ALUMNI OF NOTE
Rollins College is proud of its alumni, who are actively contributing to the health, wealth, productivity, harmony, spiritual guidance, and hope of citizens throughout the world. To help spread the good news, each issue of the Rollins Alumni Record features “Alumni of Note.” If you would like to suggest any alumni who should be spotlighted, please contact the Alumni Relations office at 1-800-799-ALUM or e-mail us at alumni@rollins.edu.
Rust ’64 and Kristen Bracewell ’62 Deming Rollins’ first international family ■ Rust and Kristen Deming, who met and married while attending Rollins College, belong to what could rightfully be called Rollins’ “first international family.” Certainly, no other family associated with the College has had careers as distinguished in international activities. Rust is a former ambassador to Tunisia and deputy chief of mission (under Ambassador Walter Mondale) at the U.S. Embassy in Japan; Kristen is an authority on Japanese poetry and former columnist for The Japan Times newspaper. While this alone is impressive, even more remarkable is that they are the second generation of Demings to attend Rollins, marry there, and enjoy lifelong careers in the Foreign Service. Rust’s father, Olcott Hawthorne Deming ’35 ’94H, a former Rollins trustee (1945-1972) who passed away earlier this year, was the first U.S. ambassador to newly independent Uganda in the 1960s. Rust’s mother, Louise MacPherson Deming ’37, who died in 1976, was one of the founders and served as the first president of the Association of American Foreign Service Women. His brother, John ’66, served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and his sister, Rosamond ’69, works for the United Nations in Spain. The family’s international roots go even deeper, however. Rust is the great-great-grandson of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Although widely known as one of America’s first great novelists (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables), Hawthorne also served as U.S. Consul in Liverpool after his college friend, Franklin Pierce, was elected President. According to Rust, his father was inspired to pursue international affairs by Rollins’ eighth president, Hamilton Holt ’49H. “In the years after World War I, Rollins was receiving national attention for its progressive education,” he said. “My father learned about the College through family friends of Hamilton Holt, who was involved in forming the League of Nations. My father first went abroad as a Rollins student with the Experiment in International Living, and I think that set his course. I grew up in the Foreign Service, but Rollins—especially Dr. Paul Douglass, who was head of the political science department— was instrumental in shaping my outlook on the world.” Rollins recognized the Deming family’s commitment to that outlook in 1995 through the establishment of the Deming Award, named in honor of Olcott and Rust Deming, which recognizes academic achievement and a commitment to public service. The award, made possible through a gift by The Bedminster Fund at the request of fund director Andrew Drexel Allen ’93, is given annually to a student selected by the political science department. “My father was very proud of the award being named for the Deming family,” Rust said. Rust’s Foreign Service work in Japan led the Demings to develop a particularly strong relationship with the Japanese and their culture. This
was particularly useful in 1996 when Rust, then acting ambassador to Japan, was instrumental in helping Rollins President Rita Bornstein ’04H ’04HAL negotiate return of a statute that had been taken from Okinawa after World War II by a Rollins alumnus and donated to the College. The successful return led to an agreement between Rollins and the Okinawa Shogaku Gakuen Educational Foundation for exchange of students and faculty. Kristen, a poet and former president of The Haiku Society of America, has co-authored numerous translations of haiku (the famous 17-syllable form used in both classical and modern Japanese poetry) and was a consultant for the English translation of Tomoshibi (Light), a book of tanka poetry by the Emperor and Empress of Japan. As a poet writing haiku in English, she won first prize in the international division of the 1997 Mainichi Daily News 125th Anniversary Haiku Contest. Both Demings are strong proponents of the study of foreign languages. “I speak Japanese and French, and my wife has social Japanese,” Rust said. “To learn Japanese, I had to attend a State Department school for two years, 10 hours a day.” As a Rollins graduate who took French while at the College and then put his language skills into daily use, Rust thinks it’s appropriate that students be required to gain a degree of fluency in a foreign language. “The more language skills people have,” he said, “the more opportunities they’re going to have, and the more they can help our country develop international relations.” After 38 years in the nation’s Foreign Service, Rust retired in 2004. He spent the next year at the National Defense University as a visiting scholar. Since the fall of 2005, he has been a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, where he teaches graduate courses on Japan, U.S.-Japanese relations, the Japanese political economy, and Japanese domestic politics and foreign policy. He also is a consultant for the State Department. Kristen maintains her contacts with Japanese poets and is “keeping up with the U.S.-Japan poetry network,” she said. “We’re trying to create understanding through poetry.” In addition, she keeps up with her children (including Justine Deming Rodriguez ’85) and growing number of grandchildren, and is planning a book about her family’s experiences abroad. “Rust and I were a good team,” Kristen said of their years in the Foreign Service. “He did the policy side, I did the cultural side, continuing the tradition set by Rust’s parents. Our future will be more of the same.” Rust agreed. “The Deming family will be active in foreign affairs as long as they are able to do so,” he said. “There are so many challenges in the world that we need to be engaged.” (rustdeming@aol.com; kristenbd@aol.com) —Warren Miller ’80MBA FALL 2007 29