#78 SPRING 2016
A publication of New College of Florida
ARTICULATE THE PRECISION
NEW COLLEGE MARRYING HUMANITIES AND TECHNOLOGY League of Legends
Jackson George
A Cohort of Faculty and Influencers
The Force Awakens
* NCAA Communications Committee Colin Boyle - Communications Chair Jordan Clark Michael Dexter Hazel Bradford Shannon Strischek Editorial Staff Jessica Rood Director of Communications and Marketing Jessica Rogers Associate VP for Advancement Kim Butler Creative Services Manager David Gulliver News Services Manager
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Glen Van Der Molen Assistant Director New College Alumnae/i Association
Articulate the Precision New College Marrying Humanities and Technology
19 Profiles
Jackson George ’95 Cris Hassold Mark Martindale ’77
Also inside this issue: On Campus > 1 Op Ed > 5 League of Legends We Heard You > 7 A cohort of faculty and influencers In the Community > 17 Reunion > 18 Chapter News > 25 * For the past 14 years or so, students have attended a late-night Class Notes > 27 breakfast right before finals. This year, about 200 students shuffled
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into Ham Center on Dec. 9 to scarf down pancakes and all of the toppings, fueling their late-night studies.
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Publisher Office of Communications & Marketing New College of Florida 5800 Bay Shore Road Sarasota, FL 34243-2109 941.487.4153 communications@ncf.edu NCAA Board of Directors Executive Committee Chair – Frazier Carraway ’72 Chair-Elect – Cindy Hill ’89 Treasurer – Chad Bickerton ’05 Communications Chair – Colin Boyle ’89 Governance Chair – Maia Hinkle ’05 Immediate Past Chair – Susan “Spozy” Sapoznikoff ’83 Hazel Bradford ’75 Jordan Clark ’04 Michael Dexter ’07 Carmela French ’06 Steve Jacobson ’71 Gera Peoples ’94 Leslie Reinherz ’70 Rick Schofield ’85 Norman Stein ’69 Shannon Strischek ’05 Sarah Thompson ’06 Vernon Woodworth ’70 MaryAnne Young Vice President for Advancement Dr. Donal O’Shea President of New College For a full board listing, visit ncf.edu.
THEN & NOW
ON CAMPUS
Pei Dorms: Designed by internationally-renowned architect I.M. Pei, New College’s Pei Residence Halls opened in 1965 and accommodate more than 250 students. Recently renovated, some feature covered porches or large balconies, providing additional living space.
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CAMPUS NEWS
New College Moves Up in U.S. News Rankings he U.S. News & World Report ranks New College of Florida the No. 4 public liberal arts college in the nation, up one position from last year. The rankings, part of the “Best Colleges 2016” edition, were released Sept. 10 on the magazine’s website. The ranking marks the 11th consecutive year New College has been listed in the top six public liberal arts colleges nationwide. New College trails only the nation’s three major military service academies in the category. New College also ranked 15th nationwide for “Least Debt” among all liberal arts colleges. New College’s 2014 graduates owed just $17,553 on average. “New College provides a tremendous and affordable education that transforms students and gives them the abilities to achieve great things, be it in arts or sciences, private industry or public service,” said New College President Don O’Shea. “We’re thrilled that the work of our students, faculty and staff are recognized in U.S. News & World Report.” The magazine’s statistics pointed to several reasons for New College’s strong and improving showing. • Top-performing students. Nearly half of incoming freshmen (45 percent) were in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class. • Small classes. Three-quarters of its classes (75 percent) have 20 or fewer students; just 1 percent has 50 or more students.
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Affordability. Better than six out of 10 New College students (62 percent) graduate with no debt at all, also 15th in the country. New College also moved up five places in the overall rankings, to 82nd place among of the 245 national liberal arts colleges, most of which are private institutions. U.S. News also noted New College’s strong reputation among high school guidance counselors (57th place nationally) and named it a “Best College for Veterans” (60th place nationally) for the College’s participation in programs that assist veterans in paying for college. The rankings arrive as New College continues to build on its successes. In August, the College welcomed the largest incoming class in its history, following on last year’s record-setting class. Among the newcomers are four women from the Middle East, attending on full scholarships through a partnership with the Daughters for Life Foundation. They join the four women from last year’s inaugural class of Daughters for Life Scholars. This summer, the state of Florida approved funding for New College’s expansion of its Heiser Natural Sciences Complex. The project will add about 50 percent more space for biology, chemistry and physics labs and classrooms, as well as accommodations for a new program in computer science. Rankings lists from U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges 2016” guidebook are available today at usnews.com/colleges.
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CAMPUS NEWS
New College of Florida Awarded ‘Green Business’ Certification from Sarasota County ew College of Florida has received Green Business Partnership certification from Sarasota County, recognizing the College’s leadership in recycling, reducing waste, and conserving water and energy. To achieve Green Business status, the College had to document how it met 21 standards for reducing solid waste, 14 for water conservation, and 14 for energy conservation. They include: • Having comprehensive recycling and composting programs, • Using low-flow toilets and showerheads, • Landscaping with Florida native and drought-resistant plants, • Using low-wattage or and LED lights, with timers or motion sensors where feasible. Alan Burr, director of the College’s Facilities and Construction Department, said the College also stood out for its participation in the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) program. New College has been reporting on its carbon footprint and greenhouse gas reduction since 2007. Dana Bulger, administrative services coordinator for Physical Plant, headed the application effort. “It makes you take stock of where you are right now, and where you could look for improvement,” she said. “We’re constantly trying to do things that will save water and electricity.” She credited New College students, particularly a group
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headed by second-year Adilyne McKinlay, for encouraging the College to pursue the certification. “We recognized the environmental initiatives the school had already taken and thought the partnership would be a good fit,” said McKinlay, who is the New College Student Alliance’s vice president for green affairs. “We were able to meet, and in some aspects far surpass, the requirements for the partnership, which speaks to the sustainable initiatives the College has undertaken in recent years,” she said. To learn more, visit Sarasota County’s Green Business Partnership website at scgov.net/GreenBusiness or view its ACUPCC reports at reporting.secondnature.org.
CAMPUS NEWS
New College Ranks No. 14 in Kiplinger’s Top 100 Public Colleges or the 13th consecutive year, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance has recognized New College of Florida as one of the nation’s best values in higher education. The magazine ranked New College 14th on its list of the 100 best values in public colleges for 2016. Kiplinger says its rankings “highlight public schools, private universities and private liberal arts colleges that combine outstanding academics with affordable cost.” When a school appears on the list multiple times, it is a “testament to the consistent value these colleges provide,” Kiplinger said. Kiplinger found that New College is a tremendous value for Florida students: New College ranked 7th among the nation’s public colleges
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for the lowest total cost to in-state students after awarding need-based financial aid, and 13th for cost per year without financial aid. It also found that New College was an excellent choice for any students, from any state, hoping to minimize student loan payments: New College ranked 6th among public colleges for lowest total debt at graduation, and 20th among all colleges, public and private. Kiplinger derives 55 percent of a college’s grade from academic quality measures, such as graduation rate, freshman retention and incoming students’ test scores. The rest of the grade comes from cost criteria, such as cost, financial aid and student debt.
ON CAMPUS CAMPUS NEWS
New College of Florida Ranked a Top-50 School for Return on Investment by The Princeton Review ew College of Florida was named one of the country’s top colleges for return on investment, by combining a superb education and high salaries for graduates with affordable tuition, by the respected and long-running Princeton Review. The ranking comes in the just-released 2016 edition of The Princeton Review’s book, “Colleges That Pay You Back: The 200 Schools That Give You the Best Bang for Your Tuition Buck.” New College was named to the Review’s unranked list of 200 colleges, chosen from more than 5,000 nationwide, for the second straight year. This year, New College also broke into the Review’s exclusive ranked list of the “Top 50 Colleges That Pay You
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Back.” New College ranked 45th, one of a handful of small liberal arts colleges nationwide to make the cut. It was one of just two Florida colleges to appear on the list. The Princeton Review chose the schools based on return on investment (ROI) rankings that it tallied for 650 colleges last year. The ratings weighted 40 data points, from academics, cost, and financial aid to graduation rates, student debt, and alumni salaries and job satisfaction. In the book’s profile, The Princeton Review editors praise New College for its “incredibly low tuition and rigorous, individualized academic program (that) make it a tremendous value for both in-state and out-of-state students.”
CAMPUS NEWS
Archeology Program and Sarasota County Team up to Uncover the Secrets of Phillippi Estate park s the morning light filtered through the Spanish moss draping a live oak, Kevin Cigala ’13 stood in the shade, sifting shovelful after shovelful of dirt. Steve Koski, interim county archaeologist, was digging perhaps a half-meter down in a square hole about two feet on each side. The day before, archaeologists and volunteers had found a shell hammer and ax in this excavation unit, in a dense layer just 10 centimeters below the surface – signs of a nearby settlement some 1,300 years ago. Now they were turning up lithic flakes, the remains from the making of stone tools, and Koski was readying to close this location as he excavated a sterile level under the Archaic Period lithics. Both finds and the lack thereof are significant, said Prof. Uzi Baram, director of the New College Public Archaeology Lab. “We’re searching a large area and sometimes find there are no collectible materials. That is information for us, too.” Several New College students – Cigala, Kristin Brzostek ’14, Maia Owen ’13, Haley Trejo ’15 and Garrett Murto ’12 – all volunteered at the Jan. 5-6 dig, on a field at Sarasota’s Phillippi Estate Park. They mapped the site, dug, sifted, and
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took notes to record the process and the finds. Alumni Lisa Bohn ’77, Sherry Svekis ’02 and George Luer ’89 also attended and assisted with the dig. The dig was conducted in cooperation with Sarasota County and the Florida Public Archaeology Network. The team dug small holes at several spots on a gently sloped field -- normally a locale for soccer games and dog walking. About 500 people stopped by the site over two days to see, and sometimes help with the excavation. It’s important for the public to see the real work of archaeology, not just the finds, Baram said. And while this is the most visible and perhaps most exciting part of the work, the most important part is yet to come, in the lab, as students clean and categorize the finds. The Public Archaeology Lab, which opened in 2010, offers the equipment and the space for New College students to engage this crucial step in analysis and then interpretation of the finds. It will be in the Lab that Baram will invite park officials to see the cleaned and cataloged artifacts that will go into displays and exhibits at Phillippi Estate Park for the public to see.
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ON CAMPUS CAMPUS NEWS
New College’s President O’Shea Wins Major Mathematics Award resident Donal O’Shea is a co-winner of the 2016 American Mathematical Society’s Leroy P. Steele Award for Exposition, one of the highest distinctions in mathematics. O’Shea and fellow mathematicians David Cox and John Little received the award for their 1992 book “Ideals, Varieties and Algorithms.” Its fourth edition was released this year. “We are deeply honored to have been awarded the Steele prize,” O’Shea said. “Many wonderful books and papers in mathematics have appeared in the last few decades, and those singled out by the Steele prize are among the best. Having our book listed in this company is deeply touching.” The book, nicknamed CLO for its authors’ initials, is known as a classic for making the complex field of algebraic geometry widely accessible. “Even more impressive than [the book’s] clarity of exposition is the impact it has had on mathematics,” the prize citation states. “CLO, as it is fondly known, has not only introduced many to algebraic geometry, it has actually broadened how the subject could be taught and who could use it.” The book helped move computational algebraic and algebraic geometry into the mathematical mainstream, the Society said. “It not only has provided many of today’s mathematicians with their first grounding in algebraic geometry, but also has brought this area of mathematics to the service of scientists and engineers.” The Society noted that the three authors of the landmark book are top-flight mathematicians who teach at small liberal arts colleges: O’Shea taught at Mount Holyoke College for more than 30 years before becoming the president of New College in 2012, while Cox teaches at Amherst College and Little teaches at College of the Holy Cross. “Their book shows how small colleges make signal contributions to the advancement of mathematics, the training of future mathematicians, and the applications of mathematics to other disciplines,” the Society said. Algebraic geometry has a reputation for being impenetrably technical and abstract. But by requiring only linear algebra as a prerequisite, the society said, CLO has invited a broad audience of readers into a central branch of mathematics Using geometry to introduce core topics and appealing to computational theory to prove fundamental results, the authors complement the development of theoretical results
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with applications to such topics as automated theorem proving and robotics. All of this is delivered with crystal-clear exposition and top-quality writing, the Society said. “Ideals, Varieties and Algorithms was chosen for the Steele Prize because it is a rare book that does it all. It is accessible to undergraduates,” the award citation states. “It has been a source of inspiration for thousands of students of all levels and backgrounds.” In their response to the Society, the authors wrote: We are deeply honored and grateful to receive the Leroy P. Steele prize for our book Ideals, Varieties and Algorithms. We started writing it in 1988, partly to provide background materials and notes for students involved in undergraduate research, and partly to provide alternatives to the usual algebra courses for undergraduate mathematics majors. At that time, new algorithms and ever-faster computing speeds were making it possible for undergraduates to explore examples that would previously have been inaccessible without deeper theoretical tools, a trend which has only increased in the intervening years. Through four editions, we have learned a tremendous amount by working on this project, and our readers include many individuals who expanded our horizons and whom we would never have encountered otherwise. Many wonderful books and papers in mathematics have appeared in the last few decades, and those singled out by the Steele prize are among the best. Having our book listed in this company gives us great pleasure, and we are deeply touched by the citation. O’Shea has been recognized previously for his ability to turn complicated mathematical concepts into broadly understandable prose. In 2008, he received the Peano Prize, one of Europe’s top awards for mathematical writing, for his book “The Poincaré Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe” (Walker & Company, 2006). The AMS Steele Prize was awarded on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle.
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OP ED
Teaching Technology and its Effects BY KY LE L A RSON
I often inform people who are unfamiliar with Novo Collegians that, at New College, one must keep up with the students as much as keep up with the professors. During my time at New College, I learned important critical perspectives not only relating to my area of concentration in literature, but also relating to my understanding of the world around me. For this reason, I
believe integrating technology into the liberal arts curriculum is a perfect fit for New College’s student environment. Stuart Selber reminds us that three core literacies of technology exist in his book, “Multiliteracies for a Digital Age.” Functional literacies—the ability to use a particular technology—are often the first and perhaps only literacy practice people associate with integrating technology into the liberal arts. But serving as a counter to this neoliberal association, critical literacies assist us in becoming social critics of technologies rather than passive consumers. Teaching as a graduate student at Miami University (OH), I push my own students to see past the computer interface as a “transparent” and “value-neutral” medium. I push them to better understand the ways in which technologies have certain values and assumptions built into them. But I also encourage my students to develop rhetorical literacies so that they can
become ethical, artful users of technology, who not only understand how to use it and at what social consequence—but also to what effect on those who experience the final result of its use. My time at New College allowed me to explore some of these ideas. New College could be an institution at the forefront of developing more critical, rhetorical literacies of technology. Importantly, we must not overlook the ways in which technologies are shaping and being shaped by our realities. This is part of the mission of a liberal arts education. And I believe the students of social consciousness at New College are well-prepared to undertake this effort. Larson is a graduate student and instructor in composition and rhetoric at Miami University (Ohio). Join the conversation on twitter #Nimbus
Summer Classes at New College of Florida Study abroad in Honduras, Cayos Cochinos Summer classes will be offered starting June 6. Registration is now underway! Visit NCF.EDU/ACADEMICS/SUMMER-PROGRAM to learn more.
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ON CAMPUS
What’s Happening CLAMBAKE
Many thanks to our Clambake co-chairs and committee: Co-chairs: Board of Trustees chair Keith and Linda Monda. Committee: Kathleen ’64 and Stephen Raskin, Tom and Donna Beames, Peter and Katie Hayes, Veronica and Jay Brady, Glen Harris, Astrid Rau, Patrick Hennigan, Charlie Lenger ’78, Altom ’90 and Jennifer ’89 Maglio, Gloria and Marian Moss, Keith and Michelle Senglaub, Felice Schulaner ’78 and Dennis Rees, and Mary Lou Wingerter-Couch.
On Nov. 5, the New College Foundation presented one of the community’s signature events: the 37th annual Clambake. Held on our beautiful Bayfront, more than 280 guests enjoyed a sunset and a fabulous cuisine provided by Michael’s on East, including savory Maine Lobster and New England clam chowder, all while supporting New College of Florida student scholarships. 2015 was a record setting year - the highest ever raised for students scholarships! Keith Monda, co-chair of the event and a member of the Board of Directors, spoke about need for student scholarships. A number of students and faculty volunteered, attended and joined the guests tables.
HOLIDAY TEA
To honor New College’s top supporters, the Holiday Tea and President’s Book Conversion was held at College Hall on Dec. 9 with approximately 35 guests in attendance. President O’Shea and Provost Stephen Miles opened the conversation discussing Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s book, “My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement.” The conversation evolved to include a broader discussion of civil rights, racism, and equality. The College Hall music room, decorated in crimson and gold for the holiday season, provided a beautiful backdrop for an active, lively, interesting conversation that ensued. The lunch was catered by Michael’s on East and featured beautiful vintage china, elegant linens, and traditional English tea sandwiches, with an entrée and a bevy of sweets.
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FAMILY WEEKEND
More than 300 students and family members turned out for Family Weekend, Sept. 25-27 at New College, and were treated to a series of arts performances. Other Family Weekend highlights included dinner and brunch in the historic College Hall, a picnic on the College’s Bayfront, tours of the Heiser Natural Science Complex and the Pritzker Marine Biological Research Center, and classes by music Prof. Maribeth Clark and computer science Prof. Matthew Lepinski.
WE HEARD YOU
Best of Social Media “New College’s President Wins Major Mathematics Award”
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COVER STORY / ARTICULATE THE PRECISION
Articulate the Precision New College Marrying Humanities and Technology to Push Boundaries BY DAVI D GU LLI VE R
FOR CENTURIES, scholars analyzed the works of ancient Greek writers by painstakingly counting every syllable of every word, line-by-line, work by work - a process that could take years. Those scholars could never have imagined that a young college student would do the same work, but in minutes, using his knowledge of Greek, Latin, and a language that did not even exist then – the Python programming language. Academics have harnessed the power of computers to analyze the classics since the late 1970s, but New College thesis student Tyler Kirby developed his own software for this task, and was able to examine the works of Cicero, and in particular the influence of Dionysus and others in his style in new ways. His project, under the guidance of classics Prof. David Rohrbacher, is just one of many at New College where the humanities are finding partners in technology. President Don O’Shea says the pairing of the seemingly different fields makes sense. “The arts and the humanities are humankind’s way of dealing with complexity, of reflecting the way in which people live,” he said. “Technology makes our lives easier in some ways,
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it complicates in others. But the marriage of those two is what advances what’s good, or what should be good, in our civilization.” Students and faculty have been making innovative advancements across New College. Some examples: • Arts student Jessica Pope did an Independent Study Project (ISP) titled “Digital Drawing,” teaching herself to use Photoshop to reproduce her skills with pencil and paper, and brush and canvas. • Erich Barganier, a 2014 Fulbright recipient with an AOC in Russian and music, built on his proficiency with several instruments to compose and perform electronic music. • Sarah Russell, a computer science AOC, developed a narrative-driven, art-rich interactive computer game, where players guide an avatar through a quest. • History Prof. Carrie Beneš and Research Scientist Justin Saarinen led a team of students in developing a Geographic Information System (GIS) project mapping the streets and surroundings of medieval Genoa.
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Read President O’Shea’s op-ed in SRQ Magazine at ncf.edu/news/the-invisible-humanities
Augmentative Learning: Technology as a Tool This groundswell of technologypowered projects comes as New College is emerging as a leader in data science, a hybrid of mathematics and computer science that is driving advancements in everything from medicine to marketing. The College received accreditation for a new master’s degree program in the field in December and the program formally launches in February. The master’s degree program is also enhancing undergraduate offerings, adding courses in computer science and statistics, and builds on the College’s long track record of outstanding students in math and science; about one-quarter of all graduates last year had an AOC in the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, many of them dual majors with fields in social sciences or humanities. The ambitious Genoa project, led by Profs. Beneš and Saarinen, is one such multidisciplinary project. Technically, the project lands in the field of social sciences, but it draws on religion, art, and language as well as economics and politics. The project stems from multiple maps that Beneš found, depicting the city of Genoa from the 11th
Art student Julia Pope mastered digital technique by creating a self-portrait.
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through 15th centuries. It will be part of an upcoming book on medieval Genoa that Beneš is co-writing. It lays out the streets and buildings, the rivers and valleys, like most maps, but also the fiefdoms of the leading families, the D’Oria, Fieshci, Grimaldi, Malaspina and Spinelli, and the boundaries of the Catholic dioceses. Clicking on many features provides
subject – I prefer to think about it as augmentative,” Beneš said. “You can do things with technology, the kind of analysis that you cannot do with a piece of paper and a pen or even a copy of Microsoft Word. So from my perspective this doesn’t replace archival research or reading books or traditional methods of scholarship. On the other hand, it is a really useful way to visualize all of that “The arts and the humanities are humankind’s stuff and store it.” Prof. David Gillman, way of dealing with complexity, of reflecting who teaches computer the way in which people live. Technology science, has partnered with makes our lives easier in some ways, it several students on their projects. He agrees that complicates in others. But the marriage of computers can bring more those two is what advances what’s good, power to bear on or what should be good, in our civilization." humanities research. -President Donal O’Shea “People have been using some kind of technology detailed information, and skilled users forever. And computers are just a new can compare features grouped by eras, kind of technology,” he said. “And what fiefdoms, or other categories. does technology do? It takes some of the Beneš says that while a GIS map load off of people and maybe it lets seems far removed from texts, it’s more people do things they didn’t think they accurate to think of it as an could do before.” amalgamation. But technology is just the tool, he “So often, I think people imagine said. It is neither the origin of the technology as replacing traditional research question nor the solution itself. book-centered methods of learning. “You always have to have the And I think – this is a politically fraught experience in any particular domain to
ARTICULATE THE PRECISION / COVER STORY
Classicist Tyler Kirby’s programming explores Circens in new ways.
understand a particular problem.” Kirby (the thesis student that developed software to analyze Cicero) consulted with Gillman as they launched their project, and agrees that the computer-driven analysis has to start with and be true to the Classics tradition. “The research has to have a respect for the philological methodologies and be interesting in a literary aspect as well,” he said. “I think a lot of the bad rap of digital humanities comes from these gimmicky research projects that use the technology as the end in itself, rather than as a tool or a supplement, and the final project is more of an infographic than a contribution to the field.”
Big Data: Precisely and Artfully Re-organized
But Saarinen, co-creator of the Genoa mapping project, says methods like GIS can improve students’ research and analytic skills. GIS projects typically compile information from many sources – a map of streets and buildings layered atop a map of political boundaries, and with those features linked to databases of owners, events, dates, and more, which also may be compiled from multiple sources. “You have to a critical eye for understanding how to use other people’s work,” he said. “Every time you produce something and it’s going to be distributable, you have to put your
confidence in the data. You have to be able to understand the precision, you have to have the ability to articulate the precision, articulate the accuracy, and articulate the process by which you created the data.” In fact, Rohrbacher (classics) believes the humanities have as much to offer to data science, the emerging hybrid of computer science and statistics, as those fields do to humanities. Kirby’s project is an example. “The future of data science to a large extent lies in text analysis, it lies in Twitter accounts and Facebook, not the big, ugly patterns of ones and zeroes, but the big chunks of language and how to analyze that,” he said. “These are things that can work in both directions, things that are done with computers in classics or in literary studies are things that can reverberate even in industry.” Gillman, who is a singer and music aficionado, sees computers and technology knocking down barriers and offering new areas to explore. “Some of the things we’re doing with computers in the humanities were anticipated,” he said. “Some of it will replace some expertise and some of it will make people see new things, new patterns that they hadn’t seen before. And some of it will – for more artistically-minded people, it will just
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S. Maria di Pietraminuta
S. Nicolosio S. Maria del Carmelo S. Francesco S. Marta
S. Antonio S. Sepolcro S. Giovanni S. Sisto S. Vittorio S. Fide S. Paolo
SS. Giacomo e Filippo S. Germano all'Acquasola
S. Onotato
S. Sabina Porta di S. Agnese
Porta di S. Nicola
Macello
S. Pancrazio S. Luca S. Maria delle Vigne S. Matteo
S. Vincenzo Porta Aurea S. Michele S. Colombano S. Stefano S. Domenico Porta del Soccorso
S. Martino
S. AndreaS. Leonardo
Zecca
S. Pietro della PortaS. Genesio
Palazzo S. Giorgio
Palazzo Pubblico
S. Lorenzo (Cathedral) on) S. Donato S. Torpe (relocated?) S. Giorgio S. Tecla S. Damiano
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S. Bernardo di Peralto
Porta di S. Caterina
Macello
S. Maria Maddalena
Palazzo del Podesta
S. Thome
S. Caterina di Luccoli
S. Francesco S. Siro
Porta dei Vacca
Portello
Porta S. Andrea S. Maria dei Servi S. Maria in Via Lata S. Defendente di Morcento
S. Maria
S. Nazario S. Silvestro S. Maria in PassioneS. Croce
S. Salvatore
S. Maria di Carignano
S. Margherita
Urban Infrastructure in Genoa, 11th-14th centuries City Walls 11th century 14th century City Gates Churches
Docks
Streets
11th century 13th century 13th-14th century
Civic Structures
S. Giacomo
11th century 12th century 13th century 0
0.25
0.5
Miles
© CE Beneš 12/15
The Genoa GIS project by Prof. Carrie Beneš and research scientist Justin Saarineen allows users to explore the history, culture and geography of the medieval trade center.
make new things that people can play with. It’s a way of making a new kind of art.”
New Students, New Experiment
And Novo Collegians already are. For her 2014 ISP, Pope (digital drawing) began by learning the basic capabilities of Photoshop Elements, experimenting with layers, light, opacity, blurring. By the fourth week, she brought her new skill to bear in a self-portrait. Barganier’s (Music and Russian AOC) study of electronic music culminated in the May 2014 “DIY Ensemble” performance in the New Music New College concert series. He used a program called Supercollider to code music that looped and intentionally overloaded the program. “The electronic music I used at the spring concert was very wild, in that its main purpose was being designed to crash,” he said. “But in reality, it takes just as much discipline to program a piece of music as it takes to learn a new instrument.”
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He would know. Barganier plays guitar, mandolin, banjo, upright bass and bazouki, and has taught and composed music since he was in high school. But at New College he took up electronic music, learning theory from Prof. Brett Aarden and then composition from Prof. Mark Danciger. “For me, technology brought an entirely new spectrum of music techniques, ideas and opportunities,” he said. “When you are taught traditional music theory, you are taught strict guidelines which were established hundreds of years ago. Certain boundaries and mentalities appear as a result. There are general rules about harmony, what performers can and can’t perform, etc. and this tends to shape your view of how to write music.” “When you begin working with computer music and electronic music, those limitations disappear. You don’t have to worry about what a performer can and can’t perform and you can explore concepts you might not have thought of in the past. Those boundaries evaporate and it is like you
have a whole new dimension of music to explore.” He credits New College’s unique learning environment for making his studies possible. “New College was an ideal environment to pursue electronic music for me because the experimental nature of computer music and New College’s philosophy of driving your own education pair well together,” he said. “If you wanted to take extra classes in advanced electronic music, you were encouraged to, which might not be accepted at more conservative universities or conservatories.” Recently returned from his Fulbright year, he is working in the Tampa area for Creative Arts Unlimited as an in-house composer, creating music for clients such as museums and libraries. He still uses Supercollider, and sees his mix of classical and modern techniques as crucial to his success. “You want to be ahead of the curve and embracing technology is the one of the only ways to do that. At the end of the day, that is the mark of a good musician or composer.”
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS / FEATURE
League of Legends A Cohort of Faculty and Influencers and their Profound Effect on New College BY DAVI D GU LLI VE R
Dr. Margaret Bates It is 1952 in Kampala, Uganda, and a slight young student with a leg brace left from a bout of polio walks haltingly up to the main building of Makerere College. She is about to earn her third master’s degree in a place with few whites and fewer women. By 1958, she will have her doctorate from Oxford. In 1971, Dr. Margaret Bates will join the New College faculty and teach political science until she retires in 1995. During the tenuous years of 1989 to 1992, she accepts the role of interim provost of the College. I wish I had inquired of her which of these times in her life she felt required the most courage. Those are the thoughts that come to mind for Mary Ruiz ’73 when asked for her impressions of Prof. Bates – best known as Peggy. Despite her international reputation as a scholar of African history and politics, and international relations, Bates was best known and beloved for her commitment to her students, colleagues and to New College. Throughout her career, she combined compassion with exacting standards for scholarship. “Our professor was both formidable and familiar. Without exception, we all knew when we should call her ‘Dr. Bates’ and when we could call her ‘Peggy,’” Ruiz said. Her commitment went beyond the classroom, to her eagerness to live in the Pei Dorms – “with a set of ear plugs and a stack of romance novels at her bedside,” Ruiz said. She would open her apartment, both every Tuesday night to students, and to host a seminar, complete with continental
breakfast, for her senior political science students. It felt like a home away from home, Ruiz said. “Looking back now, I feel perhaps we gave Peggy, who never married or had children of her own, the same sense of family she gave to us. Prof. Bob Benedetti, who taught the seminar with her, said her warmth extended to her fellow faculty members as well. “She accepted students and colleagues alike as a community of scholars,” he said. “Everyone was welcome at Peggy’s apartment.” He arrived at New College a year before Bates, and the two new political scientists formed a close bond. “Peggy adopted my wife Susan and me from the beginning,” he recalled. They learned to enjoy her Indian dishes and Pimm’s No. 1 Cup on the weekends, and she introduced them to opera, which became a passion. When their daughter Beth was born in 1977, Bates was an easy choice as her godmother. “Each of us has our stories of how she gave us personal support as well as academic discipline,” Ruiz said. “Truthfully, Peggy was tougher on the women. I think Dr. Bates well knew the world for which she was trying to prepare us.” In the end, her lessons lasted far longer than what she taught in the classroom or shared over meals in her apartment. “I wish I had inquired of Peggy which of the times in her life she felt required the most courage, because she was courageous in everything she did,” Ruiz said. “I still use her example of a woman’s brand of courage as a touchstone in my life.” The Benedettis stayed in touch with Bates after they left New College in 1989, often talking on the phone for hours as she kept them updated on her beloved New College and colleagues and students. “A few days before she died, I called to find her reading a favorite book, Garrett Mattingly’s ‘The Spanish Armada,’” Benedetti said. “She told me that she had read it many times; it was an old friend, but it was now time to say good-bye.”
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Prof. Laszlo Deme The phrase “a gentleman and a scholar” has become a cliché, but in the case of Prof. Laszlo Deme, it was as much of a fact as any he taught in his 40 years as a professor of history at New College. His colleague and close friend Prof. Justus Doenecke could hardly have been more surprised at their first meeting. “From hearing his accent on the phone, I expected a short slight man with dark hair and moustache, not the strapping blond figure in his mid-30s I encountered,” Doenecke said. Though he spoke little of it, his colleagues said, Deme – known as Laci to his friends – was among the 200,000 who fled Hungary when the Soviet Union cracked down on uprisings in 1956. He arrived here in 1966, shortly after the College’s founding, and after receiving his second doctorate, at Columbia. He immediately became a legend to both his students and his fellow professors. “First and foremost, he was a teacher,” said Chuck Hamilton, a Charter Class member. “He absolutely delighted in us and was always committed to us. And then he pushed us. He used to say he quickly realized that he had to teach us graduate-level courses, so he lightly adjusted his own Columbia University Ph.D. courses.” And he expected that level of scholarship from his students. “To be one of ‘his’ students, he demanded we read voraciously, listen carefully and argue with substance, attend to good manners, and write well,” Hamilton said. And then there was the reading, something every Deme student recalls. “While my Baccalaureate thesis on the origins of Social Security was in political science, Deme made clear to me that if I didn’t read most of the secondary source material and the thousands of pages of Congressional hearings, I simply wasn’t one of “his” students.” Robert Allen ’74 remembered the first and last time he underestimated Deme. Allen proposed doing an ISP on Hugh Thomas’ 1,200-page book on the Spanish Civil War. “He looked at me and said that it was a great idea – but ‘Hold on a minute. I have a list here of other books that you should read as well.’ In the span of about two minutes, my ISP went from reading one 1,200 page book to reading that and 10 other books all in four weeks!” He also could be a mentor. One student, Harry Liebersohn ’69, has gone on to a distinguished career as a historian with University of Illinois, and credited Deme for helping his decision. “Early on he decided that was the right destination, and he was correct,” he said. “After I was admitted to Princeton, he said that the seminars there would be much like
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what I knew from New College, and he was right – he had prepared me so well that graduate school was an easy ascent.” His colleagues remember him as a man of both grace and tenacious loyalty. Gordon Bauer, professor of psychology, once showed up for a dinner party at Deme’s house wearing his typical Hawaiian shirt – only to find everyone in formal wear. “Laci noticed that I was embarrassed and quickly took off his suit jacket and tie. The other men, following his lead, took off their jackets,” Bauer said, just one of many times his friend showed his graciousness. “To me, Lazlo Deme was neither Lazlo nor Laci,” Allen said. “He was always and will always be Professor Deme. He was a mountain. Feared and respected. A force of personality, profound knowledge and his critically analytical mind. What a gift to a young man and a student to have such a resource, such an ally, in the quest for knowledge and growth, in the quest to live a fulfilling life.”
Bob Johnson Perhaps no one person did more for New College of Florida than Bob Johnson, first as a state senator and later as a member of the College’s Board of Trustees. While serving in the Florida Senate, he played a major role in bringing the financially struggling College into the State University System in 1975. Two years later, he was named a trustee of the New College Foundation. In 2001, Johnson was appointed to the board of trustees when New College was designated an independent member of the State University System, and the honors college for the arts and sciences of the state of Florida. In that and subsequent terms, he helped procure funding that resulted in the construction of the Jane Bancroft Cook Library, the Heiser Natural Sciences complex and numerous other facilities on campus. No one knows Johnson’s value to the College better than Prof. Gordon “Mike” Michalson, who during his tenure as New College’s president worked closely with Johnson for 12 years and knew him for more than two decades. Michalson spoke at Johnson’s memorial service this fall. The following passages are excerpts from his talk. “We could say that Bob saved NC twice, the first, of course, being in the mid-1970’s when the private New College was about to go out of business, and Bob used his legislative position to forge the public/private partnership that continues today. “Bob frequently joked that he was at that time mainly
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS / FEATURE concerned to keep this bay-front property from being taken over by developers and condo builders, since his only previous contact with NC had been the rather dubious occasion during the Viet Nam war, when he was invited to campus in connection with a debate about the draft. The trajectory from that original debate to Bob’s engagement with the campus up to the day he passed away is a remarkable one. “Fast-forward to the summer of 2001 when, in this very room, at the inaugural meeting of the newly-appointed NC of Florida Board of Trustees, Bob described the challenges facing this small place and then firmly announced: ‘Failure is not an option.’ That became our collective motto in the difficult months and years ahead.” Michalson made several trips with Johnson to Tallahassee to lobby on the College’s behalf. Like many others, they would walk the halls of the Legislature, shuttling from appointment to appointment. But, Michalson said, when you walked with Bob Johnson, you received an entirely different reception. “Staffer after staffer would suddenly pop out of their offices with a look of happy surprise, alerted by the distinctive sound of Bob’s voice coming down the hall. They were so genuinely happy to see him that they would just drop everything to talk, with every one of them saying some version of, ‘Oh, Senator, it’s you! We miss you up here so much. It’s just not the same here as it was in your day.’ “It became clear that such remarks were code for: you are a human being we trust; you are someone who put the people’s business above partisan interest; and you always treated us with respect and thoughtfulness. What they detected and recalled with fondness were Bob’s authenticity and integrity – which, for them, clearly offset what must also have been their occasional experiences of Bob’s gruffness and impatience.” But Johnson was much more than just a politician, which Michalson was surprised to learn on one of his visits. “I noticed Bob looking at my bookshelves and taking down a copy of a work with the ominous title, “Fear and Trembling,” by the 19th-century Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard – not an easy book. As I hung up the phone, Bob started talking thoughtfully and insightfully about the complicated tension in the book between ethical universality and Kierkegaard’s notion of an ‘absolute’ duty to God – and if my jaw could have dropped any lower, I’m sure it would have hit the floor. In my astonishment, I finally said, “Bob! When in the world did you ever read Kierkegaard?” He simply said, “When I was in Divinity School” – which was the first time I learned that Bob had spent a year at Duke Divinity School following his graduation from FSU.” Johnson both embodied and inspired some of the best aspects of New College, Michalson said. “Firmness of purpose, humane values, tremendous intelligence, candor, and a deep capacity for personal loyalty combined in Bob to form a genuinely impressive human being. His big heart was the perfect match for the big heart of this small but special place. All of us associated with New College – past, present, and, perhaps most importantly, future
– owe Bob a debt of gratitude that I suspect can never be fully paid. Yet we can surely do what Bob himself always did – which is to stay the course.”
Prof. John B. Morrill One way to assess the legacy of biology Prof. John B. Morrill, JBM to his acolytes, is to look at where some of his students ended up – because JBM was always taking his students to places they’d never forget. “I remember almost nothing about the lectures, but the field trips are touchstone memories,” said Julie Morris. “We camped on islands in Gasparilla Sound where thousands of wading birds returned to roost every evening. We counted hundreds of organisms in a 10cm square plug of seagrass benthos, marveling at the phosphorescence of the nighttime bay waters. We drove to Marco Island and gazed at hundreds of acres of mangroves, dead and buried in spoil up to their canopies, to make way for development.” Morris and Jono Miller, her husband, later ran the Environmental Studies program that Morrill built, after Morrill stepped back from administration to concentrate on his many other roles. “One of the great mysteries regarding John was how he could possibly mentor so many students, while simultaneously raising so many snails, taking so many photographs of such small things, publishing so much research and doing so much consulting,” Miller said. “Part of the explanation is that he was working all the time, but the rest lies in the synergies he developed by involving students in his research and consulting,” he continued. “By incorporating students in his work, he leveraged what he could do, while elevating undergraduate students to the ranks of co-authors. It was not unusual for New College students to show up at scientific conferences – which was, let’s face it, unusual – and be asked where they were working on their doctorate, only to reply they were trying to get their undergraduate degree from New College.” That paid off for his students, who succeeded in ways they hadn’t imagined. Joshua Waxman, who graduated in 1999, studies congenital heart defects at Univ. of Cincinnati. “I would likely not be a biologist if not for him,” he said. “When I entered New College, I thought that I would attend medical school. It was my first experiences with John taking Cell Biology that really changed my perspective on the world and what I enjoy doing.” And Sharon Matola knows that without JBM, she wouldn’t be where she is – in Central America, as the creator and
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manager of the Belize Zoo, known as “the best little zoo in the world.” “He was always supportive of my ideas and pursuits. That in itself was special and pivotal,” she said. “He encouraged all of his students to think out of the box, and to follow our dreams.” She often returned to Florida to visit family, and Morrill, and his support was crucial in those early days. “Imagine being a woman in her 20s, in a developing country, and starting a zoo,” she said. “To say that I wasn’t taken seriously in many circles is a huge understatement. So when someone shadows one’s life with encouragement during extreme uphill times, it counts. And it counts big.” Now Mark Q. Martindale ’77 has returned to Florida, after a journey from New College to Univ. of Texas at Austin, Harvard Medical School, Univ. of Chicago and Univ. of Hawaii. He now runs Univ. of Florida’s Whitney Lab for Marine Bioscience, where he says he’s “building an intellectual environment in the image of my New College experience.” He recalled the first day of Morrill’s Cell Biology class, when the professor shocked the class by putting a goldfish in a blender. “What is different about this goldfish now, rather than the goldfish 30 seconds ago?” Morill asked the students. “Nothing has been added, nothing has been taken away. Nothing except its organization “That is what JBM taught us,” Martindale said. “To pay attention to the art of how all the parts work together, whether it is in a cell or a room full of people. It is how the parts work together. The trick is to know what parts to pay attention to and when. For those of us that passed under JBM’s nose, that was what he taught us – the art of paying attention. He changed our lives. He made us better human beings. He taught us that life, our life, was worth more than the sum of the parts. Thanks JBM. We were paying attention!”
Prof. Lee Snyder Professor of History Lee Snyder taught at New College from 1969 to 2003, and in 1978 founded the biennial Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, which continued this year. The Lee Snyder Prize recognizes the most outstanding student paper presented at the conference. Alumnus Vernon Woodworth ’70, an architect who lives works and teaches in Boston, and member of the New College Alumni Association board, wrote this remembrance of Dr. Snyder, and dedicated it to memory of Dr. Marc Weinberg, a participant in the first European Workshop, who coined the nickname ‘Doc Sny.’
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At the time (early 70’s) the key to succeeding at New College was to find a faculty mentor. You had to be bold and relate, qualities outside my skillset. Good fortune led me to enroll in the first European Workshop semester abroad, led by History teacher Dr. Lee Snyder, in the Spring of 1971. A group of us flew Icelandic Air to Luxembourg and then took a bus to the Hotel Vendome in Paris’ Left Bank where for several weeks we attended introductory lectures in Medieval History and took field trips to the museums, chateaux and local cathedrals. Doc Sny was the benevolent overseer of this academic experiment. He had brought his family along, and would somehow produce a can of Nestle’s Quick for Timmy and Becky at dinner while the rest of us ordered carafes of the house red. When we later decamped to Poitiers we discovered that there was an agenda: a comprehensive exploration of the complex factors that wove the fabric of medieval France. Who knew Doc Sny had been a preacher? His lectures took on the passion and persuasion of evangelism, a departure from his standard understated demeanor. But what I remember most fondly is his unflappable handling of various unsettling circumstances, like the time that one of our number was rounded up by ‘les flics’ in a student demonstration, or when a group of us was accused of theft for employing our university issued pillow cases for laundry bags. There was also the time that four of us had had enough of the endless bus rides, and insisted on getting off and hitchhiking. He was probably happy to see us go (we were infamous trouble-makers, nicknamed ‘les vegeteriennes’). I met my now-wife of 35 years on that trip. We had each come to New College for a complex set of reasons, and with vaguely defined ambitions, but after the first European Workshop, Alyson (Haley’70) became a history major and I began my exploration of architecture and urban design. The second European Workshop to Italy took place in fall 1972, and Alyson and I were both on-board. This time Doc Sny had left the family at home, but also had enlisted the aid of Art History teacher Henry Graham. The Renaissance (our Italian Workshop theme) was a revelation, and the seeds of my theses and Alyson’s were germinated. Alyson took several on-campus courses with Doc Sny, who also became her thesis adviser, and I chose Henry Graham to be my academic advisor. But Lee Snyder had given us both an expansive view of the past that could never be communicated in a classroom. Lee’s wife Ann, a woman widely-traveled and well educated in her own right, was an amazing and generous hostess to New College students. I remember visiting with the Snyders in the ’80’s or ’90’s and Ann mentioning that Lee was teaching a very popular course that semester. They both got Cheshire cat smiles on their faces. “It’s called ‘Meditation,’” Ann said. I’m pretty sure nobody who took that course expected soliloquies on the virtues of Romanesque Architecture. What do we look for in the generations that precede us? A generous spirit that is anxious to share the experiences that inspire them. On this crucial expectation, Doc Sny delivered.
IN THE COMMUNITY
New College and Sarasota: Recording the History of a Community BY JAME S DEL A
accessible to the community. “To them, that meant there had to be an audio-visual component. And that’s what’s made the project so successful.” By design, it’s a small group; only a handful of students are accepted each fall. “It’s a lot of work,” Dean said. “Students spend a lot of time on their project they spend a lot of time getting to know the person they’re interviewing.” One of the students this fall was Flannery French, a third-year with an Anthropology/ Gender Studies AOC. She said she was attracted to the tutorial to gain more experience in audio and video editing; and also to get more involved in the community. “It is a lot work,” she confirmed during finals week. How much? “I don’t even want to think about it.” But she said it was the change of pace of normal classes, the interviewing and the video editing that made it so interesting. French’s interview subject was Wade Harvin, Third-year Flannery French and local interview subject, Wade Harvin. one of Sarasota’s first black bankers. During the course of the semester, she spent quite a bit of time with NEW COLLEGE PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE in preserving the Harvin, who is now in his 80s. The rapport between them rich history of Sarasota County and the Gulf Coast. surprised French. “We got along really well,” she said. “He was Under the direction of Erin Dean, associate professor of really happy to be able to tell his story.” anthropology, a select group of students work each year with The scope of the project has changed over the years. In the the county to reach out to longtime residents, producing beginning, most of the interviews focused on the water and videos that tell the story of what living on the Suncoast was the ways water had affected life in Sarasota and how it’s like decades ago. changed over time. “As the project has progressed, we realized Dean said the project began six years ago when a Sarasota water resources manager was studying Sarasota Bay. “He had a that water is part of everyone’s life here but it’s not the only part of life, so we’ve expanded beyond that. We’re really trying lot of data about how the waterways have changed, but when to capture the diversity of experiences of people who grew up he was talking to people, he was hearing a lot of interesting and live in Sarasota.“ stories about it. He realized as people were getting older and The video and audio presentations help make these stories we were losing them. We were losing these stories.” come alive, Dean said. “There’s something about listening to Dean said the county archeologist at the time, New College people’s words and seeing images of them and of the past that alum Jodi Pracht ’88, had a solution. “She said, ‘Well, that’s oral history and there are people at New College who can help move us in a way that a transcript doesn’t do.” This year’s videos were presented to the public during a you.’” She contacted Dean, who came up with the idea of screening in January. All of the videos and complete offering tutorial credit to students willing to participate. transcripts of every interview are archived at the Sarasota In the beginning, Dean said, students were only going to do History Center and are online at sarasotaoralhistory.com. interviews and type up written transcripts. “I had four students that first semester. They were the ones, actually, that come up with the idea of making this a bigger project.” See some of the student projects: Not content to only produce written transcripts, Dean said, youtube.com/NewCollegeofFL the students insisted creating a format that would be
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REUNION
The Future of Alumnae/i Gatherings
Reunion Timeline 1985
The New College Alumnae/i Association is formed.
1986
New College Alumnae/i Board of Directors is reviewing the general plan for reunions going forward. They have taken alumnae/i feedback and are currently considering the following proposal:
The first New College Reunion is held.
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Annual Alumnae/i weekends gatherings connected with commencement weekend, which takes place in May. A private reception for alums will be organized and alums will also be able to participate in festivities related to the graduation. The NCAA board voted to designate Commencement weekend an Alumnae/i weekend during the Oct. 17, 2015, board meeting.
2000
The Board is considering making Family Weekend another Alumnae/i Weekend that all alums are welcomed to join. This takes place in October and is meant to welcome all New College “family,” including parents of current students, current students and alums. Activities include mini-classes, tours, an alum panel, and presentations by college administrators.
2009
•
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A major reunion event to be planned every five years. These would be large reunions that require significant amount of time and resources to plan. This event will feature both formal and informal activities, including tours, presentation by alums and faculty, receptions and a COUP (Center of the Universe Party, formerly know as Palm Court Party). Ad hoc affinity group gatherings can be arranged at any time. These must be proposed and developed by the affinity groups themselves, but the New College Alumnae/i Association will actively assist the group with facility arrangements, a reception and other logistics. An example of a very successful ad hoc affinity group gathering was Scudderfest in January 2015. Events at this gathering included tours, receptions, a banquet and a series of scientific presentations by New College graduates.
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Special Reunion commemorating the retirement of Professors Doug Berggren and Lazlo Deme. Largest reunion yet - 60 attendees.
2004
Charter classes 40th anniversary, special poetry roasting of Mac Miller.
Charter classes 45th anniversary.
2010
The New College Alumnae/i Association celebrates its 25th birthday.
2011
New College Reunion commemorates the 50th anniversary of New College of Florida.
2012
Special Reunion recognizing President Mike Michalson and his retirement.
2013
Inaugural Reunion for President Donal O’Shea.
2014
Charter classes 50th anniversary celebration.
MARK MARTINDALE / PROFILE
Evolution of a Biologist Mark Q. Martindale ’77 found a path - and an initial - at New College BY GER A RD WALEN
DR. MARK Q. MARTINDALE ENTERED NEW COLLEGE OF FLORIDA IN 1977 WITH AN ATTITUDE.
“I had what they called a ‘problem with authority’ when I was in high school,” he said. “I pretty much resisted and pushed back from everyone who was trying to tell me what to do.” Then Martindale took his first cell biology class with a teacher who soon became his mentor. John Morrill (see League of Legends p. 15) helped transform that attitude of rebellion into a fervent desire to learn the very processes by which life evolves. That desire has led Martindale to a lifetime of study of marine organisms from their beginnings as a single cells – fertilized eggs – and how they evolve into living, breathing creatures. “The thing that’s interesting about that is you go from something that looks like it has no pattern or organization or structure to something that actually moves its limbs and eats and does all the things that organisms do,” he said. Martindale currently wears a variety of hats: tenured professor in the University of Florida Department Of Biology; director of UF’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in Saint Augustine; and interim director of the Seahorse Key Marine Lab in the Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge on “It started out as Florida’s Gulf coast. a silly little game,” But his journey after earning his B.A. in Natural Sciences at New he said, “and it turned out to sort College in 1981 took him through a wide variety of academic and of unite us.” scientific appointments. He was awarded his Ph.D. in Zoology at The University of Texas, Austin, and his career trajectory included fellowships at the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School; professorships at the University of Chicago; and dozens of other academic appointments. In 1998, Martindale landed at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa as an assistant researcher at the Kewalo Marine Lab. Less than a decade later, he was named the lab’s director, leaving the Aloha State in 2012 for his current position at the Whitney Laboratory. His work these days focuses on “the evolution of biological novelty.”
“How do new things evolve over time? This is a classic problem that Charles Darwin had no solution for, even though he’s the father of evolutionary theory,” he said. “We, as developmental biologists and embryologists feel like we have something to say in this problem because after all, biological features evolve during the developmental period.” And about that middle initial. It wasn’t originally “Q,” but was formulated during his New College days. Morrill footed the bill for the 12 students in his class to attend a cell biology conference in Austin, Texas, Martindale explained. Martindale’s roommate signed them up, and “he registered us with phony middle initials – X’s, V’s and stuff like that.” “We went to the meeting, we had a great time, and came back. It turns out that all of us saved our nametags from this meeting,” Martindale said. As it turned out, the four students who wrote senior theses for Morrill’s lab all had the made-up middle initial Q. This led to the formation of “The Four Q’s.” “We basically hung out like a little science club,” Martindale said. “When we graduated, we all promised ourselves that if we were ever to publish a paper and if we were ever to go on and have a career in science, we would all publish with the middle initial Q.” Two of them did: Martindale and the roommate who had handled the registration, a.k.a. Chris Q. Doe, now a noted scientific investigator at the University of Oregon, Eugene. “It started out as a silly little game,” he said, “and it turned out to sort of unite us.”
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PROFILE / CHRIS HASSOLD
The Art of Teaching Cris Hassold prepares to end a long career at New College BY B ETH LUBE RECKI
IN AUGUST OF 1965, Cris Hassold was invited to join the faculty of New College of Florida as assistant professor of fine arts in the division of humanities. With an annual salary of $10,000, her appointment was for a one-year period beginning September 1, 1965, with the contract “renewable if mutually agreeable.” As Hassold prepares to retire after 50 years at New College, it’s obvious that that relationship proved more than agreeable. “New College gave me the possibility of inventing a different kind of education and becoming what I think of as a master teacher,” she says. “You have to find something you love and do it, and that’s what I’ve done and why I’ve lasted as long as I have. This is the most satisfying thing I could possibly be doing.” Hassold joined the faculty in the College’s second year and applied for the job on the advice of her predecessor. He was leaving for a different position, and as Hassold observed him in the classroom, she knew what she’d do differently. “He was a reliant lecturer; he knew the history of art,” she says. “You could put up a slide that was not meant to be in the box and he could begin to talk about it.” But Hassold wanted to get away from what she calls the “patriarchal” style of lecturing used by many professors. “They come in and occasionally ask a question they want the class to respond to, but mostly it’s their telling,” she says. “I thought, I’ll introduce the material and the framework for discussing it, then I’ll ask the students to respond to it and encourage the right kind of responses.” She thought this kind of engagement would help students thrive and would have been something she’d have benefited from while getting her undergraduate degree at the University of Louisville, where her father was head of the humanities division and literature department. “My father pointed out through my mother that I had been a very bright but lazy student,” she says. Hassold recalls taking four or five courses each term and doing enough work to get some As and some Bs and keep herself on the dean’s list. “When I heard about New College and what it was trying to do, I said to my father, ‘When did anybody ever suggest that I write a different kind of paper or show me how to write a different kind of paper?’ And he didn’t have an answer for that,” she says. “This place sounded like I could do the very kind of thing that nobody had done for me as an undergraduate.”
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So Hassold frequently turned the reins over to her students, encouraging them come up with their own interpretations of artwork and present class lectures based on the papers they’d written. “Perhaps Cris’s greatest contribution to the College is the new form of teaching she actually pioneered here,” said Douglas Berggren, professor emeritus of philosophy, at a November staff luncheon. “Cris went beyond the kind of seminar discussion to which many of us were committed. She called upon her students to create detailed presentations for class discussions. They learned how to encounter the material firsthand, unmediated by the interpretations of the professor, a skill that stood them very well in graduate school.” “The courses I’ve developed have been very much that kind of material where it was guaranteed to not reveal what I believed in but instead make students think for themselves and know that they were doing that,” says Hassold. “I think that the interesting thing about this job is that you can figure out how you can help students become more sophisticated.” The freedom to develop those courses served as another reason why New College has been such a good fit for Hassold. Because the school didn’t have a curriculum committee, she could create and offer courses like “Film Noir and Masculinity,” “Madness and Modernism,” and “Images of Women in the Twentieth Century.” Amy Laitinen talked her way into “Images,” normally for second- and third-years, when she arrived at New College. “I looked in the course catalog my first year and saw this course that I had to take,” she recalled.
“And I went to talk to Cris and it was very clear that she was this feisty, ass-kicking dynamic person. There was just something where I felt like I had to work with her.” When she turned in her first paper, she said, it was clear she wasn’t at the same level as the older students, but Hassold knew what to do. “She neither gave me a pass because I was early on in my development, nor did she tear me down. She met me where I was and set high expectations for how I could get to the next level.” The class turned out to be a defining experience. “It was one of those moments people talk about, where their brains exploded and their worldviews completely changed,” she said, laughing. She went on to take three more classes with Hassold, and recruited her as her thesis advisor. Time and again, she said, students marveled at their professor’s seeming contradictions. They would see the white hair and conservative clothes, and hear her colorful Old South expressions – “and then the next things out of her mouth are radical, post-structural, feminist and queer gender theory, and she does it without blinking!” Laitinen said. Her approach inspired devotion, with students who would flock to her office, even on weekends, to engage with her on any topic. But don’t call it a following, Laitinen said: “She wouldn’t put herself in the position where you were supposed to follow her. She wanted to figure out what motivated you and how she could propel you forward.” That connection with her students continues today. “There’s always a steady line of students waiting to see her,” says Gordon “Mike” Michalson, professor of humanities and former president at New College, whose office is next to Hassold’s. “She gives them all time in the world and is in here on weekends. I see someone who is not just dedicated to teaching but dedicated to her students. There’s really no generation gap between Cris and her current students, and I suspect that has always been the case. She has a teacher’s heart and a capacity to connect with students, and at a place like New College, those are extremely valuable qualities.” Hassold has maintained her interest in her students over the years, helping them get internships and grants while at New College and staying in touch after they graduate, following their careers and even visiting for weekends of museum hopping and gallery going. In fact, she recalls that when she reached age 65, she had no interest in retiring because she still had individual students she was invested in and wanted to see graduate. “I will miss the students unbelievably; that’s going to be a real absence,” says Hassold. “They have been like a family in many respects.” Hassold’s approach to teaching and dedication to her students’ needs and growth has prepared them well for graduate school and beyond. The experience they’ve gained inside and outside of the classroom has helped them stand out from the pack during both the application process and at graduate school itself. For example, she organized a free lecture series for several
years in space at the Ringling that allowed students to present their ideas. “I didn’t let a student on the lecture circuit unless they were good and said something interesting about the material,” she says. “Then they could write down on their CV for graduate school that they had lectured to the public, and that made that application different from the others. Instead of going in the ‘we’ll read that again later’ pile, it went in the pile of ‘we want to consider this.’” Her high standards and emphasis on individual thinking also helped students develop top-notch theses. “Cris has a reputation for being among the more demanding thesis sponsors,” says Michalson. “So I suspect that if you survive a thesis with Cris as an advisor, you are particularly well-prepared for graduate work in art history.” “She spent an enormous amount of one-on-one time getting her students to formulate a thesis that was worth defending—no small accomplishment,” said Berggren at the luncheon. “And she spent even more time getting them to see how it might best be defended with the kind of polish and force that would make them feel good about their entire New College experience.” “I empower the students,” says Hassold. “I think the most important thing one can do at New College is to get students to understand that their job is to be able to write an articulate, well-organized paper.” Laitinen is now director for higher education at New America, a Washington-based think tank. It’s a long way from art history, but she said the way Hassold teaches prepares students to succeed at any cause or challenge. “I realize the lenses that Cris used and the tools she helped give all of us are so relevant. If you want to change the world in any way, whether that’s through art, through education, through policy, you have to be able to question what is and say it doesn’t have to be that way and this is how I’m going to motivate others to change.” Hassold is the last member of the school’s early faculty to retire, a professor who’s seen New College transition from its founding to its place today as the state of Florida’s legislatively-designated “honors college for the liberal arts.” She’s still a firm believer in the school’s point of view and the value of a liberal arts education, despite all the political pressures, workforce needs, and changing attitudes about education facing colleges and universities today. “Cris has been a model of dedication to New College and its mission and has been a great match for this school across the years,” says Michalson. “She encourages students to experiment in the best sense of that word. She’s rigorous but open to student initiative. And these are all qualities that relate very well to New College’s mission.” As she faces the daunting task of packing up the countless stacks of books and papers in her office, Hassold feels a sense of satisfaction of having been right where she’s belonged all these years. “My teaching career has been fun,” she says. “It’s been hard work and strenuous, but there’s a real sense of pleasure that I’ve felt.”
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PROFILE / JACKSON GEORGE
The Force Awakens
Jackson George ’95 works on Star Wars and Disney creative BY DAV ID GULLIV ER
AS OF TODAY, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has made over $900 million in the U.S., and more than $2 billion in worldwide ticket sales, making it the No. 1 domestic and No. 3 global release of all time. Most of the credit rightfully goes to director J.J. Abrams, producer and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, and the charismatic cast – both newcomers like Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, and returning stars like Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher. But some of that success is thanks to people not listed in the closing credits. Like Jackson George. George, New College ’95, is senior vice president of creative advertising for Disney. He’s responsible for creative materials – trailers, TV spots and promotional materials – that promote major movies coming out. And that includes “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the biggest movie of the decade. It was the most hotly anticipated movie of the year – even many years – and with the near-unanimous reviews, its success now seems pre-ordained. But that success is greater than he and his teammates could have hoped. “Even now, it’s still kind of “New College mind-boggling,” he said. “It’s just really exciting that it worked, that encourages different thinking the campaign was successful, and we didn’t give anything away.” and a little more George is referring to the free association, high-wire act that is his job: Making a little more people want to see a movie, without giving away what makes the movie following your special. curiosities and His primary vehicle is the exploring them.” often-maligned trailer, long seen in theaters and now increasingly on the internet. George essentially is the trailer’s director, choosing what scenes go in – and more importantly, what scenes don’t go in. Though they come in at less than two minutes each, George and his team spent more than a year and half to produce them. It started with conversations with Abrams and Kennedy before even a frame of the movie was shot. And it continues in close consultation with the studio and with the filmmakers – George made a half-dozen overnight trips from Los Angeles to London to present his work.
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He and his team start with the “dailies,” the footage as it’s shot, and begin to choose the scenes that convey the right tone and message, working with a team of film, sound and music editors, composers, and designers to create versions. “We just tried to be incredibly sparse,” he said. “We kept condensing everything back to the most basic fundamental ideas that we thought people would be intrigued by.” What electrified most fans was the moment near the end of the second trailer: with a black screen, Ford’s unmistakable voice says, “Chewie, we’re home,” and the beloved Han Solo and Chewbacca characters appear. Was that too much of a giveaway? “We debated it for months and months and months,” George said. “There were many, many versions that never had that in it. But at the end of the day, it’s undeniable. It’s obviously a huge moment in the film, but it signals, without giving anything away, that everything you love and want to see is back.” “We wanted people to feel a connection,’” he said. “That line, and that feeling, of ‘Oh my gosh, I remember that,’ recalling that emotion is such a simple and profound thing. The most important thing is that people knew we were respecting their memories.” His work draws on the foundation he built at New College, where he studied religion, philosophy and history, and wrote a thesis that examined the philosophical themes that made Ronald Reagan’s oratory effective. George believes a New College education is better preparation for his career than one might think. “New College encourages different thinking and a little more free association, a little more following your curiosities and exploring them,” he said. “At New College, you have to think creatively. You don’t have to think creatively, but you want to. And I think New College gives you the tools to do that.” In his job, he says, he interviews people all the time, many of whom have fastidiously prepared for a career in marketing, communications, or advertising. He’s looking for something more: “Big, interesting thinking is more interesting than knowing what you want to do when you’re 17. “There are enough specialists in the world,” he said. “A lot of the people I really respect who do this, it wasn’t necessarily their plan A. It’s good to be flexible. It makes you more able to zag when everybody else is zigging.”
“We wanted people to feel a connection. That line, and that feeling, of ‘Oh my gosh, I remember that,’ recalling that emotion is such a simple and profound thing. The most important thing is that people knew we were respecting their memories.” -Jackson George ’95 Jackson George with one of the residents of the Star Wars universe.
While at New College, George worked in the alumni office, and did well enough with cold-calling that the office asked him to contact some west coast alumnae/i. On one contact page, it simply said “Smitty” – Robert Smith, founder of film marketing agency In Sync advertising in California, as George learned when he called. They spoke for an hour, George recalls, and at the end, he asked if he could stop by, get some advice, a direction, learn a little about the business. “So when I came out, I looked him up – I truly went in just to talk to him – and he we ended up working closely together for nine years,” George said. They worked on “Walk the Line,” “Inside Man,” “Cast Away,” “Rocky Balboa,” “Night at the Museum,” “Scary Movie,” and the “Resident Evil” franchise. “He’s been my mentor and great friend ever since,” George said. Smitty, now CEO of InSync + BemisBalkind, a leading entertainment and lifestyle marketing agency, had high praise for his protégé. “Jackson is that rare talent who can see things clearly before it comes into sight for anyone else. In our profession, that is an attribute that will put and keep you at the head of the pack,” he said. ‘In a strange way, he is slave only to the film he is working on. It’s that purity that dictates his actions and helps create a strength that is hard to find in Hollywood.” Those attributes led him to be hired as head of creative advertising at Overture Films, and then at Universal Pictures, where he oversaw the advertising campaigns for films such as
“Despicable Me,” “Bridesmaids,” “Ted,” and “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.” Those successes caught the eye of Disney, which hired him in 2012 – a few months before the Lucasfilm acquisition and the three-year march to “The Force Awakens.” It culminated in the world premiere, Dec. 14 in Hollywood. Sitting in the crowd was George, between his wife, Jasmine, and his son Truman, 7 (daughter Keira, 6, had to stay at home). He’d had to keep them completely in the dark about the movie for 18 months. And though George had pored over every scene of the movie, he’d yet to see the final cut. “I think I experienced it like everyone else did. It felt liberating, it felt exciting,” he said. “In my job, one of the most important things you have to do is be a little bit ignorant. You can’t fall in love with anything because you have to be willing to kill it and start over at any point. So I think with this one, it was amazing to see it and go, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve been saying to myself that this was great, but it really is great.’ That was just a wonderful feeling.” As the movie played, he said, he sensed how his family, and the audience, were responding. In the second half, Truman climbed into his lap. “Just to feel the way his body reacted to the movie was a way for me to experience the movie all over again, in an amazing kind of way.” With the movie firmly established as a triumph, you’d think George could finally relax. Nope. He’s already working on the next movie. And nope, don’t ask him to elucidate any of the tantalizing mysteries that “The Force Awakens” introduced.
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PROGRAMMING/ACHIEVEMENT
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Giving Challenge New College is #PursuingNew. Thank you for making the 2015 Giving Challenge a success. Thanks to alumnae/i, parents, students, faculty, staff and friends, New College had another successful Giving Challenge this year. On Sept. 1-2, from noon to noon, the College raised $56,607 from 323 individual gifts. $21,248 of those funds were from “new” donors. Because every new gift during the Challenge was matched up to $250, New College raised at total of $78,605 during the Challenge from gifts, matches, and prizes. New College ranked 5th among 449 organizations in total giving. That put New College in the top 1.2 percent.
Ashley Strand ’92 – January ISP Ashley Strand ’92 returned to New College this January to teach Intro to Stand Up as part of the Alumnae/i Fellows Program. Winner of the 2009 Hong Kong Comedy Festival, Strand has performed all over the world, including appearances at the Edinburgh, Hollywood, and D.C. Fringes, the Laughing Devil, Laughing Skull, and Maine Comedy Festivals, and the Great Canadian Laugh-Off. Intro to Stand Up culminated in a live performance at Sarasota’s professional comedy club, McCurdy’s, where students presented their best 7-minute routine.
Fall Giving & Phonathon From July 1- Dec. 17 the New College Foundation has raised almost $200,000 (not including matches) for the New College Fund. Almost $95,000 was raised from 620 alum gifts. This past fall, ten current New College students worked hard to fundraise for New College. From October – December, almost 300 alumnae/i and 60 parents gave or pledged to New College through Phonathon.
SRTG Cliff Lundin ’12 earned two Student Research and Travel Grants. The first was for a psychiological research study. The second allowed him to attend a conference, Society of Southeastern Social Psychologists. Pictured here at Oxford University, both SRGT and the trip helped solidify his thesis topic, impression management and its influence on Facebook use.
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Read Strand’s op-ed on the experience at nimbe.ncf.edu/oped.
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04Fellows Program Alumnae/i Since graduating from New College in 2011, Jeremy Zorn has earned a M.A. in religious studies from Florida State University; participated in Adamah, the Jewish Farming Fellowship in Falls Village, Connecticut; and joined Achvat Amim, a Jerusalem-based volunteer and learning fellowship dedicated to promoting peace and justice in Israel/Palestine. Jeremy designed Foundations of Progressive Jewish Ethics, the course that he will teach as an alumnae/i fellow, in light of his engagement with the academic field of Jewish studies and his experiences living in progressive and pluralistic Jewish communities. Jeremy recommends this course to students who are interested in the intersection of religious identity and social activism. 03
For more information on the Alumnae/i Fellows Program and how you can become involved, visit ncf.edu/alumnaei-and-friends/get-involved/ alum-fellows.
ALUMNAE/I EVENTS / CHAPTER NEWS
AUSTIN, TEXAS Dec. 7, 2015 -Center for Engagement and Opportunity (CEO) staff Kim Franklin and Erik Wilkinson join New College alums Gennifer Gorn ’88, Jean Graham ’67, Bob McGarey ’69, Bill Rosenberg ’73, Philippe Seminet ’83, and David Wyde ’07 in Austin, TX. Prospective New College students also joined the group to get a glimpse of campus life and academic from an alum’s point of view.
CHICAGO, ILL.
APOLLO BEACH, FLA.
Aug. 23, 2015 -- Alums Dan Chambliss ’71, Steve Jacobson ’71, and Peter Hart-Brinson ’98, along with faculty Emily Fairchild and Queen Zabriskie met in Chicago, Ill. during the American Sociological Association annual conference.
Aug. 23, 2015 -- New College alums and staff gathered at David Smolker’s ’72 home for a fun time and great barbeque. David’s son made some fantastic guacamole!
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CHAPTER NEWS / ALUMNAE/I EVENTS
RALEIGH, N.C.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Sept. 10, 2015 -- Tanya Moore ’11, Sara Seidel Beall ’97, Kate Pritchett ’98, Victor Lewis ’89, and Melissa Lewis ’91 meet up in Raleigh, N.C. for a fun gathering at Mitch’s Tavern.
Oct. 10, 2015 -- New College alums, staff, and current students gather at Hazel Bradford’s ’75 home. This gathering is part of a new travel and engagement program to expose students to internship and career opportunities around the country.
IN MEMORIAM Deborah Brown ’72 passed away July 14, 2015, in hospice at her home in Pacifica, after just 60 years, from lung cancer and complications. With a father in radio news commentary, Deborah traveled the country during her school years, living in New York City, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, New Orleans, Arlington, Va., and finally landed in Titusville, Fla. for high school. During one of her elementary school years in San Francisco, she came home to her mother discouraged about there being so many Deborah’s in her class, which begot the use of her nickname, Beth. As a Florida Regents Scholar, Beth entered New College of Sarasota, Fla. in 1972, where she met her future husband.
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After her B.A., she traveled some more around the U.S. and Canada, settling in Atlanta and attending Emory University School of Medicine. While there she became involved in the American Medical Student Association. In 1985 she began her 3 years of Family Practice residency at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Wanting to be active in women’s, gay, lesbian and transgender health issues, she accepted a Bay Area position in 1988 and by the next year was working part-time with the City and County of San Francisco. In 1991 she began a partnership practice on Pacific St. in Monterey, but eventually she converted to working fully at the city’s CastroMission Health Center, at which she
stayed until her illness. She believed in the value of unions as advocates for both physicians and patient care, becoming Secretary of the Board of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD). Beth and her husband rediscovered each other in the 90s, both having lived on the Central Coast with relocations to San Mateo County at approximately the same time. As a strong advocate of marriage equality, she was happy to live long enough to see it come to all of the U.S. Beth is survived by her soul-mate, Stephen Ludwig, son Jason, mother, Natalye Brown of Florida, and the extended family of Greenstein. (published in San Francisco Chronicle from July 18 to July 20, 2015.)
CLASS NOTES
Robert Johnson (see “League of Legends” p. 13), known to all as ‘Bob’, died Aug. 31, 2015, just hours before his 81st birthday. He was an advocate for New College of Florida, Sarasota County, and the state of Florida. He was a lawyer at the firm of Johnson, Browning and Clayton and a statesman. As a state representative and senator, Bob was a staunch supporter of education and youth, the arts, the environment, and careful fiscal management and planning. He was a distinguished alumnus of both Florida State University and the University of Florida. He was appointed by President Reagan to the National Endowment of the Arts where he served for eight years. He viewed public service as a labor of love. As a child of the Depression-era, his family moved frequently and was often without adequate food or shelter. His earliest childhood memories were of severe poverty and constant loyalty to his mother, Mary Elizabeth, as she bravely fought to protect her children. Motivated by a difficult and painful childhood, he desired to make a difference. He viewed public service as an ethical responsibility that he was honored to undertake. Bob was a graduate of Florida State University where he was also a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and R.O.T.C. After graduation, he entered the Air Force and attained the rank of Captain. Upon his discharge, he pursued a Master of Divinity degree at Duke University. He moved to Gainesville, Florida to attend Law School at the University of Florida. After graduation, he was offered positions within different law firms in the state of Florida. He decided to accept a position with the law firm of Evans, Thomas and Boylston and has been a member of the Sarasota community ever since his arrival in 1964. Although he was involved in many organizations and legislative efforts that
affected the community, New College, The Ringling Museum and the preservation of the Myakka River were close to his heart. He was instrumental in the establishment of New College as a state university and was a current board member of the Trustees of New College and the New College Foundation. As a legislator, he was able to gain funding and forge a partnership between the museum and Florida State University for the Arts programs. He loved the outdoors and the natural Florida wilderness. He worked to maintain and preserve the Myakka River for the enjoyment of future generations. In addition to being public servant, he was a husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather. Bob is survived by his wife, Pat and their four children, seven grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. (published in the Sarasota HeraldTribune September 8, 2015.) Marc Lewis Weinberg, M.D. ’70 died in Sarasota, Fla. on September 12. 2015. Marc Weinberg was a family physician for 31 years, first in Montclair, N.J., and after moving to Sarasota, Fla., as a solo practitioner and then for 21 years at Intercoastal Medical Group. He had a particular interest in patient-centered holistic and functional medicine. He was Clinical Assistant Professor at Florida State University College of Medicine and the Medical Director of Plymouth Harbor Smith Care Center. When not practicing medicine, Marc was an avid bicyclist, foodie, traveler, and lover of life. His wit was as mischievous as it was irrepressible; having fun was a very serious matter. Marc Weinberg was born October 12, 1953 in Newark, N.J. and grew up in South Orange, N.J. He met his future wife, Ruth Folit, at New College of Sarasota, from which he graduated in 1974; he and Ruth married there in 1979.
He earned his M.D. from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 1981, and completed a residency in Family Medicine at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, N.J. He is survived by his wife Ruth, two children, one grandchild, two brothers, and his mother. The Memorial Service was held on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 6:30 p.m. at the New College Bayfront. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Marc Weinberg Holistic Medicine Scholarship Fund, Florida State University College of Medicine, 201 Cocoanut Avenue, Sarasota 34236, Attention: Dr. Marc Weinberg Scholarship Fund. (published in Herald Tribune from Sept. 16 to Sept. 17, 2015.)
For updated Chapter events, be sure to check our website at ncf.edu/chapters and “like” our facebook page: facebook.com/ NewCollege AlumAssociation Facebook “f ” Logo
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CLASS NOTES
1960s It has been more than 5 years since Kathleen Dively Raskin ’64 relocated to Sarasota. It has been a fantastic experience for her. Several other charter class members are also in the area and quite a few more are visiting.
its first book launch, “First Poets of New College.” Five charter class authors wrote the book. Kathleen is planning another publishing venture - perhaps the first 50 years of New College. Kathleen loves her connection to the school and the students. They are still the brightest and the most interesting people.
In addition to her private practice in therapy and homeopathy, Kathleen’s love of yoga and her great studio, Garden of the Heart, she is learning how to fuse glass. Dively Publishing just had
The Martians have landed! Or, have they? Paul Adomites’s ’66 silly/sexy new novel, “The Martians Came with Instructions,” is appearing chapter-by-chapter on
John Lentini ’69 was recently selected as the Society of Fire Protection Engineers “Person of the Year” for 2015. His selection was based on a nomination, submitted by Dr. Craig Beyler.
supervised two fire investigators and an electrical engineer, while managing a chemical analysis laboratory for fire debris using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). He analyzed more than 20,000 samples. He has served as project manager for major fire investigations, conducted site inspections, chemical analyses, designed and conducted physical experiments to recreate fire scenarios. He has provided training, consulting and expert witness testimony. Since 1975, he has given expert testimony in over two hundred cases in civil and criminal court in state and Federal Courts. He has testified for both Plaintiffs and Defendants, and has twice served as a neutral expert hired to advise the court.
“John Lentini has been a motive force in the reform of the fire investigation community to reflect our modern understanding of fire science and engineering. Trained as a chemist, John initially worked as an analytical chemist, analyzing fire debris samples for ignitable liquids. He made substantial contributions to the science of fire debris analysis and has chaired ASTM Committee E30 on Forensic Sciences and is a long time member of Technical Committee 921 on Fire Investigations. John moved into the broader areas of fire investigation and as a scientist recognized the lack of scientific basis for fire investigation as it had been practiced before NFPA 921. John joined the 921 committee in 1996 and has been a strong advocate for investigation methods based on fire science. As Manager of Fire Investigations at Applied Technical Services, he authored over 3,000 technical reports. He
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John has been called upon by the Dept. of Justice to serve on its NIJ Technical Working Group on Fire Investigations, and to contribute to “Fire and Arson Scene Evidence: A Guide for Public Safety Personnel.” He was invited to give a presentation on “The State of the Art in Fire Investigation” to the National Academy of Sciences during its preparation of the report, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States, A Path Forward.”
nextmartianinvasion.wordpress.com. Check it out, and be sure to drop a note if you like it. John Van Ness ’68 has retired and once again taken up motorcycling after a 20-year hiatus. He just returned from a motorcycle tour in South Africa. Last year, he rode in Peru and Chile, and next summer he will be riding for four months from London across Europe and Asia to the Pacific Ocean. Judge Fred Silverman ’68, who has served on the state Superior Court in Delaware since 1993, retired this past fall.
While John’s contributions the field of fire investigation are worthy of recognition, it is his contributions to the justice system with respect to arson cases that raise him to the level of a “Person of the Year.” The legacy of fire investigation methodologies not based upon science has been the inappropriate convictions in arson cases based upon the non-science based myths of earlier fire investigations. John has worked tirelessly to identify cases where inappropriate fire investigation methods have resulted in arson convictions. He has worked regularly with the Innocence Project to identify cases of inappropriate arson convictions and working tirelessly on appeals for these convictions. He was a member of the Innocence Project committee that reviewed the Willingham and Willis cases in Texas in which errors were found in both cases, though in the case of Willingham only after he had been put to death. John works tirelessly to educate his fellow fire investigators on the methods of scientifically based fire investigation methods. This teaching work led to the publication of his book, Scientific Protocols for Fire Investigation, now in its second edition.”
CLASS NOTES
Diane Kamer ’69 has been married since 1982 to Stephen Kamer (Ph.D., History, Harvard University). They have two sons, John and Paul. John attended the University of Alabama on a near-full-ride National Merit Scholarship; he graduated summa cum laude in May 2015 with a double major in history and classics. He is currently enrolled in Wake Forest’s M.A. management program, an intensive B-School program for liberal arts nerds. Paul is finishing up at Forsyth Tech Community College; he is on the President’s List and in Phi Theta Kappa, and he recently aced the SATs (770 V!). He hopes to transfer to either U.N.C. Chapel Hill or U.N.C. Asheville in the fall. He would consider New College, too, with a big enough scholarship. We live on 18 densely wooded acres in the North Carolina foothills, and love it. Diane works at Hanes Brands (think underwear and T-shirts), where she’s been for more than 16 years and is hoping to retire next year. Roll Tide!
1970s In addition to speaking about the economic outlook and consulting on business strategy, Bill Conerly ’70 writes for Forbes. com, connecting the dots between the economy and business. David Silverman ’70 recently spoke on non-traditional trademarks at the World Intellectual Property Forum in Bangkok, Thailand. Earlier in 2015, he moderated a panel on trademarks and the right of publicity for the American Intellectual Property Law Association meeting in Los Angeles, and gave a presentation on international trademark filing strategies at the World IP Forum in New Delhi, India. He is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Davis Wright Tremaine. Jeff Chanton ’71 is on the faculty at Florida State University. This year he was elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union. Ruth Dreessen ’73 has been a director at Gevo since 2012 and is now the chairman of the board.
Lynwood Sawyer ’69 has two features in preproduction, “Symbiont” (what if the 1 percent were in league with the aliens to enslave humanity using student loans and municipal bonds?) and “Vampires of Hollywood” (title self-explanatory). His literary mystery “Other Arms, Other Eyes” was reissued on Kindle. Lynwood is mainly trying to find nice home for his publishing company, Pigtown Books. If you know of anyone who would like to adopt a boutique publisher of noirs, thrillers and historical fiction, please contact business@pigtownbooks.com.
Mary Ruiz ’73, former CEO of Manatee Glens is now the CEO of Cornerstone of Florida. Manatee Glens is an organization in Manatee County that provides mental health, addiction treatment and child abuse and adoption support services. Last summer, Manatee Glens became an affiliate of Cornerstone. After graduating from New College, Eric Mart ’74, attended Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology of Yeshiva University and received his doctorate in school psychology in 1983.
After working in schools in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, Eric retrained in clinical and forensic psychology and became board certified in forensic psychology. Eric and his family and recently moved to Portsmouth, N.H. Over the years Eric has authored a number of books including “Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy Reconsidered,” “Getting Started in Forensic Psychology Practice,” and “Issue Focused Child Custody Assessment.” In March 2015, Tom Dayton ’74 left 11 years of full-time work at NASA’s Ames Research Center to form a consulting company, Presto Innovation LLC. Tom continues as a consultant for NASA and other nonprofit and for-profit organizations in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere. It’s hard to explain what he does, but there are short video explanations at prestoinnovation.com. Glen Merzer ’74 announces that his novel, “Off the Reservation,” is now available as an audiobook, has been optioned for a movie, and has been chosen by Kirkus Reviews for Best Books of 2015, Indie. After spending most of his ‘adult’ life as a floor trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), Adam Ginensky ’74 became interested in applied mathematics. Adam is currently a consultant in all fields of machine learning and teaches advanced data mining at the Graham School at the University of Chicago. He is still interested in mathematics but not much else has changed except for his hair color!
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CLASS NOTES
Linda Mary Willson ’76 After 35 years of working as a psychotherapist and presenter, I retired this year and completely changed my life. I write two blogs and have a shop on Etsy. I create, I garden, I volunteer, I write, I take photographs; I do exactly as I like! It’s fantastic! And I look back on my New College experience as life-changing. I loved it.
Molly O. Hoopes ’78 I have developed curricula to teach children about nature through art activities. I teach in Baltimore and about once a year for a few months, in rural villages in Mexico. The children learn scientific illustration techniques, learn about local wildlife, and make arts and crafts. I am also secretary for Forests for Monarchs, an organization planting trees in Mexico to protect the endangered pine-oak forests and the monarch butterflies’ wintering grounds.
After 30 years of working as a board-certified criminal trial attorney in Sarasota-Bradenton, Adam Tebrugge ’79 has been hired as a staff attorney by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. He is now working on
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criminal justice reform throughout the state, based out of an office in Tampa. Adam is also an adjunct law professor at the Thomas Cooley Law School where he teaches a death penalty seminar.
during which time DuPont settled the class-action suit. Bilott is currently prosecuting the second of 3,535 personal-injury cases filed by members of the class.
1980s
Tina Suau Vrablic ’86, Ph.D., has been appointed the FDA compliance manager for the Health, Environmental and Regulatory Services Group at Intertek Group plc. She will be working from the Boca Raton, Fla. offices where she will be assisting clients with all of their FDA submissions.
After working for New Jersey public television for more than 20 years as a producer of arts programming, Susan Wallner ’80, was laid off when Governor Christie shut down the station in 2011. Two colleagues and her quickly started their own production company, almost 5 years ago now. PCK Media takes on all topics, but with a special emphasis on the arts. In early 2016, PBS stations nationwide will broadcast our program “Ode to Joy,” featuring a full performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. Lori Shoemaker ’80 returned to Washington, D.C. in Aug. 2015 after 9 years abroad working at our embassies in Tokyo and Seoul. She is currently working on humanitarian de-mining issues in the Political-Military Affairs Bureau of the Department of State. Her two children, who left the U.S. when they were pre-school age, are attending a D.C. public middle school. They’re enjoying getting re-acquainted with the city and all it has to offer. Robert A. Bilott ’83 was featured in the New York Times Magazine article “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare,” which was published on Jan. 6, 2016. The article covers Robert’s work to hold DuPont accountable for the harm caused by its release of the toxin PFOA (“C8”) in and around Parkersburg, W.Va. He has been fighting DuPont for the last 16 years,
J. Todd Hoppock ’87 enrolled in graduate school at the University of South Carolina to achieve master’s in Library and Information Science. Troy Winfrey ’87 has been in the user experience space (mostly research and strategy with some design) for the past decade or thereabouts. He is currently working on a user experience consulting startup in Atlanta and would love to hear from New College alums from all years, seeking career help, UX help, or just a beer! Post NCF, after a really-not-funyear of temping in Orlando, Keith Forbes ’88 went to IU in Bloomington (Go Hoosiers!) for a M.Sc. in Environmental Science. In 1995, in between classes, he and his girlfriend went to the justice of the peace, got married, and then both went back to their respective classes. That evening, they had a celebration dinner with friends, and then headed for a short and very low-budget honeymoon. After graduation, he and his betrothed headed to a village in Zambia, where she did her Ph.D fieldwork, and Keith
cooked, managed the solar panel, taught biology and math in the village secondary school, and did a study of maize scarcity for Dutch and German development organizations. Two years later, they returned to the U.S., and lived in D.C. for 3 years, after which they lived in Lisbon, Portugal (hometown of said wife) for about 4 years, where their son was born. They moved back to D.C. for 3 more years, and then Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Now, Saratoga Springs is their home, and where they have lived the longest as somewhat grown-ups, though Keith can’t say he loves the winters too much. Keith has now worked for about just over 20 years, always in climate change and sustainability at city, county, state, federal, and international levels for various government entities and some private sector clients. His work has taken him to the Czech Republic, Poland, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria, Colombia, Nepal, Bhutan, Peru, and Vietnam. Over the last year, Keith started his own consulting firm, Integrated Sustainability Solutions, based out of his home office, where he works comfortably on a sit-stand desk. Keith is always happy to re-connect with Novo Collegians young and old.
1990s David Bryant’s ’91 daughter, Jackie Bryant, turned 10 years old on Dec. 9, 2015! David is unsure how she got to be so big.
Cathy Sarisky ’91 is enjoying life in southwest Virginia with two kiddos (ages 3 and 9), spouse, and a house full of Legos. They are hiring in Chemistry this year if anyone’s looking!
Noah Teitelbaum ’94 is happy in Denver! Two kids and a local community music festival are keeping him busy. Noah is still working at Manhattan Prep (who is always looking for more teachers to pay well). Congratulations are in order for Andrea Bailey Cox ’95, recognized by the Orlando Business Journal as one of the “40 Under 40” for being one of Central Florida’s “brightest young business leaders.” She is the director/ CEO at Art and History Museums Maitland.
Nicolas Tampio ’91 published a book, “Deleuze’s Political Vision.” In the acknowledgements, Nicolas thanks Jessica Rogers, Mike Michalso, Barbara Hicks and his students in the alumnae/i Fellows course he taught in Jan. 2012. It was an invaluable oppurtunity to arrange and test his thoughts before writing the book. Jonathan Crane ’92 earned his certification as an Amazon Web Services Solutions Architect in 2013 and immediately got to work helping the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau build out and manage its online presence. He has been directly involved in launching various new tools including Owning a Home, Paying for College, and the Consumer Complaint Database, some receiving nationwide press attention. CFPB’s website is available at consumerfinance.gov. In February of 2015, Aaron Gustafson ’94 joined Microsoft to help promote accessibility and standards on the web. He also wrote the second edition of his 2011 book, “Adaptive Web Design”. It is being published by Peachpit/New Riders and became available in December.
The website thumbtack.com ranked Alisdair Lee ’96 as their “Best of 2015 Award,” recording studio professional in Portland, Ore. Maggie Phillips ’99 and her husband, Matt Rodesch, welcomed their second daughter, Moira, in June of this year. Their family is based just outside of Madison, Wis. In March of 2015, Maggie started a new job as the project manager and in-house chemist at Midwestern BioAg (midwesternbioag.com). In this new role, she gets to learn about soil biology and chemistry, agricultural practices, and work towards a more holistic approach to agriculture in the United States.
2000s Anna Perlmutter ’00 recently completed a three-month summer trip with her partner, Scott, on a 35-foot sailboat around the NorthEast loop from Cleveland, Ohio through Quebec to Nova Scotia, down the East coast to New York, and back to Cleveland. It was a challenging and exciting trip, complete with several up-close-and-personal whale encounters! She is happy to be back home in Cleveland, Ohio after these adventures, making her way through her third-year as a doctoral
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CLASS NOTES
University of California Press. It’s a historical study of experimental musical instruments developed in Germany during the 1920s and ’30s. In addition to the traditional hard copy, the book is also available in a free, open-access digital format: luminosoa.org/site/ books/detail/7/instruments-for-newmusic/ student in Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University, and doing work that she loves, working with community-based non-profits. Anna and Scott run a free hostel for travelers in Cleveland and will celebrate their marriage in October 2016. They invite you to stop by for their famous second Sunday potlucks sometime.
2015 was a very exciting year for Niki Azevedo ’00. Niki moved to Bali and started a company called Seeds of Change Mala. Working with local women, they make mala, which are a traditional Hindu and Buddhist tool for meditation. The mala are beautiful necklaces that are all fair-trade, sustainably made, and a portion of all sales goes to a foundation in Bali supporting environmental education. Take a look at what they are building: seedsofchangemala.com. Thomas Patteson’s ’00 book “Instruments for New Music: Sound, Technology, and Modernism” was published in November by
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Steve Scott ’01 married Maya Culbertson (Princeton, 1999) on the Princeton Campus Oct. 10, 2015. Justin Clarke-Doane’s ’01 article “Moral Epistemology: The Mathematics Analogy,” was selected by Philosopher’s Annual as one of the “10 best articles published in philosophy in 2014.” Previously, his article “Morality and Mathematics: The Evolutionary Challenge” received the same award in 2013. This past summer, Justin and his wife visited Beijing, where Justin lectured at Renmin University as part of an initiative to build bridges between Renmin and Columbia University, where Justin teaches. After leaving NCF, Patrick (Pat) Dees ’05 moved up to Atlanta, Ga. to pursue a master’s degree in Aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech, where he eventually started working with folks from the Advanced Concepts Office (ACO) at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. After receiving his master’s and interning at Marshall, a position happened to open right there! Naturally Pat applied, and sure enough, was accepted. Now Pat is living in Huntsville working with an amazing team of engineers. In ACO, all kinds of concepts are evaluated, from next generation telescopes to planetary probes to the focus of his work: Earth-To-Orbit launch vehicles like NASA’s next big rocket, the Space Launch System. They also do a fair bit of community service. Pat takes part in outreach video conferences with middle schoolers in the Chicago area, and helps
to find and organize service events as part of the council for his company’s young professionals society, Jacobs Future Network. After graduating from New College in spring 2009, Jessica Wheeler ’05 began a Ph.D program in Maya archaeology at Tulane University. Currently, she teaches classes at Tulane while she continues her research in Yucatan, Mexico. While Jessica is grateful to all of her professors for the incredible education she received at New College, Jessica would like to honor
Dr. Gabrielle Vail particularly. Gaby inspired Jessica to study Maya hieroglyphs, mentored her throughout her time at New College, provided her with research and scholarly opportunities no other professor did, and played a big role in why Jessica was accepted into Tulane University’s program. Numerous other students at New College have benefited from her dedication to supporting their growth and development as scholars. Gaby deserves the respect and recognition of the New College community as a whole. This past summer, Aidan Bailey ’08 participated in Miami University’s Earth Expeditions global field course in Costa Rica.
2010s Thayer Warne ’10 is in his second year in Teach for America.
PICTURE PERFECT
Dance Collective is a tutorial at New College with a tradition of celebration. Held last semester on Dec. 4 in Sainer Auditorium, dancers met weekly to rehearse, culminating in a semester-long work or collective of performances. As a truly collaborative experience, any student may organize, orchestrate, choreograph or perform at the end of the semester.
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NEW COLLEGE ALUMNAE/I ASSOCIATION NEW COLLEGE FOUNDATION, INC. THE KEATING CENTER 5800 BAY SHORE ROAD SARASOTA, FL 34243-2109
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IN THE COMMUNITY
Dec. 2015: Students from McIntosh Middle School’s STEM magnet program visited New College’s Heiser Natural Sciences Complex to hear from professors, peek in our labs and hear more about the sciences at New College.
Dec. 2015: New College students volunteered with our neighbors at Bay Haven School of Basics Plus, assisting young minds to learn to code, in conjunction with a national event - “Hour of Code.”