Non Satis Scire Winter 2016

THE EMPATHY ISSUE

| WINTER 2016

Non Satis Scire THE HAMPSHIRE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

WHAT DOES

EMPATHY LOOK LIKE?

Jeff Sharlet 90F | Journalist

YOU LOOK FOR THESE MESSY MOMENTS THAT REVEAL THE WORKINGS OF POWER.

I came to embrace it as a model of empathy for the devil.

I WANT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO HATE. I WANT TO CROSS OVER UNTIL FOR A MOMENT IT MAKES SENSE TO ME AND I CAN INHABIT THAT WORLD. THEN I CAN CROSS BACK AND WRITE ABOUT IT.

Jeff Sharlet is the author of Sweet Heaven When I Die and The Family, and other bestsellers. He won the 2015 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his GQ story “Inside the Iron Closet,” what it’s like to be gay in Putin’s Russia. He and photographer Tanja Hollander 90F (who took the photo of Jeff, left) have teamed up since teaching at Hampshire’s Creative Media Institute last year.

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Aracelis Girmay | Poet

HAVE YOU SEEN THOSE ILLUSTRATIONS OF ANCESTRY? TWO BIOLOGICAL PARENTS, FOUR GRANDPARENTS ...

The exponential craziness of how many people we’ve biologically descended from.

IT BLOWS MY MIND. THERE ARE PIECES OF US EVERYWHERE. YET LIMITS, GREAT LIMITS TO MY COMPREHENSION OF MY EXPERIENCES AND THE EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS.

Aracelis Girmay, assistant professor of poetry, has received fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the Cave Canem Foundation, the Watson Foundation, and others.

Her first book of poems, Teeth, was published in 2007. Her second, Kingdom Animalia, was a 2011 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

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THE EMPATHY ISSUE

What Does Empathy Look Like?

The question drives this issue of Non Satis Scire for two reasons. Empathy is all over the news these days, though we won’t attempt to answer why that is, and it’s also on our minds here on campus. In a way, it’s always been on our minds at Hampshire. Empathy was written into the making of the College, even if the word itself wasn’t written into the founding text of that name. And it’s right up front, in the preface: “The College is committed to a view of liberal education as a vehicle for the realization of self in society.

To this end, it will try to help each student gain a greater grasp of the range and nature of the human condition, past, present, and possible future.”

As we’ve discussed in these pages before, Hampshire has been studying the traits of

students who thrive here and finding that, among their other qualities, these young people exhibit high levels of empathy. The researchers say they don’t yet know what that means—empathy is a big word and the studies began just last year—but the work progresses. For our small part, in this issue we checked in on some alums, students, and faculty, looking for insights on empathy as expressed through their lives and creative pursuits. If these add dimension to Hampshire’s investigations, great. If they shed light on why empathy is back in the news, all the better. Almost 50 years after our founding, we’re still concerned with self in society, the range and nature of the human condition.

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Empathy Through A Personal Lens From Dula Amarasiriwardena, Keliy Anderson-Staley 96F, Yasmine El Baggari 11F, James Baldwin, Rhys Ernst 01S, Aracelis Girmay, Leah Hager Cohen 85F, Tanja Hollander 90F, Jamila Jackson 14F, Jeph Jacques 98F, Thom Long, Robert Meagher, Eugene Mirman 92F, Brett Morgen 87F, Lupita Nyong’o 03F, Jeff Sharlet 90F, and John Slepian

30 HAMPSHIRE NEWS 37 ALUMNI ADVISORY GROUP 38 BOOKS 40 NOTES FROM ALUMS

COVER The Island Come True, by Andrea Dezsö, 2015, a one-of-a-kind tunnel book commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare

Company. The associate professor of art was recently nominated for the world’s largest children’s literature award, page 35.

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Yasmine El Baggari 11F | Entrepreneur

MY DIV III IS ABOUT THE SHARING ECONOMY. I’M BUILDING THE FIRST SERENDIPITY ENGINE.

I’ll connect people around the world by their shared interests, with technology.

FACILITATING GENUINE INTERACTIONS, OPENING HEARTS AND MINDS TO PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT CULTURES TO REMOVE FEARS AND STEREOTYPES.

Yasmine El Baggari (right, in photo) founded Voyaj, a West Coast startup with an online platform that connects hosts and travelers to help bridge cultures through one-on-one interactions and the authentic experience of new places. She has been in 40 countries and 38 states in the past five years and finishes her Div III in May.

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Rhys Ernst 01S | Filmmaker, Artist

TRANS KIDS ARE LIVING IN THE FUTURE IN A WAY. WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, “TRANSGENDER” WASN’T EVEN A WORD.

Just the naming of something that’s invisible, or was thought of as shameful or different — that’s not a slur — is powerful.

IT’S STILL A LITTLE HARD TO IMAGINE WHAT IT MIGHT LOOK LIKE GROWING OLDER AS A TRANS MAN, BUT I THINK THAT’S GOING TO CHANGE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION.

Investigating transgender identity in the context of larger narratives, Rhys Ernst is working to develop and expand the portrayal of trans lives in media. A coproducer of Amazon’s Golden Globe–winning Transparent, he created the title sequence for the series. In 2014 he and frequent collaborator Zackary Drucker were selected to participate in the Whitney Biennial.

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Brett Morgen 87F | Filmmaker

If we allowed our mothers to dictate the content of our biographies, they’d probably be rose tinted.

BUT BOTH FRANCES AND I ARRIVED AT THE SAME POINT, WHICH WAS WE WERE NOT TRYING TO TEAR KURT DOWN NOR PUT HIM ON A PEDESTAL. WE WERE SIMPLY TRYING TO LOOK HIM IN THE EYE, TO EMPATHIZE, TO FIND A POINT OF ENTRY IN WHICH WE CAN UNDERSTAND HOW HE EXPERIENCED LIFE.

Filmmaker Brett Morgen followed his study of American mythology at Hampshire with a career exploring subjects ranging from politics (Chicago 10) and rock and roll (Montage of Heck, about Kurt Cobain, above) to film legends (The Kid Stays in the Picture) and the O.J. Simpson car chase (ESPN 30 for 30 short June 17, 1994). He has been nominated for Academy and Emmy Awards.

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The Empathetic Space | Art, Architecture & Technology

WE CREATED A COURSE CALLED THE EMPATHETIC SPACE. WE STARTED BY ASKING A QUESTION.

Can we produce a space that physically and virtually responds to people’s behaviors?

WE’RE TRYING TO FIND A WAY TO DEFORM SURFACES WITH MOTORS, SO WHEN WE PROJECT AN IMAGE ON A SURFACE OR WHEN PEOPLE MOVE THROUGH, GETTING CLOSER OR FARTHER AWAY, THE ACTUAL SURFACE WILL DEFORM ACCORDINGLY.

Designed by eleven Hampshire students in collaboration with Architecture Professor Thom Long and Art and Technology Professor John Slepian in 2009, The Empathetic Space, “TES,” was installed in the lobby of Harold F. Johnson Library, created to physically and virtually respond to, and ideally transform, the behaviors and daily lives of the people who interacted with it.

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Lupita Nyong’o 03F | Actress, Director

AS HUMAN BEINGS, WE AREN’T AS INDIVIDUAL AS WE’D LIKE TO BELIEVE WE ARE. AND THAT’S WHAT MAKES ACTING POSSIBLE.

If I haven’t experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it.

I CAN PUT MYSELF IN SOMEONE ELSE’S SHOES AND TAKE THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES PERSONALLY. I ASK MYSELF, “HOW AM I GOING TO DO THAT?” THE ANSWER ALWAYS ENDS UP, “YOU JUST ARE.”

Lupita Nyong’o began acting as a teen in Kenya and has made headlines since her 2013 Oscar-winning breakthrough role in 12 Years a Slave. Her latest film, Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens, was released in December. She is starring in Eclipsed, a play about the struggles of several Liberian women during the civil war, on Broadway in February following a sold-out run at the Public Theater in 2015.

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Robert Meagher | Humanities Scholar

ABOVE ALL ELSE, I LISTEN LONG AND HARD TO VETERANS SELF-DIAGNOSE THEIR INNER PAIN.

To my surprise, on many occasions my responses, drawn from scholarship and my own experiences, were revealing.

SO, STILL TRUSTING THEY KNOW BEST THEIR OWN CONDITION, WE PASSED FROM MONOLOGUE TO DIALOGUE, FROM NARRATIVE TO DISCUSSION.

Professor of Humanities Robert Meagher joined the Hampshire faculty in 1972. His most recent books are Herakles Gone Mad: Rethinking Heroism in an Age of Endless War and Killing from the Inside Out: Moral Injury and Just War. He has worked to heal the spiritual wounds of veterans, their families, and their communities.

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Keliy Anderson-Staley 96F | Photographer

WE CAN’T KNOW A PERSON THROUGH AN IMAGE, BUT A PORTRAIT SHOULD TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THEM.

My portraits don’t always look like the person — features may be distorted, they can look off.

BUT A GOOD PORTRAIT MAKES US WANT TO LOOK AT A STRANGER. IT SHOULD MAKE US FEEL THAT WE KNOW THEM IN SOME WAY.

Keliy Anderson-Staley’s work is in collections of the Library of Congress, Portland Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston, among other venues. She taught last summer at Hampshire’s Creative Media Institute, where she took this portrait of former faculty member Elaine Mayes. Her first monograph, On a Wet Bough, was published in 2014.

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James Baldwin | Writer, Social Critic

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

IT WAS BOOKS THAT TAUGHT ME THAT THE THINGS THAT TORMENTED ME MOST WERE THE VERY THINGS THAT CONNECTED ME WITH ALL THE PEOPLE WHO WERE ALIVE, OR WHO HAD EVER BEEN ALIVE.

One of the most important voices of the twentieth century, James Baldwin taught at Hampshire from 1983 to 1986. In his novels, essays, and plays he explored race and sexuality in unprecedentedly complex and provocative terms. The James Baldwin Scholars program, which offers scholarships to talented students from underserved communities, continues his legacy.

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Jamila Jackson 14F | Choreographer, Dancer

JOINING THEIR COMMUNITY AS A TEACHER ANSWERED THE QUESTION THAT I POSED FOR MY DIV III.

A black woman and mover from a predominantly Hip-Hop and African dance background can invite more bodies of color into the research.

THE PROCESS HAS ALREADY BEGUN. I WAS WELCOMED TO DEEPEN MY RESEARCH AND SHARE MY WORK, BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH DANCE.

Jamila Jackson is a Div III student studying dance and community building.

She transferred to Hampshire, she says, because it enables her research on integrating emotional and somatic support with community practice.

After graduation she plans to continue to codirect the youth dance and leadership program she has developed through her Div II and III studies.

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Leah Hager Cohen 85F | Novelist, Nonfiction Writer

THE SPACE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE IS ULTIMATELY UNBRIDGEABLE, NO? THIS IS THE TERMINAL LONELINESS OF BEING.

Yet, isn’t living a full life contingent on the effort to connect anyway, against all odds?

THE EFFORT TO CONNECT WITH ONE ANOTHER DESPITE CERTAIN FAILURE IS PRECISELY THE MOVEMENT THAT BRINGS US CLOSER TO OUR OWN HUMANITY, AND TO GRACE.

Leah Hager Cohen is the author of five novels and five works of nonfiction, with several named as Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times. The film adaptation of her novel The Grief of Others had its premiere at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. A frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, she is a professor of creative writing at the College of the Holy Cross.

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Jeph Jacques 98F | Cartoonist

IT’S VERY EASY, ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE A STRAIGHT WHITE DUDE LIKE ME, TO ACCIDENTALLY WRITE STEREOTYPICAL PEOPLE.

I try to avoid that because I don’t want anybody to feel like they’re being othered by my strip.

EVEN IF YOU DON’T MEAN TO DO IT, YOU CAN BE INADVERTENTLY LAZY OR NOT DO YOUR RESEARCH OR YOU’RE JUST NOT THINKING ONE DAY.

Cartoonist Jeph Jacques is the writer and illustrator of Questionable Content—one of the most successful and widely read comics on the Web today and a multiple winner at the Web Cartoonists’ Choice Awards since its launch in 2003—and the comic Alice Grove. The latest album from Deathmøle, Jacques’s “fictional band that makes actual music,” was released in November.

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Dula Amarasiriwardena | Chemist

WE RESEARCH THE MYSTERIES OF POLLUTANTS IN SOIL, WATER, AND FOOD SYSTEMS.

When my students see how chemistry is connected to humans, they get excited.

IT IS CHEMISTRY IN CONTEXT. IF WE FIGURE OUT WHAT IS THERE, IT CAN MAKE FOR A BETTER LIFE.

Through his teaching and research, Professor of Chemistry Dula Amarasiriwardena explores issues of water quality, trace metals, toxic wastes, and other concerns. He is interested in developing new analytical techniques, chemistry education, environmental issues in developing nations, and environmental activism.

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Through a Pinhole, Beautifully An exhibit of color, depth, and “quiet visual events that keep you looking”

AN EXHIBITION of pinhole

landscape photographs captured

by Kate P. Freedberg 81F using a lens-less pinhole camera debuted in the Leo Model Gallery at the Liebling Center last fall. It ran through December.

All of Kate’s works in the posthumous exhibit were captured with the pinhole camera, which produces photographs characterized by diffuse light, lending a dreamlike quality to the images. The exhibit’s photographs were taken during her travels in Italy and India.

Kate Freedberg (1958–2010) graduated from Hampshire in 1985 with a BA in photography, and received her MFA in photography from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston/Tufts University in 2000. The exhibit represented only a small portion of her archives, which were recently acquired by the Hampshire College Archives and Special Collections. The collection is currently stored off-site, and will be available for research at the archives in 2019.

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“India Backwaters” by Kate Freedberg

An expert color printer, Kate loved to experiment with photography equipment. A Washington Post review of a 1985 exhibit described a “special gift not only for composing in color, but for composing in depth, and seeing through layers of quiet visual events ... that gives her work a complexity that keeps you looking.”

Kate’s work is held at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard; the Brooklyn Museum; the International Center of Photography in New York; the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Mass.; the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College: the Fondo Del Sol Museum in Washington, D.C.; among other institutions.

HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE GALLERIES Harold F. Johnson Library Gallery Gallery hours during the academic year Monday–Friday: 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.

Closed Saturday Sunday: 2–5 p.m.

Leo Model Gallery Jerome Liebling Center for Film, Photography, and Video Gallery hours during the academic year Monday–Friday: 9 a.m.–6 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday: 1–6 p.m.

Hampshire News

CUBA EXCHANGE PROGRAM TURNS 15, CELEBRATES WITH THE EQBAL AHMAD LECTURE AND COLLOQUIUM

Robin Coste Lewis Wins National Book Award for Poetry

In the fall the College marked the 15th anniversary of its groundbreaking Cuba BEOWULF SHEEHAN

student-exchange program with a twoday celebration and the annual Eqbal Ahmad Lecture. The event also honored two retiring faculty members who helped the program flourish, Professor of Politics Carollee Bengelsdorf and

ROBIN COSTE LEWIS 86S has

won the 2015 National Book Award for Poetry for her debut collection, Voyage of the Sable Venus.

Robin accepted the award at the 66th annual National Book Awards ceremony, held on November 18 in New York City, for her collection of poems that consider the roles desire and race play in the construction of the self and question where, historically, ideas about the black female figure truly begin.

In her acceptance speech, Robin expressed gratitude for her teachers, including professors Nina Payne and Andrew Salkey, whom she worked with at Hampshire. “I have had the profound honor of studying with some of the greatest poets of our time.

Their exquisite generosity is one of

the primary reasons I am standing here tonight.”

Robin, who was a student at the College in the late 1980s, later served as a member of the faculty, from 1999–2002. Last fall, she returned to Hampshire to give a reading from Voyage of the Sable Venus. She is a Provost’s Fellow in Poetry and Visual Studies at the University of Southern California, a Cave Canem fellow, and a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities. She received her MFA in poetry from NYU and an MTS in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from the Divinity School at Harvard.

She has been published in Callaloo, the Massachusetts Review, and many other publications and was a finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award.

Professor of Film and Photography Jacqueline Hayden.

“A people-to-people effort to go beneath the blockade, our program was always a solidarity project. Students get to see what daily life is like there.”

mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana Wayne Smith and the eminent historian and leading U.S. scholar of Cuba Louis A. Pérez, Jr. Following that was a daylong colloquium, “Cuba Today: What Will the United States Encounter in Cuba in the 21st Century?” which explored Hampshire’s longstanding ties with Cuba.

Where Numbers Don’t Even Get Treated Like Numbers

The 18th annual Eqbal Ahmad

Lecture featured the former chief of

The annual lecture honors the life,

teaching, and scholarship of the late Hampshire professor and renowned political analyst Eqbal Ahmad.

FOR DECADES Professor Emeritus of

Mathematics David Kelly taught not only complex functions like calculus but also the mathematical and social history of the number 17, which “has fascinated mathematicians for two thousand years,” he says. How did Hampshire recognize David at his retirement in August? By raising the campus speed limit to 17. “He didn’t want a party; he wanted the signs changed,” says his colleague Elizabeth Conlisk, professor of public health. The story took off, covered by hundreds of outlets, from CBS Radio and Yahoo News India to Inside Higher Ed and the Daily Mail.

students in Cuban culture since 2000,

The Cuba program has immersed

connecting them with Cuba’s creative community and housing them with local families. Students take classes and do independent projects tutored by Cuban professionals in their fields of interest.

In exchange, Cuban artists and writers bring their works and expertise back to the College through the Visiting Cuban Scholars Program.

“The program is a people-to-people

effort to go beneath the blockade,” says Professor of Sociology Margaret Cerullo, “a solidarity project. Our students get to see what daily life is like there.”

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#DisruptHigherEd

LOOKING UP: COLLEGE AIMING FOR 100% OF ITS ELECTRICITY FROM ON-SITE SOLAR

More than 100 national media outlets reported on Hampshire’s “putting

Hampshire plans to be the first

its mission before rankings” last fall — as the only college in the nation

American residential college to

not to accept the SAT/ACT in its admissions decisions and to speak out

generate 100 percent of its electricity from on-site solar energy systems.

against the abuses of standardized testing.

This spring, Hampshire will build what it believes will be the largest private solar-power system of any college in

WHEN PRESIDENT Jonathan Lash

made the following statement, it was picked up by dozens of media outlets and read by millions of readers: “You won’t find Hampshire in the U.S. News & World Report rankings this year. That’s because we decided in 2014 to not accept SAT/ACT test scores from high school applicants seeking admission, after our research showed standardized test scores do not predict a student’s success at our college. This got us kicked off the national rankings, disqualified us, per U.S. News rankings criteria.

“That’s OK with us. The SATs and ACTs are biased against low-income students and students of color, when diversity is critical to our mission.

We’ve developed more thorough and fair ways to assess students.

“Tests aren’t part of Hampshire’s pedagogy, so why would we use a test to determine which students would thrive here? The SAT is one test on one day in a given year. A student’s high school academic record, history of civic engagement, letters of recommendation from mentors, and ability to represent themselves through essays trump anything the SAT could tell us.

“We’re seeing remarkable results.

Our yield, the percentage of students who accepted an invitation to enroll, rose in a single year from 18 percent to 26 percent. Diversity reached 31 percent students of color, the highest in our history, up from 21 percent two years ago. This is mission-driven admissions. It’s right for Hampshire and the right thing to do.”

“A Building That Speaks Our Values”

Scheduled to open this March, the R.W. Kern Center, at the center of campus, will house high-tech classrooms, group workspaces, caffeinated social space, and admissions and financial aid offices. The building is designed to be certified under the most rigorous green building standards, the Living Building Challenge. One of eight of its kind in the world, it will produce all its own energy, gather all its own water, and treat all its own waste.

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the Northeast and the fifth largest of any in the eastern United States (east of the Mississippi River).

The College plans to construct

large-scale ground-mount solar power systems on campus, installed and maintained by SolarCity. The systems will be built on two open-land areas totaling approximately 19 acres of Hampshire’s 800-acre campus.

The power generated by the new systems will deliver up to 6.4 million kilowatt hours per year.

The emissions avoided will be equal to taking 390 cars off the road.

Hampshire plans to purchase the power from SolarCity at a rate lower than current utility costs through a power purchase agreement, a fixed rate for the next 20 years. Savings to the College may exceed $340,000 per year, which Hampshire expects to utilize for campus energy-efficiency projects and academic research. The exact size and output of the systems will be decided based on the findings of an impact study led by Eversource.

The solar power system and renewable-energy plan are part of Hampshire’s effort to make College operations 100 percent climate neutral. Hampshire is a signatory to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which requires the College to develop a Climate Action Plan to guide its strategy toward carbon neutrality.

Hampshire News

Meo Wins Mexican Cities Initiative Fellowship from Graduate School of Design MICHAEL MEO 07F has won a

research grant from the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Mexican Cities Initiative. Studying for a master’s in architecture, Mike has a particular interest in participatory processes in design.

For his fellowship project, titled En Bici (On Bike), he is examining bike cultures in Mexico City and documenting ways cyclists use a bike to demonstrate resilience and shape perceptions of the city. As a researcher, he is immersing himself in the lives of the city’s bicyclists— educators, policymakers, bicycle builders, mechanics, activists, and community leaders.

One of the first outgrowths of his fellowship is a project called Todos en Bici, which aims to make bike-based exploration accessible

to everyone. In December, he led a group of bikers of all ages, including people with disabilities, blind riders, and deaf riders, on a 1,300 km journey across the Baja desert. The participants had a range of abilities, and rode in pairs that consisted of an experienced biker and a novice.

“My hope is to inspire empathy and

imagination,” Michael wrote, “to expose people to the transformative nature of bicycle travel, and to prove that bicycle travel can be made more accessible.” He expects his research to have an impact on cities and towns whose design plans sway people to choose between motorized vehicles and bikes.

Student’s Div III Radio Documentary Featured on Afropop Worldwide JAKE HOCHBERGER 11F had his Division III radio documentary “Soundin’ Like Weself: The Trinidadian Rapso Tradition” picked up by the internationally syndicated radio series Afropop Worldwide last fall.

The documentary is the result of Hochberger’s semester abroad in Trinidad, where he participated in Trinity College’s Trinidad Program and took courses in Caribbean civilization at the University of the West Indies. There, he interned at the Hott 93 radio station.

“Through them I came across rapso, which is more of a movement and a community,” he says.

Rapso is a form of rhythmic poetry that originated in Trinidad’s black power movement in the 1970s and ’80s.

It was Professor Joanna Morris, who is from Trinidad, who connected Jake with her sister on the island, who in turn introduced him to local rapso performers.

Professors Chris Tinson and Becky Miller were on Jake’s Div III committee. “Chris talked me through how to represent the artists in a way that didn’t carry on embedded norms of abusing a culture. Becky helped me think of my podcast as a public radio piece,” he says. To listen, see soundcloud.com for Afropop Worldwide.

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For Marion Taylor Former students honor the legacy of a longtime martial arts teacher

DURING HIS almost four decades at

Hampshire, Dr. Marion Taylor taught martial arts in a way that embraced the College’s interdisciplinary academic philosophy. His impact here is now celebrated through the Marion Taylor Endowment Fund.

The fund was established by Robert Lemelson 79F and other former students. Marion passed away in November 2014, and the endowment was officially made available to students on the first anniversary of his death. Its purpose is to support work that embraces his ways of integrating mind, body, and spirit, and enabling the instruction and integration of the practice of different forms of the martial arts within an interdisciplinary context.

“Marion was the epitome of the Hampshire approach—deeply committed to both his art and his

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students, broadly ranging in his practice, and a profound instructor,” Robert says. “As a person, Marion was highly demanding and strict, but at the same time mischievous and fun.

I’m sure he’ll be greatly missed by the thousands of students whose lives he touched.”

Samuel Kanner 03F succeeded Marion in teaching Hampshire’s martial arts. It was a beginner’s Shotokan course that he took with the man who would become his mentor that introduced him to the practice, and the two quickly developed a close friendship.

Shotokan and other martial arts would become central in Samuel’s life.

In 2013 he was named the Shotokan Member of the Year. “Everything I teach and talk about with students was inspired by and taught to me by Marion and his peers,” he says.

For more information or to support the endowment fund, please contact: Clay Ballantine College Advancement cballantine@hampshire.edu 413.559.5647 hampshire.edu/giving/mariontaylor-martial-arts-endowment

Hampshire News

KAREN MARSHALL EXHIBITS BETWEEN GIRLS: A PASSAGE TO WOMANHOOD 1985–2015

Carol Varney Elected Alumni Trustee CAROL VARNEY 90F is the College’s

newest elected alumni trustee.

She plans to draw on her work as executive director of the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) and her experiences as a first-generation college student to serve Hampshire.

“It’s an honor to work with the other trustees, and to see how dedicated and rigorously thoughtful they are,” she says.

Coming from a rural town in Maine, and as a first-generation student, Carol says, “It was through the kindness of professors and other students that I figured out how to succeed at Hampshire.”

BAVC provides media-making tools and support for people of all ages, among them a young, largely

Between Girls: A Passage to Womanhood 1985–2015, a three-decade-long documentary study of a group of New York City girls from the age of 16 to 46,

by Karen Marshall 75F, was exhibited in the fall in the Harold F. Johnson Library Gallery. “I believe there is a language women share that is really hard to articulate,” says Karen. “My intent was to look at the emotional bonding between girls at age sixteen and document the emblematic relationships that develop.”

underrepresented constituency. “I’m interested in making Hampshire a place where talented young people like them can attend,” she says. She began her board term in September.

Art Professor Nominated for Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

“ My intent was to look at the emotional bonding between girls at age sixteen and document the emblematic relationships that develop.

I believe there is a language women share that is really hard to articulate.”

The project was launched when

Karen began to photograph Molly Brover, a junior at the Bronx High School of Science, and her friends on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Ten months later, Molly was hit by a car and killed while on vacation in Cape Cod. Karen was devastated, but resolved to keep the project going.

ANDREA DEZSÖ, associate professor

of art, was nominated for the 2016 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world’s largest children’s literature award. She is one of 215 candidates from 59 countries who were announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. The laureate or laureates will be selected in April.

Andrea’s nomination follows on the success of The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, which was a hit since its publication in fall 2014. She illustrated the Jack

Zipes translation, the first in English of all 156 stories from the brothers’ original 1812 and 1815 editions.

“It was a surprise for all of us that it drew all this attention,” she says. “I felt I had to do this. It was a wonderful opportunity to illustrate some of the most defining stories of my childhood.

“I try to model different ways that artists work in the real world. Because I have a wide-ranging practice, my students get to see the many different ways one can practice art.”

“I realized Molly would remain

seventeen, and the rest of them would become women,” she says. “It is the main reason that inspired me to continue to document the girls, which has evolved into a thirty-year meditation on friendship.”

Karen has been on the faculty at The

International Center of Photography for the past 20 years.

Segments of Between Girls, a

sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts, have been shown at various international venues.

See images from the exhibit at www.karenmarshallphoto.com.

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Hampshire News

Q&A with Seeta Sistla, Assistant Professor of Ecosystem Ecology SEETA SISTLA joined Hampshire

this year from the University of California Irvine, where she was a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow.

What drew you to Hampshire?

The students are very enthusiastic, bright, and motivated. It reminds me of some of my best graduate seminars; the discussions are really insightful.

I think this is an interesting time to be a student—to have all of these social, political, and environmental changes happening rapidly. There are a lot of pressing environmental problems, beyond global warming— huge pollution problems, biodiversity loss. It’s an intimidating time to be in college, but in terms of our ability to address these problems, it’s also very exciting.

EDITOR David Gibson COEDITOR Melissa Mills-Dick 01F ART DIRECTOR Mary Zyskowski CLASS NOTES MANAGER Matt Krefting 99F CONTRIBUTORS John Courtmanche, Amy Diehl, Michael Medeiros, Joshua Murray, Dane Olson 01F, Amanda Schwengel COPY EDITOR Doris Troy CHANGE OF ADDRESS alumni@hampshire.edu

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ALUM’S MASTER’S PROGRAM INVOLVES PEACE CORPS SERVICE

What are you working on?

In addition to teaching courses and advising students, I’m tying up my research in Nicaragua. I want to better understand the globalchange phenomena of land use and natural resource decline, from a biological and a human perspective.

All the global-change problems that natural scientists study are tied to people’s activities.

Recommend a book we should read.

The Book of Deadly Animals, by Gordon Grice. It’s trying to help readers reevaluate their place in nature. Even seemingly benign things like mosquitoes have caused a lot of suffering, although things perceived to be dangerous, such as sharks, have very little impact on us.

There are a lot of weird, gory stories.

Non Satis Scire is published twice a year by the Office of Alumni and Family Relations and mailed to alums, current students and parents, donors, and friends of the College. Diverse views are presented and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official Hampshire policies. Send correspondence to communications@ hampshire.edu or Non Satis Scire, Office of Communications, Hampshire College, 893 West Street, Amherst, MA 01002. The office of Alumni and Family Relations can be reached at 413.559.6638 or alumni@hampshire.edu. Printed on FSC-certified paper. Produced by 100% Green-e-certified renewable energy.

Lindsay Cope 06F (top right) is a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines and earning her master’s in international environmental policy from the Middlebury Institute at Monterey. Among her duties, she’s helped develop the capacity of the country’s agriculture offices, coastal and fishing communities, fisheries, and marine sanctuaries; worked with biologists to restore marine habitat; and taught youth education classes.

The Philippines is ranked as the country most at risk to climate change.

In April, Lindsay organized a seminar in Pandan, in the province of Antique, for its first Earth Day celebration. She wrote, “I work with the poorest of the poor, but they are generous, happy, thriving despite their meager income. It is a poverty with hope, with community, and with support.”

She is now stationed in Calatagan, in the province of Batangas, and completing her final year of service.

SOURCES 1. Jeff Sharlet 90F (text) and Tanja Hollander 90F (image), from a session they co-taught last summer at Hampshire’s Creative Media Institute 2. Aracelis Girmay, Hampshire News, January 30, 2012. Shelley Kusnetz (image) 6. Yasmine El Baggari 11F 8. Rhys Ernst, 01s, Marie Claire, August 20, 2015 10. Brett Morgen 87F, Deadline, August 22, 2015. Getty Images, Mat Hayward 12. Thom Long and John Slepian, Hampshire College TV, December 21, 2009 14. Lupita Nyong’o, 03F, Hollywood.com. Getty Images, Walter McBride 16. Robert Meagher, Moral Injury and Just War 18. Keliy Anderson-Staley 96F, PetaPixel, May 30, 2014 20. James Baldwin, Life, May 24, 1963 22. Jamila Jackson 14F, CBD Progress Report. Jim Coleman (image) 24. Leah Hager Cohen 85F, Bookslut, September 2015 26. Jeph Jacques 98F, Bleeding Cool, April 22, 2012 28. Dula Amarasiriwardena, Hampshire interview, 2015 48. Eugene Mirman 92F, The Will to Whatevs, 2015. Natasha Moustache (image)

Alumni Advisory Group (AAG) The mission of the Alumni Advisory Group, established at the invitation of the College president, is to support the mission, values, and philosophy of Hampshire College by building alumni engagement, supporting the College in attaining its fundraising goals, and through its members acting as ambassadors for the College today. The AAG works to establish, maintain, and build mutually beneficial and lifelong connections among alums, and in so doing strengthens alumni leadership as a College resource. The AAG’s current priorities are to pilot regional alumni networks, increase participation in alumni trustee elections, and enhance opportunities for alums to support current and graduating students.

MICHAEL C. UBELL 70F Oakland, Calif.

LAUREN THALER 75S P08 Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.

WARREN R. GORLICK 77F Washington, D.C.

ELLEN STURGIS 77F, CHAIR Stow, Mass.

DANIEL SROKA 85F Morristown, N.J.

KATHRYN CHRISTINE WICHMANN 85F Washington, D.C.

RICHARD BROWN 88F Providence

KARLA ZARATERAMIREZ 92F Philadelphia

DANIEL GREGOR 93F Boston

ERIC P. RUDNICK 94F Tempe, Ariz.

ALEX KREIT 97F San Diego

TASHAL BROWN 03F East Lansing, Mich.

ANANDA VALENZUELA 07F Cambridge, Mass.

ROBERT J. SAKAI 08F Los Angeles

Learn more at alumni.hampshire.edu

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Books

by Hampshire Alums and Faculty

WALKING THE NIGHT ROAD: COMING OF AGE IN GRIEF by Alexandra Butler 99F. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Butler’s account of caring for her mother after the onset of a terminal illness portrays the difficult role of both caregiver and the person in need of care as they encounter reflection, death, grief, and growth.

NAVIGATING YOUR RELATIONSHIP: A VOYAGE FOR COUPLES by H. Laurence Schwab 70F. Minneapolis: Two Harbors Press, 2015. Marriage and family therapist Schwab offers advice for couples looking to strengthen their relationship and understand and overcome their challenges.

TELLING THE BEES

by Faith Shearin 87S. Nacogdoches, TX: Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2015. Shearin’s latest collection of poems adds to her reputation, earned from her three previous books: The Owl Question, The Empty House, and Moving the Piano.

DANGEROUS GAMES: WHAT THE MORAL PANIC OVER ROLE-PLAYING GAMES SAYS ABOUT PLAY, RELIGION, AND IMAGINED WORLDS

by Joseph P. Laycock 98F. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015.

Laycock analyzes the emergence of fantasy roleplaying games and the moral outrage it engenders.

CORIANDER by Gia Bernini 86F, P15. Amherst, MA: Levellers Press. In her collection of narrative essays, Bernini explores identity through personal reflections.

DESIGNING DELIVERY: RETHINKING IT IN THE DIGITAL SERVICE ECONOMY

by Jeff Sussna 80F. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, 2015. Sussna’s book provides a guide to creating accessible IT services that put the customer first, resulting in a consistent, adaptable methodology of operation.

HONOR GIRL by Maggie Thrash 04F. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2015.

This illustrated memoir tells the story of Maggie, a 15-year-old coming of age at a summer camp deep in the heart of Appalachia.

THE HIGH-PERFORMING PRESCHOOL: STORY ACTING IN HEAD START CLASSROOMS by Gillian Dowley McNamee 70F. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Dowley McNamee tracks a typical day for students during their first year of school and examines the impact that acting out stories has on their development.

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Books

THE NAKED PHILOSOPHER

by Paul Margolis 70F. Los Angeles: Arden House Publishing, 2015. When a Harvard professor vanishes in Los Angeles, his estranged son, a disgraced LAPD detective, is caught up in a web of lies that eventually lead him back to the case that got him kicked off the force.

FROM THE GREAT WALL TO THE GREAT COLLIDER: CHINA AND THE QUEST TO UNCOVER THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE UNIVERSE by Steve Nadis 73F and ShingTung Yau. Somerville, MA: International Press, 2015.

This book follows China’s contemporary quest to build a “Great Collider.”

VOYAGE OF THE SABLE VENUS by Robin Coste Lewis 86S. New York: Knopf, 2015. Coste Lewis’s debut poetry collection, and winner of the National Book Award, explores legacies of colonialism and resistance in Western art history, with an emphasis on the iconography of the black female figure.

THE NIGHT WE’RE NOT SLEEPING IN by Sean Bishop 01F. Louisville: Sarabande Books, 2014. Winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, Bishop’s debut details the raw suffering of an unknown narrator who is dealing with his father’s death after brain surgery.

If you would like your recently released book to be considered for the Books section of the next issue of Non Satis Scire, please send a copy to: Alumni and Family Relations NSS Books Hampshire College 893 West Street Amherst, MA 01002

EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN by Lindsey Lane 77S. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. The fictional story of high school junior Tommy Smythe’s disappearance is told through a series of first-person narratives, exploring themes of loneliness, connectedness, and the role we play in creating our own realities.

HOW DOGS WORK by Raymond Coppinger and Mark Feinstein. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Professor Emeritus of Biology Coppinger and Professor of Cognitive Science Feinstein take a scientific look at dogs and other canids to explain their behavior and how they evolved.

LIFE OF THE GARMENT

by Deborah Gorlin.

Peterborough, NH: Bauhan Publishing, 2015. Gorlin, codirector of Hampshire’s Writing Program, received the 2014 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. This collection contains elegies to people and places, a doll’s-eye view of the world, and Gorlin’s own spiritual struggles.

Please note: Non Satis Scire publishes every six months.

Due to space limitations, books will not be included if they are not recent publications or if they are self-published. All books can be posted in class notes online at alumni.hampshire.edu/.

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This would be a great place for a powerful quote. Oh, well.

Eugene Mirman | 92F

And so would this.

Eugene Mirman | 92F

Actor, comedian, and writer Eugene Mirman is the voice of Gene Belcher on the Fox animated sitcom Bob’s Burgers, played Eugene on Flight of the Conchords, cohosts StarTalk Live! with Neil deGrasse Tyson, and authored The Will to Whatevs (where these quotes were unearthed). His new album, I’m Sorry (You’re Welcome) was just released.

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