SWARTHMORESWARTHMORE College Bulletin September 1999 COLLEGE BULLETIN • SEPTEMBER 1999 SWARTHMO Features Why Studio Arts? 12 Studio arts have taken their place in the liberal arts. By Vicki Glembocki Liberal Artists’ Gallery 16 Six Swarthmore artists show their stuff. Save the Males 22 David Page ’78 decodes the Y chromosome. By Carol Cruzan Morton Around the World for 30 Years 26 Watson Fellowships provide a personal challenge. By Laura Markowitz ’85 22

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On the cover: Nathan Florence ’94, a modern painter with a classic style, captures a perennial Swarthmore summer activity—construction work—in his 1996 painting, now in the collection of the College. The painting was photographed by Karen Mauch. See article on page 12 and the 4 artists’ gallery on page 16. RE

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12 Departments Letters 3 Everybody has an opinion. Collection 4 Alumni Profiles News and views from the campus. A diplomat’s eye 37 Alumni Digest 30 Ralph Fisher ’39 took his camera The Alumni Council and more. along on his foreign-service travels. Class Notes 32 By Audree Penner The lives of Swarthmoreans. Conscience of the Senate 45 Deaths 39 Franz Leichter ’52 won the respect of both parties in New York. Swarthmore mourns. By Terri-Jean Pyer ’77 Books & Authors 48 Alumni books. Maverick musical mavens 58 Beth McIntosh ’80 and Judith In My Life 54 Edelman ’87 take their songs Between two worlds. on the road. By Yosef Branse ’76 By Ali Crolius ’84 Our Back Pages 68 The making of The Crime. 68 By Woody Thomas ’51

16 54 Parlor Talk

n the long drive home, our minivan seemed awfully empty.Four of us had departed Delaware the day before with a brimming SWARTHMORE load of clothes, computer, stereo, sports equipment, linens, O COLLEGEBULLETIN lamps, books, and CDs.Now a cavernous vehicle was taking home a family minus one.For our first child at least, 18 years of day-in-day-out Editor: Jeffrey Lott parenting is over. He’s gone to college. As we drove north to Massachusetts, my head was spinning with Managing Editor: Nancy Lehman ’87 fatherly advice:Be sure to....Don’t forget.... You ought to.... Of course,I Class Notes Editor: Andrea Hammer didn’t actually say any of these things. By the end of a summer of Collection Editor: Cathleen McCarthy shrugs at parental wisdom about the college experience, we were way Desktop Publishing: Audree Penner beyond that.So I edited my words to the emotional basics as he unpacked his gear: “Stay in touch,” I said. “Take good care of your- Designer: Bob Wood self.... We’ll miss you.” Intern: Andrea Juncos ’01 I’m sure his head was spinning as fast as mine—only on a com- Editor Emerita: pletely different axis.He had his own thoughts about what he was Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 about to do, and a few hours after we arrived on campus, you could already see him start to change.He strode purposefully ahead of us Associate Vice President while we stood wondering where to go next.He seemed distracted by for External Affairs: our simple questions, as though he Barbara Haddad Ryan ’59 had already decided everything When we finally said that needed to be decided. And Changes of Address: good-bye, he hugged us when we finally said good-bye, Send address label along with new address to: lovingly, then bounded standing next to the empty car, he hugged us lovingly (even his broth- Alumni Records Office up the steps of his dorm er got one), then bounded up the Swarthmore College without a look back. steps of his dorm without a look 500 College Avenue back.As we drove away,I remem- Swarthmore PA 19081-1397 bered a moment that morning Phone: (610) 328-8435. Or e-mail: when another first-year student asked him where he lived.He had [email protected]. replied matter-of-factly, “I used to live in Delaware.” Change, of course, is what college is all about. At its best, the col- Contacting Swarthmore College: lege experience is a journey of self-discovery, intellectual awakening, and personal transformation—even falling in love. Who would send a College Operator: (610) 328-8000 www.swarthmore.edu son or daughter to college to graduate unchanged? The most profound changes come in the ways college students Admissions: (610) 328-8300 [email protected] think of themselves. For most, there is a wonderful moment when they realize that they can respond to the question:“Who are you?” by say- Alumni Relations: (610) 328-8402 [email protected] ing, “I am a scientist,” “I am a historian,” or “I am a writer.”Their answer might be different at different times—another happy result of Publications: (610) 328-8568 [email protected] the rich concentration of ideas and opportunities found at a liberal arts college—yet the first such epiphany is often the best because suddenly Registrar: (610) 328-8297 [email protected] all the others seem possible. For increasing numbers of students at Swarthmore, one likely World Wide Web www.swarthmore.edu answer is:“I am an artist.”The rise of the studio arts at the College is an example of how a liberal arts curriculum evolves. A stagnant The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN 0888- Swarthmore would never have embraced studio arts as part of its cur- 2126), of which this is volume XCVII, number 2, riculum, but a dynamic Swarthmore has.The strong department that is published in August, September, December, has emerged in the past 20 years only increases the depth and rich- March, and June by Swarthmore College, 500 ness of the College’s academic program. College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081-1397. Periodicals postage paid at Swarthmore PA and One of my unspoken pearls of parental wisdom was this:No matter additional mailing offices. Permit No. 0530-620. how you define yourself today, you can—and probably will—become Postmaster: Send address changes to Swarth- something else tomorrow. As for me, I started college as an English more College Bulletin, 500 College Avenue, major, but eight semesters later I graduated with a degree in studio art. Swarthmore PA 19081-1397. It doesn’t matter that I am now a magazine editor; the glory of it all is that change continues to be possible for me—and for Swarthmore. ©1999 Swarthmore College —J.L. Printed in U.S.A. on recycled paper

2 Letters

AHEAD OF HIS TIME edly Drew has After being ejected into I found the article on com- showed me spent mainstream society in 1995, puting at Swarthmore (“Digi- a new tool many I’ve found increasingly fewer tal Dancing,” June 1999) grat- he’d just hours this opportunities to goof off in ifying. Kudos (and thanks) to compiled— year train- the real world. the faculty and staff for their called an ing faculty Rather than addressing continued work in sensitive- “http serv- and stu- the fact of student frivolity, ly—and sensibly—integrat- er”—and dents on Stulman’s critical energies ing the computer into aca- predicted the system might be better directed demic life. that revolu- as well as toward understanding the I’d add recognition of the tionary teaching root cause and dangerous architect of this rich comput- things video pro- trajectory of the expression ing environment, Professor would come duction of frivolity at Swarthmore. of Physics John Boccio. Ten from it. (To workshops Have the Tarble pool tables years ago, the concepts of set the con- to stu- been replaced by worksta- campuswide networking, an text proper- dents in a tions because of the Astrono- Internet connection, univer- ly, at the broad my Department’s insatiable sal faculty and student time there were a total of 17 range of disciplines. techno-lust? Have macroeco- access to computers, and Web sites worldwide.) He Many of us work behind nomic trends caused a their use across the curricu- then set about fixing a few the scenes here. That’s how decline in community-build- lum were not simply consid- bugs in the code. I had as we know we’re successful— ing drug and alcohol abuse? ered novel—they were fine an education working for when our work is invisible. Has political pressure moved viewed by many Swarth- him in the Computing Center But sometimes it’s nice to be fraternities to bring up chat moreans as bizarre, overly as I did in four years as an noticed. rooms and multiuser role- expensive, and possibly undergrad. He taught me— SUSAN SMYTHE playing games, thus straying damaging to the liberal arts and the College—to put Managing Director from their historic dedica- tradition. visions through the hard Lang Performing Arts Center tion to conviviality and swill? John Boccio saw comput- tests of engineering reality Alumni have an ongoing ing as a fundamental tool, and real-world use. PLAYING CARDS responsibility to ensure that part of an important evolu- MATTHEW WALL ’86 I read with interest about these premonitions never tion of that tradition, and Pittsburgh The New York Times op-ed come to pass—that within insisted that it be made avail- by Nate Stulman ’01 decrying Swarthmore’s evolving able to all students and facul- WHERE CREDIT IS DUE the excessive amount of time canon of Chinua Achbe, ty. As associate provost for It was with great excitement wasted on college campuses Immanuel Kant, Naomi Wolf, computing, he put together a that we opened the June fooling with computers (“Dig- and William Shakespeare, comprehensive plan to real- issue of the Bulletin, featur- ital Dancing,” June 1999). All there’s still a place for ize this vision and oversaw ing “Digital Dancing.” We had I could wonder was: “Don’t Jonathan Swift and the much of its initial implemen- all worked with Sasha Welsh people play bridge any- movies of Chris Farley. God tation. The infrastructure he ’99 [featured on the cover] more?” Give Mr. Stulman a help us if computer gaming built—and the expectations on various phases of her ride back to the 1960s so he should ever replace that. of excellence he set at the choreography and indeed can observe firsthand that JUDE O’REILLEY ’94 time—has enabled the array had orchestrated the viewing even though we lacked com- Seattle of activities described in the of her computer piece in the puters, we still found incredi- article. theatre for the Spring Dance bly creative ways to avoid INSULT TO THE COLLEGE If it seems strange today Concert. studying. Ulan McKnight’s [’87] letter that universal computing In an article detailing the BETTY C. DUCKMAN [“Who Benefits?”] in the June was viewed with suspicion work of faculty members (Parent of Jamie Duckman ’98) Bulletin offended this old, less than a decade ago, it’s Miguel Díaz Barriga, Ann Long Beach, Calif. white alumna. His extreme an indication of the practical McNamee, Sharon Friedler, condemnation of Swarth- success of this vision. Boc- and others, I was disappoint- GOOF OFF NOW more’s efforts to increase the cio’s contribution to the Col- ed to see no mention of the Nate Stulman’s New York number of students of color, lege may ultimately be as work of the Media Services Times op-ed exposing the unsupported by any evi- fundamental and lasting as staff. The staff, Drew Mether- entertainment-obsessed dence, is a gratuitous insult any made to the academic all in particular, contributed computing underworld at to the College. program. materially to all of the pro- Swarthmore will surely find a He asks: “Why can we not Success like this also jects mentioned in the arti- receptive audience among bring our own culture, our comes from details as much cle. Drew did much of the the four-miles-to-school- own values, our own as grand visions. I vividly research that led to buying each-way crowd, but you can desires?” Of course, we all recall the occasion, seven the College’s new digital count me out. I regret not bring our own cultures, years ago, when John excit- video system. In addition, goofing off more at college. Please turn to page 66

SEPTEMBER 1999 3 Collection THE COLLEGE TODAY

t began much like any other Swarthmore commence- ment, with seniors fishing roses from buckets of water and posing for pictures in the rose garden. Unlike recent Commencement ’99 Igraduations, however, relentless sunshine took the place of “I declare to you this morning: We have showers. Mingling in front of Parrish Hall before the cere- been baptized by an education mony, faculty dabbed at their faces, and many students wore their robes open, exposing signs of the times: clunky that would have killed a large pony.” black platform sandals, nose rings, Nike sneakers. Many carried balloons, handing them off to President dialogue. We are at the End of All Things Known, and it Alfred H. Bloom as they took their diplomas. Engineering does not need a response board; it demands action. So, to students carried handmade traffic signs instead—“dead all of you who had something to say about majoring in reli- end,” “deconstruction zone”—alluding to renovations going gion: ha! I have learned to see the future, and though it is on around campus. jobless, I will be ready.... I declare to you this morning: We have been baptized by an education that would have killed Eve of the millennium a large pony.” Gathered in the dappled As the cheers subsided, Stevenson abruptly changed the light of the Scott Amphithe- mood with a dramatic eulogy for several deaths that had ater, students cheered for touched this class, including Carl Wartenburg, the late dean Tyler Stevenson, a religion of admissions; Michael Durkan, the late College librarian; major from San Diego cho- Gabriel Cavallari ’97; Duncan Kirkpatrick ’98; and 13-year- sen to address his class- old Josh DuBee, brother of classmate Alex DuBee ’99. mates this year. Stevenson got things off to a rousing Straight to the heart start, reducing the crowd to Receiving one of three honorary degrees was Margaret near hysteria with a satiri- Allen ’70, who left Swarthmore with a degree in zoology and cal Armageddon speech. went on to become the first woman in history to perform a “We are at the eve of the heart transplant, founding the first heart transplant pro- millennium. And I do not gram in the Pacific North- speak of VCR failure, of e- west at the University of mail apocalypse, of this Washington. She does foolish Y2K concern. Today research in cardiac gene we sit here as a desperate therapy and works with hope, as a body that has the Inuits and local Senior speaker Tyler Stevenson survived four years of the African-American and life of the mind, as a body Asian-American commu- grown strong through labor and tuition.... nity health organizations. “We have lived with each other for four years; have bro- Attempting to modern- ken bread; have shared beds. Together we have staved off ize a remote hospital in the plague, grief, duress, and those unlit police ‘stealth’ Papua New Guinea, she bikes. We know how to take care of our own. The question noticed the village lead- is whether or not we can carry this compassion into the ers wore necklaces of dark valleys outside, where backyards are not arboretums, bamboo rods, commemo- and there is no cappuccino bar in the living room. rating donations they had “Swarthmore is a wonderful teacher for relativism and made. “In Seattle, where I discussion, but comets and brimstone will not be halted by live, Bill Gates would be a Heart surgeon Margaret Allen ’70

4 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVEN GOLDBLATT ʼ67 big chief,” she said. “In our society, individuals are revered “There are more hard problems than there are good peo- for what they ... keep, not what they give away. Now, which ple,” he stressed, adding: “Return to Swarthmore often. of the two societies is the most primitive culture?” Come in the spring and smell the lilacs. Bring money with As a surgical resident at Stanford, she set out to teach a you. And if you should wander off and settle in some gorilla sign language, only to find the gorilla knew more strange land, like Equitorial Guinea or California, and you signs than she. “Many of you may have visions of helping can’t get back to campus, just send the money.” others in your life,” she concluded. “Instead of helping peo- ple, you need to be striving to learn ... from every situation, Benign subersive to become the perennial student. This attitude will make President Bloom called Robert Kuttner’s “one of the most you wise. Unfortunately, it also means you’ll never really clarifying and appreciated voices in the arena of American graduate.” social commentary.” Kuttner, who edits The American Prospect, has written for The Village Voice, The Washington Public servants wanted Post, Business Week, and The New Republic, founded the “When you meet someone and exchange pleasantries about magazine Working Papers for a New Society, and served as where each of you went to college, struggle as best you can chief investigator for the Senate Banking Committee. Unlike to be humble,” instructed Christopher F. Edley Jr. ’73. “I the other speakers, Kuttner did not graduate from Swarth- have failed at this,” he more but from Oberlin—which gave him an added edge said. Edley Jr. went on to when he said: “I want to take a moment to commend to you become a professor of the role of outsider.” law at Harvard Universi- “My own career has followed a twisting path, the path of ty, where he edited the what Albert Hirschman called the trespasser,” he contin- Harvard Law Review and ued. “I write books and articles about political economy co-founded its Civil and play an economist on television, having taken exactly Rights Project, which he one economics class.... I am finishing a book about psychol- now co-directs. He ogy and family relations, whose concepts I learned mostly served under Jimmy from my wife. Carter, worked in the “But there is something exhilarating about being an out- Office of Management sider. Thinking outside the box becomes second nature and Budget for the Clin- because you are ton administration and never in the as special counsel to the box.... Most of president. There, he led you will pursue the review of affirmative Law professor and presidential more conven- action, producing his adviser Christopher Edley Jr. ’73 tional career “mend it, don’t end it” paths than I did. policy, and he is now helping Clinton write a book on racial But even within justice. the professions, At Swarthmore, Edley Jr. said: “I learned to face the lim- you can be con- its of my intelligence, without fear. I learned what it means structive, to really understand something hard, only to realize that I ecstatic out- was dead wrong, or that there was another, perhaps better siders, and way to understand it.... And I learned that when there is benign subver- trouble, find a grove of lilac bushes, lie down, get drunk on sives—by hold- the fragrance, and think about important things.” ing on to what Journalist Robert Kuttner (right), with Richard He recommended his own passion, public service. matters.” Valelly ’75, associate professor of political science.

SEPTEMBER 1999 5 Collection

Ethical Intelligence By President Alfred H. Bloom Following are the remarks of President Bloom to members of the Class of 1999 at their Commencement on May 31.

n my inaugural talk seven years ago, I identified ethical intelligence as one of the distinctive goals and tri- Iumphs of a Swarthmore education. Since that time, the term has gained some currency in this community, and I have seen consistent evidence from the Class of 1999, and from each of its pred- ecessors, of the development of those very habits of person and mind to which that term refers. I thought it ʼ 67 important to speak to you today about what I mean by ethical intelligence and about why Swarthmore takes such pride in its students’—and its gradu- ates’—practice of this highly construc- STEVEN GOLDBLATT tive and responsible approach to ethi- President Alfred H. Bloom returned to themes first expressed in his 1992 inaugural address cal decision-making. during his speech to the Class of 1999. He is flanked at the ceremony by Robert Gross ’62, The roots of your own practice of dean of the College, and Sue Welsh, the College’s treasurer. ethical intelligence lie in the analytic abilities and values you brought with you to Swarthmore four years ago— cal arguments, or interpret an artist’s appreciation for the tolerance of uncer- credit for which goes in large measure intent, you repeatedly came up against tainty and for the embrace of complexi- to the careful nurturing supplied by a world in which the choice of the right ty that intellectual advance exacts. those wonderful people sitting behind explanation or the right interpretation Over the past four years as well, you you. Then your academic training and was not as clear as you may have have consistently asked of yourselves your experience of this intentionally expected it or wanted it to be—a world that you not only add, but add in some ethical community began to wield their in which your initial assumptions were fresh and important way, to what has formative effects. challenged by complicating information already been thought, expressed, or Amid the rigors and exhilarations of and unanticipated perspectives and proved. Through responding to that your academic work, you developed a that offered no clear-cut solutions in continuing challenge, you have refined prodigious knowledge base and an their place. your own sense of which intellectual extraordinary range of intellectual In response to these salutary questions are most meaningful to ask skills, including the ability to draw sub- encounters with ambiguity, you devel- and your own criteria for deciding tle distinctions, the ability to gain per- oped the habit of approaching intellec- which insights and findings count as spective from others’ perspectives, and tual problem solving through suspend- significant. the ability to identify the conclusions ing certainty and proceeding to identi- The intellectual habits you have that a body of evidence does and does fy, engage, and test the full range of thus developed—suspending certainty, not support—each of which plays a possible explanations or interpreta- engaging ambiguity, and distinguishing critical role in the practice of ethical tions of the data at hand, before making significance—represent, I believe, the intelligence. a judgment. Further, you came to recog- central contributions of fine academic You also developed two additional, nize that even after that work is done, training to the practice of ethical intelli- perhaps less obvious, intellectual the evidence you have gathered will gence. And, prompted by a community habits that are fundamental as well— likely not resolve all ambiguities and that identifies itself as much by its com- namely, the readiness to suspend cer- that, therefore, you, rather than the mitment to values as by its commit- tainty and to engage ambiguity in the data, must bear responsibility for the ment to intellectual quality, you have search for truth and the determination judgment you make. applied these very habits to ethical to ask of yourselves contributions of Moreover, that recognition of ambi- practice. significance. guity and that acceptance of responsi- By suspending certainty regarding As you sought to explain experimen- bility have not diminished your com- ethical positions that you once defend- tal results, define the causes of histori- mitment to the advance of knowledge. ed without qualification, you have cal events, clarify complex philosophi- Rather, they have only heightened your allowed yourselves to discover that

6 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN ethical decision making is far more ship abroad; to how a developing By your practice of ethical intelli- complex than you expected or wanted nation should balance commitment to gence, you will distinguish yourselves it to be. You have seen in the actual the environment against responsibility from those who subordinate ethical dilemmas of ethical life that, more often to open economic opportunity; to how concern to their own self-interest; and than not, the principles that motivated free science should be to experiment you may very well find yourselves dis- your initial stands compete with other with the creation and design of life. missed by such individuals as impracti- principles you value as deeply and that You have also brought these respon- cal and idealistic. But you know that actions you defended on the basis of a sible habits of ethical judgment to ethical vision and resolve can change single principle alone have been com- issues facing our own community, to the world—just consider the progress promised in their ethical integrity by issues ranging from how this College in racial, gender, and sexual orientation questionable effectiveness or by the should balance a commitment to equity equity achieved over the past 30 years. harm they visited on other values that in its offers of financial aid against a By your practice of ethical intelli- you did not recognize were also at play. need to respond to market pressures; gence, you will also distinguish your- In response to these salutary selves from those who argue from sin- encounters with ethical complexity, gle-principled stands and who, in often you have developed the habit of adversarial and alienating ways, protect approaching ethical decision making what they see as the “ethical purity” of through eliciting, identifying, and Responding to their positions by refusing to consider engaging the full range of principles at confounding complexities and alterna- stake as well as the constraints and multidimensional tive views. And you may very well find opportunities inherent in the situation yourselves branded by these individu- at hand, before making a judgment. issues in als as indecisive, ethically weak, or too And you have come to expect that, willing to compromise. even after that work is done, your judg- multidimensional But responding to multidimensional ment will likely still require a complex issues in multidimensional terms is not act of evaluation, synthesis, and cre- terms is not compromise. Failing to examine the full ativity, including the shaping of a value implications and consequences of response that not only respects the compromise. a position is. principle of highest priority, but also Furthermore, your readiness and reflects to the extent possible the other Failing to examine responsibility to appreciate the ways in principles at play and is most likely to which other points of view speak to succeed in generating the conse- the full value truth will equip you particularly well quences you intend. Your judgment will for reaching out to those who argue be one for which you, rather than any from single-principled stands and for single ethical principle, must bear implications establishing with them areas of com- responsibility. mon ground—common ground from Furthermore, your recognition of and consequences which you can then draw them toward this ambiguity and acceptance of this that greater acceptance of ambiguity responsibility have not diminished of a position is. and complexity that turns conten- your ethical resolve but rather tious advocacy into constructive dia- anchored that resolve in a context of logue. examined complexity that only As you assume positions of leader- strengthens its resilience. to whether and when it should support ship across the spectrum of American In turn, you have brought these activities in which participation is and international life, your practice and developed habits of ethical judgment to restricted along the lines of gender, modeling of ethical intelligence will bear on issues we face as citizens of race, or ethnic group; to whether help sustain our societies and world on this nation and the world, on issues respect for diversity in religious beliefs courses that are at once effective and ranging from whether our society requires deleting the phrase “in the ethically responsible. And you will should prescribe preferences based on year of our Lord” from the Swarthmore demonstrate the fundamental contribu- race in the short term to promote equal diploma. tion that fine undergraduate education opportunity in the longer term; to And, by working through these makes, not only to both success in whether it has the right to interfere dilemmas of ethical principle and prac- careers and to intellectual advance but with an individual’s decision to take his tice, you have defined more clearly for also to distinguished ethical leadership. or her own life or to assist another in yourselves the ethical ends you see as Warmest congratulations, Class of that act; to under what conditions the most important to pursue; and you 1999! Swarthmore is deeply proud of use of force can be justified in the inter- have, as in the intellectual realm, begun your intellectual, ethical, and personal national arena and whether a nation to factor that clearer sense of signifi- achievements and wishes you every that tolerates unconscionable poverty cant ends into the particular judgments satisfaction and happiness as you build at home can presume to ethical leader- you make. upon them.

SEPTEMBER 1999 7 Collection

Managers approve plan the College’s most historic building. Under the plan, Parrish for Swarthmore’s future would remain a multipurpose building, with student resi- dence halls, administrative offices, an admissions center, n what President Alfred H. Bloom called “a meeting of his- and increased space for student activities and organizations. toric importance,” the College’s Board of Managers on Before renovation of Parrish could begin, the CPC deter- May 1 endorsed a long-range plan that includes the mod- mined, a new residence hall would need to be built to house Iernization of the College’s science facilties, the long-awaited the students who currently live in the upper floors of renovation of 135-year-old Parrish Hall, the construction of a Swarthmore’s original structure. Once students moved back new residence hall, and several important initiatives in aca- into a renovated Parrish, the new dormitory would be used demic and student life. to alleviate crowding in some current residence halls and to The plan, which was completed by the College Planning eliminate undesirable rooms in areas such as the basement Committee (CPC) in the spring, is the result of two and a half of Mary Lyons. Additional residence hall beds would not years of study by a broad-based group that included mem- mean an enlargement of the student body beyond its current bers of the faculty and staff, students, alumni, and members average of 1,375—an enrollment target affirmed by the Board of the Board. In presenting the major elements of the plan, in March. Other “student life” proposals include the follow- Bloom told the Board: “We must do this … to sustain and ing: advance the quality of this institution.” • Further renovation of Tarble in Clothier, the hybrid stu- The CPC plan will likely commit the College to raise more dent center that currently occupies most of 80-year-old than $200 million in new funds, well over Clothier Hall. half of which will go to academic programs • New programs to support campus and facilities. Among the highlights: diversity and intercultural understanding, • The DuPont Science Building, first including funds for an Interfaith Center opened in 1958, will be renovated and and other religious activities not currently expanded to become a state-of-the-art funded by off-campus resources. teaching center for Departments of Chem- • Increased support for the Office of istry, Physics and Astronomy, and Mathe- Career Planning and Placement, including matics and Statistics. Renovations to Mar- new outreach to potential employers and tin Hall, home of the Biology Department, increased use of job-search technology. would complete the upgrade of the Col- • A campus “Learning and Teaching Cen- lege’s science facilities. ter” that would coordinate academic sup- • The College will dramatically increase port for students and offer encouragement its support for faculty leaves, which give for pedagogical innovation by members of professors time away from the classroom the faculty. to concentrate on scholarship and curricu- A final “institutional” section of the CPC lum development. Most tenured or tenure- plan addressed several College-wide track faculty members receive a single needs. It called for a significant investment semester of leave every fourth year, but GEORGE WIDMAN in endowment for the periodic replace- only eight are currently eligible for Col- A complete renovation of Parrish ment of crucial computing, instrumenta- lege-funded two-semester leaves. The Hall is among the plans approved tion, and media resources. It also designat- ambitious CPC plan increases that number by the Board of Managers. ed new funds to maintain the College’s his- to 25. It also envisions College support for toric commitment to need-blind financial what is being called the “Swarthmore Institute,” a program aid and to enhance the ability of the Admissions Office to that would bring leading scholars to campus for speaking reach new populations of potential Swarthmore students. and research. No exact timetable was announced for the implementa- • The plan calls for Swarthmore’s curriculum to be tion of the long-range plan, but Dan C. West, the College’s enhanced by the addition of new teaching positions in such vice president for alumni, development, and public relations, areas as computer science, education, and political science— said that work is under way toward a capital campaign that disciplines where increased enrollment has put pressure on would extend over five years. Architects and engineers are existing programs. New curricular areas to be explored currently studying building options and developing cost esti- include cognitive studies, Islamic studies, film and media mates, with the first phases of construction likely to begin studies, and Japanese language instruction. within three or four years. • McCabe Library, opened in 1968, would see significant President Bloom closed his remarks to the Board with a renovations to improve its capacity to serve students in a call to action: “This College, through its very success, offers technology-based learning environment. proof that institutions and societies can ask of themselves • Other academic proposals include increased support for the most demanding and significant goals—and that they the revitalized Honors Program, for student summer can achieve them. We have spent two and a half years identi- research, for athletics, and for efforts to recruit and retain a fying the elements essential to sustaining and advancing the more diverse faculty. quality and preeminence of Swarthmore College. We cannot Under the heading of “student life,” recommendations fall short in meeting its needs.” adopted by the Board include the renovation of Parrish Hall,

8 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Lean on them irls—especially white, upper-class girls—learn early on that their angry responses are unacceptable,” Lyn Mikel Brown, author of the book Raising Their Voices: TheG Politics of Girls’ Anger, told the audience at a recent cam- pus conference. “Good girls are supposed to be calm and quiet. They don’t directly express anger; they don’t shout.” It seems the rites of passage haven’t changed dramatically since Rebel Without a Cause hit the cinemas—except that Natalie Wood is acting out instead of cheering on Jimmy Dean. At least, that’s what Brown, associate professor of educa- tion and human development at Colby College, would like to see. So would the women who coordinated this conference, called “Lean on Me: Educating and Mentoring Adolescent Girls,” two weeks after graduating in June, long after most of their classmates were gone. Six were freshmen when they came up with the idea for the Summer Community Learning Project (SCLP), a mentoring program for adolescent girls. For them, the conference was as much a culmination of their four years at the College as Commencement had been. In 1995, Nicole Breazeale, Chloë Dowley, Kirstin Linder- mayer, Andrea Meller, Mandara Meyers, and Erica Turner, then freshmen, set out to form a community of local girls from all socioeconomic backgrounds and help them estab- lish positive gender identification and self-esteem. In the process, they designed a formal (and sometimes not so for- mal) summer curriculum, put on an original performance Conference attendees (left to right) Rebekah Adens, piece using the girls’ voices and stories, painted a mural and Sasha Joseph, Madonna Green, and Parul Vora compare wrote a book commemorating “the community of Swarth- notes outside the Friends Meetinghouse. more women,” taught an education course called Educating and Mentoring Adolescent Girls, and presented their work at blacks and whites. At SCLP, these girls can explain them- local conferences and community meetings. Over the years, selves to one another.” SCLP received several grants and this spring was awarded The middle school years are the most formative time in the Naomi Kies Award for community service. girls’ lives, the students discovered, the point where young About 40 people filed into the Friends Meetinghouse for women begin to lose a well-developed sense of self and the conference, only two men among them. Most seemed to descend into a spiral of silence and self-doubt. “We decided know the SCLP coordinators. Many had teenage daughters to look for a group of rising fifth- through seventh-grade who had been enrolled in the summer program, and others girls, aiming to find individuals old enough to think critically had consulted with them regarding their own programs. and maturely but young enough to be just feeling the effects Brown’s solution to repressed teen anger is one that the of their coming of age,” the women wrote in the introduction SLCP has made the basis for its work: Encourage girls to to a book documenting their work on the SCLP. Like their understand and embrace their emotions, then express them interactions with the girls, both the class and conference constructively instead of turning them inward. focused on issues the group had found, through research, to Of course, it’s one thing for a college professor to teach be the most critical for adolescent girls: gender, body image, that lesson. It was a little harder for a group of college stu- sexuality, school experiences, peer interactions, and identity. dents, fresh from their own teen angst—and in many ways, It’s not easy to establish and run such a program at a as they discovered, still immersed in it. “What we learned demanding school like Swarthmore, but the students man- about most was ourselves and one another,” says Mandara aged to meet weekly, and in the summer put in as many as Meyers ’99. “We were forced to reflect on our own adoles- 16 hours daily on the project. Early on, they came up with a cence and work it out with each other, before we could help group mantra that they repeated to each other when frustra- girls 10 years younger than us. We set out to create a com- tions arose, a quote by Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a munity of adolescent girls, and in the process, we created small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change our own.” the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does.” One of the first audience members to speak out at the Whether or not their work will lead to world change, they conference was Idahlia Carter, a dormitory housekeeper. made the way a little easier for girls like Idahlia Carter’s Last year, Carter enrolled her granddaughter, Ebony, in the granddaughter. “I think she has learned that you have to see summer project. “She was very angry,” Carter told the audi- the other person’s side, not just your own,” Carter said, ence, “but since she’s been involved with SCLP, she’s adding, with a glance at the new graduates: “God bless these become a different child. She has learned to mingle with girls as they go their way.”

SEPTEMBER 1999 9 Collection

Where the boys are n a sunny July morning, children’s voices rise sweetly from the stage of the Lang Music Hall. It sounds like ... OItalian opera? That’s right. While their friends frolic in the sun, 15 chil- dren are learning opera from John Alston, associate profes- sor of music at Swarthmore and director of the Chester Boys Chorus and campus day camp. He directs a training chorus of mostly fourth graders, but the singers here today belong to the concert choir. Most are African American from poor Chester neighborhoods, between 8 and 14 years of age. There are two girls among them today. Few of these kids are used to strict discipline and none to opera. But they show up at this camp six days a week—and that means two to three hours of choir rehearsal a day. Two baby grands have been pushed aside. Beside the choir, the arboretum woods glow through a wall of plate-glass windows. The kids have trouble stand- ing still. Except for his ponytail and spectacles, Alston is dressed as they are, in T-shirts, shorts, and sneak- ers. He picks out the melodies on an electric key- board, singing along in a sort of falsetto, several octaves above his usual bass. Alston knows what it means for a kid to give up his summer days to sing. He did it himself as part of the Newark Boys Choir. As a boy growing up fatherless in a tough neighborhood, it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Five years ago, he had the inspira- tion to start his own boys choir. It has been his con- suming passion ever since. Today the choir is learning three-part harmony. Alston runs them through bits of Giordani’s Taro Mio Ben, Pergolesi’s Magnificat, and Mozart’s Exultate Jubi- late. “Say it, altos: languisce il cor,” he says, rolling his r. “That means my heart, my heart. Sing it out. No fear, like the commercial says.... You can’t be an Ital- ian unless you have a lisp.... Sopranos, be quiet. “Slow,” Alston says, as they sing a line from the The Chester Mozart. “Don’t confuse slowly with wimpy. Could it be soft Boys Chorus, and a little bit dancy? Soft but strong—alleluia, then we directed by dance.” A girl in the back row takes him literally and John Alston, bounces to the next line, doing a little Whitney Houston assistant profes- hand motion. “Who sings this? Mary. What’s she so happy sor of music, about? They just said, ‘You’re the one.’ And what she really rehearses in the said was, ‘I’m too young for this. Take my sister.’ But they Lang Concert couldn’t write that. … Don’t improvise, brother,” he tells a Hall during a six- small boy in the front row. “You’re supposed to be singing, week summer not doing karate.” camp. Alston’s The boy is 8. “His name is Nkenge, which means ‘brilliant’ dream is to start in some African language,” Alston tells me later. “He is bril- a performing liant—a musical genius. Nkenge loves music; he really hears arts school in it. He’s already improvising on the piano. We call him Bruce Chester. because he looks like Bruce Willis and behaves like Bruce Lee. Bruce loves karate.” Right on cue, at 11:30, karate instructor Stuart Bryant strides into the room, a muscular man with shaved head and tattoos. The class snaps to attention as he launches into a rapid-fire military question-response. “What’s up?” he barks, smiling. PHOTOGRAPHS BY JIM GRAHAM

10 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Swing low “You are sir.” The swing tree is gone—and it made its own decision about “What’s happening?” when to hit the ground. The large red oak near Sharples Dining “We are sir.” Hall, which had suffered in recent years from rotting limbs and “How’s your karate?” dying roots, was scheduled to be removed in mid-August “Huuuuge, sir!” because of safety concerns. But on Aug. 6 it “took matters into “He’s also a blues musician,” Alston whispers. ”And the its own limbs,” according to Larry Schall ’75, vice president for greatest karate instructor in the area.” The children file out facilities and services, and fell without the aid of a chain saw. behind Bryant for a “nature appreciation tour” of the arbore- The century-old tree, had reached the end of a normal life span tum before he runs them through their moves. Later this for its species. No plans have been made for the relocation of afternoon, the boys will play baseball on DuPont field. the swing. How do baseball and martial arts fit into a boys choir? “In a lot of ways, this camp is everything that I love to do,” Swarthmore tops U.S. News list Alston says. “There are probably other things I should be For the third time in five years, Swarthmore has topped U.S. teaching them, but I don’t know those things. I understand News & World Report’s ranking of national liberal arts colleges. music really well, and I understand martial arts.” He discov- Amherst came in second, followed by Williams and Wellesley, ered Kung Fu during a sabbatical in 1994 and soon pro- with Haverford gressed to tai chi, which he practices religiously. Two of the and Middlebury U.S. News & World Report Rankings older boys now study karate in a program Alston paid for tied for fifth. with money received as a wedding gift. Max, the oldest, is The top five 1 A about to get his blue belt. national univer- “Karate teaches them discipline,” Alson says. “If I call sities were the them to attention the way they’re called in karate, they snap California Insti- 2 to immediately—even in front of 200 people.” He pauses for S tute of Technol- W1 a bite of cereal, eating on the run as usual. “I’m just begin- ogy, Harvard, ning to learn how to handle the kids’ temper tantrums— MIT, Princeton, 3 without just being louder and stronger. There are 17 different and Yale. Presi- B W1 personalities. One kid was born addicted to cocaine. I have dent Alfred H. 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 to find the right way to deal with each one.” Bloom told The About the two girls in this boys choir, he says: “It just Philadelphia A = Amherst W = Williams happened. They would come to pick up their brothers, and I Inquirer that B = Bowdoin W = Wellesley started having them sit next to the troublemakers. That was the popular but S = Swarthmore 1=Tie very effective.” Naturally, they started singing along, their controversial voices at this age indistinguishable from the boys’. Alston list provides important national exposure for Swarthmore, rais- admits he’s not sure whether to make the choir officially uni- ing the number of applicants and thus the College’s selectivity. sex. “In this day and age, there’s probably no excuse not to He also happily pointed out that the president of Cal Tech, the include girls, especially since the boys have such an advan- top-ranked university, is a Swarthmore grad—Nobel laureate tage as adults. But as children, the boys are at a disadvan- David Baltimore ’60. tage. We have three fathers in this whole group. They do not have role models. And it does make a difference. Two retirements “I sure wish my father had been around—and that’s defi- Two faculty members retired in June after more than 25 years nitely part of the motivation. I don’t have any fantasy about at Swarthmore. H. Searl Dunn first joined of the Department of being their father. I just want to provide a little joy and struc- Engineering in 1973, and Robert Roza became a member of the ture in their lives. Who knows? For some of these guys, this Department of English Literature in 1966. might be the ticket to a career.” Alston’s dream is to open a school for the performing arts Miss that college radio? in Chester, but just now he’s finding it a challenge to keep Now alums can tune into WSRN from anywhere in the world— the camp and choir going. Thanks to an anonymous gift last providing they have Internet access. WSRN has begun Web- year, he has a new program director, which saves him time, casting its programs live, including blues, classical, folk, hip- and, in the summer, buses shuttle the kids to and from the hop, jazz, rock, ska, world, and talk. To listen in, visit the WSRN College on weekdays. But on Saturdays, Alston still drives Web site at http://wsrn.swarthmore.edu. the van to pick them all up. “It takes from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to run an-hour-and-a-half rehearsal on Saturday,” he says. Camp Article of the year lasts from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the summer. During the school “Swarthmore on the Line of Scrimmage” by Garret Keizer, the year, Alston drives to Chester twice a week to rehearse the cover story of the December 1998 Bulletin, has been honored choir. by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education “I probably make about 50 cents an hour on average run- (CASE) as one of the four best articles of the year in a college ning the choir,” he laughs. “But I’m not complaining. We’re or university magazine. The feature, which explored the role of paid well at Swarthmore. Teaching music to the most football at Swarthmore, was chosen by a panel of three judges enlightened students in the nation, and getting to play Bach? from The Chronicle of Higher Education, which sponsors this That’s not work, it’s play! I’m lucky–and I’ve got to share it. It’s the right thing to do.” category in CASE’s annual awards program.

SEPTEMBER 1999 11 WhyStudio Arts ATALIBERALARTSCOLLEGE?

uite a lot of hugging and story- Acceptance years has involved a far subtler con- telling is going on outside the was a long time cept—the academic rigor of practicing Q List Gallery. Name tags time- art. Does throwing a pot or painting a line more than 50 years, as is landscape or sketching a model involve the case with all the alumni on campus coming, but the fine the brain as much as it involves the eye for Alumni Weekend at Swarthmore. But and the hand? Do studio art classes all those gathered outside the List arts have taken engage the intellect in the same way Gallery seem to know each other. that physics or mathematics or history One by one, they stroll inside the their full place in classes do? Do the studio arts have a gallery. Suddenly, the storytelling stops the curriculum. place in a liberal arts education—partic- as if, in the face of art, communication ularly in a liberal arts education with the changes. These alumni, many with intellectual standards that Swarthmore majors in studio art, walk slowly ing, painting, and sculpture are offered has achieved? through the exhibit, pausing in front of for credit.” So Gordon, now retired from The answer was yes—until 1910. In each work of art, taking the time to a career as a builder in New York, did the late 19th century, painting had been understand the artist behind the art. his sculpture during summer vacations added to the freehand drawing course, a In the gallery this weekend are deli- and spent his school years studying class that was pitched to students in its cate Chinese ink brush drawings by political science. course description as “a very important Lloyd Craighill ’49, bold and vivid oil adjunct to the other courses, especially paintings by Mark Van Buskirk ’89, and o studio arts belong at Swarth- to those in science.” Courses in the his- detailed bronze-colored sculptures by more? The question is almost as tory of art appeared later, in 1892, and Don Gordon ’49. Craighill stands in a Dold as the College and, during the when Joseph Swain became president of corner, quietly playing the violin he past 130 years, has inspired much the College in 1902, two classes were crafted and brought as part of his exhib- debate among the faculty and adminis- offered in art history and two in studio it. Van Buskirk shakes hands with one of tration. The common notion is that art. Soon after, four more classes were his classmates. Gordon sits on a bench Quakers considered the fine arts to be added in art history. Then, in 1910, both while his wife, Joan, snaps a photo. frivolous and nonutilitarian. Edward disciplines disappeared abruptly from Gordon has never exhibited his work Hicks, a Virginia Quaker, had described the course catalog. In 1912, art history before. He’s been sculpting his whole them in 1851 as “trifling” and “insignifi- classes returned, but studio art did life, ever since he took a sculpture class cant” with no “substantial use to not—and 56 years went by before it was when he was 8 years old. By 18, when he mankind.” Yet the Hicksite Quakers who offered for credit again in 1968. arrived at Swarthmore, he was hooked founded Swarthmore thought that draw- It is not known why studio art was on the medium. But, 50 years ago, there ing was useful enough to offer two suddenly removed from the curriculum. was no such thing as a sculpture class courses—Mechanical Drawing and Free- Perhaps, in his push for higher intellec- at the College. No ceramics. No drawing. hand Drawing—to the College’s very tual standards, President Swain decided No painting. No studio art courses of first class. In fact, in the minutes of the that the study of art should be only an any kind. A few extracurricular arts and annual stockholders meeting in 1874, it academic subject. When Frank Ayde- crafts classes were offered, but Gordon was noted that freehand drawing was lotte replaced Swain in 1921, practical didn’t know about them, and the Art not only required for all students but art classes remained outside the cur- Department certainly didn’t recognize “absolutely essential, and to all it must riculum. The art history program, on the them as part of its curriculum. “The aim prove, if properly taught, only second in other hand, continued to grow and was of the department is to study the histori- practical usefulness to the art of writing coupled with courses in music history cal-cultural significance and aesthetic itself.” under the Department of Fine Arts and value of architecture, sculpture, paint- Rarely, if ever, has anyone in Swarth- Music—studies defined in the 1926 cata- ing, and graphic art,” reads the 1949–50 more’s history questioned the value of log as “critical and appreciative rather course catalog. “Since the objective ... is practicing art. The contention over the than practical.” to foster an intelligent comprehension When Aydelotte established the Hon- of the visual arts rather than to train ors Program in 1922, the concept of an professional artists, no courses in draw- BYVICKIGLEMBOCKI academically rigorous education in the

12 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN liberal arts jumped to the next level. Stu- sculptors had their own room on the But if anyone at Swarthmore can be dents, who may have been looking for third floor. Ayala Talpai (Linda Becker) credited with recognizing the academic an outlet from the increased intensity of ’62 took classes with Elmore who, Talpai value of studio art and then helping to their Oxford-style seminars, decided to remembers, was “covertly looked down change the College’s perception of the start an extracurricular arts and crafts upon by some students because she discipline, it’s Kaori Kitao, now the program. Studio art came back—condi- used her hands.” William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Art His- tionally. Listed as a “student activity” in Still, Elmore fought hard for better tory. When Kitao arrived to teach the 1938–39 catalog, the program equipment and better facilities for the Renaissance and Baroque art in 1966, description read: “Creativity at Swarth- arts and crafts program and won big in she found a “rigorously verbal” curricu- more is undertaken for its own sake as 1961, when the program moved to bet- lum—serious study meant discussion part of undergraduate life. It is generally ter quarters in Pearson Hall. “I felt and interpretation, and serious scholar- felt that some form of self-expression, in strongly that studio arts should be on ship meant academic papers. “Aca- arts, crafts, or some other medium, is a the curriculum,” Elmore wrote in a letter demics saw art as nonintellectual, as a necessary factor in the educational pro- to T. Kaori Kitao, former chair of the Art pursuit that engaged the hands and cess.... It is hoped that all students will Department. “[I] could not see how art eyes,” she says. “Artists, of course, knew take part in some of these activities but history majors could graduate without that it wasn’t just hands and eyes but will exercise such restraint not to inter- ever having tried their hands at painting the coordination of the hands, the eyes, fere with academic work.” or sculpture.” and the mind.” Although the College clearly viewed When Kitao came to the College, two practicing art as a less serious endeavor t’s ironic that the Art Department— cultural changes were working in favor than more established academic stud- both art history and studio art—has of putting studio art back in the course ies, including art history, the arts and Imade its home since the late 1970s in catalog. First, abstract expressionism crafts program turned out to be so pop- Beardsley, a building named after had started to be replaced by a new ular that, in 1954, the College hired Bar- Swarthmore’s first engineering profes- realist movement—Andy Warhol’s pop bara Elmore to direct the program. In a sor. Yet art students have made the art, George Segal’s figurative sculpture small office on the second floor of Trot- place their own. A ceramic relief in the installations, and Jasper Johns’ flag ter, which she shared with the director stairwell leading to the department paintings—that was concerned more of dramatics, Elmore taught jewelry, offices reads, in huge red script: “I with the tangible world than with the enameling, and pottery. Painters and thought I’d died and gone to SoHo.” individual. This “nouveau realism,” JIM GRAHAM Randall Exon, Art Department chair: “Originality is as hard for a student to achieve in studio art as it is to achieve in science.”

SEPTEMBER 1999 13 wrote art critic Pierre Restany in 1961, painting. The evening before the faculty “Making art is a complicated, criti- “registers the sociological reality with- voted on whether or not to give credit cal—particularly self-critical—process out any controversial intention.” As for ceramics courses, the Art Depart- that has the ultimate intent of trying to modern art became more tangible, the ment had brought in a promising young interpret the world in some way. That, practical study of it seemed to become ceramist named Paulus Berensohn to to me, requires as much thought, criti- more acceptable as well. lecture. Berensohn explained that a cism, and technical ability as learning The second change had a more ceramist makes pots in the way a tree how to write. There is also a deeper direct effect on the study of art at makes leaves. At the faculty meeting the interpretive understanding required. Swarthmore. In 1955, the Quaker Fellow- next day, Paul Mangelsdorf ’49, now Originality is as hard for a student to ship of the Arts was founded in Britain Morris L. Clothier Professor Emeritus of achieve in studio art as it is for a student in an effort to bridge the gap in Quaker Physics, used the idea in his argument to achieve in science.” philosophy that separated the aesthetic against the course. “Making pots,” he Still, Mangelsdorf’s feelings were not from the spiritual. Janet Stanley Mustin reportedly said, “is compared with a uncommon on campus in the late 1960s; ’45, who says that being both a Quaker purely vegetative function.” as a result, studio art (eventually includ- and an artist has always been a chal- Mangelsdorf, a lifelong Quaker whose ing ceramics) remained a program with lenge for her, works with the Fellowship daughter graduated from the Pennsylva- no major until 1977, two years after of Quakers in the Arts in Philadelphia, nia Academy of the Arts, is somewhat Kaori Kitao became chair of the depart- an organization modeled after the less stringent in his opinion of art at ment. In that role, she was known for British group. “The notion that self- Swarthmore today. “I think that the art being outspoken on the subject of art at expression is a spiritual experience has program sets pretty high standards, and Swarthmore, including at the annual been in revival,” she says. “The tradi- meeting when new faculty members tional disapproval of the arts has van- were introduced. The introductions ished. Now art is considered to be close “ were made by departments in alphabeti- to the soul. And the soul has to have its Making art is a cal order, so the art department went expression.” first. Kitao would say: “Since this is the Finally, in 1967, the College under- complicated, only time art ever comes first at Swarth- took a re-examination of its entire cur- more College, I’d like to take full advan- riculum. Part of this thoroughgoing self- critical process, tage of the moment.” study, which was published as the Cri- Kitao points to four crucial turning tique of the College in 1968, was a pro- which has the points in the more recent evolution of posal by the Art Department to give the studio art program. First, housing credit for creative arts. ultimate intent of art history and studio art together in Soon after, studio courses received Beardsley Hall (an idea initiated in the credit. Harriet Shorr ’60 returned to trying to interpret 1980s by Harrison Wright, then provost) Swarthmore in the fall of 1963—when no increased the dialogue between the two credit was given—to teach painting and the world.” disciplines. Having them in separate drawing and administer the studio arts buildings, she says, bred more animosi- program, staying until the early 1970s. I’ve been impressed with some of the ty than collegiality. Second, giving stu- “Credit and credibility were important work the students do,” he says. “But I’m dio artists the space they needed to do for the students,” wrote Schorr in the still not convinced that work in the cre- their work—big studios with high ceil- third installment of a history of the art ative arts should be put in the same cur- ings and lots of natural light on the third program recently compiled for the ricular category with work in the more floor of Beardsley—encouraged the stu- department’s newsletter. Schorr also academic specialties. Art ... contributes dents’ development and helped rein- stated that “one explanation for Swarth- to the enrichment of the lives of the stu- force the fact that the College had come more’s attitude toward the arts was the dents. But it’s definitely not in the same to truly respect their craft. Third, hiring Quaker tradition: Quakers were suspi- intellectual category with calculus or four faculty members in art history and cious of beauty that was not utilitarian.” the study of the classics.” four in studio has brought balance to In The Critique of the College, the Art Professor of Studio Arts Randall the department. Finally, changing the Department also recommended faculty Exon, the current chair of the Art studio art major a few years ago to status for full-time art instructors. These Department, claims to have a limited, if include 7 credits in studio art and 4 in changes and others were debated in fac- not nonexistent, knowledge of calculus. art history (for years, the requirements ulty meetings. “Extreme opponents “The problem is,” he says, “there are were equal—5 credits in each) has expressed their opinions,” remembers also those who have a limited education enabled the department to offer a pro- Kitao. “Some of them had a very old- in art but have very strong opinions gram that reflects the seriousness of fashioned notion that what artists do is about it. I don’t know exactly what they studio art as an academic discipline. on a lower level of intellectuality. They are basing their opinions on. That said, I “It has been, and still is, a constant compared it with athletics, claiming that think we needed those opinions—we upstream effort,” says Kitao, who is art was a technical matter, like basket- needed to understand what that genera- planning to retire in 2001. Through the ball.” Nonetheless, painting and sculp- tion of scholars and scientists meant by process of natural selection, as Kitao ture were approved for credit. The con- the phrase ‘intellectual pursuit,’ in order archly describes it, many faculty mem- troversy dealt more with ceramics—one to push us to create a truly rigorous bers who opposed giving studio art its faculty critic compared the art to finger program. own major are no longer at the College.

14 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN JIM GRAHAM Professor T. Kaori Kitao: “It has been, and still is, a constant upstream effort.... We have to be constantly alert to potential opposition.”

Yet within the past 10 years, she has small, Quaker-founded liberal arts the studio work that they want to do. noticed a wave of conservatism among school in Indiana. And so they graduate with an impres- new faculty. “Some are alarmingly indif- “I made a real conscious decision to sive portfolio and with enough practical ferent or unlearned in the matters of art. move from a fine arts professional pro- experience to jump right into an entry- We have to be constantly alert to poten- gram to a program like the one at level position in their field.” tial opposition.” Swarthmore. I know that you can teach When speaking with prospective But being unlearned in the matters of students technical skills, as a fine arts Swarthmore students who have an art is inherent in American culture, says program does, but I also believe that interest in studio art, Department Chair Exon. “There’s a problem with arts edu- they need the balance of liberal arts,” Randall Exon is careful to distinguish cation in this country today,” he says. Van Buskirk says. “I know a lot of great between what a larger art school would “There are so many people with no edu- artists, and none of them is stupid. They offer and what Swarthmore offers— cation in art at all. Educational systems need nourishment outside their field in essentially the mirror image of the pro- in other parts of the world see the study order to make compelling statements in gram at the University of the Arts. “I of art as fundamental, as evidence of a their work.” know many artists who are one-dimen- person’s intelligence.” For a high school student who wants sional but not the artists who come a college degree in art, there are essen- through this program,” he says. “I have ark Van Buskirk sneaks out of tially two choices: a professional pro- students who can tell me the chemical the List Gallery, where his gram at an art school or university or an makeup of a particular patina they’re Mpaintings are on exhibit for art major at a liberal arts college. Vir- using on their sculpture. They don’t just Alumni Weekend, and sits for few ginia Red, provost of the University of know the techniques—they know how moments on a brick wall. Van Buskirk the Arts in Philadelphia, calls it a yin- their materials are made. They know the has been exhibiting his art for 10 years, yang situation. “It depends on students chemicals. They link what they’re learn- since he graduated as a studio arts and how they want to balance their ing outside of the studio with what major in 1989, and has been teaching time,” she says. At the University of the they’re doing in the studio. That’s what painting and drawing in the bachelor of Arts, students take one third of their makes us different from a professional fine arts program at Mississippi State. In credits in the liberal arts. The rest of school.” the fall, though, he’ll move into a teach- their time is spent in studio classes. It’s not just the chemicals either. It’s ing position at Earlham College—a “They don’t have to steal the time to do Please turn to page 67

SEPTEMBER 1999 15 Swarthmore College boasts hundreds of artists among its alumni—amateurs and professionals of all ages and talents THE who work in almost every medium. All of them are also “lib- eral artists” because they have received a liberal education at the College instead of the career-oriented training they might LIBERAL have received in an art school. They tend to think differently about their art, drawing relationships and influences from art, ARTISTS’ science, history, politics, and literature. Some Swarthmore artists realized early in their lives that they wanted to draw or paint or sculpt. Others started later. Still others, we suspect, GALLERY are waiting for the moment when they can indulge their cre- ativity. This “liberal artists’ gallery” showcases the work of six Six Swarthmore artists Swarthmoreans who have followed their hearts into art. By Vicki Glembocki

Jessica Smith ’99 “It’s a really hard decision to money, and I’m not going to be ed to be an artist.You just have to become a studio art major,” says taken seriously by a lot of people.’ make art. Jessica Smith ’99. “You’re basical- You’re really putting yourself on “That’s really the emphasis ly saying:‘I am going to major in the line.”And those, says Smith, here at Swarthmore,” she says, art, I’m not going to be able to get are exactly the kind of things you “doing art for the art, making art a job,I’m not going to make any can’t worry about if you’ve decid- the most important thing.”Study- ing with studio art professor and painter Celia Reisman, Smith found that what she needed to learn more than anything else was how to keep making art, what to do to keep making art. (The paint- ing at left is one of Smith’s early works, done in Reisman’s class.) “That’s the focus I’ve left with,” says Smith. After graduation, Smith took off to Poland, where she spent the summer painting before returning to Brooklyn, N.Y., where she intends to work and paint before applying to grad- uate programs in the fine arts.

“UNTITLED” OIL ONCANVAS 44 X 44 INCHES

16 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN “ST. LOUIS STARS, 1929” OIL ON CANVAS 30 x 40 INCHES

Nancy Parks Valelly ’52 “I came to art very late in the Her oil paintings, simple and prim- idea. I don’t think you could sit game,” says Nancy Valelly ’52. In itively styled, often deal with his- there and chew gum and play bas- fact, it took three years of study- torical events and usually work as ketball and come up with a coher- ing political science at Swarth- part of a series. Her exhibit South ent body of work.” more, another year at the Univer- Carolina Memories, for example, sity of Puerto Rico, two years fin- was shown this summer at the ishing up at City College in New Coastal Discovery Museum in York, a couple of decades travel- Hilton Head and chronicled early ing around the world with her African-American experiences in husband who was an internation- South Carolina, where Valelly now al banker, and a few years living in lives. (Her son, Richard Valelly Alexandria, Va., before Valelly ’75, teaches political science at moved to New England and, in the College.) 1987, took her first painting class “The hardest part is coming up at the Rhode Island School of with the idea, problem solving, Design. creating something within a gen- Since then, she’s evolved into eral theme,” Valelly explains. “The what some might call a folk artist. act of painting is secondary to the

SEPTEMBER 1999 17 Jesse Amar ’91 Jesse Amar ’91 is a sculptor who sculptures. He’s teaching this fall at Swarthmore were great about thinks the term traditional is at Edinboro University of Pennsyl- my studying with Chris; it was the almost pejorative when applied to vania and, modeling himself after right thing for me at the time,” he his work. He admits he’s not an his friend and mentor Randall says. But he asserts that his avant-garde artist, but he doesn’t Exon, would like to be an artist/ Swarthmore education gave him a apologize for his representational teacher at the college level. chance to “read and write and figures in cast bronze. “It was the He credits Haverford College’s exercise my brain,” something he most natural course for me,” says Christopher Cairns with teaching believes has definitely helped him the Gloucester, Mass.–born artist, him both the aesthetics and tech- become a better artist. who worked with his hands from niques of sculpture. “The people an early age as apprentice to his father, a carpenter. He came to Swarthmore think- ing to major in English literature but graduated in studio art. He took full advantage of the liberal arts curriculum, boning up on art history (“the academic backbone of the program,” he says) and English courses. As a graduate student at American University, he says he was “able to draw ref- erences from literature that most of my classmates were at a loss to do.” Amar is not yet able to support himself entirely with his art. He has continued to work as a car- penter and as an ornamental plas- ter craftsman while accepting commissions and making new

“DEATH” BRONZE RELIEF 13 x 13 INCHES

18 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN “EVENING, LANCASTER COUNTY” OIL ON PANEL 11 X 12.5 INCHES

the students outdoors in search hills of Delaware County. Her oil Timi Sullivan ’75 of a landscape on campus to paintings are small and delicate “If you wanted to do art at Swarth- paint, Sullivan would go into the and often portray early morning more, you were kind of on your Crum Woods or sit along the or late evening. Says Sullivan: “I own,” says Timi Sullivan ’75. creek. “This campus is so beauti- try to capture the character of a “There were a few art courses. ful, a perfect place for a painter to place.” I But Swarthmore knew what it did be,” she says. After graduation, well, and studio art wasn’t what she attended the Boston Museum they did here back then.” It also School, where she painted from wasn’t what Sullivan did at morning until night. (“It was an art Swarthmore back then. Though school,” she says. “That’s all they she’d always wanted to be a did.”) Then, for several years, she painter, she decided to major in taught art at colleges and sec- literature and fill her creative arts ondary schools and recently got a requirements—limited then to 5 master of fine arts degree from credits per student—with paint- Penn. Living in Glen Mills, Pa., Sul- ing courses. livan is still painting local land- When professors would send scapes inspired by the parks and

SEPTEMBER 1999 19 Mark Van Buskirk ’89 “I’d rather be around people in Van Buskirk says. other disciplines than be around His Swarthmore class—at that other painters,” says Mark Van time the largest group of students Buskirk ’89. “Finding the connec- to graduate with studio arts tions between them, between dif- degrees—proved how a liberal ferent disciplines, can make really arts background could enhance a good art.” After Swarthmore, Van career in art. One woman double- Buskirk received an M.F.A. at majored in chemistry and art, got Boston University and taught an M.F.A., interned at the National painting at Mississippi State Uni- Gallery of Art, and then put it all versity, where he stole as much together publishing chemistry time in the studio as he possibly books. Another student was a a lot of his inspiration outside of could. His oil paintings are bold ceramics major, went to art the art world. “My students and colorful, and his subjects can school and dropped out, started always have questions that I have be anything from chocolate in book publishing in New York, never even considered,” he says. éclairs to cows. “I take the stuff of and is now publishing art books. “That keeps me alive and keeps my life, paint it, and look to see Even now, as an assistant profes- me addressing different issues— how the painting clarifies or sor of art at Earlham College in which ultimately affects my enhances my relationship to it,” Indiana, Van Buskirk still looks for work.”

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20 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Nathan Florence ’94 Nathan Florence ’94 believes that time ever since. His oil paintings, Five years after graduation, part of a liberal arts education is often landscapes or portraits, all things are looking up for Flo- keeping your options open. By start as sketches that are either rence. He’s represented by a coming to Swarthmore, that’s inspired by something he sees or Philadelphia gallery, has won a exactly what he learned to do. by a philosophical concept he’s grant from a foundation that sup- Arriving at the College as an engi- toying with. “I just go into the ports young artists, and will have neering major and thinking about painting and try to figure it out,” a one-man show in Santa Fe, N.M., eventually going to medical he says. this winter. school, Florence considered painting to be “a cool thing but not a career.” Then, in the middle of his organic chemistry and physics classes, he’d suddenly catch himself thinking: “I hate this. I don’t want to do this.” He went to the registrar, said he was planning on getting an M.F.A. after Swarthmore, and asked if an art school would care if he dropped organic chemistry. “She said ‘no,’” Florence remem- bers. So he withdrew from the class; dove headfirst into painting; and, after graduation, got married and landed a job as a designer at the Franklin Mint in Philadelphia. “Again, I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do. And I also knew that it wasn’t ever going to be any easier to quit my job and be a painter. It wasn’t as if, in a few years, I’d say, ‘oh look, now we have a couple of kids and a mort- gage; now might be a good time to paint.’ So I quit my job.” That was two years ago, and Florence has been painting full-

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SEPTEMBER 1999 21 David Page’78 reveals the evolutionary roots of sex and gender. By Carol Cruzan Morton

or a guy whose work brought new respect to the has evolved fast and furiously, a story Page is preparing to scorned but macho Y chromosome, geneticist David tell more fully. FPage ’78 seems downright mild mannered. In his office Over the past few thousand years, poets, playwrights, on a chilly January evening, he looks out over the lights of philosophers, and, most recently, special prosecutors have Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gone to great lengths to explain the various delights and and marvels about the differences between the sexes. woes resulting from sexual dimorphism. Researchers, too, “Sometimes people ask me how sex evolved,” Page says. have tackled the elusive understanding of the sexes from per- “Most people are thinking about the act, but I’m thinking spectives ranging from behavior to physiology. But as a about the co-existence of two different forms within a geneticist, Page picked the loneliest place on the genome. species. It makes for a wonderful subject of study.” Once the Y chromosome was discovered to be the key to For scientific inquiry, the two sexes can be defined at maleness in 1959, it languished under the palling weight of many levels. What makes a man male? What makes a woman scientific apathy. Amid 45 other human chromosomes, all female? Externally, the differences may mean generous sausages stuffed with genes, the Y is beard or breasts, penis or clitoris, scrotum or the runt of the human genome. Page estimates labia. Internally, men have testes that make 22 genes are now known on the Y. Its X partner, sperm, and women have ovaries that hold Y on the other hand, may house as many as 3,000 eggs. And then there are differences in hor- chromosomes genes, including those that code for muscle mones, behavior, and identity. are the runts development, blood clotting, and color vision. Genetically, in humans and other mammals, The X chromosome has been intensely— sex differences boil down to a mismatched set of the human and disproportionately—studied, Page believes, of chromosomes. Men and women have in because of its link to many inherited traits and common 22 pairs of the puffy, cinch-waisted genome disorders that almost exclusively affect males. blobs called chromosomes. What’s different is and have In males, no backup X covers for absent or the 23rd set, the sex-determining chromo- mutated genes. Or, as Page puts it, X genes in somes, which are named “X” and “Y.” Women languished in the male “fly without co-pilots.” Thus, up to 10 usually have two Xs; men typically have an X percent of men suffer nicks and dings in their paired with a Y. Page started here. scientific single X in the form of color blindness, The emerging story of the Y chromosome obscurity. hemophilia, and more than 300 other genetic has been written, in large part, by Page and his traits. Even before the current understanding of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Until now. genes, people were aware of the special herita- They have shown that the Y does a lot more ble properties of the X. “In elaborations of Juda- than define a male. Page’s group has found ic writings, there were proscriptions exempting genes on the Y that are needed for cellular processes from circumcision boys whose maternal uncles died at cir- throughout the body. He has also found that the Y may be a cumcision,” Page says. “They recognized hemophilia as an X- haven for genes that guys need in order to chauffeur their linked disorder thousands of years ago.” half of the genome to the next generation. As a piece of genomic real estate, by contrast, the Y had The Y chromosome doesn’t have a monopoly on male- all the appeal of rapidly eroding beach-front property when it friendly genes, which are scattered around on the genome, caught Page’s attention. Although the X and Y probably start- but these genes may have a difficult time staying in the coed ed out as equal partners about 200 million to 300 million gene pool. It appears that when genetic members of the he- years ago, somewhere along the way, the Y became isolated man club are kicked off the communal chromosomes, the Y and unable to engage in most of the healthy gene-swapping may provide a refuge for these outcasts, preserving crucial that shores up and sustains other chromosomes with fresh jobs such as the several Y genes that seem to be necessary to genetic material. produce any or enough sperm. The human Y chromosome An isolated chromosome rapidly becomes an endangered

22 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN chromosome. Biologists have shown in fruit flies that an iso- Nature takes an unnecessary risk, it seems, by maintaining lated chromosome will evolve out of existence in little more an isolated sex chromosome in humans and so many other than 35 fruit-fly generations. Scientists believed—until Page’s species. After all, animals really don’t need two different sex work—that the Y had withered down to a single-purpose tool. chromosomes to make males and females. For example, tur- For a couple of days more than seven months before the tles and alligators have the two sexes but no sex chromo- birth of each baby boy, the Y turns on the male gender somes; sons and daughters are determined by the egg incu- switch, starting the cascade of events leading to growth of the bation temperatures. For that matter, living creatures really male sex organs, hormone production, and male behavior. don’t need two sexes to have two parents. All the benefits of gene swapping conceivably could come from two individuals of a single gender, such as in baker’s yeast, whose gametes look identical. Such musings deepen the mystery of when and how two distinct forms, male and female, sperm and egg, X and Y, arose. And by rigorously following such musings, Page made his mark quite early in his career. He runs an internationally respected lab at one of the country’s top research institutes, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and is an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Born in Harrisburg, Pa., Page grew up in the Pennsylvania countryside. Until he attended Swarthmore, he had never met a scientist. Swarthmore professors and alumni gave Page his first taste of raw science. The summer before his junior year, he worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. The following summer, he lined up a heady research position under the mentorship of Robert Simpson ’59, then at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethes- da, Md. This was Page’s first exposure to cutting-edge molec- ular biology. He began to design his own experiments and became obsessed with the biological puzzle, returning to Simpson’s NIH lab the next summer as well. “I was really living and breathing the edge of the un- known,” Page says. “The pure excitement of being the first person in the world to know something was absolutely capti- vating.” Page graduated with a degree in chemistry and entered Harvard Medical School. For advice on a summer lab posi- tion, Page turned to Nobel Prize winner David Baltimore ’60, then a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and now president of California Institute of Technolo- gy, who suggested David Botstein, a pioneer in genetic engi- neering and studies of heredity. Botstein put Page to work on what turned out to be the precursor to the Human Genome Project, the current unprecedented effort to identify all the genes on the human genome. Page liked the pure science but still thought of himself as a physician in training. A little over a year later, however, he took a leave from medical school. He spent six months work- ing in a remote Liberian hospital and then another year and a half in Botstein’s lab. In Liberia, he endeared himself to the Toronto medical student who would eventually become his wife by chasing hoards of cockroaches from her room before her arrival. Back in Boston, Page thrived in the lab. He began wavering between research science and medicine. He fin- ished an M.D. degree in spring 1984 and was offered a fellow- ship at the new biomedical research institute affiliated with MIT being built across the street. The Whitehead Fellows pro- gram was designed to jump-start promising researchers by providing a lab and an assistant. Then Page won a MacArthur SAM OGDEN / WHITEHEAD INSTITUTE Fellowship, nicknamed the “genius” prize, in 1986. The insti- David Page received an M.D. in 1984, a MacArthur Fellowship tute broke its rules about not promoting internally and in 1986, and an honorary degree from Swarthmore in 1989. named Page to its faculty in 1988. The next year, Swarthmore

SEPTEMBER 1999 23 awarded him an honorary degree—rare for Then the bad news started trickling in, soon someone so young. Y becoming a flood. It was the wrong gene, sug- Page calls his involvement with the Y a fluke. gested subsequent reports from a British team. In the Botstein lab, he arbitrarily selected one chromosomes The sex-determining gene for males was the of a million snippets of DNA to develop a tool provide a neighboring SRY. The foundation of Page’s that other scientists could use as a landmark work was solid, but he had misinterpreted the when exploring the human genome. The genet- living record data. He had been working with DNA from an ic signpost Page developed signaled a shared of their XY female who was missing more than this one set of sequences on both the X and Y chromo- gene from her Y. somes. A use for this new tool emerged at his genetic “You commit yourself to ideas you think are first scientific meeting, where he met Albert de so wonderful,” Page says. “Sometimes they la Chapelle, who had described the first case of history—and have a useful lifetime of six months; other sex-reversed XX males in the 1960s. clues to the times, they last decades.” For a time, the atmo- Together, they proved a theory that XX sphere of intense competition took the fun out males actually carry the tiny piece of the Y origins of of science for Page. But after some soul-search- chromosome that turns on the male switch in ing, he found his bearings again in the “pure the embryo. It also explained the unusual inherited beauty of the question.” occurrence of XY females, who they found were diseases. Meanwhile, in 1992, his group was among missing the same piece, then known as the the first to clone a human chromosome—the Y, testes-determining factor. The question of how of course. (Another group had cloned chromo- two forms within a species evolved gets murkier when the some 21 and published results one day earlier.) Page’s lab two forms represent a continuum rather than an absolute. produced the first comprehensive map of the Y chromosome Complete sex reversal happens in 1 in 20,000 people. But and provided DNA landmarks to navigate its genetic informa- about 1 in 2,000 people have minor abnormalities in sexual tion. Two years ago, his group reported 12 new genes, more differentiation, thanks to wayward extra pieces or a missing than doubling the total number of known genes on the Y part of the Y chromosome. chromosome. Hot on the trail of identifying the crucial maleness switch The genes readily sorted into two classes. Some code for in that small piece of Y, Page narrowed the elusive gene proteins expressed in only testes, where sperm is made. The down to one candidate, called the “ZFY.” (Genes tend to be other category of genes makes proteins needed in all cells. called by three- to four-letter abbreviations describing the Known as “housekeeping” genes, they have nearly identical most relevant insight or function at the time of naming.) Or counterparts on the X chromosome. (News of these shared so he thought. Headlines around the world heralded the genes, some of which help maintain body cells, tickled newly discovered gene for maleness. Page was 31 years old reporters, who delighted in the irony that the Y was home to and three years out of medical school, where the only formal housekeeping genes and wondered about more characteris- research training he received was as a medical student on tic male genes for belching, loud snoring, obsessive channel leave. surfing, and inability to ask directions.) The housekeeping genes also offered new insight into a medical condition known as Turner syndrome. Often fatal in the womb, females who are born with only one X chromosome suffer short stature, infertili- ty, and defects in many organs. Yet males seemed to survive with one X. The newly discovered housekeep- ing genes on the Y sug- gested people need at least two copies of sev- eral genes, either on both Xs or on the X and Y. Although house- keeping genes were not previously recog- nized on the Y, their

SAUL ROSENBAUM presence isn’t a com-

24 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN plete surprise. After all, scientists had long postulated that Normal ual Unus the X and Y were once a matched set of chromosomes. Why Unus ual wouldn’t the mismatched chromosomes still share a few genes in common? A paper published in April may present the most complete picture to date about the Y’s rapid evolution. The genes on the Y chromosome have revealed three major evolutionary plot lines to Page and his associates. The first is persistence. Some genes on the Y have persevered from the ancestral X, accounting for about 1 percent of the Y’s length and includ- ing the housekeeping genes. Other genes tell a story of “transposition,” where a dislodged piece of another chromo- some found refuge on the Y, which includes at least one gene (known as DAZ, an acronym for “deleted in azoospermia”) XY necessary to make sperm. The third story told by the Y genes XX Male XY SAUL R OSENBAUM is “retroposition,” a fancy word for a more streamlined ver- Male Male sion of a gene from another chromosome homesteading on the Y. Page is completing a kind of unifying history of the sex be beneficial to males but not of much use or even detrimen- chromosomes, dismissing with a final wave the old notion of tal to females, the real estate broker of evolution says, ‘Have I the Y as a degenerate X and offering provocative ways of got a home for you.’” looking at both the modern Y and X. In a sense, the working But the Y is genetically unstable and occasionally loses genes on the X and Y chromosome provide a kind of living genes in individual mutations. Four years ago, Page’s group fossil record of their history. and their Finnish colleagues found that a specific defect in From a 50–50 shared responsibility, Page says, the genetic the Y chromosome may be responsible for 13 percent of workload of producing proteins shifted to the X and dimin- cases of azoospermia, the complete inability to make sperm ished on the Y. When the gene activity was fully transferred and the severest form of male infertility. On a region of the Y to the X, the Y lost the gene, and one X gene was able to known as AZF, they suspect one gene in particular, DAZ. Page make so much protein that only one X gene was needed. has let people know that these findings affect couples seeking “Ninety-nine percent of the genes once shared are already a type of fertility treatment called intracytoplasmic sperm at this end point,” Page says. “That’s why there are 100 times injection, where doctors inject a single sperm into an egg to more genes on the X. The X and Y still have a long way to go circumvent the low sperm counts. Because men may pass in reaching the inevitable outcome where the genes have along the very Y mutation that made them infertile, they risk shifted entirely from two copies per pair to one copy per pair creating an infertile son. of sex chromosomes. Once they’ve shifted, there’s no prob- Lately, Page has put this combination of communication lem, but this unfinished business has medical consequences. skills and social consciousness to work as chair of the White- I would argue that Turner syndrome is a manifestation of the head Task Force on Genetic Testing, Privacy, and Public Poli- incomplete evolution of the youngest parts of the X and Y.” cy. The task force aims to stimulate informed discussion Although Page contributed new research techniques early about some of the social and legal ramifications of the human in his career, these days he’s more of a thinker than a doer. “I genetics revolution. Last spring, the task force hosted what is don’t do experiments with my own hands,” Page says. “I help believed to be the largest public symposium addressing these chose experiments, provide strategic guidance, and help issues. The participants included scientists, students, media, interpret things. It’s especially interesting when data legal experts, and ordinary citizens. On a smaller scale, Page announces an answer to a question you haven’t even asked.” has made many presentations to members of state govern- In a field dominated by large consortiums and huge group ment, trial lawyers, health care advocates, business leaders, efforts, Page fields a small research team, gives them the best the insurance industry, and the federal judiciary. equipment and latest technologies, and waits for what he He’s also exploring how humans make eggs and sperm, calls the “data heroes” to work their magic. In calling them which are called germ cells—another way of defining male heroes, Page refers to the leap of faith his students take when and female. In the early days of an embryo, when it is still a “choosing to take on monumental tasks and figure out how to mass of undifferentiated cells, before it makes a heart, a liver, accomplish them without going insane.” For example, in two or a hand, it puts aside certain cells that will form the next years, Bruce Lahn, the graduate student who found 12 new generation’s germ cells. Only then does it see to the rest of genes on the Y, “accomplished the equivalent of all the the details of shaping a human. world’s previous molecular studies of the Y,” Page says. “In a sense, you can view the rest of the body as the germ Page can clone a catchy phrase with the same precision cell container,” Page says. “In evolutionary terms, it’s all built his research associates can clone genes. Page not only excels around the germ cells. It’s obvious that the egg came first, at explaining genetic research and its implications, he feels a and the chicken came later to serve the egg. As my high responsibility to share this information with people affected school biology teacher used to say: ‘We are all mere drops in in some way by it. a stream of protoplasm that’s been flowing for billions of “In the case of the Y, evolution has operated as an oppor- years.’” I tunistic real estate broker,” Page says. “Let’s assume that all genes relocate periodically. If some of those genes happen to Carol Cruzan Morton is a science journalist based in Boston.

SEPTEMBER 1999 25 arah Azaransky ’98 is perched on a low wall inside Jerusalem’s Jaffa SGate, ignoring a man who thinks she needs company. “Creepy guy num- ber three,” she sighs, then turns to him and says, for the third time that after- noon, “Go away, I’m not interested.” He finally gets the message and drifts off. Swarthmore’s latest Watson Fellow has been on the road for 10 months now, and these types of confrontations don’t faze her anymore. She’s already spent six months in Belfast, doing volun- teer work for women’s peace groups and sitting in on monthly meetings of women from both sides of the Northern Ireland conflict. It’s part of the Watson Fellowship project she designed, to study the role of women in the peace process. She felt focused and happy in Belfast, but now she’s in Israel, and it’s frustrat- ing. She doesn’t speak Hebrew or Ara- bic, the peace process has been stalled by Netanyahu’s government, and she really misses Snapple and Thursday JIM GRAHAM night television. She’s making plans to Noam Unger ’99, Swarthmore’s latest Watson Fellow, plans to visit nine coun- leave in a few days for Sri Lanka, anoth- tries on the 10th parallel, making a film of activities at midday. His project is er hotbed of conflict. “The problem is, I typical of the creative years abroad encouraged by the Watsons. keep feeling like I’m not doing enough with this opportunity or living up to the reponsibility of being a fellow,” she says, echoing what Swarthmore’s Watson Fel- brochure from 1969, the foundation bique? Yes, and no. What the Watson lows have been saying for 30 years. describes their raison d’être: to provide family envisioned was a journey that It’s not that Azaransky is failing as a “a focused and disciplined wanderjahr.... would broaden the minds of fellows and Watson Fellow. It’s that the Watson Fel- A period in which [the fellows] might challenge new graduates to learn about lowship doesn’t give out any grades or have some surcease from the increas- themselves. The projects are important provide a formal evaluation. You never ingly prescribed educational lockstep ... inasmuch as they give the fellows a have a final exam. There is no thesis to in which they might have an unusual focus and a purpose, but those at the turn in at the end of the year. For opportunity to test themselves.” foundation care more about Sarah Azaransky, it’s a challenge to shift gears Azaransky, and the kind of world citizen and let herself be the judge of whether he fellowship consists of a she’ll become after her year of traveling she is succeeding or failing. “I know I’m $22,000 stipend ($31,000 for mar- on her own. They care that she learns doing my project, and I’m learning a ton, Tried fellows and those accompa- to be self-reliant, adapt to new cultures, but it’s so different not having the feed- nied by legal dependents) to pursue a and wrestle with her own identity and back,” she says. project of the fellow’s own devising for values as a result of being exposed to Azaransky is one of 57 Swarthmore- a full year. The only stipulations are different ones. ans who have received a Thomas J. Wat- that the fellows live abroad for the full The Fulbright and Rhodes Scholar- son Fellowship since the fellowship was year—no trips home midway through ships and the Guggenheim Fellowship first created 30 years ago. Perhaps the the year—and check in periodically focus on academic excellence, whereas most creative fellowship around, the with the foundation, including a final the Watson family created a fellowship Watson was founded by the Watson report chronicling the year’s adven- that invests in the character develop- family in the name of Thomas J. Watson tures. ment of its fellows. In many ways, the Sr., founder of IBM. Up to 60 fellowships Does the fellowship offer a year to Watsons’ vision was not unlike the phi- are offered each year to graduating sample the microbrews of Prague, study losophy behind liberal arts education, seniors from 25 top colleges, which the economics of rickshaw drivers in where studying a broad range of topics nominate finalists. In the original Nepal, or hunt for fossils in Mozam- is as much about knowledge as it is per-

26 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN pendent thing I’ve ever done,” says Noam Unger ’99, about to leave on his Watson fellowship, which will involve making a documentary film of how peo- ple move, stand, use their hands and sit, from a cross-cultural perspective. He plans on filming at midday on the 10th parallel, going to Costa Rica, Venezuela, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Ghana, India, Thai- land, Vietnam, and the Philippines. “There’s never been a time when I’ve been as alone as I’m about to be, and I’m worried that I’ll get sick of myself,” he says. He can’t imagine what it will feel like AROUND to adapt to seven countries in 12 months, what he’ll do if his equipment fails, or how he’ll handle the technical challenges of filming during the strong THE light of midday. He is struggling with the ethics of filming people unawares and what it will mean to film them looking at him while he is looking at them. “I feel scared,” he admits, “but if I can do this, I WORLD will know I can do absolutely anything for the rest of my life. That’s pretty cool.” FOR ormer Watson Fellows would agree with Unger. “My Watson Fyear permanently immunized me from the idea that only a settled way of life is legitimate,” says Judith Mayer ’77, 30 YEARS now an environmental planning profes- sor at Virginia Tech and a visiting scien- Since 1969, Watson Fellowships tist at the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor, Indonesia. have offered new graduates During her Watson year, Mayer studied handcraft industries in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, including apprenticing a chance to test themselves. herself to a batik master in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and setting up her own work- By Laura Markowitz ’85 shop in Bali. She has since had a Ful- bright, a National Science Foundation Fellowship, and an Institute for Current World Affairs fellowship. “Each of these research periods have sonal transformation through knowl- foundation about what they would do required a lot of self-confidence to go to edge and, perhaps, the growth of wis- for the year. Even those who had a suc- a new place and quickly develop exper- dom. cessful Watson year—the vast majority, tise and to feel comfortable outside my It may sound like a year to play, but in fact—struggled through bleak home culture,” she says, “all of which I any Watson Fellow, past or present, will moments when loneliness, weariness, learned during my Watson year.” Like tell you it’s difficult work. Some fellows and homesickness made it seem more many Watson Fellows, Mayer had trav- have flown across the globe only to dis- of a chore than a privilege to be a Wat- eled abroad during her college years, cover that their projects were not feasi- son Fellow. but it was nothing like her Watson year, ble and then had to renegotiate with the “This is going to be the most inde- she says. There was no program to fall

SEPTEMBER 1999 27 back on, no adviser to check in with, and no choice about changing your mind and going home. More important, there was the responsibility to the foun- dation. They had chosen her, one of 60 or so out of a field of hundreds of candi- dates. She didn’t want to waste the opportunity or their faith in her. The newly appointed director of the Watson Foundation, Tori Haring-Smith ’74 says she has been treating her life like a Watson ever since she had the fel- lowship. During her Watson year, she and her husband, Robert, visited the 13 smallest countries in the world. It was a dream that had started in seventh grade, after she read a book called Report From Practically Nowhere by John Sack, who had visited those countries in the mid-1950s. In the end, she went to only 10 of the countries though. Amb had been flood- ed and was at the bottom of a lake, Pun- jal was inaccessible by plane, and LAURA MARKOWITZ Sikkim had been taken over by India the Above: Sarah Azaransky ’98 in week before she was set to go. But she Jerusalem. She spent her Watson did get to see Lundy—an island that year studying the role of women in blocks the mouth of the Bristol channel, peace groups. In another Watson pro- with 30 citizens; Sark—the last surviving ject last year, Alison Marsh ’98 took feudal community in the world; Andor- factory tours and researched industri- ra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Swat, San al monuments in Europe to write a Marino (“It’s in Northern Italy but had technical travel guide. an incongruous bust of Abraham Lin- coln in its federal building,” remembers Right: Tori Haring-Smith ’74 is begin- Haring-Smith), Mount Athos, Sharja, and ning a two-year stint as director of the the Sovereign Military Order of St. John Watson Foundation. of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, a country so small that it is a three-story building in the center of Rome. “The country can only house three people at tion likes to see fellows go places they tor cuff tears, things like that. I was a time,” Haring-Smith says, “but even so, have never been before, to take them never interested in medicine at all until they have their own stamps, coins, and out of the familiar and test their mettle. my Watson year.” He apprenticed him- license plates.” D. Gene Dillman II ’85 set out for France self to a traveling French agriculture Haring-Smith became a professor of during his Watson year. He planned on expert and helped develop a survey that theater at Brown and a freelance theater studying goat cheese making there, with is still used to assess sanitary condi- director, but then left her tenured posi- the thought that he might someday set tions of dairies. “In too many ways to tion at Brown and moved to Cairo to up a goat cheese industry back home in tell, my Watson year changed me, but teach and live for a few years, and is Kentucky. “Looking at the backside of a mostly I would say it improved my abili- now back to head up the Watson Foun- goat all day, I decided there was proba- ty to solve problems,” says Dillman. dation for two years. “My Watson expe- bly something else I should do with my “When you spend a lot of time in a dif- rience taught me that no matter where I life,” says Dillman, now a family physi- ferent culture, you start to understand am, I can survive and thrive,” she says. cian in Lexington, Ky. His interest in that there are more options than the “It gave me the ability to leave behind medicine developed on the goat cheese ones you take for granted. There’s what’s certain and pursue what’s impor- farms. “Most of the people who raise always a different way of doing things.” tant to me instead of what’s safe.” goats have a lot of health problems For Nancy Boyd-Franklin ’72, her Wat- Not every Watson project involves a because it’s so physical—they get son year shaped the course of her dozen countries, although the founda- carpal tunnel syndrome, shoulder rota- future career as a family therapist. She

28 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN hen you spend a lot of time in a different culture, you start to W unbelievable kindness from strangers,” Bekavac says now, still moved to tears understand that there are more options by the memory of her rich Watson expe- rience. “I learned that whatever the risks than the ones you take for granted.There’s of reaching out to people, the rewards always a different way of doing things.” are so huge that they are worth it. I learned that there are so many ways of living a worthwhile life on this planet. Not a day goes by that something from changed the future of her career as a my Watson journey isn’t with me.” I family therapist. In Nigeria, she visited Aro, a mental health village where Laura Markowitz ’85 (below) spent her patients and their families lived while Watson year in Ireland, England, Finland, the patient was being treated. France, Israel, Thailand, and Sri Lanka “My Watson year, and the experience living in convents, Orthodox Jewish com- of Aro in particular, taught me to look at munities, and Buddhist monasteries to ‘family’ as an entity much broader than explore how women make space for just your blood. It’s your whole tribe,” themselves in patriarchal religions. She is says Boyd-Franklin, who is considered editor and publisher of In the Family one of the leading African-American fam- magazine and senior editor of Family ily therapists in the world today.“I am Therapy Networker magazine. She so grateful to the Watson Foundation for served on the Watson Foundation’s Selec- this real gift they gave me,” she says. tion Committee in 1994–95. “It’s one of those very special experi- ences in my life that I often don’t talk about but that shaped who I am in fun- damental ways.” Swarthmore’s most notorious Wat- son Fellow is probably Nancy Bekavac ’69, now president of Scripps College and member of Swarthmore’s Board of Managers.Bekavac received the fellow- ship ($6,000 back then) the first year it was offered and later served as the foun- dation’s director from 1985 to 1987. Originally from Pennsylvania,Bekavac JOHN F ORASTE had never been outside the United States except for a brief border crossing into Canada.Her plan was to visit the traveled to East and West Africa to look places her favorite writers had lived and at the differences between the use of worked—Ireland, for Yeats and Joyce, vernacular and national languages on and the Soviet Union, for Tolstoy and education, health, and mental health Dostoevsky. care, spending time in Ethiopia (“a week Carrying a portable typewriter and a after the first coup—my mother almost backpack, and with a $1,200 round-the- had a heart attack!” she says), Tanzania, world airline ticket,Bekavac circled the Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana, with short globe. After Ireland, she went to London stops in Togo and the Ivory Coast. Boyd- and met W.H. Auden. She took a train Franklin started Swarthmore in 1968, across Russia in winter, went through right after the death of Martin Luther Eastern Europe and the Middle East— King Jr., and being an African-American including driving from Tehran through student during those years meant strug- Afghanistan and Pakistan to India and gling to come to terms with her racial then Nepal. She spent time in Southeast identity.A year in Africa, where she was Asia and then flew to Vietnam at the in the majority, was eye-opening for her height of the war and got a job as a and reinforced her sense of where she stringer for Catholic Welfare News and was from and who she was. It also Metro Media News.“It was a year of COURTESY L AURA M ARKOWITZ

SEPTEMBER 1999 29 Alumni Digest

Handover: Elenor G. Alumni Weekend Reid ’67, who began Virtual Photo Album a two-year term as president of the A first for Swarthmore: Alumni Association Alumni Weekend ’99 is on the Web! in June, receives the A special Web site at http://- association gavel alumniweekend.swarthmore.edu. from outgoing Presi- features photos of class reunions dent John A. Riggs and other weekend events. ’64. Riggs, who shared this year’s Shane Award for Meet Jody Sanford, alumni service to the new in alumni relations College with the Alumni Gospel he Swarthmore community wel- Choir, will continue Tcomed Jody Sanford in July as the to volunteer for ʼ 67 new assistant director of alumni rela- Swarthmore as the tions, succeeding Katie Bowman ’94.A next general chair of native of Hyde Park,N.Y., Jody gradu- the Annual Fund. ated from Cornell University in 1994 with a bachelor of science degree in STEVEN GOLDBLATT human development and family stud- ies. Last spring, she earned a master’s Upcoming events brated a happy hour at Flattop John- degree in education from the College ny’s in Kendall Square in June. Metro NYC: The Connection will spon- of William and Mary. sor book clubs featuring a syllabus by Metro DC/Baltimore: Professor of Jody has worked in admissions at Philip Weinstein, the Alexander Gris- Classics Gilbert Rose lectured on “The both Cornell and Marist College. As a wold Cummins Professor of English Greek Tragic Vision” to launch the graduate student at William and Mary, Literature. The book clubs will kick off 1999–2000 Connection book groups, she organized campus events for the with an opening whose members student affairs office and planned lecture by Profes- will read Greek lit- library fund-raising gatherings. sor Weinstein on erature in transla- Alumni are getting acquainted with Thursday, Oct. 21. tion, led by Sue Jody as they work with her on class Ruff ’60. reunions and Alumni Weekend,Gar- Pittsburgh: Con- net Sage activities, regional Connec- Paris, France: nection Chair 1999 tion events, and other gatherings. She Melissa Kelley ’80 President and looks forward to meeting others who has arranged a Homecoming Mrs. Alfred H. September 25 visit the Alumni Relations Office at the private tour of Bloom hosted a west end of Parrish Hall. “The Architecture 2000 reception for of Reassurance: Black Alumni Weekend alumni, parents, Designing the Dis- March 17–19 and friends at the ney Theme Parks” Ritz Hotel in Paris Family Weekend at the Andy in July, assisted April 7–9 Warhol Museum, by Tom O’Donnell followed by din- Alumni College ’69. ner and jazz at the May 30–June 2 Regional Swarth- James Street Alumni Weekend more events are Restaurant on June 2–4 run by volunteers. Thursday, Sept. Alumni College Abroad If you would like to 23. The Connec- in Spain organize an event tion will visit the June 17–July 2 in your area, Carnegie Museum please contact on Wednesday, Jody Sanford, Nov. 17. assistant director of alumni relations at Recent events (610) 328-8404 or jsanfor1@swarth- more.edu. The latest information on Boston: Becky Joseph ’81 organized a upcoming alumni events and activities JIM GRAHAM family walking tour of the Black Her- is on the alumni home page: Jody Sanford, the College’s new assistant itage Trail, while young alumni cele- www.swarthmore.edu/Home/Alumni. director of alumni relations.

30 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Swarthmore Alumni Council, 1999–2000

Officers of the Lyndhurst, NY Joanna Bailey ’882 David D. Wright ’691 Alumni Association Jed. S. Rakoff ’644 Grand Rapids, MI Santa Barbara, CA Larchmont, NY Martha Easton ’891 President Member at Large Isaac T. Schambelan ’613 Minneapolis, MN Elenor G. Reid ’67 Marialuz Castro ’983 New York, NY Richard W. Mansbach ’642 President-Designate Philadelphia, PA 3 Huxley, IA Richard R. Truitt ’66 Gaurav Seth ’98 New York, NY Ashwin Rao ’991 Vice President Connection Representatives Hinckley, OH James P. DiFalco ’82 Zone C Connecticut, Maine, Boston Joel S. Taylor ’653 Vice President Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Jeremy Weinstein ’97 Bexley, OH Roberta A. Chicos ’77 Rhode Island, and Vermont Cambridge, MA Burnham Terrell ’451 Secretary Martha Sanders Beshers ’773 Chicago Minneapolis, MN William J. Pichardo ’71 Barrington, RI Marilee Roberg ’73 Lesley C. Wright ’793 Andrew Caffrey III ’991 Evanston, IL Iowa City, IA Members of Somerville, MA Alumni Council Metro D.C./Baltimore Kevin C. Chu ’721 Zone F Alabama, Arkansas, Kathy Stevens ’89 Zone A Delaware, Pennsylva- Falmouth, MA Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Silver Spring, MD 2 Louisiana, Mississippi, North nia John F. Leich ’42 Metro N.Y.C. Cornwall Bridge, CT Carolina, South Carolina, Ten- Allison Anderson Acevedo ’893 Sanda J. Balaban ’94 nessee, territories, dependen- Philadelphia, PA Ruth Jones McNeill ’702 New York, NY Medford, MA cies, and foreign countries Robin Shiels Bronkema ’891 Deborah Branker Harrod ’89 1 Robert J. Amdur ’813 Wallingford, PA Dorothy K. Robinson ’72 Jersey City, NJ Hamden, CT Lebanon, NH Anthony J. Cheesebrough ’972 North Carolina P. William Curreri ’581 McDonald, PA Zone D District of Columbia, George Brown Telford III ’84 Daphne, AL Elizabeth Killackey ’862 Maryland, and Virginia Durham, NC Timothy M. Kuykendall ’892 Lansdowne, PA Olushola I. Abidoye ’974 Mooresville, NC Philadelphia Duleesha P. Kulasooriya ’972 Bladensburg, MD Jennifer J. Rickard ’86 Donna C. Llewellyn ’803 Glenolden, PA Philadelphia, PA Margaret W. Capron ’693 Marietta, GA J. Randolph Lawlace ’733,4 Arlington, VA Eric Osterweil ’563 Pittsburgh Wynnewood, PA Catherine Livingston Brussels, Belgium Melissa Kelley ’81 Henry B. Leader ’424 Fernandez ’802 Pittsburgh, PA Katharine Winkler ’931 York, PA Bethesda, MD Durham, NC San Francisco 1 Richard I.P. Ortega ’73 Stephen L. Gessner ’662 Neal D. Finkelstein ’86 Glen Mills, PA Baltimore, MD Zone G Alaska, Arizona, Cali- Oakland, CA Peter R. Warrington ’692 Steven D. Gordon ’711 fornia, Colorado, Hawaii, Rebecca L. Johnson ’86 Kingston, PA Falls Church, VA Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Oakland, CA Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washing- M. Regina Maisog ’891 Zone B New Jersey, New York ton, and Wyoming Seattle Baltimore, MD Deborah Read ’87 Rikki Abzug ’863 Virginia L. Boucher ’731 David A. Maybee ’623 Seattle, WA New York, NY Santa Ynez, CA Rockville, MD National Chair Lauren S. Basta ’983 2 Alice Lund Norris ’554 John B. Collins ’59 Oyster Bay, NY Don Fujihira ’69 Washington, DC Seattle, WA J. David Gelber ’632 Marian Westover Gade ’562 New York, NY New York, NY Zone E Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kensington, CA To contact a member of the 2 Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Willa Freeman Grunes ’47 Richard W. Kirschner ’491 Alumni Council, call the Alumni Missouri, Nebraska, North Ithaca, NY Albuquerque, NM Relations Office at (610) 328- Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South 8402, e-mail alumni@swarth- Nancy L. Hengen ’731 Carola B. Sullam ’723 Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, more.edu, or consult the 1999 New York, NY San Francisco, CA and Wisconsin edition of the Alumni Directory. Karen J. Ohland ’834

1 Term ends 2002 (new member). 2 Term ends 2000. 3 Term ends 2001. 4 Nominating committee.

SEPTEMBER 1999 31 Until this summer, these tiny photos lay hidden in the back of a desk drawer— perhaps since the1940s, when ivy decorated many Swarthmore buildings. They remind us of how the campus has both changed and stayed the same. Class Notes

32 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Alumni Profile

A diplomat’s eye Ralph Fisher ’39 captures photographic light and perspective.

Fisher’s pho- tographs include (clockwise from top left): Boats in Nigeria’s Lagos Har- bor; his favorite photo of a woman in Naples, Italy; and the Fisher family in Ethiopia in 1953. Inset: Ralph Fisher in 1998.

ognized photographer eyesight, but he does take a lot of snap- Fred Picker of Putney, shots of his six grandchildren. Vt. Fisher’s skill and In 1972, Fisher retired from foreign eye allowed him to service work and moved to East Hard- alph Fisher ’39 had a State supplement his State wick, Vt. Since then, he has taken pho- RDepartment career that took Dept. income by sell- tos of local Vermont scenes and still him to some of the most fasci- ing his photographs lifes, but primarily he has been working nating countries in the world. As through an agent in 150 acres of sugarbush he owns. a Foreign Service Officer work- New York. Photos he His eldest son, Galen ’70, is the pri- ing on issues of agriculture or took while on assign- mary operator of Ralph Fisher & Sons economics, he, wife Sally, and ment for the State Maple Syrup, located in Greensboro, four sons have lived in Ethiopia, Korea, Dept. have appeared in Grolier’s Ency- Vt., which produced 605 gallons of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, and Ugan- clopedia, Foreign Service Journal, The syrup from 2,200 trees last year. “It da. Washington Post, Yankee, Christian Sci- takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gal- But since he was an adolescent ence Monitor, and Vermont Life, the mag- lon of syrup,” Ralph said. attending school in Germany, he has azine of the state where he now lives. Galen said his father’s work can still taken photographs—first with a Leica The photograph he is proudest of be found on the walls of local Vermont 35mm camera and later, in salon work, was taken in Naples in 1959 on his way businesses: “I was at the health clinic with a Mamiya Rb67 camera that is per- back to the United States after complet- recently and saw one of my father’s pho- fect for creating 8 x 10 photographs. “I ing a two-year assignment in Ethiopia. tographs on the wall from about 10 prefer the larger negative,” he said. He “I took the photo out of a hotel window years ago. They’re still around.” also processed the photos in his home and focused on an elderly woman sit- “It gives me a great deal of pleasure. darkroom. ting in a chair across the way. She was I enjoy being able to capture the light Fisher studied at the New York looking sad,” he recalled. and find the perspective,” Ralph said. School of Photography in the mid-1940s Today, Fisher doesn’t take many “It’s an artistic outlet.” and in 1976 with the internationally rec- photographs because of his diminished —Audree Penner

SEPTEMBER 1999 37 Alumni Profile

“Conscience of the Senate” Retired N.Y. Senator Franz Leichter ’52 traces his moral compass.

ranz Leichter ’52 (D/L, Manhat- Leichter was born in Vienna, Aus- Ftan/Bronx) retired last year after tria, in 1930. His interest in public ser- serving 30 years in the N.Y. state legis- vice came naturally, he says, as both of lature. Dubbed the “conscience of the his parents were active in politics in Senate” by The Village Voice, Leichter Austria before World War II. He there- was a tireless champion of justice and after moved to New York and graduat- fairness, no matter how unpopular the ed from Swarthmore in 1952, majoring cause or how hopeless the political in history with minors in both political battle. science and philosophy. He went To rise to any level of prominence is straight to Harvard Law School, but his quite an accomplishment, considering education was interrupted by being that Leichter spent his entire legislative drafted into the Korean War. Upon career—six years in the state assembly graduation in 1957, he worked as a and 24 in the senate—-as a member of Democratic Party official, beginning his the minority party. career alongside reformers Eleanor “It was not an easy 30 years,” admits Roosevelt and Governor Herbert Leichter. “Constantly being in the Lehman. minority in a very partisan system is His reform politics garnered him a frustrating. It is a struggle to get people reputation as a political maverick, an to pay attention to a minority bill in apt description to this day. Whether Albany.” But given this political reality, the issue has been environmental pro- Leichter was uncommonly successful, tection, consumer fraud, campaign as his political friends and foes readily Franz Leichter ’52 credits Swarthmore, to finance reform, or the degradation of admit. a great extent, for helping him develop city parks by the laxity of dog owners A modest, pragmatic man, Leichter his moral sense of direction. He has car- (hence, his famous “pooper scooper” exhibits pride when speaking of two ried the torch of a liberal outsider, voting law), Leichter has not been afraid to legislative accomplishments that stand against a particular bill or challenging stand alone. More often, though, he has as bookends around his career. In 1970, legislative procedures that he perceived stood with his constituents firmly a bill he introduced made New York as unfair. beside him. the first state to legalize abortion. This Has it ever felt like a burden to carry was three years before the U.S. aware of some of the wasteful, corrupt, the torch as a liberal outsider? Leichter Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision or undemocratic practices that existed is philosophical. “It would have been and an extremely controversial move in government, they would react as difficult for me to cast a vote that I at the time—especially for a newcom- strongly as he did. So he launched into didn’t believe in. And I really credit er. “It was just the right thing to do,” investigations, compiling endless Swarthmore, to a great extent, for help- says Leichter of his pioneering effort. reams of data and publishing reports ing me to develop my moral compass. And in 1998, Leichter and others, that exposed institutional injustices So I felt comfortable very often being working with the Hudson River Park and inefficiencies. the only member of the legislature vot- Alliance, succeeded in passing the Hud- “I had to find some way to have an ing against a particular bill or challeng- son River Park Act, which will create a impact. I didn’t want to just go up there ing some of the procedures of the legis- riverfront park between Battery City and be paid to have someone call me lature that I thought were undemocrat- and 59th Street in Manhattan, finally ‘senator’. I wanted to find a way to ic, unfair or that closed government.” opening up the riverfront to recreation- move toward some of the goals I had,” After a moment, he playfully adds, al use and limiting commercial devel- Leichter explains. “I needed to raise “Well, I guess I have a stubborn streak.” opment. “I view this as an environmen- issues and get some bills passed, and I In June, President Clinton nominat- tal issue and also a way to make public did so mainly by issuing reports and ed Leichter to a position on the Federal space available. The New York water- holding press conferences to publicize Housing Finance Board, a position that front is just so spectacular.” issues. Even while I was very frustrated appealed to Leichter because it will Both measures had immense oppo- about all the things I couldn’t do, I cer- allow him to continue his involvement sition, requiring unusually demanding tainly had some satisfaction and some in important issues of affordable hous- public relations campaigns. But public sense of achievement.” ing and community investment. With relations became one of Leichter’s Although his political adversaries Senate confirmation likely this fall, strong suits over the years. And might cringe at the prospect of being Leichter will be able to keep himself Leichter learned right away that, being delivered a voluminous Leichter report “involved in his time” for at least anoth- a minority politician, his strongest or having to endure a Leichter end-of- er six years. Then, he’ll undoubtedly be allies might just be the public. He was the-year colloquy, he is a genuinely on to yet another cause. convinced that if he could make them well-liked and -respected man. —Terri-Jean Pyer ’77

SEPTEMBER 1999 45 Books & Authors

God’s Last Offer fast as the news media can serve it. Ayres’ book is not a jeremiad. He Our global economy is based on a offers hope and suggests solutions. His Ed Ayres ’63, God’s Last Offer: Negoti- system of blind accounting. Ayres advice is compelling—inspiring in ating for a Sustainable Future, Four points out, “When profits are piling up, places—but I found it frustrating as well. Walls Eight Windows, New York, 1999. the whole system looks so solid that it He suggests finding and joining a seduces us into shutting our eyes to the “healthy community,” one that doesn’t Revolutionary changes are sweeping the question of whether there may be hid- “suck huge amounts of resources from world. To say they are unprecedented in den costs not reflected in the prices, the surrounding area, and expel huge human history is an understatement. In which someone, sooner or later, will amounts of waste.” Where can I find the history of our planet, there has have to pay.” The economic system will such a community without abandoning never been anything like the titanic con- contribute more to the problem than to the part of the earth where I feel rooted, fluence of events that Ed Ayres calls the the solution as long as it evades full where I have spent a large part of my life four “spikes”: skyrocketing surges in accounting of the true costs of produc- soaking up knowledge about the natural population, consumption, atmospheric tion and fails to include all costs in its environment? The answer isn’t easy: carbon dioxide, and extinction. It’s no prices to consumers up front. Market Help organize like-minded people and wonder we don’t know what to do and economies have always suffered the work to create such a community. are in deep denial. As Ayres puts it: “It “tragedy of the commons,” and eco- Ayres ventures hopefully, “If the [is] clear that we are in a megacrisis of catastrophes have undermined several information climate is changed to make our own making, and that we have a now-dead civilizations, but none before the costs of excess consumption visible, chance now to escape it before it ours has had the benefit of extensive we might begin to see cultural attitudes destroys us—but the chance won’t last scientific knowledge of the problem and change in turn—and what seems politi- long. The window of opportunity is clos- of possible solutions. cally difficult would then become politi- ing fast.” cally supported.” But how fast This is as big a news story THE POPULATION SPIKE can human culture, especially as an asteroid on a collision human values, change? Fast Millions of People (6,000 million = 6 billion) course with the Earth. Why 7,000 enough to catch up with the isn’t it on the front page of œ Global population now increases as dizzying curves of the four every newspaper and the lead much every 3 days as it did in a megaspikes and reverse their whole century for most of the thousand story on the evening news, centuries we’ve been on Earth. tilt, before the Earth’s bio- every single day? If you are sphere permanently loses the 6,000 1999 confused about whether over- › The U.S. Congress withdraws capacity to support more population is still something American financial support for than a small fraction of our international family planning— you should worry about, taking away an essential tool of current population? It is whether global warming is population stabilization. arguably too late already. 1987 caused by human activity, or 5,000 We might still have time or š “Population momentum” builds. As the base gets whether the rising extinction larger, stabilization becomes more difficult. A low we might not, but we may as rate merits attention from fertility rate with the large base population of the late well act as though we do 20th century produces more increase than a high anyone but nerdish re- rate did decades earlier, when the base was smaller. because it’s better than the 1975 searchers in arcane branches 4,000 do-nothing alternative. If of biology, it’s probably not ™ Life expectancies increase in most countries, many people would take this your fault. including countries where birth rates remain high. book’s message to heart, I Corporate public relations believe they could transform 1960 managers issue ersatz news 3,000 the world. The world will releases and “scientific” ˜ Thomas Malthus writes An Essay on the Principle change anyway, but the ques- reports, leading journalists of Population, warning that population can tion is: How painful will it be? and their readers to believe expand geometrically, but food supply cannot. Will the transition be as catas- that a spectrum of responsi- trophic for our species as it is 2,000 ble scientific opinion exists 1930 now for the many other — With the Age of Exploration, more of the where it does not. The public world is colonized; human dominance of 1900 species that our actions are gets the impression that sci- the environment now covers the globe. carelessly consigning to obliv- entists are engaged in fierce ion? Or will enough human 1,000 controversies on these issues. 1825 beings wake up and take – After about 90 millennia of hunting and gathering, Ayres documents what the advent of farming and herding allows for accu- 1750 responsibility for how we are 500 mulation of food surpluses and the capacities of amounts to a hoax, except 400 1650 sabotaging our future 300 communities to support more people. Population that the consumers of infor- 200 growth begins to gain momentum. prospects on this planet by 100 mation seem to be as complic- undertaking the drastic 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 1000 2000 2050 it as its propagators. He BC BC/AD actions needed to save our- makes a convincing case that COURTESY WORLD WATCHselves? INSTITUTE there’s a thriving “market for Population growth is one of four revolutionary changes that will —Roger Latham ’83 denial,” and we’re buying it as “transform everything” on Earth, according to Ed Ayres ’63. Assistant Professor of Biology

48 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN social history, popular culture, legal Other recent books doctrine, and political theory, Haag’s L. Wesley Argo ’57, French, German, book discusses the history of sexual and Swiss Links in Pennsylvania: rights in the United States. Descendants and Ancient Ancestors, Margaret Helfand ’69, Margaret Gateway Press, 1998. This book covers Helfand Architects: Essential Architec- the historical lineage of the author’s ture, The Monacelli Press, 1999. (See wife, Marjorie Thom Argo ’57. photo caption.) W.D. Ehrhart ’73, Ordinary Lives: Pla- Judith (Markham) Hughes, Freudian toon 1005 and the Vietnam War, Tem- Analysts/Feminist Issues, Yale Universi- ple University Press, 1999. W.D. ty Press, 1999. Within the history of Ehrhart and Philip K. Jason (eds.), psychoanalysis, the author explores Retrieving Bones: Stories and Poems of multiple gender identities. the Korean War, Rutgers University Martin K. Hunt ’90 Press, 1999. (See photo caption.) and Jacqueline E. KEN KORSH Hunt, The History of Black Business, The cover of Margaret Helfand Archi- Pamela Haag ’88, Consent: Sexual Knowledge Express Company, 1998. tects: Essential Architecture features a Rights and the Transformation of Ameri- This work chronicles the history of detail shot of Swarthmore’s Kohlberg can Liberalism, Cornell University African-American–owned businesses Hall. In December, the building won a Press, 1999. In this investigation of and spotlights 10 around the world. Design Award from the New York Chap- Ruth Mary Lamb ’56, Mary’s Way: A ter of the American Institute of Architects. Memoir of the Life of Mary Cooper Margaret Helfand ’69 (above) designed Back, FuturePrep Corporation, 1999. the new humanities building in 1996, This memoir of Mary Back—artist, nat- three decades after she left the College to uralist, wife, Wyoming pioneer, dude attend the College of Environmental rancher, airplane mechanic, hiker, Design at the University of California at hunter, author, and philosopher—was Berkeley. Kohlberg’s simplified, contem- compiled by her niece. porary lines reflect the Quaker aesthetic Jenifer McVaugh ’64, The Love of Helfand discovered at Swarthmore as Women, Borealis, 1998. This first novel well as the primitive architecture she is a moral tale focusing on women and found during her travels. is told from their own viewpoints. theologian-writer describes her search Pamela Miller Ness ’72, Alzheimer’s for intellectual and spiritual nourish- Waltz, Swamp Press, 1999. This poetry ment during her sixth decade of life in ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS collection, accompanied by line draw- the 1970s. ings of leaves collected and pressed According to the San Francisco Chroni- Simon St. Laurent ’92 and Ethan cle, W.D. Ehrhart ’73 “may be the best- by Ness’ father, describes his experi- ence with Alzheimer’s disease. Cerami, Building XML Applications, kept literary secret of the Vietnam War.” McGraw-Hill, 1999. This guide shows Author of 17 books of poetry and prose, Barbara Norfleet ’47, The Illusion of programmers how to integrate the Ehrhart has three new books out in 1999. Orderly Progress, Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Extensible Markup Language (XML) Retrieving Bones, which he co-edited Norfleet’s entomological composi- with Java programming to create with U.S. Naval Academy professor Philip tions, including those titled “Frolic,” applications. Simon St. Laurent and Jason, is a collection of stories and “I Won’t Deny My Nature,” and “Dance Robert Biggar ’91, Inside XML DTDs: poems that add depth to the literature of Betrayal,” offer fables about human Scientific and Technical, McGraw-Hill, the Korean War. Ordinary Lives: Platoon nature. 1999. This book explains existing XML 1005 and the Vietnam War chronicles Gertrude (Joch) Robinson ’50, Con- vocabularies and tools and ways to the lives of members of Ehrhart’s Marine structing the Quebec Referendum: develop new ones. boot-camp platoon—men he spent five French and English Media Voices, Uni- Walter R. Goldschmidt and Theodore years tracking down and interviewing. versity of Toronto Press, 1998. This The Philadelphia Inquirer said Ordinary H. Haas, Haa Aani, Our Land: Tlingit book addresses the ways different and Haida Land Rights and Use, Lives “makes comrades of ‘ordinary’ élites presented their perspectives of men, tests their bonds of fellowship, and Thomas F. Thorton ’86 (ed.), Universi- nationalism during the 1980 referen- ty of Washington Press, 1998. This then returns the survivors to face the rig- dum debate. ors of peace—after their lives have been book, which publishes the report “The changed forever.” Ehrhart’s third book of Mary McDermott Shideler ’38, The Possessory Rights of the Natives of the year, Beautiful Wreckage: New and Struggle for Clarification: Stage IV in the Southeastern Alaska” for the first time, Selected Poems, is due out in November. Series Visions and Nightmares, Ends explores the early 1940s boom in It will be reviewed in the December Bul- and Beginnings, A Woman’s Lifelong white migration that raised legal land letin. Journey, Scribendi Press, 1999. This and resource rights questions.

SEPTEMBER 1999 49 In My Life

y 15-year-old son was in our urbanized center of the country bedroom, waiting for my wife to Between between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Unlike Mfinish ironing his white shirt. He their urban peers, my children have began leafing through the recent copy of grown up accustomed to seeing coun- the Swarthmore College Bulletin that lay Two Worlds tryside all around them. on the bed. This is, indeed, my home, and I don’t “Put it down,” shouted my wife, hur- By Yosef (Jody) Branse ’76 think I would fare well in America after riedly lowering her iron. “That’s not for having spent nearly all my adult life as you!” She grabbed the magazine from than it does now. an expatriate. Yet I have been discon- my son’s hands. In an instant, the loving, In our first year of marriage, shortly certed to discover that I remain solicitous mother became a hurricane of before our eldest son was born, my wife between two worlds, that I don’t really zealous conviction. “They’ve all got to and I moved to the development town of feel a part of things. go,” she cried out to me. “We can’t keep Migdal HaEmek, in Galilee. There, sur- Perhaps the most glaring example of them in the house!” rounded by ample fields and gentle my “otherness” is in the workplace, I understood my wife’s wrath at see- green hills, we became part of a small, where I sense most keenly the gulf ing our son peruse the Bulletin. The close-knit community of Orthodox between my past and present. Since issue included an article by a woman English-speaking immigrants—primarily 1981, I have worked in the library of the who recounted her experiences as a les- Americans—living side by side with University of Haifa, located atop Mount bian at Swarthmore. I had found the arti- Sephardic Israelis. Together with our Carmel, helping to develop and maintain cle interesting, and certainly not offen- peers and our rabbis, we maintained a the computer systems that provide sive, but my wife held firmer views synagogue and educational system, information services to about 20,000 stu- about the advisability of keeping such raised our children, celebrated commu- dents and staff. material in our home, even though none nal joys, and shared communal anguish. I spent much of my childhood in the of our children read English fluently. For various reasons, the community public library and at Swarthmore was in To me, it’s another reminder of the never became viable. Over the years, the McCabe and Cornell libraries more other world—the one from which I the flow of residents came to be deci- than in my dorm room. I am what I have came. Even after 20 years of living and read, more than what I have done. working in Israel, studying Torah, rais- So, as I walk to my office, surrounded ing my children, and serving in the hough my children by hundreds of thousands of books, I army, in some important facets of my Twill never attend feel like a hungry but muzzled cow life, I remain an outsider. standing before an overflowing feeding Several years after graduating from their father’s alma mater, trough, frustrated by the good things Swarthmore, I became a ba’al teshuva (a I hope also to have that are so near at hand yet unattain- penitent Jew) and took on the lifestyle of able. My muzzle is woven of both practi- Orthodoxy, circumscribed by the reli- passed on to them some cal concerns—I have a lot of work to do gious law derived from the Torah. My legacy from Swarthmore: and not enough time for sampling the turn to observance began during a visit library’s wares—and of the awareness to Israel in 1978. During what was to a basic respect for other that, in the stern view of my religion, have been just an interlude in a Euro- people, even those most of the items in the university’s col- pean backpacking tour, I found myself with whom they differ lection are at worst forbidden reading studying in a Jerusalem yeshiva (Talmu- and at best a waste of time that would dic academy) for the newly observant. I passionately and be better spent immersed in holy texts. returned to America, studied briefly at fundamentally. Jewish tradition maintains that one another yeshiva in Miami Beach, and should spend as much time as possible then returned to Israel in 1979. Except studying the Torah, Talmud, legal for three brief visits, totaling about 10 sively away from Migdal HaEmek. We codes, and their voluminous commen- weeks, I have been here for 20 years. reluctantly moved out in 1996, among taries—with minor concessions to the Between 1976 and 1981, I graduated the last to leave, with a feeling of going need to make a living and tend to world- from Swarthmore, worked as a copy edi- into exile. However, our diaspora was ly matters. If one works, then the time tor and writer at TV Guide, backpacked not very far away. We settled in Recha- outside working hours should be devot- through Europe, became an observant sim, a small town on the outskirts of ed to learning. Yet if one is able, it is Jew, studied in a yeshiva, moved to a Haifa. With an outstanding yeshiva, considered exemplary to spend virtually country where I had no family and bare- Rechasim had developed into a major all one’s waking hours in the yeshiva, ly spoke the language, married, and Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) center. engaged in intense religious study. fathered my first child. No other five- By choosing to live in these small That is the course taken by most year period of my adult life has been so communities in Israel’s north, we have young men in the Haredi community, densely packed with such a helter-skel- experienced a different environment from youth through the first years of ter of significant experiences. Clearly, from most American immigrants, who married life. In all likelihood, my own sleeping held less charm for me then overwhelmingly settle in the crowded, sons—three of whom are already study-

54 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN ing in yeshivas—will follow that path, career to an institution with whose the new. which is the natural outcome of their ideals I cannot wholeheartedly identify, Jewish tradition survives by virtue of education. which, in some ways, are antithetical to its unbroken transmission from parents In my case, however, the process of my beliefs. I cloister in the office I share to children. But it’s difficult to pass on internalization stalled somewhere. In my with the library computer, work long something that I didn’t receive from my head, the words of daily prayers coexist and intensely, and try to project a posi- parents. We’re trying to reforge links in with 30-year-old radio jingles, the weekly tive image of a religious Jew to my co- a chain of tradition battered by assimila- Torah portion with William Butler Yeats workers. tion, secularism, the Holocaust, and and Isaac Asimov, cantorial melodies I am between two worlds, like a materialism. We’re raising our children with Sibelius and Alan Sherman. Intellec- spacecraft whose movements are gov- in a world vastly different from the one tually, my religious commitment is solid; erned by competing gravitational forces. in which we grew up, and we don’t however, unless someone discovers a I have to cope with ambiguity and per- always have the tools for the job. way to reformat a human brain, a signifi- haps alienation. I am neither an Israeli From almost anywhere in Rechasim, cant part of me will remain secular. nor an American, neither ultra-Orthodox the pleasant slopes of Carmel, and the Although I enjoy excellent relations nor secular. Even in the confines of university, are before my eyes. Not visi- with my work colleagues, my religious Rechasim, I am neither newly observant ble, on the other side of Haifa near the appearance and behavior mark me as nor one of the good old boys. My clos- Mediterranean coast, is another promi- someone whose worldview, daily rou- est friends, and my wife’s, are still those nent site, where, according to tradition, tine, and priorities are so different from from the community in Migdal HaEmek the prophet Elijah contended with and their own as to preclude any but proper, whose lives have followed a similar defeated the pagan prophets of Ba’al, professional conversations. Most of my path. annihilating them with a fire summoned colleagues are women, and the stric- My children do not share this ambi- from the heavens. These two landmarks tures of traditional Judaism regarding guity. They know who they are and symbolize for me the polarities within social contact between the sexes as well don’t grapple with identity crises. In a both myself and contemporary Israeli as the prohibition of any idle gossip curious reversal, my wife and I—like our society: the allure of liberal, pluralistic, form another barrier to personal rela- immigrant forebears in America—con- materialistic Western civilization on the tions. I don’t take part in the university’s tend with a different language and cul- one hand and the demands of uncom- varied cultural life; I am strictly a com- ture, no longer a part of the old world promising, all-encompassing Judaism on muter. I have given the best years of my and unable to completely assimilate into the other. The struggle between those world- views has been raging for 50 years on many fronts—national, communal, familial, and personal. There is no sign that it will be resolved anytime soon. My own modest, silent contribution to this fray has been, together with my wife, to raise children who will continue the tra- dition and sanctify G-d in their public and private lives. If they are successful, they will probably owe more to their teachers than to their parents. Though my children will never attend their father’s alma mater, I hope also to have passed on to them some legacy from Swarthmore: a basic respect for other people, even those with whom they differ passionately and fundamen- tally. So, for the time being, the Bulletins remain in the house, piling up in a bed- room corner. The bookshelves in the liv- ing room display texts more appropriate for our milieu. The prophet Elijah has an additional role in Jewish tradition. He is not only the fiery, zealous destroyer of idols and false prophets but the messenger of peace, who will herald the Messiah’s arrival. When he comes, we are told, he Yosef Branse ’76 (right), has lived in Israel for 20 years. He says he is will resolve all our insoluble problems. “neither an Israeli nor an American, neither ultra-Orthodox nor secular,” I’ll let him decide what to do with the but his wife, Deborah Reisman, and children have no such identity crises. Bulletins. I

SEPTEMBER 1999 55 Alumni Profile

Maverick musical mavens Beth McIntosh ’80 and Judith Edelman ’87 blaze their own trails West and South.

sk Madonna or Mick: the life of a Atouring musician is grueling even when you have a coterie of roadies to help you. When you’re a woman on your own, driving solo through the vast American West in a car crammed with your own CDs and a guitar and only gas money in your pocket, grueling does not begin to describe it. But the gruel factor is mitigated by the exhilaration of pursuing a dream on your own terms. That’s how two singer-songwriters from Swarthmore describe their sepa- rate years on the road. In the years fol- lowing graduation, Elizabeth C. McIn- tosh ’80 and Judith Edelman ’87 have lived passionate, if precarious, lives as musicians and recording artists—free- lancers on tour, pioneers in the cre- ative wilderness, frontier women in the West. Though always touch-and-go financially, the endeavor has enriched them in other ways: with loyal fans who come down from the hills to local watering holes to sing along to lyrics they know by heart, collaborations Elizabeth McIntosh ’80 (above) has been dubbed by Jackson Hole Magazine as “a with artists of every stripe, and critical mysterious, lion-maned songwriter whose poems are as complex and meaningful as acclaim. For albums such as Fire and her adept guitar work.” Judith Edelman ’87 (opposite page) has also garnered praise Sage and Grizzlies Walking Upright, from The Wall Street Journal, Billboard, and Music Review, the last of which acoustic guitar player McIntosh has described her music as “fully literate and shockingly good songwriting.” won awards like the Wyoming Perform- ing Arts Fellowship and been dubbed by Jackson Hole Magazine as “a mysterious, lion-maned her soul through the process of production is truly amaz- songwriter whose poems are as complex and meaningful as ing. She knows that everything she sees, smells, eats, and her adept guitar work.” Edelman’s recordings, Perfect World thinks makes its way into her work.” and Only Sun, have garnered praise from The Wall Street McIntosh and Edelman are articulate, intense, nervy indi- Journal, Billboard, and Music Review, the last of which viduals fully seasoned in the realities of staying afloat in a described her music as “[p]art bluegrass, a smidge pop, a not-always-kind industry. The similarities between them are dash alternative, fully literate, and shockingly good song- striking. Both are Easterners—Edelman grew up in the writing.” crush of Manhattan and McIntosh in a Boston suburb, both With the gap in their ages, the two never met each other in homes warmed by a spiritual hearth of music. Trained in at Swarthmore. But when they met—2,000 miles away in classical piano, Edelman became adept at the Mozart and Wyoming through the men in their lives, Edelman’s long- Beethoven sonatas that everyone in her high-achieving fam- time partner and award-winning banjo player and mandolin- ily played, including Dave Edelman ’83. In comical contrast, ist Matt Flinner and bluegrass guitar and bassist Phil McIntosh has “the funniest picture of my two parents sitting Round, whom McIntosh married in 1980—they quickly in front of the TV with their guitars,” following along to the became each other’s biggest fans. tutelage of a hippy-folksy gal” in the days when everyone “Beth is in touch with an incredibly deep wellspring,” wanted to be Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell. In such an envi- crooned Edelman, who lives in Idaho, 20 miles over a pass ronment, it was only natural that McIntosh was already in the Tetons from McIntosh. “She’s an incredibly brilliant picking her way among the strings and frets by the time she and intuitive person all around. She sees the connection was five, emulating James Taylor during an awkward ado- between creative wildness and environmental wildness.” lescence and playing coffeehouses by the time she came to Of her younger sister in songwriting, McIntosh said: Swarthmore. (Some may remember her appearances at “Watching how [Judith] works from the bedrock layer of Mephistos.)

58 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Both chose majors in the humanities, McIntosh in independent labels—Compass Records for psychology, Edelman in English when the Women’s Edelman, and McIntosh eventually Studies program was in its infancy. Each briefly pur- appointed herself presi- sued paths after Swarthmore that smothered their dent of her creative fires: McIntosh fished commercially in Alas- own compa- ka and went on to postgraduate work in anthropolo- ny, ECM gy with plans to go into academia. She found her- Music. self feeling “top-heavy,” overly cerebral, and long- Today, the ing for a place “where your body can bash up musicians’ lives against the natural forces that are informing are undergoing you.” Edelman did field research in Third World changes. Edelman agricultural development. It was in Nairobi that and Flinner made a Edelman first picked up a guitar, in the home of leap of faith and a stranger who took her in when she was criti- moved to Nashville cally ill with a case of salmonella. this summer, reluc- Both alumnae were influenced by their tantly bidding fare- brothers. Edelman’s curiosity about the well to the majestic rhythmic potential of bluegrass had been and affordable West for awakened by violinist Dave’s combo band the hustle and hoo of at Swarthmore. It was this genre she pur- the nation’s bluegrass sued in lessons when she moved to San and country capital; Francisco after returning to the United there, they hope to find States. McIntosh heard of the Rocky steady session work and Mountains’ splendor from her brother visibility among other writ- and followed him westward. “It was as ers. Four years ago, McIn- far away from anything academic as tosh became the mother of you can get. I’d asked myself: Where Wilder, who was followed this is my heart? What is the most intelli- spring by Raynor. The addi- gent thing I can do with my life? So tion of a nursing infant to the far, I hadn’t found the answer in demands of the road proved academics or a professional track. arduous. There was a note of The only thing was my guitar and wistfulness in McIntosh’s voice my music.” as she related her decision to cut In these ways, both found back on touring for now. She has themselves in the uncharted stayed closer to home, writing territory of making music (not music for a film and teaching work- that any career in the arts shops like “Finding Your Wild Voice” comes with a road map), at the Teton Science Center near her careers without 401Ks, paid family’s log cabin in Wilson, Wyo., sick days, or guarantees of with a population of 202. success. They played con- Yet ironically, motherhood has only certs large and small, for deepened McIntosh’s music. She just college audiences and released The Wild Ride, whose title women’s festivals. “It alludes to the journey of birth and mater- was great,” recalled nity, to her encounter with the wilderness McIntosh: “Get in the in her own body as well as the external car and drive a zillion wilderness she limns in imagistic, Cassan- miles and leave with dra-like songs. She is less consumed by the some money.” Edel- idea of albums as product and more interest- man teamed up with ed in the process of living, which may eventu- touring groups, im- ally end up as a song or album. Reading Zen mersing herself in and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance author bluegrass’s inter- Robert Pirsig’s latest book, Lila, helped put the twining of tradi- question of creative output in perspective for tion and innova- McIntosh. “There were 10 years between his last tion. Through book and this one,” she mused softly, while her that magical children burbled in the background. “The guy wait- combination of ed until he really had something to say. I want to persistence write the same way. It’s about seeing your life as a and serendipi- body of work and of trusting in the gestational ty, both found aspects of creativity.” agents, then small —Ali Crolius ’84

© ANNE HAMERSKY SEPTEMBER 1999 59 Letters CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 values, and desires to col- It is to be doubted say that extending parietal urban legends, made up by lege. How could we not? But whether the cultivation of hours raised her worries clever undergraduates and college broadens our under- guilt ameliorates race rela- about “what you’re going to foisted on unsuspecting fresh- standing of our own culture, tions, for we all find it diffi- do again” (Letters, June men? No matter; it’s fun just to adds understanding of other cult to reconcile with whom 1999), a similar story circu- remember and retell them. cultures, challenges us to we are held to have wronged. lated. In the mid-1950s, the examine our values in light of In any case, let the sins of story was that a student gov- QUAKER TESTIMONIES other value systems, and the fathers not descend to ernment representative ask- Another great issue of the exposes us to whole new their offspring. ing that senior women be Swarthmore Bulletin: The let- worlds of desire. It was Malcolm X who allowed to stay out one hour ters to the editor are truly The guilt Mr. McKnight inspiring, as is the profile of pins on Swarthmore belongs compañera Elizabeth Mar- to generations of white “The guilt Mr. McKnight pins on Swarthmore tinez ’46 by Andrea Hammer. Americans, but Swarthmore belongs to generations of white Americans, I find it ironic that issue after deserves praise for creating issue the Bulletin veritably leaders of the civil rights but Swarthmore deserves praise for creat- douses us with direct and movement and many other ing leaders of the civil rights movement and indirect references to moral crusades of our time Friends Testimonies without and earlier times. many other moral crusades of our time and clearly identifying them. JUDITH GRACE STETSON ’59 earlier times.” They are Love, Joy, Peace, Falmouth, Mass. Patience, Generosity, Faith- —Judith Grace Stetson ’59 fulness, Gentleness, and Self- ENTERING THE DIALOGUE control. The justice sought The letter by Ulan McKnight by letter-writer Ulan McK- is a vitriolic attack on a stated that the worst crime later, asked: “But Dean night ’87 would be much Swarthmore bias toward of the whites was to teach Cobbs, what could they do in closer to reality at Swarth- white males. I agree that the blacks to believe in their sub- the second hour that they more if the Testimonies were most prevalent bias the ordinate status. It is really couldn’t do in the first?” the guides of more Quakerly world over is toward males impossible to requite such a Dean Cobbs’ response, in her admissions and student-life of the dominant culture, but I psychic wound, beside lovely southern drawl was: policies at the College. was disappointed by the let- which more objective forms “My de-a-r, they could do it STEPHAN H. HORNBERGER ter, which instead of provid- of discrimination, however tw-i-ce.” It won’t surprise me (parent of Ch’uyasonqo ing examples that would give despicable, seem almost triv- if someone comes up with an Hornberger ’97) credibility to the accusation, ial. Yes, American society— even earlier version. Philadelphia just continued to throw including Swarthmore—has Is it just an “enhanced punches. To quote another much to answer for. It is memory,” or did Dean Cobbs AUTHOR’S QUERY: writer in that issue, Hillary understandable that an air of really tell the freshman wom- W.H. AUDEN Thompson ’99 (“Conserva- self-celebration grates on en of the Class of 1957 to For a study of W.H. Auden’s tive rebel”): “For [one’s] those who have suffered vili- “draw up the petals of your pedagogy, a scholar at views to be a part of campus fication. But to vilify an insti- virginity about you” at our Oxford University is seeking dialogue, [one has] to be a tution that is earnestly trying for-women-only orientation? to interview Swarthmoreans member of the community, to rectify past wrongs seems MINNA NEWMAN NATHANSON ’57 who studied with or knew not attack it from the out- perverse. Washington, D.C. the poet during his time at side.” PETER DODGE ’48 the College, 1942–45. Please PENEL ADELMAN ’66 North Hampton, N.H. Editor’s Note: Egad! Are all write Daniel Varholy, Mag- Scarsdale, N.Y. the classic Swarthmore sto- dalen College, Oxford, OX1 SWARTHMORE LEGENDS ries—the Susan Cobbs tales, 4AU, U.K., telephone (011-44) CULTIVATING GUILT A decade before Alex Capron the cow in the dormitory, Cass 1865-209248, or e-mail daniel- One merely sets oneself up ’66 heard Dean Susan Cobbs Elliott—merely the College’s [email protected]. as a target for obloquy by engaging in any discussion of CORRECTION racial issues, but I rise to the WRITE TO US Faculty member Kemal bait provided by Ulan Mc- Nance ’92 conducted the Knight in his intemperate The Bulletin welcomes letters concerning the contents of dance workshop pictured in letter (June 1999) calling the magazine or issues relating to the College. All letters the June “Alumni Digest.” upon Swarthmore to pro- must be signed and may be edited for clarity and space. The caption incorrectly claim its “guilt” before cele- Address your letters to: Editor, Swarthmore College Bul- implied that Tamala Mont- brating advances in the rep- letin, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081-1397, or gomery ’98 also led the class, resentation of minorities at send by e-mail to [email protected]. which was held during Black the College. Alumni Weekend in March.

66 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Why Studio Arts? stairs. During the 1998–99 school year, “It was really hard to be in the studio Continued from page 15 the main room of the former library and art program here,” she says. “There’s student center (which was partially not much of an art community. I’ve been the ideas. Timi Sullivan ’75, sitting on a destroyed by fire in 1983) was trans- trying to build one. But people here wooden bench a few yards away from formed into individual art studios, divid- don’t seem to take art seriously—includ- the crowd at the List Gallery, always ed by shelves and rough partitions. ing some art majors. I had to practically knew that she wanted to paint, and so Senior art students worked day and beg people to put their work in this she came to Swarthmore—and majored night on the pieces they planned to show.” in literature. “I wanted to learn about include in their final project—an exhibit During the summer of 1998, Smith other things. This is a very intense aca- that functions, for the most part, as studied painting at the Chautauqua demic place. And it exhausted that part their senior thesis. Institution in western New York, an of me. That’s what I wanted—that ver- Today, though, the partitions are intensive program that gave students bal part of education. When I left here, I gone, and the walls are festooned with the space and the freedom to paint all was ready. And that’s day. There, she says, she when I went to art school,” got a taste of what an art Sullivan explains. “Art isn’t school environment would just about art.” The art curriculum today have been like. By coming Andrea Packard ’85 Long gone are the days when Swarthmore offered two art history to Swarthmore, she chose also headed to art school courses and two others in the studio. The current catalog lists 32 yin. And at Chautauqua, she after she graduated from art history courses plus eight seminars, plus 21 studio courses— discovered that she proba- Swarthmore. “When I was not all of which are offered in a given semester. Here’s a selection bly should have chosen at art school, I found that of the courses being offered this academic year. To read full yang. having had the experience course descriptions, find the catalog on the World Wide Web at “I spent the whole sum- of so many art history mer with 30 people who www.swarthmore.edu/ Home/Academic/catalog/. courses and literature were really focused and courses and political sci- really into talking about art. ence and sociology gave Art History Studio Arts Then I came back here and me something to say in my Critical Study in the Visual Arts Foundation—Elements of tried to start the same art,” says Packard, who Western Art Visual Thinking kinds of conversations, and now runs the List Gallery. Asian Art Multimedium Sculpture people said: ‘I have biology “Some of the students I Critical Study: Picasso Ceramics to do,’” Smith explains. “I encountered had mas- 19th-Century European Art Photography don’t think that Swarth- tered their technique, but 20th-Century Western Art Oil Painting more has figured out yet they didn’t always know Gothic Art and Architecture Life Modeling how to bridge academics what to do with it.” Rembrandt and His Times Life Drawing and art.” Modern Art The Potter’s Wheel Randy Exon thinks that here are two other African-American Art Works on Paper Smith’s point is valid. “Stu- art exhibits going Traditional Japan Advanced Ceramics dents leaving the College Ton at Swarthmore Japanese Painting and Prints, Advanced Drawing are a very critical bunch,” this Saturday. In the lobby 1550–1850 Advanced Painting he says. “They should be. of McCabe Library, Ben- Approaches to Tibet Advanced Photography That’s exactly what Swarth- nett Lorber ’64 is showing Special Topics in Medieval Art Advanced Sculpture more taught them to do— his spare, intellectual Philadelphia and American Advanced Printmaking exactly what a liberal arts abstractions drawn from Architecture Senior Workshop education teaches them— the work of the Dutch History of Photography Senior Advanced Study to be critical about what artist, Rogier Van Der Senior Workshop they’re experiencing, to Weyden. Lorber, a physi- reflect on that experience, cian, has been painting but, most important, to try since he was a child. Lorber didn’t take art. One of the paintings is at least 12 to make sense of it. Having been studio courses in college “because there feet tall and is covered with words: “I through Swarthmore, Jessica knows weren’t any,” but he says that even as a first met Gertrude Stein in Man Ray’s that she’s going to go into grad school premed student, he took as much art apartment. Duchamp said: ‘and how is to a master of fine arts program and feel history as he did zoology. “Painting Marcel?’ Which was the big joke in Paris absolute joy with what she’ll find there. enriches my life,” he says. “It’s not an in those days. Je suis paraplui. But my I’m glad that she’s thinking critically extra part of my life—not like someone days as a Dadaist are dead.” Instead of that way.” Exon pauses, then adds, “But playing golf on weekends—it’s just printing handouts identifying which it will be interesting to talk about it with something I do and need to do. It’s there piece belongs to which artist, Jessica her again, in five years maybe, and see if all the time.” Smith ’99, who organized the exhibit, she feels differently. I’m pretty sure she Down the hill, a hand-painted sign in simply wrote the list in white paint on will.” I front of Old Tarble reads: “Student the floor. It’s been almost a week since Exhibit,” with an arrow pointing up the she graduated. Vicki Glembocki is a freelance writer and

SEPTEMBER 1999 67 Our Back Pages

THEFILMINGOF

Story and photographs by Woody Thomas ’51

THE ACTION Camera Club darkroom on the top floor far—and all the actions at each distance of Trotter to bolster our confidence that were filmed at one time.... The outcome It is a warm night in early June. The year we really knew what we were doing. must have been a good deal of choppi- is 1950. The time is after midnight. The In the meantime, others were ready- ness in event sequences. For example, campus is silent. No one stirs. Then, ing the stage in Clothier. They placed an actor’s reply to a statement might be slowly, stealthily, a door in Clothier the set, originally created for the play, filmed hours after the statement was silently opens. A crime is about to be against the back side of the closed the- made. Because the filming took so long, committed—to film. ater curtain and turned the lights to face our clothes got rumpled, and our voices In April of that year, John Weigel’s toward the front of the stage. The sound changed timbre. My recollection is that play, The Crime, had won the first Book crew struggled to locate the micro- there were some scenes in which my & Key one-act play contest. A contempo- phone in a spot that would give good voice went from a squeak to a growl and rary allegory of the story of Adam and reproduction of dialogue in a place not my clothes from neat to disheveled Eve, the play caught the fancy of Ted at all intended for sound recording. The within a few seconds of film time.” Tom Conant, who had the vision of turning it recording was on magnetic tape, com- Kinney affirms Jean’s reaction, but his into a short motion picture and a Col- monplace today, but a relatively new principal memory is of extreme fatigue. lege first—the first student-produced medium in those days. Thacher Robin- After the filming, he says he went to bed movie to be shot in Hollywood’s profes- son ’50, whose home was adjacent to and didn’t wake up until the middle of sional film format, 35mm. the campus, owned the two Magnecord the afternoon hungry but with no However, the nearest available 35mm tape recorders, which were also used at money to buy anything to eat. motion picture cameras were in New WSRN. The tape was 1/4 inch wide and Clare recalls: “Although I had direct- York City at Camera Equipment Compa- ran on 12-inch reels through the record- ed a number of stage and radio dramas ny, a rental agency serving the film-pro- ing machines at 15 inches per second. A in high school and at Swarthmore Net- ducing community on the East Coast. modern professional cassette recorder work [now WSRN], I knew zip about The rent for the huge camera, sturdy tri- can do as well on a track about 1/16 inch movie directing. This is where Barbara pod, and a few lenses seemed enormous wide on tape running at 17/8 inches per Pearson Lange came in. She somehow beside the slim financial resources of second. appeared at my side. She showed me the student producers, who, therefore, Clare Whittlesey Weigel reminisces: how to make a story board and initiated decided to rent the camera for just one “Ted came back from New York with a me into the concept of camera move- day. The entire production would have camera he had rented for 24 hours, a ments and angles, helping me to plot the to be done in 24 hours, including the very short time to shoot a one-act play lengthy panoramic shot with which the time to drive to New York to buy the even if you don’t include the round-trip film begins.” film, rent the camera, and return it the to New York. The time problem was The filming stretched on into the next day. Furthermore, because there compounded by the small amount of dawning hours, and the campus began was no “sound stage” on campus, the that expensive commodity, raw film to awake. As we neared the end, we had filming and recording of dialogue would stock, available to us. For the camera- to station guards on the road by Cloth- have to be done after midnight, when men and the actors, there was a chal- ier to stop any traffic during each film- the College was quiet. lenge to get the shot right on the first ing episode to keep the extraneous Karl Ihrig, who had one of the very take, and usually they did.” noise off the sound track. But finish we few student cars on campus, remem- Preparations to do something most did, and the rush was on to get the cam- bers “driving up to a Kodak film ware- of us had never done before naturally era back to New York to beat the 24- house in New Jersey and having to took longer than any of us had imag- hour deadline. empty our pockets and use canvas ined, but, well into the night, the filming Bill Young made the return trip in his boots because of the extreme fire haz- did finally begin. The actors were sur- 1928 Model A Ford panel truck, pedal to ard.” Thirty-five-millimeter film was not prised to find that making a film is not the floor all the way—remember, no safety film at that time. the same as presenting a play. As Jean Interstate highways in those days. Bill As soon as the camera and film Matter Mandler describes it: “The film- pulled up to Camera Equipment Compa- reached the campus, we made test ing was done at three different dis- ny on the west side of Manhattan, where exposures and developed them in the tances—close up, middle distance, and his companions unloaded the gear onto

68 SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN a freight elevator that opened right onto the street. Bill drove on to find some place to park. When he asked a policeman on the corner where he TH could put his venerable truck, the E C HA cop eyed the vehicle and then RACTER The A S said: “I suggest you take it uthor John We straight to the Sanitation Depart- igel ’50 ment.” (Young still has the truck— The D irector and, in fact, it was pictured on Clare W page 15 of the March 1998 Bulletin.) hittlesey W eigel ’ 50 Months later, the picture editing, The P ro ducers sound editing, titling, music com- Ted C onant ’ 51 posing, recording, narrating, and Frank K ensill ’51 printing came to an end. Ted Conant Th e C ast arranged to have the film shown in Tom K the movie theater in Swarthmore. We inney ’ 50 Je all trooped down for the “World Pre- an Matter Mandle miere.” The Crime was distributed Lorenz r ’ 51 Hansen ’5 nationally for several years by Brandon Bob P 0 aton ’50 Films, a distributor of mainly nonthe- The C om atrical films, in a 16mm print version. A poser Chri 35mm film print is in the archives of the stopher M ontgomer Swarthmore College library. I have a The C y ’ 53 rew 16mm print from which Ken Kurtz has Bill Young ’ 57 recently made a video copy. Wolf Ep stein ’ 51 This brief event in our college life Ken K urtz ’51 influenced, or perhaps abetted, career Wood Tate ’50 choices for several of us. Ted Conant Merrilla continued in the motion picture and n M urray T Wood homas ’ related fields, working with a U.N. film y T homa 53 Ka s ’ 51 unit in Korea, the National Film Board rl Ihrig ’ 51 John of Canada, WGBH in Boston, and in Corya ’ 51 Ru other areas of the communications th Mers on Nelesk industry. Mike Eisler ’51 worked in the Joe R ut i ’ 50 ledge ’ 50 audiovisual field. Ken Kurtz made his Caroly Wilcox ’5 career in the television industry. I and o 2 thers worked for Kodak for a third of a centu- The A ry, about half in technical areas related dvisers Barb to motion pictures, and, for the last 15 ara P ears Fl on Lange ’ years, I have been producing and show- orence Wi 31 lcox ing motion pictures professionally. John Weigel writes: “As for the The author thanks the follow- results, the film itself was remarkably ing for their contributions to different from the stage performance. this story: Ted Conant, Jean With Clare’s direction and Lewis Matter Mandler, John and Core’s* stage set, it had the lightheart- Clare Whittlesey Weigel, Ken ed, near-foolish effect I believe I had in Kurtz, Karl Ihrig, Bill Young, mind. With the strong black-white con- and Tom Kinney. A video trasts, seemingly slower pace, and the copy of the film may be had close-ups, the film gave [the play] a by writing Ken Kurtz at 255 suddenly ominous effect, with constant Irvine Road, Lexington KY insinuations of meaning.... I don’t 40502. remember having this intent and cer- tainly felt I’d loaded on the hokey, but it all fit together in turning the play around to a darker side, which I could now see always had underlain the light- hearted foolery.” I

* A friend of Clare’s from Morgantown, W.V. GEORGE WIDMAN

rom our first visit to Punky and Anne Fristrom’s gifts to Swarthmore pay them an income during their lifetimes and will provide FSwarthmore, we knew it future support for the College’s endowment. Contact the was the place for us. We Planned Giving Office for a financial proposal tailored to your circumstances. Call Margaret Nikelly, director of treasure the breadth of what planned giving: (610) 328-8334. we learned and the chance to have taken a wide variety of courses for our own intellectual interest. Swarthmore gave us so much, that in whatever little way we could, we wanted to give something back.” Anne Chandler Fristrom ’54 C. Kermeen “Punky” Fristrom ’55 Life Income Gift Donors