E-Newsletter

Carleton recognizes alumni, parents, and friends who have made deferred, or “legacy,” gifts to benefit the College through membership in the Joseph Lee Heywood Society, named for Carleton’s first treasurer, who was killed in the notorious Jesse James raid on Northfield in 1876.  Read more about the Heywood Society here.  With only 11 more new Heywood Members, our Class will achieve a record for the most members of the Heywood Society!  Please help us set that record!  Join these classmates who have already made legacy gifts to support Carleton’s future.

Tobi Hanna-Davies

The most important part of my education came after Carleton—my Peace Corps experience on the island of Falalop, Ulithi, in Yap District of Micronesia, where I taught English and every other subject to grades 3-6 in a two-room schoolhouse, to children whose culture had an unwritten language, stone age tools and no form of money.  After this experience, I became director of a preschool in New Haven CT for six years and then directed the Eastern Michigan University Child Care Center for the next six years, with children from all over the world.  Click here to read more about Tobi.

               
Tobi Hanna-Davies, Then     Tobi Hanna-Davies, Now

 How did it shape our lives?

“Know of a classmate with distinguished achievements or exceptional service to Carleton? It’s not too late to nominate them for an Alumni Association Award!  The final deadline to submit a nomination is November 15—contact John Cooke with questions.”

Congratulations to the 73 classmates who have posted bios on line so far, at least at the time of this writing!  The number continues to rise, but not fast enough to have a complete class story before the Bio Book goes to print.  Richard, the chemist, has calculated that, at this rate, we would have heard from everyone in 2021 (a bit late)!  So PLEASE put the November 30, 2017, due date on your calendar and cell phone, and take some time to tell everyone your story.

Daniel Matsuda, ’19, of Kameula, Hawaii, is a current recipient of financial support from our Class of 1968 Scholarship.  We recently asked him to tell us a bit about himself and about what receiving assistance from the 1968 Scholarship has meant to him.  He says:

Four volunteers are needed.  Do you have Little Nourse theater experience?  We need you!! 

For Saturday night, the production of scenes from The Summer Cottage by Pricilla Cogan, needs four volunteers.  The selected scenes will be staged in Great Hall after dinner Saturday night.  Four generations bob and weave around each other in their beloved lakeside summer cottage; their language sparkles and reflects the era of each generation.

 1.  Two will read as ghosts:

• The great grandmother is an egocentric, melodramatic person.
• The grandmother is a pragmatic, steady individual.

 2. Two other characters are in the summer cottage:

• The mother is a middle-aged woman distressed over a marital crisis who disdains the belief in ghosts.
• The great granddaughter is a rebellious 23-year-old graduate student involved in a lesbian relationship who can hear the ghosts (after initially thinking they are vampires) but can’t see them.

Read the synopsis for a glimpse into the characters and their relationships.  If you have an interest in any of the parts and in reading the whole play, contact Bob Carlson at pc_dragon@comcast.net.   Click here to read the Synopsis.

The Class of 1968 began as a Carleton admission “experiment”

September 25, 1964, The Carletonian article touts the “unusual talents in the class of 1968.”  We were the second largest class admitted to Carleton and, with “almost all of the original applicants…academically qualified,” the Admissions Committee “was more inclined to experiment a bit.”

Meryl Moritz just came back from Cuba ahead of Irma’s strike against the island nation.  Why was I in Cuba? Having had the great opportunity to bring what I do—professional coaching (in my case, organizational and leadership coaching) into China, and seeing the impact this ‘communication technology’ has had on people’s hope and well-being, I literally felt called to see whether Cuban people might be a) receptive to the idea and find it useful, and b) which sector might wish to experiment with this.  Read more here…
 
Meryl Moritz ’68
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Karla Menze Vandersypen was inspired by Kate Racer’s description of her docent work in her Prime the Pump contribution. I am not exactly a docent, but I am a tutor of English as a Second Language for a fairly venerable (40-plus years old) non-profit group, Washtenaw Literacy, in my county of residence in Michigan. I’ve been tutoring ESL for twenty years and work one-on-one with individual learners, as well as coordinate one of several drop-in groups organized by Washtenaw Literacy for ESL learners.  Read more here…

Karla Menze Vandersypen ’68

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Dan Peterson was a farm kid from Minnesota. When I came to Carleton I thought it would be nice to be a senator but first semester I almost flunked Government 10 so I decided to do something easier—chemistry. Read more here…

 
  Dan Peterson ’68 

Anna Schumacher, current freshman at Carleton, writes a letter regarding her new Carleton experiences as a final column in her Detroit Lakes, Minnesota (her home) newspaper.  You can read the full article here.