fall 2013 contents Tufts magazine fall 2013 Vol. XXi, No.1
16 Up in Arms By Colin Woodard, A91 The complicated roots of American violence “To understand violence or practically any other divisive issue, you need to under- stand historical settlement patterns and the lasting cultural fissures they established.”
To create the bullet hole on our cover, Christopher Harting fired a Walther 23 The Power of Soft Power By Michael Blanding PK380 handgun at an actual magazine and photographed As NATO supreme commander, James Stavridis, F83, F84, the damage. helped redefine the role of the military. Now he brings his fresh thinking to Tufts, as dean of the Fletcher School.
illustration: brian stauffer (up in arms); sean mccabe (sing on!); Photo: conor doherty (Healing art) 28 Sing On! Departments By David Menconi 2 The Editorial We Beyond optimism “Over the Beelzebubs’ 3 letters half-century of musicmaking, no group 5 Planet Tufts has been more influential in defining and Oliver Platt’s nomadic youth 5 expanding a cappella’s sound and style.” Comics meet brain science 8 Tufts Days: Lil at the till 10 How fish swim 11 Brilliant! (Jumbo startups) 13 32 Healing Art By Hugh Howard, A74 Laurels 14 Tiarna Doherty, J97, chief conservator at the Smithsonian 44 Wellness American Art Museum, is part chemist, part painter, “Gluten-free” facts, dental hyp- part sleuth. nosis, allergic pets, and more 46 Creations She’s with the chorus 38 Punching Above Our Weight 49 news & Notes By Heather Stephenson The class of ’68 pulls together James Stern, E72, A07P, has spent three decades watching 70 advancement Tufts’ ascent into the big time from his front-row seat as a member, and then chair, of the Board of Trustees. 74 Take It from Me Your tips on love poetry, leading teams, Google ads, and more 70 afterimage Fine-art superhero
think Tank
41 Scholar at Large Discovering the MOOC By Sol Gittleman
42 Mind and Spirit Is it grief or depression? By Ronald Pies
43 Kids These Days Parenting with a positive spin 32 By W. George Scarlett the editorial we
Beyond Optimism
Magazine is the glass half empty or half full? careful, it’s a trick question. You are being asked to declare Volume XXI, Number 1 allegiance to one of two rather questionable world Editor views. If you answer “half empty,” you must be a David Brittan pessimist—one who finds difficulty in every oppor- [email protected] tunity (as Churchill put it), is fond of citing Murphy’s Editorial Director Karen Bailey Law, believes in the curse of the Bambino, and in the [email protected]
eighties had a bumper sticker that said “Life sucks Design Director and then you die.” Margot Grisar [email protected] The other answer—the one you are supposed to give—is even more damning. It Design Consultant brands you as an optimist: one who believes, despite festering heaps of misery and 2communiqué injustice, that the world is about as good as it can get. Optimists like to think that [email protected] things work out for the best. And to sustain that belief, they become masters of ratio- News & Notes Editor Heather Stephenson nalization, like Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss. “There is a concatenation of events in this best [email protected] of all possible worlds,” Pangloss assures Candide. “For if you had not been kicked out Contributing Editors of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunégonde, if you had not been put into the Beth Horning Kara Peters Inquisition, . . . if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado, you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio nuts.” Columnists Nicholas Dodman Both optimism and pessimism have the same fatal flaw: the presumption that Sol Gittleman Ronald Pies things are proceeding according to plan. We onlookers can only marvel as life con- Jeswald W. Salacuse W. George Scarlett tinues on its upward or downward march. The passivity of that stance—the idea that Philip Starks we must ignore the world’s torments, à la the optimist, or resign ourselves to them, à Contributing Writers la the pessimist—makes me think of Monty Python’s condemned men, dangling from Micah Bluming Laura Ferguson crucifixes, musically exhorting one another to “always look on the bright side of life.” Phil Primack, A70 Do you have to choose between optimism and pessimism? No, you don’t. What you Class Notes can be instead, and perhaps already are—I say as I trot out my Merriam-Webster—is Faith Hruby Elizabeth Ponce a meliorist. A meliorist is someone who believes the world can and should be better, and that people have the capacity to improve it. There is nothing passive about melior- Tufts Magazine (USPS #619-420, ISSN #1535-5063) is ism. Probably every dragon slayer, every reformer, heretic, utopian, entrepreneur, or published three times a year by the Trustees of Tufts University. Direct magazine calls to 617.627.4287. creative artist who ever lived would qualify as a meliorist. Every Tufts student training Send correspondence to Tufts Magazine, Tufts Publications, to be an “active citizen” is a meliorist. Magazine editors, in their own small way, can 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155, or email [email protected]. be meliorists, too. It was in this spirit that my last column acknowledged progress in Tufts Magazine is distributed without charge to alumni, parents of current undergraduates, and other members of areas such as alleviating hunger and slowing population growth—a shout-out that the Tufts community. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA, and additional mailing addresses. one reader interpreted as Panglossian (see Letters, page 4). Postmaster: Send address changes to Development Records, I suspect that many people who are trapped in the false choice between optimism Tufts University, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155.
and pessimism are actually meliorists and don’t know it. They are just waiting for © 2013 Trustees of Tufts University
somebody to come along with a dictionary and set them free. http://go.tufts.edu/magazine
Tufts Prints Green david brittan Printed on recycled paper by Lane Press, Inc., South Burlington, VT editor Please recycle.
2 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photo: alonso nichols letters
FACULTY VETERANS another illustrious drama professor who out if it weren’t for the cheering of so many As I read Sol Gittleman’s article “The Qui- was also a World War II vet. spectators along the twenty-six miles—they et Men” (Summer 2013), I cried to think of DICK ARNOLD, G68 were strangers, but that day they felt like my the heroic veterans who were in our midst BREMERTON, WASHINGTON friends and relatives. At the finish line, even while so many of us remained unaware. I the plastic shawl with hundreds of printed was privileged to have been a student of Professor Gittleman’s article is a fitting and fan signatures could not keep me warm, and both Jerry “Doc” Collins and Dan Mar- proper tribute to the World War II veterans afterwards, I was so exhausted I essentially shall. Doc Collins was my advisor; I can he mentions. But it would also be good to slept three days in a row. Still, I treasure the still recall the wonderful fragrance of the remember Elliott King Shapira, professor of experience of running the marathon, because tobacco in his pipe. And what a surprise to French and a member of the Army Air Corps the memory of finishing it with my fellow learn that the polite and very soft-spoken Seventy-Ninth Fighter Group; Seymour O. Jumbos will live with me forever. Professor Marshall, my student teach- Simches, head of the modern languages So my heart shattered when I heard of ing mentor, had earned not one but two department, who trained French-speaking the bombing of last spring’s race. Who would Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts. pilots at U.S. air bases; James B. Wads- commit such a cowardly act? I thought to my- LINDA CICCARIELLO SQUIRE, J77 worth, professor of Italian, who served in self. The news confirmed my fears that the LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY the British infantry in North Africa; Wisner culprits were Muslims. Alas, when things P. Kinne, professor of Eng- like this happen, I feel the playing field gets The “quiet” of Professor lish, who served in the narrower for Muslims in America. But it was Gittleman’s fellow profs is U.S. Navy; and, of course, uplifting to hear how the Boston community totally consistent with the Tufts President Jean May- pulled together. Equally, it was encourag- way others of their gen- er, a hero of the French ing to see pictures of Afghan women, kids, eration conducted them- Resistance. policemen, and others holding a sign: “To selves. My father was a LAWRENCE H. MARTIN, Boston from Kabul with Love.” paratrooper killed in action A64 Although I live and work in New York City in Germany, and in 2002 BAR HARBOR, MAINE today, my heart remains in Boston. Boston is I met for the first time a the magnificent city that nourished me with number of his army bud- MARATHON education, comfort, and great friends. And dies. I have met with them MEMORIES the Boston Marathon is a transnational cel- every year since. They have Before coming to Boston ebration of humanity. May Boston and the told a multitude of stories from Kabul to attend col- Boston Marathon live long. involving enormous bravery by men who lege, I often fantasized about joining the JAVED REZAYEE, A13 never mentioned their experiences. tens of thousands of enthusiastic marathon- NEW YORK CITY JERRY O’BRIEN, E67 ers in Copley Square, and when I learned GAITHERSBURG, MARYLAND of the President’s Marathon Challenge, I enjoyed the article about the current the charity run that Phil Primack, A70, Tufts connection to the Boston Marathon. A heartfelt thanks to Professor Gittleman writes about in “What Keeps Us Running” There are many marathon connections in for reminding us about World War II veter- (Summer 2013), I knew I had to participate. the past as well. ans and professors at Tufts. I remember The six-month training was quite a chal- For example, Ted Vogel, A49, came in that Jerry Collins said little about his expe- lenge for me, as someone coming from second one year in Boston. Also, a group riences in B-17s, except to recall that his Afghanistan, where people do not really run of runners—Bob MacLeay, E50, Roger most dangerous “mission” was sneaking (except for security reasons). Even so, ear- Nicholson, A49, Wendell Mason, E51, Ben off to Scotland: he had to land and take ly-morning running twice a week along the Bobrow, A49, Angie Semenza, A51, Peter off in fog to secure whiskey for the air Mystic River in Medford was a wonderful ex- Brown, A51, and I—trained for the Boston crews at his base in England. perience, especially when President Bacow Marathon as a team every year for four CHRIS POPOV, A79 ran with us. I also recall that when I could not years, but something always happened to CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS afford to buy new shoes or pay the entry fee prevent us from running (family death, bad for the race, people came to my aid. Those ankles, kids’ sickness, and so forth). We “The Quiet Men” made me think about how organizing the marathon waived my fee, and registered each year, however, and in 1950 much I cherished the time I spent with Doc Dean Jean Herbert heard of my predicament I was congratulated on my way to class be- Collins, my advisor as I worked toward my and bought me new shoes. cause the Boston Globe had mistakenly re- master’s degree in drama. But I was dis- The race itself was grueling. I had to en- ported on the front page that I had finished appointed to see that Professor Gittleman dure feelings of extreme hunger and cold. the race in 115th place. I did manage to run neglected to write about Marston Balch, Looking back, I think I might have dropped the marathon and finish in 1953.
fall 2013 tufts magazine 3 letters
Finally, one more memory: Joe Smith of drilling sites could rise, as they already I just finished, I especially enjoyed the ar- Medford, a door-to-door milkman, won the have in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Colorado, ticle about touring palatial English homes marathon in 1940 and was given a locker and Texas. In addition, the fossil fuel indus- (“Downton Abbeys,” by Hugh Howard, A74) at Tufts’ Cousens Gym and use of the facili- try has pushed for environmental studies to and Sol Gittleman’s column on the events ties there. He used to run with some of us be stopped and lawsuits to be sealed, and leading up to World War I (“The Sleep of in the Fellsway from 1947 to 1951, and he it has established drilling operations within Innocence”). would beat us up the hills smoking his pipe a few hundred yards of elementary schools Keep up the good work. all the time. and subdivisions. FRANK LINDAUER, A55 DeWITT PETERSON, A51 Scientists have shown that we already TUCKER, GEORGIA MOORESTOWN, NEW JERSEY have the technology for a sustainable mix of solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power, but As grandparents of a 2013 graduate such technology will not make a difference if of Tufts, we receive Tufts Magazine. We we do not do enough to exploit it. We need read several such publications from a a space program–like push for green energy variety of other educational institutions now if there is any hope of bringing down the (Harvard, Exeter, Andover, Groton, St. already catastrophic levels of greenhouse Paul’s, Noble and Greenough, and more). gases heating up the planet. Professor Tufts Magazine stands out as fresh, infor- Chakravorty believes that students who mative, interesting, and challenging. It’s protest fossil fuels and work for divestment clearly created with flair and imagination. are wearing rose-colored glasses. I think he TED AND ANNE GLEASON should remove his own. WASHINGTON, D.C. JOELLE BIELE, J91 Marathoners ELLICOTT CITY, MARYLAND GAMING THE EDITOR Joe Smith (left) and Ted Vogel, A49 In “Gaming the System” (Summer 2013), A BILLION HERE, A BILLION Joselin Linder, J98, not only shows that THERE many everyday problems can be dealt with BODY IMAGE WOES David Brittan’s editorial “It Gets Better” through games; she also deftly highlights I object to the Take It from Me item “How (Summer 2013) is a model of misguided an important life lesson—“by playing the to Look Thinner,” by Illysia Neumann- Panglossian optimism. It states, “We used game, you win motivation and that all-im- Loreck, J90 (Summer 2013). In reinforcing to have this thing called the Population portant prize: clarity about what you want the notion that women should want to look Explosion.” Unfortunately, the population and where you want to go.” thin, the article contributes to the epidem- explosion is definitely not a thing of the So let’s put gamification to the test. If you ic of self-hatred, anxiety, and harmful eat- past. It took humanity well over 100,000 print my letter to the editor, I will send you a ing habits that preys on my peers. years to reach a population of one billion, bottle of wine, mention Tufts Magazine in my ERIC KERNFELD, A14 in the early 1800s. By 1927, the popula- extensive personal and professional commu- MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS tion had doubled to two billion. We are now nications, and maybe even make a contribu- closing in on eight billion. If I live another tion to the Tufts Alumni Association, someday. FOSSIL FALLACY? few years, there will be four people on the DAVID SHAPIRO, A98 Ujjayant Chakravorty (“Hard Choices on planet for every one person present when DENVER, COLORADO Energy,” Summer 2013) should be more I was born. Much of the population growth critical of the fossil fuel industry. Its lobby- is in the least wealthy areas of the planet, There, we’ve printed your letter. But we’d ing and public relations firms are spending resulting in constantly increasing poverty like to modify the rules. Instead of sending an extraordinary amount of money trying and violence. wine, please donate the price of a bottle to convince us that natural gas is environ- Yes, Tufts Magazine, there is a population to Tufts. You can make your gift here: giv- mentally friendly, when in fact this energy explosion. ing.tufts.edu/make_a_gift. That way, you source is no such thing. With fifty percent ROBERT BLOOM, A66 get your letter in print plus the satisfaction of well casings predicted to fail within thirty NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS of helping some present or future Tufts years and thousands of wells being built, student just a bit. Deal? —Editor gas drilling sites will be leaking methane FAN MAIL into the environment for decades, acceler- Over the many years since I graduated, Tufts Magazine welcomes your letters. Send them to Editor, Tufts Magazine, Tufts ating the rate of global warming rather than Tufts Magazine has gone from ho-hum to Publications, 80 George Street, Medford, MA decreasing it. Drilling could contaminate fascinating. Now it’s in the same class as 02155, or [email protected]. groundwater, too, and ozone levels around Smithsonian. In the Fall 2012 issue, which Letters are edited for length and clarity.
4 tufts magazine fall 2013 planet tufts people, projects, passions
Platt in 2010 and as an undergraduate, when he played Pozzo (seated) in Waiting for Godot
An Actor Unpacks Oliver Platt’s childhood on the road
By Benjamin Gleisser
hen it came time to Pakistan, Zambia, and the Philippines, the only time his talent has been recog- play White House and in 1972 accompanied President nized. The Screen Actors Guild nominated counsel Oliver Babish Richard Nixon to Beijing on the mis- him for best actor in a miniseries or TV on The West Wing, sion that reopened relations with China. movie for his turn as the longtime New Oliver Platt, A83, “Though I never hung out in Hong Kong York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner didn’t have to do as with the White House counsel, I watched in ESPN’s The Bronx is Burning. And in the Wmuch research as most actors would have. with interest many high-level bureaucrats HBO series Bored to Death, he delighted He could draw on his memories of the and observed their diplomatic functions,” audiences as the arrogant magazine- officials who used to associate with his the actor says. owner-cum-restaurateur Richard Antrem, father, Nicholas Platt, a career diplomat Platt’s Babish worked, earning him an a character he insists was not modeled on who worked for the National Security Emmy nomination for outstanding guest his brother, Adam Platt, a New York maga- Council, served as U.S. ambassador to actor in a drama series. But that’s hardly zine restaurant critic.
Photos: Matt Carr/getty images; Tufts digital collections and archives fall 2013 tufts magazine 5 planet tufts
Platt believes his childhood in a fam- President Barack Obama.) “We’re army communicative. Those are the skills you ily headed by an itinerant diplomat helps brats, diplomatic brats, and any kids need when assimilating into new social his craft even when he’s not playing gov- who don’t grow up in the culture they’re surroundings is the top priority.” ernment bigwigs. He explains that it has born in,” he says. “Always being the new Born in 1960 in Windsor, Ontario, to do with being a “third-culture kid,” a kid in school is constantly exhausting, Platt was three months old when his term coined by an American sociologist so we create our own culture, and when family returned to Washington, D.C. in the early fifties to describe children we grow up, we tend to gravitate toward Then, for the next twelve years, the Platts of nomadic parents. (Other notable outwardly focused endeavors like art, lived in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and third-culture kids are the actors Gillian acting, and communication.” Why those the Middle East, with frequent trips Anderson and Viggo Mortensen, the occupations? “Because we are, by nature, back to Washington. Over that time, authors Isabel Allende and Pico Iyer, and forced to become more observant and young Oliver attended twelve different
PATCHWORK HEALING. Mending Boston, a quilt to mark the Boston Marathon bombings, had to make its way through ad hoc sewing circles all over the metropolitan area before reaching Tufts Medical Center, but when it did, nurse Consuelo Donohue was ready. She contributed an MBTA patch in honor of her son, Richard Donohue, the transit police officer who survived a gunshot wound from a standoff with the bombing suspects. And two trauma surgeons added a flourish all their own: Clara Wainwright, the artist who started the project, says that they “did all these stitches and then they tied a knot after each one just like they do in surgery.” The finished quilt was exhibited at the MIT Museum in September.
GETTING GREENER Tufts’ Campus three years. It’s part of President Anthony newswire Sustainability Council has set a goal of cutting P. Monaco’s initiative to maintain Tufts’ Read the full stories at Tufts Magazine waste by three percent a year and energy leadership on environmental issues. Online (go.tufts.edu/magazine). consumption by five to seven percent over INCOMING RECORDS The 1,300-plus
6 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photo: courtesy Lisa Abitbol schools around the world. Finally, when his father was named chief of the politi- cal section at the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing, he and his two brothers returned to Washington for good, to finish their schooling. It was an odd kind of home- coming. “Coming back to America was a huge culture shock,” Platt remembers. “Huge. It took me a while to realize, ‘This is home. This is the country where all my relatives are, and from which my passport is issued.’ ” Throughout Platt’s wandering youth, he found himself joining drama clubs and acting in school plays. By the time he was in college, he was well on his way to becoming an accomplished actor, putting his own stamp on any role. Lau- rence Senelick, the Fletcher Professor of Drama and Oratory at Tufts, recalls directing him in The Merchant of Ven- ice. “Everyone came to the audition with a serious Shakespearean monologue,” Senelick says, “and Oliver came with a speech from the porter in ‘the Scottish TV for Your Dog play’ ”—as actors superstitiously refer to Macbeth. “In the course of his mono- This August, with help from Nicholas Dodman, who directs the animal behavior pro- logue, Oliver wrung out the fly of his gram at the Cummings School, DirecTV began tapping into one of the most neglect- trousers as if he’d pissed himself. What ed markets in television land: dogs. Dodman is chief scientist for Dog TV, a cable a wonderful bit of business! I wanted a channel that features short, canine-centric videos. Some are of dogs lying around dangerous Shylock, and Oliver brought a living room with tranquil music in the background, and are intended to soothe. a wonderful solemn, truculent quality to Others, full of moving objects like soccer balls, are meant to stimulate. Still others the part.” acclimate dogs to doorbells, vacuum cleaners, and other potential stressors. After college, Platt worked in Boston Minimalist plot development is not the only feature dogs will appreciate. They’ll theaters and traveled with the acclaimed also enjoy the visual palette. Dogs can’t see red or green well, so colors onscreen Shakespeare & Company. But these days are adjusted to compensate for that, says Dodman. While the resulting hues might he concentrates on film and television, so seem garish to human eyes, they will produce crisper images for dogs. that even though he jets to several loca- Dodman expects that Dog TV will be a boon to dog owners who need to leave tions in a year, he can maintain a solid their pets home alone all day. He believes the programming will help stave off the home base and give his three kids the depression, boredom, and anxiety that dogs can suffer when they go for long peri- “normal” childhood he never had. “Don’t ods without companionship. get me wrong—I had an extraordinary upbringing in a very loving family,” he says, taking a break from filming a movie due out in 2014—Frank and Cindy, a real flawed character,” Platt remarks with keep an eye out for other challenging comedy about family relationships based a laugh. His costars include Christopher parts—opportunities to put the skills he on a documentary that aired on cable Walken (Zeus) and John Turturro honed as a third-culture kid to good use. TV’s This American Life. “But the impact (Hades). “Basically, we’re Greek gods “The more difficult the role, the more of moving us around so much was tough who have lost their way, and they’re liv- I’m interested,” he says. “I want you to to get adjusted to. I knew I didn’t want to ing in a townhouse on the East Side of be interested watching me.” put my kids through that.” New York City like Russian aristocracy This fall you can catch him in Gods in exile.” Benjamin Gleisser is an award-winning Behaving Badly, playing Apollo. “He’s a And as he considers future work, he’ll journalist who lives in Toronto.
Photo: GK Hart/Vicky Hart/getty images fall 2013 tufts magazine 7 planet tufts
Neil Cohn in his Jumbo days
The Secret Language of Comics Brain science tackles visual grammar
By Lisa Granshaw, A09
n july, the annual san diego Cohn has been exploring the interaction Berkeley that he got fired up about the Comic-Con filled the city’s between structure and meaning in peo- pictorial language of comics. He elabo- convention center with pop cul- ple’s ability to follow comics. He’ll mess rated his theory of visual grammar when ture enthusiasts of all stripes: up the order of the panels and study EEGs he went on to study psychology at Tufts. guys sporting Justice League of people’s brains as they attempt to make Now thirty-three, he’s making dis- T-shirts, middle-aged women sense of the story. One thing he has con- coveries about the relationships among Iin handmade Avengers costumes, die- cluded is that understanding comics is an visual and other types of language. Com- hards who lined up overnight to glimpse acquired skill. “Being able to comprehend prehending sequences of images, words, the cast and crew of Game of Thrones or sequential images isn’t universal,” he said and even musical sounds appears to Doctor Who. Amid the festivities—which in an interview after his talk. “It appears involve similar brain processes—though included a celebration of Superman’s sev- to be learned just like any other language.” he has yet to determine exactly which enty-fifth birthday—it would have been He has also found that people grasp com- cognitive resources are shared, he says. easy to miss the more cerebral goings-on ics by taking in groups of images instead The better we understand how the brain in a second-floor conference room. There, of focusing on one panel at a time. processes comics, the more effectively we sitting on a panel of academic theorists, Comics have fascinated Cohn since can use sequences of pictures for basic Neil Cohn, G10, G12, presented his lat- he was a kid. As an eight-year-old in communication. “Images contain more est research on comics and the brain. San Diego, he experimented with differ- information than words,” Cohn says. “We Comics, he explained to an audience ent formats for telling stories in his own could teach how to draw alongside how to of scholars and curious laypeople, are comic creations. At fourteen he worked write, as a form of broader ‘composition’ designed according to a visual language for a comic book publisher, Image and ‘writing skill.’ ” that is every bit as dependent on grammar Comics, running their booth at Comic- and syntax as spoken language. Con International and rubbing shoulders Lisa Granshaw, A09, is a freelance At the University of California, San with top artists, some of whom became journalist and media career consultant in Diego, where he is a postdoctoral fellow, mentors. It was in a linguistics class at UC New York City.
newswire continued lowest-ever acceptance rate, 18.8 percent. a lifelong social and political activ- members of the undergraduate class of TISCH COLLEGE DEAN Alan D. ist, will become the Pierre and Pamela 2017 were drawn from a record 18,420 Solomont, A70, A08P, the former U.S. Omidyar Dean of the Jonathan M. applicants, who were subject to the ambassador to Spain and Andorra and Tisch College of Citizenship and Public
8 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photos: joanie tobin i.m.h.o. A digest of Jumbo opinion
texts against bullying history on the big screen pathologists “have been key players in “One of the newest anti-bullying mea- Lee Daniels’ The Butler possesses “the this discovery pipeline.” Also, we discuss sures being adopted by schools is the uneven hit-or-miss quality of most “treatment plans with every kind of doc- use of texting.” For example, “Tip Txt, historically driven cinema.” One of the tor: primary care, surgeons, oncologists, originally developed in Great Britain,” greatest disappointments is the portrayal gynecologists, gastroenterologists, and has been adapted by the U.S. company of the Black Panthers, who come off as more. Pathologists are quarterbacks, Blackboard “for use in K–12 schools. “a group of sloganeering radicals (with calling each play, just as in football.” Yet Kids can text reports of bullying or ques- large, over-the-top Afros) rather than we often remain unknown to patients. tions about reporting it,” and the informa- perhaps the most important group of “It doesn’t have to be that way. You tion can be “screened and handled by revolutionaries America has ever can request a meeting” with your pathol- school officials. Blackboard is currently produced.” ogist, instead of just hearing about the offering the application free to every Still, The Butler is worth seeing, results of your lab tests from your doctor. school district in the country.” mainly “for the large swaths of history “It will be an enlightening experience,” “To date, one hundred seventy-five that it gets right. The film’s observant, helping you to understand your medical districts have signed up for the service,” subtle narration of the civil rights move- needs and make good decisions. And if including “the Boston Public Schools. ment’s heroic period,” especially the your health insurance won’t pay for such According to Jodie Elgee, director of lunch counter sit-ins and Freedom Rides, a meeting, know that pathologists are the BPS’s Counseling and Intervention is “pitch perfect.” working to fix that. We “are advocating Center, ‘We wanted to meet students —Peniel Joseph, Tufts professor of to make our consultations with patients where they were. We felt that using history, on indiewire.com billable, like a patient’s consultations texting was a way to both cut down on with any other specialists. Pathologists our response time to reported bullying meet the pathologists are taking on new roles, and the system incidents and also to empower kids.’” “With the information gleaned from needs to change to reflect” that. —Julie Dobrow, director of Tufts’ com- sequencing the human genome,” medical —Michael Misialek, assistant clinical munications and media studies program, science is “beginning to unravel the mys- professor of pathology, Tufts School of on huffingtonpost.com teries of cancer and other diseases.” We Medicine, on WBUR’s CommonHealth
FATEFUL MOMENT. On their first day as members of the class of 1983, Debby Lang and John Saltzman went on a hike with the Tufts Mountain Club. Rambling through the Middlesex Fells, they discovered they had a mutual acquaintance and instantly became friends. Then they ended up in the same dorm sophomore year and started dating. They eventually married. Three kids later, the Saltzmans found themselves back on the Hill on August 28 to help their son, Jeff, A17, move into Hill Hall. He decided to follow in their footsteps by participating in the Tufts Wilderness Orientation. Later in the day, Lee Coffin, the dean of undergraduate admissions, noted in his welcoming speech that the new class included a “heavy-metal drummer from Newton whose parents met thirty-four years ago at orientation.” Then he told the incoming freshmen to “think about what could happen to you later today.” There were some awkward glances between students.
Photo: kelvin ma fall 2013 tufts magazine 9 planet tufts
tufts days Lil at the Till Remembering a beloved cashier
In 1988, fourteen years into Lillian Cunningham’s reign as perhaps the most popular cashier in the history of Carmichael Dining Center, Mike Epstein, A88, devoted one of his columns in the Tufts Daily to her. “To any ordinary person, running countless ID cards through a little meal-card machine might be perceived as, well, monotonous,” he noted. “But when Lil zips those suckers through, the task seems like a ball. Lil is not working at a job; she’s spending time with people she likes.” Edible Her fifties-style red lipstick outlining a cupid’s-bow mouth, Lil would always welcome students with a heartfelt Happy Breakfast! or Happy Lunch! or Happy Dinner! Campus She’d share pictures of her cat, or refuse to let people through the line unless they When George Ellmore, associate pro- could name the capital of South Dakota, or ask why the chicken crossed Harvard fessor of biology, wants the fixings Square (to get to the Coop). One student was inspired to compose a limerick about for a tasty salad or stir-fry, he often her. It ended, “As a meeter and greeter / No one could beat her / So great is our Lil at looks for them along untrimmed side- the till.” walks or in the shade of a mailbox. Yet Lil, who died in 2001, was treasured for more than just friendly banter, says her Such spots, together with hillsides daughter, Colleen Cunningham, J83, G88. “So many students turned to her as a too steep for lawnmowers and confidante, a shoulder to cry on in times of upheaval, and someone to cheer them on,” corners hidden from weed whack- Colleen recalls. “Parents, too, often wrote thanking her for being a great listener for ers, become “half-wild places, little their children away from home.” places of discovery,” he says. Maryanne Wolf, director of Tufts’ Center for Reading and Language Research, flatly To show off Tufts’ own kitchen asserts that “no one could beat Lil Cunningham when it came to love,” and will never garden hidden in plain sight, forget how as a young child, her son David Noam blossomed under her care. When Lil Ellmore leads popular tours around took on the job of babysitting him, the Medford/Somerville campus. the two became inseparable. “Lil Students and community members and David were Boston’s version sample a variety of seasonal treats. of Harold and Maude,” Wolf There’s Queen Anne’s lace, from recounts. “Over the years they which carrots were bred: its white would walk hand in hand through roots have an unmistakable carroty the neighborhood. Waitresses flavor. Purslane, a succulent green beamed, storekeepers grinned.” available in July and August, is like And the effects reached deep spinach, only fresher and less bitter, into David’s future. “Lil loved according to Ellmore. Another green, Colleen, she loved David, she peppergrass, combines the flavors of loved Tufts, and she wanted David horseradish and radishes, and daylily to be sure to go to Tufts, just as buds, which are most abundant in Colleen had,” says Wolf. “Last June, taste like a cross between Lillian year when I saw him walk across green beans and asparagus. Ellmore Cunningham the stage at graduation, an image with Tufts eats his way around the Hill in a of her flashed across my mind. President video at bit.ly/edible_campus. Jean Mayer She would be so proud to know he followed her advice.”
newswire continued older adults, according to Roger Fielding, the predicted national shortage of Service at Tufts on January 2. N93, a nutrition researcher at Tufts. 250,000 public health workers by 2020. WEAKER WITH AGE A fat molecule may PUBLIC HEALTH PH.D. A new medi- VET EXPANSION The Cummings be a factor in the decline of strength in cal school degree program will address School of Veterinary Medicine is
10 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photos: steffan hacker (Elmore); courtesy of colleen cunningham (Cunningham) Eric Tytell and his doing what many people do only in their lampreys, with dentist’s waiting room: watching fish their toothy sucker swim. He does it to answer the mouths (inset) fundamental question of how fish manage to “move stably through complex environments.” He has observed knifefish moving in and out of tubes, scared the bejeezus out of African bichir fish to test their escape reflex, and done sem- inal work on the fluid dynamics of the American eel. But you can learn other things from fish gazing, such as best practices in underwater propulsion. The navy is always in the market for quieter, more efficient submarines, par- ticularly ones that are nimble enough to get into near-shore areas and search for mines. “It’s debatable whether a fish is better than a propeller for long-distance swimming,” Tytell says. “It’s certainly not debatable that a fish is more maneuver- able.” Some of his past experiments have included tuning a submersible’s rubber fins to undulate like those of a fish. Watching Fish Swim Tytell is also interested in the ecological aspects of how fish deal with their envi- The pastime could lead to nimbler submarines ronments, such as how a bluegill sunfish and better artificial limbs might react when a well-meaning alterna- tive power company installs a hydrokinetic By Julie Flaherty turbine in its stream. “Clearly these are going to introduce turbulence into the water, and we really don’t know how well fish deal with those vortices,” he says. s fish go, the lamprey And that, to Tytell, is the more interest- To study things like that, he uses a has to be one of the most ing part, because it means that it is not crystal-clear Plexiglas tank with a con- repulsive. Its eel-like body just the connection to the brain that is stant current for a fish to swim against. culminates in a tooth- important for swimming, but something When reflective powder is sprinkled in encrusted sucker mouth going on in the spinal cord itself. The cord the tank, and a laser is directed in it, a straight out of a sci-fi hor- “isn’t a simple cable,” Tytell says, explain- high-speed camera catches the vortices rorA film. Yet it turns out the lamprey, the ing that it does a lot of processing in its and flows the fish creates as it bends its most primitive of vertebrates, can do a own right. In fact, neural circuits in the body and flaps its fins. These flows push pretty neat trick: bounce back from paraly- spinal cord, so-called central pattern back on the fish, creating a complex dance sis. “Clip the spinal cord, stick them back in generators, are what control locomotion. of fluid mechanics and biomechanics. the water, come back in a couple of weeks or “In fish, that’s swimming—in you and “There are internal forces and external so, and they will often be swimming pretty me, that’s walking,” Tytell says. “It’s the forces, and the balance of the two is what much indistinguishably from how they did same structure of the circuit, as far as we determines how a fish moves,” says Tytell, before,” says Eric Tytell, an assistant profes- can tell.” Understanding how lampreys who has studied both physics and biology sor in the department of biology. relearn to swim could help in designing and whose bookcase reflects his blend of The lamprey does repair the break to better therapies for people who have spi- disciplines, with titles such as Worlds of some extent, but the neurons that con- nal cord injuries. Flow and Animals in Motion. nect across the breach are shorter and The spinal cord work is just a small The equations involved are so com- make fewer, smaller synapses than before. piece of the research Tytell conducts by plex that only recently have computers
Photo: alonso nichols fall 2013 tufts magazine 11 planet tufts
been powerful enough to allow Tytell, the environment—going uphill versus of fairly sophisticated stuff,” Tytell says. while a postdoctoral researcher at the going downhill, for instance,” he says. “So He points out that in humans, the cen- University of Maryland, to develop a if we understand a bit better how chang- tral processing generator for walking is robust computer simulation of a swim- ing sensory information can change the located in the lumbar spinal cord. “If you ming fish. This lets him tweak variables actual pattern of locomotion, that could can simply activate and then control it at such as body stiffness to see how they help with prosthetic design.” least a little bit—turn left, turn right— affect speed or acceleration. It is a model In the meantime, he is gearing up for then maybe rather than trying to design for how a moving body interacts with an experiment on beheaded lampreys. (If some fancy exoskeleton, we could take its surroundings, and something that you feel bad, think of it as cosmetic sur- advantage of what is already there. That could one day be used in the creation of gery.) “You can actually remove the brain is very much in the early days, but it is a robotics and prosthetics. “An awful lot entirely, and if you stimulate the circuits possibility.” of prosthetics out there right now are in the spinal cord with a drug or electri- entirely passive or have pretty limited cally, they will swim, they will respond Julie Flaherty is a senior writer in Tufts’ ability to adapt to any sort of changes in to perturbations, they will do quite a bit Office of Publications.
elephoto 22
TOGETHERNESS. Paul Smith, A00, worked from multiple photos to create this two- by three-foot charcoal drawing, Family. “While the sky above hints at chaos,” he notes, “it is also protective and eternal, like the ties between a parent and child.” Send your best elephant shots to [email protected].
newswire continued LINKS TO MUSLIM YOUTH As world. Sixty-two percent of Muslims under enlarging its teaching hospitals to bet- U.S. Special Representative to Muslim thirty are “digital natives,” she says. ter serve clients and their pets and to Communities, Farah Pandith, F95, is forg- NO DESIGNER BABIES The genetic attract the best students and faculty. ing positive new connections around the enhancement of human embryos is not
12 tufts magazine fall 2013 brilliant! Jumbo entrepreneurs and their big ideas by beth horning
OutGrade PrepWork Travis Lowry, A10, cofounder Daniel Wolchonok, A05, founder BIG IDEA: A Yelp-like online resource for people who want to know how LGBT-friendly differ- BIG IDEA: A “personal research assistant” ent businesses are. Customers of the businesses review and rate them, and visitors to the that sends you email briefings on the site can call up a local map showing the average rating for each business as a colored dot: people with whom you’ll be meeting in the reddest for the most homophobic to greenest for the most welcoming. course of your workday. PrepWork oper- STATUS: Originally known as the Rainbow ates in concert with your calendar (Google Chronicle, OutGrade operates out of Calendar, iCal, or Outlook), zeroing in on Cambridge, Massachusetts, and got its names and email addresses and combing start in 2010, inspired by the gay activist through LinkedIn, Twitter, blog posts, and Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign. other sources of information to get the Lowry told the Tufts Daily that he and his skinny on each individual. Then it sends cofounder, Conor Clary, realized they “could you a concise, easy-to-digest summary, use the Internet to make it better now.” The so that even when time is tight, you can two relaunched their site as OutGrade in ear- “walk into the room knowing who everyone ly 2013. They’re focused on Boston for the is and what’s important to them,” says moment, but eventually hope to go nation- Wolchonok. wide and even worldwide. outgrade.com STATUS: Wolchonok, who graduated from Yale’s School of Management in May, Visible Measures remain invisible, Shin observes. developed PrepWork in the Brian Shin, A97, founder STATUS: Shin, who founded Visible summer of 2012 at the Yale BIG IDEA: Using state-of-the-art analytical Measures in 2005, says success Entrepreneurial Institute. tools to help companies gauge the ef- “has taken longer than I thought, So far, loyal users of the fectiveness of their video advertising. but we’ve gotten farther than I an- service have included With today’s media, it’s possible to amass ticipated,” according to Xconomy, Matthew Bellows, the mountains of information about what a news website for high tech CEO of Yesware, who people are watching and how they are react- business. The firm has secured praised it in Forbes mag- ing to it. The result is “big data”—data sets $66.5 million in investments, opening azine this past January. that are so complex and unwieldy they can offices in Boston, New York, Chicago, prepwork.com only be understood with specialized analy- Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and sis like that provided by Visible Measures. London. Clients include Microsoft, Procter Such analysis can reveal market nuances & Gamble, Goldman Sachs, Ford, and Tell us about your innovative startups at and developing trends that otherwise would Unilever. visiblemeasures.com [email protected].
D.P.M. The Wit and Wisdom of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, A48, F49, F61, H68 (1927–2003)
The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.
illustrations: harry campbell (brilliant); dan page (D.P.m.) fall 2013 tufts magazine 13 planet tufts
laurels 175 courses. He is also a former commis- CHILD-HEALTH ADVOCATES sioner of the Massachusetts Department CHIE KOTAKE and ELIZABETH SHUEY, both SANDHURST MILITARY GRAD of Environmental Protection. Cortese was doctoral candidates in the Eliot-Pearson First Lieutenant PETER E. COLOMBO, A08, also tapped to receive an honorary doc- Department of Child Development, have is the twelfth U.S. Army officer to graduate torate during the dedication ceremony received Doris Duke Fellowships for the from Britain’s Royal Military Academy at for SUNY Oswego’s Richard S. Shineman Promotion of Child Well-Being. They Sandhurst. After graduating magna cum Center for Science, Engineering, and are two of only fifteen recipients nation- laude from Tufts with degrees in interna- Innovation. ally. The fellowships, funded by the tional relations and Spanish, he studied Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, are civil-military relations in El Salvador on HALL OF FAME SAILOR designed to foster leadership in policies a Fulbright Scholarship. He enlisted in the DAVE CURTIS, E69, A07P, the seven-time to enhance child development and reduce army in June 2011, graduating second in Etchells World Champion and two-time child maltreatment. Kotake’s research his class from Officer Candidate School Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, will be focuses on the relationship between par- five months later. Sandhurst, which also inducted into the National Sailing Hall ents’ mental health and the development trained princes William and Harry, of Fame on October 27 in Annapolis, of young children facing adversity. Shuey awarded Colombo the Brunei Prize for Maryland. A two-time Inter-Collegiate is studying immigrant families’ child- academic excellence. Now he’s training Sailing Association All-American at care constraints and preferences. to be an Army Ranger, stationed at Fort Tufts, Curtis went on to a career as a sail- Hood in Texas. maker known for his fast sails. PEN LITERARY AWARDS JILL LEPORE, J87, a Harvard historian and NEW ADVISORS SPORTS MEDICINE HEAD staff writer for The New Yorker, was the ERIN C. CONATON, F95, former U.S. under- WILLIAM W. DEXTER, a professor of fam- runner-up for the PEN Literary Awards secretary of defense, has been appointed ily medicine at Tufts and founder and Diamonstein-Spielvogel Prize for her to the Board of Advisors to the Fletcher director of the sports medicine program book The Story of America (Princeton School. MARK D. GOODMAN, G94, chair- at Maine Medical Center, is the new pres- University Press), in which she exam- man and CEO of Boyer Coffee Company ident of the American College of Sports ines American origin stories, from John in Denver, and LAURIE A. GABRIEL, J76, a Medicine, which has 50,000 members in Smith’s account of the founding of university trustee, have joined the Board more than seventy countries. Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama’s of Advisors to the School of Arts and 2009 inaugural address. Sciences. LITERACY ADVOCATES STEVEN KOLTAI, A76, F78, managing direc- HEAD OF EPA GREEN FOR LIFE tor of Koltai & Company and former GINA McCARTHY, G81, was appointed ANTHONY D. CORTESE, E68, E72, a semi- chair of the Literacy Network of Greater administrator of the U.S. Environmental nal figure in advancing sustainability in Los Angeles, and MARYANNE WOLF, the Protection Agency this summer. She higher education over a forty-year career, John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship has devoted her thirty-year career to received the Environmental Protection and Public Service in the Eliot-Pearson environmental issues at the state and Agency’s Lifetime Achievement Award Department of Child Development and local levels. Before President Obama in June. He is a cofounder of Second director of Tufts’ Center for Reading appointed her assistant administrator Nature, a Boston-based organization that and Language Research, have been for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation promotes a sustainable society through named to the advisory board for the new in 2009, she had been commissioner higher education; he was the organi- Library of Congress Literacy Awards. of the Connecticut Department of zation’s president for two decades and The awards will be conferred for the first Environmental Protection. is now a senior fellow. A Tufts trustee, time in October to recognize outstanding Cortese was the university’s first dean of achievements in literacy. At Tufts, Koltai AMBASSADOR NOMINEES environmental programs, and in 1989 serves on the boards of the Tisch College President Obama has nominated BRIAN founded the Tufts Environmental Literacy of Citizenship and Public Service and A. NICHOLS, A87, as the next U.S. ambas- Institute, which helped integrate envi- the Gordon Institute’s Entrepreneurial sador to Peru and MICHAEL A. HAMMER, ronmental perspectives into more than Leadership Program. F87, as the new ambassador to Chile.
newswire continued The Pity of Partition, history professor a practice for civil societies, argues Ayesha Jalal examines Pakistan’s painful more news Keep up with all the latest Tufts news and Tufts bioethicist Sheldon Krimsky. birth through the story of her great-uncle, events at now.tufts.edu. PAKISTAN HISTORY In her new book, the Muslim writer Saadat Hasan Manto.
14 tufts magazine fall 2013 Both men are career Foreign Service offi- GREAT WAR COMMISSION 6, 2013, issue, in which the NBA’s Jason cers. Nichols is principal deputy assistant LIBBY H. O’CONNELL, J76, the chief histo- Collins came out as the first openly gay secretary in the Bureau of International rian and a senior vice president at A+E male athlete to play for a professional U.S. Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Television—she developed the History team. Stone appeared on the CBS news at the State Department. He has had post- Channel’s veterans outreach initiative— program Face the Nation to talk about the ings in Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, and has been appointed to the World War I ways in which Collins’ announcement El Salvador. Hammer is assistant secre- Centennial Commission by President resonated with readers. tary for public affairs at State. From 2009 Obama. The group will develop plans for to 2011, he was special assistant to the commemorating the Great War through PEW SCHOLAR president, senior director for press and programs and other events that will run QIAOBING XU, an assistant professor of communications, and National Security through 2019. biomedical engineering at Tufts, has Council spokesperson at the White been named a Pew Scholar in Biomedical House. Since joining the Foreign Service SPORTS ILLUSTRATED EDITOR Sciences by the Pew Charitable Trusts. in 1988, Hammer has served in Bolivia, CHRIS STONE, A91, the son of a career The program, past winners of which have Norway, Iceland, and Denmark. newspaperman, has been named man- included Nobel laureates and MacArthur aging editor of Sports Illustrated. fellows, funds talented researchers in the WHITE HOUSE STAFFER After earning his graduate degree life sciences. Xu will receive $240,000 over The new special assistant to President from Columbia University School of four years for his research on biomedical Obama and communications director Journalism in 1992, he took an entry- applications of nanotechnology. He is try- for First Lady Michelle Obama is MARIA level job with SI as a fact-checker. Now ing to repurpose tendon fibers to create CRISTINA GONZALEZ NOGUERA, J97. She he leads the day-to-day operations of the tubular blood vessel grafts that could be had been global vice president for corpo- magazine, which has a circulation of more used in repairing rotator cuffs, regener- rate communications at Estée Lauder. than three million. He oversaw the May ating nerves, or treating vascular disease.
the great professors
John P. Roche, Fletcher School
Sometimes the students in John P. Roche’s Fletcher School for Democratic Action, he supported the Vietnam policies of classroom would wonder just where he was going with his stories. President Lyndon Johnson, for whom he worked as a special “He’d joke that he was slipping into his ‘anecdotage,’ but then advisor from 1966 to 1968. “John abhorred communism and any he’d suddenly nail a point,” says James Robbins, F88, F91, an doctrine that served as a cynical blueprint for totalitarianism,” author who taught for many years at the National Defense says one of his former students, James Van de Velde, F88, now a University. “He was a storyteller who made history relevant and lecturer at Johns Hopkins and a consultant on intelligence and an original thinker who encouraged originality in others.” counterterrorism. “He was always unafraid of speaking his mind.” Presidential advisor, political columnist, and educator, Roche Roche, who could turn on his Irish charm, was above all a died at the age of seventy in 1994, after a twenty-one-year stint realist, says Robbins, who took over Roche’s classes at Fletcher at Fletcher, some of it as a dean. Born in Brooklyn, Roche graduated after Roche became ill. “Besides what I learned from him about from Hofstra College in 1943 foreign policy, John taught me a and, after serving in the army lot about the craft of teaching,” during World War II, earned a he says. “You can’t just stand master’s and a doctorate at up there like you are the font of Cornell University. He taught at wisdom. You have to engage, Haverford College until 1956 and he was fantastic at that.” and then at Brandeis University, Van de Velde finds himself where he established the de- thinking of Roche surprisingly partment of government. He often. “When contemplating an came to Tufts in 1973. international issue,” he says, “I Roche was difficult to pigeon- often ask myself what John hole politically. Though active in Roche would say. Then I usually Roche advises civil rights in the 1950s and a L.B.J., circa 1966 smile.” founder of the liberal Americans —phil primack, a70
Photo: tufts digital collections and archives fall 2013 tufts magazine 15 16 tufts magazine fall 2013 The battle lines of today’s debates over gun control, stand-your-ground laws, and other violence-related issues were drawn centuries ago by America’s early settlers
UPIn arms
By Colin Woodard, A91 illustration by brian stauffer
last december, when adam lanza Navy Yard, apparently at the hands of an stormed into the Sandy Hook Elementary IT contractor who was mentally ill. School in Newtown, Connecticut, with a Such episodes remind Americans rifle and killed twenty children and six that our country as a whole is marked by adult staff members, the United States staggering levels of deadly violence. Our found itself immersed in debates about death rate from assault is many times gun control. Another flash point occurred higher than that of most other countries, this July, when George Zimmerman, who whether highly urbanized or sparsely pop- saw himself as a guardian of his commu- ulated. State-sponsored violence, too—in nity, was exonerated in the killing of an the form of capital punishment—sets our unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, country apart. Last year we executed more in Florida. That time, talk turned to than ten times as many prisoners as other stand-your-ground laws and the proper advanced industrialized nations com- use of deadly force. The gun debate was bined—not surprising given that Japan is refreshed in September by the shooting the only other such country that allows the deaths of twelve people at the Washington practice. Our violent streak has become
fall 2013 tufts magazine 17 almost a part of our national identity. and values of several of these nations in all think the same, but rather that they are What’s less well appreciated is how 1969 and used them to correctly proph- all embedded within a cultural framework much the incidence of violence, like so esy two decades of American political of deep-seated preferences and attitudes— many salient issues in American life, development in his politico cult classic each of which a person may like or hate, varies by region. Beyond a vague aware- The Emerging Republican Majority. Joel but has to deal with nonetheless. Because ness that supporters of violent retaliation Garreau, a Washington Post editor, argued of slavery, the African American experi- and easy access to guns are concentrated that our continent was divided into rival ence has been different from that of other in the states of the former Confederacy power blocs in The Nine Nations of North settlers and immigrants, but it too has var- and, to a lesser extent, the western inte- America, though his ahistorical approach ied by nation, as black people confronted rior, most people cannot tell you much undermined the identification of the the dominant cultural and institutional about regional differences on such mat- nations. The Pulitzer Prize–winning norms of each. ters. Our conventional way of defining historian David Hackett Fischer detailed The nations, outlined in the map on regions—dividing the country along the origins and early evolution of four of page 20, are constituted as follows: state boundaries into a Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest—masks the cultural lines The same handful of ‘‘nations’’ show up again and along which attitudes toward vio- again at the top and the bottom of state-level lence fall. These lines don’t respect state boundaries. To understand vio- figures on deadly violence, capital punishment, lence or practically any other divisive issue, you need to understand his- and promotion of gun ownership. torical settlement patterns and the lasting cultural fissures they established. these nations in his magisterial Albion’s Yankeedom. Founded on the shores of The original North American colo- Seed and later added New France. Russell Massachusetts Bay by radical Calvinists nies were settled by people from distinct Shorto described the salient characteristics as a new Zion, Yankeedom has, since the regions of the British Isles—and from of New Netherland in The Island at the outset, put great emphasis on perfecting France, the Netherlands, and Spain—each Center of the World. And the list goes on. earthly civilization through social engi- with its own religious, political, and ethno- The borders of my eleven American neering, denial of self for the common graphic traits. For generations, these Euro- nations are reflected in many different good, and assimilation of outsiders. It has American cultures developed in isolation types of maps—including maps show- prized education, intellectual achieve- from one another, consolidating their cher- ing the distribution of linguistic dia- ment, communal empowerment, and ished religious and political principles and lects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the broad citizen participation in politics and fundamental values, and expanding across prevalence of different religious denomi- government, the latter seen as the public’s the eastern half of the continent in nearly nations, and the county-by-county shield against the machinations of grasp- exclusive settlement bands. Throughout breakdown of voting in virtually every ing aristocrats and other would-be tyrants. the colonial period and the Early Republic, hotly contested presidential race in our Since the early Puritans, it has been more they saw themselves as competitors—for history. Our continent’s famed mobil- comfortable with government regulation land, capital, and other settlers—and even ity has been reinforcing, not dissolving, and public-sector social projects than as enemies, taking opposing sides in the regional differences, as people increas- many of the other nations, who regard the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and ingly sort themselves into like-minded Yankee utopian streak with trepidation. the Civil War. communities, a phenomenon analyzed There’s never been an America, but by Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing in New Netherland. Established by the rather several Americas—each a distinct The Big Sort (2008). Even waves of immi- Dutch at a time when the Netherlands nation. There are eleven nations today. grants did not fundamentally alter these was the most sophisticated society in the Each looks at violence, as well as every- nations, because the children and grand- Western world, New Netherland has always thing else, in its own way. children of immigrants assimilated into been a global commercial culture—mate- whichever culture surrounded them. rialistic, with a profound tolerance for eth- Before I describe the nations, I should nic and religious diversity and an unflinch- he precise delineation of underscore that my observations refer to ing commitment to the freedom of inquiry the eleven nations—which the dominant culture, not the individual and conscience. Like seventeenth-century I have explored at length in inhabitants, of each region. In every town, Amsterdam, it emerged as a center of pub- Tmy latest book, American city, and state you’ll likely find a full range lishing, trade, and finance, a magnet for Nations—is original to me, but I’m cer- of political opinions and social preferences. immigrants, and a refuge for those per- tainly not the first person to observe Even in the reddest of red counties and blu- secuted by other regional cultures, from that such national divisions exist. Kevin est of blue ones, twenty to forty percent of Sephardim in the seventeenth century to Phillips, a Republican Party campaign voters cast ballots for the “wrong” team. It gays, feminists, and bohemians in the early strategist, recognized the boundaries isn’t that residents of one or another nation twentieth. Unconcerned with great moral
18 tufts magazine fall 2013 questions, it nonetheless has found itself in hillbillies and rednecks. It transplanted a borderlands of the Spanish American alliance with Yankeedom to defend public culture formed in a state of near constant empire, which were so far from the seats institutions and reject evangelical prescrip- danger and upheaval, characterized by a of power in Mexico City and Madrid that tions for individual behavior. warrior ethic and a commitment to per- they evolved their own characteristics. sonal sovereignty and individual liberty. Most Americans are aware of El Norte as The Midlands. America’s great swing Intensely suspicious of lowland aristo- a place apart, where Hispanic language, region was founded by English Quakers, crats and Yankee social engineers alike, culture, and societal norms dominate. But who believed in humans’ inherent good- Greater Appalachia has shifted alliances few realize that among Mexicans, norteños ness and welcomed people of many nations depending on who appeared to be the have a reputation for being exceptionally and creeds to their utopian colonies like greatest threat to their freedom. It was independent, self-sufficient, adaptable, and Pennsylvania on the shores of Delaware with the Union in the Civil War. Since focused on work. Long a hotbed of demo- Bay. Pluralistic and organized around Reconstruction, and especially since the cratic reform and revolutionary settlement, the middle class, the Midlands spawned upheavals of the 1960s, it has joined with the region encompasses parts of Mexico the culture of Middle America and that have tried to secede in order the Heartland, where ethnic and to form independent buffer states ideological purity have never been a historical Migration between their mother country priority, government has been seen from britain and Ireland and the United States. as an unwelcome intrusion, and political opinion has been mod- The Left Coast. A Chile- erate. An ethnic mosaic from the shaped nation wedged between start—it had a German, rather than Scotland the Pacific Ocean and the British, majority at the time of the To Appalachia Cascade and Coast mountains, Revolution—it shares the Yankee the Left Coast was originally belief that society should be orga- colonized by two groups: New nized to benefit ordinary people, Englanders (merchants, mis- though it rejects top-down govern- sionaries, and woodsmen who ment intervention. Ireland arrived by sea and dominated the towns) and Appalachian Tidewater. Built by the younger England midwesterners (farmers, pros- sons of southern English gentry pectors, and fur traders who in the Chesapeake country and To Pennsylvania generally arrived by wagon and neighboring sections of Delaware and the Midwest controlled the countryside). and North Carolina, Tidewater was Yankee missionaries tried to meant to reproduce the semifeudal make it a “New England on the society of the countryside they’d To Virginia and Pacific,” but were only partially the Lowland South left behind. Standing in for the successful. Left Coast culture is To New England peasantry were indentured servants a hybrid of Yankee utopianism and, later, slaves. Tidewater places and Appalachian self-expression a high value on respect for authority and Deep South to counter federal overrides of and exploration—traits recognizable in tradition, and very little on equality or local preference. its cultural production, from the Summer public participation in politics. It was the of Love to the iPad. The staunchest ally of most powerful of the American nations Deep South. Established by English Yankeedom, it clashes with Far Western in the eighteenth century, but today it is slave lords from Barbados, Deep South sections in the interior of its home states. in decline, partly because it was cut off was meant as a West Indies–style slave from westward expansion by its boister- society. This nation offered a version of The Far West. The other “second- ous Appalachian neighbors and, more classical Republicanism modeled on the generation” nation, the Far West occu- recently, because it has been eaten away by slave states of the ancient world, where pies the one part of the continent shaped the expanding federal halos around D.C. democracy was the privilege of the few more by environmental factors than eth- and Norfolk. and enslavement the natural lot of the nographic ones. High, dry, and remote, many. Its caste systems smashed by out- the Far West stopped migrating eastern- Greater Appalachia. Founded side intervention, it continues to fight ers in their tracks, and most of it could be in the early eighteenth century by wave against expanded federal powers, taxes made habitable only with the deployment upon wave of settlers from the war-rav- on capital and the wealthy, and environ- of vast industrial resources: railroads, aged borderlands of Northern Ireland, mental, labor, and consumer regulations. heavy mining equipment, ore smelters, northern England, and the Scottish low- dams, and irrigation systems. As a result, lands, Appalachia has been lampooned by El Norte. The oldest of the American settlement was largely directed by cor- writers and screenwriters as the home of nations, El Norte consists of the porations headquartered in distant New
map source: david hackett fisher, albion’s seed (oxford) fall 2013 tufts magazine 19 York, Boston, Chicago, or San Francisco, solutions to conflict, and are more protec- state-level figures on deadly violence, or by the federal government, which tive of the instruments of violence than capital punishment, and promotion of controlled much of the land. The Far other parts of the country. That is exactly gun ownership. West’s people are often resentful of their what the data on violence reveal about the Consider assault deaths. Kieran Healy, dependent status, feeling that they have modern United States. a Duke University sociologist, broke down been exploited as an internal colony for Most scholarly research on violence the per capita, age-adjusted deadly assault the benefit of the seaboard nations. Their has collected data at the state level, rather rate for 2010. In the northeastern states— senators led the fight against trusts in than the county level (where the bound- almost entirely dominated by Yankeedom, the mid-twentieth century. Of late, Far aries of the eleven nations are delin- New Netherland, and the Midlands—just Westerners have focused their anger on eated). Still, the trends are clear. The over 4 people per 100,000 died in assaults. the federal government, rather than their same handful of nations show up again By contrast, southern states—largely corporate masters. and again at the top and the bottom of monopolized by Deep South, Tidewater,
New France. Occupying the New Orleans area and southeastern Canada, New France blends the folkways of ancien the american Nations today régime northern French peasantry with the traditions and values of the aboriginal people they encountered in northwest- ern North America. After a long history of imperial oppression, its people have emerged as down-to-earth, egalitarian, the left and consensus driven, among the most coast liberal on the continent, with unusually (Includes(Includes Juneau, tolerant attitudes toward gays and people Alaska)laska) of all races and a ready acceptance of gov- ernment involvement in the economy. The New French influence is manifest in Canada, where multiculturalism and negotiated consensus are treasured. the far west (Includes(Includes Anchorage First Nation. First Nation is popu- and Fairbanks, Alaska)laska) lated by native American groups that generally never gave up their land by treaty and have largely retained cultural practices and knowledge that allow them to survive in this hostile region on their own terms. The nation is now reclaiming its sovereignty, having won considerable autonomy in Alaska and Nunavut and a self-governing nation state in Greenland that stands on the threshold of full inde- pendence. Its territory is huge—far larger than the continental United States—but its population is less than 300,000, most pacific of whom live in Canada. ocean el norte f you understand the united States as a patchwork of separate nations, each with its own origins and prevailing values, you would I hardly expect attitudes toward violence to be uniformly distributed. You would instead be prepared to discover that some parts of the country experience more vio- lence, have a greater tolerance for violent
20 tufts magazine fall 2013 source: colin woodard,
and Greater Appalachia—had a rate from assaults at the bewildering rate of and a colleague, Andrew Reaves, went of more than 7 per 100,000. The three about 20 per 100,000, while the rate for on to show that southern rural counties deadliest states—Louisiana, Mississippi, whites is less than 6. But does that mean had white homicide rates more than four and Alabama, where the rate of killings racial differences might be skewing the times those of counties in New England, topped 10 per 100,000—were all in Deep homicide data for nations with larger Middle Atlantic, and Midwestern states. South territory. Meanwhile, the three saf- African-American populations? Appar- Stand-your-ground laws are another est states—New Hampshire, Maine, and ently not. A classic 1993 study by the dividing line between American nations. Minnesota, with rates of about 2 killings social psychologist Richard Nisbett, of Such laws waive a citizen’s duty to try per 100,000—were all part of Yankeedom. the University of Michigan, found that and retreat from a threatening indi- Not surprisingly, black Americans homicide rates in small predominantly vidual before killing the person. Of the have it worse than whites. Country- white cities were three times higher in twenty-three states to pass stand-your- wide, according to Healy, blacks die the South than in New England. Nisbett ground laws, only one, New Hampshire, is part of Yankeedom, and only one, Illinois, is in the Midlands. By contrast, each of the six Deep South–dominated states has passed such a law, and almost first nation all the other states with similar laws are (Includes(Includes muchmuch ofof northernnorthern in the Far West or Greater Appalachia. and western Alaska)laska) Comparable schisms show up in the gun control debate. In 2011, after the mass shooting of U.S. Representative The midlands Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen others in new fr ance Tucson, the Pew Research Center asked Americans what was more important, protecting gun ownership or controlling it. The Yankee states of New England went for gun control by a margin of sixty- yankeedom yankeedom one to thirty-six, while those in the poll’s “southeast central” region—the Deep South states of Alabama and Mississippi and the Appalachian states of Tennessee new netherland and Kentucky—supported gun rights by exactly the same margin. Far Western The midlands The midlands states backed gun rights by a proportion of fifty-nine to thirty-eight. Another revealing moment came this tidewater past April, in the wake of the Newtown greater appalachia school massacre, when the U.S. Senate failed to pass a bill to close loopholes in federal background checks for would-be gun owners. In the six states dominated by Deep South, the vote was twelve to two against the measure, and most of the Far West and Appalachia followed suit. But Yankee New England voted eleven deep south atlantic to one in favor, and the dissenting vote, ocean from Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, was so unpopular in her home state that it caused an immediate dip in her approval rating. new france new france The pattern for capital punishment laws is equally stark. The states domi- (part of the nated by Deep South, Greater Appalachia, spanish Tidewater, and the Far West have had a caribbean) virtual monopoly on capital punishment. They account for more than ninety-five percent of the 1,343 executions in the
american nations: A history of the eleven rival regional cultures of north america (viking press, 2011). © colin woodard. fall 2013 tufts magazine 21
United States since 1976. In the same those in counties that, in 1850, were dom- With such sharp regional differences, period, the twelve states definitively inated by Scots-Irish settlers with those in the idea that the United States would controlled by Yankeedom and New other parts of the “Old South.” In other ever reach consensus on any issue hav- Netherland—states that account for words, they teased out the rates at which ing to do with violence seems far-fetched. almost a quarter of the U.S. population— white men killed each other in feuds and The cultural gulf between Appalachia have executed just one person. compared those for Greater Appalachia and Yankeedom, Deep South and New with those for Deep South and Tidewater. Netherland is simply too large. But it’s The result: Appalachian areas had signifi- conceivable that some new alliance could hy is violence—state- cantly higher homicide rates than their form to tip the balance. sponsored and other- lowland neighbors—“findings [that] are Among the eleven regional cultures, wise—so much more supportive of theoretical claims about the there are two superpowers, nations with Wprevalent in some Amer- role of herding as the ecological under- the identity, mission, and numbers to shape ican nations than in others? It all goes pinning of a code of honor.” continental debate: Yankeedom and Deep back to who settled those regions and Another researcher, Pauline Grosjean, South. For more than two hundred years, where they came from. Nisbett, the social an economist at Australia’s University of they’ve fought for control of the federal psychologist, noted that regions initially New South Wales, found strong statisti- government and, in a sense, the nation’s “settled by sober Puritans, Quakers, and cal relationships between the presence of soul. Over the decades, Deep South has Dutch farmer-artisans”—that is, Yan- Scots-Irish settlers in the 1790 census and become strongly allied with Greater keedom, the Midlands, and New Neth- contemporary homicide rates, but only in Appalachia and Tidewater, and more tenu- erland—were organized around a yeo- “southern” areas “where the institutional ously with the Far West. Their combined man agricultural economy that rewarded environment was weak”—which is the agenda—to slash taxes, regulations, social “quiet, cooperative citizenship, with each case in almost the entirety of Greater services, and federal powers—is opposed individual being capable of uniting for the Appalachia. She further noted that in by a Yankee-led bloc that includes New common good.” The South—and by this areas where Scots-Irish were dominant, Netherland and the Left Coast. Other he meant the nations I call Tidewater and settlers of other ethnic origins—Dutch, nations, especially the Midlands and El Deep South—was settled by “swashbuck- French, and German—were also more Norte, often hold the swing vote, whether ling Cavaliers of noble or landed gentry violent, suggesting that they had accul- in a presidential election or a congressio- status, who took their values . . . from the turated to Appalachian norms. nal battle over health care reform. Those knightly, medieval standards of manly But it’s not just herding that promoted swing nations stand to play a decisive role honor and virtue.” a culture of violence. Scholars have long on violence-related issues as well. Continuing to treat the South as a recognized that cultures organized around For now, the country will remain split single entity, Nisbett argued that the vio- slavery rely on violence to control, pun- on how best to make its citizens safer, with lent streak in the culture the Cavaliers ish, and terrorize—which no doubt helps Deep South and its allies bent on deter- established was intensified by the “major explain the erstwhile prevalence of lynch- rence through armament and the threat subsequent wave of immigration . . . from ing deaths in Deep South and Tidewater. of capital punishment, and Yankeedom the borderlands of Scotland and Ireland.” But it is also significant that both these and its allies determined to bring peace These immigrants, who populated what I nations, along with Greater Appalachia, through constraints such as gun control. call Greater Appalachia, came from “an follow religious traditions that sanction The deadlock will persist until one of these economy based on herding,” which, as eye-for-an-eye justice, and adhere to secu- camps modifies its message and policy anthropologists have shown, predisposes lar codes that emphasize personal honor platform to draw in the swing nations. people to belligerent stances because the and shun governmental authority. As a Only then can that camp seize full con- animals on which their wealth depends result, their members have fewer qualms trol over the levers of federal power—the are so vulnerable to theft. Drawing on about rushing to lethal judgments. White House, the House, and a filibuster- the work of the historian David Hackett The code of Yankeedom could not proof Senate majority—to force its will on Fisher, Nisbett maintained that “southern” have been more different. Its founders the opposing nations. Until then, expect violence stems partly from a “culture-of- promoted self-doubt and self-restraint, continuing frustration and division. T honor tradition,” in which males are raised and their Unitarian and Congregational to create reputations for ferocity—as a spiritual descendants believed vengeance Colin Woodard, A91, is the author of deterrent to rustling—rather than relying would not receive the approval of an all- American Nations: A History of the Eleven on official legal intervention. knowing God. This nation was the center Rival Regional Cultures of North America. More recently, researchers have begun of the nineteenth-century death penalty An earlier book, The Republic of Pirates, to probe beyond state boundaries to reform movement, which began elimi- is the basis of the forthcoming NBC distinguish among different cultural nating capital punishment for burglary, drama Crossbones. He is currently state streams. Robert Baller of the University robbery, sodomy, and other nonlethal and national affairs writer at the Portland of Iowa and two colleagues looked at crimes. None of the states controlled by Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, late-twentieth-century white male “argu- Yankeedom or New Netherland retain the where he won a George Polk Award this ment-related” homicide rates, comparing death penalty today. year for his investigative reporting.
22 tufts magazine fall 2013 NATO’s former supreme commander brings to the Fletcher School his field-tested ideas about The Power of…
Admiral James Stavridis, F83, F84, has ended his naval career to take the helm of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
fall 2013 tufts magazine 23 ... Soft
Power By Michael Blanding he biggest lesson admiral james stavridis learned about communication on the Internet.” national security before he retired from the U.S. Navy this sum- That view is far from orthodox in the U.S. military-industrial complex, which mer wasn’t on the battlefield in Afghanistan, which he oversaw as has spent trillions to build the most for- NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe. It wasn’t as com- midable strategic power the world has ever manderT of a carrier fleet in the Arabian Gulf or as captain of a destroyer dur- known. When the military has partnered ing the Bosnian War. It was at a health clinic in Nicaragua in 2007. with other countries or outside contrac- tors, it has been mainly to enhance that Then head of the U.S. Southern Command, overseeing all military forces might, all tightly controlled by a disci- in Central and South America, Stavridis was aboard the hospital ship USNS plined command structure. Directly at Comfort to check on health clinics that U.S. soldiers had set up in the area odds with this approach, Stavridis’ con- for locals. As he came ashore to observe their work, he was told some resi- cept of open-source security is more like the model of open-source software—loos- dents had hiked miles, and in some cases days, to bring their children for ening and decentralizing control to allow treatment. One woman came with her eight-year-old son, who was severely health organizations, business leaders, myopic. Stavridis watched the boy’s look of amazement as a doctor put glasses teachers, and others to join in building on his face face for the first time. “Mama,” the child said. “Veo el mundo.” security. And yet, through a combination of charm, conviction, and military creden- I see the world. Stavridis never forgot that moment—the tials, Stavridis’ unconventional worldview propelled him to the validation of years of thinking, writing, and acting on his highest ranks of the armed forces. This past summer it also began beliefs that American power must go beyond the blunt instru- to inform his latest post as the new dean of the Fletcher School of ment of military might to embrace “soft power” initiatives like Law and Diplomacy—the school from which he received both a hospital ships, literacy programs in Afghanistan, even baseball master’s in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1984. exchanges, all made possible by the U.S. Armed Forces. The boy “looked up at the trees,” Stavridis says, “and I think for the first time in his life he could actually see individual leaves. It just rriving on the fourth floor of cabot hall for crystallized things for me.” a late-afternoon appointment with Stavridis, I find an Our future depends on how the world views us, Stavridis office that’s run with military precision—I’m told the contends. “Through missions like a hospital ship and individual new dean started the day with an eight a.m. breakfast episodes like that young boy,” he says, “you create a vision of the presentationA to a women’s leadership group, and has been in United States that is compassionate, that is confident, and that meetings ever since. My time with him is rationed to the minute. is capable—and above all is reaching out to another part of the I enter his office, prepared to be overwhelmed by the larger- world. That creates security for us, and for other regions as well.” than-life figure his friends and associates have described. He has developed those ideas into a concept he calls “open-source Instead, I find someone trim and compact, and surprisingly security,” arguing that we can protect ourselves better from today’s relaxed for a man who’s been going all day. His office is deco- threats—terrorism, piracy, cyber warfare, natural disasters, global rated with nautical memorabilia, interspersed with photos of pandemics—by collaborating and sharing information than we his wife and his two daughters—one a newly minted U.S. Navy can through secrecy and force. “We will not deliver security solely nurse—as well as his basset hound, Lilly. from the barrel of a gun,” he said in a recent TED talk. “My thesis Despite the time pressure, he starts the interview by asking of open-source security is about international, interagency, pri- me questions, taking a leisurely ten minutes out of his own time vate-public connection, pulled together by this idea of strategic to inquire about my education and upbringing. We ease into a
24 tufts magazine fall 2013 photo previous page: Jose CABEZAS/AFP/Getty Images discussion about our mutual love of old maps—Stavridis collects orn in south florida, stavridis went to the u.s. seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sea charts of the Atlantic— Naval Academy to follow in the footsteps of his Greek- then smoothly segue into history and the role of the military in American father, a marine. While on training cruises, world power. The minutes seem to lengthen as Stavridis delivers he fell in love with the sea and decided to enlist in his tightly packaged answers in invisible bullet points, some with B the navy instead. Even at Annapolis, he showed a broad intel- invisible subpoints, before deftly wrapping up our conversation lectualism, majoring in English literature before graduating in by returning the focus to me with questions about my children. 1976. But the first time Stavridis began to consider ideas of “soft Stavridis’ gift for engaging with people from all walks of life power” was when he entered the Fletcher School in 1981 as a is well known to friends and colleagues, I learn later. “He has a graduate student. “Up to that point, I had been entirely focused supreme ability to meet people where they are,” says Pete Daly, on learning my profession, going to sea, driving ships, becom- a retired vice admiral who served alongside him and has known ing a good navy officer,” he says. “When I came to the Fletcher him for thirty years. “Whether he is talking to a junior sailor or School, I began to learn about the world”—through classes in a head of state, they come away feeling like he uniquely under- developmental economics, international business, and diplo- stands their perspective.” matic history. He came to understand not just how wars are Mel Immergut, retired chairman of the New York law firm fought, but how they start and how to avoid them. Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and a senior defense advisor, More than the class work, though, he says it was his fellow toured operations in Afghanistan with Stavridis and remembers students who opened his eyes to the complexities of the world watching him speak with everyone from brigadier generals to a and the privileged place the United States held in it. He listened soldier in a forward operating base on the Pakistan border that was to the stories his Latin American and Caribbean classmates told under heavy fire. “Not everybody can interact with a seventeen- about the clumsy way the United States sometimes threw its year-old from Council Bluffs, Iowa, in a mess hall and get him to weight around in the region. “I began to see that military force open up,” Immergut says. “He spoke to him about the quarters he in and of itself—hard power—seldom yields the results you are lived in, the food he ate, as well as the dangers they faced.” seeking,” he says. But his ability to connect is only one of many strengths. Unlike most of the students from the navy, who gravitated Immergut, who is a trustee of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space towards the national security program, Stavridis sought out Museum, in New York City, presented Stavridis with the Intrepid Jerry Cohen, a professor of political economy, to guide his dis- Freedom Award in 2011. During the ceremony, he called Stavridis sertation on treaty negotiations over the law of the sea. “He has a “Renaissance admiral,” a name that has stuck with him after it a natural interest in just about everything,” says Cohen, now was taken up by the New York Times to describe him. “I’ve had a chair of the political science department at the University of chance to see him in so many capacities—as a warrior, author, California, Santa Barbara. “He doesn’t exclude anything.” speaker, leader, family man, the whole gamut of what you would Cohen remembers mentioning offhandedly that he was read- want for someone in the positions Jim has filled,” Immergut says. ing The Natural, Bernard Malamud’s mystical baseball novel, “He is the embodiment of all of those qualities. It’s the rare person and Stavridis pointing out the many ways in which the book who can truly be said to fit that description.” was based on the Arthurian quest for the Holy Grail. While at Fletcher, Stavridis took time to teach a course on the literature of the sea at the Tufts Experimental College and to spar with Cohen on the tennis court. “He was far better than me—he insisted on giving me a few lessons,” Cohen laughs. After graduating from Fletcher in 1984, Stavridis soared through the naval ranks, excelling at ship handling in a way that earned the attention of his superi- ors. “It’s unusual to get widely known as a junior officer—unless you’d done something bad,” says Daly, the retired admiral who served with Stavridis. “Jim was widely known even as a lieuten- ant.” Besides driving ships himself, he wrote articles on tactics and maneuvers,
As NATO supreme commander, Stavridis (left) joined in a Helsinki defense conference in October 2012.
photo: British Army Staff Sgt. Ian Houlding fall 2013 tufts magazine 25 eventually serving on the board of the U.S. Naval Institute, which publishes a monthly journal of musing, opinions, and criticisms of the service. From 1993 to 1995 he commanded a destroyer, the USS Barry, which he cap- tained in the Persian Gulf following the Gulf War and in the Adriatic supporting UN peacekeepers in the Bosnian War. It was during that time that he first realized how much good the military could do. The United States was trying to help return Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti when his ship took part in humanitar- ian operations there. “I saw firsthand the grinding poverty of Haiti, and how well received the shipment of U.S. aid, loaded on the pier by navy sailors, was—far more so than weapons and security,” he says. It was a lesson he remembered as he rose to command his own destroyer squadron—six warships—in 1998, and then the Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, with its dozen vessels, worked with him to set up Stavridis helped oversee the in 2002 during the Iraq War. By the time he was appointed head public-private partnerships in transition to Afghan forces, of U.S. Southern Command in 2006, he was ready to put his Europe as well. For example, whom he greeted during training exercises in Kabul. ideas into practice on a wider scale. computer executives were Evelyn Farkas, F95, F99, met Stavridis when she was a staff recruited to help one of the member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Baltic countries set up a defense for its cyber vulnerabilities. “The oversaw his command (she’s now deputy assistant secretary of work they did pro bono,” Farkas says, “was something that even defense). She watched as he created more positions that served our wealthy allies would have trouble affording if we put a price as liaison with the State Department and other agencies and tag on it, and the whole thing was done in a number of weeks.” as he channeled military resources toward things like medical Such partnerships are controversial in the Defense Department. aid and clean water development. He wanted his senior officers While they can help cut costs and take advantage of skills the mili- to study native languages, and led the way by learning French, tary doesn’t have, they can upset military hierarchies and open Spanish, and Portuguese. “His philosophy when he met with the government up to charges of conflict of interest. Stavridis and State Department officials was that his military officials were Farkas navigated these treacherous waters by putting buffers such there to support diplomatic efforts,” says Farkas. “Most military as an independent search committee between Defense and private commanders have very little understanding of that. He is the enterprise to make sure that choices were based on merit and not first one I saw articulating that message.” special interests. One of Stavridis’ prime goals was to encourage companies As head of NATO’s military strategy, Stavridis was instru- and nonprofits to work with the military in areas beyond sup- mental in the drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan porting combat operations. For a project called Continuing and the transition to Afghan forces under Obama. At the same Promise, he helped set up a partnership between the U.S. Navy time, he helped put soft power to the test in the part of the world and such nonprofits as Operation Smile, Project HOPE, and marked by the most anti-American sentiment, starting pro- Rotary to provide construction services and medical care. In grams such as a countrywide effort to teach more than 200,000 another case, he enlisted business executives as volunteers to members of the Afghan coalition forces to read. study the inner workings of drug cartels and recommend ways He has run into his share of skeptics for diverting resources to thwart their business and financial networks. into such programs—both privately within the military and in In part, it was such innovation that caused the Obama the punditry at large. A Pew Research Center study of humanitar- Administration to tap Stavridis for the job of Supreme Allied ian efforts, for example, pointed to opinion polls showing they Commander Europe, one of NATO’s top two military posts, made only a small dent in anti-U.S. attitudes. “The impact of in 2009. Before him, no navy commander had ever held the humanitarian assistance should not be overstated,” it said, refer- position—a particularly relevant fact at the time, given NATO’s ring to efforts in Pakistan and Indonesia. “Solid majorities in both focus on landlocked Afghanistan. The surprise pick raised eye- countries continue to have a negative impression of the U.S.” brows, though military observers quickly praised the choice by But Stavridis remains unapologetic. “Teaching young Afghan pointing to the admiral’s skills as a commander. soldiers to read is extremely in the wheelhouse of American After Stavridis’ appointment, Farkas, then a NATO official, security,” he says. “It opens a different world for young Afghans.
26 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photo: MSGT Edouard Bocquet, French Air Force It gives them real tools and skills. It differentiates us from the Osama bin Laden, and a growing reliance on unmanned vehi- Taliban. It encourages them to participate in the political process.” cles, better known as drones. “We’ll also have unmanned surface He calls such initiatives “building bridges,” in contrast to vehicles, we’ll have unmanned vessels operating at sea on the “building walls,” the strategy that has prevailed through most of surface, and we’ll have vehicles operating at depth in the ocean,” the history of American security efforts. “Look back at the twen- he says. The value of drones, he argues, is threefold—they allow tieth century when we built walls and killed people to protect the military to avoid putting humans at risk, they are cheaper to ourselves,” he says. “Well, how’d that work out? Sixty million operate, and they can perform in harsher conditions. dead in two world wars, a cold war that almost destroyed the Asked about the more controversial aspects of drones, such planet. Frankly, that didn’t seem to be a particularly effective as highly publicized civilian casualties from drone strikes, he way of generating security.” defends their use saying that the more precise targeting tech- nology of drones actually reduces so-called collateral damage, a benefit that will only increase as technology improves. “Many of mong the bridges stavridis talks about are the same arguments were made with submarines—that they were social media, which he himself uses with gusto. He illegal, that they were surreptitious and operated without warn- was known in the military for being unusually acces- ing and sunk innocent ships. Yet over time, we’ve become very sible by email, and one of his first actions at Fletcher comfortable with submarines as part of military operations, and wasA to set up a new blog, complete with a video introducing him- I think it’s going to be the same with airborne drones.” He adds self to the school. He has fifteen thousand followers on Twitter, that drones are widely used for humanitarian operations, such as where his recent tweets range from opinions on intervention monitoring disaster relief sites, aiding agricultural development, in Syria, boasts about the incoming Fletcher student body, and and dropping food and medical supplies in hard-to-reach areas. reports of a recent lunch with the prime minister of Greece. “That’s part of the message we need to express more clearly.” What excites him most about social media is their potential In all of these areas, Stavridis’ forward-looking ideas have to “change the arc of history,” as Facebook and Twitter did dur- revised the traditional conception of the military. His friends ing the Arab Spring. “Social networks flatten hierarchies and and colleagues don’t doubt he’ll bring equally innovative ideas undermine authoritarian regimes because they allow people to to the realm of international relations as Fletcher’s new dean. exchange information freely,” he says—and not just information “First of all he knows the school,” says his former advisor, Jerry about their own society but about anyplace on earth. “They can Cohen. “But beyond that he is a man of real vision. He is think- look at another’s life using a social network ing of what’s over the horizon, not just what’s and see that a world of liberty and democracy happening now.” and education and gender equality exists and In his inaugural blog for Fletcher, Stavridis is working, and they want that too,” he says. included a list of emerging issues in interna- Social media are a marketplace of ideas, tional relations that would hardly be on the and Stavridis thinks the United States should lips of mainstream analysts—including the do more to compete in it. “We have a pretty Arctic, biosciences, and environmental chal- good narrative: democracy, equality, and lenges. “I think we’re passing out of the age of human value—essentially the values of the information,” he says by way of explanation. Enlightenment. But in order to move our “The next radical set of changes will come message, we need to be in that space. The lead through biology.” He points to examples such should be at the State Department, but every as food and crop security, response to pan- level of the U.S. government has a role to play.” demics, genetic manipulation, and increased Of course, the growing importance of human performance. He adds that it’s an area digital networks presents threats as well as Fletcher is uniquely suited to address in col- opportunities. Cyber security could become laboration with Tufts’ “constellation” of life- a critical strategic issue in the coming science schools. decades—so much so that in a recent Foreign Dean Stavridis at Fletcher No matter what new directions Stavridis Policy article, Stavridis argued for the creation of a new branch of introduces, the fundamentals of Fletcher—the very concepts that the military, a U.S. Cyber Force, that would wage both offensive broadened his own worldview as a student—are likely to remain and defensive cyber operations. He compares the emergence of intact. “A place like Fletcher that represents all the disciplines of cyber attacks to the invention of airplanes, which eventually led international relations—development, economics, security, law, to the need for an air force. “We are on the beach at Kitty Hawk diplomacy—is the ultimate place we can come together to create in cyber, and it is evident that there will be a military compo- solutions,” he says. And it may be an ideal place for a new genera- nent,” he says. Already, countries have used cyber attacks to steal tion, one perpetually connected and prone to collaborate through and destroy data, he says. We must not only learn how to defend social media, to learn how to put his theories into practice. T against such attacks, but be prepared to launch them ourselves. Two other trends will transform the military in the next Michael Blanding is a Boston-based writer and a frequent twenty years, he says: the increased use of special forces for contributor to Tufts Magazine. His next book, The Map Thief small-scale surgical strikes, such as the attack that took out (Gotham), is due out in June 2014.
photo: kelvin ma fall 2013 tufts magazine 27 The Beelzebubs, stars of college a cappella, turn fifty
By David Menconi illustration by sean mccabe
28 tufts magazine fall 2013 fall 2013 tufts magazine 29 over their half-century of musicmaking, the beelzebubs have been heard the oldest college a cappella group in the everywhere from the White House, where they sang for President Obama’s 2011 holiday country. He advised his college-bound party, to outer space, where their recording of “Tuftonia’s Day” was played aboard the son to join a singing group if Tufts had space shuttle captained by a Tufts alumnus, Rick Hauck, A62, in 1988. They’ve per- one—or to found one if it didn’t. Vaill formed on TV—as the voices for an a cappella group on the Fox show Glee and as con- did just that, and the first performance testants on NBC’s The Sing-Off, where they finished second in the 2009 season—and by Jumbo’s Disciples: The Beelzebubs been portrayed on movie screens, as partial inspiration for the 2012 musical comedy was of “Winter Wonderland” at the 1962 Pitch Perfect. Throw in notable alumni such as the actor Peter Gallagher, A77, and Christmas Sing in Cousens Gym. Adam Gardner, A95, guitarist with the band Guster, and that’s as impressive a résumé Early on, the Bubs sang the same rep- as any group in the college a cappella universe. ertoire as every other a cappella group— But maybe the Bubs’ most enduring that translated to a cappella arrange- “Autumn Leaves,” “Summertime,” and achievement is this: no group has been ments without too much of a stretch. But other chestnuts. As arranged by music more influential in defining and expand- “In Your Eyes,” with its synthesized tex- directors Gene Blake, E73, and Andy ing a cappella’s sound and style over the tures and complex rhythms, stood apart. Cranin, A79, songs like “Happy Together,” past two decades. That goes back to a So Sharon undertook “a total experi- “Summer Breeze,” and the Steve Martin moment in the spring of 1989, when their ment,” arranging the group’s voices to novelty hit “King Tut” brought the Bubs music director at the time, Deke Sharon, mimic different sounds, beats, and up to date for the 1970s. By the 1980s, A91, went to Tower Records to check out instruments. And at the next weekend’s the practice of covering current songs as the latest singles chart. Sharon had just show, the crowd went wild, and the Bubs soon as they hit the radio—like Michael seen the movie Say Anything, with its made history as they went on to tackle Jackson’s “Thriller,” arranged by Marty Omemorable scene of John Cusack court- Duran Duran’s “Rio” and Pink Floyd’s Fernandi, A85—was well established. ing his estranged girlfriend by serenading “Comfortably Numb” with a similar “When we’d go to other schools, we her with Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” voice-as-instruments approach. would wow audiences with these contem- on a boom box, and a light bulb went off “The Beelzebubs were crucial in porary songs, and it was very clear that when he saw “In Your Eyes” on the chart. bringing collegiate a cappella out of the other groups were not doing that,” says “I just knew we had to do this,” says barbershop and doo-wop game and mak- Fernandi. “Those other groups would Sharon—a musician who has become ing the genre, dare we say it, cool,” says immediately take notice. By their very one of a cappella’s most active propo- Mickey Rapkin, author of the 2008 book next show they were into the same thing nents. “I thought, ‘This is gonna be huge on which the Pitch Perfect film was based. we were doing.” Fernandi is now a music and make women’s hearts melt.’ Which “Deke Sharon’s innovative arrangements publishing executive at Sony/ATV. is what you’re always trying to do with were key. Suddenly students weren’t Given the Bubs’ pop savvy, they were a cappella singing—it’s all in the service singing four-part harmony so much as the obvious college a cappella group for of wooing women.” Of course, don’t tell reimagining guitar riffs. And the Bubs’ The Sing-Off, wowing TV audiences with that to the Jackson Jills, the all-female a sometimes absurd travel schedules meant offbeat selections like Flo Rida’s hyp- cappella group that’s also marking fifty their new style could be heard and then notic, bass-heavy, hip-hop number years at Tufts. “But,” Sharon continues, imitated far away from Medford.” “Right Round.” That raised the group’s “it would be especially, impossibly great That’s a long way from the Bubs’ profile enough to get the attention of the if we could arrange and sing it by the fol- modest origins a half-century ago. The Glee producers. With Sharon and his fel- lowing weekend.” father of Timothy Vaill, A64—one of low Bubs alumnus Ed Boyer, A04, han- Current popular songs had been the group’s cofounders, who has since dling arrangements, the Bubs did the part of the Bubs’ repertoire since the enjoyed a distinguished career in bank- singing for the show’s a cappella group 1970s—mostly Billy Joel or other tunes ing—had sung in the Yale Whiffenpoofs, the Warblers, who lip-synced. After it
A BUBS June 1964: First college a Spring 1988: Beelzebub Silver Anniversary TIMELINE cappella group to perform with Fund established to finance scholarships, Boston Pops, Symphony Hall. aid to Tufts, and Bubs capital purchases.
1962: (October) Three Tufts undergrads 1972: Bubs wow listeners form an a cappella group called Jumbo’s with new pop a cappella style Disciples: The Beelzebubs. (December) First at an intercollegiate sing, campus performance (“Winter Wonderland”) challenging the preeminence at Christmas Sing, Cousens Gym. of Yale’s Whiffenpoofs.
30 tufts magazine fall 2013 Latter-day Bubs rock out at the fiftieth-anniversary concert in May. From left to right: Michael Grant, A14; Adam Gotbaum A16; Ethan Wise A15; Ed Rosini, A16; Dorian Pistilli, A16; Jason Williams, A15; Vinny Amaru, A15; John Kwon, A14; Andrew MacMaster, A15; Tom Lavin, A15.
aired on the show, the Bubs’ cover of Katy still job one, whether the audience is “a Amaru acquired memories for a life- Perry’s “Teenage Dream” hit number one seventy-five-year-old Harvard grad or an time on the Bubs’ 2012 overseas tour, on the iTunes chart. elementary school kid.” which was more than worth the irritation In recent years, the Bubs have Of course, the group has tradition to of professors whose classes he missed to remained one with the spirit of the age. uphold, too. There is a cultlike aspect to do it. The highlight came after a concert Vincent Amaru, A15, last year’s president the Bubs, an organization that its mem- in Hong Kong. “We were signing auto- and this year’s business manager, reports bers never really leave. Three-quarters of graphs and taking pictures with people that selections from Muse, Local Native, all living alumni came to the fifty-year for thirty minutes, until these two secu- and John Legend are in the current set. reunion weekend in May of this year, and rity guards grabbed us and threw us out But with so many other groups doing numerous alumni stay involved in the because they thought it was getting out new songs nowadays, the Bubs are also group’s philanthropic endeavors through of hand,” Amaru says. He adds: “If that digging up old obscurities. Their newest the Bubs Foundation, which makes doesn’t sum up what it’s like being a col- album, due for release this fall, includes grants to underfunded music programs lege rock star, I don’t know what does.” T Simon & Garfunkel’s “Keep the Customer in middle and high schools. And if any Satisfied,” a song from their 1970 album of them could time-travel back and relive David Menconi, the music critic at the Bridge Over Troubled Water. As Amaru their time onstage, they all say they’d do News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, observes, keeping customers satisfied is it in a shot. is one of our frequent contributors.
1989–1990s: Bubs pioneer new arranging February 2007: Bubs fund the 2010: Backup music on techniques and vocal percussion, leading new Granoff Music Building’s Glee leads to gold record to today’s contemporary a cappella sound. Beelzebubs Box Office. for “Teenage Dream”.
December 2009:Second-place Spring 1991: The Bubs’ Deke win on NBC’s The Sing-Off. Sharon, A91, founds Contemporary May 1993: Winners 2002: Bubs Foundation A Cappella Society of America. Bubs of first-ever national starts Be the Music, a pro- May 2013: Bubs’ golden-anniversary Foundation created to support music a cappella champion- gram to teach a cappella emblem, inlaid in granite in front of Ballou programs in Boston schools. ship, Carnegie Hall. in area high schools. Hall, celebrates “fun through song.”
ph otos: zara tzanev and tufts digital collections and archives fall 2013 tufts magazine 31 by Hugh Howard, A74 portraiture by conor doherty
Tiarna Doherty, J97, part chemist, part artist, part sleuth HealingArt She makes the Smithsonian’s masterpieces last
a mix of humanity milled about on the circular floor of the grand- est space in the nation’s most imposing building. One hundred and eighty feet overhead, George Washington looked down from the domed ceiling of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, as if surveying the crowd of tourists and federal employees. On this particular morning in early 2013, two pairs of eyes returned his gaze. Seated on a bench at the periphery the immense fresco at the Capitol, a route of the Rotunda were Tiarna Doherty, she was trying to retrace. At that moment, J97, the chief of art conservation at the she was mentally comparing what she saw Smithsonian American Art Museum, and to another, much smaller painting that sat Barbara Wolanin, curator of the Capitol, on an easel in her studio. their heads tipped at an oblique angle, The oil canvas—also by Brumidi, a considering the giant fresco. Its artist, the variation of the big fresco on the can- Italian-born Constantino Brumidi, had opy—presented something of a mystery. painted Apotheosis of George Washington Was it a study? A copy of the finished over an eleven-month period in 1864 and work? Finding out was all part of her job. 1865. He created it section by section, Some people live in glass houses, but applying his paints, as Wolanin pointed Tiarna (pronounced Teerna) Doherty out, to a wet plaster surface, in true fresco works in a glass office. Nestled into the fashion. At the end of the Civil War, when attic space of the former U.S. Patent the scaffolding came down, Brumidi Office—the immense building that revealed to the reunited nation a skyward houses both the Smithsonian American image of its Founding Father ascending Art Museum and the National Portrait into heaven. Gallery—the Lunder Conservation “He actually worked on his ideas for Center is the first permanent conser- years,” Wolanin observed. vation facility to permit the public a Doherty nodded, only too aware of the behind-the-scenes view of preservation long, painterly journey Brumidi took to in progress. Walled off by floor-to-ceiling glass, three-legged stool. “You have to know object’s surface, too, with technolo- Doherty and her team of six conservators your chemistry, your art history—and gies like x-ray, infrared reflectography, and a similar number of interns analyze have the hand skills of an artist.” and multispectral imaging. If the artist and restore paintings, frames, works of art The modern conservator’s goal is changed his or her mind in creating a on paper, and three-dimensional objects to preserve cultural material (be it a work, such tools can reveal generations of in five studios and labs. Museumgoers painting, a structure like Jefferson’s earlier sketches beneath the finished sur- might see one conservator regilding a Monticello, a piece of Victorian jewelry face. They have helped identify the origi- great decorative frame, another peering at with a precious lock of hair, an immi- nal colors of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and a delicate drawing through a microscope grant’s diary, or a snapshot of Eleanor ink inscriptions in the Dead Sea Scrolls. on a giant arm, or Doherty herself—as Roosevelt). But the intervention is always Paint chemistry plays a role as well. was the case last winter—daubing the preceded by close physical examination. “We’re always analyzing tiny paint sam- painted surface of the Brumidi canvas “Fundamentally,” Doherty said, “that’s ples,” said Doherty. Knowledge of the with a damp Q-tip. what conserving is all about—under- paint bases as well as the pigments used “There is a component to our work standing how something was made and is essential to determining not only what that’s sort of CSI,” Doherty told me, refer- making sure you conserve it in that state.” the work looked like originally but which ring to the TV series where highly trained In the case of a painting, the conser- solvents and solutions should be used in investigators “process” a crime scene. As vator will study the work closely under conserving it. recently as the 1950s, the conservator was normal illumination (at the Lunder, Everything is documented. Photo- typically an artist who would moonlight large skylights supply abundant natu- graphs record texture, color, and condi- as a restorer, touching up an old paint- ral light). Next, ultraviolet or raking tion. The conservator writes a detailed ing to replace missing pigment. Not any (angled) light sources may show up loose description of the work. If the artist is more. Twenty-first-century conserva- or cracking paint or previous restorations. alive, the conservator may interview him tion is a discipline in its own right, one Photomicrographs reveal tiny details. or her. The accumulated documenta- that, as Doherty explained, resembles a Conservators can look beneath the tion becomes a dossier, part of the work’s
34 tufts magazine fall 2013 image: courtesy of architects of the capitol X-ray imaging helped Tiarna Doherty figure out the relationship between the small Apotheosis of George Washington she was restoring and the fresco in the Capitol Rotunda (far left).
worthies of his time flanking him and an eagle overhead. In the full-sized fresco, the other Founding Fathers and the eagle are nowhere to be seen. Such differences raised the question of where in the sequence the Smithsonian’s painting fits. Most likely, Doherty thought, theirs was the last study, though it could also have been a record the artist made of the finished dome. Even Barbara Wolanin, who has been the Capitol’s curator since 1985 and is the author of Constantino Brumidi: Artist of the Capitol, wasn’t certain. In trying to figure out the sequence, Doherty returned to the Capitol, this time walking the balcony high above the floor permanent record, an invaluable reference The museum planned to exhibit the of the Rotunda. She found herself pon- for future curators and conservators. work, but certain imperfections had to be dering a pictorial problem that Brumidi It was this set of techniques that corrected first (the auction catalog noted faced—namely, how to create a work that Doherty brought to the task of conserving “professionally executed small spots of could be viewed from far below yet remain Brumidi’s vision of General Washington retouch . . . with a few larger areas of persuasive from quite different sightlines, seated amid the clouds. inpainting,” or filling in of gaps). Enter including the one from which she viewed Tiarna Doherty. Before she addressed the it. The difference in media—oil on canvas painting’s condition, though, she needed versus fresco—raised questions, too. “He for a century and a half, the smaller to know a great deal more, starting with can achieve more subtle effects with oils Apotheosis remained in private hands. At the work’s history. than when painting directly on plaster the artist’s death, in 1880, a son inherited Despite being one-twentieth the diam- with earth pigments,” Doherty explained. the work. In 1919, the circular canvas first eter of the Capitol fresco, the canvas bore a The effect of the latter reminded her of appeared on the auction block, selling marked resemblance to its big brother. For theatrical makeup. “It’s as if he reinforced for $300. After decades spent in various reasons that were not immediately appar- their facial features to make them easier to homes and a Virginia teahouse—during ent, it also differed in significant ways. read from a distance,” she said. which it was reinforced with a new fab- This necessitated a trip to the Athenaeum Yet Doherty still didn’t know for sure ric lining and remounted on its wooden of Philadelphia to see yet another version, whether the Smithsonian’s oil came before stretcher—the canvas came up at auc- one that had belonged to Thomas Ustick or after the fresco. tion at Skinner, Inc., in Boston. In March Walter, the architect charged with com- The solution to the puzzle came when 2012, Lot 260 sold for $539,500. With pleting the Capitol dome (Walter is said the x-ray imaging revealed pentimenti, or the pounding of the gavel, the painting to have hung this small-scale Apotheosis paint layers below the visible surface. The entered the public domain, purchased by over his bed in the years after the Civil finding confirmed that the artist had made the Smithsonian American Art Museum War). In the Walter version, Doherty many changes. One layer depicted the for the nation. found, Washington stands at center, with first president at the center point, just as
fall 2013 tufts magazine 35 Modern art gets special consideration. Horizon forty years ago. After applying a new var- Florence followed. Then came a mas- Line (above) was left uncovered to preserve its nish to saturate the colors, she retouched ter’s from the Winterthur/University of touchable look. Electronic Superhighway (far the painting in a few places, then added Delaware Program in Art Conservation. right) is maintained with scavenged parts. a final varnish. Today the painting In her first long-term professional hangs in the Smithsonian American Art post, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, in Los in the Walter version of the painting. But Museum’s nineteenth-century gallery. Angeles, it became apparent that her drive the x-ray also showed that Brumidi later There, according to Elizabeth Broun, the to succeed in the profession was matched shifted the general’s place in the work. museum’s director, “it helps tell the story by extraordinary ability. As she rose from The artist, Doherty realized, must have of America.” intern to associate conservator of paint- recognized that positioning Washington ings, her former supervisor Mark Leonard at the apex of the dome would appear recalled, “she built bridges through train- awkward from some sightlines. Bolstering at just thirty-eight, doherty occu- ing and workshops, and she brought her this explanation, the x-rays made it clear pies one of the premier jobs in her field, creative foresight to the job.” She helped that Brumidi had adjusted the positions at the nation’s oldest art museum. That’s develop new cleaning systems for modern of the angels for better viewing from the partly because of the single-minded and contemporary paintings, and pub- floor of the Rotunda. devotion with which she has pursued art lished widely. With this evidence in hand, Doherty conservation since her childhood days Along the way, she applied her skills concluded that the Smithsonian canvas in Sherborn, Massachusetts. “I’m one of to paintings at the Getty and from inter- was Brumidi’s final study, the essential those rare people who decided at fifteen national collections. Restoring a Van last step before he clambered up the scaf- what I wanted to do in life,” she said. Gogh, with its thick swirls of pigment, folding to paint the ceiling. “Our painting Doherty remembers the moment she was “like working on the top of a cake,” is this wonderful moment when he’s mak- knew. Her mother was recounting a detec- she recalled. A Getty exhibition on Peter ing final decisions as to how the fresco tive story about an art forgery, and Tiarna Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder will be executed,” Doherty said. Barabara was captivated. “It involved painting”— led to trips to the Netherlands, Germany, Wolanin, who had spent decades looking her favorite childhood avocation—“and and France to analyze works by the two up at Apotheosis, told me she was delighted it was a mystery,” she said. Antwerp masters. An article she co-wrote with Doherty’s findings. “Seeing those She pursued a double major in art his- with Leonard offered new insight into the details is amazing,” she said. “Tiarna tory and chemistry at Tufts (something Rubens-Brueghel collaboration. was able to answer so many questions I’d of a family affair, as her father, Professor By 2011, when the Smithsonian always had about Brumidi’s changes.” Robert Doherty, taught for decades at American Art Museum summoned her Doherty has since completed the con- the School of Dental Medicine, and her to D.C., Doherty was ready to run her servation of the painting, removing old two siblings earned degrees on the Hill). own department. “We wanted someone varnish and discolored restorations from Museum internships in Dublin and who could give us a bigger, broader public
36 tufts magazine fall 2013 images: courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum presence,” remembered Broun, the direc- Doherty said. “And they do.” As if that Just finding replacement parts is daunt- tor. Doherty is the opposite of the studio- weren’t bad enough, some of the graph- ing. Yet for Doherty, the challenge is part bound craftsman. She likes nothing bet- ite invariably comes off on their hands. of the joy. In preparing for a recent exhi- ter than flying to the United Kingdom to Standing before the painting, the five- bition, she discovered that some pieces consult on a painting or to Indianapolis foot-ten-inch Doherty swept her arm with had parts missing. She tried to think like to chair a panel for the American Institute the easy athleticism of a long-time rower the Korean-born artist, who, as she put it, of Conservators. She’s a visible presence and hiker and said, “Then they wipe their “repurposed much of his work.” Using his in the field, a balance of the guarded and hands on the walls.” practice as a guide, Doherty and her team the voluble, a private person in a public Should the work be encased in some scavenged parts from some of the 10,000 job who brings a welcome mix of caution, protective cover? Doherty and a curator contraptions in the Paik archive. intelligence, and a passion for art. talked to Fernández, and the three agreed Much as she enjoys conserving art that public access to the work was para- that incorporates aging electronics, card- mount. While touching must be discour- board, fur, or even more fugitive materi- in modern museums, the definition of aged, covering the work or keeping viewers als, however, her true passion is still work- art has long since broadened from tradi- at a distance would serve neither the art ing with paintings. “What’s fascinating tional painting and sculpture to include nor the artist. An unprotected Nocturnal is that we have paintings coming across media unimagined when Constantino (Horizon Line) remains on view. our easels that are hundreds of years old. Brumidi mixed his pigments. One day Not all the conservation efforts We’re guided by reversibility—we use at the Smithsonian, Doherty pointed concern traditional, static works of water-base materials so if, in the future, to a work by Teresita Fernández, a New art. Consider the creations of the late someone finds we painted the eyes the York artist and MacArthur genius grant Nam June Paik, whose vast archive the wrong color, that can be fixed—and by recipient born in 1968. The rectangular museum acquired in 2009. His Electronic research and science.” The complexity of twelve-foot-wide Nocturnal (Horizon Superhighway, which stands fifteen feet the process—the historical research, the Line) consists of black-on-black bands. high and forty wide, consists of per- technical analysis, the judicious decision It’s an abstracted landscape with a peace- haps a hundred video screens, all alive making—holds great appeal to someone ful darkened sky, its textures seemingly with different images, arranged within like Doherty. But everything she does is about to come to life. The artist used a a neon network that limns the map of guided by a simple principle, she said: special graphite paint that she developed the United States. The enormous work, “Our goal is to have the art last forever.” T with a paint manufacturer. It’s a material with its fifty-one-channel video instal- that can be burnished, tooled, and other- lation and sound system, poses a special Hugh Howard, A74, a historian and the wise manipulated. conservation challenge. For the conserva- author of many books, including Houses of “People are so mesmerized by Horizon tors, the question is, How are we to keep the Presidents, is a regular contributor to Line that they’re dying to touch it,” outmoded technologies in working order? Tufts Magazine.
fall 2013 tufts magazine 37 UNIVERSITY MILESTONES
Punching Above Our
James Stern, departing board chair, reflects on the rise of TuftsWeight
By Heather Stephenson
n 1982, at the age of thirty-two, james a. stern, largest pool of candidates ever to seek admission to the schools E72, A07P, became the youngest person ever elected to of Arts and Sciences and Engineering—18,420 applicants—with the Tufts University Board of Trustees. Already suc- the lowest-ever acceptance rate, 18.8 percent. The students’ SAT cessful on Wall Street, he was accustomed to working scores are higher than ever. The university awarded a record alongside senior decision makers. Still, he says, “it took $16.4 million in need-based financial aid to the incoming a while to learn everything on the board. I was pretty class—an increase of almost $2 million over last year—with careful to pick my spots to get involved.” 34.5 percent of the incoming students receiving a Tufts grant. ISince then, Stern has guided four Tufts presidents, spear- All this is possible in part because of ambitious fundraising. headed two big fundraising campaigns, and made the board “In our last two capital campaigns,” Stern says, “we did some- more engaged and transparent. He and his wife, Jane, have thing that no other research university has ever done. We set endowed three professorships at the university and made sub- fundraising goals that were in excess of our endowment. That’s stantial gifts to boost financial aid. They have also given gener- really punching above your weight.” ously to the annual fund each year. As an undergraduate, Stern majored in civil engineering, This November, Stern will step down from the board after although he says he wasn’t a natural at the subject and consid- thirty-one years, including a decade as its chair. Under his ten- ered transferring out of engineering. Once he decided to stick ure, the university’s endowment has grown to more than thirty with it, “somehow, things began to click,” he recalls. “My engi- times its previous size, from $45.5 million in 1982 to $1.4 billion neering professors really taught me how to think.” in 2012. “Since I’ve been on the board, we’ve raised about $2.2 Stern went on to apply those skills to building institu- billion,” he says. “While raising the money is significant, what is tions, rather than dams and bridges. After Tufts, he headed to most important is what the money has done for Tufts, in terms Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar, of financial aid, the new facilities, and attracting great students an honor awarded to the top five percent of the class. He then and faculty. We’ve gotten into the big leagues.” embarked on a two-decade career with Lehman Brothers. In The admissions numbers bear him out. In 1982, fewer than 1994, he founded The Cypress Group, a New York–based private 10,000 prospective students applied to Tufts, and 35.6 percent equity firm that manages funds totaling more than $3.5 billion. of them were offered admission. By contrast, the class of 2017, He serves as the group’s chairman. which arrived on campus this August, was selected from the Stern has helped steer Tufts through three decades of change,
38 tufts magazine fall 2013 photo: dominick reuter fall 2013 tufts magazine 39 and has enlivened the campus since his student days. Just ask Sol for six thousand. “The athletic facilities, even forty-five years ago, Gittleman, the former provost who is now the Alice and Nathan I would describe as quaint—which we know is a euphemism for Gantcher University Professor. “When Jim was my student more needing improvement. Gantcher was a critical first step.” than forty years ago,” Gittleman says, “his intellect made my classes better. When he returned as a trustee, his insights made 2001: Lawrence Bacow is named Tufts’ twelfth president. “Larry the college better. When he became board chair, his mature wis- recognized that Tufts had arrived at a new level, and gave us the dom made the university better. He has never stopped learning, foundational tools to ascend even higher. Larry reduced it to giving back, or making Tufts a better place.” a simple concept: a great university is comprised of great stu- With characteristic humility, though, Stern says others deserve dents and great faculty. The core of his mission was increasing the credit for the university’s progress. “Through the hard work accessibility and attracting world-class faculty. On top of that, and vision of four extraordinary presidents and their teams, Tufts he and I recognized that the quality of a university can only is in an entirely different position in the world of higher educa- be as great as the quality of its board. We now have an unbe- tion than it was when I joined the board,” he explains. “I’ve had a lievably strong board, with a level of engagement that other front row seat, and it’s been fun and gratify- schools envy.” ing to watch.” Here he considers some of the 1985 milestones along the way. 2002: The Tufts Tomorrow campaign—the largest fundraising effort in the university’s 1982: James Stern, age thirty-two, joins the history to date—is concluded, having raised Tufts Board of Trustees. “I ran at the urging more than $609 million since it began in 1995. of a trustee, Earl Littleton, who had been “The original goal of the campaign was $400 one of my engineering professors. Once million, which at the time there, you couldn’t help but be taken with 1999 we thought was ambi- Jean Mayer, the president. He was a true tious. What an amazing visionary. It was clear from my first board accomplishment.” meeting that he wanted to take Tufts to a different level.” 2003: The President’s Mar- 1985: The Elizabeth Van Huysen Mayer Campus Center opens athon Challenge team runs on the Medford/Somerville campus, and the its first Boston Marathon USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging 2003 to support nutrition, medi- and the Arthur M. Sackler Center for Health cal, and fitness programs Communications open in Boston. The Campaign at Tufts. Stern becomes for Tufts exceeds its $140 million goal by chair of the Board of Trustees. “The Marathon $5 million. “That campaign was an extraordi- Challenge was about the fundraising, but it nary achievement by President Mayer and his also brought together our commitments to team. It was my understanding that the previ- wellness and nutrition. In some respects, it ous capital campaign for Tufts had a goal of was way ahead of its time.” $7 million—and that goal was not achieved.” 2007: Tufts announces that it is replacing 1992: The New Campaign for Tufts successfully raises more than loans with grants for all incoming students from households with $250 million. John DiBiaggio is named Tufts’ eleventh president. incomes below $40,000. “It’s a step in the right direction. The “Jean Mayer did a wonderful job expanding Tufts, but when he amount of money we’ve raised and given to financial aid is never retired, the board realized we needed a president who could take enough.” control of what we had and manage it. John and his team did that.” 2011: Beyond Boundaries: The Campaign for Tufts, which launched 1998: Stern and his wife, Jane, endow the Arthur Stern, Jr., in 2006, exceeds its $1.2 billion goal. “It was a stunning achieve- Professorship in American History—establishing a pattern of gen- ment, especially in light of how dramatically the fundraising envi- erous support that will later include $10 million to endow two more ronment changed beginning in 2008.” Anthony P. Monaco starts professorships in the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering work as Tufts’ thirteenth president. “Tony is an extraordinary tal- and to support financial aid. “What could be more important ent. I really have never been more confident about the leadership to the core mission of Tufts? This year, for example, there are and future direction of the school.” twenty-five Stern scholars on campus. It’s something Jane and I are very proud of. You hope there’s a multiplier effect. If you 2013: Stern hands the reins to the incoming board chair, Peter R. influence the lives of twenty-five, and then they influence the Dolan, A78, A08P (see “Meet the New Board Chair,” on page 70). lives of twenty-five more—that could have a significant impact.” “Many of the issues he will face are the same. How do you pro- pel the university to new heights with a restricted pocketbook? 1999: The Gantcher Family Sports and Convocation Center opens, Schools with whom we compete for students have endowments housing a two-hundred-meter track, four tennis courts, and seating that are twice ours. We have to pedal faster, pedal harder.” T
40 tufts magazine fall 2013 photos: Kelvin Ma, Alonso Nichols, Bethany Versoy Think tank reflections, insights, and words of wisdom
higher education as we know it, the the newly popular DuMont and Zenith brick-and-mortar campus of students television sets. (Max and Shirley were and faculty sharing space, will survive the first in our family to have a five-inch the twenty-first century. screen, around which we crowded to American universities have been rid- watch the 1947 World Series.) Shirley scholar at large ing an extraordinary wave since the end signed up for a television course on of World War II. With Europe and Asia accounting through something called in ruins and Hitler having destroyed Sunrise Semester, administered by New the German universities, the United York University. She wanted a college My First States exploded out of the starting gate. degree, and the new twelve-inch RCA A Tufts graduate, Vannevar Bush, B.S., television set was her classroom. She MOOC M.S., 1913, marshaled the American took a hatful of courses, but never accu- science and technology know-how that mulated enough credits to graduate. The democratizing of led to the National Science Foundation Tufts was itself part of the Lowell higher ed and the massive postwar funding for Institute consortium of universities, the National Institutes of Health. The which produced popular television By Sol Gittleman United States opened its immigration educational offerings. One of the doors just wide enough to welcome the 1960s teachers was Bernie Harleston, a European refugee scientists who became charismatic Tufts professor of psychol- ifty years ago, as a new Americans and gave their Nobel Prize ogy who generated authentic star power assistant professor, I arrived at acceptance speeches in heavily accented in his for-credit course called simply FTufts carrying a Smith-Corona English. Research and education funding Motivation, viewed by thousands of portable typewriter and thirty sheets was available everywhere. Returning Boston adult learners. It was a bona of carbon paper, left over from typing G.I.s poured into American colleges and fide academic course with lectures and my dissertation. That was the cutting graduate schools, and states expanded exams. Many schools still offer televi- edge of academic technology for my their higher education systems as fast as sion courses for credit. But they have time. This summer I registered to take they could. By the late 1950s there were not supplanted the university as we my first “massive open online course,” four thousand colleges and universities have come to know it. Neither have the or MOOC: I felt I had to do something in the United States, and not enough now pervasive online courses of the past more than just whine about what this faculty to fill all the positions: it was the decade—which hew to traditional ideas Internet education will do to the next Golden Age. We became the envy of the like restricted enrollment, limited class generation of faculty. Browsing online, I world, and, in spite of all the criticism, size, and hefty tuitions. discovered among all the dry, technical- costs, and complaints, we remain so. Now comes the Age of the MOOC. sounding MOOCs what seemed like the But the classroom paradigm— Leading research universities, as well as perfect test course for me: The Letters teacher and student facing each other— for-profit entrepreneurs, have launched of the Apostle Paul, taught by Professor stayed the same. To be sure, other paths initiatives that hope to reach hundreds Laura Nasrallah, of Harvard Divinity have coexisted with it. When she was a of thousands—even millions—of School, and offered by EdX, a collabora- teenager in the 1920s, my Aunt Shirley, potential students and change the tion of Harvard, MIT, and other univer- one of the few in our immigrant family paradigm of higher education. Class sities. When it begins this November, who attended high school, took a corre- size: unlimited. Typical tuition: zero. the course will have hundreds, perhaps spondence course to learn shorthand. In MOOCs seem capable of making a thousands, of students. I note with the 1930s she switched to a radio course, college degree available to anyone with trepidation that ninety percent of those but dropped out, because her English a computer and a willingness to study. enrolled in MOOCs drop out. I hope to wasn’t up to following the broadcast Thousands of syllabi, lectures, and be among the ten percent who finish. By lectures. Meanwhile, her husband, my course curricula have been made avail- the end of this experience, perhaps I will Uncle Max, switched from repairing able on the Internet; and now visionar- have a better idea of whether American radios right after the war to installing ies are trying to organize them into the
illustrations: dan page fall 2013 tufts magazine 41 think tank
university of the future—with degrees trouble sleeping and concentrating, and Even experienced clinicians, they main- to go along with them—at a fraction of your appetite was probably dimin- tained, had a hard time distinguishing traditional cost. ished. You may have felt less inclined grief from major depression. Many questions remain: How will to socialize than usual. And yet, when After years of debate, DSM-5 offi- credit be granted? Will actual degrees be a friend or family member phoned or cials decided to eliminate the bereave- conferred? Will employers accept them? stopped by, you probably perked up for ment exclusion. They reasoned that Can the high dropout rate be overcome? a while—only to feel those pangs of when a patient meets all the usual Will the faculty accept this model? Does sadness a few hours later. criteria for major depression, the recent the American college go the way of the If all this rings a bell, you probably death of a loved one should not preclude bookstore and newspaper? had what clinicians call “normal” or the diagnosis of MDD. After all, they I’ll let you know when I’m done with “uncomplicated” grief (if grief can argued, a person can experience grief St. Paul. ever be uncomplicated). After weeks and major depression simultaneously— or months, you may have found your so why delay help for the depression? Sol Gittleman, the Alice and Nathan mood, concentration, sleep, appetite, Many mood disorder specialists, Gantcher University Professor, has and desire to socialize bouncing back. myself included, agreed with the DSM-5 been a professor of German, Judaic Eventually, perhaps, you managed to decision. We argued that grief and depres- studies, and biblical literature and is look back on your loss with a calm sense sion, while sharing features like insomnia a former provost of the university. of perspective. At that point, you were and decreased appetite, occupy different experiencing “integrated grief.” realms of experience. This concept is All these experiences are normal— nothing new. Nearly two centuries ago, what the fifteenth-century monk Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liady distin- Thomas à Kempis called the “the proper guished between sorrow, or “constructive sorrows of the soul.” Ordinary grief grief,” and melancholy, or “dejection.” is not a disorder, nor does it require His descriptions correspond very closely professional treatment. Love, support, to our modern concepts of ordinary grief mind and spirit and “tincture of time” usually suf- and major depression. But how, exactly, fice. Yet this subject recently fueled an do these differ? intense controversy among psychiatrists The normally grieving person and many in the “grief support” com- maintains the hope that things will get Good Grief, munity. The disagreement focused on better, and experiences pangs of sadness a poorly understood rule in the official interspersed with positive feelings. In or Bad diagnostic manual for psychiatrists— contrast, the depressive person’s mood the DSM-IV—and on whether the rule is almost uniformly one of gloom, Depression? should be retained in the new DSM-5, despair, and hopelessness, nearly every which came out this year. day—often accompanied by thoughts They can mimic each other— The so-called bereavement exclu- of suicide. The grieving person usually and you can have both sion instructed clinicians not to maintains a strong emotional bond diagnose major depressive disorder with friends and family, and is often by Ronald Pies (MDD) within two months after the consoled by them. Severe depression death of a loved one, unless certain usually makes one too self-focused serious features were present—such and emotionally isolated to accept o you remember the last as suicidal intentions, psychosis, or such comfort. The psychologist Kay R. time you were grieving? markedly decreased ability to function. Jamison has observed, “The capacity to DMaybe a loved one had died, Supporters of the bereavement exclu- be consoled is a consequential distinc- or an important relationship had ended. sion argued that many symptoms of tion between grief and depression.” Or maybe you had lost that dream job. MDD are to be expected after the death Sometimes, friends, family, or Naturally, you felt very sad—but you of a loved one; they didn’t want psychia- inexperienced clinicians mistake ordi- may have been able to function reason- trists “medicalizing” a perfectly normal nary grief for major depression. More ably well at home or at work. You were human reaction. They also worried that commonly, in my experience, signs of probably tearful at times, as waves of many normally bereaved people would serious depression are inappropriately grief washed over you. At other times, wind up on antidepressants, with their dismissed as normal, merely because you may have found yourself smiling at attendant side effects, after a perfunc- they occur soon after the death of a a cherished memory. You may have had tory evaluation by a general physician. loved one. Whenever the diagnosis is
42 tufts magazine fall 2013 uncertain, I recommend evaluation by a space without a fight. In other words, distraught, I shared what the pitcher had specialist in mood disorders. she was most likely engaging in what told me—that his last pitch was too easy The good news is that both talk ther- we now call positive reframing—the to hit, resulting in a hard-to-catch line apy and medication can help postbe- practice of either focusing on the posi- drive. I also reminded the boy that before reavement depression. As for ordinary tive aspects of a bothersome situation the game, I had denied him time in the grief, we may actually become stronger or just looking at it differently. Positive outfield to practice shagging fly balls. He as we heal from our loss and the fiber of reframing helps us see our children— went from thinking he had blown the grief gets woven into the larger tapes- and our children see themselves—in a game to understanding that several fac- try of our life. As a rabbinical paradox more favorable light. tors had contributed to our team’s loss. puts it, “There is nothing as whole as a Applied to how we view children, the Finally, even some of the toughest broken heart.” technique can prevent us from over- behavior problems often respond to reacting. When an adolescent does all positive reframing. For instance, when Ronald Pies, M.D., is a clinical professor those adolescent things, such as leav- a first-grader made a beeline for the of psychiatry at the School of Medicine. ing her room a mess and spending too colored pencils by walking on chairs much time texting, we can take refuge and desktops, his teacher said, “That’s in the knowledge that by challenging a great idea to use colored pencils for authority and connecting with friends, your journal. And you got them all by she is working through an important yourself.” She went on to suggest that in developmental stage. Positive reframing the future, he keep his feet on the floor, can help us understand children from which he agreed to do. different cultures, too. For example, Another teacher, faced with a kids these days Native American students often resist student, James, who suddenly jumped participating in competitive learning up from a class meeting and started to games such as spelling bees, causing dance, turned to his classmates and said some teachers to see them as disengaged. matter-of-factly, “James likes to dance.” When Kids However, when the students’ resistance is James responded by sitting down and understood as an expression of a cultural rejoining the meeting. Give You bias toward cooperation over competi- The developmental psychologist tion, the teacher can see strength in it. Jerome Bruner praises the unflappable Lemons . . . Applied to helping kids interpret their Head Start teacher who, while reading own behavior, positive reframing can “Little Red Riding Hood” to her young The child-rearing savvy of foster growth. It can help overcome aver- students, was stopped short at the looking on the bright side sions, as it did for one young boy who famous “All the better to eat you!” line. hated bath time. Knowing he enjoyed One little boy leapt to his feet, furious, By W. George Scarlett war play, his mother got him to see the and began cursing the wolf, swear- bath as a place to enact sea battles, bring- ing like a sailor. The teacher simply ing in toy ships and using bubble bath reflected to herself on how much mean- eo kanner, author of the to simulate foamy waves. The mother of ing the boy was finding in the story first textbook on child psychia- a reluctant eater presented broccoli as and then asked him how he would have L try, used to tell of two mothers “dino trees”—which her “brontosaurus” written it differently. The question got he knew. One complained that her sons son would then devour. A couple with him thinking—and quieted him down. would spread the Sunday comics on a daughter who resisted going to sleep We might try to emulate that teach- the living room floor to read them. The because her room was dark and scary er’s self-possession and know-how the other, whose sons had done the same held a dance party in the dark, after next time a kid’s shenanigans drive us thing as children, said it was one of her which she associated being in the dark to salty language ourselves. As it turns fondest memories. He used to argue that with having a good time. out, looking on the bright side isn’t the second mother was the better parent, Positive reframing can shore up just for Pollyannas. It’s for anyone who because she had a more positive attitude. children’s confidence as well. On the wants to help children develop while But what was behind that posi- last play of an important game, the right preserving their own sanity. tive attitude? Perhaps the mother was fielder on a Little League team I coached thinking about how her children were dropped a line-drive fly ball, which W. George Scarlett is senior lecturer in, honing their reading skills. Or how they allowed our opponents to score the and deputy chair of, the Eliot-Pearson were sharing both comics and floor winning run. When the boy came to me Department of Child Development.
fall 2013 tufts magazine 43 wellness Health news from Tufts
Is “Gluten-Free” Better?
f proust were writing today, his inspiration would most likely be a gluten-free madeleine. From hamburger buns to cake mix to Passover matzo, gluten-free foods Ihave become a supermarket mainstay. Yet the decision to adopt a gluten-free diet should not be made lightly, says Tricia Thompson, N91, a registered dietitian who specializes in such regimens. Avoiding gluten will not, repeat not, help you take off extra pounds, Thompson says. Nor is gluten harmful for those who do not have a medical reason to avoid it—like celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that damages nutrient-absorbing hairs in the small intestine. Others in Hypnosis the medical community agree with her. “Sense should pre- vail over sensibility to prevent a gluten preoccupation from for Dental Pain evolving into the conviction that gluten is toxic for most of the population,” write the authors of a recent article in If you’ve gotten lost in a book or found yourself “in the zone” at Annals of Internal Medicine. the gym, you’ve been in a kind of hypnotic trance, so focused They list three reasons not to self-prescribe a gluten-free on the task at hand that time passed unnoticed. Dentists can diet. First, it makes it harder later on to determine whether you take advantage of that state to help patients manage pain, have celiac disease, because gluten has to be part of your diet in says Teresa Sienkiewicz, a physical therapist who specializes order for you to be tested. Second, in treating facial pain and headaches, and who uses clinical if you do have celiac disease but hypnosis on her patients. don’t properly follow a gluten- Speaking at Tufts School of Dental Medicine last fall, free regimen—which is dif- Sienkiewicz described techniques like guided imagery, in which ficult to manage without patients imagine physically pushing away the pain or visualize the medical guidance that it swirling down a bathtub drain. With guided imagery, people comes with testing and a who can easily reach a deep trance state can “set their pain to real diagnosis—you can zero,” she said. But even for control freaks—those who are harm your body. And generally less susceptible to hypnosis and are capable of only third, a gluten-free diet shallow trances—hypnosis can still help modulate pain. The is just plain expensive. A techniques can also help people master their fear of going to Canadian study found that the dentist. gluten-free alternatives cost Sienkiewicz cited research published in 2009 in European more than triple the price of the Journal of Pain, which found that hypnosis can help patients regular foods. deal with pain from fibromyalgia. She recommended that Thompson adds that some gluten-free products are simply dentists learn such techniques in training sessions designed not healthful—low in fiber and whole grains, lacking in vita- for health care professionals, and use them in conjunction with mins and minerals, or high in fat and sugar. Today’s packaged medication or cognitive behavioral therapy. Sensitive practi gluten-free brownie, it seems, is much the same as yesterday’s tioners can make a difference, too, she said: any kind of caring fat-free cookie—junk food hiding under a “health halo.” attention from a medical professional seems to have a positive (from tufts nutrition) effect on pain management. (from tufts dental medicine)
44 tufts magazine fall 2013 cats and dogs Help for Itchy Pets
utts turn mangy, or The first step is generally to put the else pepper the rug with pet on a strict diet for two months. If the dandruff. Cats get pim- condition seems to improve, the owner M ples on their chins or may is instructed to give the pet its old food scratch themselves at a fever pitch. Our once more to see whether the symptoms pets are susceptible to hundreds of bac- get worse again. If food proves not to be terial and fungal infections, parasites, the culprit, the vet will probably look into and autoimmune disorders of the skin. environmental allergies. This involves So it’s no wonder that dermatological a blood test in combination with a skin issues are the number-one reason they allergy test, similar to the pin-prick test end up at the vet’s office. used for people. Fleas and other contagious parasites Managing an environmental allergy unlucky dog, you might be allergic to are easily treatable. A bacterial or yeast in pets is usually not possible with life- people”—that is, to human dander. infection can be cured with antibiotics style changes alone, Lam cautions. “Tree, Fortunately, a vet can develop an or antifungal drugs. But the most com- weed, and grass pollen can blow in from immunotherapy regimen for your pet’s mon cause of skin infections is allergies. far away,” she says. “It doesn’t mat- most serious allergens. The regimen And because dogs and cats can be aller- ter what’s in your yard, or if you keep consists of shots that are administered gic to many things, identifying the cul- your dog inside. Every time you open a over many months and contain tiny prit requires trial and error, according window or door, those pollens will get amounts of substances to which an ani- to Andrea Lam, a veterinary dermatolo- in your home. Some pets are allergic mal is allergic. Lam notes that immu- gist at Tufts’ Foster Hospital for Small to house dust or dust mites. You can notherapy improves symptoms in about Animals and the Tufts VETS clinic in vacuum a lot, but it won’t be enough to seventy percent of cases. (from tufts Walpole, Massachusetts. fix the problem. And if you are a really veterinary medicine)
Eat Lunch Early
No matter what you eat, when you eat may play a significant role in how much you weigh. A recent study by researchers from Tufts, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the University of Murcia in Spain followed four hundred twenty people who enrolled in a twenty-week weight-loss program in Spain. The dieters were divided into two groups: early eaters (who ate a Mediterranean- style lunch before three p.m.) and late eaters (who ate the same lunch after three p.m.). The results, published in the January 13 issue of International Journal of Obesity, showed that the early eaters lost an average of twenty-two pounds in twenty weeks, while the late eaters lost seventeen pounds. A possible explanation is that the body might process the glucose generated by meals differently depending on the time of day. Another factor might be that late eaters tend to eat less for breakfast, or skip the meal altogether, contrary to most dieting advice. (from tufts nutrition)
Photo: istockphoto; illustrations: marc rosenthal, juliette borda, katherine streeter fall 2013 tufts magazine 45 creations your ventures in the arts and media by kara peters
Stacy Horn, writer When we sing that way, I get to really feel and chorister the harmony in a way I wouldn’t if I was just singing with other sopranos. There’s nothing like it.
When you sing, the brain releases all these neurochemicals like oxytocin and dopamine that are associated with feel- ing good. One study showed that singing triggered endorphin release, which alle- viates pain. But it turns out that it’s the active performance of music that gener- ates the endorphin high, not just listen- ing to music.
I was very insecure about my voice, so I took some private lessons from the choir’s associate director, and the first thing she did was play me a recording of our choir singing. I was blown away by how good it is. “Your voice is in there,” she said. Realizing that I was contributing to that amazing sound gave me a lot more confidence.
When you sing a masterpiece, you be- come the masterpiece. When you sing a requiem you’re channeling whatever the composer felt through your body. author’s voice Requiems are often the best of a compos- er’s work. They’re an awesome responsi- bility—they need to commemorate a life, Preaching from the Choir comfort the living, and touch on the infi- nite. The composer puts everything into Once, when she was twenty-six and newly divorced, Stacy Horn, J78, sat on her apart- trying to communicate these magnificent ment floor and wrote a list of things that would make her happy again. She recalled the joy concepts. When I sing requiems, I feel she had felt singing in a boyfriend’s church choir one Christmas, so she joined the Choral the infinite, that possibility that there’s Society of Grace Church in New York City. In IMPERFECT HARMONY (ALGONQUIN), a book something more than what I perceive. It’s filled with fascinating history, science, and personal revelations, she tells the story of how ironic that when you sing about death, she and countless others have found happiness and strength in singing together. you feel more alive.
“Singing is the one area of my life where feeling good is pretty much guaranteed. It I’m an agnostic, but I believe in the glo- alleviates suffering and elevates joy. If you feel bad, you’ll feel better. If you feel great, ries of the universe and the glories we you’ll feel even greater. possess. I think that singing sacred music elevates us, encourages us to live kinder, Our director made us rehearse in quartets—one soprano, one alto, one tenor, one bass. better, more compassionate, more appre- It was absolutely terrifying, because you can’t fake it. You have to know the piece. ciative lives. It is worship to me—I’m just Because he did that, everyone worked really hard to learn their parts beforehand. worshipping everything short of God.”
46 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photo: brad paris BOOKS success, and the ultimately empty virtual to her husband’s treason, but she used connections that rob people’s lives of true her social savvy to spare her own reputa- meaning. tion. Lucy, also abandoned by her family after her marriage, followed her husband through army camps, birthed thirteen children, and was declared “one of the heroines of the Revolution.”
Note to Self Faber and Faber At first glance, Anna might be just another Defiant Brides: The Untold Story self-centered young Brooklyn hipster, of Two Revolutionary-Era Women mired in extended adolescent angst and and the Radical Men They Married halfheartedly searching for the perfect Beacon shabby-glam job. But it turns out she’s Abigail Adams’ plea to “remember the The Icarus Deception pushing middle age, was recently fired ladies” goes largely unheeded where Portfolio-Penguin from a clerical job at a law firm, and lives Revolutionary War history is concerned. The Icarus myth has always been a lesson with a Craigslist roommate who’s ten years Nancy Rubin Stuart, J66, bucks this trend in caution: fly too far from your comfort younger. To make matters worse, she’s a by unearthing the parallel stories of Peggy zone and get burned. But in an economy hard-core Internet addict who escapes her Shippen Arnold and Lucy Flucker Knox, the where job stability has become as precari- pathetic life by reading about people who audacious wives of Benedict Arnold and ous as Icarus’ wings, the business guru have it worse. Alina Simone, J97, expertly Henry Knox. Peggy, an affluent Philadelphia Seth Godin, A79, says we need to fly taps into the sources of modern despera- belle who defied her family to marry Arnold, higher than ever. Whether you’re a sculptor tion: an obsession with the appearance of endured a lifetime of persecution, thanks or a marketing consultant, this requires also of note
Strategically situated between China and Russia, Mongolia has a wry sendup of the college admissions process in Admission forged closer commercial and diplomatic ties with the United Lottery. The Gamification Revolution, by Gabe Zichermann States in recent years. JONATHAN ADDLETON, F82, former and JOSELIN LINDER, J98, looks at how the principles be- ambassador to Mongolia, traces the course of this relationship hind popular video games can help businesses retain talent, in Mongolia and the United States: A Diplomatic History. In the motivate workers, grow sales, and generate customer loyalty. memoir Gone Too Soon, JONATHAN BAER, A87, wrestles with Bombs and Believers, by KEN SONENCLAR, A76, F79, is a his grief following the unexpected death of his baby daughter, suspenseful thriller, complete with international terrorism, art Samantha. The Self in Schooling: Theory and Practice—How theft, and murder. In The Children of 1965: On Writing, and to Create Happy, Healthy, Flourishing Children in the 21st Not Writing, as an Asian American, MIN HYONG SONG, G93, Century, by HENRY B. BRZYCKI, G03, presents an interdisci- G98, explores representations of race in the writing of a new plinary approach to education that prioritizes children’s mental generation of Asian-American authors. Christopher Parish, health. MARK COHEN, G83, looks at how the comedian Allen the protagonist of Hawkweed and Indian Paintbrush—the Sherman brought Jewish humor into the comedic mainstream fourteenth novel by JONATHAN STRONG, lecturer in English in the biography Overweight Sensation. BETTE JOHNSON, at Tufts—confronts the Balkanization of his own life as he J65, a retired MIT associate director of admissions, presents attempts to create a Serb-Croat-Slovene historical atlas.
fall 2013 tufts magazine 47 creations
thinking of your work as art. In other among political parties. People increas- Then,” which finds a bored Rosalind step- words, be bold, be creative, and challenge ingly sought out partisan news sources, ping out of the pastoral As You Like It to the status quo. He profiles unlikely “art- with the result that political beliefs and date the three male principals in Henry ists,” such as Cynthia Carroll, a mining voting behavior grew more polarized. Ladd IV. Bamber weaves scholarly commentary company CEO who voluntarily shut down doesn’t advocate returning to the mono- into her inventive plots, but she ulti- the world’s most profitable platinum mine lithic media of the 1950s. Instead, he mately makes you realize that after all the to improve safety, and San Persand, a considers how we might strike a balance theory has left us, it’s the characters that low-level employee at an aquaculture facil- between an unchallenged media estab- remain. From them we take what we like ity who invented a better fish pen. lishment and fragmented partisanship. and spin our own stories.
MUSIC
Why Americans Hate the Media Taking What I Like and How It Matters Black Sparrow Princeton These sly, whimsical stories by Linda Mintz Quartet Many critics of today’s news media Bamber, an associate professor of A prolific composer, arranger, and jazz yearn for the measured authority of English at Tufts, read like the daydreams pianist, Roberta Piket, J88, adds her Walter Cronkite and the respect he and of an English professor nodding off during talents to the drummer Billy Mintz’s debut other mid-twentieth-century journalists a faculty meeting. In “Casting Call,” she recording. Mintz has played in the Roberta inspired. Confidence in the media is at reincarnates the cast of Othello amid the Piket Trio for the past ten years. Along record lows, and it’s affecting our nation’s sexual, racial, and academic politics of a with acclaimed saxophonist John Gross political functioning. Marshaling histori- college English department whose head, and bassist Putter Smith, they recorded cal evidence, experiments, and public Desdemona, grapples with an affirma- the entire CD in one night, and their easy opinion surveys, Jonathan M. Ladd, tive action hire, her resurgent feelings rapport shines through. Piket’s technical A00, argues that the public’s trust in for Othello, and the creepy machinations virtuosity is evident in numbers like “Dit” institutional media waned as competition of Iago. Bamber shakes up another and “Ugly Beautiful,” and she gets to intensified, both among news outlets and Shakespearian cocktail in “That Was show off her husky alto in “Destiny.”
Wintersweet Running Press In the cold, hungry days of January, endless piles of parsnips, chard, and potatoes can make even the most committed seasonal epicure long for summer. Tammy Donroe Inman, J95, invites you to turn on the oven and turn those winter staples into heart-warming, mouth-watering desserts. Her tantalizing recipes transform apples, pears, quince, pomegranates, nuts, chocolate, citrus, and yes, even those ubiquitous root vegetables into luscious confections like rosemary Meyer lemon tart (shown at far left), rosy poached quince, chocolate-pomegranate pavlova, and chai-spiced squash pie. Perhaps best of all, Inman counts dishes like blue cheese fondue as dessert. If you can end a meal with a cheese course, she reasons, what’s the harm in melting it? No arguments here.
48 tufts magazine fall 2013 photo: Steve Legato News&Notes a Community Digest of The tufts university Alumni association
Heavy Lifting How the class of ’68 pulled together and set a new giving record
By Heather Stephenson
or nancy gurwitz sambul, j68, it all started immediately agreed. What followed was a whirlwind of social with a photo. In the summer of 2012, she noticed networking—and a remarkable class achievement. A record- a picture of seven of her female classmates in this breaking forty-three percent of the class of 1968 made a gift magazine and started daydreaming about seeing to Tufts in honor of their forty-fifth reunion. And thanks to them at their fiftieth reunion. Then she read the various challenges the university offers to inspire reunion accompanying article and learned that two of giving, two $10,000 class of 1968 scholarships were created Fthe women had recently died. “Who else is going to die in the for current students in need of financial aid. next five years whom I’m going to regret not having stayed in Along the way, a lot of old friends reconnected. “We touch with?” she asked herself. just had wonderful conversations,” says Sambul, who is the Sambul picked up the phone and started calling friends, executive director of the Jersey City Library Literacy Program. asking them to meet her at their forty-fifth reunion. And In her Tufts days, Sambul was “very social”: president when she was invited to join the reunion committee, she of the freshman class, field hockey player, stage actor. She
illustration: philip anderson fall 2013 tufts magazine 49 News&Notes
majored in math and, after Tufts, earned a law degree and an creates a legacy in their name.” M.B.A. Her combination of strengths—knowing people and Bello’s larger goal is to inspire other alumni, whether in reunion knowing numbers—helped her see the importance of a key classes or not, to support Tufts and strengthen its ability to educate element in the reunion effort: the class participation rate. tomorrow’s active citizens. Giving to the university has been a That rate—the percentage of alumni who make a high priority for Bello and his wife, Nancy, J69, A13P. gift, of any size, to their alma mater in the course of a They funded the Nelson Gateway Garden at the year—is widely seen as a measure of alumni satisfac- Tisch Sports and Fitness Center, as well as the first tion. Influential publications like U.S. News & World artificial-turf field on campus. “Tufts has everything Report factor the alumni participation rate into their going for it except sufficient financial resources to annual rankings of colleges and universities. And the effectively compete for primacy among America’s rate guides foundations and corporations in decisions most elite academic institutions,” John Bello says. “As about which institutions deserve their support. graduates, Nancy and I are concentrating the bulk of Participation rates vary widely from one institu- John Bello our philanthropy on Tufts because we believe focus tion to another (see the chart on page 51). At Tufts, here will have the greatest impact.” the average participation rate for all classes is twenty percent. Eye on Financial Aid The class of 1968 decided to aim high. They In its fundraising efforts, the class was determined to would try to break the participation record for a make a lasting impact. The best way to do that, the Tufts forty-fifth reunion, which stood at thirty- committee decided, was by strengthening financial seven percent. That would bring Tufts closer to aid. “It’s so difficult for families to cope with college the participation rates of schools like Dartmouth, costs,” says Anthony Cortese, E68, EG72, a commit- raising the bar for other Jumbo classes and elevating tee member who sits on the Tufts Board of Trustees Nancy Sambul Tufts’ stature nationally. The competition was on. and was formerly dean of environmental programs at Sambul and other members of the reunion Tufts. “We really wanted to increase the scholarships committee divided up their class list. “It all boils down available for students at Tufts.” to personal contact,” says one committee member, It’s a strategy that not only helps the students John Bello, A68, A13P, who sits on the Athletics Board who receive aid, but improves the overall Tufts of Advisors, is a longtime advocate for Tufts, and is experience and Tufts’ competitive standing, Cortese the former president of NFL Properties and founder says. Currently, some other institutions can provide of the SoBe brand of beverages. “These days it’s easy more generous financial aid packages, so “when it to do, with email, phone, postcards, Facebook.” comes down to getting the best students, we could The committee also offered incentives for Tony Cortese lose out.” classmates to make a gift in honor of their reunion. Cortese knows something about financial aid. A First, there was the so-called Everyone Counts challenge, in kid from an “inner-city, blue-collar” family in Boston’s North End, which a $10,000 scholarship in the class’s name is made available he was a beneficiary. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in to all reunion classes by an anonymous alumnus—but with a civil engineering as a commuter student at Tufts and went on to catch. For a class to qualify, fifty of its members would have to earn a doctorate in environmental health sciences. Cortese says the make their first gift of the year between April 1 and the reunion, diversity at Tufts changed his life and can help other young people in mid-May. Not only was the class of 1968 the first to meet that become more “cosmopolitan, caring, and tolerant.” Besides serving challenge, but it rounded up another fifty qualifying donors and as a Tufts dean, Cortese was formerly the commissioner of the earned a second $10,000 scholarship. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) As they stretched to reach these goals, committee members and president of Second Nature, a Boston-based nonprofit advocacy used a combination of old-fashioned networking, social media, organization he cofounded to promote sustainability through and online searches. They found “lost” alumni and updated higher education. He is now a senior fellow at Second Nature. contact information for many more, making it easier for members Beyond gratitude for his education, Cortese has another of the class to connect with each other and with Tufts. reason for wanting to give back to Tufts: he credits Tufts Bello, who majored in history at Tufts while on a Navy ROTC Medical Center and the Tufts University School of Medicine scholarship and went on to earn an M.B.A., organized his fellow with his current good health. Three months after becoming the Delta Upsilon fraternity brothers to create a scholarship of their Massachusetts DEP commissioner in 1979, he was diagnosed own. They raised $50,000, which the university matched through with acute leukemia. “If it weren’t for the experimental protocols its current Financial Aid Initiative, to create a $100,000 endowed developed by medical school faculty and others,” he says, “I scholarship. “My hope is this will be something for each Delta would not be alive today.” Upsilon class to work against, as a tradition,” Bello says. “It Cortese serves on boards and committees for Tufts to ensure
50 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photos: courtesy of PHOTOS by PHYLLIS© (Bello), Robert CAplin (Sambul), Dina Rudick (Cortese) The Alumni Community Digest
that future generations have the opportunities he enjoyed, or even name, learning about the dollar-for-dollar match, and being asked better ones, as the university continues to develop. He has helped by someone he knew to inspire him to give. organize nearly every reunion since his graduation. “Because of “John and his persistence did it all,” he says. “He puts his heart the nature of the work I’ve done, I don’t have the ability to contrib- into the mission. Eventually, I said, ‘OK, sign me up.’” ute large sums of money, but I always make a gift,” he says. “I also For Bob Budnick, E68, the class reunion inspired a bring other things to the table—ideas, connections, enthusiasm. mini-reunion of a dozen fraternity brothers from Theta Delta I can help organize people, and I can be a positive spokesman for Chi. Together with many of their spouses, they attended a the institution. That’s what I’ve tried to do.” few Tufts events but spent most of their weekend off campus, catching up and reminiscing. “We had a blast,” Budnick says. Person to Person “After spending just a short time together it was like we’d never Asking for money isn’t always easy, but Nancy Sambul says she left Tufts and the fraternity house.” was very comfortable seeking support for Tufts. Her father, Jack Plans for their gathering started with a few fraternity brothers Gurwitz, A34, M38, was a class gift officer before her, and taught emailing each other to ask if they were going to the reunion. Then her the importance of sustained giving. “I’ve always given, except Budnick asked the reunion committee for an address list and for a few years in law school and when I was clerking and couldn’t got in touch with other fraternity members who agreed to join afford to,” she says. “My father told me, ‘So few people give. If in the fun. After visiting their former fraternity house together, everybody in the class gave something, we would do better.’” some of the classmates are talking about helping to restore the For those receiving the request, being asked directly by building, which Budnick says has fallen on difficult times. He someone they knew often meant the difference between a no and is grateful that the reunion served as an impetus for them to get a yes. “Quite candidly, the only reason I supported this effort and back together. “It was a shame that we had gone all these years the class gift was because of friendship with John,” says Peter with no concerted effort to maintain strong relationships,” he Marshall, E68, a retired rear admiral with the U.S. Navy Civil says. “We told the current brothers we saw at the house, ‘Don’t Engineer Corps who connected with Bello as a fellow Tufts Navy let it happen to you.’” ROTC graduate. “I felt supporting him was appropriate. I was Budnick’s reconnection with his fraternity brothers is just one glad to see it was intended as a scholarship.” example of the sort of engagement needed to boost class partici- For Bello, Marshall’s gift was particularly meaningful because pation rates. Bello hopes other classes will follow the model of the classmates had a chance to talk about Tufts’ current support the class of 1968, or find their own ways to support Tufts. “As of the ROTC program. “Peter was surprised to learn that Tufts alumni, we all have a responsibility to improve and enhance the reinstituted the NROTC program that made it possible for him to Tufts experience through sustained giving, however large or go to Tufts but was removed from campus in the turbulent sixties,” small,” he says. “It is our legacy.” Bello says. “My call helped him reengage, recognizing that the university was doing the right thing.” Undergraduate Alumni Participation rates FY13 Like Marshall, Herbert (Hank) Towle, A68, hadn’t considered financial support for the university a priority—until Bello asked him to make a gift to the Delta Williams Upsilon scholarship. Towle, a retired college captain in the U.S. Navy Dental Corps and retired professor at the University 60% of Florida College of Dentistry, says he Tufts Class of Dartmouth received “a great education in spite of 1968 college myself” at Tufts and has for a decade interviewed prospective students for 43% boston 44.5% Tufts college undergraduate admissions. But it took the combination of knowing his gift would 20% 27.2% go toward a scholarship in his fraternity’s
How You Can Help. Boost your class’s participation rate directly by making a gift—visit giving.tufts.edu/make_a_gift for details. Or join the Tufts Fund Gift Officer Program, a volunteer-based, annual-giving fundraising initiative that helps you reconnect with classmates while supporting the continued growth of Tufts. Contact Melissa White, Director, Tufts Fund for Arts, Sciences & Engineering, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155, 617.627.5335, [email protected].
fall 2013 tufts magazine 51 News&Notes classes
The Class of 1948 HILL The Class of 1958’s Trinidad and Tobago in Olympic at Commencement on May 19, 48 reunion committee 58 reunion was perhaps Games Sports (University of in recognition of the more than thanks all the classmates who the best attended of any fifty-fifth Trinidad and Tobago Press, 2011). 130 alumni who came back to returned in May to celebrate the reunion in Tufts history. Thanks A native of Trinidad, Ince ran track the Hill. The weekend included a sixty-fifth reunion. At the 55 & to an active reunion committee, at Tufts and won the Clarence “Pop” lecture by Lynne Pepall, dean of Over luncheon, alumni enjoyed there were great reviews for the Houston trophy as the university’s the Graduate School of Arts and cocktails and a chance to catch Saturday night class-sponsored top athlete in 1959. He ran for Sciences, and George Vaillant, up. Gift Chair Paul Barsam dinner at Alumnae Lounge. Between Trinidad in the 1959 Pan American a professor at Harvard Medical reported that thirty percent of reunions, the class will continue Games, winning gold in the 1,600- School, who discussed a seventy- the class had contributed to the to host luncheons for the annual meter relay and a silver medal in the year-long study of Harvard men reunion class gift, donating more recipients of the Class of 1958 400-meter event. He was his coun- that debunked several myths than $35,000 to the annual fund, Scholarship, and strongly encourage try’s team manager for the 1976 about the secrets of a long life. which provides support to current alumni to attend the 55 & Over Olympics in Montreal. Ince has The class hosted current Tufts Tufts students. Since the last luncheon at Tufts next May. For the served as Trinidad’s foreign minister students at its Friday lunch to hear reunion five years ago, the class second consecutive year, Paul A. and as ambassador to England. about their ideas and interests. has donated nearly $399,000 to Rowe, chairman of Greenbaum, The class also closed in on its the university. Rowe, Smith & Davis, has received HILL Jeff Camhi, an $1 million goal for the class schol- the number-one ranking statewide 60 emeritus professor of arship fund. “We have been help- HILL Classmates from as on the 2013 New Jersey Super biology at the Hebrew University of ing deserving students for nearly 53 near as Cape Cod and as Lawyers Top Ten list; he was fea- Jerusalem, has published A Dam ten years,” says Linda Dixon, F99, far away as California attended tured on the cover of the organiza- in the River: Releasing the Flow of who led the reunion committee, the sixtieth reunion of the Class tion’s magazine. Rowe also received University Ideas. The book, written “and now that we are near our of 1953 in May. At Tufts Night at the National Judge Learned Hand for the general reader, is based goal, we can provide significantly Pops, the class received the Tufts Award and is listed in Best Lawyers in part on Camhi’s experience as greater support.” Reunion com- Participation Cup, recognizing the in America. His legal practice founding director of an “open-cam- mittee members were: Don Avery, highest participation rate (forty- focuses primarily on corporate, busi- pus museum” and on his research E63; Betty Finnegan Borghesani, three percent) to a reunion class ness, and matrimonial cases. about how American universities E8 8 P, J89 P; Roger Borghesani, gift. The class luncheon was punc- and colleges share (or don’t share) E88P, J89P; Brian Burns, E63, tuated by stories from the past HILL Basil A. Ince recently their knowledge with the public. E88P; Sonny Cataldo, D67; Jim and plans for future get-togethers. 59 published two books: Fay, D67; Bill Harris; Betty Blake And the six-foot-wide class banner, Black Meteors: The Caribbean HILL The Class of 1963’s Hinkley, A95P; Jane Finneman the largest of any reunion class, in International Track and Field 63 fiftieth reunion weekend Hochman; Peter Hourihan, J94P; received well-deserved notice. (Amazon, 2012) and Olympian: was capped by a standing ovation John Johnson, J90P; Bill Kenney;
tufts university alumni Regional Vice Presidents Treasurer association executive committee Diana Lopez, J78 Vikki Garth, J81 David Meyers, A96 Immediate Past President President Regina Rockefeller, J73 Brian McCarthy, A75, A07P Barbara Clarke, J88 Directors First Vice President/President-Elect Secretary John Barrett, E88 Mrinalini Jaikumar, G96 Kate Kaplan, G95 Mark Ferri, A84, F86 Administrative Vice Presidents Chris Goguen, A92 executive director, Kevin Boyle, A78 Ken Fan, E01, F07 alumni relations Keisha Pollack, A00 Doug Moll, A85, D85, DG91 Timothy Brooks
52 tufts magazine fall 2013 The Alumni Community Digest
Lucy Helfant Labson; Thomasina who attended, but the friendships bridal shower at Lady Mendl’s Tea KEY LaGuardia; Jack Lewicki; Marcia were stronger than ever. New York Salon in Manhattan in April. class year abbreviations Aucoin MacClary; Bruce Male, Times best-selling author Michael A: Liberal Arts A94P; Susan Orowan Martin; Roizen, husband of class member MEDICAL Robert Berezin BSOT: Boston School of Occupational Therapy Dottie Daddona Merrill, G69; Nancy Mzarek Roizen, M72, has written a new book, 71 BOUVÉ: Bouvé-Boston School of Ron Millard, E95P; Marlene Taub spoke to the class about his “real Psychotherapy of Character: The Physical Education Reinschmidt; Nancy Ridill, G73; age” concept, which differenti- Play of Consciousness in the CRANE: Crane Theological School Steve Rosenthal, Elaine Golden ates between your actual age and Theater of the Brain. His website is D: Dental Sacco; Dick Schaefer, J88P, your “inner age” as determined robertberezin.com. DG: Dental Certificate J93P; Ed Swan; Chris White; Jack by your health. Tufts trustee Tony E: Engineering Whitehead, J01P; and Sue Loring Cortese, G72, former dean of envi- HILL To allow for a smooth ELIOT-PEARSON: Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development Wilkinson. For more about the fifti- ronmental programs at Tufts, mod- transition, the Colorado 72 F: Fletcher School eth reunion, visit tuftsalumni.org. erated a Super Seminar on climate Supreme Court has appointed G: Graduate School change. At the reunion dinner, held Justice Nancy Rice as chief jus- H: Honorary Degree HILL Steven B. Epstein, at 51 Winthrop Street, the room tice-designate to take over when J: Jackson College L: Sackler School of Graduate A96P, A01P, G04P, A07P, was abuzz with chatter and laugh- Chief Justice Michael L. Bender 65 Biomedical Sciences founder of one of the country’s ter as alumni and their spouses retires in January 2014. Rice, an M: Medical leading health-care law firms, caught up and started making adjunct professor of law at the SMFA: School of the Museum of Fine Arts Epstein Becker & Green P.C., joined plans for their fiftieth reunion. University of Colorado Law School N: Friedman School of Nutrition the board of OrthoSensor, a leader The exceptional generosity of the and the University of Denver Sturm Science and Policy in intelligent orthopedics. Epstein class broke participation rate College of Law, has served on the P: Parent of student has served as a legal consultant to records and created two $10,000 state’s supreme court since 1998. V: Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine the Health Maintenance Organiza- scholarships for future Jumbos tion Service, Health Services and (for more on that story, turn to HILL The Class of 1973 Mental Health Administration, and page 49). Lloyd Botway recently 73 celebrated its fortieth Family Court. A former general the U.S. Department of Health, earned a second master’s degree reunion in style, with great food, counsel for the Rhode Island Board Education, and Welfare. Chambers (the first was in computer sci- wine, and party favors. More than of Governors for Higher Education, USA has called him the “father of ence) in Japanese language and sixty returned to Tufts to catch up Lani has been running her own firm, the health-care [legal] industry” literature. He plans to submit his with friends. At one of the week- focused primarily on family law. and has ranked Epstein among thesis, “The Four-Woman Concert end’s Super Seminars, classmate the top health-care leaders in the in Genji Monogatari: A Window on Jack Lazor, an organic dairy farmer HILL Harris Contos, legal field. Heian Musical Performance and in Vermont, gave a lecture to all 74 D78, gave a lecture Teaching,” to an academic journal. Alumni Weekend attendees on titled “Has Dentistry Failed the HILL Phyllis Feinzig sustainable farming. The outstand- American People?” as part of the 67 Jacobson received the HILL U.S. Representative ing generosity of the class created Samuel I. and Hilda B. Shames Hal Wingard Lifetime Achieve- 69 Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., a $10,000 scholarship for a Lecture Series at the University ment Award from the California is the new ranking member of future Jumbo. Paul Kleinbaum, a of Pennsylvania Dental School’s Language Teachers Association at the House Natural Resources partner at Zazzali, Fagella, Nowak, alumni weekend in May. its annual conference in March for Committee. He will begin fine- Kleinbaum & Friedman, has been her work to advance and promote tuning an agenda and hiring elected chair of the Labor and HILL Abby Kohnstamm, the study of world languages in staff, many of whom departed Employment Law Section of the 75 A07P, A11P, president and California and across the country. with former ranking member and New Jersey State Bar Association, founder of Abby F. Kohnstamm Jacobson is the administrator of current U.S. Senator Ed Markey, comprising more than 1,000 labor & Associates Inc. and trustee examinations and research for the D-Mass. DeFazio stressed the and employment lawyers, judges, emerita of Tufts, has joined Pitney California Commission on Teacher need for bipartisan action on such and arbitrators. He represents Bowes as executive vice president Credentialing, the state’s teacher issues such as oversight of mining unions in the private and public and chief marketing officer. A licensing agency. and drilling industries and climate sectors and plaintiffs in employ- former chief marketing officer change. ment discrimination cases. Sandra for IBM, she repositioned and HILL When the Class of A. Lanni, a lawyer with more than relaunched the IBM brand. She 68 1968 returned to the Hill HILL Carolyn Scheer three decades of experience in serves on the board of directors for its forty-fifth reunion in May, 70 writes that five class- the Rhode Island court system, is of Tiffany & Company, World Fuel a lot had changed in the lives of mates joined Wendy Rice Governor Lincoln Chafee’s nominee Services Corporation, and the the nearly 125 class members Walleigh for her daughter Diana’s for a seat on the Rhode Island Roundabout Theatre Company.
fall 2013 tufts magazine 53 News&Notes Classes
HILL Davita Vance-Cooks Sharon Sullivan, A11P, and her hus- 2013 Boston Marathon, Joann Collegiate Institute Signum Fidei 77 has been promoted from band, Jeff Kindler, A77, A11P, chair Flaminio, president of the Boston Society for his professional deputy public printer to public of the trusteeship committee of the Athletic Association, held the achievements. At St. Joe’s, printer for the Government Printing Board of Trustees, were in atten- tape as Kenya’s Rita Jeptoo won Metz was a top student and star Office, which is responsible for dance. Classmates came from near the women’s division, and she athlete, serving as senior class the production and distribution of and far: Bob Goehrke from Utah, presented the silver trophy to the president and contributing to information products and services Joe Findaro from Washington, DC, men’s winner, Ethiopia’s Lelisa championship victories for the for all three branches of the and many came from New York Desisa. Shortly after she had track and basketball teams. He federal government, including U.S. City, including Michael Gelb, Peter returned to marathon headquar- lives in Houston with wife Claire. passports and the official publica- Himler, Diana Lopez, and Ellen ters, two bombs exploded near the tions of Congress and the White Steiner. Classmates enjoyed a New finish line. She said she felt very HILL Lauren Rubenstein, House. Jeff Kindler, see HILL 78. England lobster bake under the sad for what took place and angry 80 a licensed clinical tent behind the Remis Sculpture that someone would interfere with psychologist in private practice HILL The Class of 1978 Court. The reunion committee this “incredible tradition.” Ruth in Bethesda, MD, has published 78 celebrated its thirty-fifth hopes to see you at the fortieth. King published The Courage to Be Visiting Feelings, a book based reunion in grand style, naming Special thanks to Joe and Diana for Profitable, the best-selling finance on Rumi’s poem “Guest House.” Coach Don Megerle an honorary chairing the reunion gift fundrais- book on Amazon in March. The book encourages children to member of the class and offering a ing committee. The class received treat their feelings like guests. champagne toast to two class- the trophy for raising the most FLETCHER Michael M. Rubenstein teaches yoga and mates, Peter Dolan, the newly funds and received a matching gift 79 Metz, vice president mindfulness to children and elected chair of the Tufts Board for a Class of 1978 Scholarship of Vitol SA, the world’s largest adolescents, including kids living of Trustees, and John de Jong, of $10,000 that will be awarded independent oil-trading firm, was in extreme poverty in Haiti; her a newly elected alumni trustee. to a deserving student. At the inducted into the St. Joseph’s humanitarian work in Haiti has
Join 100,000 of your fellow alumni. it’s fast and free!
I miss Charlie… Visit: I should look him up alumniconnections.com/tufts i n t h e T u f t s O n l i n e Benefits: Community! Online Directory: Find friends, network, & update your info. Career Advisory Network: Give advice. Get advice. Class Notes: Get all the gossip & share your news. And much more! Tuftsonline community
54 tufts magazine fall 2013 The Alumni Community Digest
one column wide = 9p9 been featured in the Huffington LLP, has been selected for the those who were unable to make Post. She plans to donate pro- 2013 Pennsylvania Super Lawyers this reunion, save the date for Follow ceeds from her new book to the Go list for his achievements in medical the thirty-fifth: May 17–20, 2018. Give Yoga Foundation. Candace malpractice defense. As chair of Vikramaditya Mathur has made Tufts Alumni Lapidus Sloane, J00, M84, was the Medical Malpractice Defense a radical career change, from reelected to a second term as Group, he represents large hospi- chemical marketing executive to chair of the Massachusetts Board tals and health networks as well freelance technical interpreter. He of Registration in Medicine. as individual physicians in medical celebrated his sixteenth wedding facebook.com/tuftsalumni Massachusetts State Rep. Daniel malpractice claims. Stevens sits anniversary in May with wife Alka B. Winslow has rejoined the on the board of the Baum School of and son Hans, who is a high school Boston office of Duane Morris Art and the Child Advocacy Center. sophomore. Jamie Saxon has joined @tuftsalumni LLP as counsel. Winslow, who Princeton University as an arts and has served in all three branches HILL John Capone has humanities writer in the Office of of Massachusetts government, 82 joined the law firm Duffy Communications. After ten years in world, Lance Newkirchen is now was the former chief legal counsel & Sweeney in Providence, RI, as public relations, ten years as a non- an FBI-trained hostage negotiator to Massachusetts Governor Mitt a senior counsel. Known for pros- fiction book editor, and ten years as for a police SWAT team in Fairfield, Romney and ran in this year’s ecuting and litigating intellectual a newspaper arts editor and senior CT. He is also a founding member Republican primary to represent property rights for multinational writer, she says she has finally of the department’s crisis inter- the state in the U.S. Senate. He technology companies, Capone landed her dream job. Saxon lives in vention team for which specially was recognized as Legislator of served as chief intellectual Lawrenceville, NJ, with her husband, trained officers respond to calls the Year by the Massachusetts property counsel to GTECH and is teenage son, and two beagles. involving those suffering from Marine Trades Association. a registered patent attorney. The David Schatsky has accepted a mental illness. Massachusetts Amateur Sports position at Deloitte in New York. HILL Evangelia Foundation has elected Lauren Anne Huvos, see HILL 95. HILL More than eighty 81 Costantakos Kingsley E. Winter-Bigelow and Diane M. FLETCHER Mark Storella, see 88 members of the Class performed in Dance Me to the End Wilcox to its board of directors. HILL 95. of 1988 came back to the Hill to of Love at the Metropolitan Room, Bigelow, one of the first female dance, learn, and celebrate during a jazz cabaret in New York City, in athletes in Massachusetts to com- Marjorie “Margie” A. their twenty-fifth reunion. Jumbos September. Patrick Barclay was pete on a boys’ soccer team, is the 84 Fox, creative director and their spouses enjoyed great among the first Americans and the chief operating officer at WeeWorld and co-managing director for U.S. food and a DJ at their reunion only African American to earn a Inc., a social games company brand marketing at Ogilvy Public dinner; in ’88 fashion, the class law degree from Renmin University with offices in Concord, MA, and Relations, wrote “Bushwick by was on the dance floor all night School of Law, ranked as China’s Glasgow, Scotland. Wilcox, a resi- Bus” for PRWeek, an op-ed article long. The outstanding generosity best law school by the Chinese dential counselor at Communities about a new approach to creative of the class created a $10,000 Ministry of Education. Barclay is for People in Somerville, MA, thinking. Fox advocates a daylong scholarship in the class’ name for currently finishing his jurist doctor- has volunteered at every Bay excursion for the creative team— a future Jumbo. The reunion com- ate at the University of Sydney State Games since its inception going somewhere inspirational mittee thanks all who were able School of Law in Australia. Joseph and served as a volunteer at the that no one has been to before. to return to campus to reconnect Foster, a former New Hampshire Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Sydney, and “Change your setting, change your with Tufts and with each other, and state senator, was confirmed in Athens Olympic Games. thinking. Free the staff, and the for making the reunion a success. April as New Hampshire’s attorney minds will follow,” she says. Neil Peretz, G90, writes, “After general. He received his law HILL Fifty-three class- five years at the Department of degree from George Washington 83 mates and their guests HILL June Weintraub, Justice and two years helping start University. Robert Fung is the returned to Tufts in May to celebrate 86 G95, won recognition for up the Office of Enforcement at first Hawaii executive to head the the thirtieth reunion of the Class of her online course Introduction to the Consumer Financial Protection
Western Petroleum Marketers 1983.TwitFB T head_TuftsMag_onecolumn.indd main celebration was 1 Environmental Health at California Bureau, I have finally convinced 7/29/11 3:26 PM Association, a seven-state consor- held in the Granoff Music Center, State University East Bay as part my wife to move back to California, tium. He is secretary and general where alumni enjoyed cocktails and of the state university system’s where I am joining a venture- counsel for Aloha Petroleum Ltd., hors d’oeuvres while reliving their Quality Online Learning and backed consumer and small the largest gasoline marketer in glory days on the Hill. The reunion Teaching Program. business finance company in San Hawaii and a leading convenience committee thanks all those who Francisco called BillFloat as its store operator. Howard S. Stevens, made a gift to the annual fund to HILL After nearly twenty first general counsel.” Christine an attorney with Gross McGinley support current Tufts students. For 87 years in the corporate Triano, writer and co-producer of
fall 2013 tufts magazine 55 News&Notes Classes
Lost Angels: Skid Row Is My Home, spent nearly twenty years refining managing editor in the history of fund to help current Tufts students. says the documentary about LA’s his vision. The interview is online the magazine, and he’s had plenty Save the date for the twenty-fifth skid row is now available on Hulu, at the magazine’s website of exciting stories to cover. Stone reunion: May 17–20, 2018. Joyce Netflix, and Amazon Instant. She www.businessinsider.com. lives in New York City with his wife, Coffee has been named manag- writes, “While it sounds like a HILL Lisa Lickstein and Kim, and their two children. Scott ing director of Notre Dame Global downer, what we found are remark- 90 Gregg Wiston, see HILL D. Turner, Nitsch Engineering’s Adaptation Index, helping global able stories of hope, resilience, 89. director of planning, manages the companies mitigate climate-related and community, even in the face of firm’s sustainable site consulting risk and take advantage of climate misdirected and broken social poli- HILL Jonathan Epstein, and storm water master planning adaptation and resiliency opportuni- cies.” Julius Veloria, formerly with 91 former executive direc- practices. He is vice president of ties in their global supply chains, Microsoft, is now vice president tor of NorthEast Emergency the Massachusetts Association of capital investments, and commu- of sales and marketing at Kolbe Medical, is now senior director for Consulting Planners. Turner holds nity engagement. in Phoenix, AZ. The company’s instructional design and delivery a master’s in city planning from the mission to help individuals and at the American Red Cross. He is Georgia Institute of Technology. HILL Vladimir Ristanovic, organizations increase their suc- the subject-matter expert for the FLETCHER Tom Kennedy, see 94 see HILL 95. cess was a driving factor for the Healthcare and Safety Portfolio HILL 95. job change, he says. Product Development Team. Erik HILL Omar Siddiqi Mehlman, a partner and design HILL Judy Bowman was 95 attended a gathering of HILL Craig Everett, an lead at BuildSense in Durham, 92 casting director for the Tufts alumni in Lusaka, Zambia, 89 assistant professor of NC, announces the company’s new Off-Broadway production of last February at Plates restaurant, finance at Pepperdine University’s new name. It had been known as A Picture of Autumn, a comedy owned by Rachel O’Donnell, A08. Graziadio School of Business and Studio B Architecture, providing about a family’s attempt to grow Joining them were U.S. Ambassador Management, was named director sustainable turnkey design/build old gracefully that played at the to Zambia Mark Storella, F83; of the award-winning Pepperdine services since 2007. BuildSense Mint Theater in New York City Anne Huvos, J83; Zambia Peace Private Capital Markets Project. was named the Triangle Business from May 23 to July 14. More Corps Director Tom Kennedy, David Lickstein was installed as Journal’s 2012 Clean and Green than 150 attendees honored F91, and his wife, Felice Apter; president of the board of trustees Business of the Year. Mehlman Rabbi Elaine Rose Glickman for Vladimir Ristanovic, E94; Elizabeth of the Arthur I. Meyer Academy in received a master’s from North her service to Temple Emanu-El McCarthy, J95; Mark Adams, A10; West Palm Beach, FL. He and his Carolina State University’s School in Sarasota, FL, in April. During and Allison Fechter, E11. wife, Lisa Lickstein, J90, have of Design and studied architectural the event, Glickman, wife of the three daughters who attended the design at Universidad Del Pais temple’s spiritual leader, Rabbi HILL U.S. Navy Com- school. Gregg Wiston, A90, and Vasco in San Sebastian, Spain, Brenner Glickman, was presented 96 mander Christopher F. Megan Wiston, J92, co-chaired and at the Boston Architectural with artwork bearing the Hebrew Hill assumed command of Carrier the annual meeting during which Center. Alicia (Katz) Pollock phrase Eshet Chayil, which means Airborne Early Warning Squadron Lickstein was installed. Megan writes, “I have published my first “Woman of Valor.” Read more One Two Four in Norfolk, VA. and Gregg have three sons book, MS Word 2010: Tips and about Elaine Glickman on the next who attended the school, and Tricks (You Know Word, but Do page. Megan (Cole) Wiston, see HILL Kamden Hoffmann Megan was recently promoted You KNOW Word?).” She says it’s HILL 89. 97 received a Ph.D. in to quality management special- about how to do what you already behavioral and community health ist at Children’s Home Society in do, but in half the steps; it’s HILL Thanks to members sciences from the University West Palm Beach. David Spalter available in the iTunes Bookstore. 93 of the Class of 1993 of Pittsburgh Graduate School has been elected a fellow of the Scott G. Smith recently climbed who returned to Tufts in May to of Public Health and is now an College of Labor and Employment Mt. Everest, reaching the summit celebrate their twentieth reunion. adjunct professor of global health Lawyers. He practices in Winter on May 23, 2013. When Christian “It seems like yesterday we left at Pittsburgh. Hoffmann is also Park, FL. Eric Steiner has pub- “Chris” Stone first noticed an campus,” writes the reunion com- founder, president, and senior lished On Moon Square and My opening at Sports Illustrated as mittee. “However, after many of us technical advisor of her small Life: What Not To Do, #1–10, which a fact-checker, after obtaining took a tour to see the incredible business, INSIGHT: Innovative can be found under E. Rekstein his graduate degree in journal- additions to our campus, we then Social Change in Global Health. at Amazon. An interview with Dan ism from Columbia in 1992, a realized that twenty years is a long A. Mark Jesensky and his wife, Horan, founder and CEO of Five friend tried to dissuade him from time.” The main event was held at Marie, welcomed their first child, Acre Farms, published in Business applying because there would be the always popular Davis Square Stephen Edward, on August 7, Insider, relates how Horan started minimal writing opportunities. Last hangout, the Burren. Thanks also to 2012. He has adjusted well to his own organic farm in 1990 and October he was named the ninth those who made a gift to the annual his home in Canton, MA, and has
56 tufts magazine fall 2013 The Alumni Community Digest
many elephant-themed clothes doer’s profile and toys. Attending the christen- ing in November was his godfa- ther David Brownell. GRADUATE Stephanie Tai, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law, has been selected as a 2013–14 Supreme Court Fellow assigned to the Federal Judicial Center. Tai earned an S.B. in chemistry from M.I.T., a Ph.D. in chemistry from Tufts, and a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center.
HILL Thanks to the 98 members of the Class of 1998 who came back to the Hill to celebrate their fifteenth reunion. “We had a great turnout at the Alumni Family Picnic on Saturday, when our families ate and played on the nostalgic Rez Quad,” writes the reunion committee. Many ventured back to the classroom for Elaine rose Glickman, J92 Super Seminars, highlighting Tufts faculty and other experts on cur- HOME: Sarasota, Florida Isaac’s mother, Sarah, when all of this was rent environmental challenges and PROFESSION: Rabbi, writer unfolding?” solutions. The main event was held HOT OFF THE PRESS: Her book The Messiah and CHOKES UP OVER: Serving as a rabbi at ceremo- at Jasper White’s Summer Shack the Jews, which brings together three thousand nies for family members. “About two years in Cambridge, with traditional New years of messianic teaching and explores what it ago, I co-officiated at the wedding of one of England fare and incredible des- means for people today. “Since I was a teenager my cousins—I was sixteen when she was born serts. The class recruited fifty new I’ve struggled to reconcile the suffering and evil and had watched her grow up into a brilliant, donors this year in the Everyone in this world with the omnipotence and the beautiful young woman. We were all fighting Counts Challenge, and as a result, goodness of God, and in the past decade or so, back tears under the wedding canopy.” a $10,000 scholarship was created I’ve studied and come to embrace the concept DRIVEN CRAZY BY: The practice of calling in the class’ name and will be of the Messiah—the promise that things will God “He.” “I don’t want kids to start thinking awarded to a current Tufts student get better than this, that redemption is part of of God as male. A student in my sixth-grade this fall. Carol Wan and Gary Wong the divine plan.” Bible class once proposed that God should of Watertown, MA, welcomed their IN THE WORKS: A novel featuring a golem—a be called neither ‘He’ nor ‘She’ but ‘The.’ daughter, Lia Hue Ting Wong, on clay automaton from Jewish folklore. The text There was something so sweetly earnest and September 7, 2012. is “a mixture of upmarket women’s fiction and profound about that.” esoteric Judaica.” DEFINING TRAITS: Dynamism, a hunger for HILL Jack Schnirman, city PUZZLES OVER: The biblical story in which scholarship, and a joyous acceptance of her 99 manager of Long Beach, God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac place in the larger scheme of things. “It’s both NY, was named to the 2013 Long but then stops him at the last minute. “The humbling and exhilarating to realize that my Island Press Power List, which hon- typical interpretation is that God is testing own experiences, which seem unique, are ors Long Island’s fifty most influen- Abraham. But does Abraham pass the test by actually just part of a history stretching back tial people. He was also selected obeying, as is often assumed, or does he fail? thousands of years.” by the New Leaders Council as a Also, a traditional Jewish reading of the tale HER EDUCATION: B.A. (English, religion), recipient of its 2013 “40 under 40” suggests that Isaac was an adult at the time— Tufts; M.A. and rabbinic ordination, Hebrew political leadership award. why did he go along? And finally, where was Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion
Photo: catherine chung fall 2013 tufts magazine 57 News&Notes Classes
Doer’s profile HILL Oxford University 00 Press has published a book by Christina M. Greer, an assistant professor of political sci- ence at Fordham University, titled Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream. Gregg Kallor was recently interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio about his new CD release, A Single Noon. Kallor, a classi- cally trained pianist, composer, and improviser, has performed for President Bill Clinton, played at Carnegie Hall, and is the winner of the Aaron Copland Award for Composition. The music video for his single, “Espresso Nirvana,” can be seen on YouTube. Jonathan Ladd, an associate professor of government and public policy at Georgetown University, published Why Americans Hate the Media and How It Matters (Princeton University Press). It received the Goldsmith Dan Flannery, G13 Book Prize for the academic book “that best fulfills the objective of HOME: Portland, Maine I had a family band by the time I was six, improving democratic governance WORK: Children’s singer, songwriter, and instru- and I sang ‘Johnny B. Goode’ with them at through an examination of the mentalist best known as half of the Flannery the Clearwater Festival in New Jersey. More intersection between the media, Brothers—a duo he started with his older recently, though, I’ve enjoyed studying old politics, and public policy.” Gerry brother, Mike, a New York City music producer French and Italian tunes in my octogenarian Topping, see HILL 01. NEW BUSINESS VENTURE: Muddy Boots accordion teacher’s basement.” Music, also started with Mike. “It’s a children’s HIS ADVICE FOR FOSTERING KIDS’ CREATIVITY: HILL Rachel Goetz won a jingle house. We supply app developers, book Get out of the way, and steer clear of children’s 01 New York City Blackboard publishers, and other businesses with music or TV shows that spread their brand through Award for teaching and was also sound effects for products aimed at children.” consumer items. “Children are brilliant. The featured in New York Family NEW ALIAS: Danny Lion. “I was chatting with best curriculum is one that lets them use magazine as one of the city’s best a preschooler whose middle name was Lion, their imagination. But it’s hard for them to do teachers. She strives to stimulate and we realized that I would sound like a that if they come to preschool wearing their her students’ curiosity, imagina- flower if I had that name. How could I resist?” favorite character on their shoes, pants, shirts, tion, and risk-taking and encour- NEXT UP: A solo album. Check out two playful backpacks, and lunch boxes. The script from ages parent participation. Two preview numbers—“Snail Hide and Seek” and the show often takes over their play.” special projects with the children “Banana on the Head”—at dannylionmusic.com. DEFINING TRAITS: Inventiveness, an this year focused on raising their RECORDING SESSION TO REMEMBER: Making inexhaustible sense of fun, and a boundless social awareness to help others in the “Banana on the Head” video. “Mike and respect for his audience need. David Hartnagel has joined I walked to Union Square in New York City FAVORITE HANGOUT: The Maine woods. “I run the law firm Sheehan Phinney Bass with a camera, a pile of release forms, and a barefoot and forage wild foods. A while ago + Green PA in Boston. Hartnagel’s few bunches of bananas. We then asked every when my shower broke, I went and sat in a practice focuses on business and person in the park to wear those bananas like waterfall.” employment litigation, and he has a hat—and many did it. I love New York.” HIS EDUCATION: B.A. (English), Rutgers represented a range of business HIS MUSICAL ROOTS: “I’ve been playing University; M.A., Tufts, Eliot-Pearson entities, government agencies, and piano since I was four. Mike, my dad, and Department of Child Development individuals. David G. Martinson Jr.
58 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photo: Matthew modoono The Alumni Community Digest
and Magdalena Rut-Martinson of Portland, ME, a day when the city Magazine. Continuing to follow the development associate at the Hoboken, NJ, announced the birth received a record snowfall of 31.9 story, James wrote that he learned Feminist Press, joins a group of of their second child, John Tadeusz, inches. Alumni guests included about the award while “waiting for twenty public fellows who will on June 6, 2013. Amy J. Metzger Holly (VanTassel) Willis. The sundown on a beach with a squad take up two-year assignments recently joined Labaton Sucharow couple resides in Manchester, NH. of oil thieves.” Mark Adams, see at partnering host organizations LLP as an associate working in the HILL 95. in government and the nonprofit firm’s recently expanded interna- HILL Karen Alroy, V12, GRADUATE Neil Cohn, G12, sector. The ACLS Public Fellows tional litigation practice group. 05 MPH12, a graduate of received a Glushko Prize from program, now in its third year, is Stephanie (Gawlak) Topping, G03, Tufts’ combined D.V.M./M.P.H. the Cognitive Science Society in designed to demonstrate that and Gerry Topping, E00, G02, of program, was awarded a Science recognition of his having written the capacities developed in the Topsfield, MA, announced the birth and Technology Policy Fellowship one of the five best dissertations advanced study of the humanities of their daughter, Claire Bailey, by the American Association for in cognitive science in the past have wide application both within on March 21, 2013; she joined the Advancement of Science. She year. He received his master’s and and beyond the academy. Testa siblings Colin and Maeve. is working at the National Science doctoral degrees in psychology received his master’s and doctoral Foundation in the dimensions from Tufts. degrees in English from Tufts. HILL Amy (Arenstein) of biodiversity program. For his 02 Jackson and Christopher scholarship and debating skills, HILL Allison Fechter, see HILL Alon Agai has Jackson announced the birth Brian Colony Roiter (Tenzin 11 HILL 95. Caleb Shapiro 12 accepted a recruiter of a baby boy, Joseph Simon, Gache) has received the Rigs and Rob Resnick started a band position at M-Logic Inc. in New on January 13, 2013. Rachel Chung Award from the faculty called Timeflies in 2010, and have York City. He had been a robotics Finkelstein Wolman and Daniel of the Sera Jey Monastery for appeared on the Jay Leno Show. instructor at Tekintellect Inc. Kara Wolman, of Forest Hills, NY, Advanced Buddhist Studies The duo will headline a show at Marie Breen of Springfield, MA, announced the birth of a baby boy, & Practice in India. It is the Boston University’s Agganis Arena who graduated with a degree in Eli Justin, on April 21, 2013. He first time in 600 years that a this fall. international relations, has been joined big sister Hannah. non-Tibetan Buddhist monk has GRADUATE Nino Testa, G13, accepted into the Peace Corps received the honor. Gache spoke was named a 2013 public fellow of and will spend twenty-seven HILL Sheehan Phinney no Tibetan before he began his the American Council of Learned months working in health educa- 03 Bass + Green PA attorney monastic studies in 2006. Societies. Testa, who will be a tion in the Kyrgyz Republic. Daniel Fink is among thirty-eight Leadership Greater Manchester MEDICAL Deborah Erlich graduates for 2013. Fink’s 07 is the founding director practice focuses on intellectual of the newly accredited family property rights and electronic medicine residency program at in memoriam commerce. He has been named a Carney Hospital. The program has Rising Star by New England Super academic affiliation with Tufts Lawyers. Jim Hession, co-editor of University School of Medicine and 1940s Jeffrey McMahon, A05, as is her the feature documentary Marina its Department of Family Medicine. CATHERINE “KAY” (SYLVIA) granddaughter-in-law, Suzanne Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, Erlich completed a master’s in McMAHON GEARY, J42, J68P, Davis McMahon, A05. which played at the Sundance medical education fellowship at the J71P, A72P, D75AP, on January JOSEPH W. FARRELL JR., and Berlin film festivals and will Tufts Family Medicine Residency at 18, 2013. Geary was a well-loved D43B, a lifelong resident of be broadcast on HBO, has been Cambridge Health Alliance. middle school guidance counselor in Pittsfield, MA, on February 25, selected as a Karen Schmeer South Windsor, CT, for many years. 2013. He served in the U.S. Navy Film Editing Fellow. In addition to HILL Rachel O’Donnell, She met her first husband, Bill Dental Corps before joining his editing commercials, web videos, 08 see HILL 95. McMahon, A41, G42, at Tufts, father’s dental practice. He and and trailers, Hession has assisted and the couple was married for his wife, Annemarie, had nine chil- on numerous HBO productions HILL The Overseas Press nearly fifty years before his death. dren. Active in his church, Farrell and was an associate editor on 10 Club presented Samuel Four years later she married Leo P. became president of the Holy CIRCUS, a six-part documentary James with the Olivier Rebbot Geary, A40. Among her survivors Name Society and later served on that aired on PBS in 2010. Award for his photo essay “The are her three children, Cindy the Presidents’ Council of Trinity Water of My Land,” about conflict Clancy, J68; Jill McMahon, J71; College in Washington, DC. After NUTRITION Karen Willis over oil resources in the Niger and Tom McMahon, A72, A02P, practicing dentistry for fifty-two 04 and Gregory Beal were Delta, which was published in the A05P. Two of her grandsons are also years, he retired and became a married on February 9, 2013, in September 2012 issue of Harper’s alumni, Neal McMahon, A02, and volunteer with Elder Services.
fall 2013 tufts magazine 59 News&Notes in memoriam
GENEVIEVE E. (CAMPBELL) abroad, raising five children as the Rhode Island congressman John E. two careers: twenty-one years WESTON, J43, on December 11, family moved from Indonesia to Fogarty. His philanthropic interests in the U.S. Air Force and more 2012. After studying economics Italy to Belgium and England. She included support of the Father than sixteen with the University and sociology at Tufts, she taught taught school in the United States Marot CYO Center in Woonsocket of California at Irvine. He was third grade in Greenwood, MA, for and abroad and later ran her own and the children’s nursery at St. awarded the Distinguished Flying twenty-one years. Weston retired in tax-consulting business. Anthony Hospital in the Philippines. Cross for completing 129 combat 1982 and kept active by cheer- ROBERT H. PENNY, A49, G56, He led a campaign to make repairs missions with a squadron based ing her great-grandsons at their on March 26, 2013, in Boyds, MD. and improvements to the Precious at Nha Trang in Vietnam. After sporting events, visiting her “dorm” Blood Parish in Woonsocket, and Vietnam, he served for three years sisters, and driving sight-impaired 1950s he was honored in one of church’s on the international studies faculty people to their appointments. HAROLD TRACHTENBURG, A50, stained glass windows. at the Air Command and Staff Her hobbies included sewing, of Stamford CT, on June 21, 2013. ELFRIEDE “FRIEDEL” College in Montgomery, AL, and watercolor painting, traveling, and Trachtenburg served in the U.S. BATTERMAN, J53, of Ithaca, NY, on then was assigned to the Office playing the piano. Army Medical Corps with the July 1, 2013. After earning a B.A. of the Secretary of Defense in the HARRIETTE (KNOWLTON) Army of Occupation in Italy from in history summa cum laude from Pentagon. He earned an M.S. in WULFECK, J44, on March 20, 1946–47. He was a research Tufts, Batterman and her husband, public administration from George 2013, in Santa Monica, CA. chemist for American Cyanamid, Boris, were Fulbright Scholars Washington University. In 1977, he EDWIN “NED” AUSTIN NOBLE, and then taught math and science at the Technische Hochschule in began his second career, in aca- A45, the former state geologist at J.M. Wright Technical School in Tübingen, Germany. Batterman was demic administration, at UC-Irvine, for North Dakota, on January 3, Stamford. He earned a master’s a dedicated mother and active in where he was assistant vice chan- 2013, in Washington, DC. While degree in education from the her community, volunteering with cellor for academic affairs. at Tufts, Noble was called to serve University of Bridgeport in 1961, the Ellis Hollow Community Center, REVEREND CARL F. SCHULTZ in the First Infantry Division of the and then taught for thirty-one the Ithaca PTA, and the League of JR., A56, on November 26, U.S. Army during World War II. He years at Central Middle School Women Voters. She worked as a 2012. He was the senior pastor received two Bronze Stars for valor in Greenwich, where he headed secretary for a travel agency and a of the First Church of Christ for his battlefield service in the the mathematics department, law office. Congregational in Glastonbury, CT, Ardennes and the Rhineland. After received a distinguished teaching ROBERT L. PAGE, A53, E92P, for thirty-four years. He also served the war, he earned a Ph.D. in geol- award in 1987, and was awarded professor of mathematics emeritus for more than two years as interim ogy. Noble worked in the explora- five National Science Foundation at the University of Maine at senior pastor at the historic Old tion division of the Atomic Energy grants: Tufts University (1959), Augusta, on June 19, 2013. After South Church in Boston. Schultz Commission on the Colorado University of Southern California graduation, he served for three introduced many innovations to Plateau and then in Argentina as (1961), University of Illinois (1962 years in the U.S. Navy aboard the his ministry, including an interfaith a United Nations advisor to that and 1965), and Yeshiva University antisubmarine aircraft carrier the television program and Faithline, a country’s uranium program. He also (1964). He retired in 1992, but USS Valley Forge. After completing daily phone meditation. He served worked in Pakistan for five years, continued to tutor young people a Ph.D. in mathematics education as chaplain for the Glastonbury on a U.S. Agency for International in math. at Florida State University, he joined Police Department as well as a Development energy resource J. GERALD LAMOUREUX, M51, the faculty of the University of guest chaplain in the U.S. Senate. program for which he received the of Woonsocket, RI, on June 13, Maine, where he served as the first In 1998, First Church was selected Meritorious Service Award. 2013. He specialized in radiology chair of the Division of Mathematics by ABC television to broadcast its MAXINE TAYLOR HAMILTON, during a time when many advance- and Science. One of his schol- Christmas Eve service nationwide. F48, on July 23, 2013. She was an ments were made in the field. arly articles won an Educational The First Church Fellowship Hall is advocate for people with develop- He was a three-term president Press Association award and dedicated to Schultz and his wife, mental disabilities and received of the medical staff and chief of was made into a Canadian Board Della. many awards for her service to that radiology at Woonsocket Hospital. of Education slide program for RAYMON RILEY, M57, on July community, including the Lorraine Lamoureux was the last survivor students. An exhibit he curated, 12, 2013. Riley practiced cardiol- Sheehan-Bernard Gould Award of a group of six physicians who “The Art of Mathematics,” hangs ogy for more than forty years in from the Arc of Maryland. An avid helped establish the former Mercy in the Danforth Art Gallery at the Providence, RI, where he was a golfer, bridge player, bowler, and Hospital, a much-needed second University of Maine at Augusta. member of the medical staff of lover of the arts, Hamilton’s friends health-care facility in the com- Survivors include his wife, Melda, Rhode Island Hospital. He was a describe her as having an indomi- munity at the time. He spearheaded and their son, ANDREW M. PAGE, fellow of the American College of table spirit, a marvelous wit, and a the campaign to relocate the hos- E92. Cardiology and clinical professor joy for living. As a foreign-service pital to Park Square and oversaw LEWIS L. BIRD JR., A56, of medicine emeritus at Brown wife, Hamilton spent many years its dedication in honor of the late on March 29, 2013. He had University School of Medicine. He
60 tufts magazine fall 2013 The Alumni Community Digest
and his wife, Betty, were married most influential people in the VA, on January 18, 2013. His role in Don Juan. His interests fifty-eight years. yellow pages industry.” He was military honors include the Legion turned to set construction and TOSHITSUGU ARAI, A58, a a former director of Valley Care of Merit, the Distinguished Flying from there to architecture, which former staff member of the World Association and served on the Cross, and the U.S. Navy and took him to UC Berkeley for gradu- Council of Churches and a former community relations commit- Marine Corps Commendation ate study. His California projects associate general secretary of the tee of Sewickley Valley Hospital. Medal. He was buried at Arlington included houses in the Hollywood Christian Conference of Asia, on Gordon was also a guest lecturer National Cemetery. His wife, Hills, houseboats in Sausalito, and January 16, 2013, in Kawasaki, in advertising and marketing at the Bonnie, writes, “Whitey was great- upscale cabins in Lake Tahoe. He Japan. He studied theology at Tufts University of Pittsburgh. He played ly respected by all the officers and established Present Architects in and began his ministry as an assis- tennis, was a vegetable gardener, men he served with.” Kansas City, where his projects, tant pastor at the International and enjoyed World War II history. FREDERICK GILLIS, A62, on inspired by his love of natural light Christian University Church in BARBARA HENEGHAN, J60, July 14, 2013. After graduating and sacred geometry, included the Tokyo, according to his wife, Akiko. on May 2, 2013. At Tufts she was from Tufts and Harvard Divinity Bank of Grain Valley and the reno- He taught a course on the history president of her junior class, a School, his ministerial career with vation of a historic building, now of Christianity in Asia and received founding member of the Leonard the Unitarian Universalist Church Bazooka’s on Main Street. the Ecumenical Contribution Carmichael Society, and met her included positions in Rockland, Award from the Japan Ecumenical husband of fifty-two years, PAUL MA; Halifax, NS; and East 1980s Association for his work. He was HENEGHAN, E59. Barbara went Greenwich, RI. An accomplished AMY L. DAVIDSON, J80, of West the author of several publications in on to the University of Hartford woodworker, Gillis designed and Lafayette, IN, on April 2, 2013. English and Japanese, including The and Seattle University, received built his own organ, and he helped She earned a Ph.D. in nutritional Church and Education in Asia and her doctorate, and dedicated her design and construct the organ biochemistry at Cornell and was Spirituality in Interfaith Dialogue. career to education. She was a at Westminster Unitarian Church a faculty member at the Baylor The World Council of Churches pub- school counselor, vice principal, in East Greenwich. His wife, Judy, College of Medicine and Purdue lished his collection of hymns, most and principal at several schools, as and their family enjoyed kayaking, University. Her research focused from Africa and South America. well as academic principal of the hiking, and bird watching at their on ABC transporter proteins PETER F. STANLEY, E58, on Hebrew Academy of Westminster camp in Vermont. involved in membrane trafficking. March 9, 2013. Stanley studied in southern California. She and AL FERLAZZO, A64, on June She enjoyed spending time with mechanical engineering and Paul traveled widely, and she 15, 2013. family and friends as well as hiking played basketball at Tufts before volunteered for community activi- BRUCE D. FISKE, D67, on April and camping. Her survivors include launching a thirty-two-year career ties, including knitting hats for the 9, 2013. He served in the U.S. Navy her husband, FRED GIMBLE, A80, with Babcock & Wilcox, for which homeless. Tufts alumni in her fam- for five years before completing a fellow chemistry major at Tufts. he managed the construction, ily include JOHN HENEGHAN, A55; postgraduate orthodontic training TOM FRANK, A81, on January startup, and retrofit of large power FAITH ELLIS HENEGHAN, J55; at the University of Oregon Dental 17, 2013, after a courageous plant boilers. He and his wife, KEVIN HENEGHAN, E85; RUSHNA School. He practiced orthodontics struggle with lymphoma. Frank Christine, raised their two children TEJANI HENEGHAN, J84; ELLIS in Hillsboro and Forest Grove, OR, was managing director and chief in Wadsworth, OH. After retirement, HENEGHAN, A13; and SUSAN for thirty-three years. He was mar- investment officer at Chevy the couple enjoyed their cot- ELLIS COSTAS, J68. ried for forty-eight years to his junior Chase Trust. A devoted husband tage on Lake Lucerne in northern ALLAN MYSEL, E60, E86P, of high school sweetheart, Bunny. and father, he was actively Wisconsin. His annual fishing tro- Charleston, SC, on May 3, 2013. involved in the arts and many phy presentation to the grandkids He received a B.S. in chemical 1970s charitable organizations. Frank was creative and entertaining, engineering from Tufts and an SISTER MARY PATRICK BURKE, was a distinguished graduate of because they all needed to leave MBA from Rutgers and became G71, on July 11, 2013. Burke Leadership Greater Washington. with an award! The Stanleys moved the executive director of procure- received her M.Ed. in guid- While at Tufts, he was one of the to Whitefish, MT, in the late 1980s. ment reengineering at Merck and ance from Tufts and worked as first student employees of the Company, where he worked for thir- a teacher and administrator at telefund, working closely with the 1960s ty-two years. Mysel was a board schools in New Hampshire and founder to develop and expand the HERBERT GORDON, A60, on May member of the Jewish Healing and Massachusetts, including twenty- annual-giving program. Frank is 4, 2013. His advertising career, Hospice Center of Los Angeles five years at St. Ann School in dearly missed by his friends and which he began as a trainee at and of the Charleston Academy of Gloucester, MA. family, wife Eriko, and children Ketchum, Macleod, and Grove in Music. Survivors include his wife of ALLAN BRIAN PRESENT, A72, David and Rose. Pittsburgh, spanned forty-four fifty-two years, Carol. an architect, on April 10, 2013. AUDREY DIANE PURVIS years. In 1998, Directory World CAPTAIN NILES R. (WHITEY) While at Tufts, Present studied DAVIS, J88, on May 28, 2013, Magazine named him one of “the GOODING JR., A61, of Amherst, dramatic arts and played the lead after a brief illness.
fall 2013 tufts magazine 61 News&Notes the big day
01. 02.
03. 04.
the big day
01. BACH & WOJCIECHOWSKI 02. BALOGH & DAVENPORT Jumbos in attendance included, Dover, DE. Jumbos in atten- Aliza Bach, A09, wed Jeffrey Emily Elizabeth Balogh, J00, wed from left: Catherine Beck, A08; dance included, back row, from Wojciechowski, A07, on July 15, Kate Moore Davenport, A02, on June groom; bride; Andrew Tung, A09; left: Megan Upham, J98; Jason 2012, in Minneapolis. Jumbos in 1, 2013, in Richmond, VA. Jumbos Anna Shih, E08; Nathan Klepacki, Cianchette, E98; Andre Pelletier, attendance included, back row, in attendance included, from left: A08; Dana Peterson, A08; Catherine E00, G02; Rodney Hemingway, from left: Ben Zablotsky, A04; Alicia Sophia Sahaf, A02, F07; Alexis Wilson, A08; and Molly Yarn, A09. A98, G00; Sanjay Madan, E98; Harvie, A06, N09; Keith Hofmann, Meyers Chase, J00; Mary Traester, The couple lives in Chicago. Andrea Traviglia, E98; Elisabeth A10; Carly Helfand, A09; Tal J00; Francesca Ricciardone, A03; Wadsworth, J98; Ashley Kennedy, Bendor, F13; Laura Herman, A09; Giuseppe Molinario, A01; bride; 04. BROWN & STREET G10; and Katie Fife Schuster, J98; Evan Ruppell, A10; Scott Weiner, Christian Strom, A01; bride; Alana Nicholas Brown, A02, wed Kelly front row, from left: Julie Choe, A08; and Nathan Render, A09; Welch, A02; Emelie Healy, E01; Street on July 14, 2012. Jumbos J98; Carrie Bergner Cianchette, middle row, from left: Eric Porter, Caitlin Howell Mazzilli, A02; Azi in attendance included, from left: J99, E99; bride; groom; Gail A09; Deborah Bamel, A09; bride; Masalehdan Block, A02; and Jaime Paul Poduri, A02; Michael Bunis, Gilliland Corbett, J67, A98P; and groom; Cynthia Brunelle, A11; Carlson, A02. The couple resides in A02; bride; Curt Warrington, E02; Ellen Gray Wasson, J98, N03. Rachel Lieber, A10; Cara Barouch, Minneapolis. and groom. The couple resides in A10; Arielle Traub, A07; and Jamie Raleigh, NC. 06. FORMAN & O’LEARY Gordon-Lipkin, E09; front row, from 03. BIRDSALL & NAIR Marissa Forman, A08, wed Brian left: Daniel Ruben, A09; David Margaux Birdsall, A08, wed Rishi 05. CORBETT & MAHAR O’Leary, A06, on July 21, 2012, Pistrang, A04; Barbara Shepard, Nair on July 7, 2012, at Robert H. Andy Corbett, A98, wed Erica in Boston. Jumbos in attendance A10; and Melissa Marver, A06. Treman State Park in Ithaca, NY. Mahar on April 14, 2012, in included, from left: Mike McCann,
62 tufts magazine fall 2013 The Alumni Community Digest
05. 06.
07. 08.
09.
attendance included, from left: Harris, E04; third row, from left: Erin (Hennessy) Marengi, J99, Cristina Sanchez, E07, E09; Erin N03, MPH03, N10; Matthew Koehler, A04; Daron Kurkjian, E04; Marengi, A99; Shari (Benhaim) and Jessica (Saltz) Preman, A04, Bower, J99; Alexander Escobar, G06; fourth row, from left: Eddie A00; Pamela Cunningham, J99; Santillan, E04; Nicole Huaman groom; bride; Gemma (Broughton) Rivers, A04; Jay Sherman, A05; Saylor, J99; Megan Capay, J99; and Jordan Kivelstadt, E04; fifth and Rebecca Gordon, J99. row, from left: Sam Rivers, A04; Kyle Preman, A04; and Ryan Little, 08. GASBARRO & MARTINEZ A04; back row, from left: Kate Matthew Gasbarro, E04, E06, wed Koehler, A07; Jeff Diamond, A03; A06; Andy Henke, A09; Courtney Lessing, A07; and Jim O’Leary, Klenda Martinez on April 20, 2013, and Tim Shepard. Not pictured: Evans, A06, G10; groom; Peter A06; front, Jeremy Black, A09. at St. James Parish and Hawthorne Andrew Rivnak, A04. Davidson, A08; Ali Landes, A08; Hotel in Salem, MA. Jumbos and Stephanie Viola, A08; bride; 07. GARNICA & AUNGST friends in attendance included, 09. GOETTSCHE & MORGAN Melanie Hyman, A08, MPH09; Emily Garnica, J99, wed Kristopher front row, from left: the groom and Rebecca Goettsche, A04, wed Kate Giliberti, A08; Michelle Aungst on December 29, 2012, bride; second row, from left: Laura David Alan Morgan on September Paison, A08; Lindsay Evans, A07; at the Coral Gables Country King, A05; Rachel Perlman Székely, 15, 2012, in Gualala, CA. Jumbos Rob Derderian, E02; Jessica Club in Miami, FL. Jumbos in A04; Jimmy Collins; and Phil in attendance included, from
fall 2013 tufts magazine 63 News&Notes the big day
left: Erica Levine, A04; Justin 10. Green, A04; Shannon Curry, A04; groom; bride; Melissa Gale Works, A04; Nathalie Wade, A04; and Samantha Resnik, A04.
10. KATZ & WINQUIST Jessica Katz, A05, wed Christopher Winquist on April 28, 2013, at the Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia, NY. Jumbos and friends in attendance included, standing, from left: Eliza Gordon-Lipkin, A05; Shara Marrero, A05; Adrienne Buckman, A05; David Polk, A05; Erika Payne, A05; Robert Goldstein, A05, M12, L12; Natalie Levy, A05; Sarah Leveque, A05, G07; groom; bride; Elizabeth Francis, A05; Sara Douglas, A05; Heather Kawalick; in Boston. Jumbos in attendance 11. Andrea Shatzman, A05; Justin included, front row, from left: Fauci, A05; Michelle Klausner, A06; Christine Gary, A07, N12; Jennifer Jonah Keough, A05; Lewis Rieley, Utoh, A09; Alysson Watt, E07; A05, M09; and Michael Tith, A01; groom; bride; Alissa Marturano, kneeling, from left: Adam Koeppel, A09; and Julia Cheong, A09; back E05; and Michael Douglas, A04. row, from left: Brian Leung, E07; The couple resides in New York City. Aaron Rosenberg, E07; Linda Schultz, A07; Andrew Kisielius, 11. KUDLOWITZ & NOETZEL E07; Thomas Marturano, E76, David Kudlowitz, A09, wed A09P; Robert Gaudet, A07, M11; Eliora Noetzel on May 26, 2013, Kacie (Nakamura) Gaudet, A07, at Monteverde at Oldstone in N09; Jeffrey Brown, A06, G13; Cortlandt Manor, NY. Jumbos in Christina Pastorello, A07, M12; attendance included, from left: Allie Zachary Schiller, A07, G13; and Krill, A10; Jonathan Nadler, A09; Jose Vazquez, A06. Hyejo Jun, A09, M13; bride; groom; Abram Leon, A09; Gopi Desai, A08; 15. RICHARDS & MCGRATH and Eric Connelly, A08. Ryan Richards, A98, wed Colleen 12. McGrath on December 31, 2012, 12. KYLE & SATTEN at the Pinehills Country Club John Kyle, A67, married Peter in Plymouth, MA. Jumbos in Satten on January 1, 2013, in attendance included, from left: Baltimore, where the couple John Birkett, A02; Scott Leonard, resides. It was the first day of E98; Tim Fallon, E97, G99; legal same-gender marriages in Charlie Siegal, E99, G01; Meghan Maryland and the twenty-third (Boardman) Siegal, J99; Andrew anniversary of the couple’s Zucker, A99; Michael Richards, commitment. A00; Mimsey Gordon, J98; Cris Pellegrino, A98; bride; groom; Rob 13. MCCARTHY & BROWN Richards, E95; Chi Hae Kwan- Julie McCarthy, A08, wed Leonard, J98; Ramsay Key, A98; Christopher Brown on June 8, Chris Hickey, E95; Dana Zakarian, 2013, at the Quonquont Farm in A95; Kelly (Donohue) Babu, J97; Whately, MA. Jumbos in attendance and John Babu, A96. Not pictured: included, from left: Brett Moore, Kiri (Wilson) Key, J97, G02. The G10; Kristen Dorsey, A09; bride; couple lives in Boston. groom; Stephanie Sherrin, A08; and Matthew DiPierro, A08; Danny from left: Tara Espiritu, E07, G10; Alana Ackerman, A08. The couple 16. SENESE & ALLEN McGee, E07; Peter Olivier, A07; Nicholas Wong, E07; Johanna resides in Rockville, MD. Margaret Senese, A07, wed Thomas John Chappel; Eric Misbach, A07; Thompson-Hollands, A07; Amanda Allen on June 2, 2012, at St. John Laura (Semine) Misbach, A06, Fencl, A07; Sarah Licht, A07; Neal 14. NGUYEN & MARTURANO the Evangelist in Cambridge, MA. M14; Seth Goldenberg, A07; Freed, A06, M11; Rebecca Hayes, Kim Nguyen, E07, G09, wed Joseph Jumbos and friends in attendance Heather Finn, A07; Zach Landau, A07; Melissa Melgar, A07; and Marturano, G13, on October 6, included, back row, from left: A07; Andrew Silver, A07; and Helen Harlan, G15; front row, from 2012, at the Museum of Science Jeremy Jo, E08; Erin Young, E07; Ruth Stevenson, J81; middle row, left: Nithya Nathan, A07; Shanti
64 tufts magazine fall 2013 The Alumni Community Digest
13. 14.
15. 16.
17. 18.
Sattler, A07; Emily Andrews, A07; MA. Jumbos in attendance Margie Yeager, J01; Moira Poe, J01; Regency in Boston. Jumbos in bride; groom; Nancy Blaney, J79; included, back row, from left: Ben Alyssa (Serian) Yenikomshian, A02; attendance included, back row, and Paul Blaney. Lee, A03; Alessandro Terenzoni, and Mihran Yenikomshian, A03. The from left: Christopher Chao, A03; A01; Micaelah Morrill, G13; and couple resides in Adams, MA. David Kim, A02; Aric Chan, A03; 17. SHELTON & BUTLER Benjamin Downing, G08; front row, Jeffrey Theobald, A03; Srikanth Michele Shelton, A02, wed from left: Nikhil Abraham, A04; 18. TANG & LIN Ravi, E01; Laura Hacker Dawson, Jonathan Butler on September 2, Kathryn Price, A03; Mary Anne Mark Tang, E02, wed Alice Lin A03; Fanny Lau, A02; Kevin 2012, at Jiminy Peak, in Hancock, Anderson, A03; bride; groom; on May 11, 2013, at the Hyatt Dawson, E02, G04; Andrew Quan,
fall 2013 tufts magazine 65 News&Notes the big day
19. 20.
A01; Rita Mercado, A02; Michael 21. Cheng, E02; and Jeffrey Livingston, E02, G05; front row, from left: Kristin Livingston, A05; groom; bride; Amit Kothari, E02, M07; and Karina Picache, A07.
19. TOMANELLI & MACKEY Captain James “Rocco” Tomanelli, A69, retired from the U.S. Navy, married Mary Mackey on June 15, 2013, in Wilmington, DE. Jumbos and friends in attendance included Gerry Dubey, A71, and John and Chris Cluney, J66. The couple honeymooned in Switzerland and the south of France and now splits their time between Wilmington and Old Town Alexandria, VA. Solomont, A70, A08P; Susan Lewis 22. Solomont, G81, A08P; and Jessica 20. TOUGH & DeSAPRI Stiss Edelglass, A07; front row, Kristi Tough, A02, wed Joe DeSapri from left: Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, on July 14, 2012, in Ridgefield, CT. G88, G95, A03P, A05P; Aliza Bach, Jumbos in attendance included, A09; Allison Preiss, A07; bride; back row, from left: Ben Hayden, groom; and Dana Traub, A11. The A02; bride; groom; Amy Mozlin, couple resides in Brooklyn, NY. A02; Lisbeth Kaiser, A02; and Alex Rappaport, A02; front row, from 22. WALLACE & BIHM left: Joan (Vollero) Flaherty, A02, Jasmine Loyrena Wallace, A05, wed and Katie Sternweis-Yang, A02. Ernest Bihm III, A05, on June 15, The couple resides in Chicago. 2013, in Cancun, Mexico. Jumbos in attendance included, from left: 21. TRAUB & PROSNIT Claire Johnson, A05; Junior Aguaze, Arielle Traub, A07, wed Ethan E05, G06; bride; groom; and Prosnit on October 21, 2012, Reginald Stovell, A05. The couple in Wilton, CT. Jumbos in atten- resides in Arlington, VA. dance included, back row, from left: Nathan Render, A09; David Edelglass, E06; Tal Bendor, F13; YOUR CELEBRATION PHOTOS: Visit the online Big Day Album at tuftsalumni.org/thebigday. We strongly Jeff Wojciechowski, A07; Joanna encourage couples to have their professional event photographer take the photograph they submit to Tufts Szymkowiak, A07; Rachel Shatten- Magazine to ensure high-quality reproduction in print. Photos submitted electronically must be at least Vazquez-Reina, A07; Amelio 1024x680 pixels to be printed in the magazine. Email your information to [email protected]. Please note: Vazquez-Reina, G12; Deborah Your information must be submitted within one year of your big day to be published in this section of the Bamel, A09; Daniel Ruben, A09; magazine. Submissions may be held for an issue because of space limitations. Rebecca Solomont, A08; Alan
66 tufts magazine fall 2013 For students, your gifts to the annual fund are driving the difference between “just making it” and “making the most of it.”
With the right fuel, the university is making new investments in programs, people, and facilities. Every year, you’re delivering power to those behind the wheel of a high-performance vehicle. And they’re taking the ride of their lives.
Thank you!
SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES | CUMMINGS SCHOOL OF VETERINARY MEDICINE | SCHOOL OF DENTAL MEDICINE | SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING THE FLETCHER SCHOOL | FRIEDMAN SCHOOL OF NUTRITION SCIENCE AND POLICY | SCHOOL OF MEDICINE | TISCH COLLEGE OF CITIZENSHIP AND PUBLIC SERVICE
PMAGS Fall13.indd 1 8/30/13 9:50 AM destinations
2014 Travel with us from our Burma Travel with us from our “ Wonderful destinations and Antarctica engaging tour hosts.” Tahiti shoresshores andand beyondbeyond Cuba South America “ the warmth and energy from antarctica to africa, Iceland Getaway set the tone for a wonderful from Burma to the Black sea, group experience.” Iceland for Families and from Iceland to Italy, our lineup European Coast features classic and traditional Italian Lakes Morocco to undiscovered and emerging “ . . . great people, Mississippi River wonderful sites, destinations, showcasing our China great experiences.” world’s natural beauty and Scandinavia cultural diversity. Russia Join us! “ I can’t stop thinking Golf in Scotland about our trip and European Journey how fantastic it was.” Southern Africa Riviera Cruise National Parks Reykjavik Marathon Tuscany The Black Sea Turkey Sicily & Amalfi
for more details, visit: tuftstravellearn.org
Contact: usha sellers, ed.D., Director, at [email protected] or 617-627-5323 for our catalog or specific brochure, tuftstravel-learn or visit our website for itineraries. destinations
2014 Travel with us from our Burma Travel with us from our “ Wonderful destinations and Antarctica engaging tour hosts.” Tahiti shoresshores andand beyondbeyond Cuba South America “ the warmth and energy from antarctica to africa, Iceland Getaway set the tone for a wonderful from Burma to the Black sea, group experience.” Iceland for Families and from Iceland to Italy, our lineup European Coast features classic and traditional Italian Lakes Morocco to undiscovered and emerging “ . . . great people, Mississippi River wonderful sites, destinations, showcasing our China great experiences.” world’s natural beauty and Scandinavia cultural diversity. Russia Join us! “ I can’t stop thinking Golf in Scotland about our trip and European Journey how fantastic it was.” Southern Africa Riviera Cruise National Parks Reykjavik Marathon Tuscany The Black Sea Turkey Sicily & Amalfi
for more details, visit: tuftstravellearn.org
Contact: usha sellers, ed.D., Director, at [email protected] or 617-627-5323 for our catalog or specific brochure, tuftstravel-learn or visit our website for itineraries. advancement giving. growth. gratitude.
Peter Dolan
Meet the New Board Chair Peter Dolan’s thoughts on fitness, the future, and the value of a Tufts degree
By Heather Stephenson
eter r. dolan, a78, a08p, has come a long way Nutrition Science and Policy aimed at reversing the childhood from organizing luaus for his fraternity. This fall, obesity trend through a multisector approach. He has helped to Dolan is taking the helm of the Tufts Board of raise some $16 million for the initiative. Trustees, succeeding James A. Stern, E72, A07P, who Professionally, Dolan has been a leader at General Foods, steps down from his role following the November Bristol-Myers Squibb (where he served as CEO from 2001 to Pboard meeting. (See “Punching Above Our Weight,” page 38.) 2006), Gemin X, and Vitality Health, a health and wellness Dolan has been a Tufts stalwart for three decades. Elected to company where he is a director. Dolan is an advisory board the board in 2001, he has served on eight board committees and member of Valence Life Sciences. He has also served on the chaired the administration and finance, audit, and presiden- boards of the Partnership for a Healthier America, the Tuck tial search committees. He has sat on the executive committee School of Business at Dartmouth College (from which he since 2003 and was elected a vice chair of the board in 2008. holds an M.B.A.), and the National Center on Addiction and A donor to a variety of Tufts schools and programs, Dolan Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Recently, he shared chairs ChildObesity180, an initiative at the Friedman School of some reflections with Tufts Magazine.
70 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photo: dominick reuter Tufts Magazine: What are some of your alumni loyalty? Is yours a fitness-oriented family? favorite memories of your undergraduate With this exceptional student body, Yes, which is a little ironic. When I was years? we need to make sure all of them take at Tufts, we had very good intramural My fraternity had an annual tradition advantage of what Tufts has to offer. teams, but I would have struggled to run a of putting on a Hawaiian luau, complete I went to a senior dinner this year and mile. Today, the four of us can lay claim to with waterfall, sand (aka sawdust), and a asked students what they would be do- twelve marathons, three Hawaii Ironman pig roast. It was a highlight of the year and ing. Too many of them said, “I haven’t competitions (my wife, Katie, has done it a party that everyone looked forward to. figured it out yet.” You know what? Your twice), dozens of hundred-mile bike rides, I was also president of the fraternity and parents spent a lot of money for you to and numerous shorter triathlons. When learned a lot about what didn’t work when go here, and that’s probably not as ac- the younger of my two sons was doing a trying to get others to follow your lead. ceptable an answer today as it might semester abroad in Barcelona, he decided have been in an easier employment mar- to train for the 2009 Boston Marathon Your older son graduated from Tufts in ket of ten or twenty years ago. Graduate and run for the Tufts Marathon Team. 2008. Did becoming a Tufts parent make school, a bridge to graduate school plans, That quickly escalated to both of my sons, you see the university any differently? a job—whatever is right for you. That’s Katie, and me all toeing the starting line It’s always useful to look through a differ- what I mean about improving the value together in Hopkinton and raising mon- ent lens. I don’t know that I thought too proposition. I would like to see us spend ey for the Friedman School as part of the much about return on investment when more time making the experience trans- Tufts team. I was a student, but you certainly do as a formational for a larger percentage of the parent. You ask, “What courses are you student body. What is most gratifying about your work taking, how does that all fit together, and with the Tufts Board of Trustees? what’s your plan after graduating?” Given your work with a wellness company We have a terrific and committed board and initiatives such as ChildObesity180, that functions exceptionally well. Our In your role as a volunteer, what do you you seem very health-conscious. What’s top priorities are to ensure that we have want most for Tufts’ future? your biggest vice? the best institutional leadership, to be a We are all thinking about the best way Five Guys Burgers are hard to pass up. useful sounding board based on our col- to improve the Tufts value proposition. When I go to Friedman School meetings, lective experiences, to support the presi- And that applies to both students and they don’t offer that, as you might imag- dent, and to exercise our fiduciary re- alumni. How can we give every great stu- ine. I never drank coffee, and I have now sponsibility. The most gratifying aspect dent we admit a transformational expe- been weaned off the single Coke I used to is that even with that serious agenda, rience? How can we engender even more drink every day. they are fun to be with.
Crowning Achievement. Every member of the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine Class of 2013 (shown here) contributed to the senior class gift—a record-breaking number that will forever set the bar for graduating dental classes. D13s also raised the school’s largest senior class gift to date: $5,581, as 163 members of the class joined the Dean’s Inner Circle for the first time with donations of $25 or more.
Photo: emily zilm fall 2013 tufts magazine 71 advancement giving. growth. gratitude.
university had a critical mass of students Tabitha Amondi, A14 from abroad, people who she says “un- derstand what it means to be an interna- tional student on scholarship.” Much of Amondi’s support came from an alumni couple, Rob Gheewalla, A89, and Lisi Criss, J88, who have set out to assist Jumbos from around the world. Gheewalla and Criss met as undergradu- ates during a study-abroad program in London, where they discovered firsthand the value of connecting Tufts students with the wider world. Gheewalla him- self is the son of immigrants. His father, Russi Gheewalla, DG58, D64, J85P, A87P, A89P, D91P, DG93P, came to the United States from India to attend Tufts School of Dental Medicine, where he would lat- er teach. Given that family history, Rob Gheewalla saw a special importance in giving non-U.S. students the chance to study at Tufts. It was a chance he thought especially crucial for young people from developing countries, particularly wom- en, who often lack opportunities enjoyed by men. “The only way that will change is through education,” he says. In 2010, Gheewalla and Criss endowed a scholarship fund for international stu- FINANCIAL AID AT WORK dents with financial need. During her sophomore year, Amondi was awarded A Chemist in the Making a scholarship from the Gheewalla Fund that would help support her for the rest of her undergraduate career. Without the assistance, Amondi says, she would have had to work a great deal er father stared at the women. For most of them—destined for outside of school. Instead, she has been financial aid package in early marriage and motherhood—a uni- able to focus entirely on her studies and disbelief. This is enough versity education is out of the question. lab work with Professor David Walt. money to send our whole Fortunately for Amondi, her mother, Once she completes her degree, village to school, he said. a teacher with a college degree, was de- Amondi wants to go to graduate school HTufts, the only U.S. college that Tabitha termined to educate her only daughter. in chemistry, then return to Africa as Amondi, A14, had applied to, was sud- “As long as it was up to my mother, I was a professor. Thanks to Tufts and the denly a real option. going to college,” says Amondi. “She Gheewalla scholarship, she feels right A senior majoring in chemistry, would have sacrificed anything.” But she at home in a university setting. “She’s Amondi grew up in Kisumu, a town on didn’t have to. been doing great things at Tufts,” says Lake Victoria in western Kenya. As a Tufts offered Amondi generous fi- Gheewalla. “It goes to show you that young girl, she walked to school in the nancial aid, allowing her to enroll in the sometimes very smart people just need sunshine and spent free moments play- college she saw as a perfect fit. She could an opportunity.” —micah bluming ing in the park with friends and her three study chemistry and get lab experience older brothers. But the great expanse while still receiving a broad liberal arts To learn more about endowing a scholar- of Kisumu quickly narrows for girls in education with an eye toward the glob- ship through the Tufts Financial Aid her community as they become young al community. More important, the Initiative, please visit giving.tufts.edu/fai.
72 tufts magazine fall 2013 Photo: alonso nichols Call to Service Summer of Good Works More student fellowships, courtesy of the Dimon Foundation
ill freeman, a16, arrived in midtown be part of the solution.” Manhattan this past summer with the charge The Fiver Children’s Foundation, where Freeman interned, of developing a ten-week educational program pledges ten years of free, comprehensive support and person- for underserved youth. A newcomer to New alized guidance year round to children who are referred by York City, he crafted a series of thoughtful field partner organizations. Children enter the program at age eight Wtrips that took as many as thirty children between eight and and graduate at eighteen. The foundation takes its name from twelve years old to a range of places that matched weekly themes the intuitive young rabbit in Richard Adams’ novel Watership such as the environment and the arts. Destinations included Down. It is Fiver who, convinced of dangers ahead, leads a small Union Square Farmer’s Market, the Brooklyn Grange (home of band of rabbits to search for a better future in a new home. the world’s largest rooftop farm), and an exhibition of Maurice “I helped bring young children into the Fiver culture and Sendak’s art at the DiMenna Children’s History Museum. prepare them for the years ahead at Fiver,” says Freeman. “The Freeman led the outings in his role as program coordina- seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds display a great degree of ma- tor for Summer in the City, a project of the Fiver Children’s turity. Many are headed to college and clearly have the motiva- Foundation, which has an ambitious agenda but a staff of only tion to match their great ambitions.” ten people. “I was given tremendous freedom and responsibil- Freeman, who expects to double-major in international rela- ity, and I really appreciated that,” he says. “I wanted to do real tions and political science, says working with Fiver also helped hands-on work, and because the Fiver Foundation is small, I him explore why he’s drawn to active citizenship. “I’m motivated had a chance to work closely with everyone.” by a desire to expand my perspectives, to build connections,” he Freeman was one of more than sixty Tufts students who had says. “I love interacting with lots of different people. That’s some- the opportunity to strengthen their leadership skills as they ex- thing I’ve more clearly defined for myself, and it’s an important plored their call to service through the 2013 Active Citizenship outcome that I will carry with me.” —laura ferguson Summer Fellowship Program at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. The Will Freeman, A16 program offers stipends to student interns placed in Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and selected in- ternational locations, as well as New York City. Thanks to a $1 million gift from the James and Judith K. Dimon Foundation, this summer’s place- ments more than doubled in New York and grew at a similar pace in Massachusetts. “We hope we can give more Tufts students the chance to become ac- tive and engaged citizens,” says Jamie Dimon, A78, chair, president, and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. The fellowships allow students who might oth- erwise need a paying job to devote their summer to public service. The program also connects students with alumni mentors in their host cities. Nancy Wilson, dean ad interim of Tisch College, says the funding gives a welcome boost to a program that immerses students in addressing such prob- lems as poverty, illiteracy, and child labor. “There is a tremendous demand from Tufts students to work closely with organizations tackling complex social issues,” she says. “They want to develop the skills to
Photo: Robert Caplin fall 2013 tufts magazine 73 Take It From Me Expert advice from our readers...
How to Write a Love Poem Say it without flowers
KATIE PETERSON, PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE OF POETRY, TUFTS
Be direct. Think of this memorable first line from the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” You can’t get much better than that.
Avoid abstraction. Words such as “love,” “beauty,” and “hot hot sexiness” are like carbohydrates on the dinner plate. Use them sparingly. Instead, favor concrete descriptions, which are the leafy greens and lean proteins of language. Here’s Christina Rossetti, another Victorian: “My heart is like a singing bird,” she writes, then “My heart is like an apple-tree,” then “My heart is like a rainbow-shell,” and finally, at the end of the stanza, “Because my love has come to me.”
Praise extravagantly. Check out this exaltation that the con- temporary American poet Maureen McLane adapted from the sixth-century Greek poet Sappho: “some say a host of horsemen, a horizon of ships under sail Share Power, Improve Teamwork is most beautiful but I say it is whatever you love I say it is you.” ROGER SCHWARZ, A78, ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, AUTHOR OF SMART LEADERS, SMARTER TEAMS, CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA (TWITTER.COM/LEADSMARTER) Know that less is more. These lines from a Shakespeare sonnet, for all their Think different. Banish the assumption that you, as the formal leader of a team, drama, nevertheless seem intimate are solely responsible for everything, including identifying the team’s direction and because the statement they make is so key goals, leading team meetings, and managing challenging work relationships simple: “Being your slave, what should I among team members. When you operate with this sort of mindset, you inevitably do but tend / Upon the hours and times wind up feeling as if you are in a boat where you are the captain, navigator, and chief of your desire?” engineer, and your team simply shows up to row. It not only leaves you exhausted and the team disengaged; it also wastes team members’ talents and limits any results Consider taking a risk. Here’s some the team might produce. straightforward seduction courtesy of the seventeenth-century poet John Get talking. Raise the issue of accountability and commitment with your team. Donne: “To teach thee, I am naked Explain why you need a team in which each member shares leadership, and discuss first; why then, / What needst thou have how such a team could produce better results. more covering than a man?” And if you shrink from the thought of writing Ask questions. Do the members of your team see how sharing leadership with you anything like that, reflect on Donne’s would result in more productivity? Are they interested in taking on leadership roles? famous watchword: carpe diem. In Are they interested in the results you have described? If not, what could you do to other words, YOLO. make them interested?
74 tufts magazine fall 2013 illustrations: marc rosenthal Making Googly Ads Put search engine marketing to work for you
JON BAER, A87, COFOUNDER OF wakefly, an ONLINE MARKETING FIRM in WESTBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS (WAKEFLY.COM )
Identify good keywords. The words you Don’t be too inclusive. Avoid wasting Don’t link directly to your homepage. choose to make your ad appear in users’ your budget on bad clicks. Find negative Instead, send users to a “landing page” search results are critical. Use free tools keywords—words that signal the search first, so that you can keep track of how such as Google’s Keyword Planner. Look engine not to show your ad. For example, much interest your campaign is generat- for words that are common in searches, a cruise company might specify “Tom ing. You can find out which keywords are relevant to your business, and not too Cruise” as a negative keyword. Use driving the most traffic to your website, likely to trigger ads from your competitors. resources like the store of data in your and if you have several different cam- Also, make sure your ad copy is relevant Google Adwords account to refine your paigns, you’ll learn which ones are pull- to the keywords. Consider “dynamic key- list of keywords, making sure that they ing the best results and perhaps which word insertion,” which introduces users’ reflect developments in the news and products are most appealing to your tar- search words into the text of your ad. popular culture. get audience.
Inner Peace on the Go
CLAIRE WEIGAND, BFA01, J01, G14, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, TIME MANAGEMENT AND STUDY STRATEGIES CONSULTING PROGRAM, TUFTS
Embrace imperfection. When students come to me for help breathe deeply. Let your eyes rest on the horizon. Watch for in leading a balanced life, I try to approach them with empathy, the light to turn green in your peripheral vision. remembering that I, too, am far from perfect. Extend the same attitude toward yourself, Walk mindfully. Don’t like to sit still? Try and realize that even a short moment of walking meditation, in which you keep centering can improve your day. your attention on your movement with each step. Do it in your office, in your Take deep breaths. Slowing our basement as you pick up your laundry, breathing slows our heart rate, and at the store as you buy groceries. slows our thoughts so that the mind can attend to the task at hand. Add ommmm to your iPod. Sites like calm.com provide free recordings to Understand that red lights are your guide you through mediation. Listen friend. Times when you’re forced to to one on the bus or subway. Try one wait are perfect opportunities for medi- when you can’t fall asleep or are too tation. If you’re stuck at a red light, distracted to read.
WE NEED YOUR ADVICE. What are you an expert on? Share your life-enhancing tips with “Take It from Me” (tuftsmagazine@ tufts.edu or Tufts Magazine, 80 George Street, Medford, MA 02155). If we publish your submission, you will receive $50.
fall 2013 tufts magazine 75 afterimage
The Artist as Superhero
ou are looking at two artworks in costume like one a comic book character would one: the image itself—entitled Crouch wear. I went on from Untitled Man to develop three Enclose—and the character I invented, a other “fine art superheroes”: Electrostar, the avatar superhero I call Untitled Man. The charac- for harmony; Remon, the avatar for protest; and ter grew out of my interest in how creativity arises Donagdeo, the avatar for transformation. All were from within the artist. I studied medical illustra- featured in my flash mob performance Interplay! tions of body systems such as the circulatory system October 4 at Boston’s Roxbury Crossing T stop. and the nervous system and began to imagine what Four choreographers wearing the superhero cos- a “creatory system” would look like. I rendered it in tumes enacted epic narratives with the help of fabric paint on a cotton unitard and then sculpted dance students from Boston Latin Academy. a helmet and mask to go with it. The result was a —basil el halwagy, g09
76 tufts magazine fall 2013
“ I wasveryhappyat Tufts.Thebestthing Icouldthinkofdoing withmymoneywas somethingforthe school.Iwantedtohelp somebodywhomight haveotherwisemissed outonaTuftseducation becauseheorshe couldn’taffordit.”
Professor Emeritus Sylvan Barnet is a prolific writer, a Shakespearean scholar, and a renowned collector of Japanese Buddhist art. He is also a member of the Charles Tufts Society, the university’s legacy society. From 1954 to 1984, Sylvan, For 30 years, Sylvan taught English literature and first-year writing at Tufts. pictured here in his teaching “I loved every minute of it,” he says. “In teaching literature, you enjoy reading days, served as Fletcher great material, and you hope someone is listening to you. But in teaching writing, Professor of English Literature. you can see that you have helped your students express themselves clearly and engagingly.” In 1984, Sylvan retired to focus on his Zen Buddhist calligraphy collection, which For more information he and his partner, William Burto, began building in 1965. The couple—at times with other collaborators—also co-wrote and edited several books, including Zen please contact Tufts’ Ink Paintings. Sylvan served as the general editor of The Complete Signet Classic Gift Planning Office Shakespeare, an edition used in many English-speaking universities. 888.748.8387 In honor of his parents, Sylvan created the Esther and Philip Barnet Endowed giftplanning@ tufts.edu Scholarship Fund in 2011. Additionally, he has decided to leave the bulk of his www.tufts.edu/giftplanning estate, including all copyrights and royalties from his published works, to his scholarship. Sylvan’s gift will carry on his legacy of helping to shape the minds facebook.com/CharlesTuftsSociety of Tufts scholars.
GPL_TufftsMag_Fall13Barnet_20AUG.indd 1 8/21/13 3:14 PM Magazine
80 george street medford, ma 02155 http://go.tufts.edu/magazine
Name New wave Lifting their this college of military voices in actor turned power: lose song, Bubs movie star the big stick turn fifty 5 23 28
Smithsonian’s art doctor 32