Spring 2025 Vassar Quarterly
VOLUME 121 ISSUE 1
THE ALUMNAE/I QUARTERLY
Contents
Departments
- Publisher
Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College
Monica Vachher ’77, President - Vice President, Communications
Victoria Grantham - Associate Vice President, Editorial and Publications; Editor, VQ
Elizabeth Randolph
elrandolph@vassar.edu - Art Direction and Design
Aidan Gallagher
Daniel Silva - Print Production
Dan Lasecki - Staff Writers
Larry Hertz
Kimberly Schaye - Class Notes
Nada Glick ’61, Coordinator
Joan Giurdanella, Copy Editor - Editorial Assistants
Emilee Busby ’25
Sofia DeRose ’28 - Editorial Offices
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vq@vassar.edu with your suggestions. - Articles reflect the opinions of the writers and not necessarily those of the magazine, AAVC, or Vassar College. Vassar, the Alumnae/i Quarterly, is published in the spring, summer, and fall/winter by the Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College (AAVC).
- Mission
AAVC is a living bridge whose mission is to ignite powerful connections to Vassar, to each other, and the world. - Affirmed 2013.
Copyright © 2024 AAVC
AAVC Alum Recognition Committee’s
Call For Nominations
Karl Rabe / Kelly Marsh / Karl Rabe
The Distinguished Achievement Award is presented to an alum who has reached the highest level in their professional field.
The Outstanding Service Award is presented to an alum in recognition of their extraordinary commitment, leadership, and service in promoting the goals and highest interests of Vassar College and AAVC.
The Spirit of Vassar Award is presented to an alum who has demonstrated extraordinary and distinguished leadership, contribution, and commitment to serving a community in which they affect positive, transformative societal change.
The Outstanding Faculty/Staff Award is presented to a faculty or staff member who has demonstrated exemplary service, leadership, and commitment to engage with alums and current students through a range of programs, initiatives, and activities over a period of years.
The Young Alum Achievement or Service Award is presented to an alum from the last 10 years recognized for either their extraordinary service to Vassar in any aspect of engagement OR for their exceptional personal and professional achievement(s) within their respective field.
Of Health and Trees
recently celebrated a birthday and received a book of poems by Mary Oliver ’59. I have talked with alums who were here during Mary’s time at Vassar and have heard how much time Mary spent on the campus, sometimes sitting in a tree.
Like Mary Oliver, so many of us have drawn inspiration from the arboretum that is Vassar’s campus over the years. I particularly enjoy gazing at the spruce tree near the President’s House that was planted in the 1870s—imagining it has seen women gain the right to vote, two world wars, at least two pandemics, and many, many graduations and celebrations. During Covid, the arboretum played a special role, as it provided an outdoor space in which we could socialize without masks and without fear. It preserved us in a time of great anxiety—giving us a peaceful outlet, a quiet respite, and a meaningful sense of place.
The human uplift trees bring is not solely based on anecdotal evidence, although we all have our personal experiences. Research studies also link immersion in nature to health. This evidence is robust and compelling. Tree bathing, for instance—when one is quiet and calm among the trees—has been associated with improved immune system function, cardiovascular health, better respiratory health, less depression and anxiety, and increased feelings of gratitude and awe. Although the evidence about tree bathing is largely from Japan and China, studies conducted in the West have also concluded that nature is good for one’s health. A recent literature review, which included experimental studies, reported that exposure to nature was associated with improved cognitive function, brain activity, blood pressure, mental health, physical activity, and sleep.
How fitting that a liberal arts college—where developing healthy habits is fundamental to learning—would have an arboretum to foster not only beauty but also the physical and mental health of all who take the time to enjoy it.
This year, when we celebrate 100 years of the Vassar arboretum, let us pause to contemplate how much wisdom and experience is embedded in these trees, offering us perspective, balance, and humility.
Turning back to Mary Oliver, who wrote often about nature and the intersection of humans, we remember that we are but a part of the larger cosmos. Let us find comfort in our humble place in this world. As Mary Oliver wrote:
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.
Come visit and enjoy the arboretum!
Elizabeth H. Bradley
President
Courtesy of the Loeb
Students’ Work at the Loeb Leads to the Venice Biennale
The four students, whose tasks at the Loeb ranged from working the front desk to cataloguing various collections to co-curating exhibits, traveled to Italy in mid-October for the world-renowned Venice Biennale, which Subiros described as “sort of an Epcot of contemporary art,” featuring the work of artists from around the globe. Each student chose a different exhibit and made a presentation to a dozen alums who were on a trip led by Bart Thurber, Anne Hendricks Bass Director of the Loeb; and Mary-Kay Lombino, Deputy Director and the Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator. “We selected these students to make these presentations because of their long-term dedication and involvement working with the entire team at the Loeb in various capacities,” Thurber said.
This was the first Vassar travel program for alums that included current students as part of the trip and provided an environment where alums were able to learn about not only the students’ area of focus at the Biennale, but also about life on campus and long-term interests.
Robin Woodard ’69 said, “Exploring the Biennale, Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, and so much more in Venice with Bart and Mary-Kay was privilege aplenty, yet oh so enhanced by sharing it all with four of Vassar’s art history students. The alums learned from each of them individually—their knowledge, perspectives, and life stories. We also enjoyed their curiosity, youthful charm, and collective energy. They personified Vassar’s present-day vitality while bearing witness to the enduring excellence of Vassar women.”
Alum’s Gift Supports Campus Safety
Vassar’s Campus Safety Office has worked diligently to build trust while fostering partnerships that address the College’s specific safety priorities. One such partnership has developed between alum Louise Arias ’62 and Director of Campus Safety Arlene Sabo. Arias’s love for Vassar and concern about the challenges associated with living in an increasingly polarized world led her to financially support Vassar’s campus safety initiatives.
“An atmosphere of fear and intimidation of any kind, from within or without, inhibits the well-being, communication, understanding, and psychological peace of any community,” said Arias, whose donation was part of her 60th Reunion gift.
Arias recognized a need for additional philanthropic support to help protect students, faculty, staff, and visitors. She also admired Sabo’s caring and thoughtful efforts on behalf of Vassar during a difficult period. Arias and Sabo decided to focus Arias’s financial support on two key areas: training safety personnel in proven de-escalation techniques to use in challenging situations and implementing initiatives to foster trust among students and the Campus Safety Office.
Since receiving the gift, the Campus Safety Office has used it to create a Community Engagement Supervisor position, a role that involves working with students and Campus Activities on student events. Additionally, the gift allowed all officers to participate in de-escalation training, violence prevention, and active shooter response training, which was also provided to faculty.
“We’re really excited—all members of the department—to receive such support and be able to engage in training that is relevant and addresses major concerns of the moment,” Sabo said.
Kudos for The Heartwood at Vassar!
Bryan Swarthout, VP for Finance and Administration, said he is pleased to see that the boutique hotel is making such a good impression on visitors. “The Heartwood won the award for maintaining an average review of 9.5 out of 10,” he reported. “There’s only one other hotel in the area with a review over 9.”
For more information about the hotel or to book accommodations, visit theheartwood.com.
After 11 Years, Sophomore Career Connections Still Offers a Wealth of Insight on Meaningful Work
Kelly Marsh
ore than 250 Vassar students and 100 alum mentors spent the weekend of January 17—19 exploring career opportunities at the College’s 11th annual Sophomore Careers Connections (SCC). Conceived by Vassar alum Carol Ostrow ’77, P’09, ’15, and her husband, Michael Graff, this year’s program offered sophomores the chance to connect with mentors in 20 different industries ranging from the arts and entertainment to data science, technology, entrepreneurship, and more. A record number of students attended this year’s program, guided by 108 mentors and members of the Career Education staff.
The event is cohosted every January by the Center for Career Education and the Office of Advancement. Since its inception in 2015, more than 2,500 sophomores and 700 alums and parent mentors have taken part.
The event kicked off on January 17 with a keynote address by Minerva Tantoco ’86, whose serpentine career path speaks volumes about the value of a Vassar liberal arts education. A philosophy major at Vassar, Tantoco has been a founder of the digital bank Grasshopper (a nod to Vassar alum and tech pioneer Grace Hopper, Class of 1928), and an AI patent holder whose journey has taken her to Silicon Valley, to Wall Street, to New York City government, and elsewhere.
Tantoco told those assembled at her address in Skinner Hall that her grounding in philosophy had taught her ethical reasoning. “This skill is critical in the age of artificial intelligence as questions of fairness and privacy are posed,” she said. “We will need that broad-based learning you are getting at Vassar so that AI serves humanity. Today’s technology needs your liberal arts mindset, so let it be your superpower.”
Tantoco reiterated some of these themes when she joined five other panelists from various technology fields at information sessions on January 18. “One piece of advice I have for students is to show employers a significant task you have tackled and completed, and you have done that many times at Vassar,” she said. “You have an advantage over many others [entering the job market] because you are doing that work here right now.”
Karl Rabe
Keynote Speaker
Kelly Marsh
Kelly Marsh
Members of the panel on scientific research described the disparate paths their careers had taken. Some, like Max Fagin ’10, had a plan mapped out by sophomore year at Vassar—he wanted to be an aerospace engineer.
“I took an unorthodox path studying science at a liberal arts school,” Fagin said, “so I wanted to return to Vassar for Sophomore Career Connections to show them there were ways, such as the Vassar-Dartmouth Thayer Dual Degree Program in Engineering, to achieve their goal. Vassar gave me the general knowledge of science I needed—a background in astronomy and physics—to do my job, but I also needed specialized engineering training.” He is currently a member of a Blue Origin team that is designing a lunar landing craft for a 2030 flight to the moon by four NASA astronauts.
Sam Schwamm ’16, a research manager at the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, said Vassar had prepared him well for all the non-technical aspects of his job. “The public-speaking and writing skills I got here have helped me immensely,” Schwamm said.
Kelly Marsh
Karl Rabe
The students prepared themselves for the industry panels by attending a workshop designed to teach them resiliency and the importance of teamwork and reacting quickly to failure. Teams of five to six students were challenged to build towers composed solely of strands of spaghetti, tape, and a single marshmallow. They were given 18 minutes to complete the task. Most teams built towers successfully, and the team members who built the highest tower—measuring more than 30 inches in height—were awarded tiny trophies.
Throughout the weekend, students and mentors talked about the value of the program. Vassar Trustee Anne Green ’93, CEO of G&S Integrated Marketing Communications Group, returned to Sophomore Career Connections for the eighth time and said Vassar is preparing students well. “A lot of it is how you think, how curious you are, and how ready you are to learn and how quickly you assimilate information,” she said, “and I think that a Vassar education and a liberal arts education is amazing that way.”
Gene Waddy ’27, a media studies and political science double major from Manalapan, NJ, said he felt reassured after attending the industry panel on entrepreneurship. “I’ve known for a long time that I want to work in media in some capacity, and maybe own my own business,” Waddy said. “After listening to these people who have succeeded as entrepreneurs, people who know how to function outside their comfort zones and have a vision, I know it’s now possible for me.”
Grace Fure ’27 said she felt a lot more confident about planning for her future than she had been just a couple of days earlier. “I obtained a lot of information this weekend on how to pursue [my] career path and how Vassar’s alum network can help,” she said.
As SCC drew to a close, Bingham told students that “a liberal arts education is foundational to asking and answering the increasingly complex questions of our planet. The work of finding our place in the world, of figuring out who we are and who we are meant to be is cyclical—and lifelong. It’s messy and it’s exhilarating. Sometimes our spaghetti towers fall, but we fail fast, iterate, prototype, and we move on to the next plan.”
She reminded the students that this was just the beginning of their relationship with both the Vassar network and the Center for Career Education. “You have a huge network of champions and supporters in this room and beyond,” she told them. “Seek us out in the days, weeks, and years to come.”
Ben Richardson ’25
Students Win Voyager Scholarships from the Obama Foundation
s the first member of her family to attend college, Anabel Varghese ’24 wanted to find ways to help other first-generation college students succeed. And Jimena Saavedra ’26 wanted to learn more about the field of international law as she prepared to apply to law school. As recipients of Voyager Scholarships from the Obama Foundation, both Varghese and Saavedra obtained the help they need to pursue their passions.
Varghese, an anthropology major from Grand Rapids, MI, was working at Vassar’s First-generation, Low Income (FLI) office in 2022 when FLI Director Michelle Quock suggested that she apply for the Obama Scholarship, which provides up to two years of college costs, as well as a $10,000 stipend for a summer project in public service. Using the funds to take part in a study last summer at the University of Chicago, she helped to track the challenges voiced by low-income high school students applying for college. Varghese said, “We tracked their concerns about belonging in college, coping with monetary stresses, and other challenges.”
Since graduating, Varghese has continued working as a trainer of student mentors for Vassar’s Exploring College program, which helps local low-income high school students learn more about the college experience.
Saavedra, an international studies major from Newark, NJ, said Varghese also played a key role in convincing her to pursue the Obama Voyager award last year. “I knew Anabel when I was enrolled in the FLI program and asked her about the [Obama] award, and she gave me the final push I needed to apply,” she said. “One of the things I love most about Vassar is the support systems like FLI that provide such a sense of community.”
Saavedra and 99 other recipients later received their scholarships at a ceremony at the Obama Foundation headquarters in Chicago this past December. Saavedra said she was inspired by the former President’s advice. “He talked about pluralism, about talking and working with people who think differently than we do,” she said. “He asked us to ignore all the shouting that’s going on right now and listen, and he urged us to use storytelling to help us understand different perspectives.”
Saavedra said she hadn’t decided how to use the funds for her project next summer but was considering an internship—either virtually or in person—on international law in Switzerland. “I’m really excited that this has happened to me,” she said, “and I hope others can see the opportunities available to us at Vassar.”
Madhabendu Hensh
The Carolyn Darrow Rood Sweetland ’45 Fund for International Studies
As the first international relations major at the College, her dream was to become a researcher in the State Department’s Office of the Historian. During the spring of 1945, Carolyn landed a job as a secretary/typist at the San Francisco Conference where 50 allied nations famously drafted and signed the United Nations Charter.
Although she had a lifelong passion for history, current events, and world peace, her dream of working in the State Department was not meant to be. When most jobs went back to men after the war, she embraced raising a family with her husband, Richard Sweetland. Together they raised four children: Jeffrey, Margaret (Patricelli), Cynthia (Luecke), and Philip.
Carolyn later served as the executive director of the Youth Employment Service in Costa Mesa, CA, for 10 years. During retirement in New Hampshire, she continued to pursue her interest in world affairs. Carolyn and Richard facilitated weekly discussions at their local library about foreign policy issues facing U.S. and world leaders in the Great Decisions program offered through Dartmouth College.
Her children agreed, “Our mom was an incredibly smart but very modest woman, who, with our great dad, taught us four the values of goodness and justice and set important examples of leading through ‘deeds, not words.’ We are immensely proud and grateful.”
To celebrate their mother and her original dream, the Sweetland siblings, their spouses, The Robert & Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation, and a very close personal family friend who cared for their parents created the Carolyn Darrow Rood Sweetland ’45 Fund for International Studies. Grants from the fund have provided nearly 100 international studies students the ability to conduct thesis research, attend conferences, and work with organizations or scholars, both in the U.S. and abroad.
Honoring a lifelong passion
“The program allows students to engage with the world in a rich, creative multidisciplinary way, and it allows students to learn from faculty members from across the curriculum—political science, history, geography, art, film, etc.,” Koechlin said. “We are pleased and proud that international studies is a place where students and faculty regularly engage in rich, intelligent, thoughtful, well-informed, challenging, playful, and often inspiring conversations—in class and outside of class.”
Over the last six years, the Carolyn Darrow Rood Sweetland ’45 Fund has supported 75 students and is expected to fund 20 to 25 more during this academic year. Students have gone to a variety of countries for their research including Argentina, Canada, Cambodia, Chile, China, Cuba, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, Iceland, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Serbia, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Tanzania (Zanzibar), the United Kingdom (London and Edinburgh), and Vietnam. The fund has also enabled students to visit research libraries, archives, museums, and conferences in U.S. cities, including Austin, Boston, Chicago, Jacksonville, Miami, Nashville, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC.
Madhabendu Hensh
Vassarion
The next generation of international scholars
“This experience truly opened my eyes to the ways in which art can be used across cultures as a form of expression and social connection,” Bianca Niyonzima ’27 said following the trip. “I am so grateful for this opportunity. It has changed my life for the better! The education and the connections and appreciation for life I built on the trip was like nothing I have experienced before.”
The Carolyn Darrow Rood Sweetland ’45 Fund has allowed several students to attend the International Studies Association (ISA) conference in Toronto, Nashville, Montreal, and San Francisco in 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively. Some students even presented papers at the conferences, something rare and remarkable for undergraduates.
“I love my work, in large part, because it is such a privilege to watch talented, curious young people find themselves, find their way, and change the world,” Koechlin said. “Considering applications for funding, granting awards, and hearing about the wonderful experiences that have been made possible by the Carolyn Darrow Rood Sweetland ’45 Fund for International Studies has been among the most gratifying experiences of my career.”
Other students have used the fund to support their senior thesis research. For instance, Aena Khan ’22 traveled to Pakistan for 10 days to support her thesis on “Pakistan Memories, Militancy, and Silence: Perspectives from a Pakistani Family.” In 2022, Zach Owens ’23 spent the summer in the Netherlands working with Student Action for Refugees (STAR) teaching English and helping refugees with their asylum proceedings.
“Our world and personal decisions/opinions are increasingly difficult,” Patricelli said. “Too often they’re driven by ‘breaking news’ and sensational videos, then ‘analyzed’ by so-called ‘expert’ media celebrities of all political persuasions, in all social media platforms, etc. Say whatever you want and you can find a consultant or pollster or podcaster to ‘confirm’ it. That’s why Mom’s fund is so important. It helps today’s and future Vassar international studies students achieve their goals. Micro or broad, both are needed to make the world more sensible and caring.
To learn more about the International Studies Program, visit vassar.edu/internationalstudies.
Demystifying
Vassar’s
Endowment
Endowment
“The endowment provides a steady stream of income outside tuition and fees,” says Bryan Swarthout, Vice President for Finance and Administration. “It supports all aspects of the Vassar education and enables our generous financial aid policies.”
Vassar’s $1.3 billion endowment not only enables the College to have the resources to attract and enroll the most qualified students regardless of their finances, it also ensures students are supported along the way by strong faculty and staff who help get them to and through graduation and into meaningful careers. Approximately 92 percent of students who start at Vassar graduate, including those from low-income backgrounds—far exceeding the national average of 50 percent.
Importantly, Vassar is a nonprofit—and there is nothing profitable about it: The money the College takes in each year from students is about $100 million short of what Vassar needs to pay its yearly operating expenses of approximately $250 million. If the College only accepted students who could pay the full cost of a Vassar education, that shortfall would be far less. But a policy like that would not be in line with Vassar’s mission and values. Because Vassar is committed to need-blind admission, meaning that the College admits students without looking at their ability to pay, and is also committed to meeting the full demonstrated need of admitted students, Vassar provides about $80 million in financial aid. About $70 million of that is enabled by the endowment, with most of the rest coming from operating gifts donated to the annual fund.
This is why College officials are so concerned about an expanded endowment tax on colleges and universities now being considered in the House of Representatives. According to President Elizabeth H. Bradley, such a tax “would have dire consequences for Vassar,” as it would “make it hard for us to sustain our generous financial aid policies.” In a March email, she urged all who share these concerns to get in touch with their representatives, whose contact information can be found at www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative.
It’s also important to note that all money collected from students is used for the current year’s expenses—none of it goes into the endowment. So where do these funds come from?
BY THE NUMBERS
of the College’s annual operating budget, making it a crucial source of support.
toward financial aid for low- and middle-income students.
of the demonstrated financial need for all students, with an average student debt of only $5,000 per year.
Vassar’s Board of Trustees oversees the endowment through its Investments Committee but does not handle day-to-day management of the funds. That is left to the College’s professional investment manager, Pathstone, which is charged with building a diversified portfolio to support regular annual spending and growth over time with prudent levels of risk. Pathstone’s fund managers have discretion to select the securities in which they invest. This, says Swarthout, is the best way for Vassar to meet its fiduciary responsibility to invest wisely and meet its expenses.
“Managing the endowment to support Vassar today and into the future is critical to continuing the education and access that Vassar provides,” he explains.
Even seemingly minor variations in investments can have huge consequences. For example, if a $100 million portfolio earns 6.5 percent over 30 years rather than 7.5 percent, that one percentage point adds up to $214 million in lost investment return and would result in as much as $25 million less annual income to the College from the endowment.
Founder Matthew Vassar understood the important role that wise investments would play in the College’s survival. On February 26, 1861, he presented Vassar’s first Board of Trustees with a tin box containing securities totaling $408,000, plus the deed for two hundred acres of land on which to build a campus. He also told the trustees that he hoped they would at some point invest a “principal,” or endowment, to ensure the College’s financial health into the future.
When Vassar first opened its doors in 1865, this new institution of higher learning gave women educational opportunities they had never had before. Today, Vassar makes sure others are similarly empowered: the veteran who took some detours on the way to an undergrad degree; the first-generation college student with no higher education in their family’s background; the future scientist raised by a low-income single parent; any accepted student. According to Swarthout, that is how the endowment can truly function as a force for good.
“Questions about endowment policies and divestment are complicated with many different perspectives and implications,” says Swarthout. “Vassar can best address these issues by enabling as many students as possible to attend the College, where they can learn to evaluate and discuss such important concerns from all sides.”
Vassar Archives and Special Collections
Papers of Pioneering Architect Jeh Vincent Johnson Come to Vassar
“It’s important for us to have these documents because Jeh taught here for so many years and was also a prominent architect himself, so his papers are something we want to preserve,” said Ronald Patkus, Head of Special Collections and College Historian.
“I am proud and pleased that Vassar has chosen to honor my father’s legacy by housing his photos, papers, and artwork in its Special Collections Library,” said Jeh Charles Johnson, his son, who had served as United States Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama Administration. “These records reflect [his] active and creative mind.”
As a pioneering Black architect, Jeh Vincent Johnson was a strong and tireless champion of women and people of color in architecture, a field where they were and continue to be underrepresented. He co-founded the National Organization of Minority Architects, served on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Commission on Urban Problems, and chaired the National Committee on Housing for the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He was elected to the AIA’s College of Fellows, the highest honor for any practicing American architect, and was awarded a special citation from the New York chapter of the AIA for his advocacy on behalf of equal opportunity and housing issues.
Karen Van Lengen ’73, FAIA, a practicing architect and Kenan Professor and former Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, noted that Johnson had broken barriers in his career, then helped women and other underrepresented groups do the same. She herself had been inspired to pursue a career in the field after studying with Johnson. “He became a prominent architect at a time in this country when Black architects numbered fewer than one percent of American architects,” she said. “His contributions are especially noteworthy for those of us who studied with him and went on to become architects. There was a period of time when Jeh was responsible for steering more women into the field of architecture than any other teacher in a liberal arts college.”
Johnson died in January 2021. Two years later, the ALANA Cultural Center, which he designed, was renovated and renamed the Jeh Vincent Johnson ALANA Cultural Center. Edward Pittman ’82, retired Senior Associate Dean of the College who worked closely with Johnson on the design of the ALANA Cultural Center for its opening in 1993, said he admired the architect’s willingness to his and the students’ ideas on what the center should look like. “Jeh took our input and shaped it into the design,” said Pittman, the center’s founding director and a dean for campus life and diversity initiatives at Vassar for nearly 30 years. “He was open to translating our ideas and vision into the physical space.”
Professor of Art Yvonne Elet, an art and architectural historian who has studied Johnson’s work for her course about the campus, said, “Jeh Johnson believed in the agency of architecture to combat poverty and discrimination. And his advocacy took many forms, from his design work, to teaching and mentoring, and his professional service to the field.”
Liliane Wong ’81, Professor of Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and a former student of Johnson’s, praised Johnson for his forward thinking. “Today, many of us are talking about the need for affordable housing, and when Professor Johnson was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to the National Commission on Urban Problems, he was actively involved in designing low-cost housing. Hopefully, his archives will make this and other information about his legacy available to students and researchers.”
“It’s important that all of his drawings and documents be housed in one place,” Elet said. “And since he did most of his design work in the Hudson Valley and taught here for 37 years, Vassar’s Special Collections Library is an ideal place for them.”
Kelly Marsh
Matthew Vassar’s “Founding Document” Preserved … with a Little Help
Matthew Vassar made an impassioned speech that day, and the College preserved it on a parchment document that today resides in Vassar’s Archives and Special Collections. “Matthew Vassar’s statement to the Board of Trustees truly is a foundational document, because he was talking about his vision for the College,” says Ronald Patkus, College Historian and Head of the Archives and Special Collections. But after more than 160 years, Patkus said, the document was in need of conservation.
It was conserved in conjunction with the Libraries’ Adopt-a-Book Program, which allows donors to support the conservation of fragile and damaged items in the collection, thereby enabling them to be accessible to faculty and students. After lifting the document from its acidic backing, conservators placed it in archival housing and protected it with an archival matte. A note on that matte reads: “Adopted by John Mihaly ’74 in appreciation of an extraordinary group of faculty, students, alumni, administrators, and friends.”
Mihaly, former Associate Vice President for Regional and International Programs in Vassar’s Advancement Office and Co-Chair for the College’s Sesquicentennial, retired in 2023 after more than 30 years at the College. He said he made the gift in honor of the more than 160 members of the faculty as well as alums and students who selflessly brought to life the many programs he organized over time on campus, throughout the country, and abroad to engage alums, parents, and friends.
There are many books and manuscripts in the Vassar Libraries in need of conservation. For more information on how you, your regional or affinity group, or class can contribute to the effort, visit library.vassar.edu/specialcollections/adoptabook.
Stockton Photo, Inc.
Vassar Celebrates “Winning-est” Season
Four of the eight fall squads reached post-season play, and the women’s rugby team won its fourth national championship in six years, avenging a bitter loss in the finals the year before to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, 24–5, on December 8 in Houston, TX.
The women’s soccer team earned a selection to the NCAA Division III tournament for only the second time in school history and won its opening-round game for the first time, a 1–0 win over St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
The men’s soccer team won the Liberty League Championship in thrilling style, defeating St. Lawrence University, 4–3, in a penalty kick shootout after finishing two overtimes in a 0–0 tie. The Brewers won their first-round match in the NCAA tournament, defeating 12th-ranked Rowan University, 3–0.
And the women’s cross country team captured its second straight Liberty League title and went on to finish 20th—its best result ever—in the NCAA Division III Championship, led by a second-place finish by Haley Schoenegge ’27, best performance ever for a Vassar runner.
Asked if the loss the previous year to Wisconsin-Eau Claire in last year’s rugby championship game had been a motivating factor in this year’s success, team Co-Captain Zoe Lynch ’25 just smiled. “It was on our minds from the first practice,” she said.
And what did she say to the team before they took the field for this year’s final? “Nothing needed to be said,” Lynch deadpanned.
Coach Tony Brown said he knew the loss had helped propel the team to a 15–0 record this season, adding that he believed the rugby team’s success has had something to do with the recent success of other Vassar teams. “We all cheer each other on, and that has helped Vassar sports to become really competitive,” Brown said.
Co-Captain Andie Authers ’25 said the bonds she had forged with her teammates, coaches, and former players would be a part of her life forever. “Rugby was my Vassar experience,” she said. “There’s something truly empowering about it that I will carry into all phases of my life.”
Schoenegge and others on the women’s cross country team said the bonds they had formed with their teammates had gotten them through some rough patches early in the season. “Instead of being the underdogs who had something to prove, it felt like we had something to lose,” she said. “This caused some tension and disconnect within the team in the early parts of the season. There was a lot of uncertainty and frustration in navigating it all, but one thing that never wavered was our love and support for each other.”
Stockton Photo, Inc.
Stockton Photo, Inc.
Co-Captains Noni Pattington ’25 and Sophie Farr ’25 said they convened a team meeting in mid-October to talk about the team’s struggles. “We talked about how we were running with fear this year, unlike last year,” Pattington said.
After that meeting, the results began to show on the course, Farr said, as the team’s sense of camaraderie returned, something she will carry with her into the future. “I think the sense of community I felt here with the team will help me navigate the world we’re about to go into,” she said.
Men’s soccer Co-Captain Duncan Keker ’25 said he had chosen Vassar for its strong academics but also for the culture of caring that has been a part of the team for many years. “The friendships I’ve made here will remain with me forever,” said Keker, who led off the shootout with a goal in the Liberty League Championship game against St. Lawrence. “The leadership skills I learned here will help me later in life. I’ve grown a lot as a person, and soccer is a big reason why.”
Co-Captain Charlie Rodhouse ’25 said he would remember the season for the mental toughness the team had displayed. “What separated us this season was our reaction after losing the games that we did,” Rodhouse said. “The following practice would always be done with a higher level of focus and accountability toward the teammates than any other practice. As the season went on, the style of play that we implemented and chemistry between the players continued to grow exponentially.”
Coach Jonathan Hood said he especially enjoyed seeing this team succeed because of the players’ sense of unity and passion. “We were unranked when we played Rowan in the NCAAs,” he said, “but our attitude was, ‘Let’s go play our game, enjoy it, and have no regrets.’”
Women’s soccer coach Keith Simons said he had a hunch at the start of the season that the team “had all the pieces” to be an NCAA tournament team. “When we beat Ithaca, a team ranked eighth in the country, that told us we belonged in the NCAA conversation,” Simons said.
Co-Captain London Wilkes ’25 noted that the team had just missed receiving a bid to the national tournament the year before, “And we were determined not to let that happen again. Our unwavering belief and motivation to push each other at every practice and game truly allowed us to achieve what we did this season.”
Co-Captain Noelle Namba ’25 said she would always be proud of the team’s unprecedented accomplishment. “Winning a hard-fought NCAA game, the first in Vassar Women’s Soccer history, was a testament to all the 7:00 a.m. practices, late-night practices, and tough games we had throughout the season,” Namba said. “Making it to the NCAAs sets a standard for future teams to follow and build on.”
Co-Captain Riley Lipman said it was fitting that the team had achieved this goal in Simons’s fourth year of coaching the team. “We, as seniors, were a part of the incoming class that arrived at the same time Coach Keith was brought into the program,” Lipman said. “Each year, we have built upon the progress of the previous season and worked to cultivate a positive and cohesive team culture with a winning mentality. From our very first season together, we have stated that our goal was to compete in NCAAs—and this finally came to fruition through hard work and dedication to our team’s high expectations and standards.”
Community, Care, and Repair:
An Approach to Wellness
In this issue, you’ll learn about Vassar’s holistic approach to community care that not only provides comprehensive mental health support focused on the particular needs of each student, but also addresses the relational aspects of sharing a campus where students with diverse backgrounds and experiences must live and learn together.
You’ll also hear about the positive effects of our beautiful campus Arboretum, celebrating its centenary this year, as well as members of the Vassar community who are making a substantial impact on wellness efforts, including students, donors, alums, faculty members, and administrators.
At Vassar, Mental Wellness Is a Community Effort
by Liz Seegert
Adobe Stock Photo
he statistics are sobering: A majority of college students across the U.S. struggle with mental health issues. Reports of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicidal thoughts are on the rise. A Healthy Minds Study of students 18 and older found that fewer than 4 in 10 considered their mental health positive. And a 2024 Gallup poll found that 35 percent of college students nationally have considered leaving their program in the past six months. Mental health and stress were cited as the most important reasons by two-thirds of students who considered quitting.
No educational institution is immune from this crisis. Many schools, including Vassar, are rethinking their approaches to student well-being, embracing a more holistic, innovative perspective to student mental health, according to Wendy Freedman, Director of the Counseling Service.
The College emphasizes a comprehensive model, where various departments—including counseling, health services, and case management—work together to assist any student in need, whether they are in immediate crisis or want ongoing counseling.
Faculty and staff are trained to better identify and support students in need, de-stigmatize mental health issues, and encourage students to seek help. Students can access walk-in appointments, group therapy, and individual sessions. That’s not something every campus can provide, Freedman noted.
“It’s really not enough for them to just have an occasional counseling session. We really need to be thinking about how best to support a student’s well-being through a whole-campus strategy,” she said.
Although Vassar’s Counseling Service operates on a short-term model, there are no strict session limits, allowing staff to support students in ongoing care who would have access barriers otherwise. The goal is not just to provide immediate relief, but to help students build resilience and coping strategies that will support their independence and success long after graduation.
Intervention, early and as often as needed
CARE, under the direction of Erika Lee, provides individualized case management for students, linking them to services on and off campus. The area works closely with other offices within the Office of Student Living and Wellness to create a cohesive, supportive environment. This is vital, particularly as students navigate increasing mental health challenges and societal pressures.
A key feature of Vassar’s mental wellness approach is its commitment to reaching students before they even arrive on campus. As part of the acceptance process, students are encouraged to think proactively about their mental health and self-care strategies. “We send out messages to highlight self-care, encourage them to think about the things they need to thrive, and how to put them in place proactively when they get to college, by connecting to on-campus or to off-campus resources, then we help them do that,” Freedman said.
During orientation, the departments in the Collaborative Health offices make a point to be a visible presence and to connect with new students. Then, once students are fully ensconced, the student support network meets weekly to discuss who might need assistance and how to best provide that support.
Students are not just seen as scholars, but as complex individuals, each with their own set of challenges. Many come to Vassar with histories of trauma or other significant life stressors. These experiences can sometimes manifest as disordered eating, substance abuse, or self-harm, Freedman explained.
Faculty and staff learn mental health first aid to identify, understand, and reach out to anyone who may show signs of needing help, said Luis Inoa, Dean of Student Living and Wellness. Vassar also provides QPR training, a suicide prevention approach that urges community members to “question, persuade, and refer” at-risk students. The College is also deeply committed to students who come from different backgrounds and cultures, or those who may struggle with physical challenges, neurodivergence, or ADHD, Inoa added.
“There’s a community of adults who care deeply about our students,” said Inoa. “Needs evolve over time, and students may require different mental or emotional support as they progress through their college years.”
While on-campus services offer counseling every two weeks, some students need more frequent sessions. A partnership with Charlie Health, a virtual intensive outpatient program, means students can receive nine hours of group therapy and one hour of individual therapy weekly. No other liberal arts institution currently offers remote intensive outpatient services, supported by donor funds. (See page 39 for information about the gifts that support wellness at Vassar.)
Students can also get support through Kind Minds, an outpatient therapy practice that provides dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), designed to help individuals who have difficulties in regulating intense emotions; this consists of individual therapy, group therapy, and 24/7 phone coaching for specific skills. The CARE office finds students additional off-campus treatment options that are a good match for their needs.
Continuity of CARE
Lee and colleague Jessie George meet with any student who needs care coordination. They help pinpoint the best care for each, regardless of where these services are located. CARE works with the Counseling Service to ensure that students are making and keeping appointments, speaks with local providers about off-campus care, and helps students navigate insurance and financial barriers. And, when inpatient services are needed, case-management services, it ensures that students returning to campus after hospitalization or treatment can seamlessly reintegrate into their academic and social lives.
“The beauty of the CARE office is that we’re here for the community, whether you’re just coming in as a student, or you’ve graduated, or you’re in the middle of your academic career here. Once you’re a Vassar student, you’re part of the Vassar community, and you are part of the Vassar community forever.”
Restorative Practices: Learning to Be in Community with Others
n 2013, two Black students were in a residence hall laundry room going about their day when campus security officers approached them, wondering what they were doing there. Two other students had called Campus Safety, alleging they didn’t look like they “belonged” there. The young women quickly resolved the situation by showing their IDs, but the incident shocked and hurt them. How could their peers not see them as part of the same community?
They wanted to talk through the experience with the students who phoned Campus Safety. So, they approached Dean of Student Living and Wellness Luis Inoa, who, at the time, worked as an Assistant Dean of Students and the Director of Residential Life. The students requested a restorative circle.
The young Black women had encountered the idea of “circle work” in a class that discussed the Restorative Justice Movement. They had learned about the movement, which developed from Indigenous peacemaking circles and was brought into the Western lexicon in the 1970s as criminal justice advocates sought approaches outside of the prison system to address harm. Although modern uses of this approach initially grew out of the criminal justice movement, practitioners have found this approach also has applications in workplaces, schools, and universities alike. Scholars now study this movement as a transdisciplinary social science, cutting across disciplines like education, ethnic studies, and sociology, among other fields.
As a reconciliation technique, this process promotes mutual understanding, accountability, and community development rather than the traditional justice approach, which focuses on punishment and retribution. Within this framework, a circle mediation, theoretically, would help all of the students involved explain how they felt and hopefully heal from the experience.
Dean Inoa agreed and set up a meeting to try out this new technique. However, the meeting did not go as planned.
At that moment, Dean Inoa knew Residential Life needed to equip itself with the tools to better serve students in the future. Reflecting on that moment, Dean Inoa said, “This [restorative practice]work has always been in honor of those two young women.”
The summer following the incident, Dean Inoa worked with his colleagues to rewrite Residential Life’s mission statement and formed the Restorative Justice Ad Hoc Committee (RJC) to address issues of belonging that students didn’t want to bring to the student conduct office. As a part of their initial proposal, house teams, student fellows, and other related staff would be trained “to use proactive and reflective circles.”
Although this initiative had some successes, for these methods to take root throughout campus life, Dean Inoa knew that Vassar, as an institution, would need to invest in restorative practices. The opportunity for this kind of expansion came in 2023 as Vassar moved the Mellon-funded Engaged Pluralism initiative into a permanent university-wide program.
This structure is key to building a campus capable of navigating through conflict, says Kimberly Williams Brown, Director of Engaged Pluralism (EP) and Associate Professor of Education. She notes that college can be the first time a student encounters different cultures, values, and perspectives. And when people from different backgrounds must interact for the first time, disagreements naturally arise. In their home and grade-school environments, students might not have learned how to talk through these moments in ways that prioritize mutual understanding or maintaining community engagement.
The EP program seeks to build inclusion and belonging on campus through four tools: intergroup dialogue, storytelling, inclusive pedagogy, and restorative practices. The latter helps students develop the conflict resolution skills they need to engage in the other three.
Without this throughline, Williams Brown said, “it can be easy to only see the world from our perspective.” So, creating spaces for mistakes and empathy gives students the tools to stay invested in a community even when they feel uncomfortable.
“The EP space becomes that space where people can try things out, people can make mistakes, they can say the wrong words, but then you’re going to get a deeper understanding of why, in a contemporary context, a word may no longer be used,” Williams Brown noted. “One has to also be willing to learn, to sit with nuance.”
“The idea is to proactively support our student body in particular, but the entire campus by extension, in building their skills for encountering conflict, moving through it with resilience, and healing from hurt in a meaningful and connected way,” Munroe said. These skills are important on campus and also as the students encounter conflict outside of Vassar.
On the day-to-day, Munroe’s role takes many forms: group sessions, one-on-one meetings, leading workshops and trainings. She and her colleagues across the EP team—EP Director Williams Brown; Director of Inclusive Pedagogy Alexia Ferracuti; Associate Director of Organizational Development and Employment Equity Fresia Martinez Olivera; and program administrator Selena Hughes—develop programming where the Vassar community can engage across differences. The spring 2025 program series, “Exploring Difficult Dialogues,” explores various aspects of censorship and free speech. The series kicked off in February with a Q&A with Ian Rosenberg, a lawyer and the author of The Fight for Free Speech: Ten Cases That Define Our First Amendment Freedoms (NYU Press, 2021).
Munroe also manages eight student facilitators who act as RP ambassadors on campus and create student-led circles to discuss campus and societal issues. After a February presentation from the EP Race and Racism in Historical Collections Working Group focused on Vassar’s 1969 Black Studies Sit-In, student facilitators organized a workshop to debrief the presentation. Students created collages that explored what it means to be a student activist and how students can make a difference against injustice. This event and other restorative circles gave them a chance to process difficult topics in an encouraging and collaborative environment.
Munroe supports the student fellows in the Office of Residential Life, as they use circle processes and other community-building tactics across residence halls. Fellows working in restorative practices with the Residential Life team, a group known colloquially as REST, facilitate six-week circles for first-years as they adjust to campus life. These circles allow dorm-mates to share and learn from each other and lay the foundation for other dialogues students will experience across their four years. They prepare students to address instances in which they’ll need to work together to navigate complex conversations, manage conflict, and solve various problems.
Munroe also leads confidential circles or smaller groups when needed. Last spring, after the war in Gaza broke out, student protests erupted across campuses nationwide, including an encampment on Vassar’s Library Lawn. Amid all the turmoil, students at Lathrop House requested a restorative circle. They wanted a space where their dorm could process what was happening on campus and also in Gaza. In a 2024 article introducing the office and expanded EP program, House Events Officer Yaksha Gummadapu ’26 said that the circle worked and helped students release their fears.
Due to the success of these efforts, restorative circles are becoming a part of Vassar’s campus culture. The community not only uses circles to bridge divides on a diverse campus, students increasingly seek out Munroe and her office for a variety of needs. Student groups and athletic teams have come to Munroe to learn how to give and receive constructive criticism. After student Avery Kim ’26 died last spring, the office held circles to help students process the sudden tragedy.
“We’re also training some administrators so that we have more avenues to respond to these moments of interpersonal, political, collective crisis in a meaningful way,” Munroe said.
Calder Beasley ’26, who served as Education in Restorative Justice Intern for the Mediation Center of Dutchess County in partnership with the Office of Community-Engaged Learning, created a zine to help new practitioners as part of a final project for a restorative practices class Dean Inoa taught in 2024. The project became a way for Beasley to reflect on what he’d learned as an intern at the Mediation Center and in his juvenile- and restorative-justice courses.
Beasley constructed a reproducible handout using an 8 ½” x 11” sheet of paper and a marker, folding the sheet on itself a few times to create an eight-panel booklet. Each panel provides simple exercises and visuals that instruct readers how to reflect on the kinds of relationships they are building or how to determine the needs of their communities and its individuals.
Courtesy of the subject
Despite the gains the office has made, Munroe knows there’s more work the office can do. “I have a dream of training a bunch of Vassar College administrators so that we have a whole host of skilled facilitators,” Munroe said. She wants to build out the office’s capabilities so that anyone on campus in any capacity can request a restorative process.
Dean Inoa also hopes to find a way to hold restorative justice conferences as a part of student conduct hearings. The conferences would enable dialogue about the harm done by a student’s actions.
Talia Yustein, ’26, who serves on the REST team, notes that “although restorative justice is often focused on a singular relationship, it is really about restoring mutual trust and care within the larger community. As a house team, we are largely responsible for establishing and maintaining a supportive residential environment for all Vassar students. We play a role in community expectations, preventing unsafe situations, and managing conflict.”
Lathrop House Student Fellow Sarah Scarr ’27 said that the use of restorative practices has helped students feel more comfortable discussing alcohol abuse and excessive drinking. “They know that I’m not there to punish them, and the College is not working to punish them, but rather there to help them learn from this experience, to engage in safer practices,” Scarr said.
Moving from restorative justice to transformative justice, Munroe argues, may require moving beyond the circles the campus has become used to; they’re a starting point. The natural progression this framework lays out, she contends, means changing the campus’s mindset and orientation to conflict and community on campus and in the world.
On the student side, Beasley and Scarr want more students to have peer-led, restorative conversations about politics. Beasley, a dorm voting advisor for Vassar Votes, hopes to transform political debates into conversations about the needs and values that local, state, and national elected leaders need to meet.
Scarr also sees an opportunity for student fellows to introduce more political topics into first-year circles. She’s heard feedback from her peers that students want to be able to discuss or debrief political topics and other conversations happening beyond Vassar with their dormmates.
These and other students are inspired to listen to and address needs in the Vassar community and beyond as “a fundamental step toward peacebuilding,” Scarr notes.
“A lot of times, in moments of crisis, it can be really easy to shut down,” Beasley said. “But I’ve learned from restorative justice to focus on what I can do.”
The Vassar Arboretum At Peace with Nature
Arboretum
As an intern in the College’s Office of Sustainability, Sandy might be more in touch with the natural beauty of the campus than most of her peers, but students have always drawn comfort and inspiration from the Vassar landscape–especially the trees that comprise the College’s Arboretum.
And just where on the Vassar campus does one find its arboretum? It consists of three zones: the carefully maintained central campus, natural areas within and around the campus, and the Vassar Preserve. Each is managed differently, providing different types of areas for research, recreation, and relaxation.
“The Arboretum is about learning and research,” says Kenneth Foster, Vassar’s Director of Sustainability and co-chair of the Arboretum Committee. “But it’s also about spaces where people can rejuvenate, and about taking care of this little piece of land that we have.”
Vassar has joined the Campus Nature Rx network, a coalition of colleges and universities that aims to nurture healthy, nature-connected campus communities. Vassar’s own chapter, Vassar Nature Rx, was created in 2024 to “familiarize the community with the many opportunities to engage with greenspace, and to promote awareness of nature’s healing powers.”
Dr. Foster points out that Vassar is not alone in encouraging its students to spend time outdoors among plant life. “At Cornell, their health service now gives out prescriptions for time in nature,” he says. “They’ll give out the prescription form that says, for example: Spend an hour sitting outdoors.”
The idea of the campus landscape as an educational space can be traced all the way back to Matthew Vassar. The 198 acres of campus were originally imagined by the founder to be an integral part of the education and enrichment of the College’s students, according to architect and academic Karen van Lengen ’73. “At this early date,” writes van Lengen, “[Matthew] Vassar foresaw the possibility of weaving together the pedagogical goals of the College with its emerging landscape plan—an opportunity that did not present itself in a like manner at other women’s colleges of the era.”
A pivotal moment in the evolution of the natural campus came in 1919 with the hiring of botany professor Edith Roberts, says Vassar Art History professor Yvonne Elet, Co-Chair of the Arboretum Committee. “She was a really prescient eco-botanist,” says Elet. “She’s the one who collected all the native plants in the county and established a garden called the Dutchess County Ecological Lab. Digging back through the records, it seems clear to me that she was instrumental in saying, ‘Let’s start an arboretum.’”
Six years later, the pioneering woman landscape architect Beatrix Farrand was hired as Consulting Landscape Gardener to the College, to actually start one.
At a recent conference held on the Vassar campus organized by the Olmsted Network, Vassar President Elizabeth H. Bradley moderated a panel called “Advancing Health, Inclusivity in Public Spaces,” featuring health professionals and scientists including physician and epidemiologist Dr. Howard Frumkin. “We know nature is good for your health,” remarked Dr. Frumkin. “Physical benefits are surprising: better birth outcomes, better bone density, lower obesity… if nature was a pill, we’d all be taking it.”
Dr. Foster, meanwhile, contends that there is another kind of benefit that nature bestows. “The thing with wellness is that the health of us human beings is directly connected to the health of the biosphere, the ecosystems, the other living beings on the planet. Having the arboretum helps to call us to take care of the other non-human creatures and the trees and plants on our campus because they’re valuable in their own right.”
Time In A Tree
Bridging the Divides
Vassar has launched a new initiative, Engaging Differences, in the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices (RSLCP) to help members of the campus community heal and learn from each other in these polarizing times.
The project is funded by Dr. Georgette F. Bennett ’67, founder of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, which works to combat religious prejudice, confront hate, and build respect for religious differences. Bennett sees her support of Engaging Differences as a continuation of her decades-long efforts toward inter-group understanding and conflict resolution. She hopes the project will help students—whether religious or secular—learn to acknowledge the pain of others. “That’s the beginning of listening and that’s the beginning of building trust,” she explained. “That’s the beginning of healing.”
The RSLCP team wants students to be able to talk to each other about how they’re intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually processing a myriad of personal, cultural, national, or international issues. “We’re trying to think quite broadly, not only in terms of one particular set of issues or countries,” said Associate Dean of the College for RSLCP Samuel Speers. “We want students’ needs, experiences, and concerns to drive the project as we facilitate and provide appropriate resources. We want students to feel comfortable expressing their messy, full selves.”
“We don’t want to make the assumption that because you have a certain religious identity, you have a certain political identity or specific political allegiances,” said Rabbi Bryan Mann, Assistant Director of RSLCP and Rachlin Director of Jewish Student Life.
Speers, Mann, and Saba Ali, Advisor for Muslim Student Life, are implementing a three-pronged approach. The first two are inter- and intra-group dialogue within and among student groups.
“It can seem counterintuitive to be working to strengthen relationships within a religious community, while also building inter-group dialogue,” Ali noted. Vassar’s Muslim and Jewish students come from many backgrounds and hold a range of perspectives,” she said, “and there is room within those groups to uncover and understand differences.”
On a small campus like Vassar, students live, eat, take classes, and work in student groups or on class projects together. As RSLCP builds bridges across religious communities, students practice skills that help them to sustain the conversations they are already having. Students learn from each other how to organize religious communities and incorporate restorative practices that turn potential moments of conflict into opportunities for connection.
Mann said students drive the kind of interreligious community they want to see on campus. He points to a joint Passover Seder/Iftar meal students organized in the spring of 2023 that turned out to be the largest interreligious program of the year.
Students share issues they may be facing and events they are planning at semi-regular dinners and gatherings that include members of student organizations, such as the Buddhist Sangha, Vassar Catholic Community, Vassar Muslim Students Association, and many others.
Salih Elnour Salih Awouda ’25, a RSLCP intern, was one of the organizers of a biweekly interreligious gathering open to all students regardless of their faith or spiritual beliefs. Awouda says participants “come together and discuss both religious and secular topics, tying them back to their personal experiences.
“We’ve had a lot of fruitful discussions from diverse perspectives, and the energy has been amazing,” Awouda said. “[The groups] have helped me find my footing amongst my peers and feel more comfortable discussing spirituality on campus.”
Nina Sandman ’26, a religion major and RSLCP intern, recalled the time she and her friend Ben—a fellow Pratt intern and head of Vassar Catholic Community—guest-led an interreligious dialogue; the topic was purity and sex. “It was Admitted Students Day, and we had been informed we may have some prospective students joining us. Instead, we got one of their fathers,” she said. “Most of the students were on the same page, that waiting until marriage was not necessary, but this father brought in his own experience of waiting until marriage and the holiness it provided him. Listening to his practice taught all of us in the room a new perspective on a ritual we think of as ‘outdated’ in a space as liberal as Vassar. When the previous leader of these sessions graduated, Ben, Salih, and I wanted to continue these meetings.”
RSLCP staff has seen increased student engagement across religious groups. Just this semester, a chef worked with students to prepare a dinner for about 30 religious student leaders and RSLCP interns at the Bayit, taking into account the students’ various religious practices around meals.
Lucas Pollet
Students, faculty, and neighbors from the local Muslim community attended “On African American Muslim Experience,” a panel discussion moderated by Sa’ed Atshan, Vassar’s 2024–2025 Randolph Fellow in Peace, Conflict, and the Middle East, an advisor to the Engaging Differences project, and Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore. The conversation also included scholar, artist, and activist Su’ad Abdul Khabeer and Tariq al-Jamil, Associate Professor of Religion and Islamic Studies at Swarthmore.
Over the past year, Mann and Ali have worked with students to organize events that highlight music as a way to bring communities together and share cultural experiences. Last fall, Ali worked with the VMSA to bring qawwali, South Asian Sufi music, to campus for a concert. This spring, Mann and the Jewish community brought Aly Halpert, a Jewish musician, vocalist, activist, and prayer leader to campus for a songwriting workshop and concert. Both events attracted faculty, students, and campus neighbors alike.
These types of events all hinge on the kind of hospitality Pratt House—Vassar’s newly reimagined interreligious space—embodies, said Speers. Rather than forcing various groups to abide by one set of practices, he hopes students will learn “a more generous, cosmopolitan approach that recognizes communities, practices, and traditions and does the creative and hard work of making space for all of that.”
Tamar Weil ’27, a religion major, serves as an evaluation intern for RSLCP, assessing various initiatives related to the Engaging Differences project. “Successful events helped expose students to new perspectives,” she said. “Participants who had positive experiences have spoken of the opportunities they have had for conversation, either after a panel or during a well-facilitated inter-group discussion.
“Of course, this kind of evaluation is difficult to quantify because we are trying to track relationality,” she added. “Much of what I am trying to assess is how much folks from different organizations are talking to each other and how comfortable they feel engaging in discourse, especially as it pertains to RSLCP’s facilitation of those conversations. This difficulty is something of a blessing, though, because it means that any evaluation we do necessarily furthers these connective conversations.”
The third prong of Engaging Differences, the Organizational Design Lab (ODL), is a discovery process designed to make student experiences the starting place for programming. Administrators and interns have documented over 30 one-on-one interviews with a range of students, asking questions like: “Who are you talking to about what matters to you? Where have you struggled? What are you learning?” The ODL approach, which RSCLP leaders explored during a two-year training with Hillel International, focuses on centering student experiences and inviting them to bring their passion, concerns, and joys to the table. Insights from the labs helped RSLCP craft activities and a mission statement that felt more useful and engaging to students.
“It’s about taking a deep dive into where students are coming from, rather than us imagining we know what students need,” Speers said.
Speers recently announced that he will retire at the end of June after almost 26 years at the College. As he transitions into retirement, he hopes the Engaging Differences initiative “will help students find the relationships and centering practices that can equip them for navigating this polarized time.
“This is a key piece that I’m hoping to leave behind,” Speers added. “What’s one little thing that we can do to get to that place of opening so that, rather than feeling confined within a conflict, we have a sense of possibility? I’m so grateful to Dr. Bennett for the opening her generosity is creating.”
“It was clear the persecution was not going to stop as long as we remained there,” she said. Bennett and her parents fled by train through Czechoslovakia to France, finally arriving in the U.S. in 1952.
“All of that is hardwired into my DNA and informs the work that I do,” said Bennett.
In addition to founding the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, she also founded the Multi-Faith Alliance (MFA) in 2013 to address the needs of displaced persons during the Syrian refugee crisis. The nonprofit organization has since expanded, providing humanitarian aid to Northern Iraq, Lebanon, Ukraine, Turkey, and most recently, Gaza, where MFA has delivered almost 400 truckloads of food and supplies.
Looking at the ongoing polarization in the world, the never-ending wars, and the crises that create the need for such humanitarian aid, she contends that peace can only be achieved by “seeing each other in our humanity rather than as boxes at opposite ends of a dichotomy.”
Engaging Differences is one small step toward learning to listen to and understand each other. –Elizabeth Randolph
Wellness
Champions
Luis Inoa
The Jewish Education Project, formerly known as the Board of Jewish Education, provides professional development and resources for educators working in early childhood centers, congregations, day schools, and youth programs. Inoa was nominated for the award by the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), an organization dedicated to mobilizing university faculty and administrators to address antisemitism on campus.
Following the October 7 attacks, Inoa participated in a series of AEN workshops focused on creating safer, more inclusive environments for Jewish students and others.
“It’s an honor to receive this recognition,” Inoa said. “Supporting Jewish students, including Zionist students at Vassar, is important to me. My support is for our students—many of whom are deeply conflicted and seeking just and peaceful resolutions and needed spaces to be able to express that. I am grateful that they trusted me.”
Inoa also expressed a personal commitment to ongoing learning. “I’ve worked hard to understand antisemitism, the history of Israel and Palestine, and what it means to support all students affected by the current conflict,” he said. “This award is not just about my work—it’s a reflection of the collective efforts of our administration, including Dean of the College Carlos Alamo-Pastrana and President Elizabeth Bradley, to care for our students.”
The award included a $2,000 stipend, which Inoa split between campus initiatives and a donation to Roots—a grassroots organization fostering understanding, nonviolence, and transformation among Israelis and Palestinians through dialogue and collaboration. The group’s programs bring individuals from both communities together to explore what it means to share the land they call home.
“This recognition underscores the importance of making space for difficult conversations,” Inoa added. “While I’m still learning, I remain dedicated to this work and to ensuring our campus is a place where all students feel supported.”
Margot Schinella ’06
But it was a bit later in her career, as a family nurse practitioner, that Schinella found her calling: caring for college-aged young adults. “So much of health care is about fixing health problems, but with this age group, you can really focus on teaching them how to promote wellness in their life, so they don’t end up with multiple comorbidities later in life,” she says.
Yet promoting overall wellness wasn’t first on the priority list when Schinella started working at Vassar in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The campus was still shut down, and everyone was isolated—at least at first,” says Schinella.
But as the world opened up again, Schinella was able to push her agenda forward, which included raising students’ awareness of preventative health measures they could take to keep themselves thriving over the long term. “Learning doesn’t just begin and end in the classroom,” she says. “My goal was to provide health education through a variety of means such as screening events on campus, including those for breast, chest, and testicular cancer, along with pop-up vaccine clinics and a newly launched Instagram account that provides routine health care tips.”
Schinella coordinates the Mindful Eating Support Team (MEST), a new initiative that provides individualized counseling, monitoring, support, and care to students struggling with body image issues, nutritional concerns, and disordered eating patterns. A team, including medical, mental health, exercise and nutrition experts, works to schedule on- and off-campus nutritional and counseling support and specialists. “We meet with students individually and connect them with the type of care they are seeking using a patient-centered and collaborative structure,” says Schinella. Referrals to MEST have dramatically increased as the program becomes more widely known, according to her.
That kind of holistic approach extends to mental health, too: “Essentially, all of us are working toward the same goal, which is promoting health in every dimension of life—physical, mental, emotional, financial,” says Schinella, who runs half-marathons and kayaks to keep herself healthy.
Connor Dalgaard ’26
As an active member of his Pittsburgh high school’s mental health club, he organized events to raise mental health awareness and hosted roundtables with teachers. “In high school, you don’t always think of your teacher as a real person,” he says with a laugh, “but when you look at them eye-to-eye, it’s easy to see how we all have our own mental health struggles.” When COVID-19 ended these activities, he looked beyond school for ways to be active, including becoming a member of the PA Youth Advocacy Network.
Then, as a Vassar first-year student, he immediately sensed that he could take his activism to a new level at his newfound home. “From the first day I met my student fellow group, I felt so at home,” Dalgaard recalls. “Whether walking around the Preserve or exploring the Hudson Valley—the atmosphere has really allowed me to flourish.”
Dalgaard was also drawn to Vassar’s Listening Center (TLC), a text hotline where students can reach out to their peers anonymously to vent and get support from 8 p.m. to midnight. “Mental health crises don’t just happen Monday to Friday, from nine to five, when counseling services are open,” says Dalgaard, who, as VP of TLC, oversees the training and scheduling of student listeners. “Sometimes, you just need to connect with a person your age, who will understand the ‘Vassar-ness’ of a situation and won’t judge you.”
With support from the Office of Community-Engaged Learning, Dalgaard has interned with the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and been one of nine youth advisors to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) New York State. Now, he is doing a gap semester to intern for Inseparable, an advocacy organization that works to reshape the public policies governing mental health care across the country. Just recently, NAMI Keystone awarded Dalgaard with the 2025 Youth Mental Health Leadership Award. “Through NAMI-NYS, I created a podcast episode on stress among college students, which was shared across New York State,” he says.
But perhaps the most surprising connections to Dalgaard’s passion for mental health activism have been found in the classroom. “For my First-Year Writing Seminar, I randomly took a Greek and Roman studies course, and I was in awe when, in The Iliad, I read about Achilles’s elaborate grief rituals after Patroclus died, which connected to what I was learning in my physiological psychology class about elephants’ grieving rituals—the way, after a death of another elephant, they vocalize, approach the body, try to revive the animal, or remain with the body. It made me wonder if our modern grief rituals like funerals, lamenting on social media, and then immediately going back to work or school are as effective.” Another lightbulb went off when he took Advanced Topics in Health Economics and Policy, where he learned to make the case for investing in mental health support. “All these classes have allowed me to make critical connections and given me an unconventional perspective as a young mental health activist. I have Vassar to thank for that.”
Mariam Eshetu ’24
“These colleges were really proactive in terms of their mental health approaches,” said Eshetu. “Vassar does the same thing here.” This network of support enables students to not only stay in college but to thrive. Eshetu said she took advantage of Vassar’s mental health support early in her college career and found it very helpful.
These findings support other research that connects better mental health support with higher graduation rates and fewer students who drop out.
She also learned that too many people separate mental health needs from everything else, but in reality, mental health can be the root cause of a lot of issues.
Eshetu, who graduated from Vassar with a BA in psychology and a correlation in education, is currently the middle- school coordinator for the Vassar After School Team (VAST), which connects Vassar student volunteers and Poughkeepsie Middle School scholars for tutoring and mentoring. She is applying to graduate schools and eventually plans to pursue a PhD. Her goal is to work with middle-school students and conduct additional research on pre-teen and teen mental health.
Nina Smiley ’73
The College’s physical campus also helped nurture Smiley’s passion for nature. “Whenever I’d stroll through the Shakespeare Garden, there was a sense of discovery,” she says. “What I loved is that you could be present in the world of Vassar and also in the world of nature, discovering new things.”
One discovery she made soon after graduation was Mohonk Mountain House, a resort across the river owned by the family of her then-boyfriend and soon-to-be husband of 45 years, the late Bert Smiley. Mohonk, it turned out, had a history intertwined with Vassar. “Both were founded in the 1860s, and, back then, graduating seniors would come over to the resort to relax and celebrate,” Smiley says.
After a peripatetic career that included teaching college psychology, conducting marketing focus groups, and working at a think tank for the AARP, she and Bert decided to become Mohonk’s innkeepers. “I realized that I had an opportunity to share my love of nature and mindfulness meditation with our staff and guests,” she says. With her twin brother, Smiley coauthored three books on mindfulness, including Mindfulness in Nature, MetaPhysical Fitness, and The Three-Minute Meditator, which has been translated into seven languages.
At Mohonk, Smiley puts her passion for mindfulness into action, taking guests on “forest bathing” expeditions around the 1,200-acre property. “To be outdoors and feel the air on your skin, to smell it, to hear the sounds around you, that’s when the body begins to relax in a powerful way,” says Smiley. “So many studies have found that being in nature, or even seeing a tree out a window, can have a significantly positive impact on well-being.”
Smiley has also brought her passion for nurturing well-being to Vassar, including doing programs on resilience with Michele M. Tugade, PhD, a Professor in the Department of Psychological Science. “We did one during the pandemic on resilience, mindfulness, and wellness to offer support to the Vassar community,” says Smiley. “The wonderful thing about nature and mindfulness is that both are practical and accessible—I always tell people that they’re for real life, in real time, for real people when they really need it.”
Redefining
Wellness
Clara’s Fund
Established in honor of her mother, Clara Cheney McCarthy, Class of 1921, the fund helps cover co-pays and deductibles for intensive outpatient programs (IOP) and other mental health services, enabling students to fully engage in their learning and personal growth. “My theory is that feeling self-confident maximizes your learning ability so you can reach your full potential,” Conley said.
Class of 1989 Emergency Health Fund
One of the classmates who contributed to the fund shared their motivation for being a part of this effort, saying, “As an alum who utilized mental health services in graduate school and as a parent who has a daughter utilizing mental health services in high school, I recognized the need to have mental health services for undergraduates. When my classmates reached out about supporting this fund, it immediately resonated with me, and it was a cause I could get behind and enthusiastically support.”
Leslie J. Chihuly ’83 Health and Wellness Fund
Chihuly spoke at the Seattle Fearlessly Consequential campaign celebration, emphasizing the need for better mental health support. Chihuly noted, “There was a dearth of mental health services when I was [at Vassar], and there was a stigma that prevented any real discussion of the issue. We have to be more proactive about this.”
Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank Health and Wellness Fund
Spaces for Health and Wellness Fund
Fearlessly Consequential Impact
A Poster Child for the Liberal Arts
“You’re literally in the middle of nowhere, in the North Sea, on a rock, with a few people and some reindeer,” she recalls, laughing. “You hope the plane will remember to come back and get you, because it might not actually come when it’s scheduled.”
A “what if?” sense of curiosity has been Gordon’s compass her whole life. It has led her down side trails and through unscheduled adventures to create a life as both a physician and crime novelist.
“Back when I was in my 20s and 30s, I literally never would have guessed I’d be where I am now,” she says.
Gordon grew up in suburban Maryland with parents who worked as civilians for the Navy. (Gordon sprinkles her recollections with references to Leave It to Beaver and the Huxtables.) As an introverted kid with no siblings, she was happiest curled up with a book. Crime novels and spooky movies were her favorites. She liked to make up stories, too; Gordon still has her first book, a school project made out of wallpaper scraps and artwork.
Her parents, both mathematicians, encouraged her writing but regarded it as a hobby, not a future profession. By the time she was 12, Gordon had set her sights on medicine. It was right in line with her love of mystery books.
“Symptoms are like clues, and making a diagnosis is kind of like solving a mystery,” she says. “I was interested in how to use my scientific knowledge to figure out what’s going on with this person sitting in front of me with a cough and a fever.”
She applied to about 20 colleges, but the moment she stepped onto Vassar’s campus, she knew she would attend. “It’s what I had imagined college to be in the books I loved to read.”
Plan B
“The show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was popular, so I initially had it in my head to go be an old-fashioned country family physician with people paying me in chickens,” she recalls.
But she soon realized rural life wasn’t for her. In her last year of residency, one of her attendings was retiring from the Army and told her that the hospital at nearby Fort Jackson was hiring. The Army wasn’t in her long-term plans, but the country doctor idea was off the table and she needed a job. She worked there for six years before moving over to Veterans Affairs.
After six more years, another TV show sparked an itch for a new adventure: Northern Exposure. Three winters of dim, five-hour daylight was enough before Gordon moved to Dallas to become a medical officer with the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command. In 2020, she was selected for the civilian Defense Senior Leader Development Program. That involved earning a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
Today, Gordon is the human survivability lead with the U.S. Army Nuclear and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Agency (USANCA) in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. As civilian Army staff members, she and her team support military personnel behind the front lines. Gordon’s job is to ensure that forces can survive to fight in an environment that has been degraded by a nuclear radiological, biological, or chemical event.
“Human survivability is about taking care of our people, making sure that whatever the incident is, it’s not just the tanks that come through it,” Gordon says. “We do all the coordinating and the analyzing and the information gathering and the resourcing and managing so that the commanders can concentrate on their jobs.”
Writing returns
The book, Murder in G Major—the first in her five-book Gethsemane Brown Mysteries series—was turned into a 2023 Hallmark movie starring Tamera Mowry-Housley. Gordon is in the research stage of a sixth book.
“I actually work on the base where the Blackhawk helicopter [which collided with an American Airlines plane in January] came from. So, you know, real life is random, and bad things happen. And in movies and books, it’s not actually random. I know somebody made it up and sat down and consciously chose the ending.”
History lessons
“As much as we complain about it, America is, at least to me, still a pretty cool place, and everybody had a hand in it, not just the select group of people that we hear about,” says Gordon, who earned a master’s degree in public/applied history from Southern New Hampshire University in 2024. “There’s a whole lot of other people that helped us get to where we are. And I think their stories should be told as well.”
Gordon has found a sense of purpose by staying open to the possibilities at every turning point.
“If I had kept to my plan, I’d be living in some small town somewhere as the doc,” she says. “I realized that it’s okay if Plan A doesn’t pan out, because there’s Plan B, and Plan C, and Plan D.
“And even if the experiences along the way are a little bumpy, they still kind of shape who you are, and there’s always something to learn—even from a bad experience. Even if the only thing you learn is ‘don’t do that again.’”
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FICTION
Playworld: A Novel
by Adam Ross ’89
Knopf, 2025 - Hazel Says No
by Jessica Gross ’94
Harper Collins, 2025 
- A Time Outside This Time
by Professor Amitava Kumar
Penguin Random House, 2025 - The Imagined Life
by Andrew Porter ’94
Knopf, 2025 - The Shining Mountains
by Alix Christie ’80
University of New Mexico Press, 2025 -
NON-FICTION
Liberal Education and Democratic Citizenship
by Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
Michael McCarthy
Lexington Books, 2025 
- More Than Just a Game
by Professors William Hoynes and Chris Bjork
Central Recovery Press, 2025 
- The Dream of a Common Movement: Selected Writings of Urvashi Vaid
By Urvashi Vaid ’79; Editors: Jyotsna Vaid ’76, Amy Hoffman
Duke University Press, 2025 
- Write, Teach, Spark: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Book That Matters
by Cara Stevens ’90
Gatekeeper Press, 2025 -
POETRY
Fires Seen from Space
by Elizabeth Fagin ’94
Winter Editions, 2024 - magic carpet
by Frank Hooven ’77
Red Moon Press, 2025 
Letter from the President of the AAVC
Spring is almost upon us, even in the Midwestern U.S., and the buds and shoots truly bring forth a revival of the spirits. The promise of spring turns my thoughts to long walks outdoors, and generally to good health and well-being, after cocooning during the cold months.
And there is no better place for this sense of revitalization than our spectacular Vassar campus, which I am certain you can envision with the glorious bright-green lawns, the daffodils on Main Circle, and the trees bedecked with new leaves and rich blossoms.
I am so proud of Vassar for modeling a paradigm of a healthy community, with its focus on mental health services, efforts to keep students physically healthy, and providing restorative and contemplative practices.
I so hope that all of us will also find ways to take care of ourselves and support each other. We are all connected, in a deep and fundamental way, and the AAVC and our alum community are here for us.
And, as you consider our community, please give some thought to those among our ranks who you believe should be recognized by the AAVC Alum Recognition Committee, chaired by my colleague and friend, Eddie Gamarra ’94. Every year, AAVC awards honor and recognize the distinguished achievements, service, and contributions of Vassar alums, faculty, and staff. The full Call for Nominations can be accessed here, so please familiarize yourselves with the categories and submit candidates you would like us to consider.
I look forward to seeing many of you at Reunion 2025, which promises to be another fabulous celebration of our collective past, present, and all that is yet to come. Until then, please take good care of yourselves.
My very best,
- Monica Vachher ’77, Illinois
President and AAVC Trustee - Brian Farkas ’10, New York
Vice President and AAVC Trustee - Tyrone Forman ’92, Illinois
Vice President and AAVC Trustee - Alisa Swire ’84, New York
Nominating and Governance Committee Chair - Gail Becker ’64, New Jersey
- Maybelle Taylor Bennett ’70, Washington, DC
- Patrick DeYoung ’18, Pennsylvania
AAVC Trustee - AC Dumlao ’13, New York
- James Estrada ’13, Michigan
Alumnae House Committee Chair - Eddie Gamarra ’94, California
Alum Recognition Committee Chair - Anne Green ‘93, New Jersey
AAVC Trustee - Delia Cheung Hom ’00, Massachusetts
AAVC Trustee
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Ad Hoc Committee Chair - Peggy Ann Nagae ’73, Oregon
- Michael Neuwirth ’89, New York
- Katherine “Kat” Mills Polys ’93, Virginia
Vassar Fund Committee Chair - Heller An Shapiro ’81, Maryland
- Sheryl Smikle ’81, Georgia
- Andrew Solum ’89, United Kingdom
Clubs Committee Chair - Keith St. John ’81, New York
- Carlos Hernandez Tellez ’14, Brazil
Career Networking Committee Chair - Kerri Tillett ’91, Massachusetts/North Carolina
(on leave) - Emily Weisgrau ’96, Massachusetts
- Ellie Winter ’18, Rhode Island
- Lisa Tessler
Executive Director of the AAVC - Patricia Lamark
Associate Director, AAVC Engagement
In Memoriam
-
1943
Ruth Dawson Straus
September 22, 2024 -
1944
Margaret Barry Cheney
November 19, 2024 -
1945-4
Mary Murdock Thompson
November 10, 2022 -
1945-4
Anne Hooker Boardman
September 17, 2024 -
1947
Marjorie Bain Chadsey
September 22, 2024 -
1948
Mary Louise Hastings Clarke
December 1, 2024 -
1948
Anne Thomas Gibbons
December 23, 2024 -
1949
Ellen Kingsbury Viereck
December 6, 2024 -
1950
Maryann Nathan Collin
November 29, 2020 -
1950
Gloria Balser Kraftsow
July 11, 2021 -
1950
Margaret Soule La Fever
August 23, 2021 -
1950
Judith Goldstein Minowitz
September 16, 2021 -
1950
Elaine Perry Atkins
October 17, 2024 -
1950
Dee Flagg Liddicoet
December 21, 2024 -
1950
Barbara Dyckman Wells
January 5, 2025 -
1951
Elizabeth Gates Whaley
March 13, 2021 -
1951
Grace Blust Wreaks
September 26, 2021 -
1951
Anne Butterfield Ainsworth
January 5, 2022 -
1951
Josephine Nitti Wallace
May 7, 2022 -
1951
Jean Sonnenblick Saklad
November 24, 2024 -
1951
Martha Crane Gruson
December 5, 2024 -
1951
Barbara Boomer Reid
January 15, 2025 -
1952
Ann Lovenberg Palmer
February 10, 2021 -
1952
Marian Ballin Fenster
November 28, 2021 -
1952
Libby Frommer Printz
January 18, 2024 -
1952
Josephine Hildreth Detmer
August 23, 2024 -
1952
Barbara Ann Decker Doran
October 31, 2024 -
1952
Alden Calmer Read
November 18, 2024 -
1952
Elizabeth Elferink Cayer
January 6, 2025 -
1952
Joan Gradison Coe
January 10, 2025 -
1953
Anne Stoddard Finnie
March 6, 2020 -
1953
Henrietta Healy Martindale
February 25, 2021 -
1953
Cenie Cafarelli
March 29, 2022 -
1953
Barbara Spence Hopkins
June 29, 2022 -
1953
Elizabeth Holzer Vandenberg
August 21, 2024 -
1953
Elinor Schatzman Reiss
November 9, 2024 -
1953
Claudene Tobin Seidel
November 25, 2024 -
1953
Ann Patricia Levy Klein
December 7, 2024 -
1953
Ruth Reardon O’Brien
December 12, 2024 -
1954
Alison Fennelly Siragusa
December 31, 2021 -
1954
Polly Wardwell Parker
March 18, 2022 -
1954
Sarah Fenn Luth
May 14, 2024 -
1954
Margarita Filer Ostergaard
October 19, 2024 -
1954
Julie Baquie Morton
October 27, 2024 -
1954
Margaret Rose Brill
November 7, 2024 -
1954
Nancy Raymond
December 27, 2024 -
1954
Rebecca Newman Simms
January 2, 2025 -
1954
Barbara Bailey Avery
January 5, 2025 -
1954
Virginia Lasell Westgaard
January 15, 2025 -
1955
Gretchen Von Everbach Tatge
February 16, 2020 -
1955
Mary Hynson Thuroczy
January 20, 2021 -
1955
Jessie Brome Sackler
January 21, 2022 -
1955
Roberta Karen Nieberg
December 10, 2022 -
1955
Barbara McDougal Vinje
March 10, 2024 -
1955
M. Ann Kuraner Smith
October 24, 2024 -
1955
Marlene Deahl Merrill
November 7, 2024 -
1956
Sylvia Arnowich
August 12, 2021 -
1956
K. Gillet Thomas Page
December 8, 2024 -
1956
Susan Meek McCabe
December 24, 2024 -
1956
Gayle Marsella Meade
January 9, 2025 -
1956
Joan Willette Laird
January 17, 2025 -
1957
Hope Kingsbury Register
October 4, 2020 -
1957
Alexandra Fox Seman
February 12, 2022 -
1957
Paula Ivaska Robbins
February 21, 2022 -
1957
Natalie Friedman Been
June 1, 2024 -
1957
Misao Matsumoto Maku
September 10, 2024 -
1957
Mary Chafee Harrington
September 26, 2024 -
1957
Sandra Ferry
October 25, 2024 -
1958
Audrey Solomon Kahn
July 16, 2021 -
1958
Ann Simonson Dunnington
August 5, 2021 -
1958
Carol Boggs Charles
March 14, 2022 -
1958
Ellen Riggs Smith
March 23, 2024 -
1958
Joan Lynch Thomas
April 16, 2024 -
1959
Eleanor Grubbs Hetrick
November 11, 2020 -
1959
Virginia Doepke Newhall
September 9, 2024 -
1959
Joan Binney Ross
November 27, 2024 -
1960
Linda Lucas Thomas
March 27, 2020 -
1960
Mary Clarkson Roth
October 5, 2021 -
1960
Lisabeth Ross
October 16, 2024 -
1960
Mary Hill Feron
October 28, 2024 -
1960
Susan Scott Heyneman
December 4, 2024 -
1960
Susan McCabe Gillotti
December 11, 2024 -
1961
Joanna Baker Alderson
July 31, 2020 -
1961
Harriet Royer Beegle
November 12, 2021 -
1961
Martha Dugan Erskine
April 17, 2022 -
1961
Linda Perlman Tanner
April 5, 2024 -
1961
Susan Snydacker Hochvert
November 3, 2024 -
1961
Anne Beveridge Hartley
November 21, 2024 -
1962
Judith Revitch Porter
October 21, 2024 -
1962
Bonnie MacInnes Meagher
December 21, 2024 -
1963
Tess Wishengrad Siegel
July 9, 2021 -
1963
Marilyn Dwight Rife
December 29, 2021 -
1963
Anne Richmond
October 3, 2024 -
1963
Mari Ann Rhodes Blatch
October 9, 2024 -
1964
Hallie Ross Solomon
August 1, 2020 -
1964
Gail Adamson
October 2, 2024 -
1964
Carolyn Jo Cole
December 17, 2024 -
1965
Jacqueline Cochran Williams
January 29, 2021 -
1965
Penelope Patterson Paxton
October 3, 2024 -
1965
Virginia Bate Catelli
October 14, 2024 -
1965
Sally Vance Roman
November 20, 2024 -
1965
Victoria De Filippo Lutzer
December 25, 2024 -
1966
Julie Fraser Triessl
February 11, 2022 -
1967
Jean Hall
November 8, 2023 -
1969
Nancy Ungerer Sachs
May 3, 2024 -
1969
Margaret Hiza Ardington
September 17, 2024 -
1970
Linda Stockton
August 24, 2023 -
1970
Monica Schoelch Krieger
November 13, 2024 -
1971
Gloria Stokus Crudgington
September 25, 2024 -
1973
Barbara Knight
August 17, 2021 -
1975
John Russell Jinishian
May 19, 2020 -
1975
Aris Dervis
December 6, 2024 -
1976
Edith Siler
November 1, 2024 -
1977
Katherine Korda
April 22, 2020 -
1977
Linda Mahon
February 2, 2021 -
1979
Blaine Greenberg
October 31, 2024 -
1980
Sharon Daly
August 20, 2020 -
1981
Rhonda Hershey
October 27, 2024 -
1982
Jennifer Pennington
May 14, 2021 -
1982
Matthew B. Defty
August 24, 2024 -
1985
Sophia Kanka
October 23, 2024 -
1989
Mark S. Sierak
November 12, 2020 -
1989
Leonard Giaccone
June 28, 2021 -
1989
Sandra Ponte
March 19, 2022 -
1997
James Steerman
August 30, 2024 -
2001
Jed P. Williams
May 26, 2024 -
2002
Charles B. Stern
December 10, 2023 -
2014
Jessica P. Tarantine
October 18, 2024 -
2015
Juan M. Thompson
September 7, 2024
Announcements
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Vacation Rental in Panama
House in Panama with gorgeous views of the Pacific Ocean near the surfing beach of Playa Venao, and close to the local airport in Pedasi. Includes a main house, with a large covered patio facing a 50ft. infinity edge lap pool, guest house with two bedrooms and bath, and a separate master suite casita. Available weekly or longer, May through mid-December. Fast Starlink internet, A/C. Grid-tied solar system means no outages. Many activities are available locally including fishing, surfing, and snorkeling, or you can just relax. Rent the whole compound or just the guest casita. For more information and photos:
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Condo Rental, French Quarter
Situated on a quiet and central block in New Orleans’s Vieux Carre, this cozy historic Creole cottage is perfect for a single or a couple looking to explore all the music, food, art, and culture New Orleans has to offer. Start your morning enjoying your chicory coffee in the interior courtyard and end your night sipping a Sazerac under a gas lamp on the front patio. Channel your inner Anne Rice or Tennessee Williams in this excellent writer’s retreat. Slide the 12-foot-tall wood pocket doors closed and curl up in a queen bed after a long day of jazz, gumbo, and cemetery tours. Walking distance to various streetcar lines and buses. Washer/dryer, Internet, gas stove, utilities included.
Eddie Gamarra ‘94
eddiegamarra@gmail.com -
Apartment Rental, Yellowstone
Cozy modern studio for two on the Yellowstone River, steps from Yellowstone National Park’s North Entrance in Gardiner, Montana. Private river access, covered deck overlooking the river, and incredible mountain views. Living space includes comfortable seating, gas fireplace, work desk, and dining table. Fully furnished kitchen with breakfast bar. A half wall separates the king bed from the living area. Full bath. Available year-round.
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Rent/Swap Umbrian Farmhouse
4 BR/3.5 BA, excellent wifi, full AC and lap pool nestled in 6 acres of olive grove near Orvieto. Sweeping view of the Tiber Valley and surrounding hill towns. Walk up to Guardea for morning coffee and Sunday market, visit hill towns, hike/bike the Borghi dei Silenti trail, or never leave this oasis! Plenty of outdoor space, yoga platform, and pergolas for group workshops, family gatherings, and the digital nomad.
Lisa Brodey ’80 and Lucy Clark ’09
lbrodey@yahoo.com -
Comedy Writing Workshop, Italy
The Ladies’ Room is a comedy writing workshop for young women and women-identifying writers, led by Liz Hara ’04 & Jill Twiss. It will take place at the Istituto San Lodovico, Orvieto (TN), Italy, Sunday, June 8 – Sunday, June 15, 2025. Join us this summer in Italy where you’ll be taught the fundamentals of writing for television by veteran writers Liz Hara (Sesame Street, Life in Pieces) and Jill Twiss (Last Week Tonight.) We’ll cover three-act structure, character development, and the rules of comedy–who doesn’t love rules?! We’ll also hold master classes on how to pitch a show and create a late night packet. This workshop is designed to advance young women in the male-dominated field of comedy, developing your voice in a supportive and collaborative environment.
For more information:
https://tinyurl.com/5py82xnv -
Free Vassar Yearbooks
The archives of Vassar College are pleased to offer a unique opportunity to acquire original volumes of the Vassarion, the College’s official yearbook. We invite alumni and friends of the College to request a yearbook from the following available years: 1890, 1892-1912, 1914-1916, 1918-1919, 1921-1922, 1924, 1925, 1927, 1929, 1931, 1937, 1959-1961, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1981-1982, 1985-1987, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2005-2007, 2009-2012. The yearbooks are free; however, the recipient is responsible for postage costs.
John Bradley
jcbradley@vassar.edu -
Cute Cottage Near Santa Barbara
Available year round! Come relax on the beach, boogie board, and build sand castles with your loves and littles and enjoy some of the world’s most beautiful sunsets! Cute cottage, a block from the beautiful and family-friendly Sandyland Cove Beach and walking distance from restaurants, shops, and ice cream! Carpenteria is a sleepy beach town 20 min. south of Santa Barbara and less than two hours to Los Angeles. Our 2/1 sleeps four comfortably in two separate bedrooms, and there’s a pullout couch in the living room for two more. Full kitchen, washer/dryer, dishwasher, microwave, Internet, Roku, and a fenced-in yard with outdoor eating space and parking. Pet friendly. 30-day minimum rental.
Arcadia Haid Conrad ‘94
actuallyarcadia@gmail.com -
Book Doctor: To the Rescue
Have you always wanted to write a book? Or are you already in the midst of planning or writing a book, memoir, or short story? Let me help you achieve success by analyzing and/or ghostwriting the manuscript for you. My credentials are listed on my website.
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You’ve Got Great Stories! Let FamilyLore Record Them!
At FamilyLore.com, we believe every life is brimming with unique stories to be expressed, recorded, and shared. I’m Adam Phillips ‘77, a multi-award-winning radio journalist with 35+ years of experience interviewing world-famous luminaries as well as everyday folks with their own fascinating tales to tell. Together, let’s unearth the “gold” in your life’s journey for present and future generations to enjoy. (We also work with organizations and conduct workshops.)
Adam Phillips ‘77
www.FamilyLore.com -
Career and Job-Search Counseling
Vassar alum and experienced career counselor will guide you to a satisfying career path and successful job search. Can meet with you in person in Westchester or NYC, and/or by phone and email. No situation is too difficult!
A Passion for Knowledge
Lonergan’s quote reminds us of what should be the most passionate experience occurring at college; the periodic emergence within us of the eros of mind, of the intense human desire to understand. This shared intellectual desire is the source or root of disinterested inquiry. As the example of the naked Archimedes suggests, it is an ardent desire, a love of understanding for its own sake, apart from any practical use to which it may be put. Most of us will never make this desire the effective center of our lives, but it is crucial that we learn, during our years at college, how it can become the dominant passion of a single person or a fellowship of scientists, scholars, and artists united in the pursuit of wisdom and truth.2
In the course of our liberal education, every one of us should directly experience the eros of mind. It should haunt our lives and memories wherever we may go, and whatever else we may do. A liberal education should make us eager to continue the life of the mind on our own, and to generously support the numerous centers of learning in which it flourishes.
2 A shared respect for unrestricted inquiry and the objective knowledge to which it leads are essential to a vibrant and healthy democracy. All citizens need not be scientists, historians, or philosophers, but all should share an appreciation of what their fellow citizens do and contribute to the common world.
3 Lonergan’s Insight is one of the best accounts that we have of the conditions, occurrence, and enduring fruits of unrestricted inquiry.
