1. education
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SPRING 2015 I A Special Issue Exploring Drew’s Reach Beyond the Forest
DREW
M
A
G
A
Z
I
N
E
THE
UNIVERSITY
AND THE CITY
If there’s a poster child for
global education, it might very
well be Mary Ann Letellier.
As a senior at Drew, Letellier C’83 spent
a semester studying in Paris.
The experience proved transformative.
Today, having lived in Paris for three
decades, Letellier runs a study abroad
program for American students.
(SEE PAGE 36)
Spring 2015 I Contents
10
22
The university’s
proximity to New
York City means
plenty of Drewids
get to study in a
world capital just
an hour away.
Drew’s town-andgown connection
with the Rose City
has blossomed
into a mutually
beneficial
arrangement.
36
International programs have sent
Drew students
across the globe
for more than 50
years.
15
Meet Valerie
Hegarty,
Drew’s
artist-inresidence.
28
Through the Center
for Civic Engagement,
Drew students bond
with local schools,
service agencies,
even farms.
Everything Else
4 Mead 207
48 Classnotes
64 BackTalk
Correction: An article in the fall 2014 issue
incorrectly identified Khemani Gibson C’14.
He is a PhD candidate in history at New York
University.
Mead 207
MES S A G E F R O M T H E P R E S I D E N T
saying that while this story involves
race, it is not about race per se, nor
is it about privilege, at least at the
point in time that it takes place. It
is about noticing and learning to
appreciate difference.
The year is 1961. I am a white,
4-year-old girl. My dad has taken
me to the Mummers Parade on
New Year’s Day on Broad Street in
Philadelphia. I hate going to the
Mummers Parade because it is
always freezing, and the streets
smell like beer and other not-sopleasant things. And for a 4-yearold, unless you are perched on your
dad’s shoulders, you can’t see anything but other peoples’ legs.
This day, my dad set me on a
ledge or a windowsill, I think on
the old Girard Trust building, so
that I could see. At exactly the same
moment, another dad, a brown
dad, did the same with his daughter, and we shared our ledge during
that parade. I didn’t grow up in an
isolated environment, but I do
remember that this is the first time
The City Makes Explorers of Us
4 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
At Drew University
we intend to exploit
the many gifts
from our cities in
every way we can
to enhance our
students’ learning.
Roy Groething
My cities have made me an explorer.
Circa 1963, I’m walking in my neighborhood—
well, maybe not in my neighborhood—with a
map in my hand. I’m 7 years old, I’m walking
alone, and the map has been created by me. I
already know that my city, Philadelphia, is mostly
laid out in a grid pattern of streets upon streets
of row houses and businesses. For fun, I have
created a map to a place whose destination is at
present unknown to me.
I did this often (I was a bit of a weird kid). I
would sketch a random route on a piece of graph
paper and simply follow it, equipped with lunch
in a backpack and things that I would sometimes
hide along the way (like pennies and Cracker Jack
toys) to see if I could find them on later expeditions. I guess this was my antique version of
geocaching. It was certainly orienteering, and
it eventually played a significant role in my
research as a cognitive psychologist.
I had the confidence to be a junior explorer
because I already knew my neighborhood. By the
age of 7, my mom was sending me to the corner
store several blocks away, alone. I was also allowed
to walk to my grandparents’ house a few blocks
more distant. Later, I could take the bus to the
skating rink, the movies—and when I was old
enough to change buses, I could go to the big
regional library. I took the “El” to my other
grandparents’ house in a neighborhood that
was very different culturally than my own.
I write about these things not to lament the
loss of freedom for today’s children, another
topic on which I could opine. My point instead
is that “the city,” whatever city, has always
brought out the explorer in me. I feel not only
safe, but invigorated when I am in the city, and
I feel ready to seek out new experiences, to try
new things, and to be drawn to the unpredictable.
Let me recount just one more of the many
stories about how the city has had a positive
formative impact on me. I’ll set the stage by
I thought about people being different. In this place, in this time, the
two of us were much more the same
than different, and that was probably why we noticed and remarked
on the differences in our skin colors.
We prattled and played, and our
dads had a conversation. This is the
only parade that stands out as distinct from the rest, because I made a
friend. Mostly I wonder if there is a
59-year-old woman out there who
accords the same importance to this
mundane yet life-changing event,
an event that early on taught me
(us?) to find points of commonality,
not difference, and, paradoxically,
to seek and celebrate difference. The
city sets the stage for these formative
micro-experiences—if we let it—in
a way that less dense communities
cannot.
I’m supposed to be writing about
the University and the City, the
focus of this magazine and of our
inaugural celebration on October 2.
I recount the personal stories because
the city is a very personal topic for
me and for who I am. There will be
more from me during my inaugural
address about why I believe the city
has developmental significance and
why it creates a life-changing educational impact for our students.
This magazine presents a varied
and brief glimpse.
Cities offer a dynamic, unpredictable, and heterogeneous learning
space that forces a student to explore
in context whatever he or she set
out to learn. In that unpredictableness, uncontrollable messiness, and
sometimes rawness are learning
experiences that are elsewhere
unattainable. As a developmental
and cognitive psychologist, I know
of no research that suggests that
there is a critical period for becoming acquainted with the city. But I
do know that our students come to
us at an age when they are more
fearless, more open, and more eager
for novelty than they will be in
later years. This leaves them ripe
for creating a lifelong love affair
with the city as a venue for learning
and growth.
At Drew University we intend to
exploit the many gifts from our cities
in every way we can to enhance our
students’ learning.
DREW MAGAZINE
Volume 42, No. 1, Spring 2015
PRESIDENT
MaryAnn Baenninger, PhD
CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER
Kira Poplowski, PhD
GUEST EDITOR
Christopher Hann
ART DIRECTOR
Margaret M. Kiernan
ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR
Lynne DeLade C’12
CLASSNOTES EDITOR
Kristen Daily Williams C’98
LAYOUT
Taylor Design, Peter Heineck,
Melanie Shandroff
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
Gabriel Erstgaard G’15,
Kristen Daily Williams C’98
WEBMASTER
Justin Jackson C’05
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS
Matthew S. Pacello C’96, president,
College Alumni Association
Don Wahlig T’09, president,
Theological School Alumni Association
Drew Magazine (ISSN 0889-0153) is
published by Drew University,
36 Madison Ave., Madison, NJ 07940, USA.
Standard rate postage paid at Madison,
New Jersey, and additional mailing office.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
Office of Alumni Records, Alumni House,
Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940.
All material in Drew Magazine is ©2015
by Drew University.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Through your relationship to Drew University,
you are a subscriber to Drew Magazine.
ADDRESS CHANGES OR TO UNSUBSCRIBE
Office of Alumni and Parent Programs,
973.408.3229, alumni@drew.edu
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
magazine@drew.edu or to the first address above
Drew University is an equal-opportunity,
affirmative-action employer and educator.
Views expressed herein are those of the authors and do
not necessarily reflect official policy of the university.
MaryAnn Baenninger
“
I am grateful that Drew chose me,
and grateful that I had the sense
to come to Drew. I believe that
together we will do great things.
—MARYANN BAENNINGER
”
Please join us for
The INAUGURATION of
MaryAnn Baenninger
as the thirteenth president of
Thursday, October 1
Symposia featuring CLA, Theo School,
and Caspersen faculty
The City as Classroom Case Studies,
Lessons, and Aspirations
Stewardship, Service, and the Common Good:
Reimagining University-City Partnerships
Modeling the Good Community:
Universities, Cities, and Diversity
DREW UNIVERSITY
Friday, October 2
October 1–2, 2015
Installation Ceremony
Inauguration Celebration to follow
Our theme—the University and the City—is inspired by the ways in which
the Drew community engages with the world beyond the Forest. From
diverse internships with local nonprofits to corporate enterprises to semesters
spent exploring faraway lands, Drew itself is that open gateway for building
community, making connections, and educating on a world-class scale.
drew.edu/inauguration
6 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
#DrewuniverCITY
Spring 2015 7
the
UNIVERSITY
CITY
and the
This special issue of Drew Magazine is framed around a single
theme, “The University and the City.” The stories, photographs, and
illustrations that appear on the following pages highlight the myriad
ways that Drew students, staff, faculty, and alumni engage with the
world beyond the leafy confines of our beloved campus. For our
purposes, then, the “city” in our theme might be New York or London
or Paris or Seoul. Or it might be Newark or Summit or Morristown or
even Madison. Because Drew’s panoply of outreach programs—from
internships with local nonprofits serving the underserved to semesters
spent exploring faraway lands—enables students to connect with all
these places and many more across the globe. These connections
invariably make a difference not only for the students and the
university, but for the world at large, providing the very essence of
a world-class liberal arts education.
Spring 2015 9
A CLASSROOM CALLED
NEW YORK
From the canyons of Wall Street to the art
galleries of Soho and the United Nations
complex on the East River, New York City—
just an hour away by train—provides Drew
students with a fertile learning ground and
BY KEVIN COYNE
a robust job market.
PHOTOS BY BILL CARDONI
Each year the city casts a long shadow
over Drew students, such as those
enrolled in the New York Semester
on Contemporary Art, who recently
toured the Guggenheim Museum on
Fifth Avenue.
10 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
T
THE ARTIST CHRISTOPHER JOY HAS ALREADY INVITED
his guests into his small apartment, which is also
his studio, which is also a gallery, and which is
now, on this chilly December morning, a classroom, too, with 19 Drew students mostly sitting
cross-legged on the floor among the sculptures in
Joy’s latest exhibit. Now Joy invites them inside
his mind.
“Here’s a drawing I was working on this
morning,” he says, holding up a small panel
filled with an intricate, densely worked abstract
image. “A lot of weird, spiny surreal stuff happening in it.”
Their conversation about the art world has
been Cubist so far, considering it from multiple
angles at once—the logistics and economics of
art galleries; “the materiality of the paint” and
the echoes of German Expressionism in some of
the work they are viewing; the value of Aqua-Resin
and other Home Depot–bought goods as art
THE TRAIN ALLOWS STUDENTS
TO COURT NEW YORK FROM
behave a little better,” Joy says, turning the
sculpture to catch the light from the two windows looking out over East 83rd Street. Horns
honk one floor below, trying to dislodge a
double-parked truck. “Then I’ll show you this
one last painting, which isn’t quite finished yet.”
The students left Madison that morning on
the 9:35 express train to Penn Station, accompanied by their professor, Lee Arnold, and Katie
Bell, coordinator of the New York Semester on
Contemporary Art, which brings them into the
city twice each week through the fall semester
to visit galleries, museums, and artists’ studios,
immersing them in the art world in ways that no
classroom could. An 8-credit course, it started in
1967, and is required of all art history and studio
art majors.
“They’re so savvy compared to where I was
as an undergraduate,” Bell says after the class
left Joy’s apartment/studio/gallery, Artist House
Party Presents, and was trooping through the
Upper East Side toward the day’s next stop, the
Guggenheim Museum. She is an artist herself, a
graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.
“The people we’re meeting now, I didn’t even
know existed then.”
A SAFE DISTANCE WITHOUT
MARRYING IT YET.
Nestled in its small-town forest like a bucolic
New England campus, Drew is connected by a
supplies; and now, Joy’s own creative process. He New Jersey Transit umbilical cord to an unseen
holds up a small sculpture that echoes the imag- partner—the city that lures ambitious young
ery in the drawing that he handed to one of the
people but worries some of them, and their parstudents and that is now making its way around ents, who have seen too many episodes of Law
the room for closer inspection.
and Order. The train allows students to court New
“Now I’m going through a process with this
York from a safe distance without marrying it
where I’m starting to shape the forms so they
yet. They travel to lower Manhattan to learn
Artist Christopher Joy (center) speaks
with students during a visit to his
apartment, which is also his gallery.
12 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
about the financial industry in the Wall Street
Semester; across town to the East Side to watch
international relations in action in the Semester at the United Nations; and all over the city
to study art in the Semester on Contemporary
Art, the media business in the new Semester on
Communications and Media, and a host of other
subjects in individual internships in other fields.
And then they come back to campus at night.
“It took a while to recognize that there was
this tremendous asset that was available to us
and that we really ought to be exploiting it more,”
says Doug Simon, a now-retired political science
professor who arrived at Drew in 1972 to help
run the first program to formally recognize that
asset: the Semester at the United Nations, which
started in 1962.
On weekday mornings, some Drew students
rise earlier than usual in their dorms, dress
more nattily than they do for an econ lecture,
and then walk down the hill to the train station
to join the regular commuters on the bleary
migration into the city. They often travel in
groups, with their fellow students in the formal programs. Some travel alone, to individual
internships.
John Dabrowski C’12 had three internships
in Manhattan while he was an English major at
Drew, with three of the big music companies:
Sony, Island Def Jam, and Warner Music. It was
the radio show he hosted on the campus station
that first gave him the inkling of a possible
future. “I was like, ‘Can I make this a career?’”
he says, and within two months of graduation
he had, as a retail
marketing and
social media
specialist for
’Stache Media, a
division of Sony.
“I’ve always been
a music fan, and
I turned that fandom into a passion and a career.
If I can’t sing and go up on stage, I want to help
the artists that I love propel themselves.” ’Stache
works with artists ranging from country singer
Jason Aldean to thrash metal band Anthrax, and
the job takes Dabrowski to clubs and shows most
nights. “It doesn’t seem like real life,” he says,
“but that’s what it is.”
“IT TOOK A WHILE TO RECOGNIZE
THAT THERE WAS THIS
TREMENDOUS ASSET THAT
WAS AVAILABLE TO US.”
REVERSE COMMUTE
Their studies compel Drew students to
explore all corners of Manhattan—and
sometimes its very center, such as Times
Square and the Theatre District.
14 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
Lynne DeLade C’12
A THREE-YEAR GRANT FROM THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION
BRINGS NEW YORK ARTISTS TO DREW.
“So these were the pieces of the floor,”
Valerie Hegarty says, holding several long,
floppy strips of paper painted to look like oak
floorboards. “We glued them down one strip
at a time with wallpaper paste.”
A dozen students from the Semester on
Contemporary Art class are visiting Hegarty
in her studio, which is, for this academic year,
not in Brooklyn, where she lives, but in Room
104 of Brothers College, where she is Drew’s
first Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Arts and
the Common Good artist-in-residence. A
three-year, $625,000 grant from Mellon will
pay for a dancer to work on Drew’s campus
next school year and a musician in 2016-17.
Three days each week Hegarty takes the
train to Madison and sets to work in a room
that previously served as a commuter lounge,
bringing a piece of the New York art world to
campus. She’s a widely exhibited and critically
lauded artist whose work often explores
themes of decay and transformation. At
Valerie Hegarty is the first
of three artists-in-residence
who will spend a year at Drew.
Drew she works with individual students,
co-teaches a course called “Beyond Earth
Art,” and opens her studio to anyone who
wants to talk not just about her work or
theirs, but often about how to make a living
as an artist.
“Financially is the hardest part,” she answers
a student curious about navigating the art
world. “There’s no set career track. You have
to really want to do it.”
Across the hall from her studio, Hegarty
is contemplating what she will do in the
grand space she’s been given for a spring
installation—a high-ceilinged, wainscoted,
30-by-40-foot room, most recently home to
the Writing Center.
“This is my canvas,” she says, spreading
her arms wide to take it all in, then pointing
toward a wide stretch of empty space above
the wainscoting. “I’m thinking of doing something on this wall.”
—Kevin Coyne
Spring 2015 15
TWICE EACH WEEK STUDENTS
VISIT GALLERIES, MUSEUMS, AND
ARTISTS’ STUDIOS, BECOMING
IMMERSED IN THE ART WORLD.
The spiral ramps of the Guggenheim
Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
and completed in 1959, provide a regular
stop for Drew students in the New York
Semester on Contemporary Art.
16 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
MEDIA MATTERS
DREW’S NEWEST NEW YORK SEMESTER WILL INTRODUCE
STUDENTS TO THE MEDIA CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.
Senior Erin O’Connor serves on the executive board of WMNJ, Drew’s radio station,
and helps with social media at her part-time job at Drew’s Center for Career Development. So she was a perfect candidate to become one of the first students to enroll
in the New York Semester on Communications and Media, Drew’s newest New Yorkbased semester program.
O’Connor, who hopes to go into public relations, says she knows meeting with
professionals in the city can help her achieve her goals. “We’re going into different
places—radio stations, news companies, public relations firms,” she says.
English Professor Sandra Jamieson, who is directing the media semester, says it’s
not designed only for aspiring writers or television broadcasters. “I see this program
as an exciting opportunity for students in any major who have strong communication skills and want to couple them with the expertise and knowledge they have
learned in their major,” Jamieson says.
These lead donors contributed to the media semester: Drew trustee Ed Moed
C’89 and Pamela MacFall Moed C’92 of Peppercomm, trustee emeritus Heath
McLendon and Judy McLendon, and Tom Doremus C’68 and the Casement Fund.
Their gifts help cover student transportation, classroom space, and curriculum
programming throughout the semester.
Students will have classroom learning in New York City along with twice-weekly
trips to media and communications companies and professionals, some of them
Drew graduates. Among the speakers that Jamieson has lined up are Cayley Barlowe
C’10, a project manager for Turner Broadcasting; and Ed Moed C’89, a Drew trustee
and the co-founder and CEO of Peppercomm, an advertising and marketing agency.
As part of their course work, the students will blog about their experiences. They’ll
also network with professionals and receive mentoring opportunities, particularly
from Drew alumni already working in the field.
Senior Michael Pellessier says he hopes to find an externship to put to use the
skills he’s learned as a business major. “With this communications semester, it’s really
going to open up to Drew students an area that hasn’t opened up before,” Pellessier
says. “We’re going to see the whole spectrum, the whole 360-degree view.”
—Elizabeth Moore
The students in the Wall Street Semester adhere
The Wall Street program takes 20 students two
to a more formal dress code than Dabrowski does days each week in the spring semester—there
when he’s combing downtown nightclubs—jackets are also compressed versions in the summer—to
and ties for the men, business attire for the women. a classroom in a building across the street from
the bull statue in Lower Manhattan. Mornings
are spent in class, afternoons in the company of
Wall Street professionals. “There’s a big difference between teaching about how the Federal
Reserve changes interest rates, and actually
being on the trading floor as a group of traders
stop everything they’re doing and look at all the
flat-panel screens and listen to the announcement, and suddenly see them run to their desks.
I can’t teach that,” says Marc Tomljanovich, an
associate professor of economics and business
“You have to be up early for Wall Street, and it
studies who co-directs the program.
really made you feel like you were going out to
Some of the visits are up in the stratosphere.
work,” says senior Genevieve Monty, a business
“He’s in charge of a trillion dollars in assets,”
and psychology major. “It felt good to get dressed Tomljanovich says about a visit with Leo Group, very professional.”
howski C’80, the chief investment officer of BNY
Mellon, “and he sits down with us for two hours
“EVERY TIME YOU’RE IN
THE CITY YOU’RE MEETING
SOMEONE ... AND THAT’S
ABSOLUTELY INVALUABLE.”
18 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
in his boardroom right above Grand Central Station, with a beautiful view of downtown and the
Chrysler Building, and students don’t even look
at the view once he starts talking.”
And some of the visits are down in the trenches
with recent Drew graduates. “I still consider
myself a college student half the time, but then
when you’re talking to them it’s definitely a
reality call that you’ve made an impact,” says
Ashley Introne C’11, who hosted a visit by the
Wall Street class last summer at JPMorgan Chase,
where she works in human resources.
Several of her former classmates from the
Wall Street program also landed at JPMorgan
after graduation, and also spoke to the students.
“Every time you’re in the city you’re meeting
someone or someone’s coming to meet you, and
that’s absolutely invaluable,” says Will Brackett
C’11, a trader assistant in the global emerging
markets group. “That’s why I am where I am now.”
George Tenney
Clockwise from top right: Former Wall Street
Semester students Ashley Introne C’11 (second
from right) and Will Brackett C’11 (second
from left) now work at JPMorgan; students
meet in a classroom across the street from the
bull statue in Lower Manhattan; (from left)
senior Sabrina Fruci, with Kathryn O’Keefe
C’14 and Patrick Meyer C’14, get some pointers
on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
While at Drew, Cayley Barlowe C’10
landed an internship at MTV, just
the sort of opportunity the new
Semester on Communications and
Media hopes to replicate.
Spring 2015 19
Left to right: Fatou Diallo ’13 took part
in the Semester at the United Nations
and later interned at the U.N.; senior
Clayton Curran snaps a selfie with
(from left) junior Hilda Bonilla, senior
Jasmine Noel and senior Folakemi
Adenugba; the flags of member
nations outside the U.N. complex.
Students in the Semester at the United Nations
meet in a conference room in a building across
the street from U.N. headquarters two days a
week each fall, when the General Assembly is
in session. They visit the U.N. when security
permits and host visiting speakers from across
the street when it does not. Last semester they
“EVERY ARTIST WE’VE COME TO
TALK TO HAS BEEN VERY CANDID
AND VERY OPEN ABOUT WHAT IT
TAKES, AND WHAT THEY DO.”
heard Mary Robinson, the U.N. special envoy for
climate change, speak at the Carnegie Council.
“The students were literally sitting four feet from
her,” says Carlos Yordan, an associate professor of
political science and director of the program. “The
young faces in the crowd were all Drew students.”
And some of the visiting speakers are themselves graduates of the program. “It was huge,”
20 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
says Chantal Baumgarten C’07, about what the
program meant to her professionally. These
days she works in Geneva as an advocate for
children’s health in developing countries for
Save the Children. “It gives you such a hands-on
perspective.”
It was huge personally, too. While a Drew
student enrolled in the Semester at the United
Nations, Baumgarten met her future husband,
a visiting student from Gettysburg College who
now works for the U.N. in Geneva. “It’s where we
both got interested in this field,” she says. And
last fall, on a visit to the United States, they both
spoke to the Drew students.
“I’ve never been inside before,” senior Anthony
Tamburro says, looking down through the rotunda
of the Guggenheim from the upper reaches of
its spiral ramp, all along which his fellow Art
Semester students were wandering, taking in a
multimedia exhibit of postwar German art. “I
always get so excited in the morning, and I walk
to the train station with a big smile on my face,
and everyone’s like, “What’s wrong with you?
It’s like 9 a.m.”
Farther down the ramp, senior Jeana Wunderlich
is taking notes and lamenting that the semester is almost over. But she’s optimistic that her
degree—in studio art and arts administration—
and her internships at two nonprofit art centers
would help her find a job after graduation. She
learned the most, she says, from the visits to artists’ studios. “Every artist we’ve come to talk to
has been very candid and very open about what
it takes, and what they do, and how they support
themselves, and how they started their career in
New York,” she says.
When Katharine Overgaard C’10 was in the Semester on Contemporary Art, one of the galleries
she visited in Chelsea was exhibiting work by the
sculptor Ken Price. “And as it turns out, here I am
selling his work on quite a regular basis,” Overgaard says. She is the director of the Franklin
Parrasch Gallery on the Upper East Side, where
she has hosted the Drew class. “It was a little
surreal. It wasn’t so long ago that I was standing
there asking somebody else those questions.”
When the students all descend the ramp, they
convene in the rotunda to discuss what they had
seen before starting toward Penn Station for the
train back to Drew. One thing they did not see
on this visit was a boldface name of the type that
sometimes haunts the gallery world, like the day
Kimberly Rhodes was trying to address students
inside a Chelsea gallery.
“I’m earnestly talking to the students, and
suddenly they’re not paying attention to me,”
says Rhodes, an art history professor who ran the
Art Semester for the previous six years, recalling
a visit to an exhibit of work by the German artist
Rosemarie Trockel. “They’re looking over their
shoulders and they’re whispering to each other,
and I’m like, ‘OK, why isn’t anybody paying
attention to me?’ And they whisper to me,
‘Leonardo DiCaprio is behind you.’”
For once, she was upstaged. “I just lost them
after that,” she says. “They could not hold themselves together.” DU
MOVING WORDS
PATRICK PHILLIPS, AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, SAW ONE OF HIS POEMS
DISPLAYED THROUGHOUT NEW YORK CITY’S TRANSIT SYSTEM.
It’s fair to say most poets toil in anonymity, but
not Patrick Phillips, at least not this winter. That’s
when Phillips, an associate professor of English,
had one of his poems displayed on New York City
subways, buses, and taxis.
The five-stanza, 10-line poem, “Heaven,” was
chosen by the Poetry Society of America for the
New York MTA’s “Poetry in Motion” program, part
of an initiative that showcases poetry on public
transit subways and buses in more than 20 cities
nationwide. The designation earned Phillips what
he calls “surely my biggest audience ever.”
Phillips, who grew up in Georgia, has taught
at Drew since 2007. He says he tries to teach his
students to imagine some of what’s going on beneath the surface of other people’s lives. “Reading
is about empathy,” he says. “That’s as good as it
gets, as far as I’m concerned.”
As for writing poetry, Phillips says for him the
act doesn’t actually involve much writing. In fact,
he says, “I find composing pretty excruciating.”
He says his writing process largely involves “finding scraps and things on envelopes, files I dashed
onto my hard drive, and old abandoned poems.
I begin my writing day with a kind of rummaging.”
“Heaven” was included in Phillips’ second
collection of poems, Boy, published in 2008 by
the University of Georgia Press. A third collection,
Elegy for a Broken Machine (Alfred A. Knopf),
was published in March. As part of the Poetry in
Motion program, “Heaven” also appeared on the
small digital screens inside New York City taxis.
“Drunken people at 2 a.m. will be trying to turn
the screen off,” Phillips says, laughing.
—Katharine Reece
HEAVEN
BY PATRICK PHILLIPS
It will be the past
And we’ll live there together.
Not as it was to live
But as it is remembered.
It will be the past.
We’ll all go back together.
Everyone we ever loved,
And lost, and must remember.
It will be the past.
And it will last forever.
Spring 2015 21
ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE LOWERY
TOWN, MEET GOWN
22 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
Spurred by former President Thomas H.
Kean, Drew has fostered a multifaceted
and mutually beneficial partnership
with its hometown.
BY DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Spring 2015 23
He informed the department that roughly 80
students, emotional from the non-indictments
of police officers in the deaths of Michael Brown
in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner on Staten
Island, New York, intended to throng Madison
Avenue on a Thursday afternoon to show their
disapproval of police violence against African
Americans. For good measure, Kopas also called
the borough administrator, the assistant administrator, and the mayor. The response was swift.
“Madison said, ‘How can we help?’” Kopas recalls.
“Actually, they arranged for a police escort.”
What could have become a logistical headache
was instead a tidy demonstration that featured
appearances from both Drew President MaryAnn
Baenninger and Madison Mayor Robert Conley.
But it was not unusual for Kopas, who has become a factotum middleman between the school
and the town, to dial the top local officials.
In the last decade, the university has increasingly come out of the Forest and into the
borough, part of a broad initiative begun 25
years ago. Today student interns send town email
blasts and social media posts from Borough Hall
with updates on municipal happenings and review
development proposals at planning board meetings. They hang flower baskets from lampposts
and install grates around trees by the train station.
Students clean up the civic center on May Day.
They hobnob with chief executives and work in
local restaurants and volunteer on the ambulance squad and babysit for parents on the go.
On Bottle Hill Day, the annual festival that draws
up to 20,000 visitors, students help set up the
petting zoo and the car show. And for the finale,
the school co-sponsors fireworks on campus.
Baenninger goes so far as to call the university’s relationship with Madison “one of Drew’s
greatest assets.” In her experience, she says,
24 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
town-gown relations often become strained.
Not this one. “Our relationship with Madison, with Mayor Conley, and with the borough administration could not be stronger
and more collaborative,” Baenninger says.
“Mayor Conley was present at Drew on the
opening day of classes. I was deeply impressed and grateful.”
The town-and-gown partnership also generates an economic impact. A 2011 report
by the university “conservatively calculated”
that Drew spends $5 million a year in Madison—roughly 16 percent of the borough’s
current budget. That estimate includes more
than $2 million in energy and utilities, fees,
and property taxes, and at least $700,000
spent on local merchants.
“People acknowledge that the university is
“Mayor Conley
was present
at Drew on the
opening day of
classes. I was
deeply impressed
and grateful.”
Far right and bottom left: Lynne DeLade C’12. Top left and middle left: Bill Cardoni
When the Theological Student Association started planning a protest
march from the lawn of Mead Hall to the steps of Borough Hall last
December, Michael Kopas, who is, among many other roles, the assistant vice
president of administration and university relations, promptly called the police.
Sophomore Cara Anan, with
Madison Mayor Robert Conley,
interned last fall at Borough Hall,
where she promoted local stores
through shopping bags labeled
“Love Madison, Shop Madison.”
there, but then you realize how many students
go downtown,” says Peggi Howard, who retired
at the end of last year as vice president of administration and university relations. “They use the
stores and they eat downtown and they’re taking
the trains and they’re getting gas.”
Of course, the relationship between Drew
and Madison goes back more than a century,
but Howard made it a priority following a walk
downtown with former New Jersey Governor
Thomas H. Kean in 1990. It was shortly after Kean
had left Trenton to become Drew’s president,
Bero mi, quam sintis aut omnihit, que
estende bisciet et qui sit aut liquate
mperibus suntur? Qui doluptaquat.
and the two strolled past a row of shops near the
train station in downtown Madison, a short walk
from campus. Kean noticed a window display
of sweatshirts emblazoned not with “Drew” but
with “Harvard” and “Princeton.”
“And the governor, he said, ‘Well, I think we
need to work on our community relations,’”
Howard recalls. “I think that’s when the whole
concept started just to get Drew more involved
in the community and the community more
involved with Drew.”
What followed was a dramatic transformation
Spring 2015 25
26 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
through sales of shopping bags labeled “Love
Madison, Shop Madison,” part of a broader
initiative to support the local economy. While
her role on the commission has taken up a
lot of her time, Anan says it has also been
transformative. In high school she was timid,
she says, and the thought of public speaking
seemed about as appealing as a root canal.
“I’ve completely broken out, because you
have to,” she says. “You have to go to businesses, you have to speak with the managers
if you want them to donate. I have to go in
there by myself and try to convince them
to buy a raffle basket or something, and
I couldn’t imagine myself doing that two
years ago.”
Kopas also represents Drew on the borough’s planning board. When a developer
came before the board a few years ago with
plans to build on the former Green Village
Road School property just outside campus,
he says, Drew requested a lighted pathway
for students and faculty (negotiations are still
under way). When the board approved a conceptual plan to build 135 condominiums and
apartments spread across four buildings on
the long-vacant site, which shares a property
line with Drew, Kopas recused himself from
the vote.
“Just being at the table and being able to
discuss things that are important with Drew’s
interest in mind, but also what’s best for the
town—it’s huge,” Kopas says. “Making good
decisions for Madison is just as important for
Drew University as it is for Madison, because
you want to keep real estate values up, you
want to keep Madison what it is.”
The relationship cuts both ways. The town
tour is one example of how Madison’s residents embrace first-year students by giving
them a personal tour of the borough as seen
through their eyes and on their terms. This
has led to lasting relationships and also to
job opportunities. Students have gone on to
“It was really
important for
me to see this
institution have
a concrete place
in town. That
was our goal—
become one with
the other.”
Top right: George Tenney. Bottom right: Jen Costa. All others: Bill Cardoini
for Drew from a private, small-town liberal
arts school to a community centerpiece for arts
and culture. In the late 1990s the university
helped finance the conversion of the cramped
and eccentric Bowne Theatre (formerly Bowne
Gymnasium) into the state-of-the-art F.M. Kirby
Shakespeare Theatre, home to the renowned
Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. In 1994 the
university launched the Drew Forum, an annual
series of four public lectures that has drawn the
likes of former President Bill Clinton, former
Secretary of State Colin Powell, and, last October,
HBO satirist John Oliver. The typically sold-out
efforts were one of the many events strongly
supported by Kean.
Howard took the momentum begun by Kean,
who retired as president in 2005, and accelerated it. About 10 years ago, Kopas says, Howard
“made it very clear to me that it was a priority
to improve the communication and the relationship with the borough of Madison.”
Kopas may best exemplify that development.
His official job title provides just a narrow interpretation of his duties. As a licensed arborist,
Kopas also volunteers on the Madison Shade Tree
Management Board, inspecting the borough’s
many trees to determine whether they need
pruning and extra care, or whether they should
be removed for safety. He also sits on the Downtown Development Commission and the planning board—two governmental bodies considered vital to the town’s appeal and preservation.
The Downtown Development Commission
includes two (and sometimes three) student
representatives from Drew, and they carry out
whatever the task is at hand: purchasing new
garbage cans, providing status reports at the
commission’s monthly meetings, and helping
coordinate the farmers’ market, which runs
Thursday afternoons June through October and
is sponsored by Drew.
Sophomore Cara Anan, a commission volunteer who interned at Borough Hall last fall, says
her most recent focus has been promoting stores
internships, babysitting jobs, and, in one case
about three years ago, a part-time position working at Madison’s Museum of Early Trades and
Crafts, says Carla Brady C’99, Drew’s assistant
director of student activities.
Since 2012, Drew has tapped the pool of local
business and civic leaders through the Chief
Executive Council for Madison. With the goal of
promoting education and corporate citizenship,
the council is made up of about 15 high-level
executives who either live or work in Madison
and meet regularly to figure out ways to help
students advance their careers in business.
The council, led by Mayor Conley, President
Baenninger, and Quest Diagnostics President
Stephen Rusckowski, has held panel discussions
and one-on-one meetings between executives
and students. A speed-networking event last
November cycled about 30 Drew students through
brief sit-downs with top executives, giving some
a glimpse into the corporate world and others
some practice for a future job interview.
Since taking office in July, Baenninger has
become one of the council’s biggest champions.
She says she hopes to make strong relations
with Madison a “keystone” of her presidency.
“Madison has been welcoming, nurturing, and
engaged with our students, in fun activities like
Bottle Hill Day and more serious interactions like
quality internships and supporting our students
in their right to peacefully demonstrate about
things they believe in,” she says.
Marissa Baldoni, a sophomore economics
major from Yardley, Pennsylvania, says she
linked with a Wall Street executive who manages
capital portfolios and investments, and they
have been “having some dialogue” on career
advice. Baldoni says she never anticipated local
residents “wanting to be part of the school as
much as they are.”
An offshoot of the Chief Executive Council,
called The Brain Trust, pairs lower-level executives with Drew students in whatever capacity
fits—a chat over coffee, mentoring, email. The
town is also eager to strengthen the relationship. Councilwoman Astri Baillie C’74 says that
in 2015 she wants Madison businesses to be more
“user friendly” and welcoming to students.
“Can our town be more receptive to their
needs, and are there things in Madison that
they can’t find, and are they going to Morristown or somewhere else?” she said. “That’s one
of our goals this year, to make sure their voices
are heard.”
Brady, who helped start the annual town tour
in 2008, says she has seen a drastic change from
when she was on campus.
“It was really important for me to see this
institution have a concrete place in town,”
Brady says of her alma mater. “That was our
goal—become one with the other. And we’ve
done that.” DU
Drew President MaryAnn
Baenninger (above right)
with Mayor Conley. In
Madison, Drew students
serve on the Downtown
Development Committee,
volunteer on the ambulance
squad, and receive career
advice from local business
leaders.
Spring 2015 27
IN PURSUIT OF THE
GREATER
GOOD
Drew’s Center for
Civic Engagement helps
the university make a
lasting difference for
communities in need.
B
BEHIND ITS RED BRICK WALLS, THE HALLS OF NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE IN MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY,
are hushed. In darkened rooms, preschoolers
nap on small cots. Down the halls, employees
and volunteers tend to paperwork or finish
their lunch. There is an air of anticipation—
and with good reason. In less than an hour,
the quiet will be shattered by the chorus of
more than 167 children arriving on school
buses for afternoon care, joining the nearly
100 children already here.
By Gwen Moran
Peter Murphy
First-year student Zeyan Khan
works with preschool students
at Neighborhood House in
Morristown, New Jersey.
28 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
Spring 2015 29
CAPITAL GAINS
TWO DREW STUDENTS LEARNED ON THE JOB
WHILE INTERNING FOR A U.S. SENATOR.
an effort that makes a significant impact on the
people of Neighborhood House and many others
throughout northern New Jersey. This spring
semester 23 Drew students and faculty members
are working directly with the people whom Nabe
serves. The center has supported Nabe since
2009, providing interns, volunteers, and a series
of community-based learning (CBL) courses,
which combine classroom learning with handson volunteer work.
The Rev. Elizabeth S. Hall T’84, the CEO at Homeless
Solutions in Morristown.
30 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
Neighborhood House, called “Nabe” by most
everyone who knows it, is a pillar of the community, helping a clientele of mostly Latino
families that includes a mix of people who have
lived in the community for years and those who
have recently emigrated from disparate places in
South and Central America. For those who have
arrived recently, Nabe is
“T he students don’t realize what they’re
a place of information
and resources that helps
going to get out of the program when
them transition into their
they start. After they’ve finished worknew surroundings. In
ing with people who need them, it’s a
2013 Neighborhood House
merged with Cornerstone
life-altering experience.”
Family Programs, but it
still operates under the same name and offers the
same services, such as morning and afternoon
child care, which is essential for the community’s
working parents.
Other programs help newly arrived immigrants earn a high school diploma and supply the
resources they need to find jobs. On weekends,
local children play soccer and basketball on the
building’s basement courts. If families are having
trouble paying for basics like heat, Nabe can help.
Although just a five-mile drive, Drew’s stately
suburban campus seems worlds away from
Neighborhood House. But tucked inside a modest
stucco house on the university grounds is Drew’s
Center for Civic Engagement, the nerve center of
Lynne DeLade C’12, Peter Murphy. Facing Page: Courtesy of Hilda Bonilla
Many Drew students help
the Spanish-speaking
clientele at Neighborhood
House with language lessons
and other services.
The multifaceted relationship between the center
and Nabe reflects Drew’s growing community
involvement in places such as Dover, Morristown,
Newark, Orange, and even Madison. Director
Amy Koritz, who has led the center since its
launch in 2008, says Drew’s hands-on involvement with people where they live and work
helps the center fulfill its mission to build a more
humane society.
“I can lecture to you until the cows come
home about income inequality in the United
States,” Koritz says. “But until you’re, like one of
our students, working in Faith Kitchen, a soup
kitchen in Dover, helping clients, and somebody
you knew in high school walks in the door,
it doesn’t hit home.”
Koritz and Assistant Director Amy Sugerman
coordinate a vast network of internship, volunteer, academic, and other programs involving
scores of Drew students, faculty, administrators,
and alumni. It’s a yeoman’s effort, as these are no
cookie-cutter seminars or events. One of the most
well known is Drew’s Civic Scholars program,
a rigorous, four-year engagement that requires
students to complete 100 hours of service annually and participate in classes, workshops, and
off-campus service projects. Civic Scholars receive
$5,000 scholarships for each year they participate
in the program. Roughly 160 Civic Scholars have
completed the program since it launched in 2009.
“The students don’t realize what they’re going
to get out of the program when they start,”
Sugerman says. “After they’ve finished working
Cory Booker, New Jersey’s junior U.S. senator, spent his summer
vacation helping constituents with immigration matters, student
loans, veterans’ issues, and rebuilding efforts after Superstorm
Sandy. And he did it with the help of two Drew students who landed
sought-after internship posts in Booker’s Newark and Camden offices.
“It was an amazing experience,” says senior Michael Reyes. Reyes
helped problem-solve for constituents and worked with Booker’s
staff during the six-week program. “I learned how important constituent services are and how much a U.S. senator is accountable to the
average person.”
Reyes and Hilda Bonilla, a junior who came to the United States
four years ago from El Salvador, were the first recipients of stipends
awarded through the Robert G. Smith C’36 Endowment for Experiential Learning, named for the legendary political science professor
and founder of the London Semester.
Bonilla said she was inspired to apply for the internship after
hearing Booker speak on the Drew campus in 2013. Political science
professor Philip Mundo, working with Drew’s career development
staff, prepared her to compete for the placement.
Bonilla says the six weeks she spent answering phones, speaking
to experts, and touring government offices gave her the confidence
to take part in Drew’s Semester on the United Nations as well as an
upcoming semester in Washington, D.C. The experience, she says,
whetted her appetite for international affairs.
Recalling her interaction with Booker, Bonilla describes the senator as inspirational. “He said we could ask him anything we wanted,”
she says, “and told us to take risks and follow our dreams.”
—Elizabeth Moore
Junior Hilda Bonilla (standing, second from right)
applied for an internship in Booker’s office after
hearing him speak at Drew.
Spring 2015 31
with people who need them, it’s a life-altering
experience.”
The center’s CBL program presents four to six
courses per semester on subjects such as illiteracy,
social policy and inequality, or food insecurity.
The courses are offered in partnership with nonprofits such as Nabe, the United Way of Northern
New Jersey, and Morris County’s Interfaith Food
Pantry. The center’s engagement extends beyond
the academic. When Drew alumnus Victor Perez
C’13, a senior case manager at Hope House, a
division of Catholic Family and Community
Services in Dover, New Jersey, was looking for a
place to hold a public event for World AIDS Day,
he remembered the strong civic commitment at
Drew and approached his alma mater. Koritz and
Sugerman helped him plan the event, which was
held last November and attracted about 50 people.
Through Civic Scholars, CBL courses, and internships arranged by the center, students work on
studying and solving a variety of social issues. In
a CBL course focused on “food justice literature,”
presented in conjunction with Morristown-based
Grow It Green, students study animal ethics,
hunger, and access to food in local communities.
An honors thesis–linked community service
project had students reporting their findings on
32 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
air pollution hot spots to the Ironbound Community Corporation in Newark. A recent project,
an on-campus event designed to raise awareness
about human trafficking, included a screening of
the documentary Tricked. Guest speakers included
representatives from the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office and the New Jersey Coalition against
Human Trafficking as well as a human trafficking survivor. Civic Scholars may find themselves
planning an alternative spring break trip to help
impoverished areas of Appalachia or working
with homeless teens in Morristown through a
nonprofit called Street Smart.
Civic Scholar Alex Slotkin, a sophomore, dreams
of a Big Apple advertising career after he graduates
with an English degree, so he wanted to find an
opportunity that would blend his passion for giving back with his promotional talent. He landed
at Street Smart. Figuring many homeless teens
don’t know where to turn for help, Slotkin posted
advertisements and fliers in grocery stores, Laundromats, the local soup kitchen, and other places
they were likely to frequent.
“If I never told you, you’d probably never know
they were there,” Slotkin says. “We wanted to let
them know there was a place they could turn for
help with basic necessities and finding shelter.”
Lynne DeLade C’12
In 2013, 48 first-year students spent a day working at America’s Grow-a-Row,
a nonprofit food delivery service in Pittstown, New Jersey, during a Day of
Service organized by the Center for Civic Engagement.
Through internships and weekly service
engagements, some students work with Morristown’s Homeless Solutions, which offers shelter
and services to those in need. This semester
the CEO, the Rev. Elizabeth S. Hall T’84, will
teach Community and Vocation: Colloquium on
Nonprofits and the Alternative Economy, a CBL
course that explores how nonprofit organizations
affect the communities they serve. Hall says the
Center for Civic Engagement connects students
to causes in ways that leave lasting impressions.
At Homeless Solutions headquarters, Drew
students work with children of clients while the
children’s parents, many of them single mothers,
attend required workshops designed to help them
find and keep homes of their own. The Drew
students help the kids with homework and play
games. Last year this arrangement proved so successful that Homeless Solutions requested three
more students to cover both of its two shelters.
“Most of these students might do a canned
food drive for the food pantry while they’re in
high school,” says Hall, who in 2013 received a
Distinguished Service Award from the Theological School Alumni Association. “But when they
come here, they’re involved on a deeper level,
and those experiences in the community help
them see some of the larger questions, like why
people need food or shelter assistance.”
Another CBL class, the Arts Power Collaborative, brings together roughly 15 Drew theater
arts students with high school theater students
in Newark to write and perform an original
production. Performances take place both on the
Drew campus and in the
“When they come here, they’re
Newark Public Schools’
Marion Bolden Student
involved on a deeper level, and
Center. Headed by Chris
those experiences in the community
Ceraso, chair of the Departhelp them see some of the larger
ment of Theatre and Dance,
the popular class is often
questions, like why people need
repeated by both the high
food or shelter assistance.”
school and Drew students.
Ceraso says the class exposes the Newark students to the process of creating theatre productions, while Drew
students get important experience in collaborative work, teaching, and mentoring.
“It’s very important to us for people to understand that we don’t view ourselves as a charity
organization,” Ceraso says. “What we’re doing
is working with an underserved community to
allow them to communicate the things that they
feel are important to say and for us to communicate
Spring 2015 33
the things that are important for us to say.”
Civic Scholar Michael Miraglia, a sophomore
business studies major, was so inspired by his work
at Nabe—he’s also interned at Homeless Solutions
—that he created a video to inspire other students to consider interning there. “I wanted to
show all that Nabe has going on,” Miraglia says,
“so it would encourage more Civic Scholars and
more students in the Drew community to go and
volunteer.”
Not every Civic Scholar is placed in an area
related to his or her major, but that doesn’t
mean they don’t take away skills that will serve
them for life. Sophomore Marley Crank, one of
the first students to major in international studies
at Drew, was drawn to the university because
of her interests in international relations and
theater. Her first-year Civic Scholar volunteer
placement was at a children’s day care center.
This year she interned at Arts by the People, a
Morristown nonprofit that promotes arts to the
community, especially seniors and youths, where
she’ll continue to work next year. Crank says her
involvement with local people whom she would
not otherwise know has made her appreciate the
34 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
While at Drew, Gina Gioldassis C’13
interned at New York public radio
station WNYC.
Lynne DeLade C’12, Bill Cardoni
In the Arts Power
Collaborative, theatre
students in Newark
work with Drew theatre
arts students to write
and perform an original
production.
need to connect with those around her. “And it’s
important to foster that sense of community,”
she says.
For senior Kia Bourdot, of Little Egg Harbor,
New Jersey, a biochemistry and molecular biology
major on a premed track, summer internships
helped her figure out what kind of doctor she
wants to be. She helped a Madison Volunteer
Ambulance Corps get its state license by handling
research and filing the necessary paperwork.
Her time at Nabe brought her closer to newly
resettled Latino immigrants. “It’s helped me
become more of an empathetic person, and it
helped steer me toward working with them as a
physician,” she says.
Of course, not all interns are Civic Scholars.
Gina Gioldassis C’13, an English major originally
from Sunapee,
New Hamp“What this really means for Drew is
shire, landed
a national recognition of the depth
a variety of
of its commitment to serving the
internships at
public radio
greater good as a core component
stations during
of its educational mission.”
her time at
Drew, working for New Hampshire Public Radio’s
news department. At WNYC, a public radio station in New York City, she worked on Soundcheck,
a daily show about music and the music industry.
She says the media experience prepared her for
her current role as an executive assistant to the
CEO of Sachs Insights, a market research consultant based in New York City.
Nearly seven years of a dizzying array of work
matching Drew University’s students, faculty,
and resources with various communities has
not gone unnoticed. In January, the Center for
Civic Engagement received the Community
Engagement Classification from the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
which Koritz calls “the Good Housekeeping Seal
of Approval for civic engagement.” Drew was
one of only two independent colleges in New
Jersey to receive the designation, which requires
an exhaustive application process that involves
extensive documentation of the institution’s
civic engagement efforts, including descriptions
and examples of institutionalized practices
of community engagement, to prove that the
university is carrying out its mission in local
communities. While it’s too soon to tell exactly
what the impact will be, Koritz says she hopes
the honor will positively impact everything from
recruiting students to landing grants.
“What this really means for Drew,” Koritz says,
“is a national recognition of the depth of its commitment to serving the greater good as a core
component of its educational mission.” DU
PEACE-KEEPING, GRADEMAKING, AND SOUL-HEALING
THREE NEW CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS AT THE
CASPERSEN SCHOOL APPROACH THEIR SUBJECTS
FROM NEW PERSPECTIVES.
New scholarly insights, new career options. By tying the two
together in three new programs, the Caspersen School of Graduate
Studies is putting the humanities to work and drawing accomplished professionals (from ages 23 to 78) back to the classroom.
From city streets to office suites, conflict
resolution is a growing career field, with the
demand for trained specialists expected to
grow by 22 percent over the next three years.
Caspersen’s new certificate in conflict resolution is designed for law enforcement personnel.
Given their background in analyzing and defusing tense situations
among all kinds of people, police and security officers are well
positioned for this professional pivot. Drew’s program employs a
humanities-based spin, with its emphasis on the cultural, historical,
and sociological divisions that lie at the root of conflict.
Drew is also adding elementary education to
its master of arts in teaching program as well
as certification in disabilities education at
both the elementary and secondary levels. It’s
a bold move for a program that’s only seven
years old. Drew-educated teachers, every one of
whom brings graduate-level expertise to the classroom, are highly
valued hires, routinely racking up a 100 percent employment rate
for each graduating class.
Can poetry help to reset the balance between
spirit and science, between the care of the
patient and the treatment of the disease?
Rx Poetica brings Drew graduate students in
the poetry and medical humanities programs
together with medical physicians, interns, and
students in the reading and writing of poetry. The program, a
collaboration with the Center for Humanism at Rutgers’ New Jersey
Medical School, seeks to deepen the empathy between those who
suffer and those who heal, resulting in better outcomes for patients
and deeper satisfaction for doctors.
—Lori Chambers
Spring 2015 35
BY LESLIE GARISTO PFAFF
A semester in London.
A school-break trip to
Belize. Summer tours
of China, South Africa,
Morocco, Brazil, and beyond.
Since 1961, thousands of Drew
students, among them junior
Charles Sutter (left), have
taken part in the London
Semester, the university’s
oldest international program.
36 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
BORDERS
Each year hundreds of Drew
students travel outside the
United States for learning
experiences that can’t be
duplicated in a classroom.
Lynne DeLade C’12
STUDENTS WITHOUT
Spring 2015 37
indigenous religious shrines, and healing centers
in South Africa. From Bahia in Brazil to Egypt to
Japan, Drew students have examined traditional
medicine and culture, explored the intricacies of
global business, and, like Letellier, become fluent
in a variety of languages through immersion
programs in foreign capitals.
But as life-changing as immersion study can
be for a language student, spending a semester
abroad changes lives in ways that transcend the
merely academic. Letellier says having to fend
for herself in a foreign city offered her “the
experience of autonomy and of discovering a
different culture.”
“Time and time again, students tell me, ‘I
learned that I could do things that I didn’t think
were possible: find my way through a foreign
city all by myself and manage on my own
without the comfort and safety net of a whole
on-campus community,’” Fischer says. Helana
Shumway, a Drew senior majoring in Spanish,
attended the school’s popular London Semester
last fall. Among the benefits of the experience,
she lists the independence it afforded. “Being
able to feel like a real adult,” she says, “living
on your own, buying groceries, doing laundry,
taking care of the house—it was a great glimpse
of what life will be like after college.”
The introduction to independent living is one
of what Fischer calls “the really profound lessons
that students in Drew’s global programs learn
that will carry them far into their future and
embody what full-impact learning is all
about.” The programs are designed
Mary Ann Letellier C’83 describes
herself as “a bridge,” and when she
does, it’s hard not to envision the
ponts stretching across the Seine in
the sparkling city that she’s called
home for three decades.
38 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
Recent study abroad
programs have taken
students to Paris in
2011 (above) and Egypt
in 2009 (left).
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
THE ANNUAL GRACE WEGGELAND PRIZE HELPS
DREW STUDENTS EXPLORE THE WORLD.
For decades Drew has maintained what Stacy
Fischer, the director of Drew’s Center for Global
Education, calls “a multifaceted relationship”
with Paris. The university offers a summer language program in the city every other year and
regularly sends students to study in Paris for a
semester through a partnership with the Council
on International Educational Exchange, or CIEE.
“Multifaceted” also describes the university’s
global education program, which has introduced
students to British life and culture through its
London Semester for half a century and offers
an array of opportunities for cultural discovery
around the globe, including language immersion
in Mannheim, Germany; a summer archaeological dig in Italy; and a tour of hospitals, clinics,
Eric Renard, Chris Taylor. Facing page: Courtesy of Monique Flynn C’84
Letellier, though, bridges continents, cultures,
and languages. As director of the Center for
University Programs Abroad (CUPA) in Paris, she
oversees some 60 to 90 college students who
come to the City of Light each year to hone their
French, immerse themselves in another culture,
and perhaps change their lives in the process.
Letellier has walked in their shoes. Because that’s
exactly what happened to her when she spent
a semester in Paris as a Drew senior, and it’s
exactly what happens to so many students who
avail themselves of Drew’s rich and varied study
abroad programs.
In January 1982, Letellier, then a junior,
remembers, “I was a French major, and I was in
love with the language and all things French.”
But three days into her first trip to the city of her
dreams, her father died, and Letellier returned
home. A year later, she says, “I got back on the
horse, returned to Paris, and had a wonderful
experience.” So wonderful, in fact, that she went
back to France to pursue a master’s degree in
French literature at New York University’s Paris
campus. Except for a year spent in New York
after getting her master’s, she’s lived in Paris
ever since.
“My Drew experience led me to where I am
now,” she says, referring both to her time as a
French major in what she describes as a highly
supportive and close-knit department and to
the transformative semester she spent in Paris,
during which she and her cohorts took a pledge
to speak nothing but French. That immersive
experience, she says, “was essential for me as
a French major.” Today, French immersion is
exactly what Letellier offers students at CUPA.
It was a pony trek that opened the eyes of Monique Flynn C’84. As part of her
London Semester in the spring of 1983, Flynn, a political science major, had the
opportunity to travel through the Welsh countryside by pony, stopping at inns
and pubs inaccessible by car or public transportation. The three-day side trip
had a profound effect, intellectually and emotionally. “Experiencing something
so rural, with connections only by footpaths and bridleways, gave me a firsthand perspective of life without modern transportation,” she says, “which, in
turn, has helped me appreciate the challenges other countries might have.”
Flynn was not the first in her family to be changed by one of Drew’s off-campus
programs. In the late 1950s, her mother, Grace Weggeland C’58, G’67, P’84,
dreamed of attending the university’s newly established Washington Semester
but could not afford the cost. Then her adviser, Julius Mastro, helped her find
financing. Participating in the Washington Semester, her daughter says, “truly
altered my mother’s experience for the better, and suddenly she felt she could
take on the world.”
That inspired sense of self-confidence is common among students who
enroll in Drew’s off-campus semesters, and it’s one reason Flynn and her father,
Robert Layne Weggeland C’61, P’84, established the Grace Weggeland Prize for
off-campus study in 2002. The scholarship has allowed a new crop of students,
Bero mi, quam sintis aut omnihit, que
estende bisciet et qui sit aut liquate
mperibus suntur? Qui doluptaquat.
such as Nathan Forster, a Drew
senior, to see a world beyond
the comfortable confines of the
Drew campus. Forster received
the Weggeland Prize to take
part in the London Semester
in 2013. The experience, he
says, “really opened my eyes to
a world that’s bigger than the
Monique Flynn C’84 (left) at her
bubble we usually live in.”
home outside London with Drew
senior Nathan Forster, the recipient
Expanding the circle that beof a scholarship established in
gan with her mother, Flynn tries
memory of Flynn’s mother.
to meet each of the scholarship
recipients who travel to London,
either taking them to lunch or inviting them to her home in Surrey. “I can sense
how the opportunity to participate in an abroad program has broadened their
perspectives beyond anything they had thought possible for themselves,” she
says, “and for their potential to make a difference in the world.”
—L.G.P.
Spring 2015 39
Drew students traveled
to Japan in 2014 (left)
and to Venice in 2009.
The London Semester—Drew’s first international
program, founded in 1961—has traditionally
combined time in the classroom with multiple
opportunities to interact with the city and its inhabitants, using the city itself as a touchstone for
what students are learning in class. Rather than
simply reading Mrs. Dalloway, students might take
a walking tour that follows the path of Virginia
Woolf’s novel. Rather than just reading the plays
of contemporary British playwrights, they might
see them performed.
Each student participating in the London
Semester must complete a
final project, and, says Wendy
Kolmar, a professor of English
and women’s and gender
studies, who directed the
2014 semester, “one of the
criteria governing the project
is that it can’t be something
the student could have put together sitting in
a library in New Jersey.” That means students
have to go out into the city, examine it firsthand,
and interview its inhabitants. One of Kolmar’s
students focused his project on homelessness,
another on Roman influences, and another on
Muslim youths.
For his project, Nathan Forster, a senior
theatre arts major, created a photo documentary about the River Thames, walking some 40
miles along its banks, both north and south, as
it flowed through the city, talking to the people
Associated Press/Noriyuki Aida. Facing page: Lynne DeLade C’12. London images courtesy of Drew Archives.
to offer something entirely different from the
on-campus experience. “We don’t want students
to sit in a classroom in the middle of London or
some other foreign city, taking the same kind of
classes they could here in Madison,” says Fischer,
“because what’s the point?”
While most of the study abroad programs do
offer traditional classroom learning, they also
use the city and its environs as a laboratory
for intellectual and emotional growth. Marc
Tomljanovich, an associate professor of economics, led a 10-day trip to Japan during spring
break in 2014 with the goal
of giving students a deeper
understanding of Japan’s
corporate culture. In
addition to meeting with
executives from a variety
of companies—including
American firms with a
Japanese presence, such as Apple Japan, and
homegrown Japanese firms, such as Daiwa
Securities—students were introduced to
Japanese culture. They ate in traditional restaurants, visited the Tokyo Racetrack, and
toured temples and shrines in Kyoto. They also
rode the Tokyo subway at rush hour, when
trains are packed so tightly that some riders’
feet are actually lifted off the floor. “Students
learned how to be outside their comfort zone,”
Tomljanovich says, “and came out of it with a
lot more confidence.”
“Students learned how to
be outside their comfort
zone and came out of it
with more confidence.”
Shuruq Alfawair C’12 (left) and Diana OrtizCandelejo C’12, photographed last fall in London,
both took part in the London Semester at Drew.
Alfawair is pursuing a master’s degree in Arabic
literature at the School of African and Oriental
Studies in London. Ortiz-Candelejo is an MPA
candidate at the London School of Economics.
he encountered and asking them what the river
meant to them. Working on the project opened
his mind and his heart. He came upon a woman who’d chosen to be homeless as a political
statement against homelessness and a man who
had returned to the spot by the river where his
partner, who’d died a year earlier, had proposed
to him. Forster came to see the Thames “as a
grounding point for relationships and a reference for identification.” The project, and the London Semester as a whole, he says, afforded him
“a sense of wonder as to the magic of the world
beyond who we are in our everyday lives.”
That sense of wonder is a common by-product
of Drew’s global programs. Each summer since
2008, classics professor John Muccigrosso has led
a four-week archaeological dig in the town of
Massa Martana in Italy’s Umbria region. The dig
itself unearths history—ancient coins, pottery
shards, dice made out of bones—and offers historical perspective. “We work on a Roman period
site that is 2,000 years old,” Muccigrosso says.
“The students live in a town that is about 1,000
years old. We’ll sit and have our coffees at the
foot of huge medieval walls that are older than
any European constructs in the Americas. So I
hope the students get a better sense of the broad
sweep of history and the way in which the past
makes a difference for the present.”
Surely the opportunity to gain new perspectives was on the mind of Robert G. Smith, the
chair and founder of Drew’s Department of
THROUGH THE YEARS
A PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMELINE OF DREW
STUDENTS ON THE LONDON SEMESTER.
1963
1961
40 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
1968
1981
1989
1991
2001
2015
Spring 2015 41
42 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
The Drew crew: Professor Wendy Kolmar, at
far right, with (right to left) junior Katalina
Gamarra, junior Janine Pasquale, senior
Gabriella Bisconti, senior Michael Collina,
and junior Julie Gonzalez last fall in London.
Spring 2015 43
Lynne DeLade C’12
“I hope the students get a better
sense of the broad sweep of history
and the way in which the past makes
a difference for the present.”
Mark Tomljanovich, left, an
associate professor of economics, with Drew students
touring Japanese business
sites in 2014. From left: Kris
Sullivan C’14, senior Francis
Rossi, senior Jose Escalante,
and Taylor Francis C’14.
or China or New York City, by approaching those
places through a subject with which they’re
already familiar. How can I use what I already
know about economics to know more about
Japan and that culture?”
TREC will also include the shorter trips—
typically one to four weeks over winter, spring,
and summer breaks—once arranged through
the Drew International Seminar program. Such
excursions planned over the next two years will
take students to Belize, Brazil, China, Ecuador,
France, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, and the
United Kingdom. Two years ago, Carol Ueland, a
professor of Russian, led such a trip to Vladimir,
Russia, a 12th-century city about four hours
northeast of Moscow with a large population
of Central Asian immigrants. Learning about
the migration so fascinated one of her students,
Sarah Calderone C’13, that she used it as the
Drew students visited the ruins
of Machu Picchu, a 15th-century
Inca site in the mountains of
Peru, in 2006.
Political Science, when he established the
London Semester as a foreign study program for
political science students. The semester is the
longest-running study abroad program at Drew
(it’s also one of the oldest in the country). Like
virtually all of the university’s international programs, the London Semester has changed with
the times and the needs of students. Offered
every fall, the experience consists of serious
study, including a required colloquium and five
electives covering British politics, political drama,
literature, history, and art and architecture, as
well as a final project involving library research
and fieldwork and, of course, the chance to experience British life and culture in depth.
Maria Masucci, a professor of anthropology
who will direct the 2015 London Semester, her
third, calls the program “one of the richest life
and learning experiences” at Drew. “It’s London
from a multidisciplinary perspective,” Masucci
says, “where students aren’t just studying it, but
immersed and living in it.” Drew alumna Shuruq
Alfawair C’12, now working on a master’s degree
in Arabic literature at London’s School of African
and Oriental Studies, was an assistant to Kolmar.
Initially, Alfawair was concerned that homesickness might keep some students from getting the
most out of the experience. She needn’t have
worried. “They took in London wholeheartedly
and embraced it,” she says. “I don’t think there
was a weekend event or a trip that all of them
didn’t partake in.”
In fact, many of Drew’s global programs
encourage the opportunity for independent
44 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
travel. Genevieve Puleo C’10, who met her future
husband on one of Muccigrosso’s archaeological
digs in 2010, took off for Rome and Florence
with other students during her downtime. “That
kind of social experience was just as important
as the dig for me,” Puleo says. “We went into it
with a ‘sleep when you’re dead’ attitude.”
Drew President Thomas Kean expanded Drew’s
foreign study opportunities during a 15-year
tenure in Mead Hall that began in 1990. As president, Kean was focused on teaching, technology,
and travel. The Drew International Seminars program—which for two decades took thousands of
students on three-week faculty-run trips to more
than 35 countries, including Brazil, Cameroon,
Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Iceland, India, Spain,
Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and many
others—was established under his leadership,
along with a Chile semester and a summer program in Mali. A Belgium semester, established
before Kean’s presidency, ran from the 1960s for
nearly three decades.
This winter the Center for Global Education
introduced a new initiative designed to consolidate all of Drew’s global programs. Known as
TREC (for Travel, Rethink, Explore, Connect),
the new enterprise will encompass study abroad
trips, the New York Semesters, the London
Semester—in short, just about every one of
Drew’s off-campus programs. “TREC is designed
to make students rethink the way they think
about political science, theater, art, history,”
says Stacy Fischer. “We want students to explore
different environments, whether that be Spain
Associated Press/Nousha Salimi (Robinson). Facing Page, top: Associated Press/Noriyuki Aida
Kyler Robinson C’10 on a Drew
International Seminar trip to
Abu Dhabi and Dubai in 2010.
theme of the proposal that won her a Fulbright
scholarship to Russia. “That’s the kind of thing
that these trips build to,” Ueland says.
Mary Ann Letellier’s opportunity to study
abroad built, in fact, to an entire life. She’s raised
two children in Paris (a son, who’s now 18, and
a daughter, 28). She earned a doctorate from the
Sorbonne Nouvelle in Semiotics and Anglophone
Literature and taught English literature at the
Sorbonne Nouvelle, the Université de Lille, and
the Université de Paris V—Rene Descartes. She’s
worked at CUPA for 15 years, first as academic
director and, since 2009, as director. Like the
students she oversees, she says, her experience
studying abroad while at Drew made her “more
adventurous and open to exploration” and stimulated her mind “in incredible ways”—a perfect
summation, as it happens, of the core mission of
Drew’s global outreach programs. DU
SEOUL SEEKERS
FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY, DREW’S THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL HAS NURTURED
A THRIVING CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGE WITH SOUTH KOREA.
In 1902, the man
many regard as the
father of Korean
Christianity perished
at sea in a tragic
steamboat accident.
Henry Gerhard
Appenzeller T1885
devoted his life to
spreading the Gospel
in that faraway land,
and by the time of his death, at age 44, his heroic
efforts were already yielding an abundant harvest.
Today, one-third of South Korea is Christian, a
thirtyfold increase since Appenzeller’s day. And after
a century of cross-cultural exchanges, the bond between the Korean church and Drew is deeply rooted.
Hundreds of Theo School graduates are active in
ministry and academia throughout South Korea
today. Underscoring the impact they’ve had, the
university last year awarded an honorary degree to
one of Appenzeller’s most accomplished successors,
Bishop In Hwan Kim T’85, the first Drew graduate to
be elected a bishop in South Korea.
“Drew is almost everywhere in Korea, when you
talk about the church and Christianity,” says the
Rev. Hana Kim T’11. Kim (no relation to the bishop)
returned to South Korea after earning his doctorate
in American religion and culture to teach and pastor
a Presbyterian church in Hanam City. Barely a year
after he founded it, the church already counts more
than 3,000 members.
The relationship bears fruit at Drew as well. In
any given year, at least 20 percent of the Theo
School’s 450 students are native South Koreans.
Dean Javier Viera says it’s more than name recognition that draws them here.
“There is something huge about the historical
connection, but it’s also the academic rigor here
... and our way of doing theology,” he explains,
citing what he describes as a “global,” rather than
Euro-centric, perspective.
Kim says the approach serves Drew graduates
well when they return to South Korea.
“I think they’re more capable of adapting to
different people and different situations,” he says.
What Drew gains from these students, Viera
believes, is exposure to contemporary Christian life
lived out in a context that’s dramatically different
from what believers experience today in the United
States, particularly in the Northeast.
“Christianity is a minority religion there,” Viera
says of South Korea, “but also incredibly dynamic
and growing and vibrant. That forward-focused
enthusiasm is a tonic for the school as a whole.”
Finally, he adds, there is also something special
about the Korean students themselves.
“They’re incredibly supportive and connected to
each other,” Viera says. “It’s a wonderful model for
the rest of the community.” —Shannon Mullen
Spring 2015 45
When I spoke with Marianne (Kirchhoff)
and Warren Campbell C’55 in November,
Warren was doing some fall trimming of
trees and bushes at their country place.
Marianne recommended a book she had just
completed reading, The Last Lion, about Ted
Kennedy by a team of writers at The Boston
Globe. In August the Campbells had gone
on a special camping trip to Prince Edward
Island with most of their family—a celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary.
Congratulations!
Sadly we’ve lost several of our classmates:
Donna Jamison Grivicich, who was featured
in the spring 2014 issue of Drew Magazine’s
In Memoriam, David Carmen C’54, T’57,
and Agnes Terzako Gianakis. Your reporter
has very pleasant, rich memories of talking
with and writing about each one of these
Drew friends during my several years of
writing our Classnotes. See In Memoriam
(pages 59–63) for more on David and Agnes.
Please keep in touch.
CLASSNOTES
55
The College of Liberal Arts
42
WWII Veteran Americo P. Cocco
celebrated his 101st birthday in
Philadelphia on Oct. 6, 2014.
45
50
We have reached a milestone
—our 70th class anniversary
on May 29–30! Ralph Spoor
C’45, T’48 will lead the charge
and welcome back to campus
70th Reunion several classmates. Make a
gift to Drew’s annual fund in celebration!
Section Ed. Note: For 64
years, the space beneath the
Class of ’50 column header
was unfalteringly filled with
the words of Anne (Evans)
65th Reunion Horner. I’m deeply saddened
to report Anne’s death on Dec. 9, 2014. To
read her obituary, turn to page 61. Some of
my most enjoyable moments of the Classnotes
production process were my periodic phone
conversations with Anne. She alone was
the secretary who’d yet to transition to
email correspondence. (She submitted her
notes—longhand, I might add—via U.S.
mail and always on time.) Each call from
Anne began the same way: “This is Anne
Horner, Class of 1950 secretary, calling from
Durham, North Carolina!” I don’t need to
tell you, her classmates, how much joy she
received hearing from you and delivering
your news. There can be no better way to
honor Anne and her legacy of goodwill to
Drew than for you to get involved. It is my
fervent hope that one of the Class of 1950
will pick up Anne’s pen, and keep the good
news coming.
This is the 65th reunion year for your class.
Before she passed, Anne, not surprisingly,
48 Drew Magazine I Classnotes I College of Liberal Arts
volunteered to serve as your class representative for this special reunion. Come to
campus for Reunion May 29–30. Share your
memories, and make new ones. Robert
Carlson C’50, T’53 and Alice “Cappie”
(Cappuccino) Gentile are planning to attend
and encourage all to do the same. Consider
a gift to Drew’s annual fund, with a goal
of 65 percent participation, in memory of
Anne and her service to Drew and your class.
54
Mary Z. Hepburn
mhepburn@uga.edu
Judy and Chic Cross still live
on Lake Champlain—and their family is
growing, with nine grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren who enjoy coming
to visit. Chic used to do sketching and
cartooning while at Drew; the remarkable
scenery around them now inspired him to
begin painting again. From his workroom
window is a great view of a section of the
lake and a high, level cliff that overlooks
it. On that cliff are railroad tracks and
some interesting late-1800s railroad cars.
His paintings often include the old trains
in scenes of the Adirondacks. But Chic
expressed serious concern about increased
use of that old train line to ship crude oil
originating in Western Canada and North
Dakota. He talked about the need for a
pipeline or other safer alternative.
My communication caught up with
Nancy and Richard Rice C’54, T’58 while
they were visiting their daughter Elin C’84
in Claremont, California. They still have
their home in White Plains, New York,
as well as the new cottage on the Finger
Lakes. Last summer they helped organize
a Drew alumni event in Ithaca involving
Hangar Theatre’s production of The Little
Shop of Horrors, where Josh Friedman C’88
is managing director. Last fall Nancy and
Richard attended a welcome dinner for
Drew’s new president, MaryAnn Baenninger.
Richard praised her engaging manner. He
noted she lives in the President’s House on
campus, the first president to do so in many
years. At a later date Richard returned to
Drew with his son David C’81 to attend a
Drew event featuring a stand-up comedy
performance by John Oliver. Richard reported
the program was outstanding, but he mused
that in the ’50s Dean Morris would never
have approved of the language!
Jack Doyle and his wife, Phyllis, have
moved to Crestwood Manor in Whiting, New
Jersey, continuous care retirement housing
that offers them more medical services and
more activities. It is only about 20 miles away
from where they used to live in Waretown.
Jack is pleased that he will be able to swim
every day in a fine indoor pool and also plans
to explore some interesting locations nearby.
One is a different kind of retirement facility
—a home for zoo animals past their prime.
In February 2014 Nan (Lawthers) Dreselly
celebrated her 80th birthday with her daughters
at Disney World. Ah, youth! I do think she
is the last of our Madison House women to
turn 80! The following April Nan enjoyed
a trip on the Acela train to Delaware and
Pennsylvania. She visited the Winterthur
Museum, Longwood Gardens, and the
Brandywine Museum of Art, where she
especially enjoyed seeing the large Wyeth
Collection. During the summer Nan had a
new aluminum dock installed for the cottage
she owns in Maine, and family members
enjoyed its use through the summer season.
Sol Gittleman, Nish Najarian
C’55, T’59, G’82, and Richard
Semeraro are hoping many
classmates can return to campus for the big 60th reunion
60th Reunion on May 29–30. They’ve volunteered to help reconnect classmates. Hope
all classmates will join in! Consider making
a gift in memory of Joan Doremus Roscher,
who passed away Dec. 21, 2014. Our class
participation goal is 65 percent.
56
Ronald Vander Schaaf C’56, T’59
van5256@yahoo.com
To the email above, take 10 minutes
to send in news about achievements of your
children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren,
or contacts you may have had with any
Drew grads.
My and Patty Vander Schaaf’s grandson,
Mark, just returned from a week’s trip to
Europe, where he showed doctors in four
countries a device he designed to capture
blood clots in the brain. The first patient
treated with the device was a 93-year-old
woman paralyzed on her right side due to a
blood clot. Three hours after the operation
she shook hands with the surgeon.
Mark graduated from Rice University
in 2013 with a major in material science.
He developed an interest in this field after
attending the Governor’s School of Science
at Drew.
57
Eleanor (Sheldon) Stearns
ebstearns@rochester.rr.com
Judy (Palmer) Harik was invited
to present a paper on how educational
institutions should handle and teach students about conflict at the Global Education
Summit in Moscow last June. As a resident
of Lebanon, neighbor to Syria, she had a
lot to say. Earlier in the year she presented
a paper on Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian
conflict at an international conference
in Cyprus. From July through October,
Judy visited with her daughter, Vaira, at
her home on Cape Cod, where all is well
ordered, mellow, and calm. During this time
she painted 17 works and often thought of
Mrs. Korn’s advice. The university that she
and her husband founded in Lebanon, Matn
University, is again opening its doors this
fall after a period of closure following her
husband’s death two years ago.
Jan and Stan Wiley C’57, T’61 moved
to Hopewell Junction, New Jersey, to be
near their daughter, her hubby, and four
great kiddos (ages 14, 12, 8, 7). After a year
renting in a large apartment complex, they
were offered a very nice modern unit on the
ground level of a large estate-type house.
Stan is publishing his sermons about the
advent, birth, and childhood of Jesus in a
book called Save Christmas for Christ Alone
with Xulon Press. He and Jan are members
of Fishkill Baptist Church, singing in the
praise team and concert choir. Stan has just
started to play the clarinet again. Their pastor
plays trumpet, and they hope to jam soon.
Johanna (Zimermann) Wishart and her
husband, Vern G’58, moved to a senior living
center last fall. Jo and her two daughters
celebrated her 80th birthday with a trip to
Boston. She wanted to see the spectrum of
fall colors and visit a friend in his last year
of teaching a Christian ethics seminar at
Harvard. Vern tells stories at a story slam
in a restaurant with a stage. In September
he won with the highest score they ever
had. He also won the audience choice. They
blew the prize money on a trip to Banff and
Jasper National Parks in Canada. Jo and Vern
both attend a seniors’ writing course, and Jo
won a cash prize for a poem she wrote.
Warner Johnson had planned to play in
the alumni baseball game in the fall, but it
was cancelled due to rain. He never wants to
think he has played his last baseball game,
so each year he returns to the Drew alumni
game. He’s usually 30 to 40 years older than
the next alumni player. Warner was the last
person to play for Doc Young, who retired
from coaching after the 1954 season. He
was the only freshman to play on the team
that year, and he feels he is a tie from the
past to the present. Warner walks most days
and exercises. He also bats at batting cages.
He works on splitting firewood most days
and mows a few acres of grass. Much of this
activity is aimed at preparing for the ball
game, but it’s also good for life in general.
Fortified with updated inoculations
and even antimalarial pills, Gail (Fisher)
Moizeau spent an amazing 10 days last
spring being shown around Guatemala by
her 20-year-old granddaughter. She was
there to learn Spanish, which she did, as
well as to get a taste of the great charm
of Guatemalans and the many interesting
people from all over. Gail saw the beautiful
country and Mayan ruins in the style of
current-day college students. Food was
wonderful, and she was in a country so
different, and with so many profound
problems, that it helps her understand the
flight of the children to the north.
Like Warner, Jerry (Clark) Nicholas
was disappointed the alumni baseball
game was rained out. He said that Warner
can still play the game and continues to
amaze the young guys with his hitting
ability. Jerry and Helen’s [C’59] oldest
grandson is a senior at Towson, and their
youngest grandchild turned 1 last fall.
Helen and Jerry just celebrated their 55th
anniversary—amazing! Helen continues her
quilting activities, and Jerry continues as
president of their homeowners association.
58
Helen Williams, bwilliam@udel.edu
Hello to you, my Drew family of 1958.
I have been asked to remind you
that life changes, such as moves, should be
sent not only to me, but to alumni@drew.
edu so that the database can be updated.
Frankie C’60 and Dick Edel have moved
to Waterman Village in Mt. Dora, Florida,
and Jan and Dave Ossenkop have moved to
a senior living community in Schenectady,
New York.
The Class of 1958 has two scholarships
that are awarded each year. This year the
Class of 1958 Scholar is Christiana Tenuto
C’17, a neuroscience major and classics
minor. Christiana wrote that she is “a
person of many interests, especially in art
and classical Latin literature, as well as the
social sciences and biological sciences.” Ellie
Long Hazarian has met with her several
times and is very impressed and pleased
she was awarded our scholarship. Our other
award is the Albert Norton Wettstein Prize,
given annually to an actor or actress for
outstanding achievement in Drew theatrics.
Recipient Christina Kosyla C’11 wrote that
she “made the decision to dedicate her life
to the education and improvement of young
girls.” She earned a graduate degree at NYU
in educational theatre and is presently
teaching drama to kindergarten through
fifth grade at the Stuart Country Day School
in Princeton. Alumni and friends can donate
to either of these separate endowed funds.
Just indicate which of these funds is to receive
your donation.
John Borden, Maury and Gisele Green,
and Joyce and Peter Rushbrook got together
for their occasional mini reunion on a rainy
day in Walnut Creek, California. Drew
forever!
University Advancement
SUBMIT YOUR CLASSNOTES
classnotes@drew.edu
ALUMNI & PARENT RELATIONS
973.408.3229
800.979.DREW
alumni@drew.edu
ALUMNI HOUSE
36 Madison Avenue
Madison, NJ 07940
classnotes@drew.edu I Spring 2015 49
I will be in Florida through mid-April. Please
keep me in the loop so I can spread your news!
59
Ellen deLalla, edelalla@verizon.net
Thanks to a telephone call to her
from Pete Headley, we have heard
from Charlotte (Floyd) Galloway. She and
her husband, Al T’61, moved in March 2010
to a retirement community. Before retiring,
Al worked with organ transplantation as a
chaplain, and Charlotte taught elementary
school, mostly emotionally handicapped
children. They lived in the Tampa area from
1988 through 2004, then in Indiana. Their
three boys are grown, and they have five
grandchildren. “Life is good,” she says.
Bobbie (Christman) Morris and her
husband, Jim, visited with her freshman
roommate, Ann (Schultz) Smiley, and had
a delightful time. Ann has four children
and nine grandchildren. Bobbie stays in
contact with Julia Polonko and Cathy
(Draper) Pye. Bobbie left Drew after two
years to enter the nursing program at
Cornell-New York Hospital.
Ken Rowe C’59, G’69 and his partner of
32 years, James Sawyer, tied the knot in North
Carolina on Oct. 25, 2014. Ken says their gift
registry was “at Dollar General … that has a
lovely Wedgewood paper plate collection with
matching plastic glassware and ‘silverware.’”
I had my second knee replacement surgery
in late September and can now walk upright
and without a limp. Titanium is wonderful. I
hope to be able to travel again in 2015.
Keep sending in your news, even those
little tidbits. They’re all interesting. 60
George Hayward, Jodi
(Della-Cerra) Headley,
and Peggy (Reinhardt)
Littlejohn are enthusiastic
about outreach this 55th
55th Reunion class reunion May 29–30.
And Midge and Ed C’58 Campbell have
graciously offered to host all classmate
attendees Friday night at their home after
the Welcome Back reception, where we can
raise a glass to James Riordan C’59, who
passed away Nov. 24, 2014. Please consider
designating your annual donation this year
to our C’60 internship fund, which we hope
to endow at $50,000 this year, in memory of
Jim. Our class giving goal is 65 percent!
61
Barbara Fern, barbarafern@me.com Mac Hulslander and wife took
a road trip this past summer
to Montana, stopping with Gretchen
(Zimmerman) C’62 and Bob Warwick in
Michigan and Neal Mosher in Ontario,
Canada, recalling many of their best
memories at Drew. In North Carolina he has
been inspired by the Rev. William Barber
II T’03 and the Moral Monday Movement
now taking hold nationally—a major human
rights campaign.
Mary Ann (Kennerly) and John Clinton
reported on their son’s major recital last year.
John has been no music slouch, having taken
a class with jazz recording artist Jackie Allen
50 Drew Magazine I Classnotes I College of Liberal Arts
and performed with six other torch singers.
They enjoyed a trip back to Baltimore to see
the Orioles sweep the Tigers.
Kay Richards Mansfield spent two fabulous weeks in Austria and Slovenia. Her
German still worked well, even before a
glass of wine. Both countries are spectacularly
beautiful, even in the rain.
Ed O’Brien continues to be floored by
the work discipline of his grandchildren.
His eighth grader will attend Johns Hopkins
summer program for credit. He wishes he’d
been that disciplined in his academic efforts.
He and his wife celebrated their 50th wedding
anniversary in September 2014. He spends his
time reading for fun, sailing, and eating out.
63
Ellen Earp Baker, eebaker@aol.com
Hello, classmates! I was delighted to
hear from Jane (Fink) Albanowski
who, after graduating from Drew, received a
master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse
University and became a newspaper reporter
for a year at the Albany Times Union and six
years at the Trenton Times, where she met her
husband, Jim. While a stay-at-home mom,
development came to their township in a
big way. Much of what was proposed was in
her backyard! Using her newspaper skills to
question developers led to her appointment
as chair of the township’s environmental
commission for six years, and writing their
reports for 12 years. Their son is a software
engineer in Silicon Valley. These days she is
busy trying to update a turn-of-the century
children’s book, while getting the last of their
rental real estate properties ready for sale.
Candy Ridington had a nice five-day visit
from Joyce Brayman Amici from Chicago.
They hadn’t seen each other in about 25
years, but picked up right where they left
off. They found it was meaningful to exchange
thoughts and ideas, now that they are in
their 70s, and what a change from the ideas
they exchanged when they were so young,
at Drew. Candy continues to create historical
portraits of well-known women and to perform them at various venues. Her latest is
Emma Darwin, Charles Darwin’s wife. She
has returned to piano lessons after a long
hiatus and is loving it.
Anne and Bill Long are fine and keep
busy with work, volunteering, visiting their
kids and grandkids in Westford, Massachusetts;
Charlotte, North Carolina; and Charlottesville,
Virginia, as well as some other travel, raking
leaves, and other highlights! Allen Menkin was inducted into the
Warren County (New Jersey) Hall of Fame.
Among other accomplishments, Allen is the
co-founder and president of Plaza Family
Care Inc., helped establish St. Clare’s Mental
Health Center, and has been a medical
missionary in Ethiopia.
This edition of the news is coming from
sunny California, where this week my husband is teaching doctors how to be medical
directors in nursing homes and assisted living
facilities. He remains the chief medical officer
for the Hospice of Washington County in
Hagerstown, Maryland. Our son, Chris, is a
research analyst for a commercial real estate
firm in D.C., daughter Laurie is a scrub
nurse in the cardiac OR at Johns Hopkins.
Younger daughter, Linda, lives in Manhattan
and enjoys teaching math at the Horace
Mann School in the Bronx. That’s it for now;
please keep sending updates.
65
Allen Hood
allenhood3@gmail.com
John Allen is happy to report
that after many sessions of
physical and occupational
50th Reunion therapy, he is fully recovered
and back to work.
Naomi Shapiro, with 40 people in
attendance, performed a concert of her
boyfriend’s music at the local library.
And it’s now on YouTube: enter “Stan
Cohen Concert” in the search field to see
her perform. Stan is turning pages and
playing the wood block in the piece titled
“Istanbul.” She is very glad that people can
now hear some of Stan’s compositions.
Naomi continues to volunteer at New Eyes
for the Needy in Short Hills, New Jersey, as
well as swim, hike, and teach cello.
John Greco and his partner, Bill, were
early proponents of secular civil unions
for all. John notes there is now data that
indicate secular civil unions in France are
more popular among opposite-sex couples
than is marriage.
Martha Hassard and her husband, Roger,
moved to a continuing care retirement
community called Freedom Plaza in Sun
City Center, Florida, with endless interesting
activities, including day trips and hundreds
of inexpensive college courses (but without
exams or papers to write!). They will definitely
have warmer weather in the winter than
they had in Connecticut! Martha is hoping
she will be able to come to our 50th reunion
with her good longtime friend and Drew
classmate Kathy (Murray) Henry. She has
also found Elsie Spinner Brown and her
husband, Rich, wintering in nearby Sarasota.
Jon Schwieger is hoping that we will all
turn out for our 50th reunion May 29–30.
Jon, Kathy, Joyce Brunelle Pazianos,George
Burrill, and Peggy Leichthammer Domber
are rounding up classmates for this once-ina-lifetime event. Other class volunteers are
needed. You won’t want to miss this chance
to gather with former classmates after 50
years! The weekend will include a showing
of The Duck Diaries, the documentary about
the goodwill mission trip to Latin America
by some of our classmates. Please consider
designating your annual donation to the
C’65 Scholarship fund in celebration of our
50th reunion.
I, Allen Hood, your class correspondent,
and my wife, Kit, have had a very busy
summer and fall. In a joint venture with
our daughter, Stephanie, we purchased
a four-unit apartment house in Lebanon,
New Hampshire. Steph occupies one of
the apartments and is now the manager.
Yours truly is merely the groundskeeper.
Kit’s in charge of the flower beds. We have
already encountered some major headaches
with one tenant and a roofer. Ah, well, it is
gradually working out well—we think! Learning is clearly not confined to the classroom.
Please, all of you, let’s plan to attend our
50th reunion! I would appreciate an update
on your current email address, if you have
one. I love hearing from you.
70
You may be hearing from
Mary Stringfield, Paul
Dezendorf, C’72 Tom
Hackett, Nicole Romano,
Kathy Hall, and Penny
45th Reunion Jessop, who have all volunteered to reconnect classmates for our 45th
reunion gathering the weekend of May 29–30.
Others are welcome to join the committee,
which aims to increase our class giving
participation rate to 45 percent, with gifts
designated to our already endowed C’70
scholarship fund.
Christian Hoppe has had an exciting
diplomatic career in which he had held four
ambassadorships for Denmark: Moscow,
Ankara, Cairo, and (currently) Prague. Christian
is married to Yelena Lykova, a professor of
economics at the Economic University of
Prague. They have four adult children.
Robin’s daughter Sybil is an architect. When
Potter’s son married in October, Robin and
Potter hosted an authentic New England
clambake for his rehearsal dinner. Robin
still practices law in their hometown of
Brattleboro, Vermont.
Laura Papa and Larry Babbin’s [C’79]
son, Andrew, is doing postdoctoral work in
Boston, and their daughter, Aimee, teaches
high school science. Laura was approved for
dual citizenship by the Italian Consulate,
which will enable Laura and Larry to split
their retirement time between their homes
in New Jersey and Italy when the time comes.
Christine Stack Bell’s husband, Paul Bell
C’76, writes grants and does fundraising
for both Habitat for Humanity and Feeding
Northeast Florida community food bank.
Their daughter, Callan, works for a small
nonprofit that helps the disabled and is
near completion of a master of public
administration degree. Their son, Alex, is
a SQL programmer. Christine continues to
manage trusts in banking. She and Paul
hope to sell their home so they can move
closer to downtown Jacksonville.
Jennifer Beaver works for the Orange
County Transportation Authority in the
digital communications section, doing
writing and some marketing, and encouraging people to take public transportation.
In her nonwork hours, Jenny is involved
with a start-up called We Are the Next,
which encourages the next generation to
consider their resources, both designed
and environmental, to preserve/adaptively
reuse buildings. Jenny and husband Alan
Tolkoff’s son, Jamie, graduated from college
last May, works for a company that makes
computer tablets, and is being developed to
do database work.
My husband, Chas Edwards, and I see
Kathy (Hyman) Floyd C’78 often. She is
a senior adviser in the Office of Financial
Education at the Consumer Financial Protection Board and travels a great deal. Her
children, Connie, who resides in Colorado,
and Steven C’13, who lives in New Jersey,
are thriving in their respective jobs.
A little bird named Facebook informed
me that Barbara (Gauge) and Chip Gertzog’s
son, Jimmy, wed Audrey Suarez in Vermont
in May 2014. Their children, Margaret
and Charlotte, were also in attendance, as
were good friends Marla and Paul Boren
C’78. Not to be outdone, Marla and Paul’s
73
At Penn State University in
September, Christopher Ehmann
and Robert Farrell discussed their
experiences and research concerning stem
cell transplantation in a presentation titled
“Researcher and Practitioner: Stem Cells
Now and in Our Future.” 74
Mark Lang, mlang@langlaw.net
I ran the New York Marathon
on Nov. 2, 2014. It was my 30th
marathon.
75
Anne and Jeff Noss have
volunteered to build
enthusiasm for our 40th
reunion May 29–30.
Others are welcome to
40th Reunion help in the planning to
make this gathering a success. In addition
to renewing friendships, classmates are
encouraged to make a gift to support our
class scholarship fund and raise our class
giving participation to 35 percent!
76
Cheryl Rosenbaum Harper had
a solo show of her artwork at the
James Oliver Gallery in Philadelphia. Besides being a working artist,
Cheryl also curates major projects for art
organizations, colleges, and universities.
77
D. Beth Yingling
dbyingling@gmail.com
Hello, classmates! The Holloway/
Foster quad/suite gals are planning a
spring reunion.
Robin Stern and husband, Potter
Stewart, traveled to India in September
2014 to visit their daughter Isabel, who
taught English there for three months.
classnotes@drew.edu I Spring 2015 51
son, David, wed Jamie Bragg two weeks
later. Close friend of both the Gertzogs and
the Borens, Martha Herrmann C’78, was
in attendance. Martha is employed in the
Arlington County treasurer’s office. The
Borens’ other son, Mike, is engaged, so
clearly love is in the air. Barbara is senior
vice president for commercial real estate
at United Bank. Chip stays very active in
retirement with, among other things, the
acclaimed Providence Players, a Fairfax
County drama troupe.
Our daughter Taylor and her husband,
Ben Powell, who live here in Falls Church,
Virginia, have a wedding and event photography business, Taylor & Ben Photography,
and also do video and other contract work
through Ben Powell Media. Our daughter
Kate, a recent graduate of the UCLA Anderson
School of Business, is a matchmaker for Three
Day Rule, a leading personalized matchmaking
company headquartered in Los Angeles and
affiliated with Match.com, whose matchmakers
hand-select and vet every potential match
in person before making any formal introductions to their clients. Like I said, love is
52 Drew Magazine I Classnotes I College of Liberal Arts
in the air. I hope lots of love comes your
way. Don’t forget to send me your news,
either by email or find me on Facebook.
I love to hear from you!
78
Tom Tani, ctsquared@optonline.net
A short entry this time around. Diane Layton and her husband,
Joe Ritchie, just celebrated their 25th
wedding anniversary on Mackinac Island in
upper Michigan, where no cars are allowed,
only horses—a “beautiful setting.” Their
eldest daughter graduated from Penn State
this year with a degree in marketing and
public relations, and is job hunting in the
New York and D.C. areas while she has an
internship. Their younger daughter is studying nursing at the University of Montana
and just got some skis for the fresh powder.
Joe Rubacky is happy to announce the
birth of his first grandchild. His daughter,
Allison Kahn, and her husband, Keith, gave
them Natalie Rose Kahn on July 22, 2014.
Joe summed it up best: “She is beautiful and
healthy. We have enjoyed three trips visiting
her in Greensboro, North Carolina, and we
scholarship to a student committed
to service. Let’s meet our class giving
participation goal of 25 percent with gifts
designated to endow this fund!
FaceTime every few days. Children are fun,
but grandchildren are awesome.”
Tom Mahoney sent the happy news that
he was a guest at Gary Freed’s marriage to
Rui in Oceanside, Long Island, over Labor
Day weekend. Also in attendance were Michael
Veloric, Bob Nemeroff, Ken Gomez, Sandy
Craig C’79, and JoAnn Keatz C’79. They
very much enjoyed attending and meeting
Rui and her daughter, Lillian.
In November, Tom Mahoney, Vince
McGuinness, and Michael Veloric attended
a Drew Alumni meet-and-greet event in Philadelphia, with President MaryAnn Baenninger.
Philadelphia native Bob Nemeroff introduced
President Baenninger.
80
86
Chris Walsh
chris.walsh@alumni.drew.edu
Reunion is, once again, in
the spring. It will be held
on May 29–30, and our class
35th Reunion will be celebrating our 35th
anniversary. Bill Pratt, Michael Ravensbergen, Tony Ehinger, Kevin Marino, Leo
Grohowski, and I have all volunteered
to help build momentum and encourage
attendance for this celebration gathering.
Don’t forget to support the class giving
participation goal of 35 percent, with gifts
designated to endowing our C’80 scholarship
fund. Let’s do this!
Over Thanksgiving weekend I attended a
party thrown by Tom Keoughan, where the
Drew community was well represented. Ellie
McGarry C’79 was up from Florida making
the rounds of her old stomping grounds.
Brad Toll C’81 came from Philadelphia and
stopped in Manhattan for a supply of the
world’s finest bagels and salmon. Chris
Van Cleef C’85 and his wife, Chrissy C’86;
Tony Marucci C’85 and his wife, Edith
(Wolf) C’86; Mitch Kweit C’84 and his wife,
Jennifer; Nick Ungaro C’83; and Robin
Borst C’84 were all there. Alas, I was unable
to cat-herd the crowd together to get a
photo. Next time!
Earlier in the fall the rugger stalwarts
offered to hold an alumni match. There
were very few takers. Paul Cortellesi C’84
and his wife, Deb, came out, so we at least
had a photo op. Greg Leuser C’77 came
over to be a spectator but left disappointed,
although he ensured his inclusion in this
column. We’ll hold the alumni match this
fall during the official Ranger Reunion.
In the summer I attended a barbecue
hosted by Michael Ravensbergen and his
wife, Anna. Other Drewids in attendance
were Donald Press and my old Tolley third
neighbor, Jim Fleming, who, on the first
night we were on campus just over 35 years
ago now, dragged me down to the P.S. Pub
in Madison.
I occasionally play golf (very poorly) with
my old suitemates, John Gilrain C’79 and
Lou Eccleston C’79. John owns an electronic
publishing company in North Jersey, and Lou
is now CEO of the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Drop me a line. Let me know what you’re
up to—via the Drew alumni office or email.
Jonathan “J.B.” Harris C’81 reached Everest Base Camp during a three-week trek through Nepal.
81
During a three-week trek through
Nepal, Jonathan “J.B.” Harris
reached Everest Base Camp. “At
17,585 feet above sea level, it was the
hardest thing I’ve ever done, but also the
most rewarding.” See photo above.
Thomas J. Collamore, senior vice president
of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is now
serving as vice president of the board of
directors for the Benedictine Foundation.
83
Susan Kessler Apter
apter4@gmail.com
Chris Brentlinger is in his 10th
year at Reed College in Portland, Oregon,
as a major gift fundraiser and loves his job,
including the travel. He and his wife, Beth,
will celebrate 25 years of marriage in 2015.
Their two oldest sons are college students,
with a younger daughter in high school.
Chris has seen David Malecki in Boston
and New York. David also has one child in
college and one soon to go.
Susan Pease Gadoua, a therapist and
author in Northern California, has a new book
out: The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics,
Realists, and Rebels. This is her third book.
Congrats to Cliff Gerstman, a Los Angeles
area high school physics teacher, who earned
his master’s degree in multicultural education last November.
Also newly minted with an advanced degree
is Jose A. Carmona, who earned his MFA in
creative writing (poetry) from the University
of Tampa. Jose is now the medication management counselor at Gracepoint Wellness,
working in mental health. He has retired
from 30 years of teaching English, ESL, and
Spanish at colleges and universities in New
Jersey and Florida.
Diana (Sousa) Jepsen is happily back
in her hometown of West Hartford, Connecticut, and has been the head of executive
and global business communications at
CIGNA for four years. Her husband, George
Jepsen, was re-elected attorney general of
Connecticut in November.
Sophia (Soldatos) and Wayne C’82 Flynn
proudly announce the marriage of their
daughter last June, as well as their son’s
graduation from college in May 2014. The
Flynns work and live in St. Louis, Missouri.
84
Ellen Belcher completed her PhD
in ancient Near Eastern art and
archaeology at Columbia University
in 2014. She is an assistant professor and
special collections librarian at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice/CUNY. For the
past 20 years she has worked on excavations
in Jordan, Syria, and Turkey and is a specialist
in prehistoric figurines, beads, and other
ornaments.
Since leaving Drew, Anne Hamilton has
established an international scriptwriting
consultancy. In October 2014, one of her
one-act plays was performed in London.
Alumni House congratulates Class of ’84
secretary John Hammett, who received the
Max Sobel Outstanding Mathematics Educator
Award from the Association of Mathematics
Teachers of New Jersey! Send your kudos—and
your own good news—to John at dochamm@
aol.com.
85
May 29–30 marks our 30th
reunion. Adam Glazer, Bill
Bolin, Gary Deutsch, Terry
Camp, Bill Landis, Dwynn
Golden, Kim Fogelson
30th Reunion Turet, and Bob Fabricant
are encouraging one and all classmates to
attend our celebration gathering. Please
join in the fun! Also consider a gift to our
combined senior prize and C’85 scholarship
fund, which will offer a more substantial
Sandra Miller
samiller1029@gmail.com
Congratulations to Lisa McCourt,
who got married in October to her
sweetheart, David. Since the release of Lisa’s
Hay House book in 2012, she has transitioned
into her dream career of full-time ghostwriting
for superstars in the personal development
arena. Lisa still puts on her children’s-book
hat now and then to add a new sequel to
the Stinky Face lineup, such as the soon-tobe-released You Can Do It, Stinky Face!
Karen Hoffman’s two older children are
at college, one at Berklee College of Music in
Boston, and the other at Indiana University.
Her youngest is a sophomore in high school.
At Karen’s 50th birthday celebration in the
fall, her son at Berklee brought a band and
played favorite songs through the decades,
with the highlight being Prince. Karen loves
her work of the past three years as a hospice
social worker at Phelps Hospice. She and her
family live in Westchester, New York.
Darrel Parker is executive officer of the
Santa Barbara Superior Court as well as
clerk of the court and jury commissioner for
the county. He was appointed as a member
of the Court Executive Advisory Committee
of the State Judicial Council, which aids
in the governance of the California Trial
Courts. Darrel has a 20-year-old son
completing culinary school and heading
to France this coming summer. His two
younger children are 18 and 16.
Tracy Brundage was recently appointed
assistant vice president for IT application
delivery at Selective Insurance Group.
Jonathan Ward is vice president of corporate development at Jackson Healthcare,
based in Atlanta.
Dan Chiarello has seen a steady rise in
sales of his book, The Man in the Black Fur
Coat, about his uncle’s experiences in World
War II. My family went to London this summer
and visited some of my old haunts (OK, pubs)
from my junior year abroad days. We lucked
out being there during the RideLondon
weekend and, with 16 miles of streets closed
to cars, we safely biked all around the city
with thousands of other riders.
87
The 2014 World Lacrosse Championships in Denver, Colorado, turned into
a mini Drew reunion. Mike Zeldman
served as an official referee. Dan Leidl C’97
was there as assistant coach for Team Ireland,
as was Dave Zazzaro C’91, an assistant coach
for Team Mexico. Team Turkey included
general manager P.J. Martin C’04, assistant
coach Dave DeRiso C’00, and intern Kyle
Mariboe C’14. Mark Grilo C’99 was once
a player for Team Portugal, and also serves
as director of operations as the Portuguese
team attempts to qualify for the World
Games in 2018.
classnotes@drew.edu I Spring 2015 53
93
Susan Strecker’s debut novel Night
Blindness was released on Oct. 7,
2014. Set during a New England
summer, the novel explores the choices we
make, the sanctity of friendship, and the
power of love.
95
Peter Bruckmann Jr.
drewclassof1995@gmail.com
I would like to thank everyone for their initial responses,
and know that if you do not
20th Reunion see your submissions, they
will be published—but deadlines are early.
I know it is hard to believe, but this May
29–30 will be our 20th anniversary of the
Class of 1995!! Please contact your class
reunion volunteers, Susann Rutledge and
Nate Tucker, via drew.edu/reunion to help
make your reunion a great success. Don’t
forget to make a gift and help raise our class
giving participation to 25 percent!
I had the opportunity to catch up with
Neil Manning, Joe Quinty, T.J. Huttner,
Jose Avolos, James Orefice, and Vanessa
(Lattanzio) and Stephen Petruccelli at
Reunion weekend last May, and to see the
plans for the new brick backstop on the
baseball field, which, through generous
donations, will be constructed by the spring
in memory of our classmates and baseball
alums, Ron Moss and Peter Arthur. The
dedication will take place this spring.
Matt Savare made partner last year at
Lowenstein Sandler, specializing in media,
entertainment, and intellectual property
law. He and his wife have 7-year-old triplets,
who are a handful. They are very active in
volunteer work for childhood cancers, as his
son beat leukemia. Matt reports that he is
about to launch his first tech start-up in the
next six months or so. Although he cannot
share too many details just yet, he is hoping
it will change how people watch sports in
today’s digital, social, and mobile world.
Drew Lochli is deputy assistant director
for criminal investigations and operations
at the Naval Crimes Investigation Service.
He and his wife, Karen, live in Virginia with
their sons, Matthew, 11, and Jack, 9.
Stephen Petruccelli owns his own chiropractic office, East End Sports Chiropractic,
in Sag Harbor, New York. He lives with
his wife, Vanessa, and their two children,
Annika and Carter.
Scott Megill and his wife, Caroline
(Morrissey), and their three sons, Connor,
12, Lucas, 9, and Gavin, 6, live in Moorestown,
New Jersey. Scott is the CEO of a life sciences
company specializing in pharmacogenomics—
the use of DNA to help doctors understand
what drugs will work for their patients. His
company was named IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year, and he has been speaking
around the world about the rise of personalized medicine.
Sarah (Marcus) Frederick lives in Wayne,
Pennsylvania, with her husband of 17 years,
Matt C’93, and their children Quinn, 13,
Jordan, 11, and Cole, 7, and their Labradoodle,
Carly, 3. Sarah works at home as an educational consultant.
Susann Rutledge lives and works in New
York as a research manager at the law firm
of Jackson Lewis P.C. In 2013 she took a
trip back to London to revisit the flats and
buildings where her Drew London Semester
was held, and had a great time.
Joann Freddo-Espada continues to work
at the Fed, where she manages the global
operations and distribution of U.S. banknotes
for the Federal Reserve System, her employer
for 19 years. She just returned from a business trip to Hong Kong and Singapore.
THE HAYES-MAZZARELLA WEDDING, OCTOBER 12, 2014
Front row: Devon Cinque, Jill Cermele C’92, Michelle Brisson, Ben Brisson C’02, David Lee C’02.
Back row: Trish Soucy C’02, Kelley Parsons, Michael Kopas, Carla Brady C’99, Cathy Lomauro
C’02, Steph Mazzarella C’02, Aileen Hayes, Sarah Marchitto C’02, Jenn Russell C’02, Zarinah
Smith, Deb Liebowitz, and Micaela Fried-Liebowitz.
54 Drew Magazine I Classnotes I College of Liberal Arts
99
She resides in Matawan, New Jersey, with
her husband, Juan, and two young boys,
Andrew, 5, and Benjamin, 1.
97
Dan Ilaria, dilariaj@msn.com
In May 2014, Kat O’Connor C’93
co-founded Burning Brigid Media
with her partner, author Michael Coorlim.
Burning Brigid creates honestly entertaining, diverse stories about people who are
people, instead of caricatures; stories that
reflect our world as it is. The first web series,
Sleep Study, launches this year. You can learn
more at burningbrigid.com.
Susan (Applegate) and Rob Potanovich
ran into Jenn (Morgan) and Eric Kidd while
on vacation in Ocean City, New Jersey, this
past August and had dinner together.
Dawn (Wilczynski) Afanador, chief marketing officer of Gibbons P.C., was presented
with the Executive Women of New Jersey’s
Salute to the Policy Makers Award at the organization’s annual dinner on May 8, 2014.
Deb (Pierce) Coen was elected to the
Madison, New Jersey, Board of Education.
Her term began in January 2015. She is
currently teaching technology and engineering at West Orange High School.
98
Kristen Daily Williams
kwilliams3@drew.edu
The bloom is off the rose. After
floods (I may be exaggerating) of news from
my classmates in response to a late summer
call for news, I heard from exactly one
classmate with an update in early winter.
Happily, it is joyous news, worth sharing:
Alicia Gregson Aghevli and her husband,
Arash, had a second baby boy, Aiden Jaya,
on Aug. 26, 2014. He was 5 pounds, 9
ounces with a full head of dark hair. Alicia
and Arash’s older son, Kamran Benza, 3,
enjoys being a big brother.
And now you’re stuck with me again.
I attended a holiday soiree at the lovely
Maplewood home of John Holden and
Mike Lonardo—gents I am delighted to
see more often, since John and I returned
to Drew. Also sharing cheer that night:
Suzanne Longley, Josh Drew, Joy Tomasko
C’97, Gigi Naglak C’99, Emily Litman C’99
(I’ll get back to you about adopting that
kitten, Emily!), Jeff Nunner C’99, and Rob
Benacchio, whose wife, Michele, totally
would have been my best friend at Drew,
if she’d gone to Drew. Denise Chadwick
Davis C’01 and Zach Davis C’02 were there,
along with their adorable daughter, who
tied with Kirsten Wheaton Black’s little
boy for cutest tyke of the night. There were
other winsome children and grownups in
attendance, but before I could take proper
note, my attention was hijacked by the delicious Christmas stollen baked by Brandon
Michael Arrington C’99. While chewing
(slowly, to make it last), I learned that
Brandon and his husband, Eitan Grinspun,
are expecting a baby this spring! But then I
went back to the stollen.
Please drop me a line, or I’ll keep writing
about baked goods.
Kristy (Miskoff) Materasso
kristy.materasso@nyu.edu
Peter DeNigris opened up a new
practice in Somerville, New Jersey, called
Somerset Psychological Group, P.A. Prior,
Peter was a managing partner at Associates
in Psychological Services, P.A., where he
worked for 10 years. Before entering private
practice, Peter worked for the New Jersey
Division of Mental Health Services and the
Federal Emergency Management Agency
to provide mental health services to children
and adolescents who lost parents on 9/11.
We also heard from Maggie (Foster)
Lerner, who got married on Aug. 16, 2014!
Congrats to Maggie!
Tamara (Valles) Alfaro married Stephen
Alfaro on Dec. 1, 2013, at Snug Harbor
Cultural Center in Staten Island, New
York. See photo at right. Tamara is a
school counselor with the New York City
Department of Education, and Steve is an
assistant store manager with CVS Health.
They reside in Staten Island.
Charlie Toms recently saw Nathaniel
Raymond in New York City. Nathaniel is a
director at Harvard Humanitarian Institute,
and lives with his wife in New Haven, Connecticut. Charlie also saw Rob Zemser at a
food festival in Jersey City. He works as a
Spanish-language court interpreter in Newark.
Charlie recently had a book published,
Road to the Vineyard, which profiles the 48
wineries of New Jersey.
00
Eloquent Studios, Randolph, NJ
90
Is it really time to celebrate
our 25th? Craig Chanti and
Deb Pawlikowski are helping
reconnect classmates for our
class gathering on May 29–30
25th Reunion and are looking for more help.
Let’s see if we can top the Class of 1989, who
had over 40 attendees last year. Stay tuned
for details on plans for a special campus gift
in honor of our 25th, with a participation
goal of 25 percent.
Kate Gratto, Jen Hicks,
and Janet Wong;
kate.gratto@gmail.com,
jenhicks78@gmail.com,
janetpwong@gmail.com
15th Reunion Steve Ewell and wife, Kelly,
bought a farm in Leesburg, Virginia. They
are busy engaging in long-term renovations
to prepare the grounds for weddings and
other events. Check out their website,
48fields.com. Congratulations and best of
luck, Steve and Kelly, on this exciting new
venture!
As for us, Kate (Harvey) Gratto and
husband, Chris, welcomed their son,
Benjamin Harvey Gratto, this fall. Ben
weighed in at 7 pounds, 2 ounces, and is
enjoying his home in Jersey City with Mom
and Dad. Big congrats to Kate and Chris!
Are you planning to attend our 15th class
reunion celebration at Drew the weekend of
May 29–30? Let’s come together as a class to
share our memories and accomplishments.
Consider volunteering to help with the
planning of the class gathering. Let’s try as a
class to increase our giving participation to
25 percent!
01
Maren Watkins-Calzia
marencalziaphd@gmail.com
Congratulations to Jamie Barbaccia
and Drew Holmes C’98, who were married
on Aug. 8, 2014, in Independence, Missouri.
The newlyweds reside in Fort Collins,
Colorado.
Since January 2014, Pamela Carpentier
THE VALLES-ALFARO WEDDING, DEC. 1, 2013
Joe Lamberti C’98, Maureen (Cadigan) Lamberti C’99, Tamara (Valles) Alfaro C’99, Stephen
Alfaro, Tina (Gubernot) Durando C’00, Monique (Lanoue) D’Aulerio C’00, and Tony D’Aulerio C’98.
has been the assistant director of the Driskill
Graduate Program in Life Sciences at Northwestern University. Pam earned her PhD at
Northwestern in 2006. She talks about her
life and work in a Q&A on the Northwestern
University Feinberg School of Medicine
website.
William Giraldi’s novel Hold the Dark was
recently published by Liveright Publishing.
Billy was the guest lecturer at the fourth
annual Merrill Maguire Skaggs Lecture at
Drew on March 4, where he spoke on the
importance of literature in a digital world.
02
David Lee, dl.davidlee@gmail.com
Greetings, Class of 2002!
Ben Bartolone has been working
as a producer for Peter and the Starcatcher and
Stalking the Bogeyman. He is also pursuing a
master in fine arts in writing for stage and
screen through New Hampshire Institute of
Art. Jen Potts C’92 and Jared Eberlein C’04
are also enrolled in the program.
Wedding bells continue ringing for the
class!
Congratulations to Jess Snyder and her
husband, Jeremy Katzeff. They were married
on Nov. 7, 2014. Drewids Toral (Patel) Jendi
and Stevan Overby Jendi C’99 became
ordained, and officiated the wedding at the
Manhattan Penthouse in New York City.
Many happy years to Greg Hickey and
Courtney West, who were married in
Colorado on Sept. 13, 2014. See photo,
page 56.
Drew alumni, faculty, and staff shared
much pride as Steph Mazzarella and Aileen
Hayes were married on Oct.12, 2014, at the
Madison Hotel. See photo, page 54.
04
Katie Mack is the new boys’ soccer
coach at Champlain Valley Union
High School in Hinesburg, Vermont,
where she also teaches social studies.
05
10th Reunion
Yes, you read that correctly
—our 10th class reunion! On
May 29–30, in fact. Please
contact Cara Bradshaw
at cbradshaw@drew.edu,
Liz Green at lizdgreen@
gmail.com, or Zach Davis C’02 (in the Office
of Alumni and Parent Relations) at zdavis@
drew.edu to volunteer for the class committee
and be involved in the plans. Let’s increase
class giving participation to 25 percent to
support a class project for new sustainable
water stations on campus.
Denise Velez was hired as the language
arts curriculum supervisor for the Kinnelon,
New Jersey, school district.
Angela DiFazio is engaged to Robert
Giorgio. Angela works as an attorney in
Flemington, New Jersey. Robert works as a
corporate trainer for Bowlmor/AMF in Green
Brook, New Jersey. The couple plan to marry
in Bermuda this coming June.
06
Erin DeLoreto, assistant vice
president of operations at HealthLynx, has been selected as an NJBIZ
Forty Under 40 award honoree.
07
Cleo Andersen-Tarnell married
Tomas Conde on May 17, 2014. See
photo, page 56.
Katherine “Katy” Sue Walker and Devin
Thomas Rafferty are engaged to be married.
Katy studied vocal performance at the
University of Mississippi for two years; she
also is a graduate of Tulane University in
New Orleans with a master’s degree in
architecture. She is an architect at Vocon
Architects in New York City. Devin earned
a PhD at the University of Missouri–Kansas
City. He is an economics professor at St.
Peter’s University in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Melissa Kraft is the new head coach of
women’s basketball at Shenandoah University.
08
Kerry Crowley has been promoted
to manager of operations at Beacon
Wealth Management.
Nora (Widmer) Pangburn C’08 and Marc
Pangburn C’07 are happy to announce the
birth of their daughter, Ellison Kathryn, on
January 6.
09
Cortney Lynn Diederich and
Gregory Michael Sousa exchanged
wedding vows on Aug. 3, 2014,
at Crystal Lake Golf Course Gazebo in
classnotes@drew.edu I Spring 2015 55
THE WEST-HICKEY WEDDING, SEPT. 13, 2014
Aaron McCormick C’04, Ellena Crotty C’03, Greg Hickey C’02, Courtney West, Alex Rosenwald
C’02 (behind the bride), Michael Maley C’02, Michael Migliori C’02, and Toddy Purdy C’02.
Mapleville, Rhode Island. A reception was
held in the Crystal Room at the Crystal
Lake Golf Course. The coupled traveled to
Wisconsin and Northern Minnesota for their
honey-moon. They live in Minneapolis.
10
The Office of Alumni and
Parent Relations is looking
for more class volunteers
to help coordinate our fifth
reunion gathering on May
5th Reunion 29–30; email the office at
alumni@drew.edu. Zoe Roselli and Caitlin
Gallagher are already involved in the
plans, so spread the word. Consider making
a gift in celebration of our fifth reunion,
and helping to raise our class giving
participation to 15 percent.
Cheryl Skrobacz C’10, G’12 recently
got engaged to Jonathan Bruno.​Cheryl is a
science teacher, and Jonathan is employed
by Morgan Stanley. They have planned a
May 24, 2015, wedding at Liberty House
Restaurant in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Elizabeth Law C’10, G’11 is a biology
teacher and the new field coach at Pinelands
Regional High School in Tuckerton, New Jersey.
11
bound solo hiker, from Springer Mountain
in Georgia to Glasgow, Virginia.
Emma Grossman received her master
of accounting degree at the University of
Southern California in 2012 and is a licensed
CPA in California. She works in Los Angeles
specializing in auditing and taxation.
Eliese Lissner received an MS in integrated
marketing from NYU in 2013 and is currently
the events manager at the Golf Club at
Chelsea Piers. She is also the women’s 2014
club champion at Montammy Golf Club.
Sahr Khan came to Drew as an international student from Pakistan and majored
in psychology with a minor in Arabic. She
was recently promoted to events manager
at Macy’s Special Events in Chicago, managing
all families of business for the Minnesota,
North Dakota, and South Dakota markets,
including their big branding initiatives like
the Macy’s Glamorama. To top it all off, she
also got married four months ago!
Abbey Finch excitedly launched her
own internet marketing company this
year. ScribeSpace offers low-cost online
marketing solutions for small businesses.
Kati Eggert received her master’s in
sports management and certification in
athletic administration in August 2014
from Southern New Hampshire University.
She is the assistant director of athletics
at Westover School in Middlebury,
Connecticut, and coaches field hockey,
swimming, and softball.
Derissa Raynold was admitted to the
American University of Antigua, College
of Medicine in August 2014. She returns
to the United States in 2016 for the clinical
sciences portion of the MD program. She plans
to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology.
Lalita Nekkanti is graduating from
Tufts School of Dental Medicine on May 17,
2015. Afterward she is hoping to pursue a
residency in general practice for one year.
56 Drew Magazine I Classnotes I College of Liberal Arts
Being a class secretary is a great way to ensure you and your classmates remain
connected. For more information, please contact alumni@drew.edu.
12
Brittney Helmrich joined Business
Daily News as a staff writer in May.
Two student teachers from Drew’s
Master of Arts in Teaching program were
recognized by the New Jersey State Department of Education as Distinguished Student
Teachers. Gaelan Johnson C’12, G’14 and
Anna Elson C’13, G’14 are among only
15 student teachers to earn the award in
the state.
The Theological School
70s
The Rev. Rodney E. Smith
T’79 is the lead pastor of
Chippewa United Methodist
Church in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. Rod
recently retired from coaching high school
basketball, which has been a part of his
ministry in each of his appointments in the
Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference of
the United Methodist Church over the past
36 years. He’s devoting more time to his last
chapter in ministry at Chippewa and to his
grandchildren.
Adam J. Wilson
ajwilson689@gmail.com
Candace Martin is working on her
master of social work at Virginia Commonwealth University and expects to graduate
in 2016. Her area of focus is gerontological
social work and advocacy efforts. This past
August, she married Nicholas Gomersall, a
Drexel alum, and they are expecting their
first child, a little boy.
Restaurant chain and lifestyle brand
Sweetgreen, the employer of Rose Holmes,
secured an additional $18.5 million in its
most recent round of funding to fuel its
West Coast expansion next year. Rose is
thrilled to be a part of this exciting journey.
Charlotte Miller completed more than 780
miles of the Appalachian Trail as a north-
Drew is in need of volunteers to be class secretaries for the following class years:
80s
The Board of Directors of the
Preachers’ Aid Society of New
England is pleased to announce
that Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar G’84,’87,
acting at its request, has appointed the Rev.
Wesley Palmer T’85 as the society’s new
executive director, effective March 1. Wesley
is currently serving as pastor of the Milford
United Methodist Church in Milford, New
Hampshire, following a long tenure at the
Londonderry United Methodist Church.
THE ANDERSEN-TARNELL–CONDE WEDDING, MAY 17, 2014
Matt McCann C’07, Elizabeth Gunn C’07, Remy Onstad C’07, Tomas Conde, Cleo AndersenTarnell C’07, Grace Trull C’07, Kate Martin C’06, Dan Udell C’08 (behind Kate), Laura Fowler
C’07, Courtney Muller C’08, Bettina Mangiola C’08, Allison Stahley C’07, and Monika
Andersen C’07.
90s
The Rev. Wayne M. Jones
T’91,’93 is the new pastor of
Westwood United Methodist
Church in Bergen, New Jersey.
The Rev. Robert O’Keef T’93 has been
named pastor at Roser Memorial Community
Church in Anna Maria, Florida.
The Rev. James E. Robinson T’95 retired
after 33 years of ministry, including 19 at Bethel
Baptist Church in Lansing, Pennsylvania.
00s
Peter Padro T’03 is the new
pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Paterson,
New Jersey.
Praying the Scriptures: Litanies for Sunday
Worship, the new book by Jeremiah
Williamson T’05, was recently published by
Church Publishing Incorporated.
The Rev. James B. Barnwell III T’06
was appointed the new president of Clergy
United for Community Empowerment, Inc.,
a multiservice agency that provides domestic
violence prevention, HIV/AIDS intervention,
infant mortality reduction programs, and
clothing distribution services. He is also the
senior pastor of Mount Olivet Baptist Church
of Hollis in Queens, New York.
In August, the Rev. Jerry Carter G’00,
T’07, senior pastor at Calvary Baptist Church
in Morristown, New Jersey, was the keynote
speaker of FaithNet, an initiative created by
York, Pennsylvania, Mayor Kim Bracey five
years ago to use faith as the foundation to
address community needs.
10s
William M. Campbell Jr. T’11
recently published a new book,
Take It by Force: Kingdom Energy
Produces Kingdom Results. William is pastor
of Anderson Chapel A.M.E. Church in
Killeen, Texas, and founder of Flaming Fire
Ministries. The book, mostly composed of
sermons delivered by William at a revival
in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1996, explores the
power of exercising faith to see the miracles
and providence of God.
The Rev. Eric Shaw T’13 celebrated a
decade of service in the city of Troy, New
York, at a banquet in November. He is the
pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, has been on
the police review board, and is serving his
second term on the city’s ethics commission,
now as chairperson. He was also recently
appointed chaplain for the Troy Police
Benevolent Association.
classnotes@drew.edu I Spring 2015 57
The Caspersen School
PhD
Tunkhannock Presbyterian
Church in Pennsylvania recently
welcomed a new pastor, the Rev. Donald A.
Drewett T’62, G’79,’88. Donald admits that
he has flunked retirement three times.
Jo Renee Formicola G’81 has a new book,
Clerical Sexual Abuse: How It Changed U.S. Catholic
Church-State Relations, published by Palgrave
Macmillan. Jo Renee is professor of political
science at Seton Hall University.
Drew hosted its second Transatlantic Connections conference in Bundoran, Ireland,
in January. Associate Dean William Rogers
G’86,’91,’92 and doctoral candidate Niamh
Hamill were involved in planning the conference, which synchronized with a peacethemed travel course led by Jonathan Golden,
the associate director of Drew’s Center for
Religion, Culture, and Conflict. Many Drew
students joined the trip, presented at the
conference, or both.
In November, Frank Wyman G’01,’06,’09
gave a talk at Drew titled “Disability Issues:
Past, Present, and Future.” He offered a short
history of disability, dealing briefly with early
societies, including Ancient Greece, and then
moved quickly through the Enlightenment,
Eugenics, to the present. Frank provided
some key points to be aware of in dealing
58 Drew Magazine I Classnotes I Caspersen
with the complexities of disabilities, including
understanding the legal, medical, and educational systems, how to be a strong advocate
for your loved one, and the need to consider
the difficult issues that may arise when
parents or others are no longer available to
care for a loved one.
Michael Benjamin G’04,’05,’07, an assistant
professor of history with a specialty in AfricanAmerican intellectual and cultural history at
Armstrong State University in Georgia, was
the subject of a November feature story by
the Savannah Morning News.
DLitt
Huey Alcaro G’02 and Ann
Micou G’14 led an arts
and letters salon on “Writing New Jersey:
Different Meanings of ‘Place’ in Our State”
at Drew last November. The event was
attended both by Caspersen alums and
current students. Anne Patterson Rodda G’10 published
Trespassing in Time: Family History as Microhistory. Anne’s interest in microhistory
as a method of research and writing for
genealogists was first presented in Trespassers
in Time: Genealogists and Microhistorians.
While the first book applied microhistory
theory to Irish ancestry, this new book
offers suggestions and examples of research
strategies for investigating Danish and
German families and seafaring ancestors.
MPhil
Last summer, Lee Peters
G’97 was named senior
vice president for strategic marketing for
Scholastic Education.
MFA
San Antonio’s Poet Laureate
Laurie Ann Guerrero G’11
visited the College of Saint Elizabeth in New
Jersey last fall and offered a master class to a
group of writing students, and a reading and
book signing, which was open to the public.
Last fall, Monica Hand G’11 had four
poems featured alongside works by visual
artists in the “Interpretations II” exhibit at
the Columbia Art League in Missouri.
Last October, Yesenia Montilla G’12 and
Marisa Frasca G’13 read at the KGB Bar in
New York City. Since opening in 1993, the
Soviet-era themed bar has become a literary
institution. Marisa also released a book of
poems, Via Incanto: Poems from the Darkroom,
about women who straddle the line between
life’s conflicts, sorrows, and joys. The titular
darkroom mostly pays tribute to Marisa’s
deceased father, who was a photographer.
In Memoriam
The Drew community and its alumni associations extend our heartfelt sympathy to the families and friends of
those alumni and members of the Drew community listed below. Our ranks are diminished by their loss.
Paul E. Accettola C’70, a lawyer and public
defender who ably served those unable to
afford legal help in criminal cases, died last
October. For more than 30 years, he was
part of the law firm that became Herschel,
Accettola & Associates. He had been a trustee
of the Toledo Bar Association, which in 2004
granted him its highest honor for service,
the Kelb Distinguished Service Award. He
also was honored with the Toledo Junior
Bar’s Order of the Heel. Survivors include
his companion, Tonya Carr; daughters, Casey,
Jeanne, and Alison C’99; son, Andrew; father,
Albert Sr.; and siblings, Albert Jr. and Judy.
Arthur Harold Andrews T’50 died on
Sept. 20, 2014. He met his future wife, Ruth
Allen, a pianist at a South Montrose, Pennsylvania, church, where his father served as
pastor. As an ordained elder in the Wyoming
Methodist Conference, he served for 20
years as a full-time pastor. He retired from
the active ministry in 1970 while living in
Clarence, New York, where he started a new
career designing and building living spaces.
Art was a director of church youth camps,
a Scoutmaster, and a volunteer firefighter.
He will be missed by his wife, Ruth; son,
Mark, and his wife, Sandra; son, Timothy;
and daughter, Rebecca, and her husband,
Keith; eight grandchildren; and two greatgrandchildren.
The Rev. Daniel Andrews T’09, pastor at
the Cowenton/Chesaco Cooperative Parish in
White Marsh, Maryland, died June 15, 2014.
He was 31. He is survived by his sister, the
Rev. Sarah Schlieckert, and his mother, Patsy
Andrews.
John Wallace Bardsley Jr. T’54 of Fall
Branch, Tennessee, died on Nov. 9, 2014.
He served as a pastor in several United
Methodist congregations. John received
numerous awards and honors for his work
in community activities. He published
several articles and books. He was well
loved, especially by his Smithtown, New
York, congregation, whom he served for
23 years. He is survived by his daughter,
Donna; son, John, and his wife, Gina;
grandson, Alexander; brother, James; and
many family and friends.
The Rev. Thomas Frank Beveridge
T’65 died on Oct. 12, 2014. Since 2006,
Tom served as an ecumenical associate at
Christ Church Cathedral of the Episcopal
Church in Connecticut, where he was
a leader in healing ministry and adult
Christian formation. He served at a number
of Methodist churches in Connecticut
and New York, was a resident chaplain at
Hartford Hospital, and spent many years in
pastoral counseling. He is survived by his
wife, Amy (Anderson) Beveridge C’65; their
son, Thomas; their daughter, Lois, and her
husband, Phillip, and their three children.
The Rev. William Hahn Blose T’65,
G’80, died July 1, 2014. Bill was ordained
as a United Methodist minister in 1965 and
served 11 UMC parishes in Pennsylvania,
retiring in 1998. In retirement he pastored
Parkside UMC. A devoted hobbyist of trains
and trolleys, Bill enjoyed any chance to ride
the rails. Bill was a member of bands and
orchestras his whole life and sang in many
choirs. He is survived by his loving wife of
nearly 30 years, the Rev. Janet K. Hess; his
son, David; his daughter, Karin; and several
cousins.
The Rev. Roger S. Boraas G’65 passed
away Dec. 3, 2014. He served in the U.S.
Navy during WWII. He was ordained as
a Lutheran pastor in 1952 and served
two churches. In 1958, he was called to
Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey,
first as chaplain and then as professor of
religion until his retirement in 1991. An
Old Testament scholar and archaeologist,
he served as associate editor of the Harper’s
Bible Dictionary and led 13 archaeological
expeditions in Jordan. Roger married Aina
Evodia Anderson in 1948. Aina survives
him, as do their daughter, Miriam, and her
husband, Ralston; daughter, Marcia, and
her husband, Eugene; son, Roger; and six
grandchildren.
The Rev. Charles Robert Bruce T’85 died
on Nov. 15, 2014. He was a veteran, serving
in the Florida National Guard. He was
ordained an elder and served the Florida
Conference of the UMC for 35 years, retiring
in 1996. He is survived by his wife of 57
years, Ethel Lunsford Bruce; his son, Robert,
and his wife, Katherine; his daughter, Julia,
and her husband, Chuck; his son, Clark;
and his daughter, Amelia, and her husband,
Terry; and four grandchildren.
The Rev. David Carmen C’54, T’57
passed away on April 27, 2014. Ordained a
congregational minister in 1957, he served
churches in New Hampshire, Vermont,
Alaska, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois over
a 40-year period. In 1959 he married the
former Marilyn Noyes, who survives him.
David had a love of God, his family, and the
outdoors. He will be truly missed by all who
knew and loved his gentle ways. In addition
to Marilyn, he is survived by two daughters,
Catherine, and husband Linden Boice, and
Rebecca, and husband Philip Sicks; three
granddaughters; and two brothers.
David Harrison Crowell C’46 died on
classnotes@drew.edu I Spring 2015 59
Aug. 23, 2014. Dave served in Europe in
the Armed Forces during World War II.
At Drew, he met and later married Doris
Collins C’47. After completing his doctoral
work at the University of Iowa, Dave was
principal investigator and director of
numerous research projects examining
brain development in infants and children.
In 1975, he developed a hearing test for
infants, and he is known internationally
as the primary author of The Atlas of Infant
Polysomnography. He is survived by his wife,
Doris; son, Michael, and his wife, Leslie;
daughter, Sandra; daughter, Shannon, and
her husband, Doug; daughter, Megan, and
her husband, Peter; several grandchildren;
and one great-grandson.
The Rev. Donald Crumm T’55 of Goodrich,
Michigan, passed away Sept. 20, 2014. Don
served in the U.S. Navy Signal Corps in
World War II. Ordained as a United Methodist
minister, Don served 10 churches around
Michigan. In January 2014, he was awarded
the Detroit Annual Conference Cane, a
110-year-old ceremonial cane, given to
the oldest minister in the region. Don is
survived by his wife, Barbara; son, David,
and his wife, Amy; daughter-in-law, Joann;
daughter, Shauna, and her husband, Daniel;
son, John; siblings, Sharon, Daniel, and Sara;
and many grandchildren.
Douglas J. Davis C’61 died on Aug. 16,
2014. He served as the sports editor for The
Acorn. He enjoyed a 25-year career teaching
at Saint John Kanty School in Clifton, New
Jersey, retiring in 2004. Doug had a 35-year
association with the Wayne, New Jersey,
Police Athletic League, serving as baseball
commissioner for nearly four decades and
coaching, or overseeing the coaching of,
thousands of Wayne’s children. In 1987 he
was honored at the National PAL Convention
as Volunteer of the Year, and Field One of the
Wayne PAL field complex bears his name. He
is survived by his wife of 31 years, Elizabeth;
stepdaughter, Lisa, and her husband, Mark;
stepson, Mark, and his wife, Pamela; four
grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Karen B. DeBartolo C’65 passed away
on Nov. 19, 2014. She worked as a research
economist and an officer of Dunlap and
Associates for over 25 years, and served as
the general manager of the family business,
United Tobacco Company, for over 10 years.
Karen was a dedicated golfer. She was an avid
and knowledgeable motor car enthusiast, as
evidenced by her fleet of all-stick-shift cars,
her favorite the M­5. She is survived by her
husband, Joseph DeBartolo, and her sister,
Jeanne B. Reinhard.
William “Bill” Stewart Dinsmore C’50,
a retired deputy associate director of the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB),
died on Dec. 7, 2014. At the time of his
retirement, Bill headed the OMB’s Office of
Organization and Special Projects. Highlights
of his distinguished career include leading
the implementation of newly formed federal
agencies, including the EPA, the Department
of Energy, and the Consumer Product Safety
Commission. Bill was a Navy veteran of
60 Drew Magazine I Classnotes I In Memoriam
World War II. Bill is survived by his beloved
wife, Laura; daughter Susan Young; daughter
Kathy Aherne and her husband, Chris; daughter
Janice Davis and her husband, Brett; and
seven grandchildren.
Michael David Dooman C’85, headmaster
of Mooreland Hill School in Connecticut,
passed away on Nov. 29, 2014. In 1986, he
joined the Mooreland Hill faculty as teacher
and varsity baseball coach. He served a 14year tenure. For six years he was middle
school director for the Country Day School
and, in 2006, returned to Mooreland as headmaster, where he served for eight years. He
was also an active member of his community
and an avid Yankees fan. Michael is survived
by his wife, Sheila Lavey; his sons, Colin and
John; his mother, Betty; his brother, Nelson,
and his wife, Bella; a nephew and many
nieces, cousins, and friends.
On Oct. 20, 2014, the Rev. Alan Dee
Einsel T’85 died. He graduated in 1962 from
Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas,
then served in the Navy for four years. Alan
then entered Saint Paul School of Theology
in Kansas City, Missouri, where he met
his wife, Barbara. He served 11 Methodist
churches in Kansas and Louisiana. Alan
retired in 2010 after a 42-year ministry to
enjoy family, grandchildren, and traveling
with his wife, the Rev. Barbara Cain Einsel,
who survives him, along with a son and
his wife, David and Chantelle, and their
children, Jenna Rose and Cooper Roy; a
brother and his wife, Ralph and Mary; his
brother, Gene; and numerous nieces, nephews,
cousins, and other family members.
Ninette “Nina” Gloria Eldridge C’52
passed away on June 27, 2014. Nina began
her professional career doing cancer research
at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
in New York City before accepting a position
with Sterling-Winthrop Research Institute in
Rensselaer, New York. In February 1961, she
married her husband, Richard, and raised
two sons. She then went to work at the Food
and Drug Research Laboratory in Waverly,
New York, and then the Troy Hospital in
Troy, Pennsylvania. She is survived by her
son, Mark, and his wife, Jane Stone; son,
Richard; six grandchildren; and many other
cousins, family, and friends.
Robert E. Engel T’58 passed away Nov.
30, 2014. While at Cornell College, he met
the love of his life, Elizabeth Seydel. After an
early career in the ministry, Bob returned to
school, earning a PhD, and enjoyed a 27-year
career as a professor of higher education. In
2005, Bob was awarded the Francis Asbury
Award for a life of service to the higher
education ministries of the United Methodist
Church. Survivors include his wife, Beth;
son Jeff and his wife, Mai-­Lei Chen; son Craig
and his wife, Catherine Quehl-­Engel; son
Bradley and his wife, Dena; son Daniel; six
grandchildren; and two sisters.
Shirley Fabrizio C’78 died on Nov. 3,
2014. Widowed at 42, Shirley raised three
daughters and worked as a secretary in the
Linden Department of Recreation while
earning a degree in English and psychology
from Montclair State University. She had a
career as an advertising executive and later
became a Realtor. A beautiful, petite force
of nature, she was a strong and resilient role
model for her daughters and grandchildren.
Shirley leaves behind daughters, Michele
Fabrizio, and her husband, Robert Kopech;
Sharlene Langner and her husband, Tadeusz;
Donna Fabrizio, and her partner, Stephen
Ohm; grandchildren, Michael Kopech and
his wife, Jamie Hellman, Whitney Kopech,
Matthew Langner C’08, Mark Langner, and a
great-granddaughter.
The Rev. Joseph Arthur Fiske C’44, T’47
died Oct. 26, 2014. Joe served many churches
in both northeastern Pennsylvania and New
York. He was also a member of the Wyoming
Conference Education Committee and the
Sky Lake Board of Directors. Joe loved the
outdoors and advocated for the protection
and conservation of the environment. He
will be remembered for his compassionate
spirit, easy laugh, and gracious counsel. In
addition to his wife, Sarita, Joe is survived by
his children, Alice; Joel and his wife, Donna;
and April Jones C’93 and her husband, Eric
Jones C’93; grandchildren and great-granddaughters; beloved brothers and sisters-in-law;
and many nieces and nephews.
Mary Frances Fortunato C’65 passed
away on Oct. 19, 2014. After Drew, Mary
earned her master’s degree from Bank Street
College of Education in New York City, where
she lived and worked as a social worker for
eight years. In 1973, she moved to Connecticut,
where she served in various positions of
public service and taught remedial math
for 37 years. Mary is survived by her sister,
Ann Fortunato Bucci; nephew Geoffrey; and
nephew Stephen, his wife, Grace, and their
children, Elijah and Ava.
C. Dendy Garrett T’50 passed away on
July 16, 2014. Dendy served as a Methodist
pastor in Philadelphia and six Iowa churches.
He married Eleanor Haywood in 1946, and
together they served churches with dedication
and vitality. He served in WWII and as a
Navy chaplain in the Persian Gulf during
the Korean War. Dendy served in many
community and state offices in Iowa. He
is survived by a daughter and son-in-law,
Wendy and Brad Lego; son and daughterin-law, Jim and Kathy Hannum; son Doug;
son and daughter-in-law, Matthew and
Lisa; and many grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.
The Rev. Charles Hugh Germany T’45
passed away on July 13, 2014. After marrying
Julia Lee Hancock in 1946, the young couple
immediately undertook a year of intensive study
at the University of California at Berkeley’s
Japanese Language School. Sojourns in
Kobe, Kamojima, and Tokyo followed. The
Germanys’ years in Japan brought them
three children: Stephen, Susan, and Lisa.
Starting in 1965, the family made a home
for decades in Montclair, New Jersey, as
Charles began working in New York for the
World Division of the United Methodist
Church’s Board of Global Ministries.
Charles is survived by Julia; his elder sister,
Barbara Fiscus; his three children; seven
grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Agnes Terzako Gianakis C’54 of Bridgewater, New Jersey, and a former resident of
Livingston, New Jersey, died on June 5, 2014.
In 1998, Agnes endowed the Mrs. Harry
Terzako Memorial Scholarship at Drew in
honor of her mother. She will be missed
by her children, James Gianakis, Gary and
Trish Gianakis, and her grandchildren,
Christopher and Demetrios.
James Barnwell “Barney” Gibson T’88
passed away Dec. 27, 2014. He was a loved
minister, husband, father, and grandfather.
A native of Denmark, South Carolina,
Barney felt called to the ministry at an early
age. He pastored several churches in North
and South Carolina, including First Baptist
Church in Asheboro, North Carolina. He
was preceded in death by his first wife, Lita,
and two brothers, Jacob and Roddy. He is
survived by his wife, Bobbie; two sons, Jim
and Frank; four grandchildren; and two
siblings and their spouses.
Catherine “Kitty” Martel Gibson-Daley
passed away on Dec. 22, 2014. Kitty served
as a special events coordinator on Drew’s
University Relations staff from 1981 until
1993. In 1953 she married the late Jerry
Gibson, who died unexpectedly in 1980.
They had four children together, David, Jay,
Peter, and Pamela. In 1991, Kitty married
Don Daley. Following her retirement from
Drew, Kitty and Don split their time between
Cape Cod and Naples, Florida. Kitty is survived by her husband, Don; her four
children and their spouses; stepsons Michael;
Robert and his wife, Karen; Thomas, and
his wife, Ursula; and Gregory, and his wife,
Karen; 26 grandchildren; and two greatgrandchildren.
The Rev. Ivan F. Gossoo T’48 died on
July 22, 2014. In 1949, he was ordained an
elder in the United Methodist Church and
received into membership in the New York
Annual Conference, where he served until
retirement in 1985. During his 38 years of
active service, he served many churches in
New York and Connecticut. After retirement,
he and his wife moved to Petersburgh,
New York. During the ’60s and ’70s, Ivan
played an active part in the civil rights
movement. He is survived by a son, Burton
Gossoo, and a daughter, Lynnea Jones; two
grandchildren; two great-granddaughters;
and many more relatives.
The Rev. Charles G. Hankins C’55,
T’59,’75, a retired United Methodist pastor,
superintendent, and Navy Reserve chaplain,
died on Aug. 9, 2014. During his time at
Drew, Charles helped start a daycare center
at Trinity United Methodist Church in
Merchantville that served children from
Camden. More recently, Charles counseled
veterans suffering from PTSD at Family and
Psychological Services of Cherry Hill. He is
survived by his wife of 56 years, Nancy, sons
Philip and Peter, daughter Ruth Moore, two
grandsons, and a great-grandchild.
The Rev. Alice M. Hobbs T’91 passed
away on Dec. 2, 2014. She married David
Hobbs in 1959. Alice became an ordained
United Methodist minister in 1990. She
served four United Methodist Churches.
Alice will always be remembered as a storyteller. She is survived by her husband, David;
her three children, Keith, Linda, and Kevin,
and his wife, Mayra; a sister; three grandchildren; and two step-grandchildren.
The Rev. Bruce J. Hoffman T’03 died on
Sept. 14, 2014. Bruce’s call to ministry was
outreach, and he found great joy in serving
his community. He was associate pastor
of Hamilton United Methodist Church in
Neptune, New Jersey. He was also an active
coach of sports in the community. Bruce’s
love of history led him to become a tour
guide for St. Augustine and the Castillo
de San Marcos National Monument. He is
survived by his wife of 45 years, Nancy; his
sons, Brian and Jeffrey; his daughter, Carrie
Fuentes, and her husband, Reynaldo; his
five grandchildren; three siblings; and many
nieces and nephews.
Anne Evans Horner C’50 died on Dec. 9,
2014. In 1952, she was married to John
Edward Horner C’43 and followed his career,
ultimately to Indiana, where her husband
served as president of Hanover College.
As well as raising her four children, Anne
was a very active “first lady” on campus. At
the time of their retirement in 1987, she
received an honorary doctoral degree. In
years since, Anne was honored—­along with
her husband—­in the naming of the John
and Anne Horner Health and Recreation
Center on the campus. In addition to her
life on the campus, she served in leadership
roles for numerous organizations. Anne
served as secretary for Drew’s Class of 1950
and wrote the alumni news column for 64
years. She is survived by daughter Joanne
Woerner; daughter-in-law Laurie; daughter
Heather Hohlt and her husband, Dwayne;
and son Scott, and his wife, Jennifer; and
seven grandchildren.
Walter M. Ketcham T’79 died on June
29, 2014. Ordained as an American Baptist
minister, he served churches in New York
and Arizona. He also served as associate
executive minister for the American Baptist
Churches of New York State, and was elected
to the College of Fellows of the Academy
of Parish Clergy. To say that Walt touched
many lives over the years would not do
justice to this modest man. He is survived by
his loving wife of 50 years, Betty; son Steven
and his wife, Ronda; son Gregory; daughter
Deidra Rosemellia and her husband, Jerry;
daughter Christine Stutler and her husband,
Benjamin; six grandchildren; and one greatgrandchild.
The Rev. Mark Edward Kroehler T’38
died on July 16, 2014, at the age of 100.
He met his wife, Anne, at Asbury College.
For 58 years, they shared ministry, family,
and life until her death. Mark practiced
extravagant generosity to church, charities,
and family. Ordained in the United Methodist
Church in 1939, he served six Pennsylvania
congregations. He was a Mason for nearly
70 years and a Kiwanian for more than 40
years. He is survived by three sons and their
wives: David Mark and Joan Clark, Kent
Edward and Joy Kocher, and Stephen Fletcher
and Loretta Scott. He treasured his
12 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
The Rev. William “Bill” Kurschinski T’82
passed away on Aug. 10, 2014. He served
multiple congregations over his 35-year
career. He also served as chaplain at the
University of Western Ontario and Fanshawe
College, London. Bill retired in 1992 as pastor
emeritus, St. Matthew’s, Cornwall. He is
survived by his wife of 63 years, Virgie
Kurschinski; son, David, and his wife, Colleen;
daughter, Kathryn York, and her husband,
Tim; four grandchildren; and many nieces
and nephews.
The Rev. LeRoy Lincoln C’50 died on July
15, 2014. Roy served in the U.S. Navy during
WWII. He was ordained into the ministry
in 1956 at Glenwood Baptist Church in
Glenwood, New Jersey, where he served as
pastor for three years. He taught English
at the junior high, senior high, and college
levels before retiring in 1980. Roy was an
active member of many veterans’ groups
and was a lifetime member of the VFW. Roy
is survived by his wife, Marilyn; his son,
Judson; his daughter, Jennifer Firth; two
sisters; three grandsons; and three greatgrandsons.
Sandra Parrish Logan C’62 passed away
June 5, 2014. After Drew, she received her
MBA from Columbia and her PhD in economics
from the University of South Carolina.
Sandra was a professor of economics and
business at Newberry College. Survivors are
her husband, John, and nephews, James
Clemenko and Andrew Clemenko.
Joan Steiniger Lucas C’68 died January 2.
She was a retired neonatal nurse practitioner
with Cape Fear Valley Hospital in Fayetteville,
North Carolina. Joan was an avid Carolina
and Yankees fan who immensely enjoyed
gardening, quilting, and caring for her
grandchildren. She is survived by her
husband, James; her mother, Ethel Hoskin
Steiniger; four sons, Brian, Gregory, Patrick,
and Benjamin and his wife, Joanna; a
stepdaughter, Jennifer, and her husband,
Mark; two sisters; and three grandchildren.
The Rev. Russell Gordon Major T’59
passed away Dec. 12, 2014. As a minister
he served churches in Iowa, New Jersey,
Ohio, Connecticut, and on Cape Cod. He
also served as a hospice chaplain. Gordon
loved people, was passionate about every
aspect of ministry, and saw each person as
a child of God. He is survived by his wife,
Sue Pellowe; daughter, Eleanor; son, Philip,
and his wife, Nancy; son, Tom, and his wife,
Kristen; stepson, Steve, and his wife, Karen;
stepson, Tom, and his wife, Jessica; and seven
grandchildren.
The Rev. Arthur Melius T’75 died on
Oct. 2, 2014. Arthur was a Methodist
minister for many years, faithfully serving
New York churches in Hudson Falls and
Schenectady, then Grace United Methodist
Church in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. He was
an avid Yankees fan and beloved husband,
classnotes@drew.edu I Spring 2015 61
father, and grandfather. He is survived by his
wife, Sharon; children and spouses, David
and Diane, Jill and Marc Schermerhorn,
and Leslie and Geoffrey Oblak; eight
grandchildren; and two siblings.
Nickola S. “Nikki” Meredith C’71 passed
away on Nov. 15, 2014. She retired after
teaching math for 30 years in the Dayton
Indiana Public School System. Survivors
include her sister, Jan Livingston, and other
friends and relatives.
Nicholas Messare C’90 died on Oct. 2,
2014. Born in Athens, Greece, he worked
at West Morris Mendham High School as a
math teacher. Nick will be remembered as
a kind, selfless soul, educator, confidant,
poet, music/movie buff, all-star gamer, and
inspiration to all those who were blessed
to know him. He is survived by his lifelong
partner, Jennifer Hedden; father, Remsi;
brother, Petros; sister-in-law, Tobi CohenMessare; and nieces, Holli and Zoe.
The Rev. Juanita (Valyou) Middlebrook
T’83 died on Oct. 11, 2014. She worked for
many years in the pediatric department of
the Sharon Health Center in Pennsylvania
before opening her own retail business. In
1978, Juanita returned to school to pursue
a calling to the ministry and served as a
Methodist minister until her retirement in
2003. Following her “second retirement” in
2011, she worked as a counselor. She was
an inspiration to everyone who knew her.
Survivors include her three children, Lance,
Kim, and Todd; five grandchildren; and four
great-grandchildren.
Albert Mineta C’44 died on Nov. 15,
2014. After graduating from Drew, he joined
the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Service
Language School. Al obtained his medical
degree, did his internship and residency at
UCSF, where he met his wife Joyce, and set
up a private practice in San Jose. He retired
in 1994. Al is survived by his wife, Joyce; his
daughters and sons-in-law, Lisa Mineta and
Alan Minami, Mari Mineta Clapp and Stephen
Clapp, and Susan Mineta and Michael
Hearney; eight grandchildren; his brother,
Norman; and many nephews and nieces.
Jacqueline E. Munro G’92 passed away
Nov. 11, 2014. Jacqueline was the director of
public relations and development of Earth
Conservancy in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She
was a lover and protector of the outdoors
and all the creatures that made it home.
In addition to her adventurous spirit, she
possessed a spirit of caring, generosity, and
kindness. In addition to her parents, she
is survived by a sister and brother-in law,
Heather and David Schnorbus, and their
sons, David and Jack.
Terence “Terry” Joseph O’Connor G’11
died on Nov. 3, 2014. A lifelong love of
learning prompted him to pursue Drew’s
program in medical humanities. His 2011
doctoral dissertation was honored as the
best-written dissertation that year. Terry
was a health care administrator at the South
Bronx Mental Health Council, St. Mary’s
Hospital for Children, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt,
and St. Patrick’s Nursing Home. In addition
62 Drew Magazine I Classnotes I In Memoriam
to his day job, Terry taught courses in
hospital administration to thousands of
aspiring health care professionals over the
last three decades. He is survived by his wife
of 25 years, Denise; children, Christopher,
Charlotte, Colin, Carolyn, and Suzanne;
seven grandchildren; and three siblings.
Jackson Kent Outlaw Jr. T’88 passed
away on Dec. 24, 2014. Kent was a Methodist
minister with the Western North Carolina
Conference. He retired in 1991 and continued
his education, enjoying writing, traveling,
and serving as a chaplain with the Listening
Post at North Carolina School of the Arts.
He traveled extensively with his late wife,
Leslie, enjoying his love of France where he
served in the military with the U.S. Army.
He is survived by his son, Jackson; son, Robert,
and his wife, Janice; daughter, Julia, and husband, Vincent; and a granddaughter, Anna.
The Rev. Lee Wayne Parker Jr. T’65,
a United Methodist Church pastor for
40 years, passed away on July 8, 2014.
He married his high school sweetheart,
Averyl Faye Smock, and served in the U.S.
Army for two years at Fort Knox. He then
pursued his divinity degree at Drew. With
their four children, Lee and Faye moved to
Pennsylvania in 1965 where he served four
churches, retiring in 1992. In retirement he
preached at the Mt. Zion UMC in DuBois. In
2003, the Parkers retired to Florida. Deeply
empathetic to others’ tough situations, he
devoted countless hours in counsel and
prayer to those in need. Lee is survived by
his wife, Faye; children, Linda, Donald,
Christopher, and Melanie; granddaughter,
Heather; son-in-law, Tom; and many more
family members.
Heinz G. Pfeiffer C’41 died on Nov. 15,
2014. Heinz came to the United States from
Germany in 1926 with his family. Heinz
did his postgraduate work at Syracuse
University and the California Institute of
Technology. He served in WWII. Heinz had
a long and distinguished career in energyrelated activities, first at General Electric,
then at PP&L, and finally as principal
visiting scientist at Lehigh University. He
cared deeply about the environmental
impact of power production. Heinz coauthored three books on X-ray emission
technology and authored more than 70
publications on energy topics. He received
a Distinguished Alumnus Award from
Drew in 1963. Surviving are brother Ralph;
daughter, Karen Wolk and her husband,
Richard Fox; daughter-in-law, Leslie Smith;
four granddaughters; and three greatgranddaughters.
Rachel Bucci Posner C’11 passed away
on Dec. 29, 2014, at the age of 25. A Dobbs
Ferry High School graduate with an IB
diploma and numerous art awards, she was
a member of the National Honor Society.
Rachel was an honor-winning figure skater
and a member of the U.S. Figure Skating
Association. Rachel graduated magna cum
laude with a double major in studio arts and
art history and a minor in museum studies.
She held positions at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art and the Guggenheim Museums. Her
parents, Virginia and Henry, survive her.
Jane Micucci Rainis G’86,’12, passed
away on Sept. 12, 2014. Jane was an
accomplished author. She was on the
boards of both Drew and the College
of St. Elizabeth. She also served on the
board of the Library Foundation of Martin
County, Florida. Jane was an authority on
the American author Willa Cather. She
presented scholarly papers on Ms. Cather’s
works in the United States and in Europe.
She is survived by her husband, Eugene
Rainis; two sons, Mark, and his wife,
Amy; and David, and his wife, Melissa;
a daughter, Ellen Rainis Peters, and her
husband, Michael; four grandchildren; and
two siblings.
Charles W. Rinker Jr. T’66 died January
8. He was a driving force in affordablehousing and other safety-net issues in
Arlington, Virginia, for more than four
decades. Charles met his future wife, Lora
T’66, while attending the same Methodist
church. Together they studied at the Theo
School. His activism included helping
to found the Arlington New Directions
Coalition, Arlington Home Ownership Made
Easier, and Buyers and Renters Arlington
Voice. He was an active member of the
Arlington Housing Commission for 20 years.
He is survived by Lora; three children,
Matthew, Natalie, and Jeremy, and their
spouses; a sister, Patricia; six grandchildren;
and many other friends and family.
James “Jim” R. Riordan Sr. C’59 passed
away on Nov. 24, 2014. After Drew, he went
on to get an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson
University. He also served his country during
the early 1960s in the U.S. Army and was
stationed at Fort Dix. Jim spent most of his
successful 30-year career as an executive
with the Perkins & Squier Paper Company
based in New York City. Beginning there
as a salesperson, he rose to be president
and COO in 1993. Throughout his career,
he taught college-­level courses in sales and
marketing. While at Drew, Jim met his wife
Liz C’60, who survives him, in addition
to his sons, James Jr. and Jonathan; four
grandchildren; and his brother, John.
Mary (Barker) Roby C’70 passed away
on Sept. 13, 2014. Mary’s greatest loves
were education and music. She was an
excellent teacher in Colchester, Vermont,
winning “Teacher of the Year,” and a
talented music director at St. Paul’s United
Methodist Church in St. Albans, Vermont.
Mary and her husband, Tom, were an
amazing team in the music ministry and
in life. Mary is survived by the love of
her life, Tom Roby, a devoted husband of
30 years; their son, Nicolas and his wife,
Tonya; her stepchildren, Jeff and wife,
Sandy, and Karen Hunt and husband, John;
four siblings; and many nieces, nephews,
grandchildren, and good friends.
Patricia Rockman C’70 passed away
on Nov. 9, 2014. Patricia married Andrew
Rockman in 1981. Patricia was fiercely
devoted, staggeringly generous, and quite
possibly the most patient, proud, and
preternaturally gifted “grande dame” a
family could hope for. She was also one
mean card player. She is survived by her
beloved and adoring husband, Andrew;
her son, Justin; her stepsons, Matthew
and Seth; her granddaughter, Ayanna;
her goddaughter, Alexandra; and her two
brothers, Peter and John Teliha.
Joan Doremus Roscher C’55 passed
away on Dec. 21, 2014. She was a substitute
teacher for the Morris (New Jersey) School
District and Mt. Pocono (Pennsylvania)
School District for more than 10 years.
Joan was an active member of the Church
of the Redeemer, Morristown, and Trinity
Episcopal Church, Mt. Pocono. She was the
president of Greystone Park Association and
volunteered with the Women’s Club of
Morristown. She is survived by her daughter,
Lauren Boyadjis and her husband, Anthony;
five grandchildren; two great-grandchildren;
her brother Thomas Doremus C’68; and her
sister-in-law, Patricia Doremus. She was
predeceased by her husband, Rudolph; son,
David; and brother Robert.
Anne May Rubino C’46 died on January
2. A lifelong Morristown, New Jersey,
resident, she was the first woman to be
accepted and admitted to, at the time,
Brothers College as a scholarship recipient
from Morristown High School. Anne was
employed for many years by GPU Energy/
JCP&L. She was both an employee and
trustee of the Morristown/Morris Township
Library. Anne was an active member of
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown.
She enjoyed the study of animal behavior,
veterinary medicine, and philosophy, and
loved to be creative in the kitchen. She is
survived by many nieces, nephews, and
cousins.
Marilynn M. Rushton T’66 died Nov.
16, 2014. In seventh grade, she attended
a church camp, and she felt a calling to
the ministry. While at Drew, she met and
married the late Richard Rushton T’66.
After Drew, the couple moved to Wisconsin
to begin their ministries. Marilynn was
ordained as the first female pastor in
the Wisconsin Conference of the United
Methodist Church, and the Rushtons served
nine area congregations before retiring.
Following Richard’s death in 2009, she
married her longtime friend William Ziegler
in May 2011. Marilynn is survived by her
children, Lori Blank and her husband,
Dale; Mark and his wife, Michelle; Shaun
and his wife, Ashley Ellingson; and Heidi
King and her husband, Jerry; and six
grandchildren.
The Rev. Roger Earl Russell T’50 died on
Aug. 10, 2014. Roger was a United Methodist
pastor for 64 years and served in six Iowa
churches. He also was the foundation
director at Southwestern College in Kansas
and Scarritt College in Nashville. Later,
he served in churches in Des Moines and
Creston, then a church in Bismark, North
Dakota, before retiring. He is survived by his
loving wife, Stella; daughter Cheri; daughter
and son-in-law Jamie and LeRoy Augustine;
daughter Kathie Olsen; daughter and sonin-law Cindy and Don Caughron; son and
daughter-in-law Timothy and Andrea;
stepchildren, Ronald J. and Jennifer Cook,
Lori and Todd DeVries, and Paul and Leann
Cook; 14 grandchildren; one great-grandson;
and two brothers.
The Rev. Paul Leonard Sandin T’81
passed away Nov. 13, 2014. He was ordained
to the Christian ministry as an American
Baptist in 1960. Since 2005 he had dual
ordination status with the United Church
of Christ. His pastoral ministry spanned
more than 60 years, serving congregations
across the country. Survivors include his
loving wife, Irene; daughter Debra and her
husband, Mark Dockendorf; daughter-in-­law
and her husband, Sheli and Derrick Paine;
three siblings; and four grandchildren.
The Rev. Jack E. Spencer T’53 died Oct.
15, 2014. He married Millie Littell in 1953.
Jack was a veteran of WWII, serving in
the U.S. Navy. He was ordained into the
United Methodist Church, serving at four
Pennsylvania churches, and then as district
superintendent of the Franklin District and
finally at Lakewood United Methodist in Erie.
Survivors, in addition to his wife, Millie,
of 61 years, include a son, the Rev. Greg
Spencer and his wife, Christine; a daughter,
Kimberly Lenahan; five grandchildren; a
sister, DeAnn Henley and her husband; and
nieces and nephews.
Nancy A. (Dragos) Spiller C’88, G’01
passed away on Sept. 4, 2014. Nancy was a
history and social studies teacher at Colonia
(New Jersey) High School for the past 25
years, and enjoyed being senior yearbook
adviser for 13 years. In 1987, she was one
of 26 students nominated by Drew for
“Who’s Who Among Students in American
Universities and Colleges.” After earning her
master’s degree from Penn’s Graduate School
of Education, Nancy obtained her doctor
of letters from Drew in 2001, where she
was honored and gave the student address.
Nancy loved the Jersey Shore. She is survived
by her loving husband of 23 years, David
G. Spiller C’87; her two sons, who were her
pride and joy, Jake and Max; her parents,
Ernest and Lorraine Matiunas Dragos; her
two sisters and their families; and many
cousins and dear friends.
David Lawrence Stein C’87 passed away
Oct. 2, 2014. David was the original guitarist
and songwriter for the punk bands Even
Worse and the Cro-Mags. He co-founded the
well-known punk fanzine, The Big Takeover,
which continues to have a large following.
He was a fixture in the early 1980s New
York punk scene. In 1988 he moved to
Arizona, where he met his wife, Nicole
Ganz. Professionally, David had 23 years
of experience in the financial sector, most
recently as a financial adviser at Wells Fargo
in Scottsdale. He is survived by his wife,
Nicole; his son, Jack; stepson, Mason Foxx;
parents, Joel and Mary; a sister and brother;
and nieces and nephews.
Georgia “Lynn” Schupple Stires C’64
passed away Oct. 17, 2014. She lived in
California for more than 30 years, until
moving to Auburn, New York, in 2003. She
is survived by her sister, Elinor Fults, and
her husband, David; brother, Jay Schupple,
and his wife, Arlene; six nieces; and several
great-nephews, great-nieces, and cousins.
Mary Strack, who worked for Drew
for nearly two decades, died on Dec. 26,
2014. She was well known by the campus
community, working primarily in the
finance and purchasing offices. She began
her tenure at Drew in 1981 and retired
as an accounts payable assistant in 2000.
Mary lived in Chatham, New Jersey, and
Kennebunkport, Maine. She is survived by
her two children, Brian and Ellen, and two
grandchildren.
Donald J. Sweeney C’48 passed away
Oct. 1, 2014. Don was a WWII veteran,
serving in the Army Air Force. After Drew,
he earned his master’s degree from the
University of Houston. Don remained in
Galena Park, Texas, to teach and coach
before moving to Kingston, New York, to
teach American history. While teaching,
Don served as president, chief negotiator,
and grievance chair of the Kingston Teacher’s
Federation. After retiring in 1985 he cofounded the Kingston Retired Teacher’s
Federation. He is survived by his daughter,
Nancy; two grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and his best friend for more than
40 years, Elaine Grega.
Joan O. Tripp C’53 died July 23, 2014.
Joan and her brother, Jay, were the first
twins born at Horton Memorial Hospital
in Middletown, New York. Joan taught
elementary school and remedial reading.
She was the librarian for the Village Library
of Cooperstown for 10 years, retiring in
1999 to help care for her grandchildren,
which she found very fulfilling. Since
retirement from the library, Joan volunteered
for Bassett Healthcare and at the library.
An active communicant of St. Mary’s “Our
Lady of the Lake” Roman Catholic Church
in Cooperstown, she spent many hours
doing calligraphy, teaching Sunday school
and helping with the Altar Guild, as well
as being a eucharistic minister. Joan leaves
three children and their spouses, Dana
and Martin Peeters, Nancy and Daniel
Morris, and Robert and Angela Tripp; seven
grandchildren; one great-granddaughter;
and her brother, Jay Oppenheim.
The Rev. Hugh Thomas “Tom” Walker
T’54 died July 16, 2014. Tom served in
the Army in Germany during WWII.
He later served as Air Force chaplain in
Albuquerque. Tom received his bachelor
of science degree at the University of
Minnesota, MDiv from Drew, and DMin
from San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Tom served four UMCs in Minnesota. He
was district superintendent of the Northwest
District and director of Evangelism Ministries
for the General Board of Evangelism in
Nashville. He is survived by his loving wife,
Velma, four nieces, great-nieces and greatnephews, and treasured friends.
classnotes@drew.edu I Spring 2015 63
BackTalk
Jordan Glatt C’84
Former mayor, Summit, New Jersey
I was the first Democratic mayor in the hundred-plus year history of
the town. Summit is a very Republican community. For many years,
nobody even ran. It was a fool’s errand.
I was reading a book about Mayor [Fiorello] LaGuardia of New York
and came across a quote where he said there really was no Democratic
or Republican way to pick up the garbage. That was kind of the inspiration of this whole thing.
There was a sense of a lack of connection between the council and
the community. The council meetings would go to 11 o’clock, and
they wouldn’t take public comments until the end.
When a member of the public would speak, they would flip an egg
timer over to give him three minutes. I pointed that little fact out, and
it gave me a lot of traction. It was a good demonstration of what happens when you have a single party running things for a long time.
My first mayor’s election I won by under 200 votes. The second elec-
tion I got 60-plus percent of the vote.
Remember, we’re talking local stuff, so the big issue in town was
athletic fields. We built four turf fields. I also put in a Habitat for
Humanity home, for affordable housing. Those are the two things
I’m probably most proud of.
Everybody asks, “Why didn’t you go further?” Unfortunately, I can’t
think of the last person who, at a higher level, got out with their dignity. I think the last person was Tom Kean Sr.
Drew was a fabulous experience, life-altering. That’s where I grew
up. I found professors that turned me on to figuring out what I liked.
I was a political science and philosophy major. I always say philosophy
taught me how to communicate and write. My real profession is being
a CEO of a company, and it’s all about communication.
I think Drew gives you all the advantages of being in a metropolitan
area—being right outside Manhattan—and a campus life. It’s an oasis
When he’s not hanging around
the Summit Diner, Glatt is a
partner with Free All Media, an
advertising software company.
64 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com
Peter Murphy
you can retreat to while taking advantage of really being in the center
of the world. But it is up to the student to push out beyond those
gates.—SHANNON MULLEN
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