The College Magazine Spring 2006

CollegeThe S p r i n g 2 0 0 6

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

NewtonA n d M o t i o n

The College (usps 018-750) is published quarterly by

St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD,and Santa Fe, NM

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postmaster: Send addresschanges to The College

Magazine, CommunicationsOffice, St. John’s College, Box 2800, Annapolis, MD

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Rosemary Harty, editorPatricia Dempsey, managing editor

John Hartnett (SF83), Santa Fe editor

Jennifer Behrens, art director

Annapolis410-626-2539

Santa Fe505-984-6104

ContributorsJason Bielagus (SF98)Barbara Goyette (A73)

Caroline Knapp (SF99)Andrea Lamb

Andra MaguranJo Ann Mattson (A87)

Erica Naone (A05)Chris Utter (A06)

Robin Weiss (SFGI86)Kelly Wilson (SF09)

Magazine design by Claude Skelton Design

O n N e w t o n

Earlier this spring, the BBC launched an international poll to find theworld’s favorite quotation. Lao Tzu’s “A journey of a thousand miles . . .” came in first, but a contender was this famous line by Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further, it is by standing upon theshoulders of Giants.” The quote can be found in a 1675 letter byNewton to Robert Hooke, a talented physicist and one of the originalfellows in the Royal Society. Interpreted by many as a modest

acknowledgment of the contributions of others (Kepler and Galileo among them),Newton’s comment might also have been a sarcastic barb aimed at Hooke—a short man—who took issue with many of Newton’s findings. Several biographers suggestHooke and Newton peppered their correspondence with subtle insults.

Hooke would later accuse Newton of plagiarizing his ideas when the latter publishedthe first volume of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1686. Newton wasso incensed by Hooke’s charges that he threatened to withhold publication of the tworemaining books. The astronomer Edmund Halley, a man of great means, eventuallyfunded the printing and distribution of the Principia. The Royal Society claimed to below on funds, though some say Hooke had something to do with that.

The father of modern science was the son of an illiterate farmer who died threemonths before Isaac was born in Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire in 1643 (on ChristmasDay according to the Julian calendar). Born premature and not expected to live, Isaacsuffered a difficult childhood. He was taken from school and set to farming and, beingunable to put his books away to watch the sheep, he failed miserably. He was releasedfrom farming to attend Cambridge, where he helped pay his way by cleaning the roomsof professors and fellow students. His brilliance noted, Newton later won a fellowshipthat provided financial support. But when the plague struck the city in 1665, the university was closed. Newton went back to the farm, where he immersed himself inmathematics and contemplation. Not long after his return to the university, he wasnamed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a professorship currently held by Stephen Hawking.

Newton was said to get so caught up in his work that he would neglect practicalmatters such as grooming and eating. He never married and had few friends. His personal behavior was so odd that in recent years two British researchers proposedthat Newton (along with Einstein) may have had Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autismcharacterized by obsessive dedication to a particular task.

Newton left Cambridge in 1696 to take up a position, first as Warden and later asMaster, of the Royal Mint. Although these duties interfered with his scientific research,they made him a wealthy man. In 1704, Newton published the Opticks. He was knightedin 1705 by Queen Anne, becoming the first scientist so honored. He died in March 1727in London.

Johnnies interested in revisiting Newton and his great discoveries in mathematics,optics, and motion in the solar system might enjoy Let Newton Be! A New Perspectiveon His Life and Works, published in 1988 by Oxford University Press. —RH

{ C o n t e n t s }

CollegeThe S p r i n g 2 0 0 6V o l u m e 3 2 , I s s u e 2

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

p a g e 10“With a Clear andSingle Purpose” A $125 million capital campaign seeks to address the most important prioritiesof St. John’s College by building theendowment and strengthening theProgram for many years to come.

p a g e 14Newton and AristotleA conversation on the Principia and thePhysics, between two tutors of starklydifferent backgrounds, provides a richvein of inquiry.

p a g e 16“Ever the Teacher” Tutor William Darkey (class of 1942)recounts memories of more than sixdecades at St. John’s College, from beinga student in Annapolis to serving as deanof a fledgling campus in Santa Fe.

p a g e 40Croquet:It was the Cold War all over again.

d e p a r t m e n t s

2 from the bell towers• Victoria Mora is Santa Fe’s new dean• Annapolis dedicates Spector Hall• Mike Peters among the sophomores• A spring break to remember• Tutors study Proust, Upanishads• Retirements and appointments• The $10,000 short story• Experimenting in Santa Fe• Senior gifts: a lasting legacy

9 letters20 history

An 1811 alumnus was at the center of some of the most important issues in 19th-century American political life.

30 BibliofileRandolph Runyon (A71) decodes Montesquieu’s Persian Letters.

Santa Fe tutor Jorge Aigla publishes a new volume of poetry.

30 alumni notesP R O F I L E S

28 Journalist Lydia Polgreen (A97) tells the world about Africa’s suffering and hope.

32 Aman Cholas (SF98) saves Western forests.36 Fiddler crabs fascinate Denise Pope (SF89).

37 tributes46 alumni voices

Aboard the Makulu, Todd Wilson (AGI00) connected inner-city students with the wider world.

42 alumni association news48 st. john’s forever

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o n t h e c o v e r

Isaac NewtonIllustration by David Johnson

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{ T h e C o l l e g e St. John’s College • Spring 2006 }

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

Tutor Victoria Mora has beenselected by her fellow tutors toserve as the next dean of theSanta Fe campus, effective July 1, succeeding David Levine(A67) in the post. The firstwoman and the first native New Mexican to become dean inSanta Fe, Ms. Mora joined theSt. John’s College faculty in1992. Her appointment as deanbecame official with approval by the Board of Visitors andGovernors on April 24, 2006.

For any tutor, the decision toleave the classroom for five yearsis a difficult one to make. “I loveteaching, and not teaching isgoing to be a huge sacrifice,”she says. To keep in contact withstudents, books, and ideas, Ms. Mora is planning a Dean’sSeminar Series to be offeredperiodically, and will set asidetime each day for a Dean’s walkto maintain daily contact withstudents.

Balancing the responsibilitiesof the dean’s office with herpriorities at home may also be adifficult adjustment. But Moratakes on the job with a greatdeal of support from herhusband, Tomas Fernández, aretired educator. They have twoyoung children, MarisolFernández y Mora, 10, andAlejandro Fernández y Mora, 6.The family also includes Tomas’sons, Antonio, Miguel, and LuisFernández, all “twenty-some-things finished with college andon to wonderful families andcareers,” Ms. Mora says.

“I know I will have to figureout how to balance the enor-mous demands of the collegewith what I take to be extremelyimportant—family. If not for myhusband, who will be holdingdown the fort at home, it wouldhave been nearly impossible forme to consider” accepting theappointment, she says. “Admin-istering our rich academic

program will be challengingenough, and we are facingtremendous opportunities withour new president, MichaelPeters, in place.”

President Peters says Ms. Mora brings, “greatenergy, intelligence, and charmto the position,” he says. “Ienthusiastically look forward to

working with her to pursue theaims of the Santa Fe campusand the college.”

Ms. Mora grew up just 70miles from Santa Fe and was thefirst member of her family toattend college. She visited St. John’s during her sophomoreyear at the University of NewMexico and was fascinated bythe Program, but felt obligatedto remain at the less expensivestate college.

After completing her bachelor’s degree in Englishand philosophy at UNM, shewent to Yale University, whereshe earned her master’s anddoctoral degrees in philosophy.She taught for a year at acommunity college in Albuquerque while she

completed her dissertation,“Gender, Expression, andAnalogy: A Reapproach to theProblem of the Other.”

“It had its roots in phenome-nology, with the primary focuson an original phenomenolog-ical analysis of gender as afeature of the expressive body,”Ms. Mora says. “It was inresponse to an argument madeby Ortega y Gasset againstHusserl’s claim that we knowthe Other through our experience of the Other’s body

as analogous to our own—a semaphore signalingconsciousness. I end up sidingwith Husserl.”

When she was ready to lookfor an academic home, Ms. Morarecalled the small liberal artscollege in Santa Fe that hadcaptured her heart. “I remem-bered what a great experience Ihad visiting as an undergraduateand I thought, ‘Wouldn’t that bea wonderful place to be able tocontinue my education and havea job?’ ”

After more than a decade onthe job, Ms. Mora is still shapingher education at the college, not to mention shaping thecommunity around her. She hasserved on the faculty of theundergraduate program as well

as in the Graduate Institute.She has devoted a great deal oftime to the college’s outreachprograms: leading the facultycomponent of the OpportunityInitiative, contributing to theTecolote colloquia whichprovide continuing educationto New Mexico teachers, andleading Summer Classics seminars. She has served on the Instruction Committee andon the presidential searchcommittee that selected Mr. Peters.

“Victoria brings a solid background in the Program,experience working withadministration, and an abilityto work well with a wide rangeof people,” says tutor LindaWeiner, who served on thedean’s search committee. “Her thoughtfulness andenergy will be an asset to ourcommunity, and we truly appreciate her willingness toserve the college as our deanfor the next five years.”

With such wide-ranginginterests and qualifications, Ms. Mora’s appointment promises a tenure that extendsfar beyond the bounds ofWeigle Hall. But like her predecessor, Dean Levine, Ms. Mora’s goals are firmly inthe St. John’s Program.

“If you think about all of theconstituencies at the college,what is it that holds all of thosepeople together?” Ms. Moraasks. “It’s a love of the St. John’s Program, and thedean is charged with both supervising the program ofinstruction and seeing to thewell-being of the students sothat they can pursue it in thebest and deepest way possible.Given that the dean is rightthere working with the heart ofthe Program, it seems to methat it’s a role through whichthese various constituencies cancome together. I’m honored toassume this role.” x

—Kelly Wilson (SF09)

A Love of the ProgramVictoria Mora is Santa Fe’s Next Dean

A number of firsts mark Victoria Mora’s appointment as dean ofthe Santa Fe campus: she’s the first woman, first mother, andfirst native New Mexican to hold the post on that campus.

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On January 28, students, facultyand members of the college’sBoard of Visitors and Governorsgathered for the dedication ofSpector Hall, the newest dormi-tory on the Annapolis campus.The ceremony held specialmeaning for Warren Spector(A81), whose gift to the collegemade the dorm’s constructionpossible, and his family. Theyhad come to St. John’s to dedicate the new building in the memory of a husband andfather, Philip Spector.

A successful contractor whohad built many residential,commercial, and industrialbuildings in the Washington,D.C., metropolitan area, PhilipSpector died in 1990. The newdormitory is a fitting tribute to aman who was “a builder in tradeand a builder in spirit,” said Mr. Spector.

“I know that he would havetremendous pride seeing thishall erected in his memory,” Mr. Spector said.

The President and Co-chiefOperating Officer of the WallStreet firm Bear, Stearns & Co.,

and a member of the college’sboard, Mr. Spector has madeseveral generous gifts to thecollege over the years in appreciation for the educationhe received at St. John’s. Alongwith Gilliam Hall, which openedin fall 2005, Spector Hallextends community life to thelower campus. Opened at thestart of the spring semester, thenew dorm houses 40 studentsand features spacious commonareas, suite-style rooms, and afaculty apartment.

Mr. Spector had attendedPrinceton, but the Ivy Leaguecollege wasn’t right for him, hesaid. After a brother suggestedSt. John’s, Mr. Spector read thecatalog and knew this was thecollege for him. “I had been atone of the richest campuses inthe entire country, a [university]with tremendous resources,” hesaid. “I have nothing negative tosay about Princeton, but I foundthat those were not the thingsthat mattered to me as a student.It was something special thatwas here in the community—the Program, the people, the

dedication, every-thing about it waswhat attracted meto St. John’s, and Iwas quite right inmy judgment thatthis was the placeto be.”

After joining theSt. John’s board,Mr. Spector sawthat while thecollege didn’trequire“superficial”resources, theneed for morecampus housing was evident.“When I lived off campus youcould walk to historic Annapolisand live in a reasonable apartment, but it has becomeimpossible to do that. I’m reallyhappy that we have 80 percentof the students living on campusnow, because it keeps peopleclose, and I think that’s vitallyimportant.”

Mr. Spector’s mother,Barbara, and other familymembers and friends came tocampus for the ceremony, a tour of the dormitory, and areception. “This means a lot tome and a lot to my family,” Mr. Spector said. “It is the firstthing we have dedicated in

memory of myfather.”

Representingthe student body,Mary Davenport(A06) spoke abouthow Spector Hallhelped her makeanother home atthe college. Shethanked theSpector family fortheir gift. “Thiscollege—the thingswe learn, the

people we meet, and the experi-ences we share—this has becomea place that I am comfortablecalling my home,” she said.

President Christopher Nelson(SF70) also expressed histhanks. “We are grateful to you,Warren, for choosing St. John’sCollege as the home for yourmemorial dedication and theobject of your philanthropy andextraordinary generosity,” hesaid. Rather than just providingdorm space, Mr. Spector’s gifthelps foster a close-knitcommunity of learners. “We know that Warren’s participation in community lifeon campus was a transformativeexperience for him, as he hasgiven us the means to erect thisbuilding with the convictionthat a St. John’s education ismost completely achieved byhaving students fully engaged inthe community of learning,where the classroom experiencespills out into the quadthroughout all the activities ofstudent life and into thecommon spaces and quiet hoursof the night in the college’sdormitories,” Mr. Nelson said. x

—Rosemary Harty

A Fitting TributeSpector Hall Dedicated in Annapolis

Top: In January, Spector Hall was dedicated to thememory of Philip Spector, husband to Barbara andfather to Warren Spector (A81), whose gift madeconstruction of the dormitory possible. Left: Spector Hall common rooms are spacious andinviting.al

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4

When you walk into a St. John’sseminar, it’s rare to findanything unexpected: severaldifferent translations of aPlatonic dialogue, a group ofstudents in varying degrees ofsleep deprivation, and ofcourse, the omnipresent St. John’s chair. But forstudents on the Santa Fecampus, there has been anexciting addition to theseminar: a college president.

For Michael Peters, whobecame president in Santa Fein 2005, learning about theProgram firsthand was a toppriority, so he joined theJanuary freshman class as aseminar auditor. By the timeMr. Peters was officiallyinstalled as president duringhis inauguration ceremony lastOctober, many Johnnies werealready accustomed to seeinghim in the classroom, bent overa copy of the Iliad.

Mr. Peters believes thatlearning alongside students isan integral part of achievingthe priorities that he outlinedat his inauguration: support forlearning, connection with thecommunity, and heightenedvisibility. It soon became clearto Mr. Peters that he needed tobe a part of the academicprogram. “Because I didn’tgraduate from St. John’s, Iknew that I really needed to tryto find a way to get familiarwith the college through itscrux, the Program. I felt Ineeded to gain the experiencesthat the students have of howthe classroom works,” he says.

Balancing the hecticschedule of the president’soffice with 200 pages of weeklyreading isn’t easy; neverthe-less, as his January freshmanclassmates began to tackle the concepts of Aristotle, Mr. Peters made time for thereadings. After his long days in

Weigle Hall, he stayed late tolisten to the conversation andthe ideas spilling forth. The St. John’s seminar was adifferent environment for theWest Point graduate, formerArmy colonel, and long-timeforeign policy specialist.“Sitting in on the first seminarsreinforced what I’d seen duringthe interview process and isvery much the reason that Ithought St. John’s College wasthe right place for me,” heexplains. “The level of engage-ment and the commitment ofeveryone in the classroom, theinteraction between thestudents and the material, thestudents with one another, thestudents and the tutors, it’s allsomething that’s completelyunique to St. John’s.”

By the end of their secondsemester, the JFs were used tothe tall, quiet man sitting in theside chair. When they returnedfor their sophomore year, manywere surprised and impressedto see him back in seminar. Ashe began visiting each of theseven sophomore seminars,students became curious andasked if he could join theconversation. “On severaloccasions students said to me,‘Gee, we wish you’d speak upand offer your views on this,’”

he says. “But I feel that I’mreally there just as a way to seethe students, to get a sense ofwhat’s going on, to be able toobserve the approaches of thedifferent tutors.”

Mr. Peters is enjoying thefresh perspectives the greatbooks provide. Even though hehas read many of the books onthe Program, the seminar stilloffers new insights into texts,some of which he thought heknew very well. “I had readMachiavelli’s The Prince manytimes, but this time I think Isaw it in a much differentlight,” he says. “Not the stereotypical Machiavelli, theultimate politician who’s alwaystrying to figure out ways tomaneuver, but the kind ofmoral underpinnings of the textwhich I hadn’t really thoughtabout or appreciated before.”

The seminars have affordedhim “an understanding of thelanguage of St. John’s, whichrevolves so much around thebooks.” It’s an insight that will

surely prove essential as hetakes on a position that is vitalto communicating the uniquenature of St. John’s to thegreater world.

Mr. Peters said he’s lookingforward to continuing intojunior year. Sometime in thefuture, he may considerenrolling in the Graduate Institute. “If I do the graduateprogram, I would probably dothe Eastern Classics program,”he says. “That would be a newarea for me and something Iwould find fascinating.”

In the meantime, his effortshave not gone unnoticed byBrandon Winston (SF08), wholast year was a JF. “You knowhow Machiavelli says that theprince sometimes needs tocome down from the mountainand get a different perspectiveof who he is from below, fromthe perspective of the citizens?That’s what Mr. Peters was like,and that’s the quality of thetrue prince.” x

—Kelly Wilson (Sf09)

The Quiet ManMike Peters Enjoys Seminars

“I had readMachiavelli’s The Prince

many times, butthis time I think

I saw it in a muchdifferent light.”

Mike Peters, St. John’s President, Santa Fe

To better understand Johnnies and the Program, Santa Fe President Mike Peters began sitting in on January Freshman seminars soon after taking office in January 2005.

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Before she boarded a van toNew Orleans with 14 other St. John’s students, IlanaKirschbaum (SF07) visitedWeb sites that showed the widespread devastation causedby Hurricane Katrina. “I sortof assumed that they were onlyshowing the extreme cases,”she says. “But as we first droveinto the parish, there werepiles and piles of debris everywhere, abandoned cars,trees in the middle of the road,everything was totallydestroyed and completely abandoned. I wanted to cry.”

On March 11, the Santa Festudents piled into two vans(provided by a local dealership)and set out to Louisiana’s

St. Bernard Parish, hit hard bythe storm. They set up camp ina volunteer tent city run by theEmergency Communitiesorganization and went right towork. Half of the studentsstayed at the campsite, wherethey served free meals at theorganization’s Made with LoveCafé and provided local residents with needs rangingfrom toiletries to child care.The others, joining up with thenonprofit Common GroundCollective, took sledgehammersand buckets into devastatedhomes and businesses to stripaway damaged sheetrock andinsulation, haul away debrisand ruined belongings, andclear homes of toxic mud.

The volunteers also spenttime with the homeowners theywere helping. Jeff Stott (SF06)listened as one woman relivedher ordeal with him. “Sheexperienced absolutely traumatic things,” he says.“During the storm, she wastrapped on her roof andwatched dead bodies floatingpast her house. Some of herneighbors were killed.”

While a tragedy of suchmagnitude can “make you feelpretty helpless,” Kirschbaumsays, the experience wentbeyond providing food andmanual labor for two shortweeks. “Sure, we wereproviding food to people, but itwas more about the communitywe helped to create, wherepeople could just come in and

talk,” she explains. “There wasnever really a distance betweenpeople. There was music, therewas dancing. It was a glimpse ofwhat is possible.”

On April 26, the studentsgave a multimedia presentationof their trip for the collegecommunity. Members of theSanta Fe community were alsoinvited as a thank-you for dona-tions they made to support theeffort. The presentationfeatured photographs of thedevastation, video, and audiointerviews. More encouragingimages were of the communityKirschbaum described amongvolunteers in the tent city.

“This was something thatjust happened spontaneously,”says Rachel Davison (SF08),the trip leader. Friendshipsdeveloped quickly out of anatmosphere of goodwill. “We here at St. John’s have our own sense of communitythat is built naturally out of theProgram. This was different.We bonded with each other,but we also bonded with somany others.”

—Kelly Wilson (SF09)


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

A Community of HopeSanta Fe Students Join Katrina Relief Efforts

Top: Ben Gaddes (SF08)prepares to feed Katrinavolunteers.Left: Ezra Johnson (SF09, far right) and Nicola Podboy(SF06) at the tent city thathoused volunteers in St. Bernard Parish.

“Sure, we were providing food to people, but it was more about

the community we helped to create,where people could just come

in and talk.”Ilana Kirschbaum (SF07)

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{ F r o m t h e B e l l T o w e r s }6

Tutor NewsIn Annapolis two tutors arebeginning study projects oninteresting non-Program worksand will later lead facultygroups on their topics.

PATRICIA LOCKE will holdthe Adolph W. Schmidt tutor-ship, gaining partial releasetime from classes to pursue herproject. The tutorship wasestablished in 1985 through afund endowed by Mr. Schmidt,a former St. John’s boardmember and ambassador, and italternates between theAnnapolis and Santa Fecampuses. Ms. Locke will studyMarcel Proust’s novel In Searchof Lost Time. “Issues ofmemory, both voluntary andinvoluntary, are most obvious,but Proust deals thematicallywith bodily processes such asperception, speech, and sleepas well. Proust considers stagesof mental and moral develop-ment before ‘teenage’ began to separate childhood fromadult life. He also is concernedwith intersubjectivity, sexu-ality, and the boundaries oflanguage. My own questionsare primarily: what makes acoherent self? How does one’sperception of one’s body, onthe one hand, and languagethat takes others into account,on the other, shape a self?”

Ms. Locke is also interestedin how living in a city affectsone’s perception of self andworld. “The familiar urbansetting, the unpredictable joyin truly recognizing othersthrough the masks age wears,the desire and futility in tryingto stop time—Proust sees it all,and he gives the reader accessto possible meanings of themost delicate events.”

As holder of the NationalEndowment for the Humanitieschair, ROBERT DRUECKER willbe studying the Upanishads, a

project he became interested inafter Annapolis facultydiscussed a report on the SantaFe Eastern Classics program.He thought it would benefitboth campuses to become moreacquainted with what hasbecome a significant part of theintellectual life on the Westerncampus, he says.

The Upanishads “consideredby many to be the supremework of Indian wisdom,”seemed the best starting point,

Mr. Druecker says. “They areat once records of spiritualexperience, formulations ofintellectual insight, and expres-sions of poetic imagination.They aim to bring about bothan illumination of the mindand a transformation of thereader’s experience so that itmanifests the inner realizationthat the divine source of all isone with the self within eachperson,” he says

As the holder of the chair,supported by endowmentfunds, a tutor gains two-thirdsreleased time to study a topicfor a year. In the second year,he or she leads a faculty study

group in the fall and gives alecture. Annapolis tutorGEORGE RUSSELL is in hissecond year of a study projecton the speeches of AbrahamLincoln.

RetirementsA tutor since 1967, GISELA

BERNS (HA00) has retired fromthe Annapolis faculty. Mrs.Berns grew up in the BlackForest of Germany and studiedat Heidelberg University, whereshe earned a doctorate in clas-sics and philosophy, and whereshe also met her husband,LAURENCE BERNS (HA00, tutoremeritus in Annapolis), in aclass on Plato’s Phaedo.

During a reception in theGreat Hall near the end of thespring semester, tutor DavidStephenson talked about Mrs. Bern’s many fine qualities, including herpassion for music. “Gisela hassustained a violin section ofthe orchestra all by herself onmore than one occasion,” saidMr. Stephenson. “Without herenthusiasm and hard work Idoubt we could ever haveattempted such ambitiousorchestral works. Bach,Beethoven, Mozart are meatand drink to her. In her musictutorial she has discoveredinnumerable newness in theverbal and musical interplay ofthe operas and passions westudy.”

During the same Annapolisgathering, members of thecommunity turned out tothank long-time AnnapolisRegistrar REENIE CRAVEN forher hard work and dedicationto the community. Mrs. Cravenworked for nearly 17 years forSt. John’s, and has been

News and Announcements

Mr. Druecker delves into theUpanishads; Ms. Locke takes onProust. Both benefit fromendowments set aside forfaculty study, and both willlead study groups and givelectures on their topics.ph

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registrar since September2000. In retirement, she plans to make time for “grandmothering, reading,gardening, walking, and volunteering.” She’ll stayinvolved with St. John’sthrough the Caritas Society, a volunteer group thatsupports the college.

Appointments CATHY SMITH is the newdirector of Information Tech-nology Services, based in SantaFe, but serving both campusesand overseeing improvementsto IT infrastructure. Ms. Smithearned bachelor’s and master’sdegrees in history from theUniversity of California-Irvine,and has spent her IT career inhigher education with institu-tions including UC, StanfordUniversity, Indiana University,and the University of Kansas.At Carleton College, Ms. Smithpartnered with faculty todevelop a model of faculty technology support widelyadopted in higher education;she has also partnered withadministration at several institutions to implement innovative approaches toautomating business processes.

BRONTÉ JONES has beenappointed treasurer for theAnnapolis campus. Ms. Jonesearned her doctorate in highereducation from the Universityof Texas after obtaining a bachelor’s degree and anM.B.A. in finance from American University. In addi-tion, she is a graduate of the Harvard Institute forHigher Education. Ms. Jonesjoins St. John’s from Huston-Tillotson University in Austin,Texas, where she has been vicepresident for administrationand finance since 2004. Previously she held the posts of assistant dean of financialservices, dean of enrollmentmanagement, and adjunctinstructor in finance at theuniversity. She has worked for

the Texas State Auditor’sOffice, auditing statewidefinancial aid programs at insti-tutions of higher education.

Santa Fe Student WinsFiction AwardKELLY MARIE WILSON (SF09)won a $10,000 Gold Award forfiction writing from TheNational Foundation forAdvancement in the Arts, aMiami-based non-profit groupfounded in 1981 that fostersartistic talents of high schoolseniors. Miss Wilson titled herwinning story “Driving in aHail Storm on the First NightShe’s Been Alone in ElevenYears, Wendy Recalls her FourGreat Loves.” Besides the$10,000 prize, Miss Wilsonreceived a free trip to take partin the NFAA awards ceremonyin the Baryshnikov Arts Centerin New York City.

Johnnie Documentary to air on PBSA Johnnie’s documentary onhigh school baseball in Japanwill debut at the BrooklynInternational Film Festival,June 2-11. Kokoyakyu also airsJuly 4, 2006, on public broad-casting’s P.O.V., says ALEX

SHEAR (SF00), seniorproducer. (Check local listings.)

The documentary capturesbaseball as a national obsessionin Japan; it follows two highschool teams and their coachesas they try to win the nationalchampionship. “It’s reallyunlike anything in the UnitedStates, and the way Japanesekids approach this rite is alsoquite a contrast to youthculture—especially sportsculture—in America,” he says.For details, visit the productioncompany’s Web site:www.projectilearts.org/kokoyakyu.

Jackhammer TimeVisitors to the Western campusthis summer will see more thana few barriers and quite a fewconstruction crews, asimprovements in Santa Fe

continue. More than $1.3million in renovation projectsare under way. Workers havealready completed a project inthe Weigle Hall lobby thatrenders the entrance friendlierto prospective students. A newgazebo and walkway are inplace near “France,” theparking lot on lower campus.This summer, crews arebreaking up concrete sidewalksthroughout the central area ofthe campus. Students willreturn in the fall to brick path-ways, teak tables, additionallighting, increased accessibilityfor people with disabilities, anda much-improved koi pond. x


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

A Farewell to Febbies

Sara McClayton (A09) signs the college register during January2006 convocation in Annapolis. Eighteen students matriculatedin January; they are expected to be the last of the Febbies, as theAnnapolis campus has ended the practice of enrolling freshmenin January. The Santa Fe campus will continue to offer a JanuaryFreshman class.

Bronté Jones: New treasurerin Annapolis

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


For more than a decade, graduating seniors havehonored the college with a giftthat class members selecttogether and fund with theirpersonal donations to St. John’s. It’s a tradition thatstarted with the class of 1992,when a large percentage of thestudents in that class turnedover their “caution fees”(dormitory security deposits)to the college to endow a Class of 1992 scholarship.Caution fees seed many of thegifts today, but seniors oftenmake additional gifts andcontinue to contribute moneyto some funds long afterthey’ve graduated.

This year’s gifts, fromseniors in Santa Fe andAnnapolis, are eminently practical and stem from needsstudents perceived during theiryears at St. John’s. Santa Festudents chose to purchaseDVDs and CDs of their choicefor the Meem Library.Members of the Annapolis class of 2006 may also beremembered with gratitude formany years in the future fortheir gift: a spiral bindingmachine for the campus printshop, intended to save futureseniors from late-night lines atKinkos when essays are due andalso to upgrade Program mate-rials from comb-bindings tospiral bindings. The machine isalready in place in ChrisColby’s print shop—a muchmore convenient place forharried students to queue up tocopy and bind their essays.

“More than 71 percent of thesenior classes on each campusparticipated in raising funds fortheir respective gifts, withexcellent leadership from thesenior class gift committees,”

says Annual Fund directorStefanie Takacs (A89). “Weexpect the DVDs to be in placefor fall 2006 in Santa Fe, andthe first use for the new spiralbinder will be to make addressbooks for the recent Annapolisgraduates, so they can stay intouch with each other aftergraduation.”

Seniors in the class of 2005in Santa Fe donated $4,300toward restoration of thefishpond, a project due to beginthis coming summer. InAnnapolis, the class of 2005created an endowment to buyLobachevski’s Theory of Parallels as a gift to eachincoming senior.

The Santa Fe Class of 2004has in mind a most ambitiousproject, and they’re seekinglong-term involvement in theproject from members of theirclass and any other alumni whoare taken with the idea. Gradu-ates chose to commission astainless steel operationalreplica of 16th-centuryastronomer Tycho Brahe’sarmillary sphere. The class hasalready raised $6,000 towardthe $100,000 cost.

Class leaders have selectedan artist and hope to install thesphere on campus in the nextdecade or so, Brenna McMahon(SF04) said. The sculpturerelates directly to the Programbecause the sphere can be usedto replicate the data thatKepler used and that Newtonthen relied upon, McMahonsays. “It’s also our hope toinstall a beautiful sculpturethat will reflect the unity of thearts and sciences in theProgram. To the best of ourknowledge, there are only twoarmillary spheres in the world(including one at the

Smithsonian), and this wouldbe the only operational spherein the world. We hope that itwill show the St. John’scommunity how invested ourclass is in the college,” says McMahon. x

Senior Class Gifts Over the Years1905: The bell in the McDowell Hall tower was a gift fromthis class.

Annapolis Class of 1997: Funded a portrait of Eva Brann bynoted artist Cedric Egeli. The painting graces Room 12 ofMcDowell.

Santa Fe Classes of 1998, 99: Contributed gifts to the endowment in support of faculty salaries.

Annapolis Class of 1999: Made a gift to the Music LibraryFund and acquisition of an apple seed from the tree thatinspired Sir Isaac Newton. The apple yielded two seedlings,but sadly the trees did not survive.

Santa Fe Class of 2001: Raised money for an observatory inhonor of then-laboratory director Hans Von Briesen(HSF03).

Annapolis Class of 2003: Funded digital re-mastering andtranscription of lectures that existed only on tape.

Leaving a LegacyNothing Says “Thank You” Like the Senior Gift

David Harber’s sketch of thearmillary sphere that Santa Fe’s Class of 2004 hopesto one day install on campus.

Remembering RalphSwentzellI wept hard when I learned ofRalph Swentzell’s death. He wasone of my seminar tutors duringmy sophomore year over 20years ago. What I appreciatedmost about him was his gentle,steady, and unpretentious spirit.

He was the only tutor courageous and caring enoughto reach out to comfort andsupport me when I was disen-abled at the devastating end ofmy St. John’s career. This, tome, was the true actualization ofany lofty philosophies examinedor perpetuated by this school: tobring it home, where it reallydoes count. Having found such aGreat Soul, if only briefly, Icannot begin to imagine the lossthat his friends and loved onesmust be enduring. I can onlyhope that they know that he willbe truly treasured in our finest ofmemories. I now wish for themthe comfort and support that heso genuinely extended to me. I strive to be as present for mystudents as he was for us. Befree, Sir Ralph, and manythanks.

Bea Butler (SF80)

World FederalismI read with great interest yourarticle about Joseph Baratta’sscholarship on world federalism,and was especially pleased to seemention of Clarence Streit’swork Union Now, which was soinfluential in its day but is nowsometimes overlooked.

Actually, the organizationwhich he founded (FederalUnion) lives on. For a while itwas called the Association toUnite the Democracies (AUD),and it has now morphed into theStreit Council for a Union ofDemocracies (www.streit-council.org).

I worked for AUD in Washington in 1986-87 beforestarting World DemocracyNews, a newsletter spanning theinternational federalist move-ment (we lasted only through sixeditions over three years before

ceasing for lack of funding). Ithen served briefly as presidentof the Coalition for DemocraticWorld Government. And I’vebeen on the Board of AUD andnow the Streit Council sinceabout 1990. Our focus is oncreating a nucleus for worldgovernment from the existingestablished democracies—forexample, creating real commondecision-making structures forNATO and/or the OECD—towhich other democracies could

be invited to join. Just as the EUexerts a strong democratizingpull on surrounding countries inEurope (and even North Africa),we would expect to have asimilar but more global effect(maybe even restraining the U.S.in the process). The EU hasn’tyet been able to make the breakto real constitutional govern-ment, otherwise it would be amodel of what we want.

For a long time, the main splitin the international federalistmovement was between those(including the world federalists)who wanted immediate worldgovernment including allnations, and those who insistedon democracy. But the Amer-ican world federalists haveessentially become UN-reformadvocates, and I noticed recentlythat some of those who wantmore direct movement toward afederal solution are starting anew “World Democracy Move-ment-USA.” So Streit’s ideas, as well as Barr’s andBuchanan’s, are still in play.

Rick Wicks (SF68)

Books are the TeachersYour article “Small Waves in aTranquil Sea: Melville, Litera-ture, and the St. John’s ReadingList” (Winter 2006) was a veryenjoyable read on all accounts. I was interested to receive someinsight into the workings of theInstruction Committee.However, I was disconcerted byyour use of the verb “to teach”when writing about tutors andbooks. For instance: “Dugansees no more compelling reason

Melville’s tale must be on thereading list. And yet, he allows,‘life would be more full’ if hecould teach Moby-Dick andJoyce’s Ulysses.” And from thesubsequent paragraph: “Havingtaught two preceptorials on thebook, Annapolis tutor DavidTownsend acknowledges theimpracticality of Moby-Dick as aseminar reading.”

A St. John’s tutor teaching apreceptorial? A St. John’s tutorteaching a book? At St. John’s,books are the only teachers.

I bristle because I have cometo believe, in my time sinceleaving St. John’s, that weobserve at St. John’s a veryimportant distinction. I do notrecall what many of my tutorsthought that the books werereally about, precisely becausethe tutors themselves didn’tteach me anything about thebooks. The books did.

I am currently a graduatestudent and a teaching assistantin literature at a major researchuniversity where the professorsteach all kinds of things all thetime: books, courses, eras,specialties. What the professorsteach is generally in line with

their most recent publicationsand to me seems to be more likeindoctrination rather thanteaching. But none of thestudents seem to learn muchabout what they read.

Instead, they learn what theprofessor taught them. They areindoctrinated. Sometimes this is fine, but often I cringe and abit of me dies as I think of howtheir education compares to theone I was lucky to receive fromSt. John’s. I hesitate to liken theactivities of a St. John’s tutor tothe sorts of things that happenat educational institutions elsewhere.

Christian Blood (SF02)

Not BrothersBy now you have probably heardfrom others that Charles andRay Eames were not brothers,but husband and wife.According to eamesoffice.comthey were married in 1941.Nevertheless, I am delighted tolearn that a Johnnie was instru-mental in producing Powers ofTen. When my son was a child,we often visited the Air andSpace Museum and enjoyed thatshort movie many times.

Thanks as always for an interesting issue of The College.

Christina Lauth Connell(Class of 1967)

Editor’s note: Ms. Connell wasone of many Johnnies whograciously alerted The Collegeto this error in the Winter 2006issue.

The College welcomes letterson issues of interest to readers.Letters may be edited for clarityand/or length. Those under 500 words have a better chanceof being printed in theirentirety.

Please address letters to: The College magazine, St. John’s College, Box 2800,Annapolis, MD 21404.

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

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{ L e t t e r s }

“I do not recall what many of my tutorsthought that the books were reallyabout, precisely because the tutors

themselves didn’t teach me anythingabout the books. The books did.”

Christian Blood (SF02)

10


{ C a p i t a l C a m p a i g n }

by Rosemary Harty

St. John’s Seeks toPreserve the Program

with an AmbitiousCapital Campaign

St. John’s College haslaunched a $125 millioncapital campaign to buildendowment for the futureand address immediate prior-ities. “With a Clear and

Single Purpose”: The Campaign for St. John’s College will seek to addsignificantly to the resources of thecollege. “Our objective is to have allaspects of the college reflect the excel-lence of our Program,” says AnnapolisPresident Christopher Nelson. “For manyyears, the college has made manysacrifices for the sake of the Program. We must seize the opportunity now tostrengthen the college for the future.”

The last time the college launched a campaign, the goal was $30 million; $36 million was raised by the time the campaignended in 1996. This much larger goal is within reach, Mr. Nelsonsays, in part because $71 million has already been pledged orreceived from individual donors and foundations. “Before wepublicly announced the campaign we had already received giftsdouble the total raised in our previous campaign. Now, we need totake our case for support to all of the college’s alumni, friends,and parents, with the strong belief that we have their support forthis important undertaking,” he says. An opening celebration forthe campaign was held in Annapolis in April, and another specialcelebration will be held in Santa Fe July 28.

The campaign’s theme was intended to underscore the visionthat led Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan to begin the NewProgram at St. John’s in 1937. The phrase “With a Clear andSingle Purpose” can be found in Barr’s 1939 president’s report tothe board. Even as the college struggled financially in the earlyyears of the Program, Barr stated that the college must alwayshold firm to the ideals of liberal education.

In its infancy, the Program was viewed by outside observers as aradical experiment. Today the academic program is seen as a standard for liberal education. “Although the notion of a liberalarts education is often challenged today by those who see highereducation as a type of job training program, St. John’s remainscommitted to its ideals,” says Santa Fe President Michael Peters.“An education should be about the search for truth and learningfor life.”

“WITH A CLEAR ANDSINGLE PURPOSE”

The quiet phase of thecampaign, begun in2002, was well under waywhen Mr. Peters acceptedthe presidency in SantaFe. He was eager to takepart in an endeavor thatwill benefit the Santa Fecampus and strengthenSt. John’s collegewide. “I believe that thiscampaign is importantfor St. John’s College,and I believe that it can besuccessful. When I joinedthe college in January2005, I could see how farSt. John’s has come inrecent years, how muchthe college has improvedwhile never losing sightof its mission.

“Part of my own visionfor St. John’s is that thecollege gains the recogni-tion it deserves as aleader in American higher education,” Mr. Peter adds. “Indeed,education at all levels should take a close look at what we do. Butto remain true to our mission and to serve as an example to others,we need the support of every alumnus, parent, and friend. I hopethat all who know the college will find a way to contribute to this effort.”

Goals of theCampaign

“Like a Euclid proposition,this is a campaign character-ized by clarity andsimplicity,” says SharonBishop (Class of 1965), chairof the college’s Board of Visitors and Governors.“Everything that we areseeking to do is in directsupport of the Program.”

Funds raised through thecampaign will be directed topriorities in three areas:

• Students: Among the toppriorities of the college is theneed to sustain the need-based financial aid programthat ensures that studentsaccepted to the college canattend regardless of theirfinancial circumstances.

• Faculty: St. John’s iscommitted to bringing tutor salaries to the median of those atcomparable liberal arts colleges, while providing more oppor-tunities for more tutors to engage in faculty study.• Facilities: In order to house more students on campus, thecollege seeks to build new dormitories and renovate existingdorms. Academic buildings, especially laboratory classrooms


{ C a p i t a l C a m p a i g n } 11

The college’s capital campaignseeks to address priorities thatwill sustain the Program andstrengthen the college.Funding these priorities willrequire $125 million.

FINANCIAL AID: $33 million for need-based aid.

FACULTY AND ACADEMIC SUPPORT:$34 million to increase facultysalaries to the median of peerinstitutions; provide facultydevelopment opportunities;develop program-relatedstudent instructional material

(manuals and workbooks); and ensure small class sizes and1:8 tutor-to-student ratio.

STUDENT SERVICES: $3.5 millionto improve services to students,fund internship opportunities,and provide grants so thatelementary and secondaryteachers can attend the Graduate Institute.

ST. JOHN’S IMPROVEMENT FUND:$5 million for library collec-tions and laboratory equip-ment; improving InformationTechnology infrastructure;

staff professional developmentand compensation.

BUILDING PROJECTS ON THE TWO

CAMPUSES: $49.5 million forbuilding projects, including aSanta Fe dormitory, a GraduateInstitute center in Santa Fe,and the addition to and renovation of Evans ScienceLaboratory. The renovation ofMellon Hall and the addition oftwo new dormitories inAnnapolis are completed andfully funded.

12



in Santa Fe, require renovation andupgrading. And the college seeks to build anew Graduate Institute center in Santa Fethat would provide the campus with a much-needed auditorium forlectures, concerts, and other programs.

“The board, the Alumni Association, and thecollege’s administration are all in agreementabout what needs to be done,” says Ronald A.Fielding (A70), a board member and chairman of the CapitalCampaign. “We must remain accessible to all qualified students.We need to continue to attract talented and dedicated facultymembers and give them opportunities that will help themcontinue to serve as model learners for our students. We also needa physical environment in which a community of learners canflourish.”

The college hasn’t waited in addressing the most urgent needsof the strategic plan, says Ms. Bishop. Early fruits of the campaignhave been directed to the projects that most directly affect studentlife and learning. Two new dormitories, paid for by gifts to thecampaign, have opened in the last two years in Annapolis,enabling the college to house 80 percent of its students oncampus. The college committed $4.5 million to the Santa FeInitiative, and as a result, students benefit from renovated labora-tories in the Evans Science Laboratory, paid summer internships,and overall improvements to the buildings and grounds on theSanta Fe campus.

Building Endowment

The St. John’s endowment, a carefully managed investment fund,is larger than it has ever been, at just over $100 million. Theendowment’s primary purpose is to grow and to provide an ever-increasing source of revenue for the college. Compared toother small liberal arts colleges, St. John’s remains seriouslyunder-endowed, a situation that keeps the college too dependenton tuition revenue for its yearly operations. With the current endow-ment, the college has $5,000 per student to spend annually, whileGrinnell College, with about 1,500 students, has $43,000 perstudent to spend annually because of a substantially larger endow-ment.

“This is a time of opp-ortunity for St. John’s,” says Mr. Fielding,senior vice president and portfolio manager of Oppenheimer-Funds’ municipal bond division. “By growing the endowment, wecan support the Program for many years to come.”

Mr. Fielding’s $10 million gift to the endowment, given in 2003to support financial aid, was also intended to underscore hissupport for the campaign and encourage others to join the effort.“Everything else about St. John’s is strong. The college is in

capable hands, with a solid administrationand a dedicated faculty. We have attractedexcellent students, and our applicant pool isbetter than it has ever been. But the largestmissing link in terms of the quality of St.John’s is—and always has been—related tomoney,” he says.

Since its early days, when the Revolu-tionary War founders of St. John’s had tosend out bailiffs to collect pledges from

financial supporters of the new college, raising funds and keepingthe college financially healthy has not come easily. Mr. Fieldingpoints out that Barr and Buchanan were able to bring the NewProgram to St. John’s in the 1930s in part because the college wasfacing bankruptcy, and the board was willing to take a chance tokeep the college open.

“We’ve never had a John Harvard, a Johns Hopkins—a singlebenefactor whose gift established the institution on strongfooting,” he says. “Even in the 1940s and ’50s, when philanthro-pist Paul Mellon was making very generous gifts to the college,those gifts helped the college survive during some very lean years,but they didn’t build the endowment.”

Mr. Fielding chose to direct his gift to financial aid in part becausea comprehensive aid package allowed him to attend St. John’s. Theneed-based financial aid program at St. John’s is one of the few in thecountry that devotes every dollar to students who would not other-wise be able to attend the college. About 70 percent of studentsreceive some form of financial aid, and the average St. John’sgrant is $15,000. Today, the amount the college needs to spend onfinancial aid is growing faster than the rate of tuition increase,with more than $11 million annually devoted to financial aid.

The Johnnie Giving Culture

During the campaign, alumni, parents, and friends will be asked to make five-year pledges to the effort. Those capable oflarge gifts may choose to support an endowment or buildingproject. Most supporters, however, will make their contributionto the campaign through their gift to the Annual Fund. The goalfor the campaign is $29 million in Annual Fund gifts and pledges by 2008. In order for the campaign to be successful, theAnnual Fund will need to grow in both the amount of individualgifts and in the number of alumni who give (now at about 36 percent). Alumni can also join the ranks of volunteers helping with the campaign.

Ray Cave (class of 1948) agreed to co-chair the currentcampaign with Fielding, contributing the expertise gleaned fromchairing the Campaign for Our Fourth Century (which ended in 1996). “The $125 million is going to be a stretch toreach,” he acknowledges. “But thanks to the hard work of a lot of

Endowment per studentGrinnell $862,337Pomona $750,470Swarthmore $724,850Bowdoin $313,181Claremont McKenna $303,626Haverford $300,709Carleton $265,283Reed $258,294Colorado $217,326Oberlin $208,039St. John’s $101,590

13



people, the alumni have really beenbrought back to the community, andthey’re responsive to the needs of thecollege. They want to be involved, andwhen we ask them, I think they’ll beready to give. They will look upon them-selves as supporters of an institutionthat they admire and that remains on their mind.”

Mr. Cave never thought of himself asa fund-raiser; he started out as a news-paper reporter in Baltimore and workedhis way up to become editor of Timemagazine. “When I was asked to bechairman of the previous capitalcampaign, I said, ‘I’m a journalist. I’venever asked anyone for a nickel, and Idon’t know how to do that.’ ”

But Mr. Cave knew how to tell a story, and the college’s story inthe mid-1990s was one of unmet needs that could not be ignoredwithout peril to the Program. For example, tutors at St. John’swere at the very bottom of the salary scale for faculty members atcomparable institutions. “I think it’s important to understandthat in historical terms, this college basically lived from hand tomouth. You can’t run a successful college or a business that way,but that’s what St. John’s had been doing. It’s as if we were embar-rassed to ask for money. But of course alumni should supporttheir alma mater—if you don’t want to give, it says you don’t feelyou got anything beneficial when you attended.”

When the Campaign for Our Fourth Century was launched,“everyone agreed that we had to give tutors a pay raise, but theendowment couldn’t support it,” Mr. Cave recalls. “Enoughmoney was raised in the campaign to give tutors a pay raise, andnow we’ve got them pretty darn near the middle.”

In the past 15 years, the college has cultivated a strong donorbase and has established good relationships with foundations andtrusts. “Today, St. John’s is well managed in all respects. Thecollege is going out now to raise $125 million to do two things:support the institution as it exists and strengthen the financialbase so that St. John’s can keep pace with what students expectand what parents expect, while remaining true to its mission.”

As he did in the last campaign, Mr. Cave will meet with donorsto ask for a gift to the campaign. He knows he’ll hear a lot of goodthings about the college. “St. John’s is the kind of institution that does create passion in those who support it,” he says. “Thereare many alumni who support the college because it did consequential things for them, whether they graduated or not.And there are many people who support the college because theyknow St. John’s matters for America.”

Steve Thomas (SF74) chairs theAlumni Committee of the campaign.“I loved every one of the four years Ispent at the college,” he says. “And Ibelieve most alumni feel that way.”

Only many years after graduationdid Mr. Thomas gain an appreciationfor how the college works. He becameinvolved in the Alumni AssociationBoard and is now a member of theBoard of Visitors and Governors. He sees some challenges in the job for which he has volunteered.“Alumni love the college, and they’reproud of being Johnnies,” says Mr. Thomas, a New York lawyer. “Butfor a long time, we were trained not tolike the administration—there was this

suspicion of that side of the college. We need to convince alumnithat the money they give is going to go directly to supportingstudents and the institution.”

As a member of the BVG’s Visiting Committee, Mr. Thomas hasthe opportunity to sit in on classes and meet students on bothcampuses. “I’m pleased that the college is providing substan-tively the same education as when I was a student,” he says. “I don’t think I realized until recently how much work goes intopreserving the most important aspects of St. John’s.”

Along with alumni, parents will be asked to make a gift to thecampaign. Linda Schaefer, a BVG member and former Santa FeParent Association member, has volunteered to serve as one ofthe chairs of the Parent Committee of the campaign. Her son Eric graduated from St. John’s in Santa Fe in 2004, and during his student years she volunteered to assist the college with theAnnual Fund.

Mrs. Schaefer believes parents will respond to the needs of thecapital campaign. “When you look back at your own sons anddaughters, you can see the incredible changes that take placebetween freshman and senior years, and you know the differencethe college had made in their lives,” she says. “They leave thecollege with a lifelong love of learning and the ability to think for themselves.”

Mrs. Schaefer and her husband, Mark, are also supporting thecapital campaign with a gift because they admire what St. John’srepresents. “We believe that St. John’s is the kind of institutionthat really needs to be here. Just look at those students who havebeen to traditional liberal arts colleges and found it didn’t workfor them. We really need to support and preserve the Programbecause so many people have benefited from it.” x

Campaign ProgressThe college has already raised $71 million in giftsand pledges toward the campaign. Those giftsinclude: $10 million, Ronald A. Fielding (A70),for financial aid; $12 million, anonymous alumnus,for support of the endowment; $10 million fromThe Hodson Trust for the renovation of MellonHall and the construction of Gilliam Hall; a gift(amount undisclosed) Warren Spector (A81),toward construction of Spector Hall; $4 millionfrom board member Stephen L. Feinberg (HSF96);and $1 million from BVG Chair Sharon Bishop(Class of 1965). The college has obtained 100percent participation in the campaign by the Boardof Visitors of Governors and the Alumni Associa-tion board.

A group of alumni and supporters of the collegehave pledged $2 million gift to the campaign inhonor of Eva Brann. The college will create inMiss Brann’s name a tutorship endowment fund.

14


Annapolis students and tutors gatheringfor a Friday night lecture in Januaryfound an unusual setup on the stage ofKey Auditorium. A pair of tutors satfacing each other at a coffee shop table,with books and papers spread out beforethem, and a blackboard positionednearby. Instead of introducing thelecturer, Dean Michael Dink (A75) stood

briefly to quiet the audience. The tutors, Mark Sinnett and WilliamBraithwaite, began talking to each other about the nature of motionin the works of Newton and Aristotle. They were continuing aconversation—now for the benefit of an audience—that had beentaking place nearly every week for almost three years.

The role of a St. John’s tutor is often described as that of a modellearner engaging with students on the lifelong journey of seekingknowledge. During the academic year and summer breaks, tutorswork in formal study groups to pursue topics of interest together. InAnnapolis this summer, tutors will study Kepler, for example. InSanta Fe, the summer topics include Mann’s Dr. Faustus. But the

endeavor pursued by Mr. Braithwaite and Mr. Sinnett demonstratesanother interesting aspect of life at St. John’s: many more tutorstake part in informal groups that arise from a particular interest ora question. Their engagement in such pursuits lasts as long as theystill have something they want to talk about.

The Braithwaite-Sinnett collaboration on Aristotle’s Physics andNewton’s Principia also demonstrates how tutors with differentexperiences and abilities offer each other a deeper understanding ofa work—the same thing that happens with students in an all-required curriculum.

Of the many things unique to St. John’s, the requirement thattutors teach across the curriculum may seem most puzzling tooutsiders. At most colleges and universities, an English departmentdecides it needs an expert in rhetoric; a history department seeks aCivil War expert. At St. John’s, the dean and instruction committeeinterviewing prospective tutors looks not for a particular expertise,but an agile, imaginative mind.

As the two men described their collaboration a few weeks aftertheir lecture (presented as a public conversation), they alsocaptured what makes conversation at St. John’s such a fruitful

and satisfying activity. Mr. Braithwaite came to St. John’s in 1995 from a law school faculty; Mr. Sinnett came from the pulpit of a Presbyterianchurch.

“We were both teaching junior mathematics andwere in the same archon group,” explained Mr. Sinnett. “I have a master’s degree in mathe-matics and I had been pursuing doctoral studies inmathematics when I shifted to theology. But being atSt. John’s has brought mathematics back to life forme. Mathematics is done here for all the rightreasons, because of the way, as Ptolemy says, itorders the soul; it’s a way of ordering the mind.”

“I’m a former corporate trial lawyer whose math-ematics experience before St. John’s was limited to

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

by Rosemary Harty

P O E T R Y i n M O T I O NMr. Sinnett and Mr. Braithwaite, Newton and Aristotle

Instead of delivering a lecture, tutors MarkSinnett (l.) and William Braithwaite continuedtheir conversation on Newton and Aristotle,this time for the benefit of an audience.

alex

lo

rm

an

15


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

reading balance sheets,” Mr. Braithwaite said. “I had been out ofcollege and done no other math but basic arithmetic for 40 years. Ifyou look at our backgrounds, it wouldn’t appear that we’d have agreat deal to say to one another. And that’s still something of adelightful mystery for me. We never planned to talk for 30 months.We were just going to study junior math together.”

“We found that we were coming at the text in different ways, andit was fruitful,” added Mr. Sinnett. “We had a common interest, andwe pursued it. That’s what happens at this college.”

Junior mathematics at St. John’s centers on Newton and calculus.Students begin by reading Zeno, Aristotle, and Galileo. Theyconsider Zeno’s famous paradox: how is continuous motionpossible if, at each instant, the moving object fills the space it occu-pies, equal to its own size? The arrow is not moving there, Zenoposited, it’s at rest there, and it can’t be moving anywhere else,therefore motion is illusory. Continuing on to Newton’s Principia,and armed with a calculus manual, juniors explore the mechanicalmotions of the universe.

The tutors’ joint inquiry started with Newton’s calculus, but keptreturning to questions raised in the Physics. Eventually, the twosettled on pursuing one central question: How does the mathemat-ical account of motions of bodies in Newton differ from Aristotle’snonmathematical account of nature and change in general?

“Aristotle has a very limited view of what mathematics can do inrelation to nature,” explained Mr. Braithwaite. “In the Physics hedevotes a chapter to talking about how the mathematician’s study ofnature differs from that of the physicist, what he would regard as thenonmathematical student of nature. He says that although themathematician abstracts from nature, he doesn’t falsify the thingsthat he studies. It looks as if Aristotle was making room for a mathematical inquiry into nature.”

In their public conversation, the tutors started with Zeno’s paradoxes, which are carried through the Physics. “Something thatintrigued us early on is: how did Newton think about Zeno’s paradoxes? Had he thought about them at all?” Mr. Braithwaitesaid. “Was Zeno a problem for Newton, or had he worked out a wayof dealing with the problems the paradoxes raise that was differentfrom Aristotle’s, or in some sense the same? We talked a lot aboutthat over a long period of time, then we discovered that it looked tous as if Newton had found a way around the paradoxes.”

According to Newton’s understanding, one divides up space andthe corresponding times in the same way, resulting in a finite sum oftime corresponding to the given finite expanse of space, explainedMr. Sinnett. Thus, an unbounded time is no longer necessary inorder to traverse a bounded space. Similarly, he adds, Aristotledivides both space and time in a consistent manner. Both becomecountably infinite collections in exact correspondence of eachother, with the result, as with Newton, that the paradox disappears.

“Aristotle’s whole inquiry into motion, of course, is muchbroader. He’s concerned with change, which includes the plant overthere growing, your writing on that piece of paper, the table decomposing. Newton’s got a very small portion of this: the motionof ballistic objects,” Mr. Sinnett said.

“I think it’s right that nothing in Newton’s calculus tells youabout growing plants or the motions of animals,” agreed Mr. Braith-waite. “It’s about moving bodies from place A to place B, so it has anarrow but extremely powerful focus because of his development ofthe calculus. Newton is asking a different set of questions, but in thebackground was always this concession by Aristotle that the mathe-matical account isn’t false—in other words, it could tell you real, truethings—it’s just not the whole horizon that Aristotle set for himself.”

Newton’s ultimate ratio is not going to be visible to anyone whodoesn’t proceed to it in a regular way, said Mr. Sinnett: “He’s just asdependent upon his reader’s personal insight—seeing into what isnot visible to the eye—as Aristotle is, and Aristotle’s language is justperfect for describing what the student of his book has to let happenin his mind to grasp what is important. It’s startling to me to havebeen teaching calculus on and off for 25 years to find some of thebest language for describing what I was doing in Aristotle’sPhysics.”

“Together we came to see that the Physics was extraordinarilyhelpful in understanding Newton,” Mr. Braithwaite said. “Oureffort, when our imagination is not working properly, is to nailsomething down and hold it still so we can walk all around it andthink that’s going to get us to an understanding of it. And theproblem is you can’t do that with motion. Zeno’s paradoxes allappeal in some way to this natural reaction of trying to stop some-thing in order to understand it. If you stop motion in order to understand it you’re not going to understand it as motion, you’regoing to understand it as rest. That’s the difficulty.”

Mr. Braithwaite had first heard of St. John’s in 1956, when he sawa movie about the college. He applied and was accepted, but forfinancial reasons, chose Virginia Military Institute. The collegecame back into his life in the early ’90s, when his two oldest sonsMatthew (A96), and David (A97); matriculated here, and whenChristopher Nelson (SF70), then fairly new as Annapolis president,asked him to join a President’s Advisory Council. (A third son,Daniel (01) followed, and a fourth, Jonathan, will matriculate withthe class of 2010.) In 1993, at age 56, Mr. Braithwaite applied to jointhe faculty and was astounded to receive an offer.

Similarly, Mr. Sinnett’s path to St. John’s stemmed from his wide-ranging intellectual interests. After earning his Ph.D. insystematic theology at Cambridge University, he was ordained aminister in the Presbyterian Church. He served a congregation inTexas for five years, but he wasn’t a good fit for the second congregation that called him. “One day I preached a sermon inwhich part of the message—from Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians—was that we shouldn’t turn ourselves down. The world tries hardenough to do that. I was talking with my wife about what to do nextand said what I’d really like to do is teach at St. John’s. She said,‘Well, don’t turn yourself down.’ So I wrote a letter to St. John’s.”

The two are not planning another joint endeavor for some time.But given a moment to think about it, Mr. Braithwaite suggested toMr. Sinnett, “Maybe we should take a look at the Metaphysics? Youhave a background in theology, after all, and I don’t, so we’d askdifferent questions—it could be interesting.” x

{ T h e T u t o r s }16


As William A. Darkey preparedto become one of the first grad-uates of the New Program in1942, he received a startlingoffer from Scott Buchanan andStringfellow Barr, founders ofthe Program.

Mr. Darkey recounts thestory—and his own bewilder-

ment—with a grin, recalling the details 63 years later.“Buchanan called me in and he said, ‘You know, Winkie[Barr] and I have been talking . . . we ought to have astudent or two on the faculty because none of us have actu-ally been through the curriculum.’ I said, ‘You must bekidding!’ But after the initial shock wore off, I asked,‘Gosh, you really think I could do that?’ ”

“If I didn’t think you could, I wouldn’t have asked you,”Buchanan replied.

Barr and Buchanan are often described as visionaries,but it’s hard to imagine that they could have foreseen howmuch Mr. Darkey, now tutor emeritus, would contribute tothe life of St. John’s College: as a long-serving and dedicated tutor, willing to take on various duties includingadmissions director and librarian in Annapolis; as one ofthe first faculty members and a dean of the Santa Fecampus; and as a mentor and friend to colleagues andstudents for more than six decades.

Mr. Darkey’s teaching contract, dated May 29, 1942,honored him with a $500 salary and free board at thecollege. But his appointment came at a tenuous time for a

struggling college. After the attack on Pearl Harbor,students and faculty began leaving St. John’s for militaryservice. In his book A Search for the Liberal College, J. Winfree Smith describes a student body torn between“good thinking about war and peace” and the actualdemands of war. Between 1942-43, enrollment plummetedfrom 178 to 100.

Mr. Darkey himself tried several times to enlist, but pooreyesight stood in his way. “I went through the peculiar initi-ation of going to Baltimore every six months and going through the routine—and guess what? They discoveredI was nearsighted,” he recalls, chuckling. “And then they’dsay, ‘No, you won’t do at all.’ This happened quite regularly.”

In November 1943, Mr. Darkey was one of five tutors whoserved on the committee drafting the first Polity, which(according to Smith) became official by Barr’s fiat in 1945,over the faculty’s objections.

Peter Hamill, class of 1949, met Mr. Darkey in January1946 when Mr. Darkey was serving as a “third leader” in hisseminar, comprising veterans from the war. Hamillattended the college for a year before being recalled by theNavy, and he remembers Mr. Darkey as a quiet presence inthe classroom.

“Mr. Darkey seldom spoke up. He mostly sat back andobserved. Ford K. Brown [as senior leader] was handlingthings.” Dr. Hamill remembers how the two men “made iteasy to drop any military swagger and become a humanbeing in the group.”

At the end of that year, Mr. Darkey finally succeeded inenlisting in the Army. Asked about his background, he told

“ E V E R T H ET E A C H E R ”Santa Fe Tutor William Darkey

by Robin Weiss, SFGI86

17{ T h e T u t o r s }

his commanding officer he was a teacher. “Ah, a schoolmarm!” the officer replied. “We can use you.”

Mr. Darkey was assigned to training methods. “This wasteaching people useful things like how to throw a handgrenade.” Mr. Darkey worked for a colonel who thoughthim “a very good training methods man,” and asked if heintended to make a career out of the military. No, Mr. Darkey said, he had marriage and graduate school inmind. Although he was up for a transfer to Japan, he wasallowed to stay stateside to await his honorable discharge.

With his wife, Connie, he went to New York to embark ona graduate degree in English literature at ColumbiaUniversity. One of his teachers was noted poet and

professor Mark Van Doren, anearly supporter of theProgram. “The very firstlecture I went to at St. John’swas by Mark. I rememberthinking: My God, this is anhonest-to-God poet.” AtColumbia the two menbecame good friends, and Mr. Van Doren counseled himthrough difficulties such aswriter’s block.

After earning his degree in1949, Mr. Darkey returned toteach at St. John’s. Barr andBuchanan had moved on, and“the center of it all was[Jacob] Klein . . . a greatreader of books” and in asense “the soul of thecollege.” “He knew aboutgood and evil, Greek mathe-matics, Hebrew, French,English. Europe gave us agreat gift in all of thesepeople,” Mr. Darkey says ofMr. Klein, Simon Kaplan, Eva

Brann, and other intellectuals who were refugees fromEurope and helped build the college’s reputation.

Also at the college were gifted musicians and composerswho inspired students with their love for music: NicholasNabokov, Elliot Carter, and Victor Zuckerkandl. “Musicwas very much alive,” recalls Mr. Darkey. “Scott Buchananhad the notion, deep inside him, that music was a liberal artand that it ought to be cultivated as such.”

Mr. Darkey was Miss Brann’s seminar co-leader in her firstyear at the college, 1957-58. “He took me into the commu-nity and showed me the ins and outs,” she says. As a“member of the old guard,” he was the model of a good


Tutor Emeritus William Darkeyat Santa Fe commencement, 2003.

{ T h e T u t o r s }18


seminar leader. “He’s a gentle man anda gentleman both,” Miss Brann says.

Mr. Darkey’s devotion to teachingextended beyond St. John’s. He was oneof several tutors to found The KeySchool in 1958, and when the inde-pendent school based on the St. John’smodel outgrew a rented facility inAnnapolis, Mr. Darkey was appointedacting headmaster. He took a year’sleave from St. John’s to help relocateKey to a permanent home.

Max Ochs (AGI91) grew up inAnnapolis and has known Mr. Darkeyfor more than four decades. His bestfriend was Peter Nabokov, Connie’s sonfrom her first marriage to NicholasNabokov. One day near Christmas in1959, when Ochs was elementary-schoolage, he visited the Darkey home todiscover Mr. Darkey cutting out pieces of colored construc-tion paper. “He was trying to teach me and Peter how tomake tree ornaments—tetrahedrons and dodecahedrons . . .Just learning the word was wonderful,” says Ochs. “He wasever the teacher. And he did it in a very non-threatening way, always.”

Another memory, from Ochs’ teenage years, is of the timeMr. Darkey decided to offer seminars to neighborhood kids.The first assignment was Don Quixote. “When he asked howmany people actually read the book, fewer than half of usraised our hands . . . I’ve hardly ever seen his face get darkand cloudy like that,” Ochs says. If disappointed, Mr. Darkeypersevered with his seminars. “He has this great, intenselove of the truth.”

In the early 1960s, former president Richard Weigle(HA49) spearheaded the move to open a Western campus ofSt. John’s. When Santa Fe was chosen, Mr. Darkey wasselected to be one of the founding faculty members at thenew campus. Mr. Darkey describes “the proselytizingaspect” of the endeavor. “Dick Weigle . . . wanted to bringthe liberal arts to the West. We had very gifted peopleworking on it.”

His wife, Connie, he adds, “thoughtthat the notion of founding a newcampus in the West was a great idea.She was full of enthusiasm” for theadventure.

A member of Santa Fe’s first class,Marilynne Scott (Maurie Wills Schell,SF68), remembers Mr. Darkey well.He led her tutorial and co-led seminarin her freshman year, and he “listenedto us with such intensity,” she recalls.“Out of our ramblings he zeroed [in]on the germ of the idea we were tryingto put forth. His eyes looked at thespeaker as he asked us to explain, elab-

orate, give examples. He helped us formulate thoughts wehardly knew we had.”

He also gave Ms. Scott rides to and from church. “Herewas a person who dissected the Bible, Augustine, Aquinasand Calvin, yet had a deep and public faith. In the freshmandon rag, Mr. Darkey asked me what wisdom was. I can nowsay a wise person is one who sees with his heart and acts onhis convictions. Such a man is Bill Darkey.”

From 1968-72, Mr. Darkey served as the second dean of theSanta Fe campus, bringing to the post “imagination, diligence, and perceptiveness,” Weigle later wrote in one ofhis memoirs.

Mr. Darkey was a tutor to David Levine (A67) inAnnapolis, and when Mr. Levine returned as a facultymember in Santa Fe, he was pleased to have Mr. Darkey as acolleague. “His sense of the mission of the college is well-centered,” says Mr. Levine, now outgoing dean in Santa Fe.“He’s a partisan of a smaller college, someone who hasexpressed, many times, his concern that the college willbecome too large to be a community of learners . . . Peoplehave looked up to him as a way of keeping our balance.”

In 1998, Mr. Levine suggested renovating the formerbookstore in Peterson Hall into a much-needed common

“He had the ability to make the material his own, then lend it to you; he could get inside the material and take

you by the hand. He did it with great gentility.”Bob Warren (SFGI93)

William Darkey grew up in western Maryland, earned a scholarship to St. John’s, and before graduating in 1942was offered a faculty position by then-dean Scott Buchanan.

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{ T h e T u t o r s } 19


room. Bob Warren (SFGI93), a strong supporter of thecollege, agreed to underwrite the project if the room wasnamed in honor of Mr. Darkey.

Not surprisingly, the humble Mr. Darkey was reluctant tosee a room named for him, notes Mr. Warren. He and hiswife, Carol, have taken several community seminars withMr. Darkey and have always been impressed by his gentlemanner and his intellect. “He never raised his voice, or aneyebrow. He had the ability to make the material his own,then lend it to you; he could get inside the material and takeyou by the hand. He did it with great gentility.”

Mr. Darkey was on the Instruction Committee that hiredSanta Fe tutor Jorge Aigla in 1985. In terms of the Program,Mr. Darkey is “never complacent, but always reexaminingwhat we do and why,” says Mr. Aigla. And as his friend for thepast 21 years, Mr. Darkey has taught him what friendshipmay mean: “he’s committed, kind, amiable . . . [and] has afantastic ability to listen.”

“He’s the best of a St. John’s tutor; he allows differingpoints of view while inspiring the conversation to continue,”says Laura Mulry (SFGI02), who developed a friendship withMr. Darkey in her years in the GI and on the college staff.“He’s broadened my intellect and opened my spirit by alwaysasking: ‘What’s the discovery for you? What’s the pleasureand joy you obtain?’ ”

Former President John Balkcom (SFGI00) has alsoenjoyed many long talks with Mr. Darkey, about the

Program, students, and faculty. He was always eager for thevisits, held every six weeks. “I would basically sit and listento him just as long as he wanted to talk,” says Mr. Balkcom.“He’s the soul of the college in my book.”

Mr. Balkcom remembers a lecture Mr. Darkey gave in2002. The Great Hall was packed, people spilled into theSenior Common Room, and Mr. Darkey gave a wonderfullecture on the poems of Mark Van Doren. The next day, Mr. Balkcom learned that Mr. Darkey had left the text at home. “He did it extemporaneously. You would not have known.”

Last summer, with his dog Beau close at hand, Mr. Darkeyreflected on what the college has meant to him. In a littlemore than an hour, sitting outside the Peterson StudentCenter, he had tried to summarize a journey that began inAnnapolis and brought him to this beautiful campus built atthe foot of the mountains. “It’s the life, in all these things wedo,” he said. “It’s a rare thing to understand—you have tolive it.” x

His students have always found tutor Bill Darkey (shown herein a 1961 math tutorial) to be a gentle, but vital, presence inthe classroom.

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{ H i s t o r y }


20

Reverdy Johnson, Esq., class of 1811,was bold and concise in his defense ofMary E. Surratt, one of the accused co-conspirators in the assassination ofAbraham Lincoln. Johnson’s famerested on his reputation as a constitu-tional lawyer and senator. He based hisdefense of Surratt on the argumentthat the military commission created

after the assasination of Lincoln was unconstitutional.“If a military commission, created by the mere authority of the

President, can deprive a citizen of the benefit of the guarantiessecured by the 5th amendment, it can deprive him of thosesecured by the 6th. It may deny him the right to a speedy andpublic trial, information ‘of the nature and cause of the accusa-tion,’ of the right ‘to be confronted with the witnesses againsthim,’ of ‘compulsory process for his witnesses,’ and of ‘the assis-tance of counsel for his defense’ . . . If then, it was true that thecreation of a military commission like the present is incidental tothe war power, it must be authorized by the department to whichthat power belongs, and not by the Executive, to whom no portionof it belongs.”

Unfortunately for Surratt, Johnson’s defense was unsuccessful,and on July 7, 1865, she was hanged—the first woman to beexecuted by the federal government.

According to the 19th-century newspaper, The North AmericanReview, intrigue may have interfered with justice even with so

eminent a counsel as Reverdy Johnson. On the third day of thesession, a member of the military commission, General T.M.Harris, questioned the integrity of Johnson as counsel on thegrounds that he had earlier refused to recognize the moral obligation of an oath required of voters in the state of Maryland.Johnson’s reason was based on his belief that the state Conventionhad exceeded its authority in attempting to exact an oath as acondition for citizens to exercise the vote. In a strange turn ofevents, Johnson was forced to defend himself.

General Harris’ attempt to have Johnson dismissed on groundsof integrity failed, due to Johnson’s eloquence and comportmentin the court room. Unfortunately, such an affront to his characterwas intolerable, and the dignified Johnson declined to appear inperson again, submitting written arguments to the court instead.Although it failed in Surratt’s case, Johnson’s legal argument waslater proven sound. In 1866, one year after Surratt’s execution,the landmark Supreme Court decision Ex Parte Milligan wasissued. It stated that while civilians may be imprisoned by themilitary during times of war, it was unconstitutional to subject civilians to military courts as long as the civilian courtswere operating.

His defense of the doomed Surratt was only one of Johnson’smany controversial undertakings. He was co-counsel for the slaveowner in the 1857 Dred Scott case. Chief Justice Roger Taney,earlier of the Baltimore Bar and a close friend of Johnson’s,rendered the opinion that slaves were not citizens of the UnitedStates, and could not sue in federal courts. The decision also

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by Andrea Lamb


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declared that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional,and that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery inthe territories. Later, during the Lincoln-Douglas presidentialcampaign, Johnson spoke at Faneuil Hall in Boston. According tohis biographer Steiner, he delivered an eloquent and movingaddress expressing his view that slavery was a local institution,with which Congress should not interfere. Although he personallyopposed slavery, Johnson’s respect for the Constitution prevailedover all.

It is not at all unusual to think of many successful St. John’salumni much in the same vein as Johnson—brilliant, extraordi-

nary, but perhaps an irregular fit in a regular world. Some of theintense controversy he attracted can be explained in part by thehistorical setting of his life. He served in the Senate during aturbulent time: slavery, the Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination,war reparations, the Mexican War, and the first impeachment ofan American president, in 1868, were issues for men like Johnsonand benchmarks in American history. In all of his legal and political pursuits, Johnson met the challenges while maintaininghis personal integrity.

In addition to his St. John’s education, Johnson had manyresources, including influential family connections. His father

Some coincidences are almost too remarkable to believe. Take, for example, how a volume of The Report of the ExploringExpedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, by BrevetCaptain J. C. Fremont, came to be included in the rare bookscollection of the Greenfield Library.

Stewart H. Greenfield (Class of 1953), a member of thecollege’s Board of Visitors and Governors, has always enjoyed visiting used bookstores and adding to his personal library. (About a decadeago, he demonstrated his love forbooks by providing the gift thatallowed the college to renovate theformer Maryland State Archivesbuilding for a new library—named,accordingly, for Mr. Greenfield.)

Many years ago Mr. Greenfieldcame across a copy of Fremont’s journals. In 1841 Congress commissioned a survey of the OregonTrail and named Lt. John C. Fremontto head the expedition. Upon hisreturn, Fremont prepared the officialreport to Congress. It was so well-received that an extra 1,000 copieswere printed.

“I have a couple of books aboutexploration and expeditions, and Isaw the Fremont volume and leafedthrough it,” Mr. Greenfield recalls.

Mr. Greenfield read the book, putit back on a shelf, and forgot aboutit—until he picked up the New YorkTimes Book Review one day and saw an advertisement from a rarebook dealer.

“It was from Bauman’s RareBooks. Bauman’s had a copy of

Fremont’s journals, and the ad mentioned that it was a senato-rial copy, one of the first editions prepared for the report to theCongress. The copy they were selling had a rare map in thepocket of the back cover, and as I recall, the price tag on theirswas $6,000.

“This gave me incentive to go and see if my copy included themap and was a senatorial edition.”

Not only did it have a map, not only was it a senatorialedition, but it was the copypresented to Reverdy Johnson, St. John’s Class of 1811. “This wasthe first time I’d looked closely atthe inscription. It was signed byReverdy Johnson, whose name Iknew well from my days as a studentat St. John’s. I looked up his history,and indeed on the day he signed thevolume, he was a member of theCongress.”

Indeed, a remarkable coincidence.Since then, Bauman’s has continuedto seek buyers for other Fremontvolumes; the last one had an askingprice of $7,800. But Mr. Greenfield’svolume became a gift to the St. John’s library, where, he says, it belongs. x

In November 2005, Stewart Greenfield donated his copy ofFREMONT’S REPORT to the GreenfieldLibrary, where it is on display in theNutt Room. The inscription insidereads “From Reverdy Johnson to hisfriend Wm Price Dec. 30, 1845.”

From One Johnnie’s Library to Another

had been a lawyer and appeals court judge in Maryland. Aftergraduating from St. John’s at age 15, Reverdy Johnson read lawwith his father, joined the Baltimore Bar and practiced law inMaryland. After having served as a state senator, he was elected in1845 to the U.S. Senate as a Whig. In 1849, he was appointed byZachary Taylor to be attorney general of the United States. Helater served as a representative in the Maryland Assembly, andreturned to the U.S. Senate, this time as a democrat. During theCivil War, he was a strenuous supporter of keeping Maryland inthe Union.

At age 50, Johnson accepted the appointment of minister toBritain’s Court of St. James’s, launching his international career.Lord Clarendon, at the time of Johnson’s appointment, wrote to afriend in America that “Mr. Johnson was the only diplomaticrepresentative that had ever brought out the true friendly feelingof the British people for those in theUnited States.” Some Americansthought him too friendly to England.

Johnson faced the emerging contro-versies of his day with expansive intellect and largeness of spirit.However, some observers, noting thepattern of shifting alliances and politicalpositions, did not hesitate to charge himwith being a “trimmer,” one whochanges his political opinions to suitpopular views. Other accounts cast himin more favorable light. The Hon. J.Upshur Dennis, in writing his recollec-tions, stated that Johnson was “cursedwith neither nerves nor liver, but wasthe robust embodiment of mens sana incorpore sano,” a healthy mind in ahealthy body. (2).

Even Johnson’s physical attributes attracted attention. Dennisrecalls in his account that Johnson was of “medium height, roundbodied, solidly almost sturdily built, just such a physical mould asindicated perfect health, capacity for work, and endurance,without risk of breakdown, of all the oils and strains of the mostactive life at the trial table . . . his features were strong; his fore-head of great height, fullness and breadth; while the back of hishead was shaped like a barrel, and seemed to bulge out all around,as if holding capacity. But the dome of his head was its moststriking feature—so lofty, so symmetrically rounded, that itseemed to tower above all others, as the dome of St. Peter’s minimizes all other designs (2-3).”

Apparently, possessing a measured temperament did not keepJohnson out of a gentlemen’s duel, which ended with grave physical consequences before it could even take place. According

to Dennis, the duel resulted from an altercation at a horse raceattended by congressmen. The owners of the two horsescompeting, Rep. Henry Wise of Virginia and Rep. Edward Stanleyof North Carolina, were also the marshals. The men got into afight, and the challenge to a duel was issued. As Wise’s second,Johnson went out to practice his shooting. He took aim at a smallhickory tree and fired. But the ball failed to penetrate the tree,boomeranged, and struck Johnson in one eye. From that momenton, he needed assistance in crossing streets and rooms, and reliedon voices to identify people. He died in 1876 in Annapolis.

Johnson was a persuasive speaker with his own style. He apparently made few references to literary or other authorities,in contrast to other learned men of his day, but rather built his arguments on principles and logic. He attracted many contro-versies in his life, most often triggered by shifting his political

alliances and revising his opinions. And yet, one may view those shifts as characteristic of open-mindednessmanifested in an educated man. His character traits demonstrated,according to John Grene Proud, class of1834, “the liberality of his mind and hishabit of bringing every subject to thetest of calm reasoning and cool judg-ment . . .” which prevented Johnsonfrom becoming “a bigoted partisan.”

Such was the legacy of a St. John’seducation then, and now. x

Andrea Lamb is librarian in Annapolis.

Sources: Personal Recollections of aQuartet of the Baltimore Bar (1905), by

J. Upshur Dennis, in the Reverdy Johnson Special Collection,Maryland State Archives; Argument on the Jurisdiction of theMilitary Commission, by Reverdy Johnson, found in SurrattHouse Museum Archives at www.surratt.org/documents/Bplact14.pdf.; The North American Review, 131 and 147 (1888)(http:memory.loc.gov.ammem.ammemhome.html); Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Maryland,Baltimore (1879); Ex parte Milligan, 71 US2 (1866).(www.abanet.org/publiced/criticism.html); Life of ReverdyJohnson, by Bernard Steiner (1941); Memoirs of Deceased Alumni of St. John’s College, Annapolis, by John G. Proud, Baltimore (1879); Tercentenary History of Maryland, byMatthew P. Andrews, Chicago, Clarke (1925).

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It is not at all unusual tothink of many successful

St. John’s alumni much inthe same vein as Johnson—

brilliant, extraordinary, but perhaps an irregular fit

in a regular world.

{ T h e C o l l e g e John’s College • Spring 2006 }

{ S t u d e n t V o i c e s }24

Christopher Utter, a formereditor of the Gadfly and aprolific contributor tocollege publications, tookbreaks from essay writingto keep a journal on theprocess. He overcame aslow start, Seinfeldepisodes on DVD, andmuch angst to complete afine essay on Plato’sRepublic. He defended it inApril—the morning afterPrank.

Tuesday, January 10It was good to be at homeover break, but toward the end I began to feel the weight of myessay pressing on my conscience. My plane landed at BWI lastnight at about 8 p.m. My girlfriend, Shoshana Goldstein, and myfriend Alex Claxton met me at the baggage claim, and we drove tocampus without saying much. We are pretending not to beconcerned about our essays, although I’m sure most seniors areslightly panicked. We have four weeks (26 days), which sounds likea long time. I had wanted to re-read the Republic and write at leastan outline for my essay, but neither of these things happened.

Friday, January 13I hope Friday the thirteenth is lucky for me. Yesterday, I met withmy adviser, Mr. Kalkavage, and told him I wanted to change mytopic. I was originally going to write on freedom in the Republic,but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I had noidea how I would write such an essay. So after discussing thematter for a while with Mr. Kalkavage, I remembered how interested and perplexed I was at Socrates’ discussion of imagesand imagery. I finally settled on an examination of Socrates’ twotreatments of poetry, in Books II-III and X, as the focus of myessay. As I said, I will need a bit of luck to come up with an interesting way to approach this topic so late in the game. Earlier this evening I went for pizza with Shoshana and Andrew(MacKinlay), Geremy (Coy), and Ben (Cromartie). They (exceptShoshana) have decided not to shave until they turn in their essaysFebruary 4, and so I decided to join them. I’m told the “essay

beard” is a tradition forthe brave few who attemptit each year. I’m curious tosee how much of a beard Ican actually grow.

Tuesday, January 17Writing, but mostly in the

form of notes, and not very cohesive notes at that. I met with Mr. Kalkavage yesterday, and as a result I have narrowed my focusto imitation in Book X.

It’s very strange being here without having to go to class. It’snot that I don’t feel like I am a part of the school, it’s more that Idon’t feel like I’m going to school at all. It’s always the weekend,or it’s never the weekend, depending on how you look at it. Theonly difference between one day and the next is that each day I amcloser to the deadline.

Beard progress: still stubble, but at least it’s evenly distributed.

Saturday, January 22Go to the library and work there until it closes? Or just stay here atmy desk in Gilliam Hall? I have about 20 pages of notes. Onemajor development is that I came up with an outline yesterdaycovering everything I think I need to talk about, though I havestill not written much. Everyone seems to have dozens of pagesalready! I have to write something substantial to give to Mr. Kalkavage before our meeting Tuesday.

Last night I saw Match Point with Shoshana and the other usualpeople. The only thing about it that was typical of Woody Allen’sstyle was the plot’s nihilistic tinge. Because of this it ended upreminding me of my essay and the danger poetry of all kinds canpose to an audience’s thought.

Geremy, perhaps influenced by the movie, is making a film ofthe writing process. To illustrate what we do with our free time he

T W E N T Y - S I X D A Y SA Senior Essay Diary

Beard growing and essaywriting progressed slowlyand with varied successfor seniors (l. to r.)Benjamin Cromartie,Christopher Utter,Geremy Coy, and Andrew MacKinlay.

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{ T h e C o l l e g e John’s College • Spring 2006 }

{ S t u d e n t V o i c e s } 25

filmed Alex and Ben bouncing a tennisball across the floor to each other insilence for about a minute and a half.

Tuesday, January 25Writing. After my last entry I went tothe library and wrote until closing,then I went back to my room and wrotefor several hours more. I went throughabout a third of Book X and wrote 15 pages. Mr. Kalkavage thinks they’rewell written and need almost no revision, so I’m relieved. Now I justhave to write the rest of the essay.

My beard is coming along, althoughI’m not sure how well I like it. It’sstrange being able to feel the windthrough it when I’m standing outside.Also, it itches.

Friday, January 27The more time I spend on the essay the more time I need to spenddoing something else. I’ve been watching Seinfeld episodes onDVD. It’s actually very interesting how much Seinfeld bears on thesubject of my essay. Then again everything bears on the subject ofeveryone’s essay. I have discussed this phenomenon many timeswith my friends; whenever we read a book or watch a movie or television program, we have to be careful not to say, “You know,this reminds me of something I just said in my essay.” I suppose itmeans our minds are invested in the work.

Tuesday, January 31Finished a draft of the central part of the essay and sent it to Mr. Kalkavage, but I still have to write a conclusion. A problem:this central section is 50 pages long. I’ll see what Mr. Kalkavagethinks tomorrow. Surprisingly, I’m not sick of the Republic—justthe opposite.

Sunday, February 5It’s done. I spent the remainder of last week cutting my essay andmanaged to get it down to 37 pages. Mr. Kalkavage thinks it’s verygood, and so does Shoshana. I am not sure that I can tell whether itis good anymore; I’ve spent too much time with it. Andrew,Geremy, and I went to Kinko’s to get our essays bound on Saturdayevening, and managed to get there just before everyone else—inand out in 20 minutes, not the two-hour wait we feared. At about10 p.m., a group of us piled into the Polity van and headed to thepresident’s house to turn in our essays. Then we drove back tocampus to ring the bell, a tradition we are graciously allowed tocontinue despite the fact that it violates the city noise ordinance. I guess 100 people ringing the bell at 1 a.m. must be annoying.

Oh, and I shaved this morning.

Friday, March 31I just went to the Registrar’s office to pick up my commencementinvitations. They come with a little slip of paper marked “etiquetteinstructions” detailing how the invitations should be assembled:“The invitation and calling card go into the small, un-gummedenvelope with a tissue placed over the face of the invitation and thecard inserted inside the invitation . . . ” etc. For some perversereason I enjoy little exercises like this.

Wednesday, April 5I found out two weeks ago that my oral would fall the day afterSenior Prank. I was disappointed at first, of course, because thismeant that I couldn’t participate in the parties. But it worked outfor the best because it gave me more time to prepare yesterdaymorning.

I was nervous beforehand, but once I sat down at 11:45 a.m. and started reading my précis, I was fine. In the robing room Mr. Umphrey, Ms. Locke, and Mr. Braithwaite explained theprocedures—entering and leaving the room, how I should wear mymortar board, etc. My friends sat in the chairs around the table,but I hardly noticed them. I was so entrenched in the conversationthat it didn’t matter what was going on outside of it. This is true ofconversations in general at St. John’s; they’re deathly boring if youare merely watching them and are not invested in them, but whenyou are a part of the conversation it so envelops you that youbarely notice other things.

The oral was over much more quickly than I thought it wouldbe, and before I knew it I was shaking people’s hands and beingcongratulated from all sides. Shoshana and I had lunch to celebrate. Then there’s a seminar reading waiting. x

Tutors Patricia Locke and WilliamBraithwaite walk out with Mr. Utterafter the examination.

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{ B i b l i o f i l e }26

The Art of the PERSIAN LETTERS:Unlocking Montesquieu’s Secret Chainby Randolph Paul Runyon (A71)University of Delaware Press (2005)

Randolph Runyon, a professor of Frenchliterature at Miami University in Ohio,loves a good puzzle. He’s also good atfinding hidden connections and uncov-ering secrets—one reason Montesquieu’sPersian Letters held such interest for him.

Best known for The Spirit of the Laws,written in 1738, Montesquieu firstachieved literary success with the PersianLetters, which tells the story of Usbek andRica and their journey from Persia intothe Western World. The two travelerscorrespond with the seraglio back homeand receive letters of news from Usbek’sharem. What develops is an enjoyable andinteresting exposition of the differencesbetween East and West.

Thirty years after Montesquieupublished his epistolary novel, he hintedthat the seemingly disconnected lettersheld a “secret, and somehow unnoticed,chain” that tied the letters together. Noscholars have been quite successful infinding that chain, Runyon posits,because they concentrated instead onfinding a unifying theme. While hegreatly admires the research of scholarPauline Kra, Runyon ultimatelyconcluded that her work concentrated on identifying a theme rather than uncovering a structural link.

Instead, Runyon proposes that a chainof linguistic echoes, situational parallels,and reversals carry the reader from eachletter to the next. He had already investedmonths in his labor—a careful textualanalysis of the 161 letters—before he wassure his approach would actually work. “I became familiar with the PersianLetters because I teach French literature,and it’s often anthologized, at least infragments,” he says. “My first response tothe work was that it’s a whole world on itsown. But once you enter it on its ownterms, you start to see how it’s puttogether.”

For example, Runyon finds a connec-tion in linguistic echoes between Letters24-25 and 26. The first two letters captureRica’s reports of “Louis XIV searching invain for hidden Jansenists . . . ” Runyonwrites. Rica uses the words “a cherchés”and “le chagrin” in reference to the

king’s fruitless searches. In Letter 26,when writing to his elusive love Roxanne,Rica refers to his own “chagrin” when hissearches (“recherches”) for his love areunsuccessful.

Runyon also enjoyed Montesquieu’spolitical satire: “So here we have LouisXIV beating the bushes for Jansenists andUsbek doing the same for the object of hisdesire,” writes Runyon. “It’s a hiddenparallel, but it’s a pretty funny one. The

absolutist Sun King in his persecutingmania is likened, in the hidden chain, toa husband who can’t even make love tothe wife over whom he supposedly hasabsolute power (19).”

After leaving St. John’s at the completion of his sophomore year,Runyon earned a doctorate in Frenchfrom Johns Hopkins University. Hejoined the Miami University faculty in1977. Runyon’s research covers a widerange of English and French literature(The Art of the Persian Letters is one ofeight books he has published), but latelyhe’s been fascinated by uncovering linkswithin an individual work. He may takeon Montaigne next to show how the firstessay relates to the last essay in each ofhis three books. He’s found the writer“intentionally self-contradictory” inmany of his essays. “At one point he sayswe have too many commentators onpoetry and not enough poets, but atanother he says we have too many poets,”says Runyon. “He says civil war is terribleat one point; in another, he says suchwars serve a purpose.”

His studies of the poetry of Fontaineand Baudelaire have also uncoveredhidden chains. La Fontaine, for example,seems to employ a rhyme scheme thatmany readers believe “disintegrates intochaos.” Instead, what Runyon has foundis that different syllable counts in individual poems often correspond withsudden shifts in action or mood. “Andeach fable is connected to its neighbors bythe same kind of linguistic and situationalparallels found in the Persian Letters.”

While he appreciates the enduringideas behind great books, Runyon is morefascinated by the manipulation oflanguage, more interested in how theparts form an esthetic whole. His love oflanguage was nurtured at St. John’s,where he enjoyed studying Greek andworking through Euclid’s propositions.He credits the college with helping himdevelop his ability to find disparities, andtherefore, identify similarities. Instudying the Persian Letters, he could seewhen one letter contradicted the onepreceding or following it because hecould also pick out the underlying sameness. “I had Ford K. Brown as mytutor for Greek, and he used to say, ‘Theclosest you can be to being right is to beexactly wrong.’ I was greatly influencedby this, and it influenced my approach toall these writers.”


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

His love of French was also discoveredat St. John’s, not in the classroom, but inthe library in Woodward Hall. “I workedthere in the evenings, and they had theselovely 19th-century editions of Racine and Diderot. I had never liked readingliterature in English, but I fell in lovewith French literature. It’s now extendedto English.”

Runyon has always found the PersianLetters to be amusing and interesting, andhe recommends the book as good readingfor Johnnies. Although todayMontesquieu’s approach to Arabic cultureseems somewhat misinformed andpatronizing, “at least he was writingabout another culture in a serious way,long before anyone else,” he notes. x

—Rosemary Harty

The Cycle of Learning/El ciclo de aprendizajeby Jorge Aigla Bilingual Press (2005)

It is understandable for a poet to writeabout his own friends and family, butperhaps only a poet who is also a St.John’s College tutor could so deftly speakto such a broad range of topics as family,martial arts, and classical works,extending from the streets of Mexico Cityto the three sons of Socrates, “or thewaif/ adopted by an aging Epictetus.”

Santa Fe tutor, poet, and head karate-do instructor Jorge Aigla has released athird volume of poetry entitled The Cycleof Learning, his first book that includesSpanish and English versions of eachpoem. Haunting and evocative, the poemsexplore the mysterious ways in which weapprehend the world, and the dichotomybetween internalizing our awareness andusing language to express ideas and formsthat come to us independent of language.On the book’s left-hand pages, poems areprinted in the language—Spanish orEnglish—in which they were firstcomposed; the right-hand page offers thetranslation.

“Poetry comes to our imagination andits linguistic representation differently,”writes Aigla in the book’s preface.“Perhaps this work could serve as an invitation to a case study on thepsycholinguistics of bilingualism.”

Influences of the Program abound inThe Cycle of Learning. In “Ruminationsof a Monk,” Aigla writes: “Why do we not

realize/ that we do not learn,/ that wemust always/ start again in love from thebeginning/ as Kierkegaard suggested.”There is a poem called “Miguel deCervantes” and another called “DonQuixote’s Mill.” Socrates, Goethe, Baudelaire, Plato, Confucius, Augustine,Mencius (Meng Tzu), Milton, and Shakespeare also gain mention.

Each poem opens onto wider worlds ofimagination, family, discovery, and thepassage of time. Drawing inspiration fromhis family members, his martial arts practice, and his boyhood in Mexico, thepoems sketch moving images of his lovedones in such gentle ways as to honor theirplace on the mantel of his life. Aiglacreates imagery as vivid and colorful asportraiture, as moving as breath, as in“One Morning”:

That cement wastelandon an early Mexico City morning,as I waited for the busto take me to the high school gym,revealed to me a man:the same thin and dirty and darkmanual laborer carrying a hemp sack,his face a bible of sorrows,condemned to ride for perhaps two hoursto the factory whose stovesand chimneys devour men.

Charles Bell, Santa Fe tutor emeritus,wrote in his forward to the volume: “Letme promise the reader this mature andpowerful experience of this Cycle of

Learning, the poetic counterpart toWilliam Carlos Williams’s collection ofprose essays The Embodiment of Knowledge.”

One of the most sensory-rich poems isentitled “A Flower for My Mother.”Crossing borders and decades, Aiglareflects on his mother while sitting in agarden spot on Canyon Road in Santa Fe.He writes, “The garden is full this year/after so much rain, of all/ the colors youenjoyed, and especially the deepmagenta/ of that low and shy flower/ youonce so tenderly straightened/ as wewalked carefully on the path/ between thetwo large horse chestnut trees/ trees likethe ones you used to help me/ climb as aboy in Cuernavaca.”

Aigla was born in Mexico City. Heearned a degree in medicine from theUniversity of California, San Francisco, in 1979. Prior to coming to St. John’s, hewas a medical examiner in San Franciscoand taught at both the City College of San Francisco and at St. Mary’s College.

His first volume of poetry, Sublunary(Pennywhistle Press), was published in1989. His previous book of poetry, AztecShell (Bilingual Press, 1995), in whichsome poems are in Spanish, is set in bothMexico and the United States.x

—Andra Maguran

The Cycle of LearningI closed the sensesand allowed the dark to envelop me,I dreamt. A wind visited me:People had loved me;I had been sickfor a long time,almost unconscious,and had been taken care of,fed, and watched.I had not realized what this implied;I stared at the enormityof some of my actionsand of my secret inertias.Awaking, alone,I opened once morethe cycle of learning.

El ciclo de aprendizajeCerré los sentidos y permití que la oscuridad me envolviese.Sõné. Visitóme un viento:Gente me había amado;Había estado enfermopor largo tiempo,casi inconsciente,y me habían cuidado,alimentado y vigilado.No me había dado cuentade lo que esto significaba;Miré la enormidadde algunos de mis actosy de mis inercias secretas.Despertando solo, abrí de nuevoel cilco de aprendizaje

—Jorge Aigla


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

As the New York Timesforeign correspondent forWest Africa, LydiaPolgreen (A97) is accustomed to danger.Last winter, she boarded a

flight to Nigeria to meet with militants inthe oil-producing delta region who wereholding nine foreigners as hostages. TheMovement for the Emancipation of theNiger Delta invited journalists to interviewthem, as Polgreen wrote later, “to showtheir strength and outline their demands.”But before the meeting could take place,Polgreen found herself sitting in a smallboat, her hands in the air, looking at thebarrel of an AK-47 assault rifle.

“We were navigating the creeks andrivers of the Niger Delta, and the Nigerianmilitary were looking for the hostages themilitants were holding, so there was astrong possibility that we could get caughtin the crossfire,” she recalls. “A boat with agroup of men wearing hoods over theirfaces, aiming AK-47s and a grenadelauncher, came speeding up to us. Therehad been a misunderstanding with ourguide. We talked to them, convinced themthat we meant no harm. Finally they gaveus permission to proceed to meet with the militants.”

Polgreen covers two dozen countries,including the war-ravaged areas of easternChad and western Sudan, politicallyvolatile Liberia, and regions such as theNiger Delta. She travels for two to threeweeks at a time, returning to the Times’West African bureau, her home in thesuburbs of Dakar, Senegal, that she shareswith her partner, Candice Feit (A96), afreelance photographer. Any down time isused preparing for the next assignment:haggling with embassy employees to getvisas and permits, or arranging for translators and drivers. Reporting on theoil pipeline in Chad, for instance, requiredtwo weeks of planning complex logisticsand six days driving around the dusty

desert. “The biggest part of this job—beinga foreign correspondent—is showing up,”she says. “How can you know for sure youwill be safe? You cannot. So you gauge the risks.”

Polgreen’s willingness to take theserisks is rooted in a childhood spent inAfrica. She grew up in Kenya and Ghana.Her mother, Pamela, is from Ethiopia, andher father, John (SF71), once worked as anagricultural engineer involved in sustainable development. “For me,covering the war or events in Iraq is notcompelling, but covering Africa is,” sheexplains. “Africa has always been a part of my life. I love Africa. I want to communicate about it to the rest of theworld. The situation in Africa is not hopeless. Even if it is not going to be easilyremedied, my job is to tell the world aboutit with style, intelligence, and humanity.”

To this end, Polgreen brings an insider’ssensibility to African culture, a gift forcrafting succinct, vivid prose, and anoutsider’s perspective on what is newsworthy. Polgreen moved from Ghanato the United States when she attended

St. John’s. (Her brother, David, is also a1997 graduate of St. John’s.) After aninternship in Washington, D.C., she wentto Columbia University to earn a master’sin journalism—a natural career choice forher and for many Johnnies. “It’s the critical thinking skills, being able to question, to think independently,” shesays. “You are coming to things with an open mind. In journalism, you go to the primary source so you can get information—a Johnnie would be drawn to that.”

The headlines of Polgreen’s Timesstories convey the breadth of her coverage:“Why So Starry Eyed? Misery Loves Optimism in Africa”; “Chad’s Oil Riches,Meant for Poor, Are Diverted”; and “WhyHope in Africa is Not a Paradox.” Africa’sstartling contrasts fascinate Polgreen.“Particularly in Africa, one of the world’spoorest continents, there is a paradox thatI love. There is great suffering, abjectmisery, yet there is dignity, joy, and anoptimism in life that sustains people. I findthis compelling. We as Westerners, wearrive and we say, ‘Oh the horror, thehorror.’ Yet in fact these people have anincredible spirit full of hope.”

Polgreen describes encounters withseemingly poor people who are rich inkindness and generosity. “When I was inChad reporting a story on the civil war,one of the town officials let me camp in hiscompound. Here I was sleeping under thestars, eating mush and stew from acommunal bowl. Yet it was all done withthe most gracious, kind hospitality. Hesaid, ‘I wish you had been here when mychildren were here.’ He sent them toanother town for safekeeping. This is avillage that is under constant attack fromArab militia from the Sudan. You see howterribly they suffer. Yet here is this man, sogracious, his capacity for joy, spirituality,and survival is so great. This is true every-where you go in Africa: despite the povertyand misery, the human spirit is powerful.”

Out of AfricaJournalist Lydia Polgreen (A97)

by Patricia Dempsey

“This is true everywhere you go

in Africa: despite thepoverty and misery, the human spirit is

powerful.”Lydia Polgreen (A97)


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

Given the misery she encounters, it’s nosurprise that Polgreen sometimes questions the impartiality journalismdemands. “You try not to get personallyinvolved, but it is difficult. For example,when I was reporting in Haiti during the2004 rebellion and working with a photographer, a young man had been shot.He was going from one public hospital tothe next. I don’t know how many wereinjured in the protests we were covering,but he was turned away. He had a bullet inhis gut and private hospitals were notgoing to treat him without money. You as ahuman being, you make a choice.”Polgreen and her colleague decided thatsince they were not going to report on theyoung man, it was not a breach of professional ethics to give him $100-$200to save his life. “But usually you can’t intervene. You see so much on a dailybasis—sick babies, hungry families. Thereis always some form of human misery. Idon’t believe the pie-in-the-sky nonsensethat just because journalism is a publicservice—it gets information out there—itwill change these things. Yet it is important

that the world knows. I am not foolhardy,but still I write hoping to have an impact.”

To have an impact Polgreen needs tointerview a wide range of individuals, manyof whom do not see the importance ofsharing their stories with a New YorkTimes reporter. “You want, as a journalist,to believe in truth, in openness. So youmake arguments as to why it is insomeone’s best interest to let you interviewthem. I say, ‘You should talk to me. We donot want to support your cause, but wewant to tell the world about it.’ ” Polgreensays the difficulty in getting someone totalk “increases exponentially” with theirlevel of sophistication—unless they havesomething to gain from it.

The media-savvy militants holding nineforeign oil workers hostage in Nigeriasought out news coverage. “They wantedto talk, to show the world that they were aserious military force, a powerful force thatoperates brazenly on the major water-ways,” Polgreen says. “They understood‘the media increases our power.’ ”

Polgreen may never know the impact ofthe stories she files with the Times, many

of them from dangerous places where, “myphone is on the fritz and satellites aredown.” She can’t be sure if her February 25story, “Armed Group Shuts Down Part ofNigeria’s Oil Output,” contributed to themilitants’ freeing six of the nine hostages.But within days of visiting the Niger DeltaPolgreen hopped back on a plane—this timeto cover the violence in Darfur pushingacross the border into Chad.

Her work is never finished, she says,because there is always more to discover,one more question to ask. “You learn somuch with every story,” she says. “I’malways wishing and wanting one more dayfor more reporting.” x

Lydia Polgreen, interviewing members ofa militant group in the Niger Delta lastwinter, encounters danger, disease,tragedy, and hope in Africa.

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1935RICHARD WOODMAN is still practicing law in a small town incentral New York and enjoyinglong trips abroad with his daughters and their husbands.“I’m just back from a trip aroundSouth America, and it was prettyinteresting,” he writes.

1943MARTIN ANDREWS has begun his10th year as commander of theNassau-Suffolk L.I. Chapter ofthe American Ex-Prisoners ofWar and has passed his 6,000thhour of volunteer service at theNorthport V.A. Medical Center.

1944A note from PETER C. WOLFF: “I suffer from an irreversiblecondition: getting older.”

1948“Phyllis and I have moved toKendal-on-Hudson, a Quaker-sponsored community in Washington Irving country,Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.,” writesPETER J. DAVIES. “Enjoying the

lively group of residents,numerous activities, currentaffairs discussions—even a five-session course on Greekmythology! Our apartment overlooks the Hudson with spectacular views, sunsets, andbarges going up and down theriver. Yes, we are politicallyengaged, and I am vice-chair ofour resident council. And, we arein good health.”

1956“I wonder—what wouldTocqueville make of us now?”writes DORIK MECHAU.

1959A note from sunny Florida, fromGAY HALL: “My husband,Mortimer, died June 30, 2005. I am retired and will continue tolive in the Keys. It’s warm here!”

1969“My son, Will, graduates with aB.S. in Business from the University of Southern Californiain May,” writes GEORGE ANTHONY

(A). “My daughter, Beth, graduates with a B.S. in HumanPhysiology from the University of Oregon in June.”

1970“After having my own opticalshop in Georgetown for the last 17 years and receiving the highestrating in the WashingtonConsumer Checkbook, I have cutback to being open only four daysa week,” reports VIRGINIA HINDS

BURTON (A). “My customers havebeen wonderfully supportive andbusiness has even improved. I’llnever retire. This job is way toomuch fun. But a three-dayweekend every week feels so civilized!”

1974“After 19 years at Dartmouth inHanover, N.H., I am pleased toreturn to Santa Fe and amlooking forward to being closer toSt. John’s College again,” writesRENATE LEWIS (SFGI).

STEPHEN A. SLUSHER (SF) movedto the East Coast.

1975“I’m finally having surgery on theknee I injured in 1972 whileborrowing stage lights from the Naval Academy for SJC’sproduction of The Taming of theShrew,” says CHRIS HOVING (A).“I tried to turn on the ladderwhile holding the big lights andmy knee popped—and after a fewsteps, collapsed.”

1976BETSY DAVENPORT (SF) has beenliving in Portland since 1978. She has married and has had onechild. She also has three step-children and three grand-children. She has been running a

private psychotherapy practice.Lately she has been evaluatingand treating adults with AD/HD.The first of several writing projects on the subjects is readyto publish.

1983JOYCE HOWELL (AGI) recentlybegan an SAT tutoring business,[email protected]. “Thereseems to be a great demand!” she writes.

1985“I’m teaching a spring 2006semester course at Anne ArundelCommunity College on ‘Emergence of Ancient Israel,’ ”writes PAUL SCHATZBERG (AGI).“This course presents the latestscholarly knowledge on how andwhy desert-roaming pastoralnomads settled in the Canaanhighlands beginning in 1300B.C.E. and later identified themselves as a distinct ethnicgroup called Israelites. Sources of information are the HebrewBible, hi-tech archeology,Egyptian records, philology, epigraphy, Mesopotamiansources and others.”

1986JAY POWERS (SF) is in Chicago:“In January, I joined McDougalLittell as a senior editor. Firstproject: an economics textbook(gasp!) for high school seniors. I moved to McDougal from TheWorld Book Encyclopedia, whereI had been in charge of the articles on Europe and Russiasince 1999.When the weatherturns warm here in Chicago, Istill like to bike and skateboard.Haven’t played table tennis in awhile, though. I started with the


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

Honored for Service

ELIZABETH AIELLO (SFGI69) has been honored byAARP New Mexico for her ability to enhance the livesof others, improve the community around them, andinspire others to volunteer. Among other volunteerefforts, Aiello served as secretary of the Los AlamosAARP Chapter, where she helped to build membership,

ran a group for retired local teachers, served the Los Alamos RetiredSenior Organization, worked on the senior center’s advisory council,and ran a great books discussion group for more than 15 years.

In recognition of her accomplishments, AARP nominated her for a2005 Andrus Award. x

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


31

SF class of 1986, and I am curiousto learn what happened to every-body. I would welcome an updatefrom the reunion this summer.”

ROBERT F. RICHARDS (A) is aprofessor of engineering at Washington State University. “I live in Pullman with my wife(also a professor here) and twochildren, Dimitry (10) andAlexander (7). Although I left St. John’s after two years to finishup at the University of Chicago, Ihave fond memories of my timesthere. I recently bought a St. John’s sweatshirt and I wear it around town here, but sadly Ihave yet to run into anyone who is familiar with the Program. Are there any other Johnnies inthe inland Northwest?”

1987CHRISTOPHER BAILEY (A) recentlypublished The Grail Code: Revelation of an Ancient Mystery,published by Loyola Press,according to one of his fans.“Christopher Bailey has workedas a writer, editor, translator, andresearcher for more than 15 years.His articles have appeared inTouchstone, Columbia, NewCovenant, the New CatholicEncyclopedia (second edition),and elsewhere. Schooled in thegreat-books tradition, he hasspent many years in close studyand translation of the ArthurianTexts. I know this because I amhis proud wife, TERESA

FULLINWIDER BAILEY (A).”

SCOTT CUTHBERT (SF) was madechairman of the Research Boardfor the International College ofApplied Kinesiology, 2005-06,and his research literature can beseen online by going to www.soto-usa.com, where his CV and onlineresearch papers can also befound. “Living with diabetessince the age of 4 and going to thejohn without a blood-testinginstrument to control my diabetes

has made my calling as a functional medical physician aperfect fit,” he writes. “Such astudy as I am upon may continuefor a lifetime and keeps melearning and learning. It is awonderful thing to discover aprofessional activity, a calling,that has no horizon or limits onit, one that can continuallyromance, glorify, and excite yourdaily work. I am also going toIndia in March 2006!”

1988ELAINE PINKERTON COLEMAN

(SFGI) has completed the screen-play for the film adaptation of herWWII suspense novel, Beast ofBengal. The Gage Group Inc. has selected Elaine’s book fordevelopment as a feature movie.

THEODORE (TED) MERZ (A) andDIANA MARTINEZ (SF86) recentlycelebrated the third birthday oftheir son, Hayden.

KIM PAFFENROTH (A) is the co-author, with Tom Bertonneau,of a new book, The Truth Is OutThere: Christian Faith and theClassics of TV Science Fiction(Brazos Press, 2006). The booklooks at the religious relevance ofDr. Who, Star Trek, The Prisoner,The Twilight Zone, The X Files,and Babylon 5. Kim is associateprofessor and chairman of theDepartment Religious Studies atIona College, New Rochelle, NY.

1990MARK KREIDER (A) and SARAH

WETHERSON (A89) announce thebirth of their child, Isaac LeviBechtel, on Thursday, February23. Isaac weighed in at 9 lb., 8oz., and is “chubby- cheeked andbeautiful.” His parents love tohear from other Johnnies: e-mailthem at [email protected].

1991ANNE MARLOW-GETER and KEN

GETER (both SF91) completedtheir first half-marathon inSeptember 2006. 2006 alsobrought Anne a promotion toplanning supervisor at theColorado Department ofSTD/HIV Public Health andEnvironment and the completionof a fellowship with the RegionalInstitute of Health and Environmental Leadership. Kencontinues the work to save usfrom mad cows and bird flu at theUSDA.

1992ELYETTE BLOCK KIRBY (SF) lives inthe Paris area (near Versailles)with her husband, Jonathan, andthree children, Benjy (5 years),Bronwyn Elyse (3 years) ,and

Luca (1 year): “We plan to be hereat least one more year, and I’dlove to hear from other Johnniesin the area, to know if there is analumni group meeting already.My e-mail remains:[email protected].

1993A DWI program manager for thelocal government division of theDepartment of Finance andAdministration for New Mexico,MICHAEL A. BALDWIN (SF) encourages everyone not to drinkand drive.

MARIA PUMILIA (SF) and BrianBolding are the proud parents ofAnnika Marie Bolding, bornMarch 9, at 7:25 a.m., weight 7 lbs., 4 oz. Annika was born inher room at home, right smackinto the waiting hands of her dad.

A Big Surprise

JOHN C. WRIGHT (A84) received a Nebula nomination forhis book, Orphans of Chaos. Along with the Hugo, theNebula is one of the most prestigious awards in sciencefiction publishing. “This was a big surprise to us becausehe was not on the preliminary ballot, but apparently thejudges have the discretion to add a book of their choice to

each category,” wrote John’s wife, L. Jagi LamplighterWright. Though the book was a dark horse, she says, “it is stillvery exciting to be nominated and this will get his name out infront of new readers.” x

continued on page 33


{ A l u m n i P r o f i l e }32

It’s still dark when thesiren sounds at theRedmond Air Center. The ready room at thejump base becomes a whirlof activity. A lightning

storm moved across NortheasternOregon earlier in the night, andmultiple ‘smokes’ have beensighted by lookouts in theWallawa-Whitman NationalForest, about 200 miles away.

Spirits are high as AmanCholas and his fellow smoke-jumpers don their gear-paddedKevlar jumpsuit, harness andparachute, reserve chute,personal gear bag, and a helmetwith a steel mesh face guard. In a minute they have added 60 pounds to their body weight.They waddle out to the tarmac,where they load the twin-propSherpa. As the plane makes itsway to the runway, carrying tensmokejumpers, two spotters, thepilot and co-pilot, a veteranjumper shouts above the engines’drone, “Another early commuteto the office!” In the cabin, smilesflash in the early dawn light.

Once they’ve reached theirdestination, the crew members spot smokerising from a steep, heavily wooded ridge-line. It appears to be a relatively small fire,maybe an acre in size, enough work for foursmokejumpers. The spotter confers with thepilot on the best jump spot, a small openingin the trees a few hundred yards further downthe ridge. It’s a narrow target and missing itwould mean drifting down off the ridge intoa thick mat of 150-foot ponderosa pine andDouglas fir. After a few wide passes to dropwind-indicating streamers, the spottersignals for the first set of two jumpers tocome to the rear of the plane and clip in theirparachute rip cords.

Cholas will be first. After confirming thatCholas has seen the jump site and thestreamers, the spotter calls out, “Turningfinal, 1500 feet, get in the door!” Cholaspositions his body with his hands on theframe of the doorway opening to the vast

forest below, the slipstream of air justbrushing his face. With the spotter’s shout—“Get ready!”—Cholas rears back like aspring, the sudden slap on the back of hiscalf initiating the lunge that propels him intothe void. Without hesitation the secondjumper follows.

In a few seconds, the parachute canopyfills with air. Cholas checks his position inrelation to the jump spot as well as to hisjump partner, then feels a moment of peace.The noise of the plane and the burden of hisgear are replaced by a quiet weightlessness, abeautiful suspension over green wilderness.

“It’s the last couple hundred feet that arescary,” Cholas explains. “The groundsuddenly begins to show its true roughness, abroken snag here, a boulder there, and it’s allrushing towards you.”

In this case, the opening in the trees is adense patch of oak brush, a soft enoughlanding area, but it takes some effort to get

untangled and out of the jumpgear. Cholas’ jump partnerdoesn’t quite make the spot andis left dangling 40 feet in the airfrom his parachute, caught in atree. However, within minutes,he rappels to safety. A bigdanger, Cholas explains, is notproperly “bagging” a tree. Ifonly the edge of the parachutecatches a limb, it could collapsethe canopy. If the limb breaks orthe parachute comes loose,there is little to break the fall therest of the way down.

Once the jumpers are safelyon the ground, the Sherpamakes another pass for theparacargo drop—boxes of tools,food, water and other gear forfighting the fire. Cholas makesone last call on his handheldradio to the plane, confirmingthat the crew has everything itneeds, and the Sherpa heads forthe next fire.

The smokejumpers make their way to thefire, determine its behavior, identify hazards,and make a plan of attack. The fire is foughtby creating a “fire line,” a break in the fuelaround the fire’s edges. This particular fire isnot moving very fast yet. One of the jumpersuses a chainsaw to cut trees and heavier logson the ground. The others use hand tools,shovels and Pulaskis (tools with an ax on oneend, a hoe on the other), to dig and scrape aline down to mineral soil. By late afternoon,the fire is “contained,” and the jumpersgather for a break. Everyone pitches in tomake camp comfortable and prepare a meal.They eat, joke, and enjoy the rest before it istime for “mop-up,” moving through the“black” to extinguish anything still burningby digging and mixing it in with the soil. Asmall fire could take a day or two; a largerone could take weeks.

Their work completed, the smokejumpersload everything into enormous backpacks

Where There’s SmokeAman Cholas (SF98) Finds Purpose in the West’s Endangered Forests

by Jason Bielagus (SF98)

It was dangerous, exhausting,and dirty—but being a smoke-jumper was also exhilarating,says Aman Cholas.


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

that often weigh over 100 pounds and hike tothe nearest trailhead to be picked up. Onlyoccasionally are they lucky enough to get amule train to come for the gear or get a helicopter pick-up.

“Often the pack-out can be the mostgrueling challenge of a fire,” says Cholas,remembering the exhaustion—and excitement—of eight years spent fightingfires. It was a career born from a love of themountains, discovered in Santa Fe. And it’sled him to another side of preserving forests,by preventing fires.

Cholas grew up in Vieques, Puerto Rico,and Corozal, Belize, with his parents, foursisters, and a brother. After graduating fromhigh school, he spent several years workingand traveling in Europe and Israel. He wasworking as a gardener at the Bahaí WorldCenter in Haifa, Israel, when he visited afriend who owned the Britannica GreatBooks of the Western World series. Heremembers thinking, “I wish that I couldjust sit here and read all these books.” Thatset him on the path to St. John’s.

In Santa Fe, Cholas discovered hisenchantment with mountains and forestswhen his freshman lab class made an outingto the Sangre de Cristos to examine coniferous trees. He often took long walkson Monte Sol to do his seminar readings andspent many weekends hiking around theSanta Fe National Forest.

His firefighting career began with asummer job with a ground crew in Isleta,N.M., where his mother’s family lives. Every

summer, he continued firefighting, movingto a Forest Service helicopter rappel crew,Sandia Helitack, based in Tijeras, N.M.

“Fire fighting complemented St. John’swell,” Cholas says. “By the end of springsemester, all I wanted to do was be out in thewoods. And by the end of a fire season, all Iwanted to do was hang out in the library andread. So it was a good balance.”

After graduating from St. John’s, he wentto work for the Forest Service full time,becoming the crew leader for Sandia Helitack. Later he spent his summers inRedmond, Ore., working as a smokejumper.

After nine seasons of fighting fires, Cholasbecame disillusioned with the ForestService’s fire suppression policy. In keepingwith its original mandate “to furnish acontinuous supply of timber” (Organic Actof 1897, 16 U.S.C. § 475), the Forest Servicemaintains a policy of stopping all forest fires.Many of the fires he helped put out needed toburn, Cholas realized.

“After almost a century of stopping firesso aggressively, we have hindered the naturalprocess that fires perform in the forestecosystem,” he explains. “As a result, mostof our forests in the Western United Statesare unhealthy and overgrown, clogged withdead and fallen timber, and are prone todisease and catastrophic wildfires.” Low-intensity fires in a healthy forest can ridthe forest of dead and sickly trees, whileleaving stronger trees to thrive, as well asreintroducing nutrients to the soil, he adds.

On the other hand, though fire is part of a

forest’s natural cycle, fires of recent yearshave grown so intense that they “kill every-thing in their path” and “leave moonscapesof sterilized soil and cause unnatural erosionand other problems,” he says.

Two years ago, Cholas and fellowfirefighter Jeremy Hanlon left the ForestService to start their own company, ForestFitness, based in Tijeras. They work primarily to protect properties from firedanger by thinning forested areas of over-growth and dead material. Forest Fitness hasbeen very successful at promoting thinningas a way to prevent the danger of fires aroundhomes and properties. “Like a fire, weremove the unhealthiest trees and leave amosaic of the strongest healthiest trees withroom to grow,” Cholas says. “We also try toachieve a mix of tree types and age classesthat is indicative of the natural vegetation.Even people who are against the cutting oftrees are often very happy with the results ofour work. The beauty and balance that isachieved, as well as the reduced fire danger,is very appealing to people.”

As satisfying as he finds his current work,Cholas looks back fondly on his smoke-jumping days. “It was the most incredible jobI have ever had.” x

Author’s note: For more about smoke-jumping, see Norman Maclean’s Young Menand Fire (an account of the Mann Gulch fire);the Forest Service documentary The GreatestGood, or the NOVA documentary Fire Wars.

“Never thought I was the homebirth type, but the right midwifeand doula can make a world ofdifference,” writes Maria. Mariaditched software development forreal-estate last year—get in touchwith her if you’re in the market.

1994SARAH and MICHAEL AFFLERBACH

(both A) have been having a greatyear watching twins Max and Eviegrow into little people. “They areso fun to have around and eachday brings something new toenjoy,” writes Sarah. “I receivedmy architectural license last yearand work for a wonderful firm

here in New Bern, N.C. Mike’sradio business continues to growand they are building a newstation which will be on the air inFebruary. We had a great timetraveling to Columbia, SouthAmerica, to witness JON

ARCHER’S (A94) wedding to hislovely wife, Monica.”

“I finally finished my philosophydoctorate in December of 2005,specializing in 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy,history of modern philosophy,and logic,” writes PETER

BEZANSON (A). “The title of mydissertation is ‘Idealism: A BriefHistory, Taxonomy, and Nietzschean Evaluation.’ I continue to teach calculus

classes and a philosophy seminarat a great books liberal artsschool in Tempe, Ariz., (Tempe Preparatory Academy). Inaddition, I serve as the mathe-matics curriculum consultant toGreat Hearts Academies(www.greatheartsaz.org) helpingthem realize their mission tocreate a network of academicallyrigorous, liberal arts middle andhigh schools in the Phoenixmetropolitan area. My wife,Alison, and I have one son, Noah, who was born nearly two years ago.”

1995JOEL ARD (A) and HANNAH

(STIRES) ARD (A92) welcomedRuth Anne Ard into the world onApril 4, 2005. Ruth joins bigbrother David (2 years old). TED NAFF (A92) is Ruth’s godfather. The Ards sadly lefttheir Annapolis abode and movedcloser to D.C. in June. They arenow in University Park, Md.Hannah is working part time for alaw firm in D.C. and Joel isworking at the Department ofJustice. They would love to hearfrom old friends and can bereached at [email protected].


{ A l u m n i N o t e s }34

ZENA HITZ (A) has accepted a job teaching philosophy at theUniversity of Maryland, Baltimore County, starting this fall.

MIKE LAYNE (A) writes: “Myfamily moved from Barrow toAnchorage last summer. We livenext door to DANNY MYERS (SF93).I am happy to report he still haslong hair and has stoppedwearing high-heels to Halloweenparties. THEA AGNEW (SF95) isalso living in Anchorage andexpecting her first baby inFebruary or March. Audrey Raewill turn 4 in February, andJackson will celebrate his firstbirthday in March. And I stillhave a full head of hair –thankgoodness. My work e-mail haschanged to: [email protected]—I’d love to hearfrom SJC alumni. I am a grantadministrator and grant writer fora non-profit tribal organization.This spring I am running for oneof the seats on the AnchorageSchool Board. Feel free to visitthe campaign Web site at:www.MikeLayne.info.”

1996 ANNE and MARK CORMIER (bothSFGI) write: “We’ve recentlymoved to a new house to accom-modate our newest addition,Sarah Clare, who was bornSeptember 29, 2005. Her oldersisters Anna (5) and Eliza (3)continue to astonish us with theirlimitless energy and freshperspective on our (their?) world.Mark is still teaching Englishliterature at Longmeadow HighSchool, and Anne is homeattempting to impart somethingthat might lead to virtue to thethree girls.”

ALLISON and JOHN EDDYBLOUIN

(SF) are enjoying life in mid-coastMaine: wooden boat building,home schooling, etc . . .

HANNAH GOLDSTEIN (NÉE

GILLELAN, A) joyfully announcesboth her November 2005marriage to Stephen Goldsteinand the opening of her own lawpractice. Hannah and Stephenlive on Capitol Hill in Wash-ington, D.C., just blocks from

fellow Annapolis alums RICH

(A96) and KARA (A99) LUNA.Hannah’s law practice focuses onestate planning and adoptions.She’d love to hear from anyone inthe area—her e-mail is [email protected].

1997MICHAEL CHIANTELLA (SF) hasbeen practicing law for threeyears. “Started my own firm in2004 in the lovely seaside town ofVenice, Florida. In October of2005, my wife and I attended thewedding of TAFFETA ELLIOTT

(SF97) in New York City.

DOMINIC CRAPUCHETTES (A) is enjoying the life of an entrepreneur: “North Star Gamesis now putting on corporate team-building events andmonthly trivia nights at severallocal bars. These events are ablast! Come join us. You canlearn about them at www.North-StarGames.com.” Sales of “Witsand Wagers,” he notes, havepicked up dramatically since thegame was featured in Time,Games Magazine, Knucklebones,and other media.

ARAND PIERCE (SF98) graduatedfrom the University of NewMexico Medical School May 12.He also was presented with anaward for academic, research andservice excellence May 11 at apublic ceremony at the UNMHealth Sciences Center.

1998 RICK FIELD (SF) recentlypublished a children’s book,Momma, Momma Brown Toes.The book is a collection of poemsand pictures inspired by his eight-year-old daughter, Amanda.

1999GREG KOEHLERT (SFGI) wants allhis old friends to know that heand Merrie have bought an apartment in Park Slope inBrooklyn. Also, Greg andMerrie’s daughter is turning onearound Thanksgiving.

PATRICK BARRINGTON REED (AGI)writes: “Our first baby, LucilleLahja Reed, was born June 17,2005. Now, we move in April toBitburg, Germany—thanks to theAir Force. We expect to be onhand at the World Cup thissummer and at the Tour deFrance in July. May God bless St.John’s College!”

“It’s been 10 years since I last sawmost of you, and I hope life istreating you well,” writesBENJAMIN THORNBER (A). “After leaving St. John’s in ’96, Itransferred to Guilford College, aQuaker school in North Carolina.While there, I met my fiancée,Eva, whom I’m marrying thisJuly. I graduated from seminaryin 2004 and I’m now the pastor ofa Quaker church. While my timeat St. John’s was quite brief, Ireally value the friendships that I made there. Let’s get back in touch!”

2000ZACHARY WARZEL and ERIKA

CARLSON (both SF) were marriedin August 2005 in Colorado, theirnew home after a move from NewYork City in May 2005. Erikareceived a master’s degree inhistoric preservation fromColumbia University in May 2005and is working as a preservationspecialist at Humphries PoliArchitects in Denver. Zachreceived a law degree fromBrooklyn Law School in May2005 and is currently working asa litigation associate at Roberts

Prefers Sleeping

BETH MARTIN and ALEX GAMMON (both A94) arepleased to announce the arrival of their son,Theodore Jasper Gammon. Theodore made hisappearance on January 29, 2006, at 8:27 a.m.,weighing in at 8 lbs 9.4 oz. All are doing well, andTheodore prefers to spend his time eating, sleeping,

and making his parents smile. x


{ A l u m n i N o t e s } 35

Levin & Patterson in Denver, aplaintiffs’ litigation firm.

CHRISTOPHER VAUGHAN (A)continues to work with his olderbrother, renovating old houses.He is engaged to ASHLEY BROOK

TYLER (A07) and is taking classesat a local college to prepare forgrad school.

“I have been accepted into theUniversity of Tennessee’s Collegeof Veterinary Medicine and willbe starting that program in thefall,” writes BEN YOUNG (A). “My wife and our dogs still have not tired of my stories from St. John’s.”

2001DANIEL FRAM (SF) reports that heis “living cheap in Boston;playing the now smoke-free Irish pubs and sneaking intoclasses on ethics.”

JESSICA K. REITZ (A) and Christopher Wallace proudlyannounce the birth of their firstson, William Alexander Wallace,born March 21, 2006.

2002ALANA and JOEY CHERNILLA (bothSF) had their second little girl,Rose Isabella, in February. SadiePearl recently turned two.“Besides enjoying our intensedomesticity, Joey runs a daycare,and I work in publishing andtutor home-schoolers in Euclid,”Alana writes.

MEGAN GRAFF (A) writes: “After afew years spent working in what islaughably known as ‘the realworld,’ I will begin attending theNorth Carolina School of the Artsthis fall as an MFA candidate inPerforming Arts Management.”

ERIN KRASNIEWICZ (A) is living inPhiladelphia with RANDY PENNELL

(also A02) and working as alibrary research assistant for the Pew Charitable Trusts. “This is really the time to be inPhiladelphia, which is under-going a renaissance of sorts,” she writes. “Drop us a line ifyou’d like to see the sights, welove to show off our city.”

GEORGE NELSON and MONICA

ANATALIO (both A) are gettingmarried this August in downtownWashington, D.C., and will behoneymooning in Rome andAthens. George is in his first yearat American University’s Wash-ington College of Law and will bepursuing the litigation track.

Monica is graduating fromCatholic University’s ColumbusSchool of Law and will be anattorney for the U.S. GovernmentAccountability Office, the investi-gatory arm of Congress.

2003CORINNE HUTCHINSON (SF) andPAUL OBRECHT (SF02) aregetting married in Santa Fe this coming spring.

KATE REDDING (A) is enrolled atthe University of WesternOntario in Canada, where she isstudying for a certification inpiano technology.

ISAAC SMITH (A) is going to theUniversity of Maryland this fall tobegin studies toward a master’sdegree in public policy. Hewrites, “Johnnies in the D.C. areainterested in politics, policy, theold days, or anything else shoulddrop me a line [email protected].”

2004After her retirement from St.John’s a few years ago, GINGER

ROHERTY (HSF) is now director ofdevelopment for the Santa FeChildren’s Museum.

DOUGLAS C. TURNER (A, aka RexNerdorum, Archon of Melee)married DARLENE B. ROGERS

(A05) on September 3, 2005, inAlford, Mass., Rev. David Rogers,father of the bride, presiding.Several Johnnies were in attendance, women in variousgreen costumes and men intuxedos, armed with broadswordsfor the ceremonial arch. Thehoneymoon in London includedPhantom of the Opera and twoplays at the Globe, Pericles andThe Tempest. The newlyweds livein Annapolis. Darlene works for

Coldwell Banker in Annapolis,and Douglas works as a courtreporter for a firm in Washington, D.C. x

2005CYNTHIA BARRY (AGI) has recentlycompleted text-editing theNational Geographic CollegiateAtlas of the World, to bepublished in fall 2006. She andANDREW ROMITI (A06) arecurrently conducting Touchstones discussions withmiddle-schoolers at St. Martin’s-in-the-Field Day School inSeverna Park, Md., where Ms. Barry is the librarian. x

What’s Up?The College wants to hear fromyou. Call us, write us, e-mail us.Let your classmates know whatyou’re doing. The next issuewill be published in October;deadline for the alumni notessection is August 1.

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

In Santa Fe:The College MagazineSt. John’s College1160 Camino Cruz Blanca Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599; [email protected]

Have your fellow Johnnies losttrack of you? Reconnect withyour classmates by joining theonline alumni community atwww.stjohnscollege.edu; clickon For Alumni and follow thelinks from there. More than3,000 alumni have registeredfor the community. Johnniescan also sign up to receive afree St. John’s e-mail addressfor life, post resumes or jobopenings through the CareerServices section, find outwhat’s happening in theirlocal chapters, and registerfor events online.

No Mail?

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


36

Studying individual fiddler crabs isinteresting to biologist DenisePope (SF89). But what she reallylikes to do is get them in a group,stand back, and see what develops.

In her research on fiddler crabs,Pope focuses less on the brain andbody of a single crab and more onhow many crabs interact andcommunicate. For her, thearthropod’s life is as much aboutits environment and society as it isabout its breath, blood, and neuralsignals. “I enjoy being able tomake inferences by watchingwhole organisms and what they doand how they interact,” she explains. “I want to manipulate them just enough toask questions.”

An assistant professor in the biologydepartment at Trinity University in SanAntonio, Texas, Pope spends the academicyear communicating her enthusiasm for thelife of animals to students. Her summers arespent going to where the crabs are—Panamaand Portugal—for example. Days in the fieldare spent observing animals and recordingher observations in the summer sun; duringthe evenings she enjoys local cuisine andgood conversation.

In her classes, Pope teaches students to ask scientific questions and discoveranswers in the lab. Her research into animal behavior gives her students plenty of opportunity to see science as an undiscovered country. When Pope beganstudying fiddler crabs, enough was knownabout the animals to give her a basis for herresearch, but enough was unknown thatPope had to learn for herself the advantagesand disadvantages of studying crabs in captivity.

Pope knew she wanted to study animalbehavior since high school. “I was a shykid,” she says, “and gravitated towardanimals. Lots of people would say, ‘Oh, youmust want to be a vet.’ ”

Through a high-school assignment, Pope found that a person with an interest in animals did not have to become a veterinarian. She discovered the work of

Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz, twokey researchers of animal behavior.

“My reasons for studying animal behaviorcome from a fascination, appreciation, andlove for the natural world for its own sake,not for what it teaches me about myself ormy species,” Pope says. Though she recognizes commonalities between humansand animals, Pope also notes, “Our culture,society, and our obsessive and intenseinternal life that enables us to analyze andquestion our own actions set us apart insome ways from other animals.” Because ofthis, she is careful about comparing humanbehavior to that of animals.

The breadth of Pope’s interests broughther to St. John’s for her undergraduatedegree. Her teaching philosophy is heavilyinfluenced by her experience at the college,and by seeing the process of discoveryrather than only the discovery itself. Shewrote her essay on Kant and quantumtheory.

“I couldn’t get over how much everythingis overturned,” Pope says, “seeing what ahuge shift there was. Quantum mechanicsblew me away, but it wasn’t just that. I readJoyce for preceptorial, and then we readNietzsche and Freud. It was the accumula-tion of it all. There was the building up ofthis realization that the physical world isn’tat all what I thought it was. It epitomizes thesense of science as natural philosophy.”

Soon after graduation, Pope worked forthe GenBank Project in Los AlamosNational Laboratory, which paid for biology

classes that allowed her to preparefor the Graduate Record Exam.She enrolled in Duke University,where she earned her Ph.D. inzoology in 1998.

At Duke, Pope discovered herlove of fiddler crabs. Havingbegun with the study of birdsong,

the typical focus of scientists with her typeof interest, she found herself feelingdiscouraged.

“It seemed as if everyone else had perfectpitch and an excellent sense of acoustics,”Pope says. “. . . I decided I was more visualand wanted to look at visual signaling.”

A friend pointed her toward fiddler crabsbecause the males have an enlarged clawthat they wave in a visual display, “which ispresumed to attract females for mating.”“They’re surprisingly entertaining andcharismatic animals,” she says.

This experience of science as hands-on, awork-in-progress, full of unknowns and theneed for ingenuity, is an experience shetries to re-create in her classes. She givesher students a great deal of autonomy in thelab, autonomy she knows can be dauntingbefore becoming liberating. She is alsohelping to redesign introductory biologycourses at Trinity, reshaping them toemphasize the questioning and searching ofreal science.

With such an intense and busy workinglife, Pope pursues a more relaxing scheduleoutside academe. She read GregoryMaguire’s Wicked during breaks from asymposium she recently attended in Japan.She has three cats at home and loves tocook. Though she learned to cook red andgreen chili and posole after the time shespent in Santa Fe, Pope has given upcooking New Mexican dishes for friends,offering Tex-Mex instead. “They can’t takethe heat,” she says. x

The Secret Lives of CrabsBiologist Denise Pope (SF89) Finds the Charisma in Animals

by Erica Naone (A05)

When she’s not doing fieldwork, Denise Pope shares theSt. John’s method of inquirywith her students at TrinityUniversity: ask questions andtalk it through.


{ T r i b u t e s } 37

Thomas McDonald, who was a tutorfor 33 years in Annapolis and SantaFe, died in December 2005. Hisformer student and good friend JohnWhite (class of 1964) prepared thisremembrance of Mr. McDonald for amemorial service that was held inBaltimore earlier this year:

Tom was the best teacher I had. He was the most intelligent man I’veever known, and he was the besteducated. His memory was extraor-dinary, but it never seemed to be justa scholar’s memory. It was part ofhis living and thinking, a “human”memory; he was never showy orpedantic. His personality wascompelling. His classes wereintense, but relieved by bursts oflaughter. Whatever you studied withhim was worth your best effort, butbeing serious is not the same asbeing grim. His classes were longand often exhausting because of thenervous stimulation of concentra-tion. I felt I was asked to give all Icould and felt “used up” and elated.I learned more, and more quickly,than from any other academic experience. Tom somehow elicited his fierceattention and urgency without usinganything that might lead to argument ratherthan thought. My contact with him as ateacher had a beginning and end. Although Inever stopped learning from him (and [hiswife] Julia), he became a friend as well.

In the fall of 1964, Tom’s second year at St. John’s, Ed Weinberger (class of 1965), aclassmate, gathered a group of students toread a Kant essay with Tom. I didn’t knowTom at the time . . . We met in Tom’s apartment at 214 Prince George Street. The day was cold and the room was very hot.Tom’s voice was soft and monotonous. Thebuilding was old and the windows had the oldglass, the glass of uneven thickness andbubbles. I stared outside, slowly moving myhead back and forth, watching the trees thecars ripple and wobble. Then a word or anintonation caught my attention. By chance Iactually heard two or three sentences. At firstthey were strange sounding, difficult, then

they became clear, then they becamethrilling. I had a moment where I lost myorientation, even got a little dizzy: This man was saying wonderful things in anunemphatic way. Why wasn’t he shoutingand gesturing? Strange man.

In the next years he gave many of theseextra classes on diverse subjects such aspoetry, mathematics, Latin, and German. All faculty members were generous with

their time, but no faculty memberhad done so much teaching “justbecause people wanted to learn.”He did all of this and advised 6-10 senior essays each year, untilhis health gave out.

After that first Kant class, agroup of us asked Tom to give apreceptorial on Hegel. Hegel wasa daring choice (in a teeny-tinyway): for some reason, withoutexception, the faculty was againstGerman philosophy and Hegel.They made fun of Hegel. Not onlywas there no serious effort tounderstand Hegel, there was pridein claiming not to understandhim. The Philosophy of Historywas read in senior seminar at thattime. The book encouragedstudents to produce grandiosehistorical statements, the kind ofstatements that their freshman

seminar leaders had convinced them not to make.

The preceptorial meetings always ranlonger than the scheduled time—partlybecause at the beginning of class Tom alwayscame 10-15 minutes late, partly because atthe end of class Tom took 5-10 minutes todecide on the next reading, but mostlybecause we never looked at the clock. We never stopped in the middle of a conversation. After the preceptorial wasover, we gathered around Tom to ask morequestions. Tom loved to think; he couldn’tstop. He had patience and concentrationbeyond anything I’d ever experienced. Oncewhen I was on my way to a one o’clock class,I saw him and a student standing on thecorner of College Avenue and Prince GeorgeStreet, deep in conversation despite thefalling snow. And when I left two hours later,they were still there, still talking, brushingsnow off their sleeves.

Remembering Tom McDonald

Johnnies admired TomMcDonald (class of 1948, shownhere with his dog Belle) for hisbrilliance, his sense of humor,and his humility.

“He helped you to see things clearly from

all sides, to keep thedifficulties in mind

while not being over-powered by them.”

John White


{ T r i b u t e s }3838

In class Tom spoke more directly than myother teachers. But he was not gatheringdisciples, even though he was muchadmired. He always made one feel that thematerial was important and subtle, and itneeded and deserved serious effort. Usuallyhis students did not know what Tom’sopinion was. He helped you to see thingsclearly from all sides, to keep the difficultiesin mind while not being overpowered by them.

After the Hegel preceptorial, I asked Tomto advise my senior essay. We talked atlength and he came up with a suggestion thatallowed me to pursue several of the things Iwas interested in. We had to considerpassages from four or five Platonic dialoguesand some Hegel. The plan was exciting. Up until that time at St. John’s I had had onlythree or four paper conferences. But now Imet with Tom two or three times a week, andthe meetings lasted two to four hours. Some-times I went there in the afternoon, workedon revisions, was invited to dinner, thenstarted to work again. (Julia also helped me.)

I had never worked so long or so hard on onething; new standards and habits began totake hold. We worked on my essay beyondthe deadline—one week, then two weeks, allthe time the dean giving me looks. But Icouldn’t actually get the essay from Tom,who saw new paths, better ways of inter-preting and explaining. I sort of tricked himto get the paper back and hand it in. (I thinkhe was not a fan of finishing things.)

Between the end of essay writing and theend of the year, I saw another side of Tom.One Friday afternoon, I was in lab, in themidst of a long discussion. Ed Weinbergeropened the door and interrupted the class.“Excuse me, is John White in this class?” I raised my hand. Ed said, “You have animportant call at the switchboard. Could youcome with me?” As we walked down the hall,Ed told me not to worry; “McDonald and Iwanted to play Monopoly and we need you.”We played a lot of Monopoly at that time(driving Julia crazy). I learned from Tom thatthe best properties on the board wereTennessee, New York, and St. James. I also

learned that Tom had a dark side. He saidthat during a game his motives were greedand spite, no more, no less: he bought everyproperty he landed on—even pathetic Waterworks—because 1) he wanted it forhimself and 2) he didn’t want anyone else toget it. At graduation several of his studentsgot together and gave Tom a present tothank him for a wonderful year: an 8" x 11" card for Boardwalk . . . .

I think of Tom as liberal, generous in hisactions and judgments. He was free with histime and his mind to those who sought himout. He didn’t care for foolish, shallowpeople. He liked people who workedintensely and liked to laugh. To be serious isnot to be grim. He was side-splittingly funnyat times. He was intelligent, well-educated,serious, witty, good company—also unusual,different, and even eccentric. But wheneveryou talked to him, after five minutes, youfelt, “This is what sanity is, this is the way ahuman mind was meant to work.” x

CHARLOTTE FLETCHER, HA69Charlotte Goldsborough Fletcher (HA69),former librarian of St. John’s College inAnnapolis, died of pneumonia March 29,2006, at the age of 90. After her retirement in1981, she pursued a scholarly interest in theearly history of the college and publishedseveral works, including St. John’s Forever:Five Essays on the History of St. John’sCollege and Cato’s Mirania: A Life of Provost Smith.

In one of her essays, MissFletcher made the most solid caseyet for explaining how St. John’sgot its name. Many hours spentporing through the Maryland andSt. John’s archives led her toconclude that St. John’s was likelynamed by Masons involved in thefounding of the college for St. John the Evangelist—perhapsto honor George Washington. “It is hard to understand why acloud of mystery has ever sinceenveloped the circumstances ofthe naming,” Miss Fletcherwrote. “But if Masons wereresponsible, one could expect

secrecy about their role. Discretion . . . is thefirst of the Masonic virtues.”

Miss Fletcher was born in Cambridge, Md.,in 1915. She earned her bachelor’s degreefrom Hollins College and a bachelor’s inlibrary science from Columbia University,both in 1939. Miss Fletcher was conferredwith a Master of Arts, honoris causa, from St. John’s when Woodward Hall was rededi-cated on October 18, 1969.

After several years at the Enoch Pratt FreeLibrary in Baltimore, she became librarian ofthe Talbot County Free Library. In July 1944she began 37 years of service to St. John’sCollege. She retired in 1981, but as she livedclose to the college, was a frequent visitor to campus.

Miss Fletcher was a favorite of students andfaculty. During the years before the NavalAcademy-St. John’s croquet matches, MissFletcher kept her own croquet set at the

library and was always willingto lend it to students—oftenwith the stipulation that she beinvited to join them. Althoughnormally a gentle, soft-spokenperson, on the croquet courtshe took no prisoners. In addition to croquet, she

Longtime St. John’slibrarian CharlotteFletcher displays a bookfrom the St. John’s “cage” inthe Maryland State Archivesbuilding, later to becomethe Greenfield Library, in1974. Miss Fletcher pursueda special interest in thecollege’s history.

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{ O b i t u a r i e s } 3939

instructed generations of students in theesoteric art of bookbinding.

Miss Fletcher traveled widely with hersister, Mary Henry Fletcher, who died earlierthis year. At the time of her death she wasplanning another trip to Europe and in themidst of writing a second book, a collectionof short stories.

The college plans a memorial service forMiss Fletcher in the fall.

—Rose Wynn

ARCHER JONES, CLASS OF 1947Archer Jones, Class of 1947, died in Richmond, Va., on January 23, 2006. Mr. Jones enrolled in St. John’s in July of1943. After three years at the college he wasdrafted into the Army in 1946. After hisdischarge in 1947, Mr. Jones, apprehensiveabout taking the enabling examinations aftersuch a long break, transferred to Hampden-Sydney College, graduating in 1949.

He then enrolled in the University ofVirginia’s law school, but later decided topursue his deep attachment to history. Hereceived a doctorate in history from UVA in1958 and launched a career as a teacher,academic administrator, and author. Hetaught at the University of Virginia,Hampden-Sydney, Randolph-MaconWomen’s College, and the Virginia Poly-technic Institute and State University. Thecapstone of his teaching career was hisservice as Morrison Professor of History atthe U.S. Army’s Command and Staff Collegeat Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Mr. Jones held a number of key academicposts: dean of Clinch Valley College of theUniversity of Virginia; founder of the Department of History and Political Scienceat Virginia Tech; associate dean of theUniversity of South Carolina; and for manyyears, dean of the College of Humanities,Social Sciences, Business Administration,and Education at North Dakota State University.

He was a prolific and prize-winning writerin the field of military history. He was the co-author of: Politics of Command; How theNorth Won; and Why the South Lost. Hismagnum opus was The Art of War in theWestern World.

Mr. Jones is survived by his wife, JoanneLeach Jones, a son, and two grandchildren.

Ever a loyal St. John’s alumnus, Mr. Jonesfelt that whatever success and recognition hemay have achieved were the direct result ofhis undergraduate studies in the New

Program. He always expressed great affectionfor the college and his fellow Johnnies, andwas a frequent attendee of homecomings anda generous contributor to various St. John’sfundraising efforts.

—George M. Van Sant, Class of 1947

EDWARD LATHROP, CLASS OF 1938 Edward Flint “Ned” Lathrop died April 8,2006, in Annapolis. He was a decoratedNaval officer and a St. John’s tutor who alsotaught mathematics. As director of athletics,he organized the intramural program at St. John’s.

Capt. Lathrop spent two years at the CoastGuard Academy before transferring to St. John’s. He joined the St. John’s facultyand taught until 1941 before enlisting in theNavy. During World War II he served aboardsubmarines in the Pacific and was awardedthe Bronze Star and Silver Star medals.

After the war he rejoined the St. John’sfaculty in 1945, where he remained until 1950before returning to active duty in the Navy.At the time of his retirement in 1965, he wascommanding officer of the Naval ReserveTraining Center in Baltimore.

In 1965 Capt. Lathrop began teachingmathematics at the Landon School inBethesda, Md. He created Landon’s firstvarsity lacrosse team and served as headcoach until 1974, when he returned toAnnapolis.

MERLE SHORE, CLASS OF 1954A gathering in honor of Merle Shore, amember of the class of 1954 who became anoted artist and art director, will be held atthe home of tutor Sam Kutler and his wife,Emily (classes of 1954 and ’55), duringHomecoming Weekend 2006 in Annapolis.Mr. Shore died January 28, 2006, in SantaBarbara, Calif., at the age of 86.

After serving in the Navy for five yearsduring World War II, Mr. Shore started hisown graphic and commercial art studio inHollywood, Calif. In 1950, at age 31, hefulfilled a lifelong ambition to attend St. John’s and put his art career on hold whilehe immersed himself in the Program.

After graduating from St. John’s, Mr. Shoreresumed his professional art career in SantaBarbara. Mr. Shore served as art director forFrank Sinatra’s Reprise label, as well as artdirector for Verve and Warner Brothers,where he also illustrated album covers. Heillustrated for magazines including Esquire,Playboy, Saturday Evening Post, and

Atlantic Monthly. He did book illustrationsand commercial advertising. His artistictalents extended to the cinema as well; hedesigned graphics for the films ManchurianCandidate and Spartacus. He was also aserious painter.

Mr. Shore is survived by his wife, PriscillaBender-Shore (class of 1955), whom hemarried in 1951 and who attended St. John’swith him, a daughter, son, son-in-law, threegrandchildren and two brothers.

For details on the luncheon gathering,contact Mr. Kutler at: 410-263-2261, or by e-mail at: [email protected].

ALEX MAGOSCI , SF89Alex Magosci, SF89, died Friday, March 24,2006, in Santa Fe. Born in New York andraised in Dallas, Mr. Magosci was an accomplished writer and musician who mademany friends, especially in the music scene inSanta Fe. After graduating from St. John’s in1989, he became music editor for The DallasObserver. He moved back to Santa Fe in 1990and later became an editor and columnist forthe Santa Fe New Mexican. He was adrummer for a number of rock groups both inDallas and Santa Fe.

ALSO NOTED: JOHN BRUNN (class of 1947), Jan. 17, 2006D. MASON CHEEZUM (class of 1933), Feb. 2,2006BRUCE COLLIER (class of 1965), March 26, 2006THE REV. FREDERICK P. DAVIS (class of 1949),Jan. 7, 2006THOMAS G. FROMME (class of 1950), March 31,2006MICHAEL F. GRAY (SGI84), Jan. 29, 2005MARK HABREL (SF75), March 10, 2006THOMAS JUSKEVICH (A03), March 15, 2006LAWRENCE KANTOR (class of 1935), Feb. 20,2006HAROLD MILSTEAD (class of 1937), March 23,2006RALPH RACE (class of 1930), died February 20,2006STEWART A. WASHBURN (class of 1951), Feb. 17,2006INA WUNDRAM (SFGI97), Jan. 18, 2006


{ C r o q u e t }40

Geremy Coy (A06) neverdreamed he’d get to be “theman.” He had never beenhoisted atop the shouldersof a little league team afterhitting the winning home-

run, never doused with Gatorade afterscoring the winning touchdown.

But thanks to croquet, Coy got to be asports hero. Three-and-a-half hours into theannual contest with Navy, the Johnnies hadwon two matches, and a tense match wasunfolding between Coy and Mac Ward (A06)and their Navy opponents. The Mids weredetermined to try to take the Annapolis Cupfor the second straight year. Coy was in position to make the winning shot. WithZen-like concentration, he took the malletinto his hands . . . and had ESPN been there, this is what he would have told the interviewer:

“I had gone through all my wickets, so allI had to do was finish. There’s a rule that ifthe other team knocks your ball into thestake, then you lose two turns, and you haveto go to the other end of the court, hit thatstake and then go back down and hit the

other stake. That happened; Navystaked me out. So, on my firstturn after sitting out, I took ashot to go to the other end of thecourt, and that turned out nicely.Navy set themselves right in frontof the wickets that they needed togo through next, and they werehalfway back to the finishingstake.They could have won.

“The closest ball to me wasblue. But it was probably about20- to 30-feet away—the HailMary shot of croquet. On myturn—what actually turned out tobe the actual last turn—I tookprobably an eight-foot shot to hitthe stake. Because I hit thestake, I got an extra shot. Thefirst plan that presented itselfwas to rocket my ball to the otherend of the court so I could beclose to that stake. But Navy was guarding that stake, so therewas a chance of being staked out again.

“As I was setting myself up totake that shot, suddenly Plan Barose, and I saw blue, lodged inhis wicket. That was the longshot. I struck the ball—it was aleap of faith shot. I worried Ihadn’t put enough on it, but ittook the perfect little curve andhit blue—the crowd erupted, thiswas huge!

“So, I had a second shot on them, andnow I had to get to black, all the way over onthe other side of the court. I reared back,put as much as I could into it, somehow itbounced off a nearby wicket, and struckblack! Now I had two more shots, and thisserene calm. Since Navy had been sticklersabout the quiver rule [when two balls are incontact, the striking player must make theopponent’s ball quiver], I was careful when I

hit the ball. But my ball ended much fartherfrom the stake. All I had to do was hit thestake and win the game. I bent down on oneknee. I could hear people on the sidelines. I reared back, hit the ball, hit the stake, Macrushed at me, people were swarming, andmy glasses were lost.”

Final score: St. John’s 5, Navy 0. x

S W E E T V I C T O R Y

Above: Mac Ward and Geremy Coy (both A06) pondertheir strategy; at left: Coy celebrates victory. Opposite page, clockwise: the Dobbyn family, deckedout in seersucker suits: Jack (A02), Joe (A05), Mike (A06), and Dick (A06), with future JohnnieAlex Dobbyn; Tutor Cordell Yee and his daughter,before the skies cleared; a natty group of Johnniesenjoy a beautiful afternoon; Navy’s minions awaittheir duties; Peter Kalkavage leads the freshmanchorus.

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41

The ThemeSoviet Domination. The team uniformsthis year were red t-shirts with thehammer and sickle (croquet malletstaking the place of the hammer).The team emerged from the Barr-

Buchanan Center to the Beatles’ “Back in the USSR.”

The TeamImperial Wicket Matt Mangold (A06);Rob Hurst (A07); Tommy Dyer (A06);Micah Beck (A09); Ian Hanover (A08);Charlie Fleming (A08); Mac Ward(A06); Geremy Coy (A06); Paul Patrone(A06); Andrew MacKinlay (A06); WillKelly (A07); and Dan Houck (A06).

The Touch of IronyAs part of the croquet tradition, theImperial Wicket went to the NavalAcademy the Friday before the match tospeak to the Corps of Midshipman atlunch in the mess hall following theirnoontime formation. In keeping with theSoviet theme the Johnnies adopted, MattMangold read two pages of excerpts fromthe Communist Manifesto. But not aword could be heard above the din of theMiddies, hooting, hollering, andbanging their silverware against theirplates and on the tables. (It is anothergood-natured part of the tradition for theCorps to shout down the Johnnie.) “Itwas hard to pass up the chance—so richwith irony—to read Karl Marx to thisroom of some 4,000 screamingmidshipmen,” said Mangold. x

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42 { F r o m t h e B e l l T o w e r s }{ A l u m n i A s s o c i a t i o n N e w s }

I recently made mypledge to thecollege’s CapitalCampaign, and I amhoping you will, too!As my non-Johnniehusband and I talkedabout our gift, I had achance to articulatefor him the severalreasons that I wanted to give the largest giftwe could afford.

First, I hope that generations of eagerreaders and talkers can immerse themselvesin the St. John’s Program long into thefuture. I want to help ensure that others havethe same opportunity I had when I went tocollege to engage with the books and fellowstudents as we learned about ourselves, eachother, and the most profound questions. I feelhonor-bound to help others share this experi-ence.

Second, I see my gift as an acknowledge-ment of the people at the college who taughtme so much. Tutors, administrators, andfellow students all shared their questions andemerging answers with me. I want to say“thank you” to one particular tutor who readmy Kant essay, gave me a copy of Strunk andWhite’s The Elements of Style, and sent mehome to rewrite and rethink it. I can namethe people who influenced me, just as I’m

sure you can name those who were importantin your time at St. John’s. Conversations withthese people were most intense while I wason campus, but they have continued throughthe years and (I expect) will carry on throughmy lifetime.

Third, I wish to help make an investmentin the physical and fiscal infrastructure thatsupports the college. As a student I had littleappreciation for the practical side of thecollege community. I didn’t know (or care)what it cost to house and feed us, to maintaina committed faculty, and to take care of themyriad challenges of daily life. Today I appre-ciate the institutional needs and monetarynecessities of sustaining a community like St.John’s, and I want to do what I can so thoseon the campuses can focus on the work thatreally matters—reading and talking about thebooks.

Finally, my gift is, in part, a thank-you tothose alumni and friends of St. John’s whohave made leadership gifts to the campaign.We have received some remarkable gifts fromindividuals with much greater giving capacitythan mine. My gift is one way I can thankthem for their commitment to the college’scommunity, institution, and Program. Theyhave invested in our college because theybelieve in our principles and want to helpperpetuate this special way of learning andteaching. With my gift, I want to thankeveryone who invests in St. John’s.

There are many other reasons for me andprobably for you, too: • Foundations are impressed and give more

when a high percentage of alumni partici-pate in giving to the college.

• Government support for private colleges isdwindling or being redirected.

• Many students who want and would benefitfrom a St. John’s education struggle tomake ends meet.

• Giving to the college keeps me connectedwith a community of people I admire andenjoy.

• I see a new level of strength and stability incollege staff and leadership.

• I am concerned about the state of thepublic discourse across the country, and Ithink the college offers a good alternativeto dogma and demagoguery.

• I want to be sure that when I come back formy 40th, 50th, and 60th reunions thecollege is there to greet me—stronger thanever.The Alumni Association is independent of

the college, and as an organization we focuson serving the constituency of the alumni (asopposed to being organizationally focused onfundraising). We provide opportunities foralumni to engage in many ways that do notinvolve financial support. On the other hand,the Alumni Association board recognizes thesignificance of this campaign and iscommitted to supporting the “clear andsingle purpose.” The board has approved acampaign gift of $75,000 to support thecollege’s new online alumni community(click on “For Alumni” on the college’s Website) and endowment for scholarships. Wealso expect that every one of the 47 membersof the Alumni Association board will make apersonal pledge to support the campaign.Please join us. Whatever your reasons, I’msure they are compelling. Thank you for allthe ways you support the college!

Glenda Eoyang (SF76)

From the AlumniAssociation President

ALBUQUERQUERobert Morgan, [email protected]

ANNAPOLISBeth Martin Gammon,

[email protected]

AUSTIN Charles Claunch,

SFGI05512-446-0222cclaunch.sjcalum@

earthlink.net

BALTIMOREDeborah Cohen, A77410-472-9158

[email protected]

BOSTONDianne Cowan, [email protected]

CHICAGORick Lightburn, [email protected]

DALLAS/FORTWORTH

Paula Fulks, [email protected]

DENVER/BOULDERLee Katherine

Goldstein, SGI90720-746-1496LGoldstein@

Lindquist.com

MINN./ST. PAULCarol Freeman, [email protected]

NEW YORK CITYDaniel Van Doren, A81914-949-6811president@

sjcalums.com

NORTHERN CALIF.Reynaldo Miranda, A99415-333-4452reynaldo.miranda@

gmail.com

PHILADELPHIAHelen Zartarian, AGI86215-482-5697helenstevezartarian@

mac.com

PITTSBURGHJoanne Murray, A70724-325-4151Joanne.Murray@

alcoa.com

PORTLANDLake Perriguey, [email protected]

SAN DIEGOStephanie Rico, [email protected]

SALT LAKE CITYErin Hanlon, [email protected]

SANTA FERichard Cowles,

[email protected]

SEATTLEJames Doherty, [email protected]

SOUTH FLORIDAJon Sackson, A69305-682-4634jonathan.sackson@

ubs.com

SOUTHERN CALIF.Elizabeth Eastman,

[email protected]

TRIANGLE CIRCLE,NORTH CAROLINA

Susan Eversole, [email protected]

WASHINGTON, DCDeborah Papier, [email protected]

WESTERN NEWENGLAND

Peter Weiss, SF84413-367-2174peter_weis@

nmhschool.org

CHAPTER CONTACTS

42



Eva in IsraelAnnapolis tutor Eva Brann was asked tolecture at the Israel Academy of Sciencesand Humanities in January. She spoke onPlato’s Republic and the next day took partin a seminar with members of the Philos-ophy Department of the Hebrew University.“It began wonderfully when a professorsaid, ‘I will tell you the difference between aSocratic conversation and a Talmudicdiscussion. In the first, Socrates and hispartners all come knowing nothing andthey leaving knowing nothing, friends asbefore. In the second, the rabbis come eachwith his opinion and they leave each withthat opinion, friends as before.’ ”

The college knows of 23 alumni living inIsrael. Miss Brann had an opportunity tomeet about half of them at a lively dinnerin Jerusalem. “One, Jed Arkin (A85), madehimself my special host, and we did some-thing marvelous,” Miss Brann says. “We—he and his lovable two sons and his armypal and I—went to the Negev, the beautifuldesert in southern Israel. We went in twojeeps, intercom, mini-Uzi, water and all,but the land was empty and grand.” x

West CoastJohnniesDedicated volunteers have always been thehallmark of strong alumni chapters, andElizabeth Eastman (SFGI84), president ofthe Southern California Chapter for thepast six years, is no exception. “I’ve always been looking for ways to extend the mission of St. John’s outside theboundaries of the Annapolis and Santa Fecampuses,” says Eastman, “Alumni chapters can play a critical role inextending the college’s reach.”

Six years ago, Eastman, with the help ofSusan Allen (SGI89), a member of thecollege’s Board of Visitors and Governors,reinvigorated the Southern Californiachapter, drawing members from a widegeographic area that was once served bythree chapters. “There is an enormouschallenge here because of the distancespeople have to travel and the traffic. To make this viable we had to select acentral location, the Westwood area of Los Angeles, and the time we picked,Sunday afternoon, is also dictated by the

traffic,” says Eastman. Members, whoinclude Benjamin Friedman (SF95),Dierdre Lenihan (A67), and Amy Cooper(SF75), come from Los Angeles as well asareas such as Claremont, 40 miles east,Santa Barbara, 90 miles north, andOrange, about 32 miles southeast.

The geographic spread of the chapter’sarea also dictates the kinds of events thechapter can hold. “We don’t have signatureevents like wine tastings and cultural activities. We are solely a reading group,”says Eastman. “It can take some memberslonger to travel here than they’re here forthe seminar, so we have a potluck followingit to make it worthwhile. It is a contrast toNew York chapter, for instance, where theyhave ease of access to the downtown area.”

Eastman mails postcard reminders onemonth prior to each gathering, invitingalumni, friends of the college, and alsoparticipants in the Summer Classicsprogram offered at Santa Fe. Alumni—about half are from Annapolis and halffrom Santa Fe—bring along significantothers, spouses, and friends for themonthly two-hour seminar which focuseson a reading chosen the month before.This spring, the Southern Californiachapter discussed Shakespeare’s Troilusand Cressida in March, and in April they will discuss “The Concept of thePolitical.” “It’s a short political tract thatCarl Schmitt wrote during the Weimarperiod in Germany after World War I,

but prior to Hitler’s riseto power,” says Eastman.

The person whochooses the reading typically leads theseminar, says Eastman.About half of the readings are from the St. John’s curriculum,including the EasternClassics program. “We talk about life experiences,” saysEastman. “It is notuncommon to havesomeone from everydecade, back to the1940s. This makes for afabulous discussion withdifferent perspectivesfrom different genera-tions, and yet age istranscended.”

Benjamin Friedman,who grew up in Santa Fe, where hismother worked at the college and both hisparents attended the Graduate Institute,agrees, “It’s very interesting having seminars with a more diverse group than Ihad as an undergrad; the maturity of theparticipants make for some fascinatingand surprising discussions. I run intopeople at the seminars who babysat mewhen they were students, or were theparents of children I played with duringthe summer GI sessions oh so many yearsago. I always wonder who I’ll encounterfrom my past when I walk into a seminar.”

Over the years the chapter membershave invited tutors to lead their discus-sions, among them Eva Brann, FrankPagano, John Balkcom (SFGI00), and Sam Kutler (class of 1954). “We also hadDanielle Allen, (Susan Allen’s daughterand a professor of classics at the Universityof Chicago) lead a seminar on her bookTalking to Strangers. I actually went to theSt. John’s summer day camp in Santa Fewith Danielle when we were both kids andher mom was in the GI,” says Freidman.

Eastman, a busy mother of two who hasa master’s degree in political science, willstep down this spring as president of theSouthern California chapter. But she’llalways make time for seminars with otherJohnnies. “The opportunity to have aconversation is so welcome, it bringsbalance to my life,” she says. x

43

A desert wanderer: Tutor Eva Brann with Tal and MatinArkin, sons of Jed Arkin (A85), in the Negev last winter.



Through the Summer Alumni Program inSanta Fe, alumni from both campuses canspend a week revisiting a favorite Programwork, discussing something they’ve neverread before with other Johnnies, painting,listening to opera, and enjoying thecompany of others who love books andideas. The program this year startsSunday, July 23, and runs through Friday,July 29, when Homecoming begins. Tofind out more about the program, visit thecollege Web site: www.stjohnscollege.edu;click on “Alumni” and follow the link tothe “Summer Alumni Program.” Moreinformation is available by calling theSanta Fe Alumni office at 505-984-6103.Two avid participants of the SummerAlumni Program shared their thoughts onwhat makes the week worthwhile.

“Revelling in Art”Elizabeth Pollard Jenny (SF80), an artistwho lives in Boulder, Co., brings art toparticipants in the Summer AlumniProgram.

In 1995, I noticed that St. John’s wasoffering alumni the chance to return toSanta Fe for a week with fellow alumnifrom all different years and from bothcampuses to study together. This seemedto me like a way to really keep the conver-sation going. St. John’s alumni leave thecollege with the message that we are theenduring community of the college. I havealways construed being a Johnnie to meanbeing a life-long learner who keeps theconversation going, in our world and inour college community.

I responded to the mailer because, alongwith giving me an opportunity to check inwith my fellow alumni, it offered me thechance to study art in one of the art capitals of the United States.That summer,I was fortunate to take the seminar,practicum, and lecture with tutors CharlesBell and Steve Houser, and with Steve’swife, Michelle Bender. Steve and Michelledesigned the art tutorial in Santa Fe. In addition, John Agresto, then presidentof the Santa Fe campus, took AlumniProgram and Summer Classics partici-pants on a tour of Hispanic religious folkart in Chimayo, Taos, and Truchas.

In addition to sharing his knowledge aboutthe artwork, John showed us a greatrestaurant along the Rio Grande, where westopped and had fresh trout for lunch.

During another summer, I took thecourse offerings that focused on issuesrelating to consciousness, artificial intelli-gence, and optics, with one of my formertutors, Phil Chandler (A68), and his son.The Alumni Program has been a wonderfulway to revisit familiar friends and places,but it has also been a way to meet newpeople and explore new paths in thisJohnnie enterprise of learning together.

That brings me to my role as offering anart practicum to alumni through theSummer Alumni Program. To me, paintingin and around Santa Fe with fellow alumniis like a dream come true. Add to this thatyou are in Santa Fe, you can see contempo-rary art shown in local galleries, and youcan meet artistic alumni during the All-Alumni Art Show.

With tutor Phil LeCuyer, this year I willbe leading the practicum side of “Plein-AirPainting as Practice and Reflection.” Theprogram includes seminar discussions ofthe nature of perception and the role ofvisual art in the formation of our languageof perception. Complementing seminar

discussion, the practicum brings partici-pants to paint outside at some of the mostcompelling sites in Santa Fe. Guidedgallery tours will provide an opportunityto revel in contemporary and classicWestern art. No painting experience is required.

This year’s other offerings are:Descartes’ Discourse on Method, led bytutor Sam Kutler (class of 1954) and theBook of Job and Karl Jung’s “Answer toJob,” led by tutors Keri Ames and Jessica Jerome.

“There’s a Special Conversation”Mary Fisher (AGI92) of Ontario, N.Y., will attend the Summer Alumni Programfor her fifth straight year.

After I graduated from the Graduate Institute in 1992, I received informationabout the Summer Alumni Program. I thought it would be a dream come true toreconnect with the college and haveenriching conversations with Johnnies.There’s a special kind of conversation thatwe develop among ourselves, and it’s awonderful way to encounter other human beings.

In 2002, I thought, “If I don’t startdoing it, when will I do it?” It’s not easy tomake these treks, but since my oldest sonand his family live in Colorado, I can get toSanta Fe on my trips to visit them. As Iconsidered signing up for the first year, thething that really clinched it for me was thatEva Brann and David Carl were leading adiscussion on the Republic and I had thenever had the opportunity take a seminarwith Miss Brann.

And there was Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte,with Peter Pesic. I’m a musician, so thatwas a joy. One of the wonderful thingsabout the Summer Alumni Program is thatwe have access to Santa Fe Opera tickets at a reduced rate.

One summer, as part of the seminar thatincluded plein-air painting with Liz Jenny,we made trips to artists’ studios. We werealso reading Heidegger and listening toDon Giovanni. I really have a specialappreciation for the seminars on the arts.In painting and in sculpture—in all thearts—we find different aspects of the

44

Summer in Santa Fe: Great Books, Great Friends

Catch up with friends this July in Santa Fe. Register by June 30 for theSummer Alumni Program.



Are you Reading?From Portland, Oregon to Putney,Vermont alumni chapters and groups allover the country continue to “read thebooks.” Eighteen chapters and threereading groups held events during 2005.In the last four years, several new groupsworked with the alumni offices to organizeseminars and other events. As one alumnawrote, “Anyone wish to start a readinggroup? I’m starving for some intellectualdiscourse.”Here’s a look at some newer locationscreating SJC alumni groups:

• The Pittsburgh group became achapter in 2003 after more than ayear of regular activities as a readinggroup. Though there are fewer than70 St. John’s alumni in their area,they have 6 to 10 people at theirmonthly events.

• The Western New England readinggroup has been holding seminarssince 2002. In 2005, they had aregular bi-monthly schedule of eventsfor their nearly 130 alumni.

• The Miami/South Florida readinggroup, drawing from over 200 alumniin their area, has held regular seminars during both 2004 and 2005 and will be petitioning tobecome a chapter this coming year.

• The Salt Lake City reading group hasheld seminars since November 2004.

There are only 45 alumni in the area,but they have had 6 to 14 peopleattending each event.

• In Atlanta, alumni stay connectedwith informal groups and at gather-ings sponsored by the Alumni office.

• A meeting is planned in Phoenix toorganize area alumni this spring.

• Interest is brewing to start a localchapter in the Indianapolis area.Though the number of alumni in thearea is small, the desire to read andtalk to other Johnnies remains strong.

Though not every attempt to start areading group has been successful, theredoes not seem to be a minimal number ofalumni needed to have sufficient interestChristopher Nelson (SF70), president ofthe Annapolis campus, and PresidentMichael Peters, president in Santa Fe,regularly visit chapters and readinggroups. Tutors from Annapolis and SantaFe are interested and available to travel tochapters and groups throughout thecountry. The Alumni Office funds theirtrips and provides an average of two tutorvisits per year to chapters.

Alumni interested in assessing interestin holding seminars and other activities ina new area should contact Jo Ann Mattson,Alumni Director, at [email protected] or 410-626-2531. The alumnioffice staff provides support in setting upan initial event, answering questions,giving advice on how to get started, and

mailing notices to all alumni within thegeographic area identified.

The new Online Community is also anexcellent way to keep in touch with alumniin your area and to stay involved. You canfind a listing of your chapter or group’sevents at www.stjohnscollege.edu. Clickon “alumni” and then “chapters.” x

45

human community. Last year, I hadanother seminar with Miss Brann and Mr. Carl, this time on Milton.

What I find really remarkable is that wealumni can encounter each other inconversation about so many differentaspects of what life is about, not just in thephilosophy and the sciences, but also inthe various arts—which in my world is ahuge part of what I consider the riches ofbeing on this earth. In a seminar, we don’tjust look at the structure of the music, wealso talk about human themes. That bringsme to one of the real riches I find in thiskind of alumni encounter. We’ve gone outinto the world, done a multitude of things,and lived all kinds of different lives. Thatenriches our conversation, but it also givesus an added opportunity to reflect on whatour ongoing lives are about.

When we revisit a book such as TheRepublic, we have a wonderful opportunity

to look at larger issues and gain moreinsight into the work. These books don’tstand alone; it’s the tutors and the otherparticipants who help lead us to a greaterunderstanding of these ideas.

St. John’s is not just a four-year experi-ence. It’s the kind of ground on which webuild our lives. There’s always more to belearned, and there’s always somethinginteresting to talk about. We are works inprogress. Any of us can become a littleharassed by things so that we get hog-tied,like Gulliver being tied down by theLilliputians. Every summer, we have theopportunity to reacquaint ourselves withall the college can offer us. The collegearranges this special time just for usalumni.

It’s something much richer, andsustaining and balancing, and it stays withus when we leave. It is nutrition for ourmind’s eye. We really are privileged tohave this opportunity. x

ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONAll alumni have automatic membership in the St. John’s College Alumni Association. The Alumni Association is an independentorganization, with a Board of Directorselected by and from the alumni body. Theboard meets four times a year, twice on eachcampus, to plan programs and coordinate theaffairs of the association. This newsletterwithin The College magazine is sponsored bythe Alumni Association and communicates association news and events of interest.

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

Mailing address – Alumni Association, St. John’s College, P.O Box 2800, Annapolis,MD 21404, or 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, Santa Fe, NM 87505-4599.

Alumni from both campuses choose athinking vacation with the SummerAlumni Program.


{ A l u m n i V o i c e s }46

T W O M O N T H S B E F O R E T H E M A S T

Todd Wilson spent two monthsaboard the Makulu a 43-footsailboat, documenting his expe-riences for Reach the World, aneducational organization thatseeks to give inner-city studentsin grades three through six awider view of their world.

Based in New YorkCity, Reach theWorld is anonprofit organi-zation founded byHeather Halstead.

Sailor-educators circumnavi-gate the world and documenttheir journey using digitalcameras, laptops, and theReach the World Web site.They post answers to eightessential questions for eachgeographic region on the site,which teachers use as part oftheir curriculum. Before thevoyage, we met the studentsand toured their schools in theBronx, Queens, and Harlem,talking to them about the itinerary. The goal is to opentheir minds to the idea thatthey belong to a global community.

Since graduating from theGI, I have sought eclectic positions ineducation, such as teaching English on theTexas/Mexico border with Teach forAmerica and managing an environmentaleducation campus in Yosemite NationalPark. When RTW offered me a job, Ithought: How can I pass on this opportunity? I have always been interestedin documentary films, photography, andjournalism. The great books, being theancient documents of societies and humanthought, seemed the perfect foundation.

Thus, I went to learn about modern human life from observing how people liveand the environment living around them,documenting it all for students.

As part of a five-person crew, I sailedfrom Cairns, Australia, to Bali, Indonesia.Jim, the captain, and Hannah, the firstmate, taught the fundamentals of sailing toAmie, Tonia and me: steering a course,reading charts, and navigating open watersin daylight and darkness. Each day at seawas spent rotating through a watch and

cooking schedule, meetingabout the program, writing, andfor me, finding time to practiceyoga on the aft deck—usually inthree- to six-foot waves. We allworked to keep a tidy, safe ship.And the weather was consis-tently helpful with more windand sunshine than galls andhigh seas.

As the days turned like pagesfrom a great, blue mind, I foundthe open ocean to be a truewilderness. From my firstglimpse of the Great BarrierReef to dolphins racing to andfro off the bow, sparkling withphosphorescence in midnightwaters, I realized that the oceanis untamed and amazing. Webring a floating shell ofhumanity, yet our coming is oneprecarious rise and fall uponthe waves after another. Iembraced the austere vastnessof being at sea with respect andhumility.

Three days out of Australia inthe Timor Sea, we stopped

Makulu for an afternoon swim. After 20minutes, Hannah called us aboard quietly.Once atop, she pointed to the five tigersharks that joined us from the depths.“Just visiting,” I whispered.

Komodo Island was truly enigmatic, aland rare and sculpted by time into time-lessness. The land befits the dragon thatexists only there, the largest lizard in theworld. When I first saw two dragons belowthe kitchen, they were flattened out like

by Todd Wilson (AGI00)

Todd Wilson combines yogawith duties at the helm. Wilson never quite got his sealegs during his Reach theWorld voyage.

dogs: content and lacking ferocity. Twohours later we tracked a female with aradio collar to her nest. Again, the sight ofher brought a fearless awe. She, like allthings rare, lived through the myths andlabels in the simplicity of being.

Two weeks later, we visited a school onBalo-Baloang Atoll. The tiny island (two-hour circumambulation) is the home ofshipbuilders. These men have honed theircraft for a thousand years, and like thedragons, only these Indonesian seas arehome to their designs. In their presence,Makulu looked extravagant and awkwardin her modernity. We felt the slowness oftime here when we signed the school’sregister, the sixth visitors in five years! In a classroom without electricity, weinterviewed the students about theirunique and simple lives, their teachertranslating our words. Afterwards, weenjoyed lunch at the teacher’s stilt house:sweets, tea, black-sugar coffee, rice, andvegetable broth eaten on the floor of thekitchen, with our fingers, the women andchildren waiting for the guests to eat first.

I had signed on for a two-year journey.But my new environment rattled my equilibrium, and days were more about

attaining balance than enjoying theocean’s grandeur. It was not seasickness(though I did lose my crackers coming intoBali after 10 hours enduring 10-foot seas);I can only describe it using the Ayurvedicterm ahamkara, which translates as the

integral feeling of self despite the commingling of the numerous physicalelements of which we are composed. My ahamkara was tilted, and this feelingcombined with the understanding that myoverall health was the foundation of anyposition. Even though I loved the work onland, the days at sea took my legs from me.

After an amazing two months before themast, I chose to leave and offer the rareopportunity to someone who is aneducator and a sailor. I am sure there are afew Johnnies who fit this description. x

Wilson’s articles on Australia and Bali canbe found at www.reachtheworld.com


{ A l u m n i V o i c e s } 47

Left: A hut on Komodo Island frames theMAKULU.Below: Schoolchildren on Balo-Baloangstop to pose for Wilson.

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{ S t . J o h n ’ s F o r e v e r }

Acrane sets in place the ironfinial in the bell tower ofWeigle Hall in Santa Fe,circa 1972. The finial wasdesigned by John GawMeem, the noted architect

who also donated the land for St. John’sWestern campus. Meem’s finial was meantto represent a “stand-up” version of the

college seal, according to an article in theSanta Fe New Mexican. First called theTower Building and later renamed forformer St. John’s President Richard Weigle(HA49), the campus’ main academicbuilding was dedicated in 1971, while workon the finial was still under way.

Design of the finial was one of the fewcommissions that Meem took after he

retired in 1960, according to John GawMeem: Southwestern Architect, by Bainbridge Bunting: “. . . Meem acceptedonly a few commissions from close friendsor produced occasional designs for a publiccause or for historical preservation. Amongthese . . . the delightful bell tower on theadministration building of St. John’sCollege . . .” x

48

Books, Balance and a Bell Tower


{ A l u m n i E v e n t s C a l e n d a r }

Alumni Calendar

Come home to Santa Fe this summer!This year’s festivities including a specialOpening Celebration for “With a Clearand Single Purpose”: The Campaign for St.John’s College, along with the traditionalHomecoming Banquet, art show, andvaried parties. Catch up with your oldfriends, make new ones, and learn aboutthe college’s plans for the future.

Friday, July 282 - 5 p.m. Registration5:30 p.m. “With a Clear and Single

Purpose,” Opening Celebration for theCapital Campaign

9 p.m. Rock Party in the Coffee Shop

Saturday, July 2910 a.m. SeminarsNoon – 2 p.m. Picnic2 – 3 p.m. All-Alumni gathering4 p.m. Alumni and tutor book signing5 – 6 p.m. “Speaking Volumes” lecture:

Louise Heydt (EC97), author of DivineRainbow: Nature as Spiritual Teacher

5:30 – 7 p.m. All-Alumni art show5: 30 p.m. Combined art show and

“Speaking Volumes” reception7 – 9 p.m. Homecoming banquet9 p.m. Cantina San Juan: margaritas and

mariachi at the Homecoming ball9: 30 p.m. Movie: Singing in the Rain

Sunday, July 308 – 11 a.m. Early Riser – light breakfast fare

in the Fireside Lounge11 a.m. Brunch, hosted by Mike and

Eleanor Peters

Annapolis

Mark your calendars for Annapolis Homecoming, Sept. 29 – Oct. 1, 2006. The theme: Oktoberfest. Look for abrochure to be mailed this summer, or watch the St. John’s Web site,www.stjohnscollege.edu, for more details.

Mountain in Santa Fe by Virginia Strong Newlin, SFGI74

One August night three of us tried to scale a small peak above the college.We took the rock face, sneakers slipping,gripping whatever felt firm to grasping

hands.hauling ourselves to the top, we sat upon

stones spoke softly, looking over St. John’sin silver sleep amongst its great books.

In the sky great constellations spreadnear enough to finger in the midnight air.I thought of being East again, the session

over,minus this evening’s mountain walkand the highs of a seminar’s lively talkon Aristotle and Aquinas, Aeschylus and

Socrates,handholds for people scaling peaks.

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