Scripps Magazine • Summer 2006 The New THE WOMEN’S COLLEGE•CLAREMONT WOMEN’S THE Committed. F Strong Activists ocused. editor’sPAGE ‘Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.’ Rule Number 6 (p. 24) IT’S THE WEEK AFTER REUNION. I’m walking back from screen wasn’t in color, so I could imagine this was an old ’50s lunch at the Malott Commons to my office in Steele Hall. It’s a TV program (if Dr. Kildare had had such modern methods). signature May afternoon in Claremont: mid-70s, clear skies, not a Unfortunately, there was no cause for my embarrassment: there hint that June gloom is merely weeks away.A day that makes you they were, two more blockages, serious, but not as bad as 10 years feel great. Funny, what’s this little twinge in my chest? No pain. before. In went more stents, this time plastic, not metal.Again, No loss of breath. Just a vague pressure. It’s all too familiar. home in one day; back at work the next week.Taking my medicine Ten years ago I had had the same feeling. I didn’t pay attention without fail and walking each day. Prognosis, pretty darned good. until I couldn’t walk a block without stopping to rest. Even then, What can I tell others—especially women? If you have a when I did get it checked, a nurse practitioner first had me tested family history of heart disease (my dad died of it at age 57, in 1961), for hormone imbalance.At that time, women’s heart symptoms pay attention to even the smallest symptoms and act on them weren’t taken as seriously as they are today.A man complaining of immediately. For me, I let my cholesterol get too high, thinking that the same feelings would not have been tested for, say, low testosterone. diet and exercise alone would keep me healthy. I got complacent A week later (in 1996), a concerned cardiologist hurried me because everything seemed fine on the exterior. into the Huntington Hospital and, through an angiogram, discovered Take your medicine and keep laughing.And outrageous boots one of my main coronary arteries was almost totally blocked. He help you from taking yourself too seriously. put in a metal stent, and I went home the next day. It was a close call, but life returned to normal. I increased my exercise, watched Mary Shipp Bartlett what I ate, and took my medicine.At least for a while. Back to this past May. If I can find a way to laugh at some- thing, I’ll sure try.That’s why I love Kathy Schwarz’s quote from Reunion Convocation:“Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.” And she’s a doctor. So, was this a laughing matter? No. My cardiologist didn’t even give me a stress test when he heard my symptoms.“Classic,” he said.“Let’s get you right in for an angiogram.” But my symptoms seemed so uneventful to me that I worried about being embarrassed at causing so much trouble if he found my arteries totally clear. Sorta like the guy in the plane who thought he saw a wing on fire but didn’t want to report it; he’d rather risk crashing than be called a fool. Within hours, I was flat on my back, mellow on Valium, with an exploratory scope traveling from an artery in my groin up into my heart. For those of you who haven’t had the experience, it’s gripping to watch the process on the monitor screen and see the interior of your heart and arteries in detail.The thin probe snaked in and out of several arteries and gave out puffs of dark dye; the The editor gets rebooted. vol.78NO.3 DEPARTMENTS IFC EDITOR’S PAGE 2 BROWSING ROOM Campus news and events. 9 PERSPECTIVES Professor Thomas Kim talks about U.S. relations with Korea; Mary Rose Go ’08 discovers the restorative power of music in New Orleans. Alumnæ News 28 LETTER FROM BRENDA CHING 30 REUNION 2006 32 CLASS NOTES 36 ADMISSIONS REDUX Post Scripps 40 UNEXPECTED CONNECTIONS Megan Harris ’03 tells how her senior thesis on World War II veterans affects her life today. IBC NUTS FOR SQUIRRELS From Start to Finish Ellen Clark Revelle ’31, shown at her 75th reunion Mary Shipp Bartlett EDITOR (the College’s first!) on April 30, with members of the latest class (2006) to cross the finish line at Scripps. Margaret Nilsson MANAGING EDITOR Kristina Brooks, Pauline Nash FEATURES ASSISTANT EDITORS Darby Carl Sanders WEBSITE MANAGER 12 The New Activists Mary Rose Go ’08, Martina Ly ’07, Kristina Brooks explores how today’s students take aim at social issues in bold, Carissa Tudor ’09 creative ways and what the College is doing to promote this outreach. STUDENT INTERNS Catherine Pyke ’79 20 “Brown Goo” and the Avian Flu ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION LIAISON The ubiquitous Liquidambar trees that line the streets of Claremont may hold a Lime Twig Group DESIGN key to preventing Avian flu. Kristina Brooks reveals what Associate Professor of Dual Graphics Chemistry Thomas Poon and his student research team have discovered. PRINTING Thomas Alleman: p. 6, 7, BC 22 10 Reasons Why I Love Scripps College Scott Brinegar: p. 22, 29 Kathleen Brogan Schwarz ’64, the College’s 2006 Distinguished Alumna, shares Jason Foong: p. 5-7 her compelling reasons, first given at this year’s Reunion Convocation. Margaret Nilsson: p. IFC, 11 Darby Carl Sanders: p. 3, 5 26 Mystery in the Garden Joel Simon: p. 2, 8, 9, 12, 16, 20, 21, 27, 41 Bill Youngblood: p. 29-31, IBC Margaret Fowler Garden, one of Scripps’ most beautiful and beloved spots, holds PHOTOGRAPHY an unsolved puzzle. Catherine Pyke ’79 presents the story of the woman behind the garden and a mysterious daily occurrence. Summer 2006: Vol.78, No. 3. SCRIPPS,The Women’s College, Claremont (USPS #486-940) is published quarterly by Scripps College, Office of Public Relations and Communication. Periodicals postage paid at Claremont, California. Copyright ©2006.All rights Cover: Rachel Kirby ’06, a nationally competitive archer, exemplifies today’s Scripps woman. reserved. Postmaster: Send address changes to Scripps Photograph by Joel Simon. College, Office of Public Relations and Communication, 1030 Columbia Ave., Claremont, CA 91711-3948. Printed on recycled paper. SUMMER 2006 SCRIPPS COLLEGE 1 browsingROOM Kudos to Award Recipients JESSICA ISAACS ’06, a public policy analysis major, has received a prestigious Fulbright Scholar Award to spend 2007 at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, studying the country’s energy policy. She plans to write an academic article that outlines Taiwan’s current course of action and suggests energy-efficient policies that would help Taiwan sustain its economic growth while serving as an energy policy model for East Asia. CATHERINE POWELL ’06 has been awarded a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, which covers all expenses of graduate study abroad for one year. Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships, first awarded in 1947, are aimed at promoting international understanding. Cate will enroll in the Master of Theology program at the Henry Martyn Institute, an international center for research, interfaith relations, and reconciliation in India, where she will focus on Islamic studies and interfaith relations. Strategic Plan Update RAYNA BROOKS ’07 and KATHERINE SHULTIS ’07 The president’s summer letter to alumnae, have been awarded Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships in parents, and friends details the current recognition of their outstanding potential and intent to pursue proposals now being considered by the careers in mathematics, the natural sciences, or engineering. subcommittee on strategic planning Rayna, a double major in biology and psych- priorities. If you did not receive a copy, ology, will continue research on the biological you may request one by contacting basis of autism with Dr. C. Sue Carter at the [email protected], or phoning the University of Illinois this summer. Kat, a double Office of Public Relations at 909-621-8280. major in mathematics and chemistry, will The subcommittee will present its recom- participate in a summer research program at mendations in September 2006 at a Mount Holyoke College, where she will community meeting on campus; this explore a subfield of number theory. presentation will be made available as a ScrippsCast (podcast) through the JESSICA LANAN ’06 is Scripps’ most recent recipient of a Thomas J.Watson College website, www.scrippscollege.edu. Fellowship. She joins an elite group of 50 graduating seniors nationwide selected annually to conduct independent research projects abroad. Jessica’s project,“Fairy Tales:An Illustrated Journey,” represents a crystallization of her interests in drawing, THE LIFE OF HARRIET travel, and Asian culture and artistic traditions. MOEUR CELEBRATED She will travel throughout Japan,Thailand, Hong Kong, and perhaps India, exploring the question A celebratory memorial of folk tales’ reflection of social and moral values. service was held on June 11 for Harriet Using her own sketchbook illustrations as a mode Moeur, chemistry lab lecturer in the Joint of understanding folk-tale traditions, Jessica will Science Department, who died on June 8, document her own journey and interact with her from breast cancer. Moeur, who held a host communities. bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University and a PhD from UC Berkeley, had been with the JSD since 1987 and will be greatly missed by students, staff, and faculty alike. 2 SCRIPPS COLLEGE SUMMER 2006 Scripps Students Show the Write Stuff In its inaugural year, the Pitzer Prize for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry drew more than 125 submissions from students of the five Claremont Colleges, and Scripps students captured first place awards in both fiction and nonfiction.