Then there is strategic metamorphosis. The campus is undergoing much of that. Evidence of all the people and planning this requires is its own masterpiece. Fences and scaffolding show safety is prioritized. The whining metallic music of drills means progress is happening. Views blocked and paths redirected are proof a great plan is underway. Disruption, yes. But how marvelous this collaboration of people in fields such as engineering, construction, and environmental science who are all part of a community striving to improve its partnership with the planet.

With geothermal wellfield drilling complete on Mertz Lawn, plans for a more sustainable campus advance. Our celebration of that upheaval helps carry it through.

Moving through change underpins much of what we share in this fall issue. You don’t have to have piloted a P-47 Thunderbolt in World War II fighting the Nazis. You don’t have to have started a gospel radio show at WSRN, directed a theater program for actors with autism, or written an award-winning book while riding the train to work.

Whether you’re a newly minted alum, or mid career, between jobs or beyond them, you can find yourself in these pages. You’ll discover a message here from Swarthmoreans like Morton Huber, a member of the Navy’s V-12 program, who tells us to do “something you love,” or Betty Glenn Webber ’43, who says, “I’d like to be remembered as someone who was willing to see the good in most people.”

You are an elemental part of the fabric of Swarthmore, with all its loud and daring changes.

When I arrived at Swarthmore in 1963 from a large suburban Chicago high school, where I’d been the top student, it was immediately clear to me that I was out of my league as a math major. The Honors program made that even more obvious.

So, for over 40 years I would share this with my community-college math students: I’ve always felt that teachers have a conflict of interest. On the one hand, we’re the students helper, and on the other we’re their judge. In my college they separated these functions in the Honors program, in which “outside examiners” would be brought in to judge the graduating seniors. So imagine how I felt when one of the examiners said to me, “I can’t believe you’re been here for four years and have learned so little.”

I think it may be my students’ favorite story.

—Deborah Hamermesh White ’67, Henderson, Nev.

—Diane DeAngelis Lynch ’77, East Greenwich, R.I.

—Anne MacDowell ’78, Great Missenden, United Kingdom

—Joel Price ’00, Phila., Pa.

I remember walking into Lang Performing Arts Center (LPAC) for the first time during my freshman year.

I had never danced before. I thought that an introductory ballet class would be the perfect way to check off a physical education requirement that was keeping me from taking some of my pre-med courses.

But what first felt like a chore soon became a passion. By the time I graduated, I had spent almost the same amount of time in LPAC as I did in Cornell Library or in the Science Center labs.

Learning to dance as an adult taught me invaluable lessons that I carry with me today as a doctor-in-training.

William Ehrhart ’73

What We Can And Can’t Afford: Essays on Vietnam, Patriotism and American Life
McFarland & Company

Morton Huber

Huber had started college at Johns Hopkins University, but that quickly came to an end when the U.S. entered the war. He enlisted in the Navy. At Swarthmore, he took special courses in gunnery, navigation, and communication, as well as regular classes like chemistry and math. The sailors marched and drilled about campus, performed daily calisthenics, and lived together in one dorm.

He also had time to play lacrosse. Johns Hopkins was a leader in lacrosse, and “by the time I got to Swarthmore, I was pretty good with a stick,” he admits.

illustrations by Luiza Laffitte

Walking into Latham’s yard, one feels like they’ve wandered much further into the woods than they intended, and perhaps further back into time, too — before this land was cleared and subdivided into private lots, before the Lenape were driven away by European and American colonizers, and even before humans themselves became part of the ecosystem.

Venturing deeper into a winding path, lush with leafy understory growth and shaded by towering sugar maples, Latham points out what draws many people to his garden: his pawpaw trees.

s artistic director for Theatre Horizon, an 18-year-old theater in the Philadelphia suburb of Norristown, Nell Bang-Jensen ’11 thinks a lot about how artists can collaborate with people who are not in the arts.

“Part of what attracted me to the position is Norristown is a fascinating place,” says Bang-Jensen, who also believes arts organizations can function as civic spaces for a community. Historically a manufacturing town, Norristown is the county seat of Montgomery County, the second-wealthiest county in the Commonwealth.

But it’s more economically and racially diverse than the county at large, with a median household income of around $55,000 a year.

McGill (top) and Park met at Swarthmore and have lived and worked together for 25 years. “People think we’re crazy, but we wouldn’t have it any other way!” says McGill. They have two daughters. Fiona (far right), now studies illustration at RISD, and Clara, a sixth grader.

Gaël McGill ’95, a cell and molecular biologist and 3D animator, and Jeannie Park ’94, a multimedia artist and software engineer, have followed that path for the past 25 years with Digizyme (Digizyme.com). The small but mighty company they founded creates scientific visuals that help make complex concepts clear and engaging.

Their work is geared to all, from elementary- school children visiting a science museum to scientific experts in biotech to delegates at the United Nations General Assembly. And their collaborators include iconic authors, Nobel Prize winners, and filmmakers.

SECOND ROW (seated on left side), left to right: Sidney L. Clark Jr. ’75, Cynthia “Cindy” Hunter Spann ’75, James R. Wilson ’75 (unconfirmed). Second row (seated on step), left to right: Patrice Harris Pompa ’75, Lorean “Reanie” Simmons ’75. Second row (standing next to Reanie): Phyllis Victoria Caruth ’72.

BACK ROW (standing): Steven A. Bowers ’73 (unconfirmed), Cynthia A. Jetter ’74, Keith Courtney Hayes ’74 (unconfirmed), Karen Shropshire Yancey ’75, Linda D. Turner ’75 (in the background, unconfirmed), Diana G. Finch ’75, Reginald E. Thompson ’75 (unconfirmed), Randall Connell ’75 (in the background). Standing on the high post: Gregany L. Mizell ’75 (unconfirmed). Leaning against post: Karen Simmons Gillian ’71