Winter 2020–21

Columbia College Today

THE GURUOF GOTHAM Mike Wallace ’64 is the “radical historian” behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicles of New York City

Columbia College’s distinctive academic experience is best achieved with a student body that is diverse in every way. Thanks to Columbia’s need-based, no-loan financial aid commitment, we can ensure that classes comprise students of all backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. In fact, more than 50 percent of Columbia College students receive financial assistance.

Thousands of alumni, parents and friends have already contributed to the Core to Commencement campaign, helping to fulfill the College’s promise to fully meet each student’s demonstrated financial need, whether now or in the generations to come.

Learn more and join the effort: college.columbia.edu/campaign. Contents Columbia College CCT Today

VOLUME 48 NUMBER 2 WINTER 2020–21

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Alexis Boncy SOA’11

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Lisa Palladino 14 20 30 DEPUTY EDITOR Jill C. Shomer

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Anne-Ryan Sirju JRN’09

features FORUM EDITOR Rose Kernochan BC’82 14 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS James C. Katz ’72 The Guru of Gotham Alex Sachare ’71 Thomas Vinciguerra ’85 Mike Wallace ’64 is the “radical historian” behind the ART DIRECTOR Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicles of New York City. Eson Chan By Scott Meslow Published three times a year by Columbia College 20 for alumni, students, faculty, parents and friends. Star Search CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING OFFICER Astrophysicist Rebecca Oppenheimer ’94 studies Bernice Tsai ’96 some of the oddest objects in the universe. ADDRESS By Matthew Hutson Columbia College Today Columbia Alumni Center 622 W. 113th St., MC 4530, 4th Fl. 26 New York, NY 10025

PHONE The Core Curriculum’s 212-851-7852 Second Century EMAIL [email protected]

How the experience of the Core will evolve for WEB today’s — and tomorrow’s — students. college.columbia.edu/cct By Jill C. Shomer ISSN 0572-7820 Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do 30 not reflect official positions of Columbia College The Kitchen Magician or Columbia University. © 2021 Columbia College Today Greg Rales ’12 is mixing up “big, maximalist” flavors at Red Gate Bakery. All rights reserved. By Anne-Ryan Sirju JRN’09

Cover: Photograph by Jörg Meyer Contents departments alumninews

3 Message from Dean James J. Valentini 39 A Socially Distant Season

4 The Big Picture: Abandonment Issues 40 Message from CCAA President Ted Schweitzer ’91, LAW’94 6 Letters to the Editor 41 Lions 8 Around the Quads Duchesne Drew ’89, Anna Winger ’93, Robert Wray ’06 35 Columbia Forum: The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present 44 Bookshelf Phillip Lopate ’64 cast a wide editorial net to tell Drink What You Want: The Subjective America’s stories. Guide to Making Objectively Delicious Cocktails by John deBary ’05

ONLINE EXTRAS 46 Class Notes • Photo gallery by Steven Boss ’71, SW’76, BUS’78 Just Married! • Q&A with author Claudia Rankine SOA’93 85 Obituaries • VIDEO: Astrophysicist Rebecca Oppenheimer ’94 Arthur Ashkin ’47, discusses “alien” life William L. “Billy” Goldenberg ’57 • VIDEO: Essayist Phillip Lopate ’64 speaks at the National Arts Club 88 Caption This! • Cocktail recipes by John deBary ’05

READ WHAT’S NEW! CCT CCT HAS MORE ONLINE STORIES THAN EVER

The Alum Who Wrote the Greatest Movie of All Time Herman J. Mankiewicz CC 1917 gets his due in the Oscar-hyped Mank, starring Gary Oldman. >> bit.ly/3mVWFS0

Teaching Debate — and Confidence — to the Incarcerated Joshua Morrison ’07 brings his College experience to the Rikers Debate Project. >> bit.ly/3g7lOql

Art in the Time of Pandemic How can art sustain us in difficult times? Two alumni experts offer lessons from plagues past. >> bit.ly/3fxuCVw college.columbia.edu/cct MATTHEW SEPTIMUS MATTHEW

Message from the Dean Considering Our College Connectedness

he turnover of a year often inspires reflection on the year ted faculty to thank for that — but I also know that, because of that’s just passed and on the possibilities of the year ahead. the kinetic nature of learning and socialization, nothing can fully There can be a tendency to think about oneself — how replace the in-person experience. As the frenzied first stages of the T we want to improve, what goals we’ll set or how we might pandemic subside, the days of seeing one another again are slowly change our daily routines. These aspirations often become magnified coming into focus, even though they are still many months away. when viewed through the lens of 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days. At With that picture in mind, I have begun to think about the lessons 2020’s end, you might have found yourself thinking less about yourself we’re learning from Covid-19 and how we’ll apply them so that we and more about others, our interconnectedness having become more may reap some benefit from the struggles of this time. pronounced through the events of the year: a global pandemic, a surg- ing protest movement in support of Black citizens, and a turbulent • Though the pandemic descended upon us quickly and was unrelent- and divisive presidential election that revealed a fracture in our country ing in its havoc, the College was more agile in its response than I and, therefore, in our collective future. thought possible. This exciting discovery informs future possibilities We have all been reminded that our individual fates are inextri- of what we can achieve when not under the duress of a pandemic. cably connected to those of our family members and loved ones, our • The Core Curriculum is the bedrock of the College’s identity neighbors and colleagues, and even strangers. The distinction of a and academic experience, and we must strengthen its purpose, Columbia College education is its ambition to teach students about inclusivity and impact in this time of turmoil and isolation. We’ve the interconnectedness of human life and the common experiences begun important work with a diverse, multi-generational com- we share. The Core Curriculum has long sought to investigate the mittee of students and alumni who are charged with thinking enduring struggles, joys and concerns of humankind, and, more about how the Core will evolve and continue to respond to the recently, the Global Columbia Collaboratory has brought together timeless challenges of human existence. students and faculty from around the world to discuss and develop • While the richness of the College experience is most evident in solutions for pressing global problems, from hunger to clean water. face-to-face encounters, it’s become clear that technology can The isolation that has defined our days since last March has had and should have a larger role in our academic experience. Finding the disconcerting effect of separating us from one another in physi- ways to sustain technology’s unique benefits post-pandemic is an cal space, while reminding us of the value of human contact. I know important opportunity for us. I’m not alone in my longing to see students milling around Col- lege Walk; or to hear colleagues’ voices drifting down the hallway in The greatest lesson I’ve learned from the pandemic thus far has Hamilton. The most difficult challenge I faced as dean this past year been the staggering commitment of our community. Faculty and was having to implement policies and procedures that changed the staff have worked relentlessly to field the innumerable curveballs very nature of how we — students, faculty, administrators, alumni thrown our way during the rapid transition to remote life, learn- and families — interact and relate. While some have adjusted well to ing and work. Students have shared with us the ways they have the changes, others have found them difficult, and understandably so. expanded their mindsets and resourcefulness to adapt as best they Many students have told us that their academic experience has can to the demands of this time. These new and honed skills will been better than expected — we have our tremendously commit- benefit them for decades to come. These months have not been without frustrations, though. This has been a trying time in all of our lives. But the resilience and fortitude shown by so many reminds me of something I often say: Columbia is defined by its people, and those people are its most important asset. There is imperfection in our humanity, but we TIFFANY THOMAS TIFFANY share a commitment that is unlike any other I’ve experienced. I wish you and your loved ones good health and much warmth in 2021.

James J. Valentini Dean

Winter 2020–21 CCT 3 Abandonment Issues

Steven Boss ’71, SW’76, BUS’78 is a New and the Dali-esque folded window, the rust and York-based photographer whose specialties dust on the radiators, the hanging metal, the include shooting locations in various states of flotsam on the floor and the view way out yonder. abandonment. “This is the top, top level of a This area was relatively spic and span; the double-decker movie path up was another story — dark, dangerous, palace in New Jersey, just circuitous — a virtual minefield. It can be a CCT Online Extra outside the projection challenge shooting under adverse conditions, More of Boss’s favorite room,” Boss says. “I love but it’s such a pleasure to create images of grace, abandoned places are at college.columbia.edu/cct. the half-moon windows beauty and serenity out of the chaos.”

STEVEN BOSS ’71, SW’76, BUS’78 theBigPicture Letters to the Editor

Revelatory Rousseau

The Fall 2020 issue’s celebration of “Your Core Stories” resonated deeply. In my expe- rience, The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau proved to be the most illumi- nating piece of literature as I assimilated into society, finished law school, raised a family in a medium-sized western com- munity, and experienced the full gamut of successes and failures of our American social landscape. I still have Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West, Vol. I (1946), which contains this and other writings that were central to my experience with the Core Curriculum. Thank you for bringing back so many memories, along with my appre- ciation for Columbia College. Don B. Allen ’58 Salt Lake City An 11th Win To Savor

Thank you for your excellent article “10 Great Moments in Lions Football” (Fall 2020). Ah, too many memories …. I suggest that you consider an 11th, the Lions victory at Rutgers, 35–28 on Thanksgiving Day, November 30, 1963. The game was historic in that it was an Archie Roberts ’65 gem, but more so in that it was postponed from Saturday, November 23, in memoriam of President John F. Kennedy, who had been assas- sinated the day before. (Both Columbia’s

JAMES GULLIVER HANCOCK JAMES and Rutgers’s stats incorrectly show the game date as on November 23 instead of November 30.) We were ready for Rutgers A Treasure Trove and took a 24–6 halftime lead. Seeming to think the game was over, and almost tast- ing the turkey and cranberries, we let the Scarlet Knights dominate the second half I took the Core from September 1960 to May 1962. I greatly enjoyed the feature article “Your Core Stories” in the Fall 2020 issue. If I had been able to contribute, I would have noted that although I finished the course 58 years ago, I still have my Contemporary Civilization books, which have come with me through all these Contact Us decades and I don’t know how many moves. The CCT article made me pull them CCT welcomes letters from readers about articles in the magazine but from the shelf and crack them open. What a treasure trove. I am interested all over cannot print or personally respond to again and will be rereading materials that no doubt have been the basis of my think- all letters received. Letters express ing, and that now look like old friends. the views of the writers and not Stuart Sieger ’64 CCT, the College or the University. All letters are subject to editing for Melville, N.Y. space, clarity and CCT style. Please submit Letters to the Editor online: [Editor’s note: Good news for Sieger — and anyone else who’s interested! Core Stories can college.columbia.edu/cct/contact-us. still be submitted; go to core100.columbia.edu/community.]

6 CCT Winter 2020–21 and fell behind 28–24. Archie and captain “10 Great Moments in Lions Football” Columbia. In Don’s senior year, Lou Little Ed Malmstrom ’65 mustered the very tired — most recently the kickoff return during switched him to tight end. Although he Lions, and we went ahead to stay on an Columbia’s last home game in 2018 that led had a good season as a receiver, he never end-zone, sideline pass with minutes left. to a victory with no time remaining. scored a touchdown. The Rutgers fans were stunned. I savored Also, the entry on the November 24, It was the last game of the season, the post-game Thanksgiving dinner all the 1956, game did not include details, includ- November 25, 1950, and Don’s final game, more at my aunt’s home in Flatbush. ing the key play that won the game for Lou played at Brown. With a comfortable lead A couple of notes: President Kennedy Little. Hint: Claude Benham ’57 threw the for the Lions — and apparently with Don’s had attended the Lions game at Harvard go-ahead touchdown in the last minute of never having scored in mind — the last on October 16, 1963, and the Harvard play. Guess who was the receiver? series of plays was three passes to Don. All band played “Hail to the Chief.” The 1963 Ronald Szczypkowski ’58 went incomplete. On fourth and long, with season was the last where many players Rye Brook, N.Y. the game clock almost done, Don caught a were required to play offense, defense and pass on the 15-yard line and was immedi- special teams, so Archie, Ed and most of A Singular Touchdown ately hit. Listing at a 45-degree angle, his the team played a full 60 minutes [on game legs continued to pump from sheer deter- days]. Our team ultimately went 4–4–1 Thank you for “10 Great Moments in mination, and he managed to fall over the that year. Lions Football” (Fall 2020). I was a year goal line for his first, last and only touch- Bob Donohue ’65 too late to experience that win over unde- down in eight years of football. His team Los Gatos, Calif. feated Army, but reading about it jolted and the few Columbia spectators gave him a memory of one of my most elating a standing ovation. Pop Quiz moments of watching football; this is a Nearly 70 years later I can recall the personal memory of a singular event in a vicarious thrill of seeing a friend end his As Columbia football’s official scorer for close friend’s football career. football career with a memorable goal. 30-plus years, I could easily identify another Don McLean ’51 played center for four Irvin Herman ’52 dozen truly exciting games for the article years in high school and three years at Oakland, Calif.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 7 CCT HAS MORE ONLINE STORIES THAN EVER!

READ WHAT’S NEW AT college.columbia.edu/cct

CCT Around Quadsthe

Superlative Scholars

A pair of prestigious scholarships went to two alumni late last term. Santiago Tobar Potes ’20 made national headlines in November when he became the first Latino DACA recipient to be awarded a FOUNDATION ARTHUR Rhodes Schol- arship. As a member of the 2021 cohort, he’ll head to the University of

Oxford in the M ac T. AND CATHERINE JOHN D. fall to pursue an M.St. (master of studies) HIGH HONOR FOR HARTMAN: English and comparative literature professor Saidiya Hartman has been in global and imperial history. Potes, who appointed a University Professor, the highest rank that Columbia bestows on faculty. Hartman, a scholar hails from Miami, graduated with degrees of African-American and American literature and cultural history, and a 2019 MacArthur fellow, has in East Asian studies and Medieval and taught at the University since 2007. Her “immersive and unflinching portraits of Black life have forever Renaissance studies. altered the ways in which we think and speak about enslavement and its invidious legacy in this country,” Miranda Li ’17 was named a member President Lee C. Bollinger said. “She brings a painstaking and unrelenting focus to retrieving and telling the lost stories of the dispossessed.” of the Schwarzman Scholars Class of 2022. Scholar- ship recipients pursue a one- ous support will ensure the College has Meanwhile, the University president’s year master’s a steady source of funding to fulfill its own tenure has been extended; his term at Tsinghua commitment to full-need financial aid and will now last until the close of the 2023 University in need-blind admissions, essential program- academic year. The Board of Trustees Beijing, focus- ming such as career and academic advis- also has a new member: Shirley Wang ing on public ing, and community-building events. BUS’93, founder and CEO of fiberglass policy, econom- The College also won several giving door company Plastpro. ics and business, challenges throughout the day, including the or international Alumni Participation Challenge for having studies; they also attend lectures, travel the highest alumni participation percentage Sherwin Award and develop a better understanding of of all the schools, and the Overall Dollar China through cultural immersion. Challenge for raising the most dollars. The Gerald E. Sherwin Young Alumni Service Award, which honors individuals who have demonstrated exceptional service Giving Day Leadership News to the College’s young alumni community, was presented to Kevin Zhang ’14 in a vir- Columbians worldwide came together Mary C. Boyce will become the next Uni- tual celebration on December 17. Zhang’s on October 28 for Columbia Giving versity provost, effective July 1, President volunteerism includes serving on the Day — a 24-hour online fundraising Lee C. Bollinger announced in December. Young Leaders Council, a leadership giving event — making 19,173 gifts for a total of Boyce has been dean of Columbia Engi- society under the umbrella of the Colum- nearly $24.2 million to support University neering for seven years. “We are, indeed, bia College Fund that also stages events for schools, programs and initiatives. fortunate to have someone with Dean its members; being a founding member of The Columbia College community Boyce’s combination of administrative the YLC Bay Area chapter; and serving as contributed 5,356 gifts and roughly $6.46 capacity, academic accomplishment and a Columbia College Alumni Association million to the University as a whole. deep knowledge of Columbia to assume Board of Directors member. Additionally, Among all the causes at the University, this role, which is always so critical to the Zhang spearheads the Columbia in Tech the College raised $3.9 million from more University’s future but is especially so at group, which builds relationships among than 2,300 contributions. This gener- this remarkable moment,” Bollinger said. alumni working in technology.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 9 Hall of Fame

The Gamester Who Went All In

By Thomas Vinciguerra ’85, JRN’86, GSAS’90

swald Jacoby CC 1922 won games in the world today. There’s no one 10,000th master point, something never his first poker game at 8. around who can beat me.” before achieved. Drawing three kings to a Jacoby’s specialty was bridge, and his The Brooklyn-born Jacoby was always pair of sevens, to complete myriad approaches and successes made in a hustling hurry. At 2, he corrected his a full house, he walked him a legend. He won 27 North American aunt’s wording of nursery rhymes. During Oaway with 60 cents. Nearly 70 years later, championships and published more than WWI military training (he joined at 15 by he crowed about his childhood coup: “That 10,000 syndicated bridge columns over lying about his age), he played poker with started me off on my career,” he said. 34 years. They were required reading for a his fellow grunts. By the time he arrived And what a career it was! When he died generation of postwar suburbanites look- on campus in 1918, he had won $2,000 in 1984, Jacoby was among the best-known ing to make friends with their new neigh- — enough to pay many of his College gamesters in the world — poker, backgam- bors — veterans and homemakers who expenses. While still an undergraduate, mon, canasta, whist, chess, pinochle, craps, barely knew a trump from a dummy. he triumphed in a chess match against gin rummy, you name it. With fiend- His statistics speak for themselves. In U.S. champion Frank Marshall. At 21, ish computational ability, a phenomenal only four years (1958–62) Jacoby over- he became the youngest licensed actuary memory and seemingly limitless energy, took Charles Goren as the bridge world’s in New York State history, and at 28, he he could belly up to a green baize table leader in master points, as awarded by the turned full-time gamer. and take you to the cleaners. “There have American Contract Bridge League. In Jacoby reckoned that his talent for always been people better than me at some 1963 he became the first player in history chance and numbers (he could multiply game,” Jacoby told Sports Illustrated in to win more than 1,000 master points in 647,992 by 435,638 in his head) could yield 1978. “But I am still the best player of all a single game. Four years later he won his him fame and fortune. He once quoted Horatius Cocles, who heroically defended Rome in 509 B.C.: “How can man die bet- ter than facing fearful odds?” Jacoby tartly Games king Oswald Jacoby CC 1922 playing responded, “It may be a good way to die, but canasta in 1949. I can’t think of a worse way to gamble.” Soon enough, Jacoby set his focus on bridge. His timing was perfect. In 1925, Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, of the wealthy Vanderbilt family, devised contract bridge, a variation on the original auction variety. With his new bidding and scoring sys- tem, as well as other features, Vanderbilt made an already popular pastime even more compelling and challenging. Con- tract soon became the bridge standard, and Jacoby seized on the opening. He emerged victorious in many tournaments, making his rep in the 1931–32 Culbertson-Lenz competition, still known as the “Bridge Battle of the Century.” By 1933, Vanity Fair was calling him “one of America’s most brilliant players.” Jacoby was not merely a superb player; he was also an innovator. He is immortal- ized with the “Jacoby Transfer,” whereby a lead bidder could strengthen his partner’s weak hand. “He thought up bids for hands MARTHA HOLMES / THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES MARTHA that had not been used,” Ronald Haack

10 CCT Winter 2020–21 Around Quadsthe

’65, a computer programmer turned bridge a substitute, quit the game and enlisted in 1949, and he lent his name to a brand of teacher, told CCT. “He thought up arrays Naval intelligence to help crack Axis codes. mechanical pencil that was used to record for better suits.” Haack added, “He was In 1950, when communist troops invaded points in that game. His name also adorned famous for being able to tell what was in South Korea, he got a call from Washing- a mass-market version of backgammon pro- people’s hands. And the only explanation ton, D.C. “We need a computer in the Far duced by Pressman Toys. He even lectured for that is that he was psychic.” East,” the voice on the other end said. at MIT on probability theory. His many A lightning-fast competitor, Jacoby “Buy one,” Jacoby replied. admirers spoke of “The Wizardry of Ozzie.” was lightning-fast all around. He married “We can’t buy one. You’re the one,” said Indeed, the wizard was also a philosopher Mary Zita McHale a week after meeting the voice. A week later, Jacoby was a coun- — in his case, of the never-ending wagering her. While he was playing in the National terintelligence agent in Japan. that is life. “There is no such thing as play- Open Pairs bridge championship in Rich- In his prime, Jacoby was a cottage indus- ing any game for mere joy,” Jacoby said. “If mond, Va., on December 7, 1941, the Japa- try. His one-dollar book How to Win at you don’t have something to lose, you tend nese attacked Pearl Harbor. Jacoby found Canasta was the fifth best-selling volume of not to care. It spoils the game.”

StudentSpotlight Blessing Utomi ’22

This academic year, students are studying What is something you’ve learned remotely from locations around the world. To about yourself during the pandemic? keep our community connected, the College I’ve learned that I like structure a lot. launched “Columbia College Chronicles”; the Even being virtual I like to have process- online series gives students the opportunity ing time and ordering my tasks in chunks. to share what they’re learning not only in So during my day I set goals and to-do their classes, but also about themselves dur- lists for myself, to have some sort of pro- ing the pandemic. Utomi is a theater and ductivity during the day. Of course, some education double major from Houston; the days are still for Netflix from bed! below is adapted from the original interview posted on the College website. To read more What’s the first thing you’ll do when Chronicles, go to college.columbia.edu/news. you’re back on the Morningside Heights campus? COURTESY BLESSING UTOMI ’22 BLESSING UTOMI COURTESY What do you like to do outside of class? I want to check on Brownie’s, the café I’m an intern with the Office of Under- underneath Avery Library; it’s my favorite graduate Admissions, helping a lot with place to go for breakfast. They’re just really and politics. The class is always interesting its virtual programming for prospective nice people! They knew my order as soon as because you can see how Shakespeare has students. That’s been really fun — we I got there and were really sweet. I also miss had a huge impact on American culture, just started virtual tours. I also help run College Walk and sitting on Low Steps, just and you can see the intricate connections our YouTube Q&A chats, which is two taking in the sun and everything. between the texts we read. students talking about their College expe- riences — that’s really popular. So I still What’s been your favorite class at the What keeps you close to Columbia get to meet lots of prospective students College, and why? while remote? and families and also stay in contact with This term I’m taking quite a few inter- I think my job has been the biggest thing, my Columbia friends and my friends in esting classes, but my favorite so far is because a lot of our work is training tour the Admissions Office. “Shakespeare in America,” taught by guides and giving info sessions. That’s Outside of Columbia, I love to run; I Professor James Shapiro ’77. It’s really been really nice for meeting new Colum- started in high school. I think everyone cool because it’s more about the perfor- bians and staying in contact with work has tapped into at-home workouts dur- mance history of Shakespeare’s plays, how friends. We text each other about funny ing this time! I also love ballet — I take they’ve been interpreted in America and things that happen and have meetings to classes through Barnard, and that’s been a how they’ve been applied to topics like still see each other’s faces. It’s nice to have nice way to stay active. the Civil War, gender, race, conspiracies those small moments together.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 11 Around Quadsthe

LookWho’sTalking Christopher P. Wolfe SOA’18 Artist-in-Residence, Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil and Political Rights

Your background is incredibly varied! financial crisis proved to be very chal- ity for empathy. This ideal can sometimes Tell me about your journey to becom- lenging; to get through it, I returned to be uncomfortable and contentious, but it is ing a writer. what had healed me while I was in Iraq: important that we create time and space for The first time I wrote creatively was when writing, creating, expressing myself on the Columbia’s students to have these interac- I was deployed with the Army to Iraq, in page. A lot of that writing focused on the tions. On the other side of their college 2003. I had reached what felt like a breaking inequities and disparities I saw and the experience, they will be the ones occupying point from the pressure of being in a combat role I played in creating them. spaces of power and influence to create environment. Fortunately, a group of my I wrote poems and short stories, and positive change. I’m incredibly proud and fellow soldiers noticed the decline in my began working on a novel. I joined humbled to be the Holder Initiative’s inau- mental health and started inviting me to join veterans’ writing groups and did all that gural artist-in-residence, and grateful for them when they got together to play their I could to immerse myself in the creative the opportunity to bring more awareness to guitars during downtime. Our time together process with the little spare time I had. I the challenges faced by many brothers and was so inspiring and uplifting that I gave read many books; one that I fell in love sisters affected by mass incarceration. a local Iraqi contractor money to buy me a with was Slapboxing with Jesus by SOA What’s the role of artist-in-residence? guitar on his next trip to Baghdad, so I could professor Victor LaValle [SOA’98]. After Do you have a typical day? learn how to play. I started to write my own having spent years in leadership positions, music, and I soon began to write lyrics. And surrounded by very few people who looked Honestly, since the pandemic hit, I have with this experience of bringing something like me, Victor’s voice and stories made me been looking for a typical day, but I into the world of my own making, I felt like feel seen and heard. I sought him out, and I haven’t found it. There has been a lot of I had suddenly accessed a pressure release found him one evening doing a reading in volatility in my “routine,” so I try to adapt valve, a salve that led to healing. my Brooklyn neighborhood. I introduced and stay flexible. I have three kids whose I eventually left the Army, went to myself, and we spoke for at least two hours schools open and close depending upon business school at Duke, and began work- that night. Victor helped me to see the the changes and risk factors related to ing on Wall Street at Merrill Lynch in different ways I could nurture my voice, Covid-19. I have a dog that doesn’t wear September 2008. Being there during the including pursuing an M.F.A. So after a lot a watch. Having said that, as the artist- of discussions with my wife, I decided to in-residence, I dedicate the first part of pursue writing full time. my day to creating art. I can usually find a focused, quiet time to write around 4:30 How did you become involved with the a.m., before my kids are up. Holder Initiative? What inspired you Once they are settled in, I am engaged to combine your creative work with a with the class that I teach on campus social justice project such as this? and at Rikers Island, “Incarcerated Yet If you go to the “About” page on the Inspired.” It is a cross-genre writing Holder Initiative’s website, you’ll find a seminar offered through the Undergradu- quote from the former attorney general: ate Creative Writing Department, that “We do ourselves and our great nation focuses on literary works that explore the a grave disservice … when we trade the experiences and perspectives of individu- noisy discord of honest, tough and vigor- als who have been ostracized, incarcerated ous debate for the quiet prejudice of inac- and isolated from their communities. tion and cold silence of consent.” When I am teaching at Rikers, I spend This quote speaks directly to one of my part of my day planning and coordinating primary goals as an artist and teacher: to with an enthusiastic group of Colum- encourage people of diverse backgrounds bia students who volunteer as tutors for PHOTOS COURTESY CHRISTOPHER P. WOLFE SOA’18 WOLFE P. CHRISTOPHER COURTESY PHOTOS and conflicting views to see and hear each the class. I also spend my days engaged Wolfe in Iraq, December 2003. other better, and to develop a deeper capac- with the rest of the Holder Initiative

12 CCT Winter 2020–21 team, to develop events that address civil years, I wasn’t aware of the terms “mass rights and social justice issues. A couple incarceration” and “public school to prison of examples are the fireside chats I’ve pipeline.” However, I was aware of the facilitated — one last summer with Tony horrendous machinations ushering many Award-winning director Kenny Leon, of the kids of color I went to school with and another in December with formerly into the criminal legal system. And I usu- incarcerated writer and current Teachers ally felt the system’s presence when these College student Robert Wright. kids would suddenly disappear from my classrooms and surrounding neighbor- What’s the best part of your job? hoods and never be seen again. Wolfe at a July 4th concert in Vail, Colo., in 2005. I have the opportunity to create spaces for I share this because when I was pre- our students to show up as their full selves, sented with the opportunity to teach inside spaces where they can embrace and express Rikers Island, my first thought was: I’ve afforded an opportunity to get down to the parts of their identity that they often sup- spent most of my life trying to ensure I work of reclaiming our collective human- press due to a variety of factors and societal never got caught up in the system, and ity and imagining and building a liberated pressures. I’ve had conversations with stu- now I am being asked to walk in will- community. I have learned with and from dents about their career choices, their classes, ingly? I sought counsel from my family all of my students on the inside. their writing, their parents. And in each of and mentors, mostly people of color, and those interactions, I try to be present and what I consistently heard from them was: What’s one thing about you that would share whatever I can from my life experi- Our people, trapped inside those jails surprise readers? ences that might be relevant. A very special and prison, need to see you. Based on the Well, I skipped over a few things earlier moment was when one of my Columbia feedback I have received from the men and when I was recounting my journey as a students came up to me at the end of the women I’ve taught at Rikers, this senti- writer. When I came back from Iraq, I semester, thanked me and told me that I was ment is true. However, what has been most didn’t exactly go straight to business school. the first Black male professor that he’d had surprising to me is realizing how much I still had three years of military service left and that it really meant something special to I needed to see them. There are so many and during that time, those three guys who have me teaching his class. I think it takes a brilliant, beautiful minds and resilient, taught me to play guitar and I formed a certain level of vulnerability to express one- warm souls locked up in our country’s band. We cut an EP, gigged all over Colo- self in such a way; I genuinely find pleasure jails and prisons because, for generations, rado and donated the money we raised to in creating spaces where that can happen. structural racism starved their communi- nonprofits that support soldiers coming ties of the necessary resources for them back with injuries from Iraq and Afghani- What about your Rikers Island teach- to have a chance to live up to their fullest stan, such as the Wounded Warrior Project. ing experience has been most mean- potential at the outset. Going into Rikers I guess I share this because as I look back ingful for you? has enabled me to see beyond statistics and on my life, I see clear evidence of all the I was raised in Fayetteville, N.C., in the intellectual exercises that ponder the fate good that can happen when we show up ’80s and ’90s. During my adolescent of our brothers’ and sisters’ existence. I was for each other in a positive way.

DidYouKnow? The Columbia College Fund’s Oldest Giving Society Turns 60

id you know that the John Jay Associates — the College’s oldest leadership giving society — turned 60 Din 2020? Members are distinguished by making annual gifts of $1,500 or more, providing dedicated support to students and faculty. The December 1960 issue of CCT announced the group’s founding; then-Dean John G. Palfrey noted that the John Jay Associates would be vital to the “College’s continued growth as a pioneer and a leader among American colleges.” In its first year, there were 103 John Jay Associates members; now, there are approximately 3,000. Find the story online: bit.ly/36k6C4k.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 13 THE GURUOF GOTHAM Mike Wallace ’64 is the “radical historian” behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicles of New York City

JÖRG MEYER

e careful what you say to a historian. a stroke of timing that coincided with the 100th anniversary Early in my conversation with Mike of New York’s consolidation into five boroughs. And if that Wallace ’64, GSAS’73 — as we discuss subtitle sounds almost comically ambitious, it has nothing the logistical hurdles of conducting on the book itself. Gotham is the rare work that is helpfully a lengthy interview through a Zoom described in both page count (1,408) and pounds (4.73). screen — I shrug and say, “It’s a whole Gotham’s sheer comprehensiveness is both overwhelm- new world now.” ing and dazzling. If you’re curious about the evolution Wallace’s reply is almost automatic: “Except that it’s not.” of New York’s fur trade, or the historic cost of renting a BI should have known better. If there’s anyone who can brothel, or the ever-shifting meaning of the epithet “Yan- take the long view in these incredibly turbulent times, kee Doodle,” or honestly pretty much anything else, you it’s Mike Wallace, who has devoted his life and career to can flip to the index of Gotham and find a meticulously unpacking the essential lessons from centuries of American researched anecdote about it. By striving to include any- history. There is no succinct way to summarize Wallace’s thing and everything about the early years of New York accomplishments, but let’s try anyway. He is a Distin- City, Wallace and Burrows were essentially practicing the guished Professor of History at the John Jay College of historical equivalent of pointillism, with countless indi- Criminal Justice and the CUNY Graduate Center. He is vidual micro-narratives adding up to a singular, definitive picture of the city. Against the odds, and arguably reason itself, they succeeded. The book’s publication was met with universal acclaim, and in 1999, Gotham won the Pulitzer in history. Nineteen years after its publication came a sequel, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919, which Wal- lace wrote solo. This second volume, which clocked in at a

“If you don’t enjoy it, you’re not going to remember it. You’re not going to believe it.”

mere 1,196 pages, garnered similar rave reviews from pub- lications like The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. But now, reflecting on Gotham and its sequel, Wallace doesn’t mention the starred reviews or the Pulitzer. His the founder or cofounder of a series of influential historical measure of the project’s success is a simpler one: The sheer projects, including the Radical History Forum, the New number of readers who told him they’d enjoyed reading York Public History Project and the Gotham Center for a history book. “That’s the indispensable criteria,” Wallace New York City History. He is the recipient of a long, long says. “If you don’t enjoy it, you’re not going to remember it. list of honors and prizes, beginning with a Columbia Uni- You’re not going to finish it. You’re not going to believe it.” versity Presidents Fellowship in 1961 and ending with the It’s a pragmatic philosophy that happens to be squarely first Federal Hall Medal for History in 2017. in line with what attracted Wallace to the subject of history And, yes, there’s the Pulitzer Prize-winning book that in the first place. Entering Columbia College in 1960, at is widely regarded as the greatest and most authoritative 18, Wallace was at just the right time, and in just the right history of New York City to date. city, to fall in love with the subject — though that wasn’t Wallace authored Gotham: A History of New York City to the original plan. “I was going to be a doctor. My mother 1898 alongside fellow historian Edwin G. Burrows in 1998, was very clear on that,” he says, laughing.

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ABOVE: After nearly failing organic chemistry — and realizing (but relatively orthodox) historian and an exciting (but A bird’s-eye he much preferred the history electives he was taking for relatively unstable) political movement put Wallace in view of the City of fun — Wallace switched majors. When he’d finished his a unique position to bring both intellectual rigor and New York, undergraduate studies, Wallace stayed at Columbia for his revolutionary spirit to the field of history. Wallace’s dis- ca. 1884. graduate degrees. He found a mentor in famed historian sertation, which was on the nature of American political BOTTOM Richard Hofstadter GSAS’42, who had just won his sec- parties, began with a straightforward premise supported by LEFT: ond Pulitzer for the prescient Anti-Intellectualism in Amer- Hofstadter: Political parties are, broadly, a net good for the Wallace’s mentor, ican Life. Wallace was Hofstadter’s research assistant, and United States. But Wallace’s experience on the strike com- Richard eventually collaborated with him on the book American mittee, and his interactions with other young historians Hofstadter GSAS’42, Violence: A Documentary History. who were eager to challenge accepted norms, pushed his in 1968. In addition to his personal and professional relationship research toward those who often went ignored in historical with Hofstadter, Wallace’s young career was defined by discussions: “People who were excluded by the two-party another key event: his partici- system — and were meant to be excluded.” pation in the student strike of By the early 1970s, Wallace had emerged as one of the 1968, which famously resulted world’s premier practitioners and proponents of “radical his- in the occupation of campus tory,” which sought to understand historical events through buildings and their subsequent previously overlooked lenses like gender, race, sexuality and storming by the NYPD. Wal- class. “You began to have Black activists [looking at pub- lace was elected to the Strike lished histories] and saying, ‘What the f--- is this?’ So Blacks Coordinating Committee — get added into the picture. Then come the women. ‘Oops, in “the more moderate faction,” you left out half of the population.’ But by adding individuals he says — though Hofstadter or groups into the picture, you’re also left with the necessity opposed the protests. “The of confronting the white reaction to this. You’re confronted remarkable thing is that we with the necessity of analyzing and understanding racism. remained friends and col- So it wasn’t just addition. It was transformation.” leagues despite the tempestu- The concept of “radical history,” which has become cen- ous ’68 moment,” says Wallace. tral to the approach of many modern-day historians, was Splitting his time and his revolutionary at the time, and Wallace devoted much of COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY RARE BOOK & MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY COLUMBIA influences between a respected his career to practicing and spreading it. In 1971, he took

Winter 2020–21 CCT 17 a job at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to teach the world, but few American cities police officers the history of American justice. In 1973, he have been affected as dramatically became a co-founder and director of the Radical History as New York, where the popula- Forum, and was the editorial coordinator of the Radical tion density and public transit History Review through the mid-80s. He published a series systems pose unique challenges of essays, eventually collected into a volume called Mickey for the virus’s potential spread. As Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory, that countless small businesses close explored how and why American history is (often mislead- their doors and a not-insignificant ingly) packaged for the general public. And in 2000, he portion of residents vacate the city established the Gotham Center for New York City His- entirely, it’s easy to wonder: Is there tory, which aims to “increase scholarly and public under- really a way that a post-pandemic standing of New York City’s rich and living past.” New York City can thrive? Can it Wallace’s inclusive, pragmatic, forward-thinking approach even recover? to history, and to New York City in particular, proved uniquely timely when — just a year after the Gotham Cen- ter was founded — the World Trade Center was attacked on n times that can sometimes feel September 11, 2001. In his book A New Deal for New York, Iexceptional in their darkness, it which was published just a year after 9-11, Wallace made is comforting to spend an after- the provocative case that the rebuilding necessitated by the noon with someone who reminds attack on the World Trade Center was also an opportunity you they are not. When asked to rethink the future of New York City, with a government- about Covid, Wallace rattles off the funded program that would tackle looming crises like break- pandemics that have devastated downs in mass transit and unaffordable housing. New York over the centuries like Today, it’s impossible to read A New Deal for New York he’s reciting the alphabet: yellow without drawing parallels to the Covid-19 pandemic. The fever, cholera, typhoid, influenza. virus has been a disruptive and devastating force across “Repeatedly, we’ve been in situa- tions where people said, ‘Oh my God, this is the end of New York,’” “History doesn’t guarantee anything. Wallace says. “History doesn’t But my default position is that guarantee anything, so the fact that we have pulled out of this crisis or New York will bounce back.” that crisis — and gone on to big- ger and better — doesn’t guarantee it will happen again. But my default position is that New York will bounce back, more or less. My feeling is that it’ll be messy, but it’ll be recoverable. It’s one of the appealing things — although appalling for historians — the degree to which tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow is our tem- poral focus. It’s an American characteristic, to some degree. The past is the dustbin of history. It might be a source of amusing movies or interesting museum exhibits. But the action is in the future. Followed closely by the present.” For someone with such a depth of knowledge about New York City’s past, Wallace is clearly, rigorously invested in the city’s present and future. This is both the danger and the joy of asking Mike Wallace about New York City: You can ask a simple question, but there are no simple answers. If you ask what it was like to grow up in New York City, he’ll patiently explain that it was a time when there was very real debate about whether Queens even counted as New York City. And if you ask what neighborhood he lives in now, you’ll get an elegant mini-treatise on the fluctuat- ing boundaries of Park Slope that weaves in fluid social dynamics and the history of the railroad depot. For all his knowledge and love of the city, Wallace is currently only a part-time New Yorker. Wallace’s wife (and sometimes collaborator), celebrated Mexican writer WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Carmen Boullosa, is a distinguished lecturer at CUNY’s

18 CCT Winter 2020–21 OPPOSITE Macaulay Honors College, but the couple split their time published in 2017, when Wallace was 75. If the third vol- PAGE AND between New York and Mexico City. “At a time when ume required the same amount of time, it would be pub- ABOVE: NYC views, bi-nationalism is not seen as desideratum, we are, I guess, lished in 2036, when Wallace would be 94. past and an example of possibilities,” he says. Wallace has taken to There is no delicate way to ask the obvious question that present. his second home city, though he admits his Spanish is rusty hovers around the third book, so I’m a little surprised when enough that he eventually bows out of the frequent salons Wallace himself brings it up with a matter-of-fact shrug. with Mexican writers, artists and intellectuals he and Boul- “On this one, I’m under the time pressure of death,” he losa host at their home. “They’re very welcoming to me at says. “But I’ve always felt that.” the dinner table until the third glass of wine — at which And so, barring that final and unwelcome stopping point, point English is out the door, and so am I.” the work continues. In New York or Mexico City, Wallace Fortunately, there’s no shortage of work to occupy him. wakes up, sits down at his desk, and diligently goes back to There’s a third volume of Gotham on the way, which will assembling his surpassingly comprehensive history of the pick up where Greater Gotham left off in 1919 and stretch greatest city in the world. In fact, this very conversation is to the end of WWII. “Fortunately, the logic [of the histori- an unusual break from his routine. “You’re the only person cal narrative] is pretty clear: ’20s boom, ’30s bust, ’40s war,” that I’ve done an interview with. My rule is: I don’t devi- Wallace says. Each Gotham book is a titanic undertaking, ate from the historical work for anything,” he says, pausing and “nothing about this project happens quickly,” he says. thoughtfully. “But this is the historical work.” The book won’t write itself, so Wallace has focused all of his energy on it, retreating almost completely from the Scott Meslow is a writer, editor and critic for publications crowded roster of events that defined him as a busy public including GQ, Vulture, POLITICO Magazine, The Atlan- intellectual in the early 2000s. tic and The Week. His first book, From Hollywood With To the immense relief of anyone fearing another lengthy Love — an oral and visual history of Hollywood romantic gap between books, he confirms that a not-insignificant comedies in the ’80s and ’90s, and the genre’s resurgence in the chunk has already been written. Still: Gotham was pub- streaming era — will be published in early 2022. He lives in lished in 1998, when Wallace was 56; Greater Gotham was Los Angeles.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 19 JÖRG MEYER Astrophysicist Rebecca Oppenheimer ’94 studies some of the oddest objects STAR in the universe SEARCH By Matthew Hutson

Winter 2020–21 CCT 21 ebecca Oppenheimer ’94 is a degenerate. She While many instruments are the size of a bus, PARVI will happily tell you this. Despite her position is only a couple of feet across, connected to the telescope as the astrophysics curator at the American by a long fiber optic cable. “It’s a bunch of new technolo- Museum of National History, a staid institu- gies tested out in this tiny little machine to see if they’ll Rtion inhabiting New York City for a century all work,” says Oppenheimer’s current graduate student, and a half, she peppers her speech with profanity, plays Rose Gibson GSAS’22. “If we can show that this really pranks on research collaborators, resists the call of “big compact structure can measure these insanely tiny sig- science” in order to work on more intimate projects that nals, that would mean a lot for new instrument design.” often involve hand-building new instruments, and has It could also mean the ability to detect one of astron- gilded at least one astronomy lecture with slides of kin- omy’s holy grails: an Earthlike planet around a Sunlike dred spirits Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson. star. In other words, a potential home to life outside our She also studies some of the oddest objects in the solar system. universe — celestial bodies governed by what is known, OPPENHEIMER GREW UP incidentally, as degeneracy pressure. These include brown on the Upper West Side, less dwarfs — bigger than planets but smaller than stars — than a mile from Columbia. She was interested in how which she and her collaborators were the first to discover, things worked and read books about science, including just months after she graduated from Columbia. “I’ve one by astronomer Patrick Moore that told the folklore worked on degenerates for most of my life,” she said at behind various stars. By 12, she’d saved enough to buy the Bukowski lecture. “It’s nice to be able to work on her own telescope and would camp out near her grandfa- something you love.” ther’s house on eastern Long Island to observe the night sky. In high school she worked at the Goddard Institute of Space Studies and modeled river flow with computers. She attended the College partially out of a reluctance to leave the city she loved, though told her parents to pre- tend she was much farther away, and they happily obliged. OPPENHEIMER ’94 REBECCA (Classmates may remember her as Ben; she came out as transgender in 2014, though she’d always known who she was.) Oppenheimer loved her time at Columbia. “The professors that I got tied into were just wonderful,” she says. “The one who helped me the most is David Helfand, my undergrad advisor.” Helfand, a giant in the field, is also a past president of the American Astronomical Society and was longtime chairman of Columbia’s Department of Astronomy. Together they examined satellite data, iden- tifying clusters of galaxies. They also spent a week at an observatory in Arizona identifying sources of X-ray radia- tion. The two still meet up regularly for beers, Helfand says, to talk shop or gossip about “astropolitics.” Oppenheimer spent summers working at Goddard or visiting large telescopes in New Mexico and Puerto Rico. Outside her physics major, she took classes in architec- ture and theater, having designed sets in high school. She REBECCA OPPENHEIMER ’94 REBECCA admits astronomy and theater are not the most practical of pursuits. “What I do is not very useful,” she reckons, The 200-inch Oppenheimer’s focus for the past four years has been “but I think some of the most useless things that people Hale Telescope dome, at Palo- PARVI (PAlomar Radial Velocity Instrument), an instru- do are some of the most important, actually.” mar Observatory. ment used with Palomar Observatory’s 200-inch Hale WHEN YOU THINK OF Telescope, in the mountains above San Diego. PARVI is a large celestial body, you likely a spectrograph, which measures the frequencies of light imagine a star, like the Sun, or a planet, like Earth (or a emitted by a star. Slight changes in these frequencies can galaxy, like the Milky Way, comprising billions of stars and mean the star is wobbling, creating a Doppler effect, the planets). But there’s also a middle ground: brown dwarfs. way a siren sounds different depending on whether an These gas giants are 13–75 times the mass of Jupiter, but ambulance is approaching or receding. Such a wobble not big enough for gravitational pressure to initiate nuclear might indicate the periodic pull of an orbiting planet. fusion and render them a star. What keeps them from col- What’s more, if starlight filters through the atmosphere lapsing further is degeneracy pressure, a result of quantum of a passing planet, that leaves further fingerprints on mechanics that prevents electrons with the same energy the signal, possibly allowing astronomers to analyze the state from occupying the same region of space. Brown composition of the planet’s atmosphere. dwarfs had been theorized but, like exoplanets — planets

22 CCT Winter 2020–21 STAR SEARCH

ABOVE: The outside our solar system — for years they made their pres- what one would expect for a brown dwarf. (Brown dwarfs Hale Telescope ence known only on chalkboards and in science fiction. were named before their color was known, brown being dome sits open Some doubted their existence. sort of a non-color.) She excitedly wrote calculations in to the sky After college, Oppenheimer went to the California an absent collaborator’s tidy notebook, amended with before a night of observing. Institute of Technology for a Ph.D. in astrophysics, work- “Sorry for this mess, Tadashi. — Ben.” Oppenheimer ing with astronomer Shrinivas Kulkarni, whom she’d wanted to publish, but Kulkarni enforced temperance. It LOWER LEFT: met when he gave a lecture at Columbia. Kulkarni’s lab could have been merely another star behind the first star, Oppenheimer and her team was working with a new instrument, developed at Johns so they waited a year to look again and see if it moved first saw a Hopkins, called the Adaptive Optics Coronagraph. The across the sky along with Gliese 229. brown dwarf in AOC had recently been installed on a 60-inch telescope It did. And this time they used Palomar’s 200-inch the glare of a at Palomar. Kulkarni hoped to use it to spot dim objects telescope, which had an infrared camera. “It was just so brighter star (image at left), orbiting nearby stars. When he met Oppenheimer, he dramatically unlike a star, there was no question that this then confirmed recalls, “I said there’s always a hope we’ll find a brown was some kind of new beast,” Oppenheimer says. It was it via a second dwarf. But there’s no guarantee.” She joined the team in glowing — heat from compressed gas — with frequen- photo taken a September 1994, and one night the very next month at cies suggesting its atmosphere contained methane, which year later. the observatory, she and a postdoc, David Golimowski, stars are too hot to contain. The team published papers in noticed a faint smudge next to the star Gliese 229, about Science and Nature a couple months later and made the 19 light years away. They saw it again the next night. front page of The New York Times. “We were like, ‘Holy shit, this is really amazing,’ ” Oppenheimer has continued to study brown dwarfs, Oppenheimer says. The object was very red, similar to which have the interesting property of remaining about the same size no matter their mass, and white dwarfs, dense stars that are actually smaller the more massive they are. “I like to try to find the wacky stuff,” she says. “That’s my passion. And so that’s partly why I work on instrumen- tation. It’s only with new capabilities that you’re going to find something that nobody has ever seen before.”

OVER ZOOM, Oppenheimer led me on a tour of her optics lab, next to the Hayden Planetarium at the AMNH. She pointed out work tables scattered with lasers and NASA lenses and mirrors and tools, and racks of computers and

Winter 2020–21 CCT 23 STAR SEARCH

hard drives. Nothing is being built at the moment, but normally she’d have to don a white bodysuit to keep every- thing pristine. She’s written that the precision required in her work is equivalent to photographing the entire Empire State Building and pointing, in the photo, to a bump on the pavement and saying it’s exactly 4.43 millionths of a meter tall. “She’s really innovative when it comes to work- ing on instrument design,” her graduate student, Gibson, says, “and seeing what kinds of weird things you can put together to create some totally bizarre instrument nobody else would have thought of.” (Oppenheimer also builds things for fun. In her office is a model of an F-14 fighter jet — the kind from Top Gun — and she’s working on RIGHT: Gold- coated optics a customized model of the HMS Beagle, the survey ves- that were part sel known for carrying Darwin to the Galápagos and, she of an imaging says, “the first thoroughly scientific ship ever built.”) spectrograph. “I like the kind of science I do,” Oppenheimer says. “I FAR RIGHT: see it as more of a classical science in the sense that you A look inside go from an idea or a question, and then you have to figure the PARVI out, ‘Well, how do I make this measurement?’ So I build spectrograph’s an instrument that can do it. That takes quite a long time, vacuum chamber. then I take it out into the field and use it.” Astronomy is headed toward larger and larger telescopes and collabo- rations, but Oppenheimer remains a holdout. had to lie dormant. Palomar is shut down due to social “I kind of prefer the smaller projects,” she says. “It’s the distancing restrictions in the face of the pandemic. “It’s small ones where you can make your own decisions. You heartbreaking,” Oppenheimer says. “This is a big part of don’t have to go through a huge committee and write my student’s thesis. And we’ve got about 10, 15 people reams of reports in order to change one screw from met- involved in this project. We just have to sit and wait.” Oppenheimer ric to English, you know? My style, you just drill a hole JUST AS OPPENHEIMER with her and put the screw in. Even if in the middle of the night at prefers deep involvement in teammates, the Palomar the observatory there’s a problem, you just go downstairs small projects, she also prefers to advise only one gradu- Mountain staff to the machine shop and fix it.” ate student at a time. “She’s been very successful mentor- and project Unfortunately, Oppenheimer’s hands are currently ing the students she’s had from our department” — such spokesdog Paco. left with little to do. After only six nights of use, PARVI as Gibson — Helfand says. “What makes people suc- cessful as a mentor is sufficient sensitiv- ity, which not all scientists have, to be able to recognize another human being there who’s not the same as you. But also just the genuine love and enthusiasm for what you’re doing.” Working with Oppenheimer is “a lot of fun,” Gibson says. They spend a lot of time together outside of lab, driving to mountain observatories or collecting data, “so it really matters that our per- sonalities get along,” Gibson says. “And she’s said multiple times there’s no point in doing science if you’re not having fun with it.” Oppenheimer also loves the unique teaching opportunities offered by the museum. She curates exhibitions, like one on exoplanets called Searching for New Worlds, and creates space shows for the planetarium, like Journey to the Stars. “Part of what I love about this place is it’s totally anti-elitist,” she says. “We get five million people a year. And PHOTOS BY REBECCA OPPENHEIMER ’94 REBECCA BY PHOTOS they’re paying money to come and see

24 CCT Winter 2020–21 all the science and stuff that we do. I think that’s really “Her energy and productivity are a fucking cool.” model for graduate students, postdocs Gibson can vouch for Oppenheimer’s inclusivity. “She’s the kind of person who knows the names of all the security and visiting scholars,” says guards and custodians at AMNH and will stop and chat astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. with them,” Gibson says. “And I love that, because science can feel so isolating sometimes. She makes it an environ- ment where it feels like everybody is a part of it.” “Her academic energy and productivity are a model for species level, engaging directly with philosophy: Where graduate students, postdocs and visiting scholars,” says Neil did the universe come from? What would it mean if life deGrasse Tyson GSAS’92, the popular astrophysicist and is widespread in the cosmos? director of the Hayden Planetarium. “I remember her as an Helfand has long appreciated that expansive thinking undergraduate at Columbia, while I was there as a gradu- in Oppenheimer. “Her research is very focused on highly ate student. Years later I was delighted to see her career sophisticated engineering solutions to problems of how launch, and have her return to NYC when we hired her.” you look at very faint things around very bright things,” Oppenheimer’s coming out as transgender may also he says. “That kind of person, in our field at least, is often have made astrophysics more welcoming to some people. pretty blinkered. And she’s just the opposite.” “I think that makes a lot of people feel more comfort- Eventually the pandemic will pass, and Oppenheimer able being themselves in the field,” she says. She calls the will return to looking at the stars, and whatever else remains decision “terrifying,” but she couldn’t keep up the act any- unknown and unlabeled. “The regions around more. Most, but not all, colleagues have been supportive. stars are still so poorly understood,” she says. The Truth Is Out There “And it’s so diverse, with different types of EVERY YEAR, Oppenheimer discusses Oppenheimer spends a month on a writ- planets, brown dwarfs, comets, dust, what- “alien” life in this video short: ing retreat, typically in the tropics because she loves ever. These little points of light up in the sky college.columbia.edu/cct. hurricanes. This past October she had to settle for New are actually some of the most complex things Jersey, where she worked on a book that touches on that people ever look at. There’s so much the topic of labels. Without revealing much, she teases going on, not only inside each star, but also right around that it’s a science book arguing that “planets don’t exist,” them. And I think that’s really a fun thing to do. And to spiked with some “ridiculous anecdotes.” Oppenheimer devote a large fraction of my life to. I certainly won’t do this has written previously that classifications, whether of forever. But for now, it really is my passion.” natural objects (planet) or people ( Jew), can constrain our thinking about them. Soon after coming out as trans- Matthew Hutson is a freelance science writer in New York gender, she defined the best practices of a scientist in The City who writes for The New Yorker, Scientific Ameri- New York Times: “question who, where and what you are.” can, Nature and other publications. He’s the author of The 7 The book may tackle some of that self-questioning on a Laws of Magical Thinking.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 25 How the experience of the Core will evolve for today’s — and tomorrow’s — students The Core Curriculum’s Second Century By Jill C. Shomer

he Core Curriculum, the hallmark of a Columbia Columbia College Today: It’s been College education, entered its 101st year against a a challenging year. Do you think the backdrop of acute, historic crises. 2020 saw striking Core can be a force for recovery? echoes of the challenges that compelled the Core’s Larry Jackson: When the Core was founders to create the curriculum in the first place founded in 1919, the intention was to help — as a means to impart to students an awareness students prepare to grapple with what the Tof their place in the world, and to equip them with knowledge and creators called “the insistent problems of habits of mind that are essential to responding to the complexities the present.” At the time, this included the of their present moment. destructive fallout from WWI, sweeping But even as the Core’s framework endures, it must evolve. How the political changes, a deadly flu pandemic, curriculum could best respond to the moment was a vital question at police and vigilante violence against African the outset of this academic year, and its continued evolution will be an Americans, and an anti-immigrant senti- area of focus going forward. The Committee for the Second Century ment that led to the arrest and deportation of the Core, made up of a diverse, multi-generational group of Col- of thousands. The idea of the Core as a way lege leaders, alumni and students, was recently established; the group of responding to the problems of the present will convene regularly throughout the year to reflect on and reevalu- is something that we continue to think is ate the Core’s purpose and the experience it offers to each student, important; the curriculum has evolved over particularly for students of color, who may face systemic injustices time in order to meet that original goal. in their everyday experiences. The ongoing dialogue is an effort to improve the College’s articulation of the Core — helping students to CCT: And we’re not only dealing with better understand why they take it and how to approach it — and to a pandemic and hate. How can we determine how the curriculum can have the most meaningful impact repair the breakdown of civil conver- on current and future Columbians. sation in society? Changes are already underway. Larry Jackson, the associate dean of Jackson: One of the problems that we Academic Affairs, Core Curriculum and Undergraduate Programs, have today is we have lost the personal ele- spoke with Columbia College Today about the importance of the Core ment that we once had in democratic life. in difficult times, the collective effort he and Core faculty members As there’s been a shift to social media and have made to reframe the curriculum, and the goals of presenting a cable news, it’s become a lot easier to vilify wider range of experiences and perspectives to the Core community. people who disagree with us. We don’t talk JILL SHOMER Inside the Core Curriculum library. The Core Curriculum’s Second Century

to them face to face; we deal with cartoon CCT: Is there a Core work or author of anti-Black racism — problems that are versions of them. So I think that one of you turn to during difficult times? similar to what students were facing in 1919 the things we try to emphasize in the Core Jackson: I go back quite a bit to Hannah — so we continue to look to the Core as a is that we’re creating a personal space in Arendt; I find a lot of comfort and perspec- way to be responsive. In particular, we looked which people face to face can grapple with tive in her work. I first read On Revolution at the syllabi for all five courses and tried to ideas that they disagree with, ideas that five or six times over the course of a year. It’s build bridges between the works already on might even offend them deeply. a strange work that combines history, politics the syllabus and some of our present-day I think the other side of that is recog- and philosophy, and I just found it so amaz- issues. We are also introducing new works nizing the limits of civil conversation and ing and inspiring. It was what made me want that we think will be especially effective. trying to foster the empathy and the per- to study philosophy and get my Ph.D. I think spective that will help students understand Arendt’s study of totalitarianism — which is CCT: What new works or conversa- those limits and what might drive people on the CC syllabus now — is really penetrat- tions are students engaging with? to those limits. Yes, we want to encourage ing if you want to understand the dangers Jackson: I’m pleased to say that all five of civil conversation, but we also want to take of totalitarianism in any time or place; she the Core courses have added something. seriously instances where people feel that provides a lot of insight. Arendt really was When Joanna Stalnaker, the chair of Liter- they are past that. Something has hap- one of the most original thinkers of the 20th ature Humanities, and I talked about what pened, they have experienced violation, century. She makes my heart flutter. students should read during the summer, they have experienced something that has she suggested Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: made their entry into civil conversation CCT: Why do you think it was important An American Lyric — it just seemed like impossible. We want to encourage the to adapt the Core Curriculum this year? it was absolutely the exact right text for empathy, the imagination, the perspective Jackson: We are grappling with the the moment. [See “Citizen Gets a Close that will allow us to understand what drove problems of Covid-19, and we’re seeing a Read.”] The use of first- and second- people to that point. nationwide reckoning with a long history person in Rankine’s text very compellingly

Citizen Gets a Close Read

LAST SUMMER, after protests decrying anti-Black police violence Citizen’s prose poems recount both rose up in all 50 states, first-year Lit Hum students got a new reading verbal slights and intentional offenses. assignment: Claudia Rankine SOA’93’s Citizen: An American Lyric. One longer essay considers the treat- Citizen, published in 2014, chronicles the experience of racial ment of tennis superstar Serena Wil- micro-aggressions in essay, image and poetry; Rankine’s use of sec- liams. A photograph of banal sunny ond person, the narrative of you, is an especially powerful reckoning. suburbia grows teeth when you see “Citizen confronts the incessant lived reality of anti-Black violence the street sign reads “Jim Crow Road.” from a perspective that is both intimate and collective,” says Joanna Most strikingly, there is a spread Stalnaker, the Paul Brooke Program Chair for Literature Humani- memorializing African Americans ties. “It is a vital work for our time, and a vital work for Lit Hum.” who have been killed by police, which Rankine is the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale, and gets added to with each printing. The the author of six poetry collections and three plays; she is also a 2020 edition read by fall term stu- video collaborator and anthology editor, and has been the recipi- dents includes the names of Ahmaud ent of numerous awards and honors. Rankine told CCT she created Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Citizen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the abandon- Floyd, lending a bracing awareness of ment of Black communities in New Orleans. “People kept saying to Citizen as a present, living document. me, ‘How could this happen in the United States?’ And I thought, Rankine says she is honored to be Claudia Rankine SOA’93 white people believe these moments are not possible and Black included in the Core Curriculum, and people see them as inevitable. So I decided to begin a project where that it’s not something she anticipated. But she does assume, in the I would connect the micro-aggressions to the macro-aggressions. act of writing, that her work will need a close reading. “That to me “With this book, [my concern] was is pedagogy,” she says. “And that it should end up in an institution how to make something that is so consis- where close reading is valued, perhaps does make sense.” The full Q&A with Claudia tently present, and yet fleeting and invisi- She continues: “Of course I also teach, and I believe in the beauty Rankine SOA’93 and her virtual AlumniTALK with ble, concrete,” she says. “It was a question of language and the importance of literature to the lives of all of us, Lit Hum students, faculty of creating through prose a transparency or else we wouldn’t be in these institutions. I wouldn’t have spent and alumni can be found at that held moments that would be recog- almost my entire life with a book in my hand. I have the greatest college.columbia.edu/cct. nized by all, either as the aggressor or the regard for literature and for the culture — I do think the culture is receiver of the aggression.” what makes us.” — J.C.S.

28 CCT Winter 2020–21 addresses the experience of African Ameri- cans. It’s an extraordinary work. For Contemporary Civilization, chair Emmanuelle Saada and I wanted to introduce a unit on race and justice; with the support of the CC faculty we added texts by David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis and James Baldwin. In Music Humanities, there’s already a unit on jazz, but chair Elaine Sisman and her colleagues have extended that to look at the ways in which African-American jazz musicians have been responsive to the ques- tion of anti-Black racism. They’ve included Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” and Charles Mingus’s Fables of Faubus, works that were composed specifically in response to the rac- ism in the Black Freedom movement. Art Humanities was already undergoing a major overhaul of the syllabus — the first since the course was created in 1947. Chair Noam Elcott ’00 and other faculty have

introduced artists of color like Romare JÖRG MEYER Bearden and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well Larry Jackson, associate dean of Academic Affairs, Core Curriculum and Undergraduate Programs. as introducing race as a subject, looking at the ways that people of color were being depicted in art. That was already happening have been ongoing throughout the Core. For possible. There is also great interest in the but now they’re trying to emphasize and a number of years now, Lit Hum and CC perspectives that the Committee for the elevate that a bit more in the teaching. have undergone a review every three years. Second Century of the Core will provide. And finally, Frontiers of Science. Frontiers Some significant changes occurred after CCT: has four units that are constantly rotating women were accepted to the College in the What kind of outcomes do you and always include the most cutting-edge, early 1980s: Jane Austen was added to the Lit hope to see regarding the changes to relevant research. There were already faculty Hum syllabus, then Virginia Woolf and Toni the Core? who were talking about the South Bronx Morrison. In 1995, CC added the Quran, Jackson: First and foremost, we want having a higher rate of asthma than the rest and Islamic philosophers were also added the Core community to be inclusive and of New York City, one of the highest in the to the syllabus. The triennial review was not diverse. It’s incredibly important that the country. So that was a good example for a taking place in Art Hum — there have been Core present a range of experiences and conversation about environmental racism. some revisions since 1947, but this is the first identities — nobody should go into a Core Now they’re elevating those kinds of topics; major overhaul. Music Humanities is now classroom and feel like this is an experience for example, when they talk about the ethics also being revised every three years; that’s a they can’t have access to. of scientific studies, they’re going to look fairly new development. And again, Frontiers We can never represent all the diversity at the Tuskegee Experiment. They’re going of Science rotates its units every year to teach and richness of the human experience on to incorporate anti-Black racism into their the most relevant research possible. a single syllabus, but we want to present as discussion of science. Those are the bigger changes, but within broad a range of experiences and perspectives those frameworks there’s been flexibility as we can. We think that’s the best way for CCT: You mention that this is the for instructors to add texts and to make students to be able to find themselves in these first change for Art Hum since it decisions on their own about what they’re works, it’s the best way for students to be able was conceived — did the Core’s including. The changes we’ve made this to grow and it’s the best way for students founders expect the curriculum to year are very much consistent with that, to prepare for the world they’re going to be evolve? How has change happened where we saw openings in the syllabi going into when they graduate. We’re updat- over the Core’s history? where we could introduce new texts. Lit ing and adding to the Core partly because we Jackson: I always love to point out that the Hum and CC will undergo their syllabi want students to feel like they’re part of this first nine years the Core existed — when it review this year, and we’ll see what comes community — we don’t want anyone to feel was just one course, Contemporary Civiliza- out of that. The reviews will take place in shut out, we don’t want anyone to feel like tion, from 1919 to 1928 — there were seven the spring term, and the faculty chairs are they don’t belong — but also because these different syllabi. It went through seven revi- already working to make the process as are really important texts that are going to sions in one decade. These kinds of changes inclusive, coordinated and transparent as prepare students for an uncertain world.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 29 THE KITCHEN MAGICIAN Greg Rales ’12 is mixing up “big, maximalist” flavors at Red Gate Bakery By Anne-Ryan Sirju JRN’09 // Photographs by Jörg Meyer Winter 2020–21 CCT 31 with the volume turned up,” Rales says. “The things you baked with your grandma when you were a kid, desserts that are very accessible and familiar, but with one or two things that are turned on their head.” Rales and Howard met at Reid Hall in Paris, where they connected over their love of food (Howard jokes they “bonded over eating too many macarons”), and kept up that friendship once back on campus; both majored in creative writing. After graduation, Rales began a master’s at the School of the Arts, but jumped ship soon after he started the program when he received a job offer with the AMC network, in a new department focused on international co-production of television shows. At AMC, his penchant for bringing in homemade treats earned him a reputation as the office baker and, after three years, he realized he was more interested in bak- ing than producing television. (“Little did my cowork- ers know I was testing recipes on them!” he laughs.) Rales started a catering company, then took jobs at local bakeries to learn the daily grind of a professional baker. He says that his approach was “start from the tepping down into the narrow entryway bottom, baby!” using his experience as “essentially a of the East Village’s Red Gate Bakery on a line cook” to prepare himself for the reality of someday rainy, late October day, I’m immediately hit by running his own shop. the scents of warm sugar, toasted spices and melted Meanwhile, Howard was moving up in the NYC Schocolate. The tiny space is inviting, cozy — the per- foodie world, working as an executive assistant and fect panacea to the grey drizzle outside. I’m greeted by later operations associate for the hip West Village owner and baker Greg Rales ’12 (with his 12-year-old restaurant The Beatrice Inn. In late 2018, Rales and Goldendoodle, Stella, by his side), his plaid button- Howard realized they were both in the right place to down’s sleeves rolled up to reveal the Red Gate logo launch a business together. They originally planned to tattooed on his arm. The self-taught baker took a cir- cook off-site and stage a series of pop-ups around the cuitous path to opening his own store, and despite city, but in a touch of kismet, Rales walked by the cur- being a new business owner operating during a tumul- rent Red Gate location at 68 1st St. and noticed a “For tuous year no one could have predicted, he is savoring Lease” sign; the pop-up idea quickly morphed into a his luck that he gets to do what he loves every day. brick-and-mortar reality. “I got the keys on my birth- Rales has a lifelong love of crafting crazy concoc- day, September 10, which was a lovely 30th birthday tions. “I was kind of obsessed with magic as a kid,” present,” he says. he says, “and I found my own form of magic in our spice cabinet at home. I loved mixing and creating new things — and bless my mother’s palate, she would taste them!” He taught himself how to bake by watching culi- nary shows on PBS and The Food Network and learn- ing family recipes, and discovered that the kitchen was a place where he could keep magic in his everyday life: “I realized I could take all these disparate ingredients, like flour, sugar, butter — things that taste pretty gross on their own — and create something entirely new and different,” he says. “It sounds trite, but it’s the aspect of magic in my job that always astounds me.”

RALES AND HIS FOUNDING business partner, Patri- cia Howard ’13, opened Red Gate in December 2019, and it immediately garnered attention and rave reviews. New York City media like Gothamist and Grub Street fawned over its creative takes on cookies, cakes and other baked goods. “We’re all about American classics

32 CCT Winter 2020–21 RALES AND HOWARD built Red Gate with inspi- photo when he’s stressed — it “serves as a nice escape ration from Scandinavian, Japanese and New England when I’m having a tougher moment.” design aesthetics. Sitting in the space (the former home More than a few of those tough moments came of Tuck Shop, an Australian meat pie restaurant) with sooner than anticipated; Red Gate was only a few Rales, it’s easy to feel the homey vibe the duo created; months old when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. As the wooden pegboards line the crisp white walls, with virus swept through the city, Rales closed the doors antique canisters displayed on shelves and baking tools for a month while he planned how to reopen safely. hanging on hooks. “One thing that sets Greg apart is Fortunately, the space had always been designed for how he sticks to his guns,” Howard says. “He knew he wanted a light, airy room, and he transformed this little meat pie shop into the bakery of his dreams.” “We’re all about American classics Rales tells me he named Red Gate after a defunct with the volume TURNED UP.” Nantucket potato farm that his parents bought in the ’90s, where he spent childhood summers. “It’s where I have my fondest childhood memories, where I have take-away — the ordering area is only 9 ft. by 9 ft. and all those feelings of safety, warmth and nostalgia that there’s no interior seating — so it didn’t take Rales I wanted to create inside in this bakery,” he says. In long to implement scheduled pickups and socially front of the farm is, unsurprisingly, a big, uniquely distanced lines. “We have an incredible customer base shaped red gate. Rales used it as a motif throughout that came out to support us in full force the moment the bakery, in its logo, in the striking red bench that we were back, which I’m infinitely grateful for,” he sits outside and in a framed photograph of the farm’s says. “We were able to churn out cookies and make gate in the kitchen, gifted to Rales by his sister during people happy during a time when there wasn’t a lot the bakery’s opening week. He says he turns to the of stability.”

Winter 2020–21 CCT 33 And what about those cookies? The creatively After getting Red Gate off the ground, Howard named treats call out to customers from a giant glass left the bakery last spring to open her own restau- case. The Cannibal features house-made Oreos that rant, Dame, for which Rales was a pop-up contrib- are crushed and mixed into a plush brown-sugar uting chef. Asked why she enjoys working with him, cookie; the Choco-Toffee is a fresh take on chocolate- Howard says, “He’s not about the Instagram bait or chip, made with brown butter and toffee bits, topped the trends that are happening in the sugar world. He’s with flaky sea salt; the Kitchen Sinker features oats, always prioritizing what’s going to taste the best and chocolate, coconut and, for a salty make you want to have seconds.” One Smart Cookie twist, potato chips. “I like to mess A photographer had been shadowing us for the around with big, maximalist flavors,” afternoon, and as we waited for him to pack his equip- Rales gives us a taste of the Red Gate life in this video short: Rales tells me. “Sometimes they gel, ment, Rales decided to demonstrate his “baking as college.columbia.edu/cct/latest/ and sometimes they don’t!” He uses magic” ethos. He grabbed some Choco-Toffee dough feature-extra/redgate. his toasted coconut banana bacon and popped it in the oven; the room soon filled with cake as an example: “It’s a Franken- the delicious smell of warm chocolate. He pulled them stein cake, a mishmash of my grand- out as we were leaving, and the photographer and I mother’s carrot cake and my mother’s banana bread walked out with irresistibly fresh treats in our hands. and me making brunch one time and using bacon I’d planned to eat half and bring the rest home, but by cream cheese frosting — it’s all these crazy things put the time I walked the 300 ft. across Houston Street, together to create something delicious.” the whole cookie had disappeared — just like magic.

34 CCT Winter 2020–21 Columbia Forum

Portrait of a Nation Master essayist Phillip Lopate ’64 cast a wide editorial net to tell America’s stories

hillip Lopate ’64 is an and literature courses “pretty much original collections, among them undisputed master of the everywhere,” Lopate tells CCT. the acclaimed Bachelorhood: Tales of P personal essay. Recent Nobel Now he’s back with another ambi- the Metropolis (1981) and Against Prize winner Louise Glück calls tious collection, The Glorious Ameri- Joie de Vivre: Personal Essays (1989). him “one of the most brilliant and can Essay: One Hundred Essays from Lopate’s wry and subtle vignettes original essayists now working.” Colonial Times to the Present (Pan- from city life alternate urbane intel- But Lopate’s successes as an editor theon, $40), a spectacular showcase lectualism with an earthy, gloves-off are just as notable — his definitive for his favorite form of prose. Brooklyn honesty. anthology, The Art of the Personal A survey of Lopate’s relationship In addition to publishing books in Essay: An Anthology from the Classi- with essays dates to 1977. He was all genres and teaching everywhere cal Era to the Present (1994), sold a writing fiction and poetry when from Hofstra to the University of quarter of a million copies and was a book by the Romantic William Houston (he is currently a professor adopted in English composition Hazlitt caught his eye from the of nonfiction writing at Columbia’s shelf of a summer house. What he School of the Arts), Lopate edited found in its pages genuinely thrilled well-received anthologies. In 2015, him: “I fell in love with the essay after compiling two Library of form,” he says. At that time, essays America collections on New York were seen as uncommercial (Lopate and movie criticism, he got the idea points out that, historically, their to do “a big book” featuring essays on value has waxed and waned), but as the history and character of America. he started to write them himself he He envisioned The Glorious experienced a new sense of control American Essay as a “big tent” book, and power. “I could take that ‘Phil- perhaps to mirror the inclusive lip Lopate’ character and make him character of the nation it was meant do anything.” to define. Lopate cast a wide edito- Lopate reflected on this creative rial net, including speeches (George discovery in his moving 2010 essay, Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. “The Poetry Years”: “I found in the and others), letters (Frederick Dou- personal essay a wonderful plastic- glass), sermons ( Jonathan Edwards) ity, which combined the storytelling and papers ( Jane Addams), as well aspects of fiction with the lyrical, as more conventional essays (Eliza- associative qualities of poetry.” As he beth Hardwick and Vivian Gor- found his authorial voice, he began nick). He also ventured beyond the LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR LAURE-ANNE to publish a series of appealingly realm of literature. “Every discipline

Winter 2020–21 CCT 35 Columbia Forum has exceptionally gifted writers,” Lopate proclaims in the introduc- tion, excerpted here, explaining his inclusion of texts by scientist Lewis Thomas, theologian Paul Tillich and philosopher John Dewey. “I wanted to shake up the idea of what an essay was,” he says. What unifies Lopate’s diverse Introduction selections is his unwavering focus on his theme. As the 100 essays The essay is a literary form dating back to ancient times, with a long and glori- travel forward in time, from Puritan ous history. As the record par excellence of a mind tracking its thoughts, it can be preacher Cotton Mather to British considered the intellectual bellwether of any modern society. The great promise of essays is the freedom they offer to explore, digress, acknowledge uncertainty; novelist Zadie Smith, they provide to evade dogmatism and embrace ambivalence and contradiction; to engage in glimpses of a nation in transition, intimate conversation with one’s readers and literary forebears; and to uncover always struggling to achieve or some unexpected truth, preferably via a sparkling literary style. Flexible, redefine the ideal society envisioned shape-shifting, experimental, as befits its name derived from the French (essai = “attempt”), it is nothing if not versatile. by its founders. In “The Twilight In the United States, the essay has had a particularly illustrious if underexam- of Self-Reliance,” writer Wallace ined career. In fact, it is possible to see the dual histories of the country and the Stegner calls this ongoing labor “the literary form as running on parallel tracks, the essay mulling current issues and greatest opportunity since the Cre- thereby reflecting the story of the United States in each succeeding period. And ation — the chance to remake men just as American democracy has been an ongoing experiment, with no guarantees of perfection, so has the essay been, as William Dean Howells argued, an innately and their society into something democratic form inviting all comers to say their piece, however imperfectly. cleansed of past mistakes;” novelist The Puritans, some of our earliest settlers, chose the essay over fiction and Jamaica Kincaid, in “In History,” poetry as their preferred mode of expression. In both sermons and texts explicitly calls the New World a land with labeled “essays,” men like Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards articulated their religious and ethical values. Many later American commentators would take them “the blankness of paradise.” Elo- to task for being sexually prudish, intolerant, and repressive. H. L. Mencken, in quent texts from different American a scathing extended essay entitled “Puritanism as a Literary Force,” blamed that eras “converse” with each other, heritage for holding back American literature by overstressing behavioral propri- Lopate points out, sounding and eties while understressing aesthetics. Edmund Wilson wittily noted that Mencken resounding the same themes with himself was something of a Puritan. The bohemian wing of American literature, from Walt Whitman to the present, has engaged in protracted guerrilla warfare different emphases, rhyming without with Puritanism and offered itself as an alternative. On the other hand, Marilynne repeating as history is said to do. Robinson defends the Puritans from what she regards as a caricature of their His mosaic portrait of the positions. Say what you will about their rigid morality: these Puritan thinkers were nation was published the same highly learned, with sophisticated prose styles, and we are fortunate in having month as the tumultuous 2020 them set so high an intellectual standard for later American essayists to follow. Skip ahead to the Founding Fathers, including George Washington, Thomas presidential election, which Lopate Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine, all of thinks makes the essays “stun- whom seem to have been superb writers. In their treatises, pamphlets, speeches, ningly relevant.” “One thing [the letters, and broadsides, they tested their tentative views on politics and gover- book] clarifies is the notion of the nance, hoping to move from conviction to certainty. Theirs was a self-conscious rhetoric influenced by the French Enlightenment authors and the orators of American experiment, with its ancient Greece and Rome, as well as the polished eighteenth-century nonfiction ideals of democracy, equality and a prose writers of their opponent, Great Britain. more perfect union,” he says. “The In the decades following independence, United States authors labored to free fact that these ideals have not yet themselves from subservience to English parental literary influence and to establish been fully achieved, have even been a national culture that would sound somehow unmistakably American. Wash- ington Irving, perhaps the first freelance American author to support himself by betrayed at times, means we all his pen, was ridiculed by British critics such as William Hazlitt for imitating the have much work to do.” English periodical essayists. He, in turn, wrote an essay entitled “English Writers in — Rose Kernochan BC’82 America,” which began: “It is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary

36 CCT Winter 2020–21 animosity daily growing up between England and America.” He Meanwhile, women of the nineteenth century, still denied the went on to analyze the condescending travel accounts of English vote and other rights, were barred from many professions, patron- authors in America, which were then all the rage in Great Britain: ized, physically abused, and oppressed. It is remarkable how far “That such men should give prejudiced accounts of America is not back in America feminist voices were heard, from Judith Sargent a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contemplation are too Murray’s 1790 “On the Equality of the Sexes” to Margaret Fuller vast and elevated for their capacities. The national character is yet to Sarah Moore Grimké and Fanny Fern, reaching a high point in in a state of fermentation: it may have its frothings and sediment, the suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s great essay, “The Solitude but its ingredients are sound and wholesome; it has already given of Self,” and sweeping forward to the twentieth century. The proofs of powerful and generous qualities, and the whole promises essay, once considered a male province, has been nourished by the to settle down into something substantially excellent.” Edgar Allan mental toughness and emotional honesty of so many bold, bril- Poe bristled at the canard that Americans were too materialistic and liant women in the last hundred years: think of Mary McCarthy, engineering-minded to produce literature: “Our necessities have Hannah Arendt, Elizabeth Hardwick, Susan Sontag, Adrienne been mistaken for our propensities. Having been forced to make Rich, Joan Didion, Cynthia Ozick, Zadie Smith .... railroads, it has been deemed impossible that we should make verse Many of the essays chosen for this anthology address them- .... But this is the purest insanity. The principles of the poetic senti- selves specifically — sometimes lovingly, sometimes critically — to ment lie deep within the immortal nature of man, and have little American values. (See, for instance, the pieces by George Santay- necessary reference to the worldly circumstances which surround ana, Mary McCarthy, and Wallace Stegner, each taking America’s him ... nor can any social, or political, or moral, or physical condi- temperature.) But even those that do not do so have a secondary, tions do more than momentarily repress the impulses which glow in if inadvertent, subtext about being American. E. B. White was an our own bosoms as fervently as in those of our progenitors.” influential example of an essayist who conveyed, in a down-to-earth But it was Ralph Waldo Emerson, our greatest nineteenth- American tone, the average citizen’s preoccupations at home, while century essayist, who sounded the alarm most famously in his remaining aware of the larger challenges facing society. speech “The American Scholar.” Acknowledging that up to then In a United States where various groups have felt marginalized the Americans were “a people too busy to give to letters more,” because of their ethnicity, national origin, gender, geographical he nevertheless prophesied that the time was coming “when location, or disability, members of these groups have increasingly the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its turned to the essay as a means of asserting identity (or complicat- iron lids, and fill the postponed expectations of the world with ing it). Gerald Early, in his anthology Speech and Power, wrote: something better than the exertions of mechanical skill. Our day “Since black writing came of age in this country in the 1920s, the of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other essay seems to be the informing genre behind it .... It is not sur- lands, draws to a close. The millions, that around us are rushing prising that many black writers have been attracted to the essay into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign har- as a literary form since the essay is the most exploitable mode of vests.” He concluded by saying: “We have listened too long to the the confession and the polemic, the two variants of the essay that courtly muses of Europe ....We will walk on our own feet; we will black writers have mostly used.” The same could be said for other work with our own hands; we will speak with our own minds.” It’s minority groups in American society, who have benefited the worthwhile remembering that this author who called for indepen- essay form immeasurably by adapting it to their purposes, enrich- dence from foreign culture was probably the best-read person of ing the American language with their dialect-flavored speech. his time and had imbibed not only most of British, French, and They have contributed to the “cultural unity within diversity” ideal German literature but Eastern religious classics as well. that Ralph Ellison envisioned for this country. At the same time, Emerson developed a kind of essay that was quirky, densely com- the American essay has taken a turn toward greater autobiograph- plex, speculative, digressive, and epigrammatic. He was part of that ical frankness, thanks in part to their efforts. extraordinary flowering of literary culture in the mid-nineteenth Another skein of essay writing, of unarguable importance now century, the so-called American Renaissance, which included that the planet finds itself endangered by climate change, is nature Nathaniel Hawthorne, Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Mel- writing. In America, that tradition goes back at least as far as J. ville, Whitman, Margaret Fuller, and Emily Dickinson. By the time Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur and extends to John James Audu- it had run its course, there was no longer any doubt that America bon, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Mary Austin, John Bur- had itself a national culture. But there was more at stake than just roughs, Edward Abbey, Rachel Carson, and Annie Dillard, among the development of literary talent. The nation was facing enormous others. We see in it an attempt to balance the factual and descriptive political and moral challenges from the twin oppressions of blacks elements of flora and fauna with a fresh emotional access to wonder and women. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which called for run- and awe. However alarmed these essayists may sound in their warn- away slaves to be captured by northerners and returned as property ings of the threats to nature, there is still looming underneath an to their southern slave owners, converted many of these writers to appeal to the original myth of America as the New World, a second the abolitionist cause. Some of the most eloquent essays attack- Garden of Eden where humankind could finally get it right. ing slavery were penned by African Americans, such as Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delany. They engendered an essayistic From the book THE GLORIOUS AMERICAN ESSAY discourse on race that would be taken up by a distinguished lineage edited and with an introduction by Phillip Lopate, published by of black authors, including W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon John- Pantheon Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing son, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, Ralph Ellison, and James Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright Baldwin, continuing into our present day. © 2020 by Phillip Lopate.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 37 Columbia College CCT Today

Calling all writers!

CCT is holding its first-ever personal essay contest! The theme is METAMORPHOSIS. Enter for your chance to win a $500 prize and publication in our Spring/Summer 2021 issue.

JUDGES

Robert Kolker ’91, Helena Andrews- Miya Matsumoto author of Hidden Dyer ’02, a Lee ’18, editor Valley Road: Washington Post of Modern Love Inside the Mind reporter and author Projects at The of an American of Reclaiming Her New York Times Family, a New York Time: The Power of Times bestseller Maxine Waters

Submission deadline is Monday, March 8, 2021; for topic guidelines and other info, go to college.columbia.edu/cct/essaycontest.

38 CCT Winter 2020–21 Columbia College Today alumninews

Contents 40 CCAA Message 41 Lions Duchesne Drew ’89, Anna Winger ’93, Robert Wray ’06

44 Bookshelf Drink What You Want: The Subjective Guide to Making Objectively Delicious Cocktails by John deBary ’05

46 Class Notes writers! Just Married! 85 Obituaries Arthur Ashkin ’47, Billy Goldenberg ’57

88 Caption This! Take your best shot at captioning this cartoon by Dr. Benjamin Schwartz ’03, PS’08.

A SOCIALLY DISTANCED SEASON Students, faculty and neighborhood residents enjoyed the fall while maintaining a safe separation, as the Columbia community continued to adjust to the changes brought on by Covid-19. For the few on campus, the elevated walkway and greenspace above Amsterdam Avenue became a socially distanced study spot. JILL SHOMER

Winter 2020–21 CCT 39 Message from the CCAA President

“Here Is New York” — and We Will Prevail

By Ted Schweitzer ’91, LAW’94

lthough the election is behind us, we still battle a virus reflecting on New York City. And make no mistake; since 1754, and a troubled economy, in the context of a nation that’s Columbia (and by extension its alumni) has been inextricably tied Adivided in more ways than one. On occasion, I turn to to this great metropolis. The global matrix has been hard hit by comedy — specifically the Saturday morning cartoon variety of the pandemic and recession. Numerous articles highlight ways in my youth — to put a spring back into my step. Bugs Bunny had which life in the city has become more difficult. Many of its tra- the uncanny ability to prevail despite any obstacle. I think of his ditional strengths, like density and reliance on public transit, have animated brilliance: As a plank beneath him is severed, he stands morphed into vulnerabilities. suspended in midair and declares, “I know this defies the law of To put my mind at ease, I look back to history. New York City gravity but, you see, I never studied law!” has experienced a sustained and inexorable upward trajectory, When I’m not being nostalgic about 1970s cartoons, I turn to albeit not on a straight line. The qualities that brought NYC suc- my community for support; I enjoy keeping up with friends and cess — grit, hard work, creativity and ambition — will certainly fellow alumni in our now socially distant world. I am in awe of help it again to withstand the current challenges. The metropolis Columbia College alumni — bright, articulate, passionate and still attracts the best and brightest from all over the globe. Just accomplished people who strive to make a difference in the world. like Columbia, NYC has one of the most diverse populations in Their leadership spans every conceivable field: sports, science, law, the country. I believe it will confront its problems, reinvent where literature, theater, technology, medicine, media, business, religion, necessary and undergo a renaissance that will lift it to even greater academia, the arts and many others. heights. Some would say this process has already begun. As many of us seek new ways to connect, I encourage you to The College reflects the indomitable spirit of the city, as exem- engage further with the College. Attend an online AlumniTALK plified by many of its professors. I can’t forget Jim Shenton ’49, about equity, humanity and social justice. Join the Odyssey Men- GSAS’54’s passion for history. And what about Ken Jackson? He toring Program. Interview applicants through the Alumni Repre- still squires undergrads around NYC at night (although his famous sentative Committee. Wherever you live, Morningside Heights has bike tour is now by bus)! Andrew Dolkart has written definitive never been as accessible as it is now in the virtual world. historical accounts of architecture throughout NYC, and regularly Many of you know one of Dean James J. Valentini’s favorite shares his knowledge outside the classroom on walking tours. We refrains — that we are “the greatest college in the greatest univer- lived and studied in the masterpiece of McKim, Mead & White. sity in the greatest city in the world.” I want to spend a moment As students, some of us had the same commute that Walt Whit- man had for so many years, between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Of course, our connection is not limited to architecture, urban planning and history. We have myriad other connections — to writers and thinkers, for example, not to mention the worlds of arts and finance — all of which thrive in NYC. New Yorkers are hardy folk, and in these tough times we dig deep to take care of ourselves and one another. The same can be said of the College’s remarkable alumni, even if their tenure in the city was limited to four years — or a few more, if they, like I, stayed on for graduate school. The great essayist E.B. White was also a quintessential New Yorker, though we must forgive the fact that he attended college in Ithaca. As he noted in his famous 1949 love letter to New York, “the city makes up for its hazards and deficien- cies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin: the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopoli- tan, mighty and unparalleled.” Perhaps that is why, no matter how far you travel from the city post-college, you may still find yourself boasting that you are a New Yorker.

EILEEN BARROSO

40 CCT Winter 2020–21 lions alumninews

ANGELA DAVIS DREW Making (Air)waves at Minnesota Public Radio

By Kim Martineau JRN’97, SPS’18

tarting a new job is never easy, but in his first month as annual budget. Before joining MPR, Drew led community engage- president of Minnesota Public Radio, Duchesne Drew ment at the Bush Foundation, following a 20-year career in news- ’89 had to navigate a global pandemic, the economic papers, most of it at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, where Sdownturn that ensued and the killing of George Floyd by he rose from intern to managing editor for operations. Minneapolis police officers, all over back-to-back Zoom meetings MPR’s diversified funding model has helped insulate it from from his home. the economic pressures facing many newspapers and commercial Floyd’s death was a local story for MPR, and the newsroom cov- media. Its relatively large share of listener support — 40 percent ered it aggressively as mass protests over police violence and racial — has helped blunt the pandemic-driven drop in ad and philan- injustice spread from Minneapolis to the rest of the world. At the thropic underwriting revenue. Still, Drew had to let 17 employees same time, MPR journalists were grappling with uncertainty over go through buyouts and layoffs. a recent round of buyouts, and the looming threat of layoffs. “I was He admits that the job has been more challenging than anticipated, really proud of our staff,” says Drew, speaking from his home in St. but says he draws strength from his past achievements. “I’m a Head Paul, not far from the bodega where Floyd was killed. “Two and a Start kid who went to Columbia and Northwestern,” he says. “I’ve half months into Covid-19, everyone’s on edge, with friends and been with my wife for 25 years. I’ve had a great run, and I’m not done.” colleagues leaving. They did a tremendous job.” Drew majored in history at the College, and planned to become Drew (his first name is pronounced “Du-shawn”) took the top a lawyer until an internship with the Bronx DA his sophomore year job at MPR in May, becoming the first person of color to lead changed his mind. By the time someone appears before a judge, American Public Media Group’s crown jewel, MPR News, and its he thought, it already seemed too late. The following semester he sister stations, The Current and Classical MPR. Combined, the began mentoring, and later tutoring, college-bound kids from the three stations reach one million listeners a week on a $34 million community at the Double Discovery Center. Led by people who

Winter 2020–21 CCT 41 Lions looked like him, he says, DDC felt like a refuge, and the affirma- ment, where his old Spec pal, Dave Kansas ’90, is executive VP of tion and support he received there energized him. American Public Media Group. Drew spent two years as a development officer at DDC after Drew is widely known for his direct, tell-it-like-it-is leadership graduation, but kept thinking back to his days writing and editing style, his compassion and his gift for spotting and nurturing talent, at Spectator. He earned a master’s at Northwestern’s Medill School especially among those who have been historically marginalized. of Journalism in 1994 and was hired by the Star Tribune when his His plans for MPR include growing its membership base by summer internship there ended. Even then, his leadership potential using digital tools to tell stories in new and innovative ways. Drew was clear to the reporters and editors who elected him as their union also wants to draw in more people of color, who are driving the rep, and to his bosses, who began grooming him for executive roles. Twin Cities’s population boom, and now represent a fifth of all “I saw the first Black editor of the Star Tribune,” says then-executive Minnesota residents. His vision overall is to make MPR more editor Tim McGuire, now retired and living in Arizona. diverse and inclusive. Born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, Drew felt out of place Journalism especially needs a multitude of voices, says Drew. in the Twin Cities, which seemed to lack the vibrant Black middle class “Our job is to show people to one another,” he says. “Without of his childhood. When he met another Black journalist from the East a diverse newsroom, you’re going to miss things or misinterpret Coast, Angela Davis, they bonded over a shared passion for journalism things. You’ll have a less authentic take on the world.” He argues and social justice. Neither made enough money to go out much to res- that inclusive workplaces are also happier: “If you create an inclu- taurants, so they stayed in and talked books. Eventually, the friendship sive environment, everyone benefits.” grew into more; they married in 1996 and have two teenagers. Drew’s arrival at MPR last spring was greeted enthusiastically; Kim Martineau JRN’97, SPS’18 is director of communications for in the newsroom, where his wife is a host, and in upper manage- the MIT Quest for Intelligence.

Anna Winger ’93 Creates “Unorthodox” Television

By Rebecca Prime ’96

nna Winger ’93 is fond of an aphorism attributed to Winger’s approach are the Primetime Mark Twain: History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often and International Emmy awards gar- rhymes. As the writer and co-creator (with her husband, nered by Unorthodox and Deutschland A Jörg Winger) of the Cold War drama trilogy composed ’83, respectively. of Deutschland ’83, ’86 and ’89, Winger has plumbed the story of The daughter of anthropologists, divided Germany in the waning days of Communism in ways that Winger spent much of her childhood resonate with the current decade’s crisis in late capitalism. Yet the in Mexico and arrived at the College phrase seems equally relevant to her career trajectory, which while intending to make use of her fluent circuitous, feels propelled by an oblique logic. Spanish as a comparative literature As the first German-language series on American television, major. Ironically, a gap year spent trav- Deutschland ’83 was in the vanguard of the transnational linguistic eling in South America had the unin- revolution ushered in by streaming services (it was released on the tended effect of turning her attention Sundance network in 2015). “Television was always produced for toward film instead, and Winger spent JÖRG WINGER a national audience; everything was defined by language,” Winger her remaining two years at Columbia says. “Deutschland was a huge deal because a subtitled TV show had taking film classes in Dodge Hall. The education she received pre- never been on TV in America, let alone in German. But in the course pared the ground for her professional future in ways that she couldn’t of time that we’ve been making the Deutschland trilogy, I feel like it’s have anticipated, she says. “The Berlin Wall had just come down, so become normal to watch shows in their original language.” Deutsch- [director and film professor] Miloš Forman had hired all these guys land ’89, the final installment, began streaming on Hulu in October. from Central and Eastern Europe. I had an Eastern European film For Winger, this new freedom to roam across countries, cultures and education,” Winger notes wryly from her home in Berlin. languages is a game changer. “As a writer, it opens up the possibilities That said, Winger graduated with no plans to become a film- of what stories can be told,” she says. Her most recent project, the hit maker. “The distance to be traveled between being the artistic Netflix limited series Unorthodox — adapted from Deborah Feldman’s driver of the material and working as a PA on a set seemed really, eponymous memoir about leaving her strict Hasidic community in really far,” she says. Brooklyn — was filmed in New York and Berlin in English, German Instead, she became a photographer, which she describes as “epic and Yiddish. “The idea with Unorthodox from the very beginning was training” for her current work as a showrunner. “There’s a production to tell it in Yiddish, because we had never seen anything in Yiddish aspect to being a photographer and a showrunner that’s very similar,” [targeted to mainstream audiences]. Netflix went for it, and I think the she notes. Her creative pursuits also included writing a novel, This show’s success supports doing things true to language.” Confirming Must Be the Place (2008), and producing the NPR series Berlin Stories.

42 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews

Winger’s mid-life pivot to screenwriting was prompted by her production company are Columbia alumni: “It’s not by design, but own binge watching of the Danish dramas Borgen and The Legacy. they find their way to me,” she says. “They reminded me of novels, in that they were so tightly structured Named Studio Airlift for its original location in Berlin’s Temple- and character driven. My husband and I watched them together hof Airport — the site of the 1948 Berlin Airlift that circumvented and decided we could do something similar. That’s how I ended up the Soviet blockade choking West Berlin by airlifting in supplies writing the pilot for Deutschland on spec,” she says. — Winger’s production company is likewise intended as a creative The locus of her artistic formation, New York, continues to be intervention. “A lot of what’s going on at Airlift has to do with an important reference point for Winger, both in the projects she training writers to also be producers; that’s just not the way things selects and the people she works with. “When we were making have traditionally been done in Germany,” she says. “We have a Unorthodox, having an understanding of New York culture was chance to make the road by walking, because that path isn’t laid out vital,” she says. Accompanied by the show’s director, production so clearly here.” designer and costume designer, Winger spent weeks in Williams- burg “to look and touch and feel and experience that space.” Add- Rebecca Prime ’96 is the associate editor of Film Quarterly and the ing to the sense of continuity between her New York past and author of several books, including Hollywood Exiles in Europe: The Berlin present, a significant number of Winger’s employees at her Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture.

Robert Wray ’06 Joins the Space Force

By Eric Butterman

obert Wray ’06 grew up like many children, spellbound by space missions and all their wonder. Year after year, shuttles ascended brightly into the cosmos, reminding us Rof John F. Kennedy’s vision — that maybe, in time, our limits in space could be pushed through. But as years passed and NASA funding was cut, frequent American countdowns became memories from another era. Now, Wray and others like him have a chance to embark on a new mission. Wray has joined the U.S. Space Force, a branch of the armed forces created in late 2019 — the first new branch since the Air Force was formed in 1947. “In essence, the Space Force is like the Navy, but for space,” Wray says. “It trains people on how to operate in and defend U.S. interests in space.” The goal is to expand Space Force to 16,000 members in the next few years. “I hope I can help shape space policy and the U.S. actions in space going forward,” he says. “Space is a key enabler of our economy and our general way of life.” Wray, who double majored in history and political science, was in the Air Force before his move to the Space Force (his career U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT STATE U.S. field in the Air Force was space operations). He also works at the U.S. State Department, in the Office of Emerging Security Chal- lenges, in a role that integrates diplomatic initiatives for military de- But Wray isn’t just thinking about what’s up there. He’s learned escalation in space. Examples, he says, are “organizing space security during his career that protecting space, and the technology it assists, dialogues between the State Department and the Ministry of For- allows everyday earthbound tasks to move forward, from paying at eign Affairs with allies and partners, to advocate for international the pump to making investments on the New York Stock Exchange. support for U.S. policies” and “validating treaty compliance, espe- Commissioned by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on October cially for treaties that have a provision limiting military activity.” 22, Wray took the next step in his space journey as a major in the Wray considered a future in the military early on, applying for Space Force. It’s certainly a long way from growing up in Rhode a ROTC scholarship on September 10, 2001. The world literally Island, enjoying Star Trek. changed the next day. Being in New York City post–9-11, aware of But this isn’t the final frontier. For Wray, it’s a new beginning. the terror threats and seeing Ground Zero, further confirmed for him the path he had chosen. “It cemented my desire to contribute Eric Butterman has written for many publications, including Glamour and give to something bigger,” he says. and Men’s Journal. You can reach him at [email protected].

Winter 2020–21 CCT 43 bookshelf

Be Your Own Bartender

By Jill C. Shomer

fter the year we just had, who established the field of East Asian Studies a position he held for five years. Chang’s doesn’t have cocktails on the in the West; his father is Paul de Bary playful and imaginative approach to cui- brain? There simply couldn’t ’68, BUS’71, LAW’71, and his aunts and sine challenged deBary to be innovative. A be a better time for the clever cousins are Columbia and Barnard grads. “When we were opening Nishi — R.I.P. compendium Drink What You Want: The He grew up watching football at Baker — David wanted all the drinks to be Ital- Subjective Guide to Making Objectively Field with his grandfather, who never ian without using anything from Italy,” he Delicious Cocktails by John deBary ’05 missed a game, and fondly remembers laughs. “Having those restrictions only led (Clarkson Potter, $25). strolling College Walk as a child, fantasiz- to more creativity.” deBary honed his philosophy of ing about being a student. In his director role, deBary wrote cocktail making during a decade behind He never expected his time at the Col- dozens of training manuals; he also the bar at some of the hottest spots in lege to lead to a bartending career. But worked on Food & Wine’s annual cocktail the world, and as the bar director of a Thursday night class at the Columbia issue for four years, sourcing and testing the Momofuku restaurant group. His Bartending Agency introduced him to recipes from all over the country. “It was egalitarian teaching approach focuses less drink making; later, his Wallach room- great practice in developing recipes and on arcane details like drink history or sci- mate Don Lee ’03 got him into nerdy taking notes, so that people who weren’t ence, and more on helping people better food culture. After graduation, deBary me could understand it,” he says. In 2018, understand what they like in a beverage. “I went to Japan for a few months; when want people with no experience to be able he returned and was looking for work, he to make drinks,” he says. “I want to bring reached out to Lee, who had become a more people in.” figure in New York’s craft cocktail revival Drink What You Want outlines the scene and had recently opened the speak- basics of ingredients, equipment and tech- easy PDT (Please Don’t Tell). Lee let him nique, then delivers the recipes in choose- train behind the bar and deBary promptly your-own-adventure-style, arranged by fell in love. “Bartending is immediate,” scenarios such as Feeling Classic, Feeling he says. “It happens right in front of you; Fancy and Feeling Festive. Charming you’re taking care of someone and mak- illustrations and legit-funny footnotes ing them happy.” deBary had thought he (“like David Foster Wallace in drag,” would go to law school, but he ditched mixologist Jim Meehan says in the intro) that plan and dove into cocktail books help readers parse deBary’s logic and add instead. “I was reading about delightfully campy presence. famous bartenders from the 1860s, For deBary, attending the College was their recipes and philosophies, all something of an inevitability. His grand- this nerdy academic stuff that was father was Wm. Theodore de Bary ’41, very suited to my disposition.” GSAS’53, who all but single-handedly Both PDT and deBary soon gained notoriety; in 2009 he started splitting his time between PDT and restaurateur David CCT Online Extra Chang’s Momofuku group. He went full- Get the recipe for deBary’s favorite cocktail time at Momofuku in 2013 and eventually (and more!) at college.columbia.edu/cct. became the company’s first bar director, © 2020 TANAT-JONES SARAH

44 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews he was approached to create his own book; right away he had ideas about how to make Drink What You Want special. He chose illustrations over photography because he didn’t want the cocktail images to be proscriptive. “I wanted something to show the idea, but it was OK if what read- ers made didn’t exactly look that way,” he says. And he wanted to appear throughout the book as a character. deBary loves both Japan and lipstick; his cartoon self is a fiercely glam anime star. Teetotalers won’t miss out on the fun. deBary says he sees the non-alcoholic space as a welcome challenge; there’s a Drink What You Want chapter called Feel- Scam Artists of the Galaxy by Thomas Wm. evolution of human and animal life in a lively ing Sober, and in the midst of writing, Hamilton ’60. In his fourth work of science and accessible manner (Pantheon, $26.95). he launched Proteau, a line of zero-proof fiction, retired astronomer Hamilton spins Romance in Marseille botanical drinks. a tale about creative conmen who travel by Claude McKay; deBary is also an advocate for bar and from planet to planet in the year 2470 edited by William J. Maxwell ’84 and Gary restaurant workers. In 2015, with help (Strategic Book Publishing & Rights E. Holcomb. An early, overtly queer work of from former Momofuku colleagues and his Agency, $10.95). Black modernist fiction is published for the first time after being buried in an archive for husband, Michael, a philanthropic advisor, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way almost 90 years (Penguin Classics, $16). deBary co-founded the Restaurant Work- to Stockholm: The Adrenaline-Fueled The Look of the Book: Jackets, Covers ers’ Community Foundation (RWCF). The Adventures of an Accidental Scientist and Art at the Edges of Literature nonprofit raises money, provides grants by Robert Lefkowitz ’62. A memoir from the by Peter and addresses quality of life issues in the Nobel Prize-winning cardiologist-turned- Mendelsund ’90 and David J. Alworth. This artful restaurant industry. scientist who was described by the Swedish investigation into book cover design was named “I wanted to do something because I was press corps as “the happiest Laureate” one of the “Best Books of 2020” by The New aware of my own privilege. I had been given (Pegasus Books, $27.50). York Times (Ten Speed Press, $50). a lot of opportunities and trust right off the When the World Laughs: Film Comedy The Mall: A Novel by Megan McCafferty ’95. bat, and that isn’t true for a lot of people,” East and West by William V. Costanzo ’67. The latest from bestselling YA author McCaf- deBary says. “It’s sort of endemic, the racial Costanzo, a SUNY Distinguished Teaching ferty is a coming-of-age story set in a New Jer- divide between front of house and back of Professor of English and film, describes the sey mall in 1991 (Wednesday Books, $18.99). house. It’s changing for the better now, but it intersection of humor, history and culture Amnesty: A Novel wasn’t much of a conversation five years ago.” (Oxford University Press, $35). by Aravind Ariga ’97. When the industry went into freefall Ariga won the 2008 Man Booker Prize Syllabus: The Remarkable, Unremark- for his novel The White Tiger; in his newest almost immediately after the Covid-19 able Document That Changes Every- work, a young illegal immigrant must decide pandemic hit, RWCF set up a fund to thing by William Germano’72 and Kit whether to report a murder (Scribner, $26). support restaurant workers and lend Nicholls. Taking a fresh look at the syllabus, A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass stability to restaurants on their way to the authors suggest new ways to engage stu- and the Fight for an Antislavery Consti- reopening. The Covid fund has raised dents and create more collaborative learning tution more than $7 million since March. (Princeton University Press, $24.95). by Damon Root ’99. How Douglass’s fight for inalienable rights for all helped to A true-blue Columbian, when deBary Some Assembly Required: Decoding considers his place in the cocktail world, shape American history in the 19th century Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient and beyond (Potomac Books, $26.95). he touches on the Core. “There’s this joke Fossils to DNA by Neil Shubin ’82. Shubin, a Reclaiming Her Time: The Power of I would always hear in Core classes, ‘You’re professor of organismal biology and anatomy Maxine Waters not going to need this information when at the University of Chicago, recounts the by Helena Andrews-Dyer you’re a doctor or a lawyer, but you’ll be ’02 and R. Eric Thomas. A celebration of the really good at cocktail parties.’ And it’s like: life, wisdom and wit of the iconic California ‘Haha, now that’s my job.’” congresswoman (Dey Street Books, $26.99). SUBMIT YOUR BOOK Illustration reprinted with permission from TO CCT The Rocket Years: How Your 20s Launch the Rest of Your Life Drink What You Want: The Subjective Guide Alums! Have you written a book by Elizabeth Segran to Making Objectively Delicious Cocktails in the last year? Tell us about it! ’05. Through data and storytelling, Segran by John deBary, copyright © 2020. unpacks the reasons why the choices you college.columbia.edu/cct/ make in your 20s may have the greatest Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an submit_bookshelf impact (Harper, $26.99). imprint of Penguin Random House. — Jill C. Shomer

Winter 2020–21 CCT 45 classnotes

JAIME DANIES SEAS’20

A timeless while I was at Columbia. We’ve enjoy hearing from any. Call me: 212- 1940s been married 72 years and have 563-2201. Stay safe/wear a mask.” Columbia tradition three kids and three grandchildren, Classmates would enjoy hearing Columbia College Today one of them recently married.” from you, too! Send your news to brightens winter [email protected] We welcome news from all 1940s [email protected]. Wishing you a nights on alumni. Please send an email to safe and healthy New Year. Dr. Melvin Hershkowitz ’42 (97) [email protected]. Wishing you a College Walk. shared, “Dr. Gerald Klingon ’42, healthy and safe New Year! a retired neurologist, celebrated his 1951 100th birthday on September 22 in his apartment in Manhattan. He 1950 REUNION 2021 remains lucid, is sometimes forgetful MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) and maintains his interests in Colum- Columbia College Today JUNE 4–5 (in-person, bia affairs, including our athletics [email protected] conditions permitting) teams, especially football and baseball. His daughter Karen supervises his Hubert “Buddy” Brandt writes: Events and Programs Contact [email protected] care and financial affairs.” “Since my last entry my wife and I Development Contact Dick Hyman ’48 writes from have had three great-grandchildren, [email protected] Venice, Fla.: “I still practice the with another on the way! We have piano, compose and occasionally sold our house on Long Island play concerts in public or on Zoom. and moved into an apartment near Columbia College Today As the Florida Jazz Masters, we per- Columbia. I still harass assessors [email protected] formed on December 6 in Sarasota. through my law practice — I have to “I have been based in Venice pay the monthly maintenance on the No notes to share from classmates for about 35 years, but I no longer apartment! I often wonder how many this time, but please consider travel. My wife, Julia, and I met of our class still are around. I would joining in the Columbia Reunion

46 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews

2021 events this spring! As of late October, the Alumni Office is plan- 1953 COLUMBIA SCHOOL DESIGNATIONS ning virtual events Monday, May Barnard College 24–Thursday, June 3, and in-person Columbia College Today BC Columbia Business School events Friday, June 4–Saturday, [email protected] BUS Pharmaceutical Sciences June 5, conditions permitting. CP DM College of Dental Medicine Watch your inbox for more. Anthony Robinson GSAS’60 of GS School of General Studies Classmates would enjoy hearing New Paltz, N.Y., writes, “As for some GSAPP Graduate School of Architecture, how you are. Please send news to highlights of my life or career, I was Planning and Preservation [email protected]. Wishing you a a Lt. (jg) on the U.S.S. Owen for GSAS Graduate School of Arts and Sciences safe, healthy New Year. three years after Columbia, serving HN Institute of Human Nutrition in the Pacific as the Korean War JRN Graduate School of Journalism was ending. That experience was the JTS Jewish Theological Seminary 1952 basis for my first novel, A Departure LAW Columbia Law School from the Rules (1960). I have, in all, LS Library Service Columbia College Today published eight novels. My last, [email protected] NRS School of Nursing Father of The Man (2018), is a semi- PH Mailman School of Public Health autobiographical novel about my Robert J. Muscat PS College of Physicians and Surgeons JRN’53, early life in the Maverick Art Colony SEAS The Fu Foundation School of Engineering GSAS’64, of Sarasota, Fla., writes: in Woodstock, N.Y., growing up with and Applied Science “Two memories worth shar- my father, Henry Morton Robinson SIPA School of International and Public Affairs ing. When the Class of ’52 first CC 1923, as he was writing The SOA School of the Arts assembled for a welcoming address Cardinal (1950). I earned an M.A. SPS School of Professional Studies by the University’s new president, from Columbia in 1960 and taught SW School of Social Work Dwight D. Eisenhower, he told American literature and creative TC Teachers College us, in effect, that books were OK, writing at SUNY New Paltz for 36 UTS Union Theological Seminary but he really wanted us to get out years. I grew up in Woodstock and there on the playing fields. More have spent the last 40 years in New consequential is my memory of the Paltz. I have two children, Jennifer inspiring classes of Professor Moses and Henry. I am finishing a novel, 14–0, I was standing with my friend 42. At the time, I had to undergo Hadas in the histories, literature and working title Half of Paradise.” Louie Soloway when he suddenly a ‘balloon angioplasty,’ which was ideas of the ancient Greeks. He had Dr. Donald A. Taylor, of Hol- asked me to turn around. As I did, indeed a painful procedure that I lifelong influence on my thinking, liston, Mass., graduated from Weill- I found myself right next to Ike, had to endure for eight minutes. values and worldview. Look him up Cornell Medical School in 1957. He and Louie snapped a picture of Ike Now I know what an acute heart on Wikipedia. And read his book writes, “I’m a retired radiologist. I have and me! attack feels like, and I hope that Humanism: The Greek Ideal and Its five children and five grandchildren. “I just read the Fall 2020 issue of mine, which will probably come Survival, before it’s too late. My radiology practice was in Chest- CCT, which arrived about a month within the next decade, arrives in “As for me, after a year with the nut Hill, Mass., from 1977 to 2010, before my 88th birthday, October 31. the middle of the night while I am J-School and getting an econom- with a subspecialty in mammography.” I celebrated the occasion with several sound asleep and that I just don’t ics Ph.D. from Columbia, I had a Dr. Allan E. Jackman PS’57 friends at a restaurant, socially dis- wake up the next morning. career as a development economist (aka “DR AJAX,” as on his personal- tanced and with masks (except while “I have led a very good life so far. I — USAID, the World Bank and so ized license plate) lives in Mill we were eating), due to the horrific have visited every continent and most forth, including many years living Valley, Calif., and writes: “I was Covid-19 pandemic. Marin County, countries except Ireland. I was mar- abroad. Life in the ‘deep state’ can be sports editor of Spectator and have located just north of San Francisco ried for 40 years to a lovely woman, professionally very satisfying. I mar- remained a big sports fan ever since. via the beautiful Golden Gate Vivian, who blessed me with two ried a CCNY grad and have three You might not believe this, but in Bridge, is an isolated, suburban place, sons. Owen is a junior high school children and three grandchildren.” 1932, Columbia had the best foot- with a population of just 250,000. teacher in Sacramento, and Russell, Classmates would enjoy hearing ball team in the entire Ivy League, We have experienced only 13 deaths a workers compensation consultant, from you, too! Send your news to beating rival Stanford 7–0 in the due to this virus and so far, none of lives in Novato, Calif. For the past 21 [email protected]. Wishing you a Rose Bowl in sunny California on them were friends or acquaintances years I have been living in Mill Valley safe and healthy New Year. New Year’s Day in 1934. This would of mine. with my lovely girlfriend, Evelyn be equivalent now to our Super “I am very happy that at 88, I am Topper. I will be quite happy in elect- Bowl. And this is how I came to long retired from medicine. The doc- ing our 46th President next week and Class Notes are submitted by meet Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. tors still on duty at our only county [hope] a member of the Democratic alumni and edited by volunteer class correspondents and the As the famed general returned to hospital, Marin Health Medical Party will once again inhabit the staff of CCT prior to publication. New York City rather than to his Center, which has 300 beds, have White House. Opinions expressed are those hometown of Abilene, Kan., I just been working their gluteus maximus “My closing thoughts are these: If of individual alumni and do not happened to meet him at a Home- muscles off, caring for the very sick you have managed to continue read- reflect the opinions of CCT, coming Game at Baker Field. I later and often dying patients, filling the ing this long note thus far, I have led its class correspondents, the College or the University. By found out that Ike, who was a big, ER with ICU beds. a very good life with one exception submitting to Class Notes, you solid fellow, as most Kansas football “I am delighted to report that being a malpractice case about a acknowledge that the text is eli- players are, played in a guard posi- I am in very good general health, breast cancer diagnosis that I missed gible to appear in print as well as tion at West Point. During halftime although I am on a blood thinner, in my 40s and for which I settled for on CCT Online and in archives. of the Homecoming game against Eliquis, for a chronic atrial fibrilla- $250,000, the limits of my insurance Harvard (which the Lions won, tion problem that began when I was policy. I later learned from one of

Winter 2020–21 CCT 47 Class Notes the 12 jurors at my trial that I was, H.S. He also entered me in the with ’54 classmates. “I’m happy to architectural firm in San Francisco; indeed, innocent, but the jury felt New England sculling champion- report that my wife, Louann, and I and Adrian has established a reputa- sad for the woman dying of breast ship on the Charles River, where I are making the most of sheltering tion as a ceramicist who developed cancer, who would be leaving behind had rowed just a few months earlier. in place in our home in Sausalito on a method of firing large hollow-core a young child, because I had not After managing second place in the San Francisco Bay. We are very ceramic figures.” ordered a newly developed radio- that race too, I quit rowing because grateful to be able to enjoy these I was pleased to get a call from graphic technique of mammography. of my parents’ concerns about the privileged golden years despite the Harvey Rubin SEAS’58, who But as my loving father once said heart murmur. But I was hooked on challenging times.” despite being at our reunion in — and he was a very wise man and the water for recreation and to relax Sam is pleased to share that “after 2019 did not have a chance to do a practicing civil attorney — ‘In life from the pressures of trust banking more than 50 years on the faculty of more than “chew the fat.” We had you win a few and lose a few good for institutions, so that most of my the University of California, first as a rewarding catch-up conversation, cases.’ That was wise advice! life I kept a cruising sailboat at the a founding professor of psychiatry but were not able to meet the copy “And so I end this note with the Riverside Yacht Club in Greenwich, at the UC San Diego School of deadline for this issue. Harvey is recognition that I have survived in addition to maintaining a mem- Medicine in 1969 and, since 1986, in well, back in Larchmont, N.Y., with 88 good and also bad years and bership in the New York Yacht Club. many roles at UC San Francisco, the a grandson who’s a sophomore at that I may live long enough to see “When I turned 82 my son sug- university has established The Samuel Columbia, but his geschichte will have Joe Biden inaugurated as our next gested that I build a home next to Barondes Endowed Chair in Neuro- to wait for Spring/Summer. POTUS, in January 2021!” his place in Darien on the Fivemile Jay B. Kane, of Darien, Conn., River, close to Long Island Sound. writes: “Here’s a story from my first Now each summer I enjoy viewing year at Columbia about events that his sailboat, which he named after A gift from Milton Edelin ’54, GSAPP’57 is the largest influenced my life. my late wife, Mimi, moored a short ever made to the Architecture School by a Black alumnus; “Some 70 years ago I rowed on distance from my back porch. Columbia’s freshman lightweight “Note: Most members of the class its impact will be felt for generations. crew. This was a life-changing expe- knew of Mitch Price because he was rience because only a year earlier I quarterback. Mitch was frequently was a sickly kid in Brooklyn recover- the topic of newspaper reports, ing from many months of rheumatic along with Lou Little, Columbia’s biology and Psychiatry at UCSF. It The Architecture School recently fever that left me weighing 140 lbs. famous football coach, prior to the will be occupied by Dr. Anna Victoria announced a gift from Milton Edelin and with a heart murmur. Remark- days of professional football.” Molofsky Ph.D., a brilliant young GSAPP’57 that will have a long- ably, some friends I met through Classmates would be interested neurobiologist and psychiatrist.” lasting impact on incoming students. my roommate Mitch Price when in your stories, too! Share current Congratulations, Sam! We are From the announcement: “The fund- I arrived at Columbia talked me news and stories from days past with proud of you. ing that established the Milton and into trying out for lightweight crew CCT using the email at the top of Members of our Class of Destiny, Yvonne Edelin Scholarship repre- that September. With my medical the column. Wishing you a healthy, if I had not asked, Sam would not sents the largest gift to GSAPP ever history this made no sense at all, but happy and safe New Year. have told — please, all, share your from a Black alumnus. Its impact did lead me to work out frequently good news NOW. Do not wait to will be felt for generations, helping on rowing machines at the gym to be personally asked, much as I love and attracting and retaining a greater improve my health and help me 1954 “getting in touch.” diversity of students. ‘I know how make the crew the next spring. Another correspondent, Joseph hard it was for me as a young person “In 1950 our freshman crew was Bernd Brecher Arleo GSAS’56, writes: “My wife, to balance working and attending quite successful in that we won [email protected] Lillian, and I decamped across the graduate school, and it costs so much nearly every race against Ivy League road from our daughter Eliza- more to attend now,’ Edelin says. ‘I schools, losing only to Yale on the This quarter I’m just thinking out beth’s house in Sharon, Conn., in believe if you can just get to school, Housatonic River and then again loud. Where are we as a class, as mid-March to escape the corona- you can do good things.’” in the Head of the Charles Regatta alumni, as a College, as a university, as virus and, to paraphrase Hermione Milton shares with the class, on the Charles River in Boston, a nation? Or as individuals, as people, Gingold, ‘We’re still here.’ The bad “In addition, for many, many years, where we came in second of six or or persons? This column went to bed news, of course, remains the Trump I donated at the John Jay Associ- seven boats. Yale was positioned at within a week of yet-to-come Elec- presidency but I hope by the time ates member level to the Columbia the other end of the line and a valid tion Day. We have hopes, thoughts, this sees print he’ll be gone (I think College Scholarship Fund for Black claim was that we lost because we and assumptions, but no insider true part of the ‘Destiny’ of our class was Students. And further, another couldn’t see the Yale boat slightly or false information. Whoever is in to survive his tenure).” family member, Dr. Kenneth Edelin ahead due to the spray from the oars the White House, or controls the Joe says he’s still seeing patients, ’61, my late brother and first Black near the finish line. Congress, for the next four years — “or rather having phone sessions chief resident at Boston University “After one of the races, in the or 40 — his/her life ain’t going to be with them — and looking forward to Medical Center Hospital, established locker room at Baker Field, I met easy for them or for us. getting back to my office in the Vil- a medical scholarship at the Boston Raymond C. Knox, the retired Soooo, think ahead with me, lage when this pandemic dissipates. University School of Medicine for University chaplain and a lifelong to Tikkun Olam (“Help Cure the And now a brief CV of our children: disadvantaged and Black students and oarsman who rowed for Columbia World”) and give me your thoughts Elizabeth was recently promoted to has a square named for him at Boston many decades earlier. He and his for our Spring/Summer column. full professor of radiology at Weill University. So, lots of family gifting wife happened to live in Old Green- Meanwhile, here is some winter news: Cornell Medical Center and is the and outreach to help disadvantaged wich, close to where my parents had Samuel Barondes PS’58 mother of three sweet girls; Michael and minority students by a couple of moved. He had access to a few sculls writes, “Thanks, Bernd, it’s been a recently retired as chief, quality Columbia College Black graduates.” and recruited me as coach in an long time!” in response to my good control, of Rolls-Royce Engines; Ted Thanks, Milt, for sharing this per- attempt to start a crew at Greenwich wishes and request for news to share partners with his wife as head of their sonal and important news with us.

48 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews

“I finally retired as director of He says he’s catching up on his vin Winell, Sheldon Wolf, Elliot in Willmette, Ill., right at Lake allergy at NewYork-Presbyterian reading while his wife “spends a lot Gross and John Crocker. Michigan. He works once a week Queens Hospital, where I had been of time practicing the Argentine We’ll get back to normal soon. in the Preventive Cardiology Clinic Stanley Fine since 1976,” writes tango and ‘going to’ Met Operas on In the meantime, think ahead to at Rush University Medical Center, PS’57. “At 87 it was time. I’m enjoying her mobile phone. And then there’s Columbia Reunion 2021. As of late doing many visits by telemetry. full retirement. My significant other Zoom. Prior to Covid-19, I had October, the Alumni Office is plan- Philip has submitted 23 essays to and I flew to Auckland in mid- twice-weekly lunches with a group ning virtual events for Monday, the Chicago Literary Club, and February (just in time) and boarded a of guys who’ve been my friends for May 24–Thursday, June 3, and in- continues to play the piano. Dave Goler ship for 18 days, winding up in French more than 80 years. Now we do person events Friday, June 4– writes from Florida Polynesia. Bora Bora must be as close twice-weekly two-hour lunchtime Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- that he is no longer seeing patients to Eden as we have on Earth.” meetings on Zoom, which offer a ting. Watch your inbox for more. and is riding out this pandemic. Murray Watnick They got home a week before different kind of nourishment.” Love to all! Everywhere! retired from the everything closed down, says Stan, and Thanks Ron, for your overview practice of radiology and is working he thanks “God for computer bridge.” and coping guide, and your personal with the WHO to bring basic radi- Looks like you two have found comment about RBG: “A sad 1956 ology services to underserved areas the true meaning of retirement, i.e., note is the passing of Justice Ruth of South Africa. He has consulted full. Blessings on both your heads. Bader Ginsburg LAW’59. Ruth REUNION 2021 with Frank Thomas. Murray writes (We’re all just jealous!) (aka Kiki) and I were classmates at that “a major ongoing project is MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) We heard sad news from Walter James Madison H.S. Not ever close progressing in Guatemala.” To learn A. Bossert Jr.’s daughter Ellen ’86, but always friendly. Over the years JUNE 4–5 (in-person, more about the project, go online to conditions permitting) who shared his obituary: “Walter A. she’d attend significant reunions Radiology for the People: A Basic Bossert Jr. was born in Manhattan on and a couple of smallish dinners Events and Programs Contact Radiological System for Health [email protected] October 5, 1932. He joined the law to which I feel fortunate to have Care in Developing Nations (link: firm of Gould & Wilkie, serving for been invited.” Development Contact bit.ly/2UjkLJs). [email protected] 34 years, 19 as senior partner. During A song that I, Bernd, wrote for On a sad note, I must report the his tenure, he was general counsel to one of my non-lockdown summer- deaths of Dr. Harold Markowitz well-known corporations, including time shows while in college, had the Robert Siroty on January 19, 2020, and Socrates Lord & Taylor and Tiffany & Co. following opening verses: “I know [email protected] Nicholas on October 19, 2020. “In 1980, Walter, along with where I’m going and I know where Socrates was a member of The 1754 his partner, Davison Grant, and I’ve been / the only thing that both- Congratulations to Ralph Kaslick Society, and sat for five years on renowned lawyer, Telford Taylor, ers me is the current mess I’m in.” DM’62, recipient of a 2020 Colum- the University’s Board of Trustees. chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg The show was not based on reality, bia Alumni Association Columbia Additionally, he sat on the advisory Trials, successfully argued before neither “then” nor now, but give me Alumni Medal. Originally intended board of the Metropolitan Opera. the Supreme Court of the United your takes as we look ahead to our to be awarded at Commencement [Editor’s note: See “Obituaries.”] States, case (447 U.S. 557) — Cen- Class of Destiny’s 70th anniversary. in 2020, it will instead be awarded Regarding reunion, I suggest that tral Hudson Gas & Electric Corpora- As a point of departure: Colum- at Commencement this year. It is you respond to the virtual class book tion v. Public Service Commission of bia’s self-managed Marching Band a well-earned and well-deserved with stories and pictures. It looks good, New York. This landmark case is still has dissolved itself after 116 years; recognition of his contribution to and is only for us. There are no ties to studied in law schools in regard to give me your thoughts, especially if academic life at Columbia. any fundraising or other solicitations. First Amendment rights. you are a band alumnus. As always, Jim Mooney writes from [Editor’s note: As of late October, “He was a graduate of the Col- call, write, email, carrier pigeon, Milford, Pa., that he is retired and the Alumni Office is planning Colum- lege and University of Virginia Law whatever — just stay in touch. in good health, and that he and his bia Reunion 2021 as virtual events School and served in the Air Force Alas, the first cinema James wife, Doris, are celebrating their Monday, May 24–Thursday, June 3, 1954–57 as a lieutenant commander Bond (for me, the only one) recently 63-year partnership. and in-person events Friday, June and a top-secret security officer passed; let me know you’re still here. I heard from Ron Kapon, Ed 4–Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- during the Korean War — most Be well, stay well. With luv, Bernd. Botwinick, Joost Oppenheim, ting. Watch your inbox for more.] notably at Rushmore Air Force Sta- Excelsior! Harold Sturtz and Alan Broadwin Stay safe and stay well. tion during the Suez Crisis of 1956.” with varying responses re: a possible Walter is survived by his wife, Zoom reunion. Ed offers large Mariel; son, William; and daughters, 1955 acreage in Virginia if we all bring 1957 Ellen ’86 and Laura. Our sincerest sleeping bags or tents. He reports Gerald Sherwin Herman Levy condolences to the Bossert family. that he hasn’t had a haircut since [email protected] [email protected] [Editor’s note: See “Obituaries.”] mid-February, and that his family is Ronald Sugarman, an active calling him “Maestro.” Peter Caroline: member of our 65th Reunion Com- Not much new since the Fall 2020 Leo Laporte GSAS’60 earned “One of my fondest mittee, shared his life under Covid- issue. Masks are seen on campus, a Ph.D. in geology at GSAS, then memories of my junior and senior 19: “My wife, Hisako, and I have which is still mostly on lockdown taught at Brown before moving to years was my job working in the stacks been following the protocols, and so and continues to have remote learn- the new UC Santa Cruz campus. at the library. I got paid $20 for 20 far, so good,” he writes. “Some habits ing for almost all students. No winter He is the author of a 2000 book, and hours’ work. This paid for my meals, have changed because of Covid, but sports, and no football and basketball many articles regarding paleontol- cigarettes, booze and walking-around we’re managing to cope with assists practices. No alumni events last fall ogy, from the Department of Earth money for a week. At lunchtime, from Instacart, Amazon and Zoom or this winter. & Planetary Sciences at UCSC. He I’d walk into a nearby restaurant on Jack Freeman, and by adhering to the cautions Thinking of resides in Redwood City, Calif. Amsterdam Avenue and the propri- Dick Kuhn, Berish Strauch, Allen regarding masking, distancing and Philip Liebson and his wife, etor would call out, ‘Pair rare and a Hyman, Howard Sussman, Mar- proper hygiene.” Carole, have moved to a co-op side of French!’ Best burgers ever!”

Winter 2020–21 CCT 49 Class Notes

Michael A. Ferragamo: “Having ‘visual culture’ attached. I also taught contributions to public health. “Their friendship was discon- practiced urology for close to 35 ‘The History of World Architecture’ And we did that, including first tinued when Gene went to NYU years, I am now retired from active and ‘The Visual Cultures of Asia,’ description of chlamydia pneumonia Dental School in 1956. Gene then practice for more than 20 years. I as well as ‘Great Conversations,’ in infants, showing that screening served as an officer in the Air Force live with my wife of 60 years, Maria, a five-semester study of Western pregnant women for chlamydiae for two years, after which he set up a in Garden City, N.Y., and am a cod- civilization. None of this is boasting and treating the infected women dental office in New York while liv- ing consultant for urology-related when I see my source of inspira- prevented infection of newborns ing in Chappaqua, N.Y. Ed went to practices, such as private practices, tion and teaching techniques that I (this quickly became standard of care the Wharton School for an M.B.A. hospitals and academic institutions learned in my CC and Hum courses in the United States and in many and then entered practice, joining a such as Lahey Hospital & Medical at Columbia. Outside of classes there other countries) and proof of concept large national firm in 1958, becom- Center, Indiana Urology, Duke were the discussions and debates in study showing that community-wide ing a C.P.A. in 1961 and a partner Urology and many others. Would the Quad (i.e., everywhere on cam- treatment of trachoma (the world’s in the firm in 1968. Gene and Ed love to hear from classmates, espe- pus). The laboratory for my Art Hum leading infectious cause of blindness) reconnected at a CC’57 reunion. cially others who became urologists and Music Hum was New York City. with azithromycin was effective. This “By this time Gene had relocated and also were members of the 150- Columbia gave me solid intellectual is now the linchpin of a WHO- to Pacific Palisades, Calif., but con- lb. football team that played in those ground where I could live and teach sponsored effort at eliminating blind- tinued to own an apartment on New years … Call me at 516-721-8149.” the rest of my life.” ing trachoma as a public health issue. York City’s Upper East Side. Gene Erich Gruen: Mac Gimse: “When I was “The era of “I’ve kept my UC appointment gradually left practicing dentistry, growing up, I was told that the Covid-19 has, of course, brought and hope to spend the next few becoming an inventor of dental care purpose of education was to take some severe restrictions. There are years analyzing data and writing up products. He started a company learning into life. When I arrived at no more travels of any distance, the last few studies. Looking back, I that sold his products throughout Columbia, a National Merit Scholar and no (live) visits with children recall the usual academic frustra- the USA in leading retail stores. and a lonely lad from Minot, N.D., and grandchildren. Being at home tions, getting funding and so on, but Gene had begun to come back to I discovered that the purpose of 24/7 with my wife, Ann, is a true all in all, it has been a blast.” NYC, as it was conveniently near Jacques Ullman: the liberal arts education was to test of a marriage. But we have “At a time many pharmaceutical companies take a love of learning into life. The passed that test most successfully when we are so preoccupied with interested in licensing his products. Core Curriculum gave me a passion and continue to enjoy each other’s the outcome of the election, it is He eventually sold his company but for learning all over the world in company. Zoom has been a most a bit strange to be writing a Class continued inventing and licensing vastly different cultures that are not welcome support for our social life. Note that will be published after the his technology to leading health and lesser versions of my own. I became We Zoom almost every day with results are in. Let’s hope that, in this pharmaceutical companies. excited to learn new languages. I was one or more members of the family final phase of our lives, we don’t have “Meanwhile, Ed had migrated unafraid to follow religious practices or with friends. And during the last to witness our democracy continue south to run his firm’s Philadelphia wherever I found I them. couple of months we have been so to be destroyed. office in the early ’80s, and then “The Core led me to be a college bold as to invite friends for drinks “During this confinement, my returned to its NYC practice later professor in the liberal arts, teaching on the patio in our back garden, two wife, Muriel, and I are lucky to be in the decade. Having moved his hundreds of students on dozens of at a time and properly distanced, living in Sausalito, Calif., where we residence from South Orange, N.J., programs abroad. My basic course usually once or twice a week. So, we can look out at the beautiful bay to Philadelphia, he and his wife, was ‘Monuments to Power and Faith’ have not succumbed to isolation. I and walk in the hills. I have plenty Sandra, decided to take up residence and my class format was lecture and managed to participate in an inter- of carpentry tools and finally have in Manhattan, on East 56th Street. discussion, based on our experiences national conference via Zoom and the time to finish out details on our Ed retired from his firm after 40 as we moved through the world for even led a seminar through Zoom old house, which through the years years and became a forensic C.P.A., up to five months each time. Our as a guest at Harvard. And the extra we have totally gutted and opened a second career that lasted 20 years. studies embraced politics, religion time on my hands has allowed me up. We have an urban garden with “Once Gene began returning and the fine arts, each of which had a to complete my book Ethnicity in flowers and vegetables, and Muriel to NYC, it wasn’t long before he the Ancient World — Did it Matter?, paints a beautiful watercolor of it and Ed took up their interrupted which was published in September. every day. Since retiring from my friendship. They began having lunch “The days, weeks and months pass architectural practice three years in NYC when Gene was in town on all too quickly. More than a dozen of ago I have been active in helping business. Later, as Gene’s wife, Judy, my former graduate students are now Sausalito improve its public spaces. began to come to NYC with him, retired (!), a stern reminder of the Covid-19 robbed us of our custom- the twosome became a foursome. number of years I have been in this ary two summer months at our Thus, a long-ago friendship was academic business. But we remain converted barn in rural southwest revitalized over subjects including in good health and hope very much France. We had a nice visit with Roy politics, history, museums and other Stay in to resume contact with some of our Wolff there a few years ago.” NYC distractions, and Columbia Touch Columbia classmates.” Gene Wagner and Ed Wein- events (both of Ed’s children fol- Julie Schachter: “After 60 years stein: “Gene and Ed have become lowed him to the College and two Let us know if you have a of research on chlamydia at UC San fast friends after renewing a friend- of his granddaughters are College new postal or email address, Francisco, I closed my lab last sum- ship begun during Freshman Orien- sophomores). Gene also resumed Herb Sturman a new phone number or mer. I hadn’t planned to do research tation in September 1953. They were a friendship with on STDs, but serendipity always roommates in a three-person suite (Ed’s fraternity brother and long- even a new name: plays a role, and living in SF through in John Jay Hall. Gene never forgave time friend) and recently presented college.columbia.edu/ the Summer(s) of Love provided Ed for taking the only single bed, Herb with a Maltese companion alumni/connect. plenty of opportunity. Chlamydial leaving the others to share a double dog, which Herb named Harvey. infections were relatively new, and bunk bed. (He still enjoys ragging “The pandemic interrupted Ed this gave us chances to make real Ed about this episode.) and Gene’s contacts until Gene

50 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews felt comfortable flying to NYC Newman, passed away on October local Osher Lifelong Learning Insti- again. He and Ed then had lunch 18, 2018. Since then, I have found 1959 tute at Furman University. at Morso, near Ed’s home, in mid- happiness with Lee Gruzen, widow of “We have moved to a continuing September, and were scheduled well-known New York architect Jor- Norman Gelfand care community and fortunately for a repeat at Beach, near Gene’s dan Gruzen. My children, Jacob Jonas, [email protected] have not yet required the care part of alternate residence, in mid-October. Lillian Jonas and Mark Newman, are the game and live independently in “Their friendship has existed for 67 all well, as are my four grandchildren.” Starting with pleasant news, Ben a modest house, which, as you might years and continues, having survived Bert Hirschhorn PS’62 also con- Haimowitz reports: “After writing guess, Alice has filled with looms a 25-year hiatus and now a pandemic. tributed to this issue: “I’ve returned press releases for 40 years, I’ve and I have filled with stereo stuff. They never tire of each other, stimulat- to the United States after two regressed and have lately published “Our boys, Willy and Erik, ing subjects to talk about or their decades abroad working in public two books of fiction: a novel, Baby are doing well. Willy is here in zest for life. Gene recently gave up health, the story told in my memoir Steps, Giant Steps, and a collection Greenville, S.C., with two almost– his creative dental inventor second (bertzpoet.com/memoir). I’ve also of short stories, To the Parade: Tales grown-up children, Karl at Clemson career, and Ed continues as a forensic published six collections of poetry Low and High of the City.” and Catalina in high school. Willy C.P.A. until he completes an expert (bertzpoet.com/poetry-3). We live Bill Frye writes, “Still at it, and is a practicing architect and leads a testimony engagement, which seems on the banks of the Mississippi thought I would bring everyone up group of healthcare architects in the to never end.” River, in Minneapolis, one old man to date to a certain extent. I finally company for which he works. Erik is looking over another Old Man.” retired from my law practice and my attending the CUNY School of Law As a medical scientist, Bert has firm, Trenam Law, which I helped and enjoying it. 1958 become world renowned for his found more than 50 years ago. It was “I do miss my practice of pathol- anti-cholera achievements. He a great run, and I would love to do ogy, including the folks I worked Peter Cohn demonstrated the validity of using it again, even accepting some jury with and the helping to solve [email protected] oral rehydration therapies to save verdicts I was not happy with. problems of figuring out what sick untold numbers of lives, especially “These days I have been maintain- people have and helping their clini- The effects of the Covid-19 in third-world countries where ing with the help of my wonderful cians fix them.” pandemic are still very much with intravenous hydration is not always wife (we have been married more Ira Friedman writes, “The [Fall us as this column was submitted readily available. than 59 years) and our caregivers. It 2020 Class Notes] that you sent in mid-October. New York City is Not all news is good news. seems I have a neurological condition are among the saddest I have ever carefully reopening some indoor Eleanor Siegel writes of the death of that at best can be maintained and, read, but I am grateful that you sent spaces (restaurants, museums) that her husband, Arthur Siegel BUS’60: in combination with the coronavirus, them. They remind me that I should have not been available since mid- “Art was hired by Price Waterhouse we are pretty much confined to the try harder to see things as they are, March. Meanwhile, Columbia’s fall in 1960 after earning an A.B. and an house. I read a lot, argue with the TV not only as I wish them to be. As a term was virtual and all fall sports M.B.A. from Columbia. He worked and generally try to figure out how in Semite since birth, I get pissed off by were canceled. Alas, no visits to the in PW’s New York City, Long Island, the world our government and poli- anti-Semitism. To find it less checked Baker Athletics Complex to (briefly, Boston and national offices. He was tics have reached such a sorry state. at my college makes me wonder what of course) regain one’s long-lost an engagement partner in Boston In any event, I hope we get through is going on. Professor William Casey youth. Oh, well …. Whether this and then became national direc- it, along with our government. taught me that it is a mistake to see situation will continue into the tor of accounting services and later “As I neared my retirement, I things as 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 when they are spring is unclear, especially as fears vice-chair of audit. Art was also a thought I would be looking at days actually 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. At least, I think of a “second wave” are widespread. member of the U.S. and World Firm’s on the golf course, fishing and travel. that was what he was teaching. When it comes to class news, Management Committees. As an Unfortunately, it has not worked “I knew David Horowitz at Steve Jonas has provided an update undergraduate, he was president of out that way, but serves as another school well enough to say hello to on his recent activities: “I hope every- the Pre-Engineering Society until he reminder that we never know what him. I think he went to high school one is doing as well as can be expected changed his major to economics, and is around the corner. So, if anyone with my then-girlfriend. But I have in this horrible time in our nation. It is he was advertising manager of Specta- is looking for advice, here it is: Get not been able to recognize him for a time that could have been prevented, tor. Art was a member of Phi Sigma it done now and don’t wait until a long time from his writings. Even I may say with some certainty as a Delta, where he made lifelong friend- tomorrow. My best wishes to all.” though I wholly disagree with what career public health physician, if the ships with Fred Knauer ’59, SEAS’60 From Bruce Schlein we hear, “It he has to say, I will defend to the President had undertaken the same and Ira Jolles ’59. He graduated has been a while since I communi- death his right to say it. (Where is measures that were followed in almost second in his class at the Business cated, and I am fixing that. My wife, the Trib when you really need it?) every other developed country in School, where he was a Newington Alice, and I are well and still able to “I thought that as we got older the world (with the notable excep- Scholar and treasurer of the Graduate do our ‘things.’ Alice is producing we would get wiser. I live in a nice tion of the United Kingdom). As Business News. We were married in wonderful weavings, teaching weav- house in New Hope, Pa., with my it happens, my major occupation at 1960 and have three children, Joan, ing at various local venues, actively wife of 30 years. We are comfortable. this time, coming up on the seventh Linda and Mark ’89, and six grand- blogging (weaverly.typepad.com), We stay in the house much of the anniversary of my retirement from children. Memorial contributions designing weavings and producing time during this pandemic, as we the Department of Family, Popula- may be sent to the National Multiple weaving monographs, not to men- would even without the pandemic. tion & Preventive Medicine at Stony Sclerosis Society.” tion keeping me in line. I bike the neighborhood, go to Brook Medicine, is writing political Our condolences to the family. “I am pursuing my photography grocery stores, listen to music and columns that are regularly published Unfortunately, there will always and have gotten into a few juried so on. I am living almost the same on OpEdNews.com, BuzzFlash.com be deaths to report now that we are shows at the SE Center for Photog- life as I did before the pandemic, but and Writing for Godot on Reader- in our 80s, but please keep send- raphy, which has an international now, because I have to rather than SupportedNews.org. ing news items, as well. As of this reach. I regularly blog my photo- because I choose to. “On the personal side, as some writing no word yet when the class graphs (cameralucidity.wordpress. “Columbia didn’t prepare me to of you know, my dear wife, Chezna luncheons will resume. com) and teach photography at our get all the answers all the time. But,

Winter 2020–21 CCT 51 Class Notes

“I’m a licensed pilot (I own a Pennsylvania. He served on the twin-engine Cessna), play golf and bench by appointment for a 10-year enjoy travel, reading and opera, and term, then sought and won election have the palpable pleasure of watch- to another 10-year term, and there- ing and experiencing my grandchil- after served as a senior judge while dren growing up. also teaching legal studies at Lycom- “In sum, it has been an exhilarat- ing College. Upon his retirement ing adventure. I really believe that from the bench Tom returned to much of my success derived from my private practice, focusing on media- Columbia education. If the saying tion and arbitration. ‘knowledge is power’ has real mean- Tom’s legal experience started ing, Columbia gave us that ‘power’! before he entered the Law School. “I would add one statement: Upon graduation he was commis- The Core Curriculum so honed our sioned as an ensign in the Navy and COURTESY FRANK WILSON ’59 COURTESY minds, giving us such a deep breadth assigned to attend the Naval Justice In summer 1958, the U.S.S. Ranger departed Norfolk, Va., with 200 Naval of knowledge and the wisdom to lis- School, then proceed to the aircraft Reserve officers onboard for a two-month cruise that took it around Cape ten to, evaluate and challenge ideas, carrier U.S.S. Saratoga where, in the Horn. Shown here enjoying some R&R while ashore in Lima, Peru, are that I always considered myself course of his tour of duty, he became (left to right) William Jackson, Shelby Brewer ’59, Sam Tindall ’59, Frank advantaged in almost every aspect of the chief legal officer. Wilson ’59 and Thomas James ’59. life. Columbia wasn’t always fun (we Neil Markee knew Tom well and worked hard at learning), but it still offers his recollections: “Tom was informs me as to who I am!” a classmate, roommate, fraternity still, it was of my best experiences. ultimately selling the business at It is my sad duty to report the brother, fellow lightweight varsity Roar, Lion, Roar.” an inflection point. That experience death of J. Michael Stern GSAS’61 oarsman, fellow naval officer and Herb Stern sent the following to propelled me to other entrepreneur- on August 2, 2020, at Sibley Hospital friend during my time at Columbia his SAM fraternity brothers in 2019 ial ventures, including launching an in Washington D.C. Michael (81) and thereafter. A quite extraordinary for our 60th reunion: “Looking back insurance agency that I eventually peacefully left this world following individual. I think I knew him as on the last 60 years, I’m delighted to sold to Citigroup; a web-based pro- a sudden illness. His beloved wife of well as most. I never had a class with report that I think I have, in a small vider of bookkeeping services that is 60 years, Joyce (née Duran), was at Tom other than naval science. On way, made a ‘difference.’ And, I’ve still flourishing; and an energy stor- his side. I have extracted some words the lightweight crew, seeing how he enjoyed a very full life so far. I have age company that recently landed a from an obituary prepared by his wife was respected and performed, I knew been lucky in business, in love, in life $75 million contract to build renew- for The Washington Post: “Michael from the start he would one day be and in family. My life trajectory, quite able (wind and solar) energy storage held a B.A. and M.A. from Columbia captain if he could afford to stay with different from most of my classmates, pilots that represent the future of University. Commencing with the program. Self-supporting, I was has been the right one for me. our electrical grid. positions in the budget and legisla- broke and left crew after one year to “A few personal highlights. My “What gets me up in the morn- tive branches of the former Health work at Teachers College. He found most important contributions to ing these days? I partnered with my Education and Welfare Department, a better way to manage his finances the world are my three wonderful son-in-law, head of gastroenterol- he developed a distinguished career that allowed him to continue to daughters. My oldest is a cantor ogy at Dartmouth, and a talented in government that included serving row. Junior year, Tom, his brother (providing spiritual comfort) in the team to co-found the pharmaceuti- many years as staff director of the U.S. Bill Raup and I lived in a run-down Boston area, my second is a Ph.D. cal drug development company Senate Finance Committee under residence hotel on Broadway a few civil engineer whose climate model ColonaryConcepts, which is Sen. Russell Long of Louisiana. He blocks south of 116th Street. My informed The Paris Agreement and tackling colorectal cancer screen- later worked as a legislative analyst for younger brother came to visit and the youngest, a teacher, is still at ing with a bold innovation: a meal the Investment Company Institute. remarked, ‘I didn’t know you lived in home raising the two youngest (4 kit that transforms the prep from For over 50 years, Michael was a a slum,’ but it was cheap.” and 6) of my seven grandchildren. a nightmare into a fairly tasty and prominent member of his synagogue, Neil had an opportunity to meet “Life has an unpredictable shape accessible process. We’ve completed Adas Israel Congregation, where he with Tom when both were naval to it. I lost two beloved wives to can- successful Phase 2 clinical trials and Joyce were among the founding officers. “I was the communications cer, but am now blessed with a life and are on the path to secure FDA families of the lay-led prayer service officer aboard a lowly landing ship, partner, with whom I laugh all day approval; we’re also launching Phase called the Adas Israel Havurah.” tank (aka LST) moored to a sea long. I didn’t finish my Columbia 2 trials for a chronic idiopathic May his memory be a blessing. wall in Naples when the impressive studies until 1960. I left school in constipation bar. U.S.S. Saratoga entered port and my senior year for the six-month “I have always been grateful for anchored,” Neil continues. “Tom active duty Army program. After what life offered me and committed 1960 had orders to that ship when he a stint at the Boston University myself to pay back over the last 50 left Columbia. I wasn’t sure he was School of Law, and a dalliance with years. I have served on countless civic Robert A. Machleder still aboard, and I knew there had investment banking, I went to work and philanthropic boards and held [email protected] been a serious fire on the Saratoga. for a red-blooded manufacturer and impactful positions such as president Finding a legitimate communica- found the kind of challenge and of my synagogue and CEO of the As our Fall 2020 column reached tions reason to visit the carrier, I reward that engaged me for decades. Jewish Federation of Greater Rhode the word limit, it ended on an took our ship’s landing craft out to I discovered that I am a ‘doer’! Island. My single greatest satisfac- all-too-brief note that Tom Raup the huge ship, tended to the official I build businesses and manage tion in this arena was building the LAW’66 died on August 30, 2016. reason for my visit and inquired people. I ascended from the shop Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial, a Tom earned distinction as the about junior officer Raup. When I floor to chief operating officer of an public memorial on the waterfront in youngest member of the bar (35) found him, I learned he had been 11-plant, 3,200-person organization, downtown Providence. to be appointed to a judgeship in near the fire but had not been singed

52 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews or otherwise injured. On June 22, Columbia University Medical Center- at the Business School, along with New York Supreme Court, Civil 1963, at the end of his Navy tour, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, then post-graduate studies in long-wave Branch, while continuing to read Tom married Barbara Jean Libby of a four-year practice in North Miami cycles, have possibly given me some books that interest him. His wife, Malibu, Calif., whom he met while Beach, Fla. He and his wife, Sandy, insights that I can pass on to my Phyllis Gelman, continues working his ship was visiting Athens, Greece. whom he has known since high children and grandchild. at her women’s rights and civil I was glad to receive an invitation to school, moved to Westport, Conn., “After the nation survived the rights practice. Their son, Nathaniel, join his wedding party when I got where they raised their two daughters Great Recession, I was relieved, but recently completed his fourth year back to the States. His brother Bill, and son, and where they have lived for concerned that the economic reforms as the supervisor of an Appalachian Claudio Marzollo and I made up 44 years. Larry notes, “I have been an were insufficient in addressing Mountain Club facility in western the male half of his wedding party. orthopedic surgeon in solo practice in inequality and racism in the nation. Massachusetts. Their daughter, Unfortunately, after three years of Norwalk, Conn. For several years I was I never imagined that we would be Anna Gelman, is the administrative sea duty, finding a job, becoming chief of orthopedic surgery at Norwalk led by an unorthodox administra- assistant to the head of information established and getting married, Hospital. I stopped operating six or tion. Covid confirmed my fears that technology at a hedge fund in New I lost contact with Tom and too seven years ago but I have continued unforeseen hardships would change York. Last spring, they participated many other classmates. Years later, to see patients in my office. I have our world and challenge our abil- in a Zoom Seder with Joe Rosen- during a business trip to Penn State, enjoyed doing that and think that ity to correct the mistakes of past stein and his family. Sam wishes our I learned that Tom had become a what I do is worthwhile. I am on staff generations. Globalization increased classmates well in these trying times. judge. Even if his address had been at Norwalk Hospital. In March, with world growth and raised hundreds of Gene Milone has been attending available, ‘dropping in’ that day the need to shelter at home, I began millions of people around the world every virtual conference in sight. He wasn’t an option, a missed opportu- teleconferences with my patients.” out of poverty, but it also enriched says it’s great to participate in meet- nity I now regret.” Regarding other activities that an ‘elite class,’ leaving the majority of ings without having to face the haz- Lee Rosner writes of his chal- he and Sandy have enjoyed, Larry people behind. The path ahead will ards of travel. He is also using robotic lenge in dealing with the pandemic, mentions, “working in children’s be jagged as the world attempts to telescopes and far contacts to get data, and extends his best wishes to all summer camps where I ran water- adjust to the shock of losing $35-plus and using his own cameras and tele- classmates. “On March 5, my co-op front programs. Later we would trillion of GDP growth worldwide; scopes to observe such phenomena as board asked me to head a task force volunteer and spend vacation weeks the GDP growth gap. The Fed is pro- comets and meteor showers. on the coronavirus as it affects our there, where I was camp doctor. In viding liquidity and unprecedented Last August, Gene’s paper on an 430-apartment complex. I was past years we were involved in Jew- amounts of money and credit. On eclipsing binary star in a galactic star able to put together a good team ish community activities locally and the fiscal side, Congress has provided cluster was published in The Astro- of scientists and non-scientists and also with partners in Israel. Sandy more than $3 trillion in funds to keep nomical Journal. This is noteworthy together we began to figure out how has taught in a Brooklyn junior high the economy afloat. More must be in that the modeling of this system to deal with the problem. The chal- school and at Norwalk Commu- done. In the process, federal fiscal took six years to complete, a project lenge for us is that we have many nity College. She continues to be deficits will double or triple in the he says he could not possibly have common areas, including spacious involved with a Bridgeport, Conn., next decade, surpassing the deficits undertaken if he had to face annual lobbies, a gym, a library and a mar- charter school. Through the years we accumulated during WWII. Con- reports to the university and to ket, plus an aging population and a have chartered sailboats, sometimes cerned about the economic outlook, granting agencies. Being emeritus staff of 50. The residents are a very just the two of us, sometimes with I am even more concerned that the has its liberating aspects. sociable group of people and interact friends, often with family, vacation- lack of positive leadership around the Gene has been able to remain in many different ways, making ing in many beautiful places. We world and the deterioration of valued socially distanced and is staying the demands for social distancing look forward to doing that again. I institutions — cultural, judicial, press, healthy, and hopes all classmates are and wearing masks very difficult have a small outboard motor boat government, partisan think tanks and doing the same. on them. Fortunately, we have been and a canoe. Sandy kayaks.” so on — will hamper our attempts to Bob Salman LAW’64 cam- successful in keeping our residents Victor Chang BUS’62 and his reform the future. In long-wave eco- paigned hard for the Biden/Harris safe, but it is a daily struggle. This is wife, Lily, residents of California, nomic theory, it may take a generation ticket and for the reelection of Sen. the most important job of my life. spend several months in New York to correct the wrongs of the past.” Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Con- “My immediate family and to visit family. Victor regularly gressman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.). closest friends are doing well. attended class luncheons. This past On October 21, Bob presented his Unfortunately, some more distant year, their departure for home was 1961 election predictions to the approxi- acquaintances have been sick and aborted when the pandemic and mately 30 classmates who attended one friend in London almost died. “shelter-in-place” order arrived. REUNION 2021 our class’s monthly Zoom meeting. So, I ask all classmates to please be Victor shares, “Lily and I are in Barry McCallion continues to MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) totally cautious.” lockdown in our apartment over- work in the studio making “artist’s JUNE 4–5 (in-person, The passing of Terrence looking the Hudson River. We are books.” His dealer, Priscilla Juvelis, conditions permitting) McNally drew this reflection from doing well despite learning of the displayed his works in a new fall/ Larry Lefkowitz: “I remember Terry passing of our classmates and several Events and Programs Contact winter catalog. Last February, Barry [email protected] from Professor George Nobbe’s close friends. The tragedy of Covid- was interviewed by Francesca Rhean- Development Contact English poetry class. I remember 19 is heartbreaking, yet the blessing non for “Writer’s Voice” and, recently, [email protected] thinking, several times back then, of family and friends keeps us going. Joan Baum (Baum on Books) reviewed that Terry McNally was understand- I take a little time each day to write his treatment of “Beowulf ” for NPR. ing things that I hadn’t processed.” a narrative of how this pandemic Michael Hausig Barry’s wife, Joanne, has been doing Larry recounts his career as an impacts our economy and our his- [email protected] virtual activities such as choraling. orthopedic surgeon: medical school, tory in the future. Columbia gave Barry and Joanne recently had a surgical internship, two years of us an appreciation for the study of Sam Cherniak LAW’80 contin- their 1932 fireplace repaired, after service as an Army surgeon and the ‘humanities and public polices,’ ues to draft judicial decisions as a stalling for years. The mason who an orthopedic surgery residency at and my foundation in economics member of the Law Department, came to repair it was a local. He

Winter 2020–21 CCT 53 Class Notes

problem. That imperative sadly is to Duke University in 1973. I’ve missing from our public discourse. spent my entire career there and am Monthly class luncheons have now the James B. Duke Professor of been replaced temporarily by Zoom Medicine and Biochemistry and an meetings because of the Covid-19 investigator of the Howard Hughes situation. Tony Adler has been set- Medical Institute. My work focuses ting up the meetings. You can expect on receptors for drugs and hormones. an email from Tony about time and My lab’s research has garnered several subject and, if you are interested, awards, including the 2012 Nobel respond to Tony to receive a link to Prize in Chemistry, and I received a the meeting. 2014 John Jay Award for distin- Sadly, John Istvan ’62 passed guished professional achievement. away on September 28, 2020, after “Alas, I have kept up only with a brave and courageous struggle classmates who attended P&S with with esophageal cancer. John fought me and also graduated in 1966: Bart valiantly and passed away peacefully, Nisonson, Dave Tucker, Larry Wil- surrounded by his family. He valued liam and Bernie Patten. Recently I his friendship with his classmates co-authored a light-hearted memoir, over the years and will be missed A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Dr. Jennifer Ashton ’91 (left) and her son, Alex Ashton ’20, at Alex’s greatly. John is survived by his wife, to Stockholm. Classmates might enjoy “faux graduation” on May 14 with her parents, Dorothy Garfein TC’66 Fran, and other members of his fam- this book; it includes three chapters and Dr. Oscar Garfein ’61. ily. Church services were pending on Columbia. at the time I was notified. [Editor’s “Upon graduation I became note: See “Obituaries.”] engaged to my high school girl- walked into the living room, took Amazon. Oscar’s granddaughter, [Editor’s note: As of late October, friend, Arna Zuboff. We married one look at the fireplace and said, “I Chloe, who was supposed to start the Alumni Office is planning Colum- a year later and had three sons and was here as a kid. I remember the her sophomore year at Harvard, bia Reunion 2021 as virtual events two daughters. I’ve seen all grow heart-shaped stone over the mantel. where she plays ice hockey, has Monday, May 24–Thursday, June 3, up, get married and lead fascinating My father, Sebastian Arnold, built taken the year off and is working for and in-person events Friday, June 4– lives, and had the pleasure of know- this fireplace.” a nonprofit and a law firm. Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- ing my six grandchildren. Arna and The son is a second-generation In Oscar’s immediate family, ting. Watch your inbox for more.] I divorced, and in 1991 I married mason, and 11th- or 12th-genera- there are eight Columbia degrees. Lynn Tilley, a Southern Belle — tion East Hamptoner. The memory Oscar continues his small private born and raised in Durham, N.C. — and the tie-in causes each fire to practice in cardiology, still enjoying 1962 whereas I’m from the Bronx.” burn a little brighter. the privilege of caring for people and Alan Barnes writes: “As we Barry and Joanne hope to resume being tremendously upset at what the John Freidin approach a momentous election, I traveling once the pandemic is corporatization of medical care has [email protected] feel hopeful, but anxious. I practice resolved. First on their list is to see done to the tradition of patient care. psychiatry half time and briefly Istanbul again. Dr. Francis W. Peabody in the early Thirty-seven years ago, Dave retired, but didn’t care for it — just Oscar Garfein PS’65, BUS’97 part of the 20th century famously Nachamie was recruited as the first got lazy. My daughter, Alejandra, writes this has been a trying year said that “the secret of the care of urologist in Lincolnton, N.C. He is a physician, certified in internal but a triumphant one as well. His the patient is caring for the patient.” retired in 2017. His late wife was medicine and pediatrics.” family is in good health, although That imperative has gone the way of a political activist whose calls for Mike Charney practices medicine his son Evan (a misguided soul the Dodo and replaced by attention religious and racial tolerance angered full time (infectious disease) and lives who attended Princeton) developed to a corporate bottom line. But, aside many in their community. They had in San Jose, Calif. For most of 2020, Covid-19 in April. A wonderful from some transient orthopedic twins: Deidre, a lawyer in Lincolnton, he treated Covid-19 patients at a story about Evan can be found on problems, Oscar is doing pretty well. and Eric, an administrator for Char- hospital that serves a largely Hispanic goprincetontigers.com. Thankfully Oscar saw Tony Adler in West lotte, N.C. Dave is delighted “how neighborhood. Their incidence of Evan recovered completely and went Palm Beach, Fla., last spring, talks often my cross country and track infection is much higher than the back to work as chief of plastic and with Arnie Intrater occasionally teammates appear in Class Notes state’s average, and their clinical reconstructive surgery at the Bronx’s and, before the shutdown, enjoyed and what good and kind contribu- presentations more serious. Montefiore Medical Center. our monthly class get-togethers with tions they have made. I still race up Larry William purchased a new Oscar’s daughter Jennifer Ashton classmates in NYC, organized by to 10K and train with my twins. In camera and has begun some nude ’91, PS’00, HN’16 had an incredibly Tony. Oscar says he is tremendously 1995 Deidre and I ran the New York photography. “But,” he complains, busy six months as ABC’s chief medi- grateful for the education we received City Marathon. This spring I was “my wife has cramped my style, cal correspondent, on air with Good at Columbia, and mourns the changes surprised to read an article in our insisting I wear at least a jock strap Morning America and now GMA3, wrought by the ill-founded demands local newspaper by Larry Wittner so I don’t scare the models.” most days, as well as extra duty during of “progressive,” so-called “liberal” GSAS’67 about his efforts to clean Some resolutions from Anthony an incredibly busy last two weeks in thought on what he views as the up abuse by the NYC police.” Valerio: “Support my wife’s univer- late September/early October. major gift we got from alma mater in Bob Lefkowitz PS’66 reports, sity teaching, i.e., put myself aside. Jennifer is also a practicing ob-gyn. our day: the power to think. Locke’s “After graduating from P&S and Accept my need for five edits ’stead Alex ’20, Oscar’s grandson, essay on Liberty has never been as doing postgraduate training at of three. Think three times before majored in math/computer science important to remember as nowadays. Columbia University Medical Cen- speaking. Embrace my mates.” and is now gainfully employed as a One has to know both sides of the ter-NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, John Golembe’s wife, Evelyn, software development engineer at question to really understand the the NIH and Mass General, I moved passed away in July 2019 after a

54 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews three-year battle with cancer. They Super Big Boggle and competitions of my parts by being headstrong, of ’63 Virtual Lunch on Zoom. More were married 54 years ago at St. completing the Times’s Mini Cross- careless and perhaps foolish, I am than 35 different classmates have Paul’s Chapel. Since their family and word, we are pleasantly occupied. But active and work full time as a marine joined in during the last few months. friends are so scattered and spring we do worry — and get angry — surveyor. Sometimes I enjoy as many I mentioned this in the Fall 2020 was Evelyn’s favorite season, John about the state of the political affairs as three boat rides in a week. I’m issue’s Class Notes, and the tradition scheduled the celebration of her in our country. We hope the election also an officer in the local Knights of continues. Who ever imagined that life for last April. When Covid-19 will improve things.” Columbus and local United States more than 57 years after graduation, threatened Pittsburgh, they can- In Red Hook, N.Y., Frank Power Squadrons.” we would have a chance to spend an celed. “There is so much uncertainty Stoppenbach enjoyed the beauty Andy Jampoler spent most of hour and a half with classmates each in the world,” John writes. “We don’t of autumn and bumper crops of 2020 obsessing about the state of the week? We hope you will join us — know when to hold the service, but persimmons and paw paws, although Union and the Covid-19-shadowed the conversations are terrific. Simply we surely will.” the deer got most of the persimmons. presidential campaign. “During email me, and I will invite you to the Steve Stein recounts a remark- But he is not enjoying — and has breaks from that enervating pastime, next one. able story: “I don’t know how many many questions about — the lock- I’ve been working on a memoir/his- Bernie Kabak sent me the fol- classmates have had Covid-19, but down, not merely because he can’t tory of the past eight decades, The lowing last April, and I neglected to here’s a survivors’ tale. My wife, visit his grandchildren in Australia: Road to Here. The story begins, as add it in our Summer 2020 or Fall Linda, and I live in Westport, “Was the severity of the pandemic I did, in German-occupied eastern 2020 Class Notes. Sorry, Bernie! Conn., and have recovered from the greatly exaggerated through a math Poland in January 1942 and will “Henry Graff GSAS’49, a coronavirus. We got it in March, error, as suggested in a Cambridge proceed by decades until the present. former chair of Columbia’s history when we knew only that it was in scientific journal? Could the I’m 65,000 words in, with more to department and a recipient of the China, under control and would consequences of lockdown be worse come. When, if ever, done, it’ll be Society of Columbia Graduates’s disappear with the warm weather. than the pandemic? Is the Swedish my ninth book.” Great Teacher Award, died on April “We started with nasty colds — approach better — no lockdown, John Kater failed retirement 7. His obituary in The New York sneezing, congested heads, runny allowing broad immunity to develop and returned to Hong Kong in Times mentions that he ‘rhapso- noses. Then Linda lost taste and — as the decline in cases and deaths February to teach at HKSKH Ming dized about teaching at Columbia.’ smell, and suffered burning discom- there suggests? Why lock down Hua Theological College, where I can attest to his ardor for alma fort in her chest and abdomen. I for this coronavirus, when it seems he’s spent a semester a year for mater’s endowments. Professor felt tired and lousy — chilled to the less deadly than past ones?” Frank more than a decade. “By the time I Graff was my faculty advisor. When bone, shivering, but no fever. Neither believes there wasn’t sufficient inquiry arrived, the virus had overwhelmed I sounded him out about my inter- of us had a cough or shortness of into consequences and options, as months of violent demonstrations. est in spending my junior year at breath. When Linda began running we’d learned to do at Columbia. But I expected to return to the United Hebrew University, he told me to go fevers of 100.5, she qualified for he’s grateful for the medical care that States in June, but by then the if I chose, but not to study history viral testing. I didn’t, because I had made his wife, Kathy, healthy after virus was raging across the U.S. there for credit. As estimable as the neither fever nor chest symptoms! different challenges. so I stayed for another semester. university in Jerusalem was, he just “We had heard ‘Anyone who Dan Stone reports that Manitoba Although sometimes classes had saw Columbia’s history department wants a test can get one.’ But it is doing reasonably well with Covid- to be online or hibernation was as being superior. wasn’t true! Even today, access to 19, although the July days of nearly required, the situation has improved “Given that advice, I stayed put testing depends on where you live, no infections have passed. “We’re enough to allow in-person meetings at Columbia. (I later spent two whether you play professional ball back to restrictions, community and eating out. I am not sorry to be years in Israel, initially as a kibbutz or reside in a White House, or how spread and widespread concern. The 7,000 miles away from the chaos of volunteer during the Yom Kippur bad the outbreak is in your area. first snowfall put an end to lunches the virus and presidential cam- War.) But that was hardly Professor After Linda tested positive, I ran in the park, and my Mark Morris paign. My Hong Kong friends view Graff ’s only influence on me. When temperatures of 103–104.5 for 48 Dance Group has returned to Zoom. America with sadness and disbelief. he saw the boys in his class taking hours despite taking Tylenol. My research would go better if the Many will never visit during the notes with ballpoints, he exhorted “In retrospect, we consider archives were open. But I’m watching current climate of hate. I expected us to use what he called a ‘grownup’ ourselves lucky. We had no respira- wonderful international discussions to return to the U.S. in December, pen: a fountain pen. Having received tory distress and didn’t need oxygen, on Holocaust historiography.” and don’t know when I’ll be able to such a pen (a Sheaffer Snorkel) as ventilators or hospitalization. But Pete Stevenson writes: “Never come back. It will be harder to leave a high school graduation gift, I was recovering was no picnic. Whenever mind the inflammatory charges, than usual.” equipped for a college career of writ- we thought we were healing, fever, the whining and the discord — our Due to CCT’s word limit, I am ing — in means of execution if not fatigue and muscle aches returned. nation’s turmoil boils down to ‘It’s unable to include notes from Larry in literary style — like a grownup. After four weeks we started to feel the economy, stupid!’ In a few days Gaston, Dan Fife, John Garman, “Among the lions of the history like normal 80-year-olds. So what we’ll choose either a financially Russ Abbott and Bob Meyer in department whom Professor Graff have we learned? This not the flu! responsible entrepreneur with a this issue. Their notes will appear in so esteemed was Walter Metzger It’s a nasty, miserable contagion. Do rough persona who will build a the Spring/Summer 2020 issue. GSAS’46. Professor Metzger’s everything possible not to get it! strong economy or a corrupt ‘nice knowledge was vast, yet his standard And old people can survive it!” guy’ whose tax and economic poli- demanded that each student’s paper Richard Toder’s story is different: cies will prolong the corona financial 1963 demonstrate that the writer knew “Luckily my wife, Joan, and I were disaster for decades. So, how do I more about the topic than he did. able to spend the summer in the feel? Worried. Happily, I’m nearly Paul Neshamkin Yikes! I bring his name up here Berkshires, and then a month in New 81 so I won’t be here to endure a bad [email protected] because Professor Metzger’s lectures York. Now we’re happily ensconced in decision. But my four children and were so dense with information and Naples, Fla., where the virus is weaker nine grandchildren will. Every Thursday at 12:30 p.m. Eastern sweeping in concepts that taking than on Florida’s east coast. Between “Nevertheless, I am doing well. Standard Time, about 20 of your notes with a fountain pen proved golf, bridge, reading, vicious games of Despite having broken a number classmates gather for another Class to be a challenge; my pen would

Winter 2020–21 CCT 55 Class Notes

sometimes run out of ink before I two parts, first at the beginning, and footsteps, earning a master’s in piano reference to Steve Shirk, also my could get it all down. then near the end. If this is to your performance and becoming a promi- high school classmate, whose recent “My writing like a grownup did taste, the whole thing is available for nent piano teacher in the Princeton passing I am sad to report. not end with my Columbia years; free online: bit.ly/2KCzIF8.” area, and now also studying com- “For decades a teacher at the it became a lifetime praxis. During Nick Zill asks, “How do politi- munity organization at the Rutgers American School of Paris, subse- my career, I worked in offices close cians get away with telling lies about School of Social Work. Jeff married quently retired and living in a small to the World Trade Center. Happily, their accomplishments or blatantly a lovely Russian woman who started town nearby — when he wasn’t on nearby was a shop — an uncommon exaggerating the effectiveness of out studying physics in Moscow, one of his regular global jaunts — enterprise not many cities could government programs? Answer: then earned an M.B.A. here, and Steve was an endless source of good sustain but which you’d sort of expect They do so because many members since then has been holding respon- jokes, political cartoons and song to find in New York — the Fountain of the public, young and old, are not sible State Department positions as parodies, but informed his many Pen Hospital. The shop not only did very knowledgeable about national they travel around the world. Mostly email contacts last August that he repairs but also sold fountain pens, issues. Please read my latest blog because of Jeff, we have traveled was hospitalized with a ‘dominant displayed in vitrines like jewels. As I post for the Institute for Family to the far corners of the world, to right hand not working ... probably write, the Fountain Pen Hospital is Studies, ‘Political Awareness Begins places far off the tourist circuit: of neurological origin.’ closed, a victim of the coronavirus. At Home’: bit.ly/2UV7Rlk. As well Georgia, Tajikistan, El Salvador, “Turned out to be a brain tumor, Will it reopen? Well, it lived through as documenting the general lack of Guatemala and the Philippines. which he said was responding to 9-11, rode out the onslaught of word awareness, it shows how political “All of them are places well worth radiation and chemo, and he was quite processing and emails, and survived knowledge relates to the frequency knowing, despite the bad press optimistic. But, still under treatment, the menace of social media. There is of parent-child conversations about some of them have had in recent he died suddenly in his sleep, accord- reason to hope.” national issues; the frequency of years, with interesting histories ing to a nephew, Ben Wildavsky, to [Editor’s note: See Graff ’s obituary reading newspapers, but not to and friendly, interesting people. whom one can send condolences online in the Summer 2020 issue watching news on television; and the In my retirement I am hoping to and get more information (ben. “Around the Quads”: bit.ly/3lb1Njz.] type of schools to which students go read more on the histories of these [email protected]), and who will If any of you realize that I failed to and the courses they take.” places. Suzanne married a fabulous be arranging a Zoom memorial.” publish your note, please let me know! Paul Lehrer sent in a great, guy who now is associate registrar Rest in peace, Steve. Robert Shlaer writes, “You said in long Class Note through the CCT at Princeton University, after also [Editor’s note: See “Obituaries.”] the Fall 2020 issue that you wanted website (college.columbia.edu/cct/ working for a while at Columbia Once the pandemic is over and to hear what people have been up to submit_class_note). Rather than edit and earning a master’s there. We you’re back in NYC, you can recon- during the Covid-19 incarceration, so it, I will include part now and the have five beautiful grandchildren nect with classmates at our regular here is my contribution: rest in the Spring/Summer issue. between the ages of 10 and 17. second Thursday class lunches at “I have for the last few years been “It is hard to imagine, but my “My academic career was the Columbia Club (we will still piping a welcome for the Santa Fe wife, Phyllis, and I have been living influenced in a major way by the gather at the Princeton Club). I’m Traditional Music Festival, which is in New Jersey for 50 years as of Psychology 101 course I took at a pessimist but hoping we might be always the last weekend in August last September. After earning a Columbia with the great Professor able to meet again by February 11, at Camp Stoney, along the Santa Fe bachelor’s in sociology and psychol- Fred Keller. Those who took the and then on March 11 and April 8. Trail in the foothills of the Sangre ogy and then a doctoral degree in course will remember that it was In any case, we will continue to meet de Cristo Mountains and just a clinical psychology, from Harvard, entirely about operant conditioning, virtually on Zoom every Thursday at 20-minute drive from my house. and after working for a few years in where each of us were encouraged to 12:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Last year the gathering was impos- Boston, I came to Rutgers Univer- teach our rats to do something spe- Just email me for an invitation. sible, so the festival board decided to sity as a fledgling assistant professor cial. I never particularly liked rats, In the meantime, please let us create a virtual one, and all the par- in the psychology department in but I got interested in applying this know what you are up to, how you’re ticipants submitted their own videos 1970. After two years I moved to knowledge to helping people with doing and what’s next. Stay safe! for incorporation. My playing is in the psychiatry department of what emotional problems, so I became was then called Rutgers Medical one of the early practitioners and School, now Rutgers Robert Wood researchers in the discipline now 1964 Johnson Medical School, where I called cognitive behavior therapy.” became professor and taught for the Late last summer I learned of Norman Olch next 48 of my 50 years at Rutgers. the deaths of Paul Reale and Jeff [email protected] Phyllis and I have lived in the same Thompson. Paul was recently small bedroom community halfway mentioned in our Class Notes. He I am writing this note on the last between Princeton and New Bruns- had been going through a produc- weekend before Election Day. New wick all this time, so I could easily tive musical period in the past year, coronavirus infections across the Contact CCT commute to Rutgers and Phyllis to even as his health declined. Jeff was country are almost 100,000 per day, Princeton, where she was a professor a fraternity brother and good friend, and epidemiologists are forecasting Update your address, of piano at Westminster Choir Col- and had been a semi-regular at our that the worst is still ahead of us. In email or phone; submit a lege, now Westminster College of lunch meetings. I had no idea that my last two columns I expressed the Class Note, new book, the Arts at Rider University. Both of he was in declining health and I am hope that when they are published photo, obituary or Letter to us retired from our academic posi- shocked and saddened by his death. society’s lot will have improved. tions last June. Rest in peace. While that has not come to be, I the Editor; or send us an “Along the way we had two [Editor’s note: See Fall 2020 hope that when this column is pub- email. Click “Contact Us” at beautiful children, Jeffrey SIPA’94, “Obituaries.”] lished the situation will be better. David Alpern Ivan Weissman, college.columbia.edu/cct. who now serves as a foreign service forwarded more in New York officer for USAID, and Suzanne, sad news: “Just got the Fall 2020 City, writes what I imagine many of who has followed in her mother’s CCT and see Richard Tuerk’s us have been thinking: “What my

56 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews kids are experiencing now reminds from Avenza Maps on your iPhone. development at a 350-lawyer firm in Ira Jaffe SOA’67, professor me every day of how great our It’s free to Columbia grads (and New York City; her foray into pro emeritus at the University of New Columbia experience was and how everyone else, too). bono immigration work with asy- Mexico, where he founded the lucky we were. Can you imagine “I’m looking forward to our next lum-seekers from Central America Department of Cinematic Arts & how sad it would have been to be reunion, in 2024; meanwhile I’m has given her a new and different Media Arts, has written many books deprived of those in-person scintil- hoping Norman Olch will move the perspective on what lawyers can do and scholarly articles on film. His lating lectures by inspiring instruc- monthly luncheon from restaurant for others, and my stepson Vincent, essay about Romanian filmmaker tors like Walter Metzger GSAS’46; to Zoom so I can catch up with a Pulitzer Prize-winning photog- Cristian Mungui appeared in a James Shenton ’49, GSAS’54; some of you in real time.” rapher (while with The New York special cinema issue of The Roma- Joseph Rothschild; Zbigniew Brzez- Steve Case writes from the Times), recently began to work for nian Journal of European Studies in inski; Henry Graff GSAS’49; and so nation’s capital: “Late last Febru- Apple after consulting with Apple December. Since 2007, Mungui has many others? We all know the thrill ary, just ahead of the pandemic, my for years regarding its cameras and been awarded the Palme d’Or, Best of learning would not have been wife, Margaret, and I cruised for photo systems. Thankfully all love Director and Best Screenplay at the anywhere near the same through a two weeks in Australia and New their work; sadly only Vincent (via Cannes Film Festival. The Journal is computer screen. Zealand. Various on-board speakers his prize) has a connection with distributed in the United States by “That’s what my wife Jane’s and were, surprisingly to me, very low Columbia, except for an occasional Columbia University Press. my kids are experiencing now. Julia on Winston Churchill, accusing football game where you might have Finally, I continue to do my legal is in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., for her him of having drawn military away seen my grandchildren cheering on work at home, with only a rare trip to junior year at Skidmore College, from homes there to fight Gen. the Lions — always to a win (don’t the office. I had my first remote oral but her classes are all online. And Erwin Rommel in North Africa. tell them that they don’t always win). argument on Microsoft Teams before Jesse’s final year of classes at NYU Churchill, they said, had promised “I work full time for recording a panel of appellate judges. I enjoy Law School are also remote. Sad to the Australian and New Zealand artists and songwriters and have being in the courtroom but I think I see young people deprived of such a Army Corps all the protection they developed a niche practice in which caught a glimpse of the future. I take wonderful aspect of school.” would ever need from Hong Kong I assist creators or their heirs to breaks with walks in Central Park — Bernard Catalinotto checks and Singapore, which of course recapture U.S. copyrights that the masked and socially distant. in from California: “Greetings to evaporated quickly in December creators might have sold decades Stay in touch. Your classmates the Class of ’64 from the left coast. 1941. They said their only salvation ago. A fairly obscure provision of want to hear from you. This note Since the highs and lows of my four was the U.S. military forces sent the U.S. copyright law allows this to will appear around mid-January. I years at Columbia with you, I’ve had there early in 1942, i.e., the units the surprise and financial rescue for wish all of you and your loved ones a an adventurous life, two or three that almost immediately went into these creators and, more often than Happy New Year and Good Health, careers, a wonderful family, two chil- action on Guadalcanal and so on. not, their widow(er)s and surviving Peace, Joy and Prosperity. dren — one of whom is a Columbia “Owing to Covid-19, I, like children. My article Re-capturing the grad and the other of whom is in everyone else, have been laying low Family’s Literary Jewels: Termina- med school — and most excitingly, here in the Washington, D.C., area. tion of Copyrights was published 1965 a new grandchild, Hannah, who I enjoy working with my co-director, in October in Delaware Lawyer. I lives with her parents in San Rafael, Gene Meyer, on the board of the lecture and write as much as I can Leonard B. Pack Calif., a few miles north of our Washington Independent Review of to educate trusts and estates lawyers [email protected] house in Mill Valley. Of course, with Books. Check out this outfit on the and others on this once-in-a-life- Covid-19 raging around us, I only internet for great stuff on books! time opportunity to convert a trickle Joel Berger (joelberger1955@ get to babysit while social distanc- Also, the book group in D.C. with, of royalties into a huge annuity yahoo.com) recently published ing — with mask, gloves and shield among others, Dave Levine, Jack for them and their heirs. Among a law review article, “Reforming while she sleeps in the stroller, but Ventura, Barry Shapiro, Marty the copyrights that have been the the NYPD and Its Enablers Who we feel very lucky to live close by. Blank ’65, Neil Silver ’65 and Elliot subject of these terminations are Thwart Reform.” The citation will “The adventure continues: In Singer is always good. Our leader (via the soundtrack of our age group’s be: 55 New England Law Review 1. 2019, my wife, Roberta, and I visited Zoom) is Professor Pat Grieve from lifetimes: ‘What Now My Love,’ Read it online: bit.ly/3eQLW82. the birthplaces of my grandparents the Columbia humanities faculty. ‘Let It Be Me,’ ‘Hang On Sloopy,’ According to Joel, “This is pretty and great-grandparents in western Last summer she led us through all ‘Come a Little Bit Closer,’ a slew of much my swan song. After nearly Sicily, and old friends in Rome. Since 900 pages of Cervantes’s Don Quixote ‘Philadelphia Sound’ songs includ- 30 years of monitoring the NYPD, last year it’s all Zoom, all the time. (great read!). In the fall we finished ing ‘I’ll Be Around (I’ll Be There)’ first as an executive at the NYC Every Monday I lead a French chat fascinating selections from Herodo- and ‘Somebody Loves You (Baby),’ Corporation Counsel’s office with session for an hour; Thursday it’s Ital- tus. We move next to revisit that old and even the 1960s songs made access to secret documents not gen- ian. Let me know if you’d like to join. war horse, Hamlet.” famous by The Hollies (remember erally made available to the public, “Every Wednesday I meet with Peter Thall reports from Con- ‘Carrie Anne’?), all co-written by and then after learning additional my three colleagues on the leadership necticut on his children and his Graham Nash. I, too, have recently NYPD secrets while litigating team of our local grassroots organiza- efforts to help the families of those expanded my understanding of what federal civil rights cases against the tion, Mill Valley Community Action who wrote the pop music of the lawyers can do for others. agency, I wanted to tell the public Network, which we’ve grown from ’50s: “My youngest child, Sophie, “The most difficult news of the everything I know about the NYPD scratch to 1,500 members all work- recently married, virtual-style. She is past months, other than dealing with and the many city agencies that ing — and donating — to keep our in charge of product development at Covid-19, is that my brother-in-law assist the NYPD in covering up the democracy a democracy. Laura Mercier, a cosmetics division of Seymour Hendel ’53 passed away in misdeeds of its officers. Much of the “In my spare time I’m trying to Shiseido, having spent some years at October. But for him, I would not article describes events and policies monetize my patent. It’s related to NARS, another division, and [makeup have attended Columbia, been such that are not generally known even mapping, and you can get a taste of artist] Pat McGrath’s start-up. a rooter for its value to the world or to experts in the field but need to it by downloading the Mill Valley “My oldest, Emily, a lawyer, is probably even become a lawyer.” be known at this critical time when Community Map Book Bundle head of marketing, PR and business [Editor’s note: See “Obituaries.”] so many activists are demanding

Winter 2020–21 CCT 57 Class Notes

changes. At 76, I am semi-retired in a burning house. Democracy is in in the story. I made him into a foster since 1966. Neill Brownstein has with a small caseload, and my goal is grave danger. We have a madman in child who ran away from his foster taken over the organization of the certainly not to achieve any renown the White House, an emperor with parents and is looking for his real par- Reunion Committee, with help from in academia. I simply want the pub- no clothes who has either bought ents. I also had ‘Eddie’ and his mother the Alumni Office, and he is an lic to know what I know and use it off or terrorized the entire Repub- having a real relationship, which is organizational miracle. to press for the most necessary and lican party. Maybe the dilemmas of developed in the play. I avoided look- “Like many, I am on house arrest comprehensive reforms.” modern life are just too complicated ing at Sophocles until I had finished. until the vaccine comes in. But what I noticed that Joel had a Letter for people to understand. How could Then I was amazed to see how much a wonderfully stimulating time. I to the Editor published in the anybody vote for a man who puts my version resembled the original. So, have three book discussion groups September 14, 2020, issue of The babies in cages and ships children it was there all the time. It really grew that are becoming pretty darn eru- New Yorker responding to an article away from their families to countries out of my experiences as a psycholo- dite. Talk and walks are the greatest on police unions. Read it online: where they have no families? The gist working with poor kids in Har- institution in America, and I have bit.ly/3pgv7YW. Trump phenomenon has shown us lem and the South Bronx, Bed-Stuy put together eight of them per week. Michael Cook (michael.cook@ how a Mussolini or a Hitler could and the Lower East Side.” Lovely Zoom meetings with people srz.com), an omnivorous reader, noti- win an election. American democracy Derek Wittner had another I love. Plus, the University of Texas fied me, “You should know that Niles — Lincoln’s ‘last best hope of Earth’ letter published in The New York law school, where I continue to teach, Eldredge GSAS’69 got positive — was painfully won at the cost of Times, this one responding to an has quite fine presentations. I exist to notice in the recent book A Dominant tremendous suffering and lives lost: op-ed on reopening colleges safely the world in general only digitally.” Character: The Radical Science and Black, white, Native American, Asian during the pandemic. Read it online: Phil Goldstein shares, “I wish to Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldane, by et al. Now Trump and his lackeys are nyti.ms/3eQXY16. remember my friend Paul Nyden, Samanth Subramanian, the compel- dismantling it, brick by brick. who passed away a number of years ling biography of Haldane, a famous “I hate to end on such a gloomy ago. He became a college professor British geneticist. According to the note. The good news is that I have 1966 and then a newspaper reporter active book, Niles and Stephen Jay Gould become a playwright. The Ballad of in support of coal miners.” had confirmed one of Haldane’s Eddie and Jo, a modern reimagin- REUNION 2021 Neill Brownstein writes: “Paul J. early theories. I had the privilege of ing of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, Cronin is an honorary member of MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) working with Niles as kitchen help had a three-week Actors’ Equity the Columbia Classes of 1965-1966- JUNE 4–5 (in-person, at what was then known as Johnson Association Showcase in NYC in 1967-1968-1969-1970 via his extraor- conditions permitting) Hall almost 60 years ago.” 2010. Turns out some old Greek dinary 10-episode documentary, A I add that Niles had a great set beat me to it. He was very talented Events and Programs Contact Time to Stir, which captures the emo- [email protected] of reminiscences in CCT Online’s guy, I have to admit. The Private Life tions, actions and events at Columbia Development Contact “Take Five”: bit.ly/38xWzeV. of Jesus Christ had a one-week run 50-plus years ago. A must-view! Paul [email protected] Space limitations forced me to in Vancouver a few years ago. It is shared the link: atimetostir.com; the defer the concluding portion of another reimagining: This time we password for all chapters is ‘atime David Sard’s submission in the Fall see Jesus as an adolescent arguing Columbia College Today tostir’ (one word; no quote marks).” 2020 issue. Here it is: “The Covid-19 with his parents — Mr. and Mrs. [email protected] Neal H. Hurwitz writes: “I am crisis has spared me for the most God — because he wants to go off very pleased to be a member of the part. My relatives are OK. I work on his own and try his hand at sav- Michael Garrett writes: “We have Class of ’66 55th Reunion Com- from home using Zoom. My son ing a planet in distress. His parents a large and growing Reunion Com- mittee with Neill Brownstein, Tom and I leave the house to shop for think he’s too young. After a lot of mittee to plan virtual, in-person and Brunner et al., and to pledge for the groceries and to walk around our talk about good and evil and other mixed-format events for our 55th John Jay Associates. neighborhood in West Orange, N.J. heavy stuff, they let him go. I also reunion, depending on conditions in “I am happy to see classmates The state of American politics is have a bunch of sketches, mostly the late spring. Staying healthy, sane, making donations to the College. terrifying. I feel as though I am living comic. My favorite is about a ghost relevant, busy and safe in our mid- “I have benefited greatly by my who comes for psychotherapy. 70s is a vastly different undertaking connections to Columbia, including “I would love to hear from than it was in our 40s, and we aspire Project Double Discovery; Friends Columbia friends. I apologize for to convene a fair portion of the class of SNCC; the lightweight football having neglected you: Niles, Lenny, to compare notes on our impressive squad (I’ll always remember and TZ, Richard, Ken, Ralph, Chris, abilities to do so in these politically hold in high regard the leadership CCT Tom Harrold Greg, Neal and Steve. I did have disastrous, Covid-19-ridden, socially there of QB !); and all HAS MORE some great teachers, whom I think unstable times. We will also look the fine professors. My experiences about frequently. I was moved to see back, through light blue-colored and learning on the Ad Hoc Faculty ONLINE that Howard McP. Davis was hon- glasses, at our time at Columbia, and Negotiating Committee (as the STORIES ored [with a professorship; read about then forward through its extraordi- youngest there) in ’68 are reflected it online: bit.ly/32DkYfr]. ‘Gladly nary current transformation. in the book A Time to Stir: Columbia THAN EVER! would he learn, and gladly teach.’” “To join the Reunion Commit- ’68 (2018), edited by Paul J. Cronin. I asked Dave what effect our tee, email me at michaelgarrett@ “I worked with Alan F. Westin at READ WHAT’S NEW AT reading of Oedipus Rex in first-year earthlink.net.” his Center for American Liberties, college.columbia.edu/cct Humanities had on him and his play. Calvin H. Johnson writes, “I and helped Dr. Bob Liebert (Mark He answered, “I’m sure Oedipus Rex drafted a survey for the class, with Rudd ’69’s ‘shrink’) with Radical was resonating in many ways in my many hands also lifting it up. It and Militant Youth: A Psychoanalyti- CCT unconscious when I wrote The Ballad is based on a Yale reunion survey cal Inquiry (1971). Same with Spec of Eddie and Jo. The funny thing is that provoked good conversations. editor Jerry Avorn ’69 et al., on Up I was under the delusion that I was You should have received it. Do fill Against the Ivy Wall: A History of the making some fundamental changes it out, so we can all evaluate life Columbia Crisis.

58 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews

“My greatest regret is the death sion is erasing the emails that tell look. To celebrate his life as I knew it Development Financial Institutions in summer ’62 of C. Wright Mills, me someone else has looked at an I wrote an illustrated memoir, posted Movement, the definitive history with whom I was set to learn from academic paper I published years on my blog: wp.me/a8pbTM-vy. of a movement I helped create. and work. That sad event changed the ago about conflict resolution. My “It was the third memoir of a dear These days, living with my editor/ course of my life, as I switched from 1989 book of poems has stopped departed friend I assigned myself author wife, Elayne Archer, I’m my first love, history, to public law and selling on Amazon, so I am working to write in the past two years, and contemplating a second edition of government, but with the fine cast of on a memoir that puts those poems the last, I hope, for a good while. my book and longing for an end to Julian Franklin GSAS’60; Herbert and a bunch of newer ones in the These I wrote because I grieved, but the pandemic so I can help babysit Deane ’42, GSAS’53; Alan Westin; context of my family’s Holocaust most of what I write is different. I’m our one and only granddaughter. and Mark Kesselman; and at GSAS, background and my personal approaching a sort of closure on my Thankfully, I’m still in touch with with Ira Katznelson and Roger struggles as I lived my life. Alex second novel, which is tightly inter- lifelong friends Phil Myers, Frank Hilsman, who appointed me his TA. Auerbach, who has been a reliable woven with the plot and characters Mirer, Dan Gover, Gene Fierman “I miss those faculty friends now friend these many years, has kindly of my 2018 thriller, Turkey Shoot: and Ken Fox, among others.” gone: Deane; Westin; Hilsman; offered to edit my ungrammatical He Might Not Be the Terrorist You Walter Metzger GSAS’46; Terry prose and translate it into compre- Expected. Authoring keeps me from Hopkins; Manny Wallerstein ’51, hensible English. sinking into total despair watch- 1967 GSAS’59; and Marshall Shulman “I have kept in intermittent touch ing my country and planet stumble SIPA’48, GSAS’59. with friends from my Citizenship into disorder and pestilence. It also Albert Zonana “Recently I have had the pleasure Council days, including Alex, Steve keeps me sane in isolation, though [email protected] of reconnecting with great Colum- Weinberg, Dan Friedlander and I’ve not had to change much of my bia QB and famed cardiologist Dr. Jim Rosenberg. Reunions for the housebound lifestyle to avoid the Joseph Solodow writes: “Seven Archie Roberts ’65. His Living Double Discovery Center renewed pandemic. My spouse of 24 years, years into retirement from Southern Heart Foundation also works with my friendships with Roger Lehecka Aygül, works half-remotely at MIT, Connecticut State University, I’m the NFL. ’67 and Helen Stambler Neuberger and daughter Deniz the same at the still working, though part-time. I “We are living in very strange BC’66. Mike Leibowitz, Mark University of Vermont in Burlington. teach one advanced Latin course at times. Please find me on Facebook Berger, Neal Hurwitz and Frank “Three days from now we’ll have Yale every semester. Focused chiefly at Neal Hugh Hurwitz, and on Guerra still answer my emails, but an election. The best I can hope for on teaching, and still devoting some LinkedIn at Neal H. Hurwitz.” I have essentially lost contact with is for it to do no new harm and gen- time to research and writing, I’m Joseph Albeck shares: “My childhood friends, including Phil erate momentum for healing what’s enjoying an unbeatable professional memories of the Class of ’66 remain Cohen and Alex Nacht GS’74. I been fractured. life. My partner, Laura Harris, and vivid and warm. A few years have miss contacts with those classmates “Find what I’ve been up to at I shuttle, or rather, used to shuttle, indeed passed since we last met, but I understand are no longer among perfidy.press, and my general take on between Connecticut and New York. the pictures in the 1966 Columbian I the living. things at progressivepilgrim.review. For us, who are exceptionally for- Please say hey on a contact form or tunate, the epidemic has been little drop a line to [email protected], more than a mild inconvenience. I and stay very well and totally sane.” hope you can all say the same.” Joseph Albeck ’66 is working on a memoir that will Cliff Rosenthal GSAS’69 writes: George Farkas is the Distin- include new poetry about his family’s Holocaust “I’m now in the late stages of my guished Professor of Sociology at third or fourth career. I stayed on UC Irvine. In 2020 he was awarded experiences; Alex Auerbach ’66 will be his editor. campus after graduation to complete the Willard Waller Award from the an M.A. in Russian history and pass American Sociological Association my orals. Instead of a dissertation, for career achievement. His research with a colleague I discovered, edited focuses on reducing educational review periodically are still the same. “If Gary Kopf, George DiGia- and translated Russian revolutionary inequality. He and his wife, Judy I have known a couple of you since cinto, Paul Ehrlich, Alan Gilmore, memoirs from the Populist movement. Kaufman, recently celebrated their elementary school in Manhattan, Fred Hyman and Glenn Sandberg, I supported myself as a freelance 10th wedding anniversary. “As a kid but have not been as good at keep- or any other classmates, care to Russian translator while I became a from Queens, I feel lucky to be liv- ing in touch as I should. renew contact, my email is jhalbeck@ food co-op organizer for American ing in SoCal,” George says. “My current update includes me.com. Best regards to all.” Indian and later migrant farmworker Arnold Eggers PS’71 retired as having retired from the practice of Geoffrey Dutton shared news organizations, until I found my endur- a professor of neurology at SUNY psychiatry in Boston two years ago; of a passing: “Many fellow alums ing passion: credit unions. For 30-plus Downstate Medical Center in 2018 so I spend much of my time playing don’t know we lost Steve Lesser years I ran a national association for he could write a book on the neurosci- doubles tennis and babysitting my to degenerative disease in mid- anti-poverty minority credit unions- ence of stress, which came out last four grandchildren and two step- 2019. Steve was a well-regarded financial cooperatives. year. His daughter lives in England great-grandchildren. Our three chil- architect in East Hampton, whom “At the ripe old age of 67, I set off and is a teacher. His son is at home dren and their progeny live nearby. at Columbia, and then at Harvard, for Washington, D.C., to establish doing Columbia College online. My wife, Isabelle, who retired from was a roommate. We were best men the Office of Financial Empow- David Galinsky recently stepped teaching a few years before me, does at each other’s first weddings. Steve erment in Elizabeth Warren’s down as the medical director of the the same. The tennis outdoor season leaves his lovely wife, Celia Jacobsen, brainchild, the Consumer Financial Pennsylvania Department of Aging, is over, and respect for Covid-19 will and their talented offspring: Allie, Protection Bureau. “which was my first retirement gig keep us away from indoor venues. It a musician; Emma, an artist; and “Back in Brooklyn, I’ve spent after a career as a geriatrician.” He also kept us from visiting our former Jon ’17, SIPA’20, a math major. I’ll the last half-dozen years resist- says he has almost finished reading all home in France last summer. always remember Steve for his broad ing retirement as a consultant and the Lit Hum books that he never got “Other than taking courses for welcoming smile, human-centered writer, producing Democratizing around to during freshman year and seniors at Brandeis, my only diver- approach to design and humane out- Finance: Origins of the Community still can’t believe that he graduated.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 59 Class Notes

Don Morris lives with his wife, Medicine (London) and the follow- Tom Blinn earned a doctorate in successful and happy adults now, Carole Lee, in Cheyenne, Wyo. He ing year was chosen as an Inaugural college teaching of statistics from bringing me contentment and joy retired from part-time radio work Fellow of the American Society Teachers College and worked in every day, and thrice on Sundays, I last spring and spent last summer for Bone and Mineral Research. computer systems at Digital Equip- can’t complain, and I don’t.” and early fall biking, gardening and “During Covid-19 lockdown, I have ment, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard. Daniel Raybin is a practicing umpiring baseball while wearing a remained active collaborating with After taking early retirement in 2005 physician, specializing in pulmo- mask. Two of their three children have a lab at the Karolinska Institute in he survived a double coronary artery nary/critical care and occupational purchased homes a few blocks away. Stockholm. I also do a lot of writing bypass. He lives in Amherst, N.H., lung disease, and has lived in San Marty Andrucki is in his final and reviewing. Personally, I use my with his wife, Susan, and cat, Chloe. Francisco since 1982. He works at year of teaching at Bates College, time carting my grandchildren to Arthur Guffanti GSAS’75 works a teaching community hospital and where after 46 years he is now the school, karate lessons and electric remotely for the Icahn School of also teaches at UCSF and Stanford. senior member of the faculty and guitar lessons,” Gordon writes. Medicine at Mount Sinai, screen- His wife, Sue, is a retired pediatri- the Charles A. Dana Professor of Manuel Reyes-Otálora retired ing applicants to determine if they cian and now artist and amateur Theater. Until the pandemic, Marty in 2013 as managing partner of an should receive an interview. He archaeologist. Daniel takes archaeo- was set to direct his 55th, and final, architectural firm in Miami. He now tends to his vegetable garden and is logical trips, and reads Japanese production at Bates, Antigone, enjoys being an artist and living in still eating produce from it. novels, Latin-American literature in November. He is now teach- Carpinteria, Calif. Richard Strassberg teaches and recreational mathematics. ing dramatic literature, including David Rubin retired in 2016 as math at FIT, now virtually from the Marshall Clough retired from Antigone, remotely. For the past dean emeritus and professor at the Lower East Side. the history department of the 20 years, Marty has taken students S.I. Newhouse School of Public David Schiff GSAS’74 retired in University of Northern Colorado to Budapest to study the politics Communications at Syracuse 2019 from teaching music at Reed in 2010, after 35 years. He has been of Central European theater and University. He and his wife, Tina, College and reports, “Reed pre- working on a memoir of his mother, film. Three of his plays have been built a house in Summerville, S.C., sented three concerts of my music in a Foreign Service wife and volunteer produced in Maine. With his wife, near Charleston. He spends time spring 2019, and recent commis- with the YWCA, who passed away Judy; son, Max ’99; occasionally reading, playing the piano, walking with Mark Minton and Bill Simon; his Shetland Sheepdog, Archie, and and regularly with Rey Buono, exercising, and is an active member Marty enjoys their island getaway in of the Democratic Party. Justin Malewezi ’67 has had a celebrated career Jeff Kluger: Penobscot Bay. “My wife, Virginia, in Malawi, East Africa, including being an Sin Ming Shaw: “Hong Kong and I have been married for 40 effectively ceased to be an autono- years and have a beautiful grandson, Independent Member of Parliament. mous polity effective July 1, 2020, who lives locally. Our family owns when the Chinese Communist Hartford Baking Co., and when I Party (CCP) imposed a National am not delivering bread, I work as a Security Law that covers a wide physician educator and electrophysi- sions for a symphony and a violin in Shanghai in March 1950, at the range of punishable crimes for any ologist in Hartford, Conn., where concerto keep me fully occupied in end of the Chinese Civil War, just Hong Kong resident. The NSL is I direct the Cardiology Fellow- my studio. My wife, Judy, and I look before the family was going to leave draconian. It covers ill-defined con- ship Program at UConn Hartford forward to seeing our children and the new Communist China. cepts as acts of secession, subversion, Hospital. I will be forever grateful grandchildren in a non-virtual mode Joel Klaperman retired several terrorism and collusion with foreign for my education at Columbia on a once that is again possible.” years ago from Shearman & or external forces. A writer such Pulitzer Scholarship, which helped Brant Fries retired in 2018 as Sterling, after more than 30 years of as myself writing articles critical me achieve my current success.” emeritus professor of public health practicing corporate law, and now of the CCP could easily fall under Justin Malewezi has had a cel- and geriatrics at the University of lives with his wife, Renee, in Bucks one or more of these categories. ebrated career in Malawi, including Michigan. He continues to develop County, Pa. Beijing has now stationed its own as a teacher of biology, a headmas- better ways to assess vulnerable indi- Paul Czarzasty practices family security personnel in Hong Kong ter, the chief education officer for viduals, including those aging with dentistry in Waterbury, Conn. to monitor any ‘anti-China’ acts or Malawi, head of several ministries as mental or intellectual disabilities, Bob Costa and his wife, Joan, ‘agents of foreign influence.’ I have principal secretary in the Govern- and to use the information gathered enjoy retirement in Naples, Fla., and stopped writing for publication and ment Civil Service, VP of Malawi for to improve quality of care and set Rhinebeck, N.Y. They say they miss am living in an Orwellian society. 10 years and finally an Independent governmental policy. Columbia sports and events, and We are reminded the CCP is always Member of Parliament for five years. Steve Zimmerman is a retired traveling, especially to visit daughter watching for ‘subversive’ activities. He retired in 2009 and lives near attorney. He and his wife teach Carolyn ’12 in Los Angeles. Other than that, life in Hong Kong Lilongwe, with his wife, Felicity. about Alzheimer’s as volunteers, play John Cregor: “Like those in the seems ‘normal.’” Josh Leinsdorf writes, “I’ve been chess online, read for pleasure and rest of the country, maybe the world, Gordon Klein retired from the translating Regarde-toi qui meurs, watch Netflix. we in Hawaii are pretty much tread- Department of Pediatrics at the une femme dans la guerre (Look at Marty Goldstein reports, “Three ing water waiting for this pandemic University of Texas Medical Branch you who die, a woman in war), by good kids, four cool grandkids and to pass and hoping to be among the in 2009 and spent time traveling Brigitte Friang.” some career success as a writer, win- survivors. Then we shall see what and lecturing around the world. He Jonathan Kranz lives in Astoria, ning the Writers Guild Award for sort of a world we are living in.” continued his work on bone and Queens, and works for a small real my role in the 1986 television movie Jenik Radon: “I presented at muscle loss following burn injury estate company specializing in Unnatural Causes.” Along with many William & Mary Law School: and identified the mechanism by buying, selling and managing fitness years in the film business, Marty Colmar, the Surprising Answer to U.S. which bone loss induces muscle loss. clubs. He also teaches political sci- has been teaching at Santa Monica Foreign Policy for a Democratic World. In 2017 he was made an Overseas ence part time at CUNY John Jay College for 21 years and plans to I explained why ‘united we stand, Fellow of the Royal Society of College of Criminal Justice. continue. “With my children all divided we fall,’ embodying the age-

60 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews old wisdom of the New Testament, “The combination of Covid-19 daughter Evelyn ’00 and her family, book is The Splendid and the Vile, a John Dickinson, Patrick Henry, plus the horrendous wildfires this from Patterson, N.Y., joined the terrific account of Churchill’s leader- Abraham Lincoln and Winston season have been a one-two punch crowd. So, with little room left in ship during the Blitz. Really enjoyed Churchill, needs to be the core of a that has been particularly difficult Rhode Island, we spent all but a the accounting of how he coped rejuvenated U.S. foreign policy and for Californians. Each of these few nights in Stonington, Conn., with bad news daily, something we why the journey starts in Colmar, disasters has managed to touch our 12 miles away. I am sure this same have a fair amount of these days.” birthplace of Frederic Bartholdi, the household, albeit it peripherally. My or similar scenario played out with Thanks, Bill. Your talk at our 50th designer of the Statue of Liberty.” Ph.D. thesis advisor sadly passed many classmates. reunion was inspiring, and we are Due to CCT’s word limit, I’m away due to Covid, and some of our “A few summer highlights ready for the next one. not able to share detailed news from dearest friends lost everything — included lots of rowing on the From Al McCoy: “Many thanks Jeremy Siegel, Steve Salant, their house and all their possessions Mystic River in single shells, which for sending along the article about Anthony Moscato and Bennett — in just a few hours in a wildfire. guarantees social distancing; kayak- the end of lightweight rowing at Flax this time. Look for their news This year is bound to be better!” ing down the Pawcatuck River, 38 Dartmouth. To prevent that from in the Spring/Summer issue. Yes, 2021 will be a better year. miles, some of which forms the happening at Columbia and spur Amen indeed. border between Connecticut and donations from rowing alumni, Barry Wick writes from Rhode Island; photographing my the crew coaches sent out a strong 1968 Colorado Springs: “Although I’m a daughter’s 10-year-old-son catching appeal for high participation on retired computer engineer (Boeing, his first saltwater fish; and finally, Columbia Giving Day, which got a Arthur Spector Digital Equipment Corporation, when we thought it was reasonably strong response. [email protected] Raytheon), I’ve been doing substi- safe, Candy and I spent several days “Speaking of donations, my chil- tute teaching for the past three years. at Mohonk Lake, near New Paltz, dren have both rowed for the local Greetings from Miami Beach. I did I’m now at a local middle school N.Y., in the Catskills. crew here in Madison, Wis. They a stint in Upstate New York last (actually, the same one that my kids “Occasionally I speak with Art put out a call for donations to pur- summer; the weather was wonderful. attended in 1990 — full circle!). I’m Kaufman and Gordon Harriss. chase single shells to allow for social I am hoping when you read this teaching eighth grade PE, if you David Silver, our dedicated 50th distancing during the pandemic, so I the vaccines are out, and most impor- can imagine! For now, half the kids reunion Columbia College Fund donated one. The club treasurer, who tantly, that you are well and feeling are in class and half are at home. development officer, and I have cer- is a CC’91, had read my story in relieved. I have found this a time to Interesting times for all of us. tainly enjoyed reading some of the CCT about rowing around Manhat- read a little more, play piano and use “I’m also a masters swimmer. I live email chains that you and some of tan to honor John T. Norton Jr. Google Hangouts. I enjoy talking to ‘life in the slow lane.’ My times used our other politically savvy classmates (see it online: college.columbia.edu/ many, including Art Kaufman, Seth to be twice the world record. I thought have circulated.” cct/issue/fall18/article/last-word) Weinstein and Robert Brandt, my that was pretty good. Now, my times Bill Henrich writes from Texas: and suggested the club name it college roommate, who continues are three times the world record! “I work full time (no retirement after him. So this spring, local high to charm me with his intellect and “My four grandchildren all had plans now) and lead an academic school rowers will have the privilege great sense of humor. I spoke to Joe virtual birthday parties last year — medical center at the University of of competing on the lakes around DiBenedetto not long ago; he was one in SF, three in Denver. I hope Texas Health Science Center at San Madison in a nice racing single, cheerful and on top of his game. He I’ll be able to celebrate with them Antonio. As you can imagine, the with the name ‘John T. Norton’ in has been at his place on the Cape and this year.” pandemic has totally changed the Columbia blue on the bow. is going back to Providence. I heard Stay well. Go Lions! Especially way we teach and deliver care, so “I still row several times a week. from Hollis Petersen, who was in the Marching Band! By the way, every week and every month there A few months ago, my son was Newport and on his way back to Neil Gozan is a serious swimmer, are, inevitably, many changes. The rowing with the club in a dual meet Key West, and Neil Anderson, on too, as is Art Kaufman. Neil has good news is that the students have against Quad Cities in Moline, Ill. his way soon from New Jersey to his been swimming for charity. Salute been flexible and are making good At the ‘family row,’ at the end of the place in Naples, Fla. I also speak to to him! progress. The change to a higher day, I hopped into a double with Bob Costa ’67 at his home in Naples. I heard from Tom Sanford. number of video visits is something my 17-year-old son and we raced Paul de Bary and I have been going Tom, every time I see the crews patients appreciate and will likely 3,000m down the Mississippi River, to football games for years. I wonder on the intercoastal, I think of last beyond the pandemic’s end. navigating around the sandbars and if we will have a spring season. Paul classmates who rowed at Columbia; The first peak of the pandemic here snags that Mark Twain wrote about, keeps busy with his work. we have had some national rowing was in July, but we are bracing for and coming in one second behind So here is a bit of news from our champs in modern times, another wave. My wife, Mary, and I a pair of teenagers. Not bad for our renowned astronomer, astrophysi- Tom writes, “For my wife, have been hunkered down as far as first time rowing together.” cist and cruise ship expert Bruce Candy, and me, 2020 started around travel, restaurants and concerts like It was fantastic to hear from Margon (when he can travel again I March 15, when one of our sons everyone else. The toughest adjust- Fred Smith: “I now live in Cascais, hope he comes to Miami for a cruise and his boyfriend left Manhattan, ment for us is not being able to visit Portugal, a middle-sized city 15 adventure): “By a stroke of luck, we terminated their lease on Amster- our grandchildren, so, also like many miles west of Lisbon on the Atlantic managed ‘expedition’ cruises to both dam and 75th, and moved into the others, we FaceTime with them Ocean. I moved here this past fall, the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, apartment above our new garage in almost daily. after an almost yearlong effort to finishing just before the pandemic Rhode Island. Two months later, “We also read a lot, and I have get my visa. The influx of Covid-19 began. Now we’re doing fine, bored son Tom ’98, his wife, two children a book to recommend: The News extended the process, but because and stir-crazy like everyone else. and au pair left their townhouse on of the World, a story of a bond that I had started about this time last I started out being surprisingly, Hamilton Place (near CCNY) and forms between two unlikely people year, I was one of the early ones to scientifically productive working took over the Rhode Island house on a trip in 1870s Texas. It is now submit my paperwork, once Portugal at home, but as time has dragged for the summer. Then on several a movie that was to be released in opened up processing in early on, my ratio of research to Netflix occasions, including Candy’s and December, starring Tom Hanks. Just August. The last week before leaving, steadily deteriorates. my 50th wedding anniversary, our a relaxing, good read. Another good I finished packing up the household

Winter 2020–21 CCT 61 Class Notes goods I was shipping, had a 22-ft. “Green Beret.” “Contestants jumped I suspect many of us had unhappy 60, 75 still seems old. The only dif- U-Haul loaded with my stuff and down from one of the second-floor brushes with in loco parentis. ference I noticed in her from when drove from Virginia Beach to my balconies, jumped from sofa to sofa Nathaniel Wander divided his we’d met 40 years earlier was that shipper’s warehouse in Newark, N.J. and chair to chair in the lobby, being undergraduate time fairly evenly her curly red hair had gone iron The next evening, I flew out of New- sure to land on each one, and then between the Barnard and Columbia grey. If the Energizer Bunny had ark and arrived in Lisbon at dawn. clambered up the other side to that anthropology departments. In the reincarnated as a human, it would “I love it here. A lot of people second-floor balcony. The contestant Fall 2020 issue, he remarked on his have been Paula Rubel.” speak English, so despite difficulties with the best time was declared the connection to Barnard anthropolo- Question: What music have you with Portuguese signage and online winner. As I recall, Andy Bronin gist Abraham Rosman (who died carried away from Columbia? What instructions, I have been able to devised the game. It certainly sounds last spring and was memorialized music carries you back to your Class deal with whatever task I undertake. like something he would have done.” by his department in July), but he of ’69 experience? The people in Portugal are kind and Andy indeed devised the game, was as strongly connected to Ros- welcoming. If you even look like you and I’d be truly surprised if anyone man’s wife, Professor Paula Rubel might need help, they readily reach ever beat him at it. GSAS’63, who died and was memo- 1970 out to you. “As for your Barnard question, I rialized two years earlier. He has two “I am very happy with my deci- took a course from Professor Ken- potent memories of her. Leo Kailas sion to move here. I look forward neth Cooper as a senior, and I used to “Paula taught ‘Urban Societ- [email protected] to being really settled, so I can con- see him on Broadway in the late ’70s, ies,’ which provided one of my first tinue the research and writing of my when my first wife (now deceased) serious opportunities to conduct First, I send my sincere wishes that novel. I’ve made some progress, but was a Library School student.” anthropological fieldwork. We all classmates are staying well dur- a lot of the work lies before me.” Martin Kafka writes: “I retired obtained the research protocols from ing the Covid-19 epidemic. I have So, to the wondrous Class of from clinical psychiatry four years David M. Schneider’s American been working from my home office 1968: Be well, send a note and visit ago and have been thoroughly Kinship: A Cultural Account and in Great Barrington, Mass., since Miami when you can. enjoying my post-work life by tested them in a variety of ethnic March 16, and have adjusted quite traveling internationally with my communities. I chose a mélange of well to life in a semi-rural com- wife, Karen (prior to the pandemic), Northern European Protestants — munity with my wife and youngest 1969 and taking classes through Brandeis French, Dutch, English — centered daughter. My wife and I recently University’s program for persons in on a Methodist church on Staten did a 14-hour drive to Milwaukee Nathaniel Wander retirement. Through Brandeis, I’ve Island. Spending Sunday after to visit our oldest daughter (who is [email protected] been studying American history, Sunday immersed in the pietism pregnant) and our granddaughter, digital photography and memoir and lamb’s blood of the Wesleyan Cassie (3) — a future Columbia What Mark Saul carried away from writing (the right age for that!). I hymnal was real culture shock for College applicant for sure. Barnard cannot be topped. “Barnard have continued to play jazz piano this Jewish kid from Brooklyn. On to the real news: My high has shaped my life. Sophomore year, on a daily basis and have lived in “Professor Rubel also set us a school classmate Professor Robert I walked into Russian class in Ham- Newton, Mass., for close to 33 years. final exam of near-graduate level Launay reports: “I have recently ilton Hall. The teacher was Galina My grown ‘kids’ are dispersed, with exaction and was clearly disap- adopted a new hobby — translating Stilman. I had wanted to learn Rus- Julie (30) living outside Boulder and pointed by our essays. Before medieval French poetry (especially sian since I was 12, but the school working toward a Ph.D. in public returning our exams she ‘apolo- song) into English verse. If you system made me learn French, so I health and Adam (26) living in San gized.’ ‘I should have been clearer think of this as a puzzle, like a cross- was thrilled to be there. Seven men, Francisco and a software engineer. in my instructions and asked you to word puzzle or Sudoku, it seems less four of them my good friends, and Sending safe hugs to my classmates.” write your responses in English, or weird. What is more, you get to keep a woman. Woman? What was she Renee Chinquapin also reflected whatever your native language.’ I got the answer and even share it. David doing there? Must be the teacher’s on Barnard alumnae. “Barnard gradu- an A- for the course; presumably I Lehman has very kindly encouraged assistant. (Chauvinist.) Never mind. ates back then faced unimaginable was a bit less of a disappointment me, and has recently published one I moved my seat from my old (male) obstacles living out their wonderful than some. of my translations on his blog, Best friend to sit one discreet chair away education’s potential.” “In spring 2008, I had just American Poetry, which I enthu- from her. Strained to read her name Michael Jacoby Brown found completed six years as a research siastically recommend to anyone on her notebook. Got it wrong. No meeting Barnard students unneces- anthropologist at UC San Francisco interested in contemporary poetry: matter. We walked out together and sarily complicated. “What I carried and was entrain to taking up a bit.ly/3pncu5y.” became friends. Reader, I married away from our relations with Bar- similar position at the University The aforementioned David her. It’s now 52 years, three kids and nard was that it was a pretty stupid of Edinburgh. Along with Jessica Lehman sent two of his articles, three grandchildren later. Carried idea to have only males at Columbia, Wiederhorn GSAS’77 — a former which I read, and then we had a away, indeed.” and I am glad the College wised graduate student of the Rosmans follow-up exchange. First Profes- Bob Rabinoff responded with up, although too late for me. In our and my ‘first student’ when I became sor Lehman sent the following: the complete lyrics to “Be Prepared,” sophomore year my best friend, a graduate teaching assistant in “You might enjoy these two new noting that mathematician and Daniel Grutzendler (who tragically 1973 — I was invited to their publications, one a piece of fiction, songwriter Tom Lehrer remains died by suicide in the middle of apartment for brunch as I passed the other a post about a little-known alive at 92. that year), and I tried to meet some through New York. Having lived but excellent movie from the late I add that, at 90, Lehrer received Barnard students by signing up for away from the city for more than 25 1940s; online at bit.ly/3nedGq1 and a laudatory writeup in Nature, the Latin because it was only given at years by then, the platters of Zabar’s at bit.ly/32BCbWj.” After telling world’s longest published science Barnard. The other main thing I lox and whitefish and fresh bagels David how much I was impacted by journal. See it online: nature.com/ remember about Barnard were the was exactly what I’d been missing. the first, a Teyve piece, he followed articles/d41586-018-03922-x. complex sign-out rules the ‘girls’ had Paula would have been about 75 up with a touching note about his Henry Jackson remembers a to put up with: not a great way to then, scarcely older than I am now, family and his recent hospitaliza- timed game played in Hartley Hall, prepare any adult for real life.” but when you’ve not quite reached tion: “My father and mother were

62 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews refugees from Germany and Austria, the end of an appreciative interview Hall. Steve Boss SW’76, BUS’78 in-person events Friday, June 4– respectively, but my mother’s with Hislop in the London Times not informs me that I lived on the 13th Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- parents were not so lucky; they were too long ago, the otherwise admiring floor of Carman Hall. This is not ting. Watch your inbox for more.] deported and were killed in Riga. interviewer asked him incredulously if news to me, as we all knew when And to finish with a sweet group I guess we first-generation sons of it was true that he regularly attended we lived on what should have been reminiscence, Steve is vegetarian Holocaust survivors didn’t like talk- a Christian church. Hislop answered: called the 13th floor. However, the and notes his last bite as a carnivore ing about it all that much back when “Yes, it’s true. You see, I’ve tried athe- elevator button said 14. That our was one bite of a meatball hero from you were a senior at Bronx Science ism, but I kept having doubts.” floor was one floor higher than the Ta-Kome. He says, “It could make a and I was the same at Stuyvesant. The link Professor Aeschliman 12th even on the elevator buttons vegetarian out of anybody.” When I was hospitalized for a week refers to is Malcolm Muggeridge, was blatant. The room numbers Can’t agree more. Ron Rosenberg at Sloan Kettering another patient Marked by Mobility and a Search started with 14, if I remember right. thanked me on my floor was a famous rabbi for Morality: bit.ly/3pjNegx. I guess they thought that Ivy League for letting us stay connected. We who had been flown in from Israel freshmen were not smart enough to all enjoy knowing what friends with funds raised by Lubavitcher count past 10 or that we would not are doing and how the ventures in organizations. He invited me to pray 1971 notice. So please help me here. Was their lives have proceeded. Ron is with him and inspired me to do the the 13th floor of Carman Hall called the Chancellor Professor of Law reading that led up to ‘Tale Told To REUNION 2021 the 14th floor in the late 1960s, or and associate dean for graduate Tevye,’ which I dedicated to him.” am I having a senior moment and programs at William & Mary Law MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) David is an amazing scholar and confabulating? Inquiring minds do School, although at the end of this JUNE 4–5 (in-person, an amazing human being. not really care, but to assess my san- year he will formally retire. He conditions permitting) Speaking of professors, Professor ity, let me know. resides in Williamsburg, Va., but John D’Emilio Events and Programs Contact GSAS’72 sent the Steve Boss, who raised this his wife and he plan to relocate to [email protected] following: “My latest book was pub- question in my mind — you can Charlottesville within a year. He Development Contact lished by in October. Queer Legacies: notes, “I was thinking about my first [email protected] always count on an engineer to get Stories from Chicago’s LGBTQ the math right — retired four years year at Columbia and what a shock Archives offers an episodic account ago as deputy executive director/chief it was to my complete being both Lewis Preschel of activist lives and events from financial officer of World Education personally and intellectually. The [email protected] the 1960s through the early 21st Services, an international education four years there really were impor- century. The book is based entirely organization. Since then he has been tant time for the country and I felt on research in collections at the I was recently in touch with doing a lot of photography. “I go out that I was an observer of social and Richard Berenholtz SEAS’71, Gerber/Hart Library & Archives in with Richard Berenholtz SEAS’71, political history during those years.” Chicago, where I am president of its GSAPP’74, my roommate freshman GSAPP’74, an accomplished and Ron said he would love to get in Board of Directors.” and junior year in Carman Hall. (I much-published location photogra- touch with some of the guys who Part of the joy of doing this col- buried myself in a solo in Livingston pher (his seventh book is Skylines of played freshman basketball with him. Tom Barson umn is that I get to correspond with sophomore year for the dreaded New York; see earlier in the column) wrote that he had Taigen Dan such interesting classmates such as pre-med organic chemistry ordeal.) During the past three years, we’ve no idea that Rev. Robert Launay, David Lehman Leighton, Richard earned an M.Arch. from been to 40 abandoned locations — whose books he has read John D’Emilio. and Another GSAPP. He worked in that field for power plants, prisons, theaters and so for many years, was a classmate. Michael Aeschliman professor, 10 years, including four years with on, letting ourselves in and shooting Tom has been a concert promoter, a GSAS’91, has become a regular I.M. Pei & Partners. During that what is left to shoot. You can view Methodist minister, a hospital man- contributor who sends me thought- time, he had three one-man shows some of my shots at stevenboss. ager and, for more than 25 years, an provoking articles. His latest notes: of his black-and-white works at gal- com, where I also have some travel IT consultant and IT service man- “It was very kind of you to publish leries in NYC. However, his love of photographs and NYC photos. Since ager. He retired in October 2019 that rather extensive Class Note New York and its structures, plus the March, I haven’t socialized with and repurposed himself with the from me in the Fall 2020 CCT. magnificent profile NYC presents to anyone but my wife, except for two distraction of editing an econom- “It may be deep superstition but the world, captured his interest. escape escapades with Richard to an ics textbook during the Covid-19 I cannot get it out of my mind that For the last 36 years, Richard abandoned cement factory upstate. I lockdown. He and his wife, Nancy there is something indestructible has photographed New York and wore an N95 mask for eight straight Lorris, live in East Lansing, Mich. about persons, personalities and produced seven books filled with hours, except when I scarfed down a Tom would love to recontact and Hollie souls, especially such ones as incredible pictures. Do not take peanut butter sandwich.” resume communications with some Hendrix and Ted Tayler, an idea my word for it; his works speak for [Editor’s note: See “The Big of his old college friends. that has grown on me over the years themselves, and are on his website Picture” for one of Boss’s photos.] As would we all. Robert Gailus (and of course, orthodox Xtian (photographynewyork.com). Rich- That meal is the Steve Boss I has the sad task of Tim DeBaets doctrine). In that spirit I thought ard has posted some of his works remember. Steve and his wife, Caren reporting that passed [this] essay might interest you. It is on Facebook, as well. I can say that Bergenfield Steinlight BC’71, have a early in the morning of September probably my farewell essay on [Mal- inspiring beauty aptly applies to his new grandson in Cambridge, Mass., 27, 2020. About 10 days prior Tim colm] Muggeridge, on whom I have works. For the last three and a half and the southern extension of his fell in a parking lot where construc- published half a dozen things since years his focus has been on the pho- family lives in Philadelphia with an tion was in process. He suffered the mid-1970s and a new edition tographic series ‘Beauty of Decay.’ older grandson. Steve is looking for- injuries that required hospitalization of one of whose novels, Winter in The famous Rizzoli Bookstore in ward to the possibility of an in-person and during his treatment developed Moscow (1934), I edited in 1987.” NYC publicized the April release of 50th reunion if the world allows us. sepsis and died. At this time, I have One of Michael’s disciples is Eng- his book Skylines of New York. [Editor’s note: As of late October, the only been told he is survived by his lish satirist Ian Hislop, editor of the And now to a controversy that Alumni Office is planning Columbia wife, Kathy. May she be able to lean satirical magazine Private Eye (Mug- I guess I started by saying we Reunion 2021 as virtual events Mon- on the support of her good friends. geridge had been editor of Punch). At lived on the 14th floor of Carman day, May 24–Thursday, June 3, and [Editor’s note: See “Obituaries.”]

Winter 2020–21 CCT 63 Class Notes

We are coming up on our 50th heavily involved with Columbia’s reunion. We are bonded by the Earth Institute (soon to morph into experience of an era, and our college the new Climate School). We have a environment. Let’s keep the friend- full agenda of items to work on as the ships ongoing and maybe start new global climate crisis escalates. I badly ones. Let your classmates know how miss informal interactions and chance you are doing and what adventures encounters with students, colleagues you are launched on. We are the and others, but I speak by phone or Class of 1971, a brotherhood forged video with many people every day and in a time not dissimilar to now. The don’t feel especially isolated.” way to join together is to keep your Mike was quoted in The New York classmates informed. Please send Times not long ago on the possibility me an update as to how your boat is of injecting particles into the atmo- sailing on the sea of life. sphere to reflect sunlight and combat the warming of the earth. He con- tinues, “My wife, Barbara, and I have 1972 been pretty much self-quarantining at our home in Chappaqua, N.Y., Paul Appelbaum a leafy suburb that is conducive to [email protected] social distancing and long dog walks. Left to right, Rich Troiano ’73, Jim Winskowicz ’73 and Gerry Mason ’73 met Our son David ’03, his wife, Grace, up in Scottsdale, Ariz., in January 2019. Times are odd around campus these and our granddaughter Amelia (2.5) days. Only about 20 percent of live in a condo a mile from us, which undergrads were allowed to return is perfect. Our other son, William nostalgia that coats my memory of for the fall term, and all College ’05, and his wife, Anya, blessed us Humanities classes in Hamilton, but 1973 classes are online. For those who are with a grandson, Neri, a few months we were really there, immature and here, Broadway is a much sparser ago, but they live in Los Angeles and underslept, not merely on-screen Barry Etra experience, though many local res- we’ve seen Neri only on Zoom. We’re specters. The freshmen I now teach [email protected] taurants have taken over sidewalks yearning to meet him in person when must daily invent their classes, not or curbs for outdoor seating, lending we feel comfortable flying again.” merely log in to them. My heart Our world continues to be ... the streets a more populated feel. I Some people have found comfort goes out to students everywhere whorled. May the lag between this write this just before the election, as and distraction during the pandemic right now. Teachers, too.” But he writing and your reading bring relief. Steve Bellovin, Covid-19 cases are spiking around in their hobbies. adds some good news: “Last June, Gerry Mason sent a photo of the country. New York, which has a professor in the computer sci- our son Chris married the excellent three ’73 guys who met up in Scotts­ seen blessedly few cases since the ence department at Columbia, for Kassi Nelson, who completed her dale in January ( January two years horrors of the spring, seems to be example, says, “For whatever reason, doctorate in occupational therapy ago — sometimes a correspondent on the uptick as well. We await the in the last few years I’ve become an a month earlier. Like many young is lame). Gerry co-founded his own coming days with some degree of avid bird photographer. It’s amazing people this year, they’ve moved the investment banking firm, Granite trepidation. The students who are what can be found in the parks big blowout to 2021.” Partners, lives in Boston and is writ- going through this will have very around Columbia — hawks, falcons, Arnold Horowitz reports, “My ing a book about the evolution of gut different memories of their College bald eagles, herons, egrets, owls and family is doing fine, since the bacteria in humans. Rich Troiano years than we do. more — and it’s even more amazing pandemic bears down hardest on had been a principal at Cisco Mike Gerrard, who since January that I can regularly walk through the weakest in society, unfortunately. Systems and has started a clean coal 2009 has been at the Law School as a these parks with an expensive-look- My wife works full time from home, company with worldwide operations; full-time professor of environmental ing camera and not feel terrified.” producing international broadcasts he is still in Pittsburgh. Jim Winsko- and energy law, and as founding direc- You can follow Steve’s bird shots for Voice of America, so some rooms wicz was a senior exec at Guaranty tor of the Sabin Center for Climate on his Twitter feed, @UrbanDino- resemble a video studio with green Fund Management Services. He now Change Law, provides a sense of saurs, like I do. screens and Klieg lights. One son plays golf in Phoenix and reminisces life around here: “Last March, with Another of our academics is works full time for an IT firm that about his Baker Field pitching career. William Germano, just a few days’ notice, we switched who has a has been 90 percent virtual for sev- The group’s life motto: “Hard Work entirely to online instruction. After new book, Syllabus: The Remark- eral years anyway. Another son takes and Clean Living.” some emergency Zoom training, my able, Unremarkable Document That college courses from home. I go to Sorry for the delay! colleagues and I managed to complete Changes Everything, co-written work in the office, but cautiously. Joel Glucksman and his wife, the term that way. With no end to with Kit Nicholls. William notes, My longtime habit of bicycling is Freddie, welcomed their sixth the pandemic in sight, I’m teaching “Though we wrote it just before the now much more in fashion than grandchild. Joel reinforces our remotely the entire 2020–21 academic pandemic, we think it speaks to the ever before. We visited a fellow notions that “being a grandpa is way year. I’ve been in Manhattan only present moment. Quick take for Columbia alumnus recently, but more fun than parenting.” His only once since March — a quick trip in teachers: ‘It’s not about what you on his porch and at 12-ft. separa- issue: Four of those grandchildren July to retrieve some notes and books do, it’s about what they do.’ I’m told tion. We wonder what is going to are in Los Angeles, while Joel and from my Columbia office. I think my it’s inspiring and makes a great gift. happen next, because this experi- Freddie remain in Maplewood, N.J., classes (both lectures and seminars) Here’s a link: bit.ly/3m2UcEB.” ence will permanently transform in the house where they raised their have gone surprisingly well; Zoom William also notes, “I’m still society, I think. And Manhattan and boys. The remaining two, luckily, are allows breakout rooms and other ways teaching, though my Cooper Union Morningside seem, from a distance, but 20 minutes away in Jersey City. to foster interaction. I hold video classes are all on Zoom, alas. Covid- threatened by long-term damage as Greg Gall GSAPP’79 practices office hours with students. I’m also 19 only thickens the patina of never before. That worries me.” architecture and lives in Tarrytown,

64 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews

N.Y. He is the head fencing coach received in a thick envelope some There you have it. More classmates column.) Jose’s mother was a great at The Hackley School, as well. His 50 years ago. Mark Carrabes sent a appear to be getting promoted and cook and he frequently shared food wife, Kim Waddell, was a former copy of his College acceptance letter, working harder rather than retiring. with us. We had great food in our director at IBM, now retired; their dated April 17, 1970, signed by John Whether you are still working or suite between Jose and Edwin’s daughter Christine married James Wellington ’57 (director of admis- you’ve made the big leap to “the life Puerto Rican, Henry’s Chinese and Sherrard last September in Shel- sions at the time). It is amazing that of leisure,” pass on the news! my Italian dishes. The other guys in burne, Vt. Mark knew how to find this impor- Carman were always jealous of us. Thanks to those who wrote in, tant document! He didn’t include any Of note, we were frequently visited and pleas to those who didn’t. Hasta, information on what he’s up to these 1975 by floormates Manuel Bu and and be well. days, but the Christchurch APO Victor Fiorenza. I visited Jose at postmark suggests he might still be a Randy Nichols WKCR, as I was already a big Tito supply officer at the U.S. Navy facility [email protected] Puente fan. The dancing was amaz- 1974 in New Zealand. ing. On a trip to Puerto Rico years Anyone in contact with Mark? Steve Miller retired from a 30-year ago, everybody was impressed with Fred Bremer A short note came in from Dr. career as a lawyer in 2015, spending my moves. My one faux pas after [email protected] David Turkewitz (York, Pa.) saying the time since in Amsterdam, the eating a great Mofongo was asking simply that he enjoyed reading the Netherlands, at the headquarters about Rabo Guisado, to which I was With the newspaper headlines updates in CCT on classmates. Curi- of one of the Dutch industrial told, ‘That’s Dominican, man.’ Jose’s filled this past fall with articles on ous about what else he was up to, I conglomerates. Since then, he has bio was a great way to find out what Covid-19, the election and the new did a Google search and found out a pursued an old love and found a new happened to him after Columbia.” Supreme Court justice, a milestone lot more. David is chair of pediatrics one. First, he coaches swimmers at A couple of weeks before writing passed unrecognized: It was the at the WellSpan York Hospital and the high school and club level — for this I saw an announcement of the 50th anniversary of the final episode in 2014 was named “Pediatrician the past 18 months with the Green- availability of Joel Stern’s pop-up of the 1960s TV comedy Get Smart. of the Year” by the Pennsylvania wich YMCA Marlins, primarily book In a Spooky Haunted House. The original air date was September chapter of the American Academy of with the Junior Team, ages 8–13. What a fun thing to have! I asked Joel 11, 1970; it occurred just as we were Pediatrics. Through the years he has He says it’s very rewarding and to share a little about his experience packing our bags to go to Columbia been committed to researching child fulfilling to pass on his knowledge creating and producing these gems. College to … get smart! None of us abuse and neglect and is one of the and enthusiasm for a sport that has He shared: “Several years ago at an had cell phones at the time (even senior members of the Pennsylvania meant so much to him. Steve’s new origami convention (there really are ones in our shoes), but I bet many Attorney General’s Medical/Legal love is mosaics. He learned from such things!), I met with a book pack- of us had dreams of finding our own Advisory Board on Child Abuse. He two world-class artists, both Russian ager with whom I began to work on Agent 99! And by coincidence, the was quoted, “We need to move past emigres, who, pre-Covid-19, had a an idea for a pop-up book that could show was broadcast on CBS — the the social norm that it is OK to hit studio near FIT. Of course, Steve be produced relatively inexpensively Columbia Broadcasting System. children under the guise of discipline.” specializes in Grateful Dead and — each page was to be made from We heard from Dr. Stephen After a career in the healthcare other iconic images. One of his a single sheet, with no glue points. DeCherney PH’98, who has spent industry, Patrick Dowd retired pieces hangs at The Capitol Theatre We tossed around a few ideas, and 16 years as a professor of endocrinol- around 2006 and moved with his in Port Chester, N.Y. (a Jerry Garcia came up with a haunted house book. ogy at the University of North Caro- wife, Dawn, to Vida, Ore. (a small album cover, Cats Under the Stars). I wrote some verses that lead a child lina School of Medicine in Chapel town on the McKenzie River), Another, a mandala, was selected to through different rooms of the house, Hill and is a former adjunct professor expecting a bucolic setting to enjoy be in the Art to the Avenue event in which the book packager liked. at the UNC Kenan-Flagler School of fishing and boating, when he wasn’t Greenwich, Conn. (near the CBD “I produced a proof-of-concept Medicine. He tells us he consults on traveling around the world. Then store, of all places), but alas the pop-up to show to different publish- patients in the hospital, teaches and Patrick got an urgent midnight event was canceled. Steve was also ers. Happily, Simon & Schuster “does a little research on Covid-19.” notice they had to evacuate due to commissioned to do a small piece as loved the idea and found a wonder- Steve laments, “I tried to retire about the approaching wall of flames last an award for a Columbia University ful illustrator, Christopher Lee, who 10 years ago, and utterly failed at it. I October. He says his house was Medical Center-NewYork Presby- produced the whimsical pictures to lasted about three months.” So back saved because it was originally a terian Hospital nurse who is at the accompany my verses. he went to rejoin the faculty, and firehouse and had a brick core. Last forefront of the Covid battle. “Working from a rough draft of now seems busier than ever. Steve is word is that they had temporarily Steve says, “I am forever grateful the illustrations, I began to design a board member or executive advisor relocated to Bend, Ore. that Assistant Dean Roberta Spagnola the six pop-ups. When designing to six bioscience corporations, and is I will try to get details on TC’69, and others, overlooked some of these kinds of pop-ups, your role is on the board of Robert F. Kennedy Patrick’s situation. my finer moments and that I received like that of a director. How many Human Rights and the University of After 24 years of building my A.B.” Steve also gives a shoutout elements of the illustration will pop? Delaware Research Foundation, and the Mount Sinai Department of to Albert Mrozik, his lab partner in Which figures will be closest to the is a trustee of the William Harvey Dermatology into one of the largest organic chemistry. viewer? Which the farthest? Can any Research Foundation at Queen Mary in the nation, Dr. Mark Lebwohl Bob Sclafani enjoyed reading of them be combined? Then there University of London. (Manhattan) has been promoted to about Jose “Cheo” Diaz and his are the constraints: When closed, Now that is a failed retirement! dean for clinical therapeutics at the short autobiography, From the Streets does any paper extend beyond the Steve says he is the “proud grand- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount of New York City, in a previous edges? For any cut-out element, does father” of five, all under the age of 4. Sinai. While he will continue to see column. Bob writes, “Jose and I the resulting hole disfigure other He adds that they are spread across patients and do clinical work, Mark were roommates in Carman Hall important elements, or distract from the country and comments, “Thank is now tasked with generating clini- freshman year along with Henry the overall effect? There was some heavens for FaceTime and Zoom!” cal research programs throughout Woo and Edwin Vega, who is back-and-forth, as both illustrations A thin envelope arrived recently the Mount Sinai Health System in mentioned in the autobiography. and pop-ups needed to be adjusted that contained a likeness of what you New York City. (See more from Edwin later in this for maximum effect.”

Winter 2020–21 CCT 65 Class Notes

Edwin Vega earned an M.B.A. leaders 2020,” specifically mentioning Al Borgo ’77. Al lives in splendor alone, which upholds a long-stand- in 1977 in finance from NYU. He her “leadership of social impact teams with his wife, Yvonne, and family in ing ’76er tradition of cynicism! moved to Los Angeles in 1982. involves creating internal programs a lovely house overlooking Catalina Bob Wolleben is becoming my Edwin says he has enjoyed his and community partnerships to pro- Island. In February, with Olivia role model with this report: “I’m business career, working for several mote causes top of mind for Adobe Rowan, my wife of 30 years (we met happily retired in Delaware after 42 companies in different financial posi- employees, such as championing while working at Robert A.M. Stern years working in hospital manage- tions before finally settling in with gender diversity in tech.” ’60’s office 33 years ago), we went to ment. Our last child will be married his passion of working with small I have exchanged a few emails Montpellier, in the South of France. by the time this is published; then I businesses as a commercial loan offi- and a phone call with Gordon Kit. We were visiting our younger son in can really kick back and relax.” cer. With the financial crisis in 2008, Due to the pandemic he is sorely his junior term and we returned to Tony Anemone has a great plan he had to reinvent himself, and he missing his travel adventures, which Provence, where we honeymooned similar to Bob’s: “After 36 years became a high school math teacher. he normally goes on every three 30 years ago. Of course, he had to be teaching Russian language, literature Edwin now teaches online at a char- to four months. Still, each week evacuated to finish his French year and cinema at Colby College, The ter school to socially/economically Gordon drives to the Maryland in his room in Brooklyn a couple of College of William & Mary and disadvantaged high school students. or Virginia countryside, where he weeks later. Our eldest has relocated The New School, I will retire from He admits it is tough but rewarding. cycles about 30 miles mid-week and to Albuquerque, where he remotely full-time teaching at the end of the Edwin has been married for 41 years 50–60 miles on the weekend. Now edits video for Condé Nast, Seeding 2020–21 academic year. In addi- to Ida Maldonado Vega. They have a he’s using his newly leased hybrid Sovereignty and Abolish ICE! tion to continuing researching and daughter, Isette Marie Hammer, who SUV, replacing the 2014 model “Olivia and I have surrogated our writing about Russian cinema, I’m married last year. Edwin’s favorite he owned outright. As he noted, travels to biking the Erie Canalway looking forward to more time for hobbies are martial arts and salsa “With advances in car technology Trail in segments. Lovely trail with my hobbies: travel, sea-kayaking and dancing. He and his wife love travel- occurring so rapidly now, it seemed lots of history, and sparsely populated. film photography.” ing, seeing Europe and the National to make more sense to lease than to We started in Troy and have left off The best part of this column is Parks. They see lots of movies. He is buy.” Gordon is still trying “to figure the last time in Chittenango. We have enjoying the youthful enthusiasm in frequent contact with Fernando out what all of the buttons do and many more miles to get to Buffalo.” from classmates. Your updates just Castro, an architect and poet, who how to access all of the new safety From Barry LaBoda: “I retired have so much info in so few words. lives about 25 miles from him. features ... and importantly, how to in August after serving for 13 years John Healy exemplifies that spirit preset the radio stations: “This isn’t a as an administrative law judge with with this simple and enjoyable news Model T, after all!” he says. the Social Security Administration flash: “I got married on October 3! 1976 More importantly, assuming and 25 years as a practicing lawyer All our children and grandchildren the Columbia Covid-19 policy in Orlando. For now, my wife and I were in the wedding party. Very REUNION 2021 permits, Gordon is still hoping for are pursuing local interests, including cool. Guest list was a lot smaller an in-person third annual Dr. Saul gardening, photography and geneal- than originally intended, but it was MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival ogy. We walk daily along oak-lined a great time. JUNE 4–5 (in-person, at the Lenfest Center for the Arts, streets near home in Winter Park, Fla. “My oldest grandson is a first- conditions permitting) which at the time of this column’s Our Columbia experience created year at Columbia College. But not Events and Programs Contact writing is tentatively scheduled to pathways for us to mentally explore ours, the one in Chicago. That has [email protected] run Wednesday, April 7–Sunday, the world. I hope we’ll all be able made for some interesting and Development Contact April, 11, after Passover. Alter- to continue physically exploring the funny family conversations — your [email protected] natively, Gordon noted, “We’re world once the pandemic has ended.” Columbia or my Columbia. exploring the possibility of running My WKCR mate and fellow “Did interviews of potential stu- Ken Howitt a virtual film festival this spring.” 45th Reunion Committee member, dents for the Alumni Representative [email protected] The theme: “Film Noir & the Jewish Joe Graif BUS’78, continues to Committee and will do it again. Very Experience: From WWII to the reinvent himself. Joe is a great positive experience. I recommend Music is on in Hoboken with our Blacklist,” was planned for March musician, who at one reunion played more ’76ers get involved. We have a hometown favorite Frank Sinatra 2020 but canceled due to Covid. the organ at St. Paul’s on Sunday lot to offer these young people.” singing “Ring-A-Ding Ding,” which As a result of the pandemic, the morning. It never ceases to amaze So, the album Sinatra Sings the begins with a great lyric to describe festival is stalled in year three of a me how committed the ’76ers are Songs of Van Heusen and Cahn just got the 2020 pandemic/isolation situa- 10-year commitment. Check out to just continuing to live life to to “Swinging on a Star,” which starts tion: “Life is dull / It’s nothing but the Kit Noir website (arts.columbia. the fullest, no matter the obstacles. off with, “Would you like to swing one big lull ... ” But for me, all the edu/noir) early this year for an If you use TurboTax this coming on a star / Carry moonbeams home people who reach out give me plenty announcement as to the final form filing season, you just might cross in a jar / And be better off than you to write about for this issue. of the 2021 festival. video “paths” with Joe, as what he are / Or would you rather be a mule?” I lead off with news from the Since the festival is named in describes as “a live ‘Tax Expert.’” For me, this song sums up a lifetime Dennis-rosa in Syracuse. Mika, their honor of Gordon’s parents and the Joe has also decided to prepare for of looking for moonbeams, like a lot human-like canine, is demanding love of film noir they passed down and take the exams to become an of classmates. However, as the years when I visit, so any news from Den- to him, Gordon is committed to enrolled agent with the IRS. He is a advance, the idea of being a mule nis Goodrich gets the lead-off spot, not missing another year. Having C.P.A., licensed to practice in three does seem to kick in more often than especially when it is about his daugh- attended the first two years of the states and the District of Columbia. I like. Especially, 2020 made that an ter Katy Goodrich, who visited me festival, I can’t wait to attend in Joe envisions the new credential ongoing temptation. in Hoboken a year ago. Katy works person or virtually this year. leading to synergies that will greatly Instead, I keep up with all of you in London for Adobe, where she is a John Mason sent the following: enhance his public practice. and bask in the celebrations of life customer success director. The website “In January 2020, I went to my 40th As your columnist, I reworded his that you contribute. I also hear from uk.finance.yahoo named her as one of M. Arch. reunion and saw UCLA contribution with his permission but other friends due to this column. In “The HERoes top 100 female future classmate and Columbia housemate decided to leave the word “expert” October, a Six Hartley floormate,

66 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews

Bruce Levine ’77, reached out, and is CCT is so successful these days native-born and immigrants, with a context in which they can be applied we had a lovely afternoon chatting at that its word limit means half who healthcare system appropriate to the such as looking at public health his home in Rockland County, N.Y. wrote won’t get in until the Spring/ wealthiest country in the history of measures used during the 1918 Bruce has spent a career in politics, Summer issue. the world. But I’d settle for seeing pandemic in places such as NYC. law and public service. Renewing old “Despite what you reported in the Trump family behind bars.” “Looking ahead, I’m hoping and treasured friendships is definitely CCT in the Fall 2020 issue,” says Fellow Connecticut resident Americans can get past their differ- one of those moonbeams. Bruce Fraser, “I am not studying, John Flores LAW’81 says, “I have ences and unite in recovering from Another moonbeam is the pend- nor have I ever studied, organic only been going into the office three these times of adversity, much as ing 45th reunion. The committee is chemistry. I marvel at all of you days per week. Really strange in that they did in the wake of 9-11.” hard at work with Alumni Office that did. Instead, I am a real estate most of the day I sit in my office Robert Anthony is another of staff, trying to plan for unknown cir- finance attorney at the Los Angeles with the door closed and talk to the outstanding journalists from our cumstances. Contingency planning office of Sidley Austin. people on the phone. In other words, class. “I still write tech and business seems an understatement, but you “My son Holden is studying law I could do it at home, but the state features for various publications, can be sure you will get emails from at Chicago, and daughter Grace is a wants the senior team in the office. but I also work with Digimentors, the Reunion Committee about vir- law student at American. I welcomed a fifth grandchild in a company that takes events and tual or in-person events when those “Columbia taught me to expect November, and will try to figure out conferences virtual. It was started plans are finalized. The perpetual the unexpected and to make the the logistics to get to Virginia! by Columbia’s former chief digital reunion chair, Mr. Moonbeam best of the situation with wonder “I’m not sure anything we learned officer, Sree Sreenivasan. himself, Steve Davis, now has help and humor. I do think there was at College prepared us for this pan- “I have more than one million fol- from me and another co-chair, John more free speech at Columbia when demic, but I’m so glad my daughters lowers on Pinterest (paperpcpicks.com) Connell. We have a lot of great we were there and don’t remember finished school, because I would be and I’m on social media platforms as classmates on the committee, but efforts to cancel opposing views. pissed if I had to pay full tuition for @newyorkbob. Working at Spectator welcome others’ participation. Those times sparked debate and remote learning!” taught me that it’s better to be plugged Finally, these times bring my par- intellectual endeavors, and I would Marc Bogatin reports, “After 40 into the world than to be a grub quietly ents to mind quite often. If they were hate to experience today’s anti-intel- years of law practice as a litigator, I working alone in a silo. here to read this column, I know they lectual environment that I read about. plan to retire this March. No more “I’m convinced that common would have one comment. “Why did “I am reading biographies, which clients or judges! sense is right most of the time, we spend all that money on Colum- provides encouragement that this “Contrary to the Fall 2020 like when to wear a mask and stay bia and that great Core Curriculum, will pass and that perhaps some column, we did have a Freshman socially distant. if almost 50 years later he is quoting great men or women will rise and Orientation. I remember we had a “The spirit of free speech was Sinatra songs?” My answer to them help this nation to move past this choice of lectures, and I heard James here in the ’70s, including the day would be simple: Columbia’s under- partisan divide. I wish we could Shenton ’49, GSAS’54 speak on ‘The I sat on a window ledge of Low graduate education gave me the abil- ban political parties, as so many put Ethnic Factor in New York Politics.’ Library holding a corner of a ‘Divest ity to define my own classics! them above everything else.” He began with the joke that he from South Africa’ banner! Bruce, we are still trying to figure thought he had been asked to lecture “The pandemic has given me out who sent in the wrong information! on ‘The Ethical Factor’ and did not more time to read books such as 1977 Don Guttenplan remarks, “It’s know how he could say anything Inside the Empire: The True Power been a difficult, scary and worrisome about that subject. Also, we had to Behind the New York Yankees, by Bob David Gorman time. But one of the things that has fulfill that strange requirement of Klapisch ’79, who followed me as [email protected] gotten me through it — and even a College degree, the swim test. I sports editor at Spectator. overcoming the sense of Zoom am sure I’m not the only one who Dr. Michael Schulder PS’82 There was not enough news at this overdose I’m sure many of us feel remembers the sight of 500 naked notes, “After P&S I trained in neu- time for a column. It may be that — has been the weekly Carman 8 men lined up to complete a lap!” rosurgery at the Einstein/Monte- everyone was distracted, as I was, at Zoom convened by Sid Holt ’79, Dr. Marcel Favetta proves you fiore program. Then I was faculty at the end of a difficult year. Anyway, from a ways up the Hudson, and never have to stop learning, “I recently Rutgers New Jersey Medical School expect news and notes in the Spring/ regularly attended by Jeff Klein, earned an M.B.A. in health care. for 19 years, most of which was Summer issue. Meanwhile, I hope from Buffalo; Larry Friedman, Early last year I traveled to São Paulo under the leadership of my medical that everyone has been staying safe, from Saint Louis; my old Memphis and Rio de Janeiro, as part of a global school mentor, Dr. Peter Carmel. In healthy and reasonably sane. Do not friend Don Share; and me, mostly health curriculum to present a paper 2007 I moved to Northwell Health hesitate to let classmates know how from London but now from across on putting AI technologies in the in neurosurgery, and became direc- you are feeling and how you have the East River, with frequent guest hands of community health workers tor of the Northwell Health Brain been coping. With best wishes for a appearances by Rick MacArthur; in remote rural areas of Brazil. Tumor Center of the Neuroscience better — way better! — 2021. Joel Charap, from Thailand (!); “My Columbia education’s take- Institute and the residency program Duncan Moore, another Colum- away on the pandemic is that if the director. It’s been a great 13 years, bian in spirit and former Carman USA were attempting the siege of with more to come. 1978 resident; and the ‘Barbara Stanwyck’ Troy, we would have given up after “My wife, Lu Steinberg, is a clinical to all of us nutty professors, the six months and just left.” psychologist in private practice and Matthew Nemerson original Barnard Ball of Fire, Jami “I have been a practicing internist has a strong involvement in academic [email protected] Bernard BC’78. since 1986, currently in Western Mich- psychology. Our two daughters are “Our topics run the gamut from igan,” notes Harry Kousourou. “My following in her footsteps. Good news is that by deploying the the politics of poetry to the art of son Gabe is a rheumatology fellow at “I’m happy to say that I’m still techniques of the political fundrais- writing great headlines to tales of Indiana University in Indianapolis. friends with my Carman suitemate ing emails (which I was getting 20 old New York. “Looking back, I cultivated a Tim Burnett, and we had dinner times a day in October) I tripled the “Looking ahead, we must take great respect for scientific principles together in 2019 when he was in responses for the column. Bad news care of all the people who live here, at Columbia and the historical from California.

Winter 2020–21 CCT 67 Class Notes

“I’m hoping in the future we can political correctness can at times be the world. I hope my new job will This is the life lesson that I must be more tolerant of differences and as harmful as the need to face up to result in more chance encounters have gravitated to that made my empathize, cooperate and help each the delusions of the religious right.” with CC alums, especially the Class journey those four years so special. other out. Thanks, everyone, for writing in, of 1979.” What was hanging on your dorm “My recollection of College and apologies to anyone whose news Life’s full of new chapters. Best of room wall? Was it Farrah Fawcett or is that we could say whatever we won’t get printed until the Spring/ luck, Eric! John Travolta? Roar, lion, roar! wanted, voice any political opinion.” Summer issue. Robert C. Klapper: This Colum- “Last October was the seventh bia thought comes from the world anniversary of my retirement from of surfing. My sophomore year in 1980 the State Department,” writes 1979 Hartley Hall, junior year in John Jay Christopher Dell. “I haven’t regret- Hall and senior year in Furnald Hall Michael C. Brown ted leaving, as the last four years Robert C. Klapper had one thing in common: what [email protected] would have been unconscionable, to [email protected] was hanging in my room. It was a say the least. I’m into my third semi- gigantic black-and-white poster of a “Truckin’, got my chips cashed in career, working on project finance in Last May, Clarence Waldron tiny surfer riding the massive wall of “Keep truckin’, like the do-dah man the African power and infrastructure JRN’80 was the recipient of the water that is on the north shore of “Together, more or less in line space and sitting on the board of an 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award Oahu and is known as Waimea Bay. “Just keep truckin’ on” Australian renewables startup. from the Chicago Headline Club, The surfer is likely to be Greg Noll, — Grateful Dead “My wife and I have used this the nation’s largest chapter of the whom I have had the pleasure of strange time to explore Washington, Society of Professional Journalists. taking care of over the years. Last year certainly was unique for D.C., walking every day to different Each year it administers the Peter I sometimes ask myself, “Now all of us, in more ways than one. I, neighborhoods and lesser-known Lisagor Awards, which recognize that I surf on a regular basis, both for one, just keep truckin’ here in the historic sites. So Covid-19 hasn’t excellence in journalism. here in Ventura, Calif., and in Big Apple! Sure, fewer people to see, been a total loss. Clarence has enjoyed a distin- Hawaii, why did I feel drawn to this no restaurants to enjoy and clearly “We are grateful every day for guished career in journalism for more sport for years before I ultimately no entertainment or music scene. being — so far — in good health. than 35 years, including a 29-year took it on?” Local sports relegated to television, I spent an hour every day last tenure as a senior writer and senior Was it the Zen experience that I and no Ivy League sports have really summer writing 1,500 get-out- editor of Jet Magazine. He has been could recognize ahead of my time? curtailed my enthusiasm. But, more the-vote letters, so I did my bit to an adjunct professor at Northwestern Surfing is filled with Zen philoso- time for family and friends! help our country begin to recover. University Medill School of Journal- phers searching for its deep meta- Thank you to Scott Ahern, We must quickly restore the trust ism since 1998. His courses include phor of life. My favorite surfer is Eric Blattman, Joe Ciulla, Pat of our friends and allies, and regain “Reporting & Writing,” “Magazine Gerry Lopez, who is known for say- De Souza, Shawn FitzGerald, the respect of other nations for our Writing” and “Covering Popular ing, “If you can buy it with money, John Hall and Bruce Paulsen commitment to democracy and Music,” a music journalism course it is cheap.” Or, is it the philosopher for their calls and Zoom-ing on a human rights while becoming a that he created for graduate students. Sam George, who told me, “All regular basis. It is wonderful to have leader on climate issues, especially Clarence has also taught at Columbia things in life — light, sound, our so many people who care, and the embracing renewable energy. College Chicago and Loyola Univer- EKG electrodes over our hearts — stories keep getting better the more “I’ve tried to use this time to sity. In 2010, the National Associa- come in waves.” All of these waves we tell them! further my reading in the history of tion of Black Journalists presented of life, however, are invisible. It’s Let’s make sure we keep a posi- the Portuguese discoveries and to him with The Legacy Award and only the surfer in our society who tive outlook in 2021. I look forward write more of the popular history named him the “dean of arts and gets to see for a few seconds what a to hearing from you. Drop me a line. I’m trying to pull together.” entertainment journalists.” wave actually looks like in real life. Dr. Alec Bodkin tells a tale: Congratulations, Clarence, on As if that’s not deep enough of a “I have long worked as a shrink to your award and accolades from col- concept, it was Gerry who explained 1981 advance the medical remediation of leagues and notable celebrities! to me, “and remember, Dr. Klapper, depressive disorders. Unfortunately, News of career changes from Eric we as surfers ride the energy that REUNION 2021 the FDA blocked my second and Swenson LAW’82, who writes, is flowing through the water ... the MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) final effort on behalf of patients suf- “After 35-plus years as an energy water is actually not even moving.” JUNE 4–5 (in-person, fering from depressive illness based lawyer at big law firms, I elected to But I have to say, when I think conditions permitting) on what would appear to have been focus on pro bono work. To that back on what led me to hang a political reservations. This was a huge end, I stepped down in March as picture of a giant wave on my wall in Events and Programs Contact [email protected] loss to patients suffering from the a partner at the last (Orrick, Her- those concrete jungle rooms we lived Development Contact most painful of maladies for whom rington, Sutcliffe) of the four great in, it must have been the tiny size [email protected] standard fare did no good. I have also law firms that I had the pleasure of the surfer standing on his board worked on unraveling the complex to have worked for to join the Pro that really touched and inspired heritability of psychotic disorders. I Bono Institute as director, Law Firm me, because 45 years later, I finally Kevin Fay must say that the damage to social Pro Bono Project. The change has learned what I must have sensed, [email protected] relations from Covid-19 is a tragedy been rewarding and quite a different seeing that figure on his board. It’s for those who are no longer young. experience, partly due to the differ- because in that poster I saw the ulti- Like many of you, I am getting “From studying the past at ent scale and partly due to Covid-19 mate metaphor for life in the eyes of Covid-19 fatigue and am pretty Columbia we can see there is … At PBI, I collaborate with law- a college student — the nose of the much “over it,” except the disease is nothing new here. Newton and yers and legal services professionals board is the surfer’s future and the not over with us so we need to take Shakespeare made good use of their at law firms, corporate legal depart- tail of the board is the surfer’s past, normal precautions as we go about time in isolation, as we all must do. ments and legal service organiza- but he alone stands in the middle our daily lives. Last year began so One thing I do worry about is that tions across the country and around and learns to live in the moment. promisingly, but for most has unrav-

68 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews eled to the point where we were ment, doing everything from selling sing opera on the B’way sidewalk eager to say goodbye to 2020. 1982 vintage collectibles to leading bicycle every day. He was lousy, but he had Except, perhaps, for Jack tours in my hometown of Toronto.” determination. Did he ever make it O’Loughlin, who recently shared Andrew Weisman Thanks for checking in, Ken! to Carnegie Hall?” great news about his family. Jack’s [email protected] Sadly, I have to report on the pass- Rich Garden: “I am a practic- son, John ’12, married Paige Cus- ing of Rajan Sekaran, whose son ing urologist in Bergen County, covitch ’14 in Boston on October Greetings, gentlemen. As I pen Doran ’23 let us know of his father’s N.J., where I live with my wife, Dr. 3 with immediate family and close the latest set of Class Notes, we’re passing. The New York Times wrote Esther Diamant BC’83. We have friends in attendance. [Editor’s note: now approximately nine months extensively about Rajan. Read the three grown children: Hayley, who See “Just Married!] Younger son into the global pandemic. Such a obituary online: legcy.co/3nOpY8Q. has a master’s in computer anima- Brendan ’15 introduced them in sad and disconcerting time. Please Rajan will be greatly missed. tion and works for Hellosaurus, NYC after they graduated and was take this danger seriously; stay safe Finally, if you’ve got some time an interactive learning platform best man. At Columbia, John ran and responsible. on your hands, and I suspect you do, for children; Evan, who completed indoor and outdoor track and Paige On the upside, I’ve used this take a few minutes and send along his third year of medical school at was captain of the lacrosse team challenge to my health (see my any sort of update you’d care to. the Icahn School of Medicine at (hmm, if they have children will Summer 2020 note) as inspiration. Mount Sinai; and Sam, who is an they be Columbia athletes?). John I have been training heavily and investment banker for Macquarie. I and Paige moved to Boston in 2019, recently completed both the Maroon 1983 keep in touch with Dr. Harry Fried where Paige is a physician’s assistant Bells Loop, which consisted of three ’82, Dr. Alan Garten ’82, Irwin in the ER at Massachusetts General days and 34 miles of Rocky Moun- Roy Pomerantz Studen SEAS’82, Stephen Irolla Hospital and John is a relationship tain hiking, ranging in altitude from [email protected] ’82, Rabbi Josh Finkelstein ’82 and manager for Wells Fargo Com- 9,000 ft. to 12,500 ft. four times, Brad Gluck. My fondest memories mercial Real Estate, covering the and a one-day crossing of the Grand I received an unprecedented number of CC revolve around meeting my northeast. Jack also has a daughter, Canyon featuring 24 miles of hiking of emails and calls from classmates wife, playing full-court basketball Caroline (’11 Dartmouth), who was and 11,000 total feet of vertical. the last few months. During these with future President, then-student married in 2017. Given my current preoccupation challenging times, the updates are Barack Obama, and enjoying the Jack mentioned his deep sadness with all things Covid-19-related, especially appreciated. I will need to ability of Professors James Shenton to learn of the death of Harlan I was very pleased to have the spread them out over several issues. ’49, GSAS’54 and Eric Foner ’63, Simon, whom everyone knew due good doctor Charles Markowitz Many who write express how much GSAS’69 to make U.S. history come to his frantic, kinetic energy as con- check in: “Most recently, I started a they appreciate reading our Class alive and be relevant for me.” ductor for the Marching Band, in hospital-based outpatient rehabilita- Notes. If you haven’t done so recently, Steve Holtje: “After 35 years in the Fall 2020 issue. Quick wit, ready tion and wellness program for Covid please share your journey and recol- Brooklyn, I returned to the UWS smile ... these are Jack’s memories of survivors here in central New Jersey. lection of your CC experience. in February, specifically West End Harlan, which I’m sure are common Many of those who recover are David L. Burg: “Live in Miami. Avenue and 77th Street. Living in among classmates. unfortunately prone to long-lasting Three kids. In financial services. the Valley of Zabar’s/Citarella/Fair- You don’t have to be a math major residual health problems. Wondering if my Sam drawing is way/Trader Joe’s has been convenient. to figure out 2021 means we have “My medical practice is situated worth enough now to fund my retire- There was an interview with me in been out of college for 40 years, so in Lakewood, one of our region’s ment! Fondest memory ... watching the September issue of JazzTimes there must be a reunion. At this time frequent ‘hot spots’ for Covid. I was The Three Stooges with my floormates magazine about the record label I it’s difficult to predict if a reunion interviewed by Hamodia, Lake- in Carman on a weekend night (sad). run, ESP-Disk. In mid-September will happen in NYC, but if it does wood’s weekly news periodical; read Feels like yesterday! Only 50 lbs. we released the second Matthew I encourage all to attend. [Edi- it online: bit.ly/33c4jzS. heavier than my college weight.” Shipp Trio album I’ve produced, The tor’s note: As of late October, the “My son, Bryan ’19, attends busi- Michael Hickins: “My ebook, I Unidentifiable. I’m also the pianist in Alumni Office is planning Columbia ness school at Hebrew University in Lived in France and So Can You, was free-improvisation band Caterpil- Reunion 2021 as virtual events Mon- Jerusalem. He is exploring interna- published last year. I’m in touch with lar Quartet, which released its first day, May 24–Thursday, June 3, and tional startups and the promotion of a fair number of people from CC, album last summer, Threads, on the in-person events Friday, June 4– new agricultural technology for the including my best friend, Michael Greene Avenue label.” Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- developing world.” Granville, whom I met on the first Bill Schultz: “Throughout Covid- ting. Watch your inbox for more.] Charles, thanks for taking the day of Orientation! I’ll never forget 19, we have been in Atlanta. But Finally, I would like to pass the time to write in, and for all that my sense of awe at being surrounded fortunately, our kids (including our baton on being the CCT class corre- you’re doing to help people! The by so many incredibly smart people youngest, Daniel ’16) and our 1-year- spondent for CC’81, as I feel a fresh article is quite interesting and well — all of them smarter than I — from old grandson, Benjamin (prospective face in this position might stimulate worth a read. so many different places. I’m glad to CC 2042), have been here for much additional responses from class- Continuing with our “Positive say that I never lost my sense of won- of the time, a definite silver lining. mates. So many of our class went Tales of the Pandemic” theme, Ken der at being in such a beautiful and After moving 16 times (including to to graduate school on Morningside Gruber wrote from sunny Florida, privileged space. I hope to have news Delhi, London, Manila, Berlin and Heights, or have children who even though he hails from Toronto. to share later this year, but in the Toronto), this is our longest stretch in graduated from the College or live He managed to get “stuck” there rid- meantime count me among the many one place since ... Columbia!” in NYC and thus are able to access ing out the pandemic while keeping alumni grateful for your contribution Daniel Schechter GSAS’87, events on campus (if and when they company with his 88-year-old (fun- to our community.” PS’91: “After spending nearly a resume) ... these classmates are in a to-hang-out-with) mom. Ken notes, Kevin Berkowitz (fka Kevin decade at the University Hospitals better position than I to handle this “After being a suit-and-tie hospital- Berk): “I live in Thessaloniki, Geneva Medical Center in child and task. Please reach out to me if you ity marketing guy for 25-plus years, Greece, and am a high school adolescent psychiatry, I jumped back have an interest in being the next I (when not stuck in Florida) have teacher of English and social studies. over the pond to take an endowed class correspondent. been enjoying self/semi (un)employ- I remember some guy who used to associate professorship at NYU

Winter 2020–21 CCT 69 Class Notes while commuting to Geneva and Bikram yoga for six years, and it’s test, breast stroke champion Brian audiobook” (on Audible), and last maintaining my research in mater- done wonders for my strength and Clew did a deep dive into my previ- fall released his debut novel, The nal-child trauma there. My family flexibility. Due to Covid-19, my sons ous column and sent a shoutout to Groston Rules. Recently, his stepson and I decided, given all the informa- have decided to take a year off from Jim Weinstein. had Covid-19; he’s fully recovered, tion and experience at hand, that we college, and now work at a North Which leads me to a new feature and Mark wants you to know that it would in the long run be happiest in Haven, Conn., Amazon warehouse. in our column, starting now: “Class- is possible to have an infected per- Switzerland. Miraculously, I received We were looking forward to their vis- mate Spotlight”! son be in a house without spreading a stellar offer at Lausanne University iting South Carolina for Thanksgiv- We all know Brian Clew as it to everyone else. Hospital (CHUV) and started ing. I’ve recently been in touch with one of our class’s stellar athletes, Good to hear, but stay vigilant! there in July 2019 while remain- Bob Gamiel, Bruce Robertson, described in a March 23, 1983, Spec Hoping to hear a lot more from ing adjunct at NYU and Geneva Rob Kahn, Paul Saputo, Marty article as “a school record holder in you soon. University. I direct the Perinatal and Avallone, Simon Hall, Joe Harary the 100-yard and 200-yard breast Early Childhood Ambulatory Care and Mike Melkonian ’84.” stroke events … United States and Research Programs in Laus- Ramon Parsons: “I’ve been in Championships qualifier, an Eastern 1985 anne, living in Geneva with my wife, touch with many from the class via Seaboard finalist, and a ‘quiet team Christine, and our teenage sons, Jan Zoom: Dan Jaffe, David Hershey- leader’ according to Lions swimming Jonathan White and Filip, playing some cello and Webb, Liz Rich BC’83, Ted Kes- coach Don Galluzzi.” [email protected] piano and enjoying life. I’m in touch sler, Marty Shore, Chris Wood, Side note: Yours truly masochisti- with Daniel Heuberger ’85, Simo Maddy Schwartzman BC’83 and cally chose to take a lap swimming Hope everyone continues to stay Hoite ’89, SEAS’90, SEAS’91 and Roger Miller. All doing well. Con- gym class with the great Galluzi: well and safe during these challeng- Adam Van Doren ’84.” nie Vasilas BC’83 and I have been never worked out harder in my life! ing times. Please keep your updates Paul Hauptman: “Roy, I can married for 33 years and have three Not only was Brian co-captain coming, as it can help to provide only imagine how your business was adult children. I’m an Icahn Scholar and a member of the swim team some constancy and perspective impacted by Covid-19 in NYC.” and the Ward-Coleman Chair in that won its first league title in 1984, for everyone. Paul, actually we were exempted Cancer Research at the Icahn School but he also was, and is, the member Greg Jarrin has moved to Whit- from the closure because we sell of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where I of a very special club, one that I’ll eriver, Ariz., on the White Moun- essential baby items like wipes and also am director of the Tisch Cancer call “True Blue.” tain Apache Nation. “I am the first baby bottles and emergency medical Institute, an NCI-designated cancer One of a handful of CC’84 grads full-time general surgeon to work at items like thermometers. center, and chair of the Department who were legacies, Brian’s family’s the Whiteriver Indian Hospital. My Michael Calabrese: “I am a of Oncological Sciences. I have also dedication to Columbia is remark- wife was here as a nurse practitioner professor of English at California had the pleasure to run a research able. Starting with grandfather in the ER for a bit before I arrived. I State University, Los Angeles, in laboratory for more than 25 years Louis V. Clew, a Teachers College delayed my move from the Winslow my 27th year, and I’m happy to focused on cancer genetics and grad; followed by uncle Richard L. Indian Healthcare Center, as our now be celebrating the publication molecular biology.” Clew ’53; father, Robert D. Clew ’56; youngest daughter was in her senior of my latest book, a translation of I am sad to report the passing brother Richard C. Clew ’87; and year at Winslow Township H.S. We the middle English poem ‘Piers of George Poon. Ken Chin including wife, Alison Clew (née are proud to say she was co-vale- Plowman’ by William Langland. I shared his obituary; you can read it Levy) SEAS’83. dictorian. I have worked nationally first studied that in 1981 in Profes- online: bit.ly/3lqWMUL. These days, Brian spends a little in the Indian Health Service as the sor R.W. Hanning ’58, GSAS’64’s We should all be proud of Colum- less time in the pool, and more in the chief clinical consultant for surgery English class. I remain ever grateful bia’s recent number 3 ranking in U.S. sun, as an executive with MetroWest for five years. I have coordinated to mother Columbia and the faculty. News & World Report, ahead of Yale. Solar in Framingham, Mass. the planning for our national IHS “Here in Los Angeles, I am in Stay safe and carpe diem! Roar, Brian, Roar! surgeons conference every year for Simon Black constant contact with , It was Senior Week, and this great the past 18 years. Unfortunately, Charlie Hess P.J Pesce. and talent entertained us, sitting under a our conference in Anchorage was Wishing the best to all classmates, 1984 tree, just across from St. Paul’s Cha- canceled last year due to the pan- with memories of the Marlin Cafe pel, on — if memory serves — the demic. We hope to have it this year, and other spots from back in the day. Dennis Klainberg Friday before Class Day, at around June 4–6. And a perpetual note of affection [email protected] noon. It was a warm, sunny May day, “Two of our four children have for the other members of our group and, as this musician reminded me, graduated from college. Our old- of friends who are all in contact and Strange times, indeed, but very he was joined by two other amazing est, Julian, finished Arizona State Darius Sollohub, bound together: happy to have heard from a number jazz artists: Billy Higgins on drums University last May with a B.A. in Gideon Besson, Lou Tilmont and of classmates, with nothing but and Charlie Haden on bass. Who theater light design. He was working David Rosenberg Korish. Thanks for good health to report — thankfully! was it? None other than jazz guitar for the Maricopa County Elections keeping the spirit of our class alive.” Coincidentally, some of those closest great Pat Metheny. Department until November and Mark Darlington SEAS’84: to me at Columbia — literally, by Anyone else remember Senior next will start a job in theater in “I recently moved from Redding, proximity during those days, and Week events? Please advise and I a school district in Phoenix. Luke Conn., to Aiken, S.C., because Aiken by friendship since — all checked will revisit them in our next column. graduated from Humboldt State is heaven for horses, and my wife in right away. Always great hearing In other news, Mark Binder was University in Arcata, Calif., in owns three. I’ve been running an from Carman suitemate Ronald on a book and storytelling tour in May 2019 with a B.A. in wildlife IT consulting firm from home for Thompson, two-year Hamilton Vienna, London and Copenhagen conservation. He has worked for 19 years, so it doesn’t really matter next door neighbor Adam Belanoff for The Misadventures of Rabbi Kib- the Arizona Conservation Corps where I work. We live about three and Furnald floormate Peter bitz and Mrs. Chaipul when the pan- on trail maintenance in state and minutes from 12 beautiful Har-Tru Schmidt. But then, quite out of the demic sent everyone home. He spent federal parks, in Alaska on a salmon tennis courts, and I can play year- blue, as if emerging from the pool last summer producing SUMMER boat for six weeks and most recently round here. I’ve also been practicing where we all had to take the swim 2020, the world’s first “live concert in St. Louis with AmeriCorps. Our

70 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews two daughters are still in college. easier ... and it just becomes another touches on his time at Columbia in have found meaningful service to Felicia is a senior at Santa Clara Zoom meeting. the Big Brothers Big Sisters program my patients through the discovery University, and Chloe is a first-year Finally, on a personal note, please and quotes our good friend and my and development of medicines for at Saint Mary’s College of Califor- see the photo in the “Just Married!” other roommate Mike Schmidtberger neurological disorders. While at Eli nia in Moraga. Felicia is pursuing section featuring none other than ’82, LAW’85.” Mike chairs Sidley Lilly and Company I had vari- political science and English as a my son Isaac ’14, who married his Austin’s Executive Committee. ous roles, but had the opportunity dual major. Chloe plans to major in longtime sweetheart, Kara Krakower I thought I’d summarize the to help develop a medicine for biochemistry with hopes of going to BC’14, on the Low Steps on Sep- Arizona Attorney magazine article an uncommon but severe condi- medical school. tember 12, the 10th anniversary of from July/August 2020. Denis grew tion called cluster headache, the “My wife, Vanessa, and I are the day that they met at Columbia. up in Estherville, Iowa (pop. 7,500) first such medicine approved for thankful for our opportunities in life, Covid-19 forced them to postpone as the youngest of four boys. Three this condition. I now work at Teva the health and achievements of our their original plans, but in reality, became lawyers and one a doctor. By Pharmaceuticals in the Philly area, children, and our continuing ability the perfect setting combined with the way, the doctor-brother has 10 where I continue to work on devel- to work in the Indian Health Service. perfect weather led to a perfect day. children, nine of whom are doctors! oping medicines for other headache “The best to classmates. Go Solomon Hoffman ’14 officiated Their father, David Fitzgibbons disorders. It is an interesting time to Lions! Go Class of 1985! Sad to (his first marriage ceremony; he is Sr., moved the family from Iowa be working in pharma, being at once see the Marching Band dissolve. studying to be a rabbi, and will be to Arizona because of his rheuma- the immediate scapegoat for the Long live the Columbia University a great one). We used the Kiddush toid arthritis. They moved to Casa escalating cost of healthcare (still Marching Band!” cup given to Isaac at his bris by Grande, a diverse community half- only 10 percent of the overall cost of Louis Kanganis’s daughter, Eddy Friedfeld ’83 and Leon Fried- way between Phoenix and Tucson, healthcare in this country) but still Alisa, was set to join the Williams feld ’88. Numerous Columbia and and surrounded by Indian tribes. expecting that innovation for severe College Class of 2024, but opted to Barnard alums joined us on Zoom, After graduating from the ASU and urgent unmet medical needs defer due to Covid-19. She’ll also be including my brother, sister-in-law, College of Law, Denis worked at can proceed at warp speed. (Does a member of its track team, which is niece, nephew, Michael Ackerman Snell & Wilmer in Phoenix. One anyone else sense the irony of the competitive at the NCAA Division ’84 and Sally Freud BC’86. Feeling of his colleagues there said, “Once reference to science fiction?)” III level. Earlier this year Louis very blessed. you’re a friend of his, you’re a friend [Editor’s note: As of late October, joined Miyoko’s Kitchen, one of the [Editor’s note: CCT misattributed for life.” Denis joined his father’s the Alumni Office is planning Colum- leading producers of vegan cheese a note to Jeffrey Lautin in the Fall practice, which became Fitzgibbons bia Reunion 2021 as virtual events and dairy products, as its president. 2020 issue; we apologize for the error.] Law Offices. Denis works with his Monday, May 24–Thursday, June 3, Thanks to Heather Paxton for brothers, David and Kevin, and his and in-person events Friday, June 4– responding to some of the questions brother-in-law Dan Harrington. Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- posed by my email and our Zoom 1986 Their sister is an attorney, too, at ting. Watch your inbox for more.] reunion call last year. She says she another firm. Denis enjoys his loved her time at Columbia, but ... REUNION 2021 three-minute commute — five if “Big regret: I considered getting he hits the red light. He and his 1987 MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) a master’s in library science from wife, Lisa Navarro Fitzgibbons, who JUNE 4–5 (in-person, Columbia, but I decided against it. is a member of the Casa Grande Sarah A. Kass conditions permitting) My recollection is that it would have City Council, have three daughters: [email protected] required only an extra year of study. Events and Programs Contact Ashley, Molly and Grace. Ashley [email protected] At the time, I wanted a paycheck recently graduated from the ASU Judy Kim has become a Florida Development Contact and the advantages of more ‘real- Sandra Day O’Connor College of resident! She lives in Palm Beach [email protected] world’ experience. I also was aware Law, Molly is a labor and delivery and invites alums traveling in the that computers were changing nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital in area to drop by and say hi. She also everything. I didn’t want to get the Everett Weinberger Phoenix and Grace recently gradu- said that she had brunch with Dora degree, and then find that the sys- [email protected] ated from Loyola University with a Kim Baer. “It was so fun to talk tems I learned would be obsolete in major in psychology and a minor in about mutual friends and Art and a few years. What Heather of 2020 Greetings from Miami Beach! I women and gender studies. Music Hum!” Judy said. would tell Heather of 1985: ‘Get the decamped to my Miami apartment Denis is the kind of guy who is Suze Kim-Villano sent the follow- degree. Then you’ll have two degrees last July to take advantage of remote still friends with the Little Broth- ing update: “Covid-19 aerosol spread from Columbia, and you’ll have the working. If you’re in the Miami area, ers he mentored when he was at has been tough on choirs. I had been credentials to work as a profes- drop me a line and we’ll meet for Columbia. His firm’s motto is “Trust regularly singing in four before the sional librarian. As for the computer outdoor beers! and integrity … a tradition.” Denis pandemic. Notre Dame returned to systems, you’ll still be learning new We are in need of an uplifting is Irish Catholic but he sounds like a in-person this fall and I was singing ones in your 50s, as unimaginable as story, and Chris Herbst provided mensch in the truest sense. in person, but in smaller choirs, dis- that may seem.” one. “After 34 years, I’m breaking my Congratulations, Denis, on this tanced, outside in the football stadium, Hope you are able to engage with silence and finally sending in my first well-deserved honor! in a mask. With the cold weather, we Columbia online. I viewed several contribution for Class Notes. I am Andy Ahn sent a nice update: moved indoors to connected rooms webinars, which were very thought- so very proud to report that Denis “In an apparent effort to wander where we can sing together (which is ful. Also, the Alumni Representative Fitzgibbons, my Columbia room- ever closer back to my hometown impossible on Zoom) while we are in Committee will be doing all admis- mate and my brother-in-law of 33 and alma mater, I have moved from separate spaces! sions interviewing remotely for the years, was recently elected president of Indianapolis to the Philadelphia “Two of the Notre Dame Chil- Class of 2025, so if you ever wanted the State Bar of Arizona! I attached region with my wife, Christina, and dren’s Choirs are meeting in person, to interview, but didn’t have the a great article about Denis and his daughters, Isabela (13) and Abigail again, in small groups, distanced, wherewithal to get to an appropriate family that shows his passionate (11). After a time in academia as in masks, at the stadium gate. They interview place, it has never been commitment to serve others. It also a neuroscientist and neurologist, I have been great, and I meet by

Winter 2020–21 CCT 71 Class Notes

Zoom with those singers who are to make us hopeful and proud. This is unfortunately the second cializes in international and political quarantining or have high-risk Dr. Pam Perry is an emergency column in a row in which I have affairs. Most recently she produced family members. The rest of our medicine specialist in West Palm had to note the death of a classmate. Totally Under Control, a documen- choirs are meeting via Zoom, and Beach, Fla. “I’m happily married to Refoel Pride reports, “Brian Keizer tary that chronicles Donald Trump the directors have learned to use an incredible graphic designer, Lon- passed away on March 17, 2020, and the White House’s response Google Classroom, Flipgrid, Virtual nie MacPeek, and I am on year 23 which I believe was just before his to the coronavirus pandemic, now Interactive Classrooms and Flat to of an amazing emergency medicine 54th birthday. Cause of death was available on Hulu. Maiken also co- teach songs and musical skills, pro- career,” Pam reports. “I thank my complications arising from diabetes. directed the documentary film Venus vide social and emotional support, lucky stars every day that I went to He should rest in peace.” and Serena and produced Client 9: and build community online. Columbia College! Crazy times in Refoel recalled, “He was a great The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Her “We break frequently to allow the world right now. Everyone pray, guy and a brilliant mind, one of list of films and documentaries is aerosol dispersement (outside) and and above all else, stay safe!” the most brilliant minds I’ve ever extensive and also includes No Stone increased air exchanges (inside), and Dr. Eve Makoff GSAS’89 wrote known. He worked for many years Unturned, the story of the 1994 are doing what we can with what we from Torrance, Calif.: “I am an as a freelance writer, and also for Loughinisland massacre in North- have. Trying to stay safe and sing.” internal medicine and palliative New York’s SummerStage. ern Ireland; Elián, which focuses on For more on Notre Dame’s music, care physician, and medical director “Probably the most notable epi- Elián Gonzales as an adult and the check out bit.ly/3pY7TY1 online. of palliative care at MedZed, a sode from Brian’s Columbia College story that followed his removal from telehealth company that provides career came when he was the host the United States to Cuba, as well longitudinal care. For fun I publish of a weekly blues show on WKCR as the documentary City of Ghosts, 1988 personal essays and narrative medi- and Keith Richards called in to the which tells the story of ISIS fighters cine reflections. I am married and studio,” Refoel wrote. Brian hung in the city of Raqqa during the fall Eric Fusfield have three kids, ages 15, 18 and 19.” up on him a few times because he of the attempted caliphate. In 2018 [email protected] Laura Prendergast, founder and assumed it was a prank — anyone Maiken was an executive producer chief technical officer of VectorGen, acquainted with Brian knew he was for the documentary Divide and Recently I have had reason to think is pushing barriers in platform tech- a huge fan of the Stones. Somehow Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, and back on my junior abroad at Oxford, nology that can be used to prevent Richards finally managed to get in 2019 she was an executive pro- when I decided as a young man that and cure HIV/AIDS and other through to Brian and persuade him ducer for the documentary Mystify: I didn’t trust English barbers and viral infections. “The Street Card, a it really was him; he was a faithful Michael Hutchence. Maiken lives in consequently went a full year without project to use IT to streamline the listener of the show each week from New York City with her family. cutting my hair. As a middle-aged provision of benefits to home- his home. (Maybe on Long Island? I Patrick Nolan sent me a tip man during a viral pandemic, I feel a less persons, is progressing nicely,” can’t remember.) Brian set a time to that Claudio Saunt, a professor of different sort of distrust, in which I she says. “We have two student go interview him for the show, which history at the University of Georgia, fear contracting the coronavirus in a teams working on the web-based he did. That was a special moment. authored a highly acclaimed book, barber shop, and have therefore grown application; the first tier of services If you had told me then that Keith Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession my hair long again. It is now rangy on (for basic needs providers) is nearly Richards would outlive Brian, I never of Native Americans and the Road the sides and in the back, but sparser complete, and the second tier (con- would have believed you.” to Indian Territory, earlier this year. on top, a reminder that none of us are necting homeless clients with their Stay in touch and stay safe, Unworthy Republic is a “master- 20 anymore. It’s also a stark reminder medical records) is well underway. everyone. ful” and “unsettling history” of the not to strive for an aging hipster look “I am also working with a team forced migration of Native Ameri- under normal conditions. of students from the University cans across the Mississippi River in As the pandemic continues to of Albany on a police reform 1989 the 1830s and the state-sponsored consume our attention and constrict project,” Laura continues. “We have theft of their lands. Claudio’s fourth our activities, the medical doctors partnered with Jeffrey Deskovic, a Emily Miles Terry book, it is a finalist for the 2020 and specialists in our class continue prominent advocate for criminal jus- [email protected] National Book Award for Nonfic- tice reform. Additionally, I recently tion, was Shortlisted for the 2020 accepted a position as science advi- As we all know, CC’89 has more Cundill History Prize and was on sor to Air Cycle Systems, a group than our fair share of classmates who the Publishers Weekly “Top 10” Best of entrepreneurs developing a better are dedicated and involved alumni. Books of 2020 list. air-purifying respirator. But I wanted to acknowledge the Dr. Tony Vinals writes: “Enjoyed “Finally, I am saddened to report work of Michael Behringer and some tennis in the fall. Despite all the demise of my uncle, Dr. Robert A. his tremendous leadership as former the social distancing, tennis is a Prendergast ’53, who left a lasting leg- president of the Columbia College great sport that I am enjoying with acy for the Columbia crew by painting Alumni Association. Mike’s tenure my daughters Matilde and Theresa, Stay in the ‘C’ on the Spuyten Duyvil cliff.” (he began as president in 2017) both born at the Columbia Uni- Touch [Editor’s note: See “Obituaries.”] wrapped up last July, and while I’m versity Medical Center-NewYork Also involved in the fight against sure he’s happy to have some time Presbyterian Hospital, and who both Let us know if you have a HIV is David Putelo, who checked back, the CCAA will certainly miss had the joy of studying at Columbia new postal or email address, in from the Syracuse area, where he his strong leadership and ambitious last summer in a joint Sotheby’s/art a new phone number or is national account director for ViiV alumni-oriented endeavors. Michael history department program.” Healthcare, a pharmaceutical com- and his family reside in Connecticut, Tony added that his “wife even a new name: pany specializing in the develop- where he is executive in residence at received also her medical training at college.columbia.edu/ ment of therapies for HIV infection. Ridgemont Equity Partners. Columbia, so the Columbia tradi- alumni/connect. David pledged to “reach out in the Thank you, Michael! tion runs deep in our family.” near future as the world returns to a Maiken Baird is an independent Tony attended the Yale School of better reality.” documentary filmmaker who spe- Medicine and trained in ophthal-

72 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews mology at Harvard. Fourteen years wasn’t really the reunion they would’ve as how Zoom makes it easy to get security. He lives in Los Angeles and ago, after working for several years liked, but they said it was nice to see places nowadays. has recorded several albums with his in Manhattan, he and his family everybody’s faces and catch up! Best wishes and good health to band DMZ//38. moved to Germany. “We are located You’re never too old to be a Ful- all, and please stay in touch. Jack Hidary has been at Alpha- outside of Frankfurt in a lovely bright Scholar. Aili Bresnahan (née bet (parent company of Google) wine-growing area near the Rhine Webber) was awarded a Fulbright for five years and is leading a group River,” Tony writes. “My wife and I and heads to London this winter for 1991 focused on the nexus of Physics & are both eye surgeons, and partners seven months. An associate professor AI technologies. His book, Quantum in one of the most established of philosophy of philosophy at the REUNION 2021 Computing: An Applied Approach, practices in our state. We also had University of Dayton in Ohio, Aili’s was published in October 2019 and MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) the good fortune of opening our eye primary areas of research are the is in its fourth printing. “I often JUNE 4–5 (in-person, clinic in January 2020.” philosophy of dance, performance, think of our days in small seminars conditions permitting) And lastly, a bit of good news: aesthetics, culture and law. Read in the Core and have drawn on that This column is going to be written about her on the Fulbright Commis- Events and Programs Contact experience for the many classes I [email protected] by CC’89 guest columnists this sion’s U.K. website: bit.ly/3pmVgW9. teach,” Jack says. Development Contact year. Please let me know if you’re Marian Wright reports, “My Nancy López Ph.D. is a profes- [email protected] interested. You don’t have to be family recently acquired a 170-acre sor of sociology at the University of obligated to do the column for the high country ranch near Kremmling, New Mexico. Nancy co-founded and rest of your life, but please reach out Colo., where we have an off-grid Heather E.G. Brownlie still directs the Institute for Study of to me if you’d like to write one. You cabin and plan to sustainably raise [email protected] “Race” & Social Justice, and she is will have several months’ lead time, crops and beef for the local market. the founding coordinator of the New and it’s a great excuse to reach out We will continue to live in Rye, Hi everyone! I am Heather E.G. Mexico Statewide Race, Gender, to classmates and share what you’ve N.Y., while our younger children Brownlie, your new class corre- Class Data Policy Consortium been up to. (Rhodes, 14, and Wyatt, 16) finish spondent, having taken over from (race.unm.edu). Nancy also is high school. Our oldest, Cole (19) my Carman 8 floormate Margie associate VP for the Division for is a sophomore at Colgate. For Kim, who did such an amazing job Equity and Inclusion and co-chairs 1990 a few years now, I have been on all these years — thank you, Margie! the Education Committee of the the junior board at Stone Barns I look forward to keeping up with New Mexico governor’s Council for Rachel Cowan Jacobs Center for Food & Agriculture in everyone’s activities and being the Racial Justice. Her scholarship and [email protected] Pocantico Hills, N.Y. Stone Barns, conduit for your updates and news to teaching are guided by the insights with its associate restaurants, both make it into these pages. So please, of intersectionality — the simultane- When I submitted my Fall 2020 col- called Blue Hill, is committed to send me your information, and let’s ity of tribal status/settler colonial- umn, (most of) the United States was the development and promulgation keep this column vibrant and active! ism race/structural racism, gender/ four months into the stay-at-home/ of sustainable food production. Its As I write this, plans are underway heteropatriarchy, class/capitalism, shutdown stage of Covid-19. As I nonprofit farm and educational cen- for our 30th reunion celebration, ethnicity/nativism and sexuality/ write today, we’re more than seven ter are adjacent to the Rockefeller scheduled to take place virtually in late heterosexism as systems of oppres- months in and when you read this, it’ll State Park Preserve.” May and possibly in person in early sion/resistance across a variety of be the heart of winter. Who knows Jonathan Earle, Erika Schroter June, conditions permitting. Already, social outcomes (education, health, what our country will look like when Olinger and their families have been I have very much enjoyed working employment, wealth and housing) this column is published? I just hope spending time together during the with the CC’91 Reunion Committee, it’s a whole lot healthier, and not just pandemic in New Orleans, either by catching up with old friends and mak- in a coronavirus context. Here’s some the pool at Jonathan’s pied-a-terre ing new ones! Cheers to 30 years! news from our classmates. in the lower French Quarter or at Eugenia Gonzalez Centeno Beth Kissileff has co-edited an Erika’s lovely home Uptown. They and Miguel Centeno write, “We anthology about the Pittsburgh Tree met up again — by chance! — at a are doing well in Queens with our of Life synagogue shooting, which party after an art opening at Erika’s 3-year-old, Mateo.” was published in October. Her daugh- hip Magazine Street Cole Pratt After almost 18 years at Boies ter followed in her footsteps to Penn Gallery, where her husband, Jude, Schiller & Flexner, Bob Cooper for a graduate degree. Beth reports she “introduced” them. Both Erika and joined King & Spalding as a partner has no Columbians … yet. Jonathan joined Phi Epsilon Pi, a in Washington, D.C., last July. Bob Michael Kinstlick is pande- coeducational local fraternity, during focuses his practice on antitrust liti- micing-in-place in Berkeley while their freshman year at Columbia. gation, governmental investigations whiskey company Coppersea is still Finally, Robin Zornberg Wald and counseling global companies on going strong (I bet it is!) in New SEAS’90 invited Laura Shaw competition-related issues. York. His son is enjoying his junior Frank, Judy Shampanier and me Jacqueline Harounian practices year at the University of Chicago. to join her team for a Zoom trivia family law as a partner in the Great Bob Giannasca, Liz Libow game that SEAS organized during Neck, N.Y., firm of Wisselman, Poston, Claudine Wolas Shiva, Homecoming festivities in October. Harounian & Associates. She was Lucia Bozzola, Margaret Flynn The good news is that we did not recently named a New York Law Robison and Melissa Steinman come in last. The better news is that Journal “Top Woman in Law 2020,” (née Landau) got together to wish we knew stuff! The disappointing and her firm was named a U.S. News Laura Schiele Robinson a happy news is that we were the only people & World Report Top Tier Firm 2020. Miguel Centeno ’91 and Eugenia birthday via Zoom in October. It took playing from 1990. Oh, well. I hope Darow Han is a senior consul- Gonzalez Centeno ’91 are doing an extra week or two past her birthday the rest of you participated in some tant and architect for IBM Security well in Queens, N.Y., with their to actually schedule the call, and it other Homecoming events, seeing specializing in network and cloud son, Mateo (3).

Winter 2020–21 CCT 73 Class Notes

and the importance of develop- Socolow ’89, was working for the and looking for the good where we ing contextualized solutions that State Department. Luckily, we left can find it.” 1996 advance justice. Her books include Australia prior to the devastating fires. Shawn reports that 36 years Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and “I wish I could see you all at our after he and Michael Jeon started REUNION 2021 Gender Disparity in Urban Education next reunion. I’ve loved attending seventh grade together, they now MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) (2002) and Mapping “Race”: Critical previous ones, with my ol’ team- are parents of seventh-graders in the JUNE 4–5 (in-person, Approaches to Health Disparities mates Julie Black, Iris Kurman, same Class of 2026, “even though conditions permitting) Research (2013). She co-edited a spe- Ani Mekhjian, Tara Kreidman and the girls, who share one government cial issue of the Race, Ethnicity and more, but who knows if that will course (as I think Mike and I did), Events and Programs Contact [email protected] Education Journal on Quantitative be possible due to Covid-19. Stay haven’t yet met in person.” Development Contact Methods and Critical Race Theory. healthy and safe, everyone! Last spring, Shawn designed and [email protected] Nancy is also known for Susannah “Susie” Wood joined piloted a public-sector innovation developing the concept of “street the State Department as a Foreign course, and Caralyn Spector BC’94 race.” She has been recognized Service officer in 2012. Since then, was among the experienced mid- Ana Salper for her contributions to engaged she has been posted to U.S. embas- career professionals from across the [email protected] scholarship through the American sies in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; and country who participated. As a Los Sociological Association’s Section on Ankara, Turkey; and is currently Angeles County and Santa Monica Dear classmates, thanks to many of for Sociological Practice and Public living in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Susie city commissioner — and now my fellow 25th Reunion Committee Sociology’s William Foote Whyte plans to move back to Washington, chair of the Santa Monica Planning members, I have a nice amount of Distinguished Career Award. Her D.C., this summer for a domestic Commission — Shawn has also news to report this time around. As current research includes a mixed tour. She is married to Alexander been hard at work to plan and coor- I write this, we are on the cusp of method study in three research Gavashelishvili and has two daugh- dinate an array of local government the presidential election (only five practice partnerships that examines ters, Sophia (15) and Laura (11). efforts related to procurement and days away). It will be old news by the role of ethnic studies curriculum land-use streamlining, local hiring the time of publication of this issue, and culturally relevant pedagogy and philanthropic partnerships, each but I would be remiss if I did not in reducing complex intersec- 1992 through an equity lens. mention how much I am fervently tional inequalities in high school. He adds, “Lastly, a shameless hoping that 2021 ushers in a new Nancy has served on more than 70 Olivier Knox plug (thanks to Mason Kirby for era of positivity, unity and peace in Ph.D./M.A. committees and has [email protected] his leadership on this) for The this country. given more than 130 seminars at Columbia College Class of 1994 Our 25th reunion is upon us (See national conferences, invited lectures Hello, classmates and friends! Send Scholarship Fund. Support for the what I did there? Two mentions and community gatherings. me your life updates — new job, fund counts toward annual recogni- before I even get to the notes.), and Connie McVey writes: “Michael new family and so on. I guarantee Socolow and I live in beautiful someone will be delighted to hear Maine with our boys, Simon (17) from you via the column. and Geo (15). I’ve been practicing Shawn Landres ’94 and Michael Jeon ’94 started psychotherapy for 25 years now, spe- seventh grade together, and now they are both cializing in trauma. Work has never 1993 been busier ... I am president of the parents of seventh-graders (Class of 2026?). Maine chapter of CISV International, Betsy Gomperz which focuses on youth development, [email protected] global friendship and peace education. Prior to Covid-19, I played on an ice No news to share this time! Please tions, and because it’s a financial aid although it will be different this year hockey team and was an avid Friday reach out to me at the email above or endowment, it’s a gift that literally because of Covid-19 restrictions, I night tango dancer (I miss dancing via the CCT Class Notes webform, keeps on giving.” Go to givenow. encourage all of you to participate terribly!); though during Covid, I’ve college.columbia.edu/cct/submit_ columbia.edu, and search using the in the scheduled events and reunite been doing a lot of community veggie class_note. Classmates would love to fund’s name. with CC’96 classmates. Can you gardening, standup paddleboarding, hear from and about you. Share cur- Thanks to Shawn for sending the believe it has been 25 years since we hiking, biking and open water swim- rent news, and/or stories from days updates! Looking forward to hear- graduated? It truly feels like a life- ming, while managing two teen boys. past, and I will publish it in a future ing from more of you soon! Take time ago, which is why reconnecting “Mike is director of the Univer- issue. Wishing you a healthy, happy care, and be well. now is so important. sity of Maine’s Clement and Lucy and safe New Year. Now on to the notes. Rose Kob McGillicuddy Humanities Center is a lawyer at a nonprofit and lives in and writes on topics like fake news, 1995 Brooklyn with her husband, Joe, and politics and more. He was awarded 1994 their two teenagers. She writes that a Fulbright scholarship to research Janet Lorin she is delighted to live around the at the News and Media Research Leyla Kokmen [email protected] corner from her Carman 11 floor- Centre at the University of Canberra [email protected] mate Noa Heyman. Rose often sees in Australia in 2019, so we lived Please reach out with your news via Noa out for her morning run when there for six months and enrolled our Hello, Class of 1994! Hope you the email above or the CCT Class she picks up her newspaper from boys in Australian schools. We had are all hanging in there! Happy Notes webform, college.columbia. the stoop. Rose is also co-chair of amazing experiences, with side trips to report some updates sent in by edu/cct/submit_class_note. Class- the board of Community Impact at to the Great Barrier Reef, Daintree Shawn Landres, who notes, “Like mates would love to hear from and Columbia, which had its first virtual Rainforest, New Zealand, Japan and so many others, we are navigating about you! Wishing you a safe and gala this past October. Rose’s fellow Korea, where Mike’s sister, Elisabeth these multiple crises as best we can healthy New Year. CI board member Moha Desai was

74 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews there, as well as other CC’96ers, Lisa Courtney LAW’99 lives have been staying in good health On a positive note, last summer including Pete Freeman and Eliza- with her husband, Eduardo, and throughout this frightening corona- I regained my freedom and moved beth Yuan (who also works with us their two children in Morningside virus pandemic, which continues to with my daughter to the lovely on the Reunion Committee). Check Heights. She is statewide coordina- ravage our planet. It is my pleasure and picturesque town of Celebra- out the CI website to learn more: tor of alternative dispute resolution to present the following updates tion, Fla. Celebration feels like a communityimpact.columbia.edu. for the New York State Unified from our classmates. whimsical version of some towns in Stefanie Lally-Ardrey SIPA’01 Court System, working to promote Sarah Bunin Benor recently Connecticut, like Greenwich and writes that she is in her 17th year the growth of mediation through- published a book with Jonathan Darien, but done up in a palette of as underwriting counsel with an out NYS. Lisa oversees settlement Krasner and Sharon Avni, Hebrew Florida pastels. Living here feels like international title insurance company. skills and training programs for Infusion: Language and Community it’s Easter year-round! Our home, She and her husband have two high judges and non-judicial court staff, at American Jewish Summer Camps. which is right in the downtown area, schoolers in Connecticut and, in a fit and leads the Alternate Dispute Melinda Powers recently is a short walking distance to the of quarantine-induced enthusiasm, Resolution Committee of the New published an edited collection, local elementary (K–8) school and recently added a Cocker Spaniel to York Women’s Bar Association. Lisa Reclaiming Greek Drama for Diverse also walking distance to restau- their brood. Stefanie got together returns to campus each year to speak Audiences: An Anthology of Adapta- rants, shops, a clubhouse, a lake, with Nina Russakoff in NYC just to students at the Law School about tions and Interviews. hiking trails, bicycle trails and so before the pandemic hit when they mediation and to coach law students Dorraine Burrell (née Hemchand) forth. Living in this new town is took their respective goddaughters to during their intensive mediation writes: “I have joined the board of a much-needed breath of fresh air see a Broadway musical and for after- training, along with Professor Alex- HealthRight International. We are after the two-year war that I have noon tea in celebration of a milestone andra Carter LAW’03. In addition celebrating our 30-year anniversary. just finished, and the three years of birthday. Stefanie keeps in touch to mediation, Lisa enjoys medita- We build sustainable healthcare misery that preceded that. And now virtually with Janet Kilian (my Car- tion, meeting neighborhood friends systems for and with marginalized if only the pandemic would go away, man 5 roommate!), an economist for at The Hungarian Pastry Shop, communities here and abroad.” life could be just peachy. the Department of Defense’s United and walking around the Columbia Nickolay Todorov writes: “I’m The other day I put on some States Indo-Pacific Command in neighborhood with family and executive-producing Swamp People traditional nursery songs for my Hawaii, and enjoys debating world friends. Her 12-year-old daughter for the History channel. During the daughter’s listening enjoyment. Her politics and the relative cuteness of is a cellist who dreams of going last year I executive-produced two immediate response was, “No, thanks. their babies: Janet’s toddler and Ste- to Columbia, and her 10-year-old seasons of the hit show Swamp People: I prefer Bon Jovi.” Her favorite Bon fanie’s puppy. Stefanie hopes that all son is an avid chess player eager to Serpent Invasion for History, one Jovi song is “Wanted Dead or Alive,” classmates are staying safe and well again ride NYC trains just for fun. more season of Swamp People and the which she sings at the top of her during these strange times. Lisa loved hearing Jodi Kantor’s show The Last Cowboy for Paramount, lungs. I’ll end now with a few lyrics Carter Burwell is counselor interview of Professor Ken Jackson a documentary companion to Yel- from her second-favorite Bon Jovi to the secretary for terrorism and in the fall and felt encouraged by his lowstone. Before that I produced the song, “It’s My Life”: financial intelligence at the U.S. faith in the future of NYC. last two seasons of American Chopper Department of Treasury. Whitney Chiate (née Berkholtz) in Orange County, N.Y.” “My heart is like an open highway Michael Lee is a corporate law- lives in Tiburon (Marin County), John Dean Alfone participated “Like Frankie said yer at Ropes & Gray in Boston. He Calif., with her husband and two in Cannes Online 2020 (marchedu “I did it my way lives in Newton, Mass. (just outside children, and is working on getting film.com) and was accredited for the “I just want to live while I’m alive Boston), with his wife, Brigitte, a master’s in psychology from Har- San Sebastian International Film “It’s my life!” daughter, Noelle (12), and kitten, vard. I have really enjoyed spending Festival (sansebastianfestival.com) beta fish and frog. Michael looks time serving on the 25th Reunion last September in Spain and the Blessings to all for the new year, forward to connecting with other Committee with Whitney, as well Marché International du Film Clas- please say safe during the pandemic alums in the area and reconnecting as with Adam Beshara, Uchenna sique (mifc.fr) last October in France. and do send us your updates. In with our class at our 25th reunion. Acholonu, Britta Jacobson (my As for me, Kerensa Harrell, lumine Tuo videbimus lumen. Mila Tuttle (née Atmosudirdjo) former East Campus suitemate) and I am wrapping up this column in SIPA’05 started a podcast on civic others, several of whom are featured early October and I am thank- engagement, Future Hindsight. She in this column. Hope to see you all ing my lucky stars that I remain 1998 writes: “It’s been an eye-opening at a reunion event! in a position where I can continue journey that feels like I’m back in In honor of the late Justice Ruth being a stay-at-home mom for my Sandie Angulo Chen school, reading so much nonfiction, Bader Ginsburg LAW’59 (may she almost 4-year-old-daughter. With [email protected] and learning what’s possible for our rest in power), I leave you with this: the pandemic continuing, I am democracy. Tune in! Still living in doing my utmost to keep the two Hello, classmates! Manhattan, I have become super “Fight for the things that you of us at home as much as possible, Shoutout to Alejandra Monte- involved with Columbia and I’m care about, but do it in a way that in an attempt to limit our exposure negro Almonte, who lives on the really enjoying it.” will lead others to join you.” through social distancing. Rather other side of the DMV (Dela- Mila, who was the coxswain on — RBG than shopping at stores, I order all ware, Maryland, Virginia) area in crew, is in touch with fellow crew of our necessities to be delivered to Northern Virginia and continues to members Eileen Barish (rower), our home, even the groceries. When impress with her family’s themed Catherine Reibman Williams ’95 1997 on rare occasions we must go out, annual Halloween costumes. Despite (rower), Kathryn Hudacek Harlow we are careful to wear our cloth the quarantine, the Almontes — ’94 (rower) and of course former Kerensa Harrell face masks (which are matching Alejandra; her husband, Jorge; and Democratic presidential candidate [email protected] mommy-daughter masks in pretty their children, Javier (13) and Lucia Beto O’Rourke ’95 (also a rower!). colors!). I am really looking forward (12) — dressed as commercial insur- Mila has two sons, ages 16 (11th Dear classmates, I hope that you to a vaccine, so that we can resume ance agents. Alejandra is a member grade) and 13 (eighth grade). had a pleasant autumn and that you our social life. and vice-chair in the International

Winter 2020–21 CCT 75 Class Notes

Department of the Washington, and Columbia Outdoor Biking from his home in Southampton, tragic event in Emily’s present too D.C., law firm Miller & Chevalier. Orientation Program pal Adam N.Y. Inspired by the light and color closely echoes her past, and parts Send me your news at the email Sokol recently moved down the of nature, he combines elements of of her story that she’d hoped never above or via the CCT Class Notes street from me in Los Angeles. painting with video compositing in to share come to light, her perfect webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/ Last summer, Adam and his wife, a style that feels optimistic, playful life is suddenly upturned. She’s left submit_class_note! Bingyi, invited us to their home for and satisfying, he says. His art was wondering what her future holds, a social-distanced outdoor meal. It recently featured at the San Fran- and if the passion for music she had was so lovely to see our kids playing cisco Museum of Modern Art. in college should once again be a 1999 together and to enjoy a delicious Dr. Lachlan McG. Smith and his driving force in her life. meal outdoors! wife welcomed their third daughter, Jill and her husband, Andrew Columbia College Today It was a delight to hear from Beatrix, last September, and soon Claster, are currently living in Wash- [email protected] Mark Jackson: “I live in Brooklyn the family of five will move back ington, D.C. near the Prospect Park Zoo with my from Kentucky (Lachlan’s home Thank you all for sharing these Greetings for 2021, CC’99! If you wife and two daughters. We have state) to Stony Brook, N.Y., his exciting updates, and please keep them are interested in writing this column gotten to know every square inch of wife’s hometown, where he accepted coming! Updates, as well as pics, are as the class correspondent, please Prospect Park since last spring, and a job as faculty in the Department welcome at [email protected]. send a note to [email protected] — now have our sights on the recently of Radiology at SUNY Stony Brook, it’s a great way to keep in touch with reopened Brooklyn Botanic Garden where he went to med school. classmates! In the meantime, share and Brooklyn Museum. When I’m Ishwara Glassman Chrein 2003 your news and updates by sending us not homeschooling or tidying, I am SIPA’03; her husband, Jason; kids, an email or by using the CCT Class general counsel for the mixed-use Chloe (11) and Matthew (9); and Michael J. Novielli Notes webform, college.columbia. development project Industry City.” their Golden Retriever, Henry, have [email protected] edu/cct/submit_class_note. Great hearing from you, Mark. been quarantining in Southampton, Stay well, stay healthy and keep N.Y. The kids are getting a degree Well, it certainly has been an intense in touch, all! in tennis, swimming and TikTok. few months politically with the 2000 [Editor’s note: As of late October, Ishwara has been busy negotiating recent elections, and our classmates the Alumni Office is planning Colum- major sports deals as the head of continue to make their impact on Prisca Bae bia Reunion 2021 as virtual events sports partnerships and business the political landscape. [email protected] Monday, May 24–Thursday, June development at Yahoo! Sports / Jonathan Manes writes, “Last 3, and in-person events Friday, June Verizon Media. She has also read January we moved to Chicago, Please share your news with the 4–Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- 40 books since quarantine started. where I am an attorney at the class via the email above or the ting. Watch your inbox for more.] Ishwara went back to campus a few Roderick and Solange MacArthur CCT Class Notes webform, college. times in 2019 to speak to students Justice Center at Northwestern’s columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note. about working in sports. During Pritzker School of Law. I did voting Classmates would love to hear from 2002 normal times, the family lives live on rights litigation in Wisconsin and and about you! Wishing you a safe the Upper West Side. Florida through the election, and and healthy New Year. Sonia Hiradarami Joyce Anderson (née Chang) am continuing prior work on police [email protected] writes, “Hi, Columbia friends! I’ve transparency and accountability. been living in Evanston, Ill., for We’re looking forward to getting 2001 Hi, classmates. Hope you and your 10 years with my husband, Chris, to know our new city and spending loved ones are safe in these unprec- three sons and pup. After retiring time on the beaches here in a future, REUNION 2021 edented and uncertain times. from the practice of law, I started post-pandemic summer.” Nihal Godiwala is a pediatric working in education and youth Julia Rose Kraut’s first book, MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) critical care attending physician at sports. In 2019, I launched a sports Threat of Dissent: A History of JUNE 4–5 (in-person, Children’s Hospital New Orleans tech start-up, Honest Game. We Ideological Exclusion and Deportation conditions permitting) and assistant professor of medicine are a public benefit corporation in the United States, was published Events and Programs Contact at LSU Health Sciences Center. with a mission to bring equal access last summer and was featured in The [email protected] Last spring and summer were busy to college athletics and beyond for New York Times. Development Contact Sam Lee [email protected] for Nihal, as he was involved in all high school students. We build is producing a docu- national, multi-center collabora- automated academic roadmaps to mentary podcast, The Edge, about the tive efforts to create diagnostic and guide students, counselors, parents Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal. Jonathan Gordin treatment algorithms for the Covid- and coaches through the National Katori Hall is embarking on [email protected] MISC disease that affected children. Collegiate Athletic Association/ season 2 of her TV show P-Valley, Like many of us, he was looking National Association of Intercolle- on STARZ, and celebrating 12 Hi all, hope everyone is doing well forward to 2020 being over and, giate Athletics eligibility process. In Tony nominations for Tina: The — this winter certainly feels differ- also, for his beloved Saints to win March 2020, Honest Game won the Tina Turner Musical both as a co- ent than others. I miss seeing many the Super Bowl. first Chicago Bulls Venture Compe- producer and book writer. of you in person like I normally do, Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins tition. Looking forward to hearing Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s new, fourth though texting still works remark- received tenure status as an associate from more classmates!” book of poetry, Rain in Plural, is ably well when I’m basically house- professor of journalism at Santa Jill Santopolo ’03’s newest novel, featured in Library Journal as one bound. I also miss visits to NYC and Monica College in California. Last Everything After, will be released of the “nine major collections by campus ... Columbia in the fall and April she gave birth to her second on March 9. It follows Emily Gold, writers veteran and new.” Fiona’s winter is a special place indeed! daughter, Sage. who is (mostly) happily married, translations of contemporary Chi- I might have mentioned that Mike Mellia is creating paintings lives in New York City and is a nese poets Yin Lichuan’s Karma my former Furnald roommate and videos while under quarantine psychologist at NYU. But when a (2020) and Ye Lijun’s My Mountain

76 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews

Country (2019) also are out. Her He and his wife, Katie, welcomed ably been for me one of the most where she represents newsroom work was shortlisted for the 2020 their first child, Zella Genevieve, in eventful years yet. journalists and sues the government Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. December 2019. “After working in NYC bars under the Freedom of Information Amelia Moore is an associate Shira Schoenberg JRN’06 is and restaurants for more than 10 Act (among other things). While professor of marine affairs at the a reporter with CommonWealth years, my first book was published, surviving the wildfires nearby, University of Rhode Island. magazine, an online publication that the cocktail book Drink What You Victoria shares a haiku with us from Don Lee was awarded Best covers Massachusetts government Want: The Subjective Guide to Making Oakland, Calif.: American Bar Mentor 2020 by the and politics. Objectively Delicious Cocktails. Tales Spirited Awards. Jessica Lee Schenk married “Also, I developed Proteau, a line “Pandemic rages. Keith Rudofsky on October 19 in of ready-to-drink, zero-proof (aka “Country awry. Persevere; Fort Lauderdale. non-alcoholic) botanical drinks, “We now adults, here!” 2004 Just prior to the Covid-19 which launched last year. pandemic, Andrew Lorber and his “And finally, the nonprofit I [Editor’s note: As of late October, Jaydip Mahida wife, Josephine, welcomed their son, co-founded in 2018, Restaurant the Alumni Office is planning Colum- [email protected] Ander Jerome, to the world. His Workers’ Community Foundation, bia Reunion 2021 as virtual events middle name is in honor of Andrew’s started a Covid-19 Relief Fund Monday, May 24–Thursday, June 3, Hello, Class of ’04. At the time of writ- grandfather Jerome Lorber ’38, and was able to raise (to date) more and in-person events Friday, June 4 ing this column, the march through LAW’48. Andrew writes, “Despite than $7 million for direct financial –Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- 2020 continues and we are a week the challenges of quarantine, we have assistance to restaurant workers in ting. Watch your inbox for more.] away from the presidential election. been fortunate to spend so much crisis, grants to relief organizations I recently had the opportunity time with him. I have returned to and a zero-interest loan program to to catch up with my wrestling the commercial real estate world as support small businesses.” 2007 teammate Daniel Green, and we a principal at Arcan Capital, where Fantastic news, John! [Editor’s reminisced about some of the more we acquire and manage multifamily note: See “Bookshelf ” for more on David D. Chait colorful moments of seasons past. properties throughout the Southeast. deBary and his book.] [email protected] Daniel is doing well in Oklahoma If any CC alums are in Atlanta, I’d Classmates would love to hear and encourages folks to reach out. love to connect!” from you, too. Send a note to the I continue to wish everyone in the Sophie Beal recently pub- That’s all for this issue. Please email at the top of the column or Class of 2007 good health and all lished the book The Art of Brasília: continue to send updates, as we via the CCT Class Notes webform: my best during this challenging 2000–2019: New Directions in Latino want to hear from as many folks as college.columbia.edu/cct/submit_ time. Amidst everything, I hope American Cultures and moved to possible. Career and family updates class_note. these updates from our classmates beautiful Bryn Mawr, in Minneapolis, are always fun, but please reach out are uplifting. with her husband, Francis Shen, and to share about trips you might take, Marc Tracy and his wife, children, Gabriel (8) and Simone (6). events you look forward to, or even 2006 Amanda Hess, had their first child, Danielle Evans’s book, The Office interesting books or shows you have a son named Elliott Stone Tracy, on of Historical Corrections, came out come across. You can send updates REUNION 2021 September 25. in November. Danielle is back on either via the email at the top of the Christin Alvarez (née Mone) MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) the East Coast now, in Baltimore, column or via the CCT Class Notes and Giovanni Alvarez welcomed JUNE 4–5 (in-person, where a few years ago she joined webform: college.columbia.edu/cct/ their daughter, Graciela Delfina, conditions permitting) the faculty at The Johns Hopkins submit_class_note. into the world on September 30. University. Events and Programs Contact “Big brother Benicio is excited to [email protected] Alex Young is in his fourth have someone to rumble and roar Development Contact year on the faculty at Barrett, The 2005 with him every day,” they share. [email protected] Honors College at Arizona State. James Mahon shares, “Jennifer Columbia College Today Joyce and I became engaged last July [email protected] Andrew Stinger 27 after I proposed on the deck of a [email protected] private sailboat in New York Harbor. Happy New Year, Class of 2005! I work at Deloitte in New York City On September 15, Shelley Diaz Grace Parra Janney married Niall and Jennifer works at Columbia. We Vale began her new role at School Janney in a small, socially distant look forward to more joyful memo- Library Journal as reviews editor. civil ceremony in Los Angeles at ries in the city together!” Great job, Shelly! the beginning of October. Grace is Eric Bondarsky writes, “To Ifeolu Babatunde Sered and a writer and co-producer on Hulu’s celebrate Earth’s 35th revolution Contact CCT her husband, Barak, welcomed their Solar Opposites, and co-host of the around the sun since Jeffrey Feder first child, Solomon Abiola, on Crooked Media podcast Hysteria. SEAS’07, SEAS’08’s birth, Daniel Update your address, January 24, 2020. Ifeolu works at [Editor’s note: See “Just Married!”] Simhaee, Evan Schutzman, email or phone; submit a LinkedIn and lives in Brooklyn with Daniel L. Harlow, an assistant Bryan Lipsky GS’05 and I enjoyed Class Note, new book, her family. professor of physics at MIT, has been some hallowed fried chicken in photo, obituary or Letter to Congrats, Ifeolu! awarded a Packard Fellowship in Central Park.” Big news from John deBary, Science and Engineering, given to Dustin Byington shares, “I am the Editor; or send us an who writes: “I was so saddened to early-career scientists and engineers a 3x Fintech Entrepreneur, and my email. Click “Contact Us” at see no updates in the Fall 2020 as they pursue their research. passion lies at the intersection of Victoria Baranetsky college.columbia.edu/cct. issue that I was inspired to share an JRN’07 is finance and startups. To that end update for the first time. Which is general counsel at Reveal from The I co-founded and am the CEO of just as well, because 2020 has prob- Center for Investigative Reporting, the startup TWO12 (‘two twelve’).

Winter 2020–21 CCT 77 Class Notes

We have built an easy-to-use, full- hanging around Brooklyn when you On August 15, Madeleine Boucher of the three-day celebration, and on featured and affordable cap table read this, seriously, hit me up for a and Lane Sell GS’09 welcomed their August 16, they were legally wed. In management solution for early-stage socially distanced walk, coffee, lunch, first child, Harry Boucher Sell. The June, they welcomed their first child, startups and funds. whatever. I am working from home family is happily settling into their daughter Indrina Khanna. Read all “We handle all the fundraising until at least April and would love to new-normal quiet life in Brooklyn. about their exciting 2020 in The New math, even for your future rounds of catch up with other nearby CCers. Shoestring Press, the print shop and York Times: nyti.ms/33gOms9. financing, so you can easily deter- I’m on the Facebook and Twitter, art space they run, is chugging along mine how much of the company you but only so I can doomscroll.” through the lockdown, smaller but own today as well as after any notes Rachel Belt works at Gavi, the mighty and still serving a growing 2010 convert in your next priced round. Vaccine Alliance in Geneva that has community of artists. I use this tool myself to figure out been responding to the Covid-19 Valentina Castillo Hall and her Julia Feldberg Klein when to raise and how much. crisis across eligible countries to husband, Frederick Hall, welcomed [email protected] “Feel free to go to two12.co, ensure that immunization services their daughter, Clara Valentina Hall, connect with me on LinkedIn or are maintained. Gavi is also coor- on September 23 in Washington, Morgan Parker’s Magical Negro email me at [email protected] to dinating the COVAX Facility, a D.C. They are learning a lot about won the 2019 National Book Critics learn more.” global risk-sharing mechanism that babies and loving her. Circle Award in Poetry. Out of aims to accelerate the development Stephanie Chou has continued seven categories, Morgan is one of and manufacture of Covid vaccines, composing music, which you can four Black women winners this year, 2008 and to guarantee fair and equitable read about in CCT Online’s “Talk- including Saidiya Hartman, who access for every country. ing Points”: college.columbia.edu/ recently became Columbia’s first Columbia College Today Exciting news from Scott cct/latest/talking-points. She also Black professor to hold the title of [email protected] Hughes: “My wife and I recently started collaborations, including University Professor. (Just a dope welcomed our second child, Sophia, composing and recording a song tidbit.) Magical Negro also won the Greetings for 2021, Class of 2008! in early September. She joins brother Wishing you all the best in the New Sam (2.5) and has the distinction of Year. Thanks to those who wrote in! being born in the middle of a pan- Liz Grefrath hunkered down in demic, which presumably will make Rachel Belt ’08 works at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance in her two-bedroom Crown Heights for a cool story one day. We live in Geneva that has been responding to the Covid-19 crisis to co-op with her kids, Ernie (7) and Washington, D.C., and despite our Warren (2), and her writer husband, generation’s propensity for career ensure that immunization services are maintained. Josh, during the spring of our switching, I recently finished my discontent 2020. She decamped for 10th year at The Carlyle Group, a month to Black Mountain, N.C., investing in industrial and transpor- to escape New York for a breather, tation companies.” with lyricist collaborator/math- 2019 California Book Awards Gold and took a leave of absence from her Max Bulinski has been reimagin- ematician David Keyes (adjunct Metal for Poetry. Morgan’s novel, longtime position at the National ing cooperative storytelling and professor and former Fu Foundation Who Put This Song On?, received ACLU to participate in Weil, Got- role-playing from the ground up, Chair Professor in Applied Physics a nomination in the Young Adult shal & Manges’s summer associate embracing the digital age. His and Applied Mathematics; currently category. She’s working on the program. Liz plans to join the law startup is in the development of its director of the Extreme Computing novel’s film adaptation. Morgan’s firm this fall, after her long-awaited first product, Saga Experience — a Center at King Abdullah Univer- next book, in progress, is a work of graduation from Brooklyn Law virtual cooperative storytelling envi- sity of Science and Technology), nonfiction. She says, “It was so great School, where she has been studying ronment. Feel free to reach out, or to which is dedicated to the legacy of to see familiar faces and catch up part time since the election of our check it out at epic-epoch.com. Ruth Bader Ginsburg LAW’59. with some of you along my book autocrat. She writes, “If you are still Classmates would love to hear The song, “Millennial Woman” tours! Thanks for all your generous from you, too. Send a note to the (millennial-woman.com), is a call support and love.” email at the top of the column or to unify women and men around Chris Yim shares, “I have formed via the CCT Class Notes webform: gender-blind equality of opportu- a pod here in California with my college.columbia.edu/cct/submit_ nity. It celebrates the emergence bestie/BFF Varun Gulati SEAS ’10, CCT class_note. of women in positions of visibility who has asked that people pronounce and influence, despite the deter- his name correctly. After 12 years HAS MORE rents to be overcome, and inspires of calling my friend the way that a 2009 others to follow. Stephanie took a first-grade teacher told him to because ONLINE senior research seminar with David she said it would be easier for white STORIES Columbia College Today in 2008–09. Columbia connection people to pronounce, I’m working on [email protected] coming full circle! it. Also in the pod is Varun’s wife, Abi, THAN EVER! Shira Burton and her husband, and Melanie Habwe ’08. I find joy in [Editor’s note: CCT thanks Chan- Jonas Specktor, welcomed their son, outdoor fitness classes with Melanie tee Dempsey READ WHAT’S NEW AT for her almost two Ira William Specktor, on June 17. as my workout buddy, walks around college.columbia.edu/cct years of service as class correspon- They can’t wait to introduce him Oakland looking at the abundance dent. The following is her last col- to her far-flung Columbia friends of wildlife, my morning coffee ritual, umn. If you are interested in being when traveling feels safer! journaling and nurturing friendships. CCT the next CC’09 class correspondent, Dr. Chloe Ciccariello married “I have been asking myself how please send a note to cct@columbia. Dr. Krishn Khanna SEAS’10. On I feel. Turns out that when I can be edu. And keep sending updates, to February 16, 2020, they took part honest, I can better communicate that same email address!] in a celebration ceremony, one day what’s going on inside of me. This

78 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews is helpful for those around me and worry that most people lack the self- moved to Cambridge, Mass., last Angela Radulescu finished a an important key to developing love to hold themselves accountable. June after more than a dozen years Ph.D. in psychology and neurosci- intimacy with others. Brené Brown, Heck, I really struggle with it. Most in Manhattan, as her husband, Ron ence at Princeton last spring (featur- Ezra Klein, Michelle Obama, my of the time, I feel guilty and cycle Gejman ’10, matched to medical ing a Zoom defense because, well, relationships, therapy and the work in my own self-shame. I project residency at Brigham and Women’s 2020). She has since moved back to that I am doing cultivating my craft some of this onto some of the white Hospital. Blackstone Publishing the city to start a two-year research as an actor have served as great folks in my life, whom I have been is based out of Ashland, Ore., and fellowship at the NYU Center for sources of inspiration during this avoiding because I feel they make it has an office in NYC. Shira will be Data Science. She lives in Brooklyn challenging time. I read headlines easier for me to ignore that there is based in the Boston area and com- with her partner and adopted cat about the disarray of the world, and so much wrong in our society. muting frequently to NYC for work and is grateful for year-round farm- I get discouraged about humanity. I “I have been reading the work once it’s safe. ers markets and Prospect Park. often feel isolated, wondering how I of Aliko Carter ’11, and I have Meredith Mead Lester and her Vesal Yazdi and his wife, Nicole can shift the paradigms inside of me been moved by his thoughts on the husband, Kevin Lester ’12, had twin Cerutti Yazdi BC’12, now have their that have been planted there over collapse of the American empire. boys, Tank and Thorn, on May 3. hands full with Cyrus John, born on thousands of years of inequity, and I Support him on Patreon by googling They spent their parental leaves on September 1 at a very heavy 6 lbs., 1 get down on myself. I realized that ‘post American dreamer Koji Tare,’ an 8,000-mile road trip, visiting 16 oz. Vesal reports that his world has I have been holding on to narratives and pay him for his work. He writes states and 15 national parks. Their been upside down and shaken vigor- about who I am that aren’t serving about us seeing the collapse of the favorite national park was Yosemite, ously since then! Cyrus’s favorite me, and it’s taken me a while to American Empire, which is neces- and incredibly they ended up in pastimes include only sleeping when see that so much of the way that I sary at this point.” Death Valley on the hottest day in held, only peeing when his diaper is engage with the world, and myself, history (130 degrees Fahrenheit!). being changed and politely listening is informed by these stilted stories. Meredith and Kevin live in Chicago to his father play the piano for him. “I started an indie film house 2011 full time but have been living in He’s also a big fan of breast milk, to this year, meaning, I posted on their Park City, Utah, ski house the relief of his mother. social media that this is something REUNION 2021 since July. Warren McGee married Kathryn on which I am working. I decided Louise Beck and Sam Beck Brill BC’13 on August 15 in a lovely, MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) to create this production company continued the twinning trend, live-streamed ceremony with their JUNE 4–5 (in-person, because I see storytelling as a form welcoming daughters Emilia Rhian- families. They are looking forward to conditions permitting) of healing and transformation. I non (Emmy) and Tzipporah Adalia having many adventures together! have come to see that the stories Events and Programs Contact (Tess) in May. Adam Sieff has been moved to [email protected] I tell myself about who I am, my We look forward to them meet- see so many classmates organizing Development Contact for equal justice and democracy in relationship with others, and society [email protected] ing Tank and Thorn. inform and dictate how I relate to Stephanie Wilhem, a first their communities this year. Adam these entities. lieutenant in the Delaware Army joined the Biden for President legal “The focus is to amplify and tell Nuriel Moghavem and National Guard, recently gradu- team last summer as voting rights BIPOC stories and uplift BIPOC Sean Udell ated second in her class from The and election integrity counsel. He artists. As an artist, I am also invest- [email protected] Judge Advocate General’s Legal shares that it is a privilege to do ing in the stories that I want to [email protected] School and Center 211th Judge this work to protect our democ- collaborate on creating. Advocate Officer Basic Course and racy, especially at this juncture in “It’s also important to highlight Howdy, 2011, and may you stay was awarded The Judge Advocate our nation’s history. He says that America’s most abundant legacy. uninfected. Sean and I really appre- General’s School Award for Profes- Columbia, and in particular Profes- How did Breonna Taylor’s murder- ciated getting all of your updates sionalism Merit. Stephanie success- sor Jean Cohen’s courses, are where ers get away with their actions after — it felt like a bit of normalcy in a fully completed day and night land he learned to appreciate the fragility navigation courses, qualified on a of self-government and the efforts rifle, successfully passed the Army ordinary citizens must be willing Combat Fitness Test, completed to expend to secure, preserve and Meredith Mead Lester ’12 and Kevin Lester ’12 a 6-mile foot march with a full expand the reaches of liberty. He is had twin boys, then spent their parental leaves combat load, studied military law hopeful that our collective efforts (including military criminal law, will lead to happier days. Adam on an 8,000-mile road trip. government contract and fiscal law, hopes to see many of us at our 10th legal assistance, claims, adminis- reunion in June. [Editor’s note: As trative law, and international and of late October, the Alumni Office operational law) and participated in is planning Columbia Reunion months of nationwide and global time when everything else seems so military exercises (including mock 2021 as virtual events Monday, protests? What message are we different. Of course, world events commander’s briefs, strike cells and May 24–Thursday, June 3, and in- sending to Black women about the have not stood much in the way of a court-martial). She says she is person events Friday, June 4– value of their lives? The journey of all your accomplishments, and we thankful that she has the opportu- Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- examining my own racist behavior are proud to see our colleagues suc- nity in the midst of a successful legal ting. Watch your inbox for more.] and internalized racism has both ceeding on so many levels. career to serve our country. Inshallah, Adam. Inshallah. been discouraging and encourag- Shira Schindel recently switched Joshua Peagler, who has been a Lastly, Nuriel Moghavem has ing. It’s linked to what I was saying jobs, leaving Audible, where she producer at CBS This Morning for six two big updates to share. First, I before about transformation and was senior manager of strategic years, was recently promoted to execu- proposed to my longtime best friend asking myself what it takes to shift. I content partnerships, to become tive producer at CBS News. It brought and partner Stephanie Muscat in also don’t give others enough credit head of content acquisitions with him back to New York City; he was September and am looking forward in their ability to shift because I Blackstone Publishing. She also previously based in Los Angeles. to spending the rest of my life

Winter 2020–21 CCT 79 Class Notes

Just Married! CCT welcomes wedding photos where at least one member of the couple is a College alum. Please submit your high-resolution photo, and caption information, on our photo webform: college.columbia.edu/cct/submit_ 1 class_note_photo. Congratulations! CHAD WINSTEAD

2 3

LEISE JONES

4

STELLA IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHY 6

MASHA VESSET

DANNY WEISS

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KELSEY LOCKHART PHOTOGRAPHY ALISSA NOELLE

80 CCT Winter 2020–21 7 alumninews

1. James Glynn ’15 and Lisa Harshman ’15 were married watching Seinfeld reruns and explor- Fear the Walking Dead. She has in New Bern, N.C., on September 26. ing the world with her; we will be since escaped the zombie apoca- getting married in March in a small lypse and is now prosecuting serial 2. Tehreem Rehman ’13 and Rayham Momin ’12 celebrated their December 29, 2018, wedding at the ceremony. She is not a Columbia or killers in Toronto (masquerading Signature Grand in Davie, Fla., with many friends. Left Barnard alumna, but I assure you as Washington, D.C.) as one of the to right: Lauren Haynes SEAS’13, Kapil Wattamwar that she is nevertheless pretty great. main characters in the upcoming SEAS’13, Abhaya Aravind SEAS’13, Ansh Johri SEAS’13, Second, I’ll be moving back home to series Clarice, based on the famous Sameea Butt ’13, Daniel Schwartz ’12, Andrea Roberts Los Angeles in July to continue my The Silence of the Lambs story. Clarice BC’13, Santosh Balachandar SEAS’12, Rubab Rehman medical training with the University is set to air on CBS sometime this ’15, Dylan Kotliar ’12, the bride, Peter Wallerson of Southern California Multiple year. Be sure to tune in! SEAS’12, the groom, Rich Nwaobasi SEAS’12, Jeanette Sclerosis Comprehensive Care Isabel Losada married Pablo Rodriguez ’13, Gabriel Ho ’12, Hien Truong ’13, Julia Center Postdoctoral Physician Fel- Justel GSAS’19, a Ph.D. candidate Monk ’13, Will Zhuang SEAS’12, Maryam Aziz ’13, Carrie lowship in M.S. and Neuroimmu- in comp lit, in July. In attendance Montgomery ’13 and Gerlin Serrano ’13. nology, seeing patients at both the were Miguel Rodríguez SEAS’13 Los Angeles County+USC Medical and Jane Lee. After a brief 3. George Matthews and Natasha Matthews ’12 (née Center and Keck Medicine of USC. honeymoon in Maine, the couple Terhorst) were married on June 27 at Commonwealth returned to settle in the Bronx and Cambridge (Mass.). 2012 are both working from home. Isabel 4. Channah Leah Klapper and Jori Grossman ’18 were is the manager for membership at married on August 10 in Sharon, Mass. The Frick Collection, which is in Sarah Chai the process of moving to The Breuer [email protected] 5. John O’Loughlin ’12 married Paige O’Loughlin ’14 Building while a renovation project (née Cuscovitch) on October 3 in Boston. is underway at its original location. Akiva Nelson (né Todd Nelson) Pablo is a Spanish teacher at The 6. Grace Parra Janney ’06 and Niall Janney at their started rabbinical school last fall Birch Wathen Lenox School on October 4 wedding in Los Angeles. at Hebrew College in Boston. He the Upper East Side. They live on writes, “I’d love to say hi to Colum- Arthur Avenue and can tell you 7. Isaac White ’14 and Kara Krakower BC’14 were bia folks in Boston, even if from afar. where to find the best ravioli and married on September 12, the same date they met 10 Hang in there, everyone.” cannoli in town! years ago on campus. Here, they recreate a Sundial I echo the sentiment and am Fiona Georgakis began graduate photo taken by Isaac’s parents (at right), Allison White BC’86 and Jon White ’85, nearly 40 years ago. sending best wishes for the contin- school at the University of Chicago, ued health, safety and well-being working toward a master’s in threat 8. Yaira Kobrin ’21 and Solomon Wiener ’19 were married of our classmates and loved ones. I and response management. She has at Temple Emanu-El in Closter, N.J., on August 30. hope to hear from others soon. been attending classes virtually from Los Angeles. 2013 2014 Tala Akhavan [email protected] Rebecca Fattell [email protected] Tehreem Rehman is an emergency physician on the South Side of Kate Eberstadt is releasing music Chicago and intends to transition with her sister Izzi Eberstadt BC’16 into an executive leadership role under the name Delune. Their debut to deliver equitable and value- album is due this year. Delune has based care at a systemwide level. been covered on PopSugar, and in She earned an M.D. from the Yale Glamour and ELLE. Follow them School of Medicine and an M.P.H. for updates @deluneofficial! from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Chaya Crowder earned a Ph.D. School of Public Health. Tehreem’s in political science from Princeton health justice journey began at last July. She is an assistant tenure the College, where she majored in track professor of political science women’s and gender studies and also at Loyola Marymount University in met her life partner, Rayhan Momin Los Angeles. ’12. Her sister, Rubab Rehman ’15, After nearly five years working is thriving as a software engineer in in Shanghai, Chris Zombik moved NYC. Tehreem is grateful for not home to Massachusetts in Novem- only the opportunities but also the ber 2019. He is taking advantage of relationships she still cherishes from quarantine to work on a book, with her time at Columbia. [Editor’s plans to finish sometime this year. Naomi Senbet 8 note: See “Just Married!”] is excited to Devyn Tyler, a film and TV share that she graduated from the actress, was recently featured in dual degree program between The Season 6, Episode 3 (“Alaska”) of Wharton School (M.B.A.) and the ABBIE SOPHIA Winter 2020–21 CCT 81 Class Notes

Harvard Kennedy School (M.P.A.) busy during quarantine. She uses last May. Additionally, she joined all-natural, vegan ingredients that Guidehouse in August as a manag- are produced in the USA (California ing consultant in the state and local and North Dakota) that clean well government advisory practice. She and leave your skin feeling soft and says she’s excited to leverage her smooth instead of dried out. She has experiences in the private sector as five scents, including Spring Orchid, an investment banker and impact which has a beautiful, Columbia investor in her current role, solving blue label! She hopes you’ll check challenging problems and building out fremontsoapcompany.com, give trust in society. Moreover, after nearly the soap a try, and spread the word a decade away, Naomi moved back to friends and family! to her hometown of Washington, Paige O’Loughlin (née Cusco- D.C. If the paradigm shift called the vitch) and John O’Loughlin ’12 were Covid-19 pandemic reinforced any- married in Boston on October 3. WILDES ’15 RAQUEL thing for her, she says, it’s the ardent [Editor’s note: See “Just Married!”] Enjoying fall and friendship on October 25 were (left to right) Nurit Lewis belief in the critical role well-func- Emily Kate founded a nonprofit, ’15 and her daughter, Dahlia Lerer, and Raquel Wildes ’15 and her daughter, Evelyn Genet. tioning governing bodies and institu- Global Art Access, to promote tions play in enabling long-term the public’s access to and engage- prosperity for all. In that vein, she ment with art and history. In 2019, says, we’re approaching an inflection she began a collaboration with the members in our Columbia commu- a really great time. Would love to see point in the long march toward D.C. Frick Art Reference Library to nity. Here are a few from classmates. more of you as reunion approaches, statehood. Support the campaign for bring unprecedented access to its Raquel Wildes JRN’16 and so please keep an eye on your inbox representation! #51stState Photoarchive in honor of its upcom- Nurit Lewis got together to cel- or reach out if you want more info Andrew Wood On July 18, ing centennial celebration. Global ebrate fall and friendship. Joining or to get involved! and his wife, Tala Akhavan ’13, Art Access is working to digitize them were Raquel’s daughter, Evelyn With that, I have three updates welcomed their first child, daughter privately held artwork catalogued Genet (3 months), and Nurit’s from four of your incredible class- Mila Jade, into their quarantine. through the Photoarchive. To date, daughter, Dahlia Lerer (1). mates. Please continue nominating Everyone is well, combating cabin the only image records of these Lisa Harshman and James each other! fever together and adjusting to a works are black and white photo- Glynn were married on September From Julie Anne Hoffman: new definition of work-from-home/ graphs taken by Helen Clay Frick 26 in her hometown of New Bern, “After graduating, I really found life balance. in the 1920s. The digitizations have N.C. There were 16 Columbia myself getting into writing. It A reminder, as noted in the been made available online and mark College and Columbia Engineer- started as a casual hobby where Emily Summer 2020 issue, that the first time the works can be seen ing alumni in attendance, including I’d write in coffee shops on the Dreibelbis started Fremont by the public in color. The project James’s best man, Max Lindemann weekends. Fast forward four years Soap Company, named after her will continue through 2022 and aims ’20. [Editor’s note: See “Just Mar- and it somehow led me to two neighborhood in Seattle, to keep to digitize 100 works by the time of ried!”] self-published books! My first was The Frick’s centennial celebration. As always, classmates want Proud of You, a collection of essays Independent of the Frick Centen- to hear from you! Please submit on my journey through grief. And nial, Global Art Access works to updates by writing me at the address most recently I self-published my digitize artwork in private collections at the top of the column or via the first poetry book, The Daylight across America to provide scholarly CCT Class Notes webform, college. Plays Tricks on Us. I have also been access to the works while maintain- columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note. sharing my work on my Instagram ing the privacy of the collectors. account — @julieannepoetry — for Participating collectors receive a anyone interested in following along high-resolution image of each work 2016 on my writing journey!” for their catalog records and can be From Brian Chung and Kath- credited upon the surfacing of their REUNION 2021 erine Nevitt: “Brian and Katherine digitized works on scholarly and have managed to maintain their MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) public access platforms. sanity living in a studio apartment JUNE 4–5 (in-person, Anyone interested in having their together through quarantine. They conditions permitting) collections considered for this treat- had to delay their wedding a year, ment should visit globalartaccess.org. Events and Programs Contact but that’s OK because their work [email protected] and TV watching habits have kept Development Contact them busy (for example, six seasons [email protected] 2015 of The Sopranos in a single month). “Brian, co-president of Columbia Kareem Carryl Lily Liu-Krason College Young Alumni, has been [email protected] [email protected] organizing all those great alumni events you get emails about while Hello, Class of 2015! Hey 2016. I recently attended a also working for Citigroup’s com- ARIEL CANNON I hope that you all have been 2016 happy hour to kick off our mercial real estate finance team for Andrew Wood ’14 and Tala Akhavan staying safe and healthy these past fifth-year reunion, and after the the last two years. Katherine is a ’13 with their daughter, Mila Jade few months. During these times, it is shock that it has been five years research associate producer at the Wood, in Los Angeles on October 1. amazing to see all the updates from wore off (jk, I’m still in shock), I had show Last Week Tonight with John

82 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews

Oliver, where she’s been for three awkwardness into three years of (including her own) that explore years. She also saw Mamma Mia! performing, writing and improvis- themes of Jewish feminism and 2019 Here We Go Again in IMAX in 2018, ing comedy at @improvboston. Last sexuality, particularly in the obser- which she thinks is a pretty impor- year was a harsh punishment for my vant world. The anthology aims to Tj Aspen Givens and tant accomplishment. stage-time gluttony, so I’ve transi- amplify women’s voices and subvert Emily Gruber “Brian and Katherine are proud tioned to writing. This has resulted in community taboos. tag@[email protected] of the impressive things their a relatively new blog (letterdrop.co/@ Max Fiest LAW’20 will work [email protected] classmates have been up to and wish peelspls) hosted on a platform built at Mayer Brown in its New York health and happiness to Columbia by Parthi Loganathan SEAS’16. He Litigation department. Friends of the Class of 2019, we alumni everywhere during this saw my absurdly prolific Instagram appreciate your submissions! We pandemic. Wear your masks!” (a@peelspls) and asked, ‘Can you be a enjoy staying connected to the From Piyali Mukherjee nuisance on my platform instead?’ 2018 Columbia community during these SEAS’16: “Not gonna lie, it’s I accepted the challenge. unfamiliar times, and we hope you awkward greeting you all again. “To correct for my significant Alexander Birkel and do too. Please send your updates for Apparently, I have to thank a lot moral deviations, I help high school Maleeha Chida the next edition of Class Notes! more of you for enduring my most students write college apps through [email protected] Tj Aspen Givens won The embarrassing years than I thought. Cambridge School Volunteers. [email protected] Gramercy Institute’s Financial Con- Lily Liu-Krason and Alex Randall Sometimes, I also help them design tent Marketing Award for her excel- are independently holding me and build CS projects that help Trevor Menders has returned to lence in the strategy and execution accountable to this. Thus, the forma- them win a Science Olympiad the United States after two years of the business-to-business M&T tive effect of your indulgence has National Tournament or, at least, get in Tokyo doing research and Commercial Banking webinar and resulted in the following updates. better recommendations. language acquisition. He was in a content series “Managing Through “Friends, Romans, and Casual “My DMs remain open for ques- state of perpetual semi-quarantine Challenging Times.” Beyond her Acquaintances™, you’ll be pleased tions, concerns or compliments.” in Boston while finishing the first category-specific award, Tj won the to know that since I’ve graduated, semester of his doctorate in art his- prestigious “Best of ” award across all I’ve been doing exactly the job my tory at Harvard. winners in the single-country cat- degree qualified me for. In Linked 2017 Abbey Li writes, “When the egory. Review the series at mtb.com/ In-fluent, I ‘worked on clustering pandemic first hit New York, I felt managing and learn more about the models at IBM Watson Health and Carl Yin so helpless that there was nothing I award at gramercyinstitute.com. now manage enterprise-scale cloud [email protected] could do to help people in need — Eric Li moved to Europe for grad solutions at Google.’ In English, from front-line medical workers, to school but says he misses his friends I push buttons on a keyboard and Laney McGahey is hunkering down struggling business owners, to fami- in New York. hope that the things the computers in San Francisco and is in her second lies living below the poverty line. It Elif Memet is a second-year learn about you (consensually) helps year of studying clinical research was so inspiring to hear about the investment banking analyst in the you get better healthcare. at UCSF. She lives with Auriane alumni that immediately mobilized industrials M&A group at Goldman “Unfortunately, I must also Stone and is lucky to get to see other inform you that I’ve culminated my Lions in the Bay from time to time, most recently Hannah Juge ’18 and Kim Chia SEAS’20. She hopes that Abbey Li ’18 joined a volunteer group, Send Chinatown everyone is doing well! Sending good Love, which helps small business owners in Chinatown thoughts your way. Bianca Guerrero shares: “I and Flushing develop an online presence. spent last February–June doing rapid response research related to Covid-19, but quit my job at the NYC Mayor’s Office in June to to donate PPE to NYC hospitals, Sachs, where she worked on notable protest the administration’s handling and really see Columbia making a rescue financing for some of the of the pandemic and police brutality. difference when it matters. I joined largest transportation companies I started a part-time role on Jamaal a volunteer group, Send Chinatown subsequent to Covid-19. Elif, who Bowman’s congressional campaign Love, which helps small business is from Romania, was recently on in February and went full-time in owners in Chinatown and Flushing national television discussing mac- June. Bowman, a grassroots progres- develop an online presence so they roeconomics in a post-Covid world sive candidate, beat a 16-term have a better chance at surviving the with Iulian Fruntasu, former ambas- incumbent and tripled turnout in economic downturn. sador of the Republic of Moldova to the June Democratic primary. As I “Hoping everyone stays safe and the United Kingdom. She was also a write this I am field director for the healthy as we gradually transition speaker at a recent TEDx Romania campaign, and spend my spare time into the ‘new normal.’ Wishing the event that focused on perspectives watching documentaries and look- best to all of you!” for Romania’s future. Based on Elif ’s ing for jobs for after November 3!” Please reach out with your news experience with the Core Curricu- Sarah Ricklan is an editor of a via either of the email addresses at lum, she provided a framework for recently published book, Monologues the top of the column, or the CCT critical thinking, identifying it as a from the Makom: Intertwined Narra- Class Notes webform: college. key aspect of Romania’s future. Brian Chung ’16 and Katherine tives of Sexuality, Gender, Body Image, columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note. Brent Morden was excited to Nevitt ’16, pre-Covid-19 but and Jewish Identity, an anthology Classmates would love to hear from enter his second year as program post-engagement. featuring 32 first-person narratives and about you! manager for children’s choir non-

Winter 2020–21 CCT 83 Class Notes

profit Every Voice Choirs (NYC). and campaigns through which members across two weeks, creating He also began teaching musical the- Curology communicates with its 2020 a comedy about a small-town lowlife ater and voice classes at From Stage patients. She says she leaned on who finds unexpected fame in the to Screen Performing Arts Academy many classmates for support in REUNION 2021 world of internet memes. The proj- (Huntington, N.Y.) and was the making this career transition and is ect is titled COWBOY.MOV — be MAY 24–JUNE 3 (virtual) audio designer last fall for the always around to chat with others on the lookout for a 2022 release! JUNE 4–5 (in-person, Transgressive Theatre-Opera (Chi- looking to do the same! Sarah Barth and Max Edeson conditions permitting) cago). Following in the footsteps Miguel Tapia Colin shares: “I were married in her parents’ of his work on The Varsity Show, was promoted from a case analyst to Events and Programs Contact backyard in Long Branch, N.J., [email protected] Brent continues to compose and a case administrator after working on July 5. Sarah is a student at the Development Contact orchestrate for NYC-based musical only one year and three months NYU School of Law, Class of 2023. [email protected] theater productions. He’s excited to at Outten & Golden, a plaintiffs’ Max is applying to medical school see what opportunities this season employment and labor law firm.” and working in a doctor’s office in will bring. Feel free to get in touch: Solomon Wiener and Yaira Santiago Tobar Potes and Manhattan for his gap year. [email protected]. Kobrin ’21 were married on August 30. Stephen Cone Sabrina Lautin road-tripped Aunoy Poddar started medical Congratulations! [Editor’s note: [email protected] to Wyoming with her husband, school at the UC San Francisco See “Just Married!”] [email protected] Philip, and pug, Crouton. She’ll Medical Center. Kevin Wu is a product manager work in finance in Cheyenne for the Kara Schechtman sent an at Coursedog, a Columbia-founded Kyra Ann Dawkins has made her foreseeable future until starting her update: “I’ve started working full startup focused on building cloud- authorial debut! Her first novel, The M.B.A. at the Business School, and time for The Covid Tracking Project based software for universities. We and the They, was published last during her time off will enjoy the at The Atlantic for a few months, Maia Young sends an update: July. The story is inspired by oral tradi- West’s skiing, hiking, national parks after spending last spring and sum- “During the gap year and in the tion and rooted in collective identity. and steak. mer in a volunteer role. We compile pre–Covid-19 days, I was a clinical In the midst of the chaotic [Editor’s note: CC’20, your class’s a dataset on coronavirus testing and assistant at private fertility clinics in months that followed our digital first reunion is coming up in May! outcomes in the United States and both Manhattan and Atlanta, where graduation, Sean Taylor decided to As of late October, the Alumni act as a watchdog on state Covid-19 I lived with my family until about make the most of his downtime and Office is planning Columbia data reporting practices. I’ve also the second month of medical school. write/direct a feature film. Luckily, Reunion 2021 as virtual events moved back to the Upper West Side I moved to Rochester, Minn., last he had a group of stellar Columbia Monday, May 24–Thursday, June 3, and love strolling up to campus to August, where I am an M.D. can- folks helping him as the bulk of and in-person events Friday, June 4– read on the lawns on weekends!” didate at Mayo Clinic Alix School his cast and crew: Ryan Eppolito, Saturday, June 5, conditions permit- Last summer, Jordan Singer of Medicine. Columbia and the Mason Coburn-Weigand ’23, Kyra ting. Watch your inbox for more.] started a role at Curology, a startup family I made there while studying Chen ’21, Ethan Kim ’23, Tim Kiely Please send us your news! Write working to make prescription medicine, and literature and society, ’19, Bryn Wright BC’20, Alejandra to either of us at the addresses at skincare accessible. As a member are near and dear to my heart, and Parisi BC’20 and Professor Rob the top of the column, or use CCT’s of the Product Lifecycle team, she I can’t wait to return when the King. Sean filmed in Montana Class Notes webform, college. helps design and build the systems pandemic subsides!” last July with about a dozen crew columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note.

Columbia College CCT Today

Calling all writers! CCT is holding its first-ever personal essay contest!

Enter for your The theme is METAMORPHOSIS. chance to win a $500 prize and Submission deadline is Monday, March 8, 2021; publication in our Spring/Summer for topic guidelines and other info, go to 2021 issue. college.columbia.edu/cct/essaycontest.

84 CCT Winter 2020–21 obituaries

Editor’s note: In recognition of the lar of the community who graduated wife, Ellen Lautenberg, and Clifford toll taken by the Covid-19 pandemic, from the Bulkeley School in New and his wife, Catherine Armand; CCT will continue to acknowledge London. Following graduation from daughter, Caroline, and her husband, those in our community who have died Harvard Law, he returned to New John Wysolmerski; seven grand- from complications of the virus in our London to practice law and raise his children; and one great-grandchild. online feature “Lions We’ve Lost” family near his parents and in-laws. Memorial contributions may be made (college.columbia.edu/cct). After several decades, Hendel was to the Eastern Connecticut Sym- appointed to the Connecticut Supe- phony, 289 State St., New London, rior Court, where he served as presid- CT 06320, or Temple Emanu-El, 29 1952 ing judge on both the criminal and Dayton Rd., Waterford, CT 06385. civil divisions and as administrative George E. Economakis, business- judge, finishing his career as a senior Robert A. Prendergast, physician man, Athens, Greece, on November 5, judge. Hendel believed in giving and marine researcher, Falmouth, 2020. Born on August 2, 1930, in back to the community and did so Mass., on May 4, 2020. Prendergast Suez, Egypt, Economakis majored George E. Economakis ’52 in many ways. He actively supported was coxswain and crew captain during in economics and earned a master’s Columbia College and cheered on his senior year and left a lasting legacy in banking and finance from the wife, Diane, and Andrew ’87 and his the football team. He also supported to Columbia alongside the Harlem Business School, also in 1952. He was wife, Lito; brother, Alexander, and the Eastern Connecticut Symphony, River, where he was one of the origi- a varsity fencer and a member of Phi his wife, Tara; five grandchildren; and Temple Emanu-El, and many arts nal painters of the blue and white C Beta Kappa. Economakis began his several nieces and nephews. and cultural organizations. Hendel that adorns the Spuyten Duyvil cliff business career as a banker in Egypt organized and was the first president across from Baker Athletics Complex. and then moved to Greece, where he of the Jewish Community Council After he graduated from Boston was a ship owner. He was a lover of 1953 of Greater New London and was University School of Medicine, Pren- horses, history, genealogy, classical president of the Eastern Connecticut dergast became a captain in the U.S. music and opera. Economakis is sur- Seymour L. Hendel, attorney and Symphony, among other leadership Army Medical Corps stationed at vived by his sons, Evelpides GSAS’94 judge, New London, Conn., on roles. He is survived by his wife of 69 Walter Reed AMC. He subsequently and his wife, Iulia, Richard and his October 25, 2020. Hendel was a pil- years, Patricia; sons, Douglas and his joined the Department of Ophthal-

Arthur Ashkin ’47, Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist

Identifying the tiny machinery of where he had worked on various 1952 and worked there until his life is one thing. Creating a device projects until his passing. He held retirement in 1992. He led the lab’s that enables scientists to take hold 47 patents and was inducted into laser science department 1963–87, of these microscopic objects for the National Inventors Hall of Fame and it was there that he developed study and manipulation is another, in 2013. his optical tweezers. and opens up a world of possibilities. “I was interested in science since Ashkin, who had been interested That was the challenge met by I was a kid,” Ashkin said when his in the subject of light pressure Arthur Ashkin ’47, who won the Nobel Prize was announced. “So I since childhood, created his optical Nobel Prize in Physics on October tell my wife that’s the only thing tweezers by shining a laser through a 2, 2018, for his groundbreak- that I’m really good at.” tiny magnifying lens, which creates a ing research in laser physics over Ashkin was born on September 2, focal point for the laser. Particles are the course of more than 50 years. 1922, in Brooklyn, N.Y., one of four drawn in and trapped there, unable Specifically, Ashkin was recognized children; his older brother, Julius ’40, to move. Trapping biological mate- for figuring out how to harness the GSAS’44, also became a physicist rial proved to have groundbreaking power of light to trap and study and played an important role in the practical applications in research and JÖRG MEYER microscopic objects. Ashkin’s inven- Manhattan Project, the secret effort in understanding the behavior of tion of optical tweezers enabled during WWII to develop the atomic the basic building blocks of life, like a Nobel Prize at the time; the next scientists to grasp “particles, atoms, bomb. After graduating from James DNA. Today, optical tweezers are year, John B. Goodenough received viruses and other living cells with Madison H.S., Ashkin followed widely manufactured and sold the Nobel Prize in Chemistry at 97. their laser beam fingers,” creating Julius to the College and worked in to researchers. Ashkin is survived by his wife, ways to observe and control the the Columbia Radiation Laboratory Ashkin was awarded one-half Aline, a former high school chemistry machinery of life, wrote the Royal on magnetrons, which produced of the 2018 physics prize, sharing professor; sons, Daniel and Michael; Swedish Academy of Sciences. microwaves and were a precursor to it with Gérard Mourou of France daughter, Judith; five grandchildren; On September 21, 2020, Ashkin the laser. He joined Bell Labs after and Donna Strickland of Canada. and two great-grandchildren. died at his home in Rumson, N.J., obtaining a Ph.D. from Cornell in At 96, he was the oldest recipient of — Alex Sachare ’71

Winter 2020–21 CCT 85 Obituaries mology and Pathology at The Johns Electric. In 1980, Bossert and his He was a captain in the Air Force Hopkins University as a research and partner, Davison Grant, teamed with and was chief of orthopedic surgery teaching professor. Later, he was an renowned attorney Telford Taylor, at Plattsburgh (N.Y.) AFB. After adjunct senior scientist at the Marine chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg military service, he entered private Biological Laboratory in Woods Trials, to successfully argue the case solo practice in the Los Angeles area Hole, Mass., where he worked with Central Hudson Gas & Electric Cor- and was on staff at many local hospi- Dr. Jack Levin, also of Johns Hopkins poration v. Public Service Commission tals, including Cedars-Sinai Medical and the MBL, in endotoxin research of New York before the U.S. Supreme Center, for more than 40 years. He with horseshoe crabs. Prendergast was Court; the landmark First Amend- was an attending physician of ortho- on the laboratory’s marine resources ment rights case is still studied in pedic surgery at UCLA, a fellow of committee 1978–82, was a member law schools. Bossert is survived by the American Academy of Ortho- of the MBL’s discovery campaign his wife, Mariel; son, William; and paedic Surgeons and of the American steering committee and was elected to daughters, Ellen ’86 and Laura. College of Sports Medicine, and a its Board of Trustees in 2005. He is Memorial contributions may be made diplomate of the Arthroscopic Board survived by his nieces, Laura ’88 and Walter A. Bossert Jr. ’54 to Lyrica Boston, Inc., 53 South of North America. Markowitz was Cathy. Memorial contributions may Great Rd., Lincoln, MA 01773. devoted to his family and his Jewish be made to Feeding America. the Korean War, most notably at faith, first as a member of Beth Jacob Rushmore Air Force Station during Congregation and later as a member the Suez Crisis of 1956. After gradu- 1956 of the Beverly Hills Synagogue. He 1954 ation from the University of Virginia is survived by his wife of 51 years, Law School in 1960, Bossert worked Harold B. Markowitz, orthopedic Vera; sons, David and his wife, Sara, Walter A. Bossert Jr., attorney, 34 years at the New York law firm surgeon, Beverly Hills, on January 19, and Steven and his wife, Michelle; Lincoln, Mass., on October 10, 2020. of Gould & Wilkie, 19 as senior 2020. Born in Cleveland, Markow- daughter, Susan, and her husband, Born in New York City on October 5, partner. He was general counsel to itz graduated from Case Western Ira; and six grandchildren. 1932, Bossert majored in economics well-known corporations including Reserve Medical School in 1960 and served in the Air Force 1954–57 Associated Dry Goods and its prin- and moved to Los Angeles in 1961 Socrates Nicholas, market as a lieutenant commander and cipal division, Lord & Taylor; Tiffany to complete his medical residency at researcher, New York City, on Octo- top-secret security officer during & Co.; and Central Hudson Gas & Los Angeles County Medical Center. ber 19, 2020. Born on July 11, 1934,

William L. “Billy” Goldenberg ’57, TV, Film and Stage Composer

You might not know his name, but Goldenberg died on August 4, theme for the western Alias Smith it’s likely you’ve heard his music. 2020, in New York City. He was 84. and Jones; dignified French horns Billy Goldenberg ’57 collabor­ Born on February 10, 1936, in for the George Peppard mystery ated with Elvis Presley, Barbra Brooklyn, N.Y., William L. Golden- series Banacek; synthesizer sounds Streisand and Diana Ross; wrote the berg grew up with music as the son for Ghost Story; and the children’s themes for many TV series, including of a violinist mother and percussion- chorus in Rhoda. Kojak and Rhoda; composed the pilot ist father. He began playing piano at He was musical director for Elvis scores for Night Gallery and Columbo; 5 and became a protege of Broadway ’68, the legendary special that reig- and won Emmys for the TV movie songwriter Frank Loesser (Guys and nited the pop star’s career, and held Queen of the Stardust Ballroom and Dolls). Jobs as a rehearsal pianist led similar posts for TV specials starring the miniseries The Lives of Benjamin to dance arrangements, orchestra- Ross, Petula Clark, Leslie Uggams Franklin; King; and Rage of Angels. tions for TV shows like Hullabaloo and Ann-Margret. He scored series With lyricists Marilyn Bergman and music for acts including Mike such as Ironside; It Takes a Thief; and and Alan Bergman, Goldenberg Nichols and Elaine May. The Name of the Game; and all of expanded his 1975 Queen of the Star- Goldenberg moved to Hol- Spielberg’s television work. dust Ballroom score into the score of lywood in late 1968 and scored He also scored several feature the 1978 Broadway musical Ball- many of television’s most important films including Presley’s Change Gangster Chronicles; Jacqueline Bouvier room, directed and choreographed by films, garnering 25 Emmy Award of Habit; The Grasshopper; Red Sky Kennedy; Bare Essence; and Nutcracker: Michael Bennett, of A Chorus Line nominations. He was renowned at Morning; Woody Allen’s Play Money, Madness and Murder. fame. It earned eight Tony nomina- for his versatility: dark, frightening It Again, Sam; Streisand’s Up the “A composer should be sensitive tions, including Best Musical. music for Steven Spielberg’s 1971 Sandbox; The Last of Sheila; Busting; to what’s happening on the screen,” Following that collaboration, Alan Duel; a combination of electronic The Domino Principle; and Reuben, Goldenberg told the Los Angeles Bergman told Variety: “Billy was one and orchestral sounds for Rod Reuben. But Goldenberg was best Times. “It’s better to underplay and of the rare composers who was also Serling’s 1969 Night Gallery pilot; known as a television composer, earn- understate, even though it often a dramatist. Lots of people can write grandly romantic music for 1971’s ing additional Emmy nominations becomes a personal struggle for me melodies, but you could tell Billy the “Ransom for a Dead Man,” the sec- for the TV movies The Marcus-Nelson because I’m very emotional, always situation, what the characters were feel- ond Columbo pilot, which sold the Murders; The Migrants; Helter Skelter; ready to pour my heart out.” ing, and his music would reflect that.” Peter Falk series; a banjo and guitar the remake of Dark Victory; The — Alex Sachare ’71

86 CCT Winter 2020–21 alumninews

wife of 60 years, Joyce (née Duran), Submit an Obituary were among the founding families of the lay-led prayer service. A gifted OTHER DEATHS REPORTED Please go to college.columbia.edu/ scholar and linguist, Stern mentored Columbia College Today also has learned of the following cct/contact-us. hundreds of congregants and was deaths. Complete obituaries will be published in an upcoming recognized by the synagogue in 2018 issue, pending receipt of information. as a Master Teacher. He is survived in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Greek immi- by his wife; sister, Raya; son, Avidan, grants, Nicholas spent his child- and his wife, Linda; daughter, Lise; 1954 Michael I. Frischberg, teacher, Aberdeen, N.J., hood working after school in his and five grandchildren. Memorial on April 19, 2020. parents’ florist shop with his brother, contributions may be made to Adas Peter Andrews Poole, foreign service officer, professor Theodore, who predeceased him. He Israel Congregation, 2850 Quebec 1956  and writer, Sugar Hill, N.H., on October 4, 2020. founded Nicholas Research Associ- St. N.W., Washington, DC 20008, ates International, which pioneered or to Our Place of New Trier, 370 1957 Anthony G. Lubowe, engineer, San Marcos, Calif., qualitative market research and Chestnut St., Winnetka, IL 60093. on January 20, 2020. provided services for Fortune 500 Edward A. Weiner, pathologist, Bethesda, Md., companies for decades. Nicholas was on April 20, 2020. on the Columbia University Board 1963 of Trustees for five years and was a 1958 Albert J. Sabatini, psychiatrist, New York City, member of The 1754 Society. He Steven J. Shirk, teacher, Clamart, on October 29, 2020. had a deep concern for social justice France, on September 5, 2020. Born 1960 Gary A. Hershdorfer, economist, Aventura, Fla., and education reform, and was a Life in Brooklyn, N.Y., on December 13, on October 28, 2020. Trustee of Oliver Scholars, which 1942, Shirk pursued graduate studies John A. Istvan, petroleum engineer, Spring, Texas, prepares high-achieving Black and in psychology at Temple and spent 1962  on September 28, 2020. Latino students from underserved most of his career at the American New York City communities for suc- School of Paris as a psychologist, 1964 Stephan H. Levitt, author, professor of Oriental studies, cess at top independent schools and teacher and guidance counselor. In Queens, N.Y., on October 14, 2020. prestigious colleges. Nicholas was a retirement, he lived outside Paris 1971 Richard S. Milich, professor of clinical psychology, passionate lover of theater and music, and volunteered as a listener at SOS Lexington, Ky., on November 7, 2020. particularly the opera, and for 25 Help. “He was a faithful friend who years was on the Advisory Board of treasured his many connections with 1973 John Keating Willcox, radio executive and teacher, the Metropolitan Opera. It was said kindred spirits around the world,” Manchester, Mass., on July 16, 2020. his presence could fill a room — he recalled his nephew, Ben Wildavsky. 1976 Nicholas P. Sgammato, musician and teacher, Ossining, was warm, witty, firm of opinion, and “From his quick wit to his lively N.Y., on October 19, 2020. as generous as it was possible to be. intelligence — and his willingness to Thomas T. Soter, journalist and improv producer and He is survived by his spouse, Gerard burst into song at the slightest pre- 1978  teacher, New York City, on August 14, 2020. Bell, with whom he spent 42 years text — Steve had many wonderful traveling the world and entertaining and memorable qualities.” In addi- 1979 Manuel R. Garcia III, oil and gas executive, friends in their New York and Con- tion to Wildavsky, Shirk is survived San Antonio, Texas, on November 4, 2020. necticut homes. by a cousin and a great-nephew. 1983 George Poon, financial officer, Brooklyn, N.Y., Memorial contributions may be on September 23, 2020. made to the Columbia College Fund 1959 (college.columbia.edu/givenow), The 1988 Brian A. Keizer, journalist and producer, New York City, Louis August Jonas Foundation or on March 17, 2020. J. Michael Stern, government official Doctors Without Borders. 2016 Yeabsira B. Tigistu, marketer, Brooklyn, N.Y., and analyst, Washington, D.C., on on November 14, 2020. August 2, 2020. Born on September 5, 1938, in Leipzig, Germany, Stern and 1966 his family emigrated to the United Stephen A. Lesser, States and settled in Clarence, N.Y. architect, East commercial buildings. After time He majored in French and earned Hampton, N.Y., on July 12, 2019. as a director at Rivkin/Weisman, 1971 an M.A. from GSAS in 1961. Com- Born on July 15, 1944, in Bethesda, in 1986 Lesser formed Nagel and mencing with positions in the budget Md., Lesser studied under renowned Lesser, Architects, in East Hamp- Timothy J. DeBaets, entertainment and legislative branches of the former modernist architect Charles Gwath­ ton, and since 1994 he had been attorney, Manhattan Beach, Calif., Department of Health, Education and mey, his undergraduate thesis a sole practitioner. His wife, Celia on September 27, 2020. DeBaets was Welfare, Stern developed a distin- advisor at Columbia. In 1971 Lesser M. Josephson, said that he “strove a partner of Cowan, DeBaets, Abra- guished career in government that earned a master’s at Harvard and for a clarity of line and a density of hams & Sheppard, first representing included serving as staff director of then worked at several Boston firms ideas to unify the elements within clients in the world of dance at its the Senate Finance Committee under including Benjamin Thompson and each building and project.” Lesser’s New York office and then extending Sen. Russell Long (D-La.). He later Associates, where he was a project first marriage, to Ellen McClel- that to film, theater and television was a legislative analyst for the Invest- architect of Faneuil Hall Market- land, ended in divorce. In addition when he relocated to its Los Angeles ment Company Institute. For more place. In 1975 he moved to New to his second wife, he is survived office. He is survived by his wife, than 50 years, Stern was a prominent York and joined Richard Meier by his son, Jonathan ’17, SIPA’20; Kathy Oh; and their twins, son, member of his synagogue, Adas Israel Associates, where he honed his daughters, Alexandra and Emma; Joseph, and daughter, Juliet. Congregation, where he and his Corbusian style in residential and and sister, Katherine. — Alex Sachare ’71

Winter 2020–21 CCT 87 captionthis!

CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST This issue’s installment is by Dr. Benjamin Schwartz ’03, PS’08, a regular cartoonist for The New Yorker.

Any College student or College alum may enter; no more than three entries per person. Submit your idea, along with your full name, CC class year and daytime phone, to [email protected] by Monday, May 3.

“He’s been thinking a lot about race recently.”

The winner of our Fall 2020 caption contest is Jaysen Zhang ’21! Thank you for all your submissions. R.J. MATSON ’85 MATSON R.J.

88 CCT Winter 2020–21 The Center for

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