face off in Iron Chefs Kitchen Stadium, beating
Mario Batali in “Battle Mushroom,” where her use
of subtle flavors bested the bolder Batali in dishes
scored for taste, plating and originality.

Digging further, I also learned that Lo has one
of the most impressive culinary bios of anyone in
the United States. She was raised in Birmingham,
Mich., and grew up in a Chinese-American
family that valued food and travel. Lo became an
inveterate world traveler and is known for find-
ing inspiration in the foods she’s tasted in various
exotic locales. She landed her first restaurant job
in 1988, at the upscale French restaurant Bouley,
and in 1990 enrolled in the prestigious Ecole
Ritz Escoffier culinary school in Paris. While in
that city, she also had stages (apprenticeships) at
the Michelin-starred Restaurant Guy Savoy and
Michel Rostang (now Maison Rostang).

contemplates the

Lo returned to New York in 1991 and worked
each station at Chanterelle. In 1996, as the execu-
tive chef at Mirezi, she earned a two-star review
from Ruth Reichl in The New York Times for inter-
preting Korean cuisine to appeal to Americans.

Lo opened Annisa (“women” in Arabic) in 2000
as a showcase for her global cooking style and a
year later was named one of the “Best New Chefs
in America” by Food & Wine magazine. Annisa was
destroyed by a fire in 2009; it reopened in 2010.
Now that the restaurant would be closing forever
I needed to have the experience of eating there;
while the clock was ticking (the restaurant closed
May 27), I made a dinner reservation.

On a crisp spring night, I met my friend Davis at
Annisa’s elegant bar, next to the entryway. The host
guided us to our table, and we sat side by side. The
room was intimate — 13 tables — and simple, with
warm tones and muted colors: earthy pink ban-
quettes, cream-colored walls and golden light. The
lighting had to be some of the best in any restaurant
in New York City; it was soft and flattered everyone.

We ordered Lo’s famous foie gras soup dump-
lings for our appetizer and agreed they were sub-
lime — silky in texture, umami flavors with notes
of star anise and cinnamon. They were astound-
ingly delicious. For my main course I had sea bass
and Davis had striped bass. Both were gorgeously
presented. We promptly posted photos to Insta-
gram, then savored every perfectly cooked bite.
Dessert was butterscotch beignets and a hazelnut
torte — both winners. Afterward we received an
extra treat of a chocolate drop with a small mint
leaf alongside it and a piece of crystallized ginger
next to a tiny blood orange popsicle. The post-
dessert served as a miniature, less sweet, more
modern version of petit fours. Genius! >>

Photographs by Jérg Meyer

16 CCT Summer 2017

\ \\ | hen Lo and I sat down to talk I hap-

pily learned we have a number of things
in common: We both studied French, went to
Reid Hall, attended culinary school in Paris and
authored cookbooks for solo diners. We spoke
about how the NYC dining scene has changed,
the reasons she’s moving on and what she wants
— and doesn’t want — to do now.

Klancy Miller: Why did you choose
the College?

Anita Lo: It was important to me that I go to a
good school; I came from an environment that

valued Ivy League schools. My brother, James’83,
went to Columbia, too. He graduated the same
year as Obama.

You studied at Reid Hall. Do you

think majoring in French led to your
culinary path?

It’s not quite as direct. I think being in France
and their focus on food was just a perfect segue
for me on some level.

How has NYC dining changed in your
view as both a New Yorker and as a chef
during the past 30 years?

I think it continues to get more diverse. Chefs
were focused on French cuisine when I was com-
ing up. And it was also fine dining — really formal

both in service and in cuisine. Fine dining has

certainly branched out from there. On some level
it’s not necessarily as fancy, but there’s still room
for all of that. We still have that at Daniel. We
still have that at Bouley. Molecular gastronomy
happened. That wasn't around back then. It’s just
become less Franco-focused.

How would you describe the restaurant
climate now versus then in terms of the
economics of running a restaurant?

It’s a completely different business model now,
especially if you go into the “no-tipping” model.
Our cooks have different focuses. Back in the day
we all wanted to hone our craft. We were willing
to put in six-day workweeks, 12—15-hour days —
and everyone wanted to go to France. Nowadays
I think people are more worried about money,
and I guess rightly so. It’s impossible to live on a
cook’s salary here unless you have help from your
family. It’s just a lot of sacrifice.

I read your piece in Eater [February 11,
2016] about how a service-included
model can be devastating as a

business owner.

In New York, the minimum wage will increase to
$15 in 2018. This will affect restaurant owners and
how they will pay their staff, especially non-tipped
employees in the back of the house like cooks

and chefs. Whereas servers can earn three times

as much because of tips, the wages for cooks have
been stagnant and much lower. Many restaurants
have switched to service-included systems in order
to pay staff more equitably, to recruit and retain

a high-quality kitchen staff and to avoid the

massive discrepancy between wages. Restaurants
that make the change to service-included menus
must increase the cost for items on the menu in
order to cover the cost of increased wages. This

is tricky because a customer might experience
sticker shock due to the higher costs on the menu.
Annisa experienced a decline in customers after
switching to a no-tipping system.

There were a million other reasons to close. The
little cuts were making me do something I wanted
to do anyway. The financial situation just helped

me to get to that point. We were having increases
across the board: minimum wage, the price cap of
what to charge — we had to raise our prices for no-
tipping, real estate taxes were going up, infrastruc-
ture was crumbling — there were $30,000 worth of
repairs and also labor issues. It could keep going but
I would have had to cut people’s hours back. It’s not
sustainable for them either. You can't live anywhere
in New York on $15 or $20 an hour. It doesn't feel
good to run a business like this anymore.

J definitely dont want to open another restaurant.
I’ve been doing this almost 30 years; that’s enough!
And it’s a young person's job. Not that older people

can't continue to do restaurant work, but not on the

scale that I want to do it. At this point I don’t want
to have an empire. That being said, I might open
my partner Mary Attea’s — who’s also my chef de
cuisine — restaurant down the line. But I’m not
opening Annisa 3.0. It’s not happening.

ats next’ VVnat ao you Most Loo!

I’m really looking forward to taking some time
off. My partner and I take a 10-day break every
year and I go on trips all the time but they’re
usually work trips. Some of them are very plea-
surable but it’s not like sitting on a beach for
10 days. I’m gonna take a year off. I’ve got some
great travel coming up. And then I’m going to
figure it out. I know that I’m going to continue
to write — I had a column for about a year. I
would look into that again. But I don’t know. I
don't feel any pressure to figure it out.

I think I will feel that pressure in another year but

I don't feel it now. I’ve been successful. I don't really
feel like I have to prove anything more right now
[as far as cooking professionally]. I am very worried
about being bored. I would love to find something
that’s engaging and exciting that makes me feel that

I'm giving back to the community at large.

Summer 2017 CCT 17

After,
Annisa

Stites
ec
ee A

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‘a
v
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“Cooking
was an
obsession for
me ... | hope
I will find
something
else like that.”

18 CCT Summer 2017

Where are you planning to go?

In September I’m going to Sicily. I have never
been. I’ve actually never been to southern Italy. I’ve
never been to Rome, which, as a food person at
my age, I think that there’s something wrong with
that, and I’m going to fix that right now. I’m going
with a culinary diplomacy program and I’m going
to talk with refugees, and there’s a couscous festi-
val that I’m going to be part of. I’m so excited!

After that, I hope, Mexico. I guess I’m not
really taking a year off! I’m hosting a culinary
trip to the Yucatan. And then I’m going to Ethi-
opia for the sesame harvest. I’m really excited for
that. I’ve always wanted to go to Ethiopia. I’m
going with Soom [a purveyor of premium qual-
ity tahini]; Pll probably go to Asia in the winter.
My sister lives there so we'll stay with her for a
little bit. I really want to go to Cambodia; I’ve
never been. A friend wants to go to Thailand. I’ve
been there a lot but my partner hasn’t been. We'll
probably do all of that. I have two aging dogs and
a cat, so I’m not quite sure — I don’t know how I
feel about leaving my old dogs for so long.

You mentioned that you might help
your partner open a restaurant. How
important is mentoring for you? Is it
built into the role of chef?

I don’t think it’s necessarily built into the role

of chef, but I think it should be. I think it’s

key, actually. Cooks really make nothing. It’s all
about passion and love and the fact that they
even work for you ... as long as they haven't left
you in a bad way and they didn’t do terribly, I
think you owe it to them to be there for the rest
of their career.

With Annisa closing, have you seen
people from your past?

Tonight we have three former employees from
Portland, Ore. — they had all moved to Portland
but when they heard [that we'd be closing] they
booked a trip just to come. Oh my God!

So amazing. A lot of former employees have
come by, and a lot of old regulars have come by,
so it’s good.

Are you working on any

writing projects?

My cooking-for-one book is in editing right
now. I don’t want to start another one until
this is done.

How did the book come about?

What’s the title?

It’s called SoLo: Easy, Sophisticated Recipes for a
Party of One. It came about because a friend and
I were trying to name something and then he
started rifing on my last name and said, ‘You
could do something on “Lo-country cooking.”
You could do “SoLo...” and it kept on going.
We came up with 50 titles. And I thought,
‘Oh my God, I should do the cooking for one!’
because I’m so neurotic about waste and I
thought it would be easy because the recipes
have to be easy. My editor is Haruki Muraka-
mi’s English editor. It should be out in 2018,
probably in the fall.

Will there be a book tour?

I'd like to do one. I love the city but I don’t think
I can do the city all the time. I need different
scenery sometimes.

Are there any other wishes you

have for yourself as you’re making

this transition?

T hope that I will still get invited to do charity
events and travel events. Cooking was an obses-
sion for me ... I hope I will find something else
like that as well.

What about reading? Reading and
travel go well together.

I used to be an avid fiction reader and that’s
another thing I'd like to get back to. I just read
the Vegetarian, by Han Kang; it was amazing. >>

fter speaking with Lo, I wanted to experi-
. m&dence Annisa again, and this time I chose
to dine alone. I’m glad I did. I took in all the
details: the simplicity of the white tablecloths,
the candles casting golden light across the tables;
Ella Fitzgerald singing “Midnight Sun” in the
background. Annisa was elegant and intimate,
yes, but even more than that, it felt soothing —
the ideal place to relax and savor great food.

To start, the waiter brought the tiniest piquillo
pepper tart. I ordered the fresh field greens salad as
an appetizer and then the barbecue squid with pea-
nut and edamame, followed by the same delicious
sea bass that I had the first time — I had been crav-
ing it. Lo came into the dining room to say hello;
that was a happy surprise. While I finished my
meal | spied another party of one. I found myself
grateful to be at Annisa in its last days, alone, feel-
ing the spirit of Lo’s upcoming book. Indeed, SoLo.

Klancy Miller ’96 is the author of Cooking Solo:
The Fun of Cooking for Yourself. She is a writer
and pastry chef deeply fascinated by all things French.
After graduating from the College and working in
international development in French Polynesia, she
earned a dipléme de patisserie from Le Cordon
Bleu Paris. Miller was a commentator on the Cooking
Channel show Unique Sweets and has contributed to
Food Republic, Bon Appétit, Cherry Bombe, ‘The
Washington Post and Food52.

Anita Lo ’88’s recipe for bread pudding
college.columbia.edu/ccit/latest

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By Jacqueline Raposo

Compass CEO Robert Reffkin '00, BUS’03
on creating his own path to success,
from Rude Boy to real estate

|
|
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|
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RSPAS:

ANsE AR

obert Refftkin ’00, BUS’03 started his first business
when he was just 15 — a DJ company funded with his
bar mitzvah and babysitting savings. This was in 1994, long before
the era of music streaming and easily shuffled playlists. Reftkin
invested in high-tech equipment that mixed CDs and guaranteed
he'd play any 50 songs clients requested — then frantically stocked
up on Now That's What I Call Music! mixes and compilations.

By the time he graduated from high school, Reffkin’s Rude Boy
Productions had earned him more than $100,000. The experience
was largely guided by his teenage involvement with the Network
for Teaching Entrepreneurship. “NF TE taught me that if you set a
dream, you can realize it,” Reftkin says. “And if someone were to tell
me no — which my mom did initially — it’s more a reflection of
their fear than my ability.”

Twenty-three years later, that lesson has paid off several times
over. Reftkin has navigated the world of finance, worked for the
White House and launched a nonprofit that went national. Return-
ing to for-profit entrepreneurship in 2012, he co-founded and
became CEO of Compass, a real estate company that’s revolution-
izing the industry by developing software that both speeds up and
simplifies the home-purchasing process.

With the mindset of a local, friendly shop, Compass quickly
became competition for mom-and-pop offices and real estate
heavy-hitters alike; in 2015 it was named Mid-Sized Business of the
Year by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. Reftkin has been
named to both Crain’ and Fortune’s “40 Under 40” lists, included in
Business Insider's most “exciting startups in New York City” and was
recently honored with the Business School’s Distinguished Early
Achievement Award. In less than five years, Compass has grown
from a single New York City office into a billion-dollar enterprise
with 30-plus offices nationwide.

But for Reffkin, the definition of success is not a financial bot-
tom line but a rewarding work environment and a mission to trans-
form lives. In his mind, people are motivated by meaning: “I believe
Compass will help more people realize their dreams than any other
company on Earth,” he says.

Reffkin doesn't think that’s idealistic; you only have to talk with him
for a few minutes to recognize his sincerity. His big dreaming, along
with his drive and belief in the power of community, are the hallmarks
of his personality. And they have been with him since childhood.

Reftkin grew up in Berkeley, Calif., as an only child. His mother,
Ruth, emigrated from Israel with her family when she was 7, but
became estranged from her parents in adulthood. Reffkin’s father was
absent from his life, too, having passed away when Reffkin was 11. “I
didn't have a dad, grandparents or anyone other than my mom. But I
had everything,” Reftkin says. “Although I had little, all was positivity.
My mom, collectively or reactively, only accepted that around her.”

Ruth worked hard to seek out a better future for herself and her
son. When Robert was an infant, she started a daycare program in
their home, attending to 25 children on the first floor and in the
backyard. At night, she put Robert to sleep by telling him to imag-
ine all the wonderful things he could be and the impact he could
have on the world.

Reffkin was a bright and ambitious student, and by his early ado-
lescence, Ruth had closed the daycare center and would soon start
over as a real estate agent. “Seeing her choose her own life, again
and again, bouncing back after failure, made me believe that the
journey was the exciting part,” he says of the drive she instilled in

22 CCT Summer 2017

COURTESY COMPASS

him. But there was only so much time in the day she could devote
to “do everything.” They needed guidance, and more opportunities
not yet financially available to them.

Before he started high school, Reffkin and his mother found
A Better Chance, a nonprofit that connects talented students of
color from underserved communities with top boarding, private day
and public schools. Mother and son filled out a common applica-
tion that ABC then distributed to a selection of schools, sidestep-
ping the repetition that often dissuades potential candidates who
cannot afford a pile-up of costly fees. Reffkin matched with San
Francisco University H.S., and eagerly enrolled.

He filled the two-hour commute dreaming of what his future
held — a practice he admits calms him in adulthood, too. The stu-

Robert Reffkin ‘00, BUS’03 ran a marathon in every state to raise
money for his nonprofit, New York Needs You.

dent body lacked diversity to such a point that Reffkin was the
only black student in every class, which instilled in him a profound
understanding of how certain environments can be horribly isolat-
ing. “Being alone is a very hard thing when you want to feel con-
nected to something more,” he says.

ABC required regular meetings with fellow students in the pro-
gram, and there Refftkin found friends who felt similarly and were
energized to seek opportunity and adventure. In the summers, pro-
grams like Summer Search and Outward Bound took him further
and further from home, expanding his view of the world and idea of
community involvement. “I realized there were more organizations
that wanted to help me than there was time in the day; they had
staff and board members who wanted to see me be successful,” Ref-
fkin says of the surrogate siblings and family members who guided
him during this time. “I quickly started to believe that opportunity
is everywhere. | felt exhilarated. I felt excited.”

At 14, Reffkin began to hone his business acumen through NFTE,

which teaches skills vital in entrepreneurial and leadership positions

to those in high-need communities. With NFTE’s guidance, he laid
out his plan to build Rude Boy Productions — a name chosen in a
nod to Bob Marley’s first band. “There’s something about Bob Marley
that resonated with me,” he says. “He was mixed — half white and
half black, from Jamaica. That’s why he grew dreadlocks and loved the
idea of Rastafarianism and started playing the music he played. In a
way, he was searching for his place in the world. I’ve been on a search
my entire life.”

Although NFTE and the other organizations he joined — seven
total — introduced Reffkin to a diverse group of similarly ambitious
teenagers, he never felt he found his community. “That’s why I came
to New York, the city of diversity,” he says of crossing the country
to study economics-philosophy and history. “If there was any place
that would accept me, it’s this city.”

At the College, Reffkin met students from around the world.
Working alongside them, he learned that “the probability of suc-
cess is enhanced when you collaborate with people who have differ-
ent perspectives and different ideas. I became addicted to diversity.
That’s what led me to pursue many kinds of careers.”

After graduation, Reftkin was an analyst at McKinsey & Co. for
two years, then returned to Columbia for an M.B.A. He worked for
two years in finance at Lazard, one
as a White House Fellow in the
U.S. Department of the Treasury
and then moved back to New York
City to work at Goldman Sachs.

But in the finance world he
once again “felt alone — like there
wasnt a community that I felt a
part of,” he says. “What motivates
me is community and impact. I
wanted to be a part of building a
better community.”

In 2007, Reffkin began to lay
the groundwork for the nonprofit
New York Needs You (NYNY;
now America Needs You). For
inspiration, he thought back to
the childhood programs where he
felt most empowered and engaged.
Across the board, they'd left him
with lessons about the rippling
influence of mentorship: “I literally didn’t know what the word
‘Columbia’ was when I was a junior in high school,” he says with
a laugh. “If no one had told me, we wouldn't be talking right now!”
He decided to create an organization, focused around the idea of
mentorship, that would offer career development, college support
and summer internships — one that would focus on ambitious low-
income students who were the first in their families to go to college
and so needed the same kind of advice he had.

“But then I had to finance it,” he says.

In a grand visual gesture, Reffkin set out on a mission: He'd run
a marathon in every state and set an overall fundraising goal of $1
million. Some funds would go back to the organizations that helped
him in his youth, and the rest toward NYNY. He registered under
the name Running to Support Young Dreams.

Reffkin started at California’s Death Valley Marathon in
December that same year. In January, he ran in both Mississippi

“No matter how
good you are —
no matter how
good — your
mind is telling
you to quit ...
You’re working
against that part
of your mind to
say: ‘I know you
can do it, just
keep going.”

and Florida. For a time he ran a marathon every month, with his
mother there to cheer him on. He kept working at Goldman. By
2009, he had enough funds to start NYNY. He began dating the
woman who would become his wife, and later the mother of their
two daughters. As the years passed, more time passed between
remaining marathons.

“No matter how good you are — no matter how good — your
mind is telling you to quit,” he says of the incessant routine. “It’s a
constant environment of give up, quit, give up, quit. All the trainings
— give up, quit. Every morning — give up, quit. Every marathon —
give up, quit. You're working against that part of your mind to say: ‘I
know you can do it, just keep going.”

Six years after he began, Reffkin did his final fundraising run,
the New York City Marathon. With 12 friends and colleagues
now involved with NYNY joining him, the team raised more than
$150,000, topping his $1 million goal.

During this time, Reftkin became acutely aware of the emotional
muscle that pushed him past moments of self-doubt, and how it gave
him confidence at other points of possible self-defeat. He remem-
bered both the loneliness of isolation and the energy of found com-
munity. He thought back to how being a real estate agent had offered
his mother flexibility and high income. And he started to become
increasingly inspired by colleagues who were starting their own
companies and putting community and meaning first in their work.

In 2012, it all came together when Reffkin took the plunge and
founded Compass.

As a high-tech real estate company, Compass develops software
for both buyers and sellers. Its programs provide details about which
houses are moving on the market and what industry trends might
affect price, interest rate fluctuations and other factors. Forbes hailed
Compass’ most recent “high-tech and high-touch” software, Col-
lections, as the “Pinterest of real estate”; the user-friendly program
allows potential homeowners to create photo galleries of intriguing
properties, share and talk about them with friends and families, and
connect with agents to supply details.

Reffkin now celebrates collaboration and diversity of ideas by
having designers, programmers and agents work together under
one roof. He builds inclusive workspaces through social events
and networks like Women of Compass that have philanthropic
programs. Reffkin wants agents to help clients not only find their
dream homes, but also ideally, community: “A place where they can
feel valued and safe, and have a sense of belonging,” he says. “What
inspires me the most about Compass and our mission is that we're
helping people find their place in the world.”

Last year, Reffkin’s mother joined Compass as an agent. At a
recent Shabbat dinner, she shared her pride that the company she'll
retire from will be one that her son built, that treats its employees
well and that offers them a quality of life they deserve.

“T feel very fortunate,” Reffkin says, “after getting so much from
my mom in terms of inspiration and support, that I’m able to pro-
vide the same things.”

And in turn Reffkin hopes his success will inspire others to start
their own companies, create communities and have lasting, positive
impact, too. “The more people pursuing their dreams, the better the
world will be.”

Jacqueline Raposo is a writer and radio host. Her work can be found
at wordsfoodart.com.

Summer 2017 CCT 23

GRADUATION2017 | — <A RRNar RRR amr

| j ‘ fl vente Coetiinea Unierearee MiUakad A DRIVE RA Feb COL GRUB LIN AVE RSE bbe COLUMST A USHUT RST EY SEA COLUM AER GSI AST DL ohe COLUM MAL

RIVEROHEY Ske COLUMN CIN AVEAST EN ake COLUEMD

UNIVERA LY he Corsi UNIWTHAT EY he COs

CLASS OF 20) OW YOUR

By Alexis Boncy SOA'11 _// Photographs by Eileen Barroso

The sun shone on Class Day 2017, with 1,172 seniors joining
the ranks of College alumni. Keynote speaker Sheena Wright ’90,
LAW’94, president and CEO of the United Way of New York City,
delivered a speech that doubled as a call to action and rallied the
graduates to the challenges ahead.

“The first thing you should expect is that the world will change
dramatically and unexpectedly,” said Wright. “I think you — Class
of 2017 — probably know that more than most ...

“The question will be: As Columbia graduates, will you be drivers
of that change, or will you merely be impacted by it?”

The ceremony, held on May 16, also included remarks from
Dean James J. Valentini (see page 6), senior class president Jordana
Narin 17 and valedictorian Michael Abolafia’17, among others. It
began with the 14th annual Alumni Parade of
Classes, sponsored by the Columbia College
Alumni Association, which featured alumni
marchers from almost every class from the
Class of 1951 through the Class of 2016.

Wright took the stage early in the program.
Born and raised in the South Bronx, she dis-
tinguished herself at the College in athletics
as well as in social justice and cultural affairs.
Wright was president of Delta Sigma ‘Theta,
headed the Cultural Affairs Committee of the
Black Students Organization and co-founded
the Pan-African House, a special interest
housing community devoted to raising awareness of diversity. She
took the helm at the United Way of New York City, a nonprofit
committed to helping low-income New Yorkers, in 2012. She is the
first woman to lead the organization in its nearly 80-year history.

In her speech, Wright encouraged the graduates to be open-
minded and curious, and advised: “Know your power and use it well.

24 CCT Summer 2017

You will walk into situations where you are the most junior person in

the room, but your lack of experience does not denote a lack of power.”

Citing statistics on poverty, climate change and income inequal-
ity, she said, “There are unbelievable challenges facing our city and
world. We need you, Columbia graduates, to not only think of your
personal success but to take on the responsibility of solving the
problems that are waiting for us. ...

“You have a duty to drive change in the world with commitment
and passion.”

The University-wide Commencement took place the following
day. There, Eric H. Holder Jr."73, LAW’76 and Dr. Allen I. Hyman
55 were among the eight people receiving honorary degrees, and
two other College alumni were among the 10 recipients of Alumni
Medals for distinguished service of 10 or more years to Columbia:
Stephen M. Kane ’80, LAW’83 and Sherri Pancer Wolf ’90. Presi-
dent Lee C. Bollinger also gave his annual address.

Echoing themes of Wright’s speech, Bollinger underscored “the
pervasive sense that society is at an historic juncture,” adding “the
way you think, and speak, and engage those who will be your part-
ners in charting the future will count for everything.”

Elsewhere during graduation week, on May 15, Kai-Fu Lee ’83,
president of Google China, delivered the keynote address for Columbia
Engineering. He focused his speech on artificial intelligence, predicting
its influence will be “on the scale
of the Industrial Revolution.”

On a hopeful note, he said,

“Despite what we've seen in

> Print Extras

To view videos of speeches from
graduation week; photos from Class
Day, the Alumni Parade of Classes
and Commencement; and a list of
Academic Awards and Prizes winners,
go to college.columbia.edu/cct

some science fiction movies, no
AI program — today or that
we will see in our lifetime —
will love” and that’s “what makes
us human.”

COLUMBIA
UNIVERSITY

YOU HAVE A
DUT Vy nO™DLNiE
CHANGE IN THE
WORD) WITH
COMMITMENT
AND PASSION.”

— CLASS DAY SPEAKER
SHEENA WRIGHT '90, LAW’94

Summer 2017 CCT 25

GRADUATION2017

DAYALAN RAJARATNAM

MAJOR: Financial Economics,
with a Concentration
in Mathematics

KAYLA MALONEY

MAJOR: Neuroscience

| and Behavior

{ WHAT’S NEXT: “I’m going to

the Yale School of Nursing to
|

WHAT’S NEXT: “I’m working in
private equity at Blackstone.”

THE CC TAKEAWAY:

“Pve learned how to think
effectively and with clarity, and
how to argue different points or
defend different positions.”

study to become a pediatric
nurse practitioner.”

THE CC TAKEAWAY: “Columbia
taught me about inclusivity.
The biggest thing for me is that
healthcare is — in my opinion,
and this has been shaped by
Columbia — a right versus a
privilege. | think healthcare
should be given to all people,
and I’m looking forward to
working in clinics and low-
income communities.”

CONTINUING = % 4
EDUCATION ——

WE ASKED 10 (VERY!) RECENT GRADUATES about their MAJOR: Political Science

plans and what from the College will stick with them WHAT’S NEXT: “I'll be in
D.C. this summer doing an
internship with the National
Low-Income Housing Coalition,
and then in September I’m
starting as an urban fellow at
New York City’s City Hall.”
BRIAN SARFO THE CC TAKEAWAY: “I’m going

to use my education to ask
MAJOR: Urban Studies, better questions and challenge
with a Concentration in institutions to be better places.’
African-American Studies

WHAT’S NEXT: “I’m signed on
to be an educator in Brooklyn,
so I'll be working at a charter
school. | hope to go to law
school after two years.”

THE CC TAKEAWAY: “The
biggest thing at a school as
| diverse as Columbia is the
i relationships that you make.
| do a lot of work with the
Alumni Office, so | understand
the benefits of connecting
with College alumni, realizing
that it’s an extended family.”

p
HOTOGRAPHS BY ESON CHAN

26 CCT Summer 2017

Marig

MARIA D’IORIO

MAJOR: Neuroscience and
Behavior

WHAT’S NEXT: “I’m going to the
NYU School of Medicine and
then to ob/gyn residency.”

THE CC TAKEAWAY: “I’ve
learned how to listen to and get
along with different people from
different places with different
backgrounds. And the Core
exposes you to a lot of different
ideas. I’m going to be working at
Bellevue, a public hospital, and
meeting a lot of different kinds
of people — Columbia taught me
how to deal with that really well.”

NEIL KHOSLA

MAJOR: Mathematics, with a
Concentration in Physics

WHAT’S NEXT: “I’m going to
grad school at Cambridge.”

THE CC TAKEAWAY: “I learned

a lot of life lessons. In terms of
math, I’m sure I'll be using that in
my math degree. But you grow up
at Columbia, so | think I'll use the
things | learned here every day.”

CHIMSOM ORAKWUE
MAJOR: Psychology

WHAT’S NEXT: “I'll be taking

a couple of gap years before
medical school. I'll work here
this summer as a Supervisor at
the Double Discovery Center,
helping minority high school
students get materials for
college. | hope to travel; | want
to get into nutrition and wellness
to help communities of color.”

THE CC TAKEAWAY: “I’ve
learned to be independent.
I’ve learned that | am unique
and that | can have an impact
on the world. | can make a
real difference!”

DARIUS ANSARI

MAJOR: History, with a Special
Concentration in Business
Management at the Mendelson
Center for Undergraduate
Business Initiatives

WHAT’S NEXT: “I'll be doing

a fellowship with Venture for
America. I'll be working at

an early-stage start-up in an
emerging city somewhere in the
U.S. I’m finding out where I'll be
very soon. | hope it’s someplace
’ll feel at home and can become
part of the community and have
an impact. I’m looking forward to
the next adventure!”

THE CC TAKEAWAY: “It’s taught
me how important it is to be
flexible and open-minded, and
how to be a hard worker no
matter what. Those three things
have embodied my experience
here and have allowed me to
be successful in my internships,
my club and my academic
commitments. At the end of the
day, just work as hard as you
can for what you believe in.”

CLAIRE SEO
MAJOR: Biology

WHAT’S NEXT: “I'll be doing
clinical research at a hospital

in Virginia.”

THE CC TAKEAWAY: “The
experience has taught me how
to think broadly and also deeply,
and taught me how to consider
other perspectives.”

Summer 2017 CCT 27

‘y >
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»
t
ow
j ec
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ter yew
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nae ie
J

Welcome to

Real Life,

Class of 2017!

A confusing,
anxiety-filled and
kind of boring
week of activities
awaits to orient
you to your
post-College
existence.

Get excited!

By Susanna Wolff 10

Illustrations by
Dr. Ben Schwartz ’03, PS’08

28 CCT Summer 2017

MONDAY

Move-Out Day

Pack up the sentimental mélange

of papers, tchotchkes and outright
garbage you've collected during the
last four years (but leave the bed lifts
and one enormous, permanently sticky
stain on the rug). It’s time to head to
your new home: your old home!

Welcome Dinner with Parents

Get reacquainted with your new/old
roommates over a home-cooked meal.
Wow! Look at all those vegetables!

TUESDAY

Résumé Refresh

Update your résumé with your new status
as a Columbia College graduate. Should
you list “Microsoft Word” as one of your
skills despite the fact that it’s 2017 and
even infants are expert typists now? Sure!
Gotta fill up that page somehow!

Hit Up Everyone You’ve Ever
Met on LinkedIn
And then never log in again.

WEDNESDAY

Email That Person You Met at an
Internship Two Years Ago Who

Now Has a Cool Job and Might Be
Able To Help You

Spend four hours delicately crafting the
perfect email subject line to convey both
a casual friendship between equals and
the professional respect of someone who
really, really wants a paying job.

THURSDAY

Oh Jeez, It’s Thursday Already?

Wake up in a cold sweat with the
realization that time is passing at what
seems to be an exponentially increasing
rate. Remember that it was just a few
weeks ago that you were capable of
reading four books and writing five papers
in a week. Try to muster that same energy
and work ethic. Watch 10 episodes in a
row of The Good Fight on your parents’
CBS All Access account instead.

Midnight Snack with Mom!

She’s a little worried about you, so
she bought those Babybel cheeses
you like. Do you want to go to Kohl's
with her tomorrow?

Ss eS co.

LIFE!

FRIDAY

There’s No Place Like

(Another) Home

Look for apartments on Craigslist
while you still have dorm-level housing
standards. It’s time to spread your wings
and really enter adulthood. Oh look, this
potential roommate has ferrets! Plural!

Get Back to the Job Hunt

Discover that all the entry-level positions
that are even remotely relevant to your
interests require at least three years of
experience. Each volume that you've

read of Dante’s Divine Comedy counts as
a year of applicable experience, right?

SATURDAY

Read a Book for Pleasure!

Realize you finally have time to read

all the books you wanted to read when
you were busy reading other books for
school. ... What were those books again?
Uh. Hmm. Ask Dad to drive you to the
bookstore tomorrow to find the perfect
leisure-reading book. Till then, back to
The Good Fight.

Pizza Party with Peers

Prepare to get WILD! Text, “What

are you up to tonight?” to everyone

you still know in your hometown until
you get enough people together to seem
like this counts as going out. Tell your
old friends about Koronet by making a
triangle with your arms, then feel a sad,
cold sense of loss when you see that no
one cares. Was Koronet even good? Or
is it your old friends who aren't good?

Is anything good? When attempting to
split the bill, discover that you've already
forgotten all math.

GRADUATION2017

€ iw er

UNIVERSITY }

SUNDAY

Buy an LSAT Prep Book
Maybe it’s time to go back to school.

Susanna Wolff 10 is a comedy writer
living in Los Angeles. Her writing has
appeared in The New Yorker and Politico
Magazine, and on CollegeHumor, where she
was formerly editor-in-chief.

Summer 2017 CCT 29

——

Columbia! Forum

Exposing a Buried Past

Photographer Daniella Zalcman’09 sheds light on a dark time in Canadian history

with her award-winning project, Signs of Your Identity

Daniella Zalcman ‘09

30 CCT Summer 2017

flied

ANGELA RADULESCU

n 2014, Daniella Zalcman ’09 began reporting on a part of North American

history she felt had been erased from the continent’ narrative — part of the

lesser-known “cultural genocide” that followed the decimation of Native

American societies. Between 1870 and 1996, thousands of indigenous
children in Canada were removed from their homes and sent away — sometimes
hundreds of miles — and forced to learn to assimilate in Indian residential schools.
Zalcman wanted to document some of the more than 80,000 survivors of this trauma.
“Children were made to believe ... that they needed to be more white, that they
needed to be more Western,” Zalcman told CCT. They were made to give up Native
language and practices and in many instances were victims of physical and sexual
abuse. The lessons they remember, as adults, are those of cruelty.

Though she had created conventionally “good” images of her subjects in Canada,
Zalcman felt they didnt have the appropriate gravitas. “For me, a straight series of
portraits wasn t going to be enough to tell that story,” she says. So she added another
dimension: Each portrait would include an overlaid image of “something that had to
do with their memory, their experience in residential schools.” The double exposure,
an “extra layer of storytelling” as Zalcman calls it, resulted in a project that has won
her multiple honors, including the Magnum Foundation s Inge Morath Award in 2016,
the 2016 FotoEvidence Book Award, and, most recently, a 2017 Robert F: Kennedy
Journalism Award.

Zalceman got her professional start freelancing for the New York Daily News in
between undergraduate classes as an architecture major. After graduation, she became
a daily assignment photographer at the News, then at The Wall Street Journal. She now
travels between bases in London and New York and is a contributor to outlets as diverse
as Vanity Fair and Mashable. Her work is also featured in the permanent collection at
the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

Zalcman says she’d like to continue working on long-term projects that “explore the
legacies of Western colonization.” In an 2016 interview with the Pulitzer Center for
Crisis Reporting — which funded her research — she muses about students of history
and how much she wants them to learn the narratives that might be missing from their
textbooks. And if her work can help expose rich layers of a buried past, so much the
better, she says. “The act of acknowledging ... is really important, psychologically.”

— Rose Kernochan BC’82

SERAPHINE KAY

QU’APPELLE INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL
1974-75

“I was raped at school. He was an old man, the
janitor. | didn’t tell anyone for decades, because
| thought people would judge me. The only
person | ever told was my mother [who went to
Muskowekan Residential School]. All she said
was ‘that was how | was brought up, too.”

Summer 2017 CCT 31

tel

Columbia! Forum

INDIAN ACT OF 1876 — Section 119 (6)

“A truant officer may take into custody a child whom he
believes on reasonable grounds to be absent from school
contrary to this Act and may convey the child to school,
using as much force as the circumstances require.”

For 120 years, the Canadian government operated a network
of Indian Residential Schools that were meant to assimilate
young indigenous students into western Canadian culture.
Indian agents would take children from their homes as young
as two or three and send them to church-run boarding schools
where they were punished for speaking their native languages
or observing any indigenous traditions, routinely sexually and
physically assaulted, andin some extreme instances subjected
to medical experimentation and sterilization.

The last residential school closed in 1996. The Canadian
government issued its first formal apology in 2008.

32 CCT Summer 2017

MIKE PINAY
QU’APPELLE INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL
1953-63

It was the worst ten
years of my life. | was
away from my family
from the age of six

to 16. How do you
learn about family? |
didn’t know what love
was. We weren't even
Known by names back
then. | was a number.”

Do you remember
your number?”

Summer 2017 CCT 33

Columbia!Forum

VALERIE EWENIN
MUSKOWEKAN INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL

1965-71

“| was brought up believing in the nature ways, burning sweetgrass, speaking
Cree. And then | went to residential school and all that was taken away from
me. And then later on, | forgot it, too, and that was even worse.”

FARRELL RUNNS
MONTMARTE CONVENT SCHOOL
1975-85

“It was unbelievably hard, staying in that school all year round. | was strapped, |
was abused. | just wanted to go home and be with my family.”

34 CCT Summer 2017

RICK PELLETIER
QU’APPELLE INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL
1965-66

“My parents came to visit and |

told them | was being beaten. The
teachers said that | had an active
imagination, so they didn't believe
me at first. But after summer break
they tried to take me back and

| cried and cried and cried. | ran
away the first night, and when my
grandparents went to take me back,
| told them I'd keep running away,
that I'd walk back to Regina if | had
to. They believed me then.”

Summer 2017 CCT 35

Columbia!Forum

(Eee cea eT SEE
GRANT SEVERIGHT

ST. PHILLIPS INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL
1955-64

“We as a people have normalized every
conceivable dysfunction that we experienced
in residential school. Negativity is transmitted

— and, if we don't deal with it, we pass it on.
Even in school, kids who themselves were
terrorized grew up to be abusers. We need to
figure out how to heal from that.”

36 CCT Summer 2017

ee, et ee ee ee ek ee a

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== Contents

THE URBAN OASIS Oar

Wintercreeper. Crimson pygmy barberry. Variegated 41 Alumni in the News
Solomon’s seal. Purpleleaf sand cherry. MG ITAINIOS Ol mn reer Seer ners AUR Un. cedlscn cea
some of the plants growing on Columbia’s campus could 42 Bookshelf

High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist
and the Making of an American Classic

students and returning alumni they create an oasis from pune onic wie 7
repens depeenentenrte- ara c7-0 ) Aberan tinh ohne ca ana
Visit facilities.columbia.edu/garden-tours to download

be dropped into Shakespeare’s witches’ brew, but for

a walking tour of the gardens; you can also find a list of 46 Class Notes
) some of the signature plants on the Morningside campus ee re eee Peer ee te nk EES ARM ur: fee ere
(and learn exactly where to find them!). 85 Obituaries

PHOTO BY LEON WU "8 88 Alumni Corner

Summer 2017 CCT 37

KIEN QUAN

Joanne Kwong ‘97 Revives

Iconic Pearl River Mart

By Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

earl River Mart is that rare New York City institution
that blends commerce and culture with community — a
store whose combination of chock-a-block tchotchkes
and fine Chinese goods endeared it to shoppers as diverse
as its wares. Pearl River had everything. And when it closed last
spring after 46 years — the rent on its sprawling SoHo space
had quintupled — the public lament was immediate. Media from
Vogue (“this wonderful emporium, a beloved New York City land-
mark”), to Crain’s New York (“the Chinese department store that
has become a New York City shopping institution”), to The New
York Times (“more than the sum of its dry goods”) bemoaned the
loss. For Joanne Kwong ’97, the closure was a call to action. The

38 CCT Summer 2017

New York City native and now president of the resurrected Pearl
River stepped in to save the store and grow it for a new generation.

Kwong’s in-laws, Ming Yi Chen and Ching Yeh Chen (Kwong’s
husband is their son, Gene Hu SEAS’97), founded Pearl River in
1971. Their original goals were twofold: to share Chinese culture
with Americans during a time when the two countries did not have
a diplomatic relationship, and to provide a bit of home for Asian
immigrants in NYC. Kwong describes it as “an interesting amalga-
mation of retail business and mission-related work,” because of the
store’s unique focus on building cross-cultural connections. Across
the decades, the store moved three times in lower Manhattan,
retaining its loyal customers while gaining new ones.

a SO RRNA NP Aan nce

‘The idea to bring back Pearl River floated up during a family din-
ner in the early fall; after a lengthy discussion, Kwong was tapped to
lead the effort. No stranger to change, the dual poli sci and psychol-
ogy major had already taken turns as an attorney, a judicial clerk, a
professor and a communications VP at Barnard. “I’ve had a bit of a
non-traditional career path, but all of the skills I've gathered along
the way have helped with this next step,” she says. She credits the
College for encouraging curiosity about the world and stressing the
importance of exploring new viewpoints.

Once the decision to reopen was made, Kwong found a space in
TriBeCa; she wanted to attract holiday shoppers, and so aimed for
a November/Black Friday opening. With only a few weeks to plan,
she decided to go with a pop-up on the ground floor. The tempo-
rary shop would sell classic Pearl River items (from ceramic dish-
ware and cooking supplies to slippers, tea sets and parasols) and
close in February, after the end of Lunar New Year, for renovations.
‘The plan was to then reopen as a fully realized store in the spring.
But with the buzz around the pop-up better than expected, Kwong
decided to keep it open and renovate around it, and the store has
been humming along ever since.

Kwong, who describes her role as “like a homecoming,” says, “[It]
makes me happy because I’m doing something for my community
— both the Asian-American community and New York City —
providing some joy to people in their everyday life ... I feel that small
joys create community, create understanding between neighbors.”

In addition to offering traditional wares, the store now show-
cases works from Asian-American artists. Pearl River’s first col-
laboration was with Kwong’s Carman Hall friend Jenny Wu’97, an
architect and jewelry designer. A limited edition collection of Wu's
3D-printed jewelry line, LACE, debuted at the pop-up; Kwong
plans to continually feature new artists “to come together and really
cheer on and celebrate one another. There’s so much innovation
and creativity within the [Asian-American] community that is

alumninews

Joanne Kwong ’97 and her in-laws cut the ribbon at Pearl River Mart's reopening.

fighting for attention and doesn't always get it.” Wu says, “Pearl
River was such a New York City institution, especially to me when I
was at school. When I got married, I got a lot of things from there. It
is such an iconic place, so I am really excited to be part of it.”

Pearl River’s new space also has a mezzanine gallery, where Kwong
has been exhibiting an array of works that depict the Asian-American
experience. She says a special moment for her occurred during an
exhibition of famed Chinese-American photographer Corky Lee’s
works, “Chinese America on My Mind” — she recognized that some
of the photos came from protests she attended at Columbia to push
the College to include ethnic studies. The store is also using the gal-
lery space to create neighborhood relationships; from May 20 to June
25, the artist-in-residence program highlighted works by primar-
ily Asian-American students from P.S. 184/Shuang Wen School, a
bilingual public elementary and middle school in Chinatown; the
show was called “East Meets West: A Look into Our Worlds.”

Kwong sums it up: “Where Asian heritage meets New York City
— that’s kind of what Pearl River has always been about.”

The Poet Laureate of Paterson

By Eugene L. Meyer ’64

ery few poets find fame as well as fortune during their

lifetimes; most reside in eternal obscurity. Not so Ron

Padgett 64. He is enjoying what he calls his “16 min-

utes of fame” as the author of poems spoken on screen
by actor Adam Driver (Girds) as a bus driver named Paterson in the
film of the same name set in, where else? Paterson, N.J.

The quirky, sad, funny little indie film reflects what The New Yorker
in 2007 hailed as Padgett’s “plainspoken, wry” voice and has made
him a rock star of poetry in his 70s. “Yeah, I’m still writing,” he says.
“Just because I’m 75 doesn't mean shit to me. Not in terms of my
writing. It’s like somebody asking, ‘Ron, you're 75, you still eat?”

Paterson — written and directed by Jim Jarmusch’75 — features
seven of Padgett’s poems, three written specifically for the film. The
movie received critical acclaim when it opened in December. For
Padgett, the response has been nothing short of astonishing: He’s
been invited to give readings in Rome and Berlin, and his formerly

obscure volumes of poetry have lately appeared in German, Portu-
guese, Italian and French editions. “Pretty far out,” he says, revert-
ing to 1960s counter-culture-speak, “this sort of sudden onslaught
of interest from other countries.”

Paterson is an homage to the working-class town that was home
to famed poet-physician William Carlos Williams and Beat poet
Allen Ginsberg ’48, whom Padgett came to know. Padgett has been
identified as a member of the second generation of the New York
School of Poets, a brand name that he says was created by an art
gallery director for the first generation that included Frank O’Hara,
Barbara Guest and Kenneth Koch, who taught Padgett Literature
Humanities (then called CC Humanities). “There’s a third genera-
tion, too.” Padgett says. “It’s like children having children, and they
have children. It’s kind of a tedious label.”

While Padgett has a son who lives in Vermont, he refers to his
poems as his children. “T like them. I’ve written too many, actually.”

Summer 2017 CCT 39

KIEN QUAN

“It must have been hard/for the Romans to multiply—l dont mean
reproduce,/but to do that computation ... ,” he wrote when he was 67.
‘I have a 6 and 7 that,/when put side by side, form my age./Come to
think of it,/Id rather be LXVII.”

Padgett’s poetry is often whimsical, sometimes serious, sometimes
both. Mostly, it’s not political — at least not overtly. “The Absolutely
Huge and Incredible Injustice in the World” begins: “What makes
us so mean?/We are meaner than gorillas,/the ones we like to blame our
genetic aggression on.” But not until much later are mean places —
Rwanda, Sudan, Guantanamo, Rikers, Babi Yar — even mentioned.

An only child, Padgett grew up in Tulsa, Okla., the son of
a bootlegger father, and a mother who took the orders and kept
the books. His was a strictly blue-collar family on “a very middle-
class looking street.” Inspired by a junior high school teacher, he
began to read pretty much everything, which led him to the Lewis
Meyer Bookstore, a local institution whose owner hosted a book
review television show that ran for 42 years. Meyer hired Padgett
to work afternoons and weekends and introduced him to poetry.
At the store Padgett also browsed literary magazines, and later, he
and some high school chums published their own, The White Dove.
Audaciously, they invited people like Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac’44
to contribute, and they did, for free. “We just sat down and wrote
them letters,” Padgett recalls, still surprised.

Rejected by Stanford, Padgett came east in fall 1960 to Colum-
bia. It was still the era of the Beat Generation, when Kerouac and
Ginsberg were the freeform sirens of the avant-garde. Padgett
had already begun a correspondence with Ginsberg, who invited
him to meet. They became fast friends and later both took part in
programs of The Poetry Project, a nonprofit founded in 1966 to
encourage reading, writing and enjoyment of poetry.

Love Poem

We have plenty of matches in our house.

We keep them on hand always.

Currently our favorite brand is Ohio Blue Tip,

though we used to prefer Diamond brand.

That was before we discovered Ohio Blue Tip matches.
They are excellently packaged, sturdy

little boxes with dark and light blue and white labels
with words lettered in the shape of a megaphone,

as if to say even louder to the world,

“Here is the most beautiful match in the world,

its one-and-a-half-inch soft pine stem capped

by a grainy dark purple head, so sober and furious
and stubbornly ready to burst into flame,

lighting, perhaps, the cigarette of the woman you love,
for the first time, and it was never really the same

after that. All this will we give you.”

That is what you gave me, |

become the cigarette and you the match, or |

the match and you the cigarette, blazing

with kisses that smoulder toward heaven.

— Ron Radgett 64; from Collected Poems
(Coffee House Press, 2013). This poem
opens the film Paterson.

40 CCT Summer 2017

PATRICIA PADGETT

Pe TE et rm ae

Ron Padgett ’64 (left) and Jim Jarmusch ’75 in Padgett’s NYC apartment on
January 4, 2017. The two were clowning around after having been interviewed
by Jeffrey Brown of PBS’ NewsHour.

Padgett directed the project for two and a half years starting in
January 1978. Then he was publicity director for the Teachers &
Writers Collaborative, a New York City-based nonprofit, and edited
its books, designed its catalogue and oversaw its sales and rights. For
10 years and 100 issues, he edited Teachers & Writers Magazine.

While at the College, Padgett met now-longtime friend Phil-
lip Lopate 64. They worked together on The Columbia Review,
a student literary publication the administration notoriously
censored in 1963 for its seminal use of the f-word. In protest,
the Review editors quit en masse and
published a mimeographed The Cen-
sored Review, which quickly sold out, at
25 cents a copy. The following year, the
Review was revived, with Lopate as the
editor and Padgett a contributor.

“He’s kept the faith. And now he’s
become sort of a grand old man of poetry,”
Lopate says. “Ron is essentially a very kind, courtly man, and a lot
of writers are essentially cruel bastards. Ron is really gentlemanly;
there’s a sweetness to him.”

Does Padgett have a life lesson to share?

His poem “How to be perfect,” which takes the form of a 99-page
illustrated guide, offers some. It begins: “Get some sleep ... Don’t
give advice ... Take care of your teeth and gums.” It concludes with:
“Take out the trash ... Love life ... Use exact change,” and, “When
there’s shooting in the street, don’t go near the window.”

CCT Print Extras

To read more of Padgett’s
poems, go to college.
columbia.edu/cct.

Eugene L. Meyer ’64 is a former Washington Post reporter and
editor and an author. He contributes to The New York ‘Times, edits
B’nai B'rith Magazine and is writing a book about the five African-
Americans with John Brown at Harpers Ferry.

a Pe alumninews \

Alicia Yoon ’04, founder and chief cura-
tor of Korean beauty source Peach &

Lily, was featured in People on March 30
for the launch of her collaboration with
CVS, for which she curated four K-beauty
brands to be sold exclusively through the
drugstore chain. Items were available at
more than 2,100 retail stores by the end
of April.

Jonah Reider 16, who made his name as
a chef by opening a restaurant, Pith, in his
room in Hogan Hall, now has new digs.
In April he reopened Pith as a supper
club in a townhouse near the Brooklyn
Navy Yard; a May 22 New Yorker profile
described the tasting menu as featuring “a
pillowy yet rich spring-onion soubise with
caviar; bruléed squash with lemon balm ...
buttery homemade pasta with morels and
pea shoots; and a flawlessly seared Seattle
wagyu sirloin.”

Neil Gorsuch ’88 was confirmed to the
Supreme Court on April 7, making him
the fourth College graduate to serve on
the United States’ highest court. He was
sworn into office on April 10. “As a deep
believer in the rule of law, Judge Gorsuch
will serve the American people with

distinction as he continues to faithfully
and vigorously defend our Constitution,”
President Trump said.

In other political news, the United States
Senate confirmed David Friedman ’78
as the United States Ambassador to Israel;
he was sworn in on March 29. Rep. Beto
O’Rourke ’95 (D-Texas) announced his
candidacy to challenge Sen. Ted Cruz
(R-Texas) in the 2018 Senate race. On
May 22, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.)
appointed the Hon. Rolando Acosta ’79,
LAW’82 as presiding justice of New York’s
Appellate Division for the First Judicial
Department. Ben Jealous ’94, former
head of the NAACP, announced on May
31 his candidacy for governor of Maryland;
he will challenge incumbent Republican
Gov. Larry Hogan.

College alumni are all over TV screens
this year: Brian Yorkey ’93’s Netflix orig-
inal, 13 Reasons Why, debuted on March
31 to huge numbers and set a record as
Netflix’s most-tweeted-about show (it has
already been renewed for a second sea-
son); Amanda Peet ’94 stars in the new
IFC series Brockmire, Tinsley Mortimer
"99 joined the cast of Bravo's Real House-

es @ 1 er i ee

FRANZ JANTZEN, COLLECTION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

wives of New York this season; and Vanck
Zhu 11 competed on the current season of
The Amazing Race.

On the big screen, Bill Condon ’76’s
Beauty and the Beast opened with $170
million in North America, setting a record
for top domestic opening for a PG-rated
film, and Vanessa Gould ’96’s documen-
tary film, Odiz, was tapped as a Critic’s
Pick by The New York Times. On the Great
White Way, Terrence McNally ’60 wrote
the book for the new musical Anastasia,
which debuted on April 24. Underground
Railroad Game, created by and starring
Jennifer Kidwell ’00 and Scott Shep-
pard, received an Obie, which honors
Off-Broadway works. The New York Times
describes the play as “an audacious explora-
tion of slavery in the guise of a misguided
middle school history lesson.”

In other media happenings, Robert Siegel
68 announced that he will leave NPR’s

All Things Considered in January 2018; he

has hosted NPR’s flagship news broadcast
since 1987. Jen Chung ’98 and Jake Dob-
kin ’98, founders of New York City blog
Gothamist (and several of its sister sites),
were in the news after media company

DNAinfo purchased the Gothamist brand.

In the arts, Crystal Hana Kim ’09, SOA14
won the 2017 PEN America Literary
Awards’ Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for
Emerging Writers, Wah Chen ’92 received
the Lee & Low New Visions Award for her
book Operation Yellowbird (written with her
sister); cellist Alisa Weilerstein ’04 was
featured in The New York Times for tackling
the feat of performing all six of Bach’s solo
cello suites in a single concert; and Stepha-
nie Stebich ’88 was named The Margaret
and ‘Terry Stent Director of the Smithson-
ian American Art Museum in early 2017.
She began work on April 3.

Matthew L. Schwartz ’00, LAW’02
was listed in Crain’s New York Business
“40 Under 40” for 2017. A partner with
Boies Schiller Flexner, Schwartz “led the
investigation into Bernie Madoft’s Ponzi
scheme and the trial of associates dubbed
the Madoff Five, winning guilty verdicts
and the forfeiture of nearly $9 billion.”

— Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09

Summer 2017 CCT 41

By Rebecca Prime ’96

fter a successful career as a foreign correspondent, what do
you do for a second act? For Glenn Frankel’71, a lifelong
cinephile, the decision was easy. Wearing his new hat as
a film historian, Frankel first explored the history — and
mythology — of the American West in his 2014 book The Search-
ers: The Making of an American Legend. For his latest, High Noon: The
Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic (Blooms-
bury USA, $28), he uses another iconic Western as a lens through
which to examine a tumultuous moment in American politics.

Frankel’s reinvention was driven by his desire to avoid cliché. After
retiring from The Washington Post in 2006, Frankel knew he “didn’t
want to be one of those foreign news experts living in Washington or
California,” he says. “You get stale very quickly.” Instead, he accepted
a position teaching journalism at Stanford and began research on the
1956 film The Searchers. “I thought it was just going to be a ‘making
of the movie book: John Wayne and John Ford go to Monument
Valley.” Instead, Frankel quickly became fascinated by the true story
on which the film was based and plunged
into its history — that of 1830s Texas and
the Comanche wars. “Half the book is about
the wars and half the book is about the movie
and the evolution from one to another.”

Frankel’s attraction to the confluence of
history, politics and popular culture has its
roots in his College years. Despite a passing
familiarity with New York City (thanks to
relatives in the outer boroughs) and liberal
politics (thanks to his working-class Jew-
ish family), the 17-year-old from Roches-
ter “felt like an alien” when he arrived on
campus in fall 1967. “My politics were left but not coherent,” he
says. When the protests began in spring 1968, Frankel remained
primarily a bystander. “I didn't sleep in any of the buildings, but I
stood outside and chanted a little of this and that.” But what Frankel
witnessed on campus that spring shaped his choice of career. “As a
journalist, I could be an insider and an outsider at the same time ...
I had embraced neither the institution nor the radicals who sought
to destroy it.”

After this turbulent start, Frankel’s subsequent years at Colum-
bia were marked by discoveries of a more purely intellectual nature.
A history major, he delighted in Eric Foner 63, GSAS’69’s African-
American history seminar and David Rothman’58’s American social
history course. Andrew Sarris’51, GSAS’98 had recently begun teach-
ing his introductory film course in Butler’s basement. “That’s when

BETSYELLEN YEAGER

42 CCT Summer 2017

THE HOLLYWOOD

BLACKLIST

AND THE MAKING OF >
CLASSIC

Notswee cette Ss a es eens canst seaman

I saw The Searchers for the first time
as an adult. Sarris was so good and
showed so many wonderful movies,”
Frankel recalls. Frankel continued his film education at the nearby
Thalia and New Yorker theaters, by his own calculation spending more
time there than he did in class.

Upon graduation, Frankel landed a job as a clerk in the Museum
of Modern Art’s film department, where he fed his cinephilia and
says he might have pursued a career but for a girlfriend who wanted
to hitchhike to San Francisco. So he quit that job, married the girl
and by 1979 had arrived at The Washington Post. Frankel spent
much of the next two decades overseas, covering South Africa at
the height of apartheid and the Middle East during the first Pal-
estinian Intifada. In 1989, his “sensitive and balanced reporting
from Israel and the Middle East” was recognized with the Pulitzer
Prize for International Reporting. Held in Low Library, the awards
ceremony marked Frankel’s Columbia homecoming, the library’s
steps transformed from the scene of student protests to the path of
professional achievement.

Frankel’s new book draws upon his years as a journalist in both its
exemplary research and ethical orientation. “I’m interested in people
and what happens to them when they face moral and political crises,”
Frankel says by way of explaining his attraction to High Noon’s tale of
conscience versus compromise. “In the places I went to as a foreign
correspondent — Israel, South Africa, Northern Ireland — people
were confronted by history and had to make tough and personal deci-
sions. I could tell that the Blacklist fit this criteria.” Frankel describes
how the corrosive Cold War politics of the 1950s pervaded every
aspect of High Noon's production, which coincided with the peak of
Blacklist-induced hysteria in Hollywood. With a conservative leading
actor (Gary Cooper), a liberal producer (Stanley Kramer) and an erst-
while Communist screenwriter (Carl Foreman, who was called to tes-
tify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities during
the film’s shoot), High Noon had as much drama off set as on screen.

While writing the book, Frankel was alert to the then-and-now
parallels between the Red Scare and the Tea Party, both of which he
characterizes as backlash movements driven by a dispossessed Right
and directed toward left-wing “subversives” (whether communists or
coastal elites). However, Frankel could not have predicted the book’s
resonance in the Trump era. “The similarities are, unfortunately, the
gift that keeps on giving.”

Rebecca Prime 96 is a film historian and author of Hollywood Exiles
in Europe: The Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture.

The Evolution of Earth's Biodiversity
and the Future of Humanity

WILLIAM C. BURGER

~
AQ ai ‘d
X 7

RUMI’sS
SECRET

The LIFE of the

POWERPLAY

THE ORIGINS OF T

AMERICAN ALLIANCE

IN ASIA
VICTOR D. CHA

SUFI POET ,, LOVE
BRAD Goocy

Obesity Prevention in Children
Before It’s Too Late: A Program
for Toddlers & Preschoolers

by Dr. Alvin N. Eden ’48 and Sari
Greaves R.D.N. Eden, a well-
known pediatrician and authority
on childhood nutrition and obesity,
presents a definitive guide for
parents and caregivers, with meal
plans and recipes by Greaves

(Hatherleigh Press, $15.95).

Making It by Norman Podhoretz
50. A reprint of Podhoretz’s
controversial 1967 autobiography
that frankly depicted New York’s
intellectual elite of the time,

with a new introduction by

New York Times Book Review
columnist Benjamin Moser
(NYRB Classics, $17.95).

Complexity: The Evolution of
Earth’s Biodiversity and the
Future of Humanity by William
C. Burger 53. Telling the history
of our planet and life on Earth,
acclaimed botanist Burger shows
that cooperation and symbiosis
have played a critical role, from the
cellular level to complex animal
and human societies (Prometheus

Books, $26).

Jerzy: A Novel by Jerome Charyn
'59. The life and death of enigmatic
author Jerzy Kosinski becomes a
story told through multiple narrators,
including a homicidal actor and
Joseph Stalin’s daughter (Bellevue
Literary Press, $16.99).

FLANNER

A Mother’s Tale by Pdi/lip

Lopate ’64. The author transcribes
interviews he conducted three
decades ago with his now-deceased

mother and comments on both sides
of the conversation with the clarity
of the present (The Ohio State
University Press, $24.95).

Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the
Sufi Poet of Love by Brad Gooch
73. Literary biographer Gooch
delivers a detailed portrait of the
popular 13th-century poet and
mystic, including translations of
Rumi’s original Persian works

(Harper, $28.99).

Powerplay: The Origins of the
American Alliance System in
Asia by Victor Cha ’83. Cha, a
senior adviser at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies
in Washington, D.C., examines
the evolution of the U.S. alliance
systems and the reasons for its
continued importance in Asia and
the world (Princeton University
Press, $35).

Buying Time: Environmental
Collapse and the Future of
Energy by Kaz Makabe ’85.

The author, a financial systems
expert who lived through the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
disaster, presents an overview of
the state of the environment and
the impending choices over energy
resources for a growing population

(ForeEdge, $27.95).

SYSTEM

America, We Need to Talk:

A Self-Help Book for the Nation
by Joel Berg ’86. “How did we

get here, America? How did our
relationship get so broken? And
where do we go now?” These are

the questions Berg suggests we ask
ourselves in order to begin doing the
work of solving our nation’s problems

(Seven Stories Press, $29.95).

Six Minutes in Berlin: Broadcast
Spectacle and Rowing Gold at
the Nazi Olympics by Michael
Socolow 91. Socolow, a professor of
communications and journalism at
the University of Maine, describes
how a single crew race between
Americans and Germans at the
1936 Olympics became the origin
of global sports broadcasting (Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, $24.95).

Leadership Step by Step:
Become the Person Others
Follow by Joshua Spodek 93. Leader-
ship coach Spodek, who earned

five Ivy League degrees, provides a
progression of exercises (analogous
to wannabe piano players learning
scales) derived from real-life leader-
ship practices (Amacom, $24).

The Production of American
Religious Freedom by Findarr
Curtis ’95. This book examines shifts
in the notion of religious freedom in
the United States from The Second
Great Awakening of the early 19th
century to contemporary Tea Party
conservatism (NYU Press, $28).

alumninews

ALEXA f
“AANDRIA MAR

~ AND 4
MEMOIR

Ours to Lose: When Squatters
Become Homeowners in

New York City by Amy Starecheski
99. The history of a radical move-
ment that began on the Lower

East Side in the 1980s in which
illegal building occupants fought for
decades to become legal cooperative
property owners (The University of
Chicago Press, $30).

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and
a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-
Lesnevich 01. The author's debut is
part true crime story, part memoir and
details how secrets from her own past
colored her understanding of a murder
case she worked on as a law student

(Flatiron Books, $26.99).

Chimeras of a Form: Modernist
Internationalism Beyond Europe,
1914-2016 by Aarthi Vadde ’03.
Vadde considers how six authors

— Rabinath Tagore, James Joyce,
Claude McKay, George Lamming,
Michael Ondaatje and Zadie Smith
— have developed ideas about
international belonging in a period
defined by globalization (Columbia
University Press, $60).

Bed-Stuy Is Burning: A Novel
by Brian Platzer ‘04. In Platzer’s
first novel, longtime residents and
newly arrived gentrifiers of the
titular Brookyn neighborhood come
together to protest the fatal police
shooting of a 12-year-old boy
(Atria Books, $26).
— Jill C. Shomer

Summer 2017 CCT 43

"ath ae
ya

Alumni Reunite on Campus

SUNNY SKIES AND PERFECT TEMPERATURES
greeted alumni and their guests on Morningside
Heights for Reunion 2017, June 1—4, and All-Class
Reunion, June 3. The 2,500 reunion-goers enjoyed
all-class favorites like the Tri-College Reunion
Luncheon on South Lawn, the Wine Tasting and the
Starlight Reception, as well as class-specific lunches
receptions, dinners and panels. Attendees relived
their student days at Mini-Core Classes and lectures
given by distinguished faculty (including the keynote
address, given by University Professor Dr. Richard
Axel 67 on “Scents and Sensibility: The Fascinating
Relationship Between the Brain and Smell”) and also
enjoyed campus and neighborhood tours.

Photographs by Scott Rudd

LEON WU "18

CCT Print Extras

To view more Reunion 2017 photos
(including class photos), go to
college.columbia.edu/cct.

44 CCT Summer 2017

4. An illuminated class
dinner on South Lawn.

2. Enjoying the
Starlight Reception.

3. Alumni are welcomed
back to campus through
The Gates.

4. Friends gather at the
Wine Tasting on Low Plaza.

5. The Dean’s Breakfast
brings together classmates.

6. Dancing the night away at
the Young Alumni Party.

7. Catching up with friends.

8. Good times at the
Tri-College Reunion Luncheon.

9. Dr. Richard Axel ’67
delivers the keynote lecture.

10. Reliving the College
experience with Mini-Core
Classes and lectures.

11. Sunny skies over Low.

Summer 2017 CCT 45

1941

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025

Albert Sanders SEAS’41 was
pleased to hear from CCT: “At 97,
80 years after starting at Columbia
College, it’s nice to be remembered.
So thanks for this opportunity!
“My first memory of Columbia
is of an assembly of some sort at a
vaguely religious-looking build-
ing with a domed roof. It was just
east of Low Library, the one with
Alma Mater out front, but no vis-
ible books. However, nothing of a
religious nature took place. What
most impressed me was singing the
old German war song Germany Over
Everyone. After all, it was only 17
years after the end of WWI, with

46 CCT Summer 2017

visions of Allied propaganda posters
showing German soldiers murdering
babies. But it turned out that the
song had different words and was
much honored at Columbia.

“Tt also struck me as odd that
many of the freshmen I was singing
along with seemed to know the
song. Where had they learned it? It
began to dawn on me that many of
the freshmen had not come from
a public high school as I did. They
had gone to something called a ‘prep’
school — a place that prepared them
for going to Columbia and singing
its songs, and who knew what else.
What had I missed?

“I saw some freshmen wearing
a silly little hat called a beanie. No
particular reason; only to make them
look foolish just because they were
freshmen. I decided to revolt. I wore
no beanie and no harm came to me.
I just had to skulk around whenever
I spotted big guys who looked like

they might be upperclassmen.

“But life wasn't entirely worri-
some. One night I was told that I was
expected at some sort of reception
for freshmen. It turned out to be in
a magnificent mansion on Morn-
ingside Drive. A lovely woman, the
wife of a professor, organized it. She
was so sweet to these freshmen, all
of them apparently unknown to
her. And I have never forgotten the
exotic drinks she served these kids.
Hot grape juice! So that was what
people drank in sophisticated circles!
Already my life was changing, thanks
to Columbia College.

“And I haven't even got to the
actual learning, and how it forever
changed my life for the better.

“Thank you, Columbia.”

The Spring 2017 issue had a note
from Ray Robinson. Just as that
issue went to press, Ray’s wife, Phyl-
lis, passed away at their Upper East
Side home. Ray says he is extremely

NOAH ZINSMEISTER '16

grateful to her caregiver, who will
remain with him.

The New York Times featured an
obituary, written by Ray and Phyllis’
daughter, Nancy Miringoff SW’76:
“Robinson, Phyllis, C., age 92, died at
home in New York City on Monday,
March 13, 2017, after a determined
and graceful battle with Alzheimer’s
disease. She was the wife for almost 68
years of her devoted husband and part-
ner, Ray Robinson. Phyllis Ann was
the only child of Fred G. and Sophie
Friedenthal Cumins. Phyllis Robinson

led a full and productive life. She was
a book author, an avid reader, a public
school teacher, and a lifelong Progres-
sive Democrat. She was a Senior
Editor at Book of the Month Club, a
Yorkville neighborhood community
activist, a Board member at Lenox Hill
Neighborhood Association, an advo-
cate for parks and open spaces, and
served as the Deputy Commissioner of
Cultural Affairs under Mayor John V.
Lindsay. She was an active Vassar Col-
lege alumna (Class of 1945-46) who
proudly made Phi Beta Kappa in her
Junior Year. A graduate of and Presi-
dent of her Senior Class at Julia Rich-
man High School, she aspired to be an
actress, and for a brief period of time,
she acted on radio. During WWII, she
worked at the Office of War Informa-
tion (OWI) and for Brooklyn Union
Gas. She was a literary person who
grew up in the Bronx and delighted in
saying that she lived on Shakespeare
Avenue and Featherbed Lane! She
enjoyed the company of her friends
and children over long lunches, and
her beautiful and engaging smile lit

up a room when she entered it. The
Robinson beach house at Fire Island
gave her much enjoyment over 55
summers. Phyllis Robinson (and
here’s to you ... ) was an exemplary
citizen. She believed that the role of
government was to take care of the
most needy of its citizens. She gave
much of her life towards the vision

of a just and moral society. She cared
about all people and ideas and worked
towards making a better life for all
New Yorkers. She has been and will be
missed by friends and family. In addi-
tion to her husband, she is survived by
Nancy and Lee Miringoff, Steve and
Elizabeth Robinson, Tad and Amy
Robinson, and four grandchildren.

For the past six and a half years, she
has been cared for with compassion
and dignity by Lorna Cambridge,
Edmund and Hadassah Mitchell, and
visited regularly at her home by her
childhood friend, Marilyn Lukashok.
... Donations in Phyllis’ memory can
be sent to: Greater New York Chapter,
ALS, at 42 Broadway, Suite 1724, New
York, NY 10004; or the Alzheimer’s
Association, New York City Chapter,
60 E. 42 St., #2240, New York, NY
10165; or Bideawee, 410 E. 38th St.,
New York, NY 10016.”

Ruth Richardson Montgomery,
widow of Sigmund John Mont-
gomery Ph.D. SEAS’42, SEAS’49,
sent a note that he passed away on
February 27, 2017. John (96) was a

Darien, Conn., resident for about

70 years. He was born in Brooklyn,
N.Y., on July 10, 1920, and grew

up in Katonah, N.Y. John earned

a B.A. from the College in 1941, a
B.S. and an M.S. from Columbia
Engineering in 1942 and 1949,
respectively, then served in the
Eighth Air Force, assigned to Gen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower's staff in
England and France. He left the
military as a major with a Bronze
Star in 1946. After the war, John
returned to Columbia, becoming an
assistant professor at Engineering

in 1948; he taught there until 1959.
John moved to Darien in 1947 and
began consulting in management and
engineering. Later, he earned a Ph.D.
in accounting from NYU’s School
of Business. After NYU, he helped
develop the School of Business at
the University of Connecticut Storrs
and the M.B.A. program at UConn
Stamford. While John was teaching
in Connecticut, UConn loaned him
to the City of Stamford, Conn., to
be commissioner of finance. He also
continued consulting.

John was predeceased by his first
wife, Jean Montgomery. He is sur-
vived by his wife, Ruth; his daughter,
Cynthia Kowalski, her husband,
Ronald Kowalski and their five
children and four grandchildren; and
three stepchildren, Charles Skeele,
Harrison Skeele and Sarah Post.
Memorial contributions may be made
to Alzheimer’s Association (alz.org).

Share your story or news —
even a favorite Columbia College
memory — with CCT and your
classmates by sending it to either the
email address or postal address at
the top of the column. Wishing you

a restful summer.

1942

Melvin Hershkowitz

22 Northern Ave.
Northampton, MA 01060-2310
DrMelvin23@gmail.com

‘This correspondent was a financial
donor for the big, new, enclosed, all-
weather dome at the Baker Athletics

Complex, adjacent to Wien Stadium.

It is up and functional and has
already improved the spring training
workouts for our football team,
confirmed by Coach Al Bagnoli

in a video on the athletics website,
gocolumbialions.com. The website

adlumninews

COLUMBIA SCHOOL DESIGNATIONS

BC Barnard College
BUS

Columbia Business School

CP Pharmaceutical Sciences

College of Dental Medicine

GS School of General Studies

GSAPP

Graduate School of Architecture,

Planning and Preservation

GSAS
JRN
JTS
LAW

LS Library Service

NRS School of Nursing

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Graduate School of Journalism
Jewish Theological Seminary
Columbia Law School

PH Mailman School of Public Health
PS College of Physicians and Surgeons
The Fu Foundation School of Engineering

and Applied Science

School of International and Public Affairs

School of the Arts

School of Professional Studies
School of Social Work

Teachers College

Union Theological Seminary

has daily reports on all Columbia
sports, with a lot of information on
teams and individuals in all sports —
including some of the lesser-known
ones such as squash and women’s
archery (in which Columbia has
been preeminent). Women’s archery
has won several national champion-
ships in recent years, and this year
Osama Khalifa’18 won the National
Individual Squash Championship.
He will, I hope, repeat this great
accomplishment next year. There

is a feeling of optimism about our
football prospects for 2017, with a
lot of experienced players back from
last year, including nationally-ranked
field goal kicker Oren Milstein

20, and several promising fresh-
man prospects. We have a greatly
improved quarterback in Anders
Hill’18, who — at 6-3 and 215 lbs.
— looks like an All-Ivy candidate.
Stay tuned. [Editor’s note: See “Roar,
Lion, Roar” for more on these and
other sports topics. ]

As our Class of 1942 alumni con-
tinue to succumb to illness and old
age, I am happy to report that I con-
tinue my contacts with Dr. Gerald
Klingon (96), a retired neurologist in
Manhattan. He remains cognitively
intact and well-informed on Colum-
bia affairs. Another old Columbia
pal, Ray Robinson ’41 (96), is in full
possession of all faculties. Ray lives
in Manhattan near Gerald, and they

occasionally see each other. Ray has
been my lifelong friend since we met
at the Columbia Jester office in 1939,
where Ray was a cartoonist before

he became famous as a magazine
editor and the author of numerous
books. He has published biographies
of Lou Gehrig ’23 and Will Rogers,
as well as several additional books

on baseball, including the wonderful
Greats of the Game. The Players, Games,
Teams, and Managers That Made Base-
ball History, which features marvelous
photographs of well-known players
and managers.

Two more of my lifelong friend-
ships that began at Columbia
were with Dr. Herbert Mark, my
sophomore year roommate in Liv-
ingston Hall, and Gerald Green, the
world-famous novelist and television
executive. Gerald wrote more than 20
books, including his novel The Last
Angry Man, made into a movie with
Paul Muni in the leading role as a
doctor in Brooklyn (based on the life
of Gerald’s father), and Holocaust, a
novel and television production that
aroused worldwide interest.

Herb and Gerald both died in
2006. Since that date, I have more fre-
quently thought about the emotional
attachment I have with Columbia,
which has remained intense since I
left the campus in 1942 to enter the
NYU School of Medicine. Having
begun my medical school classes at

Summer 2017 CCT 47

(EE

East 26th and East 28th Streets and
Bellevue Hospital on First Avenue,
my longing for the Columbia campus

became intense, so one day I took
the subway up to West 116th Street
and walked to the Sundial, where I
stood and looked across South Field
to Hartley, Livingston, John Jay,
Hamilton and Van Am Quad, finally
returning to the subway and my
new life in another part of the city.
WWII was on during that time,
eventually resulting in the deaths of
14 classmates (accuracy not certain),
including two of my good friends,
Phil Bayer and Roger Dounce. Phil
was a star halfback on our football
team, a Marine officer decorated for
heroism, killed in the invasion of
Peleliu in the war against Japan.
Roger was a gifted writer, a quiet
pipe-smoker (rare on our campus),
shot down in combat in the Pacific.
My memories of such classmates and
friends remain alive and intensify my
emotional connection to Columbia.
On April 8 I received a note from
Marie Mcllvennan in Lakewood,
Colo., thanking me for my comments
in the Spring issue about her husband,
our distinguished classmate Stewart
Mclilvennan LAW’48 (96). Stew is
in a nursing and assisted living facility
near his home in Colorado. Though
he is impaired, Marie tells me he can
still read and express his feelings about
“the good old days” at Columbia,
where Stew was a member of our
basketball team and a star halfback
on our football team. His intellectual
powers equaled his physical skills.
After his WWII service in the Navy,
Stew returned to Columbia, graduated
from the Law School, served briefly in

Contact CCT

Update your contact

information; submit a

Class Note, Class Notes

or wedding photo, obituary
or Letter to the Editor;

or send us an email.

Click “Contact Us” at
college.columbia.edu/cct.

48 CCT Summer 2017

the FBI and then began a long career
as an executive in a national trucking
industry firm, from which he retired.
His modesty and good humor, along
with his intellect and athletic skills,
made him a wonderful friend, admired
by many classmates.

Kind regards and best wishes to
all surviving members of the Class
of 1942. Please contact me with
your memories, news reports and
philosophic comments: 413-586-
1517 or drmelvin23@gmail.com.

1943

G.J. D’Angio

201 S. 18th St., #1818
Philadelphia, PA 19103
dangio@earthlink.net

Eye problems again in February. The
diagnosis — IOIS (Idiopathic Orbital
Inflammatory Syndrome) — reflects
the unknown underlying dysfunction.
I am now doing well on low doses of
steroids; they are both prophylactic
and therapeutic. Pretty smooth sailing
since they were instituted.

Many members of the family
spent time with me and my wife,
Audrey, in early 2017, including my
granddaughter and her two children.
Otherwise, we had a quiet winter.

May 2 was my 95th birthday. A
small dinner with friends for that land-
mark date was my preference rather
than a gala with dozens of guests.

My son Peter came to visit in
early May and Audrey’s nephew and
his wife from England followed later
that month. They overlapped with
my granddaughter and her family
over Memorial Day weekend; she
was attending her 10th Bryn Mawr
class reunion. Then a trip to Edmon-
ton, Canada, in June beckoned.
Somewhere in there were a few days
with an old colleague and friend
from France. Our B&B doesn’t want
for customers! CC’43 classmates
would be welcome anytime.

Bernard Weisberger reports:
“Many things remind me of my
Columbia connection. I first made
Professor Eric Foner 63, GSAS’69’s
acquaintance back when he and I
became historical advisers on a proj-
ect launched by the Reader’ Digest
book department. I have admired
him and his work ever since. Profes-
sor Kenneth Jackson was one of my
students in an introductory class on
historical method that I was teach-

ing at the University of Chicago.
None of my children attended the
College, but I have mentioned

in earlier letters that I have a
grandson-in-law, Jeremy Bob ’00,
currently the legal correspondent for
the Jerusalem Post, who did.

“Of personal news, there’s very
little. 've done no published writing
lately though I occasionally post a
thought or two on the website main-
tained by another much-admired
friend of years, Bill Moyers. I made
two excursions of escape from Chi-
cago’s winter climate in February. The
first was a week with my wife, Rita, in
Cancun, devoted to eating, sunning
ourselves and scrupulously avoiding
newspapers and newscasts to provide
us a Trump-free week. Shortly after
returning, I flew to New Bern, N.C.,
to visit some other old friends and
enjoy daytime temperatures in the
70s. It’s an interesting place; for
a time it was the capital of North
Carolina (when it was still a colony),
with a restored colonial governor's
capital preserved as a museum — a
historian’s pleasure to browse.

“Even if I wanted to forget that
I will be 95 in August (and grateful
for it), time rolls on with frequent
reminders. My two daughters and
my son are all over 60 and sneaking
up on Social Security eligibility. My
oldest granddaughter turned 30, an
age which, in the wild 1960s, was
supposed to render her unworthy
of trust. Glad to be past that foolish-
ness. I have a commencement to
attend in a couple of weeks, as the
youngest of my four granddaughters
will receive her master’s in social
work here in Chicago. And in
general, as Rita describes it, ‘we're in
good shape for the shape we're in.’

“As my thoughts stray back to
Columbia, I will save for the next
letter my personal recollections of
two of the great teachers of my era —
Gilbert Highet and Jacques Barzun
27, GSAS’32. I wonder if others of
the Class of ’43 would be interested
in doing the same. I'd be delighted
to read them. Likewise any other
recollections of campus buddies,
particularly significant classes, or
other Columbia moments that had
special meaning for us in those years
of transition to adulthood. If this
sounds like a hint to encourage more
contributions from us’43-ers, it is. So,
au revoir until 90 days hence.”

A Columbia nugget — R.R.
Ambedkar (GSAS 1927), was born

a talit (“untouchable”) in India
(1891-1956), attended Columbia
1913-15 and graduated with an
M.A. in economics. He became a

prominent politician who fought
tenaciously for a change in the caste
system. Calling on his thousands of
supporters, he asked them why they
stayed with a religion that denied
them equality of status. Ambedkar
became a Buddhist in 1956.

Sad note: Felix E. De Martini
PS’46 died in Vero Beach, Fla.,
on November 7, 2016. He was an
outstanding physician and prominent
senior officer at the Columbia
University Medical Center/NewYork
Presbyterian Hospital for many years.

1944

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

No updates this time! CCT, and
your classmates, would be happy to
hear from you. Share your story or
news — even a favorite Columbia
College memory — with CCT and
your classmates by sending it to
either the email address or postal
address at the top of the column.
Wishing you a relaxing summer.

1945

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center |
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530 |
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

John Khoury responded to CC7's
call for news: “I have read Class
Notes for decades and I have been
impressed by the successes of my

classmates. It has made me reluctant
to write about myself. Like Lou
Gehrig and James Cagney, I did not
graduate. Instead, I joined the family
business in 1946. For the next 70
years I was in the wholesale business
of importing and manufacturing
fancy, hand-embroidered household
linens. There were some good years
and some fair years. Working in
Manhattan and competing for busi-
ness every day was exciting and often
nerve-racking. I managed because

I graduated from Manual Training

HS. (now John Jay H.S.) in Brook-
lyn, N.Y. It is the only high school
named for a college dormitory.

“My Columbia College educa-
tion was priceless. Except for three
years in the Army I never worked for
anybody but for a few part-time jobs.
In the Army, I rose from private to
private first class and was awarded a
combat infantry badge and a bunch of
medals. Education is important to my
four children, who have earned many
degrees, including a bachelor’s, a mas-
ter’s and a doctorate from Columbia.”

Share your story or news — even
a favorite Columbia College memory
— with CCT and your classmates by
sending it to either the email address
or postal address at the top of the
column. Enjoy the summer.

1946

Bernard Sunshine

165 W. 66th St., Apt. 12G
New York, NY 10023
bsuns1@gmail.com

Currently our class numbers 65 men
(we started with 425). Our early
chronological listing in this publica-
tion is another indication of our
longevity. The collection of class dues
was the practice in our early alumni
years, but our relatively unsuccessful
efforts were probably mirrored by
other classes, and the Alumni Office
and Dean's Office had the good sense
to discontinue dues.

Thinking back, it brings to mind
the visit of the King and Queen of
England to the College while we were
attending. I photographed the event;
etched in memory are the security
men positioned on the roofs of build-
ings that surrounded Low Library as
the guests walked up its front steps.

It is interesting to note that many
classmates continue to work and
practice in their fields of interest and
expertise. Herbert Gold GSAS’49
is a screenwriter and author living in
California. We telephone from time
to time and I find remarkable the
people of note he casually mentions
as friends in our conversation.

Malvin Ruderman continues
to research and teach physics at
Columbia and NYU.

Herbert Hendin PS’59 has
devoted much of his practice as a
psychiatrist to military veterans at
risk for suicide. In a piece for the
American Association of Suicidology

he wrote: “Suicide rates among mili-
tary personnel had a significant drop
in 2013, but there is no evidence of a
drop among veterans. The problem of
suicide among combat veterans with
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
remains a source of concern.”

Let me hear from you about your
work, travel, interests and so on, so
I can report it and we can all “catch
up” with you. Recommended reading
is also good to include here. Please
do reach out to the addresses at the
top of this column.

1947

Columbia College Today
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
cct@columbia.edu

Herewith, a poem written by Dr.
Nicholas Giosa, with “my best to
those few of us that yet remain:”

Epilogue

Once, I was vivid as an exclamation !

familiar as a quote from Bartlett; stood

solid - a gnarled and rooted oak;

valid like an ancient proverb;

an asterisk, not willing to be ignored.

I am now but an addendum - a dash -

an afterthought in process of
transformation;

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