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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
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Volume 42, Issue 2 of the The College Magazine. Published in Fall 2017.
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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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Text
S T. J O H N ’ S C O L L E G E
S P R IN G 2017
VOLUME 42, ISSUE 1
Lincoln
Leading by
Teaching
�OPENING NOTE
A remarkable coincidence occurred
when Chris Nelson first announced
publicly his plans to retire this
spring: it was 25 years to the day that
he was named president of the Annapolis campus. Stumbling upon this
realization, I immediately swapped
my editor’s pen for my detective’s
magnifying glass, searching for clues
to some deeper, hidden meaning.
Alas, to no avail. But the opportunity
led me to explore Chris’s influence as
president. While the coincidental timing of his announcement may remain
a mystery, one thing which can be
said with certainty is that the pages
dedicated to him within this issue of
The College only begin to describe the
impact of his legacy and his devotion
to the St. John’s Program.
In honor of President Nelson, members of the Annapolis community
joined tutors for an afternoon of reading and discussing works by some of
his favorite authors. Among them was
Abraham Lincoln. A fascinating and
complicated figure in American history, tutor George Russell describes
Lincoln as “a man with a true moral
compass.” Lincoln inspires us today
through his eloquent speeches, and
his gift for the written word. He also
inspires by his actions as a leader,
revealing that a moral compass is capable of shifting when flawed notions
give way to enlightened thought.
Gregory Shook, editor
ii THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 1
�SPRING 2017
VOLUME 42, ISSUE 1
“� incoln appeared on the earth in the right place at the
L
right time to preserve and protect a constitution constructed
to provide against the fortuity of prudence in human affairs.”
—George Russell, tutor
FEATUR E S
P A G E 1 2��
DEPAR TM ENTS
PA G E 1 8
PA G E 2 4
LEADERSHIP IN
FACTIOUS TIMES
PROTECTOR OF
OUR PROGRAM
MODERN
GLADIATOR
In a politically and morally
divided United States,
Abraham Lincoln, our nation’s
16th president, displays
leadership through teaching.
After 26 years, Christopher
Nelson says goodbye to his
role as president of the
Annapolis campus—but not
to his love for the Program.
Ingenuity, empathy, and a
passion for learning lead to
a technological breakthrough
that may save the skulls of
athletes everywhere.
��FROM THE BELL TOWERS
BIBLIOFILE
FOR & ABOUT ALUMNI
4 �
Growing the Graduate Institute
28 �obert Wolf (Class of 1967)
R
envisions a self-reliant rural
America in Building the
Agricultural City.
30 �JCAA Elections: Cast Your Vote!
S
6 Lincoln’s Walk
8 �
Tutors Talk Books:
Krishnan Venkatesh
9 Open to Inquiry
10 Civility on the World Stage
11 �idden Talent:
H
Joan Haratani (SF79)
31 Alumni Leadership Forum
32 �hilanthropy: Ron Fielding (A70)
P
and Warren Spector (A81) pledge
their commitment to St. John’s.
29 �elson Lund (A74) aims to revive
N
the ideas of a major philosophic
critic of the Enlightenment era
in Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of
Political Philosophy.
33 Alumni Notes
38 In Memoriam
� Stickey (A04) takes readers
Sarah
on a poetic journey through life’s
big questions about love, death,
beauty, and desire in Portico.
�Brann (H89), Peter Kalkavage,
Eva
and Eric Salem (A77) offer a
new translation of Plato’s most
popular dialogue, Symposium or
Drinking Party.
ON THE COVER:
Lincoln illustration by
Sébastien Thibault
43 �rofile: Robert Morris (SF04)
P
soars above the competition.
JOHNNIE VOICES
40 �omer in China
H
42 �irst Person: Yosef Trachtenberg (A15)
F
ST. JOHN’S FOREVER
44 �orward Edge of History
F
EIDOS
45 Anyi Guo (A15) photographs the world.
ABOVE:
Chris Nelson with Arcadia,
the campus dog
2 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 3
�From the
BELL TOWERS
“� or adults out of college,
F
I don’t know of a more
vital part of that education
in necessary citizenship
than that provided by the
opportunity to participate
in true liberal education as
offered by the St. John’s GI.”
50TH ANNIVERSARY
Growing the Graduate Institute
In the summer of 1967, on the three-year-old St. John’s Santa
Fe campus, the Graduate Institute came to life as the Teachers
Institute. The GI, as we know it during this 50th anniversary,
offers a master of arts in liberal arts on both campuses year-round.
In 1994, Santa Fe established a master of arts in Eastern classics,
including two semesters of Sanskrit or classical Chinese.
“I characterized it this way,” says tutor emeritus
Elliott Zuckerman, one of a handful of tutors
in the GI pilot year: “Bringing inner city high
school teachers” from Baltimore and New Mexico “to the high desert to read Aristotle.” As GI
director that second and third year, Zuckerman
found that, for at least one student, 7,000 feet
wasn’t high enough. “I thought I had prepared
for everything that first night. But the next
morning, a number of students came to me and
said their mattresses were missing.” The mystery
was solved when “one young man claimed to
need to sleep higher than everyone else.”
Zuckerman describes how Richard Weigel,
president and founder of the Santa Fe campus,
and Robert Goldwin, first-year GI director
(from Kenyon College), “invented the institute.”
Politics and Society, designed by tutor Laurence Berns, was the only segment offered that
first summer, with Freud’s Civilization and Its
Discontents heading the list for 35 students in
two seminars.
“We lost money in the early years. We got
scholarships for the students” from the Hoffberger and Cafritz foundations, “covering tuition
and compensating for their summer salaries. But
we forgot to include the overhead. We always
planned to have it in Annapolis but,” in the first
years, as a summer institute only, “Annapolis
wasn’t air conditioned.” Segments were added
and the enrollment quickly doubled. By 1969,
Literature and Poetry, Philosophy and Theology,
and Mathematics and Natural Sciences joined
Politics and Society. “The curriculum was pretty
much the same as now,” he says.
Zuckerman remembers when he and GI student William Yannuzzi (SFGI69)—a high school
teacher who became musical director for the
Baltimore Opera—criticized the previous night’s
opera. “He and I would give an informal and
scathing review to an audience at breakfast. It
was a favorite event.”
“Weigel wanted to start something; he didn’t
know it was the GI. From the first day, it was
a success,” says Sam Kutler (Class of 1954),
retired tutor and dean emeritus. “The Carnegie
Foundation paid me six hundred dollars to formulate a math program. I would have paid that
much to be able to do it. I think it’s been very
successful. It was started for teachers; that
was Bob Goldwin’s influence.” After the initial
years as a summer-only institute in Santa Fe,
“without [tutor] Geoff Comber (H95), I don’t
know what would have happened in Annapolis,”
Kutler says.
“I had been in Santa Fe two or three summers,” says Comber, “and I was so impressed.
I thought we were doing important work and
we should do it here.” He remembers “quite
strong objections,” with some Annapolis faculty
saying: Why should we take on the risk? It
took two years to get it off the ground, and in
1977 Comber operated as Annapolis GI director
from his tutor’s office while he continued to
teach full-time. “People were saying, ‘You can’t
just do the same thing as Santa Fe,’ so I made
up the history segment.” In 1988, the history
segment was approved on both campuses as a
fifth segment.
The vice president, Burch Ault, presented
Comber with potential funding contacts around
the country. “Everyone was impressed that
we grew so fast,” Comber says. In 1980, while
Comber was on sabbatical, Ben Milner took
4 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
—David Carl, past Santa Fe associate
dean for Graduate Programs
over the directorship and hired Sharon Hensley
as full-time GI assistant. Over decades, “she
was invaluable. A wonderful person to follow up
on things,” says Comber. “It was going so well
with the five segments, there was no reason to
change anything.”
David Carl, who recently completed his term
as Santa Fe associate dean for Graduate Programs (the title replacing director), knows well
the administrative tasks “constantly going on
behind the scenes, so that when tutors and students sit down at a table to talk about a book,
it’s as if there’s nothing going on but that one
activity.” Carl found it particularly appealing
to work with “adults from amazingly diverse
backgrounds. From firefighters to retired doctors, school teachers to surgeons, international
business men and women to lawyers, bartenders, veterans, and physicists. They are giving
For the past 50 years, the GI has provided an
integral role in the SJC community.
up jobs, moving across the country, asking
enormous sacrifices of their families.”
Part of the value of the Eastern Classics
program, Carl explains, is how it exposes “the
influence of Buddhism on Hume, or Hindu
philosophy on Hegel, or Eastern thought in
general on Nietzsche.” He describes how the
EC program, developed with the help of past
GI Director Krishnan Venkatesh, keeps the
college in touch “with the deep-rooted notion of
experimentation, which inspired the founders of
the New Program.”
Carl stresses the necessity of education in
a true democracy. “For adults out of college, I
don’t know of a more vital part of that educa-
tion in necessary citizenship than that provided
by the opportunity to participate in true liberal
education as offered by the St. John’s GI.”
Tom May, who served his first term as
Annapolis GI director in 1986, reflects on the
challenges of the early year-round program.
May taught half-time, while he and assistant
Hensley shouldered recruitment, alumni relations, budgeting, class assignments, and other
student matters. They supervised high school
visits, the Continuing Education and Fine Arts
Program, and various publications. It was “truly
prodigious labor, with no down time over the
course of the year,” May recalls.
By May’s second directorship in 1995, the
ancillary programs had “migrated to other
offices. The GI was finally fully and solely itself.
In the midst of these years of expansion, the
program remained essentially the same.”
Recalling the GI in the 1970s, tutor David
Starr refers to the Barr-Buchanan vision. “The
concept of the college as a possible model for
educating citizens of all backgrounds was alive
and well in what we thought of as The Teachers
Institute.” A past Santa Fe GI director, Starr
reflects on “the resilience and range of the
program” over the years. He writes of “a shift
in demographics, from teachers funded to
strengthen their competence, toward younger
academics seeking to broaden their scope.” He
explains that “people who specialized prematurely now come here to look into alternative
philosophic, social, and spiritual studies.”
The current GI associate dean in Annapolis,
Emily Langston, announced plans for a 50th
celebration in her Commencement address last
year. A number of events throughout this year
will culminate at Homecoming on each campus.
This anniversary year will highlight “the role of
the GI as an integral part of the SJC community,” Langston says. “There’s a hunger for the
sort of thing we offer at the GI. Someone who’s
eighty and someone who’s twenty-four talk
about a text together. I think the GI is the sort
of thing that Barr and Buchanan were envisioning when they talked about how these books
could speak to anyone.”
—Robin Weiss (SFGI90)
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 5
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
IN ANNAPOLIS
LEFT:
An aerial view
of the St. John’s
campus, circa 1868.
BOTTOM: Lincoln tours
the battlefield after
the Battle of Antietam
in October 1862.
Lincoln’s Walk
Members of the St. John’s community are
aware that dedications have brought two
American presidents to the Annapolis
campus: William Howard Taft took part in
the French Monument ceremony in 1911,
while Dwight Eisenhower, after landing in
a helicopter on back campus, charmed the
faculty in 1959 when the Mellon-Key complex
was dedicated.
Few are aware that several weeks before
his assassination, Abraham Lincoln walked
the width of the campus during a 45-minute
visit to Annapolis. That occurred on February 2, 1865, when Lincoln was headed for
the deep water wharf on the grounds of the
Naval Academy. From there he sailed to what
became known as the Hampton Roads Peace
Conference in Virginia, leading to the end of
the Civil War.
By then, St. John’s had been transformed
into U.S. General Hospital Division 2. Tents
for wounded and ill federal forces were
pitched on back campus. At the Naval Academy, midshipmen and professors had been
moved to Newport, Rhode Island, and that
campus was serving as a large supply depot
and hospital facility for Division 1.
Details of Lincoln’s visit, which also suggest
what St. John’s College’s environment was like
during those wartime years, are revealed in
a history written by Rockford E. Toews and
published by the Maryland State Archives:
“Lincoln in Annapolis February 1865.”
Traveling by train from Washington, Lincoln
arrived at 1 p.m. at the Annapolis & Elk Ridge
Railroad, located at the corner of Calvert and
West streets, from where Lincoln set off by
foot for the Naval Academy wharf about half
a mile away. Toews noted that the traffic was
too heavy for him to go by carriage while the
streets were unpaved and almost certainly
muddy. He thinks that the most likely route
Lincoln followed may have been along the
route of the railroad extension laid out in 1861.
A map accompanying the article shows the
route Lincoln is believed to have taken, based
upon research by the Annapolis Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, the group that funded the
booklet. Lincoln’s path is shown in a red line.
“� o quiet and unobtrusive
S
was his arrival and
departure from the ancient
city that scarcely a score
knew of it until after the
steamboat sailed.”
After leaving the rail station, it is thought
that Lincoln walked over the Bloomsbury
Square area on what was then known as Tabernacle Street—today’s College Avenue. He
would have walked down Tabernacle, passing
Prince George and King George streets on his
right, and into the Naval Academy through a
gate at the end of College Avenue. St. John’s
would have been at his left. He would have
seen the Paca-Carroll House, Humphreys Hall,
McDowell Hall, Pinkney, Chase Stone, all built
by 1865, and, of course, the then flourishing
Liberty Tree.
6 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Lincoln’s walk took him close to the State
House, where the Maryland Senate was
considering ratification of the Thirteenth
Amendment, ending slavery. No account of his
visit from the Annapolis paper survives, but
a Baltimore American correspondent, who
signed his name “Mac,” wrote:
“[H] Excellency, the President of the
United States, arrived in Annapolis, entirely
unannounced, and without any ostentatious
ceremony whatever, but, like the Democratic
Republican that he is, he quietly proceeded to
the Naval Academy, where he embarked on
the steamer Thomas Collyer and proceeded, I
suppose, to City Point. He was accompanied
only by a servant. So quiet and unobtrusive
was his arrival and departure from the
ancient city that scarcely a score knew of
it until after the steamboat sailed. Had it
become known that he was present in the
Naval Academy’s Hospital, he would have had
a gratifying and pleasing reception from the
wounded and sick inmates of the institution.
Many of the members of the Legislature
expressed great regret at not having the
pleasure of seeing the Chief Magistrate.”
The red line on the
map illustrates the
route Lincoln is
believed to have taken
weeks before his
assassination.
News accounts differ on the number who
accompanied Lincoln. The Crutch, published
weekly by Hospital 1, reported:
“President Lincoln arrived here on Thursday by special train from Washington. No one
was aware of this distinguished arrival until
it was heralded by the Hospital Band, playing
patriotic airs of welcome as he passed from
the wharf to the boat.”
After boarding the Thomas Collyer, which
Toews described as a “fast side-wheel”
steamer, he departed from the mouth of the
Severn River into the Chesapeake Bay, leaving
Maryland for Virginia. The following day, on
February 4, after an overnight trip, he steamed
back to Annapolis to catch a 7:30 a.m. train.
Back in Washington two hours later, Lincoln
was never able to return to Annapolis.
—Rebecca Wilson (H83)
The College
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
Anna Perleberg Andersen
(SF02)
Samantha Ardoin (SF16)
Carol Carpenter
Martha Franks (SF78)
Jonathan Llovet (A17)
Paula Novash
Tim Pratt
George Russell
Aisha Shahbaz (A19)
Yosef Trachtenberg (A15)
Robin Weiss (SFGI90)
Andrew Wice
Rebecca Wilson (H83)
Design
Skelton Design
Contributing Designer
Jennifer Behrens
THE COL L E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 7
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
TUTORS TALK BOOKS
“Tutors Talk Books” is a new series on the St. John’s College
website that features interviews with tutors discussing a
favorite subject: books. The following is an edited excerpt from
the debut interview in which Samantha Ardoin (SF16) chats
with longtime Santa Fe tutor Krishnan Venkatesh about his
appreciation for early Buddhist texts—and Frodo. Visit sjc.edu to
read the complete interview and learn more about Venkatesh.
Have you been working on any
writing projects?
A book of essays on the Discourses of the
Buddha, and on Lord of the Rings (LOTR). I
think they are fairly unique because I’m trying
to approach them as a literate, thoughtful
human being first, and not as, say, a Buddhist
or a Tolkien scholar—which I’m not anyway.
The essays have been posted on my blog
(kappatsupatchi.wordpress.com).
What inspired you to write on the
Discourses of the Buddha?
I’ve been thinking about the Discourses for
over twenty years, studying them in the [St.
John’s Eastern Classics program] as well as by
myself—but I’ve never made time to sit down
and articulate those thoughts. I have also
practiced various forms of meditation, including
mindfulness meditation, and have always been
struck by the depth of psychological insight
in these early Buddhist texts. I’ve learned a
lot about myself through studying them, and
they have given me some necessary tools for
understanding my own experience. Sometime
last year I found myself spontaneously writing
down reflections on the passages that moved
me, and here I am.
In what ways have the Discourses
affected your life?
The Discourses have affected me deeply in
many ways. Among them: greater awareness
of body and motion as well as of my emotions,
the ability to sit still and watch feelings as they
change from moment to moment, a greater
awareness of change as it happens, and a
generally calmer state of mind. I have become
better at handling stress, but also more aware
Early Buddhist texts and Tolkien novels provide
tools for critical thinking.
8 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
of other people’s feelings than I was before.
Being by nature a dreamy person easily given
to reverie and getting lost in my own thoughts,
I had a lot of work to do in these respects, and
the Discourses have been invaluable guides.
What prompted you to start writing
critically about Lord of the Rings, and
what have been some highlights of this
process of going deep into such a story?
I’m not a big Tolkien fan and also not a big
reader of fantasy fiction, but prompted by
conversations with (tutor) Richard McCombs
I started to reflect more on whether it was
a great book or not, and if so, why. Over the
course of reading it slowly with a wonderful
community seminar, I began to form a genuine
admiration for Tolkien’s genius as a writer.
He has his weak points, but on the whole the
man can write. I found out that [in] all the
crucial moments in the book he is laconic and
suggestive, and some of the characters are
richly enigmatic: Gollum, Sam, Frodo, Eowyn.
Best of all was finding out for myself that
the Lord of the Rings is not a book meant for
children, but speaks deeply to “mature” people
who have experienced struggle. Frodo is 50
when he starts his quest. It ends up being about
what Jung calls “enantiodromia”—the “turn”
halfway in life to seek completion by developing
our incomplete halves.
Was there a particular book, poem, or
film that, in your formative years, inspired
a healthy dose of skepticism?
In my intellectually formative years, ages 14
to 16, I was a voracious reader. Reading itself
tends to loosen up inherited and congealed
opinions, because one has to take seriously
other worlds than one’s own, and other
authorities than the people around us. In
school we had a lot of history: lots of detailed
study of European wars, the fight for universal
suffrage, and the industrial revolution. I didn’t
appreciate it at the time, but I think it went in
deep—so much so that I am always shocked at
how ignorant many Americans are of subjects
like labor history. Ancient history was also
important for me—and I remember the thrill
of learning to read Caesar, Suetonius, and
Tacitus critically. I didn’t have much of a social
life. I remember reading Sartre and Camus
very passionately; I still have a file folder
full of notes from that period! And I studied
The Discourses have
affected me deeply in
many ways. Among them:
greater awareness of body
and motion as well as of
my emotions.
Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov—the fathers of
modern drama—every weekend by myself for
two years. All of that changed me. I never felt
I belonged to my time and place. The seventies
and eighties mostly passed me by…
How are you involved in the St. John’s
Film Institute?
I was one of the founder-developers, along
with (tutor) David Carl. I taught both summers
with (tutor) David McDonald. I believe strongly
that in our period we can’t consider ourselves
liberally educated if we don’t have a developed
critical relationship to audio-visual media,
especially the moving photographic image.
Apparently in 1936 Scott Buchanan thought
so too, because in the blueprint for this college
he called for a four-year great books program
like ours and a fifth year called the St. John’s
College Institute for Cinematics.
What are some essential films that
Johnnies should watch and discuss?
The Passion of Joan of Arc, Tokyo Story, Early
Spring, Bicycle Thieves, Nights of Cabiria,
Andrei Rublev, Mirror, Rules of the Game—to
give you a few to start with.
Venkatesh’s blog, The Old Pearl Bed, layers
reflections on Tolkien with Tolstoy, on Chekhov
with Buddhism, and many other unexpected
connections abound. One of Venkatesh’s essays
on the Discourses was recently published in
Tricycle, a popular Buddhist magazine.
STUDY GROUP
Open to Inquiry
While the study of great books is central to
a St. John’s education, authors outside the
Western canon recently got some attention
thanks to efforts spurred by junior Emily
Krause (A18). Inspired by a preceptorial on
Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, led by
tutor Rebecca Goldner (AGI02), Krause and
her classmate Nathan Dignazio (A18) formed
a study group on modern writers and issues
surrounding traditionally marginalized communities. Focusing on such authors as Warsan
Shire, Audre Lorde, and Sojourner Truth, the
study group takes aim at political and social
questions that are not usually explored in
other classes in the Program.
During this spring semester, the group met
bi-weekly for lunchtime seminars, focusing on
short readings that are taken from literary,
historical, and philosophical works. Average
attendance was about the same as a tutorial—
large enough to have significant momentum,
but also small enough that it was intimate and
conducive to sincere and productive inquiry.
The group’s readings included “Conversations about home (at a deportation centre),”
Kenyan-born Somali poet Warsan Shire’s poem
about a refugee’s troubled relationship with
her home and the alienation that vexes her
relationship to herself, her new surroundings,
and her origins; “The Master’s Tools Will Never
Dismantle the Master’s House,” an address by
Audre Lorde critiquing the lack of representation of black and lesbian women at conferences
on feminist writing; and “Ain’t I a Woman?”
a speech by African American abolitionist
Sojourner Truth, who brings forward inconsistencies between professed and actual attitudes
towards women, and calls for equality of rights,
regardless of one’s intellect or race.
For the group’s fourth meeting, it returned
to its origin by reading the introduction of
The Second Sex, in which Beauvoir discusses
in Hegelian terms how woman is Other to
man and describes the relation between
woman and man that arises because of this
antithesis. She encapsulates the tension
pointedly, saying, “Woman’s drama lies in this
conflict between the fundamental claim of
every subject, which always posits itself as
essential, and the demands of a situation that
constitutes her as inessential.”
Krause and Dignazio hope that by looking
at perspectives of those whose lives and
experiences are vastly different than their
own, they can better understand the social
and political forces that are at work among us
in the world now. “Something is lost when we
don’t take into account the differences among
people,” Krause says. Goldner adds that the
study group shows something central to the
college, that the conversations that we have
in the classroom spill out and continue after
class (and from time to time find their way
back into class). “And hopefully,” Dignazio
says, “[the seminars] provide some wisdom
about the human experience.”
—Jonathan Llovet (A17)
ROSE S. PELHAM (A20)
ONLINE SERIES
The study group shows
something central to
the college, that the
conversations that we have
in the classroom spill out
and continue after class
(and from time to time find
their way back into class).
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�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
C O N V E R S AT I O N
Civility on the
World Stage
comfort zones,” Mullen said. Several members
of the public asked questions about Trump,
immigration, and media coverage of Russia’s
purported role in the presidential election.
And when a woman asked if Democratic Sen.
Bernie Sanders, who lost the primary to Hillary
Clinton, could have won the general election,
Mullen leaned back on a lesson he learned early
on when dealing with the press: Don’t comment
on hypotheticals.
It was a strategy that suited Mullen well in
his conversations with Brokaw over the years.
The men had a longstanding professional
relationship, one that was based largely on trust
and respect. “I trusted him, he trusted me, and
we could do real business together,” Brokaw said
during a gathering before the event. “I needed
to know some things, and he knew things that
he didn’t want to tell me, and I respected that.
But that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
—Tim Pratt
TOP RIGHT:
Michael B. Mukasey, the 81st
Attorney General of the United States Judge,
opened the 2017 Dean’s Lecture Series.
BELOW:
TV journalist Tom Brokaw and former
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike
Mullen spoke at an event on February 19.
NEED FOR FREE SPEECH
To a capacity crowd in Santa Fe’s Great Hall,
the 81st Attorney General of the United States
Judge Michael B. Mukasey argued passionately
against forces of political correctness and the
“concrete pressures” that these forces can exert
on speech. Mukasey’s talk opened the 2017
Dean’s Lecture Series, which hosted Supreme
Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor last spring.
Concerned that America has become a nation
whose people live in narratives rather than
facts, Mukasey, who was appointed by the
George W. Bush administration and served
from 2007 to 2009, bemoaned trends in which
“personal taste and preference have started to
impinge upon how people view reality.” He also
touched on human rights, judicial activism, and
the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, which
he was careful to define as a political ideology
and distinct from the religion of Islam. Mukasey
concluded his short talk by encouraging attendees to “hold fast,” to uphold high standards of
free speech as well as the U.S. Constitution.
In the lively question period that followed, audience members pressed Mukasey on a number
of issues, including the need for criminal justice
reform, anxieties about the current presidency,
and threats from the Supreme Court decision commonly known as Citizens United. The
Citizens United decision restricted government
from limiting the rights of corporations, labor
unions, and associations to make unlimited,
independent political expenditures. Despite a
number of differing opinions from the audience,
the discourse remained civil and Mukasey held
fast to his beliefs while also retaining a sense
of humor. When a student began his question
with, “I’m a freshman,” Mukasey laughed and
said: “Me too.”
TONY J PHOTOGRAPHY
“� he thing I love to do
T
more than anything in
life … the thing that
gives me the greatest joy
is playing the drums.”
Mukasey’s lecture is available on the SJC Digital
Archives at digitalarchives.sjc.edu.
—Joan Haratani (SF79)
CAROL CARPENTER
The Francis Scott Key Auditorium erupted into
applause as veteran TV journalist Tom Brokaw
and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Adm. Mike Mullen took the stage. Dubbed
“A Conversation with Brokaw and Mullen,” the
event held on February 19 featured a discussion between the renowned newsman and highranking military official on topics ranging from
the 2016 presidential election to America’s relationship with Russia, China, and North Korea
to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
The pair also spoke about the Trump administration and problems with the ways people
get their news. Brokaw urged those in the audience to check the veracity of stories found on
the internet. Social media has led to the easy
sharing of fake news stories, knee-jerk reactions, and heated, polarizing opinions, he said.
“You have to put as much effort into where you
get your news over a long period of time as you
do into buying a flat-screen television,” Brokaw
said. “You just can’t take it blindly off the internet because it’s there and it seems to be done
in a very sophisticated manner.”
Brokaw and Mullen later turned the conversation to issues surrounding immigration,
racism, and exposure to different cultures and
political beliefs. “We have to get out of our
H I D D E N TA L E N T
She’s Got the Beat
When Joan Haratani (SF79), visited the St.
John’s College campus in Annapolis last fall,
she made sure to visit the “rock room” in the
basement of Mellon Hall. The small, concrete
room was filled with amplifiers, guitars, a
piano, and drums. But the room had seen
better days. Graffiti was splayed on one of
the walls; stained, worn out furniture abutted
another. Equipment, some of it broken, some
of it covered in dust, cluttered the space. So
Haratani, who serves on the college’s Board
of Visitors and Governors, decided to do
something about it: She bought a new Yamaha
drum kit for the room and donated it to the
college. The donation spurred plans to spruce
up the room, an effort now under way. The only
stipulation? Haratani gets first dibs on playing
the kit when she visits campus.
While Haratani has a long and distinguished
law career—she now works for the firm Morgan
Lewis in San Francisco—she also is an avid
drummer. It’s a skill she is continuing to hone.
“The thing I love to do more than anything in
life … the thing that gives me the greatest joy
is playing the drums,” she says.
Although Haratani has always been musically inclined, she didn’t begin to play the
drums until about three years ago. She was a
violinist growing up. At the same time, she had
an admiration for musician Karen Carpenter,
not only for her “gorgeous voice,” but for her
ability to play the drums while she sang. “I
wanted to be Karen Carpenter,” Haratani says.
When she arrived at the St. John’s Santa Fe
campus in the mid-1970s, Haratani enjoyed the
two years of music theory classes she took. She
also listened to music while she studied, saying
it helped her focus on her work. Haratani went
on to law school at University of California at
Davis. Since then, her law career has spanned
more than three decades. Her practice includes
state and federal law, including the Alien Tort
Statute, California’s Unfair Competition Law,
pharmaceutical and medical device liability
doctrines, and national mortgage foreclosure
issues. In her free time, Haratani enjoys ice
climbing and other outdoor activities. But a
few years ago, while Haratani was taking voice
lessons, she had an opportunity to begin taking
drum lessons and jumped at the chance.
Haratani quickly realized regular practice
was the key to improvement. She took lessons
online and in person, and began attending
camps with drummers from all over the world.
Rudiments. Paradiddles. Stick control.
Haratani practices as often as she can. “I’m a
lawyer—that’s not easy—but I think drumming
is way harder because it’s so slow to get good,”
Haratani says.
She eventually began playing in a band with
her coworkers, many of whom had lengthy
musical backgrounds. The band won a competition last summer and will be performing again
for a charity in June, raising money for legal aid
for domestic violence victims. “I’m a big sucker
for helping people,” Haratani says. Performing
with a band also has helped Haratani improve
her drumming skills. “There is no faster way to
get good than to play live as a band,” she says.
When Haratani travels she makes efforts
to find places to practice. That’s what brought
her to the rock room in Mellon Hall last fall.
She was in town for the BVG meeting when
she learned of the room, saw the condition
of the existing drum kit—it had been pieced
together—and decided to do something about
it. She hopes Johnnies take advantage of the
new kit and the practice space. “There’s nothing like playing in a space that’s nice,” Haratani
says. “It makes you up your game.”
Music is an important part of life as a
Johnnie, with classes, singing and instrumental
opportunities abound. Those opportunities
create a more well-rounded educational experience, Haratani says. “I think music heals the
soul, I really do.”
—Tim Pratt
—Samantha Ardoin (SF16)
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�12 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
IN
FACTIOUS
TIMES:
LEADERSHIP
LEFT:
Lincoln's "Gettysburg Portrait" by Alexander Gardner, taken on November 8, 1863, two weeks before the Gettysburg Address, with photo of James Campbell, born in slavery, c.1936-38, Library of Congress
TUTOR VIEW: LINCOLN
LEADING
BY
TEACHING
by George Russell
The paradox of Abraham Lincoln’s appearance in the
United States’ sectional conflict becomes manifest if
one considers a passage written by James Madison in
Federalist No. 10. In that paper, Madison, apologizing
for the Constitution that he had authored, cautions
his reader to resist the impractical expectation that
in the clash of the interests that naturally spring up in
the republic, prudent and “enlightened statesmen” will
appear to resolve those conflicts. He explains that the
Constitution is a contrivance of sorts which will control
the effects of factions by blunting the worst tendencies
of majorities. In doing so, the Constitution will obviate
the need for the prudence of an “enlightened statesman”
to solve conflicts of interest as they arise and escalate.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 13
�TUTOR VIEW
M
adison, however, lived long
enough to see the precursor of
the sectional crisis and secession, the nullification crisis
of 1832, precipitated by John
Calhoun.1 He lived long enough
to see that factious men were
to arise in the republic who
ranked their interests above
the good of constitutional rule;
factious men who sought a
“union” in which the parts, the
states, superseded the whole,
the union of states. As those
men rejected constitutional
rule, they undermined the
implicit remedies of the Madisonian constitution, at
the same time as they speciously obfuscated what it
meant to be an American citizen.2 It was into that
turmoil that, Providence providing, the enlightened
statesman, Abraham Lincoln, entered.
Lincoln’s leadership displays itself in that wellknown political scene in which two crises intersect,
the moral crisis of possible slavery expansion and
the political crisis of secession. In the context of
those crises, Lincoln agrees with Madison that
Lincoln teaches that
government of the people
is government by majorities,
properly restrained, not
government of minorities
over majorities.
factious men are the great danger to the republic.
To counteract those factious men, Lincoln, from
the time of his earliest speeches, takes on the role
of a teacher. Indeed, leading by teaching, Lincoln,
both before he became president and during his
presidency, did his utmost to instruct the American
citizen on what it means to be an American.
14 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Three major tenets emerge as central in Lincoln’s understanding of what it means to be an
American. First, one must be devoted to rule by
law. This tenet, he sets out in that early and precocious speech, Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum,
Springfield, Illinois. Second, according to Lincoln,
the true American believes in universal freedom
and a basic equality with respect to that freedom.
The principles of the founders as they expressed
them in the Declaration of Independence were
meant to be principles of the nation going forward.
Third and last, the true American believes that the
United States is a perpetual union of states.
Lincoln’s own exemplary submission to the law
is most easily discernable in his handling of the
two great factions of the sectional crisis, namely,
the radical Southern planters who claimed rights
to be able to move their property in human beings
everywhere in the Union, and the abolitionists,
who wanted to abolish the institution immediately. Lincoln maintained against both sides that
the law had to be respected against the factious
impulses of each. While he was in agreement with
the abolitionists that slavery was wrong, Lincoln
argued against the abolitionists that the institution
enjoyed legal protection in the states in which it
existed. As the institution enjoyed the sanction of
law, it had to be respected in those states. Against
the Southern planters, Lincoln cited as precedent
the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, in which the
institution was prohibited in those territories. In
his view, the same legal spirit that protects the
institution of slavery also limits slavery to where it
exists. Particularly in the factious times in which he
lived, Lincoln believed that adherence and submission to the law was the most needful thing for the
health of the republic.
In regard to the second tenet, that the true
American believes in universal freedom, especially
regardless of race, Lincoln’s view was mightily
contested by Southerners—and not only radicals.
As evidence of that contest, here citations from
one speech must suffice, the so-called “Cornerstone
Speech” of Alexander H. Stephens, an erstwhile
“Union man” from Georgia. In a speech that he
delivers on March 21, 1861, Stephens asserts the
following regarding the principles of the Declaration of Independence: “The prevailing ideas
entertained by Jefferson and most of the leading
statesmen at the time of the formation of the old
Constitution were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature, and that
it was wrong in principle, socially,
morally, and politically…[T]he general opinion of the men of that day
was that, somehow or other in the
order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass
away…Those ideas, however, were
fundamentally wrong. They rested
upon the assumption of the equality of races…This was an error…
Our new government is founded
upon exactly the opposite idea; its
foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth,
that the negro is not equal to the
white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his
natural and normal condition.”
In opposing those views and
other similar views, Lincoln never
seems very interested in such
statements as philosophical or
abstract statements. Rather he
contents himself with pointing out
and instructing his hearers in the
American way. In teaching that the
true American is an egalitarian, he
asserts the precise way in which he
understands all men to be equal; at
the same time, he likens the situation of the enslaved people to that
of the revolutionary era Americans.
Here I cite from two speeches:
First, from the Kansas-Nebraska
Act speech, at Peoria, Illinois, we
have a statement which repeats in
slightly different versions throughout Lincoln’s speeches. “…I hold
that…there is not reason in the
world why the negro is not entitled
to all the natural rights enumerated
in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that
he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I
agree with Judge [Stephen] Douglas he is not my
equal in many respects…But in the right to eat the
bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his
own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of
Judge Douglas, and the equal of any living man.”
Arguing in favor of universal equality, equality in
respect of property-engendering labor, Lincoln
rejects Douglas’s “popular sovereignty” doctrine
Madison termed Calhoun’s doctrine of nullification, the claim
that federal law could be “nullified” within a given state,
“preposterous and anarchical.”
1�
To be sure, the states in rebellion drew up a constitution.
However, they made sure that they explicitly asserted the
sovereignty of the individual states as supreme over the
central government. In effect, they did not ultimately submit
to the constitution and the government set up therein. They
rejected that sort of constitutional rule.
2�
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 15
�TUTOR VIEW
that slavery in the territories should not be a concern of American citizens outside the territories.
Lincoln maintains that the question of slavery was
the concern of every citizen. Every American citizen
should be concerned to keep slavery, the expropriation of labor and its fruits, on the road to extinction.
Second, from his debate with Douglas in Alton,
Illinois: “It is the eternal struggle between these
two principles—right and wrong—throughout the
world. They are the principles that have stood face
to face from the beginning of time; and will ever
Lincoln was a man with a
true moral compass. Whatever
he thought about the legality
of enslavement and the
necessity of upholding the
law, he knew and over time
persistently maintained that
in itself it was wrong.
continue to struggle. The one is the common right
of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.
It is the same that says, ‘You work and toil and
earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape
it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who
seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and
live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of
men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is
the same tyrannical principle.”
Whereas Stephens understands the founders to
be misguided in their adherence to the principles of
the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln maintains
that these are the ideas and principles for the sake
of which Americans shed their blood and gave their
lives; these principles are the founders’ legacy to
the republic for all times. He sets forth the view
that the founders “meant to set up a standard
16 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
maxim for free society, which should be familiar to
all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly
attained, constantly approximated, and thereby
constantly spreading and deepening its influence,
and augmenting the happiness and value of life to
all people of all colors everywhere.” The assertion
that “‘all men are created equal’ was placed in the
Declaration…for future use. Its authors meant it to
be…a stumbling block to those who in after times
might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism.” The principles, then, were
not merely to be held but to be lived by. To repeat,
the true American believes in universal freedom:
that is what Lincoln taught.
The third tenet of Lincoln’s Americanism is the
belief in the perpetuity of the union of the states
in the United States. What that amounts to, as is
known, is that there is no right of secession possessed by the citizens of the states. Lincoln saw the
secessionist view of the 19th century as a rejection
of the principle of majority rule. Lincoln agreed with
Madison that restraints needed to be imposed on
majorities in order to protect rights of minorities;
however, he also believed that once those restraints
were in place, the minority party must follow the
lead of the majority or dissolution of popular government ensues on the basis of minority secession.
Lincoln teaches that government of the people is
government by majorities, properly restrained, not
government of minorities over majorities.
There are those who might question Lincoln’s
qualifications as a teacher of what it means to be
an American. Lincoln was a man who had faults,
and because of his general candor, visible faults.
His views were at times what we would call today
“racist” views. For example, he acknowledged the
social inferiority of black people as a fact, and said
that he was not inclined to raise their status, or
change that state of affairs. Again and again, in
dealing with black Americans, he catered to the
feelings and prejudices of his white constituents
rather than treat the blacks equitably. Repeatedly,
he maintained that enslavement in the Southern states was legally sanctioned and protected
although he believed and taught that the enslavement of human beings is both wrong by nature and
un-American. In his speculations about emancipation, Lincoln for a long time favored the deportation of black Americans from the country. Charges
such as these continue to be leveled by some who
reflect on Lincoln’s career.
However, in the face of his faults and defects,
Lincoln was a man with a true moral compass.
Whatever he thought about the legality of enslavement and the necessity of upholding the law, he
knew and over time persistently maintained that in
itself it was wrong. Whatever he observed about
the social equality of blacks and whites, he knew
and repeatedly argued that politically, blacks and
whites were all fundamentally equal—that is, that
they all had rightful claims on the fruits of their
own respective labor. And Lincoln, in accord with
that true moral compass, knew that, as he put it
once when referring to Douglas, a man “may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong;” Lincoln
could and did change his mind.
If we come back to the matter of Lincoln’s attitude toward the black American, we can say the
following: Twice Lincoln gave personal audiences
to Frederick Douglass at the White House, once
in the summer of 1863 to hear Douglass’s complaint about his (Lincoln’s) tardy response to the
way in which the Confederates were treating captured black soldiers; and again a year later, when
Lincoln wanted Douglass’s opinion on the lack of
movement by the enslaved people who had been
legally freed. Lincoln came to see that these
United States were the true home of the latest
posterity of those Africans forcibly transported
here as long ago as 250 years. However tardily,
he came to see that the Americans of African
descent deserved to fight for their freedom. And
thereafter, he saw, too, that the darker-skinned
soldiers fighting to preserve the country founded
on freedom and equality did not deserve deportation to some foreign land. Rather, they deserved
citizenship in that homeland where through them
and in them a new freedom was being born. It
was in changing his mind in the ways that he did
that Lincoln really indicts those who clung so
tenaciously to what they knew to be wrong. At
the same time, in doing so, he exhibited, as he so
often did in his speeches, the kind of nobility that
his most ardent opponents wanted to claim for
themselves but could not.
In those exemplary ways discussed here, Lincoln
did all that he could to preserve Madison’s constitutional rule by trying to teach his fellow citizens
what it means to be an American. Paradoxically,
he appeared on the earth in the right place at the
right time to preserve and protect a constitution
constructed to provide against the fortuity of
prudence in human affairs.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 17
�LEADERSHIP
Protector of
Our Program
Annapolis President
Chris Nelson (SF70)
Leaves a Mighty Legacy
By Tim Pratt
When Chris Nelson was a child, he often found
himself engaged in battle. Tomato plant stakes
from the family garden were used as swords.
Trashcan lids served as shields. The rug in
the living room was the river Skamandros as
Nelson and his siblings re-enacted the Trojan
War from the Iliad, bouncing on furniture and
avoiding the water below. “I slew countless
Trojans, over and over,” Nelson says with a
smile. “My siblings were very accommodating.”
DEMETRIOS FOTOS
While as a 12-year-old Nelson immersed
himself in the Iliad and Euclid’s Elements,
his journey with the great books of Western
civilization was just beginning.
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�LEADERSHIP
It was a trek that took him to St. John’s College
as a student in the 1960s, to Chicago for a lengthy
law career, and eventually back to his alma mater to
serve as president. During that time, Nelson became
a champion for the liberal arts, played a prominent
role in higher education at the national level, and
oversaw vast improvements at the college. But now,
Nelson is preparing to step down as leader of the
place that has been a part of his life since childhood.
He will retire in June after 26 years as Annapolis
president. “Chris is kind of the rock on which the
college has operated for over a quarter of a century,”
says Mike Peters, who served as president of the St.
John’s Santa Fe campus from 2005 through January
2016. “He leaves a pretty amazing legacy.”
TONY J PHOTOGRAPHY
The Early Years
Nelson is an outspoken
advocate of the liberal arts.
Nelson’s connection to St. John’s came as a “birthright,” tutor and former Dean Michael Dink said during a recent Saturday Seminar event in Annapolis
held in Nelson’s honor. Nelson’s father graduated
from St. John’s in 1947—a decade after Stringfellow
Barr and Scott Buchanan founded the college’s great
books curriculum—and was a long-serving member
and chair of St. John’s Board of Visitors and Governors. Although Nelson’s
father didn’t talk a lot about
St. John’s at home, Nelson
says his childhood was permeated with elements of
the Program, from refighting the Trojan War with
his siblings to redrawing
the diagrams from Euclid’s
Elements, with and without
drafting instruments.
In high school, Nelson grew
tired of the lectures given by
his teachers, who would tell
students “what the answer
was and what to think,” he
says. He knew that if he
attended St. John’s, he would
be able to explore topics for
himself. Nelson arrived in
Annapolis in 1966. He never applied anywhere else. “I
was one of those people who come to St. John’s with
the attitude that the opening question only needs
to be ‘Ready, set, go.’ The desire to try to make the
books we were reading our own, and to take them in
and accept or reject the things in them as judgments
we were making for ourselves, was just thrilling.”
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Nelson spent part of his time in Annapolis, where
he was an accomplished athlete and active in student government, before transferring to the Santa Fe
campus and graduating in 1970. College board chair
Ron Fielding (A70)—one of Nelson’s classmates, a fellow intramural sports captain, and officer in student
government—says he saw flashes of Nelson’s potential when they were students. “The leadership aspect
is without question,” Fielding says. “He was a natural
leader of the athletics teams and … of the polity.”
Following Nelson’s graduation, it was off to law
school at the University of Utah, where he founded
and directed the university’s student legal services
program. He graduated in 1973.
Nelson practiced law for 18 years in Chicago and
was chairman of his law firm when he was tapped
to become president of St. John’s in 1991. He had
served on the college’s Board of Visitors and Governors since 1986.
A Natural Leader
When Nelson returned to campus as president in
the summer of 1991, he faced a budget deficit and
aging facilities. Nelson immediately got to work,
coming up with a list of projects and working with
former Vice President of Development Jeff Bishop
and Treasurer Bud Billups to raise funds, make “prudent” cuts and balance the budget, he says. “Those
guys saved this college,” says Bishop’s wife, Sue.
In the two-plus decades since then, new dormitories
and other structures have been erected; every building on campus has been renovated; even the grounds
have improved. The four-year graduation rate, which
was 36 percent when Nelson arrived, has nearly
doubled. Enrollment applications also have increased
in recent years following a slight downturn after the
economic crisis of 2008—a crisis that affected enrollment at liberal arts colleges all over the country.
But some things, like the St. John’s Program, have
remained largely the same, with students now reading many of the same works as their predecessors.
That is one of the things Nelson takes most pride in
as he looks back on his career. “I think it’s protecting as much as I could the community of learning at
the college,” Nelson says. “I’d say that has been most
important to me.”
That’s not to say there haven’t been changes. Nelson is excited about the recent focuses on biology
and quantum mechanics in senior lab. A new quantum mechanics lab was recently completed in the
basement of Mellon Hall. Nelson says he has tried
to give faculty and staff the autonomy they need
to be successful. At the same time, he says he was
sure to question and discuss the recommendations
and decisions being made. “Everybody on the faculty has ideas about how to improve the work of the
academic program in the classroom,” Nelson says.
“I’ve wanted them to feel that they could continue
to work on the Program. I’ve wanted to provide as
much freedom from constraint as I could.”
Others share a similar view of Nelson’s management style. Dink, who served as dean from 20052010, said in his Saturday Seminar comments that
Nelson was friendly and supportive during his term.
Deans are drawn from the faculty for five-year terms,
which means they often come with no prior administrative experience. “But Chris well understood the
virtue, indeed the necessity of this practice, and did
everything in his power both to assist with the learning curve and to respect and support the authority of the dean,” says Dink. Leo Pickens (A78), who
served for years as athletic director before working
as alumni director and now director of Leadership
Annual Gifts, describes Nelson as “a great listener.”
“His door has always been open,” says Pickens. “He’s
very approachable, he’s extremely fair-minded … and
I think it became very clear early on that he was
dedicated to the college.”
“� t was clear when we met and has only
I
been reinforced during our time working
together that Chris’s affection for the
college is deep and fierce and abiding.
He has been a St. John’s force of nature.”
—Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt
The Man
Like many others who have known Nelson over
the years, Pickens has stories to tell. He attended
St. John’s with Nelson’s younger brother, Ted, and
recalls hearing about Chris’s intramural sports
awards and team championships when he was a student. “I had not met Chris, but had only heard tales
of his athletic prowess,” Pickens says with a laugh.
Having witnessed Nelson’s skills on the badminton
court when he returned as president in 1991, Pickens
took note of Nelson’s resilience and coolness under
pressure. “Those kinds of qualities he demonstrated
as an athlete, even under the most difficult of circumstances … are qualities he also demonstrated as
a president here.”
Pickens got to see more of that determination
on a cross-country bike ride he took with Nelson,
Bishop, former Santa Fe Vice President for Development Jeff Morgan, and Bob Gray in 1993. Sue
Bishop saw it, too, as she drove the support van.
She and Pickens fondly recall Nelson “flying” down
steep mountain roads, a smile on his face. And while
the group had agreed not to talk about college business on the trip, Nelson would read Gilgamesh out
loud during rest stops as his colleagues relaxed in
the shade. “He demonstrated on that ride just how
strong of a human he is,” says Pickens. Through
it all, Nelson has maintained his love of the great
books, often quoting passages from works he has
read over the years. And he often invites students,
faculty, and staff to his home for special occasions.
Some who spoke of Nelson recalled lengthy conversations over a glass of wine, or of Nelson’s love
for chopping wood, or of the pleasure he gets from
working in the garden. There were stories of Nelson, while still a student, presiding over a hearing
for fellow Johnnies who were involved in a series of
food fights. And there were stories of Nelson going
out of his way to help faculty, staff, and students,
leading study groups, and teaching classes. Nelson’s
dedication to the college stands out, says Peters. “I
think Chris bleeds Johnnie black and orange,” says
Peters. “He is going to be a hard act to follow, but
he has smoothed the path for those folks who are
coming after him.”
Above: Leo Pickens,
Jeff Morgan, Bob Gray,
Chris Nelson, and Jeff
Bishop wearing bicycling
outfits, medals and
wreathes, and holding a
photo of Albert Einstein
on a bicycle, outside of
McDowell Hall in 1993.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 21
�LEADERSHIP
“� e want to have people who
W
can think for themselves rather
than being ... useful tools for
someone else’s purposes. So
that’s asking each individual to
take responsibility for the public
good. Each of us has a leadership
responsibility in that respect.”
A National Voice
Nelson has served as an ambassador for the college, traveling around the country, giving talks—he
estimates he has given more than 1,000 since he
took office—on issues like government regulation
in higher education. He has met with lawmakers,
donors, and others; the National Association of
Independent Colleges and Universities on February 1 announced Nelson as chairman of its board of
directors. And two years ago he received the Association’s highest honor, the Henry Paley Award for his
“unfailing service toward the students and faculty of
independent colleges and universities.”
Nelson is well-known as a proponent of the liberal
arts. A liberal arts education creates more thoughtful,
well-rounded people, he says. “We want to have people
who can think for themselves rather than being driven
to, or useful tools for, someone else’s purposes,” he
says. “So that’s asking each individual to take responsibility for the public good. Each of us has a leadership
responsibility in that respect. To get there, we need
to cultivate the arts of intellect and imagination, and
that’s exactly what we do at St. John’s College.”
Nelson’s 26 years of work toward reaching that
goal are commendable, Fielding says. An American
Council on Education survey found the average term
of a college president is less than 10 years. “There’s
22 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
something comforting about having a leader who
doesn’t aspire to do anything other than making
this current institution better,” Fielding says. “That
is uncommon, whether it is a politician in a political
office or a college president. It’s very special.”
Senior Alina Myer, who served as president of the
student Delegate Council in 2016, says the college
is lucky to have someone as dedicated to the liberal
arts as Nelson. “It’s kind of an incredible thing to
have such accessibility to someone who has worked
tirelessly and on such a large scale to ensure that
people understand the value of what we do here at St.
John’s,” says Myer. “He is the first person who speaks
to us as Johnnies at convocation, and for my class he
will be the last, as our commencement speaker. He is
emblematic of our St. John’s experience.”
The Future
After Nelson retires, he plans to travel, visit family,
and catch up on some reading. “There’s a book in
there somewhere too,” he says. He hopes to relax a
bit after a career which included an 18-month stint as
president of the Santa Fe campus and often found him
working seven days a week. But Nelson won’t be completely absent from campus. He has been appointed a
member of the teaching faculty and says he will make
himself available to lead seminars, preceptorials, or
anything else asked of him. “For the sake of intellectual engagement, it will be good to spend some time
with the students,” says Nelson. “I get a great deal
of satisfaction out of the study groups I have now
when I’m not teaching a regular class, which I used to
do, and I can’t imagine not having that intellectual
vibrancy in my life going forward.”
Left: Nelson on
back campus, with
College Creek in the
background.
DEMETRIOS FOTOS
DEMETRIOS FOTOS
—Chris Nelson
A toast from Eva Brann (H89),
tutor and former dean, in honor of
Chris Nelson, at Homecoming 2016:
I’ve heard it said that a proper toast begins by
making people laugh. I’m feeling a little more
like crying than laughing myself. And moreover,
those glorious six years when I worked with
Chris to make this college of ours stay itself and
be what it was meant to be, weren’t as productive of funny stories as happy solutions. Yet I do
remember an incident which, when I told it to my
fellow deans at other schools, aroused laughter—
incredulous laughter. So I’ll tell it here.
Some of you may remember Miss Beate von
Oppen, a fellow tutor, my friend, and next-door
neighbor. She always collected more books than
she had places for. So I persuaded her to get yet
another bookcase. We picked up one of those
assemble-it-yourself cheapies, and, of course, no
picture in the instruction booklet matched reality,
and no word in it was in our human vocabulary. I
was dean then, and when in major trouble, such
as over-budgeting by thousands, I looked for salvation in one direction: to our president. So what
did I do? I phoned Chris at home, and within half
an hour he and Joyce were at the door, and within
another half hour the rickety thing stood erect and
ready. This, I’m here to tell you, was not the relation I used to hear about at deanish get-togethers.
What was normal was open warfare, uneasy
peace, all the way down to cowed submission.
The thing about Chris, an unusual thing, is that
he knows how to govern. There is not a smidgen
of pretentiousness in him, which means that he
meets ready respect for his decisions. There isn’t
even a ghost of power assertion, which means that
authority accrues to him naturally. There is no taste
in him at all for cliques, which means he’s everyone’s president. There isn’t even a little bubble
of hot air in him, which means that when he says
something is so, it’s because he’s costed it out,
or remembered it correctly, or really thought about
it. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if after dinner he
gently lets me know what facts I’ve got wrong.
Chris Nelson and
Eva Brann overlook
the campus, as they
did when Chris first
became president.
When I spoke of the years I was dean as glorious,
I meant it. We were known as “the four B’s and
the C”: our beloved Jeff Bishop and fondly remembered Bud Billups and me, the eternally amateurish
dean. And then Chris, who made it possible for us
so-called administrators to live up to the meaning
of the word, which is “to minister to” those in our
charge. Or better put, to be fulfilled by our offices
in Aristotle’s sense of happiness, the soul at work
in behalf of a good thing: the Program, the folks
busy here in its service, and the students who’ll
soon be our “nurslings,” alumni in Latin.
I’ll end with a vision I’ve held in my imagination
for a long time. Very near the beginning of his
presidency, Chris and I were standing on the quad
looking down from the top of the stairs onto our
irreplaceable bronze steal – the one that promises
to make free adults of children by means of books
and laboratories – and out across the back campus.
Chris heaved a deep sigh and said words to this
effect: “Here is where I want to spend my life.” And
so he has, and we cannot thank him enough for it.
So please raise your glasses in a toast to our
incomparable president, our Chris.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 23
�BY
PA
UL
A
NO
VA
SH
GL MO
AD D
ER
IA N
TO
R
LEADERSHIP
Michelle Urban (SF08) is convinced there
is major value in having to figure things out.
“When I was at St. John’s writing a paper, I
usually wouldn’t know how to prove what
I wanted to,” Urban says. “But then it would
come together—and succeeding at something
you have struggled with is a great feeling.” It
is a philosophy that translates well to Urban’s
current situation as an entrepreneur running
a tech startup. As CEO of Albuquerque-based
Pressure Analysis Company (PAC), which designs and manufactures wireless technology
to track head injuries in athletes, Urban says
that her biggest challenge is inexperience.
“We’re creating an innovative product in an
emerging field,” she says. “Every day there’s
something new we need to learn how to do.”
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 25
�A
mid increasing concerns about
sports-related head injuries
–
particularly those that affect
younger players – the company’s
idea is timely. According to
a 2016 article published on Sports Illustrated’s
website, si.com, the rate of youth concussions rose
500 percent between 2010 and 2014.
Although high school-age athletes are most
likely to suffer concussions and the highest
percentage of injuries occur playing football,
Urban says the problem spans a wide range
of ages and sports. “There are complexities
at different levels. Younger players have not
been hit over and over yet, so having cumu-
lative data can be helpful for parents and
physicians,” she says. “And coaches of older
players need to be able to see exactly where
they’ve been hit and how hard, so they know
if someone needs to be pulled out of a game
and examined.”
Urban and her partners have developed
The Duke City Gladiators put Urban’s SmackCap technology to the test.
a tool to help. Called the SmackCap, it
resembles the slightly slouchy skullcap that
is popular with hipsters and other fashionminded individuals. But inside, SmackCap
is an array of pressure sensors, connected
in a spiderweb pattern, that can track every
impact to a player’s head in real time and
send the data to a wireless device such as
a cellphone or iPad. Besides showing if and
how badly a player may be injured over time,
SmackCap technology also has potential to
change the techniques coaches recommend.
“For instance, if a kid is getting hit repeatedly
in the same spot, the coach might notice that
he’s leading with his head,” says Urban.
Urban grew up in Santa Fe and was homeschooled. Although her first job during high
school was as part of the St. John’s campus
Buildings and Grounds crew, she did not
initially consider applying there. But she
says she loved the curriculum and skills she
learned as a Johnnie—and they were a com-
plement to her graduate studies at the University of New Mexico (UNM). “In business
school I was the one who was always asking
questions and analyzing during group projects and discussions,” she says. “I think some
people found it annoying, but I was used to
thinking deeply and critically.”
It was at UNM that Urban became interested in entrepreneurship. After earning
her MBA she did contract work for the New
Mexico economic development department,
and while creating resources for businesses
she realized she had skills she wanted to
leverage. “I was writing website content on
advice about how to start a business, and
I thought, I know all of that,” Urban says.
She wanted to do something that contributes
good to people’s lives, and became aware of
the problem of head injuries in sports. “It’s an
issue that for a long time was shoved under a
rug,” she says. “It seemed logical that having
technology to track even smaller level hits,
and provide a history of all hits taken, would
be valuable to physicians and researchers as
well as parents.”
Urban met her partners in PAC at a networking event. Together she and Lori Upham,
who handles business activities, and Scott
Sibbett, a UNM research professor who created the SmackCap technology, are engaged
in a hands-on, collaborative effort.
“When we built our first prototypes, Lori
handled the fabric, Scott the electronics and
laptop software, and I assembled the sensor array,” Urban says. A pilot partnership
with the Duke City Gladiators, a professional
indoor football team based in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, had players wearing SmackCaps during their practices and games and
allowed the PAC team to conduct field tests
and collect data.
At the 2016 South by Southwest (SXSW)
technology conference held in Austin, Texas,
Urban participated in a gathering of women
entrepreneurs who were pitching to investors; with fewer than 3 percent of tech companies run by women, she is one of an elite
AY
D
Y ’S ING ED
ER RE TH NE
�EV HE E E
“ T M W N O.”
O W AR D
S E E O
N OL T
T OW
H
cadre. “It was a great
opportunity—the first
time we were able to present about the company outside of New Mexico,” she says.
SmackCap is available for preorder with the target of making the
product available to consumers in 2018;
Urban and her partners are excited about
the future of the company’s idea. “Things are
moving so fast—we’re marketing, talking to
investors, dealing with intellectual property
issues, and expanding our team. I’m not sure
how it’s all going to work, but I’m sure we’ll
be able to deal with it.”
KEVIN LANGE
LEADERSHIP
Michelle Urban (SF08) protects athletes’ heads by using hers.
26 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 27
�BIBLIOFILE
ROBERT WOLF
(CLASS OF 1967)
Building the
Agricultural City
S
ince moving to the small town of Decorah,
Iowa, in 1991, former Chicago Tribune
columnist Robert Wolf has been concerned
with the decline of rural America. The upper Midwest’s Driftless bioregion, of which
Decorah is part, once easily fed its inhabitants with its
agriculture and fishing; now, despite much of the area’s
being farmland, it must import most of its food and
other manufactured goods. “I began to think,” writes
Wolf, “about how such a region could escape
the trauma of another national depression,
and realized only a region that was self-reliant and relatively self-sufficient could do this.”
How, then, to create such a region? The
solution, Wolf believes, lies in the concept
of “the agricultural city,” coined by Chicago
architect Joe Lambke. In Lambke’s vision,
rather than viewing themselves as a series of
towns or villages separated by fields, several
rural communities would join together to
form one “city” with multiple nodes of population. Cooperating rather than competing
would allow the inhabitants of an agricultural
city to develop a self-supporting economy less
dependent on centralized corporate interests.
Wolf first put forth these ideas in a
six-part editorial for Iowa Public Radio in
1994, “Developing Regional, Rural Economies”; the piece won the Sigma Delta Chi
Award and Bronze Medal from the Society
of Professional Journalists for Best Radio
Editorial, and was reprinted in the Des
Moines Register. Now he has expanded this
work into a book, Building the Agricultural
City (Ruskin Press, 2016), whose publication costs were raised on the crowdfunding
website IndieGoGo. Crowdfunding itself is
an example of the democratic, grassroots
actions that Wolf feels “democratize our
economy” and help decentralization.
Building the Agricultural City outlines
several practical steps towards building a self-sufficient regional economy: “a
community development bank, numerous
worker-owned cooperatives, and one or two
closed-loop agricultural systems to provide
fresh [fruit] and vegetables year round. Each
municipality would have a publicly owned
utility powered by renewable sources.” Each
of these tools has been successfully implemented by communities around the world.
Writers, artists, and
musicians are vital forces
to “[foster] a regional
consciousness, by offering
dying rural towns an
alternative to bitterness
and passive acceptance
of a System that works
against them.”
28 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Locally sourced food, trendy on upscale urban
menus, might seem easy to achieve for the agricultural
city; unfortunately, most American farmland is owned
by corporations who ship crops out of the region in
which they are grown. Wolf believes small farmers can
maximize their local impact by turning to “closedloop” agricultural systems, “in which the waste from
one part of the system [becomes] the nutrient for
another”—e.g., Chicago’s The Plant raises tilapia, and
removes their waste from the water to use as fertilizer
for edible plants. The clean water is then recirculated
into the fish tanks. Ironically, Wolf finds examples of
such projects only in cities.
Another urban innovation that Wolf recommends in
a rural context is that of the community development
bank. The first of these in the U.S. was founded in
1973 by four black friends in the South Shore area of
Chicago, which was losing capital as whites moved out
of the neighborhood. Its investors included “nonprofits,
churches, banks, insurance companies, community
organizations, and individuals,” and the bank “invested
in minority-owned businesses and financed apartment
renovation that created affordable housing.” Placing community before profit, banks like ShoreBank,
Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, and the Bank of North
Dakota, help keep small economies strong.
These economies can be further strengthened, Wolf
argues, by the creation of worker-owned cooperatives,
modeled on European examples. The Emilia Romagna
region of Italy, for instance, has approximately 8,100
cooperatives, in which businesses producing the same
product collaborate rather than compete—and it is this
power of collaboration that allows them to compete at
a global level and enjoy a high quality of life.
One last piece of the puzzle, Wolf writes in an
epilogue, is the necessary re-emergence of regional
arts and literature, “almost instinctively understood to
be the best means available for developing regionalist
sensibility.” Writers, artists, and musicians are vital
forces to “[foster] a regional consciousness, by offering
dying rural towns an alternative to bitterness and passive acceptance of a System that works against them.”
In this way, the humanities can add their persuasive
power to advances in science and technology, Wolf
hopes, in order to build “a cooperative society in which
meaningful, remunerative work is available to all…a
culture rooted in the land and created with tools that
enable a people to live harmoniously with the land.”
—Anna Perleberg Andersen (SF02)
Rousseau’s Rejuvenation
of Political Philosophy:
A New Introduction
By Nelson Lund (A74)
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016
How does one revive the ideas of a major philosophic
critic of the Enlightenment era, a figure both widely
misunderstood and widely influential? Nelson Lund’s
new book, Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political
Philosophy, aims to do just that by introducing
readers to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s thoughtful
political wisdom. In reading Rousseau authentically,
“as Rousseau read Plato,” Lund, a professor at George
Portico
By Sarah Stickney (A04)
Emrys Press, 2016
The 26 poems collected in Sarah Stickney’s new book
of poetry, Portico, are inspired, in part, by her love
for the Italian city of Bologna. With an artist’s eye
and a passionate heart, she observes the beauty and
wonder found in life’s everyday moments—young men
on Vespas buzzing in the streets, steam rising from
a bowl of pasta, cedar trees bending in the breeze—
and she takes the reader along for a soulful ride. In
“Song” Stickney writes, “From under a carved arch /
this morning Bologna brought me a woman / whose
Plato Symposium or Drinking Party:
Translation with Introduction,
Glossary, Essay, and Appendices
By Eva Brann (H89), Peter Kalkavage,
and Eric Salem (A77)
Focus Philosophical Library, 2017
A two-year labor of love, this new edition of Plato’s
most popular dialogue, Symposium or Drinking Party,
marks the fourth Plato translation by this trio of St.
John’s tutors. While grasping the mechanics of the
ancient Greek language requires a certain aptitude,
the translators delve deeply to explore the tone
and nuance of the original text, thus enhancing the
Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, helps
shed light on what Rousseau can do for mainstream
political issues, including feminism, religion in secular
society, and the behavior of the American constitutional
government. Rousseau meditated on fundamental
human issues such as the soul’s nature and the nexus
between our more primitive origins and civilization’s
achievements. Even so, the political reflections of
those meditations have not been taken seriously. Lund
endeavors to show readers that Rousseau, like his
muse Plato, is a not simply a dogmatist, and that we
ought to refrain from hastily attributing substantive
conclusions to these great authors.
—Aisha Shahbaz (A19)
hair-loss and stiff perm met / at the skeleton of a leaf
and a branch of dried coral.” The poems, several of
which first appeared under different titles in journals,
weave in and out of time and echo certain themes:
desire and loss, comfort and longing, the familiar
and the uncharted. Throughout the book there is a
subtle, universal reminder that our own shared human
experience is fleeting and meant to be embraced.
reading experience. As with the trio’s previous Plato
translations, the end result is faithful to the original
Greek vocabulary and syntax, and artfully transmits
Plato’s humor, drama, and artistry. In addition, the
trio pays careful attention when providing English
translations of the Greek rhymes, ensuring that the
text is pleasing when also read aloud. The volume is
sure to satisfy Plato scholars; however, it is friendly
to newcomers, too, offering a number of aids—an
introduction that sets the scene and introduces the
main characters; an interpretive essay; a select
bibliography of both classic and contemporary works;
and two illustrated appendices—to help readers
navigate this translation.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 29
�For & About
ALUMNI
PIRAEUS 2017
SAVE THE DATE!
Annapolis: September 8-10
Santa Fe: September 15-17
At Homecoming, new memories and
deepened friendships emerge, as the past
and present come together. Share your
love for St. John’s College by celebrating
Homecoming 2017 with the special people
in your life—family, friends, and the SJC
campus community. Registration opens on
June 2. Visit sjc.edu/homecoming to register
and view the full schedule of events.
Highlights from the weekend in both
Annapolis and Santa Fe include:
Seminars: A wide variety of seminars are
offered for all alumni. Reunite with fellow
alumni around the seminar table and
engage in great conversations.
All-College Graduate Institute 50th
Anniversary Celebration: In honor of
the 50th anniversary of the Graduate
Institute, the college community is invited
to a reception to celebrate the history of
the Graduate Institute and GI alumni.
CAST YOUR
VOTE
in the 2017 Alumni
Association Election:
May 15-June 2
This June, the SJC Alumni Association
will elect a new president, six at-large
members of the Alumni Association Board
of Directors, and one alumni-elected
member of the college’s Board of Visitors
and Governors. Alumni will also consider
an amendment to the by-laws to address
recent changes in the organization of the
Alumni Relations Office.
Pub Trivia: Form a team with your fellow
alumni to test your mettle while enjoying
some pub style fare and drinks. In addition
to bragging rights, prizes will be conferred
to the winners.
Alumni and Student Networking
Luncheon: Whether you are well into
your career or searching for a new one,
our networking luncheon has something
for everyone. Share your career guidance
with curious students and/or network with
fellow alumni over lunch. Meet our career
counselors, and learn about resources that
are available to students and alumni.
All SJC alumni are encouraged to
participate in these elections. Early voting
by fax, mail, or online ballot will open
on May 15 and continue through June 2.
The election will be held during the 2017
Alumni Leadership Forum (ALF) on June
4 at the Santa Fe campus. (See next page
for ALF details.)
Accommodations
Alumni are
encouraged to
book their accommodations early.
On-campus housing
is not available in
Annapolis or Santa
Fe, though alumni
receive special SJC
rates at the hotels
listed below. Be sure
to contact hotels directly for specific rate
information; please note that there is a
home Navy football game schedule during
Homecoming weekend in Annapolis.
Annapolis: SJC rates offered at Historic
Inns of Annapolis, O’Callaghan Hotel, and
the Westin.
Santa Fe: SJC rates offered at Sage Inn,
Hotel Santa Fe, and Drury Inn on the Plaza.
Contact
alumni@sjc.edu | 410-972-4518
At Piraeus, St. John’s College welcomes
alumni back to the seminar table. Held on
both campuses June 8-11, Piraeus’ tutorled seminars provide an opportunity to
relive the rigorous classroom experience
over the course of a leisurely weekend.
Named for the port city that served Athens,
Piraeus brings alumni from all career
paths and geographical areas back to
their educational roots. Said Thucydides
of ancient Piraeus, “From all the lands,
everything enters.” In that spirit, we invite
you to bring your voice back to the seminar
table and share in the reflection, discussion,
and community that Piraeus offers. Upcoming Piraeus offerings include:
In Annapolis:
The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, led
by Zena Hitz (A95) and Eric Salem (A77)
In Santa Fe:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by
James Joyce, led by Grant Franks (A77)
and Maggie McGuinness
Selected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, led
by Michael Wolfe (SF94)
Tuition: $655 (includes five seminars,
opening and closing receptions, breakfasts
and lunches, and Saturday night social
gathering). Recent alumni from the
classes of 2007-2016 may receive a
discounted rate of $475. On-campus
Housing: $180 for three nights, June 8, 9,
and 10. Housing available on June 7 and
11 for an additional $60 per night. Dinner
in the dining hall is included.
• Diversifying regional chapter events and attracting
new participants
• St. John’s admissions efforts, staffing college fairs,
and the Adopt-a-School program
Online and paper ballots must be
received by June 2, 2017.
Online:
http:/
/community.stjohnscollege.edu
For an online ballot, log in and select
the link under Notice of Elections and
Annual Meeting.
30 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 016
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.
For more information and to register
online, visit http://community.stjohns
college.edu/piraeus or call 505-984-6114.
training will be provided, including sessions on:
By Mail or Fax:
Request a Paper Ballot
Contact Sarah Palacios, director of
Alumni Relations, at 505-984-6121
or sarah.palacios@sjc.edu.
• An overview of the Career Services strategic plan
for the upcoming year
HOW TO VOTE
In Person:
Alumni Leadership Forum 2017
The Association’s Annual Meeting will
be held during ALF weekend on Sunday,
June 4, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. on the
Santa Fe campus.
Two offerings in Annapolis—The Aeneid
by Virgil, led by Tom May and David
Townsend, and Persuasion by Jane Austen,
led by Eva Brann (H89) and Erica Beall
(A07)—are already fully subscribed. To
place your name on the waiting list,
please contact the Alumni Office at
alumni@sjc.edu or 505-984-6114.
This three-day program gives the college’s most active
volunteers a forum to come together, share successes and
challenges, and learn best practices from one another. It also
provides an intimate opportunity to hear from the presidents
and college leadership on the evolving strategic plan for
St. John’s, and to learn more about ways in which you can
be of significant service in these efforts. In-depth
• The capital campaign, peer-to-peer giving efforts,
and building a culture of philanthropy
In appreciation for your service to the college, the
Alumni Leadership Forum is offered at no cost.
To register and view information, visit sjc.edu/alf.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 31
�PHILANTHROPY
ALUMNI NOTES
Gifts to Inspire
1952
Ron Fielding (A70) and
Warren Spector (A81)
Seed the Ground for
a New Century of a
Flourishing St. John’s
St. John’s experienced history in the making last fall when Ron Fielding (A70) and
Warren Spector (A81) each pledged $25
million gifts to the college. The twin gifts
are each the largest individual gifts ever
donated to St. John’s. “This commitment is
our rallying cry to fellow board members,
alumni, and friends at the dawn of our
capital campaign,” Fielding said. “It’s a
signal of confidence in the college’s direction and a call to action. While $50 million
is an important foundation for the future
of St. John’s College, it is only the beginning. We are calling on fellow supporters
of the Program to come forward, and we
hope to inspire gifts both large and small.”
The gift was announced November 5 at
the college’s Board of Visitors and Governors meeting in Annapolis, where Fielding
and Spector expressed enthusiasm for the
college’s recent progress toward financial
sustainability through fiscal prudence,
strategic management of the endowment,
and attention to student revenues and philanthropy. The two said that the board and
alumni must now step forward to protect
the institution for generations to come and
acknowledged the sacrifices that have been
made by staff and tutors.
“Belt-tightening has been painful,” Spector said. “But the commitment of staff and
faculty has given supporters of the college
the confidence that we are dealing with our
challenges. Now it’s the job of the board,
alumni, and friends to take the next steps
in ensuring the integrity of the Program.
It’s an exciting moment: for me, this means
giving future generations the opportunity
to grapple with problems of great complexity, of viewing problems through the long
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
Helge Leeuwenburgh, husband of
Carolyn Banks Leeuwenburgh (A),
died on January 10 after a long
illness. During the 1980s, Carolyn
and Helge arranged St. John’s
tours to Europe and China.
“St. John’s is unlike any
other college in the world,
and its Program is a
precious, singular gem.”
—Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt
lens of human history, and of understanding that seemingly new problems are
actually part of an ancient continuum. The
Program gave me comfort in addressing
challenges and finding answers where no
research was yet available. What could be
more valuable than that?”
Santa Fe President Mark Roosevelt
thanked Fielding and Spector for their
extraordinary leadership, adding, “Our
task now is to live up to their faith in the
administration and faculty—to continue
to make the hard choices that allow us to
focus on what is really important here: our
students and their success.”
True to St. John’s history and values,
Fielding’s and Spector’s support will
primarily be directed toward strengthening the Program and ensuring that all
students with a desire to attend can afford
to do so. Both gifts will be made as cash
and not estate gifts. The largest share will
be designated for the college’s endowment,
where it will provide ongoing support
32 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Ron Fielding and Warren Spector
for academics, financial aid, and career
services. A smaller share will go towards
the Annual Fund, thereby ensuring that
donors’ gifts in the coming years will be
protected as long-term investments in the
Program.
Fielding’s and Spector’s philanthropy
has already galvanized additional support.
“Others are now working with us to match
areas of need with their giving priorities,”
Roosevelt said. “It’s so important, and so
inspiring to see people stepping forward.
St. John’s is unlike any other college in
the world, and its Program is a precious,
singular gem. It must be preserved for the
unique students who come to us, and preserved by those who came before them.”
Annapolis President Chris Nelson
(SF70) noted that the gifts acknowledge
the importance of securing the future of
the college for the sake of our country and
many generations of students to come. “St.
John’s has a long history of alumni and
friends stepping forward to safeguard the
college’s distinctive and highly regarded
program of study,” Nelson said. “These two
gifts are extraordinary in their size and in
the message they send about our future.
I dare say that Spector and Fielding have
seeded the ground for a fourth century of a
flourishing St. John’s College.”
1968
Mary (Howard) Callaway published
“Medieval Reception of the
Prophets” in The Oxford Handbook
of the Prophets, ed. Carolyn Sharp,
pp. 423-441. She still teaches a
course in ancient literature to
honors students at Fordham,
around a big table furnished with
Clore chairs. Homer and Virgil,
she says, seem more pertinent
every year.
John Farmer (A) recently closed his
family practice after 37 years. He
is currently treating patients with
heroin addiction.
Thomas G. Keens (SF) gave the
Margaret Pfrommer Memorial
Lecture on long-term mechanical
ventilation at the annual meeting
of the American College of Chest
Physicians, held on October 25 in
Los Angeles. This prestigious lectureship is given to a person anywhere in the world who has made
pioneering contributions to home
mechanical ventilation. Keens and
his interdisciplinary team have
discharged more than 600 children
on mechanical-assisted ventilation
in the home, allowing them to live
outside the hospital, attend school,
and reintegrate with their families. Keens is a professor of pediatrics, physiology, and biophysics at
the Keck School of Medicine of the
University of Southern California,
and the Division of Pediatric Pul-
Emily Langston, associate dean for the graduate program in Annapolis, Dale Mortimer (A75),
and Grant Mortimer (A17) take a tour of Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge.
monology and Sleep Medicine at
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Bart Lee (A) recently published
The Long Road from Mount Moriah
to Mount Moriah: A Meditation on
Kindness, Killing and the Voice of
God, available on Amazon.
Last summer, while at his cottage
on Lake Okoboji, Iowa, Rick
Wicks (SF) developed breathing
problems after spending time
planting prairie flowers and
grasses. He returned home to
Sweden, where he is thankful for
the excellent medical care and
universal medical insurance.
Fortunately, atrial ablation (plus
a daily cocktail of medicines) has
his heart now pumping slowly,
steadily, and strongly.
1969
Joseph Baratta (A) wrote an editorial to the Italian journal, The
Federalist Debate, entitled “The
Response of Federalists to the
Trump Election.”
1972
Melissa Kaplan Drolet (SF) writes
that she and the late Raymond
Drolet’s (SF69) daughter Megan
Josephine Drolet (SF08) is engaged
to be married to Earl Joseph
Jordan. Megan received a master’s
degree in social service from
Bryn Mawr College in 2014 and
is working as a social worker at
The People’s Emergency Center in
Philadelphia. Megan’s aunt Sharon
Kaplan Wallis (Class of 1964) and
her uncle Bart Kaplan (Class of
1965) are expected to attend the
wedding.
1976
Class co-chairs Bridget Houston
Hyde (SF), Christopher Graver (SF),
and Christian Burks (SF) report
that the Santa Fe Class of 1976
came together to celebrate their
40th reunion. Members became
reacquainted nine months earlier
by e-mail, on a private Facebook
group, and by videoconferences. Of
the 145 graduates, many reconnections were established, and more
than 30 showed up in Santa Fe for
official and unofficial, registered
and unregistered “reunioning.”
1975
Dale Mortimer (A75) welcomes St.
John’s tutors to visit the Mortimer
family in Vancouver, Wash., where
they can enjoy the magnificence of
the Pacific Northwest.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 33
�ALUMNI NOTES
1984
David Simpson (SF)
recently won an Emmy
for Editing on Life Itself,
the biopic documentary
about Roger Ebert. Other
recent editing credits
include Abacus: Too
Small to Jail, which will
be in selected theaters
in May and will air on
Frontline in September,
David Simpson (SF84) and a colleague
and Maya Angelou: And
pose with their Emmys.
Still I Rise, which premiered on the PBS series
American Masters in February. Last year saw the release
of Hard Earned, a series on getting by in America, which
Simpson co-directed and edited, and which aired on
Al Jazeera America. When he can escape from the edit room,
the father of two looks for chances to travel and be in nature.
1977
Marlene Benjamin’s (SF) new book,
The Catastrophic Self: Essays in
Philosophy, Memoir and Medical
Trauma, was published by InterDisciplinary Press in 2016.
1982
Peter Griggs’s (A) novel No Pink
Concept is now an ebook. He has
also finished a second, currently
unpublished novel, Paisley Jubilee,
about a middle-aged man with
diabetes and his life in the mental
health system. He welcomes suggestions for a publisher.
1984
Elizabeth A. Povinelli’s (SF) new
book, Geontologies: A Requiem to
Late Liberalism,was published by
Duke University Press in 2016.
Monika V. Schiavo (A) recently
joined The Potomack Company,
an auction gallery based in
Alexandria, Va., as the director
of books and manuscripts and
manager of consignor relations
and systems. She invites Johnnies
to contact her to help determine
the value of the company’s
rare books, maps, autographs,
34 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
antiques, and collectibles. Or just
call to chat. She is still married
to John Schiavo (A82) and still
the mother of Hellena (SF11) and
Anthony.
1985
Lora Keenan (SF) writes, “After
twenty years
working as a
lawyer for the
Oregon appellate courts,
I recently
launched my
own business
as a writing consultant and freelance attorney. As the ‘brief doctor,’
I offer writing improvement
seminars and coaching, appellate
advice, and complex legal drafting
in the litigation context. I live in
southwest Portland (not the cool
Portlandia part), surrounded by
fir trees. I recently visited Palm
Springs with Maya (Bajema)
Butterfield (SF), Judy Houck (SF),
Caryn Hunt (SF), Mary-Irene Kinsley
(SF), and Terri Luckett (SF). We all
still dance like glorious maniacs.”
L. Jagi Lamplighter (A) is writing a
young adult fantasy series titled
The Unexpected Enlightenment of
Rachel Griffen, which takes place
in a magic school that is based, in
part, on St. John’s. The story idea
and overarching plot were made
up by Mark Whipple (A96); John C.
Wright (A84) and Bill Burns (A94)
also helped with the project.
1988
Síofra Rucker (SF) moved six
years ago from San Diego back
to Louisville, Ky., with her two
daughters. She is the director
of Advancement at St. Francis
School, a progressive independent
PK-12 school, where she herself
attended. Rucker oversees the
school’s fundraising, marketing,
and communications. Her youngest is now in eighth grade there,
and her eldest is an alumnus.
1990
Elaine Reiss Perea (SF) was
recently named director of the
College and Career Readiness
Bureau for New Mexico’s Public
Education Department. In this
position, she oversees Career
Technical Education and Accelerated Learning programs (such
as dual credit and advanced
placement). “We have several
innovative programs to encourage student engagement and are
making a push for more student
internships. Although a tight fiscal
environment can make challenging the day-to-day work of
managing costs, the policy work is
rewarding, and I’m grateful for a
dedicated and effective staff.”
Julie Rehmeyer (SF) has a book
coming out in May, Through the
Shadowlands: A Science Writer’s
Odyssey into an Illness Science
Doesn’t Understand. It chronicles
her experience with chronic
fatigue syndrome and describes
the science, politics, and history
of poorly understood diseases.
She’s currently living in Santa
Fe in a straw bale house that she
built herself.
1993
Christopher D. Denny’s (A) new
book, A Generous Symphony:
Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Literary
Revelations, was published by
Fortress Press in 2016.
Chris Dunlap (A) works in sales
and marketing for San Francisco’s Arion Press, whose catalog
includes several books on the
1996
1991
After two years of hard work
building a free app designed
to help homeowners manage
their homes and everything in
them, Shubber Ali’s (SF) startup
company Centriq won the firstever Platinum “Game Changer”
award from the National Association of Home Builders in January.
Kemmer Anderson (AGI) published
Palamedes: The Lost Muse of
Justice, a cycle of poems begun
after discovering the rhetoric
of Palamedes while reading
Phaedrus at Annapolis in 1991.
1992
Thomas Cogdell (SF) and his wife
Amy look forward to celebrating
the 500th anniversary of the
Protestant Reformation on
October 31 in Wittenberg,
Germany.
Alice Mangum Perry (SFGI) misses
her fellow Johnnies in Santa
Fe. Having returned to the East
Coast, she’s been an editor, writer,
proofreader, and “word-nerd-forhire” for books, magazines, newsletters, websites, and blogsites.
She keeps busy and appreciates
having a flexible schedule.
St. John’s Program. Arion Press
continues the tradition of fine
presswork, hand-binding, and
artful typesetting rejuvenated by
William Morris and the Arts and
Crafts movement. The company
fabricates its own metal type
through its on-site sister business,
M&H Type—the last remaining commercial type foundry
in America. Anthony Bourdain
featured Arion Press in his series
Raw Craft, available on YouTube.
1996
Stephen Conn (SF) writes, “For
Johnnies interested in working as
an extra in films, the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area is booming.
This year alone I’ve been in scenes
with Paul Rudd, Jeff Bridges,
and Jessica Chastain. Just go to
the New Mexico Actors & Extras
Forum on Facebook and look for
listings that fit your description.
It’s a fun way to make some extra
money and learn the mechanics of
big-time filmmaking.”
be offered through Western State
Colorado University’s Honors
Program, for which she also serves
as director.
2001
Congratulations to Talley Kovacs
(A01), an associate with the
Baltimore area law firm PK Law,
on being named one of the Daily
Record’s Leading Women.
Luke Mitcheson (SF) and his wife
Daphne are overjoyed to announce
the birth of their first child Henry
Michael. Little Henry arrived on
November 14, and he’s been filling
the Mitcheson home with wonder
and excitement ever since.
1999
Michael Barth (AGI) and Elizabeth Norwood (AGI10) founded
and recently launched the Bhutan Fund. Barth notes that the
Bhutan Fund is the first private equity fund for the country of
Bhutan, and the only one in the world that applies the country’s core principles of Gross National Happiness to its investment criteria and investment monitoring framework. According
to Barth, the Bhutan Fund will establish a committed pool of
capital for growth equity investments in areas that capitalize
on Bhutan’s natural, sustainable competitive advantages which
include abundant clean power resources; a well educated, English-speaking workforce; unique culture; pristine environment;
stable political climate; and firm emphasis on strengthening
the private sector. The Fund’s pipeline has more than 15 deals
covering over $200 million, with opportunities for co-investment
and debt finance. Barth and Norwood believe it has the potential to set an ethical example for other markets.
“Hello from Pittsburgh to all
Annapolis and Santa Fe former
classmates!” writes Maureen
Gallagher (SF), who is currently a
visiting assistant professor in the
English Department at Duquesne
University. “Teaching a full course
load of composition, literature,
and research literacy skills, all
while raising two young daughters Molly (4) and Jane (1) with
my husband, Laurence Ales, is
keeping me busy indeed.”
2000
Kelsey L. Bennett (SF) is the
recipient of a two-year National
Endowment for the Humanities
Enduring Questions grant. The
grant supports the development of
a new university honors course to
investigate several among many
questions she first confronted
during her time at St. John’s. The
guiding question of the course is:
What is Art For? The course will
2002
James Marshall Crotty (SFGI) is
the director of communications for
U.S. Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE).
2003
Johanna Omelia (SFGI) is delighted
to report that Come Fly With Us
Magazine is celebrating its third
anniversary this spring. The
publication is now read in 128
countries, across every ocean and
across every continent.
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 35
�ALUMNI NOTES
2005
Jared Ortiz (AGI) and Rhonda
(Franklin) Ortiz (A04) are awaiting
their fourth child in March 2017.
Jared teaches Catholic theology at Hope College in Holland,
Mich., and recently published
his first book, You Made Us for
Yourself: Creation in St. Augustine’s
Confessions (Fortress, 2016). He
is also the executive director and
co-founder of the Saint Benedict
Institute for Catholic Thought,
Culture, and Evangelization
(www.saintbenedictinstitute.org).
Rhonda writes fiction and does
freelance graphic design work.
2006
Michael Bales (SF) recently started
at the Mitre Corporation as a
senior data scientist, a nonprofit
that runs federal research centers.
He is also finishing his master’s
in government analytics at Johns
Hopkins University.
Alumni interested in
careers in data and
public service may
contact him at mike.
bales@gmail.com.
2016 was a good year
for Jacqueline KennedyDvorak (AGI). She and
her husband had a baby
in April, he got a new job
in November, and she got
a new job in December.
In January she saw great friends,
Melody (AGI07) and Everett Reed
(AGI07), and their three children.
She looks forward to seeing them
again, as well as Camille Stallings
(AGI07) in May.
Sarah Rera (A) was named to the
2016 New York Super Lawyers
Upstate list. She is an attorney,
and recently became a shareholder, with the law firm Gross
Shuman Brizdle & Gilfillan, P.C.
She is admitted to practice in New
York State and Federal Courts, as
well as before the U.S. Supreme
Court and Bankruptcy Court,
Western District of New York.
Russell Max Simon (SFGI) recently
wrote and directed his first feature
film, titled #humbled, about an
idealistic young theatre director who leads her vagabond cast
and crew through the pitfalls of
a fledgling indie theatre production. The “play within the film”
is a modern-day adaptation of
Aristophanes’s The Frogs, which
Simon read while at the Graduate
Institute in Santa Fe. He writes,
“The film explores relationships,
egos, and competing perspectives
on the true meaning of art and
mediocrity. You can get updates on
the film by going to 7kfilms.com/
humbled and signing up for the
newsletter there, or liking the 7k
Films Facebook page: facebook.
com/7kfilms.”
For the past five years, Susan
Swier (AGI) lived in Taiwan and
visited more than 80 cat cafes. Her
new book, published in Taiwan in
both Chinese and English under
2006
Caelan MacTavish Huntress (SF)
has returned to Portland, Ore.,
after living for three years in Costa Rica,
where he and his wife Johanna homeschooled their three children— two sons
and a daughter. Huntress took his wife’s
last name, noting that the Huntress Clan
ruled the Isle of Mann as a matriarchy for
300 years, and their male descendants
have had mostly daughters for five generations. The couple’s
youngest child Taos was born in Costa Rica in an unassisted
water birth. They made their living in the jungle with his
website design business, which was recently absorbed into
the consulting agency Stellar Platforms. This branding and
strategy firm works with authors, coaches, and teachers on
their digital marketing, and packages their teachings into a
curriculum that can be sold as a course on their website. He is
also active in the local Parkour community, teaching and training in the new sport that has its philosophical underpinnings
in Stoic philosophy. This connection is revealed in Ryan Holiday’s book The Obstacle Is the Way, which Huntress suggests
every Johnnie should read. You can follow his adventures at
http://caelanhuntress.com.
notes the timing with the election
was only coincidental.
the title Come in and See the Cats,
introduces 62 of them. The book
is available on www.kinokuniya.
com and is only searchable by the
Chinese title, 這裡有貓, 歡迎光臨.
Swier works as a freelance writer
and recently moved to Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia.
2007
Lucas Smith (SF) and his wife
Miriam had their first baby,
Verity Linnéa Sihn-Sze Smith,
born May 13. The provenance of
their daughter’s middle name is
from Linnaeus. In early 2017 he
immigrated to Canada, though he
36 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
Michael Wu (SF) recently completed an appointment in the
Obama administration, leading
renewable energy and energy
resilience efforts for the U.S.
Air Force. He is now starting an
energy consulting company and
beginning work on a book on the
history of energy in warfare.
2008
In August, Tammie Kahnhauser
(A) accepted a job as a software
engineer at Uber. She is currently
working on tracing tools that will
help other engineers make their
code more efficient.
Nate Okhuysen (A) has been
promoted to the rank of captain
in the U.S. Air Force. Okhuysen graduated from his Judge
Advocate Staff Officer Course in
September of 2016 and currently
serves as chief of Administrative
Investigations for the 86th Airlift
Wing’s legal office at Ramstein Air
Base, Germany. He loves the work
but misses the robust seminar
schedule of the Boston Alumni
Chapter.
children, Meir (2) and Adele, (two
months).
2014
2011
2009
2012
Kyle Lebell (SF) (pictured right) is
completing her final year of rabbinical school and will be ordained
at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic
Studies in May 2018. She and
her husband Sam, who is also
studying to be a rabbi, have two
Chloé Annick Ginsburg (SF)
writes, “When I was studying at St. John’s College never
in my wildest dreams did I think
that a Great Books Program could
ever prepare me for a Hollywood
creative life. When I moved back
to Los Angeles, I pursued accounting in a law firm, but I found that
Ryan Burnett (AGI) shares the following: “Seminar at St.
John’s College has gravity. This comes from the genius of the
writer, the skill of the tutor and the openness of the student.
What we feel is a spirit of shared urgency to get things right.
It is no surprise, then, that my new-found career in water
conservation in California reminds me of my alma mater. Both
St. John’s and my career share the need to get to the heart of
essential things. Clearly,
state-wide drought and
a set of Great Books are
different. However, what
they share is a life-giving
focus on what matters
most. That tenor guides
me every day and has
helped me focus studies,
earn certifications and
Ryan Burnett (AGI14) with his wife
gain a footing on a body
Kate and son Teddy.
of knowledge as big as
you can imagine.”
Virginia Harness (A) left her corporate gig in Los Angeles for a life in
public service as the architectural
historian for the South Carolina
State Historic Preservation Office
in April 2016. She is enjoying a
return to life with four seasons
and a traffic-free commute.
In January Brittany French
(SF) received her master’s
degree in philosophy from
Simon Fraser University
in Vancouver, Canada,
where she is also a teaching
assistant. She plans to study
medicine somewhere in the
U.S. starting this summer.
Nicholas H. Loya (A15) visited the cloisters under renovation at Canterbury
Cathedral while touring with Sidharth Shah (A). Presumably, Anselm saw a
similar scene.
life was not fulfilling enough. So
I reevaluated and discovered my
true passion: costume design. I
then enrolled in a Theatre Conservatory last year where I have had
opportunities to costume design
AFI short films and school plays.
The biggest news I have is that
I was nominated for my costume
designs by the Kennedy Center for
the Performing Arts for Waiting for
Lefty by Clifford Odets. Little did I
know that a liberal arts education
would be the perfect education to
prepare me for such a task. I was
able to analyze the script in such
detail that I think only a liberal
arts major could possibly do. With
these tools I was able to translate
the author’s intent and words into
physical embodiment through
the costumes. I have always been
interested in history, literature,
and fashion, but St. John’s honed
my interests and led me to a
rewarding profession.”
2014
Micaela MacDougall (A) thanks
everyone who donated to her fundraiser to attend the University
of St Andrews in Scotland. She
graduated in November 2016 with
a master’s in theology, imagination, and the arts. Now back in
Annapolis, she is planning her
next steps.
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THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 37
�IN MEMORIAM
Leroy Edward Hoffberger
Office of Personnel Management,
and several conservation
organizations.
Most of Dobert’s clients
worked with him for years and
often decades. And many of
those same clients became dear
friends. He won more than 50
CINE Golden Eagle Awards as
well as numerous other video
and film recognitions. Today his
films are viewed and used in
national parks throughout the
U.S. and have become part of the
nation’s environmental legacy.
He is survived by his wife,
Claire Guimond Dobert; brother,
Peter; daughter, Sabrina; sons,
Pascal and Alexander; and
numerous grandchildren.
Stefan Sebastian Dobert
Class of 1962
October 22, 2016
Stefan Sebastian Dobert
(1938-2016), photographer,
documentary film maker, and
video producer, died peacefully
at his Maryland home. He
was 78 years old. Born in
Geneva, Switzerland, Dobert
spent his formative years in
Bethesda, Maryland. After St.
The Shining Youth/Shining Walls
mosaics at the American Visionary Art
Museum bears Hoffberger’s name.
John’s, Dobert enlisted in the
U.S. Army. While stationed
in Germany he discovered
his passion for filming and
photography. After completing
his military service, he returned
to Germany to work for Screen
Gems at Studio Hamburg.
There, he met his first wife,
Urte Petersen, the mother of his
three children.
For a decade Dobert produced
and directed more than 50
38 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
award-winning films on a
variety of subjects for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture
and for the Federal Aviation
Administration. In 1976, he
started his own film production
company, Stefan Dobert
Productions, Inc. He became
renowned in the industry for
his well-researched and scripted
nature films, educating and
informing the public about
numerous environmental issues.
Over the years, he traveled
the Americas with his second
wife and production partner
Claire, meeting, interviewing,
and filming such subjects as
the Annual Spring Waterfowl
Population Survey, the National
Wildlife Refuge Systems, the
Federal Duck Stamp Program,
all for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. In addition, he produced
numerous stories for the U.S.
Information Agency, the U.S.
November 24, 2016
August 27, 2016
DAN MEYERS
A strong believer in helping his fellow man, Leroy
“Roy” Edward Hoffberger (1925-2016), former
member of the Board of Visitors and Governors
of St. John’s College, may be best known for his
philanthropic activities. The Baltimore lawyer and
businessman served as president and chairman
of the Hoffberger Brothers Fund (renamed the
Hoffberger Foundation in 1963 and known today
as the Hoffberger Family Philanthropies). The
foundation—one of Maryland’s largest philanthropic
funds and one of Baltimore’s greatest benefactors—
supports hospitals, health care services, Jewish
scholarships, artists and various cultural
institutions, and medical research, especially in the
areas of Alzheimer’s and aging. Hoffberger was also
one of the earliest leaders in the effort to create the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
A great supporter of the arts, Hoffberger was an
avid art collector and a co-founder of the American
Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. He also
endowed the LeRoy E. Hoffberger Graduate School
of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of
Art. On the cover of his 2014 memoir Measure of a
Life, Hoffberger wrote, “What we leave behind is
far more important than how far we get ahead.” He
is survived by his wife, Paula; his two sons, Jack
and Douglas; his two stepdaughters, Athena Alban
Hoffberger and Belina Rafy; his brother, Stanley;
and three grandchildren.
Annapolis campus for 18 years.
“I first met her when I came
as a newly appointed tutor to
St. John’s College, in 1979,”
writes Tom May. “… Jan was
the soul of graciousness and
discretion, dealing routinely
with all manner of student and
faculty concerns. Her ability
to listen, her wonderful smile
and genuine laugh, and her
readiness to be helpful are all
lasting impressions I fondly
remember and cherish.” She is
survived by her husband of 64
years, Julian Easterday, Jr., her
son, Julian “Ralph” Easterday
III, and her beloved grandson,
Tyler.
Janice Easterday
August 3, 2016
Board member
After a one-year battle with
cancer, Curran G. Engel (19632016) died on Thanksgiving
Day. Soon after graduating
from St. John’s in 1986, Engel
began his career in the motion
picture industry. He worked
on hundreds of productions,
including independent and
studio films, commercials,
documentary, corporate image
films, and music videos. His
Janice “Jan” Easterday (19342016) passed away after a short
battle with lung cancer at the
Hospice of the Chesapeake
with her loving husband,
Julian, by her side. Many
from the St. John’s community
will remember Easterday
through her work as secretary
to the assistant dean on the
Curran Engel (SF86)
screen credits include The
Sculptress, Heartwood, The Net,
and James and the Giant Peach,
among others. Engel frequently
served as a guest lecturer on
film industry topics and was a
member of the faculty at The
Academy of Art University in
San Francisco, where he taught
courses in producing, production
management, and creating
demo reels. In his final months,
despite his physical pain,
he returned to St. John’s for
Homecoming in Santa Fe, where
he celebrated a 30-year reunion
with friends. He is survived by
his wife, Annalisa Chamberlain
Engel; his sons; and brother
Brandon Engel (SF91).
Thomas Rea
Class of 1951
February 7, 2016
Thomas Herald Rea’s (19292016) groundbreaking
discoveries in the field of
dermatology led to treatments
that allowed patients with
Hansen’s disease, better known
as leprosy, to live without
stigma. Rea and his University
of Southern California colleague
Robert Modlin identified the
exact role played by the immune
system in Hansen’s disease
symptoms; their research paved
the way for new treatments
that rendered the disease
non-contagious and allowed
patients to live normal lives.
Rea served as head of the USC’s
dermatology division between
1981 and 1996, and kept
working at the Hansen’s disease
clinic at Los Angeles CountyUSC Medical Center in Boyle
Heights until a few months
before he died. The clinic was
renamed for Rea in 2015.
After St. John’s, Rea attended
Oberlin College and medical
school at the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor. He
completed his dermatology
residency at University Hospital
in Ann Arbor. Rea worked in
the Medical Corps of the U.S.
Army in Korea and in the
dermatology department at New
York University, where he first
began treating Hansen’s disease
patients. He had an appreciation
for books, film, classical music,
and Japanese art. Rea is
survived by his wife of 51 years,
Mary; his sons, Andrew and
Steven; and four grandchildren.
Also Deceased:
Paul C. Cochran, Class of 1963
October 14, 2016
Virginia A. McConnell, AGI84
August 21, 2016
Jesse Faulkner Sherman, A06
January 27, 2015
Robert Alexander, Class of 1942
August 23, 2016
Christian “CJ” Dallett, SF88
February 23, 2017
Veronica Nicholas, Class of 1963
November 29, 2016
David F. Simpson, A97
August 28, 2016
Burton Armstrong, Class of 1943
January 4, 2017
John S. DesJardins,
Class of 1947
November 7, 2016
Jacob C. Perring, SF06
October 29, 2016
George F. Smith, Class of 1947
October 19, 2016
Devin J. Ayers, EC05
January 26, 2017
Donald A. Phillips, Class of 1955
Carol J. Dockham, SF76 August 24, 2016
Margaret J. Bair, AGI13 September 8, 2016
Paul A. Sachs, Class of 1941
September 25, 2016
Margaret Jean Mattson, AGI90
November 18, 2016
June 21, 2016
John W. Burke, A79
Michael A. Smith, A87
August 28, 2016
Mary Storm, Class of 1962
November 29, 2016
February 5, 2017
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 39
�JOHNNIE VOICES
HOMER IN CHINA
By Martha Franks (SF78)
C
hinese high school is a warrior culture. The students in my
classes in Beijing were engaged
in constant battle, which became
clear when I took them slowly
through Homer’s Iliad. The Greek society
sung by Homer is based on competition for
excellence in battle, which was rewarded by
glory, honor, and prizes. My Chinese students, fighting their way through the literal
and figurative tests of a competitive high
school, understood that down to their bones.
Everyone attending Bei Da Fu Zhong, the
high school where I taught for two years from
2012-2014, were high achievers, having fought
to excel all their lives. They spent enormous
time and money on test preparation. I disliked
their preoccupation with tests, so I never gave
them any, which mystified them. As far as they
knew, doing well on tests was the only point of
school. How could they win glory if they did not
take tests?
My argument—that a person might genuinely
be interested in learning—seemed to them a
quaint, if charming, frivolity. They could not
afford to indulge in it.
I pushed the argument anyway; it was part
of my job. Dalton Academy was geared toward
students who intended to go to the United
States for college. It was also an experimental program that tried to get away from a
deadening focus on tests, in order to encourage
creativity in students.
We plunged into both tasks on the first day
of class. Beginnings are always challenging,
and starting a discussion class was especially
difficult for these kids. After years in the classroom, their voices had only been raised when
they were sure of the answer.
“Was Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek
armies, a good king?” I asked. Silence. I wrote
the question on the whiteboard. “What do you
think? Was Agamemnon a good king?” More
silence. People looked down and fiddled with
pens. The silence became so uncomfortable
that one student, Janie, restively broke it.
“No,” she said with an angry air, as if it
made her mad that she had been driven to
speak. “He should not have take away prizes
from best warrior Achilles and humiliate him.
That is stupid. Good king isn’t stupid.”
We had started. It took time and lots of
encouragement, but discussion has an almost
physical momentum, especially among competitive people. Each expressed opinion calls forth
an equal and opposite opinion. I asked Janie a
few questions: “Why do you think Agamemnon
did such a stupid thing? What might worry him
about Achilles?”
Sam reacted with the opposite opinion to
hers: “Good king should control powerful warrior or his authority is attack. Agamemnon is
smart. Think Achilles problem.”
Anne agreed. “Achilles acting like child
weakens. Good king must be strong.”
(My students understood English very well, but
when it came to speaking it, they often ignored
the parts they found strange, unnecessary, or
confusing, such as articles, plurals, and tenses.)
Seeing Sam’s and Anne’s disagreement
as a challenge to her, Janie turned on them
combatively, saying with scorn that Agamemnon could have found a less stupid and greedy
way to control Achilles if he was afraid of him.
Sam swelled a little. Other voices came quickly
forward to soothe the waters. Chinese students
dislike disharmony in the classroom, and will
try to heal it.
In the classes that followed, we spent some
time with Achilles sitting in his tent, trying to
decide which is the best life, short but glorious or long but obscure. I asked my students,
“What do you think is the best life?”
A pause, and then someone, nearly whispering, ventured: “The best life has lots of money.”
There were suppressed giggles.
“Okay, good,” I said. “Suppose you have lots
of money. What do you do with money?”
“Buy things,” someone else said boldly, and
got a laugh.
“All right. Obviously, you don’t want money
itself, you want the things money can buy.
What things?” I wanted to know.
Lots of ideas poured out at that: “Clothes,
jewels, travel, a big house….”
“Why do you want these things?” I asked.
They thought that was a ridiculous question.
There was no why about wanting things. You
just wanted them.
Tom joked: “I want because my friends don’t
have!”
“So,” I replied, “you want your friends to envy
you, or to be impressed by you?” They looked
at me with an “of course!” expression, which
was tinged with a little surprised embarrassment—I gathered that people rarely said that
aloud. “Why do you want that?” I pressed.
“I feel proud,” Tom answered, after a moment.
“You want glory and honor, like a Greek warrior?” He agreed, relieved that we were talking
about the book again. Yes, he was like a Greek
warrior that way.
Allen jumped into the silence and announced: “I want to be rock star.”
“Why do you want that?” I asked.
He grinned, sure he had figured out the
answer: “Glory and honor!”
“We spent some time with
Achilles sitting in his tent,
trying to decide which is the
best life, short but glorious
or long but obscure.”
“Really?” I teased him back. “You don’t actually like music? It’s just a way to get money,
glory, and honor?” Allen’s music was a byword
around the campus. He played in a band every
extra moment he had. He admitted that he
loved music for its own sake.
I asked: “If you had to choose between
money and music, which would you choose?”
This question seemed to hit a sore place.
Faces turned downwards. Perhaps it named
something that many of them hid within. They
might like music, or art, or anything, but they
had obligations to their families. All of them
were only children, their family’s best hope for
wealth.
“I won’t choose,” said Allen, bravely. “I want
both.” The circle lightened, and I thought they
would applaud.
Class ended and students stood up, chattering
excitedly in Chinese. I took this as a good sign.
As the book and the semester progressed,
there were a variety of reactions to how we
were reading and talking. A few wrote the
whole thing off as an easy credit because there
were no tests and no one was forced to join the
conversation. I believe they had spent so much
of their lives looking at school as a source of
glory, honor, and prizes—separate from the
private personal places where their real interests lay—that they did not know how to treat it
otherwise.
Lots of students, though, loved what went
on in our class, even though they still thought
it a charming luxury that they could not afford
to indulge in very much. If an SAT loomed,
work for my class was likely to be the first
thing shorted. And yet the figure of Achilles
became vivid in their minds. Living in their
own warrior educational culture, they felt how
angry he was when the glory, honor, and prizes
he had worked for were taken from him. They
understood, too, why his reaction to that was
to wonder whether these things had ever been
worth his life.
Homer’s answer to that question is not obvious, but perhaps it has to do with the scene at
the end, one of the greatest moments in Western literature. King Priam of Troy comes into
the Greek camp by night, alone, to beg Achilles
to give him his son Hector’s corpse for burial.
Achilles and Priam, Greek and Trojan, victor
and vanquished, magnificent and broken, have
both lost people they loved. And they know they
will die soon. Achilles shares this mortal sorrow with the king of the enemy city. As one of
my students put it, in a lovely English sentence:
“Achilles and Priam weep together, in the dark,
in the quiet of Achilles’ tent, with the army
sleeping around them.”
My Chinese students and I concluded that
Achilles’ lasting glory was not won on the
battlefield. His greatest glory is that he grew
great enough to feel for all human loss and
sorrow, even those of his enemy. Possibly Confucius meant something like this when he put
the quality of “ren (仁),” or “humaneness,” at
the center of his answer to the question of what
is the best life. If so—and it will be the job of
people like my students, with learning in both
traditions, to decide—then the insight is neither
Eastern nor Western, but belongs to us all.
Martha Franks (second row, fourth from the left) with students from her high school in China.
40 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 41
�FIRST PERSON
ALUMNI PROFILE
VIEW FROM THE TOP
GUIDED BY INTUITION AND REASON
By Andrew Wice
By Yosef Trachtenberg (A15)
“Every rule has an exception, Mr.
Trachtenberg,” Mr. May whispered to
me as I mounted the stage to receive
my diploma. As my Freshman Language
tutor, he argued with patience and humor
against my insistence for unequivocal rules
of translation. This was my main approach
to life—everything had to be logical,
definite, and precise.
In many ways, that class set the tone
for my time at St. John’s. What began
concerning translation spread to my
ethical beliefs. I wanted there to be
definite, logical, and universal ethical
rules so I wouldn’t need to rely on my
intuitions. I didn’t understand them, so
I didn’t trust them. Many philosophers
we read attempted to provide a rigorous
ethical system, but none were convincing. I
concluded I must (for now) base my ethics
on the particulars of each situation, guided
by my intuition and reason.
Even as I was becoming disenchanted
with logical rules for life, St. John’s
was sharpening my logic. If my ideas
weren’t logically sound, they would likely
be challenged (they were often challenged
even when they were logically sound, but on
other grounds). I became skilled at spotting
flaws in arguments, and my standards for
accepting something as true increased
significantly. If anything, I took this too far.
I would find a flaw and use it to dismiss the
entire argument. But a flaw doesn’t mean
the conclusion is false or the argument
contains nothing useful, so I learned to find
value in arguments despite their flaws.
Beyond logical skills, conversations at St.
John’s (both in and out of class) improved
my ability to communicate. I learned when
to interrupt and when to listen, how to deal
with lecturing, and how to disagree without
alienating. Of course, knowing what I should
“I learned to find
value in arguments
despite their flaws.”
do doesn’t mean I always succeed at doing it.
This next change seems trivial, but may
turn out to be the longest lasting effect of
my education. Before St. John’s, I hadn’t
sung (outside the shower) for 15 years.
Freshman Chorus required me to sing, while
giving me a comforting crowd to lose myself
in. I came to love singing; I still sing our
chorus songs. In addition to the pleasure
their beauty brings me, singing these songs
recall the community I found at St John’s.
I hadn’t expected to experience a
sense of community. During high school, I
withdrew from people and learned how to
be happy alone. I expected to live the rest
of my life with only superficial connections.
At St. John’s, I met people who shared
my interests, who I could have engaging
conversations with, and who could inform
42 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
and challenge my thinking. Moreover, I
came to respect their intellectual and moral
character. For the first time, I saw potential
for friendships based not just on utility or
pleasure, but on a shared desire to figure
out how the world works, what a good life is,
and how to live it.
Not everything at St. John’s was new.
Sometimes, I found words for ideas I already
lived by. In Epictetus’s Discourses, the
statements “At first, distance yourself from
what is stronger than you” and “It is not the
things themselves that disturb people but
their judgments about those things” perfectly
described my choices during my withdrawal.
I found a name for what I had become.
Reading and discussing Stoic philosophy
also showed me the potential for moving
beyond Stoicism. While it helped me
approach the world with equanimity, I found
Stoicism’s limits. As a Stoic, maintaining my
equanimity requires keeping a part of me
isolated from people. I still want to act in a
level-headed way, but I now think it possible
to experience the strong emotions that
arise from wholehearted connection with
other people without letting them cloud my
judgment. I believe such a life is nobler than
a Stoic one, and while I’m just beginning to
explore its possibilities, I would never have
considered it before my time at St. John’s.
St. John’s enriched my life beyond
measure by helping me break through many
barriers I created for myself. It softened my
rigid worldview, led me to like people again,
and left me with a deep love of singing.
Infrared technology provides valuable data for wine growers.
Robert Morris (SF04)
Soars above the Competition
In the world of
agribusiness, the
use of commercial
drones has become
increasingly popular
among farmers
seeking aerial
imagery of their land.
Robert Morris (SF04),
CEO of San Francisco Bay-area company
TerrAvion, which produces the highest
volume of aerial imagery for agriculture in
the nation, is bucking that trend.
The company has reached the pinnacle of
the industry by using airplanes instead of
drones. By applying first principles to the
economics of the aerial imagery industry,
Morris realized that properly employed
airplanes would be far more efficient than
drones. Flying at a higher altitude, staying
in the air longer, and stringing together
multiple flight paths are accumulative
advantages which drone-based services
cannot match. “Dynamics that favor high
volume and customer density in imagery
production mean that we can keep offering
a better product for less cost per unit—just
like computer chips or network links have
been doing for decades,” Morris says. “Soon,
this will allow us to give tools to farmers for
a few bucks that were not even available to
the highest generals for billions (of dollars) a
decade ago.”
TerrAvion uses the latest innovations in
information technologies to electronically
deliver detailed maps of farmland with
overnight data analysis. That analysis can
be rapidly used to optimize irrigation, see
disease before it spreads, or maximize
the return on investment of fertilizers and
herbicides. The company allows agribusiness
to “farm more land more efficiently, more
sustainably, more profitably, and more
comfortably,” Morris says, which agricultural
companies have been quick to adopt.
After graduating from St. John’s, Morris
served as an officer in the U.S. Army, leading
a drone platoon in Afghanistan. He was
properly skeptical of the so-called “disruptive”
drone technology, and remained stoic when
drone-based aerial imagery companies took
an early lead. TerrAvion’s use of planes
was first able to gain traction among wine
growers on the California coast. “TerrAvion
started operating in vineyards because their
early adopters were especially receptive to our
service,” Morris says. “Vineyards intentionally
stress the vines to create flavor and sugar
in the grapes—this gives off a really clear
signal in the infrared to monitor from the air
and also means grape growers are farming a
valuable crop at the edge of control—making
the stress data especially valuable.”
Today, the company’s success has crested
the tipping point. The economy of scale means
that TerrAvion has been able to expand at an
exponential rate into the nation’s agricultural
heartland. “The majority of our acreage
is now east of the Rockies, mostly in corn
and soy,” Morris says. “Growers of traded
commodities are really focused on efficiency
of production and scale, so they are also
growing at the absolute limit of what plant
science allows. We actually expect Nebraska
to be our best market next year because the
irrigation practices and crop mix make it
super-receptive to what we’re doing.”
In Silicon Valley’s hyperbolic scramble for
the next paradigm shift—a concept now often
called the next “disruptive technology”—
Morris believes that innovators with a
foundation in the classics possess a deeper
insight and a broader overview. “Is the
automobile, or telephone, or internet-based
retailer more disruptive than geometry,
optics, or Christianity?” says Amariah Fuller
(SF11), one of several Johnnies working
at TerrAvion. “The type of collaborative
inquiry we undertake at St. John’s is the
best preparation for vague vagaries of the
business world. … Getting to the root of what
someone is talking about in a collaborative
way is where Johnnies shine,” Fuller says.
“The most intimidating business concepts
fall to pieces when you ask a few simple
questions.” In the coming years, Morris
expects to “continue to hire more Johnnies as
we grow, since they are so adaptable and can
work so effectively across disciplines. …We
want the ones that love action.”
THE COLL E GE | ST. J OH N’ S C OL L E G E | SPR I NG 2 017 43
�EIDOS
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE GREENFIELD LIBRARY / COURTESY OF HENRY HIGUERA
S T. J O H N ’ S F O R E V E R
FORWARD
EDGE OF
HISTORY
The year was 1959. Dwight D. Eisenhower
was our country’s president. And St. John’s
College was expanding. On May 22, Eisenhower paid a special visit to St. John’s to
dedicate three new buildings on campus: Mellon Hall, McKeldin Planetarium, and Francis
Scott Key Auditorium. Before a crowd that
included 25 descendants of Francis Scott Key,
Eisenhower delivered remarks tinged with his
trademark humor and wit—and admiration for
the Program.
“The colleges of civilization remind us that the
affairs of the human community are continuous and indivisible,” Eisenhower said in his
speech. “Your own Great Books program,
organized around the masters of thought for
thirty centuries, convincingly demonstrates
the interdependence of human activities.
President Eisenhower, left, and St. John’s
President Richard Weigle stroll past the
McKeldin Planetarium.
Today is merely the forward edge of history.
From Homer to Einstein, through politics to
philosophy and physics, the past instructs the
present, ever revealing the continuity of the
human adventure.”
After touching on the U.S.’s position in world
affairs, Eisenhower concluded with comments
on the importance of “the educated citizen”
that a St. John’s education produces. “It cannot be too often repeated that there is urgent
need for the citizen to grasp the relationship
between his own actions and attitudes and
those of the nation of which he is a participating member.”
One of Anyi Guo’s (A15) greatest gifts
as a photographer is her ability to make
an instant connection with her subjects.
Whether focusing her lens on St. John’s
students and tutors engaged in conversation,
hot air balloons drifting across a Turkish sky,
or art lovers taking in the British Museum,
Guo captures the spirit of her subject with
an artist’s eye and a click of her camera.
While a student at St. John’s, Guo’s photography skills were in high demand. Using an
actual film camera (the Olympus mju II and
Kodak Portra 400 film is her favorite combo),
she provided photos for student publications
as well as The College magazine, covering everything from Croquet to basketball
games to Freshman Chorus to lunchtime
reading groups. Guo now works for a finance
firm in London, where she has embraced
European culture and new experiences—and
continues to follow her bliss. “I’ve learned
a lot about the world since my move,” says
Guo. “I’ve learned to have a dry sense of
humor from Brits, to speak with gestures
from the three Italians that I live with, to
greet continental Europeans with cheek
kisses, and to make authentic Indian food.”
View more of Guo’s photography at anyiguo.com.
44 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 017
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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.
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The College, Spring 2017
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Volume 42, Issue 1 of the The College Magazine. Published in Spring 2017.
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The College Vol 42, Issue 1 Spring 2017
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Shook, Gregory (editor)
Venkatesh, Krishnan
Haratani, Joan
Wolf, Robert
Lund, Nelson
Stickey, Sarah
Brann, Eva
Kalkavage, Peter
Salem, Eric
Russell, George
Franks, Martha
The College
-
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Text
S T. J O H N ’ S C O L L E G E
FA L L 2016
VOLUME 41, ISSUE 2
Penelope
The Odyssey’s
Creative Thinker
�ii THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 016
�OPENING NOTE
Everybody needs time for themselves. Time to breathe, to recharge,
to contemplate. Time is a gift. But it
is also necessary in order to develop
big ideas and ponder creative solutions to life’s innumerable problems.
Where would we be today if Plato
or Einstein were slaves to the daily
grind, never making time and space
to think? For many of us, the challenge is to allow ourselves this time,
not as a mere indulgence but rather
a vital ingredient for a life well lived.
At St. John’s, we take time to think
but also to connect with one another,
to address questions and figure
out new systems together. With
another academic year underway,
the college’s two campuses are
alive with new and returning faces.
Upperclassmen welcome the influx
of freshmen, lending guidance and
support—from crash courses in waltz
to assistance with ancient Greek—to
their fellow Johnnies. By now I have
witnessed such scenes countless
times. Once in a while it makes me
recall my own undergraduate years,
now decades behind in the rear
view, and causes me to smile. After
all, St. John’s is a place where we
look back in order to move forward.
Gregory Shook, editor
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 1
�FALL 2016
VOLUME 41, ISSUE 2
“� ime is a weaving and unweaving;
T
it makes and unmakes beings and relations.”
—Michael Grenke, tutor
FEATUR E S
P A G E 1 8��
P A G E 2 2��
PA G E 2 8
PENELOPE’S
CHOICE
WONDROUS
BREAD MAKERS
WEAVING A
SOCIAL FABRIC
Placed on the clock by her
suitors, the Odyssey’s creative
problem-solver manipulates time
in order to defend her marriage,
but what is she defending?
With a neighborhood business of
their own—making baked goods
from scratch—this enterprising
Johnnie couple are part of the
mom-and-pop revival.
To create a self-sustaining
community of independent,
progressive workers requires a
skill set rooted in interaction,
innovation, and collaboration.
ON THE COVER:
Penelope illustration
by Thomas Ehretsmann
2 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 016
�D E PAR T ME N T S
��FROM THE BELL TOWERS
BIBLIOFILE
FOR & ABOUT ALUMNI
4 �
Bienvenue en France
Study Abroad
32 �athryn Kramer looks back on her
K
upbringing steeped in the great
books in Missing History.
34 �JCAA News
S
6 Lasting Legacies
7 �
A Spruce for McDowell
8 � Than a Game
More
Croquet 2016
9 Tutors Mark the Occasion
10 Whimsical Worlds
11 �abor of Love
L
12 Johnnie Origins
14 Mark Roosevelt Inauguration
33 �ea Wilson (SF08) blurs the lines
K
between life and art in We Eat
Our Own.
36 �lumni Notes
A
40 � rofile: Anika Prather (AGI09)
P
breaks education traditions.
42 �In Memoriam
�
Natalie Goldberg (SFGI74) shares
her essays on life’s vivid moments
in The Great Spring.
44 �hilanthropy: Class of 2016
P
sets a new record.
�
Charles Melson (AGI88) provides
new analysis of the Western
experience in coping with “small
wars” in Kleinkrieg.
46 �
Johnnie Voices: Alumni weigh
in on an icon.
45 � irst Person: Sawyer Neale (A18)
F
JOHNNIE TRADITIONS
48 �t. John’s Forever
S
EIDOS
49 Jennifer Chenoweth (SF95)
ABOVE: Spiffy socks at the 34th annual
Annapolis Cup
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 3
�From the
BELL TOWERS
AIX-EN-PROVENCE
Bienvenue en France
New Study Abroad Enriches Our Learning
SUSAN STICKNEY
This January, as 20 second-semester juniors unpack, they will arrange Moliere and
Racine upon shelves in Aix-en-Provence family homes. For 16 weeks, like lodgers,
10 Johnnies from each campus will enjoy breakfasts and dinners prepared by their
respective French hosts. The classrooms of their program—The Institute for American
Universities, or IAU College—lie along the cobblestone streets of historic downtown
Aix, less than an hour north of Marseille, near Avignon and Arles. Lab equipment
necessary for duplicating experiments by Faraday and Maxwell is provided.
“We’ll do the program in full, the same
program the juniors do on both campuses,”
says Santa Fe tutor Judith Adam. Since February, she has called herself the Tutor for Study
Abroad. As one of four faculty members going
to Aix, Adam hoped to be practicing her French
this summer. Yet after Santa Fe Dean Matt
Davis assigned the task of writing the study
abroad proposal, and the board agreed to go
ahead in 2017, she found herself in charge
with “less than one year to get the program
off the ground.” In Aix, Adam looks forward
to Annapolis and Santa Fe students “coming
together in one place,” mixed in one seminar
and two sets of tutorials.
According to its website (IAUFrance.org),
IAU College, founded in 1957, hosts an array of
students from more than 200 colleges and universities across the United States. Throughout
the year, thousands of young scholars live with
families and study in classrooms in the medieval center of town. A half-hour stroll along
a country road leads to the Marchutz School
of Fine Arts, part of the IAU program since
1976. Here towers Montagne Sainte-Victoire, a
limestone ridge more than 3,000 feet high that
sprawls across 11 miles. It inspired 60-plus
paintings by Cézanne.
Last April, Adam and Annapolis tutor
Brendan Boyle introduced the study abroad
program. Approximately 50 students attended
teleconference information sessions, and then
filled out applications that included essays. Due
to limited space during this pilot year, students
were selected through a lottery. “Judith has the
most difficult task,” says Boyle, who was asked
by former dean Pamela Kraus to administer
from Annapolis. “Creating a community of
learning no different from the ones we have
thousands of miles away involves logistical,
practical challenges that Judith is spending a
lot of time negotiating. Her efforts have been
Herculean.”
Directed by the deans and the Instruction
Committee, Adam hammers out the minutiae
of program-related issues such as adequate
study space, setting up a lab from scratch, and
making sure blackboards are in classrooms.
“It would be chaos,” Adam says, without the
assistance of Amy Weber from Santa Fe’s
4 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 016
admissions office, an international education
professional who has guided students from
various institutions since 2005. After Weber
was named assistant director for off-campus
studies, she organized non-academic details
including visa applications, insurance, plane
tickets, and other items to ensure that students
and faculty will be adequately prepared.
Although maintaining the integrity of the
academic program and ensuring the safety
and well-being of participants are top priorities, another focus is financial accessibility.
Johnnies in Aix will have the same financial
aid they normally receive, although workstudy opportunities will be limited, at best. A
freshman who usually supplements income via
work-study “could anticipate needing to save
a little money for second semester junior year,”
suggests Adam. Study abroad is a whole-college program, and Adam is disappointed that
faculty recruitment this first year—a casualty
of time and scheduling pressures—exclusively
represents Santa Fe.
St. John’s has always encouraged individual
students, often at their own expense, to go
abroad for summer or gap-year programs. “We
will only do a program that is financially possible for all or most of our students,” Annapolis
tutor Patricia Locke explains. Locke stresses
that it will be “our exact program, only in
France.” She spent nine months in Aix last year,
and now, on sabbatical, plans to live there this
fall as a Resident Fellow, sponsored by IAU.
Although she will help set up the program,
she declined the offer to join the first faculty
group because she has been in Europe all
year. Accompanying Adam will be tutors John
Cornell, Patricia Greer, and Jay Smith, none of
whom will be teaching full-time. In partnership with IAU student services, they will act
together as assistant deans.
Both Adam and Locke tell how the longstanding friendship between St. John’s and
Marchutz makes IAU a natural fit for this
program. Individual St. John’s students and
faculty have studied fine arts at Marchutz for
many years. Two summers ago, Santa Fe tutor
Susan Stickney brought six Santa Fe and two
�Annapolis Johnnies to Marchutz’s six-week program; this past summer Annapolis tutor Sarah
Stickney did the same with a smaller crew.
Decades ago, the late Santa Fe tutor Dean
Haggard led a seminar at Marchutz on the
Meno. Adam brags that “IAU has been interested in St. John’s because they see how good
our students are. They’re stars in Marchutz.”
Depending on how the Aix experiment goes,
Locke foresees the possibility of a second
program in Greece. The original idea, she says,
was that Annapolis faculty and staff would
organize a program in Greece, while Santa Fe
focused in France. “I, with Nick Maistrellis, was
investigating the possibility of a sophomore
semester in Greece.” Dean Davis, in Aix for
several days last January and February, was
able to work out many details quickly, and they
proceeded in that direction, “starting small,
to get the kinks out,” says Locke. If a Greece
program was initiated, ideally, “the students
could choose between France and Greece,”
Locke says.
“IAU is very knowledgeable about St.
John’s,” Davis explains. “In fact, the Marchutz
school is modeled around us. Their biggest
class of the week is a five-hour, or longer,
seminar on Fridays in which they are looking at
paintings and talking about them.” He is confident that at IAU, “They know us. They know
what we need. They’re not going to interfere.
They’re not going to try to make us take their
classes.” Johnnies in Aix will have classes in
spoken French available, but not mandatory.
“They know our program is very rigorous and
OPPOSITE PAGE: Place
d’Albertas in Aix.
TOP: Students view
Delacroix’s painting,
Entry of the Crusaders
in Constantinople,
at the Musée du
Louvre on a Marchutz
museum field study.
BOTTOM: Johnnies
enjoy one of the many
open-air cafés in Aix.
SUSAN STICKNEY
—Annapolis Dean Joseph Macfarland
CHARLEY UMBARGER
“� ur learning is not entirely
O
nested within words,
written and spoken; we are
thinking about how we
are placed in the world and
how we act in it.”
takes a lot of time.” Davis praises the homestay aspect because “it will give the students
a deeper sense of what it’s like to live abroad.”
His decision to put Adam in charge was easy.
“Judith seemed like a very good choice. Not
only had she been to Aix, but she’s well versed
in French, speaking and reading it well.”
When it comes to security, both the IAU
website and Davis do not mince words. Davis
says he will monitor the situation in Europe.
Speaking for both deans, he insists, “Our job is
the welfare of our students. We would never put
students in danger.”
Before launching this project, faculty
engaged in considerable discussion and
debate. One concern, writes Annapolis Dean
Joe Macfarland, is that “Many study abroad
programs are deeply unserious; they are quasieducational vacations.” He adds, “I have come
to think that study abroad is not essential to
liberal education, but still a beneficial addition
to it.” Macfarland describes how, “In the laboratories, we spend a good deal of time looking
at phenomena, trying to see the world before
us with fresh eyes, letting what appears shake
our preconceptions, and then giving a fresh
account to ourselves in words. Our learning
is not entirely nested within words, written
and spoken; we are thinking about how we
are placed in the world and how we act in it.”
He concludes, “I think study abroad provides
opportunities to supplement and enrich our
discursive learning.”
—Robin Weiss (SFGI90)
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 5
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
SERVICE TO SJC
Lasting Legacies
With nearly 50 combined years of service, Barbara Goyette (A73) and Victoria Mora, both of
whom retired from the college in summer, left
legacies marked by affection for St. John’s.
Mora, who served
more than two
decades as a tutor,
dean, vice president
for Advancement, and
senior vice president
for Development
and Alumni Relations in Santa Fe,
joined United World
College-USA as the
fifth president of
Victoria Mora
the school’s U.S.
campus, located in Montezuma, New Mexico.
At St. John’s, Mora’s talents and passion for
academic and institutional leadership, as well
as her admiration for the Program, informed all
aspects of her work. With vision and skill, she
cultivated deep philanthropic relationships and
managed a wide range of fundraising efforts,
TA L K O F T H E T O W E R S
In Annapolis, two new tutors have joined
the faculty. Rahul Chaudhri comes to the
college from Stanford University, where he
received his PhD in philosophy and taught in
the university’s Thinking Matters program.
Andrew Joseph Romiti (A07) returns to the
college from the Catholic University of America
where he is expected to receive his PhD in
philosophy.
In Santa Fe, two new tutors have joined the
faculty. Ian Moore comes to the college from
DePaul University, where he is working on
completing his PhD in philosophy. Nicholas
Starr (SF02) returns to St. John’s from
Boston College, where he received his PhD
in political science.
On each campus, there is a new dean, associate dean, and four additions/changes to the
including a successful campaign in honor of the
50th anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. “The
reason I fell in love with this place was the
dynamic nature of the classroom,” Mora noted.
“Ideas matter here and learning isn’t just a
buzzword. People weren’t just taking classes—
they were exploring ideas that mattered to
them in a spirit of intellectual friendship.”
Goyette, like
Mora, may be best
described as a dyedin-the-wool Johnnie.
After graduating
from St. John’s, the
Ohio native studied at
Catholic University’s
School of Philosophy.
She returned to her
alma mater in 1994 to
serve as the college’s
Barbara Goyette (A73)
new director of Public
Relations and Publications in Annapolis. To
this position she brought expertise as a writer
and editor with various publications; in 2001
“she took a modest little newspaper called The
Reporter, founded and edited by this writer,
and transformed it into a beautifully edited
magazine, The College, a publication worthy of
college’s director-level leadership. In Annapolis, Joe MacFarland is the new dean. Emily
Langston is the associate dean for Graduate
Programs. John Kane is the new director of
Major and Planned Gifts. Robert Mueck is
the new director of Public Safety. Leo Pickens
(A78) now serves as director of Leadership
Annual Gifts. James Reische is the collegewide chief communications officer. He comes
to St. John’s from Grinnell College, where he
served as vice president for Communications.
In Santa Fe, Matthew Davis is the new dean.
David McDonald the associate dean for Graduate Programs. Sarah Palacios now serves
as college-wide director of Alumni Relations.
Maureen Small is the new director of Student
Health and Wellness. Edward “Ned” Walpin
now serves as college-wide executive director
of Enrollment Management. Michael Wismer
is the new director of Public Safety.
6 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 016
the college’s name,” writes Rebecca M. Wilson
(H83) in a letter to The College. For the past
15 years, Goyette served as vice president for
Advancement in Annapolis.
Goyette’s and Mora’s efforts reflect their
shared dedication to the values of St. John’s
and their deep-rooted desire to enrich the
life of the college.
READER SHARES
Golly! It’s remarkable how different people
are (and thank God they are!), even among
St. John’s fund raisers. Consider Jeff Bishop:
outgoing, charismatic, beloved—whose death
saddened all of us—and then think about Barbara Goyette. I’m stunned when I do. A quiet,
behind-the-scenes, wonkish type, never pushing
herself forward, with a Type A personality
highly capable of handling the wealth of information at her fingertips, Barbara has worked
in unsung ways since 1994 for the better good of
the college. During her last 15 years, when she
was serving as vice-president of the Annapolis
campus, she raised no less than $127 million for
St. John’s. It’s an extraordinary record.
Not only that, among other things, when
Barbara headed the publicity office in Annapolis, she took a small, modest little newspaper
called The Reporter, founded and edited by this
writer for parents, alumni, and friends, and
converted it into a beautifully edited magazine,
The College, worthy of St. John’s name. Not
incidentally, she has accomplished all this by
showing the quality most important to any
member of the St. John’s family: complete,
personal integrity.
As Barbara retires on July 1, I’m tired of
quietude. The angels in heaven may flap their
wings in applause, but I want earthly sounds:
for the bells of McDowell Hall to ring out for her,
for the Freshman Chorus to compose an anthem
in her honor, for the waves of College Creek to
lap more noisily in her praise. I imagine Jeff
Bishop hiking himself up in his grave to give an
admiring shout-out for this 1973 alumna who,
in her retiring way, has played a tremendous
role in keeping the college going. All hail,
Barbara Goyette! Let the word go out: You’ve
shone, Barbara! You’ve left a brilliant record!
—� ebecca Wilson (H83), St. John’s director
R
of News and Information, 1973-88
�IN ANNAPOLIS
A Spruce for
McDowell
It’s where waltz parties swing into the night.
Where seniors ring the bell upon completing their essays. Where faculty and students
convene for a cup of coffee and good conversation. And where alumni and the community
meet for lectures, concerts, and Croquet.
McDowell Hall is an architectural jewel
and the historic heart of St. John’s College.
Built in the 1740s and praised by Thomas
Jefferson, the building and the surrounding
four acres were gifted to St. John’s by the
state of Maryland in 1784. The elegant facility,
named for the college’s first president, John
McDowell, stands as one of the nation’s oldest
academic buildings in continuous use. Formerly a dorm, dining hall, classroom building,
and faculty building all in one, McDowell Hall
still serves as the academic and social hub of
the Annapolis campus. In particular, the Great
Hall, with its elegant wrapped balcony, is a
popular gathering spot for Johnnies to enjoy
music, singing, and dancing.
McDowell Hall is poised for major repairs.
Last renovated in 1989, the building requires
structural work as well as other physical
upgrades to ensure that it meets proper
standards and accommodates the educational
needs of today’s and tomorrow’s Johnnies.
The Maryland Independent College and
University Association (MICUA) has endorsed
a $2.9 million grant—nearly half the $6 million
the project requires—which the State of Maryland will decide on next spring. An anonymous
donor has issued a 2:1 challenge, with an
invitation to alumni and the broader St. John’s
community to help complete the project.
“Alumni and friends can now leverage their
gifts as they support this historic preservation project,” notes Annapolis President Chris
Nelson. “It’s important to preserve this living
landmark for future generations of Johnnies
and the entire Annapolis community.”
To make a gift and learn more about
opportunities to support the McDowell Hall
renovation project, please contact Laurie
Reinhardt, vice president of Development
and Alumni Relations, at 443-482-6575 or
laurie.reinhardt@sjc.edu.
The College
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
Anna Perleberg Andersen
(SF02)
Rodjinaé Brown (SF16)
Michael Grenke
Bob Keyes
Leslie Linthicum
Jonathan Llovet (A17)
Sawyer Neale (A18)
Bonnie Scott (A17)
Robin Weiss (SFGI90)
Babak Zarin (A11)
Design
Skelton Design
Contributing Designer
Jennifer Behrens
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 7
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
JOHNNIE TRADITIONS
More Than a Game
For Johnnies, Croquet is a
Tie That Binds
“Dreams come true!” Stephanie Hurn (A17)
proclaimed amid a cheering crowd of Johnnies
and other spectators gathered on the front
lawn of the Annapolis campus for the 34th
annual Annapolis Cup. Hers was the winning
shot that clinched a 3-2 victory for St. John’s—
its 27th in the historic croquet rivalry with
Navy. Throughout the afternoon on April 16,
the Johnnies, sporting denim overalls and
straw hats, battled nobly against the Midshipmen in what was one of the tighter matches in
recent years. “It was a nerve-wracking game,”
says team member Joe Gillespie-Hill (A17) of
his own battle for victory. “Close until about
three-quarters of the way through.”
ABOVE: Surrounded by her
teammates, Stephanie
Hurn (A17) hugs the
Annapolis Cup in near
disbelief after making
the winning shot.
LEFT:
No contest:
Patrick (A01) and Citlali
McDowell, and their son,
are the best dressed
family at Croquet.
ABOVE: Jennifer Shumpert (A15)
celebrates with her friend and former
teammate Stephanie Hurn (A17).
RIGHT: William Knight (A08) dons
authentic vintage attire.
With a dazzling run of consecutive shots
on the court, Hurn was a picture of focused
determination. At one point during the match
she silenced a group of boisterous fans with
just a look and a wave of the hand. “I’ve seen
8 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 016
her run the break before,” says St. John’s
Imperial Wicket Noe Jimenez (A16), impressed
by Hurn’s prowess with a croquet mallet. “She
knocked it out of the park. I’m so proud of my
teammates. It was an incredible team effort.”
Suffice to say, a special bond exists among
Johnnie croquet team members. At this year’s
match, Imperial Wickets and team members
from previous decades returned to campus
to support their alma mater and check out
the new crop of players—and to take mallet in
hand once again for a bit of friendly competition. Long after the picnics were packed up
and the spectators cleared the lawn, croquet
titans past and present gathered for a round
of “SJC 9-wicket,” played not for glory but for
love of the game.
—Gregory Shook
�COMMENCEMENT 2016
Tutors Mark
the Occasion
Per St. John’s tradition, seniors selected
members of the SJC community to provide
addresses at this year’s commencement
ceremonies. In Santa Fe, tutor Eva Brann (H89)
took the opportunity to offer a last-minute
language tutorial. Addressing the 78 seniors
and 19 Graduate Institute students assembled
on the Weigle Placita, she thoughtfully yet
playfully took to task a well-meaning sentiment:
“I want to make a difference. I want to change
the world.” Brann looks to Kant—arguably one
of the more challenging Program authors—to
analyze these words and get to the heart of
their true meaning. “He thinks that doing right
is not doing what you want but what you ought,
and that, in fact, the only proof of your doing as
you ought is that it hurts some, that your mere
wanting is thwarted.”
A mentor as well as a tutor, Brann is a
model for the “examined life” that a St. John’s
education encourages. During her address,
she reflected on the tutor-student dynamic at
the college. “You may often have thought that
our, the tutors’, intention was to throw you
into a permanent muddle,” said Brann. “But, of
course, the opposite was our hope: It was that
you would find in your reading the elements of
your own firm view of what is good universally
and therefore what is better in particular.”
Seniors in Annapolis also selected a beloved
member of the faculty, Thomas May, to offer
words to mark the momentous event. “Mr. May
has many of the qualities that I look for in a
tutor: generosity, thoughtfulness, knowledge,
experience, and a sense of humor,” says Max
Dakin (A16). In addition to leading seminars
and language tutorials, May has served as
director of the Freshman Chorus, skillfully
introducing the college’s love of music to its
newest members. Addressing the 85 seniors
and 15 Graduate Institute graduates gathered
on the campus front lawn, May requested a
moment of reflection: “Think back to when
you first came here. The convocation, then the
gathering afterwards, meeting the president,
dean, tutors, and community; then off to your
first class, assigned book in hand dutifully read,
you picked your seat and waited for the opening
“� ou may often have thought that our,
Y
the tutors’, intention was to throw
you into a permanent muddle. But, of
course, the opposite was our hope: It
was that you would find in your reading
the elements of your own firm view of
what is good universally and therefore
what is better in particular.”
—Eva Brann (H89)
question. Do you still remember what it was?
How much can you recall of the discussion that
followed?”
Befitting the occasion, May concluded with
words from a poem by Wendell Berry: “May
you always have the hindsight to know where
you’ve been, the foresight to know where you’re
going, and the insight to realize what you don’t
know and when you’ve gone too far! May you
never forget the friends you’ve made here and
all that has been good in this adventurous
endeavor.”
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�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
H I D D E N TA L E N T
Whimsical Worlds
Sarah Benson Brings
Paper to Life
Annapolis tutor Sarah Benson made what she
describes as her “first paper automaton” at age
8. While attending the Strawberry Hill day
camp on Nittany Mountain near Centre Hall,
Pennsylvania, she created a figure on paper—a
strongman with stripy socks—meant to come
to life when cut out and played with. Known as
Hampelmann in German-speaking countries,
or jumping-jack, at the tug of a string his
arms and legs begin to move. “He was an
automaton to me, though he didn’t move by
himself, because he nevertheless seemed to,”
says Benson. “The delight comes from our
participating in the illusion.”
Benson’s creative and whimsical bent only
grew with time, taking many different forms.
While in her teens, Benson wished to become
a clockmaker. Her parents gave her a kit
called “Make Your Own Working Paper Clock,”
and she again gave life to paper, which now
ticked and tocked. When Benson later began
to explore philosophy she discovered that “the
two paths seemed nearly interchangeable at
the time. Either seemed an occasion to explore
“� dilemma of the tourist
A
who knew Rome so well
already was to find the topographic city as interesting
as the paper one.”
Sarah Benson’s first paper automaton
moves with the help of a string.
10 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
Benson’s “MIDDLEMARCH PAPER THEATER” is
modeled on the 18th-century paper theaters
of Martin Engelbrecht. In the background is a
peep-show birthday card for her husband, with
a silhouette of their baby girl inside.
questions of what makes a thing alive, what
constitutes the mind.” She found the historical
narrative of paper worlds just as enchanting as
her own experience with them.
As an art historian, Benson has had the
opportunity to gaze back through time, making whole cities—now only knowable through
the trails of artifacts and documents they
left behind—folded into the three-dimensional
world of her mind, breathe once more. Pop-up
paper theaters became common entertainment
in the 1700s, a century before George Eliot
wrote her novel Middlemarch. There is a
scene in the book in which Dorothea, the main
character, travels to Rome with her husband.
Benson explains that before Dorothea laid
foot in Rome, she had probably known it as a
paper city—the streets, piazzas, monuments,
and ruins all laid out in printed views, which
onlookers who had never set foot in the city
itself could explore, both with their eyes as
well as their imaginations. “A dilemma of the
tourist who knew Rome so well already was to
find the topographic city as interesting as the
paper one,” says Benson, who created her own
paper theater with Dorothea in the center of
the stage, her second husband-to-be off to the
�side, his gaze askew. Benson’s theater allows
readers to put Dorothea back into paper Rome
and imagine how the character is affected by
sites she never visits in the novel.
Benson’s interest extends into old optical
devices made to enhance the experience of
paper worlds by exaggerating them to the
eye. One such device is the zograscope, which
belongs to the lineage of optical entertainments that seek to immerse the viewer in the
scene, along with cinema, 3D photography, and
virtual reality. Printed views with exaggerated
perspectives called vues d’optiques were sold
to be seen through the zograscope. “I knew
about zograscopes from my research into
printed views of Rome,” says Benson. “But I’d
never seen one in person before noticing one
among the collections of historical scientific
instruments in Mellon Hall. I don’t think
anyone knew what it was. Thanks to the Paca
House Museum in Annapolis, which lent us two
of their vues d’optiques, I got to try it out with
the students. It was a lot of fun.”
great books. On Saturday mornings, one of
them brings a translation of one Stephanus
page, which they discuss after they “schmooze,
chew the fat and gossip.” (“Stephanus page”
refers to the pagination of a 16th-century
edition of Plato’s works, used for standard reference.) Moving one page per week maintains
a manageable pace, and it also has a greater
benefit. Each of them preserves anonymity and
the unity of the translation, since no one gets
special rights to a section or speech. When I
asked about it, Mr. Salem said they have no
idea who originally prepared each section. They
work as amateurs—lovers—of Plato’s dialogues
and of our own. In this spirit, they work as
readers, for readers, in dialectic cooperation
to produce a translation to engage with. Ms.
Brann said, “Some classicists may find it outrageous, but if they spend some time with it, they
might even learn something.”
That said, the translators had hot feet putting Plato’s dialogue into English. As Mr. Kalkavage explained, when we discuss a play, such
as Hamlet, we can juggle various readings of
—Bonnie Scott (A17)
So, how’s the fruit? Edifying, delicious. Their
work fits the dialogue’s theme: the translation
fills the reader with Eros, inspiring her to press
further in inquiry. Ms. Brann, Mr. Kalkavage,
and Mr. Salem showcase the dialogue’s saucy
seriousness, tracing shifts in register and style.
One hears the poetic eloquence of Agathon, the
unwittingly funny formality of Eryximachus,
Socrates’s ironical wit. There are benefits to
making English more like Greek when writing
a translation, but this trio offers a wealth
of clever, dynamic English working on its
own terms. Sometimes the language is clear
and simple; at other times it follows twisting maneuvers of intentionally complex and
convoluted speech. Using their translation, Mr.
Kalkavage led a GI Preceptorial on Symposium and Phaedrus this summer in Annapolis.
One student captured a quality of their translation by asking, “Who is the better guide, the
grammarian who produces a reference book, or
Shakespeare?” The trio of tutors has found the
medium between being informed by the Greek
language and by Plato. Where they step away
a line at once. An actor on stage, however, has
no such luxury. In front of an audience, actors
have their feet to the fire and must give a
reading to each line they deliver. Like actors,
the translators decided in each case on a single
delivery.1 What English expression will carry
over the colorful threads of flirtation woven
into this interaction? How should particles—
little words that put theatric gestures on the
Greek’s tongue—come across? Their introduction to Symposium says, “Our goal was to
devise a translation that was as faithful as
possible to the Greek original in vocabulary
and syntax, and that captured the playfulness
of the interchanges and the varying tone of the
formal speeches.”
Eva Brann and “the Boys” translate Plato.
T U T O R T R A N S L AT I O N S
After the students left last spring, Annapolis
tutors Eva Brann (H89) and Eric Salem (A77)
gathered at fellow tutor Peter Kalkavage’s
office, where the trio put finishing touches on
their most recent collaboration, a translation
of Plato’s dialogue on Love, Symposium or
Drinking Party. About 20 years ago, when
Ms. Brann was asked by the editor of Focus
Press to translate the Sophist, she asked Mr.
Kalkavage and Mr. Salem to join her in the
project. Since then, these tutors have translated several of Plato’s dialogues: Sophist,
Phaedo, Statesman, and now Symposium.
With the new translation done, they still had to
polish their essays and send drafts to the publisher before summer sessions began. In this
in-between time, I spoke with them about the
fruit of their labors and the labors themselves.
Each member of the trio works on translation projects individually—Italian short stories,
French poetry, Greek fragments, works on
mathematics, other Plato. But how do they
practice, as Mr. Kalkavage called it, the “unart” of translation together? In the same way
that everything is practiced at the college: as
friends in dialogue with each other and the
JENNIFER BEHRENS
Labor of Love
from a so-called “literal” translation, they step
up and are more accurate for it.
Symposium or Drinking Party will
be published in spring 2017 by Hackett
Publishing. The trio of Eva Brann and “the
Boys” will begin work shortly on their next
translation: Plato’s Philebus.
—Jonathan Llovet (A17)
1
To the relief of their feet, they include a glossary
that discusses the meanings of important Greek
words in Symposium.
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�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
ON SOCIAL MEDIA
JOHNNIE ORIGINS
Facebook was abuzz this summer when Kevin Thomas
(A93) posted his story about why he came to St. John’s,
inspiring other Johnnies to share their own “origin stories.”
Here are just a few excerpts, which have been edited for
length and clarity, from the many that were shared:
“After my junior year I had an opportunity to
go to a summer program [at St. John’s]…I
spent one morning in a two-hour seminar
with [tutors] John Verdi and Debbie (Renaut)
Axelrod, and it felt like the most natural thing
in the world. After a few weeks, I couldn’t
bear the thought of leaving. I lay awake one
night trying to piece it all together. All at once
I saw: I could apply early, and not go back to
high school! I went to see Eva Brann, who
was dean at the time. She looked at me and
said, ‘Are you serious?’ Once she saw I was,
she sent me to Admissions. I applied in July
to come in August. Somehow the financial aid
I needed materialized, even so late. Then my
parents realized I was serious and made a last
ditch attempt to prevent it. But I refused to
give in. My dad visited my seminar when I was
a freshman and said, ‘You should stay here.
I’ve never seen a discussion like that.’ At St.
John’s I flourished under the care and attention
of my tutors. Among many life-saving things,
I learned something crucial for life in general
and for intellectual life in particular: how to
cope when you don’t understand something.”
that I could study exactly the same things at
Harvard that I could study at St. John’s, taking
Plato, Greek, French, etc., plus I would have
the Harvard degree. So I applied and got into
Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, and attended
Harvard. I was in a freshman ‘seminar’ class
there where the graduate student teaching the
class basically read his dissertation to us. I
knew that was not my experience of seminar at
St. John’s…
I began to realize that my high school counselors had been wrong, and that I could not
replicate a SJC experience at Harvard. I found
a dorm proctor who had gone to St. John’s
College as an undergraduate and asked her
what she thought about SJC versus Harvard. I
remember her being extremely professional and
balanced, explaining, ‘On the one hand Harvard
…and on the other hand St. John’s…’ But I
could see that every time she spoke about
St. John’s her eyes lit up with life and love for
the institution. I arranged to visit SJC as a
prospective student again just to make sure.
After that visit, I knew I had to go to St. John’s
[which] I describe as one of the great loves of
my life to this day.”
MICHAEL STRONG (SF84):
JEROME DAUSMAN (AGI11):
“I first encountered St. John’s in a pile of college brochures that came in the mail after I
took my PSATs. I had scored well and seemed
to be getting huge numbers of brochures that
all looked the same—smiling students on bright
green lawns looking like they were having fun.
Then came the St. John’s brochure, with the list
of Homer, Plato, etc. It is the only brochure that
I read all the way through. I made arrangements to visit at the beginning of my senior year
[and] loved it immediately…
My high school counselors then began to talk
me into applying for the Ivy Leagues, saying
“My origin story starts with MIT. I learned
how to use the formulas, how to write a
paper on the facts, and how to take exams.
I also learned how much others had read and
was somewhat jealous. I wound up with two
degrees and a desire to read anything and
everything. Years later when my son was
in his first year at St. John’s in Annapolis I
decided to do his readings also. Because
Herodotus and later Thucydides were so
interesting I read them cover to cover, though
the freshmen only read half of each. My son
finished freshman year in May and I was still
ZENA HITZ (A95):
12 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
“�..when my son was in his
.
first year at St. John’s I
decided to do his readings
also. Because Herodotus
and Thucydides were so
interesting I read them
cover to cover. . .So I followed
him to St. John’s, enrolling
in the graduate program.
Being able to discuss the
books with others makes all
the difference. My son and I
graduated together in 2011.”
—Jerome Dausman (AGI11)
�“� know that wherever I go
I
in life and whatever happens
to me, I will still have the
books in my heart and a
cadre of friends pointing the
way to the examined life.”
—Lauren Cooper (A10)
be forever grateful for the college for providing
me with such a transformational education. I
know that wherever I go in life and whatever
happens to me, I will still have the books in my
heart and a cadre of friends pointing the way to
the examined life.”
ELI CASTRO (SF94):
reading January assignments! So I followed
him to St. John’s, enrolling in the graduate
program. Being able to discuss the books
with others makes all the difference. My son
and I graduated together in 2011.”
LAUREN COOPER (A10):
“After a bumpy couple of years involving a number of ‘teachable moments,’ I found myself in
my dorm at a different school, miserable, bored,
and extremely lonely. I was frustrated by the
lack of engagement by other students, the lack
of support by my professors, and the constraints
of having to only take classes in my major (when
all I wanted was to learn all kinds of things, not
just one thing). I resolved to leave college completely and pursue my life dream of being a goat
herder. A few weeks later, I came to my senses,
remembered a high school teacher’s recommendations, and started looking at the websites of
various small colleges. At that point, SJC struck
me as the only place I could go and experience
freedom from the constraints of majors…I will
“I visited St. John’s in October of my junior
year in high school. I’d like to claim more
noble motivations, but I was as excited for the
chance to skip out on a few days of school,
meet college girls, and see Santa Fe as I was to
investigate the curriculum. Within a few days,
I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else. The
conversations I was part of there—particularly
one in the coffee shop, after seminar—changed
my entire perspective on what a conversation
could be. When I got home, I sat down with my
dad over ice cream and explained that there
was no way I was waiting through another year
of high school to do this. I contacted the Grand
Rapids School Board, arranged to take my GED,
completed my application, and headed off that
fall to Santa Fe. There are very few decisions
I’ve made in my life that I’ve been more certain were the right one.”
CHRISTOPHER HADLEY (A92):
“I went to St. John’s because of close friends of
my family who were alumni. They were creative,
thoughtful, and integrated in the way I wanted
to be. It was a great decision, to go to St.
John’s—Santa Fe first, then Annapolis. I’m still
relishing ongoing conversations with books
and authors from the Program. I have never
stopped reading the Great Books. And I still
love my living and breathing friends that I met
there, too!”
Do you have an “origin story” that you
would like to share with The College? If so,
please send it to thecollegemagazine@sjc.edu.
AHHH, REFRESHING!
Have you heard the news? St. John’s
recently launched a refreshed version
of its website, www.sjc.edu. Incorporating extensive input from alumni, faculty,
staff, and students, the newly enhanced
design is meant to better feature the
Program and show the world the St.
John’s we know and love. If you haven’t
done so already, take a moment to peruse the website—and be sure to follow
St. John’s on Facebook and Twitter.
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�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
I N A U G U R AT I O N
St. John’s Welcomes
Santa Fe’s Seventh
President
“There’s a fear of pomposity,” Mark Roosevelt
said in the week leading up to his inauguration
as the seventh president of St. John’s College
in Santa Fe.
Those fears were put to rest September 16
and 17, in an inauguration weekend that included
barbecue and beer from the Cowgirl Hall of
Fame, a Dixieland jazz band, film showings,
and an American Indian hoop dancer who had
the crowd on its feet. Roosevelt did his part to
reduce pomposity by pairing his academic robes
with blue-soled sneakers for the ceremony.
As the event was timed to coincide with Santa
Fe’s homecoming weekend, these spirited aspects
of the program were meshed with more familiar
traditions, including the procession of faculty in
academic regalia, and attendance by numerous
board members, Alumni Association leaders, and
alumni. The inauguration also included warm
welcomes to Roosevelt from Annapolis President
Chris Nelson (SF70) on behalf of the Annapolis
campus, Santa Fe Dean Matthew Davis (A82)
on behalf of the Santa Fe staff, and from Audrey
Morf (SF17) on behalf of students.
Greg Avis, Roosevelt’s friend and a former
board member at Antioch College, where Roosevelt was previously president, introduced St.
[The St. John’s education]
“changes people who can go
on and change the world.
Please know this . . . my
commitment to preserving
this education and celebrating
its impact is unwavering.”
—Mark Roosevelt
John’s new college-wide leader, praising him for
his razor-sharp intelligence. “This is not a ‘job’
for Mark,” Avis said. “It is a calling.”
In his own inauguration address, Roosevelt
spoke of the importance of the St. John’s
education: “It changes people who can go on
and change the world,” he said. And he spoke
to the challenges faced by our unique small
college. “Please know this,” Roosevelt said. “My
commitment to preserving this education and
CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM LEFT: Live jazz fills
the air. A hoop dancer delights the crowd.
President Roosevelt stresses the value of
St. John’s. Bernstein mentors students.
Kimmelman and Bernstein tickle the
ivories. FOLLOWING PAGE: Dixieland sounds
ring in the festivities.
celebrating its impact is unwavering.” Nelson
affirmed this statement, saying that Roosevelt
“treasures the St. John’s Program, the quality
of community life on both campuses, and the
dedication of the faculty and staff to the preservation and sustenance of the college and its
program of study.”
Briana Saussy (A03, EC05), a member of
the college’s Alumni Association, says she has
already seen Roosevelt’s devotion to the St.
John’s mission and his ability to work through
the tensions and concerns about the consolidation of two campuses under one president. “My
personal impression,” she says, “is that Mark is
very much the right person to steer the college
at this point in time.”
—Leslie Linthicum
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�WORLD-CLASS MUSICAL
ACCOMPANIMENT
Pianist, composer and teacher Seymour Bernstein, at 89, is having something of a moment.
After retiring from an international performing
career at age 50, Bernstein turned to teaching
and writing, laboring in partial obscurity until
2014, when actor and director Ethan Hawke
met him at a dinner party and made him the
subject of his documentary film, Seymour: An
Introduction. Since then, Bernstein has found
a new audience among piano students, music
lovers, and a general audience who recognize
him as a mensch and a mentor: a sage, as
much as a musician.
St. John’s President Mark Roosevelt and his
wife, Dorothy, had never heard of Bernstein
when they watched Seymour: An Introduction
on Netflix earlier this year. It was just as the
planning had begun for Roosevelt’s September
2016 inauguration.
“We just loved it,” Roosevelt said. “I realized
that much of what is represented in the film
is central to what St. John’s is about: The
willingness to cast aside societal and cultural
expectations, the value placed on teaching, and
the passing on of things.”
Roosevelt invited Bernstein, along with one of
his piano students, New York Times art and architecture critic Michael Kimmelman (who has
studied with Bernstein since the age of 5) to
be featured guests at the inauguration. On the
Thursday night before Roosevelt’s installation,
the college hosted a free showing of the film at
Santa Fe’s Lensic Performing Arts Center, followed by a conversation and Q&A with the star
of the film himself. And “star” turns out to be
an apt descriptor: Bernstein related to the assembly of alumni, board members, and friends
of the college how, on a trip to Korea after the
film debuted, he was mobbed and followed by
camera crews. “Now,” he said in an interview,
“I know what a rock star feels like.”
At Friday’s inauguration, held in the Winiarski
Student Center on the Santa Fe campus, Bernstein and Kimmelman charmed the audience
with a shoulder-to-shoulder performance of Franz
Schubert’s Fantasie in F Minor (Bernstein calls it
“a symphony for four hands”). After the ceremony
they were joined by tutor Sarah Davis for a wideranging and very personal panel discussion about
success, ego, and the connection between work
and meaning, with Bernstein suggesting that
everyone look in the mirror and say, “I love you.”
Bernstein also devoted several hours to mentoring student musicians in one of his legendary
public master classes before a live audience:
St. John’s student Evan A. Quarles (SF17) and
two New Mexico high school students, Presley
Gao of Los Alamos and Leah Epstein of Taos,
selected via a statewide video audition sponsored by St. John’s.
Bernstein has compared the profound effects of
music to profound aspects of life. Life, he says,
has harmonies and dissonances and resolutions, just as music does. “Musicians become
philosophers,” he says. “I believe you won’t enjoy
that resolution if you don’t have that dissonance.
We’re searching for the truth of that B Flat.”
—Leslie Linthicum
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�16 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
�THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 17
�PENELOPE’S
CHOICE
�TUTOR VIEW
T
by Michael Grenke
HE ODYSSEY’S PENELOPE IS A THINKER ,
a person who is effective in facing her world and its problems
by thinking her way out of them. She is, perhaps, even more
of a thinker than her much-devising husband, as he is still,
occasionally, given to “solving” his problems with brute
force. It is in Penelope that Homer more purely explores the
possibilities and limitations of Odyssean cleverness. The
emblem of Penelope’s cleverness is the device by which she
tricks her suitors for three years, her weaving. She uses
the weaving to buy herself time, but the weaving is itself
an image of time. Time is a weaving and unweaving; it
makes and unmakes beings and relations. In her deception,
Penelope gives the impression time has no consequence. She
knits and knits (and unknits), but nothing seems to change.
But it is the changes that accompany or constitute time that
make time a matter of consequence for human beings. And
understood thus, time poses a great difficulty that attends
and deforms the kind of thinking in which Penelope engages.
Bourdelle, Emile-Antoine
(1861-1929). Penelope,
1909. Cast bronze, dark
green patina. 47 ¹ 8 × 17
/
× 14 ¾ in. (119.7 × 43.8
× 37.5 cm). AP 1969.03.
Kimbell Art Museum,
Fort Worth, Texas/Art
Resource, NY
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 19
�TUTOR VIEW
I
n the so-called digression of the Theaetetus (172d),
Socrates sketches an extreme image of the upbringing of a philosophic human being. There the philosophic human being is brought up in isolated
innocence. They are not exposed to or involved in any
of the daily concerns of the political or legal system.
These human beings, alone, says Socrates, are free.
Every other human being, says Socrates, is a slave.
More literally they are slaves to time. And expressed
in more Greek fashion, they are slaves to the water
clock. All of their actions and their thinking, all of
their problem solving, is on a timer.
To be free one must be able to do what one wants.
But in order to be able to do what one wants in the
fullest sense, one must know what one is doing. Only
those who are not concerned with the matters of
the day, the week, the year are free to think about
a problem for as long as the problem deserves. Only
a thinker who is at leisure thinks about a problem
with no limitations other than those that define sound
thinking itself. Only such a thinker can delay their con-
Although Penelope is not wholly opposed
to coming to some kind of arrangement
with the suitors, she tries to delay them.
She tries to put herself in a situation
where there is more time to think more
fully and on more sufficient grounds.
clusion until the thinking itself merits a conclusion.1
All others are under the pressure of some deadline,
the pressing down of the flowing water of time. This
pressure distorts their thinking in one way or another.
It makes them proclaim a finish to the thinking when
more thinking is needed. It makes them proclaim a
matter finished when more argument or more evidence is needed. This pressure leads to bad thinking,
and according to Socrates it makes human beings
“become small and not upright in their souls.”
Human beings become slaves to the clock mostly
because other human beings put them on the clock.
In one of his notebooks from 1882, Nietzsche writes
“Madness is rare with individuals – but with groups,
parties, peoples, times it is the rule.” The word for
madness here is Irrsinn,2 literally erroneous think-
20 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
ing, or more loosely bad thinking. What Nietzsche
seems to have in mind is that our intercourse with
other human beings pressures us to adopt illegitimate modes of thinking. We must agree or, more
accurately, pretend to agree about many matters
regardless of whether we have the resources and have
utilized those resources to come to a well-founded
conclusion. Human beings do not feel secure in the
proximity of other human beings who do not agree
with them. Such agreements are demanded by social
life, and they are demanded on a time table determined by the feelings of the human beings, not by
the epistemological requirements of the matter under
consideration. Who is comfortable with a neighbor
who does not respect property rights, or does not
endorse the prohibition against cannibalism, or who
openly admits that they do not know what justice is?
In general, who is comfortable living near human
beings who do not hold a massive host of opinions
shared in rough outline by the whole group?
It is bad thinking to declare a matter resolved
before it is resolved. It is a mental defect to think
one knows what one does not know. Yet it seems that
social life pushes our thinking into this premature
and self-deceiving form. Not only that, the matters
that society demands we resolve are matters that
move our passions deeply. Thus we see exhibitions
of great anger and agitation in our efforts to govern
ourselves. Governing demands results. Results are
not answers. The clearest thing is that strength of
the passions is out of proportion with the fullness
and soundness of the thinking that backs our claims.
We very often do not know, but when another human
being disagrees with us, we act as if we do know and
as if they ought to know. We would never demand
that a human being give a solution to an equation
before they had actually worked it out, but in many
matters of much greater concern to us we demand
something like that from our fellow human beings.
We put them on the clock. We impress upon them
habits of bad thinking. And we invest the situation
with great passion and grave consequences.
Her suitors have put Penelope on the clock. They
are aggressive and avaricious. They are perhaps
reversions to the piratical character of the early
Greeks. They are perhaps the result of a generation
of young Greek men who have come up, thanks to
the war, without the benefit of the guidance of the
previous generation. They are perhaps just a flaring up of unfiltered human nature, opportunistic
predators that see something desirable (authority
in Ithaka, wealth, a beautiful woman) undefended
�and are not sufficiently inhibited by conventions that
have no force to back them up. It is unsafe not to
come to some kind of agreement with such suitors.
Although Penelope is not wholly opposed to coming to some kind of arrangement with the suitors,
she tries to delay them. She tries to put herself in a
situation where there is more time to think more fully
and on more sufficient grounds. She tries to defend
her marriage, but what is she defending? The fate of
her husband is unknown. No contact for nearly 20
years. What have they shared? What have they done
together? Nothing. Each has been married to the
other separately. Because of their separation their
marriage is devoid of change, it is time defying and
thus is allied to the leisurely realm of purer thinking. But it is not just their special circumstances that
makes this so. Their marriage is meant to be once
and for all. Perhaps most marriages are meant to be
time defying. Odysseus embraced this thought when
he built his immovable bed. However such a marriage is not aiming at the kind of unchanging character that belongs to undying beings. When Odysseus
defends his marriage, he does so against the offer of
marriage to a goddess. Immortality comes with this
offer. But when Homer gives us a glimpse of Odysseus reasoning about Calypso’s offer it is clear he
is measuring marriage to the goddess against his
existing marriage to the mortal Penelope.
This attempt to have something lasting and stable, but still transient and mortal may offer some
form of compromise with the pressure that time
exerts on our thinking. For it is not just the suitors
that put Penelope on the clock. It is her mortality
also. Loyalty to a person can lose its substance if
that person no longer exists. And her Odysseus may
be dead or so changed as to no longer be hers. Even
if this is not the case, there is a cost to loyalty. Even
when her Odysseus has returned, Penelope laments
that the gods did not allow them to enjoy their youth
together (XXIII, 211). One sees this cost even more
clearly in the touching scene with Odysseus’s dog
Argos. The dog was bred by Odysseus, and he is its
master; it has clung to life loyally, it has waited 20
years to die only when its master returns. But they
have not shared life with one another. How much
better off Penelope is may just be a fortunate accident of her span of life.
Penelope’s marriage is a thought, and not a
thought fully founded upon adequate thinking and
evidence. She has chosen to remain loyal to this
thought even though aware of its inadequate founding. We can see this in the way that she comes to
recognize that her Odysseus has returned. It is
unlike the other recognition scenes. A distinctive
scar may be enough to mark an individual as singular, or performance of a feat that only he can do may
be enough. But this is not how Penelope recognizes
that her Odysseus has come back. When she pretends to order that their immovable marriage bed
be moved, Odysseus responds with strong anger. It
is his emotional response, not his knowledge of the
details of a material secret, that convinces Penelope
that her Odysseus is back. The marriage of these
two, impressive and inspiring as it is, exists primarily in the realm of thought and feeling. And thus it
is fragile; if Odysseus had not returned when he did,
waiting for his return would not have been the best
choice.3 But the fragility of such a marriage does not
mean the marriage is not a real thing. We can and
do live substantially within our thoughts. Since this
is our situation, we should take as much care as we
can regarding the quality of our thinking.
This is why sabbaticals are so
important to those who wish
to live the life of a learner.
They are not vacations. They
are times designed to approximate as much as possible the
leisure that allows a thinking
being to think according to the
criteria of thinking alone.
1�
Compare Beyond Good and
Evil 156 where Nietzsche
makes a similar claim. There
he uses the word Wahnsinn.
2�
Among other things, it would
likely have cost Telemachus
his life.
3�
ABOVE: Penelope at her loom,
miniature, circa 1505,
From the manuscipt Lives of
Famous Women by Antoine Dufour.
Musee Dobree. © DeA Picture
Library/Art Resource, NY
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 21
�22 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
�INDUSTRIOUS ALUMS
Young entrepreneurs
create an old-school
business from scratch
BY GREGORY SHOOK
With the rise in
popularity of glutenfree diets and increased
public interest in
lowering carbohydrate
consumption, bread has
taken it on the chin
lately. Flying in the face
of these culinary trends,
Chris Simmons (A97)
and Lucy Montgomery
(A98) opened a small
business making freshbaked bread, cookies,
pastries, and other
delectable treats from
scratch. The shop was a
hit from the start.
PHOTOGRAPHY: SARAH CULVER (AGI11)
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 23
�Previous page: Chris
Simmons (A97) and Lucy
Montgomery (A98) share
a family moment with
their two daughters in
their shop’s kitchen.
Above: Bakers & Co.
serves authentic treats
with a neighborhood feel.
Right: Chris Simmons
(A97) starts his day of
baking at 3 a.m.
T
he married couple runs Bakers &
Co., a European-style café perched
on a bustling corner in the heart of
Eastport—Annapolis’ quirky neighbor across Spa Creek. Simmons
says the secret to great bread boils
down to three simple ingredients:
water, flour, salt. What about yeast? “For some
crazy reason, I insist on making most of my sourdough bread naturally, so not adding commercial
or instant yeast, which adds a whole other layer
of planning,” says Simmons. “I have to make decisions two days in advance to have my starter
ready to go when I need it.”
Simmons and Montgomery are both selftaught, so they’ve had to figure out the art of baking largely on their own. “Sometimes you take the
longer way to learn something and, at times, be a
little too rigorous. But in the long run you learn
it far more profoundly,” says Montgomery. “I’m
24 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
constantly on a learning curve,” adds Simmons.
“It takes several days to figure out a mistake.”
The couple insists on high standards, even if it
requires more time and effort. “Taking shortcuts
in baking is reflected in the quality of the food,”
says Montgomery. “You taste it.” “We’re tough
critics,” adds Simmons. “When we try to learn
something, we’re not happy with it until we’re
really happy with it.”
A few years into baking, the couple took a busman’s holiday to Norwich, Vermont, for an intensive
week-long class at the King Arthur Flour Company,
a veritable mecca for bakers and bread lovers. It
wasn’t until later, though, that Simmons realized
his classic French breads instructor was “one of
the most serious bread makers in the country.”
While Simmons and Montgomery are celebrating
the shop’s four-year anniversary this Thanksgiving,
their story actually begins nearly a decade ago, when
Montgomery decided on a whim to try her hand at
�“� ometimes you take the longer way to
S
learn something and, at times, be a little
too rigorous. But in the long run you
learn it far more profoundly.”
—Lucy Montgomery (A98)
making bread at home. She found her calling.
A few weeks later, Montgomery traveled to
England to visit a sick relative. While there, her
aunt took her out to dinner at a London restaurant
known for its bread. At the time Montgomery and
Simmons were at a crossroads: she was exploring business school, and Simmons, who learned
about running a small business through his years
working at the old Smoke Shop in Annapolis, was
considering a shift to architecture. During dinner with her aunt, Montgomery, eager to sample
the restaurant’s much-lauded bread, discovered
that she actually preferred her own homemade
creations. Sensing her niece’s newfound enthusiasm for baking, Montgomery’s aunt urged her to
forget about business school and start a business.
Her advice paid off.
With just their hands and a few basic tools,
Simmons and Montgomery began baking bread
free-form at their Eastport home, usually two
loaves at a time, experimenting with different
types and sharing it with friends. The couple
then lucked into a spot at a local farmer’s market. “The timing was perfect,” says Simmons. “I
don’t know how that happened. There’s a threeyear waiting list.”
On their first day at the market, they arrived
with a card table, a tablecloth, 17 loaves of
bread, and a small basket, not quite sure what
to expect. “[The bread] was gone in forty-five
minutes,” recalls Simmons, with wide-eyed astonishment. “Then we thought, ‘what have we just
done? They’re all going to come back next week.’”
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 25
�Fueled by their initial success, the young bakers—
who put in many hours of baking and prep time
per week on top of their full-time jobs—returned
the following week stocked with 22 loaves. Again,
they sold it all.
With Bakers & Co., Simmons and Montgomery
are proud to be part of what she calls “the momand-pop store revival.” Unlike corporate chain
stores, Bakers & Co. keeps limited hours and is
closed two days a week. However, the work never
stops. “I’m busy those two days to get things
going, to prepare for the other five days in the
week,” says Simmons. “There’s not a day that I’m
not there.” The couple is also busy raising their
two young daughters. “I’ve got to get home to
make supper,” says Montgomery, who also manages the shop’s administrative duties. “That’s
what a mom-and-pop is.”
Word of mouth helped the business grow and
bring in new customers. “Our location is very specifically a neighborhood bake shop, but we get
customers from many miles away, from huge distances,” says Montgomery. “It’s kind of a Cheers
thing, where you know everyone’s names, and
people can talk with one another. People desperately want to belong to a community, and they
like the idea of a family bakery. It’s nice to connect with people and have a community. Our shop
fits that.”
Learn more about the couple’s bakery at
www.bakersandco.com.
26 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
�The work never stops. “I’m busy those two
days to get things going, to prepare for the
other five days in the week. There’s not a
day that I’m not there.”
—Chris Simmons (A97)
Lucy Montgomery (A98)
sets out an array of
freshly baked goods.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 27
�C R E AT I V E T H I N K E R
BUILDING
COMMUNITY
AMONG
“BIG-IDEA”
THINKERS
28 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
BY BOB KEYES
�Liz Trice (SF98) says her job
involves being a good host. It
starts with making sure the
coffee is fresh, the bathrooms
are clean and the chairs are
comfortable. Her greatest skill,
she says, is her friendliness.
Trice owns and operates PelotonLabs in
Portland, Maine, a co-working office space for
independent professionals and entrepreneurs.
She creates connections among busy people,
as well as a comfortable and effective work
environment for people whose careers and
lifestyles demand independence and flexibility.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 29
�t’s complicated work, highly
specialized and intuitive, and
involves more than making
good coffee and keeping the
office clean and comfortable.
Trice uses her human relations
expertise, strategic planning
experience, and problem-solving
skills—all rooted in interaction,
innovation, and collaboration—to
create a self-sustaining community of independent, progressive
workers. Her goal is to bring
people together to share what
they know, help each other grow
and “weave a social fabric” that
extends beyond the workplace.
Her work at PelotonLabs is
not unlike the work she does at the nearby
community garden that she helps maintain
in her neighborhood: she nurtures, nourishes, and encourages. “At Peloton, mostly
I just chat with people in the kitchen,
introduce people to each other, and connect
people with overlapping interests,” says
Trice. “My role is community organizer and
group facilitator.”
Co-working is a relatively new concept,
where entrepreneurs, freelancers, consultants, and others who work remotely share
work space. There are about a half-million
co-workers and more than 7,000 co-working
spaces globally, and those numbers are
growing. Employment trends suggest that
by 2020, up to 40 percent of the U.S. workforce will consist of freelancers, temporary
employees, independent contractors, and
solo entrepreneurs.
At PelotonLabs, members own companies, edit books, and make movies. They are
accountants and consultants, marketers and
IT experts. Many are telecommuters who
want a structured office environment, and
about half are self-employed. They’re mostly
a young group, mobile and tech-savvy. The
average age is 39, and the typical member
spends 23 hours in the office each week.
Trice opened PelotonLabs six years ago
GLENN PICHER – DIRIGO MULTIMEDIA
SUCCESS STORY
Sofas provide a relaxed atmosphere to share ideas.
� E WANT A PLACE
W
“�
WHERE
PEOPLE WHO ARE ON THEIR OWN CAN
WORK WITH OTHERS, TO GET THE BENEFITS
OF BEING IN AN ORGANIZATION WHILE
STILL BEING INDEPENDENT.”
with a business partner, and has owned the
business outright for three years. The name
is a cycling term. In races, bicyclists from
different teams work together in groups,
or pelotons, to move faster. Trice builds
community among “big-idea thinkers” so
they can progress faster together than alone.
“We want a place where people who are on
their own can work with others, to get the
benefits of being in an organization while
still being independent,” she says.
PelotonLabs currently has about 80
members, who pay between $100 and $300
30 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
a month. The price reflects different levels
of membership and service. Trice calls
PelotonLabs a clubhouse, where the value
of membership involves more than having
a comfortable place to work. She arranges
professional development gatherings, weekly
lunches, happy hours, and “coaching hours,”
where members share knowledge of their
specialty with others.
In other ways, it’s a little like kindergarten. There are daily snack times, where
everyone is encouraged to take a break,
come together, and share words and food.
�ARCHETYPE ARCHITECTS
PelotonLabs is the city’s first purpose-built office space.
� EXCITING TO BE HAVING
IT’S
“
THOSE CONVERSATIONS AMONG OTHER
PEOPLE HAVING SIMILAR CONVERSATIONS.
WE ALL DO INTERESTING THINGS, AND WE
CAN ALL HELP EACH OTHER.”
There are rooms for napping, and exercise
rings hanging from the ceiling, for when
people need to stretch their bodies.
PelotonLabs consists of two floors in a
modern office building, which opens onto
Portland’s busiest downtown thoroughfare.
The bottom floor is mostly open, with work
stations and tables spread across a colorful
and airy room. There are conference rooms
for meetings and quiet spaces for private
phone calls.
It’s a bustling place, with multiple conversations happening at once. Some people sit
at workstations that face away from the center of the room. Others share tables and sit
across from each other on sofas. The space
is buzzing with white noise, so recognizable
voices are masked. The second floor offers
more privacy and quiet spaces—and private
rooms for naps. It’s a comfortable space,
because it has to be. “I’m competing with
people’s homes,” says Trice.
Trice doesn’t have an office. She
flows throughout the building, and likes
conducting meetings on a sofa near the
front door, where she can see across the
room, into the kitchen and also keep an eye
on the conference room. She works with her
feet propped on a coffee table, her laptop
within reach.
Betsy Smith, an independent consultant,
works at Peloton one or two days a week,
mostly when her kids are home. She likes to
spread out her work and encamp for eight or
10 hours with little interruption. But lately,
Smith has sought interruptions. She likes
to mingle among her co-workers “because
I have found it’s a great place to be talking
about what we are all doing,” she said. “It’s
exciting to be having those conversations
among other people having similar conversations. We all do interesting things, and we
can all help each other.”
She has hired subcontractors through
those conversations, and directed co-workers to leads and ideas for new work.
Another private consultant, Cristos
Lianides-Chin, has been involved with
PelotonLabs since fall 2015 when he
moved to Maine. He was drawn “because
of the community. I really like the mix of
people,” he says. “I needed a desk and office
space short term, but I was looking for a
community and a long-term relationship.”
He’s become an integral member, serving as
technologist-in-residence.
Trice sees her work at PelotonLabs as a
logical trajectory of her life and career. At
age 6, she created a filing system with an
index card for each classmate. That was the
first evidence of what she calls her “thoughtful social inclinations.” Those continued at
St. John’s, where the college’s communal
approach to education suited her mindset.
She did her graduate work at the Muskie
School of Public Service at the University
of Southern Maine in Portland, where she
wrote her master’s thesis about the residential needs of single people. Now in business,
she serves the needs of remote workers, the
self-employed, and emerging entrepreneurs.
The thread, she says, is connecting
people, providing companionship, and sharing resources to improve their lives.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 31
�BIBLIOFILE
KATHRYN
KRAMER
Missing History
K
“� t’s hard to say what
I
the signs are, exactly.
A certain diffidence. A
shared acknowledgement
that the truth is always
a little more complicated
than what anyone is
articulating, including
ourselves.”
athryn Kramer’s new book, Missing History: The Covert Education of a Child of
the Great Books (Threshold Way Publishing, 2015), combines heartfelt memoir
with candid family history, as well as an
examination of the American educational
system. Daughter of Clarence “Corky”
Kramer, a 1949 graduate of St. John’s who
was a tutor at the Annapolis campus and
the first dean at the Santa Fe campus,
Kathryn Kramer was an “academic child”
at the college during the 1950s. In that
era, sweetly scented pipe smoke wafted
from inside and outside classrooms, and
female students first joined their male
counterparts to study the Program. “I recognize other academic children. Children
of literature and humanities faculties,
especially,” Kramer writes in the book’s
prologue. “It’s hard to say what the signs
are, exactly. A certain diffidence. A shared
acknowledgement that the truth is always
a little more complicated than what anyone is articulating, including ourselves.”
Kramer’s loving yet complicated relationship with her father, his career, and
his relationship with the works of Plato,
Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Socrates, is
an underlying theme of the book. “My
father always spoke of them as if he knew
them personally.” When she was a young
girl, her father’s study on the top floor of
their brick row house represented a world
of intrigue and mystery that followed her
throughout her life. “In the study I never
consciously looked at the books, but it
seemed to me that I’d always known them
and their titles, so it came as a surprise to
me one day to realize that I’d never actually read them—these arbiters of Western
thought, these bearers of my philosophical
and literary heritage.”
32 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
As her father grew on in years, he also grew disillusioned by academia. This inspired teacher and scholar
of Western thought became isolated and sought alcohol for solace—a point that Kramer delves into deeply
and openly. “He was tired of having to watch people
‘reinventing the wheel,’ when the Greeks, just to start
with, had already catalogued all the follies of which
human nature was capable.”
Kramer, who now lives in Vermont and teaches
at Middlebury College, looks back unflinchingly at
her own academic experiences—the Key School that
her father helped to found, high school at the newly
established Santa Fe Preparatory School, and then
Marlboro College and Johns Hopkins University
where she studied writing—seeking clues to find what
was missing from those experiences and to better
understand the great books and their bearing on her
life. “The impetus to look back over my own school
years first arose when I began to participate in the
long march of the educational system a second time,
as a parent,” she writes. During a visit to a school,
“I suddenly found myself near tears, remembering all
at once, entirely, as if I’d been transported back to
them at that very moment, the classrooms with desks
arranged in their neat lines, in which you had to sit no
matter what, the teacher in front at the blackboard,
dispensing knowledge, revealing from on high.”
In a letter to Annapolis tutor Eva Brann (H89)
following her “reader response” to Missing History,
Kramer recalls her childhood, in the ether of St. John’s,
as “a privileged upbringing—in a time and atmosphere
that won’t come again.” Since then, Kramer became
interested in tracing back certain habits of thought
and ways of looking at the world. “And I’ve been gratified to find that what I’ve written has struck a nerve
not only for children of academics (though maybe
especially for them) but other people.”
—Gregory Shook
�We Eat Our Own
By Kea Wilson (SF08)
Scribner, 2016
Kea Wilson’s (SF08) debut novel is packed with
enough fright to entice the appetites of most horror
fans: murder, mayhem, mutilation—and, as the
book’s title suggests, cannibals. It’s also compelling
storytelling that weaves clear prose with well-thought
commentary on violence and its repercussions.
Inspired by the gruesome 1980 Italian film, Cannibal
Holocaust by director Ruggero Deodato, We Eat Our
Own is a thrilling adventure set in South America
in the 1970s. The story begins when an unknown,
The Great Spring: Writing, Zen,
and This Zigzag Life
By Natalie Goldberg (SFGI74)
Shambhala, 2016
Natalie Goldberg (SFGI74) has dedicated her life to
the practice of writing and Zen, both of which have
kept her grounded through myriad inner and outer
journeys. A beloved writing teacher and author of the
best-selling Writing Down the Bones, her new book,
The Great Spring, is a collection of 22 short essays
on food, family, writing, painting, meditation, travel,
love, loss, death, and enlightenment—vivid moments
Kleinkrieg
By Charles D. Melson (AGI88)
Casemate, 2016
In his latest publication, Kleinkrieg: The German
Experience with Guerilla Wars, from Clausewitz to
Hitler, Charles D. Melson (AGI88) examines German
analysis of the nation’s difficult process, from fighting
great confrontational battles for which they once
prepared to “small wars,” including insurgencies from
French-occupied Spain to recurrent problems in the
Balkans. Built around the historical analysis titled
Kleinkrieg, originally provided to the German High
struggling New York actor receives an irresistible
offer to star in an art film set deep in the heart of
the Amazon rain forest. However, soon after his
arrival to the jungle outpost he discovers that all is
not right with the production. Worlds collide as the
novel intertwines a cast of characters that includes
American entrepreneurs, guerilla rebels, effects
artists, and the film’s eccentric director, who leads
his crew into a disastrous experiment. The actor who
hoped for his big break now only hopes for survival.
from the past three decades that have awakened her
to new ways of being. From her meanderings through
the New Mexico desert to a meditative retreat at a
monastery in Japan, Goldberg’s stories are deeply
personal and imbued with humor, insight, and honesty.
Organized by theme—Searching, Wandering, Zigzaging,
Losing, Leaping—the book reveals how Goldberg finds
fertile ground by embracing her life and being fully
attentive to it.
Command by Arthur Earhardt in 1935, Melson, former
chief historian for the U.S. Marine Corps, provides new
analysis and expands our knowledge of the Western
experience—primarily that of the United States and
the United Kingdom—in coping with insurgencies in
recent years. Without partaking in ideological biases,
this edited and annotated work examines the purely
military complexities as viewed by professionals.
Rediscovered and presented in English, these German
thoughts on the issue are now made available to a new
generation of military and other readers.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 33
�For & About
ALUMNI
And the Award Goes to…
and volunteerism in the alumni
community, is among the many
highlights of this three-day
event. Last year’s ALFie recipients earned awards for bringing
together past and present
croquet team members for a
friendly on-campus match and
for the Reunion Class Chairs’
excellent outreach efforts.
Charles and Chris Nelson
In recognition of his longstanding engagement with the
college, Charles Nelson (Class
of 1945) received the Lifetime
Service Award at the seventh
annual Alumni Leadership
Forum (ALF) held at the
Annapolis campus in June.
The “ALFies” award ceremony,
which also included Volunteer
Service Awards to alumni in
recognition of their leadership
Organized by the St. John’s
College Alumni Association
(SJCAA) and college staff,
ALF brings together St. John’s
alumni and other members
of the college community
for a weekend of working
groups, special workshops,
meals, and other activities
designed to support and foster
deeper alumni engagement
with the college. Recent
initiatives include the Adopta-School program, workshops
on addressing the role and
means of alumni philanthropy
in the college community,
conversations on empowering
alumni chapter leaders to
offer a wider range of events
for chapter members, and
discussions to explore ways to
develop mentorship relations
with current students and
fellow alumni. Inspired by
Graduate Institute traditions,
ALF also offered opportunities
for alumni to reconnect during
such events as tutorials drawn
from the Master of Liberal
Arts program readings, a posttutorial gathering, and an open
mic-styled event titled “Komos.”
The 2017 Alumni Leadership
Forum will be held from June
2-4 at the Santa Fe campus,
with workshops centered on
St. John’s sophomore year
studies. For more information,
visit sjc.edu/alumni.
—Babak Zarin (A11)
ADRIAN TREVISAN (A84)
Alumni Association Board
President
“� ’m happy to welcome new
I
and returning directors to
the Board as we continue
our efforts to increase
alumni engagement. Our
alumni survey showed that
while most Johnnies want
to have a seminar at their
chapter, many also want
other types of activities, so
we’re working to develop
a broad range of activities
that chapters can offer their
members. We’re always
looking for volunteers to
participate in our work!”
We Have the Votes!
In the last issue of The College, the
St. John’s College Alumni Association
asked alumni to cast their votes to elect
the treasurer, secretary, and six at-large
members of the Alumni Association
Board of Directors, as well as one alumnielected member of the college’s Board of
Visitors and Governors. On June 5, the
St. John’s College Alumni Association
elected the following alumni to serve in
these positions:
Treasurer: Babak Zarin (A11)
Secretary: Susann Bradford (SF89)
At-Large Directors:
Claiborne Booker (A84)
Elihu Dietz (SF06)
Briana Henderson Saussy (A03, EC05)
Mark Parenti (AGI92)
Brenna Strauss (SF04)
Heather Upshaw (SF04)
Representative to Board of Visitors and
Governors: Linda Stabler-Talty (SFGI76)
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.
34 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | S PR I N G 2 016
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.
If you would like to connect or engage
with the St. John’s community, or take
advantage of the college’s resources for
alumni, please visit sjc.edu/alumni to
learn more.
�Books for All
SJCAA kick-starts
a new initiative
In recent years, the St. John’s
College Alumni Association (SJCAA) has sought to
increase awareness of itself
among current students; many
of whom are unaware that
the SJCAA even exists—that
“you’re a Johnnie when you
walk across the stage and
sign the book, and you’re a
Johnnie for the rest of your
life,” as SJCAA Board President Adrian Trevisan (A84)
puts it. The Student Engagement Working Group, led by
alumnae Briana Saussy (A03)
and Martha Acosta (A92),
is trying to make sure more
students know the SJCAA is
there for them. Beginning in
fall 2017, they will be doing
so in a concrete way, with the
presentation of a gift book to
all incoming students.
The gift-book initiative was
inspired by a previous program
by the Annapolis Instruction
Committee that presented a
Greek lexicon to new freshmen.
Saussy first came up with a
proposal that would purchase
lexicons for Santa Fe freshmen
as well. But when the board
asked their student representatives for thoughts, Trevisan says, “After a moment’s
uncomfortable hesitation, they
said that most students now
use an online lexicon, so they
didn’t think it was a good idea.
After we stopped laughing we
declared the project dead.”
Saussy, however, was
undaunted. She spoke
with the SJCAA student
representatives, both deans,
and the two GI directors to
come up with alternate titles
that would still serve as a
“beautiful, meaningful gift”
to students. “Our GI reps felt
that Plato’s Meno was the clear
winner since it is the only
text that all GI students…
will have to read.” For the
Eastern Classics program, they
settled on the Therigatha, “a
collection of poems from the
first Buddhist women.” The
undergraduate selection is the
Green Lion edition of Euclid’s
Elements, a text students will
refer to all four years.
Once the books had been
decided upon, the next task
was economics. Again, Saussy
pushed through to craft an
agreement wherein each Dean
will cover 25 percent of the initiative’s cost, while a development campaign will tap recent
grads to raise the other half.
“Alumni are willing to donate
to have a meaningful impact
on student life,” says SJCAA
Board Secretary Sue Bradford (SF89)—and what better
impact than a Program book?
Both Trevisan and Bradford
laud Saussy for her dedication
to the project, even when it
looked impossible. “I think
there is a sense that this was
a really difficult thing to push
through,” she says, “and I
would say it a bit differently.
This is an ambitious project…I
never took the setbacks
personally and that is probably
what allowed me to just keep
working along. I think that is
one of the best things we walk
away with from St. John’s, the
ability to be truly disinterested
in something—to be able to
consider a situation from
many angles and not to get
upset when we hit a snag but
continue onward while altering
course when needed.”
“�Alumni are willing
to donate to have a
meaningful impact
on student life.”
-Anna Perleberg Andersen (SF02)
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 35
�ALUMNI NOTES
1955
Carolyn Banks-Leeuwenburgh (A)
reports that there is a new Alumni
Chapter in Princeton, N.J. Starting this fall, the group will meet
monthly in the Princeton Public
Library.
1960
After teaching full time for the
last 44 years, Katherine Hsu Haas
(A) is semiretired. She will continue to teach a couple mornings
a week at Annapolis’ Key School,
where she has the new title,
“scientist in residence.” Embracing
more free time in her life, Haas
has ventured into the realm of
Facebook as well as t’ai chi and
bridge. She plans to travel with
her husband and attend theater
performances more often. “Ahhh,
the joy of reading and having
the leisure to do it! I wonder if I
should’ve chosen this life of luxury
sooner!”
1969
Beth Kuper (SF) writes, “I have an
entirely new career working exclusively for transformational life
coaches all over the U.S., helping
them build their support teams
through recruiting virtual and
on-site employees. All my business
comes through personal referrals
of my clients, and I work virtually
from home. Everything I’ve ever
learned professionally, as well as
the life-long classes I’ve taken on
understanding myself and others,
has prepared me for this work. I
am grateful every day for being
able to do what I love: connecting
good people with good people.”
1970
1982
You Scream,
I Scream…
Don Dennis (SF) and his wife
have launched an ice cream
business, Wee Isle Dairy Ice
Cream, on the small island of
Gigha, where they live in Scotland. They currently feature
six flavors, including a rather
intriguing Bramble and Whisky.
Learn more about their new
venture on Facebook.
Ed Macierowski (A), professor
of philosophy at Benedictine
College, is preparing two upperlevel courses and hosting an
extra-curricular reading group to
celebrate the 2,400th anniversary
of Aristotle’s birth in 2016. “We are
reading through Peter Simpson’s
translation of Aristotle’s Politics.
The philosophy seminar is on the
doctrine of being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics, and the Greek
reading course will focus on linguistic problems in the Metaphysics.”
1975
G. Kay Bishop’s (A) story “Coyote
Year” was published in the first
issue of the new online science
fiction magazine, Into the Ruins
(https://intotheruins.com/issues/
issue-i-spring-2016). Bishop notes
that the editor is seeking new
works, “so if you have tried your
hand at post-industrial age sci-fi,
do send it along to him.” More
of Bishop’s work is available at
http://gkaybishop.weebly.com.
36 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
1988
BOOKS FOR THE BLUES
Edward Komara’s (A) 2014 book, 100
Books Every Blues Fan Should Own (with
Greg Johnson), was conferred the Vincent
H. Duckles Award for best book-length
music bibliography by the Music Library
Association last March. It also received
the 2015 award for best history in the category of blues, hip
hop, gospel, or rhythm and blues from the Association of
Recorded Sound Collections. “I never complained about having
to read the 100 blues books, because
everyone around me was showing envy, not pity, for the
project. Even so, reading the books was a serious endeavor.
One large group consisted of histories and biographies, and
another was of cultural anthropology and folklore. But running
in between was a vein of recent commentary, especially
Houston Baker’s Blues, Ideology and Afro-American Literature
(1984), that affirmed the blues as a distinct African American
means of renewing one’s sense of personal identity.” Since
2001, Komara has been Crane librarian of music at the State
University of New York at Potsdam.
1978
After nearly a dozen years in the
Big Apple, Victor Austin (SF) is
now theologian-in-residence in the
Episcopal Diocese of Dallas and
at Church of the Incarnation in
Dallas, Texas. His memoir, Losing
Susan: Brain Disease, the Priest’s
Wife, and the God Who Gives and
Takes Away, was recently published by Brazos.
1981
Joshua Berlow (SF) is the official
movie critic for Perihelion, an
online science fiction magazine,
available at www.perihelionsf.com.
1983
Peter McClard (SF) is working as
a full-time medical app maker
in New Jersey, and still making
music and art. Among his apps
are DrawnIn, Biographer, and
Different Drummer. He notes that
“with DrawnIn, we can create a
communal SJC artsy forum and
later produce an eBook or a light
show from the results.”
1987
Clare (Fisher) McGrath-Merkle
(AGI) writes, “After a long road of
working full time as a fundraiser
and burning the midnight oil, I
just successfully defended a doctoral dissertation in May on the
speculative mysticism and applied
metaphysics found in the theology
of Pierre de Berulle (Descartes’s
spiritual director) at the Faculty
of Philosophy and Social Sciences
of the University of Augsburg,
Germany. (It’s complicated.)
Hoping to find a teaching position
in the U.S. (Apparently, the EU
gives preference to EUers). Since
I didn’t watch television for about
ten years, my favorite post-dissertation recovery therapy is watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives
�1988
HISTORY RECORDED
Charles D. “Chuck” Melson
(AGI) recently retired after
more than 40 years of government service. He spent 23
years with the History and
Museums Division at Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps
in Washington, D.C. and the
Marine Corps University at
Quantico, Va. He held a variety
of positions ranging from historical writer to acting division
director, serving for most of
his career as chief historian. This was a period of major transition and change for his organization, which saw the completion
of the National Museum of the Marine Corps and the Brigadier
General Edwin H. Simmons Center for Marine Corps History.
Melson wrote, edited, and published official histories in the
Vietnam, Gulf War, and Global War on Terrorism series as well
as World War II, Korea, and Vietnam commemorative publications. He recorded service operations and intelligence actions
and represented the Marine Corps at national and international
historical meetings, conferences, and committees. He was also
a joint historian with the U.S. Central Command and Special
Operations Command during the Gulf War and the Global War
on Terrorism. He remains active with the Secretary of the
Navy’s subcommittee on naval history, the Vietnam War commemoration, and volunteer work.
and the (rented) film, Footnote.
(Hint: I identify with the father.)”
1991
Lake Perriguey (SF), a Portland,
Ore. civil rights lawyer, obtained
for his client the first U.S. courtordered recognition of a person
as nonbinary—neither male nor
female. Heralded as the first legal
order recognizing a third gender in
the United States, this binarybusting ruling follows a history of
gender and sexuality civil rights
work beginning at St. John’s
College when Perriguey founded
the first LGBT student group in
1989 and petitioned the college’s
Board of Visitors and Governors to
include “sexual orientation” in its
non-discrimination mandate.
1992
Alec Berlin (SF) is performing on
guitar in a production of a new
musical, Come From Away, at
Ford’s Theater in Washington,
D.C. Ben Power (A93) is also in
the band; they have been part of
the show since May 2015 when
it premiered in La Jolla, Calif.
Following the run at Ford’s, they
will travel with the production to
Toronto in November and December 2016 and then to Broadway
in early 2017. Come From Away is
the story of the town of Gander,
Newfoundland, location of the
northeastern-most airport in
North America. On September 11,
2001, when American airspace
was closed, all trans-Atlantic
flights were diverted to Gander.
Come From Away is the story of
how the Canadian town selflessly
dealt with these events against
the backdrop of chaos and tragedy.
After completing a PhD in theology at Marquette University
in Milwaukee and a post-doc
fellowship at Regis College of the
University of Toronto, Chris Hadley
(A) joined the faculty of the Jesuit
School of Theology (JST) of Santa
Clara University as assistant professor of systematic theology and
began teaching in September.
1994
Ben Feldman (A) finished a PhD
in experimental psychology a year
ago, specializing in autism spectrum disorder and developmental
disabilities research, at Case
Western Reserve University. After
spending the last year doing school
psychology work, he recently
started at the National Institute of
Mental Health/ National Institutes
of Health in the Office of Autism
Research Coordination as a health
science policy analyst.
1995
Justin Maddox (A) recently published “How to Start a War: Eight
Cases of Strategic Provocation”
in the George Mason University
journal, Narrative and Conflict. The
article focuses on the frequent use
of false provocation in preparation
for warfare and its usefulness as an
indicator of impending warfare.
1996
Jonathan Rowan (SF) was awarded
his PhD in comparative literature
from University of California,
Berkley, where he also lectured.
1997
Kevin Neal Gardner (A) was recently
granted tenure as an associate professor at Berea College in Berea,
Ky. “I teach studio art, which for
me includes teaching all levels of
painting, beginning and advanced
drawing, a seminar for graduating
seniors, and international travel
courses, including Italy, Ireland,
and Spain. Additionally, I teach a
general studies course for freshmen
on critical thinking in the liberal
arts, which in method I borrow
heavily from my time at St. John’s.
For a number of reasons, Berea is
a unique college, not the least of
which is its status as tuition-free.
Founded by abolitionists prior to
the Civil War, Berea maintains its
historic commitments to teaching
a diverse group of promising students of limited financial means.
And there is some connection to the
St. John’s curriculum. Robert
Maynard Hutchins’s father and
brother were consecutive presidents at Berea.” View recent examples of his paintings and drawings
at www.kevinnealgardner.com.
1998
Richard Field (SFGI) was erroneously listed in the spring 2016
issue of The College as an alumnus
of the undergraduate program.
2000
After three years of teaching studio
art at the New Mexico School for
the Arts, Karina Noel Hean (A) is
excited to begin the new school
year as the visual arts chair. This
is a unique charter/nonprofit arts
high school, free to N.M. residents,
with a dorm in Santa Fe. She
invites Johnnies in the area who
are interested in a tour to contact
her at karinahean@gmail.com or
khean@nmschoolforthearts.org.
2001
Lance Brisbois (A) is working at
Harvard University. He would love
to hear from Johnnies at Harvard
or in the Cambridge area, and can
be reached at lbrisbois@gmail.com.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 37
�ALUMNI NOTES
The Geometric Life
Since graduating from St. John’s, Lee Howard Madden-Krall (SFGI)
reports that he has architected a geometric life of many skills,
talents, and abilities in multiple disciplines—morphing, evolving,
and training to meet today’s technological demands. Among his
many hats, he became a trained chef, working and teaching at the
Culinary Institute of America, and also learning his craft working as
a chef in the Napa and Sonoma wine region. After 10 years away,
he moved back to his home in New Mexico, where he has enjoyed
reconnecting with the Southwest. He also started his own production business (leehowardproductions.org), which helps clients, including artists and writers, maximize their resources for marketing
solutions and building out their organization, business, or project.
He invites Johnnies who need a personal chef or are interested in
learning to cook to contact him at chefleehoward@gmail.com.
2002
Luke Mitcheson (SF01) married
Daphne Berwind-Dart on
September 5, 2015, in their
backyard in Cambridge, Mass. Luke
and Daphne went to elementary
school together and reconnected
20 years later at a fundraiser.
James Marshall Crotty (SFGI) is
the politics, culture, and travel
columnist for the Huffington
Post. A documentary filmmaker
(Crotty’s Kids), he is also at work
on a Western set in his native
Nebraska. To learn more about his
columns, books, and films, visit
www.jamescrotty.com.
John Rogove (A) earned his PhD in
philosophy from the Sorbonne and
teaches philosophy in Paris.
2004
Kristi (Meador) Durbin (A) welcomed the arrival of her son, Levin
Elias, on February 27. He joins
his sister, Vesper (2). “I have tutor
William Braithwaite to thank for
38 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
2005
Abram Trosky (SFGI) is traveling
through Italy, Greece, and the
Balkans after delivering successful
presentations and panels on peace
building, public opinion, and international law at this year’s annual
joint meeting of the Central and
Eastern European and International Studies Associations.
2008
Tammie Kahnhauser (A) has been
accepted to the Hackbright Software Engineering Fellowship in
San Francisco, Calif. The intensive
12-week fellowship is designed to
transition female candidates from
non-technical backgrounds into
the Silicon Valley community as
web and software designers.
2009
After working as a copywriter
at two of D.C.’s top ad agencies,
Nathan Betz (AGI) has relocated
to Oxford, U.K., with wife Crystal
and daughter Jaël. He is studying
1995
KALEIDOSCOPE OF SOUNDS
Dan Nelson’s (A) band The Pleasure Class released its debut fulllength recording “Sensual Passport.” Featuring three members
of the all-women toy instrument group Toychestra, and a member
of the analog synth/sound art project Boron, The Pleasure Class
uses synthesizers, percussion, toy instruments, and samples to
make music in the tradition of The Residents and CAN. His 2008
book, All Known Metal Bands, which contains the names of more
than 50,000 metal bands, was called “the best bathroom book
ever” by Rolling Stone.
CASSIA LEET
1994
including me in an Anna Karenina
study group several years ago, the
source of inspiration for Levin’s
name,” she writes. “Incidentally,
I find myself farming now. This
spring I became the manager of a
two hundred-plus member Community Supported Agriculture
(CSA) program at the University of
Kentucky’s organic farm. I’d enjoy
reconnecting with any Johnnies
who might travel out this way!”
�2013
patristic theology at St Stephen’s
House, University of Oxford. When
not overwhelmed with research,
he’s seeking to buffer his family
from abject poverty by contracting
as a freelance copywriter and
creative lead.
Elizabeth Harball (SF) is leaving
her post as a reporter for Environment & Energy Publishing in
Washington, D.C. and heading up
to Anchorage, Alaska to join the
Alaska Energy Desk, a collaboration between Alaska Public Media,
KTOO and KUCB, where she will
cover the state’s rapidly changing
oil and gas industry. Her partner
in crime, Richard Brian Woodbury
(SF11), will join her in Anchorage
this December after he completes
his current project at the National
Academy of Medicine.
Sara Luell (A) was appointed
director of communications at
the Maryland Department of
Housing and Community Development in April. In this role, she
oversees communications and
media relations for the agency.
She also serves as a member of
the department’s continuity of
operations planning team and as a
state emergency operations center
representative. In addition, she
serves on the Maryland Responds
Medical Reserve Corps Advisory Council as a member of the
engagement committee.
2010
Linden Anne Duffee (A) reports
that she has successfully defended
her dissertation, “On the harmonic and geometric maximal
operators,” and received her
doctorate in mathematics from
the University of Alabama in May.
In August she began a visiting
assistant professor position at
the University of the South in
Sewanee, Tenn.
2012
Christine (Ivory) Leggett (AGI12)
started swing dancing in college
and continued as a GI Johnnie.
She recently started teaching
Lindy hop for Gottaswing in
Severna Park, Md. and just won
her first swing dance contest in
Virginia. She competes all over
the East Coast and attended her
first international dance event in
Iceland this summer.
Patrick Redmon (AGI)
graduated with highest honors
from the University of North
Carolina School of Law. He
and his wife, Tianlu Jia Redmon
(AGI), have moved to Oklahoma
City, where he will clerk for Judge
Jerome Holmes of the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Tianlu will continue to work as a
freelance Mandarin translator and
interpreter. She recently began
working with the Golf Channel to
translate and provide voice-over
for Mandarin coverage of major
PGA Tour events.
about sex, sexual assault, and
consent. I’m dedicated to being
an advocate for sexual assault,
sex education, and consent. I’m
available to speak at schools and
groups and to read from my book.”
Learn more on her blog: www.
yesnomaybesex.com
2015
Rose (Loofbourrow) Bruce (A)
married Charlie Bruce on
June 25, 2016.
2014
Olivia N. Broustra (SF) writes,
“After a sexual assault interrupted my first year at Vermont
Law School, the many differing
and confusing responses to my
experience inspired me to write
Yes No Maybe. This book explores
the definition of consent as well
as the education or lack thereof
Cynthia Grady’s (AGI05) second book, Like a Bird: The Art of the American
Slave Song, illustrated by award-winning artist Michele Wood, was recently
published by Lerner Books. Grady left her position at Sidwell Friends School
and has relocated to Albuquerque where she is writing full time.
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
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 39
�PROFILE
KIDS RULE!
By Anna Perleberg Andersen (SF02)
Anika Prather (AGI09) Starts a School
That Breaks Tradition
W
hen Anika Prather’s (AGI09) son,
Dillon, started kindergarten, she
soon realized the traditional school
environment was a poor fit for him.
“He’s a very nice boy,” she says with
a mother’s pride—the kind of kid who watches CNN
for fun—but he’s also “very inquisitive, very busy.”
These traits got him into trouble in the classroom.
His otherwise wonderful teacher
responded by giving him time out.
“Okay, you’re being too busy,” she
said. “Just sit down over here until
you learn to control yourself.”
“The teacher thought that was
a positive way to handle it,” says
Prather, who doesn’t blame Dillon’s teacher for using this method.
But she also doesn’t believe it was
helpful, and searched for a different school for his first-grade year,
a place “where his curiosity and
his need to move could be appreciated. I thought it would be easy.”
No such luck, she discovered:
“I could not find a school where
[he] could thrive. Nothing, in all
of Maryland” within a reasonable
distance and price range. At this
point, most parents would go for
second best, perhaps homeschooling or supplementing academics with after-school activities.
Prather, however, approached the
problem not only as a parent, but
as an educator. In addition to her
St. John’s graduate degree, she
has a BA from Howard University in elementary education, a
master’s in theater education from
New York University, another
master’s in music education from
Howard, and is finishing her PhD
in curriculum and instruction at
the University of Maryland this
fall. After a fruitless search, she
told her husband: “Honey, I literally have to start a school.” That’s
how the Living Water School, now
in its second year, was born.
There is no “typical day” for
a Living Water School student.
Learning is entirely studentdirected, with no formal classes,
no grade levels, no letter grades,
no standardized tests, and no
homework. According to the
school’s website (thelivingwaterschool.blogspot.com), “Our goal
is to completely take away those
elements of traditional school that
conjure up feelings of competition, fear, anxiety, insecurity,
and inadequacy.” The day begins
with an hour of independent work
that gives kids a chance to eat a
leisurely breakfast or snack and
go back to sleep if they need to do
so before morning devotions at 10
a.m. (Although Living Water is a
Christian school, it does not teach
40 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
Anika Prather (AGI09) takes a selfie with her students.
Our goal is to completely take away those
elements of traditional school that conjure
up feelings of competition, fear, anxiety,
insecurity, and inadequacy.
�Teenage students have an active hand in
designing their future academic and career
paths, with the staff “committed to getting
kids what they need.”
theology formally: “We will not
force our beliefs on a child or treat
any student or family member with
unkindness or disrespect.”) Students split into small groups with
staff to pursue an academic task.
All students study reading, writing, and math, with a wide variety
of other subjects to pursue as they
wish: from history, science, and
Latin to sewing, music, and martial arts. Teenage students have
an active hand in designing their
future academic and career paths,
with the staff “committed to getting kids what they need.” Prather
mentions one girl who wants to
study business in college and also
learn to style hair. Parents sign a
general permission slip, allowing
field trips to happen spontaneously. A child interested in art,
for example, can spend a morning
painting and an afternoon at an
art museum. A student pursuing
a research project could visit a
nearby historic site instead of just
reading about it in a textbook.
With all this freedom, it may
seem surprising that Living Water
is also a great books school. It
makes perfect sense, since the Socratic method gently guides learners to reach their own conclusions,
rather than memorize facts and
figures. When her teaching career
began, Prather was more concerned with how music and drama
could be used in the classroom.
Her interest in the classics was
sparked at the Washington Classical Christian School, where she
taught for 10 years. Learning the
great books while teaching them,
she became passionate about their
power. Initially, she looked into
St. John’s to take a workshop or
two rather than earn a full degree,
having just started her doctorate.
“But I just could not get it out of
my mind,” she says. “It wouldn’t let
me go.” She eventually completed
her master’s degree at St. John’s
over four summers, graduating in
2009.
Living Water’s staff and students are almost entirely African
American, partially the result
of its location in Temple Hills,
Maryland, which is 85 percent
black. Prather suspects that white
students might be uneasy about
being a minority, an attitude
she laments, since “life is not
segregated.” Living Water’s fluid
educational approach might be of
particular benefit to African American students, however; studies of
American public schools show that
black children, especially boys, are
more likely to be disciplined than
their white counterparts, punished
for “disruptiveness” that Prather
characterizes as a simple need
to move. “It’s a part of African
culture; it’s why we dance. It’s just
who they are.”
To 21st-century mainstream educators striving to increase diversity, the great books reading list
of “dead white men” elicits horror.
Prather, however, sees no conflict
between her student body’s racial
makeup and that of the traditional
Western canon: “I think Americans
have been so scarred by history
that they get nervous. They don’t
realize that the authors of the
great books were not from this
time. They had a different way of
looking at race.” For her, the great
books speak to “the human experience, not the racial experience.”
While she admits that some kids
“give [her] a lot of drama” at first,
after they begin reading, their
outlook changes drastically. They
acknowledge that “everything that
goes on in these books relates to
other human beings.”
Prather brought her love of the
classics back to St. John’s in February 2016, when she and five students performed an “impromptu
play” called The Table. Described
as “a dramatic exploration and
representation of the power of
dialogue about literary texts,”
the performance centered on a
Socratic, seminar-style discussion
of Voltaire’s essay “Character” and
Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poem
“We Wear the Mask.” While each
student had scripted monologues,
“presented as if they [were] reading from a private journal,” they
created the conversation onstage
together, as they engaged in
dialogue with the texts and each
other. Not until the play was over
did the participants reveal that
their ages ranged from 13 to 24.
She and her troupe also performed
at the University of Maryland in
April, earning kudos from professors, students, and teachers.
The response to Living Water
has exceeded Prather’s wildest
dreams. She expected to be principal and teacher all in one, but 30
families showed up for the school’s
first planning meeting, and it has
expanded from there. This fall,
a second campus will open in
Rockville, Maryland, giving more
students the chance to find their
own personal educational path—
whatever that may be.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 41
�IN MEMORIAM
Priscilla Bender-Shore
Class of 1955
May 20, 2016
One of the first women to attend St. John’s College, Priscilla Bender-Shore (1926-2016) passed away at the age of 90.
Born in the Bronx on May 2, 1926, she attended New York
City’s Washington Irving High School and explored her gift
for art. After graduation, she attended the Cooper Union
School of Art and then Yale School of Art on scholarship.
She left Yale in 1951 to marry Merle Shore (Class of 1954),
a graphic designer and illustrator, and the couple moved to
Annapolis. The Program became the couple’s educational
cornerstone, reflecting their passion for learning, dialogue,
inquiry, and discussion.
In 1957, they moved to Santa Barbara, California,
and Bender-Shore earned her MFA at UCSB, graduating in
1969. Two years later, she took a position at Santa Barbara
City College where she taught art for 25 years. She influenced
and mentored hundreds of students, many of whom work and
exhibit in the Santa Barbara area today. Throughout her life,
she continued to thrive as an artist as well as an art educator,
lecturer, juror, and curator. In 1988, she won the Lila Acheson
Wallace National Painting Competition, earning her a six-month
residency in Giverny, France. Her work has been exhibited in
Glenn Yarbrough
Class of 1953
August 11, 2016
Glenn Yarbrough (1930-2016),
renowned folk singer and a
founder of the 1960s folk trio the
Limeliters, died in Nashville.
Yarbrough spent his early years
in Milwaukee, before moving
with his parents to New York.
At St. John’s he befriended Jac
Holzman (Class of 1952), who
later founded Elektra Records
and early on recorded much of
Yarbrough’s music. A Woody
Guthrie performance at the college in 1951 proved transformative for the young Yarbrough. “I
was just a shy kid, but I walked
up to him afterward with tears
in my eyes and told him how
much I loved what he had done,”
he told the Los Angeles Times in
1996. “The very next day I went
out and bought a guitar, and
that was that.”
After serving in the U.S.
Army during the Korean War,
Yarbrough returned to the U.S.
and began performing in clubs
and coffeehouses and on local
television shows. He eventually
became an owner of the Limelite
nightclub in Aspen, Colorado,
and in 1959, established the
Limeliters with Alex Hassilev
and Lou Gottlieb. Known for
their tight harmonies—particularly Yarbrough’s mellifluous
tenor—non-traditional arrange-
42 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
Priscilla Bender-Shore’s (Class of 1955) painting, Gridlock #2: The Muses
Dancing at the Edge of the World, brightens that hall above the Pendulum Pit,
a popular rehearsal space for choirs on the Annapolis campus.
Europe and the United States and is represented in many collections, including St. John’s College’s art collection in Annapolis.
A strong, patient, and loyal soul, she was a foundation of love
and support for her family. She was preceded in death by her husband and is survived by her children, Evan, and Ann Shore Jactel;
and her grandchildren, Samuel, Sarah, and Sophia Jactel.
ments, and witty onstage banter,
the Limeliters were immensely
popular; their second album,
Tonight: In Person, spent 74
weeks at No. 5 on the Billboard
charts. After leaving the band
in 1963, Yarbrough forged a successful solo career, scoring his
biggest hit with “Baby the Rain
Must Fall.”
In the late 1960s, Yarbrough
sold his most expensive possessions and opened a school
for disadvantaged youth in Los
Angeles. When the school closed
in the 1970s, he traveled the
world by sea for the better part
of the next three decades. But
Yarbrough often returned to
music, performing solo and on
reunion tours with the Limeliters. In 1997, he released an
album with his daughter, Holly,
and he continued to record into
the early 2000s, before losing
his ability to sing in 2010 due to
throat surgery.
He is survived by his children,
Stephany, Sean, and Holly; stepdaughters, Brooke and Heather; a
grandson, and a great-grandson.
Alexander Scott Kelso
(SFGI79)
March 29, 2016
Alexander Scott Kelso (19242016), former chair of the Board
of Visitors and Governors of St.
John’s College, passed away
�peacefully at age 91. Born to
Clyde Douglas Kelso and Dorothy Geraldine (Scott) Kelso, he
and his two brothers were raised
in Laurel, Mississippi. After he
graduated from high school in
1941, Kelso attended Georgia
Tech until 1943, when he was
commissioned an Ensign and
later rose to Lieutenant J.G. in
the U.S. Navy, serving in the
European and Pacific theaters
during World War II, including
the D-Day Normandy Landings.
Returning home in 1946, he
married Mary Gene Hoffman,
with whom he enjoyed 56 beautiful years until her death in 2002.
Kelso graduated from Georgia
Tech in 1947 and began work
with Gulf Oil Corp. in Knoxville,
Tennessee. He later worked for
IBM and founded two companies, Computer Labs, Inc. and
Seismic Computing Corporation.
He is survived by his children,
Alexander, Jr., Gene K. Caselli,
Harry H., and Adelia; and his
grandchildren, Caroline, Anthony, and John Caselli, Kathleen,
Harry, and Victoria Kelso, and
Scott Kelso, III. He was preceded
in death by his wife; his parents;
and his brothers, C. D. Kelso, Jr.
and R. P. Kelso.
Also Deceased:
John R. Garland,
Class of 1950
October 23, 2015
Christopher Michael Abbasse,
AGI98
April 25, 2016
Ronald Albert Adinolfi, SFGI94
February 14, 2016
Joan R. Buckmaster, SFGI76
June 18, 2015
Justine Shaver
June 26, 2016
Caritas President,
Board Member
Justine “Joy” Shaver’s (19292016) introduction to St. John’s
College came in 1988 when a
friend invited her to attend a
Caritas Society meeting. She
served for a year as historian
for the group, whose mission, in
part, includes raising financial
aid funds for St. John’s students
in need, and later served as
Caritas president from 1991 to
1994. She was appointed to the
Stanley Guild IV, A11
March 16, 2016
Friar John Hilary Hayden,
Class of 1949
February 24, 2016
college’s Board of Visitors and
Governors in 2004 and served
until 2010.
Originally from Caldwell,
New Jersey, she married Bennett H. Shaver in 1952; the
couple made Annapolis their
home for more than 30 years.
Through her involvement with
numerous civic organizations in
the Annapolis area, including
the St. John’s Friends Board,
she will be remembered for her
kindness and devotion to St.
John’s College. Shaver was preceded in death by her husband,
who passed away in 2011.
David Wald (SF79)
May 27, 2016
Long-time television journalist and producer David Wald’s
(1955-2016) impressive resume
includes work for CBS News,
NBC, ABC, Fox, Court TV, HBO,
David Harding Humphreys, A69
May 22, 2016
Charles F. Jones, A79
April 5, 2016
Lewis Steven Kreger,
Class of 1961
May 5, 2016
National Geographic, A&E, PBS,
and Education Week Video. As
supervising producer for the
New York Bureau of Education Week Video, he developed
television segments for PBS
NewsHour. With the nonprofit
Learning Matters, Wald spent
a decade producing dozens of
NewsHour stories on a range of
education topics, including the
impact of Hurricane Katrina
on New Orleans’ schools, the
common-core standards, and internet access in rural communities. Earlier in his career, he was
a senior producer on Michael
Moore’s Emmy Award-winning
magazine show TV Nation, and
he produced a documentary
series about Doctors Without
Borders. Remembered for his
thoughtful, caring nature—and a
mentor to many—he enlightened
and engaged viewers on important issues through complex and
visually stunning stories.
William H. Rullman,
Class of 1940
May 15, 2016
Terence Sellers, SF74
January 25, 2016
Kathryn Slade, SF77
February 2, 2016
Mildred V. Smotherman, SF71
September 6, 2011
Donald Heider, AGI87
October 22, 2008
Arthur Kungle, Jr.,
Class of 1967
January 20, 2016
Marshall Henderson, SF07
July 1, 2016
John Paul LeBec, A93
March 7, 2016
Mary Paige Hensley, SF02
February 18, 2016
Eugene Limanovich, SF01
March 21, 2016
O.H. Thompson,
Class of 1943
July 13, 2016
William Douglass, SFGI70
March 19, 2016
Gary Allen Hetrick,
Class of 1963
May 16, 2016
Arnold Markoxitz,
Class of 1954
July 7, 2016
Joyce Kittel Wilson,
Class of 1955
July 28, 2016
Matson G. Ewell,
Class of 1950
March 8, 2016
Judith Jones Holden,
Class of 1961
May 22, 2016
Daniel Mark Roddy, SF75
January 16, 2016
Steven Wren, SF75
May 25, 2016
Paul Ringgold Comegys, Sr.,
Class of 1941
January 13, 2016
Harry West “Skip” Danner,
Class of 1954
March 9, 2016
Kevin Mathew St. John, SF76
July 7, 2016
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 43
�PHILANTHROPY
Class of 2016 Hits a
Double Home Run
100 Percent Senior
Legacy Participation
on Both Campuses
On the evening of April 29, the Great Hall
of the Santa Fe campus was illuminated
with colorful strobe lights that bounced
off the walls in reds and blues. Above the
podium, where a lecturer stood less than
an hour before, letters spelled out the
word “prom.” An hour later, members of
every class filled the room with laughter,
dancing, and conversation. This event was
not so much a student party, but rather a
vehicle to promote interest in the Class of
2016’s Senior Legacy. On both campuses,
seniors come together to decide what
they will “gift” the college. The gift varies every year from the tangible to the
intangible, be it new benches for the quad
or a special donation to increase financial
aid. In Santa Fe, this year’s legacy finds
its home in Meem Library as the Islamic
Classics collection.
“The Senior Legacy Program is important because it empowers seniors to
define their lasting impact and identity
as permanent members of the college
community,” explains Sarah Palacios, the
director of Alumni Relations. To facilitate
this tradition, each campus forms a Senior
Legacy Committee (SLC), whose senior
class members are committed to lead the
fundraising effort. The SLC’s work is not
limited to simply collecting. Its students
are the most knowledgeable regarding
what the gifts are; they are expected to motivate their classmates to give. Motivation
often manifests itself in gatherings, such as
the post-seminar events in Annapolis or the
“Senior Prom” in Santa Fe. Beyond these
efforts, the most effective motivational
method employed by the students is face-toface conversation. Some seniors aren’t willing to give. Others aren’t fully aware of the
to participate. The funds they
raised aided projects that create
greater opportunities for students. In total, the Annapolis gift
made a threefold impact: donating to the Pathways Fellowship
program, expanding the Music
Assistance program to provide
piano lessons for students, and
installing OneCard readers on
the back doors of Pinkney Hall.
On the Santa Fe campus,
seniors William Palm (SF16),
Colleen Mahoney (SF16), Meg
Covington (SF16), and Rodjinaé
Brown (SF16) led their class to a
record of 99 percent participation
with $4,821 raised by students,
before finishing off with 100
Class of 2016’s gift enhances Meem Library’s collection.
percent participation and a total
of $5,817.45, including matching
gifts. Although Meem Library
is still in the process of adding
to the collection, the library will
complete it, according to Santa Fe
tutor Michael Wolfe.
“Being asked to work on the
committee was an honor,” says
Palm. “It was a really beautiful
and concrete way to close the
chapter of my time at St. John’s.
merit of giving. It helps to have discussions
And for both campuses to make it to 100
with classmates who have the patience, enpercent was the icing on the cake.” Althusiasm, and insight to inspire their peers
though it is not the first time that a senior
to contribute to the class’s legacy.
class has reached full participation, it is
“We’re proud that we can give back to
remarkable that both campuses achieved
the college in a tangible way and improve
100 percent participation. When student
the quality of life for future Johnnies,”
participation reaches such a high percentsays Max Dakin (A16), a member of the
age, it typically inspires matching gifts
committee on the Annapolis campus. Along
from faculty, staff, and other alumni. This
with classmates David Conway (A16),
year’s 100 percent participation garnered
Emily Grazier (A16), Sueanna Keim (A16),
much enthusiasm from non-student memand Brian Liu (A16), he led their class to
bers of the community.
100 percent participation, raising $6,924.
Many hope that the remarkable accomAnnapolis committee members set up a
plishment of the Class of 2016 will set a
donation table outside the Dining Hall at
precedent for future graduating classes of
least once a week, where they engaged
the college.
with classmates and other students about
the class gift. Occasionally, committee
—Rodjinaé Brown (SF16)
members must take initiative to seek out
members of their class to encourage them
“� e’re proud that we can give
W
back to the college in a tangible
way and improve the quality of
life for future Johnnies.”
44 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
�FIRST PERSON
MAKING A DREAM COME TRUE
By Sawyer Neale (A18)
T
his summer was unlike any
I have ever had before. For
several days in July I had the
honor of serving as a delegate to
the 2016 Democratic National
Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia, representing more than 30,000 Bernie Sanders supporters in Pennsylvania’s 15th
Congressional District.
I struggle to remember when I first
became aware of politics. I don’t come
from a political family. In fact, apart from
NPR serving as the soundtrack to my
childhood, and the occasional rants from
family members, my exposure to politics
had always been fairly removed. However, in 2008, that all changed with Sen.
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
I was a 12-year-old obsessed. I read as
many books about American politics as
I could, and after his election victory I
was hooked. In 2012, my obsession came
to a head when I signed on for an internship with my state’s Democratic Party. In
the subsequent years, I have worked on
campaigns in nearly every election cycle
at every level, from municipal to state
legislative to senatorial.
For me, politics is a way to make an actual substantive difference in this world.
We live in a nation that is founded on the
principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness but also allows people to lose
their homes because they got sick and
couldn’t afford to pay costly medical bills,
incarcerates more people than any other
developed nation, and enables students
to take on more than $100,000 in debt
to pursue an education. These problems
need to be solved; in politics, I find an
opportunity to play a role in solving them.
As a delegate, I took part in reforming
our political process, adopting the most
progressive platform in the history of
American major parties, and creating
a commission which will work to make
superdelegates more democratic.
Attending the Democratic National
Convention was an experience like no
other. The energy that filled the Wells
Fargo Center, from Sanders and Clinton
delegates, was energizing and humbling.
I had the opportunity to meet politicos,
young and old, from all corners of the
country, from Alabama to Alaska. Pennsylvania was seated at the front of the
venue, so I was less than 100 feet away
from presidents past, current, and, possibly, future.
At age 19, I was the youngest delegate
from Pennsylvania, which allowed me to
fulfil a dream of being a Z-list political
celebrity for a week. I had the opportunity
to speak on television and radio, which
was mind-boggling. At St. John’s, I serve
as editor-in-chief of The Epoch Journal,
a student-led political science magazine.
Over the past year, I’ve written about
government reform—detailing policies
such as gerrymandering—and joining and
profiling a Pennsylvania-based, citizenled government reform movement. I’ve
solicited articles from my fellow Johnnies
Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe and
Sawyer Neale (A18) share a moment in Philly.
Adrian Shanker, executive director of Pennsylvania’s Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center,
and Sawyer Neale (A18) are all smiles at the DNC.
“� t age 19, I was the
A
youngest delegate from
Pennsylvania, which
allowed me to fulfil a dream
of being a Z-list political
celebrity for a week.”
and built magazines from the ground up.
In addition, I serve as archon of the SJC
Film Society as well as secretary of the
Delegate Council. All of these experiences
have allowed me to explore my love of
politics and try to make a positive difference in the life of the Polity.
While at the DNC, I attempted to do
some Epoch-related work by using that
aforementioned Z-list status to interview
as many reporters and elected officials
as possible. I had the opportunity to joke
with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf—a
PhD graduate from MIT and secret Greek
philosophy buff, particularly Apollonius
and Heraclitus. I also spoke with Andrea
Mitchell—a journalist, anchor, and commentator for NBC News—about the role
of the press in a democratic state. During
my week in Philadelphia, I got to meet
my heroes. That is an experience I will
never forget.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 45
�JOHNNIE VOICES
END OF AN ICON?
When E. A. Clore Sons, Inc. announced
on Facebook in May that it was closing
its doors after nearly two centuries
in the furniture business, it marked
the end of one of the country’s
oldest family-owned businesses. It
also signaled a dubious fate for the
college’s beloved Johnnie Chair. Alumni
everywhere came out of the woodwork
to lament the news but also to take
the opportunity to share their favorite
stories and memories, thoughts and
recollections, and even a poem.
Since the 1950s, the small factory in
Madison, Virginia, has churned out the
Plain Master Chair, a.k.a the Johnnie
Chair, for St. John’s College—one of
the company’s best customers—where
it, along with the Plain Side Chair and
the Ladder Back Dining Side Chair, fills
classrooms, dorms, dining halls, and
other spots on the two campuses. Today
the chair represents far more than the
sum of its wooden and fiber-rush parts—
it’s a St. John’s icon. And whether or
not the torch is carried after Clore is
shuttered and gone, our affection for
the Johnnie Chair, and gratitude to the
family that brought it to us, will remain
strong for years to come.
46 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
Nareg Seferian (SF11), inspired
by the news, offers the following ode
to the Johnnie Chair:
Based on a True Johnnie Chair
Johnnie Chair, O Johnnie Chair –
how I loved your presence there,
a wickerwork suspension
for my Johnnie end:
a true support network –
bottom’s up, my friend!
It only irked me once or twice
when the front rung for my feet
was absent – not nice.
But who could resist trying a round
of “Balance the Johnnie Chair(s)”
on the coffee shop ground?
Perhaps your tone is lighter in
Santa Fe than Annapolis
but this
this shall serve as your legacy,
something I miss –
fingers intertwined, one elbow over
your back, Johnnie Chair
as I roll my eyes at some seminar
hack, O Johnnie Chair.
Not to say no-one ever rolled
their eyes at me.
But one thing I can guarantee:
whenever a brilliant observation or –
more probably – a pun I let loose
those eyes rolling
those heads shaking
were gently supported by a caboose
feeling confident, firm, well-founded
because you, O Johnnie Chair, made
sure their basis was well-grounded.
�Grace (Logerfo) Bateman (Class of 1965)
shares the following account of “a true story
in every detail that thus far may have eluded
the annals of St. John’s”:
The Disappearing Johnnie Chair
The Johnnie Chair has special meaning for
the Class of 1965. Some classes endow the
college with a class gift; our legacy was a
class prank involving the disappearance of
all the Johnnie Chairs on campus. How did
we do it? Early one spring morning, a group
of seniors carrying long wooden poles gathered in the McDowell quadrangle. Applying
Newtonian principles, we reasoned that the
most efficient way to transport a large number of chairs was to string them up on poles.
Breaking and entering to gather the chairs
wasn’t necessary because in those days the
buildings on campus were never locked. Using the pole technique, by dawn we removed
the chairs from every classroom and stored
them in the basement of Mellon undetected.
The seminar table is the locus for learning
at St. John’s, but when students and tutors
arrived for classes that day, the importance of
the Johnnie Chair became clear. Classes were
canceled for want of chairs, and the entire
student body was pressed into service carrying
the chairs back from Mellon to the classrooms.
“We were studying the sequence Ptolemy/
Kepler/Copernicus and Galileo, the shift
from a geocentric to a heliocentric system,
with Jacob Klein. Doing the math was one
thing, but from the look on our faces the
class was struggling with imagining what
it all meant. Now, Mr. Klein was a kind and
gentle man, with a whimsical smile, but usually somewhat reserved. He paused, looked
around the room, pulled out a chair, and
said, ‘Mr. Sherman, please come here and sit
in the chair.’ The illustrious Jacob Klein then
proceeded to push me around the classroom
and asked, ‘Mr. Sherman, what do you see
moving? And, class, what do you see moving?’ Of course! We all laughed…”
all under six years old, we also could not
resist the children’s arm chairs. Today the
children’s chairs and our adult chairs hold
every shape and size bottom comfortably
while reading stories, playing games, and
dining. However, I don’t seem to be as good
at leaning back and balancing on the back
two legs as I used to. Perhaps that is because
I am no longer smoking and drinking coffee,
though I am still pontificating on subjects
about which I know little!”
—Edward (Ted) Nelson (A77)
“I have two Clore Plain Master’s chairs in
cherry at my kitchen table. (For the record,
I purchased these directly from Clore. They
were not pilfered from the college. They
match my Barrett Woodworking cherry table
very nicely.) It pains me to imagine a world
without a source for more such chairs.”
—Bob DiSilverio (SF78)
“I had the chance to sit in a Johnnie Chair
again a few years after graduating, and it
felt like coming home. Since then, I have
always wished I had one (or a couple) of my
own. Recently, while looking for some chairs
in a thrift store for my husband’s, Matt
Griffis (SF08), and my new apartment in the
Denver area, I found this (pictured above).
It’s not big enough to sit in, but it is a nice
reminder. And it wobbles a little and is missing the front foot bar just like the real ones!
Now we only need to find a chalkboard…”
—Trystan Popish (SF08)
“For graduation my parents got me two
Johnnie Chairs. Over the years, my wife
and I have purchased well over a dozen
more Clore pieces. E. A. Clore is one of those
companies that are the backbone of America.
As every Johnnie knows, the chairs are quite
comfortable and amazingly sturdy.”
—Harold Morgan (SF68)
[Editor’s note: Not every Johnnie, as
evidenced below.]
—Daniel Sherman, Annapolis, Class of 1963
“A few years ago, we replaced our old dining
chairs with eight low-back walnut chairs and
two other matching chairs with arms. Now
our home has great chairs and a pleasant
history of the college to remember as our
home ages with us. As grandparents of four,
“If you sit in the center, which sinks, it kills
your back. If you sit on the edge, the bar
across the front kills your hamstrings. Never
was a chair so devised to cause so much pain
to the human body. Now it so happens that
I have a Johnnie Chair that I got years ago,
and I wouldn’t give it up for the world; for
Though not the real thing, Trystan Popish’s
(SF08) thrift store find—a miniature wooden
chair—is a reminder of the many good
conversations she had with friends at the
seminar table.
there I have sat and studied, there have I
sat and learned, and there I have sat and
suffered. Suffering seems a mild punishment
when I think of what I have gained.”
—Christiana Mollin (AGI10)
“I have so many memories of [the Johnnie
Chair]—of great discussions, thoughtful
moments of silence, and good conversations
with friends. I loved that they had arms to
lean on. Somehow, they framed the edges
between the physical ‘me’ and the broader
‘not me,’ and I could venture forth from them
into the heart of discussions, or not, at my
own volition. They are the most comfortable
chairs I have known.
Subsequently, all of my adult life, I have
had a problem with dining room furniture.
My husband and I had left our dining room
set in Annapolis when we moved to San
Francisco, and once again, I was confronted
with my chair problem. We ate on moving
boxes for a while, until my husband couldn’t
take it anymore. I remembered that wonderful feeling I had always had in the St. John’s
chairs. We called [Clore] the next day and
ordered six chairs, and before I could change
my mind again, we bought a table in the
same wood color.
Eighteen years have passed, and the chairs
are still looking out over San Francisco Bay
from our dining room windows. And, as they
did at St. John’s, they still ‘sit’ through good
discussions, thoughtful moments of silence,
and good conversations with friends!”
—Juliet Rothman (AGI88)
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 47
�ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE GREENFIELD LIBRARY
S T. J O H N ’ S F O R E V E R
PRESERVING
OUR LEGACY
The college has taken another giant step
toward preserving St. John’s history with
the creation of the new SJC Digital Archives.
Thanks to dedicated efforts of the St. John’s
College Libraries staff in Annapolis and
Santa Fe, a virtual trove of hidden gems—
catalogs and commencement programs from
the 1800s, rare photographs of the college’s
first class of women, a vast collection of
lectures, speeches, and addresses in audio
recording and typescript formats, old issues
of The College, and more—are now available
online at digitalarchives.sjc.edu.
Ever wonder what the basement of McDowell
Hall looked like in the 1940s? Or an aerial
48 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 016
view of the Santa Fe campus soon after its
founding? The newly launched site contains
more than 800 items of historical significance
to the college. “Paper deteriorates and photographs fade, but digitization offers a solution
that ensures these artifacts are preserved at
the height of their quality,” says Liz Kupke,
Greenfield Library’s technical services librarian. “Digitization of these special items, and
their inclusion on the SJC Digital Archives,
ensures that the rich history and legacy of
the college are preserved for generations to
come.” The SJC Digital Archives is continually
updated, so check back from time to time and
discover what new treasures await.
�EIDOS
Situated on the eastern edge of Texas Hill
Country, Austin has long been a beacon
to artists, musicians, and other creative
individuals. Jennifer Chenoweth (SF95) is
among those lured to this changing and
growing city. A visual artist and entrepreneur, she is intrigued by what connects
people to place—a subject she explores
in her recent exhibition XYZ Atlas: The
Hedonic Map of Austin. For the past three
years, as part of her XYZ Atlas project, she
documented and visualized the hyperlocal
experiences of people living in and visiting
Austin. The result is a large-scale exhibition of a multi-media art experience that
features a series of immersive and interactive pieces ranging from original maps to
sculptures to photography.
“XYZ Atlas began as an investigation about
why people love and feel so attached to the
city of Austin and how emotional experiences affect our experience of belonging in
particular places,” says Chenoweth. “Since
humans everywhere have emotional experiences that make a place become ‘home,’ I
want to take XYZ Atlas to other cities to
see how and where people engage uniquely
in their towns.”
Learn more about XYZ Atlas at xyzatlas.org and
Jennifer Chenoweth at fisterrastudio.com.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2016 iii
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U.S. Postage
PAID
Annapolis, MD
Permit N0. 120
Communications Office
60 College Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21401
Address Service Requested
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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.
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St. John's College
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The College, Fall 2016
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Volume 41, Issue 2 of The College Magazine. Published in Fall 2016.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
Santa Fe, NM
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Shook, Gregory (editor)
Ehretsmann, Thomas
Weiss, Robin
Wilson, Rebecca
Andersen, Anna Perleberg
Brown, Rodjinae
Grenke, Michael
Keyes, Bob
Lenthicum, Leslie
Llovet, Jonathan
Neale, Sawyer
Scott, Bonnie
Zarin, Babak
Behrens, Jennifer
Inauguration
The College
-
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Text
College
The
FA L L 2 0 1 5
•
S T. J O H N ’ S C O L L E G E
•
ANNAPOLIS
•
S A N TA F E
Henry
David
Thoreau
Early Environmentalist
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 i
�ii THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 015
�OPENING NOTE
Who among us has ever yearned
to shut down the computer, turn
off the cell phone, and be immersed in solitude, where nothing but the sounds of the wind
and rustling leaves fill our ears—
a peaceful retreat in nature to
restore our spirit and make us
feel human again? Henry David
Thoreau (1817-1862), poet,
philosopher, historian, and early
environmentalist, understood
the importance of connecting
with nature. In the woods along
Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, the muse of Thoreau’s
Walden, he makes a case for
simple living and self-sufficiency.
The book is also an invitation to
be daring, cast aside convention,
and live life to the fullest.
In this issue of The College, we
will hear from Johnnies who
have found a Walden of their
own: a backyard oasis, filled with
vibrant flowers, treetop canopies,
and assorted creatures; a once
abandoned building, smack-dab
in the heart of America’s Rust
Belt, brought back to life; and
a farm nestled in a Southwest
corner among “winged angels of
agriculture.” As summer breezes
give way to crisp autumn air, now
is an ideal time to pick up a copy
of Walden. In the words of tutor
David Townsend, “You may find
yourself thrilled with unanticipated wonder.”
Gregory Shook, editor
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 1
�FALL 2015
VOLUME 40, ISSUE 2
If transcending time and keeping your soul forever
young attracts you, then Walden is your text.
And Thoreau is a man you can go to school on.
—David Townsend, tutor
FEATUR E S
P A G E 1 6��
P A G E 2 0��
PA G E 2 6
FREEDOM UPON AN
ACHILLEAN SHORE
HALCYON
HAVEN
BIRTH OF A
BEEKEEPER
Walden, Henry David Thoreau’s
experiment in simple living
among nature, continues to
challenge American pragmatism
and beckons us to experience
life to the fullest.
Thanks to a visionary alumnus
who transformed an abandoned
historic building into a cozy
neighborhood pub, good
conversation just got easier to
find in downtown Cleveland.
Raising queen bees is about
much more than harvesting
honey—the tiny creatures
are profoundly important
for sustaining the planet’s
plant species.
ON THE COVER:
Thoreau illustration
by Brett Ryder
PREVIOUS PAGE: TONY J PHTOGRAPHY
2 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 015
�TONY J PHOTOGRAPHY
D E PAR T ME N T S
��FROM THE BELL TOWERS
BIBLIOFILE
FOR & ABOUT ALUMNI
4 �
Toward a Greener Future:
Robert Bienenfeld (SF80)
30 �Tutor Eva Brann (H89)
comprehends imaginative
conservatism in Then and Now.
32 �lmuni News: Alumni Leadership
A
Forum 2015
5 Club with a Cause
6 �
Hodson Trust Intern:
Xiaoqian (Lara) Hu (A16)
7 New Annapolis Treasurer
8 A Decade of Leadership in Santa Fe
10 Commencement 2015
12 �erdurous Acres
V
34 �lumni Notes
A
31 �liza Pennypacker (A79) breaks
E
convention in Artful Rainwater
Design: Creative Ways to Manage
Stormwater.
37 � rofile: Cara Gormally (A02)
P
advocates science literacy.
42 �In Memoriam
� O’Hara (SFGI00) shares
David
meditative essays in Downstream:
Reflections on Brook Trout, Fly
Fishing, and Waters of Appalachia.
45 �tudent Voices: Kevin Lam (A18)
S
discovers intellectual freedom.
� Brock (A94) explores a slice
Emily
of Pacific Northwest history in
Money Trees: The Douglas Fir and
American Forestry, 1900-1944.
46 �roquet: Johnnies Break the Streak
C
.
JOHNNIE TRADITIONS
48 �t. John’s Forever
S
EIDOS
49 Anastasia Egeli (A92)
ABOVE: Annapolis President Christoper Nelson
(SF70) enjoys the labor of garden work.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 3
�From the
BELL TOWERS
FIRST PERSON
Toward a Greener Future
Robert Bienenfeld (SF80) Helps Steer
the Transportation Revolution
Robert Bienenfeld, (SF80) assistant
vice president, Environment and Energy
Strategy at American Honda Motor
Company, Inc., discusses his longstanding
passion for exploring environmentally
friendly technology and reducing the
auto industry’s carbon footprint.
Why did you choose
to work at Honda?
I knew after leaving St. John’s
that I wanted to work in industry. People told me throughout
my four years that St. John’s
was a great education. I thought:
if that’s true I ought to be able
to go to work without going to
graduate school. I also knew I
wanted to build something, and
that turned out to be a great
idea. It’s an amazing thing, to
be part of a team. No individual
can bring a car to market. It
takes untold numbers of people,
not just the engineers and the
marketers but the people in the
factory, hundreds of suppliers, all
of their R and D people. It’s very
collaborative, and the essence
of the St. John’s education is
very collaborative. If it weren’t
collaborative you would just go
to the library, read the books,
and you’d be done. But what you
do is read the books and have
your own ideas, then you come to
class and test them and they’re
challenged in that crucible of
seminar or tutorial. Invariably
you’re left with better ideas, a
deeper understanding, more
questions. Sometimes a book
you didn’t like is revealed to be
more beautiful than you could
have ever imagined. That’s what
I have enjoyed when I’ve worked
on teams. It can be difficult, you
have to listen to other people’s
ideas, and people don’t always
do what you want them to do,
but through that collaborative
approach you can shape the
direction of the company, bring
better products to market, and
provide valuable benefits to society that might never otherwise
have come about.
To the outside we’re trying to
provide the best information we
can to regulators on the theory
that good information will make
good regulations. We work as
cooperatively and positively
as we can to look for ways to
advance the environmental
agenda. That being said, we try
to make sure that the proposed
regulations or laws are fair and
equitable, that they’re feasible,
and that they’re going to accomplish their intended goals.
What is your role at Honda?
We’re trying to have a smooth,
bloodless revolution from an
older generation of transportation to a much less carbon-intensive model. That’s being done
through advances in technology
and through regulation and it’s
a very interesting challenge.
Both the regulators and the car
companies have to be mindful
of consumers. If the regulations
are too demanding then the
products could be too expensive
and consumers might reject
them. The question is: are the
regulations aggressive enough,
and reasonable enough, and
can industry accomplish those
regulations in a way that will be
acceptable to consumers?
Externally, I represent Honda
to the EPA and California EPA
and internally, I represent the
EPA and California EPA to
Honda. Inside the company I
think about what society (writ
large) is trying to accomplish
and promote those values
within the company. It’s not
that the values inside the company aren’t the same as those
of society, but they don’t always
have the same intensity, the
same timeline, the same power.
Right now we’re in the middle of
a revolution in transportation.
And revolutions are inherently
terrifying: they’re unstable,
there are new forces at work,
[and] things change quickly.
4 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 015
How did you end up working
in environment and energy
strategy?
I’ve had a varied career. I’ve
been here since I left college,
and I’ve worked in nearly a
dozen areas in Japan and the
U.S., in sales and marketing and
product development and strategy. In 2008 a friend of mine was
running this area and saw an
opportunity to bring me in.
I’d worked in related areas
before that. I’ve worked on
alternative fuels since 1993: on
electric, natural gas, and hybrid
cars. That first brought me into
contact with public policy— an
interesting and important part
of the business. Vehicles have
unintended consequences: you
buy a car and there’re all kinds
of unseen impacts. A lot of
people don’t really think about
where their gasoline comes
from, what it takes to manage
those resources, and the impact
of the car’s exhaust. Of course,
cars have an enormous benefit
to society as well. But there are
social costs, or externalities,
and we seek to minimize those
costs. Sixteen years ago I started
working on car sharing, and just
in the last half dozen years it’s
�“� e’re facing an extraordinary challenge
W
with respect to climate change, and
dramatic action is needed. It won’t help
anybody if car companies go out of business
trying to make this transition.”
started to become a commercial
success. But in the twenty-two
years I’ve been in alternative
fuels it’s been very difficult
to achieve success. In some
respects it’s been twenty-two
years of failure.
Why is it so difficult to find
success with alternative fuels?
Because the incumbent technology is pretty good. In the
last forty years, smog-forming
pollutants that come out of the
tailpipe of the car have been
reduced to almost 1/1000 of what
their pre-regulated emissions
were—an incredible accomplishment. Although you might think
we absolutely need electric cars
for clean air, it turns out that we
can do quite well with internal
combustion vehicles.
One of the fascinating things
about this work is how, holistically, you have to think about
a transportation system. For
example, in China, because their
electric grid is seventy percent
coal-generated, an electric car
is not nearly as clean as a good
hybrid car. You have to think in
a holistic manner to understand
all the impacts of a transportation system.
What’s the focus of your work
right now?
Between 2015 and 2025 we
are tasked with doubling fuel
economy which means that we
will be able to go twice as far
on a gallon of gas and cut the
carbon intensity of automobile
use almost in half. The rules
through 2025 are pretty clear,
but how to get there will involve
very important choices with
respect to technology. Right
now we’re trying to make some
critical decisions about advanced
internal combustion engines vs.
increased hybridization, and
plug-in vehicles, how much to
invest in fuel cell vehicles, those
kinds of things.
We’re facing an extraordinary
challenge with respect to climate
change, and dramatic action is
needed. It won’t help anybody if
car companies go out of business
trying to make this transition,
so it’s really important that we
help guide the regulators to
understand what’s possible, what
we think consumers will accept,
where the technology is, and
what is cost-effective.
CLUB WITH A CAUSE
“I believe that wherever there is
a college or a community, there
needs to be an environmental
club,” says Jon Shrestha (A17),
archon of the Environmental
Club at the Annapolis campus.
Under Shrestha’s leadership,
the club’s activities this past
year included a bike lending
program and recycling initiatives
at Croquet; students worked with
the company Waste Neutral to
collect 1.19 tons of commingled
recyclables at the event as well
as 200 pounds of reusable plastic
pallets. The club also joined
forces with the Food Recovery
Network to donate unopened
leftover canned goods from the
dining hall to a local shelter.
Most recently the club organized
a seminar on “Higher Laws” from
Thoreau’s Walden. “I thought
that ‘Higher Laws’ appealed
to our philosophical nature in
terms of driving us to examine
the question ‘What is the right
way to live?’” says Bonnie Scott
(A17), the Environmental Club’s
vice archon. Led by tutor Brendan
Boyle, the seminar discussion
explored people’s relationship
with nature, something that many
of us may not consider as we go
about our daily lives. “One of the
most important things you can
do to better the world is to make
sure that you’re in touch with the
ways that you affect everything
around you, whether that is how
you speak to other people or
what you throw away in the trash
or the recycling,” says Scott. “It’s
all interconnected.”
— Eunji Kim (A15)
What did you learn at St. John’s
that is most helpful in your
work at Honda?
What I appreciate the most
about my St. John’s education
is that it’s four years of teaching you how to fall in love—how
to pick up a subject you never
thought you’d be interested in
and have it open your thinking
and your mind and your heart;
to find it interesting and collaborate with people and throw
yourself into it. It was kind of
random that I found myself at
Honda, but I’ve been able to
throw myself into this work and
be part of some amazing projects,
and we’ve made history. That’s a
really valuable lesson.
— Sus3an Borden (A87)
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 5
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
DAVID BROOKS
HELPS CELEBRATE
SANTA FE’S 50TH
ANYI GUO (A14)
David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, author, and pundit, helped close out
the yearlong celebration of Santa Fe’s 50th
anniversary as the featured speaker at a
gala benefit dinner on June 26 at the Santa
Fe campus. In his remarks, Brooks cited two
authors from the Program—St. Augustine
and George Eliot—to illustrate the practical
virtue of studying the lives and works of great
authors. Brooks noted that the gala was a singular experience for him. At no other event, he
said, had Rousseau been quoted twice during
dinner-table conversation. Proceeds from the
evening’s events will support scholarships for
students from New Mexico. The 50th anniversary campaign raised more than $30 million
for the campus’s endowment and operations.
HODSON TRUST INTERN
Learning
Through Inquiry
Xiaoqian (Lara) Hu (A16) has long been
interested in education. Through the Hodson
Trust Internship Program in summer 2013,
she interned at Shenzhen High School in the
Guangdong Province of southeast China. Fascinated by classroom dynamics, Hu observes the
importance of the relationship between teachers and students and understands the politics
involved in education. “I want to be a professor
in college or graduate school,” she says, “not
doing research, but working with students on a
personal level.”
Hu notes that Shenzhen “is one of the
most open-minded high schools in China. It is
dedicated to the preparation of students for the
highest scholarships in the U.S.” One of Hu’s
responsibilities as a teacher’s assistant was to
organize workshops about American colleges.
“It was very informal,” she says. “I would make
and present a PowerPoint. Then I would let the
students ask questions and have discussions.”
Her presentations described her academic
experience as well as cultural differences that
surprised her. “When I first got here, I made so
many mistakes. Nobody told me I could drink
the tap water or how to use a dryer.”
Xiaoqian (Lara) Hu (A16)
“� hen I first got here, I
W
made so many mistakes.
Nobody told me I could
drink the tap water or how
to use a dryer.”
Many of Hu’s students were interested in
St. John’s discussion model of learning. “They
felt that they could participate in the sessions
rather than just listen to the lectures,” says Hu.
“They loved talking to me, and that was a real
surprise. They thought I knew how to listen
to what they were really talking about.” The
classes at St. John’s encouraged her to seriously consider the principles that others had,
even those with whom she initially disagreed.
“Returning to my high school gave me a
new perspective,” she says. “I realized how
important inquiries are. Asking questions is
a more effective way of learning than just
answering questions.”
—Nutchapol Boonparlit (A14)
6 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 015
The College
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
Nutchapol Boonparlit (A14)
Sus3an Borden (A87)
Brendan Boyle
Anastasia Egeli (A92)
Gabe Gomez
Susan Kaplan
Eunji Kim (A15)
Melanie Kirby (SF97)
Kevin Lam (A18)
Jennifer Levin
Lisa Neal
Christopher Nelson (SF70)
Paula Novash
David Townsend
Robin Weiss
Babak Zarin (A11)
Design
Skelton Design
Contributing Designer
Jennifer Behrens
�TA L K O F T H E T O W E R S
In Annapolis, five new tutors have joined
the faculty. Erica Beall (A07) is from the
University of Southern California, where she is
working on completing her Ph.D. in social psychology. Ronald Haflidson joined the college
from the New College, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he received his Ph.D. in
Christian ethics and practical theology. Zena
Hitz (A95) earned her Ph.D. in philosophy from
Princeton University. Marius Kempe comes
from the University of Durham, England,
where he earned his Ph.D. in anthropology.
Bryan Luther received his Ph.D. in nuclear
physics from The Ohio State University. In
Santa Fe, two new tutors have joined the
faculty. Allison D’Orazio Levy is from Boston
In Santa Fe, Victoria Mora is the college-wide
senior vice president for Development and
Alumni Relations. Renee White is the new
director of Conference Services. In Annapolis,
three new directors have joined the college: Benjamin Baum is the new director of
Admissions; Susan Jenkins is director of Web
Initiatives and Social Media; Joe Smolskis is
the new treasurer; and Melissa Steiner is the
new registrar.
“� get my feet into a lot of
I
different areas, including
non-financial duties, which
is part of what makes my
position interesting.”
IN ANNAPOLIS
Thinking Outside
the Numbers
New Treasurer in Annapolis
Though he has held numerous high-powered
positions throughout his career, Joe Smolskis,
the new treasurer in Annapolis, is still a kid at
heart. On a breezy July afternoon, while the
campus was buzzing with Summer Academy
students, Smolskis grabbed a quick lunch
before popping over to the local comic book
shop to pick up the new issue of Archie. “I read
them when I was a kid but haven’t read them
in years,” he says, adding that he was “always a
superhero guy. I probably have three-quarters
of the entire history of Daredevil.” Being
fiscally-minded, he estimates his most prized
comic book, the debut issue of Daredevil, at
around $35. “It’s not a great copy, but what’s
really cool is that it came out in 1963, the year
I was born, and was printed in my hometown of
Waterbury, Connecticut.”
When Smolskis came to St. John’s in
August 2014, he was familiar with the college’s
reputation as “the great books school.” What
he was surprised to learn, though, was that the
curriculum is conversation-based and that this
core aspect of academic life influences the college community as a whole. “I’ve noticed that
students and tutors are talking all the time—
and not just about great books,” says Smolskis.
College, where she received her Ph.D. in
political science. Maggie Evans McGuinness
received her Ph.D. in American literature/
poetics at the University of Oregon, where she
taught literature and composition.
“At every level, you can feel that at the college,
in conversations with staff and faculty, in board
meetings. It’s very different from any other
place where I’ve worked. This makes a difference when you can have a real conversation
about, say, the budget, IT, or facilities. Rather
than a debate about resources, it’s a productive
discussion about supporting the departments.”
Smolskis’s role at the college includes
oversight of the budgeting process, the college
investments, short-term and long-term financial
forecasting, and working with the board and the
management committee to make sure the college
remains in sound shape fiscally. He has been designated the CFO across both the Santa Fe and
Annapolis campuses and is working with Santa
Fe Treasurer Bryan Valentine to unify accounting procedures and other business practices.
Before coming to St. John’s, Smolskis served
in executive leadership roles at Trinity Washington University and the Protestant Episcopal
Cathedral Foundation in Washington, D.C.,
among other organizations. Returning to higher
education, “I get my feet into a lot of different
areas, including non-financial duties, which is
part of what makes my position interesting,”
he says. “And I do things that are outside the
numbers, like moving forward on deferred
maintenance and plans to spruce up the
campus. We want to make sure that St. John’s
is a great place for students to live and feel
comfortable. The campus should sparkle, so
that visitors’ first impressions are good ones.”
He also oversees the information technology
needs of the campus and handles compliance
and personnel issues.
Just as he eagerly awaits the next issue of
his favorite comic book, Smolskis looks forward
to the future of St. John’s, doing his part to
make the college a vibrant place of learning
both inside and out. “As we make long-term
strategic plans, we have to realize that we’re
going to face challenges for some time,” he
says. “But that’s part of what’s fascinating—how
we manage our resources in order to get the
best bang for our buck.”
—Gregory Shook
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 7
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
C O N V E R S AT I O N
“We’re In This Together”
As Michael Peters, the sixth president of St. John’s College, Santa Fe,
prepares to depart the college in December 2015 – after 10 years of dedicated
service – he reflects on the Program’s influence on his life, how St. John’s
has changed over the last decade, and a college community whose passion
and commitment to the Program are rooted in love. New Santa Fe President
Mark Roosevelt will be profiled in the next issue of The College.
What stands out most as you look back
at your time as president?
We’ve got to acknowledge that the college
is facing challenges. It’s troubling to me to
leave with some of the challenges unresolved.
However, I hope after having been here for ten
years that I’ve left the college a little more
stable than when I found it. I’ve worked to create a healthy, collaborative relationship among
the president, the dean, the faculty, and our
colleagues on the Annapolis campus to preserve our distinctive identity, and to ensure we
have the wherewithal to continue to offer this
education to future generations of students.
To what do you attribute this evolution?
Your favorite book is War and Peace, and
you’ve led seminars on it. Has your reading
of the book changed because of that?
I’d first read the novel while studying Russian,
so I read it first in its original language. I’d
say I had a more general, almost superficial
appreciation for it. But my study of the novel
became much deeper when I encountered it
at St. John’s. I’ve truly come to appreciate the
depth of the work and the nuance that came
through discussion in seminar.
You’ve led seminars all over the country
and in the Summer Classics program.
Can you talk about your engagement
with students in seminar?
One of the first things I did as president was
participate in seminar with the January Freshman class of 2008. As someone who didn’t
graduate from St. John’s, it was beneficial to
sit in on seminars during my first years here.
Around that time, several students knew about
my background in international affairs and
One thing that is impossible to appreciate from
the outside, until you’ve been in the midst of
what we do here, is the love—which is really
the best word for it—this community has for the
St. John’s Program. You can read about it, but
until you’re here and really see on a day-to-day
basis, the intense level of commitment and
passion, the sacrifices that members of this
community are willing to make to preserve
and nurture the Program, it is impossible to
appreciate it fully.
When people think about your time here,
what would you like them to remember?
One of the most significant changes has been
the movement and evolution of the college’s
relationship with its alumni. The alumni are our
greatest advocates and are a natural source of
support if we’re going to continue to thrive in a
turbulent world.
There have been changes in the way the Alumni
Association operates, the way they choose their
leaders and rotate leadership, and together
we’ve created the Alumni Leadership Forum.
We’ve made it possible for alumni to focus their
efforts on behalf of admissions, career services,
and, of course, on fundraising. The great leadership shown by the alumni in recent years really
proves that we’re in this together.
How has your impression of St. John’s
College changed in the last ten years?
What will you miss about St. John’s?
“� ne thing that is impossible
O
to appreciate from the
outside, until you’ve been
in the midst of what we do
here, is the love—which is
really the best word for it—
this community has for the
St. John’s Program.”
approached me about starting an international
affairs study group. The study group would
revolve around a contemporary news article
on an issue in international affairs or U.S.
foreign policy. Similar to the St. John’s seminar
approach, I would ask a question to get things
started. It’s been one of the most rewarding
things I’ve done at St. John’s, because it has
given me a chance to get to know our students
more personally than I would otherwise. It
was a combination of my background and the
individual students that kept it alive.
8 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FA L L 2 015
Definitely all the people I’ve gotten to know
and become very close to over the years. In any
organization, the people are the most important and the folks here—staff, faculty, alumni,
and friends—have an astounding dedication to
this very singular education. Eleanor and I will
also miss Santa Fe. We’ve become very fond of
this area, and we’ll spend as much time here as
we can after we step down.
Do you have any advice for the new
president?
The best advice is pretty straightforward: Listen and take the time to get to know the place.
Sitting in on seminars gave me an opportunity
to get a sense of the students and faculty and
all the wonderful attributes they exhibit in the
classroom. There are a lot of other things on
a new president’s plate, but taking the time to
listen and really get an understanding of the
college is important. It’s also important to get
to know the place where the college is located—
the history, culture, and ethos of Santa Fe and
northern New Mexico.
�What’s next for you?
Initially, Eleanor and I will go back to New
York City, where we have a home, and then
we’ll see. I don’t have any immediate plans professionally, and I would like to take some time
to regroup and see where we go. We’ll do some
travel because our son and his family have just
moved to Turkey and we’ll be going over there
to make sure they raise our grandsons properly
[laughs]. One of the things I said in the Commencement address I was honored to give this
year’s senior class is that when you go through
life you have to be willing to be open to serendipity or providence, whichever term you prefer.
I’m going to try to follow my own advice and
see where that takes me.
—Gabe Gomez
Levan Hall, completed in 2010 to house St.
John’s Santa Fe’s Graduate Institute, is among
the key legacies of Peters’s presidency. He and
his team expanded the college’s facilities and
improved the existing physical plant to provide
an excellent learning environment for students
and faculty.
FRANK OOMS
PHOTOS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) with Peters at an
inauguration reception, October 2005. Peters
came to St. John’s after a distinguished military
career and service as executive vice president of
the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mike and Eleanor Peters celebrate the groundbreaking of Levan Hall on the Santa Fe campus.
Peters presides over the groundbreaking
ceremony for Winiarski Hall, a multi-use building
with housing for students, tutors’ offices, and
classrooms. From left: former BVG Chair Mike
Uremovich, then-Santa Fe Mayor David Coss,
tutor David McDonald, who chaired the campus
planning committee, and Warren Winiarski (Class
of 1952), who donated the building with his
wife, Barbara (Class of 1955). The building was
completed in 2012.
Mike Peters’s family applauds during his
inaugural address on October 28, 2005. Peters
began his presidency in January of that year.
From left: Peters’s wife, Eleanor; son, Michael;
daughter, Rebecca; and father, Max.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 9
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
COMMENCEMENT 2015
Barely two years into his retirement, tutor
emeritus Jonathan Tuck (H14) returned to
the Annapolis campus to deliver this year’s
commencement address. The 111 seniors in the
Class of 2015 “wanted our experience in the
classroom and in this community to be represented to our families sitting in the audience
by someone who has experienced it firsthand,”
explained Alexandra Wick (A15) in a letter to
the selection committee. “Our education has
been an exercise in community and vulnerability, and we chose Mr. Tuck to be the speaker for
his embodiment of those virtues.”
With characteristic humor and a knack
“� f we are wise in no other
I
way, we are wise enough to
reflect on this experience and
to value it as it deserves.”
TONY J PHOTOGRAPHY
Words on Wisdom
in Annapolis
PHOTO, TOP LEFT: Tutor emeritus Jonathan Tuck
(H14) in Annapolis.
TOP RIGHT: Santa Fe President Mike Peters.
TONY J PHOTOGRAPHY
for getting straight to the heart of things,
Tuck addressed the graduating seniors and
19 Graduate Institute students assembled on
the campus front lawn seminar-style—with
an opening question: “How is this choice [to
come to St. John’s] working out for us? Did we
get what we came for?” Tuck, who joined the
faculty at 31 and retired in 2013 after nearly 35
years at St. John’s, let these questions linger
while he reflected on the “immersive experience of being a part of this community” as well
as “the program we have in common, our common objects, the books we read, our common
understanding of our undertaking, [and] the
community within which we live and grow—all
these [which] bind us more closely in virtuous
friendship.” In his concluding remarks, Tuck,
with an ancient Greek virtue in mind, shared
this parting thought: “If we are wise in no
other way, we are wise enough to reflect on this
experience and to value it as it deserves.”
BRADY LEE (AGI14)
Jonathan Tuck (H14)
10 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
�COMMENCEMENT 2015
Santa Fe’s
Presidential Speaker
President Michael P. Peters presided over the
48th commencement on the Santa Fe campus.
By special request of the Class of 2015, Peters
also delivered the commencement address,
encouraging the class to “find something—an
idea, a passion or a role—that brings meaning
or purpose to your life” and also to “look for an
opportunity to contribute to or serve others.”
Peters, who retires at the end of 2015 and
who has led some of the college’s major milestones during his 10-year term as president,
said he was humbled by this opportunity to
speak to Santa Fe’s 84 graduating seniors and
10 masters candidates. The graduates and
“� erhaps most importantly,
P
find ways to feed your
soul as well as your mind
and body.”
Santa Fe President Michael Peters
their families and friends came together to
celebrate this singular moment in their lives
and to hear Peters praise them for the courage they had demonstrated in coming to and
graduating from St. John’s when conventional
wisdom is increasingly questioning the value
of a liberal education. “You enrolled at St.
John’s, persevered, learned, grew and arrive at
this ceremony today,” Peters said. “You stood
out from the crowd by taking on the challenges and seizing the opportunities St. John’s
affords. And I am sure you will stand out from
the crowd wherever you go.”
He concluded by saying, “Your time here
was only the beginning–a prelude. After all,
this ceremony is known as commencement.
If you are going to find meaning for yourself
and contribute to others you must continue to
grow intellectually, to foster your curiosity and
imagination, and to call upon your courage and
self-discipline. I also encourage you to continue
to challenge your assumptions, and move
beyond observation and description to thought
and action. And, perhaps most importantly,
find ways to feed your soul as well as your
mind and body.”
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 11
�F R OM T H E B E L L T OW E R S
S PA R E T I M E
Gardener’s Delight
When not tending to executive duties at the college, leading a seminar on
Plutarch, or speaking out on the value of the liberal arts, Annapolis President
Chris Nelson (SF70) is often found working in his garden, a lush sanctuary
that he calls home. Pausing from his presidential duties, Nelson talks with
The College about what makes gardening more than just a hobby.
I understand that when you have time
to spare from your presidential duties,
you like to garden. Can you tell us
what you do?
Well, let us get our terms straight first. My wife,
Joyce, is the gardener. I am heavy labor. We
have a dear gardening friend who calls me the
under-gardener. I limb trees, edge and mulch
the gardens, lay woodchip paths through the
woodland areas and stone paths among the
flower beds, gather the slash and cuttings to be
hauled away or composted for use a year later to
enrich the soil throughout the property. I love
working with my pruning shears, tree loppers,
chain saw, and eight-pound splitting maul, splitting and stacking wood for our indoor and outdoor
fireplaces, for the college, and for friends. If I am
about shape, form, and a path through, then Joyce
is about beauty, color, and content. She decides
what is to be planted and where—and then goes
about doing almost all the planting and tending
of the flower and shrub gardens. And she studies
gardens and reads voraciously about an extraordinary variety of plants and trees, and then she
brings her learning to bear in her selection of
plantings for the garden at home.
TONY J PHOTOGRAPHY
What do you like best about gardening?
Annapolis President Chris Nelson (SF70) helps care for more than four acres of ground.
12 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
There are so many things! I love the quiet
concentration and focus required. I am free of
distractions and only thinking about how to
bring a pleasing shape to a tree or a walking
path. I love walking through the garden at the
end of the day with Joyce, seeing with some
satisfaction the results of the day’s work and
laying out what the next day’s tasks will be.
Then, there is the exercise out-of-doors. After
spending most days in the office, car, or airport, I enjoy the fresh air. Joyce, too, has been
a busy professional, working as an attorney
at the Environmental Protection Agency in
Washington. The garden is our common space,
where we engage in our parallel play, usually
in different parts of the garden. At the end of
the day, we can each share with the other what
little bit of improvement we have made, usually
with a glass of wine in hand when we take our
stroll. And of course, gardening is endless; it is
never finished. So, as we get pleasure in both
the doing and the viewing, it means we can
continue such enjoyment endlessly. Then again,
we are happy to be of service to the college,
which has done so much to enrich our lives.
We entertain a lot, and the garden gives us a
beautiful venue for the purpose.
�You mention the paths you have made
through the garden. Why are these
important?
We have a gorgeous piece of land to care for. It
is more than four acres of rolling, hilly ground.
Great big oaks, tulip poplars, magnolias,
maples, white pine, hollies, river birch, cryptomerias, yoshino cherries, and rows of boxwood
give it structure. And there are beautiful visual
destination points in many different places,
from the Severn River and the students sailing
off the pier to the quiet waters of Shady Lake
where the Great Blue and Green Herons do
their fishing; from the fountain with the cardinals and goldfinches taking their afternoon
baths to the terrace flower beds attracting varieties of pollinating bees, Eastern Swallow Tails,
and many colorful butterflies; from the several
sculptures we have placed around the property
to Joyce’s small garden house and library down
by the water. In my view, if you have the space,
a garden should not just be taken in through
a single lens; it should be laid out to take you
on many little journeys to see what is around
the next corner. We have laid out the garden so
that we can walk around the property in several rings without repeating our steps. Always
something up ahead to look forward to. And
then we have benches and viewing areas to see
the osprey and their young learning to fly each
July, the family of fox tripping across the lawn,
the fat groundhogs eating the grass, the small
herd of deer limbing up the Yoshinos, and the
thousands of fireflies lighting up the garden in
the early June evenings.
“� garden should not just
A
be taken in through a single
lens; it should be laid out
to take you on many little
journeys to see what is
around the next corner.”
Commencement. We also have a special friend
and neighbor who has been of extraordinary
assistance to us this past year and a half. She
has made the garden more beautiful than ever.
And after twenty-four years developing the garden we have today, we have employed a friend
and professional photographer, Don Dement,
to document the garden over a twelve-month
cycle, with the plan of making a book to leave
with the college, showcasing our favorite photographs from the thousands he has taken.
Does the garden serve as an escape when
you need it from the pressures of the day?
What pressures?
Is there any one thing that gives you
special satisfaction?
Pulling the long trails of porcelain berry vines
out of the trees. It takes weeding to a high level.
Oh my, yes! We could not manage the half of
it without the college’s Buildings and Grounds
crew mowing the lawn each week and feeding
the special trees, delivering the truckloads of
mulch and woodchips, hauling away the slash
from a pile we build each weekend, and repairing the big equipment when it breaks down.
Then there has been a student helping us each
year over the past decade, which gives us the
added pleasure of getting to know better some
of those students I otherwise only see passing across the platform at Convocation and
PHOTOS: DON DEMENT
It’s an awfully big property. Do you get
any help in managing it all?
ABOVE: A
woodchip path through the garden’s woodland areas. FOLLOWING PAGE: View from the terrace
down to the Severn River at the president’s house in West Annapolis.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 13
�DON DEMENT
14 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
�THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 15
�Take your book out to the edge of whatever town or city
you inhabit as Thoreau took the Iliad to Walden Pond.
Read with “alert and heroic” character. There is no
Concord—no peace—unless you are prepared to fight for it.
16 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
�TUTOR VIEW
FREEDOM
upon an Achillean Shore
by David Townsend
When you encounter a truly great book, you feel
it in your mind, heart, and gut as your
soul expands and rises. So Henry David
Thoreau’s transcendental Walden hit me
at 19, when I was fortunate to read it in
Charles Hands’ brilliant American Literature
class at Loyola, Baltimore. I had previously
studied Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience,” a seminal
guide to non-violent resistance to the cruelties of government
and social tyranny, and a foundation for Gandhi, Martin
Luther King, Dorothy Day at the Catholic Worker, and Father
Phil Berrigan, pastor of St. Gregory’s in Baltimore, where I
volunteered as a young man, eager to learn how best to live.
Thoreau’s message is a wake-up call: live your own life, not somebody else’s.
You can become an army of one and be your own minuteman. Answer for yourself the essential questions, “How to Live?” and “What to Do?” Start where
you are. Don’t be afraid to say “I.” Make your life an experiment. If you break
molds or “march to the beat of a different drummer,” so be it.1 By centering upon a single “point d’appui,” 2 you can become free, like Sadi’s azad,3 or
become an original, free, independent American citizen of the “true America.”4
The horizons extending from your center point lie beyond your circumferences
of “expectation.” 5 You may find yourself thrilled with unanticipated wonder.
LEFT:
Photo of Walden Pond circa 1900.
Thoreau’s manuscript journals
from 1837-61. ART RESOURCE, NY
ABOVE:
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 17
�TUTOR VIEW
Walden is an educational manual and method for
living life fully. Thoreau teaches every reader to pursue a liberal education by living their own lifelong
experiment:
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that
if one advances confidently in the direction of
his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which
he has imagined, he will meet with a success
unexpected in common hours.6
Thoreau writes his book as an “honest man,” in
the first person. All books are so written, but many
pretend not to be:
I should not talk so much about myself if there
were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.7
Walden Pond is the “earth’s eye,”8 “sacred as
the Ganges.”9 Make its deep center, which Thoreau
locates by surveying diameters crossing, a symbol
of your own deep foundation. You may be leading a
Thoreau’s message is a wake-up call:
live your own life, not somebody else’s.
desperate life and have to steal time from your creditors to read this essay. If so, fear not. Freedom is at
hand. You can “start now” and proceed “instantly,”10
without waiting for permission from any authority.
Like the artist of Kouroo in the ancient Vedic tale
that Thoreau recounts, you can set out at once on
your sojourn with your own “pure and perfect” walking stick. Resist giving away your life to those who
would dominate and master you, and your rewards
will be great. In Thoreau’s parable, the artist’s “Singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated
piety endowed him, without his knowledge, with
perennial youth.”11 If transcending time and keeping
your soul forever young attracts you, then Walden is
your text. And Thoreau is a man you can go to school
on. But you are no one’s disciple. Not even Thoreau’s.
Never, never, never surrender your own life in order
to live someone else’s.
A philosopher might interpret Walden as a phenomenological description of finding the self. Thoreau calls it the way of love. “Nothing can deter a
poet for he is actuated by pure love.”12 How shall we
18 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
love? There are three methods in Walden: Nature,
America, and Reading.
Begin with nature. “I love the wild not less than
the good.”13 Live “as deliberately as Nature.”14 We can
learn much from Thoreau’s radical ecology, face our
environmental crisis, and address the daily extinction of species. Throughout Walden, Thoreau melds
his mind with many creatures—owls, mice, insects,
birds, and most especially a loon.15 He confronts false
clarity, challenging philosophers and economists who
would only interpret the world to change it.
If we fail to change, Nature may take revenge
on those who blaspheme her. Walden Pond herself
“whoops”16 unexpectedly as the ice speaks. Is “whoop”
the cry of the original Native American for whom the
pond is named,17 who may be “the grandmother of
Adam”? The indigenous spirit of Nature rebounds.
[L]et wild Nature reign once more and the tender
and luxurious English grains will probably disappear before… the great corn-field of the Indian’s God … prove itself indigenous, and resume
its ancient importance and dignity.18
The second method of Walden is to establish
“true America.”19 True Americans, who live self-reliant lives of practical courage and economy, crow “as
lustily as Chanticleer”20 to awaken us from “quiet
desperation.”21 Consider how emerging wild, courageous, and indigenous Americans will invigorate a
weakened “tender and luxurious” America and liberate us from tyrannies of fashion22 and conformity.
The only true America is the country where
you are at liberty… where the state does not
endeavor to compel you to sustain slavery and
war and other superfluous expenses.23
This “true America” is possible only when individual true Americans rise up one by one to claim “their
own.”24 Like Socrates in Plato’s Republic, Thoreau
knows that the “power and capacity exist in the soul
already.”25
Thus Thoreau talks “purposefully” to the poor
immigrant John Field “as if he were a philosopher.”26
What is the true cost of “superfluous expenses”?…
“the cost of a thing is the amount of… life which is
required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in
the long run.”27 This is true “full cost accounting.” A
simple dwelling costs “ten to fifteen years of a laborer’s life.” Learn from Native Americans rather than
old Europe: “In the savage state every family owns a
shelter as good as the best” but not in the economy
�to which we surrender, “in modern civilized society
not more than one half the families own a shelter.”28
Such inequality is unacceptable. Will you trust Fannie Mae or yourself to address this problem?
Thoreau describes in detail his experiment of
building a simple cabin to live as a squatter on the
banks of Walden Pond in the woods a mile outside of
Concord, beginning on July 4. Counting costs to the
half-penny, he demonstrates how to live economically by working only six weeks a year. It is possible
to achieve home ownership and resist war, slavery,
and superfluities. Thoreau builds his own low-cost
housing and starts a movement of non-violent resistance by going to jail. He refuses to pay taxes to
finance wars required to preserve vicious inequalities, whether against Mexico or others.
Learning to read is Thoreau’s third and final
method. He prophesies a “reign of poetry.”29 The
paradox of Walden is that its clarion call to change
America and the global polity comes in the solitary
reading of a great text. It is a book as challenging as
the poetry of the Hebrew prophets and the ancient
texts of Homer, the Vedas, Zoroaster, and Confucius.
Walden resounds with prophets and poets from Ezekiel and Pindar to Sadi and Coleridge. Reading is not
equivalent to living. Nevertheless, to live free, you
must learn to read as you have never read before:
Those who have not learned to read the ancient
classics in the language in which they are written
must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history of the human race; for it is remarkable that
no transcript has ever been made of them in any
modern tongue, unless our civilization itself may
be regarded as such a transcript.30
Walden summons us to “our” true citizenship one
reader at a time. What if each American took personal responsibility to read “the transcript” of “our
civilization”? What if the truth of this logos lay alertly
and heroically upon every American tongue, speaking to the questions, “How to live and What to do?”
Consider how the indigenous “reign of poetry”31—a
way of understanding all three methods—will invigorate a weakened “tender and luxurious” people.
Take your book out to the edge of whatever town or
city you inhabit as Thoreau took the Iliad to Walden
Pond. Read with “alert and heroic”32 character. There
is no Concord—no peace—unless you are prepared
to fight for it. As Krishna leads Arjuna to recognize in the Bhagavad-Gita,33 Thoreau’s guiding text
Take up Thoreau’s American pragmatism.
Start now and confront subjectivity, nature,
animals, land, village, and visitors face-to-face.
for Walden, you cannot withdraw from the battle.”
Start now. You are an army and majority of one.34
Step out as Achilles35 does in the Iliad. Defy the
injustice of Agamemnon. Give your armor over to
love. Don’t worry about what you will put on. The
gods will provide. Unfurl your own free flag to April’s
breeze and you may find yourself suddenly at Concord Bridge with a cohort of minutemen able to fire
“the shot heard round the world.”36
Thoreau found freedom at Walden upon “an Achillean shore.”37 Liberation requires a new birth of
freedom in self, society, and economy. Radical ecology begins as locally as a 17-year locust emerging from
apparently dead wood.38 Imagine a 240-year locust.
Take up Thoreau’s American pragmatism. Start now
and confront subjectivity, nature, animals, land, village,
and visitors face-to-face. Thoreau invites us to “travel a
great deal in Concord.” Do take up Walden. The life
and the planet you save are certainly your own.
Walden – Norton Critical Edition,
third edition, p. 219; cited hereafter as
Walden and page number.
1� �
Walden, p. 70
Walden, p. 57
4
Walden, p. 140
5
Walden, p. 143
6
Walden, p. 217
7
Walden, p. 5
8
Walden, p. 128
9
Walden, p. 132
10
Walden, p. 219
11
Walden, p. 219
12
Walden, p. 180
13
Walden, p. 143
14
Walden, p. 69
15 �
Walden, pp. 95, 159
16
Walden, p. 183
17
Walden, p. 125
18
Walden, p. 162
19
Walden, p. 140
20 �
Walden, pp. 5, 60
21
Walden, p. 8
22
Walden, p. 21
23
Walden, p. 140
2
3
Walden, pp. 14, 17,
52, 83
25 �
Plato’s Republic,
518c
26
Walden, p. 140
27
Walden, p. 24
28
Walden, p. 24
29
Walden, p. 162
30 �
Walden, pp. 73-74
31
Walden, p. 162
32
Walden, p. 76
33 �
Walden, p. 200
34 �
“�Civil Disobedience,” p. 235
35
Walden, p. 156
36
�Emerson,
“Concord Hymn”
37
Walden, p. 196
38
Walden, p. 223
24 �
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 19
�HALCYON
20 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
�HAVEN
WILL HOLLINGSWORTH
(A08) RECLAIMS A
SPACE OF HIS OWN
B Y PA U L A N O V A S H
On the homepage of the Spotted Owl
Bar’s website is a copy of owner Will
Hollingsworth’s (A08) favorite poem,
“Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas. Hollingsworth
says that the work is “sort of our mission
statement. It’s all there, especially in
those last two lines, ‘Time held me green
and dying, Though I sang in my chains like
the sea.’ It’s being young, but at the same
time, knowing we’re on our way out.”
But while the poet mourns his lost youth,
Hollingsworth is embracing his youth now—
witness the Spotted Owl, which opened in
summer 2014 after three years of planning
that included the thoughtful reclaiming
of a long-vacant, pre-Civil War complex of
buildings in the recently revived Tremont
area of downtown Cleveland.
PHOTOS BY ANDREW WELLS
PORTRAIT OF WILL HOLLINGSWORTH (ABOVE)
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 21
BY HEATHER CAMPBELL
�“�T BOTHERS ME WHEN PEOPLE
I
WANT TO ‘REVITALIZE’ AN AREA BY
TEARING EVERYTHING DOWN.”
A
self-confessed “bar nerd”—Harry
Brownes in Annapolis is a favorite—Hollingsworth envisioned the
Spotted Owl as a neighborhood
pub similar to those in Portland,
Oregon, his hometown. “There are
lots of great restaurants in the area, but there was
no cool bar,” Hollingsworth recalls. “I love bars and
their history. People come to bars to have fun, fight,
fall in love. You can relax and enjoy yourself because
the surroundings say, somebody who’s behind this
really knows what he’s doing.”
Cleveland was a serendipitous choice for Hollingsworth’s foray into business ownership. He was on
a cross-country road trip, taking a breather from
stints at a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C.
and campaigning for candidate Barack Obama, when
he got off the highway and never left. “There’s an
honesty to the culture here that really appealed to
me after working in a political atmosphere,” he says.
He tended bar at two well-known Cleveland restaurants, becoming more immersed in the city and the
people he met. “A bartender can talk about anything
with anyone; a Johnnie is particularly well-suited,”
he says. “You need to be able to make a really great
drink, but also know what’s on today’s sports pages,
where an apartment is coming up for rent and what
regulars might like to be introduced to each other.”
The idea of opening a bar became more tangible
after Hollingsworth became friends with one of his
regulars. “Bars kept coming up in our conversations,
then the conversations turned to meetings. Eventually he said, if you can put numbers to your idea I can
help you go out and find the money.” Hollingsworth
spent the next 11 months developing a business plan
and was fully capitalized by 2012.
Finding the perfect location was next, and when he
walked into the abandoned mid-19th-century building
that had formerly housed the long-defunct Cleveland
College, a Civil War hospital, and a publishing house
that produced religious tracts, among other tenants,
22 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
�he knew it was right. “The last time it was occupied
was over seventy-five years ago by an all-female ministry, the Gospel Workers Society,” he recalls. “It had
a dirt floor and old brick and a poured-concrete ceiling—great elements to preserve for an old pub feel.”
The Spotted Owl now is a dark, intimate haven of
tables built of salvaged barn wood and denim-blue
concrete floors, softened by some stained glass and
toile. Hollingsworth calls the style he was going for
“brawny colonial. We used as many of the existing
features as we could. It bothers me when people want
to ‘revitalize’ an area by tearing everything down.”
Although the bar’s been successful since day one,
Hollingsworth is still open to tweaks. “In the first
week we realized our business was ninety percent
specialty cocktails,” he says. “I’m a bar guy, not so
much a cocktail guy—but now I’ve got to figure out
how to own a cocktail bar.” That means in addition
to putting in 16-hour days at the Spotted Owl, Hollingsworth is regularly traveling to New York and
other locations to learn the nuances of original cocktail development (the Spotted Owl’s have names
like “Done & Undone,” “The Sun Came After,” and
“Queen By The Gold On Your Head”).
OPPOSITE:
The bar’s tables
are built of salvaged
barn wood.
TOP : Hollingsworth finds
the perfect location
— an abandoned 19thcentury building.
LEFT:
Beer taps await
their first pour.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 23
�“� ROVIDING A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE CAN
P
ENJOY THEMSELVES AND ENJOY EACH
OTHER IS, I THINK, A NOBLE ENDEAVOR.”
24 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
�JOHN LAWN
PHOTO: EDSEL LITTLE / CREATIVE COMMONS
Putting in the work for something you believe in
reflects the sensibility of his adopted city, according
to Hollingsworth. “People in Cleveland believe, one,
you don’t get anything without hard work, and two,
you do what you have to do to survive. It’s a wonderful place, but you really have to it experience it to
understand,” he continues.
He would say the same thing about his years
at St. John’s (three in Santa Fe and senior year in
Annapolis). “I spent four years doing something that
took up all of me,” he explains. “I remember junior
year, when there’s literally not enough hours to do
all the work, so the professors are interested in what
work you choose to do. You decide what you want
and pour yourself into it completely.
“I needed something that’s like that every day,
something that pushes me up against my limits,”
he continues. “I wanted to dedicate my twenties to
something—and providing a place where people can
enjoy themselves and enjoy each other is, I think, a
noble endeavor.”
A cozy nook provides an ideal setting for good conversation.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 25
�JAMEY STILLINGS
Melanie Kirby
(SF 97) hugs a jar
of bees on her farm
in New Mexico.
26 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
�JOHNNIE VOICES
BIRTH
OF A
BEEKEEPER
One Social Butterfly’s Metamorphosis
into a Conscious Nectar Nomad
I
by Melanie M. Kirby (SF97)
’ve travelled many a road, in the darkest of nights, serving as
chauffeur to beings of lightness and sweet, migrating with them
as a fellow follower of the bloom. On other starry dappled nights,
I ride as passenger, hearing the hum of the motor and the buzz
of the bees, smelling the scents of warm beeswax and nectar
being fanned to its essential and existential perfection. I hop
in and out of the truck opening and closing gates, allowing the
navigator to slowly ease over bumpy tracks to the distant land
of milk and honey. I latch the gate behind the truck and realize
that here in this darkest of night skies I am helping to carry
tiny embers of pure starlight to their new fragrant pasture.
What am I doing? Transporting queen bees I’ve raised to their new
hives, where they will form the foundation for a group of beings that
ensure the existence and continuation of plant species, and in the
process produce exceptional honey. My business, Zia Queenbees, raises
queen bees, provides beekeepers with starter nuclei and assembled
hive boxes, produces varietal honeys, and offers pollination services and
community education about the wonders of beekeeping.
How did I get here? I recall as a five-year-old wanting to be a nurse.
I was intrigued with the biology of life and with the science that leads
to healing. I wanted to be liked—and I wanted to promote wellness. A
few years later, I wanted to be “interesting” and to become a writer of
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 27
�JOHNNIE VOICES
interesting things. I entertained a career
as an anthropologist, so I could learn how
people in other cultures live, what they strive
to attain in their lives and how they celebrate. It was the celebration and power of
music and dancing that I became intrigued
with next, while at the same time pursuing
the sciences. I had no clue that I would be
able to include all of my childhood interests
into one career path—that of keeping fuzzy
insects for my livelihood.
Now, close to two decades after the bees
found me, I feel a little more “interesting”
—enough to write. After travelling the globe
from farms to forest lands, following the
bloom from flower to flower and from hive
to hive, I recognize the pieces of my life’s
puzzle. And, so, today I am a professional
apiculturist, one who keeps bees. I am a
specialist. I am a queen honeybee breeder.
The heart of the hive rests with the queen,
and in selecting and following Mother
Nature’s lead, I help to nurse hives; by doing
so, I immerse myself in their culture and feel
their musical vibrations.
Keeping bees is very different from “having” bees. In order to keep bees, one has to
constantly learn from the natural and manmade forces and their interactions. Synergy
is the interaction of individual conditions
that yields an effect greater than the sum
of the individual effects. The interactions
between a bee and its environment, between
its colony and their environment, are everchanging. Mother Nature’s dynamic interface requires the ability to adapt and the
ability to relate to more than one stimulus.
The bees rely on the natural and supplemental forage that surrounds them. They are
at the mercy of the elements. Their importance to plants is profound. Also known as
the “winged angels of agriculture,” their
efforts help to produce more than ninety
percent of all food. As Hippocrates claimed,
I
had no clue that I would
be able to include all of
my childhood interests
into one career path—
that of keeping fuzzy
insects for my livelihood.”
Kirby inspects a hive of honeybees.
“Let food be thy medicine, and medicine
thy food.” Seventy percent of all cures are
derived from plants, and it is this connection between horticulture and medicine that
keeps the bees, and man, healthy.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of
my small bee farm, which is nestled where
the Santa Fe, Carson, and Pecos National
28 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
Forests “kiss.” The idea for the farm developed out of a love of books. When I met my
partner Mark Spitzig (who runs Superior
Honey Farms in Michigan now) while working
at a bee farm in Florida, we started eating
dinner together with a dessert of heated discussions about Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
Books fostered our conversations, and it was
�through books that we came to learn about
each other and our passion for bees. Books
and their musings inspired us to discuss. And
books inspired us to plan and to act.
Books encouraged us to dream, to become
inspired, to visualize and then manifest.
How can learning to learn inspire others and
inspire a sense of preservation and, thus,
sustainability? It is in thinking that we create. Creating is the reflection of what Mother
Nature and Father Time have been molding
us to do since time immemorial. It is this,
and this alone, that moves the cosmos.
We see it reflected again and again, in the
writings of Plato in the Meno: what is the
bee? Is the bee a bee or is it a bee because
it is part of a collective hive mind? Can a bee
be a bee without his hive mind? And, does
the hive exist apart from its bees? What, we
daresay, what IS it? And WHO are we?
I’ve had a few epiphanies over the years,
nothing short of miraculous for me as I am
rather high-strung, scarcely slowing down
to eat and sleep. It is my creative mind that
I struggle to rein in on occasion. It takes
me through the honeycombed labyrinths of
reality. Yet, I find the calm when I am truly
in the honeycombs, kneeling in the apiary.
This calm is pervasive. You can hear it humming its maternal frequency. You can smell
its sweetness and you can see its
majesty. And it beckons you to preserve it.
These sensory experiences appeal to my
thoughts, allowing me to reconnect with the
exquisiteness of life and strive for a glimpse
of origin. I did not know that beekeeping
would become the professional and personal
declaration for me that it has. I attribute
that to my experiences as a student at St.
John’s, learning to learn and wanting to
learn. Wanting to learn has everything to
do with manifestation. It is humbling to recognize that what one thinks, one sees—and
what one does, one makes real.
My beekeeping journey began 19 years
ago; it has been exhilarating. My vida loca
has me travelling the speed of light in
thought between the micro and macrocosmic perspectives as I follow the bloom from
season to season. My life as a nectar nomad
has fed me both in body and in mind. I see
the bee. I AM the bee.
I see her working: visiting each blossom,
sensing its perfumes, collecting its pollen
and starlit nectar, and then returning home
to transform these energy particles into
more decorated entities of light and sweetness. It is that light, that sweet light, at the
core of it all. It emanates from the source,
radiating down from the heavens, shining
A
The scent of nectar wafts from hive boxes.
fter travelling the globe from
farms to forest lands, following the bloom from flower
to flower and from hive to
hive, I recognize the pieces
of my life’s puzzle.”
down on a lonely planet. This lonely planet
then absorbs light and is inspired to grow
beings of light, beings that transform it into
sweet and fragrant nectars. Other beings
of light help transfer the glow, serving as
midwives and pollinators, helping to deliver
fruit full of this light energy, nourishing
our minds and our bodies. From stardust
to stardust, it is we who help to create the
environment in which we exist.
About the Author: Melanie Margarita
Kirby has followed the bloom with her
bees to South America, North America,
Eastern Europe, the Pacific Islands
and the Caribbean. She will venture
to the Mediterranean this fall to visit
French queen honeybee breeders in
Normandy. She also serves as the
editor of Kelley Beekeeping monthly
online newsletter, with more than
40,000 subscribers. To learn about her
farm, visit www.ziaqueenbees.com.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 29
�BIBLIOFILE
EVA BRANN
Reading
Comprehension
“�Comprehension
works by circumspection, by looking
around a being’s
outer limits, its
borderlands.”
T
his slim volume, Then and Now: The World’s
Center and the Soul’s Demesne (Paul Dry
Book, 2015), comprehends two essays: one on
Herodotus and one on “imaginative conservatism.” I use the slightly odd, and possibly ungrammatical, locution “comprehends” because it seems
that this idea—“comprehending”—unites the work. “To
comprehend” does not, on Annapolis tutor Eva Brann’s
(H89) telling, merely mean “to understand.” Comprehenders, as she might dub them, do understand, but,
more importantly, these comprehenders demonstrate
a particular form of mindedness—the form offered in
Herodotus’ History and the form that the “imaginative
conservative” would do well to cultivate.
The special form of understanding that is comprehension does not work by heading straight to the
center of things. Comprehension works by circumspection, by looking around
a being’s outer limits, its
borderlands. Rather than
grasping hold of an inner
essence, comprehension
“allows what a thing is
to coalesce out of what
it is not.” That thing, for
Herodotus, “Greek being”
and that out of which it
coalesces, are barbarian
mores. And so in pursuit
of Greekness, Herodotus,
the comprehender, must
necessarily visit and
delineate the “environing
Barbarians, both because they are wonderful in themselves and because it is in opposition to them that the
thus pin-pointed Greeks are to be defined.” And here is
where comprehension becomes quite a delicate matter.
Greek being is not simply the opposite of barbarian
being. It rather coalesces out of these others—out of
Egyptians who revere for domestic cats, Persians who
revere most natural forces, and Scythians who have
not much use for the divine.
But just what coalesces out of this motley?
Herodotus does not always say, leaving the reader a
fair bit of work. But I imagine Herodotus would have
nodded approvingly at this, Brann’s description of the
Greeks’ relationship to the divine: “For all the art their
anthropomorphic gods elicit, the Greeks are more
natural by far than the Egyptians and indeed than
30 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
most barbarians, since it takes worldliness for humans
to become natural; hide-bound tribalism tends to be
artifice-ridden. The alien veneration of animals, and by
contrast, their own beautiful anthropomorphic gods
must bring home to Greeks their proper integration
into a natural cosmos, a well-ordered world in which
humans do not worship lower species, but live in a
continuity of appearance and in a great chain of being
with the higher orders.” These remarks show what a
majestic mode of mindfulness comprehending is. While
the fraternal twin, the apprehender, goes straight to
the heart of things, what care and attention must the
comprehender bring to such a great swath of being!
And what nobility does this, in turn, bestow upon barbarian practices? For what glory is there in coalescing
out of a stew of savagery and insignificance?
But is there reason to think, as the book’s second
essay claims, that comprehending is a mode of mindedness that ought specifically appeal to conservatives?
Perhaps so, if Brann is right to describe conservatives as “not famous for tolerance.” For if this is the
case, “So much the more ought they, in their proper
thoughtful mode, gain a reputation for inclusiveness
more deeply grounded than in the unreliable vagaries
of mere putting up with each other, called ‘tolerance.’”
Herodotus did not put up with Egyptians, Persians,
or Scythians. He comprehended them. Such comprehending might help conservatives do what they
are—etymologically, we might say—called to do: “to
keep safe” that which is worthy of safekeeping. This
strikes me as persuasive, but I see no reason to limit
it to imaginative conservatives. Those who are famous
for tolerance might steel their thin, bloodless version
with Brann’s reminder that “the confines of what I
positively approve are equally the limits of its negative
complement: the latter therefore cooperates in the
definition of the former and is thus a necessary aspect
of all positive being.”
Brann identifies other aspects of imaginative conservatism, walking around its borders and recording
what she sees: a bias against the future, a disposition
to feel awe in the face of faith, a populism based on
friendship and difference, a protectiveness of what is
of slow growth and has endured. Her borderlands are
less wild than Herodotus’, but her little book can honorably stand next to his big one, two authors speaking
to one another with deep, and mutual, comprehension.
—Brendan Boyle
�Artful Rainwater Design: Creative
Ways to Manage Stormwater
By Stuart Echols and Eliza Pennypacker (A79)
Island Press, 2015
In their new book, Artful Rainwater Design: Creative
Ways to Manage Stormwater, Stuart Echols and
Eliza Pennypacker (A79), faculty members at Penn
State’s Department of Landscape Architecture, rethink
traditional stormwater treatment systems and offer
innovative solutions for managing heavy rainwater
and the runoff in ways that are valuable and beautiful.
From the book’s opening pages, readers are reminded
that rain is a resource, not a waste product. Artful
Downstream: Reflections on
Brook Trout, Fly Fishing, and the
Waters of Appalachia
By David L. O’Hara (SFGI00) and Matthew T. Dickerson
Cascade Books, 2014
David L. O’Hara (SFGI00), an associate professor of
philosophy and the classics at Augustana College in
South Dakota, has co-written a collection of meditative narrative essays on fly fishing. His chapters are
interspersed with chapters by his friend Matthew
Dickerson, a professor at Middlebury College. In each
chapter, O’Hara and Dickerson fish—alone, together,
Money Trees: The Douglas Fir and
American Forestry, 1900–1944
By Emily K. Brock (A94)
Oregon State University Press, 2015
This scholarly work is a thorough interdisciplinary history of forestry in the Pacific Northwest and a significant contribution to environmental studies. Foresters
did not necessarily consider their work ecological, but
they did consider themselves to be scientists. Emily
Brock (A94), a research scholar at Germany’s Max
Planck Institute for the History of Science, considers
Rainwater Design (ARD), a term coined by Echols in
2005, describes an approach to sustainable stormwater management in which the management system is
designed as a landscape amenity. Building on a decade
of research, this comprehensive guide explores methods to design creative yet practical landscapes that
treat on-site rainwater management as an opportunity
to enhance site design through education, recreation,
safety, public relations, or aesthetic appeal. The book
also highlights techniques for ecologically sustainable rainwater management and features diverse case
studies that illustrate how landscape designers and
engineers throughout the country are implementing
principles of ARD.
or with friends and family—as well as hike and camp
throughout Appalachia. The fishermen seek brook
trout, the famous native fish of the rivers and streams
in the Appalachian Mountains. The stories they tell
are reminiscent of the evocative fishing scenes in Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It but include
information about history, geography, water politics,
and conservation that is skillfully woven into inviting,
voice-driven prose. Downstream features a forward
by Nick Lyons, a renowned fly fisherman and founder
of Lyons Press, and an afterward by Bill McKibben, a
writer and environmentalist who won the 2014 Right
Livelihood Award.
their work in the context of the biological sciences as
well as through the lens of American political and economic processes, including the New Deal, which was
a time of turmoil for foresters due to the ravages of
the Great Depression and changes in federal land and
resource management. Brock also explores how foresters became involved in the lumber industry during the
early 1940s, as logging companies started to consider
the long-term health of forests—a move that distanced
forestry from its origins in nature and turned it into a
means for corporations to gain the approval of Americans concerned about deforestation.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 31
�For & About
ALUMNI
VIRTUAL CHAPTER
SEMINARS
Hungry for good conversation?
Enter the St. John’s Virtual
Chapter seminars. Open to alumni
in search of a serious discussion
about a difficult reading, this fall’s
Virtual Chapter seminars, led by
St. John’s tutors, will explore such
works as Plato’s Gorgias, Dante’s
Inferno, and Shakespeare’s The
Tempest, among others.
Seminars, which use the online
conference program ZoomUS,
will be held on Sundays at 4 p.m.
EST. To participate, all you need
is a computer with a webcam
(iPads work, too).
Honoring Outstanding Alumni
At the annual Alumni Leadership
Forum (ALF) Awards Banquet,
alumni are recognized for leadership and volunteerism with the
Alumni Association’s Volunteer
Service Awards (or ALFies). In
June on the Santa Fe campus, a
dozen Johnnies received ALFies.
“The Awards Committee received
so many nominations this year
that it was really hard to select
twelve winners,” says Lee Katherine Goldstein (SFGI90), who steps
down this year from the Alumni
Association Board.
Recognized for their work with
alumni chapters, Paul Frank
(SF82) has organized chapter
events and held leadership positions in the Chicago Chapter
since the early ’80s, while Harry
Zolkower (A82) and Nicole Levy
(SF92) developed Virtual Alumni
Chapter seminars. For several
years, Larry Davis (SFGI87) has
helped the Austin/San Antonio
Chapter donate a complete set
of the Encyclopedia Britannica
Great Books of the Western World
to a first or second year student
from Texas.
Rachel Dudik (A02), Juniper
Lavato (SFGI13), and Sabina
Sulat (A87) received ALFies for
their work with Career Services.
Dudik established summer
internships and participated
on Career Services panels, and
Lavato established a “Guest
Program” at the Santa Fe Institute for current students. Sulat
helped coordinate both the first
alumni career services webinar
and other networking events.
Cindy Lutz (A98), Nick Gazzolo
(A93), Amy Hoffman Parakkat (A93), and Barbara McClay
(A12) received ALFies for their
work online. Lutz identified (and
engaged others to help identify)
significant errors (typos, dead
links, etc.) on the college’s new
website in the weeks after it was
launched. Gazzolo and Parakkat
established the Johnnie Quote
Facebook page, and McClay conducted an alumni interview series
on the student blog Johnnie Chair.
32 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
Perhaps the most emotional
ALFie of the evening, though,
went to Annette Prapasiri
(SF04), recognized for her efforts
with engaging other members of
the Class of 2004 to complete the
Armillary Sphere Project. The
senior legacy project resulted
in one of the highest class
giving rates. A tearful Prapasiri
thanked her fellow classmates
and project leaders, adding that
the project demonstrated the
impact that St. John’s had on her
class and the legacy they wished
to leave future Johnnies.
Finally, Lee Katharine Goldstein (SFGI90) received her own
personalized Johnnie Chair in
honor of her years of outstanding
service to the Alumni Association.
With roaring applause, the award
was the perfect way to cap off the
alumni celebration.
—-Babak Zarin (A11)
To reserve your seat at the table
for any or all of these seminars,
please contact Annapolis Alumni
Director Leo Pickens at
leo.pickens@sjc.edu.
October 4:
Genesis 25:19-50:24
(Stories of Jacob and Joseph),
led by Sam Kutler
November 8:
Plato’s Gorgias
December 13:
Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus
January 10:
Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics,
Book II (1103a-1110a) & Book VI
(1138 b-1145a).
February 7:
Dante’s Inferno,
Cantos 32, 33 & 34,
led by Joe MacFarland
March 13:
Descartes’ Discourse on Method
April 3:
Hegel’s Preface to
Phenomenology of Spirit
May 1:
Shakespeare’s The Tempest
�ADRIAN TREVISAN (A84)
Alumni Association Board President
“� ’m excited to be leading the Alumni Association as we
I
work with St. John’s staff on both campuses to create
new ways to strengthen the Johnnie community and
support the college. By developing local events focused
on admissions, career services, giving, and whatever
else people think of in addition to the traditional alumni
seminars, we hope to attract Johnnies of all interests,
broaden local alumni leadership, and create a more
vibrant alumni community.”
Please welcome the new
leadership of the Alumni
Association, serving in the
following capacities:
OFFICERS
Adrian Trevisan (A84), President
Tia Pausic (A86), President-elect,
Nominating Committee
Phelosha Collaros (SF00), PastPresident, Awards Committee
David Pex (SF77), Treasurer
Susann Bradford (SF89),
Secretary
A New Direction for the SJCAA
A record-breaking number
of alumni joined the Alumni
Association Board at the Alumni
Leadership Forum held in
Santa Fe, June 4-7, to discuss
the Association’s progress in
engaging alumni and supporting
the college. After reviewing the
November 2014 Alumni Survey
and accomplishments in the
2013-2015 Strategic Plan, the
board and alumni concluded that
the 2015-2017 strategic planning
process should focus on alumni
engagement at the local level.
Alumni survey results show that
while 60% of respondents want
their chapter to include seminars
among the activities it offers,
chapters still need to offer other
kinds of activities to attract the
remaining 40% of alumni. Other
activities receiving high marks
were social activities, helping
with admissions, and (especially
among younger alumni) career
services. (The survey report
can be found at: http://community.stjohnscollege.edu/aarecords/2014-alumni-survey)
With these facts in mind, alumni
participants suggested the following ideas for the board and
chapters to consider:
Local Chapter Activities
Chapters/local alumni should put
thought and effort into engaging
recent graduates by developing
a variety of activities to appeal
to a wide range of ages and the
different interests, and financial
capabilities. that these represent.
Not all alumni will want to participate in all events, and chapters
may want to consider collective
leadership to allow multiple meetings each month. Some recent
examples of chapter activities
include:
• � win Cities pop-up or flash
T
seminar on Obergefell scheduled
after the SCOTUS decision on
marriage equality
• � anta Fe’s fundraising hike for
S
the Hallie Leighton Fund
• � hicago’s picnic in Millennium
C
Park with the Grant Park
Orchestra
DIRECTORS AT LARGE
(listed by working group)
Board Leadership
for Local Activities
The Association should define
clear roles for alumni in the
field, both within a chapter and
individually; the Association
should then develop tools and
a guidebook to roll these out to
alumni.
Fundraising
Make clear that small donations
are welcomed—fundraising communications to alumni should
emphasize that any amount is welcomed, and specifically that a high
participation rate is very desirable,
regardless of amount.
The board will prepare a new
strategic plan focused on alumni
engagement at the local level.
If you would like to contribute
ideas to the plan, or volunteer
for a working group, contact your
local chapter leader. If you don’t
know who that is, look them up
via IntroMaps or www.sjc.edu.
Admissions
Anne Fenton (SFGI07)
Joao Santa-Rita (A09)
Alumni Giving Council
Merry Peckham (SF07)
Heather Upshaw (SF04)
Alumni Leadership Forum
Brenna Strauss (SF04)
Babak Zarin (A11)
Career Services
Sabina Sulat (A87)
Chapters and Regional Events
Elihu Dietz (SF06)
Carol Freeman (AGI94)
Strategic Communications
Aaron MacLean (A03)
Student Engagement
Briana Henderson Saussy
(A03, EC05)
Ex-Officio: Sarah Palacios (Director
of Alumni Relations, Santa Fe)
Director Emeritus:
Allan Hoffman (Class of 1949)
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 33
�ALUMNI NOTES
1955
After 50 years of conducting,
Harold Bauer (A) is mostly retired
from the world of music and has
taken a keen interest in oil painting. As president of the Evanston
Lighthouse Rotary Club, he
became active in international
service as well as serving his
local community. He and his wife,
Karen, hope to do some serious
traveling in the years ahead.
1982
Inspirational Orchids
1963
William (A) and Jessica Hoffmann
Davis (Class of 1965) are retired
from Credit Suisse and Harvard,
respectively, and are now spending
most days along Squam Lake in
New Hampshire, where Jessica
writes books on the arts in education and plays that are performed
at the local theater. The couple
celebrated their 50th wedding
anniversary in Boston.
1965
Allenna Dungan Leonard (A)
received the Warren McCulloch
Award of the American Society
for Cybernetics, given for lifelong
contributions to the nurturing of cybernetics, at the ASC
50th Anniversary Conference in
August 2014.
1966
Rod Roderick (A) writes that he
was a freshman twice, once in
1962, when he left for “unrequited
love,” and then again two years
later, when he returned at the
invitation of admissions director
James Tolbert. In the meantime,
he had worked for the Hunt
Brothers Royal Traveling Circus,
worked in New York City as a
Julie von Erffa (SF) writes, “I was
in the pioneer class that started
in 1964. There were 81 of us,
though only 18 actually graduated, and I made some lasting
friends. St. John’s prepared me for
acupuncture school. The slant of
the foreign language and concepts
made the transition familiar. I
have been practicing acupuncture
with Chinese herbal remedies
since 1995 and facilitate hypnotherapy sessions. I have stayed in
New Mexico since graduating from
St. John’s and have four daughters, one grandchild, and another
one coming.”
Rick Wicks (SF) spent 34
adventure-filled days in the
Caribbean exploring Puerto Rico,
the Dominican Republic, Haiti,
Jamaica, and Cuba.
1969
1964
Cecily Sharp-Whitehill (A) began
her second year as a Purpose
Discovery Coach at Alliance4Discovery Coaching in Florida. She
can be reached on IntroMaps,
Facebook, and LinkedIn, or at
941-350-9626.
contains a veiled message for
those whom Castiglione describes
as “judicious readers.”
Don Dennis (SF) is living on a small island off the west
coast of Scotland, where his wife is a dairy farmer.
He grows and photographs orchids, and makes flower
essences with them. “The orchids are giving me a
spur to investigate the topography of the (Bohemian)
Implicate Order in relation to Consciousness,” he writes.
“Discussions of Plato around the SJC tables come to mind
in this endeavor. If you are ever near the Isle of Gigha,
please stop in to say hello.”
delivery boy at Bellevue Hospital,
and been a show page at ABC and
a copy boy for the Courier Post in
New Jersey. He left the college
again in 1964, when, he says, “I
got a job with an ad agency and
became a successful Madman. Life
is wonderfully peculiar!”
1967
Lovejoy Reeves Duryea (A) and
her husband have bought a condo
in West Palm Beach. She plans
to spend winters there, away
34 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
from NYC. She is also painting
and playing croquet and recently
competed with a much younger
Johnnie at the Merion Cricket
Club’s fall tournament.
1968
Randall Albury’s (A) book Castiglione’s Allegory: Veiled Policy in
“The Book of the Courtier (1528)”
was published by Ashgate in
2014. This new study shows that
Baldassare Castiglione’s dialogue
about life at a Renaissance court
Retired from her job in the Office
of Public Affairs at Yale, Dorie
Brodie Baker (A) became a certified master gardener and went to
Venice for the first time. She is
still married to her husband of 44
years and has two grandsons.
Barbara Mordes (A) sends her
thanks for an outstanding Class
of 1969 homecoming in Annapolis. “I will treasure the memory
of our 45th homecoming,” she
writes. “Every minute was exciting! The campus, though getting
more buildings, is still very
beautiful, more so with all the
memories that fill its corners.”
She joined the nominating committee for The Screen Actors
Guild and plans to move with her
husband, John, from Los Angeles
to Palm Coast, Fla.
1970
Benjamin Barney (SF) reports that
he is well and living in Lukachukai, Ariz., near Canyon del Chelly,
in the heart of the Navajo Nation.
He is interested in reconnecting
�with his classmates or anyone
affiliated with the college.
On a recent visit to Greece, John
Dean (A) was once again baffled
and inspired by the wide, deep,
universal range of its first three
millennia of communications.
“Such a sense of place,” he writes.
“It encapsulates Mediterranean
light. It occupies a spiritual place
that generously includes many
gods and not a limited monotheism. It has moral grooming
adorned with independence and
frankness. Without the engagement which our first year readings
at St. John’s gave, I wouldn’t know
how to begin to go and get what’s
there, for which one remains
grateful.”
E. M. Macierowski (A) delivered
a paper in November 2014 at a
conference in Toru, Poland, “Truth
in Democracies: A Case Study
on Population Policy,” as part of
the VIIth International Congress “Catholics and the Truth:
Opportunities and Threats” at
the College of Social and Media
Culture, Catholic University of
Culture. A copy of the conference
program is available at www.
wsksim.edu. In May 2015, he
was invited to participate in the
Woroniecki Memorial Lecture
Series at the John Paul II Catholic
University of Lublin on the theme
of atheism and justice.
1972
Michael Green (A) and his wife,
Polly, have retired and left
Southern California for Annapolis
in order to be near their children
and family. He would be glad
to hear from fellow Johnnies at
michaelkevingreen@gmail.com.
1973
Michael Aaron (SF) reports that he
and his partner, Danusha, have
become grandparents for the first
time. He is still working for IBM
and considering retirement. They
invite their St. John’s friends to
come and visit them in Sydney.
Ellen Veden’s (SFGI77) artwork Mapleton Road Bridge was on view at the Trenton City Museum.
After working in South America,
Asia, Europe, and Africa, Anne
Ray (SF) has returned to Santa
Fe, where she is teaching full time
at Mandela International, a new
public IB school. She is still doing
ceramics and writing her third
book and first work of fiction. Her
eldest daughter, Heather Sherwin
(SF03), is completing her residency in emergency medicine.
Peter Squitieri (A) received his
B.A. from St. John’s College at the
2015 commencement exercises.
1974
After graduation, Eva Virginia
(McKemie) Greene (A) worked as
a copy editor for The Jerusalem
Post while learning Hebrew, and
then taught at Eilat Conservatory of Music in Israel. She and
her future husband, Dr. Bradford
Greene, returned to the States in
the 1980s and worked in Washing-
ton, D.C. for the next two decades.
In 2007, she resigned from the
Inter-American Development
Bank and moved to Vermont,
where she and her family have
lived for the past eight years. She
currently serves as a musician for
Brattleboro’s Unitarian Church
and works part time as a recreation therapist.
recommend it to anyone as a
way of getting to know the White
Mountains better. My husband,
John Jolles (SF75), and I are active
members of the local Kiwanis
Club, and John continues to work
as a contractor. It was great to
get together with other members
of the Santa Fe Class of ’74 last
September.”
Mary (Geoghegan) Jolles (SF)
writes, “Three years ago I retired
from school administration to
escape from stress but have continued to work part time for the
Colebrook, N.H. School District as
an administrative assistant. My
tasks include writing grants and
organizing school activities and
events, as well as publishing the
monthly school newsletter. Hiking
has been my passion since 2009,
and in 2013 I finished hiking the
forty-eight four thousand-footers
of the White Mountains. This
was a great experience and I
1975
Eric Scigliano (SF) writes, “I’m now
in my fourth decade in Seattle,
and as befits the locale, getting
more involved in marine science
and environmental work. After cowriting the book Flotsametrics (on,
no kidding, flotsam oceanography)
and a report evaluating responses
to ocean acidification in connection
with a Washington State blue-ribbon panel on same, I’m working as
the science writer/editor at Washington Sea Grant, a NOAA-funded
research and education program
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�ALUMNI NOTES
at the University of Washington.
I’m also writing several chapters
for a forthcoming book on Pacific
Coast marine protected areas and
joining in occasional kayak-borne
“Pumpout Pirate” missions to help
boaters keep their wastes out of
the waters. When I can, I write for
Crosscut.com, the public-media
regional news site where I was
formerly an editor. I still love the
hiking as well as paddling here
but miss the Sangre de Cristo.”
1977
Walter Featherly (SF) moved to
the law firm of Holland & Knight.
He would love to hear from any
Johnnies living in Anchorage or
traveling through.
After 10 years at the helm of the
American Sleep Apnea Association
and nearly a year of “fun-employment,” Edward Grandi (A) was hired
in February to be the executive
director of the National Genealogical Society. “While I will have
a continuing interest in the field
of sleep medicine and health in
general, I am looking forward to
contributing my administrative
skills to this one hundred-twelveyear-old organization,” says Grandi,
who still lives in D.C. and enjoys
alumni chapter events there.
Ellen Veden (SFGI) writes, “The
Central New Jersey St. John’s
Alumni Chapter is off and running
thanks to the efforts of Adrian Trevisan (A84) and Jerome Dausman
(A11), the new chapter chair. The
group was given a tour of the
Trenton City Museum’s Ellerslie
Open 32 juried exhibit by Brenda
Springsted, wife of Eric Springsted (SF73), followed by a picnic
at their lovely home in Trenton.
What made it special for me was
that my artwork was chosen to be
exhibited in this juried show.”
1978
After receiving his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from McMaster
University, Canada, in 1983,
Ossama Abul-Haggag (SFGI) went
Ossama Abdul-Haggag (SFGI78)
poses with his wife in Egypt.
to Egypt, where he is currently a
professor of electrical engineering.
“The study of the philosophy of
science as viewed by the ancient
scientists and philosophers has
provided me with motivation and
insight into my research,” writes
Abdul-Haggag, who is married
with two children.
1979
Blake Kline (A) became a grandfather for the first time on April 13
with the birth of Gabriela Joyce
Pedroza-Kline.
Miyoko Schinner’s (A) fourth
cookbook, The Homemade Vegan
Pantry, the Art of Making Your
Own Staples (Random House/
Ten Speed Press), is now available. She is the founder/CEO
of Miyoko’s Kitchen, makers
of artisan vegan cheese, which
was launched in September. Her
youngest daughter is a sophomore
at the Santa Fe campus.
Lisa Simeone (A), writes, “I
continue to love living in Charm
City, riots or no riots. I participated in several demonstrations
in support of Freddie Gray and
the many other people in this city
brutalized by police violence. At
one of those demonstrations, by
the way, we marched together
36 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
with the police. I’m just enough
busy with freelance work (World
of Opera, Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, Style Magazine), in
addition to volunteer work with
Single Carrot Theatre, Homewood
House Museum, and Baltimore
Heritage. I’m a volunteer docent
with the latter two, so if you’re
ever in town, let me know and I’ll
give you a tour! I love showing off
this beautiful, quirky, one-of-akind city. When I’m not out and
about, I’m blissfully sitting on
our screened-in porch, reading,
writing, and rabble-rousing.
I’m in touch with other Johnnies regularly and often see
Bruce Babij (A) and family, who
live nearby. Looking forward to
Alumni Weekend to be with my
classmates from the Class of ’80,
the one I joined after I took a year
off. Last year’s was so much fun,
I can’t wait!”
1980
Peter Grubb (A) and his wife,
Betsy, built and operate River
Dance Lodge, an adventure resort
in central Idaho. For the past 16
years he has served on the board
of Idaho Rivers United, Idaho’s
statewide river conservation
organization. He also served four
years on the board of Spokane’s
Center for Justice, an advocacy
organization for those without a
voice in the justice system. He still
loves reading, particularly about
natural and cultural history, and
would love to connect with Johnnies via Facebook or in person in
northern Idaho.
1981
Andrew White (A) will publish his
first book, Performing Orthodox Ritual in Byzantium, with
Cambridge University Press. A
longtime theatre artist and critic
on the Washington, D.C. theatre
scene, he received a Ph.D. in
theatre history, theory, and criticism from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has become
an expert on the performing arts
of Byzantium, the Greek-speaking
Roman Empire. In addition to
translations of key Greek texts
from Late Antiquity and the
Middle Ages, he is developing a
repertory translation combining
key plays of Euripides with the
text of the Christos Paschon. He
currently serves as adjunct faculty
in humanities with Stratford University in Woodbridge, Va.
1983
Jim Bailey’s (A) new novel The
End of Healing (The Healthy
City, 2015) chronicles a young
physician’s discovery of every
level of Dante’s hell in the world
of modern medicine. In January
he spoke at the University of
Memphis on “The End of Healing:
Telling the Truth about American
Healthcare through Fiction.”
Bailey writes, “The End of Healing
is already being used for medical
sociology and health policy courses
at four colleges and universities.
Because the book is of particular
interest to students interested
in the classics and their application to the most pressing social
and political problems of today,
it should interest Johnnies. My
inspiration for writing The End
of Healing came from the Divine
Comedy in large measure. I followed that inspiration to Florence,
Italy—Dante’s hometown—for a
sabbatical 10 years ago. That is
where I began writing The End of
[continued on page 38]
�PROFILE
BIOLOGICAL PURSUITS
By Robin Weiss
Cara Gormally (A02)
Advocates Science Literacy
C
ara Gormally (A02), a biology professor at Gallaudet
University in Washington, D.C., relished the importance
of intellectual community even as a child. Up to age
eleven, while the family frequently moved for her father’s
job, she displayed a knack for easing her way into schools
and friendships in five states. Back then, science was not her thing.
During high school in Milford, Connecticut, calculus, biology, physics,
and chemistry “never really captured my attention,” she recalls. Now,
acknowledgment of her former negative “science baggage” fuels her
enthusiasm for teaching non-science majors, as well as her research
in science education.
Freshman Lab at St. John’s triggered Gormally’s passion for biology.
“Without PowerPoint or giant lecture halls, you’re engaged with the
reading, with the works themselves,” she says. The creativity of experimentation, “always asking questions,” inspired a hunger for science that
led to a Hodson Internship the summer before senior year. In a neuroscience lab at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences
(USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland, Gormally’s doubts emerged about neuroscience as a career. Staying inside all day, “stuck under a microscope,
sacrificing mice,” was hardly an appealing vision of her future.
In contrast, during her senior year, engaged in botanical lab and fieldwork with now retired tutor Nick Maistrellis (H14), she suffered from
too much fun. “I loved being outside,” she remembers, but she worried
that ecology and environmental fieldwork were not serious. Gormally
paraphrases Maistrellis’s question from that time: “Why would you want
to spend your days doing something that isn’t fun, that you don’t enjoy?”
After graduation, Gormally worked part-time in a different lab at
USUHS, took classes, and then moved to a plant biology lab at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “Nick Maistrellis was right,” she
decided. “Why wouldn’t I go do something I really enjoy?”
Two powerful mentors, Maistrellis and tutor Kathy Blits, raised her
search standards as she chose a graduate program in plant biology and
ecology. In 2004, beginning a doctorate at the University of Georgia’s
plant biology department, she joined an academic community where her
growing wonder for plant biology and science education could thrive.
Having earned her Ph.D. in 2010, Gormally taught briefly at Georgia
Tech. While engaged in ecological fieldwork in botanical gardens, she and
her students explored the effects of invasive plant species on a habitat.
During her interview for a tenured professorship at Gallaudet, which
serves deaf and hard of hearing students, she felt a connection with
her future colleagues. Attracted to the collaboration among faculty, she
sensed a strong caring about students, which she had also felt during her
St. John’s experience. Despite her Ph.D., she “knew virtually nothing” in
her first semester, she states. Learning from scratch, Gormally immersed
herself in American Sign Language and a new culture. Her colleagues’ patience and encouragement helped enormously with this challenging leap.
She continues to be grateful for “people’s willingness to bring me into
the community and to teach me.” Of the classroom interpreters, she says,
“They’re not there for one person; they’re there for everybody,” acting as
a bridge for communication. Instead of lectures, she encourages smallgroup activities; clusters of students work through biological problems.
After two years of teaching, she declares, “I’m not fluent. But I feel
comfortable signing for myself.”
“� hy would you want to spend
W
your days doing something that
isn’t fun, that you don’t enjoy?”
Her current research in biology education involves promoting science
literacy. She explores strategies that support teaching assistant and
faculty development, and researches students’ attitudes toward science
to improve learning for non-science majors. Gormally’s fascination with
what she calls “perspective shifts” spurs recent collaborative work on
mentoring, aiming to increase student participation from underrepresented populations.
In her senior essay at St. John’s, Gormally wrote about Franz Kafka’s
Metamorphosis. “Gregor wakes up one morning and finds out he’s this
giant cockroach, or some sort of insect,” she says. Her own surprising
transitions have been “all about shifting perspectives.”
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�ALUMNI NOTES
[continued from page 36]
Healing and discovered just how
good an allegory The Comedy offers
for modern healthcare. So, this
story could be a helpful example
of how the great books can inspire
and guide us in today’s world.”
2002
NAVIGATING THE STARS
1984
Pedro J. Martinez-Fraga (A) coauthored the book Public Purpose
in International Law: Rethinking
Regulatory Sovereignty in the
Global Era (Cambridge University Press, 2015). He notes that
the book “explores how the public
purpose doctrine reconciles the
often conflicting, but equally
binding, obligations that states
have to engage in regulatory
sovereignty while honoring hoststate obligations to protect foreign
investment.” Martinez-Fraga has
published five books on public and
private international law; two of
his works have been translated
into Mandarin by the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences.
David Prosper (SF) writes, “Several years ago I escaped from working for a sim-racing startup
and now work full-time as an astronomy educator at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
My main projects are in support of the NASA Night Sky Network, a program devoted to helping
amateur astronomy clubs show the night skies to the public. I am also the program director
for the Eastbay Astronomical Society at the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland,
California, and sometimes I even get paid to give tours of the night sky!” His new co-authored
book, The Total Sky-Watcher’s Manual, was published by Weldon-Owen Publishing in 2015.
Mark Niedermier (A) moved back to
Minnesota where he is now head
of school at Many Rivers Montessori in Duluth. He also became a
trained civil mediator and is doing
alternative dispute resolution in
the county court system.
1986
Douglas Gentile’s (A) third book,
Media Violence and Children:
A Complete Guide for Parents
and Professionals (Praeger, 2nd
Edition, 2014) is now available on
Amazon and at www.abc-clio.com/
Praeger.aspx. Gentile is an associate professor of psychology at Iowa
State University.
John Newell (A) has discovered
a new type of probability that is
based on directional similarity.
The probabilities provide a way
to understand quantum entanglement and violations of Bell’s
inequality. Find out more at www.
hellos.com/physics.
38 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
1987
Charlotte Glover (SF) reports that
she survived her first year as a
business owner in fine style. Her
store, Parnassus Books and Gifts,
has thrived in downtown Ketchikan, Alaska for 30 years thanks
to supportive locals and loads of
cruise ship passengers who want
books about all things Alaskan.
Visit her store on Facebook as
“Parnassus Books in Ketchikan.”
Several classmates have called
in book orders, which she says is
“much appreciated and a welcome
blast from the past.”
1988
After teaching for five years at
Title One middle schools, Claudia
(Probst) Stack (A) is currently
working full-time on her new film
about sharecropping.
�1989
Beth Heinberg (A) is wrapping up
her 10th year teaching performing arts at Carolina Day School
in Asheville, N.C., where she is
suddenly legally married to her
wife, Nancy Asch. They are both
involved with LGBT and progressive activist causes, among them
Girls Rock Asheville, a mentoring
program for girls ages 8-16.
1990
Michelle Baker’s (SF) first work of
fiction, The Canoe, is now available for Kindle on Amazon as well
as in print. Set in 1912, half the
book takes place in a small town
outside of Annapolis, along the
West River. Read more at www.
thecanoebymichellebaker.com.
Kilian James Garvey (SF) recently
won the Research and Scholarship
Award at the University of Louisiana for his experimental work in
judgment and decision-making in
the areas of rationality, political
orientation, and religious belief
and is working hard to help introduce evolutionary psychology to
regions of the United States still
somewhat resistant to the idea.
1991
Christopher Peck (SF) writes,
“Nate Downey (SF) interviewed me
for an article that was published
in the Santa Fe New Mexican:
http://goo.gl/lEj97o. I am co-author
of a book The Resilient Investor:
A Plan for Your Life, Not Just
Your Money (Berrett Koehler
Publishers, 2015). I live in Sonoma
County, California, where I’m
married with a 20-month old son,
and life is good!”
1992
Christopher Hadley (A) finished
his Ph.D. in systematic theology
at Marquette University. Over
the next two summers, he will
complete the final phase of his
Jesuit formation in Portland,
Ore. In between those summers,
in 2015-16, he will have a postdoc fellowship at the Lonergan
Research Institute at Regis
College, University of Toronto,
living with the Jesuit seminarians
of Regis College.
1995
David M. Friebus (SF) was made
a partner in BakerHostetler’s
Chicago office.
Kira Zielinski (SF) is moving to
Iowa City, throwing pottery, and
dancing tango. Anyone in the area
or passing through can reach her
at kirazielinski@gmail.com.
1996
Frank Giuseffi (SFGI), dean of
academics at Missouri Military
Academy, received the 2015 Lighthouse Award for Excellence from
Lindenwood University.
1997
2006
Johnnies in the Big Easy
Mac Ward (A) writes, “In April, six Johnnies who started in
Annapolis in 2001 stormed New Orleans to mark ten years
since we should have graduated St. John’s. From the left:
Evelyn Anne (Johnston) Clausen (A07), Mac Ward (A06),
John Gerard (A05), Scott Danner (A05), Janae (Decker)
Gerard (A05), and Brent Morris (A05).
Shani N. Warner (SFGI) was
recently re-elected to the City
Council in Hyattsville, Md. for a
second four-year term. She views
her role as a tutor in a community-wide conversation and would
love to see more SJC alumni run
for office. “Government service,
particularly at the local level, is
wildly undervalued,” she writes.
“But it provides an unparalleled
opportunity to put your ideas into
practice, make a real difference in
your neighbors’ lives, and literally
shape your community.”
1998
Liz Trice (SF) owns a co-working
space called PelotonLabs in
Portland, Maine. She is engaged
to David Levi, owner of Vinland
restaurant, and trains at Circus
Atlantic to stay sane and happy.
2000
Kelsey Bennett’s (SF) book of literary criticism Principle and Propensity: Experience and Religion
in the Nineteenth-Century British
and American Bildungsroman was
published by University of South
Carolina Press in 2014.
2001
Chris Barnett’s (AGI01) second
book From Despair to Faith: The
Spirituality of Søren Kierkegaard
was published by Fortress Press
in 2014.
Jennifer (Westie) Skalla (A) graduated in May with a master’s in
nursing from Regis University in
Denver.
2002
James Marshall Crotty (SFGI)
released two documentaries this
year about his experience teaching debate and speech to young
men in the South Bronx. The
feature doc, Crotty’s Kids, which
debuted at SXSW and soon will
be in national distribution via
Passion River, looks at how adult
male mentorship and surrogate
family can help turn the tide
on our nation’s urban dropout
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 39
�ALUMNI NOTES
epidemic. The short doc Master
Debaters examines how high-speed
debate—untethered to perennial
moral ideas—can lead to Sophist
nihilism. To learn more, visit www.
crottyskids.com or contact him at
jim@jamescrotty.com.
Sally Choate Fox (AGI) is practicing law in Decatur, Ga., with a
focus on family law and divorce.
She would love to hear from other
Johnnies in the Atlanta area at
sallyfoxga@gmail.com.
Steven Oppenheimer (AGI)
graduated in May with a J.D. from
American University’s Washington College of Law. He plans to
continue in the field of intellectual
property (he is currently a licensed
patent agent), and seeks to join
a state bar and become a patent
attorney. He is also developing a
technology startup ImagiStar LLC
(www.ImagiStar.com).
John Rogove (A) is finishing up his
Ph.D. in philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he teaches
philosophy. He also teaches liberal
arts at NYU’s Paris campus.
2003
Paul McLain (SFGI) completed
the two-year certificate program
in spiritual direction at Southern
Methodist University’s Perkins
School of Theology. He serves as
sub-dean of Trinity Episcopal
Cathedral in Little Rock, Ark.,
where his wife, Ruthie, is an
attorney.
“Moralizing Violence?”—a critique
of positivism in peace studies and
social psychology—on August 8,
2014. He is beginning his third
year at the United States Coast
Guard Academy, teaching courses
in political theory, moral and
ethical philosophy, and American
government to future officers.
2005
2006
Matthew Gates (A) and Claire
Muneza were married on
December 5 and 6, 2014 in Kigali,
Rwanda, where Matt works in
agricultural research and Claire
works in advertising.
Chris Horne (SF) obtained a Master
of City Planning degree from
MIT and has been practicing as a
researcher, freelance consultant,
and for the last three years, as a
private planner with Sasaki Associates. A project that he managed
this year won the Daniel Burnham
Award, the highest award given to
an urban planning project by the
American Planning Association.
Abram Trosky (SFGI) successfully
defended his doctoral dissertation
Daniel Grimm (SF) graduated with
a master’s from the NYU School of
Law’s tax program and is headed
to Houston to work in Ernst &
Young’s Mergers & Acquisitions
group. He recommends the study
of taxation to anyone who enjoys
obscure German authors (Kant,
Hegel, etc.), or rolling large boulders uphill for all eternity. He is
happy to report that the Internal
Revenue Code is replete with
Euclidean formulations in the
manner of “A is to B as X is to Y.”
Jacqueline Kennedy-Dvorak (AGI)
is working in civil litigation,
doing lots of farm cases, in Middle
Georgia. She keeps in regular
contact with Everett Reed (AGI07)
and Paul Cooper (AGI). She wel-
Sally Benson (SF) has been teaching for the last six years—the
first three in the Santa Fe Public
Schools and the last three years at
the Penitentiary of New Mexico.
In August 2015, she began the
Ph.D. program called Rhetoric,
Composition, and the Teaching
of English at the University of
Arizona in Tucson.
2007
Jessica Dixon (SF) became an
ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA) on July 12 at
Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church
in Oak Park, Ill. This concludes a
process toward becoming a pastor
that she began at age 15, which
included a Master of Divinity from
McCormick Theological Seminary
following St. John’s and years of
working in churches and churchbased nonprofits. Her work at Fair
Oaks is focused on youth ministry,
mission, and worship leadership.
She writes, “I am grateful for all
the ways SJC has been formative
in my identity as a pastor and
leader as well as the great friends
who have supported me in the
years at and since St. John’s.”
Margaret Rachel Shultz (A) is
living and working in the great
Johnnie mecca of Chicago, and
enjoying the vibrant alumni
community there. She married
on August 8 and honeymooned in
Scotland.
Lucas Smith (SF) writes, “In
March, I finished filming my
documentary, Ghosts of the Aral
Sea, produced over four and a half
years in western Kazakhstan. It
had been a long process, following
a group of fishermen over several
years and in every season. In
May, a feature documentary film
for which I was cinematographer,
Last Man in Dhaka Central,
premiered at the Venice Biennale, and I married my love of six
years, Miriam, in a self-sanctified
wedding in Iceland.”
2004
Emma Elliott Freire (A) and Lucas
Grassi Freire had a daughter,
Cecilia Janke, on December 11,
2014 in Exeter, United Kingdom.
After a stint in Los Angeles
working for the Getty Research
Institute, Joshua Machat (SFGI)
recently accepted a post as a
communications officer at Yale
University Press, Department of
Art & Architecture.
comes a good conversation, so any
Johnnies in the area should drop
in and chat.
2008
Matthew Gates (A05) ties the knot in Africa.
40 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
Ben Hoffman (A) is now living
in the San Francisco Bay Area,
working for GiveWell, a nonprofit
that evaluates charities to find the
ones that have the greatest impact
per dollar spent.
�2010
A Momentous Year
2009
Jake Crabbs (A) and Marianna
Brotherton (A10) were married in
Killington, Vt. on June 20. They
are now residing in Chicago.
Katherine Hale (A) was accepted
into the 2015 entering class of the
Field Naturalist Master’s Program
at the University of Vermont.
2010
Ethan Brooks (A) left the Marine
Corps as a captain this summer
to begin a master’s in computer
and information technology at
the University of Pennsylvania
in the fall.
Carolyn Luppens (SF) writes, “This year was a particularly
momentous one for me. I graduated from The Alpert Medical
School of Brown University on May 24 of this year, and was
chosen by my peers to give the commencement address
(in which I availed myself of my SJC background and spoke
about Achilles and Odysseus, among other things). I was
additionally selected by the Rhode Island chapter of The
American College of Surgeons to receive the annual award
given to the graduating medical student who has excelled in,
and demonstrated service to, the surgical community. In June
I began my General Surgery residency at The University of
Utah in Salt Lake City.”
Alysia Johnson (SF) graduated on
June 20 from the United States
Merchant Marine Academy at
Kings Point, summa cum laude,
with a Bachelor of Science degree
in marine transportation. She
also received a commission as an
ensign in the U.S. Navy Reserve
and a Third Mate (Unlimited) U.S.
Coast Guard license. She writes,
“After graduating from St. John’s
I took a year off to bum around
and sail, and then started the
program at USMMA, one of the
five federal service academies and
seven maritime academies in the
country. In my time there, I completed a year of sea time sailing
as a cadet, including trips for the
Middle East, Asia, and participation in Operation Deep Freeze to
refuel McMurdo Base, Antarctica.
I was also an active member of
the sailing team and served as
the regimental waterfront officer
for one of my midshipman billets
first-class year. I was honored with
several awards for leadership,
scholar-athlete participation, and
academic achievement. Although
it means missing our five-year
reunion (sorry, Stef!), I have taken
a job working with TE Subcom
as a mate on a cable-laying ship.
I plan on filling my free time
with more traditional square-rig
sailing, a hobby I took up while
at SJC, and couch-surfing with
friends and classmates. I welcome
e-mails or Facebook messages
from everyone!”
2012
Rhett Forman (SF) traveled to
Dorf Tirol, Italy in July to present
a paper on Ezra Pound and early
modern psychology at the 2015
Ezra Pound International Conference held at Brunnenburg Castle,
the home of Pound’s daughter.
The conference presentation
was the result of research he
conducted in summer 2014 as a
participant of the Ezra Pound
Center for literature at the castle.
He is currently a Ph.D. student
in Literature at the Institute of
Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas.
2013
Shaun Rieley (AGI) has begun
working toward a Ph.D. in
political theory and American
government in the Department of
Politics at The Catholic University of America.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 41
�IN MEMORIAM
William Dyal (H89)
ANASTASIA EGELI (A92)
January 29, 2015
President, Annapolis
In the mid-1960s, Dyal was invited
by the Johnson administration
to serve as country director for
the Peace Corps in Colombia.
Subsequently, he led Peace Corps
programs in the Middle East, North
Africa, and Asia as one of the
program’s four regional directors.
42 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
William M. Dyal (1928-2015) served as president of the
Annapolis campus from 1986 until 1990, when he stepped down
for health reasons. He was admired by faculty, students, alumni,
and board members for his wise and even-handed leadership.
Before coming to St. John’s, he had a wide-ranging career that
encompassed work for the U.S. government and for international
volunteer agencies.
Dyal met his wife, Edie, while both were studying at Baylor
University. He later studied theology and pastoral counseling
at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and the couple
served as Baptist missionaries in Costa Rica and Guatemala; he
then worked for several more years throughout South America
training other missionaries. Years later when he was at St.
John’s, Dyal led a seminar on a new reading: Martin Luther
King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The students did not
know, and Dyal did not tell them in advance, that he had met
and visited Dr. King in jail while working for the social action
agency in the 1960s.
In the mid-1960s, Dyal was invited by the Johnson administration to serve as country director for the Peace Corps in
Colombia. Subsequently, he led Peace Corps programs in the
Middle East, North Africa, and Asia as one of the program’s
four regional directors. In the 1970s, he was named head of the
Inter American Foundation, a public corporation to fund social
and economic grassroots development. The following decade, he
served as president of the American Field Service (AFS), one of
the best-known world student exchange programs.
During his time at St. John’s, Dyal brought his strong and
welcome sense of the world beyond St. John’s and his gift for reconciling differences among people. He completed fundraising for
the addition to Mellon Hall and for the renovation of the Hodson
Boathouse, both in preparation for a planned capital campaign.
He is survived by his wife, Edie; daughters Deborah, Kathy, and
Lisa; nine grandchildren; and brother, Terry.
�IN MEMORIAM
Edward Sparrow (H93)
April 23, 2015
Tutor and dean, Annapolis
Edward Grant Sparrow, Jr.
(1929-2015), retired tutor who
also served as dean of St. John’s
College in Annapolis, died in Barton, Vermont after a brief illness.
An alumnus of Harvard College,
class of 1951, Sparrow earned a
law degree from Harvard Law
School. He eschewed a legal
career by earning his M.A. from
Columbia University Teacher’s
College and joining the faculty at
St. John’s College in 1957, where
over the course of 33 years he
taught the entire curriculum.
Sparrow was born in Paris,
France, on July 28, 1929, the son
of Edward Grant Sparrow and
Catherine Groth Sparrow. His
family returned to the United
States when he was 10, and lived
in New York City, where he attended Buckley School and, later,
St. Mark’s in Southborough,
Massachusetts. He married Lydia Huntington in 1953, and then
joined the Army, and was sent
to West Germany as part of the
U.S. occupying forces. Upon returning to the United States, he
was hired as a tutor at St. John’s.
From 1964 to 1966 he was acting
director of the Integrated Liberal
Arts Curriculum at St. Mary’s
College in California before he
returned to Annapolis.
In July 1977, Sparrow began
a five-year term as dean of the
Annapolis campus. He taught
his students at St. John’s with a
sense of wonder which never left
him. He loved literature, poetry,
classical and popular music, and
old time radio. He could deliver
the lyrics to any Gilbert and Sullivan opera with verve and style.
His conversion to Catholicism in
1957 was a profoundly important
event in his life; he became an
oblate of Mt. Savoir Monastery in
Elmira, New York.
Sparrow is survived by his
wife, Margaret; former wife,
Lydia; sister, Helen Roosevelt;
seven children, Bartholomew,
Edward, Elizabeth, Helen,
Katherine, Richard, and Sophie;
and 12 grandchildren. He was
predeceased by his eldest son,
Christopher.
Grant Wiggins (A72)
May 26, 2015
Visionary education reformer
and self-professed “educational
trouble-maker of longstanding”
Grant Wiggins (1950-2015) died
at home in Hartford, Connecticut. Wiggins was a writer,
thinker, researcher, teacher,
and learner. Best known as the
co-author of Understanding by
Design, he challenged educators
to think logically, designing instruction backward from clarity
on learning goals. He believed
that learning was not signaled
by the accumulation of knowledge but, rather, by the power
to take action. After St. John’s
College he received his Ed.D.
from Harvard and went on to
work on some of the most significant reform initiatives in the
world, including the Coalition of
Essential Schools, the AP and IB
programs, and many state and
national reform efforts. Wiggins
admired educators who wanted
to make a difference and were
willing to challenge themselves
as part of that effort. He loved
rock and roll, soccer, good food
and wine, Paris, the Red Sox,
walks, and conversation. His
greatest joy, though, was his
family. Wiggins is survived by
his beloved wife, Denise Wilbur;
daughters Alexis and Priscilla;
sons, Justin and Ian; parents,
Dorothy and Guy; brothers, Guy
and Noel; and grandsons, Elios
and Amadeo Estrada.
Theodore Otteson
Class of 1952
May 6, 2015
Theodore (Ted) Otteson (19252015), passed away at his home,
surrounded by four generations
of loving family. He was 90.
Otteson was a teacher, mentor,
friend, counselor, and seeker of
wisdom and adventure. Born
March 9, 1925 in Poona, India,
the son of missionary parents,
his primary and secondary
education was in schools in
India and the United States. He
served in the U.S. Navy during
WWII and was a translator in
Japan at the end of the war.
Otteson taught for 45 years
at the University of MissouriKansas City, in the English
Department and in the program
for adult continuing education.
He was preceded in death by
his parents and a sister, Pearl
Holbrook. He is survived by
his wife of 52 years, Beverley;
daughters Malory, Paula
and Susan; son, Clovis; and
numerous grandchildren.
Barbara L. Lauer (SF76)
December 19, 2014
Former St. John’s College Alumni Association officer, Board of
Visitors and Governors member
and Alumni Association Award
of Merit recipient, Barbara L.
Lauer (1950-2014) died at her
home in Laramie, Wyoming. A
generous friend and colleague,
she lighted the lives of everyone
she knew. Born in Sacramento,
California to Van and Louise
(Keeney) Shepherd, Lauer attended Chapman World College
Afloat, better known today as
Semester at Sea, before coming
to St. John’s. She then studied
law at the University of Edinburgh, and completed her law
degree at the University of Wyoming. Her love of St. John’s was
evident through her exceptional
service with the college’s Alumni
Association. From 1996 to 2010
she served as the Alumni Association’s director, vice president,
secretary, and director emerita.
Lauer was preceded in death by
husband, Ted. She is survived by
her sister, Paula; brother, Doug;
and numerous other family
members.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 43
�Anne Nelson (H90)
May 18, 2015
Anne Higgins Nelson (1925-2015) died at
BayWoods, her home in Annapolis. Anne
developed a deep love for St. John’s College
when she married her husband Charles A.
Nelson (Chuck), Class of 1947, that lasted
her entire life. Her son, Christopher, is
president of St. John’s College in Annapolis.
She was born in Savannah, Illinois, to Edith
Ballou Higgins and Colin Olney Higgins on
March 22, 1925. Anne grew up in Berwyn,
Illinois, and graduated from Morton High
School, then continued on to obtain her B.A.
in economics from Oberlin College in 1946.
Following graduation, she married her high
school sweetheart, Chuck, her loving and
much-loved husband of 69 years. The couple
spent their first year of married life in
Annapolis, while Chuck completed his B.A.
from St. John’s College and Anne was employed as a social worker. Anne and Chuck
then returned to Chicago, where Chuck
began his career in education. They made a
home in the Chicago area, where their four
children were born. In 1956, a job change
for Chuck brought the family to New York.
Settling in White Plains, N.Y., Anne was
elected president of the Rochambeau School
P.T.A. and led the movement to desegregate
the White Plains public school system in the
1960s. Anne was active in the Democratic
Party and challenged the Republican status
quo in the predominantly Republican city
with an (unsuccessful) run for White Plains
City Council. As the children grew older,
Anne returned to work, first joining her
husband’s consulting practice, and later, the
faculty of the Cornell University School of
Industrial and Labor Relations, where she
worked until her retirement in 1990. Anne
was proud of her work at Cornell, writing
and teaching classes for labor union women,
administrating programs, and securing
grants. She was fiercely committed in every
facet of her life to the fight for equal rights
and social justice for all.
In 2002, Chuck and Anne left their home
in Croton-on-Hudson to continue retirement
in Annapolis. Anne started the first residents’ newsletter at BayWoods of Annapolis,
their retirement home, where she helped
form a great books discussion group. She revived the Annapolis chapter of the League of
Women Voters, an organization in which she
was actively engaged for her entire adult
life, and edited the local LWV newsletter for
several years. When someone asked about
her hobbies recently, she looked puzzled
and said, “I guess I don’t have any.” But
then amended it to, “Well, I guess politics
is my hobby.” She was a proud supporter
of Barack Obama’s campaign for president,
never missed voting in an election, read
(and discussed) the New York Times every
day and was always up for a good political
debate. She was also captivated by the great
women English mystery writers and read
hundreds of mysteries, sometimes until
the early morning hours to find out “who
done it?” She remained feisty but cheerful
to the end. Anne loved her family and was
much loved in return. She is survived by her
husband, Chuck; sons, Christopher, Colin,
and Ted; and daughter, Janet Berggren; as
well as 11 grandchildren and 19 greatgrandchildren.
Also Deceased:
Paul Frank, SF82
July 26, 2015
Sarah Macina, SF70
January 23, 2015
Leo L. Simms, Class of 1956
December 13, 2014
Jonathan B. Bredin, SF74
December 31, 2014
Edward Gelblum, Class of 1955
June 12, 2015
Barbara C. Prendergast, SF72
November 24, 2014
Jacquelaine R. Vest, A86
January 26, 2015
George Brunn, Class of 1945
June 30, 2014
Meredith G. Hamilton, SF97
March 22, 2015
Merton E. Rice, Class of 1953
November 10, 2014
William B. Walter, SF85
October 5, 2014
Richard T. Carruthers, Class of
1948
October 22, 2014
Philip Heilig, Class of 1952
May 31, 2015
John H. Rubel, SF90
January 13, 2015
George P. Welch, Class of 1947
March 17, 2015
Alexander E. Clift, A03
November 16, 2014
Marvin J. Hoffenberg, Class of
1947
February 17, 2015
Marilyn L. Schaefer, SF79
March 8, 2015
Amy R. Wood, SF11
January 26, 2015
Samuel F. Dunbar, Class of 1964
April 18, 2015
David E. Johnson, A68
June 21, 2014
44 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
Brian D. Shields, A83
January 30, 2015
�STUDENT VOICES
SJC: NOT YOUR STANDARD FACTORY FARM
By Kevin Lam (A18)
W
hen I was 12 years old, I
reached the lowest point
in my life. In the spring
of 2009, my mother died
of gastric cancer and my
father lost his job. My ethnic Chinese
parents had emigrated from Vietnam to
Fairfax County, Northern Virginia, where
I was born and raised. My mother worked
full-time in an exhausting job as a housekeeper, while managing all our household
chores and being both mother and father
to me. My father mostly ignored me, gambling away what little money we had. Because my mother was my most significant
human connection, losing her caused much
anger, sadness, isolation, and confusion to
occupy my mind, to this day.
Despite losing the most important
person in my life, I experienced a major
transition. New life was taking root from
the ashes. All these feelings spurred me
to ask a fundamental question: “Why?”
As I questioned everything around me, I
developed an intense curiosity.
One of my favorite quotes from a St.
John’s seminar book represents my transition. In Plato’s The Republic, Socrates said,
“We mustn’t hug the hurt part and spend
our time weeping and wailing like children
when we trip. Instead, we should always
accustom our souls to turn as quickly as
possible to healing the disease and putting
the disaster right, replacing lamentation
with cure.” My mother’s death ignited my
desire to know as much as I can about the
world and to make it better.
My curiosity led me to pursue reading
zealously, which helped me develop an
important connection with my AP U.S.
history teacher, Mr. Evans. Throughout
my junior and senior years in a large,
academically intensive public high
school in Fairfax County, I visited his
classroom after school for intellectual
conversation. During one such exchange,
he caused a paradigm shift in my life. I
was expressing disillusionment with the
college admissions process. I was spending countless hours filling out forms in
order to do the same thing in college and
“� have developed an unquenchable
I
curiosity. With the courage and ability
to ask ‘Why,’ I am able to pursue an
education that will help me to better
understand the world and humanity.”
the rest of my life. At a job with no hope
of intellectual freedom, I would drown in
mind-numbing work. “We’re all just cattle
being herded to our eventual intellectual
slaughter,” I told Mr. Evans.
His response: “Why don’t you go to
St. John’s College? They read a lot of
books there.”
When I learned more about St. John’s,
I felt a surge of excitement. There was a
place that did not conform to the standard
higher-education system that seemed like
a factory farm to me. Its people tackled
difficult philosophical questions to understand the world and what it means to be
human. Students are told what to read,
but not what to think.
I knew I had found my home for the next
four years. Every new reading reaffirms
this fact. The Platonic Dialogues make me
feel fulfilled and at peace because of the
immense concentration necessary to even
remotely grasp them.
The death of my mother sparked my
curiosity and my pursuit to understand
the world. In three years, I will graduate
from St. John’s College and fully reconnect with the world. Sadly, I will still not
have my mother, and will always grieve
over her death. Despite this burden, I
have developed an unquenchable curiosity. With the courage and ability to ask
“Why,” I am able to pursue an education
that will help me to better understand
the world and humanity. As I follow my
dream of bettering the world with my
mother always in my heart, St. John’s will
prepare me for it.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 45
�CROQUET
THREE-PEAT
THWARTED
Johnnies Reclaim the
Annapolis Cup, but
Midshipmen Earn a
Victory of Their Own
W
ith a final score of 3-2,
Navy’s high hopes for a
three-year winning streak
were resolutely dashed. At
the 33rd annual St. John’sU.S. Naval Academy croquet match held on
April 18, the Johnnies performed with vigor
and gusto before a crowd of more than 5,000
spectators—the largest in the history of the
match—to bring home the Annapolis Cup for
the first time since 2012. “It was a wonderful
feeling, and not only for the team,” says
Imperial Wicket Sam Collins (A15). “Everyone on campus was super excited about it.”
Collins is quick to point out that alumni
deserve a slice of the proverbial victory
cake. A month before the big match, with
snow still on the ground, the croquet team
huddled in the Chasement, the cozy basement of the Chase-Stone dormitory, with
several former Imperial Wickets and players,
including Josh Rogers (A98), Hardison Wood
(A98), Kit Linton (A97), and John Lawless
(A00), among others, for a strategerium,
mapping out key strategies on a chalkboard
and discussing the game’s finer points.
Alumni also paired with student players for
a full day of skill training and matches. With
added guidance from the croquet elite, “our
team felt comfortable with more complex
strategies,” says Jennifer Shumpert (A15), a
member of this year’s team.
On game day the Johnnies adhered to their
golden rule: have fun. Decked out in Hawaiian shirts, denim shorts, aviator sunglasses,
and fake mustaches, they paid playful
tribute to television’s Magnum, P.I. However,
detective skills were not required to spot
BRADY LEE (AGI14)
By Sus3an Borden (A87) and Gregory Shook
Tell me, O Muse, the impetuous
unrush of wing-footed Johnnies:
Whom shall I mainly make butt of
my hopelessly talentless singing?
Him who ran hardest arriving first
sweaty in need of a shower?
Or him who sauntered at ease,
smiling sweet and as cool as an
iced beer?
Here is what I will do following
prudence, my elderly goddess:
I shall bestow my much sought-after
hugs on the unsweaty cool one,
But on the winner I’ll place
undegradably immortal laurel.
46 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
�SHAYNA JENKINS (A15)
SUSAN JENKINS
SHAYNA JENKINS (A15)
the outrageous fashions that filled the front
campus lawn. Throughout the afternoon, Lisa
Simeone (A79) and Didi Schanche (A80) waded through the sea of festive gowns, widebrimmed hats, and bold bowties to select
the cream of the crop for their Best Attire
awards, a new addition to the day’s events.
The alumnae judges relished the opportunity
to mingle with the crowd and reconnect with
old friends on a picture-perfect Saturday.
“The whole idea of a croquet match—a
civilized, old-fashioned pursuit—against the
Naval Academy is delicious,” says Simeone.
“Here you have this bastion of liberal arts up
against a highly militarized institution. How
could one not love the irony?”
Croquet was not the only competition of
the day. Weeks before the match, Johnnies
began signing up as runners, sponsors, and
donors for the 2nd Annual Memorial Fun(d)
Run, which took place that morning, to see
which intramural athletic team could raise
the most money, field the most runners, and
clock the best time. Not only was this the
first year the intramural teams joined the
event, it was also the first year that Midshipmen were invited to compete. They ably
countered their losses on the croquet court by
taking first and second place in the run. Midshipman Justin Maguire won the race with a
time of 15:43. The first female to finish was
Elizabeth Fenelon, also a Midshipman. Still,
Johnnies made a good show with Annapolis
tutor Brendan Boyle finishing third at 18:32.
Robin Lancaster (A18) was the first St. John’s
student to complete the race, at 19:29.
The Memorial Fun(d) Run is hosted by the
Friends of the Lawrence L Saporta, Ph.D.
Memorial Scholarship Fund and was established to raise money and awareness for the
college’s Memorial Endowment Funds. This
year the run raised $2,420 for four Memorial
Funds. The Hustlers raised the most money,
the Spartans fielded the most runners, and
the Furies claimed the fastest time.
Annapolis tutor Eva Brann (H89) completed the event by crowning the winners
with (plastic) laurel wreaths and delivering
a fine speech, written in dactylic hexameter,
reprinted to the left.
Photos, opposite page, top: The Magnum, P.I.inspired Johnnies bask in the glow of their 3-2
win; bottom: Dylan Tyler (A15) takes a shot,
concentrating amid the distraction of 5,000 spectators. This page, clockwise from top left: Marta
Lively (A78), on the right, joins other fashionistas
competing for the most splendiforously attired
award; Eva Brann, master of Homeric congratulatory verse, greets a Fun(d) Run finisher; Midshipmen and Johnnies run for the money to benefit
—
SJC student scholarships.
Check the college’s social media and the
SJC website to stay tuned for info on the
2016 match, scheduled for April 16.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 47
�BRADY LEE (AGI14)
S T. J O H N ’ S F O R E V E R
ONCE UPON
A WHEN
Looking at this memento a concert handbill
—
that has faithfully adorned the wood-paneled
wall in my parent’s basement for the past 25
years—I wonder who else out there might
remember this day in St. John’s history. At
the time I was a 17-year-old townie and an
aspiring drummer who on this occasion sat in
on congas with the band Breathing Walker, a
motley crew of Annapolis post-punk rockers.
Spring showers forced the concert indoors, but
spirits were far from dampened. Throughout
the afternoon the bands gave it their all, playing to the crowd of mostly students gathered
in the dining room in Randall Hall to celebrate
Earth Day. As evening crept in, Three Shades
of Dirty, a newly formed group featuring Dan
Littleton (A93) on guitar/vocals and Colin
48 THE C OL L E GE | ST. JOH N ’ S C OL L E G E | FAL L 2 015
Meeder (A93) on his trusty Steinberger bass,
delivered a blistering set of music like I’d
never heard before. To this day, the band’s only
cassette is among the most prized items in my
music collection.
This concert also served as an introduction to
St. John’s. My high school graduation was two
months away, and with no imminent plans for
college, I recall the uneasy feeling I had chatting with undergrads who hungrily devoured
such authors as Hegel, Kant, and Plato. (I was
reading Tama Janowitz and Charles Bukowski.) But I also felt an immediate affection for
St. John’s and hoped to someday be a part of
it. It’s funny, the things we remember.
—-Gregory Shook
�EIDOS
“I grew up in a family of artists, always
knowing from a young age that I wanted
to paint portraits. One reason for my
passion is that I am drawn to people.
That fascination was stoked by my
classes at St. John’s, which introduced
me to so many great minds.
People are complex, multi-faceted, and
continually changing. Painting gives me
the challenge to capture those changes
and present a complete sense of someone.
I feel as though painting has given me
the privilege to come to know people in
a truly unique way.
I am now working as a portrait artist,
living in New York City. I feel as though
I have been so blessed. I can go visit
countless museums to enjoy the works of
Spain’s Sorolla, with his bold colors, or a
John Singer Sargent exhibit at the Met.
I am constantly studying to improve my
use of color and my skill in drawing.
My ideal day is sitting with someone,
listening to their thoughts, and painting
what it is to be with that particular person.
Surrounded by inspiring work and people,
every year I enjoy an increasing curiosity
and a deeper appreciation of being alive.”
—Anastasia Egeli (A92)
Learn more about Anastasia Egeli (A92) at
www.anastasiaegeli.com.
THE CO LLEG E | S T. JOH N ’S C OLLEGE | FALL 2015 iii
�Non-Profit Org.
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Annapolis, MD
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Communications Office
60 College Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21401
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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
A name given to the resource
<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
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
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
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thecollege2001
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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.
48 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/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College
Title
A name given to the resource
The College, Fall 2015
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
The_College_Magazine_Fall_2015
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 40, Issue 2 of the <em>The College</em> Magazine. Published in Fall 2015.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Shook, Gregory (editor)
Ryder, Brett
Boonparlit, Nutchapol
Gomez, Gabe
Townsend, David
Novash, Paula
Kirby, Melanie M.
Brann, Eva
Weiss, Robin
Lam, Kevin
Borden, Sus3en
The College
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