The Haverblog

It’s a crisp autumn Friday and Founders Green captures the spirit of this place perfectly.  On the Barclay side of the field, a pickup game of croquet:

Meanwhile, not 100 feet away and toward the math/science  end of things, physics student Julien Menko has his camping chair and is…measuring cosmic rays:

Writes Julien from his research outpost (yes, somewhere in that gadgetry is a device capable of internet access):

The experiment you stumbled upon is our attempt to measure the decay rate of elementary particles called Muons, which are the remnants of cosmic rays. Muons rain down constantly at speeds near the speed of light, in fact over the course of 1 hour of data taking about 25,000 muons were detected in our 10×10 cm detector.  The goal of our experiment is to measure the time it takes for muons to decay once they land in our detector.  We plan to conduct this same experiment on top of Mount Pocono.

With the data taken at both of these alititudes we should be able to confirm Einstein’s theory of special relativity.  Feel free to contact me  if you have any questions.

Have a nice weekend,

Julien Menko

If I ‘have any questions?’  Dangerous (and potentially very time-consuming) thing to ask someone who never took advanced physics!  And as for Julien’s smile and the ‘have a nice weekend’ signoff?  For you prospective students who are considering the College: that’s also soooo Haverford. 

All in all, just another beautiful day at the ‘ford.

-Chris Mills ‘82

This has been a big week for Cornelius Crane Chase (aka Chevy) ex-’66. He celebrates his 66th birthday today. Also, Chevy appeared earlier in the week on The Today Show and told host Meredith Vieira that he had been expelled from Haverford for having a cow in his room (and perhaps some feminine visitors as well, though the presence of women guests was hardly unknown at the Haverford of that era).

cow

Since Chevy’s TV comments, the College has been inundated with inquiries from the press and alumni asking for specifics and/or verification about the bovine incursion.

Indeed, campus folklore continues to credit Chevy with leading a cow up to the higher reaches of Barclay. Since, as everyone seems to know, cows can’t walk downstairs, this visit obviously posed a dilemma for students and administration.

chevy

The story these days never goes any further than the cow’s arrival.  No one seems to want to think about what happened to the cow. though an e-bay website notes that “the administration was forced to kill the cow, dismember it, and remove it in pieces from Barclay.” However, the website also comments archly that “This particular story bears similarities to legends told at other colleges and universities.”

Chevy must have had a thing for cows. There are also rumors  that Chevy was expelled from the Dalton School, a prestigious New York City incubator for the precocious and the potentially-prosperous, for….we’re not making this up….leading a cow upstairs in the school building. The UES Journal (that’s UES as in Upper East Side) reports the story but also casts doubt on it, noting that Chevy was at Dalton only through 8th grade (at that point, the school was for girls only beyond 8th grade). That publication speculates that the cow incident did happen at Haverford, but reports a version that had the cow being airlifted to safety–and the Bico News once mentioned yet another version in which a crane was used to remove it.

This corner will remain agnostic on the Chevy and the cow episode.  We were on campus during Chevy’s eventful year at Haverford (1962-63), experienced no visual or olfactory evidence of a cow, and heard lots about Chevy but nothing concerning quadrupeds. It certainly could have happened.

The presence of farm animals in Haverford dorms is amply documented. No less a personage than Isaac Sharpless, Haverford dean and president between 1884 and 1918, writes of chickens appearing in dorms and students borrowing the “College horse.”

Henry Joel Cadbury ‘03 (as in 1903), who later accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee, used to chuckle over an incident in 1903 when some of the residents of a “small donkey pasture on Railroad Avenue” were escorted to the third floor of Barclay.  Maybe Chevy was just re-creating an old Haverford tradition!

Folklore is notorious for attributing many feats performed over a certain chronological period to one charismatic or heroic figure. Is Chevy’s alleged cowscapade an example of this tendency? Did he really block off Lancaster Avenue and divert traffic through the campus? What about the alleged fake public suicide on Parents’ Day? Did they happen and, if so, was Chevy involved? Probably no one, including Chevy, can now say for sure.

We’re glad the cow story still circulates. If it didn’t happen, it should have. Happy Birthday, Chevy; you live on at Haverford and have inspired generations of students–but maybe it’s a good thing that no cows now graze within many miles of the campus!

–Greg Kannerstein ‘63

Thomas J. Ryan ‘46 passed away peacefully in Hillsborough, CA, on Sept. 23 at 84. His family noted that in lieu of flowers or donations, an act of kindness to someone in need would be what Tommy would have wanted. No one who knew Tommy through his Haverford connections could have thought otherwise!

Tommy Ryan’s name lives on at Haverford in the tangible presence of Ryan Gymnasium (which since 2005 has not been used as a gym but for faculty offices and lately as a “living room” and hang-out space for the entire student body).  His spirit also endures at Haverford through the many contributions he made as a member of the Board of Managers from 1982 until 1994 and as an Emeritus Manager since then.

Ryan served as chair of the Development Committee and on other key Board committees. A member of the Corporation, Tommy provided leadership for many fund-raising activities including badly-needed renovations of the then “Old Gym” in 1982 which allowed Haverford to provide improved recreational facilities just as the College went fully coed.

Tommy Ryan was a Philadelphia native who attended St. Joseph’s Prep, becoming one of the few graduates of a local Catholic high school to attend Haverford before the 1970s.  At Haverford, Tom majored in English and played football, soccer and baseball.

After studying insurance at Penn’s Wharton School, Tommy worked as an insurance executive in Philadelphia for 18 years before moving to San Francisco where he became Executive Vice-President of Fred S. James & Co. and then Senior Vice-President of Marsh & McClennan, Inc. He formed in 1979 the ISU group of companies which became a leading aggregator of independent insurance agencies.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday that Ryan’s “creative thinking and imagination led to an innovative insurance program which was crucial to the construction of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System” in the 1960s.

His business feats were accompanied by, in the words of the Chronicle and of his son T.J., “success in every aspect of life….(Ryan) embodied the true essence of family…a man of his word…a loyal and good friend to so many…a generous man who always had time for family, friends and business associates…..Let us remember his infectious smile, his charming personality and always dapper style, his extensive vocabulary and quick wit and his gentlemanly demeanor that brightened our lives.”

We’ll be able to see the lights of Ryan Gym from anywhere on the central campus tonight as every night, but one of Haverford’s brightest lights has gone out after a long and inspiring life and career. We extend sympathy to Tommy’s wife, Rita, his five children and six grandchildren.

(Haverford staff Violet Brown and Beth McGrath contributed to this article as did the San Francisco Chronicle. While Haverblog unfortunately cannot profile all the Haverfordians who have left us, we will try to provide representative obituaries of those who were most active and helpful to the College or whose lives represented  the ideals of Haverford and its graduates in especially noteworthy ways.)

–Greg Kannerstein ‘63

….and elsewhere as well. The Anthologist, latest novel from Nicholson Baker ‘79, is drawing plaudits on all sides, including the two below from the daily and Sunday New Y0rk Times, which also will show you what Nick looks like these days,via photo and drawing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/books/10maslin.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/books/review/Orr-t.html

Nick gave a reading Thursday night at Philadelphia’s Free Library,and, while he might be slightly prejudiced, his classmate, Temple University librarian Jonathan LeBreton, who was there, reported that “Nick was marvelous: cadenced, modulated and simply gripping.”  The novel is about a poet named Paul Chowder–which should be reason enough to read it–and while seemingly it could not be more different than last year’s controversial Human Smoke, in which Baker trained a pacifist lens on the run-up to World War II, at least one reviewer forecasts an “uncomfortable stir in literary circles.”

Haverfordians in or near locations below can catch Nick’s reading and talk about the book on these dates:

Sept. 16, San Francisco, CA, Mechanics’ Institute, 12:30 pm

Also Sept. 16, Corte Madera, CA, Book Passage , 7 pm

Sept. 23, Manchester Center, VT, Northshire Bookstore, 7 pm

Sept. 24, Portsmouth, NH, River Run Bookstore, 7 pm

Oct. 1, Belfast, ME, Longfellow Books, 7 pm

Haverblog hears New York and Washington appearances are in the works for Nick , so stay tuned.

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Haverford’s most recent alumni employee appointment didn’t make it into our recent blog entry about the 33 HC grads now employed here, which is a shame since both employee and position are noteworthy. Emily Higgs ‘08 has joined the College as Quaker Affairs Program Coordinator, having spent the year since her graduation working for the Friends’ office at the United Nations.

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In the case of Dr. Darwin Pockop ‘51, the eminent scientist and expert on mesenchymal stem cells, who walked across the Commencement stage 57 years before Emily Higgs, his scientific opinions are more sought after than ever. Dr. Prockop, now director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Texas A&M’s Health Science Center, was asked to comment on a recent controversy about a drug called Prochymal, which many hoped would be able to treat a life-threatening complication of bone marrow transplantation. Prochymal is obtained from stem cells from the bone marrow of healthy young adults.

After initial promising reasults, the last two clinical trials of Prochymal were unsuccessful. Reporters sought out Prockop, who was not involved in the trials,and he verified the difficulties in figuring out how these cells work. “Understanding it well enough to translate to the clinic–that’s the hurdle we’re at,” Prockop, who majored in philosophy here before earning an MD and a Ph.D. in biochemistry, responded to press inquiries late last week.

–Greg Kannerstein ‘63

Talk about speaking truth to power….Haverford grad Nate Favini ‘05 took on the administration of Harvard Medical School, where he is chair of the Student Council Advisory Board, last week and came out on top. Nate, a former Students’ Council Vice-President at Haverford and biology major here, was the leader among a number of students and Harvard Med faculty who objected to a new policy which would have limited student contact with news media, The New York Times reported last week.

Shortly after Favini and other students spoke out, the policy was retracted and the dean of students promised revisions to avoid controlling student comments to the media in any new policy.

The policy was evidently “prompted by student remarks earlier this year about the influence of pharmaceutical companies on medical education,” said The Times.

Favini, who served two years with the Peace Corps in Mozambique before going to Harvard, wrote: “This is one of many ways that medical education implicitly teaches behaviors that differ significantly from the values that we hope physicians will uphold. Instead of limiting students, we should encourage bold thinking and allow them to advocate for the reforms that our health care system so badly needs.”

Spoken like a true Haverfordian, but Nate had plenty of distinguished company in objecting to the attempt to restrict comment by students to media. Harvey Silverglate, a Cambridge civil rights attorney, said he knew of no other university with such a policy and  Dr. Marcia Angell, Harvard lecturer and former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, commented that “The policy was extremely ill-advised.”

Nate’s profs and peers at Haverford obviously respected his intellect–he graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with departmental high honors and the Ariel Loewy Prize in biology, so we’ll await with particular interest the next chapters in  the career of a young Haverfordian who seems destined to have a lot to say–and a lot that others will listen to–in the vital health care debates of the next several years.

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We told you earlier this week numerous alums were working for Haverford in some capacity or other, but we missed one in that blog entry. While Dr. Larry Miller ‘75, who can take care of orthopedic problems, was cited, we neglected Dr. Andrew Smolar ‘83, Consulting Psychiatrist in the Health Services, who provides help and solace for the psyche–and don’t we all need some of that! That brings the current  alum employee total to 32

–Greg Kannerstein ‘63

Last minute preparations for the arrival of the freshman class were underway early this morning in front of Founders Hall.  Details about the incoming class are here.

Haverford alums showed up in all kinds of places last week, many of which were spotlighted by The New York Times and other newspapers.

Dr. Richard P. Wenzel ‘61, chairman of internal medicine at Virginia Commonwealth U’s medical school and former president of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, was The Times’ poster physician on August 10 for a long discussion by the paper’s medical correspondent, Lawrence Altman, M.D., of the worldwide effort to combat swine flu.

Wenzel recently traveled in the US  and to Mexico and four South American countries at the invitation of former trainees now in those countries to observe cases, advise on control messages and examine data.

One of Wenzel’s surprising discoveries, according to The Times:

“An odd feature of the new virus is the lack of fever in a significant proportion of documented cases, even after some patients become seriously ill. In Chile, it was about half,  in Mexico City about a third, and elsewhere, less.  Lack of fever has been noted by other observers in several Canadian cases.”

This is a crucial observation since “absence of fever, when fever is specified in the definition (of swine flu), can cause serious underestimation of data,” says Altman.

He adds “absence of fever (also) limits the usefulness of thermal scans to identify people who have the virus and thus control the pandemic.”

Read the whole story about this frontline warrior in the fight against the threatened pandemic here: Seeking Lessons in Swine Flu Fight

For involvement of a well-known Haverford alumnus in a lighter sphere, check out yesterday’s Times (August 16, Metropolitan Section, p. 2). Michael Wilson’s ostensible account of how Colin Harrison ‘82 spends summer Sundays watching his son Walker, 17, play baseball becomes a profile of the writer and magazine editor.

Readers learn about Colin’s definition of a philosopher (”someone who’s jaywalking without looking for oncoming traffic”), his obsession with maps of New York City, and his discovery of potential characters for his novels while en route to the games.

Several vignettes describe the Harrisons’ version of father-and-son bonding over baseball, a literary staple for decades. Incidentally, we learn that Walker will be attending several baseball showcases this summer where college coaches can see him. Dave Beccaria take note! After all, another Haverfordian would not be a novelty in the Harrison family which also includes brother Dana Harrison ‘85, middle school head at Landon School in Bethesda, MD, following in the footsteps of late dad Earl Harrison ‘54, long-time head of Westtown and Sidwell Friends schools.

Here’s the story complete with photo of Colin sporting son’s baseball team cap while working on his map collection:   Eggs, Bacon and a Baseball Cap

An earlier post in this space noted the highly-favorable review in the weekday NY Times of the new book by David Wessel ‘75 about Ben Bernanke and the whole economic meltdown of the last two years. Thus we won’t go into any more details about another Times rave about the book, a full-pager in the Times Book Review of August 9 by Paul Barrett (p. 10).

We’ll just quote Barrett’s opening paragraph which should whet your appetite to read the whole review and Wessell’s book In Fed We Trust:

“Forget Stephen King. For readers determined to decipher the baffling collapse of Wall Street, David Wessell’s account of what has transpired behind closed doors in Washington over the past couple of years provides a tale that’s nothing short of hair-raising.”

Plus you get to see what Federal Reserve Bank chair Bernanke might look like on a dollar bill!

Here’s the link to the review: While Regulators Slept

–Greg Kannerstein ‘63

In all the coverage of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s qualifications for the Supreme Court, no one has yet mentioned what all Haverfordians will instantly know insures her confirmation: her wisdom in choosing law clerks. If you looked carefully at your TV when President Obama announced his nomination of Sotomayor back on May 26, you would have seen one of those clerks, Michael Oswalt ‘00, clapping in the background, adding an even more celebratory mood to his 31st birthday.

The White House Press Office won’t allow her clerks to comment to the media before the confirmation vote but the Press Office can’t control what Mike says to his parents. Dad Mac Oswalt told The Saratogian (NY) newspaper: “I think all of her clerks found her to be a wonderful person and a great boss. She really takes the clerks under her wing and treats them like human beings.”

The confirmation hearings cap an exciting year for Michael, who graduated from Duke Law School in May, 2008, with degrees in law and divinity, two subjects not always yoked in public opinion.  But academic distinction is nothing new for Michael. As a Haverford psychology major working with Prof. Douglas Davis, he earned High Honors and graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, as well as singing in various College musical groups.

A source close to Michael revealed that the only apparent difficulty he might have had in working with the US Court of Appeals Judge was a question of loyalty to higher powers. Turns out Michael is an ardent Red Sox fan while Sotomayor, from the Bronx, cheers for the Yankees.  She, of course, is known for her historic decision in 1995, ruling for Major League Baseball players over owners in the controversy which had led to the cancellation of the previous World Series.

Oswalt previously worked for US Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH, and a one-time Haverford Commencement speaker). If Judge Sotomayor is confirmed, his new office won’t be far from his former boss since he is beginning a two-year fellowship with a labor union. “He’s kind of blessed, like Sonia,” Michael’s dad said.”" He feels very lucky with the kind of people he’s met along the way.”

–Greg Kannerstein ‘63

(With thanks to The Saratogian of May 27, 2009)

After months of preparation, Alumni Weekend 2009 will be in full-swing tomorrow. Although early arrival (and a few events) begin this evening, Friday is the first full day of activities.We expect more than 800 alums and their guests to take part in the weekend’s festivities.

The big 130′ by 80′ tent is ready on Founders Green for the Friday night “Dessert Under the Tent” and Saturday’s All-Alumni Lunch and barbecue dinners for the youngest reunion classes, 1999 and 2004. Apparently this size tent is sturdy enough to hold a person on top – or even snow – but we’re hopeful the weather will be much milder!

Streaming video is now available for Commencement ‘09. You may view the entire ceremony or skip directly to various points in the program.