April 2012 - Alumni News - Williams College

was looking forward to skiing
with her 6- and 3-year-olds and
also had a minireunion/40th
birthday get-together with
Sarah Platman Baird in October
in Williamstown, where they
supported the local economy by
buying lots of Williams-related
clothing.
John Dye is doing the “Mr.
Mom” thing for a little while,
having just moved from
California to Hawaii (just what
I needed to read in January in
the Northeast…) as his wife
became the team physician for
the University of Hawaii. John’s
also studying to take his third
different bar exam, an image
that undoubtedly sends shivers
up the spines of all the class
lawyers. And speaking of chilling
thoughts, Holly Bernstein writes
to note that her children are
entering the teen years, and her
oldest recently asked whether
she could attend Amherst (I
recommend encouraging a more
socially acceptable form of
rebellion, such as a tattoo…).
Kim Tresch reports that she’s still
happily working as a pediatrician
and recently took a class with
Robb Friedman.
Robb and Elisa Friedman ’93
also turn up in a report from
Camille Preston, who attended a
New Year’s party at their place.
Camille had a busy start of the
year, publishing a new book
and moving to a new house as
well. And since we seem to have
moved into the usual random
encounters part of the report,
Tom Kimbis reports from DC,
where he manages to take the
occasional break from promoting
solar energy to hang out
with Heather Rieff, Dave Barker,
Bill Mowitt and Paul Piquado,
who apparently has some sort
of aircraft-based scheme for
getting back to Williamstown
more often. A request for class
notes material on Facebook led
to Claire Benson-Mandl, Chris
Colburn and Bowen Chung playing
“six degrees of separation”
on my wall, though I’m still not
sure which of them knows somebody
who knows Kevin Bacon.
And lest all the parenting talk
make you feel too old, Kate Brill
writes in from Williamstown following
Charley Stevenson’s 40th
birthday party, which involved
prune wafers, walker races
(highlighted by Tom Wintner righteously
trouncing Brad Svrluga
’95), walker gymnastics (by Scott
Lewis) and traditional beverages.
Kate writes, “It’s hard to imagine
the next round of milestone
birthdays being as much fun,
although childcare will be much
easier.”
Kat Kollett writes in with
a couple of years’ worth of
updates, reporting that she’s
now working with Blick Art
Materials, helping run a program
called Art Room Aid that helps
school art teachers reach out for
funding to support arts education.
Oh, and by the way, she got
married.
Also in the art world, Allison
Achauer and husband Tim Sellers
’90 have (or perhaps will have
had, by the time this appears)
a joint show at the Future Art
Studio in LA, featuring her photographs
and his oil paintings.
Kerrita Mayfield was awarded
a grant from the Community
Foundation of Western
Massachusetts to do workshops
for teachers in the Pioneer Valley
(almost in the Berkshires).
The unquestionable champion
for the most shocking anecdote
of this round of notes belongs
to Stephan (Fiedler) Terre, whose
house was struck by lightning
back in October. Everybody is
fine, which is why I feel comfortable
introducing this with a
dreadful pun, but as a story,
that’s pretty tough to top.
And that brings me to the end
of another round of class notes
(and the faint snoring from the
next room suggests I will finally
be able to go to bed myself…),
though I do want to sneak in a
little self-promotion, to mention
that my second book, How to
Teach Relativity to Your Dog
will be published at the end of
February and should be available
wherever books are sold by
the time this sees print. I highly
recommend it for all your spring
and summer gift-giving needs…
And if you have any news you’d
like to report, drop me an email
at oilcan@gmail.com.
1994
Elizabeth Randolph Rappaport
9 Killington St.
Chappaqua, NY 10514
1994secretary@williams.edu
Dear Class of 1994, this
winter has been the usual slog
toward the holidays, exhaustion,
sick kids and then some
restorative time off. But I’d
say the highlight thus far was
my kick off to 2012. I had the
privilege of sitting on the other
side of the podium at Williams
for the first time—if only for a
brief few hours for a couple of
n 1992–94
days—to teach a portion of a
Winter Study class.
I was lucky enough to help
teach a class on journalism to
students interested in the media.
I was one of four alumni in the
field to visit campus, where I
found it remarkably easy to
speak for two hours at a time
about my work and my life—go
figure. My segment was on investigative
newspaper journalism,
and I gave them all an assignment
to come up with something
to dig into. Their ideas were
amazing, and they all devised
creative ways to investigate and
powerful messages they felt their
revelations would send to the
world.
The experience, including the
cold weather, reminded me of
what I love about Williams and
why it’s always the highestranked
school in the country.
Each student was so present,
so engaged and so responsible
about their work, and the place
is so conducive to reading and
thinking and taking time to do
things.
One element of my visit disturbed
me, however, and I want
to share it with the class as many
of us have kids and the world is
becoming ever more competitive.
I found the students understandably
anxious about their
futures and their job prospects.
Unemployment is still high, and
the economy is still wobbly.
But they were dramatically
relieved and surprised to hear
that my career path was varied
and indirect. It struck me that
they imagine they’d have to start
out at The New York Times or
The Wall Street Journal upon
graduation to be successful.
I was in book publishing, the
Internet boom, grad-school.
I wrote obituaries, for trade
newsletters, a web site, a
newswire and finally reached
my goal of writing for The Wall
Street Journal by the time I was
35. Who knows what’s next? In
between, I’ve gotten married,
had two children, traveled and
enjoyed life as New Yorker.
It made me a bit sad to think
that kids feel they have to
start out at the top or they feel
they’re failing. It’s just not true.
Meandering a bit is healthy, and
so is failing and getting up. One
path always leads to unexpected
avenues.
I told the students that while
I understood the pressure to
perform at Williams, life is all
about their own happiness and
definitions of success. I explained
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