Judge Wilma Lewis
Duleesha Kulasooriya ’92
Alexis Gander Deise ’96

Provost and Dean of the Faculty Sarah Willie-LeBreton

sometimes it only takes a few notes of a song to transport you. Alumni responded in a windfall to writer Ryan Dougherty’s callout for memorable concerts to include in his story “I Was There” (pg. 22). They reflected with fondness, intensity, and humor about the bands and artists who helped shape their Swarthmore experiences with the transcendental magic that is music. There have been hundreds of extraordinary and historic performances here over the decades. Crowd sizes varied, but the emotional reverberations remain vast.

We then turn the dial to WSRN in “Silent No Longer” (pg. 40). The recent resurrection of its airwaves transmits this satisfying message: Radio is poised for a comeback on campus.

In “Forever Trending” (pg. 50), the Gregory Brothers of YouTube fame share their recipe for creating appetizing musical hits and how their Swarthmore bonds continue today. We’re also excited to spin a yarn about spiders in “Spider Senses” (pg. 42) and take you on a stroll with a dog, and confidant, in “Walking Martha” (pg. 46).

These features remind us of the importance of caring for the natural world and each other, two-footed, four-footed, eight-footed, even. After enjoying this splashy, spring-like bounty of stories from and about your fellow Swarthmoreans, take yourself outside and continue to commune — and communicate — with nature. It keeps us connected.

It amazes me that the Honors Program is a century old! When I was at Swarthmore, there was a sharp division between the “course” curriculum and “Honors.” I liked the flexibility of course, but there were some Honors seminars that covered subjects that weren’t available in course. I got permission to take “Perception” in the Psychology Department and “Sensory Physiology” in biology from their professors. Dean Susan Cobbs called me in to her office, telling me that I was bending the rules. Fortunately, she didn’t forbid me from doing so, however. That flexibility allowed me to take Spanish 1-2 my senior year, and to fulfill the requirements for majors in both psychology and zoology.

­— RICHARD (DICK) GROSSMAN ’65, Bayfield, Colo.

A classmate who got her Bulletin before I had mine emailed me re: “Famous Walking Couple” appearing on p. 65. I don’t know anything about a Famous Walking Couple, but there I was with my wife on page 65. My wife is Sari Steuber. We walk through the campus every day.

—Patton Steuber ’68, Springfield, Pa.

You may have heard (especially from paleo diet advocates) that your body and brain are remarkably similar to those of your hunter-gatherer forebearers. It’s just that the lifestyle you’ve grown up with doesn’t align with your biology.

Despite your 21st-century digital trappings, you are actually a bipedal social hominid who thrives outdoors collecting and preparing food in a tight-knit group. You evolved to range over the landscape, build simple tools and shelters, recount your tales, and dance your dreams around a collective fire. If it weren’t for your technological dependence and lack of training in a clan, you would excel at finding everything you need in nature.

Quincy Ponvert ’23 (right) started learning the bandoneón, a type of concertina, in their sophomore year. They founded Swarthmore’s first student tango group, Sexteto Strapatta, also featuring Daniel Song ’25 and Emma Gabriel ’25.

Christine “Tina” Shepardson ’94, Michael Penn, Scott Johnson, and Charles Stang

Invitation to Syriac Christianity
University of California Press

Despite their centrality to the history of Christianity in
the East, Syriac Christians have generally been excluded from modern accounts of the faith. Collecting foundational Syriac texts from the second to the 14th centuries, and co-edited by Shepardson and colleagues Michael Penn, Scott Johnson, and Charles Stang, this anthology provides unique access to one of the most intriguing, but least known, branches of the Christian tradition.

“One of the greatest things about my job is getting to talk with people ­— and to listen with intention and humility,” says Tim Harrison ’87, principal deputy director of the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Words matter,” says Harrison. “One of the great things about my job is getting to talk with people — and to listen with intention and humility.” Both the devastating losses and the tremendous progress he’s witnessed over the past 19 years in this field have fueled his passion to help vulnerable communities.

“No matter the educational intentions, or that these practices may have been commonplace at the time they occurred, these remains should have been treated with dignity and respect and should never have been removed from their burial site.”

—President Valerie Smith

I Was There!

Alumni look back on memorable, loud, live performances over the decades. Concerts by some legendary acts before they became famous shaped the experiences of those who were there.

by Ryan Dougherty

n April of 1990, Jonathan Beams ’92 knew nothing about Nirvana, the Seattle rock trio that would soon upend the charts and youth culture. But some enduring memories quickly took hold.

“The stage might have been eight square feet crowded into the eastern end of the first floor; the band completely filled it,” remembers Beams. “ [They were supposed to be] the opening act, but played a long set.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says.

For Dave Scheiber ’76, the “magical moment” happened in the Scott Outdoor Amphitheater, as he and his friends were introduced to a sly, fedora-wearing dynamo.

“We knew nothing about [Bruce Springsteen], but it was a beautiful, balmy April afternoon, and a free show, so we went,” he says. “And from the instant the band took the stage, we knew we were experiencing a show unlike any we’d ever seen.”

Forty years later, all the way across campus in the Fieldhouse, Sean Anthony Bryant ’13 had his moment, watching Big Boi, half of the chart-topping rap duo Outkast, electrify a capacity crowd.

“He brought me and a handful of other Swatties on stage. It was awesome!” recalls Bryant, who later got backstage to take photos. “A night I’ll never forget.”

in the fall of 2021, Zeus Borrego ’22, together with Michael Wehar, a visiting assistant professor of computer science, unlocked the door to the graffitied studios of Swarthmore’s student-run radio station WSRN, which occupies the fourth floor of Parrish Hall.

The station had been silent for over a year, and the space was in chaos. Posters drooped off the walls, hanging by a single corner. Scattered across the floor were nails and fallen chunks of plaster. “It was a mess,” says Wehar. “But it was beautiful.”

Borrego and Wehar were surrounded by the remnants of a rich heritage. Vintage audio equipment was piled on the shelves, gathering dust. A library of 10,000 vinyl records, including rarities from the 1940s, lined the walls. Fascinated, Wehar removed a couple. He noticed that the sleeves were covered in witty and irreverent scrawls from long-ago student DJs.

lready the time has begun to fade, but if I pause in my day I can remember how it felt.

Leaving the house in the gloomy dark, driving to the Common with Martha in the back seat. Watchful, whimpering with impatience. Barking if we took a wrong turn. At the entrance to the park, other dog owners unloaded their animals with tenderness, or long-suffering abasement.

I often saw two men in particular, washing the paws of their spaniels with tiny portable spray guns before lifting their dogs, pasha-like, into the boot of a sensible hatchback.

This was absurd, wasn’t it? Carrying our animals to a wild-seeming but constructed woodland for an hour each day, picking up their excrement with our hands, cleaning them like penitents, as if this tiny reversal in our dominance over nature was a stay against what may one day come.

SPELLBINDING: Lizzie Agyei ’25 was the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella produced by the Swarthmore Theater Department this spring. Marie Inniss ’23 directed an all-Black cast in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s fairy tale musical.

Working at Swarthmore’s radio station was a formative experience for many involved. For some, it was the origin of a career path. For others, it sparked enduring romance. Alumni shared memories of bringing music to airwaves in the mid-80s.

Tracy Korman ’86 is one half of a Matchbox couple with WSRN origins.

“I asked my crush to help me out with one of my graveyard shift shows,” he recalls. “She promptly took over my show, as she had much better and more current taste in music,” he says. “We must have made a pretty good team, as Joan Hsiao ’86 and I have now been married for 33 years this spring.”