Summer 2024 Vassar Quarterly

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Justice Revisited
Summer 2024
SUMMER 2024
VOLUME 120 ISSUE 2
THE ALUMNAE/I QUARTERLY

Contents

Features

Michael Rhynes is greeted by his attorneys Pierre Sussman and Bobby Grossman ’95 outside Attica prison upon his release.
©Tina MacIntyre-Yee, Democrat and Chronicle – Part of the USA Today Network
What motivates someone to take on seemingly impossible tasks of righting wrongs resulting from the failures of our justice system? We talked to several alums, students, and staffers who took a stand to reverse wrongful convictions or advocate for non-biased sentencing. Each experienced myriad turning points that drove them to take action. How did they do it and why?

Departments

How a new facility, including the Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts, a restaurant, and a hotel, will form a bridge between Vassar and the world.
group photo of people holding shovels and shoveling dirt at a construction site
Samuel Stuart Photography
Breaking ground on the new Barlett Admission and Career Center, Commencement highlights, a new Chair for the Board of Trustees, a Shark Tank–like student pitch competition, inaugural programs at the Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts, global partnerships, and more.
A student takes a selfie with President Bradley at graduation.
Kelly Marsh
Meet Vassar’s youngest-ever national track champion. Men’s volleyball advances to the finals of the Division III championship. Vassar seeks nominations for its inaugural class of the Athletics Hall of Fame.
A female firefighter on duty holds an axe and smiles for the camera.
Courtesy of the subject
Circa 1920s, a line of Vassar students takes turns practicing using a voting booth.
Vassar Archives and Special Collections
Alums party and dance outside under a large tent at night.
Buck Lewis
Reunion weekend, this year’s AAVC awards, AAAVC Triennial, the 2023 Time Out Grant recipient, and a young alum working with the Ukraine Parliament and the U.S. government to repel the Russian invasion.
Letters
Jan Farrington ’46 at Camp Whippoorwill, located on the shores of Augur Lake in the northeastern Adirondacks.
Jan Farrington ’46 at Camp Whippoorwill, located on the shores of Augur Lake in the northeastern Adirondacks.

Happy for the Happy Camper

Thank you for your profile on Jan Gucker Farrington ’46 (“Happy Camper,” Spring 2024).

I’ve known Jan for more than 50 years, and I will say that the life-changing impact she’s had on thousands of campers and staff members at North Country Camps cannot be overstated. She is as revered as she is beloved, as kind as she is direct, and as boundless in her affection for camp as even the most enthusiastic kiddos in her orbit.

Happy camper, standard bearer, and repository of nearly a century of all things camp, Jan is a living legend.

From the Camp Lincoln end of Augur Lake to you down there at the Whippoorwill rowing dock, hats off to you, Jan!

Matthew Hickey ’88
Interim Director, Camp Lincoln
Associate Director, North Country Camps

Correction:
In the Spring 2024 article “AI Project Preserves History of ‘Comfort Women’ During WWII” we improperly titled Professor Peipei Qiu as Associate Professor. She is Professor of Chinese and Japanese on the Louise Boyd Dale and Alfred Lichtenstein Chair and is the Chair of the Department of Chinese and Japanese.
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President’s Page

Vassar’s Institute for the Liberal Arts:
A Bridge to the Community and the World

“W

hen I arrived at Vassar in 2017, my first meetings with faculty were inspiring. It seemed every scholar had a new and creative idea for engaging more broadly in pressing global, regional, and local challenges—demonstrating how liberal arts thinking could meet the moment. Several faculty members also pitched ideas for “centers” like a Center on Decolonization, a Center on Climate Sustainability, a Center on Philosophy and Law, and the list went on. Each of the ideas had merit. Still, I had worked in a university with many centers, and knew firsthand the balkanization that can emerge from well-intentioned centers—each ultimately needing an administrator, a set of policies and practices, space, and of course a budget. My experience also suggested that centers too often became silos, reinscribing the exact disciplinary divides they had been created to overcome.

At Vassar, we looked for a different organizational structure that could house our collective aspiration to be outwardly facing, to tackle real-life issues, and to engage deeply with the larger community in all its permutations. The Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts, coming into being this October, will embody this vision. It is a convening place, a set of programs and events, and a gathering spot for new ideas, serendipitous conversations, and unexpected connections. The signature programs scheduled for this year cut across the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities in true liberal arts fashion. There is something for everyone with titles as follows: Eco-Visions: Finding Your Place in Environmentalism; The Entrepreneurial Mind and the Liberal Arts; Transgressing Borders: Reimagining Education and the Role of Learning and Community; Belonging and Beyond: Using Future Histories to Reimagine Teaching and Learning; Promoting Partnerships to Advance Educational Justice in Poughkeepsie; and Soundscapes and the Anthropocene. Read more about these programs on page 18.

Thanks to the generous support of donors, the Institute has been about seven years in the making. In that time, Vassar and the world experienced the global challenge of COVID, which delayed construction as well as taught us that the future of Vassar, its students, and its alums are intertwined with the world beyond our campus. Purposefully located on the property just east of Alumnae House, the Institute will bridge the campus and the wider community. The Heartwood hotel, The Salt Line restaurant, the Vassar Institute, as well as The Dede Thompson Bartlett Center for Admission and Career Education will form a new, more open connection to the Arlington and Poughkeepsie community. These buildings, their programming, and their posture of gracious hospitality exemplify the theme of “Vassar in the World” at a time when Vassar’s voice underscoring freedom of thought, openness, and sustained dialogue has never been more important.

In addition to hosting astounding events that will animate the campus and beyond, the Institute will allow us to shape and be shaped by the larger world—to show what it means to foster dialogue and creativity and to have our ways of thinking challenged by visitors, guests, and participants of all kinds. The core of higher education is to live always in pursuit of great understanding, and the Institute will provide a vehicle by which we may show the courage, humility, and motivation to remain curious, open, and ready to learn. These commitments are what we have in common, what we can celebrate together, and how we can sustain the value of higher education even in these deeply contested times in which our common ground can seem shaky. I hope you will participate in some of these programs and enjoy a taste of what is timeless at Vassar—the love of learning.

Portrait of President Bradley in her office in a dark-colored suit.
Elizabeth Bradley signature

Elizabeth H. Bradley
President

Vassar Today
Dede Thompson Bartlett ’65 and her spouse, Jim Bartlett, then-Trustee Chair Anthony Friscia ’78, President Elizabeth H. Bradley, and chief architect Maryann Thompson P’17 all pose holding shovels and wearing hard hats.
Dede Thompson Bartlett ’65 and her spouse, Jim (center), join then-Trustee Chair Anthony Friscia ’78, President Elizabeth H. Bradley, and chief architect Maryann Thompson P’17 at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Kelly Marsh

Vassar Breaks Ground on “Game-Changing”
Admission and Career Center

World-class. Transformational. Game-changing. Those were just a few of the adjectives used to describe The Dede Thompson Bartlett Center for Admission and Career Education at a groundbreaking ceremony on June 12 adjacent to the construction site at the north end of Vassar’s campus. The $27.5 million state-of-the-art building, designed by award-winning architect Maryann Thompson P’17, is scheduled to open in late fall 2025.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 150 members of the Vassar community and local government and business officials, alum Dede Thompson Bartlett ’65, who launched the project with a $10 million donation, called the new Admission and Career Education Center “a dream come true.”

Wielding the same shovel College founder Matthew Vassar used for the groundbreaking of Main Building in 1861, President Elizabeth H. Bradley joined Bartlett, Bartlett’s spouse Jim, Trustee Chair Anthony Friscia ’78, and Thompson in turning over a mound of soil at the site.

Bradley lauded Bartlett, who was an executive at two Fortune 25 companies, as a “pioneer [who] has broken glass ceilings and excelled in corporate systems formerly only available to men.” A longtime supporter of career education programs at Vassar and New York University, where she received her master’s degree, Bartlett has funded hundreds of internships for students in mathematics, computer science, economics, and engineering.

Bartlett said she wanted to help “create a world-class facility built on the astounding work” the College had been doing in career education. “This center will house a dynamic career education program that will give our students the skills to meet the existential challenges of the coming decades,” Bartlett said.

The building will also provide expanded facilities for the Office of Admission, Bartlett added, serving as a welcoming space for visitors to campus. “I cannot wait to see the faces of prospective students and their parents as they walk through this building and see the possibilities Vassar offers,” she said.

Thompson, the architect, said one of her main goals in designing the building was to ensure that it served as a gateway linking the campus to the community. “The courtyards and open space open their arms to the community,” she said, “and this openness also reflects the Vassar education. Dede told me, ‘I want a building that’s full of light,’ and that’s what it is.”

At a luncheon at the Alumnae House following the groundbreaking ceremony, College administrators expressed their gratitude to the Bartletts. “With this new home we have the opportunity to showcase how we prepare our students and graduates with not only a world-class education but also the skills to be successful and essential in our rapidly changing world,” said Stacy Bingham, Associate Dean of the College for Career Education.

Sonya Smith, Dean of Admission and Student Financial Services, said she and her staff had been planning for their new facilities almost since she arrived at Vassar in 2019. “This evolved into a fantastic one-two punch of a facility for Admission and Career Education together,” Smith said. “It kicks off another great chapter in Vassar history and gives a new front door—a gorgeous, state-of-the-art one—that we open to our guests from around the world.”

President Bradley closed the celebration by asking everyone to raise their champagne glasses and toast the Bartlett Center. “Our future will be full of change,” she said, “but we are fully equipped for it, thanks to the vision of Dede Bartlett. Here’s to the future!”—Larry Hertz

Vassar Today
Lissus Murataj ’27 holds his “RinRod” fishing pole while standing in front of his presentation board.

Students Compete in Inaugural Shark Tank–like Pitch Competition

A

board game that reimagines the classic strategy game Mancala. An app that helps people with common interests find each other and meet up. A blueprint for college students wishing to launch their own in-dorm nail salons. A high-protein ice cream bar for athletes. An app that enables friends to trade restaurant reviews. Another app that helps users get up in the morning. And finally, a freshwater fishing rod that addresses the design flaws found in others on the market.

Those were the products presented to judges at Vassar’s first-ever Entrepreneur Pitch Competition, held on campus Spring Semester in the College Center and hosted by the Vassar Innovation and Entrepreneurship (VIE) Program. The top prize of $2,500 was awarded to Lissus Murataj ’27 for his “RinRod” fishing pole. Cher Mei ’26’s “Cher Studio” beauty salon won the $1,000 second-place prize, and the “Lunch Box” restaurant review app designed by Tanish Pradhan Wong Ah Sui ’26 received the $500 third prize.

The competition had a Shark Tank format: Each participant was given 10 minutes to make a pitch, then fielded questions and comments from the four judges. In addition, those who attended the event were given stacks of fake cash which they “invested” in projects they liked after chatting with the participants. Cher Mei’s project attracted the most “cash,” making her concept the audience choice for the “Most Invested” award.

Murataj drew high praise from judges for “RinRod.” He designed a mechanism for feeding the line from the reel through the hollow fiberglass rod that made it much less likely to become tangled. He prototyped the rod in Vassar’s Innovation Lab and secured a patent earlier this year. “Everything about this product addresses the problems I had fishing as a kid,” he told the judges.

Ellen Rudnick ’72, Senior Advisor on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, provided the cash prizes for the event and watched it on Zoom. She was impressed with Murataj’s pitch. “You have to be able to tell your story in order to raise money, and he did a great job,” Rudnick said.—Larry Hertz

Vassar Today
Cast members of We Are the Tigers stand in a line and sing into microphones.
Cast members of We Are the Tigers treat the Shiva audience to a rousing rendition of “Don’t Even” during the student-run theater’s 30th anniversary bash.

Karl Rabe

The Susan Stein Shiva Theater

30 Years of Student-Driven Theater

For decades following the College’s founding, the large room beneath what is now the Jeh Vincent Johnson ALANA Center served as a coal bin. Thirty years ago, that space was transformed by then-architecture instructor Jeh Johnson into a “black box” theater for countless students who have been autonomously performing there ever since.

The Susan Stein Shiva Theater has also been a space for professional actors, playwrights, and other theater professionals to spend the time that enabled them to create such works as John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play Doubt and Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Hamilton as part of Vassar and New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater program.

On May 4, members of the Vassar community and students who put on some of those plays this year gathered inside the theater to celebrate the conversion of this former coal bin into a transformational creative space. “For 30 years, this has been a place of passion and laughter and tears,” said Sandro Lorenzo ’24, who co-directed Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years with Grace Adams Ward ’24 in the theater earlier this year. “Here’s to 30 more.”

Vassar Trustee Alexandra Shiva ’95 stands behind a music stand while speaking.
Vassar Trustee Alexandra Shiva ’95, daughter of the theater’s benefactor, said she was certain her mother would be proud to know how the theater has thrived for the last 30 years.

Karl Rabe

Lorenzo and Ward were jovial hosts of the event, which featured musical performances from student actors in three of the plays that were produced in the Shiva this year. President Elizabeth Bradley paid tribute to Susan Stein Shiva ’57, the alum who had endowed the theater in 1997 to ensure its permanent survival. Bradley said attending the student-produced shows there has been one of her favorite activities since she came to Vassar in 2017. “We are here to celebrate 30 years of incredible performances like the ones we just saw,” Bradley said. “And it is the Shiva family that has been responsible for re-making this space, including some renovations in 2017.”

Susan Stein Shiva’s daughter, Vassar Trustee and documentary filmmaker Alexandra Shiva ’95, told those gathered at the celebration that the metaphor comparing the fuel that had once powered Vassar and the theater that has fueled the passions of so many over the past 30 years was an apt one. “I know my mother would be incredibly proud to know how valuable this space is for all of you, a place run completely by students,” she said.

Jennifer McDermott ’95, who established and managed the space through its first year as the student-run Coal Bin Theater, offered special thanks to former Director of Campus Activities Ray Parker for supporting students in producing their plays. Vassar’s current Associate Director of Campus Activities, Edward Cheetham, said Parker deserved credit for letting students make all of the key decisions about the performances. “To my knowledge, it’s one of the few totally student-run theaters on any college campus in the country,” Cheetham said.

Abby Bettencourt ’24, this year’s Shiva Theater manager, closed the event by expressing thanks. “I’m so grateful to have this space,” she concluded. “Thanks for celebrating with us, and here’s to 30 more years.” —Larry Hertz

This article was amended from the original to clarify Jennifer McDermott’s role in the development of the theater.

Vassar Today
Portrait of Professor Kimberly Williams Brown standing on a balcony overlooking campus greenery.
Buck Lewis

Professor Kimberly Williams Brown: Taking Engaged Pluralism at Vassar to the Next Level

Anyone who despairs of ever seeing an America that can overcome its crippling polarization, political and otherwise, should spend some time with Kimberly Williams Brown. Williams Brown, an Associate Professor of Education and the College’s new Director of Engaged Pluralism (EP), believes it is indeed possible to create a community where people are not so divided that they cease to see, hear, and listen to each other. In fact, says Williams Brown, a liberal arts campus like Vassar is the ideal place in which to develop the skills to do exactly that.

“Engaged Pluralism is the way that people who have multiple perspectives, viewpoints, ways of seeing the world come to exist together in a place—and beyond just merely existing, begin to figure out how we live together,” said Williams Brown, who was appointed to a three-year term as EP Director by President Elizabeth Bradley in June.

“This is a truly critical moment for this important role, and we are so fortunate to have Professor Williams Brown to direct Engaged Pluralism,” Bradley said. “She has a clear vision and deep expertise. I look forward to supporting, collaborating, and learning from Professor Williams Brown and the Engaged Pluralism efforts.”

Williams Brown succeeds Professor of Religion Jonathon Kahn, whose term recently ended. EP began as a five-year, grant-funded College initiative in 2017; Bradley made it a permanent part of the College last year with a dedicated staff.

“I think EP is necessary for Vassar because, as a liberal arts institution, we welcome a diversity of thought, a diversity of people,” said Williams Brown. “Engaged Pluralism begins to address the intentional coming together of folks across their differences to create spaces where everybody can feel like, ‘I belong here. I can be here. What I think matters.’”

This is not something that just happens automatically, explained Williams Brown, given the power dynamics inherent in any interaction as well as the various forms of inequity that are baked into our society. It takes time, trust, and processes to make it happen. But when people feel comfortable sharing their perspectives and experiences, said Williams Brown, problem-solving on any number of issues can take on a whole new dimension: “Those differences actually help you get to the core of the issue in a different way than you might by thinking about it with like-minded people.”

The new EP Director’s faith in the ability of people who have even wildly different points of view to work together for the common good is not simple idealism but rather reflects her deep experience in effecting this type of interaction. Williams Brown, who earned a PhD in cultural foundations of education from Syracuse University, has co-authored two books and several articles about a methodological approach to thinking about difference called Intergroup Dialogue that was developed in the late 1980s and early ’90s. “A part of the communication strategy that is embedded in the Intergroup Dialogue model is that you really listen to people, you really pay attention to what it is that they’re saying.”

Williams Brown plans to find ways of integrating this methodology and other techniques into the EP program, which she believes has already had a positive impact through its Working Groups and Igniter Pitches. “My vision for EP,” she elaborated, “is to socialize the tools of restorative practices, Intergroup Dialogue, conflict mediation, inclusive pedagogies, and storytelling to realize the goal of a campus that feels and looks inclusive to students, staff, administrators, and faculty.” She acknowledges that a redoubled effort on the EP front comes not a moment too soon, as the new academic year will open in the midst of a highly divisive election season with the war in Gaza yet to be resolved. But Williams Brown believes she is the right person for this complex job. “It feels serendipitous that I was asked at this very moment when I think folks need direction, they need new tools, they need new ways of engaging with each other,” she said. —Kimberly Schaye

Vassar Today
While teaching, Professor Amitava Kumar stands next to two sitting students.
Ryan Chapman teaches in the English Department at Vassar. He is the author of the novels The Audacity (Soho Press, 2024) and Riots I Have Known (Simon & Schuster, 2019).

John Abbott

Professor Amitava Kumar Surveys a “Beloved Life”

I’m sure I’m not the only friend of Amitava Kumar’s to ask themselves, when confronted with one of life’s struggles, “What would Ami do?” The response might run something like: risk something on the page; sign the petition; go for that second martini; embrace the unknown; slow down; observe the world around you. When I met up with Kumar to chat about his novel My Beloved Life, the answer to WWAD? was easy. Order the spiciest thing on the menu.

He’d recommended a Szechuan spot near the New York Public Library, where Kumar is a fellow at its Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center. As we talked shop and shared gossip, he insisted I try some of his entrée. And did I get enough of the dumplings? More green tea?

This is as it should be. Readers of any of his fourteen books have encountered his generosity, attentiveness, and comic spirit. My Beloved Life, published this spring by Knopf, spans nearly a century and follows Jadunath Kunwar and his daughter Jugnu. Its wide scope is subsumed into numinous moments of “ordinary” life across Patna, Delhi, Berkeley, and Atlanta.

One of its epigraphs comes from John Berger: “Never again will a single story to be told as though it were the only one.” I asked Kumar why he chose it. “There is the main character or the main action occupying the stage,” he noted. “But there is always another story waiting in the wings, and my job as a writer is to usher the other story, or stories, onto the stage. History with a capital ‘H’ swallows all those small players who participate in it.” He shared a few lines from Brecht’s poem “A Worker Reads History”: “Young Alexander conquered India. / He alone? / Caesar beat the Gauls. / Was there not even a cook in his army?”

Kumar has taught at Vassar for nearly 20 years, and, as the Helen D. Lockwood Chair of English, his courses range from creative writing to journalism to literature. Fittingly, My Beloved Life contains a bookshelf’s worth of allusions. There’s Babel, Chekhov, Maugham, and Baldwin. (The New Yorker’s James Wood, in his praise for the novel, invokes Naipaul, too.) Kumar says he drew inspiration from Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams and Annie Ernaux’s A Man’s Place; the latter informed Jugnu’s first-person narration: “I liked the intimacy of her voice and also its directness.”

My Beloved Life delivers storytelling pleasures in abundance, in a tone urgent and timeless, poetic and precise. It deepens his long-standing inquiry into literature’s purpose and function, and, of course, what constitutes a meaningful existence. Jadu shares a birthplace with George Orwell, in the Indian state of Bihar. I like to think of Kumar as Orwell’s literary descendant. Both writers are prolific and protean, engaging in poetry, memoir, fiction, and journalism; both share a commitment to social justice and political activism. (I thought often of that syllabus staple “Politics and the English Language” while reading Kumar’s crisp, clear prose.)

Teaching is central to his practice. “[I] invite students to step into a zone of freedom and take risks. Ask them to be creative, and they very often come back with spectacularly inventive work. I find myself so incredibly moved and inspired.” He recommends habit and ritual: “I remember with great excitement the first time I came up with my mantra for students: ‘Write every day and walk every day.’ Each person in my Senior Comp class had to commit to writing 150 words each day and engage in ten minutes of mindful walking. I wanted to hold myself to the same challenge. It worked. At the end of the year, I had a book manuscript and so did some of the students.”

As we finished the Chinese food—sinuses cleared from the spices, eyes watering from laughter—I asked Kumar how he was commemorating the end of his NYPL fellowship. No time, he replied. He was off to India to cover their national elections. —Ryan Chapman

Ryan Chapman teaches in the English Department at Vassar. He is the author of the novels The Audacity (Soho Press, 2024) and Riots I Have Known (Simon & Schuster, 2019).
Vassar Today

Vassar Salutes Outgoing and Incoming Chairs of the Board of Trustees

Portrait of Sharon Davidson Chang ‘84
Sharon Davidson Chang ’84 P’19 is Vassar’s newly appointed Board Chair.

Dana Chang ’19

Vassar Trustee Sharon Davidson Chang ’84, P’19 has been named Chair of the Board, succeeding Anthony Friscia ’78, P’15, who is stepping down after 15 years of service, the last six as Chair. And while she acknowledges she will have “huge shoes to fill” replacing Friscia as leader of the board, Chang says she’s looking forward to helping to forge the future of the College she has loved for more than 40 years.

“I didn’t aspire to this role,” she said. But after Friscia and College President Elizabeth H. Bradley approached her last fall and asked her to consider becoming board chair, Chang decided to accept the challenge. “I was humbled and honored to be asked and it took me some time to decide—I have a demanding day job,” she said. (She is a Partner and Non-Scripted Talent Agent at William Morris Endeavor.) “But I’m also extremely passionate about Vassar and its future.”

Chang said she ultimately decided to accept the position because of what she termed as Vassar’s stellar leadership. “A significant part of my decision came down to my experience with President Bradley,” she said. “I began as a trustee the same year she became president, and I’ve seen how things have evolved since then. She’s a brilliant strategist and masterful communicator who understands how to execute a plan and get things done. She has a strong senior team, and I have a strong, collaborative board—what a gift!”

Portrait of Anthony Friscia ‘78
Anthony Friscia ’78 P’15 served as Board Chair from 2018 to 2024.

Samuel Stuart Photography

Friscia said he and Chang had spent a lot of time together since Chang was named Vice Chair of the board last fall. “Sharon and I have had numerous one-on-ones when I shared information with her and she asked lots of questions, so she has a good sense of the nuances of the job and how our committees work,” he said. “But I’ve tried not to give her too much advice. William Plapinger ’74 [Friscia’s predecessor as Chair] was a great mentor but didn’t tell me what to do. I’ve tried to do the same thing. I’m sure Sharon will do things a little differently, and that’s a good thing. She fully knows the way things work. I want to leave it to her and give her room to take the board in a new direction.”

Two other trustees who left the board this year said they revered Friscia’s leadership skills but were confident the board and the College were in good hands with Chang as the new Chair. “Tony was a great leader; he had great analytical and people skills,” said Robert Tanenbaum P’12, who served on the board for 12 years. “He was a thoughtful guy who never shot from the hip. We were lucky in these challenging times to have someone who devoted himself to the job so skillfully.”

Mark Ordan ’79, who stepped down after serving on the board for 20 years, agreed. “I credit Tony and Betsy for guiding us through some challenging times,” he said. “Tony had a softspoken wisdom, a sense of humor, and common sense that truly benefited the College.”

Ordan said he did have one misgiving as he left his seat on the board. “We are lucky to have someone like Sharon to step into this new role,” he said. “If I have any regrets about leaving, it’s that I would love to serve on a board that Sharon is chairing.”

Chang said she is confident that she and the board are equipped for the challenges the College will face in the months and years ahead. “There are exciting things happening on campus—the construction of The Dede Thompson Bartlett Center for Admission and Career Education, the upcoming launch of the Institute for the Liberal Arts, and the ongoing capital campaign,” she said. “At the same time, these are consequential, complex times for higher education, given the fraught political and global environment, along with student unrest. But we are inspired to support our phenomenal students, distinguished faculty, and Vassar community as we stay focused on the strategic goals of the College.” —Larry Hertz

Vassar Today

Student Photo/Video Contest

Offers Glimpses into Campus Life
Among the winning entries were:
A wintery scene includes a frozen river, snow-capped trees, and birds in formation flying overhead.</p>
<p>
First Snow
Teresa Zimmer ’24
A sole figure sits in the aisle of The Vassar Chapel and is illuminated by light.
Untitled
Tianchen Zhou ’24
Five students smile and chat while sitting and standing on a small bridge.
Summertime at Sunset
Christian Wolke ’26
A half-eaten pink doughnut with Vassar’s library in the background
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Donut
Coby Moore ’27
Vassar received 140 entries in its Spring Semester Student Photo/Video Contest. In the works, students addressed categories as diverse as friendship, nature, food, studies, and more. “We were astounded by the creativity and skill they displayed with their entries,” said Debbie Swartz, Director of Social Media, who co-organized the contest. “These images really offered us a deeper dive into the everyday lives—and loves—of our students.” To see all the winning entries, visit photo-contest.vassar.edu.

Vassar's Class of 2024 Graduates

Vassar's Class of 2024 Graduates
Seniors in caps and gowns attend their graduation ceremony.
Karl Rabe
V

assar’s Class of 2024 enrolled at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, living in “pods” and taking classes in tents. As they received their diplomas at the College’s 160th Commencement on May 19, the College’s 553 graduating seniors were lauded for their endurance and congratulated by their Commencement speaker, British actor and filmmaker Emily Mortimer, for appreciating the importance of “knowing nothing” and questioning everything.

“You are graduating at a time when … the world is in desperate need of people like you—people who have been taught to challenge preconceptions and make considered arguments; people who are allergic to doctrine, dogma, and easy sanctimony; people who feel the need to seek out nuance and complication,” Mortimer said in a rollicking, often self-deprecating speech to the graduates, their families, and others in the Vassar community on a mild, sun-splashed day on the Poughkeepsie campus. “More than ever, we need wise scholars like you who are smart enough to know they know nothing, and patient enough to seek the truth through dialogue, humility, and openness.”

Mortimer, who freely admitted she had not taken her Oxford education particularly seriously, opened her talk by telling her audience that when her friend, filmmaker and Vassar Trustee Jason Blum ’91, had asked her to deliver the speech, she felt woefully unqualified “because I thought to myself, I have nothing whatsoever to impart. I know nothing useful … I literally know nothing!”

Mortimer told the graduates she was certain they had made their families proud of them, “but don’t forget it was you who did this. You who managed to keep your wits about you, kept putting one foot in front of another, while the world went crazy, day by day, hour by hour, learning, being open and humble, admitting you know nothing, and now you have a degree.”

In her remarks to the graduates, President Elizabeth Bradley also expressed her admiration for the “special group” of students in the class of 2024. “Your class, more than many others, has faced and overcome seismic shifts in our world in just two decades,” Bradley said. “You started elementary school in a financial crash followed by a prolonged recession … You started high school as President Trump was elected to the U.S. presidency in a highly polarizing moment, from which deeper political and social divisions have only grown since. And then you started college in masks, were assigned to pods, and in fear of COVID.”

The President paused her speech and asked those in attendance to applaud “this resilient, resourceful, and gifted class of young adults.” The crowd of about 2,000 stood and cheered.

Emily Mortimer, dressed in a cap and gown, stands behind a lectern.
More than 550 students became graduates this May. British actor and filmmaker Emily Mortimer, above, offered sage advice as Commencement speaker.

Karl Rabe

Portrait of two seniors in caps and gowns.
Samuel Stuart Photography
The top of a graduation cap is decorated with the words: “to the world we dream about.”
Samuel Stuart Photography
A student takes a selfie with President Bradley at graduation.
Students in white dresses—African Violets--hold flower bouquets and as they march onto Commencement Hill..
A student holds up a fan that has printed the caption: “I’m a Vassar fan!”
Portrait of VSA President Oliva Gross ’24 smiling in her cap and gown.
Clockwise from top: Igor Martiniouk, a photographer for the Misc. couldn’t resist getting one more shot. The African Violets march in. A Vassar fan finds useful … a Vassar fan. Olivia Gross, 2024 Class President, talked about the tight community classmates formed over four years.

Samuel Stuart Photography, except African Violets, Karl Rabe

Bradley then shifted the tone of her speech, saying she wished to focus not on the negative aspects of the graduates’ challenges but on a different emotion: joy. She then recited a poem, “I Go Among the Trees”, by Wendell Berry, which describes the transition that can take place when one takes time to search for beauty in one’s surroundings. “After all the days of labor—the work, the anxiety—we can hear our own song and we sing it,” she said.

Vassar Student Association President Olivia Gross ’24 echoed this theme by congratulating her class on overcoming the obvious obstacles facing them and choosing to create a unique community. She highlighted the work of one of her classmates, Karun Krishnamurthy, who had built a community gathering spot on Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve, volunteered at a local shelter for homeless children, and helped many students repair their bicycles. “I’ve brought up my friend because what I most admire about him is his unequivocal understanding of the importance of community and the unimportance of recognition,” Gross said.

She said she was also proud of her classmates who had supported female members of the faculty who had filed a lawsuit claiming they were not receiving fair compensation for their work and for students who had set up an encampment on campus to protest the war in Gaza. Alluding to an agreement reached by the students and the College administration, Gross said the outcome of the protest had proven that “peaceful action can lead to tangible outcomes.”

Gross said that while she hesitated to talk about the struggles triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, “being part of what is unfortunately called the ‘COVID class’ is an important part of who we were and who we will become.

“We felt like our college experiences were being stolen,” Gross continued, “but what was really happening was that we were given a unique opportunity to redefine what our college years would be like, not only for us but for every forthcoming class at Vassar. Because we didn’t know what life was supposed to be like, we created our own way of life, and that’s our legacy.”

Two members of the Board of Trustees, Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College (AAVC) President Monica Vachher ’77 and Board Chair Anthony Friscia ’78, also lauded the class of ’24 for its resilience but said they were certain Vassar’s alums were ready and willing to help them in their post-Vassar lives.

“These are difficult and unsettled times, as they were when you graduated from high school,” Vachher said. “We are so proud of you for your values and your accomplishments. So yes, you will be leaving your classmates who have thus far defined your Vassar community. As of today, however, you are now an essential part of a dazzling community of over 42,000 Vassar alums.”

Friscia said he didn’t fully appreciate the power of the Vassar alum network until long after he had graduated. “They will be there and will be happy to help you—reach out,” He said. “While your time here was short, the experience defines you, and this will always be another place you can call home.”

One member of the class of 2024, Marine veteran Brian Lepak, said Friscia’s words had resonated with him in a particularly strong way. Lepak enrolled at Vassar in 2017 but left early in his senior year for medical reasons, returning to finish his coursework for his degree as a film major last fall. As he stood on the lawn of the President’s House for a reception following Commencement, Lepak said he had already embraced Vassar as a second home. “I truly appreciate the support I received from the amazing faculty and so many in the administration,” he said. “The academic growth was one thing, of course, but even more I appreciate the personal growth that was instilled in me here. As Tony Friscia said, Vassar is a family.”

Two alums who were the parents of a graduate, Shari Leventhal ’85 and Steve Kauderer ’85, said they too appreciated all Vassar had done for their daughter, Remi Kauderer ’24, over the past four years. “Notwithstanding the challenges Remi and her classmates faced when they got here, Vassar made the best of it and provided all the support they needed,” Leventhal said.

Steve Kauderer agreed. “Today was an emotional day for me,” he said, “and I credit Vassar for making it special.”

Remi Kauderer, who is enrolled in Vassar’s Dartmouth-Thayer Dual Degree Program in Engineering, will complete her studies at Dartmouth next year. She said she was certain the challenges she and her classmates had faced when they arrived on campus four years ago made the bonds among them stronger. “We started college confined to our own pods, so it was hard to get to know others in our class at first,” she said. “But since then, we’ve made an effort to make up for that, and now we are one big family.”—Larry Hertz

Karl Rabe

A Salute to Retiring
Faculty Members

During Commencement, William Hoynes, then Dean of the Faculty, offered tributes to three retiring professors who had dedicated a combined 90 years of service to the College.

Jon Chenette, Professor of Music on the George Sherman Dickinson Chair,  came to Vassar in 2008 as Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Music. During his time as Dean of the Faculty, Chenette oversaw the development of the College’s new curricular initiative that created “Intensives,” and he co-authored and served as Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on several successful grants funded by the Mellon Foundation, including the Engaged Pluralism Initiative and the Community-Engaged Intensives in the Humanities project. Chenette also took on the role of Acting President of the College in spring 2013 and served as Interim President from July 2016 to June 2017. He is a composer whose music often focuses on relationships between people and the land. His compositions have involved collaborations with writers, dancers, folk musicians, farmers, visual artists, museums, and performing ensembles.

Jeff Walker, Professor of Earth Science, shown above, joined Vassar’s Geology and Geography Department (now the Department of Earth Science and Geography) in 1988 and served as Chair or Associate Chair for over 15 years. He was one of a core group of faculty members who launched Vassar’s thriving Environmental Studies program. Walker is a specialist in the study of clay minerals, agricultural sustainability, and the agricultural heritage of the Mid-Hudson region. He has taught courses on Field Geology of the Hudson Valley, showing students how to look carefully at what surrounds them, but has also led numerous week-long study trips to far-flung places. He is renowned for his scholarship on John Burroughs—pioneer of a new school of nature writing—and the recipient of many honors, including grants from the National Science Foundation, the American Chemical Society, and the Pew Science Program.

Stuart Belli, Associate Professor of Chemistry, joined Vassar’s Chemistry Department in 1986. He served as Chair of the Department and Director of the Environmental Studies Program, where he led a major curricular revision. In addition, Belli served as Coordinator of the Environmental Research Institute. His scholarly work is in analytical chemistry. He specializes in developing methods for generating and measuring the superoxide ion. Belli’s recent work has investigated the antioxidation properties of natural compounds in food. He was part of an interdisciplinary team of Vassar researchers and colleagues in Italy who published a paper demonstrating the healing powers and health benefits of extra-virgin olive oil. His recent research was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences and Food Chemistry.

He has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.

Three students at the Senior Formal--two men dressed in suits and a woman dressed in a ruby-colored formal dress.
Senior Formal
Portrait of four students dressed in graduation attire with red sashes.
Asian-Pacific Islander Red Stole Ceremony
Four veteran graduates smile and laugh with each other while wearing purple chords draped around their necks.
Vassar Veterans Cord Ceremony

More Commencement Fun!

Each year, Vassar hosts Senior Week and Affinity Programs to honor graduating seniors in the days leading up to Commencement. This year was no exception. Enjoy these images from the celebrations.
Photos by Kelly Marsh and Karl Rabe
Two people smile and dance outside the Chapel while two more play drums.
Baccalaureate
A student wears a red sash commemorating her indigenous heritage while flanked by a family member and a Vassar administrator.
Native American and Indigenous Stole Ceremony
Portrait of a student posing with him arms across his chest into an X shape while wearing graduation attire and a Kente cloth-styled sash.
Kente Cloth Ceremony
Two people face each other and smile, one wears a sash celebrating their Latine identity.
Latiné Sarape Ceremony
Vassar Today
Exterior of the Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts, housed in a modern building with glass walls.
Greg CEO Photography

Vassar Awards Grants for Six Signature Programs at the New Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts

The Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts, scheduled to open in the fall, will host a series of symposiums during the 2024–25 academic year that address multifaceted issues of local, national, and global concern, The College awarded grants to members of the Vassar community for Signature Programs on a wide variety of topics. Located adjacent to the campus, the Vassar Institute will open in October. The Heartwood hotel and The Salt Line restaurant, which share the facility, are already welcoming guests.

Robert Brigham, Institute Director and Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations, said a major goal of the Institute is to “serve as Vassar’s public classroom and to highlight the great work our faculty and others on campus are doing in a way that engages a broader audience. Through the Institute, Vassar aims to play a critical convening role in continuing to elevate ideas, perspectives, and ways of working and living that model how our world can become a more just, humane, and democratic place.”

Wesley Dixon, Institute Program Director and Deputy to the President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees, said the proposals selected for Institute Signature Programs were among more than 16 proposals submitted to the College for consideration.

“These Signature Programs best exemplify the spirit of the Institute,” Dixon said. “Our faculty and others are collaborating with partners across the campus, in the local community, and around the country to engage in meaningful dialogue about some of the most pressing issues of our time.” In addition to the six funded programs, a number of other events at the Institute will be scheduled throughout the year, Dixon said.

The proposals were chosen by the Institute for the Liberal Arts Committee, composed of faculty, students, and administrators. Committee member Elizabeth Hoffman, Director of Parent and Family Giving in the Office of Advancement, said the proposals submitted “were everything we hoped they’d be. They were so detailed and thoughtful, and they tackle big and important subjects.”

Institute Director Professor Bob Brigham said he was impressed with the scope and vision of the Signature proposals. “We had many more deserving ideas than we could fund,” Brigham said. “That’s a good sign for the vitality of the Institute and our community.”—Larry Hertz

Quote

A major goal of the Institute is to serve as Vassar’s public classroom and to highlight the great work our faculty and others on campus are doing.”
—Robert Brigham, Institute Director, right
people attending a class and sitting in a lecture hall
Karl Rabe

Signature Programs for 2024–25

Eco-Visions: Finding Your Place in Environmentalism aims to provide participants with opportunities to see how environmental action can take shape in all aspects of life and highlight how legal innovations might be underused tools to aid and contribute to climate justice.

Convened by: Keri VanCamp, Director of the Preserve at Vassar; Jennifer Rubbo, Director of the Vassar Environmental Cooperative; Kenneth Foster, Director of Sustainability; Arpitha Kodiveri, Assistant Professor of Political Science; and Ethan Skuches, Vassar-Kenauk Conservation Fellow.

The Entrepreneurial Mind and the Liberal Arts seeks to disrupt traditional models of entrepreneurship by engaging the values of the liberal arts to inspire new approaches to how individuals can mobilize vision into action and real-world problem-solving.

Convened by: Julián Aguilar, Academic Computing Consultant in the Office of the Vice President for Technology and Human Resources.

Transgressing Borders: Reimagining Education and the Role of Learning and Community is a multiday workshop and festival aimed at reimagining how institutions of higher education and local community members work together in a generative way. The event aims to reshape how we think about “town-gown” dynamics and explore opportunities for shared learning and development.

Convened by: Elizabeth Cannon, Director of Vassar’s Office of Community-Engaged Learning.

Belonging and Beyond: Using Future Histories to Reimagine Teaching and Learning offers educators and students an opportunity to use “future imagining” methodologies to generate radically inclusive and exciting teaching and learning spaces in higher education.

Convened by: Candice Lowe Swift, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Africana Studies, and International Studies, and Eréndira Rueda, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Latin American and Latinx Studies.

Promoting Partnerships to Advance Educational Justice in Poughkeepsie is a multiday workshop. It will explore the social, political, and historical factors contributing to educational inequities within the City and Town of Poughkeepsie and how youth and their families experience these inequities both in school and through interactions with criminal justice systems. Participants will develop real-life avenues for coordination between programs and services that support at-risk youth and help them complete their secondary education.

Convened by: Molly Shanley, Professor Emerita of Political Science; Taneisha Means, Associate Professor of Political Science on the Class of 1951 Chair; Erin McCloskey, Professor of Education; and Andy Borum, Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics.

Soundscapes and the Anthropocene will explore how humans influence natural sound environments and how sound environments in turn influence us by drawing on a broad range of disciplines including ecology, animal behavior, sensory neuroscience, human psychology, sociology, music, the arts, and architecture.

Convened by: Megan D. Gall, Associate Professor of Biology and Director of Neuroscience and Behavior, and Justin Patch, Associate Professor and Chair of Music.

These programs will be open to the public with registration available on a first-come, first-served basis; details will be posted on the Institute website (https://www.vassar.edu/institute) in the fall.
Vassar Today

Vassar Strengthens Global Partnerships in the Liberal Arts

International leaders in education from four institutions recently met in Edinburgh. The result: collaborative teaching and learning in Poughkeepsie, Rwanda … and beyond.
T

his spring, representatives of Vassar, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda, and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) convened on the campus of the revered University of Edinburgh in Scotland to explore ways to collaborate on initiatives incorporating the principles of the liberal arts. Vassar President Elizabeth Bradley, who has been instrumental in bringing the four institutions together over the past few years, said she was optimistic that collaboration efforts would continue to grow and expand.

Over a dozen people sit around a circular table in a room with a portrait of Matthew Vassar and listen to a speaker at the head of the table.
Edinburgh Global, University of Edinburgh
“We talked about the ‘liberal arts’ as not just the material that is taught but also the methods used, including the pedagogy of student-driven learning and the culture of inclusion and equity and an openness to creativity,” Bradley said. “Our faculty has long been involved in international collaborations, and this initiative provides another avenue of collaboration that may involve institutional change [along] with the goal of enhancing liberal arts education globally.”

Less than a month after the conference ended, Vassar and UGHE had already launched an initiative at Vassar. Denis Regnier, Head of Humanities and Social Sciences at UGHE, and Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies Thomas Parker created Blue Rwanda: Interdisciplinary Explorations of Water, Health, and Sustainability, a spring 2024 course that spanned into on-site study in Rwanda in June and July. The course explored the crucial role water plays in shaping Rwanda’s systems of belief, socio-economic frameworks, and health paradigms. With a special focus on the Great Lakes region of Rwanda, students explored such issues as climate change, public health, and sustainable practices through the tapestry of indigenous knowledge. During the students’ summer study abroad, they continued their investigation of these topics alongside students at UGHE.—Larry Hertz

President Bradley in a doctor’s white coat poses with three others in Rwanda.

President Bradley Delivers Address to Rwandan Medical Students During Milestone Ceremony

Earlier this year, President Elizabeth H. Bradley was the principal speaker at UGHE’s White Coat Ceremony, which marked the end of two years of academic study and the start of four years of clinical training at the medical school in Rwanda. Vassar and UGHE partnered in 2019 to help the new medical school blend the liberal arts into its curriculum. In the days following the White Coat Ceremony, Bradley; Carlos Garcia, Vice President for Technology and Human Resources; and Wesley Dixon, Deputy to the President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees, led a workshop for UGHE faculty focused on strategic problem-solving and leadership development.
Image courtesy of Asher Habinshuti (UGHE) and Partners In Health Rwanda
Students walk along a marshland in Rwanda with distant rolling  hills in the background.
Students visit to Kamiranzovu marshland in Rwanda to learn about water conservation and its agricultural applications.

64 Waves for UGHE

Several Vassar representatives pose next to a sign that marks the “University of Global Health Equity, Butaro Campus.”
Professor Thomas Parker; Assistant Dean for Global Partnerships and International Programs Kerry Stamp; and students Julia Colón, Talia Yustein, Ambica Kale, Croix Horsley, and Sophia Henderson at UGHE in Butaro.

64 Waves for UGHE

Three students and their professor stand outside listening to a tour guide at the Nyabihu Tea Factory while he holds a plant.
The class on a Nyabihu Tea Factory tour where students learned about new strategies in managing water usage, extreme weather, and climate change.

64 Waves for UGHE

Vassar Today
A small crowd, including clowns and musicians wielding trumpets is led in a march by an exhuberant woman dressed in a tuxedo and top hat. Some carry a banner that reads “Vassar Celebrates 100 years of Alumnae House.”
Willa Vincitore ’92 leads a parade from campus to Alumnae House incelebration of the 100th Anniversary.

Karl Rabe

Alumnae House’s 100th

Celebrated in Style

Since it opened in 1924, Vassar’s Alumnae House has served as a guest house, a venue for celebrating life milestones, a pub, and more recently as a temporary quarantine zone during the COVID-19 pandemic. But more than anything else, as the home of the Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College (AAVC), the Alumnae House has served as a place for alums to reunite on trips back to the campus.

On April 4, nearly 200 alums joined dozens of others in the Vassar community to celebrate the Alumnae House’s 100th anniversary and to pay tribute to its original benefactors, sisters Blanche Ferry Hooker of the class of 1894 and Queene Ferry Coonley, class of 1896. Honored guests included Marian (Ferry) Williams ’57, great niece of the original donors, and her husband, Gray, and daughter Dar; and former trustee Sally Dayton Clement ’71, P’09 with her husband, Stephen. Clement and her sister Ellen “Ellie” Dayton Grace P’03, whose mother, Mary Lee Lowe Dayton ’46, had also been a trustee, helped the House celebrate its 100th birthday by funding renovations for all of its private guest rooms.

The Barefoot Monkeys spin lights in a performance outside of the Alumnae House.
A group of seven singers form a line and sing to the audience.
The Barefoot Monkeys got into the action with a light show on the lawn. Singers from Vassar’s a capella groups shared a tune with the audience.

Allyse Pulliam

The birthday bash featured a procession of trumpeters, drummers, athletic teams, and three clowns (Visiting Assistant Professor of Drama Hannah Gaff and two of her drama students), who marched up Raymond Avenue to the House, led by Willa Vincitore ’92, Assistant Vice President for Alumnae/i Engagement. After the arrival of the procession, Vassar President Elizabeth H. Bradley and AAVC members Monica Vachher ’77, James Estrada ’13, and Kimberly Nguyen ’19 arrived in style, emerging from an antique Hupmobile that was nearly as old as Alumnae House.

In her remarks to those gathered for the celebration, Bradley noted that the Ferry sisters’ original $300,000 gift had inspired many other alums to make donations for furnishings, artwork, and other amenities—spawning the building’s moniker, the House of a Thousand Treasures. “I love that this House—and this part of campus—brings disparate paths together in a hospitable and inclusive environment to connect us all for the next 100 years and beyond,” the President said.

Vachher, who serves as AAVC President, recalled her own fond memories of the Alumnae House Pub when she was a student. “I remember the hamburgers, the Vassar Devils—and they didn’t card you,” she quipped. 

Estrada, chair of the AAVC Alumnae House Committee, said he had been eagerly awaiting this celebration since planning for the event began nearly three years ago. He said he valued Alumnae House as “a place for alums to come to talk about their post-Vassar lives.” He noted that his vice chair on the committee, Alisa Swire ’84, had worked diligently to find “treasures” hidden in the House, including old Pub menus and shopping lists of furniture that was purchased when it first opened. 

Alumnae House Manager Martha Barry ’86 called the celebration a great success. “Alums of all ages came from near and far to pay homage to Alumnae House,” Barry said. “The displays, such as the original dedication scrolls, the 1920 garments, and historical pictures of the House, were of particular interest to our guests, while the procession from campus and the performances by several student groups delighted everyone.”—Larry Hertz

AAVC President Monica Vachher ’77, Alumnae House Committee Chair James Estrada ’13, poet Kimberly Nguyễn ’19, and President Elizabeth H. Bradley display the Alumnae House banner while a people crowd the stairway up to the Alumnae House.
AAVC President Monica Vachher ’77, Alumnae House Committee Chair James Estrada ’13, poet Kimberly Nguyễn ’19, and President Elizabeth H. Bradley proudly display the Alumnae House banner.

Karl Rabe

Vassar Today

Vassar Toasts the Scholarly and Creative Achievements of Faculty

A faculty member raises a toast while others mingle around food and drinks in the library reading room.
Kelly Marsh
As the teaching portion of Vassar’s Spring Semester drew to a close on May 1, members of the faculty gathered in Thompson Library to celebrate another aspect of their work—the scholarly journals, books, and other presentations they have authored over the past several years.

As slides describing the work of 53 faculty members scrolled on a large screen, Dean of Faculty William Hoynes led a champagne toast to those assembled in the Class of 1951 Reading Room. “Our faculty are a remarkable group of scholars and artists, writers and performers, scientists and humanists,” Hoynes said. “So many of you are engaged in wonderfully innovative scholarly and creative work, but outside of your specific networks, many on campus are not aware of all of this great work.”

The range of faculty projects were impressive. Among those in attendance were Associate Professor and Chair of Music Justin Patch and Professor of Anthropology Thomas Porcello, who co-authored a textbook titled Re-Making Sound: An Experiential Approach to Sound Studies, which examines six different types of sound and provides exercises to explore each one.

Another example was Professor of History Nancy Bisaha, who recently published a book titled From Christians to Europeans: Pope Pius II and the Concept of the Modern Western Identity. Bisaha said Pope Pius II, who led the Catholic Church from 1458 to 1464, was one of the first to frame the countries of Europe as a distinct part of the world.

President Elizabeth H. Bradley told those assembled that one of her favorite parts of her job has been reading the books and articles members of the faculty have published. “It’s important to have the time and space to use our intellect, and I get a liberal arts degree every year reading your work,” she said.—Larry Hertz

Three faculty members hold drinks and chat.
Three faculty members laugh and eat while others mingle and chat behind them.
Faculty members from across the College gathered to celebrate each other’s work, descriptions of which were projected on a screen throughout the celebration.

Kelly Marsh

Vassar Today

Transformative Support

How Vassar’s Financial Aid Empowers Students
A family of four poses; Alyssa Pablan’ 10 on the far left has just graduated.
Courtesy of the subject
With his bequest of $50,000 in 1886, Matthew Vassar started the tradition of giving to financial aid at the College. The philanthropy of the Vassar community continues today and allows the College to remain need-blind, meaning a family’s financial situation is not taken into account during the admission process. That lays a path for even more students to experience Vassar—including first-generation students, who make up 13 percent of our student body.

Today, many alums who have benefited from Vassar’s financial aid program, feeling a strong sense of pride in their alma mater, are compelled to give back to support the College’s current and future students. Their generosity helps give two-thirds of the student population the means to attend the College, bringing diversity, inclusivity, and so much more.

Quote

Financial aid is a way for a wider range of students to get a great education and have, hopefully, as great an experience as I did.”
ALYSSA PABALAN ’10, ABOVE LEFT

INVITING A NEW GENERATION TO THE VASSAR EXPERIENCE

Dr. Alyssa Pabalan ’10 remembers that filling out the FAFSA application every year was not a fun process. But, being aware of Vassar’s need-blind policy, there wasn’t too much to worry about. She was able to keep the weight off her shoulders while focusing on her studies and life at Vassar.

Now an emergency medicine physician based in Chicago, she’s a consistent donor to the Vassar Fund as well as campus sustainability efforts. She credits Vassar with her development as a person, setting her on the path to a successful career, and for connecting her to lifelong friends.

“For me, financial aid is a way for a wider range of students to get a great education and have, hopefully, as great an experience as I did,” Pabalan said. “It’s a way to make a world-class education possible for people from a diverse array of backgrounds. Being a student is hard nowadays, with all the stresses, struggles, and current events.

“I want to give back to an institution that gave me so much,” she continued. “That’s what really prompted me to give back, so that it can continue to provide such a wonderful education but also help nurture the future in the same way it did for me.”

Vivek Mahapatra ’05 speaks on a panel during Sophomore Career Connections while another alum listens.
Vivek Mahapatra ’05, left, gives back in many ways, including serving as a mentor for Vassar’s Sophomore Career Connections.

Stockton Photo Inc

VASSAR WAS RANKED
#2
IN FINANCIAL AID GENEROSITY BY THE PRINCETON REVIEW.

Opening Doors

In 1997, Thailand was hit with a financial crisis; the baht (Thai currency) was severely devalued. For Vivek Mahapatra ’05, whose brother was already in college in the U.S., this meant rethinking his entire college strategy.

“Our parents’ savings were essentially wiped out,” Mahapatra said. “If I wanted to pursue higher education abroad, I had to start working in high school and ultimately work towards a scholarship.”

He remembers receiving an email from Vassar’s financial aid office before his acceptance package reached him in Thailand.

“I see this email and immediately think ‘Oh my God, I got the financial aid package. Holy cow, I will go to school in the U.S.—it’s possible!’” Mahapatra recalls. “Vassar absolutely changed my life. Financial aid blows doors wide open. Money is one of those things that, unfortunately, creates a lot of tension in the world. So taking money off the table and looking at somebody just on their merits, it’s something that I feel very strongly about.”

While at Vassar, Mahapatra was very involved on campus, where he received the Student Leader of the Year Award, having served as class president, co-president of the South Asian Students Alliance, Davison House president, a chairperson for the Tsunami Task Force that raised $10,000 toward relief efforts, and a member of the Vassar and Dutchess Community College National Model United Nations team. Now Vice President of GTM Salesforce AI, Mahapatra, previously a member of Vassar’s Board of Trustees, remains heavily involved with the College, as a member of the Nominating Committee, as a mentor in both the Sophomore Career Connections Program and the Vassar Innovation and Entrepreneurship (VIE) Program—and as a consistent donor to financial aid and the Vassar Fund.

“Once I graduated and got a job, I said to myself, ‘As long as I work, as long as I live, I will give back—whether it’s $100 or $1,000 or time, every single month I will give back,’” Mahapatra said. “I think education is the great equalizer. When I think about giving back, I think about what it means to open doors for people and what types of doors they want open. There are a lot of different people with a lot of needs, values, and so on. Giving back to Vassar, for me, means participating and staying engaged and connected. It’s also staying connected with what the future of the world looks like, the future of the workforce. By staying connected with students, I am constantly learning too. And, if I can give people an opportunity to learn from me, that’s a very deep-rooted thing to do.”

Portrait of Jason Blum ’91.

Supporting the next generation

Alums like Jason Blum ’91, founder and CEO of film and television production company Blumhouse, give to support the College’s current and future students, hoping they’ll bring Vassar’s brand of critical thinking out into the world.

“I made a large donation to Vassar focused primarily on financial aid because I think there’s nothing more important than well-informed citizens of the world,” said Blum, who gave $10 million to enhance financial aid in 2022. “I think Vassar is an incredible college that turns out people who want to do great things and make the world a better place.”

Each year, more than $70 million in financial aid is awarded to Vassar students, and gifts from alums, big and small, play a crucial part.

Image courtesy of the subject

Fitting Right In

The children of Washington State University faculty members and chemists, Dr. Carolyn Koehler ’70, Dr. Jane Koehler ’75, and Kristin Koehler Ferguson ’77 were told, “If you want to go [to a college] that’s more expensive than we can afford, you’re going to have to get a scholarship.”

Carolyn, the eldest Koehler sister, wanted to be a classically trained archaeologist. She searched all over for a program, eventually finding Vassar, thanks to an alum who was one of her sisters’ godmothers. Knowing very little about the College, she applied, interviewed, and spoke with an alum. After graduating, Carolyn, now retired, became an archaeologist and taught archaeology of the Greek world and ancient Greek for 35 years at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

“Something I liked about the Vassar application process is it didn’t matter how much money you had, everybody paid the same amount for housing,” Carolyn said. “That made a difference. It wasn’t a deciding factor, but the sense I got from that alumna and everything was that Vassar was a wonderful place for me.”

Jane was so excited about Vassar after attending Carolyn’s graduation that she applied to the College Early Decision. She worked on campus with a professor of microbiology. She found comradery in Lathrop House, where her entire wing—with the exception of one person—had scholarships.

“We were—and still are—very close,” Jane said. “No one ever looked down on us because we had financial aid at all.”

Vassar sisters Dr. Jane Koehler ’75, Kristin Koehler Ferguson ’77, and Carolyn Koehler ’70 smile for the camera.
Clockwise: “Vassar sisters” Dr. Jane Koehler ’75, Kristin Koehler Ferguson ’77, and Carolyn Koehler ’70.
After Vassar, Jane received her MA in microbiology from UC Berkeley and her MD from George Washington University. She trained in infectious diseases at University of California at San Francisco and went on to become a Professor at UCSF and an expert on Bartonella bacteria. Though she retired in 2017, she continues her research in infectious diseases.

For Kristin the financial aid process was automatic. On campus, she worked in the library, then did research for history professors. As a graduate student, she received an international MBA at the University of South Carolina, the top-ranked post-graduate international business school in the U.S., according to US News. Kristin, now retired, worked in international marketing and sales before heading her own property management company for 20 years.

Inspired by all they were able to experience and achieve while at Vassar, the sisters recently came together to create the Koehler Sisters Endowed Scholarship Fund.

“We absolutely could not have gone to Vassar without financial aid,” Carolyn said. “It meant everything. It made my career possible. It gave me all those friendships. It opened things up culturally. That’s what we benefited from. Everyone should have that chance.”

“There were any number of things we could donate toward, but it had to be helping people have an experience we had,” Jane added. “It made our lives completely different. The fact I could get a scholarship, go somewhere I had never been, and meet students who, likewise, had scholarships was huge.”

“For me, it really opened the doors to the world,” Kristin said. “To come from little Coleman, WA, to be introduced to the northeast and learn there—that was very different. It served as a launchpad to head on to Europe and my international career. It wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t had that scholarship.”

Financial aid helps to bring unique and talented individuals like Pabalan, Mahapatra, and the Koehler sisters to Vassar, providing the opportunity to reach their potential, as it will continue to do for the generations of students to come.—Heather Mattioli

Brewer Pride
Coach James McCowan ’99 poses with Haley Schoenegge ’27 who holds her newly won NCAA Champion trophy.
Stockton Photo Inc

Vassar’s Youngest-Ever National Track Champion: Haley Schoenegge ’27

Haley Schoenegge ’27 made Vassar history on May 25, becoming the first Brewer to win a national track and field title in their first year. Schoenegge led wire-to-wire and breezed to a nine-second victory in the 1,500-meter run at the NCAA Division III Track and Field Championships in Myrtle Beach, SC. Three hours later, she finished fourth in the 5,000-meter run, earning her second All-American designation of the day.

But as she reflected on her accomplishments, Schoenegge said the journey to the national championship with Coach James McCowan ’99 and her teammates was even more satisfying than the event itself. “I just love the whole team aspect of the experience,” she said in a Zoom call from her Prospect, KY, home during her summer break. “Cheering for others’ success is more rewarding for me than my own accomplishments. It’s an amazing group of people on this team.”

Schoenegge said she had a hunch that she’d fit right in on the Vassar cross country and track teams when she first began looking at colleges during her senior year in high school. She said she’d never heard of Vassar until her college advisor suggested it might be a good fit for her, so she checked out the website and navigated to the Athletics page. She found a photo that included not only members of the team and Coach McCowan, but also McCowan’s dog, Stella. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s kind of awesome—a dog in a team photo. Maybe Vassar is the right kind of place,’” Schoenegge said.

A visit to the Vassar campus later that year clinched Schoenegge’s decision. “The culture is all about team and community,” she said. “I clicked with everyone right away.”

Schoenegge experienced immediate success with the cross-country team in the fall of 2023, leading the squad to its first-ever Liberty League championship. Typically, she doesn’t have any pictures of her running that race. The photo that hangs on her dorm room wall is one of a post-race group hug with her teammates.

Coach McCowan, an All-American runner himself, said he had learned over the course of Schoenegge’s first year at Vassar not to be surprised by anything she accomplished. In fact, by the time he and Schoenegge arrived in Myrtle Beach, he had a pretty good hunch she’d win the 1,500. “My goal was to give Haley the space to succeed, and that meant having fun and not putting too much weight on the outcome,” he said. “But I trusted her to do what it would take to win.

“Good athletes always make the coach look like a genius,” McCowan continued, “but at Vassar, you want them to want to be part of something larger than themselves. Haley is happy in that culture.”

Hall Of Fame
Action shot of Hailey Brigger ’24 as she scoops the ball during a field hockey match.
Action shot of Owen Fauth ’24 as he prepares to strike the ball during a soccer match.
Stockton Photo Inc

Athletics Salutes Top Award Winners

Hailey Brigger ’24 and Owen Fauth ’24 won top honors at the annual Athletic Awards Ceremony this May in the Chapel. Brigger, a forward and midfielder on the field hockey team, and Fauth, a forward and midfielder on the men’s soccer team, were presented with the Matthew Vassar Outstanding Career awards during the two-hour event.

Brigger, a biochemistry major from San Diego, CA, was named a Second Team All-American this year and was selected to the All-Liberty League First Team and the National Field Hockey Coaches All-Region First Team three years in a row. She ranks in the top-10 all-time in goals, assists, and points for Vassar and was part of the 2021 Liberty League Conference Championship team.

Field hockey Head Coach Anne Fowler described Brigger as a fierce competitor who demands the best for herself in all areas of her life. “As one of only a handful of All-Americans in Vassar field hockey history—and a future doctor—Hailey is a great example of all you can achieve at Vassar,” Fowler said.

Brigger called the award “the culmination of my entire team’s skill and support, and I feel honored to have played with every one of them.”

Fauth, a mathematics major from Keene, NH, earned Third Team All-American honors last season and was named to the All-Liberty League First Team for the past two seasons. Head Soccer Coach Jonathan Hood said Fauth was eminently deserving of the award. “Owen had a tremendous career here at Vassar,” Hood said. “While he was one of the most decorated players in program history, his commitment, work ethic, and passion for the team was contagious and helped make those around him better.  As a two-year captain, the example he set will have a lasting impact on the men’s soccer program.”

Haley Schoenegge ’27 and Vaughn Ramsey ’24 won the Betty Richey Performer of the Year awards. Schoenegge won the NCAA Division III championship in the 1,500-meter run and finished fourth in the 5,000-meter run, earning All-American honors in each event. A resident of Prospect, KY, Schoenegge has not declared a major. She set school records in the mile run, the 1,500-meter run, the 3,000-meter run, and the 5,000-meter run and earned Second Team All-American honors in the mile run at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.

Ramsey, a mathematics major from Denver, CO, was a member of the NCAA Division III men’s volleyball team that finished second in the national championship tournament. He led the team in kills and earned Second Team All-United Volleyball Conference honors. He was also named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association North Region Team for the first time.

Other award winners were:

Rookie of the Year: Holland Kaplan ’27 (women’s volleyball) and Lucas Jauregui ’27 (men’s swimming and diving);

Frances D. Fergusson Coaches Award: Kate Nelkirk ’24 (field hockey) and Jon Bradbury ’24 (men’s lacrosse);

Scholar-Athlete Award: Grace Skakel ’24 (women’s rugby) and Benjamin Lee ’24 (men’s fencing);

Iron Brewer Award: Sierra McDermed ’26 (women’s basketball) and Solomon Hess ’24 (men’s lacrosse);

Student Worker of the Year Award: Eli Feay ’24, a member of the Facilities and Game Operations staff.

Vassar Today

Men’s Volleyball Rises to Division Finals

Action shot of a Vassar Volleyball player as he sets the ball.
Stockton Photo Inc
The men’s volleyball team closed a historic season by reaching the finals of the NCAA Division III championship tournament. The Brewers fell to California Lutheran University in three closely contested sets in the championship match on the campus of Loras College in Dubuque, IA, on April 28.

Vassar finished with a 26-8 record. Setter Jacob Kim ’24 earned First Team All-American honors for the second straight year, and Head Coach Richard Gary was named American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Region II Coach of the Year. Gary was also named United Volleyball Conference Coach of the Year.

Vassar Today

Athletics Seeks Nominations
for First-Ever Hall of Fame

Athletics Seeks Nominations for First-Ever Hall of Fame

Vassar’s Department of Athletics and Physical Education has launched an initiative to honor the achievements of the College’s athletes, coaches, administrators, and other contributors to the athletics program. Nominations are now open for the inaugural class of the Athletics Hall of Fame. The first inductions will take place during Reunion in 2025.

Michelle Walsh, Director of Athletics and Physical Education, said, “Vassar has an incredibly rich athletic history, dating back to the founding of the College. It’s reflected in Matthew Vassar’s commitment to offering women access to ‘the most perfect education of body, mind, and spirit.’” I am thrilled to offer a formal opportunity to recognize the many outstanding achievements of our Vassar student-athletes, teams, and other individuals who have been a part of the Brewers family.”

Eligibility criteria:

  • An alum who participated on an athletic team while pursuing a Vassar College degree and who has completed their college athletic career at least 10 years prior to the year of election.
  • A College employee and/or other individuals who have made a significant contribution to Vassar athletics. College employees shall be eligible five years after the date of their employment by the College has ended.
  • A team that has brought recognition and honor to the College by its significant achievement shall be eligible 10 years after the date of their achievement.
To submit a nomination for the inaugural induction class, please complete the online nomination form at:
www.vassarathletics.com/sports/hall-of-fame. The deadline for nominations is September 15.
Please contact Director of Athletic Communications Steven Merritt
(stevenmerritt@vassar.edu) with any questions about the nomination process.

Justice Revisited

justice revisited title

Justice Revisited

justice revisited title
By Paula Derrow
What motivates someone to take on the almost impossible task of righting a wrong resulting from a failure of our legal system? The answer, say the Vassar alums, students, and staffers below, is to stamp out injustice where they see it, however difficult the journey. Each one of them experienced myriad turning points that drove them to take action. Each one of them—some lawyers, some not—succeeded in freeing one or more individuals from prison. Here’s how they did it, and why what they learned at Vassar helped them along the way.
Michael Rhynes is greeted by his attorneys Pierre Sussman and Bobby Grossman ’95 outside Attica prison upon his release.

Overturning
Wrongful
Convictions

Michael Rhynes, sentenced to 52 years to life in prison for a murder he did not commit, was greeted by his attorneys Pierre Sussman and Bobby Grossman ’95, upon his release from Attica in December 2023.

©Tina MacIntyre-Yee, Democrat and Chronicle – Part of the USA Today Network

Overturning Wrongful Convictions

As a criminal defense attorney who, in his own words, has represented more than a hundred “murderers, drug dealers, and even people who have committed sex crimes,” Robert “Bobby” Grossman ’95 has never shied away from a difficult case. “One thing I’ve learned is that most of my clients are just people, like anyone else,” says Grossman, who has been practicing law in New York City for 20 years, and now heads up the law firm Edelstein and Grossman with his partner, Jonathan Edelstein.

From a young age, Grossman, who was born with a mild case of cerebral palsy and has a moderately severe stutter, was always a bit of a maverick, with decidedly liberal politics to boot. That’s one reason he chose Vassar; the school appealed to him for its progressive traditions. “The College started as kind of feminist institution when it wasn’t as common to educate women,” says Grossman. Being a criminal defense attorney, he says, “is the perfect job for someone like me because you’re opposing the government in every case. That appeals to my anarchist instincts.”

Yet despite his penchant for taking on a challenge, Grossman was not optimistic when, in 2018, he got a call from a woman named Deborah Kilbourn, who was volunteering with a church group that helped get people who had been wrongfully convicted out of prison. Kilbourn told him about a man named Michael Rhynes who, in 1986, had been sentenced to 52 years to life in prison for a murder he maintained he had never committed. Kilbourne believed him, and relayed that Rhynes was accused, along with several others, of attempted robbery and the murder of a bar owner and bar patron in Rochester, New York, in 1984, when he was 23 years old. Rhynes, who lived with his mother, said he was at home sleeping at the time; his mother concurred. The defense counsel moved to dismiss the indictment due to conflicting accounts from witnesses and insufficient evidence, and the District Attorney’s office did not oppose the motion.

But the judge denied the request, merely postponing the trial and requesting that prosecutors find more evidence. After an account of the case was published in a local Rochester newspaper, two individuals came forward and said that Rhynes had admitted to them when all three were in prison that he had fired the fatal shots—testimony that led to Rhynes’s conviction and sentence.

Portrait of Bobby Grossman ’95 sitting at a small table outside.
The criminal defense attorney Bobby Grossman ’95 has never shied away from a difficult case, but admits he was not optimistic about Rhynes’s. He persisted.
Samuel Stuart Photography
“There had already been a number of appeals and they had all failed, so I knew it would be a long shot, at best,” says Grossman. “The only chance was to find the informants, reinterview them, and see if they had been pressured in any way to inform on Rhynes.” That was all the encouragement Kilbourn and her group needed. They raised the money to hire an investigator who found the two men who had pointed to Rhynes. “It was a long process—we had to wait until one of the guys, who was back in prison, was released, but the two men recanted, signing affidavits that said they had lied to shorten their own sentences.

That was good news but Rhynes’s release was no shoo-in, or as Grossman says bluntly, “Even with those admissions, it’s tough to get a hearing. One of the f—ked up things about the law—and there are many—is that recantation evidence is often viewed by courts as not credible.” And indeed, one of the informants said that he tried to get in touch with the DA’s office several times to say that he had lied about Rhynes, something he outlined in his affidavit. His calls were never returned.

Grossman’s partner Jonathan Edelstein was slated to represent Rhynes in court, while Grossman wrote up the legal papers. “They were pretty good—good enough to get us a hearing.” With his stutter, Grossman relies even more than most lawyers on an ability to write well—a skill he attributes to his time at Vassar. “In the kind of work I do—appellate work—the most important thing is to be able to write in a persuasive, interesting way to keep law clerks’ and judges’ attention,” says Grossman.

Edelstein and Grossman won the hearing, and Rhynes, who by that time had spent close to 40 years in prison, was released on December 19, 2023, but not all of Grossman’s cases have such happy outcomes. “We’ve probably exonerated between five and eight people over the course of my career,” he says. “Last year, for instance, my partner and I got the judge to agree to reduce the sentence of Frans Sital, who got life without parole when he was 17 and after thirty years inside, he just got out,” says Grossman. “But I’ve also had my fair share of disappointments, including two cases where I believed my clients were innocent—but we lost.”

Still, Grossman has no regrets. “You won’t ever get rich being a criminal defense attorney,” he says. “But I never wanted to make a living by exploiting or profiting off someone else.”

A Free Man:
Michael Rhynes Today

After his release, Michael Rhynes wasted no time in getting involved in the local community. After moving to Ithaca, he was hired as an Assistant Director with Civic Ensemble, a community theater group that helps people reacclimate as they re-enter society. He’s acted in local theater and serves as a teaching assistant in an acting class at Cornell. He volunteers as “DJ Morpheus” on WRFI Community Radio (wrfi.org) Monday nights.
Portrait of Michael Rhynes in a fashionable hat, sitting backward in a chair, his arms draped casually over the back.
Mike Okoniewski
Michelle Horton chats with Elizabeth Clifton with a picture of Horton’s new book, Dear Sister: A Memoir of Secrets, Survival, and Unbreakable Bonds, in the background.

Purple Warriors:
Supporting Domestic
Violence Survivors

Earlier this year, Michelle Horton, left, came to campus to speak with Elizabeth Clifton, a founding member of the Community Defense Committee, about the effort to free her sister Nicole Addimando, a former Wimpfheimer Nursery School employee and domestic abuse survivor. She wrote a book about her sister’s plight.

Karl Rabe

Purple Warriors: Supporting Domestic Violence Survivors

Back in September of 2017, Wendy Freedman, a clinical psychologist and Director of the Counseling Service at Vassar, got the kind of phone call no one wants to receive. On the other end of the line was her dear friend Elizabeth Clifton, wife of Vassar Associate Professor of Psychological Science Allan Clifton, and she had terrible news to share: A woman in the community they both knew named Nikki Addimando, who had taught Freedman’s daughter at the Wimpfheimer Nursery School on the Vassar campus, had killed her partner, who had been physically and sexually abusing her for years. “Right then, I jumped in the car, picked up Elizabeth and drove her to the prison,” says Freedman, who says she wasn’t entirely surprised by this turn of events. “Elizabeth had been confiding in me for nearly two years that she was supporting a friend in the Vassar community who was suffering severe abuse. She never mentioned Nikki’s name, but together we’d try to brainstorm ways to get her out of that dangerous situation.”

Others in the community also knew of Addimando’s home situation, including the local police and Child and Family Services, yet when Addimando called 911 to report what had happened, she was arrested, leaving her two young children, then two and four, to be cared for by Addimando’s sister, Michelle Horton. “That’s when the women in Nikki’s life started coming together,” says Freedman. None of us had any knowledge of the legal system, but we had money, resources, and we knew how to do research, make calls, and rally our skill set.” Soon, there were 12 women who, together, formed the Nikki Addimando Defense Committee, including Nicole Bonnelli, director of the Infant Toddler Center on campus. “Three of us were connected to Vassar, then there were a whole bunch of other ‘purple warriors’ in our community,” says Freedman. “Purple is the color of domestic violence awareness, and a lot of my wardrobe is now purple.”

What Freedman didn’t know then is just how powerful that community could be—nor that they would have to fight for seven years for Nicole Addimando’s freedom. “We had people showing up in the courtroom, at rallies and at vigils, including a bus full of Vassar students,” says Freedman.

One of those students was Emma Ratzman ’21, who got involved in the Defense Committee as an intern through Vassar’s Office of Community-Engaged Learning. “I’ve always been interested in the legal system, and I’ve had some personal experience with domestic violence,” says Ratzman, who graduated from Georgetown Law this spring and is now clerking for a family-law judge in Washington, DC. “I was drawn to the opportunity of working with a group of women doing grassroots work and advocating for changes in policy.”

One task Ratzman took on was to figure out how to send care packages that were coming in from people who had heard about Addimando’s case. “I spent weeks reading through the prison regulations—it’s such an opaque system. In the end, we were able to figure it out, but it left me thinking, ‘How in the world would someone without these resources navigate this!’” says Ratzman.

Addimando hugs her children in the parking lot after being released from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.
Addimando greets her children after being released from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County this January.
Courtesy of Wendy Freedman
A group of the Community Defense Committee members gathers in a circle.
Wendy Freedman, Director of Vassar’s Counseling Service, shown top, center, was there to greet her when she was freed, along with other members of the Community Defense Committee.
Courtesy of Wendy Freedman
Meanwhile, Freedman and the members of the Defense Committee were encountering a roller coaster of emotions along with unexpected obstacles. “The whole process of the trial and the conviction was outrageously horrible, with every stereotype and trope about domestic violence survivors raised in the courtroom—as in, ‘Why didn’t she leave?’” says Freedman. Despite years of enduring physical and sexual violence, Addimando was convicted and sentenced to 19 years to life. “Luckily, at the same time, the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act had just been passed in New York State after 10 years of advocacy, which allowed those like Addimando, who had been the victims of violence that contributed to their conviction, to be resentenced. “But the same judge who presided over the initial trial presided over the resentencing hearing, and despite all the evidence presented that Nikki was abused, he denied her a new sentence,” says Freedman.

That result caused an uproar that rippled out into the community and beyond. “Nikki was one of the first people in New York to be tried under this new law, but even with all the evidence, she wasn’t eligible to be resentenced. If she wasn’t eligible, who would be?” asks Freedman.

Newly determined, and with the support of some state legislators and the weight of domestic violence groups like Sanctuary for Families behind them, the Defense Committee secured the professional representation of Garrard Beeney from the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. “He was the most compassionate human being, and he argued Nikki’s case before the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, where only 5 percent cases that are requested to be heard are accepted,” says Freedman. The ruling: That the way the courts had handled Addimando’s case was “antiquated.”

Addimando was given a new sentence of seven and a half years, including time served, and the Defense Committee was there for every day, week, and month of it, not only helping Addimando, but raising funds for her sister, Michelle Horton, who had quit her job as a journalist to care for her young niece and nephew, (Horton’s book about the experience, Dear Sister: A Memoir of Secrets, Survival, and Unbreakable Bonds, was released in January 2024.)

“This group of beautiful, passionate, dedicated people came together and we formed a deep bond,” says Freedman, who was at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility along with the rest of the Defense Committee on January 4, 2024, when Addimando was released. “It was one of the best days of my life, to see her walk out into the arms of her family,” says Freedman.

Meanwhile, along with her day job, Freedman is keeping up the fight for survivors of domestic violence. “Because the appeal was successful, this case is now being used as a precedent to free other women in New York State,” says Freedman. “And a bill similar to the DVSJA in New York was recently passed in Oklahoma, so there’s hope that things are moving in the right direction.”

For that, she thanks the community of people she found at Vassar and beyond. “Part of what drew me to work here is that the College lives by its values and has a strong social justice orientation, all of which inspired me to learn more about systemic oppression,” says Freedman. “I’ve also learned that progress is only made through working together and shared action—and I’m so grateful for my friends, colleagues, and Vassar students who have helped me find my place and voice in this fight.”

Portrait of Adam Murphy standing outside a courthouse.

Fighting Racial Bias
and Adult Sentencing
For Juveniles

Samuel Stuart Photography

Fighting Racial Bias and Adult Sentencing For Juveniles

When Adam Murphy ’10 was growing up in Brooklyn, New York, the conversation around the family dinner table wasn’t exactly typical. His parents, both passionate about social justice (his father is a labor lawyer and his mother a social worker) weren’t shy about exposing their young son to the problems in the world. “I must have been about five years old when I heard about the case of Ricky Ray Rector, who was executed in Arkansas,” said Murphy. “Mr. Rector was so cognitively impaired that when he was given his last meal he took a few bites of his pecan pie and asked the guards if he could save the rest of it for tomorrow.” That story stayed with Murphy and motivated him to want to do death penalty work from a young age. He now does that and related work with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Those values were reinforced when Murphy got to Vassar, he says. “The school attracts people who want to make a career out of humanity—and what you learn there reinforces that desire, not just philosophically but by giving you the analytical skills that justice work requires.” He points to what for him was a life-changing course called Prisoner and Imprisonment taught by now Dean of the College Carlos Alamo-Pastrana, a professor of sociology. “Thirteen years before George Floyd was murdered, we were asking profound questions about the disconnect between prisons and public safety, the disconnect between legal doctrine and morality,” says Murphy. “I’ll always be grateful for that class, which created a framework for thinking about these important questions and providing the space to both challenge and articulate our beliefs.”

Murphy has been living those beliefs since he graduated from Vassar and took a job at the Office of the Appellate Defender in New York City, where he worked on appeals cases as a client advocate and investigator. After graduating from NYU Law School, Murphy worked as a lawyer with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, AL, representing people on death row, advocating for juveniles who had been sentenced to die in prison, and supporting the re-entry process.

Now at the NAACP LDF for two and a half years, his work there can be described as extremely challenging, but he finds it satisfying to represent people sentenced to death or life without parole, including people who were children at the time of their arrest.

Murphy also submits briefs in significant constitutional cases, urging courts to eliminate the pernicious influence of racial bias in the criminal legal system—often related to issues of qualified immunity, jury discrimination, and sentencing. He presented oral argument last year before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in support of a person whose lawyer directed anti-Black and anti-Muslim sentiment toward him and on social media. “The court found that defense counsel’s racial and religious animus constituted a structural error, and all 18 of this man’s convictions were overturned,” says Murphy. “The case also opens the door for dozens of people to have their convictions and sentences vacated and provides persuasive authority for other states to approach similar cases in similar ways.”

Another case of which he is particularly proud resulted in the release of a 17-year-old client who had been sentenced to life without parole. “The judge had told him, ‘You are going to die in prison.’” Because of Murphy and his colleagues at LDF, he didn’t.

In 2012, the Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama that children are constitutionally different for purposes of sentencing. Based on that ruling, Murphy’s client was resentenced and made eligible for parole. “Except this was in a state where the parole board was not releasing anybody,” he says. Murphy got to work putting together evidence of his client’s progress in prison and his life circumstances—what’s known as “mitigation work,” which considers factors that argue in favor of a person’s release or lesser sentence, such as remorse. “We presented our case [at] the parole hearing, and after a lot of initial resistance, the board released him,” recounts Murphy. His client is now thriving, working as a certified cook at a homeless shelter. “He wanted to give back,” says Murphy, “and it’s amazing to see him live such a beautiful and vibrant life in the world outside the walls.”

Last April, in his personal capacity, Murphy spent a weekend in New York with another former client, a man who was imprisoned for 52 years and denied parole 14 times. “We started working together during my first year of law school, through a volunteer organization called Parole Prep, which helps incarcerated people prepare for their parole hearings,” says Murphy. “After decades of denials and despair, watching him walk out of prison was the most incredible feeling. It’s a memory I keep tucked away for the more challenging days.”

Ideas for Criminal Justice Reform

Ideas
for Criminal Justice Reform
Some of the courses Associate Professor of History Taneisha Means teaches at Vassar focus on the workings of the criminal justice system. Last spring, Means decided to move some of those discussions off campus and into the local community. She created a half-semester course, co-taught by civil rights researcher and advocate Brian Robinson, that examined criminal justice issues in Poughkeepsie.

About half of the class were Vassar students and the others were members of the local chapter of the NAACP. The goal: Convene community gatherings to seek opinions from Hudson Valley residents about the workings of the criminal justice system. Using this input, members of the class developed suggestions for specific policy changes they believed ought to be made by those involved in the local criminal justice system. Some funding for the course was provided by Vassar’s Community-Engaged Intensives in the Humanities initiative, funded by the Mellon Foundation.

This spring, the class hosted two community forums attended by several dozen community residents as well as attorneys and staff of the Dutchess County District Attorney’s Office, including DA Anthony Parisi. After the first session, students looked for common themes raised by those in attendance and conducted significant research. After presenting their suggestions for feedback at the second session, students offered the following policy recommendations to the District Attorney’s Office.

ET participant Aida Hernandez delivers a monologue about the landmark Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright, in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants unable to afford their own.
Buck Lewis

Student Policy Recommendations

Provide more information on local prosecution trends and statistics, especially data on racial disparity in plea bargaining and sentencing.
Provide additional opportunities for prosecutors to meet with community members and leaders to promote more mutual understanding.
Be proactive in ensuring more diversity in hiring and develop and support mentorship programs for young people interested in the law.
Develop and encourage more diversion initiatives, such as therapeutic arts programs for youth, and consider alternatives to incarceration for those convicted of nonviolent crimes.
“There was lots of excitement in the room about the issues we were raising and how we could support the community in improving the local justice system,” Means said. “I saw a thirst among the community members to stay engaged with those of us at Vassar who were considering these concerns. It was a community-based research collaboration, not someone from the outside defining the problem and imposing a solution.”

DA Parisi said, “I believe that transparency is the cornerstone of public trust and ensures accountability. Working with this class allowed me and my office to hold informed conversations about prosecution policies and priorities. Without meaningful public policies, unchecked prosecutorial discretion can lead to unequal treatment, rogue prosecutors, confusion for victims and defendants, and the inability of our residents to understand and effectively question what’s happening in our justice system.” My office is moving forward with hopes of bringing clarity to the criminal justice system for the residents of Dutchess County.”

Robinson, founder and CEO of Equitable Future, Inc., a Poughkeepsie-based civil rights, policy development, and advocacy organization that promotes dialogue and discussion of criminal justice issues, said he was encouraged by the initial response from the district attorney. “There was an acknowledgment that some policies in the past may have affected people of color disproportionately,” he said. “It was good to see so many people getting involved.”

Two students who took the course said they were encouraged by the work that has been done so far. “I saw this course as an opportunity to learn more about the local community and react in a meaningful way,” said Maham Rahman ’25, an international studies major from Queens, NY. “District Attorney Parisi seemed open to our ideas; he was interested in developing ways to actively recruit lawyers of color for the office and to put other policies in place. And it was great having non-Vassar students in the class. I learned a lot about the local community.”

A speaker addresses a crowd during a community forum.
Students in Professor Means’s Spring Semester course presented at community forums on criminal justice and made recommendations for reform. Professor Means noted, “There was lots of excitement in the room about the issues we were raising.”
Courtesy of Professor Taneisha Means
Poughkeepsie attorney Jen Brown, a member of the local chapter of the NAACP, said she too was encouraged by the response to the course from community members and the DA’s office. “I was thrilled that there was a willingness to use this feedback as a means of developing policy in the DA’s office,” Brown said. “I hope I have the opportunity to monitor the follow-up on these recommendations.”

Means said she intends to continue this work in a full-semester course. “I want to find more ways to benefit the community,” she said, “and we can do that by facilitating collaborations between students, teachers, and community members, and employing many of Vassar’s resources.”

True to her word, Means followed the spring semester with another class—this time co-teaching in the Exploring Transfer (ET) program, a month-long campus experience for community college students this summer. She co-taught the course with Carolyn Carr, a faculty member at Westchester Community College, and was supported by teaching assistant Amalia Oliva Rojas, a 2012 ET alum, accomplished playwright, and current Columbia graduate student.

The course, The Past, Present, and Future of Race, Punishment, and Criminal Justice in the United States, provided an overview of the U.S. justice system, examining the role of race, ethnicity, and politics. Students also learned about historical and contemporary efforts to reform the criminal justice system.

For the final project, student worked with classmates to reenact historic criminal trials, including the trial of the men accused of murdering Emmett Till, a Black teen who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, and a case involving the fatal beating of Chinese-American Vincent Chin in an anti-Asian attack in 1982.

In a statement, Carr, Means, and Rojas summarized their experience of the session this way: “This course and culminating performance would be impossible without the ET village. We are particularly grateful for our students’ willingness and trust in the challenging and emotional process of co-creating a salient and powerful course that elevates stories and trials of (in)justice as we collectively seek truth, foster resistance, and build resilience. This work is particularly timely as the world grapples with democratic- and justice-related challenges that disproportionately impact BIPOC communities.” —Larry Hertz

Beyond Vassar
Jessica Chong, ‘08 tries to solve a puzzle made from large multi-colored pieces.
Jessica Chong, right, and her Yanu tribemate, David Jelinsky, solve a puzzle during Survivor, Season 46.
Courtesy of CBS/Paramount

Getting Real

Jessica Chong ’08 Competes as Second Alum Contestant on Emmy-Winning Reality TV show Survivor
Jessica “Jess” Chong ’08 began her stint on the Emmy-winning reality show Survivor brimming with confidence and hope. She had taken a survival course, swum laps at a local pool near her San Francisco home, and had become adept at solving intricate puzzles—a Survivor staple—that her husband, Chris Clayman, had created with a 3D printer.

Five days into Survivor 46: Fiji, Chong was the second contestant to be voted off of her tribe, but she left the show with a stronger sense of herself. “Somehow, I tapped into a deep well of inner strength, and I managed to be calm amidst the chaos and brutality of my circumstances,” Chong said. “I am proud that I stayed true to myself, and that I didn’t say or do anything that I’d regret while I was out there. So often in mass media, we see Asian/Asian-American people get flattened. I wanted to represent my community in such a way that people would humanize us for all our complexity—the good and the bad, the serious and the silly—and I think I managed to do that.”

Chong, who played rugby while she was at Vassar, said she was touched by the outpouring of support she received from fellow alums. “When [Head Rugby Coach] Tony Brown found out I was going to be on the show, he sent an email blast to the entire Vassar rugby community,” Chong said. “At first, I didn’t want anyone to watch, but since it aired, I’ve received letters and emails from all kinds of people—from eight-year-olds to seniors—who told me they related to my plight, including a lot of people from Vassar that I hadn’t talked to since I was in class or in a dorm with them. I even had a ride-share driver tell me that her ten-year-old daughter was so upset about how I left the game.”

Chong began her career as a Communications Assistant at the Social Science Research Council in Brooklyn, then moved to her native Hong Kong to work in publishing and at a web agency, before embarking on a freelance career as a web designer.

In 2015, she won a scholarship to attend a coding boot camp, and became a software engineer. She first caught the attention of the Survivor casting team in 2019 because of a social media post about her advocacy for scholarships to help people from underrepresented communities transition into careers in software.

Chong is the second alum to compete on Survivor. Ethan Zohn ’96 won the million-dollar prize in Survivor’s third season in 2002, and signed on again in 2020 for the Survivor: Winners at War all-star episode. As for her own experience, Chong said she would not trade the opportunity to be on Survivor for anything. “It has been one of the joys of my adult life to meet new people, hear their stories, and embark on a shared journey together.”—Larry Hertz

Beyond Vassar

A Journey of Discovery through the Teenage Brain

Portrait of Ellen Galinsky ’64 with lots of greenery in the background.
Mary Ellsworth
W

hen child development researcher and author Ellen Galinsky ’64 first became a parent, she was told something many new parents hear: “Just wait until he’s a teenager!” But are teens always so scary, difficult, and incomprehensible? Or can the teen years be filled with tremendous possibility for both parents and kids? In her new book, The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens, called a “superb contribution to science and society” by Richard M. Lerner, founding editor of the Journal of Research on Adolescence), Galinsky offers evidence of the latter. The project spanned almost a decade during which Galinsky conducted three original studies, surveyed 1,666 adolescents and their parents twice, and interviewed dozens of neuroscientists in depth.

cover of The Breakthrough Years book

Figuring out adolescence is a huge topic—where did you start?

I practice a form of research called civic science: I go out and ask the people who would be the subjects of a study what they want to know, what they think is important. Beforehand, I read more than 200 researchers on adolescent development but then went out to ask kids, “What do you want to know about your development? What do you want to tell adults about people your age?” I ask open-ended questions.

Why do parents and teens clash so much?

There are a number of reasons. One is that we have a protective instinct. We know more than they do, and so we worry that they’re going to be hurt. We’re afraid for them, and we want to protect them. A second reason is a cognitive bias called “the curse of knowledge.” Once we know something, it’s really difficult to unknow it. So, if we know from our greater experience that A might lead to B, we want to forewarn our kids. I’ll give you one example: Let’s say that your child is rejected, someone breaks up with them. So, we might just say, “Yeah, I felt that way but you’ll get over it.” And kids may feel that that’s diminishing the pain that they feel. [Instead] we might say, “You’re supposed to feel emotional about that. You’re biologically wired to react really strongly to this.”

Given the pandemic, school shootings, and negative pressures of social media, do you think today’s teens have it harder than past generations?

Yes and no. It’s always hard to figure out who you are and move out into the world. That said, the CDC data show that more kids are reporting anxiety and depression—those figures have gone from 21 percent to 42 percent in 10 years. That’s a big jump that started pre-pandemic. I think technology is different, parents’ work pressure has intensified as have school pressures. There’s a lot going on. One thing that helps kids, though, is to become not the helped but the helpers. Some of the young people I interviewed who had gone through huge mental health challenges became a helper for other kids going through challenges as they recovered. I think we need to give more young people opportunities to be helpers.

Is there anything from your Vassar years that you carry with you today?

I fell in love with child development, child studies, when it was a major at Vassar. [Former professors] Joe Stone, Joe Church, Henrietta Smith were shaping the research in the field. So they gave us things that were challenging them and asked us to research them. From Vassar, I got not only my love of child development but a way of doing it: asking questions, seeking answers. I also got from Vassar, “go to the source.” I don’t read about studies; I read studies. I don’t read about children; I ask children. Another thing that I got from Vassar is, it became quickly clear to me that teachers really valued students’ making unusual connections—creative thinking plus critical thinking. I’ve always tried to break the mold, not see things the way other people see them. You learn to trust yourself enough to think, ‘I’ll figure it out.’ And then you do! —Kimberly Schaye
Beyond Vassar
Dede Thompson Bartlett ’65 speaks behind an NYU labeled lectern.
©Chandler
Dede Thompson Bartlett ’65 gave the address at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering commencement ceremony, held at Barclays Center on May 16. Bartlett’s energetic and to-the-point pep-talk emphasized the importance of “grit, determination, strength, and resilience” to an enthusiastic and frequently cheering crowd. Bartlett served as a senior officer with two Fortune 500 companies—Exxon Mobil and Altria—and developed Altria’s award-winning domestic violence education programs. In 2023, Bartlett donated $10M toward the construction of The Dede Thompson Bartlett Center for Admission and Career Education at Vassar.
Portrait of Torrey Maldonado ’96.
Courtesy of NYU Photo Bureau / Karl Rabe
cover of the book Hands
Brooklyn-based author Torrey Maldonado ’96 won his second Christopher Award for Hands, a novel that emphasizes the power of community. It follows 12-year-old Trev, who is torn between using his hands to fight his abusive stepfather or using them to nurture his artistic talents that could lead him and his family toward a brighter future. The 75th Anniversary Christopher Awards Ceremony, held on April 10, celebrated those whose work “affirms the highest values of the human spirit.” The Library of Congress recently recognized Maldonado as “one of 18 voices that define our time.”
Geraldine Laybourne ’69 poses with New York Assembly Member Didi Barrett.
Laybourne is shown with New York Assembly Member Didi Barrett.
Kerri Vitek, idesign
Edward Pittman ’82 poses with his classmate, Karen Smythe ’82.
Pittman is shown with classmate Karen Smythe ’82.
Kerri Vitek, idesign
Geraldine Laybourne ’69 and Vassar Dean Emeritus Edward Pittman ’82 were honored at the Dutchess Community College Foundation’s Our Community’s Bridge to the Future Gala on April 6. Pittman, a long-time resident of Poughkeepsie, was celebrated for his “long and impressive career in education … on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion” with notable achievements, including his founding of the ALANA Center at Vassar, as well as his development of the first diversity recruitment initiative at Dutchess Community College. Laybourne was celebrated for her long career at Nickelodeon and Disney-ABC cable networks as well as her life-long advocacy for childhood education, manifest in her co-founding of DAY ONE Early Learning Community, an early childhood education group in Poughkeepsie.
Portrait of Sherrilyn Ifill ’84.
Courtesy of the NAACP LDF
Sherrilyn Ifill ’84, a scholar-in-residence at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), was honored by the Black Arts Council at the New Museum’s Spring Gala on April 3. Ifill is Professor of Law on the Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University and is former President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Ifill is also a prolific scholar whose work includes On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century, which MoMA credits with “laying the foundation for contemporary conversations about lynching and reparations.” She is currently completing the manuscript for a book to be titled “Is This America?” to be published by Penguin Press this year.
Paula Williams Madison ’74, the Chairman and CEO of Madison Media Management LLC and 88 Madison Media Works Inc., was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame and received the President’s Award during the NABJ24 Convention and Career Fair in Chicago on August 2. She was honored for her illustrious career as a veteran journalist, writer, businessperson, and former NBC Universal executive. Of African and Hakka Chinese descent, Madison wrote the generations-spanning memoir Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem, published by Amistad Books in 2015. She and other awardees were induced during the Hall of Fame Induction on August 2.
Portrait of Paula Williams Madison ’74.
Samuel Stuart Photography
Beyond Vassar

Making a Difference in the War in Ukraine

Marina Hrytsenko ’23 spent the second semester of her junior year in London in an academic and social justice program run by Boston University and co-sponsored by Vassar. Three days before her 21st birthday in February 2022, she was visiting her family in Ukraine when she began to hear talk about an imminent Russian invasion. She dismissed the concerns, but back in London, on the evening of her birthday, she received a call from her boyfriend who told her Russian President Vladimir Putin had issued a statement ordering the skies closed to civilian aircraft near the Ukraine border. The next morning, she awoke to 40 missed calls. The shelling and bombing had begun in her family’s hometown of Kharkiv, and a text from her boyfriend read: “I can’t reach you. Your parents are alive.”
Selfie of Marina Hrytsenko ’23 in front of the Capitol building in Washington, DC.
Marina Hrytsenko ’23 visited Washington, DC, earlier this year as part of a delegation of Ukrainian officials lobbying for U.S. aid in the war effort.

Courtesy of the subject

Hrytsenko tried to call everyone in her family, but no one replied. “I didn’t know then, but my dad [a lieutenant colonel in the Ukraine Air Force] was already fighting, my grandparents’ town was getting occupied, and my mom and sister were hiding in a shelter,” she said. “All I could do was go to protests, but I mostly felt numb.”

In the fall, Hrytsenko returned to Vassar for her senior year, but she had already resolved to move back to Ukraine to help in the fight. And a few months after she graduated, she secured a position as a foreign policy advisor to a leader of the Ukraine Parliament, Oleksandra Ustinova. The work has been challenging and demanding, but Hrytsenko has experienced some tangible successes. She was part of an eight-member delegation of Ukrainian officials who visited Washington, DC, in May to lobby for permission to use U.S. weapons to strike at targets inside Russia. Two weeks later, President Biden issued that permission.

How has this 23-year-old managed to rise to such an important position in Ukraine’s fight for its freedom? Hrytsenko had secured internships in Ukraine during each Vassar break. Because the United States is one of Ukraine’s closest allies, government leaders there were looking for people who were familiar with U.S. culture and politics, Hrytsenko explained, so there was a place for a Vassar international studies major in the Ukraine government. “Not many people get this chance so early in life, but people felt I could use my education at a time when the United States was such a key ally,” she said.

Hrytsenko’s principal duties involve facilitating communication among members of the Ukraine Parliament, representatives of foreign governments, business leaders, and the general public. “Topics I currently focus on are primarily related to the questions of military support and arms control, as my MP is the chairwoman of special commission on arms control,” she said. “I interact most often with officials in the United States but also work with the governments of Canada and the European Union. We are working right now on the training of F-16 pilots.”

When she was a junior in high school, she applied for a program called Ukraine Global Scholars, run by Ukrainians who are familiar with U.S. colleges. She used the program to prepare for the college admission process. Later that year, Hrytsenko was awarded a full scholarship to Vassar.

“My liberal arts background has equipped me to conduct meaningful research and learn how to discuss any issue,” she noted. “It has given me the ability to adjust to new circumstances really quickly, and that’s what my work is about every day.”

One of Hrytsenko’s senior thesis advisors was Robert K. Brigham, Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations. She hopes that what she learned in his course on negotiating conflicts and how peace treaties are written will be useful when the war with Russia ends. Until that day comes, Hrytsenko says she is proud to be working alongside her fellow Ukrainians as they attempt to repel the Russian invasion.—Larry Hertz

Embracing Every Chapter

Music, Politics, and Children’s Literature:

Alice Belgray ’59

When Alice Belgray ’59, née Bunzl, came to Vassar, she was planning to study math, but found herself gravitating toward the rich musical education at the College. At 87, Belgray still has a passion for music and also children’s literature.

Belgray sings in the Brearley Singers choir—as she has for 28 years. The Brearley Singers celebrated their 30th anniversary in May, performing for a sold-out crowd at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew in New York City. “We just sang Brahms’s ‘German Requiem,’” Belgray said. “I last sang it at Vassar in 1958. Singing in this chorus has been an exhilarating experience for me.”

The Brearley Singers originated in the Brearley School, one of Belgray’s alma maters and where she sent her daughters, Laura and Marian. The all-girls school emphasized literature, words, and the values of women. Belgray carried those teachings with her to Vassar—the alma mater of her mother, Margaret Tanzer Bunzl, class of 1927—where she sang in the choir.

“Senior year, Pete Seeger came to Vassar,” Belgray recalled. “It was during the McCarthy Era and he wasn’t allowed on campus, but he performed at Alumnae House. That was an inspiring experience because he was one of my idols. It gave me a different worldview and a love of folk music. I grew up as a very privileged white person in New York going to a high-powered private school and then Vassar. Vassar expanded my view of the world.”

That expanded perspective led to her first foray into politics. Vassar is where she joined her first protest march in favor of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956—much to the chagrin of her father.

After graduation, Belgray attended the University of Michigan, where she earned a PhD in musicology. She began teaching music but found it wasn’t for her. In her 20s, she became involved in politics, working as a legislative assistant in Albany, but experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. This was around the time that writer and activist Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, and that impacted Belgray greatly—she refused to be a victim. Later, she worked for the New York Civil Liberties Union and helped to write legislative memoranda.

“I worked on the Equal Rights Amendment for New York, which we passed,” Belgray said. “So my political life has been a sub-level career. It’s something I’ve been involved in all these years.”

In 1967, she married David Belgray, a psychoanalyst who passed away in 2018. “He was the love of my life, and I spent 51 incredible years with him,” Belgray said.

Alice Belgray ’59 poses with her daughters, Laura and Marian.
Alice Belgray ’59 (center) with her daughters, Laura and Marian.

Courtesy of the subject

Following her career in politics, she worked for recording companies, including Vanguard Records, but in the 1980s, after attending a seminar for women seeking a career change, Belgray found her calling: children’s book publishing. In her 40s, she began as an intern for a small children’s book publishing company and took classes on children’s literature. She went on to work for Clarion Books and the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) where she was the editor of children’s books.

She eventually joined the Children’s Book Committee at Bank Street College of Education, which produces book lists to help parents, teachers, and librarians find books children will find compelling. Now, as a member of the committee, Belgray helps to evaluate 6,000 published books annually and is involved in compiling a comprehensive, annotated list of 600 of the best titles. She was the chair of the committee for 15 years, and, while she stepped down from that role in 2011, she remains an active member.

“I’ve been on both sides as a publisher and reviewer,” Belgray said. “I love working with children’s books.”

Belgray has been quite active at her alma mater. She has attended Reunions where she’s met a lot of friends, and she was once the president of her class. She has been a consistent donor to the Vassar Fund since the 1980s out of loyalty to an institution she said has contributed to her personal growth.

“I’m quite lucky all around,” Belgray said. “A wonderful family, an active life. I have been very fortunate.”—Heather Mattioli

Beyond Vassar

Reunion 2024

The Highlights

Buck Lewis
O

n 2024 Reunion weekend—spanning Thursday, May 30, through Sunday, June 2—nearly 1,300 alums returned to campus for a full weekend of fun. This reunion focused on classes that end in 4s and 9s, though 1948 and 1949 prefer to return together. The weekend was jam-packed with activity.

Two alums embrace and smile for the camera.
Revelry and reconnection was the name of the game as nearly 1,300 alums returned to campus for Reunion.
Karl Rabe
The class of 1974 enjoyed extra time at their alma mater, arriving on Thursday to celebrate their 50th Reunion year. Throughout the weekend, the class attended a variety of fun events, starting with a Welcome Back Buffet dinner on Joss Beach. The next night, they donned island attire for their Tropical Breezes dinner in the Bridge for Laboratory Sciences, and watched the Friday night fireworks display from the balcony overlooking Sunset Lake.

As part of the forum Reflections on Coeducation at Vassar, the class of 1974 looked back on Vassar’s decision to go coed a year before they matriculated. Classmates shared personal reflections of that time, and two popular professors—Glen Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, and Anne Constantinople, Professor Emerita of Psychology—put the era in context. The decision had come at a moment when important shifts were occurring in American higher education, they noted. It was also in an era in which students began to pressure colleges to expand their curricula to include the teaching of African American and non-Western narratives, as well as women’s history.

Alums party and dance outside under a large tent at night.
Buck Lewis
Alums from all classes were invited to learn about “today’s Vassar” during an Hour with the President on Saturday morning. President Elizabeth H. Bradley addressed critiques of higher education—from the high cost of tuition to the ways in which colleges and universities have dealt with campus protests. “Despite the turbulent environment current for higher education nationally, at Vassar, we have much momentum for the future,” Bradley said. She shared the “pride points” that stoked her optimism: Record applications for admission, a continuance of Vassar’s need-blind application process, greater access for low-income and first-generation students, wonderful post-Vassar outcomes, impressive new professors, winning athletics teams, and more.

There was the festive annual Reunion parade, in which alums proceeded by golf cart or on foot to Celebrate Vassar, held in Noyes Circle. The five-year fund-raising totals are typically announced at the gathering to the cheers of the participants, but the proceedings were interrupted by about 100 alum and student protesters demanding action to stop the war in Gaza. It was later announced that the Reunion classes had raised more than $31 million over a five-year period to support the College and its students.

Attendees enjoyed tours of the museum and lectures on everything from the promises and pitfalls of AI to the 96-year-old Wimpfheimer Nursery School. Paula Williams Madison and the Honorable Richard Roberts, both from the class of 1974, hosted a screening of Madison’s 2014 documentary Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China, which chronicles her journey to find her extended family in her maternal grandfather’s homeland, China. Alum authors showcased their work in the Vassar Store. Two forums offered sneak peeks at programming for the Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts, which will open this fall, alongside the Salt Line restaurant and the Heartland, a 40-room inn.

Phyllis Hayter Townsend and Mary Nunn Morrow, both ’48, ride around campus in the back of a golf cart.
Phyllis Hayter Townsend and Mary Nunn Morrow, both ’48, were the eldest alums to return for Reunion.
Karl Rabe
Three male classmates take a selfie together.
Selfie-taking with classmates was a popular activity at Reunion.
Buck Lewis
A group of a capella singers perform together.
A Night Owls concert thrilled those nostalgic for Vassar a capella.
Stockton Photo, Inc
Reunioneers had the opportunity to connect on a more personal level at class-specific dinners, as well as affinity receptions, such as those for African American Alumnae/i of Vassar College (AAAVC), LGBTQI alums, and former Vassar athletes. The class of 1969 gathered for their dedication of two benches in the Shakespeare Garden on Friday night.

Alums reconnected not just with each other, but with the beauty of the campus through tours of Vassar’s Arboretum and Preserve. Some even took a break for a peaceful walk around the labyrinth at Pratt House, the new home of Vassar’s Department of Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices.

At a luncheon at Alumnae House, the Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College (AAVC) honored Stephanie Hyacinth ’84 with its Outstanding Service to Vassar Award. In her introduction, AAVC President Monica Vachher noted that Hyacinth has served in “six or seven Vassar campaigns, as everything from campaign chair to committee member. She has also served on the Vassar Board of Trustees and on the Board of Directors of the AAVC.” Despite these lofty positions, Vachher said, no job has been too small for Hyacinth. “She never gets wrapped up in the sturm und drang—she just sort of does the right thing.”

This Reunion was one to remember not just for Hyacinth, who celebrated her 40th Reunion, but for members of classes from 1948/49 to 2019. Connecting with old friends, meeting new ones, and reencountering the beauty of the campus did many a world of good.—Elizabeth Randolph

Four alumni around a table wave Vassar flags amidst a larger celebratory crowd.
Karl Rabe
Two alumni clink wine glasses and smile.
Buck Lewis
An alum snacks on strawberries outside while people mingle in the background.
Buck Lewis
So much to do at Reunion—from the Celebrate Vassar event in Noyes Circle, to a wine tasting, to snacking on Vassar Devils, and more.
You’ll find hundreds of Reunion 2024 photos here.
Beyond Vassar

Celebrating Excellence: AAVC Honor Alums and Vassar Staff with 2024 Awards

The Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College (AAVC) has selected four alums and two College employees for annual awards that highlight exceptional service and professional achievement. The first of these awards was presented at Reunion 2024. The others will be given out during the coming academic year.
Portrait of Stephanie Hyacinth ‘84
Stockton Photo, Inc

Stephanie Hyacinth ’84 – Outstanding Service to Vassar Award

As a Vassar senior in 1984, Stephanie Hyacinth helped solicit the senior class gift from Jewett House and then never stopped serving the College for 40 years running. By the AAVC’s count, Hyacinth has taken on 44 volunteer positions—assuming perhaps her biggest role as Co-Chair of the College’s current Fearlessly Consequential campaign.

Dr. Amy Pullman ’71, who headed the AAVC’s Alumnae/i Recognition Committee, said Hyacinth was an easy choice for the Outstanding Service to Vassar Award, which 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 the AAVC. “Stephanie is so well respected and loved by the Vassar community that her choice for this award was unanimous on the first round of voting by the committee,” said Pullman.

At the June 1 award ceremony for Hyacinth, President Elizabeth Bradley looked up from her prepared remarks and said to Hyacinth, “What have you not done here? And you’ve done it for four decades!” Noting that Hyacinth also has a day job as Interim Vice President of External Relations at Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York (CUNY), Bradley said, “We are all lucky that she is so generous about bringing these professional skills to what we do.”

Bradley was followed by AAVC President Monica Vachher ’77, who said, “Stephanie’s passion is infectious: She has that rare ability to entice other volunteers to be all in—and, ultimately, to have just as much fun as she’s having.”

When Hyacinth took the podium, it was to loud whoops and cheers. She opened by saying, “I volunteer for Vassar because Vassar deserves my support.” She described how, as “a skinny, nerdy kid from Brooklyn,” she had felt cared for at Vassar and was now returning that care. “I am passionate about Vassar—and I adore Vassar people because Vassar people are doers; they are not on the sidelines,” she said. “They are smart, funny, strong, fair, creative, curious, quirky, dedicated, and always operating from a place of possibility and optimism. Who would not want to be a part of that?”—Kimberly Schaye

Portrait of David Ambroz ‘02
Karl Rabe

David Ambroz ’02 – Spirit of Vassar Award

David Ambroz, a lawyer and Amazon executive, is a leading child welfare advocate recognized by President Obama as a “Champion of Change.” His deep commitment to children in need comes from a very personal place, as he spent 11 years of his own childhood unhoused and then several years in foster care—the subject of his recent memoir, A Place Called Home (Legacy Lit, 2022). Ambroz co-founded the multimedia public awareness campaign FosterMore.org, as well as the pioneering National Foster Youth Advisory Council; served on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Youth at Risk; served as the President of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission four times; and has been part of countless policies and laws to improve the lives of children experiencing poverty.

As an against-all-odds success story, Ambroz works tirelessly to better the odds for others. His unflagging efforts have now earned him the Spirit of Vassar Award, which goes to an alum who has “demonstrated extraordinary and distinguished leadership, contribution, and commitment to serving a community in which they effect positive, transformative societal change.”

Said awards committee chair Pullman, “David exemplifies the expression ‘giving back.’ He has devoted his life to helping solve homelessness, and he has never forgotten how his full scholarship to Vassar changed his life.”

Ambroz said he felt “humbled” by his selection for the award, which will be presented at Convocation this fall, and promised “to live up to the Spirit of Vassar, and all that it gave me.

“My liberal arts education has been the key to my everything,” he explained. “I learned to think, to research, to apply, to listen, and to take action. All that was embedded into a deep commitment to progress, to the democratic project, and to my communities of origin.”

Portrait of Carolyn Merchant ‘58
Robert Holmgren

Carolyn Merchant ’58 – Distinguished Achievement Award

Carolyn Merchant is Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, where she specializes in environmental history, philosophy, and ethics. Her many books include The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, originally published in 1980 and reissued in 1990 and 2020. On the occasion of the book’s 40th anniversary, science historian Paula Findlen wrote, “Few books in the history of science have had such a broad and diffuse impact, and few have been generative of so many other fields.” Her current work and lasting impact on the exploration of the relationship between humans and nature have now earned her the AAVC’s Distinguished Achievement Award, presented to an alum who has reached the highest level in their professional field.

“Carolyn is a distinguished historian, philosopher, environmentalist, and feminist who was decades ahead of her time when she drew a groundbreaking connection between the increasingly mechanistic worldview of science and the exploitation of women and the environment,” said Pullman.

“I am highly honored and thrilled that my outstanding alma mater had selected me for this amazing award,” said Merchant. “I loved the education I got in the classes at Vassar. We were taught to ‘go to the sources’ and analyze them for ourselves. We learned to volunteer to speak in class, to think for ourselves, and to say what we believed the texts stated and meant. My Vassar education gave me the confidence to believe in myself, to investigate new subjects, and to trust my own approach to ideas and subjects.

“The fact that Vassar was an all-woman school at the time I attended it played a major role in my intellectual development,” Merchant noted. “I built confidence in my own ideas by contributing something to each classroom discussion.”

Ethan Slater ’14, sitting at a piano, holds a microphone and smiles.
Café Carlyle-David Andrako

Ethan Slater ’14 – Young Alumnae/i Achievement Award

Actor, singer, and composer Ethan Slater is a versatile performer who has accomplished a lot in his first decade out of Vassar. He originated the role of SpongeBob SquarePants on Broadway, for which he received a Tony Award nomination and won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Theatre World, and Broadway Beacon Awards. More recently, he starred as Lee Harvey Oswald in the musical Assassins and in the Broadway revival of Monty Python’s Spamalot. He will soon appear in the film adaptation of Wicked alongside Tony Award-winner Cynthia Erivo and pop star Ariana Grande.

“Ethan’s acting career started just one year after he graduated from Vassar and has hurtled on like a freight train, culminating in his role in the film adaptation of Wicked,” noted Pullman.

Slater said he felt “honored and grateful” to receive the Young Alumnae/i Achievement Award, which recognizes the exceptional personal and professional achievements of an alum who has graduated within the past 10 years. “Vassar was the place where I learned so much about myself, about what I do for a living, about a life in the arts,” he said. “Even 10 years out, it is hard to identify the most formative parts of an experience. But for me, I think the biggest advantage of my liberal arts education was learning how to learn in different ways. Running from a class on international politics, to Sources of World Drama, to Econ 101, to a seminar called Virtually Mediated Social Worlds, meant that I was constantly engaging with different styles of teaching, different disciplines, and surrounded by people passionate about vastly different things. So, I could apply what I learned in a class and I could hone in on what really made me excited.”

Jannette Swanson and Stacy Bingham smile for the camera.
Buck Lewis

Stacy Bingham and Jannette Swanson – Outstanding Faculty/Staff Award

Jannette Swanson and Stacy Bingham, shown left to right, are Vassar’s dynamic duo of career education. As Associate Dean of the College for Career Education and Director of External Engagement, respectively, Bingham and Swanson give their all to make sure students and alums alike have every opportunity to fulfill their career aspirations—putting on close to 200 events each year, of which a significant portion are focused on connecting students with alums. A centerpiece of these efforts is Sophomore Career Connections, an annual networking and educational event involving hundreds of current students, alums, and parents that celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.

“Stacy and Jannette have turned the Center for Career Education into an invaluable resource for students and alums, revitalizing the role that networking plays in their careers,” noted Pullman. “They have helped turn Sophomore Career Connections into a blockbuster event.”

Bingham said that she was honored by the recognition from the AAVC and looked forward to creating even more opportunities for students and grads. “I have long said that the Vassar network, which is deep, wide, and brimming with goodwill, is our very best career resource,” she said. “There is no better inspiration for life beyond Vassar than those who have paved the way, and I continue to be struck by just how generous this community is with one another!”

Swanson said she was “deeply honored and humbled” by the award. “The work I get to do is pretty effortless, as our alums are always eager to help our students, but a real joy I find in my work is when our alums also establish meaningful connections with one another at these events,” she said. “In my eyes, this recognition is a testament to the vibrant Vassar community, a community that I am grateful I get to work with daily.”—Kimberly Schaye

Beyond Vassar
Kelly Marsh
Three AAAVC members in African attire smile for the camera.

AAAVC’s Triennial 2024:

Reconnecting & Remembering

A

merican Alumnae/i of Vassar College (AAAVC) Triennial XIV, held on campus April 12-14, marked the 40th anniversary of the group, created in 1984 to engage Black graduates and students. Triennial is a “homecoming,” of sorts, for Black alums and an opportunity to connect not only with each other, but with students, faculty members, administrators, and staff. Members were eager to meet in person, as the last Triennial in 2021 was held online due to concerns about the COVID pandemic.

On Friday afternoon, AAAVC members and others celebrated the Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College (AAVC) Spirit of Vassar Award recipient Pamela Harris ’92. Before accepting the award, Harris was interviewed by Maybelle Bennett ’70 about her trajectory from a low-income student to activist to documentary filmmaker and (currently) CFO at the Community Foundation Sonoma County. Her lens as an activist has colored many of her choices; she said, “I attended my first protest in the womb. My father was part of Freedom Summer and worked on voter registration drives down South.” Harris is particularly focused on economic inequality—her 2005 documentary film Waging a Living addressed the struggles of minimum-wage workers and their families. She said she strives to use her position in finance to help “those not in the center of the quantitative framework” to become more financially literate.

As members reflected on 40 years of AAAVC, they also looked back with gratitude on beloved friends who had passed since the 2021 Triennial. Saturday morning bright and early, alums headed to the Thompson Library to hear about Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a book AAAVC will help to preserve in honor of Dr. June Jackson Christmas ’45-4—a member of AAAVC and a three-time trustee of the College. The gesture was made in conjunction with Vassar’s Adopt-a-Book program. Ron Patkus, who heads the College’s Archives and Special Collections, explained that the autobiographic text had been dictated by Truth to a scribe and printed around 1850 and sold as part of her lecture series.

Alums then dedicated a bench and tree near Metcalf Hall, the center of Vassar’s mental health services, to Dr. Christmas, who had been a noted psychiatrist, educator, and had led New York City’s mental health agency under several mayors. Several of Dr. Christmas’s family members were able to attend the dedication, including her daughter, Rachel, and son Gordon, who later presented the Africana Studies Program a gift of $7,250 in honor of their mother.

Eric Wilson ’76 and Gwen Salley ’81 cut a cake.
Eric Wilson ’76 and Gwen Salley ’81 cut a cake to celebrate 40 years of AAAVC.
Karl Rabe
Three AAAVC members gather around a memoir of Sojourner Truth to be<br />
adopted and preserved by the group, a librarian stands before them explaining.
Members learn about a memoir of Sojourner Truth to be adopted and preserved by the group.
Jesse Untracht-Oakner
Eric Wilson ’76 and Gwen Salley ’81 cut a cake to celebrate 40 years of AAAVC.
Karl Rabe
Members learn about a memoir of Sojourner Truth to be adopted and preserved by the group.
Jesse Untracht-Oakner
Five AAAVC members pose in front of a DJ set.
A Wakanda-themed dance party.
Kelly Marsh
The daughter and son of the late Dr. June Jackson Christmas ’45-4 stand together at the dedication of a stone marker in her honor.
The daughter and son of the late Dr. June Jackson Christmas ’45-4 at the dedication of a bench and marker in her honor.
Karl Rabe
Pamela Harris ’92 sits before a microphone.
Pamela Harris ’92 talked about her life and work before accepting the AAVC Spirit of Vassar Award.
Kelly Marsh
A Wakanda-themed dance party.
Kelly Marsh
The daughter and son of the late Dr. June Jackson Christmas ’45-4 at the dedication of a bench and marker in her honor.
Karl Rabe
Pamela Harris ’92 talked about her life and work before accepting the AAVC Spirit of Vassar Award.
Kelly Marsh
Saturday lunch was dedicated to Professor Emeritus Norman Hodges, the first tenured Black professor in History and Africana Studies, and Professor Emeritus Milfred Fierce, who had fought to establish the Africana Studies (previously Black Studies) program at Vassar. Maybelle Bennett ’70, Beatrix Davis Fields ’72, Richard Roberts ’74, and Eric Wilson ’76 offered remembrances. The next day, Rev. Dr. Robert Bryant Jackson ’77 presided over a memorial service in the Alumnae House Living Room for those who had passed on.

The weekend also featured a reception at the President’s House, workshops, panels, student-alum activities, an alum networking event, and a tour of the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve and Poughkeepsie Farm Project. There was plenty of time for revelry, too. Many enjoyed Game Night and a gala dinner followed by a “Wakanda Dance Party.” Terrence Harris ’01 spun the tunes. Other highlights included a marketplace in the College Center, where alum authors and entrepreneurs offered a range of products and literature on Saturday, and an “Author-Entrepreneur Roundtable,” where they spoke of their work on Sunday.

Apropos Triennial’s theme, “Storytelling: Creating Our Future, Celebrating Our Past,” there were many opportunities to share. Several members of AAAVC sat with Vassar podcast host Wesley Dixon to speak about their Vassar experiences as part of the College’s Oral History Initiative. There was also a conversation between Africana Studies Chair Diane Harriford and Kiana Moore ’02, who co-directed the 2022 award-winning documentary The Beauty of Blackness (HBO Max), about the relaunch of Fashion Fair, the first national makeup brand that catered specifically to women of color.

During the AAAVC’s business meeting, members elected co-chairs who will serve for the next three years. Newly elected Co-Chair Nicole Savage ’08, an educator based in Washington, DC, had been Senior Assistant Director of Admission and Co-Coordinator of Multicultural Recruitment at Vassar after graduating and says one of her goals will be to involve younger alums.

Gwen Salley ’81, who will serve a second term after co-chairing with Eric Wilson ’76, said, “Triennial was very rich and a reunion like none other. We brought Black alums together on Vassar’s campus, some of whom had not returned since graduation. There was networking, laughing, creating new memories, telling stories about our treasures—including Dr. Christmas, Dr. Hodges, and Dr. Fierce—telling our new stories with Kiana Moore, and participating in the Vassar Oral Histories Initiative.”

Over the next three years, she said, AAAVC will focus on growing engagement. “There are so many more alums who could be enjoying Vassar’s campus and contributing—not only financially but as volunteers,” she said. “Our goal is to reach those talents and bring them back into the fold.”—Elizabeth Randolph

Beyond Vassar

America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East

Foreign policy expert Steven Cook’s area of focus could not be more relevant
By David Silverberg
The End of Ambition book cover
An hour-long conversation with Steven Cook ’90 will have you globe-trotting from Egypt to Israel to India, as the author and foreign policy analyst peppers the talk with his insight on the political systems driving these countries.

Based in Washington, DC, and working as the Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Cook has been writing about Middle East politics for almost 20 years, culminating with his latest book, The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East.(Oxford University Press, 2024).

“We have a very complicated relationship with this part of the world,” Cook says, “And I think that’s part of the problem that I’m having with the current discourse [about Israel and Gaza]. People want to drain away the complexities not only of that issue, but the complexities of American foreign policy in this part of the world, in favor of moral absolutes. And that gets you nowhere.”

The End of Ambition aims to unpack the nuanced relationships between the U.S. and the Middle East, and position U.S. foreign policy in the region into three distinct eras: an era of success, a period of failure, and present uncertainty. Cook doesn’t want to give away too much about the finer points of those arguments—“you’ll have to read the book for that,” he says—but shares the launching point for the book’s core thesis.

“The Middle East remains important to the United States, regardless of 25 to 30 years of policy failures in the region,” he says. “Those policy failures are a function of America. I call it kind of an American fever dream that after the Cold War, the U.S. had the power and insight and knowledge to transform the Middle East. And we need to get away from that sort of idealism and understand the region as it is.”

Portrait of Steven Cook.
Courtesy of the subject
Between 1945 and 1991, he says, the American relationship with the Middle East was largely successful in ensuring the free flow of energy resources and helping to mature Israeli security and ensuring American predominance. “There were setbacks, and there were moral costs of this, but by what policymakers set out to do they were successful,” he adds. “Then you contrast that in a post-1991 period based on what policymakers tried to do. The return on investment is less than zero. How did we get there? That’s something I try to answer in the book.”

Cook’s fascination with Middle East politics, policy, and power struggles began early when he was a pre-teen in Long Island. The travel bug struck his parents, and, he says, “I loved all those vacations we all took together, and visiting family in the UK when I was nine. That really got me curious about the world.”

At 12, when he was asked to name his favorite TV show, he would say “the nightly news.” When his friends got the newspaper, they all flipped to the sports section first, but Cook beelined it for the front page.

And in the seventh grade, his parents let him stay up late to watch Ted Koppel’s Nightline series on the 444-day-long Iran hostage crisis, during which Iranian militants held 52 Americans captive.

When it came time to consider colleges, Cook remembers visiting the Vassar campus to gauge if it felt like the next scholarly home for his interests in international studies. Cook’s mom said to him, “Yes, we’ll meet professors and learn about the school, but take time to look around and see if Vassar is the right fit for you, if you’re surrounded by your people.”

He did just that on an impressively beautiful afternoon, and when he surveyed the campus, he saw “interesting students, and a bunch of guys playing cricket, of all things, and right away I turned to my mom and said, ‘Write the check. I’m going to Vassar.’”

In his sophomore year, he was especially struck by a course led by visiting professor Hamideh Sedghi that analyzed Iranian politics and foreign policy. “It was a fascinating course, and it was truly one of the best courses I took, and that’s what I began to think of the intellectual environment at Vassar. Everyone seemed so engaged.”

After graduating in 1990, he earned a master’s in international affairs at John Hopkins. His political science PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 led to his first published book, a sign of his interests to come: Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey (Johns Hopkins Press, 2007) is admittedly a “heavily theoretical book that I tried to revise to make it as accessible as possible,” he says. His fascination with the Arab Spring in Egypt inspired him to write his 2017 book False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East (Oxford University Press). And just like his parents, he was able to travel overseas to learn more about other cultures, from Turkey to Egypt to Israel.

What he reveals in the book is a stark truth about the Arab Spring’s failure: “In Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, you don’t have social revolutions. You have changes of leadership. The regime never falters so the protesters never overthrow the political system,” Cook notes.

At the CFR, his consistent obligation is to spread his ideas on Middle East policy and the relationship the U.S. cultivates with partners in the region. He writes regularly for Foreign Policy magazine and for the CFR website. He can’t picture doing anything else right now.

Cook admits, “I get out of bed every day and feel blessed with the fact I can pursue my intellectual interests, and do my best to offer the best way forward for the United States in a very critical part of the world.”

Up next for Cook is a project, yet to be fully shaped, about India’s rise and influence. “When we think about great powers, we think United States, China, Russia,” Cook says. “India is often an afterthought. It shouldn’t be.”—David Silverberg

David Silverberg is a freelance journalist and writing coach who works with BBC News, MIT Technology Review, the Toronto Star, and many more outlets. Find him on X at @SilverbergDave.

Beyond Vassar

Time Out Grant Recipient

to Develop Virtual Training
Application for Firefighters

Courtesy of the subject

Samantha Orient ’05, who grew up in Idaho, where wildfires are a destructive reality each summer, has been involved in wildland fire management since she graduated from high school. She worked as a firefighter for seven seasons on engine and helicopter crews before moving to fire dispatch, risk management, and accident investigations.

Orient plans to develop a mobile application that will act as an interactive 3D teaching tool related to the Waterax MARK-3 Pump and the MARK-3 Watson Edition Pump, two types of portable water pumps used by wildland firefighters. She had already pitched the idea of the mobile application to various funding sources, but according to Orient, “without something concrete to show, interest will wane. It’s easy to dismiss a project like this as being too ambitious.”

When Orient read about Vassar’s Time Out Grant, she knew it was a remarkable opportunity and chose to apply. The Time Out Grant committee chose Orient’s project out of 150 applications because they felt it exemplified the spirit of the grant—to inspire an alum to pursue an original, bold interest, project, or business that could innovate the world around them.

Four firefighters with axes and other gear work hard to contain a series of smokey ground fires.
Orient, pictured above, worked as a firefighter for seven seasons in Idaho, where wildfires are a common occurrence, especially in summer. She’s creating tools to help new firefighting recruits.
Orient explained that app users will be able to virtually disassemble the pump to view it from every angle, allowing them to learn the ins and outs of the device. Some firefighters are kinesthetic or visual learners who may not have enough hands-on training equipment due to expense or scarcity. She hopes to expand the app to include other tools firefighters regularly use, including chainsaws. With the Time Out Grant, Orient will be able to use her skills to innovate portable water pump training, as a start.

After graduating from Vassar, Orient kept returning to work for federal land management agencies as she pursued a graduate degree in biomedical communications, where she learned video editing, 2D and 3D animation, and virtual environments. These skills allowed her to join the disparate worlds of firefighting and tech.

“I can’t say enough about how stressful it is in the fire community right now. The fire season has increasingly gotten worse over the last 20 years. It’s year-round. They’re losing people with years of experience. You cannot replace that knowledge, but maybe you can put effective tools into firefighters’ hands.” And, with a population of firefighters retiring or looking for jobs with better pay and work/life balance, less-experienced firefighters need essential training.

“It’s about trying to get tools like this in a place where you aren’t relying on someone who’s been in the position a little longer than you to know what’s going wrong with a pump or what is happening with a chainsaw,” Orient said. “To have something that’s vetted by the manufacturer and follows training recommendations, something that is easily adoptable by the generation that’s coming in. They have actual computers in their pockets; Why not leverage that to make the job safer?”

Funded by an anonymous alum, the Time Out Grant provides an alum 35 years and older with $150,000 to pursue a dream project. The grant-making criteria has recently changed to make the award more accessible. Now, alums no longer have to take leave from their jobs, and the grant will be awarded every other year. The last Time Out Grant was awarded in 2022 to Irene López ’91, who started a program for survivors of gender-based violence, training them to document their experiences through photography and engage in reflection.—Heather Mattioli

The next Time Out Grant will be awarded in spring 2026.
Applications will open in fall/winter 2025.
Visit vassar.edu/alums/timeout for more information.

Beyond Vassar

Moonburger Shines in Four Locations Across New York

Jeremy Robinson-Leon ’07 hopes his plant-based burger joints will appeal to meat eaters and vegetarians alike. So far, so good.
“It was the best time to have no idea what to do next,” Jeremy Robinson-Leon ’07 said of his decision to leave his New York City PR job and go upstate to Kingston, NY, in pre-pandemic 2020. In January of 2021, knowing that he wanted to build a brand that could tackle the problem of adjusting food consumption for the survival of the environment, he founded Moonburger, an entirely meatless burger joint that now has four locations (Kingston, New Paltz, Poughkeepsie, and Williamsburg, Brooklyn).

Moonburger, however, hardly looks like its plant-based competitors. It uses no environmentally conscious taglines in its branding and says nothing about environmental or ethical causes in its consumer messaging. Its first location, in Kingston, is drive-through only, and the Poughkeepsie location is the first plant-based burger spot at a gas station in America, ever.

Robinson-Leon made these branding choices to avoid some of the pitfalls that many small, plant-based burger businesses encounter. “Many of the similar burger joints are only really targeting a small subset of the population, primarily people that already identify as vegan or vegetarian,” Robinson-Leon said. While these places may sell a great product that is good for the environment compared to beef, they mostly cater to those who have already bought into the plant-based food movement. “We needed a way to actually reach the mainstream—people who love to eat meat—with a meatless product,” Robinson-Leon said. Moonburger’s answer is simple: sell a great burger and a great consumer experience, period. No frills, no hyper-targeted branding; just a burger joint that feels familiar and welcoming, and serves excellent food that just so happens to be plant-based.

Although Moonburger’s products are objectively far better for the environment than beef, Robinson-Leon felt that advertising this fact could be detrimental to Moonburger’s mission to be “for everyone.” “As soon as you start to add headlines like ‘burgers for a better world,’ you immediately alienate many consumers. People will immediately put up a barrier,” Robinson-Leon explained. Many customers, including Robinson-Leon himself, feel that places that heavily advertise their environmentally conscious mission are doing so in order to cover up a mediocre product. Moonburger aims to do what every other successful burger venue in America has done: sell a good-tasting burger.

Photo of Moonburger’s first location in Kingston, NY; a small retro-looking drive through spot.
Price ($7.49 for the classic burger), accessibility, and cohabitation with the local community are also important for Moonburger. Each location is tailor-made based on the local consumer base: SUNY New Paltz students can lounge at bar stools with a great view onto Main Street in Moonburger’s New Paltz location; drivers heading along Interstate 87 can drive through the Kingston location; and those stopping for gas may find themselves cruising up to the window at the Poughkeepsie location.

Each of Moonburger’s locations looks slightly different but plays on the same blend of retro and futuristic, new and yet familiar. Space-age aesthetics and neon-accented interiors recall a golden age of American fast food without leaning on nostalgia and cheap imitation. Moonburger’s design demonstrates that it knows what successful fast-food branding looks like, and knows how to use those aesthetics to sell a product that, while new in its ingredients, remains in the lineage of great American burger joints. “People have expressed a great affinity for what this place feels like,” Robinson-Leon offered. “Moonburger speaks from a familiar design language.

“What excites me the most about Moonburger is reaching people who have not yet felt inclined to try plant-based food,” Robinson-Leon continued. Some customers recall getting in line at Moonburger’s drive-in locations in Kingston or Poughkeepsie without realizing they were at a plant-based burger stand and then, despite some apprehensions, deciding to try it anyway. The burgers then spoke for themselves. One couple, who spoke to Moonburger representatives after trying their plant-based burgers by mistake, said that they immediately got back in line for more. “As long as the people keep asking for Moonburger and being excited for it, we want to keep doing it,” Robinson-Leon promised.

“I would have been totally shocked if you told me at graduation that I would be where I am now,” Robinson-Leon said. Nonetheless, he still feels that his Vassar education has informed his life and built his social network in so many ways: “Moonburger would not exist without Vassar.” —Kai Speirs ’25

Images courtesy of Moonburger
Vassar Yesterday
Custom transparent to gold streak divider

SUFFS

Custom gold to transparent streak divider

SUFFS

A play about women’s suffrage (and Vassar alum suffragists) brings fun and inspiration.
by Professor Emerita Miriam Cohen
Circa 1920s, a line of Vassar students takes turns practicing using a voting booth.
After the amendment passed, newly enfranchised Vassar students practiced the mechanics of voting.

Vassar Archives and Special Collections

M

usicals based on real-life events, if done well, can be compelling. This Broadway season brought us Suffs, nominated for six Tonys, which illuminates the final years in the campaign to obtain a federal amendment guaranteeing female suffrage. The production focuses on the movement leaders—Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns (class of 1902), Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, Inez Milholland (class of 1909), Ruth Wenclawska, and Doris Stevens, whose hard work and determination ultimately led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

The musical stands out for a stellar, all-female cast, wonderful songs, imaginative sets, and striking costumes, making for a fun evening at the theater. Catt comes off as a forceful personality, with oratorical skills and confidence in her very strategic approach to pushing suffrage over the victory line. Alice Paul is young, energetic, determined, and unafraid to oppose Catt and her go-slower approach to the campaign, a conflict that ultimately led Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to break away from Catt’s National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to form the National Woman’s Party. We see Milholland’s passionate commitment to suffrage and other social justice movements, and her sense of the theatrical. President Woodrow Wilson, portrayed satirically, is both patronizing and prevaricating in his approach to the suffragists.

The story of those last years before the passage of the 19th Amendment is one of many twists and turns. Suffs captures important moments in that history—the drama of the 1913 parade, which took place in Washington, DC, on the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, the picketing of the White House during Wilson’s second term, and the subsequent jailing and force-feeding of the picketers.

The musical certainly reflects some of the current scholarship on the suffrage campaign. For example, the play depicts Catt’s personal, decades-long partnership with Mollie Garrett Hay. By highlighting the activism of Polish immigrant Wenclawska, Suffs shows that the suffrage movement was not only composed of elitist, white women, but was, in the words of historian Robyn Muncy (“Gender, Race, Class, and the Vote from the 19th Amendment to COVID 19,” Kalmanovitz Institute for Labor and the Working Poor), a cross-class, cross-race coalition. The musical does a good job on the issue of race, underscoring the persistent efforts of African American women to claim their full rights as citizens by demanding the vote.

Suffs calls attention to two great Black activists, Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell, who worked on behalf of social justice and confronted the racism of many white suffragists. One highlight is the push by Black women to be included in the massive suffrage parade held the day before Wilson’s inauguration. In particular, the women of Howard University, led by Terrell, wished to march as a college/alumnae delegation alongside the other college groups, and Wells demanded that she be able to march as part of the official Illinois suffrage delegation, rather than in a separate Black group.

The play focuses on Alice Paul’s resistance to their demands for fear of alienating white southern women. Nevertheless, Terrell’s determination, and the help of her ally—a very persistent Milholland—paid off. The Howard group proudly marched as part of the larger collegiate delegation. The always resolute Wells took her place in the larger Illinois delegation. And, as historian Alison Parker writes in Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell (The University of North Carolina Press, 2020), because of widespread pushback against the effort to segregate the march, many African American women marched with their state delegations or as members of various occupations.

Inez Milholland on horseback during a suffrage parade in New York City, 1913.
Above: Inez Milholland on horseback during a suffrage parade in New York City, 1913.

New York Historical Society

Suffs also highlights the tensions between the generations in the movement, with older women, such as NAWSA’s Catt, emphasizing more moderate tactics in pushing for suffrage, and the younger Paul, Burns, and others adopting a more militant approach. These divisions by age were not always so neat; the older Harriot Stanton Blatch (class of 1878) often allied herself with Paul. Terrell, also an elder, joined the younger women in picketing the White House during WWI, where they denounced Wilson for his refusal to endorse women’s suffrage, a move firmly opposed by Catt and NAWSA. Nevertheless, the narrative points to an important, age-old tendency of younger activists to be impatient with the tactics and approaches of their elders. This is brought home at the end of the play, when a young Black feminist of the 1970s confronts Paul, now an elder, on her unwillingness to push for African American women’s voting rights. Paul’s response, that she had to prioritize the one goal—to pass the 19th Amendment—is reminiscent of the kind of things Catt said some 50 years earlier to the younger Paul, who had pushed against NAWSA’s go-slower approach.

Providing an entertaining look at a complicated history in the space of an evening entails altering and simplifying some of the facts. Vassar alums might be disappointed to see no acknowledgment of how the Vassar experience influenced two of the most important leaders. There is much discussion of Paul’s coming to political consciousness at Swarthmore College, but no mention of Milholland’s college years. Long before she became famous for leading suffrage parades on horseback, Milholland made national news as a Vassar junior, when she responded to the College ban on campus suffrage activities by organizing a student suffrage rally in the adjacent cemetery, featuring speeches by well-known feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman, alum Blatch, and labor organizer Rose Schneiderman. Lucy Burns is featured in the musical as a good friend and political partner to Paul. The show refers, several times, to their friendship developed at Swarthmore, though they were not in college together. Rather, Burns attended Vassar, where she befriended suffragist and social justice advocate Crystal Eastman, class of 1903, who became important to her growing political consciousness.

Nevertheless, Suffs leaves the audience with some historical truths that can be inspiring. We see that setbacks during the intensive campaign for suffrage were recurrent. But the passage of the 19th Amendment shows how perseverance can pay off. Today, we know that the march to truly inclusive social justice can stall and even move backward. As the cast sings at the end of the production, “progress is possible but not guaranteed.”

Miriam Cohen is Evalyn Clark Professor Emerita of History at Vassar. She authored the essay “Votes for Women: Vassar and the Politics of Women’s Suffrage” as part of the College’s exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment. When on campus, check out the National Votes for Women Trail Marker, just north of Kenyon Hall, bordering the cemetery. The Trail, part of the 19th Amendment centennial celebration, salutes the efforts of women, and some men, of different backgrounds who promoted the cause of equal rights for women. Vassar alums can be proud that the famous Suffrage in the Cemetery rally is included among the 250 sites marking this historic path, Cohen says.
Mixed Media
  • FICTION

    Grace Period
    by Elisabeth Nonas ’71
    Rattling Good Yarns Press, 2024

  • The Right Place at the Right Time
    by Michaela Casey ’74
    TouchPoint Press, 2024
  • NONFICTION

    Uniform Fantasies: Soldiers, Sex, and Queer Emancipation in Imperial Germany
    by Professor Jeffrey Schneider
    University of Toronto Press, 2023

  • Woman of Interest
    by Professor Tracy O’Neill
    Harper Collins, 2024
  • Front book cover of Woman of Interest by Tracy O'Neill
  • She Wolves: The Untold History of Women on Wall Street
    by Professor Paulina Bren
    Two Roads, 2024
  • Making Places for People
    by Jenny Young ’70 and Christie Johnson Coffin
    Routledge, 2024
  • Bicycle
    by Jonathan Maskit ’85
    Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2023
  • Front book cover of Bicycle by Jonathan Maskit
  • Attachments: Essays on Fatherhood and Other Performances
    by Lucas Mann ’08
    University of Iowa Press, 2024
  • Patriots, Priests and Rebels: A Virginia Family and America’s History
    by Evelyn Ruffin ’66
    Xulon Press, 2023
  • My Mother Went to Jail to Win the Vote
    by Elizabeth Horan Edgerly ’61
    Self-published, 2019
  • You Are Not Alone: Dealing with Lewy Body Dementia
    by Kathy Teyler Jarrett ’73
    Luminare Press, 2024
  • America’s Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan
    by James Graham Wilson ’03
    Cornell University Press, 2024
  • Front book cover of America’s Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan by James Graham Wilson
  • CHILDREN’S

    All About Grief
    by Lora-Ellen McKinney ’77
    Beaming Books, 2024

  • The Culinary Adventures of a Brooklyn Bodega Cat
    by Holly Scribnick ’77
    Archway Publishing, 2023
  • Starlight Symphony
    by Buffy Silverman ’78
    Millbrook Press, 2024
  • POETRY

    The Wrong Place
    by Tawn Parent ’85
    Finishing Line Press, 2024

  • Front book cover of The Wrong Place by Tawn Parent
  • MUSIC

    Never Meant To Be: 1988-1993
    by Love Child (Will Baum ’90, Alan Licht ’90, Rebecca Odes ’90, Brendan O’Malley ’92)
    12XU Records, 2024

Letter from the President of the AAVC

Portrait of Monica Vachher ‘77
Courtesy of the subject
Hello everyone!

The past few months were all-Vassar-all-the-time, and what a time it was! April was a month of celebrations. We began with the Alumnae House Centennial, which was such a fabulous event, replete with a capella singers, tap dancers, jugglers, a brass band, a gorgeous poem written for the occasion by Kimberly Nguyen ’19, and over 400 people in attendance. It was an immensely joyous and festive evening that will long be remembered. Later that month we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the AAAVC at their Triennial, which was the best-attended Triennial yet, with many alums returning to campus for the first time. We kicked off the weekend with a dinner honoring Pamela Harris ’92, the recipient of the AAVC Spirit of Vassar award for her lifelong commitment to racial, economic, and gender justice. There were many other moments of celebration, panel discussions, and an extremely moving tribute and remembrance of the extraordinary Dr. June Jackson Christmas, Class of 1945-4, and one of the first openly Black graduates of Vassar.

May and June brought not just a campus bedecked with blossoms and shimmering new foliage and grass, but Commencement and Reunion, both of which were beautiful and fun. At Commencement, we welcomed almost 600 graduates to the AAVC, and celebrated them with their families at a champagne reception in the Bridge Building. And at Reunion, we greeted nearly 1,700 alums, family, and friends from 44 states and 20 countries! The AAVC Board serenaded the class of 1974 with James Brown’s “I Feel Good” as they celebrated their landmark 50th Reunion in their inimitable style. We also celebrated Stephanie Hyacinth ’84, the recipient of the AAVC’s Award for Outstanding Service to Vassar. The terrific events and panels with alums and faculty were greatly enjoyed, as were the dinners and parties held across campus under beautiful skies for the entire weekend.

It was lovely to see many of you at one or more of these events, and I hope you will continue to connect with Vassar and honor everything it has brought to your lives. Wishing you a wonderful rest of summer!

Be well,

Monica Vachher signature
Monica Vachher ’77
AAVC President
aavcpresident@vassar.edu
AAVC Logo
Alumnae House
161 College Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603
vassar.edu/alums
2024–2025 AAVC Board of Directors
  • 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, California
    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
  • Emily Weisgrau ’96, Pennsylvania/Massachusetts
  • Ellie Winter ’18, Rhode Island
  • Lisa Tessler
    Executive Director of the AAVC
  • Patricia Lamark
    Associate Director, AAVC Engagement
In Memoriam
  • 1937

    Marie Louise Goebel Saunders
    April 7, 2012
  • 1937

    Leslie Wilson Sherman
    February 10, 2001
  • 1941

    Charlotte Feldman Schoenberg
    April 29, 2024
  • 1942

    Judith Lieberman Pestronk
    April 15, 2024
  • 1943

    Mary-Elizabeth Schlosser Jacques
    April 26, 2024
  • 1944

    Mary Elinore Turner Davies
    January 25, 2024
  • 1944

    Laura Ecker Ludwig
    March 23, 2024
  • 1944

    Carolyn Murray
    November 13, 2006
  • 1945-4

    Margaret Schiff Enderlein
    April 23, 2018
  • 1945

    Fanny Davis Diehl
    February 7, 2024
  • 1945

    Margaret Gresham Livingston
    May 20, 2024
  • 1946

    Donald Knauss
    April 10, 2008
  • 1946

    Mary Love Lehmann
    March 8, 2024
  • 1946

    Jeannette Terrell Nichols
    March 28, 2024
  • 1946

    Nancy Gravem Phillips
    April 1, 2024
  • 1946

    Marion Knauss Poynter
    April 3, 2024
  • 1946

    Susan Hawkes Spencer
    April 2, 2023
  • 1947

    Grace Ward Boulton
    February 23, 2024
  • 1947

    Marian Morton Brown
    April 29, 2024
  • 1947

    Mary Anna Culleton Colwell
    May 13, 2024
  • 1947

    Joan Stanley French
    March 26, 2021
  • 1948

    Deborah Donnelly Goltz
    April 2, 2024
  • 1948

    Joan Allen Kastner
    August 10, 2021
  • 1948

    Nancy Collins Rubino
    April 4, 2024
  • 1948

    Priscilla Vance Schantz
    January 1, 2024
  • 1948

    Bruna Norsa Taranta
    November 10, 2023
  • 1949

    Lilla Blumenthal Cooper
    March 15, 2024
  • 1950

    Elizabeth Bachmann Maxon
    March 19, 2024
  • 1950

    Patricia Osborne Smith
    March 6, 2024
  • 1950

    Martha Patt Thompson
    March 24, 2023
  • 1950

    Mary Izant White
    March 12, 2024
  • 1951

    Nancy Tasman Brower
    March 25, 2024
  • 1951

    Clifford Henderson Porter
    April 10, 2024
  • 1951

    Nancy Purdy
    January 31, 2024
  • 1952

    Mary Bush Clement Estabrook
    April 15, 2024
  • 1952

    Norma Milchin Warner
    January 21, 2023
  • 1953

    Frances Adams Becker
    October 5, 2023
  • 1953

    Alice Fenton Kuhns
    April 11, 2024
  • 1953

    Phyllis Larkin
    December 9, 2023
  • 1953

    Elizabeth Noble Turner
    January 26, 2024
  • 1953

    Peggy Neumark Weil
    March 11, 2023
  • 1954

    Clare Sewall Ames
    February 26, 2024
  • 1954

    Sylvia Snoke Evans
    February 18, 2024
  • 1954

    Oldriska Penizek Hutcheson
    October 17, 2023
  • 1955

    Nancy Crapo Alger
    February 20, 2024
  • 1955

    Adrienne Cohen Bromberg
    April 27, 2020
  • 1955

    Heath Dillard
    May 8, 2024
  • 1955

    Eva Jones
    December 27, 2002
  • 1955

    Lorilee Burkhardt McDowell
    May 8, 2024
  • 1956

    Eileen Eichel Berkon
    April 21, 2023
  • 1956

    Hildegard Rose Flinchbaugh
    March 13, 2024
  • 1956

    Ann Lynch Heuer
    December 11, 2021
  • 1956

    Faith Wisner
    June 1, 2021
  • 1957

    Aurelia Garland Bolton
    April 26, 2024
  • 1957

    Elizabeth Ann Jones-Glaeser
    May 22, 2024
  • 1957

    Mary Cope Naylor
    January 27, 2024
  • 1957

    Judith Easton Opsahl
    February 22, 2024
  • 1958

    Katharine Ayers
    January 1, 2021
  • 1958

    Agnes Vessey Whitley
    April 7, 2024
  • 1958

    Janice Wood
    March 18, 2022
  • 1958

    Judith Atwood Wright
    January 5, 2021
  • 1959

    Jean Squire Hilliard
    April 29, 2024
  • 1959

    Linda Offenbach Polsby
    January 30, 2024
  • 1960

    Kathryn Wilson DeFord
    May 18, 2024
  • 1960

    Joanne Redmond Denworth
    March 1, 2024
  • 1960

    Nancy Gannett Hurlbut
    March 6, 2024
  • 1960

    MaryRuth Hewitt Sole
    March 19, 2024
  • 1960

    Margo Kaufman Zitin
    April 4, 2024
  • 1961

    Marion Fay Monsen
    May 13, 2024
  • 1962

    Karen Belsheim Olney
    March 10, 2024
  • 1963

    Janet Harrison Hinch
    March 6, 2024
  • 1963

    Marguerite Burton Humphrey
    May 29, 2024
  • 1963

    Sudye Neff Kirkpatrick
    March 2, 2024
  • 1964

    Claire Sheahan
    March 3, 2024
  • 1965

    Deborah Harrah Murdock
    March 10, 2024
  • 1965

    Lynn Gayner Zoll
    February 29, 2024
  • 1967

    Mary Burke Partridge
    March 28, 2024
  • 1969

    Florence Summergrad
    February 23, 2024
  • 1969

    Cynthia Ware
    March 28, 2024
  • 1970

    Paula Lamson Brown
    April 24, 2024
  • 1970

    Christine Thurber Knupp
    April 24, 2024
  • 1972

    Lisa Barbera
    July 18, 2022
  • 1972

    Constance Wells
    April 11, 2024
  • 1973

    Georgia Powell Buchanan
    February 9, 2024
  • 1974

    David Elchanan Gladstone
    April 12, 2024
  • 1975

    Melissa Fanning
    April 7, 2024
  • 1975

    Susan Emily Rollins
    July 23, 2019
  • 1976

    John F. Lumb
    May 18, 2024
  • 1977

    Eli J. Allen
    November 16, 2019
  • 1977

    Yvonne Jones
    April 20, 2024
  • 1980

    Diana Abizaid Cleland
    January 27, 2024
  • 1980

    Neil Samuels
    November 10, 2023
  • 1980

    Valarie Rochester Young
    February 13, 2024
  • 1981

    David R. Smith III
    October 19, 2023
  • 1983

    Cynthia Addeo
    April 8, 2024
  • 1984

    Brian W. Dickson
    May 25, 2023
  • 1985

    Ann M. Chrisman
    May 19, 2024
  • 1985

    Charles V. Walker
    March 6, 2024
  • 1986

    Susan Jenkins
    March 5, 2024
  • 1987

    Jonathan H. Dick
    November 14, 2023
  • 1987

    Laralyn McWilliams
    February 5, 2024
  • 1989

    Philip Merryman
    December 1, 2023
  • 1994

    Pierandrea Bianco
    April 5, 2024
  • 1995

    Shamus O. Smith
    April 21, 2024
  • 1997

    Michael A. Chavez
    January 9, 2024
  • 1999

    Roberto C. Ramos
    August 28, 2023
  • 2005

    Cameron G. Estrich
    February 13, 2024
  • 2011

    Bernadette D. Salem
    September 26, 2023
  • 2012

    Caitlin B. Bull
    March 12, 2024
  • Faculty/Staff

  • Elaine Lipschutz
    Founding Member, Education Department
    June 2, 2024
  • Carollynn Costella
    Research Librarian
    July 5, 2024
Announcements
  • Summer Apartment Rental—Le Marais, Paris

    Enjoy the quintessential Parisian lifestyle from our beloved corner of the Marais district. Countless see-and-be-seen terraces, boutiques, gourmet shops, museums, pre-revolutionary mansions, and monuments are a stone’s throw. Facile connections via bike and public transportation. Architect-designed 3rd-floor studio apartment has double-height windows overlooking a quiet courtyard. Sleeps four in two queen beds (loft and pullout sofa), washer/dryer, Internet, microwave, induction, ample closet space, hardwood floors. Available 15 June – 25 August or for the Olympic Games.

    Kassandra Frua De Angeli ‘10
    kassandra.fruadeangeli@sciencespo.fr
  • 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.

    Barbara Ulrich ’74
    bwildbear74@gmail.com
    303.907.9773
  • Fisher Island Club, FL, Rental

    Exquisite beachfront condo for rent. 10 minutes to South Beach. 3br/3.5ba, fully equipped with golf cart. Available April–December.
    wpluxuryrealestate.com

  • –and–
  • Berkshires Vacation Home

    Beautiful home in Berkshires near NY/MA border. Gorgeous views 2 hours and 15 mins. from Manhattan. Quick access to five ski areas. 4br/3.5ba, heated pool, jacuzzi, sauna, pond, ping-pong, bikes, gym equipment. 7 acres close to Hudson, Lenox, Great Barrington, and Stockbridge. Available December–May.
    fourseasonluxuryatsummerhill.com

    Gabrielle Shapiro ‘79
    gabrielleshapiro@me.com
    619.977.7680
  • French Provinces: Rent Our Lovely Rustic Farmhouse in Southwestern France

    Midway between Dordogne and Lot rivers. Quiet picturesque farming village near Figeac and St. Céré; 45 minutes to Sarlat, capital of the Dordogne Valley; 70km to Cahors and its vineyards. Well located for those interested in pre-history, medieval history, gastronomy, hiking and canoeing. For information, contact

    Professor Geoffrey Jehle
    845.437.5210, or visit the web page at http://nadal2.objectis.net
  • Vassar College Wedgwood Plates

    For sale: Wedgwood 1929 Vassar College plates, 15 in perfect condition, two with some age spots on the back. The center of the plate is white, the outer edge a classic Wedgwood pattern in green, and the center is a campus building or scene. The back of each plate includes the Wedgwood stamp, the date, and the name of the building. These were owned by my great grandmother, Mary Belknap Gray, Vassar 1903. Best offer accepted, will ship.

    Zoe Finch Totten
    978.809.0310
  • 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
  • Catskill Mountain Property for Sale

    Prime mountaintop land situated in the beautiful Catskill Mountains, 2.5 hours from Manhattan, minutes from the town of Windham and Windham Mountain Club, a new exclusive private resort. May be used for private estate, home development, forestry, hunting, agriculture. Easy access by two well-maintained county roads. 139 acres. Underground springs with a pond and flowing creek.

    Susan Aull ‘81
    sea8md3@aol.com
    941.914.6918 text/call
  • Vassar College Class Ring Charm

    Hoping to replace a beloved charm of the classic gold VC class ring that I got in 1972. This charm is a miniature of the standard oval-shaped gold class ring with the black VC engraving. Not sure how many years it was sold, but I made mine into a pinkie ring that I recently lost and am heartbroken over. All offers are welcomed.

    Rosy Woo ’72
    626.568.3858
    drrosewoo@hotmail.com
Last Page

In Poetry: A Place We Call Home

For the 1924 dedication of Alumnae House, Carolyn Wilson Link, class of 1917, wrote the poem “The Chronicler Speaks,” which was recited by Sydney Thompson, class of 1912, during the original ceremony. It now adorns a wall in the Alumnae House dining room. In honor of the 100th Anniversary of the House, Vassar commissioned Kimberly Nguyễn ’19 to write a poem, which she recited during the Anniversary celebration in April.

After the event, Nguyễn admitted on Instagram, “When I was asked to write the poem to mark the 100-year rededication of Vassar’s Alumnae House, I thought there must be a mistake. Surely there are more accomplished and prolific poets out there who should greet the next 100 years of alumni who walk through these doors.”

But the assignment was in good hands. Nguyễn is an award-winning Vietnamese American poet and the author of ghosts in the stalks and Here I Am Burn Me. Among other honors, she earned the Beatrice Daw Brown Prize and was a 2021 Emerging Voices Fellow at PEN America and a 2022–2023 Poetry Coalition Fellow.

“When I say Vassar was my home, I mean it in the most literal sense,” she noted. “For four years, it was registered as my permanent, legal address. I was registered to vote in Dutchess County. It terrified me to leave the same way it terrifies any young adult to leave a place they consider safe towards someplace unknown and chaotic. And what I mean to say is who better to welcome alumni home than me, then? Who better to greet the students after me who also have yet to know a home other than here? To all alumni—past, present, and future—my poem and my spirit living within it cannot wait to welcome you home.” —Elizabeth Randolph

Alma Mater

by Kimberly Nguyễn ’19

alma mater, lighthouse in the dark sea
of my memory, where my youth still
blazes, that everlasting fire of my past
in the distance, reminder of that hunger –
once so urgent – those days of passion,
now a sun setting over a still lake.

a ship sailed far from the shore, I look
to her guiding light, the promise of home
always on the dark horizon, to know I am
never too far from the fire of my youth.
to know the distance is the measure
of how far I have come and how far
I have yet to go. to know despite it all
I will always have a place to land.

Beowulf Sheehan
Exciting things are happening in Vassar’s Dance Program. Not only did it just qualify as a correlate, but the program continues to invite prominent choreographers from major dance companies and academic institutions to create new works for the program’s repertoire. During its spring showcase, the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre performed Learning, an original work by visiting Bard College Professor of Dance Souleymane (Solo) Badolo, who hails from Burkina Faso.
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Thanks for reading our Summer 2024 issue!