Fall 2014
Letters to the Editor
Songs from Unsung Alumni
Thank you, Ed Weathers [’68, GSAS’69] (“Song of the Unsung Alumni,” “Alumni Corner,” Summer 2014), for reminding me that although the only time I may see my name in print is if this letter is published, I can wear my Columbia colors with pride. Roar, Lions, Roar!
Gretchen Hudson ’93
Birmingham, Ala.
Thanks for printing Ed Weathers [’68, GSAS’69]’s piece in “Alumni Corner.” It describes my Columbia College experience to a “T” as well as my wife’s!
Robert Meyers ’62
Oakland, Calif.
The [“Alumni Corner”] article by Ed Weathers [’68, GSAS’69] was positively the best. I’m a bit surprised that CCT had the temerity to publish it, as this magazine seems to be dedicated solely to reflect upon success after success. After all, I have yet to read anything from anybody about failures, dismissals, broken promises, financial reversals, disastrous marriages and the like, all of which have always been firmly embedded in the human condition.
After reading countless issues of CCT, I had the uneasy feeling that I was the only graduate who did not compose a play, head a large corporation, edit a national magazine or discover any quarks. As a result, utter despair continued to constantly hover over my head. Not anymore. Here’s to you, Ed, because now I can go about my own success with a markedly improved disposition.
Dr. Alfred Hamady ’44
Battle Creek, Mich.
A Core Education
Thanks for the Spring 2014 issue featuring the section on the Varsity Show. I, too, was in the Pony Ballet. Judging by the responses, it must have been a medical school requirement and tradition. On another note, I thank Ed Weathers [’68, GSAS’69] for his masterful “Song of the Unsung Alumni” [“Alumni Corner”]. He gets my vote for spokesperson of the year. Right on!
I treasure my “Core” education at Columbia. It made me a better doctor and I hope a better person.
Dr. Sears Edwards ’48
Garden City, N.Y.
Spectator Online
I read with keen interest Alex Sachare ’71’s column “Within the Family” [Summer 2014], regarding Spectator’s move to reduce the print version to once a week and to focus on an online version of the “paper.”
I feel a similar sadness, and for similar reasons. I, too, spent a good deal of my last two years at Columbia in Ferris Booth Hall, working on Spec. I was the sports editor, as well, for one year, and went on to a 33-year career as a sports writer for the Providence Journal, the last 22 of which I covered the Boston Red Sox on a daily basis before retiring in September 2008. I left the paper to further a second career, conducting interactive writing workshops in classrooms and at conferences in a program I call “Nudging the Imagination” (nudgingtheimagination.com).
But as I watch the demise of the newspaper industry, I am saddened. I, too, wonder about the fact-checking process in this 24/7, blog-and-tweet, get-it-out-there, fix-it-later mentality that can creep into the business of gathering and disseminating the news. With a newspaper, as I tell my students, there is an expectation of credibility. Online blogs/stories? Who knows? I warn them about being careful in taking as gospel information gleaned online. Just because it’s online does not necessarily make it accurate, I tell them, but who knows if they will take that advice to heart?
When my 6-month-old granddaughter is old enough to ask me what I used to do for a living, I will tell her proudly that I worked for a newspaper. She’ll scrunch up her face and say to “Papa Stevie,” “A what?” The newspaper industry is a dying industry, obviously. The Journal has been downsizing for years, laying off people and turning the product into a shell of itself, and with its recent sale for a tiny fraction of what it sold for in 1997, it’s not going to get any better.
We can only hope, as you say, that Spec won’t “devolve into just another blog.”
Steven Krasner ’75
East Greenwich, R.I.
Sam Retrospective
PHOTO: ARNON KRONGRAD ’80This letter does not address an item in CCT but is an exciting announcement to and request for input from the entire Columbia community. The Class of 1975 40th Reunion Committee proudly announces the first full retrospective on the works of Sam Steinberg, Columbia’s outsider artist-in-residence 1967–82. Our goal is for this multimedia exhibition to be on display during Alumni Reunion Weekend and Dean’s Day, Thursday, May 28–Sunday, May 31, and into the summer. The exhibition may also travel to other venues. The event and its related activities will be a gift to the 2015 reunion classes and Dean’s Day attendees.
For details about the Sam Steinberg 2015 retrospective and related events, or to submit Sam artwork, oral histories and other items for the exhibition, email Randy Nichols ’75 at rcn2day@gmail.com. Go Lions! Go CC’75!
Fernando Castro ’75, Pasadena, Calif.;
David Gawarecki ’75, SIPA’91, New Haven, Conn.;
Fran Minarik ’75, New York City;
Albert Mrozik ’75, Cream Ridge, N.J.;
Randy Nichols ’75, TC’79, Baltimore;
and the Class of 1975 40th Reunion Committee
Professor Emeritus
The Summer issue was excellent as usual, but I was distressed by an item in Bookshelf. Maristella de Panizza Lorch is described as “professor emerita.” Any first-year Latin student could tell you that under the ERROR-SOX-LANCET rule, third declension nouns that end in -or are masculine in gender. Therefore she is professor emeritus, as that title has always been used. You could argue that professor now is an English word, so Latin rules of grammar don’t apply, but once you add the adjective it becomes the old Latin title. I understand the desire to make the language gender-neutral and I am happy to use firefighter and mail carrier instead of fireman and policeman (though I still use freshman and first baseman). But if gender neutrality is our goal, why invent artificial feminine forms such as emerita? If you are going to feminize the phrase, she becomes professorette or professatrix. You aren’t going to do that, are you?
Thomas W. Lippman ’61
Washington, D.C.
Columbia Connections
I am always interested to read CCT. As an undergraduate at Columbia College I was being prepared for life. But, being an undergraduate in the intense college environment was also life itself.
I am the son of a Columbia professor and for a time I thought this was fairly rare. But I have learned that there seems to have been many others. I can point out sons of professors of chemistry (my father was a chemistry professor) and sons of architecture and sons of fine arts professors.
My father, Arthur W. Thomas (SEAS Class of 1912, GSAS Class of 1915), entered Columbia in January 1909 and spent his entire civilian career at the University. He was energetic, highly motivated and intense. In May 1954 my father was among those, including President Emeritus
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who were honored at the Columbia Bicentennial Dinner. My mother sat next to Eisenhower, I believe. Eisenhower asked my mother what she would like him to talk about, and she replied, about Bayeux, the first city liberated in the Normandy advance. My mother was born and educated in Bayeux and when she came to this country she brought her prize books and school certificates of scholarship. What a wonderful thing, for a gentleman from Kansas and a lady from Normandy to share experiences at a dinner in New York City. And that is Columbia for you.
I am pleased to know that the Spectator archives are now digitized. From them I have learned that in 1952 my father was named chairman of the Columbia Civil Defense Council. And so it goes.
Arthur L. Thomas ’50
Greenwich, Conn.