Swarthmore College Bulletin (March 2006)
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New Orleans Survival of a Gumbo Culture ON THE COVER: Cajun music star Bruce Daigrepont plays the accor- dion at Tipitinas in New Orleans—evidence of the slow rebirth of a city devastated by Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed. Joe Thompson ’86 survived the storm and returned quickly to his adopted home. But, he wonders, will the city and its rich gumbo of cultural influences ever be the same? Story on page 22. ON THESE PAGES: Bulletin photographer Eleftherios Kostans visited New Orleans in late January as the city struggled back to life. His photos show both the destruction and the hope that he found there. features departments 12: Inspired Landscapes 3: Letters Five alumni gardeners and their Readers’ reactions handiwork show Swarthmore’s influence. profiles By Claire Sawyers 4: Collection Campus updates 58: Home on the Range 20: Learning to Glide Montana rancher Julia Mackay Childs ’62 Could it be that hard work is 38: Connections delights in life in the wilderness. not the answer? Alumni Weekend and more By Carol Brévart-Demm By Madeleine Kahn ’77 40: Class Notes 65: Switchboard 22: Survival of a Story exchange Operator Gumbo Culture Adele Diamond '74 explores the After swimming through Katrina floods 47: Deaths ways children learn. with his pets, this New Orleanian is Honored lives By Beth Luce committed to saving his beloved city. By Joe Thompson ’86 60: Books + Arts 76: Theater of Diplomacy Frontiers Past and Future: Science Fiction Lars Jan '00 engages Western and 30: Mothers After 40 and the American West by Carl Abbott '66; Islamic tensions through direct artistic Three alumnae reflect on the paths of reviewed by E. Carr Everbach, associate exchange. their personal and professional lives. professor of engineering By Andrea Hammer By Elizabeth Redden ’05 With Kirsten Silva Gruesz ’86, 72: In My Life Lisa Maslankowski ’86, When it’s fun merely to finish and Nancy Watzman ’86 By David Graham ’92 36: More Time for Life 80: Q + A Hanne Weedon ’89 helps harried The Pryor Experience parents—and others—balance their lives. By Audree Penner By Carol Brévart-Demm parlor talk he long coexistence of Swarthmore College and the Scott Arboretum affects Swarthmoreans in ways that many may be unaware of as under- Tgraduates. I've heard from alumni who, returning to campus 10 or 20 years after their Commencement, wonder whether the campus was graced Swarthmore with so many magnificent trees and gardens when they were students. They C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N simply don't remember the striking beauty of the College and see it—often in Editor: Jeffrey Lott early June, when it's at its best—as if for the first time. Yet many of these Class Notes Editor: Carol Brévart-Demm same alumni have become gardeners themselves, influenced in unknown ways by this magnificent campus. Staff Writer: Alisa Giardinelli In her foreword to Ben Yagoda's book The Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore Staff Photographer: Eleftherios Kostans College: The First 75 Years (Donning Co., 2003), William R. Kenan Jr., Profes- Desktop Publishing: Audree Penner sor Emerita of Art History T. Kaori Kitao writes: “In the four years they spend Art Director: Suzanne DeMott Gaadt, at the college, students remain largely oblivious to the arboretum's valuable Gaadt Perspectives LLC plant collections.” But she goes on to observe that although “the arboretum Editorial Consultant: Andrea Hammer, provides an idyllic setting for the College … in reality, it does more; it not only Artsphoria Administrative Assistant: embellishes but also edifies. This result is not immediately apparent, but it is Janice Merrill-Rossi the nature of a landscape that teaches Editor Emerita: “The whole idea without trying. No planting here hap- Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 pens haphazardly. The whole idea of of plant collections plant collections organizes the campus Contacting Swarthmore College organizes the into clusters of memorable places. We College Operator: (610) 328-8000 campus into remember different parts of the cam- www.swarthmore.edu pus by the plants that distinguish Admissions: (610) 328-8300 clusters of them: a grove of lilacs, patches of tree [email protected] memorable places.... peonies, the rose garden, a lawn sur- Alumni Relations: (610) 328-8402 rounded by cherries, magnolias here, [email protected] Landscape gains hydrangeas there, and so forth…. Publications: (610) 328-8568 [email protected] Landscape gains its shape from the its shape from Registrar: (610) 328-8297 memory it stirs in our mind.” [email protected] the memory it I enjoy gardening because it puts me World Wide Web stirs in our mind.” in mind of the larger rhythms of life. www.swarthmore.edu —T. Kaori Kitao As our hemisphere leans into the sun each spring, I lean into my four- Changes of Address pronged garden fork, turning clods of Send address label along warm, brown earth and raking the surface smooth for seeds. In a world where with new address to: minutes and hours are hurrying by—and where other, shorter cycles rule our Alumni Records Office lives—it is edifying to connect with the advancing seasons, marking another Swarthmore College 500 College Avenue passage round the sun. Swarthmore PA 19081-1390 Gertrude Bowers Burdsall '28, who has circled the sun nearly 100 times, is Phone: (610) 328-8435. Or e-mail: our oldest active class secretary. She often writes about the garden she keeps [email protected]. at her Berkshire Hills home, and her quarterly Class Notes column has gained many devoted readers beyond her dwindling number of classmates. Gertrude The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN tends all kinds of plants, but she derives her greatest pleasure from her herb 0888-2126), of which this is volume CIII, number 4, is published in August, garden. In December 2005, she wrote: “Herbs continue to grow, bloom, set September, December, March, and June seeds, and endure. The annuals will last until the first frost, and the perenni- by Swarthmore College, 500 College als will go on and on.” And in this issue (p. 41), she writes: “Ever so slowly, Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081-1390. Periodicals postage paid at Swarthmore our daylight hours are increasing. The shortest days of the year are past, and PA and additional mailing offices. Permit this part of the Earth is headed again toward spring.” This may not be pro- No. 0530-620. Postmaster: Send address found, but it's the rhythm of a long life well observed. Enjoy your spring! changes to Swarthmore College Bulletin, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA —Jeffrey Lott 19081-1390. © 2006 Swarthmore College Printed in U.S.A. 2 : swarthmore college bulletin letters BUGLE CALLS ences and backgrounds” spoken of by Pres- As a former member of the Swarthmore ident Alfred H. Bloom is complicated. As a V-12 Unit, I was interested to read Paul group, the need-blind schools have fewer Wachter’s [’97] “Pacifism and Bugle Calls” students on need-based aid than the need- in the December Bulletin. I think there was aware schools. Swarthmore, Haverford, and a feeling among many V-12 members that Middlebury are need-blind and have, the unit was more politely tolerated rather respectively, 50, 40, and 34 percent of their than welcomed at Swarthmore. Almost the students on need-based financial aid, rates only students in many classes and depart- that are similar to the need-blind Ivies. In ments, particularly the science depart- contrast, it's common for need-aware ments, were Navy. Without them, the schools to have 80 percent or more of their finances of Swarthmore would have been students on financial aid. Macalester's new sorely strained. Many of us felt that need-aware policy will bring us from 70 Campus Swarthmore, like Esau, had sold its pacifist percent of students on need-based aid to Cohesion Quaker birthright for a mess of Navy just above 60 percent, more than any top potage and that the presence of the unit at need-blind college. Swarthmore was due more to fiscal reasons The article points out that Swarthmore's rather than patriotism. admissions process “take[s] into account JOHN CARSON ’47 that someone has a background that might leaders from all segments of our popula- Rosemont, Pa. suggest lower family income.” This high- tion.” Other institutions manage to admit, lights the fact that admissions decisions matriculate, and graduate large numbers of THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS are made with plenty of information avail- needy students—more than Swarthmore. I read “The Road to Damascus” (December able about an applicant's ability to pay. Those institutions can do better at this Bulletin) with appreciation and interest. Admissions criteria often emphasize fac- important job without need-blind admis- One statement in that article, however, tors that correlate strongly with high sions. deserves clarification. Discussing an earlier income: access to prestigious volunteer DANIEL KAPLAN ’81 failed attempt to set up a foreign-study opportunities, strong high-school pro- St. Paul program with the University of Damascus, grams, alumni parents. Even if admitted, Kaplan is associate professor of mathematics I was quoted as saying that, at the time, needy students can easily be dissuaded and computer science at Macalester College. “none of the colleges involved, including from attending by the large loan compo- Swarthmore, were offering Arabic instruc- nents included in their “aid” packages. BASHING BEARDSLEY tion or Middle Eastern Studies.” In fact, a Need-blind Wesleyan (42 percent) recently Editor Jeffrey Lott’s description of his daily number of the institutions involved in that relied on this strategy to retain a formal walk to his office (“Parlor Talk,” December effort had both—including Georgetown need-blind policy while balancing its Bulletin) triggered a memory.