Finding Common Ground F e a t u r e s Special Report 9 Departments A financial report from the College’s vice president for finance and treasurer. L e t t e r s 3 By Suzanne Welsh Readers talk back V i s i t o r s 1 2 C o l l e c t i o n 4 P r o f i l e s W e l c o m e Latest news from campus Examine the roots of The Scott Small Virus, 59 Arboretum as it turns 75 years old. Connections 40 B i g I d e a By Ben Yagoda Alumni events and more Harriet Latham Robinson ’59 is a leader in the search for a vaccine. Sowing Seeds 18 ClassNotes 42 By Elizabeth Redden ’05 o f S u c c e s s Classmates staying connected Eric Adler ’86 co-founds an inner- Exciting yet 66 city public charter boarding school. D e a t h s 4 5 H u m b l i n g By Elizabeth Redden ’05 Swarthmore remembers Oncologist David Fisher ’79 confronts clinical and scientific challenges to help F i n d i n g 2 2 Books&Arts 50 young cancer victims. Common Ground Professor of Philosophy By Carol Brévart-Demm Through foreign study, Swarthmore Rich Schuldenfrei reviews educates for the global world. Real Jews by Noah Efron ’82. S i g n s o f 7 5 By Tom Krattenmaker V i o l e n c e I n M y L i f e 7 0 Think Global, 30 You Can Go Home Again: Amy Retsinas ’01 educates teens T e a c h L o c a l A Year in Seoul about healthy relationships and Five faculty members talk about By Kunya Scarborough Des Jardins ’89 conflict resolution. bringing the world into their classrooms. By Andrea Hammer By Alisa Giardinelli A Day in the Life 80 Rachel Henighan '97 and Charlie Foreign Study 36 Mayer ’98 are on the run. i n R e v e r s e By Jeffrey Lott For more than one in 10 Swarthmore students, the United States is the foreign country. By Andrea Jarrell ON THE COVER: TWO SWARTHMORE STUDENTS WERE AMONG 32 PARTICIPANTS IN THE SPRING 2003 INTERNATIONAL HONORS PROGRAM. ALL 32 POSED IN A CIRCLE AT THE CLOSING CEREMONY IN CURITIBA, BRAZIL. PHOTO PROVIDED BY RICARDO OCAMPO ’05 AND ESTHER ZELEDON ’04. CONTENTS: PHOTO BY JIM GRAHAM. PARLORTALK keep a scrap of history on my desk, a ragged chunk of concrete not much bigger than Swarthmore my thumb. Its surface sports a tiny abstract painting, green with a splash of blue and COLLEGEBULLETIN a spot of red, a fragment of something larger—not a work of art but of history. It’s I Editor: Jeffrey Lott my personal piece of the Berlin Wall, a gift from my late brother-in-law who visited Berlin Managing Editor: Andrea Hammer in 1990, just after the Iron Curtain crumbled. It is more than a souvenir to me. In August 1961, I was 14, traveling with my family on a monthlong tour of Europe. We’d Class Notes Editor: Carol Brévart-Demm started in Rome, making our way through Italy, Switzerland, and West Germany. We went Staff Writer: Alisa Giardinelli on to Paris and London before returning to the United States. Yet on Aug. 15, two days Desktop Publishing: Audree Penner after East Germany and its Soviet masters cut Berlin in half, plunging the world into yet Art Director: Suzanne DeMott Gaadt, Gaadt Perspectives LLC another crisis over the divided city, we Administrative Assistant: flew into Berlin. My father, who loved Janice Merrill-Rossi My father, who loved history, had scheduled this side trip Intern: Elizabeth Redden ’05 months before as something intention- Editor Emerita: history, had scheduled ally different from the pleasant sight- Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 seeing that occupied most of our days. Contacting Swarthmore College this side trip months But I’m sure he hadn’t counted on this. College Operator: (610) 328-8000 before. But I’m sure he Early on Aug. 16, we set off with a www.swarthmore.edu German driver and guide, passing the Admissions: (610) 328-8300 hadn’t counted on this. bombed-out Kaiser Wilhelm Church, a [email protected] war memorial, and viewing the ruined Alumni Relations: (610) 328-8402 My breathless diary Reichstag, torched by Hitler in 1933. Our [email protected] itinerary called for a visit to the eastern Publications: (610) 328-8568 reads, “This was the [email protected] sector, but we assumed this would not be Registrar: (610) 328-8297 most exciting day yet!” possible. Yet, as my breathless diary entry [email protected] reads: “This is the most exciting day yet! World Wide Web Our driver finagled a bit in German, and [they] let us into East Berlin.” We spent a tense www.swarthmore.edu half-hour in East Berlin, where, except for the Volkspolizei, we saw almost no one. “There is Changes of Address one street that has been rebuilt—Stalinallee,” I wrote. “The rest is mostly ruins and rub- Send address label along ble.” with new address to: Back in the West, thousands were streaming from every corner of the city to a unity Alumni Records Office rally at the city hall. With our guide as translator, we joined the crowd on foot. We stood Swarthmore College 500 College Avenue among 250,000 Berliners who heard Mayor Willy Brandt implore the world to defend his Swarthmore PA 19081-1390 isolated city. Nearly two years later, President John F. Kennedy famously declared, “Ich bin Phone: (610) 328-8435. Or e-mail: ein Berliner”; in 1987,President Ronald Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate and [email protected]. challenged Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” But I was there The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN when it went up. 0888-2126), of which this is volume CI, I didn’t study abroad as a college student. In those days, just a few students—usually number 3, is published in August, Sep- tember, December, March, and June by those studying foreign languages—took that opportunity. I am glad to see this has Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, changed at Swarthmore and elsewhere. I hope they have experiences as rich as mine when Swarthmore PA 19081-1390. Periodicals postage paid at Swarthmore PA and I was 14. That memorable day in Berlin opened my eyes to the world in a way that the cul- additional mailing offices. Permit No. tural riches of Italy, the spectacle of the Alps, the luxuries of Paris, and the pomp of Eng- 0530-620. Postmaster: Send address land could not match. By itself, travel is mind expanding, but a little brush with history changes to Swarthmore College Bulletin, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA doesn’t hurt. 19081-1390. SWARTHMORECOLLEGEBULLETIN —Jeffrey Lott © 2003 Swarthmore College 2 Printed in U.S.A. L E T T E R S DEJA VU women and children. Any Christian or Jew This note is to express my pleasure in read- with an Israeli passport or visa was not ing the recent Bulletin. allowed to pray at a Christian or Jewish I send my appreciation for the “charge” holy place. delivered to the graduating class by Justice It was only after 1967 that the Arabs Jed Rakoff ’64. What a pleasure to see his expanded their terrorism beyond Israel’s description of A. Mitchell Palmer unsullied borders plus hijacking and destroying civil- by euphemism! My forebear Benjamin ian airlines (e.g., Olympics at Munich, Franklin’s observation “that he who would Athens airport, etc.). The terrorists includ- give up liberty for a little security will end ed Puerto Rican pilgrims among their vic- with neither liberty nor security” fits Jed tims. After 1967,Christian and Jewish pil- America Rakoff’s rather well, and in these days of grims were allowed to worship at their holy and the “Patriot” and “Homeland Security” is places. After 1967,U.S. manufacturers of World sadly appropriate. airplanes persuaded our government to You may be happy to learn that the City permit the sale of Phantoms, Skyhawks, parent guise of fighting “terrorism”—the Council of Reading, Pa., has joined those and so on, which benefited our balance of current version of the “communist men- cities and states that went on record as payments, which usually runs in the red. ace.” This is not a “policy,” nor is it discre- refusing to support the Patriot Act’s void- If Prestowitz’s “Middle Eastern elites” tionary. Tactics may change, and there may ing of the Bill of Rights in our Constitu- dared to criticize the dictators that run be variations on the general theme of tion. The Berks County Commissioners their countries, they would find themselves imperial expansion; however, the behavior have also been approached to withdraw imprisoned like dual Egyptian-U.S. citizen of this “rogue nation” is inherent in the any support for this act. As you know, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who had the temerity requirement of any capitalist economy to Philadelphia has also joined in opposition. to “defame” Egypt by criticizing its treat- expand and grow to maximize profits. In converting Germany to a police state, I ment of Christians. JEREMIAH GELLES ’63 understand one of Hitler’s early acts was I assume that Prestowitz is unaware Brooklyn, N.Y. getting the Reichstag to pass a law similar that there are more than 30 million U.S. to our Patriot Act so as to free the police evangelical Christians who are more pro- UNCRITICAL PRAISE FOR from undue hindrance.