California Wildfires: An Oxy Couple’s Loss Susan Prager Steps Down: What’s Ahead OCCIDENTA WLINTER 2008 BREAKING IOWA OPEN Sen. Barack Obama ’83 makes strides among the Hawkeyes with the tireless support of Sara El-Amine ’07, Noah Glusenkamp ’07, and Brian McGrane ’06 OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 WINTER 2008 DEPARTMENTS 2 2 CORRESPONDENCE More Occidental tales from days gone by, including the new “ Fang Queen” who was not to be (Siri Ingwersen-Holmes ’86). Also: New additions to the Oxy bookshelf. 10 FEATURES 10 FIRED UP, READY TO GO For Barack Obama ’83, the road to the White House begins in Iowa— and Brian McGrane ’06, Sara El-Amine ’07, and Noah Glusenkamp ’07 8 are among the true believers working in the heartland to make it happen. 14 THE WALKING WOUNDED 4 FROM THE QUAD In her photographs of freshly inked tattoos on Marines stationed in the What does Susan Prager’s stepping down Mojave Desert, art professor Mary Beth Heffernan documents the “grim mean for Occidental? An interim president, currency” on a soldier’s skin. a national search for her successor—and assurances that the College remains 18 THE SHADOWS KNOW “vibrant and healthy.” Also: Jazz Ensemble By trailing alumni and other professionals over a day’s work, the student coaches Henry Spurgeon ’79 and Patrick participants in Oxy’s Walk In My Shoes program often find vocational Olguin ’83; cross country champion Kevin nirvana—or eliminate potential careers. Chaves ’08 (pictured, above ) and other fall sports standouts; new trustees; and more. 22 IN THE COMPANY OF BEN Ben Coombs ’59 was a pioneer in the financial planning community 28 TIGERWIRE nearly 35 years ago. Now he’s a mentor to a new generation of “rats.” Class notes for odd years. 24 AFTER THE FIRE 56 SERENDIPITY As thousands of acres burned across Southern California in late October, Before he went off to college, Eric Frank many alumni homes were threatened, but most were spared. Rancho never strayed far from home. Then Oxy’s Bernardo residents John Goodwin ’68 and Linda (Larsen) Goodwin ’71 dean of the College discovered his life’s weren’t so lucky. passion during a semester abroad in Italy. Siri Ingwersen-Holmes photo (page 2) by Greg Zide ’86. Kevin Chaves photo (page 8) by Kirby Lee. Barack Obama photo (page 10) and cover photo by Dave Weaver. Inset photo (cover) courtesy Brian McGrane ’06. Oxy Wear photo by Kevin Burke. Bookshelf CORRESPONDENCE REINVENTING LOS ANGELES: NATURE AND COMMUNITY IN THE GLOBAL CITY , by Robert Gottlieb (MIT Press; $24.95). Gottlieb traces Oxy Memories: The More, the Merrier the emergence of Los Angeles as a global city If it’s not too late for your coffee-table book in the 20th century and describes its continu - (“Collective Enterprise,” Fall 2007) … ing evolution today. He examines the powerful Oxy Memory No. 1: In our sophomore influences of immigration and economic year four of us—Pat McClatchey, Dotty globalization as they Hosea, Sylvia Vanderzyl, and myself—had intersect with changes two dorm rooms in Erdman, luxuriously in the politics of water, connected by a bathroom just for us. “Cere - transportation, and monies” were conducted periodically in our land use, and illus - private bathroom. Generally, the ceremonies trates each of these involved flushing something down—often a core concerns with an letter from a guy, once beloved, but no account of grass-roots longer. Sometimes we held the emotion- In spring 1986, a sundry group was working to and activist responses. Among them: efforts to revive the old Fang humor magazine. Greg Zide ’86 fraught paper above the toilet, lit it with a reenvision the concrete-bound, fenced-off Los took pictures of me to be the new “ Fang Queen”— match, then dropped it, flaming, into the Angeles River as a natural resource; Arroyo - undoubtedly because I was the only woman on water. Sometimes, a few dramatic words campus who owned opera gloves. Unfortunately, fest, the closing of the Pasadena Freeway for a were said (three of us were English majors). the renewed Fang never happened, but I’ve kept Sunday of walking and bike riding; and immi - Then the handle was pressed, and whoosh! these outtakes from Greg all these years. I can’t grants’ initiatives to create urban gardens and Oxy Memory No. 2: In my freshman remember the name of the motorcycle guy—I connect with their countries of origin. Gott - year, Dotty Hosea, Nancy Foster, and I believe he was class of ’87 or ’88. lieb is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Urban occupied one of the rare triples in Orr Hall. SIRI INGWERSEN HOLMES ’86 , San Rafael and Environmental Studies at Occidental. Two beds (and three desks) were inside, but the third bed was outside on a “sleeping the Remsen Bird Hillside Theater. Up until TOCQUEVILLE’S ROAD MAP: METHODOLOGY, porch” with pull-down canvas curtain to this point in my life I had attended only a LIBERALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DESPOTISM, fend off the elements. It was a super location few musicals. With nothing else better to do, by Roger Boesche (Lexington Books; $70) . for enjoying “serenades” by guys from Swan I agreed to go to see Oklahoma! with Pete. One of the country’s foremost Tocqueville or Wylie suddenly appearing in the rose gar - It was a warm, clear, balmy night, and scholars, Boesche has gathered together his den below. In an effort to be fair, we three on arriving at the theater and selecting our writings on the French political thinker and occupants decided to rotate among the beds, essentially front-row-center seats under the historian (1805-1859) from the last quarter switching from one to the other on the day beautiful night sky, I began to think that this century. These nine essays focus on various the sheets came back from the laundry. Even had the potential for being the beginning of a specific aspects of Tocqueville’s political the two inside beds had distinctions, one unique, magical theater experience. I was thought, including the methodology that being quite hard, another sloping. We named not wrong. From the members of the live Tocqueville brought to his historical and the three beds the Matterhorn, the Monch, orchestra to the performers acting, singing, political writings, his conviction that democ - and the Eiger. and dancing on stage—most of whom were racy and commerce at times work against JOYCE (CONGER) ROBERTSON ’55 presumably Oxy students, supplemented by each other, his assumptions about what con - Boulder, Colo. professional performers—I was mesmerized. stitutes a revolution, and his fear of a qualita - It was a unique, magical theater experience. tively new kind of despotism. Boesche joined It was 1973, at the end of our senior year, From that seminal evening on, I’ve been the Occidental faculty in 1977 and is Arthur after finals but before graduation. My friend an avid aficionado of musical theater and G. Coons Professor in the History of Ideas. and fellow chemistry major/pre-med stu - have derived much pleasure from the genre. dent Peter Van Houten ’73 and I had been MASSAD GREGORY JOSEPH ’73 HOPE , by Dennis Phillips (Green Integer; accepted to med school and had finished South Pasadena $14.95) . A noted Los Angeles poet and finals (in that order) and were feeling pretty author of Sand (2002), Phillips turns his tal - good about things and life in general, but Correction ents to fiction in his first novel. Hope is a didn’t know what to do that night in the way Because of an editing error, Bill Bennett ’53 work of two intertwining stories: one of a of celebration and entertainment. was misidentified as deceased in the Fall monk lured to an isolated island, the other of We decided to have dinner at a nearby 2007 magazine (“All in the Oxy Family”). a contemporary man who first imagines him - restaurant, after which Pete suggested that Bennett good-naturedly called us with the self imprisoned on an unknown island and we attend the performance of Oklahoma! in news himself; we very much regret the error. later finds himself in a real island paradise, 2 Occidental Magazine where “hope” is restored. What Phillips ulti - writes in his introduction. “It is that pride mately reveals through the intertwining manifested through a wonderful collection themes of these at first seemingly unrelated of photographs that [is] the inspiration for adventures is that beyond the horrors and this book.” Volume 30, Number 1, Winter 2008 everyday despair of living there is always the possibility of redemption, hope, and the COMING OUT, COMING IN: NURTURING THE OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE salve of love in human life. Phillips is WELL-BEING AND INCLUSION OF GAY YOUTH Susan Westerberg Prager adjunct assistant professor of English and IN MAINSTREAM SOCIETY , by Linda Gold - President comparative literary studies at Occidental. man, with photos by Kyna Shilling ’07 Barbara Avery (Routledge; $29.95). Coming Out, Coming In Vice President for Student Affairs TWO JULIETS, by Suzanne Selfors ’86 (Walk - describes the process of “coming in” to a and Dean of Students er/Bloomsbury; $16.95) . Seventeen-year-old welcoming and nurturing family, from both Lakshmi Dastur-Johnson ’88 Mimi Wallingford has the life that most girls the teen’s and the parents’ perspective. Gold - Vice President for Institutional Advancement dream about—playing man draws on her personal and professional (Interim) Juliet opposite teen experience as a school guidance counselor, Eric Frank heartthrob Troy Sum - child and adolescent therapist, and parent to Vice President for Academic Affairs mer on Broadway in build a common language and a new para - and Dean of the College Shakespeare’s famous digm for understanding sexual orientation James Jacobs play.