Winter2026

26 32

Crowning Confidence Entrepreneur Darrell Spencer ’18 is redefining men’s skincare.

Transformative Trips Short-term international experiences pack a powerful punch.

Carburetor Queen Riley Schlick-Trask ’27 inspires a new generation of gearheads.

On the cover: Riley Schlick-Trask ’27 works on a Ford small-block V-8 in the family garage. Story on page 32. Photo by Zack Wittman

On this page: More than a foot of snow fell on campus during Winter Storm Fern in January.

Photo by Sean D. Elliot

Ink

Notebook Antigonick, In the Round, international student lounge, debate team, All-College Symposium, a reimagined Cro, meet the new Rabbi, Ghost in the iPhone, from the

Sean D. Elliot

Winter in New England has a way of sharpening your senses. The light is softer and more insistent, the air clearer. The campus is held, for a time, in quiet, crystalline focus. As a native New Englander, I have always felt that this season invites resolve, and a chance to look back with clarity and then choose, deliberately, how to move forward.

My own journey has taken me to many places and institutions, but from this vantage point, watching students immersed in their work and listening to faculty and students engaged in intellectual discovery together, I am grateful to be at Conn, which embodies a rigorous, relational liberal arts education. At a moment when higher education is being asked to prove its value in new ways, what I see every day on this campus affirms why this model continues to matter. In that sense, becoming president of Connecticut College has felt, in many ways, like coming home.

Yet, Conn extends far beyond this campus, and our students’ education is enriched by journeys across the globe. They travel far intellectually, geographically and professionally, anchored by enduring relationships with faculty, staff, classmates, alumni and mentors. The stories in this winter issue capture those transformative experiences, following Camels as they move between disciplines and across borders, applying what they learn in ways that shape both their work and the world around them.

In this issue, you will find the extraordinary range of paths our students and alumni create for themselves, and of the common threads that run through those journeys: curiosity, courage and a passion for learning by doing. These qualities allow them to navigate new landscapes and integrate ideas across disciplines—an approach reinforced by Conn’s Connections curriculum and the relationships that define our studentcentered community. As higher education adapts to rapid change and shifting global pressures, I remain convinced that a liberal arts education provides an essential compass, grounding students in habits of mind that endure.

Here, you will meet students and alumni applying their learning in powerful ways. A physics major who restores carburetors and leads the revival of an iconic 1957 Chevy demonstrates that entrepreneurship and innovation flourish wherever talent, mentoring and opportunity intersect, even in fields where women have long been underrepresented. You will encounter students immersed in our expanding portfolio of short-term, faculty-led global programs that engage in complex, real-world challenges, from social justice and sustainability in Peru to microbiology in Tanzania and arts and culture in Ghana and Taiwan. You will read about an alumnus reshaping the global skincare industry, using both economic insight and the reach of social media to build a fast-growing brand created with men of color at the forefront.

Together, these stories capture the essence of Conn today, a community that invites students to bring their whole selves to classrooms and studios, to communities across the globe, and to the lives and careers they shape beyond the campus. They also reflect the vital role our alumni play in sustaining this ecosystem of opportunity. Through mentorship, advocacy and philanthropy, our alumni extend Conn’s reach every day, and for that generosity of time, talent and support, I am deeply grateful. Because of this enduring partnership, Conn remains both a point of departure and a lasting home for all of us.

Andrea E. Chapdelaine, Ph.D. President, Connecticut College

From the President CC

CONNECTICUT COLLEGE Magazine

EDITOR: Amy Martin

ART DIRECTOR: Benjamin Parent

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER: Sean D. Elliot

SENIOR WRITER: Melissa Babcock Johnson

CLASS NOTES COMPILED BY: Alumni Relations

CC Magazine is published by the Office of Marketing and Communications. We are committed to covering a diverse group of stories in order to profile the human condition as seen through—and sometimes written by—our alumni, faculty, students and staff; we strive to publish features and photography that illuminate the College’s story.

CC Magazine (ISSN 1060-5134) (USPS 129-140) is published in winter, spring and fall, and is mailed free of charge to Connecticut College alumni, parents and friends of the College. Standard rate nonprofit postage paid at New London, CT, and at additional offices.

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CONNECTICUT COLLEGE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Seth W. Alvord ’93, Chair, Jessica L. Archibald ’95, Maria Wyckoff Boyce ’85, Vice Chair, Bellaluna Castellanos Palacios ’25, Young Alumni Trustee, Andrea E. Chapdelaine, President, Loulie Sutro Crawford ’89, Lawrence B. Damon III ’93, Marisa G. Fariña ’93, Hannah E. Gonzalez ’23, Young Alumni Trustee, Kim-An Hernandez ’99 P’28, Jonathan A. Krane ’90, Sydney L. Lamb ’21, John D. Linehan P’18 ’23 ’24, Erica L. Lovett ’14, Jennifer Lapan Mann ’94, Sarah A. Mudho ’98, Devon Danz Preston ’93 P’28, Leslie Rosen ’02, Peter D. Skaperdas P’17, Vice Chair, Dwayne C. Stallings ’99, Vice Chair, Jonathan S. Stavin ’85, Diane E. Stratton ’91, Randall T. Suffolk ’90, Maarten D. Terry ’83, Anne A. Verplanck ’80, Shawnia A. Yon ’24, Young Alumni Trustee, Tamah Nachtman Wiegand ’68, John S. Zeiler ’74

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Angela Bannerman Ankoma ’97 P’27, Taylor Austin ’24, Laila Bera ’23, Michael Boswell ’10, Vice President, Alexandra Felfle ’10, Daniel Garcia ’02, Susan Mabrey Gaud ’68 P’07, Emily Mond Gurry ’09, Susan Peck Hinkel ’65, M. Grant Hogan ’07, Deion Jordan ’17, Julia Kaback ’18, Betty Fluegelman Kahn ’68 P’92, Jennifer Lapan Mann ’94, President, Natalie Fine Margolis ’91, Nicholas G. McLaughlin ’25, Rasheed Mitchell ’13, Samantha Capen Muldoon ’88, Matthew C. Murdock ’13, Steve Owen ’80 P’12, Allan Rogers ’14, Katrina Sanders ’92, Annie M. Scott ’84, Tamsen Bales Sharpless ’89, Secretary, Michael S. Stryker ’86, Aidyn Urena ’10, Richard Vancil ’82 P’13, Veronica Venture ’86, Vice President, Yoldas Yildiz ’18

CC Magazine Copyright 2026 by Connecticut College, all rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect official policy of the College.

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CC Magazine is printed on Rolland Enviro 100, a 100% PCW recycled paper. Printed by Lane Press, a FSC/SFI certified printer in Burlington, Vermont.

Antigonick

InNovember, students in the Department of Theater performed Anne Carson’s Antigonick, a translation of Greek playwright Sophocles’ 2,500-yearold Athenian tragedy Antigone, in Tansill Theater at Hillyer Hall. The production, in addition to being visually powerful, was unique, says Professor of Theater David Jaffe, as the rehearsal process and performance were designed as a full fourcredit course under Jaffe’s direction.

“The Department of Theater’s approach to our main stage productions is that they are all opportunities for facultystudent research,” Jaffe said. Visits from Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Larry Vogel and Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics Devon Harlow enriched the students’ learning process, while Associate Professor of Dance Rachel Boggia supplied choreography and movement expertise and Musician/Composer for Dance Richard Schenk provided vocal and musical guidance. Students studied four other translations, Greek tragedy form, the culture from which these plays

grew, and the specific choices that Carson made in her version.

Three Classics and theater double majors held key roles in the production. Caleb Butler ’26, a CISLA scholar from Baltimore, Maryland, served as assistant director and dramaturg. Butler was awarded a ConnSSharp funded research assistantship for the summer of 2025, during which he and Jaffe developed their approach to the script and prepared the course’s research materials. “From my very first days working with Professor Jaffe over the summer, I was given the opportunity to participate in a truly collaborative process, with every single member of the company being integral to the success of this production. Antigonick allowed me to apply my majors in a new capacity and learn from performers, designers and crew alike,” Butler said.

Ainsley Cornwall ’26, from San Mateo, California, served as assistant costume designer, working with Associate Professor of Theater Sabrina Notarfrancisco as an equal partner in

the envisioning and building of the production’s costumes. “This inviting and collaborative workspace allowed me to explore intricacies within the costuming world,” Cornwall said. “Professor Notarfrancisco offered me room to add references and details to the classical studies world while staying true to the nature of this production.”

Jay Sexton ’27, from Westfield, New Jersey, was given the rare opportunity to serve as the show’s lighting designer, with mentorship from Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater Samuel Biondolillo, and said it was a joy to be part of the production. “Everyone in this company is an incredible artist,” Sexton said. “Between the directorial, design and production teams, and the actors and technicians, I really believe every member of the company made a significant contribution to the show. Of course, I’m really proud of how the lighting turned out; the creative and technical work that went into creating it was challenging, but the results were worth the effort.”

the Round

$74.8 MILLION Financial aid provided by the College to students during the 2024-2025 academic year.

EAT MORE TOMATOES (FOR GUM HEALTH)

A diet rich in lycopene—a nutrient found in red fruits like tomatoes, red peppers, watermelon and pink grapefruit—could help significantly reduce the risk of gum disease in older adults, according to a new study by Assistant Professor of Human Development Katherine Kwong. The research, published in February in The Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging, found that participants aged 65 to 79 who regularly consumed 8,000 or more micrograms of lycopene daily were 67% less likely to develop severe periodontitis.

If we don’t trust scientists, who should we trust instead? A TikTok video that happens to come up on your feed?

—ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY JEFF MOHER, IN AN OP-ED TITLED “MAYBE WE ACTUALLY SHOULD TRUST THE EXPERTS,” PUBLISHED BY THE HILL AND THE WASHINGTON POST.

Men’s Water Polo players Paul Podrebarac ’28 (bassoon), Kale Halfacre ’29 (guitar), Jesse Ellis ’27 (tuba) and Brevin Master ’26 (voice) perform the national anthem before a meet at Lott Natatorium.

Sean D. Elliot

A COUP D’ESPACE EXPERIENCE!

Students participated with faculty and professional artists, including guest artist Jennifer Payán (pictured), in a preview of director and choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland’s Make Granny Great Again in January. The immersive performance takes inspiration from the knowledge and advocacy passed on by Grannies. It will premiere at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in April 2027.

BEST PODCAST

Filmmaking Unpacked, a podcast created and produced by Professor of Film Studies Ross Morin ’05, earned a silver prize in the Best Education Podcast category at the 2025 Signal Awards. The project, which explores how filmmaking is taught and learned and how creative decisions are made along the way, is an Open Educational Resource that can be used by high school or college educators free of charge.

businesses is key

to

creating strong community bonds, and that may be worth more than the convenience of a

—AIDA SHERWANI ’27 IN A JAN. 14 OPINION PIECE IN THE CONNECTICUT

CORPORATE-OWNED DISCOUNT STORES ON LOCALLY OWNED CONVENIENCE STORES, INCLUDING HER FAMILY’S.

TOP 10 MAJORS

(For the most recent graduating class)

1. Psychology

2. Economics

3. Computer Science (tie)

3. English (tie)

3. Environmental Studies (tie)

6. Neuroscience

7. Government (tie)

7. Quantitative Economics and Econometrics (tie)

9. Biological Sciences

10. Sociology

located in Katharine Blunt House) Matcha with lavender syrup

Iced mocha with oat milk Shaken espresso with caramel

200+

Faculty, researchers and educational innovators from across the country gathered at Conn to explore how artificial intelligence is changing the liberal arts landscape AI and the Liberal Arts Symposium Oct. 16-18. Organized through the College’s AI@Conn initiative, the symposium explored AI’s influence on pedagogy, ethics, equity, academic research and the student experience.

SeanD.Elliot

103 All-Academic Camels Selected

TheNew England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) has named 103 Conn student-athletes to the 2025 Fall All-Academic Team. The honorees include All-American Cross Country runner Grace McDonough ’26, NESCAC Men’s Soccer Defensive Player of the Year Max Haberman ’27, and 22 members—95% of the eligible roster—of the Men’s Soccer team, which made its third consecutive appearance in the NCAA Sweet 16.

The list includes nine student-athletes—Haberman, Dylan Hoke ’28, Ellis Iurilli-Hough ’27, McDonough, Bridget McGann ’26, Charlie Miles ’27, Marco Perugini ’27, Kiera Tallas ’27 and Abby Williams ’27—who also earned AllNESCAC accolades, and four more—Sam Brockelman ’26, Caroline Camp ’26, Nicholas DeMarco ’26 and Sophia Stevens ’26—who were recognized for sportsmanship.

And completing the sweep, Women’s Volleyball’s Rae Wartelle ’27 was one of only five NESCAC athletes to earn a spot on all three teams: All-NESCAC, All-Sportsmanship and AllAcademic.

To be honored on the All-Academic team, a student-athlete must have reached sophomore academic standing with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.5 or equivalent on a 4.0 scale at the end of the 2024-2025 academic year. A transfer student must have completed one year of study at an institution.

International Student Lounge Opens

Connecticut College officially opened its International Student Lounge during a Nov. 20 ceremony attended by students, faculty and staff. Located in a large, bright and airy room on the first floor of Knowlton House, the College’s international language residence hall, the International Student Lounge is a dedicated hub for connection and community building rooted in cross-cultural exchange.

International Student Association President Sababa Ahmed ’27, a computer science major and Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology scholar from Bangladesh, said she and her fellow students look forward to using the space to host events, study, relax and make memories.

“To international students, this lounge is more than just a room. It’s a home base … a space that gives comfort and belonging,” she said.

Associate Dean of the College and International Student Adviser Carmela Patton noted that the grand opening took place during International Education Week, “a celebration of the importance of global learning, cross-cultural exchange and the many ways international education enriches campus life.”

“This new space represents the College’s deep commitment to supporting our international students and celebrating our global community,” Patton said, adding that Knowlton House has become “a global village—a living and learning community where domestic and international students come together to engage with and experience diverse cultures.”

Women’s Volleyball’s Rae Wartelle ’27 was one of only fie NESCAC athletes to earn a spot on the All-NESCAC, All-Sportsmanship and All-Academic teams.

SeanD.Elliot

Debate Team Beats Top Competitors

TheConnecticut College Debate Union reached new heights at the Yale Inter-Varsity Debate Tournament, earning the highest scores in the College’s history and placing among the top 25 of 124 teams.

Team CCDU HJ—featuring Tanvir Hasan ’28 and Diana Jackson ’28— earned 10 team points, setting a new program record and finishing among the top 25. Team CCDU EQ—featuring Landen Ellsworth ’28 and Shayaan Qaiser ’27—followed with 8 points. A third team, featuring Aracely Barajas ’28 and Joseph Earley ’29, also competed. Conn’s debaters defeated competitors from Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Middlebury, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and other leading institutions.

“This tournament was an incredible showcase for Connecticut College on

the North American debate circuit,” said Hasan, president of the Debate Union. “From people asking about our institution to seeing Conn’s name in the top half of the rankings at such a competitive tournament, it was truly a proud moment.”

The success marks a rapid rise for the student-founded team. Hasan, an international student from Bangladesh with more than six years of debating experience, and Ellsworth, a skilled public speaker and member of Conn’s Mock Trial team, co-founded the group in 2024.

Ellsworth said the team’s mission goes beyond competition. “People are often stuck in their own echo chambers,” he said. “We want to create a space for open dialogue and healthy civil discourse, where everyone feels they have a voice.”

‘Vibrant Intellectual Community’ Shines at Conn

It was high in the Andes mountains, in the rural, agricultural region of Guaranda, Ecuador, where Hope Kisakye ’26 got to put everything she’d learned about vernacular architecture—a style of building based on local needs, available materials and cultural traditions—into practice.

“We were renovating a 100-year-old adobe house into a tourist cabin. Every morning, I was on site, mixing adobe in the traditional way, painting, polishing, cleaning, doing whatever I could to get this house ready,” Kisakye told a packed audience of students, faculty and staff in the Susan E. Lynch 1962 Room. “I came away very confident that vernacular has a real place in contemporary design.”

Kisakye, an architectural studies and environmental studies double major, Hispanic studies minor and scholar in the

Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts from Kampala, Uganda, was one of 185 seniors who presented at Connecticut College’s seventh annual All-College Symposium on Nov. 6. The culminating conference for Connections, Conn’s signature curriculum, the Symposium highlights students’ integrative learning through four years. In talks, panels and poster sessions, the student presenters showcased the connections they have made among their courses and research, their jobs and internships, and their work in local communities and around the globe— along with the questions that animated their choices.

In their presentations, Kisakye’s fellow seniors covered a broad range of topics, including inequality in financial literacy, intergenerational effects in atomic bomb

survivor families, food access infrastructure in New London County, the impact of mass incarceration on democracy, how masculine perceptions of leadership shape the behavior of female politicians, Afrofuturist and queer-futurist literature in the classroom, proxy warfare and the cost of nuclear deterrence strategies, the relationship between public art and politics in Milan, and how the International Coffee Agreement impacted global trade.

At a celebratory gathering at the end of the Symposium, President Andrea E. Chapdelaine told the seniors it was “truly amazing” to experience the culmination of their hard work.

“To learn so much, to be a student myself and to learn from all of you, it’s one of the things that brings me great joy about being part of Conn’s vibrant intellectual community,” she said. “Today, we saw the power of the liberal arts connection on full display.”

‘The Heart of Campus Life’

The College Center at Crozier-Williams is ready to host a new generation of Camels.

TheCollege Center at CrozierWilliams, the primary social hub on campus since 1957, has emerged from a major renovation with a striking new look and renewed purpose.

No longer a dated crossroads of college life, Cro—as it is better known to Camel Nation—is now a bright, modern and highly functional space designed to match how today’s students meet, study and connect.

“This building has always held a special place in the heart of campus life. It’s a place where ideas and friendships are formed and the spirit of Conn comes alive. And now, thanks to the vision and generosity of so many, this beloved center has been reimagined for a new generation of students—and for generations to come,” Board of Trustees Chair Seth W. Alvord ’93 said at the ribbon cutting and dedication on Oct. 24.

“This is more than a renovation. It’s a recommitment—to community, to collaboration, to the values that define Connecticut College. As we cut the ribbon today, we’re not just opening doors—we’re opening new possibilities.”

Previously cavernous and cool, Cro’s interior is now warm and cozy, with

natural color schemes, varied seating options and comfortable alcoves. The ground floor features an entirely new Oasis eatery—complete with an outdoor patio—and a renovated Susan E. Lynch 1962 Room with enhanced technology and a flexible seating design to accommodate events of all sizes. Upstairs, the former Cro’s Nest has been replaced with a bright and airy Humphrey’s pub featuring both indoor and outdoor space for gatherings and performances.

Claire Carroll ’28, a computer science major and vice chair of the Student Activities Council, told the students, faculty and staff gathered for the official opening event that the transformed space has already made a significant impact on campus life.

“Cro is where students go to build their community and interact with peers who bring new experiences to our world,” she said. “Cro is our place to learn, to connect and to make our Connecticut College experience our own.”

The renovation was made possible with generous support from Susan Eckert Lynch ’62, Devon Danz Preston ’93 P’28, Hans and Marian Baldauf P’24, an anonymous donor, and the Class of

1969 Memorial Campus Beautification and Improvement Fund. Several of the donors were present at the ribbon cutting and were presented with a citation commemorating the dedication by President Andrea E. Chapdelaine.

“This building has always been a social anchor for our students, and this renovation reflects what they asked for: a campus center that brings people together across class years and programs. We are deeply grateful to the alumni and donors who helped make this possible,” Chapdelaine said.

Consigli Construction Co., Inc., the College’s construction partner on the project, supported the reconfiguration and delivery of student-facing spaces.

“This new, revitalized College Center at Crozier-Williams—now a vibrant hub for connection and collaboration featuring enhanced amenities—marks a significant milestone in Connecticut College’s commitment to enriching student life,” said Josh Sylvester, Consigli’s regional director for Connecticut. “Consigli is grateful to partner with the College on not just this new chapter for Cro, but also on its long-term vision for campus transformation.”

Photos by Sean D. Elliot

‘Shepherd Them Through’

Rabbi Jessica Goldberg, Conn’s new director of Zachs Hillel House and College chaplain, shares her plans for elevating Jewish life on campus.

Sean D. Elliot

CCMagazine recently sat down with Rabbi Jessica Goldberg, Conn’s new director of Zachs Hillel House and College chaplain. A graduate of Brandeis University, Goldberg received her Rabbinic Ordination, Master of Jewish Studies and Master of Jewish Education at Hebrew College in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, before serving for more than five years as a chaplain for the Jewish community at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Goldberg has experience in the areas of multifaith collaboration and conflict education and dialogue, and brings with her an extensive textual knowledge and enthusiasm for a pluralistic Jewish community.

CC Magazine: What made you decide to become a rabbi?

Rabbi Jessica Goldberg: Actually, it was my own college Hillel experience. I went to Brandeis University, which is very heavily Jewish and founded by Jewish people with Jewish values in mind. I did not know going in if I was going to be very involved in Hillel or just, you know, appreciate that it existed. I ended up doing all the things and becoming Hillel president. I really enjoyed learning about Jewish traditions that were outside of my area of familiarity and doing some very deep, serious learning of Jewish texts with my Hillel rabbi and with my peers.

My Hillel rabbi was the one who initially asked me if I had thought about going to rabbinical school. And I had not! But I ended up realizing that made perfect sense. I wanted to be able to help people, and I wanted to be immersed in this environment of intense learning, prayer and emotional rawness.

CC: Would you mind explaining exactly what Hillel is and how Zachs Hillel House serves the Conn community?

JG: Of course! Hillel is an international organization that creates community and spaces for Jewish students and

others on college campuses across the world. It primarily serves the Jewish community by providing an outlet for holiday celebration, Shabbat celebration, food and connection, but also fosters wider community engagement and collaboration with other parts of campus.

Hospitality is a major part of what we do. It’s a major Jewish mitzvah, a commandment, an obligation that we are hospitable to those in our community. So, I hope everyone feels welcome to come by anytime, to meet me, to meet the student leaders, to hang out and use the space. We also have some really great cultural, educational and food-related programming planned.

CC: What would you say are the strengths of Jewish life at Conn?

JG: There’s a lot of passion from the student body and the student leadership! There was a gap between when the last director left and when I arrived, and in that time, the students not only kept the boat afloat, but they really thrived and continued to grow the program. I think that’s a testament to the work that my predecessor did, and also to the kind of student who comes to Conn. They care about things and they’re going to throw themselves into it.

The other thing is that we are very well-resourced. We have a wonderful Hillel House; it’s a great facility. There’s so much possibility, and I’m excited to lean into that.

CC: Where do you see opportunities for growth?

JG: There are always Jewish students who have not gotten involved, and I’d love to engage them and to have a relationship with as many Jewish students as possible, as well as students who are not Jewish. Because although I’m here to serve the Jewish community, I’m also a chaplain. I have experience in chaplaincy in general, and in interfaith work specifically, and I’m here for any member

of the community who might need to talk to someone or think things through, or facilitate dialogue or problem solving, whatever it may be.

CC: At Conn, you are part of a team of religious and spiritual leaders and chaplains. Why do you think religious support is so important for students?

JG: I’d say the ages of 18 to roughly 22 are a really transitional time. And we are in a moment in time when our young adults are facing a lot of stressors, and they’re experiencing a lot of grief with the world as it is around them. In this transitional moment, they need someone—and hopefully multiple someones—who can help them become who they are meant to become, to help them figure out who they are and ask some of the hard questions about themselves, about their communities, about the world. And that can and does come from professors, advisers and other staff members, but chaplains are specifically trained to ask those questions and to facilitate those conversations. It’s really a blessing to be able to work with students and be with them in these moments of pain and joy and help shepherd them through.

CC: What are your goals for Conn and the future of Jewish life on campus?

JG: One of the things I’m most excited about is bringing some new learning programs to Zachs Hillel House. There are curricula through Hillel International as well as some programs that I’ve developed myself, and I would love to get those going and to do some fun, casual learning with the students.

Long-term, I think Connecticut College Hillel is really in a great place to reach for the stars. We have lots of resources and we have students who are very dedicated, and I think we can really put Conn on the “Jewish map” as a place where Jewish students love to go. There’s so much growth potential, and I’m excited to see where we might go.

Ghost in the iPhone

‘Perspectives on Photography’ students use modern technology to recreate a famous historic photograph.

BY CHRISTOPHER B. STEINER, LUCY C. MCDANNEL ’22 PROFESSOR OF ART HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

In the 1860s, an American photographer named William H. Mumler (1832–1884) became known for his so-called “spirit photographs”—portraits that appeared to show faint, ghostly images of deceased loved ones hovering beside or behind the living sitters.

Mumler began as a Boston jewelry engraver and amateur photographer. Around 1861, while experimenting with a self-portrait, he “accidentally” produced a second, faint image on the same glass plate. Believing (or claiming) that this was the spirit of a dead cousin, he showed the image to friends and colleagues, and soon word spread that Mumler could photograph the dead. At the time, the U.S. was entering the Civil War and American spiritualism was rapidly growing. Mumler’s Boston studio quickly filled with grieving clients hoping for a last glimpse to reconnect with lost relatives.

Skeptics accused Mumler of perpetuating a fraud or hoax, and in 1869 he was tried in New York City for “obtaining money under false pretenses.” Expert witnesses, including showman P.T. Barnum, testified that Mumler’s effects could be easily faked. After a sensational trial that grabbed daily headlines in the New York tabloids, the judge ruled that although there was significant suspicion, the prosecution had failed to meet the burden of proof. Mumler was acquitted largely because there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate which exact

method of photographic trickery he may have used to produce the spirit photographs.

According to Mark Osterman, a photographic process historian at the George Eastman Museum, Mumler most likely created the spirit photos by inserting a second glass negative during the printing process. Like most portrait photographers at the time, Mumler printed his photos on albumen—a specially treated paper that, when placed against a glass negative in a printing box and exposed to light, results in a positive print. Osterman believes that after passing the original negative around to show witnesses there was no trickery, with a bit of sleight-of-hand Mumler could have slipped the ghost negative underneath the portrait negative. Assuming this is how it was done, Mumler would likely have had a collection of already-made “spirit” negatives, and could line up the sitter with a “ghost” that matched the general appearance of their lost loved one.

In February 1872, while still mourning the death of her husband, Abraham Lincoln, who had been assassinated seven years earlier, Mary Todd Lincoln paid a visit to Mumler’s Boston studio. Despite being a lifelong Christian, Mary Todd Lincoln turned to Spiritualism after the tragic death of her son, William, in 1862. When she posed for her portrait by Mumler, she had full knowledge of his prosecution in 1869. But she still firmly believed in the validity of his photographs,

and she hoped his photograph would reveal the ghost of her dead husband.

According to the story, Mary Todd Lincoln visited Mumler in disguise, wearing a black veil and using a fake name. The resulting photograph showed a faint, white figure who looked like Abraham Lincoln standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Mumler claimed that it wasn’t until after the photograph had been developed and printed that he became aware that his subject was the widow of the assassinated president.

Inthe fall of 2025, Connecticut College students in my “Perspectives on Photography” course had an opportunity to recreate the visual effect Mumler used for his famous photograph—using only an iPhone.

After some trial and error, I settled on using Spectre, a long-exposure camera app developed by Lux Optics Incorporated and launched for iPhone in 2019. The app does not keep the camera’s shutter open continuously, like a traditional long exposure on a film camera, but instead simulates the effect of a long exposure by using AI to determine how much each pixel should contribute to the final longexposure blend.

The app captures hundreds of shortexposure frames over several seconds. To recreate the spirit photograph, the person representing Mary Todd Lincoln sat motionless for 30 seconds; while the “ghost” remained in the frame for only

William H. Mumler. Mary Todd Lincoln and the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln. Boston, 1872. The Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

James Caris ’27 and Cully MacPherson ’26

Eliza Brennan ’27 and Pilar Young ’28

Eleanor Sheridan ’27 and Morgan Edenbach ’26

Monica Gudino ’28 and Maddie Jarbeau ’28

10 seconds, and then moved quickly out. To enhance the effect, “Mary Todd Lincoln” wore a black shawl and a hat approximating the appearance of the original, and the “ghost” wore a white lab coat and white cotton gloves.

Once the sequence is aligned, the app blends the frames using a temporal averaging algorithm. Pixels that stay in the same place across frames (in this case the motionless figure of “Mary Todd Lincoln”) is reinforced (or fully exposed), while pixels that change position over time (the “ghost”) are less exposed and slightly blurred. Thus, the result is a single composite image that mimics the look of a long shutter exposure: Moving objects disappear or turn into light streaks, while static ones remain crisp and clear.

Mumler, of course, did not use a long-exposure technique to create his spirit photographs. Since the whole point of spirit photography was to trick the portrait sitter into believing that the photograph had unwittingly captured a ghostly presence invisible to the unaided

eye, having a person walk into the frame for 10 seconds would have immediately revealed the trickery and deceit.

But the use of long exposures to create ghostly effects in photographic images was already prevalent in the 1850s, when photographers became aware that long exposure times and movement during exposure sometimes caused faint, ghost-like images to appear unintentionally in photographs. Sir David Brewster, a Scottish physicist, inventor and writer, was among the early scientists to recognize and comment on how such optical artifacts could produce spirit images. The effect came to be known as “Sir David Brewster’s Ghost.” In 1896, Walter Woodbury described the technique in detail in his book Photographic Amusements, Including a Description of a Number of Novel Effects Obtainable with a Camera.

“It is a very simple matter to make quite convincing ghost pictures … We must first prepare our ‘ghost’ by dressing someone in a white sheet. Then we pose the sitter and the ghost in appropriate

attitudes and give part of the required exposure. Then, leaving everything else just as it is, we remove the ghost and complete the exposure. On developing the film, we find the sitter and the background properly exposed and only a rather faint image of the ghost, with objects behind it showing through on account of the double exposure,” wrote Woodbury.

By restaging Mumler’s spirit portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln and the ghost of her deceased husband, students in “Perspectives on Photography” engaged in an innovative embodied learning experience with both physical and sensory awareness. The project offered an opportunity to enter the mindset of 19th-century sitters and photographers: the ritualized poses, the slow exposure, the aura of solemnity and spectacle. And by using a modern technological tool to simulate 19th-century spirit photography, students gained a better understanding of the continuity between Victorian photographic trickery and today’s digital manipulation.

Sean D. Elliot

In 2023, Pamela Mendelsohn ’66 donated a collection of instruction books for women to the Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives in memory of her life partner, Peter E. Palmquist, and her mother, Stella Levine Mendelsohn, a member of the Class of 1925. The collection, which will be on display in the Charles E. Shain Library from late April through the end of May, includes 317 volumes published between 1790 and 1950, with the bulk of the collection dating from the Victorian Era.

One book, Live Alone and Like It by Marjorie Hillis, opens with a chapter titled “Solitary Refinement.” Hillis sets expectations from the first sentence: “This book is no brief in favor of living alone. Five out of ten of the people who do so can’t help themselves and at least three of the others are irritatingly selfish. But,” she acknowledges, “the chances are that at some time in your life, possibly only now and then between husbands, you will find yourself settling down to a solitary existence.”

When the book was published in 1936, an increasing number of women were starting to live alone by choice. Marriage rates declined by almost 22% in the decade following the stock market crash of 1929 as severe economic hardship meant many men couldn’t support a family and lots of women had to look for work, according to the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics.

But in 1874, singlehood wasn’t much of an option for women. The 1870 U.S. census reports that only 13% to 16% of women age 10 or older were part of the paid labor force. In The Ugly-Girl Papers, published that year, Susan Dunning Power tells women how to improve their appearance through methods like using a mix of tar and olive oil on their faces to appear

Plucked From the Archives

The Pam Mendelsohn Collection of Instructive Books for Women

younger. “The skin comes out, after several applications, soft, moist, and tinted like a baby’s.” The content began as a series of advice columns in the monthly women’s fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar, which is still in print today.

Catching a man’s eye in 1918 wasn’t quite as crucial. During World War I, which ended that year, marriage rates declined and women’s employment surged as many men fought overseas. In Physical Beauty: How to Keep It, Annette Kellerman, a professional swimmer who hated corsets, explores being beautiful from the inside out through strength and physical fitness, qualities that were not associated with women of the Victorian Era, which had just ended.

Kellerman writes, “The more intellectual women of today recognize that they can no longer make pretty clothes and nicely powdered noses take the place of genuine bodily beauty. … [They] must possess that invisible inward beauty of health that is the basis of all visible outward beauty of face and form.”

Even today, fashion magazines like Vogue, which has been around since 1892, and Seventeen, first published in 1944, offer up beauty and fitness tips for their female readers. But mass guidance like this dates back to the Middle Ages.

“Instructional texts have been used in the ideal formation of girls and women since the late 13th century,” says Bailey Rodgers, the Linda Lear special collections librarian at Conn. “Written from various perspectives, topics include nearly every aspect of a woman’s physical, social, emotional and personal life. What may come across today as nonsensical was often highly valued advice when these books were published and circulated. The opinions expressed reflect the cultural attitudes of the general public and provide insight to the ubiquitous challenges that women have faced throughout history.”

Sean

A Grain of Sand in Lambeth

By Geoffrey Babbitt ’03

In this collection, poetry becomes a lens through which to explore the complex, visionary world of William Blake. Drawing on Blake’s own rejection of tradition and his relentless quest to challenge the boundaries of art, Babbitt confronts the tensions between genius and convention, life and death, light and dark. From his visionary watercolors to his provocative views on oil painting, these poems draw readers into Blake’s world, where reality and the unseen converge in prismatic intensity.

The Valentine Gallery: The Forgotten Story of Valentine Dudensing, Matisse, Picasso, and the US Market for Modern Art (1926–1947)

By Julia May Boddewyn ’86

Drawing on a wealth of primary source materials, including long-lost sales records, The Valentine Gallery unearths the story of this preeminent forum for modern art, revealing how pioneering New York gallerist Valentine Dudensing (1892-1967) brought the School of Paris to eminence in the U.S. and ultimately changed the country’s artistic taste forever. Despite its preeminent reputation as a leading center for modern art for over two decades, the Valentine Gallery name has been lost to history; this is the first book to examine the key role Dudensing played in shaping the canon of modern art in America.

Digestive System Diseases and Disorders: Understanding Symptoms and Treatments

By

Myrna Chandler Goldstein ’70 and Mark A. Goldstein

This book explores 30 serious conditions affecting the digestive system, including autoimmune disorders such as celiac disease and ulcerative colitis, cancers, chronic conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), stomach flu and other infections, and more. Utilizing a standardized structure, each entry discusses a particular condition’s causes, prevalence, symptoms, potential complications, diagnosis and treatment options. Summaries of key research studies are included to help readers better understand the scientific community’s findings about each condition.

Building the House

By Jere Denlinger ’75

A family therapist is in the storm of his life with home, work and health crises, including job loss and marital strain, when he meets a young woman at an Arby’s drive-through. They begin a complex friendship that threatens to further derail his life. The book explores themes of faith, family and relationships through the protagonist’s struggles with his career, his marriage and his unexpected mentorship of a troubled young friend.

The Deflaion of 1930: Its Causes and Pernicious Eects

By John C. Harvey and Mary Keil ’70

The second volume of The Great Deleverage Series explores in depth the economic events of a year that was the quintessential example from U.S. history when deflationary forces became unleashed. Deflation, the authors argue, is not inflation in reverse, but rather its own powerfully damaging force that erases wealth in large gulps. The year 1930 was not only eventful but pivotal, as the dynamic of the Great Depression, with its accompanying deflation, took hold in the imagination of the American psyche and dramatically changed economic behavior. This work exposes the potentially catastrophic effects of deflation allowed to continue unabated.

Agnes Knows Nature

By Seth Marcus ’80

in an area along Main Street stretching from downtown State Street to Hodges Square by Interstate 95, roughly one mile to the north. The plan required the relocation of more than two thousand people and the demolition of nearly five hundred structures, some dating back to the 1750s. Among the losses were the Neptune Building, the Victory Theater along the Parade, sea captains’ homes on and off Main Street, settlement houses, family-run businesses, the colonial homes of slave traders and the newer homes of freed slaves. A New London native and old-house enthusiast, Morse shares the images and stories from these events that changed a community forever.

Wildness: Henry David Thoreau and the Making of an American Theology

By Lydia Willsky-Ciollo ’05

In and through his experience of nature, Henry David Thoreau imagined and developed a distinctly American theology of the wild. During Thoreau’s postcollege years and his time at Walden Pond, he evolved from hopeful writer to observant theologian whose primary work as a surveyor enabled his theological vocation. WillskyCiollo skillfully guides readers through Thoreau’s writings and life as his theology emerges and evolves. The focus of Thoreau’s theology―wildness itself―centers on the divinity extant in every person and in every molecule of creation.

Join Agnes and her mother on a nature walk as she discovers the captivating sights and sounds of a vibrant prairie wetland. Generally intended for children 4 to 8 years old, this delightful picture book can be enjoyed by all ages. The story ends with a fun “search and find” scene featuring all of the plants and animals Agnes met on her walk, followed by a brief guide with photos and fun facts about the species.

Lost New London

By William “Bill” Morse ’80

On April 30, 1962, voters in the port city of New London, Connecticut, approved by a large margin a bulldozer approach to urban renewal

Diseases Without Borders: Plagues, Pandemics and Beyond

By Marc Zimmer, Jean C. Tempel ’65 Professor of Chemistry

From the infamous Black Death to the 1918 flu to COVID-19, disease outbreaks have always marked human history. But where they spread, how they spread, and how fast they move have all changed. In this book, written for students in grades 6-12, readers will explore several major diseases that have crossed international borders throughout time, including their causes, symptoms, treatments, modern status, and what major factors contributed to their spread.

Publish a book? Send Ink submissions to ccmag@conncoll.edu.

CRO W NING CONFIDENCE

Entrepreneur Darrell Spencer ’18 is redefining mn’s skincare—one TikTok at a time.

BY AMY MARTIN

Darrell Spencer ’18 is the founder and CEO of Crowned Skin, an innovative personal care company for men.

Photos courtesy Crowned Skin

When Darrell Spencer ’18 walked onto the Tamron Hall Show stage in September, the live studio audience cheered so loudly and for so long, it prompted Hall to joke, “We’re never gonna be able to get through this interview!”

Smartly dressed in a lavender cable-knit sweater accented with a silver chain necklace, the Crowned Skin founder and CEO exudes confidence and charisma. And there’s no doubt— even through a television screen—that he smells great, too.

Holding up one of Crowned Skin’s innovative cologneinfused body butters for men, Hall tells her audience, “This is one of the most amazing things I have ever smelled. I want to run home and slather this on my husband!”

A few more minutes into the seven-minute segment, as Spencer is telling his story of founding the “TikTok Shop powerhouse making millions in sales,” Hall seems a bit distracted—in the best way—by both the scent and the feel of the product. “It just smells so good,” she mouths to the audience as she rubs the body butter farther up her arm, before joking that her friends call her “‘Ash’ley Simpson” when her skin is dry.

video chat in December that he is poised and ready to expand his burgeoning skincare kingdom into a men’s grooming empire.

“I want to redefine what men’s personal care looks and feels like,” Spencer says. “We’re a confidence company. We offer confidence in the jar. Whenever any man puts our products on, he walks with a whole different pep in his step, and he feels that much more confident.”

SKIN IS THE GAME

Driven in large part by influencer culture and social media trends, the global skincare market is exploding. Valued at $115.65 billion in 2024, it is projected to grow to $194 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights. But as the masks came off post-COVID and skincare became all the rage, Spencer noticed that the industry was largely ignoring a huge potential market: men.

I started to think, ‘How can I shake up the men’s personal care space and make it sexy again?’

“It’s very masculine, it’s very musky, it’s very manly. But it also has this universal, just, pleasantness to it,” Hall says to Spencer. “That’s why it’s so popular on TikTok, and you’ve been crowned the ‘King of Men’s Care’!”

— DARRELL SPENCER ’18

The appearance capped a whirlwind year for the young entrepreneur. Since its launch in 2024, Crowned Skin has generated eight figures in sales, achieved top placements on Amazon’s marketplace and became the first Black male-founded brand to rank No. 1 on TikTok Shop. Between the rave product reviews and the company’s innovative social media marketing techniques—with the savvy CEO as the face of the brand— Crowned Skin has caught the attention of industry leaders and media alike, earning placements in and praise from Essence Magazine, Insider and BET, to name a few.

And while the old adage may be, “Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” it’s clear when Spencer and I connect via

“I’d be in Target or Walmart and I’d walk down the aisles and I’d see so many amazing products for women. But the personal care options for men were very boring, just the same old traditional products. I didn’t see anything innovative,” he says. “So I started to think, ‘How can I shake up the men’s personal care space and make it sexy again?’”

Spencer began by thinking about what he, as a consumer, would want.

“I love to smell amazing, and I’m also huge on moisture and taking care of my skin,” he explains. “So I thought, ‘What if I can combine the world of fine fragrances and put them into a body butter for men?’”

Crowned Skin first launched in March of 2024 with two different scents—King, a “sensual and commanding” combination of “mandarin, patchouli, dark vanilla and musk that unfolds in rich, warm waves,” and Reign, a “breezy yet refined” blend that layers peppery bergamot and jasmine bloom over cool eucalyptus and amber mist “for a scent that feels like ocean air at dusk.” The product line has since expanded to five different fragrances that are “formulated to attract”—the company’s tagline—with the additions of the “spicy and bold” Monarch, the “smoky santal” Prince and the “smoky citrus” Empire. In

addition to the body butter cologne, which retails for about $44, each fragrance is also available in a body oil.

In October, Crowned Skin was awarded a “Golden Ticket” at Walmart’s 12th annual Open Call, a competition-style program that offers suppliers the chance to sell their products in Walmart and Sam’s Club stores and has helped launch some of the nation’s biggest brands. Crowned Skin successfully scaled its presence onto Walmart’s e-commerce sites and can soon be found on shelves around the country.

But Spencer has no plans to stop there.

“2026 is going to be an absolutely amazing year for Crowned Skin,” he says. “The goal is for Crowned Skin to ultimately be a one-stop shop for everything men’s grooming. We want to be part of every part of your morning ritual—think body washes to deodorant to colognes, just layering Crowned Skin fragrances throughout your routine.”

BIRTH OF A SALESMAN

While Spencer has always been interested in fashion and selfpresentation—“My dad raised me from a very young age to keep up with my hair, my skin, my face, and my mom always kept me in nice clothes,” he says— young Spencer didn’t exactly set out to change the world one well-groomed man at a time.

In fact, the Posse scholar and Chicago native came to Connecticut College from Chicago Bulls College Prep—a top-ranked charter school on the city’s Near West Side—to study economics.

“Ultimately, I realized, ‘Darrell, you have the secret sauce. You’re literally helping all of these companies make millions and millions of dollars; you are essentially coaching them on how to do this. You can do this for yourself,’” he recalls. “That’s what got the wheels in my head spinning and inspired me to begin creating.”

Spencer’s first business idea was to create a satin-lined cap to protect the curly or textured hair of men. “Many women wear satin bonnets or satin scarves at night, because they reduce frizz and minimize breakage. I had long hair at the time, so I went looking for a similar product for men, and I couldn’t find one.”

But Spencer didn’t have a roadmap for how to turn his idea into a business. “I had no parents who were CEOs, no uncles, no cousins. I had no one around me who did this, who were entrepreneurs. I’m first generation,” he says. Ever the problem-solver, Spencer turned to YouTube University to learn about manufacturing. That led him to Alibaba.com, a leading e-commerce platform for global trade, through which he was able to vet and source manufacturers and create a line of satin-lined hats for men called Kings Crowning, which launched in 2020.

I had no parents who were CEOs, no uncles, no cousins. I had no one around me who did this, who were entrepreneurs. I’m firt generation.

— DARRELL SPENCER ’18

“I knew Conn had one of the best pre-business programs, so that was exciting. I did an internship at a Fortune 500 company, and my first job out of college was at one of the best actively managed investment firms, as an investment sales associate. Very quickly, I learned: I hate finance,” he says with a laugh. “But I also learned I enjoy sales. I love talking to people. I love understanding pain points and finding solutions.”

At the time, Spencer had a friend working in large customer sales at Meta, where he helped major companies develop their digital advertising strategies, and he convinced Spencer to apply.

“I knew nothing about ads. Zero,” he says. “But they were looking for people with a sales background, and in one of my first interviews, they picked up a pen and said, ‘Here. Sell us this pen.’ They fell in love with my sales pitch of a pen, and that was my entry way into tech.”

At Meta, Spencer leaned into advertising and helped some of the largest companies generate millions of dollars in ad revenue. He then moved to Google, where he worked with some of the company’s biggest customers, followed by a stint at LinkedIn.

“Men fell in love with it. We took it to Facebook, Google and TikTok, and I was able to scale the company up to seven figures,” he says. “I realized my superpower is that I’m a creator, and marketing creatively is my sweet spot.”

TIKTOK SAVANT

It wasn’t until Spencer was ready to launch Crowned Skin that he made the transition from tech to full-time entrepreneur. He was confident in his product and now had some experience running his own company, but he faced a new challenge: selling scent on the internet.

“Any selling you do, especially across social, it’s about attention. And in the digital advertising space, creative is your biggest lever to sell. When somebody’s scrolling on their phones on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok—what’s going to make them pause and stop scrolling to look at your ad? Your first three to five seconds is your biggest moment to grab attention,” Spencer explains. “But this was really a learning process, because initially we didn’t get it right.”

At first, Spencer says, he and his team focused more on the functionality of the body butter—its properties and how it improved men’s skin.

“We quickly realized men didn’t really care about that. It didn’t stop them from scrolling, and it didn’t increase our sales,” Spencer says. “But what we learned is men do want to attract. So, our pivot was to focus on how our fragrances smell so good that you can catch the attention of anybody around you.”

Darrell Spencer ’18 at New York Fashion Week in September.

I knew Conn had one of the best pre-business programs, so that was exciting. Very quickly, I learned: I hate finane, but I also learned I enjoy sales. I love talking to people.

— DARRELL SPENCER ’18

With the new messaging, the team launched a new creative, cross-platform marketing strategy. Crowned Skin also jumped in early on TikTok Shop, an e-commerce feature launched in 2023 that allows users to buy products directly from the social media platform. Sales are driven largely by content creators—often called “influencers”—who will review or promote a product and drive followers to the shop with an affiliate link. When someone makes a purchase using that link, the influencer will receive a commission.

“TikTok Shop is on its way to becoming one of the biggest marketplaces in the world, and we caught that trend really early,” Spencer says. “We basically began seeding samples of our products to tons of great affiliates, and they began selling our products for us.”

A quick search of “Crowned Skin” on the platform yields hundreds of examples, like an August 2025 video by mrkrabskart—an influencer with 31,000 followers who proclaims to help others find the best bang for their buck on TikTok Shop. It starts with a quick clip of a woman sitting in a chair at a nail salon, with text above her that reads, “I can’t believe she did this,” before it cuts to a man—presumably mrkrabskart—sitting in his car.

“Fellas, before you buy this Crowned Skin [product], Reign, make sure you are ready for all of the problems that come with it. My girl’s getting her nails done … and she made me go sit in the car because two ladies came up to me and wanted my number,” he says directly to the camera. “If you get this stuff, make sure you’re with your lady at all times, because that stuff can get you in trouble!” he continues, before adding, “I’ll drop the link down below” and encouraging followers to use his affiliate code.

Across all platforms, Crowned Skin’s marketing is strategically designed to appeal to “every kind of king.”

“We intentionally showcase every type of man with our products,” Spencer says. “When someone comes to your

home page, they want to see themselves, right? So if you go to CrownedSkin.com, you see an Asian man, a white man, a Black man, a Hispanic man. And I think that intentional inclusion absolutely bolsters sales.

“We want to be a company that creates products for all. If you’re a man with skin, our products are for you. If you’re a man who wants to smell amazing, our products are for you.”

I’M A BUSINESS, MAN

While the TikTok influencers have helped Crowned Skin beat out legacy brands like Dove, Axe and Old Spice, the company’s No. 1 brand ambassador is undoubtedly Spencer himself.

That’s intentional, too.

“I’m a shopper myself, so I understand the psychology of it. I love to know who I’m buying from. And many times, you are buying into the founder,” Spencer says. “Because I’m so forwardfacing, people are buying into Darrell Spencer. They get to see me, they get to see that I care about my products, that I’m talking to my customers. I’m letting you know what I’m giving off.”

Spencer’s appeal is equal parts aspiration—scroll through his personal Instagram, and you might easily mistake him for a fashion model—and relatability. Whether he’s making a TikTok in his kitchen, attending major events like the 2025 Ebony Power 100 and the BET Awards, or presenting at conferences like Alibaba.com’s Co-Create and Ross Mac’s Maconomics Wealth Summit, Spencer seems right at home. That’s a skill he honed at Conn, he says.

“One of the things that I took away most from Connecticut College was being able to navigate any kind of space. I learned how to connect and relate to people who don’t look like me, and who have different experiences than me. And that’s what the real world is—you’ll be at a business meeting with someone you have nothing in common with, but you still have to be able to create relatable touch points,” he says.

“I’ve taken that into my career, and it has set me up well.”

TRANSFORMATIVE TRIPS

Short-term international experiences pack a powerful educational punch.

BY MELISSA BABCOCK JOHNSON

22.7°N, 121.2°E - TAITUNG, TAIWAN

Instead of heading to their respective homes to spend the Thanksgiving 2025 holiday with family and friends, Dixie Dayton ’26, Sabrina Malec ’26 and five of their Connecticut College classmates boarded a plane to Taitung, Taiwan, with their Chinese language professor, Tek-wah King. The group spent a week with the people of the Puyuma tribe, an Indigenous Austronesian community renowned for its musical heritage and resilience through both Japanese and Chinese colonization since the 17th century.

In their fall semester class, the students were learning about the Puyuma’s language and cultural revitalization. In Taitung, they were able to witness it firsthand. They observed classes at the Puyuma Nanwang Experimental Elementary Tribal School, visited with and interviewed writers and artists, toured prehistoric sites and mingled with the locals in Taiwan’s “black mountain” province, which has the highest Indigenous population.

At the school, they watched as children practiced the Puyuma language. “It wasn’t a typical sit-down class with a textbook and a PowerPoint slide,” explains Malec, an anthropology and East Asian studies double major and scholar in the Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts (CISLA) from Bedford Hills, New York. “They were playing games and singing songs, and I think that was really impactful, because we had learned about their efforts to revitalize their language, and here we were seeing it in action.”

Amis people, introducing mountains by their Indigenous names, showing the students ceremonial places, and stopping along the way to name and describe the importance of the native plants. “It was really interesting to see his relationship with nature, and how the land itself reflects on the culture,” Dayton says.

TAITUNG, TAIWAN

Dayton, an East Asian studies and Slavic studies double major and CISLA scholar from Camphill, Pennsylvania, said a local guide led the group on a Mandarinlanguage tour through Dulan, a town in the territory of the

We partner with faculty and students to move beyond travel and toward experiential learning integrated into Conn’s global curriculum.

— MELISSA RYAN, DIRECTOR OF THE OTTO AND FRAN WALTER COMMONS FOR GLOBAL STUDY AND ENGAGEMENT

The trip was made possible through Conn’s Travel, Research and Immersion Program—often referred to by its very fitting acronym, TRIP— which allows faculty to apply to the Office of Study Away for funding and approval to include a shortterm travel component within a course. The program, supported with gifts from Sandra Shahinian ’74, Tamah Nachtman Wiegand ’68 and the Joukowsky Family Foundation, is one of several short-term travel options that allow Conn students to learn about real-world issues, conduct research and engage in cultural exchange, usually during breaks in the academic schedule.

“At Conn, the value of international programming lies in the intentionality of its design,” says Melissa Ryan, Director of the Otto and Fran Walter Commons for Global Study and Engagement and International Fellowships. “We partner with faculty and students to move beyond travel and toward experiential learning integrated into Conn’s global curriculum and students’ academic paths.

“Grounded in scholarship—through intentional preparation and a structured cycle of reflection—our programs create opportunities to apply learning, navigate cultural nuances and cultivate diverse perspectives on critical issues, advancing our mission to ‘educate students to put the liberal arts into action as citizens in a global society.’”

Darrell Spencer ’18 is the founder and CEO of Crowned Skin, an innovative cosmetic company for men.

Conn students learn traditional bark-hammering techniques at a hands-on workshop at Peinan Archaeological Park, using the Austronesian-native paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera) to make cell phone holders.

Left: Students and Professor of Dance and Director of Africana Studies Shani Collins enjoy Ghana’s natural features after hiking to Adom Waterfalls in Obosomase during their Summer Ghana Dance Intensive in July 2024.

13.5°S, 71.9°W – CUSCO, PERU

Over spring break last March, Will Johnstone ’26 and Gideon Bernstein ’26 traveled to the highlands of the Sacred Valley in Cuzco, Peru, with Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies Emily Kuder, Assistant Professor of Economics Noel Garrett and a group of fellow Conn students pursuing an Integrative Pathway—a set of courses and experiences organized around a central theme and an integral part of Conn’s innovative Connections curriculum. The journey to South America was made possible through the Community-Based Global Learning Program, a multi-year pilot run by the Walter Commons with funding support from Susan Eckert Lynch ’62.

student an experience related to their specific pathway. “The Entrepreneurship scholars explored how these communities sustain themselves with their own economy. The Public Health students learned that their food and medicine are all plant based, so their health is self-sustaining, and only when the situation is dire do they go off the mountain for a doctor,” he explained.

“Creativity scholars learned about the textiles and goods made right there in these remote mountains. The Food Pathway students learned about how, in Parque de la Papa, the potato is used for everything. Students in the Social Justice and Sustainability Pathway lived, along with the rest of us, among these five communities that sustain themselves together in the Andes.

“It was amazing for them to see that this isn’t just stuff we’re learning in the classroom—this is real. They really put their education into action.”

Bernstein, a psychology and education double major and scholar in the Creativity Pathway from Skokie, Illinois, says the experience inspired his summer 2025 internship at the American Enterprise Institute. “It opened my eyes to the wide range of policies that nations adopt to structure their education systems.”

Professor of History Leo Garofalo, who coordinates the Social Justice and Sustainability Pathway, will bring a new group of students to the Potato Park this spring as part of a TRIP course, “Modern Latin American History.”

CUSCO, PERU

“This is innovative integrated learning at its best,” he says. “Students prepare ahead of time in Pathway classes, reflect during the trip, and bring their learning and unanswered questions back into class. Then the whole campus benefits from presentations by groups and individual members at the All-College Symposium each November.”

Although the trip lasted just over a week, Johnstone, a government and psychology double major and scholar in the Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation, Value and Change Pathway from Beverly, Massachusetts, says he made “a million amazing memories,” especially during his time at a homestay in Parque de la Papa, also known as the Potato Park.

“We sang, danced, played games and told stories with the Indigenous Peruvian people, a memory I will carry with me for the rest of my life,” he says. “I was able to gain new perspectives on my coursework and projects. I’m extremely grateful for the creativity and perspective that the Peru trip gave me.”

Garrett, who serves as the Entrepreneurship Pathway co-coordinator, says the trip was structured to give each

Conn students visit a local school in Amaru, one of the communities in Parque de la Papa. Local students demonstrate their strength with Will Johnstone ’26, while Gideon Bernstein ’26 speaks with the director of the program to gain valuable insights to inform his major in education studies.

Sophia Stevens ’26 assists in the preparation of the Pachamanca, the traditional open-pit, underground cooking method in Cusco, Peru, derived from Quechua words pacha (earth) and manka (pot). Lamb, pork, chicken, potatoes and corn are cooked over hot stones buried under earth in this ancient Incan cooking technique.

5.6°N, 0.2°W

– ACCRA, GHANA

In 2023, Professor of Dance and Director of Africana Studies Shani Collins brought students to practice West African dance with national companies in Accra and Kumasi, Ghana, for the two weeks of Conn’s spring break through another TRIP course.

ACCRA, GHANA

The experience proved transformational for Catja Christensen ’23, inspiring her to pursue a Fulbright Research grant for graduate study in dance choreography performance at the University of London, where she completed a dissertation analyzing soccer as a performance of national identity in global competition.

“We were immersed in Ghanaian history and culture, visiting Cape Coast and Elmina slave castles, the Assin Manso last bath ancestral grounds, the Kakum National Park, and several villages and schools along the way. We practiced Twi, the Akan language, and made incredible connections with people who guided us in our research. We learned two whole dances in two days through movement and built this rapport without speaking, without having a common language, and that was an incredible thing to witness,” says Christensen, who is now a marketing and communications executive at the Royal Ballet School in London.

“It genuinely changed my life and my worldview. It shaped my dissertation, because it really showed me that movement is a form of communication that is so important.”

Collins agrees that dancing transcends movement—it’s about fully inhabiting one’s body and using it as a tool to connect and communicate with confidence and power. “Taking leadership and having agency starts with being embodied. It’s part of the

West African philosophy: You participate, not spectate. If you can talk, you can sing. If you can walk, you can dance,” she says, adding that while they are in Ghana, Conn students build relationships with and study alongside local students and professors and actively engage with the community. “It’s beautiful to break down assumptions, to debunk stereotypes, and to witness the connections that they have with the children, with the people, with the food.”

Students also bond with their professors and each other. Nell Hamilton ’26, a theater major with a double minor in dance and government from Eastham, Massachusetts, says she connected with Collins and the other students “for life”

It’s beautiful to break down assumptions, to debunk stereotypes, and to witness the connections.

— PROFESSOR OF DANCE AND DIRECTOR OF AFRICANA STUDIES SHANI COLLINS

on her first full day in Ghana in July 2024 as part of a summer pilot program through the Office of Study Away, for which she earned a travel scholarship from the Walter Commons. “We pushed through travel exhaustion to trek to Boti Falls and swam through the waterfalls. It was a perfect way to start our trip, feeling the waterfalls’ power and swimming together as a group. The trip enriched me so deeply as a human being and strengthened my dance and global studies.”

Dance students showcase their 2024 Spring Break TRIPS course performance in the Department of Dance’s spring Capstone show at Conn. The students chose the fabric prints for their costumes, which were made in Ghana by Dede Sartorial, a fashion design company in Accra.

Sean D. Elliot

It genuinely changed my life and my worldview.

— CATJA CHRISTENSEN ’23

Catja Christensen ’23 crosses a rope bridge in Kakum National Park in the coastal area of the Central Region of southern Ghana. During the canopy and rainforest walk, students learned about the area’s native plants and animals.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Upon return to Conn, the students offer community performances, conveying important messages through movement. “Dance on the stage is such a powerful platform to shift social consciousness,” Collins says. “We look at African enslavement, and ask ourselves, ‘How do we embody that, and how can we retell some of the stories with integrity, but also be responsible as a community for it to never happen again?’ The experience of the intensive is around self-discovery and different identity explorations for students in terms of their own position. I love students to see the experimental part of storytelling.”

6.8°S, 39.3°E

– DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA

Funded internships provide other opportunities for short-term travel, particularly over the summer. The Walter Commons supports the Bessell Global SDG Internship Program, funded through the Diane Miller Bessell ’59 Endowment for International Cooperation & Sustainable Development. The program supports internships related to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including quality education, gender equality and climate action. Delaney Brenner ’26, a biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology and French double major from Virginia Beach, Virginia, jumped at the chance to participate.

Brenner, who plans to combat global health inequity as a doctor, supported the work of the Sasamani Foundation for two months in Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam in the East African coastal country of Tanzania during the summer of 2024. She taught computer literacy, chemistry and biology, and worked in a microbiology lab at the University of Dar es Salaam. She also participated in three other short-term international programs while at Conn: a month in South Africa in summer 2023 through the Office of Study Away, 10 days in Ghana over spring break 2024 through the CBGL Program, and 12 weeks in Madagascar in summer 2025 for an internship with Conn’s Toor Cummings

Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts (CISLA).

Brenner is a member of the Women’s Swimming and Diving team and says the shorter duration of the SDG Internship and the fact that it took place over summer break allowed her to take part without impacting her commitment to athletics. “As a winter-sport athlete, studying abroad in either semester will always impact my season,” she says, adding that the course requirements for her major and her decision to apply to med school in her senior year would have added additional complications.

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA

I was able to pursue my global interests without having to sacrifie my athletic or academic pursuits.

— DELANEY BRENNER ’26

“Thanks to the incredible programs and opportunities at Conn, never once have I felt like I missed out. I stepped far outside my comfort zone and was able to pursue my global interests without having to sacrifice my athletic or academic pursuits,” she says.

“One of my biggest recommendations to any younger Conn students in science or athletics looking to have international experiences is to get on the Walter Commons mailing list, explore their summer opportunities—especially those that come with funding, which can be a big barrier to travel—and be confident in the knowledge that they can do it all with a little work and flexibility.”

Carburetor

Riley Schlick-Trask ’27 inspires a new generation of gearheads and classic car enthusiasts.

BY TIM STEVENS ’03

hen Riley Schlick-Trask ’27 was just 13—still years away from a driver’s license—she told her dad she wanted her own car.

Schlick-Trask had grown up watching (and occasionally helping) her dad work on his classic cars in their home garage in Bradenton, Florida. So, Dane Trask didn’t discourage his daughter, but he did point out a pesky reality. “He reminded me that I didn’t have any money,” Schlick-Trask recalls.

“In Florida you can’t work until you are 14, and even then I’d only earn minimum wage—$8.25 an hour at the time. My dad always had these car projects in the garage, so he said, ‘Go pick something out, finish it up, clean it up and flip it.’”

a 1995 YJ—the Jurassic Park Jeep. That was just as COVID hit, so my dad and I put all this time into it and it was ready to drive before I was even able to start learning with my learner’s permit.”

By this point, Schlick-Trask had bought up all the local carburetors she could find, so, as Gen Zers often do, she turned to social media. Her post requesting old “carbs” went viral, and soon she had more to refurbish than she could handle herself.

I have 100,000 grandfathers and followers who want to see me succeed.

On the shelves, Schlick-Trask was thrilled to find an old carburetor, a device that controls the mix of air and fuel entering a gasoline internal combustion engine. While largely replaced in cars and trucks during the 1990s by fuel injectors, they remain a popular way for burgeoning gearheads to practice the skills of classic car repair— and there’s a market for refurbished ones online. With some guidance from her father, Schlick-Trask rebuilt the carburetor and sold it online.

She was hooked.

— RILEY SCHLICK-TRASK ’27

At 14, she officially launched her own business, Riley’s Rebuilds, and recruited and trained four other teen girls to help.

Six years later, Riley’s Rebuilds is still going strong, with the team flipping 750 carburetors last year and averaging over a dozen a week in the Florida shop—all while Schlick-Trask balances running a company with full-time studies at Conn.

CARBS TO CONN

While it may have made sense for Schlick-Trask to stick close to home for college, the young entrepreneur had other ideas. She was eager to experience a new region and political environment, and she found her place at Conn after attending an overnight scouting soccer camp on campus.

“I loved it. I loved [Head Women’s Soccer] Coach Norm Riker. I loved Assistant Coach Mia Hernandez ’20.”

“I was on the travel soccer team and we’d play all over Florida, Georgia, into the upper states,” she says. “Wherever we went, I’d go pick up carburetors from Facebook Marketplace. Within the first year, I made enough money to buy my first car,

Importantly, Schlick-Trask says she was looking for a community that wouldn’t make her choose among her studies, her sport and her business.

“Riley’s Rebuilds was really starting to take off. And Coach

Darrell Spencer ’18 is the founder and CEO of Crowned Skin, an innovative cosmetic company for men.

I would like to morph Riley’s Rebuilds toward teaching young women and younger people the craft, creating that environment of encouragement.

— RILEY SCHLICK-TRASK ’27

promised, ‘We’ll figure it out. We’ll get you a spot in a building so you can keep it up.’ After that, it just felt so natural to choose here,” she says.

Now in her junior year, Schlick-Trask is majoring in physics with a minor in mathematics and participating in the Washington University in St. Louis Dual Degree Program in mechanical engineering. Through the partnership, students complete three or four years of study at Conn followed by two years of study at Washington University, with the goal of graduating “liberally educated engineers” with strong communication and problem-solving skills, a broad background in the humanities and social sciences, and a high-quality technical education.

Schlick-Trask says she has loved exploring the liberal arts, enjoys Conn’s low student-to-professor ratio and appreciates the support she receives as a student with dyslexia and ADHD.

“I’ve made really great friends; I have a really great community here. So far, this has been my best year here yet.”

REBUILDS, RESTORATIONS AND RACES

At the same time, Riley’s Rebuilds continues to grow and expand, with Schlick-Trask managing from afar.

“When my friends and I left for college, I recruited high schoolers from my town and surrounding towns to work on the business,” she says. “My brother, who’s 16, is the floor manager. He took over a lot of the carb grab, carb delivery and carb cleaning process, and I run supplies, customer service and social media from here.”

In the old days, Schlick-Trask had to track down carburetors to rebuild and flip. Now, customers send them directly to the business—from all around the world—to be fixed and returned. Additionally, the company has attracted multiple

collaborations and often features sponsored parts in their social posts and videos.

The team has also branched out into classic car rebuilds, recently restoring a 1957 Chevrolet “Showmad,” a modified Nomad show car that Chevy had once displayed at car shows in major cities. And with the success of her social media channels, Schlick-Trask has become a spokesperson for a new generation of classic car enthusiasts. She’s traveled across the country to speak at high schools, trade schools and industry events, and, in 2023, she was honored with the SEMA Businesswomen’s Network’s Jessi Combs Rising Star Award, which recognizes a woman under the age of 30 who is making significant strides in the advancement of her automotive aftermarket career. She and her dad also partnered with Hemmings Motor News for a “Repair 2 Rev” video series, and she is the spokesperson for the manufacturing division of the Great Race, an annual controlled-speed endurance road rally for pre-1974 vintage and collector cars.

Over the summer, Schlick-Trask competed in the Great Race for the first time, traveling more than 2,300 miles across seven states and finishing second in the Rookie Division.

“It’s a time and speed precision rally on open roads. You have no digital anything. You have to stay precisely to the speed limit that your paper instructs for these 10-hour days. But you also then have to calculate your acceleration, your deceleration. It’s a lot of fun,” she says. “Last year during the race, I invited 12 automotive influencer women to join us as I drove a corporatesponsored Corvette. We had over nine million interactions in nine days. It was the most engagement that the race had had online since they started.”

Schlick-Trask will participate in the race again this summer, after completing a semester of study abroad in New Zealand this spring.

Right: Riley Schlick-Trask ’27 and her father, Dane Trask, work on a Ford small-block V-8 while other members of the Riley’s Rebuilds team tackle other projects.

Zack Wittman

“I have this 1966 Ford Fairlane I’ll be finishing up just before I leave for New Zealand, and the race will happen right after I get back,” she says. In the meantime, she’s working on an ambitious publicity plan.

“There can be an Edelbrock car or a Summit Racing car, for example, and they pick their own influencers to run the race,” she explains. “It allows the sponsors and influencers to work together in various ways. It’s been a huge project for me to pull together.”

dominated world, Schlick-Trask says she has largely been welcomed with open arms.

“Being a young woman in the classic car industry would seem like a minefield, but it is not,” she told SEMA Businesswomen’s Network.

Being a young woman in the classic car industry would seem like a minefild, but it is not.

She also has another race on the horizon, Summit Racing’s Drag & Drive speed event. She is hoping to build a nine-second car (a street-legal vehicle built to run a quarter mile in less than 10 seconds), which would put her near the “top-notch Mustangs or Dodge Challengers.”

— RILEY SCHLICK-TRASK ’27

While she continues to make her mark in a decidedly male-

“I have 100,000 grandfathers and followers who want to see me succeed.”

And what does success look like for the trailblazing automotive enthusiast? Schlick-Trask is keeping her options open.

“I’ve been offered positions with car companies already,” she says. “But I would always want to have Riley’s Rebuilds. Is it in its final form now?

Definitely not. I think I would like to morph it toward teaching young women and younger people the craft, creating that environment of encouragement. That’s my goal, and I’m ready to do whatever gets me there.”

Photo courtesy of Riley Schlick-Trask

Sean D. Elliot

Alumni gathered at The Skylark in New York City for one of Conn’s annual year-end holiday parties.

more images, scan the QR code at right ►

CC Magazine welcomes your Class Notes and submissions. Please contact your class correspondent, email notes to classnotes@conncoll.edu or submit Class Notes online at: conncoll.edu/news/cc-magazine

denotes a Reunion class year. The next Reunion is May 29-31, 2026.

Correspondent: Mona Gustafson Affinito, 723 Water St., Apt. 1001, Excelsior, MN, 55331, forgivenessoptions@earthlink.net, 612-760-5007 Nancy Bohman Rance is in a new chapter in life with her new pacemaker. “It really improves an already good life in my daughter and son-in-law’s Boca Raton, FL, home. Music, my major at CC, still rates high with concert attendances—some marvelous Bach motets by Seraphic Fire, my most recent thrill! Best wishes to all!” Amity Pierce Buxton lives happily in a 15th-floor apartment overlooking San Francisco Bay and its shoreline, from Alameda in the southwest to the hills of Marin County in the northeast. Her third husband passed almost six years ago, and now she spends much of her time compiling a multitiered bio covering her years in Bronxville, NY; New London, CT; Tarrytown, NY; Grosse Pointe, MI; San Francisco; Mill Valley, CA; Paris; and now Oakland, CA, near her daughter and son (and his wife and two children). Her working years first focused on teacher training for desegregating schools, and during her second period of work (volunteer), she spoke and wrote articles and books about LGBT rights and mixed-orientation marriages. All along, she kept painting, sketching and writing poetry. “Yes,” she declares, “it’s been a wonderful 96+ years.” (Note from Mona: I remember The Other Side of the Closet. I hope it had a good distribution at the time, and I hope what you are currently working on will be shared with us and the larger public.) Arien Hausknecht Mack is also still making history, continuing to direct The New School for Social Research, New University in Exile Consortium, which she launched in 2018. Its institu-

It’s been a wonderful 96+ years!

— AMITY PIERCE BUXTON ’51

tional members now comprise 72 universities and colleges from many different countries, with more than 200 displaced and threatened scholars as their scholar cohort. “The work the Consortium does unfortunately only becomes more urgent during these politically dark times in the U.S. and elsewhere.” Helen Johnson Haberstroh enjoyed a memory on Oct. 26, 2025, which she shares here as “Conn College Music Connections” (lightly edited): “At St. Mary’s Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, KY, Musica Sacra, a greater Cincinnati community of singers, musicians and supporters with a passion for sacred music, performed the world premiere of ‘Receiving,’ composed by Jessica French. The current conductor and music director, L. Brett Scott, was appointed to succeed Musica Sacra’s founder, Helmut Roehrig, in 2014. A striking memory took me back to that year, when I was commissioned to provide a singular pen-and-ink drawing of Roehrig’s childhood church in Germany, Valentinus Kirche, as a loving remembrance of the founder’s leadership. In 2025, acclaimed composer Jessica French was in the audience; Brett Scott was on the podium conducting the first and third movements of ‘Receiving.’ The second movement was given vivid expression by apprentice conductor Rachel Feldman, who was in her final year of the doctoral program in choral conducting at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Prior to that she had served as the director of choral activities at Connecticut College, along with completing several other engagements, including at Mt. Holyoke College. My afternoon celebrated the vital arts that give meaning and measure to our lives.” Phyllis HoffmannDriscoll moved into Village Cove, an assisted living center near the house she still owns in Hilton Head Plantation, SC. She’s made lots of new friends and enjoys many activities, and there’s always someone available to help if needed! I, Mona Gustafson Affito, thank you folks who responded to my plea for news and you who are reading it now. What a proud showing—a class that has seen so much history and is still living it. I really appreciate folks like Phyll and the others who honor me with information to share. Today, my son and I are in a cozy cottage on Lake Superior’s North Shore for Thanksgiving week. The lake is roiling, wind and snow are blowing, and the “feels like” temperature is 5 degrees. Love it! Christmas should be warmer in Williamsburg, VA, when we’re all together with my daughter and family. In September/ October, I discovered the Mississippi, cruising with Viking from New Orleans to St. Paul, MN. And we’re nearing publication of How Could Those Lovely People Have Let It Happen?: A

Psychologist’s Intimate Journey. It’s like an elective senior seminar over coffee and cookies with a very open emeritus psychology professor. Probably discovering some surprise answers. CC for Women plays a part, of course. I’m happy to send a link to anyone willing to read the manuscript. Finally, I’m really enjoying stories of the lives we’ve built over almost a century of living. What was your career? What is your legacy? Please stay in touch.

53Correspondent: Sue Weinberg Mindlin, sue@mindlin.com Joan “Flugy” Fluegelman Wexler P’79 took a long trip from Sarasota, FL, to visit family and friends in the Northeast. It was her first trip in six years, and she loved it. She attended a surprise 70th birthday party for her daughter and saw all seven of her great-grandchildren. Carol Gerard McCann is the happy great-grandmother of a 13th-generation boy. The original American in the family came from England on the Mayflower! Carol’s grandson is the press secretary in Washington, D.C., to Senator Cotton, from Arkansas. Carol still enjoys playing bridge. (I wonder how many others of our class still play bridge, as we did in our dorms during college years?) Betty-Jane Englander Golboro is quite a baker. She’s won several top prizes in state fairs. BJ says she never cooked until she was married. Jane Graham Pemberton P’81 ’87 GP’14 has three great-grandchildren. One grandchild has moved to the Boston area, near Jane. Jane sees many family members who live in the area, and several are also CC graduates. I, Sue Weinberg Mindlin, love hearing from you with news for the College magazine, and I hope many more of you will take a few minutes to send me an email. We all enjoy reading about classmates’ lives. Candace Carson Cottell lives in Oregon, near three of her four children. She’s had a busy life; after a year at CC, where she lived in Vinal Cottage, Candy transferred to the Bay Area. She then married and lived in the Boston area while her husband did a medical residency. Then they moved to the Piedmont, CA, area, where their four children grew up. Candy was involved in the usual school and community activities. Her first spouse passed away, she later remarried and now she is again a widow. Many of us have outlived spouses and are busy with new activities that keep our brains and bodies healthy. 54

Correspondent: Joanne Williams Hartley, 69 Chesterton Road, Wellesley, MA 02481, jodihartley69@icloud.com, 617620-9385; Sally Ashkins Churchill, sachurchill@ comcast.net Hello ladies: Good for us! Our class had the second-highest participation in the Annual Fund Drive! I knew we could do it; it’s really quite amazing. There have been many classes since 1954, but we were special and we really cared. We made a last-minute request for donations, and you responded! CC seems long ago and far away, but our memories are fond and we cherish them. The College and I (Joanne Williams Hartley) hope you will forward your current phone numbers. Many of you have moved and are using cell phones. I would love to say hi, but I can’t reach you! Just send me an email or call me. If I am not home, leave me your current contact information. Thank you. In other news, I went to

Matthew Greene Marshall ’08, Deborah Moore (Lorraine’s daughter) and Lorraine Lincoln Lieberman ’46 celebrated Lorraine’s 101st birthday on July 9, 2025. Matthew greatly misses Lorraine, who passed away in September 2025.

Helen Johnson Haberstroh ’51 drew Valentinus Kirche in 2014 to honor Helmut Roehrig.

a beautiful “celebration of life” service for Barbara Blanchard on lovely Cape Cod, and while perusing the gathering of over a hundred relatives and friends, I realized with a jolt that I had known her longer than anyone there! She and Dudley had retired and built a lovely home on Long Pond on the grounds of a family hunting lodge that belonged to her family. The lodge includes three buildings, affording them the opportunity for her many offspring to all come from near and far for extended summer visits. Sweet. Marcia Bernstein Siegel remains in her home in beautiful Rockport, MA, where she moved after teaching at NYU for 13 years. She loved teaching, but writing was also a calling, so she had been writing dance critiques for a paper until it closed. When she moved to Rockport, she completely renovated her home, and now it needs attention again. That’s a familiar story for many of us, a stark reminder of the passage of time. Sally Ashkins Churchill still lives in her home on Bass River on Cape Cod, and they enjoy going out in their boats from time to time. Her entire family of 20 came for a threeday weekend to help her celebrate her 93rd birthday last summer. She commented that people love to come and see them—in part because she lives in a vacation area. Sally and Bob are expecting their third great-grandchild this year, and they have a daughter and stepdaughter living in the area. They wake up every day feeling grateful for their long and full lives. Evelyn “Irene” Ball Barrack P’81 ’85 GP’18 remains in her home; she had a wonderful summer celebrating the birth of a new great-grandson and attending the events surrounding the New York wedding of her grandson John. She has a home on Martha’s Vineyard, where she particularly loves to spend the lovely fall season. She is very busy and agrees with me that caring for a home keeps us occupied. With great sadness, I report that Nancy Blau Lasser passed away last spring. She and John were married right after college and had celebrated 70 years together. He told me that she just loved CC; she was a wonderful classmate, as we all remember. We also send our condolences to the families of Rosario Bascon Kuhnhenn and Caroline Robertson Gray, who both passed away last year.

56

I am proud to say I have achieved the title of great-grandmother twice since 2024!

— ANGELA ARCUDI MCKELVEY ’56

Correspondent: Janet Ahlborn Roberts, jar.jrr@comcast. net Angela Arcudi McKelvey turned 90 in May 2025, and her family surprised her with a gathering of the Arcudi clan. “It was so much fun to see all.” Angela now lives in Duncaster, a senior

residence in Bloomfield, CT, near her eldest child, Jean, and Jean’s husband, Don. Angela has met many interesting people since coming to Duncaster in July 2024. “It’s amazing how many vital, intelligent seniors live here.” Her other two children, Paul and Peter, visit often. “I am proud to say I have achieved the title of great-grandmother twice since 2024!” Ann Fisher Norton now lives in a retirement home, Roland Park Place (ranked fifth in the U.S. by U.S. News and World Report for continuing-care places), just a mile from where she lived for exactly 50 years to the day. The biggest problem was moving from 4,000 square feet to 900 square feet. She walks around her apartment without aid but uses canes outside. Her 100-yearold cardiologist next door loaned her a rollator for long distances, such as attending her six exercise classes—at the retirement home but a long walk. Ann goes to some concerts and the local art museums when the RPP bus takes them; otherwise she sticks to home. Her daughter is within walking distance, and her son in Virginia visits her occasionally. Ann’s traveling days are over, but she doesn’t regret that— they circled the globe over the years, but her husband died 24 years ago. Suzanne Gerber O lives in a wonderful seniors’ community in Silver Spring, MD (a Washington, D.C., suburb) and enjoys following CC news but misses hearing about her classmates. She has an occasional newsy Zoom with Suzanne Schwartz Gorham, Amalie Hughes Montstream, Marilyn Mason Ramsey and Orabeth “Beth” Ruderman Levine, and she looks forward to seeing many ’56ers in May at our 70th reunion. Gale Anthony Cliord had enjoyed one-floor living in a cute little condo on Cape Cod since the fall of 2020, near beautiful beaches, bistros, and art galleries ... but then in the fall of 2025 it was time to move again! She’s now in a lovely, lively independent/assisted-living residence in Shrewsbury, MA, near youngest son John and his family. Her three older boys are scattered: Bill (now retired) is in Virginia; Bob (at the helm of his investment company) is in Sun Valley, ID; and Jamie (retired LAPD) is in Simi Valley, CA. Luckily, they get together fairly often, but Gale sometimes misses being the one who racked up the frequent-flyer miles! Amalie “Ami” Hughes Montstream lost her husband, Bob, in October 2023, just two weeks before his 92nd birthday. Since his birthday was on Halloween, they had a glorious memorial celebration complete with Halloween decorations and costumes, and Ami’s sure Bob was enjoying it. She is busy practicing her hammered dulcimer

COUPLE’S LEGACY OF GRATITUDE

For Elisabeth (Tina) Savell Treadwell ’63 GP ’27 and David Treadwell GP ’27, Connecticut College has been more than just an institution of higher learning—it has been an important part of their family’s journey across generations. Tina fondly remembers her years at Conn and, now, five decades later, as they watch their granddaughter, Tess Barker ’27, follow those same pathways, they’ve chosen to give back to the place that gave them so much.

“Conn was an ideal place for me,” Tina reflects. “The campus is beautiful. The faculty was always excellent and I had good friends and good roommates, a number of whom I remain in contact with.”

The Treadwells explored a number of options when looking to support the College and ultimately decided to establish two annuities with a charitable IRA rollover. They each made a gift from their individual IRAs, and now will receive income back for life with a very favorable annuity rate.

“This College gave so much to me. Our hope is that our contribution helps provide the same for students who might otherwise miss this extraordinary opportunity,” says Tina.

For more information on gift planning opportunities, please contact Karen Leslie, Gift Planning Specialist at 860-439-2874 or kleslie@conncoll.edu.

Tina & David Treadwell with Tess Barker

in preparation for two gigs in February and May. She’s playing duets with a bassoon. How about that! Five grandkids are scattered about the planet: Iceland, Toronto, Denver, Santa Fe, and one at home in Burlington, VT. Three kids are busy with their careers—almost into retirement: an artist, a gun safety advocate and a mechanic. Ami can’t wait to see everyone in May.

Correspondent: Elaine Diamond Berman, 100 Riverside Blvd., Apt. 20C, New York, NY 10069, elainedberman@ comcast.net Helene Zimmer-Loew and Suzanne Krim Greene P’85 visited Papua, New Guinea. Beverly Vahlteich DeLaney GP’26 has been busy putting together a three-ring binder of photos of her two sons. All of the photos have been dated and marked, and she is cutting apart earlier albums she made in this very ambitious process. Five members of Bev’s family have been students at CC, including her mother and a grandson, Dennis DeLaney ’26, currently a senior. Naturally, Bev and her family have been very supportive of the school. Constance Stein Higgins still lives in Cambridge, MA, and still has a house on the Cape, where she spends the summers. She continues to work half-time for Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard. Connie’s two daughters, both jewelry designers, live in San Francisco. She says, with a laugh, that she is “a lady of leisure” now. Jeannette “Toni” Titus Frary took her entire family of 18 to a weekend at Mohonk Mountain House to celebrate her 90th birthday. “They came from all over the country, and it was so much fun.” Toni is in a walking group and a book group and continues to give free art classes to veterans. And Sarah “Sally” Hargrove Harris P’77 says, “My wonderful little town of Weathersfield, VT, celebrated my 90th birthday with a local TV interview and an exhibit at the library of my long career as a graphic designer and book designer at Yale, including attention paid to my Classics major at Conn (I was the first) and my revered mentor in the Art Department, Dick Lukosius, who steered me to further design study at Yale.” Joan Heller Winokur GP’18 continues to teach poetry at Cypress Grove in Florida. Her students love having their poetry published in their quarterly magazine. Judy Coghlin El-Shakhs passed away on Oct. 6, 2025, after an extended illness, three months after she lost Salah, her husband of 58 years. Judy raised her children in both Egypt and the United States. She is survived by three children and four grandchildren. One of her children wrote, “She was a community builder; a force for loving kindness and inclusion; and the best mother, grandmother,

aunt, friend, and neighbor.” She is remembered by her close friends Lucie Hoblitzelle Iannotti P’83 and Elizabeth “Betsy” Hahn Barnston for her joy, humor and strength. Sandra Weldon Johnson died at her home in Winthrop, ME, on Nov. 15, 2025, after a long illness. Betty Weldon Schneider, her twin and best friend, says, “Life will be lonely. I have not been able to see Sandy or hear her cheery voice over the phone. I keep thinking of all the fun we had those 89-plus years together. Fortunately, there are lots of memories to keep me smiling.” Sandy had a master’s degree in social work administration from Case Western Reserve. Her degree became the springboard for a long career in data analysis and highway safety for the Maine state government. She leaves three children.

Correspondent: Millie Price Nygren, 1048 Bedford St., Fremont, CA 94539, m.nygren@att.net, 408-464-2907 Patricia Wertheim Abrams writes, “I am still working as a psychiatric social worker doing telehealth from my home, probably working more hours than I ever have in recent years. It is great to have this job in these difficult times. Many of my clients are elderly, and it is nice to know that perhaps I can be of help to them. I don’t really have any contact with anybody else except my clients.” Jane Silverstein Root P’85 ’91 says, “Greetings from Houston, TX, where I have lived for 63 years. While most of us did not attend the reunion this year, there was a Zoom call that weekend, during which Patricia Wertheim Abrams and I reconnected. We enjoy monthly FaceTime calls, catching up on our lives of the past 65 years. It has been great fun. I hope to see her and Carol Grienhagen Dallos on my next trip to New York. I keep busy volunteering at MD Anderson Cancer Center (where I have been a patient for 17 years), playing mah-jongg, and knitting for my first great-grandchild, expected in early March.”

61Gaele MansfieldBarthold was shocked to see that our 65th reunion is coming up! How can we be that old?! She is alive and well, living in Sarasota, FL. For years, she was on Longboat Key in a one-story waterfront house that her parents bought in the 1960s. Unfortunately, it was flooded nine inches in 2023 (Hurricane Idalia), but she rebuilt and returned home four months later. Eight months after that, Hurricane Helene gifted her with three feet of water in the house. Needless to say, another rebuild did not make sense—hence, the move off the island. Gaele saw Joan Knudsen Perkins during pre-pandemic trips to Australia, but sadly she has lost touch with many classmates, including Karin Brodshaug Thurman. At the moment, she is highly functional, serving on the board of a local theater and traveling regularly to England, usually alone since she lost husband Jim some years ago. “There used to be annual CC lunches in Sarasota, but that hasn’t happened for a while. Please get in touch if you are in or around Sarasota.” Mary Edwards still teaches History of Art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, but now she lectures via Zoom and teaches just one course per semester, not three. In October 2024, she flew to Italy to take part in a mini-symposium on 14th-century art in the city of Padua. Each participant lectured

on the frescoes in which they specialize and in the very chapels where the paintings are found. Mary uses a walker, so she was thrilled that helpers met her at the airport in Milan as well as at each train station, both coming and going, and took her by wheelchair from point to point. “It was wonderful to see the work of Altichiero in person once again and to feast on real Italian food.” Judith Ensign took early retirement nearly 30 years ago and moved back to her hometown of Williamstown, MA, after a career as an administrator in continuing higher education (evening and weekend degree programs for adults). Then for several years she worked at the Clark Art Institute, after which she traveled with friends to the U.K. on the Queen Mary II and spent several weeks in London. Two years later, they repeated the voyage and visited several countries in the U.K. and on the European continent. Since then, she has spent much of her free time playing chamber music with friends and volunteering for nonprofits in her corner of New England. Leslie Pomeroy McGowan P’89 is still in Ann Arbor, MI; hard to believe it’s been 40-something years. She’s on her own, mostly, with occasional extended visits from daughter Heather McGowan ’89 and her partner. Age finally slowed Leslie down enough so that she stopped playing tennis, but platform tennis, which doesn’t require as much running, has been a good substitute. She has grandkids on both coasts, one in Santa Barbara, CA, and two in Maplewood, NJ, whom she doesn’t see nearly often enough. Leslie volunteers at an amazing thrift shop that has been serving the community since 1931 and otherwise enjoys gardening, reading and watching too much tennis on television. Sue Altman Miller left Mamaroneck, NY, after her three sons were grown, living in Boston for 20 years and painting, exhibiting, teaching art and sailing. In 2012 she moved back to NYC, close to family including 5- and 7-year-old granddaughters. She still paints and had a show in 2022 at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. In the past few years she traveled to Istanbul, Barcelona, Munich and Vienna, and she plans to visit Japan this spring. She’s involved in peaceful protests, as are most of us! “Has it really been 65 years?!” Linda McCormick Rice lived in Maine for six years, and after the death of husband Bob in 2020 she moved back to Atlanta to be near one of her five children, four of 15 grands (with spouses) and four great-grandchildren. She will continue to spend the four summer months at her beloved Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport, ME. “Life is good with weddings and new babies happening ‘like popcorn’!” She is grateful to be able to live independently and host all of them from time to time. She looks forward to the 65th and hopes to see lots of classmates there. Joan Swanson Vazakas and husband George were snowbirds for 20 years after he retired from his urology practice in the Berkshires, spending the winters in Bonita Springs, FL, and summers in Dalton, MA. In 2022 they moved to an Erickson Senior Living facility (Siena Lakes) in Naples, FL, where George passed. Joan lives there alone and enjoys life with lots of friends and lots of music. Her Laki, 60, is in Boston; Carl, 58, is in Jackson Hole, WY; and Martha and her three almost-grown grands are in Alexandria, VA. Classmates visiting the Naples area are urged to get in touch!

Helene Zimmer-Loew ’57 and Suzanne Krim Greene ’57 P’85 somewhere in Papua, New Guinea

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Flora Barth Wolf writes, “Retirement has been good. We’re traveling again. Had a great riverboat trip up the Rhône River from Arles to Lyon in October. My husband and I have been part of a political action committee raising money for Democratic candidates running to flip seats in the Pennsylvania House. Since 2017, the House has gone from a 33-seat Republican edge to a one-seat Democratic majority. My best new project is finding volunteers to staff a library in an elementary school in a city that has only three paid librarians for elementary schools.”

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Correspondents: Susan Peck Hinkel, 1064 N. Main St., Danby, VT 05739, rerob@mac.com; Pat Antell Andrews, 2800 S. University Blvd., Unit 4, Denver, CO 80210, pandre0615@gmail.com Greetings! Our news comes from many parts of the country. From Margaret Beckerman Dardess: “After a varied career in North Carolina as an attorney, corporate executive and university administrator, I retired and began to write fiction, a longtime dream. Bowers and Shady, my middle-grade historical adventure, is out in time for Christmas. Writing it got me through the COVID shutdown. While wandering about my house trying to decide what to do next, I came upon a little book my grandmother had written for me as a child. I loved her book then, and as an adult, I found her stories even more fascinating. One of these, about her growing friendship with a boy named Bowers, inspired me to write a story about a 13-year-old Iowa farm boy and a 10-year-old orphaned Irish pickpocket named Shady. When he sets out for post–Civil War Colorado, Bowers doesn’t expect the West to be filled with outlaws, betrayal and secrets. He only knows that he must recover a stolen pocket watch that belonged to his father for his family’s luck to change.” Elizabeth Overbeck Balkite reports enthusiastically about attending the Charleston Literary Festival. She watched interviews with six authors; one was David Szalay, winner of the 2025 Booker Prize. “I look forward to going to Egypt in February to see the Grand Egyptian Museum and cruise the Nile. … When is the next Reunion? I am looking forward to riding in the golf cart.” Leslie Setterholm Curtis is still chief bartender and manager of the bridge games at Kimball Farms, in the Berkshires. Last fall she took a riverboat trip with American Cruise Lines, traveling along the Tennessee River from Chattanooga, TN, into western Kentucky and along the Cumberland River to Nashville, where she enjoyed a performance at the Grand Ole Opry. She notes that “2025 is the year when I officially became a ‘little old lady.’” Leslie finds good points in that status: wheelchair transport at airports and the perks of a handicap parking tag. Donna Hershiser Engelson and husband Willie still enjoy the good life in Pinehurst, NC, having moved from Northern Virginia 20 (!) years ago. “We gradually gave up our leadership development consulting work, and I am now busy with my little cottage industry creating handmade cards. As long as people buy and enjoy them, I will keep doing it! Volunteer work and a wide circle of friends add to the richness of life here. Our four children, their spouses, 14 grandchildren and two great-grand-

children—spread around the country—bring us joy as we gather whenever possible. Life is good.” Look for GranniesGarretCards on Etsy. Jill Andrist Miller has been spending more time at home (in Natick, MA) after years of juggling the family computer business and community garden activities. She successfully manages heart palpitations with medication and is methodically downsizing and simplifying a lifetime of accumulation. She continues to knit, mostly for charity, and enjoys a weekly Zoom chat with knitting friends. Virginia “Ginny” Chambers Keim notified us of the death of Carol JaffiVeit in San Diego, CA, where she had lived for many years. Updates on your class reporters: Susan Peck Hinkel continues her active life with garden clubs in southern Vermont, as well as serving on the CC Alumni Association Board of Directors. Patricia “Patty” Antell Andrews has become “all too involved” in HOA duties in Denver. Sue and Pat also enjoy compiling the Class Notes—and hope to include many more members of the Class of ’65 in the next issue. 66

I have been very busy trying but failing to keep up with the Kardashians. Otherwise, I am still breathing.

— LENORE FARMER ’66

Correspondents: Carol Chaykin and Bridget Donahue Healy; ccnotes66@ gmail.com News flash: Don’t forget that Reunion is in May! Please join us, Friday, May 29, through Sunday, May 31, 2026. We look forward to seeing you on campus. Check out the College’s reunion web page (www.conncoll. edu/reunion) for details. From Lenore Farmer: “I have been very busy trying but failing to keep up with the Kardashians. Otherwise, I am still breathing.” In the fall Marcia Geyer was recovering from a bout of heart illness, but “all else is stable in my life.” Judeth Lefevre John, Marny Morris Krause, Nancy MacAlaster and Jane Noyes Bancro enjoyed catching up in November in Hanover, NH, where they had lunch and took a lovely group photo. Liane Stearns Gowen sent a follow-up report about her grandchildren. In addition to Maddie at Mount Holyoke College and Emma at Muhlenberg College (both freshmen), Meredith is a junior at Worcester State University. Catherine attended the University of Maine and works at a veterinary clinic in Massachusetts. Audrey is a junior in high school, along

with her cousin Olivia, who is a sophomore. Liane’s youngest grandson, Christopher, just turned 10. Liane and Dick celebrated 56 years of wedded bliss, and Dick is about to turn 85. We received a group note about a recent “reunion” in Lenox, MA (lightly edited here): “Katherine Curtis Donahue organized a delightful reunion in Lenox, MA, at the Ponds at Foxhollow. It was attended by Bridget Donahue Healy, Jane Brown LaPrino and husband Al, Lee Johnson Stockwell, Deborah Nichols Losse, and Susan Mabrey Gaud ’68 P’07 and husband Henry. We all met for lunch in Stockbridge with Jan Davison Peake and husband Davy, as well as Edwin “Ted” Murray, the spouse of our dear late friend Caroline Davis Murray. Highlights of the trip included a visit to The Mount (home of Edith Wharton) and a walk to the nearby High Lawn Dairy Farm, where we purchased cheese and ice cream made there. The Jersey cows were delightful, plentiful and noisy. In keeping with visiting rural America, we also enjoyed the Norman Rockwell Museum. The Stockbridge trip was great fun and memorable, with a visit to the stately town library where, from the top floor, we appreciated the exceptional and colorful mosaic on the floor below. How thankful we were to Terry McNab Rixse and Jan Davison Peake for their advice on historic sites to put in our itinerary. We missed them both, as well as Jill McKelvie Neilsen, who also could not join us. We are profoundly happy for our merry and meaningful time together … and look forward to our 60th Reunion.” A sad note: We send sincere condolences to the family and friends of Carolyn Dow, who died Oct. 19, 2025. Please continue sending your news and photos. We want to share your news!

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Correspondents: Deborah Greenstein, debbyg837@verizon.net; Marcia Hunter Matthews, marciamatthews3@gmail. com Jacqueline King Donnelly hit 80 and is still standing! “When did we get older? I must not have been paying attention.” Jackie enjoys her homes in Sarasota, FL, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, as well as traveling with her husband to France and beyond. Her motto: “As long as our hips still work, let’s keep moving.” Two children, five grandchildren, no pets is the current tally. “I had a big surprise when one of my former French students was elected Pope! I knew him as Bob Prevost but am now switching to Pope Leo XIV. We hope to visit him in May, which will be such a treat. Bob/Leo was a brilliant student and the same wonderful, kind man then as you see today. If you are ever in Sarasota or San Miguel, I would love to see classmates!” Anne “Sandy” Clement Haddad has had a tough year for her family due to the conflict in the Middle East, but one good thing the year brought was another wonderful weekend at the Cape Cod home of Patricia Carr with good friends Elizabeth “Anne” Foss, Judith Macurda Oates, Deborah Benjamin, and Deborah Funkhouser Perlman and husband Elliott. “We gave ourselves an 80th birthday party, sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and blew out candles on a cake, with Martha Birkett Morley attending on an iPad. We have been getting together every summer at the Cape for more than 20 years, and it is such a blessing.” Ethel Bottcher Cullinan

Judeth Lefevre John ’66, Marny Morris Krause ’66, Nancy MacAlaster ’66 and Jane Noyes Bancroft ’66 in Hanover, NH, in November 2025

wrote, “Miss Greenstein! You are the JOY in my life! At this very moment, I am in the store buying a Toto toilet. That’s joyful too!” Debby Greenstein took two trips in October. The first started in Bentonville, AR, at Crystal Bridges, the museum of American art founded by Sam Walton’s daughter Alice; ended at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL; and included many amazing sites in Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama in between. A favorite was Memphis, where she toured Stax Records, Sun Records and the Rock ’n’ Soul Museum. The second trip was to see her childhood friends at the Jersey Shore and to have pizza at Vic’s, the Italian restaurant of her youth. Marcia Hunter Matthews celebrated her 80th birthday with husband Bill and their nine grandchildren. The day included a camel! Wendy Thompson Noyes writes, “I get great joy from being in Baltimore. As a New Englander whose relatives came on the Mayflower, I lived in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine, and I had only traveled through Baltimore to get to Washington, D.C., as a child. However, all that changed 20 years ago when I met a wonderful person at my high school reunion who convinced me to move to ‘where Baltimore is just like Boston, only the weather’s better.’ It’s a small city that has everything: great diversity, music, theater, academics, water, sports, wonderful people, all within walking distance. And that ‘guy,’ Alex Boulton, is still terrific! I am very grateful.” Rae Downes Koshetz writes, “I’m in my 70s for another month, so MUCH younger than you. I’m still practicing law in New York, and my husband, Andy, and I divide our time between Manhattan and Branford, CT, where we have a house near our older daughter and her family. Our younger daughter lives in Wilton, CT. Elizabeth is married

Age is catching up to us as we check off items on our bucket list.

— SHARON SMITH BROUGHTON ’69

and has two sons in college, along with a 12-yearold daughter. She is a busy therapist with a private practice in Branford. Katherine, her younger sister, teaches at a private day school in Fairfield and has a 9-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. We are blessed with all of them, including two great sons-in-law.” Marian “Mari” Coates joined the octogenarians in 2025 and is grateful for an active life—“not as exciting as those of you I read about here”—but still in touch with Wallis Lindburg Nicita. “I still live in San Francisco, CA, and would love to connect with anyone who comes this way. Best wishes to all!” Carolyn Anderson Kilgour lost her husband, Bob, to Parkinson’s in September. “Difficult times, but I find joy in my artwork and in the little farm where I have lived for 45 years. The agricultural calendar brings great comfort, from planting to harvesting and the annual birth of new calves.” Susan “Suzy” Endel Kerner P’02 is grateful for so many moments of joy, “time with our five kids and nine grandkids (toddler twins keep us laughing on FaceTime!), sunrise beach walks and Friday coffees with Waterford neighbors, cherished CC ’67 Zooms, and theater adventures with Paul and friends in NYC, Connecticut and London. Also thankful for the ongoing honor of sharing Eva’s—Anne Frank’s stepsister—story, now working on a book!”

Correspondent: Susan Cannon, susecannon@icloud.com Heather Morrison P’95 represented our class at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly redesigned Cro [College Center at Crozier-Williams]. Our class donated a conversation nook on the first floor near the entrance. The plaque reads “Gift of the Class of 1969 in recognition of our 55th reunion. We hope for many good conversations in this nook.” Sharon Smith Broughton had a memorable year as she and Gary celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary. In February, they enjoyed a warm-weather cruise in Tahiti, visiting most of the main islands. In May, they took a bike tour in South Dakota and Wyoming—they had hot weather, rain, sleet and snow, but the weather was perfect on the day they visited Devil’s Tower. Over Labor Day, they enjoyed a sunny, warm and lively vacation with sister Carol and two grandchildren (ages 18 and 21) in Oahu, HI. In

October, they cruised the east coast of Australia from Sydney to Darwin, the highlight being snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef. “Age is catching up to us as we check off items on our bucket list.”

Mary Garlick St. George held a group Christmas exhibition in her studio in Portugal. She followed a fascinating and depressing account of women’s rights, including reproductive rights, being constantly under attack in the red states. This was through the Democrats Abroad initiative and featured a fascinating activist and teacher, Carrie Baker. Karen Dorros Bekker apologizes for being out of touch with her CC roots but finds life does seem to move rather quickly. She has been married for 40 years and has three children and four grandchildren, and she still works and writes children’s books. “It has been a terrific time in our family’s life, but I do wistfully think about my four years at Conn and the impact it had on my life and my future.” Stephanie Phillips enjoyed a wonderful trip to California in October for her nephew’s destination wedding in Sonoma, and she spent time with her son in San Francisco and her daughter and grandson in Long Beach. She had cataract surgery in November. Prudence Wilson Barton had a great year catching up with CC ’69 classmates. She spent time with Ellen McCullough Lovell and Jane Lyman Bihldor GP’23 ’26, her freshman year roommates in Blackstone. Visiting Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana, which was developed by Cathy Frank Halstead and her husband, Prudence saw Constance Hassell and Carol Bunevich, as well as Cathy. She happily gets together with Mary Kroul McAlpin and Julie Boone Kessler a few times a year. CC memories are still vivid in these friendships! And she attended the lunch in Tappan, NY, with Penelope “Penny” Goslin Baker, Nancy Oskow-Schoenbrod and Mary Kroul McAlpin that Elizabeth Tobin Mueller and Heather Morrison P’95 arranged for area classmates. Babette Gabriel Thompson and husband John celebrated their 54th anniversary in their fourth home since November 2020. Reconstruction of their home was finally finished in early October, so they really needed a vacation and chose a Viking Ocean Cruise to China, Korea and Japan. She wishes Professor Chu were still with us so she could tell him how well they

Anne “Sandy” Clement Haddad ’67 had yet another wonderful weekend at the home of Patricia Carr ’67 on Cape Cod with good friends. L-R, back: Anne “Sandy” Clement Haddad ’67, Deborah Benjamin ’67, Patricia Carr ’67, Deborah Funkhouser Perlman ’67;

Susan “Suzy” Endel Kerner ’67 P’02 on Waterford Beach with grandsons Charlie and Jack

Debby Greenstein ’67 in Bradley Beach, NJ, her childhood home

Marcia Hunter Matthews ’67 with husband Bill, her nine grandchildren and a camel

Sharon Smith Broughton ’69, second from right, with grandchildren Abby, 16, and Gage, 18; husband Gary; and sister Carol Aldrich in Hawaii

Gary and Sharon Smith Broughton ’69 the day after snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

were treated by the all-Chinese crew of the ship. “After all these years, apparently I still remember the tones and pronounce Chinese words (those I remember) correctly. The crew wasn’t used to an old white lady being able to speak Mandarin, and they were incredibly nice to us.” Hannah Leavitt, Susan Scharlotte Walton, Ruth Kunstadt Culp and Elizabeth Tobin Mueller enjoyed a lovely mini-reunion in Ogunquit, ME, in late September. The weather was beautiful, and the company was even better! Sara “Sally” Rowe Heckscher and Jack celebrated their 56th anniversary in June. Rather than downsizing, they hope to remain in their home with more hired help. She saw Sally Murphy McReynolds ’70 in Boston during the October nor’easter. During the federal government shutdown in November, Ann Barber Smith and husband Bill decided to avoid the uncertainties of plane travel and DRIVE the 1,000+ miles each way to a nephew’s wedding in Chicago! Armed with an engrossing audiobook of 18 hours, they survived—and enjoyed—their sojourn. All five of Ann’s siblings also attended the wedding, which made it a particularly special event. The Class Zooms this year have brought Ann closer to so many classmates she’d only known tangentially at college or knew only by name. She looks forward to more of these special times in 2026! 70

Correspondent: Myrna Chandler Goldstein, myrnacgoldstein@gmail.com After graduation, Anne “Tracy” Heenan Walklet worked at Resource Planning Associates in Harvard Square for five years. There she met her husband, Chip Walklet, who worked part-time while he earned his MBA at Harvard Business School. After he graduated, they moved

to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Tracy was first a consultant at the Electric Power Research Institute and then at the Stanford Research Institute. After Chip created the startup Terra Mar Resource Information Services, in Mountain View, CA, Tracy joined him, filling multiple positions, including vice president of sales. “Our company’s product was a complete software/hardware system for processing satellite imagery and aerial photography on a personal computer (in the early years of Silicon Valley) before MapQuest or Google Maps. Subsequently, we created several other mapping and GIS-related businesses, as well as advised various international clients. I also founded my own firm as a manufacturer’s representative offering customers expertise in combining demographic, geographic and business data to make smart financial decisions.” Today, Tracy and Chip happily engage in community-related volunteer activities while splitting time between Lafayette, CA, and Michigan’s Upper Penin-

sula, where they rebuilt a log cabin on property inherited from Tracy’s family. Tracy keeps in touch with Conn friends from freshman year in Harkness House. Mary Keil writes that things have been going very well. “I am over a year past a highly successful hip-replacement surgery. My substantial investment in physical therapy has led me to a level of health I hadn’t had in a few years, and I am grateful to feel so well at 77. My husband and I love living within a few minutes of a redwood forest, wild Pacific Ocean beaches and a marsh where migrating birds (marbled godwits, anyone?) abound. We visit one or the other almost every day, weather permitting. Nature photography is still one of my greatest sources of enjoyment. In the Spring 2025 issue of CC Magazine, there was an article about the educational video game Beat the Fed that has now been used at Conn in the Economics Department. I came up with the original idea (and the title—homage to Beat the Clock) and cocreated the game with

Anne “Tracy” Heenan Walklet ’70 and Chip Walklet with their 8-year-old Sealyham terrier, seated in their Lafayette, CA, home

Cici Simon Holbrook ’70 and her husband of 54 years, Bill, at the Marines’ 250th Anniversary Ball in San Francisco

a small team. In addition, my co-author, John C. Harvey, and I have completed two volumes of American economic history from the 1920s to the Great Depression: How the Crash of 1929 Caused the Great Depression and The Deflation of 1930, both available on Amazon. These data-rich works present convincing evidence as to the role indebtedness played as individuals immediately shifted post-crash from debt-driven consumption to debt repayment and damaging deflation ensued. While I never could have predicted that I would spend eight years of my life, at this stage, head down researching, pondering and writing such complex works, I also recognize that I used every bit of my writing skills, long honed over the years, as well as took the foundation in economics I gained at Conn to unexpected places.” Cici Simon Holbrook visited San Francisco, where she and her husband attended the Marines’ 250th Anniversary Ball. “Sorry to have missed the 55th reunion. I was in L.A. for the Dodgers/Yankees game. In early fall, I enjoyed a month revisiting European cities, beloved since my first visits in the 1950s. For anyone planning museum visits in other countries, become a member before visiting: No lines! The little red velvet rope is lifted with a membership-card wave! A must for the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, L’Orangerie, etc. Looking forward to our 60th reunion.” Christine “Chris” Slye Koch’s son, David, and daughterin-law, Katharine Nichols ’07, live near Hanover, NH. They both work at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital. Their boys, ages 8 and 5, are “skiers and Lego maniacs.” Daughter Meredith lives outside of Boston with her husband and son Grant, 3. Meredith works at Medtronic. Chris and her husband have been married for 50 years. As for the Goldsteins, our most recent book, published in January 2026, is Digestive System Diseases and Disorders: Understanding Symptoms and Treatments. It addresses 30 different digestive medical problems, such as celiac disease, gastroparesis, GERD, food poisoning, hepatitis and ulcerative colitis. It is available on Amazon and other online sources; also look at your local library.

71Correspondents: Lisa McDonnell, 79 Audubon Ave., Binghamton, NY 13903, mcdonnell@denison.edu; Lois Olcott Price, 933A Alto St., Santa Fe, NM 87501, loprice@yahoo.com It’s been quite a year for Anne Sigmond Curtis She broke her ankle in October 2024 while hiking, requiring a rescue crew, surgery with a plate and screws, and lots of physical therapy. Then in May 2025 she had skin cancer removed from the same leg. Recently she had the

hardware removed from her ankle and hopes that will be it for a while! Meanwhile she and husband John have had lots of fun with the grandkids, attended plays and dance performances, and traveled to Cannon Beach on the beautiful Oregon coast while visiting their eldest granddaughter at college. They also took a trip to Santa Fe, NM, where they met Lois Olcott Price for coffee. Lois recommended some great places to visit, including the Taos Pueblo, which was fascinating. But their biggest trip was to Africa! Anne and John went on a small group tour that included South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. They stayed in four different camps in luxurious “glamping” tents and saw incredible wildlife. They found the people warm and genuinely interested in sharing their lives and culture. Kathleen Wilson Mansfiel hasn’t managed to take the retirement plunge yet. She still photographs classic sailing yachts and writes about their histories in yachting magazines (www.kathymansfield.com), sells her calendar of 24 years, and acts as a judge for the U.K. Maritime Foundation’s book, film, journalism and social media awards. Kathy and husband Peter live near Oxford, England, and enjoyed a month in Maine last summer. Their daughter is the regional director for Europe for The Economist Intelligence Unit, based in London, along with The Economist magazine. Their granddaughter just turned 4. Lisa McDonnell’s Zumba class instructor treated all 25 students to a cruise to Bermuda on the Royal Caribbean line. Lisa’s roommate was her sister, Cynthia; they had a great time on the excursions and enjoying shipboard life, fueled with strawberry daiquiris! The

Zumba teacher was a professional dancer who appeared on the Phil Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael and Danny Bonaduce shows at age 50 as the head of her African American dance troupe. Now, at age 85, she dances beautifully for the whole hour while the class stumbles along. And she can still do the splits! Susan “Susie” Chadwick Pokress and husband Bob have been semiretired for a few years, still in the house in Andover, MA, they share with their four furry overlords (cats): Claudius, Augustus, Livia and Barney. After years of being a “domestic goddess,” Susie enjoyed helping people plan their adventures as a travel advisor for 25 years. She has reduced her client load, so she now has more freedom to travel herself. She and Bob have traveled extensively over the past few years, with many trips to European destinations. At writing they’d returned from a cruise in the eastern Mediterranean that left from Athens and sailed north in the Adriatic, then south through the Greek Isles, ending in Istanbul. They have a completely different experience planned for March, when they will head to Ushuaia, Argentina, and set sail through the Drake Passage and the Straits of Magellan, then up the west coast of Chile to enjoy the dramatic scenery of fjords and mountains. Susie convinced Charlotte Parker Vincent (a BFF since third grade) to join them, so they are adventuring together. Susie and Bob had a busy spring 2025 of graduations. Grandson Nathan graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in May; Bob (CGA ’69) was thrilled to hand Nate his commission as he crossed the stage. Granddaughter Danielle is headed for a career in fashion marketing at LIM College in NYC. Granddaughter Jane is studying marine environmental science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where her dorm room has a view of the Pacific Ocean. Susie is working with the Reunion Committee and wants everyone to consider attending in May. She always tells classmates that she loves reunions, not because she sees old friends but because she meets so many new friends. It’s amazing to learn all the fascinating things our classmates have done over the years, and what adventurous and accomplished people we have become. Come to Reunion, meet all these amazing women and men, and have a party with us!

Correspondents: Barbara White Morse, barbarawmorse@gmail.com; Ann Tousignant, anntousignant@gmail.com Theodore “Ted” Chapin P’07 retired from running the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization in 2021. Over the next few years, two things happened: He was parachuted in to fix another theater licensing company that was a mess, and Just in Time, an evening he had created at the 92nd Street Y’s Lyrics & Lyricists program, made its way to Broadway, where it is selling out consistently. He welcomed a group from the college and had a talkback with members of the cast afterward. Life remains full, especially with two grandchildren who are lots of fun. Margaret “Peggy” Emslie has been retired from her career as a wetlands specialist for 10 years. She lives on Cape Cod, her childhood vacation mecca. She enjoys travel, gardening, volunteering with Master Gardeners, and working as a licensed Massachusetts Wildlife Rehabilitator, specializing in

Nate and “the Lilliputians,” Susan “Susie” Chadwick Pokress ’71 and Bob Pokress

Susan “Susie” Chadwick Pokress ’71, granddaughters Danielle and Jane, and husband Bob

Anne Sigmond Curtis ’71 and husband John in Africa

cottontail rabbits. She would love to hear from her classmates and any other alumni. Laurie Stewart Otten retired last year after 20 years as soprano soloist and section leader at her church. She is embarking on her 27th season of Holiday Pops with the Boston Pops, as a member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the official chorus of the Boston Symphony. She sings with the Boston Symphony Orchestra year-round in Boston and at Tanglewood. Last year, Laurie traveled to Ireland with her sisters Sara and Ann (a genealogist) to search out family history. They found a cottage, still standing, where their great-great-grandfather had grown up; a cottage and a school that his older brother had built; and the remains of a church where her great-great-great-grandfather and -grandmother were married, in Northern Ireland. Most recently, she and David traveled to Santa Cruz, CA, to celebrate her niece Tory’s (Victoria Stewart ’15) wedding. Laurie hopes to see many CC classmates at the 55th! Margo Reynolds Steiner keeps up regularly with Sharon Page Bode and Barbara Witter Enman P’09 through bimonthly Zooms full of family and health updates and a great deal of entertainment woven in. In late September, she traveled to Marrakech, Morocco, for several weeks. It was her fifth trip to one of her favorite places, and she’s happy to report that they are still magically the same. She was saddened recently when Boston TV stations and the Boston Globe brought up the still unsolved murder of our classmate Cathy Alexander Millican in Sunapee, NH, in the fall of 1978. It was a bad dream then, and it is still a bad dream. Cathy was a wonderful friend of Margo’s. JoAnn Giordano Everson’s latest news is that her 104-year-old mother died in September 2025. Her mother was surrounded by JoAnn’s family and friends all her life, and her five grandchildren adored her. JoAnn is wearing lots of different hats these days, including representing an artist who designs vibrant and unique accessories. Her husband retired a while ago, but his family and friends’ medical practice is busier than ever. Merrily Gerrish enjoys retirement: playing lots of tennis and researching her family’s history. One of her relatives was captured by cannibals in Namibia (now Indonesia) but made it back to safety! A bunch of her friends—Barbara Ashton Carey P’01, Carol Neitlich Bridges P’00, Pamela McKittrick and Deborah Eliason Rollins—got together last fall in Mystic, CT. After a month traveling in southern England in April, Norma Drab Goldstein, now a grandmother of six, spent the summer sailing with husband Allen along

the western part of Washington state and western Canada throughout Desolation Sound and northern Canada. Although retired, Norma still consults and works, training boards of trustees of Tribal Colleges and Universities across the country. However, she finds time to serve on the board of the Magnolia Historical Society and attend her grandkids’ East Coast weddings and graduations. She looks forward to visiting Conn when she is in Connecticut in May and June 2026. After graduating from Conn, Deborah Hansen Hollenberg did theater design for Boston’s Publick Theatre and then got a job as a medical artist in the radiology department of Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). She did illustrations for books, journals, lecture slides, medical exhibits, anatomical drawings, and airbrush renderings of anatomy or procedures. While working at BWH she met her husband, Norman Hollenberg, and they were married in 1986. Norman was a researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School, specializing in hypertension research. They traveled to over 15 countries when Norm consulted with pharmaceutical companies related to his research. Norman was the mind behind the chocolate study with the Kuna Indians in Panama, which showed that chocolate lowers one’s blood pressure. He was supported for 20 years in his research by Mars Inc.; however, his greatest gift was mentoring his students. In 2015, Norm was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma, and Deborah devoted herself to his care. In the summer of 2019, Deborah’s twin brother was diagnosed with a glioblastoma. Her husband died Jan. 15, 2020; her brother died Feb. 1; and her mother died a few months later (Deborah could only FaceTime her due to COVID). It has taken some time for Deborah to heal from losing the three most important people in her life within a few months. She is now focused on painting, photography, writing a children’s book, launching a lectureship in radiology at BWH, taking a class in Israeli poetry through Rachel Korazim from Tel Aviv, attending seminars at Temple Israel about the Middle East situation, playing with great-nieces and -nephews, and replanting a beautiful backyard garden. Barbara Camp Linville enjoys splitting time between Naples, FL, and Lake Bluff/Lake Forest, IL. One of her daughters is a clarinetist with Naples Philharmonic Orchestra, and the other is a Ph.D. nurse practitioner on the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco, living in Oakland with her nurse practitioner husband and boys ages 6 and 4. Barbara’s husband of 31 years passed away a year ago. She wonders where her old friends Nancy Garden Kaull, Sharon Platner Lincoln and Concetta Vigneri Gretz are and how they’re doing. Last June Ruth Ritter Ladd took an expedition cruise with one of her daughters, Robin Greenberg (but without her husband “because he doesn’t fly and gets seasick”). “It was an amazing experience. The small ship (just 90 passengers!) went from Dublin to Northern Ireland, the Isle of Skye, the Orkney and Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands, and around the eastern, northern and western sides of Iceland.” They went to places inaccessible to most cruise ships and often had to take Zodiacs (once with 10-foot waves) to shore for lack of a dock or pier. Among many other things, they saw millions (literally) of puffins on Grimsey Island, where they walked across the

Arctic Circle. Barbara White Morse P’03 and husband Ted had several great trips: Hawaii (O’ahu, the Big Island and Maui), a trip to Germany and the Dolomites, a week in Paris, and a trip to Southern Italy in October. The last trip was an Overseas Adventure Travel trip; she strongly recommends their excellent hotels, guides and focus on cultural immersion. Her sixth grandchild was born on Aug. 15, 2025, to Ben and Susan, who live in Maine.

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Correspondent: Hester Kinnicutt Jacobs, djacobs@midrivers.com Susan Weiss Moritz and Linda Chobot Chikowski are a rare pair: freshman roommates who have stayed friends through the years. Last August, with husbands Rudy Moritz and Brian Chikowski, they went to Newport, RI; Martha’s Vineyard; and Nantucket. Susan writes, “In other news, we enjoy living in Cornelius, NC, near our daughter and her husband, and our son and his family, who all live in Charlotte, NC. We especially enjoy spending time with our 11- and 8-year-old granddaughters and our grandson, who just turned 1. They are all the smartest, most beautiful, most talented and kindest grandchildren in the world. Except for the grandchildren of anyone else reading this. I set up a beehive last April. I really enjoy my bees. I have not yet worn any protective gear. We seem to have an understanding. The bees are thriving; I have planted all the nectar flowers they could possibly want to nourish them from spring through fall.” Brian Robie writes, “The Class of ’73 held a Zoom social call on Oct. 12. Lynne Crider, our CC alumni rep, told us about current campus activities, including the transition of Crozier Boulevard to a pedestrian-friendly space and progress on the Crozier-Williams renovation. Classmates on the call then provided brief updates on their lives.” Participating were Lynne GriffithAllen, Aries Arditi, Jay Levin, Elaine Manna, Donna Burkholder Potts P’00, Linda Citrano Yohe and Nancy Williams Ward. Pamela Barnett Bakal says, “Curt turned 75 at June’s end but the party was in October because bandmates and invitees are often off-Cape on his actual birthday and folks are always busy with

Laurie Stewart Otten ’72 enjoyed a genealogy trip to Ireland with sisters Sara Stewart Torrey and Ann Stewart Burns.

Barbara White Morse ’72 P’03 with son Ben Morse and new grandson Will Morse

Susan Weiss Moritz ’73 and Linda Chobot Chikowski ’73 took a trip last August with their husbands, Rudy Moritz and Brian Chikowski. They went to Newport, RI; Martha’s Vineyard; and Nantucket on Susan’s son’s yacht.

guests through September. More news: We attended the concert of Emmy Lou Harris and Graham Nash in Tanglewood in July; music is a key part of our lives and connects us to many other folks here.” As for me, Hester Kinnicutt Jacobs, we returned to the U.S. from New Zealand on March 2 after a wonderful trip traveling around the two islands. Spring and summer were quiet. We made a quick trip to New Hampshire for a sibling reunion, which included Valerie Kinnicutt Powell ’70 and her husband, David. I missed the class Zoom call and hope they have more. As I write this, I am sporting an orange cast on my hand, broken in a fall. Since it is my dominant hand, life is quite challenging. 74

Correspondent: Barbara Herbst Tatum, barbara.tatum52@gmail.com Janet Lawler is still writing for kids. Her next book, Who’s Hiding? Under the Sea (Phaidon Press, 2026), is a lift-the-flap toddler’s introduction to ocean animals. Janet’s narrative nonfiction book, Little Capy, is in process at Charlesbridge. Meanwhile, she says her biggest news is her “late arrival at the grandparent party!” Granddaughter Leila (born May 29, 2025) is already providing new story ideas. Janet, husband Jeff, and daughter Cami visit son Andy and family in Newton, MA, as often as possible. Last summer, Janet and a friend visited the art gallery of Susan Powell Rosstad ’75 in Madison, CT, where they enjoyed an interesting illustration demonstration. With the cold weather, Sherry Alpert and husband Jay Foley are spending a third winter in Vero Beach, FL. At home in Canton, MA, they enjoyed trips to the Berkshires and celebrated several 80th birthday parties. Sherry and Jay continue to participate in local town committees and volunteer at the new Paul Revere Heritage Museum. Last fall, they had an amazing trip to Vietnam. Through biweekly Zooms, Sherry stays in touch with Hester Kinnicutt Jacobs ’73 in Montana. Charles Blank-

steen is pleased to announce the May publication of the second book of his trilogy, The Seamstress and the Colonel. The final book in his series is slated for publication in 2026. In the space of just two weeks, Donald Kane spent time with classmates Brian Peniston P’11 in Falls Church, VA; John Harmon in both Santa Fe, NM, and Potomac, MD; Paula Marcus-Platz P’11 in Portland, ME; and Jonathan Gold in Boston, MA. Brian is involved with the conservation of snow leopards in Nepal, John has an art studio, Paula is a practicing therapist, and Jon is a real estate attorney who collects Jaguars. Donald is a retired trial consultant and is now deeply involved in southern Levantine archeology. He runs two lecture series on the ancient western world in the Washington, D.C., area.

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Correspondents: Miriam Josephson Whitehouse, mirwhitehouse@gmail.com; Estella Johnson, estjohnson1@aol.com Elaine Lang Cornett got together with Jane Thompson Reinsch and Timothy Reinsch in southern Maine last summer, and in August she visited with Judy Viadella ’74 and her husband, Tom Bradham, in Mystic, CT. Last summer, Mark Warren gathered with Chuck Bonser, Stephen Cohan ’78 P’24, Stephen Brunetti ’76 P’17, Michael Ridgway and Mango Pizza employee Richard Glanz ’77 at Mystic Pizza, and he attended a get-together in Clinton, CT, with Stephen Cohan ’78 P’24, Richard Glanz ’77, John Kaufman ’77, Stephen Brunetti ’76 P’17, Andrew Krevolin ’77 P’13, Andrew Rawson ’78 and Andrew Chintz ’77. Marjorie “Margie” Rosenbaum Bassman continues to run a full studio of private viola students. Last August she and Mitch thoroughly enjoyed traveling around Italy on a Viking Cruise. 76

Correspondents: Kenneth Abel, 334 West 19th St., Apt. 2-B, New York, NY 10011, kenn616@aol.com; Susan Hazlehurst Milbrath, P.O. Box 3962, Greenwood Village, CO 80155-3962, shmilbrath@gmail.com After practicing urology for 40 years, Tim Cates has retired. “The thing I enjoy most about retirement is not knowing what day it is. I do have episodes of anxiety on Sundays, thinking I have work on Monday. Although urology is the butt of endless jokes, it is rated as the most stressful job in the U.S. (tinyurl.com/6exn533d). I know, hard to believe; even Danny Devito can play one on TV! I have been in Delaware since finishing my medical training.” Tim hopes to attend our 50th reunion. Ina Cushman, 71, died Nov. 16, 2025, at home.

She was recovering from surgery for a complex leg fracture. Ina’s sister, Deborah Cushman, writes, “Ms. Cushman was an award-winning surgical specialties clinician for Atrius Health for nearly 30 years, pioneering wound care management. After giving up clinical practice, Ms. Cushman was a highly sought-after tutor for medical subjects and exam preparation until her death.” The 50th Reunion Committee is already actively at work as we make preparations for the big weekend, scheduled for May 28-31, 2026, the weekend after Memorial Day. We continue to seek volunteers to help with planning in several key areas. If anyone is interested, please contact Luci Chaplin, the College’s director of alumni and family engagement, at (lchaplin@conncoll.edu). Kenneth Kabel P’12 is doing fine in Cincinnati. In retirement, he and Carol continue to feed their wanderlust. In the past year, they visited several countries in West Africa and explored Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Greenland and Iceland. In November, they welcomed their first grandchild, who lives in Chicago. In late October, Ken returned to New London and spent a day on campus. There is now a pedestrian walkway in front of Plant and Branford. It replaced the road that leads to the newly remodeled Cro. He was impressed by Cro’s redesign. It retains some of the same look but has definitely been updated to align with how students live on campus today. Ken looks forward to Reunion and hopes many classmates will return to campus to see it for themselves. Nancy Hershatter produced her 32nd concert for Music at the Ridge, a live acoustic music series one Sunday afternoon a month in Danbury, CT. December’s concert was a benefit for Greater Danbury Unites for Immigrants. Every concert is livestreamed at www.musicattheridge.org. After 46 years of law practice, Richard Allen retired last year. He and wife Maureen have a home in the mountains of North Carolina. They love playing golf, hiking and enjoying the cooler mountain weather there. In the winter, they return to Tallahassee, FL, where Maureen has her law practice. Rick’s two children live in South Florida, and he gets down there every few months to see them and his three grandchildren. Rick sends regards to the Class of ’76 and can’t believe our 50th reunion has arrived so quickly. Nancy Bellantoni and her husband are busy downsizing, leaving their beautiful home of 20 years on a wharf in downtown Boston. The new year will find them living on the beach in the southeastern corner of Sicily. This move has been in the works for many years, and

Hester Kinnicutt Jacobs ’73 and husband David Jacobs and Valerie Kinnicutt Powell ’70 and husband David Powell took in the views of Mount Washington, NH.

L-R: Elaine Lang Cornett ’75, Alison Reinsch, Elaine’s cousin Betty, Timothy Reinsch ’75, Jane Thompson Reinsch ’75 and Joe Reinsch

L-R: Lindsey Miller ’75, Salyon Harris Johnson ’75, Catherine “Cay” Young ’75, Deborah Wright ’75, President Chapdelaine, Linda Payne Martin ’75, Estella Johnson ’75, Timothy Yarboro ’75 and Elizabeth Goldsen Yarboro ’75 at the 50th Reunion Class Dinner during Reunion Weekend.

Elaine Lang Cornett ’75 visited with Judy Viadella ’74 in Mystic, CT.

Sherry Alpert ’74 and husband Jay Foley in Vietnam

gathered to celebrate the wedding of Anna DiGravio ’20 to Mike Doherty on June 14, 2025. L-R: Stephanie Kim ’91, Janet Christofano ’86, Beth Salamone Beshaw ’90, Nancy Mather Twyman ’91, Lexi Downing ’26, Christina Johnson Magardino ’91, Karen Christofano DiGravio ’91 P’20, Vicker DiGravio ’88 P’20, Anna DiGravio ’20, Elizabeth Gluschke ’20, Kellie Quinn ’20, Jack Elsas ’18, Lauren Nashawaty ’20, Meghan Corcoran ’20, Christopher Young ’88, Hannah Falvey ’20, James Carnavalla ’20, Thomas “Spencer” Knight ’88, Brian Walker ’88, Thorn Pozen ’88 P’19, Edward “Ted” Wilgis ’88, Sharis Arnold Pozen ’86 P’19 and Francis Ryan ’88

’23, Bryce Kopp ’16, Isabelle Pieper ’18, Molly Pieper ’14,

Ryan Daly ’14 married Megan Curiel in Vail, CO, on Sept. 20, 2025. In attendance were: Elizabeth Whipple Keneally ’12, Joseph Krevolin ’13, Kelley Noonan ’13, Haley Dumke ’14, Timothy Kast ’14, James Messina ’14, Zachary Gaucher ’14, Mark Finnegan ’14, Joseph Gibson ’14, Benjamin Saliterman ’15, Alexander Giordano ’15 and Alexandra Romagnoli ’15.

The wedding of Nathan Goodman, son of Marian Ahearn ’76, took place in Plymouth, MA, in September 2024 and turned into a mini CC reunion for Marian’s friends and relatives. L-R: Lynn Goodman Zoll, Janet Shannon Farrell ’73, Robin Lipson Fishman ’78, Marian Ahearn ’76, Veevee Alva Scott ’78 and Marylena Simone Worthington ’76 (Editor’s note: This photo appeared in the Fall 2025 issue with the wrong caption.)

Bryce Kopp ’16 and Isabelle Pieper ’18 tied the knot in Southport, CT, on Sept. 20, 2025. They were surrounded by Camel friends and family, including teammates and alums from the Conn sailing team. L-R, back: Andrew Hoffman 83, Ben Meyers ’15, Hugh MacGillivray ’18, Geoff allace ’87, Tim Clark ’13, Charlotte List ’18; front: Ellie Pieper

Camels

On Nov. 1, 2025, Rodney Ortiz ’99 and Mitzchka Basman Ortiz ’99 renewed their 30th dating anniversary vows with 172 bridesmaids, beating Guinness World Records of 168 bridesmaids, at Port ’N’ Starboard at Ocean Beach in New London, CT. They also celebrated daughter Jerika’s sweet 15th birthday with 230 guests.

last January they decided the time was right ... If not now, when? Jonathan Bricklin spent a few days with Jeffrey Mishlove, creator and host of the PBS Thinking Allowed series, at his home in Albuquerque, NM. Their online dialogue for Jeffrey’s New Thinking Allowed podcast is titled “The Illusion of Separation.” Carl Dawson P’19 still enjoys retirement after six years. He keeps busy volunteering as a mentor to a rising ninth grader and serving on several boards of trustees. The best part of last summer was his son’s wedding on his birthday in August. His son is also a Camel, Class of 2019, and Carl got to be the OG Camel with his classmates. Fun times.  Renny Perdue had lunch with Susan Farnsworth in Leonardtown, MD. They discovered a few years ago that they both live in southern Maryland and finally got together for lunch. Renny and husband Michael moved permanently to Piney Point, MD, a few years ago, and love living on the Potomac River. In June, they took a trip to Sorrento, Italy; Blois, France; and Paris. She still volunteers at Annmarie Sculpture Gardens and is getting more immersed in the local community.  Llewellyn “Bos” Powell P’82 lives in Colchester, VT, with his boys Charlie, 26, and Lew, 24. He is “retired, sort of”—in as much as he lives on his own schedule.

Correspondent: Stuart Sadick, stuart. sadick@gmail.com Lawrence “Larry” Davis-Hollander is alive and well, never having gotten much farther than two hours from New London, in northwest Connecticut and the southern Berkshires. “True to my CC roots, plants have been my whole life. I garden for clients and have no intention of quitting any time soon, although I’ve scaled back my workweek to four days—I garden the other three; I just don’t get paid. I have slowed down a bit and they made fertilizer bags a lot heavier, but I really can’t complain. I recently returned from Guanajuato, Mexico, where we celebrated my eldest son’s wedding to a lovely Mexican woman. I’m not sure I’ve ever had that much fun. And they sure know how to celebrate a wedding in Mexico.” Daniel Booth Cohen lives in Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard with his partner, Emily. Together, they operate Seeing with Your Heart, which offers private sessions, classes, workshops and training programs to a global community. Since leaving Conn, Dan has persistently pursued pathways to peace in the heart and in the world. With no retirement in sight, Dan and Emily travel the world, including recent trips to Mexico, South Africa, Germany and Romania, and upcoming trips to Taiwan, Malta and Spain.

Correspondent: Laurie Heiss, laurieheiss@gmail.com; Susan Greenberg Gold, sbggold@gmail.com Our class mourns the loss of Kenneth Gardner, as does the firm Gardner Weiss & Rosenblum, where he was founder, colleague and friend. Ken leaves behind his wife, Jane Kluger Gardner; two children and six grandchildren; and his brother, Peter. Betsy Hamburger-Cohen shared that she and her husband split their time between Palm Beach Gardens, FL, and Mashpee, Cape Cod, MA, since they are both retired. Their two sons are married, and one has four boys, ages 9, 7, and 3-year-old twins. So life is full with family time; commitments to charitable organizations; and playing golf, pickleball, tennis and more. Judith Voorhees Trope says, “Life is good.” About a year ago, she moved to southern Colorado with two horses and a dog. Judy loves the lovely weather and beautiful scenery there. Her five kids are all well, scattered over the U.S. and one teaching English in China. Walter Sive is almost retired; he has wound down his consulting practice in business finance and analytics to just one client (staying at it because it’s a great client). He still loves the outdoor life in the Pacific Northwest, which includes backpacking, skiing, kayaking and more. He and his wife have a home in Seattle and a second place out on the Olympic Peninsula: “We feel quite fortunate.” He also stays active on nonprofit boards. Leigh Semonite Palmer and husband Jim are still in Maine in the same house they’ve owned for 34 years, and they sail on their cruising boat along the coast of Maine during the summer. Leigh is retired, and Jim is cutting back on his law hours; they welcomed their fourth granddaughter in November. They travel to NYC and Houston to see their grandchildren. Leigh is proud of walking 10,000 steps every day for the past three years, stopping only to nurse a case of pneumonia in March, which she got from her 2-year-old granddaughter! Susan Greenberg Gold visited the Portuguese Camino.

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Correspondent: Vicki Chesler, vachesler@ gmail.com Camels Isaac “Chip” Clothier P’10, Katie Simone ’10, Marcia McLean and Christie Clothier ’10 connected in the wild at the U.S. Open.

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Correspondents: Connie Gemmer, chgemmer58@gmail.com; Lois Mendez Catlin, fabulois824@gmail.com The History Press of Arcadia Publishing has just released Lost New London by William “Bill” Morse. Bill’s book covers the Main Street neighborhoods of New London, erased in the ’60s by redevelopment. Over 2,000 people were forcefully removed, and over 500 buildings were demolished. You can find more info at www.lostnewlondon.com.

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Grace “Gay” Sweet Bitter writes, “Hi, classmates. I wanted to let you know that we have a class Facebook page. If you’d like to join us there, just look for ‘Connecticut College Class of 1982.’”

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Correspondent: Claudia Gould Tielking, claudiatielking10@gmail.com Kenneth Lankin, a physician and medical director for Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, recently joined the faculty at Jefferson College of Population Health, where he teaches graduate students in the Master of Public Health program. Inspired by memories of Mr. Burlingame, Ken has been learning Italian and tries to catch an occasional opera.

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In our previous issue, an image of Byron White was included that had been submitted by another alumnus without his review or approval. The photo had been altered in a humorous spirit, but without his consent. We apologize for this oversight. The image has been removed from the flip book, and we remain committed to ensuring that all future submissions meet the standards of respect and consideration that our class community expects. Natalie Mello is truly enjoying retirement. After 35+ years in higher education, she is thrilled to have the time to commit to community service. She currently serves as president of the board of trustees for the Rotch-Jones-Duff

Judith Voorhees Trope ’78 and her family in Colorado

Steven Certilman ’78 with his fifth gandchild, Bianca Jade

Laurie Heiss ’78 with her son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter Gray

Natalie Mello ’84 in the town hall of Fairhaven, MA, after winning her hotly contested election

Mark Warren ’75 attended a get-together in Clinton, CT, with Stephen Cohan ’78 P’24, Richard Glanz ’77, John Kaufman ’77, Stephen Brunetti ’76 P’17, Andrew Krevolin ’77 P’13, Andrew Rawson ’78 and Andrew Chintz ’77.

Betsy Hamburger-Cohen ’78 and her husband and grandsons, including twins

Susan Greenberg Gold ’78 on her pilgrimage along the Camino Portuguese in September 2025

Anna “Kasia” Wandycz ’87, Lisey Good ’87, Diana Zimmerman Mahaney ’87 and Caroline Samsen Mueller ’87 enjoyed a vacation together last summer, beginning in Obidos, Portugal.

House and Garden Museum in New Bedford, MA, while also serving on the board of governors for the Unitarian Universalist Society of Fairhaven, MA, and as an active member of the Buzzards Bay Garden Club. Most recently, she was elected to serve on the Town of Fairhaven’s select board. When not in meetings, she can be found either sailing on Buzzards Bay, playing pickleball or spending time with her granddaughters (she and husband David have six!). “Who knew this age could be so much fun?”

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Correspondent: Jenifer Kahn Bakkala, 51 Wesson Terrace, Northborough, MA 01532, jkbblue@gmail.com, 508-5238930 After 30 years in Chicago, Whitney Smith Waters packed up and moved back to her native Southern California, where her daughter now resides. Whitney reports that “it’s great being near her and my dad, sisters, and West Coast friends again!” Whitney continues in her role as design director for a large Chicago nonprofit. She’s not quite ready for retirement but loves the weather in her beach community. Anna “Kasia” Wandycz, Lisey Good, Diana Zimmerman Mahaney and Caroline Samsen Mueller enjoyed a vacation together last summer, beginning in Obidos, Portugal. Tracy Thomson Teare P’19, Alison Edwards Curwen ’88, Christopher “Chip” Harris, Edward Lovejoy P’24, Donna Dobryn, Matthew Teare, Bob Behrens and Lisa Menegon Lovejoy P’24 gathered for a mini-reunion in Yarmouth, ME, last July.

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Melvin “Sam” Luebke was born Sept. 13, 1966, and passed away April 23, 2025. He is survived by his loving wife, Yasemin, and his most beloved son, Erik, who will continue to grieve his loss, as we all do. Sam was a kind, compassionate, devoted soul. The Abbey House crowd was blessed to be in his presence. Please take a moment to grieve his loss.

Tracy Thomson Teare ’87 P’19, Alison Edwards Curwen ’88, Christopher “Chip” Harris, ’87, Katie Harris, Edward Lovejoy ’87 P’24, Donna Dobryn ’87, Matthew Teare ’87, Meghan Behrens, Bob Behrens ’87, Lisa Menegon Lovejoy ’87 P’24 and Austin Curwen gathered for a mini-reunion in Yarmouth, ME, last July.

89Correspondent: Deb Dorman Hay, camel89news@gmail.com Alexandra “Alix” Davis Cummin recently traveled to Spain, “having last been there the summer before we entered Conn!” She had a wonderful trip exploring the food and wine of northern Spain, meeting chefs, visiting vineyards and “leaving no carb behind.” She hiked a portion of the Camino de Santiago—now ready to practice for the full hike! Upon her return it was college application season, and Alix continued to work with SquashSmarts, expanding opportunities for students in the Philadelphia school district. Gusty-Lee Boulware and Ann McGuire Wortman enjoyed a fantastic girls’ weekend at Lake Chelan in Washington state, where they packed their days with pickleball, kayaking and visits to local vineyards. They listened to plenty of ’80s music and reminisced (with lots of laughs) about CC days—proof that great friendships, like great music, only get better with time.

Leaving no carb behind.

— ALEXANDRA “ALIX” DAVIS CUMMIN

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Correspondent: Kristin Lofblad Sullivan, kls.sullivan@gmail.com Greetings from retirement! Some may claim I have not been “using my time wisely” so far, but to that I say, if there is a better use of my time than kissing my dog and scrolling through social media all day, please tell me. (No, seriously. Send ideas.) I had a chance to connect with Greer Kessel Hendriks recently via email. She asked how her classmates are doing. It was awkward to have to make up stories about those folks I have not heard from lately. Send me your update so

that I can tell her the truth the next time she asks! After years leading the talent acquisition function at Northrop Grumman, Peter Brooks moved over to GDIT (the global IT services provider of General Dynamics). “I hope to run out my career here, then join others in retirement!” Speaking of joining others, last spring, while scuba diving in Roatán, Honduras, Peter spent time with Nicole Casanova ’91, who flew out from mainland Honduras for a “wonderful reunion.” Yet another example of a lifelong friendship that began at Conn. On Oct. 24, 2025, Brian Field’s P’26 work for symphony and soprano “Everything Hurts” was premiered by the Nashville Symphony and Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. The text is based on the poem “Hymn for the Hurting,” by Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, penned in the aftermath of the 2022 Uvalde, TX, school shooting. Notably, this is the first time Gorman has allowed her poetry to be set to music. All royalties are being donated to the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety. (Wow, and wow!) After 34 years in the “glorious blue brightness” of San Francisco, Daniel Johnson switched coasts to the “deep red sunsets” of Florida’s Tampa Bay area. He welcomes Conn friends and connections to reach out. Speaking of fellow Camels, Dan recently reconnected with a slew of Abbey House folks (such as Jedidiah Alpert ’86, Haideen Anderson ’87, Peter Bolster ’88, Jonathon Davis ’88, Matt Hockenos ’88, Scott Jefferson ’90, Caroline Ledeboer ’89, Jennifer Leimgruber ’90, Harold Olsen ’87, Reed Thompson ’88, William Winstead ’88 and several others). Though the circumstances were sad (folks joined a Zoom memorial for Melvin “Sam” Luebke ’88, who sadly passed away suddenly this year), the Camel reconnections were anything but. In fact, Dan later attended the No Kings demonstration with Haideen. As Dan notes, the connections may be a bit rusty, but Conn folks, “especially Abbey folks,” have substance that endures. Matthew Santen lives in Charleston, WV, and pastors River Ridge Church. Three of his kids have graduated from college, and a fourth is still in college. He also shared that he “entered the world of foster care in 2020. We now have children numbers 14 and 15 ... the cutest 6- and 8-year-old brothers on the planet.” Thank you for being the change we need to see in the world, Matt!

Martha Witt and her mother, Mary Ann Witt, recently co-translated La Madre, a novel by Grazia Deledda. Although Deledda received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926, she remains relatively unknown outside Italy. The Witt duo hopes to help change that with this translation of what is widely considered Deledda’s finest work. Bel lavoro, Martha!

Correspondent: Michael Carson, mike. carson@marriott.com Elizabeth “Beth” Fiteni lives in Malta and works for Friends of the Earth Malta on issues of zero waste. She published a book, The Green Wardrobe Guide, in 2018. Jacque Touzet is the assistant parish attorney for the Parish of Plaquemines

Eternal activists Melvin “Sam” Luebke ’88 and Matthew Hockenos ’88 shared their passion for humanitarian issues during a summer protest in Washington D.C. Sam, who passed away in April, had a lifelong love of nature and the great outdoors.

Peter Brooks ’90 spent time with Nicole Casanova ’91, who flw from mainland Honduras for a wonderful reunion. Daniel Johnson ’90 attended the No Kings demonstration with Haideen Anderson ’87.

Martha Witt ’90 and her mother, Mary Ann Witt, co-translated La Madre (The Mother), a novel by Grazia Deledda.

(right outside of New Orleans). He is married to Mary Touzet, and they have two daughters: one a junior in high school and one in eighth grade. “Of note for our class is that we buried a time capsule in the Arbo in the drunken hours before graduation. We were supposed to come back five years later and dig it up. Time got away. We got the job done last summer, and David Howes and Matt Hopkins now have the contents. The Arbo has changed a bit due to a right-of-way that was dug to run power lines, so we got turned around. I grew tired of being bitten by mosquitoes and digging in all the wrong places, so I went straight to 2025 and googled ‘metal detector services,’ and a bright young military man, who has contracts at the facilities lining the Thames River, showed up. He was tenacious, and he did not give up until the metal ammo can was located and dug up. I handed him cash, and we all had a bunch of laughs while going through the contents. I smoked the Cuban cigar that I had put in there, and it was perfectly preserved. Contact Dave or Hoppy if you want ad-

Young Alumni: Why We Give

Young Alumni: Why We Give

What is the most significant connection you made at Conn?

What is the most significant connection you made at Conn?

ditional details.” Peter Festersen P’27 caught up with Andrew Gibian and Theo Yedinsky on Fire Island, NY, and confirms the abovementioned 30year time capsule was unearthed in the Arboretum by Dave Howes, Matt Hopkins, Jacque Touzet and Michael Gaffny. Pete is the president of the city council and vice president of public affairs at CHI Health in Omaha, NE, and with wife Paige has two college-aged daughters (Tufts ’25 and CC ’27). Michelle Moon and husband Steve have returned to her ancestral homelands in central New Jersey after two decades of museum work across New England. In 2019, she launched her business, Saltworks Interpretive Consulting, and now works with museums and historic sites nationwide on telling stronger stories. She has reconnected with fellow Camel Megan Delaney ’94, and she recently attended the wedding of Jesse Edwards ’15. Sonia Schoenholtz Cawley lives in Tarrytown, NY, with husband Chris and son Magnus, a junior in high school. Her other son, Lang, is a sophomore at Indiana University Bloomington. She wants to

Each other! Our relationship started when we met as neighbors in the Winchester Houses. Last July, we decided to make it official, right where it started. We were married in the Caroline Black Garden, surrounded by friends and family.

Each other! Our relationship started when we met as neighbors in the Winchester Houses. Last July, we decided to make it official, right where it started. We were married in the Caroline Black Garden, surrounded by friends and family.

How did your education prepare you for the kind of work you are doing now?

How did your education prepare you for the kind of work you are doing now?

Julie: Connecticut College prepared me for the “real world” in more ways than I ever anticipated. I was challenged to think critically, research multiple perspectives, sharpen my public speaking skills and look at everything from a holistic view—all of which I bring to work everyday as director of corporate and community partnerships for Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, a large arts and culture nonprofit in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Julie: Connecticut College prepared me for the “real world” in more ways than I ever anticipated. I was challenged to think critically, research multiple perspectives, sharpen my public speaking skills and look at everything from a holistic view—all of which I bring to work everyday as director of corporate and community partnerships for Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, a large arts and culture nonprofit in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Stephan: My academics in the sciences and experience on the Men’s Water Polo team shaped the person I am today.

Stephan: My academics in the sciences and experience on the Men’s Water Polo team shaped the person I am today.

pull together a few different Camels from ’89, ’90 and ’93 for a happy hour in Westchester County; reach out to her if you’re interested. Catherine Noujaim writes: “Dear Conn friends, I wanted to share that I’m battling a rare, incurable blood cancer. I’m still in Connecticut, so please reach out. I’d love to hear from you. Also looking for any pics of me from college. I have a CaringBridge that I don’t update often enough … dying slowly is a boring business!” As for me, Mike Carson: My husband, Sean, and I moved our family (four sons!) to Scituate, MA, in December 2024 and love our new town. We have had an adventurous year exploring the Caribbean on our first cruise, spending time vacationing on Cape Cod and in Florida, and visiting family in Seattle for Thanksgiving. It has been a busy year for sure! Our move has been a reconnection with a few classmates. Elizabeth Hodges Mercurio and I met for lunch, after only eight short years of living 10 miles from each other. And Randall “Randy” Scott and wife Jess invited Sean and me to partake in one incredible Halloween party—where we failed to get a Conn picture, of course. We now live about two miles from each other, and our kids are a year apart in school. It has been great to reconnect! Alysa Freeman and her family have lived in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii for nine years. Alysa still happily practices law and also joyfully teaches yoga. Andrew Gibian is doing well and celebrated both his kids graduating from college last year. When he’s not at the rink coaching his U12 travel hockey team, he’s in the forest with his dog. “Life is good.” Benjamin Lodmell has been living simply in Lisbon, Portugal, since 2014. He has been happily married for 25 years with five great kids and is a partner in a Swiss asset management firm.

As regional manager at PowerStrength, an athlete and adult personal training center, I apply the skills I learned from my academics and team to my everyday role.

As regional manager at PowerStrength, an athlete and adult personal training center, I apply the skills I learned from my academics and team to my everyday role.

What inspired you to support Conn, and what keeps you motivated to continue giving?

What inspired you to support Conn, and what keeps you motivated to continue giving?

Connecticut College is in our top priorities because of how much we gained from it. We want future students to be able to have a similar experience. We know every dollar we give makes the College stronger and every area the annual fund supports is important. As we continue to give, and increase our giving, we want to support the College where they deem it is needed most.

Connecticut College is in our top priorities because of how much we gained from it. We want future students to be able to have a similar experience. We know every dollar we give makes the College stronger and every area the annual fund supports is important. As we continue to give, and increase our giving, we want to support the College where they deem it is needed most.

What would you say to younger donors like yourself who might be on the fence about supporting Conn?

What would you say to younger donors like yourself who might be on the fence about supporting Conn?

There is a misconception about philanthropy that donations should be large amounts from a few donors. Instead, I wish it were better understood that any and all donation amounts count toward the greater good of the organization’s mission. Philanthropy builds community, purpose and the future. Find an amount that feels right to you—and give.

There is a misconception about philanthropy that donations should be large amounts from a few donors. Instead, I wish it were better understood that any and all donation amounts count toward the greater good of the organization’s mission. Philanthropy builds community, purpose and the future. Find an amount that feels right to you—and give.

To make your gift today, use the QR code. ►

To make

JULIE LESNIAK ’17 AND STEPHAN CRESS ’18

Stephan Cress & Julie Lesniak

Peter Festersen ’93 P’27 caught up with Andrew Gibian ’93 and Theo Yedinsky ’93 on Fire Island, NY.

Jacque Touzet ’93 holds up a picture from the time capsule buried in the Arboretum shortly before Commencement 1993.

Andrew Komack ’93, Matt Hopkins ’93, David Howes ’93 and Michael Gaffny ’93 on campus in June 2024 when they joined Jacque Touzet ’93 to unearth a time capsule buried in the Arboretum shortly before their 1993 graduation.

JULIE LESNIAK ’17 AND STEPHAN CRESS ’18

Stephan Cress & Julie Lesniak

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Clare O’Dea, Adam Lore, Jerey Stern, F. Patrick Carolan and Jesse Ehnert got together in New York City for an informal reunion in July.

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together this Nov. 9. Mitzchka is a senior executive trilingual CPA attorney controller and general counsel with seven degrees, and she defends disabled clients and children part-time. Rodney has been working for CIGNA as a senior underwriting director for 26 years—his first job after college—and has worked his way to the top, now also a senior executive. Zoe Klein Henriquez joined the New York City nonprofit Read Ahead as its executive director in March 2025. She’s been on the lookout for CC alums in NYC corporations who may already be mentors for the org. Kaufman Dolowich, a leading national law firm, announced in November 2025 that Jody Cappello has joined the firm as a partner, expanding the firm’s professional liability practice into Connecticut. A Connecticut native, Cappello brings more than two decades of experience to the New Haven office, representing clients in a wide range of professional liability matters. In his practice, Cappello routinely defends attorneys in legal malpractice claims and grievance proceedings and also represents accountants, real estate professionals, insurance brokers, property managers and other professionals in state and federal courts and before administrative agencies.

00Correspondent: Katherine Stephenson, kste78@hotmail.com Brock Bevan recently opened Brock Immigration, a practice limited to immigration matters. He previously worked as an appeals officer for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He represents clients anywhere in the U.S. or the world.

Letter from the CCAB President to Alumni

Jennifer Lapan Mann ’94

Our already-beautiful campus is getting a modernizing glow-up. By now, you’ve glimpsed the completed updates to Cro Blvd., Harris, the East Lot, and multiple areas inside Cro itself. You may have also caught the news about completed bathroom privacy updates in Windham, Harkness, JA and Freeman, and the air conditioning repairs to Shain Library, Blaustein, and New London Hall. There are many more CONNstruction projects underway, and I encourage you to check out the facilities team’s newsletters for even more updates.

Camels enjoyed a Conn Friendsgiving at the home of Josh Schawbel ’96 with Jessica Haynes McDaniel, Amy Braddock-Friedman ’96, Carney Maley, Sara Ewing and Neil Schiavo ’96. Sarah Schoellkopf celebrated the awards launch of her documentary Norita with executive producer Jane Fonda at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles on Oct. 27, 2025. Ms. Fonda even read a piece by Dr. Schoellkopf based on Sarah’s work with the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (which was her CISLA internship).

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On Nov. 1, 2025, Rodney Ortiz and Mitzchka Basman Ortiz renewed their 30th dating anniversary vows with 172 bridesmaids, beating Guinness World Records of 168 bridesmaids and 34 in Connecticut, at Port ’N’ Starboard at Ocean Beach in New London, CT. They also celebrated daughter Jerika’s sweet 15th birthday with 230 guests. Rodney and Mitzchka met at Conn during freshman year in 1995 and have been together since they were 18 years old—30 years

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Edita Zulic writes, “We’ve traded Berlin for the Mediterranean light of Valencia! Our 5-yearold is in year one at a British international school. I consult on digital transformation and sustainable development goals, guide professionals through career and international moves, and follow a passion for art advisory and curating art experiences.” Claudia Bachmann Bouchard P’29 was published in the Knowles Teacher Initiative’s Kaleidoscope

Your alumni board likewise spent the last year “under CONNstruction.” For the past 12 months, we have prioritized building our internal capacity to serve you. We adopted a focused, strategic framework to ensure that every bit of our work ladders up to engaging ALL alumni. During the summer months, we scheduled events and their associated messaging timelines, and conducted outreach to alumni who then served as event hosts this fall and winter. Whether it’s onboarding our newest members or building out this year’s plans, we’re ensuring a strong foundation for our current/future alumni board work. Please accept our invitations for online and in-person events and help shape programming for alumni of all ages. Our vibrant off-campus events gather 400-500 per year, and there were nine events in December alone!

And while our campus is enjoying many new changes, you should also know that we have now reached the point where there are fewer students graduating from high school and applying to colleges. This is thanks to the reduced birth rate (“demographic cliff”) catalyzed by the 2008 financial crisis. Thus, private colleges are entering a phase of adjustment to a new enrollment landscape with a lot of unknowns. So if you haven’t already made your CC Fund gift this year, please join me in doing so. It’s imperative that alumni demonstrate confidence in the College’s longevity, fund the programs and clubs beloved by alumni and students, support financial aid for the most incredible future alumni, and invest to keep our treasured campus thriving. Your gift helps provide the solid foundation on which our College’s brand, reputation and success are built. And if you’ve already given this year, please let me express my sincere thanks.

Let’s keep the conversation going! Drop me a line at alumniboard@conncoll.edu, and be sure to follow news at @conncollalumni on Facebook and Instagram as well as the main @conncollege accounts everywhere.

Camels enjoyed a Conn Friendsgiving at the home of Josh Schawbel ’96 with Jessica Haynes McDaniel ’97, Amy Braddock- Friedman ’96, Carney Maley ’97, Sara Ewing ’97 and Neil Schiavo ’96.

L-R: Adam Lore ’95, Patrick Carolan ’95 (foreground), Jeffey Stern ’95, Clare O’Dea ’95 and Jesse Ehnert ’95

Sarah Schoellkopf ’97 celebrated the awards launch of her documentary, Norita, with executive producer Jane Fonda at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles on Oct 27, 2025.

Andrew Kerner ’02 and Alison Roth-Kerner ’01 with sons Max and Ben

Edita Zulic ’02 and husband Daniel Nuñez celebrated their son Carlos’s 5th birthday.

Friends ‘For Life’

Yvonne Thomas ’87 didn’t hesitate when her former roommate needed a kidney.

BY TIM STEVENS ’03

Lots of people make friends for life in college. But “for life” took on a whole new meaning for former roommates and lifelong friends Michaele Wylde ’87 and Yvonne (Paine) Thomas ’87 in 2024, when Thomas donated her kidney to Wylde after Wylde’s polycystic kidney disease began rapidly progressing. And while it was undoubtedly a tremendously altruistic act, the two consider it just another chapter in a wonderful story of friendship stretching back to their first days at Conn.

“We were assigned together as roommates in 1983 in Larrabee,” Wylde recalls. “We had this epic room on the top floor, with a balcony we weren’t supposed to use, but of course did anyway. It was like love at first sight for us. It’s one of those matches Connecticut College just got exactly right.”

Thomas adds, “Mikey’s from Massachusetts and I’m from New Orleans, so I was a total fish out of water at Conn. But she took me under her wing, she was so kind. I was definitely struggling at first, but she helped me navigate the cultural differences.”

“When my oldest son, Alex, was diagnosed, all the rest of us got scanned,” says Wylde. “It turned out I was the carrier. But I still felt fine. 42, 43, everything felt good. Then in my late 50s, I was exhausted all the time. I was thinking, ‘Oh god, is this what 58 feels like?’ But no, it was my Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR). It measures how effectively your kidneys are filtering your blood, and it started to go way down, below 20. So they put me on the donor list and told me that a live donor was best.”

Thomas remembers well the day Wylde told her. “I know this sounds like I’m making this up, but I told her, ‘Mikey, I’m sure my kidneys are great. You can have one of mine.’”

I had a great roommate even before the kidney thing ... But thank goodness for Conn putting us together more than 40 years ago.

— MICHAELE WYLDE ’8 7

The two wound their way through four years on campus, each finding their places. Wylde unexpectedly fell into and in love with Conn’s Dance Department. Thomas, meanwhile, enjoyed studying studio art under the likes of Maureen McCabe and Barkley Hendricks.

While their lives after graduation took them in different physical directions, their connection remained solid. When Wylde’s father died only months after graduation, Yvonne’s stepfather, a funeral director, helped organize his memorial service. “I know it sounds so grim, but it was also really quite beautiful,” Wylde says.

As they entered their 40s, Wylde learned for the first time that she had a congenital kidney defect.

Amazingly, Thomas was indeed a match for Wylde. When the time came, Thomas flew out to stay in Wylde’s house in Brooklyn, New York.

“It’s really strange to admit, but we had fun,” acknowledges Wylde. “Our husbands get along well and my kids already adore Yvonne.”

Thomas says the first few days of recovery were tough, but “a few months later, it was like nothing ever happened for me. My superpower, I think, is forgetting the bad stuff.”

Wylde jokes that recovery was a bit more intense for her.

“My immunosuppressants have some wonky side effects. But it’s over 18 months later, and I have so much more energy now. It’s honky, but I feel like I have this whole new chance.”

Thomas says she’s happy she was able to help the friend who helped shape her all those years ago.

“Meeting her, being friends with her … It’s pretty critical for how I turned out,” she says.

Wylde agrees. “I had a great roommate even before the kidney thing,” she says. “But thank goodness for Conn putting us together more than 40 years ago.”

Top: Yvonne Thomas ’87 (left) and Michaele Wylde ’87; Bottom left: Wylde and Thomas in the hospital; Bottom right: Thomas and Wylde at Conn in the 1980s.

journal: “Teaching Multilingual Learners.” The article addresses how to best serve multilingual students in the classroom. Find it at tinyurl.com/ cv9u7p6y.

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Lara Mizrack Mackenzie is pleased to announce her marriage to Charles Rudd Mackenzie. The ceremony was performed at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, followed by a reception at the University Club. The couple honeymooned in Grand Cayman.

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Correspondent: Nora Mirick Guerrera, noramguerrera@gmail.com Eric Schluessel is joining the University of Oxford’s Faculty of History as an associate professor of Chinese and East Asian History and a tutorial fellow at Keble College. In March

Births

Camels connected in the wild at the U.S. Open. L-R: Isaac “Chip” Clothier ’79 P’10, Katie Simone ’10, Marcia McLean ’79 and Christie Clothier ’10

2025, friends Josh Duclos and Chelsea Hanson visited Ukraine on a humanitarian mission. Josh taught a seminar on political philosophy to Ukrainian college students, and Chelsea provided humanitarian aid to displaced populations. They both volunteered at the Frontline Kitchen. Josh currently teaches at Saint Paul’s School in New Hampshire, and Chelsea is an immigration attorney in Washington, D.C. Chelsea also joined Seth Tinkham and met up with “Dean A” (Theresa Ammirati P’91 ’94) in Washington, D.C., over Thanksgiving.

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Correspondent: Whitney Longworth, whitney.longworth@gmail.com Megan McCarthy Duren and Larry Duren welcomed their second daughter, Reese, on July 25, 2025, in Washington, D.C. She joins big sister Lucy and the most patient, loving dogs, Daisy and Miles, to complete the family!

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Correspondent: Grace Astrove, gca1223@ gmail.com William Goldstein and Rachael Hurwitz ’11 welcomed their second child, Ezra John Hurwitz Goldstein, on Jan. 14, 2025, joining their son, Henry, and bor-

Matthew Wishnoff 13 went on a backcountry hut-to-hut ski touring trip in Switzerland last April.

der collie, Lucy. Additionally, Will’s company, PLANELOGIX, won the largest deal in their space, beating venture capitalist–backed companies and a multibillion-dollar company owned by a large private equity firm over a lengthy and challenging 10-month due diligence and testing period. The client they landed is Civil Air Patrol, which maintains the largest piston-powered aircraft fleet in the world.

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Matthew Wishno completed his residency in general surgery at Virginia Commonwealth University in June. His next chapter began in August: a two-year surgical critical care fellowship, also at VCU.

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Ryan Daly married Megan Curiel in Vail, CO, on Sept. 10, 2025. Ryan and Megan live in Houston, TX, where Ryan practices pediatric emergency medicine at Texas Children’s Hospital. In attendance were Elizabeth Whipple Keneally ’12, Joseph Krevolin ’13, Kelley Noonan ’13, Haley Dumke, Timothy Kast, James Messina, Zachary Gaucher, Mark Finnegan, Joseph Gibson, Benjamin Saliterman ’15, Alexander Giordano ’15 and Alexandra Romagnoli ’15.

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Molly Shea-Hines writes, “After 10 wonderful years in the hustle and bustle of New York City, I have relocated with my husband back home to Massachusetts!”

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Bryce Kopp ’16 and Isabelle Pieper tied the knot in Southport, CT, on Sept. 20, 2025. They were surrounded by Camel friends and family, including teammates and alums from the Conn sailing team.

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Camels gathered to celebrate the wedding of Anna DiGravio to Mike Doherty on June 14, 2025. Those in attendance were Stephanie Kim ’91, Janet Christofano ’86, Beth Salamone Beshaw ’90, Nancy Mather Twyman ’91, Lexi Downing ’26, Christina Johnson Magardino ’91, Karen Christofano DiGravio ’91 P’20, Vicker DiGravio ’88 P’20, Elizabeth Gluschke, Kellie Quinn, Jack Elsas ’18, Lauren Nashawaty, Meghan Corcoran, Christopher Young ’88, Hannah Falvey, James Carnavalla, Thomas “Spencer” Knight ’88, Brian Walker ’88, Thorn Pozen ’88 P’19, Edward “Ted” Wilgis ’88, Sharis Arnold Pozen ’86 P’19 and Francis Ryan ’88.

Seth Tinkham ’04 and Chelsea Hanson ’04 met up with “Dean A” (Theresa Ammirati P’91 ’94) in Washington, D.C., over Thanksgiving.

Megan McCarthy Duren ’07 with husband Larry Duren and daughters Lucy and Reese at Dewey Beach

William Goldstein ’10 and Rachael Hurwitz ’11 welcomed their second child, Ezra John Hurwitz Goldstein, on Jan. 14, 2025. Ezra joins big brother Henry and border collie Lucy.

In Memoriam

1940s

Lorraine Lincoln Lieberman ’46 died September 12, 2025

Margaret Hulst Jenkins ’47 died November 25, 2025

Maureen Murphy Pace ’49 died September 14, 2025

1950s

Birdie Glanzer Brundage ’51 died September 3, 2025

Margery Davison Crawford ’51 died June 26, 2024

Anne Wiebenson Hammond ’51 died January 7, 2025

Jane Swett Lonsdale ’51 died October 18, 2025

Anita Tholfsen Mullen ’51 died November 2, 2025

Barbara Seelbach VanCuren ’51 P’73 died October 5, 2025

Mary Seaman Clowney ’52 P’78 died July 14, 2025

Barbara Biagi Graham ’52 died August 13, 2025

Constance Duane Donahue ’53 died October 22, 2025

Frederica Schneider Douglas ’53 died November 21, 2025

Susan Manley Price ’53 died September 13, 2024

Doris Haller Skutch ’53 died September 7, 2025

Georgia Geisel Littlefield ’55 P’80 died September 8, 2025

Nan Chisholm Rosenblatt ’55 died September 29, 2025

Judith Dotson Kline ’56 died November 15, 2025

Rosemarie Barrett Dircks ’57 died August 5, 2025

Judith Coghlin El-Shakhs ’57 died October 6, 2025

Sandra Weldon Johnson ’57 died November 15, 2025

Agnes Fulper ’58 died November 11, 2025

Anne Lamborn Baker ’59 P’92 GP’27 died March 7, 2025

Ann Collver Elliott ’59 died August 31, 2025

Torrey Gamage Fenton ’59 P’85’87 died October 10, 2025

1960s

Elizabeth Donovan Harding ’60 P’95 died November 28, 2025

Laura Pritchard Kezer ’60 died July 28, 2025

Victoria Golz MacLean ’60 died November 26, 2025

Dorothy Hearn Pratt ’61 died July 9, 2020

Sally Scott Aldrich-Molwitz ’62 died November 15, 2025

Lesley Wanshel Stein ’62 died June 1, 2023

Deaths as reported to CC between 8/6/2025 and 12/9/2025

Elaine H. Cohen Gale ’63 died March 9, 2024

Cynthia Nichols Travers ’63 died August 19, 2025

Paula Shleffr Garnica ’64 died September 2, 2025

Janet Wallans ’64 died August 16, 2025

Genevieve Bartlett Fricks ’65 died October 20, 2025

K. Darra Newhouse ’65 died June 27, 2025

Carol Jaffineit ’65 died May 24, 2025

Carolyn Dow ’66 died October 19, 2025

1970s

Amelia Marks ’70 died November 15, 2025

Jane Carnaghan ’76 died September 21, 2025

Ina Cushman ’76 died November 16, 2025

Isabel Spear Hefner ’77 died June 21, 2023

William Bingham ’78 died August 10, 2025

Kenneth Gardner ’78 died September 17, 2025

Sarah Cravihno-Beaudin ’79 died July 8, 2025

Jeanne Cowan Walker ’79 P’85 GP’16 died May 8, 2025

1980s

Thomas Proulx ’82 died August 3, 2025

Marc Gearin ’85 died September 8, 2025

Christine Cooper ’87 died October 16, 2025

Melvin Luebke ’88 died April 23, 2025

1990s

Catherine Condit ’91 died June 29, 2023

Christopher Simo ’93 died September 2, 2025

Joyce Lupica Pearson ’99 died August 20, 2025

Faculty & Sta

Marcia H. Gardiner P’80, former dean of financial aid, died October 16, 2025

Margaret Watson ’61, former dean of students, died October 24, 2025

Strike a Pose

Men’s Basketball players (from top) Alden Doran ’28, Edward Harrison ’28, PJ Johnson Jr. ’28 and Bo Moody ’28 have fun during Media Day for winter sports teams.

ccmagazine.conncoll.edu

Students frolic in the snow behind the Athletic Center during a winter storm in January.