CollegeThe Spring 2007

St. John’s College • Annapolis • Santa Fe

J.S. Bach Music and Culture On Bach The College (usps 018-750) tudying Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is one of the great moments in four is published quarterly by years of St. John’s. Indeed, if the college ever required a theme song, the St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD, Passion would do quite well. What makes it a great work worthy of the and Santa Fe, NM Program? To Eric Stoltzfus, music librarian in Annapolis,“it’s the Known office of publication: combination of a very powerful story, and a sense that there’s a brilliant Communications Office mind interpreting that story and adding things to it.” Peter Kalkavage, St. John’s College Swho led the Annapolis Community Chorus in its performance of the Box 2800 opening and closing choruses of the work, says the Passion is an immensely satisfying Annapolis, MD 21404-2800 culmination of two years of the study of music, a work that holds special meaning for many alumni years after they leave the college. Periodicals postage paid Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685, a year that saw the birth of two other great at Annapolis, MD musicians: Georg Friedrich Handel and Domenic Scarlatti. By the time he was 10, both of Bach’s parents were dead, and Bach came under the wing of his eldest brother, Johann postmaster: Send address changes to The College Christoph, who helped guide his musical education. Bach sang in a boys’ choir, and later Magazine, Communications turned to the organ, pursuing his musical education independently. At age 18, he was Office, St. John’s College, appointed organist of the New Church in Arnstadt, where he kept getting into trouble. Box 2800, Annapolis, MD (In 1705, he brawled with a student and called him a “nanny-goat bassoonist”; the 21404-2800. following year was reprimanded for staying away too long from his post after he traveled to another city to hear a great organist.) Rosemary Harty, editor In 1707, Bach became organist in Mühlhausen, where he married his cousin, Maria Patricia Dempsey, Barbara Bach, with whom he had seven children. Other posts followed: court organist and managing editor chamber musician, later concert master at Weimar; musical director at Köthen for Prince Gail Griffith, Leopold of Anhalt; music director and cantor of the church of St. Thomas, Leipzig. He was Santa Fe editor the third choice for the post at St. Thomas, which he took up in 1723, and he so disliked Emily DeBusk, one of his duties—teaching Latin to the schoolboys—that he paid someone else to do it. assistant editor In a span of about five years in Leipzig, Bach gave the first performance of the Jennifer Behrens, art director St. John Passion and produced the Magnificat and the St. Matthew Passion. After Maria Barbara’s death, Bach married Anna MagdalenaWülken, a gifted musician, who bore him Annapolis 13 children. 410-626-2539 Bach died in 1750, but four of his sons continued his legacy: Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christian, Wilhelm Friedemann, and Johann Christoph Friedrich. C.P.E. Bach Santa Fe co-wrote his father’s obituary, which praised his moral character, piety, and devotion to his 505-984-6104 art: “If ever a composer showed polyphony in its greatest strength, it was certainly our late lamented Bach. If ever a musician employed the most hidden secrets of harmony with the Contributors most skilled artistry, it was certainly our Bach.” Elizabeth Burlington (A08) This issue of the magazine considers music’s place in the Program. Not only is it Caroline Caldwell (SF08) important in the classroom, but music in all its forms also enlivens the communities on Nelson Hernandez (A99) both campuses, with groups such as Primum Mobile singing sacred music in the Pendulum Andrea Lamb Pit in Annapolis, and tutors such as Cary Stickney in Santa Fe sharing their talents and Oliver Lemke (SF08) love for music with all of us. Peter Pesic —RH Jennifer Sprague Jennifer Wright (A08) Elliott Zuckerman (HA95)

Magazine design by Claude Skelton Design Spring 2007 CollegeThe Volume 33, Issue 2

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

{Contents} page 10 departments “With a Clear and 2 from the bell towers • Annapolis treasurer Bronté Jones Single Purpose” • A year in Iraq What the $125 million campaign for • Green energy for Annapolis St. John’s College means to the • Annapolis student establishes leadership Santa Fe campus. retreat • Johnnies from foreign lands • Restoring Key’s will page 16 • An Annapolis-born novelist had ties to St. John’s “Sing, Goddess” page 10 As part of the quadrivium, music belongs in the Program, but where and how? 34 bibliofile “How-to” books for people who think page 22 they know how to read. Pop Johnnies 39 alumni Can YouTube and American Idol coexist with the form of the good? PROFILES 38 Christian Acemah (SF05) travels, researches, and writes for African page 26 development. Visual Thinkers 41 Coming of age in tumultuous times, page 16 the class of 1966 has a distinct character. Three artists working in different media 42 Manhattan dealmaker Munir Hussein (A90) share their distinctive works and discovers cultural understanding in philosophies. Maine. page 36 48 obituaries Happy Birthday, 50 alumni association news Croquet 52 st. john’s forever Over 25 years, the St. John’s croquet tradition has evolved into a mini-Homecoming. page 26

on the cover Johann Sebastian Bach Illustration by David Johnson 2 {From the Bell Towers}

“He walked to work until he took his inspiration, along Beyond the Bottom Line was 45 to save money. He had a with his photo, on her plan–it was about fiscal academic and professional Annapolis Treasurer Bronté Jones management and about the journey. differences that could make. As treasurer of the A brass-framed photo on the man in the photo–her I went to college and majored Annapolis campus, Jones’ Bronté Jones’ desk tells the grandfather, Asbury Jones. in finance simply because I position includes fiscal story of how she has become, “Last fall I drove over to my understood the difference that responsibility for the college’s at 37, one of the youngest grandparents’ home on the having strong financial operations and she is a college treasurers in the Eastern Shore for my grandfa- acumen could make in one’s member of the management country, and one of the few ther’s 85th birthday. My life.” Growing up on the committee that oversees African-American women grandfather is my absolute Eastern Shore in a tight-knit all aspects of the college’s in this male-dominated favorite person in the whole family filled with educators administration and strategic profession. Jones, who joined world. He’s a blue-collar (her mother is a retired planning. Jones brings more to St. John’s last summer as worker and when he retired, teacher and three of her her new position at St. John’s treasurer, says she credits he made $16,000 dollars, but mother’s siblings are also than her solid credentials, her parents for what she has he put seven of his kids educators), Jones saw her which include a summer at accomplished, but especially through college,” says Jones. grandfather daily and later the Harvard Institute for Educational Leadership, and a master’s in business administration from American University, in addition to her doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. She brings a passionate sense of purpose and the exuberance and desire to help people that mark a leader. Besides her grandfather, her role models for leadership are trailblazers such as Thurgood Marshall, Nelson Mandela, and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. “I’m drawn to the people who feel like their lives are a mission and there is something they’re supposed to accomplish with it.” Jones cites Johnetta Cole, president of Bennett College, as the kind of female leader she admires. “Her book Conversations: Straight Talk with America’s Sister President inspired me— she’s a role model for me. I like people who made a difference and understood their lives’ work to be about enhancing the lives of others,” says Jones, who aspires to be a college president one day. Jones discovered her passion for higher education 10 years ago while she was t n i o p r e i p

y Bronté Jones discovered her r a calling in higher education. g

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {From the Bell Towers} 3

working at the state auditor’s knowledge, she remains about St. John’s, unlike office in Austin, Texas. accessible, even humble. anywhere else in America, is “Originally I thought I’d be a “The true sign of intelligence, that we’re actually having financial planner, then I “The true sign of per my grandfather, is that you discussions about reducing the wanted to be a finance can explain anything to size of the student enrollment professor and teach, but when intelligence, per anybody. Finance isn’t rocket to preserve the rich educa- I found myself auditing federal my grandfather, science. I want to explain tional experience of the financial aid programs on terms like amortize, life seminars; this runs contrary to college campuses I discovered is that you can annuity, and alternate invest- most institutions,” she says. the world of higher education ment, and what’s in our One of Jones’ challenges, she administration. When I went explain anything endowment. I want everyone says, is to figure out “how to onto college campuses I came to really understand the goals thrive with 450 instead of 500 alive; I loved getting to know to anybody.” of the institution, how we students and still provide the the students. It was and still is operate and know that the small classroom experience about more than making sure Bronté Jones, Annapolis treasurer college and its business office that we do.” For Jones this the institution’s bills are paid isn’t a mysterious place.” translates into questions such and books are balanced, it’s Like many of Jones’ as: Where and how does the about relationships and being colleagues, President Christo- college streamline? To what a bridge for students who an officer for a premier pher Nelson is eager to learn degree does the endowment need advice.” Jones changed institution such as St. John’s,” from the college’s new treas- need to grow in order to her doctoral focus from says Jones. urer. “We seek Bronté’s advice sustain the college at 450 finance to higher education Jones brings her sense of on everything from policy students? “There are several administration and was purpose to everything from initiatives to administrative questions that we will need to accepted at the University of troubleshooting with custodial matters. Bronté brings a answer. It’s not going to be a Texas, Austin. “After staff about new equipment, certain sophistication to the tomorrow fix; it’s going to be a completing my doctoral to offering astute advice on business operations and multi-year plan.” studies in Austin in 2005, financial strategy at invest- financial controls that is new As Jones moves forward in it was my dream to return ment meetings with other to the college,” says Nelson. her new position as treasurer to Maryland. This dream officers of the college. Yet, “The role of a treasurer in a there is one other person has been fulfilled by having dedicated to a leadership small college is not just a besides her grandfather to the opportunity to serve as style that centers on sharing financial manager. Bronté has whom she is especially a higher education back- grateful: her predecessor, ground so she can serve us Bud Billups (HA03), who was across the whole institution— treasurer at the college for Rankings Revolt admissions, financial aid, more than a decade. “I have enrollment management, such respect and admiration Christopher Nelson (SF70) and Santa Fe President Michael business, operations, financial for Bud,” she says. “This is the Peters are among 12 college presidents leading a revolt management. She brings a most ideal situation. It is like against U.S. News and World Report’s college rankings level of managerial skill to running a race and somebody system. Along with their colleagues, they signed a letter sent help all of us to do our work passes you the baton and they to college presidents throughout the nation, asking them to better.” want you to run as quickly as refuse to fill out the magazine’s reputational survey and to Given the $125 million you can because you’re all in refuse to use the rankings in any promotional efforts. The capital campaign, Jones’ the race together. That’s how I letter asks colleges to give the magazine data collected expertise is needed now more feel with Bud–he passed me according to shared professional standards. than ever. Not only does she the baton and he wants me to For almost a decade, St. John’s has declined to take part in help the college manage the finish the race well.” Jones the U.S. News and World Report survey, maintaining that funds that are raised through says her extended family has rankings don’t help students choose a college that is right the campaign, she also works grown since she met Billups for them. Both presidents have been quoted in the national with staff to develop a and his wife Bea, an Episcopal press on the college’s opposition to rankings of any kind. strategic plan that secures minister. “I’ve adopted them Throughout the spring, college presidents continued to the college’s future. Jones as family.” x sign on to the effort, coordinated through the Education says the challenges she faces —Patricia Dempsey Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that seeks to de- at St. John’s are unique as commercialize the college selection process. However, compared, for instance, to U.S. News Editor Brian Kelly dismissed the presidents Huston-Tillotson University in leading the effort as a small group of “the usual suspects.” Austin, Texas, where she was “These are the folks making these complaints for years,” vice president for administra- he told the Washington Post. x tion and finance from 2004 to 2006. “The interesting thing

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 4 {From the Bell Towers}

ties and meet students, give trailer, his office, and the Finding Fulbright lectures, and offer various “DFACS” where he gets his social events at universities.” meals. Little else besides work Scholars in a War Zone Unfortunately, classwork has occupies his time except for been severely limited at most of reading (Thomas Pynchon’s Santa Fe tutor Greg Bayer the third-largest in the world in the country’s universities, and newest novel, Against the Day; arrived in Baghdad last terms of the number of the state department deems Nietzsche’s Zarathustra), and Christmas to take up a year- masters’ programs,” Bayer most universities unsafe to writing (a book project on Aris- long assignment as director of says. “It’s not a true exchange travel to, though Bayer says the totle). Traveling to and from the Fulbright program in Iraq. program: obviously, there situation in the north is better. the city—as he did earlier this After a grueling flight he aren’t too many students from He plans to travel to universi- spring to make a trip to D.C.— checked out his new home: a other countries wanting to ties in Erbil and Fulyamaniyah is a tense ordeal that starts with small metal trailer with one bed study in Iraq right now. We will later this year. donning a helmet and a heavy and some lockers. Jet-lagged, probably have 35 to 40 students The war has disrupted every- Kevlar vest. “You go out under he sat outside by a pool going over to American univer- thing in the country, so the cover of night in a Rhino, a formerly owned by Saddam sities this summer and fall. All managing the program pres- huge vehicle that’s something Hussein, listening to the thud fields are represented: public ents daily challenges. Bayer like a super-armored of explosions and watching a health, public affairs, English, sent out e-mails to about 70 Winnebago, and travel in a thick plume of black convoy,” he explains. smoke rise from Bayer tries not to outside the walls dwell on the risk surrounding the involved in his job. Green Zone. “There’s “There are rockets a surreal quality of that come in and life here in Baghdad,” mortars every once in Bayer says. a while, and some- Former Santa Fe times you have to President John duck into these little Agresto, who for nine pillboxes,” he says. months served as the “You’re on your way senior adviser to the to work in a suit and Iraqi Higher Educa- tie, you’re thinking tion Ministry, alerted about a visa interview Bayer to the Fulbright or an ad you have to opportunity. Bayer get in the newspaper, applied for the posi- and you hear the tion and for a year’s thuds of car bombs leave from the going off not too far college. “John talked away.” a few times at the The Fulbright college about his program, he says, work in Iraq, and he provides an oasis of got me interested in normalcy among the the whole situation,” Santa Fe tutor Greg Bayer was fitted for his Kevlar vest and helmet—requisite chaos; in desperate says Bayer. “I had equipment in Baghdad—on his first day in the Green Zone last December. times, it offers hope served on our for a bright future for Fulbright committee some talented young in Santa Fe, and I thought I various forms of linguistics, university contacts and Iraqis. “So much is made, and might be able to do some good journalism.” received just a handful of rightfully so, of all the terrible during my sabbatical.” This spring, Bayer has been replies. After they’re awarded things that are happening in Bayer has an office in the working to promote the the Fulbright, Iraqi students Baghdad,” he says. “It’s dirty, Chancery. He works six to program and solicit applicants must then get the “right” Iraqi it’s rundown, it’s falling apart, seven days a week and puts in for fall 2008. He’s organized passport, go through the visa but it is still a pretty lively city. 10-hour days, processing appli- news conferences, given radio process, and undergo a back- People are going about their cations, interviewing appli- and television interviews, and ground check by Homeland daily lives, despite everything. cants, helping students nego- placed advertising in media Security. Bayer helps usher The Iraqis are amazingly tiate the visa process, and throughout the country. “The them through the process. resilient people.” x promoting the program normal way to publicize some- Bayer spends most of his Bayer would enjoy hearing throughout the country. “Our thing like the Fulbright,” Bayer time in the Green Zone, and his from members of the St. John’s Fulbright program in Iraq is explains, “is to go to universi- daily life restricts him to his community: [email protected].

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {From the Bell Towers} 5

is covered by renewable energy Cecil-Cockwell was recently study of ancient works to Green Power credits. St. John’s purchased awarded a $10,000 grant by the consider how 21st-century enough to cover 10 mega-watt Kathryn Wasserman Davis technology is playing a role in While it can’t install wind hours; the college uses 6 mega- Foundation to put his proposal shaping societies and creating turbines on back campus to watt hours per year. “St. John’s for a youth-oriented leadership conversations across cultural and power the college, St. John’s in will be the first college in Mary- and education retreat into geographical barriers. Annapolis is nevertheless doing land to engage in a green energy practice. His idea is to support Last March, Litton presented its part for green energy. The commitment beyond current “personal development through a paper, “On the Potential for college has purchased renewable state requirements,” says Skip conversation and study, for the Communications Technology to energy credits (RECs) to cover Trimble, an energy consultant sake of leading social change.” Cause a Fundamental Shift in the 100 percent of its energy who helped the college evaluate Before they meet in Canada, the Way People Form Societies,” consumption. Renewable energy energy options. Green energy, students, traveling from Canada, at the New Directions in Critical credits are created for every Trimble says, is more than India, Mexico, Tanzania, and the Theory Conference, an interdis- 1,000 kilo-watt hours produced helping the environment. U.S., will research their own ciplinary graduate student by a renewable energy generator. “It establishes alternative energy locality and develop a project to forum. Graduate students from Power plants that use alternative sources that also make a more improve their environment and all disciplines were invited to sources, such as the sun, wind, secure nation by limiting our society. While in the Limberlost, present papers on “negotiating methane from a landfill or waste- reliance on oil and provides a “The students will spend time and constructing identities” at water treatment, geothermal more reliable energy grid by reading and discussing issues the University of Arizona confer- energy, and the ocean, garner introducing prudent energy related to their projects, as well ence, and Litton chose to explore additional revenue from the sale diversity,” he says. as participating in workshops led how technology facilitates cross- of RECs so that they become Although green energy is by qualified guest-mentors,” cultural communication and the increasingly economical to build more expensive than traditional he explains. Cecil-Cockwell has formation of entirely new social and maintain. energy sources, Jackson says the recruited professional volun- groups drawn together by “We can’t buy wind directly, college made the purchase of teers, government lobbyists, and common interests and ideas. because there are no turbines in energy credits a spending experts on social thought to lead Litton taught English for our region or in our grid,” priority. “It was the right thing workshops on topics ranging several years in Seoul, South explains Don Jackson, director of to do,” he says. x from current news stories to how Korea, and used Voice Over operations in Annapolis. “So the to collaborate with the media. Internet Protocol, which allows energy industry sells credits for The big picture, Cecil-Cock- for phone-like conversations electricity produced by wind or Inspiring well writes in his proposal, is to via the Internet, to stay in photovoltaic sources that say make efficient use of youthful touch with friends and family. we’ve paid a premium for its Future motivation by giving it support, He observed how “in Korea, product at another location.” direction, and practical skills the most wired country in the By purchasing the credits, the Leaders through dialogue. “In that way, world,” virtual communication college supports the production it is very like St. John’s,” he says. created a shift from “parlor” of energy through renewable For one week in August, the Long after the participants leave conversations to virtual resources. pristine Limberlost Forest in Canada, Cecil-Cockwell hopes dialogues open to many partici- The state requires that about northern Ontario will be a IPEC will be a source of mutual pants. Advances in translation 3.5 percent of all energy rendezvous for 12 student support as these potential technology offer the promise purchases be covered by renew- activists from around the world. leaders return to their countries of creating communities by with new ideas and plans for the able energy credits. Currently, The students will meet under the overcoming linguistic barriers, future. 100 percent of St. John’s energy auspices of International Part- x he adds. nerships through Education and There is a potential downside Collaboration From to virtual interaction, Litton (IPEC), a youth acknowledges: those who replace conference founded person-to-person encounters by St. John’s sopho- Sanskrit to with strictly online interaction more Malcolm can experience isolation, rather Cecil-Cockwell. Skype than the sense of community. Yet Litton still see great potential for The Eastern Classics program in the use of communications tech- Santa Fe immerses graduate nology in education. “You don’t Malcolm Cecil- Cockwell (A10), students in ancient languages— need to be physically present for cleaning the Sanskrit or Classical Chinese— a conversation,” he says. “Online shoreline of and texts such as the Tao Te seminar discussions, conducted College Creek, Ching, written by Lao Tzu in across cultural boundaries, could wants IPEC to about 600 BCE. Jason Litton, be richly diverse.” x encourage others who will finish the program this to be activists in —Oliver Lemke (SF08) their community. August, took a detour from his

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 6 {From the Bell Towers}

Worlds Away Each year, at least half a dozen foreign students enroll in St. John’s. The College visited with two “F-1” students, an Annapolis Johnnie halfway through the Program and another in Santa Fe, just graduating from St. John’s. Interviews are by Elizabeth Burlington (A08) and Caroline Caldwell (SF08).

Yuhai Zhou (A09) of oil smoke. So finally he was Lanzhou, China kicked out by the landlord.” Distance from Annapolis: Plans after St. John’s 6,258 miles “My plan after St. John’s is to Legendary City continue to study. When I first “Lanzhou is my birthplace, and left China, I thought that I I lived there for 15 years until would like to be a teacher in the my family moved to Guangzhou countryside. The countryside in 2002, one of the three of China is 70 percent of the biggest cities in China (Beijing population. My father says that and Shanghai are the other if you do not understand the left: A cooking oil incident made Miss Zhou briefly famous in two). The other name for countryside then you don’t Annapolis. Right: Even with years of English practice, Guangzhou is “The City of Five understand the whole condi- Miss Steinhoff struggles with idioms. Goats.” It is said when there tion of China. So I decided to was famine, five gods on five go teach in the countryside, but goats came, each with wheat in I am not sure if that plan will its mouth. People accepted the change after a couple years something like the Middle it in a certain way that makes wheat and they finally got a big here. Both of my parents are Ages, but there’s no sign or sense to you. So the translation harvest. Then Guangzhou teaching at the University of anything proclaiming that itself is almost already an inter- became the wealthy city in the China. My mother teaches loudly.” pretation in itself, which helps, south. The interesting thing is, economy, my father teaches Biggest Headache whereas the original is stranger before I came to St. John’s, I geography.” in German. I started reading it met four alumni of St. John’s “I had been speaking English in German then I picked up the who were teaching in the same Felicitas Steinhoff (SF07) in school and lived with English one along the way and I college in Guangzhou.” Stanhope, Germany international students for thought the English one made On Dante Distance from Santa Fe: three years in boarding school. much more sense.” 4,613 miles We would basically mix and “So far my favorite book is Plans after St. John’s Cultural Highlight match English and German Dante’s Divine Comedy. phrases all the time. It was still “I am right now waiting to get Originally, I wanted to write “Well, in the town I grew up in odd to come [to Santa Fe] and my work permit approved. on the Divine Comedy for my mostly, in the north, there was all of a sudden there was no I don’t really want to go back to sophomore essay, but, because this old monastery and there German, and not the slightest Germany yet. I was planning to I feel that it is so beautiful, I am was a rose bush that apparently possibility to speak German, so go to grad school but my senior afraid of destroying the beauty was over 1,000 years old. That for the first three days I had the essay got a little bit in the way in that book by writing about it. was it. That was the cultural biggest headache ever. I think of my application process. So I decided to destroy the highlight. So basically there in English now. I dream in So I’m going to stay in Santa Fe beauty in another book. was nothing special; lots of English. The only thing that is simply because I have no I ended up writing on Job.” towns in Germany have these still a bit problematic are little relatives in the states, but a Alarming Moment odd little cultural artifacts that idioms and figures of speech couple of my friends will be are famous. Usually they will that I usually butcher in staying too. We’ll all be “I really like cooking and I build a church around it. I’ve hilarious ways. I had big issues working full time, saving up have become very famous noticed in America that people with the word ‘pneumonia.’ ” money, and then I will apply around campus for my cooking. will proudly put up signs for a to grad school in October. I One day [in Gilliam Hall], the On Kant street that’s like 250 years old want to get my master’s in fire engines came and all the or a settlement that’s been “Kant made up a lot of his own counseling psychology.” x alarms went off. Chinese there since the Founding words to describe the things he people are famous for their Fathers. The little town close was talking about. It was easier cooking-oil smoke. My father, to where I lived, where my to read [an English] translation was living in England in 1995, mother lives now in Stuttgart, of that because in order to and he was cooking in the is originally from 1250 or translate you have to interpret apartment and he caused a lot

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {From the Bell Towers} 7

Grants from the Anne Good Will Preservation Arundel County Trust for Preservation; Four Rivers: the The last will and testament of Philadelphia for an overhaul. Heritage Area of Annapolis, Francis Scott Key, class of The Conservation Center London Town and South 1796, came to the college in will clean and flatten the County; the Maryland Bar 1993 when a descendant of document (it was folded in Association Foundation; and Key thought the college thirds for many years), and the Nielsen Bainbridge was the rightful place for a will repair a slight tear to one Company provided funding document of such historic of the pages. The document for the project. importance. The author of the will be returned to the college Distinguished by bold, “Star-Spangled Banner” was next spring in a special box elegant script that may or may also founder of the college’s that will preserve it for not be Key’s, the will was first Alumni Association and is another two centuries or so. penned in 1837 and amended considered its most famous The center will also provide a several times. It arranges for alumnus. facsimile of the will that the distribution of Key’s Key’s will will be preserved Earlier this spring, the will St. John’s will enclose in a assets to various relatives. for future generations. was transported to the glass case and make available Alas, no bequest was made to Conservation Center for Arts for public display. the college. x and Historic Artifacts in

Cain became a reporter for the often applied to Cain’s writing James M. Cain Was Here Baltimore Sun, where he met style and, consequently, to the and was influenced by the entire genre of classic cinema. The words film noir evoke Born in 1892, the son of a famous journalist and satirist (As an example of hard-boiled- images of a fedora-wearing, St. John’s professor, James H.L. Mencken. In 1923, he ness, the protagonist in The wise-cracking private eye, a Mallahan Cain grew up in the returned to St. John’s as a Postman Always Rings Twice curvaceous and ultimately Paca-Carroll dormitory, which professor of journalism. says, “Then I saw her…she treacherous femme fatale, and was then faculty housing. He stayed in Annapolis for really wasn’t a raving beauty, stark, smoky cinematography. His father eventually became just a year before moving to but she had a sulky look to her, Who would have thought that the vice president of St. John’s New York to become an editor and her lips stuck out in a way such scenes, deeply engrained before moving the family to and writer for various publica- that made me want to mash in the American pop conscious- Chestertown, Maryland, to tions, including The New them in for her.”) Cain’s works ness, were straight from the become the president of Yorker. With the onset of the were important contributions to novels of an author who spent Washington College, from Depression, Cain moved to what later became known as the his childhood on the sunny which Cain graduated in 1910. Hollywood where the pay for hard-boiled school of American campus of St. John’s College? After some time in the army, screenwriters was generous, detective and crime fiction, a although his best-known genre that included another works are novels that Maryland-born author, Dashiell became screenplays. Hammett (The Maltese Falcon), As Cain’s novels hit the and Raymond Chandler, who silver screen during the wrote the screenplay for 1940s, some of the Double Indemnity. brightest movie stars in Though some may dismiss Hollywood brought his Cain’s work as pulp fiction, he stories to life: Double claimed a loyalty to what he Indemnity starred Fred called in the preface of Double MacMurray and Barbara Indemnity, “the logos of the Stanwyck; Joan Crawford American countryside,” saying s n was Mildred Pierce; and that “the average man, from the o i t The Postman Always fields, the streets, the bars, the c e l

l Rings Twice featured offices, and even the gutters of o c Lana Turner. “Hard- this country, has acquired a s e p boiled” is a term that is vividness of speech that goes o o h beyond anything I could y o invent.” r x

, s James M. Cain penned e —Emily DeBusk (A06) p 19 novels in addition to o o

h his short stories and y o screenplays. r

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 8 {From the Bell Towers}

News & Announcements Guggenheim Winner McDowell Hall bell tower stopped working. “The switch Santa Fe tutor and musician-in- got stuck because it’s not made residence Peter Pesic has been to ring a 100 times in a row,” awarded the prestigious suggested Sid Phipps, director of Guggenheim Fellowship Award buildings and grounds in for his investigations into the Annapolis. connections between music and The college applied to the natural philosophy. Guggen- n

city of Annapolis for a second a

heim Fellowships recognize m

exemption to the noise g e

“distinguished achievement in i t

ordinance, and arranged for s

the past and exceptional promise a

the seniors who missed the e s for future accomplishment.” l chance in February to have their e h

Pesic plans to examine music in c moment of glory on March 31. relation to parallel develop- Anna Greenberg (HA96) with Chris Nelson (SF70), left, and ments in science, philosophy, Board of Visitors and Michael Peters, right, has served the Annapolis community well politics, and art. Governors for more than 40 years. In Pesic’s view, music and Anna E. Greenberg (HA96) natural philosophy have long and M. Brownell “Brownie” and deep connections. “With secretary for the association’s security consultant. Dolores E. Anderson (HSF98) have been this award, I hope to explore the Group on Educational Affairs. Wolf of Washington, D.C., named honorary members dialogue between ‘ancient’ The college’s board also served for 18 years as vice presi- of the college’s Board of Visitors music, or music modeled on the welcomes several new members: dent of Personnel Resources for and Governors. The designation dispassionate beauty of the Sheila Bobbs Armstrong American Airlines. Roxanna recognizes individuals who ‘music of spheres,’ and ‘modern’ (SF70, EC92, SFGI95) has been Zirakzadeh (SFGI04, EC05) are stepping down from the music–music devoted to moving involved with the college for owns a bookstore, Symposium, college’s governing board human passions,” he says. more than 40 years. Brad in San Francisco. for their commitment and In February, he was elected a Davidson (A77) is president of contributions to St. John’s. Staff Fellow of the American Associa- SPARDATA. He is a captain in An Annapolis native, Earlier this spring, the Santa Fe tion for the Advancement of the United States Army Reserve Mrs. Greenberg has served for community said farewell to a Science. and served on the Annapolis more than four decades as a City Council. Until he retired long-time and much-valued staff Glitch Silences Bell on volunteer leader with civic, last year, Austin Ligon was member. Lawrence Martinez, Essay Night educational, social service the first president and chief head custodian, retired in and religious groups in the It’s a wonderful tradition at executive officer of CarMax, March after 31 years of service. community. Ms. Anderson is St. John’s for seniors to ring the Inc., the nation’s largest retailer Emily Mawhinney (AGI07) Senior Associate Vice President bell, signifying the completion of used cars. Mark Lindley joins the Advancement office in of the Association of American of their senior essay. But this (A67) is a retired America Annapolis, where she will Medical Colleges’ Division of February in Annapolis, about Online executive and volunteers manage the Fielding Challenge, Medical Education, where she 50 seniors were robbed of their for Touchstones, Inc. Ford part of the college’s $125 also serves as the division’s celebratory peal when the Rowan (AGI06), a former NBC million capital campaign. x deputy director and executive button that students press in the correspondent, is now a national

{Letters}

Natural Consequences gives you three things, and only reading and speaking—that are sure, Mr. Schwarz’s firm—would three things: it teaches you how both crucial to our ability to be ecstatic if they could find a I am writing to thank you for, to think, how to read, and how to function socially, and so rare as sure source of students, teachers, and to comment upon, the article speak. If you’re lucky, it will also to be remarkable, based on my employees, and workers who entitled “Good Design Starts teach you how to write…” I beg to experience of nearly a quarter- could in fact think, read, and with Good Questions” (Winter differ on two counts, although I century of teaching graduate speak well. . . 2007), which features architect stand in The Great Outside, as a students. Even if these comprised My second objection to David Schwarz (A72). The mere Johnnie-parent. the “all” that St. John’s College Mr. Schwarz’s statement, article’s title is an apt summary My first difference with offered its students, they would however, is more substantive— of a fascinating conversation. Mr. Schwarz’s statement is be an “all” difficult to improve it concerns his omission of the On the other hand, Mr. that the word “all” implicitly upon; schools, employers, and natural consequence of the Schwarz says that “[St. John’s] denigrates skills—thinking, organizations—including, I am pedagogy of St. John’s College.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Letters} 9

The pedagogy fosters in students Abbey), I knew I wanted to give was written on my submission, model for use in underdevel- the skill of listening—of hearing this issue more than a cursory verbatim: “Nothing much came oped countries. The two what is being said by someone reading. I was delighted to find of this.” I’m relatively sure that gentlemen … listened attentively else, whether that someone is an appreciations of Grand-Aunt whatever measure of success I’ve and took copious notes. At the ancient Greek philosopher, Jane’s work in so many different achieved since that day has been end, one of them asked if he medieval Christian theologian, voices. I really do think that due, in some small part, to over- could read his notes back to me or the person sitting across the women of today appreciate Jane coming that pithy dismissal. for verification. When he got to table. The ability to hear another Austen much more than earlier the part of the previous summer, Sandro Battaglia (A90) does not mean merely to keep generations. These articles said, “In 1951, subject and one’s mouth shut, but to actively demonstrate that her social Du Bois and McCarthy interviewee went to Israel to listen to what they are trying to analysis was deep, insightful, and study underdeveloped Jews.” say—to seek clarity, or (in a word), abiding in value, yet always I can’t help (1) congratulating The fact that I was able to understanding. The ability to tender and sympathetic. Some- you on that wonderful story make the appropriate correction hear is rare. . .in part because times I myself feel that I am just about Martin Dyer and “Web” without cracking up was one of hearing (understanding) requires now catching up to her in my Du Bois and (2) telling you my the proudest achievements of my patience: waiting to hear every- understanding of the war own story . . . It happened the senior year . The St. Thomas thing that the other person has to between the sexes (as another same year, 1952. I was a senior at gambit did not get Peter out of say, waiting a bit more to be sure favorite author, James Thurber, Yale Law School and chairman of the draft, but it may have helped that they have finished and to used to call it). Congratulations the Yale Student Guild Chapter. him get into the Merchant consider what they have said, on a wonderful issue that I will We had invited Dr. Du Bois to Marines as alternate service. and then responding in such a save on my bookshelf alongside give a lecture at the law school. We have remained good friends way that our reply implicitly my own favorite Austen work, The day before the event there ever since. The Du Bois lecture reverberates with their question, Sense and Sensibility. was a knock at my dormitory the next day was a great success. suggestion, insight, or concern. . . door which, when opened, Christel Stevens (A72) Peter Weiss, class of 1946 I write this letter because I am revealed—I am not making this up—two gentlemen in trench very happy to say that I have seen Constructive Criticism this ability to listen develop in my coats and Fedoras, flashing FBI Corrections: An article on daughter (A08) during her time Reading Mrs. Maschler’s badges at me. “Oh boy,” I said to W.E.B. Du Bois in the winter at St. John’s, and in other John- “A Life” in the Winter 2007 myself, “there goes my legal 2007 edition misidentified the nies whom I know. . . I have been issue, I was reminded of a still- career.” (The McCarthy witch- late husband of Priscilla Bender- struck repeatedly by their atti- vivid comment that she wrote on hunt was in full swing in those Shore; his name was Merle tude—a kind of quiet intensity— an assignment submission of days, which entitles President Shore. that focuses their attention on mine during our freshman Weigle to a posthumous A profile of Richard Field the speaker’s words and ideas, so science [laboratory], 1986-1987. commendation for inviting (SFGI98) in the fall 2006 issue of that their comments and ques- The assignment, allowing now Dr. Du Bois to the college). The College incorrectly reported tions in turn further our conver- for my failures of memory, As it turned out, my two his doctoral degree; he holds a sation. consisted of observing for a time visitors wanted to interview me PhD in exercise physiology. I also write because this ability an animal, any animal, and about Peter Davies (class of Santa Fe tutor James Carey to hear, to understand (a text, reporting in writing on its 1948), who had applied for was misquoted in the same another person, or ourselves) actions. I picked a turtle, conscientious objector status in issue; instead of being “faith- underlies our ability to be and because there was already at least the draft. I waxed as eloquent as fully impressed with the cadets,” increasingly to become fully one in captivity at the college. I could about Peter’s patriotism, during his time as a visiting human, to allow our lives to be I observed this turtle, which to high moral standards and professor at the Air Force examined by others, living and my knowledge was unnamed, sterling character and the fact Academy, Mr. Carey was dead, and ourselves. It is a great for approximately one hour. that, since he was doing God’s actually “favorably impressed.” gift offered by the pedagogy of Using the notes I compiled, work on earth, he must, St. John’s, and one that ought not I prepared a more formal essay according to St. Thomas, to be overlooked or assumed. for submission. My only concrete believe in God even though he The College welcomes letters on recall of my submission was that refused to admit to such belief. Frederic Clarke Putnam issues of interest to readers. I likely anthropomorphosized (To merit CO status at the time Letters may be edited for clarity Admiring Jane the turtle’s actions to a degree you had to have a credible belief and/or length. Those under (e.g., its banging its body into in some kind of divinity.) 500 words have a better chance I am writing belatedly to thank the glass walls of its tank indi- I also mentioned in passing of being printed in their you for the excellent Fall 2006 cated a desire to exit the tank, that Peter and I had spent the entirety. Please address letters issue of The College. Life is busy etc.). While I didn’t quite “get” previous summer in Israel on a to: The College magazine, and sometimes we don’t get all the assignment, I thought that project sponsored by the Founda- St. John’s College, Box 2800, our assigned readings done, but I my submission was well-written tion for World Government, Annapolis, MD 21404, or held onto this magazine through and satisfied the assignment’s headed by Stringfellow Barr and e-mail to: rosemary.harty@ the winter. Being a descendant of objectives. When the assign- Scott Buchanan, to wit, several sjca.edu. Jane Austen’s mother’s family ments were returned to the class, weeks of research on whether (the Leighs of Stoneleigh the following, solitary comment the kibbutz was a workable

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 10 {Capital Campaign}

“WITH A CLEAR AND SINGLE PURPOSE”

How the Campaign for St. John’s College is Making a Difference in Santa Fe

by Gail Griffith t. John’s College Santa Fe groundwork had been well-established, President Michael Peters Mr. Peters says he “just stepped into the had been on the job barely a job.” Although his presidency began at month when one of the first one of the most critical times in the major events of the Capital college’s history and required him to SCampaign was held in get up to speed quickly, it also gave him Boston. “The Board of Visitors and an opportunity to get to know the commu- Governors made a decision to launch the nity. Working with Annapolis president campaign at the same time they made the Chris Nelson, he has met board members, decision to launch me,” he says. alumni, parents, and other college The magnitude of a campaign to raise supporters at campaign events across the $125 million—more than triple the country. He discovered how strongly amount raised by the previous campaign— Johnnies feel about their alma mater, and might have been daunting to a new college saw that non-alumni share the same fierce president. But because so much of the loyalty to St. John’s.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Capital Campaign} 11

Much has transpired on the Hall and the construction of Santa Fe campus since Mr. two new dormitories in Peters’ inauguration in Annapolis; these have been October 2005, and the funded and completed, success of the campaign thus thanks to gifts of $23.5 far gives him reason to feel million from alumni, parents, confident that some of the friends, and foundations. goals he articulated early on In Santa Fe, campaign are coming to fruition and priorities include a new others are within reach. “I Graduate Institute building, believe it is important to a new residential center, a set establish and maintain a of campus improvement campus community that is projects, and renovations worthy of the program of and an addition to Evans instruction,” Mr. Peters says. Science Laboratory. “That means having the Fundraising for the Santa resources to make class- Fe projects is progressing rooms as productive as nicely, says Mr. Peters. Last possible and to provide the summer, Dr. Norman Levan

kinds of services and o (SFGI74), gave the college a s s u resources both inside and r $5 million gift for construc-

y n outside the classroom that o tion of a Graduate Institute h t n

enhance the learning experi- a center. An architect has been ence for our students. It is hired, and the college has critical that we have not just adequate, but modern, engaged a local firm to help negotiate the complicated facilities that provide the infrastructure to make process of securing required permits from the city of this possible.” Santa Fe. The building, to be situated between Weigle Of the $125 million campaign goal, $49.5 million has Hall and the Fine Arts Building, will offer graduate been earmarked for capital projects on the two campuses. students “a welcoming place to congregate in the center The building projects included the renovation of Mellon of campus,” says Mr. Peters.

The college’s capital campaign student instructional material Technology infrastructure; seeks to address priorities that (manuals and workbooks); staff professional development will sustain the Program and and ensure small class sizes and and compensation. strengthen the college. 1:8 tutor-to-student ratio. BUILDING PROJECTS ON THE Funding these priorities will STUDENT SERVICES: $3.5 million TWO CAMPUSES: $49.5 million for require $125 million. To date, to improve services to students, building projects, including a $107 million has been raised. fund internship opportunities, Santa Fe dormitory, a Graduate FINANCIAL AID: $33 million for and provide grants so that Institute Center in Santa Fe need-based aid. elementary and secondary (funded), and the addition to teachers can attend the and renovation of Evans FACULTY AND ACADEMIC SUPPORT: Graduate Institute. Science Laboratory. The reno- $34 million to increase faculty vation of Mellon Hall and the salaries to the median of peer ST. JOHN’S IMPROVEMENT FUND: addition of two new dormito- institutions; provide faculty $5 million for library collec- ries in Annapolis are completed development opportunities; tions and laboratory equip- and fully funded. develop Program-related ment; improving Information

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 12 {Capital Campaign}

“It is critical that we have not just adequate, but modern, facilities.”

Michael Peters, Santa Fe President

The Santa Fe Initiative, a and with the launch of the group of smaller-scale campus Eastern Classics program in improvement projects, has 1994, it was clear that the been completed. The purpose original footprint mapped out of the initiative was to make for the Santa Fe campus the kind of improvements that was inadequate. “Having a would affect the first impres- structure dedicated to the sion appearance of the Graduate Institute programs campus. The Campus Core on campus physically demon- Renovation project, for strates the importance and example, transformed the centrality of these programs,” upper campus by replacing says Mr. Peters. chipped and patched concrete The new center, Levan Hall, with 105,000 bricks and reno- will hold classrooms, offices, vating the koi pond. and common rooms for grad- In addition, the college now uate students. The building is has pledges in hand to build a being designed so that in the new residence hall, allowing future, it will be possible to add the campus to house 80 an auditorium that can accom- percent of its students on modate the entire campus campus. Campaign Chairman community. Ronald Fielding (A70) has The Evans Science Labora- pledged $2.5 million toward tory renovation and addition is the construction of the dormi- the most pressing unfunded tories, and the college received capital need for the campus, pledges and gifts of $7 million says Mr. Peters. The current from several other donors. Ronald Fielding (A70) has pledged $2.5 million in a labs are 30 years old, and there challenge grant for Santa Fe’s new residence hall. An Evolving Campus are not enough of them to accommodate the number of The bold move to establish a second campus of St. John’s laboratory classes that need to be scheduled. Expansion of College in 1964 presented challenges that the founders of the laboratory building calls for the addition of four new the Santa Fe campus could not have imagined. The state-of-the-art labs with adjoining prep areas and four program of instruction remained constant, but the seminar rooms. Renovations will include installation of demands of adapting to both the distinctive physical new multi-purpose workstations, safety equipment, surroundings and the needs of the growing student popu- chemical storage facilities, and improvements and repairs lation have meant ongoing challenges. When, in 1967, the to the laboratory ventilation systems. Graduate Institute was established in Santa Fe, the size and scope of the college’s educational mission expanded,

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Capital Campaign} 13

A Community of Learners The Santa Fe Initiative, paid for in part by gifts to the capital campaign, included the transformation of the central campus At 30,000 square feet, and with 60 beds, the new residen- area. Still to come: The Norman and Betty Levan Hall, a center for the Graduate Institute; major renovations in Evans Science tial complex in Santa Fe will allow the college to house Laboratory; and a new residence hall for Santa Fe. about 80 percent of its undergraduate students on campus. The new project will provide a more affordable and convenient housing option for students and support being distracted. On the other hand, being in a friendly the college’s student recruitment efforts while providing environment eased the social pressure of making friends more opportunities for learning outside the classroom. and adjusting to the campus and the Program. “I made As is the case in Annapolis, some students will still great friends from that dorm,” she says. Living off campus choose to live off campus, even with additional housing. during her sophomore year was more challenging than For Will Hollingsworth (SF08), moving off campus for his Hardin expected. But a Johnnie life doesn’t leave a lot of sophomore and junior years had some advantages, such as time for chores like grocery shopping. the convenience of a kitchen. But it also removed him Ensconced in a suite on campus this past year, Hardin from the community in more than a physical way. found a happy medium. She enjoyed the conveniences of “Moving off campus really severed my ties with a lot the dorm without the distractions of a double, along with of friends—the dynamic shifts so much from year to year,” the conveniences of a kitchen. “I often make breakfast for he says. myself and it’s a nice way to start the day,” she says. Because she found herself in a double room in a When the new dorm is open and ready for students, “gregarious dorm” for her first year, Betsy Hardin (SF08) more Johnnies will find that balance of community and sometimes found it hard to go about her work without independence. x

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 14 {Capital Campaign}

New Program, New Collection

by Jennifer Sprague Meem Library Director

“Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know Upanishads. The goal is to create a broad, more comprehensive men.” Confucian Analects, 20:3.iii collection to support the study of these primary readings. Increasing the depth of the collection will provide tutors hen a pilot program of the Institute for with resources for their own inquiry, says Graduate Institute the Study of Eastern Classics began in the Director Krishnan Venkatesh. “The library collection is fall of 1992, Meem Library accordingly essential for faculty development,” he says. Having effective started to develop a collection to support language learning tools is important as well because both these studies. At that time the library had students and tutors depend on library resources to enhance W just a few copies of the primary texts. their study of either Sanskrit or classical Chinese. The language The librarians thus had the joy of building essentially a brand requirement for the Eastern Classics degree sets St. John’s apart new collection. Thankfully, the Lounsbery Foundation and the from other Eastern studies programs, and Meem Library has Bradley Foundation provided generous grants to fund the specialized tools such as the Sanskrit Atlas, Ralph Swentzell’s institute that also provided for enhancing the library’s collection. classical Chinese program, and other language software. The tutors involved with the pilot program gave Inga Waite, In addition to focusing on program-related materials, then library director, lists of book recommendations, and the Meem Library plans to supplement its book collection with library staff went to work ordering and processing the texts. movies and music that can offer a historical setting to the The initial inventory of texts included just one copy each of readings. Mr. Venkatesh suggests that such materials “can 130 recommended readings. In 1994, the college enrolled its provide a cultural context for places that can be quite foreign for first students in the Eastern Classics master’s program. The some of our students.” These resources will likewise serve as library now needed to support a new curriculum—without an another avenue for introducing the Eastern Classics program to adequate budget increase. Book donations and gifts made the undergraduates and Santa Fe residents who use the library. growth of the collection possible. In 1998 the William H. & As Meem Library expands its collection, it continues to face Mattie Wattis Harris Foundation gave the college a $10,000 the challenge of maintaining the physical condition of its print grant for Eastern Classics acquisitions, allowing the college to materials. Most of the books that come from India have poor purchase multiple copies of program readings and alleviating bindings and acidic paper. The library often sends these books some financial burden for students. The library also acquired to a professional bindery to be rebound. Many classic Indian translation tools such as grammars and dictionaries as well as texts are now available in beautiful editions as part of the Clay significant secondary materials. Sanskrit Library, a bilingual series co-published by New York The library continues to depend on gifts to fund Eastern Clas- University Press and the JJC Foundation. Another challenge sics collection development. The Harris Foundation gave the in maintaining the collection is the regular wear on books in library two more circulation, requiring grants in 2004 and the frequent purchase 2006. Eastern Classics of replacement copies. alumni have been Collection develop- generous donors, too. ment is truly a dynamic Recently, one alumnus process, and the library who wishes to remain is deeply grateful for anonymous gave the those donors who have library a gift of supported this ongoing $20,000. A tutor endeavor. x committee identified authors and texts to focus development efforts on, including Chuang Tzu, Confucius, Dogen, The Meem Library’s Nagarjuna, Shankara, collection expanded Sima Qian, The with the launch of Mahabharata, The the Eastern Classics Pali Sutras, The Tale master’s program of Genji, and the in 1994.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Capital Campaign} 15

Great Books, Rare Books by Andrea Lamb Greenfield Library Director

reputable Dragon in St.Paul’s Church-yard. academic library, Its publication history reveals regardless of its that there are three Leviathan size or age, must editions bearing this same convey upon imprint. These editions are A scrutiny an generally known as the “head,” informed and knowledgeable “bear,” and “ornament,” named oversight of its collection. The for the ornaments that appear on legacy of the college librarians on the title pages. The “head” is the the Annapolis campus reveal an first edition, and this is our copy. informed, thoughtful pattern of Our copy of the Leviathan is decisions over time that have extremely valuable from a shaped the collection of today’s printing history perspective; it is Greenfield Library. also in disrepair. Its ailments The selection, care, and include a previously leather preservation of a unique reback of only modest quality, collection depends on adequate pervasive red rot, and damage funding and a sustainable, from rodents. The frontispiece is long-range acquisitions budget. detached, along with several Every year 75 to 150 titles are lost leaves. The paper is soiled. It is or damaged irreparably. Book an excellent candidate for replacement costs are absorbed restoration by a professional into a general books budget, and conservator. most years we exhaust the Acquiring such funds for this library’s funds in acquiring book, and for the 100 or so multiple copies for replacements. notable other titles in our rare Our paper-based periodicals book collection is a worthy goal h increase in price 7 to 20 percent t for additional library funds. i m s

every year. Yet our needs extend The restoration of these titles, a i beyond the quid pro quo replace- r estimated at up to $10,000 per o t ment of books that circulate, or c book, should be a priority for the i the acquisition of the periodicals v library over the next decade. that our community loves to read A 17th-century copy of LEVIATHAN is among the Greenfield These rare books are directly in the library’s hidden nooks. library’s treasures. related to the circulating collec- The age of the Annapolis tion in that they represent the campus’ collection mandates that we acquire conservation funds first appearance of a Program work, the first in the line of for the rarer books that represent a real treasure for our campus continuity. The Leviathan’s imprint history includes the and our college. We need to turn our attention to the urgent care modern editions by Oakeshott, Lindsay, Waller, and Curley. and feeding of the older collection. We have these editions in our circulating collection. The library’s primary collection remains, of course, the Another book that is a prime candidate for conservation Program title works. We also acquire other works written by treatment is an incubula title of St. Augustine, a 1486 Venice Program authors. We carefully select the original texts of imprint of De Civitate Dei. Only three other identical works are contemporary authors of the canon authors. This historical known to exist in the world. continuity in our collection development contributes to the At St. John’s College, “the books are the teachers,” and the intrinsic value of our collection overall and defines the unique heart of the Greenfield Library’s collection will always be the character of the library. Another of our legacies is a small but circulating collection. Books are the constant companions of impressive collection of rare books, many of which have direct our students and tutors, the friends of all friends. We who ties to Program readings. advocate for the library appreciate the continuing and valuable For example, we are fortunate to have in our rare books investment that alumni and friends of the college continue to collection a first edition of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, printed make to the Greenfield Library. x in 1651 in London by the Printer for Andrew Crooke at the Green

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 16 {The Program}

“SING, GODDESS” Music and the Program

by Rosemary Harty s they have for many years on the this relationship between reason and the passions arise and are Annapolis campus, the freshman class addressed.” gathered in the Great Hall for its spring Both campuses are focusing their efforts on the music choral performance. The last notes of program this coming year. In the fall, Santa Fe will make Sicut locutus est from Bach’s Magnificat changes in its approach to teaching music in freshman year. This hung in the air as the upperclassmen summer, Santa Fe faculty will meet in a study group to refine and and tutors in the balcony sounded their develop materials for sophomore music, with a goal of making approval. This year’s performance—by them more broadly accessible and less reliant on individuals’ A an unusually large freshman class expertise. “I don’t think there is a big debate here in Santa Fe crowded into the hall—was outstanding, many told tutor Peter about trying to get more tutors to teach the music program,” Kalkavage as he gathered up his scores. “They were very good, says tutor John Cornell. “Our purpose is going to be to improve weren’t they?” he agreed. the access even further.” J.P. Snyder (A10), who doesn’t enjoy singing, was just relieved In Annapolis, where there are no changes planned to it was over. “I’m very flat, I’m just good at hiding it,” he freshman chorus, faculty will meet in a study group designed to confessed. Freshman chorus and sophomore music are parts of better prepare tutors for teaching sophomore music for the first the Program he’ll have to endure; laboratory and math have his time. Proposed by Dean Michael Dink (A75) to address his passion. “Honestly? If I could avoid music, I would,” he concern that more faculty need to be involved in sophomore confesses. music, the study groups will be paired with released time to Music wasn’t part of Barr and Buchanan’s original plan when allow faculty to audit the second half of sophomore music. Plans they came to St. John’s in 1937; it first appeared in the 1949-50 call for an inter-campus exchange of faculty to learn from the academic year. Dynamic personalities such as Victor Zuck- innovations in place on each campus, and the college’s joint erkandl and tutor Douglas Allanbrook shaped the development Instruction Committee will review the results. of music in the early years in Annapolis, and the college’s A New Approach in Santa Fe approach to music has been fine-tuned many times on both campuses. Music is an integral part of the Program, an essential Cornell and tutor Ned Walpin in Santa Fe will lead the campus’ liberal art, says Santa Fe Dean Victoria Mora. “Music is part of revamped freshman music program, carrying out an idea devel- our humanity,” she says. “Our reason and our passions come oped by Peter Pesic, tutor and musician-in-residence. “We were together in the study of music. Fundamental questions about at an impasse over what to do,” says Santa Fe tutor John Cornell

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {The Program} 17

“Other tutors have said that chorus is often the place where the freshman class becomes a class.”

Tom May, tutor d r a w o h r e t e p says. “We could see our management of 110 freshman in chorus Music is included on the St. John’s Program because the was not worthy of St. John’s students. Peter had the brainstorm. ancients accorded music a place among the liberal arts; they understood it as one of the essential functions of the mind, It’s somewhat daring, but at the same time, it’s totally in associated with the power to grasp number and measure. keeping with the St. John’s program of instruction: to sit at that common table.” Freshman music (its provisional name) will depart from the exclusively choral approach and will be organized as tutorials Walpin expects that the tutorial approach will give students focusing on Gregorian chant and ancient music theory. The the fundamentals they need to get more out of singing, paving material in the first five weeks of sophomore music will move the way for an even more productive sophomore music tutorial. into the freshman year, but students will still sing, and often in “With this new structure, we are giving them reasons to sing combined groups. “Those five weeks are focused on the Grego- because they’ve been learning how to interpret a melody, what rian chant, and a significant portion of the time is spent makes a piece have a beginning, middle, and end. When they singing,” says Walpin. “We’ll have about six sections of understand what they’re hearing, the singing will become freshman music and each tutorial will meet as the same time as crucially fulfilling for them.” another, so that there will be two tutorials meeting at the same A required freshman chorus, Pesic believes, is antithetical to time. Those tutorials will get together regularly to sing so that at the ideals of the Program. “Students come to St. John’s to talk to least 30 people will be singing together at all times. Then, there each other,” he says. will be all-college events where all freshmen will get together to sing as a whole chorus, and they will be singing the pieces that they have been studying and singing in their tutorials.” continued on p. 19

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 18 {The Program}

On the Double Origin of the Music Tutorial

By Elliott Zuckerman (HA95) tutor emeritus

he three musical works that have been perennial in our seminar list are a passion, an opera, and a music-drama. They are all settings of narratives that can sustain a discussion apart from the music. But in the late 1950s the seminar list T included quite a few works of music that were wordless, such as the Goldberg Variations, the Rite of Spring, and (along with the Ninth, that does blossom into verse) the Fifth and Eighth Symphonies of Beethoven. These works of so- called “pure” music were among the losses when (in the early ’60s) the list was decimated in order to make room for the preceptorials. As with some of the scientific readings, and the plays of Molière and Racine, we had the excuse that the works were already being discussed at length in the tutorials. But the lost music seminars were scarcely regretted, for it was widely thought that it required a particular talent to lead a seminar on a musical work that had no plot or poem to fall back on. Yet Victor Zuckerkandl, who designed the music tutorial, said to me more than once that if we eliminated the music semi- nars from the program, the music tutorial should go, too. It was well known that Zuckerkandl himself could get any group of people to talk about music, as well as about almost anything else. But I gathered that for him the chief aim of the tutorial was to provide the students with the wherewithal for talking about music in the seminar, even when they didn’t have an inspiring conductor. Zuckerkandl’s successor as leader of the music tutorial was Douglas Allanbrook, who disliked music seminars, and did nothing to defend them. At the same time, despite his fondness for Zuckerkandl and their friendship, he had an aversion to Zuckerkandl’s view of music, which Allanbrook characterized as Ton-Wille—the tones somehow had a will of their own–and attributed it to windy philosophical music-lovers such as Schopenhauer. Zuckerkandl’s notion of music as a message from another world was as remote as possible from Allan- brook’s down-to-earth New England view that composers put Annapolis photographer Dimitri Fotos captures this portrait tones together to delight us, and possibly move us, with imita- of Elliot Zuckerman (HA95) for Fotos’ “Facing the Music” tions of our own motions. series. The music tutorial had to be justified as worth doing apart from music seminars. From the beginning, the most venerable justification lay easily at hand. Music, after all, had been part of the traditional liberal arts, and the music tutorial rounded out It is worth studying the first chapter of Zuckerkandl’s text- our study of the quadrivium. As in the laboratory and the math- book—let alone his remarkable theoretical works—with a view to ematics tutorial (and, less systematically, in the language tuto- how little he accounts for the power of music by adducing the rial) we are invited to learn and think about the elements of a arithmetic correspondences that elated the Pythagoreans. I subject. The compounding of intervals gives us an audible think I can safely assert that for him the Miracle of the Octave is example of the compounding of ratios in Book Five of Euclid. something other than our response to the simple ratio. And there is a unique correspondence between the two-to-one We are fortunate to have a music tutorial with this double ratio of pitches in the physical world, and the universal human origin. We ought to become more aware of what it means to response to that simplicity when we recognize the sameness as hold the Grand View or the Practical View, and embrace the an octave. argument between them as our domestic dialectic. x

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“You were either daring enough to continued However, the music tutorial needs true jump into music or amateurs, Pastille says. “When I’m teaching He believes the changes help make music a your weren’t.” something I’m not an expert in—say freshman more integral part of freshman year. “This will lab–I can enter into class discussions on a level happen just when students are discovering Peter Kalkavage, Tutor much closer to the students. It’s almost impos- ancient mathematics and ancient philosophy, sible for me to do that in music,” he says. which I think is ideal in that way,” he says. “It “When you’re too inclined to see things that the also allows the students to learn the elements of students probably can’t see, you can let a lot of music as they’re discussing what the elements really mean, as fundamental questions go unasked.” they do with Euclid and everything else.” Beginning this summer, Annapolis will have in place a system Mora likes Pesic’s approach and suggests that it more fully for bringing more faculty into the tutorial. Seven tutors have integrate music into the rest of the Program, particularly in signed up for an eight-week study group to be led by tutor Peter freshman year. “Just as students come to understand the Kalkavage. In each of the 2007-08 and 2008-09 academic years, elements of mathematics by discussing them as well as by two tutors who have participated in the study group and who are demonstrating them on the board, so too will they learn the teaching the tutorial in the first semester will gain a station of elements of music by discussing them as well as practicing them released time in the second semester in order to audit another by singing,” she says. music tutorial. “The college hasn’t had something like this A Study Group for Sophomore Music in place before,” he says. “You were either daring enough to jump in to music, or you weren’t,” he says, acknowledging that While Annapolis plans to continue freshman chorus as it is, this “it can be scary. If you haven’t had music training or you feel you summer it will take the first step toward making more tutors don’t have a taste for it, it can look like the most difficult part of comfortable leading sophomore music. Dink understands why the Program.” some tutors on his campus are intimidated. In his 26 years at St. John’s, he has yet to lead sophomore music, although he Chorus Goes On audited it during one of his sabbaticals. As do many tutors, Dink Freshman chorus will continue as before in Annapolis; indeed, worries his lack of musical training will hamper his effectiveness Tom May can’t imagine the college without the freshman in class. “I may be at the extreme end of the spectrum in terms chorus. “I find it absolutely exhilarating,” he says. May has of lack of preparation, but there are people who have played spent much of his life immersed in music; as a seminarian, he an instrument who still feel sophomore music would be a chal- was a choir director, and he later found a job singing sacred lenge,” he says. music in an Episcopal church. He has always been impressed by Throughout the years in Annapolis, musical tutors have the place music held in the Program, and he believes that it is applied their expertise to reshaping sophomore music to make especially important now, at a time when public and private it more accessible for their nonmusical colleagues. When Bill schools invest fewer resources in music. Pastille came to St. John’s in 1986 (with a PhD in music from Preparing students with different backgrounds to tackle Cornell), only about a dozen tutors were willing to teach music. sophomore music together remains the prime focus of freshman When he revamped the curriculum in Annapolis in 1989, music. Some students are experienced musicians; others can’t Pastille built the tutorial around Zuckerkandl’s The Sense of read a note of music when they come to St. John’s. “How are Music and created a supplementary series of tapes for tutors and people with that wide a range going to be able to talk to each students. “We made the tutorial more accessible, and we did other? We have students who’ve had a great deal of technical manage to sign up a whole bunch of new people,” he says. training but they’ve never sung. Freshman chorus performs a That curriculum lasted a decade in Annapolis, before it was similar role in the music program to that of the practica in changed again. Today, in addition to Zuckerkandl’s text, the the laboratory program, in giving a class a common experience campus uses a manual called “Materials for Sophomore Music,” of the phenomena—it’s for this reason as much as any other that an ordered sequence of readings and musical examples. I believechorus is such a vital part of the way we learn here,” Although it was designed to make the tutorial more accessible to May says. more tutors, many are still reluctant to volunteer.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 20 {The Program}

A Dialogue between Ancients and Moderns

by Peter Pesic

mong the diverse of beauty and cosmic order. Only a projects under- few fragments remain of ancient taken at St. John’s Greek music, but Gregorian chant College, none is represents this first practice. more remarkable Chant is essentially monophonic, A than our music a single beautiful melodic line program. Beside music conserva- that generally does not aim for tories, I know very few other emotional expressivity. For colleges where all students study example, the same chant melody music. Moreover, our study of could be used to set “sad” as well music is unique in its approach as “happy” texts. and scope, not simply “music Our sophomores begin with a appreciation,” music history, or month of singing various chants theory. I would like to describe and reading Boethius (who trans- how this approach has developed mitted ancient musical theory here in Santa Fe, where I have to the West), each student had the privilege of being composing a chant to a given text, involved with this program over which the class then sings and the past 25 years. discusses. Beginning with a kind Before then, our music of music unfamiliar to almost program had been led by such everyone (whether musically distinguished and talented tutors trained or not) allows fresh consid- as the late Michael Ossorgin and eration of the elements of music. Sam Brown, accomplished We then consider the momentous musicians who emphasized and mysterious transition to certain masterworks that remain polyphony, the interweaving of fixtures of our music tutorials: several independent voices so Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, characteristic of Western musical Mozart’s Don Giovanni, art, so strikingly absent from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde—that Music is an integral part of the “great adventure” that ancient practice (or from world unique trilogy about passion. is St. John’s, says Tutor Peter Pesic. music in general). This leads to a About 1980, Dean Robert Bart month devoted to the polyphonic asked Ralph Swentzell to rethink art as developed by such masters as the music tutorial so that it would Palestrina and taught by Fux’s be more open to tutors who did not feel they had a specialized celebrated dialogue Gradus ad Parnassum, which taught Bach, background in music. In his unforgettable way, Ralph took Mozart, and Beethoven the art of counterpoint and whose this project to heart and produced an amazing historical exercises we also do. Our touchstone is Palestrina’s motet “Sicut compendium of music and theoretical writings, the basis of the cervus,” a theme-song on both campuses, its haunting beauty a program we still do in Santa Fe, which remains indebted to fitting epitome of music’s first practice. Ralph’s foundational vision, even as it has been shaped and The crucial transition between ancient and modern music refined by many colleagues since then. may have begun even before the parallel, momentous In my view, the heart of our music program is a dialogue transitions in mathematics, philosophy, and natural science that between ancients and moderns. For music is not simply the we study in other parts of our Program. Their seminal works expressive art it became over the past centuries, but needs date from around 1600; our music tutorials treat Claudio to be understood in reference to two parallel traditions, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607) as the pivotal work. In it, La both extending back to antiquity. For clarity, let me use the Musica herself steps forward and announces that she can terminology introduced by a crucial figure in the story, inflame the iciest heart, “now with noble anger, now with love.” Vincenzo Galilei, Galileo’s father, who distinguished two Monteverdi here puts into action the aspirations of Vincenzo “practices” in ancient and modern music. His “first practice” Galilei and others who wanted to revive the Greek drama and its (prima prattica) is exemplified by the ancient “music of the incomparable emotional power, which they thought the first spheres,” which is essentially passionless and eternal, a paragon practice had wrongly ignored.

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“Our reason and our passions There’s another benefit as well, one important come together in being in the presence of music in a way that is to the shaping of community. “It’s amazing that ultimately unforgettable. At the end, they know we ask all of our students to sing together,” he the study of if it’s going to work, we have to work hard—and says. “Other tutors have said that chorus is often music.” they do, year after year.” the place where the freshman class becomes a Kalkavage, who has shared chorus duties with class.” During spring performances of the Victoria Mora, Santa Fe Dean May for many years, believes freshman chorus is chorus, upperclassmen on the balcony will often not only a tradition in Annapolis, but an excellent chime in on some of the songs. During the Senior way to introduce students to “making music.” Dinner each spring, students join their tutors in singing Certainly some students never take to music, yet he observed favorite selections from freshman chorus, and alumni at that year after year, many Johnnies develop confidence in their Homecoming speak fondly of their freshman chorus memories, singing and discover a great love for great music. “It’s a thrill to he says. get students together and watch them discover their musicality,” Students of lesser ability would be unlikely to have this expe- he says. x rience to stretch themselves, he says. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” says May. “Students get a sense of

Their “second practice” (secunda prattica) was explicitly Newtonian planets or from unalterable chemical elements to designed to seize power over human passions, as La Musica had radioactive instability. proclaimed, as Orfeo fatefully enacts. This new Orpheus is the As we explore these works of musical and scientific master of a reborn art—opera— that can move mute stones and imagination, we draw close to the sources of their immense even infernal powers, but in the end Orfeo is mastered by his own powers and also confront the attendant questions those powers passions, loosing Eurydice to a second death after having won imply. In the story of Orpheus, the project of power reacts on her back from her first. Thus Monteverdi, crafting the first itself; our music program concludes by considering modern masterwork of the second practice, also foresaw its tragic masterworks that turn from ever-intensified expressivity to dilemma, incarnate in Orfeo himself; near the same time, reconsider the first practice and its austere ecstasies, works by Francis Bacon’s mythical retellings also foresaw the powers and Debussy, Stravinsky, Webern, Messiaen, Arvo Pärt. Thus the tragic possibilities of the new science he envisioned. opening question posed by the two practices—by beauty and Thus emerged a deep dialogue between power—resounds from past to future. beauty (the ideal of the first practice) and Throughout, we aspire to a complete power (the goal of the second), a dialogue “Throughout, we musical experience, encompassing that continues to this day and had in fact listening, singing, reading, discussing, already begun in ancient times, for Plato aspire to a complete composing, analyzing, playing. Next year, described both the music of the spheres and we will experiment in Santa Fe with a new earthly modes capable of ruining the soul musical experience, format for freshman music as normal through sensuous indulgence or firing it to tutorials, rather than a single large chorus, courage. Our music tutorials explore the encompassing so as to encourage the discussions that are harmonic art that Monteverdi pioneered, the lifeblood of St. John’s classes. an art that went on to empower the great listening, singing, As with so much of St. John’s Program, our masterworks of Bach, Mozart, and Wagner study of music is rightly a work in progress, mentioned above. For them, the controlled reading, discussing, always trying to improve, grow, and deepen. use of ever-stronger and more unstable composing, This great adventure, artistic and philosoph- dissonances is crucial, reminding us of the ical, has opened new vistas for me, in my own transition from the fixed Aristotelian earth analyzing, playing.” education, as I hope it will continue to do for to the mysteriously movable condition of many others, now and in the future. x

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 22 {Pop Culture}

POP JOHNNIES In the examined life, is there room for Shakespeare and Shakira?

by Emily DeBusk (A06) op culture is easy, fun, prevalent, comforting, virtues, the development of the capacities from which they come, and of-the-moment. The great books are and the integration of the characters to which they contribute.” dense, rigorous, distant, provocative, and That is, the intellectual virtues should not be left at the door as old. Can they coexist without mocking each students exit the classroom. Stringfellow Barr (who published a other? The question has implications beyond novel and a cookbook along with academic works) said that while the movies Johnnies choose to see or music immersion in the Program will foster a taste for higher things, the they download to their iPods. It touches on St. John’s alumnus can still find riches in the culture of his times: some deeply felt beliefs about a St. John’s “From his constant association with the first-rate, he will have P education and Johnnies in the wider world. Is acquired a distaste for the second-rate, the intellectually cheap and it odd to finish up a seminar reading on, say, the gospel of John, and tawdry; but he will have learned to discover meaning in things that then settle down for a good listen to the new wave of Swedish death most people write off as vulgar,” he wrote in a 1939 report. metal? Is it snobbish to think one shouldn’t spend time on fleeting The St. John’s education seems to have the power to elevate fads with so much rich material in the canon? higher pursuits over popular ones, but should it? Consider the (apparent) tension between pop culture and the Three Views St. John’s culture. In one corner, there is a peculiar St. John’s culture where, according to the college’s creeds, dialogue is king. As pop culture and the St. John’s culture contend for attention, The campus is characterized by the reading of great books, earnest some tension arises. In a college-wide survey asking current conversations, tweedy traditions involving waltzing and pipe- students for their opinion about the relationship of pop culture and smoking, and all-around bookishness. In the other corner, there is the St. John’s culture, at least three differing viewpoints surfaced. pop culture. A broad definition begins with media—music, TV Many students saw no connection at all between what they do as shows, movies, and the pervasive buzz that the Internet and students and what they do as pop culture consumers. These advertising emit—and its fundamental connection with certain key students turn to pop simply for relaxation and entertainment. “Pop ingredients: mass appeal, commercialism, consumerism, and culture functions like Reality,” says Kayla Gamin (A08). “It transience. In short, the St. John’s culture is anchored where pop provides emotional release, social lubrication, and a way to group floats; limited, where pop is universal; and for the inner, where people into social sets distinguished by their tastes in music and pop concerns itself with the outward. Nothing about what is done entertainment.” There are many college-wide symptoms of pop at St. John’s is “quick!,” “e-z!,” or “for a limited time only!” culture, such as film clubs, video games, and dance parties. The Pop culture is entertainment, not education. So why make the relatively few TVs on campus (rapidly becoming obsolete thanks comparison? In 1937 Scott Buchanan, the first dean of St. John’s to laptops with streaming video and DVD players) have some under the new Program, wrote in the Bulletin of St. John’s College: faithful watchers. One group of students gathered every Tuesday “Ultimately the ends of liberal education are the intellectual night to follow the sensational life of the misanthropic House of the

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“Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man’s nature.”

Marcel Proust e g d i r b r u b s a m o h t d r o l y b d e t p a d a y l l a t i g i d S N E H T A F O L O O H C S s ’ l e a h p a r

“I want to be an artist that everyone can relate to, that’s young, happy and fun.”

Britney Spears, singer

{ The College• John’s College • Spring 2007 } 24 {Pop Culture}

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”

Albert Einstein

“For me, just being on the cover of a magazine wasn’t enough. I began to think, what value is there in doing something in which you have no creative input?”

Elle Macpherson, model

eponymous Fox TV show. (Again, the intertwining of pop and the readily available,” Hay explains, “because there is a tendency, I Program was startling; one Johnnie read his lab manual during think, in all cultures, to overlook a lot of things, which do not commercial breaks.) deserve to be—if something is just a little bit weird, it just gets Pop culture is also used as a source of information about what’s thrown by the wayside. I always take delight in knowing that there’s going “out there.” Cloistered by size, geography (Santa Fe), and a always a little pocket of these alternatively-minded people scattered relatively closed curriculum, St. John’s can seem to be a world of its about the world, now, and historically.” own, and it is a constant struggle to be engaged in the present as Fleeting Fads vs. Great Works well as the past. “The world is so large,” says Annapolis tutor Eva Brann, an unapologetic fan of monster truck rallies, Louis L’Amour In trying to pinpoint the tension between pop culture and the novels and Law and Order. “I don’t want to be totally out of it. St. John’s culture, it is tempting to think it is simply a matter of Whatever it is they like, I want to know about it. Our students don’t aesthetic quality. Just compare the newest American Idol’s hit want to cut themselves off.” single to Mozart and voila! the one withers in the shadow of Another group of students views pop culture as a distraction. “I the other. The music and literature of the Program is mainly think the most disturbing part of [pop culture] is how reason just “high” culture (Mozart, Milton) with a bit of counter culture isn’t there,” says Liz Curry (A07). “There are things about it that (Marx, Baudelaire), and nothing that could be classified as modern should bother us. Everything is so emotionally driven, and it’s the pop. Yet it is too simplistic to take the omission as an a priori very excess of emotion that is praised. I don’t think it should be condemnation by St. John’s of pop culture. “There are obvious studied, but engaged. We won’t always be reading and talking about quality distinctions between the best and the worst forms of these books, so there’s got to be a way for the things we do here to hip-hop, and this is true of classical music as well,” says Santa Fe resonate with people in general. I think Johnnies in particular have tutor David Carl, who is routinely described as a “cool” tutor by the power to give another perspective from pop culture that’s not students. “The best hip hop is better than the worst classical music, necessarily elitist or bookish. There’s a way that these books live for so aesthetic value cannot be determined simply based on what part us as much as pop culture lives for others.” of culture (popular or ‘high’) something participates in.” Tristan Chambers (SF08) goes beyond wariness to outright Hollywood produces a few good films each year, the recording disdain. He sees a connection between the nature of pop culture industry manages to produce work by good artists, and some and the rhetorician Socrates warns about in his dialogues. “Most of television shows “are not simply a waste of time,” says Carl. “How pop media is morally debasing and it obfuscates the truth on all to distinguish between what I would call ‘good’ and ‘bad’ culture levels,” Chambers says. “I feel like pop culture panders to our vices (pop or otherwise) is the challenge,” he maintains. as Socrates says the rhetorician panders to our vices and more Annapolis tutor Mera Flaumenhaft posits that the real danger of animalistic urges. Pop media wants your attention, and its main pop culture in the St. John’s community is more of a how than a means is to appeal to basic urges, which are harder to endure or what. “Everything goes so fast, everything is loud, and many things manage. I think it’s bad for our souls. These media generators are happen at once,” she says. “One of the best things we do at unconcerned with what’s true or false, but are more interested in St. John’s is develop the habit of slowing down. This is a place manipulating for effect. Pop reflects that rhetorical attitude in its where people look carefully at something: a tree, a sentence, a sound bytes, one-sided stories, and advertising.” math demonstration, a difficult argument. We look for a long time Still others are simply not attracted to pop. This group chooses and with other people. We ask questions, converse, and look again. instead to be entertained and inspired by media that is too eclectic, This way of life makes our encounters with everything, including old-fashioned, or avant-garde to rightly be called pop. Zack Hay popular culture, more thoughtful and more interesting.” (A08), for example, listens to records of Moondog, a blind musician Brann submits that these habits are the means to meet the who busked on the streets of New York City and made his own challenge Carl speaks of: “Going through the Program is the instruments—a far cry from Billboard’s Top 100. “I’ve just always shaping of taste,” she says. “If you have thought about really good had an inclination to look for things in obscurity, not things that are works, it gives you the tools to think about the difference about the

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Pop Culture} 25

“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.”

Plato “We all feel love, and that might sound kind of corny, but I really feel that’s what joins musicians together around the world.”

Enrique Iglesias, singer

good and the bad. You ask yourself faith—that Johnnies bring to the ‘What about this will pass away?’ seminar table. Carl points out that What revives?’ ” Shakespeare and Aristophanes Pop and the Johnnies might be considered the pop culture of their day. Someday, Pervading the general attitudes of St. John’s students might be St. John’s students towards pop on reading the lyrics of 21st-century campus, there was a reluctance to pop songs or movie screenplays, treat pop culture as a single but by then these works will have whole, to be entirely accepted or outgrown the pop label. Could rejected. Perhaps this is because students in some future tutorial for those who tune into pop be examining the film Fight Club culture with their minds as well as for truths about the human their headphones (and some condition in the same way we now deliberately choose not to engage consider Fleurs de Mal? their minds) the movies, TV St. John’s treasures the old shows, and commercials born of because it endures, but it doesn’t pop are raw source of information reject all in current times. about the human condition. “Pop culture is something like Kim Paffenroth (A88), an the Blob in that old Steve associate professor of Religious McQueen movie,” observes Carl. Studies at Iona College, devotee “It consumes everything in its of heavy metal and classic TV

k path that it thinks it can get some- s science fiction, and author of u b thing from, and this means that e d

(most recently) Gospel of the

y a few truly good things (maybe l Living Dead: George Romero’s i m even great things) will get e Vision of Hell on Earth, has found consumed along with all the plenty of material in pop culture Elizabeth Burlington (A08) takes a break from Hobbes to catch up on Slash. worthless trash.” to engage him. “I think St. John’s The real struggle between pop teaches you to take ideas and texts culture and the St. John’s culture seriously, analyzing them with seems one of dominance; “The habits of curiosity and interrogation,” he says. “I apply that to St. John’s way” has ambitions to be an integral part of a Johnnie’s current pop culture. There is writing out there that tries to fit pop life. So does pop culture. The consumer is meant to buy what he into some post-modern analysis, but I try not to bring any theoret- sees, think what she listens to, and not worry about time for ical baggage. I just give it a close reading. I don’t think all of pop dialogue or “unplugged” reflection. “Life is too short to listen to deserves this approach, but some does.” In Paffenroth’s opinion, bad music and read bad books and watch bad movies,” says Carl. to reject pop culture “guarantees that you are regarded as irrele- “Pop culture offers to do all the choosing for us, but I think we are vant and disconnected from the larger world that we live in. [At better off getting out in the world and discovering for ourselves St. John’s] what one strives for is not so much to refine your taste, which music, books, television, and movies are worthy of our but to refine your analytical skills and to analyze what is valuable.” time.” This is where free people, living examined lives, politely In other words, within the morass of pop lie shreds of the very decline pop’s offer. x same kinds of questions—of philosophy, art, political science,

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 26 {Visual Thinkers}

VISUAL THINKERS

uestioning is at the heart of discovery for and study pottery seriously. I wanted to learn about traditional Qthese artists who move beyond words to methods, digging clay, making glazes from natural materials and firing with wood. In 1994, I did make that leap, and managed shape clay, carve wood, and paint. to find a teacher, Mr. Yutaka Ohashi, in Karatsu, Japan, with whom I apprenticed over the next four years. I learned through Smart Hands observation, imitation, and lots of repetition. In working at the wheel a surprising kind of knowledge was In 2005, Betsy Williams (SF87) and her partner Mark Saxe, a stone revealed to me gradually about just how smart my hands are. I sculptor, opened Rift Gallery in Rinconada, N.M. Functional made thousands and thousands of the same cylindrical cup, over pieces designed for daily use are the foundation of her work, and over, until after a couple of years I knew all about that cup, complemented by objects for contemplation and display. everything that could go wrong, every millimeter of the anatomy When I graduated from St. John’s, truth be told, I had no idea of that cup. With practice, one’s hands and eyes can detect differ- what to do in this world for the next several years. Not that I wasn’t ences of less than a millimeter without conscious discrimination. trying to figure it out. Circumstances eventually had me employed Awareness of this physical sensibility helps hold conscious at a small Japanese regional bank with a branch in New York City, discrimination and corporeal knowledge in balance, and I believe working as a trader on the money market. Then a co-worker the act of creating as a whole can also be described as this kind of invited me to an exhibit of 17th-century Korean ceramics at the balancing on a larger scale. Metropolitan Museum. Standing in front of a slightly asymmet- In 1999, I “graduated” from my apprenticeship, with the rical celadon vase, I had what is perhaps best described simply as pronouncement, “Now you have the skills to teach yourself a profound moment, and my life took the direction that it has anything else that you may need to learn.” So I returned to New today. I scrimped and saved so that I could make a move to Japan Mexico, bought land in a remote mountainous region about an

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Visual Thinkers} 27 t r e k c e b o b hour north of Santa Fe, built a house and studio, and then my own wood-fired kiln. I’ve been working away ever since, trying to bring my well-trained self and my creative self into a kind of balance, while making a living doing it. My work relies heavily, even now, on repetition, but in a new way: drawing on the visual impact that multiples carry. My wall- hung cup grids, which range in size from three cups to 180 cups, emphasize sameness and difference of their components at once. The cup becomes visible in its relationship with others in a way that one cup alone cannot. Currently I am working on a grouping of 52 teapots, one for every week of the year, for a show entitled “Imagine” that will open at our gallery in May. (www.rift- gallery.com) St. John’s continues to have a positive influence on my career. Over the past summer, St. John’s student Carolyn Lobeck (SF07) was an apprentice in my studio through the Ariel Internship Program. She was introduced to many of the basics that are essential to a career in clay, in accordance with what I learned during my own apprenticeship. This opportunity to pass on to another young woman some of what I have worked so hard to learn is really important to me. St. John’s also presents one of my hand- made cups to each of the graduates of the Eastern Classics program every year. That the college recognizes the importance of the handmade object in today’s society, its importance as a symbol and as a way of life, is huge.

At left, MATTER AND TIME, wall-mounted cubes. Above, Betsy Williams apprenticed in Japan for four years before opening her studio in New Mexico. At right, a 4-inch tea caddy.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 28 {Visual Thinkers}

Natural Proofs Karina Noel Hean (A00) is a painter and teaches drawing, painting, and design as visiting instructor of art at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. She has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows. In fall 2008, she will complete a two- month artist fellowship at the Ballinglen Arts Center in Bally- castle, Ireland. Hean grew up near the Annapolis campus, where her mother, Miriam Callahan-Hean (AGI87), is graduate admissions officer for the college. I am a planner. From eighth grade on, I took art-making seri- ously. As much as public school and free time allowed, that is what I did, taking every art class I could at my public school, earning scholarships to classes at the local art center, and, though it clearly has not improved my social skills, I spent most of my teen and pre-teen years alone in my room painting or drawing. While I was very concerned about what would happen to my “art career” if I did not attend an art school, I knew that St. John’s would provide me with the intellectual exposure, crit- ical thinking, and verbal skills I would need to be an artist who was not only technically proficient but thoughtful as well. When the conditions are right, I work 14-hour days in the studio. The rhythm of these days is paradise. The places my mind and hands may take me and the work fluctuate: unpre-

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Visual Thinkers} 29

“When the conditions are right, I work 14-hour days in the studio. The rhythm of these days is paradise.”

Karina Noel Hean (A00)

dictable, exciting, reassuringly familiar, ridiculous, calm, transcendent. For several years my work was concerned with communi- cating a sense of reverence for nature and understanding nature as a source of spirituality. My Pendular Motion Series monotypes and Emotional Proof Series explore the aesthetic and intellectual capacity of geometric and dynamics diagrams and theorems. Studying the history of Western mathematics and physical sciences at St. John’s exposed me to Euclid’s Elements and Huygens’ On the Motion of Bodies from Impact amongst other heavily diagrammed attempts to explain the nature of our world and how it functions. What initially strikes me about these proofs is the clear beauty of their lines and shapes. As a visual communicator, I am intrigued by the quan- tity and quality of information these images can convey. In addition to this is a skeptic’s pondering of the kind of knowing they claim to present. The Emotional Proof Series are improvisations that riff off of the Euclidian proofs that I studied at St. John’s. These proofs are logical and predictable. My version of the proofs is a humorous comment on the contemporary desire to categorize and comprehend human emotions. They ask questions such as: How far can we take the relationship between word and image? How much distance exists between these two supposedly distinct forms of communication? “Learn by doing and making mistakes” has become one of my pedagogical mottoes that stems from my own experience as Karina Noel Hean is drawn to the beauty of mathematical proofs, as shown in these untitled works. an art student and artist. If you are not frustrated, you are prob- ably not learning anything or challenging yourself.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 30 {Visual Thinkers}

Daja Music Billy Lieb (class of 1945) attended film school at UCLA after his graduation from St. John’s. Following graduate school and teaching film making, Lieb worked in Los Angeles as a motion picture cameraman and film editor until his retirement in 1984, when he began his career as a sculptor. His artwork includes two different media: assem- blage (making things out of found objects) and abstract wood sculpture. I have enjoyed collecting things since I was a kid. First it was postage stamps, then shells, rocks and minerals. As an adult I started to go to flea markets and swap meets where you could buy inter- esting things cheap. Gradually, I learned to put some of these things together to make constructions of assemblages. After I retired from the film industry in 1984, I moved to the Ocean Park district—right on the Santa Monica beach. That summer there were storms that brought piles of driftwood onto the beach. I soon discovered that some of it was very heavy and was carvable. A surfer classmate of mine (from grad- A surfer told Billy Lieb (class of 1945) where to find the manzanita burl—prized by sculptors—that washes up on Malibu beach. (UNTITLED) uate school, UCLA) suggested I drive 20 miles north to the Malibu beaches. He was right. For the next 10 years, my I started exhibiting at the factory and local galleries. Mean- best wood came from Malibu, mostly manzanita burls. while, Sony Music was building its West Coast headquarters on I had also started collecting art posers. I found out about the our block. When it was finished, the president of Sony Music Picture Framers Guild, which would help you learn how to invited our college, the Santa Monica College of Design, Art, frame art posters. The next year, I started The Magic Picture and Architecture, to decorate their new building. They wanted Gallery, my own framing operation in Malibu. us to submit art “with a musical theme.” As I started making Soon I started taking drawing and art history classes at Santa Silent Musical Instruments they finally accepted 14 of my assem- Monica College. There I learned about a new art school being blages including The Daja Music Machine and The Daja Guitar. founded at Santa Monica College, using an empty furniture The word “Daja” became my brand name for my style of assem- factory for its classrooms. All of the faculty were professional blage, being a sum of “Dada” and “Jazz.” I have entered several artists, including Laddie Dill and George Herms, who became wood sculptures and assemblages in the alumni art show at my favorite teacher. St. John’s in Santa Fe.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Visual Thinkers} 31

Playing in the Mud by Eleanor Peters ven as a small child I loved playing in the mud. My mother is an artist so there were always opportunities to try out new things at home. When Mike was in grad school in Seattle and our children were young there was a great E recreation center program that included pottery classes—a place where adults were encouraged to play in the mud! Perfect. I was hooked in no time. Long before Santa Fe was in the picture for us, I discovered the work of legendary San Ildefonso potter Maria Martinez and was intrigued by her work. I haven’t adopted her Native American techniques but the respect and awe remain. I never dreamt that one day we would be practically in her neighbor- hood, surrounded by her legacy. Imagine my delight when we arrived at St. John’s to find a wonderful pottery right in the Fine Arts Building. Not only could one throw pots, but be variously serenaded by sophomore music, jazz groups, piano, bass, drums or horn playing. There is a very knowledgeable instructor in the Eleanor Peters, wife of Santa Fe President Michael Peters, is a regular at the campus pottery studio. She entered these person of local artist Sadiq Kahn. Our pottery assistant is works in the Santa Fe Community Art Show. Carolyn Lobeck (SF07), who spent last summer as apprentice to Betsy Williams. A small but dedicated group of students find their way to the studio. Some become regulars; others come for a season as their class schedules allow. Some bring reading in seminar or the topic of their current paper, as well considerable pottery experience, and some are beginners. All as how to throw a tall cylinder or make a plate. x bring enthusiasm. What I really enjoy is that our intersection in the Pottery Studio gives me an opportunity to get to know students in a non-academic setting. But, being Johnnies, it also means there are conversations about what they’re

In August 2006, I bought a home in a senior mobile home park in Poway, California. I did this to be near my daughter Joy and my two great grandsons Danny and Alex. When my dear friend Jonnie Zheutlin learned of my move, she sent me funds to build an art studio as part of my new home. Few artists are lucky enough to be able to open their front door and enter their art studio! x

For color images of art by Betsy Dixon, Billy Lieb, and Karina Hean, visit the St. John’s Web site; click on Publications and on The College magazine.

An avid collector, Billy Lieb sculpts driftwood and makes eclectic sculptures from items lost and found.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 32 {Student Voices}

IF JOHNNIES RULED THE WORLD

by Jennifer Wright (A08) ith global events whirling around us, recently I have been putting thought into what W the world would be like if run by Johnnies. Initially euphoria overwhelmed me. The notion of a place run by “philosopher kings” most obviously points toward The Republic. I can’t imagine we would strictly follow Plato’s notions if only because we might prove woefully disinclined toward the whole martial aspect of Socrates’ utopia. But we could surely expect a society in which everyone at least knew of Plato and, when one exclaims that she loves him in the course of conversation no one would reply, “Yeah, I loved Play-doh too, but I kind of grew out of it.” When I mentioned this notion of a world run by Johnnies to n

other students, almost everyone responded a m g

with wild enthusiasm. “Can you imagine?” e i t s

asked one boy. “Everyone everywhere a e

would be really well read. Also, undeniably s l e

sexy in that way that Johnnies are.” h c A freshman remarked, “Think about it— After three years’ acquaintance with Program authors, Jennifer Wright (A08) has a few it would be amazing. We’d just go up to ideas on how Johnnies would run things. people in the streets, and instead of saying, ‘How are you?’ we’d say, ‘And how do you feel about the Cartesian Dichotomy?’ ” Then I queried one of my best friends because we’d end up debating the would be totally irrelevant. The rocks who may have been feeling a tiny bit bitter definition of light, and whether or not it wouldn’t be edible, but we’d end up talking about writing her sophomore enabling was a form. Then we’d debate the about what it means to be ‘edible.’ Eventu- essay that day. “Well,” she said, “I think definition of, say, the rocks in front of us. ally, we’d all starve to death.” She sighed, we’d still be sitting around in caves. I think We’d make some tepid attempt to figure and resumed writing about Dante’s that if someone tried to free us from the out whether or not rocks were edible, using depiction of God’s divine love. cave, we wouldn’t notice, let alone kill him, research gleaned from Harvey, which

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Student Voices} 33

She may well have had a point. But then A nation comprised of very hungry comedies would feature a wily, irascible can it really be the case that Johnnies are as alcoholics might not seem like the best bloke named Socrates, and his timid pal wholly impractical as the cloud-dwelling setting for, well, anything, but it would Plato. Young women everywhere would Laputans of Gulliver’s Travels? Would we have certain redeeming features. The food stand in line for hours to see new interpre- be doomed to perish if left to our own of love, at least, would abound with all its tations of Jane Austen. (Johnnies must erudite devices? relishes intact. Music would be every- find it nice to note that many young We might not starve to death, but in a where, provided that the philosopher kings women already do this, given the success of world governed by the ideals of the in charge were not paying overly close Pride and Prejudice, a selection featured Program we might have to deal with some attention to St. Augustine. If they were, proudly on the Program list, which is to substandard food, if the case of Glaucon music lacking polyphony would be say, we knew it was cool before the rest of or Cato is anything to go by. Relishes, ubiquitous (but surely Palestrina put an America did.) we remember, are for the epicurean and end to that argument). Of course, it might And as for sports? People would sigh and indulgent. So we are going to have to begin not be the music that the vast majority of dismiss the rare sorts who wanted to toss a frequenting cafés that make their food the nation listens to. We would relish our football around, but in the croquet players entirely without relishes, which, as Mozart, our Brahms, our Shostakovich but would reside the hopes and dreams of a ketchup-wielding modern Americans, whenever “Louie, Louie” came on the dapperly dressed, hat-wearing nation. might prove pretty difficult. radio people would (and I find this truly For every Johnnie knows that nothing says However, if we pay attention to the tragic, as I love “Louie, Louie”) sniff “athletic prowess” and also “hand-eye Program sophomore year, we will happily dismissively and remark upon the coordination” like croquet. realize that wine will be everywhere. Wine simplistic 1-3-5 pattern. “Surely,” people While I will save my notions on Johnnies abounds in Shakespeare, it abounds in would exclaim, “this piece is lacking in the in the boardroom and our diplomatic The Canterbury Tales, and it abounds dynamic qualities Zuckerkandl describes in prowess, at least in the basics of life our especially in the Bible. To the relief, I’m The Sense of Music!” Classical stations rule will pursue the form of the good. certain, of our Reality archons, at no point would quickly become the most popular in We might wish that we did not have to in the Program do we come upon charac- the nation, and listening to “Louie, Louie” spend another day eating Cato-approved ters who don’t love wine; even Socrates, would prove one to be a harmless but portions of gruel. But then, we would our paragon of moderation, is particularly quirky eccentric. realize that we could wear wonderful in his element at drinking parties. The Other forms of entertainment would outfits and go to our local stadium or park abundance of alcohol in our brave new undergo drastic alterations as well. Reality to watch a rousing game of croquet, with world may make us considerably less shows and dating games would become Haydn blasting in our iPods. And whatever, concerned—indeed indifferent to—the lack passé in favor of PBS and the BBC, which the fact would remain that we would stay of relishes in our food. would re-create our favorite literary pieces sexy in that undeniable way that Johnnies in loving, eight-hour miniseries. Buddy are sexy. x

When Johnnies are in charge: protesting that the items within it would engage in fervent discussion about The Johnnie Beauty Salon: No one shouldn’t exist (and those reading Kant whether or not they had gleaned greater who has ever seen a picture of Immanuel and Hume declaring that that’s fine, insight into the nature of the divine. Kant can possibly think that beauticians because they don’t) everything would The Johnnie Grocery Store: The would be frequently patronized by those probably function as usual until people Johnnie grocery store would feature a who emulate the Program authors. Ulti- realize that mathematics tutorials have fairly ordinary assortment of items save mately, beauticians will fade into obscu- left Johnnie cashiers with an inability to the fact that no apples would be sold, nor rity, patronized only by those followers of do simple mathematics. Instead, they will a variety of other “unclean” items. Socrates who believe that beautiful be left trying to explain to patrons— Johnnies, after all, have not spent an people offer us insight into the good–and eagerly awaiting change from the $20 entire semester reading the Bible only those people will mostly be regarded as dollars they gave for a $3 dollar to make the same mistake twice. The drunken degenerates by anyone following purchase—what the nature of infinity and enormous supply of wines, however, the ideals of later Program authors. Hair- the ultimate actually are. would compensate for it. dressers will become obsolete in favor of The Johnnie Music Store: These The Johnnie Bookstore: Bookstores brain-dressers who will be capable of would be located in very close proximity would immediately establish themselves straightening the mess under the head of to religious institutions, as sophomore as the social hub of the Johnnie society. hair. They will be known (to those in the year has taught us that the two are closely The philosophy section in each of them know) as ‘tutors.’ Of course, this may lead intertwined. Far from being a carefree would expand magnificently, and trashy to a slightly less beautiful world. environment, Johnnies would stand paperbacks would be relegated to back The Johnnie Department Store: listening to bars of music playing over the corners, near the restroom. In a tribute to Despite the proponents of Karl Marx intercom in such stores, and would nerv- great writers past, everything would be standing outside the store and adamantly ously call out “1-3-5! 1-3-5!” Then they categorized by the Greek alphabet. x

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 34 {Bibliofile}

also the lifeblood of St. John’s; as Back to Basics Einstein put it, “Information is not knowledge.” Newspapers, encyclopedias, A Summer Crash and textbooks, while valuable in a Course for Readers particular way, do not add up to the kind of knowledge valuable to a Johnnie. How to Read a Book Nor will a single one of our great books Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, magically radiate knowledge to the Simon and Schuster, 1940, revised 1976 reader as soon as the first page is turned (with the possible exception of How to Read a Page Lucretius). Ultimately, what is read is I. A. Richards, W. W. Norton, 1942 secondary to how it is read. For Adler and co-author Charles Van How to Read Two Books Doren (class of 1946), reading well is Erasmus G. Addlepate, Frederick Stokes something of a superpower. “With Company, 1940 (out of print) nothing but the power of your own mind, you operate on the symbols before you in such a way that you gradually lift yourself from a state of understanding less to one by Emily DeBusk (A06) of understanding more.” Skilled reading, s long as St. John’s is in the authors write, is our only defense the business of asking against a pre-packaged opinion. How gadfly-ish questions, to Read a Book is an exhaustive here is one to ponder: presentation of the four levels of reading: do you know how to read? elementary, inspectional, analytical, and What is at stake in the A Paradoxically, you must syntopical. Elementary reading is what a read to learn how to read. kindergartener does, or a freshman just quality of your reading? It is no coincidence that the philoso- learning to piece together the Greek pher Mortimer Adler (HA86), a self- alphabet. Inspectional reading, or “time- If you are reading described “educational evangelist” bound, systematic skimming,” is familiar and co-author of How to Read a Book, to the student who procrastinates on a for more than just was instrumental to the shaping of the seminar reading and must try to piece it Great Books movement in the late 1930s. together in an impossible amount of information, the authors An underlying premise of Adler’s book is time. (When not forced to take the place posit that it is the life of analytical reading, inspectional reading is a valuable skill to have.) of your mind. Analytical reading is the fount of a good seminar. This is reading for understanding, applied to material the life of your mind. If you ask a that is perhaps slightly out of the reader’s challenging book a question, “it answers grasp so that it takes analysis, first to get you only to the extent that you do the through the book and secondly, to talk work of thinking and analysis yourself.” about it. Finally, syntopical reading is It is almost necessary to read How to analytical reading of multiple books, Read a Book in order to read How to synthesizing ideas from various sources, Read a Page: A Course in Efficient which ideally leads the reader to a unique Reading with an Introduction to 100 idea from the many. Great Words, written by British literary “The art of reading, in short, includes critic and semanticist I.A. Richards in all of the same skills that are involved in 1942. Like Adler and Van Doren, the art of unaided discovery: keenness of Richards offers his book as a remedy to observation, readily available memory, poor reading, poor thinking, and the range of imagination, and, of course, consequent downfall of civilization. an intellect trained in analysis and “What is the point of toiling through reflection,” the authors write. What is at thousands of pages, if the chief outcome stake in the quality of your reading? is an accumulation of misunderstand- If you are reading for more than just ings?” he asks. How to Read a Page information, the authors posit that it is delves deeply into the theory of language, uncovering the “systematic ambiguity

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Bibliofile} 35

(or ‘resourcefulness’) of all our most published in 1940. The book aims to important words” in order to read and show non-thinkers “how to become think afresh. The book combines reading near-thinkers, part-time thinkers, and for exercises with the gradual development those who wish to follow the Rules, how of a doctrine of the fundamentals of to become mental giants.” Although the reading. Nevertheless, Richards does not author pokes fun at the idea of a “How aim to strictly codify the art of reading. To” book that aspires to true education For Richards, as for Adler and Van Doren, (and although he would call I.A. Richards reading is an almost sacred act of a practitioner of that “technique of communion, not with authors, but with thought ideas. “There is no such thing as merely reading words; always through the words we are trafficking or trying to traffic with things—things gone by, present, to come, or eternal. So a person who sets up to teach reading should recognize that he may be more ambitious than he seems…” Once the reading of a page and a book have been mastered, we may now move on to Erasmus G. Addlepate’s tongue-in- cheek parody, How to Read Two Books,

What Tutors are Reading

We asked tutors from Santa Fe and Sherry Martin: Winkie, by Clifford Greg Schneider: “Since I took a small Annapolis what non-Program books they Chase, “in which Meletus testifies at a group of Santa Fe campus folks on an were making time for: a few novels, many trial of a teddy bear. Yes, really. On a alternative spring break experience in nonfiction works, and a book about a recent road trip, I listened to the new Le Haiti, I have been reading about the teddy bear made the list. Carré novel, The Mission Song. I like to country. In particular, I recently read read novels during the holidays to de- Breath, Eyes, Memory, by Edwidge Basia Miller: “Céline’s Mort à Crédit is a compress.” Danticat, is a Haitian-American, and long term project.” Also, W. Somerset Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Maugham’s The Painted Veil. “After Joseph Macfarland (A87): Before Kidder, a nonfiction book about seeing the movie version, I found the France and Germany: The Creation and improving health care in Haiti.” plot-lines simpler and more delicately Transformation of the Merovingian World woven [in the book].” and The Myth of Nations: The Medieval David Starr: is doing some syntopical Origins of Europe, both by Patrick J. reading: Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical Emily Langston: Obasan, by Joy Geary. History; Margaret Barker, The Great High Kogawa, about Japanese Canadians Priest; Robin Fox, Pagans and Christians; interned during WWII. Also, The Custom Jacques Duvoisin: The Ancient City, by and Jean Danielou, The Christian of the Country, by Edith Wharton. Fustel de Coulanges, “a classic study of Centuries, vol. I: The First Six Hundred the religious foundations of Ancient Years. Jon Tuck: Plowing the Dark, by Richard Greek and Roman cities. It is a real eye- “I am reading most of them because I Powers, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, opener. I heartily recommend it.” am interested in the question, why the Pillar of Fire by Taylor Branch, The Last early Christians were willing to risk their Samaurai by Helen DeWitt, and Mother- Susan Stickney: One Good Turn: A lives for their faith. This, of course, less Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem. Natural History of the Screwdriver and presupposes the question, what was their the Screw, by Witold Rybczynski; The faith (or Gospel)? I do not think it is very Henry Higuera: The Wild Ass’s Skin, by Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan; well understood by most modern and Honoré de Balzac and The Sot-Weed and Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the post-modern scholars—Christian or not.” Factor by John Barth. “As to why I read Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, by them: both were just to keep sane.” David Hockney.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 36 {Croquet} HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CROQUET

by Emily DeBusk (A06) eed there be more reasons for outmatched, Imperial Wicket Ertle recalls meeting place as well as a symbol of their merry-making on croquet with pride. “I did a chop shot and the Mid revolutionary ideals. The 400-year-old day? In addition to the much- turned to his buddy and said, ‘I think we’re Annapolis Liberty Tree, the last surviving anticipated victory of the in trouble.’” Ertle points to a snapshot of the tree, had to be taken down after it was Johnnies over the Mids (5-0), 1982 mallet-wielding teams on the steps on critically damaged by Hurricane Floyd. Nthe reunion of dear friends, Barr Buchanan, which is eerily similar to the This year croquet spectators celebrated delectable picnic spreads, flowing cham- present day, complete with boater hats and the dedication of a new Liberty Tree, a gift pagne, and springtime on the Annapolis the trophy securely held in a Johnnie’s from the 2007 senior class. The senior class campus, Johnnies had five more reasons to hands. Instead of trophies and mallets, this voted to purchase the tulip poplar, located be of good cheer. The first is that it has been year Ertle and Heyburn held champagne between the Barr Buchanan Center and a quarter of a century since the fateful wager flutes. The commemorative glasses were a McDowell Hall, as a perennial gift to both between St. John’s student Kevin Heyburn gift to St. John’s alumni in honor of croquet’s St. John’s and the Annapolis community. (A86) and a Naval Academy officer that 25th birthday. Before the start of the croquet match George sparked the good-natured rivalry. Both Old Roots, New Tree Zahringer (A07), president of the Senior Heyburn and the first Imperial Wicket for Class Gift Committee, spoke briefly on the St. John’s, John Ertle (A84) attended the The Liberty Tree that once stood on the front seniors’ choice. “Of all places, no ground is 25th croquet match, along with Ertle’s wife, campus of St. John’s was a piece of American more receptive to this symbol of liberty; Kathy, who goes by “First Lady Wicket.” history in our midst; each of the 13 colonies here, where the ideal of liberty in thought is That first year, the Mids were clearly had a Liberty Tree, which patriots used as a so strong,” he said. “It makes me proud as an American and as a member of this Polity to offer this tree on behalf of my class, to rein- force the ideal of liberty.” President Nelson accepted the gift on behalf of the college, and the ceremony was made complete when an ensemble of Johnnies offered their rendition of “Liberty Tree,” a poem by the famous revolutionary Thomas Paine. A Gift from the Croquet Gods In 2005, the unthinkable happened: the St. John’s croquet team lost the Annapolis Cup to the Mids. The match was two for two on that drizzly day, and victory in the fifth game depended on partners Christopher Mules and Tristan Evans-Wilent, both juniors at the time. They lost. “We were so distraught when we lost, we took a year off from school,” Evans-Wilent says. Two years later, Mules and Evans-Wilent were back on the team, sporting Springsteen-inspired “Born in the USA” attire, determined to make this match a victory for St. John’s. The croquet gods smiled upon them. “I went rover, then Tristan played a great turn,” an ecstatic Mules says after their triumph. t n i o p r

e Christopher Mules (A07) demonstrates i p the “whack-n-watch” pose adopted by many y r a players after a tense shot. g

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Croquet} 37

“We [lost] the decisive game five two years ago, so this is retribution. I feel amazing!” Love is in the Air While the croquet teams might have had the jitters about the day’s competition, no one was as nervous as G. August Deimel (A04). Deimel had been planning for weeks to propose to his girlfriend of two years, Sara Wagner (A08). He and some friends tricked her into looking for stereo speakers in Barr Buchanan while Deimel and Wagner’s families, both from Pitts- burgh, were brought out from hiding. When she emerged from the building, Wagner was puzzled to see her family. “Then August got on one knee and asked me and I said yes, of course,” she recounts. After a champagne toast, the couple—planning to marry next summer—danced in front of Barr Buchanan. People Watching, Balzac Style Nostalgia, the Annapolis Cup, champagne glasses, Liberty Trees, divine justice and romance—what more? Croquet 2007 also had its usual fantastic parade of characters. “I love the endless variety of people,” said Bryan Smith (A08) as he surveyed the teeming assembly of Johnnies, Mids, alumni from both institutions, and Annapolitans. “It’s like entering a Balzac novel; you get a whole social scene with all their foibles and eccentricities, ” he said. x

Clockwise: Souvenir glasses celebrate a silver anniversary; The original Imperial Wicket John Ertle (A84); George Zaringer (A07), Eric Honor (A10), Sara Luell (A09), Lindsay Wyett, Rachel Bartgis (A09); Lining up the shot; The prized cup; Young boy; A Springsteen- inspired team; the original 1982 croquet team.

photos by gary pierpoint

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 38 {Alumni Profile}

A Humanitarian Calling Christian Acemah (SF05)

by Rosemary Harty hat he would pursue a career in the field of international development was essentially a foregone conclusion for Christian Acemah (SF05), a T native of Uganda. His father was a deputy ambassador for his country; his mother had worked as an attaché to the U.N. Security Council. That he was able to land his first profes- sional job based in Geneva, Switzerland, with an international nonprofit was beyond expectation. His studies at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service played a role in that good fortune, he says. But as a foreign n e

student who suffered several personal t s a tragedies, he wouldn’t have gotten to g

k

Georgetown or Geneva without the support r a m and encouragement he found at St. John’s. / s n

Acemah won two merit-based scholar- o i t ships to attend Georgetown University’s a n

d

highly regarded Walsh School of Foreign e t i

Service. Being at Georgetown was a n wonderful experience, if a little intimi- u dating, he says. His fellow students were Christian Acemah (SF01) greets former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan during an event Acemah organized at Georgetown. The event celebrated Annan’s serious, ambitious, and already quite lasting legacy to Africa. accomplished. “I was the youngest one there,” he says. “I entered my first class and the professor started to talk about would mean interrupting his studies, he quite interesting for me. We work from Thucydides—everyone else in the class had consulted his graduate adviser, who urged 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on almost any given working no idea what she was talking about. I could him to accept the job. “It would have taken day,” he says. “There are constant briefings at least relate to what she was saying, and me eight years to get to this level, and even and writing pieces to compose. Travel is also that was great.” to get into the UN system is so difficult. a huge part of this office. I cannot believe As a graduate student, Acemah Most people give up along the way,” he says. the amount of responsibility I have been conducted research and worked as a Acemah’s official title is Executive given.” Most recently, Acemah is working teaching assistant in the African Studies Officer, Policy and Research, for the GAVI on HPV vaccine advocacy and leads GAVI’s Program. In the summer of 2006, he served Alliance Secretariat. The GAVI alliance is a relationships with African initiatives. an internship with the Lutheran World public-private partnership focused on Though he grew up with privileges, Federation in the Uganda/Sudan Country increasing children’s access to vaccines in Acemah was raised to be aware of responsi- Office. He analyzed the federation’s health poor countries. GAVI unites UNICEF, the bilities and obligations to others. He policy in the context of Uganda’s national World Bank, and major international foun- undertook his education with those goals in policy and helped provide health work- dations in setting mutual goals, sharing mind. In Uganda, aptitude tests identified shops. Through Georgetown, he heard strategies, and coordinating efforts. “We him as gifted in science and mathematics, about a job with a division within UNICEF bring principles from the private sector and but Acemah wanted to study literature and that worked to get vaccines and immuniza- apply them to the public sector,” he says. was stubborn about it. “My mother came to tions to children in developing countries. One of the agency’s goals is to improve the school and told them, ‘he knows what he After he put in his application, he heard the mechanisms involved with getting new wants to do, and it’s going to be difficult to nothing for months, and he braced himself vaccines out on the market as soon as they change his mind,’ ” Acemah recalls. The for disappointment. Finally, a call came for are ready. It also seeks to create sustainable, school wouldn’t budge, so Acemah found an interview, and Acemah eventually landed long-term financing for immunization himself at Olney Friends School in Ohio, the job, which was based in Geneva and programs in the countries in which it works. where he learned about St. John’s. would start in a matter of weeks. Because it “Being in such an intense environment is He had already accepted a full scholarship

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Alumni Notes} 39

described her writing system, 1944 Surrounded by Mountains which is based on Aristotelian logic, in the first edition of her fter 15 years as head of school at Friends School book Scoring High on Bar Exam CARL S. HAMMEN, a Maryland of Minnesota, MARK NIEDERMIER (A84) has Essays, published by ARCO in scholarship student at St. John’s moved on. He is now head of school at Pacific 1991. BarWrite Press brought out College, married Deborah Rein- Northern Academy in Anchorage, Alaska. His the third edition in 2006. hold-Kazor on March 31, 2007, 8-year-old daughter, Sophie, is a second-grader in St. Petersburg, Fla. Since A at the school, and his 3-year-old son, Caleb, will retirement from the University of soon enroll as well. Mark’s wife, Karen, is a nurse practitioner Rhode Island, he has served as a at Anchorage Midwifery and Women’s Health, and they all enjoy 1967 tax-return preparer, census an active lifestyle, surrounded by mountains and wildlife. x enumerator, and adjunct LARRY (A) and HAZEL professor at several Florida SCHLUETER (A69) report from colleges. Carl likes to run, and Carl is the father of five children, New Orleans: “Hazel has an old- in 2006 was ranked second in four living, all highly successful, time country and bluegrass music the state, in the men’s 80 age 1960 and the grandfather of seven, all show every Sunday morning, division in the 10K and third in of whom he dearly loves. Deborah MARY CAMPBELL GALLAGHER 10 a.m. to noon at www.wwoz.org the 15K. Deborah won the and Carl, when he completes his presented “Easier than IRAC: on the Web for her style of what is 1500-m run in December 2004 duties as teacher of “creative The Under-Here-Therefore Legal happening in New Orleans post- at the state senior games, where geometry” at Ringling School of Writing System” at the Rocky Katrina. We are restoring the they met. She is an equestrienne, Art & Design in Sarasota, will Mountain Legal Writing Confer- house and enjoying having all the and her quadrille team was travel to Portugal, Spain, France, ence at the University of Nevada family here.” second in the nation in 2001. and England. Las Vegas on March 10. Mary first to Earlham College, but St. John’s intrigued who can just see right through you, see the always felt that Acemah’s drive stemmed him. He called the Santa Fe Admissions things you can do, and try to encourage you from his desire to return to Uganda and office, rushed to get his material in, and was to look fear in the face,” says Acemah. work to improve the lives of others. “This offered admission. Acemah says he was “Now, my second anchor was gone.” inner drive could have made him dour or drawn to St. John’s primarily because he His tutors and friends saw through his overly intense but in reality the intensity you could pursue all his varied interests. “The stoic demeanor, Acemah says. “They would felt from Christian was his love for learning place spoke to me from the first moment I always check in with me, and that was a and for his friends,” she says. learned of it,” says Acemah, though it took good thing,” he says. When it seemed At St. John’s, Acemah met his fiancée, some time for him to feel confident in the finances would force him to drop out, Marie Craig (SF05), who now teaches at Program. “I was very scared at first, reading his tutors went to the administration Olney Friends School and will begin grad- Euclid. David Carl was my math tutor, on his behalf, and then-president John uate studies at Columbia University in the and by the time he called on me to do a Balkcom (SFGI00) found money for fall. They will marry this July at a lodge on proposition, I did it my own way, and it Acemah to continue. Murchison Falls in northwest Uganda. Many worked. From that moment, I just Career Services Director Margaret O’Dell of his classmates and tutors are planning to enjoyed everything.” watched Acemah evolve from a “quiet, attend, he says. Acemah experienced two great losses polite freshman into a mischievous, deter- In the meantime, Acemah is adjusting to during his St. John’s years. His mother, mined, self-assured senior who would not let life in Geneva, where finding affordable Monique Kwagala, died when he was a any obstacles stand in his path to George- housing is a challenge. “The city is very sophomore. As a foreign services officer in town University and graduate school. He beautiful, very clean, so many gardens, and Uganda, she had helped people escape the needed to take two economics classes as it has a multicultural feel to it because the regime of Idi Amin. “She had always been prerequisites before entering Georgetown,” UN is here. I can eat the food that I would the anchor of my life,” he explains. “The she explains. “Most students would have eat in Uganda! My favorite is green bananas day she died, I got up and went to class, and taken a year off and finished those classes in with chicken—I can buy it at the grocery I got called to do a very long proposition of a leisurely fashion, but not Christian. store, go home and prepare it for myself.” Apollonius. Continuing at St. John’s was He found the classes he needed at the Living closer to his father, Harold important to me. I think that strength came University of New Mexico, figured out how Acemah, ambassador to the European from her, saying I have to go on.” to manage the tuition, found a way to Union in Brussels, is another plus to A year later, Acemah lost his grandfather, commute to Albuquerque, convinced the his location. Nicholas Magoola. Acemah had spent professors to let him enroll for the summer In the long run, Acemah wants to find a several years living and working with his session, and passed both classes with flying happy medium between conducting field grandfather on his farm, and he learned how colors in the space of eight weeks.” work and policymaking. “I don’t know yet to observe and respect the natural world Odell is not surprised Acemah is already what that blend will look like,” he says. “I through him. “He was one of those people serving a humanitarian cause; she has hope it will be exciting and challenging.” x

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 40 {Alumni Notes}

on. Daughter HANNA (A96, 1968 Georgetown Law ’01) had a Fire trucks and beautiful wedding on Tilghman A good long classnote from Island to Stephen Goldstein in Helicopters November 2005, in which I JOSHUA GILLELAN (A) covers a participated in Highland dress RYSTAL (SANDERS) SOKOLOV (SF02) and her lot of ground: “I finally made my husband, Christopher, welcomed their second plus yarmulke; they live on escape from the Office of the son, Gregory, on November 22, 2006. He joins Capitol Hill, and it’s great to Solicitor of Labor in June 2004, his brother, Nicholas, in contemplating the two be nearby. Catch us at the to start my own practice, the greatest inventions of the Western world: fire New Orleans Jazzfest!” grandiosely entitled Longshore Ctrucks and helicopters. x Claimants’ National Law Center, practicing primarily before the federal courts of appeals and the Institute of St. Louis friends, including half a dozen Supreme Court. I can’t imagine 1975 (www.kabbalahmadeeasy.com), Johnnies from the infamous class why I waited so long (except, of Publishing news from ERIC along with publishing poetry: of A88.” course, that the new practice, SCIGLIANO (SF): “Been “In 2005, my poem was featured though busy from the start, grounded in Seattle, helping start alongside Maya Angelou’s in a In March, KIM PAFFENROTH (A) produced almost no cash flow for a magazine (Seattle Metropolitan, poetry anthology called, Cosmic was named a recipient of the the first two years). My wife, nominal position ‘news editor’). Brownies—Poems about Lessons Bram Stoker Award for his writer Allison Blake (be sure to Article “The Mind of an Learned in Life. In 2006, I was nonfiction work, Gospel of the get the current edition of her Octopus” picked for Best Amer- the original winner of the only Living Dead: George Romero’s widely available Chesapeake Bay ican Science Writing anthology. scholarship (based solely on Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, Book: A Complete Guide before Last book, Michaelangelo’s merit) given by the Washington 2006). His book tied with Final your next trip to the area), and I Mountain, was finalist for University Summer Writer’s Exits: The Illustrated Encyclo- have a second home in New Washington State Book Award. Institute, which I turned down pedia of How We Die, by Michael Orleans (bought four months Lost to Tim Egan’s The Worst because it wasn’t a full scholar- Largo. The award is bestowed in before Katrina—great timing—but Hard Time, which went on to win ship and due to health reasons at recognition of “superior achieve- in the ‘sliver by the river’ that the National Book Award.” the time. I also help one of my ment” by the Horror Writers didn’t flood, though it was an friends with her matchmaking Association. Winning the award anxious two and a half weeks business.” puts Paffenroth in the company before we could make sure it was of writer Stephen King, and he still there and not pancaked by 1976 takes home an award that is an the water oak in the back yard or eight-inch replica of a haunted the live oak in the neighbor yard), ALICE JOY BROWN (A) works as 1988 house with a door that opens to and intend to spend half the year an office assistant while doing reveal a brass plaque engraved there (appellate practice is promotions for the Kabbalah For the last year and a half, with the name of the winning wonderfully portable) from now JULIET BURCH (A) has been work and its author. Gospel of the working at the National Center Living Dead is a non-fiction book for Jewish Film, an archive connecting social and religious Another Croquet Fan located at Brandeis University views with the classic American and dedicated to the preservation zombie and horror genre; it has heodore and restoration of Jewish-themed attracted much critical acclaim. Gammon (A28 films. “I feel as though I’ve really or A30 if he is found my niche in this interesting slow like his and quirky collection,” she father; SF28 if writes. “It’s great to have a job 1991 T contrary like his I love!” mother) reports that his JONARNO LAWSON (A) has parents, ALEX and BETH (both ERIN MILNES (A) writes that she received the 2007 The Lion and A94), are doing well in Balti- was married in June 2006 to the Unicorn Award for excellence more. Other places, too. He is Chuck Guest, a writer and musi- in North American poetry for his trying to teach them that as cian, in Oakland, Calif.: “We had book Black Stars in a White long as you sit under the maple more fun than anyone should all Night Sky. once a day, get dirty once a day, s o

t weekend, with family and great eat some currants and dance a o f

x little, you should smile more e l than frown. x a continued on p. 43

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Alumni Profile} 41

What was so special about the Class of ’66?

by Emily DeBusk (A06) Constance (Bell) Lindgreen (A66) and her Kennedy was shot. The only television on classmates came of age during an extraordi- campus was turned on, day and night. I nary time of metamorphosis in America. didn’t watch, but that was a choice I’m not Growing up in tumultuous times, and sure I don’t regret. Anyway, in 1963, or immersed in the great books as they were, maybe it was 1964, we heard the first Beatles they were bound for great things. Connie recording wafting out from Humphrey. retired as a vice president in IBM’s European We sat and watched the sunsets over operation and took on the role of “class College Creek, and fell asleep reading Aris- leader” for her reunion last year. Collecting totle or Kant or Cervantes or Tolstoy (all four news of her classmates inspired her to reflect. just the right size for a pillow), drank coffee She writes: in the eponymous shop, and partied as soon as lecture—or sometimes the question e came to St. John’s period—was over, making good use of the Sin from having marched Bins in Campbell, and walked down to the with Martin Luther shabby dock dubbed ‘Piraeus.’ I guess some- King on a hot day, time in there, we grew up–sort of–and then, holding hands, of course, we left. W singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ Kennedy was President. Bras

Where did the class of 1966 go and what ) 5 were to be burned. We had come to St. John’s did they do? Like every graduating class, 6 A ( as prospectives, gone to seminar, become the diverse career paths taken by alumni n o t converts. We came to the college, the reflect the versatility of their education: a s e r

Program, with something resembling p

news executive, several clergy members, e religious reverence. I can’t speak for my c

an internationally acclaimed playwright, u r classmates, but my guess is that it was more doctors, lawyers, artists, and even a b the rule than the exception. lighting technician for Grateful Dead Irene (Lindermayer) Dortch and Connie We read seminar with Jacob Klein, concerts. (Bell) Lindgreen, both class of 1966. complete with pipe and joyous love of Plato; sang in freshman chorus for/with Victor Zuckerkandl, who had but to lift his hand for For Lindgreen’s classmate Mel Kline, it California, a position recommended to her us all to feel held by angels; studied the Bible was sophomore seminar on the Bible that by Brother Robert Smith. “I get to go in small groups with Mr. Kaplan, whose was an especially formative experience. through the Program over and over again,” humanity almost eclipsed his brilliance; read “Sophomore seminar, when you face the she says. “I never really left in a way. I also Greek with John Kieffer, whose cadence still Bible and religious questions, had a strong remember that my class was known as “the echoes. Elliott Zuckerman, Joe Cohen, and effect on me and my Jewish roots,” Kline Matriarchy” because of the many wonderful John Sarkissian were the ‘young ones.’ Al says. Soon after graduation, he moved to and strong-minded women in the class.” Main was in charge of the laboratory. Bob Israel, where he lives today. “St. John’s really Margaret Winter was one of them. “In Bart, Charles Bell, Paul Scofield, were our helped me find my life’s work. About 25 years late ’66 there was beginning to be a lot of guides, with Winfree Smith, and Sam Kutler, ago I began a research project dealing with political ferment,” Winter recalls. “I wanted Beate Ruhm van Oppen, Douglas Allan- Jewish texts without commentaries, which is to work for social justice. I decided the best brook, Tom MacDonald. Life with them was unheard of in Jewish studies. I made a thing to do after St. John’s was to go to law totally engrossing. We were obsessed with number of discoveries utilizing the tools of school and use that as a tool for political books, dialogue, discovery. inquiry I developed at St. John’s.” activism.” Today, as the associate director of Annapolis was tacky and rundown, not at Theodora Carlile echoes Lindgreen’s the National Prison Project of the ACLU, all its up-market today self. McDonald’s was memories of cultural change: “When I she works to protect the constitutional rights new and had just sold a million burgers. The entered in 1962, Beatnik folk was the cutting of prisoners. x night the Cuban missile crisis threatened, edge of music. By the time I left, it was The there was silence around the seminar table Stones, Dylan, The Beatles. As far as the To exchange memories, post pictures, and until Mr. Klein broke in with the opening Program goes, it was a charmed experience help tell the story of your class, visit and question and we were off, again, in the for me. I was thrilled with the conversa- join the online community of alumni. traditional search. Afterwards, we sat in a tions.” So much so that Carlile went on to http://alumni.stjohnscollege.edu dormitory room, listening to the radio. become a professor in the liberal arts /?AlumniAssociation The Russian fleet turned back. And later, program at Saint Mary’s College in

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 42 {Alumni Profile}

Planting Seeds of Peace Munir Hussein (A90) by Patricia Dempsey ressed in khaki shorts and and expose young people to their ‘enemies’ or someone will ask ‘where are you from?’ sneakers, he could easily at a time in their life when they’re forming I say, ‘Rye, New York’ and they say, ‘No, have passed as one of the their opinions and perceptions. Hopefully where are you really from?’ It depends how camp counselors. But this will help create a new generation of diplomatic people are, but in this climate of Munir Hussein (A90) a leaders who will be wiser and perhaps less fear the tiniest little difference stands out. D real estate dealmaker, had judgmental of someone’s looks or beliefs.” I want people to see that I’m not just like an come to this peaceful spread of tall pines He discovered the organization while American, I am an American.” and clear lakes near Lewiston, Maine, to studying for his MBA at Columbia Univer- Last summer Seeds of Peace touched observe. As a guest of Seeds of Peace sity, through a Jewish colleague who was Hussein personally when his then 13-year summer camp, he quietly listened to a serving on the Seeds of Peace board. old cousin Dana attended the camp in tense dialogue between Israeli and “He came to me and said, ‘I think you will Maine. “She lives in a small village in Palestinian teenagers. really appreciate what this organization is Palestine, Zeita, near Nablus, of about “The professional facilitator opened with doing,’ ” Hussein says. Observing the camp 2,100 people,” says Hussein who has a question: ‘What do you think about the in action inspired Hussein to offer his numerous relatives on his father’s side who wall between Israel and the West Bank?’ considerable management skills to Seeds live on the West Bank. Hussein has visited There were 14 teenagers from Israel and of Peace. He volunteered on the Young Palestine several times, and when he about 10 from Palestine,” recalls Hussein, a Leadership Committee, managing fund- traveled there in 2000 with his parents he Palestinian American. “They were probably raisers in Manhattan and mentors former spent time with Dana, whom he describes on their best behavior because there were “Seeds” with career advice. Last year, as “exceptionally bright.” Yet the opportu- visitors in the room, but it was a very open, Hussein joined the organization’s board nities for a young woman like Dana in her candid dialogue. They bunk together, sail, of directors and is currently its only village were, and still are, limited. “The tiny do the ropes course, and have discussions Palestinian American member. village where Dana was growing up has dirt that remind me in some ways of a St. John’s As a board member, Hussein hopes to roads, stone houses, olive trees, and seminar-starting off with a question.” provide a leadership model for teenagers chicken farmers,” Hussein says. “The As a managing director in real estate who come from Palestine. “I want to set a women are raised in a totally traditional acquisition and development for a private good example and use my Palestinian Middle Eastern culture and handle the equity firm in Manhattan, Hussein skillfully heritage as a positive thing,” he says. children and household chores. Although arranges financing and structures lucrative “There are many occasions—business they are given the opportunity to go to real estate deals. Yet for all the delicate meetings, parties—when I’ll hear comments college, they typically do not have the same negotiations he has choices that men do.” managed, nothing Hussein’s father, a prepared him for this Palestinian immigrant first visit to Seeds of who spent his career Peace in 2003. The with large consumer camp brings together product companies, teenagers from both and his mother, a sides of a conflict classics professor at area, such as Montclair State Palestine and Israel, University in New India and Pakistan, Jersey and an advocate the United States for woman’s rights, and Iraq, and the later returned to Balkans, in order Palestine to convince to foster mutual Dana’s parents to let understanding.“I was her attend the dazzled,” Hussein program. “Her father says. “Here’s an was cautious,” says organization that is n o

really doing some- t s u

thing about the h his corporate life is

r problems in the e about deal making, h

p but with Seeds of world. They’re o t

s Peace, Hussein builds seeking to educate i r

h bridges. c

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Alumni Notes} 43

continued from p. 40 professionals. In July 2006, recovery. When I’m not working Wages,” won 11 industry awards I moved to Virginia to become I’m still traveling like crazy. Last last year including Games the Associate Medical Director year I climbed Kilimanjaro and magazine’s ‘Party Game of the of the William J. Farley center, hiked the overland track in Year,’ ” he writes. “It will be 1993 a program for chemically Tasmania. Last month I returned carried nationwide at Target dependent professionals. I also from my fourth trip to India, this starting in August! I am very RACHEL BLISTEIN (A) is in spend a few days a month time to attend my brother’s excited.” Michigan: “I completed my lecturing across the country on marriage at the Taj Mahal.” master’s degree in Landscape various topics in addiction Architecture at Morgan State medicine. This is exciting and University in Baltimore, rewarding work, as about half of 1998 graduating in 2003. After my patients are addicted medical 1997 working in Baltimore for several professionals including JEAN (TULLY) FLAHERTY (A) and years, I met my future husband, physicians, pharmacists, DOMINIC CRAPUCHETTES (A) has her husband, Seamus, joyfully Paul Alexander, and decided to veterinarians, dentists, etc. been encountering great success announce the births of their three re-locate to Ann Arbor, Mich., It’s really been an honor and a in the board game business: “Our children, Aoife Marie, born where he was completing his PhD privilege to participate in their latest party game, “Wits & December 1, 2003; George in Mechanical Engineering. We Anthony, born March 26, 2005; were married in October of 2004 and Saoirse Anne, born October and, one and a half years later, 7, 2006. They live in Plantation, bought our first house in nearby Getting the Word Out Fla., and will move to South Ypsilanti. My husband works for Bend, Ind., this autumn. General Motors as a research EVIN BROCK (SF96) and KHIN KHIN GUYOT engineer and I recently began my DAWN (SHUMAN) BORCHELT BROCK (SF88) hope to add a new member to own residential design firm, Veris their family soon: “We married in 2004, after (A), Matthew, and Wolfgang Landscape Design, L.L.C. We meeting in a summer alumni seminar on Jane welcomed their new son and love Michigan, despite the cold Austen in 2000 and in several more over the brother, Robin Wylde Borchelt to winters and troubled economy. K following years. For our honeymoon we did the the world in their new home on The surroundings are beautiful, Coast-to-Coast walk in England, a 200-mile hike from the May 2, 2006. He was 7 lbs. the people are friendly, there’s a North Sea to the Irish Sea through Yorkshire and the Lake 9 ounces and 20 inches long. funky local music scene and lots Country. We live in Mountain View, Calif.” Kevin is a software of great food (it goes with the engineer with a networking start-up in Santa Cruz and Khin cold winters). Anyone who Khin teaches first grade in a local public school. wants to get in touch is “We are currently trying to adopt an infant through domestic 2000 welcome to reach me at open adoption,” he adds. “Open adoption is very different from [email protected].” international adoption, because the birth mother and the adop- ALEXIS BROWN (SF, EC03) tive parents know more about each other, and there is usually recently joined the Board of OMAR S. MANEJWALA, M.D., some degree of continuing contact after the baby is born. The Directors of Creative Santa Fe. (A) writes: “Over the last six years birth mother chooses the adoptive parents who she wants to She has added this to her list of (since finishing up as Chief raise her child, so there’s a lot of uncertainty involved while other volunteer efforts at the Resident in psychiatry at Duke) waiting for a match. The biggest challenge is getting the word Santa Fe Rape Crisis and Trauma I’ve become very interested in the out, so if you know someone who is pregnant and considering Treatment Center, Santa Fe treatment of addicted healthcare adoption, please feel free to give them our contact information: Cares and AIDS Walk, and High 408-806-9190; [email protected].” x

Hussein. “She’d never been out of the parents that she was thriving. “She was program there,” he says. “It’s had a village and it’s a big leap to go from this wearing her headscarf and she was a little tremendous impact on her life and tiny village in the Palestinian countryside— nervous, but she got out and was playing broadening her horizons.” not only to go to the United States, but to a soccer with the kids. She’d never been “It’s funny,” Hussein adds, “back when I camp where she would be bunking with swimming before; she played all kinds of was at St. John’s, I was never aware of being roommates from Israel.” By June 2006 sports and went boating and did crafts, and that different in college. People were just Dana joined fellow Palestinian “Seeds” at of course they do a ropes course, where people. This is the way I was brought up, a an orientation session before they took a you’re learning to spot one another and face is a face, a mind is a mind, an idea is an plane from Tel Aviv to the United States build trust.” idea, you don’t look at a person’s culture or with the teenage Israeli “Seeds.” Hussein says Dana’s English, along with ethnicity–you look at who they are as a Hussein, his parents, and his uncle from her confidence and world outlook, reached human being.” x Boston visited Dana on her second day of new heights. “Now she’s back in her village camp in Maine in part to reassure her and she’s started a Seeds of Peace type

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 44 {Alumni Notes}

farmers, and we received many A Journey to China thanks from the Iraqis for 2004 providing some small measure ENNETT TURNER (EC03) has been accepted to CIEE’s of security. I’m delighted to GIDEON CULMAN (SFGI, EC05) Teach in China program. He will teach Oral English be home and look forward not is living in the District of and American Literature classes at Jiaxing University only to hearing from former Columbia and organizing alumni in the city of Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. “Beginning classmates, but most of all to gatherings every week; alumni in this August, this appointment will last an entire backpacking through Europe Bacademic year (10 months), and I couldn’t be more the D.C. area should look him up with Maili in August.” excited,” he writes. “I took classical Chinese courses under the to get on his e-mail list. The group provides networking eminent Mike Bybee at the Santa Fe campus, and his classes were SHELLEY (WALKER) SAXEN the initial impetus for this journey of mine. Apart from my teaching (SFGI, EC03) writes: “Doug opportunities, camaraderie, load, I intend to diligently study Mandarin with a private tutor, Saxen and I are now married and and fun get-togethers with other thereby returning to the States slightly more fluent than I am now. enjoying all the skiing and hiking Johnnies. “Not only did I want to share my good fortune with the Johnnie we can get while in Montana for community, but I also wanted to invite others to offer their advice another year. While I finish up my and suggestions. If any others have embarked on similar experi- doctorate in Natural Resources ences, I would love to glean some sage advice with regard to living Management, Doug is in the 2005 conditions, textbook choices, etc.: [email protected].” x throes of writing a children’s CHARLES CLAUNCH (SFGI), now book series. There’s always room in the master’s program in poli- Mayhem Emerging Arts Studio. media, I guess—typed on pieces of for SFGI alumni at our place if tics at the University of Dallas, She is excited to work on a cocktail napkin (their idea, not you happen to be in western has been accepted to that school’s promoting the prosperity of mine). Another short story was Montana and we would love to PhD program for the fall term in Santa Fe’s creative industries just nominated for the Pushcart hear from you.” 2007. If anyone has any interest and their economic potential. Prize. I feel a bit cheesy telling in this program, please direct If you want more information on you all, but is the phrase alma Since last spring MICHAEL questions to him at Creative Santa Fe, please feel mater meaningless? Can’t I brag SULLIVAN (A) has been trying to [email protected] free to contact Alexis at: to my mater?” teach Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, lege.edu. [email protected]. Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Nietzsche to semi-grateful JOHN PETERSON (A) and freshmen at Marymount Univer- CAROLYN ANN STRIPLING (SF07) sity in Arlington, Va., and and 2002 were married in July 2006. x 2001 The Catholic University of STEVE ROSE (AGI) sent in a note America in Washington, D.C. “I’d like to give an update on my for himself and MAILI SHAFFER He is also working on his doctoral whereabouts to my fellow (AGI), who look forward to dissertation, on the debate over alumni,” writes WILL BONNER traveling together in Europe universal hylomorphism in (SF). “In February 2007 my wife this summer: “Ms. Shaffer, after 13th-century metaphysics, for and I moved to Buenos Aires, teaching first grade since Catholic University. RACHEL ROCCIA SULLIVAN (A) Argentina. We keep a daily blog graduation in May 2000 is What’s Up? about the experience at about to finish her first year of law is nearing the end of her third year of medical school at The College wants to hear from www.willbonner.com.” school at the University of you. Call us, write us, e-mail us. Uniformed Services University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her first- Let your classmates know what “This is just a shameless note to year summer law position will be the Health Sciences (USUHS) in you’re doing. The next issue let you all in on some personal in Baltimore, and she is looking Bethesda, Md. Options for will be published in October; deadline for the alumni notes news,” writes NATHAN WILSON forward to beautiful evenings in specialization remain open, but section is August 10. (AGI). “I recently signed a four- Annapolis. Maili would be she is strongly considering a book deal with Random House delighted to hear from classmates future in psychiatry. In Annapolis: The College Magazine for young adult novels, the first of or Johnnies interested in UM Law Their younger daughter, Grace, which (Leepike Ridge) will release has had two eye surgeries and a St. John’s College, P.O. Box 2800 School. For myself, I have been Annapolis, MD 21404; May 22. I shamelessly rip-off teaching in Annapolis since May heart surgery since her birth last [email protected] some of the greats in service of July, but she’s doing very well; 2000, with two lengthy interrup- In Santa Fe: my plot (Twain and Homer their older daughter, Clare, is, tions for visits to Iraq with The College Magazine mainly). In a very different B Company, 4th Light Armored hopefully, coming out of her St. John’s College market, I also have a piece of Recon Battalion. Our most recent terrible twos as her third birthday 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca short fiction in the February issue vacation was to keep the rivers approaches. Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599; [email protected] of Esquire. It’s sort of mixed- and lakes safe for fishermen and

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Alumni Notes} 45

A Greek Adventure Runs Aground

ack Ladd Carr, class of 1950, and his she took her own wife, Lois, had been looking forward life jacket off and to a stimulating trip to the “Greek put it on Lois,” Islands and Beyond,” as the tour Carr says. “She operator billed it. But on the day that spoke no English, Jtheir cruise ship, the Sea Diamond, and we speak no was scheduled to make an afternoon French, but we trip to Santorini, the excursion provided a managed to bit more excitement than they had communicate our bargained for. Just a few days into their two- gratitude to her.” week trip, the couple had already visited While many several Aegean islands and made stops in passengers Patmos and Crete. “We were to sail into the climbed down harbor at Santorini,” Carr recalls. “The ropes to rescue island is spectacularly beautiful; there are vessels, the Carrs these very unusual cliffs, and they go were evacuated to straight down into this deep caldera. We a waiting ferry by were preparing to disembark for a brief run means of a to the island when for some reason the ship makeshift chute, struck a rock ledge.” assembled of While the crew prepared to evacuate mattresses, which passengers, the ship began listing to star- linked the board. “Everybody was calm,” he says. automobile ramps “The crew managed to calm every one of both ships. Jack and Lois Carr on dry ground after the disaster, and below, down. There were some youngsters, “Thank God I Lois, after sliding to safety. teenagers from a school in North Carolina, didn’t have to and they were in good spirits, clowning climb down a around, snapping each other’s pictures.” ladder,” says Carr. woman named Rea, and Rea arranged for Carr and his wife are both in their 80s, “The last time I climbed down a ladder into our group to go to a very nice, new hotel in and another passenger, a young French the boat was during the second World War the village,” says Carr. woman took notice of them, got them life when I climbed down cargo nets into “We got there by going up the cliff in a jackets, and made sure the couple were landing boats, which I did several times. sort of funicular, and after a short walk safe. “She made certain that in the crush of It was scary when I was 19, and it would be a through the village, caught a bus that took people that we were not pushed down, and lot scarier at 82.” us to the hotel. They gave us dinner, a Carr has read many reports room, and breakfast the next morning. And that people panicked, that at breakfast, I found out the ship had sunk. there was chaos, and that the That was the only time we sensed any fear.” crew wasn’t helpful, but their Carr had a shoulder bag with some euros, experience was much better. credit cards, and glasses. The couple’s They saw no panic and clothing and everything else in their thought the crew acted profes- suitcase, including souvenirs, were lost. sionally. “We decided to keep The group’s passports were also safe and calm and observed everything returned to them on the next leg of their with great interest,” he recalls. trip. Each passenger was provided with “We were separated—they did 200 euros to pick up some clothing and the women-and-children other items in Athens. Then they continued thing. That’s when I began to their trip for another 11 days. “We lost only feel that I was on the Titanic. one day of the tour,” Carr says. By this time, the ship was The accident won’t stop the Carrs listing at 15 degrees.” from traveling, says Carr. “I’m not Lois was rescued first; Jack a superstitious,” he says. “But I could do little while later, and their tour with less adventure.” x group of 39 was brought —rosemary harty ashore together. “Our tour guide was a wonderful Greek

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 46 {Obituaries}

LILLIAN VANOUS NUTT “Of course, Lillian also loved to paint, and FRIEND OF THE COLLEGE exhibited in juried shows all over the area. I Lillian Vanous Nutt, who died earlier this spring at imagine that I have seen thousands of her water- age 99, was a generous and dedicated supporter of colors, mostly on note cards, pieces of paper St. John’s College in Annapolis. Her gifts not-to-be-thrown-away. And in the last 10 years, supported scholarships for St. John’s students, I’ve been pleased to gaze upon hundreds of painted helped establish the Mitchell Gallery, and under- “jolins”, flowers designed by Lillian as a gift in wrote the renovation of a room in the Greenfield honor of my wife, Joyce Olin . . . four years ago, we Library to serve as the Nutt Room, a second added to our personal collection of framed “jolins” exhibition space for art on the Annapolis campus and other “still-lifes,” a bell pull, hand-painted by which also serves as an elegant reading room. Lillian with beautiful roses. I still pull on the darn The following excerpt, from a eulogy given at thing, but nobody comes a-running. I suspect her memorial service by Annapolis President Lillian knew that too. ‘Each of us was meant to Christopher Nelson, celebrates Mrs. Nutt’s attend to his own needs,’ I can hear her say. many contributions: “I have loved Lillian’s colorful and vivid “Lillian was born four weeks shy of 100 years ago imagination . . . In 1964, Lillian wrote a brief poem in a small wooden house on the corner of Taylor about herself. I think it captured her rather well. Lillian Vanous Nutt Avenue and Annapolis Street. She grew up in a It was titled, “Me” and opened as follows: ‘If I am home her parents soon thereafter built on Revell anything/ I certainly am prolific/ No matter what Street. Lillian remembered it for its central heating the merit/ My output is terrific!’ with gold radiators and two bathrooms, but also for its large fishpond “Indeed, it was. How many of us in this room have received with a fountain in the middle. She recalls the parties at the outdoor envelopes stuffed with hand-painted note cards (on recycled paper) fireplace, and the use of red-checked tablecloths and cloth napkins, to be used for friendly “thank yous” or just to lift the spirit. She was not the paper products of today which she shuddered to call “throw- generous but tough and always faced down the advance of age. . . aways.” No one who knew Lillian could forget her abhorrence of She befriended St. John’s College many years ago and generously throwaways: Everything to its purpose, at least twice over . . . provided student scholarships for those with need. She also “Lillian remained at home until 1943 when she was married to Hi, underwrote the renovation of the Lillian Vanous Nutt Room in a marriage that lasted for her remaining 64 years. She attended the the Greenfield Library, where regular shows of local artists are Peabody Institute for her music lessons, traveling back and forth to exhibited through the year. Her gifts are put to use over and over Baltimore on the old B&A Railway. She even remembered giving a and for multiple purposes . . . recital at age 13 in McDowell Hall at St. John’s College. She also “A small group of us gathered in Lillian’s and Hi’s home last May remembered her youthful parties at St. John’s and the Naval for her 99th birthday. Anna Greenberg (HA96) asked her what she Academy. By the time she was 20, she had her own car and began considered was the most important thing she had accomplished in teaching piano, something she did for three generations of her lifetime. She answered quickly, ‘without a doubt, it was my Annapolitans . . . teaching children to play the piano and appreciate art!’ ”

DR. PETER HAMILL Smoking and Health and also the Public Health Service, CLASS OF 1949 designed the Growth and Dr. Hamill played a key role in Dr. Peter VanVechten Hamill, Development charts for use establishing the criteria for the class of 1949, died on March 10, in charting the growth of study and assembling the staff 2007, at the age of 80. He had juveniles. and professional personnel for forged a remarkable life and Eva Brann, who spoke at the committee, but the oral career as a scholar and scientist, Dr. Hamill’s memorial service, history also demonstrates an avid sportsman, accom- described him as “first and last” qualities far beyond profes- plished sailor, and collector of a Johnnie, with an “acute, sional ability: fine wines. detailed and wickedly judg- “He was passionately engaged Dr. Hamill was born in Balti- mental memory.” as Peter the man and desper- more in 1926, and grew up in In 2002, Dr. Hamill sent ately objective as Peter the Detroit. He earned a bachelor’s Miss Brann an oral history of his scientist. He was impatiently in philosophy from the role in the 1962-64 study on temperamental as a man with a University of Michigan in Ann smoking, which is now in the mission and generously under- Arbor and medical degrees from Dr. Peter Hamill JFK Library in Boston. The standing as a man with an Michigan and Johns Hopkins study was the first declaration administrative charge. He was University. He served in the from the government that naively forthright and dutifully Public Health Service. He was Navy during World War II and smoking causes cancer, as cunning, fascinated and the scientific director of the had a career as a commissioned the Senior Surgeon in the repelled by personal and Surgeon General’s Study on officer in the United States Commissioned Officer Corps of bureaucratic obstructionism. . .

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Obituaries} 47

“But besides personalities successive “most powerful” mixed with the sardonic there was Peter’s main computers in their time. brusqueness he deployed as an principle, which, I imagine, He was also the first corporate educational device), and his made everything work. He was technical director at Computer truthfulness. His enthusiasm a believer in dialogue. ‘When Usage Company, the world’s for learning and teaching, for I say dialogue,’ he told his first software company. He new ideas and for the more recorder, ‘remember I’m a was system engineer on the precise expression and rigorous St. Johnnie and the dialectic first large electronic publishing examination of venerable ones, process of antithesis and system. was the content of the Socratic eventually synthesis is part of His experience spanned the art of midwifery he practiced in my whole being.’ And this was a full spectrum of systems soft- directing plays or in editing. true self description: Peter was ware and support packages and He was like the Clerk of Oxford passion tempered by apprecia- included a tremendous variety of whom Chaucer writes, tion, prejudgment mitigated of disciplines, including Kenneth Kronberg ‘And gladly wolde he lerne and by receptivity, spiritedness system programming, data gladly teche.’ leavened by self-doubt.” communications, publishing, At his memorial service on Dr. Hamill is survived by his command and control systems, April 19, his wife, Molly, wife of 54 years, Margot Henry scientific/engineering ALSO NOTED described him as “a man of Hamill; four children, and 11 applications, statistics, and character, honor, and REV. DUNCAN BROCKWAY (CLASS grandchildren. operations research. OF 1953), JANUARY 23, 2007 integrity—old-fashioned virtues. GEORGE TRIMBLE KENNETH KRONBERG (SF68) He was a man of his word. JEREMY DAWES (SF01), CLASS OF 1948 Kenneth Kronberg, a member “He weighed words carefully, JANUARY 15, 2007 George R. Trimble, a pioneer in of the first graduating class of always trying to say precisely NANCY FARIDANY (CLASS OF 1962), computer development, died St. John’s College in Santa Fe, what he meant, because he SEPTEMBER 23, 2005 March 13, 2007, at the age of 77. died April 11, 2007, at the age understood the connection ROBERT GOLDBERG (CLASS OF He made many original contri- of 58. He was the husband of between morality and right use 1950), SEPTEMBER 3, 2006 butions to both the design and Marielle (Molly) Hammett of language, and on the other JOHN GORECKI (CLASS OF 1960), application of data processing Kronberg (A70) of Leesburg hand, the enormous damage DECEMBER 12, 2006 equipment in a career that and the father of Max done to truth and therefore JOSEPH HOFMANN (CLASS OF 1942), spanned the computer industry Kronberg, a 2006 Annapolis people by perversion of APRIL 2, 2007 from ENIAC in 1949 to the most graduate. language. His love of language advanced large-scale computer After graduating from reached back to his earliest MARION JENKINS (SFGI89), JANUARY 13, 2007 systems. After graduating from St. John’s, Mr. Kronberg spent a childhood—for example, his St. John’s he studied numerical year as a junior fellow at the discovery at the age of eight of ANDREW KLIPPER (A80), methods at the University of Center for the Study of the poems of Emily Dickinson JANUARY 22, 2007 Delaware and in 1951 earned Democratic Institutions in and Christina Rossetti. By the JOSEPH LEGUM (CLASS OF 1933), a master’s degree in Santa Barbara, Calif., and later time that, barely 16, he went off JULY 26, 2006 mathematics. did graduate work at the New to college, he was a practicing SUSAN LEUBUSCHER (A68), Mr. Trimble developed School for Social Research in poet himself, a calling he FEBRUARY 28, 2007 mathematical analyses and New York. followed for many years DOROTHY LUTTRELL (CLASS OF machine applications for a He was an editor for the thereafter. 1960), MARCH 26, 2007 variety of the earliest electronic American Institute of Physics “Ken’s poetic instinct could computers, including ENIAC, and for John Wiley & Sons be found in everything he did: VICTOR PERRETTA (CLASS OF 1932), APRIL 13, 2007 EDVAC, and ORDVAC, to before founding WorldComp in his efforts to make every minimize data reduction errors 1978. He had been a member of publication on which he worked ALBERT POPPITI (CLASS OF 1942), in rocket trajectory calculations the National Caucus of Labor a harmonious composition; his FEBRUARY 9, 2007 for captured German V-2 Committees since 1974. efforts to bring beauty in visual RAY SMITH (A94), rockets. As a senior staff He directed amateur theater, form to the printed page; in MARCH 1, 2003 member in IBM’s Applied and taught poetry and drama written form to the articles he DOLORES STRICKLAND (SF71), Science Division, 1952-1956, classes to children and adults wrote or edited; in aural form to MARCH 16, 2007 Mr. Trimble was involved in the for many years. He edited the audiences of the dramas logical design and application The Campaigner, a cultural he directed. requirements of virtually every magazine, for a number of “The same beauty could computer made by IBM in the years. In 1992 he co-founded be found in his gentleness, early 1950s. Between 1955 and Fidelio, a quarterly journal of his abhorrence of brutality, 1966, he was involved in the poetry, science and statecraft, his kindness to all who development of numerous which he edited until 2006. encountered him (kindness

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 48 {Alumni Voices}

Even the Dead Know No End of War A Reporter in Iraq

Nelson Hernandez (A99), a reporter on the Washington Post’s Metro desk, covered the war in Iraq from late December 2005 to February 2006, and again from mid-April to mid-June 2006. The Post has assigned some Metro reporters to two-month rota- tions in Iraq; Hernandez was the first to volunteer. He agreed to a second rotation because his younger brother, Thomas, a Marine reservist, would be serving at the same time. “I wanted to relate to him when he got back,” Hernandez says. Hernandez interned for the newspaper while at St. John’s and joined the Post staff after graduation; he took a year of leave in 2004-05 to earn a master’s degree in history at Yale. He now covers education in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The events described in his essay took place on May 9-10, 2006.

inutes after leaving the port of Umm Qasr at the southeastern tip of Iraq, the land turned to desert. The convoy sped M north to Baghdad. Outside the window of a pickup truck, the earth, flat and pale and lifeless, met a dull gray-blue sky. It could be Mars. In this wasteland the road was like a river. Food and money flowed up and down it, allowing life to cling to its edges. Nelson Hernandez volunteered to cover the war in Iraq. Sometimes this took the form of thin, yellow grass that grew like peach fuzz, or mud huts with thatched roofs. Weathered men in red-checked kaffiyehs tended bomb, every highway overpass an ambush about a dozen water trucks. The trucks sheep and camels; they were as hungry and every man, woman and child a killer. were made in Texas and cost over and filthy as their animals. Barefoot boys The insurgents have sometimes hidden $120,000 apiece. They were a gift from ran out to the side of the road as we flew bombs in the carcasses of animals lying by you, the American taxpayer, to the people past, waving. The guards riding in the the roadside. In Iraq, even the dead do not of Iraq. Such convoys are not shepherded beds of the trucks, helmeted men cradling know the end of war. on their way by the military, but by an machine guns, flung ration packs to them They made a brief stop. I walked a few invisible army of private contractors: without slowing down. yards off the road, out into a desert barren drivers, engineers, logistics specialists, That was the closest connection they as far as the eye could see. Mark urinated stevedores and security men, usually had with the people of Iraq. For the on the tire of his pickup truck. former soldiers. This convoy had a private security contractor in the front “Don’t get too far away,” he warned. journalist attached. That was me. passenger seat, a Welshman named Mark, “We don’t know what’s out there.” As the sun set, we arrived at an oasis every sign of life by the road was a The convoy was on a mission of peace. called Camp Scania. It is the major potential threat. The mujaheddin stalk Mark and his group of British and Iraqi refueling stop in southern Iraq, a massive these lands. Every parked car could be a contractors were escorting a convoy of gas station run by the U.S. military. Here,

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Alumni Voices} 49

in the middle of the desert, are parked clean of us. Half-awake men grunted at “Get in the truck!” Leon screamed. hundreds of trucks that carry supplies of the tent entrance, trying to seal it shut. The contractors fired back at unseen every kind up and down the road. The cost Outside, sentries scurried for cover. enemies as the civilians scattered, of creating and maintaining this piece of Eventually they gave up and moved beds running for cover. I crawled over a pile of America on a patch of sand across the farther away from the entrance. And in lunches and body armor in the truck’s globe is stupefying. Sophocles had a point: half an hour, the storm blew itself out. back seat, lunging at the doors to close Many are the wonders, but none is more In the morning we rode for Baghdad. them. By the time I turned on my video wondrous than man. The country was no longer desert. The camera, the shooting had reached a The Iraqi drivers and guards, who made convoy had entered the verdant valley crescendo of long machine gun bursts and up the majority of the convoy’s crew, slept between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers— cracking rifle shots. An Iraqi guard outside the base. They settled down to the cradle of civilization, and a place more standing in front of my truck fired his rifle meals of rice and chicken, sleeping in the dangerous for being more habitable. wildly, clearly terrified and having no idea cabs of their trucks. The four British The journey was tense but uneventful. what to do. security men, all ex-soldiers, went inside When the convoy rolled into the water After this spasm of violence, the firing the base and ate what was, by Iraqi stan- directorate, a large, walled compound died down. Only the frenzied gunner atop dards, a delicious repast: Cornish hen, our truck kept shooting, ripping chunks potatoes, fruit smoothies, ice cream— of concrete out of a nearby building. the base’s cafeteria was well stocked. “Tell him to stop firing!” Leon yelled at Mark ran into another team returning “I imagined what it the Iraqi driver. Mark ran at our car, from a delivery. On their way home a raised his hand, and cried “Stop!” bomb exploded in the road, destroying would be like to be The gunner stopped shooting. one of the heavily armored pickups. Leon shouted at the frightened Iraqi The bomb was four artillery shells tied driving along the road contractor. “You!” He hit the truck’s horn together, enough to obliterate the front one moment, and in an twice to get his attention. “Get in here!” half of the truck. Everyone in the truck The young man did, breathing heavily and survived unhurt—a miracle—and they instant be torn apart by shaking as he sat next to me. As he showed off a picture of a man standing in slammed the door shut, the shooting the waist-deep crater left by the bomb. flying shards of jagged started again. Hours passed in a large tent filled with The next few minutes were a babble of cheap bunk beds. Mark watched a movie, steel. Would it hurt? urgent commands, shouting in Arabic, Big Momma’s House, while another man scratchy radio chatter, gunfire, confusion, in his team, Leon, played a video game. Would I have time to confusion. Why were the guards shooting In the back of the tent, the other team was give a noble soliloquy or it out with them? Why weren’t we moving? still talking about their close call. What was going on? “You used up one of your nine lives expire with an “Mark, are we gonna get out of here or today, lads,” one of the men said quietly. what?” a voice over the radio pleaded. For the first time I felt a quiver of fear. undignified groan?” They were trapped because the gate to I imagined what it would be like to be the complex was closed, though I did not driving along the road one moment, and Nelson Hernandez (A99) understand that until later. Under fire, in an instant be torn apart by flying shards one of the British guards ran out to the of jagged steel. Would it hurt? Would I gate to open it. This act of heroism have time to give a noble soliloquy or allowed them to escape. The gunfire expire with an undignified groan? with a heavy iron gate, Mark arranged the continued on the way out and down the The feeling was fleeting. I wish I could trucks in a defensive perimeter. The gate highway. The whole engagement had say for you that having read the Great was closed, the better to protect against lasted about five minutes. Books gave me some preternatural calm. car bombers, and the Iraqis began slowly “Is everybody okay?” Mark asked over It would make for a better story. War is unloading the trucks. the radio. full of such concessions to romantic Mark gave the director an envelope Yes. They raced past election posters imagination. But in war, the physical carrying the keys to the trucks. The and checkpoints to safety. Behind us they trumps the philosophical. So it was with unsmiling director, a corpulent man with left two dead insurgents. Behind us they me: I was too dirty and tired by that point an arm in a sling, counted the keys twice, left the Iraqi truck drivers they were to care about something so totally beyond seemingly suspicious of being cheated. He escorting; three or four did not make it my control, and so I went to sleep. refused to say anything to me. A boy back. Behind us they left the water trucks. At midnight, the tent began flapping walking by greeted my wave with a blank All we were left with was our lives, and madly. The air tasted like dust. Then stare. We soon discovered the reason for this memory I have related to you. water began flying in horizontally. the chilly reception. Our hosts were Every day, as it reels past in my mind, Outside, a massive storm was bearing planning to kill us. I give thanks that the desert was so down on the camp. The tent shook Some time later, a rocket-propelled generous. x savagely as the desert tried to scrub itself grenade exploded nearby.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 50 {Alumni Association News}

From the Alumni graduates (more than 50 percent of our alumni have graduated in the last two “We are working to Association decades), through programs tailored to appeal to Johnnies beginning their lives expand our outreach President and careers, and who often want to take a break from seminar readings. In New York to recent graduates...” for many years we’ve had a recent graduates’ reception each fall, where newly Jason Walsh (A85) arrived alumni can reconnect with classmates and meet alumni established in the region. This year in Portland, Oregon, two-thirds of the funds are from alumni, and New York City, we’ve begun chapter and the percentage of alumni giving has “bar nights,” open to all but sponsored by grown remarkably. These funds will the Recent Graduates group leaders and support the institution through capital at very casual locations that help build improvement projects (including new a community of younger alums in dormitories, a Graduate Institute center, these cities. and much-needed enhancements to build- n January in Santa Fe and April in On the campuses, we’ve been working to ings and grounds, especially in Santa Fe); Annapolis, the Alumni Association enhance the events welcoming alumni increased endowment to support financial hosted our annual senior dinners back, for both intellectual and social aid, and additional support for increases to with the senior class. These events pursuits. This spring we introduced the faculty salaries. offer a chance for 15-25 alumni to “Piraeus” program, several long-weekends With the conclusion of the campaign Itoast and celebrate the upcoming of alumni seminars. Within two months approaching, the college has embarked on graduations, when students become after announcing the program, the first a broad strategic planning process. The “permanent members” of the college as April weekend was a terrific success and Alumni Association, along with the alumni. We also now provide the students the June and January 2008 weekends had Alumni Relations committee of the Board with brief bios of the hosting alumni. In filled to capacity. A waitlist has begun with of Visitors and Governors, will be actively Annapolis, a senior I spoke with was the possibility of opening a second set of involved in this process to articulate the thrilled to find that she was not alone in seminars to satisfy alumni demand for specific programs that can better support her interest in neuroscience; she had an those weekends. our alumni throughout their lives. opportunity to meet an alumna and speak In addition, we are working as advocates These are all part of the Alumni at length about her career path. for the alumni community as the college Association’s mission to foster This is a key first step the Association develops its strategic plan. In 2008, the opportunities for more Alumni to takes to help Johnnies in the transition college will conclude its most successful connect more often and more richly. x from the warm confines of the campuses to capital campaign in St. John’s history. The the seemingly daunting world. We are tremendous success is overwhelmingly Jason Walsh (A85) working to expand our outreach to recent due to the contributions of alumni. About Alumni Association President

CHAPTER CONTACTS NEW YORK CITY PORTLAND SOUTHERN CALIF. Daniel Van Doren, A81 Jennifer Rychlik, SF93 Elizabeth Eastman, hn’s Co 914-949-6811 503-547-0241 SFGI84 o ll Call the alumni listed below for information . J eg dvandoren@ [email protected] 562-426-1934 t e about chapter, reading group, or other alumni S optonline.net [email protected] activities in each area. SAN DIEGO NORTHERN CALIF. Stephanie Rico, A86 TRIANGLE CIRCLE, ALBUQUERQUE BOSTON Reynaldo Miranda, A99 619-429-1565 NORTH CAROLINA [email protected] Dianne Cowan, A91 415-333-4452 [email protected] Elizabeth (A92) & 617-666-4381 reynaldo.miranda@ Rick Ross (A82) ANNAPOLIS [email protected] gmail.com SALT LAKE CITY 919-319-1881 Beth Martin Gammon, Erin Hanlon, SF03 Elizabeth@ A A94 CHICAGO n PHILADELPHIA 916-967-2194 activated.com l 410-332-1816 Rick Lightburn, SF76 u io Helen Zartarian, AGI86 [email protected] m t [email protected] 847-922-3862 n ia 215-482-5697 WASHINGTON, DC i Assoc [email protected] helenstevezartarian@ SANTA FE Deborah Papier, A72 AUSTIN mac.com Richard Cowles, 202-387-4520 Joe Reynolds, SF69 DALLAS/FORT Providing SFGI95 [email protected] 512-280-5928 WORTH opportunities PHOENIX 505-986-1814 jpreynolds@ Paula Fulks, SF76 Donna Kurgan, AGI96 [email protected] WESTERN NEW for more alumni austin.rr.com 817-654-2986 623-444-6642 ENGLAND [email protected] to connect [email protected] SEATTLE Peter Weis, SF84 BALTIMORE more often and James Doherty, SFGI76 413-367-2174 Deborah Cohen, A77 DENVER/BOULDER PITTSBURGH 206-542-3441 peter_weis@ more richly 410-472-9158 Tom Byrnes, SF74 Joanne Murray, A70 [email protected] nmhschool.org deborahwcohen@ 720-344-6947 724-325-4151 comcast.net [email protected] Joanne.Murray@ SOUTH FLORIDA basicisp.net Peter Lamar, AGI95 MINN./ST. PAUL 305-666-9277 Carol Freeman, AGI94 [email protected] 612-822-3216 [email protected]

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Alumni Association News} 51

Celebrating Chicago ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION In a Cultural Mecca, a Chapter Thrives All alumni have automatic membership in the St. John’s College Alumni Association. by Patricia Dempsey The Alumni Association is an independent organization, with a Board of Directors In his rare free time when he isn’t providing seminar on the architectural sites they visit, elected by and from the alumni body. The video and editorial content from the they do typically “duck into a restaurant board meets four times a year, twice on each Midwest for ABC news, including shows afterwards to talk about it,” says Kraus. campus, to plan programs and coordinate the such as “Good Morning America” and “We’re all architecture junkies,” says Rick affairs of the association. This newsletter “World News,” television producer Kevin Lightburn (SF76), current Chicago chapter within The College magazine is sponsored by Kraus (A82) reads reams of newspapers, president and a self-employed marketing the Alumni Association and communicates periodicals, and online reports. Yet Kraus, strategist for consumer groups. “In August, association news and events of interest. one of five Chicago chapter officers, says, we have an annual potluck picnic and “It’s a different experience to read Plato or business meeting. We have it with the President – Jason Walsh (A85) Vice President – Steve Thomas (SF74) Thomas Mann. The news-related material Grant Park Music Festival held downtown Secretary – Joanne Murray (SFGI95) isn’t truly thought-provoking.” Kraus, in Millennium Park, beneath a fabulous Treasurer – Richard Cowles (A70) who moved to Chicago six years ago from trellis designed by Frank Gehry.” southern Florida, where at that time there These architectural jaunts complement Mailing address – Alumni Association, was no alumni chapter, says he was “starved the traditional seminars that focus on St. John’s College, P.O. Box 2800, Annapolis, for substantial reading and conversation.” readings as diverse as the city itself. MD 21404, or 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, The long-established (since 1982) Chicago “This fall we’re hoping to start the year Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599. chapter offered him both – and a chance with a children’s literature piece. We also to share his love of architecture with try to relate to events in this fabulous city,” fellow Johnnies who live in this urban says Lightburn. “For instance we had a In April the chapter hosted a seminar on cultural Mecca. science reading on Mendel’s paper and tied Plato’s Phaedo, led by Annapolis tutor In 2005 Kraus helped organize a this to a visit to an exhibit on Mendel’s Robert Druecker. Lightburn says Druecker well-attended chapter visit to his “favorite research at the Field Museum.” Along with first led the chapter in a seminar two years building in America,” the Farnsworth Kraus and Lightburn, readings are ago in a reading from Thomas Mann’s House by architect Mies van der Rohe. suggested by chapter officers Elizabeth Magic Mountain, and they were delighted For another event, the group visited the late Long (A86), a University of Chicago to have him back. The seminar on Plato’s 19th-century Auditorium Building, which librarian and an artist; Barbara Schmittel Phaedo used the translation by Eva Brann, houses a National Historic Landmark, the (A76), a librarian for the city of Chicago; Peter Kalkavage, and Eric Salem. Among Auditorium Theater. While the chapter and Paul Frank (SF82), an editor at the those who attended are younger members members do not usually have a formal American Medical Association. including Stassia Sullivan (SF06), Grae The chapter hosts Drake (SF05) and Tom Hammerman most of its monthly (A93). The Chicago chapter officers seek to Senior Dinners seminars on Sunday attract more young members, but they afternoons at The realize young alumni don’t have the time Great Books to commit; they’re busy establishing Foundation, where careers and raising families. Don Whitfield (SF68, Lightburn, who is self-employed and has SFGI84) is the a more flexible schedule than his fellow director of college officers, serves as the chapter’s de facto programs. “Don was president. “We have a revolving group of one of the rugged officers,” he explains. “We shared the pioneers who responsibility of president except for Paul attended Santa Fe in [Frank], who was doing such a good job as the early years and he treasurer it made sense for him to very kindly allows us continue. None of us really wanted to be to use rooms at the chapter president because we didn’t have foundation,” says the time. I became de facto president, but Lightburn. Typically, how would we like our future president to about a dozen John- be chosen? That’s been established in our nies attend the semi- bylaws. Those are online on the Alumni nars. “We always have Web site, for everyone to see and use for more, of course, when other chapters.” x Class of 2007 members, now alumni: from left, Eric Torgerson, a tutor is here to lead Christopher Bea, Andrew Romiti, John Dodge, Lee Branner. it,” says Lightburn.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } 52 {St. John’s Forever} y r a r b i l

d l e i f n e e r g

Seventy Years of Genuine Conversation

n the summer of 1937, Stringfellow Far from a figurehead, Barr always made After leaving St. John’s in 1946, Barr and Scott Buchanan arrived in time to be part of the community of following a successful fight to protect the Annapolis, preparing to launch a learners, as Charles Nelson (class of 1944) college from annexation by the Navy, Barr “radical” new academic program at writes in Stringfellow Barr: A Centennial joined Buchanan in attempting to establish a small college that had lost its Appreciation of His Life and Work: another college based on the St. John’s Iaccreditation and teetered on the “…Barr, despite the heavy travel and model; however, their efforts did not come brink of bankruptcy. speaking schedule, regularly led seminars, to fruition. Barr later served as president of Neither of the two men, according to tutored in Greek and French, and could the Foundation for World Government, various reports, wished to be president. often be found in the coffee shop to taught at the University of Virginia and at However, Barr proved very good at it: converse with students and tutors about Rutgers, and later was a fellow at the telling the St. John’s story to outside audi- the coming war, the relevance to the Euro- Center for the Study of Democratic Institu- ences and to the media, wooing prospec- pean crisis of the Melian Conference in tions in California. He died 25 years ago, in tive donors and foundation executives, and Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian Alexandria, Virginia. x working with Maryland’s legislature and War, or perhaps the meaning of the alle- the college’s Board of Visitors and Gover- gory of the cave in Plato’s Republic.” nors to set the college on firm ground.

{ The College• St. John’s College • Spring 2007 } {Alumni Events Calendar}

Alumni Calendar

Santa Fe Homecoming 2007 Annapolis Homecoming 2007 12 p.m.Lunch September 14-16 September 28-October 1 12 p.m. Classes of the ’30s and ’40s luncheon Friday, September 14 Friday, September 28 9 a.m. Dixon Studio and Winery tour 1 to 6 p.m. Water activities (sailing, 1 to 5 p.m. Activities for children 3 p.m. Registration boating) 2 p.m. Freshman chorus, Revisited Wine and cheese reception for alumni, 4 to 8 p.m. Registration 3 p.m. Mitchell Gallery tour tutors, GIs, and undergraduate upper- 5 p.m.Barbecue for the Class of 1982 4 p.m. Alumni booksigning classmen to celebrate the 40th anniversary 5 p.m. Dinner for the classes of the ’30s 4 p.m. Soccer Classic of the Graduate Institute and ’40s 6 p.m. Cocktail party 5:30 p.m. 40th Anniversary Celebration 5:45 p.m. Fiftieth Reunion Dinner for 7:30 p.m. Alumni Association Banquet for the Graduate Institute the Class of 1957 Evening Waltz/Swing Party and Rock 8 p.m. Homecoming lecture 6 p.m. Welcome reception for Graduate Party 10 p.m. Coffee Cabaret & open mic Institute 8:15 p.m. Homecoming Lecture Sunday, October 1 Saturday, September 15 11 a.m. President’s brunch Rock Party 8 a.m. Yoga 1 to 5 p.m. Water activities 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registration Saturday, September 29 10:30 a.m. Seminars 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registration Questions 12 p.m. Fiesta Picnic 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Water activities For more information about Homecoming logistics, details, and events, contact the 1 p.m. Search and Rescue Team open 9:30 to 10:15 a.m. Breakfast and All- alumni office at 410-626-2531 or house Alumni Meeting [email protected]. 1:30 p.m. Family nature hike around 10:30 a.m. Seminars Monte Sol or a hike to Atalaya Mountain Peak 2 p.m. Family Fun afternoon 5 p.m. “Speaking Volumes” lecture 6 p.m. Seventh Annual All-Alumni Art Show and Reception 7 p.m. Homecoming dinner dance

Sunday, September 16 8 a.m. Yoga 11 a.m. President’s Brunch

Joanna Stone (A07), her husband Donald Stone (A06), and Travis Price (A71) at the Washington, D.C., campaign event in April.

Back cover photo by Chelsea Stiegman

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