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Spring 2008 - Wheelock College

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<strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong><br />

magazine<br />

• Alumni Innovators<br />

• CCSR Action Update<br />

• Ubuntu in the Works<br />

• Boston Kids on Kampus<br />

Through the<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Lens<br />

Innovation on Campus<br />

and in the Field


Honorary Degree Recipients<br />

Commencement <strong>2008</strong><br />

Brookline’s Temple Israel, just down the Riverway from<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s main campus, provided a radiant, lightfilled<br />

environment for the <strong>College</strong>’s 120th Commencement<br />

on May 16. Seniors and graduate students in the<br />

Class of <strong>2008</strong>, their families and guests, and faculty<br />

members gathered at the alternative venue because construction of<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s new Campus Center and Student Residence was occupying<br />

the traditional on-campus site. It was a spacious choice, but, even<br />

so, every seat was filled with happy celebrants, and more watched a<br />

live feed to the Lucy <strong>Wheelock</strong> Auditorium.<br />

The <strong>2008</strong> Commencement theme, “Celebrating Lives of Courage<br />

and Compassion,” exactly defined this year’s three distinguished honorary<br />

degree recipients, who have challenged social injustice and reenvisioned<br />

the paradigm of public service. U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry; Mrs.<br />

Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, the Minister of State for Community Development,<br />

Youth and Sports in Singapore; and Ms. Kip Tiernan, founder of Rosie’s<br />

Place and the Greater Boston Food Bank, received honorary Doctor of<br />

Education degrees from President Jackie Jenkins-Scott,who noted that<br />

their achievements have inspired others to set standards of exemplary<br />

service and to passionately pursue justice for all.<br />

Sen. Kerry delivered the Commencement address, mixing in<br />

humor with observations about the challenges facing the Class of<br />

<strong>2008</strong> and words of encouragement. He highlighted the advancing<br />

threat of global warming as an example of an opportunity for young<br />

people to develop initiatives that can ameliorate climate change<br />

while also providing new opportunities for employment and helping<br />

the economy.<br />

President Jenkins-Scott urged the graduates to put their education<br />

and their conviction to good use.“Each of you will be faced with<br />

opportunities in your professional<br />

careers and in your personal lives<br />

to stand up or stand by,” she said.<br />

“You will surely be confronted with<br />

situations where you have a choice<br />

to blow the whistle, say ‘Time out,’<br />

and shout out in words and action<br />

‘Not on my watch.’ The choice will<br />

be entirely yours. It is our fervent<br />

hope that you leave here with the<br />

confidence, courage, compassion,<br />

and passion to stand up and not<br />

stand by. ”<br />

“I urge you — carve out some time in<br />

your life to be a citizen. Don’t just vote.<br />

As you graduate, continue to find a<br />

way to be a part of your communities<br />

and take part in a cause. Find a cause<br />

greater than yourself that captures your<br />

imagination, and go after it.”<br />

Shannon Pittman,<br />

President’s Leadership<br />

Award winner, and<br />

President Jackie<br />

Jenkins-Scott<br />

— Sen. John Kerry<br />

cvr2 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


<strong>Spring</strong><br />

<strong>2008</strong><br />

2 A Message from the President<br />

3 On Campus<br />

3 Thrive in Five —<br />

Boston’s New School Readiness Road Map<br />

4 News Nuggets<br />

6 First Visiting Health Scholar Lecture<br />

7 New Trustees<br />

Kids on Kampus!<br />

Page 21<br />

8 Students & Faculty<br />

8 Singapore Students<br />

10 Athletics<br />

12 Faculty on Sabbatical<br />

14 Alumni<br />

Editor<br />

Christine Dall<br />

Production Editor<br />

Lori Ann Saslav<br />

Design<br />

Leslie Hartwell<br />

Photography<br />

Christine Dall<br />

Brianne Kimble<br />

Len Rubenstein<br />

Don West<br />

Lauren Wholley<br />

Alumni Innovators<br />

Page 26<br />

14 Books by Alumni<br />

16 Resources<br />

17 Features<br />

17 CCSR Action Update<br />

21 Kids on Kampus!<br />

23 Ubuntu in the Works<br />

26 Alumni Innovators<br />

33 Class Notes<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine<br />

<strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong><br />

Volume XXVIII, Issue 8<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine invites manuscripts and photographs<br />

from our readers, although we do not guarantee<br />

their publication, and we reserve the right to<br />

edit them as needed.<br />

Student Voices<br />

from Singapore<br />

Page 8<br />

For Class Notes information, contact Lori Ann Saslav<br />

at (617) 879-2123 or lsaslav@wheelock.edu.<br />

Send letters to the editor to: <strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine,<br />

Office for Institutional Advancement,<strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

<strong>College</strong>, 200 The Riverway, Boston, MA 02215-4176.<br />

You may also e-mail them to cdall@wheelock.edu.<br />

Cover Photo: Len Rubenstein<br />

E Printed on recycled paper


MESSAGE<br />

Dear Alumni and Friends,<br />

The close of the academic year is<br />

always inspiring and motivational,<br />

and our 2007-08 year-end<br />

has been exceptional. We had a wonderful<br />

last few weeks on campus celebrating<br />

all that we as a community have accomplished<br />

together. There have been events<br />

recognizing outstanding student and<br />

faculty projects, new books published,<br />

prizes awarded, and the amazingly rapid<br />

progress being made in constructing<br />

our beautiful new Campus Center and<br />

Student Residence (CCSR).<br />

In this issue of <strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine,<br />

we share with you some of the excitement<br />

surrounding these events and a<br />

theme that runs through them. The<br />

theme is innovation, a characteristic that<br />

defined <strong>Wheelock</strong> at its beginning and<br />

that is the foundation for the <strong>College</strong>’s<br />

“To see what has come out of facultyand<br />

staff-led projects in collaboration<br />

with Boston youth after just one year —<br />

results such as SPARK the Truth, Violence<br />

Transformed, and a Bridges to Hope<br />

and Understanding creative showcase —<br />

is most inspiring.”<br />

new programs and projects that are carrying<br />

it into the future.<br />

In this issue’s Action Update on the<br />

CCSR, we share our celebration of a construction<br />

milestone: the building’s steel<br />

framework with its own version of the<br />

centuries-old “topping off” ceremony.<br />

Interviews with the building’s architect,<br />

Bill Rawn, demonstrate how the advantages<br />

of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s small campus and the<br />

CCSR’s innovative mixed-use design are<br />

being used to support community building<br />

among students, faculty, and staff.<br />

Adding to the excitement of watching<br />

the CCSR become a reality so fast is the<br />

announcement that <strong>Wheelock</strong> is the<br />

recipient of a prestigious challenge grant<br />

from The Kresge Foundation. This is<br />

both a vote of confidence in the <strong>College</strong>’s<br />

future plans and a welcome opportunity<br />

to take up the challenge to complete<br />

funding for the CCSR.<br />

Other events of last semester showcased<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s very exciting new<br />

programs that are deepening the <strong>College</strong>’s<br />

commitment to the well-being of<br />

Boston’s youth. These innovative programs<br />

require new approaches by our<br />

dedicated faculty and staff to serious<br />

issues affecting the larger Boston community<br />

and new collaborations with Boston<br />

schools and community organizations.<br />

The programs combine <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s<br />

resources as a higher education institution<br />

with its special strengths in areas of education<br />

and juvenile justice and advocacy.<br />

To see what has come out of faculty- and<br />

staff-led projects in collaboration with<br />

Boston youth after just one year — results<br />

such as SPARK the Truth, Violence<br />

Transformed, and a Bridges to Hope and<br />

Understanding creative showcase — is<br />

most inspiring.<br />

Another innovative idea — bringing<br />

groups of elementary and middle school<br />

children into our community to connect<br />

them to the concept of higher education<br />

and make them feel comfortable on a<br />

college campus early in their lives—<br />

brought the bonus of extra joy to our<br />

campus last semester! Children from<br />

Boston schools were everywhere, participating<br />

in math, art, music, and storytelling<br />

programs developed by <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

alumni, staff, and faculty.<br />

With so much new and worthwhile<br />

activity happening on campus, I am<br />

happy — but not surprised — to report<br />

that there is much more going on in the<br />

lives of our alumni. Each time I visit<br />

with alumni anywhere, I learn what<br />

they are thinking and doing and come<br />

away amazed at the varied lives and the<br />

wonderful work they are accomplishing.<br />

My recent off-campus visits with alumni<br />

in New York, Florida, and California<br />

were no exception.<br />

I was especially pleased to be able to<br />

visit with several alumni who are spotlighted<br />

in this issue of the magazine as<br />

excellent examples of <strong>Wheelock</strong> alumni<br />

innovators. They share a characteristic<br />

that I believe all of our alumni have in<br />

common: Whatever the fields they are<br />

working in, <strong>Wheelock</strong> alumni are imaginative,<br />

responsive, creative, and active<br />

innovators. Their values, beliefs, education,<br />

and experiences provide the foundations<br />

for them to see things from many perspectives,<br />

imagine a new response to a need,<br />

and then use their skills creatively to<br />

make what they have imagined actually<br />

happen. Many are excellent problem<br />

solvers who are challenged and excited<br />

by using nontraditional approaches in<br />

their work. Some are innovators within<br />

their own lives, enthusiastically reinventing<br />

their careers and themselves in<br />

the process.<br />

We are excited to share comments<br />

from students in our Singapore program at<br />

Ngee Ann describing their positive experiences<br />

with <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s theory- and practice-based<br />

curriculum. They are eager to<br />

share their comments with alumni in the<br />

U.S. through this issue of the magazine,<br />

and I hope you will enjoy reading them.<br />

There are also articles in this issue demonstrating<br />

some of the new ways in which<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> is being responsive to the<br />

changing needs of our students in the<br />

graduate programs, to the increasingly<br />

critical field of early childhood education,<br />

and to the very serious issues involved in<br />

climate change that affect all of us.<br />

It has been an eventful and extremely<br />

positive spring for <strong>Wheelock</strong>. I thank you<br />

for the many ways in which you have<br />

given your support to the <strong>College</strong> and<br />

made so much progress possible!<br />

With best wishes for a wonderful<br />

summer,<br />

JACKIE JENKINS-SCOTT<br />

President<br />

2 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


Thrive in Five<br />

Boston’s New School Readiness Road Map<br />

During the past year, Boston’s 65-member School Readiness<br />

Action Planning Team (“the APT”), co-chaired by<br />

President Jenkins-Scott and Children’s Hospital Chief<br />

Operating Officer Sandra Fenwick, met regularly to develop a<br />

Birth to Five School Readiness Initiative. Led by the City of<br />

Boston and United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack<br />

Valley, the APT’s work was informed by a diverse group of 35 parents,<br />

grandparents, and guardians from all Boston neighborhoods,<br />

called “the Parents APT.” Together they brought into the process<br />

an additional 300 Boston leaders and residents and funders<br />

through focus groups and meetings.<br />

On March 12, Boston’s Mayor Thomas M. Menino and<br />

United Way President Michael Durkin announced a new initiative<br />

that has resulted from the yearlong collaboration. Thrive in Five<br />

is a public-private partnership to prevent the achievement gap in<br />

the next generation of students by promoting their school readiness<br />

and healthy development. It is a 10-year effort that for the first<br />

time aligns families, educators, health care and human service<br />

providers, the private sector, and city departments — working in<br />

collaboration with state agencies — to ensure that all of Boston’s<br />

children will be ready for school entry and sustained school success.<br />

Joined by over 250 parents and Boston leaders for the<br />

announcement at the Boston Children’s Museum, Menino and<br />

Durkin highlighted the simple yet profound equation that underscores<br />

Boston’s school readiness road map.<br />

“We have an ethical obligation — informed by science and<br />

economics — to focus on our children’s earliest years and provide<br />

them and their parents with the tools they need to achieve,” Mayor<br />

Menino said. “My administration is already aligning the work of<br />

city departments to implement this plan, and I am pleased to<br />

announce $3.25 million in commitments from public and private<br />

funders to support Thrive in Five.”<br />

The City of Boston has committed $750,000 to Thrive in<br />

Five, and United Way has pledged an additional $1.3 million.<br />

Three lead partners in the effort — Children’s Hospital Boston;<br />

Partners HealthCare and its founding hospitals, Brigham and<br />

Women’s and Mass. General Hospital; and the Nellie Mae<br />

Education Foundation — have committed another $1.2 million<br />

over the next three years.<br />

Thrive in Five is not a new initiative, but a new citywide<br />

approach, a collaborative plan to ensure universal school readiness,<br />

building on the many superb programs, organizations, and agencies<br />

that serve Boston’s children and families. “This is a community<br />

effort. Families, government, health care, nonprofits, the business<br />

sector — we all win when a child is ready to succeed in school and<br />

life,” said Durkin. “To sustain the kind of long-lasting change that<br />

Thrive in Five lays out requires that we work together. Because<br />

together, we can accomplish more than any single organization —<br />

public or private — can alone.”<br />

Dr. Jack Shonkoff, of Harvard University’s Center on the<br />

Developing Child, highlighted the importance of early childhood<br />

investment: “When communities support the health and development<br />

of young children, everyone benefits.” The Center has compiled<br />

extensive research that reveals the scientific, economic, and<br />

moral imperative of focusing on the early years.<br />

To manage the entire Thrive in Five effort, in addition to a<br />

newly forming leadership board, a small staff will be housed at<br />

United Way. Each of the five parts of Boston’s School Readiness<br />

Equation (Ready Families + Ready Educators + Ready Systems +<br />

Ready City = Children Ready for Sustained School Success) will<br />

have implementation teams convening throughout <strong>2008</strong>. Watch<br />

the Thrive in Five website for opportunities to join these citywide<br />

teams. Positions are being posted on the website<br />

www.Thrivein5Boston.org.<br />

Early Childhood in the News<br />

The announcement of Thrive in Five garnered significant<br />

media attention, including a Boston Globe editorial (“Progress<br />

in the First Five Years,” March 12, <strong>2008</strong>) and same-day article<br />

(“Menino to Unveil Preschool Program”), as well as stories on<br />

WBUR and WBZ.<br />

A few weeks later, the Boston Globe’s education reporter Tracy<br />

Jan focused on one of the issues highlighted by Thrive in Five, the<br />

vocabulary gap, with a front-page story about ReadBoston’s Early<br />

Words campaign (“With Babies, Words for Wisdom,” April 2,<br />

<strong>2008</strong>). The article highlighted activities going on in Charlestown<br />

and other Boston neighborhoods to help low-income parents support<br />

their children’s vocabulary development.<br />

Smart from the Start — a new initiative to pilot many of the<br />

goals of Thrive in Five led by the Family Nurturing Center and a<br />

number of city partners — drew the attention of Boston Herald<br />

columnist Peter Gelzinis (“Baby! Bold Plan Might Work,” April 4,<br />

<strong>2008</strong>). Gelzinis covered the launch of Smart from the Start’s<br />

prenatal programming to engage families before the birth of a<br />

child, connecting them early on to one another and to vital neighborhood<br />

services and educational activities.<br />

Check out www.Thrivein5Boston.org for links to the articles<br />

mentioned above.<br />

ON CAMPUS


ON CAMPUS<br />

News Nuggets<br />

presented a series of workshops that provided<br />

a setting for students, activists, and<br />

educators to participate in an educational<br />

process that will help move the planet<br />

toward sustainability.<br />

(L to R): Associate Professor Ellen<br />

Faszewski and <strong>Wheelock</strong> student<br />

organizers Tanya Sullivan ’08 and<br />

Stephanie Ladd ’08<br />

Focus the Nation at <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> and other <strong>College</strong>s of the<br />

Fenway participated in Focus the<br />

Nation last winter, the two-day national<br />

teach-in that engaged over a thousand colleges,<br />

universities, high schools, and middle<br />

schools with political leaders, faith groups,<br />

and civic organizations in galvanizing young<br />

people to solve the most urgent problem<br />

facing their generation: global warming.<br />

As part of this nationwide initiative,<br />

the <strong>College</strong> hosted a screening of The 2%<br />

Solution, a live webcast with appearances<br />

by actor and clean energy advocate Edward<br />

Norton, green jobs pioneer Van Jones,<br />

sustainability expert Hunter Lovins, and<br />

co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Prize for<br />

Peace, Stephen Schneider. In addition to the<br />

screening and group discussion, <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

Commits to Becoming<br />

Climate Neutral<br />

Last winter, <strong>Wheelock</strong> joined the rising<br />

number of colleges and universities recognizing<br />

their leadership role in addressing<br />

global warming. President Jenkins-Scott signed<br />

the American <strong>College</strong> & University Presidents<br />

Climate Commitment, a high-visibility effort<br />

to support higher education institutions in<br />

preparing those who will develop new social,<br />

economic, and technological solutions to destabilization<br />

of the earth’s climate. The Commitment<br />

also provides a framework for the colleges<br />

as they enact plans to reduce greenhouse gas<br />

emissions and become climate neutral in their<br />

use of energy. This involves:<br />

✓ Completing an emissions inventory<br />

✓ Within two years, setting a target date and<br />

interim milestones for becoming<br />

climate neutral<br />

✓ Taking immediate steps to reduce greenhouse<br />

gas emissions by choosing from a<br />

list of short-term actions<br />

✓ Integrating sustainability into the curriculum<br />

and making it part of the educational<br />

experience<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Selected to Participate in the FAO Schwarz<br />

Family Foundation Fellows Program<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> has won a two-year grant from the FAO Schwarz Family<br />

Foundation Fellows Program, which will support training of a student<br />

who has the potential to be a leader in the youth development and<br />

education fields. The goal of the Fellows Program is to train future leaders<br />

by placing them with organizations that not only provide direct service to<br />

children and youth, but also initiate new projects, research, or programs<br />

that involve public policy, organizational replication, and sustainability.<br />

During the first year, 50 percent of the <strong>Wheelock</strong> fellow’s time will be<br />

spent developing expertise in best practices for conflict resolution, including<br />

peacemaking circles, group conferences, peer and gang mediation, and<br />

peace-building activities. The other 50 percent of fellow time will be<br />

devoted to working with faculty to develop a research project and articles<br />

for national publications and to providing direct services. Service activities<br />

will include teaching conflict resolution for middle school and elementary<br />

school students, leading weekly beginning and end-of-week relationship<br />

circles, creating and leading community-building activity groups, and<br />

mentoring and building conflict leadership skills for teams in after-school<br />

and summer programs.<br />

4 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


<strong>Wheelock</strong> receives <strong>2008</strong><br />

Community Leadership Award<br />

for Field Scholars Program<br />

We know that the key element in quality early childhood education<br />

is teacher development, and we know that <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s<br />

Field Scholars Program, which prepares individuals with associate<br />

degrees working in child care education to earn their bachelor’s degrees,<br />

is a much-in-demand, high-quality program. Now word about the program’s<br />

commitment to provide better-educated early childhood teachers<br />

is spreading. At its annual Celebrate the Dream benefit in March,<br />

Roxbury-Weston Programs Inc., a preschool program with the mission<br />

of bringing families together in a learning community dedicated to<br />

the celebration of diversity and excellence in early care and education,<br />

presented the Field Scholars Program with its <strong>2008</strong> Community<br />

Leadership Award.<br />

Field Scholars is part of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s National and Regional Programs,<br />

led by Director Debra Johnston-Malden ’00MS and Assistant Director<br />

Julie Thomson ’01MS. The <strong>College</strong> has Field Scholars cohorts in<br />

Boston and Hyannis, MA, and future cohorts will soon begin programs<br />

in Maine and Connecticut. National and Regional Programs also has<br />

graduate programs in early childhood and elementary education. These<br />

early childhood cohorts are located in Massachusetts, New Hampshire,<br />

and Maine, and there is an elementary cohort in South Carolina.<br />

NAEYC President Updates<br />

Our Students and Faculty<br />

Anne Mitchell, president of the National Association for the Education<br />

of Young Children (NAEYC) board and president of Early<br />

Childhood Policy Research (ECPR) in Climax, NY, stopped by <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

in February to spend time with alumni, students, and faculty discussing<br />

issues in the early childhood education field such as universal preschool<br />

and NAEYC’s position on quality rating systems. Mitchell reported that<br />

NAEYC is working on task forces dedicated to early childhood workforce<br />

needs and helping states to create professional development and<br />

workforce development systems.<br />

On a personal note, Mitchell reminisced about how a course she<br />

took with <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Gwen Morgan ’76MS truly changed her life.<br />

Mitchell said it was the turning point in her career and that she is<br />

eternally grateful to the <strong>College</strong> and to Morgan.<br />

NAEYC is the world’s largest organization working on behalf of<br />

young children, with nearly 100,000 members; a national network of<br />

over 300 local, state, and regional affiliates; and a growing global<br />

alliance of like-minded organizations. The NAEYC website is an<br />

excellent resource. Visit it at www.naeyc.org. ECPR is an independent<br />

consulting firm specializing in evaluation research, policy analysis,<br />

and planning on child care/early education issues for foundations and<br />

government and national nonprofit organizations.<br />

Froebel Coming to <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> is honored that the International Froebel Society has chosen<br />

the <strong>College</strong> as the place to hold its first annual meeting in the<br />

United States, July 9-11, <strong>2008</strong>. Given the historical context of the work of<br />

Friedrich Froebel and Lucy <strong>Wheelock</strong>, we think it’s perfectly fitting that the<br />

<strong>College</strong> host this important event for an international audience of early<br />

childhood scholars and practitioners. Learning to Play — Playing to Learn is<br />

the theme of the three-day conference. Keynote speakers include Tina Bruce<br />

of the Froebel Educational Institute, David Elkind, Nancy Carlsson-Paige,<br />

and <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Professor in Early Childhood Diane Levin ’69MS.<br />

Keeping Current with<br />

Grad Programs<br />

To ensure that <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s programs remain flexible and meet the needs<br />

of contemporary graduate students as well as the workforce they are<br />

graduating into, a nine-member Graduate Strategic Planning Committee,<br />

which included administrators and faculty members, thoroughly assessed the<br />

<strong>College</strong>’s graduate offerings during the past 18 months. Their recommendations<br />

have been endorsed by the board of trustees, with the expectation that<br />

when the program revisions are completed, <strong>Wheelock</strong> will provide an even<br />

broader array of specializations from which students can choose.<br />

Areas of specialization from the Birth to Three; Child and Family Studies;<br />

and Leadership, Policy and Administration programs are being integrated<br />

into all graduate programs, and <strong>Wheelock</strong> will no longer offer<br />

discrete master’s programs in these areas. The Child Life master’s degree<br />

program will transition into a five-year program, and the Elementary and<br />

Special Education programs will be combined. Throughout the spring<br />

<strong>2008</strong> semester, faculty planning sessions also were held to review innovative<br />

graduate programs and to discuss the potential for several new programs<br />

at <strong>Wheelock</strong>. Stay tuned for new developments, and check the<br />

<strong>College</strong>’s website, www.wheelock.edu, for updates.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 5


Looking at Climate Change<br />

and Public Health<br />

(L to R) Deanne Williams Morse ’60; Dr. Ed Klugman, faculty emeritus; Dr. Eleonora Villegas-Reimers, dean<br />

of education and child life; Dr. Evelyn Hausslein, faculty emerita; Virginia Coleman ’84MS, instructor in<br />

child life; and Stefi Rubin, associate professor of child and family studies<br />

First Visiting Health Scholar,<br />

Dr. Laura Gaynard ’84MS<br />

by Brianne Kimble<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> welcomed Dr. Laura Gaynard ’84MS, CCLS, adjunct<br />

associate professor of family and consumer studies at the University<br />

of Utah, back to campus in April to inaugurate an<br />

important new visiting scholar program at <strong>Wheelock</strong>. Dr. Gaynard is the<br />

first <strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong> Visiting Health Scholar to be sponsored by Betsy<br />

Reed Wilson ’55/’82MS of the Betsy Reed Wilson Let’s Face It Fund. More<br />

than 100 alumni, faculty, and students attended her presentation, “Child<br />

Life: Psychosocial Healing for the Whole Child and Family,” which was the<br />

lead event of her visit.<br />

President Jenkins-Scott, who welcomed guests at a reception for Dr.<br />

Gaynard, described the atmosphere of the event, with child life specialists and<br />

their conversations filling the room, as “old home week.” Faculty Emerita<br />

Evelyn Hausslein, for whom the Evelyn Hausslein Child Life Scholarship<br />

Endowed Fund — also sponsored by the Betsy Reed Wilson Let’s Face It<br />

Fund — is named, and Faculty Emeritus Dr. Edgar Klugman were there to<br />

welcome Dr. Gaynard and to help celebrate <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s new visiting scholar<br />

program devoted to the child life field.<br />

“Laura set a standard as our first Betsy Reed Wilson Visiting<br />

Health Scholar. Her eloquent presentation reminded us all<br />

about how many developmental principles inform the practice<br />

of family-centered care and how key child life specialists are to<br />

the well-being of pediatric patients and their families.”<br />

—Stefi Rubin, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Child & Family Studies<br />

During her visit, Dr. Gaynard spent time with child life students, who<br />

were impressed with her interest in their work and with her encouragement.<br />

“It was an honor to spend so much time with such an advocate for child life<br />

as Dr. Gaynard is, especially when she met with the students in <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s<br />

Child Life Organization and learned about our activities,” says Micaela Francis<br />

’09, president of the <strong>Wheelock</strong> Child Life Organization. “It was nice to see a<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> alumna so proud of what we have accomplished and how the club<br />

is continuing to grow.”<br />

Dr. Gaynard also took time after her presentation to sign all of the students’<br />

copies of her manual Psychosocial Care of Children in Hospitals and wrote an<br />

individualized message to each of them. “She took the time to really get to<br />

know <strong>Wheelock</strong> students and make us feel very much included in the child life<br />

profession,” says Micaela.<br />

Talk about climate change often focuses on long-term impacts that can<br />

only be imagined. But destabilization of the environment is already<br />

causing trouble we can see in the form of flooding, droughts, fires,<br />

and spreading diseases, all of which are having an impact on public health that<br />

is bound to grow.<br />

In February, Sylvia Hobbs, the director of research and evaluation for<br />

the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) in the Office<br />

of Emergency Medical Services, came to <strong>Wheelock</strong> to give students an<br />

overview of the situation lying ahead and the state and federal action needed<br />

to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.<br />

Hobbs focused much of her talk on severe temperatures that are expected in<br />

the form of heat waves. Heat spells, she pointed out, are always a health concern,<br />

especially in<br />

urban areas, but with<br />

more of them anticipated<br />

due to destabilization,<br />

and in a more<br />

severe form, we can<br />

expect more serious<br />

consequences for<br />

people and animals.<br />

Children and the<br />

Sylvia Hobbs<br />

elderly will be most<br />

vulnerable, as will be<br />

those with pre-existing medical conditions, those with mental health issues, and<br />

those living in isolated circumstances. Low-income and less-educated populations<br />

have fewer resources available to mitigate severe temperatures and will be<br />

at higher risk. City dwellers in air-conditioned office buildings may be protected<br />

from higher summer temps in the city, but families living in neighborhoods<br />

where there are few trees for daytime shade will feel the impact even at night.<br />

According to Hobbs’ data, there will be more cardiovascular emergencies,<br />

more cases of eye inflammation such as conjunctivitis, and — because excessive<br />

heat affects the brain — more psychiatric reactions such as anxiety, sleep problems,<br />

and intensification of personality disorders. We should also be aware that<br />

increases in ground-level ozone will exacerbate respiratory disorders such as<br />

asthma, and rises in pollen production will result in more people visiting emergency<br />

rooms with allergic reactions. The spread of infectious diseases such as<br />

Lyme disease and West Nile virus (which made its appearance in the U.S. only<br />

in 1999) will likely widen.<br />

Public health in a time of increasing climate change is not a pretty picture,<br />

and Hobbs stressed the need to strategize and to act now to address<br />

the increased burden that will be felt by public support systems. She<br />

emphasized the good each of us — the teachers, social workers, and child<br />

life specialists who will be affected professionally and ordinary civilians as<br />

well — can do by actively playing a role in capping pollution, speeding the<br />

transition to a cleaner energy, and planning ahead for changes that are<br />

undeniably headed our way. As an example of municipal systems that are<br />

taking seemingly simple steps to rebalance the pollution equation, she<br />

pointed to Boston, where 100,000 trees are being planted during the next<br />

12 years to provide cooling shade and air cleansing in the city’s least green<br />

neighborhoods.<br />

6 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


ON CAMPUS<br />

New Trustees on Campus<br />

So much of the work that <strong>Wheelock</strong> trustees do happens<br />

quietly, behind the whirlwind scene of campus activities,<br />

but it’s their leadership that makes it possible for everyone<br />

in the college community to fulfill <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s mission.<br />

Five new trustees joined <strong>Wheelock</strong> this year and are contributing<br />

their talents and experience to the <strong>College</strong>’s present and<br />

to its future. So, at the same time, we say both “Welcome to<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> and thank you!”<br />

Stephanie Bennett-Smith is<br />

president emerita of Centenary<br />

<strong>College</strong> in New Jersey. During<br />

her time at Centenary, Stephanie<br />

instituted the transition of the<br />

women’s college to coeducation,<br />

spearheaded and completed the<br />

college’s first capital campaign,<br />

and oversaw its first curriculum<br />

expansion to include graduate<br />

programs. She received a B.A.<br />

and an M.F.A. from the University<br />

of New Mexico, a Ph.D.<br />

from the University of Iowa, and<br />

she holds honorary degrees from<br />

Obirin University in Japan and<br />

Centenary <strong>College</strong>. Having spent<br />

her career as a faculty member,<br />

administrator, and trustee at<br />

small, independent colleges and<br />

universities, Stephanie views her<br />

service to <strong>Wheelock</strong> as a continuation<br />

of her commitment to<br />

educational resources that are<br />

vital to our country. “<strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

<strong>College</strong> is a shining example of<br />

educational focus and commitment.<br />

I am honored to serve<br />

this fine institution,” she says.<br />

Stephanie is a member of the<br />

board’s Educational Policy Committee.<br />

She and her husband,<br />

Orin, split their time between<br />

Florida and Massachusetts.<br />

Adrian Haugabrook has many<br />

years of experience in education<br />

and nonprofits because of his<br />

work as a vice president of<br />

TERI; executive director of public<br />

policy, alliances and innovation<br />

at Citizen Schools; and<br />

assistant dean at UMass Boston<br />

and Framingham State <strong>College</strong>.<br />

Adrian received his bachelor’s<br />

degree from the University of<br />

West Georgia, his master’s from<br />

Georgia Southwestern State University,<br />

and his doctorate in<br />

higher education administration<br />

from UMass Boston. Adrian is<br />

also an adjunct professor at<br />

Lesley University’s School of<br />

Education and serves on many<br />

nonprofit boards. He has been<br />

honored for his work in Boston<br />

by the Chamber of Commerce<br />

and currently serves as a deacon<br />

at his church. Adrian is a new<br />

member of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Educational<br />

Policy Committee. He and<br />

his wife, Angela, have a daughter<br />

and a son.<br />

Three years ago, John Knutson<br />

and his wife, Judy, moved to<br />

Boston after his long career with<br />

the Chrysler Corp. During his 33<br />

years at Chrysler, John worked in<br />

many positions, most related to<br />

finance, in the U.S. and Mexico.<br />

In Boston, John has joined the<br />

Executive Service Corps of New<br />

England, where he is a volunteer<br />

consultant to nonprofit organizations.<br />

He sings with choral groups,<br />

notably the Saengerfest Men’s Chorus<br />

and the Yale Alumni Chorus.<br />

John says that joining the <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

board has been an opportunity<br />

to use his experience to support<br />

this vital institution along with<br />

many other dedicated board and<br />

staff members. He is currently the<br />

chair of the Audit Committee and<br />

a member of the Executive and the<br />

Finance committees. John and<br />

Judy have two children and five<br />

lovely granddaughters. John<br />

received a B.S. from Yale and an<br />

M.B.A. from Harvard.<br />

Juan Carlos Morales is senior vice<br />

president and chief financial officer<br />

at BNY Mellon Wealth Management,<br />

one of the largest wealth<br />

management companies in the<br />

U.S. Prior to joining BNY Mellon,<br />

Juan Carlos held various roles at<br />

Bank of America and PricewaterhouseCoopers.<br />

Juan Carlos is a<br />

board member of “The Partnership,”<br />

one of Boston’s oldest diversity<br />

talent think tanks, and of<br />

Boston Medical Center. He also<br />

serves on the advisory board of the<br />

Boston chapter of the Association<br />

of Latino Professionals in Finance<br />

and Accounting (ALPFA), which<br />

he co-founded in 1998. Juan<br />

Carlos graduated from UMass<br />

Amherst, is a licensed C.P.A., and<br />

is currently a member of the<br />

Finance Committee of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s<br />

Board of Trustees. He lives on<br />

Beacon Hill with his wife, Jennifer,<br />

and their children.<br />

Elizabeth (Lisa) Cluett Thors is<br />

a vice president of Wellington<br />

Management Co., LLP. She<br />

received her B.A. from Yale University<br />

in 1987 and an M.B.A.<br />

from Harvard Business School. In<br />

1995, she was appointed to the<br />

Health Care Security Trust of the<br />

Commonwealth of Massachusetts,<br />

which provides funding for healthrelated<br />

services, including those<br />

intended to control or reduce the<br />

use of tobacco. Lisa is secretary of<br />

the Blue Hill Country Club in<br />

Canton, MA. She and her husband,<br />

Rex, have two children. “I<br />

chose to join the <strong>Wheelock</strong> Board<br />

because of the school’s commitment<br />

to education, children, and<br />

families and President Jackie Jenkins-Scott’s<br />

vision for the <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

of the future,” she says. “In addition,<br />

I have a neighborly interest,<br />

as we live in Brookline in close<br />

proximity to <strong>Wheelock</strong>.” Lisa is<br />

currently a member of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s<br />

Investment Committee.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 7


STUDENTS & FACULTY<br />

Michelle Joeoosay Thomas<br />

Siti Aishah Binte Amir<br />

Students in <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s bachelor’s degree program in Early<br />

Childhood Educational Studies and Leadership, which was<br />

launched by the Center for International Education, Leadership,<br />

and Innovation last June at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore,<br />

are much like students on the <strong>College</strong>’s Boston campus. They<br />

are very busy with their studies and they are deeply committed<br />

learners who also take their numerous responsibilities outside of<br />

school seriously.<br />

Many of the 60 students in the program — all women graduates<br />

of Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s diploma program in Early Childhood<br />

Education — have accepted the challenges of working<br />

periodically, and in some cases regularly, in the field, matching what<br />

they have learned in the classroom with the realities of professional<br />

practice. They are convinced that their work experience is deepened<br />

by the knowledge they gain in the classroom, and likewise report<br />

that their classroom studies, discussions, and group projects are<br />

enriched by what they see and experience in the field.<br />

This is an affirming concensus because <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s philosophy<br />

has always sought to find the right balance between classroom<br />

knowledge and theory and meaningful applications in the world<br />

outside of academia, whether in Boston or in the bustling island<br />

nation of Singapore. As Alfred North Whitehead wrote many<br />

decades ago, “Education is the art of the utilization of knowledge.”<br />

Michelle Joeoosay Thomas has worked as a relief teacher in a<br />

child care center assisting the permanent staff in mentoring and<br />

managing the children in teaching and playtime activities.<br />

“The courses that we are taking are preparing me to go out to<br />

work more confidently in the field. When working with children,<br />

I am able to apply many of the strategies that I have learned in the<br />

textbooks. Likewise, the experience at the center gives me a clearer<br />

picture when I get back to reading my textbooks for class. For<br />

example, in my work experience, I had to deal with a child with<br />

separation anxiety, and just today, in my Coping with Stress class,<br />

the instructor spoke about separation anxiety and how stressful it<br />

can be to children. I was able to better relate to the subject, as I had<br />

gone through the experience before.”<br />

Siti Aishah Binte Amir has worked in a child care center, where<br />

she was given the assignment of class teacher for 4-year-olds and<br />

later asked to teach English to kindergarten students.<br />

Siti Nurrafidah Binte Samat<br />

Student Voices from Singapore<br />

Reflecting on Links Between Classroom Studies and Practice<br />

by David Fedo, executive director and visiting scholar at <strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong> Center for International Education,<br />

Leadership, and Innovation in Singapore. Photos by Nuradurrah Binte Abdul Bar.<br />

Lim Hong Li Sharon<br />

“One of the most valuable lessons I have learned during the job<br />

was the importance of teamwork. My colleagues and I constantly<br />

shared ideas and lent a hand to each other whenever help was needed.<br />

Even the children began to enjoy themselves more clearly, as we<br />

realized that when we tapped into each other’s strengths, we were<br />

able to create more interesting activities for the children. All of the<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong> courses have proved to be related to my work<br />

experience. To take one example, Reading and Writing for Young<br />

Children has allowed me to better understand the circumstances of<br />

special needs children and has provided me with greater insight into<br />

the various ways language can be taught. The conventional method<br />

of teaching English was through phonics, but I found out that<br />

there is a more systematic way of introducing phonics to emergent<br />

readers and writers.”<br />

Siti Nurrafidah Binte Samat has most recently worked at a child<br />

care center, serving as a teacher in a toddlers class and as a teacher’s<br />

assistant in kindergarten activities.<br />

“I became more aware of the value of being culturally responsive<br />

toward the needs of the different parents. It was interesting to<br />

put what was being taught in the <strong>Wheelock</strong> classes into practice<br />

at work, and I felt that when I was practicing culturally responsive<br />

pedagogy with the parents, they seemed to be more open and<br />

receptive to me much more quickly.”<br />

“I love the surprises that each child gives me every<br />

day, telling me about what they had learned and<br />

using the knowledge to learn something else. I love<br />

the fact that I do not feel as though I am working,<br />

because I look forward to and enjoy each day spent<br />

with the children and my colleagues.”<br />

— Siti Nurrafidah Binte Samat<br />

Lim Hong Li Sharon has worked at a private child care<br />

center as a temporary English teacher for kindergarten and<br />

nursery children.<br />

“I learned that support from colleagues is very important,<br />

and that values like cooperation and patience are essential in<br />

this field. Early childhood educators must be alert and on task<br />

8 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


STUDENTS & FACULTY<br />

Nurafida Binte Abdul Razak<br />

Toh Lay Hoon/Zhuo Li Yun<br />

at all times. I was excited to integrate the Arts course into the activities<br />

of the children. I encouraged children to dramatize stories and learn<br />

through songs, and I implemented a miniproject in the visual arts. I<br />

feel more confident to engage children in new learning experiences<br />

from what I have learned in the classroom.”<br />

Nurafida Binte Abdul Razak has worked in a number of settings,<br />

including teaching phonics, English, music, and art in kindergarten,<br />

and English, math, art, and Islamic culture to nursery students.<br />

“I find that I can relate the case studies discussed in class to what I have<br />

learned at work. I used to be clueless as to how to teach reading effectively,<br />

and the Reading and Writing course gave me more insights into how to<br />

provide appropriate opportunities for children to grow in their literacy competency.<br />

Another example: I had always loved drama, but I had never used it<br />

in a classroom setting because I felt that I needed to be trained in drama to<br />

use it. The <strong>Wheelock</strong> Drama course helped me realize that it is not impossible<br />

to incorporate drama into my lessons, and I look forward to imparting<br />

this knowledge to my future colleagues.”<br />

Toh Lay Hoon/Zhuo Li Yun has worked at two child care facilities as<br />

a lead teacher in nursery and playgroup classes.<br />

“I learned that teaching requires a lot of patience, tolerance, creativity,<br />

and genuine love for children. And I can definitely relate my work experiences<br />

to the knowledge I am gaining in class. In fact, I have really enjoyed<br />

all of the modules I am taking so far under the bachelor’s degree offered by<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>. The information presented is both practical and relevant. For<br />

instance, the class on Reading and Writing for Young Children in a Diverse<br />

Society offered valuable insights into effective teaching methods and strategies<br />

to promote children’s literacy skills. Another example is the class on<br />

Research Methods. The knowledge I learned there really has helped me to<br />

analyze situations and be more objective and critical about what I read and<br />

what people may say.”<br />

Singaporean Students in Boston for<br />

Summer Immersion Program<br />

All students in the two-year <strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong> degree program in<br />

Singapore will be in residence on the Boston campus for five weeks this<br />

summer. They will be engaged in a Summer Immersion experience,<br />

an exciting centerpiece of the <strong>Wheelock</strong> program organized by the<br />

<strong>College</strong>’s Center for International Education, Leadership, and Innovation.<br />

While in Boston, the students will enroll in two courses, taught<br />

jointly by <strong>Wheelock</strong> faculty and Singaporean faculty from Ngee Ann<br />

Polytechnic and RTRC Asia. They will also be integrating their classroom<br />

learning with insights gained through regular visits to child care<br />

and preschool centers and other cultural institutions in the Greater<br />

Boston area. These field trips will include meetings with professionals,<br />

practitioners, and leaders in professional practice.<br />

IN ORBIT<br />

Math & Science Student<br />

Recognition Awards<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> students, faculty, and staff crowded the Larsen Alumni<br />

Room in April for the <strong>2008</strong> Math & Science Student Recognition<br />

Awards Ceremony and to cheer for Amy Goods and Sarah<br />

Tallman, two outstanding students who received cash prizes for their academic<br />

achievements. Continuing the tradition of recognizing students who<br />

lead weekly math/science study groups on campus, <strong>Wheelock</strong> also congratulated<br />

37 Math Leaders for their service during the academic year and<br />

rewarded them with a book, The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World’s<br />

Most Astonishing Number by Mario Livio, and certificates of professional<br />

development.<br />

Amy Goods, who graduates in fall 2009, was taking a sabbatical from<br />

college when she discovered her love for teaching and science while working at<br />

Nature’s Classroom, an outdoor education program in Yarmouth Port, MA.<br />

While researching where to complete her education, she was drawn to <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

<strong>College</strong>’s mission statement and joined the <strong>Wheelock</strong> community in the<br />

2007 spring semester as a Math/Science major with a concentration in Special<br />

Education. Amy said she<br />

feels that the Math/Science<br />

Department has given her<br />

the confidence to become<br />

a strong math and science<br />

teacher. Last year, she<br />

taught in an after-school<br />

science enrichment program<br />

and was a Math<br />

Leader, while also finding<br />

time to work at the New<br />

England Aquarium.<br />

Congratulations,<br />

Sarah Tallman (left)<br />

and Amy Goods!<br />

Sophomore Sarah<br />

Tallman came to <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

because she liked its<br />

small community and<br />

because she would be able to study both Math/Science and Elementary<br />

Education. During high school, Sarah volunteered at her school district’s<br />

Helmer Nature Center, and she worked at the Rochester Museum & Science<br />

Center as a teacher’s assistant for seven years. While science was her favorite<br />

subject in high school, Sarah also enjoys studying math and environmental<br />

sciences at <strong>Wheelock</strong>. She is pleased that so many of her <strong>Wheelock</strong> Math/<br />

Science classes have shown her how to share her love for the subjects with<br />

children in the classroom. Sarah was president of the Math Science Alliance<br />

and was also a Math Leader last year.<br />

Guest speaker Heather Knutson, a fourth-year graduate in the astronomy<br />

department at Harvard, spoke about how inspiring her math and science<br />

teachers had been and how important they were to her pursuing a fascination<br />

with astronomy. She is developing her thesis on the properties of extrasolar<br />

planets under a National Science Foundation Graduate Research<br />

Fellowship. Heather uses observations of eclipsing systems, where the planet<br />

periodically passes in front of and then behind its parent star, to determine<br />

the properties of the planet, including its radius, composition, temperature,<br />

and atmospheric circulation patterns.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 9


STUDENTS & FACULTY<br />

Final Score<br />

by Joe Atchinson, Director of Sports Information<br />

It’s been a successful and eventful year for Wildcat athletics,<br />

with the big news being the debut of men’s sports teams at<br />

the <strong>College</strong>. <strong>Wheelock</strong> men took their skills to the basketball<br />

and tennis courts with spirit and sportsmanship, joining<br />

our five varsity women’s teams in achieving high marks<br />

across all three playing seasons.<br />

In the fall, both the Wildcat field hockey and soccer teams won North Atlantic<br />

Conference (NAC) Sportsmanship Awards. Soccer finished at 5-13, while field<br />

hockey finished at 5-12. Soccer player Lindsey Lacourse was named 2nd team allconference.<br />

For field hockey, Lauren Widing was named 2nd team all-conference,<br />

finishing second in the NAC in assists. Jill Chaffee won an honorable mention,<br />

finishing sixth in the NAC in goals and points per game.<br />

The <strong>Wheelock</strong> swimming and diving team wrapped up another impressive<br />

winter season in which they won three dual meets, split two tri-meets, and had<br />

strong showings throughout.<br />

The Wildcat women’s basketball team ended their season with a blowout victory over<br />

<strong>College</strong> of New Rochelle by a score of 90-49, making it five victories for the season with<br />

several players placing among the NAC season leaders. Notably, Sarah Brown finished<br />

third in scoring and first in three-pointers per game. Erin Reardon was third in steals.<br />

Men’s basketball received the NAC team sportsmanship award in their inaugural<br />

season of play. Sherard Robbins was named second team all-conference in the NAC as he<br />

finished third in scoring, first in rebounding, and first in blocked shots.<br />

At press time, the <strong>Wheelock</strong> softball team was only six games into their season, but<br />

they are building off of last year’s six-win season. Eight Wildcats returned from last year’s<br />

team and were joined by five first-years, all led by junior Stacy Seidner.<br />

Joining the men’s basketball team this year as <strong>Wheelock</strong> expands athletics offerings<br />

for students was the men’s tennis team, coached by Cory Tusler. The team concluded<br />

their inaugural season at the NAC Championships, where the highlight was a win by<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> in the #1 doubles championship.<br />

Next up — look for the addition of cross-country to <strong>Wheelock</strong> athletics next year!<br />

Game Start<br />

The game of basketball originated in Massachusetts,<br />

the basketball we know today was originally a soccer<br />

ball, and the game might have been called<br />

boxball if not for sheer happenstance. The invention of<br />

basketball is credited to James Naismith, who was athletic<br />

director of the YMCA Training School in <strong>Spring</strong>field,<br />

MA, in 1891. Naismith was looking for a recreational<br />

activity that could be played indoors during winter’s cold<br />

months and one that would develop skill rather than<br />

depend on strength alone. For the first game of what we<br />

now call basketball, Naismith intended to use two boxes<br />

posted at opposite ends of a court to catch a tossed soccer<br />

ball. Finding no boxes handy at the Y, he used what<br />

were available — peach baskets. The soccer ball was still<br />

a soccer ball, and the baskets were not cut out at the<br />

bottom so players had to climb up to retrieve the ball<br />

each time a basket was made, but it was a great tip-off<br />

for a sport that would grow by leaps and bounds during<br />

the next century.<br />

Hockey Scholars<br />

Sweep the Field<br />

Kudos to the field hockey team for winning<br />

the 2007 NFHCA Division III National<br />

Academic Team Award (National Field<br />

Hockey Coaches Association). In order to receive this<br />

award, the team had to achieve a cumulative GPA of<br />

3.0 or higher. In addition, 10 team members were<br />

named to the 2007 NFHCA Division III National<br />

Academic Squad in recognition of obtaining a<br />

cumulative GPA of 3.30 or higher.<br />

GO, WILDCATS!<br />

10 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


Be a Maniac!<br />

Did You Know?<br />

Recyclemania came to <strong>Wheelock</strong> last<br />

semester in the form of seminars teaching<br />

students to increase the power of recycling<br />

products into usable materials and to<br />

reduce the power wasted in producing<br />

new raw materials.<br />

• If just 25% of U.S. families used 10 fewer plastic bags a month, we<br />

would save over 2.5 BILLION bags a year.<br />

• Every ton of recycled office paper saves 380 gallons of oil.<br />

• Energy saved by recycling ONE aluminum can is the equivalent of<br />

half a can of gasoline.<br />

• Glass produced from recycled glass instead of raw materials reduces<br />

air pollution by 20% and water pollution by 50%.<br />

Students Support<br />

Week of the Young Child<br />

Early childhood care and education was a definite theme on<br />

campus last semester, and students made sure they were part of<br />

the action by advocating for moving children to a top-priority<br />

position at the state policy level. Fliers went up, e-mails went out,<br />

and workshops were organized. <strong>Wheelock</strong> students are already great<br />

advocates for children. Go, <strong>Wheelock</strong> students!<br />

Yes, We’ve<br />

Got Jeans!<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>‘s student organization<br />

ALANA regularly<br />

collects donations from<br />

staff and faculty in return for the joy<br />

of wearing jeans to work on designated<br />

Got Jeans? Days. Proceeds go to a different<br />

charity each month. The organizations appreciate the funds that students raise<br />

on their behalf, and for faculty and staff, the fundraiser’s a perfect fit!<br />

COF Great Performances<br />

One great benefit to being a <strong>Wheelock</strong> student<br />

is that you have instant membership in the<br />

larger <strong>College</strong>s of the Fenway (COF) community<br />

and can not only cross-register for courses,<br />

but also participate in the many programs and<br />

activities offered by each of the colleges. In<br />

April, students had the chance to enjoy a week<br />

of performances by the COF Performing Arts Ensembles. Twenty members<br />

of the COF Chorus performed a collection of pop and a cappella<br />

hits at the Mass. <strong>College</strong> of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; the COF<br />

Orchestra performed at Emmanuel <strong>College</strong>, where winners of a concerto<br />

competition and a conducting competition showcased their work;<br />

the COF Dance Project presented “Dancing Through Time” at Mass-<br />

Art; and also at MassArt, the COF Theater Project performed “Crazy<br />

for Love: Scenes and One-Acts & More.”<br />

Behind the Scenes — All-<strong>College</strong> E-Mail<br />

Subject: Thank you for supporting the<br />

Muddy River Team!<br />

From: Muddy River Cleanup<br />

Sent: Wed., April 30, <strong>2008</strong><br />

To: All<br />

The Muddy River Team would like to<br />

thank all of those who came out to<br />

participate in the Muddy River Cleanup<br />

last Saturday, April 26. We truly<br />

appreciate the effort and concern shown<br />

by <strong>Wheelock</strong> and our neighboring<br />

community, and we hope that everyone<br />

had a good time, too. Thank you all!<br />

The Muddy River Team<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 11


STUDENTS & FACULTY<br />

Patricia, sixth from left, celebrating at<br />

her May retirement party with some<br />

of her friends and colleagues<br />

Wishes for a Grand Retirement<br />

to Patricia Hogan<br />

by Lauren Wholley<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Professor Patricia Hogan retired this spring after 25 years at the <strong>College</strong>.<br />

Patricia came to <strong>Wheelock</strong> in March 1983 from San Jose State University in California,<br />

where she was associate dean and interim dean of the School of Social Work. At<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>, Patricia was the first director of the Bachelor of Social Work Program. She is most proud<br />

of the role she played in creating this program and leading it to accreditation. She has also served<br />

the <strong>College</strong> as chair of the Professional Studies Department, dean of Social Work Programs, and<br />

professor of social work.<br />

“I am privileged to have worked with so many<br />

wonderful students and alums. Those relationships<br />

are the best part.”<br />

In May, the on-campus <strong>Wheelock</strong> community celebrated Patricia’s retirement and thanked her for her<br />

commitment and service to the <strong>College</strong>; in March, she was also honored by former students,<br />

colleagues, and friends at the <strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong> Celebrates Social Work Dinner. “I am privileged to have<br />

worked with so many wonderful students and alums,” she said. “Those relationships are the best part.”<br />

In May, Patricia moved to Portland, OR, to be near her two sons and her granddaughter, Mia. She will<br />

have plenty to keep her busy during retirement, as she is an eBay entrepreneur and a fine arts photographer.<br />

“Those are two things that I’m going to focus on — in addition to my granddaughter!” she said.<br />

Patricia contributed so much to the <strong>College</strong> and to the education of <strong>Wheelock</strong> students<br />

during her career here. She will be missed, but we extend best wishes for her next adventures<br />

in Portland.<br />

Faculty on<br />

Sabbatical<br />

What They Do<br />

■ Associate Professor of Mathematics Galina<br />

Dobrynina (full year) – Research comparing<br />

methods for teaching mathematics<br />

across different cultures (American, Russian,<br />

and Bulgarian; possibly also Israeli and<br />

Singaporean)<br />

■ Associate Professor of Language and<br />

Literacy Lowry Hemphill (full year) –<br />

Literacy research project in the Boston<br />

middle schools<br />

■ Professor of Early Childhood Diane Levin<br />

’69MS (full year) – Promotion and workshop<br />

presentations based on her newly<br />

published book, So Sexy, So Soon<br />

■ Associate Professor of Humanities Lee<br />

Whitfield (spring 2009) – Research on<br />

three existing projects: French law and the<br />

impact on women; a book, Exorcising<br />

Algeria; and writing on the Berber culture<br />

in North Africa<br />

12 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


STUDENTS & FACULTY<br />

Thinking Linguistically<br />

A Scientific Approach to Language<br />

Associate Professor Maya Honda and Wayne O’Neil<br />

(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have published<br />

a new course text for students pursuing serious<br />

scientific inquiry using linguistics. Visit their publisher’s website<br />

at www.blackwellpublishingcom.<br />

“The authors skillfully engage readers in doing linguistics as a kind of<br />

scientific inquiry. An elegant demonstration of the steps in identifying<br />

patterns, formulating and testing hypotheses, and offering parsimonious<br />

descriptions and explanations.”<br />

—Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State University<br />

“Honda and O’Neil have taught linguistics at the center and on the periphery,<br />

to grade schoolers, teachers, and graduate students: always theoretical, always<br />

understandable, always useful. These unique materials show that the study of<br />

English and of every other language can be a science accessible to all.”<br />

—Nigel Fabb, University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland)<br />

Off Campus, Michael Williamson Preps<br />

Next Generation of Lacrosse Officials<br />

Mike Williamson with daughter,<br />

Sarah, also a lacrosse official,<br />

at the <strong>2008</strong> U.S. Lacrosse<br />

Convention<br />

Everyone knows Associate<br />

Professor Michael<br />

Williamson as the man<br />

behind the multiple award-winning<br />

online educational science program<br />

WhaleNet. But we’re here to tell you<br />

that he’s also an expert on lacrosse<br />

and helping to train up the next generation<br />

of professional lacrosse officials.<br />

Williamson is on the<br />

Training Committee of the Men’s<br />

Division Officials Council, writing<br />

educational materials to use in<br />

training lacrosse officials around the<br />

country. And for the Scholastic Officials<br />

Committee for U.S. Lacrosse,<br />

the governing body for lacrosse in the<br />

United States, he’s working on a program<br />

to recruit more officials as well<br />

as on professional development programs<br />

for youth and high school<br />

lacrosse officials.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Math and<br />

Science Education<br />

Center Races to the<br />

Planets<br />

As the night sky changed constellations<br />

last April in honor of<br />

spring, <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Math and<br />

Science Education Center, managed by<br />

Cathy Clemens, held an astronomically<br />

fun event for families of <strong>Wheelock</strong> faculty<br />

and staff. At Race to the Planets we<br />

learned more about the planets and created<br />

our own stories based on what we<br />

learned. As a bonus, each family took<br />

home a free copy of the game Race to the<br />

Planets. The event and the game came to<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> via the Astronomical Society<br />

of the Pacific (ASP), a leader in the field<br />

of astronomy education.<br />

Flip to the Resources section of<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine to learn about ASP’s<br />

many resources for educators and families.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 13


ALUMNI<br />

Alumni Collaborating on<br />

Innovative Campus Programs<br />

Boston-area alumni who teach at the Mary Lyon School were part of a group of teachers who visited <strong>Wheelock</strong> this spring<br />

as part of a Women Count mentoring program for middle-school students. First row, far right is Elise Cucchi ‘00MS, and<br />

Janice Watts Hanrahan ’94/’95MS to her right. Behind Janice is Associate Professor Maya Honda, and in the second row to<br />

the far right seated behind the table is Cheryl Brown-Green ’93MS.<br />

Author! Author! Author!<br />

Buried<br />

(Dutton Books, 2006)<br />

by Robin Merrow MacCready ’81<br />

Robin Merrow MacCready ’81 has written<br />

a standout debut mystery novel for<br />

young adults that is sending her to the top<br />

of booklists. Buried was nominated by the<br />

mystery organization Deadly Ink for the<br />

Ida Chittum Award for Best Young<br />

Adult/Children’s Mystery Novel of 2006,<br />

and in 2007, it won the Edgar Allan Poe<br />

Award for the Best<br />

Young Adult Mystery<br />

and made the<br />

New York Public<br />

Library’s Best Books<br />

for Teens list.<br />

The protagonist<br />

of Buried, Claudine,<br />

is a teenager burdened<br />

by adult responsibilities<br />

and a need for order that many children of<br />

alcoholics share. Despite her formidable coping<br />

skills, the emotionally safe life Claudine seeks for<br />

herself threatens to derail when she tries to solve<br />

the riddle of her mother’s sudden disappearance.<br />

Kirkus Review calls Buried “an absorbing psychological<br />

study.” BookLoons Reviews praises its<br />

honest, raw emotions and advises, “As the book<br />

hurtles toward an astonishing conclusion, it’s<br />

impossible to put down.”<br />

Robin currently teaches language arts to<br />

children in grades 4, 5, and 6 in Edgecomb,<br />

ME. So what drew her to writing young adult<br />

fiction? “Some of the best writing that is happening<br />

now is in YA fiction,” she explains. “It<br />

goes deep but gets to the point more quickly,<br />

and it’s all about character, which is what interests<br />

me. One of my surprises was to be nominated<br />

by Mystery Writers of America and then<br />

to win. I didn’t belong to the group and didn’t<br />

think of the book as a plot-driven mystery; I<br />

think of it as a character-driven novel that asks<br />

14 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


ALUMNI<br />

many of the questions teenagers are asking<br />

themselves but are afraid to ask adults about.”<br />

Robin is writing her second novel while<br />

teaching and raising her two children. Get to<br />

know more about her, her book, and her<br />

humorous adventures preparing for the Edgar<br />

Awards ceremony by going to her website at<br />

www.robinmerrowmaccready.com.<br />

Secrets of Great Parents<br />

(SGP Press, LLC, 2007)<br />

by Dayle Lynn Pomerantz ’76<br />

As every parent<br />

knows, parenting is<br />

as exhausting as it<br />

is rewarding, and<br />

the benefits are not<br />

always immediately<br />

evident. Dayle<br />

Lynn Pomerantz<br />

’76 is a parent<br />

skills coach and<br />

child development specialist who has a lot to<br />

offer parents, whether they are novices or<br />

experienced hands who know the ropes but<br />

still manage to get tangled up in knots from<br />

time to time.<br />

Dayle knows that a successful parent-child<br />

relationship depends on parents having the skills<br />

required to be effective teachers, disciplinarians,<br />

mentors, and communicators, but that many<br />

parents have not had the opportunity to fully<br />

learn and acquire these skills. She believes that<br />

children, and society as a whole, will benefit<br />

tremendously if more parents take the time to<br />

educate themselves about raising children in a<br />

supportive and loving way. Dayle’s current book<br />

divulges 12 “secrets” that she feels parents need<br />

in order to be the best they can be: awareness,<br />

balance, communication, discipline, encouragement,<br />

framework, growth, health, independence,<br />

joy, knowledge, love. “Anyone who cares deeply<br />

for their child has the ability to be an excellent<br />

parent,” she says. “Good parenting<br />

doesn’t require money and<br />

material things. Good parenting<br />

requires love, dedication, and<br />

knowledge.”<br />

Dayle is a presenter at national<br />

and regional conferences, and she<br />

has written on timely parenting<br />

topics, focusing especially on the<br />

need for parents to understand<br />

their children’s developmental<br />

stages in order to be more responsive<br />

and effective. She and her husband,<br />

Jay, live in Orchard Park, NY,<br />

and have two grown children, Erica<br />

and Steven.<br />

Winning Against<br />

the Wackos in Your Life<br />

(paperback/Larstan, 2007)<br />

by Christina Moulton Eckert ’84<br />

As Christina Moulton Eckert ’84 makes clear<br />

in her book, Winning Against the Wackos in<br />

Your Life, irksome characters are everywhere —<br />

cutting you off in traffic, insulting you at PTA<br />

meetings, making life at work miserable, and<br />

(can you believe it?) igniting fuses at family<br />

gatherings. Like many of us, Christina has<br />

experienced her share of troublesome relationships<br />

and encounters, but she has taken her<br />

hard lessons learned and transformed them<br />

into advice to aid others in avoiding unfulfilling<br />

entanglements.<br />

“This is not a book about what to do<br />

after you have been in a bad relationship,”<br />

says Christina.<br />

“It’s about how<br />

to prevent getting<br />

into one in the<br />

first place.”<br />

Christina has<br />

two goals for her<br />

book: to help<br />

others identify<br />

negative people<br />

in their lives and to recognize the traits within<br />

themselves that could actually be drawing<br />

stress-inducing people to them. Her chapter<br />

headings suggest the book’s survival guide content<br />

and the humorous slant she takes on rising<br />

above life’s little troublemakers. From<br />

What Wackos Look For to As Wacko Behavior<br />

Broadens, A Final Word on Family, and Helping<br />

Teens Cope with Wackos (the subject of<br />

Christina’s next book), she talks frankly about<br />

people who could be nicer and “how to spot<br />

them and stop them in their tracks.”<br />

Christina is living in the desert Southwest<br />

with her husband of 20 years and their three<br />

children. Visit her website at www.winningagainstthewackos.com,<br />

and look for her book in<br />

paperback in bookstores and online shopping<br />

sites.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 15


ALUMNI<br />

New <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

Alumni Book<br />

Groups<br />

Thanks to everyone who responded<br />

to this past winter’s call to start more<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> alumni book groups, we have four new chapters: on the<br />

South Shore of Massachusetts; and in Seattle; Sarasota, FL; and Orange County,<br />

CA. E-mail the Alumni Relations Office at alumnirelations@wheelock.edu if<br />

you are interested in joining any of these groups or if you would like to start a<br />

group in your area. Keep those pages turning!<br />

L to R: Susan West ’77,<br />

President Jenkins-<br />

Scott, Jim Scott, and<br />

Sandra Miller ’77<br />

We ♥ New York!<br />

In March, President Jenkins-Scott, Jim Scott, and Deanne Morse ’60<br />

had a great time visiting with Regina Frankenberger Dubin ’58 and<br />

her husband, Larry Dubin, Sarah Jarvis ’68, Jo Loskill Jenks ’53,<br />

Nicky Wheeler L’Hommedieu ’54 and her husband, Paige L’Hommedieu,<br />

Mary Hathaway Hayter ’50, Nance Kulin Liebgott ’69, Pamela<br />

Long, Arlene Keizer Lovenvirth ’58, Sandra Miller ’77, Shirley Collins<br />

Schwarz-Gutherz ’57, Susan West ’77, and Anne Runk Wright ’50 at a<br />

luncheon hosted by Nicky and Paige at The Williams Club.<br />

Thanks to Alumni Who Have<br />

Joined the Center for Career<br />

Development Alumni Network<br />

To date, over 270 alumni have responded to the Alumni Network<br />

Survey and volunteered to support the professional development<br />

of students in a variety of ways, including:<br />

• Speaking at a Club Meeting, Class, or Educational Workshop<br />

• Conducting Informational Interviews, answering students’<br />

questions about their job, career, or profession<br />

• Conducting Mock/Practice Interviews<br />

• Networking with Current Students by E-mail<br />

• Hosting a Community Service Opportunity<br />

• Providing a Resume/Cover Letter Critique<br />

• Providing a Shadowing Opportunity<br />

Alumni data are made available to students through the Center’s<br />

online job posting and networking site, <strong>Wheelock</strong> Works! Take a look at<br />

their website (www.wheelock.edu/ccd) and see what other helpful services<br />

the <strong>College</strong> offers to students who are about to take their professional<br />

place in the world.<br />

Resources<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Math and Science<br />

Education Center Suggests<br />

The Exploratorium<br />

The Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco has an excellent<br />

website (www.exploratorium.edu) that covers many science topics and<br />

offers fun ideas and tools for teaching under its Educate dropdown<br />

menu: Cathy Clemens, manager of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Math and Science<br />

Education Center, welcomes your ideas for engaging students in math<br />

and science learning: “The MSEC is here to support our alumni and<br />

your students!” Contact her at cclemens@wheelock.edu.<br />

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific,<br />

a Science Literacy Resource<br />

The Family ASTRO program presented by <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s MSEC in<br />

April is a program of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific<br />

(ASP), a recognized leader in the field of astronomy education.<br />

The Society’s goal is to advance science literacy by increasing public<br />

understanding and appreciation of astronomy through public<br />

outreach by scientists, educators, and enthusiasts.<br />

ASP’s Project ASTRO is an innovative program that pairs amateur<br />

and professional astronomers with teachers and classes in the San<br />

Francisco Bay area and also works with the ASTRO National Network<br />

with sites in 13 locations across the country. ASP’s free teachers’<br />

newsletter, The Universe in the Classroom, is posted on their website<br />

(www.aspsky.org/), and their online store, the AstroShop, offers an<br />

array of educational products for teachers and anyone interested in<br />

spreading appreciation and understanding of astronomy.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Is Your Go-To Professional Development Resource<br />

Your school, agency, or organization can benefit from a <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

course held conveniently at your work site. National and Regional<br />

Programs will work with you to select from a variety of undergraduate<br />

and graduate courses. Interested in learning more? E-mail<br />

National and Regional Programs at natreg@wheelock.edu or call<br />

(617) 879-2311.<br />

16 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


The Kresge Challenge Grant to Expand<br />

Our Community and Make Us Stronger<br />

In April, <strong>Wheelock</strong> received wonderful news from the distinguished Kresge Foundation that it was<br />

awarding an $800,000 challenge grant to the <strong>College</strong> to assist in raising the remaining funds necessary<br />

to complete construction of its beautiful new Campus Center and Student Residence (CCSR).<br />

In his award letter to President Jenkins-Scott, Kresge Foundation President Rip Rapson noted,<br />

“We are extremely pleased to support your institution and its excellent track record of providing<br />

access to higher education. . . . With awarding this grant, we are saluting your efforts to improve<br />

conditions and advance opportunities in your community.”<br />

The Kresge award is not an outright grant; it is something better. The challenge grant is intended to<br />

help <strong>Wheelock</strong> grow by supporting construction of the new CCSR — and that definitely is something to<br />

celebrate — but even more important, it challenges <strong>Wheelock</strong> to stretch institutionally, to interest a broader<br />

range of organizations and individual donors in what <strong>Wheelock</strong> and its mission are<br />

all about. The Kresge Foundation poses a challenge to <strong>Wheelock</strong> that we have<br />

eagerly accepted: Raise $2,350,050 of the remaining amount needed to finish<br />

construction from private donors within the next 12 months, and the Foundation<br />

will complete the funding with its $800,000 grant.<br />

“The Kresge grant provides an exceptional opportunity for the <strong>College</strong> to<br />

expand its private base of support, to become stronger as an institution, and to<br />

fulfill its strategic plan for future growth,” Jenkins-Scott said in announcing the<br />

award. “We are also very excited about this grant’s prospects for widening recognition<br />

of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s place in and importance to the broader Boston community.”<br />

Education is one of six fields in which The Kresge Foundation has been active<br />

for many years and is expanding in the U.S. and around the world. The Foundation<br />

is most interested in supporting educational institutions that address concerns<br />

about systematic and pervasive inequities and that have a positive impact on the<br />

community; promote diversity, opportunity, and access; and educate a workforce<br />

capable of competing successfully in the changing economy.<br />

The challenge helps to advance the shared goals of <strong>Wheelock</strong> and The Kresge Foundation while creating<br />

a stunning addition to the campus. And it is a wonderful vote of confidence in <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s extended<br />

community of supporters who will take up the challenge to complete funding of the CCSR, which so<br />

dramatically embodies the <strong>College</strong>’s future orientation.<br />

While the CCSR will be a<br />

fabulous new addition to<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s campus and to<br />

Boston’s cityscape, the Kresge<br />

challenge grant presents a<br />

great opportunity for <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

to engage many more individuals<br />

and organizations in its<br />

mission to improve the lives<br />

of children and families.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 17


Skyscraper–Flying by crane, the “topping<br />

off” beam and its tree cargo land with<br />

perfect precision in the hands of workers<br />

waiting to position it at the highest point<br />

of the building’s completed frame.<br />

“We spent huge amounts of<br />

time talking with students<br />

about how we could support<br />

the idea of community in<br />

the evening as well as during<br />

the day. Because so many of<br />

the students are in class or<br />

in the field during the day,<br />

the mixed use of the building<br />

at night became all the<br />

more important.”<br />

—William Rawn, principal,<br />

William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.<br />

Nothing But Blue Sky for the<br />

CCSR Topping Off Ceremony<br />

The day couldn’t have been brighter than it was on April 15, when <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

students, faculty, staff, and trustees gathered with the CCSR designers and<br />

builders to finish off the framing phase of construction by the Shawmut<br />

Design and Construction crew. After everyone had a chance to sign their name<br />

to a steel beam that would be the last one placed at the very top of the<br />

structure, a crane smoothly hoisted it high over the crowd. At one end<br />

of the beam, a small evergreen rode up and into place at the highest point of<br />

the frame, topping off the building in a ritual that is thousands of years old.<br />

Design Innovations That Nurture Community<br />

“There are several ways in which the Campus Center and Student Residence<br />

stands out as innovative, but most obviously it is in its design as a mixed-use<br />

space which celebrates community,” says William Rawn, principal of William<br />

Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc., the firm that designed the CCSR.<br />

“Traditionally, most colleges and universities have separate buildings<br />

for separate functions, widely separated across large campuses, but the<br />

CCSR has within its walls spaces for dining, living, meeting, and working,”<br />

he points out. “On a small campus such as <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s, establishing the<br />

CCSR as a mixed-use building makes it a destination and focal point for<br />

everyone on campus. This is innovative not only in that it is a change from<br />

the traditional, but also because it expresses the <strong>College</strong>’s strong sense of<br />

itself as a community.”<br />

Inside the CCSR, there are three and one-half floors of residential living<br />

space, but mixed with this on the first through third floors are spaces<br />

intended for daily use by students, faculty, and staff alike — a large dining<br />

area as well as a café and a 24/7 coffee bar, meeting rooms for student<br />

activities, and areas for entertainment. “Different segments of the community<br />

will be coming and going throughout the day, rubbing shoulders,<br />

and crossing paths with much more frequency,” Rawn says. “The spaces<br />

themselves are an open invitation to meet up to work on projects, make<br />

plans for events, or just settle in for conversation.”<br />

The building’s interior design will create a light, open, welcoming<br />

environment. Curtains of large glass windows will allow sunlight to<br />

pour in, a grand staircase will connect the first<br />

floor to the second-floor dining commons with<br />

a beautiful view of the greenery across the<br />

18 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong><br />

The Topping Off Ritual<br />

The tradition of a “topping off” ceremony has been<br />

linked to many cultures, but one possible point<br />

of origin is with the Scandinavians.The first reference<br />

dates to 700 A.D., when sheaves of grain were attached<br />

to the tops of newly constructed halls.The grain was an<br />

offering to the god Odin’s horse and was meant to bring<br />

good favor or luck to future occupants of the building.<br />

The custom spread to Germanic tribes that substituted a pagan symbol of new life —<br />

the evergreen — for the grain sheaves.<br />

The ritual is re-enacted today to celebrate a job well and safely done by the steel<br />

workers and, as in the old days, to bring good luck to the rest of the construction<br />

process and to those who will be using the new building.


Green Innovations That Nurture Nature<br />

Green buildings are becoming more integrated into urban and campus<br />

environments as awareness of the need to conserve and protect the<br />

planet grows. Going green with the CCSR and minimizing its impact<br />

on the environment is consistent with the social and educational<br />

aspects of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s mission. But Erik Tellander, project architect<br />

for William Rawn Associates, points out that the green value of the<br />

CCSR extends beyond its own perimeters because it will impact future<br />

campus renovations and construction. The CCSR will serve as a<br />

model of how green technologies can be incorporated into most buildings<br />

and how sustainable practices might be put into play throughout<br />

the campus.<br />

Riverway, and there will be a light-filled third-floor dining space with<br />

an outdoor balcony for seating overlooking the community courtyard.<br />

The balcony and courtyard will enjoy sunlight from the south and<br />

provide an inviting open space for students, faculty, and staff to enjoy<br />

every day and on special occasions.<br />

William Rawn Associates is committed to designing buildings that<br />

in some way participate in the civic or public realm, buildings in the<br />

city or buildings in important public landscape settings, such as the part<br />

of Frederick Law Olmsted’s famed “Emerald Necklace” system of parks<br />

and tree-lined walkways that border <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Riverway campus,<br />

where the CCSR is being constructed.<br />

“From the very beginning, <strong>Wheelock</strong> envisioned a building that would<br />

fit in with its surroundings while also reflecting the <strong>College</strong>’s contemporary<br />

qualities,” says Rawn. The north side of the building is elegantly curved<br />

to fit the existing path of the Riverway, while the corresponding curve on<br />

the building’s south side gently frames the inner courtyard. Blending with<br />

the natural curve of the Riverway as the CCSR will, it still will catch the<br />

eye and make a modern, forward-looking statement. The building’s mattefinished<br />

aluminum sides will stand out, but in a subdued, elegant way. At<br />

night, the large windows facing the Riverway will show the illuminated<br />

interior, creating a warm, glowing effect.<br />

“One example of the building’s environmentally responsible design is<br />

the green roof on the third-floor terrace outside the dining room,” says<br />

Tellander. “The planted roof will catch and absorb rainwater, slowing<br />

down its flow into the sewer system. There will be chambers under the<br />

green courtyard as well that will act as holding tanks and that will recharge<br />

the water into the soil through perforated pipes — helping to sustain<br />

plantings and trees — before it goes into the sewer.”<br />

Materials with recycled content are being used throughout the building,<br />

according to Tellander, from the steel framework, which is 40 percent<br />

recycled, all the way down to the cables used in the electrical systems.<br />

“Other good environmental practices include the use of wood from sustainable<br />

forests, nontoxic materials, and compact fluorescent lights<br />

throughout the electrical systems,” he says. “Additionally, there will be<br />

energy recovery systems that capture heat from exhaust air in winter to<br />

preheat fresh air coming into the building. The principle works in<br />

reverse during the summer when the cooler exhaust air will be used to<br />

cool the building’s interior air.”<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 19


LEED Leads the Way<br />

If you read about the green building movement or<br />

listen to experts talk sustainable practices, the term<br />

LEED pops up in every other paragraph. What is it?<br />

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental<br />

Design (LEED) Green Building Rating<br />

System TM , which was developed by the U.S. Green<br />

Building Council and is a nationally accepted benchmark<br />

for the design, construction, and performance of green buildings. The<br />

system encourages global adoption of green building and development practices<br />

by establishing universally understood and accepted performance criteria.<br />

The move toward sustainable green building practices is accelerating<br />

because of the tremendous benefits that result from hewing to LEED guidelines.<br />

Green buildings improve air and water quality and reduce waste, and<br />

they create healthier, more comfortable work and living environments. They<br />

also use key resources more efficiently when compared to conventional<br />

buildings that are simply built to code, which means there are substantial<br />

economic as well as environmental and health benefits to going green.<br />

Green buildings cost more to design and to construct when compared with<br />

conventional buildings, but these increased costs typically represent up-front<br />

costs incurred at the start of the project. According to LEED, studies suggest<br />

that an initial investment of 2 percent will yield more than 10 times the<br />

amount over the life cycle of the building. From this perspective, the initial cost<br />

is actually a smart investment that more than pays for itself in the long run.<br />

“I am absolutely thrilled when I think about<br />

using this new space so soon in the future. It<br />

has been a wonderful learning experience for<br />

me to work with my colleagues, the architects,<br />

and the students throughout the process of conceiving<br />

and creating this building.”<br />

– Marjorie Hall, chair and associate professor of art history<br />

Marjorie Hall was on the <strong>Wheelock</strong> committee that selected William Rawn Associates,<br />

Architects, Inc. and was co-chair of the small working group that met with them weekly<br />

during the early design phase of the project.<br />

One feature of the building that stands out immediately is the visually<br />

striking design of the windows, which allows enormous amounts of<br />

natural light inside. It’s a design element that also serves the goal of<br />

energy conservation. “This building is all about letting daylight in,” says<br />

Tellander. “The lower floors are almost all glass, and on the south side<br />

there are sun shades that reflect light onto the ceiling so that it penetrates<br />

even deeper into the building. Student rooms all have very large<br />

windows that make the spaces very pleasant, but they also have the<br />

function of cutting down on the daytime use of electricity.”<br />

Appealing design elements such as these are environmentally friendly<br />

and will also contribute to conservation of the <strong>College</strong>’s resources and<br />

lower long-term operating costs. From whatever perspective you view it,<br />

green design is good design.<br />

What’s Next?<br />

C<br />

onstruction of the CCSR continues during the summer.While others are<br />

vacationing, Shawmut construction workers will be installing the basics —<br />

mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection systems.Then the exterior<br />

wall — a curtain of glass on all four sides of the first two floors and metal panels<br />

of anodized aluminum on all sides of all floors — goes up. Interior work begins<br />

this summer too. Look for some mighty progress this fall when the next issue of<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine hits your mailbox.<br />

20 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


Kids on Kampus!<br />

It was great to see (and hear)<br />

the Gallery filled with children<br />

looking at art close up and<br />

making their own, which they<br />

loved seeing hung in the Gallery<br />

at morning’s end. So come back<br />

soon — It was fun having kids<br />

in the Gallery!<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> has a strong commitment<br />

to providing college access<br />

programming for young people<br />

in Boston that focuses on college<br />

awareness, preparation, and<br />

success. This year, our commitment<br />

expanded in a new direction, bringing<br />

more groups of young children as well as precollege<br />

teens to campus for events that are fun<br />

and educational. Is it ever too early to introduce<br />

children to the concept of college, make them<br />

comfortable in a campus setting, and get them<br />

thinking about going higher, higher, higher?<br />

Not if you’re <strong>Wheelock</strong>!<br />

Kids in the Gallery — A Picture-<br />

Perfect Day for Making Art<br />

The Towne Art Gallery’s biannual exhibit<br />

Nurturing the Artist in Each Student: Art from<br />

the Boston Public Schools, which is organized<br />

by Art Instructor and Gallery Director Erica<br />

Licea-Kane with generous financial support<br />

from The Gary Silverstein Memorial Art Fund,<br />

is always a special and beautiful event. But<br />

this year something magical happened. At the<br />

March 29 opening reception, the principal<br />

of the James Otis Elementary School in East<br />

Boston mentioned that she would love it if<br />

some of her students could have an opportunity<br />

to see the exhibit. Of course, <strong>Wheelock</strong> staff,<br />

faculty, and students jumped into action to<br />

make it happen.<br />

Director of Athletics, Recreation and Wellness<br />

Diana Cutaia quickly arranged to transport all<br />

80 of the school’s fourth- and fifth-graders to<br />

campus one morning in April and coordinated a<br />

remarkable program for them in the Gallery.<br />

Associate Professor and Chair of the Arts Department<br />

Marjorie Hall provided a list of all<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> art students on campus, several of<br />

whom were able to volunteer for the program,<br />

and Associate Professor in Early Childhood Amy<br />

Phillips agreed to have the students in her Art<br />

for Children course develop art-making activities<br />

for the students. Licea-Kane coordinated the<br />

opening of the Gallery and arranged for the student<br />

volunteers to help with viewing and talking<br />

about the exhibit and with organizing the art<br />

activities. And finally, <strong>Wheelock</strong> Family Theatre<br />

Marketing and Public Relations Director Charles<br />

Baldwin gave an impromptu talk and offered<br />

tickets to the students so that they could come<br />

back to see the fabulous production Lilly’s Purple<br />

Plastic Purse, then showing in the Theatre.<br />

It was great to see (and hear) the Gallery<br />

filled with children looking at art close up<br />

and making their own, which they loved seeing<br />

hung in the Gallery at morning’s end.<br />

So come back soon — It was fun having kids<br />

in the Gallery!<br />

Adding it up —<br />

<strong>College</strong> is for<br />

everyone!<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> students explained their fractions lesson to Murphy School<br />

children and their teachers.


Kids in the Classroom —<br />

Adding It Up<br />

In April, Director of Community Engagement<br />

Initiatives Ceronne Daly partnered with the TERI<br />

<strong>College</strong> Access Center to arrange a visit by 50<br />

fourth-graders from the Richard J. Murphy School<br />

in Dorchester to campus for a <strong>College</strong> Explorers<br />

Pilot Program, which is part of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s <strong>College</strong><br />

Access program. The morning of activities included<br />

a traditional college tour and a custom-designed<br />

math learning experience. <strong>Wheelock</strong> students<br />

in Associate Professor Debbie Borkovitz’s and<br />

Associate Professor Galina Dobrynina’s spring<br />

math courses designed interactive math lessons to<br />

give the Murphy students a hands-on approach<br />

to learning 3D geometry and fractions.<br />

For many of the children, this was their first<br />

visit to a college campus. The consensus at the<br />

end of the morning? <strong>College</strong> is BIG, college is<br />

fun, and college is for everyone.<br />

Kids in the Music Room —<br />

Reprise at Hawes Street<br />

Last year’s spring visit to <strong>Wheelock</strong> by children<br />

from the James J. Chittick Elementary School<br />

in Mattapan for an afternoon of music was such<br />

a hit, it was repeated again in May this year.<br />

Tanya Maggi, director of the Performance<br />

For Mary Lyon middle<br />

school students, visiting<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> was a great<br />

start to seeing college<br />

as an attractive and<br />

realistic goal.<br />

Outreach Program at the New England Conservatory<br />

of Music, brought five students from<br />

the Conservatory’s outreach program to the<br />

Brookline Campus for a program of music and<br />

reading aloud that introduced the connections<br />

between music and storytelling to the children.<br />

Thanks again to Sandy Christison ’92MS for<br />

having the idea to hold these musical afternoons<br />

for kids and to Beverly “Bev” Simon Green<br />

’50, whose wonderful grand piano gift provides<br />

the centerpiece for so much fun!<br />

Kids on Campus Everywhere —<br />

Making the <strong>College</strong> Connection<br />

In April, Associate Professor Maya Honda<br />

arranged for 15 seventh- and eighth-grade girls<br />

from the Mary Lyon School in Brighton to visit<br />

campus and experience college as part of the<br />

Women Count Program. Women Count started<br />

as a mentorship program in math and science<br />

for teen girls and is expanding to explore different<br />

careers and the college pathway. Last November,<br />

Honda visited girls in the program and talked<br />

with them about her work as a linguist and as a<br />

professor at <strong>Wheelock</strong>.<br />

During their campus visit, students met<br />

Associate Director of Alumni Relations Brianne<br />

Kimble in the Alumni Relations Office, went<br />

on a campus tour with Admissions staff, visited<br />

classes, toured campus dormitories and the<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Family Theatre, and finally settled<br />

down for lunch in the dining hall.<br />

Three of the teachers from Mary Lyon who are<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> graduates — Elise Cucchi ’00MS,<br />

Cheryl Brown-Greene ’93MS, and Janice Watts<br />

Hanrahan ’94/’95MS — were happy to be visiting<br />

their alma mater and making the college connection<br />

for their students. The students themselves<br />

were excited to be at a college and living the life of<br />

a <strong>Wheelock</strong> student for a day. It was a great start to<br />

seeing college as an attractive and realistic goal.


Ubuntu<br />

in the<br />

Works<br />

Building on the Success of the<br />

Bridges to Hope and<br />

Understanding Youth<br />

Symposium<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> made a promise to stay connected to the<br />

Boston schools and student leaders who participated<br />

in last fall’s Bridges to Hope and Understanding:<br />

Exploring Truth and Reconciliation Youth Symposium,<br />

which was designed to work on issues of urban<br />

violence facing the city’s youth and their communities. And in the spirit<br />

of ubuntu — the African philosophy introduced to the <strong>Wheelock</strong> community<br />

during Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s symposium visit — <strong>College</strong> faculty<br />

and staff continued collaborating with Boston schools and community<br />

organizations throughout the academic year on innovative programs aimed<br />

at building stronger, more supportive relationships among Boston teens<br />

and their communities.<br />

Youth Leadership Summit and<br />

SPARK the Truth<br />

In November, immediately after Tutu’s visit, <strong>Wheelock</strong> hosted a Youth<br />

Leadership Summit that helped to launch SPARK the Truth, a social<br />

action organization of <strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong> and Boston high school students<br />

working with Ceronne Daly, director of community engagement<br />

initiatives; Ann Tobey, director of the <strong>College</strong>’s Juvenile Justice and<br />

Youth Advocacy (JJ&YA) program; Patricia Cedeño-Zamor, director<br />

of <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s B.S.W. program; John Bay ’94MS, <strong>Wheelock</strong> Family<br />

Theatre education director; and JJ&YA program students.<br />

At the summit, the students worked to refine their group identity and<br />

mission: “We are a group of students working to encourage and support positive<br />

community action amongst students in Boston Public Schools. We<br />

believe that giving youth every conceivable opportunity to facilitate, engage<br />

in, and enact their own community initiatives is an essential aspect of fostering<br />

the changes needed in their individual and collective communities.”<br />

Building on a speech delivered at Bridges to Hope and Understanding by Pharlone<br />

Toussaint, a student from the Boston Community Leadership Academy,<br />

and the leadership of <strong>Wheelock</strong> student co-president Lucia “Lucy” Mock<br />

’09, the students named their new organization SPARK the Truth.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 23


Juvenile Justice and Youth Advocacy<br />

Program Initiatives<br />

Youth Transforming Violence: Ubuntu in the Works<br />

Last year, Tobey initiated a faculty-staff-student project that evolved<br />

into Life Worth Remembering: Images from Four Street Memorials, an<br />

exhibit of photography and digital<br />

images commemorating teenage<br />

victims of violence in 2006 that<br />

was exhibited at the Towne<br />

Art Gallery and then chosen<br />

for display at the Violence<br />

Transformed exhibit at<br />

the Massachusetts Statehouse.<br />

This year, she<br />

worked with the Violence<br />

Transformed organization<br />

to create a sequel exhibit<br />

of art created by Boston<br />

youth and titled Youth Transforming<br />

Violence: Ubuntu in the<br />

Works. Tobey said that last year’s exhibit<br />

represented a “statement of the problem” of urban youth losing their<br />

lives to street violence, traumatized individuals and communities, and<br />

a society that has failed to respond compassionately and effectively.<br />

This year’s exhibit theme moved from stating the problem to working<br />

on solutions through ubuntu.<br />

Much of the commitment and energy to work on follow-up projects<br />

with Boston youth originated with students in Tobey’s JJ&YA integrative<br />

seminar who developed them as senior projects. Students worked with<br />

several community-based organizations on projects that introduced teens<br />

to two ideas common to all of the projects: Collaborative art making can<br />

have the power to transform violence into its opposite, and ubuntu can be<br />

used to imagine alternatives to violence.<br />

HUMAN Hear Us Make Artistic Noise<br />

Several seminar projects developed under the theme of Hear Us Make<br />

Artistic Noise gave seniors the chance to facilitate teen learning, art making,<br />

and expression as they created ubuntu-themed art that was exhibited<br />

at <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Towne Art Gallery and the Massachusetts Statehouse.<br />

One project involved <strong>Wheelock</strong> senior Heather Perez and artist Kate<br />

Jellinghaus working with girls living in a DYS detention facility. Heather<br />

gave a tutorial on ubuntu and collaborative art making which, interestingly,<br />

resulted in the girls working on three hair-braiding projects that expressed<br />

both their creative talents and the ubuntu idea of caring for each other. The<br />

final pieces exhibited in the Gallery were a 15-foot, interactive wall installation;<br />

Violence Transformed, a film about hair braiding that is now on<br />

YouTube; and letters from a writing project hung on the Gallery wall.<br />

St. Stephen’s<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> students Julia MacMahon ’08 and Lucy Mock ’09 and SPARK<br />

members who were leaders in the celebration of Archbishop Tutu’s visit to<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> collaborated with youth in the St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church<br />

Place of Opportunity for Teens program in Boston’s South End. Julia and<br />

Lucy encouraged these teens to imagine ubuntu happening in their communities<br />

and to create a sculpture representing their ideas about what ubuntu<br />

24 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


Collaborative art making has transformative powers.<br />

At Milton High School, students worked on a six-panel<br />

drawing titled “Road to Reconciliation.”<br />

means to them and its importance for the world. The teens not only learned<br />

about the new concept of ubuntu, but they also took ownership of it and<br />

applied it, working collaboratively to create something of their own out of it.<br />

Milton Public High School<br />

At Milton Public High School, senior Larrice Welcome worked with art<br />

teacher Karen Hughes and students in her class to develop ubuntu ideas about<br />

reconciliation and community support, and then to make art out of them.<br />

Students worked in pairs to create six separate painted images and then<br />

collaborated as a group to fit them together into a larger painting titled<br />

“Road to Reconciliation.” For the students, it was a rare opportunity to experience<br />

collaborative decision making and working as a team with classmates.<br />

The Cloud Foundation<br />

Tobey and <strong>Wheelock</strong> senior LaToya Salvant worked with teen visual art<br />

curators at The Cloud Foundation in Boston, a nonprofit organization<br />

devoted to teens and the arts, to co-curate a spin-off exhibit, Violence<br />

Transformed: An Exhibition of Visual and Performing Arts. The exhibit<br />

traveled from <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Towne Art<br />

Gallery to the Massachusetts Statehouse,<br />

where it was shown as part of<br />

the Violence Transformed art and performance<br />

event held in concert with<br />

the annual Victim Rights Conference<br />

of the Massachusetts Office for Victim<br />

Assistance. <strong>Wheelock</strong> student Tina<br />

Jordan ’08 also worked with Violence<br />

Transformed on a project called Wind<br />

Song for which schoolchildren created<br />

peace flags that were strung in a<br />

Tibetan flag motif at the Towne Art<br />

Gallery and at the Statehouse.<br />

Other programs that contributed to the gallery exhibit were YouthBuild<br />

Boston, the Watertown Mural Club, and RAW Artworks in Lynn, MA.<br />

<strong>College</strong> Courses to Change Social and Academic<br />

Outcomes for the Youth of Boston<br />

In the spring, <strong>Wheelock</strong> took the collaborative concept of ubuntu to the<br />

college level by joining with the Boston Public Schools and Teaching for<br />

Change, a program that encourages teachers and students to question and<br />

rethink the world inside and outside their classrooms, to build a more equitable<br />

and multicultural society, and to become active global citizens.<br />

Together they created a program that gives local high school students the<br />

chance to earn four undergraduate college credits by taking the course<br />

Bridges to Hope, Understanding and Changing the Social and Academic<br />

Outcomes of the Youth of Boston, taught by Felicity Crawford, assistant<br />

professor in the <strong>College</strong>’s School of Education and Child Life.<br />

The course was designed to build on the “spark” that the symposium<br />

youth of Boston and undergraduate students at <strong>Wheelock</strong> have ignited<br />

with their ideas about social change following Archbishop Tutu’s visit.<br />

The ideas explored in this course were intended to lay the foundation<br />

for high school students to build the knowledge, skills, and criticalthinking<br />

strategies that would enable them to create positive change in<br />

their communities. Students in the course read, analyzed, and evaluated<br />

literature about youth activism and community change and then<br />

applied their learning by using the virtual world Second Life to build<br />

and display the better Boston they envisioned.<br />

Participants in the course joined youth from SPARK and other teens<br />

from the symposium who worked on ubuntu and reconciliation projects at<br />

their schools and in their organizations during the winter and presented and<br />

showcased their work at <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Bridges to Hope and Understanding:<br />

Ubuntu in the Works held on the Brookline campus on May 2.<br />

By the close of the academic year, <strong>Wheelock</strong>, Milton and Boston<br />

high school students, and local youth organizations had taken the idea<br />

of ubuntu and put it into action in a variety of creative ways among<br />

themselves and in their respective communities. Ubuntu is in the works<br />

both as a concept already creating change and as a work in progress.<br />

Watch ubuntu evolve next fall when this year’s successes spark new ideas<br />

for <strong>Wheelock</strong> and Boston youth collaborations.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 25


A LUMNI<br />

I NNOVATORS<br />

<br />

When students graduate from <strong>Wheelock</strong>, they are<br />

already innovators. Being part of an academic community<br />

such as ours challenges and changes them.<br />

The <strong>College</strong> fosters their curiosity, nurtures their<br />

imaginations, and instills the idea that they can be<br />

leaders—attributes that all innovators share. Many<br />

will reinvent themselves several times over before<br />

Commencement day, when they magically transform<br />

into <strong>Wheelock</strong> alumni.<br />

With any luck, they will make their marks by continuing<br />

to exercise creative-thinking skills. Like the<br />

six alumni spotlighted in these pages, they will look<br />

at complex problems and imagine solutions. They<br />

will apply what they<br />

know about alternative<br />

perspectives—look at something from<br />

a different slant, and you might discover<br />

something new. No matter what<br />

their field of endeavor, they will share<br />

the excitement of discovering, creating<br />

change, trying out new ideas, going in<br />

a better direction.


W H E E L O C K<br />

I N N O V A T O R<br />

Sandra Smith ’74<br />

“My grandmothers were<br />

very innovative women.<br />

They encouraged me to<br />

try new things, including<br />

a career other than<br />

teaching.”<br />

was soon cutting and stitching her way into<br />

galleries throughout the country. The American<br />

Craft Museum in New York; the Maryland State<br />

House in Annapolis; New England Quilt Museum<br />

in Lowell, MA; the Spelman <strong>College</strong> Museum of<br />

Fine Art in Atlanta; and the New England School<br />

of Art & Design in Boston are just a few of the<br />

many venues that have shown her work. Sandra<br />

uses her teaching skills in quilting, too, through<br />

workshops and presentations at the Smithsonian’s<br />

Renwick Gallery and the Textile Museum<br />

in Washington, as well as at elementary schools<br />

and art and design colleges.<br />

In talking with Sandra about quilt making,<br />

there is a definite sense of curiosity and discovery<br />

about what will happen when two pieces of<br />

fabric are placed together. “Every piece is<br />

unique,” she says. “Sometimes I use the same<br />

Reinventing Herself<br />

and Her Art<br />

Sandra Smith ’74 loves trying out new<br />

ideas and different directions to see how<br />

far she can take them. After graduating<br />

from <strong>Wheelock</strong>, Sandra taught for six<br />

years and then moved into the corporate world,<br />

where she reinvented her professional career.<br />

Sandra says she moved from teaching in<br />

search of additional intellectual challenges,<br />

always building on the skills that she acquired<br />

along the way. “At Data General, my first corporate<br />

job, the challenge was to reinvent<br />

myself, to convince myself and others that I<br />

had what it took to teach adults. I trained<br />

inspectors in the manufacturing group to<br />

inspect printed circuit boards. Then I transferred<br />

to the Field Services Division to broaden<br />

my experiences as an adult trainer and learn<br />

more about quality assurance techniques.”<br />

Sandra next moved to Interactive Training<br />

Systems in Cambridge, an innovative startup<br />

company, where she worked with a group to invent<br />

technology-based training procedures, methodologies,<br />

and video applications. “This gave me the<br />

chance to travel extensively and work with senior<br />

managers and subject-matter experts in Fortune<br />

50 companies,” she says. “I learned management<br />

and people skills and worked my way up to a<br />

position as department director.”<br />

Her next leap was to Washington, D.C., to<br />

work at Watson Wyatt, an HR consulting firm.<br />

“At Wyatt I used people and training/teaching<br />

skills to define requirements and interface<br />

designs for employee self-service benefit systems,”<br />

she explains. “I managed a group of programmers<br />

and communications consultants who<br />

introduced technology-based communications<br />

and human resource transactions to the firm and<br />

its clients, which was an innovation for Wyatt.”<br />

“<strong>Wheelock</strong> has been in play all along,”<br />

Sandra says of her work in the corporate world<br />

and her current job in Washington, D.C., in<br />

the Office of the Chief Technology Officer.<br />

As a training and deployment manager there,<br />

she heads the training initiatives in a group<br />

that is responsible for improving technology<br />

for District social service agencies.<br />

Sandra’s mix of energy, understanding of<br />

complex systems, and eagerness to try new ways<br />

of doing things spun her in an entirely different<br />

direction when she began quilting as a way to<br />

relax. Like many quilters before her, Sandra<br />

transformed necessity into works of art and<br />

fabrics in more than one quilt, but none of my<br />

quilts are alike. My favorite techniques include<br />

working with fabric to create transparencies in<br />

the quilt, with one fabric appearing to overlap<br />

another, and designing without templates. One<br />

method is very detailed and requires a lot of<br />

concentration, while the other just happens.”<br />

Sandra makes quilts for her own pleasure and<br />

on commission, as well as to exhibit and sell.<br />

Many of her commissions are from families who<br />

want to incorporate meaningful elements of<br />

their family experience into an heirloom quilt.<br />

“When clients request work, it forces me to be<br />

innovative and go in different directions,” she<br />

says. It is all part of the creative imagination that<br />

quilting lets free.<br />

Sandra will be exhibiting a selection of her<br />

quilts at <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Alumni of Color Reunion,<br />

Oct. 3-4. She also has a wonderful website at<br />

www.sandrasmithquilts.com with galleries of her<br />

quilts completed and in progress. <br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 27


W H E E L O C K<br />

I N N O V A T O R<br />

Bonnie Simon Grossman ’55<br />

Celebrating Everyday Art<br />

Talking long-distance from Boston<br />

with Bonnie Simon Grossman ’55<br />

in Berkeley, CA, about the collection<br />

of art in her Ames Gallery makes you<br />

want to book a flight and go see each piece she is<br />

describing with a fascination you can imagine is<br />

just as enthusiastic as when she first discovered it.<br />

Even at a distance, Bonnie’s detailed descriptions<br />

and teaching instincts make connections<br />

that are eye-opening. “I have a big collection of<br />

tramp art, which is akin to quilting because of the<br />

shared vocabulary of salvaged scrap materials cut<br />

into geometric shapes, pieced together, and layered,”<br />

she says, comparing two types of folk art.<br />

“Decorative chip carving on tramp art is similar<br />

to stitches on a quilt. One uses fabric and the<br />

other wood, but there is a very close connection.”<br />

A kindergarten teacher for several years after<br />

graduating from <strong>Wheelock</strong>, Bonnie drifted into<br />

the art gallery world when she volunteered to<br />

organize exhibits in a small craft gallery owned by<br />

a friend. Her innovative early shows introduced<br />

emerging Bay area printmakers and included the<br />

first show of photo etchings on the West Coast.<br />

Curiosity, a predisposition to discovery, and a<br />

respect for stories embedded in the work of<br />

unknown artists led Bonnie and her husband,<br />

Sy, to establish a gallery.<br />

Today, Bonnie collects, curates, sells, and<br />

writes and consults about work not typically<br />

found in mainstream galleries: utilitarian<br />

Americana, contemporary visionary art, and<br />

naive and outsider art that is created by artists<br />

who are self-taught. Some are individuals who are<br />

homeless or isolated by virtue of being housebound<br />

or institutionalized in treatment facilities<br />

or prisons. “I don’t like the term ‘outsider’ or any<br />

of the labels because they all are pejorative, but<br />

that’s the common term used,” Bonnie is quick to<br />

note. “I like to let the work speak for itself.”<br />

“These are unschooled artists whose creative<br />

impulse is direct and personal, unfiltered by<br />

formal values and expectations, and possessing<br />

qualities of spontaneous enthusiasm and feeling<br />

that I admire,” she explains. “Their personal<br />

fulfillment has nothing to do with being in a<br />

museum or a collection. Working with them is<br />

much more gratifying.”<br />

The Ames Gallery is now the West Coast’s<br />

only gallery to feature antique Americana folk art,<br />

the handmade and homemade “relics of our<br />

heritage” as Bonnie calls them, as well as paintings,<br />

drawings, and sculpture by contemporary<br />

self-taught artists, mostly Californians. “We have<br />

succeeded in introducing many previously<br />

unknown artists, notably A.G. Rizzoli, Dwight<br />

Mackintosh, Alex Maldonado, and Barry Simons,<br />

who now have substantial followings, enjoying<br />

national and, in some cases, international<br />

recognition,” says Bonnie.<br />

Bonnie’s slant on collectible art is as unique as<br />

the artists themselves, who may see any object —<br />

bedsheets, hubcaps, or wire cords — as canvas<br />

material to transform. “The work is less intimidating<br />

and just as precious to the artist,” she says.<br />

One of Bonnie’s shows, “On the Mend,” featured<br />

repaired objects — not just darned socks,<br />

but also stapled china and sewn-up wooden<br />

bowls. A collection of creatures made by former<br />

aluminum product salesman Jim Bauer out of<br />

kitchen tools and appliances shares space with<br />

wooden figures that Cuban exile Julio Garcia<br />

carves in his backyard and decorates with leftover<br />

house paint.<br />

Another discovery — 40 years’ worth of dusty<br />

utopian drawings by an unknown artist, A.G.<br />

Rizzoli, that Bonnie found in a San Francisco<br />

garage — was celebrated by the San Diego Museum<br />

of Art with a traveling show. Rizzoli’s “Yield to<br />

Total Elation” themes were reviewed by Frank<br />

Rich in The New York Times as “pure-hearted<br />

romantic hallucinations” representing “the soul of<br />

mental health.”<br />

When she isn’t involved with the Gallery,<br />

traveling to shows, and uncovering new artists,<br />

Bonnie is active in the California arts community.<br />

A founding member of Bay Area (now<br />

California) Lawyers for the Arts, she has served<br />

on museum boards and advisory committees<br />

and curated public art exhibitions. She has coproduced<br />

and directed seven public television<br />

shows about California artists and consulted<br />

for numerous series on antiques. She also lectures<br />

widely, teaching others to see the art in<br />

everyday old and new homemade objects. For<br />

Bonnie, there’s always something new under<br />

the California sun. <br />

The Ames Gallery<br />

www.amesgallery.com<br />

28 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


W H E E L O C K<br />

I N N O V A T O R<br />

Sarah Mann Hanscom ’77<br />

“We have a beef stew<br />

recipe for 2,500 sailors,<br />

which is amazing in<br />

itself, but then we ask<br />

the kids to break it<br />

down to dinner for a<br />

family of six — they’re<br />

learning math, and<br />

they’re having fun too.”<br />

missions, so we ask kids to figure out how many<br />

beds could be put in the hangar bay. For kids<br />

who don’t see the point of math — Aha! —<br />

suddenly it has a very important purpose.”<br />

From the beginning, Sarah worked with<br />

advisers to design a museum and education center<br />

curriculum that would teach the California<br />

Content Standards and be relevant to educator<br />

goals as well. Now she works with a Midway<br />

team she describes as “very gifted teachers who<br />

share a passion for learning and being creative.”<br />

The Midway education program is in fullspeed-ahead<br />

mode, serving 31,000 children<br />

last year, and is so popular that individual<br />

programs are typically booked a solid half-year<br />

in advance. School programs in math and social<br />

Magic Touch<br />

Magic” was a term<br />

known throughout the<br />

‘‘Midway<br />

Navy during the USS Midway’s<br />

47-year career as an<br />

aircraft carrier that never drew a mission it<br />

couldn’t accomplish. No other carrier served as<br />

long or with such distinction as the Midway,<br />

from its commissioning in 1945 to its flagship<br />

days in Desert Storm. In fact, the carrier is<br />

back in service today in San Diego, CA, as a<br />

unique floating museum and education center.<br />

At the helm of its education programs is Sarah<br />

Mann Hanscom ’77, using her own brand of<br />

magic to teach children math, science, and<br />

social studies.<br />

Three years ago, Sarah came aboard the<br />

Midway and took on the assignment of creating<br />

from scratch its school and overnight education<br />

programs. Although Sarah has been in<br />

museum education since first discovering the<br />

field when she was an undergraduate at <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

and she has worked in major cities as far<br />

away as New Delhi, she ranks her Midway<br />

post as the creative opportunity of a lifetime.<br />

“It was like starting a school and developing a<br />

curriculum for grades 2-8 from zero,” Sarah<br />

says. “I took it very seriously because I realized<br />

we were creating a foundation that would last<br />

a long time.”<br />

Sarah uses the USS Midway Museum as a<br />

tool to develop real-life, hands-on learning<br />

experiences that she feels too many children are<br />

missing out on. “Kids in earlier generations<br />

could go home from school and immediately<br />

apply what they had learned because they were<br />

cooking in the kitchen or working in the family<br />

store or on the farm,” she explains. “It’s harder<br />

for kids today to see the practical applications of<br />

some subjects, especially math.”<br />

Sarah and her team of innovative teachers<br />

knew the USS Midway offered opportunities to<br />

teach history, but they also saw a boatload of<br />

math and science projects that could spark children’s<br />

imaginations. “The carrier is really a floating<br />

city, and its operations — how the electrical<br />

and radar systems work, how the planes fly, the<br />

importance of understanding weather — offer<br />

amazing real-life applications of math and science<br />

that tap kids’ imaginations,” she says. “The<br />

Midway went on many rescue and humanitarian<br />

Grade 4 kids<br />

studying electricity<br />

and magnetism<br />

studies that the Midway launched for September<br />

<strong>2008</strong> were already filled in May partly, she says,<br />

because she and her team go directly to teachers<br />

and ask what they need.<br />

Thanks to Sarah’s plotting an innovative<br />

course of Midway Magic, San Diego children<br />

have new reasons and ways to learn math, science,<br />

and social studies. Just recently, the Education<br />

Department received a note from the parent<br />

of a boy who had participated in one of the carrier’s<br />

education programs: “May I tell you how<br />

exciting it was for my son to spend the night on<br />

your ship. My son just brought me a drawing of<br />

how the engines work. This from a child who<br />

wants to sit and play on his PlayStation all day.”<br />

See what exciting learning activities Sarah<br />

and the USS Midway Museum are up to now at<br />

www.midway.org. <br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 29


W H E E L O C K<br />

I N N O V A T O R<br />

WATERWORKS —<br />

Transforming an<br />

Ancient Ritual<br />

Barbara Grogins Sallick ’61 • <strong>Wheelock</strong> trustee<br />

Look up “waterworks” in a dictionary,<br />

and you’ll find that the word defines a<br />

complete system of reservoirs, pipelines,<br />

and conduits by which water is collected,<br />

purified, stored, and pumped to urban users.<br />

Visit one of Barbara Grogins Sallick’s (’61)<br />

Waterworks stores in 38 locations across the U.S.<br />

or her elegant website at www.waterworks.com,<br />

and you’ll see a different definition, one that<br />

understands waterworks as an experience, an<br />

evolving concept of soothing comfort blended<br />

with luxury and high design. And you’ll easily see<br />

why Barbara, the co-founder (with husband<br />

Robert) and senior vice president of design at<br />

Waterworks, was named one of New York Magazine’s<br />

25 Design Luminaries last year.<br />

The first trickle of Waterworks’ evolution as<br />

an idea started with Barbara growing up in a family<br />

that founded a plumbing supply business in<br />

Danbury, CT, devoted to “the best mechanical<br />

offerings around.” In 1978, Barbara and Robert<br />

took the family commitment<br />

to the “best” and set out to<br />

create a revolution in bathroom<br />

design, bringing extraordinary<br />

visual appeal and<br />

impeccable performance to<br />

what was typically experienced<br />

as a merely utilitarian room,<br />

or water “closet,” in the home.<br />

Barbara’s innovative take<br />

on the bath fits historically<br />

and across cultures around<br />

the world where bathing has<br />

been valued for its calming,<br />

healing, and transforming<br />

effect. She renews this ancient<br />

ritual through creative design<br />

that suits contemporary life.<br />

“Of the many baths I’ve<br />

been in, the ones I remember<br />

most are those that accomplish<br />

serenity,” she says.<br />

“The bathroom as personal<br />

spa is a recent phenomenon<br />

that’s developed in the past<br />

five years, I think, because people are so busy<br />

and crave tranquillity.”<br />

If serenity is the objective, water is Barbara’s<br />

muse. “Everything revolves around water, from<br />

the oversized soaker tub, maybe even with a<br />

runoff trough to create a waterfall effect, to the<br />

highly functional shower with multiple settings<br />

and jets,” she explains. “The sound of water is<br />

hypnotic, and the feeling is soothing. The bottom<br />

line is about personal comfort.”<br />

Under Barbara’s design leadership and in<br />

partnership with teams of architects, designers,<br />

developers, and contractors, Waterworks creates<br />

a continuous stream of elegant environments —<br />

not only baths, but also kitchens, bar areas,<br />

lobbies, and restaurants — in homes, hotels,<br />

spas, and resorts around the world. And Waterworks<br />

stores offer fixtures, fittings, accessories,<br />

hard surfaces, and finishings that please the<br />

senses while performing their usual functions at<br />

the highest level, in keeping with the best of<br />

Barbara’s family tradition.<br />

Not everyone has Barbara’s eye for design or<br />

ability to create new concepts for old functions<br />

and rituals of daily life. For those of us who<br />

could use some inspiration, go to the Waterworks<br />

website or pick up Barbara’s latest book,<br />

The Definitive Guide to Designing the Perfect<br />

Bath (Perfect Paperback, 2006). <br />

30 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


W H E E L O C K<br />

I N N O V A T O R<br />

Kathy Luneau Simons ’79MS<br />

Higher education post-docs, faculty,<br />

staff, and their partners and families<br />

have Kathy Luneau Simons ’79MS to<br />

thank for doing the work she loves—<br />

making balanced, fulfilling lives possible<br />

for those who work in academe.<br />

Family/Work Solutions<br />

Over the past decade, academic institutions<br />

have increasingly focused attention<br />

on the importance of work and<br />

family issues for students, faculty, and<br />

staff, generating rapid growth in the number and<br />

variety of campus programs designed to address<br />

them. Providing work flexibility and investing in<br />

support resources for children and families are bringing<br />

big returns in the form of health, happiness, and<br />

success at work that are welcomed by employees and<br />

employers alike. Kathy Luneau Simons ’79MS,<br />

innovator with a capital “I,” was one of the catalysts<br />

for bringing these issues to light, and credits <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

for framing her view of what children and families<br />

need to thrive.<br />

Kathy’s career began in early education at<br />

the John Winthrop School in Boston, where she<br />

supervised student teachers from <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

under the tutelage of Hildred Dodge Simons<br />

’75MS (her future mother-in-law and a <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

2007 honorary degree recipient). “I began taking<br />

graduate courses at <strong>Wheelock</strong> because as a new<br />

teacher I was so hungry for information and<br />

support,” she says. “<strong>Wheelock</strong> helped me develop<br />

a perspective on child development and learning<br />

and establish my values.”<br />

Kathy continued working as a preschool teacher<br />

and director and as a consultant and early childhood<br />

instructor at <strong>Wheelock</strong> and other Boston-area colleges.<br />

She then shifted from teaching to working at<br />

MIT as a child care specialist, a move that would<br />

ultimately have a big impact on her professional<br />

interests and help shape the emerging work/life field.<br />

“At MIT I was helping faculty and staff with child<br />

care issues, but I became convinced that this was just<br />

the tip of the iceberg for working families,” she<br />

explains. “They had needs that went way beyond<br />

child care.”<br />

At the time in 1989, Kathy says, resources to<br />

help with work/family issues were being developed<br />

for employees in the corporate sector but not in<br />

higher education. Still, she says, “MIT is all about<br />

supporting new ideas, giving you the freedom to run<br />

with an idea and see where it takes you.”<br />

Kathy and her colleague Rae Simpson used their<br />

autonomy at MIT to survey the Institute’s faculty,<br />

staff, and graduate students to find out how work<br />

experiences impacted their life plans and, conversely,<br />

how outside-of-work demands impacted MIT in<br />

terms of who the Institute was able to hire and<br />

retain and in terms of work productivity.<br />

Kathy established a comprehensive child care<br />

resource program for families at the Institute and<br />

then, together with Rae, moved on to develop<br />

responsive parenting programs and resources to<br />

help with family concerns, elder care, children’s<br />

schooling, raising adolescents, and many other<br />

issues. MIT institutionalized the programs as the<br />

Center for Work, Family & Personal Life, with<br />

Kathy and Rae as co-directors who continued to<br />

grow more resources — establishing guidelines for<br />

flexible work practices and developing Center<br />

consultations, lunchtime seminars, discussion<br />

groups, briefings, a library, and more — all free<br />

of charge to MIT affiliates.<br />

The model programs and practices the two<br />

women established brought MIT national recognition<br />

as a leader in the work/family field. More<br />

important, Kathy leveraged her success to co-found<br />

and serve as president of the <strong>College</strong> and University<br />

Work/Family Association, a national organization<br />

that in the past 10 years has supported the evolution<br />

of employer-based work/family resources on college<br />

and university campuses across the U.S.<br />

Institutionalizing work/family supports that<br />

improve the lives of children and families at the<br />

national level is a major and long overdue cultural<br />

shift, and it might be a great motivator for Kathy’s<br />

next new idea. But for her, it’s something simpler.<br />

After many years in the field, it’s the ongoing daily<br />

contact with parents and kids that still inspires her.<br />

“I hear their stories, and I help problem solve the<br />

things that are getting in their way,” she says.<br />

“There’s nothing more important.”<br />

Kathy led the effort to expand and reorganize MIT’s child<br />

care centers and, most recently, coordinated an innovative,<br />

state-of-the-art design for the Institute’s newest child care<br />

program at the Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center.


W H E E L O C K<br />

Space to Grow In<br />

I N N O V A T O R<br />

Louis Torelli ’83MS<br />

When Louis Torelli graduated<br />

with a master’s from <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

25 years ago, he had a<br />

head full of best-practice ideas<br />

about educating and caring for young children.<br />

But after six years of teaching, he developed<br />

some equally strong ideas about the classroom<br />

environment itself and the effect it can have on<br />

learning, ideas strong enough to make him<br />

change his career path.<br />

“Depending on their environment, young<br />

children can be aimlessly wandering or focused,<br />

and their peer relationships can be confrontational<br />

or involved with parallel play and interaction,”<br />

he explains. “The amount of space, how<br />

it is organized, and the types of equipment and<br />

activity areas in the environment have a huge<br />

impact on children. I’m also interested in how<br />

the environment can reduce the physical and<br />

emotional stress on caregivers so that they can<br />

focus on the deeper issues and work. Without<br />

the right environment, it’s easy for teachers and<br />

care providers to end up simply managing<br />

instead of teaching and caring for children in<br />

ways that stimulate development.”<br />

Today, Louis is known nationwide as a<br />

first-tier educational consultant and child<br />

development environmental designer, credited<br />

with establishing state-of-the-art standards for<br />

child care centers serving newborns through<br />

preschool-age children. Together with architect<br />

Charles Durrett, Louis founded Spaces for<br />

Children (www.spacesforchildren.com), a child<br />

care facility design firm that has<br />

merged child development and<br />

environmental design theory to<br />

provide children with environmentally<br />

and emotionally supportive<br />

group care experiences. Louis has<br />

gone on to design and renovate<br />

hundreds of child care centers and<br />

classrooms throughout the country<br />

and internationally. His consultancies<br />

include Educare Programs out<br />

of Chicago, recently completed<br />

work with Google on the design of<br />

their employee-sponsored child<br />

care centers, and his current projects<br />

at UC Berkeley and San Francisco<br />

State University.<br />

Louis’ approach to designing<br />

spaces for children is centered in his understanding<br />

of child development, play, and relationships<br />

with peers and care providers. Not<br />

surprising given his <strong>Wheelock</strong> education, Louis<br />

is a strong advocate for small groups, continuity<br />

of care, and designing environments that support<br />

children in developing a strong sense of<br />

identity, security, and curiosity. And because<br />

of his own experience, he knows the importance<br />

of making teacher convenience and enjoyment<br />

of the environment priorities.<br />

Improving children’s physical environments<br />

isn’t the only idea Louis has about how to optimize<br />

their development. His observations about<br />

gender are leading him to new policy ideas that<br />

“I realized the teaching environment was<br />

affecting my ability to do what I had been<br />

educated to do because so many of the issues<br />

that came up were impacted by the way the<br />

physical environment was organized. ”<br />

“I would like to see every student in<br />

middle school and high school serve in<br />

child care centers as a way to interest<br />

boys in the child care field and to give<br />

them experience so that they will be<br />

strong parents and advocates for childand<br />

family-friendly policies where<br />

they work.”<br />

could positively affect children and adults. “I<br />

almost never see men caring for infants and<br />

toddlers, and there are fewer men teaching now<br />

than when I began in 1979,” he says. “If we<br />

really want to change human behavior and if<br />

we understand about identity formation, then we<br />

need to look at having good men as role models<br />

for children, making teaching programs malefriendly,<br />

and hiring men in teaching and child<br />

care positions.”<br />

Louis isn’t shy about thinking up ways to<br />

make life better for children, teachers, and<br />

families. And he easily gives credit to his own<br />

teachers at <strong>Wheelock</strong> for helping him to think<br />

in innovative ways. “Gwen Morgan was wonderful<br />

in giving me a better sense of day care<br />

policy and politics and of being an advocate,”<br />

he says. “I use the skills she taught regularly in<br />

the advocacy work that I do.” And keep an eye<br />

out for the second edition of Educating and<br />

Caring for Very Young Children: The Infant/Toddler<br />

Curriculum, which Louis has co-written<br />

with former <strong>Wheelock</strong> Graduate School Dean<br />

Doris Bergen. <br />

32 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


CLASS NOTES<br />

This <strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine includes<br />

Class Notes news that was received<br />

before March 7, <strong>2008</strong>.<br />

1933<br />

Isabel Ward Knowlton’s son Peter notified<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> in late winter that Isabel had died<br />

Feb. 19. “She passed away peacefully at her<br />

home, with her family,” Peter wrote, adding<br />

that his mother’s interactions with others proved<br />

the value of good elementary education training:<br />

“Until the end, nobody (young or old)<br />

could get away with anything.”<br />

1934<br />

Corinne Martin Bryan wrote: “I am proud to<br />

realize the growth of ideas at <strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong>.<br />

It is interesting to me from alumni news about<br />

the new building being created by William<br />

Rawn, Architect. I have known Bill, my daughter’s<br />

classmate, since we all lived in San Marino,<br />

CA.” Corinne is “well and grateful for life” in<br />

her home in Waterbury Center, VT. She fondly<br />

remembers having dinner with Lucy <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

long ago. Jeanette Woodruff Fischer “hit 95”<br />

in March and feels fortunate to be in her wonderful<br />

retirement home in Bryn Mawr, PA,<br />

where she loves the people and the activities.<br />

She is grateful for her experience at <strong>Wheelock</strong>,<br />

her time as a wife, and now her wonderful son<br />

and daughter.<br />

1935<br />

Mary Hammer Heron of Oakville, Ontario,<br />

Canada, sent cordial greetings to the “survivors of<br />

1935” and other alums. She delights in the weekly<br />

cryptic crossword puzzle in the Toronto Globe<br />

and Mail. “Another special interest is in the<br />

Scrabble games I play with a fascinating friend<br />

here at Sunrise [her senior living place],” Mary<br />

wrote. “She is competitive, and we challenge each<br />

other. Sometimes she wins, and sometimes I do.”<br />

One of Mary’s firmly held beliefs, at age 94, is,<br />

“Most people are about as happy as they make up<br />

their minds to be.”<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Alumni Relations Office was sorry<br />

to hear from Elsie Medlicott Jacob’s daughter,<br />

Jere, that Elsie passed away in September 2006.<br />

“She always treasured her experience at <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

and was proud of that association,” Jere wrote.<br />

1937<br />

Eleanor Blossom Fisher turned 92 in January<br />

and is still living on her own in East Orleans,<br />

MA. She enjoys visits from family and friends,<br />

belongs to a knitting club, and loves <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s<br />

Cape Cod Club. “I was thrilled to be able to<br />

come to my Reunion [last] year and sit beside<br />

the <strong>Wheelock</strong> president,” she wrote.<br />

“It’s a good fun life in retirement,” Ellen<br />

Moak Lloyd wrote late last year. She works on a<br />

school’s scrapbook in its library once a week in<br />

addition to working at another local library and<br />

doing other things in the community. She also<br />

takes care of her home and knits a lot. Her family<br />

now includes 10 great-grandchildren, and she<br />

enjoys seeing and talking to them often.<br />

Katherine Douglas Smith and husband David<br />

had some serious surgeries in the summer of 2007<br />

but were thankful to be “all well and healthy”<br />

again by year’s end. They still walk a mile each day<br />

and are very busy with volunteer work and church<br />

work. Katherine was thrilled to be able to see her<br />

family, including four great-grandchildren, last<br />

Christmas.<br />

1938<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Margery Conley Mars ’66 notified <strong>Wheelock</strong> that<br />

Mildred Wheeler Flanders passed away last<br />

December. Not only did they live in neighboring<br />

towns in Maine, but Mildred had played organ at<br />

Margery’s church when Margery’s husband was pastor<br />

there, and he was a speaker at the funeral.<br />

Margery further mentioned that Mildred worked in<br />

the social work field for many years and that she and<br />

her husband owned a funeral home in the area and<br />

together founded the Monmouth (ME) Museum.<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 33


CLASS NOTES<br />

Betty Quick Collin ’38 and daughter Alice, Reunion <strong>2008</strong> attendees, at<br />

a wedding shower thrown for Alice in June 2007 by fellow members<br />

of her Zonta Club in Oregon<br />

Betty Quick Collin has been living with daughter<br />

Alice in Grants Pass, OR, since 1998. After Alice’s<br />

marriage in June 2007 — Betty was her attendant in<br />

the wedding — the two moved into new husband<br />

Rich’s home in the same town, also joining Rich’s<br />

17-year-old daughter and four cats!<br />

1940<br />

Mary Brewer Allen is fine in Kilmarnock, VA,<br />

and enjoys summer visits to Connecticut, where<br />

she enjoyed many lunches with Alma Mathewson<br />

Hinman ’43/’44 before her recent death. “I am so<br />

proud and love hearing all the great things going<br />

on at <strong>Wheelock</strong>,” Mary wrote.<br />

“With advanced age, ‘No news is the best<br />

news,’” Louise Martin Klemmer wrote. She is glad<br />

she settled in Concord, MA, a few years ago and is<br />

happy to report that she still chats with Katie Mara<br />

Madigan over lunch and keeps in touch with Inez<br />

Gianfranchi Snowdon by phone and letter. Louise<br />

continues to send greetings to friends despite having<br />

inherited familial tremors from a long-ago relative.<br />

“Chins up!” she wrote. Inez wrote in, too, from<br />

Kennebunk, ME, and shared about her weekly volunteer<br />

work at a church-sponsored “second time<br />

around shop.” She still gets to her summer place on<br />

Great East Lake and loves having young neighbors<br />

about while there. She hopes class members are<br />

keeping busy and doing well.<br />

1942-’43<br />

Stevie Roberts Thomas<br />

Gertrude “Becky” Gerenbeck Coady doesn’t<br />

“stray far from home” in Cranston, RI, where she<br />

and her husband have lived for 62 of their 64 years<br />

of marriage. Still gardening, they “eat, sleep, and<br />

read good books” on their front porch, enjoying<br />

relatively good health in their high 80s. Their children,<br />

grandchildren, and friends visit, and now and<br />

then Becky and Jan Gifford Rogers visit by phone.<br />

Elizabeth Newman Dubois wrote in January to<br />

inform us of the July 2007 death of her husband,<br />

Ed, after 64 years of marriage. “I’m alone but very<br />

lucky as my six ‘kids’ help me immeasurably,” she<br />

wrote. She has kept up her swimming, walking,<br />

and sewing for her church. She has fond memories<br />

of being at Reunion 2007 with Stevie, Eleanore,<br />

and Dorothy (all below).<br />

Eleanore Moginot Fisher says “Another year!”<br />

without much change in her home in Rockport,<br />

MA, although her house seems to get bigger every<br />

year. She does what she can and doesn’t worry about<br />

the rest. She is still out and around and independent,<br />

but she is glad that three of her sons are nearby<br />

to help at times. Eleanore’s oldest grandson is an<br />

artist, working at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts,<br />

and her youngest grandson, at 6 and living in<br />

Quebec, speaks English and French fluently. She<br />

sends greetings to all. Betty Crooks Morris spends<br />

winters with her daughter in Fort Myers, FL, and<br />

summers in the Adirondacks in Inlet, NY, with<br />

another daughter. Betty had a nice surprise this summer<br />

when Dotty Dondero Shorey, who lives in<br />

Maine but is in Massachusetts in the summertime,<br />

called. Both were <strong>Wheelock</strong> commuters many years<br />

ago. Betty had a bad fall last summer and took a<br />

long time to recover, but she is now fine and happy<br />

to be in Florida with “her girls” and, at 88, away<br />

from cold and snow. Barbara Bragdon Motas<br />

wrote: “After retiring from teaching, being a principal,<br />

being a top salesperson for cars, being an entrepreneur<br />

for a women’s specialty shop, and being a<br />

religious education director at St. Andrew’s<br />

Cathedral, I am relaxing and writing my autobiography.<br />

Someday I hope to visit <strong>Wheelock</strong> and see all<br />

of my friends.”<br />

Our class has so little news now, that I (Stevie)<br />

want to give a special thanks to you who do<br />

respond, and to give my warmest greetings to the<br />

rest who may find it difficult for one reason or<br />

another. I have my days and some evenings full<br />

with teaching Tai Chi for Health and Healing. It is<br />

rewarding work, and now I am developing a<br />

Sitting Tai Chi for Assisted Living people who<br />

would find it impossible to balance on foot but<br />

can benefit just the same. In early February, I was<br />

in China to celebrate the Chinese New Year<br />

(<strong>Spring</strong> Festival), my birthday, and the birthday of<br />

my Tai Chi master’s mother. We were in the northern<br />

city of Dandong on the Yalu River, feasting,<br />

wining and dining, exchanging gifts, and, best of<br />

all, setting off round after round of firecrackers in<br />

the land that invented them. I had a glorious trip<br />

to my home country. What a treat — a gift to me<br />

for helping my very dear immigrant family get on<br />

its feet in this country.<br />

Congratulations to Harriet<br />

<strong>Spring</strong> Critchlow ’43/’44<br />

Harriet received a special honor last year<br />

when Easton (MD) Day Care Center<br />

Inc. changed its name to Critchlow Adkins<br />

Children’s Centers to honor her and another<br />

founder of the organization, both of whom<br />

remain involved there today.<br />

The nonprofit child care program welcomed<br />

eight 3- and 4-year-olds when it<br />

opened in 1970 at a Methodist church in<br />

Easton; today, the organization serves about<br />

350 children at five sites in Talbot County.<br />

Harriet is credited with helping the center<br />

grow and develop over the years and has<br />

served as president and treasurer of its board.<br />

1943-‘44<br />

Jean Sullivan Riley<br />

1945<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Jean Reilly Cushing<br />

As always, I (Jean) am so pleased to hear from all of<br />

you, as I am sure your other classmates are. From<br />

the time when we were all focused on the same<br />

thing in college to now when our lives are so different,<br />

we all love to know what each of us is doing.<br />

Patty Slater Carey wrote that she had a rough<br />

year healthwise but is well on the road to recovery<br />

and feels fortunate to have been given another<br />

chance. She said Jane Tomlinson Lamb also had a<br />

difficult year but is recuperating. Patty keeps in<br />

touch with Maryanne Weber Lockyer and hears<br />

about Nancy Peirce Kyle through a neighbor, and<br />

all are grateful for their wonderful children who<br />

help through difficult times.<br />

Sally Dvlinsky Glickman wrote that she and<br />

husband Murray are enjoying the wellness center and<br />

book club at North Hill, a retirement community in<br />

Needham, MA. She has had a hip replacement. They<br />

enjoy watching their girls raising their families in the<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> tradition — both attended <strong>Wheelock</strong>.<br />

Natalie Alger Gorczyca enjoys two Red Hat Society<br />

groups. She has a new great-granddaughter, a little<br />

sweetheart, and enjoys her peace and quiet in her<br />

waterfront home overlooking the Elizabeth Islands<br />

(Fairhaven, MA). Lyn Peck Kenyon ’45/’69BS<br />

describes her job title as “slave” but seems to enjoy<br />

her many interesting projects of volunteering at<br />

school, choir, “Hyacinth Series” (music in her<br />

church), Philharmonic concerts, and Garden Club.<br />

She was looking forward to the <strong>Wheelock</strong> luncheon<br />

on March 13 and had had Jackie Jenkins-Scott and<br />

husband Jim visit for luncheon on Jan. 5. Nadene<br />

“Deanie” Nichols Lane has five young adults in her<br />

34 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


CLASS NOTES<br />

family plus nine grandchildren and two “great<br />

ones” — all a great pleasure. She has spent the past<br />

five winters in Islamabad, Pakistan, but this winter<br />

was in Dubai with her family. She says she is well but<br />

slowing down.<br />

Rosalie Russo is treasurer of her church and<br />

very active in it in many ways. She still keeps up<br />

with the Pigeon Cove Circle, a social and benevolent<br />

organization in Rockport, MA. She hopes to<br />

get to our next Reunion. Mary Sabine Schade is<br />

living near her eldest daughter in upstate New<br />

York. “She knows she has less memory now but<br />

talks joyfully of her years of teaching for which she<br />

credits <strong>Wheelock</strong> for her excellent and creative<br />

preparation,” daughter Camilla wrote. Daughter<br />

Carolyn sent the Alumni Relations Office some<br />

newspaper photos of Mary — two from when<br />

Mary was a <strong>Wheelock</strong> senior and had just painted<br />

a mural at the <strong>College</strong>, and one from last fall,<br />

when a photographer covering an art show in<br />

Ithaca got a great shot of her admiring a fellow<br />

artist’s painting. Mary Davies Wolff continues to<br />

volunteer at the hospital woman’s club and<br />

church. Her children are a wonderful help to her<br />

as her husband passed away two years ago. Both<br />

her son and her daughter have two children.<br />

Bill and I are still in Madison, CT, and<br />

Vermont. We are truly enjoying four grandchildren.<br />

We bring library books to Aidan, and I<br />

“Cat” and Bill “Mr. Walters” take turns reading —<br />

she is “Chicago.” All are characters from “Chicago<br />

and the Cat.” We baby-sit twice a week or more<br />

with Jasmin, our daughter Gretta’s 10-month-old,<br />

as she is a doctor of psychology and has opened<br />

her own practice! We are well — and I am still<br />

tutoring at home.<br />

1947<br />

Carol Sisson Freeman still sings with a Sweet<br />

Adeline chorus and goes to the gym three times a<br />

week with husband Bill. Their summers are very<br />

busy since they live on the St. Lawrence River and<br />

have a lot of company visit. “The <strong>College</strong> looks<br />

great, and I am sure it will continue to grow,” Carol<br />

wrote. Mary Hemphill Haring sounded thrilled<br />

that her “tribe” was all with her for Thanksgiving<br />

last year, including her new daughter-in-law and<br />

three dogs! Last winter she was involved in a<br />

hat/glove/scarf drive (for inner-city youth) sponsored<br />

by the Women’s Guild of her church. She<br />

keeps busy between her church group, health club,<br />

and “lady lunches.” Ann-Penn Stearns Holton is<br />

very happy at her assisted-living place in Bedford,<br />

MA. “The 60th Reunion was wonderful!” she<br />

wrote. “The <strong>College</strong> did a great job. I loved seeing<br />

classmates.” Ann Gilbert Putnam wrote at<br />

Christmastime from California, where she was visiting<br />

her daughters. The summer of 2007 was “the<br />

hottest ever” in Scottsdale, AZ, so she escaped to<br />

Rhode Island for a couple of weeks. She wrote that<br />

keeping up with water aerobics seems to work for<br />

her: She is in good health.<br />

1948<br />

Carol Moore<br />

Lila Abrash Rosenthal goes to Richmond (from<br />

Lynchburg, VA) at least twice a month to visit her<br />

sister, son, and granddaughter. She finds it hard to<br />

believe it’s time for a 60th Reunion: “It seems as<br />

though we graduated last year.”<br />

1950<br />

Support Those Following Your Lead<br />

D<br />

id you know that 91 percent of <strong>Wheelock</strong> students need financial aid in<br />

order to graduate and join with thousands of proud alumni who are doing<br />

great things in the world? Your gift to the Annual Fund will help provide essential<br />

scholarship and financial support for students who share your dreams and goals.<br />

Remember, credit card gifts save time and money. To make a secure gift<br />

online, visit http://www.wheelock.edu/giving/index.asp. Thank you so much!<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Edith “Anne” Runk Wright<br />

Polly Page Cobb left Maine on Jan. 12 for her<br />

trailer in Dover, FL. “Since Ken passed away, it’s<br />

not the same,” wrote Polly, but she has many friends<br />

there, some also widows, who are supportive.<br />

Beverly Simon Green has had more than her share<br />

of, as she puts it, “Doctors! Doctors! Doctors!”<br />

That’s all behind, and now she enjoys her many<br />

friends from Florida to Vermont, Hilton Head to<br />

Oregon, and New York state to Colorado. She sees<br />

Dot Hutchens Seelow and keeps in touch with Russ<br />

and Edie Nowers White. Daughter Liz is just 10<br />

minutes away, and son Marty, from Connecticut,<br />

was married in February. All of that plus many activities<br />

at her church keep Bev busy, tired, and (I<br />

[Anne] bet) happy, too. Joan Rogers Libby and<br />

husband Frederic live at 126 Village Square Road,<br />

Centerville, UT 84014; (501) 294-0242.<br />

Joan Trace Riel’s good news is of a reunion in<br />

Massachusetts with Nancy Spencer Adams, her<br />

former roommate at Pilgrim House. Her sad news<br />

is that her husband, Len, was diagnosed with fourstage<br />

cancer in May 2007, the same month in<br />

which Joan broke her femur. He died in October.<br />

We extend our sympathy and best wishes to you,<br />

Joan. The Riel children and other family members<br />

are helping Joan learn to cope with this serious<br />

loss. Sydney Weaver Schultheis wrote about the<br />

nice visit we had together last summer in Rhode<br />

Island. (For more details, read my news.) Sydney<br />

and Walt planned a trip to Thailand this past<br />

February. It was probably hard for them to part<br />

with their new grandson, Christian, though, who<br />

Sydney says is “perfect!”<br />

Retirement has not been kind to either Dorothy<br />

“Dot” Hutchens Seelow or husband Don. Dot had<br />

serious eye surgery and has little vision in one eye.<br />

In addition, she has acute tendinitis in her left elbow<br />

and has been unable to play golf, her great love. Due<br />

to poor equilibrium, Don has had many falls, a broken<br />

left hand, and so much time in rehab that he<br />

wasn’t home for Christmas. In addition, the Seelows<br />

had to cancel a trip north last July. However, the<br />

warm weather in Florida is a plus. So are the occasional<br />

lunches with Russ and Edie Nowers White,<br />

but Beverly Simon Green’s move to the Cape is a<br />

loss for Dot, who so much enjoyed having her close<br />

by. Florence Milman Walker had a great year. As<br />

usual, she rented a cottage in Wellfleet, MA, for<br />

three weeks in August, and her children and grandchildren<br />

came for visits. In September, she went to<br />

Venice, Florence, and Rome with additional side<br />

trips, and she was planning to go to Antarctica in<br />

February. (You’re really burning with enthusiasm.<br />

Don’t stop!)<br />

Despite a few medical problems, late last year<br />

Edie Nowers White reported that she had “a<br />

good, happy 2007” and was looking forward to<br />

<strong>2008</strong>. She rides her three-wheel bicycle around<br />

the flat terrain of her neighborhood and does<br />

water exercises in their home pool. She had a<br />

good visit in May 2007 from her granddaughter<br />

Heather from Newton, MA. Heather is the manager<br />

of two Gymboree and Music franchises in<br />

Waltham, where children and their parents participate<br />

in exercises while sitting in a circle on the<br />

floor. Edie found it interesting to visit these classes.<br />

Edie and Russ spent two weeks in Maine over<br />

Labor Day. In November, they had a wonderful<br />

time in Bermuda, where they celebrated their<br />

57th anniversary, joined by Russ’ cousins from<br />

Bermuda, who celebrated their 54th anniversary<br />

with them. There was a lovely dinner for both<br />

couples where Edie had a chance to visit with<br />

Russ’ many cousins from Bermuda.<br />

I (Anne) continued my split life during 2007,<br />

enjoying New York all through the winter and<br />

early spring, especially in the company of Mary<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 35


CLASS NOTES<br />

Hathaway Hayter. She lured me to the opera several<br />

times, and we enjoy going to plays, concerts, and<br />

movies and the chance to talk for hours over dinner.<br />

I had a wonderful winter visit with Mickey<br />

Livingston Epes and husband Morgan in Buffalo<br />

and saw Nancy Sayles-Evarts in her lovely home in<br />

the woods whenever I could. Both visits involved<br />

delicious food and drink, warm and gracious hospitality,<br />

stimulating talk, and strong criticism of the<br />

“Leave No Child Behind” bill.<br />

The spring, summer, and early fall found me<br />

spading up my vegetable garden, fighting weeds,<br />

monitoring the piping plovers on the nearby beach<br />

(we saved 39 chicks of this endangered species),<br />

and seeing family and friends. Walt and Sydney<br />

Weaver Schultheis came over for dinner, and I had<br />

a delicious lunch and a long walk on Sydney’s<br />

beach with them.<br />

I’m doing a bit of my own writing and waiting<br />

for the paperback of A Wild Perfection, the book I<br />

co-edited of my husband’s letters, to come out from<br />

Wesleyan University Press. I truly enjoy this life but<br />

find I now pack a lighter suitcase, dawdle longer<br />

over morning coffee and The New York Times, wish<br />

my feet didn’t hurt and that it wasn’t so hard to get<br />

up from a seated position, and forever bless my<br />

wonderful friends. I just wish the days didn’t skid<br />

by so fast, and I long for PEACE.<br />

1952<br />

Martha Brown McGandy<br />

Martha was kind enough to agree to serve as class<br />

scribe this year and help compile a 1952 column for<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s fall alumni magazine, but we would love<br />

to find another classmate who is willing and able to<br />

take on the job longer-term, ideally until Reunion<br />

2012. Anyone who might want to consider doing so<br />

should contact Lori Ann Saslav in Alumni Relations<br />

at (617) 879-2123 or lsaslav@wheelock.edu.<br />

Thank you.<br />

1953<br />

Ruth Flink Ades<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> was sorry to hear in February of the death<br />

of Peggy Ann Benisch Anderson’s husband, Carl.<br />

1954<br />

Lois Barnett Mirsky<br />

Elizabeth Bassett Wolf<br />

Ginger Mercer Bates wrote: “The greatest ‘thing’ I<br />

learned at <strong>Wheelock</strong> was the importance of being<br />

respectful of others. And the importance of friendship.<br />

These lessons have carried me on all the paths I<br />

have chosen to take and some paths that just happened.<br />

I am so thankful for those years.” She added,<br />

36 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong><br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

“Our youngest is getting married in April . . . finally!<br />

We love his fiance . . . a tiny wedding on the beach<br />

in California . . . in tux and with Fran Tedesco<br />

Lathrop in tow. Hugs all around.” Sylvia Tailby<br />

Earl wrote: “Last September, Jim and I had a wonderful<br />

art tour of Spain — the Prado in Madrid,<br />

Gaudi architecture in Barcelona, and visits to Dali<br />

and Picasso museums. Wonderful food and weather!”<br />

After attending a dinner to meet the architect for<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s new building last September, she said,<br />

“<strong>Wheelock</strong> has certainly changed since our day.”<br />

Our class sends its condolences to Eileen<br />

O’Connell McCabe on the death of her husband,<br />

Don, in January. Mary Jeffords Mills’ husband,<br />

Brooks, wrote that Mary is in a nursing home suffering<br />

from dementia. He thought her many friends<br />

would want to know their circumstances and ended<br />

the letter with, “<strong>Wheelock</strong> is always a milestone in<br />

her life and career.”<br />

Penny Power Odiorne had her house on the<br />

market in anticipation of moving to a senior residential<br />

complex in Vero Beach, but with the market<br />

change, she later withdrew it “until things turn<br />

around and settle down.” Her sons and a daughterin-law<br />

visit twice a year, and she will see her 16-<br />

and 13-year-old grandchildren while in Maine this<br />

summer. “It is always good to hear about my classmates,”<br />

Penny wrote. “Some of the news saddens<br />

me. I have lost all three of my siblings, and that is<br />

such a hard reality to deal with. As the saying goes,<br />

‘Aging is not for sissies.’” Nancy Pennypacker<br />

Temple and Dick traveled to the Southwest before<br />

Christmas, enjoying Phoenix, Sedona, and trips to<br />

the north, west, and east of Sun City. Nancy continues<br />

to take her dogs to Cape Coral (FL) Hospital<br />

to brighten the days for patients.<br />

Sue Hamburger Thurston wrote that husband<br />

Bob died last October of an incurable lung disease.<br />

They were married for nearly 51 years. Part of a<br />

long letter Sue wrote about how <strong>Wheelock</strong> still<br />

influences her life went like this: “For as long as I<br />

can remember, babies and young children were It. I<br />

was attracted to them like a magnet. I enjoyed my<br />

volunteer work in the public schools in Illinois and<br />

here in Florida, where I help immigrant children<br />

who need extra one-on-one help. I also teach ESL<br />

to adults.” She also wrote, “Our two daughters are<br />

elementary school teachers, and though they didn’t<br />

go to <strong>Wheelock</strong>, something wore off from their<br />

mother because they parent just like a <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

grad would.”<br />

Elizabeth “Chippy” Bassett Wolf shared: “A<br />

highlight for me last fall was going on my first<br />

cruise, organized by a group of graduates from<br />

Harvard Business School, Class of ’50. Since Hans<br />

graduated in ’53 from HBS, I was able to be<br />

included, as was a widow friend from Stanford. It<br />

was the first trip that either of us had been on without<br />

our husbands. It was good to get out again and<br />

discover that life goes on. The Burgundy and<br />

Provence areas in France are so beautiful.”<br />

Every Tuesday when I (Lois) walk into the elementary<br />

school where I help six first-graders<br />

improve their reading skills, I realize how satisfying it<br />

is for me to be in a school environment. I credit<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> with instilling in me a love for lifelong<br />

learning and for giving me the skills to work creatively<br />

with children. For me, the best way to feel<br />

young (or at least young at heart) in these retirement<br />

years is to spend time with young children.<br />

1955<br />

Nancy Cerruti Humphreys<br />

Penny Kickham Reilly<br />

Happy spring to everyone! To start, our thoughts<br />

and prayers go out to Judy Barrett Theroux, who<br />

lost her son last spring. A trip to Alaska this summer<br />

should be great fun and good therapy. Judy<br />

was hoping to see Judy Haskell Rosenberg and<br />

Marilyn Dow Byrne in St. Petersburg in March.<br />

Joan Walthers Parks and Kathy Law Walker were<br />

also perhaps going to join them.<br />

Lil Prakelt Goss with Don and family had a<br />

reunion in Yellowstone. She and Don are enjoying<br />

their new home in West Lebanon, NH, near<br />

Dartmouth <strong>College</strong>. What a treat for them both!<br />

Betsey DeWitt Matteson is well and continues<br />

with her gardening and diary reading. (I [Penny]<br />

would love to know more about the diary reading.)<br />

Stella Barnes Johnson is busy with her estate sales.<br />

At the same time, she is on the board of the local<br />

Red Cross (fundraising for them with antiques and<br />

collectibles), a member of the Historical Society,<br />

and a great-grandmother. She is a busy lady!<br />

Former scribe Louise Baldridge Lytle loves<br />

volunteering in a second grade. She is also working<br />

with a personal trainer and feels wonderful.<br />

She keeps in touch with <strong>Wheelock</strong> friends. It’s<br />

her scribe habit and her graciousness. Anne<br />

Vermillion Gleason and Ted are adjusting to life<br />

in Washington, D.C., near her youngest daughter<br />

and family. Ted is working on a novel and Ann on<br />

family memoirs. Except for a fractured ankle, she<br />

is well and happy. Joan Brassel Gerace is spending<br />

time between Florida and Rochester, NY. She<br />

and Vincent’s pride and joy are their grandchildren.<br />

Her best wishes go to all.<br />

The usually busy Joleen Glidden Ham and husband<br />

Dick are still working — Dick in the local<br />

schools, and Joleen with a senior citizens volunteer<br />

program. She is singing in the church choir and a<br />

small group called the Senior Echoes. She and Dick<br />

celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary and her<br />

mother’s 100th birthday. She sounds as enthusiastic<br />

as ever! Shirley Thurmond Stanley says she is alive<br />

and well in Green Bay, WI. She has 11 grandchildren,<br />

and her oldest returned safe and healthy from a<br />

tour of duty in Iraq. Her knee surgery was a success,<br />

and she was looking forward to spending some of<br />

March and April on Marco Island. She sounds great!


CLASS NOTES<br />

Speaking of Florida, your scribe Penny<br />

Kickham Reilly was invited to spend a few days<br />

with Shirl while in Florida during March. I am still<br />

part-time at St. Sebastian’s. I had my 75th birthday<br />

in September (ugh). The children are around, which<br />

is a joy. Three of my grandchildren are in college at<br />

Tampa, The <strong>College</strong> of Charleston, and Boulder,<br />

CO, and two are still in high school. Well, keep the<br />

news coming! It was great hearing from you who<br />

answered, but even more of you would be nice.<br />

1956<br />

Wilma Kinsman Marr<br />

Annette Stevens Wilton<br />

Marlene Hahn Powers followed through and sent<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> a copy of the story she said would appear<br />

in the Connecticut Education Association’s teaching<br />

paper in the spring of 2007 about her 50-year teaching<br />

career. Except for one sabbatical in the mid-<br />

1970s, Marlene taught continuously from 1956 to<br />

2007 — more than 1,500 students, she estimates.<br />

She started and ended in southwestern Connecticut<br />

but in between also taught in Maryland and Illinois.<br />

One of her proudest moments came in 2003, when<br />

she was teaching at South School in New Canaan,<br />

CT, and was honored by her fellow teachers with<br />

the school’s Excellence in Teaching award. “For me,<br />

teaching is a creative experience . . . an art — a mode<br />

of self-expression,” she told the “CEA Advisor” in<br />

the spring of 2007. To <strong>Wheelock</strong> last August, she<br />

wrote, “I am very proud of the article and my<br />

accomplishments, but I owe such applause to<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> for providing me the firm and secure<br />

foundation to pursue such a career.” Congratulations<br />

again, Marlene!<br />

1957<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Alumni<br />

Class Notes and News<br />

M<br />

uch appreciation to everyone who sends us alumni news<br />

appearing in your local newspapers. We appreciate your<br />

keeping us informed! If you see any news about <strong>Wheelock</strong> alumni<br />

in your local paper, please clip it out, write the name of the publication and the<br />

date on it, and send it to: Lori Ann Saslav, <strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong>, 200 The Riverway,<br />

Boston, MA 02215. Thank you!<br />

Joan Patterson Brown<br />

Gail Angleman Brusch had a great time at<br />

Reunion 2007. Late last year, she and Donald were<br />

getting ready to move to a retirement village and<br />

were “going crazy with all the ‘stuff’ to sort<br />

through” after 29 years in their house. Bernadette<br />

deGutierrez-Mahoney and husband Wallace wrote<br />

last December of a fun day Bernadette had just had<br />

taking her daughter, her granddaughter, and a<br />

friend from Australia into New York City to see the<br />

sights and go to a show. Ann Hewes Foden and<br />

husband Robert saw many castles and cathedrals<br />

and drank many different kinds of wine during<br />

their 17 rainy and snowy days on a river barge on<br />

the Danube and Rhine rivers last November. They<br />

had their “usual good time” hosting a Portland<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Club party in December and were looking<br />

forward to spending April in Venice, FL.<br />

Late last fall, Carol Chapin Sawyer reported<br />

from Biltmore Lake, NC, that she was trying to figure<br />

out her next move after husband Griffith went<br />

to live with family in Kentucky after some major<br />

heart surgery he’d had. She felt peace about their<br />

separation but was feeling very alone with no family<br />

around her. She updated <strong>Wheelock</strong> in February<br />

that, after having her North Carolina house on the<br />

market for three months, she took it off and decided<br />

to stay put and enjoy her time there. She loves<br />

Asheville and all there is to do there: taking<br />

University of North Carolina courses and knitting<br />

and painting classes, doing volunteer work, teaching<br />

art at a Christian academy, and being active at her<br />

church and in a book club. Although she misses a<br />

lot of things about Maine, she was happy not to be<br />

there for all the cold and snow last winter and will<br />

get to South Portland for two months this summer.<br />

She spent last Christmas with one of her sons and<br />

his family. If you’d like to be in touch with Carol,<br />

she’s at Carol@painta.org.<br />

Having such a great time at Reunion and seeing<br />

the beautiful campus again made Shirley Collins<br />

Schwarz-Gutherz want to return to college! “I’m<br />

very proud of being a <strong>Wheelock</strong> graduate,” she<br />

wrote. “I think that Jackie Jenkins-Scott is an outstanding<br />

woman and is doing great things as president<br />

of <strong>Wheelock</strong>.” Shirley retired about 10 years<br />

ago and says she’s been busy ever since. She married<br />

Leon in 2004, and they have fun traveling and visiting<br />

the 10 grandchildren they have between them.<br />

Shirley saw Marlene Hahn Powers ’56 at a luncheon<br />

in Greenwich, CT, last year.<br />

“Our 50th Reunion was outstanding!” Francine<br />

McNamee Shea wrote. “We received so much<br />

attention, and I felt like it was 1957 again.” Sally<br />

Curran Smith’s husband, Arlen, has been diagnosed<br />

with brain cancer. Please keep them in your<br />

thoughts and prayers. Sachiko “Faith” Yamada<br />

Yamamoto ’56/’57MS (sfy@mtf.biglobe.ne.jp) would<br />

love to hear from any and all of you. She said it was<br />

wonderful to see us face-to-face at the Reunion in<br />

Boston even if it was such a short time. (It was so<br />

special to meet her daughter, Michiko. Imagine flying<br />

from Tokyo to Boston for a weekend! Faith and<br />

Michiko, it was fun having you with us! Hugs!)<br />

My (Joan’s) Boa Sisters raised $30,000 for their<br />

charities in 2007 — a total of $71,580 in five years!<br />

I am so proud of them.<br />

It’s GREAT to have responses from some of<br />

“The Ladies of ’57”; however, we will not be happy<br />

until we hear from the rest of you. Our 50th was<br />

such fun. We miss you all. Please send some news.<br />

We . . . are . . . waiting!<br />

1958<br />

Marcia Potter Crocker<br />

Carol Stuart Wenmark<br />

Barbara “Bobbie” Stumpf<br />

Moses ’58<br />

Barbara “Bobbie” Moses, of Riverhead, NY,<br />

was a teacher in the Riverhead Central School<br />

District for 28 years, enjoying her years of<br />

teaching fifth- and sixth-graders and often<br />

crediting <strong>Wheelock</strong> for making her the teacher<br />

she became. Bobbie died on April 7, <strong>2008</strong>, at<br />

Peconic Bay Medical Center after a short illness.<br />

She was born in Jamaica, Queens, NY,<br />

on July 22, 1935, to Orlando and Dorothy<br />

Stumpf and graduated from Norwalk High<br />

School before enrolling at <strong>Wheelock</strong>. Bobbie<br />

leaves a son, Trip Sanford Moses; a daughter,<br />

Allison Moses Nistico ’87; and a grandson,<br />

Austin. Her family requests that donations on<br />

Bobbie’s behalf be made to <strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong>,<br />

Class of 1958.<br />

1959<br />

Sally Schwabacher Hottle<br />

In February, Bonnie Steele Clark wrote, “It is with<br />

great sorrow that I let you know about the passing of<br />

Eb (my husband of 49 years) on Jan. 13, <strong>2008</strong>. He is<br />

missed, but I know he is in a wonderful place.”<br />

1960<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Phyllis Pisano<br />

Susan Robbins Berger listed the many “pleasures”<br />

she finds in her life these days: her 93-year-old<br />

mother, who lives nearby; her children and<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 37


CLASS NOTES<br />

grandchildren; her flourishing private practice;<br />

her pro bono work for the American Red Cross<br />

Holocaust Tracing Program; and her and Bob’s<br />

vacation home in Charlestown, RI. They love<br />

having family and friends visit them in Charlestown,<br />

and she said it’s zoned for horses . . . “in case<br />

you travel with one!” Priscilla Bagg Donham<br />

has enjoyed a “busy and rewarding life.” She<br />

retired in 2006 from two careers — running a<br />

preschool at M.I.T. for 19 years and teaching<br />

handicapped children and adults to ride horses<br />

for 18. She now trains horses for the program,<br />

Windrush Farm Therapeutic Equitation in<br />

Boxford, MA. She and husband Brett, who celebrated<br />

50 years of marriage this February, have a<br />

house in Headtide, Alma, ME, which they use<br />

on weekends and all summer. They also travel to<br />

Italy as much as possible to “visit friends, help<br />

with their olive oil harvest, and travel Tuscany<br />

and surrounds.” Their four children are all married<br />

and busy, and they have nine grandchildren.<br />

Linda McSwiney Lynch is using her <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

education to teach 5-year-olds at Communitiy<br />

Bible Study in Avon, CT. She and husband<br />

George are raising their 10th guide dog puppy<br />

now, having had their ninth placed with a<br />

woman in Philadelphia. She feels very proud to<br />

be doing this work.<br />

“My passion continues to be singing excellent<br />

choral music with New Mexico State University<br />

Choirs,” Sara Thompson Orton wrote late last<br />

year. She also serves as the choirs’ publicity director.<br />

In May 2007, Sara joined other NMSU adults<br />

and students on a trip to Graz and “charming<br />

and fascinating” Vienna, Austria, where they<br />

sang in churches and cathedrals. “I think back<br />

to <strong>Wheelock</strong>, where our choir was also fortunate<br />

enough to go to other schools to perform:<br />

Bowdoin and Union <strong>College</strong>s, to name two,” she<br />

wrote. “And we sang at the Boston Pops. What a<br />

great start!” Daughter Sally was married in New<br />

Orleans last September, and Sara encourages anyone<br />

who can to go to the city either to visit or to<br />

help with rebuilding.<br />

Since Jan Halsted Sussebach last wrote, she<br />

and husband Heiner have retired from teaching<br />

at the University of Saarland; have made a pilgrimage<br />

to Chambon Sur Lignon, the village in<br />

France where they met in 1956; and have accumulated<br />

two more grandchildren, for a total of<br />

four. “For those of you who have family at long<br />

distances, we highly recommend Skyping,” Jan<br />

wrote. “We chat and see each other on the computer<br />

at no cost. It’s a terrific way of keeping little<br />

cousins connected as well.” In her family’s<br />

case, three grandchildren in Belgium are inspired<br />

to speak English with the little one in Vermont.<br />

She and Heiner plan to continue “straddling the<br />

Atlantic” and are considering moving their stateside<br />

residence from Piermont, NY, to somewhere<br />

A “special happening” for Tina Morris Helm ’64/’98MS — her and husband Bill’s whole family together, in July 2007<br />

in southern Vermont. “Are any of you classmates<br />

located up that way?” she asks. “Any recommendations/suggestions?”<br />

1963<br />

Jane Kuehn Kittredge<br />

1964<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Phyllis Forbes Kerr<br />

Roberta Gilbert Marianella<br />

Patricia Burke retired from her job of 17 years at<br />

Paramount and is now a consultant and director of<br />

dramatic rights for InkWell Management. She will<br />

represent InkWell’s lit properties to the movie business.<br />

She is excited about that and wrote, “Working<br />

at InkWell will allow me to continue to do what I<br />

love the most — to read a book while envisioning<br />

its movie.” Over Christmas, Patricia and Fergus<br />

enjoyed traveling to Paris and Guatemala.<br />

Sarah Beebe Davis had a busy year making six<br />

flower girl dresses for her granddaughters to wear in<br />

her daughter’s wedding this past summer. She also<br />

fashioned their baskets from silk and lace from her<br />

own wedding gown. Sarah continues to teach and<br />

participate in the Standardized Patient Program of<br />

the UMass Medical School. Barb Russell Williams<br />

can walk a mile trail to both of her part-time jobs in<br />

Bellevue, WA: education coordinator and program<br />

manager for the Eastside Heritage Center and director<br />

of the science-based K-5 education programs at<br />

the Bellevue Botanical Garden. Her son is a computer<br />

graphics wizard who lives nearby, and her daughter<br />

and family have recently moved to Scottsdale,<br />

AZ. Sue Greenleaf Anderson does the office work<br />

for her husband’s land surveying business, is curator<br />

at the Walpole (MA) Historical Society, and has<br />

taken a variety of trips, including a small ship tour of<br />

“Holland and Belgium in Bloom.”<br />

Betsy McIntyre Doepken retired on her 65th<br />

birthday — and not a moment too soon! Her son and<br />

daughter-in-law in Alaska had just had their second<br />

set of twin girls — baby twins, 10-year-old twins, and<br />

a big brother! Betsy keeps in touch with Barbara<br />

Wilson Parks and Priscilla Nelson Linville, who is<br />

still teaching in the New York state prison system.<br />

Eleanor “Noni” Noble Linton is another grandma<br />

(of seven) with long-distance grandchildren — China<br />

and Japan. Granddaughters ages 8 and 12 live in<br />

Beijing and attend a totally bilingual school. She also<br />

has a granddaughter in Japan. Noni and John enjoy<br />

living in a CCRC in Charlton, MA. They’ve been<br />

taking advantage of their ability to travel anytime<br />

now that Noni’s retired, and in 2007 they went on a<br />

cruise to Bermuda; visited a new grandson in<br />

Washington, D.C.; traveled to Minnesota to visit<br />

another child and family; and went to John’s parents’<br />

birthplace in Indiana to see some of his relatives.<br />

They are also involved in chorus, painting and drawing<br />

class, and fitness, and Noni is on the CCRC’s<br />

Resident Council.<br />

Jessi Ruth MacLeod ’64/’92MS traveled crosscountry<br />

to Morrowstone Island, WA, last June for a<br />

reunion of 21 family members. Cousins and siblings<br />

had great fun beachcombing, doing jigsaw<br />

puzzles, playing, and talking. (She doesn’t say who<br />

did the cooking!) The cycle of life offered sadness at<br />

the death of her dad and stepmother, and joy when<br />

two more grandchildren were born later in the year.<br />

Mary Ellen Freeman Smith is staying young with<br />

seven grandchildren under 8. She subs in special<br />

education and consults, and she had a great trip to<br />

Paris last fall. Janet Larsen Weyenberg wrote<br />

from Hawaii that her grandson Kaikane traveled<br />

from Columbus, OH, to celebrate his first birthday<br />

on Kaimana Beach, the same beach on which his<br />

mom had her first birthday! Janet and her husband<br />

see the USA by “collecting” National Parks.<br />

Rhoda Henkels Pykonen is owner-managerdesigner<br />

of Queen Anne’s Landscaping in<br />

Grapeview, WA. Her passion is the salvation and<br />

appreciation of native trees and plants. The arrival<br />

of big developers in her area has brought fallen trees<br />

and bulldozed plants, soon followed by flooding.<br />

Hopefully educators and nature conservancy groups<br />

can help stem the destructive tide. Rachel Ripley<br />

38 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


CLASS NOTES<br />

Roach substitutes in K-4, plays tennis, teaches in a<br />

literacy program, and is active in the California<br />

Retired Teachers’ Association. Tina Morris Helm<br />

’64/’98MS continues to serve as a trustee for<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong>, volunteers in the local (New<br />

London, NH) elementary school, drives for the<br />

Council on Aging, supports Bill in his role of board<br />

chair of the New London Hospital, plays tennis,<br />

AND has fun with her six grandchildren. She is<br />

proud and supportive of the new directions<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> is taking. She and Bill traveled to Nova<br />

Scotia to see Noel Stoodley Gray and Don. The<br />

Grays, who have three grandchildren, split their<br />

time between their Nova Scotia cabin and home in<br />

Yarmouth Port, MA.<br />

Glee Tilley Miner, Bob, Paul, and I (Roberta)<br />

joined friends in Boone, NC, for a beautiful week<br />

of autumn foliage and majestic mountain vistas.<br />

Glee retired in July 2007 but returns to Chase<br />

Collegiate as a substitute teacher. I serve on a variety<br />

of boards; swim and play Scrabble with the grandchildren;<br />

and play golf and travel with Paul. We<br />

have particularly enjoyed attending the Naples, FL,<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> lunch and hearing President Jenkins-<br />

Scott share her vision of the school and gains made<br />

each year in reaching lofty goals. Very exciting!<br />

1965<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Alumni Social Networking!<br />

N<br />

ora Lerdau Howley ’81 and her alumni friends have created a<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Group on Ravelry, an online social networking community<br />

for knitters and crocheters. They would love to find other <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

folks already on Revelry or who want to join their group. Contact Nora<br />

directly if you have questions at norahowley@yahoo.com.<br />

Mary Barnard O’Connell<br />

Marsha M-Geough Vaughan<br />

Wonderful news comes from our classmates! Their<br />

experiences and work give ideas for each of us to<br />

consider for future endeavors. Donna Johnson<br />

Grinnell and Elsa Chaffee Distelhorst wrote from<br />

opposite coasts of the United States. Donna manages<br />

the gift shop at Emerson Hospital in Concord,<br />

MA. She oversees 40 volunteers and three buyers.<br />

This part-time position provides time to share with<br />

the “joy of her life” — her first and only grandchild,<br />

Emerson. Elsa is a major gift fundraiser at<br />

Whitworth University, a liberal arts university in<br />

Spokane, WA. She wrote, “I just love working in<br />

higher education, attending lectures and working<br />

with the young people!” Her work takes her all<br />

around the country and to Hawaii. She also serves as<br />

a nonprofit volunteer in several different areas. Her<br />

present favorite board work, shared with her husband,<br />

is with the Spokane World Affairs Council.<br />

Nancy Clarke Steinberger and Donna both know<br />

the joy of having a first grandchild. Nancy wrote<br />

that new grandparents share “the joys and thrills of<br />

touching and holding these little miracles of life.”<br />

Sue Bright Belanger participated in<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s international service learning trip to<br />

Belfast, Northern Ireland. Children from different<br />

generations continue the healing process after<br />

decades of sectarian fighting. Sue retired recently<br />

and cherished the opportunity to interact with<br />

children again. She also founded and directs her<br />

own business called Coaches for Kids. After interviewing<br />

parents and teachers, students are matched<br />

with teachers who can best meet the needs of each<br />

student. Daphne “Taffy” Hastings Wilcox is<br />

keeping herself healthy by means of a holistic<br />

lifestyle. Exercise and massage, coupled with chiropractic<br />

and homeopathic medicine, help her to<br />

attain a good quality of life. She volunteers in her<br />

own parish and for the Episcopal Diocese of<br />

Connecticut. She is a trustee of the Bishops’ Fund<br />

for Children, which grants money to programs for<br />

children at risk in Connecticut. Hospice care, a<br />

memory support center, and a safe home for children<br />

are places that Taffy and her cocker spaniels<br />

volunteer. Taffy welcomed three new grandchildren.<br />

Two children arrived from Ethiopia in time<br />

for Christmas. The holidays were filled with joy . .<br />

. but not much peace. Taffy so enjoys staying in<br />

touch with Barbara Curtis Baker.<br />

Retirement for Joan Anderson Watts<br />

’65/’83MS certainly does not mean idle time. She is<br />

presently supervising student teachers for <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

and just loves the responsibility. Joan’s seven grandchildren,<br />

all under 5 years old, keep her busy in<br />

both Massachusetts and Florida. “I have the ultimate<br />

joy of using my <strong>Wheelock</strong> education with my<br />

seven grandchildren,” she wrote.<br />

For Marsha M-Geough Vaughan, the tropical<br />

island of St. John, Virgin Islands, provided the backdrop<br />

for her daughter’s wedding. Amazing beauty<br />

and time to cherish family and friends were spent in<br />

a villa on the hillside. Gwen Lloyd Wirtalla and<br />

Ann MacVicar traveled to Maine, spending time in<br />

Kennebunk Beach and Ocean Point. Gwen remembers<br />

wonderful summers in Ocean Point and could<br />

relive her memories. She visited Ann in Santa Fe<br />

only to be greeted by one of the largest snowstorms<br />

in history. Ann has had the marvelous opportunity<br />

to follow the bicycle racers in the Tour de France.<br />

What an experience that must have been.<br />

You should have seen me (Mary) waiting in<br />

my Maine home for Pat Holt Bennett and Sue<br />

Bright Belanger to visit. I could not sit still. I<br />

stood at the window anxiously awaiting their<br />

arrival. Pat is a retired assistant principal who<br />

now spends time between New Hampshire, with<br />

its lovely summers on Lake Winnipesaukee, and<br />

in Florida with its winters’ warmth. Far too many<br />

years had passed since all of us were together.<br />

Photograph albums and the computer helped to<br />

share our lives.<br />

Special thanks to all of you who have contributed<br />

to our class notes. How great it would be<br />

to hear from others. Pass the word, or share a<br />

friend’s news.<br />

1967<br />

Betsy Simmonds Pollock<br />

It was fun to visit with classmates who were able to<br />

attend our 40th Reunion held June 1 to June 3,<br />

2007. Some of us enjoyed the Boston Pops tribute<br />

to Sarah Vaughan with Dianne Reeves after the barbecue<br />

under the tent on Friday, June 1.<br />

Tina Feldman Crosby, Joan Blackman<br />

Youngman, Linda Hoe Palmer, Martha Walsh,<br />

Doryl Lloyd Rourke, and I attended the Saturday<br />

Luncheon. Judy Lambert Foster, Bonnie Lafean<br />

Bivins, Ellen Fitzgerald Brown, and Eleanor<br />

Labosky Stanwood joined the above for the<br />

Saturday night class dinner at Hawes Street.<br />

Tina Feldman Crosby awarded Barbara Taylor<br />

Posner the “Making a Difference” Service Award at<br />

the luncheon. Congratulations, Barbara! Barbara<br />

wrote that she continues to help families with special<br />

needs children to find schools and programs<br />

that meet their needs, sometimes looking at schools<br />

from California to Maine. She is recuperating from<br />

shoulder surgery.<br />

Thank you to the <strong>Wheelock</strong> staff members who<br />

devote many hours of planning and preparation to<br />

assure that a good time is had by all during<br />

Reunion Weekend.<br />

Judy Lambert Foster retired in June 2007, had<br />

knee surgery in July, and welcomed a new grandson<br />

in August. Donna Pulk Elliott wrote from Kennett<br />

Square, PA, that she was sorry to miss Reunion. She<br />

is caring full time for her husband, who is not well.<br />

Donna does wonderfully creative needlework suitable<br />

for framing. Bev Boden Rogers retired recently<br />

from Florida’s natural history museum. She<br />

created science/nature kits that circulate to schools<br />

across the state.<br />

Charlotte Gignoux Dwyer teaches kindergarten<br />

in an Alexandria, VA, public school. Donna<br />

Johnson retired in June 2007 after many years of<br />

being a public school principal in her hometown of<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 39


CLASS NOTES<br />

Waltham, MA. Jeanne Doyle Marinelli retired as a<br />

reading coach from the Rockford, IL, School<br />

District in June 2005. She and her husband spend<br />

six months of the year in Naples, FL, and the other<br />

six months in Rockford. She is delighted with her<br />

first grandchild, born in June 2007. Carolyn<br />

Wright Unger had Lyme disease last spring, so she<br />

could not travel to Reunion. She wrote, “It has been<br />

a long, tough go, but I think I am finally getting<br />

better.” Carolyn teaches gifted education in a northern<br />

Virginia elementary school of over 1,000 diverse<br />

students (27 different nationalities). Among other<br />

focus areas, she teaches creative thinking and heads<br />

up an Invention Expo. Students are asked to invent<br />

something to solve an everyday problem. Many<br />

products are patent-worthy. This year she is establishing<br />

an outdoor classroom including a monarch<br />

butterfly garden.<br />

Ann Fisher Tuteur wrote, “My husband and<br />

I had the joy of being in Cleveland to attend the<br />

wedding of Howard and Susan Cahn Levine’s<br />

daughter Rebecca last October. For Bob and me,<br />

it brought back a flood of memories as Bob and<br />

I met 40 years ago in Cleveland (only a few weeks<br />

after graduation) at the wedding of Susan and<br />

Howard. Susan and I were <strong>Wheelock</strong> roommates<br />

all four years, and Howard and Bob were fraternity<br />

brothers at the University of Pennsylvania.<br />

Though separated by distance, we have all<br />

remained close throughout the past 40 years.<br />

Where has the time gone?”<br />

I (Betsy) retired in April 2007 after working in<br />

public schools (including a one-year stint teaching<br />

and living in a country school out in the South<br />

Dakota prairies, grades K-4), child care, Head Start,<br />

and 17 years for the S.D. Department of Education.<br />

During that time, my role was Title I representative,<br />

Even Start coordinator, and Head Start state collaboration<br />

director. Since retiring, I’ve been supervising<br />

and working on the never-ending job of updating<br />

my house, cleaning out clutter, and trying to simplify!<br />

Thanks to all who responded to the news request.<br />

I look forward to writing the next installment in the<br />

alumni magazine.<br />

1968<br />

Marilyn Rupinski Rotondo<br />

Cynthia Carpenter Sheehan<br />

Change of address?<br />

News to share? Professional update?<br />

tay in the loop by refreshing your contact information at<br />

Shttp://www.wheelock.edu/alum/alumupdates.asp.<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

1969<br />

Lyn Peck Kenyon ’45/’69BS (See Class of ’45.)<br />

1970<br />

“My <strong>Wheelock</strong> training was the best for parenting<br />

and now for a new career!” Betsy Aldrich Garrison<br />

wrote. “After many years of staying home with our<br />

kids, I converted a room into a classroom and have<br />

been working as a reading tutor for the last five<br />

years. I am loving it! I took a refresher course on the<br />

Ortin Gillingham/PAF Reading Program and have<br />

15 students.” Betsy and husband Peter celebrated<br />

their 35th wedding anniversary in Bermuda with<br />

their three sons and their daughter and son-in-law.<br />

The “boys” have all been lacrosse players, so they<br />

spend a great deal of time traveling around watching<br />

the sport from February through August. Their<br />

grandchild born in April lives just a few blocks away<br />

from them in New Canaan, CT. Leigh Nickerson<br />

Beatty wrote, “Both my husband and I are retired<br />

and loving the freedom of planning our own days to<br />

travel, read, volunteer, and thoroughly enjoy the<br />

beauty here on Mount Desert Island [ME].” Marie<br />

Buckless Lacy retired in June 2007 and moved<br />

from Hopkinton, MA, where she’d taught art in<br />

the public schools for 13 years, to Cape Cod. Marie<br />

let <strong>Wheelock</strong> know about Brenda Gladding<br />

Alexander’s death in Texas during Easter weekend<br />

2007 after a long illness.<br />

“I get to use my <strong>Wheelock</strong> education with a<br />

precocious and adorable preschooler, and it’s great<br />

fun,” Mary Curtis Skelton wrote. She takes care<br />

of her 4-year-old grandson one day a week in addition<br />

to working full time as the showroom manager<br />

in a plumbing supply company. Marjorie Weiner<br />

e-mailed in March, “Gateway Community <strong>College</strong><br />

Early Learning Center Preschool Laboratory School<br />

[in New Haven, CT] has been awarded NAEYC<br />

accreditation under the new standards, one of the<br />

first programs in Connecticut.” Marjorie is the<br />

program director.<br />

1971<br />

Mary Curtis Skelton’s (’70) Gator Project<br />

Gwynne DeLong<br />

Julia-Ellen Davis moved from Fort Lauderdale,<br />

FL, to Charleston, SC, in 2005 to be closer to<br />

her mother and to take the position of director<br />

for the tri-county area Head Start/Early Head<br />

Start Program, which serves 1,658 children. She<br />

was previously the Head Start director for<br />

Broward County, FL. Julia-Ellen is now a member<br />

of the board of trustees for the South<br />

Carolina First Steps to School Readiness, whose<br />

purpose, she wrote, “includes assisting at the<br />

state and local levels to intensify services, to<br />

ensure efficient use of resources, and to serve the<br />

needs of South Carolina’s young children and<br />

their families.”<br />

“O<br />

ur Marine son, Greg, while stationed in Iraq four years ago, inspired me to found<br />

‘The Gator Project,’ whose mission is to make and send fleece neck warmers (gators) and<br />

neck coolers to servicemen and women serving abroad. To date, nearly 40,000 gators have been<br />

shipped, all made lovingly with volunteer hands from all over the country. Boy and Girl Scouts,<br />

church groups, quilting groups, senior citizens, high school students, and military family members<br />

have all found that making gators has given them a purpose and sense of peace.<br />

“The Gator Project was featured on Sewing with Nancy, a PBS television show, which resulted<br />

in many more people getting involved than I ever imagined possible! Nancy sent me a certificate<br />

of appreciation, as well as her book on sewing, which I gave to a prison inmate here in Vermont<br />

who made over 1,000 gators while he was incarcerated. I also received a Certificate of Commendation<br />

from the U.S. Marines, Department of the Navy.<br />

“Many of our servicemen/women are stationed at or near hospitals, orphanages, and schools,<br />

often assisting in rebuilding and refurbishing them. The Gator Project also conducted a ‘Beanie<br />

Baby Roundup’ here in northwestern Vermont and sent over 4,000 donated Beanies for soldiers<br />

to give to the Iraqi and Afghani children. The kids LOVE them.”<br />

Editor’s note: To find out more about Mary’s Gator Project and Beanie Baby Roundup and<br />

how you can participate, visit Mary’s site at www.thegatorproject.org.<br />

40 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


CLASS NOTES<br />

Kate Hansen ’06 (left) and<br />

Dr. Diane Tomaino Fisher ’72<br />

“So <strong>Wheelock</strong>!”<br />

Dr. Diane Tomaino Fisher ’72 writes<br />

from Texas, “In addition to my position<br />

as an assistant superintendent for a<br />

local school district here in the San Antonio<br />

area, I teach graduate classes at the University<br />

of the Incarnate Word (UIW). Imagine my<br />

surprise (and pleasure) when one of my<br />

students introduced herself as a <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

graduate this past fall!<br />

“Kate Hansen ’06 teaches kindergarten<br />

in the Harlandale Independent School District<br />

and is a graduate student at UIW. We<br />

shared two semesters (and many memories<br />

of <strong>Wheelock</strong>) together. It is apparent that<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> continues to do an outstanding<br />

job of preparing young people to pursue<br />

excellence in education. <strong>Wheelock</strong> is written<br />

all over everything she does. We often<br />

laughed about our similarities despite being<br />

more than three decades apart, and we<br />

would often comment on many aspects of<br />

our philosophies as being ‘so <strong>Wheelock</strong>!’<br />

“Kate reminded me of how fortunate I<br />

was to receive a <strong>Wheelock</strong> education, and<br />

I count my undergraduate experience as one<br />

of the major reasons that I have remained<br />

so dedicated to the field for so long and<br />

that I am still passionate about finding ways<br />

to provide the very best public school experience<br />

for each and every child we touch.”<br />

1972<br />

Bonnie Paulsen Michael<br />

Two wonderful part-time jobs in her area are<br />

helping Barbara Zimmermann Murphy enjoy<br />

“retirement”: She is the part-time special education<br />

supervisor for a district in Oak Lawn, IL, and serves<br />

on a child find team for Lockport Cooperative. She<br />

is always trying to find the time to travel more with<br />

her husband and in February wrote of their plans<br />

to go to Colorado, Arizona, and Italy this year.<br />

Vicki Caplan Milstein has co-written Integrating<br />

Math Into the Early Childhood Classroom: Activities<br />

and Research-Based Strategies That Build Math Skills,<br />

Concepts, and Vocabulary Into Classroom Routines,<br />

Learning Centers, and More.<br />

1973<br />

Jaci Fowle Holmes<br />

Regina Frisch Lobree<br />

1974<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Laura Keyes Jaynes<br />

Greetings, Class of 1974! MARK YOUR CALEN-<br />

DAR! Next year is our 35th Reunion! As your<br />

scribe, I (Laura) hope to see and hear from more of<br />

you! I am doing fine and hope you are too! I heard<br />

from only a few of you this year. PLEASE make the<br />

effort to come to this Reunion. It is a wonderful<br />

time to catch up! I continue to love my job teaching<br />

fourth grade in Merrimack, NH. After 35 years<br />

of marriage, my husband and family are doing well.<br />

Janet Leonard O’Loughlin celebrated 30 years<br />

of marriage with a trip to Italy last summer. She<br />

continues to love teaching second grade in Westchester<br />

County, NY. She hopes to hear from and<br />

see friends who lived at Colchester House between<br />

1970 and 1974. Her e-mail is jlol@optonline.net. Jill<br />

Schunick Putnam ’74/’84MS now works for the<br />

National Association for the Education of Young<br />

Children as an assessor in accreditation. She is<br />

serving her town (Wellfleet, MA) on the School<br />

Committee in her fourth elected term. She periodically<br />

serves as an adjunct in teaching early childhood<br />

and professional development for preschool<br />

and kindergarten teachers.<br />

Linda Mayo-Perez has served on the <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

Board of Trustees for 10 years and now resides in<br />

Jamaica Estates, Queens, NY. She moved back to<br />

New York City in 2001 to become the president<br />

and CEO of Maple Grove Cemetery, which is on<br />

the National Register of Historic Places as well as<br />

being a very active burial site. Her joy is the recent<br />

completion of their 18,000-square-foot combination<br />

spiritual, community, and administrative<br />

center. This project received a Silver rating when<br />

evaluated under the Leadership in Energy and<br />

Environmental Design (LEED) rating system of<br />

the U.S. Green Building Council. 2007 was an<br />

excellent year for new experiences and travel. Linda<br />

saw <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s mural on the walls of Habitat for<br />

Humanity’s Camp Hope in Louisiana. Last<br />

February, she and her daughter spent a week participating<br />

in a rebuilding effort in New Orleans’ 9th<br />

Ward. In November, they spent 14 days in South<br />

Africa for a traveling seminar co-sponsored by the<br />

Hartford Seminary (Linda is working toward an<br />

M.A. there) and Plowshares Institute.<br />

Diane Rothauser ’74/’81MS continues to<br />

love being a kindergarten after-school teacher in<br />

Wellesley, MA. During the summers she enjoys<br />

working with infants and toddlers. As she did in<br />

college, Diane spends her spare time involved in<br />

theater for the Wellesley Players, as their recording<br />

secretary and make-up artist. Her daughter, Kate,<br />

lives in Somerville, where she has her own jewelrymaking<br />

business, and works for a public relations<br />

firm in Boston. Her other daughter, Sarah, is a<br />

senior at Ithaca <strong>College</strong>.<br />

Thank you to those who have written! We are<br />

all so busy with very interesting lives. I encourage<br />

you to plan on coming to <strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Class of 1974<br />

Reunion next spring, May 29-31, 2009. We have<br />

much to share and be grateful for! Keep in touch!<br />

1975<br />

Leslie Hayter Maxfield<br />

“The whole time was wonderful!” Susan Reichart<br />

Allen wrote late last fall of the month she and her<br />

daughter spent in Argentina, where each received her<br />

Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate.<br />

Husband Dean and their oldest daughter joined<br />

them for a week in the foothills of Patagonia. Judith<br />

Black wrote: “I have created a very funny and touching<br />

tale about one parent and educator’s learning<br />

curve when G-d delivers to them the child they were<br />

not expecting. ‘Esau, My Son’ was performed at the<br />

National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, TN, to a<br />

standing-room-only audience of over 800 people<br />

who gave it a long and loud standing ovation. It was<br />

the first time my son had heard this tale of our growing.”<br />

It is available on CD at Judith’s website,<br />

www.storiesalive.com, where you can also read about<br />

her “seditious comedy about women and aging”<br />

titled “That Fading Scent.” She added, “The wonderful<br />

education I received from <strong>Wheelock</strong> continues<br />

to echo out as I supervise a peer mentoring program<br />

for high school and elementary-aged students in my<br />

hometown of Marblehead [MA].”<br />

Barbara Stevens Rowe is teaching at the<br />

University of Wisconsin — Waisman Center Early<br />

Childhood Program in Madison. “[It] is a model<br />

program for meeting the needs of a developmentally<br />

diverse group of young children,” she wrote.<br />

“Approximately two-thirds of the children in our<br />

program are typically developing, while up to onethird<br />

may have a special educational need because<br />

of a developmental delay or disability.” Both her<br />

son and her daughter attend the university, and she<br />

and her husband live on a residential airport just<br />

north of Madison. “Come visit if you are in the<br />

area!” she wrote. Mary Ainslie Tracy wrote: “In<br />

September 2006, the Friends School of Portland<br />

[ME] opened its doors to 31 students, pre-K to<br />

grade 6, and this year we expanded to grade 7 with<br />

54 children. Next year we will add our final grade,<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 41


CLASS NOTES<br />

8, aiming for 70 children. I founded this Quaker<br />

independent day school with enormous help from<br />

many other Quakers, educators, and parents, and I<br />

am happy to report that we are doing very well. My<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> education is at work every day in my role<br />

as curriculum coordinator and middle school<br />

teacher. We welcome visitors to our website,<br />

www.friendsschoolofportland.org, and to our school.<br />

Contact me at mary@friendsschoolofportland.org.”<br />

Debbie Cann Westcott left the Pennysaver as a<br />

display advertising representative in January 2007<br />

and the following month started working for an<br />

advertiser she’d been calling on, American Pest<br />

Management, a locally owned pest management<br />

company based in the D.C./Virginia/Maryland<br />

area. “We service Ted Koppel’s (formerly of the TV<br />

show “Nightline”) home and the White House!”<br />

she wrote. “We provide service for residential, commercial,<br />

and government properties. I am having a<br />

blast and really love it here.” Debbie said her home<br />

(B&B) remains available for anyone interested in<br />

visiting Annapolis.<br />

1976<br />

Angela Barresi Yakovleff<br />

Late last fall, Maryanne Galvin’s 10-minute video<br />

program “Merry in Oz” was among the works of art<br />

selected to be in the juried exhibit “Ozspirations:<br />

New Art Inspired by the Wizard of Oz” at the<br />

New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk<br />

University in Boston. In February and March, her<br />

documentary “What’s Going On Up There?” was<br />

among the video selections shown in the “Wanderlust:<br />

The Art of Travel” exhibit at Montserrat<br />

<strong>College</strong> of Art’s Bear Gallery in Beverly, MA. Sarah<br />

“Sally” Bolton Hoel has moved “once again,” from<br />

north of Atlanta back to New England: She and her<br />

husband and two teenage sons now live in Danvers,<br />

MA. She recently worked for Sylvan Learning<br />

Center as a testing administrator and program manager,<br />

and she home educates her sons, “which has<br />

been a challenging and rewarding adventure and<br />

become a lifestyle all of its own,” she wrote. Last<br />

year she had a “wonderful albeit too short” visit with<br />

Amy Rand MacDonald ’76/’85MS.<br />

“Busier than ever this year,” Kathy Richter-<br />

Sand is still working in professional development<br />

for Albuquerque Public Schools but now as a district<br />

trainer/resource teacher for elementary<br />

curriculum and standards. “I’m thinking of all my<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> classmates!” she wrote.<br />

1977<br />

Margaret Smith Lee<br />

Lisa Brookover Moore<br />

Debbie Warren Block is living in Atlanta and<br />

teaching kindergarten at the Davis Academy. She<br />

and husband Mitch have celebrated 23 years of<br />

42 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong><br />

marriage and have one daughter who is a college<br />

junior and one daughter completing her senior<br />

year of high school. Hollis Brooks has “settled in<br />

sunny Boulder, CO,” and is working for a global<br />

event planning company. She substitute teaches “to<br />

keep [her] skills sharp” and is in frequent touch<br />

with Cathy Aliapoulios Kraut ’78. Lynne Jones<br />

Eastman is living in Naples, FL, and has been<br />

married for 32 years, with three grown children,<br />

one of whom has made her a three-time grandmother.<br />

Lynne is teaching second grade, is<br />

National Board Certified, and is a recipient of a<br />

Golden Apple award.<br />

Jeanette Lake has been teaching for 20 years in<br />

the same Boston Public School, currently, kindergarten,<br />

and recently received an administrative certification.<br />

She has also performed at the <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

Family Theatre in their productions of Inherit the<br />

Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird. Margaret Smith<br />

Lee and husband Gary will soon be “empty nesters”<br />

as their son is now a senior in high school. Margaret<br />

is teaching preschool two days a week and also<br />

teaches art at the Taube Museum in Minot, ND.<br />

Paula McAdams Moloney is a special education<br />

teacher living in Buffalo, NY — third grade in<br />

one building and fifth grade in another. Her<br />

daughter is a high school senior. Paula wrote,<br />

“Visitors are always welcome!” Francesca Wright<br />

lives in Davis, CA, and works as an independent<br />

consultant in program evaluation, collaborative<br />

learning and planning, and process facilitation<br />

(www.DavisConsultants.net). Her clients include<br />

children and family commissions, mental health<br />

agencies, USC leadership programs, and school<br />

districts. In February, she wrote, “I am currently<br />

co-chair of a board working to create a statewide<br />

Alliance for School, Family and Community<br />

Partnerships with a goal of systematically fostering<br />

engaged families to support student success in all of<br />

California’s schools.” She is happily married to Lee<br />

Bartholomew and has two teenage children.<br />

I (Lisa) am one of your new class scribes,<br />

sharing this job with Margaret Smith Lee.<br />

Currently, I am a PADI-certified assistant scuba<br />

instructor at a local dive shop in Crystal Lake,<br />

IL, working with student divers 10 years old<br />

to senior citizens. My son, Tim, is now a senior<br />

at <strong>Wheelock</strong>.<br />

1978<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Pat Mucci Tayco<br />

Karen Nuzzo loves her new job teaching art<br />

at two elementary schools (pre-K to grade 6)<br />

in the Bedford County (VA) Public Schools.<br />

Karen Musser Whitla wrote, “My husband,<br />

C. Stuart Whitla Jr., passed away on May 9,<br />

2007, after battling renal cell carcinoma for<br />

seven months. He died at home, surrounded<br />

by his family.”<br />

1983<br />

Carol Rubin Fishman<br />

Claudia Tillis Weger wrote in January of looking<br />

forward to the 25th with “the gang: Karen, Sarah,<br />

Susie, Debbie, Tina, and Jane.” She gratefully<br />

reported that all is well in her world. Emily was<br />

then in her second year at <strong>Wheelock</strong>, and Ben was<br />

in ninth grade.<br />

1984<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Kathy Welsh Wilcox<br />

What a year it has been! There is lots of news from<br />

the Class of ’84. Get a cup of tea and sit down and<br />

catch up.<br />

Melanie Levesque Madden celebrated her 20th<br />

wedding anniversary with husband Jack last fall.<br />

She has been working at CVS (in the construction<br />

department) for 16 years and says her <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

education has done her well. It has helped her and<br />

her husband to raise her son, who is in high school,<br />

and her daughter, who is in seventh grade. She has<br />

been running a Girl Scout troop for her daughter<br />

for seven years. She and Jack also bought a diner in<br />

East Providence, RI — Mel’s Diner — and it is doing<br />

very well. If ever there is a <strong>Wheelock</strong> grad in the<br />

area, please come by and have a meal with the crew!<br />

Jackie Johnson Markley wrote that daughter Paige<br />

has begun kindergarten and loves it! Her weeks are<br />

full of Daisies, soccer, and school obligations. “I am<br />

just beginning what most of my classmates have<br />

been doing for years,” she wrote. “Now I know why<br />

people have children when they are young! I am<br />

exhausted all the time! It probably doesn’t help that<br />

I get up at 4:15 a.m. to go to the gym and work<br />

with a trainer who relishes causing me great pain or<br />

discomfort!” Jackie is happy to have her same job<br />

and continues to love working with and identifying<br />

children with special education needs. Cecilia<br />

Tatem Small is in her fifth year as the school counselor/social<br />

worker at Green Meadow Elementary<br />

School in Maynard, MA. She wrote, “I continue<br />

with the Emerson Hospital, Social Work Week-end<br />

On Call and coordinate/supervise the weekend<br />

Social Worker Team.” Her children (11, 13, and<br />

15) are growing and well, and they keep her and<br />

her husband very busy! She participated in the<br />

Advanced Certified Program at BU School of Social<br />

Work for the Treatment of Psychological Trauma,<br />

which ran until April.<br />

As for me (Kathy), I am doing well in Southern<br />

California. My children are the light of my life.<br />

Both of the boys, ages 14 and 17, are busy with<br />

school and surfing the waves in San Diego. Water<br />

polo seems to take up a lot of our time. Our oldest<br />

was accepted into the National Honor Society this<br />

spring! It was very thrilling for him and exciting to<br />

watch. I was feeling my age for sure! As for my


CLASS NOTES<br />

Elyse Blank Smith ’85 (third from left), husband Michael (to her left), Annette Bellino Lifrieri ’85, and husband Glenn at the 2007 gala honoring<br />

Elyse for her many years of service to the Lupus Foundation of New England, where she was president until 2006<br />

career, I love teaching. I am teaching first grade as<br />

well as creating an after-school program at our<br />

school for at-risk students. We have about 450 students<br />

participating in the program. I have paired up<br />

with the local high school and have the seniors<br />

come and volunteer their time teaching our young<br />

students exciting skills like sign language, Spanish,<br />

French, and dance classes. We also have reading fluency<br />

and comprehension classes for those students<br />

who are struggling. It is very exciting!<br />

1985<br />

Linda Edwards Beal<br />

Karen Poisson Enos shared the wonderful news of<br />

her recent trip to China for the adoption of her<br />

happy and healthy 1-year-old daughter, Leah Ling<br />

Enos. Coincidentally, while in Guangzhou, Karen<br />

and her husband ran into Marjorie Bakken, Karen’s<br />

former adviser and former <strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong> president.<br />

Marjorie was with her daughter (Martha<br />

Bakken ’99MS), who had also just adopted a baby.<br />

Karen is celebrating motherhood, and after 17 years<br />

of teaching kindergarten, she is now a stay-at-home<br />

mom and loving every minute of it. Maureen<br />

Gillis Myers has two teenage children at home and<br />

is currently the co-president of BAEYC. She just<br />

opened a school in Hyde Park, MA!<br />

After many years at home with her children,<br />

Alison Abbott Quackenbush is working part<br />

time as an aide in a kindergarten classroom at the<br />

elementary school her youngest attends. Alison<br />

has been very involved at the school through the<br />

PTO, but she’s enjoying being involved on the<br />

“inside.” She describes it as “fun without the<br />

homework”! Alison continues to contemplate<br />

whether or not to renew her certification and go<br />

back to teaching full time. Meanwhile, her oldest<br />

daughter is a junior in high school and beginning<br />

the college search.<br />

Our congratulations to Elyse Blank Smith for<br />

receiving the Altruism Award for her years of service<br />

to the Lupus Foundation of New England. Annette<br />

Bellino Lifrieri was in attendance helping celebrate<br />

Elyse’s accomplishments.<br />

1987<br />

Kathleen Hurley DeVarennes<br />

It was great to hear from some <strong>Wheelock</strong> friends. I<br />

(Kathy) think of you all often, yet I am not great at<br />

keeping in touch.<br />

Allison Small Annand teaches in an integrated<br />

preschool program for 3- and 4-year olds in<br />

Hollis, NH. She still keeps in touch with Helene<br />

Dunkerley Bettencourt ’88. Trisha Brown<br />

sounds very busy. She is using her <strong>Wheelock</strong> education<br />

in many ways: She is a licensing inspector<br />

(children’s programs) for the Commonwealth of<br />

Virginia and an adjunct professor in the area of<br />

early childhood education at Tidewater<br />

Community <strong>College</strong>. Trisha also does a lot of private<br />

training seminars. “There is not a day that<br />

passes that I do not use something I learned while<br />

attending <strong>Wheelock</strong>,” she wrote. “What an<br />

incredible life experience!”<br />

Pamela Lackey Cawley wrote about her business,<br />

Perfect Parties by Pam. She does all of the<br />

decorations — and seating arrangements, party<br />

favors, etc. — at function halls for birthdays,<br />

bar/bat mitzvahs, showers, and the like. She also is<br />

still a retail merchandiser for Hallmark. Prior to<br />

taking the Hallmark job, she was home with her<br />

two boys for nine years. Jeanie Norman-Clancy<br />

has taken time off from the classroom to be home<br />

for her children. She is busy helping her husband<br />

remodel their home in Boylston, MA, and also<br />

volunteering in her daughters’ schools. Libby<br />

Hubbard VanDerMaelen enjoyed seeing classmates<br />

at Reunion 2007. She was excited to write<br />

that her niece has been accepted to <strong>Wheelock</strong> for<br />

the Class of 2012. (I can only imagine just beginning<br />

my college experience. I am sure a lot has<br />

changed, but some things will never change.)<br />

As for me, I would love to hear from you. If you<br />

find yourself visiting the Berkshires this summer,<br />

please drop me a line.<br />

1988<br />

Carol-Ann McCusker Petruccelli<br />

Kirsten Pihlaja has returned to the Denver Public<br />

Schools after two years teaching kindergarten in<br />

Guatemala City. Last fall, she wrote, “This year I’m<br />

doing half-day bilingual ECE (4-year-olds) and halfday<br />

kindergarten enrichment — a fun challenge!”<br />

1990<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Melissa Croteau Fitzgerald<br />

Hello, everyone! There are only two more years<br />

until our 20th Reunion (June 4-6, 2010), and we<br />

hope for a big turnout. It is not too early to begin<br />

making plans and getting in touch with old friends.<br />

A great way to connect is through the Class Notes<br />

in the <strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine. I (Melissa) hope many<br />

people make a sincere effort to attend and take<br />

some time to enjoy the friendships that were started<br />

many years ago and possibly rekindle some of them<br />

that have been lost. I already have my baby-sitter<br />

lined up to make the trip from Virginia! We had a<br />

few people send in news this time around.<br />

Katherine Averill is living in southern New<br />

Hampshire with her husband and two daughters,<br />

ages 8 and 11. She has been homeschooling for five<br />

years and is doing quite well with it. She would<br />

really like to network with other alumni who are<br />

doing that in her region. Katherine has lost touch<br />

with so many people and would like to hear from<br />

them and see how everybody is doing. Gillian<br />

Idoine Budine is still in her position of grant coordinator<br />

for the Community Partnerships for<br />

Children in Massachusetts. She has been holding<br />

this job for the past 10 years, and it has been a<br />

roller-coaster ride! She is busy as a wife and mother<br />

to a teenager, preteen, and 4-year-old.<br />

In May 2007, Karen Flowers Cagan<br />

’88AS/’90BS was one of the recipients of the<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong> Alumni Endowment Fund<br />

Grant. She developed adoption resource kits for the<br />

elementary and preschools in Westwood, MA. It<br />

was certainly a labor of love. She is still working<br />

part time at the Westwood Public Library in the<br />

children’s room and is very involved with the<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 43


CLASS NOTES<br />

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying life<br />

to the fullest. Happy <strong>2008</strong>, and I look forward to<br />

seeing everyone in 2010!<br />

October 2007 bride Kyla McSweeney ’94/’97MS with Susan Mackey ’94 (to her left), her maid of honor, and (from left to right) Liz Malkin ’88,<br />

Martha Bakken ’99MS, and Debra Sullivan ’97MS<br />

Westwood Early Childhood Council. Daughters<br />

Nataniah, 8, and Rita, 4, give her so much joy!<br />

Congratulations to Patricia Foley Elliott and<br />

her husband, who recently adopted son Gabriel<br />

David, born Jan. 3. “I was in the delivery room<br />

and cut the cord,” she wrote. “We are overjoyed<br />

with happiness to have our family grow.” They had<br />

lost two babies at birth in the previous few years.<br />

Patricia said that Jen Dirga has visited her several<br />

times since Gabriel’s arrival with much-needed<br />

hand-me-downs from her children and a lot of<br />

helpful tips. Lori Ann Langlais Hickey is still<br />

working in the Hartford Public School System 17<br />

years strong. She calls it her passion. Lori Ann is<br />

quite busy with three children, 9, 6, and 6. As if<br />

family and work weren’t enough, she and her husband<br />

got two yellow lab puppies last summer!<br />

When Michelle Pine Lemme ’90/’91MS wrote<br />

late last year, she was taking classes toward her<br />

Severe/Profound certification and planned to be finished<br />

by this summer. Best of luck, Michelle! As well<br />

as learning, she is still teaching special education in<br />

Cranston, RI, and takes care of her three children,<br />

Katie, 4; Stephen, 6; and John, 8. Life is very busy<br />

but happy. Alyson Shifres Miller and her 2-year-old<br />

triplets have been greatly enjoying monthly visits<br />

with Pam McInnis Schappler and her five children<br />

up in Bedford, NH. “With eight kids in one room,<br />

I actually get a break because Pam’s kids play so great<br />

with my kids,” Alyson wrote. “I get to sit back and<br />

just watch and relax!” Unfortunately, the visits will<br />

come to an end because Pam has taken a long-term<br />

subbing job in a third grade classroom. “Too bad I<br />

can’t have monthly visits with Melissa Croteau<br />

Fitzgerald and her two beautiful children,” Alyson<br />

added, “but Virginia is just a little too far from<br />

Westwood, MA, for that.”<br />

Well, with that, I (Melissa) will share a little<br />

about my family. My daughter, Hanna, will be<br />

11 and headed into middle school in the fall. She<br />

is turning into a lovely young lady and has grown<br />

so much this last year. She has started borrowing<br />

my shoes and clothes! Ouch — where has the<br />

time gone? She is still a Girl Scout, with me as<br />

her troop leader, and she recently joined a yearround<br />

swim team. She is such a talented swimmer<br />

and shows so much potential. My son, Nick,<br />

will be 7 and will be entering the second grade in<br />

the fall. He has the best teacher ever this year and<br />

is doing fantastic in school. He loves to go every<br />

day and has such fun. He also became a Cub<br />

Scout this year and enjoys being part of a group.<br />

As always, we visited with Pam McInnis<br />

Schappler and Alyson Shifres Miller and their<br />

families last summer. I took my children to the<br />

Boston fireworks, and I believe it may become a<br />

family tradition! They had so much fun and<br />

couldn’t believe the crowds. Fireworks in Virginia<br />

will never be the same, they exclaimed. We have<br />

also enjoyed the phenomenal seasons the Red<br />

Sox and Patriots have had. It’s times like those<br />

that I wish I were still in Riverway House. My<br />

kids are such huge fans that you would think<br />

they have grown up in Boston.<br />

My condolences go out to Phil Craig’s family<br />

for their loss. Phil was a great professor and<br />

always had enlightening stories to share with his<br />

students. I personally appreciate the trip he took<br />

with one of my literature classes to England for<br />

three weeks. He made it not only educational but<br />

also fun, and I will never forget those memories.<br />

He was also a great author, and I will miss his<br />

stories of J.W. Jackson.<br />

1992<br />

Christine Smith Imani<br />

Tim and Lynne Renkun Classey, along with son<br />

Michael, 7, and daughter Erin, 3, would like to<br />

announce the birth of Sean Casimir Classey in<br />

January 2006.<br />

1993<br />

Nina Mortensen LaPlante<br />

Rosa Maria Carreiro Cordua has been teaching<br />

first grade in Maryland for nine years and still loves<br />

that age! Her own two sons — her “joy”— are 5<br />

and 2. Rosa Maria loves the Annapolis area but<br />

misses her family near Boston. “I will always be a<br />

New England Patriots fan,” she wrote, “and will<br />

never forget the education that I received at<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> <strong>College</strong>.” Betsy Feeley Johnsen and<br />

husband Rusty were married in September 2006<br />

with many <strong>Wheelock</strong> alums in attendance: Jen<br />

Long Doran, Jeanne Leonard Larivee, Megan<br />

O’Leary, Debbie Vogel Pike, and Maureen<br />

Burke Power. Betsy and Rusty live in Bolton, MA.<br />

1994<br />

Heidi Butterworth Fanion<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Jen Korb Benoit and her husband have relocated<br />

to the warmer climate of Durham, NC, where she<br />

is continuing her master’s in educational leadership<br />

at UNC-Chapel Hill. When she wrote in January,<br />

she was working on a research project with the federal<br />

Department of Education.<br />

In late 2007, Jacquie O’Neil Boutin and husband<br />

Paul were still settling into the new home they<br />

built in Colchester, CT. She has been working at<br />

Madonna Place, a family support center in Norwich,<br />

for five years and keeps busy there part time as director<br />

of fund development and marketing. She wrote:<br />

“Additionally, my husband and I recently started a<br />

new business in memory of our son, Jonah. It is<br />

called Jonah’s Closet [and] is an online boutique that<br />

offers distinctive apparel for children from birth to<br />

size 7.” Plans were to add some educational toys and<br />

gifts this year, and they were also considering opening<br />

a “brick and mortar store” in their hometown<br />

this summer. Jacquie invites anyone interested to visit<br />

www.jonahscloset.com and use the code “wheelock” to<br />

save 10 percent! Amy Goldstein Brin described<br />

daughter Cecelia Claire, born last Sept. 7, as “the<br />

most wonderful addition to [her] family” and “the<br />

love of [their] lives.”<br />

44 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


CLASS NOTES<br />

T<br />

Sarah Westmoreland Dehey, husband Peter,<br />

and son Brett, 12, bought a house in Barkhamsted,<br />

CT, in late 2006. She explained that they have been<br />

a family for three years — she adopted Peter’s son<br />

shortly after their wedding — and she loves being a<br />

mom. Sarah was recently promoted to head teacher<br />

of the Elementary 1 classroom at Kolburne School<br />

in New Marlborough, MA, a private residential<br />

school for students with psychiatric disorders. She<br />

has six 8- to 12-year-old students working at the<br />

first- or second-grade level, and she enjoys forming<br />

strong bonds with them and finds her work very<br />

rewarding. Shannon M. Garvey married Kevin P.<br />

Roach on July 28, 2007, in Boston. Following their<br />

honeymoon in Hawaii, the couple moved to<br />

Wrentham, MA, where they currently reside.<br />

Last summer, Carri LaCroix Pan ’94/’98MS<br />

wrote: “This year in response to New York state’s<br />

suggested hospital mergers and closings, I cofounded<br />

the Coalition for the Protection of<br />

Reproductive Health in Schenectady. My group<br />

is keeping a close eye on the suggested closing of<br />

Bellevue Woman’s Hospital (one of two freestanding<br />

women’s hospitals left in the U.S.) and<br />

merger of two others. We are passionately concerned<br />

about how the Catholic Ethical Directives<br />

from one of the three hospitals could eliminate<br />

services currently provided by the other two hospitals.<br />

When I talk to people about this, they<br />

always think about abortion. This issue is a lot<br />

bigger than abortion . . . and it gets into end-oflife<br />

issues. We are also very concerned about<br />

health care access of the underprivileged in our<br />

area.” Carri’s children enjoy gatherings with<br />

“<strong>Wheelock</strong> pals who sing great songs to them —<br />

Jen Korb, Amy Goldstein, Maureen Sullivan,<br />

and Kim Kiess.” Kate McInerney Leighton left<br />

the public school sector in 2006 and started<br />

working as an independent educational behavior<br />

consultant. “I am working with families around<br />

behavior issues, children with autism, and basic<br />

parenting skills,” she wrote, “and I love the<br />

change.” She especially likes being able to make<br />

her own hours and to stay home with her son<br />

and new daughter, Amelia, born last Sept. 5. “It<br />

was another very tough pregnancy — surgery, bed<br />

rest, and premature labor!” Kate wrote. “But she<br />

is our second angel! I love being a mom!”<br />

Hey, <strong>Wheelock</strong> Young Alumni,<br />

are you on MySpace?<br />

here are now 51 young <strong>Wheelock</strong> alumni with our<br />

own Young Alumni page on MySpace, and we<br />

would love to connect with you! Send us a message at<br />

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.<br />

viewprofile&friendID=42087088 !<br />

Kyla McSweeney ’94/’97MS married James<br />

Burton last Oct. 13 at the Exchange Conference<br />

Center on the Boston waterfront. “It was a beautiful<br />

day and so nice to be surrounded by so many<br />

friends,” Kyla wrote. <strong>Wheelock</strong> alums in attendance<br />

at the wedding were Martha Bakken ’99MS,<br />

Debra Sullivan ’97MS, Liz Malkin ’88, and Susan<br />

Mackey (maid of honor). Kim Haws Moxin had<br />

an exciting 2007, with a celebration of her and husband<br />

Ed’s fifth anniversary in Daytona Beach with<br />

daughter Eve in June and then the birth of daughter<br />

Catherine Marie on Oct. 17. Congratulations, Kim.<br />

Rachael LeBlanc Tyler, clinical supervisor at<br />

KidsPeace New England (Graham Lake Campus),<br />

wrote in December to say things were going well in<br />

Maine and her family was happy to have started<br />

another ski season (that’s their favorite family activity).<br />

She and husband Darrell celebrated their 11th<br />

wedding anniversary last October. Her preschooler<br />

and two school-age children are doing well. Rachael<br />

mentioned having seen Beth Topham O’Keefe<br />

’94/’97MS and Lynne Harmon Aloisi ’94/’97MS<br />

in Boston during a conference for work and wrote,<br />

“It is always so wonderful to see friends from<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> — they are truly friends for life. There<br />

really isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about<br />

what a wonderful experience <strong>Wheelock</strong> was and is.”<br />

1995<br />

Katelyn Guiney Wojnarowicz<br />

Congratulations to Nichole Quintin Brody<br />

’95/’96MS and husband Ivan on the birth of their<br />

second son, Rylan Blaine Brody, on April 5, 2006.<br />

Rylan joined his older brother, Hayden, and is<br />

doing just great! Nichole is still teaching fourth<br />

grade in New Bedford and absolutely<br />

loves it. She wrote that she would “love to hear<br />

from old friends if they feel like chatting!” She can<br />

be reached via e-mail, ibnb77@verizon.net.<br />

Kathleen McEneaney Curry is working at Little<br />

Sprouts Child Enrichment Centers as a pathfinder,<br />

supporting the educators in the company. Likewise,<br />

she and her husband are investors in IMAJINEthat,<br />

an interactive children’s playspace in Lawrence,<br />

MA. In June 2007, third child Colin was welcomed<br />

by big sisters Emily (6) and Elizabeth (3). Beth<br />

Traichel Falzone works for the Department of<br />

Children and Families in Manchester, CT, as a<br />

supervisor within the field of social work.<br />

Ayanna Kilpatrick, a 2001 graduate of<br />

Simmons <strong>College</strong> School of Social Work with a<br />

certificate of Urban Leadership, has worked in<br />

both charter and private schools. She is currently<br />

at Brookline (MA) High School. Carolyn Fahie<br />

Ouellette wrote that she still loves being at home<br />

with her children, Meg, Kate, and the newly<br />

welcomed Jack. Jennifer Howarth Spencer is a<br />

kindergarten teacher at the John A. Bishop<br />

Elementary School in Arlington, MA.<br />

Congratulations to Kris Nydam White and<br />

husband Ken on the birth of their second child,<br />

Rebekah Danielle, on Feb. 21, 2006. She was welcomed<br />

home by big sister Elizabeth (6). Kris wrote,<br />

“I am enjoying being a stay-at-home mom and<br />

homeschooling my girls!”<br />

And as for me, I (Katelyn) am happily at home<br />

with my two children, Brendan (5), who (hard to<br />

believe!) will be going to kindergarten in the fall,<br />

and Delaney (2), who is just as fiery as the RED<br />

hair upon her head. I do continue to work part<br />

time as an adjunct faculty member with Becker<br />

<strong>College</strong> in Worcester, MA, within the Early<br />

Childhood Education department. Likewise, I continue<br />

to hold the role as the administrator of The<br />

Safe Place programs, a before- and after-school<br />

program, currently licensed through the<br />

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of<br />

Early Education and Care.<br />

It was wonderful to hear from those of you<br />

who wrote for this issue, and I would LOVE to<br />

hear from more of you (you know who you are).<br />

I wish you all good health and much happiness in<br />

the year of <strong>2008</strong>!<br />

1996<br />

Kerrie Ryan Gerety<br />

JoAnne Leitner Sushko and husband Bill<br />

welcomed a son, Liam, last Oct. 20. Daughter<br />

Jacqueline, 5, loves being a big sister.<br />

1997<br />

Heather Gelmini<br />

Cindy Aquan is working at Selfhelp Family<br />

Homecare Service (CHHA) as the social work program<br />

manager. Victoria Gilman, previously<br />

Victoria Ryder, got married to Matthew Gilman<br />

on July 1, 2007, in Bedford, NH. She is currently<br />

working as a kindergarten teacher in Manchester,<br />

where she also lives. Donna Gorman ’97/’98MS is<br />

teaching Itsy Bitsy Yoga and Child Development<br />

classes at Isis Maternity (based in Needham, MA)<br />

as well as working as a developmental educator for<br />

Early Intervention in Lowell. Donna has a son,<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 45


CLASS NOTES<br />

Donna Gorman ’97/’98MS and son Shane enjoying Shane’s “first snow<br />

experience” early last winter. “He has been loving the snow ever<br />

since!” Donna wrote.<br />

Shane, who turned 1 in January —“the love of<br />

[her] life” — and they live in Billerica. Micaela<br />

Hall has been working at Hasbro Children’s<br />

Hospital in the Early Intervention program for<br />

four years. She is engaged to her fiance, Tom, and<br />

will be getting married in June on Block Island.<br />

Micaela says she had a great time serving on<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s Alumni Board and enjoys staying in<br />

touch with the <strong>College</strong>. Astrid Garcia Mazariegos<br />

’97/’99MS and her husband are enjoying their<br />

days with son Diego, 5. Astrid works in a multigrade<br />

classroom in Wellesley, MA, and loves it.<br />

Amy Jones O’Brien has been married for over<br />

four years to husband Cecil. They have a 3-year-old<br />

daughter, Olivia Mai, and a 1-year-old son, Shane<br />

William. Amy is happily living in Walpole, MA, as<br />

a stay-at-home mom. She sees Shannan O’Brien<br />

’96, Olivia’s godmother. Brandy Roper Page is living<br />

in Catawba, SC, with husband Randy and two<br />

daughters, Olivia, 6, and Kiley, 4. She is pursuing<br />

her dream of opening an in-home child care center.<br />

Michelle Ruxton Taylor is still working in<br />

Cambridge, MA, as director of Oxford Street<br />

Daycare Cooperative, a parent and staff cooperative<br />

program serving children ages 3 months to 5 years<br />

and their families. “The best part of my job is that<br />

my daughter, Haley, has attended the program since<br />

she was an infant,” she wrote. “In the fall, she’ll<br />

start kindergarten, and I’ll be the sappy mom crying<br />

my eyes out because my little girl is growing up<br />

too fast!” Michelle and her family recently moved<br />

to South Easton, MA.<br />

1998<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Christine Barry Beaulieu<br />

Jillian Kaufman<br />

“We had a wonderful ceremony at our church<br />

and were surrounded by close family and<br />

friends,” Amy Curry Bassett wrote of her and<br />

husband Bill’s wedding last August. They are<br />

enjoying life with their two dogs and continue to<br />

renovate their home in Lakeville, MA. Their<br />

favorite vacation spot is Portland, OR. Mary<br />

Falcone-Farrell thoroughly enjoys her full-time<br />

job as the supervisor of a safe home for children<br />

age birth to 13. She is also a part-time graduate<br />

student, working on a master’s in Clinical<br />

Psychology. Mary and her husband continue to<br />

enjoy daughter Annabelle, now 4. Diep Nguyen<br />

’98/’02MS and wife Loan sent the Alumni<br />

Relations Office a holiday greeting (picturing<br />

both made up to look like Santa Claus) from<br />

Georgia late last year. They miss their Bostonarea<br />

friends, and Diep was missing snow, but<br />

Loan is enjoying the year-round warm weather.<br />

1999<br />

Aimee Farrell Dos Santos<br />

Sara Guerrette Caron is one of several private<br />

practice therapists who make up Lifework<br />

Associates in Lewiston, ME. She works with children,<br />

adolescents, adults, families, and couples.<br />

She also is still working part time as a maternal<br />

child health social worker at Central Maine<br />

Medical Center. She has two young girls, Olivia<br />

and Sophie. Jackie Klein loves living in New<br />

York City and is enjoying working full time for<br />

her dad in the window treatments business in<br />

Union Square. She also loves working part time<br />

as an assistant kindergarten teacher in the religious<br />

school at Central Synagogue in NYC.<br />

2000<br />

Sara McGarry<br />

Congratulations to Leah Champ Burdick, whose<br />

daughter, Natalie Jane, was born Jan. 2.<br />

Marcie Morrocco married Jon Kaczmarczyk on<br />

Aug. 4, 2007. Ingrid Rogers Abrams and Amy<br />

Rodger Dubow were her attendants. Kristie<br />

Hotaling has accepted a new position as investigator<br />

with the Department of Social Services in<br />

Chelsea, MA. She is still in contact with Melissa<br />

Muise Serra ’01/’02MS, Kallie Casey Gawel, and<br />

Allison Carlson Paquette.<br />

Sara Levesh Prior and her husband welcomed<br />

their first child, a new daughter named<br />

Molly Ann Prior, on Aug. 18, 2007. Ashley<br />

Rogers Kevorkian had her third child, a daughter<br />

named Elena, in May 2007. She is currently<br />

working with a Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool<br />

in her area (south of Nashville, TN). “My experience<br />

at <strong>Wheelock</strong> was crucial in leading me to<br />

this school,” Ashley wrote. “It gave me exposure<br />

to this awesome educational philosophy, and my<br />

children have benefited as well!” Jaime Carey<br />

Kendra Dome Frederick ’05/’07MS with new husband Kosea<br />

’00/’05MS wrote last fall of plans to get married<br />

on May 30, <strong>2008</strong>, and was planning a Las<br />

Vegas/San Francisco honeymoon. She and her<br />

fiance planned on buying a house before the<br />

wedding. She works full time as a developmental<br />

specialist at the Taunton, MA, Early Intervention<br />

Program and part time as a personal trainer at a<br />

nearby gym.<br />

2001<br />

Carrie Watson<br />

Jillian Warner and Hernan Edzon Perez were<br />

married in September 2006 in Cochabamba,<br />

Bolivia. This past September they had a stateside<br />

reception on Cape Cod which Meghan<br />

Cummings Fleck attended. Jillian and Hernan<br />

live in Portland, OR.<br />

2003<br />

Reunion <strong>2008</strong><br />

May 30-June 1<br />

Early this year, Stephany Melton left<br />

Massachusetts Advocates for Children to take a job<br />

as training and communications coordinator at<br />

Parent/Professional Advocacy League (PAL), also in<br />

Boston. Before the switch, she wrote of being very<br />

excited about working back in the mental health<br />

field again. She wrote: “PAL is an organization of<br />

more than 4,000 Massachusetts families and professionals<br />

who advocate on behalf of children with<br />

emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs and<br />

their families. I will be providing the large network<br />

of parent support specialists with supports, training,<br />

and technical assistance. They, in turn, provide support,<br />

information, and advocacy resources to thousands<br />

of families across Massachusetts.” Tricia<br />

Patenaude Sabine wrote to announce the birth of<br />

Lily Louise Sabine last Aug. 31.<br />

46 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


CLASS NOTES<br />

2004<br />

Karyn Beaudry and Richard Denningham III were<br />

married on June 30, 2007. Jennifer Thurston<br />

’04/’05MS also wrote of her marriage, to David<br />

Carey in Scituate, MA, last Oct. 20. “It was truly<br />

the best day of our lives!” she wrote.<br />

“It has been a busy year for me,” Kelly<br />

McLoud Duda wrote last December. “I got<br />

engaged in March and married my high school<br />

sweetheart, Ryan Duda, on Sept. 1 in New<br />

Hampshire. Jamie-Leigh Morton ’04/’07MS, my<br />

college roommate, was one of my bridesmaids.<br />

Other <strong>Wheelock</strong> grads in attendance were Melissa<br />

Hathaway Stutz, Vikki Sawyer, Brenda Noel<br />

’93, and Sue Mackey ’94. The flower girls were<br />

Martie and Ella Fairchild, Brenda’s daughters. It<br />

was a gorgeous day for an outside wedding!”<br />

Melissa was in touch with <strong>Wheelock</strong> separately<br />

and shared that she and husband Austin live in<br />

Queen Creek, AZ, and she is working as a case<br />

manager for at-risk boys and girls. “It’s challenging<br />

but very rewarding all at once,” she wrote. Andrea<br />

Nicoli Pappaconstantinou ’04/’06MS and husband<br />

Kenneth were married July 14, 2007. “We<br />

were high school sweethearts and are now very<br />

happily married!” she wrote.<br />

Congratulations to Emily Pateris and Darin<br />

Costantine, who were married last Dec. 29 in<br />

Ocean City, MD. Emily teaches fourth grade in the<br />

Baltimore County Public Schools.<br />

(L to R) Amy Rodger Dubow ’00, Lynn Durocher ’06, Marcie Morrocco<br />

’00, and Ingrid Rogers Abrams ’00 at Marcie and Jon’s August 2007<br />

wedding<br />

2006<br />

Allegra Pelliccione wrote to announce her<br />

engagement in September 2007 to Daniel<br />

Marrone. They plan to get married in New<br />

York in 2009. Allegra is at Boston <strong>College</strong> pursuing<br />

a dual master’s in Elementary Education and<br />

Moderate Disabilities, and Daniel is at Cambridge<br />

<strong>College</strong> working on a master’s in Education<br />

with a focus in psychology and plans to get his<br />

Ph.D. for school psychology. Both will graduate<br />

this August.<br />

2007<br />

Alicia Davis joined the Americorps Victims<br />

Assistance Program upon graduation and started<br />

working at A Safe Place in Portsmouth, NH, as a<br />

direct service advocate last September. Later last fall,<br />

she wrote: “As part of my Americorps position, I<br />

coordinate the Clothesline Project in my town and<br />

county. [It] will be on the lawns of the Statehouse<br />

in Concord, NH, in April <strong>2008</strong>! I am very thankful<br />

for my Certificate in Community Based Human<br />

Services because it has proved useful at my new line<br />

of work. Although I am volunteering and not making<br />

money, I love what I do as I am helping victims<br />

of domestic violence! I use my knowledge from<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> every day!”<br />

“All in all, life is going well,” Ryan Kellarson<br />

wrote. He has become the lead teacher of the before<br />

and after kindergarten classroom and the assistant<br />

director at Bright Start Child Care in Foxboro, MA.<br />

“I’ve been very happy there, and they have treated<br />

me very well, offering many opportunities,” he<br />

wrote. Last year he also bought a new car and<br />

adopted a Boston terrier puppy named Daisy.<br />

2005<br />

Michelle Amaro wrote, “After completing my<br />

M.S.W. from Southern Connecticut State<br />

University in 2006 and receiving my LCSW this<br />

past March, I have been practicing as a clinical<br />

therapist at United Community and Family<br />

Services, a community outpatient clinic. I provide<br />

individual and group therapy to adults and<br />

families with mental illness and/or substance<br />

abuse disorders. In addition, I have been spending<br />

time developing a private practice with my<br />

current colleagues in Mystic, CT.” Megan<br />

Johnson has an “incredibly rewarding job” as a<br />

child care counselor working with 5- to 13-yearold<br />

boys at St. Ann’s Home in Methuen, MA.<br />

She’s been there since August 2007.<br />

A hearty “Congratulations!” is in order for<br />

several classmates: Kendra Dome ’05/’07MS and<br />

Kosea Frederick were married last Dec. 22.<br />

Aimee Glassick married Christopher Dill at<br />

Water’s Edge in Westbrook, CT, last Aug. 18,<br />

and they now live in Guilford, CT. Allison<br />

Marini married Jimmy Antonowicz on Dec. 22,<br />

2007 (the same day as Kendra’s!). Lauren<br />

Willette ’05/’06MS gave birth to her first child<br />

in April 2007 — Boston Jeffrey Willette.<br />

Christopher and Aimee Glassick Dill ’05 (back row, left and center) with Kendra Dome ’05/’07MS (back row, right) and (front row, L to R) Katie<br />

Denissoff ’06, Shannon Tower ’05, and Meghan Parisi ’05<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine 47


CLASS NOTES<br />

Associate Degrees<br />

Karen Flowers Cagan ’88AS/’90BS (See Class of<br />

’90BS.)<br />

Master’s Degrees<br />

Sachiko “Faith” Yamada Yamamoto ’56/’57MS<br />

(See Class of ’57.) Ai-Ling Louie ’76MS wrote<br />

that her second children’s book has been published:<br />

“It’s an elementary school biography of<br />

my classmate Vera Wang called ‘Vera Wang:<br />

Queen of Fashion’ (Dragoneagle Press).” Her<br />

first book was “Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story<br />

from China” (Philomel/Putnam). Jackie Mast<br />

’78MS hopes she might see other <strong>Wheelock</strong><br />

alums at this October’s Healing the Healers<br />

conference in Iceland. The theme is Water:<br />

Motion and Emotion. Go to http://www.linkedin.<br />

com/in/jacquelinemast for more information.<br />

Deborah Karmozyn ’79MS began a new job as<br />

the junior school principal (K-4) at the United<br />

Nations International School in New York City<br />

in August 2007. She’d been the K-12 curriculum<br />

director there for five years before being appointed<br />

principal. Most of Deborah’s career has been in<br />

the world of international schools, including<br />

schools in Italy, Denmark, China, and Qatar.<br />

Diane Rothauser ’74/’81MS (See Class of ’74.)<br />

Joan Anderson Watts ’65/’83MS (See Class of<br />

’65.) Jill Schunick Putnam ’74/’84MS (See<br />

Class of ’74.)<br />

Congratulations to David Siedlar ’91MS, a<br />

teacher at the Huaiyin Institute of Technology in<br />

the People’s Republic of China, who wrote early<br />

last fall to let <strong>Wheelock</strong> know that he’d married<br />

Xiao Gui Fang, of Huaian, in Nanjing in August.<br />

The wedding ceremony was performed in the<br />

Jiangsu Province Marriage and Orphans Bureau.<br />

Dianne Chase ’92MS became director of community<br />

education at the Eanes Independent School<br />

District in Austin, TX, in 2007. Prior to that, she’d<br />

been vice president for training/technical assistance<br />

director at Learning Links, also in Austin, for five<br />

years. During that span, she also served in leadership<br />

capacities with the National Afterschool<br />

Association and the Texas Afterschool Association.<br />

She can be reached at dchase@eanes.k12.tx.us.<br />

Jessi Ruth MacLeod ’64/’92MS (See Class of<br />

’64.) Nichole Quintin Brody ’95/’96MS (See<br />

Class of ’95.) Kyla McSweeney ’94/’97MS (See<br />

Class of ’94.) Donna Gorman ’97/’98MS (See<br />

Class of ’97.) Tina Morris Helm ’64/’98MS (See<br />

Class of ’64.) Carri LaCroix Pan ’94/’98MS<br />

(See Class of ’94.) Astrid Garcia Mazariegos<br />

’97/’99MS (See Class of ’97.) Melissa Johnson<br />

’01MS shared some information about the San<br />

Diego agency where she is program manager:<br />

“United Through Reading is a nonprofit agency<br />

that helps to maintain connections between parents<br />

who are physically separated from their children<br />

through the medium of reading on DVD. The<br />

agency works with deployed military personnel as<br />

well as parents who are incarcerated in San Diego<br />

County. As this program truly embraces<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong>’s values of promoting literacy in the<br />

family, I thought it important to share.”<br />

In April 2007, Sharon McRae ’02MS, a<br />

kindergarten 2 teacher at Orchard Gardens Pilot<br />

School (a part of Boston Public Schools) in<br />

Roxbury, MA, was honored with a Physical<br />

Environment Award by the Innercity Network of<br />

Early Education Professionals and the Boston<br />

Association for the Education of Young Children.<br />

She was praised for understanding the needs of<br />

her students and modifying her classroom as<br />

necessary to meet their needs as they change, and<br />

for contributing her time and resources to the<br />

betterment of the services provided to families.<br />

Not only are her classroom spaces warm, inviting,<br />

and comfortable for the children, but she also has<br />

a personalized welcome area for parents “with an<br />

eye for aesthetics and respect for natural materials,”<br />

the awards gala program said. Diep Nguyen<br />

’98/’02MS (See Class of ’98.) Jennifer Crocker<br />

’03MS wrote earlier this year of her plans to marry<br />

Jamie Folker in Maine this June 21. She teaches<br />

fifth grade at Fairview School in Auburn, ME.<br />

Jaime Carey ’00/’05MS (See Class of ’00.)<br />

Jennifer Thurston ’04/’05MS (See Class of ’04.)<br />

Fumiko Mato ’06MS is working as a child life<br />

specialist at Osaka University Hospital in Japan.<br />

Andrea Nicoli Pappaconstantinou ’04/’06MS<br />

(See Class of ’04.) Lauren Willette ’05/’06MS (See<br />

Class of ’05.) Kendra Dome ’05/’07MS (See Class<br />

of ’05.) Marcus Humphrey ’07MS checked in<br />

with <strong>Wheelock</strong> last December, when he was<br />

completing his first-semester exams at the middle<br />

school he’d been working at since graduating.<br />

Arrivals<br />

85 Karen Poisson Enos, a daughter,<br />

Leah Ling Enos<br />

90 Patricia Foley Elliott, a son, Gabriel David<br />

94 Amy Goldstein Brin, a daughter,<br />

Cecelia Claire<br />

94 Kate McInerney Leighton, a daughter,<br />

Amelia<br />

94 Kim Haws Moxin, a daughter,<br />

Catherine Marie<br />

95 Kathleen McEneaney Curry, a son, Colin<br />

95 Carolyn Fahie Ouellette, a son, Jack<br />

96 JoAnne Leitner Sushko, a son, Liam<br />

00 Leah Champ Burdick, a daughter,<br />

Natalie Jane<br />

00 Ashley Rogers Kevorkian, a daughter,<br />

Elena<br />

00 Sara Levesh Prior, a daughter, Molly Ann<br />

03 Tricia Patenaude Sabine, a daughter,<br />

Lily Louise<br />

05/06 Lauren Willette, a son,<br />

Boston Jeffrey Willette<br />

Unions<br />

91MS David Siedlar to Xiao Gui Fang<br />

94 Shannon M. Garvey to Kevin P. Roach<br />

94/97 Kyla McSweeney to James Burton<br />

97 Kerrie Colantonio to Jansen McNay<br />

97 Victoria Ryder to Matthew Gilman<br />

00 Marcie Morrocco to Jon Kaczmarczyk<br />

01 Jillian Warner to Hernan Edzon Perez<br />

03/07 Jennifer Finn to Robert Deardorff<br />

04 Kelly McLoud to Ryan Duda<br />

04 Emily Pateris to Darin Costantine<br />

04/05 Jennifer Thurston to David Carey<br />

05/07 Kendra Dome to Kosea Frederick<br />

05 Aimee Glassick to Christopher Dill<br />

05 Allison Marini to James “Jimmy”<br />

Antonowicz<br />

07MS Kimberly Conlan to James LoCicero<br />

Deaths<br />

28 Marjorie Whitehead Shepherd<br />

30 Eugenie Callahan<br />

31 Marjorie Little Rourke<br />

32 Margery Hart Cory<br />

32 Marian Branch Haughton<br />

33 Isabel Ward Knowlton<br />

35 Elsie Medlicott Jacob<br />

38 Mildred Wheeler Flanders<br />

38 Bettina Dvlinsky Werman<br />

42 Janet Moody Strickler<br />

41 Virginia Dole Ladd<br />

41 Mary Ames Poor<br />

42/43 Janet Moody Strickler<br />

43/44 Alma Mathewson Hinman<br />

44 Margaret Zabriskie Christison<br />

58 Barbara Stumpf Moses<br />

70 Brenda Gladding Alexander<br />

73 Barbara Steele Cole<br />

76 Martha Gormley<br />

77 Jackie Lampert<br />

96MS Lindsay Davis<br />

48 <strong>Spring</strong> <strong>2008</strong>


Dreams really do<br />

come true!<br />

Couldn’t do it<br />

without you!<br />

Thumbs up!<br />

WELCOME,<br />

Fabulous New<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Alumni!<br />

The great thing about graduating<br />

from <strong>Wheelock</strong> is that you can always<br />

come home again — often! Here’s how:<br />

❖ Come to our on-campus events<br />

and conferences.<br />

❖ Join your local <strong>Wheelock</strong> Alumni<br />

Club and attend our special offcampus<br />

gatherings.<br />

❖ Start a <strong>Wheelock</strong> Book Club<br />

chapter.<br />

❖ Stay in touch with the Alumni<br />

Relations Office at alumnirelations@<br />

wheelock.edu or (617) 879-2261.<br />

❖Read <strong>Wheelock</strong> Magazine, and<br />

let everyone know what you’re up<br />

to by sending in news for the Class<br />

Notes section. Lori Ann Saslav is<br />

waiting to hear from you at lsaslav@<br />

wheelock.edu or (617) 879-2123.<br />

❖Sign up to read the monthly<br />

Alumni E-newsletter by e-mailing<br />

Lori Ann at lsaslav@wheelock.edu<br />

with your e-mail address.<br />

Congratulations<br />

all around!<br />

Oh,<br />

happy day!


Calendar<br />

of Events<br />

June 2 – 4<br />

Leadership and Management<br />

in the Social Sector Seminars<br />

Innovative Leadership at Work:<br />

Preparing Social Entrepreneurs<br />

of Today<br />

43 Hawes Street<br />

Brookline Campus<br />

June 5 & 6<br />

Environmental Education<br />

for Children:<br />

Going Beyond the Hype<br />

43 Hawes Street<br />

Brookline Campus<br />

July 9 – 11<br />

International Froebel Society<br />

Conference<br />

Learning to Play—<br />

Playing to Learn<br />

Center for Scholarship and Research<br />

43 Hawes Street<br />

Brookline Campus<br />

July 17<br />

Cape Cod Club Annual Picnic<br />

Stay tuned for more details!<br />

August 14 • 12 p.m.<br />

Alumni Association Board<br />

Past Presidents Luncheon<br />

Hosted by President Jenkins-Scott<br />

43 Hawes Street<br />

Brookline Campus<br />

August 30 • 9:30-11:30 a.m.<br />

Alumni Association<br />

Annual Plant Giveaway!<br />

<strong>Wheelock</strong> Family Theatre<br />

Join us in welcoming the<br />

Class of 2012!<br />

October 3 & 4<br />

Alumni of Color Reunion<br />

For more information,<br />

call the<br />

Alumni Relations Office at<br />

(617) 879-2261.<br />

For more information and event updates, watch your monthly<br />

E-Newsletter, check the <strong>College</strong> website at www.wheelock.edu, or e-mail alumnirelations@wheelock.edu.<br />

To improve the lives of children and families<br />

200 The Riverway<br />

Boston, MA<br />

02215-4176<br />

(617) 879-2123<br />

Non-Profit Org.<br />

U.S. Postage<br />

PAID<br />

N. ATTLEBORO, MA<br />

PERMIT NO. 216

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