new orleans survi val of a gumbo culture - spring 2020 | swarthmore college...

New Orleans

Survival of aGumbo Culture

ON THE COVER: Cajun music star Bruce Daigrepont plays the accor-dion at Tipitinas in New Orleans—evidence of the slow rebirth of acity devastated by Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed.Joe Thompson ’86 survived the storm and returned quickly to hisadopted home. But, he wonders, will the city and its rich gumbo ofcultural influences ever be the same? Story on page 22.

ON THESE PAGES: Bulletin photographer Eleftherios Kostans visitedNew Orleans in late January as the city struggled back to life. Hisphotos show both the destruction and the hope that he found there.

features12: Inspired LandscapesFive alumni gardeners and theirhandiwork show Swarthmore’s influence.By Clai re Sawyers

20: Learning to GlideCould it be that hard work isnot the answer?By Madele ine Kahn ’77

22: Survival of aGumbo CultureAfter swimming through Katrina floodswith his pets, this New Orleanian iscommitted to saving his beloved city.By Joe Thompson ’86

30: Mothers After 40Three alumnae reflect on the paths oftheir personal and professional lives.By El izabeth Redden ’05

With Ki rsten Si lva Gruesz ’86,

L isa Maslankowski ’86,

and Nancy Watzman ’86

36: More Time for LifeHanne Weedon ’89 helps harriedparents—and others—balance their lives.By Carol Brévart -Demm

departments3: LettersReaders’ reactions

4: CollectionCampus updates

38: ConnectionsAlumni Weekend and more

40: Class NotesStory exchange

47: DeathsHonored lives

60: Books + ArtsFrontiers Past and Future: Science Fictionand the American West by Carl Abbott '66;reviewed by E. Carr Everbach, associateprofessor of engineering

72: In My LifeWhen it’s fun merely to finishBy David Graham ’92

80: Q + AThe Pryor ExperienceBy Audree Penner

profiles58: Home on the RangeMontana rancher Julia Mackay Childs ’62delights in life in the wilderness.By Carol Brévart -Demm

65: SwitchboardOperatorAdele Diamond '74 explores theways children learn.By Beth Luce

76: Theater of DiplomacyLars Jan '00 engages Western andIslamic tensions through direct artisticexchange.By Andrea Hammer

The long coexistence of Swarthmore College and the Scott Arboretumaffects Swarthmoreans in ways that many may be unaware of as under-graduates. I've heard from alumni who, returning to campus 10 or 20

years after their Commencement, wonder whether the campus was gracedwith so many magnificent trees and gardens when they were students. Theysimply don't remember the striking beauty of the College and see it—often inearly June, when it's at its best—as if for the first time. Yet many of thesesame alumni have become gardeners themselves, influenced in unknown waysby this magnificent campus.

In her foreword to Ben Yagoda's book The Scott Arboretum of SwarthmoreCollege: The First 75 Years (Donning Co., 2003),William R. Kenan Jr., Profes-sor Emerita of Art History T. Kaori Kitao writes: “In the four years they spendat the college, students remain largely oblivious to the arboretum's valuableplant collections.” But she goes on to observe that although “the arboretumprovides an idyllic setting for the College … in reality, it does more; it not onlyembellishes but also edifies. This result is not immediately apparent, but it is

the nature of a landscape that teacheswithout trying. No planting here hap-pens haphazardly. The whole idea ofplant collections organizes the campusinto clusters of memorable places. Weremember different parts of the cam-pus by the plants that distinguishthem: a grove of lilacs, patches of treepeonies, the rose garden, a lawn sur-rounded by cherries, magnolias here,hydrangeas there, and so forth….Landscape gains its shape from thememory it stirs in our mind.”I enjoy gardening because it puts me

in mind of the larger rhythms of life.As our hemisphere leans into the suneach spring, I lean into my four-pronged garden fork, turning clods of

warm, brown earth and raking the surface smooth for seeds. In a world whereminutes and hours are hurrying by—and where other, shorter cycles rule ourlives—it is edifying to connect with the advancing seasons, marking anotherpassage round the sun.

Gertrude Bowers Burdsall '28, who has circled the sun nearly 100 times, isour oldest active class secretary. She often writes about the garden she keepsat her Berkshire Hills home, and her quarterly Class Notes column has gainedmany devoted readers beyond her dwindling number of classmates. Gertrudetends all kinds of plants, but she derives her greatest pleasure from her herbgarden. In December 2005, she wrote: “Herbs continue to grow, bloom, setseeds, and endure. The annuals will last until the first frost, and the perenni-als will go on and on.” And in this issue (p. 41), she writes: “Ever so slowly,our daylight hours are increasing. The shortest days of the year are past, andthis part of the Earth is headed again toward spring.” This may not be pro-found, but it's the rhythm of a long life well observed. Enjoy your spring!

—Jeffrey Lott

SwarthmoreC O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

Editor: Jeffrey Lott

Class Notes Editor: Carol Brévart-Demm

Staff Writer: Alisa Giardinelli

Staff Photographer: Eleftherios Kostans

Desktop Publishing: Audree Penner

Art Director: Suzanne DeMott Gaadt,Gaadt Perspectives LLC

Editorial Consultant: Andrea Hammer,Artsphoria

Administrative Assistant:Janice Merrill-Rossi

Editor Emerita:Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49

Contacting Swarthmore College

College Operator: (610) 328-8000www.swarthmore.edu

Admissions: (610) [email protected]

Alumni Relations: (610) [email protected]

Publications: (610) [email protected]

Registrar: (610) [email protected]

World Wide Webwww.swarthmore.edu

Changes of Address

Send address label alongwith new address to:

Alumni Records OfficeSwarthmore College500 College AvenueSwarthmore PA 19081-1390

Phone: (610) 328-8435. Or e-mail:[email protected].

The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN0888-2126), of which this is volumeCIII, number 4, is published in August,September, December, March, and Juneby Swarthmore College, 500 CollegeAvenue, Swarthmore PA 19081-1390.Periodicals postage paid at SwarthmorePA and additional mailing offices. PermitNo. 0530-620. Postmaster: Send addresschanges to Swarthmore College Bulletin,500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA19081-1390.

© 2006 Swarthmore CollegePrinted in U.S.A.

“The whole ideaof plant col lect ionsorganizes thecampus intoc lusters ofmemorable places. . . .Landscape gainsi ts shape fromthe memory i ts t i rs in our mind.”

—T. Kaor i Ki tao

parlor talk

2 : swarthmore college bulletin

march 2006 : 3

letters

BUGLE CALLSAs a former member of the SwarthmoreV-12 Unit, I was interested to read PaulWachter’s [’97] “Pacifism and Bugle Calls”in the December Bulletin. I think there wasa feeling among many V-12 members thatthe unit was more politely tolerated ratherthan welcomed at Swarthmore. Almost theonly students in many classes and depart-ments, particularly the science depart-ments, were Navy.Without them, thefinances of Swarthmore would have beensorely strained.Many of us felt thatSwarthmore, like Esau, had sold its pacifistQuaker birthright for a mess of Navypotage and that the presence of the unit atSwarthmore was due more to fiscal reasonsrather than patriotism.

JOHN CARSON ’47Rosemont, Pa.

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUSI read “The Road to Damascus” (DecemberBulletin) with appreciation and interest.One statement in that article, however,deserves clarification. Discussing an earlierfailed attempt to set up a foreign-studyprogram with the University of Damascus,I was quoted as saying that, at the time,“none of the colleges involved, includingSwarthmore, were offering Arabic instruc-tion or Middle Eastern Studies.” In fact, anumber of the institutions involved in thateffort had both—including GeorgetownUniversity, long a mecca for the study ofArabic and the Middle East. Even Swarth-more had a small amount of instruction inMiddle Eastern Studies and, since then,(in cooperation with Bryn Mawr andHaverford) has instituted instruction inArabic language and expanded its offeringsin Middle Eastern studies.

STEVEN PIKERSwarthmore

Piker is professor of anthropology and directorof the College’s Foreign Study Office.

ON NEED-BLIND ADMISSIONSAs a Swarthmore graduate and lead authorof the proposal to drop Macalester Col-lege's need-blind admissions policy, I haveseen both the rhetoric and the reality of theneed-blind issue that was described in“The Need-Blind Balancing Act” (Decem-ber Bulletin).

The relationship between need-blindadmissions and the “diversity of experi-

ences and backgrounds” spoken of by Pres-ident Alfred H. Bloom is complicated. As agroup, the need-blind schools have fewerstudents on need-based aid than the need-aware schools. Swarthmore, Haverford, andMiddlebury are need-blind and have,respectively, 50, 40, and 34 percent of theirstudents on need-based financial aid, ratesthat are similar to the need-blind Ivies. Incontrast, it's common for need-awareschools to have 80 percent or more of theirstudents on financial aid. Macalester's newneed-aware policy will bring us from 70percent of students on need-based aid tojust above 60 percent, more than any topneed-blind college.

The article points out that Swarthmore'sadmissions process “take[s] into accountthat someone has a background that mightsuggest lower family income.” This high-lights the fact that admissions decisionsare made with plenty of information avail-able about an applicant's ability to pay.Admissions criteria often emphasize fac-tors that correlate strongly with highincome: access to prestigious volunteeropportunities, strong high-school pro-grams, alumni parents. Even if admitted,needy students can easily be dissuadedfrom attending by the large loan compo-nents included in their “aid” packages.Need-blind Wesleyan (42 percent) recentlyrelied on this strategy to retain a formalneed-blind policy while balancing itsfinancial aid budget, reducing the presenceof needy students in its entering classes.

Sad to say, no top college is accessible tomore than token numbers of low-incomestudents. The challenges such students faceare not overcome by need-based aid.Beyond paying tuition, they have to replacethe income they forego by being full-timestudents, and they need a high-schoolpreparation adequate for a highly competi-tive admissions process. Need-blind Har-vard and Brown recently publicized theirzero-charges approach to recruiting low-income students. Yet even if these schoolsreach their targets, they will have propor-tionally far fewer such students than willneed-aware Macalester.

President Bloom wrote, “Need-blindadmissions and meeting full need ... permitthe institution to fulfill its responsibility toprovide access to students from all back-grounds and, thereby, help overcomewidening economic disparities and develop

leaders from all segments of our popula-tion.” Other institutions manage to admit,matriculate, and graduate large numbers ofneedy students—more than Swarthmore.Those institutions can do better at thisimportant job without need-blind admis-sions.

DANIEL KAPLAN ’81St. Paul

Kaplan is associate professor of mathematicsand computer science at Macalester College.

BASHING BEARDSLEYEditor Jeffrey Lott’s description of his dailywalk to his office (“Parlor Talk,” DecemberBulletin) triggered a memory.With that inmind, it was interesting reading Inga Saf-fron’s “Cohesion and Diversity” article onthe variety of building styles on campus.

My recollection is of taking the tradi-tional “Campus Tour with the CampusArchitect” at a reunion, probably 25(maybe more) years ago. Lott mentioned“Palladian-inspired Beardsley Hall” indescribing his walk. That long-ago archi-tect’s comments about Beardsley were inthis vein: “It is an undistinguished build-ing, built out of inferior materials, not inkeeping with its neighbors, with a roof thatis almost impossible to maintain and keepfrom leaking.” His final comment was,“We’ll be pulling it down in a few years.”

WALTER PINKUS ’65Ann Arbor, Mich.

FOR THE RECORDPhilip Jefferson, author of “The Economistas Biologist” (Dec. “Collection”) is profes-sor of economics.

CampusCohesion

Each year, the administration, inconsultation with the College Budget Com-mittee (made up of students and faculty andstaff members), develops a budget in thecontext of a rolling 5-year plan in which rev-enues and costs are projected for theyears ahead. However, mounting costpressures have created a host of chal-lenges for the budget-planningprocess in recent years.

“Thanks to the generosity of ouralumni and our outstanding endow-ment performance, Swarthmore isvery well-off relative to most edu-cational institutions of similar size,but the College faces a constantchallenge to fund the level of excel-lence that we, our students, andour alumni expect,” PresidentAlfred H. Bloom said. “Main-taining academic and student lifeprograms of extraordinary qualityand meeting the College's excep-tional commitment to financialaid while caring for a beautifulcampus and providing a com-fortable home for 1,380 studentsand an effective workplace forjust over 900 faculty and staffmembers requires the College'sfull available annual resourcesdespite constant and tightmonitoring of our expenses.”

This year, in that budget constructionprocess—after allocating funds necessary tomeet regular operating costs and such keyinstitutional commitments as faculty andstaff compensation and financial aid—theCollege found itself with only $300,000 in

uncommitted funds.Furthermore, still facing the com-

mittee and administration were asteep increase in energy costs—enough to absorb the full $300,000;a 100 percent increase in the cost ofauditing; the need to increase insur-ance coverage; the increasing cost offaculty travel to professional meetings;the final step in the phased-inimprovement of the employee retire-ment plan; increased costs of softwareand hardware maintenance contracts;and the need to create two new tech-nology-related positions that could nolonger be deferred—one responsiblefor the security of the College's networkand electronic data, the other for thedevelopment and maintenance ofSwarthmore's Web site.To meet the significant shortfall in

funds, the budget committee andadministration adopted a two-part solu-tion: An increase in tuition and fees of5.5 percent (slightly higher than in

recent years) and a call on academic depart-ments and administrative offices to live withzero percent budget increases next year, forthe fifth year in a row. The new budget wasapproved by the Board of Managers at itsFeb. 25 meeting.

It can be tempting in tight budget yearsto spend more from the endowment, whichstands at approximately $1.2 billion, saidVice President for Finance and TreasurerSuzanne Welsh. “But with endowmentreturns over the past 5 years still trailing ourlong-term targets,” she said, “we are not in aposition to do that. We always have to keepin mind the need to balance the presentwith the future and ensure that the endow-ment will be there for future generations ofstudents. The tightness of the budget andthe current economic conditions reinforcethe importance of our donors in providingfor the College's continued excellence.”

“We are fortunate to be able to investmore per student than many other liberalarts institutions,” Bloom said. “But theimpact of that investment is abundantly evi-dent in the distinctive qualities of leader-ship that our alumni offer across the profes-sions and domains of the world theyengage. Given the constraints on the annualbudget, the College must rely on the specialgenerosity of its alumni to make new initia-tives possible, and we can never express ade-quately our appreciation for that criticalsupport.”


collection

Facing Budget Challenges

Among the pressureson the College’s budgetis the steep increase inthe cost of energy—including oil and gas tofire the College’s steamplant (left). For the fifthyear in a row, mostacademic and adminis-trative departmentshave been asked foregobudget increases.

ELEFTHERIOSKO

STANS

march 2006 : 5

People arguing over the ethics of stem cells, cloning, and related issuesought to know something about the relevant science, say the authors of a new volumeon bioethics. With the aim of bringing scientific light to today’s divisive debates, HowardA. Schneiderman Professor of Biology Scott Gilbert and two of his former students—AnnaTyler ’03 and Emily Zackin ’02—have written Bioethics and the New Embryology: Spring-boards for Debate (WH Freeman and Sinauer Associates, 2005).

Missing from most debates about stem cell research is a basic knowledge of humandevelopment. “Before we can have any informed discussion, people need to understandwhat an embryo and its cells can and cannot do at various stages,” Gilbert says.

Gilbert hopes the new book will help dispel some myths about embryology. “Onecommon misconception is that embryonic stem cells come from embryos with eyes,hearts, ears, and limbs,” he says. “But the actual cells come from a much earlier em-bryo, which has not formed any of these structures yet.”

The book examines the key issues behind the ongoing debate over bioethics. Amongthem: determining when life begins, selecting the sex of children, regenerating organs,cloning human beings, assisted fertilization, and stem cell use. Although the authors donot take definitive stands on the issues, they present the different positions and discussthe scientific evidence for and against prevailing views.

Gilbert is author of the bestselling textbook Developmental Biology, and he has edit-ed Embryology: Constructing the Organism, A Conceptual History of Embryology and severalspecial issues of journals.

Tyler is currently working toward a doctorate in the Molecular and Cellular BiologyDepartment of Dartmouth College.

Zackin majored in political science and English and minored in biology. She earnedan M.A. in political science from Columbia University and is working toward a doctoratein Princeton University’s Politics Department.

—Tom Krattenmaker

Blastocytesand

Bioethics

K a t r i n aR e l i e fC o n t i n u e sSix students flew to New Orleanson Jan. 8 to help clean up the destructionleft by Hurricane Katrina last August.

Marissa Davis ’08 and Andrew Petzinger’09, co-chairs of Swarthmore’s Direct ReliefCommittee, traveled with Erika DuPree ’07,Heidi Fieselmann ’06,Melissa Lovett ’08,and Jennifer Thompson ’08.With UmaNagendra ’09, who lives in New Orleans,they worked for 6 days with the CommonGround Collective, a grassroots aid groupformed after the hurricane.

The Direct Relief Committee received$5,000 from the Swarthmore Foundationto fund the students’ trip. The foundation,formed in 1987, provides support for com-munity service and social action initiated bystudents, faculty, and staff.

Davis said she and the other student vol-unteers primarily gutted and bleachedhouses. “We removed everything—carpet-ing, furniture, appliances, drywall, even allthe nails from homes that had not been en-tered in 4 months—since the hurricanehit,” she said. “We wore respirators, gog-gles, rubber gloves covered by leathergloves, and full-body Tyvek suits withhoods. There was mold on everything, fromthe floor to the ceiling.”

Davis felt fortunate to meet some of thepeople whose homes they were cleaning.“They were very appreciative of our effortsand said they couldn’t have done it withoutthe volunteers,” she said.

She also attended a meeting in NewOrleans led by Mayor Ray Nagin, where, shesaid, she saw both whites and blacks whohad been affected by the hurricane—and allwere unhappy with the government’sresponse.

Maurice Eldridge ’62, vice president forCollege and community relations, told ThePhoenix that the College hoped to hold aseries of lectures and discussions on pover-ty- and race-related issues that had been“brought into greater visibility by theseweather events and responses to them.”

Davis said the Direct Relief Committeeplanned to go back to New Orleans duringspring break with a larger contingent.

—Audree Penner

©RBMON

LINE/EPA/CO

RBIS

Five days after a nuclear transfer occurred, acloned human embryo exists in blastocyst stageat the Centre for Life in Newcastle, England.


collection

Pacing the length of Lodge Six, public radio veteran MartyGoldensohn simultaneously praises a lead for a story on the BaathParty, brainstorms ways to work Hamas’ electoral victory into thenext newscast, and gives two of his journalists a hilarious reminderof the seven words you can’t say on the radio.

Since June, Goldensohn has been the primary adviser toWarNews Radio, a group of student journalists who produce a weeklyhalf-hour radio broadcast on the war in Iraq. The program is basedon the premise that using Internet telephone service Skype, Swarth-more students are as close to Iraq as reporters in the Green Zone.

It’s a program that has few listeners beyond those who seek it outon the Internet, but a spate of national press attention in early2006 has raised its visibility. Articles in The New Yorker and ThePhiladelphia Inquirer as well as reports about the project on publicradio and ABC television could lead to a wider audience.

War News Radio combines news updates and stories about thehistory of Iraq with in-depth features about the daily life of real peo-ple in Iraq—businessmen, students, painters, and soldiers. This isthe kind of war journalism you won’t find in the mass media. AsGoldensohn says: “All the media covers are roadside bombs—wefind stories that are real and humane and different, stories that youwant to listen to. Hansi [Lo Wang ’09] is working on a story aboutwhat’s funny to Iraqis. Where else can you get that?”

Although the broadcasts are ostensibly the purpose ofWar NewsRadio, according to Goldensohn, “You never know whether thoseare doing any good or not—you just hope they are.” What Golden-sohn does know is that his students have changed. To write forWarNews Radio, students “have to learn to talk to real people, to beunfrightened of the world, to get past feelings of embarrassment,humility, and inferiority—to ordain themselves anybody’s equal.”

Students also appreciate the way thatWar News Radio gets themout of the ivory tower and interacting with real people. Amelia Tem-pleton ’06 says: “It’s the most challenging thing I’ve encountered atSwarthmore, but it’s an entirely different kind of challenge. You ask

a question, and you have to figure out how to answer it yourself.None of your professors can answer it for you.”

Sometimes a Swarthmore alumnus can. Editing an interviewwith Los Angeles Timesmovie critic Kenneth Turan ’67 about Iraq inFragments, which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival,Templeton reports that Turan “said he’d talk to us anytime.”

War News Radio is the brainchild of another alumnus, 60 Minutesproducer David Gelber ’63, who told the students that they could allbe in the big leagues if they’d only “drill down into each story.” Thisphrase has become almost a mantra among the students, and Tem-pleton, Wren Elhai ’08, and Rueben Heyman-Kantor ’06 all tookGelber up on his offer to do a January externship at 60 Minutes.Afterward, Goldensohn recounts with pride, “I got a call from Davidsaying, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this show without them.’”

Elhai echoes a commonly expressed sentiment when he reflects,“This is the most worthwhile thing I’ve done while at Swarthmore.We’re not trying to produce something that sounds intelligent orsome complex new theory.We’re just trying to discover basic truths.How do people live? What is it like to be there?”

With such universal questions as the driving force behindWarNews Radio, the concept seems ripe for expansion. Could it inspire anew model for media production? “The war is really incidental towhat we’re doing here,” admits Goldensohn, and Elhai agrees.“We’ve been talking to Carleton College,” he says, “and they want touse the model ofWar News Radio to start a whole network of stu-dent reporters doing real reporting.Whatever the story that neededto be covered, we could use the resources that we have to cover it.”

—Lauren Stokes ’09

ELEFTHERIOSKO

STANS

War News Radio: Swarthmore’s Iraq Listening Post

Left: A Fox News camera crew, a reporter from The Los Ange-les Times, and a writer from The Jewish Exponent—it’s mediaday at War News Radio. Student producer Amelia Templeton’06 (right) answers questions while working on Swarthmore’sweekly radio news magazine about Iraq. Above: Students havecreated a newsroom in Lodge 6, where they research andrecord a half-hour program, which is then posted to the Inter-net. Listen to recent programs at www.warnewsradio.org.

march 2006 : 7

Settling into my front-row seat atthe Pearson-Hall Theater and opening myreporter’s notebook, the first thing I heardat the pre–Valentine’s Day lecture “The Artof Kissing” was a girl asking me whether Iwas taking notes. I explained that no, I wasjust reporting, and she grinned. “Good,because that would be a little too Swat-esque.”

I was again admonished by the kissingexpert himself, who opened the show byboasting: “You’re not going to have to takenotes, my friend—you will remember every-thing you see.” Michael Christian, author(under the pen name William Cane) of thebestselling book The Art of Kissing and for-merly the No. 1 entertainer on the collegecircuit, had arrived at Swarthmore.

During the next hour, Christian and sixvolunteer kissers raced through 30 differentkisses, from the upside-down-vacuum kiss(suck all of the air out of your girlfriendbefore blowing her back up) to the electrickiss (rub your feet against the carpet tobuild up static electricity) to the classicFrench kiss (demonstrated by two large pinktongue puppets).

The volunteers included Registrar MartinWarner and his wife, Facilities ContractsManager Paula Dale—married for 24years—along with two student couples.Warner participated because he “wanted torole model for our students that love andkissing and romance can and should last alifetime.” Although the couple doesn’t kissmuch in public, Dale said that, once on

stage, she was “definitely a ham.”Student volunteer Charlie Decker ’09

bragged that “I was born without the genefor stage fright, so it was fun for me,”although girlfriend Sarah Ifft ’09 said, “hav-ing someone yelling at you because you’rekissing wrong is a very strange experience.”

Student reaction to the show was “Swat-esque” in another way: Jokes that broughtlaughter at other colleges were seen asoffensive at Swarthmore. The Phoenix’s staffeditorial stated a few days later, “Maybewe’re uptight, but some of [Christian’s]jokes—like his comments about PacificIslanders living in grass huts, having sex allthe time, and pulling each other’s eyelashesout—were far too offensive to be funny.”

Other students expressed disappoint-ment that the show was so “heteronorma-tive.” Although Christian claimed in a post-show interview that he could have “played itby ear” had a homosexual couple volun-teered, the show was too rooted in genderstereotypes for this to be convincing. Chris-tian repeatedly stated that girls see kisses as“an emotional connection,” and that guys“can’t help thinking about what’s next.”Many of the show’s “fantasy kisses” alsoserved to reinforce traditional gender roles.

Nevertheless, many saw the show as anentertaining and even educational success.Jasmine Narang ’09 called the presentation“frivolous and fun … a refreshing change.”Bryn Mawr student Rebecca DiBrienza,partner of Nelson Pavlosky ’06, may havebest summed up the lesson of the lecture:“I’m so glad I was able to participate. Hav-ing the ability to laugh at yourself is anabsolute necessity—kissing isn’t supposedto be stressful.”

—Lauren Stokes ’09

MILESSKOR

PEN!09

The Artof Kissing

OSCULATORY FRIVOLITY SPARKS CAMPUS DEBATE

Author Michael Christian (right),encourages volunteer kissers duringa “frivolous and fun” pre-Valentinepresentation. The volunteers included(from left) Nelson Pavlosky ’06 withBryn Mawr student Rebecca DiBrienzaand College Registrar Martin Warnerwith his wife, Paula Dale. A fewstudents thought a few of Christian’sjokes were offensive, and othersfaulted the show for being too“heteronormative.” But for others,it was “a refreshing change.”


collection

NO SURRENDERLike all wars fought in the lasthalf-century, the war in Iraq began inambivalence and will likely end that way,says Professor of Sociology Robin Wagner-Pacifici in her new book The Art of Surrender,on the history of military surrender. “Vio-lent conflicts don't end with surrenders any-more," says the terrorism expert. “They endin ways that are often ambiguous, jaggedand incomplete.” Add terrorism to the equa-tion, she adds, and conventional forms ofconflict resolution cease to make sense.

An expert on society's response to violentevents and terrorism,Wagner-Pacifici is alsothe author of Theorizing the Standoff: Contin-gency in Action, about the clashes at Wacoand Ruby Ridge;Discourse and Destruction:The City of Philadelphia vs. MOVE; and TheMoro Morality Play: Terrorism as SocialDrama, about the Italian terrorist group theBrigato Rosso (Red Brigade).

Wagner-Pacifici notes that most peoplestill talk of military victory and defeat interms that date back to World War II, whichshe calls the last great surrender. “Surren-ders were never a clean end and almostalways had suggestions of revenge built in,but they operated with an illusion of clarityand completeness that allowed the partiesinvolved to move on to the next step, to rec-ognize that the former historical period wasfinished,” she says. “Now, we're in a periodwhere we don't even have the illusion ofclarity. That leaves us in a real dilemma.”

In a recent article in Contextsmagazine,Wagner-Pacifici examines the reaction to anadvertisement used in John Kerry's presi-

dential campaign, which called the Iraq Wara “quagmire” and showed a soldier raisinghis gun above his head as he sinks intoquicksand. Representing the Veterans forBush, former Senator Bob Dole attacked thead, calling it “unpatriotic” to show an Amer-ican soldier “surrendering.”

Wagner-Pacifici attributes such conclu-sions to an outdated view of war and sur-render. “The weapons used now are notones you walk out of a siege carrying. Theyinclude atomic bombs and airplanes flyinginto buildings,” she says. “But we still have

these ideas about the humiliation of surren-der, the shame and degradation, and Dolewas voicing the reflex reaction to that.”

Bush's line that the United States willnever accept anything less than total victoryin Iraq is similarly obsolete, Wagner-Pacificisays, because the terrorists are not clearlypart of recognized political states and arethus doubly difficult to locate and disarm.

To resolve the dilemma of contemporarywarfare, Wagner-Pacifici says, we must firstunderstand its nature. The emergence ofinternational terrorism has changed the his-torical forms of war. “When you underminethe expectations of war, including the rulesof engagement, you end up with uncertaintyon both sides,” she says. “How do you fighta ‘war on terrorism' that is itself a war onthe conventions of fighting wars?”

—Tom Krattenmaker

The College has removedbottled Coca-Cola productsfrom some of its dining facilitiesand is again calling on the com-pany to permit an independentinvestigation into allegations ofcomplicity in anti-union vio-lence in Colombia.

The action, prompted by theurgings of student leaders, fol-lows the College’s decision in2005 to vote in favor of a share-holder resolution calling for an

independent investigation ofCoke’s practices in Colombiaand an October 2005 letter toCoca-Cola by the Swarthmoreadministration expressing con-cern about its alleged humanrights abuses.

“Having received hundredsof petition signatures from stu-dents, the College administra-tion has agreed to hold Coca-Cola accountable for itsactions,” said Zoe Bridges-Curry

’09, a leader in the campus“Kick Coke” campaign. “Byexercising its power as a signifi-cant purchaser of Coke prod-ucts, the College is demonstrat-ing the same values of socialresponsibility that it teaches inand out of the classroom.”

The College’s action concernsbottled Coca-Cola productsserved at Swarthmore’s snackbar and two coffee bars, includ-ing soft drinks, juices, and

Kicking Coke

Students designed a buttonthat was sold to raise moneyand awareness of their cam-paign to convince theCollege to remove Coca-Cola products from campus.

The formal Japanese surrender aboardthe USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945, islikely the last of its kind. In today’swars, a clear definition of “victory” isoften unachievable, says Professor ofSociology Robin Wagner-Pacifici.

©BETTMA

NN/COR

BIS

B Y O BIt’s a familiar story: a high-profileincident involving students, alcohol,injury, and/or the police tends to coincidewith a review of a College’s alcohol policy.Seven years ago, it was the local police raidof a fraternity party titled, pointedly, “Mar-garitaville.” (See March 2000 and June2003 Bulletin.) The ensuing review resultedin efforts to have party hosts and student“party associates” (PAs) more vigorouslycheck IDs. PAs also received an increase inpay.

Last fall, the policy was already underreview again when three incidents—a stu-dent cited for DUI, a table thrown over theSharples Dining Hall balcony that hitanother student in the head, and a studentwho injured himself falling out of his third-story window in Mertz—highlighted theimportance of the issue.

One complication, common to bothrecent reviews, is the widespread use of stu-dent activities money for purchasing alco-hol. On a campus where all events and par-ties are free, admission fees are anathema.As a result, it has not been uncommon forparty organizers to purchase alcohol, thenuse actual or falsified receipts for food, soda,and other items in order to get reimbursedwith student activity funds.

“The policies have always been on thebooks not to spend College money on alco-hol,” says Associate Dean for Student LifeMyrt Westphal. “I’m trying to distinguishbetween policy and practices.We’ve reallybeen reviewing carefully and making surethe practices follow policy.”

One change enacted last semester is thatstudents who use SAC funds to purchasealcohol will face a fine of up to $100 in

addition to a $100 reduction on their over-all reimbursement for their event. Partyreceipts are also receiving greater scrutiny.

As such scrutiny increases, “BYO” isbecoming the order of the day. Now, morethan before, students have to buy their owndrinks. “They have to figure out, ‘How dowe do it?’” Westphal says. “‘Do we pass thehat, have fund-raisers for a pool of alcohol,or think of other options?’ Students arewrestling now with how to make the systemwork. It will be interesting to watch as theysort that out.”

Will tightening the policy alone have asignificant effect on the campus’s drinkingculture? Barely a month into the secondsemester may be too soon to judge, but, sofar, change seems as elusive as ever. Lastweekend, one student was arrested, andthree others received citations for alcohol-related incidents.

A Phoenix editorial later that week con-cluded real change “does not lie with specif-ic policies but with an overall attitude shift”among fraternities, other clubs and groups,and individual party hosts. If history is aguide, they have their work cut out for them.

—Alisa Giardinelli

DAVID BOWLER DIES

The College community was saddened to hearof the December death of Howard N. and Ada J. Eaven-son Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering DavidBowler, who served on the College faculty from 1957until his retirement in 1989. He taught for several yearsat Bucknell University before coming to Swarthmore.

A graduate of Bucknell, MIT, and Princeton Univer-sity, Bowler was an expert on electronic and digital cir-

cuits. His devoted teaching andaccomplished scholarship won himthe affection and admiration of his col-leagues and students. Keenly interested in alternative energy, hewas co-editor of a prestigious book series on the subject.

Professor of Engineering Eric Cheever '82, current chair ofthe Engineering Department and a former student of Bowler,remembers one of his favorite professors: “His method of pre-senting material revealed a clarity and purposefulness of thoughtthat made it a pleasure to learn. All of us were somewhat irritat-ed by Dave, partly because he expected the same clarity ofthought on the part of his students. But we also admired andrespected him and worked hard for him because we wanted toshow him that we could meet his expectations.”

—Carol Brévart-Demm

march 2006 : 9

water. It does not immediatelyaffect the “fountain” Cokeproducts served through com-pany-supplied dispensers at theCollege’s snack bar andSharples Dining Hall, which aresubject to a contract betweenthe College and company thatruns through 2007. “Coca-Cola’s responsiveness to theconcerns of the Swarthmorestudents and administrationwill play a large role in deter-

mining our action when itcomes time to consider renew-ing that contract,” said C. Stu-art Hain, associate vice presi-dent for facilities and services.

Swarthmore joins 10 othercolleges and universities thathave taken action related toCoca-Cola and the alleged abus-es. Among those institutionsare the University of Michiganand New York University.

—Alisa Giardinelli

More rigorous enforcement of the Col-lege’s alcohol policies includes greaterscrutiny of party receipts submitted forpayment from student activity funds.

ELEFTHERIOSKO

STANS


collection

Men’s indoor track Vernon Chaplin ’07(left) erased one of the longest standingSwarthmore track-and-field records at theValentine Invitational hosted by BostonUniversity on Feb. 10, running the indoormile in a time of 4:19.15 to wipe out the oldmark (4:19.3) set by Gil Kemp ’72. At the

Centennial Conference Championship meet,the Garnet finished in ninth place. Swarthmore

captured its fourth medal in the distance medley relay, when Chap-lin and seniors Tyler Lyson, Paul Thibodeau, and Adam Hunt com-bined to win the bronze medal in a time of 10:31.76. Garnet run-ners Jon Shoop ’08, Ross Weller ’08, and Chaplin set top-10 timesin the 3,000 during the season.

Women’s indoor track Emily Wistar ’06 ran the fourth-fastestmile (5:20.14) and 3,000 (11:07.41). Teammates Carrie Ritter ’06(mile, 3,000 meters), Emma Stanley ’09 (mile, 5,000), and LaurenFety ’06 (mile) also posted top-10 times during the season. In theCC Championships, the women also placed ninth.

Women’s swimming (7-4, 5-2 CC) The Garnet womenbrought home six medals from the 2006 CC Championships, ameet shortened by poor air quality in the Kunkel Aquatic Center atFranklin & Marshall College. No champion was crowned, yet all ofthe medals from the first 2 days of competition were honored.Sarah Cotcamp ’07 was the most-decorated Garnet swimmer,bringing home four medals, and Jennie Lewis ’08 collected three

medals; she brought home an individual bronze in the 50 freestyleand captured three relay medals. Cotcamp,Martyna Pospieszalska’06,Michele Hom ’07, and Lewis swam the fourth-fastest 200 med-ley relay in school history, winning the silver medal in a time of1:52.40. Pospieszalska, Hom, Lewis, and Franny Zhang ’08 took thebronze in the 400 medley relay while Zhang, Funk, Lewis, and Cot-camp combined to earn the bronze in the 200 freestyle relay.

Men’s swimming (4-6, 4-2 CC) The Swarthmore men col-lected four medals at the shortened 2006 CC Championships,including three medals by freshman sensation Douglas Gilchrist-Scott. Gilchrist-Scott teamed up with Andras Koczo ’07, Brian Roth’09, and Jonathan Augat ’07 to claim the bronze in the 200 medley

Indoor Mile of 4:19.15Tramples 1972 Record

ELEFTHERIOSKO

STANS

AURO

RAIMAG

ING

march 2006 : 11

relay and then went on to earn the silver in the 100 backstroke withthe second-best time (54.11) in school history. Fellow first-yearStephen Shymon, after breaking the school record in the 500freestyle on Friday in a time of 4:18.57, posted the third-fastest 400individual medley (IM) time (4:18.57) in school history to earn thebronze medal. The final Garnet medal of the meet came in the 400IM relay, when Gilchrist-Scott, Koczo, Roth, and Jason Horwitz ’07combined to earn silver in a time of 3:34.18.

Badminton (4-1) The Garnet finished third at the NortheastCollegiate Badminton Tournament, with two entries reaching thefinals under first-year head coach Bhavin Parikh. Candice Cherk ’07and Jessica Larson ’06 made their second consecutive women’s dou-bles finals. Cherk was the runner-up in the women’s singles.

Men’s basketball (5-20, 4-14 CC) The Swarthmore mendisplayed flashes of brilliance this winter, sweeping rival Haverfordand defeating Franklin & Marshall for the first time in 30 years, giv-ing head coach Lee Wimberly his 150th victory in the process. TheGarnet were led by the superb trio of sophomores Ian McCormick(post), Steve Wolf (forward), and Matt Kurman (guard). McCor-mick led the team with 14.9 points per game (ppg.) and 7.4 re-bounds per game (rpg.), placing him in the top 10 in the CC.Wolfwas right behind with 14.6 ppg. and 6.7 rpg. Kurman was the top 3-point shooter in the CC, hitting 46 of 103 (44.7 percent) and aver-aging 11.3 ppg. for the Garnet.

Women’s basketball (11-14, 7-11 CC) Sophomore centerKaren Berk was quite a force in the CC, becoming the eighthSwarthmore woman to be named first-team All-CC. Berk finishedwith 17.8 points per game (second in the CC); 10.2 rebounds pergame (second); 1.16 blocks per game (sixth); and 1.86 steals pergame (12th). Senior captain Jennifer Stevenson enjoyed a careeryear, earning All-CC honorable mention by scoring 10.0 ppg. andleading the Centennial with a 40.6 shooting percentage frombeyond the 3-point arc. Head coach Renee DeVarney experiencedsome ups and downs in her first season at the helm, leading theGarnet to the championship game of the annual Seven Sisters Tour-nament and a season sweep of Haverford.

Hood Trophy Swarthmore swept all four basketball contestsagainst Haverford. At the end of the winter season, the Hood Tro-phy score is 6–4 in favor of the Fords.

—Kyle Leach

In winter sports action (left to right), swimmer Rob McKeon’06 finished fifth in the 400-yard individual medley at theCentennial Conference (CC) championships. Karen Berk ’08(#20) and Jennifer Stevenson ’06 were named CC first-teamall-conference. Badminton player Maisha Howard ’08and her teammate Mu Yang ’07 made it to the Group Cquarterfinal match at the Mid-American Classic. In men’sbasketball, Ian McCormick ’08 (#50) led the team in bothscoring and rebounding.

Advisory Committee UpdatesAthletics Program ReportThe joint student-faculty-staff Advisory Committee on Physi-cal Education and Athletics has issued its third report since2004 on the College’s Intercollegiate Athletics Program. Thecommittee monitors and assesses various aspects of the pro-gram, including the quality of play, participating students’perceptions and experiences, the campus culture and supportfor the program, and issues of recruitment and admissions.The January 2006 report presents data though the 2004–2005academic year on quality of play and on recruiting andadmissions. A copy of the report is available in pdf format atwww.swarthmore.edu/news/athleticsreport2006.pdf. For aprint version, call the Office of News and Information at(610) 328-8533.

ELEFTHERIOSKO

STANS

AURO

RAIMAG

ING

FIVE ALUMNI GARDENERS AND THEIR HANDIWORK SHOW SWARTHMORE’S INFLUENCE.

By Clai re SawyersWhen some of the best and brightest minds spend 4 years at Swarthmore immersed in the joys of learning to become, asthe College's course catalog states, “more valuable human beings and more useful members of society,” they are alsoimmersed in the splendors of the Scott Arboretum. Brimming with thousands of plants, showcasing multiple specialty

gardens, and ringed with the beauty of the Crum Woods, the arboretum can hardly fail to inspire at least a few of them—in ways albeit lessintellectual yet equally profound. Here, five Swarthmore alumni share the results of their inspirations.


I nspired Lands

march 2006 : 13

WILLIAM FREDERICK JR. ’48“ASHLAND HOLLOW”HOCKESSIN, DELAWARE

Nestled in a stream valley amongPiedmont Hills near Hockessin, in northernDelaware, “Ashland Hollow,” the home thatWilliam Frederick and his wife, Nancy (aBryn Mawr alumna), have built, sensitivelyhonors the features of the land and regionbut blends in with international influences,a passion for plants, and a sense of fun.

The house, built in 1965, lies low in thevalley, bridging a natural stream that risesfrom a nearby spring. Architectural arches,reminiscent of a garden bridge, span thestream directly below the airy living room.Stepping out onto a balcony or looking fromthe windows on both sides of the room,viewers are rewarded with dramatic vistasupstream or downstream to a sculpted valleyshaded by beeches and tulip trees, under-

planted with swathes of colorful azaleas, orsubtle expanses of meadow and forest.

While attending classes at Swarthmore,Frederick worked for John and GertrudeWister at the Scott Arboretum. After hegraduated from Dickinson School of Law,his father-in-law encouraged him to pursuehis real passions—horticulture and land-scape design. So he and Nancy spent a yearas special students at Cornell and thenestablished and operated Millcreek Nurseryfor 19 years. During the years he was execut-ing the master plan for their own garden, hewas also designing residential gardens forclients as a landscape architect. When heretired, a few years ago, from his privatedesign practice, he began attending artclasses. He captured the knowledge andexperiences garnered through all theseexperiences in three books: 100 Great Gar-den Plants (Knopf, 1975; reprinted by TimberPress, 1986); The Exuberant Garden and theControlling Hand (Little Brown & Co., 1992);

andMillcreek Nursery 1952–1976 (self-published).

Frederick talks about the influence ofH.F. du Pont, the “master gardener” at near-by Winterthur, on the development of hisown garden; at the same time, he refers tohis admiration for and inspiration from

Roberto Burle Marx'sdesigns in Brazil with bigsweeps of color from simplebut dramatic plantings. The36 appendixes in ExuberantGarden, outlining plants bynumerous design character-istics, bear testimony toFrederick's level of horticul-tural awareness. Over the

years, he has kept meticulous records andnotes of the plants and combinations he hastried. He is liable to show up at a wintergathering bearing a bouquet of witch hazelsall in bloom—snips from all the cultivars hegrows—or, in early spring, a bundle of wil-low branches festooned with catkins. Asserious a plantsman as Frederick is, howev-er, the garden doesn't have the air of a plantcollector's garden. A series of paths leadaway from the house to many unique areasand features—the studio garden, thestream-valley garden, the swimming-poolgarden, the vegetable garden, and the wintergarden—to name a few.

Humorous touches counterbalance thethoughtfulness of the layout. There is a tra-ditional front door into the winter garden; araised pavilion to climb into—a tree housewithout a tree—on another; and a larger-than-life frog, honoring the spirit of all thefrogs in the stream hollow, at another point.Frederick has been known to invite visitors

scapes

Frederick has been known to invitevisitors to kiss the frog. If they oblige, thefrog lets out a croak—remotely prompted

by Bill or Nancy.

A 6-foot, 9-inch–long frog sculptureoverlooks the valley below Frederick’shouse, honoring the spirit of all thefrogs in the stream hollow.

Bill Frederick (above) has often openedhis gardens to charity events andhorticulture students.

PHOTOG

RAPHSBY

PAUL

SKIMINSKI

to kiss the frog. If they oblige, the frog letsout a croak—remotely prompted by Bill orNancy.

The Fredericks have opened their gardenfor charity for many years, participating inWilmington Garden Day and the ScottAssociates own Garden Day. For decades,horticultural students at Longwood as wellas interns working at local public gardenshave been welcomed for visits. Frederick haslent his expertise to Longwood Gardens andCallaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga.,where he has served as a trustee. He contin-ues to do so at Longwood.

C. RUSSELL ’47 AND EDITHTHATCHER DE BURLO ’50“POST TIME”BELMONT, MASSACHUSETTS

When Russ and Edith Thatcher deBurlo began gardening on their 2-acre prop-erty in Belmont, Mass., in the late 1970s,they literally hit upon historical aspects oftheir land. Planting a dogwood, de Burlodug into remnants of the far end of a horse-race track built when the former HighlandFarm turned from raising the first Merinosheep in the country to running pacers. Sothey named their property “Post Time.”

Located about 300 feet above sea level,Post Time offers views of downtownBoston, but the drive to the estate along

gravel roads that follow the contours ofthe hills awakens the impression that thede Burlos live far from such a large urbanarea. Notable Bostonians took advantage ofthe site and began to build in Belmont, pre-viously West Cambridge, at a time whenonly farms existed there—the homes of theBrowns of publishers Little, Brown & Com-pany and the grandparents of WinslowHomer still stand. The prominent Bostonlandscape firm of Frederick Law Olmsteddesigned the adjacently located hospitalgrounds, of which 100 acres has been pur-chased for open space conservation. The deBurlos' next-door neighbors are the Bel-mont Hill Club with 9 acres of open spaceand the Massachusetts Audubon Societywith 25 acres of enchanting natural land.The de Burlos can walk from their back gar-den through rugosa roses into the Audubonpreserve and visit vernal pools, streams, and

native Rhododendron maximum specimensroughly 50 feet in circumference, which arepossibly more than 100 years old. The origi-nal mansion of Highland Farm is now theAudubon headquarters. The rich naturalbeauty and agricultural heritage surround-ing the property were not lost on thede Burlos in their approach to developingtheir house and garden. The choice of set-ting, Quaker values, and current events atthe Scott Arboretum when de Burlo attend-ed Swarthmore are all evident as majorinfluences in the mature garden of PostTime today.

De Burlo arrived in Boston to serve TuftsUniversity as vice president and chief finan-cial officer, where, responsible for the cam-pus landscape, he sought a good landscapearchitect. With the help of a friend, hefound and hired Harvard graduate DanKiley—later known as “America's masterlandscape architect”—who worked not onlyon a master plan for the Tufts campus butalso provided design guidance for de Burlo'sown property. The de Burlos outlined theirneeds for the new house, and Kiley workedon the site. De Burlo also hired architectFritz Kubitz, designer of the TWA terminalat John F. Kennedy International Airport, todevelop the program further.

The house, set back from the road byKiley, blends beautifully with the site. Anextended U-shaped building with a simpleexternal appearance like a weathered grayboard barn, the house has no gutters,adding to its clean line and light impact on

A hedge of dark green yew and silverlambs ear line a path at Ashland Hollow.

PAUL

SKIMINSKI

PHOTOG

RAPHSBY

MEGH

ANKRIEGE

LMOO

RE!97

the environment. The fireplace is composedof Pennsylvania fieldstone, reminding themof time spent in that state. The bottom ofthe U, the living room, has walls of glass,which both make the outdoors visible frominside and also serve as a way to captureradiant heat from the sun in the winter.During the summer, plume poppy bolts up,shading the windows and providing naturalcooling. A large window in an upper guestbedroom frames the view of Japanese larch.As a deciduous conifer, its needles shade thebedroom in the summer but allow light toheat the room in the winter when they havebeen shed. These were intentional landscapeplantings to help the house function as apassive solar collector.

Outside, from the gravel entrance andparking area, a walkway climbs throughboulders and some of Russ' extensive rho-dodendron collection, allowing visitors tofeel immersed in and intimate with plantsbefore they slip in the front door. But onceinside, the amount of glass and exposure tothe garden continues to draw the eye tochoice specimens and vistas in the garden.

The de Burlos were able to create the feelof an older garden instantly, by transplant-ing mature plants they bought from theforeman of a landscaping firm who wasmoving to Florida. These included a lacebarkpine (Pinus bungeana) and a Japanese Stew-artia (Stewartia pseudocamellia). Both stillgrace the garden, but the 24-inch–caliperash de Burlo insisted on saving with the sit-ing of the house is gone. He has learned

they are short-lived trees. Having alsolearned a thing or two about rhododen-drons, he now has 387 of them growing inhis garden with more than 100 differentkinds, and he actively participates in theMassachusetts Rhododendron Society,which acknowledged his accomplishments afew years ago by presenting him with itsBronze Medal. Although rhododendronshave been a focus, daffodils, iris, wildflow-

ers, specimen trees such as Japanese maplesand birches mix and mingle with the rhodo-dendrons and azaleas.

Additional planting design and influ-ences came from the hands-on gardeners deBurlo knew from his Swarthmore Collegedays.When Harry Wood, superintendent ofgrounds at Swarthmore retired, de Burlohired him to assist with Tufts campus plant-ings, but Wood's working with John Wister,the then director of the Scott Arboretum,on acquiring, planting, and breeding Dexterrhododendrons clearly helped ignite deBurlo's passion for the genus. Anne Wood,Harry's wife, also a keen horticulturist,designed their perennial border.

Over the years, de Burlo has accumulatedan encyclopedic knowledge of rhododen-drons and plants, but it is the aestheticbeauty of plants in general that inspire himto garden. The resulting psychologicalrelease from the tensions in professional lifegained from the activity is his reward. Gar-dening, he says, induces a spiritual state inhim similar to that evoked by attendingFriends Meeting.

MARALYN ORBISONGILLESPIE ’49WALLINGFORD, PENNSYLVANIA

Anticipating retirement in 1992from Swarthmore College, Maralyn OrbisonGillespie and her husband, George, moved

The choice of setting , Quak-er values, and

current events at the ScottArboretum are all evident in

the mature garden ofPost Time today.

Edith and Russ de Burlo’s gardens arecharacterized by their passion for plants.With the help of designer Dan Kiley,they have created a livable landscape thatis also environmentally and historicallysensitive. Among their collections are 387rhododendrons of more than100 differentkinds. Plume-poppies (right) grow closeto the house. They reach a height of 7 to9 feet in summer, shading the de Burlohome,then dying back in fall to allow win-ter sun to warm it.

MEGH

ANKRIEGE

LMOO

RE!97

out of the College's Clark House, located onthe other side of the Crum Woods from thecampus proper, to a Rose Valley, Pa., houseon a 11/4-acre property that lies across thestreet from a garden she had created at aprevious Rose Valley home before movinginto the Clark House. The rolling terrain,mature trees, and quiet, winding roads ofRose Valley provide a beautiful context forcreating a garden and called them back.

Developing a third garden around theirnew home became a project involving boththeir energies and efforts, but beforelaunching it, they enlisted the help ofanother Swarthmore alumna,Mara Baird'79, who—after interning at the ScottArboretum, completing her landscape archi-tecture degree at Penn, and working in otherlandscape design firms—now has her ownpractice, M. L. Baird & Co. After Maralynand Mara devised a plan for the entrancegarden, the project commenced.

Under Mara's guidance, George and Mar-alyn turned a straightforward driveway andstepping-stone walkway into a gracious andengaging entrance. A parking bay, cut intothe sloping front lawn, was defined withdry-laid stonewalls. From there, anyoneapproaching the front door now passesthrough a naturalistic planting of hollies,conifers, flowering shrubs, and perennialsplanted among boulders George scavengedfrom the “Blue Route” construction. Georgebuilt the walls and placed the boulders,leading Maralyn to say, “George was chiefengineer; my part was just to plant it.” The

composition makes use of various hollies,other broad-leaved evergreens, and conifersshe grew from cuttings taken in ScottArboretum or garden-club propagationworkshops and classes endowing theentrance garden with sentimental value inaddition to strong year-round interest.

Besides the plants Maralyn has propa-gated and grown herself, the garden holdsplants carefully moved from Rose Valley tothe Clark House and back to Rose Valleythat tie her garden to her dear friends John

and Gertrude Wister, who ran the ScottArboretum as director and assistant direc-tor, respectively, until 1969. There are lilacsthat were gifts and some “cats and dogs”rhododendrons—rejects from John Wister'sbreeding efforts. At one point, Maralynrecalled, John was getting rid of 18 rhodo-dendrons because they had lost their tagsand didn't show promise for his own gar-den, so George hauled them off, pleased tohave the unnamed mutts. Some years later,when Gertrude and John came to dinner,they admired a rhododendron and learnedit had been one of John's own castoffs. Helater sent a propagator to collect cuttings,and the beautiful pale-pink–blooming rho-dodendron was later named ‘Maralyn Gille-spie', a birthday gift Gertrude arrangedthrough the American RhododendronSociety.

On the side of the house opposite thedrive, a large window-wall looks out onto aneighbor's property of sloping lawn andlarge tulip trees, providing a tranquil “bor-rowed view.” More Pennsylvania fieldstonelaid by George into low retaining walls inthe view adds a constant against which tojudge seasonal change. Here, too, Georgeadded a greenhouse lean-to room to accom-modate Maralyn's passion for propagatingplants, which she regularly does for Provi-dence Garden Club and The Garden Club ofAmerica meetings. Since retiring,Maralynhas also been a regular volunteer at theScott Arboretum, working in the WisterGreenhouse many Wednesday afternoons,

Maralyn Gillespie hasa rhododendron speciesnamed for her. It was abirthday gift from thelate Gertrude Wister.

The entrance garden at Maralyn and George Gillespie’s home (above)features stone scavenged from the construction of Interstate 476—the“Blue Route”—and many plants grown from cuttings propagated byMaralyn over the years. At the rear of their home, a swimming pool issurrounded by a wall garden of shade-loving perennials.

PHOTOG

RAPHSBY

ELEFTHERIOSKO

STANS

ELEFTHERIOSKO

STANS

march 2006 : 17

potting up rooted cuttings or sticking newcuttings.

Behind the house lies a swimming pool,made private by mature evergreens. Here,Maralyn and George have successfullyexpanded the surrounding mixed borders,so there are floral and foliage textural dis-plays throughout the swimming season.

Railroad artifacts—a switch signal in theback garden, a mile marker in the front gar-den—and a stone etched to resemble aCeltic relic punctuate the plantings andreveal the fact that George is both a rail-road buff and not always content to workwith the stones in their natural state. Astanding Ogham stone, etched by Georgewith Celtic linear writing that reads“M & G a blessing on all,” was inspired byHelen P. North, Swarthmore emerita pro-fessor of classics.

Maralyn has been gardening since shewas a child—her mother used to give her aquarter for helping out in the garden. Shealso acknowledges the significant influenceof the Scott Arboretum.What's more, it is aform of relaxation—a couple of hours inthe garden after a hard day, and all's rightwith the world.

JACK POTTER ’73GHENT, NEW YORK

After long and varied associationswith Swarthmore College and the ScottArboretum, Jack Potter “retired” as curator

in 1992 to move with his partner, DavidLebe, a fine art photographer, to Ghent, inupstate New York, where they built a newhouse and garden.

Several key considerations shaped theplace they created. One was the beauty of

the rolling hills of fields, pastures, and for-est surrounding them. The other was thatboth were living with AIDS. Their first goalwas building a healthy house, which, in1992, required special research and effort infinding a contractor who understood non-toxic materials, finishes, and techniques.The character of the resulting house seemsas old as the forsaken farm barns along theregion's country lanes. Its red tin roof, boardsiding, and simple lines borrow from nearbybarns and make the house appear comfort-able in the landscape.

The character of the garden followedsuit. The surrounding woods give way tomeadow and to garden beds that retainsome of the roughness of meadow. Thatuntrimmed quality helps an ambitious gar-dener accommodate the unpredictability ofillness. The meadow, resembling a fallowfield reverting to wildflowers and grasses,was seeded in July 1993. Summer throughwinter, sun-loving perennials such aslupines, coneflowers, milkweeds, and theirresulting seed heads run rampant. Invadingwoody plants can be cut and treated with anherbicide any time of year, when time andenergy allow. A rectangular fenced garden,modeled upon a farm vegetable garden, isset in the meadow but has undergone aseries of changes in the decade that Potterand Lebe have been gardening on the site.No longer devoted to a macrobiotic diet, aswhen they first moved there, they havereplaced vegetables with roses, a group Pot-ter has loved since his time at the Scott

DAVIDLEBE

PHOTOG

RAPHSBY

DAVIDLEBE

Jack Potter (above) says the location of his home almost makesgardening superfluous. He and partner David Lebe have fittedtheir gardens into the mountain landscape by creating flower-filled meadows and building walls of scavenged local stone.

After his rose phasepeaked a few years ago, Pot-

ter moved on toSiberian iris and daylilies,old favorites from hisdays at the ScottArboretum and theWister Garden.

Arboretum. After his rose phase peaked afew years ago, he largely moved on to Siber-ian iris and daylilies, including ‘AutumnMinaret' and ‘Corky', old favorites from hisdays in the Wister Garden. He gardenedthere at the edge of the campus, “for ages,”with John and Gertrude Wister.

A graveled entry courtyard lies between astone garage, which gracefully emerges fromthe hillside like a bank barn, and the house;it almost has the feel of a barnyard with itsenclosing fieldstone walls, although, since itis planted with choice plants, the compari-son falters. An ornamental stone waterbasin hints at the notion of a livestock-watering trough, although cats are the onlylivestock Potter and Lebe keep.

The most recent garden project has beento replace a small pond that was leakingmore than a gallon of water a minute,prompting Jack to say, “Some water neededto be reserved for drinking.” Hardworkingstonemasons filled the old pond in by handbecause heavy equipment would have tornup the rest of the garden. A new 5-foot fiber-glass pool was added at the center of a grav-el terrace that replaced the pond, and field-stone walls defined and partially enclosedthe new terrace. Part of the stone was sal-vaged from walls running through thewoods, walls that speak of a time the landwas grazed or farmed—or of the land's orig-inal Native American stewards, who somethink first built them.

This garden has also been shared withothers. For several years, Potter and Lebe

participated in the Open Days Directory ofthe Garden Conservancy with the proceedssupporting a local AIDS organization aswell as the conservancy itself. One year, itwas even the poster garden promoting theprogram. Scott Associates also visited thegarden during a 2003 trip to the HudsonRiver Valley. Volunteers who worked withPotter when he served as horticulturist atthe Scott Arboretum had the opportunity tosee his creative talents and keen plantsman-ship expressed in rural New York.

When asked why he gardened at the levelthat he does, without hesitation, he said,“Because we're too tired to garden at a high-er level.” Then, after a pause, he added,“Because I can't help it.” For Potter, garden-ing, which at first seemed superfluous inthe beautiful rural surroundings, provideshim with a connection to the intricacy ofnatural systems and the companionship ofmany cherished plants.

ABIGAIL POLLAK ’63OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

Abigail Pollak grew up in BucksCounty, Pa., but despite the natural beautiesof the landscape, a large yard with tall trees,banks of rhododendron and a vegetable gar-den, and a father who passionately playedwith breeding and grafting plants on a win-dowsill, she “could not have been less inter-ested” in gardening. Perhaps it was the bat

guano she vividly recalls him bringing backfrom Peru to test as a plant fertilizer thatdampened her enthusiasm. She also admitsto dropping her botany class during her firstsemester at Swarthmore to avoid failing. Sheloved walking in Crum Woods for class (andromance) but just couldn't memorize allthose names.

After years of living in major cities—NewYork and Paris—she moved to Marin Coun-ty, Calif., in 1985 and into a house with asteep scrub-infested backyard and a tiny,planted circle in the front filled with dis-eased fuchsias and pyracantha (or firethorn,otherwise known as “the California stateflower from hell”). In recalling her first gar-dening attempt there, she said: “Being aSwarthmore alumna, I did my homework—amended the soil; drove around the neigh-borhood, taking notes on what everyoneelse had planted; and visited a local nurseryseveral times to grill the experts. My thenhusband's family was due in a month fortheir first ‘state visit,' so I planted away hap-pily, ignoring the fact that not everythingwas indigenous, not everything requiredsimilar amounts of water, and so on. I alsoignored much of my research, so I couldplant things I loved—morning glories, jas-mine, gardenia, lilac, clematis, floweringmaple, poppies, among others.With the in-laws due in a couple of days, I awoke onemorning, ambled outside with my coffee tocheck on my handiwork and to see what wasblooming, only to find that, with the excep-tion of the pyracantha, every single plant

A water iris graces the edge of a pond at Jack Potter’s home in upstateNew York—the one plant that Potter moved to the new pool when the pondwas drained. Potter says that gardening provides a connection to theintricacy of natural systems and the companionship of many cherished plants.

DAVIDLEBE

had been eaten down to the ground.Drought, it seemed, had driven the deerfrom the hills to feast.”

Now that she lives in an older section ofOakland, in a city where many plants andshrubs grow and bloom almost year-roundand where it rarely frosts, Pollak's passionfor gardening has been re-ignited.With a1910 California craftsman-style house on asmall urban lot, with an 1,800–square-footback garden, she inherited shade from a lineof mature trees along with some fine, stronghardscape, including the stone terracing andan outdoor stone fireplace. The fireplacenow supports climbing roses, jasmine, andclematis; when it comes to barbecuing, sheand her partner opt for a Weber grill.

Pollak continues to solicit design helpfrom landscape architect friends Shari andRichard Sullivan, who designed the originalgarden, but, with her home office overlook-ing the garden, she is constantly aware ofgardening tasks she wants to do. Lookingup from her computer, she sees somethingthat needs a haircut, an empty space thatcalls out for color, or an infestation ofaphids on a rose that needs a bath. Now afull-time writer and book reviewer, she seesthese distractions from her work in a posi-tive light—they are nonfattening.

In Oakland, Pollak has developed a fond-ness for ornamental grasses, native and oth-erwise, as well as for several kinds ofphormiums, bamboos, hydrangea, helle-bores, and wildly-colored coleus, all wellsuited to the climate of northern California.

However, her East Coast upbringing has notbeen completely forgotten. She has triedgrowing the eastern dogwood and lilacs,stubbornly planting each three times, onlyto watch them die. (Perhaps she shouldexperiment with some bat guano next time.)Now, she is more apt to talk about Nepaleseoddities with delicate fragrances, Brugman-sias covered with blowsy blooms, or plum

trees laden with fruit.Several years ago, Pollak tragically lost

her son and gave up gardening for much ofa year. But when, in an act of sympathy, herneighbors gave her an envelope full of cashthat they refused to take back, she decidedto create a memorial garden with the fund.Down the street from her home in a pocketpark, she maintains the sunny garden. Themagnolia ‘Vulcan’, the centerpiece of thegarden, typically blooms in February in Cali-fornia, commemorating the month of herson's death. Its vibrant dark-pink bloomscarry special meaning for the neighborhood.Asked why she gardens, Pollak replied thatthe question is a little like asking her if shebelieves in God. She began to garden as afrustrated artist, an artist who paints withwords. A garden felt like a place to play withcompletely different materials, where herworks of art are constantly evolving, wherethere are always surprises and where evenwrong choices can lead to the unexpectedand the beautiful. She learned early on thatnature often makes its own choices, that itdoesn't always follow the gardeners'designs, a fact that never fails to inspire anddelight her.T

Claire Sawyers has been director of the ScottArboretum since 1990. She enjoys hearing howthe arboretum played a role in developing theinterests of alumni gardeners. Contact her [email protected] or the ScottArboretum, 500 College Avenue, SwarthmorePA 19081.

PHOTOG

RAPHSCO

URTESY

OFABIGAILP

OLLACK

A garden felt likea place to play withcompletely differentmaterials, where evenwrong choices can leadto the unexpectedand the beautiful .

An outdoor fireplace is the focal point of Abigail Pollak’shome garden (above and left). The garden features bambooand giant ferns (far left) and colorful coleus and impatiens(below). Pollak also maintains a smaller garden down thestreet from her home as a public memorial to her late son.


“What would it be like to wait and seewhat comes? What if I didn’t force myselfright now but waited until I'm ready?”

Ihave been swimming laps manytimes a week my entire adult life.When I was single, and didn't have achild, I swam five or even six times aweek, and I swam the way I dideverything else: as fast as possible,often propelled by fury, with my eyes

firmly fixed on the goal (which in thosedays was often weight loss and, in anyevent, had nothing to do with the experi-ence of being in the water). More recently,I've swum two or sometimes three times aweek, and I've swum for the silence, and forthe time by myself, and for the soothing feelof the water rushing by. One way or anoth-er, for more than 20 years, I've been jump-ing into pools (I never feel the water first; Idon't want to be discouraged by the temper-ature) and swimming back and forth, goingnowhere but feeling as if my life depends ondoing it.

So I had some resistance to the idea ofsigning up for a swim class. My swim wasmy alone time, my meditative time, and oneof the few times in my week when I wasn'tworking on myself, trying to improve myselfin some way or another. I just wanted to beleft alone.

But it turned out that if I signed up forthis swim class, then I could swim at a timethat was convenient for my work schedule,and I was guaranteed a lane to myself (notsharing meant I could space out more). So Itook the class, and it turned out that Irather liked having different workoutsassigned to me, and I liked the casual com-panionship of greeting the other swimmersand chatting as we got dressed. It wasfriendly without being intrusive.

I thought that was it: my swim time

LISARO

MEREIN/GETTY

IMAG

ES

Lear

march 2006 : 21

!"

nicely slotted into my schedule and somenew drills to play with as I was warming up.

In fact, though, what I'm learning inswim class is entirely unexpected; moreover,it's sloshing over the edges of my assignedswim time and flooding into the rest of mylife: I'm learning to wait.

I've never wanted to learn how to wait.I've always wanted to forge ahead, to powermy way through any obstacle. I've wanted tobelieve that I could accomplish anything if Igritted my teeth and worked hard and longenough.Waiting goes against my nature.And waiting as a means to accomplishing agoal? Well, that's just nonsensical.

Waiting means that you trust: You trustthat you already have what you need withinyou—you don't have to grab it or borrow itor frantically cobble it together. It meansthat you trust the world (the universe?) aswell: You can open yourself up instead ofdefending yourself; you can ask for and evenaccept help; you can wait to see what lifebrings instead of frantically trying to con-trol every twist and turn of your days.

Those are big issues, but I've been learn-ing about waiting in a small realm. For morethan a year now, my swim coach has beensuggesting (he's a gentle man, who instructswith encouraging suggestions; a glass-half-full kind of guy) that I let myself glide more.This would mean taking fewer strokes, let-ting my body turn on its side (to be morelike a fish in the water), and trusting thewater to carry me forward.

I haven't been theoretically opposed togliding; I just haven't been able to figure outhow to do it. “I can't glide,” I've thought, “Idon't have time. I have to get my other armaround so I can turn my head to breathe.”

So I've tried making each stroke more pow-erful, so I can glide while keeping my armsmoving. I've tried kicking harder so the backhalf of my body can propel the front halfinto a glide. I've tried turning on my sidewhile still taking lots of short, fast strokes.None of these resulted in a glide.

Then one day, my coach suggestedcounting while my arm was stretched out, tokeep myself in that gliding position: one,one-thousand; two, two-thousand; three,three-thousand—before I took anotherstroke. Perhaps it was because the countinggave me something else to do, but I finallygot it. I could glide; without doing any-thing, I kept moving forward. Even morethan that: When I took the time to glide,then I had plenty of time to get my otherarm around and take a long, deep breath. Ihad more time for everything, and I keptmoving forward. I kept moving forward, andI was working less.

“I get it now,” I said to my coach, “I haveto see if I can learn to wait.”

“Oh,” he replied, “this isn't just aboutswimming, is it?”

He knew right away. I'm still sorting itout. I still only glide occasionally, but I'vefelt it now, and I know what swimming thatway feels like. I recognize it when I get itright, and I miss it when I don't manage toslow down enough to achieve it. And I havemoments when I think about gliding in therest of my life. When I feel myself gearingup to do something new or hard, I some-times pause to wonder:What would it belike to wait and see what comes? What if Ididn't force myself right now but waiteduntil I'm ready? What if instead of making adecision—any decision, so long as it's

made—I waited to see what feels right?What if I didn't hang up the phone, or rushoff to that other appointment, or jump upto wash the dishes but waited to see whatdevelops between me and this person I'mwith? What if I let myself glide, and hadplenty of time to breathe, and to feel lifecarry me forward?

But waiting instead of doing makes meanxious. After all, if I'm gliding, then I don'thave so much control over what life bringsme. Of course—and I keep trying to getmyself to remember, to really know this—Idon't really have so much control over whatlife brings me even when I'm pushing withall my might either. But that illusion of con-trol is so seductive. And gliding is so diffi-cult to hold on to: It's there, and then it'sgone. To get it back, I have to stop doingthings; I have to stop rushing, stop takingso many strokes, stop worrying aboutbreathing—but here I go, pushing insteadof gliding, typing faster and faster, search-ing for just the right word. Let's try silenceand waiting instead.T

Madeleine Kahn (www.madeleinekahn.com)taught English literature at Mills College from1989–2004. Her book “Why Are We ReadingOvid's Handbook on Rape?”: Teaching andLearning at a Women's College is now inpaperback (Paradigm, 2005). She now worksas a consultant for teachers at schools, colleges,and universities. In September 2005, Kahnreturned to Swarthmore to lead a seminar forfaculty about pedagogy, gender, and usefulsurprises in the classroom. Her work inprogress, from which this essay comes, is calledLearning to Glide: Breathing Through Mid-Life Changes.

COULD IT BE THAT HARD WORK IS NOT THE ANSWER?

By Madele ine Kahn '77

ning toGlide

Joe Thompson and his dog Huevo(above) survived Hurricane Katrinatogether. In January, two membersof “The Last Straws” entertainedwedding guests in Jackson Square.

march 2006 : 23

I live in the most wonderful, interesting, and romanticcity in the country. It is a beautiful city, not because of natural wondersand sweeping landscapes or majestic skylines but because of its rich flavorsand smells; its music and dancing; and, most of all, because of the people andthe neighborhoods they create. On Aug. 29, Hurricane Katrina and the subse-quent flooding of the city 1 day later swept much of this away. I am writingthis on a bright, sunny day 1 week before Christmas, in the upstairs of myflooded home. I would rather be decorating my house, walking my dog at thelakefront, Christmas shopping, painting—anything but thinking about whathappened and what might happen to this place I love. It is painful to seedestruction everywhere, and I am very tired of crying. I write because it isimportant that you understand what has been lost here and what is at stake. Thetragedies witnessed on television at the end of August and in the first weeks of

September continue in less dramatic but equally devastating ways. It is possiblethat New Orleans—the real one full of soul and music and voodoo—will die.We are used to hurricanes in New Orleans and all along the

Gulf Coast. We even have a famous drink called a “hurricane.”Since I moved to New Orleans 11 years ago, “mandatory”evacuations have been declared four times. Each time, thehurricane went to the east or to the west. Weaker hur-ricanes and tropical storms have hit sometimes,causing flooding of certain areas from rainfall.Everyone who lives here knows someone whosurvived Hurricanes Betsy or Camille in the1960s.

On the Friday night before Katrina, thestorm was a relatively small hurricane predict-ed to make landfall almost 300 miles to oureast in Apalachicola. Overnight, Katrinaexploded into one of the most powerfulstorms in recorded history, and the pre-dicted track moved west. Peoplejammed the few evacuation routes outof the city. By Sunday, despite the calmweather, it was clear we were in for quitea storm.

Most people left, often sitting in traffic for 12hours or more to go fewer than 100 miles if theydidn't run out of gas. Some stayed behind, usuallybecause they were elderly or poor or had pets or no car orno place to go. Some didn't want to leave their houses, where

By Joe Thompson ’86

Photographs by Elefther ios Kostans

Gumbo CultureSurvival of a


The hurricane and its aftermath (clockwise from top right): The first floorof Thompson’s home was badly damaged by flood waters. Destruction inthe Lower 9th Ward, a poor neighborhood, was particularly severe.Months after the flood, a mother collects cans—and a ball for her child—from piles of debris. In the days after the storm, Thompson and Huevoexplored their flooded neighborhood by canoe.

JOE THOMPSON

JOE THOMPSON !86

they had lived most of their lives. I stayed to see what would hap-pen, to experience the storm, and because I have a solid 100-year-old, two-story house. I was well prepared, having boarded the housecompletely and stocked it with food and 50 gallons of fresh water. Iwas well aware of the computer models that predicted that if thelakefront levees were topped, the city would flood. I worried aboutmy decision on Sunday afternoon, when I found only a single baropen in the French Quarter.

Early on Monday morning, the storm hit lower PlaqueminesParish (in Louisiana, counties are called parishes) to the south ofNew Orleans, which straddles the last 50 miles of the MississippiRiver, virtually scouring the land clean. The storm skirted to the eastof New Orleans and later that morning wiped out much of the Mis-sissippi Gulf coastline. The storm knocked out power, toppled trees,and tore away roofs 100 miles to the west and east and almost 150miles inland. The east winds, which blew all night and into themorning, and the record storm surge pushed water over the leveesprotecting largely white St. Bernard Parish, which lies southeast ofNew Orleans and whose dwindling marshes help protect the city.The surge also topped levees in eastern New Orleans, which is large-ly black. Heavy rain flooded much of the city in a few feet of water,but, by 11 a.m. on Monday morning, thestorm had passed New Orleans, and peoplebegan to come outside. The pumps in myBroadmoor neighborhood worked fine, andby Monday evening, the streets were dry.The city and a large surrounding area werein complete darkness, but we felt that wehad survived the big one.

New Orleans is a shallow bowl, much ofit several feet below sea level and surround-ed by water. We have the large LakePontchartrain to the north and the Missis-sippi River to the south. To the west is Jef-ferson Parish and then marshland, and to the east are tidal lakesand shrinking marshes. From the river to the Gulf of Mexico, thereis a strip of higher land and then very low and rapidly disappearingmarsh. The city is penetrated by long drainage canals, which con-nect to the lake. There are pumping stations at the inland end ofthese canals that push water out of the neighborhoods and into thecanals, where it flows into the lake. There is also a heavily commer-cialized shipping channel called the Industrial Canal, which con-nects the lake to the Mississippi River. Lake Pontchartrain has a nar-row connection to the Gulf on its east side. The water level in LakePontchartrain after the storm was at a record high from the stormsurge and from the east winds pushing water into the lake. Thewater was so high and the winds so strong that hundreds of boatswere pushed into a huge tangled mass on what is usually dry land.

It normally takes several days for the water to flow back out intothe Gulf. Sometime on Monday evening or Tuesday morning, breaksin two of the major drainage canals, almost certainly the result offaulty engineering, poured salty lake water into Lakeview and Gen-tilly. Both neighborhoods are near the lake. Unchecked by any barri-ers within the city, the water slowly flooded almost all of the citywest of the Industrial Canal. Only a strip bordering the MississippiRiver including the French Quarter and the Garden District and anarrow strip right at the lakefront were high enough to be spared.

There were also breaks on the east side of the Industrial Canal thatpoured water into New Orleans East and the Lower 9th Ward andthen tracked miles to the east, also wiping out most of St. BernardParish. Preliminary analysis of the failed levees strongly indicatesthat they failed at levels of stress well below their design parameters.

The breaks in Lakeview and particularly in the Lower 9th Wardresulted in a deluge of water equivalent to a dam breaking. The forceof the water in the Lower 9th deposited houses on top of housesand cars, reducing most to matchsticks. In most parts of the city, thewater rose much more slowly. The result was nevertheless cata-strophic. Houses, businesses, churches, and schools were sub-merged in the increasingly dirty, salty waters. Oil and gas from carsleaked onto the surface. There were many fires from shorted electri-cal wires and broken gas pipes.

Many drowned in their homes. Swollen doors and barred win-dows prevented escape. Others, mostly elderly or disabled, died ofthe heat in the attics, where they climbed to escape the water. Manypeople waded to the Superdome, the “refuge of last resort” and tothe Convention Center in the hope of shelter, food, and water. Asemergency power and communications dwindled, chaos and law-lessness broke out, and hospitals became stinking, dark holes of

suffering. A friend of mine, who has workedat an AIDS hospital in Africa and a leprosyhospital in India, said the conditions sheexperienced at the downtown Veterans andCharity hospitals were worse. In my neigh-borhood, most of us could have walked oreven driven to high ground and out of theflood waters if we had known what washappening, but there was no informationand little warning. The emergency broad-casting radio station issued no bulletins butinstead continued their talk-radio format.

Rich and poor, black and white wereaffected.Many different versions of what happened at the Domeand Convention Center have been given, all of them awful. An Asso-ciated Press reporter I know, who was in the Dome for the wholeweek, told me that, contrary to what had been reported, the refugeesmostly cooperated and helped each other despite the heat, overflow-ing toilets, and lack of food and water. Elderly people should not dieof heat and dehydration in lawn chairs on the sidewalk, but theydid. Thousands were rescued from rooftops and porches by helicop-ter and boat.

My own escape from New Orleans was not easy. I had a canoe,but on Tuesday afternoon, I had lent it to some people up the street.The patriarch of this large, extended family wanted to bring back thechildren they had taken downtown toward the Superdome earlier inthe day. I waited all afternoon, planning to take the canoe; my dog,Huevo; and my parrot, Yoda Bird, to my Jeep, which I had left onhigher ground, and leave the city. As the first floor of my houseflooded, a certain desperation and panic started to set in. I frantical-ly tried to save what I could of my tenants' possessions. As it gotdark, dogs were baying, people were calling for help from theirroofs, car alarms would suddenly sound from short circuiting in thesalt water, and the noise from helicopters was deafening. It wasdreadfully hot. Shortly after dark, I was able to talk on my phone,powered by a car battery, with a friend in Houston who was watch-

march 2006 : 25

“Many drownedin their homes.

Swollen doors andbarred windows

prevented escape.”


ing CNN. He told me of the levee breeches and the failure ofattempts to repair them. He told me to canoe out of the city, but Istill didn't have my canoe.

At about 10 p.m., realizing that my only way out of the city, myJeep, might flood, I decided I had to leave. I called my sister to tellher I was leaving. It was about seven blocks to the car. When I firststepped off my front steps, I discovered that the water was over myhead! For the first three blocks, I swam in the debris-strewn, dirtywater, pushing the parrot cage on a floating tire I had found.Mydog is an excellent swimmer. It was very dark. There was an eerieglow from short-circuited interior lights in some of the flooded cars.Horns would suddenly blare. The Jeep was still safe in about a footof water. It started fine, but we made it only about 30 feet before itstalled and then flooded to over the dashboard.We waded andswam seven blocks back to the house. I first tried to recover things Ithought I would need to survive from the first floor. After hosing offmy dog and myself, I tried to call my sister, but the phone line wasdead. I was stuck.

It was the most stressful night of my life. But, late that night,miraculously, my neighbors brought backthe canoe I had never expected to see again.I slept very little that night, trying to figureout how I was going to get myself and mypets out of the flood. I didn't know howmuch of the area was flooded but reasonedthat if I could get to the river levees, I couldwalk a long way upstream toward civiliza-tion.

The next morning, dog, bird, and I—carrying dog and bird food, a duffel bag ofwater, and not much else—left my house.We picked up one of the neighbors, whowanted to keep the canoe, and paddled3 miles out of the city to high ground. I thenwalked another 6 miles to an evacuationcenter. Luckily, I was allowed on a bus withmy animals but only because I had gottenthere early. Later that day and for the rest of the week, people wereforced to leave their dogs behind, tied to the guardrail of the inter-state. We were taken to an evacuation center in Thibodaux about 80miles southwest of New Orleans.

The evacuation center was on a state college campus and had nopower and little in the way of relief supplies. Most people had onlythe clothes they were wearing, and many didn't even have shoes. Isent a text message to my sister, telling her I was alive. Communica-tion was virtually impossible with almost no cell phone signal and adying battery, but she made arrangements for me to fly out of BatonRouge 80 miles to the north if I could get myself there. I managedto hitch a ride with a generous woman. She was there to see if herlocal church could help with relief and agreed to help me find arental car. We stopped at a feed store to buy a crate, so I could flywith my dog. People in the feed store talked of their fear of takingcity folk from the projects into their community but concluded “itwas their Christian duty” to do so. I was unable to find a car to rent,so she drove me all the way to Baton Rouge. All along the way therewas a continuous line of trucks and SUVs loaded with bedding,food, and water and flat boats on trailers headed toward the city.

These were privatecitizens who hadtaken it uponthemselves to res-cue people fromthe city. Later, Ilearned that mostof them wereturned back by federal authorities.

Baton Rouge was in chaos, with widespread power outages andpeople who had run out of gas stranded on the interstate. At the air-port, I was told that I couldn't fly with my dog because of federalregulations about heat (I later found out this was not true). I wasnot leaving my dog. I tried to rent a car, but nothing was availablefor hundreds of miles. Fortunately, one of the car rental clerks wholoved dogs took pity on my dog and found us a damaged car (it hada dent on the trunk).We picked up another refugee and his elderlycat, and all five of us drove all night to Atlanta, where I droppedthem off. I arrived at my sister's house outside of Charlotte, N.C.,

the next day and 750 miles later.I returned to New Orleans 2 weeks later

for a quick assessment and clean-up. Thecity was completely dark, except for a fewhotels in the French Quarter. In the floodedareas, all the vegetation was dead. On everybuilding there was a brown line, like the ringin a tub, where the water had sat. My friend,a journalist, and I watched from afar asGeorge Bush gave a speech to cameras onlyin front of a blazingly lit St. Louis Cathe-dral. I returned to New Orleans for good amonth after the storm and went back to myjob as an ophthalmologist in JeffersonParish. After about 5 days staying withfriends, I decided I wanted to sleep in myown bed and moved home. I lived in myhouse for 8 weeks without power, natural

gas, hot water, or phone. Three weeks ago, I got electricity after mak-ing repairs, a long wait for the city inspector, and another wait forthe local power company to reconnect me to the grid. My neighbor-hood is still largely deserted, but people are slowly gutting and start-ing repairs on their houses.

The homes of around 400,000 people in New Orleans andabout 100,000 people in surrounding parishes were flooded by saltwater. Thousands of homes in adjoining Jefferson Parish floodedbecause the drainage pumps were not turned on in time. Thousandsmore were severely damaged by the winds and loss of their roofs. Inall, perhaps 600,000 to 700,000 people were made homeless inone day. The loss of homes is the enduring tragedy of Katrina. Thewealthier and those with generous insurance adjusters will be ableto rebuild. Many working-class people, homeowners only because ofhard work and thrift, were wiped out. Only about half had floodinsurance. Probably at least half of the homes will be demolished.Something we Americans take for granted, having a place we call ourown, was taken away from many suddenly. How many homes will berebuilt and how it will be done is a huge question mark.

Four months later, all of these neighborhoods are ghost towns,

“I decided I wantedto sleep in my own

bed and movedhome. I lived in myhouse for 8 weeks

without power,natural gas, hot

water, or phone.”

march 2006 : 27

largely abandoned. Front yards are strewn with the half-digestedcontents of people's lives. Clothes, dishes, furniture, toys, art, bed-ding, appliances, Sheetrock, and flooring are vomited into the streetfor the contractors to haul away to massive landfills. The debris willequal 34 years of regular trash when all collected.

Few houses have utilities. New Orleans East, an area about thesize of Northeast Philadelphia, is completely dark. So is most ofLakeview, Gentilly, the Lower 9th, and St. Bernard Parish. On theedges of the flooding, electricity is spotty. They have been unable toget the water out of most of the gas mains. About 75,000 now livein the strip along the river, and there is currently room for few more.Even if one can get the insurance adjuster to come out, settle theclaim, wait for the mortgage company to cash the check, get themoney out of escrow, find a contractor, have the repairs done, getthe largely dysfunctional city to issue permits and inspect the work,be lucky enough to have the local utility restore power and gas toyour area and then to your home, or get a Federal Emergency Man-agement Agency trailer (hah!), then you may still be unemployedand your children have no school to attend. Inevitably, people willgive up and move away.Wholesale redevelopment is likely and maybe done in a manner that does not respect the old neighborhoods. Ifthese neighborhoods—particularly the working-class sections—

don't recover, then the realNew Orleans will be gone.The French Quarter is up andrunning and still a greatplace to visit. But the peoplewho cooked, cleaned, bar-tended, and shucked oysters in the Quarter do not live Uptown orin the Garden District. We are at risk of losing that elusive and rareatmosphere that is the reason people visit us.

It has been suggested that New Orleans should not be rebuilt orshould be rebuilt elsewhere. I think these suggestions come fromthose who do not recognize the value of its unique cultures and his-tory or from those who think a city is merely a collection of build-ings. It has been suggested that people should not live in such a vul-nerable place. Perhaps, but by the same criterion, we should alsoabandon San Francisco. The price tag to defend New Orleans fromfuture calamity via modern flood-control projects is relatively mod-est—cheaper than the Big Dig in Boston. Ultimately, it will be forNew Orleanians to decide. New Orleans has survived cholera, yellowfever, flooding, and fire in the past. I believe it will survive this.There will certainly be sacrifices. How neighborhoods, schools, andinfrastructure are rebuilt will be crucial to the preservation of our

Mold formed on walls throughout the city (top left) and took on the appearance of abstractart. A dress shoe sits where a house once stood. And slowly, with lots of volunteer helpfrom organizations such as Common Ground (right), New Orleans has started its recovery.


unique culture.We have been plagued by poor local and state gov-ernment. Let's hope that reform will occur. My own experience haserased my faith in government but also has completely renewed myfaith in the goodness of people.We need government to accom-plish what individuals cannot do on their own and we should loud-ly demand good government at every level.

What is it about New Orleans? It is not like anyplace else in theUnited States. We have the best music in the country, most uniquefood, and friendliest people in neighborhoods where people liveclose to their extended families—where they know almost everyoneand can walk to the grocery, church, or bar. Poor neighborhoods areblocks from large mansions.Much of the city is integrated.

New Orleans has Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, the French Quarter,Garden District, and Uptown. Our history mirrors the history ofthe United States and yet, like everything here, is a bit more convo-luted. We have belonged to France, Spain, France again, the UnitedStates, the Republic of Texas, seceded from the Union on our own,joined the Confederacy, and then rejoined the United States.Wehave more churches and religious holidays than anywhere as wellas strange traditions, customs, and names.We have few chainrestaurants and stores (few Starbucks butlots of great coffee shops!) yet thousands ofcorner groceries, poor-boy joints, neighbor-hood restaurants, bars, and clubs. Even ourair tastes different, suffused with jasmine,earth, high humidity, and a little rotting veg-etation. New Orleans is a gumbo of culturewith many ingredients, which blend andaccent each other. I live here because of thisgumbo, and millions of tourists fromaround the world visit and revisit NewOrleans because of it.

When asked what I love most about New Orleans, I think of themusic. Our musicians are known locally and worldwide for theirtalent, innovation, and uniqueness.We have rock, Latin, bluegrass,Cajun, reggae, zydeco, and klezmer music, and they all influenceeach other.What stands out, though, is jazz, be it Dixieland, brassband (and it's modern transformation “brass-hop”), or traditionaljazz. Jazz, the great American musical contribution to the world,was born in New Orleans. Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Jelly RollMorton, Louis Prima,Mahalia Jackson,Wynton Marsalis (and hisdad and all his brothers), Harry Connick Jr. (and his dad too) allstarted and lived or live in New Orleans.We have jazz funerals, realaffairs with cadavers and mourners. The funeral dirge of the brassband captures perfectly the solemnity of one of our brother's pass-ing but then breaks into a lively, danceable Dixieland second-lineparade (formed from spectators) to celebrate that life goes on. Jazzmusic was born in and continues to come from the working-class,mainly black neighborhoods that were destroyed. If these neigh-borhoods don't recover, New Orleans jazz will be severely stunted.

Our food also comes in many varieties but tends to be a mixtureof Creole, Cajun, soul, Caribbean, and French influences, and ourcloseness to the Gulf provides fresh seafood. There are manyfamous restaurants and chefs in New Orleans, the training groundfor famous New York and San Francisco chefs. Many small, neigh-borhood places also serve outstanding food.

We celebrate music and food at the New Orleans Jazz and Her-

itage Festival, better known as Jazz Fest, a 7-day celebration of localand international music, local food, art, handcrafts, and culture. Asmany as 100,000 people a day come to the Fairgrounds (ourhorse-racing track) to listen and dance to music on eight differentstages. Local restaurants, community organizations, and churcheshave food booths with some of the best fare you've ever eaten for$6, to be washed down with lots of cold beer. I've never seen a fightat Jazz Fest despite the beer, sweat, and dust.

Social Aid and Pleasure Societies, the support organizations inthe black community, parade throughout the day.Mardi Gras Indi-ans, black men in elaborate, beaded-and-feathered costumes theyhave made themselves, strut around the grounds with their bands.When Jazz Fest is over, the city goes into a kind of mourning.

As I write, plans are under way for Mardi Gras. Forget thedrunken frat-boy, bared-breasts-for-beads spectacle on BourbonStreet that is commonly shown in the national media. That is asmall part of Mardi Gras, and most locals don't even go into theFrench Quarter until Fat Tuesday itself. Most of Mardi Gras isabout visiting and having parties with friends and family, catchingbeads as floats go by and dancing to the marching bands. Parades

occur nightly and all day on the weekendsfor 2 weeks. Crawfish boils and barbecues,masked and costume balls—some elegant,some risqué—entice.On Mardi Gras day, people get up early to

see the Rex and Zulu parades featuringprominent members of the black communi-ty and invited guests, all wearing wigs, grassskirts, and black-face make-up. Covetedhand-decorated coconuts are thrown fromZulu floats. I stay up all Monday night mak-ing my costume to march with the Society of

St. Ann, one of many technically illegal marching groups or“krewes,” accompanied by brass bands—known for having themost elaborate and original homemade costumes. It's difficult tomove through the crowds. St. Ann always stops on steps leading tothe Mississippi River to remember lost members, as the band plays“gonna lay down my troubles down by the riverside.”

Elsewhere in town,Mardi Gras Indians are gathering andmarching. These “gangs” date back to the end of the 19th century.When two gangs meet, they have a ritual of putting each otherdown in chants. Imagine an in-your-face poetry-slam set to percus-sion. Many of their current members were from the Lower 9th.After Katrina, many of the sodden and moldy Indian suits wereseen hanging outside their ruined homes, looking like specters.

There has been criticism for holding Mardi Gras this year, but itis a huge producer of city revenues. On an emotional level, we needMardi Gras for ourselves. We will celebrate despite Katrina. It's a bitlike a jazz funeral. As a local columnist wrote, not having MardiGras would be like saying the terrorists won. Dr. Seuss'Whos inWhoville celebrated Christmas without presents and decorations. Sowill we, with Mardi Gras and beyond. It makes me smile to thinkabout it. Come visit us sometime. You won't be disappointed.T

Joe Thompson has lived in New Orleans since 1995. See his photos takenduring and after Katrina with the Web version of this article atwww.swarthmore.edu/bulletin.

“What is it aboutNew Orleans?

It is not like anyplace else in theUnited States.”

march 2006 : 29

The gumbo culture revives (clockwise from top left): Couples dance toCajun music at Tipitina’s, a popular local club. During the day, a crewfrom Habitat for Humanity builds new homes while artist Robert Sut-ton paints on Magazine Street. Zydeco musician Sunpie Barnes playswith his band, the Louisiana Sunspots, at Dos Jeffes Uptown Cigar Bar.

march 2006 : 31

Social roles are rarely rewritten lightly.With each generational reversal, there is recoil, anextra step to somewhere unexpected.

As they left Swarthmore in 1986, three womennever imagined they'd be 40-year-old first-timemothers; now, they know they were swinging in stepwith a social pendulum.

Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Lisa Maslankowski, and NancyWatzman graduated in the Reagan era but were bornunder flags flown half-mast for Kennedy. They werein third grade when Roe v. Wade was decided, part ofthe first generation for whom the right to choosewas secured before they'd figured out where babiescome from. “We saw ourselves as this pioneeringgeneration—not the first wave of feminists that dis-covered feminism in their 20s and 30s who were‘liberated' but people who were raised to think thatthey could do whatever they want,” Gruesz recalls.As seniors on Wharton 3rd South in 1986, theyplotted their lives, as all seniors do, planning careersand presupposing motherhood. Gruesz was in themidst of applying to Ph.D. programs and wouldbegin as a comparative literature student at Yale thenext fall; Maslan-kowski was also considering thePh.D. path while thinking about medicine; andWatzman was getting set to spend a year in Israel.

Careers were at the forefront of their minds, butas Gruesz says, “People who are told they can haveeverything and conquer the world tend to believe it.”Motherhood was a “blithe” assumption, Grueszsays, even a given. But by 2004, the U.S. Censusreport “Fertility of American Women” found that19.3 percent of women ages 40 to 44 were childless,about double the percentage in 1976. The study alsofound an inverse relationship between education

level and childbearing, a pattern visible amongSwarthmore graduates. The 2005 alumni surveyfound that among women from the Class of 1984,around age 43 in 2005, 27.2 percent were childless—7.9 percentage points higher than the national norm.Surely, represented in these numbers are womenwho actively chose not to have children, embracingthe many opportunities that childlessness can bring.But some women stumbled along their paths—withcompeting demands and conflicting desires—ulti-mately establishing careers to the exclusion of start-ing a family; others, who wanted to become mothers,were simply unable to conceive or experienced vari-ous medical and personal complications.

Then, there are women like Gruesz, Maslan-kowski, and Watzman, who, as Gruesz says, racedthe clock to fill in the sketch of the futures they cre-ated together. Marrying and having children in theirlate 30s and early 40s, she says, is like an actionmovie, “where somebody is squeezing through thegate that's crashing down on them, or the two wallsare closing in, and you have to squeeze through themat just the last minute.”

Among Swarthmore graduates from the Class of1986, only 1.2 percent of women and 0 percent ofmen had children under 2, according to the 2005alumni survey. About 13.6 percent of women hadchildren between ages 2 and 5, 55.6 percent betweenages 6 and 17, 2.5 percent had children age 18 orolder, and 27.2 percent had no children at all.

The three friends were born “in the expiringgasp of the baby boom” of 1963–1964, as Watzmansays. But although born as the possibility of the ’60sand the women's liberation movement gained steam,they graduated as “feminism” stored up oxygen fordecades of bare subsistence.

As the three friends graduated in 1986, the infa-mous David Bloom and Neil Bennett “Marriage Pat-terns in the United States” study—in which Ivy

“We sawourselvesas this

pioneeringgeneration ...people whowere raisedto thinkthat theycould dowhateverthey want.”

after 40Mothers

THREE ALUMNAE REFLECT ON THE PATHS OF THEIR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIVES.

By El izabeth Redden ’05

With Ki rsten Si lva Gruesz ’86, L isa Maslankowski ’86, and Nancy Watzman ’86

Kirsten Gruesz 41, teaches literature at Univer-sity of California–Santa Cruz; she has two sons,2 and 15 months.

JIMMA

CKENZIE

League researchers reported that college-educated women had increasingly infinitesi-mal odds of marrying after 30—wasreleased. One Newsweek cover story, “TooLate for Prince Charming,” said women at40 had a better shot of being attacked byterrorists than ever finding husbands.

“This report really angered us—this isanother way to keep women down,” Grueszsays. “But I internalized it.”

In a July 1997 paper, “Career and Family:College Women Look to the Past” Harvardeconomist Claudia Goldin divides a centuryof college-educated women into fivecohorts. Women graduating between 1900and 1920 had a stark choice between familyor career, she writes, while those comingonto the workforce starting around 1933worked for a few years “frequently with aspi-rations, rarely fulfilled, of a full career.” Sheclassifies this cohort as “job then family,”distinguished from the “family-then-job”cohort flip-flopping onto the scene startingin the '50s. Around 1972 marked the firsttime a significant percentage of female col-lege graduates pursued careers, Goldinwrites, and these women followed a distinct“career-then-family” pattern.

“College appears to be offering thewomen in cohort V—graduating after 1980and born since 1958—the opportunity fortrue equality with their male counterparts.College women today reject the choice of‘family or career,' the options of cohort I,and ‘family then job,' that of cohort III. Andthey are uncomfortable with the choice of‘career then family,' that of many in cohortIV who just preceded them. They are unwill-ing to schedule events serially and therebyrisk forfeiting one of them,” Goldin writes.

“I didn't say in 1986 I need to get my careerestablished before I have kids,” Watzmansays. But that's what happened. In her 20s,as a staffer at Public Citizen, a campaignfinance reform organization, she and hercoworkers, also in their 20s, hunkered intheir office on Capitol Hill as though it werea dorm. “We were there all hours.Weworked very, very hard and didn't do muchelse.” There was one “older woman,” Watz-man says, putting the description in quotes,a mom in her 30s. “She had a tough time.”

“What has always frustrated me in theliterature about women delaying kids is thatit depicts it as a deliberate act of conscious

choice. It's a choice that in some ways wasmade for us,” Watzman says.

“In our socioeconomic circles, this is theway it was working. It's a very small sliver ofsociety—if we had not gone to a school likeSwarthmore and were working at a low-wage job in a different strata of society, weprobably would have gotten married earlier.”

“To me, it never seemed like an option tohave your kids first and then work on yourcareer. It was always assumed that the career

would come first,” Maslankowski says. Nowa medical researcher and physician inPhiladelphia, she considered becoming anEnglish professor and pursued graduatework in English at Rutgers—wondering atthe time “how it would work to combinemotherhood with that career.” Perhaps notas well as she might have imagined, as a2004 study by Berkeley's Mary Ann Masonand Marc Goulden found that men whohave children within 5 years of receivingPh.D.s are 38 percent more likely than theirfemale counterparts to achieve tenure.

Watzman says that Gruesz, a tenured lit-erature professor at the University of Cali-fornia–Santa Cruz, was the one of the threewho most actively pursued motherhood.

At 25, Gruesz’s “blithe” confidence that

marriage and motherhood were certaintiessuddenly dissipated into the vat of fallenideals. She married her boyfriend at thetime, with their mutual desire to have chil-dren leading them to commit right at thepoint they should have broken up, Grueszsays. “The marriage didn't last the year.”

“I wanted to make an active choice,”Gruesz says. “I knew so many women inacademia who say wistfully that they didn'tactively make a choice not to have children.The choice was made for them, it was fore-closed, because they pursued their careersand suddenly were too old. Or they pursuedcareers and weren't in a stable relationship.”

Much of the friends' maternal fates had todo with the changing shapes and shadowsof their own lives—Gruesz's failed marriage,a 5-year relationship for Maslankowski thattook her through medical school and muchof residency before faltering. But, they saytheir story goes beyond their own uniqueforays. “We're the next generation ofwomen trying to balance it all,” Maslan-kowski says. They fall into Goldin's cohortIV pattern of establishing career before fam-ily, although they have no plans of doingone or the other exclusively. In some ways,Maslankowski would love to stay at homefull time. But she knows she has made a sig-nificant commitment to her research, aneffort to produce a microbocide, or topicalvaginal cream, that would prevent HIVtransmission.

“I'm conflicted a lot of the time. I feelthat it's very important work, and if we wereto find an effective microbocide, it has thepotential to save thousands and maybe evenmillions of lives, particularly lives of women.[At the same time] I envy the stay-at-homemoms who have time for things, like findingdifferent play groups and which story hoursare at which libraries and which parks havethe best swings.”

Several Swarthmore seniors now living onWharton 3rd South are set on establishingcareers before families. Emily Conlon saysshe can't imagine being ready for marriage

“What has alwaysfrustrated me in the

literature aboutwomen

delaying kids is thatit makes it out to

be a very deliberateact of consciouschoice. It's sortof a choice that,in some ways,

was made for us.”

BRETTAM

OLE

Nancy Watzman, 41, is a freelance writerin Colorado, who also researches andwrites for Public Campaign, a Washing-ton, D.C.–based public-interest groupworking for public financing of elections;her son is 16 months old.


march 2006 : 35

until she's 30. “I have big plans for a bigwedding, and I need to save up for that,”she says, adding that she expects to “have akid or two following me around” by hermid-30s. She doesn't plan to quit work thenbut hopes to have established a career as afreelance screenwriter, one that would pro-vide her with some flexibility.

Emily Regier '06 and Anjali Aggarwal'06 see career and motherhood as juxta-posed against one another to some degree.Regier, who doesn't know if she wants chil-dren, has felt a spoken and unspoken pres-sure her entire life to join the ranks ofmothers-to-be. An aspiring arts and culturewriter, she's looking to set up a job for nextyear, saying the rest will “revolve around it.”

“I need to go out there and get started inorder to make a future; otherwise, it's nevergoing to happen,” she says.

Becoming a mother anytime soon wouldbe a hindrance, she says. “It's one of thosethings that has always bothered me aboutnature. It seems unfair, that, in order to dosomething that is kind of natural, it reallydoes lower your chances of your own liveli-hood. It seems like the most sacrificialthing; you really do give away a big chunk ofyour life force.

“Sure, I'd like to have kids,” Aggarwalsays. “However, my decision would have tobe based on how I'm progressing towardboth my career as well as personal goals. If Isee that I'm progressing well and quicklytoward accomplishing my career objectives,having children at that time would not be asmart move. Also, like most others, I wouldlike to be married first! So until my careerand personal lives are sorted out, kids justreally aren't an option.”

Aggarwal starts a job as an investmentbanking analyst at Putnam Lovell NBF inNew York City this July, almost immediatelyafter graduation. Having kids around 32 to34 might be ideal, she says, as she'd like tolaunch her own private equity (PE) fund byages 40 to 45. “It wouldn't be wise to tryand care for young kids and launch my ownPE fund at the same time,” she says.

Watzman and her friends cite job securi-ty as a fringe benefit of waiting until 40 togive birth. Having had 20 years to establishthemselves in their careers, they can bringtheir babies into their offices and evenbreast-feed them on the sly. Watzmandescribes nursing at the “edge of a crowded,stuffy conference room, pleading with Leounder my breath to avoid making smackingsounds.” Gruesz sneaks into the bathroomof the rare-book library—where she con-ducts her research—to use her breast pump,“struck by how weirdly furtive I feel doingthis.”

“All three of us have picked some combi-nation of part-time work, coverage fromnannies, and bringing our babies along withus to the office—because we can,” Watzman

says. Our employers would never have toler-ated this when were trying to 'prove' our-selves back in our 20s.”

But in some countries, such flexible workschedules are the norm. “Interestingly, thereseems to be an inverted relationship be-tween women's work patterns and fertility.In many countries where women and moth-ers have a high work rate—for instance,France and Sweden—women also have ahigher fertility rate than women in countrieswhere few married mothers work, such as inGermany and Italy,” says Visiting AssistantProfessor of Sociology Aya Ezawa, who iscurrently researching the work-family bal-ance in Japan.

“I think a common assumption is thatonce women have the opportunity to have acareer, they will no longer have children. Butwhat you see happening in Germany andJapan, where fertility has dropped to criticallevels, is that if women are not given thechoice to balance work and family, they maydrop the idea of having children altogether.”

“Sweden is often seen as a model case,

where public policies have facilitated a veryhigh work rate among women and mothers.Sweden had a problem with labor shortageand low fertility in the 1960s and created anumber of programs and policies that makeit easier to balance work and family, allow-ing mothers to stay in the workforce,”Ezawa says. These policies include a childallowance; child care leave of up to 18months, in which parents receive up to 80percent of their original wages; a strong net-work of subsidized public day care centers;and policies that allow parents to shortentheir work days when children are young.

In the United States, the Family andMedical Leave Act of 1993 requires thatemployers provide up to 12 weeks of unpaidmaternity leave.

Sunka Simon, chair of Women's Studies atSwarthmore and a 43-year-old mother of atoddler, says she believes “the legacy of thepill” has had an incalculable impact on thegeneration of women who grew up under itslittle blue tabular shadow.

“Post–baby-boom women have been ledto believe that the body is something theycan control.”

“They think pregnancy is something nat-ural that will happen [that their bodies willproduce when called upon]. There are a lotof women for whom that happens not to bethe case,” she says.

Young women today, Simon says, contin-ue to see pregnancy as a concern for the dis-tant future: “Most of them, I would say,want to wait a while, until they're semi-settled. This idea of settling down in a glob-alized economy has been delayed.”

How the millennial generation of college-educated women will respond to the experi-ence of the cohort before them is yet to bedetermined. An even bigger mystery mightbe the fate awaiting the just-born cohortVII, a group nobody is taking bets on yet.

So the youngest generation follows lessclosely on the heels of the ones before it. Offand crawling, this is their now. And theymay, like their mothers, find themselves stir-ring in the recoil resounding from their par-ents' then, the Eurythmics musicMaslankowski played in the delivery roomreverberating in their sweet dreams.T

Elizabeth Redden is a reporter for the DelawareState News and a freelance magazine writer.

“We're the nextgeneration

of women tryingto balance it all.”

JIMGR

AHAM

Lisa Maslankowski, 42, is a researchphysician working at the University ofPennsylvania, conducting HIV/AIDS-prevention studies funded by theNational Institutes of Health; herdaughter is 13 months old.


In a worldwhere the stay-at-home mom has become a diminishingspecies and the pace of life continues toaccelerate, the drive by members of bothgenders to carve out as comfortable an exis-tence as possible—supported by an ade-quate salary—pervades our society. Morefamilies are becoming dependent on full-time day care, nannies, and baby-sitters;when the workday is over, it is typically theworking mother who takes over the care ofthe children. The need for balance betweenthe demands of a two-job household andthe desire on the part of both parents tospend quality time with family has becomeincreasingly urgent.

The goal of Hanne Weedon and her col-league Jessica DeGroot is to help familiesrestructure their lives to create such balance.In 1999, DeGroot founded the nonprofitThird Path Institute, and Weedon '89 joinedher as vice president. Initially supported bya few visionary donors and often workingout of their own homes or locations provid-ed by their clients, they conduct workshops,group-training and therapy sessions, andconferences for working parents who wishto remain actively involved in the care oftheir children. They teach clients how toredesign their work lives in ways that willprovide more time for family and life outsideof work. The organization's Web site,www.thirdpath.org, created by Weedon,which clients are urged to visit, is packedwith advice, encouragement, and successstories. They also work with grandparentsand other relatives as well as individualswho simply wish to maintain a more bal-anced lifestyle.

Focusing on a concept they call “sharedcare,” Weedon and DeGroot encourage bothmothers and fathers to adapt their work sit-uations. Since the birth of the organization,they have collected stories of families whereparents have divided successfully the tasksof caring for children and earning anincome. They share the stories with clientsas teaching tools.

Jennifer Johnson '83 and Ben Dugan '85

of Philadelphia provided one such story:“Ben and I had our traditional child-careplans (both of us worked 9 to 5 at Penn)changed when we had surprise twins. High-quality infant care was too expensive at$2,400 a month, so we juggled a bit, went to4 days a week each and 3 days of in-house,10 to 5 care. This worked really well. Shortlyafter the twins started preschool at age 3,Ben started his own business, CurrentDesigns, manufacturing custom instrumen-tation for scientific and medical researchers.I went to work at Princeton, although Iworked from home 3 days a week as editorof the American Economics Review. Afterabout 9 months, we decided to give up thesecurity of one real job, so that we couldwork on the business together. By havingthe flexibility of working for ourselves, we'vebeen able to be very involved parents.Weshare the kid stuff 50/50, which somehowworks well when you have two children thesame age—sharing and equity are bigthemes.

“It's important to encourage shared care,with both parents involved with children.Through advertising, we have so manyimages of children and the mom in a mini-van that Third Path's stories are an impor-tant way to let young families imaginesomething else,” Johnson says.

“To make sustainable change, you haveto have not only women shifting thingsaround at work but men also—if it's only

the women, then work-life balance becomesa dismissible concern, a ‘mommy-track'issue,” Weedon says. “When men areinvolved in the discussion, people pay moreattention. It’s suddenly an issue that affectsall employees.”

To create balance between a fulfilling joband a fulfilling family life, Weedon andDeGroot suggest strategies for defining andcreating flex time in work situations, usingfour key questions as guidelines to thoseseeking help: “What kind of schedule worksbest for you? How much does your jobrequire you to be physically present toaccomplish it? How far can you control thequantity and work flow from your job? Howeasily can someone else do your job, that is,is substitution an option?

“Rethinking how we do work is not rock-et science,” DeGroot says. “You just have toknow what your options are, what your bar-riers are, and what really matters to you.”

DeGroot and Weedon discuss the poten-tial obstacles to finding solutions, such asthe struggle some women face in relinquish-ing control around home and children; thepotential isolation men have to deal withwhen responsible for a significant amountof the child care and their misgivings abouttaking on such a task; the possibility of hav-ing to negotiate with unreceptive employers;the difficulty of saying “no” or puttingboundaries around work. Choosing timeover money is difficult in an age whereAmericans live in an economy that, moreoften than not, requires two full-timesalaries for a family to live comfortably aswell as one where economic and profession-al success are such important standards ofsocial acceptance. And, for an increasingnumber of families, the basics of simply hav-ing enough money to make ends meet isbecoming an issue. DeGroot and Weedonare currently working on a book, SharedCare: Building a Resilient Family, to addressthese issues.

“We live in a consumer society,” Weedonsays, “where people are encouraged to pur-chase incessantly to feel better about them-selves. There are big decisions that they can

More Timefor Life

HANNE WEEDON ’89 HELPS

HARRIED PARENTS—AND OTHERS—

BALANCE THEIR LIVES.

By Carol Brévart -Demm

march 2006 : 37

make early on about whether they want tobe beholden to high living expenses requir-ing two salaries. Making decisions aroundmoney and how much is enough is a signifi-cant issue for all families, even those thatcould decide to get by on one income.”

Sometimes, a job change presents a solu-tion, or even starting one's own business.Weedon cites an example of shared care, ascreated and carried out by Glenn and Chris-tine Stodolski Berntson '89 of Beverly,Mass.

Eight months after their first child wasborn, Christine returned to work for 20hours a week as a teacher, while Glennworked full time. “My daughter, Grace, wasin day care for all those 20 hours, and to methat sometimes felt too long,” Christinesays. By the time a second child arrived,Christine was working both as a schoolteacher and administrator, so she and Glenncreated a plan that both helped them savemoney yet did not increase the amount oftime the children spent in day care.

“Glenn shifted his hours dramatically by

going to work at 4:30 a.m. and being homeby 3:30 p.m., and I scheduled most of mymeetings for late afternoon, so that he couldtake the kids and make dinner. The kidswere still in day care but for many fewerhours a week.” Later, Christine left her joband became a tutor, working in the after-noons and evenings to make ends meet,which her husband's schedule easily allowedher to do. “Money is tighter than it waswhen I was in the school, but Glenn and Iboth feel that the everyday aspects of life aremore easily managed that way.”

Weedon, says Christine, has been her“biggest supporter from day 1. She under-stands what a precious resource parents arefor their children and works very hard tomake it possible for both parents to be in achild's life in a meaningful way.”

Weedon and DeGroot work not onlywith individual families but also with com-panies, in an effort to persuade employersand professionals at the executive level ofthe benefits of flexing work hours. Last year,they conducted a conference at the Universi-ty of Pennsylvania Law School for lawyerswho had redesigned their work; in January,they hosted 20 male and 20 female lawyersat a Pioneering Leaders' Summit at Price-WaterhouseCooper in Philadelphia, focus-

ing on the knowledge and resources avail-able to assist leaders to live more balancedlives and to serve as models for theiremployees.Weedon says: “We’ve been learn-ing that this type of change goes beyondrecruitment and retention issues. Instead,it’s a way to transform organizations by get-ting people to focus on their highest-priori-ty work and be rewarded for efficiencyinstead of face time.”

Although the organization has built upquite a following of faithful clients, includ-ing some large institutions and companiesas well as having received a number ofgrants from small foundations,Weedon andDeGroot are well aware that, to ensure sub-stantial change, support must come not onlyfrom individuals but also from communityand government, with legislators developingpolicies that provide all workers with moresupport around redesigning work and fami-ly as well as allowing for and encouragingflexible working hours to make shared carepossible. They believe that such changes willbenefit both families and employers.

“We are committed to helping familiesacross the economic spectrum and makingsure that the big-picture transformation weneed becomes reality for everyone,” Weedonsays.T

““RReetthhiinnkkiinngg

hhooww wwee ddoo wwoorrkk

iiss nnoott rroocckkeett

sscciieennccee.. YYoouu jjuusstt

hhaavvee ttoo kknnooww

wwhhaatt yyoouurr ooppttiioonnss

aarree,, wwhhaatt yyoouurr

bbaarrrriieerrss aarree,, aanndd

wwhhaatt rreeaallllyy

mmaatttteerrss ttoo yyoouu..””

To promote the benefits of shared childcare, Hanne Weedon (above) and JessicaDeGroot conduct conferences withemployers and corporate executives.

ELEF

THER

IOS

KOST

ANS

connections

New Michigan Connection: Many thanksto Tanyaporn Wansom ’02 and JennyBlumberg ’04, who planned the firstSwarthmore happy hour in Michigan.They wrote: “We would like first to thankeveryone who attended the inauguralalumni happy hour event at Rush St. inAnn Arbor, in November 2005. Represen-tatives from the Classes of ’42 to ’05 werepresent, and we were very excited withthe turnout.”

New York: Connection Chair John Ran-dolph ’97 writes: “I’m just checking in tolet you know that our New York AlumniHappy Hour was a huge success.We heldthe event at a venue owned, operated, andrecently opened by four Swatties. Forty-six alumni attended from the Classesfrom ’56 to ’05! The Alumni Office gra-ciously set me up with some College shotglasses with the pictures of Swarthmoredignitaries on them, which I presented tothe bar. It was fantastic.”

Paris: Connection Chair Anaïs Loizillon’95 wrote of an event at the Centre Pom-pidou’s Museum of Modern Art: “The BigBang event consisted of Associate Profes-sor of French Micheline Rice-Maximinand her assistant in Grenoble, six stu-dents, eight alumni, and one non-Swattiepartner. The guided visit lasted about 1 1/2hours, with an extra 30 minutes on our

own. One of the highlights was Bill Viola’svideo installation Five Angels for the Millen-nium, showing people diving into water asif they were rising.Most of us continuedthe evening at a local Cuban restaurantwith a live band. Although nobody brokeout their salsa steps, the alumni and stu-dents had a great time comparing Swatexperiences and discussing the recentevents in Paris.”

Seattle: Karl Knaub ’95 is interested instarting a book club in Seattle beginningin September 2006. The theme for thefirst year will be “The Urban and HumanImagination.” They consider a series of fic-tional works, all loosely organized by theidea of “The City,” that explore the city asan historical as well as a vividly humanphenomenon and that illustrate literature’sdiverse theorizing of the city over time. Atentative list of works includes InvisibleCities, Italo Calvino;Mrs. Dalloway, Vir-ginia Woolf; a pair of the Renaissance“city” plays:Measure for Measure, Shake-speare, and The Alchemist, Jonson; TheHouse of Mirth, Edith Wharton; The NewYork Trilogy, Paul Auster; Istanbul: Memoriesand the City,Orhan Pamuk; and Tales of theCity, Armistead Maupin. If you are inter-ested in joining, please contact Karl at [email protected]. Karl will be workingwith Seattle Connection Chair DeborahSchaaf ’95 on this new project.


sages inSalem

Supreme Sage Bruce Gould ’54 helped plan andlead a tour of Salem, Mass., in November. Thegroup toured the Peabody Essex Museum—with aspecial tour of the Yin Yu Tang Chinese Home—andother historical houses and locations in Salem.Alumni and friends who went on the trip includedSusan and Paul Baumgarten ’55, Priscilla HaywardCrago ’53, Richard and Miriam Wight MacKenna’40, Robert and Julia Robinson Walkling ’53, Aliceand Dudley Woodbridge ’51, Ann and Henry Cowell’54, Cornelia Fuller ’54, Grace Lowney ’54, LucyBunzl Mallan ’54, Phoebe Rosenberry ’55, Whitneyand Harriet Stearns ’48, Elizabeth and Robert Whit-man ’48, Mark and Marion King Schlefer ’45, andRaymond and Mary Wren Swain ’54. BRUCEGO

ULD!54

SEARCH FOR NEWCONNECTIONS CHAIRSWe need Connections chairs in

Washington, D.C., and a co-chair inthe San Francisco area. National

Connection Chair Jim Moskowitz ’88writes: “Being a Connection chair is

not a lot of work, but it’s quiterewarding: With the help of myself,other local alumni, and Alumni Rela-

tions Office staff members, youbrainstorm ideas for events; write upannouncements; attend the eventsyourself or designate a representa-tive; and report back. Alumni Rela-tions Office staff members always

assist you with printing and sendingmailings. You are in touch with

alumni of all ages and help themstay connected to the College—andeach other. Some Connections arechaired by a single person, others

by a small group. A chair serves a 2-year term. If you are interested, con-

tact me at [email protected] or (610) 604-0669.”

march 2006 : 39

PATRICIAMA

LONEY

ASTRIDDEVANEY

190 externsacross the country

The College’s 2006 externship week was a huge success, with 190students matched with extern sponsors in cities across the country.Boston; New York; Philadelphia; and Washington, D.C., have a highnumber of participants and sponsor receptions, so the students andalumni are able to meet others enjoying the externship experience.

More than 50 alumni, parents, and students attended the DCextern event at CommunicationWorks LLC, hosted by Mary-MackCallahan ’77 and her husband, Shep Ranbom.Washington, D.C.,Externship Coordinator Nanine Meiklejohn ’68 remarked that itwas the first time she had noticed several “generations” of ExternProgram participants at the reception. Several alumni who wereexterns in previous years were now hosting current students at theirworkplaces.

The New York extern reception was a terrific success, with 90people in attendance at the New York offices of Proskauer Rose,hosted by Jim Gregory ’85. New York Extern Coordinator David Vin-jamuri ’86 welcomed alumni and students to the Big Apple.

In Boston, local extern-program coordinator Sue Turner ’60 andher husband,Wally Clausen ’60, hosted the event at their home andprovided pizza and dessert for students and alumni.

The Philadelphia extern event attracted two dozen attendees. Itwas hosted by Jim Lindquist ’80, the national coordinator forSwarthmore’s Extern Program. Bill Belanger ’66, the Philadelphiacoordinator, worked with Jim to organize and cater the reception.

Extern reception host Jim Gregory ’85, Assistant Director ofCareer Services Laura Sibson, and New York City ExternCoordinator David Vinjamuri ’86 (above, left to right).

Helen Chmura ’09, Heidi Hartmann ’67, and Adam Winegar ’08(left to right) discuss the week’s extern activities at theWashington, D.C., reception.

get connectedwith

Swarthmore listservsSwarthmore listservs provide an easy way tocommunicate with your classmates or other alumni in yourarea . A listserv is an electronic mailing list comprising the e-mailaddresses of people interested in a certain topic or specific area ofinterest—and it is now much easier to join the College listservs.Visit www.swarthmore.edu/alumni/listservs to see what listservsare available and learn how to sign up. Then, you can communi-cate with everyone on the listserv by sending one message to asingle e-mail address. Listservs are organized by Connection city,class year, and specific areas of alumni interest.

upcomingENTREPRENEURS CONFERENCE, APRIL 2All alumni and students are welcome to attend the 7thannual Jonathan R. Lax ’71 Conference on Entrepreneurshipon Sunday, April 2. For program and registration informa-tion, go to www.swarthmore.edu/lax/.

ALUMNI COLLEGE, MAY 31–JUNE 2“Imagine No Religion Too,” this year’s Alumni College,brings alumni together with six faculty members to explorecounterperspectives to the rhetoric of fear that now influ-ences the current view of religion. More information atwww.swarthmore.edu/alumni/alumni_college.

ALUMNI WEEKEND, JUNE 2–4To conserve resources, the College mailed Alumni Week-end and Alumni College registration forms in late March tomembers of classes with reunions in 2006—class years end-ing in 1 or 6, the Class of 2004, and all Garnet Sages—buteveryone is welcome. If you would like more information,contact the Alumni Relations Office at (610) 328-8402, orvisit http://alumniweekend.swarthmore.edu.

class notesMILESSKOR

PEN!09


s war t hmor ethe meaning of

“At Swarthmore, I came to understand the power of the values of the College community

to transcend the particular differences that divided us.... We developed the courage to

support each other in very different life choices without having to renounce each other for

our differences in values. The willingness to be fearless in our honesty yet respectful of each

other's integrity and intelligence created a complex and powerful sense of community:

elastic, expandable, and extremely strong."

—Dulany Ogden Bennett '66

58 swarthmore college bulletin

profile

When Julia Mackay Childs steps out in the morning, she isgreeted by an awe-inspiring view of the Beartooth Moun-

tains, 2 miles away, rising to a height of almost 13,000 feet. Childslives and works with four generations of family members on theLazy EL Ranch, near Roscoe,Mont. The 15,000-acre ranch, which isrun as a family corporation, runs up to 3,600 yearlings each summerand owns 50 working horses, which are also used for vacation guests.

“We’re located just over the mountains from YellowstoneNational Park—the ranch backs up against the wilderness area, andthe park is just beyond that,” Childs says. Her family has lived in thearea since 1901, when her grandfather MalcolmMackay built ahomestead there. He created the ranch by buying up surroundinghomesteads from settlers driven away by the hardships of farming.

Childs grew up on the ranch until she was 13, when, disappoint-ed by her father’s decision to leave the ranch to her younger brother,she left to attend school in Takoma,Wash., followed by 4 years atSwarthmore. She married, raised a family of two birth sons and twoadopted daughters, and made a life in New England.

“All this time, I felt I would never come back to the ranch,although that’s where my heart was.”

Divorcing in the early 1980s, she returned home for the summer

and found her parents ailing and the family in the midst of a strug-gle that ended with her brother leaving. She stayed to help out.

With more years on the ranch than any other family member,Childs is a kind of “database” of ranching information. “I knowthings like what the pastures look like at different times of year, orwhen the poison weed is going to be bad and where, which springsare going to dry up in a drought, and how cattle behave in certaingiven situations.” She directs the stock rotation throughout theranch’s 30 pastures, fixes broken fences, and manages the horses.

Treating her horses as partners, Child’s practices “natural horse-manship” with them, speaking to them and working with them untilthey agree to work with her. The ranch staff uses “low stress man-agement” with the cattle. “When cattle are stressed,” Childs says,“the meat is going to get tough and have a bad flavor. You can movecattle by entering their space so they move away to the place youwant them to be, without prodding or yelling. No need to ram andjam,whoop and holler, prod and push, like the cowboys of old.”

She has developed a guest program started by her brother, sothat it now brings in almost as much income as the cattle. “That’sbeen a turning point,” she says, “because agriculture is going downthe tubes everywhere you look, and the cattle industry is no different.”

Accommodated in historic cabins, guests are able to work along-side the ranch staff, “just doing what we do,” Childs says. An on-site wrangler and horse trainer teaches them riding and cattle-driv-ing skills. “The guest-children just fold in and take to the woodswith our kids,” she says. “It’s a pretty transformational experiencefor them. About 80 percent of our guests return year after yearbecause they want their children to identify with this culture.”

In a landscape where wolves, grizzlies,mountain lions, coyotes,eagles, elk, and moose make regular appearances, Childs believes intreating both domesticated and wild animals as partners, not ascreatures to be dominated by humans. “A lot of the ranching I grewup with was very patriarchal. The animals were abused and thewilderness consumed.Now, ranching is returning to the style of theNative Americans, who respected the wilderness and the animals,believing that God meant us to serve rather than dominate Nature.”

“The difference between ranching and farming,” Childs says, “isthat it takes place in a wilderness. You don’t push everything asideto suit your own taste. You work with what’s there. You manage thewildlife as well, leaving feed for the elk in winter, ensuring that therearen’t too many deer, teaching the big predators how to be respectfulby harassing them so that they don’t hang around looking for hand-outs. We respect their right to be wild, but for us to live in harmonywith them, they have to respect us, too. That doesn’t mean you don’tkill an animal if it’s sick or you need to eat it, or if its population istoo large.We are predators, and we do have a place in the foodchain. It’s figuring out what the ‘right place’ is.”

—Carol Brévart-Demm

In Partnership with NatureMONTANA RANCHER JULIA MACKAY CHILDS ’62 DELIGHTS IN LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS.

Childs has a special relationship with her horses, seeing them

as her partners. Visit the Lazy EL Ranch at www.lazyel.com.

COURTESY

OFJULIA

MACKAY

CHILD

S

books + arts

Carl Abbott ’66, Frontiers Past and Future: Science Fiction and theAmerican West, University Press of Kansas, 2006

Like many members of my generation who grew up with the Apollomoon-landing program, I discovered science fiction—a genre thatwas intriguing, forward-looking, and, above all, fun. I mostly readthe classic sci-fi authors—Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein—but, on therecommendation of friends, took jaunts toward fantasy fiction byTolkien, Zelazny, and Cordwainer Smith. I was aware that sciencefiction was filled with contemporaneous social commentary andallusions to historical processes, but, at the time, I made mental dis-tinctions between “serious” authors such as Steinbeck and Buck and“my guys.”

In Frontiers Past and Future: Science Fiction and the American West,Carl Abbott ’66 develops the proposition that sci-fi’s futuristicthemes reflect America’s social transformations following the set-tling of the American West and, as such, are a reflection of the coun-try’s changing attitudes. Literary scholars—especially Gary Wolfeand David Mogen—have made this point before: Science fictionoverused the “astronaut as cowboy” or “wagon train to the stars”metaphor. Abbott’s book, however, is much deeper—and much morefun.

For instance, Abbott romps through every sci-fi story I ever readas well as others I now wish to go back and read, pointing out howtheir plots and themes tie into historical context. Flying saucers, theRoswell incident, and malicious space-invader themes predominateduring times when immigrants, juvenile delinquency, and the RedMenace were on readers’ (and authors’) minds. Stories of terraform-ing distant planets coincide with the transformation of Westerndeserts into suburban oases, and sci-fi authors work out the con-flicts of preservation of wilderness versus utilitarian conservation-ism on Mars as the use of federal lands is debated. Yet Abbott doesnot emphasize the many postnuclear dystopias following the CubanMissile Crisis and their obvious connection with Cold War saberrattling.

Besides the many fascinating parallels between science fictionand history, Abbott shows how relevant social problems wereworked out in the pages of sci-fi stories; often, the stories them-selves became influential, affecting public attitudes.What were theconflicts inherent in rapid technological change in the 1950s, andhow were the solutions found by sci-fi protagonists eventuallyemployed in 1960s policies? The social transformations of the1960s in their turn were reflected in sci-fi stories of flawed counter-cultural protagonists escaping “civilization” and its strictures, onlyto run up against basic problems of community building, gover-nance, and civic fairness. Following the disillusionment attending

the Vietnam War and Watergate, sci-fi writers such as UrsulaLeGuin examined gender roles and the cultural gap between pio-neers and natives. Finally, with postmodern sensibilities, the cyber-punk genre exemplified by auther William Gibson places societalredemption in the hands of tough-guy computer punks and “streetsamurai” outlaws trying to bring down the cybercorporate system.

Frontiers Past and Future is more than a treatise. It is an enor-mously engaging retelling of many timeless stories with a view thatilluminates them in new ways. It’s a book that doesn’t take itself tooseriously: The Toy Story figures of Woody and Buzz becomemetaphors for the notion that the cowboy and the spaceman arereally “the same heroic characters in different guises.”

Part of my personal journey from Apollo moon-shot–fascinatedkid to Swarthmore College engineering professor was my internal-ization of the many ideals and conflicts described in Abbott’s book.Indeed, as recent sci-fi stories have turned from the blurring ofnational identities to themes of environmental change or cynicismregarding corporate control, Abbott shows that science fiction helpsus to think about our alternatives. What should cities be? How dowe balance individual freedoms with civic obligations or open“opportunities to talent across the divides of gender, race, andclass?”

Science fiction will continue to prefigure societal solutions, andyet it will do so with fast-paced, clever, and fun thought experi-ments. My only regret is that Abbott discounts fantasy stories (any-thing with dragons!) as undeserving of the same respect. Despitethis sci-fi snobbery, his Frontiers is well worth reading for its highnumber of revelations per minute.

—E. Carr EverbachAssociate Professor of Engineering


the Cowboyand the

Spaceman

BooksSarah Tracy and Caroline Acker '68 (co-edi-tors), Altering American Consciousness: TheHistory of Alcohol and Drug Use in the UnitedStates, 1800–2000, University of Massachu-setts Press, 2004. This collection of articlesincludes an introduction co-written byTracy and Acker as well as the piece by Ackertitled “Portrait of an Addicted Family:Dynamics of Opiate Addiction in the EarlyTwentieth Century.”Robin (Smith) Chap-man '64 and JulienClinton Scott. Images ofa Complex World: TheArt and Poetry of Chaos,World Scientific Pub-lishing, 2005. PoetChapman and artistStott combine logic andlanguage with a seriesof art forms in a waythat excites the imagi-nation and stimulatesthe readers' sense ofwonder at the vastnessof the mathematicaluniverse.Ellen Daniel '69, EveryOther Thursday:Stories and Strategies From Successful WomenScientists, Yale University Press, 2006. Tellingthe story of a 25-year-old group of successfulwomen who meet regularly to empower eachother through emotional and practicalsupport, the author hopes to encouragereaders who feel isolated or stressed in theirwork settings to consider the benefits ofsuch a group.Patty (MarthaWelch) de Llosa '54, ThePractice of Presence,Morning Light Press,2006. Focusing on the ideas of the five spir-itual paths revealed in T'ai Chi, prayer, medi-tation, the Alexander Technique, and Jun-gian studies, the author offers guidance oncoming alive to the present moment andseeking daily what we truly desire behind allthe urgencies and obligations of our lives.Neil Gershenfeld '81, Fab: The Coming Revo-lution on Your Desktop—From Personal Com-puters to Personal Fabrication, Basic Books,2005. In this book, the author ofWhenThings Start to Think describes the next bigtechnological revolution—“personal fabrica-tion,” the ability to design and manufactureyour own products in your home, using a

machine that combines consumer electronicsand industrial tools.(Helen) Crosby Lewy '40, Amusings From aLife; Tales, Poems, Translations, and Nonsense,XLibris, 2006. This collection of primarilyhumorous fictional pieces is divided intosections with headings such as “Orphans,”“Mutts,” “Literary Mathematics,” “Seniors,”and “Holidays.” The author describes it as “acollection not for reading from cover tocover—but for snacking—for a quiet

moment, or a not quietmoment, or when a familyreunion hits the fan.”Geoffrey Plank '80,Rebellion and Savagery: TheJacobite Rising of 1745 andthe British Empire, Univer-sity of Pennsylvania Press,2006. The author exam-ines the 1745 Jacobiteuprising, led by thegrandson of King JamesII, to dethrone KingGeorge II and restore thethrone to the Stuarts. Hegoes on to describe thesignificance of the crisisnot only for Britain butfor the whole BritishEmpire.

Elliot Rabin '86,Understanding the HebrewBible: A Reader's Guide, KTAV PublishingHouse, 2006. Clearly written and jargonfree, the book helps explain the differentkinds of writing found in the Bible, includ-ing storytelling, law, history, prophecy, wis-dom, and poetry.Joshua Zeitz '96, Flapper: The Notorious Lifeand Scandalous Times of the First ThoroughlyModern Woman, Crown Publishers, 2006.Just in time for Woman's History Month,Zeitz offers a history of America's first sexualrevolution, examining the rise of celebrity,the changes in dating and courting rituals,and the rebellion against Victorian era eti-quette.

Other MediaSandra Schulberg '71 and Ed Carter (co-curators), Selling Democracy: Films of the Mar-shall Plan: 1948–1953, Schulberg Produc-tions, 2004. This retrospective, exhibiting 25of 250 historic propaganda films producedbetween 1948 and 1953, long banned in theUnited States, is currently on tour through-

out major U.S. cities beginning in Philadel-phia. It depicts aspects of the post-WorldWar II Recovery Program in movies such asMe and Mr. Marshall, Hunger, Between Eastand West, and It's Up to You. Schulberg'sresearch into the series is personal. Born inParis shortly after her father was namedchief of the Marshall Plan Motion PictureSection of OMGUS (Office of Military Gov-ernment/U.S.), she hopes that the films willserve as inspiration and as a source of hope

in our modern war-torn world: “Until I hadthe opportunity to screen the films for our …retrospective, I didn't realize the extent towhich they had shaped my earliest con-sciousness, the same way they shaped theconsciousness of millions of other Europeanpostwar children.”

march 2006 : 61

Joshua Zeitz ’96 writes aboutAmerica’s first sexual revolution.

Sandra Schulberg ’71 co-curated afilm festival showing films createdto support the Marshall Plan.

Historian Geoffrey Plank ’80 teachesat the University of Cincinnati.

march 2006: 65

profile

Consider the following:Many at-risk children begin schoolwithout an ability they need to succeed throughout their

lives—being able to self-regulate their actions and emotions (neu-roscientists call this “executive control”). Adults may never fullyoutgrow any of the cognitive and perceptual biases that are so strik-ing in infants and young children. Bilingual children 4 to 5 years oldperform 1 to 2 years ahead of their peers on executive-control cogni-tive tasks. Some autistic children may understand abstract relation-ships better when information is physically attached to the item itrepresents. A variant of a gene leads to better executive function,even in normal children, but it also leads to more fragile personali-ties in the face of stress.

As Canada Research Chair and Professor of Developmental Cog-nitive Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia in Van-couver, Adele Diamond, an authority on a part of the brain criticalfor higher cognitive functions, explores all the above ideas.

Not aspiring to be a scientist, Diamond went to Swarthmore toindulge her love of learning. Excelling in double majors psychologyand sociology-anthropology, she won several undergraduate grants,including a National Institute of Mental Health fellowship. But “Ijust wasn’t interested in [experimental science] and didn’t think I’dbe good at it,” she remembers.

Earning graduate fellowships from both the National ScienceFoundation and the Danforth Foundation, she chose Harvard andinvented an interdisciplinary program in psychology, sociology, andanthropology. In her first year of graduate school, her adviserJerome Kagan got her hooked on an interesting idea: Babies all overthe world, no matter what their circumstance in life, exhibit thesame cognitive changes at about the same age. There had to be amaturational component; what might that be? Diamond decided toinvestigate that in her dissertation. It was her first move into experi-mental science, but it was not a baby step. First she had to embarkon a self-taught crash course in neurology.

“At that time,Harvard didn’t have anybody in the PsychologyDepartment who did anything related to the brain. So I studied onmy own,” she says.

Now,Diamond studies the prefrontal cortex of children’s brains,trying to figure out what they understand, when they understand it,and—most important—how to help them understand things theyare not quite grasping.

The prefrontal cortex is important for working memory and theability to focus attention, to screening out distractions, holdinginformation in the mind and manipulating it, working out mentalpuzzles, resisting impulses, and flexibly switching from one per-spective or set of rules to another. It’s implicated in many mentaldisorders, including ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolardepression, schizophrenia, and autism.

“It relates to a lot of practical things—in mental health, in edu-cation, and in people’s everyday lives,” Diamond says.

This summer, Diamond and a colleague are hosting an interna-tional conference designed to make cutting-edge research in psy-chology and neuroscience understandable to nonscientists (includ-ing parents, educators, and doctors) who work with kids. The con-ference, “Brain Development and Learning:Making Sense of theScience,” features not only scientists but also artists.

Mixing art, science, and people makes perfect sense for Dia-mond. As an accomplished and passionate dancer, she uses it todraw connections in life. She loves partner dancing of all kinds(especially contradance), being outdoors, being active, and meetingpeople. “I love to connect people to each other, especially across dis-ciplines or geography, like a switchboard operator,” she says.

Both surprised and gratified that her work applies in beneficialways, Diamond says that isn’t what she expected. “I never thoughtthat my work would help anybody. I thought it would be basicresearch, and I’d do it because it was interesting, just like I went toSwarthmore because I thought it would be fun and interesting thoughI wasn’t planning on a career. It’s funny how things work out.”

—Beth LuceBeth Luce is a freelance writer and editor of theNorthwest Meetingsand Events Magazine, based in Seattle.

Switchboard OperatorADELE DIAMOND ’74 EXPLORES THE WAYS CHILDREN LEARN.

Diamond’s research was featured on public television’s

Scientific American Frontiers, hosted by Alan Alda. Her work

has changed medical guidelines worldwide for the treatment of

phenylketonuria (PKU).

COUR

TESY

OFAD

ELEDIAM

OND


It's 2 a.m. on a quiet street in downtownPortland, Ore., and I'm hurting. I strug-gle to ignore the pain in my legs as I

hobble toward the finish line a mile or so inthe distance. Occasionally, I am passed byfigures in the darkness. They are young andold, lean and stout. Some breeze by withouta sound. Others offer words of encourage-ment. These strangers are different in manyways, but they share one key attribute—on this night, they are all much faster thanI am.

This scenario was not the one I had envi-sioned months earlier when I convincedseveral of my good friends, primarily team-mates from the Swarthmore cross-countrysquads of the late 1980s and early 1990s,to join me in the 2005 Hood to Coast Run,America's largest relay race. Every August,1,000 12-person teams gather at the Tim-berline Lodge, nearly 6,000 feet up the sideof Mt. Hood in Oregon's Cascade Range.During the next day, the teams alternaterunners through the 36-leg, 196-milecourse that winds down from the moun-tains, through the city of Portland, andacross the countryside to the finish on thePacific coast.

On the morning of the race, we all gatherat my house in Portland, most having flownin the day before from various far-flunglocales. As we've entered our mid-30s, wecan no longer count on a yearly wedding tobring our group together, so this reunion isthe first one we've had in a while. It's greatto see everyone, and the old jokes flowfreely. My brother Tom '88 takes a quick jogdown the street and asks those of us congre-gated in the driveway to assess his runningform. “You look like poetry,” Ari Tuckman'92 says. “Like teenage poetry—awkwardand lurching.”

The tone thus set, we pack two rentedminivans with provisions for the race—Powerbars, water, dry clothes, and lots of ice

packs. Before we leave for thestart, it is decided that ourteam needs a theme song—something suitably motivat-ing to blast out of the vans'speakers as we pass throughcheckpoints and past ourown runners.We havealmost come to a consensuson The Ride of the Valkyrieswhen Steve Bruner '92 sug-gests the theme to Sanfordand Son. It's an inspiredchoice, and the jazz/funkstylings of Quincy Jones her-ald our arrival as we makeour way up the mountain.

I have volunteered to takethe first leg, a 6-mile shotstraight downhill with a ver-tical drop of 2,500 feet.Despite living in Portland,home to Nike, Adidas, andcountless running zealots,my training regimen for thisevent has consisted of pro-longed stretches in front of the TV and theconsumption of an obscene amount ofDoritos. I figure gravity will help ease medown the mountain. As the start timeapproaches on a sunny afternoon, we hud-dle together in our matching garnet T-shirts—with our wildly optimistic teamname, No Cruelty, No Feast, printed on theback—and give a rousing “Go Swat!” cheer.I am on an adrenaline high. It's been a longtime since I've run as a part of a team; for awonderful moment, as I run forward fromthe line, my body actually feels as if it's 15years younger—lean, strong, and primed todo battle with Haverford.

The moment is woefully short-lived,however, as I quickly realize that gravity canonly counteract a lack of fitness up to apoint, and I begin to labor halfway through

the descent. In addition, I realize that run-ning downhill is surprisingly difficult. Theaccumulated pounding of legs on pavementis roughly akin to having ones thighs andknees beaten with a wiffle bat for an hour.As I finally finish the leg and hand off to thenext runner, I try not to think about the factthat I will have to do this twice more beforeit's all over. Thankfully, the rest of the teamhas prepared for the event more diligently,and we start cranking out the miles signifi-cantly faster. Steve, Jon Fewster '92, andRobert Marx '91 are our stalwarts, havingconceded little to the ravages of time. Sim-ply put, they are spectacularly fit—perhapsirritatingly so, as they coast through their

in my life

A GROUP OF FORMER SWARTHMORE CROSS-COUNTRY FRIENDS REUNITE.

By David Graham ’92

STEVEBRUNNER

Jon Fewster '92 powers through his legduring the 2005 Hood to Coast Relay.

When It’s FUN Merely to FINISH

march 2006 : 73

legs with minimal exertion.We pass the time in the vans easily, chat-

ting and playing cards. At one point, mybrother Tom, an actuary by profession, andRobert, a University of Chicago finance pro-fessor, decide for some reason to calculatethe probability of flipping through a deck ofcards one by one without once correctly pre-dicting a card's identity before turning itover. In about 30 seconds, they concludethat the odds are 1 divided by the mathe-matical constant e.One of the fun conven-tions of the Hood to Coast is that the teamswrite witty slogans on the sides of theirvans, usually having at least a tangentialconnection to the race or running in gener-al. But for much of the day, emblazonedacross our windows is an equation that I

feel confidently had notheretofore beenexpressed on a movingvehicle: 1/e = 0.368. Ina related story, we'retremendous dorks.After grabbing a cou-

ple hours of fitful sleep,it's time for my secondleg—a short 4-milejaunt through Portlandin the middle of thenight. Although it's amercifully flat part ofthe course, the combi-nation of fatigue and

my body's utter refusal to accept the factthat I am trying to get it to move faster thana walk for the second time in 8 hours makesit appear to an outside observer as if I mustbe carrying an invisible piano on my back.After about 45 minutes of suffering, I nearthe transition checkpoint. A race official iscalling out the team numbers of approach-ing finishers to alert the next runners. Ihear him say, “Team 854! Looks like we'vegot a hobbler!” A collective groan of sympa-thy and pity accompanies me for my finalhundred yards, and I slink back to the vanto collapse.

The rest of the morning and afternoonpass without too much incident. Our teamregains a solid clip and even manages topass a number of teams that had left us for

dead during the night. Progress is againimpeded at around 9 a.m., as race rules dic-tate that I run my final leg. The less saidabout it, the better. Let's just say the phrase“death march” crosses my lips several times,and I'm pretty sure I heard someone in thevan mutter my name and the word “alba-tross” in the same sentence while theythought I was asleep.

In the end, we reach the Pacific in just ashade more than 24 hours, good enough fora more than respectable 96th place. As werecuperate postrace in our rented beachhouse, I am reminded why I enjoyed run-ning at Swarthmore so much: mainlybecause it feels so good to stop. But it's alsoabout striving for a common goal withfriends instead of slogging through on yourown. Although, over the years, the objectivehas changed from winning to merely finish-ing, it's still fun to do it together. I've alwaysthought that racing is like childbirth in thesense that time allows the memory of thepain to diminish just enough so that even-tually you'll be foolish enough to want to gothrough it again.Well, it's all still prettyfresh in my mind, but I've got brain cellsdying every day.

Anyone up for 2007?T

David Graham is director of strategic develop-ment for WebMD Corp. He lives in Portland,Ore., with his wife, Laura Morrison '94, andtheir 3-year-old son, Michael.

“I am on an adrenaline high.It's been a long time since I'verun as a part of a team; fora wonderful moment, as I runforward from the line, mybody actually feels as if it’s15 years younger.”

The Swarthmore team at the finish of the2005 Hood to Coast Relay (kneeling leftto right) Jon Fewster '92, Steve Bruner'92, Mike Dennis '93, Ari Tuckman '92;(standing left to right) Justin Higgins '92,Chris Tipper '92, Tom Graham '88,David Graham '92, Joy Blakeslee, KevinHuffman '92, Robert Marx '91, BrandtLincoln '95ST

EVEBRUNNER

76 swarthmore college bulletin

profile

An artist-in-residence at Kabul University in July 2005, LarsJan—a theater director and founder of Mobile Performance

Group (MPG)—brought several American theater artists with himto Kabul. Here, they led intensive theater workshops for universitystudents and members of the National Theatre and developed sev-eral sound and visual public art projects with local artists.

“We’ll return to Kabul in 2007 to continue our relationship withthe students—and artists—we worked with there,” Jan says. “Theuniversity is struggling to buoy a humanities and arts curriculumthat all but ceased to exist during the years of Soviet occupation,civil war, and rule of the Taliban, and the students are incrediblyhungry for outside voices and instruction. I’m intent on pushingalong and collaborating with Afghanistan’s next generation ofartists in the hope that they will find a voice to reflect the past yearsof conflict and imagine the future.”

A recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship, a national schol-arship that supports up to 6 years of graduate work in any field, Janis currently pursuing an M.F.A. in directing and integrated media at

the California Institute of the Arts. He is augmenting his theatertraining with coursework in digital animation, puppetry, and film-making—allowing him to continue to evolve as a “hybrid artist.”

During spring 2005, Jan was invited to co-direct and design ashow as well as teach a class at Princeton University as a part of theAtelier Program,which author Toni Morrison created. Jan’s firstdirecting teacher at Swarthmore, Roger Babb, “a vital mentor andcollaborator over the years,” introduced him to the program.

As a theater and English literature major at Swarthmore, Jan bal-anced history and critical analysis with a direct immersion in theform via Professor of Theater Allen Kuharski’s directing labs. Theopen format of the labs allowed him to create ensembles of artists,often from outside the Theater Program,working to craft originalworks focused on models of collaborative creation and non-Westernperformance forms.

After graduation, Jan worked with the Pig Iron Theatre Compa-ny, an ensemble that Co-Artistic Directors Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel’94, Dito van Reigersberg ’94, and Dan Rothenberg ’95 founded anddeveloped into one of the country’s premiere experimental companies.

“My experience of their theater-making style, characterized bytheir commitment to the collective creation of all works and theintegration of international performance forms, was an extension ofmy theater work at Swarthmore and definitive in shaping my courseand practice as an artist,” he says.

After working with Pig Iron, Jan moved to Kyoto, Japan, wherehe trained and performed for a year with a traditional JapaneseBunraku company, led by a seventh-generation puppeteer. His expo-sure to Asian performance forms at Swarthmore led Jan to take thisstep, which has deeply impacted his subsequent work.

During fall 2005, The Whitney Museum of American Art com-missioned an original performance work from Jan to inaugurate anew performance series at the museum called Whitney Live.

“I’ve always struggled to fit my interests and instincts into theidea of theater that prevails in the United States. I consider myself avisual, sound, and video artist, but it is the presence and possibili-ties of a live audience that has led me to focus on the theatermodel,” Jan says.

“I’m looking to foster cultural and educational development byserving as an example to Western artists and individuals currentlyintimidated by the region as well as opening the possibility of Cen-tral Asian artists touring in America or elsewhere,” he says.

“It is also my hope that collaborating artists, often traveling toIslamic countries for the first time,may be influenced by their expe-riences abroad in such a way that they are compelled to somehowbring these experiences into their work in the United States, therebyexposing American audiences to alternate, firsthand perspectives onthese countries.”

—Andrea Hammer

Theater of DiplomacyLARS JAN ’00 ENGAGES WESTERN AND ISLAMIC TENSIONS THROUGH DIRECT ARTISTIC EXCHANGE.

Lars Jan, founder of the MPG (www.mobileperformance.org), is

coordinating a 2007 performance trip through Central Asia.

ELEFTHERIOSKO

STANS

80: swarthmore college bulletin

Frederic Pryor is a polymath—an emer-itus professor of economics, prolificproducer of publications, politico, and

one-time political prisoner. He is alsoknown for his irreverent wit, such as hisfavorite one-liner, “An economist is some-one who sees something working in practiceand asks whether it would work in theory.”

Pryor came to Swarthmore in 1967 andretired in 1998. He taught comparative eco-nomics systems with a focus on communisteconomies in the Soviet Union, EasternEurope, and China; has been an economicconsultant in the Ukraine for the SorosGroup and in various African countries forthe World Bank and a research associate atthe Hoover Institution in California and theBrookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

As his subject matter vanished with thefall of communism, he found new paths tofollow. He has written 12 books and pub-lished more than 100 scholarly articles. Nowa senior research scholar, he has examinedsuch varied topics as the economies of reli-gions, those who are not working in oursociety and why, the possibility of wars overwater, and what it means to be humanthrough a comparison of human and non-human primate economies.

What did you learn about our species from yourprimate economics study?I learned that the differences between“them” and “us” were a lot less than I hadimagined. For example, species of non-human primates allegedly without sindeceive others in their group, giving distresscalls when they discover a tree with ripefruit, so that they can feast alone withoutothers coming by and sharing the harvest.This provides some useful evidence in thediscussions about human evolution.

What are you working on now?I'm working on a way of analyzing any kindof economic system from the most primitiveto the most advanced, using the same kindof framework. A beginning of this work isdescribed in my new book Economic Systemsof Foraging Agricultural and Industrial Soci-eties. Along these lines, I discovered thatgroupings of countries by their values arevery similar to groupings by economic sys-tem. This raises the question: Did the eco-nomic systems cause the values, or did thevalues cause the economic systems?

One natural experiment is the Germa-nies. If the economic system caused the val-ues, then you would expect the values of theEast Germans and West Germans to havebeen wildly different in 1990 because, for 45years, the East Germans had had a systemimposed on them while during that periodthe West Germans were able to select theirown economic institutions and laws. Itturns out that the values were practically thesame. This suggests that if people are able tochoose an economic and political system, itis the values that will determine what thesystem looks like rather than the system cre-ating the values.

How about your own household economics? Doyou balance the checkbook?Yes. My wife, Zora, is also an economist andcould do it too. One day, I'd like to do astudy of why the division of labor is so dif-ferent in different households. I'm in chargeof the lawn and heavy work, but I'm notallowed to work in the kitchen.My wife isCzech, and we are following the Czech divi-sion of household labor.

Tell me about your political career.In 2001, the head of Swarthmore's Demo-cratic Party asked me to run for judge ofelections. I've been elected twice. This is nota highly sought job, and my campaigns haveconsisted solely of cooking up slogans.Myfirst, right after the 2000 debacle, was “NoFloridas in Pennsylvania.” For my 2005

campaign, it was “He Had Pryor Experi-ence.”

Who is funnier, you or the late Richard Pryor?Richard. Through genealogical research, Ifound we might be related. One of myancestors had an estate in Lynchburg, Va.,and Richard's ancestors worked on a planta-tion there, where they took the owner's sur-name.

What would people be surprised to learn aboutyou?Most people don't know I was in an EastGerman prison. In September 1961, I was 27years old and working in West Berlin on mydissertation on communist foreign trade. Iwent to East Berlin to hear a speech by Wal-ter Ulbricht, then leader of the East GermanSocialist Unity Party. Afterward, I went tovisit the sister of a West Berlin friend to askwhether or not she had any message for meto deliver to her brother because telephoneconnections between East and West Berlinwere cut after the wall went up. But she was-n't there and coming down from her room-ing house, I was stopped by two secretpolicemen, the Stasi, who asked where I hadbeen. I said it was a wrong address, but theyarrested me. It turned out the woman I wentto visit had escaped from East Berlin. Theythought I was coming for her possessions. Itwas a mistake. I knew nothing, and I cer-tainly wasn't spying for anyone. For five-and-a-half months, I shared a cell that was6 paces long by 2 paces wide with anotherprisoner. I was released as part of a prisonerexchange on Feb. 10, 1962. In these kinds ofexchanges, everyone had two lawyers: a capi-talist lawyer and a communist lawyer. Mycommunist lawyer was also the lawyer forthe Russian spy Lt. Colonel Rudolph Abel.My capitalist lawyer was also the lawyer forAmerican U-2 pilot Capt. Francis Gary Pow-ers. So when the two lawyers were negotiat-ing between Powers and Abel, they tossed intheir common client, namely, me.T

Q + A

ENTER FRED PRYOR'S MULTIFACETED ECONOMIC VISION OF OUR WORLD.

By Audree Penner

The Pryor Experience

ELEFTHERIOSKO

STANS

ALUMNI COLLEGE: MAY 31–JUNE 2ALUMNI WEEKEND: JUNE 2–4

Come back, and see what's new.Come back, and see what you know and love.At Swarthmore College Alumni Weekend

June 2-4, 2006

No building on campus evokes more powerful memories of Swarthmore than Parrish. It is, physically and figuratively, the heart of thecampus, occupying a special place in the minds of alumni. A much-needed renovation was recently completed of the venerablestructure. Parrish will be rededicated during Alumni Weekend. Come back, and see Parrish poised for a new century.…The new science center sits on the edge of the Crum. Alice Paul Residence Hall, opened in fall 2004, nestles next to Mertz. Both are“green” buildings and bring new learning opportunities to Swarthmore students. Come back, and see our recent growth.…What you know and love are your friends, your memories, and reconnecting with the Swarthmore experience. That's what AlumniWeekend is all about. We're celebrating the return of classes who graduated in years ending in 1 and 6 and the Class of 2004—buteveryone is welcome. Come back to Swarthmore for Alumni Weekend 2006.

Note: To conserve resources, the AlumniRelations Office will mail the AlumniWeekend and Alumni College registrationforms in late March to members of classeswith reunions in 2006—class years endingin 1 or 6 and the Class of 2004 and allGarnet Sages—but everyone is welcome.

If you would like more information,contact the Alumni Relations Office at(610) 328-8402, or visit the Web siteshttp://alumniweekend.swarthmore.edu orhttp://alumnicollege.swarthmore.edu toregister on-line..

ALUMNI COLLEGEON CAMPUS 2006

May 31–June 2

Imagine No Religion Too?Re-envisioning the Future ofReligion in an Age of Conflict

IAN BRADSHAW

new orleans survi val of a gumbo culture - spring 2020 | swarthmore college...

Documents