Tracking the Eureka Factor
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The Alumni Network Talking Race and Diversity John C. Whitehead ’43 Making career-defining New efforts to broaden 1922-2015 connections the campus conversation Remembering a devoted alumnus The Magazine of Haverford College WINTER 2015 Tracking the Eureka Factor John Kounios ’78 turns his groundbreaking research on creative insight and the brain into a new book that explores those “aha! moments” of inspiration. 6 16 Editor Contributing Writers Eils Lotozo Charles Curtis ’04 DEPARTMENTS Lini S. Kadaba Giving Back Editor Natalie Hope McDonald 2 Inbox Emily Weisgrau Mara Miller ’10 Natalie Pompilio 4 View From Founders Class News Editor Rebecca Raber Alison Rooney Sameer Rao ‘11 6 Main Lines Alison Rooney Photography Editor Anne E. Stein 16 Academix Patrick Montero Joel Warner ‘01 Justin Warner ‘93 24 Mixed Media Graphic Design 30 Haverford in Season Tracey Diehl, Contributing Photographers Eye D Communications Thom Carroll Albert Elbilia 31 Ford Games Dan Z. Johnson Assistant Vice President for 49 History Lesson College Communications Greg Kahn Brad Larrison Chris Mills ’82 Terry Manier 50 Roads Taken and Not Taken Abi Reimold Vice President for 51 Giving Back/Notes From Institutional Advancement Martha Rial David Sanders the Alumni Association Ann West Figueredo ’84 Shaun Sartin Ben Wheeler 57 Class News/Obituaries 77 Then and Now On the cover: John Kounios ’78 in his lab at Drexel University. Photo by Dan Z. Johnson. Back cover photo: Roberts Hall, 1963. Courtesy of Haverford College Archives. Haverford magazine is printed on recycled paper that contains 30% post-consumer waste fiber. winter 2015 31 34 FEATURES 34 Talking Race and Diversity 38 Trust, Concern, and The Black Students League, a newly formed Informational Interviews Task Force on Diversity and Community, and The Haverford alumni network can make an expanded Office of Multicultural Affairs are a mighty big difference. all helping to broaden the conversation on campus Plus: Supporting the Network and create a more inclusive environment. The Center for Career and Professional Advising By Natalie Pompilio helps Fords connect. By Mara Miller ’10 44 COVER STORY: Tracking the Eureka Factor Cognitive psychologist John Kounios ’78 has turned his groundbreaking research on creative insight and the brain into a new book that explores how we come to those “aha! moments” of inspiration, and how we can have more of them. By Lini S. Kadaba Haverford magazine is also available in a digital edition. CHECK IT OUT AT Haverford magazine is published three times a year haverford.edu/news/magazine by College Communications, Haverford College, 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041, 610-896-1333, [email protected] ©2015 Haverford College inbox Editor’s note: Our story about of standing up for them- same-sex marriage and the selves. However, women Roads Taken essay that Emily (and men) who have not Letts ’11 wrote about her yet been born cannot. I abortion inspired a number of find it most ironic that Letts readers to write in to express wrote, and Haverford mag- their displeasure. Several azine chose to highlight in other alumni contacted the boldface, “It was Haverford College (but not the editorial that taught me to stand up staff) objecting to these stories for those who have been because, they feel, publication silenced,” as she publicly implies institutional support silenced someone who could for one side of a divisive issue. not stand up for herself. Here’s how we see it: Haverford —Debby Prigal BMC ’81 College has more than 13,000 living alumni, some of whom Haverford taught Ms. Letts graduated 70-plus years ago “to stand up for those who and some of whom received have been silenced.” Is it their diplomas last year. Our possible that she, as an abor- mission for the magazine is to tion advocate, sees no irony broadly reflect the diversity of here? To my utter astonish- our alumni body, and to write ment, I do not detect any about their lives and concerns whatsoever. Ms. Letts has, in a way that allows many however, made cinematic different ideas and voices to history of sorts, snuff film be heard. as self-promotion and pub- Our printer has acknowl- lic-service announcement. edged the production error that It’s horrifying. led to the unintended place- Haverford, I’m sorry to terminate my —John R. Devine ’78 ment of the outer band on some issues of our support. It’s OK to accept the gay life- last edition of the magazine. We apologize style, but not appropriate to celebrate it. I just wanted to say that I appreciate the if the position of the band offended some of —Bob Logan ’53 fact that Emily Letts’ story was included our readers. in the most recent alumni magazine. A ROAD TAKEN Brave stories like hers are the type of JUST MARRIED? The account by Emily Letts ’11 of film- thing I like to see in there—made me The cover on the fall 2014 issue was a bad ing her abortion (“Roads Taken and Not proud of Haverford to see it. Thanks! idea. It is blatantly political and an unnec- Taken,” fall 2014) has an incorrect basic —Katie Monroe ’12 essary distraction in an otherwise good premise. “We needed to see a positive college magazine. Same-sex marriage is abortion story” is simply not true. For I am deeply moved by Emily Letts’ a hot-button issue, but not all such issues decades before Letts was born, women account of filming her own abortion. need to be on the cover. It smacks of have been publicly celebrating their Not only am I taken by the care and pushing the gay-lesbian “agenda.” Is this abortion experiences, with nationwide sensitivity Emily uses to describe the the role of a college communication? I book tours, interviews in major news- personal circumstances of her activism, am sympathetic to the gay-lesbian move- papers, and by filming the event for net- but particularly by her discussion of her ment, but this is over the top. work television. ambivalent relationship with Haverford —Thomas M. Woodward, Jr. ’52 Adult women are perfectly capable as an institution. I, too, spent my years 2 Haverford Magazine at Haverford simultaneously absorbing THEN AND NOW the radical (=deeply rooted) Quaker Our “Then” photo on the inside back cover value of bringing all voices to the fore of the fall issue pictured a “circa 1995” and trying to directly apply them to the religious service outside the Whitehead college’s arcane and conservative insti- Campus Center. We asked readers to let tutional structures. I, too, spent a great us know if they recalled the event or rec- deal of time at our sister colleges. And ognized anyone in the shot. We heard from I graduated with a mixed set of feel- quite a few. ings about my education. However, it is this friction and freedom of expres- This looks like a Palm Sunday ser- sion which Haverford enables that now vice, and the first Palm Sunday these makes me recommend my alma mater classmates and I were on campus was to every high school student I meet who 1997. —Iain Pollock ’00 wants to make a mark on the world. Emily Letts is to me a leading example I attended Mass with Catholic campus of the unpaved roads any of us can take ministries often enough to recognize if we choose to act on our inner values. Father John Freeman, the priest who —Kilian Kröll ’01 led the bi-co Catholic campus minis- WINTER 2015 3 try at the time. Mass was usually cel- ebrated indoors, but Father Freeman box must have decided to move outside in that day. Behind Father Freeman on the far right of the photograph, wear- ing suit and tie, is Brian Murphy ’98. This picture prompted me to look up Father Freeman on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia website, and I sadly learned that he passed away [in] 2013 after retir- ing early from active ministry in 2011 for health reasons. —Jim Mangan ’98 Ryan Walker ’98 is the gentleman in the light-colored coat just left of the minis- ter’s chin. —Dan Ray ’98 I’m guessing that the photo is from the spring of 1997, since it has members of the Class of 2000 in it and we started our freshman year in the fall of 1996. The third person from the left, in the plaid shirt and glasses, is Héctor Bladuell ’00. Immediately behind him is Lizz Carroll, also ’00. The person in the center with the tie is Tim Mulvaney ’00. PUTTING MORE the gaps for the College Archive. —Dorilona Rose ’00 NAMES TO FACES In addition, Special Collections will HIGH PRAISE As the photo on the back cover of the be open during Alumni Weekend and As a parent of two Fords, I have been 2014 fall issue of Haverford magazine displaying rare books, letters, and other learning from and about Haverford for had no names attached, they should be items used in class instruction sessions, almost 25 years. Initially, I learned from identified. All three “young men” are as well as materials related to some of campus and classroom visits and from members of Haverford’s Class of 1956, the talks being presented. Finally, visitors my son and daughter. Then I stayed and were very active on the [student will be invited to participate in the in touch through attendance at recep- newspaper] The News. At the keyboard Library’s oral history project, “Sharing tions and, perhaps, above all, through is Burtt Richardson, editor-in-chief, Our Stories: Voices of Haverford College,” Haverford magazine. I just finished with George Anderson, managing edi- which will record recollections of alumni reading through most of the fall edition.