Nimbus 79 Fall 2016

#79 FALL 2016

A publication of New College of Florida

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA

MAPPING NEW COLLEGE ON THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE Whiz Kids:

Lynne Buchanan

New College’s Quiz Bowl Team Takes Off in its First Year

A Connection to the Water

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NCAA Communications Committee Jordan Clark - Communications Chair Hazel Bradford Carmela French Cindy Hill Steve Jacobson 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

From Sea to Shining Sea Mapping New College on the Political Landscape

Publisher Office of Communications & Marketing New College of Florida 5800 Bay Shore Road Sarasota, FL 34243-2109 941.487.4153 communications@ncf.edu

19 Profiles

15 Whiz Kids: New College’s Quiz Bowl Team Takes Off in its First Year

Eben Kirksey Kara Andrade Lynne Buchanan Rob Bilott

Also inside this issue: On Campus > 1 Op Ed > 4 In the Community > 5 We Heard You > 7 Alumnae/i Focus > 18 Chapter News > 24 Class Notes > 25

*Submitted by Samantha Hannah ‘09. Like our Nimby-doodle? Submit your version of the Nimbus masthead for consideration to communications@ncf.edu.

NCAA Board of Directors Executive Committee Chair – Frazier Carraway ’72 Chair-Elect – Cindy Hill ’89 Treasurer – Sarah Thompson ’06 Communications Chair – Jordan Clark ’04 Governance Chair – Chad Bickerton ’05 Immediate Past Chair – Susan “Spozy” Sapoznikoff ’83 Hazel Bradford ’75 Jordan Clark ’04 Robert Freedman ’83 Carmela French ’06 Steve Jacobson ’71 Gera Peoples ’94 Leslie Reinherz ’70 Rick Schofield ’85 Norman Stein ’69 Sarah Thompson ’06 Jim Tietsworth ’84 Troy Winfrey ’87 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

Orientation Know more about this photo?

Contact communications@ncf.edu.

Hair styles have changed and so has Orientation! This year, New College brings in a new cohort of 269 students from as far as California, Washington, Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Texas.

CAMPUS NEWS

Third-year Lizabelt Avila Wins State Dept.’s Gilman Scholarship izabelt Avila and her family immigrated to the United States from Cuba seven years ago. Now the third-year New College student has received a scholarship that will allow her to pursue her hope of a career in international social work and policy.

Avila, who is from Miami, has been awarded a prestigious Gilman Scholarship, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The award will allow her to attend The Hague University for European Studies in the Netherlands during the fall 2016 semester.

“I’m honored to receive this award and I hope to make the most of this opportunity,” she said.

She plans to study human rights law, global citizenship, French and other topics. She also plans to volunteer with the United Nations, International Court of Justice or another non-governmental organization based there.

Avila said the experience is vital to her plans of working in public service.

“As I plan to further my studies in policy making and international social work, I believe that experiencing diversity through a study abroad experience can concretize my idea of the world,” she said. “By better understanding human interaction at a practical level I can become a better world citizen and serve its community with greater expertise.”

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Avila is concentrating in international relations and philosophy at New College. She is active in College organizations including LatinX and Model U.N., and has volunteered at the Robert L. Taylor Community Complex tutoring students in math and literacy.

This year, she was also named a Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellow, a national award recognizing students demonstrating public service that improves their campus communities.

Avila thanked her academic advisors, Professors Barbara Hicks and April Flakne, and College administrators Courtney Hughes and Florence Zamsky, for their guidance and assistance.

The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program was created in 2000 to provide scholarships for study abroad to U.S. undergraduates with financial need, including students from diverse backgrounds and students going to nontraditional study abroad destinations. The federally funded program is administered by the Institute of International Education.

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CAMPUS NEWS

New College’s Donal O’ Shea Named President of Southern University Conference ew College President Don O’Shea was named president of the Southern University Conference at the group’s April meeting in Williamsburg, Va. The Southern University Conference is an association of more than 40 colleges,

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predominantly liberal arts institutions, and its members meet annually to discuss education issues and initiatives on their campuses. It was founded in 1924 with 33 members.

The theme of this year’s meeting was “The Promise and Purpose of the Presidency,” focused on the challenges of the role of the college president in times of change. Speakers included Presidents Gordon Gee (University of West Virginia), Taylor Reveley (College of William & Mary), Teresa Sullivan (University of Virginia) and Belle Wheelan (accrediting agency Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.)

The Conference’s next annual meeting will be in Sarasota.

FOUNDATION

New College Mourns Loss of Gen. Heiser ew College of Florida and the New College Foundation mourned the loss of Gen. Rolland V. Heiser, former president of the Foundation and a key figure in the College’s history. Heiser died on June 16, 2016, at the age of 91.

Former New College President Gordon Michalson, who worked closely with Heiser for a decade, said his friend “Ron” was a powerful and persuasive advocate for New College.

“Ron had a genius for opening up doors in our wider community for New College,” Michalson said. “His advocacy on behalf of the college won us many friends and brought countless people to our campus for the first time. He secured New College’s future.”

Heiser was president of the New College Foundation from June 1979 to April 2003, stepping in at a time when the future of the College’s fund-raising organization was in doubt. In his first two years, he raised $6 million for the Foundation. In recognition of his efforts, students dedicated the 1979-80 yearbook to him.

Heiser had a distinguished 30-year Army career, serving in Korea, Vietnam and, among other posts, as chief of staff of the U.S. European Command in Germany under Gen. Alexander Haig, who later became U.S. secretary of state and White House chief of staff.

Many, including Michalson, wondered why a retired military officer would have such devotion for a campus known for liberal thinking.

“I asked him early on why he was such a strong advocate of

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the school,” Michalson said.

“Without hesitation, he said it was because of New College’s emphasis on self-reliance and personal responsibility—he simply felt a deep connection to that central feature of our mission. He also loved our students and always enjoyed visiting with them, and he developed warm and long-lasting friendships with members of the faculty.”

During his tenure, Heiser established an endowment of more than $30 million, and brought more than $100 million to the New College campus.

After retiring as president of the New College Foundation, he remained on the foundation board and served as a trustee emeritus until his death. New College’s Heiser Natural Sciences Complex, which houses teaching and research labs for chemistry, biochemistry, biology, bioinformatics, computational science, mathematics and physics, is named in his honor.

A funeral service was held at Toale Brothers Colonial Chapel in Sarasota on June 23, with burial following at Sarasota National Cemetery.

New College is hosting a celebration of life service on Oct. 18 in the College Hall Music Room.

ON CAMPUS CAMPUS NEWS

The Princeton Review Names New College to its List of Nation’s Best ith outstanding scores for its professors and its overall academic environment, New College of Florida was again named one of the country’s top undergraduate colleges by The Princeton Review.

New College was among the 15 percent of American colleges to make the 2017 edition of the Review’s guidebook, “The Best 381 Colleges.” The book does not rank the colleges, but rates each in eight categories.

For the overall “Academics” rating, New College received 96 points out of a possible 99. The score measures “how hard students work, and how much they get back,” the Review explains.

For the “Professors Interesting” rating, based on students’ reviews of their teachers, New College received 98 points out of 99.

“New College’s outstanding academics are the chief reason we chose it for this book and we strongly recommend it to applicants,” said Robert Franek, the Princeton Review’s senior vice president and publisher, and the author of “The Best 381 Colleges.”

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The Princeton Review also views New College as one of the best deals in undergraduate education. In February 2016, the Review named New College as one of the country’s “Top 50 Colleges That Pay You Back,” for its combination of low tuition, strong academic and graduates’ career success.

“The Best 381 Colleges” is based on surveys of students, college administrators and Princeton Review staff visits to colleges. It quotes extensively from students’ reviews. Some examples of New College students’ comments: • New College “provides challenging courses for highly self-motivated students who want a large amount of control over their academic choices.”

• Students receive a “rounded education that enables them to critically and pragmatically examine and understand the world in which we live.”

• “It is very popular for groups of students to get together to talk about class readings outside of the classroom, usually at the college coffee shop, as a means of socializing.”

• The setting “encourages(s) a love of learning, whether it be academic, political or hobby-related.”

CAMPUS NEWS

Local Kids Get Real-World Science Training at New College his summer, New College helped two dozen middle and high school students prepare for careers in medicine and science with a program that takes them out on Sarasota Bay and into the College’s marine biology labs.

It was the 15th year of PUSH/SUCCESS, a program for students from demographics typically under-represented in science. Students arrived on June 6 for two weeks of intensive science training, from collecting samples to running experiments to preparing reports and presentations on their work.

Along the way, program director Dr. Sandra Gilchrist, professor of biology, and assistants taught students about the scientific method, graphing and writing lab reports. They also created PowerPoint presentations and podcasts about their research.

Students met with scientists working in the community.

Sarasota physician Dr. Lisa Merritt, an advocate for better healthcare access for under-served communities, discussed careers in medicine.

High school students participated in programs on leadership, and the program included a workshop for students’ parents on planning for college.

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Dr. Sandra Gilchrist, professor of biology at New College, works with middle school students at the Pritzker Marine Biology Research Center at this year’s PUSH/SUCCESS program.

PUSH (Preparing Unique Students for Healthcare careers) is for students in grades 9 through 11. SUCCESS (Students United to Create Culturally and Educationally Successful Situations) is for students in grades 6 through 8. Both programs focus on typical, not gifted, students. Most students receive free or reduced-price lunch at their schools.

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OP ED

Intergroup Dialogue Comes to New College

BY M ARIBETH CL A RK , ASSO C IATE PRO F E SSO R O F MU S I C

The Day of Dialogue, held Monday, April 4, brought members of New College communities together in a novel way. The whole campus was invited, classes were cancelled, and over two hundred faculty, staff, and students participated in structured conversations.

Some feared it would be about “calling out” insensitivity to difference, but it was instead about listening to each other, trying to make sense of our relationships to one-another and the structures that stand in the way of understanding. Organizers constructed the conversations so that we could think as a whole about what we love about the College, what we would change if we could, and what resources we would need to make the changes. Although some organizers were disappointed that the day was not more hard-hitting, many participants left with a sense that they had been part of something important that was just beginning, a community- and skill-building activity worth continuing.

The initiative itself was the brainchild of New College Student Alliance Co-Presidents Paige Pellaton and Shelby Statham with the support of President Donal O’Shea. Paige and Shelby wanted faculty, staff, and students to have an opportunity to come together to discuss difficult topics. They wanted faculty to

acknowledge the importance of such conversations, and to cancel class to show their support and solidarity. But it was not easy. New College faculty value time in the classroom, the lab and the studio, and resisted not so much the idea of the day as taking time away from academic activities. To make matters more complicated, the desire for the day was announced in February, just after syllabi for the new spring semester had been distributed.

Student leaders were stalwart, however, and achieved their goal. Faculty approved the idea of having the day, and the provost soon after officially cancelled class with the support of the division chairs. Some faculty held class anyway—academic rigor is as much a hallmark of our campus culture as is social activism. A dedicated group of faculty, staff and students met weekly to move the project forward. After several months of meetings, an expert facilitator from Oakland, California— Micah Hobbes Frazier—brought the pieces together. The event took place, people showed up, and—perhaps most

importantly—we had enough food.

We plan to provide more opportunities for such cross-campus discussions of difference next year. Five of us representing faculty, staff and students attended the Intergroup Dialogue Institute at the University of Michigan this June to learn about the “Michigan Model,” a curriculum that provides students the skills to work well with people of different identities. Our goal will be to introduce the Model to the campus community this fall, and to explore ways that it might supplement co-curricular and academic activities in the form of workshops and student-led tutorials. While a day is great, change takes place with sustained dialogue over a period of time. We are committed to the process.

SAVE THE DATE! Thursday, November 3, 2016 6:00 p.m.

New College Bayfront donate.ncf.edu/clambake2016

IN THE COMMUNITY

Spring Break on the Farm, Not the Beach

BY REID SHE LLEY ‘ 1 1 APOPKA IS A SMALL TOWN JUST NORTH OF ORLANDO. It is rural, were hurting from just grabbing the dry leaves, but imagine if landlocked, and far from what most college students would you had to grab the wet kale,” she said. “You know that there’s think of as a spring break destination. This spring, though, going to be some water on the kale, but you don’t realize that four New College students, were not at all interested in a every time they go to grab a piece of kale, their fingers are typical spring break. going to be hurting really badly.”

First-year students Cassandra Manz, Ana Maria Bez, Eleni When away from the fields, and in the homes of their host Spanolios, and Ana Peralta Pedroza traveled to Apopka to stay families, the students and their chaperones had intimate with and learn from the migrant farmworkers who live there. discussions about migrant life. That made it impossible for The students’ trip came at the end of a tutorial sponsored by them to view immigration as a distant subject of political and Dean of Studies Robert Zamsky and organized by the Center social debate, they said. “It’s one thing to know about an issue for Engagement and Opportunity. VISTA Coordinator and facing this country, but it’s another thing to know a person New College alumna Lacy Mroz also worked on the tutorial who it affects. I think it can be very easy to isolate yourself and traveled to Apopka. when you’re studying things,” The tutorial focused on Mroz said. “It enhances the the difficulties faced by educational experience to be undocumented migrants able to share a meal with the who come to the United people who you are learning States. They read passages about and advocating for.” from “We ARE Americans,” These discussions allowed a book of interviews and the students to better stories from undocumented comprehend the emotional students. They also met with realities of immigration For guest speakers who shared example, when immigrants their expertise on bypass legal channels to enter immigration law, the path the United States, they can to citizenship and other end up isolated from their New College faculty and staff in the fields at Apoka: From left, Lacy Mroz, subjects. families. Ana Pedroza Ana Maria Bez, Ana Ximena Pedroza, Alex Pearson, Cassanadra Manz and The Apopka stay itself recalled her host mother Eleni Spanolios. was organized by the Hope telling her that she had not Community Center, which provides service learning seen her parents in over ten years. “We see them as criminals opportunities for students as well as various programs or as illegal immigrants,”she said, “but we don’t see them as designed to assist migrants, including citizenship preparation Juana, or as individual people and families.” and tutoring.

The intimacy of the discussions taught the students the The students, Mroz and former residence hall director importance of listening to the perspectives of others, and to Alexandra Pearson arrived on March 19. Upon arrival at the amplify the voices of those normally unheard. “We cannot Hope Community Center, the students and chaperones were speak for them,” Pedroza said. “We need to help them find a divided into groups of two. Each group was assigned to a host medium through which they can speak to the world. They family who provided them with a place to stay, food to eat, have so much to say. They just want people to listen.” and insight into their lives.

Listening to the stories of others was clearly the most The morning after their arrival, the students and their affecting part of this experience, students said. “I want to chaperones woke up at 6 a.m. to head to work in the cucumlisten when people choose to share their stories with me,” ber fields. They weeded for four hours. It was cold, the work Manz said. “It was so honoring to spend time with all the was hard, and their fingers were in pain, but they knew that people we met. They were really wonderful.” they worked only a small fraction of a farmworker’s typical All of the students came away with new perspectives and a eight-to-nine hour day. desire to pay attention to what is often ignored. “There are all Even that brief experience helped them understand what of these small communities that we never really see, but that migrant farmworkers go through. Bez recalled how one we drive by every single day,” Spanolios said. “This trip has farmworker described what it was like to pick kale on a cold impacted me to go out and find those people and try to make morning when the leaves are covered in frost. “Our fingers a difference.”

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ON CAMPUS

What’s Happening COMMENCEMENT

New College of Florida awarded diplomas to 170 members of the Class of 2016 in a sunset ceremony on the College’s historic Bayfront at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 20.

It was the 50th graduation ceremony in New College’s history. Its first students graduated in 1967. The keynote speaker was Charlayne Hunter-Gault, a pioneer in the American civil rights movement and an award-winning journalist for The New York Times, PBS, NPR and CNN.

ORIENTATION

Orientation began Aug. 13 with new students arriving from as far as California, Washington, Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan, Massachusetts and Texas.

Welcomes by President Don O’Shea and Provost Steve Miles were a great success. Also covered were sessions where students could spend the evening at the Library playing retro games, an all-arts jam session and a bus trip to local community organizations for volunteer support.

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She received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

This year’s graduating class included two Fulbright award-winners, one of Florida’s nine Frost Scholars for 2016, a student who received a prestigious two-year research fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, and many other students headed to the nation’s top universities for graduate studies.

FAMILY WEEKEND

Mark your calendars! This year’s Family Weekend will take place Sept. 30 - Oct. 2, 2016, offering a variety of events for students and families, including a Friday night Bash by the Bay, a fun run/walk, yoga, a drive-in movie, student music performances, exploration of the classroom, cultural exchange fair, a reception at the Hampton Inn, an “Explore Sarasota” dinner adventure and brunch by the Bay! Learn more: ncf.edu/family-weekend

WE HEARD YOU

Best of Social Media I can’t believe I got into my dream school New College, I’m so happy and so excited to start next year! #NCFbound - Jean

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From Sea to Shining Sea Mapping New College on the Political Landscape

BY DAV ID GULLIV ER

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FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA / COVER STORY

FROM THE STATE HOUSE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE TO CITY HALL IN SAN FRANCISCO –literally, from sea to shining sea – New College graduates

have devoted themselves to public service. They have worked in and around politics as elected officials, expert staff, advocates for a cause or journalists informing the public about their government.

For some, like Stephen Duprey ’71, political activism started early – he was elected to office in New Hampshire while a New College student. For others, like Amy Laitinen ’92, it began after a migration in both career and geography, from New York City to California to Washington and a position in the Obama White House.

Other Novo Collegians, like Karen Halperin Cyphers ’97 and Janet Bowman ’79, have stayed close to home, working in the state’s capital of Tallahassee. Now, New College is taking advantage of that connection and showing its next generation of students the path to public service, with the Semester in Tallahassee program.

“New College does a fantastic job of educating people intellectually but is not always as great at educating them about practice,” said Keith Fitzgerald, professor of political science, who directs the Tallahassee program. “Many of our students have the intention of being practically involved but have no idea how to take that intent and do something with it.”

So Fitzgerald, Prof. Frank Alcock and Andrea Knies, assistant director for community engagement, developed the program, which launched in the January 2016 ISP term and ran through the spring semester. Six students participated, working at internships across the capital, taking classes at Florida State University as well as Fitzgerald’s seminar.

“The point of this is not that we want them to be bureaucrats,” Fitzgerald said. “We want to give them maps of the world, so they can get to the places where they can figure out what they want to do a little faster.”

That map was part of what Chloe Kimball took away from the program. Kimball, a second-year political science AOC, interned with the Florida Education Association, which represents public school teachers.

“Seeing the complexity of the political system helped me to understand the many roles people fill - policy analyst, lobbyist, and representative, to name a few - and appreciate the parts they play in our government.

Those also are the roles that New College graduates have filled, arrived at via many different “maps.” But no matter what route they chose, they say New College prepared them well for the trip.

New College student Dylan Pryor, who interned as a reporter in Tallahassee, awaits the start of legislative proceedings in the Florida House of Representatives press gallery.

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Ambassador Nancy McEldowney interviews former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Nancy McEldowney’s ’78 path started with a simple summer internship, at the U.S. Department of State. She had planned to pursue a doctorate and enter academia after her 1981 graduation. But her internship experiences quickly convinced her that a career in diplomacy was the right direction.

She became a foreign service officer, eventually serving as ambassador to the Republic of Bulgaria and as chargé and deputy chief of mission in Turkey and Azerbaijan. She also served overseas in

The Trip to Success

Azerbaijan, Egypt and Germany.

She also served in Washington, including a post at the White House as director of European affairs on the National Security Council staff.

Today she is director of the Foreign Service Institute, the primary training organization for U.S. diplomats and other foreign service personnel. She oversees 1,400 staff and as many as 2,000 students – like running a small college.

Karen Halperin Cyphers ’97 didn’t study politics or economics at New College. She was “completely apolitical,” she recalls, and her senior thesis in 2001 was a “participant observation study of street performers in Boston.”

Today, she’s vice president of research and policy at Sachs Media, the leading public affairs company in Tallahassee’s political scene, and an adjunct instructor at Florida State teaching upper-level policy analysis.

“My time at New College was hugely foundational to the work I’ve ended up doing in public policy and data analysis,” she said, “mostly for the training in critical thinking and independent research – with an element of exposure to how one might learn to hold their own even when holding a minority view.”

Stephen Duprey ’71 would understand that minority view.

He was one of the rare Republicans on campus in 1971, and became even more of an exception when, while still a student, he ran for the New Hampshire state legislature – and won.

He credits his professors Peggy Bates, Bob Benedetti and Justus Doenecke for their mentorship. “Probably the best lesson I learned from all of them is that vital to the success of any political discussion on any issue is to be willing to

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As such, the importance of education is on her mind, and what she learned at New College informs her today.

While she says her concentration in philosophy and theology are not directly relevant in diplomacy – “though in some cases they were” -- the College “gave me an indispensable grounding in critical analysis, creative problem solving, and persuasive reasoning.”

“I have never forgotten the New College credo that ‘in the final analysis, every student is responsible for his own education,’ and have applied that same principle of self-determination and self-reliance in so many other aspects of my life. New College challenged me to do more and be more than I thought possible,” she said.

“New College also taught me the importance of being multidimensional – matching intellectual pursuits with physical and psychological well-being, pouring over medieval texts and then enjoying the beauty of Palm Court and the Gulf of Mexico.”

listen - really listen - to the other side’s point of view, and that compromise is not a failure but a success.”

Listening and understanding multiple viewpoints is crucial for journalists, and at least two New College graduates cover Washington.

Hazel Bradford ’75 started as an editorial assistant at McGraw Hill World News. One day, the State Department reporter was sick, and she volunteered, launching her reporting career. She worked at Business Week, shifted to a trade group and now reports on government action on financial policy for Pension and Investments. “Being able to talk to all kinds of sources, plus not being afraid to ask questions, are traits that I would attribute directly to my time at New College,” she said.

Alexis Simendinger ’75, who covers the White House for Real Clear Politics, said New College taught her how to think, not what to think. “This exposure was essential to being able to dip in and out of complex topics without being an expert, to conduct interviews and assemble research, and to use storytelling and sharp writing to report the news,” she said.

The 1981 graduate, a winner of a White House press corps award for her work, said the College’s emphasis on ISPs, internships, tutorials and research maximized the strengths of the College and its faculty.

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA / COVER STORY

The College’s interdisciplinary approach was crucial for Janet Bowman ’79, who has been director of legislative policy and strategy at the Florida chapter of The Nature Conservancy for nine years.

“Addressing the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and climate adaptation is an example from my current portfolio of work where on a daily basis my work requires the integration of political, social and scientific thinking in order to obtain any kind of progress,” she said. “As the environmental challenges of the day shift over time and political variables change, the critical thinking skills developed by my New College background have proved invaluable.”

And for Sam Zamarripa ’73, the value of New College comes down to a principle instilled in him here. “The idea that, ‘In the final analysis, I am ultimately responsible for my own education’ is a very powerful idea that I have never underestimated or forgotten. It is a boundless, intrinsic ideal.”

Pathways

Zamarripa was thinking about that one day sitting on the banks of the Cartecay River in north Georgia when he decided to run for office.

He had arrived in Georgia after going from New College to the acclaimed Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University, where he is now a trustee. In 1979, he moved to Atlanta to work in state government. He also got involved in politics at the true grass-roots level – the arts, community associations, the rights of the disabled.

He went on to work for two legendary Georgia politicians: He raised money for Andrew Young when the Atlanta mayor ran for governor, and was an outreach coordinator for Maynard Jackson when he ran for and won an unprecedented third term as Atlanta’s mayor.

Both of them were strong influences on Zamarripa. He notes that Young – a preacher by training, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and his close friend – is fond of saying, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.”

“I adopted Young’s style – not with his success or flair – but it worked very well,” Zamarripa says.

It was the start of a great friendship, Zamarripa said. A decade or so later, after working for both men’s campaigns, he made that visit to the Caretecay and decided to run for the state Senate. He defeated the president of the Atlanta school board to win the seat.

In June 2003, Zamarripa spoke at an event at the King Center in Atlanta. Jackson was there, and pushed his way through the crowd after the speech. “He grabbed me by the shoulder, smiled and said, ‘Sam Zamarripa, I have never heard

you speak like that!” Zamarripa recalls. But it was the last time they would speak; three days later, Jackson had a heart attack and died.

Zamarripa left the Senate after that term, seeing dim prospects for getting policy through the newly Republican state legislature. He went on to a successful career “The idea that, ‘In the final in finance and is now analysis, I am ultimately president of a tech responsible for my own company, Intent Solutions, and he is a education’ is a very board member of the powerful idea that I have Annie E. Casey never underestimated or Foundation. But it was forgotten. It is a boundless, the influence of Young and Jackson that intrinsic ideal.” permanently shaped him.

-Sam Zamarripa “I was trained by the best,” he says.

Amy Laitinen ’92, too, took a circuitous path to government service. After New College, she joined Teach for America and had a post in a predominantly Dominican school in New York City.

She remembers a parent-teacher conference with one student’s mother. “She said to me, ‘I know you’ll say I should spend more time with my daughter, but I work three jobs to make sure she has food to eat and a place to live.’” And so her focus shifted from education to poverty.

She went to University of California at Berkeley to pursue a master’s degree in public policy, and her capstone project was for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on the impact of a proposed minimum wage increase. Her work caught the attention of Board President Matt Gonzales, leading to a job as a research assistant and then his chief of staff.

“At the local level, you’re close to the ground but you can do really forward-thinking work,” she said. “When you work in a progressive city, you can still affect national change, because other municipalities will copy what you are doing.”

She later volunteered for the first Obama campaign. After an election, campaign staff often land jobs in the new administration, but Laitinen said that wasn’t her plan – Washington people are “just interested in their own power.”

Then there was the phone call.

Obama did a conference call – “with me and 5,000 others,” she said. As she recalls, he said something like this: “Congratulations, but change is not in an election, it is in governing. I encourage you to join me in this crazy fight and change the country.”

“And I thought, now I have to go to D.C. – it felt like a calling,” she said. She landed a job as an higher education

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Stephen Duprey ’71 owns the Duprey Companies, which develop and manage real estate, in New Hampshire, where he is active in republican politics.

“I still engage in politics... because again, I’m naïve and I believe in practicing good politics, and that means running fair elections and doing the best you can to be honest and credible.”

policy advisor, and soon was in charge of a $12 billion program built to aid community colleges.

She stayed two and a half years and landed a position at the New America Foundation, as deputy director of higher education policy. She has had success turning ideas into policy: She researched and promoted the idea of colleges awarding financial aid based on direct assessment of student learning, instead of the traditional per-credit hour concept, and the Education Department has begun allowing institutions to do so.

But she still points to local government as a place to make a difference. For example, she said, even seemingly mundane duties as zoning can be hugely important. “These are decisions that fundamentally shape a city for the rest of its life,” she said. “If you’re interested in systems change, cities are where it’s happening.”

While Laitinen worked on the Obama campaign, Steve Duprey was working for his opponent, Sen. John McCain.

The two had become acquainted years earlier. Duprey, a Republican National Committee board member, was at a political dinner, and McCain was seated at his table.

“As the evening droned on and on, he’d be making wisecracks and telling stories,” Duprey said. “So I found him first of all funny and entertaining, but then he could delve into an incredible level of detail on nuclear arms proliferation, or weapons procurement. He’s very bright and a very deep study.”

For decades, Duprey has been a central figure in New Hampshire politics – he has served as finance chair, or chief fundraiser, for more candidates than anyone else, he believes.

And with the state’s presidential primary as the first in the nation, Duprey gets to know Republican candidates well.

“As I watched him in 2000, when he ran and I was the party chairman, just the way he ran his campaign, it was about hope, it was about optimism,” Duprey said. “He treated voters

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with the kind of respect that I think you should. He wasn’t afraid to tell anybody to go to heck, and I admired that. We developed a friendship and off we went.”

In 2008, he became one of McCain’s closest advisors, traveling nationwide with the candidate. In every city they visited, McCain met with wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, or the families of slain soldiers. He also adamantly refused to let his staff inform the media.

“I can tell you, having been in the room with him” – Duprey’s voice breaks – “I get emotional just thinking about it – how hard it is, when you’re there and you’re trying to comfort a family who’s lost a husband, a son, a daughter, a father. A lot of people said that really isn’t how you’re going to be at your best on the campaign trail, if you spend all your time in meetings like that, but John McCain didn’t give a darn about whatever made the campaign day easier or harder.”

Duprey’s career stemmed from that sort of idealism that the campaign represented. In high school, Duprey supported California congressman Pete McCloskey, who was running against Nixon for the Republican presidential nomination on an anti-war platform.

While first-year Novo Collegians aren’t supposed to do off-campus trimesters, professors Bob Benedetti and Peggy Bates let him return to New Hampshire and work for McCloskey. That summer, he learned all the legislators from his multi-member district were pro-Nixon, so he returned and ran for office. Classmates Ron Flax Davidson, Wendy Smith and Gena Moses helped him campaign, and while back at New College in the fall, he won the election – requiring him to take the next two semesters as off-campus study to work in the legislature.

He won a second term, but then went to law school at Cornell, so he did not run again. He lost a close race for a congressional seat in 1992.

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA / COVER STORY Since then he has worked behind the scenes on campaigns, and currently is finance chair for Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s re-election campaign.

“I still engage in politics... because again, I’m naïve and I believe in practicing good politics, and that means running fair elections and doing the best you can to be honest and credible.” he said.

“It probably means I’m doing something to help a lot of candidates lose. But that’s how I’m going to roll,” he said, laughing.

Like Duprey, Karen Halperin Cyphers ended up in Republican politics, but it began after New College.

She had not been politically active at the College, but became inspired by some work her father did in local politics, so she landed an internship with a Senate Republican. She went on to a political science doctoral program at Florida State, and then got a job as an analyst in Florida House of Representatives – mentored by fellow New College alumnus Tom Hamby.

Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, running for governor, hired her as deputy policy director, where she worked on debate preparation. After the election, she became his deputy policy chief for health and human services. She later worked for Attorney General Bill McCollum, who ran unsuccessfully for governor against Rick Scott, and briefly for Scott’s transition team.

Her work for the GOP, she said, has drawn “mixed reactions” from her fellow graduates, ranging from “indifferent to amused to angry.” But she says her approach to her work is in line with the New College ideology.

“I went to New College for being the academicallychallenging, independence-promoting, friendship-building, science-rich, Bay-neighboring, creativity-fostering place that it is,” she said. “My views may differ from the New College majority in how we would achieve certain public policy goals, but I believe that the goals themselves are rather similar—the common desire to protect rights and freedoms, improve opportunities and safety, and better spend resources.”

Staff work for elected officials, she said, can be challenging.

“There are plenty of times when staffers of any party disagree with their candidate’s or boss’s positions. The hope is that the good - or potential for good - outweighs that dissonance. And if not, you just move on to something that is better aligned with your heart when you can.”

At Sachs Media Group, she helps a wide array of groups advocate for their issues – what is generally, and often with derision, called lobbying. Cyphers agrees, in part.

“I’d guess people have fairly realistic conceptions of lobbying, but think that these realities aren’t incompatible with idealism,” she said. “The universe of lobbyists is hugely diverse, and the majority of lobbyists I’ve worked with actually believe in the causes they’re hired to advocate for.”

For example, at Sachs, she has worked on issues as diverse and as important as sea turtle protection, access to oral health care for children on Medicaid, the economic impacts of child sexual abuse, promotion of volunteerism, and consumer protections in payday lending.

Bob Watts Graduated from New College in 1978; Columbia University, School of International Affairs, master’s degree in international affairs, 1980, Stanford University, Masters in Economics, 1990 Selected public service: • Senior Advisor, Office of eDiplomacy U.S. Department of State, 2010-present • Chief of Diplomatic Innovation Division in eDiplomacy, State Department, 2009-2010 • Director of Intellectual Property Enforcement, State Department, 2006-2009 • Regional Environment, Science and Technology Officer for Central Asia, US Embassy Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 2001-2004 • Foreign Service Officer, posts in Portugal, Brazil, Peru, Canada, 1981-1996

Karen Halperin Cyphers Graduated from New College in 2001, Florida State University, doctorate in political science, 2012 Selected public service: • Vice President of Policy and Research, Sachs Media Group, 2015-present • Policy Director, Florida Medical Association, 2008-12 • Deputy Policy Chief, health and human services, Executive Office of the Governor, 2008 • Deputy Policy Director, Gov. Charlie Crist, 2007-2008 • Analyst, Florida House of Representatives, 2005

Alexis Simendinger Graduated from New College in 1981, Univ, of Missouri, master’s degree in journalism, 1983 Selected public service: • White House Correspondent, Real Clear Politics, 2011 - present • Writing Team, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, 2010-11 • White House Correspondent, National Journal magazine, 1997-2010 • Reporter, National Journal, 1997-2010 • Reporter, Bureau of National Affairs, 1986-97 • Reporter, The Tampa Tribune, 1983-86

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COVER STORY / FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA “The chance, even if small, that good data or intel could influence broader policy is what keeps us going,” she said.

And what she has learned in Tallahassee may also be the most important lesson that the New College students learned last spring.

The New Generation

in processing sexual assault kits, changes to the state’s Bright Futures college scholarship program, funding to expand New College’s Heiser Natural Sciences Complex, and other topics.

He and Van Housen learned another lesson about laws, the one about squeaky wheels.

“I often hear people talking about having to take action against various societal problems, but many do not make the effort,” Pryor said. “I witnessed firsthand how monumental change can be made in our Capitol by just showing up – even if that change is not desirable in some cases.”

“I learned that if you want anything done, at this moment, you have to work through the system,” Van Housen said. “It might take years, especially if you don’t have as much funding as the big corporations, but as of right now that is the only way. And you can’t give up.”

That’s the message that alumni send them as well.

At the Florida Education Association, Kimball (one of the Semester in Tallahassee students) said she learned about the spectrum of people in government – from politicians to lobbyists to policy analysts.

“Now that I’ve had this experience, I’ve definitely started thinking about a career in politics,” she said. “I used to think you had to be very type-A to do anything political, but now that I’ve met people and seen the different roles people have, I’ve figured out that myth is false.”

Jessica Brown worked for the League of Women Voters of Why it matters “This internship gave me the chance to see As political partisanship and Florida. Her internship into the entire state legislative process,” she governmental gridlock have risen, fortunately aligned with the said. “I got to be present for major events that the public has grown skeptical group’s biennial Legislative about the role of government Summit, and she designed the I didn’t even know existed before January. and the media that covers it. program of the event’s gala, I didn’t realize that there could be public worked on a press release on a testimonies in committee meetings, and I New College graduates in the bill the group opposed, caught field have seen it, but they say the presentations from lawmakers didn’t understand what lobbyists did until work they do is more valuable now.” -Olivia Van Housen and met many League volunthan ever. teers.

“We know how media are “These women are incredibly amazing and more informed catering to opinion and political leanings in ways that draw about state issues, and political issues in general, than a lot of huge audiences, but also aggravate deep wells of public people that I’ve met,” she said. cynicism in all our institutions,” Simendinger said. “These are Olivia Van Housen worked for the Sierra Club and got into real worries, but I am more concerned about the mistakes the legislative weeds, reading deep into bills and elected and unelected officials make. I worry that without an amendments to find the obscure clauses that relate to the alert and persistently demanding Fourth Estate, we see these environment, and attending hearings and doing research for people in trusted positions of power misbehave, mislead or lie, believing no one will be the wiser, or with smug certainty that the group’s chief lobbyist.

“The 120-page amendments are the worst. I know, because I if something goes awry, they can manage it all using crisis read them,” she said. “End of session is the perfect opportunity communicators.”

The 2016 election is bringing those issues into sharp focus, to sneak in a few ‘ors’ and change a few words around so someone benefits. It’s likely that if you tweak one word no one with polls showing most voters disapprove of the two major candidates. But as Pryor and Van Housen learned, the will notice until it’s too late. So I got the job of reading every post-election United States should give them opportunities to word to try and catch any trickery that could potentially change – and alumni say the possibilities and importance are impact the environment.” greater than ever.

It was literally an eye-opening experience.

“There will be no shortage of challenges to tackle regardless “This internship gave me the chance to see into the entire of who wins, and there’s always a place for folks looking to state legislative process,” she said. “I got to be present for dive in and work toward something better,” Cyphers said. major events that I didn’t even know existed before January. I Duprey, the veteran of more campaigns than he can count, didn’t realize that there could be public testimonies in says if we’re dissatisfied with government, we should step up. committee meetings, and I didn’t understand what lobbyists “If everybody doesn’t take a chance to shoulder the load, you did until now.” end up with worse government, not better government. So I Dylan Pryor also got a broad view of the legislative process, advocate for people to find the difficult and unpopular center,” but from a different perspective: He interned as a reporter for he said. “I think the way this country is going to turn around the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s Tallahassee bureau, learning is when there are more of us who are willing to support folks from bureau chief Lloyd Dunkelberger, the father of 2013 we might not agree with on every issue, but we know are graduate Mary Dunkelberger. working and willing to compromise.”

He reported on the Legislature’s efforts to resolve a backlog

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WHIZ KIDS / FEATURE

Whiz Kids: New College’s Quiz Bowl Team Takes Off in its First Year

BY E RI CH B A RG A N I E R ‘10

New College of Florida’s 2016 Quiz Bowl Team is establishing themselves as one of the best teams in the American Southeast.

NEW COLLEGE OF FLORIDA’S QUIZ BOWL TEAM was in its final regional tournament of the year. The only obstacle between the team and qualifying for the 2016 Academic Competition Federation’s National Quiz Bowl Tournament at The University of Michigan was a final barrage of questions.

What Shakespeare play features the St. Crispin’s Day speech?

Which German philosopher wrote The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere?

What opera character leaps off of a wall after finding out that Cavaradossi is dead?

What peninsula on the Black Sea saw a Mongol siege of a Genoan colony?

They charged through and secured a qualifying spot in the national tournament, establishing New College’s quiz bowl club as one of the best teams in the American Southeast.

Nothing has stopped the group since its founding one year ago.

Naimul Chowdhury and Alexander Koutelias, two first-year students, founded and led the group to victory over the past academic year. Chowdhury was inspired to create the club because of his experience competing with State College of Florida’s team before he came to New College. “Quiz Bowl has an exciting aspect even to someone who doesn’t play. If you’re spectating, you’re trying to think of the answer yourself,” Chowdhury said.

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Koutelias was approached by Chowdhury and joined as an organizer. “Alex and I had spoken about it before we came to New College. I asked Alex to take on the role as co-president,” Chowdhury said. “[Naimul] has all the connections to the Quiz Bowl community; he was able to teach us so much, while I had prior experience leading clubs. I was captain of the my high school Academic Olympics team for two years, so I was familiar with the concept of team academic quiz competitions,” Koutelias remarked.

Together, they assembled a core group of officers and built a member base that numbered over forty students.

The team began studying facts whenever they had free time.

This ranged from flashcard-style memorization to group meetings where they held mock rounds and quizzed each other on TRASH (Total Recall About Strange Happenings).

“It started out as an acronym in the quiz bowl culture. It’s mainly used to refer to anything that is pop culture,” said Yonathan Stone, future co-president of the club.

“Whenever we have free time, we read Wikipedia articles or read packets. We do casual packets for fun,” agreed Koutelias.

Preparing for tournaments wasn’t the only time when the group had fun. “I enjoy the competition but I also like being on a team with people and we all have fun. You build appreciation for different topics. We all have a lot to learn from each other,” Koutelias said.

“There’s almost an immediate gratification in learning something. [Quiz Bowl] gives me the satisfaction of doing something competitive while also not feeling like I’m wasting time,” Chowdhury concurred.

The members have learned a great deal about each other from their time spent competing and practicing for tournaments. Chowdhury has a keen interest in math and currently is vice-president of New College’s Japanese club.

“I’ve always had an aptitude for language. I like grammar.

Grammar is a lot like mathematics,” Chowdhury said.

Koutelias, a classically-trained singer, utilizes his knowledge of opera during tournaments and has sung at fundraising events for the club, while Stone builds on the knowledge he gained from growing up in Germany, living in France and Poland and volunteering as a teacher at a school for the blind in Krakow.

The coming academic year holds large promises for the team. “We would like to participate in two national competitions next year. We have Division 2 status, and the title of Division 2 National Champion is something we are striving for,” Chowdhury said.

“I really want to take the club and put its name out there within this College and within the state,” Stone added. “I feel like we are all really looking to make a name for this club. Quiz Bowl seems like a really New College sport. Within the game, you will have people who absolutely study everything.

That is the definition of a liberal arts education.”

The Quiz Bowl team crams with from flashcard-style memorization to group meetings where they hold mock rounds and quiz each other on TRASH (Total Recall About Strange Happenings).

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“I really want to take the club and put its name out there within this College and within the state,” said Yonathan Stone.

“I feel like we are all really looking to make a name for this club. Quiz Bowl seems like a really New College sport. Within the game, you will have people who absolutely study everything. That is the definition of a liberal arts education.”

WHIZ KIDS / FEATURE

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ALUMNAE/I FOCUS

Reunion Recap

The New College Alumnae/i Association Board has selected the year 2020 to begin the five-year cycle of reunions and will feature a smaller reunion commemorating the College’s 60th anniversary. The decision to move to a five-year reunion cycle resulted from surveys and alumnae/i feedback conducted and collected over several years.

In the interim period before 2020, there will be a large reunion gathering on campus commemorating 50 years of graduating New College students.

The date is set for February 15-18, 2018.

Graduation Gathering

Every year, there will be designated alumnae/i weekends during commencement and family weekend. Alumnae/i are welcome to come to campus at these times for a light reception and enjoy the other activities happening at New College.

During the commencement alumnae/i reception this year, alumna and former Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology, Gabrielle Vail ’83 was honored by her former students.

Alumna Jessica Wheeler ’05 and Garrett Murto ’12 led the honors for Professor Vail.

GET TOGETHER: Cris Hassold Symposium Oct. 21-22, 2016 The New College Alumnae/i Association provides assistance to alums who wish to organize gatherings to commemorate former or current faculty, notable alumnae/i, or academic or professional affinity. Alumni Jessen Kelley ’93, Nicole Archer ’94, and Peter Tush ’81 are organizing a symposium in honor of Professor of Art History Cris Hassold, who retired this year after 50 years of teaching art history, gender studies and the humanities.

A reception on Friday will be followed by a one-day symposium on Saturday. Any alumni or friends that were impacted by Prof. Hassold are welcome to attend. The Symposium will be made up of alumnae/i presentations related to art and gender studies.

For more information or to register, please visit the website at ncf.edu/about/ news-and-events/events-and-conferences/ cris-hassold-symposium or email NcAlum@ncf.edu.

NCAA Board Announcement This past spring, the New College Alumnae/i Association board of directors held its first election /appointment hybrid selection cycle since moving to an appointed-only board in 2011. Six alumnae/i submitted applications for the election and 281 ballots were cast (roughly 4% of the alumnae/i body). It was a very close election. Robert Freedman ‘83, James Tietsworth ‘84, and Troy Winfrey ’87 were elected and Frazier Carraway ’72 and Cindy Hill ’89 were reelected to the board. Jordan Clark ’04 was reappointed to the board with the remaining reserved appointed spot.

Special thanks to the NCAA vetting subcommittee comprised of NCAA board members Maia Hinkle ’05 (Governance Chair) and Vernon Woodworth ’70, as well as former NCAA Board members Bill Rosenberg ’73,

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Michael Burton ’86, and Adam Rivers ’97 for their service on the committee.

Maia Hinkle ’05, Michael Dexter ’07, and Colin Boyle ’89 all had terms ending this past spring and rotated off the board. We celebrate and thank Maia for her six years of service, Michael for his three years of service, and Colin for his nine years of service to New College and our fellow alumnae/i.

To fill the board leadership positions vacated by Maia Hinkle and Colin Boyle, Chad Bickerton ’05 volunteered to serve as interim Governance Chair and Jordan Clark ’04 stepped into the role as interim communications chair. Both Chad and Jordan were formally selected to those positions in July. Sarah Thompson ’06 was selected to serve as Treasurer.

EBEN KIRKSEY / PROFILE

Multispecies Ethnography Eben Kirksey makes an eclectic, fundamental start to his career

BY REID SHELLEY ‘ 1 1

EBEN KIRKSEY CAME TO NEW COLLEGE TO BECOME A BIOLOGIST,

but everything changed during an anthropology class with Professor Maria Vesperi.

“I had my eyes opened to interdisciplinary possibilities,” he said. During his first semester he became dissatisfied with the idea of studying one subject in a rigid, traditional manner, but by studying both biology and anthropology, he could “learn both disciplines on their own terms.”

Kirksey, a 2000 graduate, has forged his academic career from eclecticism. By crossing divisional borders he has created his own field of study called “multispecies ethnography,” a term of his own creation. It is concerned with what occurs when different species come into contact with each other. It has led him to study diverse topics, ranging from ant communities to political movements.

“I’m using the descriptive practices of cultural anthropology to characterize these places where species meet,” he said.

“Instead of speaking to quantitative issues like biologists do with their methods of observing animals in their natural environment, I’m using those same techniques to explore cultural dream worlds.”

Kirksey credits his eclectic background success to small class size. Because professors know their students well and give them opportunities to try different areas of study, students are able to do things they can’t at other institutions. “I really think that New College has a great interdisciplinary atmosphere,” Kirksey said, “it’s one that I’ve tried to recreate at places where I’ve been teaching.”

His teaching vitae includes Princeton University, where he has spent the past year as a Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities. He also teaches in the Department of Anthropology and is a permanent member of the Environmental Humanities department at the University of New South Wales in Australia where he was recruited to help found the program.

After leaving New College, Kirksey’s career leads down an impressive road receiving his master’s degree in social and economic history from Oxford University, and his doctorate in the history of consciousness and cultural anthropology, from University of California-Santa Cruz.

More than one formative moment to prepare Kirksey for his impressive teaching career occurred at New College - though far from the classroom. While studying abroad at Bird of Paradise University in Jayapura, Indonesia, he was present

when two students were killed during a protest. He left for the island of Biak, where he attempted to catch a ferry.

Unfortunately, he was waylaid, and witnessed the killing of 157 people by the Indonesian military during a demonstration.

“That experience really changed my life,” he said. “It led me to put my interests in biocultural diversity on hold for about a decade.”

It also inspired his first book, “Freedom in Entangled Worlds.” The book blended history, ethnography, and cultural criticism to create a simultaneously personal and polyphonic narrative which recounted West Papua’s indigenous activists’ resistance against the Indonesian government.

Remarkably, Kirksey’s written three books in the last three years, the most recent being 2015’s “Emergent Ecologies,” published by Duke University Press and has a new book in progress.

The publisher summed up his work: “In an era of global warming, natural disasters, endangered species, and devastating pollution, contemporary writing on the environment largely focuses on doomsday scenarios. Eben Kirksey suggests we reject such apocalyptic thinking and instead find possibilities in the wreckage of ongoing disasters, as symbiotic associations of opportunistic plants, animals, and microbes are flourishing in unexpected places.”

Kirksey maintains his relationship with New College, returning to give talks and keeping in touch with his professors. The school is perfectly suited, he tells Nimbus writers, to curious and motivated students.

“If people are really passionate about doing a project, if their life dream is to study a particular field and work with some of the best people in the world, I think New College is a great springboard for that kind of career,” Kirksey said.

While aware of the difficulties of the academic world, he thinks that success can be achieved “if you’re tenacious and resourceful. New College teaches you how to do that.”

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PROFILE / KARA ANDRADE

Alumna wins Journalism Excellence Award Kara Andrade ’95 Makes Waves in the Mass Media

BY ERICH BA RGANIER ‘ 10 ON A HOT JUNE DAY IN 2015, Kara Andrade ’95 sat beside Mexican political activist Miguel Ángel Jiménez Blanco in a beaten-up sedan, discussing elections, citizen apathy, and the disappearances of student activists in Guerrero, Mexico.

Jiménez, a community organizer for a community self-defense group called the Union of Peoples and Organizations of Guerrero State, was found murdered outside the entrance to his hometown a few weeks after Andrade’s ride-along.

Andrade’s interview with Jiménez and the resulting print, video and radio pieces brought attention to the risks that Mexican citizens take in order to denounce corruption and demand transparency of the Mexican government.

“People take risks because they believe in something, having a voice and having a say,” said Andrade, a 1999 graduate of New College.

Andrade’s reporting, supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, won her first prize in in-depth reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellence Regional Award.

Andrade’s commitment to journalism as a channel for telling the stories of the unseen stems from her own story.

She was born in Guatemala in a small town called Bananera, a labor town for the United Fruit Company. She emigrated at the age of six, was smuggled into America by her mother and grew up undocumented most of her life.

After graduating from New College, Andrade received her master’s degree in Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley and worked with numerous international media outlets and organizations, including Al Jazeera, Americas Quarterly, Associated Press, Christian Science Monitor, France 24, Global Post, The Huffington Post, The New York Times and others.

She consults as a technology trainer for the U.S. State Department, as well as for the U.S. Institute of Peace, a federal non-partisan organization that provides analysis of conflicts throughout the world. Andrade has presented in fifteen countries at conferences and continues to seek ways to use journalism as a method to develop critical thinking skills and civic engagement in emerging democracies.

A Fulbright fellowship in 2009 enabled her to launch a mobile-based citizen journalism network that consisted of volunteers from more than five countries. She co-founded HablaCentro, a Central American news sharing platform

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focused on first hand-ground reporting.

Andrade has trained thousands on the use of journalism skills and open-source technologies to reach larger audiences and create social change. In 2011, she received a fellowship from Ashoka, a global organization that identifies and invests in social entrepreneurs working to solve social problems.

New College was vital to Andrade’s development as a reporter and writer. “Once I got to New College, I understood the importance of creating your own independent projects and making them have some relevance to what you want to do with your life,” she said. She carried this attitude forward as she pursued her major in Literature under the guidance of Professors Glenn Cuomo, Robert Knox and Arthur Miller.

“It was that really analytical connection with an advisor to guide you,” Andrade said. “It is a real integral way of holding yourself accountable.” She brought this mindset with her to American University, where she is currently studying Communications with an emphasis on Media, Technology and Social Change. Her dissertation focuses on new models of online investigative reporting in Latin America – models that serve a “watchdog” function and help to increase transparency and accountability in governments.

“When I look at stories, I look at what’s being covered and what’s not being covered,” she said. She uses her reporting to inform her academic research and to ensure her research is relevant, timely and useful to a larger community. This attitude spurs her enthusiasm for future projects. She is currently considering writing a piece about the justice process and role of the business sector in Guatemala and an article about how small communities in Guatemala transformed since their founding.

Following Blanco’s murder, Andrade began planning a follow-up story covering the investigation of his murder and further disappearance in Mexico. She also wants to explore how citizen reporting is emerging in Latin America based on cell phone usage.

Despite shifting global politics and an ever-changing world, Andrade looks inward for direction. “I think we’re obsessed with knowing what the next step is. You have to have a vision of yourself to project yourself forward. You don’t always need to know exactly what the next step will be.”

LYNNE BUCHANAN / PROFILE

A Connection to the Water From a kayak, Lynne Buchanan documents Florida’s troubled waters

BY ROGER DROUIN FLORIDA’S BEACHES AND WATERS, known around the world for their beauty, drew national attention this summer for another reason.

Stories, usually with graphic photos, told of the damage done by the release of polluted water from Lake Okeechobee into major rivers, leaving “guacamole-like” sludge along riverbanks and ocean beaches. “Massive Florida Algae Bloom Can Be Seen From Space” read one headline.

It was no surprise to Lynne Buchanan, whose photography projects foretold of the crisis to come.

Buchanan,a 1979 graduate and daughter of Professor Emeritus Doug Berggren and former New College staff member Barbara Berggren, documents the beauty and the threats posed by pollution, sea level rise, and the effects of drawdown for human uses.

“People seem to be finally waking up to the issues I have been trying to alert people to for the past five years,” she said.

Her college friendship with student Scott Baker introduced her to Florida’s waterways and kayaking. With other students, she volunteered on a Mote Marine Laboratory project tracking dolphins. “I would go out and look at rivers and the bay, and I fell in love with Florida’s waterways,” Buchanan said.

She began photographing Florida’s rivers in 2011. Her studies in art history taught her about composition, color and other principles that help her as a photographer.

She spent much of 2015 kayaking across the state, including the 107-mile length of the Apalachicola River, along both coasts and in central Florida, and south to the Keys. Fellow alum Justin Bloom introduced her to Waterkeepers, people affiliated with the National Waterkeepers Alliance. She also worked with Novo Collegian Jason Evans, now teaching environmental science at Stetson University.

On the Caloosahatchee, local rivers advocate John Paul said he and his friends grew up swimming in the river. But

kayaking that day, he and Buchanan found the water “orangey-brown.” When Buchanan got off the water, her throat was sore from exposure to the water.

She boated on the Indian River Lagoon and the St. Lucie River with Indian Riverkeeper Marty Baum. He showed her a visible line where the clear ocean water flows in on one side, and black water, from canals draining Lake Okeechobee, flows in on the other.

Across the state she found a variety of problems. Most of the Apalachicola is within a national forest, so pollution is limited.

But fast-growing communities in Alabama and Georgia draw down its water, which affects marine life. The region’s once-thriving oyster industry is on the verge of collapse, because salt-water predators can now enter the bay.

At the southern end of the state, Buchanan paddled the fragile Florida Bay. “People see beautiful sunsets over the water and think everything is fine,” Buchanan says. “But under the surface, it’s just not healthy anymore.”

On the Chassahowitzka River, Buchanan found one of the saddest sights of her project, a nitrogen-fed expanse of green muck in the middle of the spring-fed river.

She documented it all in a spring 2016 exhibit at the South Florida Museum. Her works also will be exhibited in spring 2017 at the Koman Fine Art Gallery in Vero Beach, a fund-raiser for the Indian Riverkeeper Association. She also is working on a book about Florida’s waterways, with an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and an essay by Elizabeth Avedon. Not to mention most recently, one of Buchanan’s was selected as the opening photograph in a review in the Boston Globe, “Midges Ascending, Santa Fe River.” It was on view at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Mass until the end of August.

Buchanan’s goal is to educate people about human impact on water quality. One effect results from businesses and their influence on the government. “Our political leaders have relaxed water policies and standards in Florida in favor of corporate polluters,” she said. “This is not acceptable. Profits should not take precedence over human health.”

She believes helping people re-connect with nature — whether at a museum or the outdoors — is an important step in the conservation of rivers, bays, creeks and estuaries in the Sunshine State. “People have to form a connection before they care enough to go do something about the issues,” Buchanan said. “And they need to realize that their health will be affected by the health of our waterways.”

You can see Buchanan’s photos from her exhibitions on Florida rivers at lynnebuchanan.com.

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PROFILE / ROB BILOTT

DuPont’s Worst Nightmare Alumnus Rob Bilott ’83 Battles a Chemical Polluter

BY S USA N BURNS, SAR ASOTA M AG AZ IN E ( O R IG IN A LLY P U B LI S H E D A P R I L 1, 2016 )

SARAH BARLAGE CALLS HER HUSBAND, ROB BILOTT ’83, “STUBBORN.” That’s an

understatement. Bilott, a 50-year-old Cincinnati-based environmental attorney, has devoted the last 18 years of his life to proving that DuPont for decades used a chemical—perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA—even though the company knew it was poisoning the drinking water of thousands of people.

Bilott graduated from New College in 1987 and regularly vacations in Sarasota with his wife and three sons. When he entered New College, he says, his goal was to be a city planner.

“I was a political science major,” he says. “I tried to avoid anything that involved numbers and math. It was rather ironic that I ended up dealing with chemicals.” But he credits New College for instilling skills that equipped him well for battling the establishment. “They did a great job in teaching you how to think critically, how to analyze data, how to question what you’re seeing and look at it for yourself,” he says.

In January, Bilott was the subject of a New York Times Magazine story, “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.” He says that after being so close to the case for years, he’s been surprised by the outpouring of response to the story.

In 1998, Bilott, a corporate defense attorney with the prestigious Cincinnati firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, got a call from a farmer, Wilbur Tennant, who lived in the Appalachian town of Parkersburg, W.V., where DuPont’s Washington Works factory was located. Tennant’s cows were dying in horrible ways—deranged, frothing at the mouth and bellowing in pain. Tennant had graphic photos and autopsy reports, and was convinced DuPont’s chemicals had poisoned the creek near his farm.

Bilott was an unlikely champion. He had spent his career on the other side of the table, defending corporate polluters. But partly out of courtesy—his grandmother had lived nearby— Bilott met Tennant. “The evidence was overwhelming. There was something clearly bad going on,” he recalls. He took the case.

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Bilott discovered that although DuPont had been using PFOA for more than 60 years, state and federal regulators had never heard of it, even though PFOA is used to make Teflon and many other products, from carpets to dental floss to make-up. Bilott’s long battle has proven that the chemical— which is now in the bloodstream of billions of people and fish and animals all over the planet— is associated with cancer and other diseases.

After poring over hundreds of thousands of pages of DuPont documents, Bilott filed a class-action lawsuit in 2001 on behalf of 70,000 people who had been drinking tainted water. He proved in court that DuPont knew the substance was toxic and hid the information from its workers, the public and government agencies.

DuPont settled in 2004 for more than $300 million, which included installing filtration plants, funding an independent study to determine whether PFOA was linked to any diseases and medical monitoring if links were found. The study concluded that PFOA is linked to kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, preeclampsia and high cholesterol.

Now Bilott is co-lead counsel in a federal case on behalf of 3,500 plaintiffs diagnosed with PFOA-related diseases. The first trial began in October 2015 and resulted in a $1.6 million award to a woman with kidney cancer. More cases will begin this year, and Bilott says the bulk of the trials will start in 2017.

Bilott says he has no idea when the cases will be over.

DuPont has appealed the $1.6 million award to the woman with kidney cancer. The work has taken its toll on him. “I have gray hair and more of it,” he says lightly. But he’s also been invigorated by the results. “I am pleased to see that there seems to be more attention being paid to whether this chemical is in water supplies and whether it’s there in levels that are posing unsafe risks. People should not be drinking this.”

Bilott made sure long ago he wasn’t using Teflon or any PFOA product—such as microwavable popcorn, since PFOA is used to coat the bags—but he says there’s more we can learn from this case.

“One person can make a difference,” he says. “If you’re passionate about something like the Tennants were, you can make [changes that] affect way beyond your own community.

The information revealed here deals with something that is in everyone’s blood across the world.”

PROGRAMMING/ACHIEVEMENT

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#PursuingNew For more than a year, New College has showcased the incredible efforts of our community with #PursuingNew. As we move into a new school year, we continue to highlight the pursuit of new connections, research, ideas, opportunities, and innovations that Novo Collegians bring to the world.

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New College is participating in the community Giving Challenge again for the fifth year. Every gift will be matched this year! If you gave to New College during the Giving Challenge in 2015, your gift this year will be doubled up to $100. If you did not give last year during the Giving Challenge, your gift will be tripled up to $100. Visit ncf.edu/ giving-challenge to pre-pledge.

Book Award The New College book award program, administered by the New College Alumnae/i Association, recognizes outstanding high school juniors by presenting them a book from New College. The book award is usually given by an alumnae/i and introduces highachieving high school students to New College.

This program has grown significantly since 2015.

In April and May of this year, a total of six book awards were given at Tampa Prep, Cardinal Mooney, Bay Shore High School, Pine View School, Hanover High School, and South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics.

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Student Research and Travel Grants and Scholarships New College encourages students to travel widely in pursuit of their studies and thesis research. These are often life-changing experiences. Students may find themselves conducting an anthropology study in East Africa, studying Romanesque architecture in the Pyrenees, or the ecology of the rainforest canopy in Brazil. Qake Cooley is pictured here, studying abroad last fall in Bolivia.

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The Student Research and Travel Grant Program (SRTG), administered by the New College Alumnae/i Association and New College Foundation, awarded 62 students more than $60,000 in grant funding in the 2015-2016 academic year. New College also awarded more than $751,000 in private scholarships through the Foundation.

Scholarship Luncheon On May 13 more than 50 endowed scholarship donors, SRTG donors and their student recipients were honored at the New College Foundation’s Scholarship Luncheon. This event, formerly known as the Foundation’s Scholarship Reception, was held at the Jane Bancroft Cook Library. Scholarship donors and students enjoyed the opportunity to meet and learn about each other. The Luncheon attendees heard remarks from President Don O’Shea, Provost Steve Miles, and Foundation Executive Director MaryAnne Young. Two New College students, Christianna DeWind and Liliana Solomon, spoke about their personal stories, experiences at New College, hopes and plans for the future, and the personal impact the scholarships they received had on their lives.

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100% Initiative During the 2016 Fiscal Year (July 1, 2015 – June 30, 2016), 15.3% of alums gave to New College, representing a 2.5% increase from the previous year. The 2016 graduating class can be seen above at the 100% initiative pizza party two days before commencement. The graduating students learned about the New College Alumnae/i Association and many gave their first gifts to New College! 19% of the 2016 graduating class made a gift this year.

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CHAPTER NEWS / ALUMNAE/I EVENTS

BOSTON, MA.

CHICAGO, IL. AUSTIN, TEXAS

March 29, 2016 -- The NCAA Boston Chapter organized a special gathering hosted at Larry Vernaglia’s ‘87 Law Firm.

Visiting New College students attended as part of the Novo Network.

April 30, 2016 -- NCAA Board Member Steve Jacobson ‘71 hosted a potluck alum gathering at his home in Evanston, IL.

NEW YORK, N.Y.

TALLAHASSEE, FLA.

March 30, 2016 -- Foundation board member Vicki Raeburn ’65 is pictured with visiting students Qi Zhao ‘12, Aamna Dhillon ‘11, and Adina Luft ’12. Vicki ’65 and Charlie Raeburn ’64 hosted the gathering at the Yale Club with 80 alumnae/i and guests in attendance.

January 30, 2016 -- Immediate past NCAA Chair, Susan ‘Spozy’ Sapoznikoff ’83 hosted monthly gatherings for Tallahassee alumnae/i and students in the first “Semester in Tallahassee” program.

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ALUMNAE/I EVENTS / CHAPTER NEWS

ST. PETERSBURG, FLA.

May 10, 2016 -- Michelle Flint ’91 organized a career panel discussion with local alumnae/i.

Peter Tush ‘81, Frazier Carraway ‘72, Ann Goldberg ‘80 and Laura Rosenbluth ‘89 served on the Alumnae/i panel.

1960s Esther Barazzone ‘64, one of the first students admitted to the Charter Class in 1964, and Sam Black, who in 1965 was the youngest member of the faculty, were married in December 2015. After Esther retires in June of this year as president of Chatham College, the couple will live in Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They enthusiastically look forward to continuing to stay in touch with all of their New College friends.

Glenda Cimino ’64 graduated from New College in 1967, attended Columbia University and Teachers College 196772, worked briefly as a junior analyst in the N.Y. City Planning Commission and taught at City University of New York (CUNY) Queens before moving to Ireland in June 1972. Glenda worked on the National Language Attitudes Study, as a senior researcher evaluator on the National Pilot Schemes to Combat Poverty, and as a researcher on the team evaluating the European Anti-poverty Programme in 1981. Glenda also co-founded a small poetry publishing house, Beaver Row Press.

Glenda enjoys writing, directing and producing short films, most recently in May 2016, “Bog Meditations,” which was shown in the Irish Film Institute in Dublin. Last year Glenda wrote, produced, and directed a short sitespecific play called ‘Hatters and Wesleyans,’ about the 19th century occupants of her street in Dublin.

While Stephen Waterman ‘65 has worked on innumerable television and radio documentaries, talk, sports, news, events and music broadcasts, he feels a strong connection to his most recent piece about a center at the Long Beach, Va. that centers on Veterans with severe mental conditions, focusing on the homeless. Stephen encourages you to find it on YouTube, search for The PIER Center or The PIER Story. Stephen says, “It was remarkable that the thirteen-minute documentary short got made at all considering the institutional nature of the Veteran’s Administration, and I am grateful as an independent videographer for the support I got from the medical staff there. I’m fortunate to thoroughly enjoy my work, and I’ve had a very interesting career. I’m thankful for New College introducing me to interdisciplinary studies that led me to the communications field early on.”

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CLASS NOTES

Ellen Tisdale ’66 is monetizing her website this year, ellenskitchen.com, which is 18 years old and has about 1.8 million visitors per year.

David Adams ’67 continues to teach art history part-time at Sierra College (since 1996), with a special interest in modern and contemporary art, as well as edit and write for an international anthroposophical visual arts journal (since 1998). David has also taken up doing occasional performance-art pieces in the last 9 years. He has been enjoying reminiscing with members of early New College classes on the Charter Classes Facebook page and the “New Crew” site.

In the early years of New College David Schwartz ’66 sat on the wall of “The center of the universe” enjoying the encounter of “first-class minds” promised by the recruitment materials. Those first-class minds were everywhere: the students, the faculty, even the president, “Papa John” Elmendorf. What was not mentioned, but was even more influential, was the presence of first-class hearts.

Schwartz had encountered first-class minds before, if not in such concentration. But the sense of heart: the mutual caring, the community,

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David played no. 1 doubles on one of our local club tennis teams that a few of years ago went to the state finals in our USTA level, won it, and then had the victory taken away half an hour later because his partner had accumulated too many “points” from wins during the league season.

transpersonal psychology, and is a direct outgrowth of his New College area of concentration, “Transpersonal Psychology and Religion.” As far as he knows, he is the only student who ever graduated with that area of concentration.

An example of convoluted relationships one can experience post-New College?

Alumnus David Schwartz ‘66, whom David Adams knew at New College, knows a friend he first met later in the late 1970s, also named David Schwartz.

A couple years ago David Adams discovered that he had been playing tennis off and on since the later-1990s with a Paul Schwartz who was actually David’s “second” David Schwartz’s brother!

Robert states that “New College encouraged me to be open to alternative ways of looking at things. That perspective helped me be open to alternative and more expansive ways of thinking about love. In my counseling practice, I have worked with many people who have polyamorous relationships, and I recently released a revised copy of my book, “The Polyamory Communication Survival Kit.’”

Thirty years ago on March 1, 1986, Robert McGarey ‘69 founded the nonprofit Human Potential Center in Austin, Texas, and it continues to thrive.

It is based on humanistic and

was something new in his experience.

He watched (and participated) in the ways that people hurt each other – and more importantly, helped each other. It was there that he noticed that most care was informal, relational, and communal.

The fact that New College is a tribe, now fifty years old, is one of the most enduring supports for students and alumni that they have known. It is one’s friends who are still there for one even a half-century later who make facing the difficulties of life more possible.

Relationships, too, seemed to be the essential element of psychotherapy, as he encountered the newest and most exciting work in therapy: existential-phenomenology taught

by Jack Rains, and the radical ideas of psychiatrist RD Laing. These ideas, explored over a professional

lifetime, have resulted in this challenge to the existing conception of “mental illness.” This book calls for the de-medicalization of mental illness in the same way that mental retardation and developmental disabilities were demedicalized, for enormous benefit to those so identified. But even before his decades of work as a social reformer in that field he had the seminal experience of a de-mechanized education. It is that transforming experience that started Schwartz on the road to a lifetime’s work, in the same way that it has influenced many others. All of his work, he says, goes back to New College. In this, he is far from alone.

CLASS NOTES

Dennis Saver ’69 is one of thirteen people appointed to the Physician Workforce Advisory Council by Florida State Surgeon General and Secretary of Health Dr. John Armstrong in December 2015.

Lynwood (Shiva) Sawyer ’69 had a delightful breakfast with Debra Hachen ’71 in Jersey City. Shiva’s company, Pigtown Books (www.pigtownbooks. com), is a boutique publisher of noirs, thrillers and historical fiction up for adoption.

Shiva also has two independent film features in financing/ pre-production, a sci-fi, “Symbiont” (“In exchange for advanced weaponry and mind-control technology, Aliens conspire with the 1%, to enslave Millennials with student debt and force them into lifelong servitude in vast underground warehouses. Until a naive farm girl and an Iraq veteran with PTSD open a major can of whoop-ass”), “Vampires of Hollywood” (Darryl Hannah and Malcolm McDowell to costar), a short, “Home is Where the Park Is,” with principal photography in midJune, and a web series (still under N.D.A.) in financing.

Susan Zuckerman ’69 took an early retirement a few years ago from a nonprofit Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) supporting the Dept. of Defense for cyber security.

Susan spends her time trading

complex options strategies during the day and having fun dancing at night (square dance, line dance, and ballroom).

She welcomes welcome contact with any alums in the D.C. area who enjoy dancing or stock market trading.

1970s Thanks to a New College ball cap, John Vagnoni, managing partner of the famous Green Parrot Bar in Key West and father of Nick Vagnoni ‘00, reached out to Jono Miller ‘70 and Julie Morris ‘70 who had come down to hear New College alumnus Paul Cebar ‘75 and the Tomorrow Sound play several sets in mid-April.

Susan Jenson ’70 is the director of Downtown Aurora Visual Arts (DAVA) and runs a youth art engagement program. Susan also received an award from the White House.

After 30 years as a chemistry professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tom Sorrell ‘70 retired in 2007 to pursue a love of painting that

had been instilled in him as a child.

Now after several years, Tom’s work as a watercolor artist is starting to be recognized with acceptances and awards in regional juried art exhibitions in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Tom has become especially fascinated by the unexpected and exciting effects obtained by painting with an aqueous medium on Yupo, an artificial paper made from plastic.

After many years in industry, Rob Fish ’72 decided to give academia a try. He’s been teaching in the computer science department at Princeton for about a year. Rob says “It’s great seeing the world through the fresh eyes of students and comparing their perceptions to my own memories of experiences back at the New College of the early 70’s.”

After 17 years running a Vermont environmental organization, assisting people and towns in participating in regulatory processes and holding corporations accountable, in February, Annette Smith ‘73 came under criminal investigation by Vermont’s Attorney General.

The allegation was “unlicensed practice of law” for doing what she’s been doing for years, helping people. In this case her work attracted the attention of industrial renewable energy developers and their lawyers who do not like it when people and towns participate in the process, which happens to be a legal process. Five Vermont newspapers ran editorials supporting Annette. The story was picked up by the AP and went all over.

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CLASS NOTES

People donated more than $17,000 in support. Annette hired a criminal defense attorney who noted in his letter to the Attorney General that “the Attorney General’s Office is not the surrogate of the politically frustrated.”

19 days after it began the Attorney General closed the investigation, finding the allegation was without merit.

Annette says “This surreal experience was especially interesting because I took a pre-law course taught by Bob Benedetti at New College that served me well. I learned what lawyers do and determined it was not for me, so to be accused of practicing law was especially absurd. Thank you Bob, and New College!”

Bob “Sparky” Watts ’73 retired from the Foreign Service in 2010. Bob spent 30 years traveling and working mainly on economic issues, and lived in 5 foreign countries on 4 continents. He was a Division Chief in the Office of eDiplomacy when he retired, working on innovation in online tools for diplomacy. Bob has been working as an

Hatfield Marine Science Center campus.

Ted is still doing ecological research on estuarine ecosystems, albeit vicariously through post-docs and technicians. He’s long aspired to be the director of a marine lab, and now he is!

Herbert Guggenheim’s ’74 new novel “Violations of Causality,” “totally rocks”! It’s a mystery, sci-fi, coming-of-age, romantic comedy all wrapped up in one neat hybrid package.

Currently, it’s available from Amazon both in paperback and Kindle editions.

The audiobook is available from Audible.com. Herbert’s poetry chapbook, “Strange Encounter at the Shakespeare Motel,” is available from Finishing Line Press (finishinglinepress.com).

Lynne Buchanan (Berggren) ’75 had a featured photography exhibit entitled: “Changing waters: Human Impact on Florida’s Aquatic system” at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton, Fla. (See page 21.)

Michele Hotten ‘75, has been appointed as a justice to the highest court in Maryland, the Court of Appeals.

eDiplomacy consultant since retiring, and has been heavily involved in volunteer work and helping take care of his family. Bob’s wife Linda just retired from the Foreign Service, and has two kids, Vega, a Junior at the College of William and Mary, and Zach, a junior in high school in Fairfax, Va. (See page 13.)

Ted DeWitt ’73 was recently promoted to chief of the Pacific Coastal Ecology Branch laboratory of Environmental Protection Agency’s Western Ecology Division in Newport, Ore., on the

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After almost 27 years at New Mexico State University, Grace La Torra ‘77 ‘retired’ to take a job as the director of Information Systems at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology!

Grace is looking forward to a new adventure, and the opportunity to live near her 8-month-old granddaughter.

James McDonald ’78, partner at Fisher & Phillips LLP, published “California Employment Law: An Employer’s Guide.” The book is written for employers that must understand and adhere to employment law in California, including those based outside the state

but with employees in-state. Serving as a resource for business people and Human Resources professionals, the book offers a straightforward and practical presentation of all aspects of California employment law. There are no lengthy case analyses, footnotes or dense legalese. The book is written in plain English so that it can be easily applied to real world situations.

1980s Jennifer Griffin ‘88 is married to a wonderful elementary school teacher and enjoying life schooling her four children. She lives in Berkeley, Calif. where there are a lot of other New College alumni. Before children, she was the Director of Rehabilitation for a 24-hour psychiatric facility. Now she is beginning her new career as a writer and has published her first book, Understanding Your Child As A Spiritual Gift, available on Amazon.

1990s Danielle Chynoweth ’90 is perfecting the art of crossing the country monthly with a 5-year-old, who is developing his hands-on organizing skills watching his mom coordinate a national network of 100 social justice organizations working for media justice (see www.MAG-Net.org). Danielle is also working on a children’s book about the trip through friendship and jealousy towards love. “I am happy to connect with Novo Collegians in travels.

Contact me!”

CLASS NOTES

Altom Maglio ‘90 was installed as president of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims Bar Association in Washington, D.C. The founder of Maglio, Christopher, & Toale P.A., in Sarasota, Altom is also the co-chairperson of the American Association for Justice Vaccine Injury Litigation Group. Altom represents clients in complex litigation throughout the United States.

Camilla Mortensen ’90 is the editor of Eugene Weekly, an alternative weekly with a circulation of 40,000 in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Camilla lives in a 1975 Airstream trailer on the edge of town with a cat named Woodward, a couple of pit bulls, a ridgeless Rhodesian ridgeback and two horses, one of which

she competes in three-day eventing.

One of her pit bulls, Biggie, was a death row dog from Los Angeles. Camilla taught Biggie to sniff for truffles, which led to his being in the Unexpected Pit Bull calendar this year. Camilla’s horse, Queen of Cairo, has a blog on The Chronicle of the Horse. She might be a newspaper editor, but it’s Camilla’s animals that get all the good stories.

Lisa Cheby ’91 graduated from San Jose State University in May 2016 with a master’s in Library and Information Science. Upon graduation Lisa received a director’s award for innovation. In addition, two of the papers she worked on for her degree have been published -

one in Knowledge Quest and one in the iSchool Student Research Journal. Lisa also successfully lobbied her school district to invest in expanding the computer lab in their school library and will be conducting a study with a colleague on the impact of hybrid classroom models on information literacy instruction.

Karin Briscoe ’92 worked in New York and then the Ivory Coast and studied in the Netherlands. Karen married an Englishman and has been living in London for the last 15 years. Karen was a corporate manager in supply chain and logistics until having children. She has been on a career break of 12 years, but is now looking to return to work.

Bill Eidtson ‘92 had a boy!

Introducing William Henry “Hank” Eidtson III, New College class of 2034!

Hank joined us at 4:00 am on May 28, 2016.

He’s healthy and Bill and wife Chelsey are very happy, thankful, and proud!

Eric Beverley, ‘93, lives in uptown Manhattan with his wife Wanda Beverley-Rivera and daughter Yahima Beverley-Rivera (born 2012). Since 2007, he has been commuting from the city to SUNY Stony Brook where he teaches courses in the History Department on South Asia, the Muslim world, colonialism, the Indian Ocean, urban history, and other topics. He recently published a book with Cambridge University Press and was granted tenure at Stony Brook, and along with Wanda bought a co-op apartment, and successfully navigated Yahima’s N.Y. city public school pre-K application process.

Eric enjoys exploring the city by foot, train, car, or bicycle and getting together with New College friends.

Kara Andrade ’95 is currently a Ph.D. student at American University’s School of Communication.

She is a researcher, journalist and entrepreneur who focuses on Latin America, media, technology and society.

She now has more than ten years of experience working in the United States and Latin America for a variety of leading media organizations. Her most recent reporting is focused on “Mexico: Technology, Civic Participation, and Accountability”. You can listen to her NPR story here: latinousa.org/reporter/ kara-andrade. Her written pieces can be read on the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting’s website: pulitzercenter.org/ projects/north-america-mexico-ictinformation-communicationtechnology-citizenship. (See page 20.)

After New College, Irene Hillman ’95 was inspired to assist students in thinking beyond the traditional classroom. Irene helps students seek out experiential learning to apply academic learning and assist in earning internships and fellowships. Irene met her husband Isaac in 2008, had a daughter in 2011, and a son in late 2015.

Theodore Bach ‘96 was awarded tenure and promotion to associate professor at Bowling Green State University, where he teaches philosophy.

Michael Shannon ’96 is the executive director of the Oregon Fair Trade Coalition.

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CLASS NOTES

On August 16, Elizabeth Lee’s (Mary Lehach) ‘97 first novel, “Love Her Madly” was released by Atria publishing, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. “Love Her Madly” is a thriller about a college love triangle gone awry, and will be of special interest to Nimbus readers as the fictionalized college in question is a tiny, quirky school in Florida for brilliant misfits. Dubbed “Tiny U” in the novel, many aspects of New College life will be very familiar to those in the know.

Heather Whitmore ’97 is the Transportation Concurrency Manger for the city of Tallahassee, Florida. There, Heather maintains the City’s roadway capacity accounting system and performs transportation impact analyses on incoming development. Heather is married with two brilliant daughters, ages 5 and 6.

Simon Davis ’98 joined the Duke Neurology Department faculty.

2000s Jeff Lundy ‘00 recently joined PepsiCo as director, Policy Development, Data & Analytics at PepsiCo’s Headquarters in Westchester

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County in New York. Give Jeff or Shannon a shout if you’re in the New York area and want to connect!

Natalie (Guyette) Kuffel ‘01 was working as a law clerk for Chief Judge Morrison England Jr. of the Eastern District of California last year when she discovered that one of judge’s externs, Vallerye (Anderson) Mosquera ‘02, had also attended New College. Not only that, both women actually attended the school at the same time! Since Vallerye was a Biology major and Natalie avoided natural science classes like the plague, their paths had never crossed at New College (to their knowledge). After New College, both women spent a few years working at nonprofits before deciding to attend law school the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. Despite working together on the McGeorge Law Review, they did not realize the connection until they were discussing Florida in chambers.

Vallerye graduated in May 2015 and works as an immigration attorney for Morris & Lopez. Natalie finished her clerkship in September 2015 and is now an associate at Thomas Law Group, practicing environmental and land use law. Both women graduated second in their class and attribute their success to the education they received at New College.

Land-Art (FGLA) will work with the Department of Transportation, Floura Teeter Landscape Architects, and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts to incorporate a public art project into the Central Avenue corridor.

To the Central Avenue Streetscape project, FGLA brings creative vision and public space experience, an ability to listen to and work with constituents, and local sensitivity to history, the environment and public space potential.

Falon designs landscapes and public artwork rooted in local ecology and culture. Graham Coreil-Allen works on numerous socially-engaged projects that activate public spaces. Together, Mihalic and Coreil-Allen will develop a project that will be inclusive of local communities and their deep historical heritages, contribute to ecological awareness, and foster a strong visual and spatial experience for Central Avenue participants.

Public artists Graham Coreil-Allen ‘02 and Falon Mihalic ‘02 won the Baltimore Central Avenue Streetscape Percent for Art commission to create a permanent work of public art on Central Avenue.

Previously, FGLA were national finalists in the Baltimore Red Line Art-in-Transit Public Art competition to integrate public art into the Poppleton Station transit plaza. Combining our local insight with international experience, FGLA is committed to improving Baltimore through public art placemaking, built environment know-how, green-practice expertise, and playful pedestrian design.

Baltimore City’s Central Avenue Streetscape project encompasses major improvements running from Baltimore to Lancaster Streets. Falon-Graham-

Julia Davis ’02 graduated from New College in 2006 she says and “it was 4 of the most amazing and important years of my life. I went on to get my law

CLASS NOTES

degree at the University of Florida and then a master’s of Human Rights Law at the London School of Economics.

While in London I fell in love with an Aussie and have since married him, moved to Sydney and we’ve had a cheeky little girl.

I have been admitted to practice law as a solicitor in New South Wales, Australia.

I am currently working as a Solicitor as well as the Policy & Communications Officer at the Financial Rights Legal Centre.”

Max Ferretti ‘03, a fourth-year graduate student in the Karbstein lab at Scripps Florida, has received a predoctoral National Research Service Award (NRSA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

The award supports promising doctoral candidates with the potential to become productive, independent investigators in the neurosciences.

Halimah (Meghan) Harden ’03 opened her own preschool, Angel Academy, whose website can be found at angelacademy.onepreschool.com.

After working in a temporary teaching position last year, Adella Irizarry ‘04 was delighted and honored to accept a permanent position as an associate professor of English at her old alma mater, Palm Beach State College. She has also accepted a position coaching the College’s Brain Bowl team (she was a member of the first and last team to go to the national competition in 2004), and hopes to help them to future greatness! As for academics, Adella will be taking her comprehensive examinations for her Ph.D. soon, with a research concentration on feminist activism in social media. She is currently enrolled in the Comparative Studies

Ph.D. program at Florida Atlantic University, where she has been able to explore her interests in interdisciplinary scholarship.

Evan Axelrad ’05 married his partner Tiffany Clarke in July. He is super happy; life is beautiful.

Trevor McGuire ’06 has recently come full circle with his liberal arts education from New College by accepting a position in the math department of Illinois Wesleyan University, a small liberal arts college in Bloomington, Il. Trevor also welcomed his first child, a son, into the world on a -27 degrees Fahrenheit day (without the wind chill) in Fargo, N.D. in January of this year.

Attending New College forever shaped the course of Noelle Selochan’s ‘07 educational and career journey. Noelle was continuously challenged, expected to think critically, and was encouraged frequently to expand her educational experience by going for a graduate degree. As she looks back now, Noelle remembers the expectation of further education being so high but never feeling pressured or overwhelmed.

Instead, it was an encouraging voice and this sense that they could accomplish even more. When Noelle attended

graduate school, she felt very prepared and was actually thankful that her course load seemed lighter than most classes she had taken at New College.

Noelle distinctly remembers being of the minority in her classes who had ever conducted their own research, who had ever written a paper over five pages, and who had ever held a conversation with a professor. Going into a large university for graduate school allowed Noelle to truly appreciate the intimate approach New College offers and the degree to which she was expected to perform.

Now, Noelle works at an eating disorder treatment facility as a therapist. She continuously use the information and skills that she has learned to help her not only in her field, but also in navigating the world we live in.

Rachel Barnard ‘08 published her third young adult novel, “Donuts in an Empty Field” (For the Love of Donuts Book 1), June 3, 2016.

Donuts in an Empty Field is a young adult novel about two best friends, the local food challenge, and a mysterious bucket list. The more that main character Vanessa fails the food challenge, the more she takes it out on the boy she blames for her father’s death because letting go of anger is life’s greatest challenge.

2010s Thayer Warne ’10 is in his second year in Teach for America.

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CLASS NOTES

IN MEMORIAM Longtime members of the College community will recall rich and witty conversations with Madeline “Mimi” Bonin over many years.

She and her family fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s; she brought with her fluency in three languages. As a young woman, Madeline was part of the professional country music world of the late 40’s and early 50’s, becoming one of the very few women to lead a country band. After moving to Sarasota with her parents, she excelled as an actress with the Players Community Theater. By day, she worked as a travel agent, before she was hired as the first secretary to the first president of New College. When she reported for work in 1961, she was the second employee of the College.

She retired 25 years later. As Jim Feeney, a faculty member from the early years of the College and an advisor to several generations of New College administrators recalls, “ I got so much from Madeline over the years, dating from the mid-1960s. I benefited from her sharp awareness of what was going on, to say nothing of the hilarious stories she told of the College’s horrendous first year, when half the faculty quit and students lived in a beachfront hotel.”

She continued to be the secretary of choice for Presidents and Provosts. Her friendly attitude and sharp mind helped her co-workers through challenging times including the merger with the University of South Florida. Bob Benedetti, her last boss, remembers, “She preserved continuity during the quickly changing scene on campus.

When I became provost, she made sure I covered all the bases. When she retired, I had the consolation that Sarasota was getting a committed volunteer.“ Following her service at the College,

32 New College of Florida | nimbus

Madeline brought her remarkable energy and verve to Sarasota’s Youth Opera and Senior Line Dance group, “Keep it Country.”

In retirement, Madeline continued to have a special place for New College in her heart and loved coming back for reunions. Her family on both sides of the Atlantic and her dear friends will miss her. And the New College community will never forget her contributions during its foundational years.

As music was such a big part of her life, all gifts in memory of Madeline Bonin are requested to be made to New College Foundation with New Music New College in the subject line.

John Daugherty ‘64 passed away suddenly at home on February 23, 2016. He was predeceased by his parents, Barney and Barbara Daugherty, and his wife of 25 years, Susan G. Daugherty.

John is survived by brothers Tim, Mark, and Sean Daugherty; sisters Martha D’Arco, Mary Ellen Shakun and Melissa Jones; aunt and uncle Dori and John Keegan, and a host of cousins, nieces and nephews.

John was a charter class (1964-1967) member of New College, and decided to make the Gulf Coast his lifelong home.

He had a soft spot for animals and cared for many pets during his lifetime. A proud member of Mensa, John was also an avid fisherman who enjoyed having a thoughtful conversation alongside a cold glass of beer.

Russell Kennedy ‘85, 51, of Sarasota, FL, died on Feb. 14, 2016. Services were held at 1:30 pm on Sat., Mar. 19, 2016 at Harvey Memorial Community Church in Bradenton Beach, FL. Russell was a locally known composer,

performer and church music director.

He was the son of Jean and Keith Kennedy, and is survived by his sisters, Janette Kennedy and Gail Broxson and his dear friend Becca Hill.

(Published in Herald-Tribune from Feb. 22 to Feb. 23, 2016.)

Elaine Sams Deme died on Tuesday, February 9, 2016 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She was born on November 8, 1930 in Bay City, Michigan to James F. and Adele Sams.

Mrs. Deme earned a BA in political science from Mount Holyoke College in 1952. She went on to work for the United States Foreign Service and lived abroad in Lebanon; Cairo, Egypt; and Paris, France. After moving to New York City, she met and married Dr. Laszlo Deme in 1962, and they moved to Sarasota, FL in 1966. In 1974, Mrs. Deme took a position as a social worker for Epilepsy Services of Southwest Florida and soon became the Executive Director, a position she held until she retired in 1995. Mrs. Deme was an active member of the Mount Holyoke Club of Southwest Florida and served as president for many years after her retirement.

A passionate advocate for her clients, Mrs. Deme was known for her determination, a sharp mind, cheerful nature, and generous hospitality. She enjoyed cooking, following politics, travel, reading, and spending time with her grandchildren. Her life made a significant difference in thousands of others, and her memory is a blessing.

Mrs. Deme is survived by son, Andrew Sr. (Nora); daughter, Elizabeth Deme Dilts (Jonathan); grandchildren, Andrew Jr., Alexander (Madeline), Jonathan Dilts, Alexandra Dilts, Senna Lamb, and Elissa Lamb; and sister, May Sams Ameen. She was predeceased by her husband, Dr. Laszlo Deme; their infant daughter, Elaine Irene; and brothers, James and Robert Sams.

(Published in Herald-Tribune from Feb. 17 to Feb. 18, 2016.)

PICTURE PERFECT

This photo illustrates the core component of Erika Folk’s ’13 (pictured) thesis -- the design and construction of a theatrical costume for the character of Ariel from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Many visual interpretations of Ariel (described in the text only as “an airy spirit”), have been fairy-like, yet the character displays great supernatural powers throughout the play - the ability to conjure storms, manipulate wind, transport other characters great distances, and more. To convey this power, Erika’s costume featured a pair of black mechanical wings spreading an intimidating 8’ long, whose range of motion anatomically mirrors that of large birds of prey. They were designed to be manipulated by a single actor, and Erika says “their completion was one of my proudest achievements here at New College.”

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ORIENTATION 2016

2016 Class Profile

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269

*

members of the 2016 incoming class at New College of Florida

states are represented including California, Washington, Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan, Massachusetts and Texas

* as of printing

4

foreign countries are represented:

Palestine, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, and Sweden.

35 PERCENT of the new students were in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class, and 64 PERCENT were in the top 20 percent.

Average GPA =

3.95

More than half of the incoming students had a GPA of 3.96 or better.