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S T. J O H N ’ S C O L L E G E
FA L L 2017
VOLUME 42, ISSUE 2
Confucius
A Foundation of
Eastern Thought
�OPENING NOTE
During these past 12 months, you may
have read articles in The College and
on our website highlighting the 50th
anniversary celebration of the Graduate Institute—stories about such
alumni as Ariel Winnick (SF11, EC12),
who is studying medicine at BenGurion University’s Medical School
for International Health in Israel;
Mary-Charlotte Domandi (SFGI91),
an award-winning broadcast journalist; and David Hysong (AGI11), whose
success in cancer therapy development
landed him in Forbes magazine’s “30
Under 30.” You may have also reconnected with fellow alumni at Homecoming this fall in Annapolis or Santa
Fe, where special seminars, dinners,
and other events took place to mark
the milestone anniversary.
In this issue of The College, we
continue to recognize GI alumni
accomplishments. We also shine light
on a key enterprise in the history of
the Graduate Institute: the Eastern
Classics program. Founded more than
20 years ago on the Santa Fe campus,
David McDonald (SF95) describes
the EC program as “a way of seeing
how the human mind responds to
universal problems and universal
questions.” Sound familiar? Like
Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Woolf, the
Eastern Classics authors—Confucius,
Lao Tzu, Kālidāsa, and Sei Shōnagon,
among others—beckon us to examine human nature through a fresh
lens that is both timeless and timely,
unique and universal.
Gregory Shook, editor
ii THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017
THE C OL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 1
�FALL 2017
VOLUME 42, ISSUE 2
“� ould there be questions for thinkers
W
in India, thinkers in China, that we never
considered in the West?”— James Carey, tutor
FEATUR E S
P A G E 1 6��
DEPAR TM ENTS
P A G E 2 0��
PA G E 2 6
WHY WE READ THE
EASTERN CLASSICS
EXPLORING THE
JOHNNIE WAY
ST. JOHN'S:
THE NEXT CHAPTER
For more than two decades
the Eastern Classics program
has explored some of the
greatest thinkers in India,
China, and Japan.
Alumni across the country
share stories about life after
St. John’s during a two-week
road trip from Annapolis to
Santa Fe and back.
The college’s new president
in Annapolis hits the ground
running—and dives headfirst
into the Program, starting
with the Iliad.
��FROM THE BELL TOWERS
BIBLIOFILE
FOR & ABOUT ALUMNI
4 �
Testament to a Legacy
Curtis Wilson (1921–2012)
32 �imba Sana’s (AGI13) new memoir
S
Never Stop is a brutally honest
look at a life of struggle, success,
and hard-won knowledge.
34 �JCAA News
S
6 An Eclipse for the Ages
7 �
Greek on Steroids
8 �
Experimenting in France
10 Tutors Talk Books
11 Sharing from Experience
12 �I Commencement:
G
Openness for Other People’s
Experiences
13 Friends and Arrows
14 A Man for All Seasons
35 � Message from the Presidents
A
36 �rofile: David Diggs (AGI91)
P
addresses social and educational
issues in Haiti.
33 �aura Sook Duncombe (SF08)
L
excavates history to give real and
legendary female swashbucklers
their due in Pirate Women.
38 �lumni Notes
A
43 �irst Person: Jonathan Barone (A13)
F
� Tan (SF97) joins the nomads
Gillian
of Eastern Tibet and details the
lifestyle changes facing them in her
book In the Circle of White Stones.
� Sasse (AGI98) takes aim at
Ben
our nation’s youth—and offers
a prescription—in his new book
The Vanishing American Adult.
44 � Memoriam
In
46 �hilanthropy
P
JOHNNIE TRADITIONS
48 �t. John’s Forever
S
EIDOS
49 Peter McClard (SF83)
ON THE COVER:
Confucius illustration
by Harriet Lee-Merrion
ABOVE: The village of Lourmarin in the
region of Vaucluse, France, photographed
during a semester abroad.
PHOTO: ALAIN ANTOINE
2 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 3
�From the
BELL TOWERS
A Testament to a Legacy
and a Life Well Lived
by Louis Petrich
He taught me a lot, simply by letting me know him a little in his good last years.
I am referring to Curtis Wilson (1921-2012), who taught on both St. John’s campuses
and twice served as dean, whose dean’s lectures and other writings for the college have
just been published in a single volume of 400 pages.1 The book, Curtis Wilson Selected
Writings: Dean’s Lectures and Other Writings for St. John’s College (St. John’s College
Press, 2017), is the result of a five-year project led by tutors and the book’s editors
Chaninah Maschler (1931-2014) and Nicholas Maistrellis, along with instrumental
support provided by tutor Bill Pastille and Robin Dunn, manager of St. John’s Annapolis
bookstore. I would say the writings in this book are for anyone who can be taught the
unexpected by the reading of a thoughtful, articulate man of science and the arts.
The first thing Curtis Wilson taught me
was how to carry the years well that carry all
things away. I called him on the phone out of
the blue one day because I had some questions
about Kepler’s long battle with the motions of
Mars. Curtis, much esteemed for his work in
the history of astronomy, listened quietly to the
particulars (on which everything depends with
Kepler) before saying that he did not remember
enough about his studies long past to address
my precise questions properly. He invited us to
return to them upon better preparation. Then
he asked what my studies had chiefly been.
“Literature,” I said. This led to an invitation to
join a play reading group that he and his wife,
Becky, were hosting that month.
Thus Kepler took a seat next to the great
playwrights during our conversations about how
to give form to irregular motions. “The dramatic art takes on human motions that make
the battle with Mars look almost like child’s
play.” This he once confided as we imagined how
Kepler might answer to certain cosmic questions of hope and despair present everywhere
in the plays of Shakespeare. He spoke softly
to questions of all kinds, as if not to disturb
an equilibrium that he maintained alongside
a capacity for surprise to the end. That was
one way, too, that he made himself present to
people on their own irregular paths of knowing
the world, not insisting on any sun-center, least
of all his own. And yet he was quick to defend
Copernicus from the charges that lesser lights
seem frequently to levy against the greater for
some deficiency or other. There was tenacity
underneath the calm surface, strong currents
of affection that carried family and friendship
alongside scholarly work and liberal study for
many years of goodness to all.
Something particular that he taught us
about liberal studies: they cross-fertilize each
other, as if in imitation of nature, whose inhabitants depend on this process for better fitness
to survive in this tough world. We have heard
much about this benefit of liberal education for
many years, and there is some danger that by
over-rehearsal we make even the truths that
most matter sound tedious and stale to taste.
But even a freshman dull to truth will perceive
that Curtis Wilson’s lectures as dean elevate
common speech and hearing above the surviving habits of high school and save taste in the
high from extinction in the vast technologies of
vulgarity and boredom. Curtis probably would
not like how I said that sentence—too much
assertion by one who cannot know that much
about causes and effects. He respected the
hard, technical discipline of science, and there-
4 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017
fore recognized the dangers that accumulate
from the proud phrasing of preferred ideas.
But shall I attempt to demonstrate, in not
many sentences, what I do mean to say here
without fondness of prejudice?
The first and oldest piece in this book is his
dean’s lecture from 1958: “The Archimedean
Point and the Liberal Arts.” This lecture asks an
ancient question: can we find a standing point
of epistemological leverage, analogous to the
Archimedean fulcrum, from where we can apply
our senses and intellects to know ourselves and
the world in unity? This is no idle question, as
Curtis points out at once, since wars are fought
over its rival answers, and even those who have
no answers, only the net of irony to catch modestly and critically at learning them, have been
put to death for no more than that.
Curtis reviews the attempts of the early
modern philosopher-scientists and mathematicians to find this point of leverage. He begins,
of course, with Copernicus, who put it in the
sun; then considers Giordano Bruno, who shifts
attention to the infinitude of the universe and
the human mind (he paid for infinity with his
life); Einstein next appears, who lets us freely
stand wherever we choose in that infinity;
Kepler and Galileo invite men and women to
calculate their travels through space and time
and take the satisfaction that belongs to gods
by knowing these things certainly; Pascal
insists that the esprit de finesse give subtle
voice to spirit to make those infinite spaces of
travel not so certainly silent; Descartes stands
himself certain on his own reflective mind—
until Nietzsche makes obvious that Descartes’s
mind is pure reflection, still unsure of each and
every thing; but this does not prevent Marx
and Freud from standing proudly on theories of
man in terms of forces at war with each other.
Here, on the verge of dissipation or fanaticism, Curtis gives up the Archimedean point
as sought by these philosophers and begins his
inquiry anew into who the human being is and
may yet become. Homer points him the way
with his epithet for men and women as those
who articulate their voices. This leads Curtis to
introduce a theory of signs, which even birds
“� his display of collective
T
self-understanding and
purpose, without any false
notes, I have not witnessed
here or abroad.”
and bees make limited use of, and he proves
by their essentially triadic nature (sign, object,
interpreter) that no dyadic system of relations
(Lucretian atomism, for example) can give us
this world. (That proof he entertains in passing,
but I think it is pretty indicative of the man.)
Now considered as namer of the oneness of
things (note how Euclid’s geometry appears
essentially linguistic at this point), Curtis
reminds us of this wonderful image of the
soul in Aristotle: naming things in sentences
according to regularities of oneness is like the
stopping of a rout in battle: first one man stops
to make a stand, then another, and so on, until
the formation has been restored. That is what
we do in speech when faced with the diversity
of things in and outside of us and we try to put
proper form to their impending chaos. Naming
becomes liberal artistry (here he draws upon
Kant) when men and women make signs of
signs and thereby become conscious of what
they do in speech. This verbal self-reflection
causes them to invent grammars to preserve
meanings, logic to maintain consistency of
truth, and rhetoric to persuade embodied souls
to practice the formations of true meanings as
moral beings responsible for the world.
And that is where his lecture ends, after
nearly the entire program of learning at St.
John’s College has been tasted and justified in
thought and action. This display of collective
self-understanding and purpose, without any
false notes, I have not witnessed here or abroad.
It is given first place in this collection of his
writings so that we may remember, with determination and gratitude, who we are, and who we
may yet become, as artists of liberal learning.
1
Curtis Wilson Selected Writings:
�
Dean’s Lectures and Other Writings
for St. John’s College, Eds., Chaninah
Maschler and Nicholas Maistrellis, St.
John’s College Press, 2017. Curtis was
dean from 1958-1962 and 1973-1978.
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 5
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
ASTRONOMY
An Eclipse
for the Ages
Greek on Steroids
As the moon crossed slowly into the rays of the
sun, a crowd congregated in the plaza of St.
John’s, Santa Fe. Students. Tutors. Staff. Community members. All gathered to witness history.
A similar scene played out a short time later
in the observatory at the college’s Annapolis
campus, their gazes aimed skyward, their eyes
covered by protective glasses. A solar eclipse,
the first total eclipse in the contiguous United
States in nearly 40 years, was taking place, and
dozens gathered on both campuses to view it.
While many used protective glasses to peer
up at the sun, others looked through makeshift
projectors: empty cereal boxes, popcorn boxes
and shoe boxes, for example, complete with
pinholes, aluminum foil and paper. “It’s nice
to get people enthusiastic about it,” said tutor
James Beall, who helped organize the event in
Annapolis. “As long as people are careful, it’s a
great experience.”
A total eclipse was visible on a path stretching from Salem, Oregon, to Charleston, South
Carolina. Many across the country gathered to
view it in cities along that path. In Annapolis,
NASA scientists estimated approximately 80
percent of the sun was covered at the peak of
the eclipse. The percentage was about the same
in northern New Mexico. Santa Fe junior Lauren Max (SF19) said the event made her think
of sophomore math and Ptolemy’s first model
of the universe. “As I’m watching, I’m thinking
of perspective and of Ptolemy: where we are in
relation to other [things] and how things happen
to line up,” she said. “Perspective affects so
much. Perspective matters.”
The event in Santa Fe also attracted members of the public, like Jude Redstone, who
heard about the viewing and decided to attend.
“This is an opportunity to watch Time with a
capital T,” Redstone said. “I’m seeing a conjunction of color and of cosmic change.” The last
total eclipse in the contiguous United States
occurred on February 26, 1979.
Among the students who gathered in
Annapolis was sophomore Maddie Nell Jane
(A20), who peered up at the eclipse through a
pair of protective glasses. “It was great,” Jane
Santa Fe tutor, Patricia Greer, developed a
passion for Sanskrit vocabulary “ages and
ages ago,” born of her interest in Indian texts.
In the early 1970s, while studying linguistics
and literature at the University of Southern
California, she thought she would take a year
off in India. In Auroville, or the City of Dawn,
an experimental township in Southern India
(founded in 1968), Greer felt so at home that
she stayed for 20 years.
In this international town dedicated to
human unity, Greer felt like a pioneer. “It was
very exciting,” she says, recalling a couple
hundred people trying to plant trees in an
otherwise ecologically devastated landscape.
“We started building this town. By the time
I left, I was the administrator of an international high school.”
Greer’s family lived in Annapolis where she
loved visiting the St. John’s campus. “If I had
gone there as an undergraduate, it would have
changed my life,” she says. During a one-month
visit, she discovered the Graduate Institute
(GI) and realized, “This is my next adventure,
to study the great books of the West.” She
earned a master’s in liberal arts in 1995, then
headed to the University of Virginia and began
her formal study of Sanskrit. Pursuing a PhD
in the history of religion, Greer focused on the
great Sanskrit epic, the Mahābārata, which
she explains is “ten times the length of the
Iliad and Odyssey combined.”
Greer was drawn to the GI Eastern
Classics (EC) program on the Santa Fe
campus where students choose classical
Chinese or Sanskrit, with the hope of teaching
the latter. “The people here call it ‘Greek on
steroids’. It’s really a kind of mother language,
and very beautiful.” Like Greek, Sanskrit is
a classical language, she explains, but more
complicated. “Sanskrit is a highly inflected
language. There are more cases, many more
tenses, a gigantic vocabulary. Every word
permutates as the case, as the verbs change;
words come out of each other. There are so
many paradigms that you have to memorize
or at least know how to navigate.”
This past summer, Greer participated in
a summer classics study of the Upanishads,
with David Townsend, as well as a study of
Zen works, with Krishnan Venkatesh. In Sanskrit, Upanishads means “sitting down near”,
referring to the spiritual practice of sitting
down with the teacher. In the past, Greer has
studied Arabic with Ken Wolfe, “our resident
expert in Arabic,” she says.
“I’m not one of these people who simply
inhale languages. It’s something I have to
work at,” she insists. During this year’s sabbatical, she and her husband, whom she met
in India, will live in Southern France for six
months. Along with Sanskrit she would like to
learn “a little classical Japanese, my project.”
She hopes to write a lecture on The Tale of
Genji, a mandatory preceptorial in the summer
semester for all EC students, which is considered the first novel ever written. The writer,
Murasaki Shikibu, was a noblewoman of the
high court around the year one thousand.
According to Greer, only a handful of scholars
in the world can read the Japanese in which
this book is written. “That’s quite a hurdle. I’m
trying to screw up my courage to do that.”
H I D D E N TA L E N T
PHOTO: AARSTUDIO/GETTY IMAGES
by Robin Weiss (SFGI90)
“� s I’m watching, I’m
A
thinking of perspective and
of Ptolemy: where we are
in relation to other [things]
and how things happen
to line up.”
said. “It definitely looked more like the moon
than I expected.” The light washing over both
campuses dimmed as the eclipse progressed.
Temperatures dropped slightly, too.
Annapolis astronomy assistants Anna Hubbell
(A19) and Xiaotong Jin (A20), who also helped
organize the event, held binoculars, the light
from the sun shining through, the outline of
the sun and moon illuminated below. “It’s really
cool,” Hubbell said. “It’s always been something
that has captured my imagination.”
—Tim Pratt
6 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017
LEFT:
Maddie Nell
Jane (A20) watches
the eclipse from
the Annapolis
observatory.
BELOW: Tutor emeritus
Bill Donahue sets
up telescopes in
Santa Fe.
“� ost scholars think that
M
two or three thousand years
ago, when the great classical
texts were being written,
probably most folks, who
were farmers and normal
people, spoke a simplified
version of Sanskrit.”
The College
In the EC program, students who have
chosen classical Chinese, which is character
driven, are translating short Chinese poems
within a few weeks of the first semester.
Those immersed in Sanskrit must wait until
the second semester to translate anything
like literature. According to Greer, that’s quite
ambitious, compared to other programs. “We
really do it down and dirty,” she says. “The
students find it very rewarding.”
“The languages of India are Indo-European,
influenced by Sanskrit, but nobody speaks it;
you have to study it,” she says. “Most scholars
think that two or three thousand years ago,
when the great classical texts were being
written, probably most folks, who were farmers and normal people, spoke a simplified
version of Sanskrit. It would only have been
the Brahmin and the upper caste scholars who
were able to deal with the highly developed
language that the texts were written in.”
is published by St. John’s
College, Annapolis, MD,
and Santa Fe, NM.
thecollegemagazine@
sjc.edu
Known office of
publication:
Communications Office
St. John’s College
60 College Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21401
Periodicals postage
paid at Annapolis, MD.
Postmaster: Send
address changes to
The College Magazine,
Communications Office,
St. John’s College,
60 College Avenue,
Annapolis, MD 21401.
Editor
Gregory Shook
gregory.shook@sjc.edu
Contributors
Judith Adam
Anna Perleberg Andersen
(SF02)
Samantha Ardoin (SF16)
Jonathan Barone (A13)
Carol Carpenter
Charlotte Jusinski
Anne Kniggendorf (SF97)
David McDonald (SF95)
Louis Petrich
Tim Pratt
Eve Tolpa
Robin Weiss (SFGI90)
Andrew Wice
Design
Skelton Design
Contributing Designer
Jennifer Behrens
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 7
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
JOHNNIES ABROAD
LEARNING TO LISTEN
Experimenting
in France
Many Johnnies have studied at Aix’s Marchutz
School of Fine Arts. Others have studied the
great books at Aix’s IAU College, the host
campus for St. John’s experimental study
abroad program.
by Judith Adam
This spring 18 St. John’s students from Santa
Fe and Annapolis, along with myself and three
other tutors—John Cornell, Patricia Greer, and
Russell Winslow—embarked on an experiment:
to complete the second semester of the junior
year in Aix-en-Provence, France. This was a
first for the college. We took the Program, or
part of it, to another continent; our challenge
was to see if we could do it justice while opening up the college to a foreign, yet somehow
familiar, place and language. While we were
not responding to any perceived lack in the
Program itself, but to the interest of many of
our students to study abroad, the experience
helped us to reflect on the college in surprising and revitalizing ways.
Classes were held on the campus of the IAU
College (Institute for American Universities),
in the heart of the city. There was a certain joy
for all of us to be found just in the daily experience of inhabiting this strikingly beautiful
place, with its Roman and Medieval roots and
architecture stretching across the centuries,
surrounded by Cézanne’s Provencal landscape
on all sides. There, just living appears to be a
goal—and an art.
The everydayness of Aix is a public life. The
people effectively live “outside,” walking everywhere, shopping at the many daily markets
(extraordinary for their number and variety
even in France), and punctuating their day with
coffee at cafes and bars, a habit that we all
easily adopted—taking our books with us. The
complex, somewhat formal, system of greeting
one another that we encountered in France—
even between storekeepers and waiters and
their customers—struck a contrast with the
warmth of American informality. The students
lived with French host families in town—an
adventure in itself. And for some students
who were temporarily adopted by their host
“parents” this was perhaps the most important
aspect of their immersion experience in France.
Once we had settled in, cobbled together
some tables and blackboards, combined the
students of two campuses, and waited for the
college to emerge in this strange place from
These intersections can be traced to a number
of alumni and tutors, but foremost among them
is John Gasparach (SFGI03), who attended IAU
as a young man, and who now serves as the codean and co-head instructor at Marchutz.
Born in Seattle just after World War II, Gasparach spent his junior year studying abroad
at IAU. Unable to speak French, he learned to
appreciate the universal language of art. While
there, he met German painter Leo Marchutz, a
committed scholar of Cézanne and teacher at
IAU. Under the tutelage of Marchutz, Gasparach
began to draw and paint. Haltingly at first,
and then with greater confidence and curiosity, he devoted himself to the pursuit of art at
Marchutz’s newly formed Marchutz School of
Fine Arts—a place where students have an
intensive regimen of drawing and sculpture
studio art, art history, and a seminar.
T
� he everydayness of Aix
is a public life. The people
effectively live “outside,”
shopping at the many daily
markets, and punctuating
their day with coffee at
cafes and bars, a habit
that we all easily adopted—
taking our books with us.
all of its assembled parts, our engagement
with the St. John’s curriculum was reassuringly
like it is at home: the classes were St. John’s
classes, and the Program was the Program.
In fact, despite the distracting wonder of the
place, our studies seemed even to be enlivened
by our new and challenging circumstances.
As it turned out, doing lab without a laboratory led to a deeper reading of texts, and
8 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017
stimulated a new spirit of inventiveness among
the students when it came to constructing
their own demonstrations and exploring the
phenomena from scratch. A language tutorial
reading Racine and Molière—playwrights that
every French student reads in high school—had
its own parallel resonances with the place. And
the fact that we were combining students from
both campuses seemed to spark interesting
exchanges about how we do things at the college. Though we arrived with the curriculum
already in hand, our time together in France
felt like revisiting the foundations of the college, which was reinvigorating and refreshing.
Through IAU there were regular weekend day
trips, led in French, to sites and cities around
Provence and the Mediterranean coast, including
Avignon, Nice, Arles, and the villages of the
region. But the highlight was the St. John’s
excursion in early March to Paris, where the St.
John’s Alumni Association treated us to dinner
on our first night. It was a thrill the next day to
sit down together quietly in front of Rembrandt’s “Bathsheba” in the Louvre and hold a
seminar, led by Marchutz School professor and
St. John’s alumnus John Gasparach (SFGI03).
PHOTOGRAPHY: ALAIN ANTOINE
CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Students wander in
Lourmarin's streets in search of a food vendor;
Clara Rhoades, Leah Mozzer and Noah Leal
on a tour of the neighboring villages; Students
walking toward Mount Sainte Victoire,
immortalized in many of Cézanne's paintings.
And we were able to tour the Arts and Métiers
museum—where Lavoisier’s workshop, the first
Leyden jars and voltaic piles were on display.
Based on this experience the tutors began to
see the future possibilities for tailoring a number
of our own excursions for St. John’s students
next spring, both in Aix, and farther afield.
This year has been a beginning—an unforgettable beginning, with promising future
possibilities. It would be hard to express all of
the gratitude that is due to the many members
of the college community (and beyond) on both
campuses who have contributed to the success
of this experiment so far—to just getting it
off the ground and landing safely in Marseille.
And to the 18 students who took a risk with
us, and to the faculty who pioneered in good
spirit, we are immensely grateful. Nous nous
souviendrons toujours.
In 1973, Gail Haggard (SF71) made the initial
connection between Marchutz and St. John’s. It
was a connection that would change the way
Gasparach taught, and change the future of
many Johnnies’ lives. Haggard’s ex-husband
was the late Dean Haggard, one of the original
tutors at the Santa Fe campus of St. John’s,
who brought his passion to Aix-en-Provence during a summer session in 1973.
Gasparach watched Haggard lead a seminar on
Plato’s Symposium—and saw firsthand how art
students were transmuted from disinterested
to engaged. It was his first encounter with a
purely Socratic method of tutelage. “He asked
questions and never left a single student out of
the conversation, which developed and took on a
life of its own,” Gasparach says. “Watching Dean
teach, never lecturing or imposing himself—with
his vast knowledge—on the conversation, I said
to myself, ‘If that can be learned, I want to learn
how to teach that way.’ And from that moment
on, I wanted to come to study at St. John’s.” It
took him almost 30 years to get to St. John’s, as
his role at Marchutz was a stabilizing force during periods of change. The school was brought
under the aegis of the IAU, and he ascended to
full-time teacher and administrator.
Students at the Louvre studying Rembrandt’s
masterpiece: "Bathsheba at Her Bath."
“� n that first seminar,
I
I realized that the foremost
thing I was going to learn
was how to listen.”
—John Gasparach (SFGI03)
In 2000, Gasparach finally made the journey to
Santa Fe’s Graduate Institute. Over four summer
sessions there, he found that the Socratic method of teaching still distinguished its academic
system. “What stunned me was that I thought I
had come to St. John’s because I was interested
in the texts, in the fact that it was all discussion
in seminars,” he says. “But in that first seminar,
I realized that the foremost thing I was going to
learn was how to listen. I hadn’t considered that.
It’s not just one teacher; it’s fundamental to St.
John’s College. It’s part of the ethos.”
Today, Gasparach’s duties continue to expand
with the Marchutz School’s brand-new master
of fine arts program—to which Johnnies have
received scholarships—and he remains involved
with St. John’s initiatives there, such as the
study abroad program and Global Pathways
fellowships. He is confident about entrusting the
school’s future to the next generation when that
time comes. They have been patiently learning
and listening under his guidance, perpetuating a rare and valuable continuity. “Listening is
fundamental to teaching, to learning,” he says.
“Listen to the text, listen to the discussion. You’re
not imposing yourself on the experience, and the
act of painting parallels that. It’s learning how to
open yourself to nature; it goes back to Socrates.
You’re a midwife, you’re not there to impose.”
—Andrew Wice
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 9
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
Was there anything that pushed you in
a certain way during your time as an
undergraduate, that you now feel totally
differently about?
In freshman year, there are often Plato people
and Aristotle people. The Plato people are really
moved by Plato, and are really interested in that
style of writing philosophy—I was that person. I
loved Plato. When we moved to Aristotle, I just
shut down. I did not know what to do with it. I
hated it. And now, actually, I don’t know if I like
Aristotle better, but Aristotle really interests
me. I find him fascinating to read, and work
through slowly, and there are ways I prefer reading Aristotle to Plato. That’s one big switch.
Q&A: MARSAURA SHUKLA
Tutors Talk Books
by Samantha Ardoin (SF16)
Tutors Talk Books is an online series of
interviews with St. John’s College tutors. The
following in an excerpt from an interview with
Marsaura Shukla (A93), a tutor at St. John’s
since 2012. Shukla gave a lecture in Santa Fe,
hosted by the Graduate Institute, this summer
on Keats’s poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Read
the full interview, as well as others, at sjc.edu.
What is your next project?
I’m hoping to do a preceptorial on Keats’s odes
and letters. I want to follow this idea through
with Keats himself. Another part of the project
is related to the Emily Dickinson and John
Donne preceptorial I did recently. I want to
think about Emily Dickinson’s treatment of soul
in her poetry; she talks about it a lot, but it
feels a little ironic. I want to understand what
she’s doing when she talks that way. She seems
to be thinking about the body, the soul, the divisions of the self, and how to understand them.
Do you think that’s because of the
shocking shift in style between Plato
and Aristotle?
I think it’s partially that Plato is more userfriendly. There’s a narrative there, a smoothness there, that’s deceptive. I don’t think I
was a good reader of Plato, but I was a happy
reader of Plato. With Aristotle, I couldn’t
see where the readings became complicated
and interesting. I had begun to see that in
Plato—those places that invited thinking. With
Aristotle I couldn’t do it, but now I can.
Were you teaching anything this summer?
I taught a week of Summer Academy, and
enjoyed that. We read Shakespeare, Donne,
and Dickinson in the language tutorial, and the
(high school) students were amazing. It all went
really well. In relation to the undergraduate program, the readings are shorter, but apart from
that it was like a St. John’s-style tutorial. There
were moments of silliness, but it was good.
What will you be starting in the
fall semester?
I’m going to try again this year to carve out
some time for my own thinking and writing,
but that is one of the challenges to being a
tutor: finding the time for your own writing. I’m
also going to be teaching senior seminar with
John Cornell, and I’m very excited about that.
I’ve done one all-college seminar with him, but
otherwise I have not taught with him, and I
have not taught this (senior seminar book) list,
and it looks really great.
I think senior year is always good,
no matter the list.
I’m glad you think so! I think senior year is a
really fraught year. People are trying to figure
out what they want to do next. They’re afraid of
leaving the structure of St. John’s, and I think
“� think ... that Plato is more
I
user-friendly. There’s a
narrative there, a smoothness
there, that’s deceptive.
With Aristotle, I couldn’t see
where the readings became
complicated and interesting.”
10 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
that has an impact on the seminar. The last
senior seminar I taught was with Walter Sterling, with whom I graduated from St. John’s. He
was wonderful to work with, but our seminar
often seemed a little distracted. I think it’s
important to impress upon seniors that you’re
going to miss this, you’re not going to have
this thing again, and I get that you’re tired of it
after four years, but you should really savor it.
When you were a student, did you ever
think you would do become a tutor?
No, I thought I would definitely not become a
tutor! I mean, I really loved being at St. John’s—
but that wasn’t part of how I envisioned the
future unfolding. For one thing, I didn’t think I
wanted to work as hard as tutors work. It struck
me as a student that the tutors were really
laboring at something. It was a very ascetic way
of life. I knew I wanted to go to grad school, and
I thought I really wanted to narrow down the
things I wanted to think about. But the transition to grad school was very painful.
Only after St. John’s I realized how much
I liked our way doing things. I wanted to
continue doing that in a specialized field—in
theology—but it turned out that that’s not
really possible. Academic grad school is very
specialized training, and there is this emphasis on productivity which is not ruminative or
conversational. I grew to like it, and to think
of research as a form of conversation—but
thinking of it that way made me research very
slowly, which you can’t do as an academic. So,
I’m very happy to be back here. I think there
are significant ways in which St. John’s is my
intellectual home.
Krivák leads,
and listens
to, the
conversation.
Sharing from
Experience
literature. After a brief stint at the University
of Rhode Island, he came to St. John’s and his
love of the great books grew. His abilities as
a writer also progressed. Krivák says one of
his proudest accomplishments as a Johnnie
was winning the Baird Award for a short
collection of poems he composed.
Andrew Krivák (A86) lends
guidance to future writers
Andrew Krivák (A86) has led an interesting
life since he graduated from St. John’s College.
Yacht rigger. Poet. Student. Jesuit. Teacher.
These days, he is an award-winning author
whose latest novel, The Signal Flame, tells the
story of a family awaiting the return of their
youngest son from the Vietnam War. Like his
previous books, The Signal Flame has received
critical acclaim. Krivák, who lives in the Boston
area with his wife and children, returned to the
Annapolis campus in April to read from and
sign copies of his new book. He also met with
Johnnies who are interested in careers in writing or publishing to give advice on how to find
success in the industry.
When a student asked how to overcome
writer’s block, Krivák says he often reads
other writers’ works, listens to music, or
goes fishing. When asked how he knows
when a novel is done, Krivák spoke about the
“arc of the narrative,” and the importance
of completing a story with a strong final
sentence. When a student asked about how to
handle the rejection of a manuscript, Krivák
spoke of the importance of “ego strength.”
“The rejection is part of your formation
process as a writer,” Krivák says. “If you
have a really good novel, a really good story
to tell, it will get out there.”
Krivák grew up among a family of
engineers in rural northeastern Pennsylvania,
where he developed an interest in books and
“� think one of the biggest
I
questions a young writer
like me has to struggle
with is whether the
writing life is possible.”
—Joshua Colon (A18)
Joshua Colon (A18) says he was impressed
by Krivák’s experience and the advice he gave.
“He seemed very earnest, open, articulate,
and enthusiastic about his life and vocation;
he seemed to be everything I want to be as a
writer and a father,” Colon says. “I think one
of the biggest questions a young writer like
me has to struggle with is whether the writing
life is possible; meeting a Johnnie writer who
has found success is a real encouragement.”
Stuart Lombard (A19), who has looked into
publishing in the past, called Krivák’s experiences “inspiring.” “I haven’t written for a long
time, but I yearn to return to that magical
time when writing used to consume my life,”
Lombard says. “I walked away from the discussion with a refreshed desire to write—and
a couple new books to read.”
—Tim Pratt
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�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
GI COMMENCEMENT
S A N TA F E A R C H E RY
Openness for Other
People’s Experience
For William Edelglass (SF93), openness to
the experience of others leads to empathy. It’s
a worldview that springs from his St. John’s
education and one that he shared in an address
at the Graduate Institute commencement
ceremony held on August 4 at the Santa Fe
campus. When Edelglass completed his undergraduate degree at that same campus in 1993,
he was “thinking I’d spend a decade living in
different places” exploring different jobs. To
that end, he worked with St. John’s Search and
Rescue team, taught philosophy in a prison in
New York, and spent many years as a wilderness guide, among other things.
A path in academia
wasn’t initially in his
plans, but Edelglass
found himself increasingly drawn to philosophy and enrolled in
Emory University’s doctoral program, which,
at that time, “was
deeply committed to the history of philosophy, a
commitment I shared coming from St. John’s.”
His dissertation focused on the self and the
suffering of the other, drawing on the work of
modern Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas
´
and eighth-century Buddhist scholar Sāntideva,
a dual focus that allowed him to situate himself
within both Eastern and Western traditions.
Now a professor of philosophy and director of
environmental studies at Marlboro College in
Vermont, as well as a regular faculty member
at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Edelglass co-edits a journal called Environmental
Philosophy. He recently received a National
Endowment for the Humanities grant for his
project Peoples, Places, and the History of the
Written Word in Brattleboro, VT. “A lot of my
professional career is doing academic work
and teaching that go along with my personal
values,” Edelglass says. He also encourages students to arrive at their own views,
an approach rooted in his experiences at St.
John’s. “The practice of reading and exploring
through conversation the great books in the
Western tradition cultivated a sense of open-
Friends and Arrows
The thup, thup, thup of arrows punctuates
the spring air on the Santa Fe campus. An
arrow hits a target, creating a sound similar
to a basketball bouncing on a carpeted floor.
Another misses the target and a puff of dust
rises from the earth behind it. The St. John’s
archery team is competing against the Institute of American Indian Arts, a college on the
other side of town. With the iconic Monte del
Sol standing tall in the distance, the Johnnies go on to sweep the individual and overall
team scores. Although the tournament is
competitive, Ben Kidderman (SFGI18) says the
competition in archery is within one’s self. “And
the rest is friendship.”
The other students seem to agree. As they
move through a series of targets that increase
in distance from 20 to 40 to 60 feet away, they
discuss each other’s studies, families, cultures,
A multiplicity of perspectives,
he finds, is crucial to any
intellectual endeavor. “One of
my favorite Tibetan proverbs,
is ‘Where you find agreement,
you find fools.’”
—William Edelglass (SF93)
ness for other people’s experience and other
accounts of the world,” he says. As a result,
Edelglass integrates race, gender, post-colonial,
and environmental theory into his curricula.
A multiplicity of perspectives, he finds, is
crucial to any intellectual endeavor. “One of my
favorite Tibetan proverbs, is ‘Where you find
agreement, you find fools.’” He’s currently working on a multi-author book and notes that, from
a collaborative writing perspective, “someone
else’s critical mind helps me refine my own
view of things. This is why Plato says that
courage is one of the most important virtues of
philosophy. Without being vulnerable and saying what we think, we will not be able to find
out where we are making problematic claims.”
12 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
In his commencement speech, Edelglass
referred to an incident from a period he
spent teaching Western philosophy to Tibetan
monks at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics,
in Dharamsala, India. An elderly monk had
confessed that he viewed the study of Western
thought as a distraction at best and harmful
at worst. “I think I laughed out loud, because
what this monk said was so similar to a view
I had heard from some Western philosophers,
who believed that philosophy from India and
Tibet, for example, should be taught in a religious studies department, or an area studies
program. Somehow they believed both in the
universality of reason, and also seemed to think
that this universal reason only arises, or is only
accessible, in particular locations, or by particular people. The Graduate Institute is a welcome
alternative to such parochialism.”
—Eve Tolpa
This year in Santa Fe, the Graduate Institute,
which celebrates its 50th anniversary this
year, awarded 17 master’s degrees in Eastern
Classics and six in Liberal Arts. In Annapolis, the GI awarded 11 Liberal Arts master’s
degrees. To view the college’s coverage of the
Graduate Institute’s 50th anniversary, visit
sjc.edu/graduate/anniversary.
and languages. Abdullah Mirza (SF20), who
took first place in the competition, likes that
archery is an individual sport that demands
intense focus. “It also has a rich tradition in
my religious background and throughout the
world,” he says. “Ever since the first days of
Islam, it’s a traditional practice that you learn
archery. The three traditional skills are swimming, horseback riding, and archery. I have
done the other two in the past, but I am the
most interested in archery.”
Other high-scorers, Liam Warren (SF19)
and Hao Luo (SF20), were pleased with their
performances on the field. “I did a bit of traditional archery when I was younger,” Warren
says. “It’s something I wanted to continue.”
The team shares his sentiment. After a full day
of intense competition, when St. John’s coach
Richard Dew asks, “Do you want to do the
targets again?” The students respond in unison,
“Yes!” They gather their equipment and start
again from the beginning. Thup, thup, thup go
the arrows.
—Charlotte Jusinski
RALLY ROUND THE CHAIR,
JOHNNIES!
When “Johnnie Chair” furniture makers E.A.
Clore Sons, Inc. announced last May that it
would be closing after nearly 200 years in
business, company officials expected a slight
surge in last-minute orders. Instead, Clore was
swamped with orders, says company president
Troy Coppage, with St. John’s alumni putting
in dozens of requests for Johnnie Chairs. The
chairs—listed on the company’s website as
Plain Master Chairs—are a longtime St. John’s
tradition and part of the college’s identity.
The influx of orders, including those by St.
John’s alumni, has caused the company put its
closing plans on hold, Coppage says. E.A. Clore
Sons has a months-long backlog on orders, and
is staying open indefinitely. “Orders are coming
in as fast as we can make them,” Coppage says,
much to the delight of Johnnies everywhere. St.
John’s has been ordering Johnnie Chairs for its
Annapolis and Santa Fe campuses for decades.
The Annapolis chairs are typically made of
walnut and cherry while Santa Fe chairs are
typically made of oak.
Since the closing announcement in May, Clore
reports that alumni from both campuses have
been ordering the chairs individually, in pairs,
or in sets. The chairs are made in batches and
typically take weeks to complete, with the bending of posts and other handcrafted features. The
company is still taking orders for them, Coppage
says, and will do so for the foreseeable future.
“Since we made the announcement last May,
the response has been overwhelming,” Coppage
says. “It was crazy here for two to three weeks.
It’s been a somewhat steady stream ever since.”
—Tim Pratt
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 13
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
Follow St. John’s College:
A R T I N S A N TA F E
A Man for
All Seasons
Four framed lithographs of Frederick Douglass
now grace the first floor of Weigle Hall on the
Santa Fe campus. The lithographs, by famed
American artist Ben Shahn, are a gift from
Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt, a great
admirer of the former slave, abolitionist, author,
and orator. “I love Douglass, and I love Shahn,”
Roosevelt says. “And I believe that what you
put on your walls is important.”
During the small ceremony to recognize
Roosevelt’s donation, tutor Frank Pagano
invited the audience of students, staff, and
tutors to consider Shahn’s strikingly different
depictions of Douglass. “We see before us what
a free man looks like. But to my eye we see
four looks, almost four different men.” After
considering each image in great detail, Pagano
posed the question, “Do the challenges to our
freedom and our education require a man for
all seasons, a man for all humanity, both the
“� e see before us the
W
images of the liberally
educated human being.
We see courage, moderation,
justice, and wisdom.”
oppressed and the oppressor, the educated and
the ignorant? We see before us the images of
the liberally educated human being. We see
courage, moderation, justice, and wisdom.”
Roosevelt recalled the story of Douglass’s
attempt to gain access to President Lincoln after
his second inaugural speech on March 4, 1865. As
Douglass stood in a crowd of white men, Lincoln
called to him: “Here comes my friend Frederick
Douglass.” This simple statement, within the
complexities of the time, was a remarkable
moment for the abolitionist movement and for
America’s expanding definition of justice.
But, Roosevelt said, “I hesitate to make
Douglass important to me or to anybody
because of his relationship to Lincoln, because
that minimizes him.” He pointed out that
Douglass was frustrated with Lincoln’s slow
progress toward allowing African Americans to
fight in the war and toward emancipation. “But
eventually Douglass’s own incredible capacity
for forgiveness made him continue to grow in
closeness to and admiration for Lincoln, which
I think says something about both of them.”
ON SOCIAL MEDIA
SUMMER AT ST. JOHN’S...
#sjcsummer
Instagram.com/sjcannapolis
Instagram.com/sjcsantafe
facebook.com/stjohnscollege
twitter.com/stjohnscollege
@stjohnscollege
—Charlotte Jusinski
MINDFUL MILESTONES
With the publication of his sixth book of poetry,
A Bird for Buddha: Voices from Afar (2017),
Santa Fe tutor Jorge Aigla recently celebrated
another important milestone in his life at the
college: the 30th anniversary of his Karate Dōjō
on the Santa Fe campus. Aigla sees a natural
connection between the art of writing poetry
and the mental and physical discipline required
to master martial arts. “There is no mind
versus body. Everything is a practice—presence,
mindfulness,” he says. “The Program is a practice, too, not just here [on campus], but after
graduation. Physical activities help students
become more integrated. It’s a process.”
Aigla first discovered Karate as a teenager growing up in Mexico. He continued to practice after
he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to study
medicine at the University of California. After
earning his MD degree from UCSF, he worked as
a medical examiner and taught at City College
and St. Mary’s College, California, before joining
the faculty at St. John’s in 1985. Aigla left medicine to dedicate himself to his favorite things:
Karate, reading, writing, and thinking.
After his first year as a tutor at St. John’s, Istvan
Fehervary (1925-2014), who established the
Student Activities Organization on the Santa Fe
campus and served as its director for 20 years,
urged Aigla to teach Karate. He agreed under
two conditions: “It has to be run like a real dōjō,
not a club, and I will do so only on a volunteer
basis,” said Sensei Aigla—now an 8th Dan and
Shihan—who has been the head Karate-Dō
instructor ever since. Over the past three
decades, Aigla has taught hundreds of students,
several of whom have earned their black belts.
14 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
But he is quick to point out that “a dōjō is made
by spirit, not numbers.”
In addition to practicing Karate-Dō and writing
poetry, he also teaches in the St. John’s Eastern
Classics program. Aigla likens the title and
content of his new book—poetic articulations
of living and traveling experiences in Asia—to
the authors read in the EC curriculum. “They are
voices from afar,” he says. “The program is worthy on its own, and also a very good beginning
for people to enter Eastern traditions.”
—Gregory Shook
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 15
�TUTOR VIEW
WHY WE READ EASTERN CLASSICS
by David McDonald (SF95)
T
“� ow could we not be
H
interested in what
the human mind does
when it has leisure and
letters and it’s free from
political persecution—
what fundamental
questions arise for it?”
—JAMES CAREY
“� ix your mind on truth,
F
hold firm to virtue,
rely on loving kindness,
and find your recreation
in the Arts.”
—CONFUCIUS,
THE ANALECTS
HE EASTERN CLASSICS MASTER’S PROGRAM
of the St. John’s Graduate Institute began in the fall of 1994 on
the Santa Fe campus, after several years of preparation. Some of
the initial impetus had come from St. John’s alumni who asked
the Board of Visitors and Governors that the college make some
approach to books of the East. Coinciding with this interest
among alumni, the faculty had been engaged in conversation
and study of Eastern texts in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Life of Confucius,
probably late Qing dynasty
(1644–1911), four volumes
of woodblock printed books,
ink on paper. Metropolitan
Museum of Art
16 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 17
�TUTOR VIEW
H
“
ow could we not be interested in what the human mind
does when it has leisure and letters and it’s free from
political persecution—what fundamental questions
arise for it ... and what form do they take, particularly
if they’ve not been touched by Greece, or by Jerusalem,” says tutor James Carey (Class of 1965), during
whose deanship the early development of the Eastern
Classics (EC) program occurred. “So the idea of looking
at the thought of ancient India and ancient China was
immensely appealing....”
The new Eastern Classics program, then, was to be
not only a study of a set of books for their own sake, but
also a way of gaining insight into the human mind. “My
thought was, would we find that the same fundamental
questions arose in the East that arose in the West,”
Carey says. “If so, did they get the same answers as
those proposed in the West, or did they get different
answers? Or were there important questions for thinkers in India or in China that never arose in the West?
Getting clarity about these matters struck a number
of us on the faculty as a worthy project, and one very
much in the spirit of St. John’s.”
Some among the faculty had objected that
these Eastern texts were not great books,
while others felt that the best way to assay their
depth and greatness was to read them.
Tutor and former Graduate Institute (GI) director
Krishnan Venkatesh explains that we should not expect
“that the East starts from the same philosophical starting points as we do.” To read and discuss texts from
traditions so much different from those we study in the
St. John’s undergraduate program and in the GI Liberal
Arts degree program is to philosophize from a significantly different set of presuppositions, but still informed
by the same central aspects of the human experience.
Doing so therefore presents an opportunity to cultivate
deep questioning with regard to first principles. Venkatesh adds that Eastern texts are an important part
of the Western philosophic conversation: “The assimilation of Eastern texts into the West, from the 18th
century on, is part of modernity.” Philosophers Hume,
Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger were
acutely aware of Eastern writings and were in conversation with them through their own works.
In considering how to take up Eastern texts in the
St. John’s classroom, it became clear the Graduate
Institute was the appropriate avenue for doing so; the
undergraduate program was already very full, and in
any case the addition there of a few texts from the East
might have seemed mere tokenism. Some among the
faculty had objected that these Eastern texts were not
18 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
great books, while others felt that the best way to assay
their depth and greatness was to read them.
So the Eastern Classics curriculum began to take
shape. One prominent aspect of the program is the study
of either classical Chinese or Sanskrit. In a 1989 faculty
seminar on the Bhagavad Gita, the tutors involved discovered that the same Sanskrit word was being rendered
as “grace” by one translator, and as “force” by another.
From this, it became clear that we had to study the languages of these traditions, so as not to rely entirely on
translators. Tutor Bruce Perry joined the faculty in 1990
and brought knowledge of Sanskrit, while tutor Ralph
Swentzell had already been studying Chinese—he would
go on to teach the very first Chinese class in the new
program, and had developed computer software to aid
in learning Chinese characters. Soon there were faculty
study groups devoted to both of these languages.
Venkatesh points out that the addition of Chinese
to the EC program was very important in that it gave
the college a chance to study a non-Indo-European language. Language tutorials in both the undergraduate
program and the EC program understand themselves
as not being primarily for the sake of achieving mastery in a particular language, but rather for the sake of
gaining insight into language itself, and its relation to
thought. On this score, studying classical Chinese is a
way of deepening the college’s philosophical inquiry into
language as such, by working with a language entirely
outside the Indo-European lineage.
In the fall of 1992, a pilot program called the “Institute
for the Study of Eastern Classics at St. John’s College”
began in Santa Fe. It was overseen by Carey, who served
as its director, or “archon.” The new institute was hosted
at St. John’s, Santa Fe, and operated under the auspices
of the Graduate Institute, but was funded by donor gifts
and foundation grants, rather than by the college. At that
time, Nancy Buchenauer was the director of the Graduate Institute in Santa Fe, and Stephen Van Luchene was
dean. John Agresto, the Santa Fe president, was involved
in raising money to start the program, as was Carey.
After recruiting work by Carey and others, a total of
21 students enrolled in the new program. Of those, 14
received a certificate of completion in the summer of
1993. With the writing of a master’s essay and additional papers, students who had received this certificate were eventually eligible to be granted an MA in
Eastern Classics. Four or five students from the pilot
year took this option. Among the students in the pilot
program was Paul Cooley (SF92, EC96), who recalls, “I
was thrilled when the pilot program in Eastern Classics
was offered. I believe there was some concern before
the pilot program was approved that the Eastern texts
would simply be too difficult for discussion, but I never
felt that to be the case before the program began, and
our discussions proved lively and enjoyable.”
In its primary elements, the program was very much
as it is now. It required three consecutive terms of
study—fall, spring, and summer. In the language tutorial, there was study of either Sanskrit or classical
Chinese, and extensive translation work. The seminar
covered major works of India, China, and Japan, and
there were preceptorials in every term, for close reading of selected texts.
At least initially, the summer term was understood as
a time for comparative study of Eastern and Western
works; as the program developed in practice, the summer was given over entirely to the study of Japanese
works. The uniting thread of the program, as Venkatesh
describes it, is the encounter of each tradition with
philosophical Buddhism, which arises in India amidst
the Hindu tradition, then finds its way to China, where
it encounters Taoist and Confucian traditions, and then
is transmitted, by way of China, to Japan, where it
takes new forms. To address this, the summer had to be
devoted fully to Japanese readings, and the comparative effort was put aside.
Venkatesh points out that our earliest sense of what
ought to be read in the Eastern Classic was modified
over the years, as our characteristic practice of not
just reading, but rereading revealed just how productive particular books might be for us. For example, in
the early years of the Eastern Classics, we read Sun
Tzu’s Art of War and Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, but
found with experience that these books did not have
the same depth for our mode of study as other books,
for example the writings of Dogen. One way of seeing
such changes is that we moved from a popular Western
understanding of what was essential in these traditions,
to an understanding grounded in our practice of reading
and discussion.
Other texts have remained more or less constant,
because of their foundational importance. The Mahabharata and the Upanishads have this place among the
Indian texts, while the Analects of Confucius are indispensable for the Chinese tradition and the Japanese.
“Trying to understand China and Japan without Confucius is simply inconceivable—like understanding the
Hellenic world without Homer,” says Venkatesh, who
emphasizes that the thought of the Confucian tradition
is tremendously important intrinsically, even apart from
its influence in East Asia. Scott Hannan (EC11) adds
that “Confucius fits into the St. John’s method by insisting that asking about the elements and purpose of a
ritual is as important as practicing the ritual itself.”
After the completion of the pilot program in the 19921993 year, Eastern Classics went on hiatus on account
of logistical considerations, but the initial experiment
seemed a success. It became clear that for Eastern
Classics to become a degree program, a formal instructional proposal would need to be made, and be approved
by the faculty. So in the following academic year, in
November of 1993, such a proposal was discussed by
the faculty on both campuses, and was approved. In the
fall of 1994, the first degree students were enrolled in
the EC program.
Even when the program was at the pilot stage in 1992,
the Meem Library had begun to expand its collection
to support the new academic effort. Several foundation
gifts supported initial purchasing of the needed texts
for the pilot year, and once Eastern Classics became
a full degree program, additional gifts helped fill out
the collection in the ensuing years. Meem Library
continues to renew the collection as books wear out
through regular use by students. In other ways, the college continues to maintain the strengths needed for the
EC program: faculty new to Sanskrit or Chinese audit
Eastern Classics language classes in order to be ready
to teach them, and study groups help acquaint faculty
with Eastern texts they hadn’t previously encountered.
The Eastern Classics enterprise is, at least in part, a
way of seeing how the human mind responds to universal problems and universal questions. “It’s such a gift
to read these books that contain humanity’s struggles
to make sense of itself,” says Sara Klingenstein (EC12).
“St. John’s allows these texts to be as challenging and
interesting as they are. I cannot express how much
that’s done for me.”
Krishna and
Radha with Their
Confidantes: Page
from a Dispersed
Gita Govinda, ca.
1655–60, India
(Rajasthan, Mewar),
Metropolitan
Museum of Art
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�Road Trip!
ALUMNI STORIES
BY TIM PRATT
Exploring the
Johnnie Way
A two-week summer
road trip—from Annapolis
to Santa Fe and back—
brings together stories from
seven Johnnies who reside
in cozy towns and bustling
cities between the two
St. John’s campuses—
and who share a love for
great books, thoughtful
conversation, and the college
that changed their lives.
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THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 21
�ALUMNI STORIES
“� ohnnies are Johnnies,
J
no matter where you are.”
As Graham Gordon (AGI13)
strolls up the sidewalk in front
of a new home in Murfreesboro,
Tennessee, he smiles widely
when a dog begins barking
from behind the front door.
of
front
don in
m Gor Tennessee.
G raha ome in
his h
Within seconds, Gordon is greeted warmly by
Shari Hinton, who moved into the 1,100-squarefoot, single-story structure two days earlier. The
house was built by Habitat for Humanity, an
organization that constructs homes for the
less fortunate with the help of volunteers and
the new homeowners themselves. Gordon is a
site supervisor for Habitat’s Rutherford County
chapter and oversaw construction of this house
from start to finish.
“It feels great,” he says after a few friendly
words with Hinton and a quick look around the
property. “It’s fantastic—the physical
changes and dealing with the future
homeowners.”
Gordon is one of more than
a half-dozen St. John’s College
alumni who shared their stories
with St. John’s, gathered over the
summer on a road trip between
the college’s campuses in Annapolis and Santa Fe.
The goal was to highlight what
a few St. John’s graduates who
live between the two campuses
have been doing since they
graduated, and see how their St. John’s education
has played into their lives. What transpired was an
eight-day, 2,544-mile road trip, including discussions with seven Johnnies along the way.
Read more alumni stories
from the road trip at
sjc.edu/road-trip
Clockwise from left: Riverboats
on the Mississippi; Cadillac
Ranch; Grandfather Mountain;
Ruby Falls
Similar trips between the campuses have been
completed by many Johnnies over the years—on two,
three, and four wheels.
Annapolis admissions counselor David Conway
(A16) says when he and some classmates made the
trip from Annapolis to Santa Fe over spring break
in 2014, it was his first time leaving the East Coast.
“It was unfamiliar territory for me, but what was
really incredible was that when we arrived on the
Santa Fe campus it felt like we had made it home,
despite having never been there before,” Conway
says. “Part of that was that we had friends there, and
another part of it was that St. John’s is St. John’s,
and Johnnies are Johnnies, no matter where you are.”
Former Annapolis president Chris Nelson (SF70)
made the journey from Santa Fe to Annapolis on
bicycles with several colleagues in the early 1990s.
Santa Fe tutor Grant Franks (A77) completed the
trip from Santa Fe to Annapolis over 30 days on
a trike in 2003. When asked why he did it, Franks
answers simply: “Why wouldn’t I?”
Other alums along the way (from top): Jillian Sico,
Tianlu and Patrick Redmon, Daryl Breithaupt.
Read their stories at sjc.edu/road-trip.
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�ALUMNI STORIES
The Journey
The trip this summer began on a warm and
muggy morning in Maryland. After a quick
sojourn into Washington, D.C., the journey
continued through the rolling farmland and
lush green mountains of Virginia. It then proceeded into western North Carolina, where a
stop at Grandfather Mountain and Mile High
Bridge showed off the sprawling Appalachian
landscape from 5,280 feet above sea level.
Then it was on to Asheville and a conversation with Quinn Roberts (SF16), who works
as a mentor at a therapeutic boarding
school in the area.
After Asheville, the journey continued south—
including a stop at Black Rock Mountain, the
highest state park in Georgia—and a conversation near Atlanta with Jillian Sico (A05).
Sico for the last three years has worked with
refugees in the United States, but is now back
in school to pursue a career in the book arts.
24 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
The next stop was Ruby Falls and Lookout
Mountain in Tennessee, with a towering
underground waterfall and mountaintop
view of several surrounding states, before
continuing northwest toward Murfreesboro. It
was in Murfreesboro where Graham Gordon
(AGI13) discussed his work as a site supervisor for Habitat for Humanity. A short trek to
Nashville and an impromptu trip to the U.S.
men’s national soccer team’s game against
Panama followed, complete with raucous
crowds, new friends and stifling heat.
The trip continued west after the game, with
a brief stop in Memphis and a crossing of the
Mississippi River, before proceeding northwest through Arkansas. Stops at a natural
bridge and Pedestal Rocks Scenic Area
showed the beauty of the Ozarks, and a visit
to downtown Rogers included a conversation
with Daryl Breithaupt (SF13, EC14), who now
teaches there in his hometown.
With more than half of the trip complete,
Oklahoma beckoned. More back-road adventuring continued through the eastern half of
the state, including a stop in Okemah, the
birthplace of folk music icon Woody Guthrie.
Dinner followed with the family of a St. John’s
alumna in Oklahoma City, who was following
the trip on social media.
The next day included stops at the National
Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum,
and Lake Hefner, before meeting Patrick
Redmon (AGI13) and wife Tianlu Redmon
(AGI13). The couple’s relationship blossomed
while translating The Odyssey in the Graduate Institute. Patrick is now a federal law
clerk, while Tianlu runs her own translation,
interpretation, and teaching service.
ILLUSTRATION: ERIC HANSON
After a visit to the Oklahoma City National
Memorial, which honors the victims of the
bombing of a federal building there in 1995,
the journey continued into the plains of
western Oklahoma.
The last stop on the road to Santa Fe was
Amarillo, Texas. The visit included a trip to
Palo Duro Canyon south of the city—the
second largest canyon in the United States—
and Cadillac Ranch, a public art installation
consisting of old, upright, graffiti-covered
Cadillacs. The visit also included a
conversation with Liz Bush (SF08),
who is preparing for a career helping
people with communication disorders.
The journey ended in Santa Fe as some
of the first rains of monsoon season
rolled into town.
The trip passed through nine states and
Washington, D.C., included an elevation
change of more than 7,000 feet and
resulted in seven Johnnies sharing their
stories. There were good people, tasty food,
beautiful sights, and, most importantly,
great conversations along the way.
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�THE NEW ANNAPOLIS PRESIDENT
St. John’s:
The Next Chapter
BY TIM PRATT
As the newest class of St. John’s College students
donned their robes and gathered for Convocation in
Annapolis, Panayiotis (Peter) Kanelos headed to the
back of the line. The new college president wore a smile
on his face and a black and orange tie around his neck
as the Class of 2021 stretched out ahead of him.
Over the next few minutes, the line moved slowly into Francis Scott
Key Auditorium, past a crowd of cheering upperclassmen gathered to
greet their new schoolmates. At the end of the line walked Kanelos,
the first new president to greet the enthusiastic students in more
than two decades. The former dean of Christ College, the Honors
College of Valparaiso University in Indiana, began his term July 1. He
succeeds Chris Nelson (SF70), who retired in June after 26 years in
office. “I’m a freshman, too,” Kanelos said to students earlier in the day.
“We’re going to go through this together.”
Kanelos has a number of goals as he begins his first year at St. John’s:
Increase enrollment. Preserve the St. John’s Program. Engage with
the community. He even wants to follow along with the student reading
list over the next four years. Although Kanelos is new on campus,
he says he feels like he has entered a world with which he is already
familiar. The Chicago native has been reading the great books of
Western civilization since he was a child. “It feels new, but in a sense
it feels like I’m returning to a home I haven’t yet lived in,” he says.
“The ethos, the types of things people read, this has been my world
for a very long time. So, in some ways, St. John’s feels less like a
destination and more like a homecoming.”
26 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
PHOTOGRAPHY: HOWARD KORN
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 27
�THE NEW ANNAPOLIS PRESIDENT
“� o walk around campus and see this
T
storied institution, and know I’ve been
asked to play a role in its continued
thriving, is really humbling to me.”
— Annapolis President Panayiotis (Peter) Kanelos
Above: Students and
president dive into a
conversation.
Right: The new
president is a regular
at the dining hall.
Welcome to St. John’s
Kanelos began making his rounds on campus well
before he officially moved into the president’s office.
With the new school year underway, he has a number
of goals, including one to attract more students to
the college. “I think St. John’s is undisputedly the
finest undergraduate institution in America, but
not enough people know that,” he says. “How do
you increase visibility? How does every person that
should be a Johnnie become a Johnnie? In a crowded
higher education environment, how do we make our
voices heard?”
Another goal is to experience the Program in realtime, completing the same readings as students, in
sequence, over the next four years. He started with The
Iliad this semester, just like the freshman class.
“My hope is that will allow me to jump into conversations and participate in the intellectual life of
the college,” he says. “I want to feel like I understand
the rhythms of the Program. I want to understand
the textual encounters the students are having
28 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
and be more familiar with the things the faculty is
thinking about and feeling.” Kanelos estimates he
has read 60-70 percent of the works on the college’s
reading list already. One of his favorite books is The
Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevski, which
is on that list.
On Liberal Education
Looking ahead, Kanelos says he sees “absolutely
no changes” coming to the Program or the way St.
John’s educates its students. A liberal education is
important to “expand the horizons” of those being
educated, he says.
“The thing to remember about liberal education is
its end point is the education of a human being,” he
says. “The end point is not what we seem to be drifting toward in higher education as some other instrumental function—a human being as an employee, a
human being as this or that. The goal of a liberal
education is to develop the human being as fully as
possible, intellectually and soulfully. In order to do
that you have to expand rather than contract the
range of things that human beings encounter in their
education.”
Kanelos says his time as dean of Christ College,
a great books honors college, prepared him for the
move to St. John’s.
Christ College has an enrollment about the same
size as the St. John’s campus in Annapolis. It also
has a history with the great books movement. Many
of the people involved in its founding were affiliated
with the University of Chicago, where the great
books movement began in the late 1800s.
“Coming to St. John’s was pretty much the only
thing that would have made me leave Christ College,” Kanelos says. “It’s a wonderful program with
great people and great students. This was just one
opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
Kanelos says he is eagerly awaiting the start of the
new semester, when students return to the classroom
to discuss the works of Homer, Plato and many more
of the most influential minds in Western civilization.
“Getting ready for the full blast of fall, the first
full day of the semester, I’m really excited,” Kanelos
says. “To walk around campus and see this storied
institution, and know I’ve been asked to play a role
in its continued thriving, is really humbling to me.”
A Literary Life
Joining Kanelos in Annapolis is wife Christina,
daughter Emmie, 10, and son Theo, 8. The family has
a pet goldendoodle, too.
Outside of work, Kanelos enjoys cooking for his
family, hosting dinners and dining at restaurants.
His love of food, like his affinity for great books,
dates back to his childhood.
Kanelos was introduced to the “classics” at an early
age, he says. His parents were in the restaurant business, first in Chicago, then in Arizona, and Kanelos
often spent time in the kitchen with a stack of books
to keep himself busy. He recalls reading Homer and
developing an early interest in epic poetry.
“That’s how I spent my time as a child, growing up
in the back of restaurants, reading books,” he says.
Nobody in his family had ever gone to college, he
says, and he assumed he would stay involved in the
restaurant business—or become a singing lumberjack, a goal he laughs about today and attributes to
a flannel shirt he once owned.
Kanelos eventually enrolled in a Jesuit high
school in Arizona. It was there where he decided
to go to college.
When it came time to pick a school, Kanelos chose
Northwestern University in the Chicago area, where
he had spent his early years and family members still
lived. Kanelos’s interest in writing emerged at Northwestern, specifically poetry and fiction. It also was at
Northwestern where Kanelos met his future wife.
The Next Chapter
Kanelos received his bachelor’s degree in English
from Northwestern in 1991. Shortly after he
graduated, one of his poems was published in the
journal Poetry.
“At the time I don’t know if I thought I’d be a writer
as a profession, but more as an avocation,” he says.
With a bachelor’s degree in hand, Kanelos considered attending graduate school to further pursue his
interests in writing and literature. But first he joined
Teach for America, a program that sends recent college graduates to low-income schools to teach.
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 29
�THE NEW ANNAPOLIS PRESIDENT
“� e’s the right man at the right time.
H
He has the focus and the knowledge
and the skills to get to the issues
we have to face at St. John’s.”
— Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt
Kanelos was a member of the second class of
Teach for America, and was sent to the Rio Grande
Valley in Texas. Looking back, he calls it a “fascinating” and “intense” experience. Kanelos taught junior
high school English to an entirely Latino student
population, he says, many of whom were part of
migrant farmworker families. He spoke little Spanish and says it was a difficult assignment, not coming from a teaching background.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and
it’s made everything I’ve done since then seem
easy,” he says.
In the years since then, Kanelos has lived all over
the United States. He received his master’s degree
in literature and political philosophy from Boston
University, where a chance encounter with Nobel
and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Saul Bellow put
him on a path to attend the University of Chicago.
It was there where he received his PhD in literature
and political philosophy.
Kanelos also taught, wrote and got married while
in Chicago. He then became a fellow at Stanford
University, worked as an assistant professor and
associate professor at the University of San Diego,
and served as an associate professor at Loyola University of Chicago. Among his areas of expertise, he
became an authority on Shakespeare.
Kanelos’s career as a Shakespearean has been lively
and rewarding, he says, from teaching Shakespearean
actors in the Old Globe MFA program to founding
the Interdisciplinary Shakespeare Studies Program
at Loyola. In addition to publishing several books on
Shakespeare and editing a book series, Shakespeare
and the Stage, he has been called upon to speak or
work with many of the most prestigious Shakespeare
30 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
theaters and festivals in the
world, from the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and the Blackfriars Theare to the Globe Theatre
in London.
His early love for creative
writing has accompanied him
on his academic journey, as well.
While at the University of San
Diego, he founded the Cropper
Center for Creative writing. He
continued to publish poetry and
recently completed a novel. In
2013, Kanelos joined the faculty at Christ College, where he remained until
he was tapped earlier this year to lead St. John’s
into the future.
“We’ve gotten off to a very good start,” says Annapolis Dean Joe Macfarland. “He’s eager to meet with
and hear from many people; he listens well; he keeps
calm while appraising what he hears; and he has the
energy to make good things happen. I’m encouraged
by our conversations and our work together.”
Over the past few months, Kanelos has stayed busy
running the college, but he’s also made time for his
other interests. He has tried some of the city’s many
restaurants; visited Greenfield Library, where he held
an original copy of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, on
which he wrote his master’s thesis; and even brushed
up on his swing-dancing, another St. John’s tradition.
Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt is optimistic
about the future. “He’s the right man at the right time,”
Roosevelt says. “He has the focus and the knowledge
and the skills to get to the issues we have to face at
St. John’s. He’s both willing and eager to do so.”
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 31
�BIBLIOFILE
SIMBA SANA
(AGI13)
Never Stop
S
imba Sana (AGI13) has been many things
over the course of his life: a diligent
student, an amateur boxer, a passionate activist, a successful businessman, a
husband and father. But then he lost it all,
and was left fumbling for meaning. Following years of
struggle, he set out to chronicle his life and hard-won
knowledge in Never Stop, a thoughtful, brutally honest
memoir published in September 2017 by Chicago’s
Bolden Books.
Born Bernard Sutton in 1968, Sana’s
early life in Washington, D.C., was marked
by poverty and upheaval; after reading The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in his
elementary school library, he found a muchneeded escape in fantasy novels. Sana’s love
of books and his academic talent provided
stability in his youth as he grew up on the
streets of rough-and-tumble D.C. neighborhoods, seeing too many of his friends consumed by gang violence and drug dealing.
When Sana was applying to colleges,
his Jesuit mentor suggested he study philosophy, given his interest in life’s big questions. At the time, he scoffed. “Philosophy?
Socrates, Plato and the other philosophers
we studied at Gonzaga [a Catholic high
school] were well off, or at least had access
to resources. They had leisure time! I’m
too poor to do that,” Sana writes in his
book. Instead, he majored in business at
Maryland’s Mount St. Mary’s University,
graduating magna cum laude.
While attending “the Mount,” Sana encountered the works of Eldridge Cleaver and
Malcolm X. Inspired, he became an advocate
for black liberation, earning a master’s
degree in African Studies from Howard University and taking a Kiswahili name. Later,
he became disillusioned with radical black
nationalism, saying he’d used race as “a
barrier or as a false sense of connection. We
have so many things that we use to divide
ourselves from other human beings.”
He realized that the tools
he’d always used in life—
“reason, logic, planning,
and determination”—
weren’t enough to bring
him inner fulfillment.
32 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
Hired out of college by global accounting firm Ernst
& Young, by the early 1990s Sana fled the corporate
life to start a book distribution business with a friend.
The company, named Karibu from the Kiswahili for
“welcome,” would eventually open several stores in the
D.C. area, hosting authors such as Toni Morrison and
Maya Angelou, and become one of the most successful
black-owned bookselling ventures ever. During this
time, Sana also married and had two children. He had
made it to the top of the heap, able to purchase a
$3,000 watch on a whim.
It didn’t last. By 2008, Sana’s relationship with his
business partner had deteriorated, and his marriage
was shaky—both would fail in a short period of time.
At 40 years old, he realized that the tools he’d always
used in life—“reason, logic, planning, and determination”—weren’t enough to bring him inner fulfillment. His
second wife encouraged him to study philosophy, but he
didn’t want to just debate about technicalities, he wanted
to discover a new way of life. A professor at George
Washington University suggested he might be a good
fit for St. John’s. Impressed by what he learned of the
curriculum, Sana enrolled at the Graduate Institute in
Annapolis in summer 2012, finishing the following year.
“Beyond a doubt, St. John’s was my most rewarding
formal educational experience,” writes Sana, whose
favorite authors included Hume, Cervantes, Rousseau,
and Nietzsche. Already at work on the manuscript
that would become Never Stop, he feels the school
“gave me the space I needed to really finish my book,”
reminding him of his boxing days. “I had to go to
training camp to get ready for the big bout.”
The resulting book, as much philosophy as memoir,
brings to mind Augustine’s Confessions: it’s candid,
raw, and vulnerable to a degree unusual in men’s
writing. By sharing his journey and reckoning with his
flaws, Sana wants to demonstrate that self-knowledge,
though difficult, is the most worthwhile knowledge of
all. “My chief concern in telling this story is to focus on
my behavior, my actions: the things that were within
my realm of control. This, I feel, is the only way that
looking at these experiences can provide some benefit
to me and, I hope, others.”
—Anna Perleberg Andersen (SF02)
Pirate Women: The Princesses,
Prostitutes, and Privateers Who
Ruled the Seven Seas
By Laura Sook Duncombe (SF08)
Chicago Review Press, 2017
Female swashbucklers finally get their due in
Laura Sook Duncombe’s new book Pirate Women:
The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who
Ruled the Seven Seas. This first-ever comprehensive
survey shares the stories of women, both real and
legendary, that history has largely ignored. Utilizing
her law background, Duncombe conducted exhaustive
research on the subject, including court transcripts
In the Circle of White Stones:
Moving through Seasons with
Nomads of Eastern Tibet
By Gillian Tan (SF97)
University of Washington Press, 2016
By virtue of living nomadically, it is fitting that the
nomads of Eastern Tibet are facing rapid lifestyle
changes—as if they are temporally nomadic as well
as geographically. Gillian Tan captures nomad life
and its changes over a seven-year period; her first
person account is very much at ground level. Tan,
a fourth generation Peranakan Chinese, grew up
The Vanishing American Adult:
Our Coming-of-Age Crisis—and How
to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance
By Ben Sasse (AGI98)
St. Martin’s Press, 2017
Ben Sasse seems to be everywhere these days,
from national television talk shows to newspaper
articles to radio interviews. Widely known for his
role in politics, the U.S. senator from Nebraska,
former president of Midland University, and St.
John’s Graduate Institute alumnus has recently
garnered attention for his new book, The Vanishing
American Adult, in which he offers a personal look
from cases in which pirates were being tried for their
crimes. From the ancient Norse princess Alfhild and
warrior Rusla to Sayyida al-Hurra of the Barbary
corsairs; from Grace O’Malley, who terrorized
shipping operations around the British Isles during
the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, to Cheng I Sao, who
commanded a fleet of 400 ships off China in the
early 19th century, the book explores not only the
lives these women lived as pirates, but also the lives
they left behind at home. Duncombe looks beyond
the stories to the storytellers and mythmakers,
to explore why and how these stories are told and
passed down—and how history changes depending on
who is recording it.
in Malaysia and was educated in the United States
and Australia. She says in the preface to her book
that she had always felt “simultaneously familiar
and strange” in the country of her birth. She was
well-versed in simultaneously observing the “other”
and being the “other.” In order to write about the
nomads, she lived with a family in Dora Karmo—
which translates to “the circle of white stones”—for
13 months. As she worked to become a part of the
household by milking yaks, shouldering heavy loads
of vegetation, and playing with the children, she also
continued to process what it was to be an outsider,
and what it meant to have a place in a community.
at America’s young generation and the profound
changes he has seen in today’s college students.
In his book, he argues that well-intentioned but
overprotective parenting, flawed government
programs, and an emphasis on the consumption
of goods have spurred a generation that is illequipped to thrive in our highly-competitive global
economy—and play an active role required of
citizens in our democracy. As a remedy, Sasse, a
father of three, identifies core formative experiences
he feels that all young people ought to pursue: hard
work to appreciate the benefits of labor, travel to
understand deprivation and want, the importance of
nurturing one’s body, and the power of reading.
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 33
�For & About
ALUMNI
On June 4, the SJCAA elected
the following alumni to serve
in these positions:
A full slate of workshops, social events,
volunteer opportunities and seminars were on
offer at the eighth annual Alumni Leadership
Forum (ALF), held in June in Santa Fe.
Alumni Association Board
President Elect:
Briana Saussy (A03)
Organized by the St. John’s College Alumni
Association with support from college staff,
ALF draws alumni from across the country
for a weekend of activities designed to inspire
deep and meaningful alumni engagement
with the college.
A regular feature at ALF is training for alumni
who want to give back to the college. One
of these sessions was led by the Admissions
Advisory Group, which taught attendees how
to effectively recruit prospective students for
St. John’s at college fairs and through adopta-school programs. Another session, by the
Career Services Advisory Group, provided
a forum for conversation on how the Office
of Career Services can help alumni—and
how alumni can help the office. “Our alumni
volunteers are an important ‘force multiplier’
for the association as we work together with
college staff to advance the mission of the
college,” says Tia Pausic (A86), former Alumni
Association Board president. “Our workshops
help our volunteers be more effective.”
ALF also serves as a hub for alumni leaders
to strategize for the year ahead. Alumni
chapter volunteers plan for upcoming regional
events and share best practices for engaging
alumni while the Alumni Association Board
holds an all-day board meeting. Graduate
Institute alumni use the weekend to plan as
well; this year, they met to discuss the GI
50th anniversary, including involvement in
Homecoming 2017 on both campuses. Over the
last year, the Office of Alumni Relations has
supported ALF organizers in turning the event
into a volunteer-led effort, with appropriate
involvement from staff.
During the Alumni Association board meeting,
Director of Annual Giving Mark Piekarski
listened to alumni ideas about starting donor
recognition societies and shared efforts to
The Votes Are In!
“� lumni involvement helps us
A
understand some of the college’s
most salient needs, and how
best to respond to them.”
–Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt
raise alumni giving rates. “We need to plan the
work and work the plan if we hope to raise our
giving participation, now less than nineteen
percent,” Piekarski says. “Annual giving
should be a year-round effort and alumni
can help by encouraging their peers to make
a gift each year to support the Program.” In
addition, the Office of Communications led a
capital campaign identity focus group, where
campaign themes were both solicited and
tested. The focus group was the eighth one
undertaken since February, and is part of the
college’s growing efforts to involve alumni in its
messaging and identity development.
The weekend culminated in the annual
All-Alumni Meeting, which was attended by
Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt, who led a
lively discussion about the state of the college,
growing alumni involvement, receptivity to
alumni concerns, and upcoming initiatives.
“Alumni are essential to the future of St. John’s
College,” Roosevelt says. “Alumni involvement
helps us understand some of the college’s most
salient needs, and how best to respond to them.
Together, we are laying a foundation for a new
and robust era at St. John’s.”
At-Large Directors:
Josephine Escalante (A92)
Elisabeth Long (A86)
Merry Peckham (SF07)
Sabina Sulat (A87)
Sheila Virgil (A88)
Katarina Wong (A88)
Representative to
Board of Visitors and Governors:
Leslie Kay (SF83)
Alumni also voted to approve
an amendment to the bylaws.
Officers and at-large directors
of the association are elected
to two-year terms, while
representatives to the Board of
Visitors and Governors serve
three-year terms. Each of the
newly elected alumni began
their terms on July 1, 2017.
Alumni Association Mission
To strive for the continued
excellence of our college and
fellow alumni by celebrating our
distinctive educational experience,
connecting our community in
efforts toward shared support and
benefit, and fostering a culture of
intellect, generosity, and service.
A MESSAGE FROM
THE PRESIDENTS
College Leaders
Open the Lines of
Communication
We prize discourse at St. John’s. In fact,
we pride ourselves on “doing” discourse
like no other college. Given all the intellectual simmer and boil that happens on
our campuses and in our alumni community—and given the current state of
national and international discourse—
the college’s ability to foster reasoned
and civil discussion is nothing short of
remarkable. And we, as presidents, appreciate the good fortune of our association
with such a place, a college that remains
fiercely authentic and true to itself. We
owe you the same candor and forthrightness that illuminated your lives as students. And we are trying to deliver.
Soon after Mark’s presidency in Santa Fe
began, he instituted a series of regular
communications with alumni and friends
of the college, including e-mail messages
about the college’s financial challenges,
“JohnnieCasts” (town hall-style meetings conducted by telephone), postJohnnieCast surveys to determine which
issues were of most importance to the
majority of alumni, and post-Board of
Visitors and Governors meeting summaries. Pano, whose presidency began in
July, embraces the importance of keeping
the college’s key constituencies informed
(and of listening) and will be putting his
own stamp on these efforts. In short, we
are deeply committed to keeping the lines
of communication open.
Sometimes, the news from our end is
going to be terrifically cheering: the
combined $50-million gifts from BVG
© 2017 INSIGHTFOTO.COM
Alumni Take the Lead at ALF
Chair Ron Fielding (A70) and Campaign
Chair Warren Spector (A81); the work to
create an innovative Center for Personal
and Professional Development (we are
fully aware that career services is an
area of tremendous concern to alumni).
Sometimes, that message from St. John’s
will carry with it a call to action: please
tell us what you think of campus culture;
please reply to a survey on alumni attitudes; and, of course, please donate to
the college as a vote for the value of the
Program you love.
St. John’s needs your support, both
moral and financial, to move beyond a
challenging operating deficit, to invest
in activities that promote the college to
prospective students and their families,
and to give current students the best
possible St. John’s experience, in and
outside of the classroom. The presidents
are charged, broadly, with earning that
support. Our transparency as leaders is
one way we discharge that responsibility,
and we hope that as our communications
continue, you will feel better connected to
the college and increasingly motivated to
help St. John’s thrive.
Is it discordant to both celebrate the wide
variety of points of view in the community
(that famous impulse to discourse) and
to ask that we all pull the same oar? We
hope not. There is a great deal of work
yet to be done to put the college on a firm
and lasting foundation, and as we do that
work—perhaps moving in directions that
cause some unease—we will count on your
good faith as well as your counsel. We will
ask what you think, and we know we will
hear from you, just as we have heard you
say that we must envision career services
anew, honor the Program, and create a
vibrant and respectful campus culture for
all students and employees. And when we
choose a direction, informed by you and
others, we will ask you to grasp the oar
with us. For St. John’s.
—
Mark Roosevelt and Panayiotis Kanelos
—Carol Carpenter
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�ALUMNI PROFILE
A MERITORIOUS LIFE
By Tim Pratt
I
n Haiti, thousands of poor, rural families
each year send their children off to live
with people in distant cities. The goal
is for those children to attend school
and live better lives, says David Diggs
(AGI91), co-founder and director of the nonprofit organization Beyond Borders in Haiti.
However, many of those children end up in
some form of servitude or slavery.
Over the last 24 years, Diggs has made
it his mission to end child slavery in Haiti
and empower Haitians to fix other social and
educational issues in the impoverished Caribbean nation. “What we do is invest a lot in
tools and in people, and in doing so build their
capacity to lead these social movements that
will produce lasting change,” Diggs says.
For his efforts, the St. John’s College Alumni Association honored Diggs with an Award
of Merit at Homecoming this fall in Annapolis.
He is one of four St. John’s graduates who received awards this year, along with Huffington
Post Editor-in-Chief Lydia Polgreen (A97) for
outstanding service in the field of journalism;
U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse (AGI98) for distinguished
and meritorious service to the United States
and to the state of Nebraska; and Jason Viseltear (SFGI96) for outstanding achievement in
the field of lutherie. For Diggs, St. John’s still
holds a special place in his heart. “It was the
best educational experience I’ve ever had,” he
says. “It’s had a big influence on the life we’ve
had here in Haiti.”
Originally from a small farm town in southwest Missouri, Diggs completed his undergraduate work at Colorado Christian University. He
also lived and studied in Europe before heading
off to Haiti in the late 1980s to work with the
Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education. Diggs’s time in Haiti was eye-opening,
he says, as he saw classrooms that were “violent
and authoritarian,” with many teachers who
didn’t speak the students’ native language. After
a couple years, Diggs decided to return to the
United States—and visit the St. John’s campus
in Annapolis, where he considered attending
“�We gave teachers a chance
to reinterpret their role
in the classroom from
authorities who were
tasked with cramming
facts in the heads of kids
to mentors who were
helping students learn
from one another and
from the texts, and to
think critically.”
years earlier when he was looking at colleges
to complete his undergraduate work. “I was
attracted to the idea of being in an environment
where you have the freedom to explore and follow your own curiosity and questions.”
Diggs enrolled in the Graduate Institute
in the summer of 1990 and began working
again for the Evangelical Association before he
completed his master’s, taking trips for a few
days at a time to Haiti during breaks between
classes. After he graduated from St. John’s in
1991, he returned to Haiti to continue his work.
36 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
Within a few months of Diggs’s return to the
island nation, he witnessed a violent coup.
The country’s democratically-elected government, in power for less than a year, was overthrown. “We were traumatized by that, so we
decided to engage in advocacy work,” Diggs
says. “That pulled us into the struggle for a
return to democracy and human rights.”
Diggs and colleague John Engle formed
Beyond Borders in 1993 with a focus on
education reform, though its mission would
grow quickly. At the time, there was no room
in classrooms for students to ask questions or
be curious, so outcomes were “very poor,” he
says. The educational approach Diggs wanted
to spread was similar to the style he experienced at St. John’s—lots of reading, discussion,
reflection, and critical thinking. Diggs invited
one of his old St. John’s tutors to Haiti to
introduce the Touchstones program, which
was adapted and used to promote educational
reform among teachers. “We gave teachers a
chance to reinterpret their role in the classroom from authorities who were tasked with
cramming facts in the heads of kids to mentors
who were helping students learn from one
another and from the texts, and to think critically,” Diggs says. “That’s another thing that’s
very rewarding: to see how this experience
at St. John’s and what we all value from that
education has taken root in Haiti. Now all over
Haiti there are groups that use this approach
and methodology.”
Along with the new style of teaching, Diggs
and his colleagues at Beyond Borders helped
start a movement for native language instruction, where Creole was used in the classroom;
they promoted non-violent classroom management; and students began to take responsibility for their own education and “learned how
to learn,” Diggs says. In addition, the group
wanted to promote a kind of education that
was inclusive of everyone in the community,
from children to adults. In largely rural areas,
they began promoting education based in “local
reality,” Diggs says, teaching, but also getting
positive change in the country, Diggs says.
While other programs or projects introduced
to Haitian communities over the years had some
short-term effects, Beyond Borders is looking
for long-term solutions in Haiti—getting at
the complex roots of the country’s problems.
“Haitians have tremendous capacity and a lot
of strength,” Diggs says. “We see ourselves as
allies of social movements there and focus on
social movements that see sustainable change.”
In the communities where Beyond Borders
has worked, there have been “huge” reductions
in child slavery, Diggs says. Many children
also have been reunited with their parents and
returned to school. A network of child slavery
survivors now works together to share their
experiences and free other children. Still, child
slavery and gender-based violence remain major issues in Haiti, Diggs says, and more work
needs to be done. He travels to the country
four or five times a year, and regularly communicates via telephone or Skype. “I’m always
hearing very powerful stories of lives that are
transformed through our work,” Diggs says.
“That’s very meaningful to me.”
50
CELEBRATING
YEARS
students curious about their environment and
how to farm their land sustainably and grow
more food. Their efforts led them to the work
they continue to focus on to this day—attempting to end child slavery.
About one-quarter of Haitian children under
the age of 18 live apart from their parents,
Diggs says. About half of those children end up
in some form of exploitive relationship, including about one in six Haitian girls and one in 10
Haitian boys, he says. Beyond Borders began
working on children’s rights issues and genderbased violence. The organization provided
training and funding, and set up the largest
network of groups in the country to end child
slavery. An initiative to end violence against
women and girls also took root.
Beyond Borders continues to work with community and child rights activists, civic leaders
and others. The tools and models the organization provides can be “scaled up” and used by
the government and other agencies to make a
The Graduate Institute
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE
In celebration of the Graduate
Institute’s 50th anniversary, the
college is featuring a series of stories
to highlight the history, students—
past and present—and other
contributors who have made it what
it is today. Read more at sjc.edu/
graduate/anniversary.
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 37
�ALUMNI NOTES
1946
Peter Weiss (A) was honored
on June 8 by the Center for
Constitutional Rights in New
York for his half century as board
member, vice president, and
cooperating attorney.
1949
With his family, Peter J. Davies
(A) celebrated his 90th birthday
on June 10 at a luncheon in
Chappaqua, N.Y. He and his wife
Phyllis continue to lead active and,
most fortunately, healthy lives.
The couple got married 68 years
ago under the Liberty Tree on the
Annapolis campus, just two weeks
after he graduated from St. John’s.
1952
Pierre Grimes (A) published two
articles in 2016, “The Philosophy
of the Self” and “The Betrayal of
Philosophy: Rediscovering the
Self in Plato’s Parmenides,” in
Philosophical Practice: Journal of
the APPA (American Philosophical
Practitioners Association).
1955
After a 50-year career that
included conducting symphonies
and opera, serving as music
director of six orchestras, and
guest conducting in the US and
Europe, Harold Bauer (A) has
retired from the field. He now
devotes his time to painting
and serves on the board of the
Evanston Art Center, where he is
also a student. Bauer’s work will
be on view in a one-man show at
the Rainbow Gallery in Evanston,
Ill. on November 3.
John M. Gordon (A) announces
the publication of the first
Penny Summers mystery novel,
Katelyn’s Killer. Set in presentday Annapolis, the book’s
30-something amateur sleuth,
Penny Summers, is partly
inspired by Gordon’s experiences
as a St. John’s student, Navy air
intelligence officer, landscape
designer, and garden pond builder.
1964
1971
gist and neonatologist at the
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
(CHLA). “Over the past 40 years,
our program (at CHLA) has established an international reputation in areas of clinical care and
respiratory physiology, especially
in respiratory control disorders,”
Keens says. “We are consulted
from around the world about the
management of children requiring home mechanical ventilation,
diaphragm pacing, children with
congenital central hypoventilation
syndrome, and other disorders.”
He is grateful to everyone who
taught him, and who helped him
to succeed and help others.
After 20 years, Jeffrey Escoffier
(A) retired two years ago from
the NYC Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene, where he
coordinated the production and
placement of the department’s
mass media campaigns on
smoking, obesity, HIV, infant
mortality, Ebola, and West Nile
disease, among others. He’s now
a full-time writer working on a
couple of books about health policy
in New York City and about the
history of sexuality. He is also the
co-editor of Q Public, a new series
of books on LGBTQ issues from
Rutgers University Press.
1966
Judy (Millspaugh) Anderson (A)
enjoyed seeing old friends at
Homecoming last September, for
the Class of 1966 50th reunion.
She is sad to report, though, that
her sister Susan, who lived with
her during her junior and senior
years, passed away on Easter
Sunday this year.
Constance (Bell) Lindgreen (A)
shares news about her family of
Johnnies. Her mother Mary Jean
Bell (SFGI73) published her first
volume of her poems, Tangerine:
Poems at 94. Her sister Alice, a
composer and musician, wrote a
requiem mass, Crux, in memory
of their sister Sarah (Bell) Kitchin
(Class of 1967), and her brother
Sam Bell (A71) has won awards for
38 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
Rita Collins (A) continues to run
her traveling bookstore, which
went across country to the Brooklyn Book Festival last summer.
Plans for next year include
stops in Illinois, North Carolina,
Alabama, and Florida.
1977
1979
Michael St. James (A) enjoyed
a miniature class reunion at
Summer Classics in Santa Fe,
with Susan Ferron (SF) and tutor
Grant Franks (A), who co-led the
seminar—one of the best St.
James has attended—on two of
Alan Turing’s seminal papers.
1978
1965
Jessica (Hoffman) (A) and Will
Davis (Class of 1964) will celebrate
their 53rd wedding anniversary
this fall. Both are retired (Will
from the investment business
and Jessica from academics), and
they divide their time unequally
between Squam Lake and Boston.
Will follows the markets and
savors the opportunity to read and
reflect while Jessica has redirected
her writing from books on the arts
in education to plays that she puts
on locally.
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Her current plans include
completing a book about raising
her son and traveling with her
husband, Chuck, as he performs
jazz music around the country
and the world.
After their first engagement ended
36 years ago, Elizabeth (Betty)
Burch (A) and Rick Allen Stephan
(A) reconnected and were married
in September 2016 on the front
porch of McDowell Hall. Rick
received his PhD in neuropsychology in February 2015 from the
For the past decade, Peter Macdonald Blachly (A) and his
wife, Johannah Harkness, have been living in Maine, near
two summer vacation homes that have been in his family for
generations. Peter and Johannah premiered their rock opera,
“One Way Trip to Mars,” at Waterville Opera House, in August.
They hired cast and crew from New York; the show attracted
the attention of NASA and the space exploration community,
as well as a lot of media coverage in Maine.
his books on car maintenance. As
for her, she been writing short
stories; two of which, “A Restaurant in Venice” and “Case in
Point,” have won local prizes in
France, where she lives. Later
this autumn three more stories
will appear in the Blue Fountain:
Crossroads Writers Anthology.
Rebecca Tendler (A) has been practicing as a psychologist in Philadelphia for more than 30 years.
She is happy to say that she is in
training, again, in a mind-body
psychotherapy devised by Ron
Kurtz that incorporates the work
of Perls, Reich, and Feldenkreis
and taps into Eastern philosophies
of Buddhism and Taoism. We are
never too old to learn.
1968
Thomas G. Keens (SFGI) celebrates 40 years since he began as
an assistant professor of pediatrics
at the School of Medicine of the
University of Southern California;
and as a pediatric pulmonolo-
Rick Wicks (SF) and his family
live in Sweden. His daughter
Linnéa recently graduated from
medical school and now works on
the psychiatric ward of a hospital
near Göteborg, Sweden.
1973
Frazier L. O’Leary Jr (SFGI), an
English teacher at Washington,
D.C.’s Cardozo High School, was the
subject of a Washington Post article
that appeared online on June 9.
Michael Aaron (SF) recently published an Expert Insights white
paper through the IBM Institute
of Business Value on “central
banks and digital ledger technology governance.”
1976
With a warm send-off from her
colleagues, Gail Webber Redd (A)
retired after 34 years with the
Baltimore Johnnies Lisa Simeone
(A), Bill Tripp (A), and Kim Schraf
(A), enjoyed an Annapolis Class
of 1979 get-together this summer
with Bruce Babij (A) at his home.
1981
California School of Professional
Psychology. Betty, now Liz, has a
JD from George Mason University.
Together they founded MindWealth in Boca Raton, Fla., offering comprehensive, innovative,
and efficacious treatment protocols
for substance abuse facilities.
William A. (Gus) Steadman II (SF79) received his doctor of public health
degree from New York Medical College on May 24 at Carnegie Hall. He
received the “Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation” award for his work
entitled “Practice Characteristics of New York Medical College School of
Medicine: Predicting Primary Care Specialty Choice and Likelihood of a
Practice in a Rural or Economically Disadvantaged Area from Medical School
Applications.” Gus is the nephew of Santa Fe tutor, Jack Steadman, and the
father of alumna Margaret Steadman (SF16).
Robbyn Jackson (A) recently moved
to Hancock, N.H. after retiring
from a 30-year career as a historical architect for the National Park
Service. She spent the last 25 years
in San Francisco, most recently
as the chief of cultural resources
and museum management at San
Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. She and her husband,
Timothy Przygocki, purchased
the house in Hancock to retire
to several years ago, though he
passed away in 2014. She welcomes
those in the area to look her up.
After retiring from teaching in
California, Marilynn R. Smith (SFGI)
moved to Spring, Texas, in 2005 to
live near her daughter and family.
Her children were 12, 9, and 4 then,
and she has enjoyed her role as
babysitter and homework-monitor
while both their parents worked.
Twelve years later, she says, “this
ride has just been amazing.”
1985
Terri Luckett (SF) and Harry
Hamilton (A86) married on July
15 in Afton, Va. The couple dated
when she took her “junior year
abroad” in Annapolis. They then
went their separate ways in life,
but through the miracle of social
media they reconnected and the
magic reignited. They live in
Seattle, Wash., where Terri is an
executive with Amazon.com. Harry
is retired from a career of care as a
therapist and social worker.
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 39
�ALUMNI NOTES
ALUMNI NOTES
1984
1988
GLOBAL CALL FOR CLIMATE ACTION/GREG MCNEVIN
Katarina Wong (A) joined Columbia University this year as the
program manager of the arts
administration graduate program.
Her own artwork will also be
included in the Getty-sponsored
Pacific Standard Time exhibition,
“Circles & Circuits I: History &
Art of the Chinese Caribbean
Diaspora,” on view in Los Angeles
through February 25, 2018. More
info at www.pacificstandardtime.
org. In addition, her cross-cultural
curatorial project, “Hecho en
Tránsito / Made in Transit,” (www.
madeintransit.com) involving
Cuban and American artists will
be exhibited at Columbia University’s Macy Gallery from February
5 to March 1, 2018.
Jeni Miller (A84) heads the Global Climate and Health Alliance,
an international alliance of health organizations working together
to address climate change and its impacts on health. This spring
the group launched a health sector-led initiative to tackle urban
air pollution, Unmask My City, in 11 cities around the world.
“The cutting-edge visuals for the campaign use personal air
quality monitors connected to innovative light mask technology,
and helped draw significant media and social media attention
to viable, city- and country-level solutions to air pollution,” Miller
writes. With three million premature deaths annually due to
outdoor air pollution, more than 80 percent of city dwellers globally breathe air that breaches World Health Organization guidelines, and with fossil fuels driving both air pollution and climate
change, Miller sees the push for clean air as a major global
opportunity to improve both health and climate.
1986
Keith Rosen (AGI) never married
or had children, but he’s been busy
over the past 35 years. He retired
from teaching and keeps active
as a tour guide around Houston,
Texas, and Louisiana. In 2000 he
started his own company, Houston
Historical Tours. With his mortgage
paid off early, he enjoys collecting
a pension and taking annual vacations. Alumni visiting Houston are
invited to drop him a line.
Elaine Pinkerton Coleman (SFGI)
announces two new publications:
A revision of Santa Fe on Foot:
Exploring the City Different (Ocean
Tree Books, 2016) and the debut of
All the Wrong Places (Pocol Press,
2017), a suspense novel set in the
Southwest. Her website www.
elainepinkerton.wordpress.com
recently won an award for Best
Adoption Blog. She is currently
at work on a sequel to her latest
novel, set in southern India.
40 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
1991
Joan Crist (A) still teaches at
Calumet College of St. Joseph in
Indiana, where she shares her love
of rowing that she gained while at
St. John’s with students there. She
also assists interfaith community
partners with their urban farming
and revitalization efforts. She has a
child in college and is encouraging
her other two to choose St. John’s.
Ramona (Denk) Webb (A) currently
lives in Townsville, NE Australia, with her Aussie husband,
Thomas. She is studying for a MS
in midwifery through a distance
program from the Midwives
College of Utah, and managing the
guest rooms that the couple rents
out through Airbnb. The couple
recently celebrated the birth of a
granddaughter in England, and
plan to fly halfway across the
world to see her.
Julia Goldberg’s (SF) book Inside
Story: Everyone’s Guide to Writing
and Reporting Creative Nonfiction was published by Leaf
Storm Press. Her book tackles
the myriad approaches to the
burgeoning genre of creative
nonfiction—from memoir to criticism to literary journalism—by
deeply exploring each stage of the
generation, reportage, writing,
and editing of stories. Drawing
on and integrating examples and
advice from diverse practitioners
in the field, Inside Story extends
beyond idea and inspiration with
practical advice, examples and
exercises geared toward everyone,
from writing students and teachers, citizen journalists, bloggers,
and to working writers.
1997
1990
John Obenauer (A) works as a bioinformatics scientist, spending
most of his time looking for gene mutations or changes in activity
that contribute to diseases. He lives near Memphis, Tenn., with
his wife Michelle and 12-year-old daughter Lily. They had fun
visiting Stonehenge last year.
Brian Brock (SF) is making music
in Laveen, Arizona.
Heidi Jacot Hewett (A) released
a new book, The Adulteries of
Rachel, a philosophical novel
about love and marriage with lots
of Plato references.
Melanie Margarita Kirby (SF) is
taking a sabbatical from her own
queen bee farming to serve as the
bee lab manager at Washington
State University (WSU) and to
work on international bee breeding research. She will be pursuing a graduate degree at one of
the nation’s leading bee research
labs at WSU with esteemed bee
researcher Steve Sheppard, and bee
geneticist Susan Cobey. She recently
completed research on medicinal
herb and pollinator health trials of
Monarda fistulosa (var menthifolia), also known as wild mountain
bergamot (oregano de la sierra)
with New Mexico State University.
Check out www.herbs4bees.com
for more info. She can be reached
at melanie.kirby@wsu.edu.
1992
Johann A. Klaassen (SF) and
Angela Kelly Klaassen (SF)
celebrated 25 years of marriage
in December 2016. Johann is
nearing five years as a principal
of Horizons Sustainable Financial
Services, Inc., which is headquartered in Santa Fe. He and
his business partner specialize in
sustainable, responsible, impact
investing, and serve clients across
the country. The family remains,
for the moment, headquartered
in Colorado. Daughter Gretta
Klaassen (SF18) is a senior at
St. John’s, Santa Fe, and twin
sons Bram and Ben are sophomores in high school.
1993
In July, Pamela Stark (A) began
a new position as director of The
Rockefeller University Child and
Family Center.
1994
Dan Farley (A) and Elizabeth
(Rhodes) Farley (A) recently
celebrated their 20th wedding
anniversary. Their daughter
Hannah finished her first year of
college at Juniata College in Pa.,
studying biology in their pre-med
program, and their son Dylan is a
senior in high school and currently
looking at colleges. Their youngest
son, Samuel, started third grade.
The family keeps busy with travel,
reading, sports, and outdoor
activities. Dan also defended his
dissertation and finally got his
PhD in quantitative research
methods from the University of
Oregon. The Farley’s pace of life
is slowly returning to manageable
levels, so they welcome anyone
visiting the Pacific Northwest to
drop by. Dan can be reached at
dfarley@uoregon.edu.
Jill Nienhiser (SFGI) married Dane
Petersen on June 17. Jill is a
strategist at Mind & Media, Inc.
in Alexandria, Va., and Dane is a
marketing and events manager at
The Theatre Lab in D.C.
2004
Conor Heaton (AGI) completed law
school at Loyola University Chicago
School of Law in 2007, and was a
practicing trial attorney in Chicago
until recently when he made a
significant professional pivot and
became the director of school growth
for the Cristo Rey Network.
Lisa Hedley (AGI) started a
personal development business.
Her website, lisahedley.com, has a
platform for online seminars.
2006
Russell Max Simon’s (SFGI) first
feature film, which he wrote
and directed, will be released on
Amazon in November.
2008
Adam Braus (SF) now runs a small
college called the Product College
at Make School, which focuses
on teaching 18- to 28-year-olds
how to be software engineers.
He also started a turmeric latte
mix company called Copper Cup
(drinkcoppercup.com). “Turmeric
is a spice that helps your body regulate stress and gives you energy
and helps you regulate your sleep
and digestion,” says Brau. “I’m
also engaged to Katherine Koh,
and we will be married October 14
in Oakland.” The couple lives in
the Mission in San Francisco.
2009
Zach Alarcon (SFGI) was named
a Diamond Teacher of the Year
by the Colorado Springs International Rotary Club. “Without
my solicitation, students wrote
brief essays to nominate me, and
I’ve been pretty humbled by the
1999
Tobin Shulman (SF) was recently
promoted at Siemasko + Verbridge,
where he will help lead the firm’s
residential, commercial, institutional, and academic design
practice.
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 41
�FIRST PERSON
ALUMNI NOTES
2015
serves as senior learner experience designer in the Education
Research and Development
Department, inventing new ways
to do education, setting up campuses around the world, and doing
empirical research on learning. In
his free time, he goes rock climbing and kayaking and reads with a
good cup of coffee at his side.
2010
Ina Dixon (A) is entering a PhD
program in American Studies at
the University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill this fall. She will be
exploring how history and the
humanities revitalize Southern
communities in the United States.
2011
Bingsheng Chen (SFGI) spent this year as a visiting professor
of philosophy and ethics at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in
Guatemala City for one semester, and then started a journey
around South America for six months, including visits to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.
award,” writes Alarcon. “It has
inspired me to continue striving to
transcend my previous best. I have
recently been doing an in-depth
study about how to develop critical
consciousness and cultural relevancy in my pedagogy. The study
has centered around the authors
Paulo Freire, Maxine Greene, L.S.
Vygotsky, and Maria Montessori,
amongst others. Needless to say,
my experiences at St. John’s have
provided me with many of the
skills I now use to continue transcending my previous best.”
Aaron Dukette (AGI) is living on
the northwest slope of Pike’s Peak
in Divide, Colo., with his wife
Michelle and daughter Elizabeth.
He is teaching and serving as a
dean of Boys with several other
Johnnies at Thomas MacLaren
School in Colorado Springs. On
the side he teaches college philosophy courses online for Ashford
University. Over the past year
he has volunteered heavily for
the Convention of States Project
for which he served as Colorado
state director and now serves as a
regional captain and state media
liaison. As time permits, he writes
for Lanterns Media on politics
and culture, and plans to start a
podcast for Lanterns in the fall.
Matthew Robertson (SFGI) recently
completed a PhD through the
Religious Studies Department
at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, and will begin a
post-doctoral research position at
Florida State University in the fall.
With the exception of about a year,
Austin Volz (SF) has spent his time
since graduating living overseas
in Germany and China. Last year
he moved back to the US to work
in New York City with Avenues:
The World School. At Avenues he
42 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
Kaura (Mackey) Lavery (A) and
Darren Lavery celebrated the
birth of their daughter Moira
Quinn Lavery on February 5.
2012
Barbara Scott (SF) lives in Taos,
N.M., and has been interviewed
about St. John’s Graduate Institute on Asheville, N.C.’s WPVM
radio station.
2014
While attending the Graduate
Institute, Aileen Sawabi Coccia
(AGI) began work to open Sedes
Sapientiae School. Her school was
incorporated in 2013 and opened
in fall 2015 with 12 students and
four full-time tutors. The school
begins its third year at a new location in Boonton, N.J. Last year the
school graduated one student who
attends Thomas Aquinas College,
and two seniors this year both
attend Christendom College. In
2018 five seniors are expected to
graduate. Nineteen students are
enrolled for the fall.
2016
Bineet Ojha (SF) started his MA
in ancient philosophy at Western
University, Ontario.
2017
Since 2009, Kenneth Robert
Baumann (SF) has run a small,
nonprofit publishing company
called Sator Press, which recently
published its ninth title, A Guide
For the Perplexed, which he
describes as “an epistemological
exercise for the end times.”
2013
Anthony Cole (A) and his wife
welcomed their son Aiden Patrick
Cole into the world on June 30.
“Mom and baby are healthy,
and 2-year-old Felix is thrilled
about having a little brother,”
Cole says. “We’ll be encouraging
him to be whatever he wants to
be as he grows up, but joining
the Annapolis Class of 2039 will
certainly be suggested.”
Susan LaRocca (AGI) writes that
she and 14 other alumni really
enjoyed the Piraeus seminar on
Jane Austen’s Persuasion with
tutors Eva Brann and Erica Beall
in June. “So much fun getting lost
in Austen at St. John’s!”
Do you have news to share
with The College? Send your
note, along with your name,
class year, and photo(s), to:
thecollegemagazine@sjc.edu
GREENWAVE THROUGH AND THROUGH
By Jonathan Barone (A13)
A
s the years have passed by, I have
found myself reminiscing with
my classmates about our time at
St. John’s. This is nothing out of
the ordinary; waxing nostalgic on
your college years is a nationally time-honored
tradition. But St. John’s is a unique place
with a singular community, and what makes
this place special often varies from person to
person. For some, it’s singing Sicut Cervus in
a packed McDowell Hall. For others, it’s the
intimacy of a cohesive seminar. Personally, I
always found the greatest sense of community
in the intramural program.
When I arrived, I hardly knew the rules to
most of the sports we played (though to be
fair, no one knew the rules to our Calvinballinspired version of flag football). Despite that,
I still felt like I belonged on the field. There
was always a teammate to look up to or an
opponent to joke around with. At that time,
winning or losing didn’t hold great concern for
me. Of course, the victories tasted sweeter, but
I found more joy playing sports with my friends
within this storied intramural league. I was
enthralled by the history and tradition, and I
would sometimes while away spare moments
walking the track in the Temple, wondering at
the names on the plaques of years gone by.
But here’s the problem with nostalgia: the
lenses through which you view the past are
rose-colored. Even though intramurals were
where I found my closest community, they were
also the place where I felt the deepest isolation. When you’re in class, it is very difficult
to fail at something outright. While you might
screw up a proposition or say something inaccurate, you aren’t disappointing others.
Not so on the intramural field. When you
make a mistake, it has a direct and immediate effect on the game. Failure is palpable and
inescapable, and it doesn’t affect just you. It
affects your entire team.
It was in those moments of failure that I
faced my darkest moments at St. John’s. I
distinctly remember walking back from a soccer
Barone (front row, second from right) and his Greenwaves clench the 2016 intramural basketball championship.
“� ven though intramurals
E
were where I found my
closest community, they were
also the place where I felt
the deepest isolation.”
match, filled with self-loathing. I had made a
mistake that cost my team the game, and I
felt it viscerally. I had betrayed the trust of my
teammates. As I walked, those feelings of guilt
turned to shame. It wasn’t that I had failed—I
was a failure. Instead of making a mistake, I was
the mistake. I continued to repeat and internalize
the pernicious lie: “I’m not good enough.”
But if I’m being honest, it wasn’t intramurals that created that cycle of shame and
self-hatred. My insecurities were with me long
before I came to St. John’s. Rather, it was those
moments of failure that exposed what I truly
believed about myself. I was forced to confront
unpleasant truths. I realized that I was trying
to build my self-worth through my performance.
My purpose was coming from comparing my
success with the success of everyone around
me. I had to face my ugly self-image and the
belief that I was a burden on others.
Though I am by no means rid of all my
insecurities, I’m at a much healthier place now
than I was in sophomore year. And strangely
enough, as I healed, I started to gain perspective. I saw that I wasn’t the only one dealing
with the same fears and doubts. Even though I
knew I was not the paragon of emotional wellbeing, I knew that I could help others with the
same struggles that I faced.
Even though I couldn’t find the words then,
it was the intramural program that sparked
my passion for leadership. As I reflected on
the need for affirmation and belonging that
I sought as a freshman, I realized that I now
had the ability to provide that for others. Since
graduating, I’ve found that it was my experience on the field, not in the classroom, that
led me to where I am today. The Program will
always serve as the foundation between myself
and other Johnnies, but it was the intramural
program that helped me discover who I am.
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 43
�IN MEMORIAM
and kindness she exemplified,
her willingness to help anyone,
to work actively with the Caritas
Society, for which she served as
president. We remember the joy
she took in her artwork, all the
fun she had bouncing around
a basketball in the gym with
students, her devotion as mother,
wife, and friend.”
Michael Musgrove (A94)
March 20, 2017
Malcolm Wyatt (H03)
April 22, 2017
Tutor and assistant dean,
Annapolis
In 1958, after he received
undergraduate and graduate
degrees in mathematics from the
University of Virginia, Edward
Malcolm Wyatt (1932-2017) came
to Annapolis, where he was a
beloved and dedicated member
of the St. John’s faculty until his
retirement in 2002. At St. John’s
he served as assistant dean from
1984 to 1988 and as director of
the Graduate Institute from 1989
to 1992. He also served as head of
the campus’ continuing education
program. Wyatt was an accomplished flute player and spent his
last sabbatical studying chamber
music in Vienna, Austria. He
was predeceased by his first wife,
Martha (Class of 1961). Wyatt is
survived by his wife of 25 years,
Cecelia; daughters, Rachel and
Ruth; son Mark; stepchildren,
Michelle, Medea, and Bee Elvy;
and numerous grandchildren.
Lydia Sparrow
April 8, 2017
Caritas Society president
“It is with regret that we learn
of the death of one of St. John’s
great ladies,” Becky Wilson
(H83) shares. “When we think
of Lydia Sparrow (1932-2017),
we remember her graciousness,
the open hearted hospitality she
extended to hundreds of students
and faculty members while her
first husband, the late Edward
Sparrow (1929-2015), served as
St. John’s dean and tutor. One recalls the combination of elegance
44 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
Michael Musgrove (1971-2017)
is remembered for his gift for
words, wry sense of humor, and
fierce determination. After he
graduated from St. John’s, he
took a job in the mailroom for the
Washington Post and worked his
way to staff writer and columnist.
On occasion, he wrote articles
on happenings at the college.
He traveled extensively, wrote a
novel, and, in 2013, completed
an Ironman Triathlon. He also
loved spending time with his
friends and listening to loud, live
music. But most of all, he loved
his daughter Zoe and his stepson
Jackson. Fatherhood was, by far,
his greatest joy. Musgrove was
the son of Patricia (Burton) and
the late William Musgrove; the
husband of Kimberly Baer; the
father of Zoe Musgrove and Jackson Baer; and the brother of Skip
Musgrove and Cindy Deacon.
Irwin Hoffman (H85)
May 26, 2017
Board member
Irwin Hoffman (1925-2017), who
served as a member of the
St. John’s College Board of
Visitors and Governors for 12
years, passed away in Santa Fe
at the age of 92. Born in New
York City, Hoffman showed immense promise and aptitude as
a child. He skipped many grades
in school and received his high
school diploma at age 14. He
received a degree from Harvard
in three years and subsequently
completed medical school at New
York University.
After serving as a military doctor during the Korean War and
attaining the rank of captain,
Hoffman married Maya Bravy,
a concert pianist. He then established what was then the largest
cardiology practice on Long
Island. After 30 years, the couple
relocated to Santa Fe, where
Hoffman continued to treat
complicated cardiology cases in
New Mexico. He wrote a number
of books and scholarly articles
about cardiology; his 1974 book,
XYZ is the ABC of the EKG, is
still used in medical schools. He
also served as the clinical professor of cardiology at the University of New Mexico’s School of
Medicine for many years.
In addition to his accomplishments in the medical field,
Hoffman was a renaissance
man. He taught himself ancient
Greek and regularly met with
other Greek language scholars in
Santa Fe. Irwin and Maya Hoffman supported many nonprofits,
including a number of organizations for the arts, through
the Hoffman-Bravy Charitable
Foundation. He made deep and
lasting impressions on the hundreds of friends, students, and
colleagues he left behind. Santa
Fe was enriched by his life, passions, and commitment to the
community. He is survived by his
wife, Maya; son, John; daughter,
Annabelle; brother, Allan (Class
of 1949); and four grandchildren.
Errol Pomerance
(AGI72)
April 15, 2017
Tutor, Annapolis
Errol J. Pomerance (1942-2017)
had a passion for intellectual
pursuits, and for beauty, which
led him toward a transcendent
view of life. An avid learner
and teacher, after receiving his
bachelor’s from the Polytechnic
Institute of Brooklyn in 1962, he
joined the faculty at St. John’s
in Annapolis, where he taught
for five years and attended
the Graduate Institute. After
St. John’s, he went on to earn
additional master’s degrees
from Harvard and West Chester
State University, and then his
doctorate from the Polytechnic
Institute of New York. A lover
of literature, classical music,
and astronomy, Pomerance’s
experience at St. John’s instilled
in him a sense of wonder and
inquiry, and a compassion and
respect for his fellow man, which
he always retained.
John Oosterhout
After his discharge at the end
of the war, Oosterhout used the
GI Bill to attend St. John’s. He
graduated in 1951 and remained
connected to the college—he was
a frequent attendee at lectures
and community seminars in
Santa Fe—until his death.
In 1991, Oosterhout received
an Alumni Award of Merit in
gratitude for this service on the
Board of Visitors and Governors
from 1968 to 1974 as well as in
admiration for his professional
achievements at NASA, where
he had served at various times as
a branch head, systems analyst,
and electronics engineer. Oosterhout’s daughter, Amy, graduated
from the Annapolis campus in
1982. Oosterhout was well-loved
by his family and many friends
and is deeply missed by them.
A memorial contribution can
be made to St. John’s College
either online at sjc.edu/giving or
by check to: St. John’s College,
P.O. Box 75905, Baltimore, MD
21275-5905.
John D. Oosterhout (19272017), an alumnus, a former
board member, and a longtime
resident of Santa Fe, passed
away peacefully in Albuquerque,
New Mexico.
Oosterhout was born and
raised in Port Arthur, Texas.
After high school, he was drafted
by the U.S. Army for service in
WWII, and after basic training,
was deployed to northern Italy.
Also Deceased:
Natalie R. Chambliss, Class of 1964
June 1, 2017
Deborah Moll, A69
Sarah B. Fisher, A68
June 8, 2017
May 2, 2017
Mark M. Ainsworth, A78
June 5, 2017
Robert G. Cozzolino, Class of 1963
July 1, 2017
Jewell Hall, AGI85
June 1, 2017
Alvin Aronson, Class of 1952
May 2, 2017
Miranda S. Cully, SF97
July 24, 2017
David W. Herman, A72 Matt Rarey, AGI06
April 3, 2017
June 22, 2017
Donald K. Bandler, SFGI98
February 24, 2017
Christian J. Dallett, SF88
February 23, 2017
Leroy W. Brooks, Class of 1939
May 19, 2017
Phillip L. Dionne, SF72
June 1, 2017
Class of 1951
May 9, 2017
Robert S. Hill, Class of 1954
March 8, 2017
Patricia G. Loring, Class of 1958
August 21, 2016
William Brown, SF11
Judith Dome, SFGI88
Lee M. Mace, Class of 1942
December 10, 2016
July 14, 2015
March 16, 2017
George J. Bunting, Class of 1954 Paul D. Finney, AGI82
June 20, 2017
June 1, 2017
Barbara L. Murray, Class of 1963
May 31, 2017
Albert Robertson, AGI91
March 7, 2017
John Sitzmann, A14
September 20, 2017
John C. Wallace, III, Class of 1949
March 22, 2017
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 45
�PHILANTHROPY
I N TR O D U C I N G :
A New and
Improved
Annual Fund
A TRIFECTA OF GIVING
Chris Olson (A78) shows that there are many
ways to make a difference for St. John’s
Giving to St. John’s College is personal
for Chris Olson (A78). He has given to the
college for years, mostly modest amounts.
He points out that it is the number of alumni
who consistently make annual gifts that
matters, not the amount they choose to give.
But recently Olson has gone well beyond
the occasional gift. In fact, he has created
what classmate Leo Pickens (A78)—also
the college’s director of Leadership Annual
Giving—calls a “trifecta” of giving.
Olson has set up a monthly auto-recurring
gift of cash to support the Fund for St.
John’s; he has established a planned gift,
also known as a deferred gift annuity, to
support the college. In addition, he made a
“stretch gift” to strengthen the endowment
and to join those who are bolstering the
college’s fundraising efforts as it gears up
for the public launch of a major campaign.
His endowed gift has gone to the Klein
Tutorship Endowment Fund. Jacob Klein
was a scholar who came to the Program
as a tutor in 1938, and whom Olson met
years ago. He is also author of Greek
Mathematical Thought and the Origin of
Algebra, which many tutors have excerpted
over the decades. “That’s cool to be linked—
to be helping—something named after Jacob
Klein,” Olson says. “I like that a lot.”
What makes giving personal for Olson
is, in part, his continued closeness to
the college throughout the years via his
friendship with Pickens and the college’s
long-time vice president of Advancement,
the late Jeff Bishop. Olson says that the
power of such personal relationships should
not be underestimated. “If I’m going to give
money, which I don’t have a great deal of,
I’m going to give it to St. John’s as a priority
over anybody else.”
“� f I’m going to give
I
money, which I don’t
have a great deal of,
I’m going to give it to
St. John’s . . .”
Although Olson earned a master’s in
international relations from the University
of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the
University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School,
he says the specialized knowledge he gained
there was not transformative in the way
his education at St. John’s was. In fact, St.
John’s continues to both transform and
inform his thoughts. On a recent visit to
Annapolis he chatted with Pickens and other
46 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
Johnnies about the current political climate—
and fake news. He believes that separating
fact from fiction is more important than
ever, and more difficult to do with so much
information invading our “knowledge space,”
as he puts it. “Education is so important,
and the St. John’s education is by far the
best, I believe, in order to help you sort out
a very, very complicated world.”
Referencing the school’s logo, which
reads ‘Facio liberos ex liberis libris libraque’
and translates to ‘I make free adults from
children by means of books and a balance,’
Olson views the relationship between
freedom and knowledge as fundamental
to living. “You always return to yourself
as an individual and your own capacity to
understand and adapt to the world. And
that’s what you can get from St. John’s more
than from anywhere. That first year at St.
John’s is absolutely tremendous. If you have
that in your education at any point in your
life, it’s worth gold.”
Today, Olson is an independent financial
consultant for the World Bank and is
completing a 10-year program that will
license him as an analytical psychologist
in the Jungian tradition. To write his
psychology thesis, he is rereading many
of his Program books—in some cases he’s
even translating from the Greek again. He
considers himself to have come full-circle.
“It’s a very exciting world at the moment
for me,” he says by phone from London.
“I’m 62 years old and it’s shaped up into an
interesting situation. I’m very happy about
it, and very grateful to St. John’s for the
education and the other opportunities it
gave me over the years.”
And so he gives back.
-Anne Kniggendorf (SF97)
WE’VE HEARD YOU! Based on your requests for choices,
we’ve re-designed our Annual Fund.
The Annual Fund represents current-use dollars that
address core college needs. Gifts to the Annual Fund
keep the Program strong and impact every aspect
of the Johnnie experience.
Any gift, any size, supports the ongoing work of the college,
enabling St. John’s to maintain its place at the vanguard
of liberal learning.
FUND FOR ST. JOHN’S
Historically our most popular fund,
the Fund for St. John’s keeps the
Program strong and enables the
college to address priority needs
in any given year.
The transformative power of the Program
lasts a lifetime. Gifts to the Johnnie
Scholarship Fund alleviate undergraduate
students’ financial burden, enabling
them to immerse themselves in this
powerful educational experience.
TUTOR FUND
GRADUATE INSTITUTE FUND
Tutors are the beating heart of the St.
John’s experience. Gifts to the Tutor Fund
ensure that our beloved tutors receive
respectable compensation as well
as opportunities for professional
development to keep the Program strong.
The Graduate Institute Fund provides
graduate students access to financial
aid, assistantships, academic enrichment
opportunities, and on-campus housing. It
also funds teacher scholarships, lecture
series, and student-run publications.
STUDENT SUCCESS FUND
STUDENT LIFE FUND
Through internships and fellowships,
Johnnies take their Program insights into
the world and explore career and postgraduate interests. Gifts to this fund
enable St. John’s to keep internship and
fellowship programs vital and strong.
The Student Life Fund enables
Johnnies to explore extracurricular
and athletic interests and engage
in activities that enrich their
personal health and happiness.
LIBRARY FUND
STAFF EXCELLENCE FUND
Libraries are sacred spaces.
Gifts to the Library Fund help
to address ongoing needs and
fund special projects including
acquisitions, renovations, and
technology upgrades.
GIVE ONLINE Select
and donate to your
preferred fund online
at sjc.edu/giving.
JOHNNIE SCHOLARSHIP FUND
St. John’s staff strive to ensure that
students and tutors have the resources
they need to experience the power
of the Program. Gifts to this fund
enable the college to address staff
professional development needs.
GIVE VIA MAIL Please
remember to write the name
of your chosen fund in the
“memo” line of your check,
made out to St. John’s College.
Gifts for either or both
campuses can be mailed to:
St. John’s College
P.O. Box 75905
Baltimore, MD 21275-5905
QUESTIONS? Please
contact Mark Piekarski,
director of Annual Giving,
at 505-984-6104 or
mapiekarski@sjc.edu.
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 47
�EIDOS
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE GREENFIELD LIBRARY
S T. J O H N ’ S F O R E V E R
VINTAGE
VICTORY
While the St. John’s football team closed 1902
with a modest 3-6 record, the 1903 yearbook,
the Rat Tat, highlights a special victory
that season: “The week following was one of
excitement and was trying on the nerves, for
Saturday brought on the game with our old
rival, Western Maryland. The day dawned clear
and cool and at twelve o’clock, amid the cheers
of the rooters and the waving of flags, the two
teams trotted upon the field. After the usual
preliminaries the teams lined up and Beatty
(D. H. Beatty, Class of 1903), kicked off to
Western Maryland. The contest had begun and
for St. John’s it was do or die.”
“In the first half St. John’s scored twelve
points to Western Maryland’s five. At the
A group portrait of the St. John’s College 1903
football team on the steps of McDowell Hall
beginning of the second half Western
Maryland soon scored six more points, but
DuVall (E. P. DuVall, Class of 1905), our
star full-back, soon raised them six by his
magnificent run of ninety yards. He received
Robert’s punt on our twenty-yard line and
with the ball tucked neatly under his arm, he
wriggled, dodged, blocked off tackles and soon
planted the ball behind the goal posts. Never
has there been exhibited in the football history
of St. John’s, brighter examples of noble
daring, grit, courage, and determination than
was shown by our team on that day.”
“Since the 1980s, I have been working on
a proprietary art system I refer to as the
Art Fountain, comprised of a large set of
mathematical paint brushes. The subjects
and compositions I choose vary extensively
from photographs or existing artworks to
original compositions, but I tend to like
simple subjects that explore the beauty
or facets of ordinary things which I then
abstract. I have little interest in standard
computer graphics or filter effects but am
more about the colors and interesting textures created from geometrical primitives
that subtly reflect the subject in a unique
way. Because its roots are mathematical,
the size of my art is independent of the
final form it takes. I seek to combine the
power and infinitude of mathematics with
the aesthetics of color, composition and
texture in an organic, ‘non-computery’ way.
My art is conceptual and not so much
about creating beautiful things as it is
about beautiful ideas for things. My main
medium is not pigment suspended in oil,
but ‘artful algorithms,’ liberally redirected
by chance. I create by exploring a realm
that lies beyond my imagination and my
physical skills, using random numbers,
mathematics, and computers as tools.
Each subject I explore produces dozens of
variations coaxed out of fiddling with many
parameters. The works are best viewed
quite large because of the small details
that get lost on reduction.”
View more of McClard’s work at vectorartlabs.com.
Peter McClard (SF83)
48 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 017
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 017 iii
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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<em>The College </em>(2001-2017)
Description
An account of the resource
The St. John's College Communications Office published <em>The College </em>magazine for alumni. It began publication in 2001, continuing the <em>St. John's Reporter</em>, and ceased with the Fall 2017 issue.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The College" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=56">Items in The College (2001-2017) Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Creator
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, Md.
Santa Fe, NM
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Language
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English
Identifier
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thecollege2001
Text
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Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
50 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The College, Fall 2017
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 42, Issue 2 of the The College Magazine. Published in Fall 2017.
Creator
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St. John's College
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2017-10
Rights
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St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
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text
Format
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pdf
Language
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English
Identifier
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The College Vol. 42, Issue 2 Fall 2017
Contributor
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Shook, Gregory (editor)
Lee-Merrion, Harriet
Petrich, Louise
Pratt, Tim
Weiss, Robin
Adam, Judith
Perleberg Anderson, Anna
Ardoin, Samantha
Barone, Jonathan
Carpenter, Carol
Jusinski, Charlotte
Kniggendorf, Anne
McDonald, David
Tolpa, Eve
Wice, Andrew
Behrens, Jennifer (contributing designer)
The College
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