The College Magazine Fall 2003

CollegeThe f a l l 2 0 0 3

S t . J o h n ’ s C o l l e g e • A n n a p o l i s • S a n t a F e

VirgilA n d t h e Pow e ro f L a n g u a g e

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Rosemary Harty, editorSus3an Borden, managing editor

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Advisory BoardJohn Christensen

Harvey FlaumenhaftRoberta Gable

Barbara GoyetteKathryn Heines

Pamela KrausJoseph Macfarland

Jo Ann MattsonEric Salem

Brother Robert Smith

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Laura J. Mulry, Santa Fe editor

Advisory BoardMichael Franco

David LevineAndra MaguranMargaret OdellGinger RohertyMark St. John

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O n V i r g i l

In the introduction to his celebrated verse translation of the Aeneid, Allen Mandle-baum acknowledges he came late to Virgil, having been influenced by other greatminds (Mark Van Doren and Samuel Coleridge among them) to think that Virgilwas less worthy of serious attention than others in the canon. Mandlebaum, whospoke at Santa Fe’s commencement this May, writes that Virgil often loses out inthe Homer-Virgil-Dante triangle, but he makes a case that Virgil’s poetic voice is

one worth listening to, something he discovered in the six years he worked on the translation.Virgil “speaks of a time of peace achieved, and no man ever felt more deeply the part of thedefeated and the lost,” writes Mandlebaum.

Publius Vergilius Maro was born near Mantua in Northern Italy in the year 70 BC. He wasthe son of a small farmer, but the family lands were confiscated by the Triumvirs, later restoredto Virgil, and then lost again. By this time, however, good connections—particularly his friend-ship with Octavianus, the future Emperor Augustus—gave Virgil status and financial means topursue the life of the poet.

Virgil’s first biographer, Aelius Donatus, writing in the fourth century, described him as“large in person and stature, with a swarthy complexion, a peasant’s brown, and uneven health,for he commonly suffered from pain in his stomach, throat, and head; indeed, he often spat upblood.” Because of his status with Augustus, Virgil had it made, says Donatus: “No matter whathe asked of Augustus, he never met with refusal. Every year he supported his parents with goldin abundance.” Like Homer, Virgil didn’t lack for detractors—including those who labeled himas a political opportunist or propagandist for Augustus. Donatus pictures Virgil as a carefulcritic and editor of his own work: “It is handed down that, while he was composing theGeorgics, he usually dictated a great number of verses which he had thought out in the morn-ing, and would, in revising them throughout the day, reduce them to a very small number...”Samuel Johnson recommended Virgil’s method to the writers of his time.

Virgil’s Eclogues, or Bucolics, completed in 37 B.C. in Rome, celebrate rural life, a theme he continued in the Georgics, completed in 30 B.C. Virgil next turned to the Aeneid, whichconsumed the last 10 years of his life. He died in Brindisi in 19 B.C., his plans to revise his workcut short. The story is that on his deathbed, Virgil ordered that the Aeneid be destroyed, but itwas saved from the flames and protected by Augustus—giving Romans more than a work of literature—an enduring hero and a national epic of a scale appropriate to their role in history.

In this issue of The College, we consider Virgil in the context of language, specifically Latin.The 1949 Bulletin of the college is a good document to consult if you want to understand a littleabout language and its place in the Program. That was the year Latin, originally part of Barrand Buchanan’s New Program and taught at the College for more than 200 years, was droppedto make way for two years of Greek.

Language, according to the Bulletin, is “man’s most intimate external possession. Thetrained language sense extends man’s imaginative powers. We therefore move on it with anorganized strategy. The effects are in sustained powers of imagination and therefore inincreased attention and powers of analytic thought.”—RH

{ C o n t e n t s }

CollegeThe f a l l 2 0 0 3V o l u m e 2 9 , I s s u e 3

T h e M a g a z i n e f o r A l u m n i o f S t . J o h n ’ s C o l l e g e A n n a p o l i s • S a n t a F e

p a g e 12Living LanguagesJohnnies in linguistics contribute tohuman understanding.

p a g e 16Johnnies and LatinSona si linguam latinam ames.

p a g e 18A Moment of GloryWhat goes into preparing commence-ment ceremonies in Santa Fe andAnnapolis? Plus, speeches, serious and light-hearted.

p a g e 22Santa Fe Comes HomeThe pioneering class of 1968 was amongthose returning to campus in July.

p a g e 24Hobbes in PrisonAlumnus Mark Lindley (A67) takes greatbooks discussions behind prison walls.

d e p a r t m e n t s

2 from the bell towers• John Balkcom Steps Down• An Extraordinary Gift• Tales from the Tour Guides• Making Room in Annapolis• Rankings, Ratings and Plaudits• Increasing Diversity• Sharon Bishop Leads Board

11 letters27 bibliofile28 alumni

P R O F I L E S

29 Lovejoy Duryea (A67) and the eidosof design

30 Tony Miller (class of 1961), Hot Wheels designer

37 Geoff Marslett (SF96), animator and college instructor

40 obituariesKitty Kinzer (AGI87)Jimmy Matthews (HA99)Vernon Derr (Class of 1948)

42 campus lifeGreat books authors provide croquet commentary

44 tutorsGrant Franks’ (A77) odyssey on Shadowfax

48 st. john’s forever

p a g e 1 2

p a g e 1 8

p a g e 3 8

o n t h e c o v e r

VirgilIllustration by David Johnson

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{ T h e C o l l e g e St. John’s College • Fall 2003 }

In early June, after much soul-searching, Santa Fe PresidentJohn Balkcom decided to stepdown, just short of three yearsin office. The college commu-nity responded to the newswith shock, dismay, and ques-tions—chief among them, whywould someone who seemed soperfect for a job walk awayfrom it?

But for Balkcom, a hugeweight was lifted from hisshoulders. After months offeeling that he wasn’t doing thejob he had hoped to do, hisdecision was firm, and he hadgained a measure of peace. Ashe met with Annapolis Presi-dent Christopher Nelson andSharon Bishop, chair of theBoard of Visitors and Gover-nors, Balkcom decided tospeak “plainly and truthfully”about his difficult choice.

“I simply said, ‘I don’t likethis job,’” Balkcom said. “Icould not see my way clear towhat I would find both excel-lent and satisfying. I could havegotten by and done enoughthings to be satisfactory, atleast in the minds of many, butI wouldn’t be satisfied with it.And that decision would lackintegrity.”

On September 1, Balkcom’sterm as the third Santa Fe president ended; AnnapolisPresident Christopher Nelsonbecame acting president andwill serve both campuses whilethe board launches a presiden-tial search.

To explain the state of mindthat led to his decision, Balk-com reaches for the analogy ofThe Ed Sullivan Show act inwhich a performer jugglesspinning plates. “I felt as if Ihad plates spinning on a lot ofpoles and I was dropping toomany of them,” he said. “Inrecent months, I didn’t have a

sense of gaining on the job.”A successful management

consultant who had risen topartnership in a major Chicagofirm, Balkcom was a popularchoice, particularly amongSanta Fe faculty who foundboth a scholar and an able busi-nessman in Balkcom. He hadearned a bachelor’s degree inphilosophy from Princeton andan MBA from the University ofChicago. After accompanyinghis daughter Rachel (alsoSFGI00) on a visit to St. John’sin Santa Fe, Balkcom becameintrigued with the college. Heenrolled first in the college’sSummer Classics program,then the Graduate Institute,and in 1995 joined the college’sboard.

Balkcom began his dutiessoon after his November 2000appointment. He won respecton campus by postponing hisinauguration ceremony, initial-ly scheduled for three daysafter the Sept. 11 terroristattacks. When the college lostits natural gas because of apipeline problem, he invitedstudents to his home, HuntHouse, to do their laundry.Students were drawn to hisfriendly manner and sincereinterest in them. By 2002, fac-ulty salaries were finally equal-ized with those of Annapolisand a campus master plan wasnearly complete this spring.But Balkcom felt a growingunease and frustration.

By way of an example, Balk-com describes a campus meet-ing that seemed interminable;every possible solution to whatBalkcom saw as a black-and-white issue was being analyzedand debated. “Why can’t wewrap this up?” he was thinkingto himself. “I came to see thatmuch greater patience is essen-tial for a president at St. John’s.

Students, faculty, staff—theseare not three bodies that auto-matically agree.”

An article in the Santa FeNew Mexican questionedwhether the college’s struc-ture, in which the dean is givenauthority over matters ofinstruction, rendered Balkcompowerless to make some impor-tant decisions. Balkcom firmlydismisses this idea, along withquestions about whether theManagement Committee struc-ture of the college or domina-tion by Annapolis contributedto his departure. This July,Balkcom was scheduled to takeover leadership of the Manage-ment Committee from Nelson.

Balkcom is pleased that inSanta Fe, the college hasenjoyed three straight years ofoperating surpluses, an accom-plishment he quickly shares

with Santa Fe Treasurer BryanValentine. He’s pleased thatthe Santa Fe campus has anexcellent advancement team,led by Vice President MichaelFranco, in place. There’s noquestion that the presidency isa challenging job. “It’s a hardjob, a complex job, a seven-day-a-week job, a thrilling job.There’s no question that it canbe done here and it can be donewell,” he says.

The hardest thing Balkcomhas to do, he says, is to walkaway from the students. He hasenjoyed his conversations withthem more than any otheraspect of his job. “The greatestsense of loss I have is withrespect to the students. I’veloved hanging out with them,going to dinners and waltz par-ties, I love going down to the

{ F r o m t h e B e l l T o w e r s }

Moving OnSanta Fe’s President John Balkcom, SFGI00, Steps Down

Carol and John Balkcom expect to remain involved in the life ofthe college.

continued on p. 3

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by Rosemary Harty

St. John’s College has received a $10 million gift from investmentfund manager Ronald H. Fielding of Rochester, N.Y., a 1970 grad-uate of the Annapolis campus and member of the college’s Boardof Visitors and Governors. It is the largest single gift from an indi-vidual in the college’s 300-year history.

Fielding, who built a $3 billion mutual fund group by ignoringWall Street conventions and persisting against the odds, hasdirected his gift to an endowment for need-based financial aid.“Part of the reason for this gift is to thank the college for havingprovided me with financial aid at a critical time in my life,” saidFielding. He has also remained grateful that the college’s rigorousprogram prepared him to succeed in business.“My St. John’s education has been invaluable in meeting my investment careerchallenges more than a quarter-century after completing businessschool,” he said.

The third of six children raised in a modest home, Fieldingbegan earning money delivering newspapers at the age of 7. He sethis sights on a prep-school education and won a nearly full schol-arship to the prestigious Putney School in Vermont. He hadapplied to four colleges, but passed over St. John’s because twoolder brothers (Richard, A66, and Robert, A68) attended. Thoughhe got into Reed College, his first choice, the financial aid Reedoffered fell short. So Fielding applied to St. John’s on his highschool graduation day. Already keenly ambitious, he spent a summer riding the train to Boston and working in a menial job atMIT, wondering about his future. He was greatly relieved whenhis acceptance letter, conveying a full-tuition financial aid pack-age, arrived from St. John’s.

Still, Fielding expected to transfer after his freshman year. Heapplied to Reed again and this time received enough financial aid.But by then, he had fallen in love with the Program. He stayed.

“It wasn’t a particular book or tutor. I was hooked on the learn-ing experience,” he explains.

Fielding came to St. John’s expecting to pursue a career in sci-ence, but reading Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations steered him tothe business world. After graduating from St. John’s, he went onto earn a master’s degree in economics and an M.B.A. from the

University of Rochester. Heworked in financial analysisand portfolio management inbanking before launching hisown enterprise, Fielding Man-agement Company, in 1982. He built from the ground up ahigh-performing bond groupthat caught the attention ofOppenheimerFunds Inc.,which bought his firm in 1996for an estimated $80 million.Fielding is now senior vicepresident and portfolio manag-er of OppenheimerFunds’municipal bond division.

In announcing his gift atthe July board meeting inSanta Fe, Fielding describeda conversation he had theprevious night with a Johnnie who was thinking about an invest-ment career. “I told him not to worry that he may lack certainpractical investment buzz words or operating tips. Ultimately theSt. John’s education is perfect in providing students with the men-tal tools to face new problems and provide logically sound solu-tions to issues and opportunities which only emerge after businessschool classes and texts are completed.”

Annapolis President Christopher Nelson (SF70) applauded hisformer classmate’s generosity. Nelson and Fielding both served onstudent government together, Nelson as president, and Fieldingas treasurer. Fielding’s gift is a promising start to the college’snext capital campaign, expected to begin in 2005.

“I think Ron has done what so many of us alumni wish we coulddo: give something meaningful back to the school that changedour lives,” Nelson said. “In his case, this extraordinary gift will inturn change the lives of many, many more to come.” x

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Ronald Fielding’s $10 milliongift makes a promising start forthe college’s next fund-raisingcampaign.

“An Extraordinary Gift” Alumnus Ronald H. Fielding Gives the College $10 Million

dining hall and just sittingdown and joining in their con-versations. I think they’re fascinating, engaging, brilliant,and fun.”

As of late summer, Balk-com’s next steps were undecid-ed. His wife, Carol, was com-mitted to completing her workas a volunteer coordinator ofthe Tecolote Group, an inde-pendent program for publicschool teachers created byTutor Steve Van Luchene andhosted by the Santa Fe campus;

for that reason, the coupleexpected to be in Hunt Housethrough September. Balkcomhad already received several jobinquiries by late summer,accepting none because heprefers to take time to read,think, and watch some of thebaseball movies (he’s been aCubs fan for decades) that werefarewell gifts from Nelson andthe board. He and Carolexpected to move back to theirhome in Evanston, Ill.

He has also offered to contin-

ue to serve the college by co-leading weekend seminars—such as the seminar he expectedto co-lead with Tutor MichaelRawn in late September withrepresentatives of the Santa FeInstitute and the Boston Con-sulting Group—and assistingwith fund-raising efforts. Heand his wife Carol will host areception for prospective stu-dents on Saturday, November 8,in the library she had built forhim during his last term in theGraduate Institute. He’s also

hoping to return to the G.I. inthe summer of 2004 to take thehistory segment.

Even though he has thedegree, Balkcom is still curi-ous, still eager to learn some-thing new, looking forward todiscussing great ideas with hisclassmates, and still committedto the board’s vision of assur-ing “this brilliantly conceivedsmall college” (a phrase he bor-rows often from Tutor Emeri-tus William Darkey) has anoth-er 300 years in its future. x

Balkcom

They don’t always wear sensibleshoes. They don’t dress formal-ly, wear t-shirts with the collegelogo, or pin on a name badge.But they are infinitely patientwith questions from prospec-tives, parents, and sometimespeople just passing throughtown on their way to a collegethey really plan to apply to.They’re diligent in respondingto querulous e-mail questionsand always give the honestanswer, not necessarily theviewbook line. They smile a lot.

This summer, on the Annapo-lis campus tour guide duties fellto Siobhan Aitchison, a risingjunior from San Diego, Calif.,and Roseanna White, a risingsenior from Wiley Ford, W.Va.In Santa Fe, rising senior JennaBeck, of Bishop, Calif., andMolly Wright, rising junior ofSt. Joseph, Mo., led tours. Eachgave at least a tour a day, travel-ing the same pathways anddescribing the Program forthree months in the summer. By August, they sounded a littleweary, but still managed enthu-siasm for Euclid, Barr andBuchanan, the Great Hall, andthe view of Monte Sol.

Here are some of their obser-vations:

Questions that indicateyou’ve got a lot ofexplaining to do:“So this is a liberal artsschool?” Siobhan

“Is this a liberal school?”Roseanna

“Is this a Catholic school?”Siobhan

“How do you decide what agreat book is?” Molly

“What do tutors do?” Roseanna

“What were your SAT scores?What was your GPA? It’s hard toexplain scores and grades andall the things from high schoolthat you leave behind when youcome to St. John’s.” Siobhan

“Some of them can’t fathom

that there are no electives.You’ll spend the whole tourwith them, talking about theProgram, and later on they’llask ‘what kind of visual artsclasses do you offer?’” Jenna

No. 1 parent question,hands down:“What are you going to dowhen you graduate?” Siobhan,Jenna

Brutal honesty:“I tell them the chairs areuncomfortable.” Roseanna

“Sometimes they will ask ‘whatdon’t you like about it here?’ Icould cite specific readings, butI also talk about why we can’t dothings like study abroad. Andit’s too small a community tooffer a really diverse experi-ence.” Jenna

“The brochures all make a bigdeal of there being no tests andthere is the music quiz and thealgebra quiz.” Roseanna

“And ‘no textbooks’—our labmanuals are like poorly boundtextbooks.” Siobhan

It’s not the heat, it’s thealtitude:“Some of them just can’t handlethe altitude in Santa Fe, so wedon’t always make it to the gym.I just point it out.” Jenna

You know you’ve lostthem when:“They don’t ask any questions.”Siobhan

“Their parents ask all the ques-tions.” Roseanna

“One girl just couldn’t get overthe math in the Program. Itried to tell her how I didn’tlike math, but how sophomoremath was beautiful. It’s not likehigh school math. But she justcouldn’t get over the math.Siobhan

“They won’t look you in theeye.” Roseanna

“The roughest tours are whenthe student isn’t really interest-ed and no amount of tellingthem how excited you are aboutthe Program will do any good.”Molly

When you know you’ll beseeing them at Convoca-tion:“When they say, ‘I’m applyinghere and nowhere else.’”Roseanna

“When they ask good, hardquestions about the Program.Those are the people who willmake the best students in semi-nar.” Molly

“When they ask, ‘is it really asgood as it sounds?’” Jenna

Most embarrassingmoment: “I fell down a flight of stairs dur-ing a tour of Santa Fe Hall. I justgot up and continued the tour.”Molly

“I had a tutor come up to mewhile I was giving a tour andask, ‘oh, is this your family?’”Roseanna

“I was giving a tour of the labsin Mellon Hall and describingthe Faraday experiment whereyou put your friends in a cageand electrify it. I couldn’t

remember Faraday’s name. Ithink I ended up saying, ‘thisguy.’” Siobhan

“I had an alumnus take over mytour. He just walked up to thegroup, started talking to themabout various hiking trails, allkinds of things. Then he trailedoff and I took the opportunity toend the tour.” Molly

Perks of the job:“I love the fact that I get to talkto people who are excited aboutthe Program.” Molly

“One woman gave me a bag ofjelly beans.” Roseanna

“The more I give tours, themore I appreciate what I’vedone here. No, I don’t remem-ber everything I did in freshmanlaboratory. But I realize how[the Program] has affected meand how glad I am that I camehere.” Siobhan

Strangest e-mails:“I had such fun with one e-mailthat asked whether we harborcreative, cutting-edge thinking.My first response was ‘what doyou mean by cutting edge?’ Theideas that are popular today orthe timeless ideas that are andalways will be cutting edge?”Jenna

“One person asked, ‘how do youtreat people with green hair?’”Siobhan x

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Above, tour guides Siobhan Aitchison and Roseanna White ledtours in Annapolis. Molly Wright and Jenna Beck shared theduty in Santa Fe this summer.

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Tales from the Tour Guides


New Faculty in Santa FeFour new tutors have joinedthe faculty of the Santa Fe campus:

DEBORAH GARFIELD

received a B.A. in English fromAgnes Scott College and aPh.D. from the University ofVirginia in 1990. Her disserta-tion was titled “EmersonianEros: Women, Privation andPower in the American Novel,”and she has a work in progress:“Alternative Origins: Ameri-can Culture, Female Narrativeand the Aesthetic of NewBeginnings, 1871-1936.”

JONATHAN HAND received aB.A. in political philosophyfrom Harvard University and aPh.D. from the Committee onSocial Thought at the Universi-ty of Chicago. His dissertationwas titled “Tocqueville’s ‘NewPolitical Science’ a CriticalAssessment of Montesquieu’sVision of a Liberal Modernity.”

ERIC POPPELE is a 1989 grad-uate of St. John’s College,Santa Fe. Poppele received amaster’s in environmentalengineering from the Universi-ty of Michigan, Ann Arbor, andis a Ph.D. candidate in civilengineering at the Universityof Minnesota, Minneapolis.His thesis is titled “The Cohe-sive Strength of Biofilms.”

A 1993 graduate of St. John’sin Annapolis, JOSEPH WALTER

STERLING pursued graduatestudies in the Department ofPhilosophy at Emory Universi-ty and expects to receive aPh.D. from Emory in the fall of2003. His dissertation is titled“Exigencies of the Political.”For the last four years, he hasbeen working as an adult learn-ing instructor for ProjectH.O.M.E., designing, imple-menting, coordinating, andteaching adult learning pro-grams, and integrating educa-tional services with specialneeds of homeless, mental

health, substance abuse, andlow-income populations.

In addition, Tutor MATTHEW

DAVIS has taken the post ofassistant dean in Santa Fe. A1982 graduate of St. John’sCollege, Annapolis, Davisholds a master’s from Dal-housie University and a Ph.D.in political science fromBoston College. x

Agresto to BaghdadFormer Santa Fe PresidentJOHN AGRESTO has been select-ed as senior adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Educationand Scientific Research. Heassumed his post in Baghdad inearly September. Americanoccupation authorities namedAgresto to the post of senioradviser, an 18-month assign-ment that could be extended.

Iraq’s former Minister ofHigher Education, who was No. 43 on a most-wanted listpublished by the United States,was captured earlier this year.

Agresto is also president ofAgresto and Associates, aneducational consulting firm.He served as president of theSanta Fe campus from 1990-2000. x

New Alumni DirectorRoxanne Seagraves (SF83) ofTucson, Ariz., has been nameddirector of Alumni Activitiesfor the Santa Fe campus,replacing Tahmina Shalizi,who stepped down last springto pursue other careeravenues.

In addition to her St. John’sdegree, Seagraves has a masterof divinity from the Starr KingSchool for the Ministry inBerkeley, Calif., and a Ph.D.from the Graduate TheologicalUnion, also in Berkeley. Mostrecently she served as a preven-tion specialist at a Tucson ele-mentary school, providingintervention and counselingsupport for students and their

families. She has extensiveexperience in various othercommunity-based and educa-tional organizations, havingheld key administrative roles insuch areas as public relations,fund raising, coalition-build-

ing, finance, and event plan-ning and execution.

Seagraves also has worked asa professional storyteller, free-lance artist, and stand-upcomic. She begins her new jobSept. 29. x

5{ F r o m t h e B e l l T o w e r s }

Announcements Aspiring Musician WinsCooke Scholarship

Junior TIMOTHY KILE is one ofonly 30 undergraduate studentsnationwide to land a Jack KentCooke Scholarship for under-graduate study.

Kile attended high school inAmherst, N.H. For three yearsduring and after high school, heplayed with a band called ArcadeFire and recorded an album oforiginal songs that received radioairplay. Kile also spent a yearstudying literature at McGill University in Montreal, but after asemester, he began to feel “thatthere were personal and philo-sophical questions I needed to

confront before beginning my life’s work of music.” Kile felt that only St. John’s College could offer him the contin-

ued personal challenge he seeks. He enrolled at St. John’s in SantaFe, where he spent two years. He transferred to Annapolis this fall.“In Santa Fe it’s outrageously, absurdly beautiful, but I’ve got theEast Coast in my bones,” he says.

In his essay for the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship, Kile wrote ofthe modern implications of the burning of the Library of Alexan-dria, discussing the destruction of the world’s single greatestarchive of knowledge in the context of the few remaining works ofPlato and Aristotle.

Why are the great books so important to someone who plans tomake music his life’s work? “The yearning that drove me to St. John’s to confront philosophical and personal questions isindistinguishable from my yearning to create meaningful music,”says Kile. During his first year at St. John’s, Kile received theaward for best freshman essay. An essay he wrote his sophomoreyear, “On Love, Knowledge, and the Shield of Law: Understand-ing the Book of Job,” netted Kile an acknowledgement of excel-lence at this year’s commencement exercises in Santa Fe. Whileholding a work-study job with buildings and grounds, Kile sangwith the St. John’s College Chamber Choir, participated in aHebrew study group, and played guitar and piano.

Although writing and playing music are still a part of his dailylife, Kile has cut back on performing. “St. John’s is a time commit-ment, much more than McGill. I often feel that the thing at stakein this education is my own life, as thinkers from Plato to Nietzscheconstantly force me to ask myself, what is the life that is worth living?” x

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Quaint 1BR apt. Walking dist.to City Dock. W/D, windowAC, gas heat. Modern int. in200 yr. old bldg. $895/mo

Quaint comes at a high pricethese days in Annapolis. Soar-ing property values mean high-er rents, apartments in the his-toric district are dwindling asproperty owners convert build-ings back to single-familydwellings, and even one-bed-room apartments in nearbysuburbs command rentsapproaching $1,000.

All this has meant more students in the spring housinglottery each year. About 60 stu-dents each year end up on thewaiting list for campus hous-ing. And as anyone who’s everbeen unlucky enough to share acramped triple in Humphreyscan attest, dorm space is tighton the Annapolis campus. Notonly have more doubles beenturned into triples, and singlesinto doubles, but commonspace also has been sacrificed

to make room for beds. The housing crunch prompt-

ed the Annapolis Campus Plan-ning Committee to kick newdormitory projects into highgear this year. In July, construc-tion began on the first of twonew dormitories on the lowercampus. The first will house 48 students; the second 32.After the completion of thefirst building, the college willbe able to house about 75 per-cent of the student body oncampus.

The new complex is situatednorth of the steam plant, paral-lel to College Creek. Intendedto alleviate another chroniccampus problem, a parkingstructure is the third compo-nent of the project. The totalcost of the project is about$20.3 million, including $2.7 million in renovations andupdates to existing dorms oncampus. Construction on thesecond dorm and parking struc-ture will begin when the collegehas raised enough funds to

complete the project, says SteveLinhard, assistant treasurer.

The dorm project also recog-nizes that housing more stu-dents on campus isn’t just amatter of economics: A com-munity of learning works betterif fewer students are heading totheir cars after seminar andFriday lectures, says AssistantDean Judith Seeger.

“Our students in this all-required program are here totalk to each other, and theylove to do so,” Seeger says.“Part of our job is to do all wecan to support their ongoingconversations.”

The new dorm will be thefirst new residence hall on the

campus since Campbell Hallopened in 1954, and the firstnew building since the Harri-son Health Center was com-pleted in 1971. The two-storybuildings each feature a spa-cious common area with com-munal kitchen, a combinationof single and double rooms,and a resident apartment. Baltimore architectural firmZiger/Snead has designed thebrick buildings to reflect boththe modern features of MellonHall and the colonial buildingson campus. x

Yes, we completely ignorethose who would rank us. Wedelete their e-mails, we with-hold data, we politely tell themwe don’t believe that rankingsreally serve students makingone of the most important deci-sions of their lives.

And yet they persist in sayingnice things about us.

In its annual college guide,U.S. News & World Report sin-gled out St. John’s to exemplifythe intellectual aspects of col-lege life. The three-page arti-cle titled “The Life of theMind” touched on all we at St. John’s hold dear: the valueof genuine dialogue, the inte-

grated nature of an all-required program, the powerof an opening question. Forthe better part of a weekreporter Dan Gilgoff immersedhimself in the culture of theAnnapolis campus, visitingseminars, labs, and tutorials.

In his article, Gilgoff con-cluded: “There’s no other placequite like St. John’s (exceptperhaps its sister campus inSanta Fe, N.M.). Yet its single-minded approach to academicsgives a window into the under-grad experience at the dwin-dling number of colleges wherethe life of the mind reignssupreme.”

Newsweek-Kaplan’s How toGet into College guide chose St. John’s as one of its “12Hottest Schools,” gracing thecollege with the label “MostOld-School.” (Reed got “mostquirky.”) Says the story: “Thecurriculum, with its focus onclassical education, is uniqueand relentless.”

Santa Fe was number 25 inOutside magazine’s “40 BestCollege Towns,” a feature inthe magazine’s Septemberissue. The high-desert locationand proximity of the mountainswere noted; the great bookscurriculum made it into thelast paragraph.

And our vote for mostquirky: The Princeton Review,which placed St. John’s atopthose academies that encour-age classroom discussion. x

New Dorms Slated for Annapolis

The first new dormitory in 50years will be ready next fall.

Of Rankings and RatingsWhat’s a Hot College to Do?

St. John’s was a top pick forseveral college guides thisyear.

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A new initiative to recruit moreminority students to the SantaFe campus is off to a good start.The percentage of minoritystudents, which has hovered atabout 10 percent every year,has risen to 17 percent, thehighest in the history of thecampus, says Larry Clendenin(SF77), director of admissionsin Santa Fe. Of this year’s fresh-man class of 142, 15 percent areminorities. Clendenin attrib-utes the increase to the Oppor-tunity Initiative, an effort todevote more resources torecruiting from among thestate’s minority students. Theinitiative is funded by a gift tothe college from a member ofthe college’s Board of Visitorsand Governors.

What the grant has given thecollege is more time to talk tostudents on New Mexico’sreservations, in small-townhigh schools, and at collegefairs. Among other expenses,the grant provides salary andtravel expenses for JoaquinBaca (SF95), assistant directorof admissions.

“One of the big challenges inNew Mexico is how spread outit is,” Baca says. For example,it’s nearly four hours to Gallupfrom Santa Fe, but last year,Baca was able to make threetrips to Gallup, one of thebiggest reservation highschools in the state, and severaltrips to smaller schools such asTohatchi and Pine Hill.

With a limited recruitmentstaff, it was more difficult to dofocused recruitment and fol-low-up in New Mexico, saysClendenin. Adding Baca to thestaff has meant six more weeksof recruitment time and at least20 more high school visits.

“We see in college fairs that90 percent of the Hispanic andNative American students gostraight to the state universitytables,” Clendenin says. “Our

job is to let students know whatthe Program is like and encour-age them to ask the right kindof questions.

Baca, of Hispanic origin, wasborn in Santa Fe and lived out-side nearby Espanola for mostof his adult years. “I know thatI feel very privileged to havebeen a student here,” saysBaca, whose family wasn’tenthusiastic about his seekinga liberal arts degree.

Baca’s convictions about the St. John’s Program tend to command attention. Recently,he was able to sit down to a feast with leaders of the JemezPueblo and discuss seminarsand great books. “One of thePueblo governors was an assistant dean at Stanford; hereally didn’t know much aboutSt. John’s,” Baca recalls. “Iguess he’ll still send some stu-dents to Stanford, but now Ithink he’ll be on the lookout forthe Native American studentswho would love St. John’s.”

Tutor Victoria Mora has alsobeen engaged in the diversityinitiative in Santa Fe. She metwith minority upperclassmento discuss how best to pursuerecruiting and retaining minor-ity students. With their inputand that of the dean, assistantdean, and Instruction Commit-tee, Mora fashioned an advis-ing program for all incomingfreshmen, a version of which isin place for this academic year.Mora has been involved in out-reach efforts to prospective stu-dents, parents, and New Mexi-co high school students. She’straveled as far as Tsalie, Ariz.,to involve alumni in spreadingthe word about the college.And this year she plans to stepup outreach efforts to highschool teachers, beginningwith Albuquerque, Bernalillo,and Santa Fe. “As a native NewMexican who didn’t hear aboutSt. John’s until two years into

an undergraduate degree at theUniversity of New Mexico, thisinitiative is very close to myheart,” says Mora.

In Annapolis, where minori-ty enrollment ranges from 6 to8 percent of the student popu-lation each year, the admis-sions office has pursued manydifferent avenues to present thecollege to more minority stu-dents. Some have been effec-tive, and others have yieldednot a single application, saysJohn Christensen.

“We’ve attended many fairsfor African-American studentsand joined many partnerships.For several years, we joined in apartnership with the NorthernVirginia public school systemand hosted groups of studentsas young as ninth grade to talkabout how to afford private col-lege and how to apply to col-lege in general. We never gotany response,” he says.

A promising avenue Chris-tensen is pursuing is the large,urban high school—particularlymagnet schools or preparatoryschools with highly motivatedstudents, an emphasis on theliberal arts, and diversity in thestudent body. He’s found suchschools in Louisiana, Philadel-phia, and Massachusetts, andhas been successful in bringingtheir graduates to St. John’s.Although no minorities wereamong them yet, he stillbelieves the audience is primedfor the college’s message.

“We think those places offerthe best forums to meet minor-ity students. And wheneverwe’re in a city, we’re trying tofind out if there are otherschools like that: diverse envi-ronments where students areinterested in the liberal artsand willing to go out of state tocollege,” he says. x

A spirited game of Spartan Madball during Reality Weekmarks the end of the spring semester in Santa Fe.

7



Admissions and Diversity, East and Westby Rosemary Harty

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{ F r o m t h e B e l l T o w e r s }8


“I Just Never Let Go”Sharon Bishop, A65, Leads St. John’s Board

For nearly 30 years, SharonBishop has been one of the mostcommitted and involved of St. John’s College alumni.

But had she been the type ofperson to hold a grudge, the college might have had to dowithout her service as a memberof the Board of Visitors and Governors, president of theAlumni Association, and now,chair of the BVG.

In the late 1960s, Bishop wasan underpaid social worker inthe city of Philadelphia. She had borrowed her way through St. John’s and was burdened byloans. Her employer paid forgraduate school, and Bishop waspreparing to apply to BrynMawr College.

“St. John’s would not releasemy transcript because I stillowed them about $500,” Bish-op recalls. “I tried to explainthat if I had the master’sdegree, I would make moremoney and be able to afford topay the college.”

The story has a happy ending:St. John’s accepted her repay-ment plan and sent out the tran-script. Bishop thrived in gradu-ate school, went on to asuccessful professional career,and helped establish an enor-mously successful consultingfirm, of which she is now vice-president.

She has never stopped givingback to the college since herfirst $1,000 donation, made assoon as her professional salaryallowed, in 1974. The followingyear, she was asked to run forone of six elected alumni posi-tions on the Board of Visitorsand Governors by an AlumniAssociation eager to draft morewomen for the board. In 1976,she attended her first boardmeeting. “When I was a stu-dent, I remembered thinkingthat the BVG were mostly old,rich people who would give thecollege money and it wasn’t

clear to me that they knew any-thing about the college. By thetime I got on the board I foundother alumni who were, alongwith non-alumni, deeply com-mitted to the welfare and well-being of St. John’s College as aninstitution.”

After earning her master’s,Bishop went to work for consult-ing firm Booz Allen Hamilton,where she became a principal. In 1983, she took a chance byleaving a well-established firmto join Gerald Croan in anenterprise he started in hisbasement in Northern Virginia.Their firm, Caliber Associates,has grown from just the two ofthem to more than 300 employ-ees, occupying six floors of anoffice building in Fairfax, Va.,and working for governmentagencies including the Depart-ment of Education and theDepartment of Justice, nonprof-its such as AARP, and privatefirms. “We do work in thechild/family/ community stud-ies arena, studies of child wel-fare systems, evaluations of pro-grams focused on juvenilejustice, and operate technicalassistance and training centersfor victims’ assistance pro-grams,” to name a few, Bishopsays.

Bishop is a good choice tolead the board at a time of tran-sition; she was involved inchoosing three presidents overher many years of service. In herinitial term as alumni represen-tative, 1976 to 1982, she servedon the search committee thatrecruited Edwin Delattre to thepresidency. In her 1985-90 termas a regular elected member, theboard voted for a two-presidentstructure. Bishop was a boardmember when Michael Riccardswas chosen president for SantaFe and William Dyal Jr. forAnnapolis. In 1992, she waselected president of the AlumniAssociation, a post she held

until 1998. She stepped downfrom the board in 2002 becauseof commitments at Caliber, thenagreed to return to the board asits chair earlier this year.

What motivates such commit-ment? “This absolute belief thatwhat you’re doing is worthwhileand needs to be done. It’s veryrewarding to work with reallyfine people on behalf of some-thing you care about.”

One of the helpful attributesBishop will bring to the board isan ability to “talk people intodoing what they don’t want todo,” says Ray Cave (A48), whojust finished his term as boardchair.

“About two years ago, Sharonand I were on the nominatingcommittee and it was time tolook for another chair. Sharonsaid, ‘Ray I think you’d be anideal chairman.’”

Cave firmly rejected the pro-posal. Bishop persisted, andCave became board chair. “Ifound myself saying, ‘all right,’and it was all her fault,” Cavesays.

Cave describes his successoras well-organized, skilled inmanaging people, and able tomake difficult decisions. “Shecame in at a very tough time,just when John Balkcomresigned. And to watch the wayshe handled that was to see whata good manager she is. She real-ly cares about people.”

Alumni should be pleasedwith the college’s board, Bishopsays, because about 60 percentof its members are alumni. Therich assembly of talent andexperience of BVG members hasalways impressed her.

“Ultimately, the board isresponsible to ensure the survival of the college,” saysBishop, “and the college is ingood hands.”

Bishop’s family would havebeen happy if she’d gone to college to be a teacher, but onceshe’d heard about St. John’s shesaw “this was the only worth-while thing to do.”

“The whole concept ofbeginning with Euclid and ending with Einstein, begin-ning with Plato and endingwith War and Peace—and it wasthe way it was done, the smallgroups, the seminars, the dis-cussions,” Bishop says. “Youwere to think for yourself. I justglommed on to St. John’s andnever let go.” x

Sharon Bishop chairs theBoard of Visitors and Gover-nors.

Presidential Search The Board of Visitors and Governors has appointed a searchcommittee to oversee selection of the next president of theSanta Fe campus. The committee is chaired by Michael E. Uremovich of Santa Fe, board member and Graduate Institutestudent. The committee comprises the deans of each campus,David Levine in Santa Fe, and Harvey Flaumenhaft in Annapo-lis; a faculty representative of each campus: Victoria Mora,Santa Fe, and Nancy Buchenauer, Annapolis; and four boardmembers: Thomas R. Krause (SFGI01), Robert Bienenfeld(SF80), Mikael Salovaara, and Julia Wilkinson (HSF94). x

by Rosemary Harty

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{ P h i l a n t h r o p i a }

Learning and community. Wisdom and fun. These are thelegacies of the 2003 seniorclass. In Santa Fe, 65 seniorscontributed $3,459 to build anadult swing set near the newStudent Activities Center. InAnnapolis, 64 seniors con-tributed $6,100 for the digitalre-mastering and transcriptionof classic lectures that now existonly on audiotape.

The Senior Class Gift is oneof the ways that Philanthropia,the alumni organization dedi-cated to alumni fund raising,increases awareness of the col-lege’s needs among youngeralumni. Class Gifts introducestudents to the opportunity tosupport St. John’s and seniorscarry that sense of philanthropywith them after graduation.

Marguerite Pfoutz, a memberof the Senior Class Gift Commit-tee in Santa Fe, says that ErinHanlon (SF03) supplied the ideafor the swing set. “She wanted tohave a playground that would besuitable for tutors’ children sothat we could build stronger

bonds as a community,” saysPfoutz. “And it’s also been alongstanding tradition to drivearound Santa Fe looking forswingsets in parks to play on. Weneed to exorcise—and exercise—our demons.”

Pfoutz says she wishes theplayground had existed duringher years at St. John’s, but vowsto come back to play on it as analumna. Right now she’s apply-ing to the Peace Corps andhopes to teach elementaryschool at the British EducationalInstitute International in theSudan while her application isprocessed.

Alexander Wall chaired theAnnapolis Senior Class GiftCommittee. The idea for thetranscriptions came from hisexperience listening to tapes ofold lectures. “I’ve taken themout and some of them are in ter-rible condition,” he says. “Butthose that were already tran-scribed were very useful. It’snice to hear what someone hasto say about a book that isn’tbeing read in seminar.” Despite

their questionable audio quali-ty, Wall managed to listen to anumber of lectures by LeoStrauss as well as several on theGorgias, the topic of his senioressay.

When he told his classmateshis idea for the gift, the responsewas overwhelming. “It was niceto see how excited everyone gotabout giving something back toSt. John’s,” Wall says. “Everyonewanted the gift to be somethingthat would show how St. John’shad helped them in their learn-

ing, how they cared about theProgram. Most people thoughtthat the library was key to theirtime at St. John’s and they likedthe idea of giving a gift to thelibrary that was a bit more indi-vidual than just giving money forbooks.”

The time Wall spent strug-gling with the poor audio of thetapes seems to have paid offbeyond its intrinsic value. He isnow enrolled in a Ph.D. programin political philosophy at Har-vard University. x

College financial reports can beconfusing to the uninitiated.There’s tuition—more than$27,000 this year. There’s theendowment. There are wonder-ful gifts, like the $10 millionfrom Ron Fielding (A70) forfinancial aid endowment. Thereare expenses like building proj-ects, tutor salaries, and finan-cial aid. A key component in thetotal picture is the AnnualFund, the money raised fromalumni, friends, and parentsthat is used to help meet annualexpenses in the college’s oper-ating budget. Tuition coversabout 70% of what it costs torun the college. The rest of themoney comes from interest onthe endowment, federal and

state programs, and the AnnualFund.

During fiscal year 2003(which ended June 30), evenin the face of a tough and

uncertain economy, St. John’salumni, friends, and parentssupported the college’s AnnualFund. The college met itsAnnual Fund goal of $2.148million—which constitutesabout 6% of the operatingbudget for the campuses.

The college received morethan 2,700 alumni gifts, mean-ing that 34% of alumni support-ed the college this year. That isan all-time high for one year andthe most significant indicator ofthe future health of St. John’s.For the first time, St. John’s is

approaching the gift levels ofother liberal arts colleges likeSwarthmore, Oberlin, andFranklin and Marshall, wherearound 40-60% of alumni makea gift every year.

Philanthropia, the group ofalumni volunteers who areworking to increase financialsupport for the college amongtheir peers, has emphasized theimportance of the alumni par-ticipation rate. When the groupbegan in 1997, St. John’s alumniparticipation rate was 19%. “Itwas clear that alumni feltstrongly about the college, but

they weren’t demonstratingthat,” says Barbara Goyette(A73), vice president foradvancement in Annapolis.“The Philanthropia volunteershave worked hard to make con-nections with their classmatesand to deliver messages aboutthe college. What many peopledon’t realize is the importanceof participation. This couldeven be explained in Aris-totelian terms: When an alummakes a gift to the AnnualFund, it is the actualization of apotential positive force, carry-ing the college forward.” x

How Aristotle WouldExplain the Annual Fund

Senior Class Gift

Visitors to the Peterson Student Center might think they’vestumbled across George Plimpton asleep in a wing chair, butthis new addition to the Santa Fe campus is actually a sculp-ture by J. Seward Johnson. Johnson’s remarkably lifelikesculptures of ordinary people doing ordinary things gracemany American cities. Johnson’s son, J. Seward Johnson III, isan alumnus of the class of 1993. This piece, “After Lunch,”was donated to the college by Mr. and Mrs. Rick Levin, residents of Santa Fe.

10


When Hans von Briesen Jr.came to St. John’s College, hewas already a man with animpressive—if unusual—history.He held a Ph.D. from the Uni-versity of Rochester in physics;had taught at Stanford, theUniversity of Rochester, andNortheastern University;served as treasurer and coordi-nator of the Lama Foundation(a spiritual community andeducational center in NorthernNew Mexico); and worked as ajourneyman plumber and gas-fitter. In 1979 he overcame hisunease with academe to leaveplumbing and accept the posi-tion of director of laboratoriesin Santa Fe. When he retiredthis spring, he left to us inSanta Fe a legacy of trust, inge-nuity, and excitement in thelaboratory.

Hans says he didn’t feel itwas his place to make anychanges to the laboratory pro-gram, but it’s widely acknowl-edged that the program devel-oped significantly during histenure. He computerized thelab manuals so he could makeadditions and corrections assoon as the tutors requestedthem. He tapped his plumbingexperience to fix equipmentand reinforce the value of“recycling” in the scientificmethod. “His 24 years as labsupervisor have made my as-many years as a lab tutor

purely pleasurable,” says tutorGlenn Freitas. “He has takenconstant great care to developbetter and better practica [andalso] develop experiments anddemonstrations that were rele-vant and powerfully related tothe textual arguments of theclasses.”

Nowhere else on the Pro-gram do students, whetherassistants or class members,receive this kind of hands-onlearning. “He opened up a newworld of problems—and I meanthat in a good way,” says DevinKing (SF03).

Perhaps the most significantdevelopment that Hans madeto the lab program wasthrough relationships with stu-dent laboratory assistants.When he came to St. John’s,Hans increased the number ofassistants and added to theirresponsibilities, providing fora richer experience for those ofus fortunate to be named labo-ratory assistants. Under histutelage, we gained knowledgeand experience from those whohad come before us; we thenpassed that knowledge along tothe students who followed us inthese positions. This traditioncalls for an exchange of ideasthat is integral to the Programand essential to the laboratoryassistantship.

On a more practical level,Hans was the man who couldhelp us fix anything. If we hadit, he knew how it worked andwhere to find it. Rumor has itthat among tutors his notes area valuable commodity. Butdespite being “the man with allthe answers,” he put an amaz-ing amount of trust in us, hisstudent workers. He let uswork out our own problems,even if that meant a certainamount of frustration and evenpain (largely mental pain, ifoccasionally a bit of physicalpain). These are the most valu-

able lessons thatstudent enthusi-asts of the St. John’s labswill ever learn.

Cobalt Blue(SF92, EC97)reminded methat the amountof faith thatHans puts in hisworkers inspiresthem to workharder. We wantto finish jobs andsolve more prob-lems than we ever would if hehadn’t believed in our ingenu-ity, creativity, and diligence.Hans realized that if he putresponsibility in our hands, wewould inevitably meet any chal-lenge. As a student, this willalways be the way I think of andremember Hans von Briesen.

I love the St. John’s Pro-gram, and one of the biggerreasons is the opportunity I’vehad to be a laboratory studentand work as an assistant undersuch a director. Hans symbol-

izes so much of what the labprogram is, from freshmanbiology to senior genetics,from cat dissections to theblender experiment. I willalways remember the crazywhite hair, the strict recyclingpolicy for equipment, and theplumber’s ingenuity thatdefined my own career as stu-dent, assistant, and head fresh-man assistant. x


Hans von Briesen: A Tribute

More Santa Fe retirements:GLENN FREITAS joined the college in 1969, bringing with him a background in Biblical studies and a mastery of Greek, Latin,French, and German. An early supporter and participant in theEastern Classics program, he spent five summers learning classi-cal Chinese. He served as assistant dean for three years and acting dean of the college for one year. His favorite author isMontaigne.

A tutor since 1985, ROBERT RICHARDSON earned a doctorate at Yale. After directing and teaching in university programsdesigned to foster thought about ethics and technology in engi-neering and science, he left academics and worked as a carpenterand milk tester for many years before coming to St. John’s. Hestill writes about farming, enjoys writing fiction, and indulges in golf.

RALPH SWENTZELL came to the college in 1966. He put togeth-er junior mathematics and sophomore music tutorials, and wascrucial in forming senior math and laboratory curricula. About10 years ago, he scanned every character in Mathews’ ChineseDictionary to prepare a computerized lexicon that even begin-ners could use. x

Megan Sielken and Hans vonBriesen on the Santa Fe campus.

by Megan Sielken, SFo3

Hans realizedthat if he put

responsibility inour hands, we

would inevitablymeet any challenge.

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{ T h e C o l l e g e St. John’s College • Winter/Spring 2002 }

{ L e t t e r s }

Greenhouse PictureTells A Second StoryThe College Spring 2003 report,“Community Building in SantaFe,” has two texts—the articleand the photograph. Both meritcareful attention to what is saidand not said.

Without saying whether thegreenhouse used pressure treat-ed lumber or might have, thearticle creates its ideologicalstrawman by asserting withoutevidence that “one piece of pres-sure treated lumber…representsa significant expense of petrole-um in the course of its harvest,transport, milling, delivery andinstallation.” “Communitybuilding” is the virtuous alterna-tive, the implication being nouse of petroleum. Certainlykudos go to the volunteer labor-ers and the sense of communitydeveloped along the way.

I assert, equally without spe-cific evidence but with longknowledge of economics andmanufacturing, that petroleumexpense in timber production,pressure treated or not, is muchless than trivial on a per piecebasis.

Then there are the questionsimplied by the story and the pho-tograph. Was the local timberharvested and the boards andpillars cut without power tools?Was it taken to the college with-out using petroleum? My guessis that recycling the glassrequired heat, efficient produc-tion of which typically involvespetroleum, natural gas or coal.Or was the heat generated usingwood, an inefficient source?

Further clues appear in thephoto. The roof is metal, pro-duced most likely by a firmorganized as a corporation. Sky-lights typically are plastic ofsome sort, which means madefrom petrochemicals, a big com-pany product.

More information comes froma quick visit to the greenhouse.The door fixtures look quite con-ventional, meaning they weremade by a corporation (that cap-italist word, again) and perhapspurchased from a big box build-

ing materials retailer of the sortthat provides large selection forlow prices. Did the communitybuilding team walk or ride abicycle or horse to the retailer tobuy the door fixtures or did theydrive? The same questions applyto the screws holding the build-ing together. The bricks on thefloor appear manufacturedrather than formed by hand.

My conclusion is that theproject used economically effi-cient high production technolo-gy when convenient and trashedtechnology and economic effi-ciency when convenient, a situ-ational morality worthy of aseminar.

Annoying as are the smug,precious, ideological assertions,a bigger problem lies in theappearance of such a rampantlypolitically correct tract mas-querading as a straight report ina college publication. Throughthe publication, the college ineffect embraces the ideology,something I hope wasn’t on pur-pose. The greenhouse is a wor-thy project, perhaps possibleonly with volunteer labor. Astraight tale would have beennice.

Harold Morgan (SF68)

Praising BrannThis letter heartily seconds thepraises sung in BarbaraGoyette’s review of Eva Brann’sHomeric Moments (“Rediscov-ering Homer,” Spring 2003).Ms. Goyette qualifies her apt

review with two somewhat self-effacing disclaimers: that she“can’t do an honest review”because she so much admiresthe author’s intellect and imagi-nation; and, as an “insider”employed by the college, is ren-dered incapable of giving an“honest appraisal.” She neednot have been so diffident abouther commendation of the highachievement, and thoroughlycharming qualities of HomericMoments. As an alumnus whowas a student of Ms. Brann’s,with more than 40 years offriendship following, I toomight disqualify myself as abiased “insider.” I have, howev-er, been privileged to reviewbooks of Ms. Brann’s in publica-tions other than those of thecollege (e.g., What, Then, IsTime?, reviewed in 28 Interpre-tation 173, Winter 2000-2001)without such trepidation. Hav-ing been instructed by Aristotleduring my student days that“while both are dear, pietyrequires us to honor truth aboveour friends” (NichomacheanEthics, I, 6), I have not beenshy—when I thought it conveyedsome truth—to criticize, forexample, hardships encoun-tered in some of Ms. Brann’swriting. Homeric Moments, onthe other hand, is simply as deli-cious a work as a lover of Homermight wish. It not only refreshesdelights experienced from priorreadings of the Iliad andOdyssey, but through recollec-tions stimulated by Ms. Brann’snovel survey, it exquisitelyexpands those pleasures by itsexploration of Homer’s mostsupernal points of light anddark; passion, pathos, andtragedy; lyricism and drama;comedy; and complex humanity.With Homeric Moments, EvaBrann has given us as much ofthe poetry of reading Homer, asanyone is ever likely to offerreaders in one compact volume.

Harrison Sheppard (class of 1961)

The Tutors Who Stayed The Winter 2003 issue of TheCollege, page 32, refers to John

Kieffer as “one of only twotutors who remained at the col-lege after the New Program wasinstituted in 1937.”

There were more than two:Mr. Kieffer, of course, was one.Two others were my tutors dur-ing my freshman year (1941-42):Ford K. Brown (mathematics)and Tench Tilghman (Greek). I am almost positive that Mr.Brown had been on the St. John’s faculty for many years.My recollection about Mr. Tilgh-man is less clear, but the person-al sketch about him on the jack-et of his The Early History of St. John’s College in Annapolissays that “from 1934 to 1942[he] was an Instructor in Englishand later tutor at St. John’s.”

…The following appears onpage 28 of J. Winfree Smith’s ASearch for the Liberal College:The Beginning of the St. John’sProgram: “Some of the facultyleft right away, some stayed for afew years, and four continued tothe end of their teachingcareers: George Bingley, a math-ematician; Ford Brown, a formerRhodes Scholar and an authorityon the Evangelicals in theChurch of England; RichardScofield, another Rhodes schol-ar who had previously taught artand English and very quicklyproved the breadth of his inter-est and ability by the excellenceof his teaching within the newprogram; and John Kieffer.”

Edward W. Mullinix (class of 1945)

The College welcomes letters onissues of interest to readers. Letters may be edited for clarityand/or length. Those under 500words have a better chance ofbeing printed in their entirety.

Please address letters to: The College Magazine, St. John’sCollege, Box 2800, AnnapolisMD 21404 or The College Magazine, Public RelationsOffice, St. John’s College, 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599.

Letters can also be sent via e-mail to: [email protected].

“The greenhouseis a worthy

project, perhapspossible only with

volunteer labor. A straight tale

would have been nice.”

{ J o h n n i e s o n L a n g u a g e }12


Some 50 years after his familyhad left Germany, WalterKissinger was asked why hedid not share his famousbrother Henry’s heavy German accent. “I,” he

replied, “am the Kissinger who listens.”—from www.anecdotage.com

This bit of linguistic legend is well known to Jim Stone (class of1955). During his 33-year career working with State Departmentlanguage training for government employees, the linguistic ten-dencies of Henry Kissinger were often a source of speculation forhim and his colleagues.

“When we were thinking about how to evaluate language skills,we thought about different odd cases. Kissinger was an extremecase; his brother speaks ordinary American. I think he has chosento maintain that German-professor style to a great extent,” saysStone. “People do, consciously or unconsciously, choose theirstyles to fit in where they want to fit in. I know Southerners whohave carefully moved away from their Southern accents and otherswhose accents have gotten stronger and stronger from year to year.It’s a matter of displaying your allegiance.”

Linguist Mark Mandel (A69) is personally familiar with this phe-nomenon:

“My daughter, who is in literary criticism and is very language-conscious, asked me a number of years ago, with some apparentannoyance, why I seemed to change my language into a much moreguy-style in certain situations like at gas stations. I explained that

language does many things; it is not just to convey information. Wealso use it to express concepts of affiliation: ‘I’m a member of this,not that. I’m better than you, you’re better than me. I’m like you,I’m not like you.’ Those are the uses you hear when I unconscious-ly or half-consciously change my style when I go into the gas stationand ask the attendant to check the oil.

“Every native speaker of a language uses many different stylesand registers them fluently, but they’re not always aware that theydo,” says Mandel. “A lot of what linguistics involves is analyzing,making explicit, understanding, and systematizing the tacit knowl-edge we have as native users of languages.”

Mandel’s current project, biomedical information extraction forthe Linguistic Data Consortium, demands such analysis. Mandeland his team are developing a suite of computer programs that willread an abstract or full-text article in electronic form to extractfacts that will be placed into databases in a uniform format thatresearchers can query. The project’s Web site (www.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/ITR) gives this example:

We want a program that will read a phrase likeAmiodarone weakly inhibited CYP2C9, CYP2D6, and CYP3A4-mediated activities with Ki values of 45.1—271.6 ?M

and add to a database a set of entries whose ordinary-languagepresentation is

amiodarone inhibits CYP2C9 with Ki=45.1—271.6amiodarone inhibits CYP2D6 with Ki=45.1—271.6amiodarone inhibits CYP3A4 with Ki=45.1—271.6

That example manages to both clarify and mislead. While it aptlydefines the project’s goal, it hides the complexity of the endeavor.“In order to get the relationships between items in a database, youneed to understand sentences, know what words are. You need to

L I V I N G

L A N G U A G E SAt St. John’s we spend four years talking, reading, and writing.

What more can we do with words? Four Johnnies discuss their work with language.

By Sus3an Borden, A87


know syntax, shallow semantics, syntactic annotation,” says Man-del. “Native speakers, and I include signers in that category, areconstantly applying a zillion kinds of real-world knowledge tospeech. This ranges from assuming that my friend knows where Ilive when I give directions as if starting from my house, to knowingthat ‘bush,’ if it is the first word of a sentence, is likely to be a pub-lic figure rather than a shrub, although that was not the case 50years ago.”

Stone adds to the complexity that Mandel describes, pointing outthat linguistic knowledge extends beyond written and spoken lan-guage. He describes elements of communication that aren’t—orshouldn’t be—spoken.

Stone recalls, for example, Vienna-born tutor Viktor Zuckerkan-dl, whose sense of conversational space was so different from hisown WASP sense that the esteemed tutor once backed Stone all theway through the coffee shop in the course of a conversation.

He recounts a situation he encountered more than once duringhis numerous visits to India: “I’ve seen Indians really blow upabout our thank-yous: ‘These Americans, they keep thanking me!What do they think I am? What’s wrong with them?’ They find ourthank-yous really offensive and I’ve never been able to find out why.It’s something so basic in their culture that it’s hard to verbalize, a

kind of behavior that’s so offensive they couldn’t mention it. “The gestures that are obscene in one culture are ordinary in

another. From the Middle East all through India, you can’t pointthe sole of your shoe at anybody, that’s filthy, the whole room willbegin to squirm.”

Stone has encountered cultural taboos on a number of commu-nication practices: making comparisons between people, engagingin role-playing, even smiling. And he’s managed to break some ofhis own taboos in order to enter other cultures: “When I was inLibya I found I had to hold hands with men. Two men walking downthe street in conversation hold hands. I tried putting my hand in mypocket or carrying something, but the Arabs I was with would getvery uncomfortable. One day the ambassador saw me crossing theplaza holding hands with the commanding general. He didn’t knowwhat to think about that.”

While Stone crossed cultural barriers by following the customs ofother countries, Michael Sloper (SF79) seeks to bridge these barri-ers through language itself.

In the summer of 1990, Sloper was about to embark on a careerin international teaching. His first stint would be two years in Israeland he planned to follow with a number of two-year stints in coun-tries around the world.

“Linquistic knowledge extends beyond written and spoken language.”

Jim Stone, class of 1955

Does the language used at St. John’s changeaccording to the class? In seminar, studentstend to convey their points seriously andwith conviction.

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“When I was preparing for the job, I decided that two yearswould not be enough to learn Hebrew, and then the next two yearswould not be enough to learn Japanese. Instead of getting a littletaste of this and a little taste of that, I thought, ‘There are Esperan-to speakers in Israel and Japan and Brazil. If I’ve got an interna-tional job, I should learn the international language.’”

Sloper took an intensive three-week Esperanto class at SanFrancisco State University before he went to Israel. At his firstmeeting with the Esperanto club in Tel Aviv, he found out hecould converse, albeit not deeply or profoundly, about anythingand everything.

“You can learn as much Esperanto in a year as Spanish or Frenchin four years,” he points out. “What ifeverybody in the world took a semes-ter or a year of this international lan-guage? It makes incredible sense tohave a common language for diplo-mats and tourists, even if you don’tmaster it.”

Sloper’s stint in Israel ended earlywhen he was sent back to the U.S. atthe start of the first Gulf War. Back inSan Francisco, he was taking another

Esperanto class when he learned that the Esperanto League forNorth America was looking for a director. Sloper put in his applica-tion and was chosen for the job. He spent every day of the nextseven years speaking and writing in the language. Part of his workwas encouraging the United Nations to adopt Esperanto as itsofficial language.

The U.N. seems a perfect fit for Esperanto. With six official languages and more than 400 interpreters and translators, logistics could be greatly simplified and costs reduced if Esperantowere adopted. Sloper cites other benefits. “So much of politics hap-pens outside of official chambers where you can’t have interpreters;you need to have a common language.”

And, Sloper adds, there are advan-tages to official conversation in a lan-guage that is native to no one: “Whenyou’re speaking a language that does-n’t identify you as a member of anation, you treat your fellow man as amember of the human race.

“The inventor of Esperanto,Ludovic Zamenhof, created a word—homaronismo—which means, basical-ly, member-of-the-human-race-ness.In tutorials, the language is often looser, as students

focus on understanding.

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“It makes incredible sense tohave a common language...”

Michael Sloper, SF79

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This word expresses a philosophical concept that says that any per-son’s identity is, most profoundly, as a member of the human race.

“If people had access to tools to get beyond nationalism, theworld would be a much happier place,” Sloper says. “Every utter-ance in Esperanto is advocacy for putting aside nationalism, andrecognizing that internationalism is the path to peace.”

It is the path of war, however, that linguist Anne David (A86)sometimes uses to reconstruct the languages she studies. Her field,historical linguistics, traces the changes in languages through warand peace, conquest and trade, enmity and amity to determine thecommon roots of related languages.

Historical linguistics, David explains,began at the end of the 18th century whenthe English tried to impose their law onparts of the Indian culture. Knowing thatthe best way to impose the law would be tomeld it with the culture, an English judge,Sir William Jones, learned Sanskrit so hecould study the laws of Manu, an ancientSanskrit law book that helped form the basis of Hindu law. Jameswas also well versed in Greek and Latin, and as he studied, he sawtoo many similarities between Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin to believethey were coincidental.

A whole field of linguistics sprang from his observations, andsince then, linguists have attempted to establish a system of corre-spondences among certain language families (including Indo-Iran-ian, Hellenic, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Albanian, Celtic, Italic, andGermanic) that connects them to their original form. The hypothe-ses of what that original form was is called the Indo-EuropeanHypothesis, and historical linguists have spent the last 200 yearsfilling in the blanks in that system.

David’s work is with the Dravidian languages of South Asia,which include Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada—about 24major languages that go back at least 1,000 years. The DravidianLanguage Hypothesis, which came out soon after the Indo-Euro-pean Hypothesis, is way behind in filling in its blanks. David madeher contribution to the Hypothesis with her doctoral dissertationon infinitives in Dravidian. “A typically esoteric linguistic disserta-tion,” she says of the work, which she successfully defended in1999, earning her a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

After four years away from formal academia (she’s raising twodaughters—Guenevere, 8, and Rosalind, 4—with her husband, St. John’s tutor Amirthanayagam David, A86), David recently wona grant from the American Institute of Indian Studies for furtherwork in Old Tamil. She and her daughters are now in Madurai, inSouth India, for six months as the first part of a project to study OldTamil verb forms in poetry. “Poetry tells us more about how thelanguage sounded,” she says. “Shakespeare tells us things aboutElizabethan English that prose wouldn’t tell us.”

There are about 32,000 extant lines of poetry in Old Tamil, aswell as long commentaries—five lines of poetry might generate twopages of commentary. Her time abroad, therefore, will mainly bespent gathering texts and reference books, and consulting withregional scholars. Her trip will also help her gain a sense for thearea’s geography.

In historical linguistics, David says, texts and spoken words onlytell part of the story—history also yields some clues. “You need anawareness of who lived next to whom and their interactions overthe years. Who was the conqueror, who was conquered? Who wasthe slave and who was the master? These are among the externalfactors that affect how language changes.”

These historical changes, David explains, gives the world Pid-gins and Creoles: languages that arise when people who don’tspeak a common language are thrown together and create a newlanguage.

“Adults in these situations speak just tomake do,” David says. “They don’t use a lotof vocabulary or form a full-fledged lan-guage. They speak what we call a Pidgin. Butthe next generation, their children, speak afull-fledged language, which we call a Creole. They can’t make do with the limitedPidgin language. It’s not sufficient for theirlinguistic needs.”

The natural linguistic needs and abilities of children are the sub-jects of both science and legend. “I saw a great slogan: ‘childrencatch languages the way they catch colds,’ ” says Mark Mandel.“When we’re born, we’re language-learning machines. Learningour native language is not something we learn in the way we’re usedto thinking about learning. Any American first grader, with theappropriate caveats, knows more English than any adult can learnof English in two years, or maybe in six or seven years.”

As for second languages, Mandel says, “if a second language islearned through immersion, as in the case of an immigrant familythat speaks its family language at home, the child will grow up com-pletely bilingual.”

Which brings us back to another linguistic legend:Shortly after nominating Henry Kissinger as his secretary of

state, President Richard Nixon met with his Israeli counterpart,Golda Meir. Both leaders, Nixon observed, now had Jewish for-eign ministers. “Yes,” Meir replied, contemplating Kissinger’sheavy German accent. “But mine speaks English.” x

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“When we’re born, we’renatural language

machines...”Mark Mandel A69

READING LISTThe Loom of Language

by Frederick Bodmer and Lancelot HogbenOn Language: Chomsky’s Classic Works Language andResponsibility and Reflections on Language in One Volume

by Noam Chomsky, Mitsou Ronat Course in General Linguistics

by Ferdinand De Saussure, et alThe Story of Language by Mario PeiThe Language Instinct by Stephen PinkerSpoken Soul by John Russell Rickford and

Russell John RickfordThat’s Not What I Meant: How Conversational Style Makesor Breaks Relationships by Deborah Tannen

{ T h e P r o g r a m }16


Christine Kalkavage, visiting tutor, freely acknowl-edges that as far as languages go, ancient Greek washer first love. “I always loved reading the Odyssey inGreek,” Kalkavage says. Latin came second—anequally thrilling and rewarding relationship—but if

she had to choose, Homer wins out over Virgil, hands down.But here is Kalkavage on a summer morning, leading a group of

erstwhile students through a kind of Latin boot camp. Eight weeksof Latin, three days a week, four hours a day. A mix of graduate stu-dents, recent graduates, and undergraduates, the class is translat-ing sentences about women with torches, lazy sailors, and enragedqueens. Their textbook, Moreland and Fleischer’s Latin: An Inten-sive Course, is aptly named. It features a punishing set of exercisesthat this group has been working through daily after shifts atrestaurants and other summer jobs.

“There are a slew of these sailors in these exercises,” Kalkavageacknowledges, but she reminds the class that a great reward awaitsthem. “We’re going to be reading the Aeneid in six weeks.”

Among the students is Hayden Brockett (A04), whose notebookbears the signs of many erasures and corrections. Why is he, afterjust completing a rigorous junior year, taking on the extra work ofstudying a language bounced from the Program more than half acentury ago?

“Well, for it’s own sake of course,” Brockett says quickly, as if

that should have beenobvious to anyone. “It’salso a good foundation forgoing to school in the clas-sics. And it’s easier thanGreek. It doesn’t have somany nuances.”

Most of the studentsshare similar motivations,with one reason dominant:They want to read workslike the Aeneid in its origi-nal language, just as soph-omores follow Antigone’sangst in ancient Greek,and Eastern Classics stu-dents in Santa Fe take onSanskrit or classical Chi-nese. For several yearsnow, Kalkavage, who has a Ph.D. in classics from Johns Hopkinsand has also taught Greek to G.I.s, has been leading these summerworkshops for Latin devotees.

The language of Virgil was a fundamental of St. John’s College formuch of the college’s 300-year history. The three-year-college pro-

gram in 1792 began with Livy; Horace, Longinus, Epictetus,and Quintilian were among the subjects for upperclassmen.

Barr and Buchanan included Latin in their New Program,along with Greek, French, and German. Latin, studied bysophomores in language tutorial, was the first to go, to makeway for a second year of Greek; German hung on until 1962.“With some regret, because of the role of Latin in the gene-sis of the English language, the decision was made in favor oftwo years of Greek,” wrote J. Winfree Smith in A Search forthe Liberal College. “The reasons for this were the greater‘flexibility and expressiveness’ of Greek and the more impor-tant part that books originally written in Greek have played inhuman thought.”

FOR THE

LOVE OF L ATIN

Christine Kalkavage, visiting tutor, on a summer morningspent with Latin grammar and 10 diligent students.

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by Rosemary Harty

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Between Latin and Greek,the choice was an easy one:Few of the seminar books areLatin, many are Greek saysAnnapolis Dean HarveyFlaumenhaft, who studiedLatin in high school, andFrench and German in col-lege. “Not only are Latinworks derivative, but as abody of literature, they arealso not as profound asGreek works,” says Flau-menhaft. “The greatestworks of literature, science,and mathematics were writ-ten in Greek. The Romans’genius was in law and admin-istration. Virgil recognizedthat Homer was his master,”says Flaumenhaft. “AndHorace wrote that theGreeks took their ‘captorscaptive.’”

As for why French and not German? “Itwas felt that French had a larger, more con-tinuous tradition,” Flaumenhaft explains.

It all goes back to the simple fact that wecan’t do everything in four short years.Nevertheless, Latin has always found aplace on campus. Like an undergroundmovement, tutor and student groups havesprung up to pursue Horace, Virgil, or Ovid, says Tutor JonathanTuck, who has participated in faculty study groups and led work-shops in Latin grammar at the request of students. Tutors NancyBuchenauer and Eric Sangeng also have led Latin groups.

While agreeing with the sentiment that Greek poets are superiorto the Romans, Tuck still believes Latinists are too readily dis-missed by the Hellenists of St. John’s. He noted that Virgil’s Aeneidonce kicked off sophomore seminar, but is now buried in the

middle of the fall readings.Lucretius and Tacitus are onthe Program, but Horaceand Ovid are not, thoughthey turn up in an occasionalpreceptorial or extracurric-ular study group, Tuck says.

As a doctoral student inEnglish literature, Tuck tookan intensive Latin workshop,then followed it up with thestudy of Greek. “I started itto support the work I wasdoing in English Renais-sance writers and becamemore and more interested indoing these things for theirown sake. If I’d stayed atBerkeley any longer, I proba-bly would have become anEgyptologist or studied San-skrit. You always want to findthe roots of things.”

It was much the same forChristine Kalkavage. As an undergraduatestudying English literature at Penn State,she developed great appreciation and inter-est for epic poems written in Greek andLatin. By declaiming short poems in theiroriginal language, she found “you can hearmore of the poetry.”

“Horace’s lyrical poetry really taught mehow to read English lyrical poetry,” says Kalkavage.

Ultimately, why make a choice between Greek and Latin? Anyonewith enough time on his hands should study both, she says. Bothlanguages share the important trait of preparing their students forwhatever comes next: law school, graduate school, or a deeperunderstanding of almost any work. “The mind is trained to under-stand logic,” Kalkavage says. “It carries over into being attentive inother areas of your life.” x

Matthew Gates (A04) labors on a translation for a summer intensiveworkshop in Latin. In both Santa Fe and Annapolis, students seek outside opportunities to learn languages not on the Program.

Latin was dropped from the curriculum

to make room for two years of Greek.

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F O R O N E M O M E N T O F G L O R Y,

A Y E A R O FP L A N N I N G

“On the STAGE, give yourself the TIME to revel in the moment.Consider the saunter instead of the lope.” – Instructions for Degree Candidates, Santa Fe.

“Mortarboards should be worn parallel to the ground, after thefashion of Euclid.”— Commencement Protocol, Annapolis

R ich with tradition, guided by protocol, commence-ment at St. John’s College is no casual affair. Com-mencement planning at both campuses begins soonafter first semester opens, and preparations kickinto high gear about the time seniors begin donning

their gowns and sitting for their orals. Advance planning? The reg-istrar in Annapolis takes measurements for caps and gowns whenfreshmen register. Efficiency? In Santa Fe, marshals and the first inline for master’s and bachelor’s degrees are given detailed instruc-tion on how to march and where to go so that they may lead the oth-ers, precluding the need for a formal rehearsal.

The mace and chain of office are polished. A rubber band one-inch in diameter secures each rolled diploma before black and

orange ribbons are tied artfully together in the “St. John’s knot.”Each diploma—signed by the campus president—is slipped into acompartment of a box made just for this purpose and truckedacross campus for the big moment. There’s a job for everyone: garment-bag handlers, hooders for the platform, restroom pointer-outers.

On the morning of the ceremony in Annapolis, the names of eachtutor, graduating senior, and G.I. graduate are written on maskingtape and arranged in the Great Hall, creating the serpentine paththat will allow 200 people to line up in a crowded space and emergein the requisite order. On the second floor of Peterson Student Cen-ter, bachelor’s and master’s candidates in Santa Fe consult analphabetized list of candidates to arrange themselves for a statelymarch across the Placita.

At both campuses, much labor goes into peparing a rain venue,with chairs, microphones, and a large-screen television for remoteviewing prepared well in advance. In Annapolis this year, it lookedas if this fine effort might have to be crammed indoors, but a deci-sion to take a risk turned out to be the right one. Not a drop of rainfell on the ceremony. In Santa Fe, it was hot (86 degrees in theshade) and bright, but the strawberries and lemonade looked asfresh as always on black-and-white tablecloths. x

by Rosemary Harty

{ C o m m e n c e m e n t } 19


Commencement is a labor of love for St. John’s (clockwise from left): Antonio Bacas prepares some 2,500 strawberries for the Santa Fe reception; in Annapolis, fellow graduates William Young and ElizabethCummings help Jenny Windstrup don her academic regalia; Sid Phipps,chief of Annapolis Buildings and Grounds, lines up chairs with precision;and Thomas McBee (SF04) carries the New Mexico flag to the podium.

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Annapolis:“The Courage of Thought”On May 21 in Annapolis, 122 undergraduatestudents—the largest graduating class in thehistory of the New Program—and 27 gradu-ate students earned degrees.

In a speech that focused on a central figure in his life—writer,editor, and historian OttoFriedrich—Harper’s Editor LewisLapham presented a passionatedefense of the humanities in his

commencement address, a speech that alsotouched on the war in Iraq, on tyranny andfreedom, and fear and ignorance.

The humanities are essential to life, notluxuries, Lapham said. “I can think of noother set of studies more relevant to ourpresent circumstance,” he said. “Our tech-nologists bear comparison to the sorcerer’sapprentice, producing continuouslyimproved means toward increasingly ill-defined ends. Unless we look to the human-ities to clean up the mess, we stand a bet-ter-than-even chance of killing ourselveswith our new toys.”

Humanism, he continued “is about thepassion of thought and the will to under-stand, about Darwin sailing for the Galapa-gos or Dostoevsky in trouble with thepolice, about Condorcet dying in a garretand hunted by agents of the guillotine,writing his outline of human progress sothat he might hearten mankind by hisvision of its possible perfections.”

In describing Friedrich, for whom heworked at the now-defunct SaturdayEvening Post, Lapham drew from T.H.White’s The Once and Future King to cele-brate the unquenchable intellectual hefound in his mentor. Merlin, he explained,proffered this cure for young Arthur’smelancholy. “There is only one thing for itthen—to learn. Learn why the world wagsand what wags it. That is the only thingwhich the mind can never exhaust, neveralienate, never dream of regretting.”

Lapham described Friedrich, as one who“joined a scholar’s love of learning with ajournalist’s boundless curiosity.” Friedrich

published 14 books on subjects from Manetto Auschwitz, and was planning 20 otherprojects when he died at age 66 in 1995. Henever became wealthy, but Friedrich pur-sued his quest for knowledge as far as hecould take it.

“Otto believed that we are all caught upin the telling of stories (some more compli-cated and more beautiful than others,many of them incoherent, a few of themimmortal), and he assumed that no matterhow well or how poorly we manage theplot, we are all of us engaged in the sameenterprise, all of us seeking evocations orrepresentations of what we can recognizeas appropriately human,” Lapham said.

Though he has yet to meet “an educatedcitizen,” Lapham finds great hope in a“self-educating citizen,” one who doesn’thesitate to proclaim his own ignorance andvoice his questions.

“Idealism rescues cyni-cism, and the continuedcomfort of the party ofthings-as-they-are dependson the doubts placed undertheir pillows by the partyof things-as-they-might-become. The future turnsout to be something that

you make instead of find. It isn’t waiting foryour arrival, either with an arrest warrantor a band, nor is it any further away thanthe next sentence, the next best guess, thenext sketch for the painting of a life por-trait that might become a masterpiece. Thefuture is an empty canvas or a blank sheetof paper, and if you have the courage ofyour own thought and your own observa-tion you can make of it what you will.”Note: the full text of Lapham’s speech isavailable on the St. John’s College Web site:www.sjca.edu

Santa Fe:“A Perilous Journey”

On May 24 in Santa Fe, 81 undergraduateand 24 graduate candidates received theirdiplomas.

Some of the most memorablespeechmaking in Santa Fe thisyear came at dinners: a hilari-ous tribute to graduating sen-iors by tutor-turned-soothsayerMichael Rawn, delivered at the

senior dinner; and a poignant toast to theGraduate Institute by G.I. Director FrankPagano, offered at the G.I. Dinner for grad-uates and their families.

Rawn’s stated goal was to open gradu-ates’ eyes “to the perilous journey theymust embark upon to reach this realm ofphilanthropic bliss, a journey through

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C O M M E N C E M E N T 2 0 0 3Magazine editor LewisLapham spoke to Annapolisgraduates; below,renowned translatorAllen Mandlebaum deliv-ered the commencementaddress in Santa Fe.

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economic destitution, through socio-patho-logical alienation, a journey through anunderworld more terrible than the oneencountered by Aeneas and Dante andOdysseus and Mr. Rogers.”

He took the liberty of predicting thefuture for several seniors—futures all heavilyinfluenced by a St. John’s education: “Mr.[Michael] Santillanes will have a bleak eco-nomic future selling Sigmund Freud actionfigures”; “Ms. Alexandra Poole…will devel-op the next generation of Prozac-basedsedatives, called Ephemera, whose onlydeleterious side effect will be strong unsub-stantiated feelings of the unity of scienceand morality”; “Mr. Austin Hall will returnto the college in 20 years, under the pseu-donym Johannes de Silencio, having copy-righted a performance piece called the Seminar Moment. It will be a CD that onecan play prior to seminar to prepare forepiphany, not unlike the rainforest CDsinsomniacs play before bedtime.”

Toasting the Graduate Institute, Paganospoke of youth and age, old and new.

“Everyone in the college still calls theundergraduate program the New Program,and I call the Liberal Arts Program theNew Program. The New Program is now inits late 60s, and the Graduate Institute inits late 30s. By the standard of a humanlife, the New Program is old, and the Grad-uate Institute approaching middle age.And yet when I read Plato in the college heseems to be young. Who gave Plato backhis youth? A dean in Annapolis, JacobKlein. As Plato says of Socrates, the wholepurpose of the New Program is to make thebest thoughts of the past young and beauti-ful. We attempt to bring them into thepresent.

“The students in the Graduate Instituteare older than most of the undergraduates.And yet they represent the present rathermore than the undergraduates. You haveseen the world and felt it as it is, and it isalready old. To know this is to know whatyouth is. Youth in the world is the expecta-tion that the good will prevail. Yet this isnot the most powerful view in the contem-

porary world. The world has the cynicismof old age that the worst is coming soon. Inthis respect the undergraduates are not yetyoung. They do not know the world. Youare young. You are because you havereturned to us to find the good. You havebrought to us the expectation of youth.”

During the 2003 Commencement exer-cises an address to the graduating class wasgiven by the great translator of classicworks Allen Mandelbaum, W. R. Kenan Jr.Professor of Humanities at Wake ForestUniversity, and professor of the History ofLiterary Criticism at the University ofTurin. Mandelbaum delivered several read-ings, along with extensive backgroundmaterial on each piece.

Preceding closing remarks, sincerethanks and remembrance was proffered tofour retiring faculty members in Santa Fe:Glenn Freitas, Robert Richardson, RalphSwentzell, and Hans von Briesen. x

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Meredith Barton, flanked by ChristopherBareford and Amanda Bell, shows herdelight on graduation day in Annapolis.

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In July, members of the class of 1968 recon-vened, along with alumni from years latterand recent, to take part in Homecoming2003. Ask Vida Kazemi (SF68) to comparetoday’s St. John’s with life on the Santa Fecampus in 1964 and she likens it to answer-ing “questions about another planet, usingthe framework of this planet.”

“The experience of being at a collegewith no upperclassmates, about 20 or sofaculty and staff, lots of space, in a townwhere the options for seeing films were thecollege and the Three Cities of Spain coffeeshop on certain weekends, was so differentfrom anything familiar that I can’t put it inanother context,” she explains.

Kazemi’s parents were in Iran, she was inboarding school in the U.S., and her collegechoice was up to her. She had seen a promo-tional film in which an eager prospectivenamed ‘Ernest Groper’ toured the campus,but nevertheless chose St. John’s, in partfor its location. She originally planned to

transfer to a more established institutionsuch as Wellesley after her freshman year,but the Program took hold and she decidedto stay.

There was no gym, few diversions andterrible food, she acknowledges, but “wealso had opportunities that no other classhas had, and buildings that had never been

used.” There were very few cars on campus,Kazemi adds—a stark contrast to today’spacked parking lots. “Allison Karslake wasone of the few students with a car, whichshe generously loaned to everybody andwhich was at one point painted decorativelyby other students and called ‘the Angel,’”says Kazemi.

As the fighting escalated in Vietnam, theturmoil in the country affected the tinycampus, Kazemi says, “It was a strangetime to be pondering eternal questionswhen the temporal seemed so urgent.”“When one of ours went to war, we strug-gled with our respective moral choices. Theinfluence of those times still informs thelifestyle and choices of most of us.”

The faculty of the new campus comprised10 intrepid tutors, seven of whom camefrom Annapolis, including Ford K. Brown,who smoked a pipe in seminars. AntigonePhalares remembers Brown laying downprotocol right off the bat. “Let’s begin withthe Greek alphabet. It begins alpha [point-ing to himself], beta [pointing to the stu-dents], here [indicating the classroom],”Phalares recalls.

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{ H o m e c o m i n g }

C L A S S O F ’ 6 8 P I O N E E R S R E T U R N

by Andra Maguran

Lassie was on the air, Lyndon Johnson waspresident, and 23,000 troops were posi-tioned in Vietnam. The Beatles made theirtelevision appearance on The Ed SullivanShow, and the Warren Commission deter-mined that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

It was 1964, and in this transition from Camelot to the tur-bulent war years, the inaugural freshman class of St. John’s College in Santa Fe—84 in number—arrived at abrand new campus carved out of juniper and piñon at theedge of a quaint and quiet town.

Class of 1968 students process to the dedication of the Santa Fe campus in October 1964.

In contrast to today’s coed dorms wasthe prohibition against men and womenvisiting one another in their single-sexdorms after curfew. Julie von Erffa (SF68)is still proud of her class’s success in help-ing to ease the dormitory visitationrestrictions. “We had a sleep-in and gotthe hours extended until midnight. If youwere in a boy’s dorm past midnight youhad to stay over because the guards mightcatch you going out.” With her enlight-ened notions about living arrangements,von Erffa went in 1967 to live among thefounding members of the famed New Buf-falo Commune, near Taos.

But as Cervantes wrote, “time ripens allthings.” Now a doctor of Oriental Medi-cine, von Erffa says that after spendingeight years as a farmer, in order to becomean acupuncturist she had to get back toher intellectual roots and re-apply whatshe’d learned at St. John’s—to go fearlesslyinto unfamiliar territory.

Browsing through college materialswhile on campus, Elsa Blum (SF68) experienced “an intense memory of…the excitement and gratitude I felt at theseriousness of the dialogue this collegewanted to have with me. I remember scribbling late into the night to answer the questions I felt were so vital to me.”

The class Homecoming seminar, onWendell Berry’s short story “Pray WithoutCeasing,” revived the spirit of those long-ago seminars for Blum. “It was the bestkind of relaxed collective effort, no postur-ing or heavy-handed stuff that we are sub-jected to in the ‘real’ world. This experi-ence, along with the pleasure of beingtogether after so many years, seemed tocast a benign glow on our class’s timetogether this weekend.”

The Santa Fe campus may have beennew, but the Program was almost 30 yearsold, and the works they read timeless.

“St. John’s was one of the most impor-tant things that happened tome, both in terms of personalmaturity and spreading intel-lectual horizons,” says HaroldMorgan (SF68). “The collegehas matured into an importantpart of Santa Fe and New Mexico. I’m proud to have aconnection.” x

{ H o m e c o m i n g } 23


HOMECOMING HIGHLIGHTS

• Laboratory Director Hans vonBriesen, who retired this year,and Kathy Mizrahi, director ofResidential Housing, were select-ed to become honorary alumni bythe Alumni Association.

• Gloria Page (SF76) delivered a lecture as part of the MeemLibrary’s Speaking Volumes Lecture Series. Her talk, “DreamOn: Creating an Art BusinessThat Works,” was based on herrecent book outlining her jour-ney from a home-based creativeendeavor to the Smithsonianbookshop.

• Alumni Awards of Merit were presented to Alfred Grant(SFGI83) and Eric Springsted(SF73). (More on these awards onpage 47).

• Homecoming prank: The Class of1993 staged a “redneck-style”barbeque outside Peterson Stu-dent Center, replete with pick-uptruck, pirate flag, straw hats,Southern rock music, and bever-ages. They sported white t-shirtsand muscle shirts with the message “I’m with stupid” (written in Greek), and an arrowpointing to each person’s left.

The pioneers from the classof 1968 at the President’sBrunch during Homecoming.

The class of 1983 in a playful pose at the Homecoming picnic, and alumni and their families enjoy the President’s Brunch at Hunt House on Sunday morning.

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{ O u t r e a c h }24


“Attention all visitors: As a part ofthe routine search that must be con-ducted before you are allowed toenter the institution, you will berequired to open your mouth. Thosewho refuse shall be denied entry.”

Rules and regulations greetevery visitor to the Mary-land Correctional Institu-tion-Jessup. Don’t movethrough a moving dooruntil it has stopped mov-

ing. No double visits on holiday weekends.If asked, open your mouth for inspection.

Mark Lindley (A67) pulls out his driver’slicense and a Department of Correctionsvolunteer I.D. and tries to usher a group ofvolunteers into the regular Wednesdaymorning session of Touchstones, anAnnapolis-based project based on readingand discussing passages from great books.A few weeks before, Lindley had forgottenhis license and was turned away. Today oneof his visitors isn’t on “the list” from theprincipal of the prison school. Speakingpatiently and diplomatically to the guardbehind the glass, he asks that the principalbe called for permission.

“Every couple of weeks, there’s a newprocedure and an old procedure goes bythe wayside,” Lindley comments as hisgroup waits by a row of lockers. Severalminutes go by as a guard calls the prisonschool to check if the unlisted visitor canenter. Several more minutes go by until theguard who called decides to tell the guardbehind the glass that the visitor has beenapproved.

Lindley shows only gratitude as he waitsfor his turn through the metal detector,then leads his group into the prison yardand to the building that houses the prisonschool. About a dozen chairs have been setin a circle. Dion, a slim, bespectacled

young man in dreadlocks, has placed acopy of the Touchstones text—a selection ofshort readings culled from many of thebooks of the St. John’s Program—on eachchair.

The reading is a two-page passage fromLeviathan, rendered into simpler proseand shorter sentences, but keepingHobbes’ major ideas intact. Participants—initially five inmates and the Touchstonesgroup—are reminded of the rules for dis-cussion and directed to the reading. Dionannounces the opening question, a ratherbroad one: “What is the nature of man?”

In the next 45 minutes, the conversationwill face long silences and diversions. Morequestions are generated as inmates wrestlewith the philsopher’s view about law,order, and chaos: Should we live our livesin fear? Is it possible for two people to com-pete for the same thing and not try todestroy each other?

“The nature of man,” offers one of theinmates, “is to seek what makes him happyor content.” In some cases, he says, it’s abig car, a nice house, a good job.

Adds another inmate, a quiet man: “Youcan only find peace when you look at what’sinside yourself, be true to yourself.”

Sometimes one or two people dominatethe conversation; often the participantsstruggle to express a thought. Some con-versations have been volatile. But nearlyevery time, says Lindley, the discussionscross lines of race and class, education and

experience, freedom and imprisonment, totouch on questions of humanity: Is it possi-ble to obtain peace living in our societytoday?

The Touchstones Discussion Project—created in 1984 by tutors Howard Zeider-man (A67), Geoffrey Comber (HAGI95),and Nick Maistrellis, based in Annapolisand independent of the college—has beenin Maryland prisons since 1996. Designedto help individuals of all backgroundsdevelop skills such as problem solving,questioning, listening, and cooperating,the project was already in schools, nursinghomes, corporations, and organizations.The idea to take it to prisons came from acommunity college teacher in Santa Fe whoattended a Touchstones workshop. After aprogram in the New Mexico State Peniten-tiary got under way, Zeiderman beganworking on bringing it into Maryland’sprisons. His initial meeting was with ninemen serving life sentences at the MarylandHouse of Corrections. “They had three rea-sons they thought Touchstones would behelpful for prisoners: It would humanizethe environment; they would take them-selves more seriously as individuals; andthey appreciated that ideas like justice,integrity, and truth would be helpful totalk about.”

The nonprofit organization had to over-come some bureaucratic roadblocks, butit’s now in four prisons in the state. Morethan 1,000 prisoners have gone throughthe program, which over the years hasgained credibility in the Department ofCorrections. The parole board now acceptsTouchstones certificates as part of aninmate’s record. And Zeiderman hopes one

H O B B E S I N P R I S O NMark Lindley (A67) Brings Great Books to Prisoners

by Rosemary Harty

Mark Lindley finds uncommon wisdom andinsight in the conversations he shareswith prisoners through the TouchstonesDiscussion Project. Lindley is one ofdozens of Touchstones volunteers inMaryland prisons.

Discussions cross lines of race and class,

education and experience, freedom and imprisonment.

{ O u t r e a c h } 25


“Seeing people come to life who have been completely shut down—

it’s very exciting.”Mark Lindley (A67)

26


day to bring the program tothe prison’s guards.

When he first began lead-ing discussions in prison,Zeiderman wondered whereconversations with a groupof men serving life sentenceswould lead. One week, thegroup discussed the Biblestory of the sacrifice ofIsaac. “They’re talkingabout God and what God islike through the sacrifice ofIsaac. It’s really quitebreathtaking because they’re all lifers, con-victed of committing the crime of murder.The discussion had a kind of intensity andhonesty you’re not going to experienceanywhere else,” Zeiderman adds.

Lindley is one of about 80 volunteersinvolved in the Touchstones prison proj-ect. For the last year, he has invested up to 20 hours a week in leading groups,training inmates, and lately, paving theway for new programs at other correctionalinstitutions.

Lindley retired from an executive post atAOL-Time Warner, where he capped acareer that started with teaching, led tocomputers, and involved launching severalstart-up companies. As his technologicalabilities grew, he also learned to thrive onchallenges. Even when he took a job withGeneral Electric, he found his niche in thecompany’s cutting-edge projects. When heleft to go to AOL, “this crackpot startup,”some of Lindley’s colleagues told him hewas derailing his career.

“It was geek heaven,” Lindley says of hisyears with AOL, where he climbed to thepost of senior manager of AOL Technolo-gies. He says skills he learned at St. John’s,particularly “fearlessness in the face oftotal confusion,” helped him succeed in afast-paced and rapidly changing environ-ment.

“It [St. John’s] also influenced myapproach to problem solving,” Lindleysays. “I was working with a lot of peoplewho had been to engineering school, and Iwas one of the people who always said,‘let’s sit down and talk about it.’”

Zeiderman recruited his former class-mate when Lindley came back to Annapolisfor his 25th reunion and joined Zeidermanand his wife, Margaret Winter (A66), for aluncheon. Lindley decided to retire from

AOL after the Time-Warner merger. “I could see where things were headed,” he said, and he and his wife, Nancy (A58),moved back to Annapolis.

In his corporate life, Lindley enjoyedseeing talented young men and womenthrive when given new challenges. Hiswork in the prisons isn’t that different, buthe’s very aware that this group of menstarted out with none of the advantages—stable homes, good educations—that hisyoung workers had.

“In my career, I gained a lot of personalsatisfaction out of guiding folks intocareers and pointing out directions Ithought they could go in. But in somesense that was easy, because I was able topick and choose the talent I was hiring formy department. Here [in the prison],you’re working with people who have beenpretty much disadvantaged, largely beforethey were born.”

Touchstones gives prisoners a voice theydidn’t know they had, Lindley says. “Therewas a young man who had started in the

program maybe nine monthsor so ago. He was obviously avery bright kid, but out ofcontrol, kind of a wild man.He would disrupt the class,speak out, and talk aboutirrelevant things—not reallybe active in trying to makethe group work.”

Within a few weeks, theyoung man began to partici-pate in a very rational, quietway. He talked less and lis-tened more. “Nobody clued

him in, but at some point he had a break-through—he’s responsible for himself. Hehas a self. He can make a difference in hisown life,” Lindley says.

Lindley believes that he’s gaining some-thing valuable from his time spent withthese imprisoned men.

“One of the lovely things about Touch-stones is that you’re always discoveringthings about yourself—gifts that you mayhave not valued or areas of your personalitythat you develop—and you get to do thatworking with people. And in an institutionlike this, seeing people come to life whohave been completely shut down—it’s veryexciting. It’s very satisfying.”

As of late August, the group had its thirddiscussion leader in as many months.There were the usual rumblings that theprogram could lose support in the Depart-ment of Corrections. Lindley showed upone morning only to be turned away again;the inmate who filled out the paperworkhad put the wrong date on the form.

Lindley got back in the car without afuss. But the pat-downs, the bureaucracy,the passage through metal detectors andsharpshooters all gave him impetus tospeak up recently when prisoners dis-cussed a short passage from the Iliad. Rendered in simple prose, the passagedescribed Priam begging Achilles for Hector’s body.

“The question was, ‘have you ever had tohumble yourself?’ And I think they weregoing to skip right over me, but I had a lotto contribute. You know every time youcome into the prison, that the guard withthe gun has power over you. That gives yousomething in common with the inmates.Love, hate, anger, truth, revenge—we’re allhuman, and ultimately we have the sameissues to talk about.” x

{ O u t r e a c h }

More than 1,000 prisoners have participated in Touchstones.

A group of inmates share their thoughtsin this Touchstones session.

THE KILLER IN THE ATTIC

By John Stark Bellamy IIGray & Co., 2002By Rosemary Harty

John Stark Bellamy II (A71) had asimple goal when he sat down towrite the first of his books on murder and mayhem in his nativeCleveland. “All I ever wanted todo was to be rich and famous in my own hometown,” Bellamy

explains. After penning four books with titles such

as The Corpse in the Cellar (“includes 104spine-chilling photographs”) and TheyDied Crawling, Bellamy has achieved amodest fortune and certain notoriety. Hisbooks have sold briskly in the NortheastOhio region. Bellamy leads trolley toursthrough the city, pointing out sites of hor-rific crimes and tragic fires, shares his col-lection of tales on radio and television, andbrings a slide show detailing the stories inhis books to various eager audiences.

Bellamy earns his living as the historyspecialist for the Cuyahoga County PublicLibrary. But his fascination for lurid specta-cle and human treachery was nurtured at ayoung age. “I grew up in a family of jour-nalists where it was considered perfectlyappropriate to discuss the latest torsokilling around the dinner table,” Bellamyexplains. “It was not uncommon to havefamily meals interrupted by the scream offire engines. We would just abandon whatwe were doing and follow the sirens.”

In his latest book, The Killer in the Attic,Bellamy confesses to a compulsion to keepchurning out the tales: “…I have discov-ered that I could not stifle my melodramatictale-telling even if I wanted to—and thefrank truth is that I don’t.”

After four books, his favorite storyremains that of Eve Kaber, who arrangedfor the murder of her well-to-do husband,Dan. “Long about 1918, her husband suddenly became very sick—she was system-atically poisoning him by adding arsenic tohis food—but she lost patience after a whileand hired two goons to stab the invalid inhis bed.

“The amazing thing was this woman hadthe complicity of both her daughter andmother,” Bellamy muses. “She was a formi-dable woman and she almost got away with

it. It’s shocking to me that no one has madean opera out of this story yet.”

As a historian, Bellamy believes his talescontribute to a better understanding of thesocial history of Cleveland. In stories suchas “They Died Crawling,” he describes the1916 Waterworks Tunnel explosion, inwhich 70 men—many immigrant Irish andGerman laborers—lost their lives afterbeing ordered into a gas-filled tunnel. Bel-lamy writes about the heroes who werenever acknowledged and the series of blun-ders that cost the men their lives.

Growing up in a newspaper family gaveBellamy a love for books, and at his moth-er’s urging he applied to St. John’s. “I wasprecocious and maladjusted and lookingaround desperately for some kind of niche Icould fit into,” he says. Although he leftafter a year, Bellamy says, “there is not oneaspect of my life that hasn’t been changedby exposure to the program at St. John’s. Itgave me an intolerance for sloppy thinkingand for the second-rate.”

After earning a graduate degree in histo-ry and discovering he didn’t want to teach,Bellamy went on to earn a master’s inlibrary science. Working in Clevelandlibraries, he began to collect clippings andphotographs of sensational stories andshaped them into books, writing between11 p.m. and 3 in the morning. Each bookfeatures the fast-paced, cynical, and melo-dramatic style of a tabloid newspaper.“They’re tremendous fun to write,” hesays.

Bellamy is working on a murder tourguide and a calendar featuring his Cleve-

land stories, but he plans to pursue moreserious literary ambitions when he retiresin a few years. He also wants to work harderon the “rich and famous” goal. “Localcrime is fine, and I’ve enjoyed it,” he says,“but what I need to do is write somethingalong the lines of Midnight in the Garden ofGood and Evil.”

Before he does though, he wants to com-plete a final “legacy to the public”—a2,000-page index of murders and disastersin the Cleveland area.

CONICS, Book IV

Translated and annotated by Michael Fried Green Lion Press, 2002

Michael N. Fried (A82) has made importantcontributions to the study of Apollonius’sConics. Together with Sabetai Unguru, hewrote Apollonius of Perga’s Conica: Text,Context, Subtext (Brill, 2001). The volumecontains primarily an “historically sensitiveinterpretation” of the Conics—seen through

its individual books, and as a whole. Particu-lar attention is placed on the areas of theConics hitherto—neglected Books V-VII.Fried and Unguru hope to offer a “long over-due” alternative to previous scholarship,which will be of interest not only to histori-ans of mathematics, but also to other histori-ans, philosophers, and linguists, as well as“open-minded mathematicians.”

More recently, Fried has published atranslation of Book IV of the Conics (GreenLion Press, 2002). Book IV deals with theways in which conic sections can meet in aplane. It is the last of the Greek books, aswell as the last part of what Apollonius calleda “course on the elements of conics.” (Theremainder of the books after IV survive onlyin medieval Latin and Arabic translations.)

In the introduction, Fried himself sumsup what he has done: “In reading and trans-lating book IV, I have tried to give Apollo-nius a fair chance, to keep modern algebraicideas about conics at a distance, and to viewthe text with eyes trained only on the mathe-matical and philosophical concerns of Apol-lonius’s contemporaries and on the geomet-rical character of the previous three books ofthe Conics.”

“…for one like Apollonius, whose workwith curves is always governed by a funda-mentally geometric outlook, the plural-sin-gular nature of the opposite sections makesthem an object of fascination, but it alsoduly gives rise to a certain uneasiness withthem….” x


{ B i b l i o f i l e } 27

Tales of Cleveland Woe

John Stark Bellamy II chronicles crimeand chaos in his native Cleveland.


{ A l u m n i N o t e s }28

1940OSCAR L. LORD writes: “My wife,Patti, and I attended a ceremonyrecently at Peterson Air ForceBase, Colorado Springs, Colo.,when our son, Gen. Lance W.Lord, assumed command of thefirst Air Force Space Command.We were pleased to meet the Sec-retary of the Air Force and his wifewho attended the ceremony andwere pleased to learn of his pastassociation with St. John’s.”

1941Last November VERNON PADGETT

was elected to a second term asdirector of the Las Virgenes

Municipal Water District, whichprovides water and sewer serviceto 65,000 homes in several smallcities west of Los Angeles.

1944GEORGE LEVINE is celebrating his40th year as director of AmericanTelephone Consumer Council.

ROD WHETSTONE is contactingclass of ’44 survivors: “Using theAlumni Register as a base, I wouldlike each of you to verify that (1)you are still around and (2) thatyour address and phone numberare correct in the Register. Aphone call or post card will allowme to make my own updated and,hopefully, accurate register for ourclass. I will then send a copy to allof you and solicit ideas and sugges-tions for our reunion in the fall of2004, as well as an indication ofyour interest in attending. A letterwill, of course, be welcome.Though my address and phonenumber are correct in theRegister, I will repeat them here: 3103 S. Park Road, Bethel Park,PA 15102; 412-835-8986. Inciden-tally, I believe our 55th reunionwas quite successful. We had 15attending out of 34 I was able toreach. The original number waseither 90 or 91.”

1945“In my ‘old’ age,” LAWRENCE

LEVIN writes, “I’ve become anactive tenor singer in the OratorioSociety of Queens; we’re doing theVerdi Requiem in May and I loveit.”

1948 GEORGE TRIMBLE was invited togive three lectures on the “Evolu-tion of Electronic Computers” at Princeton University in honor of John von Neumann’s 100th birthday.

1949RICHARD M. FRANK reports, “I’molder. Otherwise nothing new—alas!”

1953ROBERT G. HAZO is writing a booktitled Minority Rule.

CHARLES POWLESKE sends thisupdate from New York: “In late2001, I helped form InterPlanConsulting Inc., which was incor-porated a year ago. My associatesare business friends from earlieryears at the Business Council forInternational Understanding,who, like me, are (allegedly)retired. InterPlan’s chairman for-merly headed a Fortune 500 engi-neering company, responsible forbuilding and operating powerplants and refineries around theworld. Our current projectsinclude refineries, both existingones in need of expansion and newones. We are also working on proj-ects that range from solar energy(India and Sri Lanka), a proposedrice plantation in Africa, and anexisting hotel complex in Barba-dos in need of equity for modern-ization under a new manage-ment.” He notes that he spentApril in his favorite vacationcondo in Puerto Vallarta.

1960JOHN LANE retired a year ago andis thoroughly enjoying life.

1961CYNTHIA BLEDSOE-DALEY recentlycelebrated a return to health onher bicycle, completing a trip of3,135 miles across the country –eight states, 62 days (21 acrossTexas), Pacific to Atlantic Ocean.“The trip was immensely satisfy-ing to the eye, as we traveledthrough small towns in deserts,mountains, and beaches, from SanDiego to St. Augustine. A greatway to start off the summer!”

1962JOHN FRANKLIN MILLER was elect-ed president of the board of theLibrary of American LandscapeHistory, a voluntary position, in2003.

1963BEVERLY W. BELL is a teacher andtutor of children with learning differences, and her husband, Dr. D. Bruce Bell, is the army’sexpert on military families and iscurrently doing research on deser-tion and first-tour attrition. SonDavid, 29, is an opera singer andmathematician in New York Cityand daughter Toby, 26, is a med-ical social worker and milliner in Northern Virginia. All are thriving.

MARCIA HERMAN-GIDDENS writes,“I am still happily living in ruralNorth Carolina, teaching, consult-ing, and doing research in pedi-atric issues and child maltreat-ment. Imagine my delight andamazement when my daughtermarried a St. John’s tutor(Jonathan Badger, Annapolis) last year! Life is full of deliciouswonders.”

1964JAN CALDWELL THORPE has a psychotherapy practice in SanFrancisco and Berkeley, and is atwork on a book about clinical workwith dreams. “My husband is inlaw practice in San Francisco, andmy eldest son and daughter-in-laware both lawyers in my husband’spractice. My youngest son is in theNavy, and my grandson is busybeing six!”

1965JESSICA HOFFMANN DAVIS is thePatricia Bauman and John Landrum Bryant Senior Lectureron the Arts in Education and thedirector of the Arts in Educationprogram at the Harvard Graduate

You MustRememberThis

Got a good storyfrom the earlydays/weeks/months offreshman year?Send it to

[email protected] for anarticle we’re working on. SantaFe stories are currently in shortsupply; if you spent your firstyear on the Western campus weespecially urge you to take a tripdown memory lane and send usa travelogue. x


{ A l u m n i P r o f i l e } 29

Like many alumni who havebecome teachers, LovejoyDuryea (A67) uses St. John’s-style teaching techniques inher classroom. At first, herstudents are uncomfortable

with her approach; they hadn’t signed up forSocratic questioning or Aristotelian causa-tion. That’s not, after all, what they werelooking for when they applied to study interi-or design. But Duryea, who is chair of theinterior design department at the School ofVisual Arts in Manhattan, says that St. John’sis the best training a designer can get.

“St. John’s is about asking questions, notgiving answers. That’s what I’m trying todo—teach students how to think on theirown, to solve problems, to be criticalthinkers. I ask my classes: ‘What is a chair?Does it have to have legs? Does it have tohave a back? What is chairness?’ If you’regoing to design something important, youhave to get into the eidos of what that some-thing is.”

When Duryea graduated from St. John’s,she didn’t know she’d someday put her edu-cation to work in the world of constructiondrawings, textile science, and sustainableenvironments. Instead, she started out inadvertising, writing commercials for prod-ucts like Ivory soap, Tide, Gleam, Crisco,and Duncan Hines cake mixes.

“I was the queen of cake mixes,” sherecalls. “They sent me to the test kitchens atProcter & Gamble and taught me to makepie crusts, fry chickens, and bake biscuits.Then they sent me on a radio talk show touracross the southern U.S. People would call inand ask me their cooking questions. Thatwas my first experience after getting out ofSt. John’s: I was the baking lady.”

When her tour ended, Duryea returnedto the offices of Compton Advertisingwhere someone dropped a bottle of the new-to-market acetaminophen (brand name:Nebs) on her desk and told her to write acommercial for it. At the time, acetamino-phen took a back seat to aspirin—its superi-or qualities were not well known outside ofthe world of research scientists.

Duryea picked up the pills and headed forthe library. “I found books on headaches,learned how the pill worked on the body,and drew up a list of questions for the scien-tists in the lab. No copywriter had everasked to talk to them before. The average

copyrighter is not even going to read thelabel. But I wasn’t intimidated by chemicalformulas,” she says.

“I discovered that acetaminophen wassuperior to aspirin and buffered aspirin. Itwas a great product that was not being wellpromoted. Even the name—Nebs? Before wewere through, acetaminophen became thelargest painkiller on the market.”

In 1976, Duryea (née Reeves) marriedWilliam Duryea and stayed at home to raisefour children. When her youngest was six,she returned to work, but this time as aninterior designer. “I hardly missed a beatgoing from professional writing to design. Ididn’t even consider it a stretch,” she says.“Because of St. John’s, I saw the unity andnot the disunity. There’s an underlying logicin design and also a logic in selling. The St. John’s method of trying to find theunderlying logic or order of something—that’s really what design is about.”

Duryea’s residential design business tookoff almost immediately. She began with aproject for a neighbor and her reputationspread quickly as she built up a Park Avenuepractice—glamorous clients with big spacesand budgets to match.

In 1987 Duryea was asked to teach at theSchool of Visual Arts and was offered thechairmanship of the school’s new interiordesign department in 1990. “I had a defi-nite concept of what students should knowwhen they graduated. I wanted them tohave confidence about problem-solving.”

As in philosophy, Duryea says that thereare no right answers in design. “Some

answers are more right than others,and there are criteria you can bringto evaluating answers, but it’s notblack and white. There’s a fiery plu-ralism in design that can be confus-ing to students. One teacher will say‘this is a great design,’ another willsay something completely different.I can’t tell my student what directionthe design world is going, but if Iteach them to be good thinkers,they’ll have the tools they need tofigure out whatever they’re given tosolve.”

Last March, the Design Commit-tee of the National Arts Club awarded

Duryea a gold medal for her work as adesigner and educator. Although she stilldoes some work in design, her current focusis teaching, running the department, servingas chair of the State Board for InteriorDesign, and improving the certificationprocess for interior designers. “We’re estab-lishing standards for education and for prac-tice, which brings us into more St. John’skind of questions: What do interior designersdo? What do they need to know? What kindof education should they have? Everythinggets back to St. John’s,” Duryea says. “It’sthe perfect background for a designer.” x

Teaching the EIDOS of DesignAward-winning designer LovejoyDuryea uses logic in her work.

EIDOS of Couch“For we should not be content with

saying that the couch was made of bronzeor wood or whatever it might be, butshould try to describe its design or modeof composition in preference to the mate-rial; or, if we did deal with the material, itwould at any rate be with the concretionof material and form. For a couch is suchand such a form embodied in this or thatmatter, or such and such a matter withthis or that form; so that its shape andstructure must be included in ourdescription. For the formal nature is ofgreater importance than the materialnature.”—Aristotle, ON THE PARTS OF ANIMALS, Book I

by Sus3an Borden, A87

{ A l u m n i N o t e s }


30

School of Education. HusbandWILLIAM DAVIS (class of 1964) is adirector at Credit Suisse FirstBoston and just stepped down aschairman of the board of theBerklee College of Music, whichgave him an honorary doctorate inmusic. They send love to all.

1966IAN HARRIS (A) reports that hisdaughter, Jessie Washburne-Harris, was married to MichaelLieberman last October in Par-adise Valley, Ariz. McFarland andCo. published a second edition ofIan’s book, Peace Education, writ-ten with Mary Lee Morrison. He isa professor of education policy and

community studies at the Univer-sity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

1967LARRY (A) and HAZEL (A69)SCHLUETER announce the birth ofa second grandson, born toCHARLES (A90) and his wife, Kaya,named Kaden Douglas, on January18, 2003. Larry has retired fromU.S. Customs where he was aninspector for over 32 years, and ishelping his grandson have fun.Hazel has a new CD out, Jam Session, and is playing with herband Hazel and the Delta Ram-blers at the New Orleans Jazz andHeritage Festival—her 28th year atthe festival.

1968BRUCE R. BALDWIN (SF) writesthat his daughter, Marisa, gradu-ated from Johns Hopkins in May,and son, Ian, graduated from WestPoint in 1999 and is now a captainin the army, presently serving inAfghanistan.

DONALD A. BOOTH (A) sent alongthis list: “I’ve recently returnedfrom a year in Hong Kong, work-ing as an architect on major proj-ects including the CCTV (Chinesetelevision) competition in Beijing.In 2001 I completed restoration ofa historical house on HanoverStreet in Annapolis, Md. (I’m aregistered architect in Maryland.)

I’m currently based in Cambridge,Mass., working for a landscapearchitecture firm.”

“Grandson Lyw Westrick learnedto read last year—another oneboards the bus!” writes SARAH B.FISHER (A).

CHARLES B. WATSON (A), sends asuggestion: “Listen to your localNPR station to hear events of theday and especially Ivan Watsonreporting from northern Iraq nearMoult, Kerkuk. In fall 2002 andFebruary, March, and April of2003, he was favorably impressedby the citizen soldiers and thebeauty of the Kurdish-held areasof exile protected for 10 years bythe Northern No-Fly Zone.”

In 1945, when he was five years old,Tony Miller’s parents submitted anapplication to St. John’s on hisbehalf. Advised that their suit waspremature, they bided their timeuntil he was of the age to make

such applications for himself, and then theytightened the screws: although he was wildto study automotive design, they insistedthat he spend at least a year in Annapolisbefore they’d endorse any other education.

The would-be car designer accepted hislot, and came to St. John’s. No doubt to hisparents’ delight, he was sufficiently hookedby the end of his freshman year to return asa sophomore. Push came to shove by sec-ond semester time, however, and he decid-ed that perhaps it was time to follow hisheart: He returned to his native Californiaand enrolled at the Art Center (now calledthe Art Center College of Design) inPasadena, the preeminent institution fortraining industrial automotive designers.He left there after two years, again withouta degree, got married, and went to work asa draftsman and design engineer for Dou-glas Aircraft.

Then destiny tapped him on the shoul-der. “Aerospace in general is a place formethodical people who don’t need excite-ment and stimulation—it’s very slow-paced.” Finding himself to be more of afun-lover, he was gladly recruited to be aproject manager for Mattel. There heworked on a variety of toys, including anaction figure called Big Jim. As a projectmanger he was responsible for each itemfrom the moment it was added to the line:engineering, design, child testing, cost, thewhole shootin’ match.

After a while on the design side, hemoved into marketing, the antithesis ofengineering. “At St. John’s I gained a toler-ance for finding out about stuff I didn’tthink was interesting instead of believingthat I already knew what was interesting.The discipline of being at St. John’s showedme that I have more tolerance for checkingout things I don’t know anything about.”Although his three-year stint in marketing

wasn’t a time of unmitigated pleasure, theexperience gained there informed his longcareer with a variety of toy companies:Zee, Tomy, Aurora, Lakeside Games,Tona, Galoob, and his own design consul-tancy, Red Racer Studio. In the end, hecame back to Mattel, and back to his firstlove, cars. This year he’ll retire from hisposition as the vice president for design forHot Wheels.

Hot Wheels. They bill themselves as“The World’s Coolest Car Company,” andthe claim goes largely undisputed. Since1968 they’ve made more than three billioncars—they’re currently selling at a seven-cars-per-second clip. You may think of theproduct chiefly as little 1:64-scale die-castcars, just the right size for a boy to carry inhis pocket, but wait! There’s more. Tracks,devices to hurl the cars through space,computer games, skateboard peripherals,auto show sponsorships: It’s a lifestyle cav-alcade of cardom. Miller supervises thegroup of 30 designers from whose whimsymust come the new toy ideas. “It’s some-times like watching a basket of puppies.”

The Hot Wheels people say that all theHot Wheels cars produced in the last 35years would, if placed end to end, circle theearth five times. Says Miller: “That’s theone statistic that I challenged…and I did re-calculate it myself. I probably haveEuclid to thank.” x

Tony Miller (A61):The Big World ofSmall Cars

By Roberta Gable, A78

Tony Miller’s design career has run thegamut from action figures to Hot Wheels.



31

From Sweden, RICK WICKS (SF)sends this update: “After a longeffort to develop the field of socialeconomics at the university here(Goteborg U.) I’ve finally met withsome success: the granting of alicentiate degree (which theydescribe as between a master’s anda doctorate), I continue workingtoward the Ph.D. and editing onthe side as usual.”

1969ELISABETH A. AIELLO (SFGI) recently participated in theTecolote Group, Santa Fe TutorStephen Van Luchene’s colloqui-um for K-12 teachers in New Mexico. “Participating…was revitalizing, inspiring and profes-sionally productive. I revised myGreat Book Class curriculum forthe 2004 session and will redirectmy techniques to include moresmall group discussions.”

JOHN D. GOODWIN (SF) recentlybecame chief executive officer ofVictory Enterprises Inc. of LasVegas, N.M., also known as Victo-ry Home Health, Victory PersonalCare, and Victory Royal Express,specializing in non-emergencymedical transportation. One oftheir largest employers is in SanMiguel Country, and they haveoffices throughout New Mexico.

BYRON E. WALL (A) has beenappointed associate lecturer in theDepartment of Mathematics andStatistics at York University inToronto, as of July 2002. His son,ALEX, graduated in May from theAnnapolis campus.

1970RONALD H. FIELDING (A), a member of the college Board ofVisitors and Governors, sent hisolder son off to Hamilton Collegethis August, noting that “afterdoing a mandatory overnight atSJC, he told my wife he wouldn’tapply but respected his fathermore, knowing he had gone there.I continue managing the munici-pal bond fund group for Oppen-heimerFunds (9 funds, $13 billion

in assets, 20 total staff). My wifeand I are working on a design for abeautiful house in Kiawah Island,near Charleston, S.C. That willbecome our winter home in two tothree years. Finally, but not least,I’m chairing the next capital cam-paign for St. John’s. So put somemoney aside while you wait for mycall.”

1971HELEN ANASTAPLO SCHARBACH (A)and J. SHIPLEY NEWLIN JR. (A67)were married in a private ceremo-ny on July 25, 2003, in Saint Paul,Minn.

THOMAS N. DAY (A) writes, “it’sbeen an interesting year workingat the INS in the aftermath of 9-11.I’ve been busy integrating variousdatabases and developing newones. LOIS [ECKLER DAY] (A77) islooking forward to getting back toteaching after our youngest is outof college.”

PAUL EITNER (SF) is happy toreport that his daughter Laura istaking a big step toward her life-long goal by being accepted forentry into Ohio State University’sveterinary program this fall.

VICKY MANCHESTER (SF) was married in November of 2002 toDr. John Garrison and is nowVicky Garrison. She continues toteach English and drama at theCIVA Charter High School in Military Springs, Co.

CYNTHIA HANCOFF LEVY’S (A) latest CD for young children,Proud of You, won a spring 2003Parents Choice Award. “You canlisten to one of the songs on myWeb site, www.music-makers.org.After 16 years of teaching music tokids and parents, I still love it!”

1973LAURIE F. CALLAHAN (SF) reportsthat ANNALISA EWALD (A) is a classical guitarist with a studio inSouth Norwalk, Conn.

JEAN FITZSIMON and LEE FISCHLER

(SF68) are spending much of thisyear in New York City. Jean has anew job as a corporate complianceconsultant. Compliance involvesteaching companies to be ethicalas well as responsible to an ever-changing legal climate. In otherwords, she’s a “cop for hire.”When Lee is not writing market-ing material for Jean, he takes

the grandkids to anti-war demonstrations.

BARBARA ROGAN (SF) is pleased toreport that her seventh novel,Hindsight, was just published bySimon & Schuster.

1974RENATE LEWIS (SFGI) looks forward to moving back to SantaFe this summer.

JEFF (A) and Alla Victoroff aredelighted to report the thrillingbirth of Ivan on Dec. 17, 2002.

ROBERTA FAULHABER-RAZAFY (SF)sends news from Paris: “Justthought I’d update fellow Johnnieson the latest development in mylife. My husband, Jean-Pierre, wasrecently appointed ambassador ofMadagascar (his native country) toFrance, UK, Spain, the Vatican,Israel, Portugal, and Monaco. I amcurrently living in an embassy inParis not far from my formeraddress in the same city, meditat-ing on the authentic Aubussontapestries and a strange Venetianchandelier that looks like miracu-lous frozen jellyfish as I type thisin the living room. Although Ifeel something of an alien as a tall,blonde, and blue-eyed AmericanMalagasy ambassadress, the situa-tion’s potential is certainlyintriguing. As life changes go,the surreal impact of this one willprobably drive my work as apainter into some new configura-tion. In my new role, I encourageyou all to visit Madagascar, withits unique flora and fauna, land-scapes, excellent food (still organ-ic!), and last but not least, thepeople and a culture based onnonviolent solutions to life’s prob-lems and, of course, parties for thedead at the end of the world.You’ll enjoy it. Need info? Justemail me at [email protected] I’ll see what I can do.”

1975BETSY BLUME (A), former directorof the college’s Alumni Activitiesoffice, has taken a position as

DANA NETHERTON (A72) has found an unusual usefor his volume of Liddell & Scott: “I’m using it as Iwork my way through a photostatic reprint of anintroductory book on Greek Orthodox churchmusic (Byzantine Chant), which was published in1821 by one of the three people who effected a

major revision to the genre’s musical notation (and which was writ-ten in Greek, of course). I actually have a practical use for thisstudy: I am learning to sing this genre of music in my church. Ibecame a member of the Greek Orthodox Church in March 2002,when I was chrismated on my hospital bed the night before my suc-cessful triple bypass heart surgery (following about a month of angi-na). Now, I climb on my home treadmill several times a week, bothfor all-weather exercise and also for singing practice (while readingmusic written in Byzantine-chant characters and listening to (andsinging along with) a Greek-American monk who sings the samemusic on a CD. Singing while walking briskly for a couple of milesworks wonders for my breath control during services!

My sophomore music tutor, the late Michael Ossorgin, wasrenowned in the world of Orthodox music (though Russian Ortho-dox of course, not Greek Orthodox). He was also incredibly patientwith my sophomoric impatience in his class. If he is looking in onme, no doubt he is pleased—and quite probably stunned!” x

director of development for theAssociation of Science-TechnologyCenters, which represents institu-tions of informal science educa-tion worldwide. Among its member organizations are theSmithsonian’s Museum of Ameri-can History, the National Aquari-um in Baltimore, the MarylandScience Center, the AmericanMuseum of Natural History inNew York, and the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

ERIC SCIGLIANO (SF) is at work ona new book, on Michelangelo,marble, and the Carrara quarries,that draws inspiration from a junior preceptorial in Santa Fe.

1976“My second novel, The Healer’sKeep, is now published in the U.S. and U.K. with German andFinnish editions due out soon. Mythird novel, The Oracle’s Light,will be published in spring 2004,”writes VICTORIA HANLEY (SF).

“Greeting to my classmates,”writes NICOLE SCHLESS (SF). “I’m well, living in a beautifulspot in Connecticut, but am out toSanta Fe fairly frequently. I’mwriting, carving, and contemplat-ing the mysteries, making a livingrunning a company here in Con-necticut. I’ve been building a‘barn’ for almost two years nowand it’s close enough to done forvisitors…well, hardy campers, anyway!”

PHYLLIS HUFFMAN HERMAN (SFGI)has a private practice using theFeldenkrais method of somaticeducation, working with move-ment and awareness.

1977GENE GLASS (A) and his wife,Susan, continue to live in Carroll,Iowa, where Gene has a privatepsychology practice. He also travels to Des Moines and Omaha,Neb., for his practice and for paidacting jobs. He’s looking forwardto getting back to Annapolis soonduring a homecoming and tospend time with good friends from

St. John’s. “Our 20-year was ablast!”

This is the first year that JIM andANDREA HAM (both SF77) are with-out children at home since 1984.“Dylan (18 years) is a freshman atUC-Santa Cruz and Caitlin (16 years) is a Rotary exchangestudent in Belgium for the year,”reports Andrea. “We are proud ofthem and we miss them but areenjoying the time alone too. Wewould love to hear from our classmates!”

VICKI PHILLIPS (A) received herPh.D. in religion from VanderbiltUniversity in 1997. She teaches atWest Virginia Wesleyan College.Her husband, BARRY (A), works asa finish carpenter in historical renovations.

1978RACHEL BARRETT (SF) has a newWeb site, home.earthlink.net/~rachelbarrett, showing what shehas been doing, art-wise, for thelast several years. Both her daugh-ters graduated this June, Fionafrom University of CaliforniaSanta Cruz and Vanessa fromFashion Institute of Design andMerchandizing in Los Angeles.

ERIC “TITO” COLEMAN (A) is backin Virginia after completing a six-year HIV-AIDS project in theDominican Republic. Funded byUSAID, his project was designedto build local capacity (NGOs andgovernment agencies) to respondto prevention and treatment chal-lenges in HIV through communi-cations and policy initiatives:television, radio and print mediadevelopment for public awareness;training, policy facilitation, andgrants for interventions. “Now Iam doing similar things but in theenvironmental field in LatinAmerica. I’m also a challengedand proud parent of two bodaciousdaughters. I’m happy to hear from‘past ghosts’ at [email protected].”

MARTHA MCGINNIS (SF) writes,“After 19 years in corporate life, I was thrilled to be ‘outsourced’ inDecember. I’m enjoying catchingup with my girls, Amelia (12) and

Molly (9), through soccer, volley-ball, chess club, Brownies, andchairing our charter school council. Once I catch my breath I will begin a new career in free-lance graphic recording and facilitation.”

TERRY C. SCHULD (A) has beenmarried 20 years this fall to Peg,an animal and wildlife artist. Heworks as a Web applications specialist for ADI, a division ofHoneywell, and lives in the LongIsland Pine Barrons.

“After eight years in the Navy, I have transferred to the U.S. Pub-lic Health Service, working in vaccines and biologies,” writesANN SCHWARTZ (A). “My two sons,Adam (20), and Caleb (19), are incollege at Dickinson College andGettysburg College, respectively. I am looking forward to a trip toNew Zealand next year.”

RITA BAHUS SATO (A) is currentlydirector of administrative servicesfor the Department of VeterinaryMedicine at the University ofMaryland, College Park. She ismarried with a lovely 13-year-olddaughter who is into horsebackriding and competing and OzzyOsbourne! The family alsoincludes a crazed Shar-Pei, Cocoa,and a quarterhorse named Polly.(Mom rides her, too!)

JAMES WALTON (SF) writes, “Wewrapped up another movie thismonth in Albuquerque. This is thesecond movie I’ve worked on(since joining IATSE Local 480),an Alejandro Iñárritu productionstarring Sean Penn. Since the NewMexico legislature passed billsoffering financial incentives, NewMexico is once more a very attrac-tive place for movie making.”

1979The University Press of Floridarecently published a book byCAROL COLATRELLA (A), Literatureand Moral Reform: Melville and theDiscipline of Readers.

DENNIS SHERMAN (A) has been living in France for just over 20years. He works in “gastronomictourism” and is a wine brokerbased in Burgundy.

1980LISA LASHLEY (SF) is teachingmath at St. Michael’s High Schoolin Santa Fe, where her two children, Alex (11th grade) andVirginia (8th grade), attend. She isalso involved with Girl Scouts andBoy Scouts, serving as a Cadettetroop leader and an assistantscoutmaster. She is also a docentat local museums and serves onthe board of the Santa Fe Archaeo-logical Society.

SUSAN REED (SFGI) and her first-grade son, Harry, have traveled toNew Zealand twice, England once,12 different states, and numerouscities, but otherwise lead a quietlife in the country.

DEBRA A. RUTHERFORD (SF) andher husband, Larry, still work atLos Alamos National Laboratory.Their daughter, Michelle, willenter Los Alamos Middle Schoolin the fall.



ANDREW WHITE (A81) will be in Athens on a Fulbright grant for the next academic year, com-pleting a dissertation on Byzantine theater andritual—the first of its kind in English. He will beliving in the northern suburbs and dividing histime between the University of Athens Theatre

Department and the American School for Classical Studies, wherehe will be an associate student. Andy has been incredibly lucky tofind a brilliant wife, Laura Hjerpe, and now enjoys the company of arowdy, sociable 6-year-old, Ian Richard, who is also looking forwardto next year’s Big Fat Greek Adventure! Andy can still be contactedthrough e-mail at [email protected]. x


{ A l u m n i N o t e s } 33

1981MONICA CREELMAN (SF) is workingin New York City as a clinical psy-chologist in a private practice. Sheis also teaching graduate students.She was married three years ago toKarl O’Donoghue, and they haveno children.

EMI SARA GEIGER (A) has madesome changes. “My husband andfive children and I moved back tothe U.S. one year ago to care formy aging parents. We miss our relatives and friends in Israel,many Johnnies among them, butwe are glad to be with my parents.The kids, ages 2-10, provide thejoy and the noise, and we clean upthe mess. All in all a perfectarrangement for two 80-year-oldsin need of a bit of excitement.”

1982COMFORT DORN (A) writes fromMiddletown, Md.: “I am no longermarried to ED GRANDI (A77), but Icontinue to live in Middletown andedit a community newspaper. I waspleased to see the topic of my sen-ior essay, Montaigne’s ‘On theEducation of Children,’ on thefront cover of The College. As Icontinue to educate my own threechildren (Rachel, 18; John, 15; andClaire, 10) I am ever remindedthat ‘only fools are certain.’”

MAREA JENNESS (HIMELGRIN) (SF)writes, “I am living in Catalina,Ariz., on two beautiful acres andteaching high school biology. My

husband, Doug, and I recently cel-ebrated our second anniversarytogether with our son, DanielMinh. We adopted him as a baby inVietnam. He recently painted us afamily portrait that shows a glow-ing energy ball between two longbrush strokes. That just aboutsums up the joy and passion of ourintertwined lives. I’m looking for-ward to visiting Santa Fe now thatI am closer and would welcomevisits from old friends. You canreach me at [email protected].”

“I have a new position as a founding faculty member of thenew (opening September 2003)Shoshana S. Cardin Jewish Community High School in Balti-more,” LESLIE SMITH ROSEN (A)writes. “I’ll be chair of theHumanities Department (thanks,SJC!) working on integrating amulti-disciplinary curriculum. My family (including childrenMarielle, 19, Alyssa, 16, andSamuel, 12) and I are well. I amlooking forward to an Aspen Institute conference on MortimerAdler at Wye River in June.”

GAIL DONOHUE STOREY (SFGI) andher husband, Porter, bicycled ontheir tandem from Houston to San Diego, covering 1,700 milesin five weeks. It was their secondtandem bike trip—the first wasfrom Houston to Camden, Maine(2,400 miles in seven weeks).

1983GINA CASASCO (SF) has a daughter,Alexandra, who was born on October 2, 2002. She moved toHudson, N.Y., from New York Cityin May of 2002. She works as thefinancial manager for two com-mercial real estate LLCs, one inMaryland and another in NorthernVirginia.

DAVID HALSTED (A), having earneda Ph.D. in comparative literature, isworking in the computer industryin Ann Arbor, Mich. His wife,Keely, is in the department of histo-ry and is director of Jewish studiesat Michigan State University. Theyshare a house outside of town withtwo wonderful children and a

recently acquired cat. [email protected].

“I am happy and well, living inPortland, Ore. with my family,”writes ANNE MCCLARD (SF). “Zoe is ten and Soren is almostfive. They are both flourishing andgrowing in spite of the lack of sun!Ken Anderson, my husband, and Icontinue with our struggle asanthropologists in the technicalindustries, loving and hating it atthe same time. I welcome e-mailfrom Johnnie friends and formerclassmates. [email protected].”

News from RICHARD MILLER

(A)and BARBARA COOPER (A):“We’re finishing up a year’s sabbatical in Paris. Then it’s backto work at Rutgers, where we bothteach now—Barbara in the historyof Africa, Richard chairing theEnglish department.”

1984DR. WENDY A BROWN (A), daughter of DR. MICHAEL BROWN

(class of 1951), was recently honored with a fellowship in theInternational College of Dentistsand the American College of Den-tists. These fellowships are con-ferred by peers for extraordinarycontribution to the profession.

JOHN L. BUSH (SF) received hislicense to practice architecture inVirginia in September 2002. Heand his wife, Elizabeth, celebratedtheir 20th wedding anniversary bytraveling to the Pecos Wilderness,Santa Fe, Taos, and ChacoCanyon, and had a wonderfultime. He sends a special hello toDan, Les, Joel, Brad, and “ofcourse, ole’ Joe Tetrault.”

After slaving away to write 11books, TRISHA (FIKE) HOWELL

(SF) is pleased that some arefinally rolling off the presses. The Princess and the Pekinese(a children’s picture book with asurprise twist) and The PekineseWho Saved Civilization (a humor-ous social and political commen-tary from the viewpoint of a toothless old dog) are makingtheir debut through www.howell-canyonpress.com. Trisha would

love to hear from old [email protected].

TIFFANY KNIGHT-JAN (SF) writesthat she still loves living in Madison, that she’s “still doingthe eyeball thing alternately withthe mom thing.”

KAREN ASTRID TOURIAN (A) andher husband, Rolf, took their second biking trip in Tuscany thispast fall. She started bike racingthis year, both time trials on theroad and cyclocross (“Midlife cri-sis?” she asks). She’s worked ayear at Wyeth and loves the [email protected]

1985ELBERT DELANO PORTER (A)announces the birth of ArnoXenophon Porter, born February 17, 2003.

1986MELISSA (FISHER) FRIEND (A) is working and living outside ofGeneva, Switzerland, with hus-band Michael and their children:Leo, 2, and Marina, 6. “We origi-nally came to Switzerland fromWashington, D.C., on a two-yearposting for Michael’s job, butmade the change to local hiresabout a year ago. So we’re herenow for the foreseeable future.Life is good, we’re all healthy andhappy.”

ELISABETH M. LONG (A) has beenbusy with a dual life: “By day I co-direct the Digital Library Develop-ment Center at the University ofChicago Library, and by night I ampursuing an MFA degree in Bookand Paper Arts. I recently won firstplace in the Art of Math and Science show for two pieces of artwork. My SJC background iscertainly informing my work. I’d love to hear from anyone who’s passing through Chicago.”

LISA N. ROSE (A) is building asemi-underground living structureand a strawbale schoolhouse aspart of a spiritual community project in central New Mexico.

Family and friendsof MARTIN

MILLER (A81),have set up anendowment fundin the memory of

Mr. Miller, who died in Januaryat the age of 45. The MartinConrad Miller Book Fund willhelp students who could nototherwise afford to buy Pro-gram books. To contribute tothe fund, contact the collegeAdvancement office inAnnapolis at 410-626-2507. x



Inquiries welcome. [email protected].

MICHAEL RYAN (SF) writes, “I ama partner in an architecture firmin downtown Albuquerque, andam five-ninths of the way throughthe Architect’s Record Exam, withthe goal of being a registeredarchitect by October. I am engagedfor the second (and last) time to awonderful woman with two girlsabout the same age as my 7-year-old daughter, Chloe.”

TAMMY LACHER SCULLY (SFGI)reports that she and her husband,Jack Scully, have started EasterlyWine LLC, distributors of finewine with an emphasis on offerings from France, Italy, and Portugal.

1987WARREN KING BUSS (SF) writes: “I am currently enrolled at theOregon College of Art and Craft,working toward a BFA in BookArts—after so many years of read-ing books, I am now learning howto make them. Finally, some relieffrom all the computer program-ming I’ve been doing for too manyyears! My wife Laura and sonMatthew are well and thriving.”He can be reached at [email protected].

JOE T. COXWELL (SFGI) is nowchair of the science department atNortheast Lauderdale High Schoolin Meridian, Miss. He recentlyreceived the 2003 Star TeacherAward from the M.B. Swayze Educational Foundation and theMississippi Economic Council. He also is a part-time instructor ofphysical science and astronomy atMeridian Community College.

CHARLOTTE L. GLOVER (SF) writes,“My St. John’s training has reallycome in handy while I lead bookdiscussion groups at the library!Montana 1948 by Larry Watson hasbeen the favorite of the group sofar.”

On May 16th my husband,Michael, and I welcomed Benjamin William Lewin into theworld, writes SALLIE FINE LEWIN

(A). “We have not yet found

language adequate to describe theincredible joy we have discoveredthrough parenthood. Benjaminand I are spending our summerdays going to Mommy and Babyyoga classes, taking walks, andhanging out at the pool before I goback to teaching at the end ofAugust.”

In January, PEGGY O’SHEA (A)returned to St. John’s Santa Fe to finish her sophomore year, 18 years after leaving St. John’sAnnapolis. She expects to graduate in 2005.

1988ELAINE PINKERTON COLEMAN

(SFGI) announces the birth offuture Johnnie Emily ClementinePinkerton, born October 3, 2002.“Grandmotherhood is even morefun than parenting,” Elainereports. Coleman traveled to eightstates promoting From CalcuttaWith Love and is now finishing anovel, Beast of Bengal. The novelis set in Calcutta during WorldWar II.

TED MERZ (A) and DIANA MARTINEZ

(SF86) announce the birth of Hay-den Martinez Merz in November2002. Diana is an assistant profes-sor of psychiatry at Columbia University. Ted is the managingeditor for the Americas ofBloomberg News.

THERESA DONNELLY (SF) writes,“John (Irwin, SFGI89) and Imoved back to Baltimore from

Chicago three years ago. John’s inpractice at Harbor Hospital in Baltimore and I’m home with Lucy(4 1/2) and her little sister Beatrice (8 months). Our e-mailaddress is [email protected].”

KIM PAFFENROTH (A) is the editorof A Reader’s Companion to Augus-tine’s Confessions (Westminster:John Knox Press, 2003), in whichhe has gathered 13 Augustinescholars, each writing an essay onone of the 13 books of the Confes-sions, each presenting his or hercase for why that particular bookis the most important of the 13.Kim lives in Cornwall on Hudson,N.Y., with his wife, Marlis (A86),and their children, Charles andSophia.

ELIZABETH (A) and ANDREW (A90)PENDERGRASS are pleased toannounce the birth of their son,John Alexander, born in Januaryof this year.

LAURIE COOPER (A) and DovKugelmass gave birth to their son,Cyrus, in October 2002. Theirdaughter Carrie is three.

CLAUDIA (PROBST) STACK (A) andJoseph Stack welcomed a secondson, Jack Matthew Stack, on January 29, 2003. They would liketo hear from classmates visitingthe North Carolina area and fromthose planning to attend the 15th-year reunion in [email protected]

THERESA SULLIVAN (A) marriedDaniel Mooney at St. Joseph’sChurch in Denver, Colorado, on

October 25. BURCH HARPER,KATARINA WONG, BENJAMIN

KRAUSS, SHEILA MONEN VIRGIL,and JAMES O’GARA were a credit toSt. John’s waltz parties as theydanced all night to the Irish band.STEVE VIRGIL (A88) and James’wife, Ellen, stayed home with thekids and were sorely missed. Afternine years as a communicationsconsultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ameritech in Chica-go, Theresa moved to Denver in2000 to attend cooking school.She went on to study with chefs inProvence and the Piedmont regionof Italy, and became certified as aprofessional sommelier and chefof wine arts. The Mooneys live inDenver, where Dan works forOppenheimerFunds and Theresais a marketing writer and caterer.The highlight of their Santa Fehoneymoon was a St. John’s Community Seminar with PatriciaGreer on Yeats’ “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen.” Shealways loves to hear from oldfriends at [email protected] or 303-639-1354.

1989PATRICK CRINNION (SF) is finallylooking through a telescope at theGalilean moons of Jupiter—greatfield experience to go with thereadings.

KURT REDFIELD (A) recently com-pleted his MBA at Columbia University’s School of Businessand is the chief financial officer ofthe French software companyNeartek. Kurt, his wife, Christine, and 4-year-old son Wilson live in Cambridge, Mass.

LAEL GOLD (SF) married VANESSA

CAMPBELL (SF) on December 14,2002. Perhaps a bit more precise-ly, Alex Brown married VanessaCampbell in a ceremony per-formed by Lael Gold. (She is alsoavailable for bar mitzvahs, baptisms, boat christenings andsupermarket grand openings.)The wedding was held near Vanes-sa and Alex’s organic farm in themountains outside Asheville, N.C.(St. John’s students interested infarming and prepared to workhard can contact Vanessa at full-

Johnnie Plates in Maryland

St. John’s alumni in Maryland can trade in their oldlicense plates for a new set celebrating their alma mater.The Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles began issu-ing the St. John’s license plate this fall. The plates, whichcost $25, feature the seal of the New Program and a four-digit number with St. John’s College across the bottom.

Sign up soon: We have a long way to go to catch up with all the Navyplates on Annapolis-area roads.

The project was spearheaded by JOEL ARD (A98), who hopes it willcatch on in other states that offer organizational plates. There’s nofinancial benefit to the college, Ard notes, “it’s simply an opportunityto celebrate the college everywhere you drive.”

The Alumni Office in Annapolis is happy to work with alumni inother states who want Johnnie plates. Call 410-295-6926. x


{ T h e C o l l e g e John’s College • Fall 2003 }

35

[email protected] concern-ing summer internship opportuni-ties.) When not officiating at wed-dings in the North Carolinamountains, Lael teaches film andliterature classes at U.C. Berkeleywhere she is in the Ph.D. home-stretch. Vanessa and Lael sendtheir fond regards to former class-mates and long-absent friends.How IS everyone?

REGINA LANDOR (AGI) served inthe Peace Corps in Macedonia andRomania, where she met herfuture husband, a fellow volunteer.They now live in Peoria, Ill.

CHRISTOPHER SULLIVAN (A) is trav-eling a lot between San Franciscoand Heidelberg for his writing anddesign job for a software company,becoming nearly fluent in Ger-man. He continues to stay busydoing voice-overs in the Bay Areafor phone systems, radio and TVads, video games, and even anima-tion—he performed a couple ofvoices for a short animation called“Metropopular” that showed atSundance and toured with Spikeand Mike’s Animation Festival. Hereports, “No spouse, no children,no house, but—considering howdisturbed and gaisquantialized theworld is—not too terrible a life.”Former classmates can reach by e-mail at [email protected].

GEORGE TURNER (A) writes: “Oursecond child, Lily Sarah, was bornApril 26, 2003. Everyone ishealthy and happy.” The familymoved to a new house in CostaMesa, Calif., about a 15-minutebike ride from the beach. He alsostarted his own law firm, TurnerGreen Afrasiabi and Arledge LLP,last year. Their Web site,www.turnergreen.com, is “eitherimpressive or funny, depending onhow well you know me.”

NINDA LETAW (A) reports that sheis the proud owner of Charlotte’sHome Cooking, a personal chefservice in Raleigh, N.C. She wouldlove to hear from classmates.

1990DAHRA LATHAM (A) graduated fromlaw school on June 16, 2003.

GREY VALENTI (A) married ChrisD’Amato in June.

DEBRA JO WHITCOMB (A) is work-ing full-time as a hospice nurse,doing a little massage therapy onthe side and spending the rest ofthe time doing Tai Chi. She’s alsoa Tai Chi instructor

1991STEVEN MCNAMARA (A) and ANGE MLINKO (A) welcomed theirnew son, Jacob, into the world onMarch 19, 2003.

NATE DOWNEY (SF) finally got theanswer to the question “what ishapiness?” after the birth of hisson, Liam Nathan Downey, on January 6th, 2003.

“I never thought I would be ableto teach works studied in the Eastern Classics program,” writesRONALIE MOSS (SFGI, EC95). “But in spite of the Euro-centricnature of the Advanced Placementprogram, I have been able to teachsome Chinese poetry, Noh playsand the Bhagavad Gita. The pro-gram is worthwhile for its ownsake, of course!”

ANDY SCHUCHART (AGI) writes:Charlotte and I became parents on August 1 with the birth of Maximilian Blaise and VeronicaJoyce. We are living in Iowa. I am aprofessor of social science andhumanities at our community college, and Charlotte practicesinternal medicine.

LAKE (JAMES) PERRIGUEY (SF) isworking as an attorney in Port-land, Ore. He recently authoredthree amicus briefs to the OregonSupreme Court arguing that thestate constitution protects lapdances and sexual expression inlive theatrical performances. He’sbeen a groupie to the British AMPSwan Lake, touring the world inawe of all male corps de ballet.Lake has never seen “Will andGrace.”

1992MICHAEL BROWN (SF) is living inSan Francisco and would love tohear from old friends: [email protected]; 415-734-9500.

PATRICIA COXWELL (SFGI) is nowteaching elementary and middleschool general music for the WestLauderdale School District nearMeridian, Miss. She specializes intraditional folk music and this yearraised over three thousand dollarsto purchase dulcimers for herclasses. She is married to JOE

COXWELL (SFGI87). They have onedaughter, Joanna, age five, whowill begin kindergarten this fall.

ELYETTE (BLOCK) KIRBY (SF) hasbeen living in England for twoyears with husband Jonathan, andchildren Benjamin and Bronwyn.They live an hour away from London and would enjoy hearingfrom Johnnies in the area.elyette@hotmailcom

SIOFRA (RUCKER) NUGENT (SF)writes: “We are expecting our second child this September. I amteaching second and third grade atmy daughter’s school, DelphiAcademy. Delphi is a network ofseven, soon eight, schools aroundthe country. We both love it.”

ALBERT REED (SFGI) is currentlythe dean of business and technolo-gy at Santa Fe Community College.

1993J. CLAIRE DARLING (SF) is busywith environmental actionsregarding safe water and nutri-tion. She is also completing training to become a MusicTogether teacher. Music Togetheris a “fabulous, fun-based programto informally teach basic musiccompetence to kids ages 0-5 (andtheir fun-loving caretakers).”

JULIA (GRAHAM) MESNIKOFF (SF)is working as a nurse practicionerwith Boston Healthcare for theHomeless, “which is challengingas much because of financial cuts

to Medicaid (severely limitingwhat we can offer some patients)as because of the huge learningcurve of diagnosis and treatment. I like and respect my patients andfind that working with them makesme incredibly grateful for my ownlife and circumstances, warts and all.”

GABRIEL PIHAS (A) received hisDoctor of Philosophy degree fromthe Committee on Social Thoughtat the University of Chicago inJune 2003. He accepted a teachingposition at the European Collegeof Liberal Arts in Berlin for thefall.

This fall, JONATHAN PEARL (A)heads to Brno, Czech Republic,with his wife Cheryl and their sonRembrandt, age 1. “I havereceived a nine-month Fulbrightgrant to conduct research on thecomposer Leos Janacez and on theintonation and rhythm of spokenCzech.” He is a Ph.D. candidate inmusicology.

1994SCOTT ANDREWS (SFGI) marriedJennifer Matson, a physical thera-pist, in June. He finished his seventh year of teaching history ata nearby preparatory school. Theylive in a small, quiet village on theshores of Cape Cod. “Meaningfulwork in a beautiful place with theone I love beside me – is life good,or what?”

LEAH MULHOLLAND AUCKEN-THALER, (A) is married and has ababy boy named Nicholas. She isliving in Minneapolis, Minn., andis a stay-at-home-mom.

News from BILL KOWALKSI (SF):“My wife, Alexandra Nedergaard,and I are delighted to announcethe birth of our daughter, KasiaAlexandra Kowalski, on July 3,2003, in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. Both Mama and baby aredoing well after an arduous labor. I myself have also given birth: to athird novel, called The Adventuresof Flash Jackson (HarperCollins,January 2003). I’m pregnant witha fourth, which I am hopeful willbe delivered sometime in 2005.



36

Earlier literary progeny continueto do well, including a short filmco-written with MarkusGriesshammer called CoyoteBeach, which won the prize forBest American Short Film at theNew York/Avignon Film Festivalthis past April.”

JEFFREY SPENCER WRIGHT (SFGI)will be studying at the NationalUniversity of Ireland, Galway, thissummer.

1995DINA DINEVA (A) and MILEN

DYOULGEROV (AGI96) are happy toannounce the birth of their daugh-ter Maia on December 24, 2002.Dina writes, “Having the baby hasgiven me a chance to slow downand reflect—a sort of return to aJohnnie state of being—for which,and for the many other gifts ofmotherhood, I am very grateful.”

CHRIS DAVIS (SF) and CARMEN

ELIZABETH HERING (SF) were married May 31.

GEOFF GIFFIN (AGI) is now thepublisher of a brand new InternetYellow Pages in Annapolis and thegreater Washington/Baltimorearea. “Check us out as www.yellowpagecity.com. For the firsttime the look and feel of the tradi-tional Yellow Pages is available onthe Internet.”

LAURA GIANNINY JOYNER (A)reports that Caroline Anne, hersecond child, joined the family onNov. 1, 2002, and she is “experi-encing all the challenges and joysof raising two children under theage of 3 in Hawaii.”

BETH SCHAEFER (EC) retired at theend of 2001 after working for 25 years as an attorney for thestate Department of Health inNew Mexico. “I have been divid-ing my time since then betweenice skating and Zen practice. What fun!”

PETER LAMAR (AGI) currentlyserves as dean of academies atHoly Cross Academy in Miami,Fla. The school has implemented agreat books curriculum based on

the St. John’s model, beginningwith the 2003-2004 school year.www.holycrossacademy.net

Still living at the top of the worldin Barrow, Alaska, MIKE LAYNE

(SF) and his wife, Rachael, celebrated their fourth weddinganniversary in June, and the firstbirthday of their daughter, AudreyRae, in February. He is working asa counselor at a local youth shelter, and may become moreinvolved with grant writing. He may make the transition into aprogram coordinator position fortheir new Tobacco PreventionGrant program in the near future.

JASON MCCREADY (A) writes: “Igraduated from Georgetown LawSchool, realized I hated the largelaw firm environment, and movedback to my hometown in westernPennsylvania. I am working as alawyer in a three-lawyer law firm,enjoying it immensely. Friendsfrom St. John’s that I’ve lost contact with can contact me [email protected].”

RONALIE A. MOSS (SFGIEC andSFGI91) reports that, despite theEurocentric nature of the highschool Advanced Placement program, she’s been able to teachChinese poetry, Noh plays, andthe Bhagavad Gita.

TOM (A) and Marion SLAKEY

report the happy news of threenew grandchildren: twins Char-lotte and Brendan, to Bill and hiswife, Heather, in Placitas, N.M.,and Noah Yarrow to Michael andhis wife, Victoria, in Brittany,France.

APRIL WALTERS (A) graduatedfrom Towson University with amaster’s in professional writing inMay 2002. She currently works asthe writing studio coordinator atthe Maryland Institute College ofArt, and freelances as a personalcoach for writers. www.writing-studio.com

1996DOUGLIS BECK (AGI) is enjoyingmostly staying at home with 2-year-old Veronica. He is pursuing

small projects on his own asDouglis Beck DesignStudio, andwill be teaching art history andarchitecture courses at WebsterUniversity beginning this summerwith a seminar on the Bauhaus.

SCOTT FIELD (SFGI) and his wife,Jessica Field, had another babyboy last spring. Henry, 2, is veryhappy to have his little brotherOscar.

HANAN MIKLASZ (AGI) reports thatshe and her husband are celebrat-ing the birth of their second son,Zane, on May 27, 2003.

FRANCESCO GIUSEFFI (SFGI) hasbeen enjoying teaching, coaching,and performing the duties of ath-letic director at Missouri MilitaryAcademy and has even facilitated acouple of independent studycourses in Western philosophy.

CHERYL HENEVELD (AGI) writes,“We have begun a community discussion group and vigiliaagainst the war. Why can’t we usewords instead of bombs and guns?We are also teaching a course(with my husband Ward Henevald)on Peace and War at Johnson StateCollege—a required course for thisstate college. I can send the syllabus to others. Ridley’s Originsof Virtue is a required text.

HEATHER ELLIOTT (SF) and SAUL

LAURELES (SF92) were married in2001 and bought a house in Hous-ton Heights. They’re both lawyers;Saul practices with Mayer BrownRowe and Maw, and Heather withDavis, Oretsky and Guilfoyle.

JONATHAN ROWAN (SF) is studyingfor a Ph.D. in comparative litera-ture at UC Berkeley. His e-mailaddress is [email protected].

LUCILLE AND MARTY WALKER (bothAGI) are now the proud parents oftwo sons, Reeseman Adams Walker (born October 5, 2002)and Ian Archibald Walker (bornDecember 3, 1999).

1997ELAINE ATABA (A) is starting amaster’s program in traditionalOriental medicine in the fall. After completing the four- to five-year program, she will be able tosit for a national exam to becomean acupuncturist.

BENJAMIN BLOOM (A) says all iswell. “I am starting my secondsemester at the University ofMaryland. I hope to begin teaching an undergraduate English course next year. Bestwishes to all.”

“Instead of finding a summerinternship with a large corpora-tion, I decided to launch a compa-ny of my own,” writes DOMINIC

CRAPUCHETTES (A). “It is veryexciting and scary. I borrowed$10K and have already raised $15Kfrom other investors, but I stillneed to raise about $25K morebefore I can truly begin. At thatpoint I’ll be able to finance thefirst print/run of a new boardgame called ‘Cluzzle.’ The game is

An update from DONA CUTSOGEORGE (SFGI96):“After leaving the Graduate Institute in 1996with M.A. in hand, I was looking for ‘good’ workand, although some may disagree that this fit thebill, joined Amazon.com as a German languagecustomer service rep, first assisting in the estab-

lishment of Amazon.de, I later went on to help build their U.S.program for independent authors, musicians, and filmmakers.After several years in the dot-com world, I no longer felt as enthu-siastic about this career, and the bubble was on the verge of burst-ing, to boot. I switched gears and am now employed as a writerwith The MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation in Seattle,Wash. I’m fortunate enough to work with a team of very dedicatedand caring researchers and clinicians devoted to improving U.S.healthcare for the chronically ill. I’d love to hear from any localJohnnies or former classmates: [email protected]” x

{ A l u m n i P r o f i l e }


37

“Monkeys hit Robots with sticks.Robots shoot Monkeys with lasers.They both love their mothers. Whymust they hate each other?”

This is the question that Geoffrey Marslettraises in his two-minute animated film,“Monkey vs. Robot, ” a project that metwith surprising and satisfying success: Thefilm was screened at 25 film festivals, pur-chased by “Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twist-ed Festival of Animation 2000,” included inPBS’ “Egg the Arts Show,” and recognizedwith awards and prizes at festivals.

Marslett made the film for an animationclass in his second year of film school at theUniversity of Texas, taking his inspirationfrom a song of the same name written by hisfriend James Kochalka. The project took justa week and cost about $20, but Marslett saysthat’s only one side of the story. “The flipside is, I worked on it nonstop. Because I wasa student I had access to computers and timeto devote to it. At the worst point during thatweek, I showed up at the computer lab at 9a.m., worked all day long and all through thenight, then went to T.A. a class from 9 tonoon and went right back to work.”

Animation, it turns out, is part monkey,part robot. “There’s the low-fi end, writingthe script and creating the art,” explainsMarslett, “then you spend weeks andmonths fighting with machines to get it tocome out in a format that can be mailed toeverybody’s house, sent out on the Internet,or broadcast on television.”

Marslett, who now teaches animation atthe University of Texas, says that his stu-dents often come into class thinking thatthey will produce a few drawings and thecomputer will do the rest. “I always tell themthat animation is not making drawingsmove; they’re going to have to draw motion.They have to look at the world and figure outhow to draw things that create the illusion ofmotion. It takes a lot of work just to see theworld around you. For the first assignment, Iusually have them take still photos ofmotion, have them break it down frame byframe.”

Frame by frame in most animatedproductions is to the tune of 24frames per second. But that simpleequation is misleading: a singleframe usually requires several draw-ings. Marslett explains why, using asan example a scene where a monkeyswings through the jungle: “Youmake several drawings: one that isthe far background, another a coupleof trees closer, another of more ofthe trees that you can use to shiftperspective, drawings for the vinethat’s swinging, the body, arms, any-thing in the foreground. If you have a rhi-noceros run by, you need one rhinocerosbody and ten or twelve drawings of legs fora walk cycle. Any given frame might have10 or 20 layers to it.”

In addition, the animator must add lip-synching. For each character, animators cre-ate a library of lips, consisting of 10 or 15different shapes. After the script is recordedand edited, the animator takes the libraryand puts the lips in to match up to thesound. “It can get pretty tedious,” saysMarslett. “If everything is already drawn soI’m only working with the lips, and thecharacter’s not turning his head while hespeaks, I can do one minute of monologuein a day.”

Marslett did all the drawings for “Monkeyvs. Robot.” But for his thesis project, a 24-minute film called “Trip to Roswell,” eightartists worked with him. “Animation isalways labor-intensive,” he says. “Even ifsomeone is making drawings quickly, at fiveor six minutes a drawing, multiply that by90,000 drawings for a feature film. That’s alot of minutes.”

After “Trip to Roswell” won the Best Ani-mation Award at CinemaTexas Short FilmFestival, Marslett was inspired to write afeature-length screenplay based on the film.The price tag? Marslett says $500,000 to$750,000—cheap for an animated feature.

As he investigates sources of funding forthe movie, Marslett is reworking theRoswell script as a television series. “I getmore interest in it that way,” he says. “Peo-ple can wrap their minds more quickly

around animation for adults as a TV seriesthan as a feature film.” x

To wrap your mind around other Marslettproductions, check out his Web site:www.swervepictures.com

Trip to RoswellDeep in the Heart of Texas in the year2020 AD, the suburbs have spread likeweeds across the hill country. Everyonelives in a suburban rancho-style stuccohouse with a red tiled roof. They all parktheir Ford Lemmings next to their ToyotaReplica, and absolutely everyone surfsthe Internet incessantly. Frank is youraverage kid in this near dark future untilhis parents get him the latest in electivemedical implants, the locotron. Thisdevice is supposed to allow him to accessURLs just by thinking about the site—butFrank is special. He still practices the for-gotten art of reading books, and the extrainput transforms his implant into a sort oftime machine that pulls him into whatev-er he’s reading about. The U.S. SenateChambers in 1856, Pangia during the fallof the dinosaurs, Paris in 1969…eventual-ly stranding a twenty-five-year old “dam-aged” Frank in Roswell, New Mexico dur-ing a 1947 flying saucer crash.

Part Monkey, Part RobotAnimator Geoff Marslett (SF96) bridges

art and technology in his filmsby Sus3an Borden, A87

Geoff Marslett’s film “Monkey vs.Robot” met with surprising success.



38

a lot of fun to play! Learn moreabout it on our Web site,www.cluzzle.com. P.S. Businessschool is very demanding. I can’twait for it to end.”

CHRIS ENGLISH (SFGI) and hiswife, DIANE SHIRES (SFGI98), areexpecting their first child, a boy,in June. “We’ve begun saving upfor his St. John’s education now–Alumni ’25?”

From SARAH JANE FRAUENZIMMER

(FREMONT) (A): “After severalgreat years in the Pacific North-west, Matt, the dog, and I packedup and moved a little farther westto Japan, where Matt is currentlystationed. We are enjoying plentyof sushi, feeling unusually tall,and the prospect of cherry blos-soms in the spring. I’m teaching abit of yoga and English, learningJapanese and am contemplatingmaster’s programs. If you findyourself in the Tokyo area, drop usa line at [email protected].

JESSICA CAMPBELL MCALLEN (SF)writes, “I am living and workingon my husband’s family cattleranch in south Texas and I wouldlove to hear from anyone in thearea ([email protected])!I would also love to hear from JEFF

HUGGINS, BRIAN PARKINSON, andJACOB CURTIS who were here withme on spring break 1996.”

LESLIE NORTON (AGI) served inthe Peace Corps in Mongolia fromJune 2 through September 2003.

Here’s what NATHAN SCHLEIFER

(SF) has been up to: “J.D. Wash-ington University School of Law,2001; married to Brenda Nelson,2002; B.S./M.S. biomedical engineering (biocomputing focus)expected 2004/2005. Currently,I’m general legal counsel forAutomating Peripherals Inc. andan editor for the BiotechnologyReview.

1998News from LEA (A) and BRIAN

(SF97) BROCK: “After rectifyingour relationship to Santa Fe bymeans of completing the EasternClassics program in 2001, wemoved to Anchorage to teach inthe well-known Atheneum School,which both supplies and utilizesmany Johnnies. We currently tendan earthship in Taos while ridinghorses and playing music. Weaudit Sanskrit classes with MR. PERRY and various EC folks.Oh, by the way, as you mightguess…we got married! We had aseminar on C.S. Lewis’s The FourLoves after the wedding—it wasgreat!”

JACQUELINE CAMM (A) announcesher marriage to Robert Travis (a 1998 graduate of Columbia University) on February 8, 2003 inthe Cathedral Church of St. Luke,Orlando, Fla. The Rt. Rev. JohnHowe, Bishop of the EpiscopalDiocese of Central Floridapresided. AMY (NORMAN) MORGAN

(A96) and her husband, Bill, provided music for the ceremony.“We have moved to Tennesseewhere we purchased our first homewith the help of MILK KLIM (A02) ofColumbia National Mortgage. Ifanyone would like to reach us, or ispassing through Tennessee, pleasesend us an e-mail: [email protected].”

GLENSCOTT THOMAS COPPER (AGI)has been awarded a FulbrightMemorial Fund Fellowship toJapan for next fall. He has finishedconstruction on his own ceramicsstudio and fired his first pots. Hestill teaches creative writing, journalism and theater at Milwau-kee High School of the Arts.

SASHA MUDD (A) finished a mas-ter’s degree from the University ofChicago’s Divinity School in June.She will spend a year at Cambridgebefore starting doctoral work atthe University of Chicago’s Com-mittee on Social Thought.

LUIS ALEJANDRO SALAS (A) has justreceived a master’s degree in clas-sics from Rutgers University. Thisfall, he moves to Texas to completea Ph.D. at the joint program inancient philosophy at the Univer-sity of Texas-Austin.

1999SHELBY BLYTHE (A) relocated toPhiladelphia where he is enrolledin the Cell and Molecular BiologyGraduate Group at the Universityof Pennsylvania. He’s studying theearly embryonic development offrogs this summer. He’d be glad tospeak with students and alumniwho are considering careers in thebiomedical sciences regarding hisexperience so far. [email protected].

RUTH BUSKO (SF) is very excited tobe in her final year of training for amaster’s degree in acupuncture atthe Tai Sophia Institute for theHealing Arts in Laurel, Maryland.She spends most of her time treat-ing patients at the faculty-studentclinic at the school and in the Baltimore City Detention Centeras well as other drug rehabilitationsites around Baltimore. She can bereached at [email protected].

GEORGE FINNEY (SF) dropped aline from Dallas: “I’ve just gottenengaged to my longtime girl-friend, AMANDA KENNEDY (SF02).Amanda and I will be married atGrace and Peace Fellowship in St. Louis on November 1 of thisyear. I have also recently taken anew job at Southern MethodistUniversity as a network engineer.This new position works out greatbecause I hope to begin my pur-suit of a legal education there, as opposed to the illegal one I hadbeen pursuing, in the fall of ’04. If you would like to contact me,send e-mail to: [email protected].”

MARK H. JOHNSON (A) is currentlypursuing his Master of Divinity atDuke University.

PATRICK REED (AGI) moved backto the Annapolis area and is cur-rently teaching at Severn School.His wife, Jana, is an ER doctor sta-tioned at Andrews Air Force Base.

2000KELSEY BENNETT (SF) will begincourses in the fall toward a mas-ter’s degree in English at the University of Denver. She recentlycompleted a novel.

TIM CARNEY (A) is currently work-ing in Washington, D.C., as areporter for columnist and CNNcommentator Bob Novak, as wellas doing freelance writing. He hasbeen awarded a Phillips Founda-tion Journalism Fellowship andwill use it after the 2004 electionsto write a book reporting on bigbusiness and big government.

KATHY PLUTH (SF99) finished her master’s in theology from the Catholic University of America(CUA) in 2001. “Since then I’ve stayed in Wash-ington, and I’ve been working, first as director ofreligious education in a local parish, now as aresearch assistant at the Life Cycle Institute at

Catholic University. I’ve been able to do some freelance editing ofphilosophy and theology books for the CUA Press as well, and I havean ongoing part-time job tutoring a seminarian and future Catholicpriest. In my spare time I write hymns. Two were recently publishedin a Catholic devotional magazine called Magnificat. I noticed whenI was doing parish work that a lot of devoted Catholics are nonethe-less terribly undereducated about their faith, so the hymns are myattempt to teach a little (I borrowed the idea from St. Ephrem theSyrian). This is definitely the most fulfilling work I’ve done sinceleaving St. John’s. If I had more free time, I would extensively studythe works of Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, and Hans Urs vonBalthasa—great 20th century theologians.” x


{ A l u m n i N o t e s } 39

In sunny Las Cruces, N.M, KARINA NÖEL HEAN (A) is workingon a Master of Fine Arts degreeand is a teaching assistant at theuniversity. In June 2003 she hadan artist residency at Vermont Studio Centers. She writes: “All-in-all, I’m just loving life, but missmy friends, though. Hope every-one is well—feel free to drop in.Peace!” She can be reached [email protected].

BENJAMIN SHOOK (SF) writes, “I now have a successful businessbuilding furniture and cabinets. I also now have a great deal lessamour-propre.”

SAM MARKHAM (SF) is studying atthe University of London for amaster’s in the History of theBook.

SARAH SIEMERING (SF) entered theDominican Sisters of St. Cecilia inNashville, Tenn. in August. TheSisters are a teaching order andteach in schools throughout thecountry. Sarah joins at least twoother Johnnies who are alreadyprofessed Sisters.

SARAH MARSH (A) writes fromBrooklyn, N.Y., “Hey y’all. Thingsare going well with me in the bigcity. I’m finishing up my first yearof grad school and can’t believe Iwill be a midwife in a little over ayear! I think of so many of you sooften and it always makes mesmile. Get in touch. [email protected].”

N. NICOLE NELSON-JEAN (AGI)lives in Tokyo and serves as theEnergy Attaché to the U.S. ambas-sador to Japan and director of theU.S. Department of Energy Asiaoffice at the American Embassy.She recently celebrated her two-year wedding anniversary toPatrick.

DEBERNIERE J. TORREY (AGI)writes: “Following a year of teach-ing high school history and litera-ture at Abu Dhabi InternationalSchool in the UAE (working withSJC alumna JUDITH HUGHES

[AGI95]), I’m now enrolled in myfirst semester of Ph.D. studies incomparative literature at PennState University. What I’ve been

experiencing in mainstream aca-demia these past few monthsmakes me appreciate St. John’seven more. I welcome contactfrom former classmates or fromother Johnnies who might wantinformation about grad school andcomparative literature at PennState.”

CHRISTOPHER VAUGHAN (A)learned to surf, visited England,and “saw what might have beenSpiderman” while living withFLETCHER CUNNIFF (A) and otheralums in Baltimore. He traveled toChicago to visit STEVE PALOPOLI

(A01), who is now living and work-ing there. He also reports hearingthat ALEX DIEFENBACH (A01) is inthe Army, married, and presentlyliving in Germany. Christophercan be reached at [email protected].

2001LANCE BRISBOIS (A) lives inBoston, where he also works as asecretary to the chancellor ofBoston University; his e-mailaddress is [email protected].

From DANIEL BRAITHWAITE (A):“I’m in Chicago.”

Students interested in Boston University’s University ProfessorsProgram are welcome to contactBASIL CLEVELAND (A) at [email protected] orvisit him in Boston.

LANCE KIRMEYER (SF) and JENNIFER JULIANA CORONA (SF02)were married on May 25, 2003,and are living happily in Santa Fe.Lance provides technical supportand assistance to customers ofDankoff Solar Products andJuliana will teach math and NewMexico history at Alameda MiddleSchool in the fall.

MATTHEW LIPPART (SF) hasfinished his second year of teaching in Santa Fe and hasreturned to St. John’s for the Eastern Classics.

SUZANNE SIMMONS (SF) writes,“After having my assignment withthe Peace Corps cancelled threetimes, due to a country’s civilunrest and the imminence of warwith Iraq, I decided not to join. Idid not want to wait another yearfor a proper assignment. I hopethat all my former classmates,tutors, and other friends are doingwell, especially those who haveany friends, family, or are them-selves involved with the U.S.efforts in Operation Iraqi Free-dom. I am still keeping track ofSF01 addresses, numbers, etc., so please e-mail me with any new information: [email protected].”

2002H. CHRISTIAN BLOOD (SF) writes,“How nice it was to see everyonewho made it to croquet. Precipita-tion complications aside, what afine weekend. This fall I shallbegin doctoral studies at thedepartment of literature at University of California SantaCruz. I think I’ve found a schoolwhose location rivals the beautyand glory of Santa Fe. Anyone whofinds himself in the area, contactme at [email protected]; looks like I’ll be there for atleast six years.”

AMANDA KENNEDY (SF) writes,“I’m employed! After attendingthe 2002 Summer Institute onPhilanthropy and Voluntary Ser-vices, I went to work temporarilyat a nonprofit called Energy Solu-tions, which provides energy conservation consultations toschools, businesses, etc. Then inJanuary 2003 I started at the Genesis Women’s Shelter in Dallas, Texas, as their fund development writer. We servewomen and their children who arevictims of domestic violence.Thank you to SJC! I’m liberated!”

JONATHAN COOPER (A) has moved toSt. Louis to spend a year in Ameri-corps. He already misses Bostonvery much, but misses his friendseven more. Any interested party orarea alumnus should feel free to e-mail him at his newly minted

account: [email protected]. He is also veryexcited to see his name in thepaper here.

JAMES GILMORE (A) began studiesin philosophy at Johns HopkinsUniversity.

EMMA WELLS (SF) reports that shehas her first full-time, salariedposition: “Good news! I am soexcited. I am working at the CatoInstitute in downtown Washing-ton, D.C. This is where I internedthis last spring semester. I amreally happy. I work for the devel-opment department, which is thefundraising department of Cato. I will be here for at least a year, ifnot two, before going off to lawschool. So make sure and send mean e-mail and let me know if you’rein the area or if you can visit!”

2003REBEKAH NEELY GOTTLOB (A) married NATE EAGLE (A) on July 5. x

What’s Up?The College wants to hear fromyou. Call us, write us, e-mailus. Let your classmates knowwhat you’re doing. The nextissue will be published in Janu-ary; deadline for the alumninotes section is October 31.

In Annapolis:The College Magazine St. John’s College, P.O. Box 2800 Annapolis, MD 21404; [email protected]

In Santa Fe:The College MagazineSt. John’s College Public Relations Office 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599; [email protected]

Alumni notes on the Web:Read Alumni Notes and contact The College on the web atwww.sjca.edu — click on Alumni.


{ O b i t u a r i e s }40

Kathyrn “Kitty” Kinzer,AGI87Former Annapolis librarian Kitty Kinzerdied unexpectedly last spring. AnnapolisTutor Mera Flaumenhaft delivered this trib-ute on the occasion of Mrs. Kinzer’s retire-ment from the college in 1999.

By her own account, Kitty Kinzer knewfrom the beginning that it wouldn’t be yourusual assistant librarian’s position. Char-lotte Fletcher, who presided over thelibrary in those days, walked Kitty to thehouse of Bob Goldwin, where she was to beinterviewed. The dean was expectingthem; he was lying on the floor. Charlotte,a Southern lady of refined manners,promptly suggested that she and Kitty joinhim on the floor. There followed a peculiarconversation about how many of the Pro-gram books the would-be librarian hadalready read. Aside from that, all Kittyremembers is thinking wildly (no doubt inher best Virginia accent) “Wha, oh wha,are they doing this to me?” Later Charlottedid mention that Bob Goldwin had backproblems. And Kitty, to her surprise, gotthe job. To this day it’s remained a bit off-beat. But, then, so has Kitty.

You see, she was not so conventional anapplicant herself. Kitty grew up in a smallVirginia town in the days before TV and airconditioning, the kind of place where sul-try summers were spent on porches, sip-ping lemonade, playing board games, andreading…and reading…and reading. Smartkids took Latin, and schools that couldn’tafford new texts continued teaching geom-etry from the musty old Euclid books therest of the world had left behind. Kittystudied biology in college and started hercareer in medical labs. After Valerie andAdriane were born, she took up graduatestudies in American history and intendedto move on to European history. When herfamily decided she needed direction, shechose a degree in library science and readbooks in any field she chose. Once in ourmidst, she happily continued her educa-tion: in community seminars, in the Gradu-ate Institute, and as an auditor for under-graduate seminars, tutorials, andpreceptorials. Kitty has had as wide an aca-demic experience of this college as anynon-student or non-tutor I know.

An old poster declares, “Have a Ques-tion? Ask your Librarian.” How literallymany of us have learned to take that

advice! A botanical passage in Homer? Askyour librarian. A history of London? Askyour librarian. A musty old manual? Askyou librarian. A novel for a vacation?Advice on gardening? A new doctor inAnnapolis? Ask your librarian!

But this librarian not only answers yourquestions. She gets interested in them. Shereads up on them, continues sending yourelevant materials for years to come, andforever forwards her own queries about thepurchase of related books for her library.

Finally, in the spirit of this college, andas a true associate of the faculty, this librar-ian has taught us what questions we shouldask. Most important, she has urged us toask: “What is the function of the library inthis unusual community of readers?”Which secondary materials best help us toread the books that are the primary teach-ers in our program? How can the librarysupplement that program with books onsubjects that we don’t all read together?And how can we keep our attention onbooks at all, while much of the world isturning from printed to electronic words?In short, she has articulated the notion ofthe library as a carefully selected “collec-tion” in the service of a carefully thought-out curriculum. Another “collection” thatwe owe to Kitty is the important archive ofphotos and documents she has establishedabout the history of St. John’s College andits program.

For several decades, Kitty hasbought our new books and reboundour own, planted flowers at theentrance and kept an eye on theexit, dealt with leaks in the roof andmushrooms in the basement. Shepersonally visited Mortimer Adler’sbooks in Chicago, and arranged tomove them all to Annapolis. She’smoved her own books from one sideof campus to the other. She evenmanaged to make it a lot of fun.Over the years, Kitty has trainedand kept in touch with dozens ofstudent aides who consider her atrusted friend who knows what theyare doing from the inside. She’smade parties for our students, forour children, and for us. And she’sbeen an important representative ofthe college to town borrowers and

other visitors who know us through ourlibrary. Unflappably, she has dealt withconverts, and extroverts, introverts, and,like all librarians, even a few perverts.

Great readers come in at least two types.Some withdraw into their books and arevery silent. Others are great talkers. We allknow which type Kitty is. She is articulatein the old-fashioned way that one finds inpeople who love words, words in books,and words in the talk of friends who lovebooks. For this urban Northerner, the Vir-ginia accent and exclamations like “myword” have always had a special delight.And our Kitty is witty. It was she whodeclared, in the early seventies, that shewasn’t “laid back, but hunched forward,and proud of it!”

Part mother hen and part vigilant fury,Kitty Kinzer has shaped and guarded her–and our–precious “collection” of books foralmost thirty years. Many of us simply can-not imagine the library without her. But weprobably won’t have to. For, from the dayshe retires, she’ll probably become one ofthe heaviest town borrowers the St. John’slibrary has ever had. Of course, she will nolonger be the first person to take home allthe books. And, yes, like the rest of us, shewill have to drag them all in for her infa-mous call-ins. Nevertheless, from the dayshe retires, things will be different aroundhere. And, my word, dear Kitty, how weshall miss you. x

Kitty Kinzer (AGI87) was “partmother hen, part vigilant fury.”


{ O b i t u a r i e s } 41

James A. Matthews

At a dramatic moment in Book IX of theIliad, Phoenix, lifelong counselor andtutor of Achilles, reminds his pupil of themodel by which he has been instructed: “tobe both a speaker of words and a doer ofdeeds.” Longtime St. John’s staff memberJames Matthews, who died in March, isfondly remembered as just such a man—onewhose words and actions simply and elo-quently expressed noble character anddeep religious faith.

Known to his friends and associates onthe Annapolis campus as “Jim” or“Jimmy,” he served the college for morethan 37 years before retiring in 2000, afterbecoming incapacitated by ALS, alsoknown as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Born in Shadyside, Md., Jim was raisedby his foster parents, Charles and ElizabethTyler, in Annapolis, where he attendedWiley Bates High School and sang in thechoir of First Baptist Church. He came toSt. John’s in 1963 at the age of 18 and wasassigned to custodial duties in Mellon Hall.

Of his many associates, James “Jake”Hicks remembers him fondly as a truefriend who acted as an older brother to himduring their 27 years together in Mellon.He recalls that Jim took him under his wingwhen he joined the college staff, greetedhim as a friend and showed him every-

thing, from how to run floor-strippingmachines to how to keep calm under harshcriticism. Jim was unstinting in his praiseof what was right and well done, and equal-ly direct in his criticism of what he saw tobe wrong or unfair. He was unafraid ofexpressing his affection; when the weekendarrived on Friday afternoon, Jim wouldsay, “Stay out of trouble, see you Monday; I love you, man!”

Early on in their time together, Jakecame in one morning to hear Jim’s deepbass voice emanating from the supply clos-et beside the FSK lobby, privately readinghis Bible and saying his prayers.

“Did you pray for me?” Jake asked.“You’re the first one,” was the reply. His keen sense of when a student, a staff

member, a co-worker, was troubled or dis-couraged was inerrant, and he would gen-tly offer to listen, frequently taking the per-son aside into the Conversation Room, his“office,” for words of support or advice. Hewas scrupulous about keeping confidencesand expected others to do the same.

This staunch faith and love of life thatinformed Jim’s life at the college sustainedhim through his long struggle with ALS.Throughout this time, and particularlyduring these last two years, as his life wasgradually confined to the sickroom of hishome, Jim continued his keen interest inthe life of St. John’s and his friends here.When colleagues and I went to visit Jim

and his wife, Doris, we wouldinvariably find him in good spirits.“I’m still here,” he would say,greeting us with a smile full of hisjoy for life, “and I’m obviouslymeant to be; I am so blessed.”

With characteristic generosity,he and his family requested thatany memorial contributions bemade either to Hospice of theChesapeake or to the JamesMatthews Scholarship Fund, estab-lished at the college when Jimretired in 1999. x

Vernon Derr, ’48Vernon Ellsworth Derr, class of 1948 andmember emeritus of the Board of Visitorsand Governors, died of complications ofParkinson’s disease on July 24, 2003, inBoulder, Colorado. He was 81.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Derr hadplanned on a career in engineering until ateacher suggested he consider St. John’s.He enrolled in 1940 but left in 1942 toserve in the 11th Airborne Signal Companyduring World War II. He returned to St. John’s after the war, living on the backcampus in the veterans’ housing with hiswife, Mary, and graduated in 1948. In 1959he earned a Ph.D. in physics from JohnsHopkins University.

Derr was chief scientist at Martin Com-pany from 1959 to 1967. He worked for theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin-istration from 1967 to 1994, serving asdirector of Environmental Research Labo-ratories from 1983 to 1988. He taught at St. John’s, Rollins, and the University ofColorado.

As a research scientist at the Universityof Colorado, Derr studied the effect of cli-mate changes on clouds. He developed aforecasting method based on artificialintelligence and data going back 150 yearson winds, cloudiness, and air and sea tem-peratures off the west coast. His computermodel could predict weather six months inthe future.

In 1988 he received the U.S. PresidentialDistinguished Rank Award and in 1991 theU.S. Department of Commerce Gold MedalAward.

Derr was always interested in St. John’sand served on the Board of Visitors andGovernors for six years. He credits his edu-cation at St. John’s for helping him remainopen to new ideas, adapt to changes incareers, and respond to the demands ofresearch.

Survivors include his wife Mary, of Boul-der; a son, Michael E. Derr; two daughters,Louise E. Derr and Carol MacBride; and agrandson. x

ALSO NOTED:EDWARD HEISE, class of 1936, July 30, 2003WILLIAM K. LYNCH, class of 1932, June 3,2003WILLIAM D. RENDALL, class of 1942, March23, 2003WILLIAM J. SEELEY JR., class of 1936, March17, 2003

For 36 years, Jimmy Matthews hada smile for everyone on theAnnapolis campus.

by Thomas May, Tutor


{ C a m p u s L i f e }42

C R O Q U E T 2 0 0 3

Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love.

Milton, PARADISE LOST

For behold, in the midst of the field there arose a great contest. And mallet strove with ball, and ball with ball, and many balls did

thread the postern of a wicket, and great was the tumult thereof. But the people regarded it not, and drank and made merry.

And the Lord saw that it was good.Well...OK.

Anonymous Alumnus, class of 1978

Les chic-chacs eternelles de ces espheres infinies m'effrayent.Henri “Blaise” Higuera

Every tradition grows ever more venerable—the moreremote is its origin, the more confused that origin is. The

reverence due to it increases from generation to generation.The tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe.

Nietzsche, HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN

Another croquet match, another victory for St. John’s College. Imperial Wicket Ben Porterled the old orange-and-black to its 17th win inthe 21-year contest against the Naval Academyon Sunday, April 27. Originator of the croquettradition, Kevin Heyburn (SF86, shown above

with mallet) hit out the first ball. Unable to come up with a new angle on the same old story (I’ve

been covering the match for nine years), I will step aside to letmore able pens provide the commentary.

--Sus3an Borden (A87)

photos by sara white wilson


{ C a m p u s L i f e } 43

Among all men on earth bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the muse has taught them

songs and loves the race of bards.Homer, ODYSSEY

Not at all similar are the race of the immortal gods and the race of men who walk upon the earth.Homer, ILIAD

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?

Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Dance and Provençal song and sunburnt mirth!Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene!With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stainèd mouth.Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”


{ t u t o r s }44

May 16: With the trip a week and a halfaway, I am doing some preparation workon Shadowfax, fixing the headrest and theside pannier supports. I am also workingon loading my I-Pod with music and booksfor listening during the trip. The longestwork I have is the Bible, unabridged (77hours from Genesis to Revelation). Alsoincluded are three John Le Carré novels,Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and extendedselections from James Joyce’s Ulysses andFinnegan’s Wake, plus several dozen hoursof music ranging from Sinead O’Connorand Joan Baez to Aaron Copeland,Beethoven, and Bach. Also the Beatles.

June 3: Headed out of town, the headwindseemed daunting until Grant realized hehad the parking brake on—doesn’t happenon a regular bike. Then, to make up time,put on Bach’s Symphony and Cantata No. 3 which pushed him up from 10.5 mphto 14.3 mph. Although Grant brought someselections from the Buddhist monk ThichNaht Hahn, he’s worried that “mindful-ness” is exactly what you don’t want on atrip like this.

June 6: Grant headed up 54 North on ashoulderless four-lane highway… Somepeople gave him a wide berth; some didn’t,

and Grant realized he had been spoiled bythe long ride from Las Vegas on an emptytwo-lane highway with broad shoulders andno traffic—hot, straight and boring, butreasonably safe. The Song of Songs is won-derful—love stronger than death—althoughsome of the similes are surprising, andthere is not the smallest textual suggestionto support the church’s long-time claimthat this is a chaste allegory fordivine/ecclesiastical relations.

June 9: First, the stats: 99.38 miles, oververy bumpy proto-Ozarks; 10 hours and 48 minutes between Lamar and Marshfield.While not the longest, this was certainlythe hardest day so far. There were evendespairing thoughts of flagging a truckdown during the last few hours, but nonecame by, and Grant was driven by circum-stance into accomplishment.

June 11: The morning began auspiciously,keeping up a 10 mph average, despite aphenomenon that Grant named to himself“missouris.” These are small valleys cutinto the limestone Ozark plateau until itcomes to the edge of the “missouri,”where it continues in the same compassheading, but angling downward at analarming angle of dip. Without makingactual measurements, Grant estimates theaverage angle to be about 88°. Since thecitizens of Missouri—could it really be mal-ice?—have made no use of zigzag “switch-back” patterns common in the Appalachi-ans for going up steep grades, the roadsimply careens down the side of the valleywhere it crosses a one-lane bridge over thesmall stream that is responsible for the val-ley in the first place…Grant can measurethe severity of such “missouris” by thespeed that the Shadowfax attains when itarrives at the bridge: there are 30 mph mis-

Grant Franks: Finding His Inner Wizard on the Road from Santa Fe to Annapolis

On July 15, Santa Fe tutor Grant Franks (A77) rolled into Annapolis on his TriceXL recumbent tricycle—completing a five-week journey of more than 2,000miles from the Santa Fe campus. After triumphantly planting the New Mexicoflag in front of McDowell, he set off with family and friends—gathered to wit-

ness his arrival—for a crab feast at City Dock.Franks says the unusual design of his three-wheeled cycle makes for an extremely safe

and comfortable ride; stable and aerodynamic, it’s “the go-cart of your dreams.” He namedit Shadowfax, after Gandalf’s horse of Lord of the Rings fame. “A friend told me that thesecret when going through middle age is to find your inner wizard,” Franks explains. “Hisis Yoda, so he said I could have Gandalf.” Franks spoke to his wife regularly by phone, andMartha Franks (A78) logged his experiences on their Web site under the heading, “Fromthe Bay to the Fe: Cross Country on Shadowfax.”

Excerpts from Franks’ travel log describe the highlights (and low points) of the trip.Except for Grant Franks’ initial pre-trip entry, the log was recorded by Martha Franks.

–Beth Schulman

Biking from Santa Fe to Annapolis gaveGrant Franks a physical challenge he washungry for. “In my fantasy life, the tripquickly grew into a personal confronta-tion between me and the highway system ofthe United States,” says tutor GrantFranks. “In my imagination, I would tauntthe road map: ‘You’re not so big! I can takeyou!’ Bizarre? Maybe. But I was looking fora big challenge, and here it was.”vi

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souris, 35 mph missouris, etc. The mostsevere has been a 44 mph missouri; comingto the “Yield” sign at the bottom of thatmissouri, Grant was screaming, “Yield tome! I can’t stop!” Fortunately, there wasno oncoming traffic...And then the rainsbegan. At first it seemed merely an obstacleto be faced with a high heart, and thoughtsof “this is not so bad” kept up the energy.The yellow rain jacket seemed to work,although there was no question of keepingdry, really, since rain on the outside metsweat from the inside with only the wall ofplastic between them. Sunscreen, it turnsout, causes water to bead up, leaving Grantfeeling that he had been dipped in wax.

June 13: The first leg to Ellington, Mo., waseasy enough, and the eidos of a roadsidediner was found, with aggressively authen-tic people—Heidegger would be pleased.Fortified with a Western omelet, hashbrowns and toast, Grant made the diceydecision to brave the predicted thunder-storms and head for the next dot of civiliza-tion some 35 miles away . . . Every hill is araw, untempered straining straight into thesky. One was five miles long and foundGrant geared all the way down to firstgear—out of a possible 81—but still hard-pressed. The Ten Commandments are apopular lawn ornament in this place.

June 14: I remarked that he seemed to thinknothing now of 60-mile days which hadbeen hard at first. He scoffed at the 60-mileday—a “nothing, a bagatelle, a luxury.” Thefirst 10 miles whistle by, the second are alittle harder; the third seem like the meatand potatoes of the day; the fourth are“droll,” and the fifth are spent thinkingthat you are practically there, while thesixth pass thinking that you are there andwill there be a hotel?

June 15: Coming out of Chester, the CyclingAssociation offered two routes. Grantchose one along the levee, which meantthat he rode on absolute flat through hazeand watched the water and the coal bargesmoving along with it. Spectacular. Deer bythe side of the road. The miles slipped by.The heavy, thick smell of green and humid-ity brought home that he has reached theEast.

June 16: Coming out of Eddieville, in thelast few miles of the day, he looked straightahead through some trees and saw blue-green hills rolling away into the distance

forever—Kentucky, just across the Ohio. Hehad about a tenth of a second to admire allthat loveliness before he was taken by afinal, unexpected missouri, and plunged,shouting, down an asphalt incline. Youdon’t pedal at that pace; you mostly fall,and the winds pulled his helmet back so farthat it was acting like a parachute, so thatthe only way to get it back on the top of hishead was to open his jaw widely, in whichcase the bugs moved in. Quite a moment.Through wind-induced tears he made outthat he was going 44.1 mph, peak speed onthe trip so far.

June 21: The two books he had recentlybought, Northrop Frye, some superfluousshorts, and other small items could bespared, so Grant packed them up andmailed them to my mother in Washington,D.C., lightening his load by, says the postoffice, 4.7 lbs (including some Missourimoisture that had never entirely left theNorthrop Frye book). Feeling immenselyahead of the game, he rewarded himself bypurchasing Paul Tillich’s The Courage toBe—narrowly preferred to Nietzsche’s EcceHomo and only upon the discovery thatHegel was not to be had…The madness forbooks obscures every prudent thought; Iknow this because, with Grant too far awayto exercise oversight, I have been filling upour bookshelves, too. Between us, we willread ourselves out of house and home.

June 23: As he was starting up, a blackCamaro roared by, and a pudgy head andshoulders leaned out from it to shout “Whydon’t you get a car like everybody else?”Some energizing defiance from that experi-ence, as Grant reflected that, first, he had

no desire to be like anyone else; second, inparticular, he didn’t want to be like some-one who would shout such a question;third, cars were a blot on the landscapewhich made us dependent on foreign oil;and fourth, maybe if this guy got out of hiscar sometimes he would be in better shape.

June 25: There was a curious feeling todaythat, under the table, the trip had beenaccomplished, even though there is so farto go...Finally, he began to feel a littleragged, 73 miles being a pretty long dayover rough country, so he put on the Bran-denbergs, which give the feet great tempo.You can switch to the largo movementsgoing uphill, and there is nothing to beatthe peppiness that pulls you over those lastfew miles. Bach was truly a genius. Grant isin Damascus, Va., trying to avoid havingportentous thoughts about being blindedon the road there, since he has been listen-ing to all this Paul.

June 28: There is a large National Parkbetween Lexington andCharlottesville…Down so close to theground, not only does he get interested andappreciative toward the flowers, but hasbegun to notice the smells. A car going by,spouting exhaust, is something of a trial inthat regard—he finds himself tempted toshout “Get a tricycle!” at them . . . Severaltimes in the course of the last few days peo-ple have asked about the New Mexico flaghe flies. Some people’s jaws drop when hesays he has cycled from there, which isgratifying of course, but he also muses onthe fact that no one recognizes the flag. Hefeels like Odysseus with the oar.

June 29: “Never let it be said,” Grant toldme, sternly, “that a guy in a fake wheel-chair can’t make it all the way up BlueRidge.” The Appalachians are harder,although in Virginia they have achievedthe switchback …Grant came downthrough the town of Afton, clinging by hisfingernails to the side of the mountain,where the cookie lady lives. This is some-one who keeps a perpetual welcome andrefreshment for bicyclers coming up thissteep way, by way of congratulations on theundertaking. A classy ministry, Ithink…Charlottesville was unmistakable,with the rotunda of the University of Vir-ginia. This is the symbol for Grant of a lifenot lived, as he would probably have goneto UVA if he hadn’t found St. John’sinstead—an imponderable alternative. x

{ A l u m n i A s s o c i a t i o n N e w s }

From the AlumniAssociationPresidentDear Johnnies,

The January AlumniAssociation Boardmeeting sometimesleads us into blizzardsand sometimes intobeautiful winter sun-sets, but it always putsus in the middle ofessay writing periodfor seniors. They take a few hours out oftheir labors to join alumni hosts for SeniorDinners—conversations between alumniand soon-to-be alumni about the college,self, and the world.

April on the Annapolis campus includeslots of fun things—croquet, buddingflowers, more senior dinners, and socceron the green. Passing by Dean Flaumen-haft’s office I was reminded of the comple-tion of the spring essay ritual. Posted thereon his door were the schedules for SeniorOrals. Before I could have a thought, thefeelings rushed back. In an instant I relivedit all: the alternating despair and elation ofessay writing period, the trembling handsbefore the opening question, the carefuland considered conversation, the unfet-tered relief when it was over, and the joyouscelebration. Looking at the list of essaytitles, feeling gave way to thought with aquestion: How does your senior essay relateto the rest of your life?

I know the curiosity that led me toGalileo for my essay was the same curiositythat has driven my work as a high schoolphysics teacher, instructional designer,entrepreneur, and researcher. Though thetitle is long since lost (and thankfully) inthe dusty recesses, I know that the ques-tions that drew me to my topic are the samequestions that inspire and engage metoday. I am sure my essay, as product, wasboth arrogant and naïve, but as process itwas a precursor to a chain of investigationsthat continue to build my life as a thinkinghuman being, if not a full-time liberalartist.

Is the same true of you? How do you seeyour current self reflected (or challenged)in the essay you wrote during the spring ofyour senior year? How have the questionsshaped your later inquiries? How did the

writing reflect your literary habits? Howdid the public defense of your work buildyour strength as a confident conversationalcompanion? Or do you see the experienceas disconnected from the rest of your life?

I also wondered about the lives thatwould unfold for these emerging alumni asthey take their St. John’s experiences outinto the world. What do their essay titlessay about them as productive members oftheir various communities? How will theyintegrate their Johnnie experiences intofulfilling lives of love, work, and learning?What kind of partners and parents willthese people become? How will they prac-tice citizenship in an ever more challeng-ing polity? How will they express them-selves through public and private action?

What do these essay titles tell you aboutthe newly formed alumni who createdthem?

A Modest Approach to Science throughAnalogyA Confession of the ConfessionsThe Art of Beauty: A Discussion of Dual-ity in To the LighthouseWanted: Guilty for AllGod’s Thumb: The Political Discourse ofThe FederalistDesire, the One True Teacher: TheInvestigation of Love Within Plato’sSymposiumMoral Teleology and Practical ProofsMontaigne’s Path to Wisdom; or, HowNot to Miss the Point EntirelyExperiencing IncommensurabilityAnd from Santa Fe...Science as a Poetic Vision: Finding aHome for Orphaned Beauty in Goethe’sMetamorphosis of PlantsThe Importance of Being WagnerYou Ain’t the Boss of Me: Freedom andSocial Rebellion in Prometheus BoundHuman Instinct: The Mortar of Our UniversePiety and Passivity: Walking theLine in the Book of JobPrelude to the Song: Mathemat-ics, Dialectic, and the GoodMercy, Sin, and the Foundationsof Society in The Scarlet LetterLife: A Blend of Dichotomies Theory of the Use of Theory:The Question of the Practical inModern Science

We welcome all of these authors into thecommunity of the St. John’s College Alumni Association along with their peerswho began the journey with them fouryears ago and who were following otherpaths as spring came to Santa Fe andAnnapolis. It is a privilege and a pleasureto share experiences and rememberedexperiences with you!

For the past, the present, and the future.

Glenda Eoyang [email protected] St. John’s College Alumni Association

ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONWhether from Annapolis or Santa Fe, under-graduate or Graduate Institute, Old Programor New, graduated or not, all alumni haveautomatic membership in the St. John’s College Alumni Association. The AlumniAssociation is an independent organization,with a Board of Directors elected by and fromthe alumni body. The Board meets four timesa year, twice on each campus, to plan pro-grams and coordinate the affairs of the Associ-ation. This newsletter within The College mag-azine is sponsored by the Alumni Associationand communicates Alumni Association newsand events of interest.

President – Glenda Eoyang, SF76Vice President – Jason Walsh, A85Secretary –Barbara Lauer, SF76Treasurer – Bill Fant, A79Getting-the-Word-Out Action Team Chair –Linda Stabler-Talty (SFGI76)

Web site – www.sjca.edu/aassoc/main.phtmlMailing address – Alumni Association, St. John’s College, P.O Box 2800, Annapolis,MD 21404 or 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca,Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599.

Santa Fe graduates have much tocelebrate.


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Homecoming HonoreesThe Alumni Association celebrated theaccomplishments of two distinguished St. John’s alumni with Awards of Merit pre-sented at Homecoming in Santa Fe.

A native of New York City, Alfred Grant(SFGI83) earned a degree from City Collegeof New York before embarking on a navalcareer from January 1943 to November 1945.He founded his own company in the 1960sand sold it in 1972. He moved to Santa Fe in1978 and enrolled in the Graduate Institute.After earning his St. John’s degree, Grantearned a second master’s from the Universityof Edinburgh.

He is the author of two books: Our Ameri-can Brethren: A History of Letters in theBritish Press During the American Revolu-tion, 1775-1781 (1995) and The American CivilWar and the British Press (2002).

Grant served on the Board of Visitors andGovernors from 1987 to 1990.

Eric Springsted (SF73) went on to studytheology at Princeton Theological Seminary,where he earned a master’s of divinity and aPh.D.

Springsted has served as chaplain and lec-turer in philosophy at Princeton TheologicalSeminary and Illinois College. As founderand president of the American Weil Society,he is recognized as the foremost Americanauthor on Weil, having authored and editedbooks including Christus Mediator; SimoneWeil and the Suffering of Love; and Spirit,Nature and Community.

Springsted’s involvement in the collegehas included serving as class of 1973 repre-sentative for the Fourth Century fund-rais-ing campaign and as a member of what isnow Philanthropia, the Alumni Associa-tion’s development arm. He has also beenan active member of the association. x

Celebrating theFormation ofAttentionThe following is excerpted from remarks fromEric Springsted, A73, at the Homecoming banquet in Santa Fe.

Fourteen years ago in April 1989, the Ameri-can Weil Society held its annual meeting at St. John’s in Santa Fe. The theme of the meet-ing that year was “Simone Weil and Educa-

tion.” With the help of [Santa Fe Tutor] ElliotSkinner, I arranged for a volunteer group ofstudents to have a seminar on Weil’s essay“Reflections on The Right Use of SchoolStudies with a View to the Love of God.” Fifteen to twenty students read the text andshowed up on a late Friday afternoon to dis-cuss it as Elliot and I led the seminar, and theWeil experts sat around the outside of theSenior Common Room and watched.

That the students were willing to do thiswas already a testimonial to St. John’s. Whatwas more important is that the students weremagnificent. The best of them saw the deeperpoints of the essay, and even were able toanticipate Weil’s thought in areas where theyhad not read.

But something else struck me about thisseminar, something that very much had to dowith the reading. “Right Use of School Stud-ies” is about attention, a key notion in Weil’sthinking. She defines attention as “suspend-ing our thought, leaving it detached, emptyand ready to be penetrated by the object.” The word “detached” is an unfortunate trans-lation for it renders the French disponible,which does not have the connotation of aloof-ness that the English “detached” does; itmeans something more like “ready to beused.” What Weil then means by attention isthat it is a way of knowing that does not con-struct meaning and truth but takes it in as itis, consents to the reality of the other, andthen adjusts itself to that reality. Attention is akey notion for her understanding of faith, loveof God and neighbor, philosophy (includingher astounding readings of Plato), Christ, andher left wing politics.

Now what struck me about this seminar isthat the students weren’t just talking aboutattention, they were showing it at an appro-priate level just as Weil thought studentsshould. They were paying close attention to anot-so-easy text. But they were also payingattention to each other. Afterwards membersof the society remarked with some amaze-ment at how students in the seminar helpedeach other to understand. They also remarkedon the fact that when a junior or senior cited athinker such as Kant, he or she immediatelyrecognized that the freshmen and sopho-mores hadn’t read Kant, and so worked to putthe point in other terms. At St. John’s discus-sion has always been fair and requires a com-mon text.

Why is all this so important? In a late frag-ment Weil defined culture this way: “Cultureis the formation of attention.” Culture, atleast a worthy culture, gives us worthy thingsto pay attention to, it gives us knowledge andwisdom as a goal; it even shapes our bodilyreactions so that we can sit still long enough

to pay attention. It gives us what the Germanscall Sitzfleisch.

That “culturing” in the service of attentionabove all is what this school is good at, I real-ized that April afternoon. I don’t know if wealways recognize that. I don’t think we did, oreven could as students when we were so thor-oughly situated within the process. But forthose of us here who are no longer students,we ought to recognize it. We ought to recog-nize it for a reason that Weil argued that weneed to respect institutions and collectivities,namely that they are food for the soul. With-out them our souls starve. This is somethingwe need to pay close attention to. In a culturethat deforms attention, where intellectualsare either busy constructing or deconstruct-ing reality—but never paying attention to it,where differences between the just and theunjust are blurred by those leaders who oughtto distinguish them, and where we all are con-stantly being distracted, this college is a rareplace where a mind when it asks for breaddoesn’t get a stone or a serpent. It trulydeserves our support. x

CHAPTER CONTACTSCall the alumni listed below for informationabout chapter, reading group, or other alumniactivities in each area.

ALBUQUERQUEBob & Vicki Morgan505-275-9012

ANNAPOLISBeth Martin410-280-0958

AUSTINBev Angel512-926-7808

BALTIMOREDavid Kidd410-728-4126

BOSTONGinger Kenney617-964-4794

CHICAGOLorna Johnson773-338-8651

DALLAS/FORTWORTHSuzanne Gill Doremus817-927-2390

DENVER/BOULDERLee Goldstein720-283-4659

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAULCarol Freeman612-822-3216

NEW YORKFielding Dupuy212-576-7260

NORTHERN CALIF.Jonathon Hodapp831-393-9496

PHILADELPHIABart Kaplan215-465-0244

PORTLANDDale Mortimer360-882-9058

SAN DIEGOStephanie Rico619-423-4972

SANTA FERichard Cowles505-986-1814

SEATTLEAmina Stickford206-269-0182

SOUTHERNCALIFORNIAElizabeth Eastman562-426-1934

TRIANGLE CIRCLE(NC)Susan Eversole919-968-4856

WASHINGTON DCJean Dickason301-699-6207

ISRAELEmi Geiger Leslau15 Aminadav StreetJerusalem [email protected]


{ S t . J o h n ’ s F o r e v e r }48

Moving Day

What does it take tomove a 1723 housethrough a 1955town? Five weeks,$20,000, 43 feetof clearance, and

some legal acrobatics. On the morning ofOctober 4, 1955, hundreds of Annapoli-tans watched as the Carroll BarristerHouse, birthplace of Charles Carroll, theBarrister, an early American patriot, wasmoved from the corner of Main and Con-duit streets to its current location on theKing George Street side of the Annapolis

campus. Workers had spent two weekspreparing the house: jacking it up, layingsteel beams, and dismantling chimneys.The power company sent 20 workers toinstall temporary high poles to provideclearance for the house along its journey.

The house was split into two parts: a125-ton section that reached King GeorgeStreet at 6 p.m. and was placed on thecampus the next morning, and a 25-tonsection that was moved three weeks laterin less than three hours.

During the course of the move, the titlechanged hands three times to establishinsurance liability: At the beginning ofthe day, the house belonged to Joseph G.Greenfield, who had bought it at auction

and wanted to develop the site for com-mercial purposes. During the trip, itbelonged to Historic Annapolis, whichhad raised $20,000 to save the housefrom demolition and finance the move. As soon as it was placed at its new site, itbecame the property of St. John’s.

Today the building houses the Admis-sions and Advancement offices. It is thefirst stop on campus for many Johnnieswho visit as prospective students. Theymeet with Admissions Director JohnChristensen in his office, which was oncethe dining room, and often have theirinterviews in the reception room, oncethe living room. x

The birthplace of Charles Car-roll, the Barrister, begins itsjourney up Main Street to theAnnapolis campus.


{ A l u m n i E v e n t s C a l e n d a r }

Alumni EventAnnapolis-area alumni have the opportunityto take a leap of imagination in consideringmathematics in a seminar on Harvard mathematician Barry Mazur’s book Imagining Numbers (Particularly theSquare Root of 15.) Tutors Sam Kutler (A54)and Eva Brann will co-lead the seminar,scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday, October 12.Mazur, one of the foremost mathematiciansin the world, served as the chief “referee”on the panel to check the Andrew Wilesproof of Fermat’s last theorem. ImaginingNumbers explores how we grasp and develop ideas both in poetry and in math,from the Renaissance to the present day,and provides a step-by-step guide to how we can begin imagining numbers for ourselves.

To register or for more information, callthe Annapolis Alumni Office: 410-626-2531.

The Painting ProjectFor three days in August, a small groupfrom the classes of 1968 and 1969 came tothe Santa Fe campus, sacrificing vacationtime to tape windows and casings, climbladders, paint walls, and generally improvethe environs for all. The effort was coordi-nated by Margaret Gaffney (SF69), who wasjoined by Thompson Clay (SF69), WendyWatson (SF68), Richard and Shirley Flint(SF68), and Ray Drolet (SF69). The grouphopes to see the Alumni Painting Projectbecome an annual event.

Homecoming in AnnapolisLaura Mangum (A04) and Alex Wall (A03)donned formal clothes and waltzed aroundthe Great Hall as models for the 2003Homecoming poster in Annapolis. Annapolis artist Moe Hanson photographedthe couple, then used the snapshots to painther watercolor celebrating one of the college’s favorite traditions, the waltz. The painting was used for a Homecomingbrochure and poster—this year’s giveawaygift to attendees. Didn’t get one at Home-coming September 12-14 in Annapolis? A limited number are available for sale. Call the Alumni Office at 410-626-2531.

Tom Clay works on painting a ceiling asShirley Flint takes a break.

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The College Magazine Fall 2003