mag_fall07

CollegeThe F a l l 2 0 0 7

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

Tocquevillea n d M o d e r n A m e r i c a

The College (usps 018-750) is published quarterly by

St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD,and Santa Fe, NM

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postmaster: Send addresschanges to The College

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

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Rosemary Harty, editorPatricia Dempsey,managing editor

Gail Griffith, Jenny HannifinSanta Fe editors

Jennifer Behrens, art director

Annapolis410-626-2539

Santa Fe505-984-6104

Contributors

Caroline Caldwell (SF08)Barbara Goyette (A73)Deborah SpiegelmanSusan Swier (AGI06)Krishnan Venkatesh

Kea Wilson (A09)

Magazine design by Claude Skelton Design

O n T o c q u e v i l l e

“I confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought there an image of democracyitself, of its penchants, its character, its prejudices, its passions; I wanted to becomeacquainted with it only to know at least what we ought to hope or fear from it.”

Alexis de Tocqueville’s detailed observations raise such interestingquestions for seminar discussions: Do Americans value equality overfreedom? Are laws unstable unless they are rooted in the customs andtraditions of a society? Is the tyranny of the majority a threat todemocracy? Although Tocqueville began his travels in America 176years ago, so many of his ideas seem relevant today. They prompt usto consider what has changed, what remains constant, and how we

think about the American character. Born into an aristocratic family (his father narrowly escaped execution during the

Terror), Tocqueville was serving as a magistrate in Versailles when he and his good friend,Gustave de Beaumont, developed the idea to visit America to investigate its penal system.Not long after he landed on American shores in 1831, Tocqueville knew he had found muchmore to write about in the vast, wild, and complex young country he explored. His lettershome were full of his adventures with Beaumont: getting the celebrity treatment in NewYork, witnessing Chocktaw Indians being driven off their land in the South, nearlyperishing in a riverboat accident, and visiting Andrew Jackson in the White House.Tocqueville wrote about prisons when he returned to France, but it was his great workDemocracy in America that endures.

Tocqueville was critical of America in many ways. He perceived that the country had nogreat writers, had “good workers and few inventors,” ambitious men but “so few greatambitions,” and bombastic orators. Critics of modern society might agree the Americansare too concerned with material worth, as Tocqueville noted with great disdain in the early19th century: “The inhabitant of the United States attaches himself to the goods of thisworld as if he were assured of not dying, and he rushes so precipitately to grasp those thatpass within his reach that one would say he fears at each instant he will cease to live beforehe has enjoyed them.”

After publishing Democracy in America, Tocqueville went on to a political career. He married Mary Mottley, a middle-class Englishwoman. He suffered through long boutsof illness in his later years and succumbed to tuberculosis on April 16, 1859.

In this issue of The College, Johnnies in many walks of life consider his ideas in light oftheir own work. A young foreign service officer on her way to Burma, where recent demonstrations for freedom were brutally squashed, offers her views. It’s also interestingto hear from a county councilman who, like the New England township leaders whoTocqueville observed in action, believes that local government can make a difference inthe everyday lives of its citizens. —RH

{ C o n t e n t s }

CollegeThe F a l l 2 0 0 7V o l u m e 3 3 , I s s u e 3

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

p a g e 8Commencement, East and WestIn Santa Fe, celebrating the oral tradition; in Annapolis, pondering abrave new world.

p a g e 10“With a Clear andSingle Purpose”Like Virgil leading Dante, tutors serve as able guides of the Program. A look athow the college views the needs of itsfaculty.

p a g e 16Saving New OrleansIt will take more than rebuilding homesto put this damaged city back together,says writer and death penalty lawyer BillySothern (A98).

p a g e 24Tocqueville RevisitedHow does Tocqueville’s account ofAmerica hold up in the 21st century?Johnnies ponder his observationsthrough the lens of their careers.

p a g e 34HomecomingThey came, they gossiped, they ate crabs,and they brought the kids.

d e p a r t m e n t s

2 from the bell towers• Remembering Jeffrey Bishop• Ariel and Hodson intern adventures• Research at 40,000 feet• Probing the mysteries of space• A groundbreaking ceremony in Santa Fe • Celebrating a year for the record books• News and announcements

7 letters

32 bibliofileTravis Price (A71) explores the “ethnosphere” in The Archaeology of Tomorrow: Architecture and the Spirit of Place.

36 alumniP R O F I L E S

36 Dr. James Jarvis (A75) is discovering linksbetween the environment and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

40 Myra Kien (SF88) established a nonprofit program that gets young women dancing,talking about their lives, and thinking about their future.

45 Doctoral student Andy Mead (SF04) took to the road last summer to bring attentionto juvenile diabetes.

46 alumni voices49 return to shanxi50 alumni association news52 st. john’s forever

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o n t h e c o v e rAlexis de Tocqueville

Illustration by David Johnson

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{ T h e C o l l e g e • St. John’s College • Fall 2007 }

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

It was an extremely fortunateoccurrence for St. John’sCollege—always greatlyadmired, always strugglingfinancially—that Jeffrey Bishop(HA87) and the college foundeach other. As a Philadelphia-based fundraising consultant,Mr. Bishop came to Annapolisto analyze the college’s devel-opment efforts. Bill Dyal, thenpresident, was so impressedthat he invited him to come toAnnapolis to carry out thedevelopment plan he proposed.Mr. Bishop served St. John’s fortwo decades, putting thecollege on more solid financialfooting than ever before.

Mr. Bishop lost an 11-yearbattle with kidney cancer onSaturday, July 7, 2007. At the

time of his death, he was vicepresident for collegewideadvancement, a position heheld for five years. Before that,he served for 15 years as vicepresident for advancement inAnnapolis. In his collegewidepost, he coordinated develop-ment for the two campuses andfocused his efforts on the mostambitious fundraising projectin the college’s history.

Mr. Bishop’s first majorundertaking was “TheCampaign for our FourthCentury,” at the time, the

college’s mostsuccessful fund-raising campaignever, raising $35 million by 1996.Along with other keygoals, it allowed thecollege to create theGreenfield Libraryout of the buildingthat once housed Maryland’s Hall ofRecords.

He was the archi-tect of the current$125 million capitalcampaign which hasprovided funding forthe renovation ofMellon Hall, the constructionof Gilliam and Spector halls,and substantial increases infunding for student financialaid, faculty development, andtutor salaries. One of his goalswas to get the college endow-ment to $100 million. Theendowment reached that markin 2006, almost a ten-foldincrease from when he startedat the college in 1987.

Mr. Bishop welcomed chal-lenges—the bigger the better. In 1993, he convinced friendsand colleagues includingAnnapolis President Christo-pher Nelson (SF70), collegeathletic director Leo Pickens(A78), and former Santa Fe vicepresident Jeff Morgan to bikefrom Santa Fe to Annapolis. Atthe trip’s end, they were givena hero’s welcome on campusand crowned with laurel leaves.

Two years later, Mr. Bishopcompleted the grueling Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race.

He savored everything thatlife had to offer, especiallyspending time with friends. In 2004 he fulfilled a personaldream by purchasing a vineyardin southwestern France. He traveled to the vineyardnumerous times to help withthe harvest and production ofhis wine, Sanglier Volant.

With a charming smile and agenuine interest in others, Mr. Bishop rallied peoplebehind his causes. He loved thecollege and its people. Hisdegree was from the presti-gious Wharton School at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, buthe was most proud of being anhonorary alumnus of St. John’s.At Homecoming in September,the Alumni Associationhonored him posthumouslywith its Alumni Award of Merit.

Mr. Bishop is survived by hiswife, Susan McDonoughBishop (AGI99); his daughterLauren (A99) and son-in-lawMichael Campuzano; hisdaughter March; his sister,Cindi Macomber; and threenieces and nephews. x

A Man Who Made a DifferenceJeffrey Bishop (1947-2007)

In his 20 years with St. John’s,Jeffrey Bishop never passed upa challenge, including a2,000-mile bicycle trek fromthe Santa Fe campus toAnnapolis in 1993 withcolleagues includingAnnapolis President Christopher Nelson (left).

He savored everything thatlife had to offer.

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Beyond theProgramThrough Ariel Internships inSanta Fe and Hodson Intern-ships in Annapolis, Johnniesdevote a summer to exploringfuture careers and broadeningtheir experiences.

Devoting Attention to Detail Each morning last summer,Remy Maelen (SF09) enteredthe sanctuary of Green LionPress in Santa Fe and consid-ered how to approach the day:work on diagrams, set type,edit, research. Whatever shedecided, she knew the taskahead would requirepainstaking attention to detail.The press, located in the homeof press co-directors DanaDensmore and WilliamDonahue, is especiallyconducive to quiet, focusedwork.

Green Lion specializes inpublishing classic texts in thehistory of science and mathe-matics. Johnnies are familiarwith their editions of Programworks, Euclid’s Elements andAristotle’s Metaphysics amongthem. Maelen spent much ofher summer working withDonahue on a new edition ofhis English translation ofKepler’s Astronomia Nova,originally published byCambridge University Press in 1992 but now out of print.

“Kepler was very meticu-lous,” Maelen says. Forexample, “when he used italicshe was writing as a mathemati-cian,” she explains, whereasnon-italicized text signalsKepler the philosopher. She started delving into datafiles from the first edition inorder to convert Cambridge’stypesetting codes into thoseconforming to Green Lion’stypesetting program. She wasinvolved in nearly every aspectof preparing this second

edition, from replicatingKepler’s diagrams using profes-sional computer drawingprograms to suggestingimprovements in the text. “I didn’t realize what an impor-tant job I’d be doing, actuallyhaving an impact on the wordsin the book,” she says. “I’vecome to learn the philosophy ofthe press, getting the textacross as it was intended.”

Presentation—the layout ofeach page of a book—is essen-tial to communicating wordsand ideas, Maelen says. Shepredicts that her own creativewriting will benefit from thisunderstanding. “I’ve learnedso many things about myselfthat I wouldn’t have had accessto,” she says.

— Deborah Spiegelman

Listening to Life StoriesOne of the best skills that St. John’s students develop isthe ability to truly listen toother points of view. But fewstudents are given the opportu-nity to apply that skill in someaningful a way as Jon KaraSylvester-Johnson (A08), whospent last summer recordingthe stories of terminally illpatients in the care of GoodSamaritan Hospice in Virginia.

After observing the care hergrandmother received in a

hospice program several yearsago, Sylvester-Johnson wasmoved by the alternative modelof treatment offered by pallia-tive medicine and challengedby the question of how hospicecenters could offer patientscomparable spiritual care. “I really came to terms with theidea of not using extreme life-saving measures and the kindof sensitivity it takes to be in asituation where [one has tomake] those kinds of choices,”she says.

It was that sensitivity to thespiritual life of hospice patientsthat drew Sylvester-Johnson tothe Pastoral Services depart-ment at Good SamaritanHospice in her hometown ofRoanoke, Va. But it was only bychance that the hospice hadrecently received a donation tocreate Memory Catchers, a“life review” program thatallows patients to reflect ontheir lives and record theirstories. With funding from theHodson Internship Program,Sylvester-Johnson was hired todevelop the project.

After researching life reviewprograms around the countryand reviewing psychologicalstudies that underlie the prac-tice, Sylvester-Johnson and hermentor, the hospice’s SpiritualDirector Marvin Barbre, intro-duced Memory Catchers.During the next two months,

she acquiredaudio equipment,wrote theprogram’s guide-lines, trainedvolunteers,informed nursesand socialworkers, and

began a comprehensive archiveof patient testimonials.

But the most challengingpart of her internship, she says,was conducting the interviews.Rather than beginning with alist of questions, Sylvester-Johnson tailored each visit tothe individual’s needs. “Some-times if a patient has a smallchild, you can have a messagerecorded for that child for whenthey’re older,” she says. “Wehad one patient we wanted torecord singing. Some of themjust want to have a conversa-tion with you.”

As she returns to the seminartable for her senior year,Sylvester-Johnson is engagingin different types of conversa-tions. But listening to the finaltestimonials of hospice patientshas reminded her that at St. John’s, “there has to be anelement of self-explorationabout what we do, as opposedto just what we think. If not,she adds, “our education is nomore valuable than [that of]any other liberal arts college inthe country.”

— Kea Wilson (A09)

Last summer,Remy Maelen(left) exploredthe publishingworld; Jon KaraSylvester-Johnsonestablished a lifereview program ata Virginia hospice.

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Sometime next spring, whenNASA launches a powerful newspace telescope, Annapolistutor Jim Beall can claim apiece of this effort to illuminatesome of the most persistentmysteries of the universe. Anastrophysicist, Beall spendspart of his time away fromSt. John’s at the E.O. HulburtCenter for Space Research atthe Naval Research Laboratoryin Washington, D.C., where hisown curiosity about space isdirected toward long-runningresearch projects.

The Gamma-Ray Large AreaSpace Telescope (GLAST) isquite different from the tele-scopes at the college observa-tory. This instrument willmeasure gamma-rays, thehighest energy form of electro-magnetic radiation, in an effortto understand more about

pheonomena such as quasars,pulsars, and black holes. Aspart of a team of scientistsworking at universities andresearch centers all over thecountry, Beall has been helpingto develop computers that candetermine the direction ofgamma-rays and convert datainto a map in gamma-ray light.

In the 1990s, Beall worked onARGOS, a satellite data collec-tion system with computers thatwere the forerunners to thoseon GLAST. The challenge ofthis project, Beall says, is devel-oping fast computers that canoperate in the radiation ofspace. Scientists can thenconvert data collected from thecomputers into an image ofgamma-rays in the night sky.Active galaxies and quasarsemit other frequencies as well,such as radio and optical light.

Scientists can determine thephysical parameters of thesources by combining radio andoptical light with the detectedgamma-rays in order to “see”the energy distribution over theentire electromagnetic spec-trum. “The actual sources ofthe gamma-rays can change inbrightness,” he says. “Thismeans that the image changesas a function of time, so we haveto construct a time history aswell as a complete spectrumfrom the data. This is then usedto determine the source param-eters, and ultimately to tellwhat causes the emission fromblack holes and quasars.”

As part of the GLASTproject, Beall has also beenconducting research on jets—columns of material sent outfrom the cores of active galaxiesor quasars, much like a jet ofwater from a fire hose. Over thepast 25 years, astrophysicistshave learned that much of theradiation detected from quasarscomes from bi-directional jets

emitted from black holes. Formuch of those 25 years, Beallhas been conducting researchto understand the nature ofthese jets and how they affectthe region near the quasars.

“If we understand how thesejets affect the regions near thecores of quasars, we canperhaps tell what the jets aremade of,” says Beall. “This canultimately allow us to speculateon how these jets are produced,a problem (among many others)that we have not solved toanyone’s satisfaction.”

At St. John’s, Beall mentorsstudents interested inastronomy and astrophysics,and has helped them to secureinternships and apply to grad-uate schools. Erin Bonning(A97), who worked at the NavalResearch Laboratory for twoyears before going off to earn adoctorate in general relativity,is now an astronomer at theObservatory of Paris atMeudon. x

Tracking Gamma-RaysAnnapolis Tutor Part of NASA Project

On July 27, Michael Curry(SF09) became the first under-graduate college student to fly on the National ScienceFoundation’s HIAPER Gulf-stream-V research aircraft.HIAPER, which stands for High-performance InstrumentedAirborne Platform for Environ-mental Research, is a new“flying laboratory.”

Curry’s task was to help test anew laser-based moisture instru-ment during a nine-hour flightfrom Colorado to the centralGulf of Mexico and back. Scien-tists sampled conditions rangingfrom the marine atmosphereover the Gulf of Mexico tostratospheric conditions near47,000 feet. In contrast, most

commercial aircraft fly around35,000 feet, on rare occasionsclimbing to 40,000 feet. Thepurpose of the research is todevelop better moisture measurements for weather andclimate prediction. Curry waspart of a team of about a dozenscientists testing new instru-ments for the aircraft.

The opportunity to join theexpedition came about becauseCurry was working as a NationalScience Foundation REU(Research Experience for Under-graduates) intern under thesupervision of Mark Zondlo, asenior research scientist atSouthwest Sciences, Inc.

Curry was the second Johnnieto spend a fruitful summer at

Southwest Sciences, which isbased in Santa Fe. Last year,Kate Brubaker (SF07)conducted similar studies with Zondlo.x

Flying HighSanta Fe Student Conducts Research in the Stratosphere

Michael Curry’s summerinternship included a research project aboard aflying laboratory for atmospheric science.

BreakingGround inSanta Fe Last July, Dr. Norman Levan(SFGI74), a physician in Sacra-mento, Calif., gave the college a$5 million gift, announcedduring the Santa Fe kickoff ofthe college’s $125 millioncapital campaign. Exactly a yearlater, Dr. Levan joined membersof the college community in aceremonial groundbreaking forthe center for the Graduate

Institute that will bearhis name. The Normanand Betty Levan Hallwill house classrooms,offices and commonrooms for the institute.

Dr. Levan is aprofessor emeritus andformer chief of derma-tology at the Universityof Southern CaliforniaSchool of Medicine,where he earned hismedical degree. Hetook time off to spend asummer at the insti-tute, just to investigatethe program, andfound it so gratifyingthat he kept comingback.“The GraduateInstitute changed mylife,” he said inannouncing his gift.

The groundbreaking cere-mony took place on the buildingsite, located between WeigleHall and the Fine Arts Building.More than a hundred peopleattended the ceremony. “We arehonored by Dr. Levan’saffiliation with us and ourunique brand of education,”said Michael Peters, president ofthe Santa Fe campus.

Campaign Chairman RonFielding (A70) spoke to how Dr. Levan’s gift will serve thecampus and future generations

of Graduate Institute students.“One of the major priorities ofthe capital campaign is to fundbuilding projects, and in thatregard, the new Norman andBetty Levan Hall is a jewel in thecampaign crown.”

Dr. Levan joined Board ofVisitors and GovernorsChairman Sharon Bishop (Classof 1965), Annapolis PresidentChristopher Nelson (SF70),Santa Fe Dean Victoria Mora,Mr. Peters, and Mr. Fielding inthe ground-breaking ceremony.Under tents on Meem Placita,accompanied by a monsoon

rain, speeches and toasts wereoffered to Dr. Levan. His ownwords were brief, as heexplained that at the GraduateInstitute he found a place tonurture his desire to be a life-long learner.

—Jenny Hannifin


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

Dr. Norman Levan (third fromright and below) helped breakground for the new GraduateInstitute center in Santa Fe.

Perhaps two great myths aboutSt. John’s College andfundraising can be put to restforever: St. John’s doesn’t like toask alumni for money, andalumni don’t like to be asked formoney. The evidence suggestsotherwise:• In 2006-07, the college

recorded its most successfulfundraising year ever, raising$19,404,889 in gifts to thecollege’s $125 million capitalcampaign by the close of thefiscal year on June 30, 2007.

Fifty-four percent of the giftscame from alumni.

• As part of the campaign,alumni gave more to theAnnual Fund than everbefore, exceeding the $2.89 million goal by about two percent.

• The total number of alumnigifts to the college hasclimbed significantly over thepast seven years. In the lastfiscal year, alumni made3,004 gifts to the college,compared to about 2,000gifts in the year 2000.

• In the summer of 2008, thecollege expects to announce a successful conclusion to the capital campaign, with atotal of $119.2 million in giftsand pledges raised as ofOctober 1, 2007.

• Not only do the college’s8,300 alumni believe insupporting the collegefinancially, but alumnithemselves are also doingmore to support thecollege’s advancementefforts. Philanthropia, thealumni developmentcouncil, has spearheaded anumber of successful peer-to-peer efforts to inform

alumni about the college’sfinancial needs and to boostsupport for the AnnualFund.

With Philanthropia’s help,the college hopes to reach a newset of goals for the 2007-08 fiscal year, guaranteeing asuccessful end to the campaign.This year the mark is set at 40 percent giving and at least 3,400 gifts made. For moreinformation about Philanthropiaand how you can help, visit thecollege Web site: www.stjohns-college.edu.x

A Remarkable Year

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

Connecting Fine Artsand Liberal ArtsJut a few days after commence-ment in May, Luke Kirkland(SF07) and Chelsea Batten(A07) found themselves transported from the halls of St. John’s to the studio ofsculptor Greg Wyatt in theformer crypt of St. John theDivine in New York City. It wasonly their first stop on theNational Endowment for theArts’ inaugural VisualArts/Liberal Arts workshop,which would take the two grad-uates from New York to Europefor a month-long program.

Santa Fe tutor GrantFranks (A77) and Annapolistutor Patricia Locke wereamong the scholars and artistswho designed the workshop,created to deepen the connec-tions between the liberal artsand the fine arts. The experi-ence centered on in-depthstudy of European writers andartists, with a special focus onthe works of Shakespeare andRembrandt. Participants wereflown to Europe to sculptalongside the works of Monetin the gardens of Giverny, studyRembrandt in Amsterdam, anddiscuss King Lear in thetheaters of Stratford-on-Avon.

Six liberal arts students wereselected to participate in theprogram, as well as six studentsstudying visual arts or theatre.Regardless of their artisticinclinations, all students wererequired to pick up a paint-brush and attempt to replicateRembrandt’s colors. Similarly,the young artists were requiredto sit at a seminar table todiscuss Macbeth with liberalarts students.

For Kirkland, the workshopwas much more than a jaunt toEurope. “Exposure to andengagement with the tangible,with the explicit and physicalreality of Rembrandt’s workwas a great exercise after theintellectual work of St. John’s,” he says.

Franks observed that the finearts students also benefited bydiscussing texts in seminars.Through modeling “hands-on,interdisciplinary, discussion-based and self-motivatedlearning in the presence ofclassics, St. John’s certainlymade its mark,” he said.

Brooklyn CollegeHonors Eva BrannAt commencement ceremonieslast May, Brooklyn College ofthe City University of New Yorkhonored tutor Eva Brann

(HA86) with its DistinguishedAlumna Service Medal.

In accepting her award, Miss Brann noted a memorableteacher at Brooklyn College,Alice Kober, her professor forClassics 101. The course had abad beginning when MissBrann flunked her first exam,on Homer. “It took me downsome and then sat me down tomy assigned reading,” she said.“And so I discovered Homerand began to attend to theunflamboyant fire of her class-room talk. I had no idea thatshe was a world-famous pioneerin the decipherment of thewriting of Homer’s heroes. But I became a classics major,eventually an archeologist.”

New Tutors, AnnapolisThe Annapolis campuswelcomed two new tutors thisfall: Amanda Printz has a BA from Guilford College and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of SouthernCalifornia. She was a teachingassistant at USC from 2000-2005. Gregory Recco has a BA from SUNY at Stony Brookand a PhD in Philosophy fromPennsylvania State University. He was a graduate instructor at Penn State from 1996-2003and an assistant professor ofPhilosophy at SkidmoreCollege from 2003-07.

New Staff Maggie Melson has joined the Annapolis staff as specialassistant to President Christopher Nelson (SF70).She joins the college fromEpiscopal High School inAlexandria, Va., where she wasdirector of external relations.Melson will act as a liaison tostaff, faculty, students, and thewider community.

Faculty News Tutor emeritus Curtis Wilsonof the Annapolis campus tookpart in an August workshopmarking the 300th anniversaryof the work of Leonhard Euler,the l8th-century, Swiss-bornmathematician. Held at theMathematical Research Institute at Oberwolfach inGermany’s Black Forest, thefive-day gathering broughtscholars from around the world.Wilson spoke on Euler’sinfluence in the development of celestial mechanics.

Wilson also contributed to a collection of essays titledLeonhard Euler: Life, Work,and Legacy, written by Eulerscholars from seven countriesand published earlier this yearby the Elsevier Press. Wilson’schapter is entitled “Euler andthe Application of AnalyticalMathematics in Astronomy.”

Class Gift Update The Santa Fe Class of 2004 hasmade progress in its ambitiousplan to present the Santa Fecampus with an operationalreplica of 16th-centuryastronomer Tycho Brahe’sarmillary sphere. The classbegan with $6,000 at the end of May 2004, and the college-managed account now totals$26,800. The class needs toraise at least $100,000.

The committee plans to workwith artist David Harber todesign and construct the 1.5-meter equatorial armillarysphere. As both a scientificinstrument and a sculpture, the sphere will serve as asymbol and as a reminder of the unity of the sciences and the humanities.

To find out more about theproject, please visit the SF04Armillary Sphere Project home-page on SJC Alumni website(http://alumni.stjohnscollege.edu) or contact the committeeat [email protected]. x

News & Announcements

Luke Kirkland (SF07) presentshis work during an NEA-sponsored workshop lastsummer.

{ T h e C o l l e g e • St. John’s College • Spring 2007 }

7{ L e t t e r s }

Music in the 1940sThis is a slight quibble over yourarticle “Sing Goddess” on musicand the Program (Spring 2007).It leaves the impression thatprior to 1949, thanks to theirindifference to music, thefounders of the Program hadcreated a barren, music-lesswasteland. While it is certainlytrue that music did not become“a formal part” of the Programin those early years, it waspresent in a number of ways.

First, because music is one ofthe quadrivium, in several of the most quixotic of the earlylaboratory classes there was astudy of sound, music and theirrelationship to astronomy.Second, tutor Nicholas Nabokovrecruited, conducted, and gaveconcerts with a student chorusthroughout the war. He had beenrecruited by Buchanan especiallyfor his musical abilities. Finally,Buchanan scheduled severalconcerts as formal lecturesduring the year. As studentsduring the forties, we were privileged to hear several top-notch chamber groups. . . .

I don’t want to detract an iotafrom the magnificent contribu-tions of Victor Zuckerkandl andDouglas Allanbrook in makingmusic an integral part of theprogram. It is just that the forties were not quite a musicalwasteland, and our esteemedfounders did, indeed, have anappreciation for music.

George M. Van Sant (Class of 1947)

Musical DimensionsI read with interest The Collegearticles on the music curriculum[Spring 2007], mulling over thetutors’ struggles with that part ofthe Program, and reflecting onmy student experience and on mysubsequent work as a scholarlibrarian of music.

I have three observations. One is that many tutors who arepassionate about music are alsoinarticulate according theconventions of Program studyand discussion. The result oftenis they make the subject of music

seem mystifying to theircolleagues and students. . . .Peter Pesic’s contribution, “A Dialogue Between Ancientsand Moderns,” is beautiful, but Idoubt it is understandable to halfof the college faculty. A secondobservation is that there seems tobe an assumption, shared bymany faculty, that one has to singor perform music well in order todiscuss music. According to thatlogic, one has to draw well inorder to discuss geometry and its visual figures. To be sure,good drawing skills and singingpractice may increase a student’sdisposition for learning geometryand music. But in math tutorialpractice, plane lines are rarelydrawn straight on the chalk-board; nonetheless, the demon-strations are executed wellenough to proceed from oneproof to the next. Everyoneshould have the same confidencefor learning in the music tutorial,even if their performing abilitiesare as bad as their drawing skills.The third is the trepidation thatmany of the quoted faculty feel,using words like “worry,”“scary,” the need to feel “morecomfortable” . . . leading tuto-rials on music. All faculty shouldfeel the same trepidation forevery seminar and tutorial theysupervise, not just for music.This is the very trepidation for the immeasurable task ofeducation that Jacob Kleinexpressed before deliveringseveral of his Friday nightlectures.

In my thoughts, I begin withmusic as a perceptible if intan-gible entity. Then the first ques-tion that I ask is, “What are thedimensions of music?” From myresearch, I have to come to thinkthere are three: melody(including time, rhythm, andwords [that may be likened innotation to linear length]);harmony (that may be likened innotation to spatial width); andtone (including timbre andvolume [that may be likened todepth, which is very difficult torender in notation]). There maybe another dynamic, perhaps

unnamed dimension of musicsuggested by the phenomenon of harmonic overtones. As anaudio-time art, music is tooimperfect to demonstrate itsproperties through demonstra-tive propositions in the mannerof Euclid. But . . . theidentification of dimensions mayenable some elements, postu-lates, axioms, and quantitativemeasures that could servetowards a foundation ofreasoned, indeed “musical”study and discussion, as toolswith which to examine examplesof music of varying kinds andorigins, and as bases of assess-ment of the various writings ofmusic theory and performancepractice, including the kind ofdialogue between Grand Viewand Practical View that ElliotZuckerman well describes in hisarticle. Perhaps one may use theconventions acquired infreshman math of discussingplanes and solids in order todiscuss music according to itsdimensional characteristics and properties.

I conclude from last issue’sarticles that sober, reasonedwork has yet to be done on themusic tutorial. . . .

Edward Komara (A88)

Remembering MusicYour article “ ‘Sing, Goddess’:Music and the Program”suggests further research isneeded in the teaching of musicat St. John’s College before 1949.Certainly there were experts inmusic then. The composer ElliottCarter was a tutor, 1939-41, andNicolas Nabokov 1941-44. Carter,whom I’ve had the great pleasureof meeting, told me--or maybe itwas Victor Zuckerkandl—thatmusic was studied somehow bylooking at scores. Meanwhile, it’sgood to learn that Zuckerkandl’swriting is now part of theprescribed canon. Carter’sexciting and distinguished musicshould also be.

Eyvind Ronquist (Class of 1961)

Preparing Tutors The Spring 2007 article on themusic program managed toconvey much of its richness andcomplexity, as well as the chal-lenge it poses to our commitmentto teach and to learn across thefull range of the liberal arts. I would like to offer one smallclarification. Since the mostrecent revision of the Annapolismusic tutorial by Elizabeth Blettner, with help from MichaelLittleton, Peter Kalkavage, Bill Pastille, Tom May and others,more tutors have taught the tuto-rial for the first time than duringany previous comparable period.Nonetheless, many tutors stillfind the challenge formidable andfeel the need of assistance andencouragement to undertake it.

Michael Dink (A75)Dean, Annapolis

Not the First LadyI enjoyed your coverage of the25th St. John’s-Navy croquetmatch, but I did want to correct acouple of details. First of all, I donot go (nor have I ever gone) bythe title of “First Lady Wicket.”And while John Ertle was theImperial Wicket in the first inter-collegiate match, he was not the first Imperial Wicket for St. John’s. He inherited the titlefrom Johnny Schiavo (A81), andthere were others before him.John prefers the title of ImperialWicket Emeritus, bestowed uponhim by the Delegate Council in1984. Finally, the unidentified“young boy” in your picture isour younger son David.

Kathy Oggins Ertle (A84)

Correction: In the article “Pop Johnnies,” (Spring 2007)a quote by Ayn Rand on art as a “selective re-creation of realityaccording to an artist’s meta-physical value judgments” was mistakenly attributed toMarcel Proust.

Send letters to The College atreharty.sjca.edu, or mail to 60 College Ave., Annapolis, MD21401.


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“When Dogs Could Talk” N. Scott Momaday, author, poet,playwright, painter, and story-teller, gave the commencementaddress in Santa Fe on May 19.One hundred six undergradu-ates and 25 Graduate Institutestudents received their degrees.

A member of the college’sBoard of Visitors and Gover-nors, Momaday won the PulitzerPrize for Fiction in 1969 for hisfirst novel, House Made ofDawn. In his 1976 book, The Way to Rainy Mountain,Momaday combines stories of Kiowa Indian myth andhistory with his own personalreminiscences.

Momaday’s address, “WhenDogs Could Talk: Among Wordsin a State of Grace,” describedthe history and characteristicsof words in the oral tradition.Drawing his title from anexpression used by Kiowa eldersto refer to an event thathappened long ago, Momadayexplored the mystery inherentin one of mankind’s oldest artforms, the oral tradition.

Although modern literaturehas come to comfortably inhabitthe world of the written word,Momaday argued that the oral

tradition has not died,suggesting instead that “to theextent that the deepest belief inthe efficacy of languagesurvives, it survives in the oraltradition.” In contemporaryWestern civilization, however, it is a dimension of languagethat is frequently neglected. He reminded the audience that“more than half the populationof the world does withoutwriting at this moment in time.”The oral tradition is presenteven within written works them-selves, or wherever elselanguage is invoked in all itspower, creativity, and magic,

he said. He cited Hamlet andthe Gettysburg Address as twosignificant and timeless writtenworks whose vitality stems fromtheir power in speech.

“In Beowulf, or in the Bookof Job, or in the Navajo Prayerfrom the Night Chant, thelanguage of story is the

language of poetry, plain,exalted, and oral,” he said. “It isthe language of surfaces ratherthan symbols, faceted like thebright prisms of the dragon’shoard.”

Exploring the language ofsurfaces rather than thelanguage of symbols, Momadayfound an enchanting dimensionof words, which he suggests areas old as language itself. He feelsthat the oral tradition returnshim to a time when language isjust being born, “a time whendogs could talk,” and he likenshimself to dwelling “amongwords in a state of grace.”

—Caroline Caldwell (SF08)

C O M M E N C E M E N T

Above, M. Scott Momadayspeaks to Santa Fe graduatesabout the beauty of the oraltradition. Above right, SantaFe President Michael Peterscongratulates EliseHanrahan, while at left,Camilo Alba Navarro andRenee Albrecht-Mallingerawait their degrees.ph

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“How Brave a NewWorld?”In his commencement addressin Annapolis on May 13,bioethicist, scholar, and formerSt. John’s tutor Leon Kass drewfrom Aldous Huxley’s BraveNew World to explore howscientific progress bears uponthe question of what it meansto be human. He suggested tothe 103 undergraduates and 40 Graduate Institute studentsthat their education preparedthem to think carefully aboutwhat may be sacrificed in thename of scientific progress.

Kass is now Addie ClarkHarding Professor in theCommittee on Social Thoughtat the University of Chicagoand Hertog Fellow in SocialThought at the AmericanEnterprise Institute. He waschairman of the President’sCouncil on Bioethics from2002 to 2005 and still serveson the council. For more than30 years, he has been engagedwith ethical and philosophicalissues raised by biomedicaladvances, and, more recently,with broader moral andcultural issues.

Huxley’s novel remains animportant cautionary tale, said Kass. The author depicts

a world in which man hasbecome so dehumanized bytechnological achievementsthat while seemingly content,“he does not even realize whathe has lost.”

The similarities “betweenHuxley’s fictional world andours are increasingly disqui-eting, especially since our technologies of bio-psychoengi-neering are still in theirinfancy, yet vividly reveal whatthey might look like in theirfull maturity,” Kass said.“Moreover, the culturalchanges technology has alreadywrought among us should makeus worry even more thanHuxley would have had us do.”

In Shakespeare’s TheTempest, Kass pointed out,Prospero’s magic is no matchfor his innocent daughter’sview of humanity. “Not herfather’s magical control ofnature, but limitedhumankind’s reaching forunderstanding and association,precisely in response to ournatural limitations, is—forMiranda and for us—the trulywondrous human achieve-ment,” he said. “Recognitionof our finitude becomes thesource of aspiration, and mindfulness of mortality

becomes our spur to love andtranscendence.”

In our time, Kass said,“honest reflection” on thehuman experience isn’t enoughto counter the dehumanizingeffects of technology; Johnnies,however, have a foundation forreflection. “The great bookseducation offered by thisCollege is second to none infurnishing minds and heartswith the wherewithal for living. . . a thoughtful and richlyhuman life, in defiance of thetemptation to settle

for the degrading satisfactionsof biotechnological happiness,”Kass said. “Only at this collegedo students and faculty still talkwholeheartedly and withoutembarrassment about thehuman soul.”

—Emily DeBusk (A07)

Editor’s note: The completecommencement addresses areavailable on the college Website: www.stjohnscollege.edu.

Above, Joshua Saks and Karen Tobin-Ippolito, newly minted GI graduates; below left, Leon Kass gave the commencementspeech; below right, Blair Thompson, left, and Chelsea Stiegman (both A07) await their degrees.

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With the vision ofVirgil, the persist-ence of Socrates,the rigor of Euclid,and the insight of Shakespeare,St. John’s tutors

bring the program of instruction to life.Every era at St. John’s since the 1937 inception of the New Program has had itsmemorable tutors, whom alumni rememberlong after they have graduated. Today, experienced and new tutors from many fieldsof studies lead students through the Program.

It is hard to describe the essence of what a tutor does in theclassroom. Indeed, their “methods” in seminars, laboratories,and tutorials vary from intense engagement in class discus-sions to provocative silence on the issues at hand. Tutorsguide, direct, nudge, inspire, and otherwise enable students tobecome full participants in the dialogue. Tutor Eva Brann,after five decades at St. John’s, describes the life of a tutor as “an alternation of exhilaration and despair, as classes gowell or ill, as we ourselves feel a sense of having gotten some-thing or being confounded. That teacher’s wave train isamplified by our . . . sense of responsibility without the powerto compel by grades, or by lectures,” she wrote in her essay“Unique and Universal.”

Preparing for classes each week is only one of a tutor’s tasks.Tutors participate in constant evaluation of the Programthrough weekly archon meetings and the InstructionCommittee; they meet with students for paper conferences,advising, and guidance about graduate school or other oppor-tunities; they participate in informal study groups, both with

The Tutors and the Program

“WITH A CLEAR ANDSINGLE PURPOSE”

by Barbara Goyette (A73) and Rosemary Harty

their colleagues and with students.They spend Saturday mornings ofHomecoming leading seminars forreunion classes and travel to othercities to lead Executive Seminarsfor business leaders seeking tolearn from the great books.

In short, he tutors at St. John’sCollege devote themselves to theProgram.

A Spirit of Inquiry During his tenure as dean inAnnapolis (1986-90), tutor emer-itus Thomas Slakey (HA86) readhundreds of letters from applicantsfor the handful of tutor openingseach year at St. John’s. More thantwo decades later, he still remem-bers a letter from a scholar who hadwritten her dissertation onPortuguese literature and had beenliving among indigenous tribes inBrazil. “In terms of her background, she really didn’t have anyof the preparation you might expect, but she seemed like aninteresting person,” Slakey recalls. “We appointed her, andshe was an immediate success.”

Hiring Judy Seeger to join the faculty in 1990 is somethingSlakey is still proud of years later. Why was she so perfect forSt. John’s? “She has an inquiring mind,” he says.

Slakey joined the college in 1959 and in 1964 went out toSanta Fe to become one of the founding faculty membersthere. He took a few “breaks” from the college over the years,becoming chief academic officer at St. Mary’s College from1971-76. He later spent three years in the early 1980s starting aprogram modeled on St. John’s at a Kentucky university, thenreturned to Annapolis. “I was in and out of the college quite abit, and I was always glad to get back,” he says. “The thing thatSt. John’s really does, and does well, is help people learn toread well, to pay attention to what a text says, one book at atime. That’s the thing that makes teaching there so pleasant,reading and learning from the students.”

However, colleagues at other institutions and otheracademics Slakey met over the years were puzzled by howtutors at St. John’s teach across the curriculum. “Mostacademics think it’s crazy,” he says. “I was involved in a discus-

sion with a very great scholar onDante, and when he discovered Iwas teaching Dante, and I couldn’tread Italian, he thought I was adisgrace. Specialists don’t under-stand someone like me teachingmath and biology when I knewnothing about it when I came to St. John’s.”

Supporting tutors as theybranch out beyond their disciplineand keeping tutors’ minds ripe forinquiry should be important goalsfor the college, Slakey says. “Forme, a major difficulty was thevariety of material and thedifficulty of getting as muchmastery as I would have liked. Iknow that I worked very hard and Istruggled at times,” he says.

To continue to attract the besttutors, the college must workharder to offer competitive

salaries. “We have to keep salaries competitive with similarinstitutions,” he says. “No one is going to come to St. John’s totry to get rich, but particularly when tutors are raising familiesin expensive cities, salaries have to be a priority.”

Aiming for the Median For the sake of the students and the continued integrity of theProgram, St. John’s must be able to recruit and retain excel-lent tutors. Compensation is a major factor in drawing goodteachers and keeping them at the college. The college hasalways lagged behind its peer institutions in the salary it hasbeen able to pay tutors, primarily because endowment hasbeen insufficient to meet this need.

At the time Annapolis President Christopher Nelson joinedthe college in 1991, St. John’s occupied last place in thesalaries it paid among a group of about 45 national liberal artsschools including Pomona, Amherst, Colby, Davidson, andBucknell. Ten years ago, Santa Fe and Annapolis togetheraveraged 26 percent below the median level of compensation.Through gradual and steady increases, by 2007 the collegehad reached six percent below the median of 44 peer colleges.“We never quite reached the median, but we’ve been climbingup the ranks,” Nelson says. “When and if we hit that target

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will depend on thegrowth of the endow-ment relative to theseother colleges.”

Each one percentincrease in tutorc o m - p e n s a t i o n(including salary andbenefits) costs thecollege $130,000 forthe entire teachingfaculty on bothcampuses. To closethe six percent gap,the college wouldhave to find another$780,000 each yearor a $15.6 millionincrease in endow-ment, which can bespent at the rate offive percent annuallyin perpetuity.

The college’sservice-based salarysystem sets a minimum of $52,500 for new tutors. It’s aconcern for Nelson that tutors on both campuses are strug-gling to meet housing costs and raise families in the expensivecommunities of Santa Fe and Annapolis. “We want our tutorsto be able to live decent lives without taking second jobs, tobuy a home in our communities, to be able to afford ababysitter so they can come to Friday lecture or enjoy a dinnerout occasionally,” he says.

Until he became president of the Annapolis campus, Nelsonsays, he hadn’t realized how much the college asks of its tutors.“As a student, I had no idea how deep, how well read, howinteresting the tutors are at St. John’s,” Nelson said. “I sat inon Instruction Committee interviews of prospective tutors,and I came to realize how engaged they are in learning bothwithin and outside the Program.”

At St. John’s, tutors spend more time in the classroom thantheir peers at liberal arts colleges, and although freed frompublishing and research requirements, “they spend a lot oftime outside the classroom working to help the students andimprove the college,” he says.

Since its begin-nings, the Programwas structured tomake tutors avail-able to students as part of a learningcommunity—muchdifferent from therelationship betweenfaculty and studentsat most institutions,he says. “There’s no substitute forconversation withyoung people whoare eager to learn,and that’s what our tutors do sowell,” he says.

“They listen, they question, and they guide.”

Faculty DevelopmentApproaching 2,000-year-old texts afresh each semester is achallenge tutors meet with enthusiasm and energy. And yet,for their own development as learners in the Program and asscholars dedicated to venturing beyond the bounds of a singledepartment of academic endeavor, they must continuallyrenew their minds.

One way the college supports this effort is through facultydevelopment, mainly in the form of study groups for which theleaders and participants receive compensation or release-timefrom a portion of their teaching. By meeting together withcolleagues and working through an unfamiliar text, tutorsexpand their ability to address questions and to see connec-tions between various parts of the program.

Study groups can prepare tutors to teach in areas where theyhave little or no experience, such as a 2005 summer studygroup led by tutor Howard Fisher in Santa Fe. For eight weeksthe tutors worked through most of the experiments conducted


Annapolis TutorTom May shares hisviews on the ODYSSEY

with Nicole Miller(AGI08)

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in the first semester of senior labora-tory, a part of the Program that can bedaunting for faculty who lackscientific backgrounds. “It’s some-times the case that tutors who feelconfident participating in a study ofthe papers read in senior year don’tfeel very comfortable with the prac-tical aspects,” explains Fisher. “Theonly way really to participate in thelaboratory activity is practice; it’s thesame for tutors as for students.”

As they conducted experimentssuch as the photoelectric effect,tutors could see the connections theirstudents would be making in theclassroom as they worked throughmodern atomic theories. “From atheoretical point of view, it’s quitewonderful that we find ourselvesreturning to questions that werecentral in the freshman year, thewhole idea of the constitution of theatom, and what kind of explanationphysical science should strive for. The very questions we began with,

we return to in a very differentcontext. It’s an ongoing demonstra-tion that questioning doesn’t stop,”says Mr. Fisher.

The college is equally committed toproviding these opportunities forformal study groups by grantingtutors release time to plan and leadthe groups, or compensating tutorsfor the additional time they spend informal study during the summer.Through the capital campaign, thecollege hopes to raise $8 million inendowment and Annual Fund gifts tosupport faculty development in thefuture. “We don’t appoint tutorsbecause they have a specialty in acertain area,” Mr. Fisher notes. “Weappoint tutors because they are inter-ested in the kind of broad study thatour students want. They want to studythings and read books for the sake ofwisdom. They need the opportunityto become fruitful students andfruitful leaders of classes.”


Gifts to the capital campaign support facultydevelopment, such as this study group on seniorlaboratory in Santa Fe. From left to right are:tutors Janet Dougherty. Stephen Van Luchene,Howard Fisher, and Lynda Myers.

As of September 30, 2007, the Campaign for St. John’s Collegehas raised $119.2 million in gifts and pledges toward the $125million goal. The campaign seeks to raise funds for three majorpriorities: to support students with need-based financial aid andimproved services; to increase faculty salaries to the median ofpeer institutions and provide more faculty development oppor-tunities; and to fund building projects, including renovationsand additions, on the two campuses. Money raised through thecampaign has already made a significant difference to thecollege, through growth in the Annual Fund (which providesoperating expenses for instruction and financial aid), growth inthe endowment, and new buildings.

These leadership gifts have contributed to the campaign’ssuccess:

• Ronald Fielding (A70) made a $10 million gift to fundscholarships. He has also pledged to give another $2.5 million to the campaign if St. John’s alumni match

that amount through first-time or increased gifts as well aspledges to the college.

• Warren Spector (A81) provided funding for a new dormitory in Annapolis.

• A single anonymous donor contributed $12 million,earmarked for the college’s annual spending needs and for endowment.

• The Hodson Trust has given $11 million for the construc-tion of Gilliam Hall and for Mellon Hall renovations, for student internships, for IT development, and forteacher fellowships to the Graduate Institute.

• Dr. Norman Levan (SFGI74) made a gift of $5 million forthe construction of a Graduate Institute center in Santa Fe.

• Alumni, friends of the college, and foundations havepledged $26.5 million to help support faculty salaries anddevelopment, through the Eva Brann Tutorship andvarious grants for faculty study groups.

Campaign Update

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The best thing about being a tutor at St. John’s, says Eric Salem(A77), “is that you’re always in the presence of things that arereally great.” The worst thing about being a tutor? Exactly thesame thing, he says.

“You’re in the presence of things that are great, but there’salways a strain,” Salem says, “You never feel as if you can stop and say, ‘Ah, I’m ready for this class.’ There’s always more to think about.”

If alumni remember how overwhelmed they sometimes felttrying to prepare for class, they understand the challenges tutorsface. “You always have to try not just to get hold of what’s going onin the book, but also to be open to what everyone else is saying, torespond to the best things in what people are saying—it’s hardwork,” he says.

After graduating from St. John’s, Salem went to the Universityof Dallas for doctoral studies inpolitics and literature. Special-izing in political theory was an“accident,” Salem says. “What Ireally wanted to do was study asubset of the books I had beenreading at St. John’s, slow downand read carefully,” he says. Atthe college, he developed aspecial interest in ideas raised bybooks including the Nico-machean Ethics (the relationshipbetween thinking and acting) andWar and Peace (families as partof a political community).“Reading that novel made methink that political questionswere something I really needed tothink hard about,” he says.

Former St. John’s tutorThomas Slakey (HA94) recruitedSalem to join him at WhitneyYoung College at Kentucky StateUniversity, where he was leadingefforts to create a programsimilar to the St. John’s program.Slakey stayed just a few years, but Salem spent seven years there before he became too frustrated by standard universitybureaucracy.

“Then I had the opportunity tocome to St. John’s,” Salem says.“I wanted to come back to thisway of teaching and learning.”

He was much more eager to teach across the curriculum than tobe “the political theory guy” in a political science department,Salem says. But on the other hand, he gave up the ability to devotefocused and prolonged attention to a book or idea. “That’s what’sso nice about these summer study groups,” he says. “This is a wayto do really concentrated work with your colleagues so that youcan develop your own understanding of some of the books andtexts that are central to the program. They really do help yourthinking.”

Over the years, Salem has taken part in groups on Chekhov, onFaulkner’s Go Down, Moses, on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, onProust’s Remembrance of Things Past, and on Leibniz’s mathe-matical papers. Salem earned a stipend to take part in some of theopportunities, but the group with whom he studied Aristotle for10 years engaged in their endeavor just for the joy of it.

Most of Salem’s outsidepursuits center on reading. He also plays jazz and classicalguitar, and runs regularly in hisAnnapolis neighborhood. Heunwinds by reading novels inother languages and reads Plato,Aristotle, and Heidegger forenjoyment. “Right now, PeterKalkavage, Eva Brann, and I aretranslating (and discussingendlessly) Plato’s Statesman, anactivity that combines pure funand seriousness in just the rightproportions,” he says.

Asked to reflect on a singlequality that makes a tutor rightfor St. John’s, Salem proposesthat it’s the “willingness to startall over again, again and again.”

“I’m eager to do it,” Salemsays. “But I rely on the studentsto help me remember that I don’treally know much. I prize aboveall those moments—and theycome in almost every class orstudy group meeting or conversa-tion—when the bottom falls out ofmy understanding and when mystudents and colleagues force meto look at books and the world asif I were seeing them for the firsttime.” x

—rosemary Harty

In the Presence of Great ThingsEric Salem (A77), Annapolis

At St. John’s tutors such as Eric Salem (A77) enjoy learningtogether with students such as Emmanuel Thomas (A09).

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Last summer, under the auspices of a National Science Foundation grant, St. John’s tutor Jessica Jerome spent nineweeks in the poorest neighborhoods of Fortaleza, Brazil,conducting fieldwork among HIV-positive mothers. The workwas intellectually challenging and physically exhausting, mademore so because Jerome was in the second trimester of her ownfirst pregnancy.

The summer of 2007 was the first of two that Jerome willdevote to the Brazil project, exploring the psychological, social,and economic motivations for reproductive and medical decisionmaking among mothers with HIV. She conducted extensive interviews of women who have borne one or more children afterlearning of a positive HIV diagnosis. By providing qualitativedata about these women’s motivations to bear children andreceive medical treatment in Fortaleza, the study will contributegreatly to the growing body of literature on reproductive andmedical decision-making in the context of HIV.

Jerome is excited about the opportunity to connect what she’slearned from the program at St. John’s to her research. “I believe that we should reallythink about our experience andour activity in the world, to bereflective about it,” she says.“Lectures are more about transmitting facts, or a kind ofknowledge that has already beenproduced. The interesting thingabout the pedagogy at St. John’sis that it assumes that the knowl-edge is not preexisting, and thatyou are creating it as you’retalking. When that works, it’s abeautiful thing.”

Jerome plans to involve Johnnies in her research. Shehopes to support students whoare interested in careers in socialscience and public health policyand to widen opportunities forsummer internships, such asthose available under Santa Fe’sAriel Program. She currentlyserves on the committee thatreviews applications for theprogram, which providesstipends for internships.

Between her graduate workon medical decision making andtutoring at St. John’s, Jeromedid a postdoctoral stint at the

MacLean Center for Bioethics. Her interest in internationalhealth care matched the MacLean Center’s endeavors, and thereshe trained as a medical ethics consultant to hospital staff andpatients at the University of Chicago.

“Working at MacLean was different from my previoustraining,” she explains. “Most of the other people in the fellow-ship program were medical doctors, and I was thrown into thematerial with them. I think that prepared me for the experienceof St. John’s in terms of working closely with people of verydifferent backgrounds and disciplines, and working with materialthat I wasn’t already familiar with.”

St. John’s offered similar challenges for Jerome as a first-yeartutor, when she taught freshman math, freshman seminar, andfreshman laboratory. “I just assumed that I wouldn’t be putdirectly in the math and science classes,” she said. “When DavidLevine [then the dean] told me that St. John’s threw tutors intothe Program, that they wanted us to be learning with thestudents, I didn’t realize how seriously they took that!”

The college takes seriously itsmission to educate students in allfields, including math andscience, for four years, observesJerome. “There’s somethingreally generous, and somethingto be respected, in this belief thatwhat we teach here is knowledgethat anyone can learn,” she says.“Anybody who puts her mind toit, and works with herself andothers, should be able to getthrough this program. That isreally encouraging.”

Opportunities to acquire abroad liberal arts education inthis country are narrowing, saysJerome. That’s one of the thingsthat drew her to the college. “St. John’s offers students a valuable opportunity to take fouryears not just to learn about ideas,but also to gain confidence thatthey can learn, and to preparethemselves to face the world andmove forward, no matter whatthey do,” she says. x

—Jenny Hannifin

Exploring the UnknownJessica Jerome, Santa Fe

Santa Fe tutor Jessica Jerome enjoys the opportunity tolearn along with her students.

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Along with Plantation Tours,Voodoo Tours and Ghost Tours,the Katrina bus tour remains apopular sightseeing option forvisitors to New Orleans thesedays. Buses take tourists fromthe fine hotels in the FrenchQuarter and the Garden Districtto the sites of one of America’s

most incomprehensible catastrophes, showing the devastation and the rebuilding underway in the worst-hitneighborhoods.

But take a tour with Billy Sothern (A98) in his Subarustation wagon, Zydeco music on the radio, and althoughyou’ll see many of the same places—the FEMA trailer parks,the Lower Ninth Ward, the places where the levees failed—you’ll hear very different views. Commercial tour guides areunlikely to tell you that people are rebuilding in subdivisionsthat never should have been developed in the first place.They probably won’t suggest that bringing residents home todevastated suburbs weakens a central city reeling from theloss of 40 percent of its population and a good chunk of itstax base.

As much as Sothern loves the city that he and his wife madetheir home six years ago, he is sharply critical of the way thefederal, state, and local governments are handling therecovery. “I think there’s a way we can redevelop the city sothat everyone who wants to can return,” Sothern says.

“My argument is that New Orleans should go back to itshistoric footprint, where people can live safely withoutmassive and largely unsuccessful efforts to build biggerlevies. The idea that we can beat back nature is flawed andhubristic. We’ve had people who tried that for a long time,and that dynamic always seems to end the same way—as it willagain in New Orleans.”

Since graduating from New York University Law School,Sothern has worked in New Orleans as a staff attorney at theCapital Appeals Project, a nonprofit organization thatprovides legal services to individuals facing capital punish-ment. Since Katrina slammed into the city on August 29,2005, he’s been sharing his views on New Orleans in TheNation and The New York Times, and on the online journalSalon.com. This summer, the University of California Presspublished his first book, Down in New Orleans: ReflectionsFrom a Drowned City. He begins with an account of his evacuation from New Orleans with his wife, Nikki Page(A98), describing how their lives changed after Katrina, andanalyzes long-standing social problems that pose a moreserious threat to the city than any force of nature.

In the book, Sothern celebrates all that he loves about thecity, but he’s cynical about why Louisiana has captured thenation’s attention. “Part of the interest of the rest of thecountry in what happened is that New Orleans is this placewith this interesting culture, music, food, Mardi Gras,” hesays. “But is New Orleans worthy of the country’s attentionbecause we make good food? We merit the assistance of the

A F T E R T H E S T O R M Rebuilding Alone Can’t Fix the City Billy Sothern (A98) Loves

by Rosemary Harty



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“The idea that we can beat back nature is flawed and hubristic.”Billy Sothern (A98)

Billy Sothern (A98), in front of a shuttered New Orleanshousing project, says the city can’t recover until poverty andinequality are remedied.

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rest of the country not merely by virtue of the fact that we’re Americans, but merely because we’re interesting? To me that would seem like a fairly poor reflection on American culture.”

“Welcome to the Twilight Zone”

On a steamy day in early June, with thunderstorms threat-ening and gray skies adding to the bleakness, Sothern drivesinto the Mid-City District, just a few miles from his down-town office. When the levees designed to protect the cityfailed, 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded, including thismiddle-class neighborhood. Watermarks, once brown fromroiling muddy water, faded now to a sickly yellow, mark thefacades at various levels. “Look how high the water got onthat ranch house,” he says, “right to the top of the window.It’s almost to the roofline on that white house.”

Many homes here are still boarded up, and “for sale” signsare plentiful, as are the spray-painted marks left on thehouses by search teams who swept through flooded neigh-borhoods after the disaster. They marked how many peoplewere found, dead and alive, and sometimes added otherinformation—“dog on roof,” for example.

From Mid-City, Sothern drives over ruined roads to Lake-view and the site of the 17th Street Canal, where the firstlevee breach took place. Unlike other levees, which wereovertopped, the 17th Street Canal failed at its foundation. A U.S. Senate committee cited design flaws and a lack ofregular inspections as contributory factors. For the mostpart, the neighborhoodshere were underwater,and residents who triedto ride out the storm intheir homes had to berescued from theirrooftops, Sothern says.“This was a high-densitysuburban community,”Sothern says. “All theseempty lots are the sitesof cleared homes.”

Most of the streetsigns in Lakeview aregone, though some resi-dents have posted hand-made signs for people to

find them. The abandoned homes, bad roads and absentstreet signs are remnants of the storm, but even beforeKatrina, Sothern says, New Orleans lacked many of the serv-ices other well-governed cities take for granted. The schoolswere in disrepair, the parks were neglected, and weedsoverran the highway medians—all thanks to “laissez-fairegovernment,” says Sothern.

“Down here, there’s a different relationship between thegovernment and the citizenry and a different bent of whatpeople are entitled to in their daily lives,” he says. “Peopleget all excited about libertarianism, but is this guy supposedto come out and fix this road?” he asks, pointing to a manworking on his home. “Are these people supposed to pooltheir resources and rebuild the levies themselves? It’s anabsurdity.”

Next, Sothern turns into a more affluent neighborhoodalong Lake Ponchartrain, where the hurricane damagedhomes but no flooding occurred because the subdivision wasbuilt on high ground. In this pleasant cul-de-sac, all the frontyards are landscaped and carefully groomed, and cars are inevery driveway. The normalcy is in sharp contrast to neigh-boring Gentilly, where many homes still sit empty. Floodingwas extensive here, and along with the Ninth Ward, Gentillysaw the highest number of deaths. A sign on one lawnproclaims “The Road Home is a Dead End,” reflecting acommon opinion of the federally funded homeowner’scompensation plan.

“This neighborhood is really struggling,” Sothernobserves. “You may haveone or two families backon each block. It has to bescary here at night, scaryto not get governmentservices, scary to invest somuch of your life and yourfuture in a place where theprospects are genuinelyunclear.”

The ruts in the road getdeeper near the LondonAvenue Canal, where two

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Hurricane Katrinadestroyed this warehousefor Mardi Gras floats.n

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breaches of the levee allowed water from the industrial canalto flood the neighborhoods here. “Welcome to the TwilightZone” is scrawled in spray paint across the front of one abandoned house. A resident watches warily as Sotherndrives slowly down his street, perhaps tired of curiosity-seekers and tourists. It’s natural for Americans to admire theresiliency of those determined to rebuild, Sothern says. “Thegut reaction any person would have would be to root for thesepeople and see them return to their homes but those choiceshave to be tempered with reason, and I think they haven’tbeen,” he says. “People are investing their entire futures andthe safety of their families, and it’s all predicated on very

poor information. Hugeportions of the city are nosafer from catastrophicflooding than they werebefore the storm.”

That includes NewOrleans East, a sprawlingdevelopment built oncypress wetlands that weredrained by the Army Corpsof Engineers. In the 1970s,the developer of this areaattracted buyers from deteri-orating and dangerous innercity neighborhoods with thepromise of offering a safeplace to raise families. “Thiswas supposed to be theAmerican dream,” Sothernsays. The land was virtuallyworthless until the federalgovernment spent millionsdraining the wetlands.Within a few years, the follyof building in a swamp wasevident in sinking drivewaysand cracked foundations.Flooding after Katrina was

extensive here, and now more government resources arereviving an area that in Sothern’s view never should havebeen built.

If a struggling city wants to grow stronger, its policiesshould bring residents back to the urban core of NewOrleans, to viable neighborhoods built on high ground. Yetnothing is being done at any level of government toencourage that, he says. That’s what frustrates him themost—government and citizens together clinging to a cycle ofdisaster. “When these people go back to their homes, theyneed water, they need garbage pick-up, they need police outhere, and it’s all going to put a strain on New Orleans,”

“Huge portions of the city are no safer from catastrophic flooding than they were before.”

Billy Sothern (A98)

A survivor attends a cere-mony marking the firstanniversary of HurricaneKatrina, Aug. 29, 2006.

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Sothern says. “Yet there’s nothing vaguely resembling a taxbase that would support this, and it’s hard to imagine thatafter two years, any more people are going to come back.”

From Gentilly, Sothern heads outside the city limits to St. Bernard Parish. With a staggering loss of population (76 percent, according to census data) and diminishedrevenues, the government here is struggling to provide basicservices. “I read that 95 percent of the homes here flooded,”Sothern says. The government complex has not been rebuilt,so the parish council meets in a trailer, and each of thecouncil members lost his or her home.

Sothern crosses the parish line back into the city, into thefamous Lower Ninth Ward. Here, entire blocks are revertingto nature, with only remnants of driveways, concrete steps,and the pilings of foundations poking through the weeds.“No neighborhood bears the scars of Katrina as vividly,” saysSothern. “The force of the water was pretty strong here,that’s why there’s nothing. When Nikki and I first came down

here, houses were on top of cars, cars were on top of houses—it was outrageous. It looks better now, empty.”

Through the national media, the Lower Ninth becameemblematic of the misery that followed Katrina, but Sothernbelieves Americans should focus more on the problems thisneighborhood struggled with before, poverty in particular.Because this land was prone to flooding, it was one of the fewplaces where the city’s poorest residents, many of themelderly, could afford to live. According to 2000 U.S. censusdata, half of the neighborhood’s residents lived on incomesof less than $20,000 a year. After Katrina, residents feared aland grab in the Ninth Ward. Rumors circulated that developers would buy up the land for casinos. “That didn’thappen,” Sothern says. “No one wants this land.”

A scene typical of the destruction in the Lower Ninth Ward.“No neighborhood bears the scars of Katrina more vividly,”Sothern says.

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Providing Context

Whether he’s writing about the Ninth Ward for The Nation,or preparing a brief in a death penalty case for the LouisianaSupreme Court, Sothern seeks to look deeply at issues to tryto get at the basic truths behind events and opinions. “I view this as the core value of my St. John’s education,” hesays. “The harder you look at things, the more complicatedthey become. Everything I write is always about providingcontext. It’s a consequence of reading books with otherpeople, for days and weeks and months, where we neverarrived at something that was unambiguously true.”

In the seven years he’s worked with Death Row inmatesand defendants in capital cases, Sothern has come to knowtheir families and their communities. He has seen howcrime, poverty, and substandard schools factor in theirstories, and it’s made him reflect on his own path in life. As a teenager, Sothern was caught selling drugs. Instead ofgoing to jail, he ended up reading the great books at St.John’s.

After his legal issues wereresolved, Sothern was livingin New York’s Little Italy, ahigh school dropout tryingto educate himself byreading everything he couldfind, books like Augustine’sConfessions. A friend whohad attended the collegesteered him to St. John’s,where Sothern thrived.“Attending St. John’s wasthe single best decision Iever made,” he says. “I wentfrom being a street kid to theperson I am today.”

After graduation, Sothernearned his law degree atNYU, where one summer heinterned with the CapitalAppeals Project. In 2001, hejoined the project as a staffattorney, a job he lovesdespite the long hours andlow pay. “I knew I wanted todo criminal work, and after

coming down here I could see I wanted to do death penaltywork,” he explains. “Looking back, it’s something I wouldbe attracted to fighting against—it’s the most severe, themost heinous type of punishment.”

In Louisiana in 2007, 88 inmates were on Death Row,including Sothern’s client Shon Miller. In March 1999, aftershooting his mother-in-law at her home, Miller walked intoa church in Gonzales, La., and shot his two-year-old son, hisestranged wife, and a church deacon. After he was foundguilty of four counts of first-degree murder, Miller wassentenced to death by lethal injection.

During his apprehension, Miller was shot in the back, andhis injuries left him a paraplegic. Held in an isolation cell ofthe hospital wing at Angola, he developed osteomyelitis, apainful condition attacking his bones. Sothern met Millerwhen he was assigned to try to work with the prison to getbetter health care and living conditions for Miller. “When Iwent to meet him, I was outraged by the conditions he wasliving in, and that they were only because he was disabled,”

he said. “He’s in very badphysical and psychologicalshape.”

After Sothern filed suitunder the American Disabil-ities Act, the prison madesome concessions, includingallowing Miller some time outdoors. Now life is“marginally better” for hisclient, Sothern says. A yearago Sothern filed a brief withthe Louisiana SupremeCourt, seeking a new trialfor Miller. He argued thatMiller was denied a fair trial for two reasons: he was not permitted to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, in spite ofa long history of mentalillness, and the court refusedto allow a nationally knowncriminal defense attorney torepresent Miller.



“We Miss It Every Day” In August 2005, Mathieu de Schutter (SF94) was a resi-dent at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, while his wife,Sara Roahen (SF94), worked as a food and restaurantwriter for the weekly Gambit, an alternative newspaper.They had moved to New Orleans so that he could attendmedical school at Tulane. They evacuated during thestorm and plans to have Mathieu do his residency in NewOrleans changed when the program there was discon-tinued. Now they are living in Philadelphia, where he is inhis second year of an anesthesia residency at the Universityof Pennsylvania. “He has two to three years of trainingleft, depending on whether he chooses to do a fellowship,”reports Roahen. “We still own our house in New Orleansand miss it every day. We hope to live there again, butafter what Katrina did to our long-terms plans, we are alittle gun shy about making other plans at the moment.”

Roahen visits Louisiana often and still writes about food and culture. Currently, she is at work on an oralhistory initiative with gumbo and boudain makers there.Her book, Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the NewOrleans Table, will be published at Mardi Gras time inFebruary 2008. “You may pre-order it on Amazonalready!” she says. x



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“It was an objectively horrifying crime,” Sothernacknowledges, “but it’s insituations like this when the Constitution and rightsafforded to the defendantbecome most importantbecause there’s the greatestchance of passion and preju-dice.”

In working for his clients,Sothern draws on “thecomplexities of their lives”and the context in whichtheir acts should be consid-ered. Both of Miller’sparents were dead by thetime Miller was three. Hewas raised by a foster family,spent time in mental institu-tions, and never receivedgood mental health care.

Last May, Sothern arguedhis case before theLouisiana Supreme Court.“I started the story withhow police found Shon in ashed, talking and hearingvoices that weren’t there,because the issues that weremost important wererelated to his mental illnesson the night of the crime,”he says. “The state comesinto court and says, ‘This isa cold-blooded killer, he deserves to die.’ It’s my job toreframe that issue so that we view this event, this crime, incontext.”

On June 29, the Supreme Court reversed Miller’s convic-tion, ruling that the trial court judge’s refusal to allowMiller to plead not guilty by reason of insanity led to a“constitutionally flawed jury trial.” The state plans to retryMiller later this year. If the case does get to court, Sothernhopes his client will escape the death penalty this time, but

the reality is that Miller ismore likely to die from hisillness in prison.

Sothern often givesbooks to his clients—Shake-speare or Thucydides, forexample. Miller isn’t areader, but Sothern gavehim a recording of TheChronicles of Narnia,believing that its Christianthemes would resonate withhis client. “I love talkingabout books with prisoners,about the Bible, aboutanything. Death Row is alonely place, and it’samazing to see suchremarkable thoughts andideas coming from such adark place. I find it consis-tently impressive—not justabout my clients, but abouthumanity—how people areable to transcend theircircumstances.”

Trying to Move On

Like many who love NewOrleans, Billy Sothern andNikki Page are staying in

the city, looking ahead, and making plans for the future.Their house on Carondelet Street, a few blocks from theSuperdome, was damaged by Katrina’s winds, but theirneighborhood stayed dry. They were able to come back tothe city within a few weeks after the storm, though some oftheir good friends have left the city for good.

Page spotted their new home in the historic Irish Channelneighborhood while she was driving through the city,looking at houses for a friend. The building needed a lot ofwork, but she could see the former glory in the 1850s Ital-

Nikki Page and BillySothern, in the lush gardenof their Irish Channel home.

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{ A f t e r t h e S t o r m } 23

ianate “double-gallery” withhigh ceilings, elegantparlors, and a second-storyporch that looks out on alively street. The backyard isa gardener’s paradise, withbanana trees, beardedpalms, Japanese magnolia,swamp lilies, spray roses,and bird of paradise plants.The barbed wire around thebackyard fence, Sothernsays, will soon come down.They rent out their otherhome because the market istoo bad to try to sell it rightnow.

If Sothern coped with hisanger over the storm and itsaftermath by writing, Page,an artist, tried to make senseof the disaster through hercamera lens. When thecouple drove back to the cityat nighttime in mid-October,she was shocked by whatgreeted her. “The first thingI noticed was the smell, andthen the lack of light, thetrash piles,” she says. “Thecity was really eerie, preg-nant with that sense ofdeath.”

Originally from Maine,Page attended a state univer-sity before finding her way toSt. John’s, where she spottedher future husband fromacross the room at a party inAnnapolis. She taught inNew York and New Orleans,but now devotes herself full time to an art career. She takesclasses at the New Orleans Academy of Art and gives privatelessons in the studio she created in their new home. “Thatwas the first room we finished,” she says.

When Down in NewOrleans came out, Sotherngave interviews on NPR andother radio stations, andsigned his book at localbookstores. While he spentthe first anniversary ofKatrina attending acommemoration, he spentthe second anniversarypainting his dining room.“It’s been such an awfulcouple of years,” he says,that he decided to mark theanniversary “by trying tomove on.”

Things have to change in New Orleans, and in spite of it all, Sothernbelieves they can. In hisbook, he points to the 1911fire at the Triangle Shirt-waist Company as anexample of a tragedy thatshook people into action—though it took 20 years forthe New Deal to seriouslyaddress poverty andimprove working conditionsin America.

Sothern hopes it won’ttake that long for NewOrleans. “I continue to havethis hope that the city couldbe a focal point, where itcould change our countryfor the better,” he says.“Because if it doesn’t, thenall this suffering will havebeen in vain.” x

Hoping for ProgressHazel (A69) and Larry Schlueter (A67) stayed in theirUptown home during Katrina with Hazel’s mother, whowas 91 at the time. Hazel is a musician; Larry is retiredfrom the U.S. Customs Service, and they lead a bluegrassband called “Hazel and the Delta Ramblers.” The hurri-cane damaged their roof, windows blew out, and Larry andHazel patched up and mopped up as water poured in.

Two days after the storm, with water cut off and powerstill out, they left the city. Hazel recalls driving across theGreater New Orleans Bridge, watching people trying towalk out of the flooded city. “It was heartbreaking,” shesays. “There were people on crutches. A woman was drag-ging her babies across in a cardboard box. It didn’t feel likethis was America.”

They settled temporarily in Dallas with their son,Charles (A90), and his family. They moved back to the cityalmost as soon as they were allowed back in. Their smallinsurance settlement wasn’t even enough to pay for thenew roof, so Larry has done most of the work himself.

“Where we live, the area is in comparatively good shape,but right on my square there are five houses where theroofs have not been repaired and the houses are just sittingthere, empty,” says Hazel. “There was a fire in our neigh-borhood and the water pressure was low. There’s hardlyanybody employed by the city. Much of the work andprogress is by personal citizens spending their ownmoney.”

Because many families have left the city for good, she haslost all her music students and her income from privatelessons. But Hazel and the Delta Ramblers are still indemand, playing at clubs, festivals, and farmer’s marketsaround town. For a while, a musician’s fund subsidized theirgigs. “I think we’ll stay, but it’s almost like every day there’ssomething different to consider,” Hazel says, a little wearily.“You’d think there’d be more progress by now. It just wearsyou down.” x

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{ T o c q u e v i l l e }

C O N S I D E R I N G

T O C Q U E V I L L E

How many of Alexis deTocqueville’s keen obser-vations of America’s spir-ited, burgeoning democ-racy hold true today?

These six Johnnies—who work in humanrights law, government, public service,the ministry, and the military—reflect onpassages from Democracy in America.

The Manner in which American Democracy Conducts Foreign Affairs“Foreign policy demands the use of scarcely any of the qualities and characteristics of a democracy. . . .”

Raised by a Korean mother and an American father (SantaFe tutor Michael Bybee), Foreign Service Officer ChelsiaWheeler (SF03) observed cultural misunderstandings in herhousehold “on a daily basis,” she says. Today she seeks tobuild understanding among different cultures. Beforejoining the Foreign Service, Wheeler interned with the

U.S. Embassy in Singapore and taught English in Korea. InSeptember, Wheeler went on assignment to Burma whereshe will travel the country “to engage the locals in conversa-tions about democracy.” (The views expressed in this articledo not reflect the official policy of the U.S. government.)

Tocqueville is talking about the aristocracy when hedescribes a continuity of power. The aristocracy has conti-nuity of memory—an institutional memory. You don’t havea change every four years; you don’t have ever-changingleadership. In this regard the Foreign Service is like an aris-tocracy because there is a continuity of institutionalmemory; we’re not political appointees, so we provide thatcontinuity that in Tocqueville’s day the aristocracy wouldprovide. In the U.S., there is some continuity in govern-ment institutions—what Tocqueville describes as aristo-cratic institutions—I hate to use the word “aristocratic” andI certainly don’t feel like one, but I do think that in somesense that’s what our Foreign Service jobs are. We providethe continuity. When I worked in Singapore, there was anamazing institutional memory. You don’t always see this ina country that is not a pure democracy. The institutionalcontinuity of the government has been good for Singapore.In our country our government policies swing back andforth as public perceptions change.

When Tocqueville talks about the need for secrecy andpatience in foreign affairs, I think he is right. It’s hard for

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me to accept on some levels, but it is true that if you puteverything out there for people to vote on, including verysensitive issues of foreign policy, you would not getanything done. Even policies in Congress go through soslowly. So foreign policy needs to be streamlined. In thecase of the Iraq War, for instance, there are many non-sexytopics that do not go through Congress quickly. Iraq waitsaround for Congress to vote on the budget to increase ouraid. There are many, many countries who must wait onbudget decisions, and they’re waiting on the U.S. timetableto find out if they are getting any aid. These countries areoften not in the press.

Tocqueville was very much aproduct of his time. Tocqueville isnot always completely accurate,but what he has gotten right isvery important. It’s interestingwhat he takes out of foreign policy.It was largely true at the time hewas writing that Americans wereisolationists. It was for our ownsurvival. And I think that it is insome ways true today. Yes, we doget involved and we give help andwe have alliances, but we do valueour independence.

It wasn’t until after World WarII, when we were economicallydominant and secure, that ourisolationism changed. Tocquevilletalks about isolation as a way forthe United States not to bend toother countries. We are still tryingto keep ourselves independent inmany ways. However, [to beneutral] is not possible for a

country such as the United States because we are politicallyand economically important. Other countries look to us forleadership.

In the early 1800s Americans sent huge numbers ofmissionaries abroad, and that’s the first time that weappeared to be less isolated. Another example, besides themissionaries, is relief to other countries. In World War I,the Red Cross went abroad. Private Americans citizens arealways at the forefront of giving aid and relief.

Chelsia Wheeler (SF03) will see howher views on foreign policy play outin her current assignment, in Burma.

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Tyranny of the Ma jority “I place the origin of all powers in the will of the majority. .. .One universal law has been made . . . that is the law ofjustice.”

Peter Weiss (class of 1946), a retired intellectual propertyattorney, now devotes himself to human rights and nucleardisarmament issues from his New York City home. WhenWeiss was 21, tutor James Martin, who had worked withthe Bureau of Economic Warfare during World War II andlater headed the office created to break up the cartels thatfinanced Hitler, brought Weiss to Berlin to work as a trans-lator. “This brought me face-to-face with what had happened inNazi Germany,” says Weiss. “Ilost part of my family to theHolocaust, and of course therewas the later era, the McCarthyperiod, here in the UnitedStates, and my reaction to it—allthese shaped my work as ahuman rights activist.”

[Tocqueville] says that thetyranny of the majority isabsolute, and that if it werechecked somehow we couldhave a working democracy thatis just. What I find missing inthis discussion is the fact that inthe United States this check issupposed to come from theConstitution. The Constitutionenshrines with the force of law aset of values that were createdduring enlightened times in thehistory of this country. Whilehistory proceeds in one direc-tion, the norms and values may

move in another direction; so we still may not be able, evenas a majority, to stop certain things from happening. The majority, for instance, may want to stop the war inIraq, but yet they can’t. And this is because today there istoo much power in the executive office.

Tocqueville was writing about 30 years after Marbury v.Madison, which establishes that the Constitution over-rides the will of the majority and of the executive. Thereare not many countries where this is the case and it maynot even be the case in this country at this particular time.This is the great thing about the American system. Yet themajority is guided by an aggressive executive. I’m talking

about the state of things in theUnited States today. ArthurSchlesinger called it “the impe-rial presidency.” The AmericanConstitution was written withchecks and balances, yet it failsso often, particularly in thecase of a strong executive.

Tocqueville is correct whenhe describes a general,universal law, the law of justice.Antigone is an example of thiswhen she says to Creon that shedoes not have to obey his lawbecause there is a law from thegods that trumps that. In thecase of human rights, I don’tcare where this more just lawcomes from; whether from thegods, the Constitution, or atreaty. It needs to be respected.Since the Nuremberg trials,there’s been progress, there’s

In retirement, lawyer PeterWeiss (class of 1946) devotes even more time to human rightsadvocacy.

“We still may not be able, even as a majority, to stop certainthings from happening. The majority, for instance, may

want to stop the war in Iraq, but yet they can’t.”Peter Weiss (Class of 1946)

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{ T o c q u e v i l l e } 27

been the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So nowthere are certain things that are universally accepted ashuman rights violations: for example torture, slavery orrape, just like piracy 200 years ago. Tocqueville is right inthis regard. There is a universal law of mankind.

The watchwords of tyranny are “by any means neces-sary.” This implies extreme actions, such as those goingon in Guantanamo Bay. Yet I have not given up hope. So many attorneys have come forward to help defend these[detained] individuals, and that is when I can’t help but be proud of the American system, the American legalestablishment. And I hope that the next 10 years will be aperiod of enlightenment.

How Religion in the United StatesMakes Full Use of Democratic Tendencies“The first object . . . of religions is to provide for each ofthese essential questions a tidy solution.”

The Rev. Adrien Dawson (A96), who is rector of St. Mark’son the Hill in Pikesville, Md., was surprised at her career

choice. “Being an Episcopal priest is the last thing I wouldhave expected I’d be. Both of my parents were hippierefugees from religion, and by the time they got marriedthey had sworn off church,” she says. At St. John’s,Dawson was converted by the Old Testament. “The humancondition pieces in the Old Testament are powerful—theway in which God keeps saying, ‘I’m still with you, I’m notgoing to abandon you.’ A central question for me hasalways been: Why is it that some people have faith andsome don’t?”

When I read about how the first object of religion is tofurnish a solution, I laughed out loud. I thought, “Wow. Ifonly.” Tocqueville’s premise is that religion’s job is to havetidy answers for these existential, philosophical, first-mover kind of questions. Where I differ from Tocquevilleis that I see religion much more as a framework in whichall of your doubts and uncertainties can exist and be chal-

The Rev. Adrien Dawson (A96) encourages theological ques-tioning as a way of deepening one’s relationship with God.

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{ T o c q u e v i l l e }28

lenged; it gives you a safe place to wrestle with all of that.There are religions of practice and religions of answers. Isay, “We don’t have all the answers. Come join us in thispractice.” Tocqueville is looking at all religions as reli-gions that have answers.

The world view that Tocqueville describes is one inwhich religious and social/political spheres don’t meet.The priests stay in their realm and don’t ever venture intothe political; they don’t leave the steps of the church. Whilethe Koran gets political, the Gospels [do not]. [Yet] somuch of what gets described in the Gospels is Jesus chal-lenging the social and political norms of the day. He’s killedas a rebel against Rome, not because he has some sort offaith practice—it’s his political power that gets himcrucified. In restricting the realm of religion, Tocquevillemakes a safe religion that keeps everybody in check. Youdon’t get too extreme in your love of worldly possessionsbecause we have religion here that’s going to reign you in,teach you about charity. For Tocqueville religion is theschoolmarm of people’s passions. And then, get out of theway—because the rest of the political sphere belongs to apurely secular world.

I don’t agree with Tocqueville’s read on what the Gospeloffers. There are plenty of times when people of faith havestood up and said, “I can do no other, because my faith, theScripture, tells me this is wrong. I have to challenge what’sgoing on.” So there are all different ways in which theGospel has come out to challenge the authority of thesocial/political context. In our own context today ofwatching democracy unfold, religion gets bandied about alot. Today the politicians choose hot-button issues such asabortion, gay marriage, the death penalty—and cite reli-gious reasons for their political positions.

What Makes Democratic ArmiesWeaker Than Other Armies at theOutset of a Campaign and moreDangerous in Prolonged Warfare“Equality allows all to be ambitious while death makes surethat there are continuing opportunities to satisfy thatambition.”

Lieutenant Colonel (Hon.) Frank Giuseffi (SFGI96), keepsissues of The College on a coffee table in his office at the

Missouri Military Academy, where he is academicdean. “I want visitors to know how important theliberal arts are to the intellectual formation of ourstudents,” he says. Giuseffi, whose father is aretired Marine, chose a slightly different path—military education. Along with his duties as dean,Giuseffi teaches history and uses readings such asDemocracy in America to help the cadets grapplewith fundamental questions. “These cadets arefacing life-and-death issues,” he says. “They sensethat the age of heroism may be waning, yet theywant their service in the military, and their lives, tohave meaning.”

Lt. Col. (Hon.) Frank Giuseffi (SFGI96), left, sharesTocqueville’s ideas with cadets at the Missouri Military Academy.

“For Tocqueville religion is the schoolmarmof people’s passions.”

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{ T o c q u e v i l l e } 29

It is true that during war soldiers and officers have anopportunity to prove their military greatness more. Thereare certain accolades that one receives during wardepending on how well one performs. So there may besome ambition there. I would say Tocqueville in some waysis correct. But I cannot be inside the mind of a general or acolonel. I would say it depends a lot on the individual. Itdepends a lot on how the public sees this war. In manyways, soldiers are affected by the level of cynicism towardsa war. Perhaps then ambition becomes more importantthan honor. By the same token, there were many who wereknown [in Vietnam] to be great military heroes no matterwhat the public feeling was about the war.

I have to question if ambition is really what is behindwhat motivates someone to serve. I have seen this withmany cadets; I think they want to test themselves. Theywant to test their mettle and courage. A student here acouple years ago was incredibly eager to go to war. He’sdone two tours in Iraq and he’s back and he said he has hadenough. He doesn’t necessarily articulate why that is andwhy it was that he went to begin with. But he and many ofhis fellow cadets are willing to face the fact that they aregoing to be putting their lives on the line. This is not aboutambition and this is not about the debates in the media oramong politicians. It’s about fighting and finding out foryourself that you are going to be able to do this.

Tocqueville makes a point about the principle ofequality of conditions in a democracy in the military.What’s interesting is that in an aristocracy, your rank inthe military is based on birth. In a democracy, your careeris built out of a base of equality. You are part of a group thatstarted on equal footing, [which] opens the door of ambi-tion to all. I find this point particularly ironic: Equality canopen the door to greatness. It is this very equality thatfosters some to lead and some to follow. That’s part of themilitary culture in a democracy. You see the extraordinaryleaders come forth. They have to take their orders as asubordinate, but they become heroes and do extraordinarythings and break out of the ranks, so to speak, in ways they

deem necessary. So the military gives one the opportunityto become courageous, to be a leader, to be altruistic, tosave lives, to heal the wounded, to help someone out. Itgives one an opportunity to wrestle with the things thatmake us all more human.

Public Spirit in the United States“There is nothing more irksome . . . than the irritable patriotism Americans have.”

Noah Kroloff (SF95), deputy chief of staff for GovernorJanet Napolitano of Arizona, found his way into publicservice through teaching. His first job after St. John’s waswith Teach for America in the South Bronx. “I got eatenalive by the kids, but it was rewarding,” he says. Kroloffthen worked for the speaker of the New York StateAssembly on public policy issues and campaigns. In 2000Kroloff, who has a law degree from Arizona State Univer-sity College of Law, joined Governor Napolitano’s staff.

Tocqueville suggests it is in one’s self-interest to work forone’s government. I don’t understand what Tocquevillemeans in that regard. Is there anything anyone does that isnot in some way in one’s self-interest? Everything comesthrough the governor’s office: issues of public education,natural resources, transportation, health care, economicdevelopment. It helps my family, my children, our commu-nity, and the wider community if for instance we work tocreate more education. It is in everyone’s self-interest tocontribute to the success of government—this is the back-bone of a free society.

Tocqueville has amazing observations on society, butthey are hard to apply at a practical level. The theoretical isjust that. It offers a framework for values, a moralcompass. But it is not a good manual on how to get donethe day-to-day business of the people. In some waysTocqueville places the patriotism of citizens in oppositionwith those who govern. Yet so often, the alignmentbetween public zeal and the elected official—such as the

“I find this point particularly ironic: Equality can open the door to greatness. It is this very equality

that fosters some to lead and some to follow. That’s partof the military culture in a democracy.”

Lt. Col. (Hon.) Frank Giuseffi (SFGI96)



30

governor of Arizona—must existsince that official was elected bythe public. In this case,governing and enforcing laws isnot difficult because of thepublic’s zeal and patriotism. If the public is for education,then is the governor going todecimate it? A thoughtful publicofficial will have a dialogue.

I am very patriotic, but patri-otism is not one’s duty. It is notone’s responsibility to beinvolved with government.Patriotism takes many forms;this is the great thing about ourcountry. One has a right to be ornot to be involved if one wishes.We should encourage patri-otism, but there are differentnotions of what patriotism is. Sometimes it means to takeaction. Yet what one thinks is a patriotic act might infringeon the rights of others. Sometimes it means a great orheroic act. But the great thing is the way our laws and judi-cial systems work to balance actions that may or may notinfringe on the liberties of others.

I have never felt in any way constrained to speak out on any issue. Social constraints exist but there are no legal constraints on voting on every issue, which Ithink Tocqueville celebrated. However since Tocqueville’sday, the boundaries of our post-9/11 world are moredefined; now there are instances where free speech in theUnited States is limited. Yet we still live in a society whosegovernment allows people to say and speak and think whatthey choose.

The Use AmericansMake of Public Associations in Civil Life “Americans of all ages, condi-tions, and all dispositions con-stantly unite together.”

As a freshman in Santa Fe, JoshCohen (SF94) campaigned for thestudent government by goingfrom table to table in the cafeteriasaying, “I’m running for govern-ment to get government off ourbacks.” It worked. Back inAnnapolis, after serving on aneighborhood board, Cohen washooked on grassroots politics. “It was a revelation,” he says.

“I thought, ‘Wow, people actually spend their lives devotedto the issues that affect communities and jobs.’” Cohen,who grew up in Annapolis (his father, Joseph, is a tutor),served two terms on the Annapolis City Council and in2006 was elected to the Anne Arundel County Council.

Unlike our American democracy 200 years ago, othercountries had aristocracies where a small number of veryinfluential people were able to issue edicts to direct moneyand resources toward causes. But in America, with theabsence of this nobility, the only way people could getthings done in the same way was to form groups. Americaneeds these associations because we lack the administra-tive structure that an aristocracy has to get things done.This has a lot to do with the big-government, small-government debate that is around today, maybe in adifferent form. But it’s the debate of “Should governmentbe doing this or should we let the private sector handlethis?” This issue that Tocqueville points out is still anissue today.

Noah Kroloff (SF95) puts his patriotism into action inArizona’s state government.



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In our society, we talk a lot about special interests andhow politics need to be separate from special interests. But special interests really are just collections of peopleadvocating for a specific cause or issue; people are moreeffective that way. I couldn’t imagine our local govern-ment without associations. It’s the whole notion of havinga representative democracy where elected officials arerepresentatives. But within the constituency that theseelected officials represent, there are all these differentstakeholder groups that sometimes overlap and offer waysthat issues can be debated. People can work to findcommon ground.

[Yet] I think sometimes individual acts are necessary,like Rosa Parks refusing to give up herseat. You need individual actions some-times to spur movements, and groups needleaders who can negotiate and compro-mise on behalf of the group.

Tocqueville talks mainly about commer-cial and business enterprises, which 200 years ago were the main reasons whypeople got together to advocate. In today’sculture, people form groups to advocatefor a wide variety of issues. The traditionaldefinition of civic groups are those like theKiwanis and Lions [clubs], these arebenevolent groups, just like the Elks,where they form for goodwill purposes.But I think the commercial and industrialassociations have more widespreadappeal. In every homeowners’ meetingthat you attend the subject of propertyvalues is going to come up, so in a lot ofways it is an economic association.

I think a lot of people my age—I’m 33—are only just now starting to take an

interest in civic life because they’re just starting to owntheir own homes and they’re just starting to have kids whogo to public schools. Those are the two biggest self-interest motivators: your child’s education and your home.So I don’t really see that people are apathetic. There arealways going to be people who say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter,”but to me that says that by and large our system worksreally well. Even though we have problems to address, intime we come to address them. It’s really at the local levelthat people see their actions having the most directimpact. As Tocqueville says they form a common goal. x

As an Anne Arundel County Council member,Josh Cohen (SF94) seeks to make local govern-ment work for its citizens. d

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“Special interests really are just collections of peopleadvocating for a specific cause or issue; people are

more effective that way. I couldn’t imagine our localgovernment without associations.”

Josh Cohen (SF94)

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The Archaeology of Tomorrow:Architecture and the Spirit of Placeby Travis Price (SF71)Earth Aware Editions (2006)

When you step inside architect TravisPrice’s home in Washington, D.C., youcan’t see the tree forts Price built andplayed in as a kid growing up in Georgia,but you can feel their presence. As he putsit, “the building tells a story.” Walls ofsmooth plywood and glass stretch to a leafycanopy of oak trees along Rock Creek Park.The dappled light and elegantly simpleamalgam of sustainable materials—there isno sheetrock or paint—makes one feel“wrapped in a tree,” Price writes in hisnew book, The Archaeology of Tomorrow:Architecture and the Spirit of Place. Hisfour-story, copper-clad residence is almostsuspended in the air, tethered by weightedsteel cables to a steep slope. “It is floatingsilence,” says Price. “The design means Ican fly, both in the Western sense and in amore Asian, spiritual sense.”

A pioneering green architect whodesigned one of the world’s largest solarbuildings, the office complex for theTennessee Valley Authority in Chat-tanooga, Tenn., Price is also a culturalsteward. He is adjunct professor and

director of the Cultural Studies/SacredSpaces program at Catholic University’sSchool of Architecture and Planning. Price treks with his students to sacred sitesaround the globe to create designs thatspeak to indigenous cultural stories. In TheArchaeology of Tomorrow, Price describesthe delicate balance it takes to create aspace that is environmentally and cultur-ally sustainable, that radiates mystery,emotion, a spirit of place. “You movethrough it like a dance. It triggers all kinds

of perceptions.”The book features

stunning architecturalphotographs inter-spersed with phrasesthat describe eachspace’s poetry. There isof course Price’s resi-dence (“Floating steelsoul”); the light-filledatrium of the GreenfieldLibrary on theAnnapolis campus(“Guardian of the lightof Plato’s cave”);National GeographicExplorers Hall in Wash-ington, D.C. (“Earth’sflagship of steward-

ship”); and private residences, includingone with a traditional street-side facadethat opens to a modern glass-walled addition in the back (“Unseen trees madevisible”). But Price’s book is more than acoffee-table compendium of poetry,photography, and design. It is a passionateargument for a future that includes the“mythic modern,” a design that interpretssacred stories and myths in a way that ismeaningful, vibrant, and relevant.

“I have spent the last 30 years on theecosphere. The next 30 I want to dedicateto the ‘ethnosphere,’” he says. By “ethnos-phere,” a word coined by Price, WadeDavis and tutor Eva Brann, he means allthe beliefs, myths, archetypes, and storiesspawned since the dawn of civilization.“It’s the geography of human imagina-tion,” says Price. “Great architecturealways has stories behind it. Chichen Itza,Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat—they are allreplete with sacred but still metaphysicaland metaphorical tales. The job of anarchitect is to grab the cultural voice of histime and try to make it architecture,spatially carve that experience from big,bold ideas about shapes, right down totextures and materials. You have to searchevery culture, every locale. Even in citiessuch as Rome and Washington, you have tolook at the layers and crusts of the stories.You will find things that describe thatculture if you question enough.”

In a chapter titled “Assault on the Spirit:Sprawl, Mall and Tall,” Price traces thedevelopment of architecture that is devoidof story and meaning, characterized byubiquitous shopping malls decorated withfaux Greco columns and other remnants of“old stories” that in Price’s view aredisconnected from our culture’s heart andsoul. “During the Industrial Revolution,the metaphor was the machine,” he says.“I’m not criticizing technology; likenuclear power it was a glorious moment,but there was a down side: the machine asmetaphor is sterile and empty. There wasno poetry left in architecture.”

Price presents a new vision that honorsan authentic sense of place. “Let’s revisitthe myths, the sacred,” he says. “How do Iget day-to-day architecture to have thiskind of storytelling?” To find the answer,Price looks at architecture through threelenses: the Stillness of Metaphor and Myth (universal truths); the Time-fullnessof Movement (technology); and the

Above, Travis Price’sWashington, D.C., residence. Left, theMackenzie House, anexplorer’s retreat onVargas Island, BritishColumbia.

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{ B i b l i o f i l e } 33

Timelessness of Nature (the physicalworld). “Time-fullness is about pushingthe limits of technology,” he explains. “In my residence, for example, you’rehanging on a bare thread of steel. Thatalone is dynamic change. The Stillness ofMetaphor and Myth is apparent becausethere is a tranquility that overcomes you.The technology feeds the metaphor but isnot overdone.”

The design of his home embraces thethird lens, Nature, through its use ofsustainable insulating techniques and alsoin more subtle, lyrical ways. Windows areplaced so that one can observe the moon inall its phases. Steel scuppers shaped likeleaves catch rainwater from the roof andsend it tumbling like a waterfall savoredfrom the warm, dry interior. As Pricedescribes it, “You are in the waterfall.”

To illustrate architectural design thatuses these three lenses, Price takes thereader to places that are familiar, eveniconic, such as the Vatican, Frank LloydWright’s Fallingwater, and the Church ofthe Light in Osaka, Japan. Price devotesmuch of his book to sacred places that“permeate mind, heart, and matter.”Among them are the Naga Shrine in Nepal,Lake Ealue in British Columbia, and themystical “thin places” in Ireland.

The early Celts believed in sacred “thinplaces” where past, present, and future areone. Today on Ireland’s west coast, thelocals still revere the “thin places” andvisitors like Price are compelled to wanderthe rain-soaked land near the smashing seato find them. In The Archaeology ofTomorrow, Price describes several

expeditions he has led to these mysticalsites to look for cultural metaphors in thelandscapes. Price and his students, inconcert with the local owners, design andbuild sculptural structures that are inessence shrines. One, in Doonamoe, is astone path that leads above a blowhole inthe ground, where the sea spews forth 110feet from the coast. Another landscapesculpture, completed this summer, iscalled “Temples of the Tides of Time.”Like the “thin places” themselves, itconnects one with past, present, and future time.

“When you actually walk through it youfeel a certain reverence,” says Price. “Iwant to spend the rest of my life doingthis—opening the door to the sacred.”

—Patricia Dempsey

On a “Spirit of Place” expedition inNepal, Price and his students designedthis meditation platform, cantileveredover a 100-foot drop. Below left, Price’sliving room features a soaring glass wall.

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For Lee Perlman(A73), the logicis irrefutable:He has beenattendingHomecoming

every year since 2003. He isstill alive. Therefore, Home-coming keeps him alive.

He’s unwilling to test whathe calls the “Perlman Prin-ciple” by staying home oneyear, but he’s also had such agood time that he doesn’tmind being bound by supersti-tion. Perlman drives down toAnnapolis every year fromBoston, where he teachesphilosophy at the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology, picking up his friend, Peter Squitieri(A73), in Connecticut along the way.

“It’s a little like Groundhog Day,” Perlman said. “I come backevery year, so every year a few more people know me.”

The college works hard to plan a Homecoming that will appeal toall alumni as well as those who come back during a reunion year tosee their classmates. This year, the event in Santa Fe sprang forwardinto fall, to September 14-16, so that alumni and students couldagain share the campus. Not without some controversy, the movefrom July didn’t seem to deter attendance: about 150 participants(alumni and families) came back to enjoy offerings such as the Fiesta

Picnic on the soccer field, theAll-Alumni Art Show (theFibonacci Sequence was thetheme this year), children’sactivities, and a HomecomingDinner Dance. On Saturday,photographer Craig Varjabe-dian and writer Robin Jones(SF84) shared photographs ofSouthwest landscapes and thestories behind them. Santa Feartist Eli Levin (SFGI91) remi-

nisced in his Speaking Volumes Lecture, titled “A Townie Interactswith the College on the Hill.”

In Annapolis September 28-30, the college hosted 400 alumniand guests. Alumni devoured hundreds of Chesapeake Bay crabsafter their morning seminars. Children roamed from face-paintingand games to pony rides and a petting zoo. And in the Great Hall,tutors, alumni, and current students marked tutor Eva Brann’s 50th year at the college during the presentation of a Festschrift inher honor. Brann seemed both pleased and abashed by the tribute: “I have spent fifty/seventy-eighth of my life here, roughly 18,250days,” she said. “To tell the truth, they seem as one day, the earthlycounterpart of the nunc stans of eternity, the ‘standing now’ ofheaven. People ask me when some event took place. I’ve taken tosaying “about 25 years ago,” figuring that the mean can stand forany year. But ask me “who” and “where” and usually a bright imagewill arise—students, alumni, seminar partners are all in place, myyear with them coalesced in one fixed image.”

Both campuses welcomed returning Graduate Institute alumniwith special celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of thefounding of the G.I. in Santa Fe and the 30th anniversary inAnnapolis. On both campuses, former alumni, current students and faculty toasted the longevity and vitality of the college’s graduate program.

Patricia Sollars attended both Homecomings and greatly prefersseeing students and alumni enjoy the weekend together. Alumnienjoy talking with current students about their tutors, their classes,and their future careers, she said. “An enormous benefit ofreturning to St. John’s is to see that the Program is alive and well,and still thriving in ever-renewing populations of youthful mindsand spirits,” she said. x

C O M I N G H O M EFall Fiesta in Santa Fe, Crab Feast in Annapolis

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Left, Annapolis alumniconnect at the Saturday crabfeast; below, Kimberly Herb(SF98) and Bob Nash(Schroeder, SF97) at theFiesta Picnic in Santa Fe.

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In-Demand Seminars

The Lecture

The Schwag

Honorary Alumni

Substitute for a Football Game

Annapolis

Nietzsche’s “On Truth andLying in a Non-Moral Sense,”led by Eva Brann (HA89)

“Knowledge, Ignorance andImitation in Book Ten ofPlato’s Republic,” DavidMcNeill (A89)

Snappy orange lunch tote

Robert Hunt and Alton(“Red”) Waldron, who haveattended the college’scommunity seminars formore than five decades

Alumni vs. students soccer game

Santa Fe

Exodus 24-40 and Euripides’Bacchae, led by Robert Sacks(A84)

“Jihad: the Muslim Conceptof Holy War,” tutor KenWolfe (SF94)

Snappy orange lunch tote

Tutor emerita Georgia“Susu” Knight, who devoted33 years to the college

Family nature hike up Monte Sol

Above, top: tutor emerita Georgia S.Knight became an honorary alumna.Bottom, Susan Bishop (AGI99)received the Award of Merit onbehalf of her late husband, JeffreyBishop, who died in July; Award ofMerit winner Lovejoy Duryea (A67)also received an Award of Merit.Left: a storyteller delights children in Annapolis; Bottom, left to right, Lee Munson (SF97)greets a friend in Santa Fe;Annapolis crabs; Peggy Jones(SFGI94) and Consuelo Sañudo(SFGI00) toast the Graduate Institute.

AT A GLANCE: HOMECOMING 2007

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36 { A l u m n i P r o f i l e }

Among Dr. Jim Jarvis’ prizedpossessions is a postcardfrom Paris sent to him by aformer patient. “The firsttime I met her she was 16,sitting on a hospital bed

crying; she had systemic lupus and wasworried she would not be able to go on aclass trip to France the following year. We made a partnership and set a goal—her trip,” says Jarvis.

As a consulting pediatric rheumatologistat the W.W. Hastings Indian Hospital inTahlequah, Oklahoma, and the Children’sHospital of Oklahoma, Jarvis builds closerelationships with children who havechronic diseases and has insight into thechallenges they face and treatments theyneed. As a professor of pediatrics at theUniversity of Oklahoma Health SciencesCenter, Jarvis mentors medical students andconducts groundbreaking research toadvance the understanding of juvenilechronic diseases.

Jarvis, who became apediatric rheumatologistin the early 1980s whenthere were fewer than adozen such practitionersin the country, is proud ofthe fact that he’s seen asan iconoclast, especiallyfor his work with juvenilerheumatoid arthritis.“This is a good place tobe in science, questioningestablished beliefs,” saysJarvis. “My career hascome full circle. I beganat St. John’s with big-picture questions like,‘What is the meaning ofhealth?’ Then as amedical student I asked,‘What is the meaning ofwellness?’ ”

Today, Jarvis haszeroed in on an urgent

question: Why is the rate of juvenilerheumatoid arthritis higher in certainAmerican Indian tribes? His interest stemsin part from his own heritage, as his great-great-grandmother, a Mohawk Indian, wasborn on the Akwesasne Reservation inupstate New York. To discover the answers,Jarvis has introduced a systemic, genera-tional perspective to the treatment of juve-nile rheumatoid arthritis through researchthat uses systems biology. “I observe howthings are connected. Aristotle suggests inBook I, Chapter 1 of the Parts of Animalsthat biology is connectedness, a study ofform and function,” he says. Jarvis believesthat one of the reasons Native Americanpopulations have such a high rate of juve-nile rheumatoid arthritis has to do withgenerational trauma.

“Rheumatoid arthritis runs in familiesand groups, but it is not genetic, and notcontagious,” he explains. “Data hasemerged that shows that when a people has

been marginalized, abused, and humiliatedas some Native American populations have,this may set up a reaction in utero. Theinfant in utero responds to the stress, whichjazzes up the fetal immune system and hitstriggers that can increase the risk forrheumatoid arthritis.”

While Jarvis’ generational approach issignificant to the prevention of rheumatoidarthritis, he is also working to help childrenalready afflicted with the disease bytargeting individual treatments. Thisresearch is funded in part by a grant fromthe Oklahoma Center for the Advancementof Science and Technology. By usingsystems biology tools—computer modelsshow every gene that a cell is expressing—Jarvis hopes to predict which drugs will bemost effective on certain patients.

“Right now it is a trial-and-error process.It’s expensive, and several months go bybefore it becomes clear whether a drug isworking. I would like to develop an assay to

optimize therapy andtreatment from themoment of diagnosis,”says Jarvis. With juvenilepatients, the need toconserve time is crucial.“Several months, evenseveral weeks have amuch larger impact on anadolescent’s life than onan adult’s. This is timefrom school and impor-tant developmental mile-stones are missed, evenspecial class trips.” x

Questioning Established BeliefsJim Jarvis (A75) Researches Juvenile Diseases

by Patricia Dempsey

James Jarvis (A75),second from right,shown here in his labwith students andresearch colleagues,explores links betweenthe environment andjuvenile rheumatoidarthritis.

{ A l u m n i N o t e s }


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1935RICHARD S. WOODMAN enjoyskeeping in touch with the college,particularly with the St.John’s/Naval Academy croquetrivalry. “I’m still active practicinglaw in this small, beautiful village[Waterville, N.Y.] and traveling toforeign countries with one ormore of my two children,” hewrites. “They’re both MiddleburyCollege graduates, and one hastwo grandchildren, which makesme a great-grandfather.”

1942“My classmates will not believefirst place—at the age of 86,”ERNEST J. HEINMULLER writes ofhis first-place showing in theadult category of a poetry-writingcontest last spring. “See what St. John’s does for you!” Thecontest was sponsored by theFriends of the St. Michael’sLibrary in partnership with thecounty historical society.

1945Writes EDWARD W. MULLINIX:“Although I retired as an activepartner in Schnader HarrisonSegal & Lewis LLP of Philadel-phia on January 1, 1993, Icontinue being active profession-ally as senior counsel to the firm,doing some things for the firm,participating in case-manage-ment programs in the Court ofCommon Pleas of PhiladelphiaCounty and the federal districtcourt for Eastern Pennsylvania(where I serve as a member of itsCivil Justice Advisory Group),and taking an occasional engage-ment to mediate complexcommercial disputes.

Most recently, the president ofthe American College of TrialLawyers has appointed me to a

new college task force that is tocollaborate with the University ofDenver’s Institute for theAdvancement of the AmericanLegal System on a program torecommend changes in theFederal Rules of Civil Procedureto reduce the burdens andexpense of pretrial discovery.”

1946JAMES W. SHARP writes:“During almost five decades ofemployment in the humanresources departments of threebusinesses, 53 years of marriage,and helping to raise two daugh-ters and four grandchildren, I wasa ‘prodigal’ Johnnie. Eight yearsago I again became interested intheology and philosophy. SinceDecember 2005 I have beenworking my way throughBertrand Russell’s A History ofPhilosophy. For those who havelost touch with their St. John’sCollege heritage, it provides adelightful ‘Remembrance ofThings Past.’”

1947“My wife, Elizabeth, and I took atwo-week trip to France in Apriland drove through Burgundy andNormandy,” writes H. GERALD

HOXBY. “We visited our son Bairand his wife, Caroline, in Vezelaywhere they had rented a house fora year while on sabbatical fromHarvard. They are each writing abook while there. We all had a lotof fun and had some great mealsbesides seeing more than enoughchateaus and churches.”

1948 PETER J. DAVIES and his wife,Phyllis, took a trip in May toMozambique via Lisbon to attendthe high school graduation of

their second-eldest grandson andto celebrate Peter’s 80th birthdaywith his son, daughter-in-law, andfive grandchildren. Also in May,he attended the funeral of PETER

WEISS’ mother, Paula, who diedat age 104.

1950JOHN R. GARLAND borrowedsome lines from G.K. Chestertonfor his note to the College: “. . .for there’s good news yet to beheard and fine things to be seen,/Before we go to Paradise by way ofKensal Green.”

1953Two years ago, CHARLES

POWLESKE officially “retired”from the Business Council forInternational Understanding,where he has worked since 1960.“A few years passed, mostly inMexico, before I found myselfonce again active in thosefamiliar offices as ‘senior advisoryand past president.’

I then teamed up with a long-time business friend, who alsocontinues to be very involved inBCIU, and we incorporated Inter-Plan Consulting, Inc. At anygiven time, we find ourselvesworking on various interestingprojects including a major solarenergy enterprise that is about tocontract for its first commercialinstallation.”

1954DAVID KAPLAN is still in businessmanagement investments.

1955CAROLYN E. BANKS-LEEUWEN-BURGH writes: “Over these manyyears, I’ve known many St. John-nies, from my class, from thetours we take together, frommany summers in Santa Fe andsocial events. I often think ofthose people with good feelings. I want to say hello to all and wishthem all the best of everything.”

1956Last year, GEORGE SAUER waselected to his sixth term on theRepublican Central Committee ofMontgomery County, Maryland.

1957It was a busy May and June forCORNELIA HOFFMAN REESE:One grandchild graduated fromcollege, one is entering her senioryear at Miami, one grandsongraduated from high school andhas been accepted at college, onegranddaughter is entering hersophomore year of college, andanother granddaughter is servingin the Peace Corps in Senegal.“Since I’m from a large family,

The Art of Saying No

Class of 1955 alumnus HAROLD BAUER’s “next life”as a painter has landed him as president of theBoard of Trustees at the prestigious Evanston ArtCenter. “St. John’s did not sufficiently instruct inthe art of saying no,” he writes. This fall, he willconduct Princess Ida by Gilbert and Sullivan for the

Evanston Savoyaires and will stage Amahl and the Night Visitors forChicago’s Ars Viva. x

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we also had graduations of niecesand nephews—busy, busy time,but very rewarding and a delightto see education carried on,” shewrites. “Looking forward to the50th reunion at St. John’s andseeing Mary Sullivan Blombergand her husband, Peter, again.”

1960“I recently completed the four-year basic program at the University of Chicago,” saysPETER RUEL. “Discussing thegreat books brings back fondmemories of nearly 50 years ago.The St. John’s imprint neverleaves us. This year we arecompleting all of Plato’sdialogues with our instructoremeritus, George Anastaplo, whois known by some of the St. John’stutors. Our 50th reunion will bein 2010. See you all then.”

1961CYNTHIA BLEDSOE DALEY hasretired to a small working horsefarm in Greer, S.C., where sheraces Arabian horses. “I happilyinvite any Johnnies in the area tovisit,” she writes.

1962MICHAEL ELIAS writes, “My playThe Catskill Sonata—about aCatskill hotel during the black-listing period in the 1950s—had asuccessful run in L.A. It wasdirected by Paul Mazursky andwill open in New York nextspring. “

JOHN POUNDSTONE is back froma trip: “We have just returnedfrom a visit to China to visit ourdaughter, who works in Beijingfor the World Health Organiza-tion as an AIDs epidemiologist.

It was an amazing visit.” Hewonders if China is “ready for theGreat Books.”

1964CHRISTINE KUBACKI GRIECO isdeputy director at Philadelphia’shistory museum, the AtwaterKent Museum, following a longcareer in educational advocacy.She was happily remarried sixyears ago.

JUDITH WOOD writes: “I’m stillworking for Tulane CountyLibrary in the San Joaquin Valleyof California. I am a referencelibrarian. I am just putting thefinishing touches on a three-yearproject, getting over 100 oralhistories about life in this countyfrom 1941 to 1946. This will probably be the highlight of myentire career, first as anaccountant, then as a librarian!”

DAVID RANDOLPH JORDAN

writes: “A few years ago, I was theguest organizer of a conferenceheld at the Norwegian Institute atAthens, its works published inThe World of Ancient Magic(Borger 1999). From Marchthrough August of 2006, I was afellow of the Institute forAdvanced Studies at the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem as part ofa group thinking about “OccultPower in Near Eastern Culture.”I am a little disappointed that

St. John’s no longer sends theannual college catalogue to

alumni. Why does it not? Is itashamed of the tutors’ creden-tials?”

1966IAN HARRIS has retired frombeing a professor of EducationalPolicy and Community Studies atthe University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee after 32 years. InJanuary he taught a class in PeaceEducation at the University ofJaume Primero in Castelló de laPlana, Spain. He plans to remainin Milwaukee with his wife, Sara,in spite of having grandchildrenon both coasts. He will continueto be president of the Interna-tional Peace Research Associa-tion Foundation. His latest publi-cation is Global Directory ofPeace Studies and Conflict Reso-lution Programs (with AmyShuster), San Francisco: Peaceand Justice Studies Association,2006.

1968MARILYNNE (MAURIE WILLS

SCHELL) SCOTT (SF) writes thather younger daughter, EmilyScott, graduated from YaleDivinity School in May 2006 witha Master of Divinity degree. “Shenow works as a liturgical coordi-nator for Yale Divinity School andYale University, planning worshipservices. For the past twosummers she has worked on the“New Music Project” under thedirection of the REV. DONALD

SCHELL (SF68), rector of St. Gregory of Nyssa EpiscopalChurch in San Francisco. Myhusband, David, and I are plan-ning a trip to Alaska this summerwhere (if all goes well), we’ll meetRICK WICKS (SF68) and hisfamily in Anchorage—a pre-reunion reunion.”

CHARLES B. WATSON (A) writes:“#1 son, Ivan, continues to reporton world affairs for NPR fromIstanbul and places like Bulgaria,Northern Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon,etc. #2 son, Misha, recentlyrebuilt a house and re-roofed,floored, shingled, windowed,etc., our second home onMartha’s Vineyard. Our daughter,Anya, starts graduate work inmarine biology at Avery Point onLong Island Sound, with theUniversity of Connecticut. She has spent a year in Boston, as MIT junior faculty, divinginstructor, etc. Now living inMystic, medical practice,teaching hospital, affairs arealmost all-absorbing. We long fora sabbatical. Look us up andpropose one?”

1969JOSEPH P. BARATTA (A) gave anaddress, “World Government orGlobal Governance? The UnitedNations Project in HistoricalPerspective,” at a conference onU.N. reform in June in Turin,Italy. In 2006, he spent themonth of July in Siena studyingItalian: “Estata un ezperienzemolto utilo,” he writes.

MEREDITH (ARTIS) ANTHONY

(A) has published a thriller,Ladykiller (OceanviewPublishing, 2007), co-authoredwith her husband, LawrenceLight. “It is a dark tale of a serialkiller investigation set in NewYork City in 1991,” she writes. For more information, you canvisit her Web site at www.mered-ithanthony.com.

Breathing Deeply

Changes for ANNETTE TULLIER STAUBS (A75): “Afterseven years of managing my husband’s solo familypractice office, I am leaving the stress of the medicalbusiness to breathe deeply and have fun. Charles hasjoined Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin, where he willcontinue to practice family medicine and teach. I will

be free to pursue my avocations among the rolling hills and dairyfarms of central Wisconsin. I also plan to do volunteer work.” x

39



1970SHEILA BOBBS ARMSTRONG

(SF, EC95) is now on the college’sBoard of Visitors and Governors.“My oldest son, Ian, just gradu-ated from the Santa Fe campus,”she writes, and the two wereheaded on a trip to Bhutan andWest Bengal late last spring.“Still living in Bobbsville with myAussie husband, Mike, still trav-eling, still forgetting what I justread. Younger two sons doingfine—all’s well,” she writes.

This year, Alfred Knopf publishedNORA GALLAGHER’s (SF) firstnovel, Changing Light, which isset in Santa Fe and Los Alamosduring the making of the bomb.

SUSHEILA HORWITZ (SF) is still amember of the Madonna House, aCatholic lay apostolate. “I wasseven years in the far east ofRussia in a small city created toserve the needs of the Gulag. The people there were wonderful.I’m moving now to our house inEdmonton, Alberta.”

1971 GEORGE ELIAS (A) reports on thefamily: “My 26-year-old daughteris working as an apprenticefarmer in Northern California.My 15-year-old daughter attends aJesuit high school in San Fran-cisco, where her 12-year-old sisterhopes to join her next year.”

1972“Hope to make it to Home-coming this year. Number 35—wow!” writes CLAUDE

MARTIN (A).

1973MARY L. BATTEEN (A) has beenprofessor and chair of theOceanography Department at theNaval Postgraduate School since2001. She joined the departmentin 1984 and has enjoyed advisingmany Naval Academy graduates.She publishes papers on oceancurrents off west coasts includingNorth America, South America,Australia, and Europe.

1974ROGER BURK (A) is a visitingprofessor this year at the Centerfor Innovation in EngineeringEducation at Princeton Univer-sity, where he is developing acourse on space flight for non-engineering students. ROBIN

KOWALCHUK BURK (A72) hasstarted work on her dissertationon robotic informationprocessing at SUNY-Albany.

JEFF VICTOROFF (A) writes withnews of children. “Maia is justfinishing kindergarten and veryexcited about pony camp. Ivantore a memorable swath throughpreschool and is very excitedabout Hot Wheels demolition.”

1975CYNTHIA SWISS (A) is making acareer change: “After 30 years ofteaching music, I decided it wastime for a change. I am takingcourses to become a dietician. I have always loved cooking and Iwant to help people make healthyfood choices. On June 16 I willstart my new job at NorthwestHospital in Reisterstown, Md. I will continue my freelance workas a violinist and give privatelessons at home.”

1977LAURIE ALEXANDER (A) earnedher PhD in entomology from theUniversity of Maryland, CollegePark.

LORIN CUOCO (SFGI) producedher first audiobook, The Tunnel,as read by the author, WilliamGass: “Dalkey Archive Pressbrought it out in 2006. Forty-fivehours long, on three MP3 CDs.Historical, man,” she writes.

“My work with the AmericanSleep Apnea Association is goingwell,” writes EDWARD GRANDI

(A). “More active with the D.C.alumni seminar—great books,great people, good times.”

JIMMIE COLSON JACKSON (SFGI)was inducted into the District ofColumbia Teachers Hall of Famein May 2007.

1978“I completed my first triathlon,the Lake Placid Ironman, in July2006, and my second, theArizona Ironman, in April 2007,”writes ROBERT PERRY (A).

1982PETER B. GRIGGS (A) haspublished his first novel, No PinkConcept, available at xlibris.com.

“James Rowley and I married onJune 27, 2006,” writes KELLY

GENOVA (SF). “We are veryhappy. STEPHEN LOACH (SF) andhis fiancée, Sally Blixt, joined usto celebrate. I still practice law inAlbuquerque, as does James.Stephen teaches at UT-Pan Am.”

1984FATHER ROBERT NICOLETTI (SF)writes, “Many thanks for yourcorrespondence. Alumni havebeen very generous with mymission in Ukraine and I wouldlike to thank them. If anyone canstill help these orphanages,please consider it.”

DAVID WALWORTH (A) writesthat he and his wife, Michelle, arestill living in St. Croix, U.S.Virgin Islands. She recentlyreceived “tenure-in-waiting” asthere are not any tenure slotsopen at the university. “My navalarchitecture business is goingwell. The most recent project willbe launched in July this year inBristol, R.I. It is a two-foot owner-designed yawl. The ownerdesigned the lines and look of theboat; I did the structural engi-neering. We are in the earlystages of designing a house tobuild farther up the hill fromwhere we currently live. It will betotally off the grid. The land facesdead into the trade winds for windpower and at 17 degrees 44 minN, there is plenty of sun for solarpanels. Basically a West IndiesDanish cottage is the designinspiration.”

1985ANNA L. DAVIS (A) writes: “2007 was a great year! My son,Aaron Gordon, celebrated his BarMitzvah in May, and I graduatedfrom Johns Hopkins BloombergSchool of Public Health with aMaster of Public Health.”

MAGGIE KINSER (A), writing asMaggie Kinser Hohle(www.maggietext.com), moved toCalifornia in July. Her husband,Brad, took a position in digitalcinema at the headquarters ofDolby Laboratories in San

continued on p. 41


{ A l u m n i P r o fi l e }40

To be in the presence of MyraKrien (SF88) is to step into awarm, confident embrace, arare gift in this frantic world.It is a gift that she shares withevery person who steps

through the doors of Pomegranate Studiosin Santa Fe, founded by Krien in 1996. Here,women of all ages learn the art of bellydancing.

“Dance is a metaphor for living life,” saysKrien, who began belly dancing at the age ofthree. In the style of dance she teaches, theemphasis is not on one’s physical form, butrather on the creation of line and beautyachieved by focusing and disciplining thebody.

Krien is an acclaimed internationalperformer, a sought-after dance instructorand choreographer, and founder of fourdance companies. However, she is mostproud of the nonprofit youth developmentorganization that she established in 2001.SEEDS (Self-esteem, Empowerment andEducation through Dance) demonstratesthe power of dance to bring about positivechange. Each academic year, up to 25 youngwomen between the ages of 15 and 18 partic-ipate in Krien’s three-times-a-week after-school program. Teaching these womenAmerican Tribal Style dance, whichembraces the musical, cultural, and artisticinfluences of India, the Middle East, NorthAfrica, and Spain, is simply Krien’s startingpoint.

In designing her program, Krien shapedit to the needs of the teenage girls who grav-itated to her studio, many of whom couldn’tafford classes. Recognizing a need beyonddance instruction, Krien launched theprogram to help young women develop self-confidence, be ready to manage theirpersonal finances, and work toward theirgoals. Students credit Krien’s program withchanging their lives. “The studio is theirsanctuary,” she says.

Similarly, Krien’s four years at St. John’swere “totally life changing.” Born in SanFrancisco into a bohemian family (hermaternal grandfather was the philosopherand writer Alan Watts), Krien saw her lifechange after her parents divorced. To help

her family, she worked a variety of jobs,including pecan picking and performing.She graduated early from high school andfound herself out on her own at the age of15, supporting herself by acting and singing.She grew curious about the college thatmany of her high school friends wereattending. “I didn’t realize a school like St.John’s existed,” she says. With the college’semphasis on education through dialogue,“this was my family all over.”

On the day she received her acceptanceletter, she also received an offer to pursue asinging career in California. Two doorsopened to her, and she chose the oneleading to St. John’s. Krien sold her exqui-site belly-dancing costumes to help finance

her freshman year; scholarships and severalpart-time jobs saw her through the college.Upon graduation, she rededicated herself toher professional goals with an “absolutefocus and discipline” that she attributes toher college experience.

St. John’s helped her discover she couldtackle difficult things, such as running abusiness. She also found that the collegeteaches tolerance and helps each studentdiscover his or her “authentic voice.” Krien

A Metaphor for Life Myra Krien (SF88) Helps Young Women Gain Confidence

by Deborah Spiegelman

Dance is a gateway to self-exploration forthe young women who participate in MyraKrien’s SEEDS program.

continued on p. 41


{ A l u m n i N o t e s } 41

Francisco, after 16 years in filmsound in the company’s New Yorkoffice, so the whole family (six inall) is moving to Petaluma, inSonoma County. Maggie is happyto finally be leaving the winters ofthe Northeast behind, and to bemoving closer to most of herextended family, originally Californians, though she’ll miss“the city” (NYC), an environ-ment she really loves. Maggie willcontinue to write nonfictionpieces for magazines on designand architecture, as well asbooks, and may well finally beable to put into words her 15-yearadventure in Japan, too. AnyJohnnies in the Bay Area wouldbe thanked immensely forcontacting Maggie with anypointers on living and writingthere. Keep in touch with her:973-668-9446; [email protected].

1986KRISTEN CAVEN (SF) is “stillpassionately in love with books,”though she is now writing morethan reading. “I expect two booksand a musical to reach the worldin 2008,” she writes. “I evenlectured this year on antiquecookbooks! Johnnies arewelcome to visit my Web site atwww.kristencaven.com.”

GWENDOLYN J. CHEATHAM

(SFGI) has written a book titledGive Your Teacher This Note:Parents Say the Funniest Things,which can be found onAmazon.com. She recentlycompleted a seminar on Greek and Latin lyric at Harvard University.

BARBARA ROBERTS (SFGI)writes: “In the summers of 2005and 2006, I completed pilgrim-ages to the tomb-shrine, pilgrimcenter and disciples of AvatarMeher Baba, located in Ahmed-nagar, Maharashtra State, India. I continue to live in Denver,Colo., where I work as an elemen-tary special education teacher.”

1988THOMAS JEFFERSON BARLOW

(SF) is living in downtownDetroit, working as creative

director for Ford. This summer,William Heinemann ispublishing Sharp Teeth, Barlow’sepic poem about lycanthropesliving in Los Angeles (it will bereleased in the U.S. by Harper-Collins in early 2008). “But themost exciting news,” he writes,“is that Nora Barlow is enrollingat the Annapolis campus this fall.”

“Montana is beautiful! Hope tocomplete dissertation this year.Looking at use of ‘MathDialogues’ with high schoolstudents,” writes SUSANN

BRADFORD (SF).

ELAINE PINKERTON COLEMAN

(SFGI) has been writing andspeaking. Along with other localwomen writers, Elaine was part ofa reading titled “Dear Diary” in September at the Santa FeFilm Center. She later gave a

presentation of “A Journey on theRoyal Road into Mexico” at theTravel Bug in Santa Fe.

“My wife, Klara, and I celebratedthe birth of our son, Dimitry, onApril 29, 2007,” says SPYROS

RITSINIAS (A).

1990VIRGINIA BEHRENDS (AGI) did some traveling to take in two grandsons’ high school graduations last spring, one inSeoul, South Korea, and anotherin San Diego, Calif. “Son #1teaches for DOD, thus three tripsto Korea, a gem of a spot. Now heis in transit to Ramstein,Germany, so we are lookingforward to exploring Germany.”

KEN TURNBULL (A) is living inWashington, D.C., and now has asecond daughter, Zoe Turnbull,born on March 29, 2007, in addition to older sister Fiona.“My wife, Leslie, and I are doingwell,” he writes.

1991DEIRDRE ROUTT (A) representedthe Omaha Public Library on thePrecision Book Cart Drill Teamin the Cinco de Mayo Parade onMay 5, 2007, in Omaha, Neb.

ANNE SCHUCHMAN (A) andJAMES BERRETTINI (AGI93) aredelighted to announce the birth

adopted these benefits of the Program askey elements of SEEDS. “I want these girls to learn to take care of themselves, to esteem themselves, to make good decisions,” Krien says.

Krien sees young girls dealing withexploding emotional energy as well aspersonal crises. Not only does dance helpchannel this energy, but it also helps onelearn to respond thoughtfully, rather than

simply react to the apparent lack of controlin one’s life, she believes. Based on groupeffort, American Tribal Style dance is non-competitive. Girls alternately lead a partic-ular series of movements, thereby creating adance based on their contributions meshingtogether. “Everyone shines,” Krien says,and in this way, the dancers solidify theirsense of self and community.

This sense of community is reinforcedthrough the supporting elements of the

SEEDS program. After dance instructionthe girls take part in talking circles, verymuch like the seminars at St. John’s, Kriensays. Issues—whether personal or practical—are brought up in this setting as well as inone-on-one discussions with Krien. Overtime, the girls become comfortablerevealing their hopes and fears. “We talkabout what dignity means, what integritymeans, what community means,” Krien says. x

continued from p. 39

Missing Classmates

SABINE (SCHWEIDT) CRANMER (SF80) sends an update:“I am still living in Pennsylvania near Philadelphia withmy husband, Charlie, and now 11-year-old daughter,Lucy. Lucy will begin middle school at a nearby Quakerschool in the fall. We’ve been working on landscapingprojects, restoring a meadow and trying to grow vegeta-

bles. I work with a community-based open-space organization andtutor an Adult Basic Education student in reading, which I find veryinteresting. I finally gave in to my daughter’s pleas for a dog, and weare now raising a puppy for the Seeing Eye. In June we are hosting apicnic seminar for the Philadelphia Chapter of the Alumni Associa-tion. I wonder if I’ll see many people from other periods of myconnection to SJC? I miss my former classmates and wish you allwell, wherever you are.” x

continued from p. 40


42 { A l u m n i N o t e s }

of Veronica Mary on February 21,2007. She joins Sam (8), Stella (4)and Gus (2).

1992“I have recently moved from theParis area to Bucharest, Romania,where my husband has taken a jobin his brother’s business,” writesELYETTE (BLOCK) KIRBY (SF).“My children are now ages six,four, and two, and for once theyhave cousins in the same city. Welove living here and traveling inthe local area. If any Johnnies livenearby, we’d love to meet you.”

TAEKO ONISHI (SF) is setting upshop in New York: “I’m workingwith a team of educators andopening a new school inSeptember. Lyons CommunitySchool will be a 6-12 school inEast Williamsburg in Brooklyn.Check out our Web site atwww.brooklynhistory.org/education/lyonscs. Come visit!”

1993KWAKU ACHEAMPONG (A) spentthree weeks back home in Ghanalast June. “I am very astonishedby my observations,” he writes.“While many things and waysremain the same, some develop-ments have been haphazard.Private housing and commercialstructures are being erectedanyhow and anywhere. Land canbe found without proper plan-ning. Affordability has allowedthe operation of substantiallymore motor vehicles on theexisting, inadequate number ofroads. Unemployment andhousing shortages destroypeople’s dreams of the increasingaccessibility to modern tech-nology and lifestyles. Peace andstability, though, is assured.”

J. CLAIRE DARLING (SF) writes,“Life is good. No big news. I lovebeing self-employed as a massagetherapist. Preparing to take 4th kyu test at my Aikido Dojo.Finally learning to play guitar.”

KEVIN JOHNSON (A) reports fromMassachusetts: “After a longsearch, I’ve finally found a careerdirection that is both personallymeaningful and practicallysustainable. I begin a certificateof advanced graduate study inorganizational development thisfall. The past year has been verygood to me, bringing a better joband a new girlfriend. We’ll beshacking up shortly; who knows,maybe eventually she’ll make anhonest man out of me.”

1994JEFFREY LANE EDWARDS (AGI),now working in internationalrelations, married Jennifer

Dudley Keech on June 10, 2007,in Norfolk, Neb. They live inAnnapolis.

COLIN RAY (A) and Emiko Raywrite from Tokyo: “Our son,Thomas Michael Ray, was bornon January 8, 2007. Ourdaughter, Marina (24 monthsold), loves taking care of him. Sheis mastering her English andJapanese language skills.”

1996“I am in my second year as theDirector of Studies at theMissouri Military Academy,”writes FRANCESCO GIUSEFFI

(SFGI). “I recently earned amaster’s in education andcontinue to find enjoyment inteaching an honors Americanhistory class. I keep the speechesof Lincoln and Alexis deTocqueville on the minds of mystudents. Our cadets now studythe Latin language and can expecta heavy dose of Shakespeare in

their literature classes. I find thatmy education at St. John’s was avaluable experience for the work Inow do at the academy. My e-mailis [email protected].”

CHERYL HENEVELD (AGI)welcomes visitors to Vermont.“We have tons of books,” shewrites. “Would love to have agreat books discussion groupnearby.”

KATIE (THORN) HIGSON (A) andTed Higson welcomed a babydaughter, Ruby Thorn Higson,last year: “At 1, Ruby lovesreading and talking. Eating dirtalso ranks. To get in touch, [email protected].”

MARTY AND LUCILLE WALKER

(AGI) are living in Upper Marl-boro, Md., with their sons Ian andReese, ages 7 and 4. Marty isteaching at the Summit School inEdgewater, Md., and Lucille is anindependent consultant currentlyassisting local farmers.

1997KATE (GLASSMAN) BENNETT (A)lives in Las Vegas, where she is afreelance writer, specializing inpopular culture, fashion, enter-tainment, and celebrity for anumber of magazines. She is alsoeditor-in-chief of the new CityCenter Magazine, a luxury maga-zine devoted to MGM Mirages’massive $7 billion urban resortcomplex, currently the largestprivately funded constructionproject in the world. She’s still notsure how she feels about actuallyliving in Las Vegas, but after eightyears, it’s now become home. Sheand her husband, Cub, have avery inquisitive 2-year-olddaughter, Tess. Visitors [email protected].

STEPHEN CONN (SF) is happy toannounce that his Sgt.Pepper/Great Books Authors shirt, as

Santa Fe classmates trekked to Ugdanda to join friends andfamily for the wedding of Marie Craig (SF05, shown enjoying atraditional dance) and Christian Acemeh (SF05) this past July.



43

well as Rolling Stones’ GreatBooks shirt “Some Books,” are now both available for saleonline, on his Web sitewww.radioactiverabbi.com.

“My wife, Evie, and I had oursecond child, a girl, born on April22, named Caroline Elizabeth,”writes BRENTON HINRICHS

(AGI). “We reside in San Jose,Calif., where I am head of anindependent school in Los Gatos,called Hillbrook School. My wifeis a second-grade teacher at Hillbrook. I would love to hearfrom other AGIs from ’97. PatrickWager? Pat Knight? Bill Buysse?”

1998GLENNSCOTT COOPER (AGI)retired from teaching withMilwaukee Public Schools inJune. He is working full timewriting a novel and finished ashort screenplay for AvantGuardian films.

TIM WINSLOW (A) and CeliaMessing married in Washington,D.C., on Oct. 6, 2007. Celia is a graduate of The CatholicUniversity of America and thecousin of BEATRICE ROBBINS

(A98). Tim is a millionaire andowns 15 helicopters but still

welcomes your wedding gifts. Youmay congratulate him [email protected].

1999LORI KURTYKA (AGI) and herhusband, Mauricio Rojas,welcomed their baby boy, MatteoNicholas, into the world onFebruary 20.

PATRICK REED (AGI) and hisfamily are living in Germanywhere his wife is stationed withthe Air Force. They are expectinga second daughter this summerand welcome visitors.

2000ANDRÉ RODRIGUEZ (SFGI) iscurrently the staff attorney atYMCA International Services andteaches Introduction to MexicanAmerican Studies at the Univer-sity of Houston’s main campus.

2001PHILIP BOLDUC (SF) is servinghis second tour of duty in Iraq inthe U.S. Army. He is stationed inBaghdad.

“After briefly working for FannieMae in Washington, D.C., aftergraduation, I moved to my home-town of Chicago,” writes DANIEL

BRAITHWAITE (A). “I’ve had aflexible part-time job with a dot-com for several years whichhas allowed me to travel and tryout different things, includingkeeping up with aikido, farming,tutoring kids, and managing asmall commercial kitchen. I’d beglad to know who’s near me in theChicago area. I also visitAnnapolis regularly.”

JESSICA K. REITZ (A) isdelighted to announce hermarriage to Christopher R.Wallace on July 21, 2007. Jessicaand Chris live in Centreville, Va.,with their son, William, nowwalking everywhere, and theirtwo dogs, Bruce and Molly.Jessica was named Teacher of theYear for 2006-7 at James MadisonHigh School in Vienna, Va., andthis fall, she will continueteaching mathematics andcoaching crew for her thirdconsecutive year.

2002CHRISTIAN BLOOD (SF) iswriting his dissertation: “Oh!The secondary sources! Woe!”

LORI LYNN RUBELING (AGI) wasjust promoted to full professor ofArt at Villa Julie College inStevenson, Md.

2003ALAIN ANTOINE (SFGI) isenrolled in the Eastern Classicsprogram in Santa Fe.

SCOTT MCCARLEY (AGI) isteaching science, math, andGreek at a private school.

CHELSIA WHEELER (SF) joinedthe United States Foreign Serviceand spent the summer in trainingfor her first post, in Rangoon,Burma. She was studyingBurmese and planned a depar-ture in late August or earlySeptember.

2004TATIANA HARRISON (A) waspublished in Newsweek’s “MyTurn” online column in January.“I’m happily legally disabledbecause it gives me all the time towrite. I’m getting hand surgerydone over the summer, whichhopefully will result in less painand increased function. I’m alsoproud to be a member of ThirdHaven Monthly Meeting, aQuaker Meetinghouse in Easton,Md. My grandfather, Dr. DavidYesair, passed away on April 20.He’s a great loss for my family, ashe was a great man.”

A short note from CHRIS

HENDERSON (A) and GENEVA

HINKLE (A06), from SaratogaSprings: “We’re poor, buthappy.”

A New Direction

SARA BARKER (A98) writes, “A few months ago I wasrelaxing at my father’s farm and realized I wanted mylife to go in a new direction. So from New York—whereI’ve been working in theatre for the past three years—I’m moving to Washington, D.C., where I hope to usemy strengths and abilities to promote a more peaceful

world. Just recently, I accepted a position as the Communications& Development Coordinator at the Women’s Foreign PolicyGroup in Washington. WFPG (www.wfpg.org) is an independent,nonpartisan, nonprofit, educational membership organizationthat promotes global engagement and the leadership, visibilityand participation of women in international affairs. I’d love tohear from other Johnnies working in or interested in foreignpolicy: [email protected].” x

What’s Up?The College wants to hear fromyou. Call us, write us, e-mail us.Let your classmates know whatyou’re doing. The next issuewill be published in February;deadline for the alumni notessection is December 20.

In Annapolis:The College Magazine St. John’s College, P.O. Box 2800 Annapolis, MD 21404; [email protected]

In Santa Fe:The College MagazineSt. John’s College1160 Camino Cruz Blanca Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599; [email protected]


{ A l u m n i N o t e s }44

PAUL MCLAIN (SFGI) wasawarded the Master of Divinitydegree by Yale University on May28, 2007. He was named one of

the four student marshals who ledthe procession of Divinity Schoolgraduates during the commence-ment exercises. Paul is now a

Postulant for Holy Orders in theEpiscopal Diocese of Kansas. Aspart of his preparation andjourney toward possible ordina-tion as a priest, he is working as ahospital chaplain resident for oneyear at Wesley Medical Center inWichita. Ruthie McLain, Paul’swife, is coordinator of volunteersat Faith Home Health andHospice in Wichita.

2005CYNTHIA TOBIAS (AGI) playedLady Psyche, Professor ofHumanities, in Gilbert andSullivan’s Princess Ida. Shedonned her G.I. cap and hood forthe part. “I also designed theset,” she writes. “Psyche’sopening lines are: ‘If you’d climb

the Helicon/You should readAnacreon/Ovid’sMetamorphoses,/LikewiseAristophanes/And the works ofJuvenal./These are worth atten-tion, all;/But, if you will beadvised,/You will get them Bowd-lerized!”

2006CHRISTOPHER BENSON (AGI) isjoining the inaugural team of anew Christian preparatoryacademy in Santa Barbara, Calif.,called Providence Hall. “I willhelp in the design of an interdis-ciplinary curriculum based onthe great books and teach bothliterature and philosophy,” hewrites. x

Justice and the HumanComedy

JASON BIELAGUS (SF98) recently graduated from law school,was admitted to the New Mexico Bar, and began working asan assistant district attorney in First Judicial District in New Mexico. “In some ways it is a return to freshman yearand Plato,” Jason writes. “The Supreme Court has said aprosecutor’s job is not necessarily to win cases, but to see that justice is done. I spend a lot of time trying to figure

out what justice is and how it applies to a given situation. It’s anopportunity to try to apply practically a lot of what we talked aboutin freshman year. There’s a lot of Mills in it, too, in that the purposeof the system is to keep people from harming other people. It’s goodtrial experience, and prosecuting cases in Santa Fe and Españolahas given me some insights into the human experience, the humancomedy. A lot of the Española cases are funny and sad at the same time.” x

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

WILLIAM C. OWENS, M.D.Class of 1938

William C. Owens, an ophthal-mologist whose work helpedprevent blindness in infants,died on June 20, 2006, in San Antonio, Texas.

Dr. Owens graduated from St. John’s in 1938. He earnedhis medical degree from JohnsHopkins Medical School in1942, where he served on themedical faculty until 1953.While at Hopkins, he and hiswife, Ella, also an ophthalmolo-gist, made an importantdiscovery about retinal blind-ness in premature infants thatled to methods of prevention.Dr. Owens spent two years inthe army as assistant chief ofophthalmology at Walter Reed.In 1955 he opened a privatepractice in Easton, Penn.,retiring to San Antonio in 1971.He is survived by his son,William C. Owens, Jr.

DOROTHY ROUDEBUSH

Former Member, BVG

Dorothy Roudebush, a women’srights activist and journalist,died on July 4, 2007, inChesterfield, Mo., at the age of95. Mrs. Roudebush served St.John’s College as a member ofthe Board of Visitors andGovernors from 1969-1982.

A native of St. Louis, Mrs.Roudebush earned a bachelor’sdegree in English and theaterfrom Vassar College in 1932.She earned a journalism degreefrom the University of Missouriand joined the St. Louis PostDispatch as a feature writer.After her marriage to George S.Roudebush in 1936, she becamean educator. She taught Englishand directed publicity for theJohn Burroughs School. Later,she earned a master’s degree incounseling and became astudent counselor at Linden-wood College. Her many

accomplishments includedworking to repeal Missouri’slaw that prohibited marriedwomen from teaching in publicschools.

An ardent champion of equalrights for women, Mrs. Roude-bush worked to improvewomen’s access to family plan-ning services and served on theboard of directors for PlannedParenthood of the St. Louisregion. Planned Parenthoodhonored her by naming itsheadquarters in Maplewood,Missouri, the Dorothy Roude-bush Education Center andAdministration Office.

ALSO NOTEDGARNETT CLARK (Class of 1936),June 20, 2007JEREMY DAWE (SF01), January 15,2007AARON FOGARTY (SF94), May 20,2007OSCAR LORD (Class of 1940), July 17, 2007 EDWARD LEGUM (Class of 1938),August 17, 2007ELIZABETH JEAN MEISS (SF75),June 13, 2007WILLIAM OGDEN (Class of 1946),July, 26, 2006CHERYL RAMSEY (A68), January2007GUSTAVE RATHE (SF81), May, 23,2007PAUL SCHEMEL (Class of 1944),May 2007H.A. STAFFORD (Class of 1957),December 28, 2003DONALD TAUBE (Class of 1965),July 9, 2007RICHARD YOUNG (Class of 1949),March 21, 2007


{ A l u m n i P r o f i l e } 45

by Rosemary Harty

A Race Across AmericaAndy Mead (SF04) Rides for a Cause

There were morethan a fewmoments lastsummer whenAndy Mead(SF04) wondered

whether entering the RaceAcross America was such agood idea. Mead had joinedwith the seven other riders of“Team Type I” to compete inone of the toughest bicycleendurance competitions in theworld. The team set out notonly to win the relay race fromOceanside, Calif., to AtlanticCity, N.J., but also to drawattention to Type I diabetes, adisease Mead was diagnosedwith at age 16.

Taking his three-hour stintson the bike, Mead endured thedesert heat of Southern Cali-fornia and the thin air and coldtemperatures at 10,000 feet inthe Colorado mountains.Mead sprinted ferociously onvery little sleep—perhapsgetting 15 hours in five days. “I didn’t see how we couldkeep going,” he says. Whenthe team crossed the finish line in firstplace for their division, Mead was tooexhausted to enjoy the celebration. “I went right from the finishing line to thehotel and slept for eight hours straight,”he said. All told, Mead put in about 500 miles on his bike.

Mead is now in his third year of adoctoral program in physiology/molec-ular biology at the University of Pennsyl-vania. Throughout the winter, he rose at 5 each morning to get in at least fourhours of training before his classes orwork in the laboratory. His commitmentto the race was a strong one, inspired byhis own experience with the disease.

“When I was 16, I got very sick, andthey couldn’t figure out what was goingon,” says Mead. “Fortunately, I lived in atown with a very good hospital. Sincethen, I’ve had to keep a good eye on what

I eat and how I treat my body, but it’s notthat hard to live with.”

Treatment with insulin meant imme-diate improvement, but Mead had been ahockey player and very active as a youth,and he was initially concerned he’d haveto scale back. “We’ve learned that peoplewith Type 1 can basically do anything,”Mead says. “There are people who areafraid of taking risks with their bodies,afraid of participating in sports and exer-cising because of the fear of having lowblood sugar. It’s a real balancing act

between food and insulin andbut it’s manageable.”

Mead’s 13-year-old brother,Charlie, also has the disease,and Mead raced in part toinspire his brother to feel thathe can take on any challengesin his life. “A feeling of beinghandicapped and a fear of lowblood sugar can keep kids withthe condition from partici-pating in activities and devel-oping habits that would actu-ally help them live healthierlives,” Mead says. “Providing apositive example is the team’smost important purpose.”

Halfway through hisdoctoral program, Mead isconsidering a career inresearch or teaching. At Penn,he has been impressed with“all the brilliant minds” of the

university, but he’s glad he attended St. John’s instead of a traditional biologyor pre-med program. “The interestingthing to me is there aren’t that manyconversations going on in the biomedicalresearch world about the kinds of ques-tions we ask about science and what kindof thinking we’re doing,” he says.

Mead hoped to raise $4,000 for theJuvenile Diabetes Research Foundationwith his own 100-mile ride in September.Being part of Team Type 1 and raisingmoney on his own—even when it comeswith sore muscles and sleep-deprivation—is immensely satisfying, Mead says: “It’sreally the first time I’ve given back for allthe excellent care I’ve had, all the lessonsI’ve learned dealing with my own situa-tion as an athlete and student. I’m reallygrateful.” x

The Race Across America wasgrueling, but the opportunityto give back to those whohelped him cope with Type Idiabetes made the sacrificeworthwhile for Andy Mead(SF04).

“We’ve learned thatpeople with Type 1 canbasically do anything.”

Andy Mead (SF04)


{ A l u m n i V o i c e s }46

October 19, 2006Beijing is fascinating. Parts ofthe city are modern and West-ernized, and parts of it looklike something from a centuryago. It is amazing how manybicycles there are in the city. I considered getting one, butthe drivers here are crazy. I sawan entire family of four ridingon one little motor scooter!The first few weeks, I went toall the tourist places: theForbidden City, Beihai Park,the Summer Palace,Tiananmen Square. On one really interestingstreet, vendors sell bizarresnacks on sticks. I ate threescorpions and a centipede; thescorpions weren’t bad, but thecentipede was disgusting.

The private primary schoolwhere I was supposed to teachfirst and third-graders wasterrible. They have a set curriculum,which I thought would be good since Idon’t have experience. I could tell fromthe training that it was going to be bad,and when I started teaching it was evenworse. It’s rote memorization, and thekids don’t learn anything except pronun-ciation. They push the students to getthrough so many pages of reading anddon’t care if the kids really comprehendwhat they’re reading. My third-grade classread five sentences about a snail. When Iasked if they knew what a snail was, onegirl pointed to a nail in the blackboard.The first-graders were smart, could speakEnglish on their own, and were able tothink for themselves. The third-graderscouldn’t say anything except what theywere told to repeat.

When I told the school I was quitting,they threatened to fine me and keep mefrom working anywhere else in China.Even after they found a replacement, theywanted me to pay the fine, but I was on my

way to another job, at a university inHarbin. The Foreign Affairs officer metme at the train station and said they wouldtalk about a contract the next day.However, he sent his assistant to tell methat they didn’t want me after all—I wastoo young.

Then I met a high school recruiter fromSui Fen He, on the Russian border. Shesaid I could take the overnight train withher assistant, look at the school and thencome back the next night and think aboutit. I figured I had nothing to lose, and itwould be a chance to see another city.

But they had no intention of letting mego back and think things over! They leftme at an apartment that had no kitchen,no real shower, and running water lessthan half of the time. I decided to find myown way out and took a train out the nextday without telling anyone.

Fortunately the agency that found methat job sent me an e-mail telling me thatthey had jobs in Beijing. I had three inter-views and three offers, and decided to take

a job teaching writing and oral English atChina Youth University for PoliticalSciences, the university of the Communistparty. It doesn’t seem very “communist,”except that “youth leaders” from variouscountries come here all the time. I teachthree days a week, just 10 classes, withtwo groups of freshmen for the oralEnglish class and two groups of sopho-mores for writing. I really don’t knowwhat I am doing yet.

October 28, 2006 Last weekend, I went hiking with twostudents in Xiang Shan, the FragrantHills. The view was amazing. There werepeople all over the place and vendorsselling laminated red leaves, even at thetop of the mountain.

Letters from ChinaA Graduate’s Adventures Teaching in the East

by Susan Swier (AGI06)

Susan Swier (AGI06) used her breaks fromteaching to sightsee. She photographedthis temple in Quanzhou.

susa

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wie

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


47

Since I teach just three mornings aweek, I began tutoring: a group of fourbusinessmen and a seven-year-old boy—quite an experience since neither the boynor his mother speaks English at all. They come to my apartment and the boyruns wild most of the time, though hismother seems happy enough. Every otherweekend, I read stories to children at the Bookworm, an English bookstore and café.

Books are amazingly cheap here, atleast those printed in China, and most areclassics. The library on campus has a fairselection of English books, but untilyesterday I hadn’t been in because of theguard at the door. (There are guardseverywhere here, even at McDonald’s.)

One week, important party officialscame to inspect the school and the wholecampus was worried. Students weren’tallowed to leave and there was a meetingfor all the teachers that sounded quiteserious. We foreign teachers had to go,and the dean later summed up themeeting in just five minutes. Supposedlythe inspection went well.

December 10, 2006The university just informed me that Idon’t have an agreement with them toteach until July, but only until the end ofthe term. The dean said the writingstudents had complained about myclass. (No writing teacher has lastedmore than a term here.)

My oral English class was fine; thestudents were participating and seemedto like me. Unfortunately the writingclass went downhill. Though they haveimproved quite a bit since the beginningof the semester, they want to writeperfectly. Since they don’t, they blameme. They’re under a lot of pressurebecause they have to memorize anentire dictionary to prepare for an examnext semester. The Chinese educationsystem is so focused on memorization.For writing, I think they would like tohave a list of rules to memorize and setphrases to use that would somehowmake them write perfectly. Would I havedone better if I could have been moreauthoritative?

I lined up another job at a publicprimary school in Quanzhou, FujianProvince. The English program is run byAustralians, seems to be well run, and Igain a chance to see southern China.

December 24, 2006It doesn’t feel much like Christmas here,though some stores put up tinsel anddecorations. My freshmen threw a partythat was fun, but a bit strange. We atesunflower seeds, peanuts, and oranges,and played games: guess-the-Chinese popsong, musical chairs, and the three-leggedrace. There was a gift exchange at the end.The freshmen are a lot of fun, and I’ll missthem.

I tried to make Christmas cookiesyesterday only to find that the oven in myapartment doesn’t work. On Christmasday, another English teacher and I aregoing to watch It’s a Wonderful Life onDVD. And we bought real wine, which wehaven’t had in months. (Chinese winetastes like Kool-Aid.)

China is strange but fascinating, anincongruous mix of ancient and modernthings so close together. The people arefascinating too, though many are hard totrust. I’m reading Alice in Wonderlandright now, and there are definite parallels

to China: The cards painting the roses redso the queen won’t notice and chop offtheir heads is like the way people hidethings and help each other get away withthings. The Cheshire Cat says to Alice,“we’re all mad here. They’re mad, I’mmad, you’re mad. . .if you weren’t mad,you wouldn’t have come.”

December 31, 2006My freshmen had a going-away party forme in my apartment and gave me anumbrella because it rains so much inFujian. The train trip to Xiamen(Quanzhou is so small that it has no trainstation) took 36 hours because the trainhad to go through so many mountains. As we traveled further south, the wintercountryside gave way to spring. In thenorth, the cows have thick coats, but inthe south, they have sagging necks andhairless gray skin. I took a bus fromXiamen to Quanzhou, and arrived in theevening of my second day of traveling.

Quanzhou is a quaint city. Marco Polovisited the city, and it used to be amajor international trading port untilthe emperor forbid foreign visitors inabout the late 14th century. There is awide variety in the architecture, andtemples for nearly every religion, evenone of the last surviving Manicheantemples.

It is possible to walk anywherewithin an hour and a half, and thereare cheap motorcycle taxis every-where. They keep an extra helmet ontheir handlebars, and you flag themdown, haggle over the price, and jumpon the back.

I’m teaching in a private after-school program run by an Australian ata public school. Each class has 30-35students, and I am teaching kids fromfirst through sixth grades. Many of thestudents board at the school even iftheir parents live nearby because theparents work so much. Here the kidshave no shower, just sinks with coldwater. Perhaps because the kids don’tget enough attention, they areextremely rowdy in class.

March 5, 2007Happy Chinese New Year! During ourthree-week spring break I traveled all

Swier enjoys a night out in Beijing.

48


over China. I started in Guilin, Guangxi,where I visited Seven Stars Cave Park,which has an amazing cavern and wildmonkeys running everywhere. Though asign said “these lovely monkeys are verybad tempered and sometimes attacktourists,” I saw a small child feeding amonkey a banana right out of his hand.

The next day I took a train to Nanning,near Vietnam, and another to Kunming,the “City of Eternal Spring,” in YunnanProvince, a city famous for its flowers andfruit. I bought a half-pineapple on a stickfor just 50 cents.

That evening, I left on a bus for Lijiang,which has a beautiful Old Town that datesback to the Song Dynasty, almost 800years ago. Most of the inhabitants arefrom the Naxi minority group, and manywear traditional costumes. Every fewhours they performed traditional dancesin the square near my inn, and musicalgroups performed in the evenings.

Next I took a bus to the famous Shangri-La, which didn’t look exciting after all.Instead I tagged along with a Koreanfamily and went to Meili Snow Mountainnear Dequin, on the border of Yunnan andTibet. That was the most exciting bus rideI ever had—six hours, up and around themountains on narrow, unpaved roads,most of which had no guard rails. TheKoreans, two Chinese girls, and I decidedto go together to the mountain. We met aTibetan taxi driver who said she would

drive us there and back the next day, andoffered lodging in her family’s farmhouse.Nearly a dozen half-drunk neighbors weregathered in the house’s main hall to greetus. The girl’s father offered us some oftheir local alcohol in a brass kettle, wedrank several toasts, and they put whiteshawls on us to show we were honoredguests. After dinner, we danced to tradi-tional music.

It was raining the next day as we wentup the mountain on horseback, so werented raincoats and pants for the excur-sion. As we climbed higher, the rainchanged to snow. We went as far as thehorses could go and continued further upon foot before turning back. At the farm-house, they had just killed a pig that day,so the meat was quite fresh.

A trip to China wouldn’t be completewithout seeing pandas, so I went toChengdu, to the panda research andbreeding center there. In a setting close totheir natural habitat, there were redpandas, which look almost like foxes, andgiant pandas.

I took the train home to Quanzhou thenext morning: a 44-hour trip, and thoughI missed the New Year’s festivities, I couldsee fireworks from the window.

With just a few months left here inChina, I need to decide what to do next. Ijust finished applying to a literature PhDprogram at the University of St. Andrewsin Scotland.

April 27, 2007Well, I got fired. I can’t control 35 kids atonce; the little ones run wild, and theolder ones are bored and talk amongstthemselves. Since the classes are so large,and I have more than 200 students, it’shard to remember the children as individ-uals. Even first-graders spend the wholeclass talking amongst themselves, and Ican’t shout over them. I made one kidstand in the back and he started doingcartwheels back there.

Almost every month, I’ve had to givetests, and I can see the students are doingworse than when I started. I know nowthat I do not want to teach such largeclasses of small kids ever again! I have amonth’s notice, but after that, I don’tknow what to do. I don’t think it’s a goodidea to get another English teaching job,but at least the whole thing has been anadventure.

June 27, 2007It didn’t really hit me that I was leavingChina until I was at the airport. Afterstops in Bangkok and Seoul, I flew to LasVegas, where my aunt lives. It was strangeto hear people speaking English again andto see so many Caucasians. I haven’treceived scholarship funding to St.Andrews, so I’m not sure I can make itthis fall. I miss China, and I wouldconsider going back again.

I certainly don’t want to be fired again,though. x

Postscript: Susan Swier was accepted tothe doctoral program at St. Andrews, butwithout scholarship funding, couldn’tattend. She flew to Scotland to try to worksomething out, but when she had visatrouble, she headed back to China. “I’veaccepted a job at a private school teachingsmall classes of adults,” she wrote inSeptember.

She hasn’t given up on studying at St. Andrews, where she hopes to concentrate on Thomas Hardy.

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

Her freshman English students madeSwier feel at home with a Christmas partyin December 2006.

49


{ T h e T u t o r s }

In March 2007, I returned tonorthern China after an absenceof 18 years. From 1986-89, I hadtaught English literature andWestern philosophy at ShanxiUniversity, Taiyuan City, and

forged strong, intimate bonds with about100 inquisitive and idealistic youngpeople. It turned out that none of thosebonds had weakened through time anddistance. All these people remain myclose friends, and we picked up exactlywhere we left off, with discussions of lifeand books, and always over great foodand drink. Now of course my formerstudents are all in their 40s, with kids inhigh school or college, and they includeuniversity professors, teachers,managers, entrepreneurs, and transla-tors. One of the wonderful things aboutChina is the inviolable strength of thestudent-teacher relationship; I know thatwhen I am 80 and my former students are73, our bond will be unchanged and evendeeper.

On this trip I had been invited to give aseries of lectures on liberal education andgreat books, to upper-class undergradu-ates, graduates, and university instruc-tors. They were eager to hear about Plato,Aristotle, and Thucydides, and more than

100 undergraduates stayed late to hearme explain Shakespeare’s meter. TheAmerican teachers who pass throughChinese universities apparently do onlylanguage instruction and are usually notinterested in books. Consequently, thesestudents are hungry to learn how to thinkabout big things, to examine their ownideals, and to discover new worldsthrough reading. Their intense curiosityabout life outside China was very moving.

In visiting Taiyuan, Beijing, and some“smaller” cities, even on this short trip Icould see the bustle and energy of a huge

country engaged in seizing the economicleadership of the world: hard-workingpeople everywhere, roads bursting withaggressive cars and trucks (no longer thepeaceful tides of bicycles), deals made oncell-phones as people walked the streets,buildings going up everywhere, manycrowded restaurants. Service workers inrestaurants, hotels, banks and airportswere uniformly well-trained, efficient andfriendly; you could see in their eyes thatthey knew they were going somewhere.China is no longer a sleeping giant;indeed, the sheer life-force of this toiling,wide-awake giant is all too evident andsomewhat overwhelming. By the time Ireturned to the United States, it wasAmerica that seemed sleepily complacentand in decline.

Spend some time in China, and youwill wake up. And to all of you recent St. John’s graduates who already long forthe college and miss the conversationsyou are used to: The world out there is an interesting and exciting place; go bepart of it! x

Return to Shanxi

by Krishnan VenkateshGraduate Institute Director, Santa Fe

Above, The garden pavilion of a privatemansion in Shanxi. Left, KrishnanVenkatesh’s former students fromShanxi University reunite with theirteacher 18 years later.kr

ish

nan

ven

kat

esh


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

The homecomings this yearhave just concluded, and theenergy at both was revital-izing. I attended Santa Fe’s,where there was a wide arrayof activities for returning

alums. You could start the weekend with anart studio and winery tour, attend thelecture Friday night, choose from a range ofseminars Saturday morning, toast yourclassmates and the college at the banquet,and dance the night away in the Great Hall.

This year’s Santa Fe Homecomingbenefited from the active presence of ourcommunity of learning—current studentsand faculty, joined by returning alumni—sharing the energeia of the Santa Fecampus, made possible by shifting the event

from summer to a time when the campus isin full session. The college staff, consultingwith the Alumni Association, consideredthis change at great length over severalyears and announced this change in 2006.Like most changes, there were serious prosand cons to consider both as to changing theschedule and as to keeping things the same;unfortunately there was no single optionthat was ideal. In the end, after carefullyweighing those pros and cons, we thoughtthe benefits of having the full communitypresent was of great importance to theessential nature of a homecoming for the St. John’s community. To paraphrase DeanMora’s welcome to us: for the first time wewere coming home to the Santa Fe campuswhen the college was fully there, rather thanfinding a key under the mat.

More than 150 people signed up forHomecoming, one of the highest atten-dance rates in years. On Friday night,alumni were able to attend (or to skip)Friday night lecture and the time-honoredQuestion Period. On Saturday night, morethan 100 alumni and guests enjoyed a finedinner on the Meem Placita. When wemoved indoors to the Great Hall for thedance, the enthusiasm of the many studentsattending enlivened the event for all. Tutorsalso were present throughout the weekend,at cocktail parties, the picnic, and brunch.Students were excited to see alumni whowere not tutors: such strange beasts hadbeen rumored before but never observed inthe wild.

Annapolis also had a very fine Home-coming, with more than 400 attendees, anda full range of events.

On both campuses, the programming forchildren done by select students under thedirection of the alumni office, includinggames, babysitting, and “Future JohnnieSeminars,” encouraged more alumni tobring their families. We’ve heard from manyparents who love this relatively new additionto the homecomings.

One of the key lessons from this year’sschedule was that many alumni felt earlySeptember was too soon in the beginning ofacademic years. Next year, Annapolis Home-coming will take place September 26-28 andSanta Fe is scheduled for mid-October. As the college did this year, it will takeadvantage of the more attractive pricing of Santa Fe hotels in the fall to negotiateblock rates.

There have been many other great alumniprograms this year, both around the countryat our chapters and on campus through thePiraeus program. As the representativeorganization for alumni, we are driven byour mission to provide opportunities formore alumni to connect more often andmore richly. We will continue to strive tomake engagement with the college and ourcommunity a vital part of the lives of ouralumni.

Jason Walsh (A85)Alumni Association President

From the AlumniAssociation President

50

ALBUQUERQUERobert Morgan, [email protected]

ANNAPOLISBeth Martin Gammon,

[email protected]

AUSTIN/SANANTONIO

Toni Wilkinson, SGI87512-278-1697wilkinson_toni

@hotmail.comPaul Martin, SF80paul@martincapital.

com

BOSTONDianne Cowan, [email protected]

CHICAGORick Lightburn, [email protected]

DALLAS/FORTWORTH

Paula Fulks, [email protected]

DENVER/BOULDERTom Byrnes, [email protected]

HOUSTONNorman Ewart A85713-303-3025norman.ewart@rosetta

resources.com

MADISON, WIConsuelo Sañudo,

SGI00 [email protected]

MINN./ST. PAULCarol Freeman, [email protected]

NEW YORK CITYDaniel Van Doren, A81914-949-6811dvandoren@

optonline.net

NORTHERN CALIF.Reynaldo Miranda, A99415-333-4452reynaldo.miranda@

gmail.com

PHILADELPHIAHelen Zartarian, AGI86215-482-5697helenstevezartarian@

mac.com

PHOENIXDonna Kurgan, [email protected]

PITTSBURGHJoanne Murray, A70724-325-4151Joanne.Murray@

basicisp.net

PORTLANDJennifer Rychlik, [email protected]

SAN DIEGOStephanie Rico, [email protected]

SALT LAKE CITYErin Hanlon, [email protected]

SANTA FERichard Cowles,

[email protected]

SEATTLEJames Doherty, [email protected]

SOUTH FLORIDAPeter Lamar, [email protected]

SOUTHERN CALIF.Jan Conlin, SF85 [email protected]

TRIANGLE CIRCLE,NORTH CAROLINA

Elizabeth, A92 & Rick Ross, A82

919-319-1881Elizabeth@

activated.com

WASHINGTON, DCDeborah Papier, A72202-387-4520deborah.papier@

verizon.net

WESTERN NEWENGLAND

Peter Weis, SF84413-367-2174peter_weis@

nmhschool.org

St. John’s College

Alumni Association

Providingopportunities

for more alumnito connect

more often andmore richly

CHAPTER CONTACTSCall the alumni listed below for informationabout chapter, reading group, or other alumniactivities in each area.

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


Last January, the Alumni Association joinedwith the college in offering a new contin-uing education program, Piraeus. In June,the association’s secretary, Joanne Murray(A70), spent a long weekend revisiting theOdyssey with 17 other alumni in seminarsled by Annapolis tutor Eva Brann (HA90)and Santa Fe tutor David Carl.

Here’s her commentary on Piraeus.

Life in the Dorms

Jo Ann (Mattson A87, alumni director) is thebest hostess ever. In our dorm rooms she leftflowerpots filled with wine, cheese, choco-late, grapes, treats. Settling into a dormroom is like having a clean slate for theweekend, a real break from daily responsibil-ities. Part of the fun of the whole weekendwas living in the dorm and being aroundpeople that you’re going to run into whenyou’re brushing your teeth in the morning.

The ODYSSEY

I was being pretty diligent in getting thereading done, but I was still finishing thelast book right up to the last seminar. I stillhave the Fitzgerald translation that was verypopular when I was a student. This was thefirst time re-reading it since freshman yearwith Elliott Zuckerman. (It really is awful tohave to see the underlining and commentsone made as a freshman, isn’t it?)

Best Metaphor in the ODYSSEY

The night before Odysseus is going to takeout the suitors, he could not sleep. Herocked, “rolling from side to side, as a cookturns a sausage, big with blood and fat, at ascorching blaze, without a pause, to broil itquick: So he rolled left and right, casting

about to see how he, alone, against the falseoutrageous crowd of suitors could press thefight.”

The Seminars

We met in the Barr-Buchanan Center—thelibrary when I was a student—in the beautifulreading room. Of course, I knew Eva fromway back, but David Carl was a new acquain-tance who turned out to be an excellenttutor. He and Eva played back and forthacross the table with evident pleasure.

It wasn’t the same kind of discussion wehad as freshmen. The conversations aboutPenelope were memorable: What were thedifficulties of her position? Why did she haveto outdo Odysseus himself in ruses? Evenafter he and Telemachus had killed thesuitors, she had to test him one more timeabout moving the bed that he had built fortheir marriage. Only when he reacts to hersaying that the bed had been moved (“whatdo mean you moved the bed?”) can sheresume the marriage. How do you resume amarriage after so many years of separation?That’s something 18-year-olds don’t reallyknow much about, but at our age, now, wethink we know at least a few things aboutmarriage.

The Feasting

We had the campus to ourselves, and thechef made it a show-off occasion for thekitchen. He took out the crystal and thelinens, and there were flowers on the table.How was the food? It was not just betterthan regular dining hall food, it was really,really good food. It was food worth photo-graphing.

Saturday evening we made a pause in theseminar routine to feast on crabs down in

the boathouse. A few people said they’d hadbetter crabs, but they said it elbow-deep incrab shells. They kept piling them up ontheir plates. Jo Ann and her husband Walter(A87), Chris Nelson, and the tutors joinedus for the party.

We sat up talking in the common room,over a supply of wine and cheese that wasmagically replenished every evening. Wetalked about: what we’d been up to for thelast 30 years, jobs, life, politics, theeconomy, the country, intellectual passions,and favorite amusements. For me it was aparticular pleasure to see so many peoplefrom my class, and from classes a few yearsbefore and after us—people I really got toknow for the first time.

The seminar is central for many of us, butthat feeling of welcome—that’s what thecollege does so well. And that’s what madethe weekend so memorable. x

Left, treats in the dorm. Top, elbow deepin crabs. Right, Miss Brann and theauthor.

ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONAll alumni have automatic membership in the St. John’s College Alumni Association. The Alumni Association is an independentorganization, with a Board of Directorselected by and from the alumni body. Theboard meets four times a year, twice on eachcampus, to plan programs and coordinate theaffairs of the association. This newsletterwithin The College magazine is sponsored bythe Alumni Association and communicates association news and events of interest.

President – Jason Walsh (A85)Vice President – Steve Thomas (SF74)Secretary – Joanne Murray (A70)Treasurer – Richard Cowles (A70)

Mailing address – Alumni Association, St. John’s College, P.O. Box 2800, Annapolis,MD 21404, or 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599.

Down to Piraeus—in Annapolis


{ S t . J o h n ’ s F o r e v e r }

In 1957, a would-be archaeologistfrom Stanford University joined the faculty of St. John’s College.Though she loved Greek archae-ology and had been a member of the American Agora expedition in

Athens, the young scholar decided shewould rather spend her life “learning about the nature of things, instead ofdescribing objects.”

This year, when she sat down with herseminar partner to lead another group offreshmen through the Iliad, tutor EvaBrann marked her 50th year of teaching atSt. John’s. Miss Brann studied history atBrooklyn College, going on to earn a

master’s in classics and a doctorate inarchaeology from Yale University. When she came to St. John’s for her first visit, Miss Brann recalls, “It was love at first sight.”

Over the years she has served as thecollege’s first female dean, has writtenseveral books and articles, and has beenhonored many times over. When shereceived the National Humanities Medal in2005, presented by President George Bushin a White House ceremony, she character-istically turned attention away from herselfand to St. John’s. “I think the college hadmore do with this than me,” she said at the time.

At Homecoming this fall in Annapolis,Miss Brann was presented with aFestschrift, edited by tutors Peter Kalkavage and Eric Salem (A77). The Envi-sioned Life: Essays in Honor of Eva Branncomprises 23 essays from faculty from bothcampuses, friends, alumni, and AnnapolisPresident Christopher Nelson (SF70). The books is available from Paul Dry Booksin Philadelphia: www.pauldrybooks.com

The college has changed, and grown,and modernized somewhat since this photowas taken in the Coffee Shop in the late1950s, but St. John’s still concerns itselfwith the nature of things. x

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Seventy Years of Genuine Conversation

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{ A l u m n i E v e n t s C a l e n d a r }


Alumni Calendar PiraeusSt. John’s College, in cooperation with the Alumni Association, is pleased to offer Piraeus, a continuing educationprogram that alternates between the two campuses and combines seminars with social activities.

January 18-20, 2008Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote*January 18-20, 2008Santa FeLed by Henry Higuera and Cary Stickney (A75)

As the first modern novel, Don Quixote hada great influence over later authors, fromDostoevsky to Mann to Nabokov. Theprogram includes five seminars over threedays. Seminars will meet in the morningand afternoon on both Friday and Saturday,concluding with a final seminar and brunchSunday morning.

* The seminar led by Victoria Mora andPeter Pesic has been filled.

Cost: $250 per person, includes all seminars, receptions, and brunchSaturday night dinner compliments of theAlumni Association.Registration and payment deadline:December 21, 2007

Croquet St. John’s vs. The Naval Academy,AnnapolisApril 19, 2008

Homecoming, AnnapolisSeptember 26-28, 2008

Homecoming, Santa FeOctober 10-12, 2008

Clockwise: children in Santa Fe join in theHomecoming games; alumni in Santa Ferelive the glory days through old year-books and photographs; Joel Ard (A95) and son David enjoy a beautiful Saturdayafternoon in Annapolis.

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