Swarthmore College Bulletin (March 2004)
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A Natural Choice F e a t u r e s 9 S p e c i a l R e p o r t Education Without Compromise: How Swarthmore’s values are reflected in the College’s budget Departments By Andrea Jarrell 3 L e t t e r s 1 4 T h e S w a t t i e Readers react D a t i n g G a m e A world of extremes where neutral 4 C o l l e c t i o n territory is difficult to find. Campus beat P r o f i l e s By Elizabeth Redden ’05 3 6 C o n n e c t i o n s 6 2 “ B r i n g M e a 1 8 T h e V a l u e o f Alumni gatherings G r e a t C a s e ” L i b e r a l E d u c a t i o n Associate U.S. Attorney James It’s worth its high cost and should be 3 8 C l a s s N o t e s Sheehan ’74 loves courtroom combat. available to all. Classmates’ stories By Carol Brévart-Demm By Paul Courant ’68 4 5 D e a t h s 6 7 B u r n o u t 2 4 D i g n i t y Friends remembered C u r e a n d D e s t i n y Janet Erlick ’88 keeps creativity Former President Courtney Smith’s life and 4 6 Books & Arts alive in children’s theater. death helped shape Swarthmore’s history. Bearing Right by Will Saletan ’87 By Andrea Hammer By Jon Van Til ’61 reviewed by David Smith 7 0 S t o r y t e l l e r 2 6 A D r e a m 7 2 I n M y L i f e Joe Gangemi ’92 breaks through D e f e r r e d Being Black in Africa as a novelist and screenwriter. The Bartol Foundation was ahead of By Vincent Jones ’99 By Elizabeth Redden ’05 its time—and Swarthmore’s. By Alisa Giardinelli 8 0 Q + A 7 7 N a t u r e ’ s L e s - Sharon Friedler’s mode is motion s o n s 3 2 A N a t u r a l and her motto “Onward!” Sierra Curtis-McLane ’02 C h o i c e By Alisa Giardinelli promotes thinking by doing. Nurse-midwives recognize that birth is By Colleen Gallagher not an illness but a normal process. By Beth Luce COVER ILLUSTRATION: ©2004 MARLENE RUDGINSKY/ WATER SPIDER DESIGNS, HTTP://WWW.WATERSPIDER.NET INSIDE COVER PHOTO: BOB KRIST P A R L O R T A L K hen my wife and I were in our early 30s and ready to start a family, one of our last Swarthmore acts of youthful rebellion was to decide to have our babies with midwives. No, she C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N Wdidn’t give birth on the floor of a tepee or anything. We merely thought that the big hospital in our community, which saw about 6,000 births a year, wasn’t suited to the Editor: Jeffrey Lott kind of experience we wanted. So, for the birth of our two children, we chose a freestand- Managing Editor: Andrea Hammer ing birth center staffed with certified nurse-midwives and medical backup nearby should Class Notes Editor: Carol Brévart-Demm there be a problem. Assistant Editor: Colleen Gallagher There weren’t any problems. Our firstborn, now 22, was the product of a long labor Staff Writer: Alisa Giardinelli that took its course without unnecessary intervention. Allowing our child and his mother’s Desktop Publishing: Audree Penner body to decide when he would make his entrance forced us to wait patiently—though not always comfortably—until he was ready to be born. It was a good first lesson to us as par- Art Director: Suzanne DeMott Gaadt, Gaadt Perspectives LLC ents: to accept his natural ways of becoming and being. Administrative Assistant: Our second child was 10 days overdue, a situation that often prompts obstetricians to Janice Merrill-Rossi induce labor. But again, with the watchful support of our midwife, we waited until nature Intern: Elizabeth Redden ’05 took its course. Once labor began, this baby Editor Emerita: seemed impatient with it, demanding to be Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 From the joy of born less than an hour after we rushed to the birth center. Contacting Swarthmore College childbirth to the Swarthmore-educated midwives (page 32) College Operator: (610) 328-8000 have joined a historic profession that com- www.swarthmore.edu sadness of death, bines medical expertise with an almost spiri- Admissions: (610) 328-8300 tual commitment to mother and child—plus [email protected] no small amount of advocacy for a better way Alumni Relations: (610) 328-8402 you will find the of birthing in a society that has turned child- [email protected] birth from a natural process into a medical Publications: (610) 328-8568 whole sweep of life condition. [email protected] From the joy of childbirth to the sadness Registrar: (610) 328-8297 of death, you will find the whole sweep of life [email protected] in this magazine. in this magazine. The College lost four great World Wide Web staff members this winter (page 9) and one of www.swarthmore.edu its greatest living alumni, Clark Kerr ’32 (page 7). But nowhere is the sweep of life more Changes of Address evident than in Class Notes. If you read the magazine from back to front, the notes pro- Send address label along vide a natural history of Swarthmoreans from young adulthood to old age—and death. with new address to: Like a family or a church congregation, a small college offers the benefit of aging in Alumni Records Office community. At Swarthmore, you gain more than a credential, more than an education, and Swarthmore College more than classmates and friends. In learning here, you are held in the light of the whole 500 College Avenue college, not just by your peers and teachers, but by everyone involved in the enterprise of Swarthmore PA 19081-1390 liberal arts education, including members of the staff such as Pauline Allen, Judy Lord, Phone: (610) 328-8435. Or e-mail: Caroline Shero, and Pat Trinder. They and other members of the staff—from the dish- [email protected]. N I washers to the deans— were as much a part of creating the Swarthmore experience as the T The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN E L student body and the faculty. It was fitting that the Class of 1997 asked Pat to be its Last 0888-2126), of which this is volume CI, L U number 4, is published in August, Sep- B Collection speaker and that the Class of 2002 planted a yellow magnolia near Sharples tember, December, March, and June by E G Dining Hall in honor of the entire staff. The plaque says, “Thanks for all you do.” Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, E L All of us at Swarthmore focus our energy and resources on liberally educating young L Swarthmore PA 19081-1390. Periodicals O C people so that they will be humane, thoughtful adults who remain open to new ideas, are postage paid at Swarthmore PA and E additional mailing offices. Permit No. R able to solve challenging new problems, and can find fulfillment in their lives. As Paul O 0530-620. Postmaster: Send address M Courant ’68 writes in “The Value of Liberal Education” (page 18), “Liberal learning is H changes to Swarthmore College Bulletin, T R good for the old because it keeps us young… [it] allows us to make our own luck.” 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA A 19081-1390. W —Jeffrey Lott S © 2004 Swarthmore College 2 Printed in U.S.A. L E T T E R S WISTFUL “technically” we had our degrees conferred The article about John Wister and the upon us in the amphitheater, (and “techni- Scott Arboretum (“Visitors Welcome,” cally" we graduated twice because they December 2003 Bulletin) brought back were conferred on us again in the Field memories. From 1959 to 1961, our family House), no one from the Class of 1983 lived in Thomas House, a nine-bedroom would consider the amphitheater to have monstrosity designed by Stanford White been the site of our commencement. and located south of the football field, Could I still be bitter after all these across from the fieldhouse. John Wister’s years? Naturally, we complained a lot, and E E L cottage was adjacent along Harvard Avenue. the next year—when it really rained—they G N E J Wister kept the special plantings held graduation in the amphitheater. - G N around the cottage irrigated with a massive DEBRA FELIX ’83 E sprinkler system that ran day and night (or Kensington, Md. D so it seemed), adding more humidity to the HERE COMES THE SUN already humid Swarthmore summer. As a REMEMBERING PAT TRINDER Could you please publish some information result, mold thrived at Thomas House, I worked with Patricia Trinder in the Ath- about what appears to be a sundial in the which did not concern John as long as his letics Department from 1979 to 1986. Her photograph on the inside cover of the plants were taken care of.