Ben Chan ’01
Cheryl Sanders ’74
Reconnecting with the pawpaw tree. Art by Luiza Laffitte.
Roots, Plans, and Weathering Storms
campbell
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.
swarthmore college bulletin
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Kate Campbell
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Ryan Dougherty
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Nia King
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Laurence Kesterson
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Lauren McAloon
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Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
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The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN 0888-2126), of which this is volume CXX, number III, is published in October, January, and May by Swarthmore College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390. Postage paid at Philadelphia, PA, and additional mailing offices. Permit No. 129. Postmaster: Send address changes to Alumni Records, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390.
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On Our Radar
into the mud, sand, rain!
—TIMOTHY WILLIAMS ’64, Professor of Biology Emeritus, Sugar Hill, N.H.
the whole package
— JASON ZENGERLE ’96, Chapel Hill, N.C.
Her Saturday morning show, “Spread a Little Sunshine,” featured a genre not mentioned in the article — gospel music. “I literally had to spin my own albums (many of which I still own), so I got a FCC broadcast radio license. My years as a gospel deejay at WSRN were transformative, as college gospel choirs were coming to voice all over the U.S. alongside Black student unions, Black studies curricula, and other on-campus programs organized around Black culture and consciousness. SASS was going strong, and we launched the Swarthmore Gospel Choir during my freshman year from the living room of the Black Cultural Center. Those were the days — thanks for the memories!” (See p. 21 for more on Sanders.)
Cruisin’ with Captain Guts
Once I’d gone through training and taken the Third Class Radiotelephone Operators License exam in Philadelphia (no longer required for college disk jockeys today), I recall the thrill of playing my first record at 5 a.m., Feb. 1, 1976. It was “Speedo” by the Cadillacs. I was promoted to a much better time slot — Saturday night — and hosted “Cruisin’ with Captain Guts.” The focus of the show was on rock ’n’ roll/rhythm and blues of the 1950s. Little did I know back then that I would go on to host similar programs on three other radio stations (two college and one a non-commercial “community radio” station in Miami, Fla.) to the present day. Since May 1998, using the name Dr. Hepcat, I have hosted the Golden Oldies show on WEGL— Auburn, Ala. FM 91.1
I expanded the coverage to primarily the years circa 1945 – 1963 and feature genres including blues, gospel, country, and, occasionally, West Indian calypso and early 1960s Jamaican ska. And yes, I do take requests!
—TIM DODGE ’79, Camp Hill, Ala.
past & present alike
—MIRIAM REPP STALOFF ’59, Far Hills, N.J.
Equal to the Best
—JON YOUNG ’74, Wilton, Conn.
couldn’t put it down
—ELISE (KANG) HOUPT ’97, Scarsdale, N.Y.
A Favorite Story
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.
Cutting Across Generations
—Linda Cox ’71, Bronx, N.Y.
WSRN Reborn
—Diane DeAngelis Lynch ’77, East Greenwich, R.I.
Consider MIT
—Robert Ehrler Tench ’78, Allentown, Pa.
In the Bath, On a Train …
—Anne MacDowell ’78, Great Missenden, United Kingdom
Mixtape Tribute
—Joel Price ’00, Phila., Pa.
I’ll Never Look at Clothier Hall the Same
—Roderick H. Wolfson, Senior Planner/Project Manager, Swarthmore Capital Planning and Project Management Department
Facing the Past
Honestly, I don’t see the benefit or merit of pouring all these resources into dissecting an event that occurred in 1899. Who exactly would be better off for this process? I also don’t see the merit in renaming Trotter Hall, an honor that was bestowed upon Professor Trotter nearly a hundred years ago. Revisionist behavior like this undermines Swarthmore’s mission of intellectual honesty and curiosity.
—STEVE HARARI ’78, Sulphur Springs, Ark.
Getting Into the Rhythm
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.
studentwise: A WIDER LENS
“One perspective, experience, and culture will only answer a select amount of questions,” says Danika Grieser ’26. “And economists want to answer them all.” Adds Melody Herrera-Garcia ’26 “Diversity allows new topics to be brought into the light.”
That was a key theme of the Expanding Diversity in Economics Summer Institute at the University of Chicago, in which Grieser and Herrera-Garcia participated in June. The highly competitive program finds and supports talented undergraduates from diverse backgrounds.
HOT TYPE: New releases by Swarthmoreans
Miriam S. Moss ’51
Seasons in the Pine Barrens: The Journal of Miram S. Moss
South Jersey Culture & History Center
William Ehrhart ’73
What We Can And Can’t Afford: Essays on Vietnam, Patriotism and American Life
McFarland & Company
What’s Faith Got to Do With It?
Exploring multiracial and interfaith America
Taking that class, and connecting with Religious Studies faculty — including Professor of Religion and James Hormel Professor Social Justice Mark Wallace, Professor of Religion and Peggy Chan Professor of Black Studies Yvonne Chireau, Howard M. and Charles F. Jenkins Professor of Quakerism and Peace Studies Ellen Ross, and former Professor of Religion Nathaniel Deutsch — changed her life’s trajectory.
sharing success and stories of swarthmore
common good
An Artful Tribute
When widely respected art historian Connie Hungerford died in 2021, she left a legacy of scholarship and friendship.
Hungerford joined the College faculty in 1975 and served as provost from 2001 to 2011 and interim president from 2014 to 2015. She was also the curator of the College’s art collection. Hungerford helped facilitate the preservation of the murals in the former Hicks Hall.
Hooked on History
or Genevieve Woodhead ’12, an archaeology Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Mexico, pottery bears witness to the ways different groups have coexisted across time.
“Ceramics leave a trace of interpersonal interaction,” says Woodhead. In addition to using pottery for cooking, serving, and storage for thousands of years, people have used ceramics “to encode their practices, connect with others, and express artistic qualities.”
Globe-Trotting
Her globe-trotting career took her to more countries than most people visit in a lifetime, but for Doggett, traveling and living abroad wasn’t new. Because of her father’s work for USAID, she grew up in Greece, Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand, and Kenya, learning French and picking up conversational Thai and Swahili along the way.
She now considers this early exposure to foreign languages and cultures a throughline in her lifelong passion for linguistics.
Fun-Seeking Philosophy
“I read Stephen Hawkings’ Brief History of Time when I was in elementary school,” Chan says.
Chan continued studying philosophy as a doctoral student at UCLA and a postdoctoral student at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he focused on bioethics. Chan has been teaching philosophy at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin since 2013.
Though his nerd bona fides are impressive, the origins of his historic winning streak were inauspicious.
One night he was watching the show and an ad popped up for the test to be a contestant.“I had probably had a couple glasses of wine,” says Chan.“I think I took the test reclining on my couch.”
Chan did well enough on the 12-minute, 50-question test to be invited to take round two. Then came an audition, where he believes a piece of trivia about his own life got him on the show.
“It wasn’t going so well, so I made sure to interrupt and said ‘Well, I do have a fun fact!’” The fun fact — that Chan had played Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers at pub trivia and beaten him — was a hit.
answering the call
“There was a time when certain people in the church would never miss an opportunity to remind me that they had held me as a baby, or changed my diapers,” says Sanders, who first felt called to ministry at Swarthmore.
“It was my way of contributing to the blossoming of Black culture at Swarthmore,” says Sanders, who studied math and Black studies.
“From [Sara Lawrence Lightfoot Professor Emerita of History] Kathryn Morgan, I learned how to collect and analyze oral histories,” says Sanders.She went on to pursue theological studies at Harvard Divinity School and used oral histories in her dissertation on the religious conversion of enslaved African Americans.
As a graduate student, Sanders held multiple jobs, including serving as an interim pastor of a Boston church and a teaching assistant in Harvard’s Afro-American Studies Department and Divinity School simultaneously. When a position opened up at Howard University School of Divinity, she applied and taught a full course load at Howard while finishing her doctorate at Harvard.
A New Age
A New Age
Swarthmore 80 years ago was both very different and much the same as it is today. For these centenarians, historical events are just one part of their extraordinary lives.
Among the experiences these Swarthmoreans have lived through are the Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II. Despite enormous challenges, they also found joy in art, literature, and family.
As for living to 100 and beyond? It’s complicated. But special, too.
Morton Huber
do something you love
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.
The Fruit is Out There
illustrations by Luiza Laffitte
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.
An
Invitation
to
Art-Making
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.
A Marriage of Art and Science
Gaël McGill ’95 and Jeannie Park ’94 craft accurate visualizations to help audiences grasp the complexities of science.
by Ryan Dougherty
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.
laurence kesterson
“There were a few things I wasn’t seeing in a lot of kids’ literature,” says author Victor Piñeiro ’00. “One of them was Puerto Rican protagonists.”
A Place to Escape To
How the daily habit of writing on the train gave way to an award-winning book
ictor Piñeiro ’00 has had a rich assortment of callings. Now the director of digital innovation at HBO Max, Piñeiro moved to New York City after college to teach third grade.
Outside the classroom, he was a filmmaker: Years before the idea of the metaverse took off, he wrote and produced Second Skin, a 2008 documentary about gamers occupying virtual worlds.
Then, Piñeiro became a pioneer of social-media marketing, having helped craft the identities of brands like Skittles, Hasbro, YouTube, and Google Maps.
Across each of his adventures, Piñeiro has always craved one thing above all else — the time to write a novel.
class notes
ALUMNI EVENTS WEBSITE
Stay up to date with Swarthmore events by visiting our Alumni Events webpage. Find information about and links to register for upcoming in-person and virtual events, as well as recordings and photo galleries of past programs. swarthmore.edu/AlumniEvents
Swatober: Young Alumni Appreciation Month
October 2023
This October we’re celebrating the Classes of 2010 through 2023 and recognizing all you do as volunteers, mentors,
and donors. Visit the Young Alumni resource website to see what’s planned for the month and to get your study guide to alumnidom. swarthmore.edu/resources-young-alumni
Save the Date for Alumni Weekend 2024
May 31–June 2
Mark your calendars to come back to campus and celebrate your milestone reunion (class years ending in 4 and 9) or simply reconnect with fellow Swarthmoreans.
Your support makes a Swarthmore education extraordinary and accessible.
Your support makes a Swarthmore education extraordinary and accessible.
their light lives on
Dan, an entrepreneur and avid golfer and card player, died April 13, 2023.
He attended Swarthmore, ultimately graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School; served as a gunnery officer during the Korean War; and began his professional career with Lennox China. An entrepreneur at heart, Dan started his own company that introduced lesser-known brands to fine jewelers throughout the country. Also, he served on the Men’s Board of Abington Hospital, was a deacon at Abington Presbyterian Church, and was a board member for several terms at Huntingdon Valley Country Club.
Martha, a mother, activist, and biochemist, died June 24, 2023.
After attending Swarthmore and marrying, she earned a Ph.D. in the new field of biochemistry; had three children; and in 1963 worked at Cornell University in research labs and as a lecturer. Martha was committed to human rights, peace, and justice as a “war tax” resister; a founder and chair of her Unitarian church’s social justice committee; a campaigner against fracking; and a 91-year-old arrestee as part of the We Are Seneca Lake campaign.
John, an engineer and photographer, died April 6, 2023.
He attended Swarthmore under the Navy V-12 program and was a member of the football and wrestling teams. John graduated in 1949 from Yale with a mechanical engineering degree, working in manufacturing engineering and research and development for various companies, contributing to several patents. He retired in 2016 at the age of 91, was an avid nature and portrait photographer, sailed the Chesapeake Bay, and camped in the Maine woods.
looking back
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
HOUSE & HOME
—NIA KING
LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD
What drew you to Swarthmore?
I liked that it’s a small campus community. I started in special education almost 25 years ago, as a classroom teacher, and really enjoyed working one-on-one with the students. Later, I worked for a large institution, where I didn’t really get that same opportunity. Coming to Swarthmore [in 2018] gave me that same feeling of having students I would work closely with in my classroom, and the opportunity to get to know them through their four years here and develop relationships.
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
Students arrived on campus the last week of August.