The Quarantine Diaries

In Defense of Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
An Open Letter to Wally Weitz (’70) & Cathy Paglia (’74)

Perhaps the best use of our time during the quarantine and our 50th milestone year is to invest our energies in helping to determine the future direction of our alma mater. Friday we received news from President Poskanzer that he will be resigning and that Wally Weitz (’70) & Cathy Paglia (74’) will co-chair the search committee for the next chief executive of Carleton College. Many of us who care deeply about our 150+ year-old institution may already be thinking ahead to who should be the next president. However, if we are to do this in a logical, orderly matter, we should first consider the selection criteria and the search process itself – albeit I am confident that Wally and Cathy most certainly have the situation well in hand. It will be up to the two of them to decide which of us armchair critics are helpful and which are “helpful”…

From the Zoo Book & 3 Feet on the Floor
to Zoom Breakouts & 6 Feet Apart

“Where Have All the Flowers Gone ?”

– Pete Seeger

Our Great 50th Reunion of 2020 – the Bittersweet Milestone – is over. It managed to take us in several intriguing directions, some planned and some not so much. We might get a shot at an in-person re-do in 2021 – but that will really be our 51st and how many of us will be able to make it? Besides, the Virtual Reunion scratched several of the most important itches…

It’s been said, sometimes attributed to Chinese culture, that living in interesting times is a curse. I suspect that humankind has been living in interesting times continuously at least since the end of the Middle Ages. At any rate I believe that we Carleton Class of ’70 members are living in interesting times. Our years at Carleton were book-ended by a slightly over-the-top Centennial celebration beginning in 1966, and, in the spring of 1970, Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the deaths of unarmed students at Kent State at the hands of National Guard troops. Our commencement was anti-climatic, and, at least for me, much less memorable than May of that year…

Anger:

A 50th In-Person Re-Union in the Streets

We are an angry nation – again.  When our Class of ’70 was attending Carleton, a fair number of us were periodically angry at something – the Vietnam War, the assassinations of MLK & RFK, a dishonest White House and/or the lack of a student voice in campus governance.  Unfortunately, it seems we have only made the necessary & sufficient progress on the last front; Carleton has now benefitted from student involvement in many significant aspects of faculty-administration-trustee decision-making for the last 50 years.

Dandelions Don’t Tell No Lies

I remember more about what happened after Kent State than my reaction on May 4.  I remember teach-ins on the bald spot with Prof Weiner on crutches.  One of the faculty members here remembers that at the end of one impassioned oration, Weiner raised a crutch in the air and called on all the Carleton students to go out there and “analyze”…

Carleton Memories of May 4, 1970 – One View from Central Ohio

Greetings fellow Carls,

Until it came up in the local news, some of us had temporarily forgotten that this spring was going to witness another major 50th anniversary event.  Here in Ohio a few months ago, a memorial rally was being scheduled to be held on the Kent State University campus on May 4th…

My wife, Bozena, and I have been happily working from home for 35 years, so staying at home is no big deal for us. I go into town every few days on errands, and we occasionally take a drive to enjoy our fresh spring air…