Spring 2002 - Haverford College

Class News
Send your class news by e-mail to: classnews@haverford.edu
52 Sydney Cone writes, “I am busy
as Visiting Professor at Harvard Law
School, as C.V. Starr Professor and Director
of the Center for International Law
at New York Law School, and on bar
association committees including one
chaired by Robert MacCrate ’43. I enjoy
being in frequent contact with my son,
Timothy Cone ’79.”
53 Thomas Bisson writes, “This is
my last full year of teaching. I plan to
teach half-time hereafter, and to retire in
2005 (God willing). One of the students
I have been privileged to teach, Stephen
Sachs, has won a Rhodes Scholarship.
His undergraduate subject is medieval
European history – and he plans a career
in law and (today’s) public affairs. He
exemplifies the critical importance of
early history to modern life. Yet Haverford
College, virtually alone among institutions
of its caliber, presently employs
no one teaching medieval history. I have
expressed concern to President Tritton
in a letter sent jointly by 15 persons
(including Wallace MacCaffrey, Richard
Lingeman, and Akira Iriye ’57). Any
other persons who share this concern
may have a copy on request.”
Walter Kidney Jr. writes, “Still working
for the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks
Foundation. Am finishing a book
on the architect Henry Hornbostel, and
slowly working on a new one on Eclecticism
in Pittsburgh architecture.
Research and writing in general.”
55 Alexander Scott is retired, spending
half his time in Sarasota, Fla., and
half his time in West Chester, Pa. He is
currently building houses with Habitat
for Humanity and “doing lots of cycling.”
56 Thomas H. Garver is working
on the development of a one-person
museum for the railroad photos of O.
Winston Link which will be created in a
wing to be built as part of the rehabilitation
of the old Norfolk & Western Railway
passenger station in Roanoke, Va.
He has written a class biography similar
to the one he wrote for the class of 1956
for the 50th reunion of his high school
class this year and has written introductions
for several books of photographs
and art which have been published either
recently, or will be in the coming future.
Ford Highlight
Richard W. Besdine, M.D., ’61 was
named the first Greer Professor of
Geriatric Medicine, director of the
Division of Geriatrics for Lifespan, and
director of the Center for Gerontology
and Health Care Research at Brown
University. The Center for Gerontology
and Health Care Research is a multi-disciplinary
research center with a focus on
the health and social service needs of persons
with chronic illnesses, especially
older adults. It is counted among the
leading academic research centers in the
country, with a mission to advance the
fields of gerontology and health services
research through both methodological
and substantive research.
“I am thrilled to be at Brown, a firstrank
university and medical school with
exciting and gifted students,” says
Besdine. “Leadership of the Center, in
combination with responsibility to develop
teaching and research related to clinical
care of older adults throughout the
Brown Academic Medical Center, is a
dream position.”
Prior to this appointment, Besdine was
professor of medicine, director of the
UConn Center on Aging, and Travelers
Professor of Geriatrics and Gerontology at
the University of Connecticut Health
Center (UCHC) School of Medicine. He
was principal investigator of a National
Institutes of Health Claude Pepper Older
Americans Research Center, and oversaw
studies of interventions for prolonging
vitality in older persons. During his years
in Federal Service as HFCA’s Chief
Medical Officer and director of its Health
Standards and Quality Bureau, Besdine
was responsible for setting standards,
enforcement and improvement of health
care quality for our nation’s 70 million
Medicare beneficiaries and Medicaid
recipients. He also served on the faculty
of Harvard Medical School for 15 years,
where he co-founded Harvard’s Division
on Aging and developed one of the first
academic geriatrics fellowship training
programs.
Besdine is also happy to report that his
wife, Fox Wetle, is the new Associate
Dean of Brown Medical School for Public
Health and Public Policy and a tenured
Richard W. Besdine, M.D., ’61
has been appointed to Brown
University’s Academic Medical
Center to develop teaching and
research related to clinical care
of older adults.
professor in Community Health. “After
six years of airplane commuting when I
was at the University of Connecticut
Health Center and she at NIH in Bethesda,
Md.,” he says, “we are reunited in a marriage
we both think is great.” – B.M.
38 Haverford Magazine