THE UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND people and ideas for summer 2007 j. i! AMAZING STORIES! ANCIENTARTIFACT 1 I HI I I 1 ¥ H HI\ ' 1 Albert Brooks % y . * ■ NIY WORST PERFORMANCE 1 V % VS Midimi [A r. Pee-Wee Herman: id* 9m» m 1 I B ‘Someone tu I I I r I I -■ . % stole my IK '• \ $ > i >V-lM aI M\V . • Il 1 i 1 k &IZZY GILLESPIE: 'A/haddaya mean you ilf I I Won't cash this UPS check? W contents people news and notes 20 Good Teachers/Good Friends 4 Zeitgeist I Nancy and Don Hoff, from whom we have learned I In this issue: Math students score big in international I a lot about dignity and grace _____ j |modeling contest; helping Hood Canal breathe; a guide to campus trees; an online algebra text that si 22 Amazing Stones i free; other news and observations __ __ __ I 1 For inquiring minds, obscure lore and oddjactsl 29 Class Notes arches Summer 2007 on the cover ideas Scandal, heartbreak, intrigue: we've got 'em all in a tabloid tableau of little-known-but-nevertheless-amazing stories from the campus, 5 Close Encounters Between , starting on page 22. Knowledge and Power i Photos: Pee-Wee Herman-Robert Landau/Corbis; Dizzy Gillespie- In her commencement address, Elizabeth Cousens 87| Bettmann/Corbis; Albert Brooks-Gregg Segal/Corbis. gives three examples of how thought trumps might I Ithispage A curtain call for actors from the first of two nights of plays that were .written, staged, and performed in a frantic 24 hours. I 18 Hitting the Trail books by alumni and faculty, Photo by Ross Mulhausen. In “Biblio,” eight new I Tor more on the Double Shot Theatre Festival, turn to page 10. i I____ including two comprehensive hiking guides from the president Amazing very May, around 600 amazing-stories-in-progress dress up in long black gowns and square hats, march through campus, are awarded sheepskins, and go out into the Eworld to live out their tales of adventure. Here’s just one of them. The daughter of a Puget Sound faculty member, she had always felt at home on a col­ lege campus. She had been a talented local high school student who discovered an interest in public affairs early in life. She went off to study at Princeton University. A dream. Just one year away from graduation, the unthinkable happened. She was struck with a life- threatening disease. To call this turn of events a tremendous disappointment would be an understatement. Forced to withdraw from Princeton, she took the long trip back home to Tacoma to re­ ceive the medical treatment she desperately needed. Once here, she discovered that she had come home in more ways than one. She had grown up attending events, and lectures, and concerts on campus, and seen her life shaped by what she had learned here. She had taken her first trip abroad, accompanying (when she was only 11 years old) 30 Puget Sound un­ dergraduates and her father, who was the faculty member/guide, on a trek through Italy and eastern Europe. As a high school student, she had taken college classes at Puget Sound and become friends with some of the faculty. And after her three years at Princeton, she was es­ pecially impressed by their unfailing commitment to students and to the life of the mind. Now, healthy once more, she made an important decision. She would not return to Princeton. Rather, she would stay right here and graduate from the University of Puget Sound. A family friend, history Professor Walter Lowrie, encouraged her to entertain the unthinkable once more: this time, to apply for the highly competitive Rhodes Scholarship to study international relations at Oxford. She never imagined herself a Rhodes Scholar. And she is convinced she never would have applied for a Rhodes if she had been at Princeton. At Puget Sound, she did. Cut to the chase: she was the only person from the state of Washington selected for a Rhodes that year. That was in 1987. She went to Oxford, and it changed her life and set her on the path that would lead her to a think tank at Stanford, writing on the human right to self-defense; to working with the United Nations on the most intractable of international crises; to living in dangerous places like the Gaza Strip, Bosnia, and Jerusalem so that people living there might dream of living in peace. It would lead her ultimately to a leadership role at the International Peace Academy, where she continues to work directly with world lead­ ers to resolve seemingly irreconcilable political conflicts around the globe. She still thinks about—and acts upon—the unthinkable. T This year she put on her black gown again, her square hat, and delivered perhaps the best commencement address I have ever heard. Quoting John Stewart and Donald Rumsfeld, she told three amazing stories about war and peace and their relationship to knowledge—one about reading novels to reconcile conflict in Haiti, another about redesigning license plates to bring peace to Bosnia, and a third about the costs of mistaking modern-day Iraq for 1940s Germany. Amazing. She got another sheepskin from Puget Sound this May, too, this one an honorary doctorate in humane letters. Elizabeth Cousens’ story is amazing. It is the story of war and peace. And it is our story. And there are 600 more of them. Every May. I can’t wait to read the next 600 chapters. \^iv Ronald R. Thomas Elizabeth Cousens’ commencement address appears in its entirety, beginning on page 5. arrhac Ci imi inn 7 f arches letters Vol.34, No.4 Summer 2007 i Chuck Luce, Editor and Designer Cathy Tollefson '83, Assistant Editor, Class Watada talk should have be done with it by now.’” Notes counterpoint There’s no way I could have known until Ross Mulhausen, Photographer, unless years afterward that it was the most valuable credited otherwise * | 'he spring Arches contained an article thing I learned all semester. Lan Nguyen '08, Kristen Dodd '07, JL about Ehren Watada which I find very Interns Samantha Kahn '90 offensive, personally. I strongly support the Hayward, California Office of Communications Bill of Rights. However, I also believe that \ Gayle McIntosh, Executive Director of when an individual makes a contractual Communications obligation to serve his or her country, that Did Japanese-American Melissa Rohlfs, Media Relations Manager obligation must be fulfilled. Julie Reynolds, Design Manager I graduated from UPS during the time students return to UPS? Barbara Weist, Web Manager of the Vietnam War and unfortunately he article “Thoughts on War, and Sarah Stall, Publications Manager know of classmates, fraternity brothers, and TInnocents Bearing Blame” [spring 2006] friends who were either killed or injured affected me strongly. The campus cherry Alumni Council Executive Committee trees mentioned are probably in bloom Ken McGill '61, President; Ann Stevens '85, fighting that conflict. Past President; Kekoa Beaupre '95, Leslie Arches is obligated to publish various again. I have finally gotten the strength to Skinner Brown '92, Arthur Campbell '50, views as expressed. I hope that an equal write and ask if anyone knows what became Laurie Koelbel Chahbandour '84, Eric Her­ zog '94, Edward Horne |r. '70, Shannon opportunity will be provided a member in of any of the 30 students who touchingly Hughes '92, Ken Johnson '75, Jeremy Korst good standing from our U.S. Armed Forces. planted the trees for their friends at UPS '97, Michael LeFevre '00, Brent Olson '94, and delivered their final message as they Rebecca Page '94, Aaron Petersen '82, Rod Steven ]. White '68 Smith '52, Peter Thompson '81, David Medina, Washington went off to internment camps, with Shigeo Watson '92, Paul Weigel '91, Amy Ma Wakamatsu as their spokesman: “Each Winterowd '99 rches missed a perfect opportunity to spring you will watch the cherry trees bloom Contacting arches Aprovide a relevant contrast to the ac­ and grow. It has been our only tangible i Circulation tions of Lt. Watada. For many years UPS contribution to the college. It is our earnest To be added to or deleted from the had an active ROTC program. Thousands prayer that our friendship will continue to i arches mailing list, or to correct your grow. At this time, we say, not goodbye, but address, call 253-879-3299 or write Office of UPS alumni have graduated and went on of Communications, University of Puget to be officers in the U.S. military. Unlike Lt. until we meet again.” Sound, 1500 N. Warner St., Tacoma WA Watada, the UPS graduates well and faith­ Did any of them return to UPS? Does 98416-1041. fully executed the duties of their office by Takanori Asai, who spoke of this in 2005 Editorial Offices Voice: 253-879-3318; Fax: 253-879-3149; serving their country and fulfilling the oath at UPS as the Miki Scholar, know how any E-mail: [email protected]; Post: Arches, they voluntarily took upon being commis­ of these people fared? Did Alma Balahadia, Office of Communications, University of who wrote of them in her 1992 thesis, know? Puget Sound, 1500 N. Warner St., Tacoma, sioned. Perhaps a future article on these WA 98416-1041. fellow alumni would help provide some I have always loved the cherry trees and real-world perspective to what Lt. Watada so the paper cranes when we came for Spring arches unbound : www.ups.edu/arches easily comments on. Family Weekend, and, last year, after that ; Bill Pelster '88 article, they meant so much more.