CollegeThe Fall 2006

St. John’s College • Annapolis • Santa Fe

Jane Austen and the Lives of Women On Jane Austen

ane Austen’s novels offer a glimpse into a world that seems tremendously appealing to those of us vexed with modern society. No one seems to have time to talk today, unless it’s into a cell phone, and that’s only when the iPod or Blackberry aren’t in use. Long, aimless walks through the countryside and afternoons spent sitting in a sunny parlor, catching up on the village gossip, can’t compete with high-definition television and HBO. In Jane Austen’s The College (usps 018-750) Jworld, there was always time for writing letters, playing music, lingering over is published quarterly by St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD, a lavish midday meal, and reading (assuming one’s family could afford to and Santa Fe, NM maintain a library). Of course, there was a serious downside to this gentle lifestyle: young, unmarried Known office of publication: Communications Office women without fortune or connections could find themselves—as Jane Austen did— St. John’s College entirely dependent on the generosity of family. Like Marianne and Elinor in Sense and Box 2800 Annapolis, MD 21404-2800 Sensibility, she knew what it was like to leave a beloved home to make way for a male relative. She was whisked away to Bath, just as Anne Elliot in Persuasion, and like Periodicals postage paid Anne, she learned to make the family budget stretch. As the Bennet girls did, she knew at Annapolis, MD well what it meant to have dim prospects for a good marriage. postmaster: Send address But unlike her poorer heroines, Jane Austen had a marketable skill. She began changes to The College Magazine, Communications writing fiction as a teenager and stopped only when her final illness forced her to put Office, St. John’s College, down her pen. A shrewd observer of human nature, she wrote both from a burning Box 2800, Annapolis, MD desire to tell stories and from economic necessity. She never made a fortune from the 21404-2800. novels published in her lifetime—Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility together Rosemary Harty, editor brought in only £250—but she was pleased and proud to have made her own money. Patricia Dempsey, Most of what we know about Austen comes from her letters, though only 160 survive managing editor Emily DeBusk, from the thousands she wrote. Her sister, Cassandra, censored everything that spoke assistant editor to illness, unhappiness, and misfortune. The seventh of eight children, Jane was born Jennifer Behrens, art director in 1775 to the Rev. George Austen and Cassandra Leigh. George had a modest living Annapolis as rector of the church at Steventon, and Jane’s early childhood was happy and 410-626-2539 stimulating. With only a few years of formal schooling, she read books in her father’s library—everything from Samuel Johnson to gothic novels and burlesque plays. Santa Fe Austen’s life was not without trial: a cousin’s husband went to the guillotine, 505-984-6104 a sister-in-law died young, an aunt was tried on shoplifting charges. Her life was also Contributors not without romance and suitors; she greatly enjoyed flirting and dancing at balls. Eva Brann (HA57) She was even engaged for one night, but apparently thought better of it in the morning. Roberta Gable (A78) She became a doting aunt to her many nieces and nephews, and spent the latter part of Barbara Goyette (A73) Ruth Johnston (A85) her life living quietly in a cottage at Chawton, the estate of her brother, Edward Austen Tilar Mazzeo (SF93) Knight. She died in 1817, attended to by her beloved sister, and was buried in Rhonda Ortiz (A05) Winchester Cathedral. Namara Smith (SF07) Readers respond to Jane Austen because her characters are so richly drawn, her plots so satisfying, and her language so elegant, witty, and precise. We get a glimpse into a long-ago society but we know people like Mrs. Bennet and Lady Catherine de Bourgh; Magazine design by we can laugh at Austen’s silly and misguided characters because we see our own flaws Claude Skelton Design reflected in them. In this issue of The College, our contributors consider Austen’s women, from spinster Anne to orphan Fanny, examining what these enduring characters say about human nature, society, and the life of women. —RH Fall 2006 CollegeThe Volume 32, Issue 3

The Magazine for Alumni of St. John’s College Annapolis • Santa Fe

{Contents} page 8 departments Philosophy and War 2 from the bell towers • Febbies: The End of an Era Santa Fe Tutor James Carey (class of • Annapolis Cannon Set Straight 1967) shares great books and great ideas • A Living Shoreline with future Air Force officers. • The Kindness of a Stranger • Santa Fe’s Extreme Makeover page 10 • A Home for the GI in Santa Fe A Celebration of • News, Announcements, Honors letters Community page 10 Commencement speakers Judith Seeger 28 Bibliofile and David Levine (A67) talked of ties that From the Bible to baseball: a bind Johnnies. compendium of alumni books. 37 alumni notes page 12 PROFILES For the Students 32 Marcus Eubanks (A88) thrives in emergency medicine. Sustaining the college’s need-based 36 Kevin Ross (AGI97) leads financial aid program is a top priority of Lynn University. the college’s $125 million capital 39 Richard Field (SFGI98) gets high school campaign. students hooked on classics. page 12 41 Game show success for page 18 Celeste DiNucci (A87) The Lives of Women 43 Obituaries The women of Jane Austen’s world Remembering Brother Robert Smith speak to human qualities we can all relate to, particularly the need to find 46 alumni association news love and happiness. 48 st. john’s forever page 29 Homecoming Were members of the Santa Fe Class of page 18 1976 the last of the rebels?

on the cover Jane Austen Illustration by David Johnson 2 {From the Bell Towers}

“Once I knew what the Program On difficulties of the A Farewell to Febbies was all about I didn’t want to go Febbie year: any where else.” Rian Thune Special Bonds, Lasting Memories “I wanted to read every book on “Finding time to sleep.” Kelvin the reading list, and I knew that Chung Elizabeth Burlington, a student hardships that Febbies they were too difficult to under- “Having to do 16 weeks’ worth aide in the St. John’s College encounter, particularly in the stand on my own. Before this, of work in 10.” Mallory Gill communications office, inter- abbreviated summer session; I graduated from community viewed each member of the Class and the camaraderie and college in Georgia.” Jesse “Not getting time off to write of 2009 Febbies, slated to be the conflicts that develop when a Shearer our freshman essays.” Timothy last class enrolled in January on small group of students spend a Brisnehan the Annapolis campus. The lot of time together, in the same On seminars: college first began enrolling dormitory, at the same Dining “I have difficulty doing my freshmen in the middle of the Hall table, and in the same “After seminar, usually people Greek and sleeping.” Sara Luell academic year in the 1960s. classes. are mad or they are very happy. The January Freshman program In September, the Febbies Usually the ones that are happy “Socially, I feel like we were will continue in Santa Fe. who stayed at St. John’s melted are the ones that everyone else isolated from the other into the sophomore class, is mad at.” Sara Luell freshmen.” Jody Whelan Several weeks into their getting to know more students “Febbie Summer,” the final and likely seeing less of each “After seminar I feel like we On being a Febbie: 17 students to enroll in January other. But they will be distin- have exercised our intellects in in Annapolis as freshmen were guished as Febbies until the the class, and that we are still “I feel like being a Febbie has busy writing freshman essays. day they receive their diplomas, feeling the burn.” Patrick Jones made me a different student But in the heat of a June after- and then at Homecoming than I would have been if I noon, the entire Febbie class— gatherings in Annapolis for “We are actually more energetic would have come here in the the campus virtually their own, years to come. after seminar, even compared to fall. I feel special.” Sara Luell since summer Graduate the seminars in the first On choosing St. John’s: Institute students had not yet semester. We seem to be a lot “We absolutely do share a bond with each other, more than the arrived—congregated around “I really like great books, more interested in the things regular August freshman.” one small table on the Quad. but Columbia University’s we’re reading, and of course, Kelvin Chung “After seminar I feel good,” great books program was really there’s a lot that we don’t get to said Michael Cooney, who, at disappointing. All the teachers say during seminar that needs “I was glad I was a Febbie. I like 21, is a bit older than his fellow were grad students. That wasn’t expounding afterward. With the the peace and quiet here in the Febbies. “I feel like the Yin and my type of environment, so I tutors coming to our Febbie summer time.” Steffanie the Yang.” Sitting next to him, just packed it up and came Snack afterward, there are a lot Peterson Patrick Jones, who skipped his here.” Wynn Hedlesky of fruitful discussions.” x last two years of high school and Kelvin Chung attended the University of Maryland for a semester to ease into college, laughed at his friend’s remark. “That’s absolutely right, Mr. Cooney.” Febbies from years gone by cherish the closeness that Febbie summer promotes. What appears to be a period of isolation to outsiders translates into an unusual bonding experience to those who participate in it. Among other things, the students talked about experi- ences spent at other colleges;

Annapolis’ Febbies cut loose in Spector Hall after seminar n last summer. The practice of a m enrolling January freshmen r o l has ended in Annapolis, but x e will continue in Santa Fe. l a

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {From the Bell Towers} 3

The Cannon: Battle-Ready at Last

Henry Robert, class of 1941, have been fired in the war nodded with satisfaction as two that was the subject of his welders from the McShane Bell celebrated anthem, “The Star- Foundry set to the task of Spangled Banner.” righting a wrong. For 40-odd When Mr. Robert was a years, the cannon mounted student, the cannon sat as it between Pinkney and should: level, pointing straight McDowell halls has been a ahead to College Avenue. source of irritation to Over time, St. John’s students Mr. Robert, who spent a wiggled the cannon in its year in the old program before mounting, and it eventually becoming one of the few rusted into a position about

St. John’s students to start 45 degrees from horizontal— t d e

again in the new. historically inaccurate, and, to a t s

This cannon “of the type Mr. Robert’s eye, ridiculously n e s used in the defense of impractical. “If a shot were i e

d

Baltimore in the War of 1812,” fired in that direction, it would e r f according to a plaque attached fall helplessly before ever l to the barrel, was presented to reaching its target,” Mr. Robert a St. John’s College by the local remarked. Maryland Archaeological The cannon, as it was in Henry chapter of the D.A.R. and the Last year, Mr. Robert gave a Conservation Laboratory at Robert’s days as a Johnnie. National Star-Spangled Banner donation to the college to Jefferson Patterson Park and This famous St. John’s photo, by Alfred Eisenstaedt, was Centennial Commission on remount the cannon and to Museum. taken for LIFE magazine in the September 14, 1914. The spruce it up. In September, a The cannon’s original 1940s. plaque celebrated the college much improved, shinier exterior was lost long ago, to as alma mater to Francis Scott cannon was returned to the time and the salt water of Key and suggested that it may college by conservators of the Baltimore Harbor, where it wiggle the cannon, says was submerged for untold years Mr. Robert. before a dredging project As for the cannon’s role uncovered it. The inner surface in the War of 1812, that’s is heavily pitted and had rusted doubtful, says Howard over the years. Conservator Wellman, lead conservator for Donna Smith air-abraded the the Maryland Historical Trust. surface, applied a corrosive It’s too small to have been used inhibitor, painted it with black on a battleship or in a fort, and Rustoleum paint, and covered was more likely mounted on a it with a liberal coat of Bowling merchant ship for defense Alley Butcher’s Wax. McShane against pirates. It could even workers re-aligned the brackets have been mounted on a and re-tapped the bolt holes in British ship. the journals in order for the Mr. Robert has fond new trunnion collars to fit memories of the cannon, even securely into the mount, then though he recalls taking part in they spot-welded it in place. the hazing ritual that employed This should keep future the artifact. “Shooting from Johnnies from developing the cannon” required “rats” “the devilish notion” to try to (freshmen) to run from the cannon to College Avenue through a gauntlet of belt- wielding upperclassmen who Henry Robert, class of 1941, would try to strike the men as h was on hand in September to they ran by. “I ran fast,” t i

m see the cannon remounted.

s Mr. Robert recalls with a smile.

a Mr. Robert underwrote the i “It wasn’t so bad.” r x o cost for the restoration and t c i remounting of the cannon. v

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 4 {From the Bell Towers}

A Living Shoreline This fall, St. John’s students returned to a dramatically transformed shoreline along College Creek, one intended to nurture a healthier and more diverse variety of plant and animal life. Along the shoreline, which was once a bulkheaded seawall, there is now a sloping, ecologically restored wetland protected from erosion with bio-logs and native species of marsh grass. The 885-foot shoreline restoration, completed this summer, is one of the largest projects of its kind along the Chesapeake Bay. It also showcases St. John’s role as

environmental citizen, n a m

educator, and partner with r o l

regional environmental x e l

organizations. a A volunteer corps including Last summer, thanks to student and community volunteers, the hardened bulkhead along College students and local residents Creek was removed and the shoreline was restored to a natural marsh. (many of them Chesapeake Bay Foundation members) provided pleased that the college is freshman lab. “We’ve known Seven years ago the shoreline several work days to help “leading by example,” says since the late 1960s how restoration was begun as a pilot restore the area to a more Ron Schnabel, one of the CBF valuable the marsh is,” says project to restore 125 feet natural state, thanks to support staff members who have Jackson, who worked in envi- between the Hodson Boathouse from several foundations. The donated time and expertise ronmental conservation before and King George Street. Chesapeake Bay Foundation is to the project. joining the college. “However, The project involved grading The College support and funding for the the shoreline to a natural slope Creek shoreline project were bolstered by devel- and planting native species, is an ideal site for opment of new techniques for such as spartina, bayberry, and ecological successfully restoring them.” bulrush on a prepared planting restoration The bulkhead was installed terrace constructed on sand and because of on College Creek about 50 years dirt fill imported to the site. minimal boat ago to keep harmful sediment Planning and design for the traffic, currents, from reaching the Chesapeake second phase of the project wind, and wave Bay. “Up until the late 1960s, began two years ago, thanks to a action, according the ecological value of marshes $200,000 challenge grant from to Don Jackson, and wetlands were not well the Arthur Vining Davis St. John’s understood, and they were often Foundations. This past spring director of thought of as insect breeding the college received the funding operations. The grounds,” explains Jackson. to match it, and in June began creek has long “As a result, bulkheading was restoring the remaining been a resource often installed along the shore- 760 feet of structural bulkhead. for Johnnies in line and back-filled with earth Contributors and partners to create more useable land.” include the Chesapeake Bay In the past 10 years there Foundation, the Chesapeake Tutor Nick has been an environmental Bay Trust, the Maryland Maistrellis movement to curb erosion and Department of the Environ- donned waders n a to help plant look for ways to stabilize the ment, FishAmerica Foundation, m r shoreline without using and the Vernal W. and Florence o natural grasses l

x along the shore- bulkhead and rip-rap. H. Bates Foundation. x e l

a line.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {From the Bell Towers} 5

offer. Cooper, after an injury- outside the The shortened career in the Army curriculum.” and a disappointing experi- Robinson’s fondness Kindness of ence at American University in for the Program just Washington, D.C., had found made Cooper more a Stranger St. John’s again, many years eager for the start of after a high school teacher the semester. Lauren Cooper, a freshman recommended the college. Her new books— from the Denver area, had She visited the Santa Fe almost two-thirds of fewer Program books to buy campus. “After sitting in on a the Program works— this year, thanks to Christine seminar on Aristotle, I was were in very good Robinson (A90) of San sold,” she says. shape. She took away Francisco. Robinson is quick Cooper arranged a time to two Iliads, one in to point out that her act of pick up the books; just as English and one in generosity was inspired by a welcome as the gift was the Greek, and some Johnnie who came before her. chance to visit with a Johnnie books that seem brand In Robinson’s case, the and talk about the Program. new. She enjoys the inspiration was Mike Van “Christine told me junior year notes written in some Beuren (A75), a former house- was the hardest, and said to of the margins. “Her mate in Annapolis who gave take advantage to learn things giving the books was all his books to the St. John’s representative of a library when Robinson was generation of ideas a student. “After sitting in and thoughts. I was so pleased like to revisit are online. And Since she graduated from on a seminar on that an alum cared enough to she likes the idea of her books the college, Robinson has do this,” Cooper says. making another trip to embraced many careers: Aristotle, I was Robinson couldn’t part with Annapolis. “They’re going to tourism, advertising sales, and Fear and Trembling, Euclid’s be there, in seminar,” she says. working for a labor union trust sold.” Elements, or her volumes of “It gives me a connection to fund. She finished her MBA, French poetry. But she knows the college now.” x immersed herself in the study Lauren Cooper (A10) most of the other books she’d of foreign languages, lived in Paris for a year, and became a student of the tango. She was expecting to spend a few years traveling in South America, but her mother’s failing health meant a detour to Denver to clean out her mother’s home in preparation for a move to an assisted living facility. “I thought I could ship all these books back to California and put them in a storage unit, but that didn’t really make sense,” she says. “I wanted to get them back in circulation.” Robinson contacted the college, and Roberta Gable (A78), associate director of admissions, alerted Denver- area freshmen to Robinson’s

Above, Christine Robinson of

San Francisco decided a new n a

Johnnie should have her m g e Program books; right, i t s

Annapolis freshman Lauren a e Cooper makes room on her s l e

dorm room bookshelf. h c

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 6 {From the Bell Towers}

“I Just Kept Coming Back” Gratitude Prompts a $5 Million Gift for a Santa Fe GI Center

An alumnus of the Graduate Institute in Santa Fe has made a $5 million gift to fund construction of a center for the college’s two graduate programs on the campus. Dr. Norman Levan (SFGI74) of Bakersfield, Calif., made his gift in gratitude for the intellectual enrichment he gained through the graduate program. “The Graduate Institute changed my life,” Dr. Levan said when the gift was announced July 28 as part of the opening celebration for “With a Clear and Single Purpose”: The Campaign for St. John’s College. “It was an amazing experience for me, and I’m grateful that this program exists.” The Norman and Betty Levan Hall will be home to the college’s two graduate programs: the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and the Master of Arts in Eastern Classics. The building will house classrooms, faculty offices, and common space for grad- uate students, and will be situated between Weigle Hall and the Fine Arts Building. The building will also be dedicated to the memory of Dr. Levan’s late wife, Betty, who enjoyed visiting Santa Fe each summer while Dr. Levan was a student. Building a home for the GI, established in 1967 in Santa Fe, is Santa Fe President Michael Peters and Dr. Norman Levan among the top priorities of the campaign for the college’s (SFGI74). western campus, says Santa Fe President Michael Peters. Design for the building is underway and the college hopes to break ground for the project in the next few months, he says. “We are exceptionally pleased that an alumnus had such a good experience in the Graduate Institute that he wants to help the college build a permanent home for the institute,” he says. Extreme Makeover Dr. Levan is professor emeritus and former chief of dermatology at his alma mater, the University of Southern California School of Medicine (class of 1939). He has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in medicine. He established the Hansen’s Disease Clinic at the Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center in 1962 at the request of state and federal health officials. At age 90, he still spends one day a week seeing patients in his dermatology practice. He came to the GI in the middle of his thriving medical career at the suggestion of a colleague who had found the experience intellectually invigorating. In Santa Fe, Dr. Levan found a learning community united by a common love of books and ideas, one that welcomed students of all ages. In those days, he said, most of the GI students were classroom teachers who were passionate about improving education. His favorite reading included Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War and de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. “I thought I would come for just one summer,” he says. For several months last summer, members of the Santa Fe campus community were detouring around work crews and barricades “Then I just kept coming back. It was a turning point in my life: while the Campus Core Renovation project was under way. being able to read the original texts, being part of a community, The inconvenience proved well worth it when the project was experiencing a faculty so different from ours at USC.” completed in mid-September. More than 105,000 bricks were laid Santa Fe GI Director Krishnan Venkatesh said students, from Peterson Student Center to Santa Fe Hall, replacing the faculty, and alumni have been touched by Dr. Levan’s gift. concrete pavement. The koi pond was given a new waterfall and “This is a magnificent expression of generosity,” Mr. Venkatesh additional lighting. New teak benches, tables, and trash cans have been installed throughout the area, along with an says. “This building will give the Graduate Institute a respected additional 14 light fixtures and two ramps installed to provide central place on campus, a permanent home.” x additional accessibility for the disabled. The improvements were part of the $2 million Santa Fe Initiative.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {From the Bell Towers} 7

confidence, that makes its News and Announcements students believe they can do anything,” writes author Loren Annapolis tutor EVA BRANN has Mr. Enriquez holds a Ph.D. in been selected to receive the History and an A.B. in Amer- Pope in a new version of Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal of ican Studies from Georgetown Colleges That Change Lives: the Yale Graduate School University, and an M.A. in 40 Schools That Will Change Alumni Association. Miss American Civilization from the the Way You Think About Brann was scheduled to be feted University of Pennsylvania. College. at an October 12 gala dinner Most recently, he has served Pope refers to St. John’s as and awards ceremony in New as Registrar and Associate one of the “four most intellec- Haven. The Wilbur Lucius Dean of Academic Affairs and tual (and indispensable) Cross Medal is an honor Director of Institutional colleges in the country.” presented each year by the Research at Hanover College Scholarship Winner Graduate School Alumni in Indiana. ERICA NAONE (A05) was one of Erica Naone (A05), Jack Kent Association to a small number Still Changing Lives of outstanding alumni. only 77 students chosen nation- Cooke scholarship winner The medal recognizes distin- St. John’s College is included as wide to receive a scholarship from the Jack Kent Cooke guished achievements in schol- one of only 40 distinct colleges Combining her love for math Foundation Graduate Program. arship, teaching, academic in the United States that “excel and science and her talent for The scholarship supports administration, and public at developing potential, values, writing, Naone is currently students who “have a strong service. initiative and risk-taking in a enrolled in the Massachusetts appreciation for the arts, wide range of students,” Institute of Technology’s Appointments financial need, strong academic according to a new edition of a graduate program in science skills, leadership, and a desire JON ENRIQUEZ has been named college guidebook. St. John's writing. x Registrar in Annapolis. “is a school that inspires self to contribute to society.”

{Letters}

Greatness in a Twilight impossible, we got our first all around me. While he was greatness even in a twilight World glimpse of his characteristic serious about the work of world. humor: “How about 2 a.m.? I’m language, he also had a light There is a small error of fact in —Victor Austin, SF78 not doing anything then!” hand with the serious things. I your obituary for tutor Thomas Correction: In the article, “Out It was a romp of a French remember the joy of listening to McDonald [Winter 2006], the of Africa: Journalist Lydia class. A wrong answer would be him read to us Borges’ story correcting of which will allow Polgreen (A97)” (Spring 2006 met by a swift hand reaching about the Minotaur. me to add my own minor tribute issue), Lydia Polgreen’s mother under the table to push a buzzer, My recollection is that to that great tutor. is incorrectly listed as Pamela. sending an imaginary electrical Mr. McDonald did not partici- The obituary stated that Rahel Polgreen is Lydia’s current to the erring student. pate in academic processions, Mr. McDonald had a sabbatical mother; Pamela Polgreen is the From time to time he would on account of—I was told—his year in Germany, 1976-77. second wife of Lydia’s father, rise, slowly, painfully, to put never having completed an However, that was the first year I John Polgreen (SF71). something on the blackboard. academic degree. I asked him knew him at St. John’s in Santa We wondered if he would make about that once, and he said Fe. He arrived in the fall of 1976 it. Passing him on the Placita, something about obtaining a with his wife and his painful The College welcomes letters on we might ask that question degree being an impediment to ailment, medication for which issues of interest to readers. seldom meant seriously: “How his education. Again, a smile. made it impossible for him to Letters may be edited for clarity are you?” His answer once was, Some nine members of the teach in the mornings. and/or length. Those under “50-50,” as he bent down, class of 1978 were present at our Our section of junior French 500 words have a better chance turning his hand from side to tenth reunion. There we were, was scheduled to meet twice a of being printed in their side, “comme ci, comme ça.” at a picnic table, wondering week at 2:30 p.m., with the third entirety. He was smiling. It was in that what it was that we had in meeting scheduled for Please address letters to: French class that we memorized common. The answer came: we Wednesday at 9 a.m. He told us The College magazine, poems. Two of them, to be were all in that junior French at our first class that he couldn’t St. John’s College, Box 2800, precise. “Mr. Austin,” he began tutorial with Mr. McDonald. As meet so early on Wednesday, Annapolis, MD 21404. class one day, “tell us about your we began sharing his jokes and and asked if we could find an Letters can also be sent via youth.” Ma jeunesse ne fut qu’un mannerisms, we recalled how he alternate time agreeable to e-mail to: rosemary.harty@ ténébreux orage, I butchered on, bore his burdens lightly and everyone. When this proved sjca.edu. vowels, consonants falling dead showed us the joy of touching

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 8 {The Tutors}

Philosophy, Justice, and War Tutor James Carey Among the Cadets

Eddie Kovsky (SF03) spent two years as a staff writer for the things like that. So even in the core philosophy course there’s base newspaper at the United States Air Force Academy. been a lot of liberty. The summer he began, Santa Fe tutor James Carey (class of 1967) The other class I taught was a semester-long course on Kant’s joined the faculty as the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Critique of Pure Reason, a seminar that I co-led with a colleague Philosophy. In January in the department. We had 2006, Kovsky met with him eight cadets and we worked to discuss his experience our way through the book, teaching at the academy and reading about 90 to the role the classics play in 95 percent of the whole preparing cadets to become work. I also taught a class officers. called Great Philosophers— we devoted that class to What authors are you Xenophon and Plato. teaching here right now? We just read some dialogues, and that went Well, right now the quite well. And then finally semester’s just begun, so I taught a class on applied maybe I’ll tell you a little bit logic. We spent some time about what I did last on symbolic logic because semester. All of us in the I’m interested in that, but philosophy department we also read a Platonic teach a class called dialogue, the Euthydemus, Philosophy 310. It’s really a rather slowly, and we read philosophical ethics course. a good chunk of Aristotle’s It’s a nicely designed course, Organon. and it meets for 41 sessions This semester I’m in 42 days. One of the teaching the core course 42 days is devoted to a again. I’ve also got a formal lecture. We are seminar that I’m again required to do four sessions co-leading. It’s a large one, on issues of military about 20 students, and it’s professionalism—such things on Nietzsche and Dosto- as obedience and civilian- evsky. We’ll read a work of military relations. And then Nietzsche’s, but the better six of those 41 meetings are Air Force Academy cadets are not that different from Johnnies, part of our meetings will Santa Fe tutor James Carey (class of 1967) has discovered as a visiting devoted to just-war theory, professor at the academy. be on The Brothers the conditions for going to Karamazov, which is what war, what just grounds there we’ve just launched might be for engaging in ourselves into. hostilities to begin with, and then how to conduct oneself according to a certain standard of justice once hostilities have What are those classes like? Is there a feeling among the cadets begun. That’s 10 of the classes. For the remaining classes we that they need to get something more pragmatic out of each have a number of required meetings on Plato’s Republic, Aris- meeting? Is there an application they’re looking for when they totle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Hobbes’ Leviathan, Kant’s Founda- read these authors? tion for the Metaphysics of Morals, and Mill’s Utilitarianism. What that means—since this is a core class—is that St. John’s is In the Philosophy 310 class we talk a lot about just war. There is, not the only college in the country you can’t graduate from then, at least a component of the class that has an immediate without having read some of Plato’s Republic. Who would have bearing on their work as officers. So it does have practical guessed that the Air Force Academy was another one! consequences. What the cadets take from the class varies from For the remaining classes the instructor has a lot of discretion. individual to individual. Some people really love reading and We’ve read Thomas Aquinas and Machiavelli in my classes, discussing great books; other people prefer a Powerpoint

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Tutors} 9

presentation. I will say that the most conspicuous difference the educational process we can’t gauge everything that we do between the cadets and the St. John’s students is not ability or here by asking, “Does that have an application in a combat even ultimately interest, at least if I think about the ones I’ve situation?” In a sense it probably does, because human beings had in the seminars, but it’s reading habits [outside of class] . . . are in combat situations. But if you’re reading a Platonic St. John’s students tend to be people who love books, really love dialogue on the nature of knowledge or a Shakespeare comedy, them, whereas a lot of cadets are not particularly in love with it’s not immediately clear that that’s going have a concrete books. Still, I would say that the cadets that I’ve had in my elec- application in Iraq. But it will make you a broader person. tive courses have been, in terms of their interests, very similar to If we’re going to have a military academy then both the St. John’s students. I’ve had cadets in my core class who would educational and the training sides of the enterprise have to be have done quite well at St. John’s, but I’ve also had cadets in my distinguished and they both have to be supported. At least some core class who would not have been very happy at St. John’s. of education—and this is the classical view of a liberal education— Some of them seem disconcerted by questions that can’t be is for its own sake, but it has consequences too: a broader human answered by crunching numbers. being is a better human being, maybe a better pilot too, but almost certainly a better human being. Since you just have them for that short period of time, what Now, it looks as though a lot of what’s on the horizon for the philosophy do you think is important to get across to them? military is peace keeping and nation building. That by itself What, from your background, are you trying to bring to them? suggests that the development of breadth of mind in military officers has to be a prime concern. And that’s something that a Well, it depends on the class. Regarding Philosophy 310, the liberal education can help with. core class, I’d put it like this: I think a lot of discussions of just The [USAFA] dean wants the academy to become more war, of just grounds for going to war and just ways of conducting learning focused, and that seems to me a very important step in yourself in war, presuppose a certain clarity the right direction. I think it’s vital that about what justice itself is. But what justice those of us who teach here think deeply is is not a clear notion. Reading the about what learning is. That will help us Republic, the Nicomachean Ethics, and distinguish between training and similar classical texts helps provide us with a “. . .a broader human education, because a person can be well foundation, with reflection about what trained without really learning anything. justice is, before we go into the particular being is a That’s true of a dog too. Learning requires theme of just war itself. I regard an a kind of initiative and engagement on the encounter with the classics as indispensable better human part of the learner that does not lend itself for getting clarity about a number of being, maybe a to metric assessment but is the very concepts that get bandied around rather center of the learning experience. loosely today. What do we mean by a moral better pilot too. . .” law? And what is justice? What do we mean You had said that you wanted to try to by fundamental rights and basic human James Carey (A67) change the relationship between St. John’s equality? The great philosophers thought and the military, because there’s not a seriously about such questions, and reading lot of overlap there. Is there anything their books forces us to think seriously that you’re trying to do here that you about them as well. want to bring back to Santa Fe, or the Annapolis campus for that matter? How do you try to remedy that, to teach without compromising the sense of duty to their long-term mission, which comes first for I would like to see cadets have an opportunity to participate at the cadets? least in the Summer Classics in Santa Fe. I’ve been very faithfully impressed with the cadets and I really like them. In a sense, the interesting question is “Why do we have military They’re intelligent, they’re capable of wonder, they can get academies?” There are other models. One is officer candidate excited over important things. Moreover, the cadets know that school, and there are a lot of good officers that come out of OCS they may have to make sacrifices, that they’re in the military. and ROTC too. And then there’s the British model, as I under- What does it mean for a young person, a high school junior, male stand it. People get a college degree in whatever they’re doing, or female, to decide to go for a career in the military? That’s also classics, chemistry, what have you, and then those who want a a kind of eccentric decision. I would say that the young people military career go to Sandhurst for an exclusively military who choose to go to St. John’s and the young people who choose graduate education. to go to the military academies have this much in common: The Air Force Academy, like the Naval Academy and the they’re not marching to the same drummer most young people Military Academy, tries to provide both an undergraduate march to. x education and a military experience. So one might wonder, “What do you expect to get out of that?” And that’s a very interesting and complicated question. I’ll revert to my earlier formulation that education is first of all about educating human beings. If we’re going to be involved in

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 10 {Commencement}

CELEBRATING COMMUNITY Commencement 2006

udith Seeger, completing her term as assistant dean of the Annapolis campus, and outgoing Santa Fe Dean JDavid Levine (A67), were chosen by the seniors on their campuses to deliver the commencement addresses in May. Seeger and Levine each celebrated the St. John’s College community, both as a tangible collection of rituals and rules that allow a group of individuals to live together and as an abstract circle of the authors who help shape the college’s model of liberal education. At the commencement

ceremony in Annapolis on d r a

May 15, 100 Annapolis seniors c i p

and 34 Graduate Institute e o students received their degrees. j Seeger opened her speech by college: responsibility, civility, chosen to emphasize how one Above: among the 33 GI gradu- describing her experiences honesty, and citizenship.” can help another overcome ates in Santa Fe last May were among indigenous groups in Seeger concluded by difficulty to reach a goal. (l. to r.) Jacquelyn Poplawski, celebrating the graduates’ On May 21, 83 undergraduates Samantha Johnson, and Laura Brazil. To conduct research for Leigh Birdwell. her doctoral dissertation, passage to a new community. and 33 master’s degree candi- Seeger spent months at a “Soon you will make that dates received their diplomas in Opposite (clockwise, from top coastal fishing village recording momentous walk across the Santa Fe. Levine considered right): David Levine, shown ballads and stories passed orally platform and with that walk this the question: Who is the class with wife, Jacqueline, told for generations, experiences community in the form it has of 2006? graduates their work is far that shaped her ideas about existed for you during the past “One can’t ever answer that from over; Santa Fe President Michael Peters in few years will disband and you question fully,” Levine said. community: “In the jungle I the recessional; Annapolis learned how to live in peace and will pass into another commu- “We might, however, make a graduates Cameron Healy (l.) companionship with people nity—that of graduates. . .So we beginning and say something and Aaron Brager look to the whose way of life was very should celebrate our last about who you are, or rather future; Judith Seeger different from mine.” In her precious moments in this who you have become over the serenaded Annapolis speech she shared “the four particular community with a past years of growth at the graduates. cardinal rules by which we song.” She sang a traditional college under the transformative aspire to live together at this ballad, “The Water is Wide,” magic of the Program. We say

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Commencement} 11

years of growth, because this thought that threatened to college is a place where one undermine this very potential. grows.” He saw an isolating individu- He elegantly traced some of alism at work where ‘the bonds the ways several authors in the that unite generations are Program shape students’ relaxed or broken, and that put experiences at the college. society at risk of losing its “Throughout our tradition, centering customs . . .’ ” from Plato through Nietzsche, Graduates leave the college it was generally recognized that with two gifts, but their work is education—the manner in which far from over, he concluded: one learns and not just the “You have seen greatness. content of what one learns—in You have known community. shaping your mind, also shapes However, a gift is only as your person, your character, beneficial as our capacity to use indeed your community.” it well. Your education is thus Among the authors he cited, not over. And so, in the spirit of Levine described Alexis de commencement, that is begin- Tocqueville’s observations on nings, we ask you today to community and the individual: pledge yourselves anew to the “In America he found people unfinished work that these with a wondrous capacity for authors so nobly began.” x community and working d r a c together and yet an intellectual The commencement speeches are i p

inheritance of Cartesian ego- available on the college’s Web e o centricism and abstraction of site, www.stjohnscollege.edu. j n a m r o l x e l a n a d m r r a o c l i

p x e e l o a j

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 12 {Capital Campaign}

“WITH A CLEAR AND SINGLE PURPOSE” The Campaign for St. John’s College Plans for Student Needs

by Rosemary Harty onsider what financial Now finished with his graduate coursework and ready to tackle his dissertation (perhaps Dante, perhaps Spencer), Hsui aid means to students, is more grateful than ever to have attended the college. “At their desire for the St. John’s you gain this sort of intellectual courage to tackle different texts no matter whether it’s Sophocles’ Antigone or Program, and their hopes Hegel’s Phenomenology,” he says. “The fundamental questions to do vital and satisfying we pursue in graduate school are the same problems that occur Cwork after earning their in freshman seminar.” As is the case with more than half of the students who attend degree. Andrew Hsui (A02), pursuing a St. John’s, Hsui received a St. John’s grant for each of the four years he attended. Thanks to a federal work-study award, he Ph.D. in comparative literature at earned money working on campus. He entered graduate school Princeton University, says St. John’s with manageable debt. “Could I have attended St. John’s without financial aid? Absolutely not,” Hsui said. would have been out of his reach without Building the college’s $100 million endowment to meet the “a very generous financial aid package.” financial aid needs of future Johnnies is one of the top priorities of “With a Clear and Single Purpose”: The Campaign for Drawn to the college by the books, the St. John’s College. Of the $125 million campaign goal, Program, and the community, Hsui was $46.5 million has been earmarked for building the endowment, with $33 million designated to ensure a robust financial aid determined to attend St. John’s, even program. In addition, the college seeks to raise $29 million in though his parents were anxious about Annual Fund contributions through 2012 to help support more the cost. immediate financial aid needs.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Capital Campaign} 13

A few central facts help to The college’s strategic frame a discussion on the plan, which shaped the goals college’s approach to financial of the campaign, takes into aid: account that the college will • The college remains be spending more to meet committed to a need- the demand for financial aid based financial aid policy in the next few years. “The that ensures that American economy is not qualified students can giving back to the poor and attend the college regard- those in middle-income less of their family’s families, where the need economic resources. is growing the fastest,” • During the 2005-06 says Christopher B. Nelson academic year, 63 percent (SF70), president of the of students on the Santa Annapolis campus. “So far, Fe campus received aid we’ve been able to keep pace directly from the college; with our institutional aid. in Annapolis, 53 percent But the situation is not going of students were aid to improve.” If the college recipients. College-wide, enrolled only those students St. John’s provided $9.4 who could afford to attend, million in institutional “we’d be a college of 200 aid funded by tuition students,” he says. revenue, Annual Fund The first question that gifts, grants, and draw parents, alumni, and from endowment. supporters of the college • Meeting the gap between what families can afford and the want answered in a serious discussion of financial aid, Nelson cost of tuition will become increasingly more expensive for acknowledges, is why the college is getting more expensive. He the college. points out that the college’s annual tuition increases of about • The college’s endowment is not sufficient to meet the anticipated need for financial aid in the coming decade. continued on p. 15

The college’s capital campaign (manuals and workbooks); staff professional development seeks to address priorities that and ensure small class sizes and and compensation. will sustain the Program and 1:8 tutor-to-student ratio. BUILDING PROJECTS ON THE strengthen the college. STUDENT SERVICES: $3.5 million TWO CAMPUSES: $49.5 million for Funding these priorities will to improve services to students, building projects, including a require $125 million. fund internship opportunities, Santa Fe dormitory, a Graduate FINANCIAL AID: $33 million for and provide grants so that Institute center in Santa Fe need-based aid. elementary and secondary funded, and the addition to and teachers can attend the renovation of Evans Science FACULTY AND ACADEMIC SUPPORT: Graduate Institute. Laboratory. The renovation of $34 million to increase faculty Mellon Hall and the addition salaries to the median of peer ST. JOHN’S IMPROVEMENT FUND: of two new dormitories in institutions; provide faculty $5 million for library collec- Annapolis are completed development opportunities; tions and laboratory equip- and fully funded. develop program-related ment; improving Information student instructional material Technology infrastructure;

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 14 {Capital Campaign}

GI Educator’s Grant: Bringing the Program to the Classroom

Annika McKinney is pursuing a Ph.D. in education at the teachers can benefit our polarized nation by teaching kids how to University of Maryland. Her dissertation research explores how talk to one another about important issues.” reading original texts and discussing them—similar to the Junior Also, because they’re devoted to education, GI teachers make Great Books program she encountered as a teacher—could be excellent students. “They know how to take responsibility for a applied to arts education. class as well as their own learning,” Venkatesh says. Many become “I thought I might interview some tutors and research the good recruiters of prospective students. St. John’s approach a bit,” she says. “I wrote away for some However, it was evident early on that the GI was losing teachers information, and the Graduate Institute sent me a DVD and a because they often did not have the resources for tuition. catalogue. Then I decided that I had to do the program for “Teachers are usually the poorest of our students and always need myself.” financial assistance to be able to do this. For them, doing either of McKinney persuaded her doctoral advisers at the University of our MA programs is a serious commitment, and this is even more Maryland to approve independent credit for her work at St. John’s. true of those teachers who have to relocate families and homes to “I’m loving it,” McKinney says. “I know about Aristotle and Plato, come to distant Santa Fe,” he says. but I’ve never been able to read these texts, not in this way.” Classroom teachers aren’t the only educators benefiting from In a summer course she presented to graduate students and the grant program: Jennifer Kinkaid, a student in the Santa Fe aspiring teachers at the university, McKinney demonstrated a Graduate Institute, is a college counselor at Loomis Chaffee St. John’s approach to reading A Raisin in the Sun with secondary School in Windsor, Conn., who has been devoting her summers to students. Her professor was so impressed with the quality of the the GI. In addition to the ideas she gains from the books, she has discussion, he asked her to share the lesson plan with a language also honed a valuable skill. arts class in the fall. “I told my advisers that what takes place at “I think listening has been one of the most important skills St. John’s is something all teachers should experience. I’ve developed through the GI seminars. Not only are we learning The Program can benefit every teacher, no matter what subject to clarify our own ideas, but we learn to listen carefully, ask he or she teaches,” McKinney says. questions, and help others clarify their thoughts,” she says. Teachers like McKinney—innovators in the classroom who have Christopher Kaufmann, a public school teacher in Loudon a strong desire to enrich their own intellectual lives—represent County, Va., left his full-time position and signed on as a the principle behind the National Educator’s Grants, offered by substitute in order to enroll full-time in the Graduate Institute the Graduate Institute in Annapolis and and complete the program in two years. The Santa Fe. The college offers a grant of one- grant relieved a bit of the economic hardship third tuition to teachers and administrators “The Program can involved in quitting his job. interested in pursuing a Master of Arts in “I can see how much this will help in the Liberal Arts. Providing funding for the benefit every classroom,” he says. “I can better formulate educators’ grants by establishing an teacher, no matter good questions for discussion. I can better endowment is one of the goals of the campaign. encourage students to develop their own Teachers were among the first students in what subject he or opinions on something they read and feel the GI when it was established in Santa Fe in comfortable sharing their ideas with others.” 1967 (Annapolis followed a decade later), and she teaches.” Vashti Pearson (AGI06) completed two the college still believes that teachers can segments over summer breaks from her job benefit greatly from a Annika McKinney in Birmingham, Ala. “I came program that nurtures to St. John’s frustrated and critical thinking, careful exhausted from the class- reading, and discussion room. I hadn’t read a book skills—on top of all the mate- outside my prep for class the rial covered in the classroom. whole year. Coming here was “By educating teachers, we like summer camp—I went are trying to affect national back refreshed and excited,” education by supporting the she says. x notion of educating the whole human being, instead of just teaching for tests,” Annika McKinney (l.), a says Krishnan Venkatesh, current GI student also director of the GI in Santa working on a doctorate in h

t education, and Vashti Fe. “Moreover, in learning i m Pearson (AGI06), brought s

from us how to make real a i new ideas and approaches r

conversations about big o from their graduate studies t c i back to the classroom. questions happen, our v

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Capital Campaign} 15

For the Students “With a Clear and Single Purpose”: The Campaign for St. John's College seeks to raise $36.5 million for priorities continued relating to students and student life on And without institutional grants, low- both campuses: income students could not consider a 5.5 to 6 percent have been in line with those college such as St. John’s. The federal • $33 million in endowment and Annual of other private, independent colleges in maximum Pell Grant award is $4,050; Fund for need-based financial aid, to the U.S. some students also qualify for a Supple- ensure access for all students If tuition rises at rates higher than mental Educational Opportunity Grant admitted to the college. annual inflation, it is largely because a (SEOG), but the college matches 25 college such as St. John’s can’t take advan- • $3.5 million in endowment and Annual percent of the SEOG awards. “The buying tage of the standard business cost-cutting Fund to improve services to students, power of a federal grant is much less,” measures, such as automation. “Education fund internship opportunities, and Rodriguez says. is expensive because it requires the sharing provide grants for teachers to attend After 21 years at the college, Rodriguez of the life of one well-educated human the Graduate Institute. is still impressed by the sacrifices made by being with another, a devotion of time that parents who want to see their children cannot be compromised without being attend St. John’s. “They do what they have cheapened,” he says. to because they recognize that this is the school for their child, that Nelson also emphasizes that no student pays the true cost of a this is where he or she will flourish,” he says. St. John’s education. This year, tuition is $34,306; without Paula Abernethy, financial aid director in Annapolis, has the college’s subsidy, it would be $44,555. “Alumni who attended observed that the college’s need-based financial aid is viewed as fair the college during my era may not view it this way, but the educa- and equitable by most families, but the college does tion at St. John’s College is a veritable bargain,” he says. “It costs occasionally lose a student to another college because St. John’s substantially more to educate our students than what we’re makes awards based strictly on need, not merit. “Sometimes charging in tuition.” parents will come in with a package from another college, and say, And unless they have college-age children, alumni may not be ‘can you match it?’ All we can do is offer the best package, and then aware of how the changes in federal financial aid programs are students and their families have to make a decision,” she says. affecting lower- and middle-income families who want to send a More than half of St. John’s students receive grant aid, and son or daughter to St. John’s. Programs such as Pell Grants and barring a change in financial circumstances, each student can Supplementary Educational Opportunity Grants, made available to count on that assistance to remain consistent through their four the neediest students, would not come close to meeting the cost of years at St. John’s, Abernethy explains. “We have a strong tuition at any private liberal arts college. Funding for federal grant institutional commitment to aid,” she says. “If you look at that ratio programs has not increased in the past four years, and most student in other schools, we’re actually quite high. We really do care about loan programs now have higher interest rates. the students and we want to give them the best aid package we can.” At St. John’s, financial aid is guided by policies and principles The St. John’s grants are paid for by tuition, draw from endow- revisited often by the collegewide Management Committee and ment, and gifts to the college’s Annual Fund; federal grant aid administered on an individualized basis on each campus. Policy is is only a small part of the overall budget. Of the $19.2 million reviewed annually by financial aid committees composed of the packaged in undergraduate financial aid awards last year, less than president, dean, treasurer, assistant dean, financial aid director, $900,000 in grant aid came from federal programs. In addition, and admissions director. The committees meet before each fall the college gets $287,000 in federal aid for work-study, allowing recruitment season to assess the previous year’s results, anticipate a limited number of students to earn $2,800 a year from on- difficulties in the upcoming year, and adjust policy in light of the campus jobs. budget. Federally subsidized loans, PLUS loans for parents, and increas- The financial aid directors carry out policy and approach each ingly, private loans help students meet tuition and expenses, but prospective application with the goal of putting the best package interest rates are on the rise for these programs, and small private together to meet an individual family’s needs. In Santa Fe, about loans are now turning up in some financial aid packages. “We don’t 65 to 70 percent of students demonstrate some form of need, says have enough of the favorable loan money to cover our needs so we Michael Rodriguez, director of financial aid for the campus. “It’s a have begun to include a private loan in the aid package,” says Aber- large portion of our population, but the financial aid program nethy. provides the opportunity for us to attract and matriculate students When he first joined the college in 1985, Rodriguez said from a wide economic spectrum. Without that diversity, we’d be a student loans usually topped out at $10,000 over four years. The very different college,” he says. average debt for the Santa Fe class of 2005 is $21,700—

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 16 {Capital Campaign}

“We really do care about the students and we want to give them the best aid package we can.”

Paula Abernethy, Annapolis financial aid director

far less than the cost of one year’s tuition, but a burden he’d like financial needs, Abernethy has a rainy-day fund to offer students to see fewer students saddled with. “It’s worrisome, particularly at critical moments: she can give students up to $3,000 a year to when so many of our students go on to graduate programs,” help in emergencies. Each year, several students receive Caritas he says. book grants of $400; several endowment funds also generate At least once a year, Rodriguez has revisited a financial aid money to help students purchase books. award to help a struggling student. “When there are extenuating At the financial aid conferences she attends, Abernethy hears circumstances, we go back to the financial aid committee to see the prevailing concern that middle-income families are those what can be done,” he says. “But we’re always up front with the who struggle the most in this new financial aid climate. students that we’re hampered by limited dollars.” This year, she worked extensively with several families to make Another concern, along with loan debt, is the knowledge that sure their dream of sending a child to St. John’s could happen. some students are working at several jobs to help pay their “It’s really nice when you go to Convocation, and you see those expenses. Abernethy knows that a few students are working a kids up on the stage,” she says. campus job and nights or weekends at retail or restaurant jobs; This May, Rodriguez will have the pleasure of seeing one of his some work 20 hours a week. “The Program isn’t meant for that, award recipients graduate after an unusually long pursuit of a and these students are struggling,” she says. “Sometimes they bachelor’s degree. Nick Cabbiness, in his 40s and an inde- come in, and we try to help them in some way.” pendent student, never found a program that suited him—until he Thanks to the Caritas Society, a group of Annapolis-area resi- heard of St. John’s. “I tried college a few other times, and I would dents who raise money to help students with unexpected

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Capital Campaign} 17

end up triple-majoring, because I always had a desire to know pursue a teaching career. From time to time over the years, he’s many different things,” he says. struggled greatly with the demands of the Program, but he didn’t While he has worked in several campus jobs his first three have to worry about paying tuition. “I’m so thankful to the years, served as a resident assistant, and contributed what he college in many ways, but I’m most grateful to have the freedom could from savings, Cabbiness was most grateful for the grant aid to pursue work that I want to do, and not just for monetary he received from the college. After graduation, he plans to reasons,” he says. x

Internships Offer Johnnies Experience and Insight

Somewhere in the midst of junior and senior years, students turn influenced his approach in the classroom. “Inquiry is important in their thoughts to life outside of St. John’s. The transition can be every situation,” he says. daunting, especially to those students who don’t have a clear grasp When Coker-Dukowitz applied for his internship, he wasn’t on a career path. To assist students as they consider various certain that education was the field he wanted to pursue. careers, Annapolis has the Hodson Internship and Santa Fe the His internship solidified his ambition, honed his talents, and Ariel Internship. presented him with a specific direction. Funded on a temporary basis, the Ariel program awarded its Catherine Pisha (A06) had a similar experience during her first internship in 2005. To date $75,600 has been distributed, internship at the Women’s Rape Crisis Center in Burlington, Vt., including six awards for fine arts internships funded by the made possible by a grant from The Hodson Trust Internship Thaw Charitable Trust. Last year 38 applications were submitted Program. She entered the summer with vague ideas about what and 15 stipends (ranging from $1,800 to $3,600) were granted. she wanted to do, but not how to do it. This summer the campus expects to fund 18 internships, awarded “For a long time I have known that I enjoy work involving competitively to students who present a clear plan for where they close interpersonal contact and emotional healing through want to work and what they hope to discover through the conversation, but I have not had a clear idea as to how that might experience. A campaign goal is to establish an endowment that translate into a job,” she wrote in her post-internship report. will provide permanent funding for the Ariel Internships. By the end of the summer, she says, her career goals were The Hodson Internship Program was established in 2000, “strengthened and honed. . .Being an intern at the Womens’ Rape with a generous endowment from The Hodson Trust. Each year, Crisis Center allowed me to see that there is a wider range of jobs the program funds up to 25 internships with stipends of up to that might meet these needs and interests of mine than I had $3600 each. previously thought.” Zacc Coker-Dukowitz (SF05) Not only did her experience at received an Ariel Internship the the WRCC give her confidence summer after his senior year. about pursuing this field, it also His experience at an educational prepared her for similar organization served as a catalyst employment. She now works for for his first professional job, as the Winooski Family Center, assistant director of Break- a nonprofit which provides through Santa Fe at Santa Fe various services to low-income Prep. Coker-Dukowitz’s Ariel families. For Pisha, the intern- stipend allowed him to work as ship was more than a financial an intern at the Breakthrough grant. It provided the clarity she Collaborative, based in San needed to pursue a meaningful Francisco, and dedicated to path after graduation. x helping underprivileged kids gain a better chance at higher education. Coker-Dukowitz An Ariel Internship set Zacc taught English classes to

n Coker-Dukowitz (SF05) on the a

seventh- and eighth-graders, and l path to a job with Break- o n

his St. John’s experience i through Santa Fe, an educa- r

e tional organization. t

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 18 {Jane Austen}

JANE’S HEROINES

Elizabeth’s Comeuppance ometimes they are hampered By Roberta Gable (A78) by pride or foolishness. In other novels, their lack of Tiresome Elizabeth Bennet. How nice for her that she gets the happily-ever-after treatment. social status or fortune To recap the familiar plot of Pride and Prejudice: Mr. Bennet creates the drama. But the (he used to be disgusted, now he’s just amused) and Mrs. Bennet (more fatuous than which shall not be conceived, Sheroines of Jane Austen’s if you’re not counting the Collins branch of the family) have novels are always memorable: for their five daughters: Jane (the saint), Elizabeth (the smarty-pants), Mary (the book-reading twerp), Lydia (the trollop-in-training) foibles, their dignity, their intelligence, and Kitty (the trollop-in-training’s trollop-in-waiting). Jane their quick wit, and their sheer persist- and Elizabeth, the two eldest, usurped all virtues available to the five girls, with the exceptions, perhaps, of seriousness ence. In these short essays, St. John’s (Mary) and malleability (Kitty). Virtuous or no, they all must alumni, students, and tutors celebrate the marry, and in fact there are five offers tendered during the women of Jane Austen’s world.

Opposite: Witty Elizabeth Bennett brightens the pages of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. (Keira Knightly in the 2006 film.)

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } { The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 20 {Austen}

Love triumphs. Money soothes all course of the action, but again, not doled with her lovely feet of clay. She herself gets out evenly: Lydia gets one, of the shotgun concern for over it, and lets the happy ending befall variety; Jane gets one, from the oh-so- her. desirable Mr. Bingley; and Elizabeth gets the morrow. three, one from her ridiculous cousin Roberta Gable is associate director of Mr. Collins, and two from the detestable Admissions in Annapolis. Mr. Darcy, the second of which she accepts, and we’re made to feel glad for her, because it turns out that Mr. Darcy is not so Fanny Reconsidered detestable after all. And most of the time we forget to dislike Elizabeth, too. by Rhonda Ortiz (A05) She’s witty, she’s a fun read, and her behavior is regulated by genuine feeling, not conventional manners. Hurrah for our To my teenage self on first reading Mansfield Park: side, we think—the snooty rich women (Miss Bingley, Mrs. Hurst, and the tyrannical Lady Catherine de Bourgh) get My dear Miss F——, what’s coming to them, at least in some small degree, and our Thank you for your last. Yes, I do remember receiving the Elizabeth, heroine, not of the working class, but of the genteel St. John’s College pamphlet: small, brown, with all those aspirers, is rewarded with the hand of a good-looking rich guy. obscure authors listed ceremoniously on the cover. I’m not (So is Jane, for that matter, but she’s insufficiently dimen- surprised that you noticed Jane Austen’s name. Pride and sional for us really to care about her.) The main obstacles to Prejudice was the first work of literature that captivated you the Elizabeth/Darcy match—his horror of marrying beneath both as an amusing story and intellectual food for thought. himself, her profound disgust for him—are gradually This singular delight in Austen was one of the primary reasons surmounted, and happiness abounds. Love triumphs. Money you decided to attend St. John’s College. soothes all concern for the morrow. But right now you say you’re bewildered by Mansfield Park. She who prides herself, however, on her independent mind, How, you ask, could Austen, who created the brilliant, her ability to discern character, and her subtlety (especially in charming Elizabeth Bennet, also pen this repressed, unin- comparison with Ma and Pa) must first dine on crow. For the spiring, prudish Fanny Price, and call her a heroine? Where is first 200 pages or so she judges, she gossips, she caricatures, her wit? Why is she so timid, so nervous? Why has Austen left she deplores, she assumes, she exults in her superiority, and the brilliant repartee, the intrigue, even all the action, to the she trusts Wickham, the one true rascal in the story. Then she other characters? And what’s all the moral fuss about? must repent having been an ass. She who always has some- I know that you are bound and determined to like every- thing to say is made to shut up and listen: two letters, the first thing Austen has written, and, don’t worry, you will. from Darcy, defending himself, and the second from her aunt, Mansfield Park and Fanny Price will surprise you yet. It will revealing Darcy’s virtually superhuman goodness, effect the probably take you multiple readings and, perhaps, a large necessary comeuppance. essay to realize that Fanny Price is more than likable. The “Oh! how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious problem now is your disposition. sensation she had ever encouraged, every saucy speech she In life and novels you prefer confident, agreeable, had ever directed towards him.” While her self-flagellation is humorous, open characters. But like many 16-year-olds, you only verbal, words are what drive reality in this comedy of are willing but unpracticed in slowing down to notice—really character. Everyone is who people say he is, until they start notice—other people. It is easy to appreciate Elizabeth saying something different, and then he’s that; what happens Bennet’s brilliance, but patience and sympathy are required to hasn’t much happened until it is discussed. Finally Elizabeth see through Fanny’s awkwardness to her subtle beauty. finds she must re-create not only others but herself in words, At nine, Fanny is sent by her struggling Portsmouth family no mean feat for a woman rightly accused of sometimes saying to live with her wealthy uncle and aunt. Shy, awkward, over- things precisely because she doesn’t mean them. looked, and homesick, Fanny is miserable at Mansfield Park Lest we too become twerpy in our book-reading, and until her cousin, Edmund, notices her unhappiness and moralize like dear sister Mary, let’s be easy on Miss Elizabeth, befriends her. Edmund discovers Fanny “to be clever, to have a quick apprehension as well as good sense, and a fondness for

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reading.” He attempts to bring Fanny “forward” but is Patience and sympathy reveal the true heroism of MANSFIELD PARK’s thwarted by the behavior of the rest of the family, who, unwit- Fanny Price. (Frances O’Connor as Fanny in the 1999 film.) tingly or not, in their turn treat her as a sponger, a personal servant, a child to tease, a dimwit, or simply someone to modern, metropolitan mores. Consequently, the story gives ignore. Not the kindest family. Furthermore, Fanny is hope- rise to the same tension already in the soul of most modern lessly eclipsed by her cousins, quintessential small-town Western readers, including you. Mary Crawford, the story’s beauties, and, later in the narrative, by the cosmopolitan antagonist, stands for the pragmatic and cynical modern Mary Crawford. woman who regards society, marriage, tradition, and the Given her life at Mansfield Park, it is easy to understand church with an unbelieving eye. Fanny, on the other hand, can Fanny’s awkwardness. Her sensitive nature feels suffering see the moral good at stake in both small events (like the gift of acutely, and, habituated to lowliness, she becomes easily a necklace) and large ones (like marriage proposals). Mary is flustered by attention or praise. Edmund, sensitive to Fanny’s immediately attractive and Fanny is not, yet it is Fanny who situation, sees past her awkwardness to her good qualities. You Austen wants us to admire. should try to do the same. It will give you a way into her Remember that Edmund observes in Fanny an intuitive, character. intelligent mind, and a great amount of ‘sense.’ With As to Fanny’s being so morally fussy, well, this is purposeful. Edmund’s encouragement, Fanny grows to be not only sensi- Fanny’s character is meant to push some buttons. The story of tive and moral but also poetic and philosophic. “If any one Mansfield Park is driven primarily by the tension caused faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the between traditional, Christian morality and skeptical, continued on p. 23

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Anne’s Second Chance spirited and reliably a gentleman; usually the brilliant ones, like Henry Crawford of Mansfield Park, are sadly corruptible. What by Eva Brann (HA57) makes Anne attractive is partly that she can love and be loved by such a man. Anne Elliot would seem to be the heroine of Persuasion, Jane But there has been a hiatus of eight years, of pique, anger, and Austen’s last complete novel. Persuasion is my favorite of the six— successful action for him, of confused, patient, lonely grief for her. that is to say in between the others, since whichever I’m actually Her inconsiderate sister repeats to her that Captain Wentworth, reading is my favorite at the time. I love Persuasion best, but I’m not who has himself lost none of his attractiveness, had observed her to so sure I love its heroine most. There’s a sure-fire test for such pref- be “so altered he should not have known her again.” So begins her erences: Imagine by whom you’d like to be asked to tea. That would second ordeal, in which Wentworth is kept from approaching her, at be, for me, Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice or Emma Wood- first by the misconstruals of disappointed pride and eventually by house of Emma, the former because of the delightfully sparkling jealousy, as Anne is courted by the heir to the family estate. So too, way she crosses wickedness with propriety, the latter, because this Anne’s shrinking spirit prevents her from bringing about any young person, in her delicious self-confidence, gets everything so mutual clarification until the very end. Of course, were she bolder, cleverly wrong. she wouldn’t be Anne Elliot, and Persuasion wouldn’t be a full- Anne of Persuasion, on the other hand, has had her spirits length novel, the slow unraveling of the adversities that have kept damped by disappointment and her demeanor shaped by too often them apart. But finally all the grief is dissolved and perfect felicity having “scolded back her senses.” She is kind, competent, and ensues: “It was but a card-party, it was but a mixture of those who useful—universal usefulness being the spinster’s default position— had never met before, and those who met too often.” The two having and her nature has been more molded by self-control than by self- that afternoon declared themselves to each other but not yet to the expression. I think she could not help depressing even a sympathetic world, Anne moves through that evening of bliss: “some moments of guest from a later century by her air of grief bravely and silently communication continually occurring, and always the hope of borne—at least when we first meet her. more, and always the knowledge of his being there.” It is, as far as my “When we first meet her:” The year is the summer of 1814; just reading goes, the most perfectly captured moment of the inward about the time Jane Austen must have been writing Persuasion. bliss of yet unpublished love in literature. We are told on the first page that Anne was born on August 9, 1787. There is a coda to this tale which throws light on what Jane Austen So she is 27 when the story begins, the oldest by at least seven years meant by it. Her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, reports in of all the heroines and the only one who lives in real time, alongside A Memoir of Jane Austen that perhaps because of ill-health (she was Jane Austen. to die on July 18, 1817, exactly a year from the night he tells of) “she Moreover she has a past fitted into real history. In the summer of retired to rest in very low spirits.” She thought the chapter of reso- 1806, just 200 years before my writing this little piece, a young naval lution tame and flat. “But such depression was little within her officer, Frederick Wentworth, had come into the neighborhood as a nature,” and the next day, revived in spirits, she canceled the result of his promotion after “the action off San Domingo.” Anne offending chapter and wrote two new ones. If you read both the had been “an extremely pretty girl,” with gentleness, modesty, canceled and the substituted climactic chapters you might at first taste, and feeling. “She had hardly anybody to love,” for she is find them equally lovable in different ways, but then it dawns on you. afflicted with a pretty awful father and two very unlovable sisters, The new chapter recounts a confidential conversation between and her mother had died in 1800 (or 1801). So she falls “rapidly and Anne and one of Wentworth’s fellow officers which is accidentally deeply in love.” No other heroine does that; they take their time, and overheard by him, and this conversation reveals the deep theme of it isn’t clear that they “fall in love” at all. I think I can prove, and will the novel: women’s and men’s constancy in love, differently one day, that Elizabeth, who surely loves Darcy, is not at all in love constituted, but equally strong in both. For Wentworth, Anne’s with him, though he, the proud and inhibited owner of a fine estate, gentle insistence on women’s faithfulness is the signal he needs to is the most attractive of that gallery, mostly of young clergymen stiff declare himself. with propriety and rectitude while waffling as lovers, with whom Everyone agrees that Persuasion is somehow deeper and darker Jane Austen’s girls elect to make their happiness. than the earlier five. “Darker” doesn’t seem quite right to me— “A short period of exquisite happiness follows,” but then Anne “more feeling-fraught” is better. But this feeling isn’t Anne’s or sends him away, persuaded by the opposition of the well-intentioned Frederick’s feeling only; it is—again “somehow”—Jane Austen’s. Not but essentially obtuse Lady Russell who had taken a mother’s place that Persuasion is autobiographical; there is no evidence at all that in Anne’s esteem. “Lady Russell had little taste for wit,” while she nourished an undying love for anyone, and gentleness hardly Captain Wentworth was brilliant, headstrong, and—“had no describes the loving malice of her temper. Nonetheless, she is, fortune.” Lady Russell’s persuasion “was more than gentle Anne somehow, ever-present in Persuasion, her spirit is more palpable in could combat,” for it dwelt on duty. this than in any other of the perfect six, and on second thought, it’s Now he is back in Somersetshire, rich with prize money and rising her presence for which I love that book; she’s its heroine. in his profession. We are sure he’ll be an admiral, as two of Jane Austen’s brothers were to be. This Frederick Wentworth is the only Eva Brann will begin her 50th year at St. John’s next fall. active fighting man, the only suitor in the six novels, who is both

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With Edmund’s encouragement, Fanny grows to be

continued from p. 21 not only sensitive awareness. Emma is not stubbornly or and moral perversely defying her reason and experi- rest, I do think it is memory,” she ence—she is, in fact, uncommonly clever. exclaims, inspired during a daily walk. but also poetic and This half-truth, without the balance of “There seems something more speakingly sufficient candor from others is, in part, incomprehensible in the powers, the fail- philosophic. why she remains unaware of the danger ures, the inequalities of memory, than in she faces. any of our intelligences. . . .We are to be Perhaps the most disturbing character sure a miracle every way.” Fanny, among many things, thinks to Emma is the new bride of Mr. Elton, a woman who is vain, about thinking. She is attentive to the wonders both in nature meddlesome, socially manipulative and ridiculous. From the and in herself. first mention of Augusta Hawkins, some connection between The point is, be sensitive to Fanny. I don’t think Austen Emma and the future Mrs. Elton is implied. Mr. Elton proposes intends for us to immediately like her. If she did she wouldn’t to Emma, is refused, runs off to Bath, and almost immediately have penned as delectable an antagonist as Mary Crawford. proposes to Miss Hawkins. To Mr. Elton, at least, Emma and Mansfield Park is called her most philosophic novel; perhaps Mrs. Elton both possess the qualities that he seeks in a wife: Austen wants to engage us in a philosophic challenge—to learn money and social class. Mr. Elton’s airy assumption of their to see Fanny, and then see what Fanny sees. See what happens relative equality is Emma’s first worrisome indication that the if you reconsider Fanny. world does not necessarily share her own rose-colored vision of I remain yours, etc. etc. R.O. herself. As a result, Emma feels she must, on some level, criticize his new bride and distinguish herself from her in order Rhonda (Franklin) Ortiz wrote her senior essay on Mansfield to correct his lack of judgment. As readers, we realize that her Park; she teaches elementary school in Washington, D.C. character and dialogue has been deliberately constructed to echo Emma’s earlier manners. Mrs. Elton’s unblushing Emma, Enlightened assertion that “blessed with so many resources within by Namara Smith (SF07) [herself], the world was not necessary. . .” parodies Emma’s statement: “If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of mind with a great many independent resources.” Emma’s reac- having rather too much her own way and a disposition to think tion to Mrs. Elton is the catalyst that forces Emma from her a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which passive self-satisfaction into actively defining her position in threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. —Emma the world. Emma Woodhouse’s “disposition to think a little too well of When the new Mrs. Elton makes her first appearance in herself” does not manifest itself in the obvious way, through Highbury, Emma almost instantly recognizes in Mrs. Elton the pride in her beauty. Emma’s delighted initiation of her fickle same “evils” that are ascribed to her at the beginning of the “projects,” both her artistic endeavors and her matchmaking, novel: “[a] quarter of an hour quite convinced her that reveals that her vanity is satisfied by gazing, not at her physical Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with reflection, but at a world that reflects her wishes. Because her herself, and thinking much of her own importance. . .she actions are unchecked by her father and her governess, she has meant to shine and be very superior . . .Miss Hawkins, it might almost no outside judgment to make her doubt her own perfec- be fairly supposed, from her easy conceit, had been the best of tion; the only criticism she receives is from Mr. Knightley, “one her own set.” Emma can see the source of Mrs. Elton’s short- of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, comings although she is blind to the dangers of her own vanity, and the only one who ever told her of them.” Mr. Knightley’s and she perceives that Mrs. Elton’s “easy conceit” comes from moderate rebukes alone are not enough to make Emma see the her limited experience of the world. dangers of her position. Emma’s vanity in her mental image of Mrs. Elton uses her social status as the foundation for her herself, not her physical image, shows her partially correct self- extravagant claims to aesthetic taste. The most noticeable

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Emma is not stubbornly or perversely defying her reason and example of her role as a self-appointed experience—she is, beyond Mrs. Elton’s social status as a aesthetic judge is her treatment of Jane in fact, uncommonly bride reveals her new dissatisfaction with Fairfax. When Mrs. Elton thrusts herself purely social definitions. Correspond- into the role of Jane Fairfax’s custodian, clever. ingly, she realizes that the near-universal she presents herself as the only person approval and even praise of her that with the sensibility to recognize and culti- contributed to her vanity is not a vate Jane’s talents in the aesthetic wasteland of Highbury. complete reflection of her character. She begins to feel the Speaking to Emma of her resolution to “bring Jane forward,” need to move beyond her home and establish an independent Mrs. Elton quotes a poetic couplet: “Full many a flower is born position in the world. to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air.” Mrs. Elton pushes Emma out of passive immersion in her In terms of Jane Fairfax, this attitude is patently false. From immediate society by reflecting Emma back to herself in an Jane’s first appearance, everyone acknowledges her artistic unsettling manner. Emma must now choose between ironic accomplishment and skill. Mrs. Elton uses her association with detachment from the world or fully aware, moral participation Jane to enhance her own appearance of aesthetic superiority. in society. These incidents seem insignificant, but they foreshadow Mrs. Elton’s most contemptible action towards Jane—her Miss Smith wrote about Emma for her junior essay in Santa Fe. constant pressure to trap her into the inferior position of a governess. Mrs. Elton’s actions toward Jane show no real appre- Sensible Elinor ciation or respect of her artistic excellence. She uses Jane to further her own social status, while attempting to limit Jane by Barbara Goyette (A73) from having real social power. Mrs. Elton’s treatment of Jane Fairfax highlights the What is so striking about Elinor Dashwood, the heroine of Sense hypocrisy of Emma’s mentoring of Harriet Smith. Emma does and Sensibility, is the way she bears heartsickness. She falls in not cultivate Harriet as a social lever, however, but more as a love with and believes she is loved by an amiable, educated, hand- kind of game or project, an example of Emma’s playful disposi- some young man of some prospects, only to discover that he is tion leading her astray. Although Emma’s intentions are engaged to another. Upon the death of her father, she and her different from Mrs. Elton’s, the effect is the same. They both mother and sisters must leave the small estate of Norland, where harm and improperly influence Harriet and Jane. Emma’s they have lived happily for many years. Her beloved sister social neglect of Jane is just as damning as her careless Marianne falls for the perfidious but charming Willoughby, who influence over Harriet. Jane is left with no arena to develop her not only leaves Marianne without a word of explanation but turns talents, no peers, no one to really appreciate her socially. In out to have an unsavory past. When Marianne becomes part, this neglect leaves her vulnerable to Frank’s illicit offer of extremely ill, Elinor must nurse her back to health in mind as well a secret engagement. Mrs. Elton’s actions lead Emma to realize as body. Not only does Elinor suffer these misfortunes silently, and regret how she has mistreated Harriet and neglected Jane. but she also endures the remonstrances of her mother and sister Emma’s first interactions with Mrs. Elton represent an when they tell her she appears to be unfeeling about everyday important turning point in her character. For the first time, trials. The depth of her disappointments and struggles is her social position and its related aesthetic values are not never revealed. enough to distinguish her from someone she feels is her Elinor shows herself to be strong, emotionally sound, capable inferior. Emma’s new awareness of the deficiency of social of excellent judgment, and able to appear to recover her spirits forms is revealed in a disturbing incident right after her first quickly even in the midst of devastating events. She is neither interview with Mrs. Elton—Emma’s only argument with her dashing nor exciting, and is pretty in an unremarkable way, father. Superficially, this disagreement is about whether except to those who see her true character. Extremely sensitive to Mr. Woodhouse needs to visit Mrs. Elton and pay his respects. the inner lives of those around her, she at times appears to hide However, Emma’s frustration with her father’s inability to see from her own goodness.

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Her infatuation with Edward Ferrars can seem baffling—is she The Dashwood sisters are drawn as opposing personalities. imagining his charms? Is she expecting less for herself in love (Emma Thompson as Elinor, Kate Winslet as Marianne in Ang Lee’s 1995 film.) because she thinks this is all she deserves? Her highly developed sense of irony almost leads her down dangerous paths a number situation (which is drawn in great detail), Austen shows us of times, as she treats her mother, sister, and acquaintances with instead that Elinor determines her own character—outside of, less than genuine attention because, we may infer, they lack the although influenced by, the situations that we are used to seriousness of her own concerns. She knows she is superior— thinking of as those that make women like Elinor who they are: morally and in both sense and sensibility—and yet she lives out birth, rank or status, social connections, education, role in her life in the background. society, income. The work of the novel is to fill in the picture of Elinor’s true Early in the novel we are presented with a scene that lays out character—to herself and to us as readers—her nature as a human the various connections between the characters. Mrs. Dashwood, being living with a particular set of people in a particular place, Elinor, Marianne and their younger sister Margaret are newly at a particular time. Although it might seem that who she is and arrived at Barton Cottage, having been displaced from their who she becomes could be the result of the constraints of her home following the unexpected death of Mr. Dashwood. Sir John

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While Elinor is reserved and sensible, Middleton, a cousin of Mrs. Dashwood, Marianne believes the Artless Catherine has offered them the cottage for a very by Tilar J. Mazzeo (SF93) reasonable rent. The women are recon- heart must always ciled to their reduced circumstances, show the way. As Jane Austen warns her readers at the although it is clear that only Elinor beginning of Northanger Abbey, understands the kinds of changes they Catherine Moreland is an unlikely will have to make in their way of life. The heroine, and, when it comes to tributes charms of the new countryside, as well to Austen’s women, Catherine can be a as the possibility of new acquaintances, bit of a hard sell. She lacks the wit and charm of Elizabeth Bennet. have made them fairly cheerful. The Dashwoods have been invited She can’t boast the self-possession of Elinor Dashwood. Even the to Barton Park, the home of Sir John and Lady Middleton. Also in meddlesome Emma Woodhouse has the advantage of being attendance are Mrs. Jennings, mother to Lady Middleton, and genuinely clever. Perhaps most fundamentally, Catherine falls in Colonel Brandon, a neighbor and friend of Sir John. love with a man who is primarily attracted to her intellectual In the scene when all these characters convene for the first time, limitations and to her good-natured eagerness to be guided by the Austen shows clearly that character is independent of both nature superior knowledge of others without developing any of her own. and nurture. There is a kind of merry chaos in which each person Henry Tilney is an enthusiastic lecturer of young women, and contradicts our expectations of what they will be like based on Austen reminds her readers that nothing is more flattering to the their situation. vanity than the wide-eyed wonder of one’s interlocutor, writing Sir John Middleton, a member of the traditional gentry, should that “Where people wish to attach, they should always be be stuffy and proud. Instead, he is warm, kindly, generous, and ignorant.” outgoing. His wife Lady Middleton, through her marriage a social Ironically, however, the nature of Catherine’s ignorance is what equal of her husband, is reserved, cold, and possesses a “common makes her such an interesting and ultimately likeable character— mind.” Her mother, Mrs. Jennings, is decidedly bourgeois, not, I hope, because she flatters my vanity as a reader, but because wealthy enough, effusive, more than slightly vulgar. Where does it seems to me that the exploration of her ignorance over the Sir John’s generous nature come from, and why is his wife so course of the novel is part and parcel of Austen’s larger themes affectedly elegant? Neither their situation nor their background about artlessness and the art of the novel in Northanger Abbey. accounts for the differences in their characters. Colonel Brandon, Of course, Northanger Abbey is a novel about the status of the situated similarly to Sir John, offers a further contrast—he is genre, part satire on the excesses of the gothic variety so popular moody, intelligent, and concise, more like a member of the clergy in the early 19th century and part defense of the novel as a “work than a military man with property. in which the greatest powers of the human mind are displayed.” Elinor and Marianne are drawn as opposing personalities as The satire on the gothic is what most readers remember about well. While Elinor is reserved and sensible, Marianne believes the Northanger Abbey, and Catherine’s introduction to the genre, heart must always show the way. Both are in a precarious state coinciding with her introduction into fashionable society, is a socially and financially and we might think the accepted route to comic misadventure in which she learns to over-interpret the their happiness and security would lie in good marriages for both. incidents of domestic life, imagining melodrama where it does not And yet through Elinor, Austen suggests that character develop- exist. In fact, it seems that an education in the aesthetics of the ment determines happiness. Elinor forms herself rather than gothic novel is simultaneously a process of learning to read for allowing her circumstances to make her. figurative and double meanings. Catherine’s interpretive zeal, however, ends unhappily when she comes to a mistaken Barbara Goyette is vice president of Advancement in Annapolis. conclusion. Embarrassed and conscious of her own error, she ends by rejecting the genre and recognizing the unfortunate “influence of that sort of reading.”

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If Catherine’s newfound understanding of gothic novels and throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the the dangers of interpretation were simply part of her education as pianoforte. . . .she had no notion of drawing”. Her interest in an increasingly sophisticated reader, then we might say that she fashion is remarkably lackluster, and her tastes in reading are was a slow study but on her way. Instead, she returns to what limited to the gothic novel, with which she shortly becomes disen- appears to be her natural state of ignorance, a state in which she chanted. At the same time, she remains singularly innocent of demonstrates an inability to recognize irony or to negotiate the irony. Catherine is, in other words, artless in at least two ways in which language creates duplicity. Perhaps the most telling respects—she is both ignorant of aesthetics and inexperienced at moment occurs late in the novel, when it is precisely Catherine’s manipulating representation. She is incapable of either engaging inability to understand this duplicity that most endears her to in or understanding duplicity. Eleanor and Henry Tilney. Faced with the prospect of his Yet, understanding duplicity is essential both to irony and to the brother’s marriage to the deceitful Isabella Thorpe, Henry sort of fiction that Northanger Abbey—this novel about novels— sarcastically advises Eleanor, “Prepare for. . .such a sister-in-law celebrates. Early in Northanger, in fact, “effusions of wit” are as you must delight in!—Open, candid, artless, guileless. . .forming identified as a central to the genre. What we have here is a witless no pretensions, and knowing no disguise.” Eleanor immediately and artless heroine, and the choice is perhaps one of Austen’s grasps the irony, assuring Henry that such a sister-in-law as that most striking experiments in and, ultimately, satires on realism. she would welcome—for the characterization describes Catherine After all, Catherine is precisely the sort of girl most likely to precisely. Only Catherine fails to understand the wit or to appeal to a slightly vain and entirely ordinary country clergyman. recognize herself as the half-subject of the exchange. Catherine’s In the context of a romance, she might just pass as a heroine, for, interpretive simplicity and literal-mindedness, if those phrases if she is unlikely, she is not unlikable. But, while not under- work to describe her ignorance and intellectual limitations more standing duplicity might be an admirable thing in a 19th-century precisely, lend some of the humor to this passage, of course. But heroine, the art of the novel and the art of the reader demand what I find most curious is the description of Catherine, here and something more. throughout the novel, as artless. From the earliest moments of the novel, readers are assured of her limited accomplishments: “she Tilar Mazzeo is assistant professor of English at Colby College. could not write sonnets. . .there seemed no chance of her

Wit and Wisdom from Jane Austen On Men and Books “Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. On Good Company Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen Anne smiled and said, “My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove any the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great thing.”—Anne Elliot, Persuasion deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.” “You are mistaken,” said he gently, “that is not good company; On Women and Marriage that is the best.”—Persuasion Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable On Candor provision for well-educated young women of small Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little their pleasantest preservative from want.—Pride and Prejudice disguised, or a little mistaken.—Emma On Youth On One’s Self “. . .there is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young “We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of than any other person can be.”—Fanny Price, Mansfield Park more general opinions.”—Colonel Brandon, Sense and Sensibility

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The past few months have brought a wide The authors then analyze science fiction nize from sophomore seminar: The variety of alumni books to The College television shows such as Star Trek, Dr. Wedding Feast at Cana from the Gospel of mailbox, on topics from religion to Who, The Prisoner, and The Twilight Zone. John, the meal that Abraham feeds the baseball. Star Trek, the authors propose, can be three angel visitors in Genesis, and the The Grail Code: considered a showcase for Christian virtues meal that Jacob feeds Esau to steal the Quest for the Real Presence such as humility and moderation. The trio birthright. of Kirk, Spock, and the crotchety McCoy Management by Baseball: by Mike Aquilina and Christopher Bailey function as a whole being, drawing analo- (A87) The Official Rules for Winning gies to Plato’s views of the triumvirate Management in Any Field Loyola Press soul. “Star Trek’s consistent vision seems to be about morality,” they write. The Jeff Angus (SF73) The authors trace authors also show how The Twilight Zone HarperCollins Publishers Holy Grail stories illustrates the impact of original sin. and legends The more recent series, The X Files, is What can the throughout time cast in a darker religious light—that of the manager of a with the aim of apocalypse. struggling busi- showing how these ness learn from accounts have Cooking with the Bible: Yankees manager radically skewed Biblical Food, Feasts, and Lore Joe Torres? When the Eucharistic Anthony F. Chiffolo (AGI94) and Rayner does a player in a meaning of the W. Hesse, Jr. slump (an under- Grail. “Powerful Greenwood Press achieving forces tend to pull employee) need the story of the Food, history, and extra coaching, Grail toward heresy,” Aquilina and Bailey religion simmer and when should write in this study that includes considera- together in this he be sent back to tion of the King Arthur legends, Marie de cookbook by Chif- the minors or cut from the team? France’s stories of love and magic written folo, an editorial Jeff Angus describes the complexity of in the Middle Ages, and even Hollywood’s director and Hesse, the organization in baseball, using take on Christian symbolism and the Grail a minister. The America’s favorite past-time as an analogy in films such as Indiana Jones. They authors spent more for managers in other fields. “It’s a prag- dismiss many Grail stories, particularly than three years matic, how-to book that aims to teach modern ones such as Dan Brown’s Da Vinci researching and management practice through examples Code, as written by members “of the wacky testing recipes for from the most open, accountable, and fringe.” In the authors’ opinions, the what they describe documented competitive system in the search for the Grail becomes a quest for as an interfaith U.S.: baseball,” says Angus. adventure and entertainment in these cookbook that is as much a study of “Baseball managers are ideal role stories instead of an experience fueled by etymology as it is a collection of recipes. models for mangers in other professions the purpose of changing the seeker’s life in Each recipe is based on a food found in the who are required to handle many different a deep, spiritual sense. Bible, but presented in its modern day tasks under high-pressure situations,” The Truth is Out There: “translation.” For instance, the apple in writes Angus. He quotes the famous Ty Christian Faith and the Classics the Garden of Eden is probably more like Cobb, “A fellow bossing a big league ball- of TV Science Fiction an apricot since the Middle Eastern club is busier than a one-armed paper- climate wasn’t conducive to growing hanger with hives.” by Thomas Bertonneau and apples. Each chapter begins with the menu Angus, who is a management consultant Kim Paffenroth (A88) for a biblical feast. More intellectual than and baseball writer with a passion for the Brazos Press the average cookbook, Cooking with the game, shows how baseball can help Bible offers short essays describing the managers “explode out of the batter’s box” Star Trek fans out there will enjoy seeing theological, historical, and cultural and learn how “the New York Mets how some of their favorite episodes of the significance of particular feasts. “The King confront the diseconomies of scale.” Angus 1960s science fiction classic relate to Plato, James Bible says that St. John the Baptist pitches advice on how to establish a reputa- the Bible, and St. Augustine. Professors survived on locusts and honey,” Chiffolo tion in the style of Dick Williams (former Thomas Bertonneau and Kim Paffenroth recently told The Journal News of New manager of the Oakland A’s) and describes look to science fiction as a lens that shows York. “Current scholars say that this is a the management style of several other top how religion and science can be integrated. mistranslation—‘locust’ really refers to managers of the game. x They cite Plato’s dialogue Timaeus as karib, which grows on trees in the Middle possibly the “first science fiction story” East. In the Middle East, karib is referred that discusses the idea that the world was to as St. John’s Bread.” created by a god who is rational and moral. Among the meals Johnnies might recog-

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Homecoming} 29

HOMECOMING 2006

Santa Fe Alumni Remember Nixon, the Draft, and a Growing Campus

t was an interesting but unsettled time in America when members of the St. John’s College Class of 1976 arrived in Santa Fe. Most college campuses were still in an Iuproar over the Vietnam War. The draft would be in effect for another year. The Paris Peace Accords had just been signed. And in each freshman mailbox was a letter from President Richard Nixon, congratulating the students for matriculating as members of the Class of 1976, America’s bicentennial year. “We thought it was kind of sappy,” recalls Rick Lightburn. “It was the 1970s, a kind of a turbulent time, and I think we thought of ourselves as kind of renegades,” says Chuck Gunter of the class of 1976. “Watergate happened, the Vietnam War ended during our years here, and Nixon resigned.” Clouds and the threat of rain in mostly sunny Santa Fe couldn’t dampen the high It was a turbulent time in America when the Class of 1976 spirits of the 15 members of the class of 1976 who returned to first arrived on the Santa Fe campus. The threat of storms campus the last weekend of July. About 100 other alumni, many moved the picnic inside, but didn’t dampen spirits at with children in tow, came back to share memories and news Homecoming 2006. with classmates. At the Friday night coffee shop party, the D.J.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 30 {Homecoming}

played the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” and several Doors songs as a tribute to the 1970s. In 1972, Richard Weigle was president; William Darkey was dean. And tutor Bob Neidorf allowed his hair to grow longer in a personal protest against the state of the country, recalled Gunter. “Santa Fe was a really different city,” added Gunter, who lives in Albuquerque now. “It was much smaller, and it had become this really interesting hippie arts community.” The campus was still new, with buildings going up around them. There was no Meem Library, no Student Activities Center. The main administration building became Weigle Hall and the tower and bell were added. Lightburn recalled that members of his class were impressed by an attempt the year before by upperclassmen to bug the faculty enabling meeting. “We put fake TV cameras in for our enabling, but the faculty found them,” he says. Paula Fulks, Judy Kistler-Robinson, and Miriam Marcus Smith were trying to drum up interest in reviving a favorite pastime during their years at the college: a game of “Murder,” played on Friday and Saturday nights in Evans Science Laboratory. “We’d barriers and taking detours while a project scatter out through the whole building,” Santa Fe associate director of alumni to replace the concrete pavement with Fulks recalls. “When you ran across a activities Michael Bales (SF06) gets hints bricks was underway. “It’s really nice to ‘victim,’ you’d have to figure out who killed on chair balancing from Rick Lightburn see all the improvements,” Gunter said. them and get back to the safe room before (SF76). “It’s really tough on the Coffee During the All-Alumni Meeting, Presi- Shop floor,” Lightburn says. the murderer got you. I almost won a dent Mike Peters gave an update on news at couple of times.” the college. Alumni stood and clapped to of the Class of 2006, by virtue of her During the weekend, alumni were part acknowledge a gift by Dr. Norman Levan dedication to the college’s Community of a gala opening celebration Friday night (SFGI74), given for construction of a new Seminar program. Ms. Harper has spent for The Campaign for St. John’s College. Graduate Institute Center. And Katharine more than 25 years attending seminars at They were pleased to see the developments (Kay) Harper became an honorary member the college (more on page 46). on campus, even if it meant skirting x

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Homecoming} 31

Clockwise from top left: Alumni visit in the coffee shop after the Saturday picnic; Rebekka Shugars (SF) and friends; Bill Malloy (SF77) admires future Johnnie Clare West, with parents Alison Bentley West (SF91) and Ben West. Gina Ironside and Charles Harrison (SF81) catch up on news; Johnnie kids strike a pose on the Meem Library Placita: Alice Acciani, Ben Goldstein, Teodore Davison, John Stukenberg, Caleb Gartner-Colon, and Nicholas Miller.

photos by teri thomson randall

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 32 {Alumni Profile}

Broad Thinking in the ER Marcus Eubanks (A88) Solves a Medical Mystery

by Ruth Johnston (A85) n average day for patients with acute mental Marcus Eubanks illness, both children and adults, (A88), always as well as dealing with all levels intersects with of injury and disease. Some unusual days for patients come in too readily, A other people. while others wait too long. In the emergency department at “There’s always the guy who Beaver Medical Center, in waits till the football game is over Beaver, Penn., Eubanks sees before coming in. His heart everything from mosquito bites attack started with the pre-game to acute infections to accident show, but he had to watch the trauma. But October 28, 2003, game.” He sees women in labor, was an unusual day even for this premature babies, and people in experienced ER doctor. the last stages of death from A man with very severe flu long-term metastatic cancer. symptoms had elevated liver One thing he loves about enzymes, and Eubanks realized emergency medicine is the need that he was dealing with the sixth to think broadly, to avoid Hepatitis A victim in one week. formulaic thinking. “Medicine in He had treated several in the past general requires you to integrate days, and a colleague had treated a lot of different things. You need another. One Hepatitis A case to be okay with people in would not be news, but even two general, you need to understand or three were odd. Six seemed the hard empirical science of beyond coincidence, and this what’s going on, but you need to Emergency Room physician Marcus Eubanks identified a deadly hunch was confirmed when the hepatitis outbreak in suburban Pittsburgh. be able to think broadly so that wife of one of the patients, a when something out of the nurse, said that they had all eaten ordinary crops up, you can think together at the same restaurant. and he has served on several public-health “how does this work?” Could it be food poisoning? That might panels to discuss his experience. That’s one similarity he sees between his mean that the source of the poisoning was Eubanks likes “high-acuity medicine,” field and St. John’s. “By going through the still out there, or that more patients were and always knew he wanted to be on the St. John’s Program, you see how several unaware of the danger, and thought they just front lines, where fast action mattered. High different fields or disciplines of study can be had the flu. Eubanks didn’t want to set off a acuity medicine means facing “a dynamic brought to bear on a question. But, of public panic, but this was too urgent to condition where aggressive and intensive course, a lot of ER medicine is simple, ignore or allow to idle longer. intervention on the part of the clinical team empirical stuff. You have a sore throat: how A quick call to public health officials set in is called for, and without which the patient am I going to treat you? What Pascal has to motion a sweeping investigation into what will continue to deteriorate and probably say about it isn’t going to be as important.” turned out to be one of the largest hepatitis either die or suffer some kind of catastrophic Not taking himself too seriously is an outbreaks in recent times. Federal insult from which they can’t recover.” important part of Eubanks’ personal anti-terrorism officials had to evaluate the As a student at St. John’s, he began taking philosophy, as well as medical practice. possibility that it might be bioterrorism, summer courses to prepare for medical On a recent day, a woman came in with pain while the medical team had to find other school, first at Johns Hopkins, then at Bryn in her side. She thought she had appen- possible victims for pre-emptive treatment. Mawr College. When he first began studies dicitis, but it looked like diverticulitis to Three Beaver County patients died, while at Temple University Medical School, he him. “I thought, ‘okay, let’s see who’s hundreds were infected and required thought he might like to go into trauma right,’ ” he jokes. “Guess what? I was treatment. The victims had all eaten at a surgery. Instead, he chose emergency wrong.” In acute medicine, that’s always a local Chi-Chi’s, and the search for the exact medicine because it combined the urgency possibility to keep in mind. contaminant eventually led investigators to of trauma surgery with the need to be As a medical student, Eubanks used four Mexican farms to examine their prepared for a wide variety of problems. creative writing to deal with his adjustment methods of washing green onions. In an average week in his emergency to a world where personal tragedy and an The outbreak put Eubanks in the spotlight, department, Eubanks evaluates several ordinary work day could routinely intersect.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Alumni Notes} 33

College for helping us to confused with ideology, and discover, and recognize, the religion is confounded with 1940 1944 worth of liberal education. idolatry, liberal artisanship is Although most of us would prob- surely, indeed, sorely, needed. OSCAR LORD’S eldest son, Happy news from JOHN DAVIS ably hesitate to call ourselves I am grateful for the libris Gen. Lance Welty Lord, retired HILL: “I have been married to liberal artists, my guess is that libraque.” from active duty as commander Dorothy Murdock for 60 years. most of us attempted to be some- of the Air Force Space Command Recently Dorothy was recog- thing like liberal artisans—in our on March 31, 2006. nized at the Annual Meeting of further education, personal the Nebraska Congregational lives, and professional pursuits, United Church of Christ for tacitly taking the measure of 1952 65 years in the ministry. She things by standards we learned received her degree from the 1943 from our tutors and one another. WALTER SCHATZBERG has University of Chicago Divinity In a culture in which, all too retired from his position as School and the Chicago Theo- often, education is conflated Professor of German at Clark MILTON PERLMAN writes, logical Seminary, where she was with training, philosophy is “I am delighted that Ms. Patricia ordained in June 1941.” continued on p. 34 Locke is doing a study of Proust and that Swann’s Way is again being studied in language Enchanted by China tutorials the senior year.” 1951 ACK A. NADOL (class of 1957) writes that he and Polly just returned from a three-week tour of China and Japan. A love letter of sorts from ERNIE “It was great to experience the ancient Great Wall, HANKAMER: “To my fellow classmates: On the eve of the Forbidden City, temples, tombs, palaces, and the modern 55th return of our graduation in China with all its free enterprises, business, and Jconstruction boom,” he writes. He was also impressed 1951, I think we are all aware of being indebted to St. John’s that all high school students and above speak English. x

After the death of a patient in a particularly wife, Rochelle, a critical care nurse, bought Emergency room abuses, such as patients gruesome accident, he wrote an e-mail to his a “bombed-out frat house” that required showing up just to get prescription Tylenol parents that detailed both the event and his extensive reconstruction. It’s close to friends that is covered by insurance, rather than viewpoint as one of the doctors who had to and activities, and it’s not far from Seton Hill buying it over the counter, can leave many remain business-like and detached. His University, where daughter Laurin, 19, doctors with a cynical attitude. “Sure, we get father encouraged him to publish it, so, on a attends. Thierry, a baby girl born in July, cynical, even sarcastic at times,” says lark, he submitted it to Jason Snell, editor of joins Robert, 10, in the family that remains Eubanks. “But in the emergency room, each InterText, one of the first professionally at home. individual presentation, taken by itself, is edited online fiction venues. Snell published Eubanks’ 40-mile commute takes him actually very interesting. Take the little kid Eubanks’ e-mail, now titled “Mr. McKenna right past the well-known teaching hospitals, with the eyebrow laceration: I was looking at is Dying,” and wanted to see more. InterText but he’s not seriously tempted. Beaver the exposed bone, nerve, bridging vessels eventually published five short stories, Medical Center is a typical small-town that I had to preserve. I needed some deep giving Marcus his fifteen minutes of fame in hospital, but its emergency department sees sutures to take tension off the wound. . . .I cyberspace, as well as motivation to create fifty thousands patients a year, and Eubanks can make it sound very complicated but it’s his own site for unpublished writing, loves the work environment. He sees some actually not. I love what I do. Most of the www.riotcentral.com. patients frequently enough to get to know time, it’s a lot of fun.” But continuing to use his sharp, witty them, and finds he has to use all his people The new focus on privacy laws hasn’t voice to explore the world of medicine might skills to view them simultaneously as indi- changed much in the emergency room, and now clash with his career. As a student, he viduals and as medical cases. A patient with a Eubanks comments that recent attention to didn’t feel he had much at stake, but as a mysterious problem might need to hear a virulent strains of bacteria isn’t news in his responsible doctor in a small community, doctor admit that in spite of all the tests he field, either. But there’s another trend he Eubanks would need to take careful, perhaps can run, “I just don’t know what’s wrong likes. “Increasingly, in emergency medicine, even extravagantly careful, steps to remain with you.” A worried mother who brings a there’s a push toward making people leave anonymous. “The really tragic, funny child with an ordinary cold probably just happy.” Eubanks’ cheerful personality vali- patients aren’t likely to read the stories,” but needs reassurance. Eubanks gladly tells her dates this approach, though some doctors he would have to try to protect their privacy, what a great job she’s doing, and to keep up worry that it means catering to patients too as well as his. the good work. He sees a lot of children, like much. “Across a large population, leaving Although he grew up in the rural outskirts a little boy who ran into a pole at the play- happy means quality of care. It probably of Pittsburgh, Eubanks prefers to live in the ground and came in with a large cut above means better medical practices, too.” x city neighborhood of Oakland. He and his his eye.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 34 {Alumni Notes}

continued during Northwestern SAM and EMILY KUTLER (class of Medicine at the University of University (Worcester, Mass.) University’s Harmonic Conver- 1954 and 1955), EVA BRANN Southern California, has been after 40 years of service. He gence festival. And he’s painting (HA89), MIKE (class of 1961) elected chair of the Pediatric earned his Ph.D. from the Johns like crazy. “Nothing like a calm and RENE GOLD, HERMINA Pulmonology Subboard of the Hopkins University in 1966. retirement,” he writes. LITTLETON, widow of the late American Board of Pediatrics, At Clark he chaired the MICHAEL LITTLETON (A95), and 2007-08. “Our class had its 50th reunion Department of Foreign DAN (A93) and LIZ LITTLETON in September,” writes CAROLYN GEORGE W. PARTLOW (A) is Languages for 10 years and was this summer—“all connected by BANKS LEEUWENBURGH. “It was back in Alaska for the summer director of Clark’s Program in strong ties to St. John’s.” the nicest reunion I’ve been to after wintering in Yuma, Ariz. Luxembourg for 12 years. He is in 50 years. Those who lent their “I took part in a seminar on the author of several books and talents were really at their best. Plato’s Apology sponsored by articles in the field of German The food and camaraderie were the new Phoenix alumni chapter Studies including the relations memorable for the next 50 years. 1962 in early April. Enjoyed seeing of literature and science in the Thanks!” MARIAN (CUNNINGHAM) COHEN German Enlightenment, the DAVID W. BENFIELD is enjoying (A69) again, and meeting tutor Jewish response to German teaching philosophy at Moun- Louis Kurs’ daughter Jean. Our culture, and films in the Weimar tain State University in New oldest daughter Erika, currently Republic. Jersey. “To 1962 classmates: I a student at Western Oregon 1956 say the 45th reunion in 2007 is a University, will be moving back big one! Let’s all try to make it!” to Alaska with our five grandkids GEORGE E. SAUER has been in August. Daughter Hilary has 1953 elected treasurer of the Repub- just returned after seven months lican Central Committee of in South America (including the Montgomery County, Maryland. obligatory trek to Machu FRANK ATWELL and TOM 1967 Picchu). Michael is a senior at HEINEMAN are regulars at Miami’s seminars (Kierkegaard the University of Oregon in LOVEJOY DURYEA was selected was the latest book; next year, Eugene. I am busy doing Tai as the honoree for the Einstein), and they invite other Chi, reading Don Quixote, and 1959 International Interior Design Class of 1953 veterans in South being a householder . . . and glad Association National Leadership Florida to join them. to be home with my Steinway JOHN E. MCDEVITT III is a Breakfast in New York in April. again!” great-grandfather. “My In May, she served on a panel grandson’s wife gave birth to for NIDA, and she led the Richard in April. And I continue New York St. John’s seminar on 1955 to fill in at the junior college; Rembrandt’s self-portrait with taught meteorology when the KATARINA WONG (A88). She was 1969 full-time instructor was ill for six also elected as the Gold Medalist HAROLD BAUER’S Songs of War weeks and then astronomy when and Death for tenor, mezzo, and for Design from the National MARIELLE HAMMETT KRON- an adjunct quit with no notice.” orchestra were performed by the Arts Club in 2003. BERG (A) writes: “Our son Norfolk University Symphony MAX KRONBERG (‘our’ being MICHAEL K. and BLAKELY L. HELEN HOBART has a “new Orchestra in March. Harold mine and Ken’s and Ken being MECHAU (class of 1958) are direction, which amplifies the directs the opera program at KENNETH KRONBERG, SF68) looking forward to visits from essential habit of curiosity and Norfolk. He conducted a concert graduated from St. John’s in listening deeply begun at SJC. Annapolis on May 14, 2006— I’m now an interfaith/Buddhist loving the college as much as chaplain resident at a large Ken and I did and do. We had a Pretty Much Retired hospital and acute psychiatric wonderful time at Commence- center in Sacramento—every day ment, seeing SAM and EMILY “ am pretty much retired and doing some traveling,” writes is a blessing.” KUTLER, ELLIOTT ZUCKERMAN JOHN POUNDSTONE, class of 1962. “My oldest daughter is (HA95), and EVA BRANN—whom in Beijing, China, working for the World Health Max had the great good fortune Organization as an AIDS epidemiologist. We hope to visit to have as his freshman seminar her this fall. My youngest daughter lives in New York City leader. Best of all was seeing Iand is an artist/designer, having graduated from the 1968 Max in cap and gown and Parsons School of Design. I am remodeling the house I grew up bachelor’s hood!” in here in Lexington, Ky., and hope to move in some time this TOM KEENS (SF), a professor of fall. Meanwhile, we’ve got a trip to Lisbon, Athens, and Santorini Pediatrics, Physiology, and to participate in a paleopathology conference.” x Biophysics at the Keck School of

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Alumni Notes} 35

a new job in the same field with become foster parents to a 15- Taking a Break El Paso Corp. He and his family year-old boy, Todd, who was in still live near Houston. desperate need of a home,” she writes. “Our other two children, ENDY MCDONALD FLORENCE (SF89) is now living in Tucson, Ariz., with her husband, Another alum in the Callahan Diana (26) and Karl (24) are two daughters—Kennedy who is 3 years old family: LAURIE FRANKLIN busy—Diana is in a doctoral and Addison who is 5 months old—and a CALLAHAN (SF) writes that her program in biology at Ohio State dog, Marley. “I’ve taken a hiatus from my daughter, ERIN CALLAHAN University, and Karl is a roofer W practice of internal medicine to enjoy the (A06), graduated from St. John’s in southern New Hampshire.” girls in these early years,” she says. “I will return to medicine in Annapolis in May and began someday but I appreciate each day now for what they bring law school at The George Wash- ERIC (SF) and LISA (GINSBERG) through giggles, discovery, and occasional tears. I’d love to hear ington University in the fall. “I ROSENBLUM (A80) have profes- know her Johnnie background sional and family news: In from other alumni in the area. x will serve her well!” she writes. November 2005 Lisa started a job as library director for the Chicago film critic JAN LISA City of Hayward, Calif. Eric and BETH KUPER (SF) has just eight books since I graduated HUTTNER (A) recently earned Lisa’s daughter, Anna, will opened an online digital d from St. John’s, so many, and so her second consecutive Silver graduate in June from Harvard ownload music store at: few, years ago. This summer I Feather Award from the Illinois College with a degree in www.burnlounge.com/ had the opportunity to put in Woman’s Press Association, for Classical Archaeology, while son goodmojomusic and invites quality research time as a writing the most award-winning Sam will enter the University of Johnnies to take a look for visiting scholar at the Hagley articles in IWPA’s annual Mate California-Santa Barbara as a their favorite tunes. Museum in Wilmington, Del., E. Palmer Communications freshman in the fall. deepening a long-term project Contest. Seven of Huttner’s nine Hazel & the Delta Ramblers, the on industrial and managerial awards were for articles dealing PAUL SZABO (A) has been New Orleans band that includes development in the first half of with Jewish themes, and her two recognized as one of the top Larry and HAZEL SCHLUETER America’s 20th century. Wher- first-prize winners were both intellectual property lawyers in (A) and grandsons Grey and ever I go, everything I learned at about Israel: “Israeli Films: the country in the 2006 Kaden performed at the New St. John’s—the environment, the Coming Soon to a Theatre Near Chambers USA Guide, a legal Orleans Jazz and Heritage gifted tutors, and fellow students You!” analyzed which Israeli resource used by general counsel Festival. It marked Hazel’s I acquired it from—follows me films get picked up by American and other purchasers of legal 30th time performing at the and nourishes me. Sounds distributors; and “ ‘Israel services. A partner in the festival, and Grey’s seventh. idealistic, I guess, but it’s meant Rocks!’ Celebrates Diversity” Cleveland firm of Calfee, Hazel writes: “We stayed in our as altogether realistic. As Milton reviewed a documentary that- Halter & Griswold, Paul home in New Orleans during wrote: “But let my due feet never which explores ethnic and counsels publicly and privately- Katrina. At the height of the fail, /To walk the studious political conflicts in the context held clients regarding issues storm our phone rang Cloysters pale, /And love the of Israel’s music scene. such as patents and copyrights . constantly. Among all the offers high embowed Roof, /With Although the second intifada of help was a call from St. John’s antick Pillars massy proof.” crushed the fragile hopes College, offering a place to stay. nourished by Oslo, Israeli Thank you. Everyone I tell this STEVE HANFT (SF) writes that filmmakers were energized,” story to is amazed at our college. his son will be headed to Pomona says Huttner. “They’ve been 1976 Thank you. We are home College in the fall. “Couldn’t catapulted to a whole new level repairing, repainting, and interest him in St. John’s,” he of artistic accomplishment.” CHRISTIAN BURKS (SF) has been playing bluegrass around our writes. “My wife, Ruth, gardens, in Toronto for four-and-a-half city and state with Hazel and the arranges flowers, paints, years. His wife, Janet Moody, is Delta Ramblers.” volunteers for community now working at Creative Niche, service. I’m sitting on the sofa, recruiting creative/design staff. reading.” 1974 One of their daughters starts a new job teaching sixth graders in MARY GEOGHEGAN JOLLES (SF) San Diego in August, while the 1970 is completing her ninth year as other starts law school at the principal of Colebrook University of Washington in JOHN DEAN (A) sends news 1973 Elementary School (K-8). Seattle. and poetry: “Life goes well. Recently she visited her older Following my years at the WILLIAM M. BLOUNT (SF) took son Phil (29) in Carbondale, “After 20 years of teaching University of Strasbourg, retirement from ExxonMobil Colo. He and his wife have an college composition, literature, I’m now at the University of after 21 years of service as a eight-month-old, my grandson and related liberal arts classes, I Versailles—tenured professor in petroleum geologist and started Owen David Wolf Jolles. “Last Cultural History. I’ve written fall my husband and I decided to continued on p. 37

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 36 {Alumni Profile}

Following in Familiar Footsteps Kevin Ross (AGI97), President of Lynn University

by Patricia Dempsey

evin Ross (AGI97), “As the president I throw ideas out who grew up on there, and we have a conversation. campus at Lynn In fact, the educational approach of University in Boca St. John’s has informed much of what I Raton, Fla., thrived do. Consensus doesn’t mean that we’re K on the lively all going to agree, but I would prefer conversations of his parents, academic to have an argument in the right sense, leaders, and intellectuals, as well as to see if an idea will stand the test of “more college food than anyone I time. It should be able to be beat up a know.” On July 1, he became the fifth little bit, and critically picked apart.” president of Lynn University, and at Ross says his studies in the GI age 40, one of the youngest college represent “the most profound presidents in the country. educational experience of my life.” Ross follows the footsteps of his He’s even considering how Lynn father Donald Ross, the former University’s distance learning president of Lynn. Over his 35-year programs—seemingly incompatible tenure, the elder Ross piloted the with a discussion-based approach— gradual transformation of Lynn could benefit from the St. John’s University into a four-year liberal arts model. “What led me to my interest in institution with an accredited master’s instructional technology were the and doctoral programs. In 1971 as fundamentals that came from president of Wilmington College in St. John’s—the liberal arts curriculum Delaware, the elder Ross visited and the idea of continuing a conversa- Marymount College and convinced tion. In the past, it always struck me Wilmington trustees to aid the that you’d walk into a classroom, flick struggling junior college; this institu- the lights on, say, ‘Okay, its time to tion evolved into the College of Boca learn,’ then you’d turn the lights off Raton and finally Lynn University. Kevin Ross (AGI97) hopes to lead Lynn University and say, ‘Okay, go read on your own Before taking the helm at Lynn, to great things. and come back later.’ It made me think Ross says he wanted to get his “feet about the conversations we had here wet in education without any help at St. John’s. I didn’t want seminar to from my family.” After earning his end at 10 p.m. when I was at the bachelor’s degree in English at Colgate make-it-happen type of leader,” says Ross. Graduate Institute.” University, Ross embarked on a career in “I’m more pragmatic.” Ross uses this Ross hopes to reach the goals of his education administration. He gained approach to build on his father’s accom- strategic plan in 10 years, instead of the experience in admissions and development plishments as president. He seeks to foster planned 15. One of his priorities is to travel at the Hill School in Pottstown, Penn. He the strong sense of community at Lynn, as the country to garner support of alumni to returned to Lynn in 1999 as dean of Lynn’s much an asset to the university as its increase the university’s endowment. communications school and later became programs in music, aeronautics, and “None of our challenges are insurmount- chief operating officer. Along the way, he international studies. “Lynn has this family able,” he says. “Sometimes a large enrolled at St. John’s, at the suggestion of a feel, and it is something that was very endowment can be an excuse for poor Hill School colleague who had attended the purposeful from the outset,” says Ross. management because you can rest on your GI and knew of Ross’ interest in the liberal “This is something that my father strongly laurels. There is a scrappiness about Lynn arts. Later, Ross earned a doctoral degree valued, and I do too. We want to be one of and this real nimbleness, which is one of in education from Peabody College of the most innovative, international, and our great strengths.” Vanderbilt University. individualized small universities in Amidst all the pressures of his new Though they are both passionate about America.” position Ross says he hopes to make time Lynn University, Ross and his father share Ross is a consensus builder. While for St. John’s. “If I have a sabbatical the different leadership styles. “He is developing the university’s strategic plan, first thing I’ll do is go to Santa Fe and do absolutely a visionary, damn-the- he sent a draft and a red pen to staff, the master’s in Eastern Classics. I’d go in a torpedoes, kick-the-doors open, let’s faculty, and students, asking for feedback. heartbeat.” x

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am working as a psychotherapist start-up company making clip in Phoenix,” writes IDELL art. So far, the sites include 1980 1982 KESSELMAN (SFGI) faithclipart.com, christmastime- “Here, I can keep an eye on clipart.com, babytidings.com, my parents—and my 27-year-old and weddingclipart.com. She JOSHUA KATES (A) last fall KELLY GENOVA (SF) was married daughter. Active in my writes, “In my spare time I’m published Essential History: June 27 to James Rowley. Her synagogue, I look forward to singing with the Siskiyou Jacques Derrida and the former husband, STEPHEN nurturing my own continuing Singers, a community chorus of Development of Deconstruction. LEACH (SF), was expected to love of giving.” 100+ people. Lots of fun!” He has left his position at attend with his fiancée, Sally Santa Fe, and he and his wife are Buxt. Writes Kelly: “I still currently associate professors of practice law; Stephen is an English at Indiana University associate professor in the (Bloomington) and have a philosophy department at the 1977 1979 six-month-old son, Zeke. University of Texas-Pan American, where his mother GERI GLOVER (SF) has joined EDWARD F. GRANDI (A) is SUSAN HERDER (SF) is living graduated many years ago. completing a second year as very happily in San Francisco, the Education Department at James is a lawyer as well, in executive director of the Amer- where she has a thriving practice the College of Santa Fe. Albuquerque, concentrating on ican Sleep Apnea Association. as a bodyworker. “For fun, I’m personal injury matters and the He’s active again with the D.C. into athletics, swimming in the representation of workers’ Alumni Association chapter bay often with my friends at the compensation claims. I defend after a long hiatus and “gener- South End Rowing Club, 1981 such claims. It should make for ally loves life!” running, biking, and doing an interesting marriage.” triathlons. A big event in my life ANNE O’MALLEY CULOTTA (A) MICHAEL LEVINE ST. JAMES (A) presently is buying my first LESLIE SMITH ROSEN (A) writes encourages friends and class- enjoys Santa Fe’s Summer home, and it’s in Santa Fe! I’m that her eldest daughter, mates to try their best to make Classics. “Last summer, I took not moving though, will just Marielle, is engaged to be the 25th reunion of her class. the Don Quixote seminar, led by spend more time there, and I’m married, with the wedding to “I promise you won’t want to tutors ERIC SALEM (A77, my looking forward to seeing take place in May 2007, after miss the fun and the flashbacks,” sophomore roommate) and everyone as our paths cross.” Marielle completes her master’s she writes. “Sometimes the CAREY STICKNEY (A75, my degree at Johns Hopkins. Paca-Carroll dorm-mate), and After several years of consulting sequel is even better than the “My younger daughter is had a fantastic time,” he says. for reproductive rights original! Let’s get the party finishing her first year at the started.” “This summer I return for organizations, MARJORIE University of Chicago (SJC Aristotle’s Ethics, led by the HUTTER (A) has what she a little too intense) and my THOMAS J. SLAKEY, JR. (SF) is same tutors. I can’t recommend describes as her “dream job” as youngest, Sam, is in high working as a technical writing Summer Classics enough!” Director of Development for the school,” she writes. “Time consultant at companies all over Women’s Fund of Western flies and tuitions soar. Best Silicon Valley. He’s married to “Life in Boise has settled into a Massachusetts: “My “non- wishes to all, and looking the lovely Susan Slakey, and his routine,” writes MARLENE F. Johnnie” husband and I have forward to our 25th!” two stepsons are turning 18 and STRONG (A). “I just completed been together for 20 years and 21 this year. He welcomes my second year of working at a are enjoying raising our two contact at [email protected] nonprofit mental health center, daughters—Simone “Mo,” where I do therapy with children 13 years old, and Gracie, 10 years and adults. I am enjoying four old. I send my best wishes to all 1983 distinct seasons, and I love my of my classmates.” 100-year-old house and big “I just launched a series of three garden. I do miss the ocean! satellites to study the Earth’s Looking forward to seeing magnetosphere and got a little my classmates next year for closer to the eidos of our 30th.” Puppies and Girls engineering,” writes PETER ROSSONI (SF). “Send me your

ICHAEL RYAN (SF86) reports that his family news! and business are both growing: “We have [email protected]. added a boxer puppy to our three girls and I would love to hear from any 1978 boxer-mix dog. There is plenty of happiness classmates.” and chaos to go around. My architecture firm TED ZENZINGER (A) is a RACHEL BARRETT (SF) has Min Albuquerque has grown to 11 people and we moved to Ashland, Ore., where are taking on some large projects in four states. I look forward professor of philosophy at Regis University in Denver, Co. He and she works for an Internet to seeing everyone this summer.” x

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 38 {Alumni Notes}

his wife just celebrated the first am loving it. I would love to hear birthday of their second from other Johnnies! E-mail me Art in Ensenada daughter, Olivia. Ted writes, at [email protected].” “She and her sister, Sophia (2), NYA LASKOWSKI (SFGI97) is Mexico bound: “My partner, keep us busy!” JOHN SCHILLO (SF) and his a painter, and I are invited to Ensenada, Mexico, for a 10- partner, David Maltin, recently day artist residency. The participants will come from purchased several apartment around the globe and will create their art at the site, buildings in Albuquerque and a which will then be exhibited at the local museum. Also, home in east Sandias, where IAndrei and I had a well-received exhibition at Gallery 1984 they will be relocating toward Route One, Point Reyes, Calif. Look at our work at www.gallery- the end of this year. John looks routeone.org.” x JOHN (SF) and Elizabeth BUSH’s forward to seeing old friends oldest son, Salem, who was born who still live in New Mexico or in Santa Fe, graduated from will be visiting there, as well as context of severe mental illness, James Madison University in making new acquaintances at and is based in my first 11 years’ Harrisonburg, Va., this past alumni events. He can be work as an acute care psychiatric 1991 spring. reached on his home e-mail: chaplain.” [email protected] or at his DIANNE JANETTE COWAN (A) FATHER ROBERT NICOLETTI, work e-mail: john.schillo@ writes, “2005 was a busy year for GEORGE ALBERT ERHARD (SF) M.J., (SF) is a missionary in ge.com. me, with three big events. In Ukraine: “Does anyone want to has moved from Northern Cali- fornia to Irving, Texas, where he August, I finally left my miser- help a Ukrainian orphanage? able job for a better one in I’ll send you more info. Many is now a Network Fault Manage- ment Engineer for AT&T. Also, educational publishing. In thanks.” November, I got elected the George would like to announce 1986 Alumni Association president of his marriage to Claire Alyce the Boston chapter, and two days Johnson, who has shared his life SUSAN READ (SFGI) writes that later the Red-Haired Boy of my for the past 10 years. her son, Harry, will be in fifth dreams asked me to marry him. 1985 grade this fall. “I am still Sadly, I won’t be able to make it REGINA LANDOR (A) writes that teaching high school, still to the Class of ’91 reunion, since she and her husband, Bill Wood- ANNA LOUISE DAVIS (A) was skiing, still talking.” it is, inconveniently, the ward, welcomed their second sorry to have missed her weekend before my wedding. But son, Gabriel, in December. 20th reunion last fall, but she I’m consoled by the fact that all Their first son, Ethan, is now 2. looks forward to catching up Johnnie weddings are mini- with everyone in a few short reunions. And with any luck, I’ll years at the 25th. In the 1987 be around for the Class of ’92 meantime she is headed back to bash in ’07. Please drop a line to school for a Master of Public CHARLOTTE GLOVER (SF) joined 1990 [email protected] Health from the Johns Hopkins with some friends in Ketchikan, scollege.edu. School of Public Health. Alaska, to start a chapter of TATIANA N. MASTERS (SF) “First Book,” which helps low- BEN FOLEY (SF) is living in finished the second year of her LIZA HYATT (SF) is “happily income children build home Oakland, Calif., teaching 7th- doctoral program with her usual divorced” and a mother to libraries. “The national grade humanities and doing a lot aplomb. She is finishing the Maggie, who turned nine in organization has been awesome of hiking in the Sierra. page proofs for her first paper in August. “I am self-employed to work with,” she writes. “See Psychology of Women doing a variety of things: I am a you next summer in Santa Fe!” TEDDI ANN GALLIGAN and Quarterly. She is still three years mosaic artist and work with DAVID ALAN DIGGS (both A), communities (such as local from completing her studies just announce with great joy the schools, Indiana University’s like last year. Her partner Jason birth of their second daughter, cancer hospital, a women’s Spainhower is proud of her Josephine Lucia Diggs-Galligan shelter) to create mosaic murals 1989 accomplishments. They live in on July 20, 2005, in Wash- for their buildings; I am an art Seattle and have listed numbers ington, D.C. Writes Teddi, therapist in private practice; I “I am nearing the end of my and unusual names. “Big sister Sophia Emmanuelle am a storyteller and perform at Doctor of Ministry in Pastoral is enjoying her new status libraries, schools, and festivals; Counseling and Marriage and immensely.” and I am adjunct faculty for two Family Therapy at the Louisville graduate programs at St. Mary Presbyterian Theological Semi- of the Woods College. And, after nary,” writes DAVID DILLARD 40 some years of believing I (A). My research has been can’t sing, I joined a choir and focused around finding hope in a continued on p. 40

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Alumni Notes} 39

Hooked on Classics Richard Field (SFGI98) Nurtures Book Lovers by Rosemary Harty tudying in the St. John’s Graduate Institute “lit a fire in my mind,” says Richard Field (SFGI98), a senior humanities teacher at Albuquerque SAcademy, a private college preparatory school. Now he’s trying to do the same thing for his students through his weekend Classics Club, a group he started to give students another place to discuss books and ideas. Field enrolled in the GI in Santa Fe after completing a doctoral program in history and philosophy. He had heard of the undergraduate program, admired it, and started to read Program books on his own. Then he heard about the graduate program in Liberal Arts. “From my very first class with Mr. LeCuyer and Ms. Honeywell, I absolutely loved it,” he says. “St. John’s opened a new way of thinking for me, based on St. John’s. “I love the material so Albuquerque teacher Richard Field and I can’t go back. I became this insa- much that kids have written to me to tell knows how to get the attention of his tiable reader of the classics and I haven’t me my excitement and enthusiasm spread high school students. stopped since.” Even after finishing the to them,” he says. “The people who GI program, he went back to campus to inspired me were two Johnnies who were take the History segment. working here. They were the catalyst.” discussion on the book. “They saw quite a Field began his teaching career in the Inspired by the movie Dead Poet’s few parallels with what’s going on today school’s physical education department, Society, in which a teacher cultivates a love and what de Tocqueville talked about,” but he soon talked his way into the for literature in his students, Field decided Field says. “But they think his views about humanities program, where he’s been to start an extracurricular club for students the ‘middling state of American education’ happy ever since, teaching seminar classes who want to read ancient and modern are no longer true.” Next up: The Picture of classics that regular classes would never Dorian Gray. have time for. Over the years, the club has Every year Field works in some Russian The Nietzsche Rap read works including The Sorrows of Young literature. “I read The Brothers Kara- Werther, The Communist Manifesto, mazov in a tutorial with Victoria Mora, Beowulf, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young and now I’m a Dostoevsky nut,” he Gonna teach ya Nietzsche Man, the Symposium, and Pride and confesses. caus’ I can’t reach ya’ Prejudice. He rewards club members every man must first go under so he doesn’t The group meets once a month, usually semester with a party, during which blunder- in a local coffee shop, and recently, everyone plays games like Trivial Pursuit’s Albuquerque Academy alumni have begun Book Lover’s edition. He also brings a Try to teach you overman to attend. “It’s very rewarding,” he says. playful attitude to his regular humanities because man is a rope, “I start with an opening question, though classes; once a year, when seniors are a dope, between a man and hope- given the nature and age of the kids, one scheduled to read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, over an abyss. question is usually not enough to keep Field dresses up “gansta” style (complete them going.” with St. John’s cap pulled low over his face) Ubermensch, ubermensch Club members had an assignment over to perform his “Nietzsche Rap.” “I origi- God is dead the summer. Read Democracy in America nally wrote it in 1996,” he explains. “It’s a Antichrist, Will to Power and come back ready to discuss it. Meet- way to relate some of Nietzsche’s ideas to have you read- ings are usually an hour, but the group students in a modern, fun, and hip way.” x ZARATHUSTRA...! went almost 90 minutes and decided to schedule an extra meeting to finish their

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 40 {Alumni Notes}

THOMAS E. SCHNEIDER (AGI) CHERYL S. HENEVELD (AGI) is Officially a Doctor has a new book out: Lincoln’s still taking part in vigils at 5 Defense of Politics: The Public p.m. every Saturday against the Man and His Opponents in the war in Iraq, as well as writing AIGE ELIZABETH FORREST, A00, received the degree of Doctor of Medicine during graduation ceremonies Crisis Over Slavery (University and working for the end of wars. of Missouri Press, 2006), based at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine on on his dissertation in political May 22, 2006. She was also the recipient of two science from Boston College. faculty awards: the Florence L. Marcus, M.D. Prize P in Family Medicine and the F. Lorraine Bruni Prize 1997 in Geriatric Medicine. On graduating from St. John’s, she received a Howard Hughes KATHLEEN EAMON (SF) writes Foundation summer research internship at the University of 1994 to report that she has just Virginia Medical School. Following the internship she attended accepted a teaching position at James Madison University NATHAN HUMPHREY (A) is Evergreen State College, where in Harrisonburg, Va., for curate at St. Paul’s Episcopal she was hired in philosophy. two semesters of postbac- Church, K St., in Washington, “But, as anyone who knows calaureate studies to satisfy D.C. “My former junior lab the place knows, I’m slated to the science prerequisites for tutor, ANN MARTIN, is a teach more broadly than that. medical school. While in parishioner, and my former LYNARRA (Featherly, SF94) and Harrisonburg, she was also Febbie Lab tutor, ROBERT an emergency medical tech- I have spent the last six years DRUECKER, lives behind the in Nashville, where I am now nician with the Harrison- church. Several Johnnies and burg Volunteer Rescue winding up work on my disserta- parents of Johnnies are members tion at Vanderbilt University. Squad. or regular visitors.” Paige began a three-year Neither of us made it big on the residency in family medi- country scene, but Lynarra has cine on June 23 at the become a widely-sought (if University of Pittsburgh reluctant) interior designer, Medical Center-St. 1996 hounded by friends and real Margaret Hospital, in estate agents alike. She has also acquired mad-carpenter skills, Pittsburgh. x ANGELA BILLICK (SF) was after having renovated two promoted to vice president and joined BNP-Paribas, a French historic homes from top to bottom.” experiences from this under- bank. She is based in a New York recognized ailment,” writes office. She’s been accepted to 1992 DAMON KOVELSKY (A) is back BARBARA ARNOLD (SF). “I’d the Executive MBA program at in Brooklyn, with a new job in appreciate hearing from any NYU’s Stern School of Business Rebecca Paige Brandreth was Johnnies out there who have and is “looking forward to journalism, a wife, and a cat. born April 26, 2006, announces friends, family, or who are them- flexing the gray matter once “Bloomberg, LLP hired me in CYNTHIA BRANDRETH (AGI). selves dealing with the illness: again!” Drop a line at their newsroom, Meg married [email protected].” [email protected] me a couple of years ago, and J. ELIZABETH (HUEBERT) Max makes three. If there are SCHOEMAKER (SF) and Jeremy SALLIE (SFGI) and GEORGE “As of this Easter, I have any Johnnies within the city Schoemaker welcomed their BINGHAM (SF66) celebrated celebrated my first year as a limits, please shout out an first daughter, Juliet J. their second wedding anniver- Roman Catholic,” writes ERIN e-mail [email protected].” Schoemaker on June 23, 2006. sary this past July. George has N. (HEARN) FURBY (A). “I have Juliet weighed 7 lbs. Her mother enjoyed rejoining the college’s enjoyed the supportive and JESSICA CAMPBELL MCALLEN continues to practice anesthesi- Board of Visitors and Governors. intellectually vibrant Catholic (SF) shares baby news: “Isaac ology in Lincoln, Neb. community here in Anchorage, Orion McAllen was born on CHRISTOPHER GRAM (A) Alaska (many of whom are close April 11, 2006! Lowry and I are welcomed the birth of his second cousins, being St. Thomas so excited to have a little boy daughter, Celeste Penelope Aquinas College alumni).” around the house. He was Gram, on March 25, 2006. 8 pounds, 20 inches. A little 1993 MARYBETH GUERRIERI (A) blessing!” VALERIE DUFF-STRAUTMANN graduated in June from the “I’ve been going through the (SF) has poems appearing in Barbara Brennan School of “Currently, I am teaching devastating effects of late-stage Zoland Poetry (Steerforth Healing, from which she English in China with my wife, Lyme disease since February Press), an annual anthology of received a Professional Skills Emily Kaplan Murbarger, the 2004 and am interested in contemporary poetry from diploma in Brennan Healing daughter of BART KAPLAN (A65) getting in touch with people around the globe. Science. and cousin of MEGAN DROLET going through similar (A08),” writes JOSHUA

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Alumni Notes} 41

“Great Books for $1,000, Alex…” A Johnnie Wins Big on Jeopardy! by Rosemary Harty ome contestants of Jeop- endure great embarrassment on that ardy! are so nervous on the one, since her dissertation research is set of the popular game on Shakespeare and performance show that they freeze up, theory. “I still get grief from my hand clutching the buzzer colleagues,” she says. Sin a death grip, face set in a Several times in her six appearances, grimace of anxiety. Jeopardy! watchers DiNucci didn’t know the Final Jeopardy who tuned in last July and caught answer and other contestants did. But Celeste DiNucci (A87) on her five-day she had built up a big enough lead and winning streak saw a contestant who wagered wisely to prevail over her laughed vigorously and often, joked competitors—until the last day, when with Alex Trebeck, and clearly enjoyed the category was American women the whole experience, right until the authors. The answer quoted Henry Final Jeopardy question that ended a James describing the mystery author as glorious run. “the novelist of children. . . the Thack- “I approached the whole thing as, eray, the Trollope of the nursery and ‘this is just a game,’ ” says DiNucci, a the schoolroom.” DiNucci came up Her Jeopardy winnings allowed Celeste DiNucci to doctoral student at the University of take a leave of absence to finish her dissertation. with Beatrix Potter; the answer was Pennsylvania and a grant writer for a Louisa May Alcott. “I feel like I really nonprofit organization. “I wasn’t should have won that one.” Half the nervous at all.” people gave her the TV treatment, and she battle, of course, is being quick. “The real DiNucci tried out in June 2005 in was wired for sound. test is in the buzzer. There were plenty of Philadelphia, where she lives. She did well “After the game show scandals, they’re questions I knew the answer to and I just on the written test, then took part in a mock really careful about sequestering contest- wasn’t fast enough.” game that was videotaped. After the months ants, so you don’t see Alex much. I had a DiNucci ultimately left Los Angeles went by, she figured her chances at game great time meeting the other contestants.” exhausted, but with $85,000 in winnings. show stardom were slim. “Then in April, She was later to defeat all but one of them. The money has allowed her to take a leave they called me at work and suggested some At times, DiNucci was surprised by how from her job to finish her dissertation, and taping days,” she says. Since taping much she knew. Where did she learn, for she’s planning to splurge on a trip to Italy. conflicted with her job at the American example, that what is also called heavy water She has no regrets about her performance— Philosophical Association, she asked if she is deuterium? There were also a few uncom- except maybe one. could pick other dates. “They said these are fortable moments. A $200 question on “I didn’t get around to talking about St. the last two taping days of the season, and Shakespeare asked for the play in which John’s” in the meet-the-contestant part of you come now or you don’t come at all.” Mercutio and Balthasar are characters. the show, she says. But should she be called DiNucci went. After just a few hours of “I rang in immediately, but then I thought, back for the Tournament of Champions, she sleep in her hotel room, she waited, bleary- ‘hey, there’s no Balthasar in Romeo and promises a nod to the college that helped eyed, in the lobby for the Jeopardy! shuttle Juliet’ so I said something else. But he has a contribute to all that valuable knowledge. x to transport her to the set. The make-up little part in the last act.” DiNucci had to

MURBARGER (A). “We started anyone is interested in helping, ANNAMARIA CARDINALLI- in Jinzhou (for six months) in e-mail me, or visit me at www. PADILLA (SFGI), who completed the northeast of China and will 1998 insubordinatewomen.com.” her Ph.D. in Theology from the soon move to Qingdao. We have University of Notre Dame in a great blog: www.peer-see.com. JULIANA (MARTONFFY) 2004, was recently named a Follow our adventures and great LAUMAKIS (A) and her husband, laureate for the 2006 Mother fun.” This news comes to The John, are very happy to report Teresa Awards for her work as College via Bart and Betty the birth of their daughter, 1999 an American classical musician. Kaplan. Amanda Adeo, this past January. For updates on her career STEVE and KRISTIN DUMONT since St. John’s, visit MARJORIE ROUECHE (A) is a (both SF) are proud to announce www.annamaria.ws and freelance science writer and the birth of their daughter, www.elduoduende.com, or editor in Berkeley, Calif. “I am Quinn Alessandra—born healthy www.sonicbids.com/Anna- also doing what I can to help the and screaming February 14, Maria2 and www.sonicbids.com/ next groundswell of feminism. If 2006. She has brought wonders ElDuoDuende. and joy to their lives every day since.

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2000 Catch Up With Friends 2003

This fall BUCK COOPER (A) After a year as an account starts a Ph.D. program in executive for a Dallas advertising education at the University of agency, LARIN MCPEAK (EC) is North Carolina Chapel Hill. now teaching Business English “Can’t seem to shake the allure and American Culture at the ISL of the Tarheel State,” he says. Sprachschule in Koblenz, Germany. She uses her weekends ALAN (A) and Heidi RUBENSTEIN and free time traveling celebrated their two-year throughout Europe, playing wedding anniversary in June soccer with a local team, and 2006 and are very happy in their reading some of the Eastern “treehouse” in Takoma Park, studies books she managed to outside of D.C. “The same haul to Germany. You can month, I had my first poetry e-mail her at Dangerousfireball@ reading, which went well, and yahoo.com began my new job,” writes Alan. “I am now working for the staff of the President’s Council on It’s not the same as the Coffee Shop, but the online alumni community may be the next best thing—a place to catch up with Bioethics as a researcher and friends, start a conversation, find a new lead on a job, and keep writer. This is a serious track of what’s happening on the Santa Fe and Annapolis 2004 challenge—one that I am campuses. Share your news, share your pictures, sign up for a St. enjoying very much.” John’s e-mail address. More than 4,000 alumni have joined to MICHAEL LOOFT (AGI) will be date. Get back in the conversation! studying at Harvard Divinity CHRISTOPHER VAUGHAN (A) is School this fall to become a living in Annapolis and working Unitarian minister—“just like for Realistic Builders. “Nice to Emerson.” employed by SNL Financial. see the college on a regular “We are currently in the throes basis,” he writes. “It is really a 2001 of planning our November 4, beautiful place to watch the 2006, wedding.” We love seasons change. Having lived in “Just wanted to announce to all Charlottesville and would relish four states in the last 10 years, and sundry that I have taken a the chance to show visitors Annapolis really stands out as teaching position in Burma around, so feel free to look us up the best walking city. My free (middle school math) for the if you’re planning a visit,” time is spent walking puppies or next two years!” writes Katherine writes. riding horses. Hope all my class- MATTHEW LIPPART (SF). “Come mates are doing well and find visit! I’ll buy you a beer or five! SUZANNAH SIMMONS (SF) will be time to reflect on where their life My new e-mail is: in Washington, D.C., this is going. Looking forward to [email protected]. summer, living near DuPont reunion 2010!” What’s Up? Please e-mail or I’ll be lonely.” Circle. “If there are any Johnnies The College wants to hear from who would like to get together, you. Call us, write us, e-mail us. KATHERINE J. PETERS (SF) is please e-mail me (guneh@ Let your classmates know what living in Charlottesville, Va., hotmail.com). I am greatly you’re doing. The next issue working as a criminal defense looking forward to the Santa Fe will be published in Feburary; attorney for a private law firm. Class of 2001 five-year reunion deadline for the alumni notes section is December 7. Her fiancé, Bill Finn, a New York in July.” City native and artist, is In Annapolis: In June 2006, JOSH VAN DONGE The College Magazine (SF) received his Master of St. John’s College, P.O. Box 2800 Annapolis, MD 21404; Architecture from the University Another Book Lover [email protected] of Washington and is currently living and working in Seattle. In Santa Fe: RIN MCGINTY JAMES (SF05) and her husband, The College Magazine Mike, welcomed a small but august presence on St. John’s College June 2, 2006. August Michael James arrived early 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca but healthy, weighing 5 lbs and measuring 17 inches. Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599; “He has already fallen in love with his first book,” [email protected] Ehis mother says. x

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Tribute} 43

Brother Robert Smith, F.S.C. Tutor

Brother Robert Smith, F.S.C. (HA90), a much loved and respected member of the St. John’s College community for nearly half a century, died September 12, 2006, in Napa, California, at the age of 92. He first joined the faculty of St. John’s College as a visiting tutor in 1966 and became a permanent member of the faculty in 1972, seeking and gaining special permission from his order, the De La Salle Christian Brothers, to leave Saint Mary’s College to teach at St. John’s. Brother Robert bonded in a special way with the college; he served as a mentor to tutors and students alike, and inspired all with his deep faith, distinguished intellect, generosity, and friendship. Robert Smith was born in Roundup, Mont., and was raised in Oakland, Calif. He attended a Christian Brothers high school in Berkeley, where he discovered his vocation. As a novice, he picked grapes and helped move the Christian Brothers Winery to Mont La Salle in 1932. After earning his bachelor’s degree at Saint Mary’s College in 1935, Brother Robert taught at the Christian Brothers’ high school in Sacramento. He earned his Ph.D. degree from the University of Laval in Quebec, Canada, and wrote his dissertation on the liberal arts from the point of view of St. Thomas Aquinas. He returned to Saint Mary’s as a professor in 1941, and, being familiar with the St. John’s Program, soon instituted a

seminar based on the St. John’s t n i

reading list. o p r

Those efforts blossomed into a project e i p

that is an important part of the California y r a

liberal arts college today. In 1956, Brother g Robert founded Saint Mary’s Integrated A much loved member of the St. John’s community, Brother Robert Smith will be Liberal Arts Program, described as a remembered for his intellect, generosity, and friendship. “college within a college,” and shaped in part by the program at St. John’s. Students in the Saint Mary’s program program here. He came to know the Director of the Integrated Liberal Arts explore the great works of the liberal arts faculty very well, particularly Dean program. In 1972, he joined the St. John’s tradition through seminar discussions, Jacob Klein, whom he had first met in faculty and taught full time from 1972 tutorials, and scientific laboratories. the forties. until his retirement in 1985. At St. John’s, In the course of helping to develop the In 1966-67, he spent a year as a visiting other faculty members recognized his program, Brother Robert made several tutor at St. John’s. He then returned to skills as a seminar leader. Former Dean visits to St. John’s to study the academic Saint Mary’s to continue his work as Curtis Wilson described him as

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 44 {Tribute}

“enormously generous and careers of his countless in his willingness to let friends among the students entertain and alumni.” examine the widest “A true son of Saint La Salle, a friend to When he was made an variety of points of honorary member of the view.” Brother Robert hundreds of students, and an inspiration to Class of 1990, the citation remained an active noted “his exemplary member of the many of the greatest minds of the last century, devotion to the liberal arts, community—teaching, Brother Robert will be terribly missed.” over a long career as a lecturing, taking part in teacher”; “his life of study groups and faculty service in faith”; and Brother Donald Mansir, Chair of the Bishop John S. Cummins Institute meetings—through the and teacher in the Saint Mary’s Integral Program especially “the friendship end of the past that he has bestowed upon academic year. Early numerous colleagues and this summer, poor concerned to preserve and propagate students.” health required him to move from his Klein’s understanding of a liberal arts “Brother Robert was one of the most Historic District home in Annapolis to education, in which the intellect holds the influential of the Brothers in the the community of retired Christian central place,” says Michael Dink, dean of curriculum at Saint Mary’s College,” Brothers at Mont La Salle in Napa, Cali- the Annapolis campus. “Nonetheless said Brother Donald Mansir, Chair of the fornia He kept in close touch with scores (I can hear his protest at this adversative!) Bishop John S. Cummins Institute and of his former students, who considered Brother Robert was an affectionate and teacher in the Saint Mary’s Integral him a valuable friend as well as a tutor. thoughtful connoisseur of all things Program. “A true son of Saint La Salle, In addition to his intellectual pursuits, human: the earthy humor of Rabelais, the a friend to hundreds of students, and an Brother Robert enjoyed gourmet elegant French of Madame de Sévigné’s inspiration to many of the greatest minds French cooking and wines, music, and gossip, fine wine and gourmet cooking, of the last century, Brother Robert will be conversation with his wide circle of the meticulously thought through asceti- terribly missed.” x friends. “A friend of Jacob Klein’s since cism of the desert fathers, world politics, the 1940s, Brother Robert was deeply French and English poetry, and the lives

{Obituaries}

GILBERT CRANDALL publications including Bon Appetit, property he donated to the city of Gilbert Crandall, a member of the class of Motor Boating and Reader’s Digest. Annapolis, bears his name. 1932, died August 24, 2006, in Annapolis The spring 2006 issue of The College He was also a shrewd investor in real at the age of 91. He was born and reared included a charming essay Mr. Crandall estate in Annapolis and developed a shop- just a few blocks from the St. John’s wrote about his experiences at St. John’s ping center in Parole that he owned until campus. After graduating from the before the New Program. the time of his death. college, Mr. Crandall taught English and CECIL KNIGHTON ROBERT HAZO history at Glen Burnie High School. Cecil Claggett Knighton, class of 1940, a Robert G. Hazo, Class of 1953, died Jan. 6, In 1941, he joined the staff of the Amer- successful entrepreneur in Annapolis, died 2006, in Pittsburg, Penn. A dedicated ican Red Cross, and during World War II July 13, 2006. Over the span of his career, alumnus of St. John’s with a great interest served in Puerto Rico, Italy and Norway Mr. Knighton owned several successful in preserving the college’s Program while attached to the armed forces. For businesses and many different commercial and history, he rarely missed a fall his work, he was awarded the Italian Red properties in Annapolis. Homecoming, and he was a passionate Cross Bronze Star for humanitarian After leaving St. John’s, Mr. Knighton recruiter of potential Johnnies. services rendered during wartime. borrowed money from an aunt to buy a A brilliant political analyst, Mr. Hazo After the war, he worked for the State small general store in Davidsonville, Md. founded the University of Pittsburg’s Department as director of the He sold the store when joined the Army in American Experience program, inspired in Paraguayan-American Cultural Center in World War II, serving as a paratrooper in part by his experience studying the liberal Asuncion, and later in public affairs with the European theater. He built the Acme arts at St. John’s. After graduating from the Foreign Service in Bolivia and Supermarket at the foot of City Dock in the college, he received a senior fellowship Argentina. In 1961, he became the first 1951. He also opened an auto supply to Princeton, a Fulbright scholarship for tourism director of the State of Maryland, company and a movie house. During the study at the Sorbonne, and a Rockefeller and later served as head of the public 1950s, he was a successful automobile fellowship to study at the American affairs office at for the state Department dealer, known by many as the “car czar.” University of Beirut. of Agriculture. After retiring in 1977, he A parking garage on West Street, built on continued writing, publishing articles in

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Obituaries} 45

Robert Hazo, class of 1953, rarely missed a Homecoming in Annapolis. In 2005, he brought a prospective student.

was passionately devoted to the task of bringing down the many barriers to pain relief faced by millions of other afflicted Americans. He and his wife founded the Pain Relief Network in 2003 to challenge the U.S. government’s legislation on pain medications.

ALSO NOTED

ERIC GUNNAR BACK (CLASS OF 1964), DECEMBER 5, 2005

ILEANA BASIL (CLASS OF 1973), AUG. 24, 2006

IRENE DORTCH (CLASS OF 1966), AUG. 12, 2006

WILLIAM HABERLAND (CLASS OF 1933), APRIL 22, 2006

Following graduate studies, Mr. Hazo By the time he was 17, Mr. Owens had EDWARD C. HUDSON (CLASS OF 1937), JULY 1, was named associate director of the two life objectives: to be a Florida state 2006

Institute for Philosophical Research in senator and to graduate from St. John’s EUGENE F. MARTIN (CLASS OF 1951), FEB. 24, San Francisco. He then was appointed College. On May 28, 1985, he reached the 2006 senior editor for political, legal, social latter goal, having written his senior essay WILLIAM C. OWENS (CLASS OF 1938), JUNE 20, and economic articles at Encyclopedia on “The Legitimate Powers of Govern- 2006 Britannica. He joined the University of ment.” However, a serious car accident in Pittsburgh in 1970. As director of the Annapolis in November 1985 changed WILLIAM WARFIELD ROSS (CLASS OF 1947), American Experience Program, he led a Mr. Owens’ life and plans. He sustained a JULY 4, 2006 program that offered Pittsburgh’s mid- to traumatic brain injury and spent many EDWARD SENSENEY (CLASS OF 1952), high-level managers insight into political years in rehabilitation. Six years after his SEPTEMBER 9, 2006 and economic thought, with the goal of accident, he began speaking again. improving the quality of political A remembrance prepared by his family discourse. emphasized that Mr. Owens’ strong faith In the toast Mr. Hazo gave in honor of his persisted even in the face of such a class at Homecoming 2003, Mr. Hazo devastating blow: “Torin lived in the described his enduring love for the complete will of God until his demise. College. “When a group as complex as this He leaves to his relatives, friends, and comes together for a purpose, the ideal acquaintances his unbiased love, his that unites them is perforce a simple one. open-mindedness, his perseverance, I know an ideal that is simple and familiar his love of music and the spoken word, yet mysterious and profound. It is a his trust and obedience to God, his parents and authorities, his patience, his love affair.” willingness to explore un-chartered TORIN B. OWENS territories. He accepted his lot in life with Torin Bernard Owens, class of 1985, died unfeigned joy.” August 11, 2006, of complications related to pneumonia. Mr. Owens was reared in SEAN GREENWOOD Sean Edward Greenwood (SF86) died on Fernandina Beach, Fla., and displayed his August 23, 2006, of complications from academic gifts at an early age. By age 14 he untreated pain. He was the loving husband was the champion of nine Florida spelling of Siobhan Reynolds and father of a bees. In high school he was awarded numerous honors and scholarships, 14-year-old son, Ronan. including the National Achievement Mr. Greenwood worked as a legal tant at law firm. He was a victim of Scholarship, National Merit Commended assis Scholar, and Society of Distinguished chronic and debilitating pain, for which he American High School Students. and his family moved to New York in search of progressive pain care. Mr. Greenwood

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 4646 {Alumni{From the Association Bell Towers} News}

future. I remembered why some had been She explored the various kinds of friendship From the Alumni especially dear to me in those long-ago days. that Aristotle describes in the Ethics. When I discovered that others might have been, she got to the final one—friendship for the Association too, if circumstances (or I) had been Good—she turned to reflections on the different. The weekend was planned to give college and its program of instruction. President us plenty of time to chat over food and Friendship for the Good, you will remember, drink, dance to the old tunes, listen to is when a friend serves as your mirror. He or Mariachi, laugh and cry with Singin’ in the she is similar enough to you that you see Homecoming is Rain, meet families, and soak up Santa Fe both your strengths and weaknesses always a time of sunshine. Thanks to all who came back for reflected in the other. Each interaction remembering and the fun! opens opportunities to learn and to improve reflection for me. The other reason why this homecoming yourself as you are reflected in your friend. Back on the campus was significant for me is that it was my last Ms. Dunn further extended the image by with friends and homecoming in Santa Fe as president of the proposing that our relationship to the colleagues and in Alumni Association. In late September, I’ll program books is also a friendship for the conversation inside celebrate another “last” homecoming when Good. In their pages we see ourselves and outside the we meet together in Annapolis, and Jason reflected and, consequently, open opportu- classroom, I pause Walsh (A97) will be elected to take my place. nities for increased growth toward the Good. and take stock of my Johnnie experience in These six years have been wonderful. It has As I reflect on my 30th reunion and the the context of my life. I also consider my life been a pleasure to work with the Alumni closing days in my role as president of the in the context of the college—both her Association Board as we helped “more Alumni Association, I want to express my community and her program of instruction. alumni connect more often and more thanks. Thank you for this opportunity to This homecoming was particularly moving richly” to each other and to the college. serve you, our community of alumni, and for two reasons. Throughout my tenure, an image has the college that continues to bring us This was our 30th reunion. Many came for inspired me. It came from a lecture together. Thank you for sharing these the celebration in Santa Fe, and they delivered by Sally Dunn when she was a friendships for the Good. brought news of others. We huddled in small tutor in Santa Fe. Her subject was groups sharing bits of past and hopes for friendship, and her source was Aristotle. Glenda Eoyang SF76

residents to the campus. After graduating at the University of New Mexico, from which An Official from Goucher, she worked at the Johns she graduated in 1951 with a major in Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public anthropology and minor in geology. After Johnnie Health in various positions: librarian, that, she was able to return to her first love, editor, sometime fetcher of coffee for profes- physics, when she was hired at the Los sors. While there, she attended lectures and Alamos National Laboratory. by Emily DeBusk (A06) read scientific and medical papers floating Year after year she returns to the commu- Sixty years ago, Kay Harper earned her first around the department. In one paper, she nity seminars, “reading everything from the degree, in fine arts, from Goucher College read that the last place in the country to get Greeks to the Russians,” because she in Baltimore. At that time, Goucher didn’t telephone access was a place called Hidalgo believes that learning is something that will offer a degree in physics, her original field of County, New Mexico. She drove her Stude- never be finished. Without hesitation, she interest, and the dean talked her out of her baker across the country and made New says that her favorite seminar, led by second choice, philosophy. Looking back Mexico her permanent home. Barry Goldfarb, was on Plato’s Republic. today on her educational path, Harper In 1949, she enrolled as an undergraduate She was also deeply impressed by seminars believes her time spent in unofficial self- on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky led by Steve education—including 25 years of attending Van Luchene. community seminars at St. John’s College in Reflecting on her experience at St. John’s, Santa Fe—has been the most fruitful part of Mrs. Harper noticed that, “College-age her life. students are at the steepest point of their This summer, the Alumni Association learning curve. They learn fast and well.” recognized Harper’s dedication to St. John’s She encourages current students to be by making her an Honorary Alumna, confident in their education. And although honoring her as one who possesses all the she laughingly implies that she is beyond the qualities of a true Johnnie: insatiable peak of the learning curve, her record of curiosity, a love for reading and discussion, unceasing learning testifies to the contrary, and a fierce dedication to lifelong learning. and makes her a confirmed Johnnie, official Though she spent one summer at the or not. x Graduate Institute, Harper’s experience with St. John’s has been centered on the college’s noncredit offerings, the weekend Kay Harper has attended Santa Fe or evening Community Seminars that draw community seminars for 25 years.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 47 {From{Alumni the Association Bell Towers} News} 47

the past 22 years, says that in the early days Tar Heel she and a few Johnnies met in a local used ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE bookstore for an informal reading group. ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Then in 1990, she helped spearhead the Chapter Thrives All alumni have automatic membership in process to formally charter the chapter. She the St. John’s College Alumni Association. Akira Kurosawa’s epic film Seven Samurai, helped organize regular monthly seminars The Alumni Association is an independent Georgioni’s painting The Tempest, and most and social gatherings, drawing members organization, with a Board of Directors recently Emmanuel Levinas’ essay “Is from nearby towns of Durham, Raleigh, and elected by and from the alumni body. The Ontology Fundamental?” were among the Greensboro, and as far west as Asheville. board meets four times a year, twice on each eclectic works North Carolina chapter “There are a lot of retirees in this area,” campus, to plan programs and coordinate the members selected for their seminar says Eversole, “as well as young alums who affairs of the association. This newsletter within The College magazine is sponsored by discussions. “With films, we arrange for a are starting their careers.” According to Eversole, the younger alums are especially the Alumni Association and communicates viewing a few days prior to the seminar when association news and events of interest. we discuss it; paintings can be viewed interested in the chapter’s social events—such as a recent dinner at La Residence in Chapel online,” says Susan Friedman Eversole President – Glenda Eoyang, SF76 Hill—to network and develop career contacts. (SF79), who has been the North Carolina Vice President – Jason Walsh, A85 chapter president for the past 11 years. In addition to attracting retirees, graduate Secretary – Barbara Lauer, SF76 “The person who suggests the work asks the students and young professionals, the Treasurer – Bill Fant, A79 opening question, but we especially welcome Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle region is Getting-the-Word-Out Action Team Chair – visiting tutors to lead our seminars.” Phil also a magnet for computer professionals. Linda Stabler-Talty, SFGI76 LeCuyer, a beloved tutor from Santa Fe, led Two of Eversole’s colleagues, Lucy Adams the group’s June seminar on Levinas’ essay. (A78) and G. Kay Bishop (A75) are, like Mailing address – Alumni Association, Eversole, who has lived in Chapel Hill for Eversole, employed on long-term contracts St. John’s College, P.O Box 2800, Annapolis, with the Environmental MD 21404, or 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, Protection Agency, either Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599. as software developers or working on computer systems with About eight to ten Johnnies attend each environmental data. seminar, previously held in an office in the “Given all the universi- Research Triangle Park, and lately at Ever- ties in the area, we also sole’s home in Chapel Hill. In the future, have several graduate the seminars will meet at the University of students, even some in North Carolina’s Chapel of the Cross. medical school, who Eversole, who is retiring as president, make time for the passes the helm of the North Carolina seminars,” she says. chapter to Richard Ross (A82) and Elizabeth Pyle Ross (A92), but she plans to stay active in the chapter. “All of us want to be tutors in Alan Brinkley, Barb our souls, to retire as tutors, to keep our Smalley, and Rachel minds working.” x Darrow, Chapter Networking Chair.

ALBUQUERQUE BOSTON MINN./ST. PAUL PITTSBURGH SANTA FE TRIANGLE CIRCLE, Robert Morgan, SF76 Dianne Cowan, A91 Carol Freeman, AGI94 Joanne Murray, A70 Richard Cowles, NORTH CAROLINA 505-275-9012 617-666-4381 612-822-3216 724-325-4151 SFGI95 Susan Eversole, SF79 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Joanne.Murray@ 505-986-1814 919-968-4856 alcoa.com [email protected] [email protected] ANNAPOLIS CHICAGO NEW YORK CITY Beth Martin Gammon, Rick Lightburn, SF76 Daniel Van Doren, A81 PORTLAND SEATTLE WASHINGTON, DC A94 847-922-3862 914-949-6811 Jennifer Rychlik, SF93 James Doherty, AFGI76 Deborah Papier, A72 410-951-7359 [email protected] president@ [email protected] 206-542-3441 202-387-4520 [email protected] sjcalums.com [email protected] [email protected] DALLAS/FORT SAN DIEGO AUSTIN WORTH NORTHERN CALIF. Stephanie Rico, A86 SOUTH FLORIDA WESTERN NEW Joe Reynolds, SF69 Paula Fulks, SF76 Reynaldo Miranda, A99 805-684-6793 Jon Sackson, A69 ENGLAND jpreynolds@ 817-654-2986 415-333-4452 [email protected] 305-682-4634 Peter Weiss, SF84 austinrr.com [email protected] reynaldo.miranda@ jonathan.sackson@ 413-367-2174 gmail.com SALT LAKE CITY ubs.com peter_weis@ BALTIMORE DENVER/BOULDER Erin Hanlon, AF03 nmhschool.org Deborah Cohen, A77 Lee Katherine PHILADELPHIA 801-364-1097 SOUTHERN CALIF. 410-472-9158 Goldstein, SGI90 Helen Zartarian, AGI86 [email protected] Elizabeth Eastman, deborahcohen@ 720-746-1496 215-482-5697 SFGI84 comcast.net LGoldstein@ helenstevezartarian@ 562-426-1934 Lindquist.com mac.com [email protected]

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } 48 {St. John’s Forever} n e r r a w

n o i r a m An Eye for Beauty

ormer St. John’s College also arranged for Warren to photograph life, watermen on the Chesapeake Bay, and president Richard Weigle the emerging Santa Fe campus. Maryland’s rural communities. He died was skilled in public Born in 1920 in Billings, Mont., Warren September 8, 2006. relations, and one of the had a lifelong dream of becoming a Warren photographed St. John’s people smartest things he did for the photographer. After freelancing and briefly and events up to 1987 when he retired from F college was to hire Annapolis working for the Associated Press, he was commercial photography. The Greenfield photographer Marion E. Warren. drafted into the Navy and became a special Library’s photo archive includes more than Warren took yearbook photos in 1949, photographer to the Secretary of the Navy. 400 of Warren’s prints—distinct and and the following year, began shooting After the war, he moved to Annapolis and remarkable photographs capturing life at promotional shots of the campus. Weigle opened a studio. His photos captured city the college. x

{ The College• St. John’s College • Fall 2006 } {Alumni Events Calendar}

The Campaign on the Road April 21, 2007 Tuesday, December 12, 2006 Croquet Match with the Naval Academy. Alumni, parents, and friends of the college Rain date: April 22 in the greater Houston area are invited to join Presidents Christopher Nelson and Michael Peters at The Coronado Club in celebration of “With a Clear and Single Purpose”: The Campaign for St. John’s College. Wine, beer, and light fare will be served. The reception will begin at 6 p.m., with a program beginning at 7 p.m. Contact Penelope Bielagus in the college’s advancement office at 505-984-6113 or [email protected]. The college is planning several addi- tional events across the country in the coming year that are designed to keep alumni informed about how the college is planning for its future; to invite dialogue between the college and its alumni, parents, and supporters; and to build momentum for the campaign. Details on events will be posted on the college Web site: www.stjohnscollege.edu.

Homecoming scenes from Santa Fe: Above, visiting in Schep’s Garden; Annapolis tutor Sam Kutler (class of 1954), Liz Jenny (SF80) and Lee Goldstein (SFGI90), at Saturday’s picnic; Allan Hoffman (class of 1949) and Steve Thomas (SF74).

Photos by teri thomson randall

back cover photo by teri nolan

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