by Dave Allen ’06
What goes into making a poet? For Jeanne Minahan McGinn ’83, a forced appreciation of Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” marks the beginning. She recalls her older brothers brandishing the song’s lyrics at her, saying, “Admit it! This is poetry!” At Bucknell, other poetic forms enthralled her, with a recitation of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Windhover” propelling her headlong into literature, and poetry strengthened its hold during graduate studies in Ireland and at Bryn Mawr College, the latter a detour from a journalism career. Lately, the professor and chair of liberal arts at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music has been a poet more heard than read, as numerous composers, including 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Higdon, have set her words to music; one of Higdon’s settings, a concerto for violin, orchestra and choir, has been performed worldwide. Their latest collaboration employs short poems styled as telegrams, and one titled “Telegram to my Career” conveys McGinn’s wonder at her unlikely path: “Not what I meant or thought.”
What goes into making a poet? For Jeanne Minahan McGinn ’83, a forced appreciation of Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” marks the beginning. She recalls her older brothers brandishing the song’s lyrics at her, saying, “Admit it! This is poetry!” At Bucknell, other poetic forms enthralled her, with a recitation of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Windhover” propelling her headlong into literature, and poetry strengthened its hold during graduate studies in Ireland and at Bryn Mawr College, the latter a detour from a journalism career. Lately, the professor and chair of liberal arts at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music has been a poet more heard than read, as numerous composers, including 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Higdon, have set her words to music; one of Higdon’s settings, a concerto for violin, orchestra and choir, has been performed worldwide. Their latest collaboration employs short poems styled as telegrams, and one titled “Telegram to my Career” conveys McGinn’s wonder at her unlikely path: “Not what I meant or thought.”
by Beth Kaszuba
Professor Jaye Austin Williams, Africana studies, knows something about taking risks. Active in the theatre since the 1970s, she was an actor, director and playwright before pursuing a doctorate in her 50s.
“The whole academic thing is a second chapter for me, so I have the benefit of being a newbie and an oldie,” says Williams, a drama theorist who focuses on black studies.
Professor Jaye Austin Williams, Africana studies, knows something about taking risks. Active in the theatre since the 1970s, she was an actor, director and playwright before pursuing a doctorate in her 50s.
“The whole academic thing is a second chapter for me, so I have the benefit of being a newbie and an oldie,” says Williams, a drama theorist who focuses on black studies.
time and/or money.”
Dearborn, Mich.
People in Mount Carmel, Pa., are so excited about the great work done by Bucknell professors and students in partnership with the Mother Maria Kaupas Center through the field station. Without exception, students who have worked in our town the past three years have been professional and supportive. They have listened to local people’s concerns and worked with them throughout the process to come up with ways to address specific needs.
Through these service-learning opportunities, students are contributing, in a major and impactful way, to the economic sustainability of communities in the Coal Region.
Our hope is that this exciting partnership will spur the economic revitalization of Mount Carmel and other communities in the Coal Region. Equally as important is the infusion of confidence service-learning projects provide to young men and women as they prepare to take their places in the professional and civic lives of their communities.
Thank you to all our friends and supporters at Bucknell — faculty, students and administrators — for truly bringing hope to our coal town.
Supervisor of Mother Maria
Kaupas Center and former
Catholic chaplain at Bucknell.
With our redesign partners, Zehno, we listened to how you thought the magazine should evolve. We also found inspiration in Bucknell’s bold new branding initiative. (Read President Bravman’s message on Page 44 for more on that.)
magazine
Volume 11, Issue 1
chief communications officer
Andy Hirsch
Editor
Sherri Kimmel
Design
Zehno
Associate Editor
Matt Hughes
Class Notes Editor
Heidi Hormel
Contributing Editors
Heather Peavey Johns
Beth Kaszuba
Brad Tufts
Editorial Assistants
Shana Ebright
Kathryn Nicolai ’20
Julia Stevens ’20
Website
bucknell.edu/bmagazine
Contact
Email: bmagazine@bucknell.edu
Class Notes:
classnotes@bucknell.edu
Telephone: 570-577-3661
Bucknell Magazine
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Figuring out how to play the game was simple for Benjamin — “I just saw it and knew how it worked,” he says — but making it so was hardly child’s play. Throughout a yearlong design process, a team of Bucknell computer science & engineering students — Michael Hammer ’17, Kenny Rader ’17 and Keyi Zhang ’17 — struggled with the challenge of designing a hands-on educational exhibit for children.
The Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador
Seated high in the Andes Mountains, the Ecuadorian capital of Quito is home to more than 2.5 million residents, and this fall, to exactly one number theorist. Professor Nathan Ryan, mathematics, spent months acclimating to the thin Andean air (Quito is more than 9,000 feet above sea level, nearly twice as high as Denver) and working at Universidad San Francisco de Quito.
Meadow View and Essex Place, Lewisburg
Getting to know local elementary and middle-school students has led Nneoma Ibezim ’18 to “an expanded perspective of what Lewisburg looks like,” she says.
After taking Professor Ramona Fruja’s Immigrant Youth in U.S. Society course, the Posse Scholar from Los Angeles was inspired to apply what she’d learned. The education professor and Ibezim partnered with Bucknell’s Office of Civic Engagement to offer after-school and summer programs at two affordable-housing complexes, Meadow View and Essex Place. The programs provide tutoring and recreational activities for youth from historically at-risk groups, including recent immigrants.
Color, texture and one-of-a-kind taste were what Heuer and Croteau were going for as they developed their recipe — one part of what makes their small business, Salty & Baked, thrive.
This fall, thanks to the buildout of a kosher kitchen — and significant updates to other rooms — the center is even more accommodating.
“It’s an important push of ours, to make our space and our program more welcoming to traditionally observant Jewish students,” says Rabbi Chana Leslie Glazer, who joined Bucknell as the chaplain for the Jewish community in 2016. “Of course we still have very strong offerings for our less observant students too.”
Social Context of Engineering
Ernest Cline.
This book got a lot of attention when it was first released, in 2011. RPO is a dystopian science fiction story set in a future characterized by massive poverty and energy deprivation. The protagonist is a young man engaged in a treasure hunt in a sprawling, complex virtual-reality world. This book is a feast for ’80s video-gaming geeks like me. More important, RPO is rife with topics I discuss in my classes, such as Life, Computers and Everything; Computers and Society; and Time/Machine, which explore the intersection of society and technology.
Prompted by a visit to a robotics lab in Japan in 2016, I have been reading about consciousness and its possible emergence in artificial intelligence. A web search for modern theories on how our species achieved consciousness led me to Graziano’s articles in The Atlantic. This Princeton neuroscientist claims that the brain’s circuitry, which enables us to relate to others, is also responsible for our self-awareness.
I’m interested in what may predispose a society to adopt or to reject a specific technology. My appointment to the Rooke Chair has allowed me to turn this intellectual curiosity into the topic of an investigation focused on Japan. This book provides a starting point in studying Japan’s relationship with cutting-edge technologies. It covers the impact of culture and history in design, creativity, engineering and public policy.
Punk Rock Subcultures
Max Kane ’18’s pursuit of excellence extends beyond his impressive tennis court successes to the film industry. Kane, a captain of the men’s tennis team and a film/media studies major, spent last summer in France at the Cannes Film Festival interning for the festival’s American headquarters.
“Being immersed in one of the most prestigious festivals in the world taught me more about the industry than I ever could have learned at home,” Kane says. “I garnered a huge amount of inspiration for upcoming projects that I hope to write and direct.”
Julee Bertsch leads Alumni Career Services, a part of Bucknell’s Career Development Center. She came to Bucknell in 2010, after working in corporate recruiting for more than 18 years. Her career has focused on the question of why people choose a certain profession. Bucknell provides free one-on-one career advice to alumni as well as students. Bertsch answers some questions our career counselors are commonly asked:
his bison is on the move. With forelegs firmly rooted, haunches ready to march and gaze set confidently forward, the new mascot statue installed Sept. 14 outside the Kenneth Langone Athletics & Recreation Center on the Bucknell campus doesn’t just recall the University’s storied past. Resolute and impossible to ignore, the bronze sculpture stands 8 feet tall at the shoulder and embodies Bucknell’s vision for the future.
A century later, a faculty-Staff-student initiative reconstructs the stories of those brave men and women.
A century later, a faculty-Staff-student initiative reconstructs the stories of those brave men and women.
This is one of the primary questions Amy Collins ’18 seeks to answer as she studies the lingering environmental damage caused by World War I.
Last May, Collins waded into the Vesle River at Fismes, France, to collect water samples, which she brought back to Pennsylvania, then sent to a lab to measure the levels of lead and arsenic. “I’m looking at the long-term consequences of war,” says Collins, whose work is supported by a Dalal Family Fund for Creativity and Innovation fellowship.
Sherri Kimmel: We saw two memorials in France, both connected to Pennsylvania. One was the bridge at Fismes over the Vesle River, built in 1928 to honor the soldiers of the 28th Division who turned back the Germans. It’s a functional object devoted to one unit.
Then there’s the large, formal Pennsylvania Memorial at Varennes-en-Argonne. What are the differences in their approach to memorialization?
Professor Adrian Mulligan: Before we arrived at that bridge, I hadn’t realized that the Americans after World War I had managed to both construct a much-needed piece of French infrastructure and, at the same time, a memorial to American troops. I thought this was pretty ingenious, and it makes that particular bridge a unique kind of monument. It’s quite a selfless thing to do — two countries continuing to work together after a war instead of reverting back to nation-state interests.
“Yank, Dead Ten Years, Kept ‘Alive’ For His Mother.” So read this titillating 1929 headline about “my” Bucknellian Robert Preiskel, Class of 1915.
I’d been drawn to Preiskel after wading through the 717 records in the Bucknellians in WWI database, hoping to locate someone who could add diversity to the project. Preiskel was Jewish at a time when, unlike Bucknell, many colleges rejected Jewish applicants outright. The names and residences of his six siblings were also in his record, so I figured finding a live descendant through Ancestry.com could be doable.
When I located Robert’s great-nephew, John Preiskel, a California lawyer, this spring, he confirmed what I’d suspected, that John’s father, Robert, had been named for our deceased Bucknellian. John’s quick call to his Aunt Marion revealed that Robert had been his mother’s favorite son. This certainly jibed with my discovery of a complex hoax, concocted to shield Mother Preiskel from news of Robert’s death.
Holding the Army chaplain uniform of the Rev. Edward O. Clark, Class of 1915, in my hands made the journey from Bucknell to Vineland, N.J., worth it.
Over lunch at a local diner, Julia Carita ’20 and I met with Elizabeth Clark Haynie ’53, who had invited us to visit her and talk about the subject of our History 100 project — her father. Our talk was just a start to understanding who the Rev. Clark was as a father, student and religious man in a violent conflict.
We laughed as Haynie reminisced about her time at Bucknell and listened intently as she recounted stories of life with her father.
During our field research trip in spring 2017, our team visited the Paris campus of the Association Henri Rollet, a group which provides shelter and support to underprivileged young women. This quaint, verdant space is a welcome oasis from the chaos and excitement of the city that surrounds it. Within the campus walls stands a red-brick dormitory that bears the name of Katherine Baker, Bucknell Institute Class of 1892. To finally see a monument to the woman I had been researching for a year was surreal.
I selected Katherine Baker as “my” Bucknellian because I was so fascinated with her story. She held many titles: suffragette, writer, educational reformist and lawyer. But she is best remembered for her work in France as a nurse during the Great War and her role in establishing an orphanage for the children whose lives were touched by the war, which has evolved into the modern-day Association Henri Rollet. It was comforting to see she is still being honored in a very tangible way by an organization that provides aid to Parisian youth.
Future
Leaders
photography by EMILY PAINE
Eden Elam’s team sold jogging pants to support a foster-care group.
photography by EMILY PAINE
Eden Elam’s team sold jogging pants to support a foster-care group.- Nearly 300 companies formed
- More than 96,000 hours of public service
- Almost $480,000 raised and donated to charitable causes.
Stats aside, for many students MGMT 101 is a life-altering experience that helps shape them as leaders, makes them more reflective thinkers and leads to lifelong friendships.
photographs by SALLY MONTANA
We welcome the following new members this year.
Gregory ’94 and Ellen Amarante ’08
Charles Arnao ’69 and Rosemary Watt
Kevin Blackwell ’85
Sandra and J. Ronald Carey ’61
Alison Caruso
Graydon Curtis
Mary DeCredico ’81
Kenneth Doak ’71
Richard Garman ’56*
Catherine Gronlund
Susan Hunsicker ’77
Melinda and Walter Kelly ’92
William Krokowski ’84
Robert Nagel ’77
John Pagano ’67
Robert Pollokoff ’81
Robert ’85 and Sherry Bohner Scott ’84
Pamela and Christopher Tinkham ’77
David ’67 and Mary Wefer White M’75
John ’81 and Susan Haines Zaharchuk ’81
Suzanne Struble Zelinka ’61
*deceased
Gregory ’94 and Ellen Amarante ’08
Charles Arnao ’69 and Rosemary Watt
Kevin Blackwell ’85
Sandra and J. Ronald Carey ’61
Alison Caruso
Graydon Curtis
Mary DeCredico ’81
Kenneth Doak ’71
Richard Garman ’56*
Catherine Gronlund
Susan Hunsicker ’77
Mark Jones ’88
Melinda and Walter Kelly ’92
William Krokowski ’84
Robert Nagel ’77
John Pagano ’67
Robert Pollokoff ’81
Robert ’85 and Sherry Bohner Scott ’84
Pamela and Christopher Tinkham ’77
David ’67 and Mary Wefer White M’75
John ’81 and Susan Haines Zaharchuk ’81
Suzanne Struble Zelinka ’61
*deceased
There was only one, tough hitch: I was a lesbian. Support for the LGBTQ community on campus was much different then. There were no departments on campus equivalent to today’s Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans* & Queer Resources or affinity groups such as the current LGBTQA Alumni Group. In fact, despite knowing many faculty and staff who identified as part of the LGBTQ community, I can’t recall another individual at Bucknell who was out in 1983. That lack of support was challenging to say the least.
Cullum and his crew spent seven days on the island, working from dawn to dusk, before they got their payoff — capturing for the first time on camera one of the snakes leaping out of a tree to catch its prey. The scene is one of the most iconic images from Big Pacific, the five-part documentary Cullum produced for PBS, which seeks to demystify one of the most vast, yet least explored parts of our planet. The series aired last summer.
In the meantime, Kiki Pu Chung ’04 is offering Hawaiians and visitors to the islands a natural alternative.
Hawaii Medicinal, the company she co-founded with partner Timothy Clark, sells chemical-free, plant-based medicinal products that Chung makes by hand, including a reef-safe sunblock containing a native Hawaiian leaf, naupaka, that she forages for on the beaches of Oahu (it also contains mineral sun-blocking agents such as zinc).
But studying the literature of environmentalism was not enough for young Turner. “We talked about nature and environmentalism in entertainment, how long we’ve been talking about trying to do right by our planet and how little we were actually doing,” Turner says. “That’s something that has always stuck with me. I figured, enough writing about it; let’s do something about it as well.”
Florence Simmons Leavy P’69, G’03, Aug. 13, Boca Raton, Fla.
An English major at Bucknell, Greenberg showcased her performing and literary talents as a member of Cap & Dagger Drama Club, the literary magazine Fire and Ice, and The Bucknellian. She went on to earn a master’s in speech and theatre from Columbia University and for many years taught speech and communications at Montclair State University and Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Greenberg joined the Board of Trustees in 1995 and served on several of its committees, including education and long-range planning. After completing her term in 2013, she received trustee emerita status in 2014. She contributed to the University community through many other activities, including as a member of the boards of the Alumni Association and the Association for the Arts, program chair for her 30th Reunion, and co-chair of the gift drive for her 40th Reunion. In 2000, she and her husband, Frederic, established the Frederic & Linda Greenberg Fund for Jewish Life & Learning to nurture the life of the Jewish community at Bucknell and to deepen the understanding of Jewish thought, history and traditions among students of all faiths.
He was a stockbroker, starting at Merrill Lynch in 1956 and becoming a member of the New York Stock Exchange in 1959.
A passionate advocate for Bucknell, he regularly encouraged and recommended prospective students for admission and provided significant philanthropic support to advance major projects, including the Weis Music Building and Academic West.
job board!
Emily Baker ’08
emilycbaker@gmail.com
Bucknell Club of N. Calif.
Phil Kim ’12
thisisphilkim@gmail.com
Chris Pecone ’97
cap@savellwilliams.com
Ben Portman ’07
benjamin.s.portman@ms.com
Michelle Havrilla Garoufalis ’12
michelle.garoufalis@gmail.com
Anna Riker Mulligan ’08
anna.riker@gmail.com
Eric Brod ’13
ebb015@bucknell.edu
Cassie Greenhawk ’13
cbg011@bucknell.edu
Jeremy Spicher ’01
jsspicher@gmail.com
Bucknell Club of Philadelphia
Grace Ragold ’13
grace.ragold@gmail.com
Susan Venema ’12
scv004@gmail.com
Bucknell Club of Pittsburgh
Daniel Weimer ’10
daniel.weimer10@gmail.com
Bucknell Club of Greater Susquehanna Valley
Connie Tressler ’62
ctressler@tds.net
Emily Baker ’08
emilycbaker@gmail.com
Bucknell Club of N. Calif.
Phil Kim ’12
thisisphilkim@gmail.com
Emily Baker ’08
emilycbaker@gmail.com
Bucknell Club of N. Calif.
Phil Kim ’12
thisisphilkim@gmail.com
I Gusti Nyoman Darta is an artist-in-residence in Bucknell’s music department and a renowned performer of gamelan, gender wayang and other traditional Balinese instruments. He is a founding member of the gamelan ensemble Çudamani and teaches and performs widely along the East Coast. Homecoming Weekend drew more than 800 Bucknellians back home to Lewisburg in November. Check out other photos from the fun-filled weekend on Pages 66-67.
Photo: Gordon Wenzel
Homecoming Weekend drew more than 800 Bucknellians back home to Lewisburg in November. Check out other photos from the fun-filled weekend on Pages 66-67.
Photo: Gordon Wenzel