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

Multi-media maven and  multi-talented alum Ty Ahmad-Taylor ‘90 has made many sports world waves in the last few months with his creation “FanFeedr.” No, FanFeedr is not a way to get the hot dogs to the fans faster; what it is is “a real-time personalized sports aggregator.”

Translated into terms even someone over 30 can understand, that means that the sports fan who is already inundated with lots of news he doesn’t much care about can list his favorite sports, teams and players, and be connected with all the latest about those particular passions, picking and choosing exactly which items to read.

Then, our rabid fan can share, discuss, e-mail or rate said items and pass them onto friends via Twitter or Facebook.

As Ty recently told a sports blogger, Jason Peck, “We believe we can capture most of the market, from the casual fan to the Fantasy Sports player. Specifically, you can get all of the news about your favorite team or some of it or just bits of it (e.g., ‘just show me video about my team’) in an easy-to-use manner.”

“In a nutshell,” continued Ahmad-Taylor, “I am explicitly a fan of the 49ers and the Warriors (unfortunately). While I certainly love keeping up with my under- achieving-until-recently Bay Area teams, I am also interested is what my friends are interested in. and thus the social aspects of their consumption become a discovery vector for me for stuff I wouldn’t know otherwise.”

The erudite Ahmad-Taylor compares what he’s doing to the works of abstract artist Mark Rothko or the film No Country for Old Men, so we won’t get hung up on what a “discovery vector” is, but we do wonder how a Haverford economics major found this particular niche.

Ty recently told another blogger, Jeff Brunelle, that after college, he started as a “visual journalist at The New York Times. Because I was younger and could run fast, I got all the death and destruction stuff like the LA Riots, Waco, TX, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Cambodian elections in 1992, and so on. Rather than continue to cover the newly-emerging fields of the world wide web, I decided to actually create stuff.”

That decision meant a return to San Francisco and three years as Creative Director of Excite@Home (nee@Home Networks), interspersed with a year in cooking school in London. (We told you he was multi-talented.)

A stint of developing interactive TV application s for TV works ensued, followed by the obligatory Ahmad-Taylor escape (nine months snowboarding in Lake Tahoe). Then it was back to the Philadelphia area to work in many departments at Comcast and on to Viacom, rebuilding MTV.com, “rolling out social features with my smart team across the Music and Logo group.” Somewhere in that energetic career came a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia U.

Ahmad-Taylor headquartered FanFeedr in Mahattan’s DUMBO section. We imagine that he will soon meet, if he hasn’t already, Douglas Warshaw ex-’81, another Haverfordian NYC-based sports news innovator and founder of Jockipedia.com, which conveys athletes’ own blogs and tweets to their fans. Ahmad-Taylor believes that development will break down the “final barrier to sports consumption, as what the athlete thinks becomes less opaque.”

Ty, who has no objection to athletes and coaches tweeting fans during games and practices, won’t predict how his new project will develop. He told Brunelle, “Users of the site will determine where the site evolves. I simply want to give them the tools to make their sports consumption easier and more timely and to model to things they are already trying to do (but lack the tools to execute).”

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

Tom Farley ’77, aka Dr. Thomas A. Farley, M.D., M.P.H., Tulane, appointed New York City Health Commissioner by Mayor Michael Bloomberg on May 18, already has implemented an ambitious agenda—and, as one would expect, has no shortage of critics.

One of the legion of distance runners trained by Tom Donnelly, Farley remains “string-bean thin” and runs three miles or bikes every day, according to The New York Times in a recent profile. He clearly is applying the fitness lessons he learned in college to his new bully pulpit.

The Commissioner’s position was already a hot seat since predecessor Dr. Thomas Frieden, whom Farley served as senior advisor in 2007-08, led crusades to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, require restaurants to eliminate trans fats, and promote exercise. Frieden was named director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by President Obama.

With H1N1 flu to battle as schools open and winter approaches and the ongoing issues of preventing tuberculosis and STDs while dealing with HIV/AIDS in the city, one might think a new appointee would wait a bit before jumping back into and even expanding the causes Dr. Frieden took on. Not Tom!

Farley’s worried residents of the boroughs outside Manhattan put on the pounds since they don’t walk as much so he’s trying to create more bicycle lanes, open schoolyards for recreation and unlock stairwells so people can walk the stairs. He already has the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene working with bodegas to stock more fresh fruits and vegetables, The Times reported. Tom has supported a new city law requiring buildings with freight elevators to provide access for cyclists who ride to work. He’s campaigning against  soda, using the slogan “Pouring on the Pounds,” and trying to enlist architects, non-profit groups and businesses to make the city more exercise-friendly.

By September 15, one website, vitals.com, was already headlining a story on Farley’s campaign to reduce smoking: “Has Farley Gone Too Far—Ban on Smoking in Parks and Beaches?”

Tom clearly doesn’t think so:

“We don’t think children, parents when they are standing at a soccer game should have to be breathing smoke from the person next to them. We don’t think our children should have to be watching someone smoke.”

Six years after smoking in just about every indoor area in New York City was prohibited, Farley notes that “Smoking is responsible for killing over 7,000 New Yorkers. We don’t think it’s too far to say that people shouldn’t be smoking in parks, and to try to protect our children from getting addicted to tobacco.”

Ending smoking in parks and at beaches in NYC won’t exactly be easy—there are 1700 parks and other recreational facilities and seven beaches, stretching a combined 14 miles.

Public health advocates are lining up in Farley’s corner and major tobacco manufacturers aren’t happy. Four years ago, Farley and a colleague wrote a book suggesting small changes in food prices and workplace bans on snacks. One review said the book had a “pervasive tone of puritanical disapproval” and that “Americans are unlikely to pay attention to this pair of scolds.”

So Farley knows he has a long race to run to achieve his goals of ending all smoking and making the fat fit.  As any Haverfordian realizes, however, Ford runners are used to covering long distances. With three years to go, we suspect Tom will get pretty far despite the critics.

–Greg Kannerstein ‘63

Avast, me hearties! I’ll probably have to walk the plank since this comes a bit late, but for those of you who observed International Talk Like a Pirate Day this past weekend (along with Rosh Hashanah and/or Eid al-Fitr) I was positive you wanted to know that Dave Barry ‘69 played a major role in the quirky holiday’s popularization.

While the idea surfaced in 1995 on a racquetball court in Oregon, and September19 was then adopted as the date since it was the birthday of the ex-wife of one of the inventors, it was not until 2002 that Dave B. caught the wind in his sails and featured it in a Miami Herald column. After that, the holiday rode the tides of popular media and became a favorite at many colleges, though we’re not sure Haverford students have yet adopted the cutlasses and eye patches, much less the lingo. The inventors’ web site got 19 million hits on a recent TLAP Day.

CNN quotes Dave as writing “As the name suggests, this is a day on which everybody would talk like a pirate. Is that a great idea or what? There are so many practical benefits that I can’t even begin to list them all.”

The holiday seemed threatened recently when the notion that pirates were a quaint but extinct historical curiosity was sunk by the resurgence of real and nasty piracy off Somalia, but Dave Barry, the inventors and Pirate Magazine (yes, there is one!) have righted the ship and the skull-and-crossbones flew in many venues this past weekend.

As Barry pointed out in an e-mail last Thursday, “I am extremely proud of my role in helping to promote International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which I believe has done more than any single other day to further the cause of international misunderstanding.”

We can’t predict that Dave will be going to Oslo any time soon to become the third Haverfordian to receive the Nobel Peace Price after Philip Noel-Baker 1910 and Henry Joel Cadbury 1903 (on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee).

And please don’t anyone try to hold the Nobel Committee for ransom in the brig,
but Haverfordians can certainly give a “yo-ho-ho” and take a swig from the rum bottle (as long as they are of legal age) in honor of one of Barry’s latest contributions to America’s cultural climate!

-Cap’n 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

We wouldn’t any Haverfordians to miss the chance to hear renowned author Nicholson Baker ‘79, who speaks at Philadelphia’s Free Library tonight (Thursday, Sept. 10), so check out this story from today’s Philadelphia Inquirer and get down to 1901 Vine Street at 7:30 pm if you can. Haverblog will have more to say about Nick and how the New York Times Book Review treated his latest book early next week. Here’s the link: Of droll, balmy Paul Chowder and his poetically lived life.

–Greg Kannerstein ‘63

When I was a senior shortly after the Civil War, a friend of mine said, “Maybe someday you’ll come back and work here.”  I told him that was the last thing I’d ever do.  I should have known better–and that’s not just hindsight after 37 years of employment at Haverford. Lots of alums do return to work at their alma mater. Haverford’s current count is 31 (19 full-time), most prominently of course President Steve Emerson ‘74.

Alums on the faculty and in the administration of small liberal arts colleges are nothing new. In the 20th century,  four  Haverford presidents, William Wistar Comfort 1894, Felix Morley 1915, Hugh Borton ‘26 and Tom Kessinger ‘63/65, earned diplomas here while five others (Isaac Sharpless, Gilbert White, Jack Coleman, Robert Stevens and Tom Tritton) emerged from other undergraduate backgrounds.

Other alums such as triple-threat (VP, prof, 1st Director of Admission) Arch MacIntosh ‘22; Mac’s successor in Admissions, Bill Ambler ‘45, of the bright blue eyes and (for many) irresistible magnetism drawing them to attend Haverford; and Vice-President but oh-so-much-more Steve Cary ‘37 likely shaped the College more than any others over half a century or more.

Among faculty, folks like Rufus Jones 1885 (philosophy), Francis B. Gummere 1872 (English), Henry J. Cadbury 1903 (Biblical literature) Levi Arnold Post 1911 (classics), Harry Pfund ‘22 (German), William B . Meldrum ‘42 (chemistry), Jack Lester ‘37 (English), Holland Hunter ‘43 (economics), John Cary ‘45 (German/humanities), and John Davison ‘51 (music) were among the glories of their times for many of their Haverford students.

Back in the day, most liberal arts college faculties included large contingents of alumni. In 1930, for example, 36% of Haverford’s faculty had received diplomas here. By 1950, the percentage of alumni faculty was down to 30% and dropped steadily through the decades since with 17% in 1960, 10% in 1970, 8% in 1980, 4% in 1990, and only 2.1% in 2000.  Genus Haverfordiensis seemed on its way to extinction as faculty at alma mater. However, while it’s too early to proclaim a trend, the 2009-10 catalog shows twice as high a percentage of faculty Fords as in 2000, 4.2%, holding forth in the classroom or lab.

Today’s students benefit from profs Ken Koltun-Fromm ‘88 (religion), Andrea Morris ‘91 (biology), Theresa Tensuan-Eli ‘89 (English), Stephon Alexander ‘93 (physics), and visitors Neal Grabell ‘77 and David Lippel ‘94, ably assisted by Magill Library mainstay Michael Persick ‘88.

The recent appointment of Colin Bathory ‘99 as Haverford’s first alum to serve as men’s lacrosse head coach highlights athletics as another traditional area for alumni returnees. Director of Athletics Wendy Smith ‘87 (former women’s soccer coach) and highly-successful softball coach Jen Ward ‘04 are full-time athletic staff while part-time assistant coaches include Ken  Norris ‘73 (men’s tennis), Dan Crowley ‘90 and Tim McLean ‘06 (baseball), Vanesssa Pena ‘09 (fencing) and a legion of former proteges of Tom Donnelly and Fran Rizzo helping with the men’s and women’s track and cross-country programs, including Doug Mason ‘81, Bob Hasson ‘82, JB Haglund ‘02, Kate Reese ‘06 and Jossi Fritz-Mauer ‘06. Jody Mayer ‘05 eased new women’s lacrosse coach Julie Shaner Young’s transition from the Ivy League (Princeton grad, Penn  coach) to Division III last year last year and is on hand again for the coming spring.

Admission Offices everywhere hire grads as integral parts of their staffs since they can hit the ground running conveying information about their college. We don’t know how Haverford missed Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Jess Lord, worthy successor to Bill Ambler, since he attended Westtown School as so many Fords have, but somehow he ended up as a Brown undergrad. Jess has more than redeemed himself, currently employing former Honor Council chair Mary (Green) Maier ‘05 and Joe Coish ‘06 to recruit future Fords.

Who better to warm the cockles of alumni hearts (and loosen up their pursestrings) than grads like Director of Leadership Gifts Ann West Figuredo ‘84 (also sister, wife and mom of Haverfordians) and Associate Director–Major Gifts Lisa Piraino ‘04 or to tell the alums and the world about campus doings than Director of College Communications Chris Mills ‘82?

The exciting new academic centers on campus found chief administrators among the alumni pool, Parker Snowe ‘79 at the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship and James Weissinger ‘06 at the Hurford Humanities Center. Newly-minted BA Chaz Thomas ‘09 is an invaluable research aide to Provost Linda Bell.

And we hope none of our students ever gets hurt, but if they do, they’re in good Haverfordian hands with Orthopedic Consultant Dr. Lawrence Miller ‘75.

Those great folks working here with degrees from colleges throughout the world and the USA have brought all sorts of exciting ideas and innovations to the old place, but, as Daniel Webster said of Dartmouth in a famous Supreme Court case, “It is only a small college but there are those of us who love it.” It’s gratifying that so many of us get to use that affection every day right at its source!

–Greg Kannerstein ‘63